The Monday Nitro Workrate Report
A weekly look at what did and didn't work on Monday Nitro by Dean Rasmussen
Monday, February 15th, 1999
Boy Howdy! That was about as good as Nitro gets. Wrestling-wise.
Boy Howdy!
What Worked
The WCW braintrust finally figured out how to bring a Cruiserweight in
and not have to totally rebuild him to get him over. Y'see, whatcha do
is PROTECT him. Blitzkreig- who is green as Harley Race's tattoos has
been in two WCW televised matches and they have been REAL smart about
not exposing his weaknesses (though they did have him paired up with
Super Calo- who is quite the Rudo's Rud... Green Grocer). I wonder how
Juvie, Kidman, Psic and Chavo would have fared if they would have
figured this out two years ago. First, they debut him against Misterio
and he comes out looking as strong as Misterio looked debuting against
Malenko. Second, they stick him in a six-man with four of the best in
the business where he doesn't have to do anything but hit a couple of
flashy highspots and not TOTALLY fuck anything up. I have no idea why
Silver King or- BEST YET- Villano IV wasn't in this match and paired up
with the young flashy California punk, because they would have fared
better in the awkward opening sequence, since they have been
spoonfeeding baby luchadores for decades now. The more I watch the
match, the more I'm thinking that Blitzkreig was crossed up by how true
Luchadores work a match. I dunno, US wrestlers ALWAYS work to the left
and I think it's not as hard and fast a rule with Luchadores so I think
maybe that's why stuff just came out weird and was totally blown in the
first minute. But I'm REALLY just guessing here. The REALLY great
things about this match were multiple and they make up for the blown
spots here and there- (1) It was Seventeen minutes long. I remember
thinking that they could never do a REAL Lucha Libre style match on US
free TV because it would take too long. After seeing this, and seeing
the crowd get hostile and impatient when it started and then get real
hot, then die down, and then get real hot and cool off for a few minutes
and then stay hot to the end- I'm thinking a three caida full-blown
trios match on FREE US ENGLISH-SPEAKING TV is not far off at all. Hell,
WCWSN should have a full-blown trios match every week. The length of
this match set up the beauty that is Lucha Libre- HERE is the story- THE
ACTUAL SPORTS ENTERTAINMENT in it's purest, HARDEST form: Psic and
Juventud are friends and they are a great team because they have fun
wrestling in the ring as a tag team. El Dandy is as Old School as
Spoonie-Gee and doesn't like Juventud acting like such an candied ass
prettyboy in front of the gringos. Hector Garza is also Old School-
being one of Satanico's boys in EMLL originally and not one of Konnan's
boys- and wants to show that he is a harder wrestler and a more graceful
flyer than these flashy Tijuana boys. Super Calo is pissed at
Blitzkreig because he's getting the push that Calo should have gotten
when HE first came in. All but the last story gets fleshed out and I
think that Calo was pushing for that when he throws Blitzkrieg into Psic
and Juventud's corner and challenges him to come back out. It was such
a classic storyline that Blitzkreig didn't pick up on- as he should have
come back strong and tried to prove himself to Calo- but hey, Blitzkreig
is really green. El Dandy is great in this as he draws the crowd
directly into the match with ONE SMACK to Juventud's face and tells half
the story with it. The other half is when the enter the ring against
each other again in the match. With seventeen minutes, they can build
to that and they did and it brought the crowd back in. (2) NOTICE
HECTOR GARZA. He's not just a pretty boy, he's a damn good wrestler who
was fearless in his ability to throw in the most cool suplexes and
powermoves of the six and was the most graceful flyer so- HEY! he was
the HARDEST and most graceful. Score one for former EMLL boy. Push him
already. (3)Juventud has gotten himself back over again and at this
rate, he's taking Psicosis with him- which is really good. (4) FIVE
hideously blown spots and this is STILL one of the coolest, most truly
fun matches ever on Nitro- and it didn't even have a highspot train
until it set up Blitzkrieg's finisher- the first Stardust Press I can
think of on Free TV. This was just fucking great and I've watched it
four times already.
Chris Benoit and Dean Malenko wrestle the first of their two marathon
matches for the suddenly cool as shit WCW tagteam tournament. The first
match they have is hands down coolest match on free TV lately. Fit
Finlay and Dave Taylor BRING the fucking Snakepit Technique and suddenly
it's Japan vs Europe and Malenko blurs both lines as they put it in a
Southern Tagteam format. The WEIRD thing about this match- other than
the fact that they gave it a BIG BATCH of time- is that the coolest
parts AREN'T when Benoit and Fit Finlay are in together- weird for me
because FIT motherfarking FINLAY and CHRIS motherfriggin BENOIT are two
of my all-time favorite wrestlers- but that the coolest part is when
Dean Malenko and Dave Taylor TAKE IT TO THE MAT like Johnny Valentine
and Danny Hodge in Witchita Falls, TEXAS in 1971 like when I saw five.
This was so ALIEN to nineties US wrestling and made this match SO
Balls-Out Cool-as-Shit. My personal fave is when Dave Taylor gets
Malenko in the Bow and Arrow hold that Stu Hart was stretching the hell
out of that bald guy in the Bret Hart Documentary. Finlay worked stiff
as a total mother and I loved the living hell out of it. He hit the
NINE STAR AWA elbow right across throat of BOTH Malenko and Benoit at
some point and I was digging it. He did the cool ass Low Angle Dropkick
through the ropes, grabbed Malenko's nose to apply the what would have
been an average chinlock. All of this while working within the context
of a Southern Tag match- with Chris Benoit being the Greatest Robert
Gibson That Ever Lived. Benoit and Malenko win with a Cool Ass Flying
Headbutt- Texas Cloverleaf finisher. Truly Balls-Out in it's esoteric
style and over the top stiffness by Benoit and Finlay. Technically
perfect and it only thoroughly pissed off the crowd twice which is quite
amazing in unto itself.
Jerry Flynn looks great carrying the lovely and dazzling Saturn.
Latent becomes blatant again this week as Saturn is REALLY getting into
utilizing the dress to his full advantage and I'm digging it. Flynn
didn't kick like a total pussy AGAIN so I'm getting more on the Flynn
bandwagon since I was so lukewarm earlier in his career. Jericho- who
I'm guessing is resigning any minute now until we finally get to July
and he jumps- takes an Exploider Like a Man. Flynn with the win-
finnegan begin again.
The second Benoit and Malenko match was REALLY fricking long and-
though not as great as the first one- was pretty damn cool. Enos brings
the stiffness and Benoit whips out the Double Snot Rockets on him and
Enos takes it up with the ref- which was great. I wish there was some
way of heating up Enos and Riggz because they were actually a fine tag
team. Riggz was really feeling it as he did a lot of solid powermoves
and did a couple of nifty things here and there like the Oklahoma Roll
and the Dropkick to the Face. He sold the knee well for a while and
actually waited a little while before forgetting about it completely.
This match and the first were SO Ole Anderson As Booker In Florida with
all the Southern psychology and a ban on almost all highspots. I was
raised on that and was loving this. The ending is a variation on the
first matches ending with Riggz getting a roll-up out of the Cloverleaf
and thus also escapes Benoit's headbutt- only to lose in the standing
Switch Contest with Benoit as he attaches the Crippler Crossface and
gets the win. This was good. I dug this a bunch.
What Didn't Work
They did the Bret Hart vs Will Sesso match the way they should have-
with Hart beating the shit out of him. Sesso took some bumps and I got
no beef with him. This didn't work because I didn't understand the
whole point of it and they were nine guys in the back I'd rather see
Bret Hart wrestle. C'mon- is it TOO much to ask for Benoit to wrestle
three times in one night.
The skits were HORRIBLE. The REALLY horrible thing is when Flair comes
crawling into the arena and the announcers act like they're SURPRISED
and CAN'T FIGURE OUT WHAT HAPPENED?!? I guess they do what any other
red-blooded wrestling fan does whenever one of the big two offer up
their shitty GLOW-level But Without The Charm little skits- they turn
the channel and watch ten minutes of Dr Katz.
The Flair beatdown was the worst. The helicopter reminded me too much
of the nightmare-inducing Island Deathmatch between Antonio Inoki and
Masa Saito. The actual feel of the whole skit was the Superbowl
halftime show reenacting scenes from Millers Crossing. Well, no. THAT
would have been really cool. It's was more like the more hideous parts
of CASINO but as directed by Hal Needham. SUCK. The use of nine cameras
and all this stupid editing and post-production and Total Television
Sitcom Camera work brough back memories of DDP and Dave Sullivan having
the fistfight outside the restaurant with Post-production foley artist
sound effects added in. HEY! Now that I think of THAT, WCW was
pioneering truly shitty SPORTS ENTERTAINMENT years before Vince decided
to WILEY COYOTE the WWF. Golly.
Hogan spoke and I leaned on the fast forward. Piper makes a match
with Hogan- so THUS, the man who gave up his seat to Buddy Holly and the
Big Bopper wrestles Margaret Thatcher's Prom date. This really sucked-
but luckily they gave it the time they would usually give the Lucha
match and vice-versa. Maybe this worked after all.
I'm tired of the nWo. They can't wrestle. They aren't funny.
They're older than EVEN I AM and I gave up trying to be hip YEARS ago.
Hey guys, here a hip quote for you: "I got three words for you- learn
to fucking type."
THERE YOU HAVE IT.
DEAN RASMUSSEN
