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Sorry I'm so late. Been doing non-wrestling-oriented things for the last two weeks and it's cramping my net-monster style. Or something. I'll try and make this good since Nitro was so long ago and the report is pretty moot at this point but it was a really good Nitro so I feel compelled. ALSO: Since I've been so AWOL on RSPWM the last two weeks, let's get some stuff straight: the five best women wrestlers in the world right now (because Jaguar Yokota and Hikari Fukuoka are now retired) ARE- Aja Kong, Mayumi Ozaki, Meiko Satomura, Sugar Sato and Yoshida. Honorable Mentions are: Kazumi, Motoya, Yumi Fukawa, Reiko Amano, Momoe Nakanishi, Nagashima and Maekawa. THERE YOU HAVE IT. The 70's and 80's wrestler with all five tools that you yahoos forgot was Dick Motherfucking Murdock who smokes every shmoe on anybodies list six ways to Sunday. And where was Ted DiBiase? Anyway...
WHAT WORKED-
-Fuck. Most EVERYTHING. Rey vs Flair was classic Flair as Flair wasn't
afraid to make miniscule Rey look good- actually selling a toprope rana
correctly which nobody his age this North of the border has ever done.
It was also classic Flair as he debases his own ability for the sake of
substantial heel heat by having to cheat to win against a guy who weighs
120 pounds and who- earlier in the show- seemed to have smoked a bale of
chupe in the back with Scott Hall before going on camera. Flair selling
for Rey may look weird to you new-comers out there in TV Land but I've
been watching Flair since 1975 and I've seen him sell for EVERYONE from
Abe Jacobs to Cougar Jay so this wasn't some sort of weird experience or
bizarro "Nash Books Rey Over Himself" kind of feeling. This was more
like a Flair Makes Brad Armstrong Look TOTALLY God-Like At The Omni For
An Hour kind of feeling. This would REALLY work if Flair gets pissed at
Misterio for making him look so bad and sends Malenko after the little
freak and his belt. It would also kill a couple of birds with one
stone. Don't bank on it. And HEY! Dusty booked the last hour! Feel the
STINKY! BE the screwjob.
- Bull Pain did a flying Lariat off the apron and a Fat-Boy Frogsplash
and bumped sufficiently for the basically crappy Van Hammer to make this
column. Bull Pain is quite okay in this man's book.
- The eight man lucha match wasn't NEARLY long enough, but no True Lucha
match with the suddenly overrated Disco Inferno is gonna sustain itself
for over ten minutes. DI is clueless to the mystery and secrets of
Sweet Lucha and these guys ain't gonna share anything with this
overpushed bozo. Actually, I think DI is a good little worker when he's
getting the hell kicked out of him, but his offense SSTTTIINNKKSSS and
stinky guys on offense in Lucha matches have to tear masks off and point
to their own dick while feigning foules so he ain't cutting it here.
Luckily he stayed out of the way as the actual luchadores tried to
squeeze a bunch of stuff into this little teeny match. The fact that
this was a spotfest AND three comedy spots made this much more akin to a
Tijuana 8-Man Opener than a 1997 Nitro Lucha Spotfest. Lizmark hit a
swanky toprope tope but El Dandy one-upped him with the total destroyer
out-of-control Old School tope. The Worker Of The Tiny Match was
Damien- who remembered that he was quite a competent high-flyer
1994-1996 and whipped out the cool as hell Santo Pendulum Head Scissors
that I am the ETERNAL sucker for.. Calo killing himself for my pleasure
again was a nice touch. Not NEARLY long enough, the ending was goofy,
but more than enough to work on Monday night on free TV.
-Juventud Guerrera and Vampiro had a good but sloppy match, but it had
all the elements of evolving into a feud I'd actually like to see if
they got to work together more (and I put Vampiro on the Ohara/El
Brazo/Bob Holly realm of mediocre wrestlers.) Juventud will work stiff,
Vampiro works pretty stiff. Juventud can whip out cool ass suplexes and
brain-busters and has been doing just that recently. Vampiro has a good
half-assed power-wrestler arsenal. It's got the makings of a good feud-
though Juventud should be wrestling better wrestlers than Vampiro at
this stage. This match was cool because they really kill the fudge out
of each other... but they hate each other so as to not sell it very
well- so it's cooler than good. Vamp hits a SWANKY Ligerbomb and a High
Angle Powerbomb to paralyze and cripple the young Juventud that Juventud
tops by foregoing the Juvie Driver and goes headlong into the danger of
KAORU's Excaliber as he buries Vampiro right on his dreadlock-bedecked
head. I like the fact that they gave this forever- and this would have
been totally choice if Vamp didn't fuck up the Toprope gutwrench suplex
so horribly. Nitro isn't afraid to rule sometimes. This was pretty
ruling.
-I'm truly torn. The fat presence of Dusty Rhodes booking the final hour
permeated the atmosphere with the suet-soaked odor of urine and fecal
spray. Should that make me hold that against Vincent- who was bizarrely
GOD-LIKE as he carried Horace to the best match of 1986? Not this
week. Vincent does the DiBiase Fistdrop so he's all over the What
Worked Column so fuck the the Bull of the Woods. And I hope this boring
NWO B/W angle dies already.
-The fact that Benoit and Malenko have an odd homage to Arn and Tully as
they beat the shit out of Raven Gibson until Saturn Morton has to come
out and help his partner even though the Horsemen separated his shoulder
earlier in the show (kinda) was totally lost on the Yahoos on
SPRINGBREAK! (Go some place COOL on your week off, ya overdog zombie
Hootie Fans. Like your mom's house. That's where I was.) The match
itself was no masterpiece of wrestling but IT DOES set-up a POSSIBLE
masterpiece of wrestling- Saturn/Raven vs Benoit/Malenko for the title.
The match here was pretty much Benoit and Malenko being dicks practicing
all their double team moves. Saturn comes in and buries the hatchet
with Raven for the sake of Benoit and Malenko having a match that may
actually climb out of the mid-80's in execution, moveset and psychology
while involving the newly refurbished Tag titles. I'm all for THIS feud
and I betting Malenko and Benoit are too. Spring Stampede has one of
those can't miss undercards so far, so I and WCW are both trying to
figure out how they can fuck it all up on paper and get me to not part
with my thirty bucks once again. WCW doesn't even WANT my money this
year for some reason.
WHAT DIDN'T WORK-
-The Finlay/Steiner match was the best match Rick Steiner's had since
Hiroshi Hase won a seat in the Japanese Parliament. Finlay is fucking
great and was coming off the Motherfucking GREAT match against Chris
Adams at the Thunder taping so I would have thought that even a turd
like Steiner could be carried during this week of week's for Fit. Finlay
kicked him right in the face and did a picture perfect AWA Elbow Drop
that choades today would kill for. Finlay tried to make Steiners shitty
and loathesomely lazy hackneyed offense look credible by bumping like
freak. The fact that all this occurred and this match still didn't work
goes to show that Rick Steiner is a big fat, lazy, sloppy, festering,
sloppy, useless, shitty, swollen envelope of piss. Learn to seel
something, shit for brains. Rick Steiner couldn't sell steroids to his
brother. STIIINNNKKK.
-LOOKIT THE BOOBIES! What is this- "Too Close For Comfort"? BOOBIES!
Teens and dateless compu-nerd degenerates unrolling the turtleneck at
home are SPENT by the time Torie Whatshername's dress hits the mat.
BOOBIES!
- MAN! Goldberg was on such a hotstreak for a minute there and he would
have been on a hotstreak still if he would have sold the cane shots from
Sandman. But he didn't and the fact that he was selling Sandman's
punches as much as he was made the whole no-sell look even stupider.
Sandman has Ronnie Garvinesque Fists of Stone maybe? He was using a
whiffle cane? Goldberg sucked? Overall, it was kind of a half-assed
Kensuke Sasaki vs Onita match from the Tokyo Dome- except there was no
money to be made with Sandman, there is still hope for Goldberg and
there was no fireball. I didn't hate this as much as I should have and
Sandman is STILL completely unhatable in WCW. GO FIGURE!
- I've run out of obscure late nineties heavy metal jokes for Ricky
Racktman. I dunno..... I'M RICKY RACKTMAN AND BATTALION OF SAINTS CUT
MY HAIR!! (What do you people WANT?...)
THERE YOU HAVE IT.
DEAN RASMUSSEN.
http://mh106.infi.net/~dhracr/death.htm
