The Monday Nitro Workrate Report
A weekly look at what did and didn't work on Monday Nitro by Dean Rasmussen
Monday, November 9th, 1998
I'm late! The excuses: Death Valley Driver Video Review was LARGE this
week because Schneider got ALLL this BattlARTS and when BattlARTS gets
in, all other wrestling viewing stops so I spent all day Wednesday
watching that and the Taue/Kobashi problematic match and the Beauty That
Is Liger Booking Wrestling and lovingly writing it all up for our throng
of readers. After checking the Death Valley Playboys spelling (their
motto: "Then" or "than"- who gives a fuck?) it was 11ish until I posted
the fabulousness for your PLEASURE... and it was pleasing... so I
didn't get to watch the non-Juvie/Kaz/Eddy/Rey portions of Nitro until
Thursday night. So here it is. Plus I get the extra day for the extra
night of Nitro, though I didn't actually see all of it. I DON'T SUCK!
Really... DOH!
FUDGE! If they give great wrestlers TOO MUCH time consistently like
they did on the Double Nitro Bonanza I'll fuckin VOTE for Hogan.
Anything to keep him out of the ring and Kaz Hayashi in the ring. After
watching the greatness on Thunder, they should just change the name to
Juventud Championship Wrestling. ALL JUVIE! ALL THE TIME! I'm in
golldurn heaven.
What Worked
What worked... what worked.... Uhhh... Kaz Hayashi. Juventud
Guerrera. That's a good start. I guess they'll givem uh... HOLY
CRAP!... a REEEEEAAAAAL long time. HELL! Works a WHOLE bunch for me.
People this size don't get 15 minutes and 36 seconds (including
introductions) on TV ANYWHERE outside of Mexico. New Japan would have
stuck five minutes of this between Bryan Adams/ nWo Sting/ Hiro Saito vs
Manabu Nakanishi/ Kojima/ Kengo Kimura and a Chono vs Kensuke Sasaki
match so WCW TV has decided that it would kick NEW FRICKIN JAPAN's ass
in terms of delivering the goods TO DEAN RASMUSSEN IN RICHMOND
VIRGINIA. I mean, this wasn't Liger vs Kanemoto, but the love was there
and the effort was made and it wasn't fulkin joined in Progress. It
was weird that this got so much time, they had the whole story told with
stiffness, submissionsrestholds, build-ups to highspots, the whole
magilla. I was baffled. I REALLY hope this is the trend because it
would be smart business to push the actual workers and get them WAY
over- because if you get over the guys who WORK and you HAVE all the
guys who can work under contract- which WCW cornered the market on a
while ago, with a few exceptions of note in the WWF and ECW- then your
product will win. Vince can come up with neato angles and smart booking
to get average workers over because he's a very sharp booker and
promoter. If Eric gets over guys who are better in the ring than what
Vince has under contract, there's no way that Vince can compete. You
can't book great ringwork. You can only hold it back like WCW was doing
before the last couple of months. Putting this in front of live crowd
in Nassau Coliseum may not have been the most friendly confines for two
little guys who both wrestle face, suddenly expected to keep a highly
markish audience in wrapped attention, but ya gotta start somewhere.
This was the first of SIX excessively long, really good matches on WCW
TV this week so this MUST be a trend to make ME happy so I'M all for
it. Maybe the marketing guys found out that the demographic for WCW
wanted longer matches with decent wrestling. Who knows? I hope it
keeps up because the US needs matches like THIS, Eddy/Rey, Rey/Juventud,
Malenko/Kanyon and Bret/Konnan to keep the actual ART of wrestling
alive. Tell the story in the ring. The match itself was pretty great,
if clumsy in spots. Kaz worked heelish but couldn't work totally heel
so it was weird from a heat standpoint. The fact that the WCW
Cruiserweight division is basically five faces right now as it's main
players (Kidman, Rey, Juventud, Chavo, Hayashi) means that Eddy has GOT
bring the pain with Psic and Garza to keep this from becoming a
bizarrely over version of 1998 Michinoku Pro. I'd turn one of the five-
Kaz, Rey or Juventud would be either smart or neato. OR they could go
for the whole total Cruiser tweener league as the WCW does with the
Cruisers what New Japan does with the Juniors- to see what works in the
middle of the card to see if it will work at the top eventually. (Hey!
I just stole that from a John D Williams idea of why the NJ Juniors are
so great for New Japan! Your checks in the mail!) Anyway, Kaz is so
technically ALL THAT so this was pretty beautiful from an execution
standpoint. They seemed to be skiddish about trying too much too soon
and the crowd went in and out of the match. I'm thinking that they were
also psyched-out by the amazing amount time they were given, but despite
all that, this still ruled the fucking earth. It drew the crowd in
early with stiff chops and fast in-ring stuff, as Kaz goes all rudo to
set up his first big highspot- his twisting Toprope Tope. Kaz then
thinks, "Goddamn, FIFTEEN MINUTES!?!?" and tries to slow the workrate
down, but it's still wads of stuff between highspots. Kaz finally goes
for the First Caida Has Ended lucha resthold. Juventud- knowing the US
crowd better than ANYONE- draws the crowd back in with stiff chops. Kaz
goes total Sasaki-ized with the I Slap You- You Slap Me spot which is
really over for some reason. They go to a commercial and come back to
highspot-mania as Juventud does his Springboard Plancha. Juventud draws
the crowd back in with the Round The Ring stiff chops and then Kaz gets
on offense- which loses the crowd again. They blow a spot and Juventud
brings the crowd back in with a reverse Overhand Hotshot and they go
into some cool nearfalls. WCW trots out Ono and the screwjob is in full
effect. A cheap ending but the wrestling was WAAAY too good to
quibble. The fact that the crowd pretty much stayed with this match for
fifteen minutes was amazing enough. Any less than Juventud for that
length and it would have been an ugly crowd. A clean win for Juventud
would have been a lot better, considering the amount of time invested,
but a Nitro screwjob after fifteen minutes of REALLY good wrestling is
a-okay with me.
Eddy the Bastard kills the hell out of Rey the Idiot Who Won't Wise Up
And Join The Fucking Latino World Order. C'mon Eddy! BEAT some sense
into the flourescent-clad cretin. Get on board for the big WIN, ya
goofball! WCW- in an effort to somehow weasel their way into my will-
give THIS WAAAAAAAAAAAAY too much time. Eddy with this much time can
tell you the wrestling equivalent of Moby Dick. Rey with a kneebrace is
gonna limit his options some but this was wads of story-telling. This
was chock-full of highspots and psychology. Wads of psychology.
Selling and build-ups and comebacks and psychology. Psychology is
spraying out of the ears of the poor rubes up in the Titanland North and
they are into it by the end- despite their close proximity to the haters
of two guys wrestling in their underwear. I mentally tapped into the
collective consciousness of the Uniondale crowd: READING... PROCESSING
THOUGHT: "HELL! What GIVES! The WCW lures us here with all that WWF
alumni and then we get all this WRESTLING!?! Oh wait, he's gonna beat
the hell out of the little guy that refuses to hang out with that cool
LoParko guy! DROP KICK THE STAIRS! DROPKICK THE STAIRS!" This didn't
come close to their AAAWWWEEESOME match from last Winter, but I'll take
these two in the ring ripping each other's ligaments out, 24-7. Two
hour Ironman match. It'll be GREAT! Eddy RULES. Chavo makes with the
screwiness and the LWO angle gets more entangling each week.
If you can't get up for Bret Hart then YOU SUCK. Konnan sucks but he
doesn't suck enough to not get up for Bret Hart. Bret beats the holy
bejeebers out of him and Konnan sells it like a guy who gets blown
WATCHING the Ultimate Warrior run to ring. Do those two smoke four
packs of Marlboros between steroid injections? Bret Hart makes breaking
someones leg off look totally credible and THAT'S reason #1,078 as to
why he's a GREAT MOTHERFUCKING WRESTLER.
Jericho's Bass-player for Glass Tiger gloves was almost as TOTALLY
swank as his hair. THIS was GREAT!
Because I forgot about the Tuesday night special, Saturn and Sickboy
wrestled but I didn't see it. Works for me.
What Didn't Work
Alex Wright, who RULES, is having a good little wrestling match with
Barry Horowitz to further my love for my new favorite girlfriend- WCW-
when the no-working, suck-ass WolfPak come out amd run off the actual
wrestling match, and then get on THE STICK. Charismatic Micworker and
all-around shitty wrestler Nash quotes Popeye. I hit the fast-forward.
I guess he said, "All these guys-guh wrestling so far tonights-guh are a
hunnert times betters-guh than me. It's All I can stands-guh! I can't
stands-guh NOMORE! I'm getting on THE STICKs-guh." Fuck you to hell,
Wolfpak. And your shitty "Main Event" match- which wasn't-guh so
goods-guh- got mauled in the ratings. GOOD! Ag-guh-guh-guh-guh-guh-gg!
The fact that Boulder isn't getting carved up by barbed wire bats and
he's "wrestling" Ed Cyst On The Ass Hogan Leslie makes this a LOT worse
than the fact that FOUR whole people popped for the Ultimate Warrior
running in to make the trifecta of STINK complete. Warrior makes Horace
eat a One Warrior Nation shirt. Poor Horace! Warrior has 150,00 of
those unsellable babies sitting in the back. Horace's tummy is gonna be
HUGE! If those OWN shirts are edible, Warrior could feed fifty villages
in Bangladesh for three months.
Lodi gets powerbombed by Norton and we call it a night. Now tell me
again, who does it impress when Norton kills a 180 pound guy? Not me.
There you go.
Hell, I hope Hogan wins. Whatever it takes to get him the fuck out of
wrestling. Hell, we as a nation are diminishing the role of the
President anyway to fit in with the post-Cold War era- and with Hogan in
office, the rest of government could regain all of the power that the
Executive Branch has usurped since the New Deal and make the President
even less than the care-taker role it has become since the middle of the
Bush administration. It could get it back to how the founding fathers
wanted it- with the Speaker of the House being your basic Prime
Minist... OH WAIT! Maybe this IS a bad angle. GOD BLESS AMERICA and
fuck you Hulk Hogan for trying to make a mockery of this great country,
you shithead.
Buff sells a punch from HIS MOM?!?! This exposes the business more
than that woman being hypnotized in GLOW that one time. To further aid
Fat Tony Gancarski in his Moby Dick seminar, Bischoff hates Tag-team
wrestling like Ahab hated __________ the white whale that ate his leg.
Maybe Larry the Axe Hennig and Crusher Blackwell devoured Bischoff's leg
while they were tag champs and Bischoff has made this will o' the wisp
vendetta against tag-teams his singular quest.
Goldberg vs Meng. WELCOME BACK, BALDY!
Fit Finlay drags about as much out of the useless load Mongo as he can.
Finlay is a GREAT PROFESSIONAL WRESTLER and I wish HE would run for
President and there is NO reason for that no talent Mongo to go over
him.
THERE YOU HAVE IT.
DEAN.
