Hello all, Michaelangelo here to throw out his own personal opinions concerning Monday Night’s foray by the big two, WCW and WWF. It was an interesting night on both fronts and I have lots to say.

First, though, a non-wrestling rant. Does it bother anyone that the three actors who starred in The Blair Witch Project have become so famous that the film itself seems to be suffering. The constant plastering of the faces of Mike, Josh, and Heather all over the media has taken away the mystique of the "mockumentary" to which they owe their fame.

I would rather have seen the three of them vanish for a couple of months, to garner suspicion as to whether this film was true or not. After the ticket sales start to subside, have the three go on a promotional tour and hype the film. Perhaps then, it could get a second wind and make a bit more money as a "see-it-twice" kind of picture.

Eh. What do I know?

Anyway, here we go!

WCW

GOOD: Norman Smiley’s back! He may look like a deflated Wayans brother, but he’s a hard worker and that scoop slam he performs more than makes up for his stupid-looking celebration dance. Speaking of which, have you ever seen a camera zoom faster than when Norm started the Big Wiggle? They nearly took his head off!

BAD: Tony Schiavone’s back. I’d like to know who thinks he’s a good ring announcer. Wait, no, I know the answer to that one. Since Tony is great at shilling PPV’s, celebrity appearances, and high-priced talent instead of focusing on what’s happening in the ring, it stands to reason that he be Bischoff’s favorite.

GOOD: Raven and Vampiro back on Monday night. I really like the name "deadpool" for their stable.

BAD: The fact that that they are on in the first hour.

BAD: The Insane Clown Posse in the ring! Who the hell thought this was a good idea? Jesus, I could take the skinny one. (Sorry CRZ, but I can’t be bothered to learn their names.) All he does is kick people with his sneakers and deliver concussions due to his total lack of proper training. While the match ending moonsault looked okay, I’d rather have seen the Nail in the Coffin.

GOOD: Dusty Rhodes back in an angle. I like "The American Dream." He’s kind of like Flair in that he is good on the stick and funny as hell. Hopefully, they won’t commit him and then bury him under the midcarders somewhere.

GOOD: Benoit twisting David Flair eight ways from Sunday backstage. Kudos also to young Mr. Flair for selling the hell out of it. Too bad he’s going to be a cop because a little more training and this kid could be great.

GOOD: The West Texas Rednecks have new music. This is a stable I could like, except they seem to be moving towards a destructive end. Henning must have forgotten that unless your name is Nash or Hogan, your heel stable will always lose. Jimmy Hart should have warned him.

BAD: Public Enemy. To be fair, I never really saw these two guys in ECW, so I can’t really understand why anyone ever liked them. They are slow, boring, and miss a lot of spots. I suppose that they need to do more hardcore stuff, but the way things are going in WCW now, it might be better for Rocko and Johnny to head over to TNN and try and get their old jobs back.

GOOD: Barry Windham going through a table. Talk about taking one for the team! I said to my girlfriend as we were watching the match, "Okay, Windham’s gong to move at the last second and Rocko is going through the table." Boy was my face red! It looked great, but these guys better remember Fit Finlay.

GOOD: The WCW women’s division (with the exception of Patty Stonegrinder). Is it me or is women’s wrestling the last bastion of classic 70’s and 80’s grappling going on out there. There’s no interference, clean finishes, and good spots chained together to create a consistent flow of action. As long as WCW keeps bringing in young, talented women like Mona and Little Jeannie, I for one will be entertained.

BAD: What the hell was with Brandy Alexander? Since when to undercard jobbers do run-ins?

GOOD: Teasing the red and yellow on Hogan early in the night. WCW knows that WWF is going all out tonight and to combat them they needed something big. This was a way of telling the viewers to stay tuned and you might see something you thought you’d never see again. Like it or not, it worked.

GOOD: At the risk of sounding like a lech, Torrie’s outfit. They are really getting their money’s worth from this girl and until Chastity comes back, she satisfies my appetite for cheesecake.

GOOD: The booking of the Flair/Benoit match. The way they foiled all of David Flair’s tricks and allowed Benoit to bring a little prestige back to the U.S. Championship. Rumor has it that he is slated to drop it to DDP at Road Wild. NOTE TO BISCHOFF: Don’t do it!

GOOD: Again, Benoit on the stick. He’s showing consistent talent there. The "two time" reference was classic.

BAD: Chad Brock performing on WCW. I covered this last week, no need to beat WCW down again…at least not until KISS performs.

GOOD: He performed about the time the Millenium Clock was counting down to zero, so I had no problem flipping to USA.

BAD: Tony "If I can’t be a shill, I’m nobody" Schiavone telling Heenan that his favorite rock band is KISS. Hey Tony, is your favorite female vocalist Olivia Newton John? Is your favorite movie Saturday Night Fever? Welcome to WCW where the 90’s become the 70’s.

VERY BAD: The return of the Hummer Driver angle. Here’s an interesting story. We have an angle that started months ago (remember, Nash was a face then) and spanned three PPV’s. Each time, they balked on revealing who it was. Probably because even they didn’t know. Finall word came down that Hogan nixed the angle.
Flash back to Thursday Night when Macho man said to a semi-into it crowd that he would reveal the Hummer driver on the following Monday. Oooo! Intrigue! Sure, I’ll turn off the Millenium Countdown and Jesse Ventura to get the solution to this mystery! Flash forward back to Nitro and Macho fails to reveal the Hummer Driver yet again, stating that we’d all get to see him on Saturday at the PPV. You know what? Fuck Savage, fuck Road Wild, and fuck the Hummer Driver. While I’m at it, fuck WCW and Bischoff for treating their fans like assholes and trying to get them to buy another worthless live event by hyping the answer to a question they asked before there was a water ban across the country.

BAD: Savage as a face. Wasn’t he the ‘most dangerous man in WCW" just a couple of months back. Wasn’t he issuing beat downs and slapping women? What the hell makes him a face? Even his enemies list is ambiguous: Stabbing Sid, Nasty Nash, and the new, improved ultra-face Hogan. Inconsistency in plot and character direction seems to be a trademark of this federation. I don’t know why I am surprised.

GOOD: Macho as a face. That means, he has a better chance of pounding Rodman into the dirt and sending his pierced ass back to whatever rock "The Worm" crawled out from under.

BAD: As long as we are on the subject, Dennis Rodman. He’s lousy on the mic, has no wrestling skill to speak of, dresses like an idiot, and has admitted publicly that he could give a ferret shit about WCW, he just wants cash. Rodman sucks, everyone knows it, and nobody cares.

GOOD: Chris Adams joining the Blue Bloods. Not because I’m a fan of him or that stable, but because it’s a logical turn of events. Whenever WCW does something logical, I revel in glory.

BAD: Without Finlay or Regal around, the Blue Bloods are little more than European jobbers. Come on, Dave Taylor?

GOOD: Eddie Guerrero getting face heat. He was actually smiling for a second! He’s out there having fun, surrounded by talented young guys. What I’d like is to see these guys step up their feud with The Deadpool very soon.

BAD: Rey not defending the Cruiserweight title. It’s time to drop the title to an up-and-comer like Blitzkrieg or Lash Leroux. Rey is way over; he doesn’t need the gold.

VERY GOOD: Eddie Guerrero’s frog splash on Adams. I swear the guy jumped half the length of the ring. He is nothing short of phenomenal in the ring.

GOOD: Disco Inferno versus Kidman. Good booking.

BAD: How about a fucking ending? Does there have to be a run-in before the match is over?

VERY GOOD: Disco punking out Rey and Rey jumping into his arms before realizing that he’d refused the offer. It was done so well, for a moment even I thought it was unplanned.

GOOD: Norton is back! I thought they fired him!

BAD: He’s probably going to job to Bagwell.

GOOD: He didn’t get pinned and he leveled The Cat! Angle consistence and one of my favorites getting a respectable loss. Not bad booking. Nor-ton! Nor-Ton!

BAD: The West Texas Rednecks in a feud with a redneck. It just makes no sense.

BAD: Macho man and Rodman being broken up by security. This is a wrestling show! Let them fight! "Oooh! No way! Not for free!" says Bischoff. "Wait until they pay $30, then we’ll let them see." Assholes.

GOOD: Okay, CRZ is going to hate me for this one, but I think that having Hogan do one last run as a face in the red and gold was a good idea. I couldn’t help myself, I marked out. I know it’s not funny, but that’s it right there. As long as he’s going to be out there, he may as well do it as a face. At least this way, we know that for once, the good guys will get a few wins now and again. Besides, now there’s a chance that he could end up having to retire (for a while anyway) after Saturday.

UGLY: Goldberg bleeding again. Looks like that nasty cut he got on the back of his head last week hasn’t quite congealed. Someone get him a bandage!

WWF

GOOD: The Rock and Big Show in a feud. I like that idea. Hopefully he won’t end up getting tuned up every single time they meet. I also liked the Rock calling Wight the "Big Slow" to the tune of his own entrance theme.

GOOD: HBK’s pop when he exited the limousine and entered the arena. Here’s a guy who hasn’t wrestled in an inordinate amount of time who is more over than most of the other stars in his federation. Vince certainly seems to be getting his money’s worth out of him.

GOOD: Gangrel versus Christian. It was almost as good a match as Gangrel versus Edge last week. Between these three guys, the Hardy Boys, and Jericho, the future is looking brighter and brighter for WWF.

UGLY: The crowd reaction during that match. They must have exhausted themselves during the Rock interview. They were nearly dead silent.

GOOD: Jesse Ventura’s entrance. The old footage of him and No matter what this guy is doing, I’m a fan.

BAD: Jesse Ventura’s interview. Forget what I said above. His interview was DUNG. I didn’t know what he was talking about and I can’t help but think that the constituents of Minnesota are pretty pissed off that he’s pimping his position in the government as an angle on a wrestling show. I’d be pissed, especially if I voted for the guy.

GOOD: In spite of the prior interview, the exchange between HBK, HHH, and Ventura was quite well scripted and acted. These three certainly know how to play a scene. Now I think I know why Jesse is such a good politician.

UGLY: Mark Henry jogging through the woods. Boy, he did get husky, didn’t he? Hey, why isn’t Viscera jogging next to him?

VERY UGLY: That row of guys in the audience wearing bras. You spent three hours looking like assholes just so the camera would focus on you and the whole world could see you looking like assholes.

BAD: Debra. She’s boring and needs to either pose in Playboy and sue WWF for sexual harassment or come up with a new shtick out there. Am I the only one on earth who is sick of her stupid "puppies" routine? I am? Oh, okay.

GOOD: Jim Ross apologizing for monetarily ignoring the action in the ring to bring a quick update about something that happened backstage. Take THAT Schiavone!

GOOD: Combining Kane and X-Pac’s music. It kind of liked it…for now. But then, I hated X-pac’s solo music.

BAD: Kane and X-Pac winning the titles from the Acolytes. I like Bradshaw and Farouk as a team. Ah well…at least it wasn’t Droz and Prince Albert who captured the titles.

GOOD: Kane saying, "Suck it!" without his voice box. It’s astounding how Vince can slap a mask on an evil dentist and get him incredibly over by making him a mute for a long time and having him break his silence with a tired catchphrase. ALL HAIL VINCE!

BAD: The fact that they gave the crowd little time to celebrate after the match. That beatdown came fast!

GOOD: Test’s new attitude. I like this ruthless behavior. I think that it will have a serious effect on the development of this Stephanie McMahon angle.

BAD: Shane McMahon’s commentary. He is just awful. If he’s trying to be annoying, he is succeeding.

UGLY: Mr. Ass’s red ass on my television screen. That’s just wrong on so many levels.

BAD: Blackman has decent mic skills but he has to learn to face the camera when he is shouting threats to another wrestler. He looked like a dope screaming at Terry Taylor when he was addressing Shamrock.

GOOD: The new stipulation to Summer Slam’s Shamrock/Blackman match. Weapons!

GOOD: The arrival of Jericho. You see WCW, here’s an example of WWF delivering. They hyped the arrival of a new Millenium for a couple of weeks (NOTE: The countdown did not end during a PPV, it ended on a free Monday night show) and had everyone speculating. Of course, we all knew that it would be Jericho, but there was the possibility of it being something stupid like the "Return of Luna Vachon!" WWF gave the fans exactly what they wanted.

GOOD: Jericho’s interview. Here’s a master on the stick. He had the crowd cheering and chanting his name and managed to have them completely against him by the time he was done speaking. He managed to get tons of heel heat and put the Rock over at the same time. I look forward to every moment he is out there.

BAD: The Rock getting beat on again…and again…and again. Did someone forget to tell Vince that Rocky is OVER. He should be winning once in a while. Every time he’s out there, he’s getting his lunch handed to him. I’d like to see him get the upper hand once in a while. As it stands, he takes more beatings that Hardcore Holly…think about that.

GOOD: The twist that put Chyna against Triple H in the main event.

BAD: This sinking feeling that she is going to win.

UGLY: Yep, she won.

Well, that’s it for this week’s column. Agree? Disagree? Want to make something of it?

Mail me at michaelangelo70@hotmail.com and validate my existence.

All letters will be answered or completely ignored. One or the other.

I am Michaelangelo and will be for a while.