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INSIDE THE WRESTLER'S STUDIO
The Nitro Edition

Well, hello again everyone. This is Dmikester, your faithful acting recapper with Nitro, the show that all the WWF marks learn to hate from Vince and the show that all the smart wrestling fans learn to at least try to enjoy. I actually thought that Nitro was pretty damn strong this week in terms of wrestling. I haven't watched Nitro in a long time, but this show surprised me with a somewhat coherent, if not WWF-esque, storyline and very good wrestling in general, especially the amazing Superfly Splash off the cage by Jimmy Superfly Snuka. One of my favorite things in wrestling for some reason is when they bring back old wrestlers. I loved it when Mae Young and The Fabulous Moolah came back into the WWF, and I loved it tonight when George "The Animal" Steele, Tito Santana and Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka came back. OK, let's proceed with the promos. If you want to get the idea behind this column, read this. Also, I'm assuming you've seen the promos I talk about here.

Scott Steiner Finding The 'Hos And The Old Age Outlaws Watching On

Well, there's not much to say about this promo. There was pretty dull acting by Scott, but what could he do except act sheepish around eight beautiful women? Well, in any case, this promo was pretty dull, but it was intended to be, since it was just a setup for the rest of the show. I will admit, though, I got pretty excited when I saw Terry Funk and Paul Orndorff and even Arn Anderson(remember the old wrestler thing from the first paragraph).

Scott Steiner Celebrating His Birthday And Mysterio On A Stretcher

Once again, a very dull promo. At this point in the show, the wrestling was interesting me more than the story, but that's WCW for you. Just to warn you, I'm not going to keep talking about Scott Steiner having fun with his friends until the inevitable climax, since it's the same thing over and over again. The only thing worth mentioning about those promos is that Scott gets more and more tired every time he goes out to take two more friends in, but believe me, it ain't too tough to act tired. Mysterio did fine squirming like a fish, but there was really no emotional acting outside of a few screams of protest. OK. You get the idea.

Oklahoma And His Barbeque Sauce

When Oklahoma first came out, I thought I was going to be completely offended being such a big Jim Ross fan, but in all honesty, and I'm pretty ashamed to admit this, I found Oklahoma pretty funny in the beginning. Ferrara really has some of JR's most aggravating qualities down pretty well, but he went on way too long. Don't get me wrong. Ferrara's acting is good and what impressed me the most was how he kept his focus for a non-wrestler, but he started to not care about the promo after a while. You could tell. He started to lose his accent a little bit and he started to stumble a little. And the stumbling wasn't his sad impression of JR with Bells Palsy.

The Old Age Outlaws And The NWO Get It On(sort of)

This was actually my favorite promo of the night on Nitro, and one of the top promos of the night for both Raw and Nitro. The Old Age Outlaws were all pretty weird with their speeches except for Larry Zbyszko. There was either some kind of strange energy or oddball rhythm going between the four of them, but they all seemed to not really know what they were saying and really sounded like they were reading their lines. Of course, Larry was great as usual and really made you feel proud of these guys and their accomplishments. What was even weirder was the fact that even with the badly delivered lines, especially by Terry Funk, the segment still worked really well.

When the NWO came out, I tripped out seeing Jarrett there (remember, I haven't watched Nitro in a while). Jarrett was easily the best of the bunch, acting completely heelish towards the crowd and actually very bullyish and mean towards the OAO. I was really reminded of elementary school with all the bullies there. Bret Hart was adequate, but didn't really seem into it. Nash was just plain goofy and seemed to be laughing at some kind of joke that someone had made backstage rather than at the OAO.

The rest of the segment was just stipulation stuff that Funk gave. Not too much acting that was different from what I've talked about already. It was definitely an odd feeling segment, but for some reason, it worked. You have to see the promo to truly understand what I mean about the energy, but when you do, check it out. It's definitely pretty trippy.

Arn Anderson's Limo Deals A.K.A. Arn's Pretty Cold

Not much to say about these except Arn looked like a guy waiting for someone to arrive. Not too much acting there. Let me just say that it was pretty weird seeing Arn wearing glasses and in the state he's in, but it was great. Little did I know what was about to happen with old-school stuff. Once again, I'm not going to talk about all these seperately since they're exactly the same.

DDP And Buff Fight Over Kimberly

This was the single lamest and saddest promo that was cut tonight. Without a doubt, DDP and Buff need to drop this angle now before we get the single worst promo of all time cut by these two. What's interesting about this is that even with the writing being terrible, these two made it worse by trying to really expand the writing through acting. Unless you're a truly gifted actor, which neither of these two are, you're not going to be able to improve bad writing. These two actually did the exact opposite: made the writing worse by acting badly. I mean come on, who came up with, "Don't go there!" "I'm there!" God, can you get any more unrealistic? There was definitely tension between the two, but there was no intensity shown by the two and, much like Bret Hart earlier in the night, these two really didn't seem to care about what they were saying. Hopefully, this will end by next week or else I'll have to sit through some more terrible acting.

Bret And Nash Have An Argument Backstage

This promo was pretty sad, especially considering the fact that Nash acted better than Hart here. Basically, the two bickered with the only emotion being shown from Nash. God, something has to be going on tonight. First, the strange rhythm of the OAO's promo and now Bret acting pretty much lifeless? I don't know what's up, but when Nash is better than Hart, something's askew. Oh well. We'll never know. This promo may actually be pretty valuable just to see Nash actually be somwhat convincing for once.

Nash Gets Advice From Jarrett And Steele Is Congratulated

Not much happening here. Just straightforward acting with even more straight forward acting..Let me just say that in general, the acting tonight was really bad. Everyone just seemed really tired and looked like they wanted to go home. It was a real shame since with energy, many of these promos could have been much, much better. You can see that most of my reviews of these promos are negative, but with actual caring by the people involved, many more would be positive.

Stevie Ray And Booker T With Midnight Get In A Scuffle

As was actually true with both promos he was in tonight, Gene Okerlund was the best thing in this segment. Stevie Ray was way over-the-top as usual and very idiotic. He looked very uncomfortable out there and didn't really seem to know what he was saying. At least he had energy unlike everyone else. Booker T was much, much better and interestingly Stevie Ray got much better as soon as Booker T came out. Midnight was fine, but Booker T really shined here. I'll go as far as to say that Booker T ties with Jarrett as the best actor of the night. Also, Booker really made me care about this feud and where it will go. Good acting by one brother, lackluster acting by the other.

I'm going to make an executive decison here and skop the Hart/Jarrett promo. Same thing I've been saying about those two all night.

Tank Abbot Gets Arrested

Just when the mood of the night couldn't get any more surreal, Tank Abbot has to come out and freak us all out. I can't tell what's up with him, but he really scared me here. He actually kept my attention not because of his acting, which was pretty horrendous, but just his delivery. Maybe I've just forgotten what Tank is like, but I don't remember anybody delivering lines like that in my life. Also, that smile is just plain spooky. Well, I can't really explain this one. Just watch the promo and you'll understand. If you dare.

The End Of The Scott Steiner Episode

Well, the inevitable happened. The OAO, playing a dirty trick on Big Poppa Pump, tired him out so much they got him willing to get tied up and take a bar of soap to the mouth. Acting was virtually non-existent, since Steiner was basically asleep and the OAO had to pull off the task of stuffing a bar of soap into someone's mouth. Well, at least they pulled it off.

The show ended with a pretty good match that ended up creepily predicting what the main event of Souled Out would be. In the end, the more I think about it, this show was really bad promo-wise. The promos were horrible except for the big drawn-out one. Let's hope this show gets back to it's old self. It used to be pretty damn good.

I'm not going to do Smackdown this week since there were only two notable things that happened on it promo-wise. First of course was the incredible beginning promo with Cactus Jack's return. Beautiful acting by all except Steph, who looked completely idiotic. Let's pray she'll get better or at least become a face again. Mick also did one of the best acting jobs I've ever seen him do. Watch him turn from Mankind to Cactus Jack in a second flat if you have it. You'll never see better character work than that. He was two completely different people in the course of three minutes. Wow.

Also on Smackdown, the Rock, in amazing contrast to Raw, was in rare form. He actually added some brand new stuff to his repretoire and he seemed extremely comfortable that night. You really have to see him act, but notice the smile on his face. Something must have happened between Monday and Tuesday, because he looked happy, awake and just plain excited to be there. Great job, Rocky. I'm a fan again.

So, that's it for me this week. I'm not sure about how this column is going to get updated, but I'm going to pitch an idea to CRZ and see what he says. If he agrees, you'll see this column much more frequently. OK, see ya next week. By the way, e-mail me!

Dmikester
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