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/wrestling /guests /Mr. Mean |
| Guest Columns | Mr. Mean |
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THE SONG DOES REMAIN THE SAME Maybe the song does remain the same after all. One might agree after seeing the tune Scott Hall and Kevin Nash played on Bill Goldberg. Don't be surprised. Nash did say they were getting the band back together. He's probably a Led Zeppelin fan, too. He's old enough. But, what the heck, so am I. And it looks like Sid Vicious has joined the band. No, we are not going to call them the Sex Pistols. But if Vince Russo decides to call them that, he stole the idea from me. The Outsiders are certainly up to the same old tricks, of which I have no problem with whatsoever. I have admitted before to being a Hall mark. He's one of the funniest people I've ever seen on a TV set. I've even adopted some of his character. I say "hey yo" when my dad answers the phone (he says it back to me, too) and I flick toothpicks at my friends. What Russo has done differently is how WCW shows are presented. He hasn't broken kayfabe. He has destroyed it. Tony Schiavone talks about what the new "creative team" is doing. We get all these "shoot" angles. Jeff Jarrett says the world championship tournament is a work. Buff Bagwell says he won't do anymore jobs and gripes about the writing. They are playing up to the "smart" crowd. That's fine with me. But Russo needs to sit in an arena crowd for an entire card and pay attention to the marks that comprise the overwhelming majority of WCW audiences. They have no idea what this stuff means. Let's not forget to mention the swerves, though. Goldberg seemingly left Halloween Havoc with both the world and U.S. titles. I figured they would have him drop the U.S. strap, which would then lead to a tournament. Right idea, wrong belt. There was a big enough loophole to drive a truck through. They drove through it. It seems that the title was NOT at stake when Sting and Goldberg wrestled their "impromptu" match. But Sting was stripped for punking the referee. Huh? More on that later. Goldberg faced Bret Hart in the final match of the evening as part of the 32-man tournament to crown a new champion. Hart is selling an ankle injury and while Goldberg is kind of holding back, you figure he's going to win. Then came the ref bump. And here come Hall and Nash. Nah, I told myself, they wouldn't do it again. Would they? They sure did and this time Sid helped them. I can hear Beavis now, yelling at Hall, "Kick him! Kick him! Use the taser! Use the chokehold!" This time Hall didn't use the taser but as Meatloaf would say, two out of three ain't bad. So there it was, Goldberg getting pinned for only the second time in his WCW career, both times because of Outsider run-ins. The marks sayeth, "Why?" Butthead's answer would be, "Uh......I don't know." Some of it makes sense and some of it doesn't. Goldberg didn't need the U.S. title, which now belongs to Hart. But take him out of the world title hunt in the first round? I don't know about that one. Goldberg must be so over that he doesn't need any belt. We'll have to see about that. Goldberg's other job coincided with a downward spiral in WCW's ratings. When the show opened Monday night, I thought I was having a flashback. Fonzi was having a temper tantrum backstage. Happy days are here again! No, wait a minute. That is STING wearing a white T-shirt, blue jeans and no face paint. Sting eventually made his way to the ring and called out Jo Jo Dillon. Sting complained about Hulk Hogan lying down without a fight and then demanded his belt back. Jo Jo basically said don't kill the messenger, which is exactly what Sting did. That brought Goldberg in for the save. This wasn't a bad segment as Sting did his best job yet in trying to be a heel. Speaking of shoot angles, consider Hogan. The Hulkster supposedly balked at doing a two-minute job to Sting. Of course that rumor was probably a work. So they play it along by keeping Hogan completely off TV. Hogan does show up Sunday, walks to the ring in street clothes and immediately lays down for Sting to get the easy pin. They immediately cut away to a promo so that we think this is a shoot. Yet the announcers tell us that we'll know more about the Hogan situation on Nitro. That was just plain dumb. I guess to make up for that blunder, Hogan is nowhere to be found, giving the illusion that the angle is a shoot. Mike Samuda writes that Hogan may come back in a month or two under his real name, Terry Bollea. If that does come off, it might prove interesting. We learned early on Nitro that Hall and Nash must wrestle that night. This set off a whole chain of backstage scenes involving the two. As usual, they were funny though Hall forgot his Razor Ramon accent in the first sequence. Hall and Nash are heels but they are getting tons of face heat. The Phoenix crowd really popped when Hall said his trademark "hey yo." Hall said the new bosses from "up north" wouldn't have a wrestling program with he and Nash. I'm inclined to agree with that. I'm just waiting for Russo to give himself an on camera role. He's already written himself into the stories. And I thought it was about to happen during Buff Bagwell's mic time Monday. This is shoot angle I'm really enjoying. Buff merrily made his way to the ring and announced that he is not doing any more jobs. He then trashed "the two guys in the back writing this crap." That sparked a reaction. Appearing at the top of the entryway were Skull and 8-Ball! In business suits and shades! What a contrast from their DOA days. They looked like a couple of Secret Service agents. Bill Clinton didn't come out behind them but I was looking for Russo. He didn't come either but one of the Harris brothers said, "We represent the two idiots in the back writing this crap." Hilarious. At that point, Buff was a goner as the Harris brothers came down to the ring and laid him out. I think Curt Hennig's shoot angle has some potential. Supposedly, Hennig is going to be put out to pasture if he gets pinned one more time. Hennig came out for his match with Lash LeRoux sans the Western garb. In a very short contest, Hennig made incidental contact with the ref and got immediately disqualified. They let a lot worse go by than that. But it helps think that WCW is against Hennig. It might just fly. Hennig gets to stay over by punking LeRoux and Disco Inferno after the bell. Brad Armstrong himself is involved in a shoot angle. That was funny hearing BA talk to Hennig about being cut loose until he develops a personality. Even funnier was BA's reference to his younger brother, the flamboyant Road Dogg, who just happens to work "up north." At least BA helped dispatch the awful Berlyn by going over him Sunday. How about the following for a snoozer of a feud: Ray Lloyd versus Alex Wright in a battle of failed gimmicks. For some reason, they matched Lex Luger against Rick Steiner. There's a reason for everything. Jeff Jarrett made his way to the announce table, just to talk, you see. Double J had no intentions of waffling anybody with a guitar, no sir. That is until he goes after Liz and ends up smacking Steiner because Luger ducked. Geez. Steiner just walked away, no selling the guitar shot. Way to go, Rick. The crowds always pop for guitar shots. You might as well have told them, "Hey you jabronis! The guitars are made of balsa wood!" Luger consoled Liz, then slid back in the ring as she was trying to get up. Luger beat the 10-count and exulted in his hard fought victory. Liz looked upset. Poor Liz. What a jabroni. About 10 years ago I had a brief relationship with a woman that went to high school with Liz. Nope, I'm not going to tell you what she said about Liz. Not when young kids read these pages. As for Luger, they need to drop that stupid Total Package crap. He's always going to be called Lex Luger no matter what. By the way, Luger came off looking really stupid in this segment. Speaking of no selling, they should have a program with Meng and Steiner. Neither of them sells anything. You would never find them working at a car dealership. Meng did have a match with Medusa that was just too funny. Madusa did a great job of selling fear when she saw Meng approach the ring. I'm going to let other people talk about the T&A stuff. To me that isn't wrestling. And I really hope Russo doesn't plug Double J into another woman-bashing angle. I take no delight in seeing a man strike a woman, even if it is a work. The other thing I would like to talk about is how WCW is playing and misplaying its heels. It's obvious that Russo is high on the Filthy Animals. And he's making them into a heel machine. They have the personalities for it. So it doesn't make sense to me for Russo to put them in a program with the Revolution, another group now being pushed as heels. If you go with heel versus heel, the crowd is going to cheer for someone. And whoever that is will lose heel heat. Then you have Sting come out and squash Brian Knobbs. Sting got another face pop. Why? Because his opponent was Knobbs, who the fans hate. Sting doesn't need matches like this if he's going to get over as a heel. At least you've still got the Animals feuding with Harlem Heat. And you had yet another tag team titles change. This time it's Billy Kidman and Konnan winning. That's three title changes in a week! Titles just aren't worth anything anymore. I remember when Bob Backlund held the WWF world title for more than five YEARS. And finally, kudos to Diamond Dallas Page for being the consummate team player. DDP was once again superb in selling David Flair's crowbar assault. I just wish it had been Ric Flair. Bring back those Horsemen days...... 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