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Mr. Mean

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BLAH

SAY IT ISN'T SO

They did kind of telegraph it, didn't they? Sid Vicious is now a babyface. Imagine that.

We saw the beginnings of it Sunday night when Sid refused to quit in his defeat to Bill Goldberg at Mayhem. Instead, Goldberg "knocked out" Sid with the cobra clutch. Almost immediately, Tony Schiavone started selling Sid's valor.

That Toronto crowd was, well, different. They popped huge for Sid and booed Goldberg. I related all of this and more to my friend Lady Diamond Cutter in play-by-play over ICQ. Her reaction to Sid turning babyface: "Nooooooooooo!"

Then on Nitro, Scott Hall does his hey yo thing and challenges Bret Hart and Goldberg to a tag match with the Outsiders. No, says Goldberg, who tells Hart to take care of Jeff Jarrett and he'll dispose of the Outsiders. By himself? "Not necessarily," Goldberg told Mike Tenay. I didn't see it coming, though I should have.

Of course Sid appeared at the top of the entryway after Goldberg was announced. The crowd hugely popped. It was calmer. I figured it was just a swerve. To my surprise, it wasn't.

I prefer Sid as a heel. But I don't necessarily mind a face turn. Just do it right, Russo. During one point in the match, Sid started to charge in to break up an Outsiders double team but was RESTRAINED by the referee. The old Sid would have just powerbombed the referee. Do the face turn; just don't change his character. The Rock and Steve Austin both got way over as faces in the WWF without changing their characters.

Sid is taking the same babyface route that Austin took in the WWF, gaining a tough guy character by refusing to quit in a match that he valiantly lost.

It was a busy two nights for WCW.

Everybody is singing the praises of Hart as WCW champion. I personally would have gone with a "Montreal Screw Job" finish. Think of how much heat that would generated. Hart would have been even more over as a babyface and Jarrett would have been insanely over as a monster heel. I would have then had Hart win the belt at Starrcade. That's just one would be booker's opinion.

Hooray for the Meng push! Let's see, victories over Lex Luger and Sting on back-to-back nights. Meng is very entertaining with his monster attitude. And now he's doing some English mic work. Luger's continuing excellent work as a cowardly heel just elevates Meng even more. That was a riot when Luger forced Liz into a match with Meng. Luger hands Meng the key to the shark cage. So what does Meng do? He chokes out Luger again with the Tongan death grip! His way of saying thank you, yeah! It was great stuff.

Roddy Piper brought the house down with his worked shoot speech, both in the ring and in confronting Russo backstage. Russo said he would never appear on camera. Well, his ARM was on camera Monday night. He's edging closer. By the way, Russo is an excellent talker. It would ruin the angle, which is working. However, I don't buy Russo's explanation to Mike Samuda and Ben Miller that he isn't booking himself over. He is.

Anyhow, Piper drew some excellent heat, even when he appeared to back down when Russo ordered him to be a referee. Look for the Hot Rod to be a factor as a referee.

Last week, I railed about Ed Ferrara mocking JR's bell's palsy. That's still wrong. But he was funny Sunday night as JR again. They do need to put a leash on Steve Williams, though. Dr. Death works too stiff. He keeps that up and no one will work with him. I wonder if any of the Misfits got hurt for real like the luchadores did last week.

The Curt Hennig swerve was superb. Hennig got over as a big time babyface when he jobbed to Buff Bagwell. Then he comes out to make a farewell speech to the audience and sells being overcome with emotion. That was a great segment. Finally, he comes out ostensibly to save Bagwell from a beating from Creative Control. No, he wastes Bagwell. I did see that coming. Now Hennig has even more heel heat. I call that excellent booking.

And that segued right into that huge woman, Midnight, making the save for Booker T. She laid a tremendous DDT on one of the Harris twins. That is one big woman. You don't suppose she's going to be WCW's version of Chyna, do you? I hope they work her into a program with Asya. That would be fun to watch.

Disco Inferno's Mafia angle is running along nicely. His real name of Glen Gilbretti got worked in, too. Like we didn't know it already. OK, us Internet marks, as Schiavone would put it, knew it. I guess we're pretty important or Russo wouldn't constantly cater to us with insider language. In any event, Tony Marinara and those two thugs were great. I think this angle has some potential. And thank you, Schiavone, for not putting us down this week. Actually, Schiavone wasn't bad, though he always oversells everything.

I thought we were about to see an American versus Canadian angle during that flag match between Chris Benoit and Dean Malenko. It looked like Malenko was trying to sell that idea. And the Detroit crowd seemed to buy it. That was until the run-ins. Hart's run-in and subsequent save of Benoit prevented it from getting out of hand. I don't like angles of that sort. There are too many marks out there that would take a nationalistic angle as a real shoot.

Hart can still work with the best of them. His title match with Benoit was great as one might expect. I thought the run-ins by Malenko, Goldberg and the Outsiders were pointless, especially since they had no impact on the result.

The battle with Jarrett was wild. The run-ins did factor in the result with Dustin Rhodes clocking Jarrett with the championship belt after Creative Control got involved.

Speaking of Creative Control, what's the purpose of them being world tag team champions? Hopefully, that won't last long.

Did anybody else besides me notice some of the outrageous signs Monday night? There was a huge ICP banner draped over the railing on the front row. The sign police never confiscated it. Then there was "It's Not Real" and "Wrestling is Fake." You know, I just didn't know that. To think I thought it was all a shoot. Just having fun here, folks. I knew it was all a work 20 years ago after monster heel Ken Patera broke character and talked to me for 20 minutes after a show in North Carolina. Patera broke that illusion and I have been laughing ever since. I love it!

I might have missed a few signs, too. I worked the remote frequently, sneaking peeks at the Raiders-Broncos game. And I think the Broncos' Ed McCaffrey would make a great wrestler. Late in the game, McCaffrey sells a phantom pass interference call on Charles Woodson by falling down! And the ref bought it! It doesn't surprise me. The Broncos always get home cooking. Russo, call McCaffrey and sign him up.

Mr. Mean wishes everyone I happy Thanksgiving!

Mr. Mean
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