Professional wrestling as we know it is something called "sports entertainment." That means the matches aren't "real" like when the New York Yankees play the Boston Red Sox. What is very real, however, is the egos of the wrestlers.

It has reached the point in WCW where its seems that everyone, save Ric Flair, resists doing jobs. The answer to this is the run-in. For instance, did anyone really expect Curt Hennig to beat Bill Goldberg last week? Didn't think so. Goldberg got to spear the Rednecks, satisfying the crowd. Hennig got DQ'd but didn't get pinned, so his push wasn't derailed.

Yet there are times when someone has to get pinned. Remember, this is wrestling. The marks expect to see pinfalls. So that means someone has to do a job. But for those wrestlers who have to job, do not despair. There are rewards, which may even be immediate. We're talking about the post-match beat down. Years ago in a WWF match, Billy Jack Haynes pinned Hercules Hernandez. After the match, Herc laid out Billy Jack. As announcer Bobby Heenan pointed out, Hernandez won "the match after the match."

As one might expect, stuff like this happened in abundance on Monday Nitro. Right off the bat, let me say this was a good show, the third in a row that emphasized storyline development. And the crowd in Rapid City, South Dakota was very hot.

First of all, Scott Hudson, joined by Heenan, was back at the announce deck. At least for a while. Whoops! We're jumping ahead of ourselves.

The Triad, which has multiple angles in the fire, got things going good early. DDP told Kanyon to ask the crowd who was better than he. "Everybody!" said the crowd. Then it was catchphrase time. The two time, two time, two time rendition earned DDP a "you suck" chant. Kanyon told the crowd to shut up. "I don't think that will work," Heenan said. Kanyon then takes aim at their upcoming match with Harlem Heat, saying they were going to beat those "fruit booties."

Remembering that the Triad has other business, Kanyon busted on Chris Benoit's mother. DDP piped in and pumped up U.S. champ (gosh, that's hard to write) David Flair. "Benoit, you ain't got it," DDP said.

But there was the business directly at hand, a non-title match between Kanyon and Bam Bam Bigelow against Harlem Heat. DDP left the ring area. He won't be back for a run-in, right? Benoit won't show up either, right? Stop it, Mike.

This match had some nice spots. As expected, Kanyon absorbed a lengthy beating. In one nice sequence, Stevie Ray blocked a Bam Bam suplex and ended up delivering one of his own. "It looks like he suplexed a Buick," Heenan said. The crowd honored Kanyon with a "Kanyon sucks" chant. I'm sure Kanyon enjoyed the heat. The crowd imitated a college football game when one side yelled "DDP" while the other side yelled "sucks." Bam Bam got in a nice diving head butt from the top turnbuckle. For somebody who weighs 400 pounds, he's got moves.

Late in the match, Booker T hit his umpteenth side kick of the match, nailing Kanyon. T went to the top turnbuckle for the missile dropkick. Here comes DDP for the run-in. No! He's blocked by Benoit. We have something unusual here, run-in defense. T nails the missile dropkick and pins Kanyon. A clean pinfall!

But it's time to shift angles as Benoit climbs into the ring. The Crippler doesn't interact with Harlem Heat. He does get on the stick and challenges DDP. "It is my turn. It is my time!" Benoit warns the Triad not to crack jokes on his mother. DDP and Benoit promises to be a good match later on.

Okay, it's time for comedy relief. Lenny and Lodi are wondering where The Cat got his bunny slippers from.

Hudson does tell us that Benoit wants a piece of the two time, two time, two time former world heavyweight champion.

WCW President Sting comes out for mic time. He challenges Sid Vicious and Rick Steiner to a tag team match. Sting wants Goldberg to be his partner. He tells Goldberg he wants his answer when RAW goes on the air. He didn't say it just like that but that was what he meant.

The Cat invites Lenny and Lodi out to let them know where he got the bunny slippers. The two brothers must not have been watching last week because the Cat got them from Buff Bagwell. The Cat did his usual insult the crowd shtick and then squashed Lenny.

Gene Mean interviewed Hollywood Hulk Hogan, who pumped up his Road Wild match with Kevin Nash. Hogan tells the crowd he wants to "shoot." He wants his "spot" back. No, not the dog spot, not the liver spot, not the puke spot. Nice reference to the nWo spoof on the Four Horsemen. He wants his spot as the number one dude back. Can't he just book that himself. To jump start things, Hogan wants to put up the belt tonight against Nash! The crowd really popped for Hogan.

Sting is back out and wants Goldberg's answer. Goldberg is on his way out of his dressing room when he's encountered by Sid and Steiner. "Hey Goldberg, you want some!" Steiner said. Goldberg charged after Steiner. Sid ambushed him with a snow shovel! Steiner then threw Goldberg into some kind of a trash can, opening a nasty cut on the back of Goldberg's head. Sting ran back to help and took a pair of shovel shots himself. The heels drug him all the way to the ring. Sting fought back, giving Sid and Steiner stinger splashes in opposite corners. After a chokeslam from Sid, Goldberg busted through a door just the way my old college classmate and future Indianapolis Colt Donnell Thompson did in Chapel Hill when some girl told him he couldn't come in to a private party. Goldberg made his way to the ring and the bad guys fled. Thompson went on to knock down more than a few offensive linemen in the NFL.

"Why wait?" Goldberg snarled. Well, the match was made. This was pretty entertaining. It was better than Goldberg just coming out and saying yes. It made for good heat, too, though anything involving Goldberg means heat.

Next, Evan Karagias took on Disco Inferno. No storyline here, so that must mean a Randy Savage run-in. Nope. Somebody won this match but who cares?

They ran a funny little vignette where David Flair, accompanied by Torrie Wilson, tells the camera that he's beaten everybody. Nice revisionist history, David. Didn't Meng squash you? And though it was a no contest, Sting destroyed you. And he's going to hold on to the belt because Charles Robinson will referee all his matches and he only has to defend the belt every 30 days. President Sting is allowing that? At least we got to look at Torrie.

Dean Malenko and Shane Douglas took on Hugh Morrus and Jerry Flynn. This wasn't too bad except when Malenko tried to imitate the stinger splash. Morris didn't sell it and Flynn charged out with a lariat. But Morrus couldn't execute his no laughing matter finisher because Douglas nailed him with the Samoan drop.

Malenko took a long beating in this match, being forced to stay in when referee Mickey Jay didn't see a tag. This just set up the inevitable hot tag to Douglas for purposes of building up his heat. That led to a pier five (six if you count the hardcore trophy). Jimmy Hart, holding the trophy, climbed up on the apron and absorbed the 300-pound Morrus. Moments later, Flynn accidently clotheslined Morrus from the top rope. That set up the perfectbuster from Douglas and the pin. Another pinfall! Malenko took the trophy to give it to the injured Fit Finlay.

Steiner came out huffing and puffing to the announce desk. Heenan wisely fled. Hudson unwisely didn't. Some of the crowd was woofing. Steiner approached Hudson in a menacing manner. "No, Rick, no," Hudson said. Sorry, Scott. Steiner drug Hudson into the ring and gave him a belly-to-belly suplex! Hudson sold it as good as anyone on the WCW roster.

This episode served two purposes. WCW wants Steiner over as a monster heel and punking a helpless announcer will help serve that end. And now we have an announcer angle! Tony Schiavone is behind this, I swear.

When the show returned from a commercial break, we were greeted by Eric Bischoff, saying, "Are we on?" Uncle Eric worked this really well. "Things have settled down here," Bischoff said. Then, "Can you find Bobby?" A distraught Heenan came back. "Clearly, Rick Steiner is out of control," Bischoff said. Heenan was selling good, too. "I don't feel comfortable sitting here, Eric," Heenan said.

All the while, Hudson was being strapped to a gurney, carted off to an ambulance and driven away. And next Monday, Schiavone will be back on Nitro. Hudson was doing a great job but Bischoff had to placate Schiavone and they had to work this in to switch things back the way they were. At least that's my opinion.

Next, we had a match between Bobby Duncum, Jr. and Perry Saturn, one fourth of Douglas' new Revolution. Just the two of them. Wait. Curt Hennig comes down the aisle with a mic and trashes country singer Chad Brock, who has an upcoming gig on Nitro. This is yet another nice example of working two angles at the same time. Hennig pulls a Chris Jericho and refers to Brock as "Chet Block." Think we'll see a Hennig-Brock match? Me, too. By the way, Brock was a wrestler before he became a singer. First Hennig launched a rap vs. country feud. Then he lashed out at Goldberg and heavy metal. Now he wants a country music civil war! Will he take on jazz next?

Oh, Curt, Saturn is in the ring. "What are you looking at?" Hennig snaps. This distraction allowed Duncum to attack Saturn from behind. But Saturn quickly recovered and destroyed Duncum with a Spicoli driver. He then called Hennig into the ring. Referee Nick Patrick let it go as a match. What about the scheduled match? Well, WCW does give its refs a lot of latitude.

This was a good one, as you might expect. Hennig and Saturn can work. Bischoff gave us some history about Hennig. He said Hennig got his start in the AWA then he came to WCW. No! He went to the WWF first and then WCW or something like that. Wow! Eric mentioned the now defunct AWA and the WWF on the air. And for a moment in that confusing segment, he appeared to be saying that WCW was the WWF. We're not getting our ass kicked in the ratings after all. We're winning! That was unusual and quite amusing.

Saturn eventually got the upper hand, hitting the belly-to-belly suplex and then the Spicoli driver. That means run-in time. The rest of the rednecks came out to help lay on a huge beat down. They started to hog tie him. Hennig punked out the ref. Where is the Revolution? Finally, Douglas and Malenko come out to make the save.

Bischoff explained that there are no monitors in the back, which tells what took the good guys so long to get out there. I guess somebody ran back there to tell them, right? Now that explains everything! No wonder Lenny and Lodi didn't know where the Cat got his bunny slippers. No monitors in the back. That's why Douglas had looked so bad in his previous run-ins. Gee, if there are no monitors in the back, then how can any of the wrestlers no when it's their turn to come out. And since there's no monitors in the back, why weren't Douglas and Malenko at ringside, playing run-in defense. Nah, that would ruin the storyline. Uncle Eric, that was lame.

Now, it's back to the Triad-Revolution feud. Benoit will take on DDP. For some reason, Robinson is the ref. He would prove not to be a factor. As promised, this was a great match with plenty of nice spots. Benoit hit a baseball slide early. DDP rallied with a powerbomb, spinebuster and neat-looking peoples' elbow. Benoit hit a superplex.

Late in the match, Benoit went for the German suplex trifecta. One, two, no! DDP blocked the third one by grabbing the ropes and nailing a golota kick. DDP hit a chokeslam. David Flair's botched run-in caused DDP to get pinned. Benoit didn't get to celebrate. The rest of the Triad ran in to attack Benoit but DDP angrily waved them off. They're not going to steal his beat down heat! DDP hit three diamond cutters, including a super diamond cutter from the top turnbuckle. David Flair came in to taunt Benoit. Where is the Revolution? Oh, I almost forgot. There's no monitors in the back. And this time no save. Now, DDP, that's the way to do a job!

We did get to see Savage continue his domestic violence angle. But this time Mona got a little revenge by nailing Savage with the golota as the Macho Man jawed with Dennis Rodman. Much of what was said got muted. Mona's actions allowed Rodman to enter the ring and get in some elbow drops on Savage. Bischoff kept saying to cut off their mics. Eric just keeps working to get himself over as a face before the next swerve. Whatever. Oh, and Savage still wants to get Nash.

Vampiro and the Insane Clown Posse came out to take on Eddie Guerrero. Well, it's actually Vampiro vs. Eddie with the ICP on run-in duty. Rey Jr. must be in the back waiting for the cue even though there's no monitors in the back! Bischoff worked the crowd again by this reference to Macho-Rodman: "I understand that we were able to bleep out most of the comments that were inappropriate."

Vampiro and Eddie worked a terrific match. Even a cameraman took a bump. Eddie is still way over. After overcoming some inept ICP interference, Eddie appeared to have the upper hand. But Raven came out and pushed Eddie off the top rope as he was setting up for the frog splash. Vampiro hit the juvi driver for the win. Then came the beat down. Rey Jr. and a chair-wielding Konnan made the save.

Hogan joined Bischoff to announce the main event. Heenan fled. Of course, Hogan is just there to do color commentary. Sure.

The main event was a little sloppy. Sid oversold a Sting dropkick, practically jumping out of the ring. Sid whipping Sting into the railing, which was somehow missed by the cameras. Sting did absorb a running suplex from Steiner and a chokeslam from Sid. Goldberg stopped the 1, 2, 3.

But Sid and Steiner kept beating down Sting. Hogan, deciding enough was enough, nailed both of them with chair shots. The chair shot on Sid earned a DQ. Nash rushed out and powerbombed Hogan through the Spanish announce table. No! That's the WWF. Nevertheless, Hogan collapsed the table. What a bump! Unfortunately, the show ended right on that note. It's about time WCW did that kind of a bump. The WWF has been doing it for a long time.

Maybe WCW is finally catching on. But what happened to the Hogan-Nash match? They must have forgot or something. That's booking on the fly, a WCW specialty.