Loss

Last few minutes. Nash is dominating Luger, and when Luger shows the first sign of life, all of the NWO bottom feeders enter the ring and attack him. DDP runs out to make the save but also gets attacked. Finally, The Giant is out and they tease a showdown with Nash. Again, this match wasn't even paid off until January of 1998 (planned for Starrcade, but still, they effectively created hype for this match all year). Finally, Sting shows up with three baseball bats, hands one to each of the babyfaces and after Nash takes a few shots, the heels bail. I'm really impressed so far that Nash is not playing the "cool heel" as much as people probably remember. He stooged big time for Sting here. Good segment.

Time for an interview with the woefully irrelevant Ric Flair. They are in friendly territory, so he gets the legend's reaction, as does Piper. It's amazing how much Flair slipped from even September of the previous year. Piper rambles about who knows what in a charismatic way before finally getting around to issuing a challenge to the NWO for Slamboree. He breaks out into "I'm Too Sexy" for no apparent reason, makes a Pee Wee Herman reference, talks about the NWO riding skateboards and is otherwise in his own universe. He makes the first "paved road" reference, which is a metaphor that is woven into every promo hyping the Slamboree match. Kevin Greene seems like a guy who really could have adapted to wrestling with more time. Not bad for a novice promo. Flair does his "Mean Gene", which isn't fully developed yet and tries to give an interview with a good hook, but if he was going to reference 1993, why not mention his win over Vader at Starrcade instead of pretending that's when Wrestlemania VIII happened? Flair was just freefalling before our eyes at this point, and it's a little sad to watch.

Highlights of the Slammy Awards featuring all of the women in the promotion, and with Sable debuting her famous scandalous swimsuit while saxophone music plays.

Ewww, the horrible South Africa RAW that was so bad with such a low rating that Vince started giving power to Vince Russo. Yuck. Austin insists to Gorilla on facing Bret at the pay-per-view. Owen and Davey Boy react in a way where they aren't happy at all. Austin and Vince have an interesting conversation about whether talent can be held down.

Last few minutes of the three-way match, just before Stevie Richards gets eliminated. Doesn't look like that good of a match. Funk pins Sandman after some weird barbed wire spots and we have our main event. Funk is a bloody mess. More of an effective angle than a match. REGGIE BENNETT? Raven calls out Tommy Dreamer at the booth and Big Dick Dudley ends up attacking him from behind. Huge pop for the finish, and Funk wins the ECW title, which is a great finish for the first pay-per-view.

After all the build, here's the match. I'm not sure if I should be surprised that I think this is an excellent match, but I am, and I do. The psychology of this was much better than I expected, as all the ridiculous bumps Sabu took were set up in a way that made sense given the course of the match. I also enjoyed watching Taz take it to the mat. No one will confuse him for Volk Han, but he could work well enough to make his gimmick work. Sabu actually gives a really strong underdog selling performance, sporting a nasty bloody nose for most of this and selling his injured neck and shoulder, which Taz targets. There were some flaws, but they were the sort of "Who cares?" flaws that lots of good wrestling matches have. They worked a match befitting the occasion that didn't feel like a letdown, and this was far better than I expected it to be. The mic work and sportsmanship after this was too heavy handed, even if there was a swerve. The match wasn't THAT good. Sabu completely blows the table spot in the post-match angle, and it really makes it easy to forget the things I liked about this match. And if Fonzie was going to turn, why not do it during the match? He cites Taz costing him lots of money by losing the match, even though he won the match. Huh? A pleasant surprise of a match, followed by an angle I absolutely hated.

A very good match, miles better than anything else happening in ECW so far this year, but by the standards of normal MPro matches, it's a little lacking. It's enjoyable for sure, but chances are you've seen most of this done equally well or better in other matches. Still, as a showcase match, it works very well.

Last few minutes. This is literally nothing but spots. No transitions between moves at all. Saturn has zero idea what to do between moves except stand there like an idiot. Extremely Crappy Wrestling indeed. The Eliminators win the tag titles.

Raven quotes Fleetwood Mac while looking stoned and I tune out. This is followed by an all-time classic Terry Funk vignette on-site at his father's grave while the piano opening of "Desperado" plays on a loop in the background.

Taz does his best promo yet, this time with his face completely covered by a towel until the final few seconds. This is some amazing stuff.

Strong promo from the Dudleys heading into Barely Legal.

The Truth Commission in Memphis doing a job to a no-name team. Goodhelmet has to remind me why this is on here, as I don't remember.

The first in their series, which I think people both love and hate for equally valid reasons. I understand why people don't like this series, but I thought it was a lot of fun and enjoyed the shooty nature of it. Give Hashimoto credit for adjusting so well to Ogawa's style. Things get heated a few times, but ultimately, more violence is teased than delivered. This effectively whets my appetite for the May rematch.

More of a fast-paced match than most of the Joshi we've seen so far this year, but without the sometimes grating excesses of the style. This is the first time I've seen Kaoru, and I'm impressed. Even opposite Hokuto's big personality, she feels like a peer and is pretty charismatic in her own right. I've liked the Kudo matches better, but this is my favorite GAEA match so far, and the first Joshi match of the year that really feels like it wouldn't be out of place in the boom years. At just under 15 minutes, I'd call it short and to the point too, which is appreciated sometimes. FLIK, who's jumping Hokuto after this and why? Pretty crazy post-match angle, but I don't really understand it.

Awesome! Are you able to do a comparison of ratings as a contrast on the same chart?

I wasn't arguing that other promotions should become exclusively mat-based. It was more an argument that other promotions should have incorporated more matwork into their existing style. All Japan is the most glaring example.

Interesting. I have no recollection of WCW shifting in the second half of the year. We'll see how it plays out.

The work here is fantastic, but this is a tough crowd. They stubbornly work a great match and do everything they can to draw the people in, but Kansai has to throw Fukuoka around like a ragdoll to even get a polite "ohhh" on a nearfall. It's a shame, because it's worked like a big main event - with moments clearly designed to be memorable, including a huge conquering-of-the-odds layout - and some really top notch dramatic selling from Fukuoka. But the emotional response just isn't there until the last minute or so of the match. That they got anything at all from them is a surprise, to be honest. This would come across as a classic with a more responsive crowd, but as it stands, it just comes across as a really great match … even if I'm not quite sure what I think about a standing moonsault as a wrestling move.

Savage was on crutches earlier in the night (for reasons that I don't get considering that he didn't have a storyline leg injury in the match) and DDP is selling a shoulder injury and has black eye makeup. I didn't see the match at the time, but this was good at creating an aura about it, even though it wasn't really worked that way at all. DDP points out that he's made it as a main eventer and makes clear that the feud with Savage isn't over. He calls Savage out. Macho limps out on his crutches until Hogan comes out to stop him. Hogan says he wants to handle DDP for Savage's sake. DDP is getting the major superstar rub now. Seeing a star on the rise is one of the coolest things about watching wrestling. Just when it looks like DDP is about to be outnumbered, Sting descends from the rafters and joins his side. This segment did almost as much to legitimize Page as the Savage win did the night before and the best part is that it didn't feel the least bit forced.

The NWO is out to fix these problems and the crowd is loving the dissension. The crowd is very excited about a possible Hogan vs Nash feud, but they don't pull the trigger for another year! How awesome is that! This is also interesting politically, as Hogan sort of gets to emasculate Nash and Savage. The segment ends with the NWO putting the tension behind them and agreeing to work together. Love the "We Want Sting" chants. They haven't forgotten about the long term either. I'm not sure a promotion could click anymore than WCW was at this time.

Footage of Dennis Rodman promotiong Double Team. Hulk Hogan - decked out in an NWO t-shirt - makes an appearance too. We get to see Hogan rub shoulders with Jean Claude Van Damme, and Rodman is decked out in makeup and glitter. Not only a great segment to make WCW seem really mainstream, but also plays nicely into the current NWO dissension angle where Nash and Co. think Hogan's eye is off the ball.

Probably the most obnoxious interview Shawn has ever done. Bret is working an angle trying to turn himself heel and Shawn has decided to shoot on Bret for over 10 minutes. It worked in building anticipation for an eventual match, but it's amazing that Vince McMahon would just sit there and let Shawn do this shit. He makes comments about Bret leveraging a better deal with the WWF by using WCW, exploiting his family on television, being second fiddle to Bret for years, Bret being difficult about jobbing to him at Wrestlemania and Bret wanting Shawn to fail as champion. He also says that Bret doesn't care about his fans, is a mark for himself and more. There is actually a part of me that sympathizes with Shawn in some ways, but this wasn't the forum to air this stuff.

The Kudo retirement tour continues to deliver, this time in a pretty wild 8-woman tag with a bunch of C-list Joshi stars (and Kudo and Kandori) going all out to give us a bloody, hate-filled brawl that eventually settles into great tag formula and finally bomb throwing galore. I appreciate how much fun the heels seem to be having here doing their tribute to Dump's Army, along with the nod they give to Southern staples like cutting the ring in half. She doesn't have the rep of her peers, but Shinobu Kandori is awesome just for how she carries herself. It's a shame 1997 is considered such a rough year for Joshi. I realize it's a favorable edit, but I have liked every single Joshi match so far this year. This may be the best so far and check out the ovation these girls get from the crowd after it's all over. Great, great match.