Loss

Sure. Created a full forum for it, so have fun.

It's called fantasy booking, people. Don't you guys have any sense of imagination?

I am just referring to Lorefice's review.

Awesome! Listening now.

We start right when Hogan and Rodman make their way out in this awfully busy main event. Hogan is busy doing photo-ops for a few minutes before bothering to work the match. They were smart about how they worked Rodman into key spots, and there is a ton of press at ringside. The match ultimately ends up as Lex Luger against the entire NWO. After Hall, Nash and Savage make sure they get their photo-ops in, they also go back to working the match. So shameless, but I can't really blame them too much considering this was the biggest mainstream exposure WCW had ever had to this point. Luger goes on a huge one-man comeback and wipes out everyone except Hogan at the end, which is cool booking, but everything happens too quickly to be believable. Hogan ends up pinning Luger after Savage runs back in and hits Luger in the face with the spray can while he has Hogan in the rack. Hogan probably earned a big pay day here for not doing all that much. The post-match is what's legendary, both for the image of Rodman spraypainting and slapping Luger, which was all over cable news and the Entertainment Tonight-type shows, and for Sting finally making his allegiances clear once and for all, which pops the crowd like crazy. Incredible angle that shows the value of patience.

The Big 4 of the NWO. Savage is still looking at the Kimberly centerfold. I do like looking back how obvious it is that Hogan and Savage are pretty desperate to learn how to be cool from Hall and Nash.

Tony Schiavone suggests DDP stepping in for Rick Steiner. I'm glad they mentioned it, but at the same time, I'm glad they found a way for it not to happen by laying him out here, as I am enjoying DDP's slow push to feud with a top star. He should have at least answered the question when Gene asked him though. DDP wants to focus on challenging Savage to get into the ring. Savage and Liz show up and Savage calls him The Man because his wife is the Playboy centerfold! This is the first time the marriage of DDP and Kimberly has been acknowledged on the air. Kimberly comes out of the back crying and covered in NWO spray paint. This distracts DDP long enough for Savage to lay him out. DDP gets spraypainted and when Kimberly tries to cover her, Elizabeth has a little fun and spraypaints her. I enjoyed Savage's sense of irony in this segment quite a bit.

Eddy hasn't turned yet, but the crowd is solidly behind Malenko and booing Eddy. They don't work their normal "technical masterpiece" and instead try for a little more hate and brawl it out. I like the change. Everyone is a little angrier in 1997. The match had some dull parts, but was really good overall, and I appreciated the effort. What held it back was that Eddy didn't have a big enough personality, even though surprisingly, Malenko carried himself like a star. The Eddy heel turn is overdue. (As a brief aside, when they cut to the back, why does it not surprise me that Kevin Nash is enough of a douche to wear socks with sandals?)

Really? You know, I was initially worried about the same thing, especially when I saw that this was 27 minutes of disc space. But I really, really liked this match because it did feel different. It was much grittier and storyline-driven than any of the 1996 matches that I recall. The pace is a little slower than usual, and KDX are a little meaner than usual, and it makes this match feel fresh and different. This had the vibe of a New Japan tag involving Liger and Otani, except that Liger and Otani were nowhere to be found. The long heel dominance gave this some focus and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the match, and the final stretches was one of the better and more exciting final stretches of an MPro match that I can recall. WCW missed the boat by not signing all of these guys. They wouldn't have been given the time they needed to have great matches and Sonny Onoo probably would have been their manager, but we would have had a few treasures pop up and the B-shows would have had been as fun as hell.

We start off with Joel Gertner, who has a $100 bill stuck to his forehead while walking through the hood. This leads to a few words from Bubba Ray Dudley, who says Lou Thesz and Pat O'Connor would be proud of them. We also get words from The Eliminators, Tommy Rich, Francine and Shane Douglas, The Pit Bulls, Rob Van Dam, Brian Lee and Tommy Dreamer. One of the better segments.

The Gangstas show up and start throwing plunder everywhere, including a toaster, a game console and what I think is an ice pack. Bubba Ray hits New Jack in the groin with a word processor. A bloodied Ian Rotten calls the Dudleys the best tag team in the world, which brings The Eliminators out to protest. Out of nowhere, Lance Storm jumps off the top rope onto the Dudleys. Would any of this make any sense if I saw what led to it, or is this all just pointless brawling with no real rhyme or reason? Why is Storm there? Sign Guy Dudley tries to attack The Eliminators with a frying pan and eats a Total Elimination for his troubles.

Just the finish of Taz applying the Tazmission.

ECW at the Catholic Youth Center! The BWO get the heroes welcome. Some blond runs in the ring and gets a big Stevie kiss. Stevie announces that he wants a shot at the ECW title at Barely Legal. Raven comes in and starts laying out BWO guys one by one before a staredown with Stevie. Stevie doesn't back down, Raven drops a line about how he hasn't even begun to screw with him and that's that.

Ramirez and Guerrero are so good. The other two are good too, but Ramirez and Guerrero are especially good. A refreshing amount of matwork in this, and I like how it's incorporated throughout the match instead of worked as its own section to build to more highspots later. No one really hides in plain sight in this match, which sometimes happens in multi-man lucha matches. I like that the tags are infrequent, because it gives each pairing time to marinate. Guerrero really has a nice mean streak, even when tossing in his acrobatic spots. The finishes of all three falls are really decisive (especially fall #1 and #2) and this is a bit more stiff than typical lucha with all the hard chops. This was just an "on paper" pick that didn't really have a rep and was almost cut from the set, but I'm really glad we were able to put it on. It's one of my favorite matches so far.

If you were a teenager in 1997, just wait until you get to the songs on Disc 6.

I'm really enjoying this rivalry. Kudo is the best in Joshi at pacing a match and building to big moments. There is palpable hate here, and they milk everything for maximum drama. Great moments here, one of which is the hesitation over reaching for the ropes that Childs mentioned. I also like the limb work focus in Kandori's offense. Kandori looks tough as hell for continuing to get up despite everything Kudo throws at her, and Kudo looks great for conquering such a strong foe. This was behind the January match, but only barely.

That is indeed quite the disgusting mat. This is the kind of match that I feel needs to be on the yearbook as a time capsule because it's a good representation of the indy scene. I liked this a little more than Childs, but it's not something I'd go to bat for. I tuned out the commentary altogether, which is difficult for me to do since I place so much value in announcing. They worked hard though. I'd compare it to Freight Train Fulton vs Bill Wilcox from the '92 Yearbook, but slightly better because they showed a little more restraint.

Harvey Schiller told Bischoff the week before he was banned from WCW events, but here he is. They get to brass taxes about the Dennis Rodman rumors. Hogan confirms the rumors are true -- Dennis Rodman has joined the NWO. Sting is still there and still staring into nowhere. Hogan gives him his NWO t-shirt after Bischoff apologizes for not giving him his shirt the week before. I like this because it's more of a team promo, and the Outsiders and Savage get time to talk up their feuds too. Savage is still acting like he doesn't know DDP's name at this point. Nash is pantomiming a blowjob at fans in the background for some reason.

Ooh, one of the spring break shows! Piper is in some weird world. He gets in a cheapshot on Howard Stern and even calls him hung like a pimple! Did Stern mention him on his show? He also gets in a shot at Dennis Rodman before moving on to shoot on the WWF, going on this bizarre tangent because the WWF made a "one hip wrestler" comment on TV and pointing out that when he fought Goldust on their PPV, he had one hip. Finally, we hear Ric Flair's music for the first time so far in 1997. Flair looks like a sad shell of his former self, but sadly this wasn't as low as he would go, and at this point, he could still cut a good promo. But by '97 he's in full blown crazy old man mode. Arn points out that facing the NWO is a job for professionals and offers the Horsemen as teammates instead of the guys he chose last week. Piper isn't all there, but he's at least smart enough to accept this offer.

Here comes Dennis Rodman. This was a pretty huge deal in 1997.

This is amazing! I really do think these two loathed each other. Throwing some insane shoot bombs on each other that are way below the belt. Pretty awesome. I love that Lawler asks his friends to come down and no one does. Everything about this segment was perfect. Honky saying Lawler's friends simply couldn't hear him back there made me laugh out loud!

Ken Shamrock has been announced as the special referee for Austin/Hart at Mania. He's a little wooden on the mic, but I don't know that he needed to be better than that if he was used properly. Austin interrupts from the Titantron and tells him to shut his hole, and makes a point about Bret getting so many title shots and how it's weird that he's getting one before Mania. That point had to be specifically made to give the heel turn some resonance. Anyway, Austin is pretty aggressive with Shamrock. Shamrock calls Austin out, but Bret's music starts and he actually comes to the ring. Bret is whiny right away, pointing out that it took the WWF three weeks to give him interview time to say how he's feeling since losing the title. The heel turn is locked in at this point. He points out that he likes Shamrock, but he's been screwed by everyone and if Shamrock crosses him at Mania, it will be the biggest mistake of his life. Shamrock gets a pop for telling Bret he's not a marriage counselor and he's not here to listen to his problems. This makes me wonder what might have been from a Bret/Shamrock feud. The big match with Sid in the cage is next week!

New RAW entrance and a look and feel that is pretty much the same to this day. This was in the brief period they were using "The Beautiful People" by Marilyn Manson as their entrance. At least they were trying.

Apparently, one of the reasons they did the go-go-go style here is that Kuzumi was set to dominate the juniors division in Yagi's absence (this is her retirement match), so they wanted to work the match in her style since that's what future matches would be. But yes, this was really good. I'd probably call it a step above the other match, but I do think the athleticism was better here, and Kuzumi didn't seem completely out of Yagi's league this time around. Not much heat, which is too bad. Had this happened as a touring Joshi match on a random Nitro, people would rave about it to this day.

I think they wanted Jake and Undertaker to be out of sight, out of mind before the big angle. They were also building to Hogan/Undertaker later in the year and didn't want them crossing paths yet, and it was too soon after the turn for any heels to get their hands on Jake.