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Crazy scene and the fan attack just adds to the feeling of chaos. Having Hogan put over Piper was a mistake but they're doing everything in their power to make us forget that ever happened.

Traylor's comeback promo after returning from his neck injury and bolting from the NWO was one of his best. And he's got his old '95 Big Bubba music back again--always liked that theme. Here he's interrupted by a US title belt to the back of his head. Hogan and Savage even join in.

This is probably the biggest WCW peak since the Hogan & Rodman show in Chicago--just completely leaving the WWF in the dust. This is a super-hot segment even though Hogan doesn't say much of anything, and Rude is absolutely tremendous--his best promo of the year, hands down. He rips Shawn Michaels, rips Vince, and does more to put Bret over than anyone else in WCW did the previous week. Bischoff is absolutely gushing and he's clearly not acting, and why shouldn't he be? With Rude falling into his lap, he's getting over on the WWF without even trying to now. The idea of WCW falling behind in the war seems just unthinkable now, with the WWF looking like a complete mess.

This is a weird combination of shock value for shock value's sake combined with fairly traditional old-school southern wrasslin' booking. I thought Cornette was off creative by this point but maybe he or Bruce Prichard still had some reach.

Done!

There was a contingency for a broken ladder, which would pay off in an interesting way in Shawn-Razor II at SummerSlam '95.

Vince is still sporting a nasty shiner from the post-match confrontation. LOTS of stuff here that would apply to today's Widget Superstars--show respect to the company that MADE you, dammit. McMahon generously describes Bret's departure as a "joint decision." It's flabbergasting that Vince expected to come off sympathetic in this situation.

I'm getting whiplash going from a kiddie show to these tight, focused, and intense promos and back again.

Aaaand right after the "sea change" I talked about, we're right back to 1995-ville. You don't suppose the WWF is trying to eat its cake and have it too, do you? Get a Yokozuna figure at Kay-Bee Toys!

The scratch logo is here. Adam and George's presence aside, we've reached an official sea change. A legendary spot.

Dear God, Adam and George. Talk about something completely out of the Family Entertainment Era. This is up there with Brian Pillman interacting with the Bushwhackers.

We join with Beulah getting clotheslined by Sabu, and despite Joey's hushed response that spot has lost all semblance of shock value or surprise by this point. Taz is gone, having been taken out of the building by the Pitbulls. That leaves Dreamer alone and incredibly enough, this time he actually overcomes the odds and pins Van Dam with a DDT onto a chair. A rather silly beatdown follows, with Sabu riding a ladder from the top turnbuckle into a chair being held in front of Dreamer's face by RVD. That would have had way more impact if they'd just hit him with the ladder. Sabu is about to set Dreamer's broken foot on fire (??!) when the lights go out. And...and...and...? I presume that was Sandman in the ring when the lights came back up.

As much as Loss was annoyed by Mr. Perfect on the 1992 Yearbook, Rude is starting to annoy me to an even greater degree here, since he's all over the place but can't take bumps or get any physical comeuppance.

No problem calling this great on this end--I wasn't even expecting much from the description here, and I also had this pegged as a draw from practically the start. But the work was so dynamic, particularly when it was Akiyama vs. Kobashi, and the stretch run so well-done that it drew me in big-time, and the SWERVE finish was perfectly timed. You had the sense that if Misawa could just nail that tiger driver or one more big move, that Ace was done for--especially once Kobashi ate the guardrail outside. Akiyama seemed like the star worker of the match, but Misawa takes some absolutely incredible bumps here off suplexes, and does some awesome sells for the Ace Crushers also. Without going back through everything else, I'm not sure this isn't the best AJPW tag of 1997 so far.

I'd like to see your thoughts on Regal vs. Sting from GAB '96. When I watched it on the '96 Yearbook I thought it blew away the more heralded Dean vs. Rey from the same show.

Would it do Flair any good to go over El Matador in a throwaway match? It would be too early to be jobbing Backlund out even if he were available, and Boss Man had to be kept protected for Nailz...unless you want to do a schmozz finish, which again, doesn't do Flair any good. It's not just you--the Between the Sheets guys lamented Flair's lack of a match on the card too. And yes, of course, Flair wrestling is generally better than Flair not wrestling. But complaining about him not being on the card doesn't accomplish anything if someone can't provide a legitimate solution. Five years from now there would be an obvious answer, but in 1992 no one knew what a triple threat match was. Maybe what Flair needed was for this card to be held in Landover with Bret-Shawn in a ladder match, as was an alternate plan. Then you could run Flair-Davey Boy which would be a decent match-up for him.

With Sweet Daddy Siki being the big exception, all black guys were babyfaces at the time.

It's okay for the NWO to get heat on Sting for one week as part of all this build-up, but yeah, the lack of an attempted save is kind of infuriating. Notice how Sting has no-sold everything that everyone has thrown at him but one blow from Hogan drops him.

This was...not a direction this feud needed to go in.

Video games were definitely an area where WCW was kicking the WWF's ass for awhile.

More reference to Bret's KO punch, which no one else knows about. Even if the singing was supposed to be bad, this *probably* could have used a bit of rehearsal. Of course, WCW passes up the opportunity to push Bret as the Real World Champion and get a measure of revenge six years later. No one thought so at the time, but that's an inauspicious first segment.

No kidding--DX continues their ability to make every authority figure and babyface in the company look like complete idiots. Chyna, Rude, and Shawn are supposedly banned from ringside per Slaughter's promo to start, and of course that doesn't happen. Then we conveniently go off the air with Helmsley about to get a tainted win over Shamrock, which is a great way to build a less-than-ideal challenger for a PPV main event.

Jarrett puts Savage over, which I guess is a creative way of trying to get him over as someone who can be trusted to speak his mind. The best of the Jarrett interviews, but it still doesn't and wouldn't translate to the ring.

Austin quickly downplays his feud with Owen Hart, probably for good reason on multiple levels. Rock comes out by himself, which is probably a very good sign for his future.

The "FU" supposedly stood for "Forever Unchained," but we all know what they were really going for. There's no other way to say this, but Goldust looks like a Little Black Sambo drawing come to life. Yeah, the Russo influence has taken over, as they're going for shock value in just about every segment--here Dustin says without saying his "fatass old man" abused him. There's a Butterbean sighting in the crowd--presumably that angle started tonight as well. Vader confronts him about his walkout the previous night, and Dustin's answer of being an invalid due to his broken arm don't satisfy him, so Goldust eats a power bomb. Suddenly JR tells us of something going on in the locker room--Crash TV, ba-bee!