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We've come full circle, as Shawn Michaels is now impersonating Stevie Richards. Other than that, this is another hot segment with two awesome pull-aparts between Austin and Shawn--all while Owen, Davey Boy, and the Anvil cackle with delight.

Not a workrate classic, but just about every other note is hit letter-perfect here to garner the maximum possible crowd response. The NWO know when to stooge, when to play it cool, and when to play running cowardly heels. A lot of the spots are stuff we've seen before but the way the respective signature spots "edited" together is kind of clever--like Flair doing the Flair Flip into the cross body off the top, only to fly into a common Hall spot--the catch and blockbuster suplex. Without wearing out its welcome we go to the finish, with Piper decking Randy Anderson in a cool moment, a cool teased spot with Nash hitting Flair from the back to set up the Outsider's Edge only for that to get cut off by Ric, and all three babyfaces laying out the heels at once, like a classic all-figure-fours spot from the old-school Horsemen or all of Misawa's Army grabbing submissions on Jumbo's team. Nick Patrick counts the 3 and the Wolfpack are all left laying, as decisively beaten as you'll ever see them.

Mark your calendars--Mongo McMichael carries a match. He actually does the best he can, and it's a testament to how hot WCW was that the crowd was actually into the closing stretch of this, despite a ridiculous 17-minute bell-to-bell time. Cute finish as Gilbert Brown prevents McMichael from using the briefcase, but as Mark Curtis is trying to shoo him away after he was previously distracted by Debra, Jeff Jarrett runs out with a duplicate which McMichael uses to get the win. I do like how WCW tended to use celebrities to put wrestlers over rather than the WWF moving heaven and earth trying to put the celeb over--you hear that, Russo? Reggie was a legendary player but as a wrestling participant I don't actually recall this being a huge deal--it did get some mainstream pub, but it also felt kind of overshadowed by the presence of Rodman.

This was terrific--DDP gets in a killer line about Savage's "previous engagement" washing Hogan's car and kissing his ass. That's enough for Savage to tell the B-teamers and Bischoff to back off. DDP goes nuts with the broken crutch and this crowd is JACKED--fuck, I'M marking out 18 years later. Even Bischoff gets nailed. Norton finally gets a shot in and the NWO swarm Page's perpetually injured ribs, but for once a babyface is ready to make a save, as the Giant runs everyone off.

Very good match, in some ways a real throwback for being so mat-based at a time when almost all promotions were getting away from that. Even though the crowd reactions are sort of backwards from what WCW was hoping for, they were really into this as well and picked up on the psychology of Dragon fighting to avoid the Regal Stretch. Even Onoo is used well--he does one interference spot to get over that Dragon doesn't want him getting involved, and then plays just enough of a role in the finish that he clearly costs Dragon the match, while Regal still gets credit for the finishing blow without making the ending all about Onoo. This is an instance where I'm going to junk all my old complaints about Dragon not bothering to work a character or guys like Malenko being tone-deaf with regard to the crowd. The crowd wasn't reacting "properly," but Dragon and Regal failed to let that get to them and just went out and worked a solid match. Good for them.

Re: Bix's question about the uptick in Raw ratings: Raw's ratings spiked heavily in early '95 due to the Lawrence Taylor angle. LT was huge for TV ratings even though it didn't translate into PPV buys.

Closing stretch of what's actually a pretty good match. Dreamer gets the win with an enzuigiri, but Spicoli lays out Beulah with a DVD afterward. This is put over big and seems like an attempt at re-doing the Douglas/Pitbull halo angle, but it sort of rings hollow after all the times Beulah and Francine have both been destroyed already. Where were all these people when Francine got Superbombed, huh??! Also, this isn't it a fair criticism but I was pissed when this ended because I thought for sure this was going to be the Lawler angle, dammit.

Other than a few advanced moves from the Eliminators, this could easily have taken place on a regional Midwest or southern indy circa 1989. The FBI are so good at shtick that this doesn't feel like a '90s east coast crowd at ALL. Other than "whoo"-ing on the chops, this is a crowd that seems emotionally invested in who wins or loses. They boo the shtick of the heels, cheer for the Eliminators comebacks, and pepper the match with "U-S-A" chants that I'm pretty sure aren't meant to be ironic. Rich is a bastard at ringside and my biggest criticism is the lousy sound quality doesn't allow us to hear what he says during his pre-match spiel on the mic. He knows how to build to his interference and payoff too, and it results in a great pop when Saturn finally levels him with a spin kick and sends him flying off the apron. Easily the best ECW match of '97 and actually now one of my favorite in the history of the promotion--a testament to the timing and psychology of Smothers and Guido. I love the little bits of cross-promotion symmetry you only get on Yearbooks, with Ricky Morton and Tracy Smothers both providing out-of-nowhere awesome performances from two southern wrasslin' staples, in decidedly non-southern environments, on opposite sides of the earth at the same time.

Morton was a jarring sight here, but this is easily the best he's looked since the heyday of SMW. He bleeds, he bumps, he executes his offense, he gets over, and his timing with his partners and opponents is remarkably smooth for his FMW experience level. "Smoothness" actually is a running theme throughout this match, which is odd to say for FMW. But the execution, even on complicated stuff like Hayabusa's springboard flying attacks, is almost letter-perfect. And the timing throughout, down the stretch of the finishing sequence in particular, is superb. The only weird spot is Hayabusa and Awesome sort of staring at each other for awhile as Awesome is on the floor, but even that serves a purpose: it's so the crowd can see the stereo topes from Morton and Fuji. *Then* and only then does Hayabusa launch himself at Awesome. As of May this really feels like a top-10 MOTYC--remains to be seen if it stays there.

Yeah, underwhelming finish to Nitro. Maybe they were half-assing it because of the early timeslot. I don't know how anyone could seriously believe that Bischoff was going to interview the real Sting.

Greene is actually developing into an effective promo, but yes, it makes no sense for him to be teaming with Flair and feuding with Mongo. And even THAT could work if they make dissension between the babyfaces an issue, but they're completely glossing over that. The abbreviated nature of the show ensures that Flair and Piper get their stuff in and get out with a minimum of bullshit. The Wolfpack interrupt with some frat boy humor that makes for a fun contrast to their opponents.

Quick segment on another rushed edition of Nitro, the last 2 weeks of which have brought to mind the Clash from the spring of '91. Savage has been HEALED, praise be.

I remember being LIVID at all the Sunny Super Soaker commercials (which show up on the Yearbook later but started airing this night), actually blaming them for this mess of a segment, which already felt like it was starting at like 10:55. Bret gets some good lines in but is also kind of all over the map, and clearly stewing over Shawn's promo from a few weeks ago has thrown him off his game. So we go off in mid-rant in what's really one of the worst WWF production gaffes in its history.

A great series of podcasts, as usual, but I can't let this go re: the Misawa/Kobashi 10/98 match: "I don't want to spoil it, but there's a spot where ... and it's a travesty that [Kobashi/Misawa] won." THANKS, CHAD.

"I just want to have some fun with this character..." I smell the hand of Russo. I don't know if last week's segment really needed a sequel.

TitanTron videos are still pretty primitive at this point. Basically just action shots with occasional phrases on the screen all in the same font. Anyway, for a minute or two, Hawk and Animal are back in the Crockett studios pulverizing two geeks. It'd be a waste of talent but JC Ice and Wolfie D would be the greatest JCP jobbers of all-time.

Another standout interview from Austin, what a shock. He has threats for the head of the Hart Foundation snake, but promises to concentrate on the ass end first--Brian Pillman.

Steve Austin is a "babbling ass full of warmed over Texas cliches with barnyard overtones." Fantastic--in text it almost reads like the stilted, unnatural dialogue of a WWE Creative writer but out of Bret's mouth, it's gold. "Bret's big surprise" was another incessantly hot message board topic of conversation of the era, along with who the third man was and what Paul Bearer's secret was.

Good finishing stretch, with the Harts getting involved but not too much. Undertaker as champ really feels like he's second-rate, as Bret was the year before, like Rey and Punk later, and in a way that people would probably be howling over if it were an Internet favorite. Not a call-out of smark fans, just how I see it. Good chaotic scene in the post-match, as the Hart Foundation swarm Undertaker but leave Bret alone, which Austin takes advantage of. Then after running the Harts off he drops Undertaker with one more Stunner, just because. No question who the future star was, even in defeat.

Man, Lawler was bad here, though I had the same thought of him acting as a Vince surrogate, but then why the fuck even sign Shamrock if that's what you're going to do with him? The holds aren't really put over either, though in fairness even in the UFCs the announcers didn't really know what to "put over" because nobody really "knew" what such a fight would actually look like. The action itself is really good--the strikes don't get that over with a WWF crowd, but they do pop for Shamrock's takedowns and they do chant for him when Vader has him in holds. They punctuate this with a few good wrasslin' spots for the audience, and they make it work. I liked the match itself quite a bit and think the hostile crowd talk is actually fairly overblown...that said, they wouldn't be able to do this sort of thing with Shamrock facing anyone else on the roster.

There definitely hasn't been an entrance in the past several years that matched the "holy shit"-ness of the Ultimate Warrior deliberately walking to the ring at WrestleMania 7.

Agreed with all the criticisms of Earl--what's weird is, Dave Hebner was actually very good.

Hm...in that case, Meltzer states simply that he's a Samoan guy who worked Knoxville indies. The trail sort of ends there unless I can dig out some PWI issues that may have Tennessee indie results.

Todd Pettingill is SO out of place in the WWF now.

Nothing wrong with this segment per se but it probably would have been more memorable in 1995 or '96. ECW started to feel like old news almost immediately after Barely Legal went off the air. I am eager to see the heavily pimped Bigelow-in-ECW matches, at least.