Some notes, procedural and otherwise: since next week is a Goldberg
retrospective, chances are low that I'll do a write-up... if I don't care one
way or another about Angle X or Match N, then chances are good that I won't
force it into a column (as this column and this columnist are subjective and
such)... as a general rule, I think WCWSN in particular and the promotion in
general are doing a much better job of making their promos and skits "count" in
terms of building toward making the matches seem important. Plus, I'll take a
questionable Konnan push over Leslie and Tenta and similar hacks every time.

What Worked:

Speaking of Konnan, Gangsta Charlie put his currently copious exposure to good
use in this episode. He did a decent job setting up a main event piersixer with
Stevie Ray in an In Ring Confrontation, but more importantly, he gave a fairly
textbook face interview setting up his match with Cowboy Chris. He talked up
Jericho as a great wrestler, and likened their match to Ali/Frazier or
Hogan/Goldberg. While it's hard to buy that hype, it's nice that he tried.

Music City Wrestling stalwart Nick Dinsmore has a decent little match with Norm
Smiley. The work was sound and I had no problem with the wrestling, but
Smiley's schtick could prove to quickly become a cul de sac in terms of
character development. Of course, he could always team with Miller. They're
both black and all.

Fit's match with Lizmark, Jr. featured all those de rigueur Fit spots as well
as an exceedingly graceful luchaesque mat sequence.

Shima Nobunaga, along with Tokyo Magnum and Kaz Hayashi, proves what a
colossally bad idea it is to bring in the marginal Mikey Whipprecht to be any
kind of player in the cruiser division when the future of wrestling is right
there just waiting to bump like motherfuckers for scale. Nobunaga was Onoo's
henchman here, wrestling Saturn in a match highlighted by Shima's first-rate
athleticism and suave technique. It's a tribute to Nobunaga alone that this
match was enjoyable to watch, ultimately transcending the Micron PC Bowl of an
angle that it footnoted.

It's hard to complain about a solid match like the one Alex Wright and Bobby
Blaze had, except to say that Bobby Blaze is the most uncharismatic wrestler I
can think of at 4 in the morning (the end of December).

Oh, yeah! David Sierra is back on my TV screen! He useta team with Ricky
Santana in the Barrio Brothers! Santana was this guy out of Florida who seemed
to have a certain potential to be a viable face at this point in his career,
but things didn't work out so good for Ricky! Oh, also, wasn't Sierra the Cuban
Assassin in Florida -- the Cuban Assassin was my favorite gimmick!

What Didn't Work

Hey, David Sierra gets Luke Perry'd by the monster Meng! In other words, he
jobs in eight seconds to the monster Meng! Why was this on my TV screen? Does
Meng have a one squash a month clause in his contract?

Konnan and Stevie Ray was pedestrian, with all of the high drama and fluid
motion of that episode of Davey and Goliath where Davey learns compassion for
the poor. The obligatory run-in finish didn't help matters. Huzzah. Whipprecht.

Fat Tony Gancarski
-- Waiting for the great leap forward.