WCW Saturday Night - 01/16/1999
This was like a big chunk of Worldwide Exclusives, again. A lot of recaps, and
a paucity of anything interesting here in terms of exposition. Here, for the first time, some bullshit from the RSPWMOd thread....
What Worked
Flair in the ring with the LWO (in Nitro recap form) was kind of a cool moment,
especially with him hugging Silver King and all, Juvi Whooing, and Rey
abstaining from Flair's de facto ethnic cleansing. Notice how deftly Flair
turned the boos directed to the LWO into cheers.
Jeff Warner, a new Power Plant guy, showed some rudimentary, if Vanilla,
offense against Disco Inferno. Warner stuck to the basics here -- crisp slams
and suplexes, vaguely heelish mannerisms -- but executed them convincingly and
used smooth transitions throughout. Odd to see the so-called heel Disco work
essentially face in this match, taking a beating until he found an opening to
do his finisher. Pathetic to see the starpower-starved Gainesville crowd
chanting for Disco, especially in light of the other dreck on this show.
Installment 2 of the white-hot Chris Adams/Chip Minton feud finds the judo
jacket wearing Adams showing more interesting offense (a dragon screw, for
example) than he has in a while (although the powerbomb he executed to set up
the superkick was Nashesque in its weakness). Minton looked sharp here, and I
can't complain about this.
There was nothing seriously wrong with Riggs/Putski. Credible psychology
highlighted by Riggs working over Putski's leg for a couple of minutes with
some fairly convincing mat work (a decent half crab, a spinning toehold, et
al.). Of course, Putski's offense blew chunks and Riggs's finisher is wack, but
whatever.
What Didn't Work
Wrath squashing Horowitz was too long and pointless (as is usual with the
former Adam Bomb), but my friend Jim on AOL would rather see one move from
Wrath than the repulsive sketches of Mark Henry, so maybe this belongs in the
other column.
Chad Fortune, being a complete and utter joke in the ring, does his part to
kill Gainesville and gets David Sierra to help him. Fortune did a lot of body
slams and some crap matwork, and he and the pensioner Sierra are not afraid to
work loose. Fortune's finisher is a single leg sweep.
The Monster Meng goes all death grippy on Mike Tolbert. Yeehaw.
Apparently the NWO has decided that there will be no tag team tournament, so
tonight's main event tag match is just a tag match, or something. I watched
Hudson and Tenay explain this three times and it makes no sense to me
whatsoever.
That Tag Team Main Event was just an abomination and a disgrace to WCWSN. The
crowd was like extras from Schindler's List, sitting on their hands, checking
watches, balancing checkbooks. It was about three minutes long, with Duncum
winning the match after legdropping Kaos (who was distracted, you see, because
Rage came out to distract him). What the hell is there to say about this?
Duncum's a sack of shit that can only be carried by Chris Jericho, apparently.
Kaos will just become Lex Luger. Mike Enos brings nothing to a match except for
stiffness when he's in with Benoit or Finlay. Bobby Eaton needs to get the hell
off my TV screen. And to think that a few weeks back I found things to bitch
about when Eddy and Chris Motherfucking Jericho were wrestling. Someone shoulda
slapped the taste outta my mouth then, because I was a punk talking a punk's
talk.
'Double Tough' Tony Gancarski:
Look how great my face looks now.