WCW Saturday Night - 04/17/1999

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Making their monkey asses infamous: Jen from St. Petersburg writes in on the
heels of my discussion of Depeche and Garbage, axing "What are your favorite
songs right now, Mr. Gancarski?" Well, here's a few: Costello/Bacharach,
'Toledo'; Saint Etienne, 'Stormtroopers In Drag'; Ben Folds/Bill Shatner, 'In
Love'; Placebo, 'Pure Morning' (Les Rhythymes Digitalis Mix); OMD, Souvenir
(Moby Mix); and virtually anything by Belle And Sebastian, Pulp, or Stephen
Merritt (Magnetic Fields, Future Bible Heroes) or produced/remixed by Ganja Kru
or Urban Takeover. All of these conceivably could be used as wrestling theme
songs, so ObWrestling and all that.

Scott Hudson, in a truly surreal moment, called this WCWSN episode a Saturday
Night Rave-up. I couldn't agree more. Blow your whistles! And hand me the
Vicks! And rub my back!

What Worked

Bobby Blaze's aerobics outfit was utterly swank in the manner of a matron
sweating to the oldies between hits of valium with a vodka chaser. Vampiro
didn't look as tentative as he did in his marathon Thunder match with
scenery-chewing Buff Bagwell and he got some stiff shots in on the deserving
Blaze, so this was an okay opener. Blaze's new perm didn't take, but it was
comic in spite. Vampiro, for all his faults, should be a star; he's much more
enjoyable to watch than he should be for all of his gaps in technique, largely
because of his ineffable charisma.

I missed the opening credits, but if they were half as hilarious as the shots
of people "rave dancing" in front of the WCWSNTron showing wrestler entrances,
then they had to rule. Looks like Ecstasy Eric hauled in some of his If It
Feels Good Do It clientele from Top 40/Dance night at Coconut Charley's or
wherever it is he pushes his pills. Pill party to pill party, but my old buddy
Jim steadfastly refuses to buy into that rave music (they call it music; he
calls it noise); he'll stick to his old Led Zeppelin records because he's the
Tall Cool One.

The bumper music rules too. Ravey! Glowsticks! Sorted for E's and Wizz! 20000
Hardcore Members.

The consistent to a fault Barry Horowitz hits the coolest neckbreaker variation
on Disco, which canceled out the Lugerness of Disco's reverse atomic drop. This
was a really nice, basic WAWLI match, with Barry busting out a textbook N.
Lights Suplex, a solid kneelift, swank Euro uppercuts, et al. Disco's offense,
by comparison, is really uninspired and doesn't seem to vary from match to
match of late.

Chris Adams had a match with Ernest Miller. They set it up well with mike work
and it was pretty okay for an old-style face/heel match. Nothing was overtly
messed up compared to Evan's mustard bomb that preceded this match.

Raven. Saturn. Damien. El Dandy. I'm exceedingly happy with everything
associated with the three-way tag feud at the top, and it's good to see
Handsome Perry and Polo Johnny get some work in. That said, the luchadores got
no offense in, and I'm usually bugged by that. Still, this worked because it
built up the credibility of the weakest (in terms of storyline) of the three
teams a-feudin, and I like Raven and Saturn, so there. But I won't be down with
this week after week.

My mom, who doesn't watch wrestling, was completely taken in by Benoit/Malenko
V. Kidman/Rey. She totally bought the Horsemen team as asskicking heels, and
was surprised that Rey and Kidman were tag champs so dominated they were by the
Horsemen. This match, truncated as it was by genre restrictions (WCWSN Main
Event and all), still ruled it. Stiff offense from the Horsemen, with Benoit
breaking out the chain of suplexes as a highlight. Benoit an asskicker in the
corner, pounding Ricky Kidman and taunting the crowd by joining in their
"Horsemen Suck" chant. Dickish Dean Malenko stirs some shit as well, knocking
Rey off the apron just because he can and helping Arn apply some boot leather
to Kidman on the arena floor, before giving shoutouts to Fit Finlay by way of
elbowing Kidman across the bridge of the nose. Some bookers would have you
believe that if a mark saw the 2H facing off against Barbarian and Hugh Morrus,
the mark would assume that the big piles were better wrestlers. Some workrate
reporters would tell that booker that he's a jiveass, because if you can't get
talent over you have no bidness in the position. This was a great match, with
Dean and Chris combining the best of 80s tag stuff and their world-class
offensive arsenal. Sure, Kidman reversed a Malenko powerbomb, and Robinson
should've been refereeing, but those are just quibbles: this was as good as one
can expect a WCWSN Main Event to be, and credit for that has to go to the three
world-class workers in the match and Billy Kidman.

What Didn't Work

Evan Courageous and Lenny Lane were not afraid to blow more than one important
spot, as I explained to my mother who watched this match with me and found
herself laughing as I did. They fucked up a swinging neckbreaker, an inverted
powerbomb, and a plain old powerbomb. Downy-soft elbows and kicks from Striker
Evan, who is -- at best -- a work in progress. Evan sells for shit, and is so
much worse than the Toryumon people WCW did jack shit with (who have about as
much time in the sport as Evan). When Evan hit his Skytwister Press or
Corkscrew Splash or Sidewalk Slam for the finish, it came off as flat and
unconvincing, as the matches' spots told no real story. Spotfests really suck
when one of the rasslers blows more spots than Li'l Kim does MCs. They call
them blowjobs, I call them noise.

Bam Bam feels the Wrath. <------ Haiku!
'Hardcore' wrestlers can blow me.
This isn't rasslin.

Crush and Chip Minton; Bryan Adams: stale <-- 2
Haikus
Who booked this derivative power moves in a turgid
shit? They can blow me. squash. Minton sucked too.

Bobsledding a sport?
I'd rather watch the blank screen,
blank; my so-called life.

Joe Gomez is always good for a laugh, especially in his new "hide the stomach
tumor" Hennig trunks. The Gambler is always good for a laugh, hearkening back
to the days when Arn Anderson made in-store appearances at vermin-ridden
supermarkets. Hey! Wait! Arn's s'posed to be at the BI-LO Center in the near
future. Oops! Don't eat the sample cups of Chili, Mr. Lunde! This match, well,
was a big heap of cliche. Nothing was egregiously botched, but WCW employing
these two and televising them wrestling each other is disturbing as all
get-out. Joe Gomez wins with a Flying Burrito. Pretty appropriate finisher,
lardass. The fans seemed to be chanting "Jobbers" throughout the match for some
reason. To think WCW once pushed him and Renegade as sex symbols.

Face of Fear! Foot of Karate bores me.
Lightning! Barbaric echo They call it a martial art.
of chops through building. To me, fast forward!

You saw the impact Monstermeng. Well-liked
on Barbarian's jawbone! in the back, abandons Flynn
Whither Hugh Morrus? with, uhhhhh, abandon.

"Big" Tony Gancarski.