Hootie Hoo! Trolling Tony back with some tears from the workrate party; yes,
it's the joint Gancarski/Misawa birthday edition. So settle down, have some
***3/4 star cake my mother made, and join me in giving thanks to Masaki Aso.

What Worked

Wow! That Tomzenk.com guy must be shivering with creme filled delite, as Virgil
Runnels puts down his Booking Hints From Heloise to grace the futuristic WCWSN
set. No doubt Sanjay is smiling on this one. Virgil promises some insight into
his recent capers with that young mack on the make Percy, which makes me think
of the only funny blurb of text I've read related to Master P's emergence:Hip
House Herbie Kunze regaling Tidbits readers with stories of a collegiate
immersion into the rap/dance scene by way of introducing his contention that he
didn't know who Percy was (and just when I thought Canada was bout it). Mercy!

Chavo takes on Lenny Lane as Tenay talks about the Renaissance Man Percy
Miller. Decent mat stuff from Chavo to start; one forgets the credibility in
Chavo's ringwork. Lane goes on offense; Scott Hudson talks about the sordidness
of the allure (sic) between Lenny and Lodi. Tenay cooes in apparent delight,
referring to Lodi's coming out; as if the Daisy Dukes weren't virtual oracles.
Chavo deserves better than the WCWSN treadmill. Lane probably doesn't.
Pedestrian offense from Lane as Dusty talks Geechee. Lodi comes out during
Lane's somewhat somnambulistic offense and mugs for the camera USWA style.
Chavo attempts an enziguiri; Dusty chides Chavo for too much elevation.
Guerrero goes over with a Tornado DDT. 6 Minutes, passable action, especially
when Chavo was on offense. I feel a philo essay coming on!

No Limit Lackey Tatum V. Dave Taylor. Taylor sports a truly repellent, brightly
colored singlet. Tatum breaks out a ponderously Goldbergian leg-trip takedown
early on, working it into a perfunctory legbar. Similarly decelerated armbar
rolled into a cross armbreaker; still, nice to see Tatum not Sickboying up the
place. Taylor comes back with all the usual offense until Tatum takes control
again with a T-Bone suplex. Taylor no-sells the suplex after the two count and
comes back with forearms and a single leg takedown into a listless toehold with
rope assisted leverage. Taylor goes even more old-skool with an anklelock. Then
Taylor lets Tatum up, working to the finish with forearms and his butterfly
suplex finisher.

La Parka and Damian. It's Mexican. An okay affair, low on psychology, but with
some crazy bumps. A bit disjointed for my tastes. Parka goes over with the
Corkscrew Moonsault as Dusty disses Parka's training regimen. This will be
popular with the workrate drones, but to me the work seemed craven in its
unwillingness to build to psychologically credible exposition. Whoops, more
three letter words again; a...@aol.com.

Finlay pounds a scrub and then trades some stiff blows with Mike Enos and then
beats the scrub up some more. Passable enough, but pointless. Finlay has grown
stale in WCW and needs some time in Europe or Japan where he might break out of
his four moves of ratings death template.

8 Man Tag Stills. Cru Rating is still three stars. A side Meta note: while the
Cru appreciates being lauded as the ultimate authorities in workrate, please
keep in mind that our main function is to troll. Rubbing Cru Knowledge into
people's faces only makes them feel inferior. And we wouldn't want that.

Disco and Iaukea throw each other around like they mean it. The Prince looks as
good as he has at any time since his NJ stint, carrying on the stiffness and
energy from the curiously good Karagias match on Thunder last. Tenay referred
to the difficulty of trying to get Prince Iaukea over. Disco delayed-sells a
phantom kick from the Prince in the middle of the match. Dusty bemoans his loss
of the Texas Heavyweight belt at the age of 19. I love how they play to the
smarts here, like the good folks in other arenas. After about 5 minutes, this
had a Coliseum Exclusive feel, but wasn't so bad the first time down.

What Didn't Work

Barbarian. Fortune. Crap brawling. Fortune is worse than Wattz. FFWD. Fortune
taps out to an armbar. Masaki frowns on this crap.

Swinger. Stevie Ray. MDB approves. Masaki frowns. Swinger's cute, Swinger's
sexy. FFWD.

Greetings, Kendall. May you and Mike Tolbert be comfy in this column. The mat
stuff in this one is very Ed Gantner Versus Kendall in 1986 Florida. Tepid
brawling makes me think of what an utter bust my birthday was until my dear
friend Allison called, what with my computer fritzing and all. I guess
wrestling is artistic like the Cru Trolls said, after all; when it's bad like
this match and the bottom matches in this column, it somehow makes you reflect
on how crap much of the rest of your life is.

Morrus. Flynn. Flynn to First Family. Flynn and Morrus to FFWD. I never liked
your mullet anyway, Jerry.

Considering the abysmal WCWSN ratings of late, swerving the viewers with a not
happening Rey/Kidman match for the mothballed title is a bad move. Tenay and
Hudson know who watches this show: wrestling fans. It would behoove Virgil
Runnels to give us a little of what we want: fifteen minute matches with
workers, untainted by Sid, Master P, Sable, and the First Family. Kidman makes
a reference to the Filthy Animals. They have killed this fucking division with
this bullshit mike work and pandering to the mongoloid teenagers in the crowd.
The work here was tepid exhibition fodder, with the approximate relevance of
that on some MTV special. About two minutes in, Hennig and Duncum and Konnan
run in; but it's no real loss. The gushing in other threads about how great
this episode was comes off as misguided; there's a reason I'm the WCWSN
authority: I can tell you, for instance, that this doesn't hold an English
Leather Scented Candle to the 10.31.98 LWO WCWSN. I can also tell you that WCW
is booked into a culdesac that even the marks in the crowd can sense (the same
marks, for what it's worth, that consider Oprah to be an arbiter of high kultur
literature and who think that art is a hobby and adjunct teaching is a
lucrative profession). Not only wouldn't I ask Kevin Nash to book a wrestling
company at this point, I wouldn't trust him to help me on a crossword puzzle. FIN