WCW STARRCADE: Thumbs up 43 (48.9%), Thumbs down 25 (28.4%), In the middle 24 (27.3%). BEST MATCH POLL: Jung Dragon vs. 3 Count vs. Knoble & Karagias 64. WORST MATCH POLL: Kronik vs. Vito & Reno 29, Lex Luger vs. Bill Goldberg 13

The anarchy that is the dressing room at World Championship Wrestling totally destroyed the last live Nitro show for three weeks on 12/18 in Richmond, VA.

A series of incidents resulted in three wrestlers walking off the show, Sid Eudy, Page Falkinburg and Kevin Nash, all of whom had key roles in the show, resulting in both Nitro and Thunder shows literally put together on the fly and finishing with a Nitro main event of Jeff Jarrett vs. Lance Storm TV main event before a largely dead crowd. How much of this is and isn't legit is the subject of speculation. With only a few exceptions, most within the company seem to believe all of the incidents were legit. The only overriding question mark is because of timing of certain things as well as the key involvement in all this of Falkinburg, who has done similar angles in the past, well set up, and in similar ways, and has always had a fascination with the late Brian Pillman.

The chaos started, and this clearly was not an angle, when Eudy had some sort of a problem with his role in the show. It isn't quite clear what the situation was. It is believed that Eudy expected the Starrcade match to be a double count out, but did agree to do the job in the end of Scott Steiner, and was not complaining about it after the fact. He was more upset about how he was asked, as when he came to the building expecting the double count out, he was given a piece of paper with his instructions for the show listing the actual finish. He was mad that Terry Taylor didn't come to him specifically to ask about the change rather than put it on a paper. Exactly what he expected or was told would be his retribution to get him to do the job without complaints apparently wasn't going to materialize on television. The plan was to use the TV, since Nitro is off until 1/8 due to pre-emptions, to build the show toward a main event on the Syn PPV on 1/14 in Indianapolis of Scott Steiner defending in a four-way with Rick Steiner, Jarrett and Sid Vicious. Vicious walked out before the show, after hearing what the plans were, and later claimed that his arm and shoulder were injured the night before. He was pulled from all bookings and plans were re-worked for the show, which he was a focal part of, to now build to a three-way title match on PPV.

After the first live match, in a segment which was set up to start with Ric Flair doing an interview talking about the main event, and Steiner coming out in response, Steiner asked if he could tweak the segment and go out first. When he did, he cut a promo on DDP. From a fan perspective, it looked as if it was nothing out of the ordinary, just building for a Steiner-DDP match as the TV main event. Backstage, everyone "knew" Steiner was going against the script of the show once again, and when he said that Page didn't have the balls to fight him, and talked about Page needing a sex change operation, everyone in the dressing room started looking at Page. Page got up in front of everyone and basically said something to the effect that enough is enough, and stormed downstairs. When Steiner came through the curtain, they got into an argument and Page threw a punch, or Page simply sucker punched him, depending on the version of the story one chooses to believe. Either way, it wasn't a good enough punch, because Steiner recovered, took Page down with a bearhug suplex like move, and was putting a terrible hurting on him for a full one minute with Page helpless on his back. It took seven people nearly the whole minute before they could even budge Steiner, and it was said to be a scary scene as he had a death like grip on Page. They were pulled apart and started swearing at each other. In the fight, Page's face was all cut up and bleeding with a deep scratch mark all around his eye and his face puffy and bloody. Steiner was going for his eye as he was pulled off. In the fracas, Steiner injured his ankle and also had swelling above the eye from the punch, but he was able to go out and do his scheduled promo and show closing angle, plus wrestle Cat in the Thunder main event.

Again, the eye could be the key, because what sold people on the Pillman-Kevin Sullivan original worked angle on a live Nitro is that Sullivan went for Pillman's eye, which is what wrestlers in the old days were taught to do immediately in street fight situations. Why Steiner would cut a promo on Page at this point is a question, although he was known to be hot at him, and going against the script by the major stars seems to be a weekly occurrence on a show where nobody has authority over the actors. It is true that Page had refused to work with Steiner because Steiner had insulted Kimberly a few months back, some people pointing out that their problem took place in the same building, "right here, in Richmond, Virginia," which resulted in Kimberly quitting the company because management didn't have the guts to insist Steiner apologize for uncalled for remarks. Many of the wrestlers sided with Steiner because Kimberly refused to work any angles involving Steiner saying she didn't want a mad man to put his hands on her, feeling that Kimberly's attitude was bad and was taking up so much TV time because Bischoff thought he could make a major star out of her during a time period when everyone wanted the next Sable.

Then again, who can blame the wrestlers, because every time Steiner has gone into business for himself, in the long run he's been rewarded, as has most of the unprofessional conduct by major stars in the company. All of the bookers at this point don't want to piss off any of the major talent because nobody knows who will be in charge, but the talent will always get another chance with new management no matter what happens now, and the bookers are all uncertain about their future because none of a longstanding good relationship with Bischoff. The fact the story that Page and Steiner wouldn't work together, causing a change in the main event of the 12/10 house show in Monroe, LA, had just come out, could have led to Steiner's actions, or also been something Page felt he could play on for a shoot angle, similar to his angle with Buff Bagwell many months back, which actually drew a 3.9 rating for a TV main event match before the angle was immediately cut off because it was getting over. Still, most, but definitely not all, believed it to be real, and that includes the ten percent or so who have seen through the shoot angles of the past that fool most of the wrestlers.

When it was over, Page walked out of the building saying words to the effect of "I'm out of here, f*** this place." Nash, surprising to some because he generally was one of the people who made fun of Page because Page takes himself and the business so seriously, left with him, causing more holes in the show since they were also to be doing an angle with the Natural Born Thrillers. Before Page left, Steiner said a few parting words to him, largely about his wife. Page & Nash told people on the way out that they weren't coming back until there was new ownership.

It wasn't the only backstage story involving Page of the night. Earlier, Page, who a week earlier vowed he would work with Mark Madden, but not ever talk with him outside of business, approached Madden diplomatically regarding their problems. One could speculate if he was trying to make amends with Madden all weekend, he may have tried with Steiner as well. Madden wasn't as forgiving, blaming Page for his being suspended on the Nitro nobody saw and claiming that Page had no reason to be mad at him, because it all started when Page called him to complain about his announcing and Page's wife Kimberly started swearing at Madden on the phone. Page denied having anything to do with Madden being suspended but Madden didn't believe him. When Page tried to shake his hand, Madden refused to shake in front of most of the dressing room putting his hands in the air and walking away. There was a lot of divisiveness on this issue as many were hot at Madden's behavior but others told him they thought he did the right thing. Page came off sympathetic to come, for standing up to Steiner in a fight that he had no chance to win, but a common reaction was that all these incidents that involve Page are because he's too much trying to constantly push himself and some noted that in a recent angle when he was supposed to diamond cut one of the Thrillers, he instead diamond cutted several of them.

The scripted ending of Nitro was that it would be revealed that Rick Steiner as the mystery third man in the PPV main event that was teased all show long by Ric Flair. However, due to a breakdown in WCW communication, Steiner never got the word he was supposed to be at this TV. So the show instead ended with Robbie Rage being put under a mask and pounding on Steiner as the mystery man, with the idea that probably on the next new TV show, which wouldn't be at this point until Thunder on 1/3 (unless changes are made and the "Best of Thunder 2000" is moved to 1/3 so the Memphis Thunder taping on 12/22, now scheduled for 1/3, is moved up a week because of all the problems), it would be revealed it was Steiner under the mask. Either way, it's a main event that appears to have zero box office appeal, but nothing in WCW these days has.

Assuming this is legit, and recognizing the company is dead as far as drawing money and upping TV ratings, at some point management needs to discipline this crew for their actions. Steiner, even though he's world champion and someone the company legitimately could build around for a long period in rebuilding the belt, has to be disciplined in some form because it's not a first time offense, nor a second, and he's already been suspended twice this year. The situation with Nash is so far past the point of discipline to being totally comical. Page, if he started a fight backstage, has to be disciplined in some form. However, Pillman was disciplined for his angles, which was used as a reason to prove them legit, but the discipline (being fired as a work to the point he was actually sent a termination notice and used it to open negotiations to go to the WWF, where he ended up in the funniest irony in that he worked the only people in the company in on his work to the point he got a contract release and was able to jump legit) was supposed to be a work.

The saddest part of all this isn't the mess the company is in today because of this, but that the young wrestlers in the company who have potential to be big players in a few years are learning that this is how the wrestling business operates by how the experienced dressing room leaders do their business. However, this is how a destructive wrestling business that doesn't make money operates, and not how a well-run wrestling business operates, and it's pity they may not understand the difference.

When running down the past year in wrestling, it has been one of the strangest and most newsworthy years ever. It has been a great year for one company, and largely a disaster for the few who dared attempt to play on the big field.

As the year comes to a close, wrestling has never looked to have more of an uncertain future. It's so strange writing that, because the years 1992-96 were very tough ones for the industry. None of the major companies were making money. Times were getting tough in WWF before the company switched gears and became the force it turned into. WCW during that period was on at least one occasion, exactly one Ted Turner veto away from being closed down because of money losses. Turner's loyalty to the product paid off as the Eric Bischoff-led company through the introduction of Nitro, paved the way for the strong economic rebound of the industry, with the WWF following suit with the revamped faster-paced Raw built around the creation of new stars. Yet even in hindsight, looking at close the business was coming to what could have been a disaster, the future didn't look nearly as murky as it does today.

While the WWF is past its peak, it's a marketing monster. Far stronger than the 80s model on so many different levels, for the first time in its history, it looks impossible to compete with. Nobody in the business, unless they either work for the WWF, or have economic ties and are supported by the WWF, have futures that could be called stable going into 2001. Even in the 80s when it was by far the dominant organization, it didn't offer certain aspects of the product, the old blood and guts style of wrestling than was popular in many parts of the country, and there was so much strong and marketable talent the company didn't control and plenty of people not working for the company seemingly doing very well. There are only so many jobs for wrestlers available in the WWF and the competition is fierce. One year ago, people were talking about Rob Van Dam as the next breakthrough star in wrestling. Now, he's looking at an uncertain future, and his future prospects are far brighter than the majority of those not in the WWF or WCW currently.

For the past six months, the big story has been about WCW and ECW. What will happen? And as each week goes by, things look and have gotten worse and worse over the short-term at least. Paul Heyman's line of late is that he doesn't fear the future, but the present is really scary. ECW is exactly one great television deal, if the deal provides for production costs and enough revenue to sustain an organization and for that matter create an organization, away from stability. But so is everyone that has attempted to get into the game in the last few years, none of whom have attempted to do something on more than a minor league basis that have survived. The nature of pro wrestling and television is that at no point in history, with the exception of the totally owned WCW group, has a television station bankrolled a wrestling company to where it could survive without other major forms of revenue. With the AOL merger approved almost completely this past week, and that merger combined with the horrible two years of business WCW has had are the probable causes of the sale, WCW appears to be 99 percent committed to being sold. At this point, a sale looks imminent to a group headed by Eric Bischoff, but it is not a done deal and those close to the situation say negotiations are progressing slowly and nothing will probably happen as it pertains to furthering them until after the first of the year because the key players involved in the finalization are going to be taking Christmas off.

At this point in time, not that touring wrestling is dead, but pro wrestling is a television driven business in this country. But does it need live touring to survive? The feeling within the WWF is that the live touring is still the backbone of the business, along with television. Having the big stars come to a city a few times per year ties the local city to the WWF as the home team, and providing entertaining shows, based on reviews, more often than not is like a local city supporting a winning sports franchise. That helps TV ratings, although entertaining television is far more important to ratings then providing good house shows, but in a close race, it's an edge and it's certainly better to provide a good live show than a bad one, or none at all. It bonds fans closer to the product, thus to the big matches and big storylines, concluded on PPV, which is where WCW really shot itself in the foot over the past few years. And, while competing against the production values of hours of free live television every week, can live touring of a company besides the WWF survive? Gate figures from WCW and ECW this year were not a strong sign, regardless of television ratings and exposure. WCW had a great level of exposure and large numbers of fans watching their TV, just not large compared with the levels of two years ago, but still similar levels of viewership to five years ago, which is about the point the company turned it around. It still has great time slots on strong stations. But a bad product that turned off its core audience while failing to interest a new audience has been death. ECW didn't have the exposure, and also failed as a touring company, as noted by its nearly dropping out of the house show touring business as the year has come to a close.

September of 1999 was only a little more than one year ago. But in wrestling, it might as well be ancient history because of how quickly the economy and the world have changed. WCW was already struggling then. We used the term free-fall over the previous year to describe it. Yet, when Vince Russo was hired, there was tremendous optimism. Whether WCW could beat the WWF was never the issue, although people seriously talked about it at the start. The issue was whether WCW could rebound and wrestlers, and fans, were ready for a real fight every Monday and the return of the two-horse race. Instead, so much damage was done that the company went from an estimated $15 million in losses for 1999 to a figure estimated at $60 million this year.

In the September 27, 1999 issue of the Observer, we laid out a prospective course for WCW. Whether it would have been the basis of a successful turnaround is impossible to know. It couldn't have been any worse than what was done. We wrote at that time that the answer was to mortgage the present to hope for an eventual future, a concept we said at the time wasn't likely to ever take place.

Instead, the company went from phase to phase. The first Russo era. A lot of early enthusiasm. Some exciting TV's. But more misses than hits and a destruction of the foundation of the product, the belief that the belts meant something and the characters stood for something. Prostituting the belt for a weekly rating, actually made worse during the second Russo regime, and turns so frequent that people couldn't keep up with, and eventually didn't care, about who to cheer for ruined the bond between the consumer and the company. Fans couldn't live the storyline, because the storyline was made into a farcical movie, perversely entertaining as a stand-alone, but nothing you could sustain week-in-and-week out, instead of a pseudo-realistic weekly drama. Then came the Kevin Sullivan era. The upside was that they attempted to build for the future, trying to create new stars and somewhat reign in the silliness. The bad news was Russo was still popular among the wrestlers, probably most of whom worked to make sure Sullivan wasn't successful, and he had other problems, the Chris Benoit fiasco, the injuries to Bret Hart and Bill Goldberg who could have been the key players in a turnaround, and his biggest problem was that he was in over his head and couldn't write entertaining television shows. The Benoit fiasco killed not only the title belt even worse, but took away a key ingredient the company had going for it, the ability to put on many entertaining matches on a television show. It was also a terrible morale builder. The wrestlers who were in the company saw Chris Jericho, which everyone not blinded by star power of the past knew was a guy who could have been a key player in a turnaround, made into a bigger star than he ever was by leaving. Then they saw Benoit and company come in and immediately deliver a monster rating for the famous match in Dallas. Basically, everyone in the company felt if guys who were never given a chance could become stars somewhere else, they wanted to be somewhere else. And the stars Sullivan tried to create, such as The Wall, were so far from being ready that the public didn't come close to buying them. Russo and Bischoff came back. For a few weeks, there was enthusiasm. But the reality was figured out by many before their first appearance. What was the over/under on how long the two would be able to co-exist? They started in April. By July they were dead, and they weren't exactly knocking them dead in the interim, although some of their TVs in the early weeks were the best TVs of the year, but in doing so, were also destructive to the foundation. While fans for that moment probably enjoyed the TV where everyone gave back their belts as newsworthy and well written, it and other treatment (the David Arquette fiasco if you can point to one incident) of the belts killed the foundation. Russo stayed on, built everything around himself and was a killer to business in doing so. And now Bischoff is the one to pick up the pieces.

Rumors about who Bischoff has as investors run rampant, if it is indeed even a plural. Rumors about how deep their pockets are also run rampant. The belief at this point seems to be the deal was all but a lock (Ted Turner himself privately gave the figure it was a 99 percent chance it would be sold) and the announcement could come at any time. Of course, stories that the announcement would be coming in the next week have been rampant several weekends. A few things are a given. Their pockets, whomever they are, most likely won't be as deep as Time-Warner's, and they, most likely, and again this is all speculation until the announcement is made, don't own the television station they are providing product for. Like USA Network is finding out now, the ratings pro wrestling delivers, even WCW, which still does far better than the prime time average for TNT and TBS, can make a strong difference in the perception and ranking of the network as a whole. Although with the exception of two years, the Turner era of pro wrestling was rife with money losses, bad booking, bad management and frequent management changes and a lack of a consistent direction, it still may be the best economic model for a wrestling company is being owned by the network. And that's likely gone.

If Bischoff is faced with a situation where he needs to turn a profit in a hurry, he's swimming upstream against a strong tide. And to make things worse, the confidence level in him isn't there at the start. He's viewed by many who recognize this lame duck position as horrible to be in, as the savior, because the company needs one so badly. But unlike before, when he was competing against a company that had its own economic problems, and stars used to making big money were looking to leave, and he had a big company behind him that could lose money short-term on big deals and exploded with the right angle, none of these forces are in place this time. The WWF brand is far stronger than ever. The WCW brand is far weaker. And there is no Ted Turner who owns a television station who can be talked into funding a comeback by out spending for the top stars, nor are there a free agent crew of 80s superstars that would mean anything today like Hogan, Piper and Savage, all of whom were practically retired as in-ring performers and thought to be done due to age by McMahon, when Bischoff resurrected their careers and drew big money with them, or what he tried to do with Warrior. There is no big company that owns the programming that is there to pounce on opposition weakness by offering big contracts at first. And there are no Rocks or Austins that are going anywhere. Between the more certain future of being with the big boys, stock options they'd leave behind, and the reality of fighting the political quagmire they've heard so much about, and in many cases been through, Bischoff can't repeat his previous success with the same formula.

He can't tour at first because there is no money to be made. But running TV tapings in the same location harkens back to the days of WCW at Center Stage. It's not a revenue stream. In fact, for a history lesson for those who don't remember Center Stage, WCW used to tape there every other week, in a 780-seat theater studio like setting in Atlanta. They didn't charge for tickets so it was easy to fill the small place up for a while. But in time, even for free, they couldn't fill it. By the end of the run, the company had to spend a lot of money advertising on radio in the local market on shows that for free, were only drawing a few hundred fans.

PPV has dried up with the Mayhem buy rate reaching a new record low level, and Starrcade probably didn't do much better. If there was a company with patience to bring in a new group of wrestlers, give them a flashy look, great writing and acting lessons and have them be a crew athletically gifted enough that after a few years in the ring, a few HHH's, Rock's and Kurt Angle's will be lucky enough to emerge. Make no mistake about it, this is a star driven business and with all the acknowledged greatness of Vince McMahon as a star-maker, he was exceedingly lucky to come across performers with the drive, look, athletic ability, acting ability and aptitude to carry the ball. If one or two guys catch on huge, like Austin did in the WWF spawning the way for Rock, it can make a world of difference, but they have to be given that opportunity and not have their legs cut off by jealous older wrestlers before they get to that level. For all people want to point to Goldberg in WCW, everyone also knows that Goldberg snuck through, and by the time the sharks went after him, he was already established as a phenomenon. But also, the sharks did in the long run get him.

This is the catch 22. Without house shows, a farm system, and working 200 nights per year, none of these men the WWF established as stars would have progressed quickly enough. Again, one can point to Goldberg, but he did it in two minute matches and I don't think people will buy a second Goldberg gimmick as the big thing. None wouldn't have made it with veterans holding them down by not allowing new faces get the interview time and be presented as threats to them in match sequences and results. If Rock would have been in WCW the way the fans didn't care about him after a few months of his initial push, he'd have been discarded as quickly as Prince Iaukea (who was being given a huge push in WCW at the same time when both were over with the audience about an equal amount). But for WCW to put in place what makes the WWF the start-of-the-art in the industry, you are talking about hundreds of millions of dollars spent per year, and there is no way at present to offset that in revenue.

Bischoff's strong suit is as a deal maker and that's something that should never be underestimated. He convinced Ted Turner to take a huge risk and put Nitro head-to-head with Raw. Everyone thought he was insane, and it would cost him his job. Instead, he took a business where everyone was losing money, and paved the way for it to become far more lucrative than it has ever been at any time, anywhere. He convinced Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage and Roddy Piper to join WCW, people who had never even considered going to the small guys down South. Obviously, he got enough investment money together to put together a deal to purchase the company. Two of his other deals that could have been gigantic both fell through at the last minute. A deal to do bi-monthly specials on NBC could have put WCW back in the game when WWF had started dominating, that is, if the specials were good. If the specials were the quality of the product at that time, well, it would have been a great deal squandered. But the NBA strike ended and the deal was never finalized. The deal to split the company and do the Fox vs. TBS could have sparked some interest, but again, it was never completed.

For the good of the industry, I'm hoping I'm missing something here. Or that Bischoff will prove me wrong, and he did prove a lot of people wrong in 1995. But Bischoff proved people wrong only in the short run the first time. Ultimately, spending big money for older wrestlers with limited time left on their drawing power clock was like people predicted, the sports philosophy of trading draft choices for a lot of veterans, getting a couple of winning seasons, and suffering a drought in the standings for years as repercussion. When he was on top, he didn't create the foundation for long-term future success. The plethora of mid-card talent he introduced is now either physically destroyed from a style not suited for long-term, emotionally destroyed from years of confidence shattering non-pushes, or the lucky ones are now in the WWF and propped up the second tier during a record year. And now, when the most important thing is re-creating that foundation, will he have the economic backing to do so? And will new fans, whose rapidly changing tastes in wrestling and increase boredom due to overexposure with even what would have been considered a great wrestling product one year ago, give it a chance when all signs point to a downward cycle. Far more than little ways, or big ways, to improve Nitro, or changing booking or even giving young guys a chance or even lucking out and finding a Rock somewhere, that is the big question facing Bischoff. Ultimately, much of the excitement of a business that seems to thrive best when there is real competition, is depending upon a surprise answer.


WCW: At this point the 1/14 Syn PPV is looking something like this: Scott Steiner vs. Rick Steiner vs. Jarrett in a three-way for the WCW title, Goldberg & Dewayne Bruce vs. Bagwell & Luger and if Goldberg & Bruce lose, than Goldberg has to retire (as if anyone takes that one the slightest bit seriously--probably this is the spot for Bruce to turn on Goldberg), Page & Nash (if the company is sold by that time or they come back) vs. two members of NBT's who will keep the team a secret until match time, Rection vs. Douglas for the U.S. title, Funk vs. Crowbar for the hardcore title, Chavo Jr. vs. Helms for the cruiserweight title and probably something along the lines of Team Canada (Storm & Awesome & Skipper) vs. FA's, and maybe Reno & Sanders vs. Vito & Johnny the Bull

Notes from 12/18 Nitro in Richmond, VA. Overall it was depressing because the small crowd was pretty much dead most of the way, killing the atmosphere. Flair opened saying he would later reveal Steiner's opponent, or opponents for the Syn PPV on 1/14. Helms pinned Moore with the vertabreaker, which is a reverse Gori especial bomb (a Mexican move adapted into Japanese women's wrestling). A plethora of high spots. They mentioned the match from the night before, but hardly put it over the way WWF was able to elevate Edge, Christian and the Hardys off similar calibre PPV matches. These guys worked great and nobody saw them as anything more than jobbers. Lots of good moves. Probably would have come across as a fantastic match in another building. Guerrero Jr., doing commentary, hit the ring and attacked both, but they came back on him with the "Nightmare on Helms Street," a spinning neckbreaker while Moore has the guy in an airplane spin. This sets up Chavo vs. Helms for the cruiserweight title on PPV. The announcers did try to get the cruiserweight division over, saying it was one of the keys to WCW's success a few years ago. Rection yelled at Cajun about being Guerrero's friend. Steiner did his promo on Page. Flair came out and said the PPV would be headlined by a three-way, with one of the guys the winning of a mystery four-man tourney on TV and the other being introduced at the end of the show. Steiner vowed to find out who the guys were and take them out. Flair said if anyone revealed they were in the tournament, they'd be out of the tournament. Luger & Bagwell are now a tag team called Totally Buff. Funk beat Meng to keep the hardcore title. Funk was handcuffed, a reversal of the spot from the PPV, and then started begging off. Do you realize it's now been more than three years since that scene in "Beyond the Mat" (it was in September 1997) was filmed where the doctor told Funk he needs a knee replacement and that he shouldn't actually be able to walk on his knee, and since then he's done all these pro wrestling matches in his mid-50s and taken all that punishment, and is still running around. Funk bled. Meng had the death grip on when Crowbar hit Meng with a wrench and Funk pinned him. Crowbar said that he lost his edge, was back to his old auto mechanic gimmick to get it back, and wanted to win the title back from Funk at the next PPV and would make sure Funk was at 100% when he beat him. The only way he could do that is a build a time machine and transport himself back to 1975. Vito vowed to get back at Reno. He talked about how family always came first and he always stood behind his brother but his brother this time backstabbed him. What storyline is he following? Crowbar told Awesome he was dropping the gimmick to get back his edge and suggested Awesome do the same. In the tournament, Storm beat Misterio Jr. with the maple leaf. Not as good as you'd think, but the finish was really good. Misterio Jr. taped his ribs selling the PPV match from the night before. There was nothing wrong with it, but it wasn't outstanding or anything. In the other first round match, Jarrett beat Awesome. They had a bad match. After a ref bump, Jarrett went for the guitar, but he got caught. As the ref was putting the guitar away, Jarrett went under the ring for a second guitar, used it for the pin. Smiley was happy that Glacier was returning. They can bring him in but they can't bring in someone like Tajiri or Lynn or Van Dam. Earlier in the show, Steiner confronted Jarrett and asked him if he was in the tournament and Jarrett denied it. Steiner confronted him again, but Jarrett said he had to lie or he'd have been out of the tournament but he entered the tournament to protect Scott's back. Cat pinned Wright with the feliner in a bad match. Sanders did this long interview where he had nothing to say because the idea was to do something with Page & Nash, and when that was dropped, they told him to just go out there and kill time. Flair came out to save it announcing there would be a tag team Battle Royal on Thunder to determine who got the next title shot with Page & Nash. Goldberg beat Bagwell via DQ in 31 seconds when Luger hit Goldberg with a chair. Sgt. Dewayne Bruce made the save but Luger laid him out with a chair and Goldberg saved him. Goldberg was supposed to kick a chair into Luger's face, but it didn't quite happen since the chair never came close, but Luger sold it anyway. They had several bumpers telling people about the pre-emptions over the next two weeks. Main event saw Jarrett over Storm clean in 4:42 with the stroke. Storm got the maple leaf on but Jarrett made the ropes. At one point Storm missed a pescado. Partially due to it being two heels, there was no crowd reaction to the match. Steiner with a pipe came after Flair, who opened a door and left while a masked guy came out and attacked Steiner as the mystery opponent

For the Thunder tapings later that night, with the same characters missing in action. Guerrero Jr. beat Knoble to keep the cruiserweight title in what was said to be a pretty decent match. Helms interfered to help Guerrero Jr. doing the gimmick that he's making sure Chavo doesn't lose the title so he can beat him at the PPV. Nothing wrong with the idea except they just did the exact same angle earlier that night on Nitro with Crowbar and Funk. Duggan makes amends with Rection and wants his country back, sort of like Sgt. Slaughter, although for some reason that one was more effective. The tag team Battle Royal was said to be Perfect Event and Jindrak & O'Haire making a bunch of teams look like jobbers and then going over. The gimmick is that two of the four, but they won't say which two, will form a tag team at Syn to face Page & Nash for the belts. Vito and Johnny the Bull beat up on Sanders and Reno, so the Mamalukes are back together. Konnan pinned Skipper. Bigelow pinned Crowbar due to interference from Meng. Goldberg pinned Smiley. Douglas & Kronik beat MIAs when Douglas hit Rection with a chain and pinned him after the franchiser. After the match, Kronik laid out the other two guys. Storm & Skipper are ready to attack Duggan, but Awesome makes the save, but Awesome then turns on Duggan and joins Team Canada as The Canadian Career Killer. Main event saw Steiner beat Cat to keep the title. After the match, the masked man was on the stage and Steiner chased him out

Rection ended up not having any ligament damage which gave everyone a sigh of relief since he's been doing so well

Some Thunder notes from the show that aired on 12/13. The three-way with Dragons, Knoble & Karagias and 3 Count was a hell of a match. It's really a shame that, due to size, politics or whatever, that they aren't given any credibility when working with the stars so fans take this as the battle of the jobbers no matter how good the action is. They are doing a gimmick where Knoble & Karagias can't stand each other as teammates, and in the finish of the match, Karagias shoved Knoble out of the way so he could get the pin on Moore after a double superplex using a ladder. Steiner killed Kwee Wee. Just before Kwee Wee got killed, he said you wouldn't like him if he's mad. You know, just once, I'd like to see him get mad so we can figure out what we wouldn't like. At this point, every time he's about to get mad, he gets his ass kicked and is left laying, which isn't all that threatening. Duggan turn got a pop. It appears they are dropping Crowbar & Awesome's retro gimmicks and going back to their old gimmicks. Actually Crowbar seemed to be getting over better with the new one. Since he's right now mid-card, it's not a bad gimmick. Where the deal with Awesome was bad, is he had a chance to be a top guy and "That 70s Guy" is not a top guy gimmick. Konnan did commentary. He was a hell of a lot better prepared than Stevie Ray. I liked him, although he didn't even last the whole show because Jarrett took him out, because he tried really hard to get over the guys that usually not much emphasis is put on. The whole key is to get the fans emotionally attached to the wrestlers they see so they care about what they do, and then if the wrestlers work hard, that completes the package. To do that they have to be given distinct personalities and keep them for a long enough time that they get over. The impatient switching (unless it's a total loser gimmick) just to switch just leads to fan apathy. Right now the writing is better, sans the real bad holes and the fact they can't get it out of their system to insult their audience which right now is the last thing they should be doing. The younger guys work hard, although they are inexperienced. But nobody cares about any of the characters that much. There's a formula to show how effective your TV is, and that's what percentage of homes order the PPV. If WWF is getting 500,000 buys on five million homes watching Raw or Smackdown (that isn't the exact numbers, but not that far off), that is one in ten. If ECW is getting 70,000 buys on 700,000 homes (in the TNN days anyway), that's also one in ten. However, WCW's 2.5 rating for a Nitro is close to two million homes. If they could get one in ten to order the PPV, that's 200,000 homes and they'd be very happy to average that. But for all the reasons everyone knows, they are getting about one out of 33 homes to order, which is not the sign of bad ratings, but that the people who watch religiously don't care enough about the product and it's probably because they feel they've been ripped off for two years. Hopefully when Bischoff gets in charge, he'll put a spokesperson in to give a full battle plan on TV about how things are going to change and they are going to be more fan friendly and more fan responsive. Don't rip the last two years. We've heard enough of that talk on the show about how bad the product is and the new geniuses are going to turn it around only to have the product get worse. And the person as the spokesperson can't be Bischoff. First off, his character has generally played heel and he's more effective personally in getting people not to like him. Second, he's already been on TV promising to turn things around when they got worse, so nobody will take him seriously. I've always thought Arn Anderson was the man for the spot

There was a joke going around at TV that DDP asked Sanders to deliver the line in a promo saying that DDP may be 45, but he looks 35 and wrestles like he's 25. The line wasn't delivered, because it made no sense for a heel to say that. However, it has been repeated backstage as a source of comedy, and Mark Madden finally gave the line on the PPV

Quotes from Sid Vicious in the Richmond Times-Dispatch in an interview with Coveh Solaimani. "I'm a little better wrestler than most people think. You got two guys (he and Steiner) who aren't crybabies out there and like it good and snug." When asked about the young wrestlers in WCW that are getting pushed, he said, "It's not he age of the person. It's the credibility of the person who gets over in this business. They have given some of these young guys huge pushes--some of them are getting over but a lot of guys aren't--and if you have been on TV six months to a year and if you haven't gotten over, then you aren't going to get over." Good thing WWF didn't think that way after the first year of pushing Rock and HHH

More lack of communication. On the World Wide show that aired this week, they aired the match from the 1997 Road Wild show with the Steiners against Nash & Hall. So after the ruling from upstairs that nobody could say Hall's name on TV, they put a tape of him on the air

Sanders did a radio interview this past week where he noted that after training for two years, WCW let him go in around May of this year. A few weeks later, Terry Taylor and Russo got him his job back and he ended up going from fired to a major pushed player on the show. He said that the Power Plant doesn't get guys ready to do promos on TV well enough

With anarchy running so strong, a lot of wrestlers, so as not to interrupt a vacation that lasts until 1/8, may create or exaggerate injury or illness conditions to get out of working Memphis this week since the Nitro episode won't be airing in the U.S. anyway

The only person left on the booking committee who liked the 70s guy gimmick for Awesome was Ed Ferrara, who is the head writer of the show. Everyone else was in agreement he needed to get out of it. A lot of people are talking now that Ferrara, a disciple of Russo, is responsible for most of the bad ideas when they're broken down. The feeling is that Ferrara is very good at putting together scripts and formats with his background writing real television comedy, but that his wrestling knowledge isn't there

Dustin Runnels was at Starrcade, being called by management to return. Runnels is reported being paid $750,000 per year but the company isn't using him, and he's mainly wrestling for his father Turnbuckle Championship Wrestling group which runs sold shows in the Georgia smaller cities. When he got there, they told him they had no plans for him, and he went back home

Pamela Paulshock missed Starrcade and Nitro because she was filming a movie

Nitro/Thunder tapings on 12/18 in Richmond, VA drew 2,872 in the building, which was 2,080 paying $49,610.