The Monday Nitro Workrate Report
A weekly look at what did and didn't work on Monday Nitro by Dean Rasmussen
Monday, February 1st, 1999
That was the best episode of AWA Monday Nitro EVER!
What Worked
Hennig plus Benoit equals GOOD WRESTLING- for whatever reason (well I
guess that should be "for Benoit reason") and since Hennig is in front
of the hometown, he's feeling it for once. Benoit beats the hell out of
everyone and then sells like a freakin CHAMP and then puts Minnesota Boy
over clean as a sheet. Benoit will put another Minnesota boy over
semi-clean as a sheet later- and all we can do is thank garsh that
Minnesota Boy Lenny Lane didn't get a match with Benoit during the
second hour (ALL-BENOIT! ALL THE TIME!) or golly knows what kind of
night this would have been when Lane whipped out the People's Kneedrop
for the big win over the former J-Cup Winner. Anyway, this was ANOTHER
cool tag match in WCW this month- as it seems you can't throw a vcr
without it taping one these days. Hennig bumped like a freak for Benoit
and Malenko, and Barry Windham was quite the non-entity, so this was
really good, And it was really long. People can whine about Benoit
putting everybody over clean as a sheet tonight but he's over as all
fudge. Malenko isn't over as all fudge so he can't afford to take a
clean pin at this point, so Benoit's the man. The beauty of Benoit is
that he only needs one midgrade win and he's back to being as over as
all fudge. Hennig hits the Fisherman Suplex and somewhere Jerry
Blackwell is smiling.
Van Hamner uses a Toprope Nodawa just like my favorite All Japan
wrestler Akira Taue (as a homage to the passing of wrestling legend
Giant Baba to liver failure maybe?) and then Kaos follows it up with
Springboard.. oh wait, it's Sandman. He's po'd that everybody else is
taking credit for things they stole from grainy W*ING tapes before he
got a chance to take credit for it! And he really hates Bam Bam! And
we go to commercial. Bam Bam Bigelow dragged a watchable match out of
the (HEY! sorta in-shape) Sandman- which is more than what anybody else
can say (except Mikey Whipwreckt ONCE). Bam Bam Bigelow is early
candidate for Comeback of the year- because he has had some choice
matches lately and has carried some real loads to decent matches, beyond
the resurgence of his stellar ECW stay. Sandman lucked into keeping his
gimmick because this guy can't ACTUALLY wrestle at all, since he was the
PINNACLE of the vaunted Great Heyman Creations- what with him being a
poor man's (NO, not Cactus Jack, he was NEVER in that league) Nakamaki
with Charismatic Mic-skills and a Cool Entrance. Bam Bam looked great,
Sandman does fearlessly take ANY bump so this would be smart feud- as
would any feud where someone can figure out how to setup Sandman's idiot
bumps to the point that they make sense in context. Anyway....
Lash Laroux ROCKS in his Nitro debut as he whips out his PowerPlant
Triple Bock Offense and takes it to the wildly great Billy Kidman for
WHAT? forty five minutes. Lash kills himself over the rail, does a
goofy clothesline and does TWO Falcon Arrow Variations. Billy puts an
end to The Dream with his own superslick offense and we take this baby
home with Big Pop-inducing Shooting Star. I really dug this match and
all, but Venum Motherfuggin Black was throwing softballs at Bischoff
RIGHT OUT FRONT instead of wrestling against Billy Kidman. I assume he
and SuperBoy (who was also in the crowd) are gonna be on Thunder and
WCWSN and I'll not get to fawn over their awesomeness like I want to.
And WHAT THE HELL was SilverKing wearing. Rey pointed out the Villano
IV Pink Panther T-shirt and I FELL OUT.
Scott Steiner decides to actually wrestle- as opposed to "wrestle
heel"- and Jericho is up for the challenge and they have about as good a
match as you are gonna get out of Big Poppa Icopro. Saturn's
sexually-confusing scariness is OFF THE CHARTS! and I'm also confused
because Saturn helps a guy who is currently stalking and sexually
harassing Kimberly. If Saturn would just turn into the super great
psychotic cross-dressing ass-kicker and embrace his quasipseudo-gay
sub-culture tendencies, we would REALLY have something really cool on
our hands. It would SO Escarlotta Pimpernella Goes All Gringo and it
would ROCK. I guess Our Role Model is getting in as much real wrestling
as he can before the big jump- since at this rate, the WWF is going to
be a hideous cross of XENA-Warrior Princess, Gorgeous Ladies Of
Wrestling and "WILEY COYOTE!" by the time July roles around. Maybe he
and Mankind can have a horribly embarrassing "comedy" match during
halftime of the Grey Cup or something. He and Steiner work stiff as shit
as they seem to be showcasing the fact that Jericho is gonna be able to
carry Kane to good matches in August since he can draw THIS match out of
a useless slab like Steiner.
Benoit does STANDING Double Snot Rockets on the way to beating the shit
out of Scott Hall and that was DEFINATELY NUMBER ONE AND THE BEST. The
Snot Rocket is right behind the Diving Headbutt, the High Angle
Powerbomb, the Toprope Gutwrench Suplex and the Locomotion Suplex as his
coolest moves. Bret Hart comes out and makes with the jokes as he also
puts Benoit over in the commentary. I'm guessing this is gonna be
reversed or something. As it stands now, one of the parts of this match
that worked was that since Benoit jobbed to Bookerman's pally and
all-around lapdog, I don't have to order the PPV since it now DEFINATELY
has NOTHING I'd EVER pay to see and THUS my currently
pregnant-with-our-second-child wife won't punch me directly in throat
for throwing away money on a PPV I'll spend most of the time complaining
about. So thank you, WCW, for depriving us of Benoit/Bret Hart for
another PPV.... again.
What Didn't Work
Scott Norton REALLY beat the living shit out of the Shat and when two
guys who really suck really beat the hell out of each other, I guess
it's a real good thing. I dunno. I mean, I'm really glad that Medical
science has taken open-heart surgery techniques to such lofty heights of
success, but I don't actually want to WATCH it. My MAIN problem with
this match was that Norton sold more for the Shat than he sold for Yuji
Nagata for the IWGP title at the Tokyo Dome so to hell with Scott
Norton. And that just leaves the Shat. GOD! He kicks like a pussy. To
paraphrase Phil Schneider, you can beat on Miller all day but you can't
polish Shat. HAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!
The anecdotes with the nWo trying to figure out how to get from the
airport to the Target center were great training films for a Logistics
of Time-Management course but it ain't fucking wrestling so shove it
back up your ass, you batch of idiots. They were Vince-irific so THAT
was an upside.
The DDP skit was WEAK. And it made DDP look like a big pansy because
he didn't go after the Wolfpack with a gun like an actual husband
would. Wotta wuss. What kind of MAN are you? That whole angle is SO
third-rate BAD ECW 1996. PEE YOO!
Once again: Luchadore in RING- good. Luchadore throwing Softballs at
Dunking Booth while wearing insane clothing- less good.
HEY! Van Hammer is only wrestler other than Buck Rock n Roll Zumhoff
from the whole state of Minnesota who didn't win a match tonight.
Actually, i guess that works. OOPS! Oh. I forgot Baron Von Raschke....
Benoit wants to have a wrestling match and beats the hell out of Hall
for a while. Scott Hall- fearing that he will totally destroy his
reputation as the laziest wrestler alive- decides to turn this-
midmatch- into Mike Rotundo vs Chris Benoit as he whips out the JEFF
JARRETTICIZED! offense with the Abdominal Stretch! AND HE GRABS THE
ROPES! THIS AIN'T WORLDWIDE, SHITHEAD. Your in the fucking main event of
Nitro with Chris Motherfucking Benoit- DO SOMETHING, you load. Benoit
in the main event two weeks in a row is good. The odiferous clumps of
feculence he's stuck in the ring with is BAD. Awyeah.
THERE YOU HAVE IT.
DEAN RASMUSSEN.
