Did they take Dusty out back and put him out of our misery? Did Terry Taylor finally seize control of everybody who can work? Did Sullivan promise to get out of the way of progress to help sign Benoit if they give Meng on a last-ditch useless, heatless push? Welcome to an actually GOOD Nitro. WOO-HOO!

This was the night where Canadians dragged Crappy American Stiffs to decent matches. Bret Hart is better than Ric Flair ever was because he dragged the thoroughly totally ungood Lex Luger to a quite sound little match in 1998! Flair dragged Luger's sorry carcass to a good match way back in 1988- when Luger still had a pulse. Add to that that Bret put him over clean as a sheet thoroughly indicates the amount of ass-kicking that he handed Luger. There is a direct correlation to how good this match was to the actually REALLY good Benoit/Booker T matches. Booker T is WAAAY better than Luger but all of the best of seven series had the same idea in the story-telling- work around and work to the bigger wrestlers powermoves as the key to the psychology of the match: the Canadian beat the hell out of the limited heavyweight as the heavyweight sold really well and the Canadian sets up the transitions of the heavyweight to offense perfectly, getting the most pop per powermove. Booker T vs Benoit was better because Benoit didn't have to carry every single moment of the match against the good but totally outclassed Booker T, but Bret Hart shows why Vince REALLY fucked up by screwing him over because NOBODY can carry a stiff like BRET HART. That includes Flair AND Kawada. He uses the Benoit/Booker T story and works total circles around Luger to get the same effect and delivers the motherfuckin goods. The Jericho vs Stevie Ray match was a whole lot like Fit Finlay vs Jim Neidhart in that since Stevie Ray is as useless as his brother is good' he would assume the role of a slightly better than the totally nothing Niedhart, Our Role Model does EVERYTHING in the match, trying to keep Stevie Ray in one place for most of the match and does a good job of carrying a match with Stevie Ray not moving more than two or three feet at one time, thus assuming his role as a less incredibly great Fit Finlay. Stevie Ray takes a bump and the Giant comes in and the match finishes after the ref bump and the title changes hands for some reason. Okay, Dusty isn't dead. It was still the best Stevie Ray singles match ever.

Hey! Alex and DI are giving Magnum Tokyo a bunch of guff! Goofy Groupo Revolucion rookies in goofy angles with the goofiest WCW good working wrestlers! What else could I want? (to never see the Public Enemy on my TV ever again maybe?) Eddy continues his Goldbergian winning streak and I'm happy. Hey it's MAGNUM TOKYO! WOO-HOO!

Juventud defends the belt against the sudden total disco boy Billy Kidman. Not their best match ever and the fact that it followed Luger/Bret and the fact that the North Dakota crowd had used up it's quota of popping for little guys during the Lucha three-way (what was up with THAT?!?! When did the Dakotas become the Land That Loved Lucha Libre? Maybe I'll move there.) kinda held it back. Still a good match. Another weird Dakota pop for Juventud at the end. Cruisers are over in the Midwest. There you go. What a weird freaking Nitro.

Saturn and Kanyon had a good match with a couple spots being set up really well- especially the Kanyon toprope ACEEEE CCCRRRUUUSSSSHHHHEEERRRR! and the tres SWANK toprope EXPLOIDER by Saturn. The ending blew goats. Either of these guys can go over the other clean as a sheet and it wouldn't affect their heat one iota and the audience wouldn't get irritated eventually as I get now but I guess neither of these two are allowed to have a Ravenless match. Raven the bumpmaster I dig. Raven the self-booker needs to send his shitty and stale ideas of booking-the-HELL-out-of-every-match back to the bush leagues of ECW undercards and not add it to the already WAY too bush league booking at the uppercard of WCW. These two are looking pretty great these days despite the pit of Raven-booking they are currently trapped in.

The Raven vs Boulder match was good. Raven is NEVER afraid to take the bumps that are sufficient to make a match interesting and Boulder wasn't afraid to work and bump to make this a good Garbage Match Lite match - which is what WCW is becoming the king of. Hey! Horace Boulder does a cool tope and takes the big elbow drop to the stop sign. The Saturn run-in in THIS kind of match makes booking sense- since it was an angle disguised as a match- though it was compelling action in the ring. The idiot run-in during the Saturn vs Kanyon match didn't work because it was a proper single wrestling match- where anything affecting it from outside nullifies all the psychology of the match before it- so in essence- it's the same as if they stopped the match five moves before the finish and went back to the lockerroom. Adding an angle to an angle like the Death Valley Driver at the end of Raven vs his disciple is totally fine. Raven the booker wasn't taking notes from Heyman when Heyman would have Raven and Tommy Dreamer booked nine ways to Sunday and then have on the same card Eddy Guerrerro and Dean Malenko for thirty minutes totally booking-and-angle-free. The seperation of match and angle is a fine distinction and when to use which is a skill that nobody but Terry Taylor (and Paul Heyman some times) seems to possess.

Goldberg and Meng had a match that had some fatal flaws. Meng's selling is so random that it undermines the fact that he was lasting longer with the protected Goldberg than most anyone else has on Nitro. No-selling is bad, but if your going to no-sell and make it work you gotta do the New Japan thing which is: use offense that is so visually stiff-looking that the selling that follows the no-selling looks credible. Notice that Meng will no-sell a kick to the head and then sell that same kick a few minutes later. Goldberg would have to use offense outside of the realm of his crappy limited arsenal to muster something impressive enough to make the no-selling at the beginning look feasible when it is sold later. It ain't happening in this match because Meng couldn't work a style dangerous enough to neccessitate his own no-selling (also see the horror that is TAZ) and Goldberg couldn't have supplied the Tiger Driver 91s and Top Rope Death Valley Bombs that would be needed to make the strength of Meng at the beginning look legitimate when he sells the moves that would actually affect him later. Meng also wants it both ways- he wants to act like it's all a shoot and he is totally out of the realm of US pro-style because he is an insane animal and all that shit but he still sells a Goldberg rolling kneebar like he was working out of a headlock. If your going to have a shitty pseudo-shoot gimmick you have to sell the legitimate shoot holds like mother fucking legitimate shootholds. Your stupid fucking wrestling match doesn't make sense any other way. The reason that this match failed wasn't because the rookie didn't know how to work a main event correctly, it was the fact that the veteran had no idea how to work his gimmick correctly- which is unforgivably shitheadedly crappy.

The tag title match wasn't good from a technical standpoint because they are showing so much daylight between punches and kickes that ANYONE could tell that it's all totally choreographed and fake. After losing the illusion which is neccessary for the Eighties Power Wrestling style match which they were working, they add in the Dusty Does The Horsemen Again finish and this falls flat on it's face. The Hennig/Konnan match was much better from a wrestling standpoint because both of these can work when motivated and they seemed halfway motivated for this but the ending was so lame that it ruined everything they worked for up to that point.

AND WHAT THE FUCK WAS STING WEARING?!?!? Did Konnan have a Promo Azteca Rummage sale and Sting picked up a bargain on outfits that Tiberon thought were too stupid looking to wear?

THERE YOU HAVE IT.

DEAN.

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