The Monday Nitro Workrate Report
A weekly look at what did and didn't work on Monday Nitro by Dean Rasmussen
Monday, October 26th, 1998
I figured I would quickly give the giant wad of reasons why there was no
Workrate report last week. If you could give a crap about my elaborate
rationalitions, skip right to the yocks!
The EXPLANATION LIST:
MONDAY- Taped Nitro and just checked in every now and then. Was going
to watch all of it Wednesday.
TUESDAY- The Seventies AM Radio Coverband I sing for- the Nixon Years-
is playing a SWANK Richmond Halloween Party so we needed to relearn all
of MacAurthur Park but I got sing Year of The Cat again. Had to go to
bed so I could get up and go to work.
WEDNESDAY- Forgot that my friend John's birthday was that night so I was
over at his place for most of the night. His father told me a great
clean joke- Where do you find a dog with no legs? Wherever you left
him. Isn't that the best? John Senior is what I want to be when I get
older. I FELL OUT!
THURSDAY- Thursday is my showbiz night. I'm on the panel to Wrestling
Powerline on Richmond cable ch 38, and we answer every possible question
about wrestling imaginable. If you are planning to call in this
Thursday- the aanswers are "Ricky Steamboat hurt his back and retired"
and "Hogan or Nash will probably beat Goldberg in December." There.
Put the phone down. That's on from 7 to 8 and then a rush downtown to
the practice space to practice with my ACTUAL band- The Dragline System-
until 10ish and then we always go to the Texas-Wisconsin Border Cafe so
me and Jim the Guitar playing can argue well past the point of annoyance
to everyone near us whether Roxy Music was a bigger influence than Iggy
Pop on modern music worth listening to. (Answer: Neither. ALL modern
music starts with Buddy Holly. No wait- Son House. No- Jimmy Rogers.
It's gonna be a long night at the Border Thursday.)
FRIDAY- I was going to write three reviews for the Death Valley Driver
Video Review after going to Chuck E Cheese with the wife, the youngster,
and my two friends who are going on vacation this week in Montreal.
Fell asleep immediately upon arrival home.
SATURDAY- Daughter wakes up with 103 degree fever and my maniacally
worried parent mode takes over for the rest of the afternoon. Fever
breaks after antibiotics that the ominously names pediatrician Dr Smith
gave the punkin kick in. Write a bunch about Emi Motokawa and the
DIVINE New Japan Junior Tag Title Tourney.
SUNDAY- Start writing about the Toryu-mon intensive Michinoku Lucha #12
when the power goes out in my house for thirty seconds. My wife informs
me that Microsoft Works doesn't automatically save every two minutes
like our version of Word on our old computer did. She wisely hides
razor blades and sleeping pills as I tell her that I just lost ten pages
of reviews. Spend the rest of the day trying to remember cool things I
thought up to refer to Koji Kanemoto as the biggest ass-stomping prick
on earth.
And now it's Monday and I finally watched last weeks Nitro in super Fast
forward late Sunday night so here you go. A couple of comments about
last week before this weeks- Benoit doing the double snot-rocket on
Disco was really great but doesn't come close to the joy in Mudville at
the prospect of a. BENOIT BACK IN THE MOTHERFUCKING RING and b. Malenko
and Benoit tagging together. Rey vs Kidman wasn't very good but it's
all because of the time limit draw thing. You need to be Mitsuhara
Misawa, Chris Benoit or Fit Finlay to have the ring psycholgy to pull
off one of those. And Benoit and Finlay used up the yearly quota of good
TLD's this year in their respective matches against Booker T and Chris
Jericho. There you go. The fact that Rey got booed for not joining the
LWO should tell you how freaky over that angle is getting. Overall
there was a whole lot to love even if the execution wasn't great in a
lot of spots. Anyway, enough past history.
What Worked
HEY FOLKS! That Goldberg vs DDP was legit worldclass ****1/2. Yep.
The key is called >>> SELLING <<<<<. Notice that when Goldberg sells
for DDP, DDP can carry him to the third best New Japan singles match of
1998. DDP is so not afraid to be the best aspects of bumpmeisters
Terry Funk and Raven combined into one when he is ON and this was the
match where DDP could bump to the point that this would be something
great. The Psicosis bump by Goldberg sealed it. Fuck me running. I
wasn't ready for that.
Saturn wears those wrist things that people with Carpal-Tunnel syndrome
wear, so I'm wondering how did HE come down with it. Judging from the
Vest of Chains, my guess is that he got it from writing really long
letters to the Advocate. Eddy Guerrerro is the best wrestler in the
world so this match ruled it really hard. I was hoping that Eddy would
be up for matching Saturn Suplex for Suplex- because Eddy knows more and
hits them better than anyone- but this was to get Saturn over first, and
to get the magnificently bizzarrely over LWO over second. Eddy looks a
wee bit lethargic and they screw one thing up- but I think that's
because Saturn isn't the greatest at working a match and Eddy was trying
too hard to guide him through it. Eddy showed the earth why he is so
fricking great as he showed how to sell 12 suplex variations like a
KING. I don't know which Pandillero that was who accompanied Eddy and
the boys. I was hoping it was an unmasked Shocker or something. Eddy
hits the fat ass Love Machine Splash and I was hoping for the Psicosis
toprope Guillotine Legdrop. Are these guys heels or what? And where do
I get a t-shirt? They should start SWO and have Eddy and Saturn feud at
length. I'm sure Saturn's all for it.
In case you were wondering, Juventud Guerrera is the best true
Cruiserweight in WCW right now because he had a better match with the
control group of this little experiment (Kidman) than Kaz, Disco, Chavo
and Rey had. This match-up is becoming automatically good. Juventud
rules it and sets up Kidman perfectly for all of Kidman's spots. A
SECRET: Shh! C'mere. Listen. Juventud was a RUDO in Mexico since he was
eight years old wrestling as Brazocito de Ororito or something. Rudos
in Mexico have the singular function of carrying hotshot highspot-drunk
technicos to actual matches. This makes a good rudo a Flair-like master
of carrying ANYBODY and, GUESS WHAT! Juventud is STILL a great rudo.
In the US, we call them great wrestlers. The major difference between
Rey trying to carry Kidman and Juventud carrying Kidman boils down to
this phenomena. Rey is approaching it from a Japanese point of veiw
because everything he's learned about psychology was from Ultimo in
WAR. Rey WAS Kidman in Mexico getting carried to five star matches by
the settling force of Juventud the rudo. ANOTHER SECRET: Shh. C'mere.
Listen. The reason Kaz Hayashi vs Kidman was so good was that Shiryu
was the best overall RUDO in Kaientai Deluxe other than Dick Togo.
Notice the trend.
Kanyon: The Push continues and he is earning every penny of it as he
BUMPS HIS ASS OFF for Prince Iaukea. I'm glad I have ALL the Men At
Work matches on tape. He ruled then and he rules now. Kanyon is
becoming Raven-like in his ability to bump his way to a good match- but
Chris Canyon does it with a cooler offense but without Levy's mastery of
Ring Psychology. The Prince looked better than the last time I saw him
which was better than the time before so things are looking up for King
Curtis's boy. This was quality free TV wrestling.
Barry Horowitz takes an Alex Wright Backdrop Driver like a MAN and then
they have a bunch more wrestling. The Wright/Finlay thing should have
been a whole lot more. I hope it's not over already.
The Steiner/Hall vs Luger/Konan sloppy brawl was just enough to make it
across the line to workingdom. Hiya guys. I wouldn't unpack.
What Didn't Work
Stevie Ray- who really sucks- needs a foreign object to beat the lesser
Gas-monster of High Voltage. Kenny Kaos looked a WHOLE lot better than
Stevie Ray in this, getting all stiff but the ending and the Stevie Ray
suck factor sucked all the love out of this. Kenny definately has the
healthy glow of Flesh Irradiated-by-SWEEEEET Steroids. Afterwards, Rick
Steiner offers to teach Kaos how to suck as much as he does. I dunno;
Kaos is better than Scotty these days one can definately say. Which is
saying nothing. The tag match itself had the Giant bearhugging Kenny
Kaos and I think I saw a spray of human growth hormone shoot out from
young Kenny's ear. The less-talented of High Voltage is one half of the
World Tagteam Champions and I'd have my undies in an indignant wad if it
wasn't for the fact that he works circles around anybody having this
belt the last two years. Eh. Move a new guy up. I got no beef with that
at all, and HV has been paying their dues and going to Japan and getting
progressively better. More power to him. The other three can go fuck
themselves. I'm kidding. No. I'm not...
Hogan is on "The Stick" wearing a fuzzy boa. RASMUSSEN is on "The
Remote" wearing penny loafers.
Buff and Big Poppa Gassed Out The Ass beat up J J Dillon. I saw Dillon
and Ron Bass get carved up like so much Mongolian Barbecue when I was a
kid so this didn't shock me like it was supposed to.
They boo the Warrior in his own hometown. I love professional
wrestling. They cheer him later and I then hate pro wrestling.
So they are burying the Horsemen this week? Hogan realized that noone
gives a shit about his old ass and decides to take it out on Flair's old
ass? Actually, I'm sure Bischoff is sporting the giant woody for the
whole Horseman angle but he needed to get back a little after the
Horsemen have mauled him in the angle so far. The Hogan footage was
funny I guess, but CHRIS MOTHERFUCKING BENOIT DIDN'T WRESTLE ON MY
GODDAMN TV SET SO THIS SUCKED.
Wrath sucks. Yep. He really sucks. Yep. I'm tired of figuring out
new and inventive ways to say that he sucks. He sucks. HEY! At least I
got to give all those the Shat Ernest Miller jokes a rest! We love YOU-
the faithful and courageous reader- here in Olliewood.
THERE YOU HAVE IT.
DEAN RASMUSSEN.
