The highlight of Nitro tonight was definitely that blonde chick at ringside, wearing the red sparkly top. I am officially launching a search for that girl. Any information leading to an eventual relationship between me and that girl will result in a reward ... and that means any tape in my collection.
I recently attended the homecoming of my old school, the University of Florida (I graduated in May of 1997, go Gators) and during the homecoming "show", Gator Growl, they crown the Homecoming Queen, no surprises there. But who should come out to crown the queen? Last year's queen? The school's president, John Lombardi?
Maybe at a less "cool" school, but at the University of Florida, it was RIC FLAIR (total surprise guest)!!!! He comes out shuffling, and strutting (his wife is a UF grad and he attends a LOT of UF football games), and before he even got to the microphone the ENTIRE stadium EXPLODED in "WOOOO!"s.
Close to 70,000 people were in the stadium, and at least a third were going "Whooo!". It continued for about three minutes, no lie, before he got on the mic. He did a little "Gainesville's got the hottest women" for cheap heat, but did very little showboating at all. I was a little disappointed to tell the truth. But the crowd was going NUTS! People were yelling out "Space Mountain" and making really old references that I wasn't getting (I have only been a true FAN for about three years).
For the rest of the night (there were other acts), for no reason at all the whole crowd started "whooo"ing all over again. Some of the comedians were confused. It was AWESOME. I wish you had been there, it was unbelievable. Later that night, I was out drinking with some friends, and they were asking me about Ric Flair. Being a little drunk, I gave a "Whooo!", and put up the four fingers. The bar EXPLODED in "Whooo!"s. All of a sudden I had a about 20 new friends and we were all strutting around and flashing the four fingers. This went on ALL NIGHT, every place I went people were "Whooo!"ing. It was awesome.
After the Leno/Hogan interview I was channel surfing and landed on the Home Shopping Network. What caught my eye was Buff Bagwell in an nWo shirt yelling at an on-air salesman. I heard WCW was selling items on television but this was my first time actually watching.
Buff was totally in character and the poor salesman was trying to sell WCW action figures. I then heard the salesman say that they will soon be taking a phone call from Judy Bagwell and this got Buff to yell even more. I thought it was hilarious that WCW would try to continue an angle on a shopping channel at 12:45am.
What really surprised me was the next item that was for sale. An official autographed Bill Goldberg baseball was being sold for $145.00! Now maybe this isn't surprising to you, but I was shocked. The first thing I thought of was some poor kid, or worse yet an adult, spending their money on something that has no return value at all. I started to think that if this was for charity...that's one thing...but this money is probably going to Ted Turner's pockets. I feel it's sad, but to steal a quote from P.T. Barnum: "There's a sucker born every minute".
My local paper, the Nashville Tennessean, had a front-page article on pro wrestling this morning. There's an online version of it at http://www.tennessean.com/sii/98/12/02/wrassling02.shtml. It isn't too degrading or anything, except for the "This right here ain't nothing but a man's soap opera" quote from a guy who was in Chattanooga for Nitro. (Naturally, they printed it in big letters above the headline in the print edition.)
Note that the caption below the pic has Goldberg putting "Stevey" [sic] Ray in a headlock, but it's more like a...reverse chinlock, or modified camel clutch, or...something.
Gotta' love the mention of "hyperventilating ring announcers" too. They should've quoted Skee-a-vone.
BTW, the TV Guide article on wrestling this week is also online at http://www.tvgen.com/tv/magazine/981130/ftr1a.htm.
"Chokehold"