Mid-Week Report

By Bill

Missed it by that much...

Trivia Question: What was Norman Smiley's nickname when he first came to WCW? (answer at the end of the report)
The mailbag:
- I got the following e-mail from Tony in Houston, TX on Monday afternoon:
  I was at Houston Hobby Airport this morning waiting for my boss to arrive from Atlanta (Delta 239, 10:02am). As the passengers began to unload from the plane, one of the first off was Rick Steiner. I did a doubletake, then remembered that Nitro is in Houston tonight! Soon after came Mean Gene (dressed as if he could do an interview on the spot) followed by Paul Orndorff. Others that piled out were Tony Marinara, Lash LeRoux (he and Tony greeted each other, so I guess they were sitting in different sections of the plane), Buff Bagwell, Asya (wearing a Mets baseball shirt and who I thought would be much larger), Berlyn (who had a cap on), a couple of smaller, younger wrestlers (dark matches?), and "The Crippler" Chris Benoit. There was also a collection of ladies (none of which I recognized) and support crew.
  The strange thing was how short they seemed to be. I grew up watching wrestling and attended matches at the old Sam Houston Colisium. I watched guys like Kerry Von Erich, Ted DiBiase, Gino Hernandez, Butch Reed, etc., and they seemed to be bigger than these guys. I was 16-20 then, and I haven't gotten any taller since. I mean, I'm 5' 6", and Benoit was eye-to-eye with me. Tony and Lash were the same height, too, but damn is Tony skinny!! I thought Buff was larger, but he was smaller too, and kind of a jerk. A few people asked to shake his hand he and just ignored them. Monday mornings, I guess.
  I guess the camera does add 10 pounds!!
  P.S. Back in 1996, I wrote you that I thought Jeff Jarrett would join the nWo. I was only three years off!! >:)
- James H. reminds us how ahead of the game we are here:
  I had nothing better to do this fine holiday season (^_^), so I was going through the old DDT Digest archives. Well, I came across an archive of Reader Suggested Top 10 lists, and when I read through them, what do I happen to see?
  "Top 10 WCW Nicknames (If done by ESPN's Chris Berman)" Under which is:
  2."The Artist Formerly Known As" Prince Iaukea.
  This was written two and a half years ago.
  Wow, what a creative force Vince Russo is! ^^
- If you thought there were coincidences between the death of Abraham Lincoln and the death of John F. Kennedy, you ain't seen nothin' yet. Stefan from Sweden writes:
  I was watching a tape of WrestleMania VII recently and it hit me that there are some similarities between the two big "career-ending" matches in wrestling, Macho Man vs Ultimate Warrior at WrestleMania VII and Hogan vs Flair at Halloween Havoc ´94. In both cases the losers of these matches, Macho and Flair, whose careers were supposed to be over, have been reinstated after about 6 months.
  And, after another six months they have become Heavyweight Champions. Macho at WrestleMania VIII against Flair (!), and Flair in Starrcade ´95 against Macho (!!). As if this irony wasn't enough, both Macho and Flair were managed by Sherri in their careerending matches.
  I feel I should add one other coincidence. Both of their careers were "ended" by an overrated, egotistical stiff.
- Mike S. sends in the following theory:
  Since I can't take credit for calling the obvious Bret Hart heel turn, let me make THIS prediction. In the 'Title Changes Hands on a DQ' title match at Souled Out, the nWo will interfere. They'll pull some scam to look as though they took Hart out to disqualify Sid. Just one humble man's opinion.
So, he was named Virgil while in the WWF as a stab at Dusty Rhodes. Then he went to WCW and was named Vincent, and now he's named Shane.
What's next...are they going to call him Stephanie?
As for Scott Steiner's swerve on Monday night, for whatever reason, I've been making it a point lately to not read any of the "smart mark" sites. So, as a result, I was taking the entire thing at face value since I had no idea it was coming.
I thought it was pretty believable. However, the fact that his "back brace" was a plain old girdle being worn on the outside was a giveaway to me. There's no reason that couldn't have been worn under the loose sweatshirt he was wearing, and I reasoned that it was being worn on the outside for effect.
I'm curious whether he will, in fact, be retired such as Arn Anderson is. I mean, everything Scott did on Monday night, Arn could do, and I'm curious if Scott's back really is healed enough to wrestle again. I'll tell you, as a guy who had really bad back problems two years ago, I wouldn't wish the types of problems he's said to have had on anyone.
One other note that I thought was funny was in the video retrospective of Scott's career, the announcer talked about the "wear and tear on his body". The voiceover was done to clips of him beating the snot out of people and not eating a single move. I found that a little ironic.
Well, in my opinion, the statement of "This time the nWo will not be watered down" has already gone by the wayside. I'm not about to knock the skills of Scott Steiner. There's no denying he is a master wrestler. To me, the real issue is the watering down of the mission of the nWo.
What made the original nWo so cool was their mission of destroying WCW. All of the original members had a legitimate beef with WCW, and that made it believable. The nWo Version 3 was cool at first...the original Outsiders, Bret Hart who's been lost in the shuffle in WCW for two years, and Jeff Jarrett who's pissed about his inability to get over. Then you add Scott Steiner who's pissed about...er...uh...I don't know...
Of course, that's what made the original red-and-black nWo suck so freakin' bad...there was no difference between them and WCW.
On a related note, it seems the official nWo website is back in full swing. They're really keeping it current, with a new nWo photo with Scott Steiner in it on the front page.
Check out this article about Lash LeRoux in the Miami Herald.
I spent over an hour on the phone talking to Adrian Lynch on Monday. The interview should be on-line shortly.
Trivia Answer: Black Magic

Mid-Week Report

By Bill

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