Nitro Mop Up ... by Chris Hyatte

RAW, first, go, now...3/31/99 Mop-Up Nitro Nitro invades Canada for the first time ever!! Ooo, I can hear your heart beat harder already. Think of the ramifications people...think of the ramifications!! I don't know what I'm talking about either. All I know is that I have to write very fast for this... All I also know is that the very first Nitro after Wrestlemania should have been their best Nitro ever.....why just hand the ratings over to Vince like that? NITRO: (or Page's father debuts! Or is that Page?) -Opens with David Flair mumbling to Sam about how Hulk is a better father than Ric ever could be. There is no inflection in the voice, a blank and vacant stare. and nervously bored fidgeting of the fingers...and that's just me waiting for this bit to wrap up. -Tony Schiavone welcomes us to WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP WRESTLING'S DEBUT IN CANADA! Then immediately shills for the Beetle contest......Tony is SO excited about the Beetle sweepstakes that he couldn't wait for the ad to appear on screen.....so when it did he plugged it again! -The three announcers are all smiles.....except for Larry, who was undoubtedly searching for comic gold in them thar sweepstaking hills....40+ year old Tony says that he can't go a day without at least an hour on his Nintendo 64.....and so it begins. -Larry goes and says hello while they set up the Bret Hart/Goldberg angle from last week...complete with.. -footage from last week where Hart said that he could beat the guy in 5 minutes. -Hey kids...all sold out of the current hot WCW video game? Then get that Beetle video game....it's the exact same thing!!!! Just without arms or legs! -commercials -Konan's video is shown......"Bow Wow Wow Yippie Yo Yippie Yay" became old back in "94...way to go guys. -Tony says that he "can't get enough of that video".....then further showed off his coolness by announcing that he would love to dryhump that Brittany Spears bitch. What a down cat! -Konan makes his return to WCW after some time off...and yes, he looks more goofy then ever. -He "speaks on this" and repeats his favorite spiel word for word without a single, solitary change of dialogue......you know, at least Road Dog, Bad Ass, Maivia, and even Austin..at least they TRY to make things sound a little different each time....K-Dick has to do everything exactly the same each time out. -Vincent came out with a mic and promised to "punk Konan out".....Vincent has been in the business for around...oh jeeze..13 years now. And during all that time, he has NEVER bothered to learn a new move....he has NEVER bothered to try and improve his game....he has NEVER tried to make himself a more valuable commodity than he is. He seems to be quite content as a bottom carder that people just acknowledge strictly for nostalgia sake....it's sad really. -The bald one won. -Tenay plugged the Hotline...including NEVER BEFORE HEARD INFORMATION on the life of Bill Goldberg...ooo, pinch me now. -Videotape drama with Hogan and Sam. Miss Blank Stare got Hogan to claim that he really did pin Nash to win the WCW belt and that the match was NOT a fix. Hogan won it fair and square. -commercials -Mean Gene brought out Hulk Hogan for a chat. Hogan challenged Flair to a match that night. Hogan almost broke his two middle fingers when he did that "West Coast" hand sign. Hogan was also WAAAY over with the crowd...who were still obviously appreciative that Hogan cleanly jobbed out to JACQUES ROUGEAU in Montreal two years ago. -Hogan was waaaay over...good Lord...what is wrong with you pe...oh..right..they were in Canada.....that explains everything. -Tony mentions the name Sting for the first time tonight...he was spotted by some US Custom agents trying to weasel some Gideon Bibles across the borders....Hey, Canada needs religion TOO? Most of those people still worship the SUN!! -Video thing dealing with Page and Steiner...which was pretty good. -Mike Tenay talks to Diamond Dallas Page one on one.....it's hard to explain this one...Tenay seemed to be going for the pseudo serious/pseudo comic interview....Page just wanted to get this interview over with. -Oh...and Page said that he was temporarily paralyzed for a while.....I guess he saw how much heat that got Austin two years ago...he may as well try it too. -Wrath defeated Kenny Kaos in an abysmally long match. -During this match...Tony had this to say, "You have to, and I know this is a worn out cliché, fight fire with fire! You have GOT to get dirtier than the dirtiest guy! You've got to get LOWER than they get to be successful!" He was speaking about DDP.....but that applies almost PAINFULLY to how the WWF overtook them in the ratings.....of course, Tony had absolutely no clue of the irony there. -Wrath won.....no foolin'...I know, it's a shocker. -This isn't Nitro by the way.....Nitro doesn't start until 9:00 pm....we weren't told what this was...but it wasn't Nitro...so why am I recapping it? -Samantha got Nash all riled up about that Hogan thing from earlier......she's got that Ryan Shamrock empty smile down pat. -commercials -Mean Gene brings out Ric Flair.....Tony spent a good two minutes on how everyone and their mother "hangs from the rafters" whenever Flair shows up. -Flair is a heel now...BOO BOO HISS HISS....then he proceeds to trash talk Canada HOORAAH, HOORAH!!!!! -Then he brings out Diamond Dallas Page...not sure why -Page accused Flair of keeping him down back in the day, and keeping his career reduced to mindlessly shouting the words, "GOOD GAWD" every two minutes....well, Page was beyond that now..he has evolved into a complete character who now screams about getting "jacked up" on "feeling the Bang!".....talk about development! -Page was getting booed.....so he called Canadians a bunch of "JACK OFFS" HA!!!! -Flair announced that Page will fight Hogan tonight.....Page used the word "jack" again. making it 9 times in the course of 3 minutes.....good gawd. -Hogan came out and helped sell this thing......Hogan is a FACE now right? He must...he now wears a white belt with white gloves..... -By the way, Flair said that he will be at ringside tonight too..... -by the way.....Sting showed up in the rafters and looked on. They'll try anything to rekindle that old ratings magic won't they? -commercials -Tony began to call this telecast "Nitro"..so I must assume we were in the second hour already.....that was a quick first hour! This is a quick column! -Scott Norton took on Rick Steiner. It's a classic slugfest between two inherent brawlers with MORE than enough mat skills to make this a bloody fine row......were it not that they were also slower than Freddie Blassie's bowel movements -commercials -this match kept on trucking....until Steiner eventually won...I have no time to go into details....and besides, it would totally be out of character for me. -Backstage, we see Rey Mysterio and Kidman agree to be a tag team against the Horsemen tonight.....okaaaay..we really needed to see that I guess. -commercials -Chris Adams came out and took his sweet time before laying down to Booker T. Of course, not that Adams could beat T in a real fight....Booker is one bad mutha (EDITED BY SCOOPS, HYATTE, YOU BETTER SHUT YOUR MOUTH) -Bobby Heenan finally showed up as Tony pushes that Beetle sweepstakes. I have no problem with this by the way. -commercials Chris Hyatte
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