Perry Saturn Is Brick Representation - WCW Monday Nitro 1/25/99
A great in-ring episode of Monday Nitro can't pull WCW out of their post-Starrcade '98 slump, but who gives a fuck about that, JCVD is in the house to watch Goldberg and Norton rumble.
If you know as much about WCW as I do, you’ll probably think I’m crazy for saying this, but I really like the episode of WCW Thunder that focuses almost entirely on the psychosis of wannabe nWo B-Team leader Vincent, who dons the unearned red and black of the nWo Elite and demands of his scrub brethren to be called “Vince” from here on out. It’s a tacit acknowledgement of where things stand early on in 1999: nobody is particularly thrilled that the nWo is “reunited,” the Wolfpac and Hollywood factions unified for no real purpose but to keep the wheels spinning, and nobody is less thrilled than the nWo guys who’ve been shunted off to Thunder to take a licking from the Four Horsemen while their more over supposed friends watch via hidden camera.
This would be tremendous stuff if wrestling worked like a network sitcom or drama, but much to the chagrin of the Vince Russos and Kevin Nashes of the world who tried to reforge wrestling to resemble the “masculine soap opera” its critics have frequently pegged it as, wrestling shows need to feature wrestling if they’re going to work. This episode of Nitro features plenty of it — Goldberg vs. Scott Norton! Booker T vs. Bret Hart! — but it’s also got a lot of angles spiraling further and further into the realm of diminishing returns. More nWo B-squad drama! Ric Flair makes Eric Bischoff do menial jobs! This is not how I would have countered the blunder of Vince McMahon winning the Royal Rumble the night before, but I guess it’s what I might do if I was convinced that the WWF was just having a lucky month.
Colette Arrand
UP NEXT: The next installment of the WCW MONDAY NITRO MASTERLIST will be the 25th, which means it's time to watch a canonical episode of the show with a match that could very well vault straight to #1. It's August 4, 1997 — episode #99 of WCW Monday Nitro, LIVE from the Palace of Auburn Hills in Auburn Hills, Michigan, headlined by a WCW World Heavyweight Championship match between "Hollywood" Hulk Hogan and "The Total Package" Lex Luger. It's time for the summer of Lex, y'all.