And just to annoy Ken McCary, for this card I've decided to waive star ratings in favor of Rick Scaia's "Hot Poker Up the Ass" rating system.

Here's how it works: Because I disliked most of the matches on this card so much, I will rate the matches in reverse by saying how many hot pokers I would rather have shoved up my ass than watch the match. Less is better. For instance, as a test case, I would rather have 1 hot poker shoved up my ass than watch Jeff Jarrett v. Dean Malenko, but I'd rather have 15 hot pokers shoved up my ass than watch Kevin Nash v. Lex Luger.

Opening match: Yuji Nagata v. Ultimo Dragon. Remember a few years ago some video game company releasing a bio-feedback bodysuit for fighting games? That's what Nagata's outfit looked like. This was an amazing match, as submission specialist Nagata controlled the match with vicious reverse chinlocks and devastating armdrags. I guess in Japan the chinlock is a finishing move. In short, this blew, as both guys dog it. Nagata works on the shoulder, then applies a sort of figure four to further the damage. Oy vay. Hey, Yuji, the arm is ATTACHED TO THE SHOULDER. Just thought you might like to know. Finally, he hits the Herb Kunze armbar for the tap out (oy vay, again with the tapping out...). You know, if I was Asai, I'd consider changing back to Ulimate Dragon, because he jobbed a lot less then. I would rather have 3 hot pokers shoved up my ass than watch this match.

Gedo v. Chris Jericho. Yes, you read that right. Just to annoy the FUCK out of me, WCW goes and imports the one Japanese wrestler I hate the most. The man with the silly outfit who single-handedly almost ruined an entire Super J tournament. HE SUCKS, ERIC. Luckily, after a horrible match by the cruiserweight standards, he taps out (AAARRRGGHHH) to the Liontamer. Please, don't ever make me watch him again. Gedo rates 10 hot pokers up the ass by himself, and the match rates 4 hot pokers shoved up my ass.

Rey Mysterio Jr. v. Eddie Guerrero (cruiserweight title, mask v. title). Really good match. Rahim and myself have a running argument with CanSen and Kinjo going about whether or not it's really Rey under the mask (we were betting on Psychosis doing the job in Rey's place) due to the odd looking bodysuit and lack of Rey-ish moves displayed. Eddie takes a WICKED post shot here. Lots of action, and an Eddie win is teased a couple of times before Rey reverses a Splash Mountain attempt to win the title back! Wow, that was unexpected. Thank you WCW, even though Guerrero probably shouldn't have lost the title only a couple of months after winning it. I would rather watch this match than have any hot pokers shoved up my ass. That's a good thing, for those WCW fans having trouble understanding the ratings system so far.

Eric Bischoff and Hulk Hogan do a soundbite where Hogan threatens not to wrestle until WCW can guarantee Sting won't be in the building. This is stupid on many levels, and overall I would rather have 25 hot pokers shoved up my ass than listen to these two.

Steve MacMichael v. Alex Wright. Oops, gave away the big surprise. Hey, here's another big surprise: This match sucked. Bill "Stone" Goldberg comes out as Debra distracts the referee and gives Alex the win. Okay, that's not exactly how it happened. It was more like Debra walks around the ring and the referee wanders over for no good reason and starts yapping at her. She *then* jumps onto the apron and "distracts" the referee. Bill wanders in, takes 15 or 20 seconds readying himself, clips MacMichael (nearly knocking over the referee), then does the JackHammer not two feet away from the referee. The referee glanced over his shoulder *twice* and clearly saw what was going on. Then Goldberg picks up Wright, heaves him onto MacMichael, and finally leaves just before the ref turns around. This was SO FUCKING STUPID. Is everyone involved so fucking inept that they're incapable of not fucking up a simple run-in? Is is so hard to RUN IN, hence the name "run-in", clip the guy, put the over guy on top, and run out again? This was plain insulting. After the match, Goldberg beats up Wright, too, just to swerve the smarts, I guess. I would rather have 20 hot pokers shoved up my ass than watch this farce again.

Hey, speaking of farces...

Disco Inferno v. Miss Jacqueline. Jackie wins. It sucked. It wasn't even played for comedy. She fucked up a simple criss-cross. I don't know why they insisted on ramming this BULLSHIT through the booking committee and putting it on a major PPV, but it makes me sad to be a wrestling fan. When you put a major title on a guy then have him lose to a woman, cleanly, on PPV, you have crossed the line between human being and pondscum. I would rather have 50 hot pokers shoved up my ass than ever watch this atrocity again, and I hope to god that WCW considers Glen "punished" now and never, ever mentions this garbage again.

Curt Hennig v. Ric Flair (US title). A very watchable watch ruined by another screwjob ending. Flair and Hennig exchange some good stuff, get the intensity going, and Flair gets himself DQ'd and takes out 3 referees for no really good reason. Of course, since traditional wrestling sense says that the wronged babyface was supposed to beat the evil heel for his ill-begotten title (from one of the babyface's friends, no less) WCW just had to change the ending to something a bit more lame, just to swerve us. Thanks, WCW. I would only rather have 1 hot poker shoved up my ass than watch this match.

Scott Hall v. Lex Luger. Oh, lord. Why do you test me so? Just to sum up this whole match, there's a spot where Scott Hall is holding both of Luger's wrists behind Luger's back, in a surfboard move. Luger goes behind and reverses it, but Hall is STILL HOLDING LUGER'S WRISTS. Uh, Scott, why don't you just LET GO OF HIS WRISTS? It was that bad, folks. Ending #1: Lex does his obligatory 3 offensive moves in succession (in this case, an atomic drop done 3 times) and goes for the rack, but Syxx comes in and misses a kick to the head (which Lex sells anyway) and allows Scott to hit the Outsider Edge and get the (very reluctant) pin from Larry Z. But Larry demands instant replay, and match starts again. Luger gets Hall in the rack 5 seconds later, Syxx runs in, DQ. I think. No decision was announced. Bischoff runs in and takes out Zbyszko, just to continue making himself look better than every wrestler, announcer and referee in his whole company. Utter waste of 20 minutes. I would rather have 18 hot pokers shoved up my ass than watch this match.

Las Vegas Death Match: DDP v. Randy Savage. Booooor-ring. Kicks and punches. DDP has suddenly acquired some sort of padding taped to his ribs. They go into the crowd and do basically nothing. They hit each other with styrofoam props and sell it. Kimberly comes out and drags Liz back to the dressing room by the hair in a pointless spot that would have been much improved by them ripping each other's clothes off and falling into a conveniently placed tub of jello. Neither girl is seen again after they go back to the dressing room. Ref takes a bump as DDP hits the Diamond Cutter, then Fake Sting #2939B comes out (even the announcers aren't buying it this time), hits DDP with the bat and the referee wakes up and counts DDP out. Both guys sleepwalked through this mess, and the Sting thing has gotten very old. And the top two currently active faces have just jobbed and been left laying, or in DDP's case, taken out on a stretcher. When was the last time Page actually WON a major match? Anyways, I'd rather have 11 hot pokers shoved up my ass than watch this again, and add another poker for teasing a catfight and then not delivering. :)

"Main" event: Roddy Piper v. Hulk Hogan (non-title). Not only was the match bad, but they couldn't even decide on the rules. They spent most of the match fighting to get out of the cage like in a WWF style match, but at one point both guys walked out the door and fought outside the cage. Then when they got back in, they fought to get out again. They spend 40% of the match hanging from the cage in some form. Hulk gets the advantage, the ref comes in to count the pin, Piper kicks out. Sleeper, Piper wins. I guess WCW's thinking is that everyone is going to buy Starrcade anyway, so who cares if the World champ is made to look foolish by Piper two months beforehand? Savage lept off the top of the cage in a spot that would have been cooler had the cage not been so high up and far away from the ring that he would have needed a tracking system to actually hit Piper from where he jumped from. Hogan and Savage handcuff Piper to the cage, some fake Stings run in, a fan runs in and the Megapowers beat him up too, show over. Huh? I'd rather have 34 hot pokers (and a sharpened caber) shoved up my ass than watch Hogan v. Piper in any form.

So where was Sting? After a super-hot Nitro ending last week, they were all but promising that he'd be there in some form, and he wasn't. Not even a token appearance. And I'm never one to suggest a Hogan win, but if you're building to a big showdown with Sting, it's not a good idea to job your champion on PPV like that. This show solved nothing, advanced nothing, and was just generally three hours I could have spent watching the World Series. Wasn't the point of Larry reffing so that exactly what happened wouldn't happen? Wasn't the point of putting Piper and Hogan in a cage that Randy Savage *wouldn't* interfere? And what the hell was the point of the Jackie-Disco feud, anyway? They didn't even mention why they didn't like each other.

Please, some WCW fan step forward and justify this nonsense to me, because I'm confused. Or maybe that's just the rice noodles talking...

Until Hulk Hogan grows a real beard, I remain the net.cop...