- Live from St. Louis, Missouri.

- Your hosts are Tony, Bobby and Mike.

- Okay, those not aware of my patented rating system, I'll be using the Hot Poker Up the Ass system to rate the matches tonight. In a nutshell, for bad things that happen, I shove imaginary flaming pokers up Tony Schiavone's ass , and for good things, I cool him off by shoving cool, refreshing bottles of Surge(tm) up his ass. In order to prevent permanent scarring to poor Tony's tender areas, we'll limit ourselves to 10 pokers and bottles of Surge(tm) either way.

- Opening match, WCW World tag team titles: Kidman & Rey Mysterio v. The Vanilla Midgets v. The Flock 2.0. STUPID, STUPID, STUPID! You don't start out the show with the only match that is guaranteed not to suck. Big mistake, I'm predicting it right now, because you can only go downhill from here. Anyway, Horsemen get a big heel pop, Flock gets a big face pop, and the champs are somewhere in between. Saturn, Kidman, and Malenko start out, with Saturn and Kidman double-teaming Malenko. Kidman does the over-the-top bump from the belly-to-belly early. Great double-team german suplex from the Horsemen. Why is Rey dressed like a Godwinn? Horsemen are drawing mad heel heat. Beautiful sequence as Malenko alley-oops Rey to the top rope, and he comes back with a moonsault. Just gorgeous. Everyone fights to the floor, leaving Benoit against Raven. Horsemen seem to controlling the flow here, stomping everyone into oblivion at one point and tossing the fallen team members to the floor with regularity. Big highspot crashup leaves everyone fighting on the floor. Benoit and Saturn are left in the ring by default and Benoit takes advantage with the ROLLING GERMAN SUPLEX~! Malenko must be in a bad mood today or something, he's spitting on the faces a lot. OH MY GOD...Malenko actually powerbombs Kidman without it getting reversed! This is a historic day! Dragon suplex from Benoit gets two on Kidman. I'm impressed at Tony actually calling the match. Raven gets a hot tag and does his rolling vertical suplex~ on Benoit. It's cooler when Benoit does it. A true pier-six brawl with everyone doing big moves on everyone else. Kidman and Rey do the alley-oop rana on Benoit, but when they try it on Saturn he reverses to a superbomb. Kidman goes for the shooting star press, but Kanyon comes out of the audience and pushes him off the top, into an Evenflow DDT for the pin. Malenko had Saturn in the Texas Cloverleaf at the time, but I guess Saturn didn't give up. The Flock 2.0 is the new champions, which is the right booking decision. We'll give Tony 8 bottles of Surge(tm), which should give him some leeway for the crap ahead. Too much brawling for my tastes, but I'd give it **** easy.

- DDP video package.

- Gonnad v. Stevie Ray. An automatic 2 hot pokers for anything involving Gonnad (see Starrcade 98 for the precedent). We play the CRZ version of the Catchphrases of Doom (basically it involves yelling "you suck" at the TV). We run through the 3 moves of insufficient doom very early, but Vincent interference gives Stevie Ray the advantage. Stevie Ray is the only guy in wrestling who has a lazy CHINLOCK for christ's sake. I mean, the whole idea of a resthold is that it requires zero effort, but Stevie can't EVEN DO THAT RIGHT! Stevie comes off the second rope and Gonnad puts his foot in the air, in the general vicinity of where Ray's head would be, but no contact is ever made. Stevie sells anyway. nWo interferes freely, and Rey Jr. tries to even the odds, so Stevie Ray is nice enough to slowly put Gonnad into the Slapjack and wait for Rey to come off the top rope and allow Gonnad to get the cradle for the pin. We'll add another 3 hot pokers for the match, and a bottle of Surge(tm) for at least keeping it short.

- Kevin Nash video package.

- Sting video package.

- DDP meets Bam Bam Bigelow backstage and they have a male bonding moment.

- Brian Knobs v. Bam Bam Bigelow. The usual international objects line the ring. Knobs is usual no-selling shitty self. They fight outside the ring. I think someone is severly overestimating the Nasty Boys' worth on the cosmic scale for Knobs to get a job. See, he's a heel because he yells "Nasty!" every couple of minutes, I guess. Knobs sells like the Rock -- Starts at 100%, takes a bump, shakes his head for a minute, then is back to 100%. Pretty boring hardcore match, too. They fight to the back, where a conveniently placed souvenir stand awaits. Knobs pulls back the Wizard of Oz' magic curtain, revealing a huge section of empty seats. That's a no-no, Brian. Knobs hits a version of the Nastie's patented Shitty Elbow off the balcony to a table below, but Bigelow just no-sells, suplexes Knobs through said table, and gets the pin. 2 hot pokers for Knobs' involvement.

- World TV title match: Booker T v. Rick Steiner. Booker gets a rather anemic pop. Steiner controls with shoulderblocks to start, but Booker comes back with his spinning kicks. Steiner won't sell Booker's stuff for some reason. Steiner controls with some slow suplexes. Really dull stuff here. Steiner is just punching, choking and resting. Crowd has absolutely no interest in this match. Booker comes back with the axe-kick and spinebuster. Missile dropkick, but Scott Steiner runs in and allows Rick a Steinerline for two. Booker whips Rick into Scott for two. Scott trips Booker and Rick Steiner gets the neckbreaking bulldog for the pin and TV title. Oh, fuck you, WCW. 5 hot pokers for putting the TV on Rick Steiner and making a royal fuckup of Booker's TV title reign.

- Charles Robinson v. Gorgeous George. Robinson's robe and haircut is too funny, as he looks like a dead ringer for Flair. The real Flair and the nurse (Asia? Oh, I get it, ha ha) are at ringside. George has kind of a cheerleader outfit thing going. Please let this be short. Please. They fight over a wristlock to start, with Charles even mimicking Flair's selling. Then Stall-O-Mania 99 breaks out, with Robinson bodyslamming the beauty queen on the floor and other shenanigans. Robinson chokes out George. They trade chops and Robinson even pulls out a Flair flip, and gets slammed for it. Flair Flop follows. This is like watching a midget match in Mexico. The evil nurse hurts George's leg, and Robinson goes to work on the knee. Well, can't fault the psychology, that's for sure. Charles gets the figure-four (on the wrong leg, of coourse, but it's reversed. Then Flair interferes, and Savage interferes, and George drops an elbow off the second rope for the pin. This fell under WCW's specialty division: Entertaining crap. 5 hot pokers for the stupidity of the idea and putting this on a PPV, but 2 bottles of Surge(tm) for the principles at least making an effort not to suck.

- US title match: Scott Steiner v. Buff Bagwell. Buff jumps Scott before the bell, but a couple of blatant shots to the Konnans turns the tide. Brawl outside the ring allows Scott the chance to chat with the fans. Steiner continues beating on Buff while yelling at ringside fans. Half-assed Tiger Driver gets two. Belly to belly lays out Buff, and Scott grabs a chair, which ends up getting used against him. Buff comeback. Two bad looking dropkicks and an atomic drop, but the ref is bumped. Predictably, Rick Steiner runs in, waffles Buff with the chair, and Scott gets the SHITTY REAR CHINLOCK OF DOOM for the submission. The reunited Steiner brothers beat on Buff. Bagwell did NOTHING here. I officially give up on Buff -- the neck injury has ended his career. 2 hot pokers for the bad match. Both Steiner brothers are singles champions -- the Apocolypse is officially upon us.

- Goldberg video package.

- Nash/DDP/Sting/Goldberg video package. None of this does anything to explain why either Nash/DDP or Sting/Goldberg is even happening, but I suppose it fills time nicely.

- Flair video package. Same one we've seen for the past month or so.

- Rowdy Roddy Piper v. Ric Flair. Flair boots Johnny Boone out of the match and replaces him with Charles Robinson. Stalling from Flair to start. Piper throws his 1982 potato punches and Flair stalls again. Piper does his devasting eye poke and hand-clap, but Flair hits a low blow to take control. Then Arn beats him up. Then Asia beats him up. What a classic. Flair should be ashamed for resorting to this crap. They "brawl" outside the ring. Double KO spot -- I feel like someone should be yelling "I've fallen, and I can't get up". Figure-four, reversed by Piper. Flair shows his ass on a sunset flip attempt. Robinson converses with AA while Piper gets a couple of pin attempts. Piper gets the figure-four, and AA breaks it up. Piper puts the sleeper on him, then on Flair. Asia breaks it up. Piper kisses her, and puts the sleeper on her. Flair gets an international object, hits Piper with it, and gets the pin. Oh, great, now Eric Bischoff is out. He declares Piper the winner. Um, HELLO? Didn't he lose the Presidency? And how exactly did Piper win that match, anyway? This makes no fucking sense. 10 hot pokers for this whole clusterfuck. Even Tony Schiavone is having trouble explaining what's going on.

- Sting v. Goldberg. The announcers are still trying to rationalize the last match. Okay, anyway, on with this, which also makes no sense but at least it should be a decent match. Goldberg messes up a backdrop and hits the powerslam early. Sting stalls. Back in and Sting clotheslines Goldberg out. Goldberg stalls. Goldberg with a cross-armbreaker, and Sting escapes and dropkicks the knee. Boston crab, which Goldberg powers out of. Sting goes to the headlock. Hmmm, maybe DDP *did* carry that match on Nitro. Sting with a couple of Stinger splashes, but Goldberg catches him and slams him to a big pop, but Bret Hart comes in with a chair and it's a big schmozz as Bret hammers Goldberg. I suppose someone jobbing would have been too much to ask. The Steiners attack everyone for fun. Very disappointing match. 3 hot pokers for the match, 1 bottle of Surge(tm) for Bret Hart making an appearance, even if it is a token one. Why did they even bother doing the match?

- DDP-Nash video. Why are they even fighting again?

- WCW World title match: DDP v. Kevin Nash. Okay, let's see if DDP can carry the Laziest Man in the History of our Sport. Tenay reminds us that DDP and Nash started out as a midcard jobber team. Okay, maybe not in those words. Hey, this was also the very first Thunder main event. How come they don't mention that? Nash gains control and runs through his usual stuff. DDP comes back with the equalizer of choice tonight -- the groin shot -- and chokes him down. He cuts off a turnbuckle pad to distract the ref and hits Nash with a microphone. I feel like I'm in Memphis here. Nash comes back and we have a slugfest. DDP knocks Nash out with a baseball slide, and brings him in, then gets a two count with his feet on the ropes. Another lowblow. Must have been training with Scott Steiner. DDP decides to start working on the knee. Nash blocks the ringpost figure-four. Another slugfest, won by Nash. Snake Eyes to the exposed turnbuckle, and Jackknife powerbomb draws Randy Savage into the ring for the ultra-cheap DQ ending. No, wait, here's Our Hero, Eric Bichoff again, to restart the match. On whose authority? DDP gets controls and gets a two count on an ugly clothesline. They my favorite of moves, the sleeper. Gosh, nothing I love more than a good sleeper and reversal spot. DDP gets a chair but it backfires and Nash gets a two-count. A DDP lowblow gets two. Nash hulks up, and powerdrops DDP to win the World title. Oh, how inspirational. Nice to see the booker being so selfless and allowing DDP to escape without a stretcher job. Call it 4 hot pokers, with no real redeeming value.

The Bottom Line: Well, our final tally stands at 36 hot pokers, and 12 bottles of Surge(tm) to counteract the burning. That's a grand total of 24 hot pokers against, which puts Tony in serious pain.

Everything pretty much went actually as everyone thought it would, except for the brain-dead Bischoff thing, which means my recommendation falls right where I thought it would before the show: Thumbs down.