Ed Wood Caulfield

-PRL promo about the 5-Man Prism Elimination Match For The OAOAST World Heavyweight Championship at the Halloween Spectacular -Brickston and Vitamin X promo about the 5-Man Prism Elimination Match For The OAOAST World Heavyweight Championship at the Halloween Spectacular

Jesse "The Body" Ventura seemed shocked that the wheel landed on the Coal Miner's Glove Match. I laughed. "Coal Miner's..."

Speaking of which, what was up with all those random people showing up at "ringside"? What were they doing there?

Hogan should have only gotten offense after cheating. It was the perfect oppoturnity for him to use every single dirty heel tactic imaginable. Hogan should have gotten control over Sting by choking him, scratching his back, choking him some more, not starting the match by applying a headlock for TWO MINUTES! And Sting should have no-sold more. If he could no sell the nWo attacking him, then he could have easily no sold whatever Hogan tried to do to him. At one point in the match, Hogan did a suplex, but Sting stood right back up. That was one of the few things they did *right* in that match. Sting should have gone all Undertaker on Hogan. Nobody was expecting a ***** classic. Atleast I don't think so, what with Sting not wrestling for 16 months, and Hogan...being Hogan. But you would think they wouldn't book Sting to look like such a chump after spending a YEAR AND A HALF of building him up as an unstoppable Superman to the point that more fans brought Starrcade 1997 than any other pay-per-view in WCW history!

Well, that was just WCW listening to the fans on that one. The fans LOVED Sting as the superhero who saved the day, so they kept with it and kept with it until the anticipation was so high that everybody and their mother would pay to see Sting take on Hogan. Which they did. So obviously, they did something right. Plus, Starrcade was their biggest pay-per-view of the year, so it made sense to do the big match there. And having Sting take on other nWo guys would have killed the mystique BEFORE the Hogan match. The whole appeal was that Sting was this mythical superhero who terrified Hogan. To put him in a match before Starrcade would just remind the fans that this was the same old Sting that wrestled from 1987-1996 in numerous television shows. And it wasn't what the fans wanted to see anyway. They wanted to see Sting take on Hogan. I don't know if Sting vs. Buff Bagwell at say Halloween Havoc would have gotten the buyrate Sting vs. Hogan at Starrcade 1997 got. Besides, it was kind of approriate saving Sting's in-ring return for a match against his arch-nemesis. And the match at Starrcade would have been better if Sting actually got more offense. Hogan had spent 18 months running away from the guy, and then all of a sudden, he got the courage, what, overnight, to fight Sting? It made no sense from a storyline perspective.

I always assumed that that was just Sting testing people's loyalty to him. He was always loyal to WCW, but he wasn't sure WCW was loyal to him. Remember when he would hand guys his baseball bat and then turn his back to see if they would hit him? I know he did that with Rick Steiner and Lex Luger once.

Probably because Sting was built as the only person who could take out the entire nWo, and the one man Hogan was afraid of fighting. The fans KNEW whenever Sting showed up that he was going to be the superhero and save the day, and they loved him for it. What was wrong with that? Sting's mortal enemy was Hogan, not Curt Hennig or Syxx. Why should he fight Hennig or Syxx when his main goal was to destroy Hogan?

Is this the Nitro with the army of fake Stings attacking the nWo, with the real Sting disguising himself as a fake? Because if it is, then yeah, that was a terrific ending. The one thing that I remember from that is the crowd EXPLODING when Sting no sold Buff Bagwell's punch. They went nuts when Sting gave Bagwell the Scorpion Deathdrop and then took off his mask to reveal himself to the nWo. Hollywood Hulk Hogan had a great expression on his face when he saw Sting. WCW turned Sting into a mythic superhero during that time period.

-MAIN EVENT! 5-MAN PRISM ELIMINATION MATCH FOR THE OAOAST WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP Tha Puerto Rican (Champion) vs. Alfdogg (Challenger) vs. Landon "La Cucaracha" Maddix (Challenger with Megan Skye) vs. Bohemoth (Challenger) vs. Brickston (Challenger with Vitamin X)

-Tha Puerto Rican will be in the house OF COURSE! I CALL SECOND SEGMENT!!! -And I call main event. But be forewarned, I won't have it done today. Still, I call main event.

Heenan still hated Hogan after the formation of the nWo. Yeah, but it lost all of its appeal when everybody else was supposed to hate him as well. Also, WCW seemed to take a more serious turn around this time, and what was funny before really didn't fit in with what they were trying to present, thus my saying he seemed lost. Well, not surprising that they took a more serious turn, considering the nWo was trying to destroy WCW. When Heenan sucked up to Eric Bischoff on nWo Monday Nitro, that was classic Heenan. Then he came back the next week, apologized, and then acted like nothing happened. I thought that was great! That was totally something "The Brain" would do.

What an awesome entrance that was. The ringside mats were flying all over the place. I think Bischoff even went flying out to the railing. Yeah, and on The Legends Of Wrestling roundtable discussion on the Monday Night War on WWE 24/7, Mick Foley said that Bischoff's selling of Sting's helicopter entrance was one of the worst cases of overacting that he had ever seen. He said that Bischoff was doing the "Marcel Marceau Man In The Box" thing. And Bischoff got a good one too by saying that's how he dances!

Yeah, the Spring Break shows took place near the swimming pool and they were in Panama City Beach, Florida. In 1998, Sting did his dropping from the rafters entrance from a helicopter.

Heenan still hated Hogan after the formation of the nWo.

I LOVED Commissioner Foley! I thought he was great in that role!

The location reminds me of when WCW did Monday Nitro from the Disney-MGM Studios.

Yeah, I was a huge fan of King Booker. Even before he became King Of The Ring, he was entertaining with his wife. Booker got a huge shot in the arm when he and his wife turned heel.

Yeah. I remember they gave him back his old entrance theme, and had Vince McMahon go on TV and actually SAY that Austin didn't want to deal with "Austin/McMahon 2". I mean, what the fuck was that all about? And I thought for sure that Vince was forming a new incarnation of The Corporation with Chris Jericho, Kurt Angle, Booker T, and The Big Bossman, but that whole alliance ended for no reason whatsoever a month or two after it started.

I just remembered that episode where Brian and Stewie sung with Frank Sinatra Jr., which wasn't really that funny, and was just an excuse for Seth MacFarlane to sing with Frank Sinatra's son. I still liked that episode better than the "Shaboobie" one, though. Ugh.

I like how in the beginning of the Luger/Giant match, Luger charges right towards The Giant, and The Giant just calmly lifts his foot up for Luger to run right into it. Cracks me up!

The Phantom was played by Billy Zane.

Dennis Leary was great, I loved how Bart sent him Derek Jeter and New York Yankees stuff, although it always feels weird seeing The Simpsons do something that people today do, like use cellphones that have a bunch of extra shit on them. It's much better when episodes feature songs from the 70's and old movies are referenced.

I still think the worst Family Guy episode was the one with Tom Brady. That whole "Shobobbie" dance number was painful to watch. I actually found this episode funnier with the "Bird Is The Word" song then with the Jesus stuff. I cracked up at the Office Space scene. And quite a weak effort from American Dad this week. Wasn't really into the whole Roger's wife story.

I watched Starrcade 1997 last year on YouTube, and while it's not a classic or anything, I don't think it's a wretched show either. The action was good most of the show, it's just that the booking for the majority of the matches was bass ackwards, and of course, we all know about Sting/Hogan. The only good booking decisions were Diamond Dallas Page going over Curt Hennig and Larry Zbysko going over Eric Bischoff. Oh yeah, not doing Giant/Kevin Nash and replacing Raven with Saturn in the Chris Benoit match were stupid decisions too. EDIT: Okay, *maybe* Savage/Vincent/Norton going over Steiners/Traylor was an all right booking decision, since it was just a meaningless Six-Man Tag Team Match, and hey, let the Macho Man get a victory on the biggest show in WCW history. Plus, the announcers could have used that match to say that maybe it's an "omen" that Hogan would beat Sting that night.

True, but I understand them wanting to do something special for the 100th episode of Monday Nitro. Anyway, his Title win was never brought up again after Road Wild so that WCW could make the Sting win more meaningful.