OK... I finally watched Nitro this morning. My opinion: it didn't suck.

There were things that didn't click, granted. The whole thing with Beetlejuice and his... 'insertion' in the main event, the 'weapons' that were a blowup doll and a Scott Hall photo, the entire skit with Buff Bagwell...

What made the show entertaining though was the fact that it actually had wrestling in prominence. Matches that went over the Reader's Digest lengths we've been given for so long.

Maybe Vince Russo can learn some booking intelligence afterall.

I just started to watch my tape of Nitro done late Tuesday, so I still can't really comment on it... but there is some WCW-related stuff that came to my thoughts from recent newsbits:

1. Is Terry Bollea/Hulk Hogan poison to the fed, or what?

   
   His latest call in to the Bubba the Love Sponge radio show must have caused a few suits to grit their teeth... if Mandalay definitely is planning to buy the promotion, and not making any public announcements about it yet, what right does Terry have to tell a national radio audience that "it's a lock"?




2. Speaking of theories about Mandalay purchasing WCW, if the theories about it ring true, and Eric Bischoff does have plans to rebuild with the 'old guard' (Hogan, Piper, Savage, DDP)... well, if that happens, the current $80 million deficit will seem like small potatos, as it runs into the ground.

   
   I dislike a lot of Vince Russo's ideas so far... but the fed is getting up to that 4-point share in ratings, something it hasn't done in years. Ratings have shown that the superstars of the 1980s like Hogan don't do that anymore; it's the new faces and talent that'll make the future. If Eric ignores that fact, he's in for a disaster.

With the second RAW under TNN, I guess you could say the "honeymoon" is over... so how did it rate?

Well, the return of "Bad Ass" Billy Gun was well done, and he looks to be in great shape.

On the not-so-good end, Mick Foley is becoming predictable as commissioner: guys have heat with each other? Oh, book them in a tag match opposite each other! It's become a very frequent situation in the WWF - like every damn show.

Steve Austin has already been back a short two weeks... and already I'm bored with him. Oh gee, he ran in, hit everyone with a Stunner, and chugged beer. 3-4 times in a row. If that's all he'll do until his first match this month, I'll just take a nap instead. It'd be more exciting.

At least the whole Kurt Angle/Triple-H/Stephanie storyline took a different turn from what we expected. I was sure that this would be the match where Stephanie turned on her "husband" to help Kurt. Instead, Helmsley turned away from her.

I won't be able to give a critique of ECW's Anarchy Rulz PPV after it happens tonight; I spent a large part of the day packing and de-junking my apartment, and going to see the event afterwards would make for two weeks in a row that I went to bed very late the night before work... so it'll wait.

What I can comment on though, was the first episode of WWF Sunday Night Heat that aired on MTV this evening... we get it here in Canada from a different network.

You can't judge an entire show from a single episode, but the show I saw will need a lot of improvement to be considered good.

Right off, I'd say to ditch the MTV hosts. DJ Scribble and Rebecca Budnig just don't add anything worthwhile. Just having them there to whoop with the crowd really feels mindless. I don't get any sense that they even know anything about wrestling; they act as if they're just hosting something like TRL.

On the match end, Steven Regal was about as exciting in his debut match as he was with Droz his last time in 1999. That is to say he was still dull. He's a solid worker, very knowledgable in technical wrestling. He just doesn't seem to have the 'sizzle' to his ring work that fans expect these days.