B-MOVIE REVIEW: “Inbred Rednecks” (1998)

A LONG overdue homage to one of the greatest hicksploitation films of all-time!

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Revisiting PRIDE FC 4 from 1998!

Gary Goodridge gets his brains scrambled, Alexander Otsuka pulls off one of the biggest upsets in MMA history and Nobuhiko Takada pushes his luck against Rickson Gracie one more time!

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VHS Review: 'Our Friend, Martin' (1998)

Revisiting one of the most ubiquitous Black History Month video cassette staples in the annals of American public education (and yes, it does indeed play fast and loose with the historical accuracy, in case you were wonderin'.)

By: Jimbo X
JimboXAmerican@gmail.com
@JimboX

I don't know how you folks spent your Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, but if you ask me, there's only one proper way to get our collective Kangs on - and that, of course, is with a screening of the 1998 straight-to-video cartoon Our Friend, Martin.

What, you've never heard of Our Friend, Martin before? Well, if you grew up in elementary school America between the years 1999 and 2005, odds are your local public escuela/indoctrination factory made you watch it at least once a year (if not to commemorate MLK Day, than certainly as filler come Black History Month.) Now, I was in middle school and on the verge of entering high school when the straight-to-video offering was initially released, so I just missed out on this particular early aughties phenomena. But judging from the way the Millennials talk about this 'un on Reddit and 4chan and YouTube, I'd feel pretty comfortable labeling Our Friend, Martin as their generation's The ButterCream Gang - that weird piece of ubiquitous pop cultural ephemera that not only is inextricably tied to one's public education experience, but seems to only exist within the vacuum of elementary school nostalgia.

Even now I'm not sure exactly who bank rolled this thing, or what they're agenda was, or if they even suspected the damn tape would become a VCR staple in every primary school in America for at least half a decade. Whoever it was, though, they had to have had quite a bit of loose change to throw around, considering the staggering number of A-and-B-list celebrities lending their vocal talents to the production. Ed Asner, Angela Bassett, Danny Glover, Whoopi Goldberg, Samuel L. Jackson, James Earl Jones, Ashley Judd, Susan Sarandon, Jon Travolta, OPRAH - hell, they even got Urkel to show up for a day or two in the recording studio to voice a teenaged MLK. It's undoubtedly a star-studded production, and the fact that this thing never made it to TV (or even basic cable, to the best of my knowledge) makes its existence all the more perplexing. I mean, you'd think PBS, if nobody else, would've tried to wrap their mitts around this one, but no - apparently, Our Friend, Martin went straight to video and - for all intents and purposes - just stayed there until YouTube and DailyMotion came along.

And if you've never seen it before, well - consider this in-depth review/analysis either a late MLK, Jr. Day gift or a really early Black History Month present.

The film begins with a title screen for DIC Entertainment, who is best known for producing half of every cartoon made in the 1980s (Nelvana, obviously, did the either half.) Some organization called I.P.M. gets secondary billing, but I have no idea who or what they are. And no, a quick Google search turns up nothing of use, even when you use "Our Friend Martin" as a Boolean assistant. We get this really, really cheesy R&B song as the opening credits rolls, and even better it's called "When We Were Kings" because fuck, sometimes the universe just makes things TOO easy for us.

No, this is the film at its absolute subtlest.

The movie begins proper with these two black kids standing in front of rubble that magically transforms into a fully built house. Oh, and one of them transforms into Martin Luther King, Jr. after entering the Stargate, so there's that.

And because this shit isn't late 1990s enough, we have ourselves a secondary title theme performed by Salt N Pepa, which sounds more like something to bump uglies to than something befitting of a children's animated program. From there, we are introduced to our antagonist, Miles, a precocious black kid who idolizes Hank Aaron, has a nasty ass bedroom and calls his mama "a slave" because she actually wants to work overtime at the office. (Oh, and as an aside, we never see Miles' father in the cartoon. Yeah, that revelation shocked the shit out of me, too.) Then she tells him if he doesn't get his grades up, he won't be able to play baseball and become rich like Barry Bonds and will probably end up slangin' crack down at the Waffle House down by the I-285 interchange. By the way, this kid's house is NICE - we're talking two stories, stairs, a basement, an attic, the fuckin' works. As a matter of fact, one might even call Miles - dare I say it - privileged?

In the next scene Miles is accosted by this fat blond white boy in a purple belly shirt. Eventually the bully, named Kyle, grabs hold of Miles at the bus stop but the old white bus driver almost runs him over and Miles is just barely able to escape. "See you, wouldn't want to be you," Miles says, which, for the record, was an antediluvian phrase even by 1998 standards. So Kyle's dad - voiced by John Travolta of all people - has to drive him to school. Which, fittingly enough, is Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School. From there, we're introduced to the rest of the cast. There's this skateboarding kid with a country accent (voiced by the little kid from Sling Blade, if you can believe it) and this stuck up Hispanic bitch who considers herself "Madame Curie" and the rest of her cohorts "The Three Stooges." Miles' teacher (whose race is a complete mystery - she could be Dominican or she could be Irish) then tells him she's worried about his slipping grades and he blames it on baseball season. Then he says the only way for a black person to make money in this day and age is through sports or entertainment, and then the teacher says something about Colin Powell and tells Miles that if he doesn't do a good job on his book report about Martin Luther King, he's going to be held back a grade. 

So anyway, the kids go on a field trip to MLK's birth home, and Whoopi Goldberg is the tour guide and the country skateboarder kid LITERALLY asks her if MLK had magical powers. Then Miles sees a photo of MLK as a kid playing baseball and Miles says "why the fuck NOT steal a revered civil rights leader'  baseball glove?" But as soon as Miles puts it on, Wish Kid-style, he and that country motherfucker are magically transported back to the 1930s. Sure as sugar, they run into 12-year-old MLK, whom Miles describes as "major magic time," which I have to admit, does roll off the tongue rather smoothly. Oddly enough, even though it's Atlanta in the Great Depression, black kids and white kids are playing baseball together, which, I don't know, seems like a bit of a stretch to me. But then a white woman calls Miles "an uppity colored" and tells the white skateboarder kid that if he doesn't clean up his act he'll get fucking lynched.

Miles slips on the glove again and this time around the kids wind up on a train with a teenage Martin Luther King, Jr. King explains how he spent the summer humbly picking tobacco in Connecticut to pay for college, which - to put it mildly - isn't exactly a 100 percent truthful interpretation of what King's ACTUAL youth was like. Then MLK talks about how "whites and coloreds" couldn't associate with one another in the South, while ominous music plays over stock footage of segregated water fountain signs. Then the kids eat dinner with the rest of the King family, and Daddy King is voiced by James Earl Jones, because of course he would. "Don't you think it's cool he's always doing nice things for everybody else?" Miles comments.

Hey, it was either that, or Wayne Williams Junior High.

The kids time-skip once more. Now they're in Montgomery, Ala. for the bus boycott in 1956. And now MLK is voiced by Levar Burton, and we get the NARRATIVE APPROVED Rosa Parks story (which, of course, never brings up the fact that Samuel B. Fuller was already in the process of BUYING the Montgomery bus system), and then we get stock footage of MLK's house getting firebombed. Then a character voiced by Samuel L. Jackson starts rallying the black community to use violence against the honkeys, but MLK tells them to be more like Gandhi instead ... which, uh, means he wants them to hate Africans and sleep with their naked nieces on top of them?

Well, before we can fully digest that peculiar visual, the kids time hop again, and now it's time to relive the Birmingham riots, complete with a montage contrasting cartoons and real people having Dobermans bite their ball sacks and getting hit in the face with fire hoses. The kids end up getting transported back to the modern day, and the next day they watch ANOTHER video about the sit-ins and "Bull" Connor, who is pretty much depicted here as a cross between Hitler and The Penguin. And that's our cue for even MORE footage of black people getting power washed, complete with the very, very debatable suggestion that MLK and JFK formed a partnership for racial justice.

After school, the kids go back to MLK's birth home and convince Whoopi Goldberg to let 'em go back inside and fuck around with the time-space continuum some more. The fat white kid and that know-it-all Hispanic bitch decide to trail 'em and what do you know, all four of them wind up getting sucked back in time to the March on Washington. Oh, and hilariously, the "I Have A Dream" speech is dubbed over, because the King estate actually TRADEMARKED it and make people pay to use it now. That said, you can still have a lot of fun with the scene subbing in your OWN music. Might I suggest "Animal (Fuck Like a Beast)" by W.A.S.P.? Anyhoo, the kids run into their future teacher at the rally, and she talks about MLK representing the "power of one" and "affecting change in everyone we touch" and a whole bunch of other hippie dippie bullshit. 

Then the kids hop forward in time and find newspaper clippings about King's death and act like it's the first time they ever heard he died before and decide to head back in time and STOP MLK FROM GETTING ASSASSINATED. "Sorry, that's way past my curfew," MLK tells the kids when they ask him to travel with them to 1999. But after name dropping Cesar Chavez and Thurgood Marshall enough times, MLK finally decides to travel to Miles' time alongside the rest of the chirrens. Except when Miles and MLK get there, the King birth home is just rubble on the ground and the two white kids are best friends instead of being antagonistic towards each other and oh shit, black kids aren't allowed to ride the school bus anymore. Cue stock footage of KKK marches and "colored only" park benches and MLK starts asking Miles some serious questions about why he thinks *his* timeline is so great again. Now cue MORE stock footage of burning crosses and masses of black people weeping. And, then when the kids get to the middle school, all of a sudden it's been renamed "Robert E. Lee Middle" and the water fountains are segregated again and the principal keeps telling them to "git out" and chides the teachers for being "stupid women." And, oh, that Hispanic girl from earlier? Now she's a street urchin who doesn't know English and polishes floors for a living and Miles' mama is a MAID and he's all pissed that he don't have a Nintendo 64 no more.

So Miles and MLK have to sleep in bags on the floor and then MLK sees his daddy's ghost in the clouds and right then and there he decides he has to go back in time and DIE and keep the continuity loop a goin' as originally planned. And holy shit, they actually SHOW MLK getting shot in Memphis. Well, you have to give 'em some props for having the cojones to put THAT in a children's cartoon. From there we segue to footage from King's funeral, but again, since it originally used quips from the "I Have a Dream" speech, all we have here is just dead audio. Anyway, with everything corrected in the space-time continuum, Miles is able to come back to the modern day and yep, everything is back to normal. And after Miles gets an "A" on his assignment, the kids decide to go feed some homeless people and join Jimmy Carter's Habitats for Humanity and hug crippled black women in wheelchairs while a cover "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" plays in the background. And that, my multicultural brethren, is all there is to it.

Hooray for government-mandated inclusionary policymaking, which totally can't be subverted into civil liberties-eroding power grabs the same way government-mandated exclusionary policymaking was!

Well, I guess that is what it is, isn't it? I guess you don't need me to tell you the historical accuracy in this one was hit and miss, and you REALLY have to question the cartoon's rosy - if not downright messianic - depiction of the good Rev. Dr. King. I mean, it's not like they were ever going to show the alleged homosexual drunken orgies or bring up the fact that a lot of MLK's mentors were avowed communists or anything like that, but they could have at least tried to make the guy seem a little more relatable. After all, the REAL MLK smoked, packed heat, and boned at least one white woman, didn't he?

I suppose in hindsight one may consider Our Friend, Martin one of the great pioneering texts of the ongoing "white guilt" complex in American society - especially for Millennials. Remember, this was shit children were seeing every single year throughout elementary school and junior high, and let's face it - the big, central message the cartoon gets across (rather intentional or planned) is that a.) MLK was so great that everything he said most be taken as the literal social gospel and b.) left unchecked, white men will enslave you again and call your mama bad names. Even if that wasn't the filmmakers' desire, that's just the way hyper-literal children think, and when you have that pounded into your skull over and over for nine years, without a single adult explaining the movie's takeaways in a more nuanced form it can and will leave an indelible stamp on one's psyche - and no amount of factual evidence is likely to surmount the pure emotional pull one has felt since he or she was in kindergarten. The filmmakers may have thought the key idea children took away from the movie was that you shouldn't treat people unfairly because they're different, but instead the central theme they're walking away with is "holy shit, white people were EVIL as fuck back in the day, and if we don't do everything MLK tells us to they'll start treating minorities like doo doo again." Just read the comments on this YouTube upload - virtually none of the top comments are about racial reconciliation, but various shades of the old "boy howdy, the whites sure were MEAN towards blacks back then, and you know what, the probably still want to enslave us" chestnut. Planned, or unplanned, that's the major takeaway easily impressionable children got out of this movie - don't judge people by the color of their skin, except for the white ones, because goddamn, look at all the evil shit they did back in 1950s.

As a history lesson, it's pretty much just brazen hagiography for the ankle-biter set, leaving out all of M.L.K.'s more regrettable character traits and pretty much attributing the entirety of the Civil Rights Movement to his doing (that there isn't a companion video chronicling the animated exploits of Malcolm X is a rather telling example of omission by design.) As a morality play, it's pretty humdrum as well, but come on - it's pro-diversity propaganda intended for first graders. What did you expect? And taken only on its merits as animation, it's passable, but nothing extraordinary. The entire time I was watching the video I just felt like the character designs seemed hauntingly familiar, and sure enough, the IMDB validated my suspicions: it was co-directed by Vincenzo Trippetti, who as fate would have it, also served as a storyboard supervisor for The Real Ghostbusters, Jem and Mummies Alive! Needless to say, if there was ever a production in dire need of a sudden guest appearance by Apep the Snake God, surely it would be this woefully uninvolving cartoon.

As a piece of nostalgic ephemera, I suppose it has its merits. Shit, I didn't even watch the thing when I was a kid and I still smelled my old elementary school's cafeteria and gym mats while I was reviewing it. But more importantly, it stands as a testament to the power of the media - particularly animated programming - as a major social conditioning engineer. Our Friend, Martin is unquestionably a production with the chief goal of dictating morality to its young audience. It has little to do with entertaining them, or even giving them an educational history lesson. Rather, it's a coordinated effort to instill in young viewers the seeds of an adult ethos, one that neatly contours to a particular political ideology and its pre-established dogma.

Is the intent of Our Friend, Martin to encourage children to rebuke collectivist labels and see individuals as precisely that, individuals, or is it meant to goad children into believing a one-dimensional social policy creation myth that clearly paints one half of the U.S. social dyad as born losers and the other half as lapsed ethno-totalitarians?

And if you can't figure out which one, no worries - just show this flick to an eight-year-old and they'll be able to tell you which is which as soon as it's over.

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Revisiting WCW Halloween Havoc 1998!

Behold ... the night Disco Inferno outwrestled Bret fuckin' Hart.

By: Jimbo X
JimboXAmerican@gmail.com
@JimboX

One of the great, bygone seasonal rites I really miss nowadays is WCW's annual Halloween Havoc PPV spectacular. Even when the show wasn't necessarily playing the gimmick to its hilt and running fucking electric chair matches and shit, the overall ambiance of the pay-per-views were still usually worth the price of admission alone. I guess it doesn't hurt that, by and large, the Halloween Havoc cards were usually among the best top-to-bottom WCW PPVs each and every year, with some of the best WCW matches ever - Guerrero/Mysterio at HH '97 and Vader vs. Cactus Jack at HH '93 immediately spring to mind - taking place during the All Hallows Eve-themed cards.

Really, you can't go wrong picking any random-assed Halloween Havoc PPV and having yourself a gay old, seasonally-appropriate time. Indeed, I plan on eventually getting around to recapping all of the old Halloween Havoc shows, but if you had to start with just one to get the nostalgia ball rolling, I reckon you can't outdo the 1998 installment. 

This was a very interesting time in the history of WCW. The Monday Night Wars were still a 'ragin, and we were still a good six months away from the WWF completely pulling ahead in the race and making it a pure-D laugher. In some ways, you could call this WCW at its absolute peak - that point in time where it was still not only a viable challenger to Vince McMahon, but in many ways the superior brand, both economically and in terms of in-ring quality. And without giving it away too soon, Halloween Havoc '98 is undoubtedly one of the more historic wrestling PPVs of the late 1990s - for reasons both laudable and dubious. Alas, there's no reason to spoil the tricks and treats here; how about we fire up this old VHS copy and relive the wonder and whimsy all over again? 

We begin with a weird preview video recapping the Hogan/Warrior and Goldberg/DDP rivalries through this purple, obfuscating fog while really ominous, operatic music plays over it. And yes, there is an allusion to the infamous Nitro "mirror" segment, in case you were wondering. 

We are coming to you LIVE from Las Vegas, where the crowd is so loud you can't hear Tony Schiavone say shit. Fuck, I am already dying from nostalgia just looking at the set, which features the iconic Halloween Havoc pumpkin prop getting EATEN by a giant, mechanical Nosferatu-like head that snorts dry ice like an unholy Brahma bull. Bonus points for the spooky music, the smoke billowing off the stage and the fucking explosions everywhere.

Our announcers (whose names are Kryon captioned onscreen in a really groovy gothic font) are the aforementioned Tony S, Bobby "The Brain" Heenan and Mike Tenay. Heenan keeps droning on and on about Hulk hitting his nephew over the head with a a chair and how that makes him one of the lowest forms of life on the planet. Then he puts on a masquerade mask (is that technically redundant?) and everybody starts chanting "weasel." I'm going to be saying this a lot, but I am gobsmacked by just how hot the crowd is for this show - and here I was, thinking it was a creative and financial dead zone for WCW. 

Allow me to sound like a 14-year-old black girl for a moment: can you name a more iconic trio than this?

The Nitro Girls (remember them?) dance a jig in the ring and this one guy in the crowd has a gigantic poster that says something about Twin Falls, Idaho (the same place where several Syrian refugees sexually assaulted a five-year-old in 2016 - predictive programming, perhaps?) and the sound of the audience totally drowns out the commentators. Maybe it was just WCW's mixing, but fuck, does that crowd sound nuclear. We throw it to Mean Gene Okerlund, who interviews Rick Steiner until Buff Bagwell comes out wearing a FUBU shirt and says everybody is sick of Scott Steiner and he wants to form an alliance. While Rick struggles to enunciate and Buff barks like a retard, Mean Gene runs down the entire kayfabe executive committee process to change a PPV match, and it's awesome.

Time for our in-ring curtain jerker. Raven comes out to his awesome ass music and the announcers are totally inaudible. His opponent is Chris Jericho (billed from Calgary, oddly enough) thus officially making this a battle of Jimmy Hart-produced grunge standard rip-off entrance themes (Raven's "Come As You Are" knockoff versus Jericho's "Evenflow" imitation ... pretty ironic considering Raven's finisher is called the "Evenflow," but that WCW logic for 'ya.) 

Raven sits in the corner with a mic and utters his ultra-shitty "What about me, what about Raven?" catchphrase and complains about having an unscheduled match tonight so he ain't gonna' do it. He leaves the ring, Jericho grabs the mic and says he equals buyrates and he's sorely disappointed because he really wanted to wrestle Raven, but he does so in a really mocking fashion and then he calls Raven's Flock a bunch of idiots so his foe runs back into the ring and starts stomping him. Well, looks like we're gonna' have that match after all, ain't we? 

Jericho whips Raven with his own leather jacket, then Raven kicks out of his cocky "foot on the chest" pin attempt and Jericho clotheslines Raven over the top rope. Hot balls on summer pavement, I can't believe how fired up this crowd is for just the opening match. Raven grabs the steel ring steps and suplexes Jericho stomach-first onto the international object. He follows suit with a running dropkick off said metal steps. Hey, I just noticed Raven's wearing a Suicidal Tendencies tee-shirt - now, that would be considered "retro," but back in '98 it made him look like a poor-ass meth dealer. Jericho stun guns Raven on the ropes (which Tony mysteriously calls a "defensive move") and then he sends Raven reeling with a springboard dropkick. Jericho goes for a plancha but eats guardrail instead. Raven keeps slamming Jericho's head on the steps, so I take it this is a 'no DQ' match now? Jericho swings Raven's ass into the guardrail and when we get back inside the ring, Raven tries to choke Jericho with his jacket and starts biting his forehead. Raven applies a sleeperhold and Jericho counters with a belly to back suplex and a running senton. Jericho surreptitiously unties the top turnbuckle pad. Raven hits a powerbomb and he slingshots Jericho into the exposed metal pad. Raven with a bulldog on the follow-through, but it only nets a two. Jericho whiffs on a spinning kick and Raven hits him with a belly to back suplex. Jericho goes for a rolling pin attempt, but at the last second he turns it into the Lion Tamer, but Raven is able to reach the ropes. Jericho goes for an Irish whip, but Raven counters with the Evenflow DDT - and Jericho kicks out at two. Jericho goes for a cheap schoolboy roll-up, but that's only good for a two. He hits Raven with a flagrant nutshot and a German suplex, but yep, that's only good for a two count as well. Jericho bumps into Kanyon (who I think was trying to interfere in the match?), Raven goes for the DDT, Jericho counters with the Lion Tamer in the middle of the ring and his opponent immediately taps. All in all, not a bad little opening contest, if I may say so myself. [** 3/4]

Only '90s kids will remember this is the right way to do the Walls of Jericho.

"Voodoo Child" start playing and this one guy in the audience is showing off his One Warrior Nation shirt because he genuinely thought that was something to be proud of. Again, the announcers are all but inaudible. Here comes Eric Bischoff (with a goatee) and the Hulkster. "I love this man so much," Hulk says before kissing Eric's brow. Bischoff says Hulk represents this millennium's family values and Hulk says he's not here to give the Gettysburg Address (fuck, now that I have that mental picture in my head, it actually sounds kinda' awesome) and he recounts "crucifying" Horus Hogan on Nitro. Look at that South Park stylized Wolfpac Sting cartoon in the crowd - now THAT is 1998 personified. Hogan calls the Warrior "a Bozo with paint on his face" and lets him know that if you question his power, "you're going to get beat up real, real bad, for life, brother." Yeah, I'm pretty sure Eric B. was visibly high throughout the entire segment.

Coming to the ring next, it's Disco Inferno, and the audience actually disco dances to his theme music. Fuck, we were all such self-unconscious fools back then. His opponent is Juventud Guerrera - while walking to the ring, he says something about "Juvy Juice" but it sounds more like he's saying "I hate Jews" and we all share a hearty chuckle. 

Yeah, just fuck trying to understand what the announcers are saying from hereon out. Disco with some elbow shots early. He kicks Juvy in the corner and follows it up with a side slam. Juvy retaliates with some LOUD ass chops, a tilt-a-whirl and a clothesline. Then he hits Disco with that elevated leg drop thingy where he puts his thigh on his opponent's head then jumps about five feet in the air for no apparent reason. Juvy continues the offensive onslaught with more chops in the corner. Disco fires back with an elbow, then Juvy monkey flips him out of the ring. Juvy flies under the bottom rope to the outside and lands a head scissors takedown, but he fucks it up and lands face first on the outside mat. Disco hits an inverted atomic drop, followed by a clothesline. He continues to punish Juvy with an elbow drop off the top rope, but it only nets a two-count, so he slaps on a sleeper hold instead. Mike Tenay chides Disco for "his poor weight distribution" while Heenan simultaneously puts Disco over and buries him by saying "he could be great, but he needs guidance." Juvy hits a spinning kick and a jaw jacker on the top rope. He follows suit with a plancha to the outside while Disco unwisely showboats. Back in the ring, Juvy hits a hurrancanrana (for fuck's sake, somebody please explain the etymology on this one - I mean, in Spanish, it literally translates into "hurricane frog") and Disco ripostes with a stun gun onto to the top rope and a swinging neckbreaker. I've got to say, these two dudes are really surprising me by how fluid their counters and reversals are. Juvy goes for a sunset flip, but Disco punches him and starts doing the La Macarena dance before hitting THE GIANT SWING and falling face first onto Juvy's balls. "It was inadvertent," Tony S. deadpans, "buy my God, it worked." Disco lands a textbook suplex. He goes up top and Juvy crotches him. Juvy lands a top rope hurrancanrana and a corkscrew press off the top, but it only nets him a two. Juvy counters an Irish whip reversal into a bulldog, but that only gets a two-count as well. Juvy goes for a reverse hurrancanrana and Disco counters it with a fucking THICK looking piledriver and that gets us our three-count, folks. A surprisingly enjoyable little romp right there. [** 3/4]

Your call: is it a screenshot from the actual PPV, or an image from a Nintendo 64 game?

The Nitro Girls are back out dressed like knockoff Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders shaking their tits and spreading their legs over steel chairs and shit and you've GOT to hear Tony S. say "yeah" like he's having to pretend to be heterosexual during the whole routine. Here comes Scott Steiner, who immediately calls Las Vegas "the town that never sleeps" because hes a fucking idiot, that's why. He calls Buff Bagwell a mama's boy and says Rick Steiner his been his brother "his whole life" and proposes they turn the match tonight into a Giant/Scott vs. Rick/Buff tag team bout. Here comes kayfabe WCW commissioner JJ Dillon. He says as long as they put the tag title bouts on the line, and he fights Rick for 15 minutes if he loses, he'll make the tag bout official. Fuck, none of these guys could emote worth a damn - say what you will about modern wrestling, but at least today's stars sound halfway human when they cut promos.

And following yet ANOTHER Nitro Girls routine, Disco Inferno is back out. You see, his match against Juvy was to determine the No. 1 contender for Billy Kidman's Cruiserweight title. Which we're getting. Right now.

Kidman's music is such a ripoff of Death in Vegas' "Dirt." Or maybe "Dirt" is just a ripoff of the stock music WCW used, there's no real way to tell. Tony S. says he can't imagine Disco winning the match, to which Bobby responds "we didn't think he could beat Juventud, so stranger things have happened." Disco with a scoop slam. Kidman fires back with a drop toe hold with a floatover armbar Tony S. describes as "very basic." Kidman throws Disco's head back when he does that old "Imma gonna' throw you into the ropes and duck when you come back at me so I can flip your ass over" spot and hits a hurrancanrana (or, as Tony calls it, "a nifty move") before hitting a top rope springboard. Disco with a drop toe hold of his own sends Kidman nose first into the ring ropes (which Mike Tenay awesome refers to as "steel cables" to really amp up the drama.) I legit laugh out loud when Disco mocks his opponent by yelling "Kidman, turn the music down!" and answering back "yes, mom!" Kidman with a boot to the face, but Disco holds the top rope down so he goes a sailin'. Kidman hits a running bulldog off the metal steps onto the concrete floor, and when Disco rolls back into the ring, he whiffs on the top rope frog splash attempt. Disco works a chinlock. Kidman escapes and hits his foe with a clothesline. Kidman gets flapjacked while rebounding off the ropes and Disco decides right then and there is the best possible time to stop trying to win the match and start doing La Macarena instead. I mean, shit, that thing was a meme in 1996, so why the fuck WCW is still using it as a pop cultural reference point in October 1998 is simply beyond me.

Alright, Disco with more stomps in the corner ... and more pelvis gyrations. Disco lands a "belly to back style" suplex, per Tony S. Inferno's insults continue to rule the world. "Show me something you punk, you pipsqueak!" he yells. Disco with a jaw jacker on the top rope, followed by a scoop slam. He goes up top and misses an elbow drop. Kidman hits his shitty lifting powerbomb thing and a powerslam that doesn't look all that powerful. Disco responds with the same text book piledriver that put away Juvy, but uh-oh, he's too winded to make the cover right away and can only chalk up a two count. Kidman goes for another springboard bulldog, but Disco counters it with a front facelock slam - actually, that looked kinda' cool. Disco goes for another La Macarena Driver, and Kidman reverses it into his shitty facebuster sub-finisher, and that gives him ample time to go up top and hit the Shooting Star Press for the three count. Well, I'll be damned - that makes it two back-to-back above-average showings from Disco Inferno on one PPV ... which is about two more than anybody back in '98 would've thought possible. I'll give it [** 3/4] as we segue to our next championship tilt.

Oh, the late 1990s - back when not only was it OK to cheer when an Italian choked a Mexican, it was wholeheartedly encouraged.

There's the NWO music again. Scott Steiner and The Giant come out first. When the future Big Show does his retarded "giant growl" arm raise thingy, a buncha' green pyro goes off and it does look somewhat cool. Scott tells the cameraman "I'm chiseled," because nobody expects coherent statements from Big Poppa Pump at any point in human history. Also - fuck, is the height discrepancy between these two a sight to behold. Scott grabs a fan sign that says he rules the world of wrestling, and that's our cue for Rick and Buff to stroll to the ring, barking like dogs and homoerotically riding each other like ponies once they get into the ring. 

Oh shit, you can see the Giant's butt cheeks hanging out of his underwear. And of course, Tony S. just HAS to bring up Rick Steiner's infamous promo with Chucky. The Giant and Rick are in the ring to begin. The Giant dominates with slaps early and an inverted atomic drop. Scott gets the tag and he pummels his brother with stomps and mounted punches. Rick gets thrown to the outside and the Giant headbutts him. Back in the ring, Scott continues to punch Rick up against the ropes. Rick hits an atomic drop and then he starts beating the fuck out of Scott and the crowd goes wild. Then Scott hits an atomic drop (but not as good as the one the U.S. army did on Hiroshima that one time), and Rick counters with a clothesline. Buff demands Rick tag him in, and as soon as he does, OF COURSE he turns on Rick, hits him a couple of times and runs out of the building, leaving Rick to battle the two men alone. Scott with a blatant nut kick the ref doesn't call. The fans chant "Goldberg" while Scott just keeps stomping the shit out of his brother. Scott with a scoop slam and more mudhole stompin' in the corner.The Giant is tagged in and he stomps on Rick's chest and slaps the fuck out of him. LOL, some dude in the crowd says something about steroids while Scott is outside. The Giant keeps doing this shtick where he starts to pin Rick, but lets him up after the one count to beat the hell out of him some more. Scott gets tagged back in and Rick finally starts fighting back. "Do you think Judy Bagwell had anything to do with this?" Tony S. asks. "No," Tenay responds, "she's a fine woman." Rick's comeback attempt is squelched by his brother kicking him in the balls. Then Scott holds up Rick, the Giant goes up top and - you guessed it - he accidentally missile drop kicks his own partner when Rick rolls out of harm's way at the last second. Man, Scott does such a great job selling it, too - he's acting like that last move killed his ass dead. Rick hits the Giant with a series of clothesline and finally, a bulldog off the top rope and that secures him the three count AND the WCW Tag Team Championship. 

Oh, but we ain't finished yet. Now, as per JJ Dillon's agreement, now Scott has to go toe-to-toe with his brother Rick in a singles contest. Rick chases Scott outside and bangs his head against the guardrail. He fights off the Giant and slams his brother's head into the metal steps. Scott begs for mercy but Rick just keeps a-punchin' him and clotheslinin' his ragged ass. I know I've already mentioned it, but it bears repeating: fuck, this crowd is just insanely pumped for all this shit. Rick lands an inverted Alabama Slam into the corner, but Scott rebounds and lands a tide-turning belly to back suplex. Say what you will about Scotty S., but that dude could throw some solid looking punches. Scott does that thing where you put your opponent chin down on the second rope and then you run into them with your balls against the back of their head. Rick hits a power slam and then a BAD-ASS belly to back 'plex. Then, on the outside, some dude wearing a Bill Clinton mask(!?!) hops over the guardrail. Stevie Ray hands him an international object of some kind before he gets in the ring. He enters the fray and coldcocks Rick and the ref and the bell sounds. But I think it's a no-DQ match, so it doesn't really matter. Slick Willy removes the mask and, yep, it's Buff Bagwell again. "I'm tired of getting gypped," Heenan comments, in what I think constitutes a shoot comment on the quality of WCW's story line swerves. In a great spot, Buff grabs the knocked out ref's hand and beats it against the mat with his own hand to make the pin count, but surprisingly Rick kicks out at two. Then Scott hits him with a TOP ROPE FRANKENSTEINER but I'll be goddamned, Rick kicks out of that, too. Rick hits Scott with a clothesline and drops Buff throat-first on the top rope. Rick goes up top, lands another bulldog on Scott and a new ref runs out to make the three count. Well, that was a totally overbooked clusterfuck, but I'll be a monkey's uncle if I didn't just plain like it. If you count both matches as a single entity (which, for storyline's sake, you pretty much have to) I'd feel comfortable giving it a solid [***] rating. And just when you think this overachieving match had peaked, there's a great up-close shot of Buff rolling around all groggy on the mat, only to look the cameraman dead in the eye and ask "anybody seen Monica?"

Huh - I wonder how many international objects this guy managed to fit inside Monica's Dungeon of Doom, if you get my drift? (And by Dungeon of Doom, I mean "her vagina.")

We've got a video package highlighting the rift between Scott Hall and Kevin Nash. "What could've possessed Hall to turn on his best friend?" the narrator asks. We recount Scott Hall's infamous "alcoholic" angle, complete with that time he worked puked on Nitro, and here comes comes the former Razor Ramon now, stumbling down the ramp carrying a plastic cup with some kind of dark liquid inside it. You have to dig that "bloody" black and white vest that says "Lone Wolf" on the back. But wait a minute ... if the blood is white, doesn't that technically make it cum? 

Nash comes out to that awesome Wolfpac rap song that's actually a rip-off of Militia's "Burn." "I don't think there's any question he's Mr. Cool," Tony S. remarks. So, the storyline here is that Nash is trying to help Hall kick his drinking problem by beating some sense into him, which is definitely something I never knew was one of the duties of an Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor. Shit, had I known that was one of the job requirements, I would've signed up years ago.

So Hall immediately throws his adult beverage in Nash's face and starts stomping that ass. Some outside brawling ensues and Nash eats ringpost multiple times. Hall bops him with David Penzar's microphone and starts choking Nash with a video camera cable. Then he grabs the mic while refs and trainers tend to Nash's injuries. "How's the world look through foggy eyes?" he asks Nash, presumably referring to all the dry ice billowing down the rampway. Eventually, Nash climbs his way back into the ring and Hall bitch slaps yesterday's taste out of his mouth. Hall with another flurry of awesome-looking slap-punches. It's clear Nash doesn't want to hurt his best pal - not a bad little story line you're working here, WCW. Deafening "Wolfpac" chants pipe up as Hall hits Nash with a scoop slam. Nash shirks off the Razor's Edge attempt and eats more punches in the corner from Hall. Still, Nash just plain refuses to fight back. Nash then starts pinballing Hall into the turnbuckles and then he hits a sidewalk slam, his first real offensive move of the night. They're on their knees, trading slaps. Nash hits a knee to the stomach and a series of knuckles to Hall's noggin. Hall momentarily rolls to the outside. He goes back in the ring and we've got a classical collar and elbow tie-up. Nash shoves him down and Hall fires back with some shoulder shunts and an arm drag. Nash ripostes with a short-arm clothesline, just like Gary Coleman would've. You know, because he was a midget and shit? Nash slams Hall face first into the mat and there's the old "running balls to the back of your head" chestnut again. Actually, he sticks it twice for good measure. Nash with some knees to the solar plexus in the corner. "This has been one for the ages just in terms of sheer brutality," Tenay remarks. Nash knees the fuck out of Hall, stopping briefly only to say "have another drink, baby!" That makes me wonder - are all the wrestlers micced for the evening? Because being able to hear them talk mad shit during the match just adds so much more to the experience, and today's promotions would be wise to copy it. Nash with some elbows to the back of the head. Then he starts pantomiming drinking a beer and I laugh my ass off. Nash lands the Jackknife Powerbomb and yells "I think I'll have a double" and hits him with another one, complete with a patented DX crotch-chop over his fallen foe for one last fuck you. Except instead of pinning him, Nash figures he's already proven his point and climbs out of the ring and starts walking back to the dressing room, and Scott Hall - despite being flat on his back for the last two minutes - winds up winning the whole enchilada via count-out. Well, I'll give 'em some credit, that was some really good storytelling right there, even if the match itself was kinda' ho-hum. I'll give it [** 1/2] for effort and it's time to keep chugging along.

Come to think of it, wrestling does need more hoes in bondage leather and rainbow wigs. A LOT more, actually.

The Nitro Girls are back out again, wearing neon rainbow wigs and leather dresses. This leads to Heenan dropping the line of the night: "they're dressed like Lodi."

The U.S. Championship is on the line next. Bret Hart is out first, complete with entrance music that sucks all the known dicks in the universe. Tony S. says it's the battle of "The Sharpshooter vs. The Scorpion," but I'm not entirely sure this is their first one-on-one encounter. Sting - complete with his short-lived goatee - is out second. This was during his Wolfpac phase, so his face paint is all red and shit. Tony S. talks about the value of the titles, and how they kayfabe drive up a wrestler's pay and prestige, but god damn it, tonight's bouts are about settling personal issues, not making money. For whatever reason, Bret Hart has been acting like a dick lately, and Sting ain't none too happy about his pissy disposition. Thus, they handle the interpersonal drama the only way real man can, dabnabbit - with commercialized violence.

Both dudes are stalling like motherfuckers, with Bret slinking around on the outside and Sting waving his bat back and forth in the ring. Bret gets in the ring for a second but bails again so he can jaw with a fat redheaded woman in a Goldberg shirt. Sting finally Pearl Harbors him and throws him into the ring. Sting with stomps and the old ten count punch in the corner. He hits a clothesline and a mean right cross, but the follow-up atomic drop only nets a two. When asked why these two are on bad terms, Heenan give it his best shot - "I think they're jealous of each other's finishing move." Bret rakes Sting's eyes and DDTs his foe out of his shoes. But it's only worth a two-count. Bret follows suit with an atomic drop and a clothesline. He hits Sting with a headbutt to the solar plexus, even though Sting holds his balls in agony instead. Bret hits a leg drop, but it's only good enough for a two-count. Then Bret heabutts Sting's ASS multiple times and gives him a blatant choke in the corner. Bret drops him with a right and a follow-up elbow. Hitman locks in a sleeperhold, but Sting fights out. Bret ends his comeback putsch with a sudden knee to the gut. He chokes Sting with the middle rope and lands a bulldog. Bret with a Russian leg sweep, then he goes up top for a leg drop. Sting counters with the Scorpion Death Lock, but Bret quickly makes it to the ropes. Now Sting's on the offensive. Bret pretends he tore a hamstring on a leapfrog and Sting just stomps the shit out of him. Then Bret reaches into his trunks and pulls out some knucks. But Sting grabs a hold of them and hits Bret with a clothesline, but the ref halts him before he clocks Bret with the international object, and Bret uses the pause in the action to furtively hit Sting in the balls. Bret with some more breadbasket stomping and a backbreaker, but the diving fist drop only gets a two. Bret dumps Sting to the outside and tosses him into the guardrail, continually feeding him Canadian knuckle sandwiches. "Oh my God, you're so sexy!" some ring rat yells at Sting. Goddamn, 1998 women were the easiest. Back in the ring and Sting accidentally elbows the ref and Bret leg drops the fallen official for good measure. Now Sting is punching the shit out of Bret. He hits a clothesline but Bret kicks him on the Stinger Splash attempt. Bret gets crotched and Sting superplexes him RIGHT ON TOP OF THE REF'S LEG. Fuck, that looked painful. Sting goes for the Splash again, but he overshoots his target and KOs himself on the metal pole (yes, just like at Great American Bash '92.) Bret rolls outside, grabs the bat and hits Sting a million billion times. He then revives the ref, who does a particularly terrible job pretending to come back to his senses. Bret locks in the Sharpshooter. The ref does the old arm drop thing, and sure as sugar, Sting's arm goes down three times, giving Hitman the official submission victory. Kind of a letdown considering the pedigree of the two wrestler involved, but it was still fairly watchable - good enough for a [** 1/2] rating, at least. 

For some reason, Bret has totally different outro music than he did entering the match-up. Sting is still out, so the ref calls for somebody in the back to give him a look-over. Here comes the paramedics with a stretcher. Oddly enough, none of the announcers act all that concerned that the face of the organization is laying lifeless in the middle of the ring and obviously seriously injured. Instead, while Sting is getting rolled out of the arena, Tony S keeps pimping the upcoming Hogan/Warrior match. Shit, that's like Joe Buck doing a hard sell for The Simpsons while Tom Brady lies motionless and unresponsive for five minutes after a helmet to helmet hit, ain't it?

I'm not entirely sure, but I think "The Scoripian" is a reference to an obscure sex act involving a chinchilla and four feet of garden hose.

"Time for the most anticipated rematch, eight years in the making," declares ring announcer Dave Penzer. Hogan (with his white boa) is out first. "I'm going to take the Warrior and break him in half, brother," he remarks. We get yet another recap of the NWO beating da fuq outta Horace Hogan on Nitro. Warrior's residence is listed as "One Warrior Nation" and his entrance music is utter shit. But man - do I wish that airbrushed leather trenchcoat look came back en vogue. Tony S. keeps calling it "the match of the decade" while they do nothing but circle each other like Shamrock and Severn at UFC 9. After some stalling, Warrior drops Hulk with a right and starts beating his own chest like a gorilla. Hogan works the arm early. Warrior reverses it and hits Hulk with a running shoulder block and Hogan bails to the outside. "You may not like it," Tony S. comments, "but it's smart wrestling by Hogan." The fans chant "you suck" at Hogan while Tony S. talks about Hogan's metaphorical "demons" since it's Halloween and shit. Then Warrior demands a test of strength. Hogan decks him instead and knees him in the corner. Hogan breaks out the rarely seen beyond 1985 "knuckle lock" spot. You know, the one where it looks like the other dude is on his knees sucking his dick while he tries to break his hands. And God, do I love Hogan's Vaudevillian laugh as he calls the fans "pieces of crap." Again - I can't tell you how much it adds to a match when you can hear the wrestlers talking mad shit to each other. Well, this thing is starting to drag already. Is the crowd chanting "Warrior" or "boring?" Hogan finally works in an arm wrench transition. Warrior reverses it and we have that old criss-cross running spot, which concludes with Hogan power slamming his foe, which - naturally - the Warrior refuses to sell as he bops right back up and hits Hogan with a power slam of his own. Then he gyrates like a retard against the ropes and clotheslines Hulk over the top rope. More "Hogan sucks" chants as they scuffle outside. Hulk with an eye rake, and then Warrior slams Hulk head first on the guard rail. And that's our cue for a ref bump, with Hogan dropping a knee on Nick Patrick's head for good measure. Hogan puts the Warrior in a headlock and calls for backup. Here comes The Giant. Hulk holds up the Warrior, and of course, the Giant accidentally kicks Hogan when the Warrior ducks. Virgil and Stevie Ray get clotheslined before they can even get in the ring by the Warrior. He goes for a pin but the ref is still out. Hogan hits a back body suplex, but it's only worth a two count. Hogan with more knees to the back. He grabs his infamous workout belt and starts strangling his adversary with it. Hulk hits a body slam but the Warrior keeps rolling away when Hogan goes for the elbow drop. The Warrior misses on the body splash, but he yanks off Hulk's belt and starts whipping him with it. Then Hulk digs into his tights and pulls out a baggie of ... something. He's got a lighter, but LOL, the fucking fireball doesn't ignite when he throws it in the Warrior's face. I SWEAR I hear a "you fucked up" chant. Anyhoo, Warrior keeps hammering Hulk and goes up top, and yep, he lands the axehandle smash. He goes up again and hits another axehandle. Hogan's bleeding. He hits Warrior in the balls and clotheslines him. Hulk with the atomic leg drop and here comes Horace Hogan with a chair. The Warrior starts Warrioring Up and hits Hulk with a barrage of clotheslines. Eric Bischoff distracts the ref and Horace bonks The Warrior over the head, allowing Hulk to make the cover for the 1, 2, 3. Post-match, Hulk tells Horace "he's passed the test" and Hogan's nephew STARTS DOUSING THE WARRIOR IN LIGHTER FLUID. Of course, the WCW suits run in before the Warrior can be set ablaze, as Heenan nonchalantly quips "do you realize the tragedy that was averted here?" at the thought of the company's top draw immolating another employee like a captive in an ISIS snuff film. Well, that ending was weird as all hell, and overall, it was unquestionably a subpar match. But it's nowhere near as bad as the IWC hivemind would have you believe, either. I'll give it a mediocre [**] for some entertaining moments, as we rush into our main event for the evening.

Yeah - a fizzled out piece of flash paper is quite the apt metaphor for this match as a whole.

Bruce Buffer is in the ring for the introductions. The world's most brazen "Smells Like Teen Spirit" ripoff heralds the arrival of Diamond Dallas Page, who jumps all over the commentary desk and runs through the crowd before getting into the ring. Fuck, Buffer's intro is like 18 pages long. And of course, we get the old school Goldberg intro with the cops escorting him ringside. The "GOLDBERG" chants are deafening - I haven't seen a Jew this over since Jesus.

This thing just has the air of a heavyweight boxing fight. The two competitors jaw at each other in the middle of the ring and Goldberg keeps shoving him into the turnbuckle. There's another lockup and DDP hits an armdrag. Goldberg tackles DDP through the middle rope and the ref breaks up the outside scuffling. There's another lockup, but this time, DDP counters the armdrag with a backflip (for real) and kicks da fuq outta' Page. Goldberg does an awesome float-over suplex into a cross armbreaker combo. DDP gets the rope break, then he lands a jawbreaker and fires off a few elbow shots. He goes for the Diamond Cutter, but Goldberg pushes him out of the ring again.

Back inside and we have ourselves another lockup. Goldberg works an armwrench and DDP counters it into an armbar. Goldberg then shoulder blocks him out of the ring again. DDP with another jawbreaker, followed by a neckbreaker and a Russian leg sweep. The pin attempt can only net a two. DDP works a front facelock. Goldberg with knee strikes and a swinging neckbreaker counter. Tenay notes the Goldberg is working DDP's arm to make the Diamond Cutter less effective. Goldberg with another one-armed suplex and a sidewalk slam. Just a two. Goldberg goes back to working the armbar. The transition here is just superb - it almost feels BATTLARTS-esque. DDP with a tilt-a-whirl head scissors takedown, but Goldberg immediately responds with a side kick. Goldberg goes for the spear but DDP moves out of the way at the last second and he bonks his head on the ringpost (yep, there's that Sting/Vader Great American Bash '92 spot again.) Both men grimace in pain as they try to climb back into the ring.

DDP hits a flying top rope clothesline. He stomps on the World Champ and counters a Goldberg slam into a DDT while Tony S. makes a REALLY clumsy allusion to the ending of King Kong. DDP motions for the Diamond Cutter and GOLDBERG SPEARS HIS ASS. But he can't make the cover because he hurt his shoulder on the ring post earlier, remember?

Goldberg sets up the Jackhammer, but DDP holds onto Goldberg's neck. Bill goes for another one and DDP HITS THE CUTTER. The fans go apeshit, but DDP is too winded to make the pin. DDP finally manages to make the cover, but Goldberg KICKS OUT. This was back when finishers were still protected, and fucking nobody kicked out of the Diamond Cutter. DDP looks for a suplex. Goldberg counters with the Jackhammer, he lands it, and that is goddamn it. "That's why he's 155-0," Tenay says. Fuck, for a barely ten-minute-long match, that shit was BUMPING. In the post-fight segment, Goldberg lifts DDP's arm as he slowly sulks back to the ring. Goldberg holds the title up as we quickly cut to an ad for World War 3, and this thing is el over-o.

Yep ... even in 1998, Goldberg was already the king of awesome, ten-minute, five-move matches.

The ending to the [****] main event is infamous for cutting out during the PPV feed across several large TV markets. Even now nobody's sure if that's a legitimate technical snafu or it was WCW pulling a fast one, but it did give them a convenient excuse to replay the match in its entirety on the very next episode of Nitro (which was one of the last times WCW beat the WWF in the Monday Night War ratings, if I remember correctly.)

Regardless, HH '98 serves as something of a corporate apex for WCW. With Kevin Nash ending Goldberg's undefeated streak just two months later ... itself, followed up by the infamous "finger poke of doom" title change ... one could easily argue it was all downhill for WCW from here. If you go back and watch any WCW PPV from 1999 or 2000, it feels like a show from a company in total freefall mode, but this particular event feels the exact opposite. There was a LOT of potential on the WCW roster at the time, and it's a crying shame the company wound up eating its own ass just a couple of months after this show. I guess you could say this show was one final outstanding performance before the product as a whole took a swan dive into the Dempster-Dumpster, and for that, it should be relished.

Interestingly, a quick glance at the Wikipedia entry for the show reveals a couple of matches were excised from my copy of the PPV, including a Wrath/Meng bout, a Perry Saturn/Lodi shindig and even a match where Alex Wright allegedly beat Fit Finlay. I've found photos online suggesting these matches did in fact take place, but I can't drum up any readily available video footage, but I highly doubt we're missing any five star hidden masterpieces here. Still, it would be neat to see that Wright/Finlay bout surface on the YouTubes or the DailyMotions - I can't imagine what kinda' fantastical bullshit they had to cook up to allow fucking Berlyn to beat Finlay, even in make-believe fighting.  

Even in truncated form, however, off the top of my head, I don't recall any WWF PPV from 1998 being as holistically sound from top-to-bottom. The main event was outstanding, you had a decent-to-legitimately good undercard and even the notorious Hulk/Warrior rematch wasn't THAT bad (although I'd strongly recommend watching it with Tony Schiavone's 20-years-after-the-fact commentary for extra LULZ.) There's just so much nostalgic charm to the PPV, and it really makes me yearn for the good old days, back when TNT showed live pro rasslin' and movies hosted by Joe Bob Briggs instead of old episodes of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit 22 times a day, Monday-through-Friday. 

Or, in other words, it may not be the pinnacle of pro wrestling as an art form in the 1990s (because if it did, it would have a whole bunch of Japanese people involved), but it was still an extremely satisfying card from top-to-bottom, with in-ring action that holds up far better today than you'd probably assume.

There's a lot of WCW nostalgia going around these days - what, with the return of Starrcade and War Games and wrestlers getting paid way more money than they're worth and what not - and that's for a reason. Post NWO, pre-Russo WCW really was one of the best stretches any major pro wrestling promotion has ever had, and as good as HH '98 may be, it's probably not even a legit top ten contender for best WCW PPV of the mid-to-late 1990s. And if there was EVER an ancient World Championship Wrestling shtick to revive in this, the post-post-post-postmodern era of fake fisticuffs, Halloween Havoc ought to be at the top of the list. Well, that, and the triple-tiered cage, but really, that's a story for an altogether different day ...

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Jerry Springer: Too Hot For TV! (1998 VHS Review!)

It was easily the most coveted video cassette of my seventh grade year. Twenty years later, however, does the infamous VHS live up to all of that junior high hype?

By: Jimbo X
JimboXAmerican@gmail.com
@Jimbo___X

For better or for worse, The Jerry Springer Show defined U.S. pop culture in the late 1990s. At a time when Oprah and Rosie O'Donnell ruled daytime TV, Jerry Springer's unrepentantly trashy talk show came out of nowhere to give squeaky clean, corporate-backed pseudo-wholesome afternoon television a swift kick in the anus. Unlike Geraldo or Sally Jesse Raphael or Ellen or The View, the point of Jerry's show wasn't to fawn and circle jerk over celebrity worship culture or promote some sensational, synthetic-moral guardian alarmist agenda. No, Jerry's program completely abandoned the sociopolitical rabble rousing and shameless Hollywood self-promotional whoring and dropped any pretense of being anything even remotely resembling a journalistic endeavor. Instead, Jerry's show gave Americans what they really wanted to see - a whole bunch of trailer trash and ghetto ass niggaz punching each other in the face 'cause of adultery, sans any sort of attempt to "intellectualize" the senseless violence.

I don't think there has ever been a TV show that's ever failed the old SLAPS test as hard as Springer. There's nothing artistic about watching morbidly obese people whale on each other and God knows what kind of "political" message can be culled from watching dudes with mullets and Jheri curls swing chairs at one another to defend their sister/lover's honor. At least pro wrestling has the fact that everybody knows it's fake working in its favor; if we're using the classical Miller test  as a gage of decency, The Jerry Springer Show pretty much DEFINES what it means to be "obscene" television.

Of course, being the low brow lovin', lowest-common-denominator-footstool-usin' cretins we were in the late 1990s, we just ate up Springer like retarded hippos. The show was getting boffo ratings, with the syndicated series actually beating Oprah's long-running talk show in the Nielsen war. Love it or hate it, Springer had found a winning formula: put a bunch of lower class slobs in front of a studio audience of slightly higher class snobs and convince them to curse, flash their titties, and bonk each other over the head with furniture for an hour. Remember, kids: at one point, this actually WAS the most popular daytime TV show in America, and it wasn't even close. 

Yeah, I know The Jerry Springer Show is still on the air today, but back in 1998, shit was different. This guy was having mainstream movies made about his program and fucking Congress was trying to open inquiries into whether or not the producers of the show should be arrested. This was a cultural tentpole on par with South Park and Columbine, and its social penetration was impossible to deny. 

So for those of you who didn't grow up during Springer-Mania, the idea of the Too Hot For TV! video special might seem incredibly stupid. However, you have to remember: this was before YouTube, and really, before online video streaming. What you saw on TV was pretty much all you ever got to see unless you ponied up the moolah for a video cassette, and lemme tell ya - for the pre-Intenet age, that damn video was about as big as things got.

Other TV shows, most notably Cops, had already done special edition "Too Hot For TV" videos. However, none of those shows had the immense cultural permeation that Springer had, and his "uncut, unedited, uncensored" video came out at the very zenith of Jerry-Mania. This wasn't just a coveted video, perpetually hawked in late night TV commercials, it may have been the most coveted video of the late 1990s that didn't have the word "sex tape" in it. In my small-ass hillbilly hamlet, every video store in town ordered multiple copies, but what do you know, they were ALWAYS checked out. Short of stealing your mama's credit card and order the tape off a hotline or owning an illegal cable box (though by the time the "tape" was making the PPV rounds, it'd already been in video stores for a couple of months) and with no Internet piracy around to save us all, it was damn near impossible to get your hands on the material. And of course, its unavailability made it all the more mythical, with my lunchroom compatriots passing along all sorts of off-the-wall rumors about the tape's contents (including one kid who told me the tape actually showed a man having sex with a horse ... which I'm pretty sure he got jumbled up with an entirely different Springer show, but whatever.) 

And, as much as I hate to admit it, I never did get around to seeing the tape, even after Springer-Mania tapered off and you could easily amble on in to any Walmart in the country and buy the VHS cassette for $4.99. Still, my mind sometimes wanders off to that inescapable hype from 1998, the kind of pop cultural folk tale that has all but vanished from the face of contemporary society thanks to the presence of the Internet as a universal obscure media aggregator. Lucky for me, though, it isn't too hard to find the special on the Internet - in fact, it's so easy, you can probably find it in one Google search.

So how about you pour yourself a cold beverage of your choice and journey alongside me as we revisit this 20-year-old relic from the absolute apex of trash television? It'll be more fun than a barrel of monkeys, I promise you ... or at least, more fun than a barrel of monkey excrement. Hopefully. 

Alright, we begin with a logo from Real Entertainment. This funky, warbled 1990s alt rock music starts playing over an opening montage of sloppy fisticuffs and craggy bare asses. So yeah, we are off to a rollicking start already. 

The video begins proper with a janitor sweeping up a destroyed set, with chairs and broken table fragments all over the place, like there had just been a Dudley Boys match or something. Jerry stands beside a giant CRT TV and says that a lot of stuff has been cut out of his show - until now. "It's a crazy world," he tells us, "have fun with it."

Which is exactly the same face the TV viewing audience was making at home.

In the first clip, a woman named Tammy says she's slept with all three of her sister's husbands and we waste no time at all before she gets up and yells "you're full of shit" and starts slap fighting with her biological kin like E. Honda. Security restrains them while they yell "I'll fucking kill you" and the guards say "just relax." Naturally, the crowd hoots and hollers like an ECW crowd circa 1995, or a bunch of ghetto high school hoodlums cheering on in-between class fisticuffs. 

The clips aren't really edited together very well, so it feels like they kind of lap over one another. In the next sequence, a woman lets her sister know she's brought three guys from her hometown onto the program who want to date her. The only problem is, her current boyfriend is on the show, too, and as soon as the would-be suitors hit the stage it's time to see some motherfukers get whacked over the head with ... roses? Of course, a total donnybrook ensues and the stage is flooded by security guards in blazers, suspenders and - for some reason - top hats. Meanwhile, petals are fuckin' everywhere, man. I mean EVERYWHERE.

Next scene, a white woman who looks like she works at your bank calls a mulatto woman a bitch and slaps her right on the forehead. For a full-extension backhand popper, that was downright excellent form. Since the mixed-race bitch is literally a bitch, she refuses to fight, cries, runs backstage and says she's going to call the police and the white woman is going to jail.

Next up, we've get these two hillbilly sounding women arguing about an affair and the man meat in their love triangle - who has a Jeff Foxworthy mustache and a mullet - calls the other lover "a little dick head." Of course, he comes out next and the jilted mullet head immediately shoots for a running takedown. There's some brief ground and pound before the guards apprehend Mr. Mullet. The other guy is some blonde Eminem looking metrosexual, and in the most late 1990s moment ever, his wounds are treated by a woman with a short platinum blonde do and tribal tramp stamp.

After that, a dude with a mullet who looks just like mid-1990s Eddie Guerrro gets decked right in the fucking head by some dude who looks like he works an office job and has the word "integrated systems" in his job title. Eh, not much here. Although I did dig the woman with the perm and the checkerboard jacket; I honestly don't remember that shit being fashionable that late into the 1990s.

We get a REAL TREAT, folks, because up next it's a clip from the episode "Holiday Hell With My Feuding Family." Just like professional wrestling, Springer wasn't above a gimmick match every now and then, and this was one of the show's more ingenious. Basically, they replaced the set with a giant dining table, complete with wine, bread sticks, pasta and all the other accouterments of your standard holiday banquet. Naturally, this results in a morbidly obese woman hitting her mama over the head with a turkey leg and her husband engaging in nationally televised domestic abuse by throwing a handful of crowder peas and mashed potatoes in her face. Of course, the audience - many of whom are wearing gaudy Christmas sweaters - roar with approval. These two guys even run across the studio to high five each other, and it is glorious.

One guy tells another guy "don't tell me what to fucking do" and they scuffle for a bit. Nothing too exciting here.

We get a pretty funny moment where the Jerry Springer logo falls off the wall and Jerry picks up the missing letters and says he's now "half the man he used to be."

A woman with giant tits feeds a dude ice cream and then these two guys in flannel shirts wail on each other.

Yet another mulatto woman - this one, wearing lip liner as lipstick - uses the phrase "ax him" instead of "ask him," which has always been one of my biggest verbal pet peeves. As soon as the other woman having sex with her man sits down, she hits her with a hard Mongolian chop to the jugular. They yell "bitch" and "fuck" a lot and wrestle again. A guard tells her to stop flailing her arms and start acting like a lady instead of a "bar room brawler." 

Two old white women shove each other. Yeah, not a whole lot to see here.

A dude who looks like Adam Driver gets slapped by a dude who looks like Ryan Reynolds' retarded older brother. The producers have to break them up during a commercial break. Some really pussy fighting on display here.

Oh, 1998. Back when white skinheads could choke black homosexuals on live television and it was ALRIGHT to cheer. 

Two black women who look like they could be in a really bad TLC tribute act call each other "bitch" and engage in a brief slap fight. One of them responds with perhaps the first truly great putdown of the tape - "you a temporary thing, baby, I'm forever."

"You ain't nothing but a white trash ass stripping wannabe piece of shit," some guy in flannel tells his girlfriend. She slaps him and he calls her "a nutty psycho." She smiles the whole time. So, uh, maybe she's corpsing her way throughout the whole ordeal? Then another Eddie Guerrero looking guy (well no, he looks more like Roman Reigns mixed with Fes from That '70s Show) comes out and hits the flannel guy with about three or four solid body shots. The guards get involved and the other guy LITERALLY kicks the other dude in the ass. A producer in khakis puts one of the dudes in a fucking beautiful side headlock. Then flannel guy Pearl Harbors mullet man with the shittiest running Superman punch you've ever seen. He tells the guard "if you'd leave me alone I'd kick his ass." You know, a lot of people have conjectured about the fights on Springer being faked, but come on, there's no way anybody scripting TV back then could've produced anything this entertaining.

A fat drag queen tells an audience member he looks better than her and has a bigger dick than her boyfriend. "She looks like Marcia Brady after 20 years," another catty and skinnier drag queen comments.

A woman in a cowboy hat and a silver bikini shakes her boobs for a little while. 

The Eddie Guerrero lookalike and short haired office man from earlier have a brief scuffle again. Yawn.

Two skanks that look like extras from Melrose Place get into a brawl and then a black dude with droopy drawers  gets in a blonde woman's face and she slaps him and the guards hold him back.

A black lesbian pulls a white lesbian's hair. The third leg of the fish eating taco love triangle comes out and the brawling doth continue.

Two gay black guys wearing wigs (one is in a hot pink bell shirt) get into a shoving match and then head security guard Steve Wilkos puts one of them in a rear naked choke and it is goddamn hilarious. 

An angry guy with a mullet (yep, another one) says he's going to rip off another dude's head and shit down his neck but he's leaning back too far and his chair tips over and he falls off the stage and we all LOL, 

Oh hell, now we're really getting to the good stuff. From an episode titled "I'm Proud To Be Racist," the KKK is on stage and a white woman in a black robe (ironic, I know) calls an audience member "a nigger." Then a black dude throws two chairs and there's a near riot on stage but the guards quickly break it up. Then an audience member tries to storm the stage to fight one of the Klanswomen and everybody in the crowd gets nervous as shit. Well, when a Jerry Springer audience is clamoring for peace, you KNOW some serious violence is dangerously close to transpiring. 

More fat white woman are fighting and cursing. One of them insults the other by saying she drinks a bottle of everclear and fucks five guys in one night. This is followed by a "blooper" of an audience member taking the mic and accidentally cramming her ponytail into Jerry's mouth. He blames it on having a "big nose" which may or may not be an allusion to the fact he's Jewish and, as the Mayor of Cincinnati, once used a personal check to purchase hookers. Not that the two can't be mutually exclusive coincidences, of course ... 

More trashy tramps fight, and  there's another pull-apart on stage. There's also this great moment where this fat cow of a woman pops a big boobed stripper looking woman right in the face. Hard. 

A white woman accuses her black boyfriend of trying to hit on the 16-year-olds and 300-pound fatasses in the green room so she slaps him. Then his mistress comes out so she slaps her. 

Hey remember, the audience member that wanted to fight the Klan woman? Well, she's back as a guest herself and she finally gets a chance to confront that Ku Klux Kunt onstage. Oddly enough, her boyfriend looks JUST like Jake "The Snake" Roberts. The guards, unfortunately, break things up before anything too exciting happens. 

A woman says another woman has a big fat pussy. "How many pets do you have?" Jerry responds. He then does a broken live promo where he jokes about wanting to interview guests who date sheep.

And believe it or not, kids, that's actually the entire video. Of course, Jerry being Jerry, he just has to conclude the tape on something of a psuedointellectual note, so below, you'll find a verbatim transcript of this most special edition of Final Thought (aka, the final part of the show where he tries to say some semi-insightful, flowery things to make up for the last 59 minutes of unabashed mayhem.)

"You know we pride ourselves on showing you from time to time the more outrageous people of our society. Those who are either wildly eccentric or in their  political or social beings, simply defiant of convention. And perhaps none are more eccentric or defiant than the ones we've just shown you. Now, while  none of these lifestyles or manners are particularly ones we would necessarily choose for ourselves, how boring life would be if there was no outrageousness. That is to say, none among us who would push the edges of the envelope. Please understand because we show it does not constitute an endorsement of it or any particular view or behavior any more than reporting a murder on the news or a prime time movie about a rape is an endorsement of those horrors. Look, television does not and must not create values. It's merely a picture of all that's out there - the good, the bad, the ugly. A world upon we which apply our own values learned and nurtured through family, church and experience. Remember, if we only permit the views that only the majority of us hold, then you and I are free only as far as we agree with the majority. If you believe nothing else I ever say in these commentaries I offer at the end of every show, believe this: the politicians or companies that seek to control what each of us watch are a far greater danger to America and our treasured freedom than any of our guests could or ever will be. Until next time, take care of yourself, and each other."

Yeah, it's a pretty smarmy way to end a half hour of trailer trash and ghetto niggaz (or, perhaps, crappy actors pretending to be trailer trash and ghetto niggaz) beating one another up and showing their stretch-mark-covered titties to the world, but hey, this Springer guy - who has now been hosting the program for 25 years - knows not to mess with a winning equation. If all it takes is a minute of half-assed pseudo-intellectual drivel to offset the unabashed exploitation of poor and possibly retarded Americans for cheap, mean-spirited entertainment, I say keeping running with it, Jerry-Boy - the fact you're STILL on the air today is more than enough proof middle America is A-OK with your shtick. 

Barely 30 minutes long, the fabled Too Hot For TV tape doesn't offer a whole lot of content, and considering it was battling stuff like Bum Fights and the first wave of CKY tapes for shock-humor supremacy, all in all you really can't chalk this stuff up as anything but a disappointment. The fights are funny and it's nice hearing all that profanity, but to be frank, there's nothing here that will really make you shake your head and go "yep, now that is some messed up stuff right there." Even by 1998 standards, I don't think the contents herein were all THAT provocative. Of course, our mamas didn't want us watching 'em, but hey, it's not like we were jacking off to Faces of Death, either.

So what sort of historical value does this tape offer to us, citizens of the (current year?) Well, it does a pretty good job showcasing how trashy TV was in the waning days of the analog set years. Nowadays, the amount of sex, violence and obscene language on network TV easily outdoes Springer at its absolute wackiest, and compared to the stuff on cable and premium TV, this shit is woefully subdued. But back then, Springer was pretty much the raunchiest and rudest thing on the airwaves. Irked parents and opportunistic politicians condemned it as an agent of societal decline, and in a way, I guess they were right. Springer was a show that, perhaps inadvertently, opened the flood gates for trashy reality TV to reign supreme, and I wonder just how successful that Dating Naked/Cheaters/The Anna Nicole Show format would've been had the masses not already been inoculated by Springer's antics. Oddly enough, by pandering to the lowest common denominator, perhaps Springer's show made U.S. society - as a collective - more desensitized to depravity and debauchery. I mean, you can only wheel out fist fighting fat girls calling each other "whores" five days a week before it becomes mundane, and there's even a potential argument that Springer's show made America more welcoming of alternative sexual lifestyles. Regardless, Jerry's impact on the American conscience is undeniable, and probably a whole lot more pronounced than most pop cultural historians would ever give him credit for. I mean, the program taught an entire generation that vomit fetishes were a thing - that alone entitles the show to enshrinement in the Smithsonian some day. 

And this, I guess, represents a sort of encapsulation of the essence of The Jerry Springer Show. By now there has to be literal years worth of taped Springer content, and factoring out all his boring ass pre-fisticuffs daytime talk stuff, what you see in Too Hot For TV is pretty much what Springer's been serving us nonstop for 20-some odd years. Two hundred years from now - long after a solar flare has wiped out all our precious digital archives - somebody can pop in this ancient video cassette and INSTANTLY grasp the appeal of the program to the plebs of 1998. It had cursing and punching and people yelling and fatties flailing at each other and in the middle of it all, this ex-country singer Jew in an unremarkable tuxedo playing ringmaster for our carnival of lower class violence and making a shit ton of money off it. 

And if that doesn't sum up the American media consumption landscape in the late 1990s, I honestly don't know what does...

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