Before becoming a full-time member of the WrestlingClassics.com family, I reviewed WCW’s weekly Thunder broadcasts for 1wrestling.com, and it’s associated Wrestling Lariat newsletter.  Sometimes, old habits are hard to break, and as such, here’s some thoughts that crossed my mind watching the 6/7 edition:

Over the last three or four years, there have been few wrestlers that are as physically fragile as Shane Douglas.  He’s forty pounds heavier than he was in his throwing-down-the-NWA-title prime, he’s worked hurt, he’s worked stiff.  All of those things have contributed to a fractured palate and nasal cavity, dislocated elbow, torn pectoral muscle, bad knees, bad ankles.  WCW just got him back after months where he could only act as the mouthpiece for the Revolution.  So, why then, would he be put in a relatively meaningless Tables match at the Great American Bash?  To make matters worse, his opponent is The Wall, one of the strongest, and greenest, men with the company.  It’s a short-term feud that doesn’t make any sense, and yet, they’ll risk Douglas’s health on it.  Odds of Shane getting hurt in Baltimore are 3-to-1, with an over/under of 3 months for his time on the DL.

Speaking of wrestlers coming off the DL, part of me was surprised to see Goldberg there at all, after the reports that Rick Steiner hit him a little too hard for concussed comfort on Nitro.  He’s not currently listed on the Bash lineup.  That’s probably good, cause it looks like Billy will be doing hard time after Eric Bischoff had the cuffs slapped on him…whatever.  When I get to be the new WCW commissioner (I’m waiting anxiously by the phone for it), the first thing that’s gone is the hackneyed bit where someone in charge has a wrestler they don’t like taken away in handcuffs.  Typically, the indy wrestlers or off-duty rent-a-cops doing the cuffing can’t even pretend, by sports entertainment standards, to care.  I don’t expect Serpico.  I do expect to be convinced that Doug Dillenger isn’t waiting with the key three feet past the edge of the curtain.

Did Booker T lose a bet, and talk Hugh Morrus into covering for him double or nothing?  Booker has a much stronger argument that racism within WCW is ruining his career than Sonny Onno or Bobby Walker, the guys who are suing the company over that.  GI Bro was a bad “Evening at the Improv” punchline 15 years ago.  Now, it’s just in quasi-poor taste.  But what should I expect from the creative crew who replaced the last name Morrus with Rection.  Capt. Hugh Rection.  I suppose his middle initial is “G”, eh?  That’s a Beavis and Butt-head joke from five years ago, and it wasn’t their best material even then.  Booker is a former U.S. champ (the #2 belt in the company, don’t forget) who is probably the best active wrestler never to hold a World title.  Morrus is the most agile 300-pounder out there, and has been underutilized by WCW since his arrival.  It makes perfect sense, then, to stick these two with Lash LeRoux, Chavo Jr. and Van Hammer in a terrible comedy gimmick that no one could possibly take seriously.  Expect to see Dustin Rhodes joining their ranks any day now.  After all, that way Vince Russo could cash in on anyone willing to offer “Hey, I’ll bet $100 you can’t bury Dustin’s career any further in the cold, hard ground!”

To inject a brief bit of positivity, I loved the old people with Russo.  They cared about playing along even less than the rent-a-cops did.  But at least that fit their role on the show OK.  I’m crossing my fingers that Ric Flair getting to jam Vince into the cake was a reward for doing the job on Monday, not an advance loan on getting beat at the PPV.

I haven’t been the most active watcher of televised wrestling recently, but could someone please drop me an E-mail (grapsfan@worldnet.att.net) and tell me what the frig Disco Inferno was doing as a second banana to the Filthy Animals?  It hasn’t been that long since Konnan was cheesed that he had to feud with Disco.  Now, he’s got to team with the guy.  Priceless.

There is an oft-used quotation that states “those who do not study the past are doomed to repeat it.”  Throughout the 90s, since Ted Turner bought WCW, Vince McMahon has consistently stayed one (or more) step ahead by knowing the right things to do with the right people.  OK, WCW had a big lead for a couple of years with that nWo thing.  But you know what?  I’m convinced that was just dumb luck, a matter of the right thing at the right time, with no other serious competition out there.  There must be something in the water at CNN Center.  Be it Ole Anderson, Jim Herd, Kip Frey, or the current Bischoff/Russo regime, they keep turning blank checks into toilet paper.