Previously on the Best and Worst of WCW Monday Nitro: United States Champion Bret Hart tried to give title shots to El Dandy and Hypnosis, but was shut down by the doubters.

Click here to watch this week’s episode on WWE Network. You can catch up with all the previous episodes of WCW Monday Nitro on the Best and Worst of Nitro tag page. Follow along with the competition here.

Remember, if you want us to keep writing 20-year-old WCW jokes, click the share buttons and spread the column around. If you don’t tell them how much you like these, nobody’s going to read them. It’s almost time for the ninth SuperBrawl, in both order and quality.

And now, the Best and Worst of WCW Monday Nitro for February 1, 1999.

Worst: Kimberly Falls For Scott Steiner

Scott Steiner, due to muscles-based sexual naïveté and the belief that when you defeat a man in a World Championship Wrestling match you lay claim to his wife, has been stalking Diamond Dallas Page’s wife, Kimberly. So far this has been limited to the male gaze and following her into the bathroom to explain how they should be together because they both have great bodies. This week, however, he gets an early start and harasses her during a Nitro Girls rehearsal. She accidentally falls down and hurts herself in the encounter, cementing Steiner as the company’s biggest heel for both injuring a woman and for keeping the Nitro Girls from some much, much needed practice.

WCW isn’t very good at action set-pieces, so enjoy Kimberly accidentally getting tabletopped, David Flair-style, when Steiner grabs her arm and fellow Nitro Girl AC Jazz doesn’t have the spatial reasoning to scoot out of the way of Kim’s shimmying, approaching butt:

That short, safe tumble onto carpet knocks Kimberly out, causing Steiner to flee the scene and the Nitro Girls to crouch around her with tears in their eyes like they’re Lois Lane cradling the dead body of Superman. Later, before a match with Chris Jericho, Steiner attempts to explain the situation. He also attempts to pronounce the word, “mesmerized,” and fails spectacularly. Read this out-loud in your best shrill and aggressively stupid Scott Steiner voice:

“AS YOU PEOPLE ARE MESMER-MIZED BY THE GREATEST BODY IN THE WORLD, YOU CAN SEE WHY I AM A CHAMPI-EN! AND BEING A CHAMPION MEANS YOU GOTTA TAKE ON ALL COMERS, THAT MEANS EVEN WHITE TRASH! NOW DIAMOND DALLAS PAGE, LAST TIME WE WRESTLED THERE WAS ONE STIPULATION, AND IF I BEAT YOU, I GOT TO SHOW YOUR WIFE WHAT IT WAS LIKE TO BE WITH A REAL MAN. YOU HEARD IT, THE WHOLE WORLD HEARD IT, AND NOW YOU GOT PROBLEM WITH IT. BUT THERE WAS ONE OTHER PERSON WHO HEARD IT, AND SHE SEEMS TO LIKE THAT STIPULATION, AND THAT’S YOUR WIFE. BECAUSE SHE’S IN THE BACK FLIRTIN’ WITH ME, ASKING QUESTIONS WHY ALL MY HOOCHIES SAY THERE’S NOTHING FINER THAN SCOTT STEINER. SO DIAMOND DALLAS PAGE, YOU NEED TO STEP ASIDE AND LET NATURE TAKE ITS COURSE, AND LET THIS BODY ROCK YOUR WIFE’S BODY UNTIL SHE TELLS ME WHO’S HER DADDY! BECAUSE IN ONE NIGHT I WILL FULFILL ALL HER FANTASIES, CAUSE AS YOU CAN SEE, THIS BODY IS NOT BUILT JUST FOR PLEASURE, AND YOU DON’T NEED NO TAPE MEASURE. BECAUSE THAT IS THE LARSHARMSWORL AND THIS BODY CAN GO. SO THIS GOES TO ALL MY FREAKS OUT THERE, BIG POPPA PUMP IS YOUR HOOKUP, HOLLER, IF YOU HEAR ME.”

Note: Jericho loses that match, badly, due to the combination of being physically outmatched by Steiner, being constantly cheated and distracted by Buff Bagwell, and interference from Perry Saturn. It starts to kinda feel like WCW’s getting together and having an intervention to make sure Jericho leaves the company and becomes a huge star as soon as possible.

Secondary Note:The Nitro Girls continue to dance throughout the night, because the show must go on.

DDP arrives to the arena about halfway through the show (because it’s a good idea to be very late to work when your wife’s spent the past few weeks being accosted by a steroid-infused sex monster with corporate gang connections) and Billy Kidman immediately narcs on Steiner. Keep an eye out for future Cruiserweight Champion ‘Primetime’ Elix Skipper and almost Evolution member Mark Jindrak as security making their on-screen debuts in the background.

An enraged Page stomps off to the Wolfpac dressing room and DEMANDS SATISFACTION, but they just make fun of him and tell him Steiner’s in another castle. You could ask 1999 Kevin Nash to recite the alphabet and he’d find a way to make “L-M-N-O-P” sound sarcastic and condescending. When Page leaves after dramatically threatening the wrath of God, we find out Steiner’s actually in THIS castle, and … might be having closet sex with Kimberly?

The angle’s probably not going in the direction you think it’s going after revisiting these segments, but I don’t want to spoil next week’s Wet Hot American Summer homage.

Adventures Of The nWo B-Team

(With apologies to Scoop This, who once hired me to write jokes and fired me a week later because they hated all my jokes.)

We catch up with the B-Team — now with their official, classic lineup of Vince, Brian Adams, Scott Norton, Stevie Ray, and Horace Hogan — stranded at the Minneapolis−Saint Paul International Airport due to Vincent’s inability to properly book them a rental car, or successfully do anything more complex than fanning a small amount of money in the background of a Million Dollar Man promo. Stevie Ray, the abstract thinker of the group, walks like 10 feet to their left, locates a driver holding up an “NWO” sign, and loudly announces that his talks with Hollywood Hogan about the treatment of his stupidest subordinates has paid off. The team hops in the limo, all except for Vincent, who is made to stay at the airport as punishment for being the world’s least secret nWo Wolfpac mole.

In what might be the least realistic moment in the history of a show that includes the thawing of a horny Himalayan ice mummy and the band KISS birthing a fully-grown, KISS-themed man from an elaborate stage womb, Vince gets on the horn with the Elite and tells them he needs a ride. Then, before he can even end the conversation, the Wolfpac limo pulls up. Vincent’s got those “spawn limo” cheats enabled.

When they get to the arena (at the same time), Stevie tries to bury Vince to Nash but, you know, Vince is right there, so they’re forced to make up. Lex Luger insists that, “we’re all Wolfpac,” which is extremely not true, and the group Too Sweets it out. Tensions are eased when the B-Team gets to the locker room and discoves nWo Elite has set them up with some of Minneapolis-St. Paul’s finest hoes.

Later, when it comes time for Scott Steiner to deliver a challenge to Diamond Dallas Page for SuperBrawl but avoid an on-the-spot beatdown, they order Vince to deliver it personally. Instead of doing what they say, Vince outsources the job to the only member of the team with less prestige, the Disco Inferno, with the note that the slap is the signal for the nWo to attack. Disco does his due diligence and slaps Page, but, like the bells at King’s Landing, the nWo’s never known a slap to mean “attack,” so Disco gets his ass beat. Nash compliments Vince for his delegation of duty, because even Disco Inferno’s friends hate Disco Inferno.

America Runs On Dunking

It’s mentioned in passing that Hollywood Hogan himself isn’t here tonight, so where is he, exactly? Before we can talk about that, we have to talk about what Eric Bischoff’s doing.

Eric Bischoff lost control of WCW to Ric Flair for 90 days, so he must do everything Flair tells him to do, no matter how demeaning, or he’ll be fired. Because that’s how jobs work. Previously he’s been stuck on ring crew, which ended with him slipping a wrench to a member of the nWo to help them win a match, and stuck behind the merch stand, which ended with him slipping a 2×4 with a foam finger on it to a member of the nWo to help them win a match. This week, Flair sets up a dunk tank outside the arena (in Minnesota, in January) so disgruntled employees can humiliate their karate biker boss in the public square. Hope this doesn’t end badly for WCW, somehow!

The dunking continues throughout the show, with the line featuring Ric Flair, Dean Malenko, the former members of the Latino World Order, and James J. Dillon, seen here missing so many pitches in a row that Bischoff has to slide himself off the seat and pretend one connected.

Other highlights include La Parka triumphantly dancing at Bischoff’s expense, and Bobby Heenan going full 1993 Raw by trying to help but tripping into the button. Bischoff insists that he’ll have the last laugh, however, repeatedly asking Flair WHERE’S YOUR KID?? Flair is instinctively like, “uh, easily winning on every WWE show every week? Oh, you meant David.” I’m kidding, even Ric doesn’t seem to care when Bischoff’s basically screaming WE ARE MURDERING YOUR SON AS WE SPEAK at him in front of everybody.

So what’s going on with David? Well, let’s talk about Ric. I promise this all ties together in the end. And it’s anti-Semitic, somehow!

Flair And Balanced

Mean (woo, by God) Gene brings Flair to the ring for Flair’s usual screamed list of regional legends and a series of announcements, including booking Bret Hart to defend the United States Championship against Chris Benoit at SuperBrawl. This is a thing people would like to see, so WCW baits and switches it before the segment’s even over. Scott Hall shows up, wonders if Benoit got the title shot for washing Flair’s car, and says HE should get the shot, because he bought a taser a month ago and started bring it to work. This sets up Hall vs. Benoit for later in the night, but not before Benoit interrupts the interruption and says the kind of sentence only Chris Benoit with a microphone is bad enough to deliver. None of this is a typo.

“Guts? You wanna talk about guts? We’ll find out just how much you’ve got after I ninnerduce into my foot to your brown-eye.”

I’ll go ahead and spoil the match for you: Benoit loses, because Benoit always loses — it’s not even his only loss on the night, as he got pinned by Curt Hennig in a tag match in hour one — and the Outsiders stand tall, literally and figuratively.

The best part of the entire segment is Flair reacting to the nWo interruption by trying to Too Sweet Mean Gene and not knowing how it works.

That means the United States Championship match at SuperBrawl will be nWo vs. nWo and heel vs. heel unless, you know, someone should happen to arrive by boat and ruin everything.

Hilarious Worst: Buffer Is The Stuff(er)

Fun note about the main event, this is the episode where the normally corny but reliable Michael Buffer huffs a bunch of paint before he comes to the ring and can’t get anything right. He describes Benoit vs. Hall as, “a special heavyweight eliminator match,” for some reason, and says Benoit, “brings to the ring one of the great legacies of professional wrestling, a family tree filled with history.” When a person teaches you how to wrestle, do you get added to their family tree? It’s also the one where Buffer, who has been working here a long-ass time by now, doesn’t know Bret Hart’s name:

More on Bret ‘Hitman’ Clark‘s situation in a bit, but let’s recap.

Ric Flair is confident that the nWo is finally falling apart because Hollywood Hogan’s not at the arena (which happens fairly often) and Bischoff’s getting humiliated with parking lot carnival games. Bischoff’s like, HEY RIC FLAIR YOUR SON DAVID IS DOOMED, DOOOOOOMED, but Flair can’t put the pieces together. Can you? ARE YOU THE WORLD’S GREATEST DETECTIVE?

Hold on to your butts, as it turns out Hogan isn’t in Minnesota because he’s hanging out in the parking lot of Charlotte eye doctor and stalking David Flair. Hogan is accompanied by Oz actor and former president of the New York chapter of the Hells Angels, Chuck Zito, because the one thing Hogan and Bischoff have in common is that they’re obsessed with wanting bikers to think they’re cool. Here he tries to impress Zito by calling the camera man a, “jiggly, jiggly Jew,” which is retroactively on-brand for the Hulkster.

From the 2/15/99 Observer:

“There was some heat on Hogan calling the camera man a ‘jiggly, jiggly, jew’ on Nitro, but evidently not enough for the segment not to have been replayed on every show during the week.”

[breathes through teeth]

Worst: Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

In other nWo news that won’t end badly for everyone, Konnan and Rey Mysterio are sick of the Wolfpac’s anti-lucha libre shenanigans and challenge them to a match at SuperBrawl, sweetening the pot by saying they can have any stipulation they want. In a moment that will come back to bite him in the ass and then not matter at all a few years later, Mysterio offers to put his mask on the line against Nash’s hair, or Luger’s hair, or even Miss Elizabeth’s hair. Konnan explains their motivations thusly:

“Lex and Nash, you bum-rushed little Rey, I know why you did it, to get back to me. But you know that’s like going into a bank taking they cheddar and they gold bullions and on your way out you shoot the teller who happens to be in a wheelchair. That ain’t thug, that ain’t cool, that ain’t me. I don’t ride like that.”

Yes, K-Dogg, trying to remove a wrestler’s mask is exactly like stealing bullions and murdering a handicapped person. Konnan isn’t like that. He would NEVER steal bullions from a bank and then pistol-whip the differently abled. He promises Nash and Luger that he and Rey will, “make you two strawberry fools BOW DOWN,” and burns them with a mic drop line that makes a little less sense every time you read it: “You guys used to be my stand-up dogs, too bad you now have to sit down in the bathroom to take aim.” I only liked you when you pissed standing up, assholes. Luger and Nash later accept the match and put Liz’s hair on the line, because that was presented as one of the options.

In Other nWo News, Because Somehow There Isn’t Enough Content About This One Faction

Ernest ‘The Cat’ Miller shows up and does his normal “I’m the greatest” call-out, declaring he can whoop errbody in here if necessary to prove his worth as a Karate Champion. Scott Norton was in the bathroom for this, apparently, and when he gets out the nWo does a bit where they pretend Miller called Norton out specifically to piss him off. Norton, with the mind of an enraged child and the body of an enormous beer keg, power-walks to the ring and throws Miller into the Earth about it. This is one of those matches that looks good on paper, looks GREAT as a match in a video game, and is fun but a little underwhelming in practice. Still, part of me wishes I could go back in time and book a three-month Ernest Miller vs. Scott Norton feud that turned 15 minutes of every Monday Nitro into PANCRASE.

You Know

On a show that’s already featured “mesmer-mized” and “don’t shoot the handicapped man when you’re done stealing gold coins from Wells Fargo,” you might be surprised to learn that it’s Booker T who has the worst promo of the night. I cut out the Gene interjections and emboldened every time he says, “you know,” because, you know, you will not believe it.

“You know you come up here axing me these questions you know I know what you’re thinking, you’re thinking the same thing the people out in TV land are thinking.

“With a torn ACL and you know received by Bret Hart you know um you know the doctors you know they told me to take six months off you know me being you know the stubborn mule you know and the fan mail coming in, I took three and a half months off and I came back you know ready to raise the roof if you know what I’m saying.

“You know that’s what I’ve done you know, but you know after that match last week with Bret Hart you know I had to rethink this whole process you know, um, you know … well Gene, where I’m from, when you get caught slipping, you get ganked, you dig? And that’s just the way it is. But um, you know a guy told me Booker T you need to refocus you need to rethink this thing, you need to turn a negative into a positive and that’s what I’m gonna do, you know the committee told me tonight at SuperBrawl I’ve got the Disco Inferno an nWo Wolfpac wanna be, you know right now he’s on track, he’s on fire, you know but um the BT Express is coming hard and he’s coming correct and Disco Inferno I want to let you know you’re on the track and you gon’ get derailed sucka, Booker T, at SUPERBRAWL, I promise YOU, he will raise the roof.”

Yeah, but does he know?

Best/Worst: Nitro Debuts Of The Week

ECW Hardcore Icon The Sandman pops up on this episode, wrapped in barbed wire, performing the very Sandman task of mercy-killing a Kenny Kaos vs. Van Hammer match by hitting them both in the face with a stick. The announce team is stunned, asking, “What is this all about, and who in the world is this?” Apparently they don’t keep up with wrestling outside of WCW, despite the whole “butts in seats” debacle, and don’t watch Nitro, where Sandman’s popped up as “Jim” in those Raven at home segments.

Sandman, not yet identified by Jim or his eventual (terrible) WCW identify of “Hardcore Hak,” calls out — his words, not mine — BAM BAM BAG-ALOW. Nobody’s watching any wrestling anywhere, it’s fine. “Bag-alow” shows up and more or less kicks his ass while the announce team buries him for stupidly wrapping himself in barbed wire. ECW was really great about taking guys who weren’t necessarily special or good and saying, “THESE ARE THE COOLEST BAD-ASSES IN THE WORLD,” until you believed them. WCW takes the coolest bad-asses in the world and are like, “fans, we want to let you know that Hollywood Hogan will be here tonight.”

As a quick side note, Goldberg shows up after this to challenge Bag-alow to a match at SuperBrawl. I’m sad Sabu didn’t randomly show up and throw a chair at Bill’s face.

Finally we have the WCW Monday Nitro debut of the Ragin’ Cajun, Lash LeRoux, who joins Blitzkrieg (also debuting soon) on the short list of lower lower under-card guys every WCW fan loved. He’s from Louisiana, you see — Alabama, actually, but kayfabe Louisiana — and he shaved his sideburns into L shapes. He traces them with his finger sometimes. That’s pretty much it. I don’t know why everyone on Earth including me loves him, but I think it has something to do with the lack of legitimate redheads in wrestling.

His match with Kidman is really good, too, complete with elaborate step-assisted dives over the security railing and into the crowd, and the announce team actually putts Lash over for doing well enough on WCW Saturday Night to earn a spot on Nitro. Kidman wins, of course, but Lash is different and innocuous enough to instantly become a smark favorite.

NOW BRING ON BLITZKRIEG.

Next Week:

Kanyon learns an important lesson about how Raven’s childhood is a worked shoot, a mysterious blonde makes her first appearance en route to a spot in the WWE Hall of Fame, and Bret Hart ends up in a United States Championship match against an Alcatraz escapee.

Also,

See you then.

Since releasing his fifth studio album Colores, J Balvin has aimed to debut a video alongside each one of the color-coded tracks. So far, Balvin has shared visuals to his tracks “Verde,” “Rojo,” “Amarillo,” “Blanco,” and “Gris.” Now, the singer expands on his whimsical world with a vibrant video for “Rosa.”

Directed by Colin Tilley, who directed Balvin’s previous Colores videos, the visual opens in the singer’s paradise. Bathed in hot pink, Balvin surveys his rose-tinted Garden Of Eden. But the viewer quickly discovers that his utopia isn’t devoid of violence. Rather, it’s a martial arts training ground. The singer must battle his martial arts master to prove his worth as a fighter.

The visual arrives on the heels of Colores. With the rhythmic record, Balvin returns to he reggaeton roots. Pivoting from his former catalog, Balvin opted to limit the number of features on the record and instead shines as a solo songwriter. In a recent interview with Apple Music, Balvin detailed how he managed to choose ten songs for the album from a list of 40 he had written: “What we’d do was we’d play the song and close our eyes, and each one of us would name the color that the song made us feel,” J Balvin said. “The color that prevailed, that was the song’s name.”

Watch the “Rosa” video above.

Colores is out now via Universal. Get it here.

Sharon Content loved working on Wall Street. A genius when it came to numbers, she thought she’d spend her entire career working in finance. But at some point, she says, she realized that the career she’d worked so hard for wasn’t her calling. Content wanted to make a meaningful impact in her community — to give back; to help make life better for the people around her.

Content’s decision led her to the non-profit sector. She became the director of programs at a youth entrepreneurship program. Then she took on the role of Chief Operating Officer at Pathways For Youth at the Boys and Girls Club in the Bronx borough of New York City. It was there, while working with youth in an incarceration avoidance program that she realized that something was missing.

“Whenever I met a family that was impacted by incarceration, I didn’t have a referral,” Content says. There was no organization to which she could send her clients — no group which worked specifically with the unique needs of youth whose parents had been imprisoned. So 11 years ago, in the basement of her home, Content started laying the plans for Children of Promise, NYC.

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“Children are the invisible victims of mass incarceration,” Content says. “They are a forgotten population. I wanted to establish an organization that was specifically designed to meet the needs, interests, and concerns of children of incarcerated parents.”

Today, CPNYC serves 300 families a year. The organization has a flagship location in Brooklyn and will soon open a center in the South Bronx which will double the number of families that Children of Promise can serve. CPNYC is currently the only program of its kind in the city — and it offers children of incarcerated parents an unprecedented level of support.

Aside from an after-school program that’s open until 6:30pm every day, youth enrolled in the program can also take part in a full-day summer program which offers a wide variety of programs — from sports to academic enrichment to art and music classes. The programs are absolutely free to those enrolled and every activity is created with best practices in youth development and the participants’ unique needs in mind. But CPNYC doesn’t just offer the youth a safe place to go after school and during the summer — the program’s unique in that it offers extensive mental health services as well. The organization is licensed as an outpatient mental health clinic with therapists and psychiatrists on staff.

“In addition to the stigma of having an imprisoned parent, there’s a stigma around mental health services. We provide services that de-stigmatize both of those challenges for young people,” Content says.

Children of Promise, NYC

“We infuse mental health in all aspects of our program. So it’s therapeutic art, it’s music therapy, it’s drama, it’s theater, it’s activities that allow our young people to feel and express what they’re feeling. Especially around the stigma, the shame and, for so many of our young people, the secret of having a parent in prison.”

Because mass incarceration disproportionately affects people of color, Content says it’s important that these services be offered in a way that destigmatizes mental health in culturally competent ways that reduce shame and stigma while strengthening bonds in the community.

The services CPNYC provides are important every day, but especially now, when so many children’s lives have been affected by the current pandemic. And as CPNYC has escalated their services to offer even more support during this difficult time, Upworthy is partnering with TBS and The Last O.G. to help the organization give even more back to the community. And you can help. All you have to do is tweet.

For every retweet of the message above, TBS will donate one dollar to CPNYC between now and May 5th, 2020. That’s money that will help CPNYC pay its staff, provide virtual therapy and mentoring to the youth it serves, and help families with necessities such as sanitizer, face masks, and food.

“The Last O.G. really speaks to the mission of the organization. This is a show that talks about someone who was incarcerated and then comes home. So this particular partnership is a dual benefit in that it really is one that speaks to our mission,” Content says.

“Partnering with an impact-driven Brooklyn-based organization has been an important component to each season of The Last O.G., a series that’s centered around second chances,” said Brett Weitz, General Manager, TNT, TBS and truTV. “There is a natural connection to Children of Promise, NYC and we are proud to partner with an organization that provides such an invaluable service.”

“If there’s anything the pandemic has highlighted,” Content adds, “it’s the need for community-based organizations like CPNYC. And how important it is that we all stand up to support such programs in our own communities.”

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Last time in the Best and Worst of NXT UK: It was almost a month ago when NXT UK aired their last pre-pandemic lockdown taped episode, featuring a 20-minute Battle Royal. They still haven’t done any more tapings, and won’t for a while yet, but this week they put together an episode featuring Dark Matches that never aired on TV before, so that’s definitely worth a recap. If you’d like to read previous installments of the Best and Worst of NXT UK, click right here. Follow With Spandex on Twitter and Facebook. You can also follow me on Twitter if you want.

And now, the Best and Worst of NXT UK Hidden Gems, from April 30, 2020.

Best: Lament For A Virtuosa

Talk about a blast from the past! This match features:

1. An excited live crowd, at a music festival no less!
2. NXT UK Women’s Champion Toni Storm, long before Kay Lee Ray appeared to emotionally destroy her and take the title.
3. Deonna Purrazzo.

This is a great match, with plenty of time for back-and-forth and in-ring drama. Toni Storm shines in it as well, but watching from today’s perspective it’s hard not to see it as a perfect encapsulation of Deonna Purrazzo’s time with NXT. She comes to the ring like a star, and holds her own against the top woman on the brand she’s visiting, never once giving Toni anything but her very best. But for all her effort and all her talent, there’s never a moment when you think she might win. Deonna is there to help create shine, but all of that shine is going on Toni.

None of that is Toni’s fault of course. She just seems happy to be having a great match with an opponent as good as Deonna, and that’s part of what makes this so enjoyable to watch. Toni’s been a bit adrift herself lately, but hopefully by the time wrestling returns to normal she can find a place within WWE where she can continue to shine. And hopefully Deonna finds some other place, where she can have some shine of her own.

Best: Riddle Me This, Bullman

I still find Ligero awfully boring for a guy who wears a mask with giant horns on it (and in this match, a harness with shoulder horns too), but he’s extremely athletic and knows his way around the ring, so he works fine against somebody like Matt Riddle, who has charisma enough for the both of them. In fact, watching this made me think about how many other guys in NXT UK I’d like to see Riddle in the ring with. Maybe once international travel is a thing again and he and Pete Dunne are reunited, they could go spend some time in Pete’s homeland. Just long enough for Matt to wrap his muscular limbs around Noam Dar, and maybe a Coffey or two.

Anyway, Riddle’s victory is assured from moment one, but he’s one of those guys that’s always fun to watch even when he’s just beating somebody up. Which is not to say Ligero didn’t get any offense in — he got more than expected, but he was no match for the King of Bros. I’m excited about the prospect of one day watching Matt Riddle wrestle in front of a live crowd again.

Worst By Default: Disassembling A Witch

Honestly I enjoyed this match too, but I’m trying to have at least one “Worst” in here, and this is the obvious choice. This was Shayna Baszler visiting NXT UK when she was NXT Women’s Champion. As great as Shayna is, I think we all got a little bit tired of watching the ultra-dominant women’s champion tapping out (or just rendering unconscious) anyone who got in her way. This is one of those matches, against Isla Dawn, who’s not in line to take any titles off of anybody anytime soon.

I like Isla Dawn, as I’ve said many times before. She’s got a fantastic look, a fun energy, and tons of charisma, but she’s not exactly what you’d call a great worker. Her drop kick is… not a thing of beauty, for example, and when she manages to get an opponent down on the mat, it’s always an open question whether or not she’ll know what to do with them. Her lack of technical proficiency becomes especially glaring when she’s in the ring with somebody like Shayna, who’s as technical as she is ruthless. So this never quite feels like a wrestling match so much as Isla trying to get a couple of things done before she inevitably passes out in the Kirifuda Clutch. Still, there are worse things to spend your time watching (just not on this show).

Best: Un Dragon Andalou

This match is preceded by a Zoom interview with Ilja Dragunov where he talks about being the Number One Contender to WALTER’s NXT UK Championship, which among other things gives me hope that WWE still has plans for this show and its currently frozen storylines. Also, it feels kind of weird to see Ilja in his house. Not that you see much of it, but it’s just strange that the Soviet Supersoldier Dragon Man lives in a house at all. I guess he must have escaped from that secret laboratory where they grew him from the DNA of Victor Drago, Finn Bálor, and Vlad the Impaler.

In the only match on the show between two regular members of the UK roster, Dragunov fights A-Kid, and damn what a match. This is easily my favorite A-Kid match I’ve seen, and at least one of the best Dragunov matches too. I’ll admit A-Kid hadn’t made much of an impression on me before, but this is one of those “Okay, I get it now” matches. Other than the fact that it’s face-vs-face, I can’t imagine why they didn’t put this on TV in the first place.

A-Kid looks so great in this match that at one point I was thinking, “Surely they wouldn’t make a thing out of Ilja being the Number One Contender and then immediately show him losing to a midcard newcomer,” because it really seemed like that was about to happen. Towards the end if was almost comical watching each guy knock the other one down and then scurry up to the top turnbuckle to hit his move as quickly as possible, but it didn’t take away from the match. If anything, that level of almost cartoonish escalation just added to the fun.

This whole episode is worth checking out, but if you were only going to watch one match, this should absolutely be the one.

That’s all for this edition! I’ll be back to recap whenever there’s new stuff to cover!

Earlier in the week, Netflix shared some wild celebrity photos from Have A Good Trip: Adventures in Psychedelics, and now, the streaming service is back with a trippy new trailer that is just as jam-packed with stars sharing their experiences with hallucinogenics and similar mind-altering drugs.

While the documentary is loaded with comedic moments, which is going to happen with this cast, Have A Good Trip also explores the very real and potentially life-changing research that’s probing the use of psychedelics to cure such ailments as PTSD, depression, and even addiction. As Sting says in the beginning of the trailer, “I don’t think psychedelics are the answers to the world’s problems, but they could be a start.”

Parks and Recreation fans will also be happy to see Adam Scott show up as the documentary’s host. He pops up in a series of spots that spoof after-school specials from the 80s and 90s. On top of that, even Ron Swanson himself, Nick Offerman, shows up to play a mad scientist-type character who just wants to educate you on the mysteries of psilocybin instead of Swanson’s usual obsessions (meat, solitude).

Here’s the official synopsis from Netflix:

Mixing comedy with a thorough investigation of psychedelics, HAVE A GOOD TRIP explores the pros, cons, science, history, future, pop cultural impact, and cosmic possibilities of hallucinogens. The film tackles the big questions: Can psychedelics have a powerful role in treating depression, addiction, and helping us confront our own mortality? Are we all made of the same stuff? Is love really all we need? Can trees talk? Cast members include Adam Scott, Nick Offerman, Sarah Silverman, Ad-Rock, Rosie Perez, A$AP Rocky, Paul Scheer, Nick Kroll, and Rob Corddry to name a few.

Have A Good Trip will be available for streaming on Netflix starting May 11.

(Via Netflix)

The Office creator Greg Daniels keeps getting asked about whether a reunion is coming for the NBC classic, and while a “yes” remains elusive the showrunner is still not saying no. In the same week that Parks and Recreation reunited for an emotional charity special, Daniels gave a pair of interviews where he discussed what could be possible with an Office reboot, which is both possible and also likely to underwhelm the show’s most fervent fans.

Daniels has a busy May with two shows coming out in Amazon’s Upload and Netflix’s Space Force. The latter has Daniels reuniting with Michael Scott — okay, Steve Carell, but the association between the two meant it was inevitable folks were to ask about The Office and a potential reunion show, much like Parks put together on Thursday night. Speaking with Collider’s Christina Radish, Daniels said he’s “given a lot of thought” to a reunion, mostly because it’s all he’s asked about. And he also said he’s not ruling it out.

“Oh, I’ve given a lot of thought to it because that’s what everybody’s been asking me, for a year or two. The first idea for doing this came after the Will and Grace reboot. At that time, it wouldn’t have been possible to get all of the actors together, in the same way that Will and Grace got the entire cast together. And I don’t really feel like there’s a need to do a reboot, from the standpoint of, there wasn’t a lot left hanging in the stories. I think people love the characters and they just want more of the characters.”

He goes on to say of a potential reunion that he simply “can’t rule it out,” which sounds like good news for fans on their third of fourth rewatch of the show. But in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the other side of The Office reunion conundrum inevitably comes up. Yes, there’s plenty of interest from both fans and many of the actors who made the show what it is. But what’s actually possible in reality is more like what Parks and Rec came up with, not another season of the much-beloved show.

“I think people were assuming that an Office reboot would [involve] … getting the entire cast back together and just continuing where we left off. We’re probably not going to get every single character back, they’re all doing all these cool things. […] I don’t think people’s expectations of getting back in the saddle and doing more episodes of the same show was going to be realistic.”

It’s more a request for tempered expectations than an outright denial of Office fans’ dreams of more sweet, sweet Dunder Mifflin content. But the fact of the matter remains that interest is high, and these things can sometimes happen if the money and idea are good enough to make it worthwhile. It’s clear, though, that it’s more likely what fans get is a small dose of The Office rather than something new to binge. That’s probably for the best.

[via Collider, THR]

There are many wonderful things about The Last Dance, ESPN’s 10-part retrospective on Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls’ 1998 season. Chief among them is the opportunity to relive some of the watershed moments of that dynasty and how they became one of the most dominant teams of all-time.

For instance, over at ESPN on Friday, Zach Lowe broke down one of the Bulls’ last major hurdles as they were en route to their sixth and final championship in 1998. Before Chicago had to face the Utah Jazz for a second straight year in the Finals, they first had to get through a feisty Indiana Pacers team, and according some players involved, it was one of their biggest tests during their time together.

The Bulls had only been forced into a Game 7 once before, a challenge they’d met and overcome against the Knicks previously, but this time, the Reggie-Miller-led Pacers had every confidence that they could topple the reigning champs. And if you ask Steve Kerr, he and the Bulls were no longer feeling invincible toward the end of their run together.

“That was the scariest game we ever faced,” Kerr said.

As part of the piece, Lowe talked to many of the players involved, and their memory for the specifics of each part of the game more than 20 years after the fact is by itself astonishing and well worth the read. It’s also worth it for just another glimpse into Jordan’s leadership and confidence, which never wavered, despite head coach Phil Jackson’s insistence that the team embrace the idea that losing this game was a possibility.

Jordan’s now infamous response to that has been well-documented:

At practice the day before Game 7, Phil Jackson counseled his players to find strength in vulnerability. “He said the important thing is to not fear losing,” said Steve Kerr, a backup guard. “Embrace the idea you could lose. Face that. But before he could get started, Michael just said, ‘F— that, Phil. We’re not losing.’ We put our hands in the middle, said ‘1-2-3, Bulls!’ and went home.”

Spoiler alert, but the Bulls would go onto win that game and, later, their sixth title. But as the Pacers raced out to a 20-7 lead to open, it’s a good reminder of just how tenuous the situation really was, and Lowe’s retrospective gives you an excellent sense of the chaos that ensued throughout the game, not to mention how many different things would have to go the Bulls’ way in order for them to win. The Bulls’ dominance seems inevitable in hindsight, but looking back, it was anything but.

(ESPN)

French Montana and Tory Lanez are a pair of cocky underdogs who’ve made waves during the coronavirus quarantine, so it’s only natural they would team up to bring fans’ focus back to where it should be — on the music. French — who stirred up controversy with his insistence that he has more hits than Kendrick Lamar — enlisted Tory for the summery single, “Cold.” In contrast to its title, the upbeat song is based on a warm, crispy beat, with lyrics that praise the two rappers’ favorite things: Women and jewelry.

It’s a nice, palate-cleansing party song that serves as a double reminder that while both French and Tory are good at getting attention with their online antics, they’re equally good at making fun, lighthearted rap songs. Both may have needed it, thanks to the results of some of their social media shenanigans. French found himself embroiled in beef with former favored collaborator Young Thug after responding poorly to Thug’s incredulous reaction to his Kendrick Lamar comments, while Tory was temporarily tossed from Instagram after this Quarantine Radio stream got a little too raunchy. Tory also took some heat for breaking social distance protocols for a visit with Megan Thee Stallion, who incidentally was one of Montana’s well-wishers when he found himself hospitalized last year. French was also sued for sexual battery alongside an employee who was accused of drugging a woman.

Listen to French Montana’s “Cold” featuring Tory Lanez above.

In an unexpected twist of fate, Tesla CEO and multi-billionaire Elon Musk and art-pop musician Grimes started dating in 2018. Earlier this year, the singer revealed she was pregnant with their first child. While Grimes hasn’t had the easiest pregnancy, she even sought advice from working moms on Instagram, it looks like she won’t be with child much longer. Elon Musk confirmed that Grimes is giving birth very soon.

In a series of tweets, Musk confirmed the two are still together and said the baby is expected to arrive as soon as early next week. “Baby due on Monday,” Musk wrote.

The due date confirmation came just after Musk also revealed that he wants to sell all of his material possessions. “I am selling almost all physical possessions,” he claimed in a tweet. “Will own no house.” However, he has one exception to his rule. Musk said he owns the house that formerly belonged to the late Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory actor Gene Wilder. And he is not ready to part ways with it. “It cannot be torn down or lose any its soul,” he wrote.

When pressed about his decision to give up all he owns, Musk said he is “devoting” himself “to Mars and Earth” and doesn’t want to be “weighed down” by possessions.

Musk also said that Grimes was “mad” at his decision to get rid of everything. So, time will tell if he follows through on his minimalist quest once he becomes a father.