#and in the middle of this some poor Minister comes sprinting in (I like to imagine Professor Quirrell with the troll) all

[cave-monkey]

Favorite thing from the books that I bring up anytime I get the opportunity:

The mountain the Buddha dropped on Sun Wukong wasn't enough to actually contain him. The seal had to be added later because Sun Wukong was clawing his way out.

[dahliawolfe]

Behind the Mask

Lost in Thought pt. 2

Grey Ash Series

The rain sluiced over her in cold sheets, bouncing off the hood of her FBI issued rain coat. Her feet stood in puddles nearly deep enough to cover the toes of her boots. It had been raining in Houma, Louisiana for nearly 4 days straight. And honestly, Grey was sick of it. On top of hunting down some sicko who was killing kids, she was perpetually wet, and her mood was souring quickly.

“Whatdaya think, Agent Ash?” the middle-aged sheriff queried. Grey looked up at him from under her hood, squinting against the rain pattering off of her nose.

“Looks like our guy. Tell me, Sheriff, does crime around here usually spike this much before Halloween?” the holiday always promised higher crime rate on a national level, but little towns like this one were usually spared from the worst of it.

“Oh, sure. A little vandalism. Ding dong ditch. Rolling yards. That sorta thing. Nothin like this though, Agent.”

“Call me Grey. And that’s what I suspected. Who do you figure around here would have this in them?”

“That’s just the thing, Ag…Grey. Nobody that I can think of would do this to these poor kids. Nobody.” Someone had been killing kids on rural roads for the last 2 weeks. A total of 6 kids were dead. And the guy did not seem to be slowing down. Grey looked around, squinting to see further. They were on a dirt logging road.

“Say. Where would kids go around here if they wanted a little….alone time?”

“Miner’s Point. Rollins Cemetery. Brant’s Lane.” Grey smirked.

“Those places, they coincide with the other crime scenes by chance?” The sheriff’s eyes widened.

“As a matter of fact. They do, Grey.” Grey nodded, already pulling her phone out to call Hotch.

…

“Alright, Ash. This is your theory. Run with it,” Hotch demanded later that afternoon as they all stood around the conference table of the Terrebonne Parish Sheriff’s department. Grey nodded.

“Well, so far, all three locations have been popular lover’s lanes. I suspect that the killer is trying to send a message to the teens of Houma. Like the Phantom Killer in Texarkana back in the 40’s. I think we may be looking for a religious zealot that is slowing losing grip on reality. The crime scenes are getting sloppier. And they are coming closer together. This guy is spinning out of control. And fast. I asked Sheriff Malborne who the biggest Bible thumpers in Houma were, and he gave me a list. I’ve sent it to Garcia to get any background she can. I kinda figured we could divide and conquer. A few of us going out to interview the people on the list?” Hotch nodded, seeming pleased with her assessment.

“Well done, Ash. Elle, you and Reid take the first few. Ash and Morgan. Gideon and I will round it out. Meet back here before dusk.”

…

If she ran any faster, she’d be flying. Her feet slapped and squelched in the slick mud. She was gaining on the guy. But damn, he was fast. Anthony Tutor, age 19, son of the Methodist minister. A kid killing kids. It made Grey’s stomach twist in unease. It was Halloween night, and the team had been going through the list of suspects for 2 days. When they found Anthony, the pieces all slotted together. Unfortunately for them, they slotted together for him too, and he’d mowed Spencer down on his way out of his parents’ plantation house. Grey had picked Spencer up and took off at a sprint, telling the other agent to circle around and cut Tutor off. The kid was headed for the creek nearby, where his father kept his fishing boat tied up. Grey’s lungs were on fire. Her legs were screaming, and every slap of her feet felt like a bolt of electricity up her spine. Tutor curved sharply, and Grey did the same, slipping, and landing hard on her thigh. She was on her feet before her brain could process any pain. She saw the lights of the Tahoe ahead, and more coming down the dirt path to the creek. She knew if she could just keep him from starting that boat, that they had him. All the killing would end. So, she pushed herself harder. She was ten feet from Tutor, who was a few yards from an approaching Spencer, when she saw him reach for his belt. “Gun!” echoed through her brain immediately, and she dove. She whipped her body in front of Spencer’s just in time to see the flash. A dull thud rocked her body as another flash went off. She hit the wet ground seconds before Tutor himself did. “Shit!” she hissed as she landed on her hip. A pain tore through her side, and she quickly pressed her muddy palm to it, drawing back blood soaked fingers that were washed clean by the rain. Morgan fell to his knees in front of her.

“Grey!” he boomed, reaching for her. It had only been a month since their little foray in Dallas, and they hadn’t had a chance to have a repeat performance, but Grey certainly hoped they’d still get that chance. His large hand pressed hard against her side, right under her ribs, above her hip. “Shit, Baby. Just stay still! Officer down!! Get an ambulance!” And now the pain was coming in waves.

“Morgan. Hey, Morgan. Tell…Tell Spencer that this isn’t his fault, ok. And…And don’t call my mom until you have to. And…this is really important. If you let Jason Gideon anywhere near my casket, I’ll…”

“Grey! Stop! You’re gonna be fine. Just hold on.” Grey placed her hand over his and smiled softly. Then her body went slack.

Super Short. I’m sorry. I just wanted to give you guys a little treat. 

[coopdigitalnewsletter]

14 Jan 2020: Hello 2020. Takeaway buys Just Eat. Hiring misfits and weirdos.

Hello, this is the Co-op Digital newsletter - it looks at what's happening in the internet/digital world and how it's relevant to the Co-op, to retail businesses, and most importantly to people, communities and society. Thank you for reading - send ideas and feedback to @rod on Twitter. Please tell a friend about it!

Hello 2020

Tesco's sales fall in challenging market. John Lewis could ditch its annual bonus for first time in 67 years. Next is doing well thanks to strong online and click-and-collect sales (or cold weather in November). Boots profit drop. Greggs sharing profit with staff. More Christmas retail winners and losers.

Retail is changing a lot as online shopping takes more market share, shopping habits change, and as high streets gradually reconfigure. There’s a sense that the middle ground (average products and services, average locations) is disappearing: products and services that rely on shoppers having poor information about price or product complexity are struggling because the internet is really good at ironing out information asymmetries like that. Product and services have to become clearer, more distinct.

Takeaway.com buys Just Eat

Dutch meal delivery co Takeaway.com is buying Just Eat for about £6 billion. It says the combined company will handle more orders than rivals Uber Eats, GrubHub and Delivery Hero, and will be second only to China’s Meituan. (Why does delivered prepared-food matter? 66% of shoppers buy prepared food items from a retail location at least three times a month.)

Elsewhere: supermarket Carrefour is buying Dejbox, whose thing is delivering lunches to office workers.

Cummings: “I don’t really know what I’m looking for”

A blog post written by the Prime Minister’s senior advisor says there are “some profound problems at the core of how the British state makes decisions” and calls for weirdos and misfits to apply for jobs. The civil service does need modernising. The landscape (digital, Brexit, ageing population, climate change etc) will need us to reset and re-make many things. So, leaving aside your political affiliations, problems at the core is reasonably correct. 

However the post also feels a bit... technophilic, thrashy, a bit internet copy-paste-y, a bit performatively clever. It’s clear that Cummings and team are smart, that they admire parts of tech startup culture (it would have been interesting if Downing Street were saying things like this when GDS started.) But it’s not so clear that they understand how institutions and culture are (re)formed, and how people are central to it all. It looks like the general approach might be to tear everything down and rebuild. Possibly including the people they hire: “I’ll bin you within weeks if you don’t fit — don’t complain later because I made it clear now.” So the 2022 confessionals of ex-employees should be interesting.

Some interesting commentary about DC’s post, all of these smart and worth a read: 

Dominic Cummings, government transformation and digital twins, by Jeni Tennison.

Inside the Clubcard Panopticon: Why Dominic Cummings’ Seeing Room might not see all that much, by Rachel Coldicutt.

The coming storm, by Paul Clarke.

Could the Cummings nerd army fix broken Britain?, by Tom Chivers.

Scale: saving time with faster logins

GOV.UK: £40 million investment to reduce NHS staff login times: 

“The investment will support projects similar to that seen at Alder Hey Hospital in Liverpool, which implemented single sign-on technology and reduced time spent logging into multiple computer systems from 1 minute 45 seconds to just 10 seconds. With almost 5,000 logins a day, it saved over 130 hours of staff time and freed up their time to focus on patient care”

That’s 130 staff hours saved every day, in one hospital. Small improvements at scale can have big outcomes (when the Co-op introduced SmartGap to help shelf re-stocking in stores, it saved 15 minutes per store daily, which adds up to 27 years and 5,000 trees saved every year).

What if mobile phone hackers sold you good customer service?

“SIM swaps” are when a hacker calls your mobile phone company, persuades them that they’re you with some of your personal information, and then has the mobile phone co point your mobile number at a new SIM card. The hacker now receives your calls and text messages and all of the one-time passwords used in two factor authentication and “forgot password” features etc. (The usual way to protect yourself from this is to put a PIN on your mobile phone account.) But:

SIM swappers are escalating. Hackers now reaching directly into AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint systems to perform SIM swaps themselves. Seen screenshots of this in action with T-Mobile and AT&T; Sprint confirmed issue.

That raises the interesting prospect of hackers adding parallel business lines. If a hacker has access to a mobile phone company’s account and customer support systems, would you pay them a reasonable fee to get faster and higher quality customer support on your mobile phone account? (And if they were offering that, would you also buy their “we promise no hacking” insurance policy?)

Predictions: “A library of mouth feels”

It’s the season of predictions for the year and the decade. Food in 2050: bacon grown on blades of grass and bioreactor chicken nuggets. Mmm, if “we can make a library of mouth feels and texture at a nanoscale”... why don’t we just grow the food inside the mouth, or in the gut? (newsletter handwaves wildly)

Also: “I am getting worried that I was perhaps too optimistic” - self-driving cars and AI predictions (a scorecard after 2 years). And a good read from Exponential View: Preparing for 2030.

Other news

Travelex was hit by ransomware at the end of 2019, locking up some systems and data. Two weeks later, they’re still using pen and paper. 

Global 5G wireless deal threatens weather forecasts. Great timing: not a great decade to be guessing what the weather’s going to be.

"Karie wants to get rid of the analytics people because she refuses to listen to polling - which she says is all slanted and biased - even though it's just been proven to be horrifically accurate" - is the Labour Party planning to bin its data analytics team? 

Here’s some hiring very un-best practice. Newsletter advice: pay interns rather than ask them to pay you! And don’t use interviews to get code for free!

Oh dear, it is 20 years since Y2K (!) and it turns out that some of the “fixes” back then merely delayed the problem.

Co-op and news and events

Progress: Own brand to be fully recyclable by the Summer – Colleague stories.

Public events, most of them at Federation House:

Profit, purpose and responsible tech - Tue 14 Jan 6pm.

Manchester WordPress user group - Wed 15 Jan 6.30pm.

Map Club Manchester - Thu 23 Jan 2020 5.30pm.

Doing Tech for Good: How can we build an active movement in Manchester? - Wed 29 Jan 6.30pm.

An Introduction to Data Ethics and the Data Ethics Canvas - Fri 7 Feb 9.00am.

Mind the Product - MTP Engage - Fri 7 Feb.

Internal events:

Engineering community of practice - Wed 15 Jan 1pm at Fed Defiant.

Co-operate show & tell - Wed 15 Jan 3pm at Fed 6 co-operate space.

Data management show & tell - Thu 16 Jan 2.30pm at Angel Sq 13th floor breakout.

Membership show & tell - Fri 17 Jan 3pm at Fed 6 kitchen.

Food ecommerce show & tell - Mon 20 Jan 10.15am at Fed 5.

Delivery community of practice - Mon 20 Jan 1.30pm at Fed house.

Health team show & tell - Tue 21 Jan 2.30pm at Fed 5 kitchen.

Targeted Marketing (CRM) and Data Ecosystem show & tell  - Wed 22 Jan 3pm at Angel Sq 13th floor breakout.

Membership show & tell - Fri 24 Jan 3pm at Fed 6 kitchen.

More events at Federation House - and you can contact the events team at  federation.events@coopdigital.co.uk. And TechNW has a useful calendar of events happening in the North West.

Thank you for reading

Thank you, beloved readers and contributors. Please continue to send ideas, questions, corrections, improvements, etc to the newsletterbot’s typing entity @rod on Twitter. If you have enjoyed reading, please tell a friend!

If you want to find out more about Co-op Digital, follow us @CoopDigital on Twitter and read the Co-op Digital Blog. Previous newsletters.

[neoraven]

NWA TNA Episodes 2+3, June 2002

Here are my thoughts on the next two weekly PPV episodes of NWA:TNA.

this move won two titles

There's a lengthy recap package of last week's major stuff. Sign spotted- "Heyo I’m Drunko 4:20". Same. Don West is wearing the same Hawaiian shirt as they are not hiding that this is the same taping as last "week". A TNA chant overcomes the announcers until Jarrett kicks us off.

Challenge Match Jeff Jarrett vs Scott Hall w/ Jackie Fargo and Toby Keith

At least some Total Nonstop Action starts in the ring. It's a little blatant that Jarrett, the evil heel, is still playing the hero face role. But whatever. Scott Hall is still trying decently hard here. Southern wrestling crowds, god bless 'em, pop pretty huge when Hall reverses a sleeper into a sleeper. The announcers are selling the exchange of punches at the 5 minute mark like it's trading headbutts at minute 29 of a G1 climax match. K-Krush saves Jarrett from The Edge (not U2), and all hell breaks loose at ringside, including a camera man getting run over by Brian Christopher. Eventually Toby Keith low blows Double J before he can pull off The Stroke (phrasing) and the ref doesn't care.

Scott Hall via Angry American in 7 minutes. *1/2

Cheex w/ The Brown Eyed Girl vs Frank Parker

Cheex' gimmick is weighing over 400 pounds. The announcers tell us about Hall/Christopher vs Jarrett/K-Krush next week, and Alicia returns to ringside to get a wad of money from ring announcer Jeremy Borash for some reason. They also put over next week's tag team title tournament during the finish. This is not good.

Cheex via gravity in 2 minutes.  1/4*

Grudge Match K-Krush vs Brian Christopher w/ Hermie Sadler and Sterling Marlin (NASCAR)

K-Krush does not rap to the ring. I'm ready for Ed Ferrara to leave the announce booth. They're giving us a match worthy of 2001 Sunday Night Heat. The NASCAR fellas crotch poor K-Krush with the middle rope to set up the Hip Hop Drop.  More faces cheating like heels via celebrities.

Brian Christopher via Hip Hop Drop in 5 minutes. *1/2

Announcers again put over the tag match next week, making the previous bits seem even more meaningless. Well, speaking of important things, time for the Lingerie Battle Royal for the title of Miss TNA. The women are all wearing odd scrubs/pajamas over their lingerie. Sign spotted "NWA Nonstop Whoop Ass"

Lingerie Battle Royal

Forgive me for not catching every move and elimination in order. The announcers are saying too many awful things for me to keep up with. Francine gets triple teamed fairly early and dumped leading to Ed Ferrara abandoning the announcer booth to console her. She starts whipping him with his own belt while the cameramen and announcers ignore the rest of the battle royal in the ring. Taylor Vaughn takes it, Francine strips and whips her anyways.

Taylor Vaughn in 5 minutes. ZERO.

Goldylocks is backstage with Apolo. Bobcat and David Young interrupt her chat and argue until Goldylocks 'cuts' the segment.

Apolo vs David Young w/ Bobcat

Apolo's music sounds like generic Carlos Santana, and David Young's is Motley Crue knockoff. Bobcat distracts David Young by flirting with every official at ringside. David Young hits his spinebuster finisher, but takes too long talking to Bobcat before missing a moonsault and falling to Apolo.

Apolo in 5 minutes via F5/stunner. *1/2

These matches are all kind of short, forgettable nothing affairs. I'm still on board for the X Title thing later, but this is very dire. Speaking of dire, Joel Gertner is in the ring talking about the Rainbow Express and homosexuality.

Rainbow Express w/ Joel Gertner vs The Dupps w/ Fluff Dupp - buuuuut The Dupps refruse to come out, lamenting wrestling hippies and "left-wingers", a frantic official convinces Chris Harris and James Storm to team up and run out.

Rainbow Express w/ Joel Gertner vs Chris Harris and James Storm (Not America's Most Wanted)

What a start to the best tag team storyline I can remember for the length of the TNA Asylum years. After some back and forth, Lenny takes control and tags via kiss to Bruce. They keep control beating up Storm with a couple more kiss tags. Chris Harris is able to get his own clever cheating on to break up Lenny's "Tiger Tamer" submission. After a couple traded roll ups for 2, Harris is able to win yet another 5 minute match.

Harris and Storm in 5 minutes via Miscommunication Rollup. **

Ricky The Dragon introduces the champ, Ken Shamrock. The Sinister Minister finally interrupts a really boring promo asking all the "crackers in Huntsville Alabama to shut up" and introduces his Disciples of the New Church. Malice eventually ends up getting Shamrock with the chokeslam, holding on to the choke part until officials swarm the ring. We finally get to hear the New Church theme song, which is really great. At some point I'm going to add a theme song power ranking to these reviews. X Division time.

Double Elimination Round Robin for the X Division Title AJ Styles vs Jerry Lynn vs Low Ki vs Psichosis

AJ comes out to a very bad Born in the USA rip-off. It's some kind of Round Robin / double elimination format, and AJ and Psichosis start us off. Styles survives the Guillotine Leg Drop and then quickly hits the Styles Clash for the first fall in about 2 minutes. Lowki speeds into the ring. AJ takes him out in about 3 minutes flat. Jerry Lynn speeds in, pouncing on AJ Styles and hitting a Cradle Piledriver in about 10 seconds. Psichosis enters the ring with a dropkick on poor Jerry Lynn's head. Jerry ends a fun sprint with the cradle piledriver in about 3 minutes. Psichosis is now eliminated. Low Ki and Jerry Lynn start going at it. Don West is calling this the greatest show on earth every other move. Low Ki reverses the cradle piledriver into an armbar, but still gets a gut wrench power bomb. After 4 minutes, Jerry reverses Low Ki's muscle buster finisher into a sick DDT, and cradle piledrives him away. AJ is in the ring, and we're down to two. Styles has to get two falls on Lynn to capture the title and end the match. The young gun is throwing everything at Jerry and getting 2 counts. The Styles Clash finally gets Lynn away after another 4 minutes. Ricky Steamboat rolls in the ring as the final fall begins. They tease a couple double knockout spots before brawling to the outside, including Styles hitting a moonsault reverse DDT from the apron. AJ Styles wriggles out of a spinning vertebreaker, then Lynn hits some kind of powerbomb facebuster for 2. AJ gets out of the cradle piledriver, and survives a brainbuster by Lynn. The last fall is really benefitting from some time to breathe after the early blitz.  Lynn's superplex only gets 2, frustrating the veteran. Lynn goes back up top but AJ is able to fight him off and hit the Spiral Tap, which is odd to see as a higher-tier finisher than the Clash, and it beats Lynn after 10 minutes.

AJ Styles finally eliminates Jerry Lynn via Spiral Tap after 27 minutes to become the new and first X Division champion. ****1/4  Easily the best match in the short history of TNA, and worthy of the double taping main event.

The crowd goes wild, pyro, terrible Born in the USA theme blares, Ricky raises both of their hands. Tenay puts over all the tag team action and Shamrock vs Malice next week at ringside.

EPISODE 3

I lied, we are not actually at the TNA Asylum yet. We are live from the Municipal Auditorium in Nashville for a one night tag team tournament though to crown the tag champions.

Tag Tournament Match Cowboy James Storm and Chris Harris vs The Johnsons w/ Mortimer Plumtree

The announcers put over that the future America's Most Wanted was a last-minute addition last week. We are blessed with a Mortimer Plumtree promo on the way to the ring. Sign spotted: LET'S GO DICK. Also, the announcers are now calling him "Wildcat" Chris Harris. The Johnsons look infinitely better here than their first match. However, the Johnsons suffer a flash pin after the future AMW hits a good crossbody/dropkick combo move in 5 minutes. **  The Johnsons beat up their nerd manager when he tries to spank them after the match.

Scott Hall comes out to a live mic wearing an elementary school t-shirt. Jeff Jarrett interrupts with the zinger "Hey yo my ass!" The NWA President gets sweaty and yells at Jarrett; this heel vs authority storyline never makes sense. K Krush attacks Hall during the confusion unsuccessfully. Goldylocks is with a bloodied Chris Harris in the back.

David Jobber vs Monty Brown

The poor jobber in the ring doesn't get an entrance and also gets a last name drowned out by Monty Brown's entrance as we are introduced to The Alpha Male. He runs through a few impressive power moves in 2 minutes and ends with a fallaway powerbomb. 1/2*

Goldylocks is looking for Jim Miller backstage. The Hot Shots have no idea. Puppet the Psycho Dwarf is angry and not leaving tonight until he makes a midget bleed.

Tag Tournament Match Rainbow Express w/ Joel Gertner vs Buff Bagwell and Apolo

The surprise no one ever wanted: Buff Bagwell. Alicia comes down during the match to get some cash from Ed Ferrara. The Stuff botches a cross body out of the ring awkwardly after a few minutes of boring action. Apolo and Buff hit their finishers, but the latter walks into a superkick that ends it in 7 minutes. *1/2 I think this means there's a rematch from last week for the tag titles. Apolo seemingly abandons Buff after the match, then he whines about being called Marcus since Buff has ruined his career.

Ken Shamrock comes out with a mic and the belt. He gets heavy WHAT chants as he goes over all the challengers he's already concerned with for his title, including the new Monty Brown. Thankfully, the lights cut him off and the Sinister Minister appears in section C3. The lights come back on showing Malice standing over a writhing in pain Ken Shamrock.

Goldylocks is backstage talking to NWA officials and Jerry Lynn about the tag situation, but he shoos them away.

Midget Showcase Match Puppet vs Stone

Sign spotted: Midgets scare me. Puppet issues an open challenge answered by vanilla dork Stone who slowly gets in the ring and takes a few weapons shots. Puppet wins with a TKO on a trash can after 3 minutes, then attacks the ref, the announcer, and Stone some more. Don West offers a high five and gets kendo sticked in the face. *

Francine vs Miss TNA Taylor Vaughn

Francine starts belt whipping Taylor immediately until the ref pulls it away. Taylor steals the belt from the ref and then whips Francine to the ground until the ref tries to take it back, then whips him too. The ref throws out the match before it starts. Zero.

Hermie Sadler comes out for another nothing segment until K-Krush interrupts in a hilarious t-shirt with a huge airbrushed image of his face.  He talks smack until Hermie walks away and unleashes a spear on the entrance ramp. They get pulled apart and K-Krush challenges for next week.

NWA World Heavyweight Championship Match Ken Shamrock (champ) vs Malice

A very sweaty Ken Shamrock saunters to the ring and Malice takes control stomping and beating immediately as the announcers put over that Shamrock is not at 100%. After a slow round of ringside brawling, Shamrock hits his signature moves ending with the belly to belly to pin Malice in 6 minutes and keep the title.

NWA X Division Championship Match AJ Styles (champ) vs David Young w/ Bobcat

Not sure why David Young deserves a title match after losing last week, but oh well. The Bobcat thing is still going on. AJ Styles hits some great stuff, and Young even does a nice middle rope moonsault to the outside that gets a 2 count in the ring. There's another good exploder suplex into the corner for 2. Young mostly keeps control despite some flurries from AJ. After going back and forth, Young spikes a great twisting spinebuster for only two. AJ rebounds from Young's finisher and ends up winning with a second rope Styles Clash in 9 minutes. **1/2. Pretty solid match, but it felt like AJ was in too much trouble in his first defense over a mostly jobber. David Young and Bobcat have more drama in the ring as the latter celebrates the loss.

Gertner and the Rainbow Express celebrate being the Tag Team champs in the back since all the teams are injured.

NWA Tag Team Championship Match The Rainbow Express w/ Joel Gertner vs Jerry Lynn and AJ Styles

Borash announces they must have opponents.  Jerry Lynn spends a lot of time getting worked over by Rainbow Express while AJ sells his immediately previous title defense. The cradle piledriver gets reversed thanks to Gertner, and at long last, AJ Styles gets the hot tag and starts to go wild. Everything breaks down and Lynn hits the cradle piledriver inside and then takes the other tag member outside. AJ Styles hits Spiral Tap as Gertner trips over himself trying to break up the pinfall and they win in 11 minutes. *** Very solid match, setting up a cool simple story and putting AJ Styles even further over as a star and double champ.

Main Event Tag Match Jeff Jarrett and K Krush vs Scott Hall and Brian Christopher

We start almost immediately with a crowd brawl. Hall and Jarrett trade punches in the TNA Girls' Dancer Cages. They eventually circle back to ringside and Hall throws Jarrett across the announcer table. Christopher misses a Hip Hop Drop and after Hall and Jarrett finally return to ringside, it slowly settles back into a tag match. The bad guys isolate Hall for a really long beatdown segment. After an agonizing 10 count, Christopher gets tied up with the ref in the corner and misses a Hall tag attempt. Hall makes it back at long last and Brian pulls his hand and decks Hall. He still cleans house, including a ref bump, as it degrades into a 1v3. He drops K Krush with an Outsider's Edge, but Jarrett gets saved and goes right into the Stroke, plus a Brian leg drop for good measure. Jarrett pins at 12 minutes. *1/4. The turn was good and somewhat saved the idiotic middle of the match, but it still went on way too long.

The bad guys celebrate, with Jeff getting real "You ain't worth a shit!" He takes the dumb trophy from the opening and cracks it over Scott Hall as his stealth face turn continues. Double J continues talking about whooping the whole Titans offensive line as they sell Hall's injuries on a stretcher, with an elbow drop out of the ring added on. He exits after pushing Hall's stretcher off the entrance ramp just for good measure.