Monday Nitro From 1995 with KB

[klunderbunker]

Monday Nitro #1
Date: September 4, 1995
Location: Mall of America, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Commentators: Eric Bischoff, Steve McMichael, Bobby Heenan

So nearly three years after Raw got going, WCW woke the hell up and realized that being on Saturday nights at 6:05 for your flagship show was freaking STUPID so they decided to go head to head with Raw by debuting Monday Nitro. Their first episode aired when Raw wasn’t on that week which really was the right thing to do when you think about it.

It’s just one hour tonight for no apparent reason, but they manage to pack a good bit in here, including a very important thing that I’ll get to later on. This is a show I’ve seen at least 5 or 6 times so I remember it being not bad. Let’s see how it was.

I always liked the intro video for Nitro as it was a street more or less blowing up with pictures of wrestlers and a great song. It really was cool and I liked it better than Raw’s for a long time. I don’t think anyone knew who McMichael was outside of Chicago, but when did that really bother WCW?

Jushin Thunder Liger vs. Brian Pillman

I can’t wait to do SuperBrawl 2 as their match there could rival Bret vs. Owen for beat PPV opener ever. Liger is just coming back from a broken leg so he might be a bit rusty, meaning he’ll be better than 95% of the wrestlers in the world. Naturally, they start off hot. This is another one of those pairings where it’s hard to mess it up. We’re two minutes in and Mongo and Heenan are already calling each other names.

This could be a really long night. Eric is pitching the company like no other which is fine here as it might be the first show for a lot of viewers. We get the surfboard which is a move that I always mark for. Bobby has a great line: “I never go surfing. I always have people do it for me.” I love that. McMichael is trying but he’s just lost out there. For the life of me I have no idea why they thought he was a good idea.

Liger gets a hurricanrana from the top rope which was a move that no one had seen for the most part. And no, the Frankensteiner doesn’t count as it’s nowhere near as fast or as crisp. These two were WAY ahead of their time out here as the Cruiserweights wouldn’t rise to prominence for over a year. Out of nowhere, Pillman hooks a rollup for the pin.

Rating: B. This is based on being the first match in the new era of the company. They set the pace for the show as they had a fast paced and exciting match. What else can you ask for from a debut match? These two simply didn’t have bad matches, which makes sense given their talent and styles.

Sting is ready for Flair.

WCW Hotline ad.

Ad for Batman Forever for the SNES. That game SUCKED. You use Down + R to use the grappling hook yet X and Y aren’t used at all. See the problem?

We come back from break to see…hang on I need a moment here. Ok I’m good. We come back to Hulk Hogan at Hulk Hogan’s Pastamania. Hulk Hogan had a pasta restaurant in the Mall of America, complete with a dish called Hulk A-Roos. You can’t make this stuff up at all. He cuts a generic promo but the kids around him are loving it. The guy was great with kids, I’ll give him that. This was one of the biggest jokes in wrestling history though, but it did show how huge and mainstream Hogan was.

US Title: Sting vs. Ric Flair

I’ll give Nitro this: they got the card spot on for the first show. You have a cruiserweight match that’s going to be awesome and was, you have this which is more or less impossible to fuck up, and Hogan vs. a big man in the main event. They played things safe here and that’s all they needed to do. And now we get the defining moment for Nitro until Hall showed up: Lex Luger walks down the aisle and stares at Sting and Flair.

Now that doesn’t sound very interesting does it? The thing you have to remember, Luger had been in a WWF ring wrestling the day before. This was the first big shock and since the internet was more or less a non factor for the most part back then, this was a shocking thing. No one knew this was coming and it really did set the tone for Nitro and WCW in the future as Luger was immediately in the main event picture.

The announcers have no clue what to say to this and even though Bischoff knew it was coming, he’s playing it off well. Sting was the perfect choice to put on the show here as he had the speed, the power, the mat wrestling ability, the look, the charisma and the talking ability to be remembered really well. He didn’t have to do much as he hits his third gorilla press, but the crowd is eating it up. Why mess with what works? Make that four of them.

His strength is overlooked quite a bit. We go to a break and when we come back we have a wide shot of the Mall and it looks VERY cool. It’s a three story mall and you have all kinds of people shopping around and we just happen to have a major wrestling show going on. Arn Anderson walks out as Sting misses a splash. Arn and Flair had been having a lot of problems lately and would finally fight at Fall Brawl.

They play up the shock value to a T here about Luger and the unpredictability aspect of the show. Sting hits a top rope suplex. The announcers’ reactions: Bischoff says the ring moved two feet, McMichael says his monitor nearly fell off the table and Heenan says his monitor went black. I wish I was making this up. Flair gets the figure four but Arn comes into the ring for the DQ and he and Flair go at it.

Rating: C+. Again, this is hard to get wrong. It wasn’t one of their better ones, but it wasn’t supposed to be. It got them in front of a TV camera and showed the fans what they had coming. This was a lot like the debut of a new promotion in a lot of ways as no one really knew what to expect here.

They kind of had to restart a lot of things in the early weeks to give the people a feel for what they were all about. The match was fine and they did their regular good stuff, but this was about angles and not the match and that’s fine.

Scott Norton comes out to yell about not being on the show despite having a contract. Savage comes out to yell at him. They set up a match for next week. It’s so adorable that Norton thinks he means something outside of Japan.

Sabu is coming. Damn it.

Some guy from Alabama wins a sweepstakes. This took 10 seconds of ring time.

Ad for Saturday Night, featuring a double main event: Johnny B. Badd vs. Dick Slater and Sting and Macho vs. the Bluebloods. And people wonder why the fans were very happy Nitro debuted.

Mr. Wallstreet is coming to WCW. It was IRS going JBL’s gimmick. This went badly. He even mentions the IRS. Seriously?

WCW Title: Hulk Hogan vs. Big Bubba Rogers

Rogers is Big Boss Man’s 15th or so gimmick. We go to a commercial before Hogan’s entrance and we get a SLIM JIM AD! Oh and there’s one for Hot Pockets too. Jimmy Hart has stars and stripes pants and a jacket. He looks like a walking barber pole. The fans are going nuts for Hogan if nothing else. What are you expecting here?

It’s Hogan vs. big man 101, Like I said earlier they’re playing it very safe and that’s fine. Bubba gets in his offense and Hogan makes a comeback and slams him before the leg drop ends it in about five minutes. A clean pin on Nitro. That won’t happen that often.

Rating: C. It’s exactly that: average. There was nothing special here but it wasn’t unwatchable or anything. No one was expecting an epic showdown here as it was just Hogan defending his title in a token title defense. Nothing wrong with that.

The Dungeon of Doom which had been feuding with Hogan hit the ring and Luger makes the save. Macho and Sting show up to calm them down. This would be your main event at Fall Brawl. Sting, Hogan, Luger and Savage vs. Shark (Earthquake), Zofdiac (Beefcake) Meng and Kamala. I wonder who wins that.

We go to commercial and see an ad for the Muscular Dystrophy Association which sponsored Fall brawl for some reason. That’s just odd. There’s also an ad for the Eagles vs. Cardinals game. Damn that would have sucked.

Luger says he wants a title shot. Hogan says sure but says he’ll be champion forever and a day. I love delusions of grandeur that almost came true. They make the match for next week and that’s it.

Overall Rating: B+. For a debut show, this was great. They advanced a lot of stuff and set up next week and the future pretty well. With only an hour they did quite well but remember there was no Raw tonight. The ratings were good but they lost for a good while. The wrestling was ok and we got three kinds of matches and angles were advanced so I’d say very good job here. Things would get far worse for awhile though.

 

[klunderbunker]

Monday Nitro #2
Date: September 11, 1995
Location: Knight Center, Miami, Florida
Commentators: Steve McMichael, Eric Bischoff, Bobby Heenan

So I found a ton of old Nitros and since the first eight months or so are an hour each I figured I’d start knocking a ton of them out. This is back in the day of when the show was just starting out and WCW really had no clue what was going on. This is also the first time they were going head to head with Raw so we’re actually getting the Monday Night Wars for the first time ever. This is very basic stuff at the moment so don’t expect much. Let’s get to it.

That old school intro of the street being on fire and the city blowing up were always great. The production values as compared to Saturday Night or something like that are insane. The match of the century is tonight apparently with Luger vs. Hogan for the title.

We recap Luger debuting last week and yelling at Hogan about wanting the title. Hogan acting like Luger was had never been seen in WCW before was just odd. Hogan: you don’t have to wait until next week. Just shake my hand and you’ll get a title shot next week. We’re told Vader is gone and won’t be at the PPV on Sunday which was Fall Brawl and War Games.

Sabu vs. Alex Wright

Sabu has the music that would go to La Parka later on. This is an odd match to put it mildly. The man from Bombay (Michigan) of course does all kinds of insane spots while missing a good bit of them but whatever. Air Sabu hits the railing and we’ve been on the floor about 90% of this match. Back in the ring and Wright hits a GREAT missile dropkick and Sabu is knocked straight back to the floor. Heenan and Mongo argue coaching strategy which is really just killing time.

In a strange move, Sabu sets for a rana off the top but while he’s up there he sits on Wright’s shoulders and rolls forward to the mat so it was like a victory roll from the top. Nice one and it works for a pin. Post match Sabu puts Wright through a table and the decision is reversed.

Rating: B-. This was high spots a go-go and for this era, that was mind blowing. This wasn’t anything great but it certainly did work for what it was supposed to do: showcase a brand new kind of wrestling that you didn’t see otherwise in the mainstream. That’s what WCW was trying to do and it worked quite well.

Gene is in the ring and here comes Ric Flair. Can anyone rock a suit like he can? Flair talks about how he and Arn used to be best friends but now things have changed. And here’s Luger for no apparent reason. Flair talks about how great Luger is and Luger doesn’t say a word. Ok then. I don’t think this led anywhere.

US Title: Sting vs. VK Wallstreet

Wallstreet is IRS and is a parody of Vince McMahon. Oh and in case you’re wondering: Shawn Michaels wins with the superkick in a match taped three months ago. I’ve never gotten why the live thing was so important. No one knew that and while I know Eric did it so no one would change the channel, but the whole “we’re live and they’re not” never seemed like it should mean anything to me. I never cared. Sting is dominating early and we’re told that the company Wallstreet used to work for was in the bush league. And there’s the splash and a cross body ends it. Total squash here.

Rating: D. This was as one sided as you could ask for at all. It’s like four minutes long and a complete destruction. To be fair though how many people were expecting otherwise? Sting held the title for a few more months before losing it to Kensuki Sasake of all people. This was pretty weak though.

Randy Savage vs. Scott Norton

Uh yeah. This was made last week in their desperate attempt to make Norton a big time heel which never worked. That rock version of Pomp and Circumstance was just sweet. Norton jumps him early and already has more offense than Wallstreet had in the previous match. Norton works on the back as this is moving at a schizophrenic pace. A powerbomb gets two. Is there a reason Mongo is doing commentary for this?

Savage is hurt apparently. This is ALL Norton. Norton hits an Orton DDT and Heenan is confused for some reason. A missed shoulder block from the top turns the tide and here’s the Dungeon of Doom. Savage whips Norton into Shark which knocks Shark out. He lands on Norton’s legs and the elbow finishes it. The referee is perfectly fine with all this too.

Rating: D+. To say this was a goofy ending is putting it nicely. They made Norton look incredibly strong though which is what the point of this was. I think that was the point at least but who knows at times. Savage would be world champion in like two months so of course he wins here.

WCW World Title: Lex Luger vs. Hulk Hogan

They make sure to throw in that Luger jumped ship a little over a week ago. We go to a break after Luger’s entrance and are told that Fall Brawl is helping with some muscular dystrophy charity which I won’t make any fun of. You can’t beat charity stuff so it’s fine. Savage indeed does have a bad back. See, this right here is the reason Nitro worked so well. Having big time TV matches like this is a completely new thing for weekly TV.

Most of the time you would get squashes or midcard matches in the main event. This is back to back world title matches in back to back weeks. You can’t ask for much more than that. Hogan uses a drop toehold to take Luger down and prove that he can wrestle. Luger pops up and Hogan is STUNNED. Now Hogan pops up. Bischoff says this is the biggest match of Luger’s career. No I’d think that was any of his matches with Flair but what do I know?

Oh but wait. This is with the WCW World Heavyweight Champion. So trying to become WCW Champion is bigger than actually being champion which Luger was for a good while? I love revisionist history. The fans are kind of split as Heenan says Luger is a ring general. Let’s run down Kevin Nash a bit and say he was barely a midcarder in WCW. Yes I’m sure he’ll never do anything in this company EVER.

Luger hooks the Rack and Hogan is in trouble, so of course Luger lets go early, thinking he’s won. ALWAYS WAIT FOR THE DAMN BELL LUNKHEAD! Luger dives on him for a cover and it’s Hulk Up time. Seriously, why does EVERYONE pound on him when he does this? Has no one ever studied a Hogan tape EVER? The legdrop hits and here’s the Dungeon for the DQ. Sting and Savage run in for the save and the announcers are trying to figure out why they’re not going for Luger.

Could it be that they exist to beat Hogan and have no issue with Luger? Nah couldn’t be. That would make sense and therefore would have no point in this company. Post match Hogan and Savage yell at Luger and Sting defends him. Sting suggest Luger take Vader’s place but Savage says no. Luger accepts the spot but wants another title shot later on.

For the love of everything made of goodness, HOW DID THEY NEVER BOOK HOGAN AND SAVAGE AGAINST STING AND LUGER? That’s the main event of Starrcade right there and would have drawn MILLIONS.

Rating: C+. Well it was short but fine I guess. Luger vs. Hogan is a match that was fine usually and this was as well. It was short too which was the point of Nitro. This one set up Fall Brawl so it did its job and didn’t give Hogan the definitive win. Fine for a main event I guess.

Overall Rating: C+. This set up the big two matches at Fall Brawl, although to be fair those were the only ones that mattered at the PPV. This was all about the War Games match which given the roster they had, sucked, but that’s all they could have done. Also we got a nice high flying match and a title match so I can’t complain much. Not bad, but nothing spectacular. Then again this era kind of sucked for the company.

 

[GIMH]

Sounds decent. I've never seen this show, is it online that you found them or were they in some tape trading thing?

Also, it's called Land of Hope and Glory, not Pomp and Circumstance

 

[klunderbunker]

Monday Nitro #3
Date: September 18, 1995
Location: Freedom Hall, Johnson City, Tennessee
Attendance: 3,200
Commentators: Steve McMichael, Eric Bischoff, Bobby Heenan

So it’s the night after Fall Brawl and Hogan’s neck is hurt. That’s the big thing here and other than that there just isn’t much to talk about on here. The reformation of the Horsemen began last night so th Ere’s that to look forward to. Other than that I would just expect a lot about Hogan vs. the Dungeon of Doom and the Giant in particular. Let’s get to it.

We immediately cut to the back where Gene is waiting on an ambulance and Taskmaster and Giant get out of it. Giant still flat out cannot talk but he’s trying at least. He’s Andre’s son at the moment if that clears anything up.

American Males vs. Bluebloods

The American Males are Scotty Riggs and Marcus Bagwell. The Bluebloods are Regal and Dave Taylor, but they get beaten up by Harlem Heat on their way to the ring. Apparently we have a title match here.

Tag Titles: Harlem Heat vs. American Males

So the Males are pretty much male strippers. Yeah that’s all I’ve got for you. They got ripped apart by the NWO and I don’t think anyone actually noticed. Heat won the titles the previous night and now they’re defending immediately as the show starts. Well you can’t say they’re doing boring stuff to start us off. Bischoff comes off as nothing but slick. That’s a good thing I think.

WCW is using the ECW formula of taking a small arena and filling it up but making it a legit sellout. Booker hits the axe kick on Riggs as Bischoff talks about K-1 for no apparent reason. Booker follows that up with the most head snapping Harlem Side Kick I’ve ever seen. His leg didn’t slow down at all and it took his head off. Of course it only gets two. There’s a banner in the crowd saying they want it Raw. Then why are they at Nitro?

Bagwell, in his suspenders, gets the hot tag and the Colonel is here for Sherri. They’re in love apparently and since she looks at him instead of helping Booker, his pumphandle slam gets countered and Bagwell lands on him for the pin and the titles that they would hold just over a week before dropping them back to Harlem Heat.

Rating: D+. That’s based on the wrestling as the title change made perfect sense. It kept the theory of the insanity that you would expect on Nitro going as immediately on the show we have new champions. It makes you feel like you can’t miss a minute of the show which is why you should watch it and not Raw. That’s brilliant and it worked.

Back from a commercial and Gene brings out Ric Flair. I love that black robe. He talks about Anderson breaking the code and bringing Pillman into a place where he doesn’t belong. It turned out to be one big plan, but what was never explained was the point of having the plan in the first place. I mean why were they fighting at all? Why not just join together? Was there an ultimate goal that just wasn’t talked about?

Paul Orndorff vs. Johnny B. Badd

So last night, Orndorff was told by a psychic that he had great things in his future. He hadn’t had a good match in years but allegedly he’ll be great soon. This is the theme music he got.

[youtube]KXYecebCA6Y[/youtube]

On the other hand, Badd had a 30 minute EPIC vs. Brian Pillman that was just freaking great. Now who do you think is going to go over? A young guy that is getting better and better or Hogan’s buddy? Orndorff goes for the knee immediately for no apparent reason but that’s fine I guess. He also has stitches in his eye. Badd that is. Paul doesn’t actually wrestle for the most part anymore. I love those punches Badd throws. They’re just awesome.

Badd busts out some high flying stuff and the domination has begun. And then Orndorff reverses a rollup into a pin. Just to be clear, Badd would go on to win a bunch of TV Titles and become a fairly big face until WWF offered him a ton of money and he jumped. Orndorff wrestled one more televised singles match in his career, three months after this. That makes perfect sense doesn’t it?

Rating: C-. Idiotic booking and lack of talent by Orndorff aside, this wasn’t too bad. Badd was awesome at this point and was flying all over the place here to try to turn nothing into something and he actually came close. Not too bad.

We get a clip of Randy Savage bench pressing on the set of Baywatch and Taskmaster showing up and beating on him. Flair of all people saves him.

Savage comes out and says thanks but no thanks to Flair. The fans boo that, likely because he’s being a total dick. And now we talk about Hogan, who apparently will survive. We talk about the accidental shot to the back of Savage from Luger last night which kept their way too long of a feud going.

He says Luger and Sting will join the Dungeon of Doom soon, which would have been half of the PERFECT tag match that would have happened but never did for no apparent reason. Luger comes out and suggests that savage is jealous. Savage says he wants to be world champion and says Luger cheap shotted him at War Games. Savage wants a fight and it doesn’t happen.

We see the thing from before Fall Brawl where Hogan’s motorcycle got crushed by the Giant on a monster truck. We then see Hogan getting his neck spun around by the Giant.

Brian Pillman vs. Ric Flair

Mongo makes a gay joke about Heenan. At least he didn’t pull on his tie though. The ramp is REALLY short here and it’s making the entrances go really fast. So last night Pillman had jumped on the apron and kicked Flair in the head to cost him the Anderson match. Not that we’re told anything of that mind you. Mongo of all people gets us on track and stops the talk about Luger and Savage.

Flair was an untrustworthy face at the moment as no one really bought the theory that he had seen the light, which turned out to be fake so there we are. And now we get a Hogan reference in just to keep things right. Flair just goes off on Pillman and he’s over as all hell. Figure four is rolled up for two. Wow that sounded like a bad math problem. And then the real figure four gets the easy tap out. Flair wants Anderson.

Rating: C+. For such a short match, this was pretty solid actually. These two were able to just go out there and have a quick match that came off quite well and it fit the angle perfectly. They of course would do more later but this was fine for a quick shot like this.

The announcers talk a lot to end the show.

Overall Rating: D+. Kind of a meh show overall. The tag title switch meant nothing but did a good job of reaffirming the whole can’t miss factor of the show. Other than that it was a lot of stuff that was just padding time for the more important stuff as everything was revolving around Hogan at this point, so him not being there slowed things up a lot. Definitely the weakest of the three aired shows so far, but that’s not saying much.

 

[klunderbunker]

Monday Nitro #4
Date: September 25, 1995
Location: Florence Civic Center, Florence, South Carolina
Attendance: 5,000
Commentators: Eric Bischoff, Steve McMichael, Bobby Heenan

Well we’re at the fourth show now and it’s still Dungeon of Doom vs. Hogan goons. We have Sullivan vs. Savage tonight which sounds about as boring as possible but with only four matches over the course of an hour on the whole card what are you really looking for here? The dark days of WCW continue so let’s get to it.

Mondo has his dog again. I can’t stand that damn thing.

Alex Wright vs. Disco Inferno

Are these two joined at the hip or something? Wright’s music is good enough to get people excited if nothing else. Disco continues to be one of the best characters I can think of. Somehow these two would become world tag team champions. I don’t get it. Wright does his big dives and gets the crowd going. That’s a great choice for an opener if nothing else.

It helps that the crowd is red hot too so there we are. Eric really is good at hyping the hell out of the stuff on the show. That’s what they need to use him for in TNA. He knows how to make something sound exciting. Wright hits a decent jumping back elbow as this has been rather back and forth. Wright wins with a BACKSLIDE of all things. WOW.

Rating: B-. This was supposed to get the crowd going. It certainly did that in droves. Wright was a guy that if he had a bit more serious gimmick he could have been a big deal. This was a nice fast paced match that did exactly what it was supposed to do. And that more or less ends the good wrestling on this card.

We go to Hogan who talks about how he’s going to be fine and is coming after the Giant. He issues a challenge for a monster truck match. Even in context this doesn’t make any sense. Then he wants a match for the title which he already has. This would somehow be worse than it sounds.

After a break we go back to last week and hear Savage reveal that he wants to be world champion. For the life of me I have no idea why this was supposed to be some big revelation. He wants to be champion? Why is that shocking? Oh. Because it means he would have to go against Hogan who is champion at the moment. And what a shocking idea that it would be if Savage would betray his former mortal enemy to be world champion.

The Hogan worship got WAY out of hand for a long time in WCW to put it mildly. And now Savage is in the ring and here comes Luger. He says he doesn’t respect Savage and challenges for next week. Luger will put up his title shot and also if he loses he’ll leave WCW. What does Savage have to lose here? Of course he accepts.

We see the graphic for machine vs. machine and my head begins to hurt.

Kurasawa vs. Craig Pittman

I have NO idea what the point here is. Kurasawa was around for about two months, broke Hawk’s arm, and that’s it. He’s one of the most random characters ever as he just showed up, injured Hawk, beat him on PPV and then jobbed a few times and was never heard from again. It made no sense but it was WCW so there we are. Pittman had one good moment in his entire career.

He said in a promo that “the beatings will continue until morale improves.” I LOVE that line. Let’s get this over with. Pittman rams his head into the chest of Kurasawa and apparently they’re natural enemies. Ok then. Heenan thinks Kurasawa is the best Japanese wrestler he’s seen from Japan. That’s so stupid I’m not even going to make fun of it. After a modified Samoan Drop on the floor, Mongo says it splatted like Grandma falling out of the wheelchair.

Both of these guys use armbars as finishers. That sums up the match fairly well. The match has been back and forth so of course Mongo says it’s one sided. Kurasawa is back dropped over the top so we change the rules again to make sure the match doesn’t end like it should according to the rules. Bischoff goes on a big tangent about the monster trucks. What was with his obsession with anything with engines? Pittman gets his armbar on but then Kurasawa gets his. And then a German gets the pin on Pittman.

Rating: D+. Again, what was the point of this? I’m assuming to push Kurasawa but damn I have no idea what they saw in him. He just wasn’t anything of note at all and was gone by the end of the year. He gets regular work in Japan but other than that he’s just a very odd case in WCW history, which would be a chapter in the story of their history.

Arn Anderson and Pillman are in the ring with Gene. Pillman rants like crazy and makes fun of Flair. Anderson does the opposite but has the same result.

We see a clip of Taskmaster trying to kill Savage on the set of Baywatch. That was another one of those pretty stupid moments that did nothing. Has no one heard of prosecuting them?

Taskmaster vs. Randy Savage

How did a guy like Sullivan get Woman? That makes no sense. Taskmaster jumps him early and Zodiac is on the floor. That’s gimmick number 8 million for Beefcake that didn’t work out. A barber is the best he can do. That’s very amusing. Did Sullivan ever do anything of note? I can’t think of anything. Savage gets crotched over the barricade and he’s in trouble.

This match is on fast forward it seems. And there’s Zodiac for the DQ. Actually never mind. Blatant interference is fine but shoving the referee to fight for your life isn’t. Giant comes out and beats the hell out of Savage as jobbers come out to try to beat up Giant for some reason. Alex Wright comes out and gets beaten up too.

Luger comes out and we have some intrigue here. Luger of all people was one of the most interesting people in the company around this time. He goes after Giant too and takes a chokeslam. He actually had everyone guessing as to which side he was on, which was a fun angle. Then the NWO ended that.

Rating: N/A. This was a fight rather than a match but was designed to add more to the Hogan/Giant and Luger/Savage feuds. Yeah I’m shocked too.

Meng vs. Lex Luger

Luger is still down from the chokeslam so here we go. We make the Andre comparisons and are told that Hogan will be at Nitro next week. Thanks for gracing us with your presence. It’s all not-Haku here as Luger was so banged up and so he can’t do much here. And we hit the chinlock which is called a reverse facelock by Eric. He’s not exactly Gordon Solie I guess. Luger gets out and kicks him in the head. Seriously, does NO ONE study their stereotypes anymore? Meng gets his spike out of his boot and it goes into Luger’s throat to end it.

Rating: D-. Uh, HUH? Why in the world would you have Luger lose here, even after he was beaten up, to MENG of all people? It just doesn’t make any sense at all so of course it’s what you do in WCW. That just makes my head shake but then again…no never mind. It doesn’t make any sense. The match sucked too.

Overall Rating: D-. This was a big old commercial for next week. The whole thing was about getting ready for next week which is fine I guess for next week but it makes this just seem awful. There was a good Alex Wright match. That’s not saying much as he almost always had passable matches. This just didn’t do it at all and is by far the worst show so far in the series.

 

[klunderbunker]

Monday Nitro #5
Date: October 2, 1995
Location: Denver Coliseum, Denver, Colorado
Attendance: 9,000
Commentators: Eric Bischoff, Bobby Heenan, Steve McMichael

The main event is Savage vs. Luger with Luger’s career on the line. Also we get Arn vs. Flair again. Yeah this is a TV show. See why Nitro was such a different kind of show at the time? They were trying to beat Raw every chance they got which eventually caught up with them later but that’s a different story. Let’s get to it.

As the announcers are discussing the show, Flair runs up and cuts an insane promo calling out Arn for later tonight.

We see the thing last week Savage vs. Luger which sets up the match tonight. We also get the Dungeon attacking Savage later and Luger saving him which further blurred the line even more which was a cool story I thought.

Lex Luger vs. Randy Savage

Not bad for an opening match. Eric calls it the opening main event. Luger slaps hands like a face which makes things even more interesting. I think I’m really liking this feud actually. We get some jabs at Raw during Savage’s entrance. The interesting thing there is that other than the referee, everyone in this segment including the announcers have been in WWF at some point in time (Mongo was on Lawrence Taylor’s team at ringside of Mania 11).

We go to a break with them on the floor and come back with only Luger out there. Savage takes a reverse neckbreaker on the floor. As it was being set up I couldn’t tell who was doing it to who which shows a big issue with that move at times. Luger hits a LONG gorilla press once we’re back in the ring. Mongo says they look like mountain goats. Uh, sure.

They do one of the longest and best done backslide sequences I can remember with Luger hooking his foot on the rope to stay up. That was smart. We go to the floor where they just beat each other up for awhile. The referee goes down. What a freaking cliché that is. The elbow hits but no ref. The Giant comes down and chokeslams Savage, allowing the rack to end him. Luger collapses as soon as he wins.

Rating: C+. For a free TV match, this was pretty good I thought. It’s no classic or anything but for what this was it came off well. This feud went on for a very long time but never got a proper blowoff. They fought on at least two PPVs and then it became all about Hogan again as you would expect it to. Decent match though.

We’re supposed to get Eddie vs. Dean but we get Disco Inferno instead. Eddie comes out to yell at him and for some reason is using what would become Juventud Guerrera’s music.

Eddie Guerrero vs. Dean Malenko

Malenko’s tights are black and pink, which naturally don’t work on him since he isn’t a Hart. We see a clip of Eddie vs. Liger from last night on TV and the Frog Splash is called the Jackknife. It was a weird time back then. This should be awesome. Mongo asks how someone can know 1000 holds. “If there’s a book out called 100 Sex Positions how can he know 1000 holds?” Eric: Bobby, don’t even touch it or I’ll cut your mic off. That cracked me up for some reason.

And now let’s cut away from this match and see Hogan arriving. Not even a double screen? The match is less than six minutes long and we stay on Hogan for a minute. I mean SERIOUSLY? Look, I get that Hogan is the bigger star and all that jazz, but they couldn’t do this segment BEFORE this match? I just fail to see the need to cut away from a match to show a promo.

Eddie hits a sweet dive off the top to the floor and it’s all Eddie. Frog Splash eats knees though. Dean goes for a roll though but Eddie falls into it like Owen at Mania X for the pin. Dean wants a rematch and Eddie says anytime and anyplace with a handshake.

Rating: B-. From what I saw of it at least this was a solid and fast paced match. Like I said though do you really expect this to not be good? The Hogan thing just made my head hurt but this was when it was all about him so there we are. Seriously, just wait until the end of the match.

Hogan comes to the ring and says that last night he was with a friend of his that’s about to have a double lung transplant. Oh and Hogan is in a neck brace. He’s going to the back to look for the Giant. This was like 30 seconds long. He circles ringside and a woman in a shawl throws powder at him and beats him up with a cane. It’s Kevin Sullivan.

And here comes the Dungeon for the massive beatdown. Giant does the neck twist thing to Hogan like he did at Fall Brawl. They shave his mustache which is a freaky look on Hogan. The American Males come out to try to fight off the Giant and thankfully they get beaten up. The Nasty Boys get the same treatment. Zodiac is there helping with the beatdown. In other words, Beefcake, the Nastys and Hogan in the ring at the same time. Shocking isn’t it?

Ric Flair vs. Arn Anderson

No intro for Arn again. Flair is in yellow which is a definite throwback to the 80s for him. Even Heenan thinks Flair has been a jerk. Eric thinks Jimmy Hart should be credited for thinking Giant would go after Hogan’s neck. As in the neck that was in a brace that Giant had hurt. Brilliance indeed.

This is an ok match but the announcers are barely talking about it since there’s Hogan news for us to chat about. Arn goes for the arm as he’s supposed to do. We FINALLY talk about the match a bit as Flair hooks the Figure Four, breaking up the debate about the OJ verdict which followed a chat about the Rockies almost making the playoffs. Are you kidding me? I’m keeping a count here. Over three minutes, this match was talked about for a total of 12 seconds.

Flair actually gets the win with the Figure Four and as soon as he taps Pillman dives off the top with a splash to Flair. The double beatdown begins and then they just leave him there as he’s up. They’re not running or anything. They just leave him there. After a break they announce Flair vs. Anderson in a cage match for next week.

Rating: C-. This was good but nothing great. Rarely do I care about commentary, but this was ridiculous. It was ALL Hogan discussion as Flair and Anderson are just kind of forgotten about in favor of Hogan talk, which is nothing but “he’ll be back” and “He’s really hurt!” Do we need to ignore the main event for that? Apparently we do as it would be a running theme on this show for many years. Even with that though, the match was nothing special at all as there was no drama or intrigue for it the whole time.

Overall Rating: C-. Well this was mainly about the advancing of stories more than the wrestling. The opener was good but the ending was about the Giant and potentially Luger. The second match meant nothing and the third match was a backdrop for more Hogan discussion. This just didn’t work that well and while it’s a decent show, it’s the worst the show has been since its inception which is what I think I said for the last one too, which can’t be a good sign. It’s a long road to May which is when this show really picks up with Hall arriving.

 

[klunderbunker]

Monday Nitro #6
Date: October 9, 1995
Location: Rosemont Horizon, Chicago, Illinois
Attendance: 8,500
Commentators: Bobby Heenan, Eric Bischoff, Steve McMichael

We continue the FAR too long of a build to Halloween Havoc here with a main event of Arn vs. Flair in a cage. We also get Sting vs. Shark and nothing much else. May needs to get here fast so I can have some NWO stuff. Let’s get to it.

The opening video is about Hogan’s mustache being shaved off last week. For no apparent reason at all the announcers are all in Bears jerseys and start with their backs to the cameras. Was this supposed to be funny? It doesn’t seem like it.

Sting pops up at the announce table and yells like a crazy man about Savage and Luger, saying he’ll solve it later tonight.

US Title: Shark vs. Sting

Shark is listed as being from tsunami. What does that even mean? Shark jumps him early on and beats him down. I wonder if Sting can come back. Yep he can as two Stinger splashes and a cross body from the top retains the title in less than 90 seconds. The fans are definitely awake now.

We see Hogan getting beaten up last week and by that I mean they just reair the whole segment of Sullivan being dressed as an old woman.

Mr. JL vs. Sabu

That would be Jerry Lynn in a mask. Sabu is very popular here which could be because of the spots he does or because they know what ECW is here. JL hits a nice dive to the floor as this is very fast paced so far. This is very fast paced stuff which is new for WCW at the time. You have to remember that the Cruiserweights were about 8 months away from officially debuting so there wasn’t much to go on here.

Sabu gets the camel clutch but JL gets a rope. Fans are WAY behind Sabu here. JL hits a DDT from the middle rope, kind of like Orton’s but not entirely. In a nice ending, JL goes for a rana from the top but Sabu catches him in a powerbomb and the cobra clutch ends it.

Rating: B. It’s only about 4 minutes long but these guys never stopped moving. They were flying all over the place and it was a very fun match. Sabu sans tables is fun a lot of the time and that’s what this was. They just had a fast paced match and it worked very well.

Gene is in the ring with Sting and Luger. Here’s Savage to complete this ring of awesomeness. Sting says this is all about the Giant chokeslamming everyone. Savage wants to know why Sting hasn’t gotten a chokeslam. Sting says they all want to be world champion, although none of them want to fight Hogan. Sting suggests that at Halloween Havoc if they both win their matches they fight each other, which doesn’t really solve anything but whatever.

Luger doesn’t like it so Sting yells at him. Luger was the perfect tweener at this point as you never really knew what he was thinking or doing. I still don’t get what the point of this was as they should have just done Savage vs. Luger but whatever.

A guy makes his debut in a limo. His name is Chris Benoit.

Disco comes out again and dances, even though he’s not a worker apparently.

Big Bubba vs. Hawk

Who thought this was a good idea? Why does Disco’s theme song have to be so freaking catchy? Bischoff does a shout out to his daughter (named Montana) and tells her Hogan is ok. Bubba beats him down, Hawk makes a comeback, Disco runs down again for interference and Hawk gets counted out. This was like a minute and a half again. I still have no idea what the point of this was.

Hogan comes out all in black. He tells Jimmy and Gene to be quiet and is all serious. Well as serious as you can be while saying dude that often. He invokes Andre as we’re in the whole Giant is Andre’s son thing. He runs down Vince, saying that he’s dying because of his own ego. WCW was nothing at this point either but whatever. Hogan talks about beating up Gorgeous George in Heaven or something.

Giant shows up in a monster truck which is something I remember from initially watching this show. Giant isn’t allowed in the building so Hogan goes outside to face him.

Ric Flair vs. Arn Anderson

This is in a cage. No intro for Arn. Flair is WAY over and dances around a lot. This is bland to say the least. We go to a break soon into it like you would on WWE today. Bland might not be fair as they’re moving out there. This era of the show was really good at getting a lot of stuff into not much time.

After about four minutes of basic yet decent stuff, here’s Brian Pillman. Flair hits the double axe off the top for literally once. Anderson hits him with some object to end this in less than five minutes. Eric thinks it’s illegal but it’s in a cage match so it’s not like it would mean anything. Post match Flair shows up at the commentary place and wants a handicap match.

Rating: D. Pretty boring here with nothing of note really. Granted with less than five minutes what can you really do? Flair broke the headset when he grabbed it from Eric. This was just to further the feud and show that Flair needs a partner. That would wind up being Sting and it would wind up being a swerve which never had an explanation. Anyway this was too short to really do much at all.

Overall Rating: B-. They did a very good job here of getting a lot of stuff on the show here, but it felt all over the place which isn’t a good thing. This was more about drama than wrestling, but that’s ok. The main event was pretty bad but for a cage match on free TV I’ve seen far worse. They were still finding their groove at this point, but Halloween Havoc needs to get here.

 

[klunderbunker]

Monday Nitro #7
Date: October 16, 1995
Location: Albany Civic Center, Albany, New York
Commentators: Steve McMichael, Bobby Heenan, Eric Bischoff

The eternal build to Halloween Havoc continues here with no apparent end to it in sight. The main thing tonight is Sting/Flair vs. Anderson/Pillman as Flair has finally convinced Sting to team with him. This would end bad for the guy with paint on his face. Also tonight this Benoit guy debuts. Nothing special in other words. Let’s get to it.

We recap Sting accepting Flair’s offer and see him threaten Flair’s life if he betrays him.

TV Title: Diamond Dallas Page vs. Johnny B. Badd

These two feuded forever and nothing ever came of it since Badd just left the company in March or so. Badd had won a US Title shot at Fall Brawl but Badd had car trouble that night and didn’t get to the arena on time. Page slipped and told Badd he was the cause of the trouble, setting up their feud. Why did he do that? Never explained but whatever. Badd was greatly improved at this point….and now he’s out cold thanks to a belt shot to the head while his music was playing. It’s a DQ despite the match not having started yet when he hit him but whatever.

Eddie Guerrero vs. Chris Benoit

Yeah this works. Benoit is in the very old school blue tights with the star here. They start out insanely fast and fly all over the place out there with great looking high spots. This was a brand new style in WCW and who better than these two to showcase it? Eddie blocks a suplex and we hit the floor for the second time now. Eddie might have hurt his hand on the post.

Eddie gets his arm worked on to add psychology here. Did you expect anything else from these two? We hear about the Atlanta Braves being in the World Series. They would beat the Indians 4-2 and make my soul ache a bit more. Frog Splash gets knees as this is a lot better than I’m making it sound. Benoit powerbombs the hell out of him for two and the fans are into this. They go insane again and Eddie takes over, but he instinctively uses his right arm and Benoit can hit the Dragon Suplex (full nelson into a suplex) for the pin. Good match.

Rating: B+. High flying, mat work, counters and psychology. What more could you ask for here? Benoit was something special and Eddie was the perfect foil to him. This was a great TV match and a great match period. Also, the psychology was perfect: Eddie hurt his arm, Benoit worked on the arm and then the arm made a difference in the ending. I can’t ask for more than that.

We’re told that there is talk of making a cruiserweight division. Oh yeah.

After more ads for the hotline, here are Giant and Taskmaster to talk to Gene. Sullivan blames Hogan for being here. The fans all want their champion so I wonder if he’s going to come out. He talks about how Hogan has shown his dark side lately and it’s because of him. Giant talks about the monster truck stuff and it sounds so stupid.

Meng vs. Jim Duggan

Disco comes out and dances a bit first which goes nowhere. We talk about the trucks instead of the match of course until Mongo of all people gets us back on track. And never mind as Eric wants to talk about Lex Luger. Meng kicks him in the head and puts the golden spike in his neck and it’s over in like 2 minutes for no rating obviously. They always seemed on the verge of making Meng a huge deal.

Hogan and Hart call his fans Hulkamanianoids for no apparent reason. Hogan says there is evil in him which makes me think of Beetlejuice when he said he had demons running all through him. Hogan says he’s Don Corleone Hogan. Oh dear. He bashes Vince by saying he can cripple promoters with ease and control whole promotions. Also it goes from 93.1 thousand to 94,000 in Detroit in 87. This is totally insane and mainly just an ego trip for Hogan.

Ric Flair/Sting vs. Arn Anderson/Brian Pillman

This would be redone at Havoc in 13 days. Wow that Anderson music is just awesome. There’s no Sting and we start as a handicap match. We talk about Flair’s ass for awhile because we don’t see it enough on PPV I guess. Flair goes for the figure four on Arn and actually messes up the setup for it, going for a Sharpshooter to start. And now it’s on Pillman instead.

The numbers catch up with Flair and he takes a spinebuster but here’s Sting to a great pop. Sting finally gets the hot tag and it’s all him, dominating both heels with ease and hitting a pair of Stinger Splashes on both guys. The heels get put on the floor and after the fastest ten count this side of Nick Patrick it’s over via count out.

Rating: C. This was nothing but a storyline builder and there’s nothing wrong with that since no one knew it at the time. Sting not coming out immediately was a nice thing too as no one knew what was really going on since he wasn’t sure if he could trust Flair or not yet. This wasn’t much as far as a match goes but it worked very well as far as furthering the angle.

Sting talks about how he trusts Flair now and while the eventual swerve was pretty clear, this was fine. Why did Flair turn on Sting you ask? BECAUSE HE’S EVIL. That’s all it takes sometimes, and it works here too.

Overall Rating: C-. Not much here as far as actual meat goes as it was far more about building up a PPV. The thing is that’s all we’ve had in weeks now and it’s getting pretty boring. Hogan was just annoying as hell at this point as the midcard was carrying everything but he got all the praise and credit. Not a terrible show this week as Benoit and Eddie carry the thing. Still can’t believe this is less than two months old at this point.

 

[klunderbunker]

Monday Nitro #8
Date: October 23, 1995
Location: Von Braun Center, Huntsville, Alabama
Attendance: 7,000
Commentators: Steve McMichael, Bobby Heenan, Tony Schiavone

The insane build to Halloween Havoc ends here. Now that I’m done with SNME and ECW, I’d like to do more of these as they’re really easy to do at about 45 minutes each until we hit May and Scott Hall’s jump. Tonight is light on the wrestling as no one wants to get injured before the big show, which wound up being pretty bad. Let’s get to it.

I still love that intro. It’s all bad ass and stuff.

Kurasawa vs. Randy Savage

Kurasawa is a weird case as he was brought over, DESTROYED Hawk and then wrestled like 3 more matches and was gone. No intro here for him either and we’re on immediately. This was part of the beginning of the New Japan invasion that no one really got or cared about but they did it anyway. This is all Kurasawa to start us off which is a bit odd to see. Actually it’s not as Savage was really limited at this time since he was in horrible need of time off for injuries, but Hogan was about to take a sabbatical for the sake of a sabbatical so Savage had to stick around so he could be built up to be made to look like a second fiddle to Hogan. Such was WCW.

Manny Ramirez is listed as a Cleveland Indian here and is in the World Series. Wow that’s sad. We go to a break and it’s been no Savage for the most part. Savage can’t hurt him apparently. He’s an Asian Assassin and he kicks the post. Seriously no selling that? You can do better than that dude. He slams him and the elbow ends it. Yeah….Savage was just bad at this point but he was basically held together by gum here so credit for that I suppose.

Rating: D-. This was really bad and I have no idea what the point here was. Savage’s music didn’t play afterwards either which was weird. This didn’t ever do anything at all as it was ALL Kurasawa and Savage looked like a jobber instead of a world champion level guy. This was just bad.

The announcers talk about a match later and Heenan says a pilot came out of the cockpit to ask about a match. WOW.

The lights go out and the Master (the father of the Taskmaster) says the Insurance Policy is here. Oh man I remember this show. There’s a big block of ice here. Oh dear. This somehow takes like two minutes. Sullivan says it’s the Yeti and talks about Hogan. Yeah it’s THAT show.

Hogan comes out after a break and is listed as the star of Thunder in Paradise instead of, you know, the world champion. Hogan gets close to being biblical again which is always weird. He says he might keep wearing black after Sunday. He would stop wearing them at World War 3. Hogan talks about dragging Giant around on his Harley and goes after Sting and Luger and Savage. This was weird. Again, how did Hogan/Savage vs. Luger/Sting never main event a PPV?

Dean Malenko/Chris Benoit vs. Eddie Guerrero/Mr. JL

JL is Jerry Lynn and that’s rather ironic since this is being written on the day of Hardcore Justice and he had to bail out because of an injury. To say this is more or less a guaranteed good match is an understatement. It was supposed to be Alex Wright but he’s hurt so JL is here instead. This is very early in Benoit’s career in WCW and maybe his second match. Everybody other than Eddie does a big dive. Dean is better at it than you would think.

I believe all of these guys were in ECW at one point. Yeah it never meant anything though. Scott Norton and Shark are fighting in the back so we cut away from the great tag match so we can see a split screen of that, because we all remember six weeks ago when they had a non run-in right? The announcers of course talk about the block of ice far more than the match because it’s far more important than four world class wrestlers right?

Benoit hits a top rope suplex on JL for no reaction from the announcers. The crowd likes it though. Eric can’t tell the difference between JL and Dean. Oh come on now. Eddie comes in and we crank it WAY up. This is before Eddie was a drunk drug addict and he could GO. Eddie and Benoit go to the floor but Wright trips up Dean with his crutch and JL rolls him up for the pin. Solid match. Pillman, the loose cannon, runs out and DDTs Eddie in the aisle just because he feels like it.

Rating: B. This was a fast paced tag match that showed what these guys could do. It’s not like this means anything but that’s WCW for you. This was really just a way to set up for the Cruiserweight Tournament which was in like 5 months I think and was held in Japan for no apparent reason. Anyway, this was a fun match and a great showcase of the lighter guys….again.

Harlem Heat vs. Sting/Lex Luger

Sting and Luger would win the tag titles somewhat soon. Ok so it wasn’t for like three months but you get the idea. Heenan proclaims the end of Hulkamania. I love the fact that when he finally turned, Heenan kept saying I TOLD YOU SO. That was great stuff. Sting, the guy that wore every color on the planet, is wearing red and yellow here so of course it’s about Hogan.

This is your usual main event tag match but I can almost bet that it’s to set up the angle rather than the match itself. Sherri is looking at a picture of herself and the Colonel. Make that two pictures. Hogan of course is the main topic of conversation since this is WCW. Sting gets the hot tag and takes over. After a double suplex to Luger, a top rope clothesline from Sting ends it.

Rating: C-. Like I said, standard main event tag match that set up the following angle. Sting and Luger were at least an on again/off again tag team so this fit for them. It’s nice having guys that you can throw together like that at a moment’s notice and have them come off as a real tag team and not guys just thrown together. This was a pretty weak match but it worked well enough for what it was supposed to be.

Giant and Sullivan are here with chokeslams for everybody, including Sting which closes a plot question. Hogan and Savage come out and the showdown commences. Hogan gets knocked down but Hulks Up and staggers Giant before the Dungeon runs in for the save. Big brawl commences and the Mega Powers clean house. The lights flicker and everything starts shaking. Cut to the block of ice from earlier and it explodes, revealing…..a mummy. And so begins one of the dumbest characters of all time to close the show.

Overall Rating: D. This was the go home show as well as the Ice show as well as the Hogan show. I really didn’t like this as far as setting up Havoc as the main event was the only thing focused on. Savage and Luger needing wins to fight each other was mentioned but other than that there wasn’t another match talked about. This doesn’t make me want to see the show, as this was all about one match. Did you know Sting is teaming up with Flair at the PPV? Neither did I, based on this show. Bad go home show to put it mildly.

 

[klunderbunker]

Monday Nitro #9
Date: October 30, 1995
Location: Hara Arena, Dayton, Ohio
Attendance: 3,500
Commentators: Eric Bischoff, Steve McMichael, Bobby Heenan

Well we’re FINALLY done with Halloween Havoc (which has been reviewed and can be found in the Table of Contents if you’re interested) and the main result is Giant is the NEW world champion through various nefarious means. Namely, Jimmy Hart turned on Hogan and Giant won by DQ, which was put into the contract that he could win the title by disqualification. We begin the road to World War 3 and ultimately Starrcade, neither of which were good at all. Let’s get to it.

Mongo’s dog is dressed like a witch. Shoot me now. The announcers recap the show last night and talk about Savage being hurt and Eddie is replacing him. And here’s that match now.

Eddie Guerrero vs. Craig Pittman

I’m still trying to figure out if Pittman is face or heel. I think face but I’m not sure either way. They start REALLY slowly with no actual contact for a long time. Can we like, do something? The fans are way behind Eddie and he would start getting a small push because of it. Bischoff starts the World War 3 push which will of course continue for the next four weeks.

Eddie takes over a bit as Eric talks about how confused Pittman must be since he was supposed to fight Savage. Eddie pinning Pittman is an upset apparently. That’s not something you hear that often. Pittman goes for the arm which is where his finisher would wind up so at least there’s logic there. I wonder if they’ll talk about Giant falling off the roof. They kind of hint at it but haven’t said anything point blank yet.

We’re not sure if Giant is champion or not. He would be declared champion but next week it’s vacated and held up in the battle royal so maybe that has something to do with it. That made no sense but I think you get the idea. Pittman is mostly dominating here until Eddie gets a rollup leverage move out of NOWHERE for the pin which is a shock I guess.

Rating: C+. Not bad here as Eddie’s push if you want to call it that begins here. This was fine for what it was and Pittman more or less left after this so there’s always that as a benefit. Nothing great here but for about five minutes it’s fine. Eddie would be in the final ten in the battle royal, so if nothing else they pushed him that way.

We recap Shark vs. Norton from 6 weeks ago which restarted in a fight last week since they spent five weeks waiting to start the feud again.

Scott Norton vs. Shark

Please make it short. They lock up immediately and the commentary is just like the commentary for the monster truck stuff last night. Heenan has left for no apparent reason and the others don’t seem to care. Top rope shoulder block sends Tenta to the corner and FINALLY he goes down after a regular one. Heenan is seen sitting with a Japanese promoter and eating sushi. That’s the main angle for Starrcade of all things. They brawl to the floor and it’s a double countout.

Rating: N/A. What a GREAT blowoff to this “feud” as no one cared about these two at all and it never went anywhere at all. At least it’s short here. Thankfully they brawl to the back and we got some nice bumps out of it but this was barely a match at all so as usual no grade for it.

Heenan takes some money from the Japanese guy (Sonny Onoo who isn’t named yet).

We see some stills of the Horsemen reformation match last night as Flair pretended to get beaten down which I never really got. Why bring Sting into it other than because they could? Is that why they did it? That makes some sort of sense I guess.

Tony brings out Flair, Pillman and Anderson to explain some stuff. Pillman rants about how we’re getting close to the Horsemen returning and how awesome they are. Anderson says Sting has nothing to be ashamed of since he survived two Horsemen for ten minutes which is insane. The fourth is coming apparently and I think that was Benoit. Flair does his usual rant and says if Sting wants them they’ll be at Nitro next week.

Sabu vs. Disco Inferno

Here’s a strange pairing. Next week it’s viewer’s choice somehow. There will be two groups of wrestlers and you pick the matches. That’s kind of cool I guess. Heenan is back now and talks about the Braves being the world champions. We also hear about the Olympics coming soon. I think this is Disco’s TV debut. All Sabu to start with random off the top stuff. When he didn’t have the tables and ladders etc he was very watchable and enjoyable at times.

Disco comes back with really basic stuff as he was even more of a joke at this point than he was later on. The fans chant for Sabu as I think this was an ECW town, so that makes sense. Disco’s offense lasts like a minute as Sabu is like bitch please and the somersault legdrop ends it. Sabu puts him through a table afterwards. Well he tries to since the table doesn’t break.

Rating: C+. Not bad at all as Sabu was still something totally freaky at the time and no one was like him. Rey wouldn’t debut for like 9 months so Sabu was very cool and new still. This went nowhere but it was a fun little squash. It’s interesting to think where Sabu could have gone in WCW had they not thrown him out.

Lex Luger/Meng vs. American Males

Luger is more or less an associate of the Dungeon of Doom now which makes him the traitor, surprising very few people. The Males are former tag champions here and are likely about to get squashed beyond belief. The faces dominate to start actually which isn’t what I expected. Riggs beats on Luger which gets lots of cheering from the Hogan worshipping Bischoff.

Meng interferes and it’s Luger in charge. The fans want Hogan who is still champion apparently. Bischoff is reaching JR levels of fanboy as even Mongo gets on him. Bagwell gets the hot tag and actually beats up Luger for awhile. Meng takes care of that though and the Rack ends it.

Rating: D. Another weak match but the idea is to set up the whole Luger is evil thing and that’s it. The Males got a lot more offense in than I expected here. Nothing good at all though and at least it’s over. That’s your main event mind you. Just keep in mind: this is DEFINITELY better than Raw. Yep it’s true and you know it. OR at least Uncle Eric says so.

We reair the ending of Havoc last night and the Hart heel turn. It is interesting to think that the Yeti was just standing in the back in full mummy attire. It’s Reese from the Flock if you remember them.

The Dungeon is in the ring and Giant has the title. Jimmy says that he was the evil in Hogan’s heart. Luger says he liked the image of Hogan and Savage laying there. Taskmaster acts like Hogan shaking on the mat like he was known to do. Giant says he’ll defend the title. Taskmaster says everyone hates Hogan.

Overall Rating: C-. Decent stuff this week but more than anything else it’s nice to not be building to Havoc anymore. We weren’t quite to a PPV a month yet but it was very soon. This was a transitional show as it was fallout from the previous night and the build to World War 3 hadn’t begun yet. That would be next week, which might be reviewed relatively soon since these are really easy to blow through. Not bad but nothing great here.

 

[klunderbunker]

Monday Nitro #10
Date: November 6, 1995
Location: Jacksonville Memorial Coliseum, Jacksonville, Florida
Attendance: 9,500
Commentators: Eric Bischoff, Steve McMichael, Bobby Heenan

So tonight is Viewer’s Choice, but only for the main event. You have a bunch of people in one locker room and a bunch of people in another locker room. More or less they tell everyone to PICK STING VS. FLAIR. Savage is here but can’t wrestle tonight due to what happened at Halloween Havoc.

WCW World Title: Cobra vs. The Giant

They mess up the music at first so we think it’s Giant first. Cobra is a military guy that would become the NWO Sting. The announcers insists it’s not a title match but Hart makes Penzer say it is anyway so why not? 8 seconds long, chokeslam ends it.

We go to the heel locker room where Gene is. He says you can vote for them.

We go to the face locker room where Tony is. He says you can vote for them.

Hogan and Savage are with some musician that I guess we’re supposed to know. They vent about life for a bit while some seemingly homeless man sits between them. 95 was….weird.

Kevin Sullivan vs. The Renegade

So it’s the Boston Midget vs. Fake Warrior. Renegade tried but he had a severe lack of talent holding him back. That and no one bought the gimmick so it didn’t really work out that well for him. Then he shot himself. He jumps Sullivan the second he hits the ring and has control for a little bit. Sullivan takes over with really basic stuff and WE ARE LIVE! No real reason for saying this but Eric decides to shout about it.

A front flip splash misses from Sullivan, yes that Sullivan, and Renegade hits a cartwheel splash. Tree of Woe running knee and a middle rope double stomp end this. Worse than you would expect. They wipe the paint off his face and say that he’s not good enough to be the Renegade and is just plain Rick.

Rating: N/A. Very short here but nothing of note at all. Neither was any good but when Sullivan is the better one in the ring it’s not a good thing at all. This was the end of the Renegade character I think other than maybe in the World War 3 battle royal where they brought in EVERYONE. This was bad.

Gene is in the heel locker room again and the lights go out. Flair rants anyway. Ah there they are.

Chris Benoit vs. Eddie Guerrero

Well here’s your wrestling stuff for the day. Benoit still has the star on his ass. Everyone knows this is going to be great so they’ll likely talk about Hogan for the whole time. Benoit hits a GREAT spinebuster and then the Liontamer since Jericho hasn’t debuted yet. We pan over to a table and sitting there: Masahiro Chono and Jushin Thunder Liger. Not bad for a dinner. Eddie hits a huge plancha to take Benoit down on the floor.

SICK top rope suplex from Benoit to take over again. Follow that up with a SICK powerbomb to Eddie. It only gets two though because Eddie is a MAN. Bischoff talks about how great Eddie is. This was before he wasted him and threw coffee on him mind you. Nice rollup by Eddie for two. German suplex gets two, so Benoit rolls through into a Northern Lights for two. They slug it out with Eddie on the apron and Benoit in the ring. Benoit goes for a suplex but Eddie falls on top for the pin, even though Benoit’s feet were on the ropes.

Rating: A-. It’s Benoit vs. Guerrero. Do you really need me to tell you this was awesome?

Schivaone still wants you to vote! Sting wants you to vote for him and Flair.

OLD SCHOOL SAVAGE SLIM JIM COMMERCIAL!!!!!

Fall Brawl is available on VHS. Great opener, great Anderson vs. Flair match, rest of it sucked.

The vote goes to Sting vs. Flair of course. Brain drinks sake while this is announced.

Sting vs. Ric Flair

Well at least it’s more or less guaranteed to be very good at least and great at best. No robe for Flair here which is weird to see. Flair Flip (not to be confused with the Flair Flop) and then a clothesline puts Flair on the floor. Flair leans against the railing and Sting stares at him, yells at him, and the inexplicably misses the running splash on the railing. Sting never was the smartest guy in the world.

Damn you Michael Cole for making me chuckle whenever another commentator calls an actual vintage move vintage. Figure Four doesn’t work as Sting Hulks Up. Mongo has never seen anyone get out of it like that. Other than of course every face ever put into it. Flair can’t hurt him now and the no selling of the knee is a bit stupid here. I love thumbs to the eye stopping faces in their tracks.

We hit the floor again and Sting, who is US Champion for another week before he lost it in Japan to set up the beginning of the Starrcade feud. Feet on the ropes get two for Flair four straight times. There’s a big announcement coming apparently. Sting gets a backslide for two and there’s the slam off the top. Flair gets a foreign object from somewhere and blasts Sting with it but Sting kicks out AGAIN!

Very top rope suplex sets up the Scorpion to end it. Very good match again. Sting refuses to let go of the hold so Eddie and JL come out for the calming down thing. A bunch of other guys manage to get him off finally as Flair is more or less done. Luger comes down and Sting gets the hold back on again after hitting the floor. Luger says something to Sting and makes him let go. That would be a running theme between them which never was explained. They leave together.

Rating: B+. More solid stuff here of course as Sting vs. Flair is one of those old classics that is really hard to mess up. It works very well as it’s such an old rivalry that they managed to have reasons to go at it every time, which isn’t something that a lot of combinations can manage to say. They did it again at World War 3, which makes me scratch my head but whatever, as we got a good match out of it.

Back from a break and Hart, Giant and Sullivan are in the ring. We get the revelation about Giant being champion because Hogan got disqualified. Hart had Hogan’s power of attorney. Giant isn’t champion though, because the DQ was weird, so the winner of World War 3 gets the title. Jimmy FREAKING over losing his first and I believe only world title (spare me the bullshit over Hart managing Hogan to a world title) is hilarious stuff. The announcers are SHOCKED to end the show.

Overall Rating: A-. This was a VERY good show. We set up the world title match and have two rather long and very good matches, which on a one hour long show is far more than you can ask for. This was one of the better episodes of the show to date and really did what it was supposed to do as far as giving us a good hour of wrestling. Very good show.

 

[klunderbunker]

Monday Nitro #11
Date: November 13, 1995
Location: Jacksonville Memorial Coliseum, Jacksonville, Florida
Attendance: 9,500
Commentators: Eric Bischoff, Steve McMichael, Bobby Heenan

Shh! Now don’t tell Uncle Eric this but this show is TAPED. Yeah for all of the bitching that Bischoff did about Raw being taped, he taped a few shows of his own. This is more getting ready for World War 3 but looking at the card there is one match I’m rather looking forward to. Let’s get to it.

Eric immediately reminds us that the winner of World War 3 gets the world title. Anyone else think that’s going to dominate the commentary tonight? Mongo’s dog is dressed up once again. Yeah Mongo had this stupid dog with him every time they went on the air for no apparent reason.

Hogan, in the Dungeon of Doom, in a black mask and cloak with gloves and a staff talks about Savage. He’s also holding a Sephiroph level sword. This is about Sting or something, but this might have just topped the insane Hogan promo list, but I’m not sure. The one about breaking a building in half and having everyone believe in him while he dog paddles them to safety is kind of hard to trump.

Randy Savage vs. Meng

This is more in the Hogan’s Army vs. Dungeon feud that went on for the better part of eternity it seemed. Savage is billed from the Dark Side of Venice Beach. He comes in through the crowd to jump Meng and it’s on. Total dominance here by Savage until Sullivan gets Savage’s attention. That was one of the good things about this era of WCW: they did a lot of basic stuff but they did it really well.

It was always like Meng was someone they wanted to make a top heel but they never quite did. Granted a lot of that was that he never really was in the midcard but rather was having matches like these, where of course you can’t put him over Savage or Sting. Top rope splash misses for the less famous one. A Megaphone shot also misses, setting up the elbow for the easy pin.

Shark and Luger come out post match and hurt Savage’s legitimately hurt arm.

Rating: D+. Standard match here but nothing of note at all. This was your standard opening match for these shows: totally pointless and not surprising in the slightest. It’s fine for a TV match but it’s certainly not worth much past that.

Chris Benoit vs. Kensuke Sasaki

Benoit is great, but Sasaki isn’t. This should be rather interesting. While this was airing, Sasaki was winning the US Title from Sting in Japan, setting off a truly headscratching angle if there ever was one. Big fight to start as both guys are rather intense. They seem to botch….something as we talk about the 49ers vs. Cowboys game.

Sasaki is dominant as Heenan can’t remember the name of the PPV, showing the impressiveness of such a name as World War 3. Benoit from out of nowhere gets a reversal into some Rolling Germans and the Dragon suplex ends it. Benoit is officially a Horseman at this point. Also, can’t you see the brilliance in having Benoit, a guy that has been around for about 5 weeks at this point, beat the guy that wins the US Title in less than a week? But of course, Benoit wasn’t ready to fight the big guys for almost four years.

Rating: C+. Intense match here but the booking makes next to no sense. Sasaki was a big power guy, which is appropriate since that was all he could really do. He never was much in the ring. He was influenced by the Road Warriors so what do you really expect out of that? Good while it lasted but with less than three minutes how much can you expect?

TV Title: Johnny B. Badd vs. Eddie Guerrero

No entrance for Eddie either. Johnny was getting very good in the ring at this point so this is doing very well so far. Eddie hits a nice semi-springboard rana which is of course called a headscissors here. Top rope sunset flip is reversed into a rollup for two for Eddie. Very fast paced match and Eddie goes over the top. Badd hits a front flip over the top to take both guys out.

Slingshot splash misses as they are moving out there. Eddie gets a cradle for two. Badd’s solution to not being able to beat Guerrero? PUNCH HIM IN THE FACE! I love simple answers like that. Eddie spears him down and it’s a fight. The fans get behind Eddie, but remember the fans don’t know what they want. The clock suddenly moves very fast as a minute now equals about 45 seconds. Naturally the time limit expires and they hug it out, with Heenan getting annoyed like only he can do.

Rating: C+. It was pretty entertaining but it really never was a classic. They had too many instances of just stopping for seemingly the sake of just stopping, which is never something that I’m interested in. It’s a good match and the time limit was the right idea, but they just never got as good as was possible here. No rematch that I know of either of course.

Hogan wants Sting next week. Again, how no one ever put together Hogan/Savage vs. Luger/Sting on PPV is beyond me.

Giant, Hart and Sullivan are in the ring with Gene. Hart is even more over the top than usual if you can imagine that. Giant says he’ll win and Sullivan has a seizure or something like that. This was weird.

Dean Malenko vs. Sting

In case you didn’t get it, this was the match I wanted to see. Eric gets on Heenan about the whole Japan thing which is always rather amusing. That angle wound up SUCKING though. The main commentary is of course about that since we need to set up an angle for Starrcade and since Hogan decided to take that time off, we brought in NJPW.

The commentators more or less make it sound like Malenko has no chance at all. Dean works on the knee as we go to a break. During the break Sting almost got the Scorpion but the ropes made the save. The fans LOVE Sting. A German suplex gets two for Dean as this has been a well done match so far.

He misses a rana but no Scorpion. Splash misses and this is a solid back and forth match so far. Sting grabs a small package (or so I’ve heard) as Dean goes for the Cloverleaf to get the pin. Nice little ending there.

Rating: C+. Solid little TV match here as Dean was game for Sting but he just couldn’t do it. Sting using the veteran move of the cradle as Dean went for the Cloverleaf was a nice move against a near rookie, so I can’t argue that either. This was solid and a nice little treat actually. Why things like these didn’t happen more often is beyond me but whatever.

Sting hangs back in the ring and talks to Gene, accepting the challenge from Hogan. Gene refers to him as WCW’s GREAT Hulk Hogan. Give me a break. Sting never dreamed that it would be Sting vs. Hogan. Did he not pay attention at the meetings when they were making scripts?

The announcers say generic stuff and we’re out.

Overall Rating: B-. Solid hour of television here. The main event was nice as we just kind of hold down the fort until we get to World War 3. The Malenko/Sting match was a nice surprise and it worked very well for what it was supposed to be. It’s not a great show, but for the time period we were in and the angles going on, this was fine. I’d like to see more than just the main angle covered though, which is becoming a common criticism for me on these shows. Still good though.

 

[klunderbunker]

Monday Nitro #12
Date: November 20, 1995
Location: Macon Coliseum, Macon, Georgia
Commentators: Eric Bischoff, Steve McMichael, Bobby Heenan

It’s the go home show for World War 3 and we’re giving away Hogan vs. Sting on free TV. Of course we are. There’s also a great sounding Pillman vs. Eddie match so that should be solid. Other than that there isn’t much here as the show is all but set. After this we begin the countdown to the more or less awful Starrcade as Hogan just decided not to work the biggest show of the year so they brought in the NJPW guys instead. Oh and Sting has lost the US Title to Kensuke Sasaki. Let’s get to it.

Eric says this is the Super Bowl of wrestling tonight. What is the PPV on Sunday then?

Scott Norton vs. Shark

Yeah because this is the match the fans are DEMANDING, yes DEMANDING I say! Shark jumps him in the aisle and the booing already begins. There’s the bell and we crank up the suck! Big elbow from Shark connects. Shark holds up his hand and shouts WHO’S THE FISH! I hate my life at times. I truly do. Norton gets a near powerslam to end this in like 2 minutes. At least it was short.

Rating: N/A. I have no idea what the point of this feud was supposed to be but this was their third encounter and it continues to be put on TV. It was your standard big man vs. big man match that ends with a generic move. I hate them too.

Here’s Gene with Jimmy Hart and Kevin Sullivan. Jimmy talks about Sting vs. Hogan and cheers for Sting, seemingly trying to get in his head by talking about how Savage is Hogan’s new friend. We’re in 1st grade I guess. Sullivan talks about the PPV and the battle royal which loses more and more luster every time I hear about it. The match wound up sucking of course too. This was pretty pointless.

Disco comes out instead of Eddie or Flair. Him sticking around as long as he did is amazing.

Ric Flair vs. Eddie Guerrero

Well this should be awesome at least. Wait didn’t I say Pillman vs. Eddie? HUGE reaction for Flair’s music but he comes out in street clothes and Pillman is with him ready to go. Flair is going to wrestle because he has a match Sunday. So does Pillman but whatever.

Brian Pillman vs. Eddie Guerrero

Pillman is taller than I thought he would be. Bischoff talks about how Raw is on a commercial but THEY have a match going on, even though it’s not what they advertised but who cares about stuff like that? Everyone is asking Heenan about Eddie apparently. Well at least they have good taste. Mongo tells Heenan to shut up about Hogan. Where was he like 4 years from now???

They fight it out a bit but the commentators have nothing but Hogan to talk about. Oh wait they have the PPV to talk about too! Pillman dives off the apron and eats railing to FINALLY get someone to pay attention. BIG dive by Eddie into the aisle to get the fans into it a bit. Eddie gets crotches on the top rope, allowing Pillman to not hit a suplex but get caught with the Frog Splash to end it. Way too short but decent.

Rating: B-. Fast paced with a bunch of fun dives and high spots. Eddie has been built up great lately on these shows which makes you shake your head about how far the NWO knocked things out of whack. Pillman jobbing clean here is kind of odd but it still worked fine and was certainly entertaining while it lasted. Shame no one talked about it for more than 8 seconds at a time.

We get a clip of Macho vs. Meng and the beatdown last week on Savage. The important thing here was Luger beat up Savage as well along with the Dungeon. It doesn’t mean anything but it filled in some time. Savage has a (legit) bad arm now so Bischoff accuses him of faking it. Sure that makes sense.

Hawk vs. Big Bubba

I would make an ex-WWF guys here but they started in WCW/NWA so I can’t complain for the most part. Hawk goes up and misses a splash or something like that. Bubba tries a corner splash to a degree but Hawk doesn’t get out of the way fast enough so it hits still. Hawk no sells it anyway but winds up getting beaten down again.

They do a REALLY bad looking collision spot and both guys are down. Mongo says this is great action as they’re both laying on the mat. Hawk misses a top rope clothesline which tends to be a theme for the night. Bubba tapes up his hand as Duggan pops to trip him and he lands on his fist to end the match. Oh this was bad.

Rating: F. He fell on his own fist. Other than that the whole thing was about missing moves and people dodging. This is the best they can do? Seriously? Boring as hell match and flat out bad. Get us to something else please.

Sting vs. Hulk Hogan

At least it’s getting a lot of time. Sting is in yellow and red while Hogan is in black, which I guess is their attempt at psychology or storytelling in this company. Savage comes out with Hogan. Hogan comes through the crowd and doesn’t hit Sting, making that completely pointless for the most part. Eric doesn’t want to see them fight. That’s just amusing.

They slug it out and Sting wins for the most part. It’s one of those matches where no one really does anything but it’s called epic anyway. Sting with a dropkick to take over again and Hogan hits the floor. Heenan talking about how much he loves these guys fighting is awesome. You have to give him this: he wound up being right about Hogan at the end of the day.

Hogan TOTALLY misses a clothesline. Eric says they’re bonding by beating each other up. Sure why not. Hogan with a drop toehold to have his wrestling move for the year. They fight on the mat a bit which Sting of course wins, controlling with an armbar. Full nelson applied as I can’t believe they’re using so many wrestling holds out there.

Sting goes for the knee which makes perfect sense for him. I love when stuff like that happens. No one keeps an advantage at all in this as Hogan gets a bearhug for a few seconds. Eric: If you’re over with the other guys you can watch the commercials. If you’re watching them, how would you hear what Eric said? Scorpion from more or less out of nowhere and he CRANKS on that thing.

Hogan powers out which was a bigger deal back in the day. He Hulks Up and there are the punches. Leg drop misses and Hogan’s leg is hurt again. The hold goes on again and Hogan is in big trouble. He says he can’t take it anymore and cue the Dungeon for the CHEAP but predictable double DQ. Giant comes in and grabs them by the throat but Savage pops him with a chair which does nothing. He takes a chokeslam but a double chair shot takes Giant up and over the top to the floor.

Rating: B-. They gave this time and it came off well. The ending absolutely HAD to be that way as you allow for the build to a major PPV match down the road. Ok so it was 25 months later but you get the concept. This was a different match than you would expect and I thought it worked out pretty well. Both guys looked good and everything kind of clicked for them. For what it was, good match.

Sullivan and Hart storm the broadcast booth for no apparent reason as the announcers end the show.

Overall Rating: C+. Not a great show but it built up the battle royal. The problem is that there’s nothing really on the show other than the battle royal and the Sting vs. Flair match which was barely touched on at all. The show wound up being awful but did you expect anything else from this era? Decent enough go home show though with some decent stuff, but nothing great.

 

[klunderbunker]

Monday Nitro #13
Date: November 27, 1995
Location: Salem Civic Center, Salem, Virginia
Commentators: Eric Bischoff, Bobby Heenan, Steve McMichael

This is the night after World War 3 and Randy Savage is the WCW Champion. Hogan is back in the red and yellow but after tonight he won’t be seen for a few months as he decided to just not be at the biggest show of the year and that was all well and good with everybody I guess. We begin the Japanese invasion angle tonight as well with some women’s wrestling. Other than that there isn’t much. Let’s get to it.

We recap Hogan burning the black and ripping up the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Oh dear. Oh and he’ll ALWAYS be Sting’s friend.

TV Title: Johnny B. Badd vs. Diamond Dallas Page

Badd has the Diamond Doll (Kimberly) and the title here, having won the former the previous night. Page brings flowers for Kimberly and hits Badd in the face with them. The focus of the match is Kimberly not being sure of liking the flowers or not. And there’s a chain in them to explain why Badd is half dead from the shot with them. The camera has stayed over her shoulder the entire match so far. She slides the chain through Page’s legs to Johnny who drills him with it for the pin. And the referee never noticed that at all right?

Rating: N/A. There are parts of the match we just missed because we were looking at Kimberly. Granted she looks a bit better but still did we have to spend two and a half minutes on her? It’s a bit hard to grade a match that you can’t see you know? Nothing special here though as it was just moving a minor angle forward.

Gene is with Sullivan and Hart who fight because of Luger and Sting in a reversal of the angles for months now. Hart implies he has Sting in his pocket.

Cutie Suzuki/Mayumi Ozaki vs. Bull Nakano/Akira Hokuto

I’ve heard all of them but I know very little about them. The latter of the teams is more or less a dream team and pure power. The smaller team jumps Hokuto to start which lasts about 8 seconds. Nakano beats the hell out of Ozaki until Suzuki comes in. She has a bit more luck including avoiding the legdrop from Nakano. The faces both go up at once and hit a double stomp on Nakano for two.

Hokuto comes in and hits a powerbomb on Suzuki for two. This is a very fast paced match. Nakano misses a front flip to the floor from the top and takes out her partner. And then Akira is fine and hits a Fisherman’s Buster on Suzuki to end it.

Rating: C+. Well it was very fast paced and never boring. That doesn’t mean it’s good though. It’s certainly not a bad match by any stretch of the imagination, but at the same time it’s just totally insane with no flow to it at all. Power vs. speed is always a good formula and it worked for the most part here, but this came off as too fast to keep things working well and it cost them a bit I think.

Hugh Morrus vs. Hulk Hogan

Morrus debuted last night in the battle royal. In other words his first match was a world title match. That’s a trend in the Dungeon of Doom for some reason. It’s so weird to see Hogan in just a standard one on one match. Hogan uses some basic wrestling technique with a wristlock and drop toehold to take over. And before anyone asks the stupid question of why didn’t he do that more often, it’s because no one wanted to see it other than know-it-alls that think the amount of moves you have is what makes you a good wrestler.
Nothing much here as Morrus hits the moonsault and then you know the rest. Legdrop ends it.

Rating: D+. Just a Hogan match. The kickout got NOTHING by the way. He gets a pop for winning but the kickout from the moonsault got NOTHING. It was rather surprising actually but the writing was pretty clearly on the wall for him at this point, so of course he had another horrible 6 months on top before the NWO saved his career.

Gene brings out Savage who at least gets an appearance here after winning the title. We hear about the controversial ending to the match with Hogan (Giant pulled him to the floor and the referee said he was out) and OF COURSE Hogan comes out because the spotlight isn’t on him for two seconds. He points out that the title still says Hulk Hogan. “Well I’m planning on getting that changed.” Hogan hadn’t been champion for a month now. Are you serious?

Hogan rolls the footage of the controversial ending from last night but the important part is broken and won’t play. Giant jumps Hogan and chokeslams Savage on the floor. Sting runs out to help and Hogan beats up Giant with a chair. Note here that HOGAN is the one that looks like the superhero while Savage didn’t get a single punch off. I know Hogan gets bashed too much but at times he was just ridiculous. It should also be noted that Sting calls Hogan off Giant. Most interesting.

Arn Anderson/Brian Pillman vs. Sting/Lex Luger

Luger comes out way after Sting. The faces dominate to start and the Horsemen are in trouble early on. Arn wants a time out which is an old trademark for him. Luger takes both of them out on his own and gets the forearm to take Arn down. Stinger Splash hits and we’re bordering on squash land here.

And there’s the miscommunication as Sting gets the Scorpion and Pillman goes up top for the save. Luger shoves him off and Pillman lands on Sting to break it up. Luger goes after Pillman as Sting makes his comeback. Luger comes in as this crowd is DEAD. Sting gets a rollup out of NOWHERE for the pin, to the point that I didn’t even notice it until a two count.

Rating: C. Nothing special at all here and it was just to set up the ending of the show. Sting/Luger/Hogan/Savage/Dungeon was an intriguing storyline but it took like 5 months to get there and people just stopped caring. That and Hogan having to steal the spotlight like that was just not going to let things work. The match was ok though.

Flair comes down for the big beatdown but it’s Hogan (naturally) for the save. Hogan is about to go after Luger but Sting stops him again. They shake hands to booing and we take our last break. The announcers wrap things up to end the show.

Overall Rating: C+. This was all about the drama and that’s fine. The problem came from when they threw all that out and went to the NJPW stuff (which I swear is coming) and just kind of dropped this for a few months. Hogan’s booking is very slow paced and always is based around who is secretly allied with who and lots of backstabbing etc, which is clearly coming up again in TNA. It sounds really good on paper, but the problem tends to be that the fans stop caring along the way. This had potential to be a really good story and end with a huge blowoff tag match or something but it never came, which is kind of sad. We got the NWO instead though so it’s hard to complain. Just an ok show this week.

 

[klunderbunker]

Monday Nitro #14
Date: December 4, 1995
Location: America West Arena, Phoenix, Arizona
Commentators: Bobby Heenan, Eric Bischoff, Steve McMichael

The push towards Starrcade more or less has to begin here with four weeks before Starrcade Wednesday (I don’t get it either). The one before that was on a Tuesday but I can understand not being able to hold a PPV on Christmas Day. That being said, they’re kind of running out of time here. You have tonight, the 11th, the 18th and Christmas night so they HAVE to start tonight right? Let’s get to it.

We IMMEDIATELY start with a match.

Tag Titles: American Males vs. Harlem Heat

The Heat have the belts here. Apparently September 18th, when this match happened before, is almost three months to the day. Ok then. World title match tonight with Savage vs. Luger? What the hell? Mongo asks why this isn’t on PPV? BECAUSE IT’S LIVE! What the hell? Riggs and Stevie start us off.

Glad to see we’re going with the talent to start. Well it can’t get worse right? Both partners come in and not much of note is going on here. Bagwell tries to slug it out with Booker and Booker is like “Sucka who do you think you are? Thomas Jefferson marching into Tallahassee?” (Rock fans will get the joke and how bad it is.)

Colonel Parker is at ringside with a present for Sherri. Yeah this match is really nothing special at all. We keep the shot on them as something MIGHT be happening in the ring. Yeah we need to see this though as Riggs and Booker might as well be teaching us the secret of life in the ring but we’ll never know I guess.

The present was a ring and they leave. Riveting as we get another fifteen second shot of them. Who would have guessed that Booker would win so many world titles down the line? Apparently the show started a few minutes early, as in like 7:57. Oh dear. I forgot they did that as Bischoff would do anything to get ahead.

Booker destroys Riggs but gets caught in a rollup for two. He argues with an NBA player (A.C. Green) in the audience. See, that’s how you do a celebrity cameo. It would be nice to say who that is but I guess we’re supposed to know that. Booker misses a Vader Bomb and Scotty makes the hot tag. This is getting a lot of time at nearly ten minutes already.

Fisherman’s Suplex gets two but then Riggs acts like his usual idiot self and won’t get out of the ring, allowing some heel double teaming to set up the Harlem Hangover to take out Bagwell relatively clean.

Rating: C. This was just a tag match that ran longer than most TV tag matches. It’s not particularly good or bad but it’s perfectly acceptable. You had speed vs. power and the power won. It’s as basic of a formula as you can get and as expected it was ok. It’s the epitome of average and there isn’t much else to say.

Gene is with Sting and Luger. We hear about the triangle match (triple threat but with a tag) which would wind up being a match where the winner got Savage later in the night. That’s the first match announced for the show I think. The fans don’t like Luger’s idea of winning the title that much.

Sting vs. Kurasawa

Kurasawa was a weird case. He came in, he broke Hawk’s arm at a Clash of the Champions (I think), Hawk came back and beat him up for about 4 minutes then lost to him in a WTF moment. He was in World War 3 and had this match then more or less disappeared.

Hogan, Flair and Giant are on probation apparently. He goes after Sting’s arm which is his thing. And that lasts all of four seconds as the usual stuff finishes for Sting. No rating for such a quick match here but it was fine for what it was supposed to do: continue Sting’s awesomeness.

We preview Starrcade where apparently it’s the New Japan guys vs. the WCW guys. That came out of nowhere. Literally, that’s the first reference to the concept AT ALL.

Scott Norton vs. The Giant

We get the Andre comparisons and no mention of them being father and son. Next week: Hogan/Sting vs. Anderson/Flair. That’s actually a hell of a match. Take a guess what this match is like here. In a freaking SCARY spot, Norton picks up the Giant for a good 6 seconds in an atomic drop. That was AMAZING.

Norton stays on offense and rams him into the buckle. Bischoff says if they have to stay later than the hour we’ll go later. Norton beats the hell out of him for a bit but goes up and dives off at Giant but gets caught in a BIG chokeslam to end it. This was a minute long but very physical and intense. Fun match.

Charles Barkley of all people comes out with Ric Flair. Well that was unexpected. The talk about how great Charles is which is because he used to play there but is in Houston now I believe. Or maybe he plays there now. Flair says Hogan needs to watch out. This cameo lasted all of a minute and served zero purpose at all.

WCW World Title: Lex Luger vs. Randy Savage

As Mongo said earlier: why don’t we put these matches on pay per view? We’re told that the winner of the triangle match gets their shot that night. Nice to hear them give these matches such big announcements. Slow start of course but there’s a lot of time left here. Savage goes after him as I continue wondering why we weren’t told about this match last week.

You would think a PPV main event level match would be advertised or something wouldn’t you? Savage has a bad arm and back. For the second time tonight Bischoff insists the C stands for Commitment. I thought it stood for Championship but what do I know? They’re just kind of doing basic stuff at this point as no one has gone in for the kill yet.

Luger’s big elbow of course misses. Back from a break with Savage in control on the floor and going after Luger’s arm. Lots of arm work from Savage here which is odd to see when you think about it. Was there ever a reason given as to why Flair wasn’t on the WCW Team at Starrcade but Johnny B. Badd was?

Savage can’t see and swings at a referee so he might be on probation too. This is being written the day after the Bound For Glory 2010 fallout show where there were 6 seconds of match time in the first 80 minutes. Bischoff: you want to watch wrestling or do you want to watch people talk about wrestling? I cracked up at that.

Bischoff’s constantly putting down WWF guys is so stupid, especially in hindsight. Considering everything that wound up happening where everything they said they’d never do they wound up doing, he really is amusing. Just about all Savage here. There’s no turnbuckle pad on thanks to Jimmy Hart.

Luger goes into it head first but down goes the referee. Big elbow hits but there’s no referee. Hart comes in as does Flair with a foreign object. Flair leaves but walks into Hogan, who is now his freaking stablemate in TNA. He stops the count so that Savage doesn’t lose the title which got him kayfabe suspended since he didn’t want to have to work around the holidays and took the biggest show of the year off. Nice guy no?

Rating: C-. Not bad but it didn’t work that well. The arm work was rather boring and the ending of course became all about Hogan one more time. This of course was all about the massive paranoia and who is on whose side thing which never got a blofoff because we needed to do the Alliance to End Hulkamania thing so that Hogan could look awesome. Decent match, bad ending.

Sting comes down and Hogan accidently hits him. After a break Hogan is in the ring with Savage and Sting. Sting flat out says he’s on Hogan’s side but Hogan is jealous that Sting is playing with Luger still so he doesn’t want to play with Sting. The three of the talk a lot before the announcers wrap up the show.

Overall Rating: D+. I’m getting rather tired of this one angle being the only thing going on. It was all about who is on whose side and no one trusting anyone but we never actually got to the point of it. Are they trying to get the title or defeat someone or survive or just trying to make sure Hogan was happy with them? It never was resolved as Hogan took a month off so they just dropped it. Nice job Hulk. Not a very good show this week but Hogan is leaving soon so maybe it’ll get better.

 

[klunderbunker]

Monday Nitro #15
Date: December 11, 1995
Location: Independence Arena, Charlotte, North Carolina
Commentators: Eric Bischoff, Steve McMichael, Bobby Heenan

Three more Nitros before Starrcade. Tonight the main event it Hogan/Sting vs. Anderson/Flair so at least we have that to look forward to. This doesn’t look like much of a show but it’s 1995 television so what more do you expect? Let’s get to it.

Mr. JL vs. Eddie Guerrero

This started with no intros or anything as the announcers were opening the show. They plug the World Cup of Wrestling for Starrcade where Eddie lost I believe. Bobby sings the doom of the American team as JL does some nice stuff to take over for about half a seconds. Nice headscissors (called a neck tie takeover by Eric) sends Eddie to the floor.

Eddie goes up but JL (Jerry Lynn if you’re unfamiliar) dropkicks him to the floor and hits a running front flip to the floor as Eddie is in trouble. Running dropkick in the corner which is always a move that impresses me. Out of nowhere we a spinning sunset flip out of the corner (Booker does it) for the pin.

Rating: C+. More fun lucha style action with them flying all over the place and blowing the fans’ minds. This was mainly to push Eddie for the upcoming Starrcade which did its job fine. These quick matches to open shows are a very basic but very solid idea. Also back then they were very unique so you argue against the idea.

Luger is here to talk to Gene about Savage. More paranoia and who is on who’s side stuff which never got any resolution. He talks about the triangle match and says he can beat all three guys but he doesn’t mention Flair. Well at least he’s honest.

Disco Inferno vs. Paul Orndorff

This would be Orndorff’s last match for over four years as his neck was just destroyed. Disco jumps him to start and let’s talk about Hogan and Sting. The idiocy of Hogan skipping Starrcade shines brighter every time he’s on television before the show. Orndorff unleashes the power of the 80s to take over and dances a bit. BIG belly to back suplex has Disco in trouble. Ok so it has him pinned.

Rating: N/A. Total filler here as it’s less than three minutes long and a suplex of all things ended it. See you later Paul. Yeah I’m not going to miss you.

Gene brings out the three Horsemen as at this point I don’t think there were four of them but Benoit was coming soon. Apparently he’s a Horseman but he’s just not here. Ok then. Pillman talks about Hogan (of course) and says the Horsemen are the bad guys, not him. Yeah he’s totally insane. BIG reaction when Flair starts talking.

Orndorff comes out to cut them off and gets in Pillman’s face. Brian had been insulting him and saying he wasn’t Horseman potential but is a joke now. And there they go. The numbers game catches him though and they go OLD SCHOOL on him with a spike Piledriver on the concrete. There’s your retirement angle. I remember when this happened and it scared me a bit.

Lex Luger vs. Jim Duggan

Didn’t this happen in 93 in WWF? Mongo says this is brutal. I love semi-shoot comments like those. Oh and Orndorff is being stretchered out. This is nothing at all as Duggan gets his tape around his hand but gets knocked into his own board that Hart is holding up. Rack (to an ERUPTION) gets the submission.

Rating: N/A. Really just to establish that Luger was awesome and to give him some camera time.

Gene is with Savage who talks about everything he’s been doing lately. Savage vs. Giant for the title next week. We get the required Andrew comparison. That’s about it.

Ric Flair/Arn Anderson vs. Sting/Hulk Hogan

BIG ovation for Sting. The announcers panic because Sting and Hogan come out separately. They’ve been stretching all night on this whole they don’t get along thing. Hogan comes out behind Sting to Sting’s music. That’s a bit odd. Sting vs. Arn to start and we get a Hogan Sucks chant. Did you expect something else in Charlotte? The Horsemen are of course the monster faces here.

Arn wants Hogan though. Amazing how much a crowd can give you courage. He brings in Flair and it’s showdown time. And remember people: they’re friends now. That just feels wrong to type. Corner flip by Flair but he literally runs into Sting so Arn tries his luck which of course doesn’t work. Basic main event tag match here so far. Scorpion on Arn and everything breaks down, resulting in Arn hitting the DDT on Sting.

Luger comes down and takes out Hogan, racking him. Naturally Sting sees NONE of this. Isn’t that so convenient in wrestling? Has no one ever heard of going back and watching the tape of the show or something like that? Long beatdown on Sting as he’s mad that there was no Hogan for him to tag. Flair works the knee as does Anderson. Sting gets a figure four on Flair somehow and crawls over to Hogan while still in the hold for the tag.

And of course the referee didn’t see it. The Anderson tag which isn’t seen is allowed though. I love heels getting away with stuff like that. Hogan finally gets in to more or less no reaction as he cleans house. The usual pins Anderson in just a few seconds. Pillman runs out for the beatdown as do Luger and Hart. He goes for Pillman to protect Sting as it’s just a big mess.

Rating: C+. Just a main event tag here that again was about the whole lack of trust thing. It’s an intriguing thing but since I know it’s going absolutely nowhere because Hogan decided to make it about him and Savage vs. the world while Sting and Luger got into a tag title run it’s a bit hard for me to care. Match was more or less what you would expect from these guys.

Savage comes out for the same and Sting accidently punches him. Gene comes down for the interview to fill in the last five minutes. Usual bull here about IT’S ALL FLAIR and all that jazz. Nothing special at all and the announcers wrap us up.

Overall Rating: C-. I just wasn’t feeling this one. It’s ok but I don’t get having the focus be all on Hogan vs. Sting when that wouldn’t get any kind of match at all. Once Starrcade was over we had Hogan vs. Giant and Sting started his tag title deal with Luger. There was nothing that bad here but at the end of the day the only thing I can think of to say is so what? Not a horrible show but just kind of a waste of time.

 

[klunderbunker]

Monday Nitro #16
Date: December 18, 1995
Location: Richmond County Civic Center, Augusta, Georgia
Commentators: Eric Bischoff, Steve McMichael, Bobby Heenan

Well since there are only two shows left in this year there’s no reason to not just do both here today. We’re less than two weeks away from Starrcade so what do you think the focus of tonight’s show is? Given the way the show has been going lately I doubt it’ll be what it should be on. I’m not looking forward to this but I want to finish out the year. Let’s get to it.

We open with one of the most famous moments in Nitro history as Madusa/Aludnra Blayze shows up to open the show with the WWF Women’s Title and drops it in a trashcan. This was huge for more than one reason with the main one being they’re officially acknowledging WWF. Second, it was probably the first official shot fired in the war. Most importantly though, this is what Montreal happened, as Vince was terrified that this is what Bret would do with the WWF Title. Huge moment to put it mildly.

William Perry pops up for no apparent reason.

Ric Flair vs. Eddie Guerrero

Not a bad way to open the show. No intro for Eddie though. The feel each other out to start as Flair says WOO a lot. This is a pretty slow little match with Flair doing his stuff but not really knowing how to deal with Eddie’s speed and different style. Figure Four is countered into a small package for two. Heenan says everywhere he goes people are chanting Eddie. Picture that and try not to chuckle.

Eric talks about how great Starrcade is and given how far he drover that thing into the ground that’s very funny stuff. Tornado DDT by Eddie gets two. I figured you would get that Eddie did that but you can never be too careful. Has Flair ever used a DDT at all? I don’t remember it if he has. Giant vs. Savage for the world title tonight.

Flair knocks Eddie to the floor and there goes the knee. Isn’t it amazing how many knee injuries happen in Flair matches? He goes in for the kill and Eddie can’t counter this time. Flair amazingly gets it on the proper knee and after a good deal of time in it Eddie finally passes out and gets pinned. Not something you often see.

Rating: B-. This wasn’t bad at all. It’s a nice little TV match where Eddie gets to rub elbows with Flair, Flair gets a win over a non-jobber and we get a decent match out of it. This is what WWE needs to do far more often as these things are always good for getting solid TV. What more can you ask for?

The Horsemen talk about how they’ve been on a roll and how you shouldn’t mess with them or you’ll get hurt. Taskmaster comes out and isn’t happy with Pillman making fun of the Dungeon of Doom. This started one of the least interesting feuds of all time and it resulted in one of the weirdest moments ever where Pillman kayfabe asked to be fired and got legitimately fired which was exactly what he wanted. It was a very weird moment and he wound up in WWF eventually because of it.

Craig Pittman comes up to the broadcast booth and asks Heenan to manage him. Heenan says no but he recommends Jimmy Hart. Apparently if he doesn’t get help soon he’ll take no prisoners. This went nowhere.

Lex Luger vs. Marcus Bagwell

Luger shoves him away to start as this hopefully doesn’t last long. Bagwell is still an American Male here and gets a dropkick to send Luger to the floor. Back into the ring and it’s Luger in control again. Who would have thought these two would become on and off tag partners? Bagwell speeds it up and that gets him nowhere either. Rack ends this easily.

Rating: N/A. Just a quick squash to reestablish Luger’s dominance. This was nothing special at all and it was exactly what you would expect it to be.

Gene talks to Luger and Hart who say Luger is the uncrowned champion.

Sting vs. Bobby Eaton

This should be decent. Eaton is Earl Robert Eaton at this point and is Regal’s tag partner. Slow build to start as Sting is all energetic here of course. Eaton gets Sting down and works on the arm. Yeah we’re just wasting time here and I think everyone knows it. Top rope knee drop (isn’t Eaton’s finisher the leg drop?) misses and here comes Sting. Splash and Scorpion end it easily.

Rating: N/A. Same as Luger but with Sting instead.

Sting talks about the Triangle Match and how he’s not agreeing with Luger and has no problem with taking out Flair to get the world title.

WCW World Title: The Giant vs. Randy Savage

They’re flying through this show. This is due to the chokeslam from Giant that Savage got on the concrete a few weeks ago. Savage dodges as you would expect him to. He throws on a sleeper to put Giant in some trouble early on. Giant might hit him low and takes over. There’s the bearhug. Something to keep in mind here: Giant has been around for about a month and a half at this point. He’s still a total rookie so he’s very green at this point.

Back from a break and Savage is doing whatever he can to stay alive here. We hit the floor for a bit and Giant throws him over the top back in. He goes up and misses a splash which somehow didn’t break the ring. There’s the elbow and Giant LAUNCHES him off and hits a dropkick to send Savage to the floor. That was pretty awesome.

Giant pulls back the mats on the floor and goes for a suplex but Savage counters in an awesome way by hooking the ropes on the way down. That was sweet. Chokeslam hits in the ring but there’s no cover. Giant drops the leg and here’s Hogan to crack Giant with a chair for no apparent reason. Hogan shoves the referee down too and keep in mind he’s on probation or whatever. Mongo of all people goes down to ringside to calm Hogan down.

Rating: C-. Pretty standard match here with nothing special going for it at all. Savage looked pretty weak here and then the ending hurt it even more. So just to be clear: Savage couldn’t do anything to stop Giant but HOGAN, who has nothing to do with this AT ALL, comes down and beats up Giant with relative ease.

That ladies and gentlemen is what Savage is talking about when he says Hogan sabotaged everything. Other than Savage’s second WWF Title reign, Hogan got involved in EVERYTHING Savage did and took the spotlight. It was a joke and it made Savage look weak. Not a fan of this at all.

After a break Gene comes down to talk to Hogan who basically whines that he doesn’t get a title shot. Giant comes back and Hogan beats him up AGAIN. And just remember, Hogan can come in and do all this and get big appearance paychecks but won’t do Starrcade because those Japanese guys are there and Hogan didn’t want to deal with them.

Savage has to say that he needed Hogan’s help tonight but Hogan didn’t need his. Hogan’s name is still on the world title. Are you kidding me? Savage has been champion for a MONTH at this point and they still have Hogan’s name on the title? Hogan says Savage owes him a title shot. Savage says he has to beat Flair next week first. He says if he gets by Starrcade Hogan gets his shot. Oh and Hogan’s music plays this out.

Overall Rating: D+. Nothing that special here with two squashes, a decent opener and then the Hulk Hogan Show to close it. Basically Hogan interfered in a match he had nothing to do with and then whined about wanting a title shot. Another thing: we’re 10 days from Starrcade and we’ve seen the Japanese guys what, twice ever? This whole thing was just thrown all out of whack by Hogan not wanting to do Starrcade and WCW of course giving into him. Bad show too so I’ll see you at Christmas which is up next.

 

[klunderbunker]

Monday Nitro #17
Date: December 25, 1995
Location: Richmond County Civic Center, Augusta, Georgia
Commentators: Eric Bischoff, Steve McMichael, Bobby Heenan

It’s the Christmas show and of course is taped. This is the go home show for Starrcade where we don’t hear a word about the show I’d bet. This is an odd thing you get to see especially since this was happening on December 18th. This is going off the Fritz Von Erich idea of “Once you open the presents, what else is there to do?” This worked to put it mildly in WCCW so they’re using it here. Let’s get to it.

Lex Luger vs. Scotty Riggs

Luger easily overpowers him to start as he goes for the always insane double run through the American Males. What is he thinking??? Mongo flat out says Riggs can’t beat him which is rather true. Riggs gets some bad dropkicks to send Luger down and to the floor to scream a bit. They talk about Sting and Luger to pass the time that this armbar is giving us.

It’s still weird to hear about the biggest show of the year being on Wednesday. It’s pretty clear they’re resting Luger here by having him lay on the mat for the vast majority of this match. Luger goes off on Riggs after getting such a good long rest like that but runs into a boot in the corner. After a small package gets two, a powerslam sets up the Rack to end this.

Rating: D. Lex Luger vs. Scotty Riggs just got seven minutes. Do I need to explain why this is was a very stupid idea? For one thing, give Luger the rest before being in the big match on Wednesday where he has to wrestle twice at least there two. Stupid booking but that’s WCW for you.

Gene talks to Sting who says he’s tired of being asked about himself and Luger. He also isn’t afraid of New Japan.

Sting vs. Big Bubba

Big Boss Man if you’re not sure. Sting overpowers him to start but walks into an enziguri to the back of his head which is how it works by definition I guess. Sting shouting to the crowd works as well as anything to get the crowd into a match. Hogan is suspended until the end of the year for his actions last week apparently. What a nice thing to give him: Christmas and New Years off.

Bubba has a chinlock on as we’re just waiting for Sting to make his comeback. And yep here it comes. Did anyone not expect that? Bubba gets an atomic drop to take Sting to the floor. In a very cool ending, Bubba goes for a middle rope suplex but Sting rolls through it into a small package to get the pin. I’ve never seen that.

Rating: C-. Pretty basic stuff here with nothing surprising at all. Guys like Bubba were perfect around this time as they were still names and guys like Sting or Luger could beat them for a challenge and still look dominant. I think those people are called jobbers to the stars. Shame they barely exist anymore.

Luger and Hart say Luger is the uncrowned champion. Craig Pittman comes up to say Jimmy should manage him. Jimmy says take this quarter and call a manager that needs a few good men (Pittman was a military character.) Again, this goes nowhere.

Dean Malenko vs. Mr. JL

Well this should be awesome. Dean controls to start which doesn’t surprise me. JL with a big old dive to the floor as this is the old standard of Dean doing his ground stuff and the other Cruiserweight flying all over the place. Jackknife cover gets two for Dean. Sitout powerbomb gets two for JL. Dean hooks a powerbomb but falls backwards into a hot shot in a nice move.

Dean hits his top rope gutbuster for two which Eric of course calls a side breaker. An entirely fucked up leg lock ends JL. I have never seen that before but it works very well. Basically Dean starts by standing up and wraps his leg around JL’s before rolling forward and turning it into a leg bar. SWEET move.

Rating: B-. I really liked this with a lot packed into just a few minutes here. That leg lock was something else and JL flying all over the place to hit all kinds of planchas and dives but getting caught in the end by the wrestler’s hold. What more can you ask for than that? Very fun TV match here.

Flair says he’s awesome and here’s Jimmy Hart. Ah it’s about the Dungeon feud again. Hart offers his services for tonight and the PPV. Flair says sure why not.

WCW World Title: Ric Flair vs. Randy Savage

Yes they’re giving away the main event of Starrcade 48 hours before it airs. You can see the stuff that would bite them in years to come appearing here and there. Feeling out process to start which is odd as these two have fought about a thousand times before. Savage gets a figure four on Flair but since he’s not Jay Lethal he can’t get the submission.

This is a weird kind of match so far. They’re kind of scrapping if that makes sense. Flair can’t get the Figure Four on so he just kicks Savage in the balls to take over. We take a break with Flair still in control and return with a shot of the crowd. Nice job there guys. Flair is dominating here but there isn’t anything special at all here going on. It’s not bad but you can tell they’re off.

Flair works on the bad arm with old school evil tactics. Savage walks into a second low blow as I feel sorry for his testicles. Flair gets a suplex and might have hurt his arm. We get a second commercial and come back to more Flair dominance. Savage isn’t doing much more than anything but punching. The double axe misses to the floor.

Eric talks about how they’re leading the WWF and it kind of makes my head hurt. Flair goes for the knee and Savage is in trouble now. There’s the Figure Four and the same thing you would expect to happen happens with Savage grabbing the rope. Flair gets slammed off the top as they are totally going through the motions here.

Sleeper by Flair and this is just needing to end. Both go down as I hope we don’t have to deal with a run in or something. Flair goes for a Piledriver which is blocked. Top rope double axe puts Flair down again for two. And I was right as here’s Luger for the run in for no apparent reason. And here’s Sting for the big four way brawl to end the show.

Rating: D. Oh this was weak. The match just went nowhere at all and they were going through the motions. I don’t get the idea of having this two days before Starrcade at all because if nothing else the spots they’ll likely repeat then will seem repetitive the second time through. I don’t get this and the match was bad on top of that.

Overall Rating: D. Well to say they’re focusing on two matches is a huge understatement. This was ALL about the Triangle match and the subsequent world title match. The Japan guys weren’t mentioned at all and we now go into Starrcade with nothing of note. I never got the idea behind this booking of the PPV and I don’t think many others did either. Bad go home show for what was a pretty odd PPV.

Oh and if you’re interested, here’s the PPV review.

http://forums.wrestlezone.com/showthread.php?p=2027257#post2027257

So that’s the first year of Nitro. Not a ton happened but a lot of the stuff they did was mind blowing at the time. The whole conspiracy and who turns on who stuff was good sounding on paper but it just never worked in reality due to the total lack of resolution to it. Next year they would go with Hogan vs. Giant and Savage vs. Flair for awhile before we got to the epicness that was the Alliance to End Hulkamania before FINALLY Hall showed up in May to light this place on fire. Not much from a wrestling standpoint, but they were coming.