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Welcome to My (And Not Sly's) House
Starrcade 1995
Date: December 27, 1995
Location: Nashville Municipal Auditorium, Nashville, Tennessee
Attendance: 8,200
Commentators: Bobby Heenan, Tony Schiavone, Dusty Rhodes
This is what we refer to as a concept show. If youve read the last few reviews, youve heard me talk about the Japanese guys that are coming in. Well this is the culmination of that angle. WCW decided to co-promote a show using guys from New Japan, so they cooked up an idea called the World Cup of Wrestling. Its a best of 7 series tonight with WCW vs. NJPW for I guess bragging rights.
The NJPW guys have invaded the company in the storyline. Keep in mind this is a full SIX MONTHS before Hall and Nash arrived. Oh and theres Sting vs. Flair vs. Luger for a shot at Savage later in the night. Hogan conveniently disappeared when these new Japanese guys showed up. Imagine that.
Keep in mind that Starrcade is the biggest show of the year.
Chris Benoit vs. Jushin Thunder Liger
If you dont know that this is going to rock, why are you reading this? Its weird as hell seeing Liger get booed. Oh and Heenan has been bought off by the Japanese contingent. Liger of course does a bunch of crazy spots that look great. The thing is he can work a match so hes not just a spot monkey. Its weird to see Benoit getting outworked but were approaching that here.
To be fair though, Benoit isnt as good as he would get yet. Benoit slows things down and hooks the move that would come to be known as the Liontamer. Benoit gets a German for two. Liger hooks the surfboard which always looks painful as HELL. While the match is definitely good, the most interesting thing to me is Tony Schiavone. He knows more or less the vast majority of the moves and holds plus little things about the wrestlers. Its like he IS INTELLIGENT.
That was one of those things about the WCW time on top that was annoying as hell: stupid announcers. They had no commonsense at all but here they actually know what the hell theyre talking about, especially Tony. Its NICE to hear for once. Benoit keeps getting reversals to Ligers stuff which is pretty sweet looking. Benoit gets his snap suplex from the top rope. Love that move. Headbutt misses though.
Liger hits what we would call a Batista Bomb for a long two. Keep in mind that theres another move also called the Liger Bomb where he runs with it. Two different moves with the same name. Brainbuster gets two. Rolling Germans begin, which apparently was the debut of that move. This is a solid back and forth match.
Benoit hits a NICE powerbomb to pop the crowd. Headbutt hits clean and heres Kevin Sullivan for no apparent reason. Ah ok Pillman has been talking shit about the Dungeon. Benoit turns around into a botched rana for the pin.
Rating: B+. Great choice for an opener here as these two had a solid hard hitting match with a ton of counters. Benoit was young and hungry at this point and you could see a star in him. Naturally he was too talented to get over in this company but well get to that later on. Great opener.
NJPW 1
WCW 0
Eddie is pissed off about Sullivan being there. Hes a very young face at this point and not a lot is known about him.
Koji Kanemoto vs. Alex Wright
Uh, ok. Koji is the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion at this point and is AWESOME. And hes facing a dancer. Ok then. This better be a squash or something close to it. Oh ok, Hogan is suspended. Give me a break. Something to notice here: of the two WCW representatives so far, one has been a Canadian and the other has been German.
WCW was really starting to push the international idea at this time and Konnan would come in next month, bringing with him Rey, Psicosis and Juventud Guerrera (a few months later). And then Hogan and company would completely take things over and those guys would do nothing but have kick ass matches to open shows while the talent had matches that were fucking terrible but made millions for doing it.
Koji goes for the leg to start which makes sense as he was using the ankle lock before Ken Shamrock even got into MMA. Heenan talks about how the Japanese guys have been in Nashville getting ready, including going to train in the Smokey Mountains. Tony: NO ONE WRESTLES IN THE SMOKEY MOUNTAINS! Nice shot at Cornette there. Wright is doing some decent stuff. He was a guy they liked a lot but never pushed him that hard.
Tony breaks down Kanemotos offense. WHERE WAS THIS IN 97? Wright is trying here but hes just not buyable as a threat in this match. Thats all there is to it. Tiger Suplex gets two. Kanemoto is kind of a Muta/Tajiri hybrid. Thats working to an extent. Wright cranks it up a bit and the crowd just could not care less. These Tennessee fans are so used to Lawlers style that they dont realize other kinds of wrestling exist and you can always tell that.
Wright hits a missile dropkick but doesnt cover. Ok then. And Kanemoto gets a jackknife cover for the pin. That was about as unexpected as you could ask for. Seriously I think they ran out of time and had to do a quick finish.
Rating: C+. Definitely not bad but this just never clicked. The last minute or so was good but the rest of it just wasnt working. Wright was in WAY over his head here and it showed. Kanemoto is a legend though, so to be fair this was little more than a long squash on paper.
NJPW 2
WCW 0
Sonny Onoo is happy that hes up 2-0. Im stunned too. Sonny wants to buy WCW.
Lex Luger vs. Masahiro Chono
Methinks this is going to be a miscarriage of justice. Chono is the main guy that used the STF which Cena uses today. He was trained by Thesz apparently. Also apparently if you say STF anywhere in the world people know what you mean. Ill spare the jokes on that. Tony says you need a scorecard to know who are friends and who arent. Wow thats funny. Apparently Brian Pillman has injured Paul Orndorff and he may never return.
Thats correct actually but it was a 10 year old injury at that point. Luger, a heel, gets a big face pop. My mom thought Luger was cute. Thats disturbing. Luger dominates for awhile but then Chono remembers hes Chono and the Mafia Kick puts Luger on the floor. Luger uses his usual set of strikes and generic offense. Luger made more of a living off of a look than anyone I have ever seen. Chono gets the lethal STF.
You know, the great submission move. The one that is world wide known. Luger of course doesnt give up and gets the ropes. Chono thinks about going to the top and then goes back in for a Mafia Kick. In an absolutely hilarious moment, Dusty and Bobby MAKE FUN OF TONY FOR KNOWING TOO MANY MOVES. And then Luger gets the Rack for the tap out. Ok then.
Rating: D. Uh yeah. Chono was a guy that had a big reputation but got over for just a few moves. This just wasnt much at all. Luger is in a number one contenders match later though so they had to keep this short. This was like 5 minutes long but it just didnt ever get off the ground at all.
NJPW 2
WCW 1
Sting cuts his usual intense as hell promo. Quick question: Is there anything resembling a logical reason why Sting/Luger vs. Hogan/Savage never main evented a Pay Per View? When the weakest star is WCW Luger, thats saying a lot. You might as well just print money instead of tickets for that match.
Johnny B. Badd vs. Masa Saito
Badd is TV Champion here and has Kimberly plus is getting a solid push. And then he left in like 3 months to become the Wildman. Kimberly is starting to look ****tier and its working. Apparently Saito likes to torture people. Good to know. Saito is known for a few things. First of all hes in his 50s here. Second, he was the guy that along with Ken Patera were arrested for beating up cops after breaking the window to a McDonalds in the early 80s.
Also he won the AWA Title from Larry Zbyszko back when it was a dead belt. Kimberly yells at Sonny. This is idiotic. She does get a good line in of If this sport is just for men, what are YOU doing here? Simple but effective. Apparently Saito is the most well known of the Japanese guys. Yeah hes FAR more well known than Liger right? Saito has a cobra clutch on Badd inside of a minute. We get a chop war which gets no reaction. Damn I hate Tennessee crowds.
This is more or less ALL Saito as was expected. Badd gets some stuff going and its not bad. This crowd is AWFUL. Badd was really improving at this time and he makes a decent comeback, but the fans are bored out of their minds because the guys are moving more than 6 miles a year. We also see the issue of a guy using a punch as a finisher with Badd hitting his big punch and Saito selling it like a regular punch. Not his fault, just a a flaw in Badds arsenal.
Onoo gets up and Badd goes after him for an eruption and then Saito throws him over the top for the CHEAP DQ. Badd even does his over the top rope dive and cant get a reaction from these ***** called fans.
Rating: D+. This was crippled by two things: a total clash of styles and being 5 minutes long with a bad ending. Saito was great at one point but here hes just old and its showing badly. Johnny would have been better off with a guy like Chono who was more his size. This could have been far worse but it was pretty bad all around.
NJPW 2
WCW 2
Shinjiro Otani vs. Eddy Guerrero
This would be a classic today but here theyre both young and awesome. This was on the Best of Starrcade DVD. Otani is your standard asshole heel but hes damn good at it. Basically we have a kick ass cruiserweight match here before that was an official division. Heenan wanting to cheer for Japan is amusing. Otani is cool to say the least and awesome to put it more accurately.
Dusty vs. Heenan would become a great rivalry with Dusty just going off on these epic rants about what he would do in these situations that made limited sense at best but would intimidate Heenan. This one is about if Heenan was in this case, Dusty claims that Heenan would apparently get a bottle of soda pop and try to bash Eddy over the head. Its FAR more entertaining when Dusty is saying it though.
He may have been a blithering crazy man with insane delusions of grandeur that took things WAY too seriously, but you can never claim he phoned in his performance on commentary. Eddy just goes insane and fights back with a crisp as hell top rope rana. SICK Gory Bomb gets two. This is great stuff. We get a heel hook.
Thats something you hardly see today let alone in 1995. We hit the floor and Eddy hits a great high spot. Otani gets a SICK springboard dropkick to the back of Eddies head. GREAT visual and painful as hell looking. We hit a SICK pinfall reversal sequence that Otani gets the pin at the end of. GREAT match.
Rating: A-. Just a sick cruiserweight match from before we knew how awesome they could be. Eddy would of course get pushed to little more than nothing due to the NWO and Otani would be awesome in Japan. This is by far the match of the night and I cant imagine it getting beaten by anything else on the card.
NJPW 3
WCW 2
Randy Savage says hell win tonight. His whispering during promos could be very annoying. He busts out TO INFINITY AND BEYOND. Im happy. Seriously the whispering is annoying and you get like every other word. He was one of a kind to put it mildly.
Hiroyoshi Tenzan vs. Randy Savage
They spell the heels name with an S because theyre idiots. Lets see. We have the WCW World Champion wrestling to keep WCW from losing the cup with him having a world title defense later. Yeah this isnt one sided AT ALL. The belt looks damn good on him if nothing else. Tenzan wasnt a huge deal yet but he would rapidly become one. Hes a bigger guy but looks pretty damn stupid actually.
This is your standard Savage match: he gets the hell beaten out of him for a good while before he starts his comeback. Oh and the arm that is a big ploy is STILL taped up and hes favoring it. Dusty talks about seeing monitors in the mens room because no one wants to miss this. Ok then. Pedro Morales is here. Ok then. I say that a lot. And then Savage hits a suplex to set up the elbow. When I say hits, I mean he picks him up and drops him. It looked amateurish at best.
Rating: D-. Sweet damn this was bad. Savage looked terrible and Tenzan wasnt much better. Really bad and probably the worst Savage match Ive ever seen which is saying something as hes had some great ones. Weird saying a bad Savage match but this was.
WCW 3
NJPW 3
Flair does his usual good stuff, saying hell win the title.
Kensuke Sasake vs. Sting
So, and I cant believe this, the final match of the cup thing comes down to the Japanese guy that has been in WCW for awhile now and took the US Title from Sting a few weeks ago. WHO WOULD HAVE PREDICTED THIS??? Sting comes out with an American flag, despite the fact that of the 7 WCW wrestlers, one was Canadian, one was German, one was most associated with Mexico, and four were Americans, thats very strange and cheap to say the least.
Sting fights pretty well early on but gets caught by a bulldog to give Sasake the advantage. Sweet damn he could throw a dropkick though. Sting that is. Sasake uses a lot of power moves and while they look good, I fear for Stings life when they hit. Sweet damn Sting is ridiculously over. Its scary how popular that man was for such a long time. So Russo tried to turn him heel three times. Sure why not?
Sasakes tights look like caution tape. Thats rather odd looking. Sasake hooks a Scorpion Death Lock on Sting and you can guess how well that works. And then Sting gets it for the tap out. Wow that was a great ending. How riveting.
Rating: D+. Just not interesting at all. There was ZERO drama here at all and it showed badly. To be fair though Sting had a bigger match later on. For the life of me though, I dont get why this kind of competition was put on the biggest show of the year but what do I know?
Naturally theres a huge celebration and shit. Gene shows up for the presentation of the Cup etc. Yeah no one really cares at all. Gene of course wants to drink out of it. Sting continues the xenophobia by shouting about USA winning. Yeah this is idiotic.
We recap Sting vs. Luger vs. Flair vs. Savage which could have been awesome. Luger is in this because he said he wanted a title shot. Sting is in it because hes friends with Luger and his fighting with Savage and Hogan to an extent. Again: STING/LUGER VS. HOGAN/SAVAGE! Do I have to draw you a picture???
Flair is in there because hes awesome. They have a triangle match for the shot against Savage immediately afterwards. In other words, Sting could have to fight three consecutive matches against the US Champion, Flair/Luger and the world champion. Got it.
Sting vs. Lex Luger vs. Ric Flair
Sting coming out with only half of his face painted is weird looking. This is different than a triple threat as you have to tag in and out. I think its one fall to a finish though. We get a three way to start. A coin toss that is. Get your mind out of the freaking gutter. Luger starts on the outside. Yeah its one fall to a finish. I kind of like that I guess. Not really but me saying something and then arguing with myself takes up a lot of white space.
Sting and Flair do their usual good stuff. Thats a match you flat out cant get wrong. Flairs cardio is mentioned again. That stuff is freaking scary if nothing else. The only person that Ive ever seen anywhere close to it would be Cena. Basically Sting is just dead. Despite having a 6 minute match where he was in control for about half of it, hes spent. This has literally been all Sting and Flair for nearly seven minutes.
They go over how many times these guys have held the title. Flair has 11 out of the 17 reigns. Thats saying a lot. And lets talk about Hogan to fill in the quota. Sting is back up as we still wait on Luger to come in. Dusty is making fun of him for it too. Sting gets a top rope suplex and Luger FINALLY comes in for a save. Hey its a tag. Apparently you can only advance on a pin or submission but if you get counted out or disqualified we go to a one on one match. I can live with that I guess.
In a somewhat funny sequence, Flair keeps trying to knock Luger down and just cant do it. Not bad. Luger beats the hell out of Flair and we get a Flair Flop. Damn Flair and Luger had some good matches back in the day, especially the one from I believe the 88 Starrcade in Baltimore. Flair busts out a chair on Lugers knee to continue his dominance. Well ignore that he hit the knee he hadnt been working on.
If nothing else its fine as the figure four goes on the wrong leg half of the time anyway. The leg that stays straight is the one that hurts. If you dont believe me, get put in one. Theres the hold and Sting for some reason wont make a save. Luger starts no selling stuff and we get Sting vs. Luger which is the big thing. They shake hands at least and here we .go I guess. They lock up after about two minutes of stalling.
Schiavone snaps off the last match and venue where they fought: SuperBrawl 2 in Milwaukee. WOW. Sting turns on the jets and Luger bails. The chemistry for these three guys is great. You cant fault them for not picking the best possible combination. I say possible because Hogan was a coward and took time off before their version of Wrestlemania so he wouldnt have to fight against a Japanese guy that would show him up.
And before you freak out on me for blasting Hogan falsely, tell me: once about 1990 passed, what young guy did Hogan fight prior to oh about the year 2000? It was always old power guys. Even as a heel it was mostly against his buddies. There was one exception: Goldberg. Other than that, who did Hogan ever put over that was a young guy?
Even if thats not the case and Im completely wrong, WHAT TOP STAR JUST BAILS BEFORE THE BIGGEST SHOW OF THE YEAR? Either way hes a jerk to WCW. Sting hits a cross body to take down Luger in a nod to the aforementioned SuperBrawl match where Sting won the title with that move. Scorpion goes onto Luger but it doesnt connect.
In a nice bit of psychology, Sting keeps whipping Luger away from Flairs corner to avoid tagging him in. Sting gets put in the rack but the referee goes down. Flair starts cheating like a horny husband at a bachelor party. Both faces are on the floor and the referee starts counting. And thats it? WOW. I like the ending actually.
Rating: B+. This match was fun as hell. Like I said, these three have great chemistry in any combination. Flair cheating to win like that was great as he doesnt have to beat either guy and make them look weak. Also it fits the heel character perfectly and is a perfectly reasonable way to win the match. Nicely done and a very fun match to boot.
Post match, Sting glares down at Luger, pissed as hell because of the beating he got from Luger. Jimmy Hart comes down and apparently is managing Flair for the title match. Its attempted to be explained but that completely fails. And lets talk about Hogan again.
We do a quick recap of Savage and Flair and why they hate each other. Or at least the WCW version of it as they cant talk about the best part of their feud in 92.
The title match is RIGHT NOW.
WCW World Title: Randy Savage vs. Ric Flair
Flair didnt even leave the ring. Thats a nice touch. We get the big match intros and after Buffer takes forever to talk here we go. Since were even remotely near the south, Flair gets a partial face pop. Savage gets a long intro, even mentioning his Slim Jim endorsements. Are we going to mention the guy that cuts his hair next? Savage is in a t-shirt here which looks very odd for him. Ah there we are. Much better.
And Paul Orndorff is here. Damn it, NO ONE CARES THAT YOUR NECK IS HURT. Seriously, has anyone liked him since 86? No one that I can think of at least. Figure four is blocked very early on. And thats it for Pauls involvement here. Seriously, security comes out and he walks to the back casually. Nice job on having to give him a paycheck for showing up tonight WCW. Jimmy runs up and gets a shot in and it meant nothing at all but hes likable so its fine.
Flair uses his armbar for the second time tonight, which makes sense here due to Savages arm injuries. He throws the foot on the rope for the cheapest heat in the world. Again: thats just fine. It clearly and easily makes the fans boo him and its just so simple. You cant ask for something better than that at all. More guys need to use that.
We get a sleeper since this is Tennessee and we have to go back to the mid 70s for offense thats going to get over with these fans. After some really basic stuff, we get to a weird moment. Hart throws in the Megaphone and Savage gets ahold of it. He blasts Flair in the head with it with the referees back turned. However, he is then seen reaching into his tights and pulling something out, which he covers up Flair and rakes it over his head.
Now to people like us, we know he was cutting Flair open as Flair is bleeding soon after. However the clear question is this: Flair needs someone to do his blade jobs for him? How weird does that sound? It took me completely by surprise too. Flairs bleeding is legendary and I can never remember him not doing his own blade job.
Come to think of it I cant remember ANY major star not doing their own blade job. Anyway, Flair is bleeding like crazy and Savage hits the longest elbow in history but Hart has the referee. The Horsemen hit the ring and Anderson hits a shot with brass knuckles to give Flair his 12th world title. They celebrate to end the show.
Rating: D+. Just a quick match here and the length hurt it. This was just an afterthought really which is never a good thing. Not a good match really at all, at least by comparison. I kept thinking to myself, thats it? Thats how they end the show? Just totally anti-climactic to put it mildly. I dont get it but whatever.
After the main event there was a post show dark match as Kensuke Sasake lost the US Title. Who did he lose it to you ask? Of all people, he lost it to the ONE MAN GANG. A weird thing about it was that Gang got the pin but the officials said it didnt count so Sasake won the match the second time.
For absolutely no explained reason though, only the first fall, which didnt count at the time, was counted and Gang kept the title. Yeah, they gave One Man Gang the US Title. Figure that one out. Also, no reason I could find as to why it wasnt on the PPV or even just the next night on Nitro. Whatever.
Overall Rating: C. This isnt saying that the show is average. Im saying its in the middle of good and bad. I honestly do not know what the thought process here was at all. It just came off as really strange. I mean can you imagine this being held at Wrestlemania? Hogan leaving made a big problem for them as he would have been the focal point, but we need to give him a break. I mean wrestling once a month is TOUGH after all.
Anyway, this was just an odd choice. The Japanese guys or their invasion were never mentioned again after this show. It just came and went with no further explanation. See what I mean by weird?
Theres some good stuff on here like the triangle match and the Eddy match, but theres also some bad stuff here, like the Tenzan and Sasake matches. Other than that its pretty hit or miss. This is one to see if you like odd choices, but other than that not so much. Just a really odd show is the best way I can describe it.
Date: December 27, 1995
Location: Nashville Municipal Auditorium, Nashville, Tennessee
Attendance: 8,200
Commentators: Bobby Heenan, Tony Schiavone, Dusty Rhodes
This is what we refer to as a concept show. If youve read the last few reviews, youve heard me talk about the Japanese guys that are coming in. Well this is the culmination of that angle. WCW decided to co-promote a show using guys from New Japan, so they cooked up an idea called the World Cup of Wrestling. Its a best of 7 series tonight with WCW vs. NJPW for I guess bragging rights.
The NJPW guys have invaded the company in the storyline. Keep in mind this is a full SIX MONTHS before Hall and Nash arrived. Oh and theres Sting vs. Flair vs. Luger for a shot at Savage later in the night. Hogan conveniently disappeared when these new Japanese guys showed up. Imagine that.
Keep in mind that Starrcade is the biggest show of the year.
Chris Benoit vs. Jushin Thunder Liger
If you dont know that this is going to rock, why are you reading this? Its weird as hell seeing Liger get booed. Oh and Heenan has been bought off by the Japanese contingent. Liger of course does a bunch of crazy spots that look great. The thing is he can work a match so hes not just a spot monkey. Its weird to see Benoit getting outworked but were approaching that here.
To be fair though, Benoit isnt as good as he would get yet. Benoit slows things down and hooks the move that would come to be known as the Liontamer. Benoit gets a German for two. Liger hooks the surfboard which always looks painful as HELL. While the match is definitely good, the most interesting thing to me is Tony Schiavone. He knows more or less the vast majority of the moves and holds plus little things about the wrestlers. Its like he IS INTELLIGENT.
That was one of those things about the WCW time on top that was annoying as hell: stupid announcers. They had no commonsense at all but here they actually know what the hell theyre talking about, especially Tony. Its NICE to hear for once. Benoit keeps getting reversals to Ligers stuff which is pretty sweet looking. Benoit gets his snap suplex from the top rope. Love that move. Headbutt misses though.
Liger hits what we would call a Batista Bomb for a long two. Keep in mind that theres another move also called the Liger Bomb where he runs with it. Two different moves with the same name. Brainbuster gets two. Rolling Germans begin, which apparently was the debut of that move. This is a solid back and forth match.
Benoit hits a NICE powerbomb to pop the crowd. Headbutt hits clean and heres Kevin Sullivan for no apparent reason. Ah ok Pillman has been talking shit about the Dungeon. Benoit turns around into a botched rana for the pin.
Rating: B+. Great choice for an opener here as these two had a solid hard hitting match with a ton of counters. Benoit was young and hungry at this point and you could see a star in him. Naturally he was too talented to get over in this company but well get to that later on. Great opener.
NJPW 1
WCW 0
Eddie is pissed off about Sullivan being there. Hes a very young face at this point and not a lot is known about him.
Koji Kanemoto vs. Alex Wright
Uh, ok. Koji is the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion at this point and is AWESOME. And hes facing a dancer. Ok then. This better be a squash or something close to it. Oh ok, Hogan is suspended. Give me a break. Something to notice here: of the two WCW representatives so far, one has been a Canadian and the other has been German.
WCW was really starting to push the international idea at this time and Konnan would come in next month, bringing with him Rey, Psicosis and Juventud Guerrera (a few months later). And then Hogan and company would completely take things over and those guys would do nothing but have kick ass matches to open shows while the talent had matches that were fucking terrible but made millions for doing it.
Koji goes for the leg to start which makes sense as he was using the ankle lock before Ken Shamrock even got into MMA. Heenan talks about how the Japanese guys have been in Nashville getting ready, including going to train in the Smokey Mountains. Tony: NO ONE WRESTLES IN THE SMOKEY MOUNTAINS! Nice shot at Cornette there. Wright is doing some decent stuff. He was a guy they liked a lot but never pushed him that hard.
Tony breaks down Kanemotos offense. WHERE WAS THIS IN 97? Wright is trying here but hes just not buyable as a threat in this match. Thats all there is to it. Tiger Suplex gets two. Kanemoto is kind of a Muta/Tajiri hybrid. Thats working to an extent. Wright cranks it up a bit and the crowd just could not care less. These Tennessee fans are so used to Lawlers style that they dont realize other kinds of wrestling exist and you can always tell that.
Wright hits a missile dropkick but doesnt cover. Ok then. And Kanemoto gets a jackknife cover for the pin. That was about as unexpected as you could ask for. Seriously I think they ran out of time and had to do a quick finish.
Rating: C+. Definitely not bad but this just never clicked. The last minute or so was good but the rest of it just wasnt working. Wright was in WAY over his head here and it showed. Kanemoto is a legend though, so to be fair this was little more than a long squash on paper.
NJPW 2
WCW 0
Sonny Onoo is happy that hes up 2-0. Im stunned too. Sonny wants to buy WCW.
Lex Luger vs. Masahiro Chono
Methinks this is going to be a miscarriage of justice. Chono is the main guy that used the STF which Cena uses today. He was trained by Thesz apparently. Also apparently if you say STF anywhere in the world people know what you mean. Ill spare the jokes on that. Tony says you need a scorecard to know who are friends and who arent. Wow thats funny. Apparently Brian Pillman has injured Paul Orndorff and he may never return.
Thats correct actually but it was a 10 year old injury at that point. Luger, a heel, gets a big face pop. My mom thought Luger was cute. Thats disturbing. Luger dominates for awhile but then Chono remembers hes Chono and the Mafia Kick puts Luger on the floor. Luger uses his usual set of strikes and generic offense. Luger made more of a living off of a look than anyone I have ever seen. Chono gets the lethal STF.
You know, the great submission move. The one that is world wide known. Luger of course doesnt give up and gets the ropes. Chono thinks about going to the top and then goes back in for a Mafia Kick. In an absolutely hilarious moment, Dusty and Bobby MAKE FUN OF TONY FOR KNOWING TOO MANY MOVES. And then Luger gets the Rack for the tap out. Ok then.
Rating: D. Uh yeah. Chono was a guy that had a big reputation but got over for just a few moves. This just wasnt much at all. Luger is in a number one contenders match later though so they had to keep this short. This was like 5 minutes long but it just didnt ever get off the ground at all.
NJPW 2
WCW 1
Sting cuts his usual intense as hell promo. Quick question: Is there anything resembling a logical reason why Sting/Luger vs. Hogan/Savage never main evented a Pay Per View? When the weakest star is WCW Luger, thats saying a lot. You might as well just print money instead of tickets for that match.
Johnny B. Badd vs. Masa Saito
Badd is TV Champion here and has Kimberly plus is getting a solid push. And then he left in like 3 months to become the Wildman. Kimberly is starting to look ****tier and its working. Apparently Saito likes to torture people. Good to know. Saito is known for a few things. First of all hes in his 50s here. Second, he was the guy that along with Ken Patera were arrested for beating up cops after breaking the window to a McDonalds in the early 80s.
Also he won the AWA Title from Larry Zbyszko back when it was a dead belt. Kimberly yells at Sonny. This is idiotic. She does get a good line in of If this sport is just for men, what are YOU doing here? Simple but effective. Apparently Saito is the most well known of the Japanese guys. Yeah hes FAR more well known than Liger right? Saito has a cobra clutch on Badd inside of a minute. We get a chop war which gets no reaction. Damn I hate Tennessee crowds.
This is more or less ALL Saito as was expected. Badd gets some stuff going and its not bad. This crowd is AWFUL. Badd was really improving at this time and he makes a decent comeback, but the fans are bored out of their minds because the guys are moving more than 6 miles a year. We also see the issue of a guy using a punch as a finisher with Badd hitting his big punch and Saito selling it like a regular punch. Not his fault, just a a flaw in Badds arsenal.
Onoo gets up and Badd goes after him for an eruption and then Saito throws him over the top for the CHEAP DQ. Badd even does his over the top rope dive and cant get a reaction from these ***** called fans.
Rating: D+. This was crippled by two things: a total clash of styles and being 5 minutes long with a bad ending. Saito was great at one point but here hes just old and its showing badly. Johnny would have been better off with a guy like Chono who was more his size. This could have been far worse but it was pretty bad all around.
NJPW 2
WCW 2
Shinjiro Otani vs. Eddy Guerrero
This would be a classic today but here theyre both young and awesome. This was on the Best of Starrcade DVD. Otani is your standard asshole heel but hes damn good at it. Basically we have a kick ass cruiserweight match here before that was an official division. Heenan wanting to cheer for Japan is amusing. Otani is cool to say the least and awesome to put it more accurately.
Dusty vs. Heenan would become a great rivalry with Dusty just going off on these epic rants about what he would do in these situations that made limited sense at best but would intimidate Heenan. This one is about if Heenan was in this case, Dusty claims that Heenan would apparently get a bottle of soda pop and try to bash Eddy over the head. Its FAR more entertaining when Dusty is saying it though.
He may have been a blithering crazy man with insane delusions of grandeur that took things WAY too seriously, but you can never claim he phoned in his performance on commentary. Eddy just goes insane and fights back with a crisp as hell top rope rana. SICK Gory Bomb gets two. This is great stuff. We get a heel hook.
Thats something you hardly see today let alone in 1995. We hit the floor and Eddy hits a great high spot. Otani gets a SICK springboard dropkick to the back of Eddies head. GREAT visual and painful as hell looking. We hit a SICK pinfall reversal sequence that Otani gets the pin at the end of. GREAT match.
Rating: A-. Just a sick cruiserweight match from before we knew how awesome they could be. Eddy would of course get pushed to little more than nothing due to the NWO and Otani would be awesome in Japan. This is by far the match of the night and I cant imagine it getting beaten by anything else on the card.
NJPW 3
WCW 2
Randy Savage says hell win tonight. His whispering during promos could be very annoying. He busts out TO INFINITY AND BEYOND. Im happy. Seriously the whispering is annoying and you get like every other word. He was one of a kind to put it mildly.
Hiroyoshi Tenzan vs. Randy Savage
They spell the heels name with an S because theyre idiots. Lets see. We have the WCW World Champion wrestling to keep WCW from losing the cup with him having a world title defense later. Yeah this isnt one sided AT ALL. The belt looks damn good on him if nothing else. Tenzan wasnt a huge deal yet but he would rapidly become one. Hes a bigger guy but looks pretty damn stupid actually.
This is your standard Savage match: he gets the hell beaten out of him for a good while before he starts his comeback. Oh and the arm that is a big ploy is STILL taped up and hes favoring it. Dusty talks about seeing monitors in the mens room because no one wants to miss this. Ok then. Pedro Morales is here. Ok then. I say that a lot. And then Savage hits a suplex to set up the elbow. When I say hits, I mean he picks him up and drops him. It looked amateurish at best.
Rating: D-. Sweet damn this was bad. Savage looked terrible and Tenzan wasnt much better. Really bad and probably the worst Savage match Ive ever seen which is saying something as hes had some great ones. Weird saying a bad Savage match but this was.
WCW 3
NJPW 3
Flair does his usual good stuff, saying hell win the title.
Kensuke Sasake vs. Sting
So, and I cant believe this, the final match of the cup thing comes down to the Japanese guy that has been in WCW for awhile now and took the US Title from Sting a few weeks ago. WHO WOULD HAVE PREDICTED THIS??? Sting comes out with an American flag, despite the fact that of the 7 WCW wrestlers, one was Canadian, one was German, one was most associated with Mexico, and four were Americans, thats very strange and cheap to say the least.
Sting fights pretty well early on but gets caught by a bulldog to give Sasake the advantage. Sweet damn he could throw a dropkick though. Sting that is. Sasake uses a lot of power moves and while they look good, I fear for Stings life when they hit. Sweet damn Sting is ridiculously over. Its scary how popular that man was for such a long time. So Russo tried to turn him heel three times. Sure why not?
Sasakes tights look like caution tape. Thats rather odd looking. Sasake hooks a Scorpion Death Lock on Sting and you can guess how well that works. And then Sting gets it for the tap out. Wow that was a great ending. How riveting.
Rating: D+. Just not interesting at all. There was ZERO drama here at all and it showed badly. To be fair though Sting had a bigger match later on. For the life of me though, I dont get why this kind of competition was put on the biggest show of the year but what do I know?
Naturally theres a huge celebration and shit. Gene shows up for the presentation of the Cup etc. Yeah no one really cares at all. Gene of course wants to drink out of it. Sting continues the xenophobia by shouting about USA winning. Yeah this is idiotic.
We recap Sting vs. Luger vs. Flair vs. Savage which could have been awesome. Luger is in this because he said he wanted a title shot. Sting is in it because hes friends with Luger and his fighting with Savage and Hogan to an extent. Again: STING/LUGER VS. HOGAN/SAVAGE! Do I have to draw you a picture???
Flair is in there because hes awesome. They have a triangle match for the shot against Savage immediately afterwards. In other words, Sting could have to fight three consecutive matches against the US Champion, Flair/Luger and the world champion. Got it.
Sting vs. Lex Luger vs. Ric Flair
Sting coming out with only half of his face painted is weird looking. This is different than a triple threat as you have to tag in and out. I think its one fall to a finish though. We get a three way to start. A coin toss that is. Get your mind out of the freaking gutter. Luger starts on the outside. Yeah its one fall to a finish. I kind of like that I guess. Not really but me saying something and then arguing with myself takes up a lot of white space.
Sting and Flair do their usual good stuff. Thats a match you flat out cant get wrong. Flairs cardio is mentioned again. That stuff is freaking scary if nothing else. The only person that Ive ever seen anywhere close to it would be Cena. Basically Sting is just dead. Despite having a 6 minute match where he was in control for about half of it, hes spent. This has literally been all Sting and Flair for nearly seven minutes.
They go over how many times these guys have held the title. Flair has 11 out of the 17 reigns. Thats saying a lot. And lets talk about Hogan to fill in the quota. Sting is back up as we still wait on Luger to come in. Dusty is making fun of him for it too. Sting gets a top rope suplex and Luger FINALLY comes in for a save. Hey its a tag. Apparently you can only advance on a pin or submission but if you get counted out or disqualified we go to a one on one match. I can live with that I guess.
In a somewhat funny sequence, Flair keeps trying to knock Luger down and just cant do it. Not bad. Luger beats the hell out of Flair and we get a Flair Flop. Damn Flair and Luger had some good matches back in the day, especially the one from I believe the 88 Starrcade in Baltimore. Flair busts out a chair on Lugers knee to continue his dominance. Well ignore that he hit the knee he hadnt been working on.
If nothing else its fine as the figure four goes on the wrong leg half of the time anyway. The leg that stays straight is the one that hurts. If you dont believe me, get put in one. Theres the hold and Sting for some reason wont make a save. Luger starts no selling stuff and we get Sting vs. Luger which is the big thing. They shake hands at least and here we .go I guess. They lock up after about two minutes of stalling.
Schiavone snaps off the last match and venue where they fought: SuperBrawl 2 in Milwaukee. WOW. Sting turns on the jets and Luger bails. The chemistry for these three guys is great. You cant fault them for not picking the best possible combination. I say possible because Hogan was a coward and took time off before their version of Wrestlemania so he wouldnt have to fight against a Japanese guy that would show him up.
And before you freak out on me for blasting Hogan falsely, tell me: once about 1990 passed, what young guy did Hogan fight prior to oh about the year 2000? It was always old power guys. Even as a heel it was mostly against his buddies. There was one exception: Goldberg. Other than that, who did Hogan ever put over that was a young guy?
Even if thats not the case and Im completely wrong, WHAT TOP STAR JUST BAILS BEFORE THE BIGGEST SHOW OF THE YEAR? Either way hes a jerk to WCW. Sting hits a cross body to take down Luger in a nod to the aforementioned SuperBrawl match where Sting won the title with that move. Scorpion goes onto Luger but it doesnt connect.
In a nice bit of psychology, Sting keeps whipping Luger away from Flairs corner to avoid tagging him in. Sting gets put in the rack but the referee goes down. Flair starts cheating like a horny husband at a bachelor party. Both faces are on the floor and the referee starts counting. And thats it? WOW. I like the ending actually.
Rating: B+. This match was fun as hell. Like I said, these three have great chemistry in any combination. Flair cheating to win like that was great as he doesnt have to beat either guy and make them look weak. Also it fits the heel character perfectly and is a perfectly reasonable way to win the match. Nicely done and a very fun match to boot.
Post match, Sting glares down at Luger, pissed as hell because of the beating he got from Luger. Jimmy Hart comes down and apparently is managing Flair for the title match. Its attempted to be explained but that completely fails. And lets talk about Hogan again.
We do a quick recap of Savage and Flair and why they hate each other. Or at least the WCW version of it as they cant talk about the best part of their feud in 92.
The title match is RIGHT NOW.
WCW World Title: Randy Savage vs. Ric Flair
Flair didnt even leave the ring. Thats a nice touch. We get the big match intros and after Buffer takes forever to talk here we go. Since were even remotely near the south, Flair gets a partial face pop. Savage gets a long intro, even mentioning his Slim Jim endorsements. Are we going to mention the guy that cuts his hair next? Savage is in a t-shirt here which looks very odd for him. Ah there we are. Much better.
And Paul Orndorff is here. Damn it, NO ONE CARES THAT YOUR NECK IS HURT. Seriously, has anyone liked him since 86? No one that I can think of at least. Figure four is blocked very early on. And thats it for Pauls involvement here. Seriously, security comes out and he walks to the back casually. Nice job on having to give him a paycheck for showing up tonight WCW. Jimmy runs up and gets a shot in and it meant nothing at all but hes likable so its fine.
Flair uses his armbar for the second time tonight, which makes sense here due to Savages arm injuries. He throws the foot on the rope for the cheapest heat in the world. Again: thats just fine. It clearly and easily makes the fans boo him and its just so simple. You cant ask for something better than that at all. More guys need to use that.
We get a sleeper since this is Tennessee and we have to go back to the mid 70s for offense thats going to get over with these fans. After some really basic stuff, we get to a weird moment. Hart throws in the Megaphone and Savage gets ahold of it. He blasts Flair in the head with it with the referees back turned. However, he is then seen reaching into his tights and pulling something out, which he covers up Flair and rakes it over his head.
Now to people like us, we know he was cutting Flair open as Flair is bleeding soon after. However the clear question is this: Flair needs someone to do his blade jobs for him? How weird does that sound? It took me completely by surprise too. Flairs bleeding is legendary and I can never remember him not doing his own blade job.
Come to think of it I cant remember ANY major star not doing their own blade job. Anyway, Flair is bleeding like crazy and Savage hits the longest elbow in history but Hart has the referee. The Horsemen hit the ring and Anderson hits a shot with brass knuckles to give Flair his 12th world title. They celebrate to end the show.
Rating: D+. Just a quick match here and the length hurt it. This was just an afterthought really which is never a good thing. Not a good match really at all, at least by comparison. I kept thinking to myself, thats it? Thats how they end the show? Just totally anti-climactic to put it mildly. I dont get it but whatever.
After the main event there was a post show dark match as Kensuke Sasake lost the US Title. Who did he lose it to you ask? Of all people, he lost it to the ONE MAN GANG. A weird thing about it was that Gang got the pin but the officials said it didnt count so Sasake won the match the second time.
For absolutely no explained reason though, only the first fall, which didnt count at the time, was counted and Gang kept the title. Yeah, they gave One Man Gang the US Title. Figure that one out. Also, no reason I could find as to why it wasnt on the PPV or even just the next night on Nitro. Whatever.
Overall Rating: C. This isnt saying that the show is average. Im saying its in the middle of good and bad. I honestly do not know what the thought process here was at all. It just came off as really strange. I mean can you imagine this being held at Wrestlemania? Hogan leaving made a big problem for them as he would have been the focal point, but we need to give him a break. I mean wrestling once a month is TOUGH after all.
Anyway, this was just an odd choice. The Japanese guys or their invasion were never mentioned again after this show. It just came and went with no further explanation. See what I mean by weird?
Theres some good stuff on here like the triangle match and the Eddy match, but theres also some bad stuff here, like the Tenzan and Sasake matches. Other than that its pretty hit or miss. This is one to see if you like odd choices, but other than that not so much. Just a really odd show is the best way I can describe it.