ECW on SyFy
Date: November 17, 2009
Location: Wells Fargo Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Commentators: Josh Matthews, Byron Saxton

This isn’t a show I talk about all that much but it was requested so here it is. This is one of the very last ECW shows as it would be replaced by NXT in February of 2010. The main event tonight is Punk returning to the show to team with Regal against R-Truth/Christian in what should be a good match. Let’s get to it.

We open with a closeup of the ECW logo when Punk pops up. He says it all started for him here before he became a three time straightedge World Heavyweight Champion. It’s like Alexander the Great returning home.

Theme song opens us up.

This is the go home show for Survivor Series.

Here are Ryder and Rosa to open the show. He talks about getting messages on Twitter (why am I shocked?) but he’s here to introduce us to Rosa who he praises a lot. She says he almost won last week and it’s like going shoe shopping once. The fans boo this out of the building of course. He wants her here to be in his corner for his next rematch with Shelton.

Here’s Benjamin who accepts the challenge and hits on Rosa. Zach defends her and gets called a tool. Now he’s a power tool according to Shelton. Shelton wants to do it right now. Ryder says let’s wait which gets some solid heat. Shelton looks away and gets punched as Ryder runs off.

We recap Hurricane vs. Paul Burchill. Hurricane has been running around being a hero but Burchill swears it’s Gregory Helms. They’ve feuded for awhile and tonight it’s mask vs. career.

Paul Burchill vs. The Hurricane

Burchill has Katie Lea (Winter) with him. Feeling out process to start and Hurricane arm drags him to the floor. Hurricane sends him to the floor again and it’s time for a chinlock. Katie trips Hurricane so that Burchill can hit a Saito Suplex to take over. Back from a break with Burchill controlling via a chinlock. Burchill pounds on him in the corner but Hurricane avoids a charge. They slug it out with Hurricane taking over. A Hurri-press and clothesline take Burchill down for two.

Eye of the Hurricane is broken up though and a kick to the face gets two for Paul. Another Eye attempt is countered into a northern lights suplex for two. Hurricane hits a rana for two but Katie distracts him again and a powerslam gets two for Burchill. A suplex is reversed into the Eye of the Hurricane but it only gets two. Hurricane goes up again but gets crotched. Burchill tries to suplex him to the floor but Hurricane counters into a swining neckbreaker off the top for the pin. It was more exciting than it sounds here.

Rating: B-. This was a pretty fun match as Burchill kept getting frustrated but he never could put Hurricane away. The neckbreaker off the top was a big enough move to end things, but it felt kind of flat as it hit and that was it instead of building to a bigger climax for the pin. Still good though.

Burchill realizes he’s gone and gets upset.

Tiffany, the GM, is in the back when Punk comes in to remind her he’s straightedge. He’s looked into her personal life and says she likes to drink. Tiffany says she likes to have fun and Punk should try it sometime. She leaves and Punk looks at her like she suggested opening an elephant pants store.

Vance Archer vs. Johnny Andrews

Andrews is a local jobber. Reverse DDT ends this in about a minute.

Punk and Christian are in the back. Christian inquires about straightedge and wants to know if Punk has a curfew or if he can hold hands with a girl. Punk says he used to be ECW Champion. Christian says Punk is a nerd.

William Regal/CM Punk vs. R-Truth/Christian

Punk and Christian start but Christian wants Regal. Off to Truth quickly and the good guys hit stereo middle rope dropkicks to clear the ring. After a break it’s Regal vs. Truth but Regal is knocked into a tag. Punk gets kicked to the floor so Truth can dive on him. Regal pulls Truth off the apron, injuring his knee. These four will all be in a Survivor Series match on Sunday.

Punk comes in to work on the bad leg with a basic leg lock. He also manages to yell at Christian a bit which is a nice touch. Back to Regal as the beating continues. Punk misses a legdrop but still prevents the tag with a shot to the leg. Truth manages an enziguri ti Regal and it’s a double tag to bring in Christian and Punk. Tornado DDT gets two for the Canadian. GTS and Killswitch are countered and everything breaks down. Christian loads up the Killswitch but Regal hits his running knee so that the GTS can pin Christian.

Rating: C. Not a bad match here as it set up the match on Sunday which is the whole idea of this show. Punk had just come off the world title run and would be about to form the Straight Edge Society in January. Other than that the match was just ok. Christian’s team would win on Sunday.

Overall Rating: C+. The dying days of ECW were a shame as the show was really starting to get better. With the new guys being brought in and the storylines being simplified, there wasn’t much to complain about at all. Then NXT started and the first season was awesome so I can’t complain much. Good show here, especially for a one off show. I’ll likely be starting to do ECW on SyFy from the beginning soon.

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With the PPV reviews winding down (45 to go), I’ll have some room to add in some more weekly TV shows. By that I mean an old show that I can put in regularly on my schedule. I’ll leave it up to you guys what I pick. Here are some options (others if you can think of them of course).

Raw (any year)
Smackdown (any year)
ECW on TNN (depending on availability)
ECW on SyFy (I’d start at the beginning and go through the whole series since there are only about 200 episodes)
Impact from any year (depending on availability)
Anything else you guys can think of

I might do two of these but I’m not sure. Once I finish Raw from 98 and 01, I’m going to do 99-2000 but I’ll do them chronologically instead of two from each. I’ll also probably be starting Raw from the beginning and working my way up two episodes (or so) at a time.

I won’t do Thunder yet because I’ll be doing those as I get to that time in the Nitro reviews.  I also won’t do ROH because I’m not a big fan of it and wouldn’t want to watch it regularly.

So what would you like?

Monday Nitro #68
Date: December 30, 1996
Location: Knoxville Civic Auditorium, Knoxville, Tennessee
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Mike Tenay, Bobby Heenan, Larry Zbyszko

We close out the 1996 series with this. It’s the night after Starrcade and the NWO is about the same. Piper beat Hogan via sleeper but the title wasn’t on the line after Piper GOT TO WRITE THE CONTRACT HIMSELF. Eddie won the US Title and that’s about it. The idea here is to set up the main event of Souled Out. Now the logical idea would be to have Hogan vs. Piper II but that would be insane in WCW. Let’s get to it.

The NWO arrives to open the show, bragging about how awesome they are. Hogan brags about life in general but Giant doesn’t look that happy. He points out that the name plate on the world title says The Giant. Hogan has been champion FOUR MONTHS at this point and they never changed the plate?

Giant dropped the ball last night (Luger beat him, I believe in the first WCW win over an NWO wrestler) but Hogan says it’s all ok because the NWO is awesome. Giant wants a title shot but Hogan tries to talk him out of it. Hogan says that Giant’s title shot means a bye for the NWO. Giant wants to be lead dog. This goes on for awhile.

Theme song opens us up.

Tony and Larry talk about how great last night was for WCW. We get stills of Luger vs. Giant. Sting came in and whispered to Luger as well as Giant. He left his bat there and Luger hit Giant with it for the win.

Amazing French Canadians vs. Public Enemy

The Canadians beat them down on the apron and the Enemy has to chill on the floor. Once they do get into the ring they clear out the Canadians and single out Oulette. Now the Enemy won’t let the Canadians in the ring. The Canadians try to leave but get beaten down by their own flags which isn’t a DQ somehow. The Public Enemy tries to put Jacques through a table but go through it themselves. We FINALLY get to a traditional match structure as the Canadians win with the Cannonball. This wasn’t a match so no rating but it was kind of fun.

Cruiserweight Title: Ultimo Dragon vs. Jushin Thunder Liger

I’ll pause to let the internet explode. Dragon holds the J Crown and the Cruiserweight Title while Liger beat Rey last night with the Liger Bomb. Dragon kicks away to start but Liger speeds things up. They both hit clotheslines but no one goes anywhere. There’s the
surfboard by Liger and a suplex for two. Rolling Thunder gets two. Dragon grabs a backbreaker out of nowhere to send Liger to the floor, following up with a suicide dive. Dragon goes up but jumps into two feet. At least he was trying a splash there. Brainbuster and superplex get two for Liger. Out of nowhere Dragon hits a super rana and tiger suplex to retain.

Rating: C+. Good match but short. At this point, Dragon had TEN championships including a title from Mexico. Think about that for a few seconds. It’s a big deal when people have two and Dragon had ten. These two would have a great 18 minute match in Tokyo less than a week after this where Liger won the J Crown.

Big Bubba vs. Konnan

This is a strap match. And there’s no Bubba but he has a replacement.

Mr. Wallstreet vs. Konnan

This is the touch the corners variety. Wallstreet, who has no issues with Konnan, jumps him and whips Konnan down. Konnan does the get the strap between the other guy’s legs and pull spot. We get the same finish that you almost always get for this: Wallstreet drags him around, Konnan hits it at the same time, Konnan dives to win it. WHAT WAS THE POINT OF THIS??? It lasted like two minutes and there was no issue between these two.

Hogan and Bischoff come out. Hogan is all perky because he still has the title. Bischoff says that Hogan won last night and Hogan says that he knew he’d win the whole time. This is a really basic “Hogan is awesome” promo with nothing happening after it’s over.

Hugh Morrus vs. Kensuke Sasaki

Both are big power guys. They hit the ropes and no one moves. A double clothesline puts both guys down but then they pop up. Sasaki chops away but Morrus punches. There’s no selling at all here. Morrus elbows him down and hooks a chinlock. Eric comes up on commentary and says they won’t show the ending to the PPV last night because he has the tape. Sasaki hits a powerslam and there is NO reaction. No one knows who Sasaki is and there’s no point to this match as far as stories go, so why should they care? Top rope elbow misses and Morrus hits the moonsault but Sonny comes in for the DQ.

Rating: D-. Why did this match happen? I mean, no one knows who Sasaki is so a win over him doesn’t matter. Morrus didn’t even get the pin because they did the DQ ending. This was Sasaki’s first WCW match in a year and his last ever with the company. But hey, he’s Japanese so we’re supposed to care I guess? I don’t get it.

We get stills of Piper’s win last night which is supposed to be some big deal.

Harlem Heat vs. Faces of Fear

The announcers rave on and on about how great and important and inspiring the Piper win was. Larry says that it was huge because people had wondered who would win if they fought for years. So we’re supposed to remember Wrestlemania but not all of the other matches they had. Got it. Tony plugs Souled Out which was on a Saturday. Stevie and Barbarian start but it’s off to Booker for some kicks quickly.

Booker goes up but is quickly belly to belly superplexed off. Off to Meng who stomps away and works on the back. And get this: THERE’S A MIDGET MATCH LATER!!! I know they like going back to the 80s but can’t they steal some good ideas? Colonel Parker comes out and spanks Sherri with his riding crop so they get in their 9000th fight. A Rougeau comes out to throw salt in Stevie’s eyes. Kick of Fear takes Stevie down but Booker jumps off the top and clocks Meng so Stevie can get the unconscious cover.

Rating: D. This match sucked too. I don’t get what they’re thinking with half of this card as its like they had no idea that Nitro was happening tonight and threw together a bunch of matches to fill in two hours. This was probably the longest match too, clocking in at about 4 minutes. The fans just don’t care at all either, and can you blame them?

DDP says he’ll fix things with the NWO and move on. He won’t go into details though. It’s implied that he’s going to join them but he hates that he has to.

Hour #2 begins. This one has to be more interesting than that first hour which would work well as an informercial for putting a screwdriver into your head.

We recap Hogan and Giant from earlier, as well as Hogan lying about winning.

Piper has arrived.

Disco Inferno vs. Glacier

There’s a big black spot all over the ring from the stuff that Jacques threw at Stevie in the previous match. After the bell, Disco says drop out of the match or face the wrath of his new leg lock. Glacier flips him over and we’re ready to go. Disco gets kicked a lot so he hides behind the referee and comes back with a clothesline. He sets for his new leg hold but can’t remember how to do it. Instead he hits a pretty good neckbreaker but Glacier pops up and hits a superkick to end it.

Rating: D+. Ice > Fire I guess. The match was, again, pointless and nothing interesting. Glacier would stay undefeated until roughly July while Disco would stay a joke for years to come. At the end of the day though, he took a stupid gimmick and kept a job out of it for how many years? That proves something, although it might be that WCW is stupid enough to keep him around.

Stills of Benoit vs. Jarrett where about 5 people interfered and Jeff got the pin while unconscious.

Chris Benoit vs. Chris Jericho

Ok, this HAS to be good right? Woman looks pretty good here. Benoit controls to start and Jericho has more rainbowish tights. Huge powerbomb and an elbow gets two for Benoit. Another powerbomb attempt is countered into a backslide. Jericho doesn’t mean much yet so this would be a huge upset. Rollup gets two for Jericho. Jericho gets sent face first into the middle buckle but Jericho comes out with an atomic drop and superkick. Lionsault (not yet named) misses so he goes up top for a cross body. Jericho charges into the corner but gets tied up so that a belly to back superplex from Benoit gets the pin.

Rating: C+. Again, these two getting some time means a good match. Jericho still didn’t mean much but he was rapidly gaining steam. Well whatever steam he was able to get in WCW before they turned him into nothing. The heel turn worked far better for him than the face run did.

The Horsemen minus Arn have an interview but Debra is all nice to Woman. She’ll have none of the lies though and yells at Mongo. Jarrett comes out and says he wants to be a Horseman and lead WCW. He wants to know where Arn is but Flair says he’s off partying. Benoit says Jarrett isn’t a Horseman. PREACH IT BROTHER!!! Flair wants to go party. Can you imagine the REAL Horsemen against the NWO? As in them kidnapping say Wallstreet and breaking his leg then saying they’re coming for the gold? WarGames: Horsemen vs. NWO. Think that might work? Instead we get….this. Thanks Benoit.

Lee Marshall does his phone thing.

Octagoncito/Mascarita Sagrada vs. Jerito Estrada/Piratita Morgan

Again, I get that this is a huge deal in Mexico, but this means NOTHING to American audiences and are a comedy act here. Jerito is taller than the top rope if that tells you anything. He and Sagrada have a small vs. big match and this is going nowhere. The others come in and Octagoncito cleans house. Sagrada pins Jerito with a rollup. This was short and not terrible, but it’s totally out of place here in Tennessee.

Dean Malenko vs. Rey Mysterio Jr.

Neither gets an entrance as we start immediately after returning from a break. Dean quickly takes him to the mat to control early. Rey sends him to the floor to make sure nothing speeds up all night. Back in and Dean hooks another hold but Rey reverses into one of his own. Dean throws him into the air and then hits his gutbuster for no cover. Half crab by Dean keeps things slow.

Rey speeds things up by running the corner and hitting a dropkick. Dean stays on the back then forearms Rey in the corner. Rey comes back with some of his own but Dean tries to throw him onto the top. Rey was supposed to land on his feet on top but can’t get it so he crotches himself to improvise. That’s much better than trying to stand and making it look stupid.

Dean counters a rana into a big powerbomb for two. Rey comes back with a rolling cradle for the same. Another powerbomb is countered into a sunset flip for two. Mysterio knocks him to the floor and hits a BIG seated senton to the floor, sending his own face into the floor at the same time. West Coast Pop is countered into a Boston Crab and we get a nice pinfall reversal sequence out of it. Rey goes up top for a rana but the bell rings at 9:24 for a draw.

Rating: C+. Another good match which actually means something but the fans DO NOT react at all. Can you really blame them though? They’ve had to sit through an hour and a half of totally worthless matches with guys most of them have never seen before which aren’t getting any kind of time to get anything going with. Now all of a sudden they’re supposed to get fired up? It doesn’t work that way. The match was pretty good (time issues aside) but the dead crowd holds it back.

Lex Luger vs. Greg Valentine

This is exactly what you would expect: Valentine gets in some early offense and pounds away for maybe two minutes or so. Then Luger makes his comeback and the Rack gets the submission.

Here’s Piper for the talk to close the show. He reminds us that he won last night and that it’s his last fight. Hogan and Bischoff come out and talk about how Piper is lying to them. Hollywood says he didn’t end Piper last night because of Piper’s son begging. Piper wants to do it again right now but here’s the NWO. Giant comes out very slowly. Even Nick Patrick is finally in the NWO shirt.

They give Piper a big shoulderbreaker and hit his bad hip with a chair. The tell Giant to chokeslam him and he reluctantly puts Piper in position for it. Giant drops him though and never picked him up off the mat. Giant stands off by himself while the NWO huddles. Hogan says that’s strike three and slaps Giant. Giant grabs him by the throat while the NWO backs off. He says he wants the gold and Hogan promises him a title shot. Giant lets Hogan go and Hogan says he’s got the shot. He gets on the floor and then says get him.

The NWO runs in and Giant beats up all of their low level guys but everyone eventually gangs up on him, allowing Hogan to take him down with belt shots to the back. They rip the NWO shirt off of him and Hogan hits him in the head with the belt as the NWO stands tall to end the show. Oh and Piper is taken away in an ambulance.

Overall Rating: D. Where do I even begin? Ok first and foremost, the ending is the typical problem with WCW at this point: the NWO isn’t allowed to look weak. Giant defecting should have been a big moment, especially with him choking Hogan into giving him a title shot. So what happened? He was beaten down like EVERYONE else has been two minutes later. Why should I buy Giant as being any different than the other guys when the same thing happens to him? There was no reason to and it didn’t work.

As for the rest of the show, it sucked. The crowd was dead (with good reason) and there was no interest in anything on the rest of the card, because WCW put no effort into anything else on the card. Where was Eddie? The guy won the US Title last night but can’t be booked here? We can get Public Enemy vs. Canadians and a midget match but no US Champion? This show has taken a BIG downturn in the past 6-7 shows and I don’t think it’s going to get any better soon.

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Clash of the Champions #27
Date: June 23, 1994
Location: North Charleston Coliseum, North Charleston, South Carolina
Attendance: 6,700
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan

We finally wrap up this series here. This is the beginning of a new era in WCW as Hogan makes his major debut here tonight. The main event is the unification of the WCW world titles as Sting faces Flair. Other than that there isn’t much else here, but I thought ending with the main event that set up the first Clash was a good idea. Let’s get to it.

The announcers talk about the main event. Sherri is going to be in the corner of one of the two world champions but we’re not sure which.

Tag Titles: Cactus Jack/Kevin Sullivan vs. Nasty Boys

There are two referees for this due to how insane they are. Cactus and Sullivan are champions. This is a Slamboree rematch. Sullivan’s brother Dave is here and has a Hulk Selur shirt on. His gimmick was that he was dyslexic you see. Sags vs. Cactus gets us going and Jerry beats him down. Cactus fights back and the crowd is WAY into this. Everything breaks down about 30 seconds in and the brawl is on. Knobbs gets beaten down and the champs clear the ring.

Knobbs and Sullivan brawl some more. I wouldn’t expect a lot of wrestling in this match whatsoever. It breaks down again and we hear about some kind of conspiracy so Heenan makes Watergate jokes. Sullivan fights them off and slams Cactus off the top into both Nasties. We hear that Hogan is on the way so Heenan goes off on him, saying he better go get Hogan’s bags and all that so Hogan doesn’t have to.

Cactus gets a boot up in the corner and a discus lariat for two. The Nasties double team and get their first advantage over Cactus. Quickly off to Kevin who cleans some house but Sags breaks up the cover. He sends Kevin to the floor and into the barricade and Tony calls Sullivan odd. Heenan: “ODD???” Back to Cactus and a Cactus Clothesline puts him and Knobs on the outside.

Jack gets up on the apron and tries a backwards jump from the bottom rope but the Nasties move and he just crashes. How that man is alive I’ll never know. Back inside there’s some double teaming but Knobs misses a splash and Cactus makes the tag. Brian goes after Dave but Sullivan makes the save. Knobs goes back in and walks into the Double Arm DDT to keep the titles on Sullivan/Jack.

Rating: C+. This wasn’t meant to be anything more than a brawl and that’s all it needed to be. The fans were into it and everything clicked. Then some idiot decided that Jack wasn’t a good choice to be in WCW and that it was Paul Orndorff and Paul Roma that should get two title reigns before the end of the year. And people wonder why they went out of business.

Sting, the WCW International Champion, says he’ll win tonight.

Here’s a video on Big Bossman, now known as the Guardian Angel because WWF didn’t like him being called The Boss. So instead he took the gimmick of a Guardian Angel, which is something like a citizen’s police force in real life New York.

Guardian Angel vs. Tex Slazenger

Tex is Phineas Godwinn. He hits the Angel three times and Bossman counts for the hog farmer’s benefit. That’s enough I guess so Angel hits his usual stuff and the Bossman Slam (called a spike piledriver by that lunkhead Schiavone) ends this in less than two minutes.

Hogan’s motorcade gets here. Heenan makes OJ Simpson jokes because that was the hottest story in the world at that point. It was only six days before this show so the jokes are relevant here. Heenan keeps ranting as only he can do about Hulk. Hogan gets out to a pretty mixed reaction.

TV Title: Steven Regal vs. Larry Zbyszko

Regal said he couldn’t be beaten and laughed at Larry a lot, Larry decked him and won the title on TV. Jesse is on commentary now. Regal comes out in stereotypical British clothes including the powdered wig. Regal pounds him down to start and Larry is in trouble very early. Apparently Sherri is going to pick someone tonight, just not necessarily one of the world champions. Yeah, sure.

Regal, ever the pompous jerk, slaps Larry as he lectures him. Larry, ever the scrapper, gets all fired up and pounds him down as well. They go to the ramp for a bit but back in Regal takes him down. Larry counters a butterfly suplex into a form of a suplex for two. A regular suplex gets two. Piledriver gets two as does a swinging neckbreaker. Regal wants to throw hands and Larry is like uh, cool.

Larry blindsides him and it’s more of a brawl now. Off to a Regal chinlock but Larry reverses into a body scissors. They’re adding in enough brawling and cheating to their mat work to keep things from getting boring. Larry grabs a bearhug of all things before going off to a Boston Crab. Regal’s butler or whatever he is shoves Larry forward and Regal rolls on top, grabs the rope and gets the pin for the title.

Rating: C+. Fun match here and like I said the main thing was that they kept it interesting with the brawling instead of just the mat wrestling, which can get boring after awhile. Good stuff here and it would be Larry’s goodbye match as he didn’t have another major one until Starrcade in 1997. He was 41 when he retired, making him one of the few to get out early and on his own terms, which is always cool.

Gene hypes Bash at the Beach.

After a break, Gene is with Dustin Rhodes who has Arn Anderson with him. Dustin has been having issues with Colonel Parker’s Stud Stable and needs a partner. He picked ARN ANDERSON of all people, and amazingly enough, Anderson would turn on him before their first major match ended. Anderson says he’ll do it but it’ll be the old Anderson. That would be the old Anderson that broke Dustin’s daddy’s leg, but why not trust him right?

US Title: Johnny B. Badd vs. Steve Austin

Austin is champion and has been since December. Badd starts off very fast and chops away in the corner. Off to the arm work by Badd and a dropkick puts Austin on the floor. A top rope clothesline gets two. Off to a front facelock and then the arm again. Austin taps but ECW wasn’t popular yet. He gets a boot up in the corner and takes over. The crowd HATES Austin.

Badd gets fired up and a rollup gets two. And scratch that as the champ takes over again. A running dropkick puts Austin down but Johnny can’t follow up. DDT gets no cover but a SICK sound. He takes too long going up though and Austin crotches him. Badd throws Austin off but misses the top rope sunset flip which gets two for Austin. Another charge, this one by the champ, misses and Badd gets two this time. Things are getting good here. Austin gets an object from somewhere, hits Badd in the ribs and small packages him for the pin. We’ll ignore Badd’s shoulder being up.

Rating: C+. This started badly but got a lot better later on. The first part didn’t work for the most part but after that once they got going with the counters and near falls it got a lot better. The ending didn’t really work but that would get changed post match anyway, not that it really mattered. Fun match though.

Another referee comes out and they find the object. Badd rolls Austin up for a fast three (very fast) from the other referee. We’re told that we’ll hear the decision post commercial but since it’s HOGAN TIME (and yes, Hogan is the bigger deal by far) we’re not told what happened. Badd officially won by DQ.

Hogan gets a decent pop (which would be more impressive if we hadn’t seen Capetta, the ring announcer, firing up the crowd). He IMMEDIATELY brings up bodyslamming Andre and the fans aren’t all that thrilled it wouldn’t seem. When asked about the unification match, he wants a shot at the winner.

Flair pops up on the screen (drawing a pop as strong as Hogan’s if not bigger) and says he’ll win. This would be the beginning of Looney Flair.

Shaq in Hogan gear and with Hogan says Hogan is awesome. Ok then.

WCW World Title/WCW International World Title: Ric Flair vs. Sting

Flair: bigger pop than Hogan. Sting: WAY bigger pop than Hogan. Ok quick history lesson on the title issue here: as you know the NWA World Title is the famous one. Well eventually WCW had it’s own title. The NWA was incapable of being told that no one cared about them anymore, so they insisted there were two titles. Then the whole Flair walks thing happened so there were two titles for awhile.

WCW realized what everyone knew for years, which is that they didn’t need the NWA, so they dropped out. Flair officially owned the belt though, so there were two belts. The International Committee was a parody of the NWA Board. This match is a unification match and the way to finally get rid of whatever is left of the NWA in WCW. The big gold belt is the International Title here and would be the official title. Sting holds that one right now.

Sherri comes out before the match starts. She has the same face paint on that Sting has. Flair charges at Sting but the power stops him every time. Sting keeps nipping up and Flair backs off. Sting poses and Flair runs to the ramp. Back in and Flair still can’t get anything going and we get a Flair Flop on the floor. He yells at the fans as Heenan is freaking out. They keep pushing that this is a unification, which it really isn’t. The belt had been unified for years earlier but, say it with me, THE NWA IS STUPID, so they made something out of nothing here.

Flair pokes him in the eyes but tries chopping because that always works on Sting, resulting in Flair taking a bunch of clotheslines. The chops still don’t work so Flair goes for the knee, only to get rolled up for two. Flair takes another walk and Heenan’s freaking is getting hilarious. The idea is Hogan is driving Flair crazy and he’s off his game tonight.

Sting finally misses a splash in the corner and Flair is able to take over. Flair takes it to the floor quickly due to his old standard of asking the referee about the time. Flair covers with his feet on the ropes because that’s what heels do. No seriously, heels are supposed to cheat. Why don’t they do that more often? Sleeper goes on and Sting is in trouble. Sting manages to ram him into the buckle and there’s the Flair Flop.

Sting busts out the Slingshot and we get a second Flair Flop. Oh wait third. I forgot the one on the floor. Sherri cheers Sting on and he gets a suplex for a delayed two. Flair does the Flip and run the apron into a clothesline deal in the corner. Top rope superplex for Sting and he pops up and heads to the top. The big splash misses though and both guys are in trouble.

Sting no sells a regular suplex and Flair panics. He sends Flair to the floor and sets for a dive but Flair pulls Sherri in front and Sting crushes her. Back in and Sting puts Flair down again, but as he goes to check on Sherri, Slick Ric rolls him up and grabs the tights (again, that’s what heels do) and unifies the titles.

Rating: B+. Again, Sting and Flair are one of those pairings that automatically start higher than most. These two are seemingly incapable of having a bad match and they had another great one here. And then that didn’t mean anything for Sting as he went from world champion one month to being Hogan’s lackey for the next year. Flair turned into a raving lunatic and was “retired” for about six months starting in October. But hey, we got that Brutus Beefcake main event push. Who would want to see the planned Steve Austin world title reign anyway right?

Sherri gets in the ring and hugs Flair, because it was a swerve. See, THIS IS HOW A SWERVE WORKS. Sherri sacrificed herself, but the distraction from that sacrifice let Flair win the title. THAT IS HOW YOU DO A SWERVE!!! She and Flair beat down Sting post match until Hogan comes in for the save.

Hogan basically says he’s getting a title shot to close the show.

Overall Rating: B-. And with that, it ends. Not just the Clashes, but WCW’s chance to beat the WWF on their own. I’d have loved to see what they could have done without Hogan coming in. They had Austin ready to go as the top heel in the company, they had Foley mastering what would become the Attitude Era main event style, they had Steamboat around still, they had Sting to be the top face, they had an incredibly popular Flair (turned heel to avoid outpopping Hogan), they had guys like Regal, Badd and Pillman who could do whatever…and then Hogan came in.

He cleaned out the young talent or stuck them in endless midcard feuds, he ran Austin off, he made Foley into nothing (so Foley wisely bailed) and the whole place fell apart over the course of 1995 as it was ALL about Hogan. Savage came in at Starrcade 94 and was Hogan’s lackey. Nothing meant anything other than Hogan and had it not been for the Outsiders, I’m very curious as to where it would have gone. Anyway, good show and i’ve have loved to see where they could have taken things.

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Monday Nitro #67
Date: December 23, 1996
Location: Macon Coliseum, Macon, Georgia
Attendance: 4,900
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan, Mike Tenay, Larry Zbyszko

It’s the go home show for Starrcade and one of the last shows of 1996. I can’t believe I’ve actually gotten this far in this series. Anyway, as usual the wrestling isn’t the focus here but then again, it isn’t supposed to be on a go home show. I’m looking forward to next week’s show a little bit more though because of reasons we’ll get to next time. Let’s get to it.

We open with a clip of a match from 5 weeks ago where Benoit beat Eddie with a nice sunset flip.

US Title Tournament Semi-Final: Chris Benoit vs. Eddie Guerrero

There’s no Woman. Winner of this gets Page on Sunday for the title. They start off fast and Benoit takes him down with a shoulder block. Eddie comes back with chops in the corner as Tony can in fact confirm that Benoit is back from Germany. Gee thanks Tony! Taskmaster says that he’s the real chess master and that he’s got Benoit in his trap. Page joins commentary. After cutting away from the match for the Sullivan promo, we cut to the announce table to watch Page sit down.

Benoit hooks a headscissors on the mat but Eddie reverses into a headlock. Eddie keeps that headlock for awhile despite Benoit’s best efforts to get out. Page talks about the Guerreros: Hector, Chavo, Mondo, Harpo, Zeppo and so on. They go to a test of strength position on the mat with Benoit on top. Eddie gets a rollup for two as we take a break. Back with Eddie getting LAUNCHED onto the top rope in a huge Stun Gun.

A big belly to back gets two for Benoit as he yells as Eddie about who he is. He says he’s not Sullivan for some reason. A big powerbomb gets two. Off to a chinlock as Page is doing very well on commentary. He sounds like he’s having a blast. Eddie grabs a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker out of nowhere and loads up the Frog Splash but Benoit stops him and hits a superplex to put both guys down. A delayed cover gets two.

Benoit pounds him down but Eddie gets all fired up. Benoit drapes him across the top rope and covers for two but he grabs the ropes so it’s broken up. They go to the corner with Benoit trying a belly to back superplex but Eddie knocks him off and jumps off into a spinning Frog Splash to go to Starrcade.

Rating: B+. This is the best match I’ve seen on Nitro in a very long time. Eddie and Benoit of course has classic after classic and this was a very good one. The Frog Splash at the end was great and Benoit was feeling it with that high impact stuff. Very good match and an awesome opener. Eddie would win the title on Sunday.

Here are the Horsemen for some talking. Anderson says that a focused Benoit wouldn’t have lost. Last week he had to sit through a beating from Sullivan because he was the one sitting on a couch when the husband got home. Anderson goes on a rant against Benoit but Debra decides to cut him off and say no one likes Woman. She has plenty of friends that Benoit can have an affair with. Benoit says he doesn’t appreciate being told things like that because he was one of the ones that helped reunite the Horsemen. He actually tells Debra to talk to the hand as Mongo comes in to stop him. Flair has to play peacemaker.

Here’s the NWO with Hogan, Vincent, Ted and Liz. We get a spotlight on demand and Hogan says he smells Piper Mania. He’s the biggest star in the world, Hollywood loves him, Piper is a coward, etc. Tony says Piper isn’t here tonight. Now I know a lot of you would expect me to rant and rave about how stupid it is that WCW would have the go home show without the face in the main event of the biggest show of the year there, but at this point, why would you be surprised? It’s late 1996 and Hulk Hogan vs. Roddy Piper is the main event. Hogan poses to “entertain” the people.

Trailer for Marked Man, which somehow proves that Piper is a bigger star according to Tony.

Tombstone vs. Lex Luger

Tombstone is 911 from ECW. This is your standard monster vs. hero match as Lex gets overpowered but then growls a lot and comes back. The Rack ends this quick. Not quite a squash but close enough.

Giant comes in post match and Lex hammers on him a bit. He gets Giant in the Rack but the NWO comes in. Lex drops Giant and runs.

Here’s a video from last week where there were two Stings. We also get a clip from the ending of the show where the WCW guys jumped Sting and that proves he’s NWO in WCW’s stupid minds.

JL vs. Rey Mysterio

The match is discussed for all of 4 seconds as we talk about how WCW needs a leader. JL sends him to the floor as JL misses a dive. Rey hits a rana off the apron to pop the crowd but Tony doesn’t even stop talking about Starrcade. Springboard legdrop gets two for Mysterio. Rey tries a rana but gets caught in a sitout powerbomb for two. Mysterio comes back with a moonsault press for two. Top rope rana sends JL to the floor and a suicide dive takes both of them out. West Coast Pop misses and JL tries La Magistral for two. JL goes up but Rey hits a super rana for the pin.

Rating: C+. Not bad again here but the focus being on Hogan vs. Piper for the most part got annoying. By that I mean it got annoying about an hour ago. At this point it’s expected every time there’s a match. Rey was so fun to watch at this point before his knees turned into something that is jealous of pudding’s toughness.

Rey comes up to the announce table and says that Sting is WCW. He was defending himself because Rey jumped on him last week. Since that’s logical and common sense though, Larry and Tony basically brush Rey off. We even get the Holding Out For A Hero tape from last week. Larry and Tony swear up and down that Sting is NWO. This company deserved to go out of business with how stupid they were. In another WCW gem, here’s this exchange. Tony: “Rey we’ve found that tape.” Rey: “Would you please play….” Tony: “WE ARE LIVE WITH THE SECOND HOUR OF MONDAY NITRO!!!” I give up man. I just do.

The NWO has sworn that Piper is here.

They REAIR Hogan’s promo from earlier. I rarely do this but I fast forward through this.

Glacier vs. Buddy Lee Parker

Glaicer kicks a lot, chops a lot, then kicks a lot more. He hits his Cryonic kick which Parker kicks out of for no apparent reason. A second one finishes this.

Amazing French Canadians vs. Public Enemy

Tony keeps hyping this as the holiday edition but there’s nothing other than a few decorations on the set. The Canadians sing O Canada in French. Tony and Tenay say it’s the wrong words, because apparently FRENCH Canadians should speak English right? Public Enemy jumps them and let’s get this over with. Naturally it’s not really a match as the Canadians are sent to the floor.

They manage to double team Grunge a bit though as the announcers talk about Hogan vs. Piper. I can live with it in a garbage match like this. We get to an actual match with Jacques beating on Grunge. The Canadians get a table set up but Rocco makes the save. Public Enemy finally says screw it and breaks the table over Jacques for the DQ. Total mess rather than a match so no rating.

We recap Bubba joining the NWO last week.

Konnan vs. Big Bubba

Nick Patrick is referee and he doesn’t have a neck brace anymore. Bubba beats Konnan down to start but then goes after Jimmy. This allows Konnan to dive through the dives to take Bubba out. He dropkicks him into the steps and then stands around like an idiot. Patrick takes forever to count so Bubba can come back in and get in a right hand.

The match grinds to a total halt because Bubba doesn’t seem interested in hurting Konnan at all. This results in a lot of slow choking which kills the crowd after a hot start. There’s a smother and Bubba claims Jimmy hit him, so Patrick throws him out. Konnan makes his comeback and throws Bubba over the top for the lame DQ.

Rating: D-. This started fast but oh my goodness this stopped dead after about 90 seconds. Bubba was so pathetic on offense and the whole thing died once he took over. Konnan wasn’t a great guy in the ring but he was trying harder here than Bubba, which really should summarize things for you.

Lee Marshall calls in.

TV Title: Steven Regal vs. Dean Malenko

Dean takes him down to the mat but Regal is like tut tut and takes over. They go into a test of strength position and both nip up to try to escape it. This was before Regal got addicted to everything on the planet and could still be awesome in the ring. Regal takes over with a cravate on the mat. They’re still pushing the idea that heavyweights are vastly superior to cruiserweights so Dean is a big underdog.

Sonny Onoo comes out and is quickly ejected so there wasn’t much of a point to that cameo. The crowd is pretty much dead for this but the match is fine. Off to a headscissors on the mat as Regal keeps control. Regal shifts over to the arm and into a modified abdominal stretch. They go to the corner and Dean hits a dropkick to take Regal down as Regal comes out of the corner.

Both guys are down now so Regal hooks a full nelson. Regal now goes for his 8th body part, taking out the knee. Dean reverses his half crab into a Texas Cloverleaf attempt but Regal grabs the rope. The American hits a release German to the Englishman to take over. A brainbuster hits….and there’s the time limit. Gah that gimmick gets old but at least they didn’t announce it.

Rating: C. The match was pretty boring for the crowd because it’s heel vs. heel. On the other hand though, the technical stuff was really fun as you had two guys that could pretty much do anything in the ring. The array of submissions got a little old but at least it never got boring, which is a rarity on Nitro half the time.

Rick Steiner vs. Jeff Jarrett

The fans want Sting but they get a Steiner powerslam to start. An elbow hits Jarrett as well as Jeff is in trouble early. He comes back with a middle rope clothesline as the announcers talk about how high the buyrate is going to be. Here’s the NWO Sting (with Heenan actually realizing it’s the fake one for once) to try the Death Drop on Jarrett. Steiner hits Fake Sting with a clothesline and Jarrett pins Fake Sting to end this. Why would you cover him? Why would the referee count it? Why am I surprised?

Here’s the NWO to close the show. Hogan talks about how he got a verbally written letter from Piper, admitting that Hogan is the icon. Piper’s music plays….and it’s Bischoff dressed as Piper. He does a bad Scottish accent and talks about Wrestlemania. Bischof insists that a referee get out here as Tony says wrestling has reached a new low and refuses to call this stuff.

Eric lays down for Hogan and gets pinned with one foot. He bows down to Hogan and here’s the real Piper, after probably half the audience has left because they were told he wasn’t here. He has a full band with him. And the NWO runs in to beat him down and end the show. Sting watches from the rafters.

Overall Rating: D+. This show is rapidly going downhill. The matches have stopped meaning much of anything, the announcers have reached levels of stupidity that I didn’t think existed (which would be crushed in the near future) and the PPVs they build to would get worse and worse, starting with a bad Starrcade coming up on Sunday. The shows are still watchable at this point, although they’re getting weak in a hurry.

Here’s Starrcade if you’re interested:

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Starrcade 1996
Date: December 29, 1996
Location: Nashville Municipal Auditorium, Nashville, Tennessee
Attendance: 9,030
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Dusty Rhodes, Bobby Heenan

Since I want to get my third straight year of WCW complete, here’s the final show of 1996. The main event here is Hogan vs. Piper which shouldn’t be too bad since they were in their primes a mere 11 years ago. I never quite got why this was supposed to be the biggest match in the world but it’s WCW so why am I looking for logic? Other than that there isn’t a ton here but it’s Starrcade so let’s get to it.

The opening video is all about Hogan vs. Piper of course. The announcers talk about it to no end as well.

J Crown/Cruiserweight Title: Dean Malenko vs. Ultimo Dragon

The J Crown is a collection of 8 light weight titles from around the world that Dragon held. This is 8 titles vs. 1, which does a good job of making the Cruiserweight Title seem important. The Dragon is covered in belts here. This is more or less a dream match as they’ve been built up as unbeatable the whole time. Also, one of those 8 belts is the WWF Light Heavyweight Championship, meaning that there is a WWF Title being defended on a WCW show.

As always, Heenan kisses up to Sonny Onoo which is one of his trademarks for some reason. Tenay joins them for commentary. How did he go from being the Professor to what he is now? We go to the mat almost immediately as it’s a feeling out process at the moment. Tenay makes an interesting observation and says there is no challenger here. That’s true to a degree and sounds cool for some reason.

Dragon taps but that doesn’t mean anything yet. Sonny suggests he can hold his pants up with the 9th belt. We hear about a match recently where Malenko tried to fight a heavyweight and, GASP, he did quite well. Why didn’t more guys do that? Loud USA chant as the xenophobia runs wild as always. Dragon uses the STF(U) which causes a bunch of jokes from the announcers that aren’t funny.

Dean’s speed really is underrated. He moves around very well for his size which definitely isn’t your traditional cruiserweight look. Dragon dives through the ropes after faking Malenko out of his shoes. Octopus Hold on Malenko which Dusty thinks is an abdominal stretch but whatever. Tenay says Dragon’s name actually means Final Dragon, meaning the final protégé of Bruce Lee. If that’s true, Dragon was his protégé when he was 6 and a half years old, which is assuming he was his protégé on the last day of Lee’s life.

Malenko finally gets a break as he takes Dragon down and works the knee. Handspring elbow misses and Dean DRILLS him with a powerslam. Powerbomb by Dragon gets two as the crowd is getting into this quickly. Jumping Tombstone gets two and a HUGE pop for Malenko. All Dean here as he gets another two count. Asai Moonsault gets us back to even.

Both guys are down on the floor for a bit. Back in and a top rope moonsault misses, injuring Dragon’s knee. Cloverleaf is hooked and of course Sonny interferes. They do a very nice pinfall reversal sequence and then Dragon hits a Tiger Suplex (the arms are hooked like Cattle Mutilation but he does a suplex) for the pin. HUH? That makes NO sense from a booking perspective. The crowd was WAY into this to put it mildly and the ending just sucked the life out of the place. Dragon would lose the J-Crown in less than a week in Tokyo.

Rating: B+. GREAT opener here but Dean desperately needed to win to make it work. He would get the Cruiserweight Title back in like three weeks so that didn’t matter either. This was a weird booking decision all around and it just didn’t do anyone any favors. We got a good match out of it though so I guess there’s that.

Someone else is coming to the NWO. If I remember right, it was Norton. Yeah this was mentioned on PPV.

WCW Women’s Title: Akira Hokuto vs. Madusa

Speaking of meaningless things, this was around for like 7 months with the winner here being one of two people to hold it ever. The other title match was in Japan after one of these two vacated it and then the title just disappeared. Lee Marshall is on commentary here for no apparent reason. Madusa is doing the whole patriot thing here and it gets as much of a reaction as you would expect it to.

Hokuto was actually in the tournament twice, once under a mask and once not. That should go to show you how deep in talent this division, which is a stretch in its own right, really was. Madusa gets stuck in a Sharpshooter for all of 3 seconds. Hokuto bits Madusa’s foot. Yeah this is pretty weak. Madusa/Alundra Blayze more or less was American women’s wrestling until Sable started getting in the ring.

There is almost nothing to talk about regarding the match here in case that didn’t come off clearly. Dusty says Akira’s hair is nappy, which would likely get him fired today and here it’s glazed over. Madusa hits a DDT which Tony of course thingks is a DDT. It’s amazing how many moves he snapped off that I’ve never even heard of at last year’s Starrcade and now he doesn’t even know basic stuff. That’s Bischoff for you.

This is boring as the announcers try very hard to not talk about T&A which is really what Madusa was known for since she was huge in both areas. Sonny blasts Madusa with the American flag behind the referee’s back and a brainbuster ends this bad match.

Rating: D. Is there a reason for the whole Japanese push here? I don’t really get that but whatever. This would have been bad no matter what the ending was, as this was just not interesting in the slightest. I know Bischoff was obsessed with Japanese wrestling, but dang dude not everything, such as joshi, needs to come over.

Piper, high as a freaking kite, goes on a huge rant about how they’re both icons and how there are other icons. This is less coherent than a Warrior interview. He can’t carry a piano in a parade and has six kids. Piper thinks Gene is Roseanne and makes a Jewish joke before hopping away on one foot. To say this was out there is a drastic understatement.

Jushin Thunder Liger vs. Rey Mysterio

Was there a sale on Japanese workers tonight or something? This should be a great match but three of them in a row? Really man? We hear about Liger having brain surgery of all things earlier in the year. Rey is in WAY over his head here as he’s only been in WCW for a few months while Liger has been here on and off for years. Total beatdown to more or less zero reaction.

Dusty talks about the Figure Four for some reason despite it having no bearing on this match at all. Liger hits a powerbomb on the floor as this has been more or less one sided the entire time. He hooks a surfboard which is one of my all time favorite submission holds. Rey shakes his head all over and you can’t tell which way his head is going.

Crowd is DEAD here by the way. This is rather odd as this has been a rather hard hitting match but I guess it’s the lack of caring of the whole international guys and their style but still this is weird. Granted the one sided thing isn’t helping anything. Dusty talks about his old partner Dick Murdoch who must be watching this tonight. Dusty is such a great friend that he didn’t realize Murdoch died six months before this.

They crank it up again and Rey hits a HUGE moonsault to the floor to wake up this hick crowd. These Tennessee crowds hate anything that isn’t on the mat and doesn’t have a wacky finish like Lawler would book. This high flying stuff is totally pointless to them and you can tell by their reactions. Rey tries to drop a dime and misses to NO change in reaction. Liger Bomb ends it to nothing of course. As Heenan puts it: Japan 3, US 0.

Rating: B-. Solid match here but the booking of Rey getting destroyed was weird. The crowd really brings this down which isn’t something I complain about too often but it’s the problem of having the good old boys crowd like this and it just did not work at all. They decide what they like and if it’s not the same thing they’ve seen for 50 years they will sit on their hands and give the guys nothing.

Jeff Jarrett vs. Chris Benoit

This is No DQ and is somehow part of the eternally awful Horsemen vs. Dungeon of Doom feud which never got any resolution. Not because of the NWO or anything but rather people just didn’t care and it died. Benoit is the heel here because he stole the wife of Kevin Sullivan (Woman, which happened both in real life and in storyline. The line that sums it up is that Kevin Sullivan booked his own divorce) and might be thrown out of the Horsemen for it. Yeah, Benoit stole a single woman while Flair came out at Wrestle War 89 to fight Steamboat with over 20 of them and Benoit is about to be thrown out for Jarrett, who Flair has given a seal of approval to.

To show you how much people can’t stand Jarrett, he’s the face in the storyline, has RIC FLAIR saying how great he is and is the home state boy. He promptly gets booed out of the building in favor of Benoit. Jarrett is in his old school semi-male stripper outfit which is gray on the back and white on the front. This is a far more technical and ground based match so the people seem to be alive for this one. Benoit yells at him and holds up four fingers to a face pop which the company doesn’t want but whatever.

It breaks down into a fight and we hit the floor. Woman gets involved and Jarrett gets crotched, giving Benoit the advantage. This is one of those matches where you shouldn’t try to factor in the storyline but you have to and it cripples it. The match isn’t bad I guess but at the same time it’s really nothing special given the parties involved.

Jarrett goes off but Woman stops him with her fingers into the eyes and Arn Anderson is here. He walks by Benoit which is supposed to be an insult to Benoit I guess. Cue the Dungeon of Doom and they go after Woman. Taskmaster is here and blasts Benoit with a wooden chair. I think Anderson knocked Jarrett out because when everything is clear Jarrett is on Benoit for the pin.

Rating: D+. Decent little match but the angle was just completely awful. Why are they fighting? Aren’t they kind of both Horsemen? Ah wait: Jarrett just hangs out with them and their leader has endorsed him forever but he isn’t a Horseman. Benoit is bad for stealing Woman from his heel husband which was the whole idea of Hogan vs. Savage in 88/89 but whatever. This feud SUCKED and of course went on for like a year since Konnan and Hugh Morrus are such huge issues for guys like Anderson and Flair right? See what I mean by it’s annoying?

Anderson won’t talk to Gene to explain anything because that would be nice. Neither will Jarrett. Benoit and Woman won’t either and here’s Mongo to HUGE booing. He’s a heel here so at least they got that right. He runs down Benoit to an extent and then the extent is gone. Debra gets the loudest heat of the night which is a bad sign. I think the idea is that Benoit’s affair is breaking up the Horsemen….somehow…..and the Dungeon is happy. Flair wants to replace Benoit with Benoit but Arn is remaining loyal to Benoit, even though he doesn’t want to. They managed to screw up the HORSEMEN. Are you getting how bad this regime really was?

Video on Sting as we’re not sure where he’s going. I still can’t believe that this thing lasted a year before his next match.

Tag Titles: Outsiders vs. Faces of Fear

I remember when this was announced and I was 8 years old. Even then I thought it was some kind of a joke. Nash gets a big pop because he’s Nash and this is Nashville. It was on a sign. Even I’m not that corny. That NWO music really is sweet. I thought of that and then remembered the line so there must be something to the catchphrases. The champions come out first which is odd.

Faces of Fear are Meng and Barbarian and part of the Dungeon of Doom. Meng and Hall start us off as I continue to marvel at Barbarian’s ability to get work. The fans chant Razor to be funny and then Nash, the big man comes in. I say big even though Hall is taller than both of the Faces but whatever. Clubbering commences on Nash and this isn’t very interesting since there is NO chance the titles are changing here.

Racial stereotypes are enforced as a double noggin knocker does nothing. More or less dominance by the challengers so far but Nick Patrick is the referee so expect a screwy ending. Barbarian hits a Jackknife on Hall and takes about a week to cover him so Nash won’t have to run. Syxx steals the Megaphone from Hart and runs him off.

Barbarian knocks Hall out with a nerve hold and Patrick won’t do anything about it. Naturally more of the hold makes him Hulk Up to a face pop. Nash comes in to another face pop and kicks Barbarian in the face, proving that his foot is harder than Meng’s head. Jackknife ends Barbarian.

Rating: D+. No drama at all and the dynamic was all screwed up since WCW refused to accept that these guys were faces at this point. I mean really though, the Faces of Fear? They’re the best challengers you could find? That’s what killed this match: no drama. When I was 8 I knew this wasn’t happening and I know it even more now. Not horrible though.

DiBiase and Hogan say they’ll beat Piper. Seriously is this 1987? Hogan does a huge rant about Piper’s kids and drops in brand names like Campbell’s Soup and Coke. Holy product placement Batman! This is like two and a half minutes long.

US Title: Diamond Dallas Page vs. Eddie Guerrero

This is a tournament final for the title Flair had to vacate due to his shoulder injury. Page was on the brink of the push of a lifetime, but is still a heel here. That would change in less than a month as he would begin the monster face push that had it not been for Sting, could have made him the dark horse to take the title off Hogan at Starrcade the next year. That’s how hot he was in 1997. Eddie is still the nice guy and has about as much personality as Todd Grisham at this point.

Page has fans here and for once WCW got the idea. These two feuded earlier in the year over the Battlebowl Ring which went nowhere. Page had gotten help from Hall and Nash which he hadn’t asked for as they try to get him to join. Get what he was about to do to become the huge face? There’s no belt or anything as Giant still has it. The three commentators really are too much. Dusty can’t believe the fans are yelling for DDP.

This is a pretty basic match and the crowd is silent AGAIN. Nice pescado to put DDP down. Heenan has mic issues or something and is gone. We get more confusing commentary as Dusty raves about how the Diamond Cutter could be hit from anywhere but then says you have to soften the guy up for it. Yeah that makes sense. Heenan is back and this is a pretty decent back and forth match.

I like Heenan’s jokes about Mrs. Guerrero’s chili. That stuff must be awesome. Frog Splash misses and Eddie might have hurt his knee. Page uses something like a Jackhammer for two. It was more like a powerslam and in one motion though which made it fairly cool looking. Very good back and forth match so far here and the crowd simply does not care for the most part which is really depressing.

Page says Diamond Cutter time but Eddie gets knocked to the floor and Page is down in the ring. Cue Outsiders and a Razor’s Edge for DDP. Frog Splash ends it as he didn’t see anything since he was down on the floor. Eddie has the belt even though we were told it was stolen by Giant earlier. The NWO runs in again and beats him down, stealing the belt AGAIN, setting up Syxx vs. Eddie next month in a ladder match.

Rating: B. The match was good, but I would have liked it a lot more if DDP had lost clean. The NWO was the focal point of the company, but like Nexus there needs to be some stuff they’re not involved in that actually matters. This was more overkill by them as they were the only thing that mattered at all and it would start to wear on people. This was a rather good match though as both guys were working hard with some near falls that almost got people caring. Good match.

Ad for Souled Out which was very different to say the least. We’ll get to that later.

Lex Luger vs. The Giant

This is the next to last match and the second biggest on the card. Tony declares that 1996 will be the year that Luger arrives. You know, other than the rookie of the year or the world title reigns he had. This has been building up for a long time so this is a legit showdown and it really does wake the crowd up for the first time since the opener. A long lockup results in punching and shoving.

Luger punches him then gets shoved across the ring. Giant ENDS him with a running clothesline and it’s heel (the popular kind) dominance. Giant kicks him in the ribs and launches him through the ropes in a cool looking spot. He works on Luger’s back and it’s one sided for the most part. Can someone give Dusty something to play with so he’ll BE QUIET?

Luger makes a short comeback with a double axehandle but the slam of course doesn’t work. They tease the Rack but it goes nowhere. Giant goes for a running dropkick and misses, drawing no reaction at all. They say this match has been brutal. I wouldn’t got that far but it certainly hasn’t been very good. Luger finally puts him down with a neckbreaker but gets launched onto the referee who of course lays there to take it.

There’s the slam and Nick Patrick comes down. Luger gets him up but Patrick kicks him in the leg. Sting walks through the crowd and the Rack is on again. SYXX comes down to kick Luger now. Sting comes in and throws the bat down before talking to both Luger and Giant and leaving again. Low blow and about four bat shots end Giant to a HUGE pop. This is the first official loss for the NWO and it only took Luger, Sting and a ball bat to do it.

Rating: D. This was just bad. Luger didn’t do anything here other than the Rack which lasted all of a second. Giant didn’t do anything of note and even with the crowd being all poppish over this, the whole thing never went anywhere. This is supposed to start Giant’s face turn because Hogan and the Outsiders wouldn’t come out to help him but no one wound up caring since Hogan beat him at the next show.

Tony saying this is the turning point of Luger’s career really is funny.

Roddy Piper vs. Hulk Hogan

This is the Match of the Decade. No wait….make that of the CENTURY. What did they expect here anyway? Hogan hadn’t had a good match in years and Piper was crippled for the most part. Hogan has Liz, DiBiase and Vincent with him. The belt, which is about 13 years old, is billed as being 95 at this point. Ok for those of you that have heard the whole 1905 thing, there’s an explanation for that since it’s wrong.

The original championship (not the belt but the title itself if that makes sense) was made in like 1947 in Iowa. That was the NWA Title, as in National Wrestling Alliance. It became the only world title when the National Wrestling ASSOCIATION Title, which hardly anyone has heard of but was from 1905, was unified with it when Thesz beat someone that means nothing.

Eventually the NWA World Title belt was made (as in the one Kane currently holds. Well not really but that design) for Flair in the mid 1980s because he was supposed to be a larger than life character so he had a larger than life belt. That was still the NWA Title but eventually was used as the WCW Title due to a way too complicated sequence of events and lawsuits.

Eventually it became the WCW Title and had nothing to do with the NWA Title anymore as it is now the old style that you can see at shows before 86 in what became WCW. The title that Hogan holds here (the WCW World Title) has been in existence for about six years at this point and the belt itself (Big Gold Belt, as in the design Kane has although not that belt in particular since that is the World Heavyweight Championship and was invented in 2002 as the original Raw World Title) a little over ten, but hey, saying it’s 91 years old sounds better right? Welcome to the wonderful world of title lineages.

Anyway back to the match. Hogan heads to the floor as the bell rings. Vince and Liz leave and it’s just DiBiase. Hogan slaps Piper on a break in the corner as that is the only offense in about two minutes so far. The bald one runs to waste more time. Lots of punching and kicking here and Hogan stalls again. DO SOMETHING! Hey look it’s a headlock!

It’s pretty much all Hogan here, much like he would do the next year against Sting. Neither guy can do much more than a Tough Enough rookie could do here and it’s just bad. Hogan runs AGAIN for like the third time so far. Piper finds a belt somewhere and whips Hogan with it. He goes after DiBiase to let Hogan take over again. Baldie goes after the hip as this is just horribly boring.

DiBiase interferes again and both guys just fall down. This is just bad. Both guys are far too old and neither can do anything at all other than punch. Piper throws in a suplex to officially classify this as a wrestling match. We get it: Piper has heart and a FIRE inside. Legdrop misses and here comes the NWO. Giant picks Piper up for a Chokeslam and just holds him there for like 10 seconds. A fan comes in and everyone beats him down.

Piper gets out of the chokeslam I guess just because Giant forgot what he was doing. Sleeper goes on to NO reaction again and Hogan goes out clean. It takes forever but the fans finally get that Hogan just lost. The Outsiders run out before Piper can get his belt. Ah never mind: this was non-title. See, the interesting thing is that WCW NEVER mentioned that the title wasn’t on the line. Imagine if Cena vs. Batista at Mania had been non title. To say there would have been an uproar is an understatement.

Rating: F. This was AWFUL as both guys are old and can’t move so of course they get the equivalent of Wrestlemania. The non-title thing is bait and switch to the core and it ticked off a LOT of people. They had a rematch at Superbrawl where Savage turned NWO and kept the title on Hogan. This was just flat out bad and everyone knew it would be.

Hogan chases down Giant and he and the Outsiders yell at the big man. Giant says where were you when I needed you. We throw in a line about Hogan still being champion even though he lost.

Overall Rating: D-. For a regular show, this isn’t bad at all. For the biggest show of the year, this is a disaster. There are 8 matches on this card. The first three mean nothing. Truly, they meant nothing. Just over three weeks later the title was back on Malenko and the other two mean even less. I had already forgotten Jarrett vs. Benoit by the time I got to this point.

The tag title match was a token defense. The US Title was ok but it meant nothing since it led to the far more important DDP face turn. The final two matches are ok at best but again are just table setting for Souled Out. The wrestling is ok in a huge stretch and other than that this was horrible. Didn’t like it when I was a kid and can’t stand it now.

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Monday Night Raw
Date: December 2, 2002
Location: Frank Erwin Center, Austin, Texas
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

This is the 500th (ish) episode of Raw. Shawn is in his final reign as world champion as he won the title in the first Elimination Chamber. HHH is of course next in line for a title shot because he’s always next in line for a title shot. That was the big criticism of this time period: way too much focus on HHH vs. Shawn and nowhere near enough elevation of new guys. Let’s get to it.

We open with clips of last week’s RVD vs. Shawn title match. Rob hit the Five Star but HHH ran in and Pedigreed RVD on the floor. He also gave Shawn a backbreaker onto a chair.

Dudley Boys vs. 3 Minute Warning

We get a recap of the Dudleys stripping the tag champions (Christian/Jericho) of their clothes and then their towels. Brawl to start as the Dudleys clear the ring. A double suplex puts Rosey down but Jamal runs both of them over. Bubba and Rosey both try cross bodies and everyone is down. Double tag and here are Jamal and D-Von. Back to Bubba who pounds Jamal down.

Here’s something I really didn’t expect to see: Bubba hooks a cross armbreaker to control Jamal. D-Von works on the arm too. That’s not something you often see from the Dudleys. D-Von winds up playing Ricky Morton for a bit but he DDTs Jamal. This doesn’t work (thank goodness) as the referee misses the tag. A neckbreaker puts Rosey down and there’s the tag to Rosey. Something like a spear gets two. It looked more like a running Bossman Slam. Rico interferes and Bubba gets suplexed. Spike comes out to hit Rico and shove Jamal off the top. What’s Up Jamal but Rosey comes back in. 3D gets the pin on Rosey.

Rating: C-. Not a terrible match here but going eight minutes was probably a bad idea for these four. 3 Minute Warning could only be so interesting in long matches which is the problem that came up here. The Dudleys had recently reunited at this point and it really didn’t help their staleness that much.

HHH and Flair arrive.

During the break, Christian and Jericho apparently destroyed all three Dudleys. Thanks for letting us see all this stuff guys. Spike was thrown from the stage to the announce table while D-Von was put in the Walls and got a one man Conchairto.

GM Bischoff and Chief of Staff Morely say nothing of note, other than he’s now to be called Chief Morely. HHH and Flair come in and Trips is mad. He doesn’t like the idea of having to face RVD tonight because the shot at Shawn is his and the title is his. Eric says he’s been more than fair to HHH as he handed him the title. If HHH wants the title back, give him some great TV. The fans seem to agree with Bischoff. HHH promises a trainwreck. There’s going to be a guest referee to be named later.

Trish Stratus vs. Ivory

Trish was rapidly improving at this point. Ivory grabs the arm to start and they trade control over that for a few seconds. Clothesline gets two for Trish. Ivory hits an enziguri to take over and rips at Trish’s face. Trish gets a neckbreaker to escape and they’re both down. Chick Kick gets two. A really bad Stratusfaction gets the pin.

Rating: D. Ivory was the Divas jobber at this point and she just wasn’t any good. Trish was getting there but it was clear she wasn’t quite ready yet. Not a good match at all although Trish in leather is never a bad thing. Ivory is another of those girls that I don’t think anyone ever cared about at all.

Jackie yells at Victoria in the back and my goodness I’m actually reaching levels of caring about Jackie even lower than I thought. She beats up Victoria and they have a match later.

Video of the WWE float in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Al Roker calls King Jerry the Ring Lawler.

Jericho and Christian warn the locker room to pay attention to what they just did. Nowitski congratulates them and Jericho gets a pep talk for his match with Booker later.

Lance Storm/William Regal vs. Jeff Hardy/Tommy Dreamer

The foreigners hurt Dreamer’s jaw and gave him a concussion. The brawl starts on the ramp and Dreamer is in his patriotic jobber shirt. Jeff runs the barricade to take them both down. Dreamer and Storm officially start and Tommy hooks a Mapleleaf on Storm. Storm gets in a kick to the head and they work over the injury. Regal comes in to do nothing of note and Storm hooks a cravate. Jeff gets a tag but there’s no referee. While he tries to comes in, Regal and Storm throw Dreamer into the exposed buckle for the pin.

Rating: D. Let’s see: Jeff was never in, the match was short, and the injury that was already established was used again. I don’t get the point of this match existing as a tag match but whatever. Jeff would kind of float around for awhile before doing anything of note. I think he was released in 2003.

The heels try to hurt Jeff’s knee but Dreamer makes the save.

Flair sucks up to Batista, telling him to show some fire.

Batista vs. The Hurricane

Flair comes out with Batista. Batista jumps him before the match as the announcers talk about the guest referee. Gee, I wonder who it’ll be between HHH and RVD in a match to decide who faces SHAWN for the title. Hurricane has bad ribs from something not important enough to tell us about. Batista Bomb ends this in about a minute.

Flair tells Batista to powerbomb him again post match but Kane comes in for the save.

Terri asks Shawn how his back is and he says he’s here. Rob comes in and says nothing of note. He’s upset about the back injury Shawn has but he wants to be repaid for his loss of a title win last week. Eric comes in and names Shawn the referee for later. If Shawn doesn’t call it fair, he’s stripped of the title.

Booker T vs. Chris Jericho

Booker makes lame jokes about Jericho before the match. Jericho takes over to start and chokes in the corner. He comes off the middle rope and misses though as Booker takes over. Side slam gets two. The side kick misses and Jericho takes over again, this time with the springboard dropkick to put Booker on the outside. Top rope elbow to the chest gets two and we hit the chinlock.

A belly to back suplex puts Booker down and Jericho does a little dance. He goes up but gets crotched and superplexed to put both guys down. Booker hits a one man flapjack for two. Jericho counters a rollup into a Walls attempt but Booker gets a rope. Jericho argues with the referee, allowing Booker to his a missile dropkick for two. There’s a slingshot into the corner and Booker kicks him in the back.

Here’s the Spinarooni but Chris breaks it up with a bulldog. Lionsault misses and Booker kicks his head off. Here’s Christian for a distraction which means nothing. Small package gets two for Booker as Goldust comes out to counteract Christian. Axe kick puts Jericho down but Chief Morely comes out and says make it a tag title match.

Rating: C-. The match was ok but it was nothing all that interesting. That’s the problem with the whole show so far: the wrestling is just ok but I don’t care about anything that’s happening here. Smackdown was the hot show at this point and it seemed that everyone here was made sure to be less interesting than HHH.

Raw Tag Titles: Booker T/Goldust vs. Christian/Chris Jericho

We come back to Goldust getting two on Christian. The champions are rammed into each other and it’s off to Booker. Now the champions get things together and take over on Booker as Goldust is with the referee. Booker avoids a running charge at the ropes to crotch Christian and here’s Goldie off the hot tag.

Shattered Dreams on Christian and Jericho’s head follows Goldie’s boot. A VERY close two off a rollup gets the crowd fired up and start a chant disagreeing with the referee. Booker kicks Jericho down and hits the Spinarooni. Jericho sleeper drops Booker for two and the Bookend gets the same. The fans are into this now. A belt shot by Chris and a Lionsault keeps the titles.

Rating: C+. The crowd got into it and I have no idea why they didn’t just change the titles here in Texas, especially considering Booker and Goldie would get the titles less than two weeks after this at Armageddon. The match was pretty much by far the best match of the night so far.

Raw Retro is the destroyed Vince Corvette. This is for the Raw 10th Anniversary Special. Oh we’ll HAVE TO get to that nonsense someday.

Test and Stacy are making out and she has a marketing idea but Test wants something else.

Jacqueline vs. Victoria

Victoria is the Women’s Champion and this is non-title. The match is happening so that Jackie, from Dallas, can get a hometown pop in Austin. We’ll ignore that Goldust, actually FROM AUSTIN, could have done the EXACT SAME THING. Jackie basically takes Victoria apart but Victoria gets in a shot and the slingshot legdrop for two. Widow’s Peak is countered into a backdrop and wins with a big kick. For the record, this is Jackie’s first singles win on Raw since FEBRUARY OF 2000. It wouldn’t lead to a title win or anything like that. Were they that stuck on keeping the tag titles on the Canadians for thirteen more days?

Stevie comes out to check on Victoria post match. Back from a break and they won’t leave until Scott Steiner comes out to clear the ring. He’s a free agent at this point. Steiner hits on Victoria and reminds her that he’s Freakzilla. She says he doesn’t have what it takes and Stevie jumps him. A suplex sends him flying as does a gorilla press. Bischoff comes out and sucks up to Steiner. He has a special gift for Scott tonight and takes him to the back where a bunch of girls are waiting. However, he has a Super Freak in the limo. And it’s Stephanie. He would sign with Raw in like a week anyway.

It’s time for RNN BREAKING NEWS!!! This was a thing that Randy Orton did which I thought was brilliant. Orton had legit injured his shoulder and no one cared because he was a goofy kid that got on people’s nerves because he was so perky and excited to be here. The idea was that they were intentionally trying to recreate DIE ROCKY DIE but it didn’t work as well. The idea of the skits is that he gives updates on his shoulder, talking about how he has an irritation because of the sling and what percent its at and he treats it like world stopping news when no one cares. It actually worked really well as a heel idea.

Of course that doesn’t happen here because JR says we have breaking news that is more important. It’s Shawn and HHH in the back with HHH saying he wants the title. Heaven forbid we didn’t get this scene. Shawn says he’ll DQ HHH for doing anything wrong.

HHH vs. Rob Van Dam

Shawn is guest referee and the winner faces him at Armageddon. Also if Shawn isn’t a good referee, he loses the title. Flair is ejected before Rob’s intro. RVD jumps him to start and hits some kicks for early control. A few kicks get two each. HHH tries the Pedigree but gets backdropped to the floor. Out to the floor and Van Dam hits the spinning kick to the barricade onto HHH’s back.

Top rope kick to the face gets two. HHH gets a jumping knee but Shawn counts very slowly for him. Rob rolls him up and gets a very fast two count. Van Dam hooks a sleeper for awhile but the split legged moonsault misses. RVD misses a cross body off the ropes and hits Shawn who is down WAY longer than he usually would. Facebuster takes Rob down and HHH gets a chair. Shawn takes it away and Van Dam hits Rolling Thunder for no count. HHH clocks RVD with the chair to set up the obvious match with Shawn at Armageddon.

Rating: D. Much like the match earlier, everyone knew how this was going to end and the match was just a formality. Van dam could have been any jobber and he would have had the same chance at winning here. That would be the case for a long time on Raw: it’s about HHH and that’s it.

HHH and Shawn brawl and beat up referees to end the show. Shawn hits the superkick.

Overall Rating: F. That’ll likely be the first on many when I get to Raw in 2002. From about September 2002 until roughly Wrestlemania 21, HHH dominated things and the fact that NO ONE WANTED TO SEE IT didn’t mean anything. Evolution would form in February of 2003 and no one touched HHH other than a quick run by Goldberg and a ruined Benoit title reign. Bad show here as it seemed like no one cared in the slightest, and who can blame them?

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Clash of the Champions #26
Date: January 27, 1994
Location: Riverside Centroplex, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Attendance: 3,200
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan

This is the first show after Starrcade where Flair as a face won the world title. Tonight the main event is Vader/Rude vs. Flair/Sting in an elimination match, which should be pretty good at least. Other than that this looks like a pretty lackluster show. This was a pretty decent time in WCW’s history though but things would really start to click in about a month. Then Hogan would kill it so there we go. Let’s get to it.

Standard intro video which is decent enough for what it’s supposed to do.

Gene opens us up just in front of the entrance and gets an announcement in his earpiece. He can’t believe what’s going on. It’s bad news. It’s a nightmare. It’s BOBBY HEENAN! The fans are more or less shocked but break into a WEASEL chant. This was a pretty big move actually so it’s hard to complain. He left WWF because Vince doesn’t offer medical insurance, while Turner did. Heenan had a bad neck and left so he could get it fixed.

Pretty Wonderful vs. 2 Cold Scorpio/Marcus Bagwell

This is back when Scorpio was still awesome. Pretty Wonderful is Paul Orndorff and Paul Roma. This is a #1 contenders match. The Pauls have a masked manager called the Assassin, who later owned Deep South Wrestling and whose son is one Nick Patrick. Brain: I know who the Assassin is. Would you like to know? Tony: Of course. Brain: It’s the guy in the mask! I love Bobby Heenan. I truly do.

It’s nice to see Brain just jump in here and not be confused or anything. I guess he’s only on drink #1. Hot Shot by Roma to take down Bagwell. Interestingly enough Heenan is looking at what’s going on in the ring rather than on his monitor. I don’t remember any other announcers ever doing that. I still can’t get over Orndorff having a job in 1994. He would have kept one even longer had it not been for a neck injury.

I also don’t get how Roma stayed around as long as he did. What were they thinking when they made this guy a Horseman? We get a new commissioner tonight, and I’m pretty sure I remember who that is. Orndorff jumps into Scorpio’s boot and it lets Bagwell get the hot tag and clean house. After Scorpio goes to the floor we get a weird ending: Orndorff puts up his boot for Bagwell’s head to be rammed into. Bagwell blocks and in goes Roma’s head, for the pin. Yeah that’s how they won the match. Weird.

Rating: C-. Total run of the mill tag match here but it wasn’t awful. This could have been on any show other than a PPV and at least it had something of importance on it. The ending sucked which hurts it, but the other 12 minutes or so were fine. This was acceptable, which is a good term for it I guess.

Ah ok a replay shows that it was Orndorff’s knee and he had slipped something into it. That helps a lot.

Ron Simmons vs. Ice Train

Student vs. teacher here with no entrances for either guy as the bell is ringing when we come back from a break. Simmons is a heel here…I think. Yeah he is. Ice Train is a rather large man but he had little talent. Naturally I was always a fan of his. Train keeps using a 3 point stance before all of his moves. He hits the buckle, Simmons rolls him up with the trunks being held and it’s over.

Rating: N/A. Was there a point to this that I just completely missed? Simmons would be gone soon.

You can talk LIVE to Bobby Heenan after the show. Pay no attention to the *all programming is pre-recorded thing at the bottom of the screen.

Here are Steve Austin and Robert Parker. Austin is in a cowboy hat and suit jacket, much like JBL. He’s US Champion and managing Parker in his match with Flying Brian later. Austin does a funny Southern accent with a cigar in his mouth. Parker talks about a dog or something like that.

There’s a new commissioner, and it’s Nick Bockwinkle. You know, because SO many people know who that is right? Almost no reaction either, as he was from the AWA in the north so he’s perfect to introduce in Louisiana. This was just dumb, so of course they kept him on for almost two years until he legitimately forgot the name of the PPV he was on and they fired him because of it. And that’s it for this segment.

TV Title: Steven Regal vs. Dustin Rhodes

William Regal vs. Goldust for you young kids out there. Also, GORDON SOLIE is replacing Tony on commentary here. To anyone that has been a fan for a long time, you just smiled more than likely. Solie is clearly past his prime here as he makes some noticeable mistakes but hearing him get fired up is still great with that voice that sounds like an old aunt but he’s into things ever time, making him great for nostalgia if nothing else.

Basic feeling out process here to start as Solie talks about the body parts, including an argument with Heenan about how many vertebrae there are in the arm. Dustin works the arm and Regal does some solid selling. Keep in mind that this is Regal before he went insane on drugs and alcohol and doesn’t have a big gut and could MOVE. To prove my point, Regal nips up to get out of a wristlock. See what I mean?

Dustin does some nice stuff to outsmart Regal as this is a very technical/mat based match so far. Solie talks about the time issue which is definitely hinting at the ending already. I still can’t get over that it’s Bill Dundee as Regal’s manager. Regal gets a cobra clutch which gets him nowhere. This is a very basic match but that doesn’t mean it’s good or bad. Solie says the eternally stupid line of “they’re all the same size on the canvas.” No, not quite. Dustin is still taller than Regal, no matter what position he is.

We hit five minutes left and Regal continues to dominate. Make that four minutes. Nothing at all is happening here as we have nothing but Regal putting holds on Dustin. Dustin finally does something and it’s still not that good. Down to three minutes now as Regal stalls. Dustin of course keeps going after him while he’s on the floor, wasting like 40 seconds in the process.

Sunset flip by the British dude doesn’t work and here comes Dustin. Lariat takes him down with two minutes left. One minute left and Regal is on the floor again. Yep they’re doing that ending. Rhodes goes for the Bulldog and it gets one as the time runs out, mercifully ending this.

Rating: D. There’s a reason we don’t see more wrestling like this: IT’S BORING. That’s what this boils down to: this was boring. There was nothing at all going on here as it was mainly them just laying on the mat for about 10 minutes, Regal hiding for three and a half minutes, and maybe 90 seconds of actual wrestling. What’s the point in watching this if that’s all we’re going to get? Bad match and just boring.

Aaron Neville, some singer that no one cares about so naturally he got a bunch of singing gigs with the company. Yep, this was pointless.

Ad for Superbrawl, which for some reason was never released on VHS. I’ve never gotten that.

Maxx Payne/Cactus Jack vs. Nasty Boys

Missy Hyatt is managing the Nasty Boys, and you can make your own jokes about her knobs and how they sag. Cactus was getting more and more popular around this time, so of course he was cut as fast as possible. And there are no Cactus and Payne. They come through the crowd after a break and it’s on. It’s weird hearing Solie do commentary on a match with these guys in it.

Total brawl of course to start us off. Cactus elbow crushes Sags on the floor. We get to the point where we finally have a traditional tag match which surprises me. Sags hits a top rope cross body but Payne rolls through for two. Knobbs allegedly was a wrestling champion in the army and Payne was an amateur champion. Sure why not? NICE Double Arm DDT to Knobbs for two. Stupidly enough like a second later they just have Payne drop an elbow on Knobbs and Jack gets the pin.

Rating: D. Given who was in there, this was the best they were going to do, period. Jack was getting better every day out there but the other three have never really gotten anywhere else. This wasn’t much at all, as the matches they would have would get better when they were wild brawls. Those were rather good, unlike this.

We recap Pillman vs. Parker, which more or less is Pillman and Austin got split up (they committed the crime of being popular and talented) and Austin went with Parker while Brian went face. This somehow got a massive chicken suit involved.

Brian Pillman vs. Robert Parker

The loser has to wear a chicken suit….this weekend. Yeah for no apparent reason the chicken suit thing isn’t for about 3 days. Brian throws out KFC on his way to the ring. Parker is in regular tights which is rather disturbing. Pillman goes after Austin on the floor and gets caught because of it.

Parker runs, Pillman hits him. Repeat that about 5 times until the Boss (Big Boss Man) stops Parker from running again. And let’s repeat that just to make sure it was emphasized enough I suppose. Austin runs in and beats up Pillman as anything resembling a wrestling match is purely coincidental. More interference gets two for Parker until Boss runs off Austin, causing a rollup to beat Parker.

Rating: C-. It was entertaining, but this was just too much repetition. They kept doing the same thing over and over again which didn’t help things very much. We don’t need to see the same stuff that often to make it work, which is something that they just couldn’t get here for some reason. Entertaining though.

Ric Flair/Sting vs. Vader/Rick Rude

Sting and Rude are feuding over the International Title (WAY too long of a story to get into, but in short they had the physical NWA Title belt but weren’t part of the NWA, so they made this instead) and Flair vs. Vader is for the world title. It’s weird hearing Bobby cheer against Flair. This is under elimination rules for no adequately explained reason.

Bockwinkle is on commentary here just to continue the lack of getting it that WCW had with their authority figures until Bischoff arrived. Sting and Rude start us off and we get a feeling out process. Bobby: “We’ve got four world champions in this match and another on commentary that I managed. What do you do Tony?” Tony: “I play video games.” Total WTF moment there. Can you imagine him playing Madden or something?

Vader comes in and just annihilates Sting. Vader gets a sunset flip OFF THE MIDDLE ROPE. That was perfect looking too, which is just freaking scary. I know he’s good but at times he’s almost terrifying with what he could pull off. The mask comes off and suddenly I can see the 4 inches of his face that we’re covered. I never got the point of that mask but whatever.

Flair comes in and just beats the crap out of Vader, putting him down. Even Sting couldn’t do that earlier. If anything happens during the break we’ll show you. Since nothing is shown from the break, I would assume they stood around while performing life-affirming skits involving saying no to drugs or perhaps a song and dance routine from South Pacific. Rude is beating up Sting when we come back.

Flair comes in for the save and we get to see Rude sell an atomic drop which is worth the price of admission (this was on free TV so that’s a pointless statement) alone. Vader Bomb hits before it was called that but Race says go up again. Middle rope suplex gets almost no reaction which is odd. Top rope version gets about the same. Hey, did you know Flair was in a plane crash? Didn’t think telling us that in EVERY FLAIR MATCH EVER was enough clarification.

Vader goes after Bockwinkle, probably because he had to watch one of his matches back in the day, and I guess Flair and Vader got counted out. Flair had to be helped out. That leaves Sting vs. Rude which is almost always fun. This is just a standard 8 minute match between these two. It’s good but at the end of the day, so what? Sting gets a Rude Awakening on Rude but gets two because it’s just a neckbreaker. BIG splash from the top by Sting gets the pin. RVD has nothing on Sting from the early 90s when it came to jumping.

Rating: C+. It’s ok but this got over 20 minutes worth of time and all it really boils down to is a double countout and a clean pin for Sting. It’s not bad or anything, but the lack of meaning or drama hurt it a lot. Sting was better than Rude and he beat him clean. What’s the point in watching that? The pairing was big though and it fit for a show of this magnitude so I can give it points for that. This was fine for what it was, but it’s not particularly good.

Overall Rating: D. This just didn’t do it for me at all. This was a BAD period for WCW but things would pick up soon after this. For one thing, Dusty Rhodes got fired as booker and one Ric Flair took over. His first act: rehire Ricky Steamboat and have him just own everyone, setting up a clash between them that was rather good. And then Hogan showed up and got rid of all that so guys like Orndorff and Duggan could get pushed over Austin and Steamboat. Sure why not. This wasn’t much of a show and it just shows how bad the time period was for them. Not worth seeing at all really.

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Impact Wrestling
Date: February 23, 2012
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Tazz

The interesting part of this show is that during the week since the last Impact, Sting sent out a tweet that read “I’m Done.” Now while it’s likely that this is just a storyline element for his presumed match with Roode at the PPV, it should be interesting to see where this goes. Let’s get to it.

We open with a recap of how Roode has cheated to keep the title every time.

Here’s Roode to open the show in an awesome looking suit. Roode talks about the tweet from Sting that says he’s done. Sting will be here tonight though to tell the world that he’s done. He talks about how Sting has been to war with guys like Luger, Flair, Vader and Hogan, but it was Roode that made Sting give up. The only thing he has to say to Sting is don’t let the door hit you on the way out. I liked this promo a lot.

Morgan yells at Crimson about spearing him to lose the titles. Crimson says it’ll be cool tonight.

Tag Titles: Crimson/Matt Morgan vs. Samoa Joe/Magnus

No break before the match which is a plus. The challengers jump the champs before the match and it’s Joe vs. Morgan to start. Off to Crimson vs. Magnus as Tenay plugs the MMA show that debuts after this. A running knee to the chest puts Magnus down and the overly complicated former finisher that he called the Red Alert gets two. Joe pulls Magnus out of the way so that Crimson hits the post as we take a break.

Back with Crimson’s comeback attempt being stopped by a rake to the eyes. A spinebuster puts Joe down though and is enough to bring in Magnus. Discus clothesline puts Joe down and it’s an old school double noggin knocker. Magnus gets a boot up in the corner but jumps into a spinning Rock Bottom for two. The challengers take over but again Crimson accidentally hits Morgan, this time with a clothesline. The champs hit their finishing combo for the pin at 9:00.

Rating: C. Hopefully this ends this feud and we can start up Morgan vs. Crimson so we can get Crimson on to something else. He’s been stuck with Morgan for months now and it’s not doing either of them any favors. It’s good that the tag champs keep the belts here too so they can go on and do something else. Decent match too so I can’t complain much here at all.

Here’s Brandon Jacobs, the running back from the Giants. He talks about being a Super Bowl Champion and being here with his friend James Storm last week. Then Bully Ray jumped him during the celebration. Well tonight he’s back and he wants another shot at Bully. His talking really isn’t that bad. He clearly isn’t used to talking but he gets the point across and doesn’t sound like he’s miserable being here.

Cue Ray who brags about being a 23 time champion as opposed to Jacobs’ one. Jacobs isn’t saying anything but the fans cheer his name. He invites Ray in so Ray yells at the fans some more. Ray teases coming down but stops to make fun of Jacobs’ yards in the Super Bowl. Jacobs says he’ll come get Ray. He gets out of the ring and Ray runs as we go to a break.

Back and Jacobs is still looking for Ray. He runs into Storm and Hardy. Storm whispers something to him and that’s that.

Zema Ion vs. Alex Shelley

Ion jumps Alex to start and sprays hairspray. Aries comes out with popcorn and wine to watch the show. Alex hits a sweet slingshot splash for two. Ion vs. Aries at Victory Road. Missile dropkick knocks Ion to the floor but he rams Shelley’s head into the apron to take over. Back in Alex hits a dragon screw leg whip and then he chops away. A clothesline puts Ion on the floor and Shelley hits a suicide dive. Ion puts the hairspray can into his tights and shoves Shelley almost into the ref. He sprays Alex in the eyes and a double knee Shining Wizard ends this at 3:56.

Rating: C. Not bad here but they’ve got an issue with the heel vs. heel title match that they’re going to have to do. That being said, it could actually work with Ion as he’s not really friends with Aries so it works out pretty well. It’s not going to be a classic or anything but it should be ok.

We recap Garrett/Hogan vs. Eric/Gunner from the PPV.

Garrett says he isn’t discouraged by what his dad said last week. Hogan questions if Garrett should keep going because Garrett has nothing to prove. It basically turns into Hogan saying your life will suck and Garrett saying he’ll keep going for a few minutes.

Madison says Sting hasn’t been fair to him so she hopes he’s gone. As for Gail, Madison being the #1 contender means nothing for their friendship.

Gail Kim vs. ODB

Eric is here with ODB. Gail implies she’s better looking than ODB and I can’t say I disagree. Eric gets up on the apron for a tag. ODB takes her down with a chest bump and Tenay talks about Chris Brown for some reason. There’s a bronco buster to Gail and a fall away slam. Gail tries to hold onto the ropes for mercy and manages to kick ODB in the head. Eric keeps trying to get in the ring because he’s crazy you see.

Now he’s on the apron and Gail hits kind of a running shoulder to the ribs in the corner for two. Gail hooks the Octopus Hold but ODB counters with a side slam. Madison comes out for no apparent reason as ODB takes a shot from the flask. A corner Thesz Press gets two but the Bam (TKO) is countered into Eat Defeat for the pin at 5:58.

Rating: D+. Not a bad match here but the story of “I love you even though I keep screwing things up” is getting a little boring. Then again they’re still miles ahead of the Divas so I can’t complain. Not to mention ODB didn’t help anything as she and Eric don’t amuse me at all. Hey they’re wacky and different. We get it already and we got it months ago.

AJ wants the world title.

Video on Jesse Sorensen who talks about what it was like when he couldn’t get up. His mom talks about how scared she was.

TV Title: AJ Styles vs. Robbie E

AJ is all serious again. He rams Robbie into the corners and hits a backbreaker to control early. He hooks the bridging Indian Deathlock with the chinlock but lets it go. Robbie crawls to the floor and hides behind Big Rob. Back in Robbie takes over and hits a Russian legsweep for two. Robbie beats on him a little more until AJ makes his comeback. There’s the dropkick and AJ hits the corner clothesline to set up a pumphandle backbreaker for two. Big Rob comes in to break up the Clash but doesn’t touch AJ so we keep going. Pele hits and here are Daniels and Kaz with Kaz interfering for the DQ at 4:52.

Rating: C-. Not bad here but FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS GOOD AND HOLY GET AJ AWAY FROM THESE TWO ALREADY!!! We get it: Daniels hates AJ and always will. I’m even ok with it being AJ vs. Kaz but drop the Daniels aspect. They’ve done that feud so many times and I just do not care anymore.

Daniels looks shocked at what Kaz just did.

Jeff Hardy/James Storm vs. Bully Ray/Kurt Angle

Ray cuts off his big match intro and does it himself. Storm gets the crowd fired up pre match and brings out Jacobs to be in their corner. Storm and Angle start us off and James controls. Ray distracts him though and Angle gets in a shot to take over. Hardy comes in and Angle runs. Back from a break with Hardy gets two on Ray from the Whisper in the Wind. Hardy gets beaten down for awhile and we hear that AJ has demanded a gauntlet match with Kaz and Daniels.

Angle comes in and suplexes Hardy before he can get out. Back to Ray who gets caught by the mule kick and it’s off to Storm. He cleans house for a bit but Ray takes him down. They get a table but it gets kicked into their faces. The good guys try to set up a table but Ray and Angle make the save. Last Call out of nowhere takes Angle down and Jacobs gets in. They get in a three point stance and Storm hits Ray in the face. Jacobs chokeslams him through the table (good one too) and Storm gets the pin at 13:23. The referee is totally cool with this apparently.

Rating: C. I wasn’t wild on this one. I’m not wild on most main event tags though because they don’t really mean anything. Jacobs’ thing is hopefully over now but at least he came off pretty well here. I’m assuming it’ll be Hardy vs. Angle at Victory Road but it hasn’t been announced yet I don’t think.

Jacobs says Storm’s catchphrase to Ray and drinks some beer.

Here’s Sting for the announcement about him being done. He talks about how Roode has pushed him over the edge. Here’s Roode who says that Sting needs to admit to everyone that it was Roode that won the war. Sting says Roode didn’t win any war and there go the glasses. Sting says Roode helped him out and woke him up. He smears some black paint on his face and says that there’s no more half doing it and no more Mr. nice guy. He makes Sting vs. Roode at Victory Road and Roode is panicked. Roode goes to kick him low but Sting catches it and kicks Roode low instead.

Overall Rating: B. I have very few complaints about this show. They set up Sting vs. Roode at Victory Road among a few other matches on that show. Also the Jacobs thing was fine and there wasn’t a bad match on the whole show. This worked pretty well and was one of the better Impacts I can remember in awhile. Gee they got rid of Russo and things got better. Who would have guessed that?

Results
Magnus/Samoa Joe b. Crimson/Matt Morgan – Middle Rope Elbow To Morgan
Zima Ion b. Alex Shelley – Double Knee Shining Wizard
Gail Kim b. ODB – Eat Defeat
AJ Styles b. Robbie E via DQ when Kazarian interfered
James Storm/Jeff Hardy b. Bully Ray/Kurt Angle – Storm pinned Ray after a chokeslam from Brandon Jacobs

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NXT
Date: February 22, 2012
Location: BMO Harris Bank Center, Rockford, Illinois
Commentators: Josh Matthews, William Regal

This show still isn’t up on WWE.com and I had to find it on Youtube. Apparently if you watch it on here, they cut out all the commercials and the show is about 12 minutes shorter. I think I could get used to this. Anyway this is the 51st episode of this season, making next week a milestone in its own right. Let’s get to it.

We open with Striker in the ring but he’s quickly cut off by Hawkins and Reks. Let me guess: they want more time. Hawkins has the Obama shirt on still and complains about being put in an impromptu match last week. Tyson Kidd comes out to interrupt and talks about how the fans want to see high impact fast paced offense. Reks and Hawkins can’t even get into the main event properly. Reks says the two of them are the future. Striker has authority back apparently and here’s a match.

Tyson Kidd vs. Tyler Reks

Reks takes him to the mat and grabs the wrist. Hawkins tries to cheat and is thrown out. Kidd dives on both of them and we take a break. Back with Kidd missing a charge into the corner and off to a double underhook. The match just dies with Reks in control. He ducks his head and Kidd gets a kick to the face to get some momentum. He loads up a sunset flip but winds up backdropping Reks to the floor. A running knee from the apron puts Reks down again. Springboard missile dropkick gets two.

Reks comes back and hits a reverse fallaway slam for two. Tyler goes up top but Kidd runs up to try a superplex. Kidd gets knocked off but he hits a kick to slow Reks down. Tyson goes up again but gets caught in a fireman’s carry while Reks is on the ropes. He drops Kidd ribs first onto the buckle for two. In another homage to Bret, Reks drops a leg between Kidd’s legs but Tyson grabs the foot ala Summerslam 1991. He pulls Reks into the Sharpshooter for the tap out at 8:36 shown.

Rating: C+. Quick summary of this match: Reks boring, Kidd good. The problem is that Kidd isn’t going to get a serious push on either show because he’s too small and there isn’t room for him on Raw or Smackdown. I’m all for him getting a push though, especially if he’s getting time like he has for the last two weeks. Reks is just bad though.

Maxine yells at Bateman who is wearing an American Psycho t-shirt. She’s going to find a way off this show. Maxine walks off and Bateman runs into Kaitlyn. Bateman wants to have fun and go win the Intercontinental Title. Please, give me another Godfather reign before that. They have an awkward moment where they’re friends that accidentally flirt. Bateman leaves and Curtis comes in to be creepy. She knees him in the groin and leaves. Good grief get some better actors please.

Striker is playing the guitar when Kaitlyn comes in. She thinks he’s doing a great job and would like a rematch with Maxine. Maxine comes in and they act all catty with each other. Maxine wants to get out of NXT because she can’t be around Kaitlyn anymore. I think the end result is the rematch Kaitlyn wanted.

We get hopefully the only Raw recap video on here: Eve’s saga with Cena.

Kidd is on the phone with someone that needs to get back on NXT. Apparently it’s Barretta. McGillicutty comes in and says he drove six hours to get here and he doesn’t have a match. He talks to Kidd and says that Kidd will never be one of them because he’s not a second generation guy. A match is made for next week.

Titus O’Neil vs. Alex Riley

Young is on commentary here. Titus clotheslines him down and starts a Let’s Go A-Ri chant. Riley gets up and O’Neil bails for a bit. He ducks his head though and Riley is sent to the floor. Percy comes out to stop Young from interfering. Riley is rammed into the table and we take a break. Back with Riley in a chinlock as Watson and Young get in an argument. Riley makes his comeback but when he tries ten punches in the corner, Titus powerbombs him out and puts his feet on the ropes for the pin at 4:56 shown.

Rating: C-. Better match here for the most part and I’m starting to buy O’Neil as a heel. However, I’d like to see him use his power more. I’m not saying make him the bald Mark Henry, but use it some. Being the guy who acts the same way but cheats to win instead of doing it through sheer skill is a nice change of pace though.

Striker pops up on screen and says next week is the one year anniversary of NXT. Actually it’s the 52nd episode so the anniversary would be the next week but WWE has never been good at complicated things like calendars. Next week there’s going to be a huge announcement that will effect everyone on NXT. I won’t hold my breath on that.

Don’t be a bully! That ends the show.

Overall Rating: C. Well despite Regal not having power anymore, I’m somewhat intrigued by what might be coming from this announcement. There are a bunch of things that could make NXT a lot more interesting, from an NXT Championship to some new faces to someone actually being eliminated to ANYTHING to fight for other than pride. Good show this week as things seem to be shaking up a little bit.

Results
Tyson Kidd b. Tyler Reks – Sharpshooter
Titus O’Neil b. Alex Riley – Pinned Riley after a powerbomb with his feet on the ropes

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