Monday Nitro
Date: September 14, 1998
Location: BI-LO Center, Greenville, South Carolina
Attendance: 12,236
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan, Mike Tenay, Larry Zbyszko

Ok so this is a one promo show. The main event is Goldberg vs. Sting, but no one remembers that. This is about one moment, which is the return of Ric Flair. Flair had been gone for about six months, having been thrown out by Bischoff in a real life feud. Flair had missed Thunder, so Bischoff threw him out to make himself look like a big deal and to say that Flair was nothing.

To say this went badly is like saying I watch wrestling a little bit. The fans WENT OFF over this, loudly drowning out promos for weeks on end with chants of WE WANT FLAIR. Bischoff refused to accept that Flair simply was a god in WCW fans’ eyes and there was no way around it. He could be out there in a Hawaiian shirt doing a river dance and singing La Cucharacha and they would cheer him. Actually, that happened at one point and they did in fact cheer him.

Tonight, HE’S BACK. Naturally WCW didn’t bother to let anyone know about this and of course lost the ratings war that night, but to be fair Rock and Mankind turned face and Taker went crazy and Austin defended the title, so maybe it wasn’t their fault. Wait it’s WCW, of course it’s their fault. This is a promo that is considered one of Flair and Anderson’s best ever, so that should give you a hint about what’s coming. Let’s get to it.

The Nitro Girls dance us into the show. This is the follow up to War Games and Fall Brawl last night.

Tony and Larry say Flair might be here and we get a LOUD Flair chant. Now they want Goldberg. They’re rather fickle no?

Tenay is at the airport in Greenville and says Flair might be here. A limo pulls away from an airplane that might have Flair in it. The pilot won’t answer either.

We get a clip of Ernest Miller who is now a heel. Has nothing to do with the first match but whatever.

Alex Wright vs. Van Hammer

Wright is still the same guy he used to be and Hammer is now a hippie. Tony and Larry point out that Sting vs. Goldberg is a PPV match like the idiots that they are. Wright is the heel here, which goes against any basic booking sense you can think of but whatever. The Flock was broken up last night apparently so this might be his debut as a hippie.

We head to the floor and here comes Ernest Miller. He kicks Hammer in the back of the head for the DQ. Ok then. And I’m sure the video aired on him in a TOTAL coincidence right? Security gets rid of him.

Rating: N/A. Just a thing to be a backdrop for Miller. Why did this guy keep getting pushed? I never remember anyone caring about him. I think I just answered my own question.

Here’s Bret, who was hurt last night. He’s supposed to be a face but he’s treated as a heel anyway. He’s US Champion and booed badly. Bret never felt right in WCW at all. Hogan lied a lot apparently, which suggests that Bret is rather stupid. He can’t wrestle for awhile and the US Title is going to be vacated. Bret doesn’t know why he has the title at this point either. Could it be that he won it? Ok….so he’s not vacating it.

Roddy Piper of all people comes out to talk to him. Great to see WCW pushing youth like this with a feud that was done over six and a half years ago. Piper sounds like he smoked about 9 packs that morning and he can barely breathe. Naturally Roddy has had it worse than Bret does right now but that goes without saying. Basically he says to man up and invokes Bill Clinton, drawing a ton of boos (Lewinsky era mind you). Bret wants another chance from the people and leaves too.

We get some pictures from Raven vs. Saturn last night, including Kidman turning on Raven to help Saturn. This was supposed to give Saturn a big push, but since he’s not 40 that never happened.

Saturn vs. Kendall Windham

Windham is Barry’s brother and far less talented. He’s a big old country boy in jeans. Now keep in mind that he’s not like the other 84 country boys in jeans. This is the one that’s Barry’s brother. They just kind of ram into each other which gets neither guy anywhere. Naturally the night after the biggest win of his career in WCW so far, Saturn is getting beaten up by a guy most famous for being Barry Windham’s brother.

Top rope splash misses as Saturn looks like an inept jobber here. The announcers point out that this is kind of weird, which is never a good sign. Larry says Saturn is a down to earth man. Wow that’s rather funny. This is freaking idiotic, and I never even liked Saturn. Windham uses a big boot that misses so badly that the fans LOUDLY boo it. They were booing already but this was far more than that.

Saturn makes a brief comeback and the fans respond. Since he’s young though we END THAT IMMEDIATELY and let the big old country boy take over, because that’s what the people want to see right? A guy that is related to one of the awesome guys that was great ten years ago dominating a young and popular and good worker. That’s basic wrestling people! Rollup for Saturn gets two.

T-Bone Suplex is called a fallaway slam as Saturn FINALLY takes over for a bit. He hits a middle rope elbow which is cool as I’ve always like the way he dropped one of those. Well so much for the Saturn offense for now as a spinning neckbreaker takes care of that. Death Valley Driver, Saturn’s finisher, ends this out of nowhere.

Rating: D. WCW did some weird stuff back in the day, such as hiring Jay Leno for PPVs, getting KISS to do concerts on TV, and giving Kendall Windham vs. Saturn ten minutes on Monday Nitro. This got more time than most Raw main events, while other stuff will be lucky to get two minutes. This was a regular occurrence at the time actually and no one is really sure why. Saturn getting dominated for most of the match was freaking stupid but what do you really expect from this company?

The Flock comes down and Raven yells at them from the audience saying their 24 hours is up and the joke is over. Kanyon is the only one left with Raven at this point. Saturn says they don’t have to be with Raven as they all have talent. As much garbage as he says, he does a good job of motivating them. Lodi tries to go back to him but Kidman stops him. The rest of them leave though, which begs the question of why were they coming to the ring in the first place.

Wrath vs. Renegade

Wow I just watched Renegade be told that he was no longer Renegade anymore. He would wrestle like 8 times a year for WCW anymore, so this would be one of those instances. He has no face paint or anything special at all about him so that helps a bit. They wanted Wrath to be a big deal but that never happened due to high levels of suck found in him, which sadly ended his career. Meltdown (Pumphandle Powerslam, or a solid e-fed wrestling show) ends this in like a minute.

Tony asks who can stop Wrath. That would be the epic power of Rick Steiner.

This would be about the time Raw would start, so here’s Hulk! This was during the Warrior period, which actually drew higher ratings than Raw for a few consecutive weeks. Liz in leather chaps and jeans with a black t-shirt: wow. Hogan complains about Warrior and says little things like living forever, which were huge lines 8 and a half years ago. Hogan actually makes the challenger here and the ring fills with smoke.

That was Warrior’s thing, he could disappear in a cloud of smoke. The smoke clears and Disciple is gone. Yep that’s the whole thing. Hogan makes his own acting look good.

Kaz Hayashi is hurt so Kidman gets his Cruiserweight Title shot instead.

Cruiserweight Title: Kidman vs. Juventud Guerrera

This is Kidman’s first match as a face and he’s far cleaner looking now. Both guys are pretty much faces and both guys are incredibly fast. Juvy dominates to start as we talk about Sting vs. Goldberg. Nice powerslam for Kidman gets two. I’m not sure how much power it had but you get the idea. Tony talks about Cruiserweights going into the heavyweight ranks and succeeding. Such nonsense. That could never happen.

Juvy takes over again and we take a break. Tenay is back when we get back THANK GOODNESS so we can have someone that actually knows this stuff. Slingshot legdrop by Kidman as he controls now. This has been a solid match so far as you would expect. Naturally we talk about Flair and the Horsemen instead of the good match so there you are. That sums up WCW pretty well.

Sitout spinebuster gets two for Kidman and the fans freak, thinking it was over. They’re interested in this for sure. Nice wheelbarrow suplex gets two for the American. Kidman covers, gets two, stands up and walks around then covers again. That just looked odd. Release German gets two for Juvy. Very solid match so far.

Juvy Driver is blocked into a reverse suplex for two and the crowd is WAY into this. Kidman goes up for the Shooting Star but gets crotched. When he was in the Flock it was the Seven Year Itch which was an awesome name for it, especially if you like old films. A missile dropkick is caught into another sitout spinebuster and the Shooting Star ends it clean. Juvy, Saturn and the whole crowd applauds.

Rating: B+. Very good match here, especially for just thrown together on TV. Kidman was something special, so of course he didn’t do anything of note for years. When Juvy wasn’t a drugged up mess he could definitely go and this was a great example of that. Solid match indeed and worth seeing considering it’s about 11 minutes long.

Dillon, Anderson and someone that might have been Flair went into a locker room. They’re kind of messing up the whole surprise aspect here.

Jackie Chan gives us a look at some movie called Rush Hour. Oh that’s coming later after Nitro.

Bischoff throws Eddie out of the company and sends him to Japan. Those two legitimately hated each other and you could feel that a lot.

Barbarian vs. Davey Boy Smith

Let’s get this over with. This is another great example of stuff that wouldn’t be on TV if this wasn’t a three hour show but it has to be so we can fill time. No feud here or anything but just two guys having a match. The commentators say nothing about this match other than “Barbarian and Davey Boy Smith get started.” I can’t say I blame them here though as it’s not like anyone cares about this.

Barbarian sets him for a powerslam and falls backwards, which somehow hurts Barbarian. They talk about the match for a bit and actually stick to it. Davey gets dominated but sets for the powerslam like there’s nothing wrong. Hart saves it but a few seconds later Smith hits the WORST SLAM EVER for the win. They call it a powerslam but it looked more like Smith fell over and used Barbarian as a thing to hold onto.

Rating: F. It’s really that bad. Not only did no one want to see it but the match itself was bad. This is going up against Mick Foley on Raw. And people wonder why WCW lost.

Dillon is in the ring in a tuxedo, promising to take care of Bagwell and Steiner for what they pulled. They announce Steiner vs. Steiner for Halloween Havoc, even though it was supposed to happen last night. The lights flicker and we hear an evil laugh. My guess is this was never explained.

The Nitro Girls dance some more.

We see the winner of the Nitro Party Pack. This was a thing they did where they showed people watching Nitro with their friends and the best (however that was determined) got a prize which was never really explained.

Heenan takes over for Larry on commentary.

Jim Neidhart comes out and the ring fills with smoke again. Warrior is here with an unconscious Disciple (Brutus Beefcake). The NWO comes out and Warrior gets to talk. He babbles on for a good while before accepting the challenge from Hogan for Halloween Havoc. Oh dear. Smoke fills up again and they’re gone. You can kind of see the outline of the trapdoor.

Silver King/Norman Smiley vs. Scott Steiner

Bagwell is with Steiner here, having recently faked a crippling neck injury, which really happened but the injuries weren’t permanent. It’s total domination for about two minutes and then the double Steiner Recliner ends it. Did you expect something else? If so, why? Steiner might have hurt his back.

Hey look more dancing to waste time.

Hour three begins and we talk about an attack on Arn Anderson to mess up his chances of winning an arm wrestling match with Bischoff. The important thing about this: I was in the 4th row.

The Giant vs. Meng

Giant was about 4 months from jumping to WWF as the Big Show. Ok, so I know this looks like a squash on paper and it only lasts about three minutes, but SWEET GOODNESS this was a FIGHT. They just beat the heck out of each other the entire time with Giant not being able to hurt Meng at all. Punches, chops, headbutts and whatever else Giant had got nothing at all and Meng just yelled at him.

Meng hits two huge kicks to the side of the head and Giant is rocked. Keep in mind that Meng is a jobber to the stars at this point and hasn’t had a meaningful match in about three years. Imagine Kozlov giving Orton or Cena a great fight. Meng goes for the Tongan Death Grip, his finishing hold, but Giant grabs him by the throat. In a cool idea, Meng’s arm isn’t long enough to get the hold on and Giant can get the chokeslam for the ending. That was AWESOME.

Rating: A. Yes, an A for a 3 minute match. It’s that cool. If this wasn’t at least partially a shoot, they deserve some kind of award for acting. I remember seeing this match when I was a kid and thought it was great back then. It certainly holds up.

Here come Hall and Vincent. This was during the Hall is an alcoholic angle, which was started by Hall getting arrested for drunk driving. He wrecked 5 cars in this one year alone. Naturally WCW say MONEY in this somehow. Hall stumbles into the ring and drops his tag belt, barely able to speak allegedly. I have never liked angles like this and I never will. But hey it’s Scott Hall so we can laugh at his real life problems right? On a semi-unrelated note, did Hall ever win a big match other than World War 3?

Lex Luger vs. Scott Hall

Luger is NWO red and Hall is NWO white. The Wolfpack theme is still awesome. The announcers say Hall is one of the top five in the world. I thought Hall was the one drinking. Hall does the toothpick throw as we stall for a LONG time. Two minutes in and no contact yet. A wristlock doesn’t work as in it doesn’t go on, but that’s our contact so far. Hall stops for a drink and falls into the ring.

Hey there’s a headlock. A bunch of reversals and Hall winds up in the ropes. Luger goes for a tie up and Hall just falls down before laying on his stomach and won’t move anywhere. Vincent is apparently annoyed which you can’t blame him for. Considering this is a year or so before the Jake Roberts incident, this is all the sadder. I know it’s fake here, but again this isn’t something you make fun of.

Luger yells at Hall to get it together and here’s Eric, power walking to the ring. He says he can’t save Hall from everything and tries to get Hall to leave. Here are Nash and Konnan as we’re having an intervention on live TV. Hall has another drink and vomits on Bischoff. We go to a break to end this.

Rating: F. No. Just no.

And now, to the reason we’re here.

James J Dillon comes to the ring in a tux and a HUGE We Want Flair chant. He asks Anderson to come to the ring and we get the Horsemen theme song, which is just awesome. Keep in mind that this is in South Carolina so the fans are loving this very much. Dillon apologizes for saying something earlier, which I guess was reform the Horsemen or something like that.

Arn says this is what a pop smells like, and tells Dillon to take a bow. Dillon told Arn to be a man and stand up. Tonight is a new beginning for the Horsemen. That’s well received. Arn says that he’s always wanted to be a wrestler but can’t do that anymore. LOUD Flair chant and Anderson says you’ll get what you want tonight. He brings in the other Horsemen, starting with Mongo.

He never really fit with the team, but he always seemed like he was trying. His music was SWEET if nothing else. Benoit, the guy credited with restarting the team comes down, actually in a suit which is a weird look for him. We also meet the newest Horseman: Dean Malenko. He was in the group already, but this was his official induction I think. Arn said he wanted to bring out the other three Horsemen, so this would imply Arn, Benoit, Mongo and Malenko are the Horsemen now.

Anderson says Benoit is the finest in the world today. Dean is tiny. Mongo is all man and very tough and Anderson says he’s awesome. Malenko is told that he exemplifies being a Horseman and Arn apologizes for not getting it before. Arn caps us off and the Horsemen are BACK. Wait he forgot something. “I almost forgot the fourth Horseman. RIC FLAIR! GET ON DOWN HERE!”

What follows isn’t exactly a mega pop like HHH got when he came back in 02, but rather one of pure respect. This is like the retirement night where it’s all about how awesome this really is. It’s a moment. That’s the best way to put it. Everyone is on their feet and won’t stop cheering. Flair says this is real rather than something bought and paid for. Flair says this is still real blast it.

Flair then goes on a crazed rant against Bischoff, talking about how Bischoff says the Horsemen aren’t dead no matter what Bischoff says and no matter what Bischoff wants, this is REAL. And here’s Bischoff to take the spotlight off of Flair again and make it all about himself. There goes the jacket and Flair shouts that Bischoff is abusing his power and that he sucks. This is a great rant from Flair and probably the definitive one from the WCW years. They cut to a break once Flair goes off even more.

Ok, so what did all of this lead to? See, this all started in a meeting with most of the WCW talent. Bischoff, with Flair in the room, said that no one on the roster other than Piper, Savage or Hogan had ever drawn any money. Not Sting, not Luger, not Flair, not Hart, just those three. Bischoff I think honestly believed that and in interviews later, once WCW was closed, he said he’d do it again today.

Then came the aforementioned Thunder taping where Flair went to North Carolina to watch his son compete in a wrestling tournament. Bischoff, believing his lies about Flair not being worth anything, suspended him for no showing, even though Flair had told a higher up that he was going to miss the show and was told he could do so. He wasn’t even booked on it and if he was it was a completely replaceable appearance.

Anyway, what Bischoff didn’t get was that while allegedly Hogan and Piper and Savage had drawn all the money, the WCW fans often only stayed because these guys were against Flair. This led to the huge WE WANT FLAIR chants that the company had to ignore on TV since Bischoff told them not to acknowledge them. This becomes a real problem as for about 6 months the fans all wanted Flair but Bischoff insisted they didn’t want Flair since no one paid to see him.

So then this happens as Bischoff FINALLY breaks down and lets him come back. What happens next? Flair had a “heart attack” on Thunder and was taken off TV again for about a month before returning to fight Bischoff at Starrcade, where Bischoff of course beat him. Flair became the crazed power mad dude that he accused Bischoff of being soon thereafter, making Flair the running joke of the company.

When the ratings plummeted, they put the world title back on Flair, naturally bringing them back up. So of course they took it right back off of him and took him off TV, since it wasn’t him that was drawing the people, but rather….well something that wasn’t Flair. The Horsemen became just a bunch of people that got beaten down by the NWO on a regular basis until it was really just Benoit and Malenko holding up four fingers for a few months until they dropped it altogether, ending it for good.

The announcers talk about how awesome that was, and for once they’re right.

Here’s DDP, the new #1 contender. He’d get that shot at Halloween Havoc which was one of the final nails in WCW’s coffin. We’ll get to that one later and I can’t wait for it. DDP sits at the announce table and welcomes back Flair. DDP is going to do commentary for the main event, replacing Heenan I guess.

Ad for Halloween Havoc, focusing on Hogan/Warrior instead of the world title match. Wow they got that put together quickly since the match was only accepted about an hour ago.

WCW World Title: Sting vs. Goldberg

Yep this couldn’t be the main event of Starrcade or anything like that. No gloves for Sting here for no apparent reason. I’ve always kind of wondered why Goldberg, the machine that he was, needed to have a police escort. DDP talks about knowing Goldberg a long time ago which is like BS but whatever. Goldberg is listed as the WCW/NWO World Champion. I can’t believe it’s September of 98 and that’s still going on.

Next Monday is Goldberg’s one year anniversary. He, the world champion, wasn’t on the show at all. Goldberg is listed here as 6’5. According to the NFL he’s 6’2 and a half. I love overhype. Pretty much a cat and mouse game to start as neither can really get a clear cut advantage. Goldberg overpowers him which is a rarity for Sting. His strength is underrated.

This is an interesting match, but why is it on Nitro in the middle of September on the night after a PPV? Test of Strength goes to Goldberg as he has dominated most of this match. Sting busts out a Tombstone of all things and Goldberg does indeed sell it. Two Stinger Splashes and make it three but Goldberg is fine. Spear hits the post and now we’re getting going.

Scorpion is mostly applied but it’s not on very well at all. Tenay: “It’s almost a deathlock at this point instead of the Scorpion.” You know, instead of the Scorpion Deathlock. And here’s Hogan to kick Sting in the head. Goldberg didn’t see it though and the spear and Jackhammer hit for the pin. Hogan jumps Goldberg immediately but here’s Bret. They chase off Hogan and Goldberg helps Sting up to end the show.

Rating: D+. Not much of a match as it’s really just thrown on. This would have been really good if they had more time and a bigger environment and less Hogan but that couldn’t happen since this is Hogan’s show and we’re all just on it. This mind you is a great example of what was wrong with Hogan at the time. The ONLY connection he had to Goldberg was that he said he wanted the title from him, which everyone said.

Sting wound up fighting Bret at Havoc, Hogan had Warrior and DDP had Goldberg. In other words, there was more or less no reason to have Hogan here other than to make sure he was in the last match of the show.  This took away from Goldberg/Sting, which shouldn’t have been on this show anyway, but you get the idea.

Overall Rating: B. This was better than the other three hour one I did recently for sure. This actually was a good show and perhaps even a very good show. The focus here was on Flair, but it should have been. The main event was more or less a waste but what did you really expect? The Cruiserweight match was good, Meng/Giant was good (depending on your taste that is) and the Flair segment is legendary.

The first 40 minutes or so are worthless, but that’s typical WCW. Other than that, this was a well done show but it BEGS to be two hours instead of three. If this was two hours long instead of three, I likely would have watched it over Raw. There was just no point to the extra hour and it started hurting things a lot. Anyway, good show and DEFINITELY check out the Flair moment as it’s epic to put it mildly.

Monday Nitro
Date: September 4, 2000
Location: Reunion Arena, Dallas, Texas
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Mark Madden, Jeremy Borash

So this is another one of those shows I’m doing because it had a special match on it. This is the final “Wargames” match although it’s only that in name only. This is five years to the day after Nitro debuted so they wanted to have one big match for the sake of having one big match. Raw was in Lexington on this night and for the life of me I do not know why I didn’t go. This is back in the day of the two hour Nitros so the pain doesn’t have to be as long this time. It’s a one match show so let’s get to it.

We open to a video about the match which is called Russo’s Revenge, which even though it’s the triple cage from Slamboree and Ready to Rumble and a tag match, the world title is on the line. You know, because that makes sense. It’s called Russo’s Revenge and War Games 2000.

Russo’s Team, Nash, Jarrett and Steiner are here. Yeah Russo is wrestling again. He would win the world title in two weeks.

Tag Titles: Rey Mysterio/Juventud Guerrera vs. Insane Clown Posse

Yes it’s that Jeremy Borash on commentary. He’s bald here which is a weird look for him. Yes it’s that Insane Clown Posse. They decided they were wrestlers so WCW decided to cross promote or something. Naturally, no one cared because that’s what Juggalos do right? The champions are members of the Filthy Animals so Konnan gets to talk for awhile and makes no sense at all.

Naturally the clowns take over to start as Madden points out that they have no advantages here at all. Konnan and Disco Inferno join on commentary, meaning that three of the four commentators worked for Wrestlezone at some point. The Posse is just awful in the ring, botching just about everything and more or less just walking around the ring. Bronco Buster to Shaggy.

They get Rey in trouble and just stand there. This is just stupid. Who in the world thought this was a good idea? And why does Konnan call everyone cranberries? Disco says this is nonstop action which is rather funny. The Animals hit a modified What’s Up on Jay for the pin. At least it was short.

Rating: D-. What did Rey and Juvi do to deserve this? The Posse are people that tried to be wrestlers and stand in the ring knowing how to do all of a move each and apparently that qualifies them as wrestlers. Naturally WCW put them on national TV multiple times because they were famous. And you wonder why this company went out of business.

Lance Storm, one of the only things WCW got right in their dying days, is teaching Major Gunns how to be Canadian. His deadpan stuff here is awesome. This time it’s running a treadmill.

Ernest Miller and Booker T get into a limo.

The cage is lowering as we go to a break.

Nash vs. Booker for the title at Fall Brawl which I’ve reviewed already.

Here’s Russo and the Natural Born Thrillers who were an awesome team but they of course got screwed up. He gets into the cage on his own with the Thrillers outside. Russo makes jokes about the Cowboys to get sports heat. Keep in mind that this guy has come back ten days before Bound For Glory which scares me to death.

He explains the rules of the match tonight. The cage is basically in the Cell with a regular cage on top of that and a one cage half the size of the ring on top with the title hanging in it. You have to go up to the top (there are trapdoors to get to the next levels) and grab the belt, but then you have to bring it back down. I’ll ignore the natural problem of why wouldn’t you just stand at the door and beat up the guy that brings it down then leave yourself out of the sake of avoiding a headache.

Oh and there are two teams of four in a match about winning an individual title. Well of course there are. Russo says the teams are the babyfaces vs. the heels. Oh I give up. Tony points out the stupidity of having teams in this. Russo’s team is the face team and the other is the heel team which isn’t true but whatever. The other team is made of Miller, Goldberg, Booker and Sting.

Russo says that Miller has no power tonight so in order to get in the match later they have to win qualifying matches. If Goldberg wins, Goldberg can beat up Russo. And here comes Nash to make sure this segment keeps going. He’s champion at the moment having beaten Booker a week ago. Nash gets in Russo’s face and says the title isn’t on the line here. He’s not a fighting champion and is only defending once a month.

Vince says that Nash does what Russo says and Nash isn’t happy about this. Nash is his daddy out here and grabs Russo by the throat and we get blackness and lightning and thunder. Sting popped up through the ring apparently and brought a ladder with him somehow. Russo tells Nash to get him but Nash flips him off. And then Sting does nothing at all. Oh wait he talks a bit.

Ok never mind he’s not gone yet. Sting started to leave but Russo climbed the ladder and Sting chased him. Russo’s team comes out to chase Sting and here comes Miller and Booker. They fight with the Thrillers in the ring as this is freaking stupid. Is there a point to this an hour before the match? Somehow Russo gets away but in the ramp Goldberg shows up. All this is happening in the first half hour of the show. Could this be overbooked any more?

Back from a break Steiner and Jarrett freak out on Russo. It should be noted Russo has gotten more face time than anyone else tonight so far.

Jeremy looks WEIRD bald. We see him getting his head shaved for losing some bet. He’s here because Scott Hudson is having his first child. Nothing wrong with that.

Here come the Harris Brothers for no apparent reason. They want some footage played and it’s about Kronik. We see a bar fight where they beat up Kronik and that’s it.

Shane Douglas and Torrie are in Russo’s office and Shane wants Goldberg. They bring in the Thrillers and Torrie is really worried.

Wargames Qualifying Match: Sting vs. Great Muta/Vampiro

Vampiro is Juggalo Championship World Champion (censored version of their real name) at this point and no one cares. Honestly what did WCW get out of this? And it’s a minute long with Muta hitting Vampiro with the mist, setting up a Splash and Death Drop to end it. Sting is in the main event. Vampiro and Muta argue afterwards so we get the Posse again to break it up.

More Canadian training with Storm who is cracking me up.

Stevie Ray is in the back and yells at Russo. “What do you mean I’m wrestling? I don’t want to wrestle! I came here to wrestle somebody!” We don’t hear who he’s wrestling but it’s an argument anyway.

Jarrett is yelling at Nash about Russo. Nash isn’t happy with Vince.

Here’s Ray again. Ray is usually the commentator on Thunder. No one is really sure why he got such a big push all of a sudden but he did anyway. He says that the match is with his brother.

Wargames Qualifying Match: Stevie Ray vs. Booker T

Stevie jumps him to start and it’s on. And we’re in a rest hold less than 30 seconds in. Axe Kick hits and Booker gets a Spinarooni. Stevie catches him with a spinebuster but won’t cover. And then the Book End hits to send Booker to the main event. Another two minute match that they call great, despite Stevie hitting a total of a spinebuster. Stevie yells at him for no apparent reason and then hugs him. Just move on to something else please.

Kronik is looking for the Harris Brothers and yell at the Jung Dragons who are Asian stereotypes. Naturally they get beaten up.

Three Count is in the ring but here’s Kronik again. They hits a cool looking Triple Chokeslam and this is domination. Is this a match? A referee is out there but Adams calls out the Harris Brothers anyway. Should be noted that the Harris Brothers were one of the most hated teams ever because they SUCKED.

Jeff Jarrett comes out instead and says that since they’re already in a handicap match (which no one knows what he’s talking about) let’s make it a Wargames handicap match, so Miller needs to get out here.

Wargames Qualifying Match: Ernest Miller vs. Kronik

Jarrett gets on commentary too here. Miller points out to the monsters that they’re on the same team so let’s go beat up Jarrett. And then he tries to steal a rollup on Clark, resulting in a bad beating. Jarrett chases Miller’s woman with a guitar as Kronik botches a clothesline. Miller is the commissioner apparently. Double Chokeslam ends it so Kronik is in Wargames making it 5-4. Sure why not.

Steiner is ticked at Russo now because Kronik is now in Wargames.

Goldberg vs. Steiner at Fall Brawl which was a good match.

Wargames Qualifying Match: Shane Douglas vs. Goldberg

First up though Torrie runs down the crowd. She’s really young here so this is pretty bad. This show is horrible if you couldn’t tell. Here comes Goldberg. Shane, who wanted Goldberg, begs to get out of it now. Pure power from Goldberg to start of course. We hit the floor and Shane dodges a forearm which hits the post instead. Shane works the arm and Goldberg just shoves him off. The Thrillers come out to beat up Goldberg which of course fails also. Shane tries to hit him with a chain. Spear and Jackhammer end this of course.

Rating: N/A. The longest match so far has been four minutes long and it had the Insane Clown Posse in it. This show needs to end already.

Russo throws a fit in the back.

Russo and Nash have another moment. You know they’re going to be best friends by the end of the night right?

Guns goes swimming in her final test. The Misfits in Action are there too and we get a fight in the pool.

Russo (noticing a theme here?) gives a speech to the Thrillers and makes a gauntlet match with Vito vs. the Thrillers.

Arn Anderson is in the back and is asked if Ric will be here for his son’s wedding next week. This didn’t end well of course. Oh and it’s in Charlotte.

Big Vito vs. Natural Born Thrillers

Vito beat up Russo last week to cause this. The Thrillers say nothing of note and Vito makes gay jokes. Screw the gauntlet part apparently so it’s everyone vs. Vito at once. Guess how this goes. Palumbo and Reno hit a 3D and stomping ensues. This goes on way too long and Sanders gets the pin. End this show already.

The non-Russo team talks about how awesome they are. Goldberg isn’t here.

WCW World Title: Wargames

You know the teams by now I’d assume. People come in at two minute intervals. Jarrett vs. Sting to start us off. Everyone else stays in the back here. They fight on the floor as everyone knows nothing is going to happen until we get to the full or nearly the full amount of people. Sting dominates and Scott Steiner is #3. Sting almost gets up the ladder to the second cage but Steiner makes the save. They beat up Sting and nothing happens for two minutes.

Kronik (both of them) come out as #4. Well of course they do. Steiner gets to the second cage and has bolt cutters up there for some reason. Adams and Clark both follow him up and take him down. That cage floor looks VERY shaky. Sting and Jarrett just kind of stand around and here’s Russo as the next person. He’s #5 but the 6th person in the match. He brings the Harris Twins with him who go after Kronik.

Sting beats up Jarrett in the ring as this is just stupid. There are weapons in the middle cage. Sting splashes Russo because Russo stays there for it like an idiot. Scorpion goes on as Russo is getting killed. Steiner climbed back down to the ring for no apparent reason. Nash is out next so apparently the team thing goes in no order. Nash helps up Steiner so Sting beats them both up for a bit.

Nash takes Sting down and goes to chokeslam Russo but Jarrett and Steiner makes the save by talking him down. Kronik and the Harris Brothers are fighting in the crowd and won’t be seen again. You can be eliminated apparently. Nash chokes Steiner and Jarrett as Booker is the next to last guy. He beats up all the heels other than Nash who takes him out.

No one is in the middle cage at all at this point. Russo is in a hockey helmet. Here’s Goldberg to complete this mess. Nash has Russo set for a Jackknife but drops him instead. Goldberg takes out Jarrett and Steiner but gets caught with a baseball bat shot. Booker sneaks up to the middle cage as Nash just stands in front of the door. Goldberg gets handcuffed to the ropes.

Steiner, Sting and Jarrett head up and fight on the second cage. While the other three fight Booker goes to the very top and gets the belt. But hey that’s not enough to win as he has to get down and leave the cage. The view of Booker that high up is terrifying to me as I’m scared of heights. Booker drops the belt as Madden has a good idea: why not put it on so you have free hands?

Sting has been handcuffed to the middle cage so Booker is on his own. Steiner drops the belt to the ring and Russo gets it. Here’s Miller go kick Russo in the helmet (doesn’t hit the head at all) and get powerbombed by Nash. Nash gets the belt and Goldberg snaps the handcuffs but throws the belt down to beat up Russo.

Scratch that he has the belt now. He tries to leave but Bret freaking Hart slams the door on his head and Steiner hits him with a pipe. Russo grabs the belt and Nash grabs him, but then they hug and Nash leaves to defend the title successfully. Yep the whole night was a massive swerve. Hart was never on Nitro again that I remember.

Rating: F. Oh do I really need to get into this? Somehow it’s an even bigger mess than I described. Kronik and the Harris Brothers just leaving still makes me laugh for some reason. They’re in a world title match and are just like “screw this” and go off to watch Howard the Duck or something. Horrible match and for no apparent reason is on free TV when in theory it could have drawn something on PPV. Whatever though.

Overall Rating: F. Yeah I think this is self explanatory. For comic book fans this is like a massive one shot that never went anywhere and is never mentioned again. It’s totally pointless and served no point other than to have one big match for free for no apparent reason. This was a terrible show with no good wrestling and FAR too much Russo, which was a common problem in this era. Somehow this is a two hour show with 90 minutes of air time factoring out commercials. It felt far longer though.

Every Wednesday I’ll be posting a review of an old Nitro on rspwfaq.com (Scott Keith’s Blog).  I’ve got the first two up and the third will be up next Wednesday.  Check them out.

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

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

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

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

Jushin Thunder Liger vs. Brian Pillman

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

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

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

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

Sting is ready for Flair.

WCW Hotline ad.

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

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

US Title: Sting vs. Ric Flair

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sabu is coming. Dang it.

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

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

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

WCW Title: Hulk Hogan vs. Big Bubba Rogers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Monday Nitro
Date: July 6, 1998
Location: Georgia Dome, Atlanta, Georgia
Attendance: 41,412
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Larry Zbyszko, Mike Tenay

So I found a website where I can download every episode of Nitro. This is very helpful since there are some individual episodes I want to review but can’t do because it would take months if not years to get up to them going from the beginning like I’ve been doing. This show is important for multiple reasons. There are 12 matches here on a 3 hour TV card. For one thing, this is one of the very last wins for Nitro. Other than the Warrior weeks of all things and the night after Halloween Havoc 98, Nitro never won again, which was due to more idiocy and cost them millions of dollars but that’s another story.

The reason this show is something I’ve wanted to do is because it has the loudest pop and one of the coolest moments ever. Tonight is the night the Goldberg faces Hulk Hogan for the world title. Now there is a backstory here. Since this is WCW’s home area, a lot of the big shots from Turner were going to be there. Hogan thought to himself that if I’m in the main event and we draw a record crowd (they did) then the executives will think I caused it. The idea was to announce a POST show NON title match between Hogan and Goldberg. Somehow this got changed to a TELEVISED TITLE match. This was announced a mere FOUR DAYS before the show. Now let’s take a look at why this is very stupid.

Number one: It’s HOGAN vs. GOLDBERG. That’s the main event of Starrcade, not a Nitro in July. This was 1998. It’s not like the company was completely dead here or Hogan didn’t mean anything. This was still Hulk Hogan and he was still a huge draw. Goldberg was undefeated here and had broken 100 wins and was US Champion so he was a huge deal. This is a PPV main event at minimum and the biggest match of the year more than likely. That probably cost them millions and millions of dollars.

Number two: This was announced 4 days before the match happened. With the internet being a very limited factor, if you didn’t see Thunder, there’s a very good chance you didn’t know this match was happening at all. On Rise and Fall of WCW, they tried to make it sound like all the tickets were sold the day the match was announced. In other words, WCW would like you to believe that NO ONE bought a ticket to Nitro until they knew about this match.

Number three: This shows how obsessed Bischoff had become with beating Vince, even for one night. The ratings streak had come to an end and Nitro had lost like 5 or 6 weeks in a row. Bischoff decided that it was worth giving away all that money for a surefire win. The problem was that only diehard fans and the people working for the companies would know this and it wouldn’t bring in much money at all. This became a trend for Bischoff as he became obsessed with a quick solution to WCW’s problems when there simply wasn’t one anywhere.

Number four: This is the last one I promise. This threw off all creative plans for WCW. Keep in mind that Hogan was world champion at this point and all of a sudden Goldberg was going to be. Any plans they had for Hogan, which included matches with Nash and Hart likely coming by the end of the year including Hart at Starrcade, were now being thrown away in favor of Goldberg being world champion. Since there were very few upper midcard/main event heels other than Hogan, this made limited sense. In other words it was perfect for WCW.

Now with that all being said, let’s get to the 11 preliminary matches to get to the reason I’m reviewing this.

We open with a video from Thunder of James Jay Dillon making the announcement of the match, four days prior to this. I actually got a chill when he said Goldberg was the challenger. Make no mistake about it: WCW could do drama when they had to.

The place is PACKED as this is where NFL games are played, making this a major PPV size crowd. Wrestlemania 27 will be held there. If I remember right at the time this was the 4th biggest American crowd ever. This is a three hour show and oddly enough the commentators change each hour. The listed ones are the openers.

The Nitro Girls dance us into the show. They were like cheerleaders and would almost all become TV characters eventually. Larry as always does a salute to the crowd.

Hogan actually starts us off with Disciple (Brutus Beefcake), Bischoff and Liz with him. We need to take a moment and honor the herd of cows that died to make all the leather they’re wearing. May you moo in peace. Dang now I want a burger. This is the go home show for Bash at the Beach, where the main event was Hogan and Dennis Rodman (basketball player) vs. DDP/Karl Malone (Hall of Fame basketball player who was inducted earlier tonight actually).

He talks about all the fans and the PPV on Sunday while saying exactly what you would expect him to say. Hogan says the name of his opponent tonight and says the match isn’t happening. It should be noted that Hogan says jabroni here, which may predate Rock saying it, but I’m not sure. Hogan says he has an NWO guy coming in that Hogan has to beat first. Cue the chant, which is deafening and might be legit given that it’s his hometown.

Ad for the Hogan shirt, which really was cool looking.

We talk to a guy that won a NASCAR racecar last year and they’re giving away another one. We’re only 15 minutes into the show now with no matches but whatever.

TV Title: Dean Malenko vs. Booker T

Expect a lot of matches that have no point and are really just there for the sake of filling up the show. Booker is TV Champion at this point but no word if that is a title match yet. Booker is WAY over here, but wouldn’t get pushed for like two years. Apparently it’s on the line. Ok then. Bret Hart, the HUGE signing from WWF a mere 7 months ago, has a shot at the winner on Sunday. That sums up their second set of problems.

The mat is dark gray which is weird to see and makes it seem like a really weird atmosphere. Both guys do standard stuff and then crank it up as Booker misses a Missile Dropkick, which was his finisher. Cloverleaf is blocked and a bunch of kicks put Dean down. We hit the floor and Jericho pops up with a mic. His distraction is enough to let Booker hit the Axe Kick to Dean for the pin to retain.

Rating: B-. For a quick TV match this was pretty good. Did you expect anything less from these two though? Dean and Jericho would feud for awhile over the Cruiserweight Title that Jericho had and while the matches were good, nothing ever came of it of course since WCW couldn’t push guys that were young and talented right? This was solid enough for an opener and I would love to see more of these guys.

Goldberg can do pushups.

Karl Malone is ready for the PPV.

Kanyon vs. Raven

Kanyon has just recently lost the Mortis mask and is feuding with the Flock now for the sake of feuding with the Flock I guess. Ah ok Kanyon/Mortis wanted to be in the Flock and Raven said no. It’s on in the aisle and Kanyon takes over. We’re on the floor again already. Dang they’re moving out there tonight. Kanyon gets a reverse F5 onto a chair which was kind of cool.

Lodi, who was pure awesomness back in the day, crotches Kanyon on the top rope. After a SICK suplex onto the open chair, Saturn runs in, which is somehow a DQ after all the stuff with the chair. He and Kanyon are teaming on Thursday and he accidentally hits a Death Valley Driver on him here. Saturn does a huge dive onto a table onto Raven which doesn’t move AT ALL. Kanyon takes down Saturn afterwards.

Rating: C+. I liked this but then again Kanyon’s offense back then was great stuff. This was really just to further the angle on Thursday. You have to keep in mind that a lot of stuff was going on with Nitro and WCW back in the day as they had the same amount of TV that WWE has currently but it was one show. That meant a lot more was going on at the time and you had to pay more attention to everything. This was opposed to WWF where there was Raw and Sunday Night Heat. Smackdown didn’t come into existence for over a year after this. Match was good but just furthering an angle and rather short.

Buff Bagwell is here. He had his neck legit broken in a match with Rick Steiner and is in a wheelchair. We get Judy Bagwell, the first OCW Champion as well.

The Nitro Girls dance to what would become Stacy’s theme song.

We see last week where Malone and Page drove to the arena in a semi-truck. The NWO was waiting with a bunch of weapons for them and amazingly enough a semi-truck coming straight for them is enough to scare them off. Malone slams Hogan and has the longest arms I’ve ever seen.

Malone and DDP come out. Given that he was a celebrity that never wrestled before, Malone actually did quite well in the ring at the PPV. It helps a lot having a guy that is a full time athlete out there because you don’t have to worry about conditioning or anything like that which gets a lot out of the way. Page was just awesome at this point and had been for like a year. Malone putting his arm around Okerlund is funny for some reason. He can’t really talk but he’s trying.

Ad for the DDP shirt, which I remember very well.

Mongo talks about joining the Horsemen, which he was awful at but he tried at least. Mike Ditka makes a cameo. He wants them to reform the Horsemen. We’ll get to that.

We’re 42 minutes into this without even counting the commercials of which there have been at least 3 and we’ve had two matches.

Scott Putski vs. Scotty Riggs

Oh just make it short. When Riggs is by far the better worker, you know you’re in trouble. Yep they’re just talking about the potential Hogan vs. Goldberg match. I can’t say I blame them here though. We actually talk about the match a bit as Riggs is dominant. Larry talks about Ivan Putski, Scott’s dad, who was pretty awful.

Both guys hit cross bodies at the same time to get us back to even. Putski plays to the crowd to no reaction and then hits his dad’s move, the Polish Hammer. It’s a double axe handle to the chest but instead of covering, he tries to get the crowd to care and picks Riggs up. Crossface Chickenwing (Riggs’ finisher) is blocked into a sitout spinebuster for the pin by Putski. Sweet merciful pig meat this was bad.

Rating: F. Why did these guys get five minutes? The match was horrible and no one cared. Riggs is somehow the far better and more successful of these guys. Putski was somehow worse than his dad, which means he’s in the running for worst wrestler of all time.

Goldberg headbutts a locker which was one of his signature things.

We look at his first win which was over Hugh Morrus, which was a legit shocker.

Scott Hall is the surprise opponent for Goldberg.

Chris Jericho vs. Ultimo Dragon

Not sure if this is for the title or not since they won’t tell us that. I’d bet on a Dean run in here but I’m not sure. Jericho says Rey is the #1 contender for some reason and here’s Dillon. He’s commissioner more or less if that wasn’t clear. Dean comes out and Dillon is taller than both of them. There’s no contact between them and if there is, no match. Jericho tries to bait him and eventually gets him by implying his parents cheated on each other.

And now we actually get the match. They actually did go with Rey vs. Jericho at the PPV which is odd. You can’t say it was bait and switch though so they’re clean on that. That corner handstand that Dragon did was always cool looking. Dean runs in about two minutes in and jumps Jericho, pulling out some of his hair.

Rating: N/A. I’m not sure if we ever got the showdown between these two which sucks as it could have been awesome.

Dean gets taken away in handcuffs.

The Nitro Girls dance and Heenan joins commentary with I think both other guys leaving so it’s him and Tony.

Chavo Guerrero vs. Johnny Swinger

Swinger was in ECW later on and was at Hardcore Justice recently. Tenay is still on commentary so Bobby replaced Larry so far. Swinger cuts a really bad heel promo to start. Chavo has short tights and a hard hat. He’s crazy at this point and wants to cut Eddie’s hair. He’s going to wrestle in the hat. Ok then.

We get the announced attendance: 39,919. Now here’s the odd thing. That’s 1,300 people LOWER than it really was. Yeah for some reason they cut down the potential over 40,000 people attendance number. WCW continues to astound. The hat comes off and the fans are pretty bored. Tornado DDT ends it in like 90 seconds though so at least it didn’t last long. Chavo cuts some of Swinger’s hair afterwards. Hair vs. hair is announced for the PPV with him vs. Eddie.

We see Goldberg’s 25th win in a row, which was over Glacier.

Goldberg keeps warming up.

Disco Inferno/Alex Wright vs. Public Enemy

I didn’t know Public Enemy was around this long. Wow they were there for the entirety of 97? I never knew that. Tokyo Magnum, a Japanese dancer, follows Wright out and dances too. Brawl to start with the Public Enemy dominating. The more famous team is wearing Braves jerseys for cheap pops as they’re on a streat that would get them almost to the World Series if I remember right.

Tony talks about Thunder in Wyoming of all things. The heels dominate here as we’re told that Magnum is a fan of the Dancing Fools (later named the Boogie Knights). Grunge comes in and beats up Disco as we have two tables set up on the floor. Disco and Wright run off and Magnum goes through the pair of tables. Here they are again with weapons to beat down the Public Enemy for a DQ I guess.

Rating: D. Just a match to set up the whole big table spot at the end which was indeed cool looking. Public Enemy never went anywhere in WCW once the NWO showed up although they did win the tag titles almost two years before this. Not a good match or anything and not really even a match, but it did the job it was supposed to do so mild points for that.

Gene brings out Bagwell in his hometown. He comes out to the NWO music and has his mother pushing him in the wheelchair. There’s something hilarious about that. He’s a total face here which implies to me he’ll be turning soon. Bagwell talks about how he and Scott Steiner need to go their own ways and that he loves his mom.

Goldberg beats up some guy named Rick Fuller and is 50-0. His match with Hall is next.

US Title: Goldberg vs. Scott Hall

The bald one has to win to get the REAL bald one for the title. I’m not sure if the chants are piped in here or not. Ok apparently this is a US Title match. They really need to work on making it clear what matches are for titles. Hall hits those shoulders that he’s kind of known for. Naturally they don’t work as it’s all Goldberg. To say this match is sloppy is an understatement.

It never ceases to amaze me how they managed to screw up Goldberg. Hall is clearly not someone that needs to be in the ring at this point as he was really messed up with substance abuse etc. It’s also his first televised match in two months which likely isn’t helping him. Then again I find him incredibly overrated. Goldberg beats him up and Hall calls down NWO guys.

Cue Disciple and Vincent but DDP and Malone pop them with chairs and it’s back to one on one. Hall calls for the Razor’s Edge and is LAUNCHED onto his back. Spear sets up the Jackhammer and the roof is partially gone since it’s on for later tonight. Again, HOW DID THEY MESS HIM UP?

Rating: D+. Bad match but that’s not the point here. This was about setting up Goldberg as the unstoppable force for later tonight which was kind of overkill but it fit Hogan pretty well I guess. This was relative dominance and it worked rather well. Hall just wasn’t worth a thing at this point though and it didn’t look pretty.

The Nitro Girls dance again. You might be getting the idea here. One is Whisper, who would marry one Shawn Michaels.

Juventud Guerrera vs. Psicosis

Juvi has no mask at this point since those things bringing in money was just not going to be tolerated. This is a bring down the crowd match after the whole insanity just a few minutes ago. With time this could be awesome but if it goes past four minutes I’d be stunned. AWESOME back splash off the top onto the floor on Juvi which looked painful. There are some moves that are going to hurt no matter what you do, this one included. Like 40 seconds later the Juvi Driver and 450 ends it. The Flock comes in and destroys him for no apparent reason.

Rating: C-. Just didn’t get enough time to really do anything. These two could be completely awesome but they didn’t get the chance to. I don’t get the Flock thing but I’d assume a one off match that never meant anything past like the following week. The back splash spot was cool though.

Goldberg’s 75th win was over Raven for the US Title.

We hear about a PPL show, as in Pay Per Listen. You can’t see it, but you can listen to the commentary for like $10. That’s not a horrible idea actually.

Video about the celebrity tag match on Sunday. There is way too much happening on this show. This is proof that three hours is WAY too long for one show.

The Giant vs. Jim Duggan

See what I mean about the three hour deal? This is the kind of stuff you get when it’s this long. Giant does a hip swivel in the corner but misses. Chokeslam ends it in like 90 seconds. Again, no point to this other than to fill in time. Giant says the football player he’s fighting on Sunday is pathetic. Oh ok it was supposed to be a tag match but they’re changing it to a singles match because of Goldberg. Not said here of course but you get the idea. Greene, the football player that no one cared about, comes out and spits at Giant.

Malone says he’ll get Rodman on Sunday.

Diamond Dallas Page vs. Jim Neidhart

See what I watch for you guys? Page is in jeans as usual and brings out Malone with him. Two more minutes, one more Diamond Cutter, match over.

Goldberg’s 100th win is over Konnan in a nothing match at Great American Bash.

Sting/Lex Luger vs. Sick Boy/Kidman

Flock vs. Wolfpack here which shouldn’t be much of anything. Yeah 7 months after the biggest match ever in WCW, Sting is smiling and laughing and in the NWO which he swore he would destroy. Don’t you love WCW? Nash, the leader, says nothing at all. Neither does Konnan. Apparently no one knew the opponents as Kidman and Sick Boy are surprising for some reason. Less than a minute, Luger with the Rack. In the Dining Room. And Colonel Mustard with the Revolver.

WCW World Title: Goldberg vs. Hulk Hogan

Immediately you can see why the match with Hall was a bad idea as the pop is solid but nowhere near what it should be. The fans have already seen him once tonight so the excitement is limited. Hogan gets booed out of the building. Naturally we’re 6-7 months removed from Starrcade and Hogan has the belt again. He’s held it since late April so for about two and a half months. Sting’s reign was like two months or so. After the match tonight, Hogan would have it AGAIN in less than 6 months, which we’ll get to later.

The bell gets a pop. This is one of the hottest crowds I can ever remember as the people are salivating over everything. In a funny line, Tenay says WCW is the third biggest wrestling company on the planet. This stuns me, until he says “after the two NWO factions.” So in other words, 6 months after Starrcade, not only does Hogan have the belt again but there are TWO NWOs instead of the original one being gone. And you wonder why they went out of business.

Just basic power stuff here to start as they’re feeling each other out a lot to start. Hogan takes over with some punches and whips Goldberg with his weight belt. Goldberg gets a full nelson but takes a low blow. There’s a great energy here which is making this awesome. Hogan takes a clothesline and the place POPS. The match itself is pretty bad but much like Hogan/Andre, that’s not the point.

We hit the floor and Hogan gets a chair shot in but there’s no DQ called. There’s the chant and the legdrop is treated like any other move. Hogan hits two of them and here’s Curt Hennig. THREE legdrops gets a two count as Malone pops up to hit a Diamond Cutter on Hennig. Goldberg more or less no sells the leg drops and spears the heck out of Hogan. Heenan is LOSING it here. Jackhammer hits and the place goes NUTS. Goldberg is the world champion, and the image of him standing on the stage holding up both his titles is very cool.

Rating: A+. Like I said in the Hogan vs. Andre at Mania 3 review, this wasn’t about the match in the ring and if you think it was you’re an idiot and don’t get wrestling. Goldberg looked awesome here and Hogan put him over 100% clean. That was the key thing here: Goldberg didn’t have to have some screwy way to win the title. He hit his two big moves and pinned Hogan after kicking out of the legdrop. This is how you put someone over and amazingly enough, Hogan never got this one back, even though this was the plan. Hogan had made a deal that he got to beat Goldberg when the time was right, which is more nonsense but at least they would get this one night. The payback would evolve into the Fingerpoke of Doom, which we’ll get too soon enough.

Overall Rating: C+. The main event aside, this just wasn’t interesting at all. Three hours was just too much for the TV shows as you get stuff like Duggan vs. Giant which does nothing at all and the minute long squashes just to fill time with the entrances and such. Once they went to three hours they dug their own graves because the first hour was never good enough to get people to stick around so they put their good stuff in the first hour and then the other two hours sucked and people watched Raw. WCW was dead and didn’t know it yet though, especially given the stupidity that they would bring out later on. Good show, but only because of the amazing moment at the end.

Again though, as great of a moment as it was, there is very little gained for it since there was nothing to follow it up with since they blew everything here. Goldberg’s win got them one big victory in the ratings, but it didn’t make much money when it could have made millions. That’s simply bad business and being shortsighted, which is never a good thing.
Also the handling of Goldberg was just awful because do you remember his first title match? It was the following Sunday against Hennig and went less than 4 minutes. He wouldn’t have a serious challenge until DDP in October and then would lose the belt to Nash in the idiocy that was Starrcade 98. This was a great moment, but that’s all it was. It’s a single moment that meant nothing after it because WCW is freaking stupid. This had FOUR DAYS of buildup. See why it made no money and could have made a much higher rating if done right? Great moment, but I don’t see how WCW is responsible for much of it, which is their eventual downfall.