Fall Brawl 1997
Date: September 14, 1997
Location: Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum, Winston-Salem, North Carolina
Attendance: 11,939
Commentators: Ton Schiavone, Bobby Heenan

THINK THAT’S A LONG ENOUGH LOCATION??? With so many WCW shows left I’m going to start hammering more of them out by doing the remaining versions of various shows, starting with the last three Fall Brawls, as in 97-99. Anyway this is more or less the last classic WarGames and the roster for it more or less sucks. The main perk of this show for old school fans is that there are three matches over 15 minutes. Anyway let’s get to it.

The opening video is about Flair and the Horsemen with Anderson inducting Hennig into the Horsemen. Also the NWO making fun of the Horsemen in a hilarious parody. That’s about it apparently.

Heenan in a bowtie is a weird look.

Cruiserweight Title: Eddie Guerrero vs. Chris Jericho

Jericho is champion and Eddie is freshly heel and dominant up to this point. The double ring setup is always a nice touch. Eddie bails to the floor and covers his ears to avoid the booing. Technical stuff to start us off with Eddie getting frustrated. Very slow start here but they have a ton of time to work with so it’s fine. Eddie gets some HARD chops in the corner so Jericho is like screw that and chops Eddie down.

Chris works on the arm and the fans want….something. Back to the mat with Jericho working on the arm some more. Eddie tries to speed things up a bit so Jericho LAUNCHES him into a hot shot across the top and hits the Lionsault for two. Eddie counters an armbar into a smaller version of the same thing Jericho did earlier. Nice little psychology there. Modified Backstabber and Eddie holds onto it for a bow and arrow style move.

Belly to back gets no cover for Guerrero. There’s a surfboard and I still don’t see how that move is physically possible. Oh never mind as he hooks it with a chinlock instead of the regular move. Jericho gets up, only to be taken down by a European uppercut. Hilo works on the back even more. Gory Special goes on and Jericho is in trouble. Jericho reverses into one of his own and slams Eddie face first.

They slug it out and Jericho takes over, hitting some clotheslines in the corner. Eddie walks the ropes ala Old School but gets crotched on the top. Jericho hits his springboard dropkick and tries a Piledriver on the apron. Instead he shifts to a powerbomb but drops Eddie backwards onto the top as Jericho drops to the floor. It’s kind of hard to describe.

Back in the Canadian hits a German to the Latino for two. Eddie pops up and hits a spinning Rock Bottom but Eddie can’t follow up. Powerslam gets two for Jericho. Spinwheel kick gets two. Flapjack by Jericho but Eddie reverses La Magistrol for two of his own. Jericho hits a double powerbomb and puts Eddie on top. Chris tries a superplex but Eddie reverses into a cross body out of that. Frog Splash gives Eddie the title.

Rating: A-. Gee what a shock: you give Eddie and Jericho 17 minutes and you get an awesome match. Eddie was the freaking man at this point as six weeks later he and Rey would have what is arguably the best WCW match of all time at Halloween Havoc. Great match with a ton of awesome spots and a fast pace. Sadly, the rest of the show just wishes it could be this awesome.

Jeff Jarrett is doing an interview on WCW.com. He would be back in the WWF in like 5 weeks. You can chat with Jarrett right now! Get off your couch and go to your computer and talk to him!

Harlem Heat vs. Steiner Brothers

Larry Z is on commentary now instead of Tenay. This is a #1 contender match, even though the Outsiders never actually defended the titles. I don’t mean against the #1 contenders. I mean they never defended them period. Basically a team would be #1 contenders for a few weeks then there would be another match to determine new ones. Jackie is with Harlem Heat and DiBiase is with the Steiners. Scott was about to start his slow heel turn but it wasn’t quite here yet.

Stevie and Scott start us off. Stevie hammers away and Steiner is like boy please and hammers away on him. And never mind as Stevie kicks his head off. Side slam gets no cover. Booker looks all ready for a tag but that might be a better match so we’ll stick with Stevie. Scott overpowers him for a bit but Booker busts out a full nelson of all things to take over.

Suplex puts Scott down but Booker jumps into a belly to belly and the Steiners clean house. Rick comes in to hammer away on Booker but it’s off to Scott quickly. Big spin kick puts Rick down and it’s off to Stevie. Rare to see the Steiners tagging in and out that much. The Steiners get all physical on them but Scott gets caught by a pretty sweet kick by Booker to send him to the floor.

Stevie chokes away and Jackie continues to be worthless. Rick tries a save but it’s time for Scott to play face in peril for awhile. Big forearm gets two. Hot tag to Rick who cleans house. He hits the bulldog off the top on someone but it’s the wrong man. Heat Seeker (Doomsday Device but with a dropkick instead of a clothesline) gets two on Rick. A German suplex/clothesline combo ends Ray quickly after that.

Rating: C. Meh match here as it’s really just a tag match. It’s not bad or anything but you can only see the same two teams fight so many times before you get tired of it. I’d have liked to see Harlem Heat get a shot but the Steiners and Outsiders were joined at the hip for the most part so that wasn’t going to happen. At least the Steiners would split in February.

TV Title: Ultimo Dragonvs. Alex Wright

This was one of the worst title feuds you’ll ever see and so it went on forever. The matches were ok but at the same time it just went on and on and it was never really interesting. Wright is champion here. Oh and Wright is kind of heelish now. There are four commentators now. Long feeling out process to start as I have a feeling we’re in for a ver long one here.

Wright hits the floor for a breather and comes back with a headlock. Dragon speeds things up and fires off the kicks, sending Wright to the floor again. Back in Wright hits a Stun Gun and takes over again. Spinwheel kick gets two and Wright hits a pancake (Piledriver but you fall forward instead). Off to the chinlock as it’s clear we do in fact have a lot of time here.

That gets broken up and we go right back to it again in case you forgot what it looked like I guess. Belly to back gets two and we HIT THE CHINLOCK AGAIN! Dragon wakes up a bit and hits a crossbody followed by some kicks. A spinwheel kick misses though and Dragon goes down again. The fourth chinlock in less than five minutes goes on as you have to start questioning why they’ve been given this much time when you could cut the match in half to have an extra match. Larry says a lot of people used to kill the clock like this, which is a nice line considering he’s legendary for it.

Make that the fifth chinlock. When that’s your best move, methinks you’re not that good yet. Wright dances out of a sunset flip attempt and dances even more. Dragon knocks him off the top but misses a dive, eating feet instead. We head to the floor and Wright shows that he’s not that smart as he stands in place for the Asai Moonsault against the guy who invented it and turns around. How could you screw that up? Seriously, how could you screw that up???

Back in and Dragon takes over with a rana for no cover. That looked bad too. Back to their feet and things speed up a bit with Dragon getting a butterfly suplex for two. Tiger suplex gets two. Dragon sets for the super rana but Wright reverses. Dragon reverses the reversal into a powerbomb out of the corner for two. Mutaesque Moonsault gets two. Another rana is reversed into a sunset flip in a nice bit of psychology there.

Wright counters a dive with a dropkick to the ribs but Dragon reverses a belly to back into a cross body for two. Small package gets two. La Magistral gets two. Wright wants his German suplex finisher but Dragon reverses. Super rana hits but he can’t get the Dragon Sleeper. Regular sleeper is countered into a jawbreaker by Wright and the German suplex gives the German the win.

Rating: C. If this was about a ten minute match instead of the 18 they had, this is FAR better. The last 5 minutes or so were really good but before that it was rather boring. It’s not bad mind you, it’s just really boring. Wright would lose the title 8 days later to Disco Inferno of all people so it’s not like this meant anything. Still though, nearly 20 minutes for these two was WAY too long.

Gene is schilling the hotline for later and Team NWO for later runs past. Methinks shenanigans are coming. Gene goes to see and Curt Hennig is down on the floor. Say it with me: HE’S TURNING ON THE HORSEMEN TONIGHT.

Jeff Jarrett vs. Dean Malenko

Winner is supposed to get the US Title shot next month but that wouldn’t happen due to various things. Jarrett sends Debra to the back for no apparent reason. Technical stuff to start as you would expect with Jarrett taking over for the most part. We’re about five minutes in now and there is nothing to say in the slightest. Jeff has worked on the arm for awhile and other than that it’s just a low gear exhibition.

Dean gets a nice dropkick to take over and never mind as we’re back to the boring stuff. I’m talking about just standing there with a headlock for like 20 seconds and then taking it to the mat for another minute or so. Thankfully they speed things up a bit and Dean takes over, ramming Jeff into the buckle a few times. Bah there’s a sleeper to end that run. It might have sped up for about 30 seconds and then it’s right back to the slow stuff.

Double axe off the top hits and there’s a superplex for Dean. It’s probably good to have him in control as Jeff is Memphis through and through and that makes for some rather boring matches at times, especially when there’s no real feud between these guys. Memphis heat is based on hatred and when there’s nothing there, it doesn’t work for the most part.

German suplex by Dean looks to set up the Cloverleaf and there it is but that might be interesting so we go to the ropes to break that up quickly. Debra is here now for no apparent reason and both guys go to the floor. Dean goes back in and hits a baseball slide to send Jeff down again. Time for the knee work but Jeff takes over again and works on the knee a bit himself.

Dean is able to counter a cannonball drop to send Jeff out to the apron. Back to the floor again with Jeff being sent into the railing. Suplex back in is reversed into a cover by Jeff for two. Dean gets a sleeper which is reversed into a suplex for no cover. Jeff goes up and jumps into the boot but catches himself and grabs the leg in an attempt at the Figure Four. Dean rolls it up for two and Jeff gets a neckbreaker for two. Pinfall reversal sequence gets some nice counters but Jeff gets a chop block and the Figure Four ends this.

Rating: C. Just like in the previous match they went too long and the first ten minutes or so were really boring. Tony calling it great is your standard overhyping but it didn’t work at all for the opening half. Dean was awesome in this year but it wasn’t on display here. Another match that didn’t need to be as long, or on this show in the slightest actually.

The NWO says they’ll win and they have a plan. Konnan sounds WEIRD here.

Mortis/Wrath vs. Faces of Fear

You know, because THIS needed to be on PPV right? The Faces (team, not the face/heel aspect which I don’t think has a face team in this) are in red for some reason here. Barbarian and Mortis start us off. Mortis hammers away with some success so Barbarian just throws him into the corner like something that is easily thrown. Off to Meng who has a brawl with Wrath for awhile.

Wrath gets a middle rope clothesline and takes over. Back off to Mortis and that doesn’t work all that well for him. Off to Barbarian again who hits a headbutt to take over again. Meng backdrops Mortis into a powerbomb in a spot that really wasn’t as good as it sounds. Pumphandle slam gets two for Barbarian. Mortis tries to hammer on Meng and it doesn’t work in the slightest.

Barbarian goes up again and gets crotched while James Vandenberg (Mitchell) runs from a camera. Barbarian dives into a boot so Wrath comes in for a beatdown. DWI gets two on Barbarian as Meng saves. This is rather boring if that wasn’t coming off. Wrath and Mortis take over for awhile and Mortis hits a Fameasser off the top for two. Wrath gets a belly to back to set up a top rope clothesline/punch for no cover still.

Mortis rams the steps into Barbarian to keep up the dominance. That only gets two back in the ring. This is taking forever to get through. Three man Tower of Doom suplex sends Barbarian flying again. Barbarian is a fun word to type. Wrath and Meng both come in to hammer away on each other with Meng taking over. BIG chop to Mortis. Kick of Fear to Mortis and a powerslam to Wrath gets two. Top rope splash gets two for Meng on Mortis. Double Tongan Death Grip to Mortis and Vandenberg but Wrath grabs a Death Penalty (Rock Bottom) for the pin.

Rating: C+. Surprisingly enough this wasn’t that bad. The problem in short though is that this was on PPV for about twelve minutes. Why in the world should this have been on PPV? There was no reason to have them fight it seems, but they did anyway and they got a lot of time. I don’t get this one at all and while the match was actually pretty good, that doesn’t mean it needs to be here.

The Horsemen are ready for the main event. No Hennig here. Flair rants loudly of course.

The Giant vs. Scott Norton

Giant is waiting on his match with Nash so he needs someone to beat on I guess. Giant calls for the chokeslam before the match even starts. Brawl in the form of a battle of the big men to start us off as you would expect. Giant tosses him over the top and we head to the floor for some more brawling. Norton manages to ram Giant into the post and take over.

Giant hammers Norton again as this is a fairly decent power brawl actually. This doesn’t go much of anywhere because the moves are kind of repetitive. Norton gets a rather impressive hot shot on Giant who was indeed flying through the air. Giant takes some corner splashes and Norton gets a belly to back suplex for two. With the help of the middle rope, Giant hits a nip up. Ok that was pretty cool looking. He goes nuts and hits the Chokeslam to end it quick.

Rating: C. This wasn’t too bad I guess but for a match like this, another battle of the big men, there’s only so much you can do. Norton wasn’t going to win here and everyone knew it but he hit some big moves and the power game was pretty cool. The nip up is awesome and he only busted it out on occasion. Fun match for what it was but nothing you can’t see a hundred times with various people in it.

Diamond Dallas Page/Lex Luger vs. Scott Hall/Randy Savage

Literally no transition at all between matches which is kind of odd but it was a WCW thing I guess. Larry talks about how he used to beat up Hall back in the day but still won’t say where this was. I guess it’s a copyright thing or something. Luger and Hall start us off and with Lex shoving him around a lot. Luger beats up both NWO guys on his own and clears the ring.

Off to Page and Hall works on his arm. We talk about NASCAR for some reason as Page hammers away. Both guys miss clotheslines so Page hits a Pancake, one of his signature moves, and then drills Savage because he can. Hall throws Page around a bit as he becomes the face in peril to fill in time I guess. Page fights out of the corner as we’re just waiting on the screwy finish here.

Hall jumps Luger and literally beats him down between the rings. Savage chokes Page a bit and then throws him into the other ring. That isn’t a DQ because Page didn’t hit the floor. Just get rid of the freaking rule already. They throw him back over to mess up the rule again. Down goes the referee to set up the screwy stuff.

Luger is still between the rings I guess. There goes another referee and Larry goes out to help. Larry glares at him and Luger pops up for the rollup pin. I mean literally, he pops up from between the rings to roll him up. Screw being legal I guess. That ends it of course. Oh and Larry counts the pin just because. Somehow that counts apparently.

Rating: D-. The match was ok up until the ending and then it all fell apart because it has to I guess. Is it just impossible to have a match end cleanly? Apparently it is because they never seem capable of doing it in this company. Weak ending aside, this was nothing you wouldn’t see on Nitro any given week.

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Team WCW vs. Team NWO

WCW: Ric Flair, Chris Benoit, Steve McMichael, Curt Hennig
NWO: Kevin Nash, Konnan, Syxx, Buff Bagwell

WarGames here and here are the rules for the two of you that have somehow never seen this match. You start off with a guy from each team for five minutes. After that a coin toss will be won by the heels and they get an advantage for two minutes. After those two minutes are up another person comes in from the team that loss the coin toss. You alternate like that every two minutes until all eight are in and then it’s first submission (no pins) wins it. Also in a double cage of course.

This is more or less a revenge feud for the Horsemen after the parody that the NWO did on Nitro which was so dead on that it was hilarious while being totally disrespectful. The teams are at ringside here which would go back and forth. Not that it means anything but these entrances are long so I need to fill in space. Also this is the final traditional WarGames match, meaning it’s more or less destined to suck.

No Hennig here due to the beatdown earlier. Bagwell vs. Benoit to start. This should be a massacre and very fun. This is for five minutes remember. Tony brings up a great point: is there NO ONE else in WCW that could be out there? They waste like thirty seconds before Bagwell slaps Benoit. This is young and violent Benoit so how do you think this is going to go for Bagwell?

All Benoit here since Bagwell kind of, uh, sucks. Swan Dive misses so Bagwell unleashes his variety of stomps and sends Benoit into the cage. Bagwell is really weak on offense here. Surprisingly enough they haven’t messed with the clock yet. They’ve stayed in the same ring here for the most part. Bagwell backdrops him into the cage and yells at Flair a bit. Shockingly enough: the NWO wins the toss. Literally, no face team EVER won a coin toss in WCW. Ever. Not even once.

Benoit takes over with about 20 seconds to go and it’s Konnan to give them the 2-1 advantage. Benoit seems to like the idea of being in trouble and beats them both up. This lasts two minutes remember. Somehow being down 2-1 makes Benoit do better for a minute or so until the numbers finally catch up to him. Mongo, US Champion at the time, comes in and beats up everyone.

Benoit is perfectly fine. I mean they’ve only beaten on him for seven minutes so far so do you really expect him to be beaten already? The Horsemen dominate for most of the 2-2 period and it’s Syxx in next. And that results badly for him as he gets destroyed by Benoit. Total star making performance by him so far. Crossface to Syxx who taps but it doesn’t matter yet.

The NWO finally fights back about halfway through this period. With 40 seconds left here’s Hennig with his arm in a sling. Oh just have him wearing the NWO shirt already. Flair comes in and cleans house. Nash comes in after the Horsemen dominate for a good while. He dominates the entire team and Bagwell couldn’t be happier. HUGE We Want Sting chant goes up but you all know the ending already don’t you? If not, GO READ A FREAKING BOOK PEOPLE.

The Horsemen take over again before the period ends and here’s Hennig. Flair has Syxx in the Figure Four and there goes the sling on Hennig. He pulls out handcuffs and yep there it is. Seriously, did ANYONE buy that he wasn’t turning here? Tony of course calls it this huge charade and no one but him agrees.

Benoit is cuffed to the cage as is Mongo. Again, IS THERE NO ONE ELSE IN ALL OF WCW??? Flair is destroyed and a referee brings a microphone into the ring. Nash offers the Horsemen the chance to surrender and they all say no. After a long beatdown they give Mongo the chance to surrender to save Flair from having the door slammed on his head. Mongo gives in and they slam the door anyway. This would results in a huge blood feud between Hennig and Flair and Tony walking off the show the next night. The sight of Flair writhing in pain and holding his head ends the show.

Rating: C. Not the strongest WarGames to say the least, namely due to the Horsemen never being in trouble at all for the most part and the really stupid ending. That being said, WarGames is in itself inherently cool and this is no exception. Benoit looked AWESOME in there but of course he would never go anywhere in WCW until he was about to leave. Definitely not the best WarGames, but the Benoit dominance was a cool visual.

Overall Rating: C+. This was a weird show. It’s not bad and the long matches were nice to see. They weren’t all particularly good matches or PPV quality but there were no stupid 2 minute PPV matches which helps a lot. Pretty good show overall but definitely not their best. That being said, 1998 would be the beginning of the end so it was nice to see a long show like this one more time before they fell apart.

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Souled Out 2000
Date: January 16, 2000
Location: Firstar Center, Cincinnati, Ohio
Attendance: 14,132
Commentators: Tony Schivone, Mike Tenay, Bobby Heenan

The company is completely dead at this point and I think everyone not named WCW knew that. 1999 was absolutely brutal on them as they kept screwing up time after time after time and this is a great example of that. The main event changed about 5 times until it got to what we saw. First off it was Bret vs. Goldberg II but Goldberg punched the window of a limousine and messed up his hand so he was out for months.

Then it was Bret vs. Sid but since Bret had his head knocked silly by Goldberg at Starrcade and was out for about 10 years because of it they had to vacate the title. Then they were with Sid vs. Jeff Jarrett, the US Champion, as the next best thing. Well someone thought it was a good idea to have Jarrett fight three old guys on Nitro and he got a concussion too so now HE can’t be in it.

Finally they picked the #1 contender to the US Title, Chris Benoit, and put him against Sid for the world title. So in other words we have the #2 contender for the world title vs. the #1 contender for the US Title. Instead of the 2/3 falls (Triple Threat Theater as it was called here. It’s three gimmick matches) that Jarrett and Benoit were supposed to have, it’s now Billy Kidman vs. three of Benoit’s kind of stable mates in individual matches. This was a very confusing show as I’m sure you can see. Let’s get to it.

Oh and also, this is the show that got Russo fired. His original plans once he heard about all the insanity: put the title on Tank Abbot, the UFC fighter. Yeah….Russo was a bit nuts.

The announcers talk about the injuries and how more or less everyone is out. We see some clips of the injuries. It’s not a good sign when you need about four minutes of talking to explain why the majority of the card is changed tonight. We get a clip of Shane Douglas and Dean Malenko (parts of Benoit’s Revolution stable. It was Benoit/Malenko/Saturn/Douglas and a mystery guy who is revealed tonight) beating up Konnan to make the Triple Threat Theater thing happen instead of a six man tag.

We hear about Nash vs. Funk. If Nash wins he’s Commissioner and if Funk wins the NWO has to disband. Let me repeat that. The NWO existed in the year 2000.

The singles match between David Flair and Vampiro that changed into a tag title match with the champions David Flair/Crowbar vs. Vampiro/mystery man. However during the preshow, Crowbar jumped Vampiro so instead Vampiro is like screw it, I want a triple threat match instead of a title match. Uh, sure Vampy.

They run down the rest of the card and there are I think two matches without stipulations or consequences one way or another. Wow.

Ok so after six and a half minutes of explaining the show, we go to the ring. This is sad.

Billy Kidman vs. Dean Malenko

Kidman is one of the Filthy Animals and Malenko is part of the Revolution which was supposed to be a youth movement stable but it was changed into a military thing or something. This is under catch-as-catch-can which means a regular match but you can’t leave the ring.

Dean takes it to the floor quickly and the fans are loudly booing. We hear about what Kidman has to do tonight and I wonder why Douglas isn’t fighting for the Revolution tonight. LOUD booing now as Malenko keeps backing up. I have no idea if the fans know the rules here or not. Big crowd tonight too at over 14,000.

Kidman hammers away and Dean rolls to the floor, ending the match. Dean starts getting back in and I think he messed up here. This is exactly what this show didn’t need at all. Way too short to grade as it might have been two minutes long but the fans cheer for Kidman winning so uh….good? This was Dean’s last WCW match as he would debut as part of the Radicalz in 15 days.

We recap Vampiro vs. Crowbar/David Flair. Vampiro beat Crowbar on Thunder…..and that’s it. Literally the clip just stops there. Can this show do ANYTHING right?

Ah here’s the actual video package and the editing is awful. They cut to something else literally every three seconds. Daphne had been chilling with David Flair who was insane. She jumped Vamprio and his crew and then they met Crowbar at a gas station. Flair and Crowbar won the vacant tag titles because Arn Anderson helped them so Flair (Ric isn’t here so every Flair means David) hit Arn with the crowbar (object, not person). The NWO wants to kill David for costing them the titles and Vampiro’s crew wants to kill them for general purposes. Yeah it made little sense.

Vampiro says he can win this on his own and Masahiro Chono of all people pops up to yell in Japanese. I guess he was going to be the partner.

Flair, Crowbar and Daffney say they’re going to break Vampiro’s bones and rip his flesh.

David Flair vs. Vampiro vs. Crowbar

Vampiro beats them both up with relative ease. I mean they’ve got nothing. Suicide dive to the floor takes out Crowbar and he gets cheered loudly. David throws really bad chops. Flair yells at Crowbar as I think we’re in a comedy squash here. Yes, the tag team champions are being destroyed here. Baseball slide takes the champions out as the champions have had no offense. This is a triple threat remember. Why it’s not a handicap match is beyond me.

Crowbar FINALLY gets something going with a sommersault plancha to hit both guys. Frog splash off the apron to Vampiro and Crowbar is hurt again. German suplex by Crowbar sets up a slingshot legdrop for two. Crowd is very hot here. David is just kind of watching which is good for the fans as David absolutely sucked. Vampiro gets a superplex for two. The split screen is even bad as there’s a big logo and the name of the show everywhere so you can’t see anything on the screens.

Flair is actually doing stuff now and it’s just bad. A vertical suplex is an accomplishment for him. Vampiro tries to counter a powerbomb into an X Factor and it’s completely botched, leading to a “You F’D up chant”. Rock Bottom by Vampiro gets two as Flair saves. Daffney is looking good here. Crowbar gets a splash and Flair puts on a weak figure four. Daffney comes in for no apparent reason and the champions fight. Flair is sent into Daffney and the Nail in the Coffin (Michinoku Driver) ends Flair. Big old pop for that.

Rating: D. This was awful as you would expect. David Flair was absolutely terrible but he was on TV for the reason of whose testicles he came from. Anyway, this was terrible but the high spots helped a bit and Daffney looking good is never a bad thing. They would lose the titles in a week or so.

Buff Bagwell is here.

The Mamalukes, the Mafia group that sucked completely, say they can beat the Harris Brothers.

Mamalukes vs. Harris Boys

Disco Inferno is with the Italians here. Johnny the Bull starts with let’s say Ron (The Harris Boys are identical twins. The other is Don) and Johnny (his partner is Big Vito) is in trouble early. The Italians clean the ring and I think they’re the faces, but does it really matter? Off to Vito now who takes Ron down with ease. Big kick as Disco doesn’t want to be here but is being forced by some Mafia dude.

All Italians so far. Bull comes in and some heel cheating lets them take over. Side slam by Ron and it’s off to Don. Off to a chinlock for a second as Johnny gets a clothesline. Never mind on the comeback apparently as it’s back off to Don’s control. The problem here is that the Harris Brothers use regular offense instead of big power man offense. The crowd is almost completely dead here.

Vito comes in off a blind tag but is forced back out. I’m trying to like this show, I truly am. It’s just not happening. Vito wants Disco to get involved which isn’t happening at all. Ron is in the wrong corner for some reason. The Harris guys can’t do a thing and it’s obvious. Vito comes in and everything breaks down. Disco finally does something as he tries to cost the Italians the match but instead it gives them the win as he shoves Vito into a flying clothesline on Ron for the pin. What a mess.

Rating: D. Well at least it wasn’t incredibly long. The Harris guys are boring as this biker thing never went anywhere but with their size they obviously had a job almost guaranteed. The Disco vs. the Mafia thing was terrible and just kind of ended with no resolution but it’s not like it mattered. Mafia gimmicks go nowhere and this was no exception.

Cruiserweight Title: Madusa vs. Oklahoma

Oklahoma is the parody character of JR played by Ed Ferrara. He weighs about 300lbs and is trying to win the Cruiserweight Title tonight from Madusa, the female champion. He runs his mouth against women and against Ohio in general. Oh and he has the belt itself. Madusa has some Nitro Girl with her.

Madusa knows martial arts and a German suplex. Oklahoma isn’t a wrestler but throws her by the hair a bit. Madusa gets a pair of “dropkicks” off the middle rope but gets caught in a DDT. He goes for his bottle of barbecue sauce (yes just go with it) but the Nitro Girl (Spice) and the Chyna ripoff named Asya stop him. He pulls the loincloth she’s wearing over her bikini bottom and pins her to win the title. I give up. Too short to rate again, thank goodness. The girls pour barbecue sauce down his tights.

Brian Knobbs, the Hardcore Champion, says Fit Finlay deserves the credit for his title win.

Brian Knobbs vs. Meng vs. Norman Smiley vs. Fit Finlay

This is called Four the Hard Way but it’s really just a fatal fourway. This is during the Smiley is scared of hardcore matches period. Knobbs and Finlay are dressed alike as the idea here is that Finlay trained him to be a hardcore guy. Yes, Brian Knobbs is a champion in the year 2000. Smiley tries a trashcan shot to Meng’s head which fails miserably.

It’s one of those hardcore matches that you’ve seen a few million times in WCW as it’s not incredibly interesting but they’re kind of entertaining for the sake of being what they are. Everyone beats up Norman and nothing hurts Meng, namely due to that big thing of hair. Here’s a table and some bad chair shots. Finlay and Smiley go into the crowd which lasts about four seconds. This is one of those matches that needs to end. Knobbs is out mostly so Smiley goes near him. Smiley gets hit with his own riot shield and this is finally over.

Rating: D-. I mean dude, what do you want me to say here? It’s a hardcore match. Like I said, if you’ve seen one of these you’ve seen a million of them since there isn’t anything different about any of them for the most part. The title never died of course as WCW kept this joke up for another YEAR. They never learned at all.

Billy Kidman vs. Perry Saturn

This is a Bunkhouse match, meaning hardcore. At least Kidman’s music is kind of catchy. Saturn is freaking stacked as far as muscles go. Perry stomps away to start and gets a clothesline to take Kidman down. Big press slam as this is a regular match so far. Kidman fights back with speed and punches in the corner. Clothesline gets two. He tries a running headlock takeover out of the corner but gets crotched on the top rope and clotheslined to the floor. That gets two on the floor.

Back in the ring and Saturn does something to Kidman’s neck but gets rolled up for two. This is painfully boring. Springboard legdrop gets two for Saturn. Kidman’s shirt is ripped off and we FINALLY get to a weapon, in this case, a table which is laid face down on the floor instead of being set up in the ring. Ah there it is. Heenan: “Tony we could make a fortune in a table company.” Mike: “Heenan if you’re involved the only thing it’ll be is under the table.” That was good. Where is this funny Mike every other show?

The table is on the floor but Saturn can’t suplex onto him. Saturn gets an elbow from the top rope for no cover so Kidman grabs a sunset flip for two. Diving powerbomb gets two as does a Sky High from Kidman. Saturn throws Kidman over the top and through the table which gets two. It looked great if nothing else. Saturn tries a powerbomb from the top but gets backdropped instead. Out of NOWHERE Saturn tries another powerbomb (does he get paid per powerbomb?) but gets dropped in a facejam for the pin. This was Saturn’s last match in WCW.

Rating: D+. I’m starting to feel bad for giving these matches such low grades. They’re not really that terrible but they’re just so painfully uninteresting. I’m flying through this show and I’ve yet to see anything worth watching in it. Every one of the six matches so far range from just kind of there to completely uninteresting. There were some cool spots here and I like Saturn so I guess you could call this the match of the night so far….somehow.

Stevie Ray talks to some homeless people. Uh…ok? He talks about Booker T and says that he’s the one from the streets, not Booker. The homeless people like him apparently. Stevie goes to a barber shop where the barber wants to know why Booker never comes around anymore. I’d assume Stevie can’t read the street signs to get there anymore but that’s just me.

Stevie, in the arena now, says he’ll teach Booker a lesson.

Booker T vs. Stevie Ray

Booker is in suspenders and has this overly large woman with him named Midnight. Booker sends Midnight to the back before the bell. So the point of his quick thing about how she watches his back now was…? Booker hammers away and gets the side kick to take Stevie down. The referee is on the apron for some reason. Spinning forearm gets two for Booker but he runs into an elbow and then a clothesline to send him to the floor.

Stevie’s offense more or less fails completely and it’s off to Booker again. Back in we go and Booker hammers away. Booker runs into a powerslam and we hit the chinlock by Stevie. Elbow drop gets two on Booker. Stevie tries a backdrop and we cut away to the fans for no apparent reason. Why in the world would you do that?

Stevie’s finisher, the Slap Jack (elevated Pedigree) is countered and Booker fires off some kicks. There’s the axe kick and it’s not quite Spinarooni time. He tries the twisting sunset flip out of the corner but botches it a bit. Book End puts Stevie down but Ahmed Freaking Johnson wobbles in (muscular as all get out but with a gut the size of Cleveland) to beat up Booker for the DQ. Pearl River Plunge kills Booker and Midnight comes out to do nothing of note. His name is Big T and this is the new Harlem Heat apparently.

Rating: D. Oh dear this was bad again. Booker did what he could but he was no miracle worker. Stevie was never anything good or even passable so of course he kept getting more and more TV time and more and more pushes. Johnson was gone rather soon and no one cared.

Sid said he’s awesome and Benoit is his friend but he’ll win the title tonight despite what the NWO wants.

Tank Abbot vs. Jerry Flynn

Not Lynn, but Flynn, a karate guy. Abbot is a former UFC Champion and this is an alleged shoot fight. They trade some submission stuff for about 90 seconds and then it ends. You figure out what happens after about 1:40 when an amateur karate guy meets a legit pro fighter in a shoot fight.

We recap DDP vs. Buff Bagwell. Allegedly Buff was sleeping with Page’s wife so Page made gay jokes. Buff says if not for Page he’d date Kimberly. They trade jokes and Buff implied Kimberly slept with everyone in the locker room.

Diamond Dallas Page vs. Buff Bagwell

This is last man standing. Buff is the face here…I think. They slug it out with Buff taking over early as we head outside. They’re in the crowd already and fight in the tarped off seats. Nice job of hiding things there guys. Back to ringside now with Page hammering away and calling spots VERY loudly. Neckbreaker gets no count but Bagwell’s gets….no count either.

They head out to the floor as this isn’t much at all here. Up the aisle we go and both guys are rammed into the railing. Stereo punches put both guys down and we head to the WCW.com location. They slam the monitors against each other and Tony laughs for some reason. DDP is put on the WCW.com table and Bagwell drops an elbow through him. The referee doesn’t count at all which makes me think the rules in this are different somehow.

Back in the ring and Bagwell gets a low blow to take over. Uh I mean continue his advantage. This is getting annoying quickly. Page no sells everything for the most part and crotches him against the post. Both guys go down as it’s kind of hard to tell who the fans like here. They’re both up at 8 and they’re down again maybe 2 seconds later.

Back up at eight and Buff hammers away. DDT hits and both guys lay down after it. The fans are counting with them which is kind of cool for some reason. Buff calls for the Blockbuster and hits most of it. Page is up at nine and Bagwell has a riot baton or something like that. Diamond Cutter out of nowhere but Bagwell gets up first and wins it. Huh?

Rating: D+. Weird ending here as they claimed Buff blocked part of the move but it was pretty clear he didn’t at all. Not a terrible match but it didn’t feel like it needed the gimmick at all. The crowd was weird on this one too and it’s pretty easy to see why. Not bad but nothing good for the most part.

Kimberly comes down post match and looks all sad. Page beats Buff down and leaves with her while she still looks all sad.

Buff lost a boot in there somehow. Ok then.

Billy Kidman vs. ???

This is in a cage called Caged Heat, which means Hell in a Cell. Shane Douglas of the Revolution comes out to talk about how awesome the Revolution is and introduces the mystery guy. And it’s the Wall, a guy that has nothing to do with the Revolution until tonight. This is when Wall was still a total destroyer. Kidman finds a chair under the ring and cracks him with a chair to start.

So let me make sure I have this straight. A guy is thrown into the card to face a guy that joined a stable he was feuding with and I think a one day notice and is in the Cell with him. Got it. Standard small man vs. monster here with Wall taking him down with a big boot. Kidman is rammed back first into the cage and it’s all big man. Kidman gets a sunset bomb off the middle rope for two. He goes up, jumps into a chokeslam and we’re done. Five minute match in the Cell. I give up.

Rating: F. Not only was it a bad match, it was a bad match in the Hell in a Cell cage! I mean people, why in the world would you use that? If you’re going to change one match, change the rest too. Why is that so hard? Terrible match and a terrible ending to this three match system thing.

We recap Nash vs. Funk which is more or less NWO vs. Funk. Yes, Funk was arguably the top face at this point. They’re fighting for power here.

Terry Funk vs. Kevin Nash

The winner is the Commissioner, which Funk is at this point. If Nash loses then the NWO disbands. Funk’s music sounds like Demolition’s for a few seconds. The brawl starts in the aisle as this is a hardcore match. Chair to the back of Funk as it’s all Nash to start us off. There’s a Jackknife through the table less than two minutes in. You would think that would end it, but Nash wants to talk.

He says that if Funk can crawl back into the ring, Funk can still be Commissioner. Funk gets in and Nash says that he’s a lying SOB so the fight goes on. We only have Tony on commentary. Funk is busted open so we go to a wide shot. He gets a chair and cracks Nash a few times with it and adds a DDT for two. The people are booing the heck out of Funk here. But hey, he was a world champion 23 years ago! And some of the fans were alive then so he must be worthy of giving a big push to!

Nash cracks him in the head multiple times with the chair and Funk no sells them to beat on Nash even more. Funk sets up multiple chairs for absolutely no apparent reason. And of course he gets powerbombed through them and Nash becomes Commissioner as the man in his late 50s is probably crippled. Don’t you love WCW?

Rating: D. This was short and had a lot of Funk either no selling or not moving. The fans flat out didn’t buy Funk as the big face he was supposed to be but WCW kept going with it anyway because they had decided that they knew what the fans wanted to see instead of what the fans told them they wanted to see.

Arn Anderson doesn’t like that Nash has the Commissioner spot now. However he doesn’t have power until Midnight so the world title match has nothing to do with Nash. Anderson stumbles over his words so you can tell he’s either messed up or bored. This is still talking about the NWO vs. WCW. Are you kidding me? Arn is the referee for the main event which made sense in storyline for Bret vs. Goldberg but not here.

WCW World Title: Sid Vicious vs. Chris Benoit

Sid beat Benoit for the US Title at Fall Brawl in a joke of a match that we need to get to later. Sid is pushed as the face here because Benoit was part of the Revolution, a heel group, even though he’s the more popular guy here. After some big match intros we’re ready to go. Buffer calling Bischoff the #2 ranked contender in the world makes him sound a bit weak.

Now Arn gives instructions. Get on with it already. They feel each other to start and that’s more or less a stalemate. Some guys like Saturn and David Flair come out to watch. Sid sends him to the floor as more and more come out. The fans chant for Sid so he press slams Benoit with ease. Benoit goes to the knee and the fans cheer. Not sure who they’re behind here but I think it’s Sid more than Benoit for the most part.

Benoit dropkicks the steps into the knee into the post and then does it again. Back in the ring and Benoit puts on a kind of bad figure four. Sid taps his hand (which is funny as he tapped the mat to get the fans behind him in the Fall Brawl match which had to be ignored for the sake of the ending) to try to get some momentum going here and he powers out of it.

Sid is on his knees in the middle of the ring and Benoit adds a dropkick to the head. We hear the bull about the belt being around since 1905 as Benoit hits a dragon screw leg whip for two. Benoit throws on a bridging Indian Deathlock with a chinlock (Benoit is in what looks like a Matrix Move and Sid is on his stomach and Benoit pulls up on his chin. Looks awesome) and kicks Sid to the floor.

Sid Sids Up but a dropkick to the knee takes him right back down. Rolling Germans as I can feel the hackers breaking into Angle’s Twitter even though Twitter didn’t exist yet. Sid takes him down with a powerslam for two but gets caught in an ankle hook. Another German and the sign for the Swan Dive gets a BIG pop so Sid launches Benoit off to make the finishers look weak.

Chokeslam out of nowhere puts Benoit down but Sid is too weakened to do anything now. Benoit’s foot is under the ropes so that only gets two for Sid. Remember that as it becomes important later. Benoit puts the Crossface on and Sid taps to give Benoit the champion. Sid’s foot was under the rope which would become important later.

Rating: B-. This was by far the match of the night but Sid’s eternally questionable selling comes into play again here. A good thing though was that he tapped immediately, but the channeling of his inner big bald Irish dude with orange skin got old. Anyway, Benoit wins the title finally, albeit as a heel and as the fourth or fifth option but who cares?

Benoit thanks Sid for having a hard fight and talks about the Dynamite Kid and how people criticized him forever but tonight he’s proven them wrong. Arn says Benoit is awesome. Nash pops up to say he’s going to make Benoit’s life a living nightmare because that’s the NWO’s belt. Benoit says bring it on.

And of course none of this matters because Benoit stuck to his principles and left WCW, knowing that this was just an appeasement because he was walking no matter what. The title would be fought over by Sid and Nash while Benoit would debut in WCW and win the Intercontinental Title at Wrestlemania 16 before 4 years (and one year off for neck surgery) later, winning the world title in the main event of Wrestlemania while Nash is just kind of hanging around. Anyway, this is the famed Benoit WCW Title win and that’s about all of his reign.

Overall Rating: D. It’s 2000 WCW. Why would you expect a good show here? This is a show that actually benefits from the lack of context which is a weird thing to say. It took me awhile to sit through this because the matches weren’t that interesting and the feuds were rather idiotic indeed. Not much was going on at this show, namely because everything got all switched up because of injuries. Bad show overall but the main event isn’t terrible and the historical aspects of this show are really big, given what happened two weeks later. Avoid it of course though.
Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

Monday Nitro #103
Date: September 1, 1997
Location: Pensacola Civic Center, Pensacola, Florida
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Tony Schivaone, Bobby Heenan, Larry Zbyszko

We’re two weeks from Fall Brawl which has barely been touched on so far. The show wound up being pretty lame if I remember right but that goes without saying for a lot of these WCW PPVs. The main event tonight is a rematch from Clash of the Champions with Hall/Savage vs. Luger/Page. Let’s get to it.

This is the two year anniversary. Ok then.

We open with a video package on the career of Arn Anderson. That’s very cool and he still doesn’t get the recognition he deserves.

We also recap Hennig getting Arn’s spot on the team last week.

Eddie Guerrero/Jeff Jarrett vs. Steve McMichael/Chris Benoit

Like a true man from Memphis, Jarrett stalls on the floor before we get going. Benoit and Guerrero start things off and it’s a feeling out process. Considering how often they’ve fought, you wouldn’t think they would need to feel each other out. Eddie pounds him into the corner and does that spinning boot onto Benoit’s eyes move of his. Jarrett comes in and gets chopped down as we take a break.

Back with Guerrero doing pushups to annoy Benoit. So he’s Scott Steiner now? Jeff comes in again for a dropkick onto Chris before it’s back to Eddie. Chris gets a fast two off a rollup but gets caught by Jarrett in the running crotch attack while in 619 position. Benoit chops Jeff down and Mongo adds a clothesline to a BIG pop. Eddie comes back in with a clothesline to Benoit but Mongo breaks up the Frog Splash.

The Canadian hits a fast superplex to put both guys down and the hot tag brings in Mongo to clean house on both heels. Everything breaks down and Eddie trips Benoit up, allowing Jarrett to chop block McMichael. Jeff puts on the Figure Four and Eddie goes up for the Frog Splash, only to have Dean Malenko come in, shove Eddie off the top, and frog splash Jeff to break up the hold. Mongo gets the easy pin.

Rating: C+. Basic tag match here which went fine. I don’t know why it took so long for Dean to get involved with the Horsemen as he’s pretty close to a natural fit for them. Jarrett wasn’t long for WCW as he would have his last televised match in the company in the first week of October. Pretty decent opener here though and it advanced the story, even though I’m not sure they knew what that story was anymore.

Luger congratulates Arn on his career. I’d expect a lot of these testimonial kind of things tonight.

Here are Hall, Savage and Liz to the announce desk. Hall steals the mic from Larry and says Happy Labor Day. He talks about doing it for the little man and says the NWO is the real draw instead of WCW. Come on dude don’t rub it in that much. Hall brags about the NWO’s disrespect of authority to Larry who doesn’t have a great comeback. Savage challenges Page and Luger to a rematch that was already talked about earlier and that’s about it.

Silver King vs. Mortis

Mortis pounds away to start but King flips over him ala Daniel Bryan and kicks Mortis’ face off. Well his mask off but you get the idea. A mini springboard kick to Mortis’ gets another two as you may be noticing a pattern emerging here. Vandenberg finally realizes Mortis is losing to freaking Silver King and trips him up to let Mortis take over.

A guillotine legdrop gets two for the masked (Mortis if you’re not clear on that) dude before hooking an abdominal stretch for a few moments. King hits a quick backdrop and a paid of dropkicks to send Mortis outside for a plancha to take him down again. Back in they go and King’s run ends via a Russian legsweep. The Flatliner (middle rope Samoan Drop) gets the pin in an abrupt ending.

Rating: C-. This wasn’t bad but at the end of the day how interested can you get in Silver King vs. Mortis? That’s one of the things you did get on Nitro: matches between guys you would never think to put together that wound up being decent. They have these guys under contract, so why not throw them out there for five minutes and see what they can do?

Vandenberg wants the Faces of Fear to come out here, only to have his boys cleaned out by the monsters.

Time for some dancing chicks.

We recap Bischoff getting beaten up by Sting last week.

Yuji Nagata vs. Dean Malenko

Bah it’s Nagata. I never cared for this guy and he never was anything interesting in WCW. They fight for control to start until Dean takes him down to the mat and cranks on the arm a bit. Both guys try for the others’ leg with Yuji settling for the ankle. Dean is all like “oh you did not just try a mat hold on me” and puts on a freaky leg lock that only lasts a few seconds until Yuji gets a rope. Dean hits his leg lariat for one and we hit the chinlock.

Nagata fights up quickly and counters a whip into the corner with a boot to the face. We get the dragon screw leg whip which is getting more and more common in WCW at this point. They fight for the submissions on the mat again with Dean trying for a cross armbreaker that doesn’t last long due to those pesky ropes. Dean suplexes Nagata down for two and Nagata gets the same off a backdrop. Cue Jarrett for revenge from earlier (shouldn’t this be Eddie?). Debra distracts the referee, allowing Jeff to nail Malenko to give Nagata the win.

Rating: C+. This was one of the more entertaining matches I’ve ever seen from Nagata, although that may have been due to Malenko being able to do no wrong in 1997. The match was very technical, which shows another strength of Nitro: this is the third match of the night and we’ve had a tag match, a high flying match and a technical match. That gives a lot of fan bases something to care about and that’s a great idea.

The Girls dance some more.

La Parka vs. Ultimo Dragon

This is part of Sonny Onoo’s war with the Ultimo Dragon. La Parka pounds away to start and chops Dragon down. Ultimo is fine with that though, coming back with a nip up and an armdrag before sending Parka through the ropes and out to the floor. We head to the floor where Dragon’s handspring elbow misses La Parka but hits the barricade. Dragon tries to suplex Onoo on the floor but gets taken out by a nice suicide dive.

The fans chant for Dragon to mess with la Parka’s mind so he puts Ultimo in the Tree of Woe. A hard kick to Dragon’s chest keeps him down but he fires (see what I did there?) off a clothesline for one and it’s time for some martial arts. La Parka gets two off a powerslam but Dragon escapes a backdrop and fires off the kicks. A bridging fallaway slam (not a move you often see) gets two for Dragon so Sonny distracts the referee. Parka gets a chair but walks into kind of a Van Daminator from Dragon for the pin.

Rating: C. Not bad here although the ending was kind of stupid. The referee sees a chair laying next to the guys, La Parka is out cold, and presumably he would have heard the chair cracking off La Parka’s head, and he’s perfectly ok with that? Eh that’s one of the things you have to deal with in wrestling I guess. Dragon’s feud with Sonny would eventually move onto Nagata as Sonny’s enforcer I believe.

Sonny fires off a kick to Dragon and gets slammed as a result. Dragon puts him in the Dragon Sleeper but has to run from La Parka’s chair.

Buff Bagwell vs. Glacier

Now here’s an interesting match. I didn’t say good mind you but it’s definitely not a pairing I would have put together. Buff of course is obnoxious and makes fun of Glacier’s karate stuff. Ok to be fair it’s Glacier so it’s hard not to make fun of him. They trade armdrags and Buff pulls his eyes back like an Asian person. Ok then. Glacier can’t get in a shot as Buff is ducking around like a boxer. I don’t think a boxer often leapfrogs people but you get the idea.

Buff makes fun of Glacier some more and gets kicked in the head, ribs and chest for his efforts so far. After Bagwell chills (man I’m nailing these unfunny puns tonight) on the floor for a bit he comes back in to get kicked a few more times before Glacier hits a legsweep to take him down. A few shots by Buff slow Glacier down but Vincent actually doing something by tripping Glacier up puts him on the mat. Glacier, ever the schmuck, yells at Vincent instead of focusing on Buff and gets clotheslined in the back of the head for his troubles.

A back elbow to the face gets two for Buff and it’s time to pose. To be fair, Buff is really only good for a Blockbuster and posing so you can’t fault him for going to one of his pair of moves. I don’t think he had the Blockbuster yet anyway. Bagwell charges into a boot in the corner before Glacier unleashes the PALM STRIKES.

A hard kick to Bagwell face drops him but Glacier goes up and misses what I think was supposed to be a splash. Vincent gets kicked in the face as does Bagwell, but Glacier takes him to the top for no apparent reason. Vincent finally does his job again and holds Buff’s foot, sending Glacier to the mat. Blockbuster hits and we’re done.

Rating: D+. Not the best pairing in the world here but they gave me some decent joke material so I’ll forgive it. Either way, Glacier was clearly outliving his limited usefulness at this point while Buff continues to be at the top of the NWO C list. The fact that such a thing exists says a lot about where the team has gone in 13 months.

Larry Z thanks Arn for his career. They were world tag team champions back in the early 90s.

Piper is back at Halloween Havoc.

Lizmark Jr. vs. Villano IV

I’m sure their dads fought at some point. They pound on each other to start but Lizmark dropkicks him to the floor and hits a big over the top dive. Tenay talks about Lizmark and his dad being cliff divers from Acapulco. I don’t know if all this stuff he says is true or not, but man alive does it make matches more interesting. Back in and Villano takes him down with a clothesline and hits a backsplash as Raven is in the audience.

A DDT puts Lizmark down and Villano drops a knee only to get taken down by a spinwheel kick for two. A standing rana gets two more for Lizmark and the seem to mess something up in the corner as Lizmark tries a running dropkick but Villano puts his feet up. Lizmark sends him to the outside and hits a big dive to the floor, only to see Villano IV change with Villano V. Not that it matters as Lizmark hits a standing Lionsault for the pin out of almos nowhere.

Rating: C+. Is this Cruiserweight night or something? This is the third match with a luchador in it out of six matches we’ve had so far. This was entertaining stuff though as Lizmark is a pretty good diver (from Acapulco. Thanks Mike!). The Villanos were fine for a lower card heel gimmick and the match worked pretty well despite how short it was.

Luger says he and Page can get along and asks Page to come out and bury the hatchet. Page is nowhere to be seen so Luger shrugs.

Remember earlier when the Nitro Girls danced? They do that again here, until Disco Inferno comes out to join them. Alex Wright comes out for his match and a dance off breaks out with Inferno.

TV Title: Hugh Morrus vs. Alex Wright

Wright tries to use some speed stuff to avoid Morrus before punching his way out of the corner like a jerk. Hugh charges right back at him and pounds the champion (Wright in case that was missing) in the corner. Wright bails to the floor for a bit before coming back to run a bit more. He gets Morrus to chase him and when your name is Hugh Morrus, it’s pretty clear you’re not that bright. Alex gets in some shots to take Hugh down and works on the knee, wrapping it around the post in the process.

Morrus goes to the floor and hits a clothesline from one leg but gets taken right back down inside. Wright stays on the leg but goes up and gets slammed down. Hugh’s leg is suddenly fine enough to run back and forth to splash Wright in the corners, although he does limp a bit after each one. Disco is at ringside again as Hugh slams Wright down. Disco is pulled in and beaten up but walks into a spinwheel kick for the pin (with feet on the ropes) to retain the title.

Rating: C-. This was going well until Wright got slammed off the top. I get that Morrus is a power guy, but the lack of selling was stupid. Selling does not mean doing all of your moves and then limping a bit. Selling means you CAN’T DO THE MOVES PROPERLY because of your injury. The match didn’t work at that point, and it didn’t do either guy any favors.

Raven is still here.

Heenan spends most of the ten seconds he has to thank Arn for his career complaining that he only has ten seconds.

Video on Sting.

Damien vs. Stevie Richards

As Damien comes to the ring, Raven grabs him for a DDT on the concrete. He throws Damien in to Stevie who didn’t notice what Raven did. Stevie of course performs CPR until Raven smacks him upside the head, making Richards cover him for the pin.

Here’s Gene for an interview with Big Bubba of all people. Bubba says he’s tired of wearing different costumes and his name is Ray Traylor. He got beaten up when he was in the NWO but they never came to check on him. Bischoff sent him a letter throwing him out of the group and that’s it. Now, he wants to take the NWO out. Makes as much sense as any other reason.

Prince Iaukea vs. Ray Traylor

Traylor pounds on him to start (GOOD MAN!) and sends him to the outside after no selling a dropkick. Ray sits on a sunset flip attempt and hits a big boot to send the Prince’s head back to whatever island he’s a prince of. Prince manages to block a powerbomb but walks into the Boss Man Slam to end the squash.

JJ thanks Arn for being awesome.

Gene calls out the Horsemen but instead he gets the NWO. It’s time for a parody! Syxx is Flair and Konnan is Mongo. Syxx has a big fake nose and a bad blonde wig while saying WOO a lot. He calls Flair down to the ring as Tony thinks he’ll be sick. I think the same thing every time you call a show Schiavone. Bagwell is playing Hennig here. Flair talks to Hennig about joining the Horsemen (WOO!). Bagwell keeps chewing the gum and says spot a lot. Flair brings out Anderson (as played by Kevin Nash) who has a bald wig, a neck brace and a cooler. Oh and he’s fat.

Anderson makes fun of himself for being fat and says he feels like he’s in labor here on Labor Day. He talks about how he has average size, speed, quickness, looks, intelligence and carpentry skills but he parlayed that into a wrestling career. Then he hurt his neck and lost the strength in his beer opening hand. A few weeks later he went to a bar and a fat broad slapped him on the back and it woke him up. He looked at the longneck he was drinking from and it was like sand going through an hourglass…..and so are the days of our lives.

Anderson makes fun of himself for being a drunk who would give as much as he could every night he was in the ring. Now he wants the fans to remember him as he is now, not as he was. This brings him to Hennig. All he has left to offer Curt is a spot. Not a liver spot or a dog named Spot, but his spot. Hennig agrees and that’s that. Tony acts like we just saw the Kennedy assassination or something.

This segment apparently was controversial and offended the Horsemen badly. At the end of the day….the NWO are heels. What do you expect them to do? Write Anderson a card and get him a plaque? Yeah the Horsemen probably should have been allowed to run in or something, but this really isn’t as big of a deal as I’ve heard it made out to be.

Given how ridiculous some of Flair’s promos were back in the day and how ridiculous Flair would get, I find it hard to feel bad about this. You can’t be a group on top for so long and not expect to be made fun of once in awhile. If you don’t like it I can totally understand that, but to nearly quit over it as I’ve heard Flair and Anderson wanted to do is a bit much.

Cruiserweight Title: Chavo Guerrero Jr. vs. Chris Jericho

Eddie comes out before the match to yell at Chavo (who is challenging). He says he’s failed to make Chavo a man, causing Chavo to yell a bit. This draws out Scotty Riggs, Damien, Prince Iaukea and Kidman for no apparent reason. A brawl breaks out and here comes the Villanos. Dragon and Wright are out now. They all get in the ring and throw each other out like a battle royal until only Jericho is left. Eddie blasts him with the belt and hits a frog splash and that’s it.

Giant thanks Anderson.

Here are Hogan and Bischoff to respond to Sting. We still have the main event to go even though this show has felt like it’s been on for nine hours or so now. Eric says that Hogan has driven Sting to the rafters and Hulk suggests Sting get into dry cleaning because he won’t be in the ring anytime soon. Hogan says he wants Sting and calls him down to the ring (and calls him a jabroni in the process). Instead Hulk calls out JJ Dillon and demands that JJ produce Sting. Since there’s no Sting, Hogan beats up JJ instead. Tony walks off set, instantly making this segment better. Dillon gets the spraypaint. Tony is already back.

Randy Savage/Scott Hall vs. Lex Luger/Diamond Dallas Page

Tony of course whines about how hard is job is and dear goodness are we supposed to care? JJ has been treated like a goon since he got here so why are we supposed to be all depressed about this? Luger and Page are in different corners due to not trusting each other until it’s Page vs. Hall to start. They slug it out in the corner with DDP taking over. Off to Savage and you know Page is cool with that.

We take our second break in about five minutes (first was during the NWO’s entrance) and come back to see Hall holding Page in an armbar. Apparently Page hasn’t even tried to tag in Luger yet. Savage takes Page down before it’s back to Scott for the fallaway slam. We hit the chinlock from Savage followed by a double ax from the top for two.

The announcers are sounding like they all just saw their puppies drowned. Page finally hits a discus lariat to drop Hall but Savage distracts the referee from seeing the hot tag. Luger comes in anyway to beat on the NWO with atomic drops all around. Lex accidentally decks Page with the forearm but Racks Savage anyway. There was no tag though so Hall makes the legal pin on Page.

Rating: C-. Just angle advancement for WarGames here but DANG was that commentary annoying. “WE NEED TO WORK TOGETHER!” Yes Tony, we know this because you’ve been saying it FOR THIRTEEN FREAKING MONTHS ALREADY! LEARN A NEW TRICK YOU STUPID PARROT HEADED MAN! The match told a decent story but at this point it’s really hard to care as I just want this show to end.

Luger is frustrated with Page to end the show.

Overall Rating: D. I’m glad I’m laying down as I watch this or I would have collapsed a few times during the show. SWEET GOODNESS did this feel long. It’s one of those episodes that juts keeps going with almost nothing being done at all. This show had ten matches and two LONG talking segments, which is too much for a two hour program. The announcers are reaching the levels of annoying that they’re famous for, as it’s constantly “we’re doomed!” and “please pull together WCW!” Yes, we get it: the NWO is dominating right now. TELL US SOMETHING NEW! Really bad show this week.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

Monday Nitro #20
Date: January 15, 1996
Location: James L. Knight Center, Miami, Florida
Commentators: Eric Bischoff, Bobby Heenan, Steve McMichael

We hit the 20th show as somehow we’re five months into this series. Tonight it’s Luger vs. Savage….again, which should be at least watchable as they tend to be when they fight each other. Hogan vs. Meng as well could be ok. Also we have some guy named Flair vs. some guy named Sting. Wow they really aren’t going for originality are they? Let’s get to it.

Apparently Hogan vs. Meng is billed as just a match vs. a member of the Dungeon and Sting vs. Flair is for the title. Sting vs. Flair is billed as the main event. Keep that in mind. Savage is going to get the winner, presumably at the PPV but they imply next week.

Randy Savage vs. Lex Luger

Apparently if Savage wins or loses he still gets the shot. What the heck kind of sense does that make? Why would Savage deserve a title shot if he loses here? Luger jumps him early as apparently he’s beaten Savage three times in a row now. He beats Randy down on the floor but Savage goes to his vast array of right hands. Heenan again manages to not be able to tell time, saying they’ve been on the floor for six or seven minutes when it’s been maybe 90 seconds.

Savage gets a top rope axe handle for two as they’re flying through this. Randy takes over as this is far closer to a brawl than a wrestling match so far. He gets Luger down with a slam and goes up with a HUGE elbow but Luger gets up. Luger throws him in the Rack for the submission of all things. Lex won’t let go though which is rather surprising. There lies your #1 contender, which Luger points out.

Rating: C+. Savage submitting? Wait the replay shows that Savage’s arm dropped three times, not that he gave up. That makes more sense. This wasn’t anything really bad at all with both guys brawling for the most part which makes sense as this was a big time feud. Not bad at all for the most part.

We’re supposed to have a tag match with Horsemen vs. Dungeon but they all come out at the same time and not ready to fight. They have the new US Champion, the One Man Gang whose initials are far more amusing now. Anderson says he and Sullivan agree that there’s no point in having this war any longer as no one is going to win and it doesn’t gain them anything else. That’s why they feuded for another 6 months.

Sullivan says Flair is awesome and that the Yankees or the Red Sox would love to have him. Giant/Flair vs. Savage/Hogan at the Clash. Sullivan respects Anderson too, but he doesn’t respect Pillman at all. Pillman goes all nuts again about not being afraid so Anderson smacks him upside his head.

Since that match didn’t happen, here’s a standby match.

Public Enemy vs. American Males

This is Public Enemy’s debut. I don’t see good things for a match where Marcus Bagwell is the ring general. The Males jump the males and clear the ring to start. Eric says they’re bringing the newest athletes every week. As in a guy that was rookie of the year ten years ago, a guy that won the world title 8 years ago and former tag team champions are brand new. Got it.

The Males clear the ring again because the first time didn’t explain things well enough I guess. There’s the ECW chant which I’m sure Bischoff has never heard of before. Riggs gets a sunset flip on Grunge for two. Some heel cheating lets Grunge take over for the first time which lasts about 4 seconds.

Heenan suggests Public Enemy use spraypaint to draw pictures. Eric: No spraypaint here. That’s rich. A few seconds later Grunge rolls up Bagwell with tights to win it. This was about as much nothing as you could squeeze into three minutes. Post match the winners put the Males through tables which was a new thing for mainstream audiences at the time. Mongo says they’ll have to pay for those tables. I get why the Dudleys can’t retire now.

WCW World Title: Sting vs. Ric Flair

How many times has that been written over the years? Jimmy is with Flair here. Sting with a pair of nipups to counter Flair and freak him out. We hear again about the lack of PPV this month which is rather stupid. Now let’s talk about Mike Ditka for awhile. Also, the world title match is on third so that Hogan vs. Meng can go on last. Let that sink in a bit.

Sting gets a top rope suplex as we take a break. Sting misses a splash on the ropes as we’re back to allow Flair to take over. There’s a sleeper by Sting but Flair gets a belly to back to escape. They slug it out on the ropes which of course Sting wins. And screw that as Sting goes too fast and gets caught. Figure Four is reversed into a small package for two though.

Backslide gets two for Sting. And there’s Flair’s back to fulfill contractual obligations. Bobby sounds a bit snookered. Sting no sells a chop and here he comes again. Jimmy gets up on the apron to do no good. Here’s Luger to take care of him but when he snatches the Megaphone from Jimmy it hits Sting in the head. The referee is fine with this for some reason and Flair throws on the Figure Four and Sting can’t move so it’s a pinfall for Flair.

Rating: C+. Definitely one of the weaker matches they’ve had but this is a pairing where the rating goes up automatically because of who is in there. These two are guys that have such a history and chemistry together that anytime they fight it’s worth seeing. Nothing great but nothing bad at all which makes for a fine match.

And of course Hogan hits the ring IMMEDIATELY to get as much camera time as possible. I mean less than ten seconds passed between the bell ringing and Hogan and Savage hitting the ring. Hogan yells at Sting about Luger not being on their side and Savage agrees. Again, WHY WAS THIS NEVER A TAG MATCH IN THE MAIN EVENT OF A PPV??? Sting didn’t realize Luger did it apparently.

Sting leaves and it’s the Hulk Hogan Show! He asks Savage why he’s getting a title shot when Luger beat him four times and Hogan is on such a roll. That’s….actually kind of a good point. Why shouldn’t Sting get a title shot if they agree he got shafted just now? Savage says he’s got the shot so get over it.

Jim Belushi will be on Saturday Night. Kind of odd but it’s mainstream appeal I guess.

Hulk Hogan vs. Meng

Yes, this goes on after the world title match between the two biggest stars in WCW history. The stupidity of this is the theme of Super Brawl is IT’S ALL ABOUT THE TITLE. Bischoff starts the kissing up immediately, saying that he’s the king of the sport. Yes, the world champion means nothing and no one else means anything either. It’s all about Hogan.

Meng takes over early as Bischoff likes to say HULK HOGAN a lot. Meng hits the nerve hold as Bischoff talks about how great WCW is. Heenan keeps talking about how Hogan is going to lose and how he has to be right eventually. Meng uses some spike object on Hogan, gets two, Hulk Up, you know the rest, Hogan wins with a shot with the spike.

Rating: C-. Standard 4 minute Hogan beats up a monster match from the 80s. It’s nothing special at all and I mean that pretty literally because it’s been done so many times. This was needing to go on after the main event right? Can’t you see the connection there? Hogan does something he’s done 1000 times so it goes on after the world title. Sure why not.

Savage came out to help and Hogan shakes his hand. The announcers recap things to end the show.

Overall Rating: C-. FAR weaker show from last week and what a shock that happens when the older guys were out there. This Hogan stuff needs to end soon and it will as we inch closer and closer to May and the Outsiders. Not a good show by comparison but it wasn’t bad. They were really pushing this whole great month of wrestling and it worked to a certain degree. This wasn’t bad but by comparison it was if that makes sense. Twenty shows in the book. Not bad.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

Sin
Date: January 14, 2001
Location: Conseco Fieldhouse, Indianapolis, Indiana
Attendance: 6,617
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Scott Hudson

Another month into WCW here and this time it’s one of the more infamous endings. This is the fatal fourway for the title with Sid vs. Steiner vs. Jarrett vs. a mystery man. The ending is famous for one of the sickest botches and injuries of all time. Other than that it’s mainly a bunch of Starrcade rematches so let’s get to it.

The opening video lists off the seven deadly sins with various clips of various people. Simple but at least it fits the name, even if the name makes no sense.

Shane doesn’t want Shannon to come to the ring with him.

Cruiserweight Title: Shane Helms vs. Chavo Guerrero

If you remember last month 3 Count both won a title shot. The next night they had a match to determine who won the title shot, which is here. Chavo is relatively freshly heel here and totally awesome. Crowd is hot as they have a crisp technical sequence with Chavo grabbing a full nelson for a few seconds. Chavo chops away and in a NICE nod to history, Shane counters with armdrags. Flair vs. Stemboat anyone?

Shane gets an F5 into a facebuster but Chavo manages a clothesline to send him to the floor. After a brief skirmish on the floor Shane kind of botches a sunset flip but recovers fast enough that it’s easily forgotten, still getting two. Chavo goes low as this is a very fast paced match. Sweet dropkick by Chavo gets two and we hit the chinlock. This is a bit different as they’ve been going strong about five minutes and they needed a 20 second rest. Nothing wrong with that.

Atomic drop by Shane reverses and a neckbreaker puts Chavo down. Shane covers just before the ten count but gets two. Crowd is hot for this. X Plex (German with the arms crossed in front of Chavo) gets two. Shane charges at him in the corner but Chavo sends him to the floor. BIG dive by Chavo takes Helms out on the floor and we go back into the ring.

Chavo gets thrown to the floor and Shane hits his own big old dive to take Chavo down. Chavo’s was better but still that was great. Sunset flip gets two for Shane as does a Samoan Drop. He calls for the Vertebreaker but Chavo reverses. Shane reverses the reversal into the Nightmare on Helm Street (spinning reverse DDT. Look it up as it’s hard to describe) for a LONG two. Tornado DDT is blocked but Chavo reverses another Nightmare on Helm Street into a brainbuster to get the pin and keep the title.

Rating: A-. GREAT match here with both guys moving incredibly well and the crowd responding to every single thing. This is exactly the right thing to do for the opener with the match being fast paced and full of the right amount of spots and counters. Like I said, Chavo was awesome at this point and this was even more proof of that. Excellent match here and worth watching.

And now let’s watch it go downhill from here.

Earlier today Tenay was trying to find out who the mystery man was so he asked Flair. I’d love for someone to just say the surprise to catch everyone off guard for once.

Vito is facing Reno here and has Johnny the Bull with him again, although Johnny can’t be at ringside.

Reno vs. Big Vito

Revenge match here after Reno revealed that he was the guy that was paying Kronik to take out Vito so he could rejoin the Thrillers instead of just you know, taking out Vito and rejoining the Thrillers. They stare each other down and the fight is on. Reno takes over with a powerslam to start and Vito kind of looks weak. Oh and they’re brothers apparently.

They head to the floor for a bit before heading back in and slugging it out. The crowd is staying white hot and already has made more noise than at all of Starrcade combined. Superplex gets two for Vito. Enziguri to the shoulder can’t put Reno down but a belly to back does for no cover. Out to the floor with Reno in control. They are laying into each other here.

Back in now and Reno drops an elbow. Tony talks about the brothers being in high school for some reason as the crowd is popping for clotheslines. Think about that for a minute. Vito grabs a sunset flip for two. Big boot to the head/superkick by Vito puts Reno down and they’re both down. Vito hammers away and here’s the comeback.

Belly to belly sets up a top rope elbow for two. Bad elbow but he tried at least. Reno fights back but can’t Roll the Dice. Suplex gets two for Vito. Spinning DDT fails for Vito so he settles for a T-Bone. I’ll have a round steak if you have one. Out of nowhere Reno reverses a suplex and gets the Roll the Dice for the pin. Another fast paced and decent match, probably a record for WCW post 1999.

Rating: C+. This is a fine example of a match where working hard and having intensity can make up for average in ring work. They were HAMMERING each other out there and while the match was sloppy at times the fans were into it and even I got into it a bit. That’s a great sign and the match was good as a result. We’re half an hour in and I’m rather impressed so far.

Mike Sanders pays off Brian Adams of Kronik but Brian Clark comes up with a better payoff so Adams says let’s take that one. He keeps Sanders’ money anyway of course.

Jung Dragons vs. Noble/Karagis

Told you they would never go anywhere. Noble/Karagis have been having problems apparently. Evan and Kaz starts us off and of course it’s full speed ahead. Kaz cleans house and the Dragons rule the ring. Stereo moonsaults take the non-reptiles out as Leia Meow is happy. Noble and Kaz go to the floor and Noble may have hurt his knee.

Things finally get down into a regular tag match with Noble and Karagis hitting a leg drop/side slam combination for two. Karagis gets two off a World’s Strongest Slam. Noble hammers on Kaz a bit more including something like a cross body for two. Noble is moving insanely fast out there. Apparently he does something called a Singapore. It looked like an elbow to me.

Karagis comes in and gets a nice gorilla press into a spinning spinebuster for two. Cool looking move there. Powerslam sets up a horrible looking attempt at a Lionsault and both guys are down after the miss. He would have hit Kaz in the toes or so if he was lucky. Kaz tries to get the hot tag but Noble drills him as he heads for the corner. Sunset flip attempt by Noble but Kaz rolls through and DRILLS Noble with a kick to the head. That looked sick.

There’s the hot tag and Yang cleans house, getting a dragon screw leg whip and a reverse figure four to Noble. The hold is broken up by Karagis and the big brawl is on. Knoble gets a German for two on Yang and Karagis gets a HUGE dive to take Kaz out on the floor.
Knoble tries a rana from the middle rope but Yang reverses into a sitout powerbomb for two.

Evan goes up and hits a SWEET 450 for two on Yang. Kaz gets a slingshot DDT for two as does Knoble with a tombstone. Yang tries a twisting moonsault which misses completely. After all that, Yang grabs a small package to get the pin on Knoble. AWESOME match to say the least.

Rating: A-. Is it possible that a WCW PPV is one of the best shows I’ve seen in a very long time? We’re only about 45 minutes into it though which is what scares me. Anyway, this was a great fast paced tag match with everyone moving in there and giving us a hot ending where you kept wondering who would wind up getting the pin. Great stuff.

Buff Bagwell and Lex Luger show up in an old purple car. I mean from like the 30s. They say they might have someone run in for a DQ so that Goldberg will lose.

Mike Sanders vs. Ernest Miller

The winner is Commissioner. Sanders says he’s in this for the money and that Ms. Jones is on the line here. WCW: pushing sexual slavery all the way to 2001! At least Jones looks good. For the life of me I have never gotten the appeal of the Cat. He says he’s going to be Commissioner and take WCW all the way to the top. I’ve got nothing for that one. Somebody call his mama. How did they never have her show up?

After a quick fan applause contest won by Miller we’re ready for the match. Cat starts in control and chases Sanders to the floor, only to get drilled by Sanders on the return to the ring. Cat gets a kick to take him down and hammers away. Does this guy know how to do anything but strikes? Sanders gets a snap mare and kicks him in the head. A sunset flip is countered by a crotch chop and an elbow from Miller.

Big kick (yes we get it you can kick him) by Miller puts Sanders down but he manages to send Cat to the floor. Chair shot is broken up by Jones which is stupid because Sanders would have lost if he had hit Cat. Jones chases him with the chair as the Thrillers come down for the big beating. Kronik makes the save and somehow the referee DOESN’T SEE ANY OF THIS, despite being in the ring the whole time. Adams shoves the money in Sanders’ mouth as he channels his inner DiBiase before a big kick to Sanders from Cat ends this, making Miller commissioner again.

Rating: D. Boring match for another authority position which means I have to watch more of Miller. I’m not complaining about seeing Jones dance but at the same time, Miller is annoying beyond belief. Weak match and what a shock: the bigger the names get, the worse the show gets.

Flair and Goldberg watch the Bagwell/Luger arrival from earlier. Flair, the other authority figure makes it No DQ and introduces Goldberg to a friend of his and the friend’s son. No angle or anything to it. Just a fan that wants an autograph and a picture which he gets.

Gene is with Jarrett who says he’ll win the title again and will send Gene back to the retirement home if he keeps implying that Jarrett will turn on Steiner. He’s supposed to sound defensive here.

Team Canada vs. Filthy Animals

Team Canada is Elix Skipper, Mike Awesome (Yes he made a heel turn since the last show) and Lance Storm. The Animals are Konnan, Mysterio and Kidman. This is a Penalty Box match where the guest referee, Jim Duggan, can throw the people in a penalty box if they break a rule. The Canadians come out in a bus for no apparent reason. Oh and Duggan isn’t part of Team Canada anymore, I guess due to the beatdown last month.

Storm talks about Duggan being in the Animals’ back pocket which doesn’t sit well with the Hall of Famer. There’s no time limit given on the penalties so it’s a bit complicated. Duggan looks old. This is an old WCCW stronghold so you can tell they’re running out of ideas. Storm vs. Mysterio to start. Rey starts out flying around as it’s weird to see Storm being the bigger and stronger of the two.

Skipper and Awesome interfere a bit and are sent to the box almost immediately. Apparently it’s 3-1 for one minute. Tony makes a bunch of hockey references which most American fans won’t care about. Konnan powerbombs Rey onto Storm as the box is emptied out. Good thing the advantage meant nothing at all. Rey gets a falling splash and it’s off to Kidman.

Kidman vs. Skipper now as Awesome is sent into the box again. Make that Storm as well. Why do I have a feeling that this is going to be the norm for this match? Konnan throws on some hold as they keep tagging in and out. The announcers are making it sound like the only chance the Animals have is when the Canadians are in the box. Back to full strength as Skipper easily out moves Konnan.

Matrix move is easily blocked by simply grabbing a reverse DDT out of it. The Canadians don’t like to tag for some reason. Off to Awesome and I’ll bet money on Storm and Skipper being sent to the box within a minute. Backbreaker gets two for Awesome. Major Gunns and Tygress argue on the floor and Duggan yells at them. Rey tries to cheat but is sent to the box for two minutes as is Kidman.

Powerslam by Awesome gets two. Tygress sprays Gunns with water or oil or something and they go at it. Only Gunns goes to the box though. Ah there goes Tygress too. Skipper drops a springboard leg drop on Konnan as we hit the chinlock. Yes because with a 3-1 advantage it’s the right idea to put a chinlock on. Awesome comes off the top with a clothesline as he comes in.

The box empties out as this is getting rather stupid. Off to Storm who walks into an X-Factor but Konnan is spent from doing two moves so he takes a little nap. Off to Kidman who comes in on fire. Well not literally but you get the concept. We hit the floor and everything breaks down.

Awesome has scissors and tries to give Kidman a haircut for no apparent reason and is sent to the box. Bronco Buster to Storm from both Rey and Tygress. She goes to the box as Storm gets a forearm to Rey, only to get caught in the ropes and hit by a leg drop. Off to Kidman who gets the Unprettier for two. The box empties though and Awesome hits an Awesome Bomb to Rey as Storm puts the Maple Leaf on Kidman for the tap out.

Rating: D+. Total and complete mess here with the rules seemingly added on for the sake of adding rules on. It didn’t help the match or anything but they did it anyway. Not much of a match as it was just a six man with extended faces/heels in peril spots. This feud went on more or less until the end of the company.

The Thrillers say they’ll get the titles back from the Insiders.

The Insiders are getting ready.

We recap the Hardcore Title feud which more or less is Funk is champion, he likes Crowbar who wants to take over and Meng is just a monster that wants the title.

Hardcore Title: Crowbar vs. Terry Funk vs. Meng

Meng has the title itself but Funk is champion. Daffney tries to jump Funk which of course fails. Crowbar, no longer a seventies guy (that would be Funk) jumps Funk and the brawl starts sans Meng. They head to the back into the ladies room. Standard bathroom fight as Crowbar is slammed into every stall. Meng is nowhere to be seen here. Ah there he is.

He throws a plastic trashcan over Funk and hammers on it a bit. They head back into the arena and Funk pelts a trashcan at Meng’s head. They double team him for a bit before Funk realizes that makes too much sense so he beats up Crowbar. Luckily there happens to be about six tables stacked up against a wall. WE FOUND THE SOURCE!!!!! Crowbar hits Funk with a laptop as Hudson says Crowbar wants the Cruiserweight Title back.

Crowbar climbs into the crowd and dives on Funk on a table which the camera completely misses. Why do they miss it? Because they accidentally cut to the ring crew fixing the ring ropes. And people wonder why this company went out of business. This is what replay is for I guess as we get to see the Boom Drop for lack of a better term.

Meng pops up to him Crowbar with a trashcan again and take over one more time. They head to the stage with Crowbar hammering away to no effect. Side kick sends Crowbar sprawling down the ramp. Funk gets a snow shovel from somewhere and pops Meng with it to send him down. That’s a rarity. Funk slams Crowbar through the railing which literally almost snaps in half. Good thing WCW upgraded to the barriers made of cotton candy.

Funk and Crowbar go to the ring where Funk takes some chair shots to the knees and gets Pillmanized. Well kind of at least. Funk of course is on his feet seconds later and hammers away. Meng is back now and Crowbar puts a figure four on despite Meng hammering on him. Meng goes up top and crushes Crowbar with a splash. That looked awesome. Piledriver gets two as Funk saves.

Meng hammers away and slams Funk before a middle rope splash gets two. Funk and Crowbar hit Meng literally about 18 times with chairs to take him down. The head shots don’t work as well due to the afro but they’re trying at least. Funk gets Meng in position for a DDT but Crowbar blasts him with a chair. Kick takes Crowbar down and the Tongan Death Grip gives Meng the title. He would be in the Royal Rumble a week later.

Rating: C. This got a lot better after the first five minutes or so. Meng as a total monster is a fun character. That’s probably why WWF signed him to a guaranteed deal a day or so after this while WCW was doing a pay per appearance kind of thing and thought there was nothing wrong with putting a title on him (his first actually). Meng would be in the Rumble seven days later as a surprising appearance and kind of as a big SCREW YOU to Bischoff as the Hardcore Division in WCW died with the title never being mentioned again other than I think once on Thunder.

Flair congratulates Miller for winning and says take the night off with caviar and champagne. Miller would prefer neckbone and collard greens. Flair says cool. This might be the most pointless segment I’ve ever seen.

Sid says he’ll win the title back tonight.

We recap the Thrillers vs. the Insiders. The Thrillers, in this case all of them, won a tag team battle royal to get the show.

Tag Titles: Chuck Palumbo/Sean O’Haire vs. The Insiders

Page and Nash are the Insiders and Nash used to coach the Thrillers. Speaking of the Thrillers the rest come out as backup. Sanders has all six Thrillers get in and says that he’s the coach so he’s going to make substitutions when he wants to. Flair comes out and says no. The Thrillers are sent to the back and we’re ready to go. Page and Palumbo start us off.

They spit at each other and slug it out with Page sending Chucky flying. Spinning Rock Bottom gets two. Page clears the ring and gets Palumbo again. And never mind as he tags in Nash to a decent pop. Off to O’Haire who is easily taken down. Nash misses some elbows but a big boot sends Sean to the mat. O’Haire escapes the onslaught and takes Nash down with a superkick.

Palumbo hammers away as I’m glad they upgraded Stasiak to O’Haire. Palumbo beats Nash down which is rather surprising. The former Vinnie Vegas fights out of that with relative ease and Snake Eyes put Palumbo down. Page comes in with a Kane-esque top rope clothesline. Palumbo gets another kick (running theme in this match) to send Page down for two.

Hudson says that was on instinct. It’s instinct to raise your arm when anyone counts to two? That might be a sign you watch too much wrestling. The Thrillers get a double slingshot suplex to Page for two. Page keeps getting close but he can’t bring in Nash. Palumbo keeps taunting Nash but Page fights out of the corner, just like he did last time. Palumbo tries a tombstone which is reversed into one by Page.

Hot tag to Nash and he cleans house. It’s weird seeing him move at more than an hour a year. There go the straps but here come the Thrillers. Of all people, Lex Luger comes through the crowd with a chair. He gets taken down anyway and Page chases Luger into the crowd. Nash tries to powerbomb O’Haire but Bagwell comes in with a wrench to the back of Nash. Seanton Bomb gives the Thrillers the title.

Rating: D+. This was a lot weaker than last month and the heel run in made no sense at all. Was Flair off hitting on some fitness model or something? The ending makes no sense but then again this is the show where that’s the norm. Weak match that was there to set up another angle and change the titles yet again. Moving on.

The Thrillers celebrate in the back.

Flair says it’s Showtime and gets in a car, apparently to go get the Mystery Man. I guess they were hinting at Sting there because they’re not that intelligent.

We recap Rection vs. Douglas which is just a feud where Douglas uses a chain a lot to cheat.

US Title: General Rection vs. Shane Douglas

This is a first blood chain match. Douglas says nothing of note. The chain is above the ring like in a ladder match. Douglas says this is about getting a world title shot. Then he says it’s about a woman. He doesn’t say anything about the US Title but I guess that’s implied. Ok so this is a first blood match and the chain is the only way to bust someone open I guess.

The referee checks for hidden chains on Douglas and actually finds one. Slugout to start with Morrus grabbing a knuckle lock to take over. Arm drag by Douglas as Rection demands that the referee ask him for a submission in an armbar. You know, because that makes sense. The fans want blood so Morrus finally realizes he’s in a first blood match and pounds away on the head.

Douglas fights back a bit but gets caught by a top rope clothesline to put him back down. This is just a match so far with very little emphasis on drawing blood. Shane stomps away and works on the knee. Figure four by Shane who I’m sure will blame Flair for the lack of psychology here. They go out to the floor which at least makes sense and head into the crowd.

After some punches by Shane and a shot to the railing by Rection we head back into the ringside area. Shane uses the figure four on the post but can’t get the leg up that far at all and pushed down on it with his head. Dude, you’re too lazy to throw a leg up there? Seriously? I mean SERIOUSLY?

Back in and Morrus manages a gorilla press because he’s just fine now. He hits the floor and pulls out a ladder which allows Tony to point out the obvious: HIT HIM WITH THE LADDER TO MAKE HIM BLEED!!! I mean dude how hard is that? He gets the chain but the ladder is shoved down to hit the referee. Shane pulls out another chain and busts Rection open with it for the win.

Rating: F. A first blood match was 11 minutes long and had a total of one shot to set up the blood. I mean dude, how hard could this possibly be? Apparently it was too hard for these idiots to figure out as they managed to screw it up. Terribly dull match for a gimmick match, not bad match for a regular match. But it wasn’t a regular match now was it?

Steiner says he doesn’t trust anyone.

General Rection is furious and says it’s not worth it anymore.

We recap Totally Buff vs. Goldberg/Sarge. Sarge is the guy that trained Goldberg. Goldberg has to get to 177-0 to get another title shot or he’s fired and Bagwell got mad because he was tired of being screwed over so he and Luger teamed up to try to get rid of Goldberg in this match.

Sgt. Dwayne Bruce/Goldberg vs. Totally Buff

Sarge has a broken arm and the entrances take about five minutes. Goldberg vs. Luger get us going here. You know, Russo made the deal about Goldberg having to win 176 in a row. Why doesn’t Flair just overturn that? Goldberg throws Luger around and throws him to Bagwell who says “Who me?” “Yeah you!’ For some reason that was funny for me. Bagwell hammers away and no sells a suplex.

Goldberg beats down Bagwell and brings in the career jobber Sarge. Sarge beats on him for a bit with a middle rope elbow. I forgot that this is no DQ. Sarge runs into some double teaming, so why doesn’t Goldberg just come in and destroy them? He can’t get disqualified. Actually he does that and the referee throwing him out. How does that make sense?

Luger hammers on Sarge for awhile and Bagwell adds a double arm DDT. Off to the chinlock now as the fans are still in this. Luger gets one of the worst forearm smashes you’ll ever see for two. Thankfully they remember the plate that is allegedly in there. So it can knock out Bret Hart but it barely puts Dwayne Bruce down for two? Only in wrestling would that make sense.

Double tag brings in Goldberg and Luger. HUGE pop for Goldberg. Seriously how in the world did they manage to mess him up? Now we get to the stupid part here. Remember the kid from earlier with the autograph? He’s like 17 or so and Luger goes after him. Goldberg makes the save and the kid maces him.

Goldberg pulls him over the railing and security dives on the kid…..then just let him go and stand at ringside. Punk was right. Wrestling security sucks. Back in the ring Goldberg fights blind for awhile until Luger pops him with a chair a few times and a double Blockbuster (think a Doomsday Device) ends the career. For the month at least.

Rating: D. Weak tag match that was hurt even worse by the ending. Yes a fan that he signed an autograph before earlier was the big answer. Why Luger or Bagwell didn’t bring the mace in themselves is anyone’s guess but hey why not just let a young looking guy do it instead? Either way at least it’s over and they can quit ruining Goldberg for now. HHH got to do that in 03 which is the next time he would be seen.

By the way the fans are totally dead now.

We recap the main event which is Steiner vs. Sid vs. Jarrett vs. a Mystery Man. Steiner and Jarrett hooked up last month at Starrcade to form the Super Worst Friends as the evil team. Flair tried to tell Steiner he couldn’t trust anyone, so they might as well just say SWERVE right now.

WCW World Title: Sid Vicious vs. Jeff Jarrett vs. Scott Steiner vs. ???

Flair comes out after the three known people and says the Mystery Man will be here later. Steiner goes after Flair but Jarrett stops him. Sid is in jean shorts here instead of full tights like he was last month. Sid clears the ring and hammers away on both of them for awhile. Jarrett is trying to give up the match apparently. Oh dear. Steiner falls trying to get out of the ring which sums up the whole thing perfectly.

Steiner gets the clothesline, the elbow and the pushups. Sid is sent into the front row and Jarrett adds a Stunner onto the railing. Steiner adds a belt shot to the face as you wonder now why Jarrett doesn’t lay down in the ring and let Steiner get the quick pin to retain. Apparently that would have been a better idea as Sid fights back. Can’t powerbomb Jarrett though and the beatdown continues.

They beat down Sid and Jarrett is told to cover him by Steiner. The announcers think there’s something going on here. Sid fights back and this a double suplex which was rather impressive in theory. He more or less DDTed Steiner and suplexed Jarrett. Here’s the comeback as Sid hits a bunch of clotheslines and a chokeslam on Jarrett for two.

Cobra clutch slam puts Steiner down and Sid follows Jarrett to the floor. Jarrett is sent to the front row and we cut to the back to see Flair bring someone out of the limo from earlier who looks like he’s in a Jason Vorhees mask. We cut back to the arena…..and Sid has broken his leg to the point where it looks like a twisty straw.

The problem now is that they can’t do anything because Sid can’t move and they can’t touch him and since Steiner and Jarrett are friends they can’t do anything. Flair’s music FINALLY comes on and the mystery dude is here. There’s a trainer in the ring already to check on Sid so you can tell how bad it is. The Mystery Man comes in and kicks Sid in the head so Steiner can pin him to end this.

Rating: D. That’s not factoring in the ending because clearly that’s not what they had planned as Sid was injured so badly he wouldn’t wrestle for about a year. The match up to that point was pretty weak though as we were just waiting on the mystery dude to get there, making it a lame duck match. Anyway, weak match to end a weak end of the show.

And the Mystery Man is Road Warrior Animal, making the whole thing a bigger joke than it already was. This resulted in the debut of the next super heel stable: the Magnificent Seven, which was comprised of Flair, the Steiners, Luger, Bagwell, Animal and Jarrett. And you wonder why they went out of business.

Overall Rating: C-. The first 40-45 minutes of this can rival any opening 40-45 minutes of a PPV I have ever seen. It was that good. Then they had the other two hours and the show falls apart. You get to the “draws” and the big matches and it’s more uninteresting wrestling with bad matches between people no one wanted to see but they keep throwing him in anyway just because they were the stars and that was all there was to it. GREAT opening part and well worth watching, but stop it after the Dragons match. The rest is ok, but just ok.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

WCW Power Hour
Date: January 12, 1990
Location: Georgia Mountains Center, Gainesville, Georgia
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jim Cornette

This is a final run for this show. I really didn’t like the first one so if I don’t like this one either, I’m dropping Power Hour all together. The main event here is Anderson vs. Muta for the TV Title so you can’t say I’m possibly stopping on a show with a bad main event. Other than that I’m not sure what to expect here. Let’s get to it.

Cornette says we have a triple main event tonight. Good to know. Why do I have a feeling there are only three matches on the card?

Opening sequence.

Cornette doesn’t like this place either because it’s too low class for him.

Brody Chase vs. Steve Williams

This isn’t going to go well for the mullet man known as Chase. JR goes into the history of Williams in the Bowl Games as Williams runs over Chase like he stole something. Chase is knocked to the apron so Doc dropkicks him off that too. Top rope cross body nearly kills Chase as Corny makes fun of Williams’ face. JR stays on his knees to suck Williams off a bit more for being a football player. Powerslam kills Chase all over again and an enziguri gets two. STAY DOWN YOU IDIOT!!! Williams yells at the camera and hooks an armbar. Chase gets in a few shots so Williams kills him even deader and the powerslam ends this.

Rating: D-. WHY WAS THIS SEVEN MINUTES LONG??? We got the idea after about 20 seconds but JR needed to brag about how awesome Williams was again I guess. Really boring match because it went on way too long when we already had the idea after about 5% of it. Not liking this one at all.

Wrestling News Network says that the Rock N Roll Express is coming back, the first PPV and Clash of the year will be announced next week, Kerry Von Erich has left WCCW, and Gordon brags about Dr. Death a little bit too. Apparently Williams isn’t all there because he’s had everything handed to him so he needs to focus.

NWA World Title: Eddie Gilbert vs. Ric Flair

This is from Worldwide so the match’s outcome literally isn’t in doubt. Flair is the face here and Gilbert runs away from him to start. Flair takes him to the mat with ease and Gilbert runs. Off to a headlock by the champ as Woman and Nitron (Tyler Mane) come out to watch. Gilbert takes him down and hooks a Figure Four of his own on Flair after not working on the knee at all.

Flair of course makes the ropes because you don’t make Flair tap to the Figure Four. Unless you’re Jay Lethal apparently but I don’t think even TNA gets that idea. Now Gilbert works on the legs like a regular person would before the hold. Eh he’s from Tennessee and everything is different down there. Gilbert hits his Hot Shot but Flair gets his foot on the rope. Flair rams him into the buckle and pounds away, but he gets clotheslined down for two. Gilbert hooks a small package but Flair reverses into one of his own for the pin.

Rating: C-. Not the worst match in the world but Gilbert wasn’t exactly the best choice for a world title contender. Flair never was in any real danger here and once he got out of the Hot Shot, it was pretty clear that this wasn’t going anywhere. Not horrible though and for a TV main event, this was ok.

Funk’s Grill has Kevin Sullivan, who beat up Norman and beat him with the painting he spent months on. Sullivan thinks that Terry sees some of his brother in Norman. Terry doesn’t quite see the resemblance but says that Norman has a lot of compassion. Sullivan hates the thought of Funk having compassion because that’s not the Terry Funk he grew up on. Sullivan says that Norman is on the same intellectual level as Dory Jr. They get in an argument and Funk ends the segment.

TV Title: Arn Anderson vs. Great Muta

This is the main event and Muta is champion. Anderson takes him to the mat to start but it’s nothing major. Muta hooks on a wristlock and sends him to the floor. Dragonmaster and Buzz Sawyer, Muta’s stablemates, come out and Anderson is in trouble. Muta misses a kick so there’s a suplex to take him down. Arn takes him down with a headlock and works over the arm like a good Anderson.

Muta comes back and hits the power drive elbow as we go out to the floor. The fans are totally behind the Horseman here. Back in and a top rope chop kills Anderson. Muta busts out Cattle Mutilation years before Bryan did but Anderson escapes it and pounds away. Anderson comes back with an atomic drop and the hammerlock slam. He grabs an abdominal stretch but Muta backdrops him over the top to the floor. Apparently he fell though so it’s not a DQ. Why did they wait until 2000 to drop that rule?

Spinebuster hits out of nowhere but with Dragonmaster running interference, Sawyer comes off the top to clock Arn but it only gets two. Muta superkicks Anderson down and calls for the moonsault. Anderson gets the knees up though and DDTs Muta into oblivion to win the title and blow the roof off the place.

Rating: B. The match was really good and the reaction from the crowd was great, but it’s not enough to save the show for me. Anderson would hold the title for about eleven months before he lost it to I believe Z-Man of all people. Muta would head back to Japan after this, returning in 1992 as a MUCH bigger deal.

Anderson yells at Sawyer and they’ll face off next week.

Overall Rating: C+. The main event was awesome but I’m done with this show. I have too many of them already and this one does nothing for me. The problem is that while the main event was great, how many of these shows are going to have a main like that? My guess would be not many. Check out Muta vs. Anderson if you can find it though as it’s good stuff.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

I did this one specifically for this series so today you get a double shot.

Monday Nitro
Date: January 8, 2001
Location: Xcel Energy Center, St. Paul, Minnesota
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Scott Hudson, Disco Inferno

It’s the go home show for Sin and since this is 2001 WCW, odds are things are going to make a lot more sense than they did the year before. Scott Steiner is world champion and is getting ready to face Sid and Jeff Jarrett in a fourway on Sunday. That’s only three names though, because the fourth man is a MYSTERY MAN who is running around in a mask at the moment. Let’s get to it.

Here’s Ric Flair who is CEO of the company and flanked by security here. Flair sucks up to the Vikings fans so apparently he’s a face here. He talks about how awesome WCW is but he has business to attend to. Apparently no one wants Mike Sanders to be Commissioner because Sanders won it in a match. Flair isn’t sure but there might have been outside interference to win the job. I guess Flair doesn’t watch his own matches. Anyway, Sanders has to defend the job on Sunday.

As for the world title, Scott Steiner interfered in some match on Thunder so Flair isn’t sure who to put in the main event. Yeah it’s six days before the PPV and they don’t have a main event. Here’s Jarrett to say he’s already in the three way on Sunday, so Sid shouldn’t get in because Sid didn’t beat him. Logical enough I guess. Flair says Jarrett is being a Tennessee Titan (how is that an insult?) and says there’s no three way on Sunday.

This brings out world champion Scott Steiner who wants the three way with Jarrett and the Mystery Man. Instead, it’s going to be a fourway with Sid thrown into the mix. Steiner freaks so Flair shows us a clip of Steiner and Jarrett arguing over Jarrett getting into a qualifying match for the PPV title shot. Now we get a clip from Starrcade where Jeff accidentally hit Steiner with a guitar. Wouldn’t Steiner know both of these things already? Tonight it’s Steiner vs. Jarrett for the title.

Goldberg and Sarge, as in Buddy Lee Parker, get here. Goldberg is looking for Kronik.

Mike Sanders complains about being put in the match on Sunday. Tonight it’s Ron Harris vs. the Cat, as in Sanders’ opponent at Sin.

Shane Douglas yells at Flair in the back and gets a match with Sid as a result. If Shane wins, he might get into the title match.

Chavo Guerrero vs. Shannon Moore

Moore is in 3 Count here which is always awesome. Chavo is Cruiserweight Champion but this is non-title for no apparent reason. The last days of WCW didn’t get much right but Chavo was on fire around this time so the match should be good. Apparently Shane Helms, Moore’s 3 Count teammate and guest commentator for this match, gets a shot on Sunday. Chavo runs his mouth to Helms before the match to hype Sunday. Actually he does even better than that and makes this a title match. If he loses, his rematch is Sunday so Helms is locked out on Sunday.

Cruiserweight Title: Chavo Guerrero vs. Shannon Moore

Shannon jumps him to start and hits some Hardy style offense, including a kind of Whisper in the Wind and Poetry in Motion minus a Matt in the corner. Chavo comes back with a belly to back suplex and some HARD chops. Off to a modified chinlock as Chavo yells trash at Helms. After we kill some time in that, Shannon fights up and gets a fast two off a victory roll. A small package gets the same and it’s back to the chinlock. That goes nowhere so Guerrero settles for a dropkick for two.

Moore comes back with a spinning springboard Fameasser for a near fall of his own before putting Chavo on the top. He tries a springboard something but botches it badly, falling down without touching Chavo at all. A headscissors puts Chavo down for two but he can’t hit a sleeper slam (second Billy Gunn move of the match). Chavo grabs a brainbuster (by name only as it was really a suplex) to retain out of nowhere.

Rating: C. This was your usual cruiserweight spot fest but that’s perfectly fine. At the end of the day this had a lot of untapped potential with Shane wanting to get the title shot but not wanting to screw over his partner at the same time. Instead, Helms sat on the floor and did nothing at all. That’s WCW for you: the one time character development would be good, they don’t do it.

Shane chases Chavo off to prevent another brainbuster.

Kwee Wee and Paisley (Sharmell) arrive and Sanders beats up Kwee Wee (the resident flamboyant gay character) for no apparent reason. Big Vito makes the save for an even less apparent reason.

Luger and Bagwell are in the back standing there. Nothing is said, nothing is done. Ok then.

Ernest Miller vs. Ron Harris

Miller has Ms. Jones, a decent looking Hispanic chick who dances with him, in his corner. Both Harris Brothers get in the ring and Miller says he may be mad but he’s not crazy. He says he has no beef with them but they look like baby Frankensteins and the beating is on. We finally get down to Ron pounding on Miller on his own for a few minutes until the Cat (Miller) comes back with his kicks and dancing elbow. The referee gets in Miller’s face and the twins switch. Not that it matters as they come in and hit their H Bomb finisher for a fast pin. Nothing to see here, other than somehow overbooking a two minute match.

Post break, Miller dances in the back.

General Rection wishes Sid luck.

Jarrett tells Steiner to not let Flair get in his head. There are enough people in there already.

Mike Sanders and the Natural Born Thrillers and the commissioner makes Vito/Kwee Wee vs. two “randomly selected opponents.”

Luger and Bagwell tell Kronik that Sarge and Goldberg have been talking trash about them. A non-sanctioned match is made for later.

Here’s Team Canada (Lance Storm, Mike Awesome, Elix Skipper and Major Gunns) to talk about their opponents on Sunday: the Filthy Animals. Tonight it’s Storm vs. Kidman but on Sunday, the Canadians want a Penalty Box match. If you break a rule, you go to the box. I guess the match is made.

Lance Storm vs. Billy Kidman

Kidman hits a fast rana to take over but he gets draped over the top rope to slow him down. Awesome throws in a chair which Storm wedges between the top and middle ropes but Kidman slows him up to avoid being rammed. Storm hits a backbreaker and bends Kidman over his knee for a bit. We hit the abdominal stretch for a bit before Storm springboards into a dropkick to put both guys down.

Kidman speeds things up and hits a BK Bomb (Sky High) for two before Storm hits a superkick for the same. Kidman’s kickout sends Storm’s head into the chair (not a DQ for no apparent reason) and Kidman rolls him up for two, as Awesome pulls Billy to the floor. A brawl breaks out but it’s STILL not a DQ. Kidman hits the Kid Crusher (Killswitch) for the pin.

Rating: C-. Again the match was fine but they overbooked it with weapons and interference that just wasn’t needed. I get the brawling on the floor between the teams, but at the same time, did we really need to see everything else going on? That kind of stuff can get really annoying and distracting after awhile and that moment was about a year ago in WCW.

Shane Douglas vs. Sid Vicious

Shane jumps him to start but Sid will have none of this selling stuff. We quickly head to the floor where Sid sends him into the barricade to put Shane in even more trouble. Douglas gets dropped face first onto the announce table as the beating continues. Back in and Shane hits Sid low to take over for a bit. Sid comes back with a big boot but Shane pokes him in the eye to break up a chokeslam. The second attempt connects though and a powerbomb ends this quick. Not much above a squash here.

Steiner and Jarrett jump Sid as he leaves.

Flair says Sanders is out of control but he thinks things will work out for the best. If Steiner and Jarrett don’t go their hardest, they’re both suspended and Steiner is stripped of the belt. Also the penalty box match is on and Jim Duggan is referee for no apparent reason. Duggan says he’ll call it fair. Why isn’t he wearing a shirt?

Here’s Hardcore Champion Terry Funk with something to say. He says he’s the king of hardcore and it’s about time for the CEO to realize he’s the king. Flair wants to destroy him by putting him against nobodies like Crowbar. Apparently if Funk associates with nobodies like that, he’ll become one. Gee, GREAT way put over young talent there guys. Funk wants GOLDBERG in a hardcore match. Or Steiner. Or Page. Crowbar finally comes out with a chair (and Daphne dancing with sparklers for some reason) to say he stood toe to toe with Funk at Starrcade. Crowbar idolized Funk growing up apparently. Funk: “You should idolize me.”

Funk says there wouldn’t be hardcore in this country if not for him because he started ECW. Is this an attempt to turn Funk heel? Crowbar says he’s tougher than anyone Funk has ever fought and on Sunday, he’ll take the title from Funk. He promises to take the torch from Funk and become the new leader of hardcore. He charges the ring now but Funk bails. Ok so Funk is a heel. That makes a lot more sense.

Meng sneaks up on Funk and hits him with a chair but can’t put Funk down. He kicks Daphne instead and Death Grips both Funk and Crowbar (literally through the wooden chair Crowbar was holding) and takes the belt, saying (!!!) that if they want the belt, come take it from him. Meng would win the title on Sunday and sign with WWF, returning to the company at the Rumble. You know, because putting a title on a guy you don’t have signed to a contract (in other words, EXACTLY what WCW exploited with ECW) was stupid.

We go to an office in the back (presumably Sanders’) where someone changes the envelope that he had earlier with the names for the match later.

Kronik vs. Goldberg/Dwayne Bruce

The idea here is that Goldberg has to match his old winning streak to get another title shot and if he loses, he’s out of WCW. Bruce is a tiny trainer and has a broken arm thanks to Luger and Bagwell. Adams jumps Goldie in the aisle as Clark beats up Bruce in the ring. Clark, ever the genius, goes out to help beat up Goldberg instead of beating up the career jobber with a broken arm. Even SCHIAVONE says this is stupid.

Clark sends Bruce’s arm into the post as the two of them officially start the match. Off to Adams as Hudson panics. There’s a gorilla press to Bruce but he counters a suplex into a bad DDT. Hot tag to Goldberg, Kronik gets in some offense, Goldberg remembers he’s Goldberg, house is cleaned, Jackhammer, pin. Not enough of the actual match to rate but it was nothing of note.

During Goldberg’s offense, Luger and Bagwell came out and ripped the cast off of Bruce’s arm and beat on the broken arm for a good while. They beat Goldberg up as well and Luger decked Adams for no apparent reason.

Here’s Sanders to pick the names to face Kwee Wee/Big Vito. If your name IS NOT in the envelope, you’re banned from ringside. Apparently this is a last man standing match for no apparent reason. The names are Sanders, Chuck Palumbo, Sean O’Haire (all Natural Born Thrillers) and then the fourth and fifth are DDP and Nash, making it a 3-2 handicap last man standing match. Sure why not. Oh and Page and Nash are tag champions who just happen to be defending against O’Haire and Palumbo on Sunday.

Natural Born Thrillers vs. The Insiders

It’s a huge brawl to start of course with Page getting beaten down by Chuck in the corner. The camera work sucks here as they keep focusing on one thing when a simple wide shot would be perfect. Palumbo and O’Haire superkick each other so only Sanders is left standing. Page hits him low to put all five guys down. Everybody gets up at about 8 thank goodness and Page cleans house. The other Thrillers try to run in but Kwee Wee and Vito (weren’t they supposed to be in this?) hold them off. Page and Nash win with their finishers. This wasn’t even three and a half minutes long.

Rating: F. This was not only bad, but REALLY stupid at the same time. We have the challengers for Sunday with a man advantage and they lose in less than four minutes in a match where you have to stay down longer than for a regular pin? This company deserves to go out of business. Oh and of course Page/Nash would drop the belts on Sunday, because this match means nothing at all.

WCW World Title: Scott Steiner vs. Jeff Jarrett

Steiner says he would beat anyone thrown out here tonight but he gets to face his friend instead. Actually he isn’t and Flair can get over it. Jarrett is in the back and says it’s not happening either. Post break here’s Jeff to say the two of them are tired of this c-o-n-spiracy stuff so the match isn’t happening until Sunday. Flair comes out and says have the match and Jeff is all okey dokey so there’s the bell.

Jarrett pulls back the guitar but Midajah (Steiner’s chick) warns Scott and the beating begins. Steiner charges into some boots in the corner to put him down and Jeff chokes away a bit. A jawbreaker and atomic drop stop a Steiner comeback and a top rope cross body gets two. Steiner comes back with a tilt-a-whirl side slam but stops to pose instead of covering.

Jeff gets put in the Tree of Woe so Steiner can choke a bit and we head outside. Jeff is whipped into the barricade a few times before Steiner slams him onto the announce table. A WEAK low blow slows Steiner down and back inside we go. Back in and Steiner blocks the Stroke before getting two off the belly to belly. Sid and the Mystery Man run in for the double DQ.

Rating: D. This was pure filler with an ending that should have been seen coming a mile away. Steiner was all muscle and dominance and we didn’t have time to see if that would mesh with Jarrett’s basic style. Make no mistake: Jarrett could wrestle with anybody but Steiner was a hard style to work with. The match was nothing at all though.

The fans bark because they think it’s Rick Steiner (it’s not) and a big brawl ends the show.

Overall Rating: D+. This wasn’t terrible, but the lack of star power and the BIG barrier between the old and new guys really stands out here. WCW was long past dead at this point so it’s not like it matters in the long run anyway. Sin was built up well and wound up being a pretty decent show if I remember right, but overall there’s just nothing worth seeing here with some head scratching booking, pretty lame matches and nothing that makes me want to watch Sin. Again though, the company was dead by this point anyway and the stuff that happened at Sin was just filling time until they closed the doors.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

WCW/New Japan Supershow II
Date: January 4, 1992
Location: Tokyo Dome, Tokyo, Japan
Attendance: 60,000
Commentators: Jim Ross, Tony Schiavone

We’re back in Tokyo for the second co-promoted show with WCW vs. New Japan guys. There will once again be some matches cut here but those are pretty much gone period. The main event here is Sting/Muta vs. the Steiners as well as the IWGP Title being on the line with Choshu vs. Fujinami. On paper this looks pretty good so let’s get to it.

This wasn’t aired in America for about two months which is why Luger is still world champion here despite losing it to Sting in February and bolting.

Bischoff, still an annoying backstage interviewer, runs down the card for us.

Jushin Thunder Liger/Masashi Aoyagi/Akira Nogami vs. Hiro Saito/Super Strong Machine/Norio Honaga

From what I can find, this is a junior heavyweight match and Liger is the undisputed biggest star in it. He’s also the only one of these guys I know anything about. I’ve heard of all but one of them but I’m likely going to be confused here. There were two all Japanese matches before this by the way but from what I can tell they were nothing special.

Saito and Aoyagi start us off. We get perhaps the only tennis comparison in wrestling history not involving Jim Cornette as we’re told that the crowd here is like that of a tennis match in America which makes sense. Strong Machine comes in and hooks a sleeper. Aoyagi is in a gi here. Ah ok Nogami was on the show last year. I knew I had heard that name before.

Liger comes in and gets a small reaction but it’s more than anyone else has gotten. He cleans house but Saito stops him cold. It looks like Liger is going to be playing Morton here. Rolling Liger Kick allows him to get the tag so forget what I just said. Aoyagi is short. Keep in mind there is a 20 count here. Pretty fast paced match so far.

Honaga and company work on Nogami’s leg as the tagging gets quicker. All three heels (I think they’re heels at least) work over Nogami and he’s in trouble. He gets a nice dropkick though to bring in Liger. No one is really staying in trouble here very long and it’s going back and forth pretty quickly. Middle rope moonsault to Saito gets two for Liger.

Nogami sounds like a goat when he’s breathing hard. His abdominal stretch lasts a few seconds as we’re kind of shifting styles to more submission based stuff now. The faces (again I think) take over on Saito and as I say that he hits something like a spinebuster on Liger to get out. Honaga and Saito are regular partners apparently and wear matching tights.

Honaga gets a top rope Hart Attack style clothesline to take down Liger for two. Tilt-a-whirl backbreaker gets two for Liger. This crowd is a bit off putting but I get why they’re sitting quietly like that. It’s still just very odd. In a nice counter, Nogami hits a hard knee to the head of Strong Machine to get out of a pin. That’s different.

Strong Machine is in a mask which looks like Mr. JL. Aoyagi kicks the heck out of everyone but pure strength from Strong Machine ends that pretty quickly. Everyone comes in after some close two counts and Saito hits a Senton Back Splash (Husky Harris’ move) from the middle rope for two. Nogami gets a Dragon Suplex on Saito to end this rather quickly.

Rating: C+. This was fifteen minutes long? How is that possible? This seemed to absolutely fly by and while nothing spectacular it was certainly pretty good. Liger was clearly the biggest star out there as he should have been. None of the other five have had much of a career as far as I can tell. This was a fun match and pretty good on top of that. Good start.

The Enforcers vs. Michiyoshi Ohara/Shiro Koshinaka

The Enforcers are Larry Zbyszko and Arn Anderson. Both faces seem to be fairly big names but nothing huge. This is in the days of the Dangerous Alliance. Anderson wants a handshake but gets a hand slap instead. Larry and Ohara start us off. Larry of course stalls to start, or not start I guess, the match. Anderson comes in as Larry talks a lot.

Anderson throws out a Hennig neck snap which is probably the most aerial he’s ever gotten in his career. It’s weird hearing Larry yell like this when you can hear him so clearly. This is a lot more mat wrestling than we’re used to. Ohara comes back in and is apparently very young here. Larry shouting things like “hit that punk!” or something like that is rather funny.

This is a very basic match with the Enforcers not being as dirty as they would like I don’t think. Larry busts out some of his martial arts on Koshinaka which get him nowhere at all. Anderson is like move over and beats up Shiro. Now we get to some old school Anderson cheating and Koshinaka is in trouble.

Ohara gets the, I guess you can call it hot, tag to clean some house in there and we get the third Boston Crab in two minutes. Ross talks about how unsure Ohara seems which is true. Granted he’s a rookie so that makes sense. He’s also not incredibly good but there we are. Ohara gets one of the most awkward looking top rope elbows of all time.

Koshinaka comes in with some flying hips to the face and Ohara adds a suplex to Larry for two. Larry throws in an extra knee to the back of Shiro and the spinebuster just ends Ohara with ease.

Rating: C-. This was a bit weak but nothing all that bad. I couldn’t get into this one that well and it came off like a glorified squash that just happened to run almost thirteen minutes. It was ok but nothing really that special with the Enforcers never really being in any real danger. Decent enough though.

Dustin Rhodes/Dusty Rhodes vs. Masa Saito/Kim Duk

Well of course Dusty just had to grace us with his presence in a huge match like this. I mean it’s not like there’s some young guy that needed the exposure here or anything like that right? I’m sure there isn’t a guy that has never really gotten a spotlight before that could use a match on PPV in front of 60,000 people. Nah we’d rather have old fat men! Let’s get this over with.

I’ve never heard of Duk. Sweet merciful crap Dusty is a fat man. Saito is a big man but looks tough. Dusty simply doesn’t at all. Dustin and Duk start us off and we get a criss cross which Dustin controls. Ross REALLY likes the refereeing tonight for some reason. He’s complimented it in every match so far tonight.

Duk has been in two big spots so far: a head scissors and a back drop and both have looked very bad. The other guy was Dustin Rhodes who is usually very solid in the ring. I’m pretty sure I think I know who screwed up there. We hear about Saito being in the Olympic Games in 64. He refuses to tag in here, merely brushing him off. That’s rather funny.

The two fat men come in with Dusty gettinga nice round of applause. We fight to the ramp with Dusty firmly in control. Saito drops to his knees in front of Dusty. If he wants to blow him he’s going to have a lot of gut to hold up. Ross says Dusty has been inactive for a year or so. That’s very funny, as if Dusty has been active in his life.

Ross explains the difference between ring attendants and managers which is fairly interesting. Is there ANY reason why we have Dusty working the majority of the match here? Did anyone thought that was the right idea? We hit the nerve hold so we talk about the language barriers between Duk, a Korean and Saito, who is Japanese.

Saito misses a running kick and drills Duk to bring in Dustin again. Duk hits a Piledriver on Dustin for two. Back to Dusty vs. Saito which still isn’t incredibly interesting. Saito is good though so we have that to fall back on I guess. Thankfully Dusty isn’t in there long and Dustin walks into a Saito Suplex which is of course his namesake. It’s a modified belly to back.

They ram heads and both guys are down. Duk comes in but since he isn’t incredibly talented Dustin just beats the tar out of him, getting a dropkick for two and then after a few more seconds the bulldog (I can’t stand that move) ends this. The total lack of a reaction is still weird to me.

Rating: D+. Weakest match so far. Dusty and Duk weren’t worth much at all here. Ross saying he was funky like a monkey in total deadpan is hilarious for some reason. This was pretty bad but it could have been much worse. It got nearly 15 minutes and for some reason Dusty was in there more than his son. Odd.

El Gigante vs. Big Van Vader

No mask for Vader here and he’s a much bigger deal in Japan than he is in America at this point. There were two matches between the Rhodes’ match and this: Tony Halme vs. Scott Nortan and Shinya Hashimoto (JMT’s Avatar) vs. Bill Kazmaier with the former winning both times. Halme is more famous as Ludvig Borga.

This is of course a clash of the titans match which is rather interesting. Ross points out that Vader could be a monster in America if he tried to be a dominant singles wrestler and he’s absolutely right. If you don’t believe me just ask Sting. Dang that was a great feud. Nothing but clubbing blows here and we get the Claw by the giant. It’s weird seeing Vader as a face. He goes to the ramp and we get a double countout.

Rating: D. Bad match, but if you expected anything else other than a big brawl you’re an idiot. Vader looked great here and Gigante was very popular in Japan so this worked rather well. Nothing good at all but a fun brawl so all is fine.

Vader’s helmet shoots steam in El Gigante’s eyes post match.

Ad for Wrestlewar 92 which had an AWESOME main event.

Antonio Inoki defeated Hiroshi Hase in between these matches.

WCW World Title: Lex Luger vs. Masahiro Chono

It’s weird seeing Chono as a young guy. To you extremely old school guys, Chono was Lou Thesz’s protégé so you know he was great. Chono is yelling a lot. Luger is the monster heel at this point and incredibly arrogant but no one could beat him. Oddly enough, Chono’s finishing move here is the STF and Luger’s is a Piledriver called the Attitude Adjustment. It’s the Cena Special here I guess.

Ross talks about his days as a referee which I’ve never heard of at all. We get into a debate of Jack Brisco vs. Lou Thesz which is rather interesting. This is power vs. technical here with Luger’s basic offense vs. the ground game of Chono, who is rather good on the mat. Suplex gets two for Luger and the fans applause. Luger gets a DDT of all things.

Rack is countered into a backslide for two and there’s the Mafia Kick. If you’re not familiar with it, in short he gets a running start and kicks the other guy’s head off. STF goes on but rope is grabbed. Luger ducks a charging Chono who goes flying to the floor. We speed things up and Luger is in trouble. Chono comes off the top but Luger simply moves to the side and Masahiro eats canvas.

The Rack goes on but Luger loses his balance and we head to the floor. Rack goes on again on the floor and Chono is in big trouble. He slides in at about 15 which is a No Mercy trick. And of course Chono is fine seconds later. Low blow from Luger is enough for the pin. The no selling twerp deserved to get kicked in the balls.

Rating: C+. This was pretty good here and a very nice balance here of different styles and two guys doing pretty well against the other. Chono remains awesome of course and Luger played the role of the jerk to near perfection, making this pretty solid. I liked it if nothing else.

IWGP Title/Greatest 18 Club Championship: Riki Choshu vs. Tatsumi Fujinami

Choshu is the Greatest 18 Champion which is some weird deal where the WWF Martial Arts Title was renamed and meant little still but whatever. There’s a Hall of Fame thrown in too but I’m not particularly clear on it. This is a big rivalry apparently. Tatsumi is of course the IWGP Champion by default. Choshu invented the Sharpshooter in his biggest claim to fame.

Fairly long feeling out process to start us off. Choshu hits an FU on Fujinami, making me think Cena rented this tape a lot as a kid. Inoki trained Fujinami so we talk about his Ali fight because nothing of note is going on in this match. Lots of snapmares and chinlocks in the first four minutes or so. Tony forgets who is in the match, saying Chono is doing something or other.

Choshu gets the Scorpion Deathlock on and we debate whose is more effective. And of course Riki just lets go of it for no apparent reason. Fujinami puts the hold on Choshu but ropes are grabbed. Ross points out that both guys are in tights and are no frills wrestlers. You know, because black boots and black tights can work for promoting a wrestler, right Uncle Eric?

Dragon Sleeper goes on and not a lot is happening in this match. Octopus Hold from Fujinami which is an abdominal stretch with a leg wrapped around the head. It looks awesome if you didn’t get that. Choshu hits a top rope suplex for no cover. Dropkick from Tatsumi blocks the lariat. Choshu hits a Saito Suplex and then a second one. A lariat doesn’t put him down. A second doesn’t. The third does and it gets the pin. Well I’m glad he mixed up the moves there at the end like that.

Rating: C+. It’s ok but again, and I know I harp on this a lot, but when finishers are constantly kicked out of or don’t work, they kind of stop being finishers. That’s an argument I can never get through to people that are fans of this though so I won’t even try. This was a pretty good match but not a classic or anything. The lack of enthusiasm was kind of weird on the ending for a title change but it was still good.

Steiner Brothers vs. Sting/Great Muta

This should be good. Everyone here is rather popular and the non-traditional partners have separate entrances here. Muta gets a big old entrance with all kinds of acrobats for no apparent reason. Muta points to his throat immediately and spits some mist out. Sting comes in rather quickly to take on Rick. Rick gets the top rope bulldog maybe 90 seconds in for two.

Stinger Splash misses (called the Scorpion for some reason by JR) and Scott gets a powerbomb for no cover. Sting hits a tombstone and doesn’t cover either. What’s up with that as I channel my inner Helms. Muta comes in to a nice pop. Rick hits a nice suplex on Muta for two. Steiner gets what we would call an Angle Slam from the middle rope for two.

And there’s a Dragon Sleeper from Scott which is odd to see to put it mildly. Total Steiner dominance here so far. Spinning belly to belly from Scott and STILL no cover. What’s up with these guys here? Muta finally gets a suplex and tags in Sting to fight the fresh Rick. Muta back in and in a nice counter, Rick catches the handspring elbow in a German suplex. That was nice.

Sting takes Rick out with a plancha on the floor and Muta does the same to Scott. The Steiners both go up and hit both with shoulderblocks. We get a weird ending as Sting pins Scott and Rick pins Muta at the same time but Sting and Muta win for some reason. I think Rick wasn’t legal but it was an odd choice for an ending.

Rating: C+. This got a lot better at the end but the opening stuff wasn’t much at all. Not bad here but it could have been more as they only had 11 minutes which was one of the shortest matches of the night. Solid stuff though and nothing really bad. It just came off as lackluster and not meeting its potential.

A LONG highlight package takes us out. The replays show that the referee screwed up the last match as Sting wasn’t legal and Rick got the right pin but whatever.

Overall Rating: C+. Good show overall with nothing particularly bad outside of the short giants match. This was a fun show with solid Japanese stuff. It’s nothing great at all but at under two hours it’s hard to complain. Solid stuff overall though and kind of interesting to see a different style like this for a change.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

Monday Nitro #102
Date: August 25, 1997
Location: Carolina Coliseum, Columbia, South Carolina
Attendance: 8,048
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan, Larry Zbyszko

We’re past the Clash and the main change is that we have Sting vs. Hogan on the verge of being announced. Other than that we’re getting ready for Fall Brawl which is in like three weeks I think. The main event tonight is Savage vs. Luger as they renew an old rivalry. Other than that I wouldn’t expect anything big tonight. Let’s get to it.

We open with a recap of the vulture stuff from Clash which is over the top but fits well for Sting at this point.

Here’s Gene in the ring to recap JJ’s offers to Sting. He calls out “Earic” Bischoff to address the possibility of Sting vs. Hogan. Bischoff says ultimatums can come back to bite you, which means the WCW ship has to sail without Sting. JJ is on the phone (seriously? They couldn’t get JJ Dillon to a show?) and says that Eric is jumping to conclusions.

Apparently WCW was flooded with letters from fans so Hogan vs. Sting will happen. Eric FREAKS and says it won’t happen because Hogan is too busy, but if the match happened, Hogan would destroy him. Cue Sting who puts Eric on his knees and puts a Hogan shirt down his throat. Sting smiles for the first time in a year.

Raven jabbers a bit.

The Nitro Girls dance.

Ernest Miller/Glacier vs. La Parka/Psychosis

Glacier vs. La Parka to start with Ice Man kicking him in the face. I’m as shocked as you are I assure you. Psychosis trips up Glacier but gets caught by a spin kick from La Parka in a bit of heel miscommunication. A powerslam puts La Parka down and Psychosis screws up again by hitting his partner by mistake. They’re even now I guess. Miller comes in and gets caught in some EVIL double teaming on the floor while being stretched over the railing. Back in and the masked guys screw up AGAIN with La Parka kicking Psychosis in the head. Everything breaks down and La Parka hits Glacier with a wooden chair for the upset pin.

Rating: D+. What in the world was the point of this? Go show that Glacier and Miller aren’t a good team? I think we established that about the day they started teaming together. Other than that, it’s nice to see a new team who has done well before getting a win, even though they look like the Three Stooges at the same time. Nothing to see here, as usual.

Silver King and Ultimo Dragon come in as the brawl continues post match. Dragon gets beaten down, leading to this.

Silver King vs. Ultimo Dragon

Dragon is in trouble from the beating by all three other luchadores before we get going here. He says he’s ready to go and it’s on. King already misses a charge but a following kick in the corner connects with Dragon to take him down. A top rope legdrop and moonsault get two for King and we hit the chinlock. Silver misses a top rope elbow but takes Dragon’s head off with a clothesline.

King chokes away a bit but jumps into a dropkick as Dragon makes his comeback. He pounds away on King in the corner and adds a Muta Handspring Elbow. A kind of rana is botched by Dragon and both guys are down. They try it again and Dragon gets much higher this time and hits the rana perfectly for two. King goes up and after bumping the cameraman twice, gets caught in the super rana and the Dragon Sleeper for the tap out.

Rating: C-. Not much here but at least they’re trying to give these guys a story. What that story is I’m not sure but at least they’re trying somehow. Other than that though, the botch on the rana wasn’t great and it really slowed the match down. Silver King is a much bigger deal in Mexico, but in WCW he never amounted to anything.

Here are Savage and Hall for a chat. Hall says you can’t have a party without the NWO and they’re the reason why everyone is here and watching on TV at home. Apparently DDP has joined the NWO even though Savage voted no. As for Luger, the slump will continue tonight when he takes the Big Elbow. Gene asks Page to come out and asks if the Diamond Cutter to Luger on Thursday was intentional or not. Page calls the question stupid and says he and Luger will settle their differences like men. Just advancing stories here.

Chris Benoit vs. Jeff Jarrett

Benoit drills him three times in a row to start and ducks the enziguri attempt from Jeff. Jarret heads to the floor and is immediately caught by a baseball slide, so he hides behind Debra like a coward. Back in and Jarrett misses a charge in the corner but manages to avoid the Swan Dive. Jeff goes up top but Benoit pops up for a superplex, but Jarrett hooks Benoit’s legs once they hit the mat for a fast pin. Short but intense as you would imagine from a Benoit match.

The Nitro Girls dance some more.

Mortis/Wrath vs. Faces of Fear

Apparently this is a rematch from Saturday Night where the Faces of Fear lost. Wrath and Barbarian start things off with neither guy being able to keep an advantage. Vandenberg grabs Barbarian’s leg and Wrath kicks him down for two but Barbie pops right back up. A top rope lariat gets two more for Wrath but he misses a middle rope elbow. Off to Meng for a double middle rope headbutt for two more. Everything breaks down so let’s talk about WarGames.

There’s no Jimmy Hart out here with the Fear dudes for some reason. Things calm down a bit and Wrath charges into a Meng boot in the corner. Back to Barbarian who gets caught by a cross body of all things. Not hot tag brings in Mortis to fire off kicks but Meng goes into MONSTER MODE….which lasts about four seconds before Mortis kicks him down for two. Everything breaks down again and Mortis jumps into the Tongan Deathgrip to end this.

Rating: C. I’ll give them this: they’re giving these lower level guys some programs which while not great do in fact exist. So many people today have nothing of note to do and just wait for a story to come along. This isn’t much of a story for these guys but it’s something to do and a chance for them to show their skills a bit. That’s kind of nice to see and the matches aren’t horrible or anything.

Wrath and Meng fight some more post match.

BUY THIS STUFF!

Hour #2 begins.

Here are the Horsemen with something to say. Flair wants to know RIGHT NOW if Hennig is with them or against them. Curt comes out but he says he’s still not ready to give Flair an answer at this point. However, Flair was expecting this so here’s Arn Anderson to give a final sales pitch. Anderson talks about how he’s never been the biggest, the strongest, or the best at anything, but he’s parlayed that into a wrestling career. Then a few months ago he had to have neck surgery which left his left hand (he’s a southpaw) too weak to hold a glass or button a button.

Then a few days ago at the gym, he dropped a water bottle and saw the water falling out of it like the sand in the hourglass of his career. Therefore, he’d rather walk away than endanger the careers of men he respects. Every time he got in the ring, he gave you everything he had and that’s how he wants to be remembered. However he has one more challenge and that’s to Curt Hennig. He asks Hennig to be the new Enforcer of the Horsemen, which is Anderson’s spot on the team. Hennig says it would be a privilege and shakes Arn’s hand to join the team.

US Title: Steve McMichael vs. Eddie Guerrero

Mongo (the champion) gets jumped from behind to start with Eddie going after the knee. A snapmare puts the champ on the mat and Eddie stomps away before hitting a DDT out of the corner for two. A headscissors gets the same as Mongo is in trouble. Steve comes back with some basic power stuff including a slam and another slam and then a SPINNING slam. A charge misses in the corner and Eddie goes up, only to jump into a Tombstone for the pin to retain. Nothing to see here.

Here’s Rey to update us on his knee injury. He shouldn’t have wrestled at Road Wild which brings out Konnan to run his mouth. Trash is spoken but Giant comes out to scare Konnan off.

Bischoff comes out and runs off Heenan and Tenay, saying he and Tony are doing commentary for the rest of the show. Ok then.

Cruiserweight Title: Yuji Nagata vs. Chris Jericho

I never got the appeal of Nagata. I know he’s a big deal in Japan but his WCW stuff bored me to death. Technical stuff to start with Jericho being sent into the ropes where he misses a spinwheel kick. Yuji takes it to the mat and fires off a HARD kick to Jericho. You know, because he’s Japanese and Japanese wrestlers kick a lot. Jericho comes back with a dropkick and slam to set up a springboard splash for two. We hit a chinlock for a bit before Nagata is put in the Tree of Woe for some kicks.

We take a break and come back with Jericho getting dropped stomach first onto the ropes. We head to the floor where Jericho comes back with a cross body and it’s back inside. Yuji punches Jericho coming off the top to break up an ax handle shot. Jericho shrugs that off, hits the Lionsault, the WCW-rare double powerbomb and hooks the Liontamer for the tap out to retain.

Rating: D+. This didn’t work for the most part for me. Nagata is another guy who is just there with no real character or anything resembling one aside from “he’s a big deal in Japan.” Therefore, it’s hard to care about him and it’s hard to buy him as a legit threat to Jericho’s title. Not bad but nothing interesting at all here.

Harlem Heat wants to be #1 contenders but they have to get past the Steiners apparently. Ray talks about not having to go up north (to WWF) or to Japan because they’re the big tag team of WCW. The Steiners come out to say they deserve another title shot because of how the previous match ended. Vicious and Delicious come out to brag and a fight breaks out.

More dancing.

TV Title: Alex Wright vs. Dean Malenko

Alex is defending. Dean messes with him by using amateur stuff on him to start before taking him to the mat for two. The champ heads to the floor and comes back in with a strategy of punch Dean in the face over and over. Sometimes it’s the simplest ideas that work best I suppose. There’s an elbow drop but the champion stops to dance instead of covering.

There’s a backbreaker and Wright bends Dean over his knee for a little while. Wright’s piledriver attempt is blocked into a backdrop. Malenko loads up a superplex but gets shoved down. Instead Dean settles for a dropkick but Wright goes to the eyes to break up the Cloverleaf attempt. A pair of suplexes take Dean down but Dean counters into another Cloverleaf attempt, drawing Dean and Eddie out for the DQ.

Rating: C-. This was just waiting around until we got to the ending. The matches tonight haven’t had much to them at all other than setting up stuff for the future. That’s ok for a bit but when that’s all that happens on the show it gets old. Dean needs Jarrett to go to the WWF already so he and Eddie can just do their thing without being dragged down.

Lex Luger vs. Randy Savage

Savage, an old Memphis man, stalls before we get going. Luger punches him into the ropes and gets pulled away by the referee, resulting in Savage getting in a punch to take over. Randy seems to be keeping things simple tonight with punches and a clothesline as we head to the floor. More basic attacking by Savage as he starts focusing on the ribs by sending Luger into the barricade.

Luger tries crawling around but gets kicked in the head. You can’t say Savage didn’t live up to his name. A double ax off the apron puts Luger down again, preventing him from getting back into the ring. Savage finally throws him back in and drops the top rope ax on him for two. A sleeper on Luger is quickly countered into a belly to back suplex and both guys are down.

Luger gets up first and starts his comeback with his complete assortment of non-Rack moves (punch, clothesline, atomic drop, forearm) before calling for the Rack. Hall of course runs in and rams the guys together by mistake. Page comes out and checks on Luger, resulting in Lex Racking him to end the show.

Rating: D+. This was again just there for the ending to play off the idea of Luger and Page having issues. Based on that, I’ll set the over/under for pleas for WCW to come together at 4 for the first hour of next week’s show alone. Savage and Luger fought forever in WCW so it’s kind of nice to see them rekindle that a bit here.

Overall Rating: D. This show just wasn’t very good. It was almost all angle advancement, but at the same time there weren’t any good matches to back it up. We’re heading into WarGames now and nothing is really set in stone yet. We can see most of the card though, and that’s the most important part. Anderson’s retirement speech is worth checking out, if nothing else to keep in mind for the parody that would follow.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

Monday Nitro #101
Date: August 18, 1997
Location: Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Center, Birmingham, Alabama
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Mike Tenay, Bobby Heenan, Larry Zbyszko

We’re about a month away from Fall Brawl and the final traditional WarGames match with WCW vs. the NWO. On top of that, we’ve got Sting vs. Hogan looming which would be huge financially, but not so great critically. I’m talking about the future so much because there isn’t much to talk about in the next few weeks other than the final Clash of the Champions a few days after this. Let’s get to it.

Raven reads us a poem about ugly people to start things off.

Harlem Heat vs. Vicious and Delicious

Buff and Ray start things off with Buff running his mouth of course. A hiptoss shuts him up for a bit but he comes back with a hiptoss of his own and some posing. Ray still tries to shut him up, this time with a slam and a tag off to his brother. Norton comes in as well to pound down Booker, only to get kicked in the face a few times. Back to Ray who gets grabbed by Buff to give the NWO a quick advantage. A few elbows are dropped before one from the top by Buff misses. Everything breaks down after the hot tag to Ray and Vincent comes in for the fast DQ.

Rating: D+. Nothing to see here as the Heat were out of the NWO’s league here and Vincent continues to be nothing of note. The match was short too but given that this is Nitro, I almost have to take the shorter ones just to have something to rate. The Heat weren’t long for WCW though as it would soon be Booker getting the big singles push.

Booker clears the ring anyway.

Barbarian vs. Mortis

This feud isn’t exactly lighting the world on fire but it’s nice to see a story getting to run its course. During Mortis’ entrance, we hear about Jericho winning the Cruiserweight Title on Saturday Night. Mortis kicks away to start and pounds Barbarian down into the corner. Barbie misses a charge into the post and Mortis hits a Fameasser off the middle rope for two. The guy not in a mask comes back with a powerslam and pounds Mortis down in the corner. Mortis goes up again but dives into a powerslam for another two count. The Kick of Fear ends Mortis a few seconds later. Wow Barbarian gets a clean win on Nitro. That’s different.

Post match Wrath comes in to take Barbarian out but Meng puts him in the Tongan Death Grip to knock Wrath out.

Here’s the NWO for their weekly chat. Bischoff is looking forward to the party on Thursday because Larry Z and Giant can’t come near him. Apparently Giant was arrested last week. Eric wants his own show for the NWO and says he’ll see us Thursday. Just hyping the Clash here.

Flair and Hennig have their weekly promo: “You’re a Horseman!” “No I’m not, but we’ll win our tag match against the NWO anyway.” More Clash hyping.

Stevie Richards vs. Scotty Riggs

Richards charges to the ring like a maniac. Riggs grabs the wrist to start before nearly botching a monkey flip. A dropkick puts Richards on the floor but he rams Scotty’s shoulder into the post to take over. Back in and a sitout spinebuster gets two for Stevie but Scotty comes back with some clotheslines. Richards loses his half shirt and gets caught in a side slam for two. Raven jumps the railing as Stevie hits the Stevie Kick for the pin.

Rating: D. I guess this was to set up future stuff but that didn’t make this any easier to get through. Riggs is just not that good and Richards is a comedy character which doesn’t make for an interesting or good match at all. Not much to see here but that would be the case for a lot of Nitro matches.

Raven lays out Richards with the Even Flow.

Eddie, Debra and Jarrett make fun of the fans and tell Wright that he has to win the TV Title if he wants to hang out with them.

The NWO says this Thursday is going to be their birthday.

Chris Benoit/Steve McMichael vs. Jeff Jarrett/Eddie Guerrero

Benoit and Guerrero start things off with Chris taking over with a gorgeous suplex to send Eddie crawling to Jeff. Jarrett won’t come in to face Mongo who he faces for the US Title on Thursday. Mongo goes after Eddie instead but Jeff sneaks in with a dropkick to the back of McMichael’s knee. The heels start working over said knee with some Horsemen style tactics. A Benoit distraction lets Mongo hit a three point stance charge to take out Guerrero and make a hot tag. Everything breaks down and Eddie has to break up the Crossface on Jeff. Mongo blasts Jeff with the US Title to give Benoit the pin.

Rating: C+. Short but very hot match here. I was hoping for more selling from Mongo of the knee, but they didn’t work on it that long so it’s not terrible I guess. As usual, the less Jeff Jarrett is involved in a Jeff Jarrett match, the more exciting that match becomes. He would be gone in about two months thank goodness.

We recap Sting’s segment with JJ last week.

The Outsiders say they’re ready for Page and Luger tonight. I believe that was the main event of the Clash as well.

Ric Flair vs. Syxx

Road Wild rematch. They have a pose off to start until Flair is backdropped and sent into the corner. It’s a Flair match. Did you expect things to start well for him? He chops Syxx down and takes over with a headlock followed by another after an escape. Flair pounds on the head and clotheslines Syxx down before going after the knee. Syxx comes back with an enziguri to set up the Bronco Buster, drawing huge heat from the southern crowd.

Some chops don’t get Flair that far as Syxx punches him right back down. A guillotine legdrop gets two and there’s the Flair Flip out to the floor. Back in and a second Bronco Buster misses and you can almost feel the crowd laughing as Syxx crotches himself. They punch each other down and it’s Flair up to backdrop Syxx down again. There’s the knee to the head and it’s time to go to school. That also means it’s time for Vincent, Bagwell and Norton to run in for the DQ.

Rating: C. These two fought each other quite a bit and we got some decent matches out of them most of the time. The respect angle was fine, especially when you have a punk like Waltman and a pretty big jerk in Flair out there talking about it. Not much to see here but it was designed to set up the Clash again, which is fine.

Hennig makes the save post match.

JJ and Nick Patrick are with Gene and Dillon says that Nick did nothing wrong at the PPV. Patrick questions Randy Anderson’s officiating, drawing him out for the always fascinating referee argument.

TV Title: Ultimo Dragon vs. La Parka

Dragon is defending of course. Things start fast with Parka getting flipped over and backdropped. Dragon does his headstand in the corner and fires away with the kicks to take the challenger down again. A dropkick sends La Parka to the floor and there’s a big dive by the champion to take him out again.

Sonny Onoo (La Parka’s manager apparently) kicks Dragon down and Parka sends Dragon into the steps. A powerbomb gets two for Parka so he puts Dragon in the Tree of Woe for a kick to the chest. Now let’s stand around for a bit! Dragon comes back, hits the super rana, Sonny’s interference fails, and the Dragon Sleeper retains the belt.

Rating: D+. Just a quick title match here with no doubt as to who was going to win. Dragon was pretty good at what he did but as usual, the lack of mic skills held him down. If we can’t connect with these characters, the matches have to be amazing for them to get over. Dragon was good, but not that good. He would lose the title soon enough anyway.

Curt Hennig vs. The Giant

Hennig slaps him in the face for some reason and is tossed into the corner accordingly. An attempted whip out of the corner fails completely for Hennig so Curt bails to the floor. Giant hits some of those LOUD chops to Curt’s chest and suplexes him down. He calls for the chokeslam and here’s Eric to say that Giant is violating the restraining order. Doug Dillinger (WCW security) won’t do anything about it so Giant goes after Eric, losing via countout in the process. Short and basically a squash until the ending.

Dillinger still won’t do anything so Larry Z comes out to corner Eric. Bischoff runs into the crowd and escapes as cops hold Giant back.

We recap the Sting segment from last week again.

JJ is in the ring with another offer for Sting which I’m sure will work this time. Apparently he doesn’t have a new contract for Sting tonight. Stupid me, thinking the rolled up paper in his hand that has been a contract the last two weeks is a contract again here. JJ says he needs answers from Sting soon or they may have to go their separate ways. Geez even the WCW on screen bosses are stupid. Sting has until the Clash to tell JJ what he wants.

Here’s Sting in the crowd and the fans go nuts. The fans chant Hogan and Sting points at them again. Even TONY FREAKING SCHIAVONE is saying how obvious this is. Sting takes a sign out of the crowd that says Hulk vs. Sting. And JJ STILL doesn’t get it. Apparently HOLDING UP A SIGN THAT SAYS THE MATCH ON IT isn’t telling him what Sting wants.

The NWO is having a birthday party on Thursday.

Tag Titles: Outsiders vs. Diamond Dallas Page/Lex Luger

The announcers point out that the Steiners are being passed over AGAIN here. I’m sure another #1 contenders match is coming up soon too. Hall and Luger start things off as we go past ten o’clock which was a different thing back then. Luger slaps Hall in the face and shoves him into the corner to get things going. He beats on both Outsiders in the NWO corner and Hall tags Nash.

The big man wants Page so they both stand in opposite corners for a bit. The high powered offense begins from Nash until Page takes him down with a swinging neckbreaker for two. Page fires off his shoulder blocks but Nash clotheslines him right back down. DDP escapes Snake Eyes and gets two off a Russian legsweep. Back to Hall for a clothesline and the fallaway slam for two.

Off to the abdominal stretch for a bit until Page hip tosses out of it. Nash breaks up the tag attempt to Luger and it’s time for corner elbows. The Outsiders change without a tag and the referee yells at them. Hall makes an overblown tag and now Snake Eyes hits for no cover. They change again sans tag and Anderson is fine with it now.

Off to a sleeper by Hall and Page is in trouble. His arm drops twice before Page comes back with a belly to back suplex to put both guys down. Nash breaks up the tag AGAIN and clotheslines Page down. Page busts out a headscissors of all things and finally tags in Luger. Not that it matters as the NWO runs in about five seconds later for the DQ.

Rating: B-. I was digging this until the obvious ending. We knew the titles weren’t changing hands here and the NWO would run in, but it was cool to see WCW guys hanging in there this long. They played the formula here and as usual, it worked as well as anything else was going to. Good stuff.

Flair and the Giant run in and a brawl ends the show.

Overall Rating: B-. Pretty good show here as they set up the Clash quite well. There’s some stuff on there I’d like to see (including a main event of Page/Luger vs. Hall/Savage which I listed wrong earlier). The Sting stuff would really come to a new level on Thursday which it’s needed to do for months now. Solid episode here as WCW is kind of on a roll.

Here’s Clash of the Champions if you’re interested:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2011/07/23/clash-of-the-champions-35-the-final-clash-probably-a-good-idea-too/

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