Uncensored 1995
Date: March 19, 1995
Location: Tupelo Coliseum, Tupelo, Mississippi
Attendance: 5,782
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan

So here we are at what managed to win back to back worst show of the year awards from Meltzer: Uncensored. The idea is WCW has washed their hands of the show which is stupid for reasons I’ve gone into already in other rants. Anyway, this is really just a continuation of the last show and not a lot has really changed. The main event is still Hogan vs. Vader and other than that there’s not a lot to talk about on this one. This show does however feature perhaps the dumbest idea in wrestling history that resulted in Goldust, so let’s get to it.

Again, Nitro doesn’t exist yet so this isn’t your traditional show.

Opening video is just about how everything is different now and there are no rules. It’s your standard thing. Apparently we are packed to the rafters here. There aren’t even 6,000 people there so that’s a stretch if there ever has been one. Heenan dates the show by saying Jordan just came back to the NBA and Tyson is about to get out of prison. Oh this is the debut of the Renegade. Oh dear it’s THAT show.

Blacktop Bully vs. Dustin Rhodes

For some reason WCW thought this was a good idea. See if you can figure this out: they’re in the back of a truck driving around Atlanta. The winner is the first person to get to the end of the truck and pull a horn. Both guys bladed which was illegal at the time and were fired for it. There are bales of hay in the back of it also. Yep, WCW isn’t a hick company AT ALL. Oh hey let’s get a police escort and a helicopter too.

This must have been SO fun for the people in the arena. I mean my goodness: SOMEONE GOT PAID FOR THIS!!! The problem here is that no one can actually stand up at all as they’re IN A MOVING TRUCK! Two idiots have to actually sit in the cab and watch this. Seriously, WHO CAME UP WITH THIS IDEA??? Yep there goes the sunlight. Oh I forgot to mention: this has been edited to heck and back so the light changes about every 5 seconds.

Hey, let’s run a stop sign on film and show a shot of the truck driver for no apparent reason. They aren’t even really fighting. It’s them wandering from one end of the truck to another and hitting the other guy with a bale of hay. And all of a sudden Dustin is 8 feet away from where he was a second ago. Not to mention they had to rent the truck. The camera work here is crap as we can’t let anyone see blood. Nothing dumb about this AT ALL.

They actually call this a match. I’m stunned. Hey something good happens for once: the camera in the helicopter breaks up. Someone up there likes me. Oh hey, let’s sit on the side of a moving truck and hang off the side while a guy punches me. Nothing bad can happen from this. This has been going on over 8 minutes and they might have interacted for 50 seconds total. Other than that it’s stumbling around and trying to grab the stupid horn.

It’s also gotten lighter so apparently this has gone on all night. It certainly feels like it. They’re up on the beam together and Dustin gets knocked off, allowing the Bully to pull the horn and win I guess. In the arena fireworks go off. This is a BAD idea already isn’t it?

Rating: H. As in HOLY GOODNESS WHAT IN THE WORLD WERE THEY FREAKING SMOKING TO COME UP WITH THIS????? Do I even need to make fun of this? Dustin took off and put on his shirt twice, yet you never saw him do it once. See what I’m working with here?

We go to the Stud Stable, which is Colonel Parker, Meng and the TV Champion Arn Anderson who for no apparent reason is wearing what would become the Cruiserweight Title. Apparently he has a boxer vs. wrestler match with Johnny B. Badd. Meng is having a martial arts match with Duggan. This could be a REALLY long night.

We recap Meng vs. Duggan. Short version: Duggan ran into Parker and Meng beat him up. This is set to Rey Mysterio’s music for no apparent reason.

Jim Duggan vs. Meng

Ok so even more non wrestling. Good to know. The fans, having sat around over twenty minutes at this point watching a single small screen, are shockingly dead. Duggan is all taped up as this show is giving me a migraine. Sonny Onoo, not yet a stereotyped Japanese tourist that would sue WCW over it, is the guest referee. Duggan is in street clothes. You can win by pin or knockout apparently.

On a random note that is far more interesting, this was one of Austin’s last match with the company before heading to ECW. It was a dark match that I didn’t mention already. There’s no point to it at all. I’m just bored. Another dark match was Stars N Stripes vs. Bunkhouse Buck and Dick Slater. Can I watch that match instead? They point out that Duggan knows nothing about martial arts. My head hurts.

We’ve been walking around for three minutes now waiting on Duggan to bow. Meng kicks him once and then poses. Duggan’s punching doesn’t work so he takes his boot off to beat Meng with it, which also does nothing at all. The match goes like this: Meng hits him, Duggan walks around, Meng knocks him down, Duggan gets up, Duggan can’t hurt Meng, repeat.

We’re at the third nerve hold of the match. The guy is allegedly a killing machine so let’s have him rub Duggan’s neck instead. Heenan says Duggan has held a lot of titles. Name two. Duggan does the ten punches in the corner, and all of them go into the shoulder. That’s brilliant isn’t it? Meng no sells the Three Point Clothesline. HE GOT UP FROM A CLOTHESLINE! HOW FREAKING TOUGH IS HE??? A kick to the head ends it.

Rating: F-. And that’s being generous. This was a regular match with a guest referee, period. Seriously, whose idea was this show anyway? I freaking don’t get it. This is the closest thing to a match we’ve had and that’s not saying anything at all.

We recap Anderson vs. Johnny B. Badd. Anderson stole the TV Title from him and then cheated (you expected something else) to keep the title. Finally on Saturday Night, Badd interfered in a match Anderson had with Alex Wright. Now you have to remember something around this time: Badd’s character was gay without actually saying he was gay.

This is the character that says he was so pretty he should have been a little girl. So on Saturday Night ha literally sauntered out (think of the run that Sunny used to do) in powder blue tights (WAY too small) and boxing gloves to knock Anderson out. Since you know, THAT HURTS SO MUCH MORE THAN A FIST.

Badd says that tonight is a disadvantage to him. He has a boxing trainer that I refuse to believe is a real human being.

We get a clip of Anderson in the middle of nowhere in a Jeep or something talking. These kinds of promos are the things I based Night Vision on for the three people that got that reference. Anderson looks like a bad teacher from a stereotypical high school.

Arn Anderson vs. Johnny B. Badd

This is billed as boxer vs. wrestler. We have rounds here so this is closer to an MMA fight in a weird screwed up way. In other words, 40 minutes into the show and we still haven’t had an actual wrestling match. The rounds are three minutes with a minute between each. You can win by pinfall, submission or knockout. Oh this is going to be bad isn’t it? This is dumb already as it’s just Badd punching him and making Arn look stupid.

The problem is he would do this all the time in regular matches but doesn’t, and guys get punched all the time and it doesn’t do much at all, yet here Badd is wearing gloves and it’s more effective? This is just stupid. They have random stops like in boxing which is ever stupider. Crowd is DEAD mind you. Anderson has gone down three times this round. It’s been totally one sided. And yep, Anderson jumps him in the rest period and hits his DDT.

Naturally Anderson is in worse shape than Badd is after taking the TV Champion’s finishing move. Since there are no DQs Anderson beats on him some more. Anderson is finally dominating here but using jobber offense for the most part. The stool is used and here’s Badd’s manager to help him which of course fails beyond belief. Third round ends with Anderson beating the heck out of him. And Badd has his glove cut off and the trainer puts a bucket on Arn’s head. A big left hand ends it. I hate this show. I truly do.

Rating: F. Again, why is nonsense like this on a WRESTLING show? We’re 54 minutes into the show and there’s been a thing about blowing the horn of a truck, martial arts and boxing/MMA. What am I watching?

A highlight package of Savage leads to an interview with Savage. He admits he doesn’t know what he’s saying. Holy cocaine Batman!

Randy Savage vs. Avalanche

Earthquake in case you were wondering. Yes, we’re getting a wrestling match, AN HOUR INTO THE SHOW! Something tells me this is going to be very formula based. This is really basic stuff for the most part just like I thought it would be. Avalanche throws a dropkick of all things and to stun me, it’s not half bad. This is about what you would expect: Savage gets beaten up, he makes a quick comeback and it doesn’t work, repeat.

They’ve been fighting ten minutes now and that’s all there is to say about it. Savage jumps from the top to the floor with the double axe to knock him down. And Ric Flair in drag jumps the railing and beats up Avalanche. This ends it BY DISQUALIFICATION, at UNCENSORED, meaning NO RULES. Hogan makes the save.

Rating: D+. Match of the night by about 1000% so far. Know why that is? BECAUSE THIS WAS AN ACTUAL MATCH! There’s nothing at all special here but it’s not terrible I guess. This was a match you didn’t see in WWF so that’s always a perk. Nothing great, but by comparison this was Flair vs. Steamboat.

Harlem Heat have a match with the Nasty Boys and it’s Texas Tornado Rules. Just remember: no RULES tonight. Sherri really was decent on the mic.

We recap Bubba (Boss Man) vs. Sting. Boss Man turned heel because he blamed Sting for him losing a match. Sting, looking very odd for some reason, shouts a lot. I’ll say this: John Cena wishes he had the charisma Sting had. Rip me apart.

Big Bubba Rogers vs. Sting

This is a SUPER CONTEST apparently. Ok then. This should be decent actually. I want Bubba’s hat and Sting drops a leg on it and throws it to the crowd. Apparently being Uncensored allows for Sting to destroy Bubba’s personal property. They badly botch a crotch reversal spot on the post where Sting was supposed to pull his legs in so Bubba went face first into the post but the legs came loose and Bubba had to ram himself.

Sting hurts his leg on a leapfrog so there’s your story of the match. When something works as well as that, why mess with it? We get a rest hold, but at least it makes sense here. Bubba likes to stand around way too much. Sting gets a massive pop for a right hand. He was so over it was scary. We get a Captain Planet reference, making this match awesome. This is more or less Sting has a bad knee, Bubba has generic offense.

Sting hits a splash from the top for two, and I never stop loving those things. That man could JUMP. Sting goes for a slam and Bubba falls on him…for the pin? That came from NOWHERE. Even the guy didn’t expect it as there’s a long gap between the pin and the bell.

Rating: D+. Again boring but again not bad. This wasn’t bad really but it needed a lot more to be worth anything. It’s sad when a boring match is a breath of fresh air. This is already a failure of a show so there we are.

We recap Nasty Boys vs. Harlem Heat. How are the Nastys still on TV today? More or less they just fight each other. There’s not much more than that.

Nasty Boys vs. Harlem Heat

Remember it’s Texas Tornado rules. What does Kerry Von Erich have to do with this? And we have no Harlem Heat. Sherri goes to get them and of course they jump the Nastys from behind. Wait this is non title? Why? Why in the world wouldn’t this be for the belts? Oh I guess it’s the UNCENSORED thing. The no rules thing kind of helps here as it hides a lot of the faults of the Nasty Boys.

One of these faults would be no selling, as Jerry gets kicked in the FACE and just walks away. And here’s Sherri being brought in to make it really intense I guess. We brawl to the concession stand, and any real old school fan gets this instantly. Back in 1975 in this area (mainly Tennessee though), two teams had an EPIC rivalry: the Blonde Bombers (Wayne “Honky Tonk Man” Ferris and Larry “Moondog Spot” Latham) and Jerry Lawler and Bill Dundee (Jerry Lawler and Bill Dundee).

One night in Tupelo there was a controversial decision over the Southern tag titles where the Bombers, the heels, won the belts but the referee might have blown the call. The faces jumped them to end the show, and then later we saw what happened afterwards. These four fought into the concession stands with ketchup and mustard going everywhere. Now I know it sounds stupid and corny, but this was more or less the standard for violence until ECW came along.

I mean they ATTACKED each other and it felt real almost. Go find a copy of it as it’s well worth seeing, if nothing else from a historical perspective. So anyway, this brawl is a reference/homage to that event. Here’s the problem: that was 20 years earlier and I don’t think many people get the point. To them this is just four guys acting like idiots and it’s a comedy match. Sherri actually does look good in the leather.

See, now we’re getting to the other problem: this is boring. And we get a bell without seeing a pin. The Nasty Boys win apparently. Ok then. A replay shows that it was a powerslam from Knobbs with Stevie kicking out at the last second but the three going down anyway, another Tupelo reference.

Rating: F+. This was just bad. I get what they were going for here but it just didn’t work at all. That’s the problem here: this was just boring. It was supposed to
be a reference to a classic angle but the problem is that it came off as a really bad comedy match.

Vader and Flair yell at Hogan. Flair still has eyeliner on.

Hogan says he has an ULTIMATE surprise. Heaven help me.

Vader vs. Hulk Hogan

This is again non-title. Flair and Vader are both in the ring and the RENEGADE comes out. The idea was let’s have a guy dressed up like Warrior that kind of looks like him run around a lot and maybe some people will really think it’s him. The problem is this guy is like 5’8 or so while Warrior was 6’3. He looks like he’s in a Halloween costume or something. I’m pretty sure this is the four corners version but it’s not really made clear.

For about the 1000th time tonight we’re told IT’S UNCENSORED!!! Yep it’s four corners variety. Vader beats up Hogan for the most part until Jimmy Hart runs out. He had been missing all day in a bad storyline, leading to nothing at all. Renegade beats up Flair for the third time tonight. Vader makes another comeback and beats up Hogan, leading to his powerbomb. And of course Hogan is up in seconds.

He hits all four corners after beating up Vader. OR DOES HE??? He gets three and a masked man runs out (second in about 6 months. Have to love this original booking right?) and blasts Renegade before he gets to the fourth. There’s no referee for this whole thing mind you. Vader misses a front flip from the middle rope and lands on the chair. Where are all these wooden chairs coming from?

Vader isn’t hooked to the strap anymore so Hogan beats up Flair to make sure the universe is in order. He hooks up Flair and drags him instead I guess to win the match. If that was the case, why even tie up Flair? The Masked Man is back with a chair.

We cut to the entrance ramp to see Arn Anderson in the Masked Man’s outfit minus the mask tied at his hands and feet more or less hopping towards the ring. The Masked Man in the ring beats up Flair and Vader before revealing himself to be Savage. The trip of steroid freaks celebrate to end this mess.

Rating: G. Hogan, seriously, how big is your ego? I want to know. Let’s see. Flair: greatest world champion of all time arguably. Hogan has him in drag and being crazy, not to mention jobbing to Hogan twice, one of which was when Hogan hadn’t wrestled for a year or so.

Then we have Vader, who was built up for a year or so as the unstoppable heel and he jobs to Hogan twice in three months. Is there a point coming anytime soon? This is why Hogan wound up getting booed so often: he refused to ever lose. Yes he was the biggest star ever, but you have to lose once in awhile man.

Overall Rating: O. As in oh what do you think I’m going to give this show? This is freaking terrible. The thing is though, the idea actually isn’t that bad: a hardcore PPV. The problem is it was about as thrown together as you could ask for. None of the gimmicks made any sense and the regular matches were boring. Also the main event being non title makes it sound weak.

If the title isn’t going to change hands, why should I want to see this show? Nothing is going to change as nothing is up for grabs, so why would I really want to see this? The point of PPVs are to have big time matches that end feuds, and this didn’t do that. Also, I know I complain about Hogan in TNA a lot, but this right here is a prime example of why I do that. Look at this main event and show as a whole.

The Nasty Boys go over Harlem Heat, the world tag champions. Hogan makes Vader and Flair look like fools. Hogan celebrates the win again, and the crowd is dead. This would be the trend for the next year until at Uncensored 96 the Doomsday Cage Match happened and Hogan was so universally hated for it that the company had no other option than to turn him heel, because, you know, he couldn’t just be taken off TV and have Sting and Flair and Savage and Giant put on the TV show right? That’s crazy talk. Ignore this completely as it’s terrible.
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Monday Nitro #71
Date: January 20, 1997
Location: United Center, Chicago, Illinois
Attendance: 17,000
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan, Larry Zbyzsko, Mike Tenay

Back to WCW after a lengthy absence. This is the go home show for Souled Out which is one of the most different kinds of PPVs you’ll ever see. This is also probably the biggest crowd I can remember for a Nitro up to this point. They’re up north here in Chicago which is a city that was pretty popular for them back in the old NWA days. Nothing on the card seems significant but there are ten matches to get through. Let’s get to it.

This is also the show before the next to last Clash of the Champions, which was held on Tuesday.

We open immediately with Randy Savage storming the ring with a chair. This is his first appearance since Halloween Havoc. He says he’s been blackballed and he’s not going anywhere until he talks to someone with some stroke. Savage sits down and says he’s waiting. Chavo Guerrero is in the first match so here he comes. Tony says they’re going to try to start the match with Savage in the ring.

Chavo slowly gets in and stares at Savage but Savage waves him off. This goes on for a few minutes with Savage not listening to what Chavo says. After almost seven minutes the fans are booing. Savage gets up and lays out Guerrero, sending him over the top and out. Back to the chair. Now a guy named Max, the opponent for Chavo, comes out now. Savage decks him and Max falls to the floor. There goes the referee too. Doug Dillinger comes in and down he goes as well. Alex Wright comes in and he gets punched. Savage is on his feet and holding the chair now.

An army of guys comes out to get him out but Sting repels from the rafters (I think for the first time) in front of the Chicago Bulls banners and walks slowly towards the ring with the bat. He points the bat at Savage and puts it under his chin. Savage jumps up and Sting shoves him away a few times. Savage looks to charge at him but Sting pulls the bat back. Sting hands him the bat and turns his back on him but Savage doesn’t swing. Sting takes it back and they both leave through the crowd. Tony immediately thinks this means they’re both NWO because…..I have no idea.

Here’s a clip from December of Chono joining the NWO and another of him beating up Jericho later that night. They have a rematch on Saturday.

Alex Wright vs. Chris Jericho

No entrance for either guy. Wright armdrags him to start and they chop it out but Jericho runs into a big boot. They trade rollups and Jericho rolls forward out of a German suplex for a fast pin. That’s the same finish he used on the last Raw from 2001 I reviewed. Quick match and Wright’s arm was about six inches off the mat, but other than that it was fine.

Scotty Riggs vs. NWO Sting

Sting does a really bad shout and Riggs jumps him to a big pop. Jumping back elbow and some dropkicks put Sting down. Riggs walks into a hot shot though and Sting takes over. After a quick beating Riggs escapes and hits a missile dropkick but here’s Buff. Riggs hits his forearm but the NWO runs out which is a DQ despite the NWO not touching him. Too short to rate but it was there for the ending and to set up Buff vs. Scotty on Saturday. The NWO makes Penzer say Sting won by countout, which would seem to be correct.

We get a clip of Flair at a hockey team talking to an enforcer for the Chicago Blackhawks. They have a gave on the road tonight so he can’t be here tonight.

Arn Anderson/Steve McMichael vs. Jeff Jarrett/Eddie Guerrero

If that was Benoit instead of McMichael this could be a classic. To be fair though Mongo is a Chicago guy so it makes perfect sense for him to be here. Tony brags about how this is the biggest crowd to see a wrestling event in Chicago this year. Check the date on this show and you’ll see why I rolled my eyes. Also there was this show called Wrestlemania that broke that mark a few months later.

Jeff and Arn start us off with Jarrett being knocked to the floor almost immediately. He comes back with a top rope cross body for two and here’s Eddie, who is the US Champion but doesn’t have the belt. Mongo comes in to a big pop and runs over Eddie before gorilla pressing him. Eddie comes back with some speed stuff but gets backdropped to the floor. Arn comes in but it’s a hot (I guess?) tag to Eddie. He cleans house but runs off to chase Syxx (not that we see that but Tony tells us). Arn hits a spinebuster on Jeff and puts him in a Boston Crab as Mongo stomps on him. Debra throws in her sash and that counts for a submission.

Rating: C+. Stupid ending aside, this was a fun and fast paced match. When you won’t have Jeff as the heel world champion, he’s a pretty fun guy to watch. Eddie was flying all over the place as he is known to do and Anderson was his usual old self. This Horsemen story would only get worse though as Mongo and Jarrett would wind up feuding over the US Title all summer.

Here’s Flair to talk to the Horsemen. Benoit and Woman are here too. He says he’s still healing so he can get back in the ring but as he’s looking at the Horsemen, they’re not the unit they used to be. Arn and the old gang are cool, but it’s all turned around lately. Flair tells Mongo and Benoit to be Horsemen first and then go after the women. Mongo says he’s proud to be a Horseman and gets a huge pop. Debra starts talking and the crowd completely reverses. Benoit starts talking and the cheering continues. Mongo and Benoit get in another argument and Debra gets the last word about Woman, implying she’s fat.

We get a clip from Saturday Night with Eric talking about how much the NWO has taken over. It’s your usual NWO speech. Liz is filming so Eric pulls her to him and says the only things Savage wants are her and Eric’s hair.

Dean Malenko vs. Ultimo Dragon

The fans chant ECW for Dean as they start off fast. Dragon dropkicks him down but walks into a powerslam for two. They do the exact same sequence and Dean drops him with a brainbuster for two. About an hour into the show we hear the first mention of the Clash tomorrow night. Dean hooks the chinlock and things slow down a bit. Out to the floor and Dean gets sent into the barricade. Back inside they exchange rollups and Dean goes up. Dragon stops him though and the super rana only gets two. Dean tries a leg lock when he catches a kick but Dragon gets the rope. Dragon grabs the arm and La Majistral gets the pin.

Rating: C+. This was a fun and fast paced match as usual, but the shortness hurts it. Dragon was pretty solid against other cruiserweights but once they put him into the TV Title hunt he lost any interest the fans had in him. Granted that’s probably more because of the title than him. Dean would win the title from Dragon the next night at the Clash, making this match totally pointless.

Hour #2 begins and Tony is in a Blackhawks jersey.

We recap the opening segment by reshowing a lot of it.

TV Title: Steven Regal vs. Jacques Rougeau

Jacques does the national anthem bit before the match so I’d assume he’s supposed to be the heel here. Regal grabs the wrist to start and Jacques takes him down for some stomping. Regal comes back to stomp on Colonel Parker’s fingers so the Colonel comes in and accidentally hits his own man for the DQ. Another two minute match.

Lee Marshall’s road report wastes some time.

Kevin Sullivan vs. Chris Benoit

This is another match that happened as the Clash as well. Tomorrow’s is falls count anywhere at least so it’s not completely the same. Benoit jumps him in the aisle and they go into the crowd already which makes the match tomorrow completely pointless already. They fight into the men’s room because that’s what they did at Great American Bash 96 so they’re just going to keep doing the same match until everyone quits caring. Benoit has his fingers slammed in the door and Sullivan beats him down.

They head back into the arena with Sullivan knocking him down the stairs, which they would do again tomorrow night. This is almost spot for spot the same as tomorrow, which is a shortened version of the Bash match from 96. Sullivan throws a beer in Benoit’s face and Benoit drags him up the aisle.

They head into the ring and there’s the bell to start the match. Sullivan puts him in a quick Tree of Woe but Benoit falls out. Low blow slows Chris down and they hit heads. Woman pops up and Jimmy slides the bell in to Sullivan. The Swan Dive hits the bell and Sullivan gets the academic pin. No point in rating it but it was just trashy brawling.

Here’s the NWO and they’re coming to the announcers’ desk. Great, this again. It’s Bischoff, DiBiase and Nash this time.

Jim Duggan vs. Carl Oullett

Eric says that he’s put Chono on the card because he can. Also Hall has his first singles match on Nitro. Duggan knocks him around for a bit before Carl takes over….and here are the Steiners for some reason. Duggan uses the tape which is legal now and it gets the pin. Another mess.

We look at Starrcade where the Outsiders helped Eddie win the US Title because Page turned the NWO down. Page said he’d fix things and then we see him Diamond Cutting both Outsiders a week later.

Masahiro Chono vs. Dave Taylor

Nick Patrick is sent down from the announcers’ desk to referee this. Chono jumps Taylor and hits a quick reverse DDT. Taylor gets in some offense including a dropkick to the stomach and a middle rope double ax to send Chono to the floor. Back in the ring the atomic drop sets up the Mafia Kick and the STF ends this. Another quick match.

Booker T vs. Scott Hall

Booker doesn’t mean anything much so this isn’t going to be very competitive. Hall throws the toothpick in his face and hits his driving shoulders. Booker comes back with a hook kick and follows with some elbows but jumps into the fallaway slam. Hall loads up his belly to back superplex but gets knocked off. The top rope cross body gets a very slow count, resulting in an argument so that the Outsider’s Edge can get the pin.

Rating: D+. Nothing but a warmup for Hall here before he faces Luger tomorrow night. Booker didn’t mean anything yet so this would be like a big star facing Primo or Epico and not killing them in thirty seconds with one punch. The referee stuff is already played out though, so they’ll keep it up for at least four more months.

Call the NWO Hotline!

Lex Luger vs. Stevie Ray

Nick Patrick is referee here for no apparent reason. Ray jumps him in the corner and stomps him down but Lex comes back quickly. Stevie sends him to the floor and kicks him once before Luger comes back and Racks him easily. Short again.

Here’s Hogan for the last five minutes of the show. The fans in a big city of course love him. Make that three minutes after posing. Hogan talks about using his arms as wings for their jet to get into Chicago. He talks about how he’s going to beat up Giant on Saturday and now he’s talking about Giant’s Mama. Cue Giant but security stops him. Giant screams a lot to end the show.

Overall Rating: C+. This was one of those shows where it depends on your taste in wrestling. If you’re looking for good in ring action, this isn’t your show. If you’re looking for something where they’re moving at such a breakneck pace that you can’t really tell if it was good or bad, this is for you. They plugged almost everything at Souled Out so for a go home show, this was quite good. While the matches weren’t anything of note, they only ran about two minutes each so it’s hard to get annoyed with them. I’m not sure why the Clash needed to exist at this point because it was glossed over for the most part. Decent Nitro.

Here’s the Clash if you’re interested:

Here’s Souled Out if you’re interested:

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New Blood Rising
Date: August 13, 2000
Location: Pacific Coliseum, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Attendance: 6,614
Commentators: Scott Hudson, Tony Schiavone, Mark Madden

So here it is. This right here is considered the show that is the be all and end all of Russo’s insanity. This show is so full of ridiculousness and twists and turns and swerves that you need a scorecard to keep up with it. The main event is a rematch of Jarrett vs. Booker. We also have an ROTC (Rip off the Camouflage), a Canadian Rules match and Judy Bagwell on a Forklift. Let’s get this over with.

The opening video is about Jarrett vs. Booker and Booker becoming more and more like the Rock by the week. Goldberg is a heel here too and is in a three way with Steiner and Nash. Madden says it’s going to be a trainwreck and he’s right.

Some “fans” say who they think will win the triple threat. No mention of the main event at all from them.

3 Count vs. Jung Dragons

This would open about 19 Thunders in a row. Tank Abbott is their Rikishi and dances with them. Ok to be fair, this was freaking hilarious. The only Dragon that is known is the masked one who would become Jamie Knoble. Three Count has one guy that meant nothing, Shannon Moore and Shane (Gregory) Helms. This is a double ladder match where the Dragons are trying to get a recording contract so 3 Count can’t record again and 3 Count is trying to get their gold record back.

You have to tag here and it’s a ladder match. They stack up a ladder in the corner and do a ton of stuff with that. Both teams hit a springboard Doomsday Device as this is a fun match but you can tell nothing is ever going to go anywhere. Noble does a HUGE dive off the ladder to the floor. Oh and Yang cut his hair and became the resident redneck on Smackdown. This isn’t bad but it’s certainly is entertaining.

And then 3 Count stops to dance. Jamie hits a nice rana and the other two hit a double splash off the ladders. Jamie gets the record but it’s not over yet. Abbott gets the record and we keep going a bit more. I’d love to hear the explanation to a record company that they lost their contract in a professional wrestling ladder match. Kaz and Helms sprint up the ladders but Abbott shoves both guys over. Karagis climbs up and gets the contract. Soon after Jamie would be unmasked and Karagis would team up to become a third team. Abbott leaves with the contract and record.

Rating: B. Solid stuff here although it made limited sense with the whole double prize thing but that’s WCW for you. These six guys would open just about every show there was without ever getting anywhere at all for it and while the matches were solid, people just got sick of seeing them. I know I did.

The Filthy Animals (Disco, Mysterio, Konnan, Juvy and Tygress) want to referee the tag title match, which already has 8 people in it. They stole the belts and will give them back in exchange for a title shot TOMORROW night on Nitro. Keep that in mind.

Great Muta vs. Ernest Miller

Yeah because this is worth paying to see. Muta of course has generic Asian music. The Filthy Animals guarantee Cat will win this which means interference of course. We’ve had interference in the first match already so why not go two for two? Muta works on the arm while Tony talks about how this isn’t about wrestling but about winning. I wonder how much of that line was real and how much was scripted.

Muta was one of those guys that came back every now and then and we were supposed to be impressed for no apparent reason. He never had a storyline of note other than he’s Great Muta so you should like him. And here comes Tygress for no apparent reason. Cat does nothing but kick and is dominating Muta. The far more talented guy gets an ankle hold and takes over.

The Moonsault misses though and Cat takes the mist. Tygress gets a chair shot to Muta for two. Fans are dead for this mind you. Cat kicks Muta a lot and then a spin kick ends it. This was totally pointless.

Rating: D. Tygress looked good. That’s about all this has going for it otherwise. Cat was a guy that they wanted to make into something but I have no idea why. Muta was a special attraction so they have him go down like this. It makes perfect sense right? This was just a way to kill time and it was just bad.

Buff Bagwell vs. Chris Kanyon

Yep it’s Judy Bagwell on a pole. Kanyon is still imitating DDP here which must make Madden cringe. Bagwell isn’t even on a pole but rather a forklift. Do you win by pin I suppose? Kanyon is POSITIVELY Kanyon here (Page’s book was Positively Page) and if he wins then Judy has to be his Kimberly. The fans chant USA in Canada. I guess WCW managed to lower intelligences that fast.

There isn’t a pole that they could get to hold up Judy. They start by fighting next to the forklift and we’re already in the audience. I don’t think the match has actually started yet. Kanyon does his usual good stuff as no one cares about this. Seriously there’s a woman on a forklift match. I can’t believe I’m watching this. Kanyon gets the turnbuckle pad off and the referee is just fine with it.

Kanyon could do some solid stuff in the ring if nothing else. He really was innovative. Madden gets on DDP of course. Does he owe Madden money or something? Kanyon works on the neck of Bagwell which was broken like a year ago. Bagwell gets a hot shot onto the exposed buckle for two. Kanyon Kutter gets two and here comes the real DDP…never mind it’s David Arquette.

He hits Bagwell in the back with a construction hat for two. Buff hits a double Blockbuster, which is a front flip neckbreaker off the middle rope on both guys, with Arquette just getting smashed in the face by a forearm instead of a neckbreaker. This ends it and Judy is saved off the forklift. Oh and this is sports entertainment, not wrestling. Kanyon hits the Kutter on Arquette after the match, getting cheered despite being a heel.

Rating: D+. As idiotic as this was, the wrestling was watchable I suppose. At this point you couldn’t treat WCW as realistic from a wrestling standpoint so this was about as good as the midcard stuff would get. For the rating I’m factoring out the whole insanity because it meant nothing anyway. I can’t believe they brought Arquette back AGAIN. This was somehow watchable and I don’t know why.

Lance Storm is here, getting a huge limo to bring him.

Goldberg might not be here because of a motorcycle accident. You can start writing the swerve now.

Tag Titles: Misfits and Action vs. Mark Jindrak/Sean O’Haire vs. Perfect Event vs. Kronik

The Filthy Animals are all referees here so we have four referees and 8 wrestlers, plus Konnan on commentary. Rey and Juvy have the tag title belts here. Perfect Event is Stasiak and Palumbo. Kronik are the actual champions coming into this. Something tells me this is going to be horrible. MIA is Hugh Morrus and Corporal Cajun (Lash Leroux). Disco grabs a mic and says he’s the in ring referee and the other guys and Tygress are enforces. If they touch Disco or any of the others they’ll be suspended I guess.

The referees were added like 30 minutes ago so it’s not like this was advertised. I think I know why. One fall to a finish here. Adams and Palumbo start us off. Konnan at least is funny. Stasiak goes to the floor and the “referees” beat him up. Leroux vs. Jimdrak at the moment as Konnan makes incest jokes. The wrestling is ok but at the same time there are FAR too many people in there at once. The fans chant ECW for some reason.

O’Haire kicks the heck out of Clark’s head and it looks great. He was talented for sure. The referees do Bronco Busters on Morrus. End this NOW. This match is such a joke that it’s painful to watch. What’s annoying is that if you made this a regular tag match it could have been pretty decent. Disco counts slowly for Cajun. He does the same for Stasiak. It’s weird to think that three of these guys worked for WrestleZone for awhile.

Everybody, including the referees beat up on Morrus. Stasiak hits a NICE jumping back elbow. This is just a total mess again as we get a Tommy Young reference. Sean hits a PERFECT Swanton. Palumbo is set in High Time but Muta and Vampiro run out to give us FOURTEEN PEOPLE in this thing.

Apparently everyone else got bored as it’s just Kronik and Palumbo in the ring. Disco won’t count the three off a pumphandle slam. Chavo Guerrero runs down and steals the referee’s shirt and counts the pin as the sixteenth person involved in this match (8 wrestlers, 5 filthy animals, Chavo, Vampiro, Muta). Konnan is ticked that they have to fight Kronik the next night.

Rating: F. A tournament has 16 people, not a single match. I don’t think anything else needs to be said here. Also, why did Chavo count the pin for Kronik when members of his own stable are in this match?

Jarrett, in a lime green shirt, says he wants to know if Pamela Paulshock (freaking HOT) is there because Gene is worn out from last night. This was pointless.

Shane Douglas vs. Billy Kidman

This is a strap match. Naturally we talk about the three way dance off the Jarrett interview. Torrie is with Shane here so I’d bet on a swerve. Yes Shane Douglas was getting pushed in 2000. There was allegedly a Kidman/Torrie sex tape which set this up. This is just pinfall so there’s some sanity here. Shane had issues with performance if you get what I mean. Torrie turned on Kidman at BATB, the previous PPV.

Neither guy is in wrestling attire here and why should they be? This isn’t wrestling according to Tony so that explains everything. The guys try to insinuate Torrie is fat. They can’t even get basic vision right. Torrie keeps distracting Kidman and it I can’t say I blame him. She’s the most interesting thing going on in this. Shane does a very dangerous move and with Kidman on his stomach he gets a running start and grabs Kidman’s head and snaps his neck back. Freaking OW man.

We’re in a strap match and Shane is working on the arm. Kidman hits a nice rana and the strap is completely pointless here. The strap is WAY too long and they really can’t do that much. Shane gets his balls strapped. Torrie blasts Shane in the head with her shoe for a two. Is there a point to foreign objects if they don’t get a pin? Torrie just walks into the ring to turn over a small package which means nothing. Kidman hits an Unprettier for the pin.

Torrie gets a spanking post match. Shane hangs Kidman for it and Vito makes the save. Now why couldn’t they get fired for this like Danielson did? Reno comes down and beats down Vito. He never meant much but I think they wound up being partners. Vito beats him up.

Rating: F+. Not bad I guess, but for a strap match this was horrible. If this had been a regular match it would have been ok but when you throw something like this in for the sake of having a stipulation it doesn’t work at all. This is one of those instances and the hanging thing is just stupid to top it off.

Booker is here, an hour and 15 minutes into the show. Jarrett jumps him and slams his knee in the car door a bunch of times. His knee was already hurt.

Major Guns vs. Ms. Hancock

This is the ROTC match. Oh and there’s a mud pit. Guns’ music starts when she’s already in the ring. Stacey in a one piece camouflage dress with her hair pulled back…WOW. She was 20 at this point so brand new. They do some painfully bad stuff here and Guns kicks her in the stomach. Remember that. In a Rip off the Camouflage match, there are covers. Guns gets her top ripped off and Stacey (It’s Stacey Keibler in case that wasn’t sinking in. She’s Ms. Hancock) gets two.

This is mainly about how many upskirt shots can we get. Stacey gets her shorts ripped off and has more camo underneath it. Stacey shakes her hips and hits a horrible cross body from the middle rope. She does a nice nip up but gets kicked in the stomach again. The selling of these people is a far cry from Willy Lowman. Stacey misses another cross body and holds her stomach.

Guns gets her shorts ripped off to reveal more camouflage. Same thing happens to Stacey’s top. And they’re in the mud. Doesn’t that make it harder to see? Stacey starts holding her stomach and gets pinned. David Flair, Stacey’s fiancé, runs out and is worried about her. We get a stretcher and you can see it from here.

Rating: F. Yeah the girls were hot. The ending makes this all the stupider, and we’ll get to that in a bit. This was a freaking joke. When Debra is having better “matches” than you are, there’s a big problem.

The Dark Carnival (Vampiro, Muta and the KISS Demon) say they’ll finish Sting tonight.

Tony “breaks character” and insists this isn’t part of the show and is completely real. Of course they have a camera on her which would likely be a violation of privacy rights of some sort. And yes, they imply she was pregnant like I was afraid of. Yeah, I’m sure that THIS shoot is real among all the other fake shoots.

The Demon vs. Sting

I believe I ran through the Demon character last time, but in short he was supposed to be part of a cross-promotional thing with KISS and that went nowhere so they just made him into the Demon instead of the KISS Demon. Sting repels from the ceiling and is back on PPV, despite being on the previous PPV. Quick brawl in the aisle, quick brawl around ring side, Stinger Splash and Death Drop ends this in less than a minute.

Vampiro and Muta come out to beat up Sting and try to hang him. Two hangings in one night. That’s not bad. Kronik makes the save and they beat the Dark Carnival in the ring as the fans boo the heck out of this. Sting just leaves without even thanking the saviors. Brian Adams (Crush) gets on the mic and challenges Muta and Vampiro to a tag title match while being the champions. Just hand the Carnival guys the belts now.

Booker gets his knee looked at and throws the camera out.

US Title: Mike Awesome vs. Lance Storm

Let’s see here. This is in Canada so Storm is the hero. He’s the US, Hardcore and Cruiserweight Champion at this point but would give away two of them soon. Now the cool entrance is about the end of the cool aspects of this match. The US Title is the Canadian Title, the Hardcore Title is the Saskatchewan Hardcore International Title (Get it?) and the 100kg and Under Title.

Storm cuts a short promo and might as well be the second coming. Both of these guys left ECW earlier this year. Storm got this, Awesome got the gimmick of That 70s Guy and the Fat Chick Thriller and never won a title in WCW. Storm was just absolutely awesome at this point and this is his big reward for it.

Part of the gimmick Storm had his own rule book and had his own rules. He invokes one of them and says there’s going to be a special referee. We immediately eliminate the chance of it being Bret Hart since a HUGE Bret chant breaks out. It’s Jacques Rougeau, as in The Mountie. We get the Canadian National Anthem and Storm could more or less murder a thousand babies and still get cheered at this point.

There’s a Juggalo here for no apparent reason. Rougeau is the outside referee and there are two titles held up. Pay no attention to whatever the other one is as it’s not mentioned. Awesome dominates early on, hitting a leg drop as a tribute to his far more famous uncle, Hulk Hogan (How many of you knew that one? Awesome’s aunt is married to Hogan’s brother so they’re like step uncle and step nephew or whatever but screw all the technicalities).

We hit the floor and it’s table time. Well they are from ECW to be fair. Madden: “This isn’t wrestling!” Tony: “Of course it’s not!” I still want to know how much annoyance there was in Tony’s statement there. Awesome goes up top and just slips off. Well it happens to everyone I guess. Awesome hits a SWEET Liger Bomb to more or less end Storm.

Then I’m not sure what happens as there’s a three count but Storm gets his arm up at more or less the exact same time. I’m legit not sure if Storm was supposed to kick out there and just didn’t get up in time or if this was part of the upcoming angle. Given the idiocy of this show and the skill of Storm, we’ll say it was intentional. Johnson raises Awesome’s hand to have the crowd on the verge of rioting.

HOWEVER, according to Canadian Rules, you have to get a 5 count to win a title. Awesome gets an Alabama Slam for three and then hooks a Dragon Sleeper. Storm taps out to lose the title again. Oh you know what’s coming. This time it’s you can’t win by submission. Storm gets two off a suplex as we start one more time. The crowd has gone from white hot to DEAD by the way as they’ve seen Storm get pinned and tap in like 6 minutes.

Awesome gets a five count off a Frog Splash and I can’t believe what I’m watching. Storm has a ten count to get up after the original five count. So the US Champion has now lost three times in about ten minutes perfectly clean and they’ve killed one of the hottest crowds I can remember in WCW’s history. The table is in the ring and Awesome clearly slips on the same corner (maybe they should be cleaned guys?) and they both crash through a table.

Rougeau says first man up gets the title and he punches Awesome in the jaw to make sure Storm looks inept. The crowd pops fairly well and just to absolutely cap off the idiocy, BRET HART IS HERE. You know, the guy the crowd was BEGGING for? So let me get this straight.

WCW was too STUPID to get that in Canada, where Bret is pretty much the biggest athlete that isn’t a hockey player in the history of the country (apparently there was a poll done in 2004 where the Greatest Canadians, as in any Canadian ever and not just athletes were ranked. Bret was #39) and where they had him under contract, that instead of using HIM, they paid the Mountie to come in and get the paycheck for the refereeing job while the fans chanted for BRET. This company deserved to go out of business. The Canadians all hug.

Rating: F-. Seriously, was this supposed to be good or something? Am I supposed to be entertained here? I know Russo doesn’t like titles, but if you’re going to kill them at least do it in America where you go more than once. This was just completely idiotic and one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen.

Nash says he expected Goldberg to not be here. And yes, another shoot angle is upon us.

Tag Titles: Kronik vs. Dark Carnival

You know there’s going to be a screwjob. You just know it. Tony points out that this wasn’t promoted or anything, thereby showing how freaking stupid this was. Also Kronik looks stupid by putting the belts up here and knowing that there’s a title match the next night on Nitro. What was the appeal of Vampiro? I liked him when I was 12 but now I just don’t get it.

Muta stands in the middle of the apron for a bit for no apparent reason. The challengers kick a lot. Yeah I’m stunned too. Muta’s handspring elbow gets caught in a full nelson slam. Tony is just picking the thinking of this show apart by just doing basic commentary. Madden makes pot jokes as I wonder what the point was to having then do a weird kind of stoner thing.

Vampiro gets cheered and he tries to calm them down, making them cheer more. Crowd is fairly dead here. Clark gets the lukewarm tag and hits the Meltdown on Vampiro. There’s the mist to the referee of course and let’s cue the run-in. Muta almost take High Time….and it’s the Harris Brothers. Oh this doesn’t go well. They hit their move on Clark and a moonsault ends it. They would lose to the Filthy Animals the next night.

Rating: F+. Somehow this was a breath of fresh air for the show. They actually had about 8 minutes of horrible wrestling before the screwjob ending. The match being awful as an upgrade is a sign that sums up this entire show and era. Let’s just get to the end of this.

Booker says his catchphrase.

We recap Nash vs. Steiner vs. Goldberg. Goldberg and Nash are together. Well they were at the PPV. They’ve since split up since then.

Goldberg vs. Scott Steiner vs. Kevin Nash

This is for the #1 contender spot. They keep using the term go over. Oh dear. There’s no Goldberg to start us off and I’ll explain later on. They keep dropping hints about Steiner won’t do the planned finish and all that nonsense. More shoot comments from the guys. Steiner not being professional? Say it isn’t so! Goldberg’s music plays twice and he isn’t here.

We start one on one and Tony suggest we watch this match. Sadly, that might drive up viewership. And here’s Goldberg with his ribs taped up. He beats on Nash and gets blasted in the back of the head by Steiner. Nash stays on the floor and Goldberg beats up Steiner. Nash gets up and trips over the top rope. This has stopped being funny a LONG time ago so that gets nothing out of me.

Hudson: “Starrcade 98. Nash gets on the booking committee two weeks before the show. He goes over.” I hate this company at times. Not even Heyman got this stupid. In a moment that does make me laugh, Steiner covers Nash and yells at the referee to count and when he’s told it’s just two, he snaps off YOU SUCK to the referee. That’s just funny. Nash stands tall for a bit and the fans aren’t sure if this is good or not.

The straps go down, Nash sets Goldberg for the powerbomb, he shoves him off, Nash calls him a very bad name, Goldberg walks out, Russo meets Goldberg in the aisle, Goldberg asks what the heck are you going to do about it and he leaves. And here we go. The commentators start talking about how this wasn’t the planned finish and how Nash was professional like always and that Steiner and Nash will have to plan a new finish.

Tony suggests they might have to, and I wish I was making this up, IMPROVISE. Yes, Tony Schiavone has just admitted on international TV that every single match that he has hyped over the years as being this big showdown has had a planned ending that everyone in the match knew about beforehand.

Where in the world do I start?

Now for those of you in the 99% of the fans that have no clue what the idea was here, in Goldberg’s last match which had been 13 days earlier on Nitro, he lost to Steiner. The idea here is that Goldberg, as in the “real guy” and not the character (as in the real guy playing the character Goldberg, not the REAL Goldberg. In other words, we have Bill Goldberg playing Bill Goldberg playing a wrestler. Does that make sense?), thought it would be detrimental to his character to lose twice in a row so he’s walking out of the match for what would likely be called creative differences.

Basically, Vince Russo just tried to kill kayfabe. Forever in wrestling, the idea has been everyone knows it’s fake but you’re not supposed to tell anyone. In the book The Death of WCW (well worth checking out if this kind of stuff interests you), one of the authors puts it something like this (paraphrased): it’s like going to a movie. You know that nothing on the screen is real, but you get sucked into it if it’s good. For some reason, Russo thought that it was a GREAT idea to have everyone in the movie acknowledge that they’re in a movie. See what’s going on here?

Naturally, just like Bash at the Beach, this BOMBED. Why did it bomb you ask? Two reasons. First of all, NO ONE KNEW WHAT WAS GOING ON. Second, even fewer people cared about it. They were told they were going to see Nash vs. Goldberg vs. Steiner. Ok so not a lot of people really wanted to see it, but that was the advertised match.

What Russo never got was that there were actually people out there that WANTED TO WATCH WRESTLING. Would the match have been good? Not likely. Would many people have bought the PPV to see it? Not likely. But the thing is, the ones that DID pay to see it got ripped off because they didn’t get what they paid to see.

This is why I get annoyed when PPV matches are put on TV like the next week after a PPV: there were fans out there that paid to see a match, hence the term PAY per VIEW. You want to see this match? Give us the price we ask and you can see it. You give them the money, you see the match and the people that didn’t pay don’t get to see it.

Then it’s aired on free TV. It’s a massive SCREW YOU to the people that bought the show. If I buy a PPV to see Cena vs. Orton and then the next night Cena vs. Orton is on Raw, why should I pay for the next PPV? I got to see the main event for free the next day. Why should I pay for some I can get for free if I wait a little bit?

That’s what Russo kept doing: screwing the fans over and they just gave up. The few fans WCW actually had just stopped watching and Russo blamed them for not getting what he was doing. I had to use a book to get a lot of what was really going on here, so apparently I’m too stupid to get it too.

Oh yeah we have a match to finish here. Midajah has come down to low blow Nash, which at least makes sense given that Nash beat her up recently. Nash uses a DDT of all things. Hokey smoke. We’re reminded that this is all on the fly. Nash hits the big boot and the powerbomb as we’re told about how professional Steiner was there. Get me away from this. Goldberg would be back the next night of course.

Rating: N/A. There isn’t a rating low enough for this and what Russo just HAD to do so I won’t try to give it one. This would have been damaging to pro wrestling if anyone had actually watched this show.

Tony hypes up the world tag team title match as we go to a video on Jarrett vs. Booker.

WCW World Title: Booker T vs. Jeff Jarrett

This actually has the potential to be good, which is what was most frustrating about WCW at this time: given what they had, they could have been a decent show most of the time. Madden says Booker needs to take a walk down Slap Nuts Boulevard. Well at least they’re not hiding the ripping off anymore. Hudson forgets the number of title runs Jarrett has had, going from 3 to 4 while he’s still in the aisle.

And remember: this match is REAL, not scripted like the previous one. Yeah we’re just supposed to forget that whole thing. Tony suggests that Booker go for a quick win. I guess he wants to get out of here too. Booker’s knee which was bad coming into the show and injured earlier, seems just fine here. Ok he started limping a bit. That’s acceptable.

Booker crotches him on the post twice but misses the Missile Dropkick to let Jarrett take over. Now did he really miss or was that scripted? Hudson suggests it’s against the rules to go for the bad knee. Jarrett goes after the knee and cracks it with a chair. They more or less had gotten rid of DQs at this point. Jarrett switches legs which is bearable I guess as it’s still hurting Booker.

This is a very basically booked match and it’s working very well. Ok maybe very well is a stretch but it’s a good match. What a shock: let two talented guys have an uninterrupted match with a simple storyline like the champion has a bad leg and it’s good. The Axe Kick hits and down goes the referee. Jarrett goes for the guitar but Booker goes for the side kick. They meet in the middle and the guitar slams over his knee.

The figure four goes on (TO THE CORRECT LEG TOO!) and Booker is in trouble. The referee just doesn’t see the pieces of the guitar all over the ring I guess. After being in the hold over a minute and a half he gets the bottom rope and my goodness we’re having an entertaining match! The referee goes down again and Booker hits the Book End through a table. By the I mean he more or less chokeslams him and doesn’t go down with him but the thought is there.

Jarrett gets a low blow and down goes the second referee to a chair shot. Booker takes the Stroke onto the open chair. It’s a third referee that has no problem with what’s been going on or maybe he wasn’t watching like most people. Booker gets what was supposed to be a swinging neckbreaker on the chair but it’s more like a Twist of Fate. Booker’s knee is better apparently and hits the Book End to win it. The fans throw garbage into the ring and I can’t blame them a bit.

Rating: C+. Well it wasn’t terrible I guess. This was a pretty decent main event match but it just doesn’t have a big spark to it at all. It’s easily the second best match tonight though after the good opener, but this wasn’t anything great. The problem these guys had was that the crowd would have been unimpressed by Flair vs. Steamboat at this point. It may not be fair but it’s reality and while the match was good it wasn’t well received. Still certainly watchable though.

Overall Rating: F. Do I really need to explain this one? There are two decent matches on here. Other than that, this show is an abomination. See, today we have the benefit of time to look back on this. Put yourself in the place of fans from back then. This was the monthly PPV offering from one of the major PPV companies. You had to pay 30 dollars to see this show.

Can you imagine if TNA or WWE aired something like this today? The buyrates and ratings fell through the floor around this time. The fans simply did not want to see what WCW was offering, but WCW kept right on doing it, which is why they’re not around today. Granted Rock vs. HHH having the feud of a lifetime and Taker and Austin both returning didn’t help them that much. Anyway, this is the epitome of Russo’s awfulness, but it’s worth watching for the comedy value as long as you don’t take it seriously.

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Great American Bash 1998
Date: June 14, 1998
Location: Baltimore Arena, Baltimore, Maryland
Attendance: 12,810
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan, Mike Tenay

By the law of common sense, this HAS to be better than Road Wild. The main event is Sting vs. Giant for control of the tag titles since Giant joined the Black and White. The rest of the card at least looks ok and far better than the abomination that was Road Wild. I just finished that show if it wasn’t that clear. Let’s get to it.

The opening video is shots of the big names and shots of patriotic things like flags and eagles.

Tony declares that the people in the tag match tonight are the four best in the world today: Hogan, Hart, Savage and Piper. I’ll let the jokes make themselves there.

Gene talks about the main event to fill in some time. Sting has joined the Wolfpack so they have to have the match for later tonight. They’re the WCW/NWO Tag Titles now too.

Now the announcers talk to waste time. The fans want Goldberg.

Here’s a clip from Thursday where Bret hit Booker with a chair to cost Booker a match in the Best of Seven series. Benoit didn’t want it that way so he gave the match away via DQ. That was the seventh match but Booker didn’t want the win that way. Instead they’ll have an eighth match tonight and the winner gets Finlay for the TV Title tonight. Yeah that’s what this whole thing is for.

Chris Benoit vs. Booker T

The winner gets the title match later tonight. The opening bell rings 9:40 into the show.
Benoit snaps off an armdrag to start and Booker retaliates with a hiptoss. Oh and there’s a chance Benoit might want to join the NWO but he’s never said yes. Benoit gets in a shot and Booker heads to the floor. He has a bad knee due to a previous match with Benoit. Down to the mat for a bit and things are continuing to be slow.

Booker hits a hard elbow to the face for two and slams him down, getting the first advantage. Benoit comes back with a dragon screw leg whip to work on the bad knee. Belly to back gets two. Benoit hooks a chinlock but Booker elbows out of it. That doesn’t last long as Benoit chops him right back down, followed by a snap suplex for two. A belly to back is countered into a cross body for two.

Benoit keeps control and it’s time for a chinlock again. Booker gets up again but Chris knees him in the ribs to take him right back down. A front suplex puts Booker on the top rope. Benoit hits a hard clothesline for a pair of twos and now he’s getting frustrated. Back to the chinlock again and then a surfboard submission. Booker fights out of that and hits a powerslam.

Booker goes up but takes too much time, resulting in his cross body hitting the mat. Crossface attempt fails as Booker makes the rope. Now back to the chinlock for the fourth time. Does he realize he’s Chris Benoit? Booker fights up, probably due to the amount of practice he’s had so far in this match, and hits an enziguri followed by a spinebuster for two. Pancake sets up the Spinarooni but the missile dropkick is countered by a crotching. Superplex puts both guys down but Benoit can’t cover.

Instead he goes with the rolling Germans but hits a dragon (full nelson) suplex for the final one which only gets two. The crowd reaction says they thought it was over. Swan Dive hits but again he can’t cover. A delayed cover gets two, but then Booker pops up, hits a pair of side kicks and the missile dropkick for the pin to win the series. REALLY anti-climactic ending.

Rating: C. The match was ok but man was it underwhelming. The knee wound up meaning nothing at all and the ending comes out of nowhere with almost no comeback by Booker. Benoit controlled about 90% of the match, but the chinlocks were distracting. When’s the last time you remember four rest holds out of Benoit? Decent match but this should have been a lot more.

Chavo says Eddie wants to fight him but Lee Marshall disagrees.

Kanyon vs. Saturn

Saturn is in the Flock still. A guy dressed in Kanyon’s old Mortis attire (it’s known that they’re the same person at this point) comes out of the entrance until Kanyon himself comes through the crowd and jumps Saturn to start. Ok not so much jump him but wait for Saturn to turn around and make the whole thing pointless. Swinging neckbreaker gets two for Kanyon. Kanyon puts him in an electric chair position but drops Saturn forward for two.

Here’s the Flock but Kanyon knocks all of them around with ease. Saturn is sent to the floor which winds up going nowhere. Kanyon sets for something but Lodi distracts him, allowing for Riggs, Kidman and Horace to triple team him. Not that it matters to Saturn who dives over the top onto all three of them. Nick Patrick ejects everyone other than Lodi I believe. Kanyon is sent into the barricade and Saturn is in control. Saturn hits a move that I’ve seen Kanyon use before, as he suplexes Kanyon back in from the apron while standing on the middle rope.

Back in Saturn hooks an ankle lock and then a hold that resembles Cattle Mutilation but has half of the normal grip for that and a half nelson at the same time. Cattle Mutilation looks a lot better. A springboard clothesline puts both guys on the floor with I think Kanyon taking the worse of it. Saturn brings in a chair, prompting this from Tony: “Is this Raven’s Rules? We haven’t heard anything about that.” To anyone watching along with me, press rewind for about seven minutes and twenty seconds, to the part where Tony says: “Saturn coming to the ring for this next match, which is under Raven’s Rules we understand.” Moving on.

The chair is used as a springboard to set up a dropkick in the corner ala Poetry in Motion. There’s Sabu’s Triple Jump Moonsault to fill the moves stolen from ECW quota of the night. In a cool counter, Saturn tries a slingshot shoulder block but Kanyon counters into a northern lights suplex for two. Saturn comes back with a swinging neckbreaker for two of his own. Time for a chinlock and the fans aren’t pleased. A belly to back gets two for Kanyon and a Stun Gun puts Saturn down but Kanyon can’t follow up.

They do a weird backslide move where Saturn is sat out and gets two out of it. Rings of Saturn is transitioned into a two count somehow. They’re trying some different stuff here and it’s really not working. Fireman’s carry into a pancake gets two as does a torture rack neckbreaker. Downward Spiral is countered into a half nelson suplex by Saturn, getting two. Saturn’s Death Valley Driver is countered but he KILLS Kanyon with a superkick. Saturn does seem like he knows what he wants to do.

They both go up and both get crotched and fall to the floor. The Mortis from earlier in the match comes in and make that two of them. The smaller one hits the taller one and this is getting goofy now. They fight to the floor as Saturn jumps into a Downward Spiral which gets the pin for Kanyon.

Rating: D+. This was a really strange match. They were trying to be different I think and while they accomplished that, it wasn’t exactly good stuff. A lot of it looked like they weren’t sure what they were doing and it came off as kind of sloppy. Also at 15 minutes, this was too long. Not an awful match, but they overthought it and that brought things way down.

The smaller Mortis is unmasked as Raven, who DDTs Kanyon on the floor. I’d assume the much taller one was Reese. Raven gets on the mic and yells at Saturn for losing and has the Flock beat him down. Saturn fights them off because most of them suck.

We recap Malenko vs. Jericho. Malenko won a title shot in disguise as Ciclope and then the title later on that night but Malenko had to surrender the title. Jericho didn’t get it back because we have to have a rematch with Malenko vs. Jericho tonight.

Cruiserweight Title: Chris Jericho vs. Dean Malenko

Title is vacant coming in. Jericho is announced as being from Calgary here which is a new one for him. They double clothesline each other to start but both pop up with Jericho spin kicking him down. Malenko goes crazy and pounds on Chris in the corner. That’s a new one for him. Jericho comes back with a shoulder block and some shadow boxing with the referee. Liontamer is easily countered and Dean hits a suplex for two.

Off to a surfboard submission and Jericho screams like a girly man. Jericho gets out and is caught in the Tree of Woe but Dean’s baseball slide misses. Out to the floor and Jericho hits a pescado. He pounds away on Dean and both guys are looking fired up here. Suplex sets up the posing cover for two. Off to a sleeper by Chris but Dean counters into one of his own. Jericho counters that with a belly to back for two.

Lionsault misses and Dean hits a leg lariat into a cradle for two. Tony says we’re ten to fifteen minutes into the match but it’s more like eight. Knee to the head of Jericho gets two. Dean takes him to the corner and sets for the top rope gutbuster but Jericho counters into a fast rana to put both guys down. Jericho gets a very delayed two. Dean counters a powerbomb but Jericho rolls him into the Liontamer. Ok more like the Walls of Jericho but same idea. Dean gets the ropes and Jericho is furious. He threatens to hit the referee but the power of Billy Silverman stops that.

Jericho takes him to the corner and counters a headscissors atttempt into an Alabama Slam. Dean counters a Liontamer attempt into the Texas Cloverleaf for a BIG pop. Jericho makes the rope to make the crowd get sad again. The butterfly suplex into the backbreaker puts Dean back down and Jericho slaps him. He shouts that Dean is nothing like Dean’s dead father and Malenko snaps. They go to the floor and Dean hits Jericho with a chair for the DQ to give Jericho the title (which wasn’t announced until tomorrow night because WCW likes to screw its paying customers).

Rating: C+. This was a pretty decent match which picked up a lot near the end. Dean would never get a singles title in WCW again while Jericho would go on to be wasted in the midcard until he jumped to the WWF a little over a year later. Pretty good match but it was based on emotion and the title changing hands on a DQ was stupid.

They brawl to the parking lot and get near the traffic where Jericho has to avoid being hit by a car. He runs into a building across the street as we try to figure out who the champion is.

Eddie says Grandma Guerrero doesn’t want them to fight and starts crying about it.

The announcers think Jericho should be champion but we’ll get a ruling tomorrow I guess.

Video on Juventud Guerrera who never gives up. It’s him walking around set to very slow Latin music.

Juventud Guerrera vs. Reese

Reese is 7’2. That would be the extent of his list of talents. He also played Yeti at Halloween Havoc 1995. The idea here is that Juvy needs to prove himself again after losing his mask. The announcers are STILL talking about Jericho. No contact for the first minute as the Jericho chatting continues. WE GET IT ALREADY. Reese throws him around but Jericho keeps charging. Reese goes to the floor and Juvy dives at him, getting caught and rammed into the post.

Juvy says bring it on even more and crotches him on the top rope coming in. He fires off kicks at Reese’s knees and jumps up into a choke off the top. Reese shrugs all that off and bends Juvy over his knee in a backbreaker. He spends a few minutes destroying Juvy and throws on a bearhug. Juvy finally hits a low blow to slow Reese down but Reese drops to his knees so he can punch Juvy in the face. Reese suplexes him down but Juvy is up at 9. Reese goes to get a chair but the referee pulls it away. Van Hammer, former Flock member, comes out and hits him with it so Juvy can hit an AWFUL rana for the pin. Shoulder was up too.

Rating: F. What in the world was the point of this? Juvy is supposed to be some new man that never quits. Yeah that’s true, but he’s also a man that was getting killed until Van Hammer came in to save him. This match was REALLY boring and could have been accomplished in about four minutes instead of the nine that it got.

Eddie Guerrero vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr.

Chavo is a little psycho here. Heenan: “You know I asked Grandma Guerrero what she thought of this match.” Tony: “What did she say?” Heenan: “I don’t know, I don’t speak Spanish.” The idea here is that since Chavo is nuts, Eddie is afraid of him and doesn’t want to fight him. Chavo slaps him in the face and Eddie is fired up now. Eddie chops away and Chavo does the same.

They go to the mat and Eddie pounds away as this becomes a brawl. Chavo misses a splash in the corner and Eddie does the spinning face grind with his boot. Now Chavo launches Eddie over him and onto the corner. Leave it to WCW to make sure that two of the best wrestlers in the company have a brawl instead of a wrestling match. Chavo goes to the floor and Eddie kicks the rope into his crotch on the way back in.

They exchange control over the arm and Chavo goes to the top. He flips forward but Eddie moves out of the way. Chavo lands on his feet and runs to the other corner to hit a moonsault press for two. SWEET. Eddie sends him to the floor and into the steps. Back inside a brainbuster puts Chavo down and Eddie slaps him. That wakes Chavo up again and he snaps, resulting in him going off and it’s time for a chase scene. Back in Eddie rams into Chavo’s knee to take him down and it’s figure four time.

For some reason Chavo doesn’t reach two feet to his left and grab the rope. Well to be fair he’s crazy. The hold finally is broken up by Eddie and it’s back to the knee. Now the Gory Stretch which is appropriate here. Chavo escapes again but the knee gives out and Eddie hits a regular dropkick to take over again. Now off to a camel clutch for some reason. Oh for the love of…..YOU’RE GUERREROS!!! FREAKING JUMP OFF SOMETHING ALREADY!!!

Now an over the shoulder backbreaker. Are you kidding me? He spins that into something like an Eye of the Storm and we get a LOUD We Want Flair chant. Chavo takes over again and does the Eddie chest slap thing. He loads up a Frog Splash but Eddie crotches him. Eddie’s Frog Splash misses and both guys are down. Tornado DDT is countered by sending Chavo to the floor, but he comes back in with a springboard tornado DDT for the pin.

Rating: D. Allow me to reiterate: YOU’RE GUERREROS. This was ridiculous as the whole thing was dull, much like the rest of the show has been. There’s just too going on tonight that is pure boring. At the end of the day, there are way too many talented guys out there being boring. Gee, I wonder if that’s a coincidence: the talented guys get time and they all keep it in slow. I think I smell a Bischoff.

We recap the making of the tag match later. Roddy said no one knows Savage so Savage got in his face. Piper says he’s not selling anything and they had a brawl. They’re teaming against Hogan and Hart later. How does that set it up? Who knows?

TV Title: Fit Finlay vs. Booker T

Remember what I said about talented people having boring matches? I haven’t seen this match perhaps ever, or at least in almost fourteen years. How much do you want to bet that this match is slow and boring? Booker has already had a sixteen minute match tonight so he’s tired coming in. Feeling out process to start and since no one cares about this match, the announcers talk about the tag title singles match later.

Booker sends him to the floor and hits a dive over the top to take Finlay down. Back in Finlay hits something like a spinebuster and off to some leg locks. Now a half crab. The leg work goes on for a few more minutes and MY GOODNESS DO SOMETHING INTERESTING!!! I’ll bet that the main event matches are all energetic and “fun” and I’d bet even more that the other guys were asked to be slow and boring, because they might show someone else up otherwise. I need something to rant about during this match because there’s only so much you can say about Finlay laying on Booker’s leg.

Mr. T. makes a brief comeback but takes a knee crusher to put him right back down. Out to the floor and Finlay wants to use a chair which isn’t allowed. Instead the leg goes into the post again. Back in Finlay Vader Bombs the knee and stomps on it some more until Booker decides to pop up and spin kick Finlay down. The fans think this is boring and I can’t argue at all. Powerslam sets up the ax kick as the knee is perfectly fine. Finlay puts him down but the Tombstone is countered. The champ misses a charge and a piledriver gvies Booker the title.

Rating: D. Technically this was fine as the whole thing was about the knee work, but then they just finished the match, which is something Booker would never do. This show is ridiculous with the boring matches and now it’s time for the “draws” to come into play. This can’t end well at all.

US Title: Goldberg vs. Konnan

Konnan is Wolfpack and has Hennig and Rude with him. Goldie is 99-0 at this point, meaning he’ll be 104-0 by tomorrow night and 110-0 by the Nitro after that. The cheering is so canned here it’s unreal. Konnan gets knocked to the floor in about a second and this isn’t going to go anywhere. A bad leglock puts K-Dawg down again, double leg takedown is called a spear, Jackhammer ends this. Total squash.

Hennig and Rude beat on Konnan post match and reveal Black and White shirts. Luger and Nash make the save.

Hollywood Hogan/Bret Hart vs. Roddy Piper/Randy Savage

How is this the third PPV I’ve done between here and February of 1999 and this is Bret’s first appearance? Hogan is world champion because it’s WCW. Why are these four fighting? Who knows? The only thing we got from WCW was Piper and Savage fighting, which doesn’t explain a thing. Stalling before we get going until it’s Piper vs. Hogan getting things going. After more stalling, Piper goes into Three Stooges mode and brings in Savage.

Tony praises Savage/Piper for their ability to make tags. Yeah that’s what they’ve reached. No ability to talk about Jericho now is there? Piper atomic drops Hogan back into their corner and the beating continues. Disciple hits Piper in the back with the belt to shift the momentum for the first time and it’s off to Hart. Bret and Hogan take turns punching Piper as you can tell that even these four aren’t interested at all.

Bret does his usual stuff and whips Piper in, resulting in Piper going into slow motion for a small package. Pipes tags Savage but it doesn’t count for some reason. That worked so well that they do the same thing again. Things break down a bit and Savage tries to bring in a chair, but instead of hitting Bret with it, he puts it over Piper’s stomach to prevent a headbutt from Bret. Savage gets the tag and the fans don’t move at all. Everything breaks down and Savage goes up but his knee gives out on an elbow attempt. Hogan wraps it around the post and Savage gives up to the Sharpshooter.

Rating: F. There’s no excuse for these four to be wrestling in one of the featured matches on PPV when you have this roster in the year 1998. None. These four are the “draws” right? Then why do you keep them on top while the company’s massive lead has died and WWF is in the lead? That would mean putting someone other than Hogan on top, and we just can’t have that right?

Gene comes in for a post match interview with the losers and a match breaks out.

Roddy Piper vs. Randy Savage

This was scheduled due to the loss apparently. Savage jumps him to start and this is as bad as you would expect it to be. Now he can hit the elbow but the knee is too hurt to cover him. Instead he punches the referee and Piper puts him in a figure four. A second referee runs in and Savage gives up AGAIN. This was like 90 seconds.

Someone smarter than I am, tell me what those two matches solved. What were they even fighting over? Why am I trying to figure WCW out anymore?

Tag Titles: Sting vs. The Giant

Winner gets both belts. Why are they fighting? Again, not explained. Giant is smoking on his way to the ring. Yeah that was their attempt to make him EXTREME. If Giant wins, he’s picking Disciple as his partner to be champions. I would say even WCW wasn’t that stupid, but I would be very wrong. Giant blows smoke in his face so Sting fights back and puts him on the top rope on his back for a splash. The second attempt eats boot and Sting is tossed to the floor.

Back in Sting runs the ropes and hits a cross body but Giant just stands there. Elbow drop hits Sting and YET AGAIN they walk around as slowly as possible. This is the main event too, so why in the world are they doing this here? Bear hug to Sting to further keep things boring. Sting dropkicks the knee out and hits two Stinger Splashes. There’s an easy slam but the Scorpion is easily broken up. Death Drop gets two. Death Drop gets two. Death Drop from the middle rope gets the pin.

Rating: F. This was the main event. It lasted seven minutes and was awful. Was this really the best they could come up with? Somehow, I think it was and that’s why you don’t see WCW around anymore: we don’t get the announcement of who Sting’s partner is as it was made the next night on Nitro. In other words, there was no need to pay for this show at all.

Overall Rating: F+. And yet somehow, it was still better than Road Wild. The problem here was that nothing was interesting at all. Everything was VERY slow paced and boring with nothing at all being even remotely good. With the card they have, this could have been a decent show, but instead they made sure it was in slow motion and that the two decisions that came out of the show weren’t revealed until Nitro, making this show show TOTALLY POINTLESS. Thank goodness I only have twelve of these things left. I can’t take any more than that.

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

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

The opening is about motorcycles. And Leno.

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

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

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

Meng vs. Barbarian

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

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

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

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

Public Enemy vs. Dancing Fools

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Raven vs. Saturn vs. Chris Kanyon

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

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

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

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

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

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

Psicosis vs. Rey Mysterio Jr.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ON WITH THE SHOW!!!

TV Title: Chavo Guerrero vs. Stevie Ray

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

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

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

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

Rick Steiner vs. Scott Steiner

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

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

Brian Adams vs. Steve McMichael

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

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

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

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

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

Cruiserweight Title: Juventud Guerrera vs. Chris Jericho

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Battle Royal

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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SuperBrawl 1999
Date: February 21, 1999
Location: Oakland Arena, Oakland, California
Attendance: 15,880
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan

Back to WCW to get three more shows down. This time we’re closing out 1999 which was the year when everything fell apart for these guys. The main event tonight is, wait for it, wait for it……HOGAN VS. FLAIR!!! Other than that we have a double elimination tournament final for the tag titles and Hall vs. Piper in what I’m sure will be a classic. Let’s get to it.

The opening video is about various people that have won the world title. We get shots of their heads spinning around and audio of them winning the title. Then there are clips of Goldberg and Bigelow who also fight tonight.

The announcers talk about how Flair has EVERYTHING in wrestling riding on him tonight, whatever that means here.

We get a video on the tag title tournament which is double elimination for no apparent reason other than WCW has to have things be more complicated than needed. We get promos from the Horsemen who don’t have much to say. Windham and Hennig already beat the Horsemen once, because I guess you need to see the match for free before you decide if you want to pay to see it again.

But wait, we’re STILL not ready for the opening match because Gene needs to talk about the Hotline first.

Disco Inferno vs. Booker T

Disco is in the Wolfpac here to give you an idea how far the NWO has fallen. Why are these two fighting? Who cares, it’s not important enough to mention apparently. Ok to be fair we do get a clip from Thunder of Disco getting on Harlem Heat’s nerves because Stevie is in the Black and White so Booker jumped him in defense of his family. That’s better than nothing. Booker is just starting to become a big deal in singles competition.

After almost ten minutes into the show, we get the opening bell. And never mind as it’s time to pose. Booker hiptosses Disco and Tony tries to explain why WCW is still fighting the NWO. There’s a Disco Sucks chant as the crowd seems very hot tonight. Disco comes back with a very nice spinning neckbreaker. Booker slams him but Disco kicks him off. Disco is hanging in there more than you would expect. Oh wait, dance break.

Disco comes back again with some basic stuff and then a chinlock. They’re looking crips here instead of just going through the motions here and it’s really helping. Disco closes him over the top and out to the floor. Back in and Disco slams him and drops a middle rope elbow for two. Booker comes back with kicks, resulting in the ax kick but he doesn’t go up yet.

Disco comes back AGAIN (not a bad thing) but jumps into an Alabama Slam. Brain calls it an ax kick and even Tony thinks he sounds crazy. Disco takes him down for about the fifth time but the Chartbuster is countered. Side Kick sets up the Harlem Hangover (top rope flipping legdrop) gets the pin.

Rating: B-. This was WAY better than you would ever expect it to be. Disco got in a lot of offense and the match was really good as a result. Instead of a squash we got a back and forth match with Disco coming close to having a chance, which is way more than you would expect from him. Good stuff and the crowd is still hot.

Chris Jericho vs. Perry Saturn

Saturn lost a loser wears a dress match to set this up. Ralphus is in a dress and Jericho is in something that looks Japanese. They started playing Saturn’s music and then changed it to Jericho, which was the right song as he came out first. Referee Scott Dickinson is involved in this somehow on Jericho’s side. Saturn is in a dress also. Jericho runs his mouth before the match and tells Saturn he looks like an idiot. That ticks Saturn off and we’re ready to go.

They go to the floor and into the crowd almost immediately. Back to ringside and Saturn goes into the barricade. Back into the ring and Saturn shifts between a German suplex into a dragon suplex before settling for a t-bone suplex. Saturn avoids a dropkick and slingshots Jericho to the floor. For no apparent reason, Saturn throws Ralphus into the ring and rips Ralphus’ dress off.

Jericho uses the distraction to pop Saturn in the head, followed by a suplex. Chris tries his posing pin but Saturn takes him down and rams his head into the mat. Jericho knocks him to the floor for a bit but misses a top rope splash back inside. Saturn, with his dress bunching up on him, kicks Jericho down and hits a frog splash. He loads up the Death Valley Driver but Jericho counters into a rollup with feet on the ropes for two.

They exchange control for a few seconds until the Canadian hits a German on the American for two. Jericho hits a top rope cross body but Saturn rolls into the Rings of Saturn. He’s too close to the ropes though and Jericho gets to the ropes. Now Saturn tries a Lionsault but Jericho rolls away and hits one of his own for two. A spinwheel kick misses for Jericho and he walks into the Death Valley Driver. Instead of covering though, Saturn hits a DVD on referee Dickinson and walks out on the match, meaning he has to keep wearing the dress.

Rating: C+. Not a great match here but they picked things up towards the end. Then they got to the end and things got a lot worse. The Saturn dress thing went on for awhile while Jericho just went through the motions for the next few months before he finally got to go to the WWF in August.

Rey and Konnan are giving an interview on the internet. It’s Rey’s mask vs. Liz’s hair in a tag match later.

We recap Page vs. Scott Steiner. Steiner wants Kimberly and I think threw her out of a moving car. That match is later apparently.

Cruiserweight Title: Billy Kidman vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr.

Billy is defending. These two were a team in the tag title tournament but have split up obviously. Kidman sends him to the floor and Chavo yells at the fans. Luger is out of the tag match with Nash tonight and Nash has a replacement. Back in for a few seconds but Chavo is knocked right back outside. Kidman follows this time and gets pulled from the apron into the barricade to give the challenger control.

A weak brainbuster gets two. Off to a chinlock by Chavo as Tony and Bobby debate what it means to be aggressive. Chavo knocks him to the floor and hits a gorgeous flip dive to the floor. Kidman comes back with a top rope cross body for two. Chavo starts working on the back to try to slow Kidman down. He tries to powerbomb him but gets backdropped and Kidman gets in a dropkick as Chavo comes off the top. The selling is really quick in this match.

Kidman tries to take him into the corner but Chavo takes over and hits a top rope rana for two. The crowd is DEAD for this which is both not surprising and a bit annoying because the match isn’t that bad. At the end of the day though, it’s not that bad which is probably why they’re so dead. Chavo hits an elevated DDT with Kidman draped over the top rope for two. He tries a powerbomb but Kidman counters into a facejam (one of his signature moves) and the Shooting Star Press gets the pin.

Rating: C. Not bad but we’ve seen Cruiserweight matches so many times before and a lot of them are a lot better than this one. Chavo was never the kind of high flier that was going to make people say WOW when he wrestled which is fine because he’s a heel here, but he didn’t have the heel attitude yet to back that up. Still though, it was fine for a 9 minute match.

Quick video on Bigelow vs. Goldberg.

Tag Titles: Barry Windham/Curt Hennig vs. Dean Malenko/Chris Benoit

Since WCW is stupid, in this case if the cowboys get the first win, they win the titles (they’re vacant coming in). If the Horsemen (Malenko/Benoit as it occurs to me that all four have been Horsemen at one point) win the first fall, they have a second match. The cowboys have beaten the Horsemen once already in this tournament. Tony goes into a long explanation of how the teams have motivation to win the match, because WINNING THE TITLES isn’t a good enough reason.

Dean and Barry start things off with Barry running away a lot. They go to the mat and Dean rolls Windham around a bit so it’s a double tag. Tony explains how three of the four guys in here are second generation wrestlers. Heenan: “So is (referee) Mickie Jay.” Tony: “Who is his father?” Heenan: “Well he wasn’t a wrestling referee. He umpired a peewee football league in Moline, Illinois.” Heenan’s on tonight with the comedy.

Hennig gets chopped to the floor and runs from Malenko. Off to Barry vs. Benoit Windham gets thrown around and it’s off to Malenko who hits a dropkick but I think Windham was supposed to hold the rope to avoid the contact. There might have been a tag in there somewhere but it’s Barry vs. Dean still anyway. Even Tony says that was kind of odd. Hennig comes in for a double clothesline which missed but Dean sells it for two anyway.

Dean manages a bridging pin of some sort as the crowd is quiet again. That’s a shame as they were white hot for the opener. Dean rolls through and tags Benoit in after not having much damage done to him. Chris cleans house and backdrops a cheating Windham. Backbreaker gets two on Curt. Back to Dean who gets two off a belly to back suplex. Benoit comes in again and the referee literally has his back to the action for about 20 seconds. Swan Dive hits Hennig but Windham makes the save again.

Now Dean covers him but the referee STILL isn’t paying attention. It’s not even a heel thing. He’s just not doing that well in this match. The fans are booing him now. Curt gets crotched on the top so Dean dropkicks him down to the apron. Everything breaks down and throwing someone over the top isn’t a DQ this time for whatever reason. The referee is with Barry again but turns around to see Hennig hit Dean low. Think that’s a DQ? Nope, as Barry comes back in to suplex Malenko for two.

Now the referee doesn’t pay attention as the Cowboys beat up Malenko on the floor. Barry covers him with one hand for two and it’s back to Hennig. The fans aren’t thrilled with this match. Benoit comes in before he’s tagged but the referee is cool with that. The crowd is dying quickly. Back to Barry who hits the superplex but Dean saves. By “saves”, I mean doesn’t touch him but Barry jumps off Benoit anyway. This is like a comedy of errors.

The Cowboys hit a double suplex (after messing up a bit first of course) for two. Hennig hits his necksnap for two. Heenan wants a flamethrower brought in here. Tony: “You are an idiot.” Dean makes a save off a Windham something that we don’t see. This match is going on WAY too long. Benoit finally breaks through and gets the hot tag. Everything breaks down and on the second attempt, the Cloverleaf makes Windham tap.

We get a thirty second rest period between falls here. The Horsemen hammer on Hennig during the break and Dean goes for the Cloverleaf again. Windham chokes him out with a belt and pins him to win the titles in 20 seconds.

Rating: D. I love the Horsemen but the refereeing was HORRIBLE here. Actually most of the match was horrible here. Aside from that, Benoit still hasn’t won a title at this point. Instead we get a title on BARRY FREAKING WINDHAM??? In 1989 sure but in 1999? Seriously? A boring match and stupid stipulations so that Benoit and Malenko can win and then not get the titles anyway. Stupid all around, but such is WCW. Malenko and Benoit would get the titles in three weeks and lose them in another two weeks.

We recap the US Title feud which somehow involves Hall, Nash, Flair, Hart, Benoit, Will Sasso from MadTV and results in Piper vs. Hall for the title later.

Outsiders vs. Rey Mysterio/Konnan

Hall is substituting for Luger. It’s Mysterio’s mask vs. Liz’s (HOT here) hair. Why? Not really worth mentioning according to the announcers. Luger is with them too. Heenan runs down the idea of lucha libre and the masks Rey wears. Rey and Hall start as Heenan keeps going. Hall throws the toothpick at him so Rey throws it back. Now why hasn’t anyone else ever done that?

Hall shoves him around with ease so Rey speeds things up with an armdrag. The Outsiders aren’t taking this seriously at all because they’re smaller. Also Konnan was recently thrown out of the Wolfpac so there’s your reason for him being in this. Dropkick knocks Rey down and a springboard Fameasser gets two. Seated Senton (called a Thesz Press for reasons of general stupidity by Tony) puts Hall down as well.

Rey tries a third springboard but jumps into the fallaway slam. Off to Nash who gets a pop as well. He literally throws Rey around and it’s back to Hall again. Hall plays the drums on Rey’s head and loads up the Outsider’s Edge but Mysterio escapes and makes the hot tag to Konnan. He cleans house for a bit but gets caught in the back by a knee from Nash and a clothesline from Hall to slow things down again.

The beating goes on for awhile as this is bordering on an extended Outsiders squash. Konnan gets in some right hands and a double clothesline takes both Hall and Konnan down. Double tag brings in Rey and Nash and it’s springboard dropkicks all around. Everything breaks down and Konnan/Rey double team both guys. Luger trips up Konnan and sends him into the steps. Rey hits a moonsault and his knee “hits” Nash in the head to knock him out cold. Liz distracts the referee so Hall can hit the Edge on Rey and put Nash on top for the pin.

Rating: C. Not the worst match in the world and it had the hot ending, but what does this gain? Rey in a mask is a superhero, and without it he’s just another guy. I get that you couldn’t cut Liz’s hair, but maybe that shouldn’t have been up in the first place. I mean, why would you want to have $25 masks of a popular wrestler for sale? Who would want that?

Rey takes his mask off. Nash says put it back on. Rey looks about 13, making him FAR less interesting and making his name (King of Mystery) totally worthless. Such is WCW.

TV Title: Scott Steiner vs. Diamond Dallas Page

Steiner is Wolfpac and champion here. There’s no transition between the matches as he celebrates with the Outsiders on their way out. Scott brings some plant (and hot) chick into the ring pre match. Page is all serious here. Steiner stalls so Page takes it to the floor. Total brawl for the most part so far with Page pounding on him for the first few minutes. Steiner knocks him into the railing but Page is right back up with a top rope clothesline and a neckbreaker.

Here’s Buff Bagwell because we can’t go five minutes without a run-in here. Bagwell gets in the ring and this is all cool. Page cleans house anyway and knocks Buff to the floor, but Buff hits Page in the back to let Steiner take over. Out to the floor and Page is sent into the barricade and Buff hammers on him some more. Both guys choke Page as Heenan repeats both announcers. This match is going nowhere.

Page gets in a tiny bit of offense here and there but we’re mainly in squash land. Page pulls Steiner’s trunks down so Tony can make his moon jokes. Buff slides in a chair and distracts the referee (why bother?) so Steiner can hit Page with it. Page escapes the Recliner with a low blow (referee was two feet away and looking right at it) as Buff uses boltcutters to take the pads off. This is like a cartoon. Buff actually gets ejected as Steiner has Page covered.

DDP knocks Steiner to the floor and Page dives onto Steiner but gets sent into the steps for his efforts. Back in Scott hits what he calls the Frankensteiner anymore for two. Page hits his jumping DDT (called the Diamond Dream, in the only time I remember hearing it called that) for a delayed two. Page tries the Cutter but Steiner sends him into the exposed buckles. Another shot into them sets up the Recliner for the referee stoppage. By Recliner I mean a chinlock because he can’t even be bothered putting Page’s arms over his knees.

Rating: D-. This was pretty awful. Steiner was pushed like a god for WAY too long, despite not many people caring about him at all. Him putting someone in the Recliner until they passed out was WCW’s version of Flair interferes, Pedigree, HHH retains from 2002-2003. Horribly bad match but they’re old guys in WCW so you know they’re not going to be that good.

Page gets taken out on a stretcher to make Steiner look even stronger. The fans chant that Page sucks.

Mark Madden talks to Bigelow who says this was his plan.

US Title: Roddy Piper vs. Scott Hall

This match alone should sum up most of WCW’s problems from this era (or most eras for that matter) in a nutshell. First of all, this is the third straight match with the Wolfpac theme music in it. Second, WCW has a roster including but not limited to: Hart, Booker T, Benoit, Mysterio, Jericho, Malenko, Saturn, Guerrero, Guerrero Jr. and probably a bunch of people that I’m forgetting, and they have Piper vs. Hall for the title and the announcers treat it like some dream match. That’s WCW for you.

Disco is with Hall here. We hear about Piper winning the US Title for the first time from Flair back in 1981. Why do you need me here? These jokes write themselves. Piper throws the kilt on Hall and pounds away at him. Piper does his usual punching, choking and poking. Oh and slapping too. Can’t forget the slapping. Hall is about to tell him to suck it so Piper hits him in the ribs then tries an actual wrestling move, hitting a neckbreaker for two.

Hall hits the shoulder blocks with the wristlock but Piper pulls the hair to take Hall down. Disco tries to interfere so Piper messes up his hair. There’s Disco’s career highlight. Hall takes a few atomic drops and Piper pokes him in the throat. Out to the floor for Piper to chase Disco but Hall rams him into the steps instead. Back inside and hall punches him down. Piper hits him low but Hall basically no sells it. Piper gets put in the Tree of Woe as Heenan says Hall is one of the top five in the world today. At what exactly?

Piper gets out of the corner and Tony praises him for doing it on his own. Off to the abdominal stretch and Piper is in trouble again. In a moment that gives me a small seizure, Heenan ACTUALLY EXPLAINS SOMETHING, saying that when Disco pulls on Hall’s arm, it’s not so much for the torque on Piper but also to prevent Piper from being able to move Hall around or hip toss him.

Disco lets go and Piper hiptosses out. Piper hooks the sleeper but Disco comes in to break it up. Disco gets beaten up and Nash runs in. Piper hits him too but Hall gets in a shot and covers with his feet on the ropes to win the title. Yeah, because SCOTT HALL is the right choice to give a title too. That gives the NWO the World, US and TV Titles. In 1999.

Rating: F. This match was awful. I mean really, PIPER VS. HALL IN 1999??? Who thinks that’s a good idea other than Piper, Hall and their mothers? Terrible match with neither guy being able to do much other than punches and really basic holds. Matches like these are the reason this company went under.

Piper, ever the sportsman, throws the title at Hall’s feet, gets in a fight with Hall and steals the belt back. Piper runs from the Outsiders and shouts something at them. Was there a point to this at all?

Oh and this match was originally going to be Bret vs. Benoit but WCW decided this was the better choice.

Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Goldberg

Goldberg gets the first real pop in an hour and a half. He’s billed from Stone Mountain here instead of Atlanta. Did they owe Jake Roberts a favor or something? I’m still trying to get over the fact that people said Austin and Goldberg looked alike. Stalling to start and they test each others’ power. Bigelow shoulder blocks him down so Goldberg picks him up for a delayed slam, sending Bigelow to the floor.

The announcers praise Goldberg for being able to do basic stuff. Goldberg picks Bigelow up for what we would call an FU. He then applies probably the worst cross armbreaker you’ll ever see. The fans chant ECW and Bigelow gets to the floor and hits Goldberg low a bunch of times. Bigelow works on the knee and goes back inside for more knee work. Now he works on the arm and hooks a chinlock. This isn’t exactly what I expected for a Goldberg match.

Goldie fights out of it and hits a belly to back suplex. Bigelow slams him down and hits the top rope headbutt for two. Moonsault misses and Goldberg loads up the spear. HUGE reaction for that but Bigelow moves. I mean literally, the fans rose up to see it. The second attempt hits and he sets for the Jackhammer but stops. He superkicks Bigelow instead and spears him again. NOW the Jackhammer gets the pin.

Rating: D. Yeah the match was bad but this single handedly brought the crowd back to life. Just to further prove how stupid WCW was, they had decided that this guy getting these kind of reactions wasn’t worth it because they needed to take the title off Nash and have him hand it back to Hogan. The idiocy of this company continues to astound me. The match mostly sucked.

WCW World Title: Ric Flair vs. Hulk Hogan

No video intro or anything, because who would ever want to watch a WCW show years after the fact? Hogan comes out to the Wolfpac music too, putting the total at five matches out of nine having Wolfpac members in them. Hogan is champion. Flair got a long beatdown on Nitro before this that ran like 10 minutes or so. Hogan runs him over to start and does it again. Oh I really don’t like where this is going.

Flair gets in a hard chop as we get the backstory two minutes into the match. Flair was president of the company and made Hogan defend here, then the NWO destroyed David Flair (remember that) so Ric put himself into the match to get revenge and maybe the title. Hogan clotheslines him down for two. He chops at Flair in the corner but Flair comes back with some of his own.

The knee drop hits Hogan, complete with the camera cutting away so that Flair knee dropping the mat is missed. Hogan takes him down again as Flair can’t get anything going. Flair Flip sends him out to the floor. Out to the floor and Flair blades before Hogan hits him with the chair. Hogan wins the slugout (duh) and this is becoming very one sided. Then again that’s how most Flair matches start.

A suplex on the floor keeps Flair down and they go back inside. Flair gets all fired up, basically Hulking Up so Hogan punches him down with ease and whips him with the weightlifting belt. Flair goes for the leg to take Hulk down but Hogan whips him with the belt from his back. This is ridiculously one sided. Flair pokes him in the eye and kicks him low (remember that Flair is the good guy here). He whips Hogan with the belt and Hogan ACTUALLY SELLS IT!!! I’m as shocked as you are.

Hogan is bleeding a bit now too. The fans are looking at something else and here comes the mystery chick from some vignettes over the past few weeks. It’s Torrie Wilson who has been shown talking to an unseen cameraman who she’s been sleeping with apparently. She comes in and stays at ringside as Flair punches Hogan in the corner. Flair suplexes Hogan but Hogan does the power kickout and Flair lands on the referee.

Hogan drops an elbow on the referee and pounds on Flair. Big boot hits but the Legdrop misses. Here’s a masked man who draws David Flair chants. Now remember, David got beaten half to death by the NWO recently, so there would be NO REASON AT ALL for him to beat up Flair. The masked man gets in the ring, stuns Ric with a tazer and lets Hogan keep the title.

Rating: D-. So basically this was a Hogan squash for 8 minutes, then three minutes of Flair getting in some offense, then Hogan coming back and destroying Flair some more, then Torrie came out, then David (oh sorry, the masked man) came out and tazed Flair and Hogan wins. That’s your PPV main event people.

The masked man is the aforementioned cameraman and yep, it’s David Flair.

Overall Rating: D-. It’s another show that sums up WCW’s problems in one night: nonsensical twists (the explanation is that David turned on his dad for Torrie. His father is Ric Flair. Do you really think Ric couldn’t get him about 100 gorgeous women? Oh wait, HE DID THAT SOON AFTER THIS SHOW) bad booking picks (yeah let’s give Scott Hall a title) and the NWO winning all of their matches and holding all of the important singles titles. Also, no face won a major match tonight. Bad BAD show and a good example of why WCW was falling further and further into a black hole.

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

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

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

Mr. JL vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr.

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

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

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

Jim Duggan vs. Super Calo

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

Craig Pittman vs. Chris Jericho

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

Harlem Heat vs. High Voltage

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

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

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

Bischoff and Dibiase take over on commentary.

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

Diamond Dallas Page vs. Mark Starr

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

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

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

Dean Malenko vs. Eddie Guerrero

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

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

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

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

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

Hour #2 begins.

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

Super Calo vs. Konnan

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

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

Jeff Jarrett vs. Chris Benoit

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

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

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

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

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

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

Scotty Riggs vs. Billy Kidman

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

The announcers talk about Hogan vs. Giant some more.

Lee Marshall is in Chicago.

Some singer is here.

Rick Fuller vs. Lex Luger

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

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

Arn Anderson vs. Rick Steiner

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

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

The Steiners are ready for Souled Out and the Outsiders.

Hulk Hogan vs. The Giant

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Monday Nitro #69
Date: January 6, 1997
Location: Monroe Civic Center, Monroe, Louisiana
Commentators: Larry Zbyzsko, Mike Tenay, Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan

So as I talked about, the Youtube channel I used got shut down and I don’t have any of those shows left. That being said, it means we’ll get to the PPVs and the Raws and Nitros a lot faster now. This is the beginning of a new year and we’re beginning to build towards Souled Out with the first man thrown out of the NWO, the Giant, challenging Hogan for the title. Let’s get to it.

Glacier vs. Bobby Eaton

We immediately start with a match which is a cool thing to see. Glacier takes him down with a leg sweep to start. An armdrag sets up an armbar (yes, a non kick from Glacier) which goes nowhere. Bobby tries a leap frog but Glacier rolls between his legs which results in Eaton landing on him. Glacier kicks hits a spin kick for two and another kick for the quick pin.

We recap the epic Bubba vs. Konnan feud. Tonight it’s a Mexican strap match between an American an a Cuban in Cajun country. Only in wrestling.

Big Bubba vs. Konnan

This is the touch all four corners style. Konnan slugs away but gets clotheslined down quickly. Bubba whips him very slowly and Larry sounds like he has a sore throat. Tony says Bubba is an integral part of the NWO. I hope his parents got him a dictionary for Christmas. Konnan hits him low with the strap so Bubba punches him in the face with the strap around his fist.

Bubba taps the first corner and Konnan jumps on his back with a sleeper. Bubba slaps two more corners along the way but Konnan breaks the momentum. Tony and Larry talk about what Piper was saying last week when he was leaving to avoid talking about his boring match. Konnan starts his comeback and uses the strap to take Bubba down. He gets two corners and has his momentum broken to further this. Konnan gets three but is kicked down. For some reason this doesn’t mean the momentum is broken so Bubba “punches” (you could fit a softball between his fist and Konnan’s face) him into the corner for the win.

Rating: F. See, this is what I don’t get: what reason is there for a strap match? It’s a feud that no one wants to see with two guys that mean nothing at all and the ending was stupid. The announcers didn’t care about it and this is the third week that this feud has been going on. Oh and the replay shows that Bubba’s hand was open so even if the shot had hit, it would have been more like a backhand slap.

Bubba beats him down post match to make sure the NWO looks strong.

Gene is with Kevin Sullivan and has a tape for him but Sullivan doesn’t want to see it. He says there’s something between the two of them that can’t be settled. Gene says the footage is of someone other than Benoit/Woman and Sullivan says it better not be before he leaves.

Here are the Horsemen minus Benoit. Anderson is upset that he’s not here but Flair implies that he’s off screwing Woman. Debra runs her mouth again about how great the rest of the team is and how they’re always here but Benoit never is. My goodness she’s annoying. Woman is ugly and fat apparently and Mongo is a professional. Speaking of annoying, here’s Jeff Jarrett to say he should get Benoit’s spot. Anderson vetoes that almost immediately because Jeff whines too much. Jeff says that Anderson has played second fiddle the whole year so he’s here to talk to the horse’s head, not the rear. Guess what happens.

Jeff Jarrett vs. Arn Anderson

Arn is in street clothes and beats Jeff all the way to the ring. Jeff comes back and gets sent to the floor but comes back in, hits a neckbreaker and puts his feet on the ropes for the pin.

Flair goes after Debra for some reason and Mongo gets in his face. Flair has to break it up and this is making my head hurt. In case you can’t tell, Benoit isn’t around but that’s ok with Flair. Jarrett wants in and Debra thinks Jeff is cute so she supports his membership. Mongo supports who Debra supports but Anderson doesn’t want Jeff in and Flair is stuck in the middle. This is of course being done while the NWO is invading and the most elite group is too busy fighting because of Debra. Don’t you just love that Bischoff booking? Anderson walks out. He would only have one more match on Nitro so that’s one of his last walks out.

Souled Out ad.

TV Title: Steven Regal vs. Diamond Dallas Page

And there’s no Page. Regal comes out to new music and there’s a replacement.

TV Title: Steven Regal vs. Jim Duggan

These are old stomping grounds for Duggan who used to be a big star in Mid-South. The bell rings and the NWO comes out to take over commentary. Now we get the match going as I think Nash thanks his third grade teacher for making him awesome. Oh wait that’s Eric. Duggan takes over with clotheslines and the NWO implies Page has joined them. The match turns into a boxing match with Duggan taking over.

The talk turns to Souled Out because that’s what announcers in WCW do. They talk about the Miss NWO contest at the PPV as Duggan knocks Regal to the floor again. Duggan takes him down with a shoulder and I don’t think Regal has gotten a single shot in yet. Regal finally gets in some kicks to take over but Duggan punches him back. Off to a chinlock as the announcers talk about the WCW contract issues. Savage can’t join the organization apparently. The guys collide and Duggan gets the tape out. He knocks Regal out (referee is cool with it) but the time expires. The match would have run about eight and a half minutes.

Rating: D. Now I’m sure a lot of people are going to say “You just don’t get the point and the show is supposed to be about pushing the NWO.” Yeah, I do get that. However, it gets REALLY annoying hearing about it the whole show. It’s like Cole today: we get it but he keeps saying the same things over and over because we’re too stupid to get it the first time. It gets old in a hurry and it’s only going to get worse.

Duggan waves a WCW flag post match.

Jim Powers vs. Hugh Morrus

The announcers talk about Jim Duggan and how the NWO announcers wouldn’t talk about the Giant because they’re cowards. Powers hits his usual stuff which is mostly no sold. Morrus takes him down and the moonsault gets the pin. Basically a squash.

Hour #2 begins.

We recap the Horsemen split from earlier.

Rey Mysterio vs. Psicosis

Ok this has to be good right? It’s not that the matches so far have been bad but if they’re treated like nothing of importance, why should I care about them? When you have the NWO driven down your throat the whole time, you get annoyed by the matches which aren’t that great in the first place. They spin around a lot and Rey is sent to the floor. Psicosis hits a rope assisted moonsault but mostly misses to give Rey the advantage.

We hear about Liger winning the J-Crown but not the Cruiserweight Title because the match was signed before Dragon won that title. Makes sense. Psicosis takes over and hits a nice top rope spinwheel kick for two. Rey gets sent to the floor and Psicosis sets for a dive. After slipping the first time (but landing on his feet in the ring) he dives to the floor and slams his face into the barricade in a painful looking spot.

Liger vs. Dragon for the title is announced for COTC. Psicosis takes Rey down again and hits the guillotine legdrop (love that move) for two. A BIG powerbomb gets two and we hear about the Steiners coming back to challenge the Outsiders at Souled Out. Another powerbomb attempt is countered into a sunset flip with a bridge for two. Mysterio goes to the apron and hits the West Coast Pop for the pin. It’s as sudden as it sounds.

Rating: B-. Yeah this was good. First and foremost….well first and foremost the match was good. Second and secondmost, the announcers didn’t talk about the NWO the whole time. They talked about some other cruiserweight stuff, but at least it was related to this. That helped things tremendously here and the match was much more enjoyable as a result. Good stuff.

We get a clip from Starrcade of Eddie getting beaten up which apparently is the wrong clip.

Kevin Sullivan vs. Chavo Guerrero

We were supposed to see a clip of Sullivan at Starrcade hitting Benoit. They start fast and Sullivan doesn’t even take his robe off. Chavo gets sent to the floor but comes back with a missile dropkick to both Sullivan and Jimmy Hart. We get the aforementioned clip of Sullivan breaking a chair over Benoit’s head at the PPV. Things slow way down and Sullivan hits the Tree of Woe and double stomp for the pin. Too short to mean much but it wasn’t bad.

We get a clip of Hogan hitting Piper’s hip with a chair last week. Piper screamed incoherently the whole time he was taken out so we spend a few minutes trying to figure out what he was saying because it’s so important right? We even get EXCLUSIVE footage of Piper being put into the ambulance and Piper shouts even more. He’s since said it was the last night of his career. Right.

US Title: Alex Wright vs. Eddie Guerrero

Syxx stole the belt at Starrcade but Eddie faces him in a ladder match at Souled Out. They shake hands to start and exchange dropkicks with Wright’s knocking him to the floor. Back in and it’s time to talk about Hogan! Eddie takes him to the mat as some idiot says this is boring. The champ comes back with a kind of leg lariat and the slingshot hilo for two.

Off to an armbar (on the right arm for some reason) as this match is totally being ignored. Clothesline gets two for Wright and it’s off to a chinlock. Wright snaps off some European uppercuts and it’s back to the chinlock. Here’s Syxx to make sure our NWO quota is met for the segment. He sits on a ladder while wearing a belt and Tony says go up and knock him off of it.

Eddie looks at Syxx and walks into a northern lights suplex and then a backbreaker, both for two. Back to the chinlock for a bit and then Alex hits a top rope sunset flip for two. Spinwheel kick looks to set up a top rope double ax for no cover again. Northern lights suplex the sequel gets two. Alex goes up again but Eddie jumps up and hits a superplex for no cover again. Frog Splash keeps the title in El Paso.

Rating: B-. See, this is a good example of the opposite of what I was talking about earlier. This was actually interesting and a good match which just happened to have a lot of NWO talk in it. I can overlook the chatter when the match is good which this was. I’d love to see some more of these two with about fifteen minutes and less Syxx.

Road report from Lee Marshall. Did he ever actually do anything on Nitro other than this?

Amazing French Canadians vs. Harlem Heat

The Heat clears the ring to start and Tenay actually brings up the history between the managers. Stevie and Jacques start us off and Stevie controls with power. Booker comes in, misses an elbow but Spinaroonis up. Harlem Side Kick takes Jacques down but Oulette comes in to cheat. Back in and a piledriver gets two for Jacques. Stevie comes in off the tag and cleans house. The Canadians mess up with a flag and Stevie knocks Oulette out so a powerbomb/top rope elbow combo can pin Jacques.

Rating: C-. Not a bad match here but it’s the textbook (what class is that? I’d love to take it) example of a filler match. You had a good team and a bad team and the good team beat the bad team with a double team move. I’m not sure what else there is to say here but it wasn’t bad or anything.

We get a clip from Starrcade of Luger vs. Giant and Sting whispering something in their ears.

Lex Luger vs. Meng

It’s a power match of course with neither guy moving much off anything done to them. Meng runs him over and stomps away. Then he stomps some more. A piledriver puts Luger down for two. Lex comes back with the forearm and a powerslam for two. Meng misses a charge in the corner and there’s the Rack but the referee goes down. Barbarian runs in and takes a powerslam as well. He Racks Barbarian and that’s good for the submission. Tenay: “Does it matter?” Tony: “You’re right Mike it doesn’t matter.”

Rating: D. Just a power match here but not a very interesting one. The ending makes it even worse as it was just stupid. I can get the referee not noticing in a stretch but seriously? Tony and Mike saying it doesn’t matter? Wait why am I surprised by this at all? Nothing match and that’s the main event people.

Here’s the NWO for the big ending segment. Eric praises Hogan for beating Piper twice in a week and then Giant by himself. Hogan talks about a battle royal which either never happened or that I don’t remember at all. I think it was the former and that he was talking about the ending to last week’s show. Here comes Giant and the people are two rows deep on the apron.

Giant cleans house and has Hogan all to himself. The right hand is caught and Bischoff hits Giant in the back while his legs were wide open. Nice job Bruce Lee. Hogan gets in a chair shot and Giant goes down…again. The NWO beats him down for awhile and then go to the announce desk. Sting comes out and checks on Giant. Sting points the bat at the NWO and drops the bat to end the show.

Overall Rating: C-. Not a very good show this week but there were two very solid matches which bring it up a lot. This is a good example of where you can summarize the issue the NWO story had: if you didn’t like that story, you were screwed. It’s annoying hearing about it all the time but at least we didn’t have to hear about how great Piper the savior was this week. It’s a better show than recently due to the two good matches but other than that, not much due to having too many squashes.

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WCW Saturday Night
Date: January 22, 1994
Location: Center State Theater, Atlanta, Georgia
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Jesse Ventura

Time for another of these. I found the next episode after January so we can keep going with this for a little while longer. Anyway, this is the go home show before the Clash so expect a lot of push for that. I think this is another 90 minute episode so this will be about as long as the previous one was. Let’s get to it.

There’s a six man main event with a heel mystery partner.

Nasty Boys vs. Ron Oates/Mark Starr

The Nasties are the tag champions and we get a quick word from Jack and Payne, their challengers on Thursday. Sags and Starr start things off and it’s domination early. Off to Knobbs who walks into a dropkick and armdrag as the jobbers clear the ring for a bit. Off to Oates who is a big guy. Not that it matters much as the good guys tag in and out a lot to work on the arm of Knobbs.

Knobbs runs him over to bring in Sags but he gets taken down as well. Finally some double teaming takes over for the Nasties and things slow WAY down. Everything breaks down and they be clubberin on Starr. Off to a chinlock by Sags but Starr gets up for a hot tag to Oates. And never mind as Knobbs kills him with a double ax. Brian splashes him in the corner and a top rope elbow from Sags gets the pin.

Rating: D+. This was way better than I was expecting. It’s a nice change of pace to have the jobbers get in some offense other than a few shots here and there. Not the best match in the world or anything, but I didn’t expect it to get almost seven minutes which made things a lot better here.

Colonel Parker says he’s got a mystery man that’s going to take care of Sting and Flair and Boss.

One of the commercials is for this new move Ace Ventura Pet Detective.

Here’s Flair who talks about giving his son the world title to take into his first grade class for show and tell. It’s more serious than it sounds.

Dustin Rhodes vs. Ricky Tango

That’s a great jobber name. This is your usual squash: Tango is all fired up but Dustin survives the offense and hits the big lariat to set up the bulldog for the pin.

Dustin says he’s ready for Steven Regal and the TV Title on Thursday. Regal has been badmouthing America and Dusty and that isn’t cool.

We go to the control center for the Clash to talk about the majority of the card. We see some clips of the Nasties beating up Jack/Payne on World Wide. Gene talks about the chicken suit match and we also get a clip of Simmons getting in a fight with Ice Train.

Shanghai and Slazenger talk about their match next week with Badd. If Shanghai loses, he takes the mask off.

Ron Simmons vs. TC Carter

Carter wants a test of strength so Simmons kicks him in the ribs for his efforts. Carter hits a dropkick and Simmons isn’t happy. Simmons clotheslines him down and demands a handshake. When Carter tries, Ron kicks him down. That’s awesome. Carter tries another comeback but Ron KILLS him with a shoulder and the spinebuster for the pin.

Ice Train comes out to offer another handshake but Simmons has nothing to do with it and walks off.

Parker runs his mouth about Pillman and Austin shows off his new managers’ license so he can be at Parker’s match on Thursday. Ron Simmons is announced as the mystery partner.

Jim Steele vs. Bob Starr

Oh it’s Jungle Jim Steele. Steele looks like a cross between Ultimate Warrior, Jimmy Snuka, and Tarzan. He was one of WCW’s 948 attempts to recreate Ultimate Warrior, but didn’t have the talent or charisma. A Thesz Press ends this quick.

Gene is in the crowd with some girls but he can’t talk about his news regarding Arn Anderson. But they can call the hotline to find out.

Vader vs. Al Phillips

I don’t like the jobber’s chances. What are you expecting here? Big powerbomb ends this in about a minute.

Vader wants Flair on Thursday. He gets him in a tag match and threatens to kill him. Rude comes in and says bring it on Sting.

2 Cold Scorpio/Marcus Bagwell vs. Tom Burton/Bill Payne

Burton and Scorpio start things off and they mess up a cross body spot that sends Scorpio crashing into the mat. He’s playing possum though and cleans house with Bagwell. Powerslam gets two for Marcus. Scorpio comes in for a corner splash and then we get a double superplex to Burton to kill him for the pin. Now that was a cool ending to a squash.

Pillman says Parker is going to wear the chicken suit. Parker broke up the Blondes and on Thursday, dinner will be served. He’s got a piece of chicken in his hand as he says this.

Rick Rude/Steve Austin/Ron Simmons vs. Sting/The Boss/Ric Flair

That’s a big main event. For some reason they come out to Boss’ music which is really slow and doesn’t do much to get the crowd going. Ice Train is here to yell at Simmons and Rude. It’s a brawl to start and the good guys clear the ring as you would expect. Train stays out there because Parker can. So what’s the point of the manager’s license thing then? Rude and Boss start things off.

Off to Sting as Boss hammers on Rude. We get a pair of atomic drops to Rude which is always funny. Off to Austin in a match that could have drawn millions in 98. Austin gets caught in an electric chair and his team hasn’t been having a ton of luck. Off to Naitch in what was supposed to be Starrcade 1994. Austin backdrops him but gets caught in a Figure Four attempt.

Boss comes in to work on the knee but gets caught by Rude. Rude tries a sleeper but gets caught in a jawbreaker. Simmons pulls the top rope down and Boss is sent to the outside. Simmons comes in to throw Boss around and the fans want Sting. Sting vs. Simmons could have been a huge feud. Austin breaks up the tag and Boss is in trouble. Back to Rude as they work on Boss’ back.

Here’s a bearhug but Boss shoves his way to the corner for a tag to Sting, but the referee misses it. Now Simmons switches places with Rude to hook on a bearhug. Simmons goes to the middle rope but jumps into a punch. There’s the tag to Sting who destroys Simmons with a powerslam for two. Everything breaks down and Sting pins Simmons on a rollup.

Rating: C+. When all else fails, throw six big names into one match and give them ten minutes. It works on Smackdown (kind of) with all those tag matches. This was pretty fun and it’s cool to see Sting vs. Simmons as they were the top faces in the company about a year prior to this. Not a classic or anything but for a TV main event this was fine.

Overall Rating: C+. For a go home show, this was pretty solid. The opening match was longer than expected so we got some ring time on this show which is rare for most TV. The Clash wasn’t that good if my memory is right but we’ll start up towards SuperBrawl after this one. After that, it’s almost Hogan time. Good show this week.

Here’s the Clash if you’re interested:

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