WCW Champions as of September 25th, 1995:
Heavyweight: Hulk Hogan [defeated Ric Flair, July 17th, 1994]
US: Sting [defeated Meng, June 18th, 1995]
TV: DDP [defeated Renegade, September 17th, 1995]
Tag-Team: The American Males[defeated Harlem Heat, September 18th, 1995]
Monday Nitro live from Denver, Colorado.
Eric Bischoff, Steve “Mongo” McMichael, and Bobby “The Brain” Heenan are your hosts for the evening.
Show starts off with Flair running up to the announcing booth, grabs Bischoff’s head-set and screams at Double A, telling him it’s high-time here in the mile-high city.
We get footage from last week when The Giant destroyed a ton of wrestlers and the F****NG TIME-KEEPER WOULDN’T STOP RINGING THE GO***MN BELL. I’ve reviewed Nitro’s from the year 2000 where the time-keeper rang the bell, no joke, 173 times. This was on par with that.
This earlier episodes I’ve got still have the original commercials intact. It’s pretty surprising to see a trailer for Mallrats, as I had no idea it was actually pushed in major markets.
Lex Luger vs Macho Man Randy Savage – Luger’s career on the line
The match starts off with a lot of intensity, as both are on constant equal footing. They hold a lock-up together for over a minute, and then equally trade blows & pin attempts, each one never able to get one up on the other. Leave it to the Macho Man to make a back-slide attempt interesting. Mach’ is the first to get a stream of momentum after bashing Luger’s throat on the guard rail. Once back in the ring, the ref gets bumped, Macho hits the elbow, but has no one to count. The Giant heads down and chokeslams Macho, which Luger doesn’t see. Once he comes to, he slaps Macho in the Rack, and gets the win when the ref calls it. Hell, they didn’t do too much in the ring action wise, but they both looked so evenly matched that it leaves you really wanting to see a rematch. Now that The Giant has involved himself in the ending, it’d be good money to lock Macho & Luger in a cage at Havoc. Hell, I’d look forward to it.
Macho is out when Luger slaps him in the Rack for the win at 8:16 | **1/4
During the commercial break, whoever was recording this skips over to Raw. The second he does, we see Vince hocking…get this, a hotline where you call in and vote whether OJ is guilty or not. That’s got to be one of the oddest fucking things I’ve ever seen in wrestling. Cripes all Friday.
Promotional consideration: Crossfire, you’ll get caught up in it. An auto-parts store. And of course, Hot Pockets, with the urging of trying lean.
This Saturday on WCW Saturday Night: it’s Flyin Bryan & Arn Anderson vs Bunk House Buck & Dirty Dick Slater, we find out what’s up with Johnny B. Badd, and Hacksaw takes on Big Bubba.
Disco Inferno comes out to dance for us, however we’re suppose to see Eddie vs Dean, and Mr. Guerrero isn’t happy with Disco’s hot-butter moves. He chases him off, and we get ourselves;
Eddie Guerrero vs Dean Malenko
While Eddie & Dean are off to a hell of a start, we get a PRIME example of why WCW failed. Smack dab in the middle of a match that features newer, younger guys, who are putting on a match with such quality that the contrast between it and WCW’s main events is down right EMBARRASSING, and what do they do? They cut away from the match because Hogan’s limo has arrived, and we have to hear him yell about finding The Giant. Back to Eddie & Dean finally, and it’s exactly what you’d expect. Insanely fast, crisp, and revolutionary. It would have been a hell of a lot nicer had we been given more time for it, and not interrupted by Hogan. I could have respected their decision if he was at least Darkside Hogan, because at least then we could have heard about him punching a dragon in the eye-ball while playing with a broadsword. Eddie wins the war of the roll-ups with a pin on Dean, who immediately afterward demands a rematch sometime down the road.
Eddie hits a roll-up on Dean for the pin at 5:27 | **1/2
Mean Gene is in the ring to talk with Hogan, and while listening, I felt compelled to time it, and count the amount of times he said “brother”. .58 seconds long, with a “brother” count of 9. That works out to a “brother” about every 6-7 seconds. That honestly has to be a record for him. Afterwards, he declares he’s going to hunt down The Giant and leaves the ring. After slapping hands with some fans, he gets powder in the eyes from an old-lady who jumps the guard-rail and pummels Hulk with a cane. Man, whatever happened to the wrestler dressing up as the dangerous old woman? They don’t do that anymore. Nobody takes pride in their work. The Giant comes down and hits Hogan with another Steven Seagal neckbreak, thus killing him. Then Sullivan shaves Hogan’s mustache, and much to my chagrin, doesn’t just simply give him a Hitler. The American Males & Nasty Boys attempt to make the save, but don’t get very far.
Arn Anderson vs Ric Flair
Ric controls the beginning, battling Arn to the outside, keeping him down with chops and running kicks to the ribs. Arn finally gets momentum on his side with some rough back-drops & brutal spine-busters. Ric battles back, trying a top-rope double axe-handle to the outside, but Arn answers back with a punch to the stomach. He tries to finish him off with a DDT, but Ric holds the ropes, sending Arn crashing to the ground alone. Ric throws him in the Figure-4, only to get his ass-kicked by both Arn & Pillman when Brian comes running down to make the save for Double A. Another good TV match, and a shame that’s all it was, as they were just getting started.
Match ends in a DQ when Pillman interferes on Anderson’s behalf at 8:21 | **1/2
Bischoff tells us that next week it’ll be Anderson vs Flair in a steel-cage, something that better get time.
Next week on Nitro its Sting vs The Shark, Sabu vs Mr. JL, and Road Warrior Hawk takes on Big Bubba.
Hell of a show this week, easily the best one I’ve seen so far. We had three solid matches, with a few bits in between that were fun, especially when Hogan got beat by Taskmaster in drag and had his neck-snapped again. Speaking of a sequel, this is now the second time in less than a year that Hogan has been assaulted by someone in drag. Always a good time.
Till next week, dig it.