WCW Championship Standings:
World Heavyweight: Vacated on November 6th when The Giant was stripped of it
United States: Kensuke Sasaki [defeated Sting at a house show on 11/13/1995]
TV: Johnny B. Badd [defeated DDP at Halloween Havoc 1995]
Tag-Team: Harlem Heat [defeated The American Males on September 27th, 1995]
Bischoff says tonight’s episode will go down in history as one of the most exciting ever, and says this is the Superbowl of wrestling right now. Along side as usual are Steve McMichael, and Bobby “The Brain” Heenan.
Scott Norton vs The Shark
This match is being billed as a “special rematch”. First off, I don’t believe this is special, and calling it a match is stretching it. Shark is running things for the majority of the match until Flash stops selling Shark’s punches, and then pins him after a bodyslam. A lot of powermoves in a short match, no complaints.
Norton wins with a bodyslam at 1:44 | *
Gene-O interviews Taskmaster & Jimmy Hart, which I’ve been digging more and more every week. Gene calls Hart the original Benedict Arnold. If he were the original, then wouldn’t Jimmy Hart be named Benedict Arnold? Or, wouldn’t BA have been riding a horse while screaming about the British with a megaphone whilst wearing a jacket that has an airbrushed George Washington bodyslamming the continent of Europe?
Eddie Guerrero vs Brian Pillman
Flair comes out with Brian and says he’s far too concentrated on Stinger to face Eddie. Either way, we’re gonna get ourselves a hell of a match. Guerrero has the beginning, putting Pillman down with his standard fare of high-flying until Brian returns the favor, and keeps at it with the stand by classics such as simple suplexes, punches and pokes to the eye. Eventually he screws up a leap to the outside, which Eddie answers with his own that’s honestly one of the best I’ve ever seen. Soon after it looks like a mistake on Eddie’s part has the match for Pillman, but he corrects it and crushes Pillman with the Frogsplash. Great match, one of the best I’ve seen on Nitro so far. Pillman had that perfect arrogance that comes with youth, while Eddie answered back with some great babyface fortitude.
Guerrero wins with the Frogsplash at 6:25 | ***
We get a recap from last week, when Macho had his arm injured by Lex Luger, who was wearing pinstripe workout clothes.
Big Bubba vs Road Warrior Hawk
Hawk takes ownership of the match at first, but concedes it to Bubba with a missed splash attempt. Soon after they keep trading the momentum back & forth until Bubba tapes up his fist and aims to slug Hawk, but Duggan runs down as Bubba winds up via running off the ropes, grabs his feet, which causes him to trip and land on his closed fist, face first. Not a bad match, really. All power, trading back & forth, and didn’t over-stay it’s welcome.
Hawk wins after Bubba knocks himself out at 3:46 | **
Sting vs Hulk Hogan
This is starting 15 minutes before the show ends, they really gonna give us this one? Hulkster’s theme starts, which brings Macho out, who looks to be introducing Hogan, but instead Hulkster comes form behind in a Zorro mask. Yes, I’m being serious. He doesn’t even take advantage of it, he just taps Sting on the shoulder. The hell was the point of that? As the match gets going, neither one really gives up the edge, going back & forth, with Hogan actually keeping up with Sting’s energy. It’s ridiculous just how much worse of a match these two will have in 2 years time. Macho peppers advice from the outside such as “lean on’em, brother” and “brother, lean on’em”. Sting works the leg and eventually gets the Deathlock, which Hogan powers out of. He then sets up Sting for the Atomic Leg Drop, but Sting moves out of the way and gets Hogan in the Deathlock again. Before anything can happen though, the Dungeon comes down to ruin the festivities. They’re able to fight’em off, but then The Giant comes down, prompting Stinger & Hogan to use a chair together to clothesline Giant out of the ring, which upsets him. This match blew the one from Starrcade out of the water. This was completely back & forth, with Hogan keeping up with Sting, and even getting his ass kicked at some points. In contrast, it really shows you just how bad their Starrcade match was. I’d say it’s worth hunting down for historic reasons.
The DoD come down and draw the double-DQ at 9:31 | **1/4
This was a great show, and possibly the best since Nitro’s debut. We had 4 matches, where 2 of them knew their limitations and proceeded as so, delivering a fine product, while the other 2 lived up to their expectations, and could have actually done a lot more if given the time. We had a little interview time with Task & Jimmy, which like I said, is quickly becoming my favorite part of Nitro, and we got to see Luger in his pinstripe workout clothes. Hell yes.