WCW Champions as of December 11th, 1995:
World Heavyweight: “Macho Man” Randy Savage
United States: Kenzuki Sasaki
Television: Johnny B. Badd
Tag-Team: Harlem Heat
Unfortunately my video player is being rather passive-aggressive towards me, thus I’m unable to include any photos this week. My apologies to those who were looking forward to seeing Lex Luger.
Eddie Guerrero vs Mr. JL
This match was joined in progress as far as the show I downloaded is concerned. Immediately, Eddie does this great move where he twists the guys arm, climbs the turnbuckle, and then jumps as far as he can across the ring and once he lands he rolls and throws Mr. JL. They continue to bring the goods, unfortunately it’s not that long as the match ends soon when Eddie catches him with a pinning combination. Wish I could have seen the entire bout.
Eddie pins JL at 2:25 | *
An interview with Mean Gene is next; talking to Jimmy Hart & Lex Luger. Basically, he’s better than everyone, and ends up saying “Wubbahya C Wubbahya” at one point, which is great.
Disco Inferno vs Mr. 1derful
Disco attacks before 1derful can get his jacket off, and keeps up the attack for a little while until the 1nderful one feels it’s go time, and finally ends it with a belly to back suplex. Yes, this match was as exciting & interesting the recap.
Paul puts Disco down with a suplex at 2:22 | 1/4 *
Gene-O is out again for an interview, this time with The Horsemen, sans Benoit. Pillman cuts a pretty good promo, and runs down a good portion of the roster, including the DoD & Paul Orndorff. Ric starts talking, and Paul comes out all in a huff. Mean Gene tries to calm everyone done, but its to no avail as they start a good old fashion Horsemen beat down on Orndorff, which included a classic spike pile-driver onto the pavement. It was great.
Lex Luger vs Hacksaw Jim Duggan
Duggan beats on Luger for the whole match until he becomes distracted by Jimmy Hart, which Luger of course uses and throws Jim in the Rack for the submission. Duggan may wrestle about as well as the box a new refrigerator comes in, but he more than makes up for it by going out there and selling the hell out of it. His WWE timline from 1988 was really entertaining, and I’m glad to learn he saved his money and is living comfortably these days.
Luger with the Rack at 2:44 | *
Gene once more, this time with Macho Man. He’s got no beef with the fact he’s gotta face The Giant next week, and he’s got his match at Starrcade in the bag. Dig it.
Ric Flair & Double A vs Sting & Hulk Hogan
Within 2 minutes of the match starting the crowd starts a massive “Hogan Sucks!” chant, and he hasn’t even been in the ring. Meanwhile, the crowd is practically cheering for every move Ric & Arn make. Almost more entertaining than the match is when the announcers try and place the reason for the boos anywhere but Hulk. It starts picking up, with Sting doing most of the work now that Luger showed up and beat the hell out of Hulk, including putting him in The Rack, while the ref was distracted by Jimmy Hart and his fantastic jacket. See, now we can have Hulk play the babyface in peril when he’s tagged in, since he’s been worked over. God forbid that just happen in the ring; case in point as once he’s tagged in he immediately no-sells Double A’s spine buster. Soon after he nails Arn with the boot & the leg-drop. No joke, Hogan was in the ring for a total time of 1 minute, while Sting got his ass kicked for 12 and had to sit aside while Hulkster got the pin. That aside, it’s a pretty fun match. You can never lose when it’s the Horsemen in tag wrestling, and Sting is always good for a beating. Pretty solid main event, and easily the Match of the Night.
Hogan pins Arn after the leg drop at 13:25 | **3/4
Afterward, Pillman shows up and the Horsemen start the beat down. Luger runs out and peels Brian off of Sting, which he objects too. Macho shows up, and of course, Stinger accidentally slugs him. Seriously, they’ve been doing this whole “Can I trust you? Can you trust me?” shit since the very first Nitro. I have to admit, it’s a bit old.
I’ve decided to start a little post-show wrap up, so here we go:
Match of the Night: Hogan & Sting vs The Horsemen – Besides the fact I believe it’s the first pairing of Sting & Hogan, it’s a fun match that the displayed why the Horsemen are arguably the greatest villains ever. Especially when you get them in front of a home crowd. Definitely worth tracking down.
Move of the Night: Eddie’s deal where he grabbed JL’s arm, twisted it, and then jumped half-way across the ring in order to toss him. Honestly it’s the first & last time I’ve ever seen anything like it.
WCW Announcer Moment of the Night: Definetly Bischoff and his earnest attempt to try and get people to believe that the crowd was booing Arn’s desicion to tag-out and not fight Hogan, as opposed to what they were actually booing: Hogan himself. Hell, it’s pretty interesting that Bischoff tried to get us to believe that the crowd was booing something that hadn’t even happened yet, as Arn tagged out a good 10 seconds after Hogan tagged in.
Alright buckaroos, that’s it for now. Pretty good show this week. None of the under-card went longer than 3 minutes, but that makes sense given the long run of the main event. Once that came along, it was entertaining enough for me to forgive them for short-changing me on my Luger vs Duggan match. I will say I’m getting a bit tired of their formula, as things never change. Fortunately though we’re not too far away from the Crusierweights and the nWo. Until then however, we’ve got a lot of red & yellow to sit through. Dig it, I’ll see you guys next week for Mach’s big title defense against The Giant.