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Raw History: Episode 190 and Reliving Nitro: Episode 67

July 3, 2017 | Posted by Kevin Pantoja
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Raw History: Episode 190 and Reliving Nitro: Episode 67  


Raw History
Episode #190
December 23rd, 1996 | Ice Palace in Tampa, Florida

WWF Champion: Sycho Sid (1) since 11/17/96
WWF Intercontinental Champion: Hunter Hearst Helmsley (1) since 10/21/96
WWF Tag Team Champions: Owen Hart and the British Bulldog (1) since 9/22/96

Vince McMahon, Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler are in the booth.

WWF Intercontinental Championship: Hunter Hearst Helmsley (c) def. Marc Mero w/ Sable in 6:29
I believe this is their third meeting. HHH won the title, then lost via countout at the PPV and here’s the tiebreaker of sorts. This one has no DQ or countout. It’s the first time Hunter has “Ode to Joy” as his theme too. Goldust and Marlena watch from the crowd. Mero attacks quickly, starting hot. Mero chases Lawler away from commentary due to his actions last week. It does give HHH the opening to slam him outside. Mero takes a pounding but gets two on a sunset flip. After Hunter hits a Triple H in his prime level clothesline, they go to break. Returning, Mero misses a moonsault and falls to the Pedigree. A rare clean win for Hunter. It was short, like the match where Hunter won the title and was better for it. Good work. **¾

Hunter talks smack to Goldust from the ring. Mero is livid, wanting a piece of Hunter. Dude, you lost clean. Take it like a man. With Mero gone, HHH gets on the microphone and promises to show Goldust what it takes to be a real man at the Royal Rumble. He also makes a pass at Marlena, causing Goldust to come down the stands but HHH bails.

LAST WEEK ~ Billy Gunn got hurt and his “wife” and brother were concerned for his health. Billy is temporarily, partially paralyzed. Wow. Bart spoke on Livewire and said Billy doesn’t want to talk to him but he is sorry.

Sunny Claus is out for commentary.

Rocky Maivia def. Salvatore Sincere w/ Jim Cornette in 5:48
I have no recollection of Salvatore and Cornette together. Sunny hypes Rocky on commentary. Vince shills the debut of SHOTGUN SATURDAY NIGHT on January 4th. That’s not on the WWE Network at this time. Rocky goes through his generic babyface offense. He takes a sternum corner bump and a strange looking bulldog for two. Sunny is scheduled to be on MTV’s Singled Out this week. So many people today have never even heard of that show. Rocky busts out the float over DDT he’d keep in his arsenal. The shoulder breaker finishes things to Sunny’s delight. Rocky was not ready for prime time here and Salvatore was not the guy to help him along. Thankfully, Rocky was a quick learner and within a year would feel like a legitimate star. ½*

Vince McMahon introduces the WWF Champion, Sycho Sid. His theme plays throughout the promo and I love it. They ask him about Bret Hart’s change of attitude but Sid gives zero fucks. He hypes beating Shawn Michaels and Bret in the span of thirty days. He’s the MASTER and the RULER of the world. Sid says his stature will not change and he’ll be 6’9 and 300 pounds tomorrow and the next day and so on. Shawn watches on a monitor backstage. He’s sitting and watching, which is way more natural than what guys do nowadays.

SHOTGUN SATURDAY NIGHT ~ Raucous, sexy and wild! Premieres on January 4th, but not from the Tokyo Dome.

Cibernetico and Pierroth def. The New Rockers in 4:54
Bringing in guys from AAA was part of WWF’s attempt to combat Nitro’s blossoming cruiserweight division. Mil Mascaras joins Spanish commentary. He and these two luchadores will be in the Rumble. The teams have no clue what to do with one another. They go to break after the Rockers get in some cheap shots. Cibernetico saves Pierroth and wins with a splash. Garbage. ¼*

Mil gets a short interview where he says he’ll bring the competition to the Royal Rumble.

ROYAL RUMBLE ENTRANTS ~ HHH, Flash Funk, British Bulldog, Ahmed Johnson and Undertaker are shown.

Honky Tonk Man is out for his first appearance on Raw. He returned on Superstars the day before after six years. He joins commentary, a lot of that happening tonight, and wants to find the next great Intercontinental Champion.

Bret Hart def. “Razor Ramon” in 7:16
I love Bret Hart but even he can’t drag Rick Bognar to a good match. Production knows he sucks and a good chunk of the early portion is shown on a split screen with Honky Tonk Man. Bret gives “Razor” a bit before coming back with some aggressive offense. Bret beats him up outside for a bit and they go to commercial. Almost instantly after returning, Bret wins via Sharpshooter. About as good as you could hope for from Bognar. Bret highlighted this by showing off his new attitude. *

Shawn is interviewed backstage. He is nonchalant about everything but says he makes no excuses about his loss to Sid, unlike Bret. Shawn’s prepared for anything at the Royal Rumble and if he loses, he’ll take it like a man.


Reliving Nitro
Episode #67
December 23rd, 1996 | Macon Civic Center in Macon, Georgia

WCW World Heavyweight Champion: Hulk Hogan (2) 8/10/96
WCW United States Champion: Vacant since 11/25/96
WCW World Tag Team Champions: The Outsiders (1) since 10/27/96
WCW Television Champion: Lord Steven Regal (3) since 8/20/96
WCW Cruiserweight Champion: Dean Malenko (2) since 10/27/96

Tony Schiavone and Larry Zbyszko host hour number one. No nWo interruption this week.

WCW United States Championship Semi-Finals: Eddie Guerrero def. Chris Benoit in 10:34
This should be good. They’ve wrestled a ton on Nitro already but it beats the hell out of a VK Wallstreet match. They star by slapping each other and the crowd is hot. Eddie goads him into an arm drag before we get words from Kevin Sullivan. He threatens Benoit while under creepy lighting. The fans get up as DDP shows up to join commentary. He meets the winner of this in the finals at Starrcade. Benoit fights out of a headlock with some knee breakers. Eddie shakes it off and applies it again. After a break, Eddie takes one of the biggest hot shots I’ve ever seen. Benoit snaps off a powerbomb but taunts so it only gets two. The crowd come to their feet after an Eddie tilt-a-whirl backbreaker. They get louder when his Frog Splash is stopped by a superplex. Benoit wants a back superplex and shoves the referee away for trying to stop him. Eddie sends Benoit to the mat and wins with TWISTING FROG SPLASH! I’ve never seen him do that. Awesome way to start the show. They always work well together but here they got a lot of time and had a hot crowd to work with. ***½

Mean “BAH GAWD” Gene brings out the Four Horsemen for an interview. Chris Benoit joins them and Arn says a focused Benoit would’ve won that match. Arn runs down Benoit for messing around with Woman. Debra interrupts and talks for way too long. Arn and Ric look like they hate her speaking but Mongo is beaming. Benoit doesn’t appreciate the allegations. Mongo gets hot about Benoit talking to Debra, so Ric plays peacekeeper. He can’t wrestle but he sure loves talking and strutting.

They moved up Hulk Hogan’s show closing promo. It fits better here. He’s with Elizabeth, Ted Dibiase and Vincent. Hogan again speaks about Roddy Piper being a coward. It’s hard to build a match if both guys aren’t around. Hogan says he’ll be in the record books as a great, not Roddy. Hogan rambles and loses himself during the promo a few times. This was just a way to kill time.

SATURDAY NIGHT ~ It’s the year in review!

Lex Luger def. Tombstone in 3:38
Tombstone is ECW’s 911. After a falling out with Paul Heyman, WCW scooped him up. They had zero plans for him and it shows. He hits a few slams before Luger powers up. SCREAMING CLOTHESLINES! He wins with the Torture Rack, which wows Schiavone but Zbyszko wisely reminds him that he racked the Giant before. NR

The Giant comes out to brawl with Luger. Luger bests him and puts him in the rack! The Outsiders swarm the ring and Luger bails.

LAST WEEK ~ Sting beat up nWo Sting in front of the Steiner Brothers. At the end of the show, during the big brawl, Sting beat up WCW guys instead of nWo ones. They believe this means he’s nWo. Never mind that only WCW guys went after him during the scuffle.

Rey Mysterio Jr. def. Mr. JL in 6:02
Did nobody realize the name Mr. JL was flat out stupid? They trade arm drags and work at a quick pace. Rey scores with a springboard leg drop for the first near fall. JL responds with a sitout powerbomb for a two count of his own. Rey takes his turn with a springboard moonsault before taking a back suplex. Outside they go and Rey hits a sweet looking dive. Back inside, JL goes up top and it hit with a super rana for the finish. Fun little TV match, with both guys showing off their MOVEZ. Lots of spots and not much else. **½

Rey Mysterio Jr. walks over to commentary and takes a microphone. He is the only smart person in WCW, saying that Sting only attacked him last week because he jumped on his back. He knows Sting was just defending himself and that he’s not in the nWo. Larry Zbyszko thinks he’s delusional.

Hour two! Schiavone sticks around to join Bobby Heenan and Mike Tenay. They send it to a footage of Hogan’s promo earlier.

Glacier def. Sgt. Buddy Lee Parker in 2:29
Glacier’s still doing a ton of nothing, but I can’t be bothered by it because he sucks. He does a strange move where he leaps over Parker and then hits a weird back kick. One of the worst snapmares ever follows and both guys look putrid. He whiffs on his finisher kick and uses a second to win. That was just a squash so I won’t rate it but it was horrible. NR

The Amazing French Canadians w/ Col. Robert Parker def. Public Enemy via disqualification in 3:23
Public Enemy interrupts “O’ Canada” and a brawl ensues. Imagine the heat if someone interrupted the American national anthem. They try putting Rougeau through a table but it gets cut off. The AFC slow the pace before hitting a leg drop/Boston Crab combo. They get a table and the referee catches them, resulting in a weird DQ. Nothing really to rate since there was barely a match. NR

After the match, they lay a table on the mat and Public Enemy hits their own Quebecer Crash onto it.

LAST WEEK ~ Big Bubba joins the nWo.

Big Bubba def. Konnan w/ Jimmy Hart via disqualification in 5:36
Konnan is here to defend the honor of the Dungeon of Doom after Bubba turned on them. Cholo Konnan in the Dungeon of Doom might be the most unfitting guy in a stable ever. Bubba goes after Jimmy, so Konnan wipes him out with a suicide dive. Nick Patrick is the referee, so they think something is up when he counts slowly for Bubba after he’s left outside following a steel steps spot. Once back inside, Bubba takes over with painfully boring offense. Jimmy trips Bubba and gets ejected by Patrick. Patrick apparently claims Jimmy hit him, which he didn’t have to say because tripping Bubba was enough to get kicked out. Konnan tosses Bubba over the top, signaling the DQ. This was a piece of hot garbage. Bubba was terrible at this time and Konnan sucks. Lots of standing around and nonsense in between. -*¾

ON THE ROAD WITH LEE MARSHALL ~ He’s in Knoxville, where Nitro goes down next week. He makes a Bobby Heenan weasel joke too.

WCW Television Championship: Lord Steven Regal (c) vs. WCW Cruiserweight Champion Dean Malenko goes to a time limit draw in 9:26
Commentary is busy hyping Starrcade as “what wrestling in the 90’s will be remembered for.” Only Mike Tenay cares to discuss the match. He points out that if Dean wins here and wins the unification match at Starrcade, he’ll have TEN titles. They go through a fun exchange early on that sees Regal do a flip and cartwheel. Sonny Oono gets photos again but is thrown out by the official. They continue to work the mat while the fans sit on their hands. Not only are the fans quiet but commentary only talks about Hogan/Piper. Malenko avoids a Boston Crab and goes for the Texas Cloverleaf but Regal reaches the ropes. As Malenko nails a brainbuster, the bell rings because the TV Title time limit is up even though there were about 30 seconds left. WCW always did this and I never understood why. Just go the full ten. The match was technically fine but very dull and the crowd wanted no part of it. **¼

Jeff Jarrett vs. Rick Steiner w/ Scott Steiner ends in a no contest (I think) in 2:24
Both guys have been recent victims of Sting’s Scorpion Death Drop. Rick takes Jeff to the mat and makes weird noises while wearing him down. He laughs a bunch like he’s Hugh Morris and nails an elbow drop. Rick hits a belly to belly suplex and the crowd comes alive. However, it’s because Sting is here. Only they turn to boos because fans see it’s nWo Sting. Rick takes him out with the STEINERLINE and Jarrett pins Sting. The referee counts three and the bell rings. Goddammit, WCW. NR

Hulk Hogan is back out to talk more trash about Roddy Piper. The bagpipes hit and commentary is torn between whether it’s Piper or an nWo trick. It’s the latter and Eric Bischoff is out in a kilt with a red and yellow Hogan shirt. Bischoff goes on a tangent, mocking Piper and admitting Hogan’s better. He wants to do the match right now and Nick Patrick is out to make the count. Bischoff lays down and Hogan puts his boot on his chest for the three. Bischoff bows down to Hogan and more bagpipes play, this time live as several bagpipers march out. The real Piper is here and exchanges shots with Hogan. He’s winning until the Outsiders and the rest of the nWo hold him. Sting is shown watching from the rafters as a 10 or so on 1 beating goes down. Security is late to separate things as the show closes.

Raw Rating: 1.5
Nitro Rating: 3.1

4.0
The final score: review Poor
The 411
Raw: I feel like I give this score out a lot. Bret Hart would be proud. Rocky’s match and the AAA tag both sucked, while Bret got the best one could out of “Razor.” HHH/Mero was fine and I enjoyed the Sid interview. They didn’t do much build to the Rumble, but the episode did feel focused. 4.0

Nitro: This kind of followed the typical Nitro blueprint. A lot of shitty matches sprinkled in with one big angle focused. The Hogan promo early in the show was trash but I dug the way the show closed. I’d have just done that one. Guerrero/Benoit ruled and Malenko/Regal had potential, while JL/Mysterio was solid. The second half is rough though with a horrible Glacier squash, the stupidity of Jarrett/Steiner and the awful Big Bubba/Konnan match. 4.0

legend

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Monday Night War, Nitro, RAW, WCW, WWE, Kevin Pantoja