The Furious Flashbacks – WCW Monday Nitro November 1995

The Furious Flashbacks – WCW Monday Nitro November 1995

The Evil of Hulkamania dominates the shows but its Macho Man Randy Savage that becomes WCW champion

As we left October WCW had made a few radical booking decisions. Firstly taking the title off Hulk Hogan, albeit in screwy circumstances, thus ending his 469 day reign. He won the title in his very first match in WCW back in the summer of 1994. WCW were aware of his forthcoming movie commitments and had to make the change and The Giant was the beneficiary. The movie he was making on the side? Secret Agent Club, which is every bit as bad as it sounds. But hey, after that he made Santa With Muscles. So that was…something. In the process of getting the title off Hogan they turned Luger fully heel but kept him friends with Sting (some innovative booking). So now the main event babyfaces are two guys; Sting and Randy Savage. Both of whom are embroiled in feuds. Sting with Flair & the Horsemen over Flair’s turn and Savage with Luger over his behaviour. This leaves the Giant relatively free of threat until Hogan can be bothered to appear on TV again. And yet there’s still an issue over how he won the title (on DQ), which hasn’t been resolved and WCW has this big PPV coming up headlined by a 60 man battle royal.

We’re in Jacksonville, Florida. Hosts are Eric Bischoff, Mongo and Bobby Heenan. They were running a gimmick on this show about the fans voting for the main event. Although it was blatantly set up for Flair Vs Sting and making some cash off premium phonelines. Oh and Savage isn’t cleared to wrestle.

Cobra v The Giant

Cobra would go on to become Fake Sting. His name is Jeff Farmer. Giant declares this a WCW title match thus enraging Bischoff. Here’s the PBP; chokeslam. Three count. That’s the whole match. It was literally 4-5 seconds long.

BACKSTAGE Gene Okerlund is in the heel locker room. Some of the other options are DDP, Shark, Norton and Bubba Rogers. In the other locker room Tony Schiavone has the babyfaces. There’s Sting, the Nasties, Duggan, JL, Johnny B. Badd and an incredibly disinterested Alex Wright. Haha. They cut away to shill World War III. I like the “card subject to change” when they’ve not booked anything yet.

CLIP Hogan is hanging out on Venice Beach with Savage. They’re both wearing black clothing. You’d think Hogan would be more concerned about getting his title back. Secret Agent Club people. Secret Agent Club.

Kevin Sullivan w/Jimmy Hart v Renegade

Renegade was WCW’s attempt to do Ultimate Warrior. Same mannerisms, attire, facepaint and moves. It didn’t really work. This is the burial of the character. Sullivan beats the fuck out of him and double stomps him for the win. ½*.

POST MATCH Jimmy Hart wipes Renegade’s makeup off and shouts “you’re not the Renegade, you’re just plain Rick”. Renegade’s real name was Rick Williams. Having wiped the gimmick away they intended to repackage him. Its one of wrestling’s tragic tales. Rick never made it without the copied gimmick and killed himself in 1999.

BACKSTAGE Shark & Norton get into a scuffle. Regal & Eaton are in the background drinking tea.

Chris Benoit v Eddy Guerrero

OH! The re-match. Sweet. This is light years ahead of the rest of the show. Benoit starts popping off suplexes. Benoit then breaks out the kneeling version of the Liontamer. Sick. We cut away to see Sonny Onoo, Kensuke Sasaki and Jushin Liger in the crowd. Eddy starts breaking out the lucha armdrags so Benoit bails and Eddy hits a plancha OVER THE RINGPOST. BRAINBUSTAAAAAAAAAHHHH! Eddy is feelin’ froggy but Benoit cuts him off thus demonstrating how little they’re selling this week. Superplex gets 2. Benoit pops the crowd with a SWANK powerbomb for 2. This isn’t the match they had a few Nitro’s back where everything was perfect. This is off the pace compared to that. Eddy is getting flash roll ups while Benoit goes with suplexes. But their transitions are less entertaining and the selling inconsistent. They brawl over the ropes, which gets the crowd going and Eddy counters back inside with a crossbody but Benoit gets his foot on the rope and the REF MISSES IT. Eddy gets the pin. ***1/4. Not quite the same quality of match as last time but they pack these matches with action.

BACKSTAGE Sting rants about Flair using all the little kids. That’s a little weird. We come back from the ad break and Bischoff announces Flair Vs Sting as tonight’s main event to nobodies surprise. Also unsurprising: Heenan is drinking sake.

Ric Flair v Sting

Sting brings the emotion and jumps Flair as he’s getting into the ring. Press slam. Flair begs off. “NOOOOOO”. There’s a nice bit with Flair’s corner bump where Sting knows he’ll try and run the apron afterwards and he’s right there waiting with the clothesline. Sting no sells the chops. And a suplex on the floor. He finally stays down for a Stinger Splash into the rail with Flair slipping out at the last second. Flair takes over from there with cheating and the Figure Four is on! Flair uses the ropes until Sting drags him away and turns it over. Mongo has never seen that happen before so he’s never seen a Flair match as it happens in every single one of them. Sting no sells everything after that so Flair thumbs the eye. You can’t get muscular eyes, Conscience. Ref stops a chair shot as Bischoff plugs the next segment. They break out the old power pinfall reversal. Flair goes up top and is thrown off. This is all very familiar. Flair sneaks in a knucks shot but Sting kicks out of that too. Perhaps because Flair takes ages to pin. Sting stops selling again. Press slam. Superplex. Scorpion Deathlock. Flair quits and Sting gets a surprisingly quick revenge win. ***. I’ve seen this a few times. Not this particular match but the general Flair-Sting stuff. This is the second time they’ve done it on Nitro already and the show is only 3 months old.

POST MATCH Eddy & JL come out to try and talk Sting into breaking the hold. It doesn’t work so another half dozen babyfaces join in. SCORPION DEATHLOCK II. Lex Luger comes out here and talks Sting down. Heel Luger is still friends with Face Sting? OH THE HUMANITY. Won’t somebody think of the children?

PROMO TIME – Giant, Taskmaster and Jimmy Hart are out in the ring. Jimmy makes fun of Hogan’s movies going straight to video. He says he had power of attorney so he waived the DQ rule at Halloween Havoc. Okerlund brings an attorney in who says Giant isn’t world champion. Nick Bockwinkel apparently didn’t like the way Hogan was disqualified (which is bullshit, he should have just read the contract, the lazy bald fuck). So the title is vacant and the winner of World War III gets the belt.

The 411 – 7.5

Two good matches and the title picture straightened out? That’s a fine show in my book. Shame about the weird Hogan bit.

November 13th 1995.

Hosts are Eric Bischoff, Mongo & Bobby Heenan. They plug World War III and the ‘new’ WCW champion will be crowned at that event.

BACKSTAGE Hulk Hogan in a ridiculous black mask tries to match the stupidity of the King Curtis promos AND DOES SO! I can’t even begin to describe Hogan here. A Zorro mask, a hood, A SWORD? What was he thinking? He questions the motivation of all the other babyfaces (which is funny considering his 1996 heel turn). He says he trusts Savage, who ironically won the title at WW3, and says he wants Sting because he thinks he’s in the Dungeon of Doom. Awful promo. Go back to your shitty movie.

Meng w/Kevin Sullivan v Randy Savage

Savage sneaks in through the crowd to avoid a 2 on 1. Sullivan tries to interfere but Savage shoves him off the top. That leads to Savage getting picked off by Meng though and we enter the standard Savage ’95 match where he gets beaten up for ages. Mongo stops off to talk about football, which is marginally worse than talking about Hogan. Meng continues to pound away while Savage just takes it. Jimmy Hart runs out here with the megaphone so Savage runs Meng into him. Elbow Drop finishes. ½*. Nothing doing. Savage has run this exact same match against every heavy he’s faced in WCW. Heat for the entire match followed by two moves for the win.

POST MATCH The Dungeon of Doom pull a gang beat down on Savage. Luger is particularly vicious; aiming for Savage’s arm.

Kensuke Sasaki v Chris Benoit

Or “Kensuki” as WCW spell his name. Sasaki meets Benoit’s energy with power. They’re still talking about football. Even Heenan. Sasaki brings stuff like snap suplexes and powerslams. The chemistry isn’t there like Benoit had with Japanese cruisers. They don’t get some of the more complicated stuff and Sasaki saves one counter by powering up. Benoit breaks out the ROLLING GERMANS into the Dragon Suplex for the win. *3/4. Short and awkward but had real potential. Bischoff decides, post match, to remind us that Benoit joined the Horsemen this week.

TV title: Johnny B. Badd (c) v Eddy Guerrero

Under TV title rules this has a 10 minute time limit. Unfortunately Badd is embroiled in that feud with DDP so there’s no chance of a belt switch. By 1995 Badd was quick enough to hang with Eddy even if Guerrero controls the pace of the match. Eddy does a nice jump over a single leg so Badd switches to the snapmare. NICE! Eddy’s lack of aggression as a babyface has never been more apparent but it’s a pretty contest. Badd tries flying, which brings out the luchadore in Guerrero. Eddy goes for the superplex, countered into a diving sunset flip into a near falls sequence. Badd hanging again. Guerrero flies outside and Badd follows over the top after showboating to the crowd. They try another roll up sequence but Badd can’t do it. Eddy switches and just does something else. This is where having a ring general in there makes a massive difference. Badd screwed up but Eddy wouldn’t let it effect his confidence. Badd gets sick of being out-wrestled and clocks Eddy with his TUTTI FRUTTI left hand. Eddy takes him down for it and we get a BRAWL as this goes up a notch. When its over Eddy has taken over and the slingshot hilo gets 2. Badd counters the Tombstone into one of his own…for 2. This has gone to pieces, sadly. I think they had a solid plan up until the brawl and the time limit wasn’t as close as they were planning, I suspect. Badd looks gassed so they run a double down. Before anything else can happen the time limit expires. ***1/4. Great match to begin with but it went to shit after the brawl upped the ante after about 8 minutes. The extensive planning helped Badd keep up. He looked good against one of WCW’s best in-ring guys.

POST MATCH They brawl a bit more before Eddy shakes hands. Bischoff says Hogan will be here next week and he wants…STING? Ok.

PROMO TIME – The Giant, Kevin Sullivan & Jimmy Hart are out here. Now minus the WCW title. Hart & Sullivan ramble about collusion and Taskmaster says Giant is a shoe-in to win World War III. Giant promises to end Hulkamania forever…much like everyone else he ever wrestled.

Sting v Dean Malenko

Sidenote: I’m pretty sure someone billed this as a US title match but Sting doesn’t bring the belt with him and indeed lost it to Sasaki in Japan before this show.

Malenko avoids Sting’s more obvious offence and just grabs him with holds instead. Mongo derides Malenko’s chances because he’s too small. Get this jackass off commentary, please. Malenko aims to take Sting’s leg apart while Mongo calls half the wrestlers in this promotion crybabies. Seriously, he’s just lost it tonight. Malenko just destroys that knee but he doesn’t make it an entertaining process. Malenko avoids another power move and hits a PERFECT German suplex for 2. Superb bridge on that. Malenko avoids the Stinger Splash, because he’s faster, and hits a Missile Dropkick. In the end it’s a defensive move that wins it for Sting as he sees the Cloverleaf coming and rolls Malenko up out of it. ***. Made Malenko look credible in defeat. Sting looked lucky going over. Sadly WCW never pushed Malenko hard outside of the cruiser division, which is a pity because he was a phenomenal technician.

POST MATCH Sting is still in the ring and wants an interview. He mentions Hogan and says he doesn’t like what Hogan’s been saying about him and he’s looking forward to them wrestling next week. Okerlund calls him a rat so Sting says they’ll square this in the ring next week. Bischoff runs down the facts saying that Sting’s behaviour is suspicious. Were they setting Sting up for a heel turn? That’s what it feels like. Kinda weird they glossed over his whole thing with Flair and Hogan’s thing with the Giant to get to this.

The 411 – 6.5

It was a decent wrestling show with Eddy & Malenko bringing the goods with different opponents but the focus on Hogan & Pals is the show. Until they sort that out and get someone fresh in that main event scene its just going to stink up show after show. After WW3 at least we get Flair-Savage for the belt.

November 20th 1995.

Hosts are Bischoff, Mongo & Bobby Heenan. They’re plugging Hogan-Sting, which is tonight’s mega main event. Bischoff says this is the Superbowl of wrestling and will probably be the greatest show of all time. No pressure then.

Scott “Flash” Norton v Shark

This is a re-match of a match no one gave a fuck about. Bischoff explains the “Flash” nickname coming from his speedy arm-wrestling skills. Shark brings the better wrestling with Norton just punching. Bischoff says you should call the Hotline because he’s fired some people today. Norton hits a powerslam to win. ½*. I was actually rooting for Shark after an early belly to belly overhead suplex. That was the start and end of the wrestling.

PROMO TIME – Kevin Sullivan & Jimmy Hart. No Giant. Hart says Sting can win tonight because Hogan has no Jimmy Hart and no Hulkamania. Jimmy Hart says Hogan has abandoned Sting for Randy Savage. Sullivan plugs the PPV. Okerlund calls them both garbage and throws it back to Bischoff who stirs it up between WCW’s babyfaces saying they all want the same thing; the title, and they’re all challenging for it at World War III.

POST PROMO Disco Inferno comes out to dance. Eddy Guerrero shows up to stop him shilling his entrance music CD.

Eddy Guerrero v Brian Pillman

Guerrero is supposed to be wrestling Flair but he’s allowing Pillman to substitute for him because Eddy is beneath him. Pillman makes light of Eddy’s Mexican heritage. That gets him lucha moves and a slap to the face. They get a bit confused with Pillman calling a move and then standing there expecting it and I think Eddy must of misheard. Eddy trades on strikes so Pillman jabs him in the eye before bringing the abuse/spitting. Eddy does the double leg into pounding, which he did last time. Pillman suplexes Eddy out of the ring but misses a follow up into the rail. CRUNCH. Eddy with the PLANCHA OVER THE BUCKLES! Pillman begs off but that gets him the BRAINBUSTAAAA. Eddy is too slow going froggy and Pillman crotches him up top. Eddy shoves Pillman off top though and hits the FROGSPLASH for the win. **3/4. Didn’t quite click with a few awkward spots. Eddy took over with the high flying but Pillman couldn’t match him like he did with Liger. I assume he was suffering from issues outside the ring by this point. Injuries and such.

POST MATCH Bischoff rabbits about Savage’s arm injury and how it’ll prevent him winning World War III. *hint, hint*. Just to show how serious it is they replay the Dungeon of Doom going after it.

Big Bubba v Roadwarrior Hawk

Heenan picks the Giant to win WW3 and Bischoff hints at someone leaving the WWF to win it. Suuuuuuure. Bubba doesn’t look motivated. Something is in his pocket and every time he takes a bump it nearly falls out so he has to shove it back in. He finally gives up, pulls it out, and uses it to punch Hawk. Predictably he doesn’t sell it so Bubba breaks out a spinebuster for 2. Bubba tries his slide under the ropes punch but Hawk blocks it. Bubba tapes plunder to his hand but Hacksaw Jim Duggan trips him up and he falls on his own weapon (hur, hur) allowing Hawk to get the pin. ¼*.

Sting v Hulk Hogan

Crowd boo Hogan’s music. Savage comes out to waste time and allow Hogan the ETERNITY he requires to climb over the guardrail and “sneak” into the ring. He’s wearing a stupid mask, which gets him booed some more. So he takes it off. BOOOOO! “Hogan sucks”. Another crowd that don’t much like Hulk Hogan. It ain’t the 80s and this ain’t New York. Hogan clubbers away until Sting comes about a foot away from hitting a dropkick and Hogan bumps over the ropes. Hogan busts out a suplex on the floor (BOOOOOOOOOOOOO!). Hogan fucks up a clothesline. Seriously. Whether Sting was supposed to duck that is open for debate. He kinda slapped him in the hair with his bicep. Hogan does that one bit of wrestling he knows. Thankfully no one calls him a technical wrestler. If this was a test to see if Hogan would get negative responses wrestling babyfaces, for his heel turn, this would be an affirmative answer. Crowd HATE him. He’s not even doing anything. Armbar for a bit. Headlock for a bit. Heenan thinks it’ll take “14-20 days” to recover from a match of this magnitude. They’ve recovered from it already and it hasn’t finished yet. Neither guy has done anything. Hogan counters the Stinger Splash into a bearhug. Hogan starts popping off every suplex he knows. That doesn’t take long. Crowd pop the shit out of the Scorpion Deathlock. Hogan powers out. BOOOOOOOO! He’s Hulking up. BOOOOOOOOOOOO! Crowd are NOT Hulkamaniacs. They pop his comeback punches and the big boot but then boo him while he’s posing and pop when Sting dodges the legdrop. SCORPION DEATHLOCK! Hogan has a hurt leg. “Help me, Macho, help me”. Dungeon of Doom runs in for the DQ thus saving Hogan the ignominy of tapping out. *. Incredibly bad match. At least Hogan realised he was the heel by the end.

POST MATCH the Giant runs in to goozle both guys but Savage chair shots him. Giant no sells it and chokeslams Savage instead. Giant gets double teamed out of the ring and has to be subdued by the Dungeon. Bischoff stops off to plug World War III and we’re out.

The 411 – 5.0

Not even Eddy-Pillman and “the greatest match ever” (mk II) could save this show. Its depressing and overly Hogan-y. Luckily he’s off to shoot movies again so hopefully the shows can improve in his absence and the soon to occur Flair-Savage feud.

WORLD WAR III ’95. I’ve never actually seen this show. I thought I had but I can’t find the review of it anywhere. Basically Savage won the title in the 60 man, 3-ring disaster of a main event. Hogan complained about it, as he always does, and (much like the last Nitro) the crowd boo him for it. On the upside: Sting/Flair was Sting/Flair and Badd/DDP was a hot opener. At least according to reports. I haven’t seen it. Its generally not held in high regard so I’ve never felt the urge to track it down. So we move on to…

November 27th 1995.

We’re in Salem, Virginia. Hosts are Bischoff, Mongo & Bobby Heenan. Bischoff says there’s animosity between Savage & Hogan. Sting & Luger are tagging tonight. Bischoff throws to footage of Hogan promoing last night. He abandoned the black gear and went back to red & yellow. I like Sting saying the “black is gone for good”. Sure, until he turns on you in 6 months.

TV title – Johnny B. Badd (c) w/Kim Page v DDP

Badd won Kim’s “services” last night but the angle didn’t work for Johnny and when he complained about it Bischoff fired him. He went to the WWF, became “Wildman” Marc Mero, the IC champion until eventually Sable (his actual wife) became more famous than him. WCW’s solution to losing him was replacing him in the angle with Ed Leslie under his new guise; “The Booty Man”. WWF 1 WCW 0. DDP brings flowers for Kim but then sucker punches Badd. Thus causing conflict within Kim. Now she’s less sure of how scummy Page is. Then she finds a chain in the flowers, which DDP was going to use later. In case you noticed the storyline isn’t in the ring. Which is a pity. But the camera is on Kim the whole time so there’s an upside. Kim throws the chain in but Badd grabs it and KO’s DDP for the win. Kim’s reaction suggests she helped Badd on purpose but she looks conflicted. **. Match was actually decent but the fans could hardly see anything past Kim being the focus.

PROMO TIME Scheme Gene has Sullivan & Hart again. Sullivan tells Jimmy he isn’t that smart because Luger is running around with Sting. Luger got talked out of injuring Savage by Sting and now Savage is the world champ. Trouble in paradise. Jimmy says Luger & Sting are friends so it’ll take time to break that apart. Hart says they’ve got a plan so chill the fuck out. Ok, I’m paraphrasing there.

Cutie Suzuki/Mayumi Ozaki v Bull Nakano/Akira Hokuto w/Sonny Onoo

Hello! Who ordered this awesome match? Naturally Nakano & Hokuto heel it up. Ozaki gets FUCKED UP. Nakano’s hairmares are super-intense. Cutie pops the crowd with a bridging dragon suplex. Nakano then gets a massive pop for a missed butt splash off the top. Both faces go up for double stomps on Nakano…for 2. “The Oriental Heimlich” – Heenan. Hokuto manages to splash both faces then jacks Ozaki up for a powerbomb for 2. She POWERED her up. Fantastic. Cutie looks like she’s wearing lingerie. Hokuto with a Northern Lights and the commentators are LOST. Someone call Mike Tenay, stat! Why didn’t WCW just do a women’s division? These four plus Madusa. SOLD. Hokuto demonstrates how great the Northern Lights Bomb looks when you invented it. Cutie is dead. Pin is academic. ***. Ozaki was a weak link but this was still all sorts of awesome. The only bad thing is they didn’t bring these girls back so this was for naught.

Hugh Morrus v Hulk Hogan

Poor Bill DeMott. He was saddled with this gimmick where he was a crazy guy who laughed a lot. So they put him in the Dungeon of Doom. At least he gets to job to Hogan right? That’s a bonus. Hogan treats him like a jobber (which he is). Morrus gets in the bit of offence before Hogan no sells the moonsault. Mainly because Morrus totally missed it. I can assure you he’d have no sold it regardless. Hulking up. Finger wag. Few punches. Big boot. Legdrop. Goodnight. DUD.

PROMO TIME – Okerlund brings out WCW champ Randy Savage. He promises a reign of terror. “Snap into the Macho Mania!” Gene mentions the controversy. This brings out Hulk Hogan. He reminds us he wasn’t thrown over the top rope and his name-plate is still on the WCW title. “I’ve been meanin’ ta change that” – Macho. Hogan shows footage from last night but the equipment “malfunctions”. This brings out Giant who CHOKESLAMS SAVAGE ON THE FLOOR! Giant plans on taking Hogan apart but Sting saves. Hogan goes crazy with a chair but Sting stops that too. Hogan is too busy complaining to check on Savage who’s not moved yet. We cut to Bischoff who tries again to stir up shit with Sting. What an a-hole.

Arn Anderson/Brian Pillman v Sting/Lex Luger

Luger is late turning up but not as late as his entrance music, which doesn’t kick in until he’s almost at the ring. Horsemen heel it up and isolate Sting. That barely lasts with Luger sneaking in a blindside knee. The face/heel team take over from there. DEATHLOCK for Arn and Pillman jumps up top only for Luger to push him off and he LANDS ON STING. That was a little suspicious. Now Sting has a bad leg and I like what they’re doing here. Avoiding formula until Luger does something suspect. Pillman provokes Luger out of position so he misses the hot tag. Thing is; all this looks like it could be coincidence still. Sting gets a fluke rollup on Pillman for the win just as Flair runs out here to attack Luger. **1/2. Interesting concept with Luger looking like he was going to turn on Sting only for the Horsemen to out-sneak him for the win.

POST MATCH its 3 on 2 until Hogan runs in for the save. He threatens to punch Luger but Sting stops him because they just tagged together. Everyone is confused as to where their loyalties lie.

Luger hates Hogan. Sting & Luger are friends. Sting and Hogan are friends. But now Hogan is still suspicious of Sting. Again. Even though its Luger who was right all along as Hogan was evil.

The 411 – 6.5

Decent show. The Japanese ladies tag was cool and despite all the Hogan the matches around him were good. I can’t wait for him to just fuck off back to the film set.

The 411: I’m torn because its four shows that practically centre on Hulk Hogan even though he’s just lost the title. But everything outside of Hogan is actually quite enjoyable. Once again, he’s off soon to make a movie so hopefully the shows will improve.
Final Score:  6.5   [ Average ]