wrestling / TV Reports

The Monday Night War Review: Episode Nine- ‘Flight of the Cruiserweights’

October 15, 2014 | Posted by Robert Leighty Jr.
Monday Night War WWE WCW Raw Nitro

The Monday Night War Review: Episode Nine- ‘Flight of the Cruiserweights’

-After a week off due to the SmackDown anniversary this show returns and finally we have a WCW centered episode. The first one since Episode 2 was focused on the n.W.o.

-The big news with the Network is that we now get some commercials to help pay the bills, and really not that big of a deal to me. In this case I get a brief commercial just before the start of this show and that is all. For $9.99 a month I have no issue with this.

-You know the drill by now: Kick ass opening to start!

-Since the start of Sports Entertainment large ass men were always the typical thing you would see. The WWF was seen as the standard and Vince built his company on the backs of guys like Hulk Hogan and the Ultimate Warrior. Road Dogg mentions it was known as the Land of the Giants.

-Over in WCW they were behind the WWF despite the fact they were apparently trying to copy the WWF with large wrestlers (showing Vader and then Hogan). Wait, what? So now WCW was stealing the idea of having big, muscular guys do battle as well. I honestly have no idea how the people who put this show together can sleep at night with all this spin (on a large pile of money I guess). Anyway, WCW decided to move in a slightly different direction and started bringing in different styles of wrestling from around the world.

-Bischoff broke from tradition and started to bring in guys from around the world and also stole talent from ECW (beating a dead horse with that one already). These new younger, smaller, and more athletic guys were what formed WCW’s cruiserweight division. Malenko pops up and gives credit to Bischoff for having a vision and wanting to give a worldwide audience something new and fresh. Woo, Norman Smiley pops up as a talking head and I guarantee the Big Wiggle would get over huge with the RAW crowd even today.

-Back to the WWF where they had a family product with a roster fans were used to, so WCW gave the fans something different. Daniel Bryan mentions he watched WCW exclusively because of the cruiserweight division. Natalya talks about how guys like Dean and Eddie made WCW stand out from the WWF. Stu Saks, from PWI, puts over the same idea already discussed that it made WCW different.

-Nitro launched in September of 1995 and the first match in the history of the show was Liger vs. Pillman. It was a brilliant move as it showed how different WCW was compared to what you saw on RAW with their giants plodding around the ring. Kidman talks about how even if you didn’t know the guys in the cruiserweight division it would only took a match or two for you to get behind what they were doing.

-Jamie Noble talks about how it was a perfect blend where guys like Flair and Hogan would headline and draw the fans, while the guys on the undercard would steal the show and give the fans their money’s worth.

-Heading into the spring of 1996 the ratings battle kept going back and forth. It was around that time WCW brought back the old lightweight title and called it the Cruiserweight Title. The talking heads then talk about how being labeled a cruiserweight seemingly locked you in a position where you could go no higher. Flair says Malenko is one of the best in the ring you will ever find, but he had no shot at the World Title because he was pegged a CW.

-Arn says that the division was a big part of WCW’s success because the WWF had nothing that could touch them. On June 10th RAW won the last ratings battle for nearly 2 years. A few days later WCW put on The Great American Bash and the n.W.o angle was the hottest thing going after Nash powerbombed Bischoff through a table. On that same show though Rey Mysterio made his debut against Dean Malenko.

-Arn again brings the awesome as he says that when he first saw Rey he thought he was a baby duck and thought someone brought their kid to the show. Bryan calls the match with Dean his favorite match from 1996. Arn again as he says he couldn’t even think of the things they were doing let alone trying to pull off the moves. We get stock footage from 2003 of Bischoff talking about how Rey far exceeded his expectations of what he could do in the ring. Rey mentions that he didn’t know it was going to be a PPV match and thought it was just a house show shot. Nice!

-The n.W.o angle was taking off and helping WCW dominate RAW in the ratings. Nitro also moved to a 2 hour show and thus needed more talent to fill the time. Now we get talk of guys like Jericho, and Kidman. All the talking heads discuss how they loved the division and the matches the group delivered on a weekly basis. La Parka and Psychosis get their few seconds on fame here, and Goldberg mentions that the CW division put on the matches he would always sit back and watch.

-We jump ahead to Halloween Havoc 1997 and the ***** show stealing match between Eddie and Rey. Easily one of the greatest matches you will ever see and everyone fawns over the shit they pulled off in the match. The back flip off the top rope into the DDT is discussed and Bryan mentions how it made his jaw drop. Punk talks about how they tore down the house, and both Eddie and Rey call it a perfect match. No kidding!

-Bryan talks about how the combination of the n.W.o and the CW division were the perfect balance for fans who wanted a little bit of everything. Cody talks about how the guys knew Hogan and the n.W.o were getting eyes on the company so they were going to do all they could to steal the show. Jericho says second to the n.W.o the CW division was the reason Nitro was beating RAW.

-We actually get WWE guys saying the company wasn’t giving fans the kind of in ring action WCW was with their undercard. The WWF then launched their own light heavyweight division, and it was kind of ass. Punk calls the attempt laughable as outside Taka they didn’t have anyone. Lawler talks about how the powers to be were still skeptical if smaller guys could draw crowds.

-That was just a small misstep for the WWF though because they had guys like Rock and Austin and didn’t need those pesky little guys. Now while the WWF was making positive steps, WCW was still on top and they launched a new show on Thursday called Thunder.

-Even with more TV time the CW division was still second fiddle in WCW (though it the WWF it was barely RAW dark match fodder). Now we get to bury WCW for having a glass ceiling on their younger, cruiserweight stars. They discuss how the Main Event guys were doing what they could to keep the CW guys in their place.

-Meanwhile on RAW the Attitude Era was bringing up the ratings and on April 18, 1998 RAW beat Nitro for the first time in nearly 2 years. Arn says there were people telling Eric to push the CW guys to a higher position, but instead Bischoff focused on the n.W.o and split the group into 2 rosters. Nash talks about how trying to recreate the magic of the n.W.o wasn’t going to happen and it only got watered down.

-The CW division started to rebel, and they focus on Eddie’s “shoot” promo where he bitched about Bischoff holding down the division. Vickie mentions there was a lot of bad blood, and Eddie (2003) talks about how he hated going to work because of the politics. Bryan talks about how the guys he liked never got to a higher position and it sucked because you were so invested in the guy, but he stayed in the same position. Yet, WWE made the same mistake with Bryan until the crowd hijacked the Rumble (I was there) and forced the WWE’s hand.

-The L.W.O is discussed and how it only added to the watered down aspect of the n.W.o. Jericho makes a good analogy as he says the n.W.o went from Black Sabbath to Spinal Tap.

-Kidman talks about how WCW would kill a guy’s momentum if the crowds cheered for him and the guys in charge didn’t want that to happen. Again: Bryan, Daniel. WCW did fuck up royally though when they unmasked Rey and killed off a revenue source that basically printed money.

-Fed up with the frustration, Chris Jericho was the first of the CW to jump ship. His debut was fantastic, but they do fail to mention that for the first few months the WWF did jack shit with Jericho before putting him in a feud with Chyna of all people over the IC Title.

-Russo talks about how the success of the shows had little do with wrestling (glad he finally admits that was his philosophy and would explain some of TNA ills) and more with the characters and storylines. He buries the CW division, and mentions that just having a good match didn’t mean jack shit as far as drawing money went. Why the hell am I not surprised he has that opinion? You can have best storyline in the world, but a shit match is still a shit match. You really need some combination off all things to suck in the fans and deliver.

-They do discuss how at times WCW didn’t have things planned out so they would toss out guys from CW division and have then do a 15-20 minute match to buy time to get other things planned for the night. I always heard that story and so what, it is better than sending someone out to talk for 20 minutes to kill time. I mean sure they should have planned better, but I will take 15 minutes of Dean vs. Psychosis or Juvie vs. Eddie.

-The Radicalz jump ship to RAW and yes, we do get Benoit’s name dropped and he is shown. I will mention this took place in Pittsburgh, PA, but I wasn’t there sadly. Speaking of the Radicalz, only 2 of the 4 were used better in the WWF then they were in WCW. Saturn and Dean weren’t given much of anything to do and while WCW would at least give them 15 minutes on PPV and TV, WWF gave them barely anything.

-In WCW they still had a piss load of TV time to fill and their roster was getting mighty thin. That leads to guys like The West Hollywood Blondes being put in the CW division. Eddie calls the CW division the backbone of WCW and when they lost that they were screwed (not if you ask Vince Russo).

-The end days of WCW saw the legacy of the CW division get pissed on with some stupid booking decisions (they show Mike Sanders winning the title thanks to interference from Nash). I am shocked they didn’t cover Madusa and Oklahoma holding the title.

-We then jump to the end of the Wars and they show Kidman and Helms on RAW doing rather well for themselves. They show Helms (as The Hurricane) pinning the Rock in what was a weird feud at the time, but damn if it wasn’t entertaining.

-In the end they do give credit to WCW for establishing the idea that smaller guys can carry a company. They WWE started to relent and we got guys like Eddie and Rey being World Champions and that opened doors for Punk and Bryan to win the WWE Title nearly a decade later. That pretty much ends this episode.

-A preview for next week shows that we finally get GOLDBERG!

Extra Thoughts: A fun episode as it broke away from the constant WWE love fest we were getting bombarded with on a weekly basis. It was nice to see them give Bischoff some credit, and then we got what we expected with then discussing how the division was buried. I will say again though that outside of Jericho, Eddie, and Rey none of the other guys got any higher than they were in WCW. In some cases they were better off putting on good to great 15-20 minute matches on PPV for Bischoff. I was also happy to see they shit all over WWF’s version of the CW division even if it was only briefly mentioned. Next week with Goldberg should be interesting and I am intrigued to hear what the current stars thought of him and what Nash has to say about the streak ending.