British Optimism: WCW Thunder (08.01.98)

WCW Thunder January 8th 1998

Let’s see how many episodes of Thunder I can recap before 411mania throws me out.

Current Champions
WCW World Heavyweight Champion: Sting (‘Beat’ ‘Hollywood’ Hogan, Starrcade 1997)
WCW U.S. Unites States Champion: ‘Diamond’ Dallas Page (Beat Curt Hennig, Starcade 1997)
WCW World TV Champion: Booker T (Beat Disco Inferno, December 29th 1997, Monday Nitro)
WCW Cruiserweight Champion: Ultimo Dragon (Beat Eddy Guerrero, December 29th 1997, Monday Nitro)
WCW World Tag Team Champions: The Steiners (Beat The Outsiders October 13, 1997, Monday Nitro)

Prototype opening brings us the first ever Thunder, live from Daytona Beach (LET’S GO AWAY) from the same arena as Bash At The Beach 1996. Our hosts are Bobby Heenan, Tony Schiavone and Lee Marshall. They promise footage of the controversial Hogan/Sting matches (The ending to Starrcade and the match on Nitro that finished off-air). Also, the entire Bischoff/Zybysko match from Starrcade. That’ll get people to order the replay, no doubt. A whole bunch of other stuff is promised, but first here’s some recap clips.

January 5th Nitro clips show dissention in the New World Order, as Savage GETS IN A DIFFERENT LIMO TO HOGAN. Is this from TMZ or something? Also: all WCW wrestlers will be fined or suspended for interfering in matches from now on. J.J. Dillon suspends Nick Patrick. Luger small packages Savage for a clean win and Savage rages afterwards and does what any man would do after losing and clotheslines Bischoff (hard, too). More dissention clips and Hogan acting follows.

Chris Adams vs. Randy Savage (w/ Elizabeth)
We finally get some introductions and we catch our first glimpse of the Halloween Havoc-esque set design. It looks OK, but the later ‘Industrial Zone from the Crystal Maze’ set looked far more professional. Savage clotheslines Adams for 2, seconds after the bell. Snake eyes and choking follow. Gutwrench suplex and Savage stops the count at 2. Adams is abused outside by Macho. Savage then enters the ring on his knees and nods at the ref like a child as he admonishes him. Hah! Adams hurls Savage into the guard-rail and Luger flattens Macho Man with a chair…for the three count?

Winner: Chris Adams (!) *

Fast-paced considering it was Savage ‘98. This was actually the opposite of the WCW Savage formula, with Savage dominating for the whole match and then losing via one move.

J.J. Dillon appears afterwards, with his default pissed-off expression.

Voodoo Chille brings out Bischoff and Hogan sucking in his chest. Hogan is wonderfully OTT here: “As I was laying out on Daytona beach brother, every good looking girl in a bikini said “YES HOLLYWOOD” He says he’s still the world champion, but we’ll see the footage later on to decide for ourselves.

‘Iron’ Mike Tenay, who looks DEAD, interviews Dillon. He rules that due to the previous ruling regarding interference, Savage wins the previous match due to Luger’s chair-shot. Horse face comes out and cuts an Honest-to-God great promo, basically saying “Oh, NOW you’re fining people for interfering, after the nWo have been doing it for years?!Where were you guys at Starrcade when I got hit with a dog collar?” Great promos and Luger generally don’t go together, but this was definitely one of his best, as it made total sense and he had the WCW supporters in the crowd completely behind him. He says he’s going to be doing things how he wants to from now on. This is the type of foreshadowing that people ignore (or just didn’t watch) when referring to this period and simply sum it up with “Luger joined the Wolfpac because everybody else was”. It’s not Othello, but it at least makes sense compared some of the other nWo turns from this period (See: Sting). Dillon: “I don’t get any pleasure from this.” The last thing Dillon took pleasure from was a kidney stone.

Louie Spicolli vs. Rick Martel
Spicolli shirt has ‘The Real Innovator’ on it. Is that a throwback to his Tommy Dreamer feud? Spicolli absorbs a clotheslines to the outside, followed by dropkicks and armdrags. He makes a break for it, but Martel throws him back in. The Flock make their entrance via the crowd, currently composed of Raven, Saturn, Lodi, Hammer, Kidman and Sick Boy. Spicolli takes an atomic drop, back body drop and a spine buster into the Quebec Crab for the Martel win. We cut to old people in the crowd dancing to Martel’s music.

Winner: Rick Martel *

Energetic squash. The Flock did nothing though.

Nearly the whole segment from Starrcade ’97 of Hall announcing Nash is in the hospital is next. According to the Outsiders shoot interview, Hall was nearly crying when he told the crowd Nash was in hospital, which explains why his voice is breaking. Giant (Nash’s scheduled opponent) pounds on Hall, going for a powerbomb instead of a chokeslam as a nice “up yours” to Nash. The popular belief was that Nash deliberately no-showed either because he had no intention of jobbing to The Giant, or he had no desire to take the alleged Giant moonsault Wight had been practicing for weeks. Both rumours are unsubstantiated, but the second one I wish was true.

Tenzan vs. Ohara (w/ Sonny Oono)
Tenzan has his crazy mask and crazier mullet and Ohara is dressed like Raiden from Mortal Kombat. There’s probably a better term for that, but I don’t know it. Michiyoshi Ohara is the Japanese version of Ray Traylor, according to Tenay. nWo Japan spray-painted “dog”on his back, but he keeps it on to motivate him. That’s pretty cool. Stiff chops and slaps to start. Crowd is quiet. Feels like Japan already. Tenzan is tripped by Oono and Ohara utilises a Hart Attack clothesline and the Praying Powerbomb from WWF Wrestlemania 2000 for two. Tenzan regains the advantage and crowd reaction with a nasty Tenzan tombstone. Diving headbutt gets the win.

Winner: Tenzan *3/4

Good filler that definitely filled the ‘action you won’t see in WWF’ quota.

Clips of the Flair/Hart verbal battles. God they’re good in edited form. There’s audible boos from the crowd for Bret. It could have ended up worse though; it wasn’t Goldberg/Rock 2003.

Chris Jericho vs. Ric Flair
Jericho apologies for his temper tantrums lately and gives Dave Penzer a new jacket. No mic time for Naitch sadly. The commentators try a simultaneous WOOO and bicker afterwards about one another being off-key. After the break we get standard wrestling sequences from the two, eventually won by Jericho with a monkey flip. Crowd solidly behind Flair. Following a back drop, Flair fakes a knee injury and sucker-punches a concerned Jericho. Schiavone mentions Bret’s five world titles in WWF. Weird. Jericho counters the Flair flip but misses the lionsault. Flair informs Little Naitch that the tope turnbuckle is loose, so he can super low-blow Jericho. Jericho chops and back body drops Flair again. Flying elbow connects, but a top-rope dropkick misses and Flair locks in the Figure Four for the quick submission.

Winner: Ric Flair**

Solid wrestling, but Jericho shouldn’t have checked on Flair’s knee. Only naïve faces do that!

Tony calls Flair’s win “one of his biggest ever”. What?? Jericho has a tantrum afterwards and wrecks another Penzer jacket.

Meng (w/Jimmy Hart) vs. The Giant
Schiavone: “Ric Flair, Bobby Heenan and Bret Hart have signed to go one on one!” Heenan: “I haven’t signed on to go one on one with a soul!” The Giant no-sells Meng’s offence and slams him with ease. Hart is tossed onto Meng, but The Giant misses an avalanche. Giant Haystacks could have dodged that though. And he’s dead. Meng with his ‘martial-arts kicks’ that Giant decides to ignore and choke slams the poor sod for the win.

Winner: The Giant DUD

Squash. It’s not everyday you see Meng getting squashed though.

Steve ‘Mongo’ McMichael vs. Bill Goldberg
Goldberg still has his first name here, so it’s early into the streak. Mongo flies with all the grace of a fridge onto Goldberg as he enters the ring. Despite being thrown into the ring steps, Goldberg shrugs it off and delivers the gorilla-press -into-a powerslam. Rolling leglock by Goldberg is then shrugged off by Mongo, who pounces on the knee. Mongo with two of those silly rugby tackles that caused wrestlers to automatically flip when hit with. Goldberg ignores them and delivers the spear and after some issues with Mongo’s arm, eventually hits the jackhammer for the inevitable. Heenan on commentary remarks that Goldberg may be undefeated still, so it really is early.

Winner: Bill Goldberg 1/4*

Like a Goldberg match, but without the deafening reactions and piped-in chants.

WCW World Tag Team Championship: Marcus Bagwell and Konnan (w/ Vincent) vs The Steiners (w/Ted DeBiase)
Buff was still Marcus at this point? Scott is a dye-job and turn away from becoming ‘Big Poppa Pump’. Scott and Buff have a discussion regarding red meat before they go at it. Hip toss counters and stiff clotheslines lead to a butterfly suplex on Buff, who takes a breather. Scott was being pushed as a monster at this point, and no wonder. Rick is tagged in to massive woofs. He delivers that ‘place your opponent into a Canadian backbreaker position and plow them into the turnbuckle’ move that I don’t know the name of (and neither do the announce team, so I know at least as much as Lee Marshall). Konnan hits the rolling clothesline, which he could still do realistically at this point in time. Buff and Rick botch a neckbreaker, which is really horrible foreshadowing. Buff dives into a belly-to-belly suplex and Scott overhead belly-to-belly suplexes Konnan. Rick tells Scott to set up for the Steiner Bulldog, but Scott ignores him and top rope Frankensteiners Konnan on the other side of the ring for the pin as Rick stands on the top rope, looking confused.

Winner: The Steiners **1/4

Good in-ring action with a storyline that went somewhere and was used to push a guy who deserved it. No complaints at all!

Back from the break, Scott has been fined for putting his hands on the ref during that match. Did he? We’re getting the complete Bischoff/Zbyszko match now.

Eric Bischoff (w/ Scott Hall) vs. Larry Zbyszko (Special Referee: Bret Hart) (from WCW Starrcade 1997)
Loser becomes the scapegoat for the AWA’s death. Bischoff is shirtless and dressed to fight. Booming “Larry” chants. Bischoff stalls and Zbyszko complains. Is that an in-joke? Hall suggests using the Karate Kid crane pose. Zbyszko eventually slaps Bischoff and he counters with a kick but whilst he brags, Zbyszko unleashes the fury. Larry applies several holds on Bischoff and Bret stops all of them due to choking. Ah, they were still teasing that Bret had joined the nWo. Makes sense, given Hall and Nash entered the group because they left the WWF. Doesn’t make the match fun though, as the crowd is begging for Zbyszko to just kill Bischoff. Bischoff is thrown into the post and Bret admonishes Larry again. Bret holds Larry out of the corner, and Bischoff regains the advantage with a kick. He pounds on Larry in the corner for ages while Larry rope-a-dopes. Horrible suplex by Larry sets up a tree of woe, but Bret halts Zybysko again despite it being a perfectly legal move. Hall loads up Bischoff’s foot with something, and whatever it was goes absolutely flying out of the ring and into the cheap seats as Bischoff mega-kicks Larry. Bret even saw it fly past. Bischoff gloats to Bret about the huge contract they put together and Bret shows his appreciation by clotheslining Bischoff. Crowd goes apeshit as Bret applies the sharpshooter to Hall and Larry is declared the winner after he chokes Bischoff. There’s no pin and no submission.

Winner: Larry Zbyszko DUD

Well the match wasn’t fun and it took BRET FUCKING HART for accomplished wrestler Zbyszko to beat non-wrestler Bischoff. Why should I be happy for Zbyszko, he needed to cheat to win, making him as bad as the nWo. No wonder Goldberg got over, he didn’t take this kind of crap from anybody (well, not for a few months anyway).

Larry is interviewed by Tenay. Larryland, human chess, wrestled in front of the Emporers of Japan etc.

Clips of Ray Traylor being tagged by the nWo. None of the commentators say why they did it, so let’s assume they were bored.

Scott Hall vs. Ray Traylor
No mic time for Hall. Hall shoulder-thrusts, holds on, turns it into an overhead toss, still holds on and delivers the slaps of disrespect. Unexpectedly nice sequence there. Traylor does the ten-punch and uses boring offence on Hall. Clothesline, bear hug and so on. Maybe that’s why he was tagged, there’s only room for one Kevin Nash in the nWo. Hall strikes Traylor with his fake tag title belt for a two count. Clothesline in the corner, middle-rope bulldog gets two. Hall goes for a chair, but Larry stops and distracts Hall with his gaudy shirt allowing Traylor to Boss Man Slam and win!

Winner: Scott Hall 1/2*

Hall was game, Traylor wasn’t. It was only storyline fodder anyway. Can anyone remember why Hall had a fake Tag title with him?

WCW Cruiserweight Title: Juventud Guerrera vs Ultimo Dragon
Juvi (still masked at this point) defeated Psicosis on the Nitro prior to this for the shot. Quality exchanges in the opening, but Heenan is making a valid point about how the fines will affect people when everybody is being given them. This would be alright, but they’re still talking about Steiner’s fine and no fines have been administered for Hall’s belt shot or Onoo ‘s trip. So the nWo does what it wants and WCW gets punished for retaliating. No wonder Luger was pissed off. Back to the match as Juvi springboard kicks Dragon for two. Dragon with the genuine Martial Arts kicks. Handspring into the corner misses and the crowd chants boring. Really? Wow. Dragon with a top-rope moonsault to the outside, hurting his leg. Juvi gave Dragon no help with cushioning that at all. Standing switches back in the ring results in a brutal German suplex to Juvi. Dragon is working a lot stiffer now. Dragon dropkicks Juvi coming down off the top rope but Juvi counters a powerbomb into a DDT. Move that would eventually become the Juvi Driver sets up the 450 splash for the win and the title!

Winner and new WCW Cruiserweight Champion: Juventud Guerrera **1/4

Quality exchanges, but way too short for a title change. The announcers don’t sell the importance of the title change either, because this was just a title change for the sake of having one.

Bret Hart comes out, getting shocked by his own pyro. He gets booed for mentioning his five WWF World titles. Flair comes out and asks Hart to say his catchphrase. He does and Flair retorts “In twenty five years, some people have said some pretty stupid things to me, but that’s the damndest thing I’ve ever heard.” He goes Flair crazy talking about his achievements across the world whilst removing clothes as only Flair can do. Bret then claims “To be the man…I guess I’ll have to beat the man” and they nearly come to blows. Bret delivered his lines like a Tough Enough reject, but Flair saved it.

Scott Norton vs. Lex Luger
Norton dominates to start. I can’t recall seeing a single entertaining Norton match. Bagwell interferes to cut off Luger’s clothesline comeback. Luger kicks out of the Flashbreaker (and this is put over by the announcers more than Juvi’s title win!) and he Torture Racks Norton for the quick submission. Bagwell is Rack’d and tossed into Savage, leaving Luger looking manly in the ring, swinging chairs.

Winner: Lex Luger DUD

Quick squash with a side order of pointless interference.

We go to Starrcade ’97 AGAIN for clips of Hogan/Sting. You know, I can’t recall the WWF seeing fit to show three matches from Wrestlemania on SmackDown! Just saying…

WCW World Heavyweight Championship: Sting vs ‘Hollywood’ Hogan (From Starrcade 1997)
We cut to Hogan beating Sting outside the ring. We then cut to Hogan atomic dropping, big booting and leg-dropping Sting. Nick Patrick counts the (normal speed) pin and the confused crowd doesn’t know how to react. Bret Hart gets on the mic, says he isn’t going to take any more screwy decisions from referees and punches out Patrick (who claims it was a normal three count, WHICH IT WAS). The match is restarted and Sting unloads on Hogan to massive pops. Bagwell and Norton try to interfere, but Sting drops them. Another Stinger Splash, and Sting locks in the Scorpion Deathlock. Bret claims Hogan submits and Sting wins the title to a huge reaction and the rest of WCW comes to the ring to celebrate.

Winner and New World Heavyweight Champion: Sting 1/4*

Books have been written about how badly implemented this match (and PPV) was. Sting looked inferior to Hogan and he needed biased referee Bret Hart to win. As Kevin Sullivan put it “King Arthur became a legend by killing dragons, not lizards!”

The commentators talk about the rematch the following night, which ended in controversy (which would happen next year too) as Nitro ended without showing the whole match, so here’s the rest of it, complete with commentary over the PA system.

WCW World Heavyweight Championship: ‘Hollywood’ Hogan vs. Sting (From Monday Nitro, December 29th, 1997)
Hogan misses the leg drop and Sting hits the Stinger Splash. He goes for another but Randy Anderson gets flattened. The commentators are talking about Patrick’s ‘fast-count’ from Starrcade. Uh-huh. Scorpion Deathlock applied and Nick Patrick interferes. Sting stupidly goes to grab him, so Hogan schoolboys him for the (again, normal speed) three-count and apparently the World Title. Sting dropkicks Hogan for behind and clotheslines Patrick out of the ring. The bell has ringed but Sting doesn’t care. They now claim that Patrick wasn’t the official official, so Sting Deathlocks Hogan for the submission, as declared by Randy Anderson. Dillon comes out and tried to hand Sting the belt, but Bischoff weakly attacks him and takes the belt. Sting Death Drops him and everybody comes in to brawl. Team WCW knocks the nWo out of the ring.

Winner: Who the fuck knows? DUD

Barely a match.

Back on Thunder, Dillon is in the ring about to make the decision regarding that match. He calls Hogan and Sting into the ring as Nash pretends to blow his nose on Dillon. The champion is officially….no-one, as the title is now held up. Sting hurls the belt at Dillon and says his first words since turning Crow. “You…you’ve got no guts. And you (turning to Hogan)…you’re a dead man”. WCW deals with this momentous occasion by immediately cutting to adverts.

WCW U.S. Heavyweight Championship: Kevin Nash vs. ‘Diamond’ Dallas Page (w/ ‘Hollywood’ Hogan)
We are “by golly into over-time” as Nash poses with DDP’s belt. DDP is not wearing tape over his ribs but sells Nash’s offence as if he was. Spinning neckbreaker on ‘Big Sexy’ gets two and Nash goes on offence for a while. It’s Nash on offence; it wasn’t worth recapping in 1998 and it isn’t worth reading in 2010. DDP finally goes for the Diamond Cutter as Hogan interferes for the DQ .

Winner: DDP 1/2*

DDP wasn’t the guy to drag a watchable match out of Nash at this point.

The Giant waddles to the ring to brawl with Nash and WE’RE OUTTA TIME FOLKS

The 411: Good God was this excessive. At roughly three and a half hours, this was the Heaven’s Gate of wrestling shows. Plenty of entertainment (Flair, Jericho, cruiserweights, Steiners) but the whole show was built around Hogan/Sting, which had nothing but poor booking and even worse ring-action. The excitement and uniqueness that may have been there originally has all but vanished in 2010. But the crowd reactions, general excitement and -GASP- forward-thinking on this show all make Thunder worth watching. At least, this one is...

Final Score:  7.0   [ Good ]