wrestling / Columns
My Take On The Monday Night Wars 10.20.08: Raw vs. Nitro (8.25.97)
October 20, 2008 | Posted by
Introduction:
Welcome back to the latest edition of My Take On! With the addition of WWE 24/7 to my cable system, I have decided to have some fun and do some columns on “The Monday Night Wars.” I plan to work this similar to the “My Take on MMA” columns, where it isn’t a recap as much as it is an analysis piece. I will provide the ratings of the two shows, my breakdowns of each segment that aired and then give an overall final grade so to speak of the show. At the end I will give the winner a point for the ratings win and a point for the show I thought was the best. The goal is to run through as many of these as I can as they air. I think it will be a fun adventure to embark on. Sit back and relax, as I relive The Monday Night Wars!
 WWE RAW IS WAR (8.25.97)~!: RATING: 0.0
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 WCW MONDAY NITRO (8.25.97)~!: RATING: 5.0 Final Thoughts: They recap the fact that Sting will only return if he gets Hogan in the ring. The end of the Clash, which was the birthday party for the n.W.o, featured Sting appearing in the rafters, holding a vulture, as a child’s voice read a monologue describing the trials and tribulations of the battle Sting has been and would be fighting. The show closes with the vulture on the ring ropes after a lights out, and Bishoff and the n.W.o guys standing there with their dicks in their hands. Back to the live show and Bishoff runs down WCW and Sting, and says that the ship will sail without Sting. JJ Dillon joins us on the phone, and says the viewers are speaking, and they heard them. He promises to make the Hogan vs. Sting match if it is the only thing he does. Sting takes the time from his busy rafter dwelling schedule to come to the ring and place a Hogan shirt on Bishoff, kick him in the face and shove it down his throat. Sting smiles as the crowd loves it, and Larry Z is quick to point out that this is the first time that he has shown emotion in nearly one year. HUGE crowd pop, Bishoff throws a fit, and it all worked. They kept working towards the goal of the match and it was great at the time, which makes the knowledge of the outcome even more frustrating. Larry’s Enjoyment Index: 8.0 Final Thoughts: They gave this almost no time, maybe two minutes and Psichosis and La Parka won after a chair shot and pin reversal. Dragon would come out to try and stop Sonny Ono and his boys, but Silver King would appear and Ono and his evil luchadores would win the day. It was ok and led into the next segment, but nothing special. The loss hurt Glacier and Ernest Miller more than helped Ono’s boys. Larry’s Enjoyment Index: 5.0 Final Thoughts: Silver King takes advantage of a weakened Dragon, hitting superkicks, moonsaults, missile dropkicks and anything else he wants because he is SILVER FUCKING KING! They have a bad ass little match here, Dragon makes a great comeback and everything is clean, minus one slip late. Great stuff here, VIVA LUCHA~! Larry’s Enjoyment Index: 8.5 Final Thoughts: Hall, Savage and Liz hit the ramp and say everyone is here to see them and that everyone wants to BE them. Hall then says that DDP will be joining n.W.o. He helped them at the Clash, “accidentally” hitting the diamond cutter on Luger. DDP was blinded and bit the cutter on Luger. Liz was SO milf-tastic, sorry, had to be said. Savage promises to take out Luger, and make him feel the big elbow BROTHA. It was fine, the DDP tease no one bought and it felt more like wasting time, even if it did set up the main event. Larry’s Enjoyment Index: 5.0 Final Thoughts: DDP is OFFENDED that Mean gene would even say he was joining the n.W.o. DDP says he hit the right move on the wrong guy, and the people know that. He and Lex haven’t talked since the Clash, but if Luger wants to talk, he’ll be right here. It was a fine promo, not great or anything, but it worked the angle well enough. The crowd liked it, but just felt it lacked like the n.W.o promo did. Larry’s Enjoyment Index: 5.0 Final Thoughts: This is playing off of last week’s show as well as Saturday night when they first faced. Meng will eat your soul. This is just guys kicking the shit out of each other, not pretty or technical, but it worked rather well as commentary did a good job of playing up the feud and strengths of all the guys involved. Larry’s Enjoyment Index: 6.5 Final Thoughts: This is where Flair, Benoit and Mongo call out Hennig to be a part of the Horsemen and demands the answer that they had been waiting for, for two months. Hennig explains that he isn’t ready to give the answer, so Flair says someone wants to have a word with him, Arn Anderson. HUGE pop in SC for Double A. Arn puts over his career, and how he had to work hard, but that his left hand is too weak to hold a glass due to a surgery that went wrong. That is one thing that he cannot overcome to return. The sand was running out of the hourglass that represents his career, and he will not endanger the careers of the Horsemen. He would rather walk away right now, whether you loved or hated him, you knew that you got all he had. He has nothing left to give, and he wants us to remember him as he WAS, and not is. His last act is this, he isn’t offering a spot in the Horsemen to Hennig, but instead he is offering Hennig the only thing he has left…HIS SPOT. Hennig says that it would be a privilege. Flair and Benoit embrace Double A. Arn was ALWAYS a favorite of mine, and a great promo guy. The MY SPOT promo is tremendous, unfortunately the bastardized booking of the Horsemen would make it not mean as much as it could have. Larry’s Enjoyment Index: 10.0 Final Thoughts: You know there were times when McMichael was booked well and would be totally passable in a match, tags for example were a good use for him. There were even times that he was fine in singles, when in there with the right guy. Jarrett perhaps, Malenko as well. You would think that Eddy would have been one of those guys as well, but you’d be wrong. It is no fault of Eddy’s, but McMichael sells EVERYTHING either half assed or awkwardly, almost hurting himself and or Guerrero on a few occasions. A fucking atrocious match that made me hate wrestling, which is amazing because minutes before Arm showed me how to love again. And who thought that a TOMBSTONE would be a good finisher for a dude that couldn’t sell a used car. Fuck you Steve McMichael. Larry’s Enjoyment Index: 2.0 Final Thoughts: Rey updates us on his injury status. His knee is bad, real bad. He shouldn’t have wrestled Konnan, but he will go see Dr. James Andrews to find out what needs to be down. Konnan, who is in the n.W.o at this point tells Rey to buy a happy meal and go home. As he threatens to beat down Rey, the Giant breaks that up. Ant to thing, Show would strap him to a stretcher and try to kill him years later. How times change. Anyway, update on Rey is good and it showed unity between some of the WCW stars; but in the end it is totally forgettable. Larry’s Enjoyment Index: 5.0 Final Thoughts: Bishoff pisses me off by taking over commentary and doing nothing but BERRY Nagata and put over Hogan. He then discusses the War Games match, and while you always need to put over the main events and such, when you completely IGNORE a title match, you hurt it. Another reason that secondary titles are largely ignored these days. But despite all of that, these guys go out there and have a really fun match. It was a little sloppy at points, slightly off on a reversal or two, but really good overall. Jericho wins with the liontamer, and it was good times. Larry’s Enjoyment Index: 7.5 Final Thoughts: They are offended that they keep getting passed over for the tag title shot. They are SEVEN TIME tag team champions, and they challenge the Steiner Brothers to step aside so they can get the job done. Stevie says that they never had to go to Japan or “UP NORTH” to gain a reputation, and that brings out the Steiner’s and Dibiase and say that they don’t deserve a shot. And NOW Vicious and Delicious come out to say that they are the #1 contenders, and we get a BRAWL! A fine segment as far as making top contenders obvious, but the tag titles were basically held hostage by Nash and Hall because Bishoff felt they needed them as props. It worked for a while, constantly screwing the Steiner’s but in the end it hurt the overall division because Bishoff didn’t like tag team wrestling. But as far as the segment on this show, it was good and was effective. Larry’s Enjoyment Index: 6.0 Final Thoughts: Wright had defeated Ultimo Dragon for the TV Title a week after losing the Cruiserweight Title against Chris Jericho, who he had originally defeated for the title. Got all that? Every time I go back and watch a Malenko match, I am always reminded about how smooth a worker he was. The man could transition from hold to hold with ease, just gorgeous to watch really. Even when Wright obvious blows a reversal Dean makes it seem like nothing is wrong, a true credit to his abilities. As Malenko was about to win Jarrett and Eddy storm the ring and beat him down. This leads to a figure four/frog splash combo on Malenko, who is left laying. Wright helps lay in the boots because he had wanted to join the group, Debra told him to win gold and he did. Continuity, a solid match and string beat down. This worked, although Alex Wright annoys the hell out of me to this day. Larry’s Enjoyment Index: 7.0 Final Thoughts: Savage dominates for a while, Liz helps by distracting the ref at times which helps things out. Lots of brawling on the floor, Savage hits all the trademark stuff until Luger makes his comeback, which consists of 54 atomic drops and the loaded forearm. Hall and DDP get involved, he tries to help Luger and gets racked for his trouble as the show ends. One of those Nitro endings with no finish and a bunch of guys. The Luger/DDP stuff was interesting and played off of the Clash well enough, but that was about it. Larry’s Enjoyment Index: 6.0 Best Match/Segment: My Spot… 10.0 Worst Match/Segment:: United States Champion Steve McMichael pinned Eddy Guerrero 2.0 Final Thoughts: With Raw off of the air, WCW tried their best to deliver a loaded show. There were some good matches, lots of angle advancement with the n.W.o, the hope that Sting was coming back to save the fans and the awesome “MY SPOT” promo from Arn. Not a blow away show, but an easy to watch one outside of a few segments. Show Score: 7.5 |
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