The Caliber Winfield Super Terrific Wrestling Hour – Monday Night Wars Memories: WCW

Well, here we are ladies & gentleman. The first real edition of the Caliber Winfield Super Terrific Wrestling Hour. For those who missed the pilot episode, check that out here. In that episode, I discussed about how I broke into the business, many moon ago. This here will be a continuation of that, as I talk about my favorite moments from WCW’s side of the Monday Night War.

Now, as to what future episodes will hold, I have no idea. This column has absolutely zero format. One episode could be me reflecting on my favorite WrestleMania’s, while the next one I talk about things that fans do at live events that annoy the crap out of me. The only consistent is that it’ll always be wrestling-related. If there’s anything you guys would like me to talk about, or review, or just want to send in some questions, hit me up @CaliberWinfield on IG, or [email protected], or facebook. Dig it.

For those too lazy to read the last episode to get caught up, here’s a quick recap of the ending…

I got into this business via WWE. I was a die-hard WWE supporter, and LOATHED any and all things WCW. It was a crap company with crap wrestlers. Over in the WWE, my two favorites, my heroes, were Big Daddy Cool, and Razor Ramon. When a friend called the Ross Report and heard they were going to WCW, I literally tore their pictures off my wall with tears in my 11 year old eyes. How could they betray me, and go to work for the enemy? A company I only wanted to see destroyed….

May 27th, 1996, WCW Monday Nitro. I’m sitting there watching, as Nitro use to air early, and then repeat. When all of a sudden…

I BLAZE into the living room to immediately change the channel and show my mom. There he was, Razor Ramon, on Nitro! And he wasn’t there to wrestle! HE WAS TAKING OVER! HE WAS THERE TO FIGHT WCW!

Keep in mind, back then I thought wrestling was 100% real. In the back of my mind I knew it wasn’t, but so much of me wanted to believe it, that I did. So this was as real as real got.

Two weeks later, I nearly pissed my pants as Kevin Nash showed up. My heroes, were here, at WCW, to DESTROY THEM! Vince must have sent them, that’s it! But who was the third man? Who else was Vince going to send? Psycho Sid? Shawn Michaels? I could barely stand my own excitement. Every Nitro, Hall & Nash were kicking WCW’s ass, and there were more to show up.

So there I sat in my bedroom, rocking ScrambleVision, waiting for the main event of Bash At The Beach. Finally, it happened. Hall & Nash were rocking WCW’s best, when Hulk Hogan came down, and I immediately jumped up and down in my room screaming “IT’S HULK! IT’S HULK!”. Even though I didn’t grow up during that era, I was a mark for Hogan, and so stoked that he was the 3rd man, as it was a perfect fit. I relished every Nitro, as what I now knew as The New World Order rampaged across WCW and swore they’d destroy the company that I hated more than anything.

The most exciting thing at that time for me as a fan was someone jumping ship to the nWo. I loved those reveals more than anything. So I geeked when DiBiase showed up, not so much for Meat Sauce, lost it for X-Pac, and loved when things would happen like Buff Bagwell turning on Scotty Riggs. You never knew what was gonna happen with the nWo, and I fucking loved it. Plus, I still thought shit was real as all get out. I thought the coolest group in the world was out to destroy WCW. My mom at one point was giving my shit and said “how are these guys getting paid?! Why wouldn’t they just hire security and throw them out?!” to which I replied “Mom, Trillionaire Ted is funding them! Plus, WCW’s ratings were crap, and now they’re great because of the nWo! They know they need them!”.

I loved everything about the nWo, and was about to be blessed with what I consider to be the greatest angle of all time, Sting vs The nWo. Now, as much as I loved my boys, man, nothing was cooler than the black & white version of Sting. The shit they did was so creative, and Sting was such an unstoppable force, at times taking out the entire nWo by himself, and you believed it! Plus, he had what was at that point considered the deadliest finish ever: The Scorpion Death Drop.

How WCW was able to masterfully play this out for as long as they did, and only manage to screw it up at the end amazes me. You didn’t get Sting every week, but when you did things became cooler and cooler. First, Sting would drop from the rafters. At one point in time he dropped down in order to clamp up DDP and split. Then one night, Sting came rifling down and crashed through the ring. The nWo all broke character as they rushed to help him from out of the ring, only to show everyone it was a dummy and have a giant laugh. Later that night, they did it again, and brought the dummy out to slap around, only then it was the real Sting, who beat the shit out of some members. That was pretty damn inventive. As was the army of Stings that once came out, only to be beaten down, until Buff took a swing on the real Stinger, who didn’t move an inch, and proceeded to clean house. Also, should I fail to mention, one of the biggest pops ever is Uncensored 1997, when after Team nWo won, Sting came down from the rafters and finally let it be known he was for WCW. The place lost their collective minds, it was fantastic.

Of course, as previously mentioned, WCW screwed this up come the end. Starrcade 1997 was the place. For months, JJ Dillion had to come out and act like the world’s biggest moron, offering Sting things like a contract to fight Vincent, or Curt Hennig. If I were Dillion, I would have demanded a bonus each time I had to go out there and ask Sting if he wanted to fight Ice Train or whomever. Finally he got it right, and Sting was to face Hogan at Starrcade 1997. Boy oh boy, was I fucking hyped. Pro-Wrestling Illustrated had a Tale of the Tape poster in one of their issues, and I had that sucker up on my wall, counting down the days. Then, I ordered the only WCW PPV in my history as a wrestling fan, and watched a pretty horrible show.

For the life of me, I’ll NEVER, EVER, understand what the fuck happened with that main event. I mean, Sting was literally taking on 10 guys at a once a few times, and doing it fairly easy. He was the most feared guy in the company, and seemed like he’d run over Hogan. Who, mean while, was a chicken shit heel, and NEVER won without outside interference. The whole match should have lasted like 30 seconds. Instead, Sting got his ass kicked, lost, had to have Bret Hart restart the match, and then won in boring fashion. Of course, because it’s WCW, the finish was fucked, and now it was unsure who was the true Heavyweight Champion. So, they had the rematch the next night on Nitro, and in my opinion it was a much better match. Oh, and I’d like to point out that there was a SHIT TON more fanfare made for Larry Zybysko defeating Bischoff and maintaing Nitro as WCW’s program, than Sting finally winning. God, that fucking company.

After all that, my love for the nWo started to fade a bit, until the Wolfpac came into the picture. They were a fresh update, and I’ve always thought the red & black looked cooler than the black & white. Plus, the Wolfpac had all the stars. It’s ridiculous the minute amount of star power that the black & white version held on to. Fast forward to January 4th, 1999, and I had two TV’s going that night. One in my room, the other in the living room, so I could literally run back & forth between Mankind vs The Rock for the WWE Championship, and Kevin Nash vs Hogan for the WCW Championship. I remember jumping up and down with joy as the nWo reunited. I know a lot of people talk shit about the Finger Poke, but 15 year old Caliber fucking LOVED IT. I was so stoked that the band was back together, especially since they were kicking the shit out of Goldberg, a wrestler I disliked from the very jump.

Of course, all of that soon faded away, as did my interest in WCW. It wasn’t until 2002 while sitting at home that I had a massive fanboygasm as Vince McMahon revealed he was bringing in the nWo. FINALLY. I was going to be able to relive the greatest group of all time, and capture every moment of it on VHS. I bought two tapes specifically, and labeled one ‘nWo Raw’ and the other ‘nWo Smackdown’. Because you see, children, back then, if you didn’t save something on VHS, you weren’t ever going to see it again, especially TV wrestling. There was no Network. No youtube. Nothing. So I use to curse myself for never saving any of the classic nWo stuff. As for their WWE run, I fucking loved it. I really wish they would have kept it going, because it still had a lot of momentum after Hogan left. Watch the episode of Smackdown after WrestleMania when X-Pac joins, they got some great heat on Hulk, and it made you interested in what would happen. Of course, that was not to be, and they were buried, along with my dreams.

To this day, the nWo is still my favorite group, and still my favorite angle of all time. I have such a deep, nostolgic love for that part of my life, and the nWo is at the absolute front of it. I could watch documentaries and shoots about that group forever and a day and never tire. 4 Life.

Alright, that wraps up this episode, my good people, tune in next week and I’ll talk about the other side of the Monday Night Wars, where myself and everybody else was in love with everything, and a certain wrestler’s merchandise had me protested at my school by Christians for being blasphemous. Dig it.

Random Wrestling Match Review To End The Show:

Shinsuke Nakamara vs Sami Zayn
Watching NXT is like watching a wrestling recap with the comment section attached come to life. Crowd is pretty split. The match is solid, but it isn’t anything amazing. There isn’t a lot of wrestling moves going on, so much as there is a lot of beat-downs, which I’m cool with. The match is very aggressive, and does a damn fine job of coming down to the wire. Shinsuke is a super interesting cat, and this is the first time I’ve ever seen him in action, I’m definitely gonna check out his NXT stuff now.
Shinsuke pins Sami after hitting him with the running knee at 20:07 | ****

Any questions, comments, drunk-ramblings, feel free to send them my way, I always dig hearing from you, the beautiful people.
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