The Furious Flashbacks – WCW Monday Nitro April 1996

The Furious Flashbacks – WCW Monday Nitro April 1996

Its (a) Giant Month in WCW!

Moving into April WCW had a problem. Hulk Hogan was about to head off and film a movie and wouldn’t be back until Bash at the Beach. We all know what happened there but in the meantime WCW had a hole to fill. They knew Scott Hall was coming in at the end of May. That was their big story. But in the interim they needed to do something so they decided to establish the Giant as a singles star minus the Dungeon of Doom that had helped him to his first world title. As far as ideas go its not a bad one. Giant was relatively untried as a main eventer (facing Hogan doesn’t count as going it alone) but had enormous potential. WCW’s problem was not being sure if Giant should be positioned as a face or a heel; something that has plagued his career ever since. He just seems to slip from one to the other depending on the opponent.

April 1st 1996.

We’re in Cleveland, Ohio. Hosts are Eric Bischoff, Mongo & Bobby Heenan. We start in the ring with Giant & Sting who were supposed to be tagging BUT they get into a fight and we get…

Sting v The Giant

Sting starts fast provoking Giant into a complete no sell mode that as a fully blown heel he’d not been able to do. This is the birth of Giant as a real beast. Going toe to toe with Sting and manhandling him. With Sting in serious trouble Lex Luger runs in to save him for the DQ. Not really a match but an interesting dynamic between these three wrestlers. Is Luger on the straight and narrow now? And what caused that? More importantly Sting needed saving against Giant, which helps to position him as one of the companies biggest stars.

POST MATCH Bischoff throws us to VT of pre-show where Jimmy Hart paid off Harlem Heat to not take the match with Sting & Giant. But why? WCW liked creating mysteries as they discovered how they drove episodic TV but they were less keen on solving those riddles on later shows. This is an early one but this kind of thing happened from time to time with little to no explanation.

Steiner Brothers v Nasty Boys v Roadwarriors

This is down to the Nasties getting jumped by one of these other two teams and they’ve demanded both to figure out whodunit. Both of the top teams (IE: not the Nasties) get in awesome early spots. Scott nails a dropkick then Animal lariats the other Nasty. After Scott starts popping off suplexes they even start working a proper 3-way match. Given that Scott is the only real wrestler in this thing we end up with a tonne of clubbering. When the fight spills out to the floor the LOD get major love from the crowd. The match doesn’t have much coherency and its more about having fun when it breaks down, which is often but not frequently enough to make it a wild brawl. Make it no DQ and no tags and we’d be cooking on gas. Rick & Knobs go up top and take a nasty spill to the floor. The madness continues with Public Enemy running out here to throw an already incapacitated Knobs back in for Scott to pin. Tag Wars! **1/4.

POST MATCH I was totally fooled by the angle on that finish (and typing instead of watching) as it was Johnny Grunge disguised as Knobs who took the fall. Clever finish but the second time tonight I’m left wondering why? Why would Public Enemy suddenly take offence at the Nasty Boys? I’m sure there’s a reason but its not clear.

Kevin Sullivan/Arn Anderson v Hulk Hogan/Booty Man

You can tell Hogan is busy because his token appearance is in the middle of the show and doesn’t involve any other major player. Woman & Liz are out here for the heels and Kim Page aka the Booty Babe for the faces. Arn gets to bump all Leslie’s goofy 80’s moves before selling how scared he is of Hogan. Heenan announces he’s leaving WCW tonight and starts making no sense at all. Errr. How drunk? Arn continues to take a bunch of bumps for Hogan with Sullivan miscuing with an elbow. The aim here being to set up a feud between the Horsemen & the Dungeon of Doom to keep all the heel groups occupied for the arrival of the nWo. Cunning strategy but if you don’t realise what’s about to happen it makes no sense. The difference in corner girls is that Woman will actually be effective and interfere. When she goes after Brother Bruti’s eyes Kim just looks on and talks to the camera. The announcers are busy talking about the Lethal Lottery (always a bad idea). Hogan gets a hot tag, to boo’s, and big boots both heels. The match is over but Hogan grabs Kim’s shoe and blasts Sullivan with it for the win. Sullivan had been attempting the same thing with Woman’s shoe. *. About the norm for Hogan when he wasn’t motivated by quality opponents. Double A was entertaining bumping. Unfortunately the majority of the match was based on Ed Leslie.

POST MATCH Hogan says Kim is on the top of her game and describes the finish as a “shoe-in”. I’m not sure what else he says because I just completely tune it out. Apologies to those expecting PBP.

WCW title – Ric Flair (c) v Lex Luger

Luger already has two titles. TRIPLE CHAMP? This is like going back to their late 80s matches where Luger is all power and Flair is all bumping. But unlike 1988 Luger isn’t the favourite. I’ve been enjoying Luger’s recent work because its fallen into a grey area between face & heel. Tonight he’s pure babyface, which is far less interesting. All power moves and posing. Flair gets beaten up so much he nearly walks away. Woman has to talk him back into the ring. Flair begs off then pokes Luger in the eye. Why is he so dumb as a face but so smart as a heel? And yet so aggressive as a face and so cowardly as a heel? This is why I like him as a tweener when he can be both. Strong and cunning, a far more intriguing combination. Flair’s offence is the same all the time. Mostly cheating before going after the knee. Figure Four follows shortly. Luger turns it over, which as all wrestling fans know reverses the pressure (ahem). If you ignore the lack of context this is quite entertaining. Lex works hard to try and make everyone forget his current angle and Flair can get over a straightforward story. But is it too straightforward? RACK! Woman runs in with a cup of coffee and throws that refreshing beverage into Luger’s eyes. Flair then rolls him up with the tights and his feet on the ropes to retain. ***. A classic face/heel match that shows Flair’s Match can work in pretty much any era. Shame they had to sacrifice Luger’s angle to put it on.

POST MATCH Heenan says his goodbyes to the other announcers…April Fools!

The 411 – 6.0

An improvement over the majority of shows from the previous two months. At least they had an entertaining main event even if it was something most WCW fans had seen many times beforehand. The Hogan based obsession with getting Ed Leslie over was starting to grind by this point. Thankfully he’d get lost in the mix once the serious angles of the summer starting kicking in.

April 15th 1996

You’ll have to bear with me on this show. I managed to do significant nerve damage to my thumb by sleeping on it. Typing is a bit of a chore. The doc thinks I’ll have full use back in a few days but I was jonesing for wrestling. So much so I watched the WWE Experience this morning. So it’ll be less verbose than usual and I’ll try and stick to the main points to streamline the review.

Hosts are Eric Bischoff, Mongo & Heenan.

Kevin Sullivan/Arn Anderson v Hulk Hogan

Leslie is injured and can’t team with Hogan. Its standard Hogan fare including a moment where Hogan totally fails to apply a Figure Four. Inept. Arn looks at him like he’s hopeless. He follows that up with some lousy chair shots. Kevin Sullivan looks horrified that he has to sell this shit. The heels bumble around like the Keystone Cops until Hogan gets bored and legdrops Sullivan for the pin. DUD. Horrible, horrible piece of shit.

POST MATCH Hogan throws Woman into the ring and threatens to assault her, which is despicable. He threatens to lay out Liz and the crowd looks uncomfortable with this. There are no cheers. He goes after Jimmy Hart instead, which is still typical bullying but at least Hogan isn’t beating up women. Then Giant comes out and kills him with a chokeslam, which is completely no sold. Giant then has to sell all Hogan’s bullshit to crush his progress. Okerlund tries for an interview but no one tells him the mic doesn’t work. Heenan rants about the hypocrisy of Hogan and his antics, all of which is true.

Sidenote: Stupid booking from WCW here with Hogan, who’s off TV after this for months, no selling Giant who’s being positioned as world champion in his absence. Its as if Hogan was worried that Giant might get too over or something. There are times when wrestling companies do dumb things in the name of preserving the status quo. This is one of them. Like Hogan goes over because he’s Hogan. If anyone else was taking 3 months off to shoot a movie he’d get “injured” or beaten by someone else. Set up that match down the line.

Public Enemy v The Nasty Boys

Falls count anywhere. After the relic opening match we get some mid-90s hardcore action to follow it. They work in some fun spots like the trash can over the head. It gets a bit repetitive as they don’t work enough variety in. Too much crap; not enough Rocco Rock spots. He breaks out a bulldog on a chair and the Arabian facebuster. If it wasn’t for him the match would be unwatchable because the rest of it isn’t vicious enough. And it drags. Chair shots can be great but you hit 20+ mediocre chair shots and its just as dull as a headlock that doesn’t go anywhere. GRUNGE comes off the top but misses and tables himself to allow Knobs to pin. *1/2. Disorganised, disjointed and missing useful spots and flow.

Earl Robert Eaton v Randy Savage

Another name WCW can’t spell; Jeeves. Here its spelt “Geaves”. He’s butling for Eaton. This could have been a brilliant match a decade earlier. Eaton doesn’t seem eager to take bumps and looks unusually awkward. Eaton busts out a Flair impression to fuck with Savage including pulling out a Horseman shirt while applying the Figure Four. Savage then goes to the finish out of nothing. Elbow. *3/4. Somewhat disappointing. Eaton looked out of sorts but had fun. Savage looked disconnected.

POST MATCH Savage shoves the ref over, which makes him “out of control” according to WCW and he’s handcuffed by security and removed. Bischoff, without missing a beat, goes to plug The Great White Hype; a boxing spoof starring Sam Jackson. Gotta pay the bills I guess.

Ric Flair/The Giant v Sting/Lex Luger

Flair tries it on with Debra McMichael on the way out. Luger nearly elbows Sting with his dramatic muscle pose. Sting & Flair have a decent match as they’ve done thousands of times before. Until Giant upsets Flair and he chops him. Then realises he’s fucked up and runs to the back. Woman talks them into reconciling but that will be short because Giant will be challenging for the strap soon. Luger plays face in peril, which is a marked contrast to his recent behaviour suggesting WCW want him to be a face with the nWo coming in. I’m guessing Nash & Hall agreed to sign by this point. Nash still hasn’t headlined his last WWF PPV yet though. Flair does his usual match with Luger too. Woman throws coffee at Luger, who ducks having already taken one, and Sting gets hit instead. Giant chokeslams everyone in the aftermath but the ref has already called for the DQ. **1/2. Decent Flair match twice over with Giant bringing his cameo game. Flair’s “cover” after the match is hilarious. He’s insane.

The 411 – 6.0

Not what you’d call a good Nitro because of how dismal the undercard was but the main event was quality TV. There is a very definite feeling that Hogan’s part of the show and Flair’s part of the show were no longer co-operating and everything else is on a fairly drab holding pattern until the big summer angles kick in.

April 22nd 1996.

Hosts are Eric Bischoff, Mongo & Bobby Heenan. Eric plugs the main event where Luger & Sting face Flair & Giant with everyone’s title on the line. Giant is the only guy with nothing to lose. Luger could potentially lose both his title belts.

Public Enemy v American Males

Bischoff points out WWF was taped and Goldust beats Savio Vega for the IC title and the show is a “double yawn”. It sounds dreadful. However he’s then throwing right to this piece of shit match. It’s a major clash of styles with the Males not capable of PE’s brawl so PE have to water down their approach to save it. It pains me to see Ted Petty having to bump all this mediocre Worldwide babyface offence. Bagwell gets especially on my nerves by stomping his foot loudly with every punch. Jesus, man, the action is supposed to be supported by the noise. All I can see is him stamping on the mat. I don’t even notice the punch. Wrestling is more subtle than that. Or it should be anyway. Naturally Petty controls the pace and adds the spots. Otherwise this would totally suck. To the Males credit they’re over and the crowd actually gets hot for the hot tag, which is odd. Old school crowd! PE throw Riggs over the top rope for the stupid DQ. *. Nothing much doing. Loathe the finish. Get rid of that rope DQ for crying out loud.

POST MATCH PE get wood. Riggs eats it. Eww. I wish I hadn’t worded those two fragments in such a fashion. We head over to Gene Okerlund who talks us through some horrible sounding matches for Slamboree. They went and did the Lethal Lottery again. Okerlund does a live draw where Flair teams with Savage against Double A and Eddy Guerrero.

Eddy Guerrero v Chris Benoit

They’ve done this before but they know it’s a good match so its on again. Benoit has marginally more personality this time around but he’s never going to beat Eddy on personality. Benoit works in some tidy cheating, which brings out the Latino Heat. His temper rather than the effect on the mamacitas. He gets re-focused and brings the lucha. Benoit retorts with strikes. It’s the violent chess I know and love. I miss Eddy so much. Eddy breaks out a suplex and Benoit naturally retorts with his own, a German, because that’s his thing. Benoit is trying to see how far he can bend the rules with a mixture of sly and deliberate cheating. Eddy tries some more lucha and Benoit blocks a rana using the ropes for the pin. ***. I wish this was longer but what we had was tidy and psychologically strong. Way short but still good shit.

POST MATCH Okerlund is back and he has VP Rob Garner from the “office” to try and smooth out the Flair/Savage situation. Garner ticks Savage off for his behaviour and warns of the “ramifications”. Savage tells him to go back to City Hall, which he then intends to blow up. Was that a threat of terrorism? Garner warns him to control his behaviour or seek professional help. SHOOT!

Meng v Jim Duggan

This is clubberin’ and lots of it. That is until Meng breaks out the NERVE HOLD. Good God this is boring. Duggan looks bored. Meng looks bored. Crowd looks bored. Meng takes it up a notch with….a nerve hold. Fuck me. Hacksaw goes for his 2×4, the ref barely grabs it and just to wrap up the most convoluted spot of the year Meng superkicks him and he lands (hah) with his foot on the ropes. Try three feet away from the ropes followed by extensive shuffling to get into position. Duggan loads up his fist and KNOCKS MENG OUT for the pin. Are you fucking kidding me? DUD. A quite spectacularly bad match on every level. I can’t say I’m a fan of either man but they REALLY stunk up the joint here.

POST MATCH Okerlund does some more draws. Nobody seems to care, which pretty much sums up why they shouldn’t have done the show in the first place.

All titles on the line: Ric Flair (c)/The Giant w/Jimmy Hart/Woman/Miss Elizabeth v Sting/Lex Luger (c)

Flair stops off to kiss Debra McMichael’s hand. Savage tries a run in before the bell but that gets him arrested. I smell Rob Garner’s evil scent on this! Damn him and his corporate be-suited ways. I feel like Giant should be booked strong here because they need him to fill that Hogan sized main event hole. Instead this match is more about Flair. How he still thinks he needs to be the man. He feels he needs to be the centre of all the action. Sure, he’s getting beaten up but its all Flair spots. They’re working his match. Whether they’re winning or not is irrelevant . Its all designed around him. To be fair to Flair I don’t think there’s anyone else in this match they could built a big match around. Although if Giant had Vader’s range of offence he and Sting could have a hell of a feud. Unlike Vader he doesn’t use his size in an aggressive manner. More passive aggressive. “Try and move me, I’m a Giant”. That sort of deal. Vader wouldn’t stand for that. He’d just punch your face in. So Flair does all his stuff instead. First with Sting then with Luger. Giant threatens to take over so Sting gets smart and takes his leg. Sting eventually gets Giant down, which leads to Flair begging off and then accidentally throwing coffee in the Giant’s eyes. Which is a DQ? Bell rang immediately. So much for the potential title switch. **3/4. Entertaining main event with Flair carrying the action and everyone playing their roles well.

POST MATCH Flair tries to apologise/beg off/run away. Giant gets the mic and demands the WCW title. Flair retorts and threatens to “kick your big ass”. Oops. Giant NOT happy about that turn of events. We throw to Bischoff who confirms that match for next week (or rather moments later as Nitro wasn’t live next week). Flair v Giant for the WCW title. Heenan pleads with Flair to weasel out of that match.

The 411- 6.5

A hit and miss week. When it worked the show was great. The main and Benoit/Eddy were solid match ups. But some of the other shit in between was hard to cope with. Meng-Duggan was incredibly bad and Okerlund’s spots dragged. Still a good main event can bring a show up and this was good enough to make me reflect fondly on this show.

April 29th 1996.

PROMO TIME we open with Naitch who yells at the camera informing us he’s not scared of the Giant and also the big man should avert his gaze from Flair’s ringside companions.

Hosts are Eric Bischoff, Mongo & Bobby Heenan. Easy E shills the NBA play-offs, which follow this show. The announcers all agree that Giant is a massive championship threat to Flair.

Tag titles – Sting/Lex Luger (c) v Harlem Heat

Funny thing; Booker T actually defended these tag titles in place of Luger when Flexy Lexy backed out of the Chicago street fight against LOD. Bischoff spends about 4 minutes at the start of the match plugging stuff. Mostly Slamboree but its just a massive shill with him trying to sell everything he can think of. Crowd are keen on this match until Stevie Ray starts boring them against Luger. That’s a matchup devoid of ideas with a tonne of clubberin’. Booker is a mixture of enthusiasm, which gets him into trouble and execution, which gets him out of it. You can see why WCW were keen on him but he’s not interesting enough to go singles at this point in his career. If anything WCW were guilty of not developing him outside the ring. Harlem Heat’s double teams work because of Booker’s ideas. Jimmy Hart tries to throw the towel in? Presumably to save Luger for a pinfall but Booker refuses it and Sting rolls him up for the pin. **1/2. I love that Luger doesn’t know how they won. Bischoff can’t get through the replay without plugging The Great White Hype, TWICE. Jesus, man. He then plugs the NBA and TNT.

Fire & Ice v The Steiner Brothers

Fire & Ice is Scott Norton and Ice Train. Two big muscular guys. Ice Train usually described as the untalented one. At least by throwing this team in there the Steiner’s get popped. Ice Train is has mobility that I don’t recall. I like that Norton thinks he can go head to head with Scott Steiner, which gets him suplexed on his head. Twice. Norton comes back with a press slam and this is a pretty awesome clash because its all power but the moves are not big men moves. Then Rick just finishes with a Steinerline out of nowhere to pin Ice Train. **. Short but action filled. Ice Train didn’t look out of his depth and Scotty v Norton looked surprisingly cool.

PROMO TIME Ric Flair is out here again. He tries to convince the crowd, and possibly himself, that he doesn’t sweat the Giant because he has Woman and Miss Elizabeth.

Parking Lot Brawl – Lord Steven Regal v Belfast Bruiser

I don’t get them using Finlay like this but hey, its good action. Finlay is better at using the environment but that also works out badly for him. He kicks through a car’s side window but he’s also able to use a bumper he’s broken off and slams Regal on a boot. I believe American’s call it a “trunk”. He also chokes Regal out using a “safety strap” or a fucking seatbelt to normal people, Eric. Bischoff sounds scared at the potential of violence as Finlay’s face puts another window through. Regal takes a backdrop onto the same car but recovers to hit a piledriver on it for the win. ***. The environment should have limited the action (like when WWF did this with Shamrock and Blackman) but it just gave them more opportunity to do violence. Big fan of both guys and they delivered here.

WCW title – Ric Flair (c) v The Giant

Jimmy Hart has played both sides beforehand but he’s in Giant’s corner tonight. Flair has left the Savage nameplate on the belt to remind him that he’s taken the title from him. Man, what an asshole! Giant doesn’t no sell, he just doesn’t move. Flair bounces off him. Its an interesting strategy as Flair wants Giant to expend energy and, in an unusually smart approach, Giant isn’t playing that game. Even when Flair tries to turn it into a chase Giant just confidently strolls after him. Flair goes to Plan B; cheating. He thumbs the eye and that causes Giant to get angry and miss in the corner. Flair considers the chase again but Giant stops him escaping so Flair goes low. The handy thing with having two valets is they can hop on the apron and distract the ref. Flair pulls out knucks and lays Giant out. Again, Woman causing distraction. He’s actually out cold (as he is prone to occasionally; he must have a thin skull). Flair wants the Figure Four but Giant just grabs him and goes right into the chokeslam. New champion! **3/4. Psychology was pretty good even if Giant is still incredibly green. Massive pop for the pin then nothing from the crowd. Like they were thrilled to see a title change then realised it was Giant that won.

POST MATCH Giant basically screams a lot claiming no one can beat him one on one. We cut to the announcers and Heenan blames Savage for it.

The 411 – 7.5

A good show from WCW. Everything worked for me from Luger recovering some of his edge to Giant taking the title. It was a show that felt progressive. Like WCW knew they wanted to move forward and get out of their February-April rut. Wrestlemania is in the books, now its time to get serious again about putting on the best product.

The 411: A patchy month of shows but WCW seemed to be headed in the right direction and May would be a red letter month for WCW as they acquired a star that would take them in a whole new direction.
Final Score:  6.5   [ Average ]