The Furious Flashbacks – WCW Monday Nitro May 1996

The Furious Flashbacks – WCW Monday Nitro May 1996

During which Mike Enos and Steve Doll have the most important match in Nitro history to date

The Monday Night Wars were definitely on by this point. WCW had fired the first shots by programming Nitro opposite Raw. A deliberate attempt to rile their opponents. Bischoff had talent raided Lex Luger to kick things off. He then started playing dirty by reading out Raw’s results on air and hiring Madusa for the sole purpose of her dumping the WWF Women’s title in the trash on Nitro. But that was child’s play compared to Bischoff’s long term aim.

In an angle loosely based on Choshu’s Army (where Riki Choshu jumped from NJPW to AJPW in 1984) Bischoff intended to sign Scott Hall and Kevin Nash. Then make it look like they were WWF wrestlers coming to WCW in order to start a war. Provoked into doing so by Bischoff’s on-air remarks. It was an ingenious ploy. One designed to steal WWF’s fanbase as they’d surely take an interest in two WWF main eventers heading to WCW to cause trouble. It was a huge and immediate hit with the WWF filing a lawsuit in June in an attempt to stop the angle. But by then it was too late…

May 6th 1996.

We’re in Daytona Beach, Florida. Hosts are Eric Bischoff, Mongo & Bobby Heenan. They run down tonight’s card with Luger getting a title shot at Giant.

Hugh Morrus v Randy Savage

Savage has luminous green attire this evening. Some people can do that ostentatious ring gear and some people can’t. Savage can. Morrus decides to be the aggressor and assaults Savage before the bell even rings. But then that’s nothing new; most of Savage’s matches around this time involved him getting a beating then coming back with a transition and finishing with the elbow. However Hugh’s Savage impression provokes him into a bout of insanity (even by Savage’s standards) and he chokes Morrus unconscious with his ring gear causing a DQ. ½*. Good to see them playing up on Savage’s increased madness with him actually doing something worthy of a DQ. More angle than match but the angle is getting good.

POST MATCH the ref shoves Savage out of the way to raise Morrus’ hand so Savage BITCHSLAPS HIM. Body slam. BIG ELBOW FOR THE REF. Impartial referee Nick Patrick runs out to try and stop him and almost gets a shoeing too. The cops have to drag him out of there. This was a Steve Austin level of reckless aggression.

RIP Ray Stevens. In a classy act WCW puts up the phone number for the Cauliflower Alley Club and Eric says donations can be made for those wanting to help Ray’s favourite charity.

Dean Malenko v Jushin Liger

Oh fuck yes! Liger has a heel manager in Sonny Onoo but he’s a hand slapping babyface. So sadly we don’t get dick heel Liger, who’s one of the greatest heels of all time. They throw in little bits of awesomeness like Liger skipping over the legsweep. Sadly WCW bring out Ric Flair to distract the crowd and we get a fucking split screen. Having done some great speed counters Malenko takes it to the mat with a kneebar. Hoping to slow Liger up and set for the Texas Cloverleaf. Liger modifies his offence to flash roll up’s until a nonsensical handspring. I guess the leg is ok? KOPPOU KIIIIIICK! That I can take because there’s little pressure on the knee. Malenko takes a rana to the floor and Liger follows with a PLANCHAAAAAA. Yeah, that leg bit went nowhere. Malenko ups the ante with a SUPER GUTBUSTER. Liger counters the powerbomb and these guys are working HARD. They continue counters but Malenko knees the now injured midsection to set up the SIT OUT POWERBOMB for the win. ***1/2. Great stuff. Just a pity it was a) so short and b) the Malenko legwork didn’t go anywhere.

PROMO TIME Okerlund has Flair and his ladies. On a scale of one to crazy this is about a six on the Flair promo scale. A bit of singing. Some ideal threats. Suggestions of a foursome with these three and Debra McMichael. WHOO!

PROMO VIDEO Glacier! BLOOD RUNS COLD!

Lord Steven Regal v Sting

Regal has various strappings from his parking lot brawl. Sting sees the leg one and goes right after the Scorpion Deathlock. Regal’s mannerisms and facial ticks make this interesting before any real contest kicks in. Sting’s mocking of said feminine traits provokes the crowd into a patriotic fervour. If it wasn’t for Regal’s frequently mentioned issues outside the ring he could have been a world champion. His stiff strikes and technical skill gave him sufficient weaponry to battle WCW’s main event talents without stealing their thunder. Sting is all flash by comparison. In particular on the finish where Regal tries a butterfly suplex only for Sting to power him up and drop down into a pin. I’ve never seen that finish before. **1/2. Solid but way short. It’s a pity WCW could never get serious about Regal. WWE either for that matter. I guess he only has himself to blame but Regal had mad skills combined with old school carny characterisations.

Sidenote: these two had a really good PPV match later in the summer at the Great American Bash. About ****.

WCW title – The Giant (c) v Lex Luger

There’s no sign of Luger so Jim Duggan runs out and takes the title match instead. Urgh.

WCW title – The Giant (c) v Jim Duggan

Crowd is NOT pleased with losing a marquee title match and getting this in its place. Duggan isn’t completely stupid and jumps Giant from behind to try and get an advantage. Doesn’t work. Duggan recently won a match with a taped fist so he tries that and Giant just chokeslams him. ¼*. The match was only there as a demonstration of how dominant Giant is as champion. Duggan isn’t a main event so he got destroyed. Nothing wrong with that booking.

POST MATCH Cobra runs in to try and save Duggan. CHOKESLAM. Cuban Assassin. CHOKESLAM. Alex Wright. CHOKESLAM. Ric Flair with a chair! Giant no sells it. Sting is out here and it takes two main eventers to bring Giant down. Although quite why Sting is helping Flair is anyone’s guess. Jimmy Hart prevents the Deathlock and Lex Luger has actually turned up…extremely late. Jimmy Hart calls the Giant off and the announcers cry conspiracy. Where was Luger? Why did Giant not attack him? Sting and Luger argue as we go off the air. Not the best time planning but it actually creates a decent cliffhanger.

The 411 – 7.5

Another strong showing here. Malenko-Liger I could watch all night and Sting-Regal wasn’t far behind. The other two matches were mainly storyline based so their poor snowflake ratings shouldn’t really effect the overall quality of the show. Giant had to squash Duggan for the good of his reputation and Savage had to go crazy in his match to show how Flair had driven him to the brink of insanity. So its all good.

May 13th 1996.

We’re in Nashville, Tennessee. Hosts are Eric Bischoff, Mongo and Bobby Heenan. Luger gets his twice postponed title shot tonight. He camped out here last night to make sure he didn’t miss it. This is the lead in show for Slamboree, which has the Lethal Lottery so they’re not really shilling the show too much hoping it’ll speak for itself. WWF sold their PPV’s better at the time but Nitro was a better TV show because of their approach.

Steiner Brothers v Public Enemy

PE don’t get entrance music. Bischoff reminds us that Savage is banned from the building. PE are a good team but Steiners are technically better as well as having that familiarity. Also they’re more popular and their spots involve grabbing PE and throwing them around. PE had to use their teaming to get into the match as they’re outmatched as individuals. But Rocco miscues on Grunge with a high spot allowing the FRANKENSTEINER. Its over. **.

“Squire” Dave Taylor v Chris Benoit

With Flair’s antics its easy to forget the Horsemen were still knocking around but beside throwing up four fingers every time he wrestles Benoit isn’t really a Horseman. The group doesn’t do anything. Doesn’t have any goals. Benoit is starting to get pops due to his hard work, which is evident here. He also brings a nice reality to this match by avoiding moves. Taylor brings some interesting European style and a tabletop suplex into a pin. Benoit almost casually finishes with the dragon suplex. **1/4. Progress in the Benoit push. He got to treat Taylor like a jobber. Sad for Dave but he’s no Finlay or Regal.

OUTSIDE Gene Okerlund has Randy Savage who’s not allowed in. Mongo comes out to reason with him and tells Macho to chill so he can deal with Flair. Savage seems moderately crazy; he jumps into Okerlund’s face. “You don’t know where I’ve been” he repeats channelling Tyler Durden. He’s all over the place, both determined to get at Flair and win the Lethal Lottery.

PROMO VIDEO. Glacier, again. BLOOD RUNS COLD! Nobody sums up WCW better than Glacier. They got all excited about someone with a wacky gimmick then gave up on it just as it was getting over and buried it.

VK Wallstreet v Ric Flair

Mike Rotunda/o is a solid hand. He’s defacto babyface because he’s wrestling Flair but the crowd don’t like him. Some of the wrestling is decent in an 80s kinda way. There’s not much flash but there’s a lot of substance. Flair throws in his usual spots and facebumps on the floor. He baits VK into kneeing the ring post, which is incredibly stupid of Wallstreet. Still, having gotten the opening Flair dissects the leg and the Figure Four finishes. **1/2. While there’s nothing wrong with putting this match on I’m sure they could have found a better use for Ric Flair. His ongoing feud with Savage (and Mongo) could have done with some advancing within the bout.

POST MATCH Flair claims he nailed Dolly Parton so Nashvillians don’t care for him. He starts using football as a metaphor for nailing women whilst implying Mongo isn’t in his sexual league so naturally Debra should switch to Space Mountain. WHOOO!

WCW title – The Giant (c) v Lex Luger

Luger has managed to show up, at the third time of asking, for his title match with Giant. The idea being that Luger is scared of Giant showing him up. Which he does. After all Luger is all about power and Giant is stronger than him. Luger tries to use his superior speed but that doesn’t get him anywhere because Giant just grabs him. Its implied by Luger that he’s not smart enough to come up with a game plan if power & speed don’t work. Luger hits his massive forearm and Giant just shrugs it off while Bischoff buries Yoko Zuna on commentary. Its Giant’s inexperience that gets him into trouble. He gets caught coming back in from the floor. But he shrugs Luger off again and CHOKESLAMS HIM THROUGH RIC FLAIR’S BANQUET TABLE! That’s a DQ but Luger was getting his ass handed to him. *1/2.

POST MATCH Sting runs out to ensure Luger is ok but he’s already hurt. Too slow Stinger. This match was generally designed to show that Luger is a stand-up guy but WCW kinda screwed the pooch at Slamboree to follow this up. Stupid really. But at this point it makes good sense and they’ve done a fine job of making sure Luger is a face for the nWo, which would be key.

The 411 – 6.0

A passable show with the focus on Giant v Sting/Luger and Flair v Savage/Mongo. Slamboree is another PPV I’ll be glad to see the back of because the run on TV shows are working better without the crappy PPV’s in between them.

SLAMBOREE ’96. After this Nitro they ran the Slamboree PPV. It was a complete disaster. They were too focused on TV and the forthcoming nWo angle so the interim PPV did nothing. The promised Flair & Savage tag team resulted in them both getting eliminated from the finals, which is incredibly stupid. DDP won a title shot and never got it. Giant defended against Sting when Luger accidentally bonged him on the head. The Lethal Lottery killed the rest of the show dead. I don’t remember reviewing it and I can’t find a review so there’s no link. Apologies for that. Bad show though. Avoid it.

20th May 1996.

Hosts are Eric Bischoff & Bobby Heenan as we drop to a two-man team for this special 90 minute Nitro. Mongo is wrestling tonight. We get some footage from Slamboree where Kevin Greene goes after Ric Flair. Poor Ric, from WCW title to sidebar NFL feud in a month because he wasn’t cool enough to get involved in the nWo angle.

Fire & Ice v Steiner Brothers

I’ll hand it to them; WCW were really trying to get a tag division over. Oh, and the commentary is FAR better with a two man team. Mainly because they ditched the dead wood. Again, I’m impressed with Ice Train. He can take a good bump for a big fella and has better mobility than I remember. Norton & Rick is a weird matchup. Everything Norton does looks like it was supposed to be blocked and wasn’t. And then when Rick does counter something that looks wrong too. So Scotty comes in and kills Norton with evil suplexes. Scott is just a machine at this point. Single minded and powerful. Norton fucks up a double team and increasingly Ice Train is looking like the talented one in this team, which is the opposite of how I remember it. Everyone spills out to the floor and that’s a DCO. Although Scott gets one final last word by suplexing Norton on the floor. *1/2. Norton was having a nightmare. Scott Steiner had fun but he can’t carry everyone else to a good match. Messy.

Eddy Guerrero v Ric Flair

Oh hell yeah. Flair with something to prove? Check. Eddy wanting to move up the card at Flair’s expense? Check. Phenomenal talents on both sides? Check. The thing about Eddy is he makes EVERYTHING look great. A headlock looks fucking fantastic. Eddy uses the hold to demonstrate a) he’s as good on the mat as Flair and b) he’s not going to be baited by Flair’s antics into rushing this. So Flair has to work for it, which brings his best stuff. Like EXTRA HARD chops. Eddy chops him back and THAT JUST PISSES NAITCH OFF. I wish everyone treated Flair’s chops with this kind of respect. Flair gets confused by the lucha so bails for a chair. Normally Flair gets people this irate but Eddy has turned the tables on him. Crowd love him for it and Eddy is getting enough love from the crowd you could debate the pro’s of him going over. And Eddy, being small, has to earn the Flair antics; the facebump flop and the begging off but he does get it. That gives him a terrific level of legitimacy. Flair just isn’t equipped for Eddy’s range of skills. His speed, his lucha, his striking, his basic grappling, his suplexes. Eddy was one of the first true hybrid wrestlers who had a tremendous range of abilities. Flair is facing the future and he’s having to battle to keep up with it. Eddy then slaps on a picture perfect textbook Figure Four, which must surely wind Flair up a treat because Eddy can do all his shtick too. Then Eddy pulls out the biggest mistake in the world; missing a dive to the floor. Knee injured and its pretty much game over from that point. The weird thing is that Eddy turned the tables earlier on but his confidence got the better of him and Flair baited him into hurting himself, which was probably his plan all along. Eddy continues to fight and surprise Flair with an assortment of cheeky attempts at victory. The more advanced stuff doesn’t work out for him. A rope walk rana is botched but not badly. Frogsplash should finish but Eddy blows his knee right out thus saving Flair. The great thing about this is it gets both guys over. Eddy would have won without the bad leg and Flair created the injury through his manipulative psychology. It’s a tidy story. Either guy could go over but Flair is aided by Woman grabbing his hands and Eddy is counted down in the Figure Four. ***1/2. Very tidy matchup and the best thing about a longer Nitro is it allows them to give this time to develop into a real match. Not just a good short match. It didn’t have the flash and pizzazz to take it to another level but its good in its understated way.

POST MATCH Okerlund gets words with Naitch and his ladies. Flair’s level of insanity in this promo is briefly off the charts because he sounds like Johnny Depp in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas after he’s been sipping adrenochrome. He then settles into a relatively (for Flair) normal promo. Flair then joins commentary claiming Ted Turner requested he be on the show more because “Jane (Fonda) loves me”. Sadly he doesn’t make any Space Mountain references.

Tag titles – Sting/Lex Luger (c) v Faces of Fear

Flair is making amends by claiming Debra McMichael will be doing a re-make of Debbie Does Dallas co-starring the Nature Boy. WHOOOOO. SPACE MOUNTAIN BABY! Flair’s commentary is the only good thing about this match as the wrestling is ass. They’re running an angle where Sting has an injury so Luger takes most of the match. And this is not personality meets psychology Luger. This is lazy meets boring Luger. Sting is so banged up he’s doing bearhugs in there. BEARHUGS. Sometimes you wonder whether a match is entirely necessary. If Sting has injuries then give him the night off. Fuck, they gave him almost all of 1997 off and he was fit. For those who don’t know them the Faces of Fear are Meng & Barbarian. They’re not a fun combination. They have flashes of meanness but not frequently enough for my liking. So Sting eats heat and its convincing. He looks really tired. Luger eventually gets the tag and cleans house like a sloppy bitch. Sting splashes Barbarian and Luger just rolls in for the cheap pin. *. Not good wrestling at all. I like Sting’s selling but he’s the most interesting person in the match for offence so that’s not an ideal situation.

OUTSIDE Okerlund has Randy Savage who is, once again, banned from the building. He tries to break in but can’t because some cops stop him. Not exactly the Steve Austin level of determination.

Brad Armstrong v DDP

Did Nitro go 3 hours already? How the fuck did this get on the air? Page has his Nirvana knock off theme music so you know WCW is intending to push him. He won a title shot last night…not that he’ll be getting one. Eric Bischoff makes the announcement that Nitro will go two hours LIVE next week. Armstrong brings bland babyface offence making me hate him for no reason. He blunders into a Diamond Cutter for the loss. ½*. All about DDP. Brad might as well have put a mask on and called himself Mr X.

POST MATCH Page runs through all the guys he beat to get a title shot last night. SELF HIGH FIVE! Okerlund rambles about some nonsense referee mistake. The video of which is bullshit and WCW’s championship committee has awarded a title shot to Luger instead. Urgh. Why? That’s just stupid. Luckily DDP made himself into a superstar during 1996 and this was the start of it. The music, the attitude, the finisher. It was all there now.

WCW title – The Giant (c) v Arn Anderson

Flair’s play by play is not of this match but rather of his imagined NFL debut. I would say it sounds crazy but hey, its Ric Flair. Who’s gonna tell him he sounds insane on the air? As with the last match this is a match to establish something. In this case that Giant is a dominant world champion. Arn gets less here than against Hogan. Arn tries for a DDT, which gets him shrugged off right into the ARRRRRGGGHHHH CHOKESLAM. ½*. Routine defence for Giant. If the nWo story hadn’t kicked in I wonder how long Giant would have held the title? Who could beat him in a realistic fight situation? It’d be Vader all over again.

The 411 – 6.5

Eddy & Flair is great but you’d worry that adding time to the show just meant more filler. Two squashes and a Faces of Fear tag match isn’t the best use of 90 minutes. I awarded an extra 0.5 for Flair’s overtime on commentary. He was entertaining in ways Mongo could never even dream of.

27th May 1996.

Hosts are Tony Schiavone & Larry Zbyszko. They’re taking hour one with Bischoff & Heenan taking hour two.

American Males v Ric Flair/Arn Anderson

The Males do the CLAP! I love that gimmick. The Horsemen briefly consider playing by the rules but then just go ahead and cheat. Males counter with generic babyface antics and THE CLAP. Not even Ric Flair can deal with the devastating power of the Clap. I think it shows a lot about Flair & Arn that they’re prepared to bump around and show ass against this team. Although to be fair they’re also enjoying a champagne brunch at the same time. You could question their focus. Poor little Scotty Riggs looks like a child in there with Double A as Arn just takes his leg for fun. Its hard to take anyone seriously against the Horsemen when Flair quite happily sells for the referee though. Bagwell then missile dropkicks Flair IN THE HEAD. Fisherman suplex might even finish if Arn wasn’t knocking around. Bagwell looks improved here and you can see why he got that plum role in the nWo. The Males sure are stupid and Riggs constantly keeps spilling in just giving Arn chance after chance to blindside Bagwell and he eventually does with the DDT. **1/4. Bagwell showed promise here. His timing was solid and he looked significantly better than Riggs. Although Arn Anderson held the entire match together.

POST MATCH The Horsemen get interview time. Arn bashes football players for wearing protective gear. Flair, crazy as ever, starting singing Afternoon Delight. Then he implies strongly that he’s had sex with Debra McMichael. WHOOO!

PROMO VIDEO We see Mongo & Kevin Greene training, which by comparison to Flair’s drinking and womanising makes them look a bit…gay. Its not helped by Mongo yelling “Flair” with every rep. Then Greene shouts “do it hard, all day long” into the camera. Did they not notice this video was a wee bit camp?

Steve Doll v Mike Enos

Doll even gets music. Enos is currently under a heel gimmick called “The Mauler” and has Colonel Parker as a manager. Sure, Doll looks like a jobber but Enos is a guy who could get over as a serious wrestler. But let’s face it the match has nothing to do with the action in the ring. To be fair to these guys Enos gets in a great crossbody over the ropes. After the ad break the crowd starts freaking out. SCOTT HALL just turns up and jumps the rail. The match is over.

PROMO TIME “You people you know who I am but you don’t know why I’m here”. He says he’s got a challenge for Bischoff, Billionaire Ted and the Nacho Man before mocking WCW’s southern roots. “You want a war. You’re gonna get one”. Crowd just doesn’t know how to react. It’s a good job they didn’t change tack based on crowd reactions because there was nothing happening here. But its more a stunned silence. Like “what the fuck is going on?” Its good.

Craig Pittman w/Teddy Long v DDP

Pittman spend ages looking for a great manager and ended up with Peanuthead. This is long before Thaddeus. He only really got his personality over in WWE. Page sells like a drunk man, which is a bit generous but Pittman was on a similar level to Page just a few months ago. Page survives the Code Red and uses Long to bait Pittman into the DIAMOND CUTTER. Bang. *. DDP is getting way more entertaining by this point in his career. I love his self high five after the match where he hurts his already injured arm.

BACKSTAGE The Shark screams a promo about Jimmy Hart. Basically Shark got booted out of the Dungeon for getting his ass handed to him by Giant. So now he gets a title shot.

PROMO VIDEO We get a recap of Hulk Hogan and his celebrity friends. This is the lead in to the second hour of Nitro. Hosts are Eric Bischoff & Bobby Heenan. Eric addresses Scott Hall and says he won’t dignify his interruption with a response. Thus making it look like Hall was representing WWF. Its quite clever.

WCW title – The Giant (c) w/Jimmy Hart v The Shark

Most of Giant’s opponents have been steamrollered. Manhandled and chokeslammed. But Shark is a bigger dude and a different challenge for the champ. Shark gets some joy based on his size but then Giant scoop slams him. Which has to freak Shark out because he hardly gets slammed, ever. When Shark looks like getting going Jimmy Hart sacrifices himself and Giant wins with the AAAAAAARGGHH CHOKESLAM. ½*.

POST MATCH Big Bubba runs out and shaves Shark’s head. Well, half of it.

Lex Luger v Maxx Muscle

Maxx used to be DDP’s bodyguard but he’s been re-tooled to join the New Dungeon of Doom. You don’t need to know much about him. He’s a big muscular guy with limited abilities but solid on basics. Crowd don’t care for the strength v strength storyline. I guess the theory is that if you put Luger in there with someone who has no talent that it makes him look better. What did WWE call these things? Powerhouse brawls? Maxx doesn’t seem to recognise the Rack and doesn’t jump for it the first time. Second time is academic. ¼*.

POST MATCH Okerlund gets Luger for an interview about his title shot against the Giant. Luger reminds us that Giant chokeslammed him through a table so he’s out for revenge.

Bobby Walker v Brad Armstrong

Is Scott Hall coming back out here or something? Bischoff even brings him up. Nitro going 2 hours has already diluted the program but thankfully Bischoff is on that and in a hiring mood. Rey Mysterio Jr joined the company this week. Walker is a graduate of the Power Plant, which has a dismal record in training wrestlers. Walker tries to wrestle like a cruiserweight but that just results in him blowing a higher percentage of his moves. Also half of his transitions are horrible. It’s the kind of thing the Power Plant was no good at training out of up and coming talents. Armstrong tries to hold it all together but its really tough when Walker is making so many mistakes. Walker takes it with a diving shoulderblock. Before it he fell off the top rope. ¼*. A fine example of why WCW kept signing talent instead of creating it. When they tried to create talent they ended up with “Hardwork” Bobby Walker, which meant wrestling him was hard fucking work.

Lord Steven Regal v Alex Wright

Wonderful contrast here with disco dancing European teen Wright clashing with snobbish cantankerous blue blood Regal. Plus they’re both great practitioners of the European style. Regal brings fantastic mannerisms, while Wright brings flying headscissors. Regal’s takedowns and palm strikes here are beautiful. So smooth and aggressive at the same time. But he’s not at his best. He looks slow by his standards and slightly drunk. But even a 70% Regal is better than the majority of WCW’s roster. Regal stops off during a top wristlock to cut a promo into the ringside camera. He’s all class. Having complementary styles really helps this match but I find that Regal generally meshes well with most opponents. The problem here is that Regal’s offence is more effective and he hits harder but he’s the heel so he has to beg off after relatively weak strikes from his opponent. That is until Alex dropkicks Regal right in the jaw. That leaves him realistically groggy. Which is important. A degree of realism can take two hard workers to a higher level. Regal takes this with a powerbomb out the corner and a flip pin. **3/4. If Regal had kept his shit together outside the ring he could have been a world champion. But then I’ve said that many times and it doesn’t make his story any less about survival rather than success.

POST MATCH Regal refers to Wright as “junior Adolf”, which will please his father. Regal addresses Scott Hall and issues a challenge to him before referring to an angry ringside fan as a peasant. He goes on to call the Giant a “bloody circus freak” and demands title recognition and stops off to give Sting a verbal pasting too. Fucking hell, that was unusually epic for a throwaway midcard promo! From that promo it sounded like Regal was getting pushed to the moon but obviously that didn’t happen because of the drugs.

Main Event: Sting v Scott Steiner

This is smart stuff. Steiner has never been given a big singles push (to this point) despite his incredible ability. In order to establish him in singles they’ve put him with one of the companies top drawers. It has a second level where Sting is half of the tag champs and the Steiners want that gold, which is sadly where WCW is going with this and not the Steiner singles run. Sting brings energy and aggression, which catches Scotty off guard. Steiner brings power into the game and just manhandles Sting, which showcases just how large he is. He’s visibly getting more muscular at this point. But not to a freakish level. As yet. So Sting tries to get strikes in to prevent getting caught in an array of suplexes. Its almost MMA style with Sting being Chuck Liddell to Steiner’s Couture. Those used to modern Scott Steiner would probably be freaked out by the lack of clubbering from Steiner. Its all wrestling holds and once he gets it to the mat he chains submissions. Crowd doesn’t seem into it, which would probably explain why Steiner didn’t get a big singles push out the gate and eventually changed his style to suit the main event scene. So you have WCW (and injuries) to blame for Scott Steiner being less awesome as time progressed. Luger & Rick Steiner come out to corner these guys in the later stages of the match. Sting evades the Frankensteiner into the Scorpion Deathlock but Steiner is in the ropes. Nice sequence. Steiner tries for the home run Tombstone but Sting counters into his own. That was a sign of desperation. And bagging on Undertaker’s finish. Steiner kicks out anyway. They spill outside where Steiner tries for a suplex on the floor but Luger stops it and Rick attacks him. The resulting brawl results in a DDQ. **1/2. Decent match although it was hampered by a lack of crowd reaction and a slow pace.

POST MATCH Scott Hall turns up again to tell Bischoff that “we” are sick of Bischoff running his mouth. He calls WCW’s slogan a joke and goes on to run down WCW’s main eventers because “we are taking over”. “You want a war? You got one”. And with that Nitro goes off the air. Awesome finish because it showed just how Hall’s arrival had rocked WCW’s most confident. Bischoff left flabbergasted and not even able to get in the final word.

The 411 – 7.5

The first two hour show is hit and miss. But the positives here far outweigh the negatives. Scott Hall’s arrival immediately shook the company to its foundations. But there were good wrestlers in WCW having good matches. And its not just Eddy & Benoit. Here you have Sting-Steiner, Regal-Wright and Flair proving his match can get just about anyone over in the shape of Marcus Bagwell. Plus DDP was getting a push, which meant someone was being elevated along with Steiner that gave the main event scene a new look. Add in the new arrivals from New York and WCW were boasting a much stronger main event scene than WWF. That is until WWF created new main eventers and milked Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart for every great match they could muster. Not only is this a landmark show for WCW but it made people desperate to find out where the angle was going and who would be involved in it. WCW suddenly had become the hottest wrestling show in the world.

The 411: It’s an historic month for WCW. Hall’s arrival was massive for them. In retrospect the seeds sown here became WCW’s glory for the following couple of years. It wasn’t until the nWo storyline burned out that WCW started to suffer. Thumbs up, if only because this was the point where WCW became unmissable.
Final Score:  7.0   [ Good ]