The Furious Flashbacks – WCW Nitro September 1995

The Furious Flashbacks – WCW Nitro September 1995

Going back to the very beginning of the Monday Night War

Oh yeah, you’d better believe it! While waiting for some DVD’s to come through I went barrel scraping to see what I’d got around the house. The first ever Nitro popped right into my immediate line of sight and I knew I had to do it. I remember this time in wrestling very clearly as I’d just gotten a satellite and had started to watch WCW shows that aired in Germany just a week or two after they did in the US, along with WWF who only ran on Sky in the UK. Exciting times. Anyway, the discovery allowed me to watch a company I’d abandoned in 1994, due to Hogan, and see how they’d been doing.

4th September 1995.

We’re in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Hosts are Eric Bischoff & Mongo. Oh good God. Thankfully Bobby Heenan interrupts to make a 3-man team.

Jushin Liger v Brian Pillman

Hell of a match to kick-start Nitro history. They previous owned all at Superbrawl II. Pillman has been injured since and they don’t quite have the same chemistry here. Liger connects with a Koppou Kick and a moonsault press. Pillman has to stand around for ages waiting for that second move. Pillman then blows a diving rana. On commentary Mongo is trying, badly, to bait Heenan. Bischoff is actually paying attention, calling the match and not mentioning Hogan at all. Its actually a bit weird. Pillman takes the surfboard before falling outside and Liger adds in a senton off the apron. Crowd don’t appreciate Liger’s effort and chants “USA”. Not much selling here but they’ve probably been told to go out and sell the companies merits. Liger gets a superplex for 2 but his follow up dive is met with a dropkick. Liger with a super rana and we still can’t get a pin. They’re certainly going full on and inserting most of their spots into 10 minutes. Pillman counters another rope move into a DDT for 2. They switch standing and Pillman gets a roll up for the win. **3/4. No selling at all but they sure went out there to pop the crowd. You could hear Heenan grumbling about the psychology but if you wanted to get the cruisers over this was a good start. Sadly the cruisers remaining an opening act for the entire of Nitro’s history. This was a match to showcase Pillman as a potential opponent for Flair, then a Horseman.

BACKSTAGE Sting tells us no one can do the Scorpion Deathlock like he can, thus taking a shot at then WWE main eventer Bret Hart.

EARLIER Bischoff catches up with Hulk Hogan who’s signing autographs at Pastamania, his restaurant @ the Mall of America. He claims that he’ll defend the title tonight because he has “pasta-mania running through his brain”. Jesus, way to shill your fast food joint. This actually made me hate Hogan & Bischoff MORE if that’s possible.

Ric Flair v Sting

WCW set out immediately to put on BIG matches on Nitro to show they were serious about taking it to the WWF. Nothing says WCW main event like Flair-Sting. LEX LUGER strolls out here much to everyone’s shock. He’d been on a WWF PPV (Summerslam) the previous month. This has the same vibe as the Outsiders coming in during 1996 but not really with the same impact. For starters he doesn’t do anything. He just stands there. Which is about what his workrate would be for the next 6 years. Sting overpowers Flair and throws him around. I’m as surprised as you are! Flair cheats, once again I’m shocked, and chops away. Sting no sells so Flair crossbodies him to the floor to break up the formula. Sting presses him back in showcasing his power. He misses with the Stinger Splash but doesn’t sell that either. Heh, Flair is the only dude who’s sold anything tonight! Meanwhile Arn Anderson strolls out here to get a ringside view. He was feuding with Flair at the time. That didn’t last long and eventually led to the reunification of the Horsemen (at the expense of Sting). They continue the power v veteran cheating storyline, which is what they always do…but in a good way. Sting hits a superplex but gets distracted by Double A, because Sting’s an IDIOT. Flair clips the knee and slaps on the Figure Four. This feels really truncated. Flair uses the ropes and won’t break it so the ref calls the DQ. **1/2. A microcosm of their classic feud.

POST MATCH Arn attacks Flair, which shocks Heenan who said they’d patched their differences up. Sadly WCW is more focused on Scott Norton coming out here to bitch about a lack of exposure on this show. He threatens to fight Steve McMichael but Randy Savage runs out to issue a challenge for RIGHT NOW, OHHH YEEAAAAAAH. Bischoff won’t allow it (for whatever reason) so they throw to clips of Sabu. They intended to make Nitro more edgy but Sabu was an edge too far for them and he didn’t last. Sure is a lot happening, huh! CAN’T MISS TV!

Bischoff stops off to plug WCW Saturday Night and Fall Brawl.

VIDEO Mister Wallstreet (Mike Rotunda) rubbishes the New Generation (WWF’s catchphrase at the time) and namedrops IRS, claiming this gimmick was different so the WWF wouldn’t sue. Of course in order to sue they’d have to care. Rotunda was pretty much done by this point and WCW couldn’t get him over.

WCW title – Hulk Hogan (c) v Big Bubba Rogers

Typically routine TV defence for Hogan, but before 1995 seeing the title being defended on TV was unusual. Bischoff announces Savage-Norton next week, which is presumably why he didn’t want them to fight this week but a brawl might have put some heat on it. Bubba isn’t a guy I expected to profit for an overhaul of the wrestling business but he successfully jumped to the WWF at the peak of the Monday Night Wars and had a lucrative run there during Attitude. Here he looks like the average Hogan opponent. He gets to hit a bunch of power stuff so Hogan can generate some crowd sympathy. Hogan applies his usual babyface antics like choking with a t-shirt, raking the eyes and illegal punches. Hogan runs right into the sideslam but Bubba doesn’t pin right away and you know what happens next. Hulking up. Finger point. More illegal punches. Big boot. Leg drop. *. Hogan looked slightly more motivated than usual. His 94-96 WCW work wasn’t great. Bubba was more athletic than some of the other dudes he worked in the same time frame though.

POST MATCH the Dungeon of Doom runs in to attack Hogan but LUGER saves. Hogan tells him to go “back where you came from”. Buffalo? Sting, who engineered his actual switch, comes out to play peacemaker along with Savage. Macho might not be booked to be out there; he’s just eaten too many coffee grounds today. Instead of teasing Luger’s intentions and getting him to cut a promo next week they cut to the chase. Luger says he’s here for the title. The politics erupt forth with Luger saying he “wanted to play with the big boys” or rather he wants the ‘big money’. Hogan says he’ll be champion “FOREVER AND A DAY”. Hogan says he’ll put the title on the line next week if Luger is so anxious for a shot.

The 411 – 8.0

The opening shot in the Monday Night Wars is quite the show from WCW. The opener got the crowd going, Flair & Sting brought a classic rivalry in to follow that and then Hogan made Lex Luger appear interesting to end the show. Most importantly Nitro felt like a special show right off the bat. Luger jumping and debuting made it feel like anything could happen. They also went unopposed. The Raw the previous week was headlined by Diesel/Davey Boy Vs Men on a Mission. Quite the show; only the 3rd time Diesel had wrestled on Raw all year (he was champion at the time). Nitro had upped the ante.

Because I’m bored and because I have the next week’s show too let’s carry on!

11th September 1995.

We’re in Miami, Florida, LIIIIIVE! Hosts are Eric Bischoff, Mongo & Bobby Heenan. Bischoff plugs the first of many “Match of the Century” matches; Hogan Vs Luger. And at this point Hogan Vs Luger was actually something to get excited about. After they’d run this “Match of the Century” business into the ground with DQ’s it wouldn’t be. Easy E points out that Vader has bailed on Hogan & WCW…or rather he was fired for getting in a fight with Paul Orndorff. He’d sign with WWF and do ok for himself.

Sabu v Alex Wright

This is quite the contrast; Wright the WCW mainstay who dances to German techno and Sabu; the homicidal, suicidal, genocidal maniac who’ll jump off anything. Straight out of ECW and looking to break some tables! Wright isn’t sure how to take him and just moves out of the way to defend himself. Sabu wins the crowd over by throwing himself at the rail. Honestly, I think WCW pulled the plug on Sabu too early but on the flipside I’m happy he went back to ECW where he could work his style without PG ratings. Wright makes the mistake of thinking a slam on the floor will keep Sabu down. Neither does a superplex. Sabu is less fun without the plunder and doesn’t have RVD’s athleticism to work around that. Sabu hits a Victory roll off the top for the win. *1/2. Not as sloppy as you’d think but totally unstructured.

POST MATCH Sabu goes to his A-game and tables his plucky German opponent. The table gets the biggest pop of the match BY FAR. Impartial referee Nick Patrick impartially disqualifies Sabu for that. But he already won! Typical WCW bullshit. Even Bischoff sounds offended at how crappy that decision is and he made it! This again shows they weren’t listening to the fans. They wanted to see Savage & Norton brawl and now they want to see table spots. WCW are more interested in what WWF is doing to counter their first attack instead of gauging what was good on their show.

PROMO TIME – Ric Flair. He was partying yesterday but he missed his best friend Arn Anderson who was in his hotel room calling his wife. Before he can finish his train of thought Lex Luger strolls out here. Man, he just strolls everywhere doesn’t he? Flair backs Luger to beat Hogan and sucks up to him a bit. Luger strolls off again. FEEL THE WORKRATE!

US title – Sting (c) v VK Wallstreet

VK = Vincent Kennedy. Get it? Bischoff’s shots at Vinny Mac would become more obvious as time went on but as soon as he debuted Nitro he was ‘there’. Speaking of which Bischoff points out Raw was taped 3 weeks ago and “Shawn Michaels beats the big guy with a superkick”. Reading out the other companies results was a bit of a low blow but hey, if Vince hadn’t taped all his TV in a monthly block it Bischoff couldn’t do that. Also Vince broke all the rules when he expanded in the 80s. Turnabout is fair play. Having established that Wallstreet is a metaphor for Vince McMahon they have Sting walk all over him. Sting won this title back in June, presumably for being nice about the whole Hogan push. They shouldn’t have been too concerned. He blows his springboard shoulderblock here and is showing signs of deteriorating. Wallstreet doesn’t even merit a proper finisher as Sting beats him with a high crossbody. *. Nothing much doing. Sting treated Wallstreet like a jobber and while he’s beating a bigger name this is still just a TV squash match.

Scott Norton v Randy Savage

Norton was hired in 1993 but couldn’t get over. He was loaned back to NJPW where, later, in 1998 he actually won the IWGP title. This was WCW’s second attempt at getting him over by bringing him in as part of their ‘new for Nitro’ campaign. Savage is on good terms with Hogan (shoot) but that could change within 10 minutes. Norton has awesome power but almost no personality so the crowd don’t care about him and just wait for Savage to take over. Despite success with the BORE-HUG the crowd just see him as a ‘Jobber of the Week’ for Savage to vanquish. This is the problem with just bringing in a big bad guy. However if Norton was beating up Hogan that’d be a different story. Crowd do pop his powerbomb but Savage kicks out. Mongo claims that Norton will wear himself out if Savage keeps kicking out. Bischoff is more concerned about War Games on Sunday. Norton’s biggest issue as a worker is that whenever he’s on top he does nothing of interest for massive amounts of time. Savage resorts to just kicking out of the big moves…and that’s it. Savage was deteriorated by 1995 and only really brought his A-game for big matches. Norton even DDT’s Savage off the ropes and can’t get the win. Scott could have shot Randy with a pistol here and he’d have kicked out. Eventually the Dungeon of Doom runs out here, fat boy Shark gets KO’d onto Norton’s legs and Savage drops the elbow for the win. *1/4. They couldn’t have put Norton over here? For all his massive power moves he’s still left beaten and now he’s heatless and doesn’t have an angle.

Bischoff stops off to shill “Bloodfight” before naming the WWF as where Luger used to work just a week ago. He’s sure breaking all the rules on Nitro, huh!

WCW title – Hulk Hogan (c) v Lex Luger

Bischoff claims Savage has a back injury and Vader is already gone from War Games. Lots on Hogan’s mind. Plenty of hype for this…until the bell rings. Apparently Luger left his working boots in Stamford. Hogan does that tiny bit of wrestling that he knows and does every time someone bashes him for not being able to wrestle. Luger no sells a suplex and the crowd sense…a title change? Hey, it is NITRO! Hogan no sells a suplex and we’re back on an even keel. So Luger reverts to coward heel. Yawn. Bischoff stops off to call WWF champion Diesel a midcarder (ironic seeing as he signed him the following year and built the company around his heel faction). Luger powers up and gets the RACK! Heenan is convinced Hogan is finished. Luger, like a fucking moron, thinks he’s won and leaves Hogan on the mat. Naturally he kicks out and hulks up. Mixed reaction from the crowd. Finger point. Punches. Big boot. Leg drop. Dungeon of Doom runs in to prevent the pin but Luger was toast. ½*. The dream of Luger being a playa for WCW lasted about 9 minutes before Hogan basically squashed him.

POST MATCH Sting & Savage make the save. Luger makes me laugh by celebrating with the faces like he did anything. Hogan takes exception and, not for the first (or last) time Sting has to play peacemaker.

PROMO TIME – Gene Okerlund comes out with the stick to get words. Hogan tries to retcon the last match by claiming Luger just gave him the “fight of my life”. He wants to know where Luger is coming from. Sting suggests they have a replacement for Vader right here. Savage goes mental with conspiracy theories and claims the Dungeon of Doom hasn’t touched Sting and Jimmy Hart. Savage votes Luger out but Hogan votes him in. Luger agrees in exchange for yet another title shot where he’ll choke and lose. Luger lasted about a month as a tweener before turning on Hogan.

The 411 – 4.0

Not such a great second episode. The issues with WCW down the line come up early. Hogan-Luger was built up huge but sucked. Bischoff is obsessed with WWF rather than making his own product good. Outside of the main event not enough office staff care about the wrestlers. So here Sabu, VK Wallstreet and Scott Norton all compete to hugely mixed results. In the long run, none of them got pushed. They just didn’t know who they wanted to break out of the pack. All they really cared about was Hogan and the other main event guys.

After this show was Fall Brawl. Only two good matches on that card. Flair-Arn and Pillman-Mero. War Games in particular was awful and WCW’s main events had a distinct lack of in-ring quality.

Seeing as I’m feeling good about these still let’s go for another.

18th September 1995.

We’re in Johnson City, Tennessee. LIIIIIIIIIVE. Hosts are Eric Bischoff, Mongo and Bobby Heenan. Bischoff throws to backstage immediately with The Giant arriving via ambulance. He sure couldn’t cut a fucking promo back in ’95. I’m really not sure what he’s going for. Sort of a whispering crossed with Hammer Horror.

American Males (Marcus Bagwell/Scotty Riggs) v Blue Bloods (Steven Regal/Bobby Eaton)

Scratch that as Harlem Heat attack Eaton in the aisle. So Regal was injured? Or drunk? Either is possible.

Tag titles – Harlem Heat (c) w/Sista Sherri v American Males

The Heat put the belts on the line after winning them the previous night but Bischoff thinks it might not be for the titles because Commissioner Bockwinkel isn’t here. Way to earn your paycheque, Nick. This isn’t great…mainly due to everyone bar Booker T sucking something fierce. Stevie pops off power moves like a babyface but then misses stuff at quarter speed like a heel. Bagwell & Riggs; has there ever been a tag team with a higher opinion of themselves without the talent to back it up? At least Riggs can bump for Booker’s kicks. The Heat run some entertaining heat, which is a rarity in wrestling. Bagwell with his stupid suspenders gets the hot tag and starts to miss stuff. Colonel Parker runs out here to “save” Sherri. That’s the big angle they’re working on! While Sherri is busy laying a liplock on the Colonel the Males get a roll up to win the titles. **. Match was decent, surprisingly. I think switching the belts was to show that anything could happen on Nitro and its not like Harlem Heat would never see them again! The ongoing angle with Sherri and Parker ended up being quite entertaining crap. The Heat would get the belts back the following month on WCW Saturday Night. Classy. But that’s how little anyone wanted to push Riggs. They didn’t even want him on Nitro.

PROMO TIME – Ric Flair. He managed to lose to Arn Anderson @ Fall Brawl. Okerlund asks whether Arn and Pillman are in cahoots. Flair says that broke the code. No outsiders. WOOOO? He actually made it sound like a question. Flair says he’ll stomp Pillman and then he’ll come after Arn and “kick his ass”.

Paul Orndorff v Johnny B. Badd

Mr Wonderful recently had his confidence repaired in a truly horrible angle but then repaired his reputation with everyone else by beating Vader in a backstage shoot fight. So his push is back on but his health is gone. This is the very end of his career. It’s a pity his injuries took him out because he looks good here. Badd is selling fatigue from his PPV opener against Pillman the night before. He comes back with punches and Orndorff does a great jelly-legged sell on them. Orndorff’s selling gets epic as Badd starts jumping off the ropes. Badd avoids the piledriver and goes for one of his own but Orndorff blocks a sunset flip for the pin. Oh dear. **1/4. Nothing wrong with the wrestling but Badd went over Pillman the night before and now he’s jobbing to Orndorff? I know they probably wanted to push him too but he wasn’t fit. Hindsight is 20-20.

Bischoff throws to filming on Baywatch with Savage doing rep’s until Kevin Sullivan runs in and chokes him with the weights. Even Flair thinks an assault on the beach is harsh. Ric Flair broke up a fight? Holy crap.

PROMO TIME – Randy Savage. WCW were already getting into the rhythm of stars cutting promos while undercarders wrestle. Savage says he’ll behead the snake (using that as a metaphor for beating Sullivan to stop the Dungeon of Doom…I think). He goes on to say Hogan is watching via “videoscope”. Savage once again accuses Luger of being a heel (along with Jimmy Hart, Sting and anyone else that’s not him). Luger gets sick of listening to him and comes out to get a word. Luger accuses Savage of being jealous of Hogan and at least his agenda is out in the open. Savage is all “ok, let’s go now!” Randy has the least patience of anyone, ever.

Adverts on my tape shill new release Showgirls. A real piece of shit, that one. Now a cult classic because its *so* bad.

LAST NIGHT Okerlund interviews Hulk Hogan sitting on his bike. In one of WCW’s more ridiculous skits a monster truck turns up and runs Hogan’s bike over. OH! Its that stinky, no-good, wart-infested Giant. We go on to clips of War Games where Giant choked Hogan. If only he had a finisher at that point. If he’d chokeslammed Hogan it would have more impact. For those who don’t know this would all lead to a Sumo Monster Truck match at the next PPV, which has to be one of the worst ideas in wrestling history.

Ric Flair v Brian Pillman

Flair is out to avenge his defeat to Double A the night before where Pillman helped. Like most WCW booking in 1995 its not that simple. You see, Anderson and Flair were swerving everyone by preparing the return of the Horseman with Pillman as a member. Although, because they’re feuding with no one, who they intended to fool is anyone’s guess. Who am I to understand how Ric Flair thinks? But in reality, I suspect its just more stupid booking. Flair brings IT here. Chopping away in the corner and HITTING A DIVING DOUBLE AXE HANDLE TO THE FLOOR! WOOOO! Flair flip and Flair DUCKS the clothesline on the apron and hits his own! He isn’t even caught on the top rope but Pillman nails him with a dropkick on the way down. Oh yeah, this rules. Pillman goes after the arm but Flair dumps him on the rail and PILLMAN BRINGS THE FLAIR BUMP! Pillman gets a sunset flip coming back in so Flair PUNCHES HIM IN THE EYE. WOOOO! Flair goes up top but this time he’s caught and slammed. Pillman misses off the top and Flair goes for the Figure Four….no, into a roll up…for 2. Clash of heads and both guys are down. FUCK Johnson City for not showing them love. Flair then completely fakes Pillman out by threatening a shinbreaker and switching to a back suplex. FIGURE FOUR and Pillman quits after about 2 seconds. ***1/2. This ruled all. Flair turned back the clock and mixed his moveset up. Pillman came in expecting an easier ride but Flair just confused him time and time again by avoiding his formula.

POST MATCH Flair is just getting warmed up and calls out Double A too but we go to the ad break and when we come back Bischoff is closing up the show. Instead of throwing to the back, which Heenan was trying to do, he plugs a bunch of shit on next week’s show.

The 411 – 8.0

There’s two ways of looking at the booking. 1. No one watched Badd-Pillman @ the PPV and realised how good they were and how much effort they’d put into that match so they both got jobbed out (Badd in especially odd circumstances). 2. Everyone saw that PPV opener and the 30 minute match was used as an excuse for both guys losing due to fatigue. I still don’t see how that can justify Badd’s job on this show (maybe the boys rallied for Orndorff to win because he kicked Vader’s ass legit) but the wrestling was good enough to overlook the, potentially, counterproductive booking. Especially with Ric Flair turning in a vintage performance. No, not vintage. That implies he did the same thing as he always does. This was an original Flair performance. Perhaps the last of his career. Great to see him work that hard.

One more and I’ll have the whole of September ’95 so I might as well do it and have this column as a month of Nitros.

25th September 1995.

We’re in Florence, South Carolina. Hosts are Eric Bischoff, Mongo and Bobby Heenan.

Alex Wright v Disco Inferno

Wright was used as enhancement on bigger shows until his 1997 heel turn when he gained some much needed edge. Looking back on his dancing gimmick; it was lame. Speaking of which Disco is a dancer himself. Disco builds heat with dancing until Wright breaks out the high flying. He actually brings a lot of cool stuff until Disco lays him out with the Stun Gun. Disco is less interesting on top and too green. So naturally he’s the one getting the push. He doesn’t win though as Wright catches him with a backslide for the pin. **. Again, this is WCW not being sure of what they’re doing on the undercard. Trading wins and nobody gets anywhere. Decent match but mainly because of Alex Wright.

BACKSTAGE Hulk Hogan, in a neckbrace, is pissed off about the Giant injuring his neck. So angry in fact that he challenges him to a monster truck duel. Haha. Obviously. And also a title match. All of this being an elaborate set up for Jimmy Hart to turn heel. Which would at least stop him hanging around shouting encouragement in the background of Hogan’s promos.

PROMO TIME – Randy Savage & Lex Luger. The latter claims everyone who’s wrestled Luger respects him. Haha, not really. But this leads to Luger challenging Savage to a match next week. Luger puts his title shot on the line and even threatens to leave WCW if he loses. He might as well have done. He’d already outlived his usefulness.

Kurasawa w/Colonel Parker v Craig Pittman

I think they were aiming for “Kurosawa”. Never mind. That’s former Olympian and current New Japan wrestler Manabu Nakanishi. He’s made a name by breaking Hawk’s arm. If you ever wanted proof that Nakanishi wouldn’t look small in a US promotion this is your time period. Nakanishi exposes the concrete and drops Pittman on it. Unfortunately the angle means Nakanishi needs to work the arm extensively and he’s too green to know how to make that interesting. This doesn’t look like a co-operation. They really battle away. CODE RED (which is an armbar) but Nakanishi gets the ropes. They counter on the arm some more and Nakanishi hits a German suplex for the win. What? Arms. That’s the story. Arms. Presumably Pittman didn’t want to submit. **. Sure, this was sloppy as hell but they went at quite the pace and it was a real war.

PROMO TIME – Arn Anderson & Brian Pillman. The latter showcases how great his mic skills were by defending his rights. They’ve established a tag match for Halloween Havoc so Flair needs a partner. This is all so Flair could just turn on Sting, again. Sting has to be the dumbest wrestler to ever live.

The Taskmaster v Randy Savage

Taskmaster was Kevin Sullivan’s gimmick at the time. They still referred to him as Kevin Sullivan but all the onscreen stuff says “Taskmaster” so we’ll go with that. The Zodiac is out here, looking like a complete fucking dimwit. That’d be Ed Leslie in face paint. It turned out he was a spy for Hogan but we’re nowhere near discovering that yet so everyone still hates him. To be fair, I hated him when he was a babyface too. Sullivan uses the numbers game to take over and plods through some offence. Savage eventually snaps and gets himself disqualified. Sullivan sacrifices Leslie (I would too). ¼*.

POST MATCH The Giant strolls out here and chokeslams Savage. THAT’S BETTER! Jobbers try to save so Giant chokeslams them too. Wright tries to save but gets BEARHUG SLAMMED! Crowd is getting seriously rowdy. LUGER! Another chokeslam for Savage. Luger badmouths Savage and Giant CHOKESLAMS HIM TOO! Hahaha. Wow, WCW really didn’t care for Lex Luger coming back did they?

Next on TNT…Karate Cop! YEEEAAAAH!

Lex Luger v Meng

Luger is still down from the chokeslam. Bischoff alerts us that Hogan will be on Nitro next week. They should have just brought him in EVERY week. Sell the importance of the show. Although, I do prefer it when he’s not here. Meng gets to hammer on Luger because he’s got nothing left. Piledriver gets 2. Luger sits in a nerve hold for a while. Crowd actually get into that. It was indeed a different time. I don’t think I can put into words how boring this match is. Meng basically chinlocks it to death. Meanwhile the fans, the same ones who booed Luger earlier, cheer for him now. Fickle. Luger’s comeback is one of the laziest I’ve ever seen. He’s already signed the deal! He’s already got your money! Meng nails him with an International Object for the win. DUD. You can complain about spotty matches nowadays but you can be thankful we don’t have shit like this on TV anymore. 10 minutes of rest holds. Since Luger’s epic return he’s jobbed twice, won nothing and is about to become Savage’s bitch too.

POST MATCH Heenan mentions WWF again, far more casually than Bischoff has been doing. Bischoff stops off to plug next week’s show and we get an awkward moment as he realises a picture of Dean Malenko is onscreen while he’s talking about Savage Vs Luger.

The 411 – 4.5

One week the show is great, the next week it sucks. It usually depends on which main eventer they build the last match around. This time it was Luger…so it sucked.

The 411: I was digging the strategy of Eric Bischoff on these early shows. Just take it to the WWF and make the shows important. Switching the tag belts was their first ploy. Badmouthing the oppositions shows another. Putting on good matches was what sealed the deal for me. Flair-Pillman is terrific. Its just a pity the undercard guys never get anywhere. Unless you consider going to the WWF going somewhere. The only ones who ever seemed to get success were the ones who jumped.

Final Score:  7.0   [ Good ]