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06.22.20
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RETRO EXPRESS: WCW NITRO #57 (OCTOBER 14TH 1996) – MISS ELIZABETH APOLOGISES TO “MACHO MAN” RANDY SAVAGE AND NWO TURN ON THE NASTY BOYS

Welcome to the Retro Express. This is where we’re taking a stroll down memory lane at wrestling history. This post is part of an ongoing series where we’re reviewing every episode of WCW Nitro from start to finish. Links to the previous posts are at the bottom of this post. We hope you enjoy.

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Last week saw time given to building up programs outside of the main New World Order storyline, including Arn Anderson attacking Lex Luger with a chair and the debut of Jeff Jarrett. We also saw developments of the nWo, Elizabeth and Randy Savage storyline. Savage refused to hear anything Elizabeth had to say after it appeared Elizabeth had joined the nWo. It all came to ahead at the end of the show, where the nWo laid out Ric Flair backstage and WCW World Heavyweight Champion Hollywood Hogan blindsided Savage which led to a further beat down ahead of Hogan and Savage’s match at Halloween Havoc.

This week was very boring at times but did have some bright spots in midst of what was a flat edition of WCW Monday Nitro to me. If it weren’t for the opening match, the Jeff Jarrett match and the Elizabeth video package, this would have been right up there with one of the worst episodes in a long time. However, those segments were so effective that they really saved the show in many ways. That’s my initial review but let’s get into the meat and potatoes of this edition of WCW Monday Nitro…

Date: October 14th 1996

Brand: WCW

City: Memphis, Tennessee

Rating: 3.3

Commentators (First Hour): Tony Schiavonie and Larry Zbyszko

Commentators (Second Hour): Eric Bischoff, Bobby Heenan and Mike Tenay

Dean Malenko vs Brad Armstrong

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This was a hell of an opener. Excellent technical wrestling from both men and it was such a joy to watch this match to build up excitement for the fans and kick off Nitro. Dean Malenko was great getting the heat, Brad was an excellent babyface in peril and criminally underrated over the years. This match sure delivered.

Malenko still had WCW Cruiserweight Champion Rey Mysterio Jr.’s mask as he had unmasked Rey week’s ago ahead of their match at Halloween Havoc. The referee for this Nitro match was Nick Patrick who, after all of this time, was still committing to wear this neck brace. Nick Patrick has been in a neck brace for about a month now following Savage beating him up on Saturday Night, and they haven’t strayed from this storyline where Patrick claims he’s injured. I give them a lot of credit for committing to this angle with Patrick in a neck brace.

They showed a clever finish from Dean and Brad’s last match where Malenko rolled up Armstrong but Brad grabbed the arm’s of Malenko and was able to pin him to the mat.

For this match, Armstrong and Malenko battled for control early on. HUGE NWO CHANTS BROKE OUT during the match. I’ll get into this a little later about Memphis’ appreciation of the nWo…

The cruiserweights wrestled for a hip toss which ended up with a rope break, after which Malenko cheap-shotted Armstrong. Malenko locked on an abdominal stretch for a while. Dean hit a sweet looking tear drop suplex. Watching Malenko getting the heat on someone at this time was such a treat because it was such a varied moveset that he displayed. He’d go from a long hold to just beating his opponent’s arse with punches and elbows and it was so effective just how he transitioned from one type of a wrestler to another. In case you hadn’t figured it out, Dean Malenko was a good wrestler back in the day! It’s shocking to hear, I know…

They traded roll-ups for a while, with Armstrong getting back into the match with a top rope dropkick. Armstrong did a Russian Legsweep and followed this up with a side suplex. Dean tripped the leg of Brad and got a small package pin and scored the victory where he trapped Armstrong’s legs to score the pinfall. Solid professional wrestling. Gets a huge thumbs up.

A black limo arrived at the arena where the nWo arrived on the scene. Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, nWo Sting, Syxx were there in this limo with Hollywood Hogan, The Giant, Vincent and Ted DiBiase arriving in another limo. They all high-fived and celebrated as they made their way to the arena. They cut back to the fans and the fans are chanting for Hogan.

They recapped WCW Saturday Night where Hacksaw Jim Duggan wrestled M. Wallstreet. For the finish to this match, Hacksaw knocked Wallstreet into referee Nick Patrick. Duggan hit Wallstreet with the tape and Patrick without even looking, counted the pin. When Duggan celebrated with the tape, Patrick reversed the decision and awarded the match to M. Wallstreet. Larry correctly pointed out that “it was by the book” which was a weird stance during a storyline where Nick Patrick is supposed to be corrupt. Nick Patrick DID THE RIGHT THING and supposedly he was a heel!

Hacksaw Jim Duggan vs M. Wallstreet

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To recap, this match aired on WCW Saturday Night. For some reason, they had to do it again for WCW Monday Nitro. Keep in mind that I’ve seen this match so many times on WCW Nitro already and now, we’re watching it again. It’s hard to imagine that Wallstreet wrestled anyone else in this company other than Hacksaw.

There were big USA chants. Duggan ran wild early on with a hip toss and a clothesline. Wallstreet did a headlock. Duggan fired back but Wallstreet cut him off with a kitchen sink. These two men, for all their matches, still seemed like they were on different pages at times with some of the spots they did. That kitchen sink I mentioned looked like Wallstreet was too fast to do it and so Duggan keeled over in the slowest manner possible. It looked like Duggan was set in slow-mo.

They went back to the chin-lock and… this was a lame match. This was technically not bad by Wallstreet but long arse chin locks was becoming vintage Wallstreet at this time. Think of Wallstreet like Randy Orton but not as athletic. It’s just boring stuff from Wallstreet during a time where WCW were allegedly in a wrestling ratings war. With something like this, you can tell WCW were not bothered by the first hour.

Duggan punched his way back to his feet but Wallstreet cut him off again. Wallstreet tried a double axe handle I think from the top rope but Duggan put his boot up. Duggan tried to use the tape but Wallstreet cut him off. Wallstreet tried to use the tape himself but Duggan hit the lariat and won.

So at least in this instance, cheaters never prospered and Wallstreet got punished for attempting to cheat. That’s fine, even if Duggan attempted to cheat first, and this is all OK. There is at least some morality to the story of this match. With that being said, the match sucked and I never want to see it again. You have top quality cruiserweights in your roster filled with literally hundreds of wrestlers. Use them.

Hugh Morrus vs Jim Powers w/Teddy Long

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I love how for every Jim Powers match now on Nitro, Nick Patrick happens to be the referee since Patrick is feuding with Powers’ manager Teddy Long! Obviously this is being done with Jim Powers, Ice Train and every other client Teddy Long was managing at the time because of the program with Patrick. However, if this were real, would it really be this coincidental that Patrick is referring all of Powers’ matches?

If Teddy really had a problem with Nick Patrick, how come he never asked for another referee before the match? Then again, this is also a company that is having an injured referee in Nick Patrick referee two matches in a row as he’s did last week. So clearly the WCW Board of Directors do not view referees favourably in WCW. MORE ON THAT later…

Patrick patted down Powers as Patrick and Teddy continued to bicker. One last thing before I get into the match. Not to mention, couldn’t Nick Patrick just ask Teddy to be banned from ringside if Teddy is becoming such a distraction? Or, if he feels Teddy is interfering with the match, throw him out and send him to the back. At the very least, Patrick would be justified in doing that because it’s not like Hugh Morrus came down with Jimmy Hart or anybody! HECK, they flat out talked about Hugh Morrus coming out on his own as a singles competitors as of late without the Dungeon of Doom! If that’s the case, then shouldn’t Patrick have the authority to throw out Teddy Long who he is feuding with to not affect his judgement?

The match started of fine as Powers was able to power Hugh down with a crossbody. Powers did a hip toss and a clothesline as Hugh got sent to the floor. The match gets boring after a while as Morrus just did moves forever to get the heat. Compared to Malenko where he displayed a varied heat segment of his match, Hugh did a bunch of clotheslines applied a bunch of holds, a few scoop slams and it’s just typical nothingness from Morrus. It was the most basic wrestling possible that I could possibly accomplish after 6 months of training. I was not impressed.

Powers got back in the match and did a sunset flip but only got a 2 count after Patrick took a long time to do a 2 count. Powers did a powerslam as Patrick was again slow to do the count to which Hugh even kicked out at one for this move. The announcers are getting pissed, Teddy was getting more pissed and the fans got mad as this was getting in the way of the match. Patrick got knocked into the ropes and when Powers went for a small package, Patrick was even slower to do the count. There was NUCLEAR HEAT for Patrick at this point!

The fans wanted Patrick’s head as did Powers, who got a hold of Patrick but Hugh cut him off. Hugh hit a moonsault and then Patrick, after barely being able to do a proper count, did the count completely fine for the heel as Hugh Morrus got the pinfall victory. The storyline of the match was really well done. Patrick was tremendous in his role as a blatant heel refereee as he slowly made it worse and worse for the babyface but then his true colours showed when he pinned down Hugh as normal. I enjoyed this.

Teddy and Patrick tore into each other after the match as they yelled back and forth.

Greg “The Hammer” Valentine vs Lex Luger

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This was another boring match. There were aspects of the last two matches I enjoyed but as a whole, those matches were very flat. The Duggan/Wallstreet match was saved by a decent finish, the Powers/Morrus match was saved by Nick Patrick but everything else was boring about those two matches. This was just another boring match because they had to tell the story of Luger being hurt after what Arn Anderson did to him last week. Lex Luger selling for Valentine was horrible to see.

Luger was all bandaged up after what happened last week, with Arn beating up Luger with a chair. Valentine got the advantage early on as Valentine worked on the arm. Luger tried a suplex but was not able to do it as his back gave out. Valentine worked on Luger.

Arn watched the match on the monitor as he urged Valentine to stay on the back of Luger. Arn was SAT DOWN watching the match on the monitor, rather than standing to the side and watching the monitor. He was shown to actually be watching the match unlike in some other promotions in 2020.

The nWo arrived with Vincent and Ted DiBiase as Valentine continued to get a heat. Hollywood Hogan had supposedly demanding to make a live announcement later on in the show.

The match was still pretty boring as Valentine just beat on Luger. Luger eventually fought his way back to his feet and Luger did an atomic drop and did two flying forearms but was still not able to get the win.

Valentine tried to get the pin with his feet on the ropes but the referee either caught him or Luger kicked out. I didn’t write down what happened I’m afraid. Whatever happened, as Valentine argued with the referee afterwards, Luger snuck up from behind with the Torture Rack as Valentine quickly submitted. That spot went pretty smoothly all things considered and the fact they that they had to tell the storyline of Luger trying to sell his back. This match was pretty poor but at least the finish was done well and there was a semblance of ring psychology.

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Tony interviewed Nick Patrick. Tony brought up a great point where he mentioned if Patrick was not 100%, maybe he shouldn’t be in the ring refereeing. At the very least, he should not be refereeing two matches in a row like last week! If you remember last week, Patrick had lobbied for a $1 million fine and a suspension for Randy Savage after Savage put his hands on him a few weeks ago. Tony broke the news to Patrick that Savage would get a $500 fine and would miss the first five matches on 1997.

Patrick was very upset by this as he called WCW spineless jellyfishes. Patrick yelled that WCW were in a war with nWo but they’re also gonna have a legal war with his legal staff. They then show footage from WCW Saturday Night, where I guess the nWo got their own segment of that show. A nWo referee was shown in a mask. The masked referee, acting a lot like Nick Patrick, delivered a great right hand and took a swing at the nWo’s opponents which led to them getting the win. Patrick insisted that this man wasn’t him as he’s in much better shape than that guy! I loved his defence and then he immediately pointed the finger at Randy Anderson!

He warned everyone to back off him and the legal team would be back in touch. This was such a great promo by Patrick and I’ve really turned the corner on this storyline. It’s awesome because let’s just pretend that Patrick wasn’t actually corrupt and he was just incompetent. If Patrick was just an idiot that was making mistakes and then when he got attacked by a wrestler to which WCW did nothing about it, then this would be perfect validation for him to join the nWo officially.

It’s clear to everybody at this point that this was Patrick as the nWo referee and Patrick WAS a corrupt referee but in the off chance that he wasn’t, this was great story-telling. If he was corrupt then him trying to paint WCW as the bad guys is a great way to perhaps convince other referees or other wrestlers to join the nWo because this clearly shows WCW doesn’t care about Patrick. There’s so many layers to this storyline and Patrick is tremendous in this role.

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Mike Tenay and Bobby Heenan were at commentary for the second hour but there was no Eric Bischoff. It was supposed to be Randy Savage vs Mike Enos and Savage came down but Eric Bischoff stopped Savage from coming down to talk to him. Savage grabbed the mic and yelled “oh yeah”. Eric wanted to talk to Savage but Savage said he knows nWo is in the building. Savage yelled at Hogan I believe to get his ass outta here so he can kick it.

Bischoff wanted Savage to have a look at a video package, where Elizabeth talked about how she felt. This was one of the better performances of Elizabeth’s WCW run so far. This was great by her own standards but OK to everyone else’s standards which is the best way I can put it. Elizabeth said the things she did in anger were actually done by a coward. Elizabeth said she’s alone again as she welled up. She said sorry and wished he could find some way to forgive her. Elizabeth talked about the bad choices she’s made including signing with Hogan and allowed him to use her to get to Savage. Fans booed in the background as Elizabeth said all of this. 

She said: “I feel the same way about you today than the day I said I do” and the video stopped Then they show Randy Savage watching this. Savage’s facial expressions as he is completely distraught by this video was unbelievably great. His lips quivered and it’s such a variety of emotions with sadness, anger and confusion.  Through no words, he sold this storyline better than Elizabeth. He’s just dead quiet as he looks so lost and he grabbed his face, and pushed Eric aside. Savage started crying but he does start to make his way down to the ring bu then he changes his mind and walked to the back. Savage then squatted as he looks like he’s about to collapse. He goes into the limo and left. I believe Eric said “shit” quietly as Savage left although I didn’t quite get that.

Savage was on another planet awesome… without saying a word and it was captivating. If you watched the Dark Side of the Ring episode with Liz and Savage and if you listen to the stories about how they broke up in 1992 I believe, there’s a sense of realism to what Savage was feeling at the time of Elizabeth saying she’s sorry. Even without that documentary or anything we know now with hindsight, it connected with the audience. We all know the story of Savage and Liz from the WWF and Elizabeth has been with Ric Flair for the last 6 months or so, so this is not like this is “insider” or shoot comments Elizabeth was making. It was real to real-life and it was real to the kayfabe storyline and it worked. This gets two thumbs up. The best segment as part of this Elizabeth/Savage storyline by a huge margin.

Mike Enos got paid for this by the way, to come out and then watch Savage leave. Quite a pay day for Mike Enos.

Eric joined the announce booth after the break. Bobby correctly scolded Eric for bringing the video up right before Halloween Havoc to mess with him ahead of his big match.

Eddie Guerrero vs Cheetah Kid

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I have no idea who the Cheetah Kid was by the way. I went to the internet to try and find out more but I was still not able to find a name. Prince Iaukea WAS the name that I found more than anyone’s but it’s hard really to say. All I know was that this was another generic luchador that WCW invented. From Mr J.L, El Technico two weeks ago and now this guy.

Eddie called DDP a one-move wrestler during an inset a promo. He said: “You can break a leg, you can break an arm but you can’t break my spirit.” This was a great promo by Eddie to build up his match with DDP at Halloween Havoc. 

Cheetah Kid worked on Eddie and hit a powerbomb. Cheetah tried a second one but Eddie reversed it. Eddie did a frankensteiner and hit a frog splash for the win. There’s not a lot I can say. This was a pretty short match to review but everything looked fine.

Lee Marshall called from Minneapolis as WCW was gonna be in Minneapolis with the 1-800-collect road report. That’s what I want to see more of in wrestling. This is probably not possible right now because of the Covid-19 outbreak but if you’re AEW, have Taz go down to Nashville or wherever Dynamite is at next and hang out at a local restaurant to promote the town. The Taz Report each and every week on AEW Dynamite.

Jeff Jarrett vs Big Bubba w/Jimmy Hart

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This was the best match on the show. This may not have necessarily been the best technical match on the show but in many ways, this is the match that personified old-school wrestling or what people remember of old school wrestling. You’re in a big wrestling town and you have a hometown boy in Jeff Jarrett. You have a big heel in Bubba trying to dash the town’s dreams. The hometown boy overcoming all of the odds and winning to thunderous applause. This did everything it set out to do to get Jeff Jarrett over.

I mentioned that Jarrett’s debut last week was one of the worst babyface performances of all time. This was like a polar opposite where they found the right time and the right town and Jarrett was so over, with a match booked with the purposes of getting him over as a babyface and it worked.

Eric said Bubba was from The Faces of Fear. I have no idea what that was about so either they renamed the Dungeon of the Doom to “The Faces of Fear” or Bubba is just with the Faces of Fear tag team as a stable member. I think Eric made a mistake and he meant the Dungeon of Doom. I guess Eric was too excited about that Faces of Fear vs Harlem Heat main-event later on in the show.

As mentioned, there was a strong reaction for hometown boy Jeff Jarrett. There was Big Double J chants. At the very least for Jarrett, he did the strut and the fans went crazy for him this week.

Jeff delivered some beautiful right hands. Jarrett had one of the great underrated right hands in the wrestling business. It is right up Jerry Lawler’s avenue with the way these right hands were delivered. Jarrett chased Jimmy around but Bubba hid behind the steps and cut Jarrett off.

Bubba tried a slam on the steel steps but the referee got in the way, so he settled for a backbreaker. Jimmy got kicks in on the outside at Jarrett as he yelled about this being his town to which Tenay concluded that this was about jealousy. Jimmy Hart had been big in Memphis before so this was why he took exception to Jarrett.

Bubba locked on a chin lock. Jarrett tried to fight back but Bubba cut him off with a great big boot. Bubba tried a stinger splash but he got caught on the top rope as Jarrett kicked away at him. Jarrett went for a Figure Four but Jimmy got on the apron and Jarrett punched at him as Jimmy bounced his way to the outside. It was such a funny sell.

Bubba accidentally hit the ref as he tried to ground and pound Jeff, with this being Jeff’s first experience in Double J, Double M-A! Quite the foreshadowing to an MMA storyline for another company 15 years later that Jarrett happened to be the founder of! Jimmy threw the megaphone in the ring but Jarrett dropkicked it in Bubba’s face and got the pin and the fans cheered.

This was brilliant professional wrestling. This was not a technical masterpiece but this is everything the fans remember about the good times of old school wrasslin’. This was traditional wrestling as the fans went nuts for the hometown boy, they put him over like crazy and this was awesome. I might be in the minority but this was the best thing on the show for me.

Tony Schiavonie revealed Jarrett will wrestle The Giant at Halloween Havoc as a replacement for Ric Flair. Jarrett said he was gonna make an impact. Say what you will about Jeff Jarrett, but he was not wrong. Jeff Jarrett did make an Impact… give it 10 years later! He called himself an Impact Player. He wasn’t the biggest but he was the smartest and he would chop Giant down to size and lock on the figure four. He said the nWo was gonna respect Ric Flair, WCW and the wrestling heritage. All the nWo were gonna respect Jeff Jarrett. He was so over tonight and this was a fine promo from Jarrett.

“Harlem Heat” Booker T and Stevie Ray w/Col Robert Parker and Col Robert Parker vs “Faces of Fear” Meng and The Barbarian in a non-title match

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I don’t care what anyone thinks. This match was boring. They threw two heel tag teams in there and there was no face/heel chemistry to streamline the match. You don’t necessarily need that in a match but it would help to some extent in order to help the fans get into the match a little.

It was incredibly weird seeing comedy acts like Col Robert Parker embroiled in a feud with the nWo at this time! Harlem Heat were defending the WCW tag team titles against the Outsiders at Halloween Havoc so by association, Col. Robert Parker was feuding with the nWo! They point out that Harlem Heat could get hurt against Faces of Fear and to prove their point, Meng beat Booker’s arse in the corner! He just threw wild punches at him in the corner!

Not to mention, Harlem Heat only won the titles becauseFaces of Fear attacked the leg of Johnny Grunge of the former tag champs and they capitalised on that injury. So yes, it is established in this universe that it is dangerous to wrestle even in a non-title match. This was great work to put the match over by Bobby Heenan who mentioned this. This was not just a regular, random match. They wanted to sell the idea that this match was important. I at least give them credit for that because not many wrestling promotions do that nowadays.

Benoit and Mongo come out with Debra as Mongo talked trash at Faces of Fear. It’s a pretty bland match for a while. There’s no clear heat segment with two heel groups although I guess Harlem Heat where the defacto babyfaces feuding with the nWo. Barbarian and Stevie Ray somehow pulled off a top rope belly to belly suplex which I did find to be impressive.

Sherri screamed at Meng and Meng responded by shaking his hips and dancing in front of Sherri to huge laughs from the crowd. Meng playing the role of Big E by swivelling his hips I enjoyed.

Meng hit Stevie Ray with a naughty sit-out powerbomb. Faces of Fear hit the double headbutt. The fans go crazy as the match ended in a big brawl in the ring as Scott Hall and Kevin Nash arrived on the scene with cans of spray-paint. The match is thrown out as the wrestlers stopped fighting as they challenge the Outsiders to come over the barricade… for a unfair fight! The Outsiders were in a 2 on 4 disadvantage so why would they take them up on this offer? Barbarian even grabbed a chair. Outsiders wisely don’t fight them because they are outnumbered and live to fight another day. Eric then randomly goes on a tangent begging for Sting to come back as a leader.

This was… all kinds of odd

Halloween Havoc hyped up Giant vs Ric Flair for Halloween Havoc, right after Jarrett was booked with Giant for the PPV. I have no idea what was going on with that.

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The Fans go crazy again as Hogan finally arrived with the entire nWo making their way down to the ring including Elizabeth. Even Elizabeth is dressed in black. Before I get into Hogan’s promo, I will go back to the point I made during the opener about fans loving the nWo. Jeff Jarrett cut this big promo last week about how Hogan wrestled in Tennessee and disrespected tradition. It was every attempt to stand up for old school wrasslin’ and paint Hogan as the “anti-christ of professional wrestling” as Vince Russo used to call himself. However, these fans did not care which should tell you how over the nWo were at this time. 

Think of this like the CM Punk chants that as of last year still happened during WWE shows when Punk had not been with the company for five years. It’s weird to make that comparison but in the opener, the fans chanted nWo during a random cruiserweight match like CM PUNK would just be randomly chanted during a terrible RAW segment for example. They wanted more of the nWo… AT THIS POINT.

Hogan said it was nWo time brothers as the fans cheered! Hogan said all for one and one for all. Hogan said he hoped Savage would have some dignity and then Hogan talked about filming a movie “the three ninjas”. I checked and it appears the movie he was referring to was: “3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain”. I have a weird desire to watch this movie because having looked at the Wikipedia entry, this was what I got:

“The film had universally negative reviews and is generally considered to be the worst of the four in the series. On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 0%, based on 6 reviews.”

What’s weird about this film was that it got released in April 1998 and Hogan was filming for this movie back in October 1996. After all of that work, it grossed domestically $375,805. So clearly, this film needed some work.

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Hogan said he can push Savage’s buttons to run and hide from the greatest actress in the world Elizabeth. Following this comment, Elizabeth tried to slap him Hogan but Hogan grabbed her. Hogan said he doesn’t think Savage is worthy for a title shot. The Nasty Boys come out in nWo gear with a piece of paper as they high five. Hogan said they had never done him wrong and he loved them like his own family. As soon as he said “his own family” it became clear what was going to happen to the Nasty Boys.

Hogan said: “If there’s anything I can do, just call on me.” Knobbs yelled about the contract, saying he should get more money. Hogan told him the turn the page. Hogan said he himself didn’t sign the contract. He says they shouldn’t have the nWo shirts on if he didn’t sign the contract. He said: “You don’t wear these colours unless we tell you too” after which the nWo kick their arses as Hogan said get him boys. They rip off the shirts and spray paint their backs. They rip up the contract. Hogan yelled that the reason Savage’s life fell apart is because of Hollywood Hogan. He said: “The bottom line is before the marriage was destroyed, night and day Elizabeth dreamed about me. After Halloween Havoc is over, I’ll still be her man.” Hogan said he was gonna fly back to Hollywood, finish his film and take Elizabeth with him. He said he was gonna make sure Elizabeth was gonna love it. Hogan said Elizabeth was gonna be with him night and day.

It’s weird seeing Hogan as the slightly more evil version of Ric Flair. My weird analogy of this is Ric Flair is your typical “fun” womaniser (EDITOR’S NOTE: The writer of this blog is no way promoting womanising as “fun”, this is merely for the purposes of this analogy) and Hollywood Hogan was like The Joker with Elizabeth being Harley Quinn. Ric Flair just wanted to party, take women to space mountain and have a good time while Hogan wants to possess Elizabeth like property but he’s still trying to talk like Ric Flair. It’s weird seeing Ric Flair being “the lesser of two evils” between himself and Hulk Hogan!

Nash and Hall take over the announce booth. Hall said Harlem heat were gonna find out what the nWo was all about at Halloween Havoc. They showed the clip again of Savage distraught after the Elizabeth segment as the show goes off the air.

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I stand by my comments earlier that this show was boring. There was nothing really about this show that was bad, other than two or three of the boring matches in a row in the first hour. I felt Luger vs Valentine and Duggan vs Wallstreet were bad but they were more boring than bad. There was still a lot to like about the show and I actually didn’t mind the nWo shenanigans this week. There was a pay off to the Nasty Boys joining the nWo storyline, there were some solid matches and I like a lot of the main storylines they’re putting together at the moment. Therefore, I would consider this show more of a success this week on the grounds that the fans were super into the show as a whole.

At the end of the day, that is what was important so I would give this show a thumbs up on those grounds although I personally considered it boring. I’m sure the stuff I found boring, someone will probably watched recently as well and found it great so I’d recommended watching this yourself and formulating your opinion. Feel free to leave comments on this blog post and tell the Armbar Express what you thought about this episode of Nitro!

WCW Nitro Reading Order