by Thomas Robinson

RETRO EXPRESS: WWF MONDAY NIGHT RAW (FEBRUARY 24TH 1997) – ECW INVADES MONDAY NIGHT RAW

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.

We’ve got an historic episode of WWF Monday Night RAW that we’re reviewing this week for the 24/2/1997, along with our review on WCW Monday Nitro which has already been uploaded on the blog. If you want to read that review for Nitro 24/2/1997 it’s available at this link and the links to my other WCW Monday Nitro reviews are down below as part of this series.

However, this week we’ve got more WWF vs. WCW nonsense as the Nitro after SuperBrawl went up against this special edition of RAW on the 24/2/1997. The Nitro episode we reviewed was a pretty damn good one. However, it was not as historic and memorable as the RAW it went up against for this week.

This was the week where Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) invaded the WWF. Following an invite to appear on the show by Jerry “The King” Lawler, Paul Heyman led the ECW troops to the Manhattan Center in New York. This was a legitimate crossover between wrestling promotions with ECW doing business with the WWF, as a promotion for their upcoming first ever pay-per-view.

As far as how I think ECW was presented as part of this invasion, I felt ECW were showcased very well. Lawler tried to bury it although as soon as ECW wrestlers were in the vicinity, the crowd was going nuts and the action improved and it felt like a livelier show. If anything, this made the WWF come off as the inferior product and ECW as the hot brand. ECW was getting hot at the time but the WWF was just lacking in interest at this point.

Don’t get me wrong, they were getting their ducks in a row. We had Rocky Maivia, we had Stone Cold Steve Austin and we had other up-and-coming stars they were pushing. However, everything else on the show was just a huge bundle of bad ideas and vanilla mid-carders. They didn’t even have Shawn Michaels at this point. Shawn lost his smile and was injured. You had Sid, who would not be in the WWF for much longer. You had the Undertaker and Bret Hart, who had been in the WWF for a long time by this point. However, that was it.

This was also going into WRESTLEMANIA and the two big matches for WrestleMania 13 were Stone Cold vs. Bret and Undertaker vs. Sid. I could not tell you what else was on that card for WrestleMania 13 and even those two matches weren’t even established until last week when Sid won the title from Bret.

This was a bad time for the WWF. However, spoilers, things turned around for them!

That’s more than I can say for WCW and ECW!

Date: February 24th 1997

Brand: WWF

City: Manhattan Center, New York

Rating: 2.5

Commentators: Vince McMahon and Jerry “The King” Lawler

Note on the ratings before we get onto the show. The ratings were very close this week. Nitro had gotten a 3 and RAW was at a 2.5, so this was very close. With ECW, there was definitely intrigue into this show. Could these fans have been loyal ECW fans that were tuning into RAW just to see their boys? Possibly. However, they were still up against WCW which had Hollywood Hogan, Randy Savage, Sting, Lex Luger and all the big stars in that big main-event segment. With all of that, they were only 0.5 apart in the ratings. To me, that’s a success especially if you’re ECW.

The Godwins vs. The New Blackjacks

What a miserable tag team match to start off this show. I’d say this match was better than some of the Public Enemy matches I’ve seen on Nitro, but that’s it. I can’t really say this tag match was good but it wasn’t totally atrocious. The men were OK in this match but who could have possibly cared about the Godwins or the New Blackjacks? If the goal was to make the WWF look worse so ECW could look so much better, they succeeded. I was begging for some ECW at this point!

The Blackjacks jumped the Godwins from the get-go. Bradshaw clotheslined one of the Godwins out of the ring. Windham got beat up in the ring for a while. Windham got bundled over the top rope with a hurrincanrana.

Bradshaw worked on Phineas I. Godwin for a while until he got back into the match and Henry O. Godwin got tagged in. Henry back-dropped Bradshaw as he gained control. Blackjack Windham beat up Henry on the outside as the Blackjacks got the heat.

Jerry Lawler was so unfunny to me as I was watching this match. After hearing Bobby Heenan on Nitro, Lawler came off so much worse in comparison. Heenan’s comedy came off so natural that he could bounce off of the commentators he was working with. Jerry was like a stand-up comedian doing a routine while Vince was just commentating beside him.

I don’t think I’ve ever liked this combination of Lawler and Vince on commentary. I don’t want to compare every WWF commentator to Jim Ross, but JR and Lawler were able to bounce off of each other so well. JR knew the lines to feed Lawler to get the best quips out of him or to heighten the atmosphere of the situation. McMahon just couldn’t do it.

Phineas got the hot tag and in the middle of the HOT TAG, Phineas locked on a sleeper hold! Bradshaw hit a clothesline on Phineas to get the pin but Phineas’ foot was on the rope. In response, the Godwins threw manure on the referee.

This was lame.

We saw our first ECW invasion of the night. The Eliminators, who seemed to be the ECW Tag Team Champions at the time, laid somebody out with the Total Elimination move. Paul Heyman appeared and screamed that Lawler’s challenge was accepted. He proclaimed that ECW was in the house and the fans went crazy for this. They chanted ECW as this invasion was off with a bang.

Paul was still in the ring. On behalf of ECW, Paul introduced Little Guido from the Full Blooded Italians. After this, the Blue World Order (bWo) came out. They did an excellent job in getting as much bWo shirts out in the crowd as possible! Obviously Heyman had said before they’d be on RAW, so it was advertised. However, there were so many ECW, bWo and other ECW shirts in the crowd. This was ECW territory and it felt like a proper invasion!

It is funny though watching a nWo parody group in the Blue World Order, after watching nearly two years worth of WCW television involving the real New World Order!

Stevie Richards w/Super Nova, The Blue Meanie and 7-11 vs. Little Guido

Stevie hit a fallaway slam, being able to play a great big man against Little Guido! Paul Heyman joined commentary.

Stevie hit a big sidewalk slam as ECW World Champion Raven showed up. He stared the wrestlers down. Little Guido took advantage and beat up Stevie. Goldust cut an inset promo saying that everything else was a B movie and he was the premiere attraction or something. Goldust was so quiet during his promo so it was difficult to grasp what he was trying to say.

Stevie hit a leg drop facebuster and then hit a powerbomb. Stevie hit the Stevie Kick for the pin-fall victory.

This was the best match on the show so far!

Sunny vs. Marlena in an arm wrestling match

(Sighs) Here we go.

Honky Tonk Man was the special referee for an arm wrestling match between Sunny and Marlena. I kid you not.

The fans here were in love with Sunny as she came out. She made fun of the fat out-of-shape New Yorkers as she showed them what a real woman was supposed to look like. This was straight out of Rick Rude’s playbook. I have no love for Sunny as a person but she was in phenomenal shape here.

Sunny offered Marlena a forfeit to which Marlena responded by making some reference to working 40 seconds. I have no idea what that was a reference to. If this was an innuendo joke, it flew over my head. Honky Tonk Man was getting upset as he said he was getting thirsty.

Sunny started doing press-ups. Marlena then messed with Sunny as both girls were stalling before the match began. There was so much stalling. They then showed Ken Shamrock in the crowd, to which Jerry said that he was loving this. From what I saw, Ken Shamrock had a face of indifference! More on Ken Shamrock later!

The women arm-wrestled and Marlena was about to slam her down until Sunny threw white powder in Marlena’s face. Someone screamed repeatedly “you fucking bitch” as Sunny taunted her. I’d say this didn’t fit the theme of the show but we just had ECW on the show and we’re about to get a lot more “hardcore” action!

Savio Vega showed up to strong-arm Marlena until Goldust appeared to attack him which started their match.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a good arm-wrestling segment in professional wrestling! If anyone knows of a good arm-wrestling segment in professional wrestling history, please leave a comment and I’ll track it down!

Goldust vs. Savio Vega w/The Nation of Domination

Savio got the heat which included Goldust getting hit with a piledriver on the outside by Crush.

Goldust tried to fire back but Savio cut him off. Goldust tried to get back into the match again with a crossbody but Savio again cut him off with a super kick. The fans weren’t interested in this match. They started chanting for Sunny.

Goldust eventually hit the DDT. Savio tried a big splash but Goldust got the knees up to block him. Goldust made a comeback and rained down punches in the corner. Some female fan behind Ken Shamrock was shown actually having a nWo sign!

Goldust dealt with Crush on the outside. Savio did a wheel kick which missed by a huge margin but Goldust still sold for it. Eventually Crush just ran as he and Savio both jumped Goldust causing the disqualification.

You know, I’ve often complained when reviewing the WCW shows about matches ending in disqualification a lot of the time. This one was just as bad as those matches. Goldust and Savio had a boring wrestling match after nearly ten minutes which was just ended when someone ran in and attacked Goldust. It wasn’t even a clever disqualification. It was just a cheap one. Then Miguel Perez came from the announce table to make the save. Neither Goldust nor Savio Vega came off looking good after this.

This was also a disqualification after the arm-wrestling match ALSO ended in a disqualification!

One last comment: I will say, as Goldust’s face-paint was coming off, you could see some of Cody Rhodes in Goldust here. Especially with the blonde hair, it did remind me of his brother.

Jerry Lawler interviewed Ken Shamrock. Jerry talked about teaching Ken martial arts, which got an audible laugh from the crowd. Lawler wanted Ken to talk about the time they’d spent training together and Ken said “I don’t know you.” Ken called Jerry a liar which upset him. This was also lame.

Then Paul Heyman showed up and said: “man has this showed sucked without ECW or what?” I AGREE.

Taz w/Bill Alfonso vs. Mikey Whipwreck

There’s actually some Armbar Express lore surrounding this match. When I realised that this episode of RAW was coming up, I immediately thought back to this match. I say that because this match was on the first wrestling DVD I ever owned. It was “Before They Were WWE Superstars 2” and it was pretty much a look into wrestlers before they started wrestling. I watched this around 2003/2004 when I was first watching wrestling.

They had the debut matches of John Cena on this DVD and they had biographies into people like Torrie Wilson. In the middle of this, there was this match. This was Taz’s WWF debut and they had this match on that DVD. Here, I got to revisit it again!

They actually had, what was seemingly, the ECW graphics for the ECW wrestlers. I think they cut this entrance out of the DVD because I don’t remember the ECW graphics being on RAW!

Taz tried an armbar early on as Paul and Jerry argued. Taz worked on the arm for a while. Taz hit a superb looking Northern Lights suplex. Taz hit a double underhook suplex to follow this up! Paul screamed while calling every move Taz did!

Paul and Jerry were both on form as they traded barbs back and forth. They were both screaming relentless at each other about ECW and Lawler screamed about how much it sucked. It’s probably the most intense commentary I’ve heard in a while and they were both on top of their game. Vince was pretty much mute with Paul calling all the ECW moves!

Sabu showed up and jumped off the R of the RAW logo. I honestly don’t remember who he was trying to hit!

Taz struggled but hit Mikey with a belly to belly suplex onto Sabu and Bill Alfonso on the outside. Taz hit the Tazplex on Mikey as Sabu was being ushered away. Taz locked on the Tazmission and won via submission.

Taz looked like such a beast in this match. One of Lawler’s biggest gripes within this ECW storyline was that ECW was just garbage wrestling. Taz showed up and put on a wrestling clinic in throwing dudes around. He was short but wide and smashed poor Mikey Whipwreck and took out people trying to interfere. I haven’t watched a lot of Taz when he wrestled but, here, he came off like a badass. I liked this performance and it was just pure wrestling from him.

Taz at this point vs. The Steiner Brothers would have been amazing to watch. That’s a dream match for me!

Legion of Doom vs. The Headbangers

This may have been the Legion of Doom’s first appearance on RAW after their time in WCW. We were reviewing Road Warrior matches that happened in 1996 so the chances that this was their big return to the WWF. The fans were going crazy for them in New York.

They attacked the Headbangers. Even the ECW fans were chanting for LOD. Animal hit a shoulder tackle on one of the Headbangers. Hawk tried to fight both the Headbangers but they overwhelmed him briefly. The fans chanted “Nitro” sucks which was hilarious to me. Nitro was ten times better than RAW on this show minus the ECW stuff. Even the ECW stuff, I wouldn’t put over the best of WCW.

Hawk hit a gutwrench slam. Animal hit a powerbomb. Fans chanted “Bischoff sucks”. The Headbangers tried to fight back until Hawk started no-selling and beating up one of them. I realise that this was the Legion of Doom’s match but the Headbangers didn’t look impressive in the slightest here.

It was mostly LOD beating the crap out of the Headbangers or no-selling their offense. They eventually got the heat as they came back from the break. Shortly afterwards, Hawk then hit a double clothesline and made the hot tag to Animal!

Animal ran wild for a bit as LOD just beat on the Headbangers. One of the Headbangers went smashing into the steel steps as the match was thrown out.

This was ruled a double count-out and then straight after this finish, LOD hit the Doomsday Device anyway. WHY DIDN’T YOU JUST LET THEM GET THE WIN?

That’s two horrible no contest finishes for RAW. At least most of the matches on Nitro were squash matches. Here, the Legion of Doom were making their comeback match. Just give them the victory with the Doomsday Device to make the fans happy.

They played the “Tell me a Lie” video. I’m not sure if it was the exact same one because they showed Shawn in tears vacating the title. The original “Tell me a Lie” video I believe played after Shawn dropped the title in the ring on the same episode. I don’t think they would have put that video together on the fly in 1997!

Tommy Dreamer w/Beulah McGillicutty vs. D-Von Dudley

In a match that we could easily see in TNA in 2024, Tommy Dreamer vs. D-Von Dudley!

Dreamer beat up Dudley after a while and threw him into the steel steps. Dreamer hit a suplex to D-Von onto the floor. Dreamer dropkicked steel steps into the face of D-Von. D-Von turned things around by Irish-Whipping Dreamer into the steel steps. D-Von hit Dreamer with a chair.

D-Von hit a sidewalk slam onto the chair. Lawler screamed about Extremely Crappy Wrestling as things got heated yet again between him and Heyman. D-Von missed a top rope headbutt and hit the chair instead. Dreamer hit a piledriver. D-Von grabbed Beulah as Dreamer was about to hit him with the chair. They were in a hostage situation basically in the middle of the ring until Beulah hit a low blow on D-Von.

Dreamer hit a DDT and got the pin. A CLEAN PIN. To recap, all the ECW matches had clean finishes and the WWF matches all had disqualifications and screwjob finishes on RAW by this point!

Then Bubba Ray Dudley ran out and attacked Dreamer. Undertaker was cutting an inset promo as this is all going on. I love how they had the WWF inset promos during each of these ECW matches, including Faarooq during the Taz match, and these promos were just nothing promos! The promos they showed were so quiet and so unimpressive that it just made you wonder why they even bothered, other than just to put some WWF talent on screen during this ECW invasion!

The Dudleyz hit the 3D but then the Sandman made the save. Sandman turned things around on the Dudleyz as he smacked them both with chairs. Him and Dreamer stood tall. Paul tried to attack Lawler but was carted away. Lawler even tried to get hit on Heyman as they were pulled apart. I will say that this chaotic brawl in the middle of RAW was very well done. It was almost like a boiling point that needed to be hit before ECW were ousted from the show. The ECW invasion did bring some much needed life into this lousy WWF show!

They recapped Bret vs. Sid from the week before where the “jackal” Stone Cold attacked Bret. This actually looked like a hell of a brawl between Bret and Austin that Sid even got involved in too. They actually showed everything that happened on RAW, including the first brawl and Austin attacking Bret a second time. Bret had Sid locked on in a Sharpshooter during the title match until Austin ran down and hit Bret with a chair to cost him the title.

We’ve not been regularly reviewing the RAW shows but Bret was attacked three times by Austin on the same night! It was probably by design, but this gave Bret such great validation for eventually turning heel as Stone Cold was beloved by the fans for being a heel! Austin attacked him three times on one show and cost him the title. If I was Bret, I’d be furious!

I also love how Earl didn’t see Austin hitting Bret with the chair in the finish to that match. Apparently Earl didn’t hear the big bang from the chair shot, which was like inches away from where he was mind! This was Earl’s prelude to the Montreal Screwjob as he screwed Bret here too!

Todd Pettingill did a proper interview with Ken Shamrock. Ken said it was pretty exciting… which had to be a lie. He actually introduced his wife and his father, which is not something I see a lot in wrestling interviews! He predicted that Undertaker would win the WWF title match at WrestleMania as he had more technique! When describing Undertaker, technique was not something that comes to mind!

Faarooq came down, called UFC “cat fighting” and challenged Ken Shamrock to step into the ring. Ken actually cut a promo saying that he would love to step into the ring one-on-one with Faarooq as long as he left the Nation of Domination out of it. This was OK I guess.

Undertaker vs. Faarooq w/The Nation of Domination

Undertaker chased Faarooq as the Nation of Domination dudes surrounded the ring. Faarooq was clotheslined to the outside. Faarooq clotheslined Undertaker in response but Undertaker sat right back up. Faarooq clotheslined him again as Taker landed on his feet on the outside. The Nation members jumped Taker while he was on the outside.

Faarooq chop-blocked Undertaker and Taker landed right on top of the back of Faarooq. That could not have been fun. Faarooq got the heat on Taker for a while. Faarooq worked on the leg. Undertaker pulled off what was seemingly a rare school boy roll up!

Faarooq locked on a rest hold. This match was boring. Faarooq went off the top rope and Taker countered with a powerslam. Faarooq tried to use the steel steps but Taker booted it out of his hands. Faarooq hit a piledriver to which Taker sat up afterwards and no-sold. Then the Nation ran in and it led to a disqualification. So yes, every WWF match on this show had a screwy finish. This was such tripe.

The Legion of Doom ran down to make the save.

What a boring ass RAW. The ECW stuff was by far the most exciting things on the show. It was great for ECW as it allowed them to promote their PPV and it added life to RAW but the audacity of those fans in attendance to chant “Nitro sucks” was just astounding. This week’s Nitro blew it out of the water and it didn’t needed a legendary moment like the ECW invasion to get people’s attention. They just had a good wrestling show with great wrestling.

Even the likes of Hugh Morrus vs. Joe Gomez had clean finishes. If the WWF had their hands on those two, the Nation of Domination probably would have ran out after Hugh hit his moonsault and caused the disqualification. I liked the ECW invasion but the quality of shows between RAW and Nitro wasn’t even close.

Nitro wins in terms of quality, wrestling and in the ratings. RAW I’d say had the most passionate crowd out of the two shows. I’d say Nitro had the best crowd as they were into everything that happened on Nitro. Therefore, let’s call this a Nitro win.

However, I’ll also call this a win for ECW. This invasion is still remembered to this day and it got a lot of people’s attention. This, if anything, may have been why ECW was “showcased” a lot more favourably than WCW after they were bought out by the WWE. It was ECW that was brought back from the dead by the WWE and not WCW and I reckon a lot of that had to do with how well this collaboration worked. People like Paul Heyman, Rob Van Dam and a lot of ECW guys showed that they could work with Vince McMahon and the WWF so it probably helped with the overall “legacy” of ECW.

I am tempted to review that first ECW pay-per-view. If that’s something people would be interested in, please let me know.

We’ll be back to just reviewing Nitro next week. I don’t think I’ll be able to get it out before Christmas Day so I’ll go ahead and say thank you all for following along with this series this year as it’s been brought back. It’s great to be posting these reviews regularly again and you’re going to get more coming your way in the new year!

Enjoy the holidays and we’ll come back bearing gifts of more Armbar Express content!

COMING UP: A new “How I Would Book” post will be going out tomorrow, at 2pm UK time on the 23/12/2023 on the Armbar Express blog!

WCW Nitro Reading Order

12.10.23

by Thomas Robinson

RETRO EXPRESS: WCW SUPERBRAWL 1997 (FEBRUARY 23RD 1997)

This pay-per-view was an improvement on the last “WCW” pay-per-view that we reviewed in the nWo Souled Out show. That’s not saying much, given how disastrous that show was, but it does make this show seem fantastic by comparison. Although I don’t rate it nearly as well as other pay-per-views in 1996, there were a number of good matches that you could sink your teeth into. It just lacked truly quality matches in the same vain of Starrcade for example. There was no Ultimo Dragon vs. Dean Malenko for example that blew me away. We had a few good matches, some bad ones but nothing remarkable or disastrous. As the kids these days would say, this was a pretty “mid” wrestling pay-per-view but a decent wrestling show nevertheless.

Date: February 23rd, 1997

Brand: WCW

City: San Francisco, California

Attendance: ‎13,324

Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Dusty Rhodes and Bobby “The Brain” Heenan

Rowdy Roddy Piper was shown being released from Alcatraz. As shown on the Nitro before this pay-per-view, he’d been there for seven days and seven nights. He breathed heavily, walking out of his cell like a zombie as he growled. A guard went up to him and Piper responded saying that he knew his way. Piper jogged down the steps and roared as he made his way out of Alcatraz. Piper said: “it was time to pay the Piper”. He called Hogan an endangered species before getting onto a boat. He grabbed a pole of the boat and was on his way to the Cow Palace.

This was Piper being as nuts as you’d think as he came very close to just pole dancing and grinding on the pole of this boat.

Dean Malenko © vs Syxx for the WCW Cruiserweight Championship

They showed what Syxx had done in the past couple of months in WCW, stealing the United States Championship from Eddie Guerrero and now Dean Malenko’s Cruiserweight Championship. That all led to this match for Dean’s title that was currently in the possession of Syxx!

Dean started beating up Syxx as the bell rang. Dean hit a big dropkick to a huge pop and laid in forearms to Syxx in the corner. Dean hit a Brainbuster for a two count but pulled Syxx up before three. He did this a few times as Dean mentioned previously that he wanted to teach Syxx a lesson and Syxx took a shot at his deceased father on the previous episode of Nitro. Dean even used closed fists as Dean wanted to punish Syxx.

Syxx slapped Dean which led to an absolutely smooth and fabulous Powerslam spot. Dean kicked away at Syxx in the corner. Dean positioned Syxx in the tree of woe position and Dean followed this up with a dropkick to the knee of Syxx.

Dean went for the Cloverleaf submission but Syxx booted him away and was selling his knee for about a minute or so. Dean did a crossbody to Syxx that sent them both crashing over the top rope. Dean regained possession of his title as he was beating up Syxx on the outside.

In a cool spot, Syxx tried a spin kick which Dean ducked, and then followed up by dropping Syxx with a hard clothesline. Syxx then forgot to sell his knee as he unloaded with multiple kicks in the corner. Syxx then hit the Bronco Buster which I don’t think I’ve actually seen him do yet as part of this WCW series! This may have been the first time he did the move that would become synonymous with Syxx and the rest of his career.

Syxx locked on a sleeper hold which Dean got out of with a suplex. Syxx did a double axe handle guillotine on Dean, as Dean’s head was draped under the ropes. Syxx hit a suplex and followed this up with a top rope leg drop for a two count. Syxx went back to the sleeper hold. Dean eventually locked on his own hold before both men crashed into each other head first.

Syxx was crotched ion the top rope and this lead to Dean going for the back suplex from the top rope, which Syxx countered. Syxx grabbed the Cruiserweight belt but Eddie Guerrero came out to do a tug of war with Syxx. Dean grabbed Syxx which led to a triple threat tug of war. Syxx however yanked the title away and hit Dean with it, while the referee was looking at Eddie. Syxx got the pin to win the Cruiserweight Championship.

Match Rating: ***1/4. It felt like an inevitably that Syxx would eventually win a championship. Syxx had been pushed as a single star while in the flock of the New World Order. This was his second singles feud and he was always with Scott Hall and Kevin Nash, so he may as well win the championship if he’s been pushed so much. It’s more championships for the New World Order and frustrating to see Dean Malenko drop the title about a month or so after winning it. It’s becoming bothersome to see this title become hot-shotted, especially given the quality of some of the matches. We reviewed the match from last month where Dean won the title from Ultimo Dragon, which may have been one of the greatest cruiserweight matches in WCW history. A month later and they’ve already put the title on somebody else.

The match was fine but nowhere near in the realm of other cruiserweight title matches in the previous year.

NOTES: Ever since the WCW Cruiserweight Championship was introduced and won by Shinjiro Otani in March 1996, the championship had already changed hands five times prior to this match. With Syxx’s victory, this became the 6th title change and therefore the seventh Cruiserweight title reign in less than a year. Syxx was responsible for the 6th title change… how ironic.

Mean Gene Okerlund was backstage plugging the WCW Hotline before interviewing Diamond Dallas Page. Big Bubba was out of action so DDP had a mystery opponent to wrestle from the nWo. DDP listed all the members of the nWo including Hogan, Syxx, the Outsiders who were all wrestling on SuperBrasl. After about a minute or so teasing who it could be, Okerlund just revealed it to be Buff Bagwell. That’s all that happened in this segment.

Konan, La Parka and Villano IV vs. Juventud Guerrera, Super Calo and Ciclope

If I had to pick a match from this show to recommend that you should go back to watch, this one would certainly be my pick. This match was not an all-time great match or even a technically sound wrestling match. This was an absolute crazy, train-wreck of a trios match that was a joy to watch! Sometimes, you don’t need all the spots to be perfect, and not all of them were here, but there was a lot of fun spots to appreciate in this trios match!

Ciclope and Villano wrestled for a bit, trading arm drags before getting into a shoving match. Konan and Juventud got tagged in with Juventud taking a massive bump for a Konan clothesline. Juventud did a headscissors takeover and followed this up with a front dropkick. Konan pulled off a wheelbarrow German suplex before destroying the rest of the opposing team! This included a Powerbomb towards Ciclope.

There were big bumps taken by everyone here. Calo did his dangerous looking springboard plancha again as he had done on Nitro against Rey Mysterio Jr. He tried a springboard dropkick but landed on his stomach on the outside. It did not look pretty.

Parka did a chair-assisted suicide dive onto Calo on the outside. Villano and Ciclope were the slowest moving competitors of the match and not as co-ordinated in the match as the rest of the wrestlers. As I wrote that last sentence, Ciclope then did a springboard crossbody to the outside which he completely missed! As Bobby Heenan put it: “he missed the runway on that one”!

Juventud did a 450 splash in which he may have hit the head of Villano. La Parka got tagged and did a corkscrew splash onto Juventud. Juventud did a smooth springboard hurricanrana on Parka and into the ring. Konan and Villiano did a doomsday device to Juventud.

Then we got an incredible spot. Konan and Villano did a double team submission om Juventud where they’d grab the legs, roll over and apply a double team leg submission. Calo and Ciclope broke this up by applying the same hold and rolling over Konan and Villano! It turned from a two-on-one advantage for Konan and Villano into a two-on-three DISADVANTAGE! As three men were all locked in a submission at the same time, Parka attempted a pin fall on one of the men applying the hold!

I don’t watch a lot of Mexican wrestling promotions or lucha libre promotions like AAA or CMLL. However, in 20 years of watching wrestling, I’ve never seen a spot like this! Even after watching Rey Mysterio in WWE and WCW, after watching the Lucha Bros in AEW and everything in Lucha Underground, I’d never seen a spot like this at it was excellent!

Konan pressed Juventud to the outside. Then Konan and Villano did a spot where they grabbed the legs of Ciclope and Calo. They sat down, stretched the legs to which Mike Tenay called this “The Star”! This was followed up by La Parka hitting Juventud with an electric chair drop. Parka applied a surfboard submission and rolled into the middle of The Star as all the submission moves were applied simultaneously! The fans were going nuts for this.

As all six men were in the ring wrestling and I was thinking about how blatant it was that they weren’t tagging in and out, Bobby Heenan said: “I’ll give you a thousand dollars if you can tell me who the legal guy in the ring is”!

Team Juventud all did dropkicks together and then they all did suicide dives together. They all were crashing down to the floor and onto the other team. Juventud missed everyone and just hit the guard rail! It was such a wild chaotic six man tag, and I loved it.

Juventud tried a roll up on Konan. Konan hit a huge Crucifix Powerbomb. Juventud kicked out at two and Tenay proclaimed that he kicked out but the referee rang the bell anyway! Team Konan got the win.

This match was such a clutter of crazy spots where some were executed superbly and some were executed horribly. It was a giant mess and I loved it.

Match Rating: ***3/4

They were showing fans screaming and one fan had a “Hi Grandpa” sign in the midst of this wrestling show. That was sweet.

Prince Iaukea © vs. Rey Mysterio Jr. for the WCW World Television Championship

For those that did not read my review of the go-home episode of Nitro, you may be confused as to how Prince Iaukea is the WCW World Television Champion! All my reviews are at the bottom of this page but I’ll briefly sum it up here! Lord Steven Regal was the champion after beating Lex Luger. He started a gimmick where he would defend the title on Nitro but every time he defended the title, he would retain the title by time limit draw. This was supposed to lead to a championship match between him and Rey Mysterio Jr. where the time limit would be lifted. Instead, he defended the title against Iaukea on Nitro where he was pinned in three minutes and lost the title.

Therefore, the match changed from Regal vs Mysterio Jr. to Prince Iaukea vs Rey Mysterio Jr. I think I would have preferred the original match but that’s how we got here. Six months ago, Lex Luger was the Television Champion and now it was Prince Iaukea!

After all of that, The Prince had zero reaction coming out!

Rey and Iaukea wrestled on the ground for a bit. Rey Mysterio somehow knocked down The Prince with a shoulder tackle. I’ve been watching Rey Mysterio wrestle since 2003 and I’ve never seen him knock anyone down with a shoulder tackle!

Prince did a dive to the outside and gained the heat of the match. This included a Gorilla Press into a backbreaker. The Prince was dropkicked in mid-air by Mysterio. Iaukea tried a Powerbomb but was hurricanranna’d to the outside.

Rey did a rolling Senton to The Prince on the floor, which could not have been great for the Prince as Rey landed on his stomach. Rey did multiple springboard moonsaults throughout this match. Iaukea did a Samoan Drop from the top rope as Regal made his way down to the ring.

Rey and Iaukea struggled with a top rope hurricanrana spot. Then Regal pulled Rey from the apron and onto the floor. This somehow was enough as Regal rolled him back into the ring and Iaukea got the pin.

The Prince, for some reason, gave the title to Rey after the match, as he was not happy about the finish. However, Rey gave it back and didn’t accept it.

To me, there wasn’t much to this match. This was clearly not Rey Mysterio at his best. The Prince was OK although there were a few times where they were not on the same page. It didn’t do it for me and the finish was extremely weak. Regal pulling Rey from the apron did more damage than anything Iaukea did.

I get Iaukea felt he was not worthy of being the champion with that finish but Rey was the one beaten by this apron spot. No one really looked good coming out of this other than Lord Steven Regal, who didn’t even hit a move. He just pulled Rey from the apron.

Match Rating: **1/2

Mean Gene Okerlund interviewed The Giant. The Giant had one arm that was ridiculously oiled up compared to the rest of his body! The Giant talked about how bad the Outsiders drive (in reference to the Outsiders running the Steiner Brothers off the road on the last episode of Nitro) and their psyche. He said the Outsiders wanted The Giant to be insane but he insisted he wasn’t erratic. He said he was gonna play the game how he wanted to play it. He said he was the conductor and the Outsiders were going to be playing the instruments. This was… a promo. Not a strong promo from The Giant in my opinion.

Diamond Dallas Page vs. Buff Bagwell

Bagwell spit at Page to which DDP slapped him in response. DDP and Bagwell worked on each other’s arms to kick off the match. They wrestled for a bit until DDP hit a sweet looking swinging neckbreaker which got a huge pop.

Bagwell mocked DDP and then started to stomp him out in the ring. Bagwell hit a tornado DDT which looked like a tornado Diamond Cutter, since DDP tried to fight out of it.

DDP tried a small package for a two count. He followed this up with a school boy roll up. Bagwell kept arguing with the referee that his early pinfall attempt was a three count. He did this once, he did twice and then did it a third time, which is a crucial rule when it comes to comedy! Always do things in three! Eventually, on the third attempt, referee Scott Dickinson had enough. Bagwell pushed him and Dickinson pushed him back to a big pop from the crowd. He cornered Bagwell as Bagwell pleaded for mercy. This was great and the fans were into this too!

DDP hit a big lariat after Bagwell had caught a kick from him. The fans started chanting for DDP. DDP dropped Bagwell with the Atomic Drop and then unloaded with a combination of punches. DDP hit a spinning sit-out Powerbomb for a two count.

Bagwell tried a pin using the ropes but DDP kicked out of it. DDP tried a school boy roll up which got a two count. DDP tried a Diamond Cutter which Bagwell countered into a backslide pin attempt. Bagwell hit a Northern Lights Suplex for a two count. Bagwell wanted the referee to count DDP out for a ten count. Bagwell posed as DDP struggled his way back up. Bagwell inexplicably broke up the count on the outside. Bagwell tried a neckbreaker but this was turned around into a Diamond Cutter by DDP.

The nWo then ran out to chase DDP out of the ring, with the match being thrown out. For the second PPV in a row, DDP wrestled a member of the nWo and the match got thrown out.

Match Rating: **3/4 – This was actually a decent match before the match got thrown out. There was a lot of moves, the fans were into the match and the finish was well executed before the nWo ran out. Why DDP couldn’t beat Buff Bagwell, I have no idea. He was one of their biggest babyfaces at the time. Just let him win a match on pay-per-view clean.

Eddie Guerrero © vs. Chris Jericho for the WCW United States Heavyweight Championship

The graphics showed this as being a match for the WCW World Television Championship in a production error. They wrestled for control, with Jericho gaining the advantage with a wrist lock. Eddie countered this and worked on the leg of Jericho for a bit.

The commentators did a fantastic job in hyping up the new blood and this new generation of Jericho and Eddie, making you believe that you were watching the genesis of greatness for both men. In both of these cases, they both would achieve greatness in the 21^st century so the announcers were spot on.

Jericho and Eddie battled for the test of strength which Jericho won and turned into a suplex. Jericho did a stalling suplex and both men traded arm drags. Jericho locked on a high-angle Boston Crab. This was not exactly the “Walls of Jericho” and Jericho wasn’t putting all of his weight down but it was a Boston Crab nevertheless.

Jericho applied a chin lock, slowing the match down. Jericho had a Torture Rack of some kind locked in and then dropped Eddie with some sort of Torture Rack Backbreaker.

Jericho missed a top rope crossbody which give Eddie a chance to get back into the match. Eddie hit a Powerbomb for a two count. Eddie dropped Jericho with the Brainbuster and called for the Frog Splash. Jericho evaded the Frog Splash attempt and then unleashed a huge release German Suplex. Eddie got some height and distance on this suplex as well.

Jericho followed this up with a belly to belly suplex. Jericho dropkicked Eddie to the floor and followed this up with a top rope splash to the outside. Eddie tried a backslide for a two count. Eddie and Jericho both tried spin wheel kicks at the same time. There was an awesome spot when Jericho went for a suplex but, in a smooth tranisiton, this turned into a victory roll pin fall attempt by Eddie.

Jericho hit a super kick and it occurred to me at this point of the match just how many superkicks I’ve seen Jericho pull off during these WCW reviews. Jericho was throwing around superkicks in 1997 and now, in 2023, works for a wrestling companies where two of their EVPs throw around super kick parties all the time!

Eddie tried a tornado DDT but Jericho stopped it and turned it into a Northern Lights Suplex. Eddie eventually rolled Jericho up and got the pin.

I thought this was a fine match. There were some great spots here but it was just missing the heel vs. face dynamic and Jericho wasn’t a strong enough “heel” in the match at this point in his career. This was missing the drama for it to really be elevated into something greater but it was still a fine match.

Match Rating: ***1/4

Faces of Fear vs. Harlem Heat vs. Public Enemy in a three corners tag team match

It was announced that this match was no longer a number one contendership match for the WCW tag team titles, because of the Steiners getting involved in the car accident that was shown on Nitro. It was also shown that Rocco Rock shaved this head.

I love how Tony Schiavone said we should all know the rules of the triangle match. Dusty responded by asking: “well what if they don’t?” as not everyone would know what the rules of a triangle match were. I sure as hell know how inconsistent this concept is in wrestling. WWE, AEW, WCW, TNA and other promotions all have their own interpretations on the rules!

NOTE: For those interested, the rules for this particular triangle match were that two men would be in the ring and could tag out to anyone on the apron. First pin fall or submission won the match. I don’t think it could have ended in a disqualification!… maybe a count out. I dunno, it’s WCW.

Barbarian hit a Powerslam on Rocco Rock. Stevie Ray worked on Rocco in the ring. Grunge got tagged in and battled both members of Harlem Heat. Booker punched Grunge in the gut and Grunge took a fabulous bump where he was somehow elevated and took a big back bump!

It’s weird seeing Public Enemy in just a regular tag match where they weren’t just having fights around the ring like most of their Nitro matches! Booker worked on Grunge for a long time.

Meng tagged himself in and worked on Booker in the ring. Faces of Fear clobbered Booker in the corner which caused Dusty Rhodes to mark out. Barbarian hit a belly to belly Suplex from the top rope as the commentators argued about sumo wrestling. Barbarian turned Booker inside out with a lariat.

Meng hit a Piledriver. The Faces of Fear hit a double headbutt on Booker. For the second time tonight, Bobby Heenan lost track of who the legal man was in the match! Faces of Fear hit the backdrop powerbomb spot again which they pulled off fine. Everybody just started fighting in the ring.

Rocco tried a top rope Rolling Senton which Barbarian caught for a powerbomb. Grunge charged into both men to break it up and Public Enemy somehow got the pin.

I have no idea when Public Enemy got the tag as I was sure Barbarian and Booker T were the legal men but I guess the referee was fine with it.

This was a very clunky match. This involved mostly Harlem Heat and Faces of Fear just slowly getting heat which was a bit tedious but, to their credit, everybody was fine in pulling off their respective spots. Even Public Enemy were fine in this match. I’ll say this was an OK match.

Match Rating: **

Steve “Mongo” McMichael w/Debra vs. Jeff Jarrett. If Jarrett won, he would become a member of the Four Horsemen

This match started with Jeff getting the better of Mongo, which upset the former football player. This then led to a spot where Mongo charged at Jeff in the corner and smacked his face into the top turnbuckle. I laughed at how cartoony is looked!

Mongo hit a Powerslam as Mongo appeared to be the crowd favourite for this match. Mongo did two chop blocks on Jeff. Debra distracted her own husband as Jeff took advantage of this.

Jeff locked on an Abdominal Stretch and as Jeff grabbed the ropes, Debra smacked the ropes to “make it a fair fight” according to the commentators. Mongo hit a Gorilla Press and then clotheslined Jeff to the floor.

Debra tried to wipe down Jeff with a towel, which Mongo stopped and then started choking Jeff with the towel. Jeff hit a face buster and regained control of the match

Jeff and Mongo somehow botched a clothesline. Jeff hit it and then Mongo walked forward and fell to his back, screaming. I have no idea what Mongo thought the spot was supposed to be but Jeff just looked down at him, frustrated.

Jeff locked on a sleeper hold and Mongo reversed this into one of his own. Jeff cancelled this out with a back suplex. Debra turned around to the camera and said that she didn’t know which one to help. All the announcers screamed “help your husband!” in unison!

Mongo hit a shaky looking side walk slam, where Mongo didn’t have a lot of grip on Jeff at first. Mongo hit somewhat of a belly to back suplex. Jeff hit a top rope crossbody. Jeff was then thrown into the referee, who got hit for the ref bump.

The finish saw Mongo demand Debra give him his briefcase. Mongo grabbed Debra by her sash out of frustration with his wife. As this happened, Debra threw the briefcase into the ring. Jeff grabbed it and hit Mongo in the head as Jeff got the pin. Debra then winked at the camera following the finish.

This Four Horsemen dynamic during the Nitro years has been astounding to watch since I started this series, and nothing exemplified this more than this finish. Jeff Jarrett was apparently a babyface, who the fans hated and Mongo did not trust. We had Mongo who was the husband being whipped by his wife, who had a crush on Jarrett. Then we had Debra, who was married to Mongo and had a crush on Jeff.

In this finish, Mongo grabbed his woman and became frustrated. It came off as Mongo being the abusive husband, even though Debra was the one that was screwing over Mongo each and every week. In this scenario, Mongo was just frustrated with this wife but they shot it to tease that maybe he grabbed her by the hair. I even had to rewind it to check whether he grabbed her sash or her hair.

She threw the briefcase to Jeff and Jeff cheated, using the briefcase, to win the match. They screwed him over and somehow it feels that all three people involved her were heels. How are you supposed to root for anyone in this storyline? Mongo had been yelling at his wife each week and forcefully grabbed her during the finish. Debra was screwing over HER OWN HUSBAND each week and Jeff was taking advantage of this.

I’m well aware that this storyline will continue but can we have at least one person in this storyline, who comes off as likeable?

Match Rating: *1/2. I didn’t think this was good at all. This was not a great night for Mongo. Jeff wasn’t particularly good either but he was in there with Mongo and it felt like he was holding back because he was having to work with Mongo. I was not a fan of this match at all.

Chris Benoit w/Woman vs. Taskmaster w/Miss Jacqueline and Jimmy Hart in a San Francisco Death Match. Jacqueline and Woman would be strapped together

We had a chaotic trios match earlier on in the night and this was another chaotic match, where it pretty much resembled nothing else that was on the show. The trios match was just a crazy wrestling match. This was a crazy fight involving four different people and the fans just ate it up.

This was a rare instance where Woman was not shown in a dress. She was in street clothes and she was looking absolutely fabulous on this evening. Woman and Jacqueline yelled at each other before everybody started fighting as the bell rang. The fans erupted with glee at the sight of this!

The girls whipped each other as Taskmaster worked on Benoit in the ring. Woman continued to “spank” Jacqueline with the whip as Tony put it. Taskmaster hit a Butterfly Suplex. The girls were back in the ring as Woman continued the whip beat-down on Jacqueline.

Taskmaster got in the middle of it but Woman ended up crotching him with the strap. Benoit tried to save Woman from Jacqueline but he got whipped too. The girls were unstrapped as Taskmaster choked Benoit with the strap. Jacqueline kicked Benoit in the balls and Woman responded by kicking Taskmaster in the balls. Dusty screamed: “SHE KICKED HIM IN THE THING”!

The commentators were actually great during this match because they were all super invested into everything that was going on. Dusty Rhodes was just screaming his head off as all of this action was going on and it does help to have the announcers shown to be excited watching the product!

The girls started whooping the arses of the men. The girls unintentionally worked together to clothesline the men with the belt. They started whipping each other again. Benoit and Taskmaster stopped to watch it briefly and then proceeded to throw punches at each other!

Taskmaster and Benoit fought up the ramp as the girls were still in the ring. The referee was nowhere near the men by the way. The match was Benoit vs. Taskmaster and the refereee was focused on the girls in the ring!

Woman started choking Jacqueline as the men fought to the back. The men were fighting in a parking lot. Taskmaster scoop slammed Benoit into a small vehicle. Both men attacked each other with the lightest looking trash can they could find! Jacqueline was shown choking Woman with a strap. Less said about that, the better.

The men battled back into the arena. Taskmaster did the Tree of Woe knee smash. Taskmaster hit the double foot stomp but the pin was broken up by Woman with the strap.

Benoit came back up and hit Taskmaster with a Piledriver. Jacqueline then started raining punches down on Jacqueline. Benoit grabbed a table as Jacqueline started choking Woman with the strap.

Benoit placed Taskmaster on the table. Jacqueline came in to protect her man by lying on top of him. This did not stop Benoit, who dived and smashed into both Taskmaster and Jacqueline as the table did not break. The fans roared with approval following this spot as Benoit covered Taskmaster underneath the table for the pin.

Benoit, Jacqueline and Taskmaster were all down as Woman and Jimmy Hart attended to them. This was a segment were it was difficult to determine if anyone actually got hurt. Arn Anderson showed up on the ramp but then promptly left. The referees came out along with Paul Orndorff, Lee Marshall and others. Terry Taylor came out with EMTs. Woman and Jimmy were actually holding hands during this, I guess selling the idea that this was such an awful situation that they “broke character”? I don’t know. I couldn’t find answers online as to whether these were shoot injuries or not.

They actually had stretchers for all three wounded people. They all were loaded into ambulances. Jacqueline and Taskmaster were loaded into the same ambulance and Jacqueline did not look secure in the slightest when she was positioned onto the ambulance! Woman went with Benoit but Jimmy Hart for some reason did not go with Taskmaster and Jacqueline. This was were the illusion somewhat broke for me as, if this was legitimate, I find it hard to believe that the wrestlers would have been loaded like this as we saw here!

This was an absolutely wild match. Everyone involved played their part superbly. Other than the finish, the brawling and the battles went absolutely fine. It was played up as a death match and a crazy fight and that’s exactly what it was. Woman and Miss Jacqueline added to the usual dynamic between Sullivan and Benoit in these matches. I thought it was a great match.

Match Rating: ***1/2

The Outsiders © w/Syxx vs. The Giant for the WCW Tag Team Championship (If The Giant won, Lex Luger would be his tag team partner)

Going into this match, we did not know if Lex Luger would be teaming with The Giant or not against the Outsiders for the WCW Tag Team Championship. Lex Luger tried to get clearance after the Outsiders attacked him with pipes. However, Bischoff would not approve it but Luger insisted that he would still show up at SuperBrawl. The match was promoted as The Giant vs The Outsiders for the titles. If The Giant won, he and Luger would be champions.

Nash and Hall did rock, paper, scissors to determine who would start off the match. Scott Hall won. Hall threw the tooth pick at Giant as Hall tried to rattle and make The Giant mad. Hall tried to do a hammerlock and Giant hit one elbow to rock Hall and stop him. Hall started throwing punches and chops in the corner to which Giant responded by chopping Hall.

Giant scoop slammed Hall and sent him across the ring. There was a lot of stalling early on in the match. Hall spit at Giant which got Giant a little red. It was here where Hall tagged in Kevin Nash. Nash hit a lariat in the corner but Giant followed this up with one of his own. Giant dropkicked Nash over the top rope as he ran wild on the Outsiders for a bit.

Giant picked up Nash and drilled him into the ring post. Giant hit a big elbow drop. Syxx jumped off the top rope and hit Giant with the belt which knocked Giant loopy. Hall hit a top rope bulldog as the Outsiders got the heat on The Giant.

Nash kneed Giant in the corner which Hall followed up with a clothesline in the corner. Hall would get cheap shots in, including a Guillotine leg drop. Syxx did a jumping high kick which missed Giant by a full mile which even the announcers called out.

Giant made his own comeback on the Outsiders where Syxx tried to get involved again. Giant caught him and threw him into Nash. Hall grabbed Syxx’s title and hit Giant. Then Kevin Nash somehow hit the Jacknife Powerbomb on The Giant which looked amazingly clean. The Giant was a huge dude to hit with a powerbomb but Nash somehow pulled it off, which was insane to see.

It was here when Lex Luger showed up. Eric Bischoff tried to stop him but Luger threw Bischoff down. Luger got on the apron. Luger got the tag and ran wild on Hall, Nash and Syxx. Luger locked on the torture rack on Kevin Nash as the referee excitedly rang for the bell as The Giant and Lex Luger apparently won the tag titles. Giant followed this up with a chokeslam on Hall.

I’d be STUNNED if this result stood. Even Tony alluded to this as he brought up what happened at Souled Out, where the Steiners were stripped of the titles the next night.

The finish was great and, to be fair, the psychology of the match was excellent. However, The Giant wasn’t particularly great here other than taking the Jacknife Powerbomb. The match featured a lot of stalling and was very slow paced until The Giant made his own comeback. The fans went nuts for Luger and to their credit, the fans were super into the finish.

I guess the biggest caveat is whether the finish will actually stand or not. I guess we’ll have to find out on our next WCW Nitro review 😉

Match Rating: **1/2

Hollywood Hogan © w/Ted DiBiase and Vincent vs. Rowdy Roddy Piper for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship

There’s not much to say about this match. It’s Rowdy Roddy Piper with a replacement hip in 1996 against Hollywood Hogan. All they could do was punches and brawling, which wasn’t particularly great here with these two aging wrestling superstars.

I think Hogan called Piper a “chickenshit” after he picked up and spit at Piper’s kilt. Bobby Heenan claimed Piper never slept in Alcatraz. How he’d be awake and alive at this point is astounding to me! Surely your body would shut down if you didn’t get any sleep after going nearly 200 hours without sleep!

Hogan walked out as Piper ran out and attacked him. Piper punched away and gauged the eyes of Hogan. Piper low blowed Hogan right in front of the referee. That was somehow not a disqualification.

Piper choked Hogan with his shirt and bit Hogan. Again, not a disqualification. Hogan crawled up the ramp as Piper continued to choke him out. Bobby Heenan growling “crawl you coward” was a nice touch.

Piper used a chair. Again, not a disqualification. Hogan low blowed Piper but Piper no-sold it and proceeded to gauge Hogan’s eyes! I guess no sleep and Alcatraz made Piper invulnerable to punches to the balls!

Piper attacked Wallstreet and Vincent as they both came up on the apron to help.

It was all Piper beating up Hogan. Hogan pleaded for mercy but Piper continued to beat him up. For a moment, Piper pulled at Hogan and we saw Hogan’s bare white arse which was completely different pigmentation to his tanned body!

Sting and “Macho Man” Randy Savage came out and made their way down the ramp. They actually showed up during the go-home segment of the Nitro before this. On that episode, Randy Savage stopped Sting from confronting the New World Order and getting involved. This time, Sting stopped Savage but Savage ignored him. Savage came down to ringside to watch the rest of the match.

Piper and Hogan started throwing punches as the fans chanted, “We Want Sting”. After this chant, Sting left as Hogan and Piper continued to fight!

Hogan continued to rake the back and get the heat on Piper for a while. Hogan drove Piper back first into the ring post. Hogan worked on the leg of Piper. Piper and Hogan were on their knees throwing punches as both men were gassed. Hogan locked on the bearhug as Savage watched on.

Hogan missed an elbow drop. Hogan low blowed Piper. However Piper was able to lock Hogan in the sleeper hold. Savage watched on as Hogan was locked in the hold.

Piper wore him down. The referee raised Hogan’s hand once, twice and then thrice as Piper had seemingly won the WCW World title as the fans started to cheer. However, as Piper celebrated, Savage pulled Hogan’s feet towards the rope. The referee noticed this and waived off the finish. As the referee was distracted, Savage put brass knuckles in Hogan’s hands. The match restarted and Hogan punched out Piper and retained the WCW World title.

Savage attacked Piper too, spray-painted Piper and continued to beat up Piper with Hogan. They hit Leg Drops and Elbow Drops as the show ended.

“Macho Man” Randy Savage… had joined the New World Order…

Match Rating: 1/2*

It’d been pretty common knowledge to me as a wrestling fan that Randy Savage would join the New World Order. This was spoiled to me a LONG TIME ago although I wasn’t really sure how it was done. Having watched Savage with Sting in the past month and their sudden interest in the title match on the Nitro before this, I was very underwhelmed with this turn.

For starters, Savage and Hogan were mortal enemies three months ago. Eric Bischoff had blacklisted Savage from WCW in storyline so he sided with Sting in an anti-hero role of some sort. He came out there at the end to screw Piper, which undercut the story of Piper hating Hogan SO MUCH that he went to Alcatraz with the purpose of turning into a fighting machine. In fact, this feud started at Halloween Havoc 1996 RIGHT AFTER Hogan wrestled Savage in the main event!

Maybe there’s a promo coming from Savage which would explain this turn other than him having no other choice but to join them. However, I don’t know how you could go from mortal enemies to friends in the space of a few months. I realise there’s a whole bunch of wrestling stories where that has happened but this was the biggest storyline WCW had. This turn seemed like such a huge let down.

I get why Savage is in the group, with The Giant leaving and the group needing another huge singles star. After Hogan and Bischoff, the next big singles star the nWo had was probably Syxx. Therefore, I get Savage joining but the execution was not great to me.

I guess we’ll see where this goes but this was a flat-ending to a fine wrestling show. The chaotic trios match and death match really saved this pay-per-view. This was not exactly a SUPER brawl.

….OK I’ll leave now.

WCW Nitro Reading Order

10.21.23

by Thomas Robinson

RETRO EXPRESS: NWO SOULED OUT 1997 (JANUARY 26TH 1997)

We have finally arrived at nWo Souled Out 1997 as part of this series. At long last, we review a pay-per-view that Eric Bischoff boasted would revolutionise professional wrestling. This pay-per-view.… what an absolutely atrocious pay-per-view.

I’ve seen some horrible wrestling pay-per-views in the 20 years since I started watching wrestling. I’ve seen Seth Rollins get disqualified in a Hell in a Cell match, I’ve watched the Doomsday Cage match and I’ve seen Jenna vs Sharmell from Victory Road 2009. I’ve seen so much bad wrestling but that comes with the territory. For every Bryan Danielson classic you’ll see on a wrestling show, you’ll also see some of the most cringy moments in wrestling history that make you question why you’re watching it in the first place.

This made me question the whole WCW series I’ve written so far. I’ve watched over 70 episodes of Nitro so far, multiple pay-per-views and it has led to this show which was meant as a love letter to the New World Order (nWo). Instead, we got a letter covered in piss, spit and dirt delivered to professional wrestling. Once you’ve received it and once you’ve viewed, you can’t unsee it and return it.

Before you ask, no. We’ll still be reviewing Nitros and wrestling pay-per-views. I’m about 90% certain that they’ll be a worse WCW show than this at some point. However, this is for sure an all-time worst wrestling pay-per-view contender. Besides one ladder match, there was nothing good on this show. I enjoyed the tag team title match but it was pretty lousy up until the finish. We had bad matches, slow matches and we a shit main-event which we’ll get to.

If you are considering watching this pay-per-view on the WWE Network, Peacock or whatever, then please read this review as a disclaimer to what you’ll see. You’ve been warned…

Date: January 26th, 1997

Brand: nWo

City: Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Attendance: ‎5,120 (I checked this attendance number with a few websites and sources and supposedly this is the real attendance number. I find this very hard to believe it!)

Commentators: Eric Bischoff and Ted DiBiase

The show started with footage from outside the arena. The nWo had police escort following them into the arena. Now, with police escort, you figured these nWo members would come out in big fancy vehicles like limos or big supercars or whatever fancy cars they had in 1997. What did they come to the arena riding instead? GARBAGE TRUCKS.

They had a whole bunch of garbage trucks as Bischoff bragged about changing the world as you know it. A bunch of nWo guys were hanging, in the cold, off of these trucks trying to be cool. They even had nWo flags they were waiving. As much as the nWo dudes tried to play it off, I can’t imagine that any of them were happy to be hanging off these trucks in the cold. Even Hollywood Hogan was out there among the garbage trucks although he may have been in the one limousine that was driven into arena. Bischoff wasn’t in the limo so I’m assuming it was Hogan.

The whole thing was shot in black and white. Bischoff said it was time to address the masses because they loved them. They showed an intro about how WCW sucked and the nWo would change the face of the wrestling world as we know it. You’ll even recognise some of the lines thrown out during this intro as they’d later be incorporated into versions of the nWo theme song itself.

Eric was on his own podium doing commentary with Ted DiBiase, as a rock band were playing the intro. Miss Elizabeth, for some reason, was also there. I will give WCW credit… the nWo ring which did look cool.

They had some kind of set up where Scott Hall, Kevin Nash and Hogan had their own screens talking about the show. You could barely see these screens but the three were just talking over each other about this show, like they were hosting a rock concert. They bragged about having women, rock and roll and wrestling. However, as much as Hogan, Hall and Nash all bragged and boasted, there was one man bragging and boasting about this show more than the three of them combined…

I mostly zoned out the commentary during this show but here’s all you need to know about it. Eric Bischoff was unbelievably cocky to an insane degree. I know AEW’s Tony Khan gets a bad reputation for how he conducts himself in public, on Twitter and everything. However, if Eric Bischoff and WCW were around in 2023, he would have been Tony Khan multiplied by 1000. In 1997, on this pay-per-view, he talked so much shit. I apologise for swearing but it turned out to be complete shit. He’s talking about spending Ted Turner’s money and how good it was to be King during one of the worst wrestling pay-per-views in history. Could you imagine what he would have said if WCW would have drawn 80,000 fans in Wembley stadium?

Here, they’re putting on a horrible show which was only lessened by the fact that the WWF were being crushed in the ratings. The WWF had some horrible content, don’t get me wrong. We reviewed an awful RAW episode from 1996 as part of this series. However, it’s not like the nWo stuff at this time was much better. Therefore, it’s a weird flex that Bischoff was talking about being king during a wrestling show that was this devoid of merit.

Also, keep in mind, that WCW’s death was about four years from 1997. Bischoff is talking all of this trash… and they’re out of business in less than five years. It’s amazing in hindsight listening to him.

Chris Jericho vs Masa Hiro Chono

The gimmick for this show was that the WCW wrestlers all had new music coming out and had an announcer talk trash about them, calling them “loser” among many other things that were just downright blatantly offensive.

Masa Hiro Chono was billed as the “The baddest man from Japan” as referee Nick Patrick was refereeing all of these matches. There was one noticeable exception but surely the nWo, and Eric Bischoff as the highest ranking executive, could hire more nWo referees? The nWo announcers complained about Patrick, their own referee, throughout the show even though he was the only referee. The nWo could hire and buy a whole bunch of garbage trucks, rock bands, limousines and yet they couldn’t hire more nWo loyal referees? It’s preposterous.

WCW talent like Sister Sherri, Harlem Heat, Faces of Fear, Nasty Boys, Arn Anderson and Steve “Mongo” McMichael were all showing up in attendance during the match and during the show.

Chono worked on Jericho slowly for a while, including hitting a top rope shoulder tackle. Jericho was able to fight back with a suplex and a wheel kick. Jericho was able to pull off a top rope crossbody to the outside. Fans chanted “USA” to which Bischoff yelled “Ok so you all know where you’re from”. This was a match between a Japanese wrestler and a Canadian wrestler by the way, being bombarded by USA chants!

Jericho was able to finally get back into the match with an Enziguiri, to which Bischoff couldn’t help but rant about. There was even a boot to the face by Jericho until Chono caught the leg and did a Dragon Screw Leg Whip. Chono continued to beat on Jericho and most of this match was just Chono slowly beating away at Jericho. It became so tiresome. Jericho pulled off a German suplex. Jericho did a clothesline which looked horrible when he collided with Chono.

It was around this time where they showed off a draping camera shot over the ring. They had a camera man with somewhat of a selfie stick filming the action from above the ring. It was a mini tripod that he had where the camera was just on top of it but the stick was so long and the camera seemed so heavy in comparison that he had little control of it. Therefore, whenever they showed this camera, it looked so shaky and it looked so unclean. What I mean is that while you had the big production camera angles being displayed and then it’d cut to this shot which looked like something being filmed by a drone that had been dropped about 100 times. It looked so amateurish.

Chono jumped from the top rope and just tumbled down as he flew past Jericho and they just rolled down on the floor together. Chono did an atomic drop. Chono grabbed a table and was setting up a suplex from the apron through the table. Jericho countered this into his own suplex. Jericho pulled off a top rope dropkick .Jericho did a Northern Lights Suplex and then did a Lionsault for a two count.

He went for a move from the top rope but Chono booted him from the top and then just pushed Chris off the top rope and through the table on the outside. Chono followed this up with a Mafia Kick and got the pinfall for the win.

I guess since this was a nWo rules match, where it was essentially a no disualification match, this was a clean victory for Chono. This was another match where Jericho and Chono were just not on the same page. There were some horrible botches, a lot of talking and no structure to the match. However, they did set up a table spot which they delivered and led to the finish. Maybe it’s me being generous but I liked the finish and it was unique for WCW at this time to do a weapon spot which looked decent.

Match Rating: **

They had a Miss nWo contest. This contest alone was something that made this pay-per-view an all-time worst wrestling pay-per-view contender. They had a nWo dude called Jeff Katz hosting this event. His task was to ask questions to the contestants that they had gathered for this contest. Clearly, this was not practiced beforehand. I say this because the girls could barely be heard responding to his questions. I had to put on subtitles in order to understand what the answers were!

I am not joking. I had to actually rewind this show a few times, put on subtitles to actually see what they said. Thankfully, whoever was responsible for doing subtitles for the WWE Network earned their money when putting subtitles in for nWo Souled Out!

Regarding the women themselves… I’ll start by saying that beauty is somewhat subjective as to whether you thought these women were attractive or not. However, I’m not sure how exactly the women that were picked were decided. They had women that were old, young, stylish and not stylish and a whole mixed bag of women. I don’t think this was meant to be a competition for the most attractive women. However, I had zero idea about whether this was supposed to be a legitimate contest or not. Was the gimmick that they were supposed to be ugly or were these girls legitimately what WCW/nWo thought were worthy enough somehow to be on PPV?

I had no idea. However, each of these women had huge smiles on their faces! Whether you thought they were pretty or not, they seemed very happy and flattered to be given an actual spotlight and shown off in this way. So good for them!

So Katz started asking questions. He asked the first girl “What does the term “nWo going all the way” mean to you?” Her response was “Malaysia”. Remember, I had subtitles on during this segment. Malaysia was actually what she said. Why… I have no idea. I don’t know how this related to the question… if this a euphemism that I am not privy to, please leave a comment on the post!

Katz goes to nWo girl #2. The question was: “Kevin Nash is known as a big man, what would you do tame Kevin Nash?” The girl responded: “whatever it takes”. The presenter asked “Can you go into a little more detail?” She did not go into detail….

….this was on pay-per-view. People paid to see this. I technically paid to see this by having a WWE Network subscription! Eric Bischoff said this was like a party… IT WAS NOT A PARTY TO ME.

Big Bubba vs Hugh Morrus w/Jimmy Hart in a Mexican Death Match

Why this was a Mexican Death Match, I have no clue. I think this was the third time I’ve said something along the lines of “I have not clue” in this review. However, even the nWo announcers were questioning why this was a Mexican Death Match. One of them on commentary BOOKED THIS MATCH and they questioned why this was a Mexican Death Match. This just blew my mind. I could not believe what I was hearing.

This was essentially a last man standing match, for those wondering what the rules are. You had to get your opponent down for a ten count to win.

Out of all of the WCW wrestlers in the crowd, Meng looked the most dapper of them all when they showed him in the crowd. He was the best dressed person in the crowd, which also includes Debra McMichael! I also think I needed subtitles for the nWo announcers as I couldn’t tell at points what they were saying about the WCW guys. They were just mumbling their way through this show. Bischoff started talking about “Macho Man” Randy Savage showing up on Nitro. I guess Savage wasn’t associated with WCW in storyline according to Bischoff.

Bubba and Hugh battled for a bit with Hugh pushing Bubba into the steel steps. Patrick threatened to throw the match out if Hugh kept this up. Shortly after this, Bubba then did two low blows as Patrick was talking to Jimmy Hart! That I did like.

Bubba tried to handcuff Hugh but Hugh fought out of it and clotheslined him out of the ring. Jimmy Hart stomped away at Bubba on the outside. Bubba eventually grabbed a steel chain. He hit Hugh a few times. It did not look great. Hugh eventually just started punching Bubba to get back into the match. After Bubba ran wild with the chain, Hugh just no-sold this, used his fists and started beating up Big Bubba!

Hugh hit a moonsault to which Nick Patrick did the slowest ten count imagineable until he got to seven. When the referee got to seven, Hugh got in Patrick’s face and Bubba suddenly woke up and attacked Hugh! Hugh had something in his hands and punched Bubba. I usually like Bubba’s selling but he sold this by leaning back and sticking his arms out like he’s welcoming Simba to the match or something. It looked so cringy for just random punches.

Bubba poked Hugh to get back into the match. Bubba did a flying forearm of his own and just punched away at Hugh. Then Bubba had Hugh down as Patrick started the count. Instead of doing a fast count for his fellow nWo cohort, Nick Patrick did a slow count! He didn’t even do a normal count. It was just as slow as the counts were for Hugh Morrus!

Hugh punched Bubba in the balls as they fought up the ramp. Hugh then picked up Bubba and he just dropped him on the floor! He didn’t go down with him. He Just dropped him from his hands and slammed him down! It looked so not great for Bubba. Then Hugh did a moonsault from the steps but took a bump on the floor as Bubba moved out of the way.

Bubba took a motorcycle and actually ran over Hugh Morrus with the motorcycle as Hugh took a bump! At this stage, after Hugh Morrus was run over, Nick Patrick then did a quick count as Hugh laid lifeless on the mat as only Jimmy Hart gave a shit about this hit and run! Nick Patrick decided to cheat after attempted murder by Big Bubba and not earlier!

Match Rating: * – This rating is being very generous because there was so much wrong with this match. The only reason this gets a star is because Bubba and Morrus actually did try hard to put on a good match and they did a few cool spots. There was also even attempted murder in this Mexican Death Match so they did at least try to live up to the gimmick! If it weren’t for all of this, this could have very well been in the minus star ratings for me. This was a horrible match but not the worst match of the night.

The Miss nWo contest continued. Katz asked: “What would you do to be in Hogan’s movies?” and I think the third woman responded with: “whatever it takes” and Bischoff was appalled that she gave the same answer as one of the other girls! Bischoff was talking up these girls beforehand and talking about getting the very best for this competition and then he’s all upset with these answers! Didn’t they ask questions before they got these girls? I’m guessing Eric did explain what happened with this contest during his 83 weeks podcast but I can’t help but just imagine what this was process was like in deciding who would be involved in this contest. It just astounded me seeing this all go down.

The fourth girl was straight up asked: “What’s your price because I’ve got a buck 50?” That’s what he said. She responded with: “You would walk away with a big bill.” That’s all I’m going to say about this.

They got some girl to attempt to dance in a silhouette in the back. She could not dance.

They showed screenshots of the nWo website. I realise that I was three years old when this website was around, but this looked like one of the ugliest websites I’ve ever seen! Even The Giant was shown and advertised on this website… even though he was not with the group anymore!

Jeff Jarrett vs M Wallstreet

Eric complained because Patrick was the only referee they had while WCW had so many referees on their payroll. Again, Eric said a few weeks ago that anyone brought into WCW would be signed with the nWo. Hey Eric, why not HIRE more nWo referees to be on your side? That seems like a smart idea to me!

I totally forgot until Ted DiBiase brought it up that Wallstreet had been with DiBiase in the past. Wallstreet was IRS in WWF and I believe he was a former tag champion with DiBiase but yet it only just dawned on me during this show that they were together in WWF before they were here together in the nWo!

They showed Debra in the crowd who looked so out of place in her beauty pageant gown!

An early highlight including a Jeff Jarrett top rope crossbody. Nick Patrick actually moved Wallstreet out of the way as Jeff went for a move into the ropes. Wallstreet followed this up with a clothesline to the outside. Jeff tried to fire back on the outside but Wallstreet sent him over the barricade with an Irish Whip. Wallstreet got a sleeper hold locked in on Jeff in the ring. Debra tried to plead with Mongo (her husband) to help Jeff in the ring with Mongo looking reluctant.

Jeff locked on his own sleeper hold and Patrick told him to release the hold which I thought was funny given that Wallstreet had just locked on the same hold! I will admit that was funny.

Another Nick Patrick highlight was when Wallstreet went for a cover near the ropes and Patrick told him that he couldn’t make the count! Even though he and Wallstreet are on the same team with the nWo, he couldn’t bring himself to count the pin when he was near the ropes!

They cut to Arn Anderson and he looked so bored watching this! A lot of the wrestlers looked bored watching this show but Arn was slumped down so much and had such a despondent gaze upon him that I just wanted to travel back in time to stop Arn from watching this. He looked so numb having been subjected to nWo Souled Out!

Jeff worked on the leg of Wallstreet and locked on the Figure Four Leg Lock as Patrick pulled Wallstreet into the ropes to break it. Debra pulled Mongo through the barricade to help Jeff. Mongo eventually acted and hit Wallstreet with the briefcase and then forced Nick Patrick to make the count to allow Jeff to win.

Match Rating: ¼* – The finish was creative. That’s about where the positive stuff ends with this match. I think this was probably the match that caused Arn Anderson to consider retirement. It was so dry and so dull. I wrote in my notes that “The best thing about the match was that the match was over” although the finish itself was a creative way to justify Jeff winning at a nWo PPV and advance the Four Horsemen storyline with Mongo and Jarrett. I will give them that.

Jeff Catz, who was now being called “the babe hunter” by Bischoff, was here with the “senior division” of the Miss nWo contest. That’s how they billed it. They had gotten two older women to appear for this contest. The first question asked was: “Describe the best part of your anatomy that would help you be the next Miss nWo” and the woman responded with “feet”. For those of you that have underlying foot fetishes, this was probably the winner for you.

He moved onto the next woman and he talked about she’s like a fine wine and asked how she was doing. She responded with “pardon?”, God bless her! She should have won the contest just for that! He talked about Buff Bagwell and asked: “What material would you use to buff his biceps” She responded “what – how would I explain this?” She was disqualified apparently.

“This was the worst” was what I wrote in my notes.

Buff Bagwell vs Scotty Riggs

Scotty was introduced as “American Male loser”. Riggs ran wild for a bit. Buff was upset saying “this wasn’t wrestling” and that he’d leave if Riggs wouldn’t wrestle. Then Buff kicked Riggs in the gut and unloaded an evil cackle. That was great. I’ll admit that there were a few heel nWo shenanigans that I did like throughout the show. When the nWo were not trying to be cool and just tried to be heels, it made the group so much better. There’s a great example in the main-event which we’ll get to.

Riggs bust out a belly to belly suplex and then taunted Buff. Bagwell then slapped Riggs in response. They attempted hip tosses until Riggs hip tossed Bagwell over the top rope. Bischoff asked for Patrick to call for the disqualification which was not granted. It’s so funny to me that the “over the top rope” rule was a legitimate rule at this time but Nick Patrick, who was the nWo referee, would not call for the disqualification to help his cohort Bagwell even when he was legally allowed to as the referee! This was a legitimate disqualification that Patrick did not call!

NOTE: In WCW, they had an on-and-off ruling where you could be disqualified for throwing your opponent over the top rope. For those unaware.

Bagwell and Riggs fought on the outside. Bischoff then said these camera cuts were like nothing you’d ever seen before and you’d never see it in the Super Bowl… no shit. He alluded to this being the future of wrestling and he was completely wrong. Not even indie shows or smaller productions would allow for camera cuts like this!

Bagwell clotheslined Riggs to the outside. They had some announcer playing on the tannoy yelling: “loser”. I think there were some “Let’s go Buff” chants and then it got turned into “Bagwell sucks”.

Then we had a great spot. Bagwell grabbed the arms of Riggs and forcibly made him do the American Males clap as a means to taunt him. In response, and to get out of this, Riggs thrusted his arse into the pelvis of Bagwell to break it up! This was no joke. He backed up his butt into the private area of Buff Bagwell in order to release the grip! I admire that Riggs was willing to do whatever it took to win this match, including back up butt first into his ex-partner!

Bagwell hit a powerbomb. The announcer again said “Loser”. Ted explained it was the nWo Loser Meter. Riggs pantsed Bagwell with a sunset flip with Bagwell’s thong being revealed. Bagwell went back to work, getting the heat on Riggs.

Bagwell applied a submission. I thought he was going for the Camel Clutch. What actually happened was that Buff got his legs in front of Riggs arms, sat down and wrenched on the neck. Bischoff even complimented his technical skills and abilities as Bagwell applied the laziest looking submission ever applied! He then stopped applying the hold, the fans started to boo and then he went back to the same hold! Rightfully so, the fans then chanted “Bagwell sucks”!

Riggs somehow turned this into an electric chair drop where Bagwell looked like he took a naughty bump off of it. Riggs tried a small package for a two count. Riggs hit an Enziguiri. Riggs hit a tornado DDT and ran wild with dropkicks. Bagwell and Riggs hit each other with crossbodies. Buff THEN hit a Blockbuster from the top rope for, what I guess was, a clean pin.

Match Rating: ½*

I was watching this on Sunday Afternoon. If I watched it at night, I guarantee you I would have fallen asleep by this point. However, I was awake and alert and the show continued unfortunately.

Some girls were dancing at the top of the stage and the girls did some of the worst dancing I’d ever seen. Bagwell even started dancing with them and was the best dancer on the stage!

Miss nWo contest continued. For nWo woman #7, Jeff mentioned that Vincent wanted to dress up and asked what would she want to dress as for Vincent or something like that. It was hard to understand Jeff, let alone these girls. The woman even said, “I can’t hear you”. She later said she was open to lingerie. Contestant #8 was asked: “Would you help Scott (Norton) with his flashing problem?” This girl actually gave a decent answer where she said she’d add to that problem. I dunno. Maybe my standards were just too low!

Diamond Dallas Page vs Scott Norton

I’m not sure why Nick Patrick kept having to make his entrance for the matches. He was the only referee! He may as well just have stayed out there.

This was a pretty decent match for a while. DDP hit the face buster on Norton. He went for the Diamond Cutter until he was cut off. Then Sting showed up among the crowd. This was not followed up on during the show.

Norton beat up DDP on the outside. DDP crashed into the steel steps on the outside. Norton continued the beatdown in the ring as Bischoff talked about Norton being an aggressive door man. DDP fired back with the lariat.

DDP tried to turn a clothesline into a sunset flip but was cut off. DDP fired back with punches. DDP did a flying clothesline for a two count. DDP hit a big DDT.

Page was about to hit a Diamond Cutter until the nWo showed up. Bagwell showed up with the nWo B Team and wanted Page to be in the group. I guess Bagwell was very forgiving after DDP double crossed the nWo a few weeks ago. DDP was surrounded by the nWo although Bagwell said it was cool. DDP said he didn’t have a problem with the nWo. DDP said everything’s cool. He said: “They got me, I got them.” DDP then seemingly decided to join the group and put on the nWo shirt to pretty much stop the match. But DDP suckered Norton into a Diamond Cutter and fled through the crowd. He ripped off the shirt as Bagwell yelled that Page didn’t know what he’d done.

So yes, they pretty much repeated the angle from two weeks ago. Nick Patrick declared that Scott Norton was the winner via count out. I’m not sure why they had to stop the match to accommodate this segment.

Match Rating: *. I had no idea what rating to give this match. The match was made redundant by this finish so nothing they did was important until the nWo came out.

More Miss nWo nonsense followed. Jeff Katz asked another girl what move she would have applied and she said “I’d show you but there’s kids watching.”

The Outsiders © vs The Steiner Brothers for the WCW Tag Team Championship

Scott Steiner was getting bigger and bigger by the day! His arms and his chest just seemed wider and wider each time I’ve seen him when doing these reviews. As a prelude to the Big Bad Booty Daddy, this was a certainly a taste of things to come!

Hall worked on Scott Steiner for a bit until he started applying the abdominal stretch. Scott turned this around into one of his own and then slammed down Hall. Scott Steiner hit a brilliant belly to belly suplex and Rick followed up with DDT to Kevin Nash.

Scott Hall teed off on Rick in the corner until Rick turned it around and scoop slammed him. Hall caught Rick off the top and hit a fallaway slam. Nash worked on Scott Steiner for a bit.

Scott Steiner then got back into the match with a belly to belly suplex of his own to Nash. Rick tried one but he was cut off by Nash. Rick hit a powerslam on Nash… somehow. It’s really strange seeing Nash take all of these big bumps and moves for the Steiner Brothers and for anyone for that matter. They were feeding and bumping like crazy for the likes of The Steiners, The Giant and others.

The Outsiders continued to get the heat on Rick for a while. Hall actually hit a hell of a clothesline onto Rick which was followed by a “loser” from the nWo announcer. Nash dropped Rick with the Snake Eyes which was followed up by another Hall clothesline.

Nash hit a big side walk slam for a two count. Scott Steiner took a swing at Hall on the outside. Nash spat a Scott Steiner, to which Scott took a cheap shot at Nash. This led to both Scotts getting the tag.

Scott Steiner ran wild with clothesline. Scott threw the two big dudes around. Scott hit a huge suplex onto Nash as the Steiners ran wild for a bit. The Steiners went for a double team but the Outsiders broke it up. Scott Hall hit the Outsiders Edge and went for the cover, but Nick Patrick was down.

Rick hit a top rope bulldog. Scott went for a cover as WCW referee Randy Anderson jumped the guard rail to make the count. The Steiners got the pin fall victory, so the Steiner Brothers became the WCW tag team champions!

Match Rating: **1/2

This was by far the best thing on the show up until this point. This resembled a wrestling match, the finish was great and the babyfaces got a huge victory. The biggest weakness was the Outsiders getting the heat. They got the heat for a long time before the Steiners was able to mount a comeback. By the time they had just gotten started with the comeback, it was then time to set up for the ref bump and change in referees. There was little time for the Steiners to mount a meaningful counterattack by the time they had to take it home.

The nWo announcers were complaining about this and that this wouldn’t stand. Eric even threatened to fire Anderson for making the count. I don’t remember what happened with this storyline but this is somewhat making me doubt whether this will actually stand or not and that’s very concerning.

Eddie Guerrero © vs Syxx in a ladder match for the WCW United States Heavyweight Championship

The announcer called Eddie a “Mexican Jumping Bean” which was not cool in the slightest. Even Eddie turned around, not looking happy with this at all.

They hoisted that title so high in the air that it looked like they would have needed like a scaffold to get up to it. In their defence, it didn’t seem like it was a problem when it was all set and done so perhaps I was just overestimating how high that title was up in the air!

Syxx beat up Eddie for a bit. They botched up a spot where I think Eddie was going for a head scissors but Syxx accidentally cut him off.. Eddie went to work with a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker and a dive to the outside.

Syxx was able to pull off a wheel kick from the top rope. Eric Bischoff talked about concussions in 1997 and even getting concussions himself. Syxx did a Bronco Buster on the corner to Guerrero.

Eric took shot at action movie stars like Steven Seagal and Jean Claude Van Damme, saying that they were phony unlike Syxx. He even took a shot at Glacier as being phony. A weird tirade in the middle of this match including a shot at one of WCW’s own wrestlers which was funny to me.

Syxx suplexed Eddie to the floor. One fan yelled: “Eddie’s a faggot”. I was blown away that this was not edited out by the WWE Network. Syxx grabbed the ladder and rammed Eddie into the apron. Eddie and Syxx had a tug of war which led to Syxx getting laid out with Eddie regaining control.

The fans started chanting for “Eddie” as he beat away Syxx with a ladder. Syxx reversed an Irish Whip and slammed Eddie into the ladder. Syxx trapped Eddie with the ladder and stomped away at him.

Syxx slammed Eddie onto the ladder and continued with getting the heat on Guerrero. Eddie and Syxx went onto the ladder but Syxx punched Eddie to knock him down.

They battled on top of the ladder until Syxx dropkicked Eddie off the top rope and even fell down to the mat himself. They had another ladder spot where Syxx threw Eddie off the top of the ladder into the ropes. Eddie bounced back and knocked Syxx off the ladder as well. There was a fair amount of drama to this ladder match.

They both grabbed the belt and it began a tug off war until Eddie used the belt to knock down Syxx and then grabbed the belt, so he was declared the winner.

Nick Patrick was even raising his arms up yelling “no”, even though he was referee and could have easily turned around and declared Syxx the winner! Somehow, Eddie brought down the title and Patrick could not do anything about it as the referee!

Eddie actually celebrated with the title among the WCW guys which was a nice touch.

Match Rating: ***3/4 – I thought this was a very good match. These two went out there and they really put on an excellent display. There was drama. It was hard to get into this after 2 hours or so of nothing for this PPV. But they had a good match, good spots and a clunky but creative finish.

It was time for the Miss nWo finals where the girls all danced. They had a graphic for all the girls, including measurements and hobbies. One girl had a quote: “men with bowling shirts turn me on” so you had a winner if you’re into bowling I guess. One girl had “training rottweilers” as a hobby which gets my utmost respect as a previous Rottweiler owner! One girl had an occupation which was “grain inspector”! One girl’s hobby was bowling and playing the lottery.

Eric Bischoff would make the decision. As Eric was prancing around for a few minutes straight uninterrupted, I was wondering whether I actually wanted to continue with this series or not! I was blown away that anyone could have thought this was entertaining other than Eric Bischoff himself.

They picked the seventh girl I think and she kissed Bischoff. Fireworks were set off as he proclaimed it was good to be king. Miss Becky was Miss nWo… congratulations to you I guess if you won this and you are reading this review. She was presented with a nWo sash, crown and flowers and she looked so uncomfortable having to present herself in this get-up!

The things is, I bet all of these girls other than the winner were just enjoying themselves with this. Miss Becky even had her own throne, which was a black garbage truck-like throne. It looked so trashy… literally.

Here I wrote on my notes: “I vow never to watch nWo Souled Out 1997 again for the rest of my life”… unfortunately there was one more match I had to endure first .

Hollywood Hogan © vs The Giant for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship

They actually had Dallas Cowboy players accompanying Hogan to ringside in the nWo colours. One of them, Nate Newton, ended up being arrested in 2001 after he was found having 175lbs of marijuana. Vincent was there as well as the nWo and Dallas Cowboys all did a huddle before the match started.

Hogan tried to kick and punch away at Giant, to which Giant no sold. Giant chopped away at Hogan which sent Hogan to the outside. Giant chased him in what was the slowest chase attempt in history.

Hogan took advantage and punched away at the big man. Hogan and Giant both knocked each other down with a clothesline. Giant kicked away at Hogan in the corner . Vincent tried to help Hogan but Giant fought Hogan and Vincent off. Hogan tried shoulders tackles on the big man. Hogan tried a small package and there was a struggle for a small package until Giant scoop slammed Hogan! It was a pretty funny struggle between The Giant and Hollywood Hogan of all people fighting over this small package!

Hogan threw smoke at the face of Giant. Hogan choked away at Giant on the outside. Giant hit a backbreaker in the ring. I yawned during this match as Giant went to the top rope. Giant actually got on the top rope and tried a top rope elbow drop to no avail.

There was one great spot near the end of this match. Hogan slammed The Giant but once Hogan started posing, Giant got right back up. Hogan then did his poses, where he went to each side of the ring to pose at the crowd. The Giant loomed behind him as Hogan taunted unknowlingly to each side. He even walked through the path of where The Giant should have been laying after this scoop slam! When he got the fourth corner, he turned around to see that The Giant was not there. He had no idea where he was until he turned was grabbed by the throat by the big man. That was a great heel Hogan spot!

Giant hit the chokeslam but at the two count, Patrick tried to say that he got his shoulders up. After the first time, Giant kept going for the cover! It was clear that Patrick wasn’t going to count to three but yet Giant went for the cover anyway!

Eventually, Giant chokeslammed Nick Patrick. Giant chokeslammed Buff, Vincent and Wallstreet. Bischoff gave Hogan a nWo guitar. Bubba got chokeslammed. Giant was about to hit Syxx with the chokeslam but Hogan hit Giant with the guitar. He kept hitting him. The Outsiders came out. Hogan pulled down the tights of Giant to show his bare arse which was censored. Fans chanted “we want Sting”. Sting did not show up.

Hogan hit Giant with a wooden chair as the fans pelted garbage. They spray painted the nWo 4 life on his big back. So, there was no finish to the main-event of nWo Souled Out. Hogan didn’t even pin him. The fans continued to chant “we want Sting”. He did not come out.This was the ending of the wrestling pay-per-view

Match Rating: -*

Dreadful. Don’t watch this pay-per-view everybody. I’d say that you should watch the ladder match but I think you’d be disappointed compared to a lot of modern ladder matches nowadays. Other than that, there was nothing worth watching back for nWo Souled Out. This was a show dedicated to pleasuring Eric Bischoff and only Eric Bischoff. This show was probably the reason for why nWo Monday Nitro or even a nWo show was never created. This did not do well with PPV buy rates with a 0.47 buy rate.

This was a disaster. Pure and simple.

WCW Nitro Reading Order

09.13.23

by Thomas Robinson

RETRO EXPRESS: WCW STARRCADE 1996 (DECEMBER 29TH 1996)

Finally, we have arrived at the last World Championship Wrestling (WCW_ pay-per-view of 1996. This year was a game-changing one for WCW and the wrestling industry as a whole. We started the year with what would become the last remnants of the Hulkamania era, as the Dungeon of Doom continued to create problems for Hulk Hogan and his friends. By the end of 1996, WCW itself had been given problems from HULK HOGAN and his new friends in the Outsiders. The Outsiders and Hogan became the New World Order (nWo) and we’re approaching a deadline given by Eric Bischoff for members of WCW to join the nWo.

We’ve had about 12 new members of the nWo at this point but this pay-per-view is giving us a match billed as the match of the century. Hollywood Hogan would wrestle Rowdy Roddy Piper in the main event in a match built up to ever since Piper arrived at Halloween Havoc to confront Hogan. Now, after beatdowns and trash-talk, the “match of the century” is here and WCW Starrcade 1996 is here as well.

You wouldn’t believe what I’m about to say, given the emphasis on Hogan and Piper in the past two months of WCW television. However, the PPV itself actually had a pretty stellar card on paper that the fans could sink their teeth into. We have the likes of Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. Jushin Thunder Liger and Dean Malenko vs Ultimo Dragon as scheduled matches, along with Chris Benoit, Akira Hokuto, The Outsiders, Eddie Guerrero and much more in action. There was plenty of great wrestling to go around but did the last PPV of the year deliver?

Well let’s get into the review and judge for ourselves….

Date: December 29th, 1996

Brand: WCW

City: Nashville, Tennessee

Attendance: ‎9,030

Commentators: Tony Schiavonie, Dusty Rhodes and Bobby Heenan

Ultimo Dragon © w/Sonny Onoo vs Dean Malenko © in a Cruiserweight Championship unification match. The J-Crown and the WCW Cruiserweight Championship were both on the line

If you must watch at least one match from this show, watch this one. This match was the opener but nothing this PPV offered afterwards could have possibly topped it. There have been plenty of cruiserweight classics in 1996 and this match is right up there among them. It had a dynamic you wouldn’t have expected, it had a crowd that was red-hot for wrestling and they had two men who were both on top of their game for a important match to determine the undisputed Cruiserweight Champion in pro wrestling.

I think I mentioned on the last Nitro review that Dean Malenko was the J-Crown Champion which turned out to be incorrect. I do apologise for that. I should have checked it because the announcers themselves said that Malenko was the J-Crown Champion last week. I swear they did! However, Dragon was the champion. Mike Tenay joined commentary.

The match started with holds being exchanged back and forth. I love that Dusty Rhodes started mentioning that Malenko would ground Dragon as Malenko was then locked in a knee bar himself and taken down by Ultimo Dragon! Ultimo Dragon took down Dean yet again and locked on a rest hold.

Sonny Onoo laughed about what he’s going to do with the “other belt” (Dean’s Cruiserweight title), suggesting he could use it to hold his pants up. Dragon unloaded with a few kicks t theo grounded Malenko so Malenko responded with a big belly to back suplex. The differences in styles blended very well for this Cruiserweight Championship match.

Dragon did his own suplex and went back to the rest hold as the fans changed USA. Dragon did a combination of kicks which I’m sure I included as part of every wrestler I created when playing video games like WWE Here Comes The Pain when I was a kid!

There was a weird moment where Dragon locked on a single leg Boston crab. Tony called it the “half crab” and Dusty got on his case about it by asking: “What do you mean by a half crab?” He wasn’t even in a crab anymore and they were still talking about it! I think there are other examples of this but Dusty Rhodes, God rest his soul, was absolutely awful on commentary on this night.

Dusty, on commentary, has been a mixed bag for me throughout this entire WCW series. It’s one thing to make fun of Tony Schiavonie for calling a kick a “Mafia Kick”, as that’s a stupid name for a move, but why make fun of him for calling a “half crab” that was being applied? Half crab, I don’t think, is technically correct but it’s not like it was way off the mark. A Boston crab usually has one wrestler grab both of the legs of the other wrestler, turn the other wrestler around and sit down to put pressure on and apply the hold. If Dragon grabbed one leg instead of two but did the same thing, it is somewhat a half crab. Getting on Tony’s case for calling it as he did was super obnoxious for my liking. They talked about this for like a minute too.

The fans roared when Malenko did a forearm which sent Dragon to the outside. Dragon did an awesome spot where he went for the dive but he faked it and performed a Moonsault back into the ring, and then did another Suicide Dive immediately! Malenko did another suplex in the ring and the fans roared with approval yet again!

Malenko tried a sunset flip but Dragon kicked out and went back to getting the heat on Malenko. I’m not really sure if Malenko is still a heel at this point. He played babyface against Regal on Nitro and he was the babyface here. Maybe WCW or Malenko figured that Malenko would be cheered as he was going up against the non-US Dragon so they just decided to switch it. I don’t expect this to last long but Dean was great in the role.

Dragon did a sleeper hold which was turned into another belly to back suplex by Malenko. Malenko did a release German suplex. Malenko went for an ankle lock of some kind on the mat. Malenko hit the knee buster to follow this up. It was so great seeing Dean go to work with working on the leg.

Malenko pulled off a powerslam and the fans went nuts for the move. There were grown men raising to their feet in approval and applauding these spots! Malenko was over here BIG TIME. Dragon did a powerbomb for a near fall.

Malenko pulled off a tombstone for a near fall as the fans just went nuts for that too. Malenko even did a jump with it. For modern fans, think of the tombstone that the Undertaker did at WrestleMania 26 to Shawn Michaels to end his career. He didn’t just drop Michaels. He held him and jumped with Michaels before dropping him. Dean did the same thing and it looked awesome.

Malenko did a Tiger Powerbomb for another near fall. There was a lot of drama to this one. Dragon turned things around and did a springboard Moonsault to the outside. Malenko went for a back suplex from the top rope rope. Dragon countered this and tried a Moonsault but missed and landed on the knee.

Malenko locked on the Texas Cloverleaf which the fans went ballistic for as they really bought this as a finish. Sonny distracted Malenko which allowed a Dragon roll up for a near fall. Malenko dropped Dragon with the brainbuster for another near fall. I will say this: All of these near falls were believable and very dramatic, which the fans ate up.

There was a whole bunch of exchanges which let to Dragon doing the double underhook suplex for the pinfall victory. The fans booed but other than a Sonny distraction, this was a clean win for Dragon and he pinned him with a move after he and Dragon exchanged pin attempts for a good while after the interference.

This was an excellent match. Malenko was an awesome babyface. The interference didn’t really ruin the finish as they continued to wrestle and Dragon outwrestled him and outclassed him for the victory. The drama was there, the crowd was there and it was a joy to see.

Match Rating: ****1/2. Dave Meltzer from Wrestling Observer Newsletter gave the same star ratings for this one at the time and I completely agree with him. That was a fantastic match.

Akira Hokuto w/Kensuki Sasaki and Sonny Onoo vs Madusa in the WCW Women’s Championship Tournament Final

Before we get into this one, I’m going to tell this story about Akira Hokuto. This is probably going to be common knowledge for those familiar with Akira Hokuto or Kensuke Sasaki (or Kensuki as he was billed here) but the story of how Akira and Kensuke met in real life is well worth telling as Sasaki did come out with her and Sonny Onoo for this match.

We have reviewed matches with Akira Hokuto before but, to be honest, I only learned about this story a few months ago so I’ll just tell it here. According to Dave Meltzer and reported by him, she and Kensuke allegedly met for the first time during the WCW/NJPW: Collision in Korea show. This was the first wrestling show to take place in North Korea that was held by an America company. As love in first sight, the two allegedly went to the hotel that same night and had sex that was so loud that people could hear the lovebirds through their walls!

This eventually led to Sasaki proposing to Akira during their first date and they got married shortly afterwards on the 1/10/1995. I love that kind of love story! There’s a lot of “celebrity” or wrestling marriages that don’t tend to last long in the world of wrestling these days. However, not only did these two lovebirds fall in love right away, Kensuke and Akira are still together as of me writing this review! We’re talking nearly 30 years later! That’s awesome and yes, Kensuke came out with his wife for this match which I think was the first time he’s done this.

NOTE: In case you are wondering, I tried to find out more about the story. Regarding how Dave knew that the sex was so loud that people could hear it, apparently he mentioned on Wrestling Observer Radio years later that he heard the story from Eric Bischoff!

Madusa came out in the red, white and blue of the United States of America so it was clear who the babyface was supposed to be in front of this American crowd. She even had a giant US flag with her that she was waving so the patriotism was running wild here. Lee Marshall joined commentary.

Akira threw Madusa all over the place with her hair. Madusa tried to fire back but I think it was Sonny that tripped her up. Akira locked on a choke from the top rope. Madusa did a Frankensteiner from the top rope. Madusa then distracted herself to yell at Sonny and Kensuki which Akira taking over for the heat.

Akira was awesome as she locked multiple submissions onto Madusa, transitioning so smoothly. Akira even bit Madusa’s foot at one point. Heel referee Nick Patrick was the referee. Madusa started a comeback and finished it with a scoop slam. Akira did a lifting choke to Madusa which looked really good.

She leaned Madusa over her knee and then just started choking her with her hand! Akira did a Northern Lights suplex and then locked on an armbar. Madusa hit a ugly looking float-over DDT. Akira hit a German suplex. Madusa did a tornado DDT but she stopped on the mat and then dropped her onto the floor.

Madusa hit a big powerbomb for a two count. Madusa tried another one but Akira just bore her weight down on Akira to get out of it. I don’t think that was a botch as it was the second powerbomb in a row. I don’t think there would have been a need to go for another one if there wasn’t going to be a counter by Akira.

Madusa did a German suplex. Nick Patrick did a slow two count which was one of the rare ones he actually did up until this point in the match. The commentators tried to play it up that he’d been doing shady things all match but really this one slow count was the only one that stood out up until this point.

Akira did a superplex for a two count which was executed really well. Akira was on the top rope and Madusa dropkicked her off. Sonny then attacked Madusa with the flag which led to Akira delivering a missile dropkick from the top and then she hit a big brainbuster for the win.

GIVE ME MORE AKIRA HOKUTO. Madusa wasn’t particular good in this match but watching Akira go to work was an awesome sight. She would have fit in just fine with either the WWE or AEW rosters in 2023 and this sort of stuff in women’s wrestling was so rare for US audiences in the 90s. For starters, the WCW Women’s division did not last long after this point (sorry for the spoiler!) and the WWF women’s roster during the Attitude Era was just lacking in wrestlers with high wrestling IQ. So, to me, this was a treat.

I’ve seen reviews from Dave at the time and others online that seem really harsh ion this match. Madusa had a few awful moments in this match but I think the moves executed by Akira more than made up for it. It’s not like both women were on completely different pages throughout the match. It was really Madusa that struggled for half the match.

I was going to give it a higher rating but, to be honest, there wasn’t much of a story to the match, Madusa had a few botched spots and the manager interference for the second match in a row was a bit frustrating and cheapened the finish to allegedly an historic match where they’d crown the WCW women’s champion.. However, everything Akira did looked really crisp to me. Therefore, I’m going to give the women their due. I don’t rate it as well as other matches I gave **3/4 (I remember them) mostly because the story was non-existent. The action, however, was great so they get two and a half stars out of five!

Match Rating: **1/2

Diamond Dallas Page was doing a WCW website advertisement where he was answering questions from online fans, and continued blowing smoke in a poor dude’s face. That wasn’t nice of him. ☹

Mean Gene Okerlund did an interview with Rowdy Roddy Piper. Piper laughed and said that he sung like a vulture. Piper said there’s plenty of icons but it “POs him” that people say they’re the only icons in pro wrestling (which I think Hollywood Hogan had said in interviews). He brought up the likes of Dusty Rhodes and Gorgeous George as icons. Piper said his whole life has been hard as he’s had to feed six kids. Piper said that he’s not going to give up. Mean Gene asked about the hip to which Piper skipped away. This was an extremely difficult promo to take notes for! That was as much as I got out of it as Piper was just out of his mind with these promos!

Jushin Thunder Liger vs. Rey Mysterio Jr.

Mike Tenay joined commentary again for this one. The fans chanted USA for the third time I believe on this night! Rey tried to trip Liger which he struggled with due to his size. Liger was far bigger than him. Liger worked on the arms.

Tenay talked about Jushin Thunder Liger having surgery in August 1996 to remove a brain tumor and he was back here to wrestle Rey which I think they said was the first time they’d wrestled in a singles match together. Liger was 13 years into his career at this point and it’s insane that Liger only retired from wrestling like a few years ago in the 2020s! Liger had this issue with a brain tumour in the 90s and continued to wrestle for decades later. Liger is without a doubt a legend in my eyes. I have mad respect for him for that.

Liger got the heat on Rey, including a big powerbomb. We’ve had powerbombs from at least four different people so far at Starrcade! Rey did a hurricanranara to get himself back into the match and they had an exchange which let to Rey head-scissoring Liger over the top rope and onto the floor. Rey scared off Liger by teasing the 619.

Liger dropped Rey with a huge suplex from the apron. Liger didn’t even go down with him. He dropped him and grabbed the ropes and Rey just splatted onto the mat. Liger followed this up with a powerbomb on the floor. Rey was also out of his mind taking these spots which makes it crazy to me that HE’S still wrestling as of 2023 and is currently the WWE United States Champion. I’m pretty sure I talked about the big bumps he was taking during his match with Mr JL on Nitro last week. Rey Mysterio… also a true legend in my eyes.

Liger tried something from the top rope but Rey pushed him off. Rey tried a front dropkick from the top but Liger evaded. Liger followed this up with the tilt-a-whirl backbreaker. Liger locked on a surfboard submission for about 20-30 seconds but Rey refused to give up. Rey did a release German suplex which seemed rare for me although I’d have to check back through the old reviews to see how often he did them.

Rey did a springboard moonsault into the ring for a two count. Bobby and Dusty were arguing for some reason. I was not paying proper attention to the commentary as to what they were arguing over.

Rey did a springboard front dropkick and Rey almost lost his balance on the top rope. It was scary. Rey locked on a Camel Clutch for a bit. Rey tried a springboard but Liger did a front dropkick in mid air to counter which looked cool but bad for Rey!

Liger did a release German suplex and Rey landed back first. He didn’t land on his shoulders that you mostly see wrestlers do and I believe you are taught to do. He landed right on his back. It looked naughty and I flinched as soon as a I saw. To make things worse, Liger sat right onto Rey’s back as he did a single leg Boston crab! I don’t think the commentators argued about the “half crab” this time! I will admit that some of the commentary banter was pretty funny during this match, for the stuff I did pay attention to!

Liger worked on the leg with the dragon screw leg whip. Dusty made fun of the name “dragon screw leg whip”, even though that was the name of the move.

Rey did a baseball dropkick and then followed up with a springboard Moonsault which Liger almost wasn’t in position for. Liger was almost counted out but the referee was stopped by Rey who wanted to win in the ring. Rey did a guillotine leg drop in the ring but Liger got his foot on the rope. Rey did a springboard move but Liger moved. Rey landed back first and Liger followed this up with a diving headbutt for a two count. A fair amount of near falls in this one too.

Rey tried a springboard hurricanrana from the top but Liger simply landed on his feet and did a Liger kick. He followed it up with a Liger Bomb for the pinfall victory. Rey actually kicked out at 3.1 which somewhat ruined it but this was an great match.

I don’t think it was as good as the opener but this was an brilliant spectacle.

Match Rating: ***3/4 (I was going to give this a four star rating but the 3.1 kick out did ruin the finish for me. It was still a great match but the finish really let it down for me)

Chris Benoit w/Woman vs Jeff Jarrett in a no disqualification match

This match seemed like such a random inclusion for WCW Starrcade but there were storyline elements that linked Chris Benoit and Jeff Jarrett together. For those unaware, Chris Benoit was with Woman at this time which was creating problems for the Four Horsemen. A few months ago, Ric Flair did endorse Jeff Jarrett to beat The Giant so therefore these two were put together for this match I guess.

Fans went nuts for Benoit as he and Woman came out. I think Benoit and Woman got the biggest pop of the night up until this point. It’s insane to me that the fans went crazy for them, given that the story is that Chris Benoit and Woman are having an affair in storyline! I love how Dusty talked about Jeff Jarrett having homefield advantage when Benoit was the one that was mostly cheered by the crowd!

They locked up. Benoit slapped Jeff and for some reason backed off from Jeff. I’m not sure why Benoit backed away from Jeff when Benoit and Eddie were slapping each other like crazy on Nitro. Not sure why he’d back down from Jarrett of all people.

Benoit did a drop toe hold and then slapped the head of Jarrett a few times. Jarrett fired up with some right hands. He then did his own drop toe hold, walked over Benoit’s body and did his strut to a mixture of cheers and boos. Jarrett did a monkey flip.

Benoit stomped out Jeff in the corner. This led to Jeff tackling Benoit and the two men brawling, as they seemingly remembered it was a no disqualification match. Benoit catapulted Jeff into the top turnbuckle and slammed him down. Benoit tried a superplex from the top but Jeff pushed him off. Woman moved Benoit out of the way of a Jeff attack. I’m not sure why Woman was subtle about it. This was supposed to be a no disqualification match.

They fought on the outside for a bit. Benoit threw Jeff into the barricade. Jeff dropped Benoit onto the barricade as well in response. Benoit did a back suplex which looked shaky for Jeff to balance himself but they were able to pull off the move just fine.

Benoit locked on a sleeper hold. Again.. the talent did not care that Piper was in the main event! I know the sleeper hold is the common move but Piper’s in the main-event for god’s sake and the likes of Dragon and Benoit had been doing it on the same show!

Benoit locked on the sleeper hold but kept putting his foot on the rope for leverage, which he felt the need to hide from the referee. Again… IT’S NO DQ. Unless the rope break was somehow still enforced, Benoit should have just kept his hand/foot on the rope for leverage!

Jeff fought out of it and did a back suplex of his own. Benoit chopped away at Jeff for a bit to which Jeff fired back with punches in the corner. Jeff did a dropkick for a two count. Jeff did a belly to belly suplex which also seemed rare to me! I like that the talent were mixing it up with the moves that they were doing on this show!

The Four Horsemen’s Arn Anderson came down and walked past Benoit and appeared to be in the corner of Jeff Jarrett. Jeff fired back for a bit but Benoit went back to work on the outside.

Then we got a hugely over-booked finish. The Dungeon of Doom’s Konan and Hugh Morrus went after Woman. Taskmaster led the Dungeon of Doom so his goons went to intimidate Woman. She low-blowed Hugh Morrus on the outside but Konan then choked her out. Because of this, the referee’s back was turned on Benoit and Jeff, as they continued to wrestle. Arn then hit the DDT on Jeff on the outside. He rolled in Jeff. However, as Arn did this, Taskmaster hit Benoit with a chair. Jeff was rolled into the ring and managed to lay his arm on Benoit for the pin as Arn and Woman argued blaming each other.

This sort of match belonged on Nitro, especially with this finish. It wasn’t a bad match but the finish was just over-booked with the plot with the Dungeon of Doom and Four Horsemen in mind. Chris Benoit was sleeping with Taskmaster’s wife, Arn was mad at Benoit for the affair, Arn was mad at Woman for the affair, the Dungeon of Doom were mad at Woman for the affair, Jeff Jarrett had nothing to do with this but was Ric Flair’s hand-picked guy and apparently Arn had a problem with Jeff Jarrett. This led to two attacks and an unconscious Jeff picking up a win over Benoit.

This did no favours for either man or either group in this scenario. If you look at everyone involved here, this finish hurt everyone except Konan. You took heat from Benoit, as he got pinned. You took heat from Jeff Jarrett, who won by pure luck and was laid out by Arn. You made Arn looked stupid as even after the DDT, Benoit still lost. Taskmaster still looked bad, as his woman (in Woman) was still with another man, Woman was choked out by Konan and Hugh Morrus got kicked in the balls.

And on top of ALL OF THIS, this was promoted as a No Disqualification match. Not only was nothing illegal actually done in this match, they still had the referee distracted for the big finish. Why? If there’s no disqualification, why didn’t the Dungeon of Doom just jump Benoit throughout the match? Why did Arn and Taskmaster hit Jeff and Benoit respectively with the ref’s back turned? Why go through all the effort?

My personal theory is that Benoit and Jeff had no idea this match was a no disqualification match, and the same goes for the other wrestlers involved in the finish including the referee. I think the commentators were told to call it a No DQ match by Eric Bischoff in the back, which is why they were talking about the stipulation and the wrestlers had no idea. Otherwise, it makes no sense for the No DQ stipulation to not be played around with for this match.

On a positive note, Woman in this dress looked absolutely phenomenal on this night.

Match Rating: **3/4. The action was fine and they never did anything wrong. However, just a whole lot of brawling involved here that didn’t really look appealing to me. Jeff was an underwhelming babyface here and it needed a lot more for me to get invested in this one.

Arn blew past Mean Gene Okerlund for the interview. Jeff blew past Mean Gene raising his arms (after being laid out with the DDT), Benoit and Woman also blew past Mean Gene. However, Steve “Mongo” McMichael came down with Debra. Mongo looked rather dapper in this outfit. Mongo said he’s been a winner all his life and he’s said Woman had gotten Benoit weak on his knees. Jeff was served on a silver platter and Mongo mentioned that Benoit still couldn’t beat him. Mongo got mad at the fans for booing Debra. Debra talked about Jeff being Horsemen material and Benoit and Woman weren’t. Debra wanted to talk about herself and she said the guys wanted her under their Christmas trees but she’s with Mongo. Debra said she was too much woman for the men to handle. What the heck was the point of this promo?

“The Outsiders” Kevin Nash © and Scott Hall © w/Syxx vs “Faces of Fear” Meng and The Barbarian w/Jimmy Hart for the WCW Tag Team Championship

I’m a simple man sometimes when it comes to wrestling. You give me big dudes just clobbering each other for ten minutes or so, that’s something which I can get behind. This tag match was just that… four huge men battering each other with a clean finish where one team beat another team fair and square. This match was exactly that.

They showed some nWo fans at ringside and they looked so uncool cheering for the nWo! Then, to make the nWo seem even more uncool, they showed a sign that flat out said that Hogan and the nWo were rejects from the WWF. I was blown away when I saw that sign. I was even more blown away when I thought about how the nWo storyline originally played out. They played out the Outsiders as being WWF guys, even though they never said that on television. They needed the Outsiders to confirm at the Great American Bash that they weren’t, because the WWF actually took legal action over the storyline due to the WWF insinuations. Even with that, the WCW producers had no problem with showing this sign flat out calling Hogan, Nash and Hall rejects from the WWF!

We had referee Nick Patrick again and I love Nick Patrick’s scowl as he presented the titles to the camera in the ring! He was such a nasty heel and his scowling face just told the story of the type of referee we were dealing with! A few dudes chanted nWo loudly.

Scott Hall worked on the arm of Meng and then Meng exploded with a big clothesline and just knocked down Hall. Meng was as quick as hell with pulling off this clothesline and he just clobbered him! Meng chopped Hall so hard that he hit the camera near the corner!

Hall did a bulldog for the one count. Meng stomped Hall in the gut and I’m surprised Nick Patrick didn’t just call for a DQ given his own association with the nWo. The Barbarian and Kevin Nash were both tagged in as the two tallest dudes in the match, so they started to fight. Nash worked on Barbarian in the corner with punches, elbows and knee attacks. Barbarian bounced back with chops and chokes and continued to chop away in the corner.

The Faces of Fear then just said “screw this” and just started clobbering Nash in the corner! Nash fought back and tried to do the double coconut spot and smash their heads together. However, the Faces of Fear no sold this and then just continued the beatdown! This was a great moment!

Barbarian did a side walk slam for a slow two count to Jimmy Hart’s displeasure. Nash did the snake eyes, dropping Barbarian on the top turnbuckle, which led to Hall with the clothesline from the apron as Nick Patrick was distracted.

As Patrick’s back was turned, Hall followed up with another clothesline. Nash worked on Barbarian in the corner. The Faces of Fear clobbered Hall in the corner which Hall did get out of.

There was one spot where Meng punched the back of Scott Hall’s head as Patrick’s back was turned, which I loved because it was essentially two heels out-cheating two other heels in the Outsiders! Meng did a piledriver which may have been botched as I think Meng said “I’m sorry” as he tried a piledriver, dropped him and then executed the piledriver as planned.

Barbarian did a powerbomb with the pin broken up by Nash. Meng did an atomic drop followed up by a big boot by Barbarian. Barbarian got a nerve hold on Hall. The Outsiders eventually got back into it with Nash clotheslining the back of Barbarian and then Hall following up with his own clothesline. Syxx chased away Jimmy Hart with his own megaphone!

Barbarian continued with the nerve hold on Hall. I think the Faces of Fear were getting the heat on the Outsiders, which is crazy considering the nWo are supposed to be the big heels. The fans even clapped to rally Hall as he got a second wind and did a back suplex. I think Eric Bischoff probably wanted the nWo to be babyfaces somehow if he was reportedly angling towards a nWo TV deal. They were doing a nWo PPV in January so maybe he was going for somewhat of a brand split where the fans could love or hate the Outsiders but they were babyfaces here. It was just interesting given the booking of the match.

Nash got the hot tag and ran wild with a big boot. Nash went for a cover and Meng just did a big elbow drop to Nash! Hall and Meng brawled on the outside. Barbarian missed a big boot and Nash did the Jacknife powerbomb for the three count and the CLEAN VICTORY.

My notes actually read: “HOLY SHIT. There was a clean pin in a nWo match”

Match Rating: **1/4 – There wasn’t anything particular impressive with what they did but a lot of the stuff went as planned with the spots they did, there wasn’t much nWo shenanigans and we got a clean pin. So I’ll give this the **1/4 stars. Dave Meltzer gave this 1 star out of 5 which I had no idea why. That was a incredibly harsh rating. We had two big teams fighting and one big team won. If you look at it as if the nWo were supposed to be the faces, this was a fine match.

Ted DiBiase interviewed fellow nWo cohort Hollywood Hogan with Vincent and Elizabeth behind them. Hogan ranted about Piper, Piper being a coward, Piper’s 6 kids and Piper being a woman. Hogan talked about Hollywood Style and they were having fun. Hogan said today was Hollywood day. Hogan said he made the business, he’d make it tomorrow and without him, the wrestling business wouldn’t be where it is today. He laughed. Another Hollywood Hogan promo about absolutely nothing.

Diamond Dallas Page vs Eddie Guerrero for the WCW United States Heavyweight Championship in a tournament final

To catch everyone up to speed. The Giant from the nWo had stolen the WCW United States Championship. Ric Flair had gotten injured, so he vacated the title. Giant had stolen the title. However, WCW still did a new tournament to crown a new United States Champion. It came down to DDP and Eddie Guerrero in the final. Whoever wins will become the champion but just won’t have the title because The Giant still had the title.

Long story short, two men are fighting for the United States Championship but won’t actually receive the belt if they win! It’s one thing if one man steals the title from the champion, which leads to a match where the original champion gets revenge and takes the belt back. That’s a sound wrestling story, even if it does break tradition of touching the title before you win it. Here, either Eddie or DDP would win the title and they would not be carrying the title around. I assume the plan is that the champion, who we’ll get to, will eventually challenge Giant for the title.

The heat just didn’t seem to be there from the crowd for allegedly a US title match, for this was the tournament final to crown the new champion. The US title wasn’t even there so really, with The Giant having possession of it, this felt like it was crowing an interim champion with the winner being set up to face the Giant in theory.

Eddie dropkicked DDP and DDP did a hell of a sell with falling through the ropes and onto the outside. DDP bounced Eddie’s head into the steel steps. Eddie eventually wrestled DDP down and worked on the arm for a bit. DDP did something resembling a Styles Clash which almost looked like a piledriver. To be honest, there wasn’t much to comment on for the match in the first five minutes or so. DDP and Eddie just beat on each other for a bit.

DDP locked on the abdominal stretch for a minute or so as he worked on Eddie for a bit. They kept doing the spot where the heel Page would grab the ropes for leverage while the referee was distracted. After a minute or so, they did something else and then DDP went back to applying the abdominal stretch again. They then literally repeated the same spot from like a minute or two earlier and the referee actually caught DDP in the act. This was a solid two-three minutes of the same spots!

DDP I think slapped the referee to which the referee threatened to DQ him and actually stood up for himself. Good on him! Eddie tried to fire back but DDP floored Eddie with a clothesline. DDP charged and hit the corner ring post as Eddie evaded.

Eddie swept the leg on DDP and DDP was somehow flipped and landed on his neck. Eddie fired up and hit a uppercut which Dusty Rhodes popped for at commentary. Eddie bounced DDP’s head into the turnbuckle. Eddie tried a Frog Splash but DDP moved out of the way. DDP made the cover from this but Eddie kicked out.

DDP did a suplex-powerslam for a two count . DDP did a gutwrench gut buster and then tried to go up top for a top rope move but Eddie cut him off. DDP pushed Eddie off the top rope but Eddie did a moonsault and landed on his feet which again is rare to see from Eddie.

Eddie tried a few rolls ups. DDP tried a Diamond Cutter but Eddie countered into a bridge pinfall attempt. Eddie tried a head scissors which DDP turned into a Spiral Powerbomb which looked very crisp! It was one of the best spots of the night.

Eddie and DDP bonked into each other. This made way for the Outsiders and Syxx. Scott Hall went after DDP and hit an Outsiders Edge while the referee’s back was turned. Eddie hit the Frog Splash for the pin to win the United States Heavyweight Championship.

I guess DDP had turned down the nWo which I have no memory of. When did this happen? I remember DDP said he was thinking about joining the nWo. I don’t remember him outright turning them down.

After the match, Eddie fought the nWo for a bit and was actually running wild on all three men for like 30 seconds until Nash overwhelmed him. This felt like the most pushed Eddie ever was during his time in WCW with this 30 seconds when he was beating up Kevin Nash, Scott Hall and Syxx at the same time!

They then beat him up for a bit as Syxx did kicks to Guerrero. Syxx then hoisted up what I think was the US title? I just saw Syxx hoist up a championship belt. I’m not sure if it was actually the US title here.

Match Rating: **1/2 – This was a pretty lousy match for a long time saved by a closing five minutes or so which was good. The finish was lame though so it gets two and a half stars from me overall.

The Giant vs Lex Luger

The two men locked up for a while. Started with your typical two big man test of strength spot as they fought for lock up supremacy.

Luger fired up with punches to the head to which The Giant had some over the top but very sound selling for. It’s a dramatic sell but sells do need to be somewhat dramatic and Giant figured this out very early into his wrestling career. It was a bit cartoonish with how he would thrust his head back and look up into the sky but you need to convince the audience that these dudes are larger than life personalities. Why not go over the top with selling to convey this message?

Giant did a big clothesline. Giant then pulled out a big elbow drop onto a floored Luger. Giant booted Luger in the ribs which sent Luger bouncing to the outside of the ring. Giant suplexed Luger back into the ring. Giant worked on Luger for a bit. Luger fired back and tried a scoop slam but Giant was too big for Luger.

Luger did an elbow drop. Giant did a headbutt to the gut of Luger which looked very comical. Giant lifted the legs of Luger and then just fell into Luger’s gut with his head! In fact, I was wondering if that was actually a low blow with his head rather than just a headbutt to the gut! I appreciate the concept but it didn’t look particularly great in execution!

Giant got hung up on the top rope to which Luger capitalised on. This was an incredibly boring match. As I wrote that last sentence, Giant then proceed to attempt a dropkick into Luger who was on the corner. However, Luger ducked and Giant’s legs landed on the ropes and he came crashing down almost onto his head. I think he was so thankful that his shoulders were so big as he landed on that first. If he had smaller arms, he’s landing right on his head. It appeared Giant was fine after this.

Luger fired back with punches, clotheslines and then wound up for one last big punch and then pulled off a neckbreaker for a big pop. Luger went for the cover but Giant threw him onto the referee. Luger hit the scoop slam as Nick Patrick came down to replace the referee . Luger tried to get Giant up for the Torture Rack but Nick Patrick actually kicked the leg of Luger to knock him off balance. They actually showed this.

To add to the shenanigans, Luger shoved Patrick off as STING made his way down to the ring. Syxx knocked down Luger with kicks. Sting pointed the baseball bat at Patrick and then knocked down Patrick. Sting said something to Luger and Giant, leaving the baseball bat in the ring for both men. Luger grabbed the bat but Giant stepped on the bat at around the same time. Luger low blowed the Giant, used the baseball bat multiple times and the referee crawled over the count the pin as Luger pinned Giant!

The fans ROARED and lost their minds with this outcome. This was such a huge victory for the fans and to be fair, it was for a guy they were pushing as the leader of WCW in Lex Luger. This is kind of hilarious in hindsight when it comes to nWo Souled Out but this was a great finished despite all of the shenanigans with Nick Patrick, nWo and Sting.

Giant stared angrily towards the entrance ramp as the commentators were wondering where all of the nWo was.

Match Rating: ** – I think the finish and the crowd reaction pretty much added a whole star. Maybe I’m being super generous but the fans went bonkers. To be fair, the finish was actually awesome and it made Luger look like a million bucks. If you put a lot of value into crowd reactions, this was a big thumbs up!

Hollywood Hogan w/Ted DiBiase vs Rowdy Roddy Piper in the match of the century

This was a non-title match with Hollywood Hogan being the WCW World Heavyweight Champion at the time. Therefore, the men are fighting for pride more than championship with this one. Michael Buffer returned to do the introductions. Hogan came down with DiBiase, Miss Elizabeth and Vincent but only DiBiase stayed at ringside. There were massive “Rowdy” chants as the fans were going nuts for Piper as he came out.

The bell rang as Hogan was making his way out of the ring! Hogan did a lot of exiting the ring during this match to kill time for this main event. Piper looked in great condition as Bobby even said that Piper was in the best shape of his career. You could tell with his chest but despite being in his mid-40s at this point, Hot Rod was looking sharp for a big main event.

They wrestled for a bit until Piper started unloading with punches which looked fabulous as the fans cheered him on. These punches were quite great! Piper shoved the referee onto the turnbuckle I guess to try and stop the referee from counting out Hogan! Piper spit on Hogan which fired up the Hulkster who delivered some punches and kicks of his own. Hogan was talking trash, calling Piper a piece of trash, as he was beating him up for a bit.

Piper did a clothesline to the side of Hogan which they looked to be on different pages for. Piper raked the eyes of Hogan and ran wild on Hogan for a bit until Hogan yet again went to the outside to catch his breath. This was the third time he’d done this by this point.

Piper locked on a side headlock for a bit. Hogan tried to push him off but Piper continued to keep the hold on. Hogan turned this into a back suplex. However, Piper still had the hold locked in. Hogan eventually got out it, sending Piper crashing to the floor. Piper took an ugly bump.

Hogan tried a clothesline but Piper did a clothesline of his own. Piper somehow pulled off an enzigiri of some kind! Hogan ran away but Piper chased him to bring him back to the ring. Piper beat him up using the barricade and then Piper just started whipping Hogan with the belt from Piper’s kilt. He did this all around the ring and even did it in the ring. Piper just kept beating him and tried choking him, even with referee Randy Anderson trying to get him off of Hogan!

I’m pretty sure this match was a regular match but this match still had more illegal tactics and weapons used than the Chris Benoit vs Jeff Jarrett match from earlier, which was promoted as a no disqualification match!

Piper chased off DiBiase until Hogan cut him off. The fans tried to cheer Piper on as Hogan beat up Piper on the outside. Hogan punched Piper into the crowd over the barricade and then sent back over the barricade to ringside. Hogan kicked away at the hip of Piper, with Piper having had surgery on the hip (hip replacement surgery).

Hogan had the abdominal stretch locked on but Piper got out of it with the hip toss. Piper then just started punching away at Hogan, and even started pulling out the hair of Hogan. Piper tried a small package for the pinfall win which Hogan kicked out. The announcers noted this was the first pinfall attempt so far. It was interesting that it came from Piper, the alleged babyface. You’d think Hogan would try the first pinfall attempt to get out of the match sooner.

They fought for a bit more until Piper casually poked Hogan in the eye and then followed up with a suplex. Piper tried a knee drop but Hogan moved out of the way. Hogan went for the leg drop but Piper moved out of the way. Piper started kicking at the leg of Hogan.

The Giant came down to chokeslam Piper but as Giant had Piper up, a fan tried to run into the ring. Hogan immediately gave the boots to the fan with Giant still having Piper in the air! Even the referee got some punches in on this idiot of a wrestling fan! Hogan turned his attention back to Giant but Piper kicked Hogan down. Piper bit the face of Giant to get out of it. Piper eventually locked on the sleeper hold onto Hogan. Hogan passed out, could not answer the count of three and Roddy Piper wins the match CLEAN AS A WHISTLE!

There was fireworks that immediately went off. The fans went crazy. Then, THE NWO RAN DOWN AGAIN. Piper fought off the Outsiders for a bit but then fled as The Giant lurked behind Piper. The fans chanted for Rowdy. Piper celebrated with a few of children and then left. Roddy Piper was a hero on this night, even if he didn’t win the WCW World title.

Match Rating: *1/2 – Again, 1 star probably just for the fan reactions alone. A half a star for the action itself seems appropriate given that the two just did barely anything. You had Hollywood Hogan in there with Piper who was coming off of hip surgery. They did the best they could but it was the worst match on the show by far, which was saved by the crowd and another great finish.

Then Giant stared into the ring and then left as the Outsiders were left bewildered. Hogan then ran back to meet up with The Giant. Giant pushed back Hogan as Nash got face to face with Giant. Giant asked where Hogan was for his match. Giant yelled that he took care of their trash all of the time as the fans chanted for Giant.

Hogan told Giant that he dropped the ball but the nWo still had the belt. Hogan walked back to the ring repeating that Giant dropped the ball. Hogan asked for “Vince” to come back out with his belt referring to Vincent. He actually said: “VINCE, YOU BETTER GET OUT OF HERE RIGHT NOW WITH OUR BELT” which sounded like an actual conversation between Hogan and Vince McMahon!

Hogan poised with the title, spat at the camera and celebrated because this was non-title match.

I give this PPV a thumbs up. The action in the second half of the show was nowhere near as good as the first half of the show. However, the fans were still red hot throughout the show. The fans reacted big time for the nWo, they reacted for Lex Luger and they reacted for the main-event. This was a show that also had a lot of great finishes for the important matches on the show. Some of the finishes were overbooked a little but a lot of the right wrestlers won on the day.

We had great wrestling, great booking and a great crowd. Therefore, I think it’s safe to say that this was a great show! Thumbs up for WCW Starrcade 1996!

Coming up next, the last WCW Nitro of 1996 and then we enter the year of 1997!

WCW Nitro Reading Order

01.03.23

by Thomas Robinson

RETRO EXPRESS: THE RETURN OF BROCK LESNAR #4 – BROCK LESNAR VS. TRIPLE H III (EXTREME RULES 2013)

Welcome to the Retro Express. This is where we’re taking a stroll down memory lane at wrestling history. This post is part of a new ongoing series where we’re reviewing every Brock Lesnar match since his return to WWE in 2012. We hope you enjoy.

We’ve made it to the third and final battle between Brock Lesnar and Triple H from 2012-2013. For those of you that may not know what happened in this rivalry, please check out the links at the bottom of the post where I have reviewed the first two matches Brock and Triple H had in WWE and while I am about to give a brief background of this feud, the match reviews do demonstrate two completely styles of matches in the past between these two. Their SummerSlam match was very methodical and ring psychology-driven with a decisive victory. Their WrestleMania rematch was a poetic, brutal affair with all kinds of shenanigans leading to the hero getting his revenge. Will their Extreme Rules match inside of a steel cage be something completely different again or will it perhaps include the very best of both matches?

Well let’s go into the review and see if WWE ended this feud with a bang or a whimper…

Background: Brock Lesnar and Triple H were both 1-1 in a series of matches that began at SummerSlam 2012. Brock tapped out Triple H and won at SummerSlam which led to Triple H shaving his head and knocking out Brock with a pedigree on the steel steps at WrestleMania to even the score. Paul Heyman would even go on RAW and emphasise that all Triple H did was level the score and challenged Triple H to a rubber match at Extreme Rules. This match would be contested inside of a steel cage. Brock would actually send a message to Triple H by coming to WWE Headquarters and smashing up Triple H’s office with a sledgehammer as Paul Heyman recorded it. Triple H then showed up in a steel cage on RAW and said he had another office being inside the ring. Brock and Triple H would have a fight in the cage which Triple H won.

NOTES: I actually did discover during my review of this match that I had reviewed it before as part of an Extreme Rules 2013 review which I did at the time! If you’d like to read what I though about the match in 2013, you can click on this link to jump straight to it. Fair warning though, I was a very cringey writer back then! I was also 18 years old and very new to wrestling blogging!

Date: May 19th, 2013

Brand: WWE

City: St. Louis, Missouri

Commentators (First Hour): Michael Cole, Jerry “The King Lawler and John Bradshaw Layfield

Brock Lesnar w/Paul Heyman vs. Triple H in a steel cage match

Before the match started, Brock Lesnar came out for his entrance and was immediately jumped on the entrance ramp by Triple H. One of the rare times Triple H doesn’t get to do his big elaborate entrance before the match! He just skipped it and got into a fight outside the cage before the match started. This opening spell was actually very fast paced, which I was surprised by given the pace of the previous matches. Triple H even came off the top turnbuckle with a double axe handle to start of the match inside the cage. Triple H was feeling ambitious by coming off the top rope!

Triple H threw Brock into the cage a few times and hit the spinebuster. Triple H tried a Pedigree but Brock just back-dropped him into the cage. Brock beat up Triple H some more. Triple H had a hell of a bump as Brock threw him from one side of the ring into the steel cage on the other side. Brock did it again, and Brock actually threw Triple H OVER the top rope and Triple H bounced down and rolled down the cage.

Triple H threw Brock into the cage in response. The cage bumps from both men were brilliantly done. They were very over-exaggerated in a good way to put more emphasis on it and it did heighten the “risk” of the cage with the way they both sold for these spots in particular. Brock did a solid German suplex afterwards and powerslammed Triple H into the cage.

Brock eventually tried a running knee but Triple H evaded and Brock went into the cage knee-first. This started a long spell of Triple H working on Brock’s knee so the ring psychology from their first match was present to some degree. However, much like the first match, it was a long period of time of spots focusing on a particular body part.

I like ring psychology and I thought it was fine for the smaller man (Triple H) to work on the larger man’s knee (Brock). However, a steel cage match isn’t really an appropriate one to display such wrestling prowess. I would have preferred they work around the cage match stipulation rather than just working holds for long periods of time. In their defence, Brock hit his knee on the cage first to set it all up so at least they did involve the cage to injure Brock at first.

Jerry Lawler calling Paul Heyman “the Walrus” or “the Paulrus” was the worst part of this match. This was WWE’s problem back in this time period. They’d think of one clever nickname for the heel and the commentators had to repeat it over and over again until everyone just got sick of it, and then they just kept doing it. As soon as Jerry said it, I just remembered how much this was beaten over our heads. A big grudge match isn’t the time for Jerry Lawler to be making these jokes.

Triple H hit the knee facebuster. Brock reversed the Pedigree attempt into a standing Kimura lock. Triple H fought out of it but Brock flattened him with the clothesline. Brock tried to exit the open door but Triple H cut him off with a chop block, which I actually thought was a great little spot.

Paul Heyman shoved the referee out of the way and slammed the door in Triple H’s face. Brock capitalised and hit an F5 on Triple H for a two count with Brock’s knee still messed up. Brock commanded Paul get him a chair. Paul ran around the outside and grabbed one. Charles Robinson, the referee on the outside, tried to stop him but he was pushed aside. The chair got passed into the cage as Brock beat up Triple H with it.

Paul told Brock to shake off the knee issues and Brock tried the F5 again but the knee buckled. Jerry even criticised Paul’s idea to shake of the knee problems. Paul shrieked “BROCK” as Triple H attacked him with a chair in retaliation. Triple H hit Brock with the chair that was supposed to be on the leg but it looked like it clocked him right on the backside instead. Triple H actually worked on the leg some more by just dropping elbows on the knee. Paul Heyman pleaded for mercy on the outside!

I loved Brock’s selling of his knee. He tried to walk to the door and he walked like me after a leg work out or if I’ve just done a leg press! If your leg hurts and you try to work, your legs are wobbly and even the act of walking looked like such pain for Brock. It was superb as Brock painfully walked to the cage door!

Brock got a Kimura locked in which Triple H mustered the strength to push Lesnar back into the corner to force a release. Triple H went back to the knee. Triple H even went for the Figure Four Leg Lock but after a minute or so, Brock was able to heave himself over to the ropes but there was no rope break in a cage match. Brock was eventually able to just turn it around.

The fans died down a little during this. It was mostly just Triple H beating up on Brock for a solid 5 minutes or so on the leg so the heat dissipated. It’s all about timing with the babyfaces “getting the heat” and working on legs or arms or whatever. Triple H is the good guy just beating up up on Brock and it’s hard to get into the babyface fire when he’s not the underdog. Look at the Brock vs. Cena match for example. Cena only got a few spots in during that match and the fans popped big whenever he did it because it was so rare in that match. Triple H just beating on Brock for so long just didn’t work.

Brock tried to escape the cage but Triple H cut him off with a chair shot to the leg. Brock and Triple H battled on the top rope. Triple H won the battle but then smiled as he revealed a silver sledgehammer that he hid on top of the cage. Brock cut him off before he could use it. Brock grabbed the sledgehammer and tried to use but Triple H reversed it into a rare sharpshooter. A very ironic move by Triple H given his history with Bret Hart!

Brock was able to reach a sledgehammer but as he touched it, Paul Heyman got into the cage. Triple H hit the Pedigree on Paul. Brock tried a sledgehammer shot but Triple H hit the Pedigree on Brock as well for a 2 count which was actually a pretty solid near fall as the fans were super into these spots.

Triple H tried to use the sledgehammer but Heyman was able to hit the low blow. Keep in mind that the Pedigrees on Heyman and Lesnar were at around the same time. Yet somehow, Heyman, who is not a wrestler, was able to get up at around the same time as BROCK LESNAR from a Pedigree to deliver a low blow! Suffice to say, my suspension of disbelief was not enough to allow this!

Brock even smiled “that’s my manager!” in a gleeful tone! Brock grabbed the sledgehammer with a smile on his face as he smacked Triple H in the face with it. To Triple H’s credit, he looked sound asleep after Brock hit him the sledgehammer so kudos to him selling his own signature weapon spot! Brock let out a roar and hit another F5, pinning Triple H to win the match.

BROCK FINALLY WINS A MATCH WITH THE F5! It only took him four matches after he came back but yes, Brock won here with a F5. Brock even placed the sledgehammer on Triple H’s chest and crossed his arm in a cool spot. JBL prophesised that maybe it was a sign of respect.

Match Rating: ***1/4

The way I see it, it was better than the SummerSlam match but not as good as the WrestleMania match so I put the star rating in the middle of those two matches. Dave Meltzer rated it at 4 stars and I can’t be that generous. The match was a good cage match but the weapons spots bothered me. You have a cage to use. The additional weapons just seemed like clutter. It didn’t quite have the “finality” to a feud that the WrestleMania match had. However, they utilised the cage well in the first half. I think the match died down a little from Triple H working on the leg. He’s a babyface working on the legs of the heel. That went a little too long for me. The sharpshooter and the figure four leg lock seemed odd choices for submissions as well.

Think of this as a very good cage match hampered by mismanagement of timing with heat spots and shenanigans near the end. I don’t think you needed Paul Heyman, chairs, sledgehammers and referee bumps to end a feud between Brock and Triple H. It weakened the physicality aspect from previous matches where two men were hitting each other with big moves and hurting each other to prove themselves as the better man. Brock should have won in a similar vain to the first match where he was the definitive winner with a clean win. Be the better man in the feud and move on to somebody else.

Overall, I felt this Brock Lesnar/Triple H trilogy was way better than I remembered and what I was expecting. None of them could touch Brock’s first match with Cena but they were both willing to take big moves and try new things in order to make it work. Some aspects worked, some aspects didn’t but I enjoyed the work of both men in this feud. We didn’t cover it but the storylines were good throughout and there was a personal aspect that ramped up the intensity for each subsequent match. Finally, the right man won the feud and could move onto something else while Triple H would transition into an heel authority figure at SummerSlam.

Therefore, I think this feud worked out fine. Coming up next, Brock wrestles a superstar who also considered himself to be a “Paul Heyman guy”. Thanks for reading this review!

Brock Lesnar Match Reading Order

12.22.22

by Thomas Robinson

RETRO EXPRESS: The Return of Brock Lesnar #1 – Brock Lesnar vs. John Cena (Extreme Rules 2012)

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 new ongoing series where we’re reviewing every Brock Lesnar match since his return to WWE in 2012. We hope you enjoy.

It’s been about two years since the Armbar Express has posted on WordPress. A lot has happened in the world of wrestling in the past two years as we’ve wrestled through a global pandemic, wrestling TV wars and changes in the WWE hierarchy. However, it’s always nice to take a trip back in time and review some of the highlights from the past. We were doing this with our WCW Nitro series, which I do intend on resuming at some point on this blog.

However, I wanted to do a retrospective dive into the return and continued run of one of my favourite wrestlers of all time. This was a man who was pushed to the moon when he first arrived, dominated the SmackDown! main-event scene and then left for other pastures such as the NFL and UFC. In 2012, he returned to professional wrestling and he still wrestles for WWE as of December 2022. This man’s name… was Brock Lesnar.

With this run of ten years since his return, his new spell with WWE has far surpassed his original with the amount of time. From OVW to when he left in 2004, he was only in the wrestling business for about five years and even with adding his New Japan Pro Wrestling run it’s still not as consistent and as long as his run since 2012.

Now obviously he is not wrestling on a full-time basis and he did fight in the UFC again during this run in WWE. However, it does say a lot about a man who still continues to work his socks of in the wrestling world and even put on Match of the Year candidates ten years after coming back from conquering UFC. Brock does have a passion for wrestling in his own way… he’s just got incredible negotiation skills with his contract!

I looked up how many matches he’s had since he’s returned and I set myself a little bit of a challenge to review each of these matches, rekindle memories from the past ten years of a wrestler that has been an all-time favourite of mine since I first started watching wrestling in 2003.

Let’s get started with a bloody, brutal return to the WWE as Brock Lesnar wrestled John Cena in the main-event of Extreme Rules 2012.

NOTE: I did consider going all the way from the start of his career but I found a hard time gathering OVW matches in order for Brock. If anyone has a playlist of Brock Lesnar’s matches from OVW from YouTube for example they can provide, please leave a comment as it would very much be appreciated. The WWE Network appears to only have one Brock Lesnar match from OVW.

Background: John Cena had just lost a match one year in the making to The Rock at WrestleMania 28. Such a loss to a guy he’d been trash-talking for a year was a bitter pill to swallow for Cena. However, Cena did want to congratulate The Rock on the night after WrestleMania. However, he was instead met with the former UFC Heavyweight Champion Brock Lesnar making an unannounced return. Brock faked a handshake and pulled Cena in for an F5. Cena retaliated the next week by slapping Brock in the face, which led to a pull apart brawl where Cena was bloody at the mouth. It was revealed that General Manager John Laurinaitis had signed Brock to bring legitimacy back to the WWE, with Brock doing interviews about what he was going to do to Cena. Cena vs Lesnar was signed for an Extreme Rules match at the PPV. Cena even lost to Lord Tensai en route to Extreme Rules so Cena’s confidence was rocked. Edge tried to motivate John on his last contracted night with the company, telling Cena to wake up and beat Brock Lesnar. Brock himself had held Laurinaitis up for more additions to his contract and wanted things such as the show to be renamed to “Monday Night RAW Starting Brock Lesnar”. Cena interrupted but was clearly still shaken as he went face to face with Brock one more time

Date: April 29th, 2012

Brand: WWE

City: Rosemont, Illionis

Commentators (First Hour): Michael Cole, Jerry “The King Lawler and Booker T

Brock Lesnar vs. John Cena in an extreme rules match

They showed the video package before the match and the intensity was superbly captured with the grittier, darker tone of this story. This was right after John Cena lost to The Rock at WrestleMania 28 and he was thrown in a serious fight with a former UFC Heavyweight Champion and the stakes were high. This was not your typical John Cena feud (at least on the surface) and the fans had to come to terms with a new side of John Cena in the sense that he was petrified going in. They did their best to prepare the fans for what would be a lamb going to be slaughtered and the fans had no idea what they were in for here. It’s a superb video package.

I will say that I hard a weird irritable nostalgia moment right before the match started. Fans chanted “Let’s go Cena, Cena sucks”. I heard this every week in this time period. Every RAW segment, every PPV match, it was exactly the same. Yet in 2022, 10 years later, Cena’s barely around enough for me to even hear the chant again. I don’t even think he gets the chant now whenever he’s in WWE. However, ten years ago, it’s all you heard whenever Cena came out. I’m sure when I review Cena vs Brock in 2014, it’ll be the same thing. It took until Roman Reigns being pushed for the chant to slowly die away.

Brock came out in MMA shorts, MMA gloves, fighting gear for the first time in a WWE ring. It was unique for wrestling at the time, it fit Brock and it evolved Brock into a completely different character that he needed at the time. He was a fighter now and he looked like a fighter with his gear, which told the fans that Brock had evolved into something different for this new run in WWE.

Fans were surprisingly quiet for Brock coming out. There was way more reaction to Cena given that this was Brock’s first match in eight years. Cena himself came out wearing a chain around his neck in homage to his “thuganomics” days and it was so obscure seeing it over his PG look if you will. Cena himself was just clearly angling for a huge character change with how he was presenting himself differently. Cena himself has stated in interviews that he tried to turn himself heel at around this time and supposedly had music and merch produced in order to spearhead this planned heel turn but it was not to be.

Listening to this crowd though, Cena was doing absolutely fine in terms of keeping himself as the talk of the town. Fans went nuts for him, whether they hated him or they booed him and that was clear in how this match was put together. This was not a match about Brock’s big return to WWE. This was Cena having to dig down deep against impossible odds which just so happened to be former UFC Heavyweight Champion Brock Lesnar.

Brock was bouncing in the corner and Cena glared at him ready to strike as the referee called for the bell to start the match. Cena charged at Brock but Brock easily scored a takedown and smeared Cena’s face with elbow strikes which busted Cena open hard way. Cena gets up but Brock flattens him with a clothesline. The ref even grabs the rubber gloves like a minute into the match to tell the viewers basically that Cena was in serious jeopardy and this was not like any usual WWE match at this time.

Cena scored a take down when he popped back up and even applied a front face lock but Brock quickly turned this around as he just pummelled Cena. He punched Cena and punched Cena, with Brock snarling whenever he and Cena were separated. They had towels and they stopped the match entirely multiple times as Brock just stalked Cena. In 2012, it was insane with how much blood there was here.

This was a match where Brock basically dominated and Cena would spring back up but Brock took him back down again. Brock took him down with ground and pound and mounted him from the back as Cena just couldn’t defend himself. Brock even gets in a cheeky knee as Cena rolls out of the ring. The replays even emphasises the big knees to the gut as to the beating Brock was putting onto Cena.

Brock was definitely looking tired and was dripping with sweat by the end of the match. Cena got back up and went for the Attitude Adjustment but Brock countered this into two rolling German suplexes. This was pre SUPlEX CITY so these were pretty much the only suplexes Brock dished out in this match.

Fans started chanting “Brock’s gonna kill you”. Cena was fighting back and scored a shoulder tackle which knocked Brock into the referee Charles Robinson who took a bump. Cena tried a second one but Brock bounced Cena off of him with his own shoulder tackle and sent Cena crashing into the mat.

From this point, there was rarely an official in the ring. Brock just beat on Cena with no referee willing to get in and check on either man during this battle. Cena just had blood smeared on his face as Brock locked on a standing kimura but then just threw Cena arm first into the corner. What was great about this match was Brock wrestled completely different to how he was trained to wrestled years ago. He re-invented his style to the point where he invited his own style of match despite not wrestling in about six years by this point. It was astounding to see.

Credit to the announcers, they called it like a serious fight. It wasn’t a joke commentary team or gimmick. They all paid attention as Cole just added the heightened drama as Brock beat on Cena like Cena’s life was in danger. Brock grabbed Cena’s chain but then put it down but then changed his mind to do spots with it.

There was been no referee for like 5 minutes but Brock didn’t care. Brock got the idea to wrap the chains around Cena’s legs. Brock was gushing with sweat as he dared Cena to stand up so he could just clothesline him down again. Even fans in the front row, women and children in the front row had their hands to their face in disbelief. I can only imagine what kids in the front row were thinking watching their beloved hero Cena get turned into red paste by this monster.

Brock tied up Cena in the corner as he beat on Cena draping in the corner in the tree of woe. Brock turned his attention to the referee laid out on the floor but this gave Cena a chance to fire back. This ended up being futile as Brock simply Irish whipped Cena into the steel steps.

Brock literally grabbed referee Charles Robinson by one arm and threw him into the ring… almost effortlessly. The fans weren’t even like laughing massively like it was a comedy spot. It was just a momentary “woah” that Brock was able to do it so easily. It just added to the monster, King Kong vibe of Brock as he was a literally a monster among men carrying men around!

The ref eventually gets his bearings as Cena went for the Attitude Adjustment but Brock countered this into the F5. However, the F5 wiped out Charles again. Brock had Cena down as a new referee ran down but Cena kicked out at two. Brock then clotheslined the second referee, who I think was John Cone, after Cena somehow kicked out. I think this F5 kick out would have been a lot more justified if Brock would have won this match but in hindsight, this was a clear sign that Brock was losing. Even Cena kicking out would have been easier to justify as a last wind for Cena who was going down with a fight. Cena kicking out took away from effectiveness of the F5 for a man who just returned in Brock Lesnar.

Brock grabbed the steel steps as multiple referees came down on standby. Brock grabbed the lower part of it, placed it in the middle of the ring as he taunted. Cena was defiant though with the “you can’t see me” pose. Brock locked the kimura lock on the steps. Again, these MMA moves were so rare in this WWE environment that it added to the drama of the match. Cena though continued to fight as Brock had this hold locked in for about a minute or so but Cena was able lift Brock up and slam him on the steel steps to get out of it. Cena finally did something of value to Brock in this match!

Cena tried a diving leg drop to Brock on the steps but Brock moved. This was a fascinating story of John Cena refusing to give up against all odds. Cena was never not “in character” as Brock beat the crap out of him. He never gave up and even with this dangerous move, he refused to quit.

Brock then got a great idea where he bounced off the rope and did a huge flying knee or something to Cena on the apron! I don’t even think I can call it a knee attack. He just launched himself at Cena like a cannon as they both crashed to the floor. Brock is an absolute mad man and this match showed it off in full display. He had no reason to do this crazy spot but he did it anyway and, to his credit, it added more danger in the sense that now Brock could end up hurting himself to destroy John Cena.

Brock no-sold it though and taunted in the ring. Brock tried to get Cena up but Cena was prepared with the steel chain wrapped around his fist. CENA FIRED BACK, shaking, revving up as the fans went absolutely nuts one way or the other for this guy. Cena had blood pouring, he screamed and yelled for a bleeding Brock to stand up. Brock bled like crazy from the chain attack. Cena got Lesnar up and hit an Attitude Adjustment on the steel steps as John Cena won via pinfall against ALL ODDS against Brock Lesnar.

Match Rating: ****1/2

How you look at this match, ten years after it happened, will hugely impact your opinion on it. If you looked at this match as if it was Brock Lesnar’s return match in WWE, this was an exceptional, one-of-a-kind classic bloodfest ruined by a horrible finish. If you looked at this match as a John Cena match where he had to overcome his own fear and self-doubt against impossible odds, this match was exceptional with a somewhat flat but crowd-pleasing finish.

Either way, the finish took away from the drama of the match. Obviously, Brock Lesnar was not buried or ruined by the finish. He ended up breaking Undertaker’s WrestleMania streak and main-evented multiple WrestleMania’s in the past ten years. However, Brock had been hit with like three substantial moves before the match ended. He had beaten up Cena continuously for 17 minutes. Despite this, Brock was still defeated after three big moves by Cena? These weren’t even the “Five Moves of Doom”. Cena hit him with a steel chain and slammed Brock twice on the steel steps to win. That seemed pretty week given what Cena went through.

However, if the story was just that Cena was in a seemingly unwinnable fight that he had to find a way to win then I guess it would be better. However, Cena winning this match isn’t the best ending to this story. There’s been many wrestlers over the years who have gotten more over in defeat than winning. If Cena took this beating and the ref called for the bell or he passed out or something like that, then that would be way more effective in preserving both men and putting both of them over.

Instead, both men lost heat because of this. You took heat off of Brock Lesnar, who lost his first match in eight years. You took heat off of John Cena, who was destroyed for 17 minutes. Also, it took heat off of Triple H as he was Brock’s next opponent. The next on RAW, Brock broke Triple H’s arm with a kimura lock that Cena survived for a minute straight. This finish was more damaging to everyone involved than it should have been.

NOTE: I am also aware of reports that Vince McMahon didn’t know if Brock was gonna come back after Extreme Rules which is why Cena won but that doesn’t excuse the finish.

Cena had five different people attend to him in the ring after the match where as Brock lurched to the back. I felt Brock lurching to the back without assistance somewhat no-sold the finish. After everything Cena got hit with, he won with an Attitude Adjustment on the steps but yet Cena still needed help after the match. Brock in comparison should have been like stretched out if the move was so devastating that Cena won with it.

Cena stood on top of the steel steps in victory. Cena even said to the camera that his arm was messed up but he was still in one piece. This post-match was very weird. I know there was a lot of backstage shenanigans but the whole ending seemed to uncut what was an intense situation with Brock and Cena.

Cena cut a promo saying he thought he was gonna be sent home for speaking when he wasn’t supposed to, but he was likely going home anyway. He said this Chicago crowd was Punk town but this was a wrestling town. He had blood in his mouth, he couldn’t feel his arm but he was honoured to do this match in Chicago. Cena said if he’s going away for a while, he wanted to thank everyone for a hell of a ride. Cena told the fans to get home safe.

I will say if I was Brock Lesnar, I would have been pissed off about this promo as well! For starters, Cena didn’t go away and just feuded with John Laurinaitis for the next PPV. Also, it undercut the beating that Cena took where he’s just his usual self. Cena shouldn’t have even cut a promo. After a beating like this, he should left on a stretcher or even lurched to the back like Brock. Instead, he goes a house show like promo where he’s thanking the fans for being here after a bloody war. It just didn’t belong at the end of the PPV.

As a whole, I felt this match was a one of a kind war. Even when they did the rematch, it was mostly suplexes. It wasn’t Brock busting people up, punching them, blooding them up in this fashion. This was dangerous, it was captivating and it had a tension where you really thought someone might get hurt for real and the chances are both of them were banged up a little from this. Up until Cena’s steel chain attack, this was a five star match to me. Up until that point, it was a perfect match with how it was presented. Two moves later and it just changed back to a regular John Cena PPV finish and the original mystique of Brock Lesnar was gone. Brock was just another monster for Cena to slay.

If they would have had Brock win, this could have done serious business. Brock could have then went through everyone, like he did anyway, to do the story of who could beat Brock Lesnar. It could have led to WrestleMania 30 where the unbeatable Brock Lesnar took on the Undertaker’s undefeated streak where only one of them could win and move on with their legacy. Instead, he just had to lose.

….well at least he got is revenge in 2014.

08.15.20

by Thomas Robinson

RETRO EXPRESS: WCW NITRO #63 (NOVEMBER 25TH 1996) – BAGWELL JOINS THE NWO AND A NEW US TITLE TOURNAMENT BEGINS

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This was the night after World War III. The most notable things to come out World War III was that Rowdy Roddy Piper vs Hollywood Hogan was booked for WCW Starrcade and the New World Order won the World War III battle royal with The Giant eliminating Lex Luger and Kevin Nash at the end of the match to secure the victory.

This Nitro felt like a true turning point for the way WCW conducted business, especially when it came to the New World Order. Eric Bischoff joined the nWo last week and this week, Bischoff became the on-screen authority figure for the nWo within the confides of WCW. It was like Bischoff was a completely different person on this show with how he acted and the show was a lot more revolved around segments. We got a big segment at the start of the show with the nWo and they replayed the Piper/Hogan contract singing from World War III.

We still got plenty of matches but the longest segments on the show were the talking segments involving Bischoff and the repeat of the Piper/Hogan segment. I can’t determine if this was better or worse than if they just flooded the show with smaller segments rather than having just two big segments like they did here. What they did here at least gave room for more matches. The problem with that was that we had a fair amount of short matches and a long opening match which really had no right to go that long. Not a good episode of Nitro but watchable at the very least.

Date: November 18th 1996

Brand: WCW

City: Salisbury, Maryland

Rating: 3.1

Commentators (First Hour): Tony Schiavonie and Larry Zbyszko

Commentators (Second Hour): Tony Schiavonie, Bobby Heenan and Mike Tenay

As you can see, no Eric Bischoff on commentary this week since he had joined the New World Order. Therefore, Tony commentated the entire show alongside Larry for hour one and Bobby and Mike Tenay for hour two.

Lex Luger vs Arn Anderson in a first round match in the WCW United States Heavyweight Championship Tournament

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The announcers revealed at the start of the show that there would be a tournament to determine the new United States Heavyweight Champion for WCW. The Giant had stolen the title and paraded around with the belt but the original champion Ric Flair got injured so he was stripped of the title because of inactivity. This was the opening match to crown the new champion and to be fair, the Lex Luger vs Arn Anderson match they didn’t give us at the PPV we got for free instead on Nitro.

The only problem with that is that this match was pretty garbage! It got way too much time. We had babyface Lex Luger getting the heat on heel Arn Anderson which was completely backwards and didn’t work in the slightest. The Giant came out to cut a promo so there was like a solid minute where the fans didn’t even care and then they had a horrible finish which we’ll get to.

Arn still had taped ribs from Halloween Havoc and actually pointed to it, reminding Luger about it because he was the one who did the damage. There were big Luger chants. It’s incredible how over Lex Luger was at this time. As the only babyface that was able to stand up to the nWo in the battle royal the night before and the default biggest babyface in the company, the fans were into him.

Arn took a cheap shot at Luger as the referee tried to break the lock up. Luger sent Arn to the floor with a shoulder tackle. I loved Arn’s shocked expression at the power of Lex Luger. Every time Arn or Ric Flair even had to sell how strong Lex Luger was, they did such a fabulous job at marvelling at the sheer strength of the Total Package.

Luger wrapped Arn’s arm around the ringpost. Lex worked on the arm for a long time and got the heat on the heel and smaller Arn Anderson. Take away the aspect of a babyface getting the heat, since when is it ever natural for a bigger man to work on the body parts of the smaller man? It’d be like if Braun Strowman worked on the leg of Marko Stunt for example. There should be no need when you are clearly more powerful and bigger than your opponent.

Luger drove the knee in the arm of Arn. Not a lot happened. This was a pretty boring match as Arn eventually gets the heat of Luger. The crowd died out during this and the crowd was hot at the start of this show so that tells you how badly they killed the crowd.

Luger drove Arn back-first into the ringpost and into the edge of the ring apron. Luger got fired up and did a backbreaker but The Giant came out with the US Heavyweight title. Giant cut a promo about having the belt. He says he’s the US Heavyweight Champion. He told the winner of the tournament to get some of The Giant and then he left. I don’t think he mentioned his victory in the World War III battle royal once during his promo!

Arn and Luger continue to fight for a while. Luger goes for a double axe handle but Arn cuts him off. Luger reversed a piledriver on the floor. Luger did a torture rack on the outside as referee Mark Curtis told Luger to get in the ring. Luger did not let go as the refereee calls form the double count out although the timekeeper jumped the gun a little bit by ringing the bell before Curtis counted the men out.

This was pretty bad. They were in the middle of crowning a new champion and in the very first match, Lex Luger gets himself counted out because all he cared about was destroying Arn. The United States Heavyweight Championship was secondary to him. Probably the two biggest stars that are going to be in this tournament were both eliminated in the first round with a double count out. This was bad television.

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The New World Order arrived with Eric Bischoff, The Giant, Syxx, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall and Vincent on hand for this segment.

Before we get into the segment, my initial question was if Bischoff was running the show, can’t he just award The Giant the US title without having a tournament? They explain he’s an Executive Producer so my initial theory was that he may not have that stroke yet. But then, Eric Bischoff brags about being the highest ranking executive in WCW and the nWo. Surely then he’s got the power to award the title to The Giant? The whole point of his association with the group is so the nWo have a man on the inside that can make decisions and yet he’s doing nothing about this tournament.

Bischoff started cutting a promo but his mic was cutting off or the audio just wasn’t synced up at first. Bischoff talked about getting Jacknifed by Nash at The Great American Bash. He said the next day he woke up and he asked himself one very important question, did he want to be consumed by the power or be part of the force? Hall and Nash got together with Bischoff and did some talking and planning. Basically, they had agreed to work together so I guess Bischoff’s involvement with the nWo predates Hogan since Hogan didn’t reveal himself as the third man until Bash at the Beach.

Bischoff told the guys from WCW they have 30 days to convert their WCW contracts to nWo contracts. He talked about how they were gonna build a dynasty. He made the threat that at 30 days and one minute, you’re either with us or you’re against us. Bischoff talked about fining Piper which I still have no idea how he could do that if Piper isn’t with the company as they claimed.

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The American Males come out as Marcus Bagwell high-fived the nWo and I guess joined the team to which Scotty Riggs appeared to be blindsided by. He turned around and Bagwell dropped Riggs with the neckbreaker and officially turned heel. They celebrate over his prone body. Now begins the mass recruitment of members of the nWo and there’s probably gonna be a lot more members joining the fold 30 days from now. It’s officially begun.

I’ve got a few things to say about Bagwell. This was obviously something I knew was coming because we’re going to see the emergence of Buff Bagwell shortly. However, they started a slow build for the American Males splitting up as they bickered and bickered each week. Then this week, Bagwell just randomly joined the group and turned on Riggs. I have no idea what was the rush to get this heel turn over and done with so he can join the nWo. Maybe there was some backstage stuff going when it relates to the 30 day deadline. There were plans for nWo Monday Nitro as we’ve discussed previously so did they just need to have as many people in the group as possible to kickstart that concept?

Lastly, I love how all of this went down in storyline. What was the American Males plan when they came down to confront the New World Order? Bagwell clearly had a plan of his own to join the group but what was Scotty Riggs planning to do… fight them? I wonder if Riggs told Bagwell of the plan to fight the nWo who were in the ring. Bagwell, realising how stupid this plan was, agreed to do it but secretly had a plan to screw him. He realised if you can’t beat them join them and there was no chance of them beating up all the nWo guys. Therefore, I guess he lied to Riggs about wanting to fight them and so when he high-fived with the nWo, Riggs had no idea.

That’s my own personal canon as I’d be stunned if they explained away this plot hole. If anyone has a better idea, please leave a comment on the blog post with your thoughts!

Diamond Dallas Page vs Disco Inferno

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DDP jumped Disco. He punched, elbowed and chopped away at Disco. Disco hit two swinging neckbreakers and danced each time. DPD ran wild with punches. DDP hit an absolutely fabulous float-over Diamond Cutter and got the pin. DDP went over for the float over but instead of doing the DDT, he turned it into a Diamond Cutter and won. This was an awesome finish to a nothing match. Everything I wrote up there were my full notes that I wrote down for this match.

Mean Gene Okerlund interviewed DDP. DDP talked about the nWo wanting to build a dynasty and why not have the guy from the most deadly finisher on the planet? The Outsiders had been trying to recruit DDP to the nWo. DDP said him and Kevin Nash go way back as he brought him into wrestling, Scott Hall was his first tag team partner and Eric Bischoff is in his neighbourhood. He admitted all of these things were true with his connections to Nash, Hall and DDP.

Mean Gene asked DDP who he was trying to kid and asked if Page was going with the nWo. DDP said he never knew what Bischoff was doing and made DDP looked like an idiot. He wish he knew back then what he knows now and left things ambiguous as to where his loyalties lied. I loved this interview. Mean Gene was tremendous at connecting the dots and painting a picture that DDP completely denied. Mean Gene was asking all the hard-hitting questions like “Is it not true you’re this and you’re that?” He interrogated the man and tried to get an answer out of him. I’ve been loving these DDP and Mean Gene segments and Mean Gene really brought out some great promos out of Page.

Lord Steven Regal © vs Tony Pena for the WCW Television Championship

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This was really good. This was a short match but there was some tremendous wrestling on display. Regal was great as well and Tony Pena looked like he could hang with the TV champion. It made Pena look good at being able to hang with Regal and it made Regal good as he got another convincing victory and racked up clean wins as the TV champion.

Apparently Regal was bragging about being the only heavyweight champion in WCW so thank god he won this match clean! In hindsight, it was also a good thing Regal did as well as he did in the World War 3 battle royal. He made it to the final six participants of that match.

It was very much a grappling contest between these two as Pena was able to take Regal down from the legs and vice versa. Pena planted Regal with a DDT for a 2 count. Regal did a butterfly suplex for a 2 count.

Pena slapped Regal’s chest repeatedly with the Englishman’s chest being bright red. Regal did a Regal Stretch to retain the title. This was a lot of fun.

Mean Gene interviewed Rick Steiner. Rick explained he had been in Japan wrestling. He confirmed The Steiners were 110% WCW. Rick screamed during this promo and he was at a very high decibel during this interview! He talked about Sting coming out from the rafters. He put over Lex Luger and Roddy Piper about how they’re WCW.

With Piper I have no understanding of what the storyline is supposed to be anymore for him. A month ago, they were talking about Piper being “free agents” as the Nasty Boys did during one of their promos. Now he’s WCW according to Rick Steiner? This was annoying. Tell us if Piper is signed with the company or not! If he has, then that explains why Bischoff can fine him and why he’s “WCW” according to Rick Steiner. Otherwise, you’re just changing your minds about what you want Piper to be or you just can’t remember what happened a month with your biggest storyline right now in Hogan vs Piper.

Konan vs Eddie Guerrero in a non-title first round match of the United States Heavyweight Championship tournament

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Konan was still the Mexican Heavyweight Champion which they brought up. The thing I hated was they went to the second hour during the start of this match. When the second hour began, they cut away from the action for a solid minute to show all of these fireworks and everything and pay no attention from the match.

They explained Luger and Arn were eliminated from the tournament due to the double count out as they never mentioned that earlier when the match took place. Konan hit a powerbomb for a two count and followed this up with a gutwrench powerbomb with Eddie putting his leg on the rope.

Konan locked on a knee bar. Konan came off the top rope but Eddie cut him off with a dropkick. Eddie ran wild with punches in the corner and a big uppercut. Konan hit a big superplex but Konan pull himself off of the cover. Konan tried a powerbomb but Eddie twisted himself in mid-air to reverse it and landed into Konan’s gut for a pin.

This was a fine match.

Big Bubba w/Jimmy Hart vs Rick Steiner

Rick screamed when he was coming out about he didn’t know if he could trust Sting and he didn’t think it’d get to this point.

Bubba charged at Rick and Rick threw him over his shoulder which was great to see on such a big man. Rick hit a big German suplex but Bubba got his foot on the rope.

Sting came down through the crowd. Rick hit a top rope bulldog. Rick clotheslined Bubba over the top rope. Sting made his way to the ring and actually dropped Rick with a Scorpion Death Drop. This was the second babyface in two nights that Sting had dropped with this move and it allowed another heel to get the win as Bubba pinned Rick.

Sting’s totally acting like a heel now but the fans still love and are siding with him. I don’t think if it’s just nWo fans cheering for Sting or its just a group of Stinger fans that sided with him no matter what but Sting was still unbelievably over at this time despite hardly doing anything! Quite a gig.

The important thing when it comes to the storyline is that the beatings he’s been dishing out hasn’t exactly been random. He laid out Jeff Jarrett twice because Jeff was talking all of this crap about how Sting during a promo. Rick Steiner was saying he couldn’t trust Sting so Sting dropped him here. Here’s dropping the people in WCW who are doubting him and his loyalties. “I’ll walk my own path but if you doubt me, you’re getting dropped.” I like this.

Rey Mysterio Jr. vs Psychosis

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Another incredibly short but fun match. Ultimo Dragon showed up with the J Crown titles.

Psychosis did a Alley Oop over the top rope. Tony questioned if this was a disqualification and Bobby claimed Rey threw himself over the top rope. I wonder if WCW ever did drop this “over the top rope” rule or stop referring to it. That’s my big question as we continue to watch this for the next few years.

Psychosis did a top rope leg drop. Rey did the counter off the top rope crucifx powerbomb into a hurricanrana for the win. Very much the finish from their Bash at the Beach match but it still look great and the fans still popped for it.

Mean Gene interview a very bruised Chris Benoit and Woman. Benoit told Taskmaster to take a good look as he’s still here. He said Taskmaster’s and Dungeon of Doom’s best was not enough to get rid of one man. He said there’s two ways they can resolve this, the man’s way and the coward’s way. He made some kind of reference of Taskmaster having the power backstage to get rid of him or something. He alluded to Kevin Sullivan’s role as a booker. Woman told him that if he kicked Benoit one more time it was over. Woman has now decided that “it was over” so I guess Woman and Chris Benoit are an item on WCW Monday Nitro.

They showed the whole Piper/Hogan segment from World War 3. I skipped it and fast-forwarded to the next match. I checked and there was nothing after they showed that segment before the next match, If you want my thoughts, please read my World War III review at this link. I go into great detail in that review about what happened. There’s no need for me to review it a second time.

Alex Wright vs Jeff Jarrett

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I don’t know what happened but Wright appeared to smack Jeff right on the head and then they got in the corner and Jeff yelled: “never try that again.” Wright was still very much green at this point but apparently Jeff wasn’t having any of what Wright was dishing out.

Wright ran wild but Jeff turned it around with a snake eyes, dropping him on the top turnbuckle. Wright did a catapult Vader bomb for a 2 count. Jeff locked on the Figure Four Leg Lock and grabbed the ropes to secure the win.

I have no idea if Jeff is a face or a heel now. His allegiances are even more ambiguous than the Nasty Boys if that was even possible. He was apparently a babyface but he’s cheating I guess to gain favour with Ric Flair and to show he’s a true Horsemen.

“The Faces of Fear” The Barbarian and Meng vs “Harlem Heat” Booker T and Stevie Ray

Harlem Heat did a side walk slam/Scissors kick attempt which was broke up. Faces of Fear did the back drop powerbomb combination they’ve been doing as of late on Booker which was quite impressive considering the size of Booker. That could have went horribly wrong.

Mike Tenay talked about Faces of Fear going on a winning streak one night removed from Faces of Fear LOSING the triangle match to the Outsiders.

A fight breaks out between all four men. Meng tried a powerbomb but Stevie did a kick to the face. The brawl ensued but then the nWo arrived. They beat up everybody. Bagwell was with the nWo in their gear. Vincent did the worst looking choke to Stevie Ray on the outside. Giant chokeslammed Booker and Meng as trash was littered into the ring by the fans. This match accomplished nothing over than to get the nWo over.

There was also no Hollywood Hogan this week.

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That was WCW Nitro. The show was lousy in many ways with some bright spots throughout. The time management with the matches was really backwards. There were a lot of matches that I was really mad didn’t get more time. WCW couldn’t give Rey Mysterio and Pyschosis more time but they could give more time to Lex Luger vs Arn Anderson? Not a strong episode of Nitro and they’ve got a lot of work to do going into Starrcade.

WCW Nitro Reading Order

05.15.20

by Thomas Robinson

RETRO EXPRESS: WCW FALL BRAWL 1996 (SEPTEMBER 15TH 1996)

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Here we go again with WCW’s annual Fall Brawl PPV with the main-event dedicated to War Games! Only this time, the stakes were even higher with the threat of the New World Order. The nWo were going to step into the War Games structure against WCW represented by the likes of Lex Luger, Arn Anderson and Ric Flair.

The big mystery up in the air was the man called Sting. “Sting” appeared to have betrayed WCW and sided with nWo on Nitro and with a mystery fourth man on each team, where did the Stinger’s loyalties actually lie? Scott Hall promised a war when he first arrived in May 1996 and finally at last, the nWo and WCW were going to war!

Date: September 15th 1996

Brand: WCW

City: Winston-Salem, North Carolina

Attendance: 11,300

Commentators: Tony Schiavonie, Bobby Heenan and Dusty Rhodes

The show started with a sweet video package hyping up the entire nWo storyline and anarchy that has transpired ever since Scott Hall arrived. This also included an angle on WCW Saturday Night as the Outsiders, Giant and Ted DiBiase smashed up Lex Luger’s car. The second nWo-related incident related to Lex Luger and cars! Remember when the nWo kicked Sting’s ass when they were at Luger’s car?

DDP vs Chavo Guerrero Jr.

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I think this was a decent match. I would not say this was a good match. There were too many botchy looking spots that took me out of the game a little bit. The match psychology was messed up too as Chavo did a 1000 moves during this match and got no reaction but DDP did very little in the match and got more over with every move he hit. Traditionally, the heel would get all the moves in during the “heat” of the match and the babyface would fire back whenever they could with big moves as the fans get more and more into them. This would then lead to the finish. Chavo did not strike me as a good babyface in peril. He just wanted to get in as many moves as he can and none of it go over with these fans.

Chavo ran wild early with some dropkicks and then a planacha to the outside. Chavo paid DDP back for when DDP whipped him with a belt on Nitro, by whipping him back with somebody’s belt… I have no idea where he got it from! Nick Patrick certainly wasn’t out there this time!

Chavo got a 2 count from a crossbody. Chavo worked on the arm. The main attraction of this match was two guys dressed as Razor Ramon and Ric Flair posing and coming down these steps right in the view of the hard camera. These fans were having a ball on their own despite all of Chavo’s efforts.

It was Chavo getting the better of DDP for a long time. Then DDP got stuck within the ropes, Chavo tried a dropkick but DDP somehow moved and Chavo was sent crashing through the ropes and to the floor.

DDP did one top rope clothesline for a gigantic pop. Like I mentioned, Chavo did move after move after move… to barely any reaction at all. DDP hit one big move and the place went nuts! This is because sometimes less is more. Every time DDP hit a big move, it got over with the crowd. Chavo just did a bunch of moves on after another and it was as effective as a sleeper hold in terms of getting the crowd into this match.

There was one move I loved where DDP got Chavo up for a back suplex and then just threw Chavo to the mat. He got him in the back drop position and because he was so tall compared to Chavo, pushed him and launched him across the mat to a big pop. It was more of a back throw than a back suplex!

DDP got Chavo’s head and Chavo was on his knees and, this is not mincing any words, DDP thrusted into Chavo’s head and yelled BANG, BANG, BANG as the crowd roared with laughter. There’s no ambiguity about what that was supposed to suggest. DDP had control of Chavo and just made him out to be a complete joke!

Chavo did a springboard crossbody as he finally got back into the match after DDP got the heat. Chavo did a top rope dropkick for a 2 count. Chavo barely did a head scissors from the top rope for another 2 count. DDP cut him off with an elbow and he got his feet on the rope but Chavo still kicked out.

DDP threw Chavo over the top rope into the second ring which caused ambiguity with the rules. If you threw a man over the top rope in WCW, that was traditionally a disqualification. However, this referee just continued the match because they were still technically in a ring. DDP was barely able to pull off a sidewalk slam with Chavo. Chavo tried a roll-up for a 2 count.

DDP hit a tremendous gutwrench powerbomb that was so great that it should have been the finish but Chavo kicked out which was a clear sign that they needed to take the match home. DDP got this memo and slammed Chavo with a Diamond Cutter for the victory. It’s so crazy how over DDP was here.

Match Rating: **3/4. Dave Meltzer gave this 3 and a half stars at the time for the Wrestling Observer Newsletter but I can’t got that high. Too many near-blown spots to award that high of a rating. However, this was still a decent match.

Harlem Heat, Col Robert Parker and Sister Sherri were at the CompuServe centre with some geek as WCW plugged their CompuServe hotline thingy.

Mean Gene recapped the entire nWo storyline from Scott Hall’s first appearance and nearly every appearance since then. If you happened to not be watching WCW in the last few months, this was a tremendous summary of the entire story building up to this point and Mean Gene recapped it very well.

Scott Norton vs Ice Train w/Teddy Long in a submission match

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This match was “on like tree trunks” as Dusty put it. The referee had a microphone so this was like an I quit match or an “I respect you match” (please read this Superbrawl 1996 review to get this reference!).

Ice Train did a front slam to start off the match. Ice Train missed big splash and then Scott Norton planted him with a DDT. Norton struggled but was able to pull of a back suplex on the big man Ice Train. Ice Train hit a powerslam. Ice Train tried a camel clutch but it was transitioned somehow into a rest hold

Ice Train hit a big splash in the corner but Norton bounced back with a clothesline. Norton did an “code red” armbar similar to Teddy Long’s other client Sgt. Pittman. Teddy did have a towel and was considering throwing it in for his main man Ice Train but I guess the referee said only the man in the ring could give up. Therefore, towel throwing was I guess useless in this match.

Norton had this hold in for about a minute or so. It was on for a long time but Ice Train survived so Norton tried something else. Norton dropped Ice Train with a neckbreaker. Ice Train hit a scoop slam and tried his own Fujiwara Armbar like how Norton beat him at Hog Wild.

Ice Train tried a running senton but he ended up just flat out sitting on Norton for the impact!. It wasn’t like his back connected with Norton’s mid-section or shoulders. There’s no gentle way to put it but Ice Train’s arse connected with Norton’s mid-section. That can’t have been fun for Norton with this 315lbs man sitting on him.

Ice Train tried a splash but Norton got the knees up. Norton hit a big powerbomb and tried a Boston crab as Ice Train screamed with agony but refused to give. Norton gave up on this move too and tried the Fujiwara Armbar but Teddy got on the apron so he let go of the hold.

Norton then tried a submission where he stood over Ice Train and I guess put all of his weight on Ice Train. I don’t know what it was supposed to be. Norton finally got his hands on Teddy who got into the ring. Ice Train got Norton locked in a Full Nelson and lifted Norton up in the air and then he grounded him, with Norton tapping out… What was the point of the referee having a microphone if Norton just tapped out? That microphone didn’t play into the finish at all.

I thought this was a fine little battle and with the good guys finally getting the win over his dick of an old partner. Now Ice Train and his ex-partner can move onto different feuds. This was fine and a decent conclusion to the Ice Train vs Scott Norton storyline… assuming this is the end of the feud. I’ve been wrong before!

Match Rating: **1/4

Konnan © w/Jimmy Hart vs Juventud Guerrera for the Mexican Heavyweight Championship a.ka. AAA Americas Heavyweight Championship

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So I was able to answer my own question as to whether the Mexican Heavyweight Championship was a valid WCW Championship or not. It turns it was actually the AAA Americas Heavyweight Championship but I guess WCW was either too lazy or too possessive to call it that on television. It’s weird because WCW did do business with places like NJPW and AAA and mentioned them frequently and Mike Tenay joined the commentary team for this match, referring to AAA. However, they wouldn’t acknowledge this as an actual AAA title.

This match really turned things around, at least in my eyes, for Konnan. He was brought in as a traditional happy-go-lucky babyface and trying to be blue collar wrestler. He had some good matches but whenever he tried to be a high flyer it didn’t work and when trying to be a likeable babyface it didn’t work. So WCW brought in some new Mexican cruiserweights and so they turned Konnan into a gangsta heel. He showed a bit of character and charisma on the last episode of Nitro and here… it was like he was a totally different wrestler.

This was the best Konnan’s looked in a WCW ring so far and it was Konnan playing to his strengths as a powerhouse among the luchadors. He hit a lot of big moves that Juventud sold like crazy for and he came off as a legitimate star for what seems like the first time in his WCW career. However this was not the best night for Juventud Guerrera…

Juventud arrived on WCW and infamously cut one of the worst promos ever for his debut Monday Nitro promo where he couldn’t speak any English. Things didn’t start off well. Then he came down the isle for this title match. I’m watching Juvi come down to the ring. He was bouncing around as Mike Tenay was putting over this match. He talked about if a great little man can beat a great big man in Konnan. Juvi is all fired up, he turned around to point and pose to the camera while walking back. He turned back around and falls over the steel steps. I was reduced to tears. I had actually tears coming out of my eyes as I had to pause the show to control myself. This was unintentional comedy gold from WCW.

Not to mention, What a rib on Mike Tenay. This was his chance of glory in the announce booth to put over great intentional talent and Juvi screws it up by making himself look like a complete geek!

BOTCH RATING: *****

Then the match started, Juvi then tried to bump fists with the heel Konnan and Konnan kneed him in the gut, working him over with knees and punches. Could Juventud come off as a bigger geek than he did with his entrance and the opening fist bump attempt?

Konnan sent Juvi hurling over his shoulders with a complete flip off a German Suplex. Then this great big man Konnan picked up Juvi like he was a child and threw his arse over the top rope. We’d not seen stuff like this from Konnan before and he pulled it off on PPV and it blew people away in the crowd.

Juvi redeemed himself as he did a great triple jump into a “spin kick” for a 2 count. It was incredibly well done by the luchador. Juvi does a suicide dive to Konnan. Juvi dove off the steel guard rail and Konnan caught him and slammed him to the floor with a powerslam as he taunted with the crowd. When I say Konnan taunted with the crowd, he danced and celebrate like what a dude would do when Maury would say the words “you are not the father” as he clapped with the crowd and cheered. It was remarkable to see in 1996.

Konnan locked on an abdominal stretch on the ground to wear down the quicker man. Juvi tried a springboard but fell through the ropes and into the other ring. Juvi tried this headscissor spot into the ring again like he did with Joe Gomez. This spot increased by about 10% more with Konnan than with Joe Gomez but it didn’t really look good here.

Konnan did a throwing powerbomb from in between the rings into one of the other rings. Konnan did a heel hook of some kind for a long time. Juvi did an inadvertent springboard pele kick that appeared to be a moonsault attempt. Konnan did a big powerbomb to a big pop. Konnan did two rolling German Suplexs. Juvi then got up and just walked around the ring… doesn’t even sell these suplexes as he just walked around. It was a weird for about 90 seconds or so as I guess Juvi was trying to figure out what to do next for spots or was just upset by something in the match.

Juvi’s idea for a spot was that he started working on Konnan in the corner, he did a flip to his feet and Konnan just dropped him with a front dropkick…why did Juvi even bother with this flip? If the spot was gonna end with Konnan dropkicking him, why bother doing a cool flip if it didn’t even lead to anything?

They traded roll-ups for a number of 2 counts. Juvi did a springboard corkscrew wheel kick for a 2 count. Konnan did one of the best looking wheel barrow suplexes I’ve ever seen. Konnan tried a cover near the ropes and the referee Nick Patrick refused to count the pin.

Juventud did a flip leg drop for a cover but Konnan this time was on the ropes so Juvi just kicked at him. Juvi did a 450 splash and looked like he landed right on the face of Konnan for the 2 count.

Juvi did a ballerina spin knee drop for a 2 count which is the best way to describe this spot. Konnan hit an alabama slam and a bridge for a near fall. Konnan did a nasty looking muscle buster for a 2 count. Konnan finally put Juvi away with a power drop for the clean victory.

A lot of the spots look really great. It was very sloppy but the right kind of sloppy. This was the best Konnan has looked. Some of this was the worst stuff of Juvi’s career but overall this was fun PPV match.

Match Rating: ***1/2

Chris Jericho vs Chris Benoit

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Another excellent match. If you look at three of the last four matches Chris Benoit has had on PPV, they’ve all been excellent matches. He had the legendary falls count anywhere match with Taskmaster, he had an excellent match with Dean Malenko at Hog Wild and him and Jericho had a great battle here. This felt like a NJPW-style match where they worked a fight more than they worked a performance. Jericho was fighting for his life against the rabid wolverine and it produced some excellent wrestling.

Benoit got the heat at the start of the match and ironically did a Liontamer to Chris Jericho as Jericho wailed in agony. Benoit tried a powerbomb but Jericho reversed it and it led up to a Jericho wheel kick. Jericho caught the leg and did a dragon screw leg whip. Jericho did a springboard dropkick to floor Benoit.

Jericho tried a springboard senton similar to Darby Allin’s “coffin drop” and came so close to just crashing on the apron. I hope Jericho never tried that spot again as it was so silly and could have really screwed up his back if he landed awkwardly.

Jericho smashed Benoit with a naughty powerbomb for a 2 count. Jericho did a tiger suplex but Benoit’s feet landed on the ropes. Benoit and Jericho unloaded with chops and elbows at each other as the fans got more and more into the close-up brawling from both competitors. Benoit took a page out of DDP’s book when he did a back suplex with Jericho inside of the ring and he lifted him over the top and dropped him to the floor just like DDP did with Chavo earlier.

Benoit hit Jericho with the kitchen sink. Benoit and Jericho chopped at each other again and Jericho unloaded with some ridiculously hard slaps to the chest oFF Benoit. Stiff does not even begins to describe the hits being dished out by these Canadians.

Benoit locked onan abdominal stretch but Jericho got out of it with an arm drag. Benoit did a diving headbutt. Benoit tried a German suplex but Jericho clutched onto the ropes to avoid it. Jericho did a Northern Lights suplex himself.

Jericho and Benoit traded fists and slaps and this really felt like a fight. Benoit tried a tombstone but Jericho reversed it into one of his own in what has become such an overused spot in WCW, particularly with Benoit matches. Jericho did not got for the pin as he went for the Lionsault, but Benoit got out of it so Jericho smashed him with a clothesline.

Dusty said Jericho would be a big star in WCW. Bobby made an astonishing comment where he said: “if the right man got a hold of him, he would make him something”…. that man would turn out not to be WCW President ERIC BISCHOFF. Benoit eventually hit one final back suplex for the clean victory.

This was an awesome match. This really made Jericho out to be a big star, even in defeat, and they both laid it in and really showcased the type of wrestling that should be featured more in American wrestling. AEW has matches with big spots and fast-paced action, NXT and WWE have near falls and put on performances but we need to see more FIGHTS in American wrestling. These two put on a believable fight but were also able to put on wrestling clinics when given the tools to do so. This match is worthy watching back if you can.

Match Rating: ****

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If you want Lucha Libre and a bunch of cool looking Lucha Libre spots, this was the match for you. Not a lot of psychology but some of the bigger move were really well executed for this match.

Calo did a rolling Braun Strowman powerslam and some fan yelled “boring” early on in the match. Calo worked on the arm. Rey wrestled rings around Calo in the early stages and did a feint 619 to throw Calo off his game.

Calo hit a powerbomb bouncing off the top rope and then into the mat. I wrote a bunch of notes which all started with off “Calo did a…” as literally a lot of what Calo did was just move after move after move. There was little effort to slow the match down or add psychology. If you’re into that type of thing and just wanted to see the spots, I guess this was the stuff for you. I’m just gonna list off my next 8 notes of my review:

Calo did a top rope shoulder tackle
Calo did a top rope dropkick from the top rope
Calo did a scoop slam on the floor
Calo did a flip senton to the outside
Calo did a frankensteiner for a 2 count from a “deep cover”
Calo did a flying clothesline which Rey got turned inside out for
Calo locked on the abdominal stretch
Calo did a surfboard submission

Rey did a crossbody which I think was supposed to send Calo over the top rope. Rey was a little man so Calo did not go over so Rey grabbed him by his shirt and dragged Calo over the rope to complete the spot and then did a dive to the outside. At times, this match was really awkward.

They just did moves forever and nobody cared and soon as I wrote that in my notes, Rey did a springboard hurricanrana to the floor which got a big pop from the crowd. At the very least, Rey Mysterio WCW matches do an excellent job in making the really big moves count and get over more with the crowd which is what wrestling is all about.

Rey did a sunset flip for a 2 count. Rey did a springboard corkscrew and then tried another move but Calo dropped him with an electric chair drop. Rey did a Frankensteiner roll-up for a 2 count. Calo tried a front dropkick but landed right on his head. Rey did a fabulous spot where he did a double bounce springboard frankensteiner roll-up for the win. That spot was so sublime and I don’t want it say it saved the match, because the match was decent enough, but it really elevated it in my eyes.

That bumped this match up to a ***1/4 rating if anything.

Match Rating: ***1/4

“Harlem Heat” Stevie Ray © and Booker T (c) w/Sister Sherri and Col Robert Parker vs “The Nasty Boys” Brian Knobbs and Jerry Sags for the WCW Tag Team Championship

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I have not been enamoured with the Nasty Boys since the WCW review series started but this match, which I was not looking forward to going in, turned out to be a good tag team match. How many sloppy hardcore matches have we seen the Nasty Boys compete in during the last year of WCW television? This match saw them in there with Harlem Heat and it was the best wrestling match they’ve pulled out so far in the Nitro series. It was a legitimately sound wrestling match put together on pay-per-view. THAT’S ALL I COULD ASK FOR!

Stevie started with Sags and punched away with some horrible punches to Sags. Nasty Boys ran wild with clubbering blows as Dusty called them the master of clubbering. Knobbs laid in some fantastic forearms as he beat up Booker as he showed such ferocity. A weird spot saw Knobbs have one of the Harlem Heat members held in position for like 30 seconds before Sherri I guess remembered her spot and broke up whatever spot the Nasty Boys were going for.

Stevie hit an awesome look crane kick to Knobbs. Booker just got into the match without a tag when the referee’s back was turned… it’s funny because this was the new referee that only debuted two weeks ago! Sherri slapped Knobbs to which Knobbs raised his hands and growled like he was like Frankenstein’s monster chasing her! Then Booker cut him off with a double axe handle as her knight in shining armour! I don’t know why but I loved that spot!

Harlem Heat got the heat. Booker tried the Harlem Side Kick but Knobbs evaded as he landed on the ropes. Sags got the hot tag as he beat down Harlem Heat. Sags threw Sherri into the ring. Sags did a roll up over the body of Sherri in the ring on Booker for a 2 count which the fans bough as the actual finish. Sags hit a piledriver but Ray broke it up. Parker tripped Sags from the top rope but Stevie cut him off and “obliterated” Sags on the outside.

Booker hit a scissor kick as Sags rolled to the outside with Sherri getting kicks and slaps in alongside Parker. Sags sold this punishment like he was dead. His body was motionless as he lounged about on the apron. Sags floored both members of the Heat. Sags crawled over Booker to make the tag to Knobbs as he was itching to get back in the match.

Knobbs ran wild on Harlem Heat. Knobbs did a “Nasty Splash” but it was broken up. Booker and Knobbs were the legal men as Knobbs hit the splash and got the cover but as the referee was distracted. Sherri hit Knobbs with the cane as Harlem Heat capitalised and got the pinfall to retain the titles.

This was a a good match all things considered. The best Nasty Boys match I’ve seen so far in WCW.

Match Rating: **3/4… I’m feeling generous. It had more psychology than DDP vs Chavo so I thought about bumping it up to 3 stars but with some blown spots didn’t warrant the full 3 stars for me.

Mike Tenay interviewed “Macho Man” Randy Savage. Savage said he was gonna turn the universe upside down. Savage said he was evil necessity of WCW. Savage said he was gonna rip the out the black heart out from Hogan’s chest. Savage said he was gonna walk down that isle and he was gonna send a message to the nWo that the Macho Man would not be denied.

“Macho Man” Randy Savage vs The Giant in a grudge match

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In a weird twist, Giant came down to the Dungeon of Doom theme song initially and then it changed to the nWo theme song. Giant tried to enter the ring but Savage held the fort in the squared circle, kinda like what the nWo did to WCW 2 weeks ago when Giant turned on WCW.

Savage tried a scoop slam on the outside but Giant was too big. Giant slammed Savage into the ring. Giant clobbered Savage with a big clothesline. Giant got Savage up HIGH for a side walk slam but slammed him down on the knee for the backbreaker.

The fans stopped paying attention as they looked to the crowd. Bobby Heenan picked up on this but they are not sure what to make of this. Then the fans turned away so I’m guessing a fight broke out or something in the crowd. No nWo involvement… at this point.

Giant did a Boston crab and then followed that up with a bear hug. This match got boring for a long time. Savage tried what appeared to be a double axe handle but Giant caught him and slammed him down.

Giant went for a knee drop but Savage moved away from it and then Savage tried to chop him down by stomping on the wounded knee. He actually got Giant down with a top rope bulldog and went for the cover but Giant threw Savage in the air off of him for the kick out. Flashbacks to the ending of the 1993 Royal Rumble began for me!

After all of these months of Savage trying to scoop slam The Giant but The Giant being too big for him to do it, Savage finally hit a scoop slam to a thunderous pop. Savage is rocking and rolling but who should come out but Hollywood Hogan to distract Savage. Savage hit the elbow drop before turning his attention to Hogan and stalking him up the ramp.

Scott Hall tried to get a punch in that Savage ducked but Kevin Nash ended up hitting Savage with a chair. The nWo did a big beat down as Nick Patrick talked to The Giant for about a minute as the nWo do their thing and drag him back to the ring. Conveniently as soon as Savage is back into the ring, Patrick goes down to count the pin for Giant.

This was a pretty standard pay-per-view Giant match but it worked big time with the crowd. Savage losing to The Giant to build up Savage to fight Hollywood Hogan for the title at Halloween Havoc seemed like a really weird call. It is possible that Savage could find some way to beat Giant before he fights Hogan at Halloween Havoc. I wouldn’t have had Savage lose to Giaant as it’s not like Savage got his revenge at the end of the night either. Savage didn’t really seem like a strong contender when the smoke cleared after Fall Brawl.

Match Rating: *1/2

Mike Tenay interviewed “Team WCW” in Ric Flair, Arn Anderson and Lex Luger. Flair yelled that the Horsemen was gonna kick ass. Arn said if you want something right do it yourself. During the promo, Sting interrupted. Luger claimed he’s been waiting 6 days for this confrontation with Sting… didn’t Luger say on Nitro he was gonna go to Sting’s house to kick his ass? He said he knew where Sting was so what exactly took Lex Luger so long to get to Sting in Venice Beach? To be fair to the storyline, at least the nWo destroying Luger’s car may explain how Luger was not able to drive to Venice Beach to proceed with kicking Sting’s ass!

Sting claimed it was not him on Monday that jumped Lex but Luger was sure it was him. He said he looked into Sting’s eyes on Nitro and knew it was him. Sting shrugged this off and said whether they believe him or not, he’ll see them out there. Flair called Luger a lean mean wrestling machine as they cut to the ring.

“Team WCW” Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, Lex Luger and ????? vs “nWo” Hollywood Hogan, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall and ????? w/Ted DiBiase in a War Games match

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I’m going to start off the review with lines used from my Fall Brawl 1995 review a few years ago. War Games is such a simple concept that you can’t mess up. In 1996, it was Michael Buffer that explained the rules. One guy from each team starts the match and wrestles for five minutes. For every 2 minutes, another wrestler jumps in until all eight men were in the double cage and then the match cannot stop until someone submits or surrenders. EASY.

It is such a tragedy when you think that WCW was the company that created War Games and this was the company that was put out of business. How much money do you think WCW would have made each year if they were still in existence if these War Games continued as annual tradition year-after-year? TNA did their Lethal Lockdown but they never did it right. NXT has War Games but to me, it’s too spot-driven for me to really get invested in them like I do watching this old WCW War Games.

These matches were such a simple concept and had easy storylines for WCW to tell and this one, with the New World Order, it was elevated by the men in the ring and yes with the mystery of where Sting’s allegiances were. Everything that the New World Order did with “picking their spots” as Arn Anderson put it, Hollywood Hogan turning his back on everyone, Sting who had allegedly turned his back on everyone, the Four Horsemen who were in the first War Games 10 years before this, Lex Luger fighting for WCW and even Nick Patrick as the referee after all the shenanigans he’s put the entrie company through since Hog Wild. It all built to this where all of those storylines paid off.

I’m actually astonished that Nick Patrick was the senior referee if you look at the storyline. This is a match where WCW’s future is in jeopardy because of the nWo and the WCW Board of Directors or whoever was in charge assigned the referee who has had the storyline of being an incompetent referee. It is ridiculous that Patrick, in storyline, was able to referee this match but this was like his true testing ground as a referee as to where he stood during this conflict.

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Starting off the match for the nWo was Scott Hall and starting off for WCW was Arn Anderson. I’ve never ever mentioned this on the blog but Scott Hall delivered some of the greatest punches in the business and he delivered some excellent punches as he punched away at Arn. Arn fired back as Dusty cheered on and the announcers were in full support of WCW during this war. Bobby commanded Arn to “kick him like a dog”.

Arn chopped down Scott Hall and worked on the leg which made sense because Scott Hall was actually a tall dude, especially compared to Arn, so why not chop him down to size? I don’t remember what the spot was but Nick Patrick told Arn during the match that he could ring the bell right now, to which Dusty Rhodes, who invented War Games, screamed “no you can’t!”

Arn did a sleeper hold and wore down the big man. Arn hit a spinebuster to a big pop with less than one minute left as the nWo were revealed by the announcers to have won the coin toss for the man advantage. The fans, of course, had no idea who won the coin toss so when Kevin Nash JOLTS down to the ring, the fans start to boo with dread. Jolt does not do Kevin Nash justice here. This was the fastest I’ve ever seen Nash move. I am prone to hyperbole and that line is somewhat cliche but Kevin Nash moved as fast as Usain Bolt coming down to save Scott Hall!

Arn ran wild on Nash but Hall simply held Arn as Nash laid in a big boot to lay the man out and get the heat. DONE. That was all Nash needed to do as the Outsiders beat down Arn for the next two minutes. This was the right type of match for guys like Hall and Nash where all they needed to do was deliver punches and brawl as this was war games. They didn’t need to out-wrestle Arn, they just beat up Arn for the next two minutes of the match. Arn got tossed into the cage as the Outsiders got the heat.

Lex Luger ran down early and ran in with 10 seconds left to spare on the clock. The announcers were OK as this was WAR! The nWo had jumped on WCW guys and “picked their spots” for months so now it was Lex’s turn! Luger ran wild on the Outsiders. He delivered a big forearm. Luger literally carried Hall around and drove him head first into the cage wall. Arn eventually recovered as all four men battled in a fair fight.

Hollywood Hogan ran down as the next nWo entrant to make things 3 for 2 as the fans boo and have dread as now the Hulkster is in. Then, in one of the greatest hope spots in wrestling history, Luger and Arn immediately beat away at Hogan in the corner to a huge pop! They get the jump on Hogan and Hogan is briefly overwhelmed by the babyfaces but the Outsiders save his arse as we’re back to WCW being on the back-foot.

Hogan worked on Arn in one ring as the Outsiders beat up Luger in the other ring. The fans chant “WE WANT FLAIR” as Flair delivered with his entrance into the match. Ric hauled his arse down to the ring with the fans going crazy. Flair goes crazy himself as he called the nWo out to the second ring where it was just Flair on his own. Hogan took the bait as Hogan and Flair had a showdown. Hogan fired away but Flair fired back with punches. Flair whipped out the brass knuckles as hit Nash with a low blow and he kicks Hall down below as the fans roar with support. This is WAR GAMES! Do whatever you can to survive!

Flair locked Hogan in the Figure Four Leg Lock as Hogan is crying with agony. He has Hogan in this hold for a long time. Then it is time for the fourth man of the New World Order to come down to the cage… and it’s Sting. The announcers are devastated as there is no question now that Sting is with the nWo.

This Sting is not shown to be the excited Sting we all know and love as he is dressed exactly like Sting. However, “Sting” beat away at Luger and Arn in the cage and he actually wrestled like Sting. He did the bulldog like Sting. He did punches like Sting. “Sting” did the roar like him. It was at the point where he did the King Kong roar beating his chest which I think gave him away as the fans then chanted “WE WANT STING”.

Then the timer comes up for WCW’s final man. Hogan hits a big leg drop on Flair as the nWo took over with 30 seconds left. “Sting” does the Stinger Splashes to the WCW guys. The timer goes down to zero and the man who comes down for WCW… IS STING.

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The fans goes CRAZY as a second Sting appears in the ring to fight for WCW! Sting goes face to face with the nWo’s Sting as this impostor Sting froze as he is face to face with the real deal. The real Sting ran wild and cleaned house on the nWo. He beat their arse on his on. Sting does his own Stinger Splashes to everyone. Everyone in WCW just stops and watched and that is the key. The rest of WCW are doing nothing as Sting takes care of WCW on his own. Flair started to woo as the fans look in shock but then Sting just stops.

He leaves one cage. Sting walked up to Lex Luger and yells “is that good enough for you there? Is that proof?”. He tells Luger to stick it, calling back on Hogan’s big line from Bash at the Beach, and then he walked out on Team WCW.

This storyline is so brilliant and this was such a fabulous pay-off to what honestly feels like a year of story-telling, at least with Lex Luger and Sting. I’m gonna talk about the Nitro after Fall Brawl with the next post, where Sting talked about Lex. Sting brought up up that everybody had questioned Lex Luger over the past year but Sting trusted him because he was his friend. That is all true. I complained over and over about how much time they dedicated to this Sting/Luger angle from whenLuger arrived on the first episode Nitro. Even when Luger turned heel and joined the Dungeon of Doom, Sting was still his friend. That storyline mattered and was relevant to this storyline.

Sting mentioned that everyone doubted Lex except for Sting. In the one time where Sting’s name was dragged in the mud, Lex questioned him? He believed that Sting had betrayed WCW and Lex had apparently “looked into his eyes” and saw it was Sting? All Sting could think to say was “stick it” and that he should have trusted him. We’ll get more into that promo when we actually cover it for the blog. But anyway, it was so perfect and it made it even better that Sting was not the third man of the nWo as originally intended.

Bobby pleaded with Sting that he was sorry and WCW were sorry and begged him to please come back but Sting had left the building. nWo’s Sting locked on a scorpion deathlock on Luger as Hogan had a front face lock on to Luger. Nick Patrick said he gave up and called for the bell. Luger quit on WCW, his allies and the nWo had won. Because yes, if WCW had trusted Sting, they would have won War Games. This was because Sting was kicking their arses for about 1-2 minutes on his lonesome as the WCW guys just stood there. Without him and without trusting him, WCW had doomed themselves to failure.

I love how Patrick tried to raise the nWo’s hands but ended up raising both his own hands in celebration!

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Tony talked about if everyone trusted Sting, they would have won. The nWo continued the beat down as they stood tall. Luger crawled to the back as he yells STINGER! He continued to crawl as continued to yell STINGER as Hogan then delivered some shots to the back and punched away at the head. People nowadays would call this corny but to me, it was perfect. Luger was such a tremendous character in all of this. He made a mistake in not trusting Sting and he was begging for Sting to come back… but the Stinger did not.

Arn and Ric tried to make the save and Flair actually kicks arse for a while. Savage ran down and threw Hogan to the ring and had Hogan at his mercy. Hogan rolled back to the second ring and begged again like he had before. Then The Giant marched down and the nWo take control of Savage in the ring. Giant hit a big chokeslam.

Miss Elizabeth ran down to the ring as she pleads with Hogan as Hogan berates her. Elizabeth covers Savage to save him. Hogan does not care as he raised the spray-paint can and sprays painted Elizabeth’s back. Hogan yelled as Elizabeth and Giant barked at her. This was somewhat uncomfortable . Hogan yelled that these two losers and low lives made a sacred oath. He said they made an oath as until death does them part. He said the nWo would make that happen as he spat at Elizabeth. The nWo pose together in the ring. As a means to make you hate the nWo, this did the job tremendously.

Giant spray-painted something on Savage’s back. Giant calling himself a Michelangelo or Da Vinci which was kinda funny. He and Hogan said whether you like it or you don’t like it, it’s the best thing going today as Hogan spits at the camera. Giant goes “thanks for that movie role.” The nWo take over the booth as Hogan holds up a “nWo country” sign. Ted DiBiase talked about making demands and wanting them. They all posed as the show goes off the air.

Match Rating: ***

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EDITOR’S NOTE: It was not until finding the pictures for this blog where I noticed Nick Patrick’s facial expressions when the two Stings have a showdown!

I could talk about that War Games match all day and you’d think that would make this PPV essentially a one-match show? Well think again. This entire show was great throughout. We had awesome matches with the cruiserweights, Benoit vs Jericho, Konnan being great, we had great tag team action, decent submission matches and a decent opener. This really was one of the stronger WCW PPVs I’ve seen so far. This gets an easy two thumbs up and the story told during the War Games was one of the best stories ever told during a wrestling match. If anything, watch that War Games match.

WCW Nitro Reading Order

11.02.19

by Thomas Robinson

RETRO EXPRESS: WCW UNCENSORED 1996 (MARCH 24TH 1996)

Wrestling history is something that I feel any true wrestling fan should be willing to relive and go through. If you’re a younger wrestling fan or if you’ve just started watching wrestling, utilise the WWE Network and explore the huge collection of wrestling history from the old days of the WWF, ECW, NWA, WCCW, along with many other promotions and yes, WCW. It teaches of the things that have worked before in wrestling that can work as a concept for traditional wrestling booking. WWE, AEW, MLW, Impact Wrestling, AAA, NJPW, ROH and so many other wrestling promotions out there can learn from the past. You can find out what worked and what didn’t work, using this knowledge to your advantage when booking for the future. This show was an example of what didn’t work…

I cannot even begin as I usually do with these PPV reviews. I’d usually start with a brief summary of the storylines going in and trying to hype up the review. As good in places as the PPV was, the thing I will always remember when thinking about this PPV is the main-event. The Doomsday Cage match with Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage battling Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, The Barbarian, Meng, Lex Luger, The Taskmaster, Z-Gangsta and The Ultimate Solution… this match was the worst wrestling match I’ve ever seen.

I thought back to legendary horrible matches of the past like Jenna vs Sharmell from TNA Victory Road 2009, Sting vs Jeff Hardy from TNA Victory Road 2011 or even that one match with Kaitlyn and Maxine from NXT which was ungodly terrible in its own right. None of those matches can come close to this match on the grounds that at least those matches were short… this Doomsday Cage match was an illogical, clunky disaster of a main-event which went on for 25 minutes.

What’s most amazing about that was that this match wasn’t even in the longest match on this show! The Road Warriors faced Sting and Booker T in a 30 minute tag team match right before this. That match itself was also memorable but it pales in comparison to how much this Doomsday Cage match will be remembered for infamy.

It’s a shame because the first three matches on this show were fine. I enjoyed the first three matches so I figured this was just a good show that was ruined by a bad main-event. No. They followed up the first three matches with a slow boring match, a two minute monster match, an even longer slow boring match and then ended with a horrific main-event.

I have a grander rant planned for the main-event of this show and this review but I will review the show in full, as I believe in giving credit when credit is due. So let’s get going….

Date: March 24th 1996

Brand: WCW

City: Tupelo, Mississippi

Attendance: 9,000

Commentators: Tony Schiavonie, Bobby Heenan and Dusty Rhodes

Speaking of giving credit where credit is due… the commentary team was fantastic during this PPV. With the exception of the main-event where I think they just didn’t care, they called a blinder of a wrestling show. Tony Schiavonie, who I’ve been a little harsh with as of late (with these reviews especially. He’s fine with AEW at the moment), was on top of his game for this wrestling PPV. Dusty Rhodes was great with his input and Bobby Heenan was great at being Bobby Heenan. They showed a legitimate passion for the product and interest, providing insight that the average wrestling fan won’t be able to pick up on. They put the talent over when they could and they cared about what was going. They were brilliant on this show all things considered.

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The announcers point out that this was the first and only title match of the evening for this pay-per-view. I understand it is the United States Championship but the idea that the one title match booked for a pay-per-view is on first is laughable to me. You want me to care about this championship match and your plan is to put it on first? This would be like if the UFC put on all of the title matches at the start of the show. It would kill interest in those titles if they are presented as after-thoughts.

With that being said, this was a huge improvement on the US title match from Superbrawl. Eddie worked hard here and it does help when you’ve got a guy like Eddie Guerrero in there with Konnan.

With that being said, having Konnan and Eddie Guerrero go 18 minutes was a terrible idea. Konnan had this big reputation of not being able to do long matches and this did not help that reputation. His conditioning was just not there to keep up with Guerrero and so we got stalling, clumsy spots and I feel the crowd got killed by the end of this match. The fans were hot for the start of it but dead by the end which would suggest this match was a failure.

They do some crisp matt wrestling from the get-go though. I enjoyed it initially and this was followed with Eddie doing a lovely arm drag, flying high in the air and coming down to Earth and sending Konnan flying.

Eddie put pressure on the legs of Konnan by doing like a handstand, putting all of his body weight on the legs as Tony puts it. I loved it because it was not a deliberate attempt by Guerrero to show off as it was just a move to get more from a basic wrestling hold. This wasn’t even a hold too… he did a handstand!

Konnan rolled in for something but he and Eddie weren’t on the same page and he kinda rolled into the ropes. They traded roll-ups and Konnan got a heel hook locked in on the mat. Konnan actually twisted the foot of Eddie for some twerk which I thought looked good. Konnan did a Boston Crab but it didn’t look good. It looked like it did nothing as Dusty even told him to put some of his back into the move for pressure.

Konnan and Eddie did some pretty great lucha libre, fast-paced action and it fired them both up as the fans chanted for Eddie. You could tell that the announcers were really into this match. The wrestlers went to the corners to pump up the crowd which was OK… at this point.

Eddie applied a camel clutch which looked a little awkward as Eddie was very small at this time and Konnan had a wide chest. Eddie eventually found a way to ground him and put some twerk on the camel clutch. There was some obvious stalling apparent here as they went to work the crowd so I wondered at this point if I was in for a long match.

Konnan had some great arm drags being displayed in this match. They traded head locks and arm locks in the ring as the camera crew apparently got bored, and cut to a shot to the stage.

Eddie fought out of an arm lock with a quick arm drag. Konnan walked around on the floor for the while as the fans start to get restless and boo. At this point, the fans just wanted some action and clearly this was a spot to suggest that Konnan couldn’t deliver this action.

Konnan did a monkey flip and Eddie Guerrero did the most majestic landing on his feet from a monkey flip I’ve ever seen. It was beautiful if you can go back to watch this match. I think it is in the second half of the match and Eddie just went high in the air and landed with such finesse.

Eddie suddenly ran wild with a headscissors and a gorgeous dive to the outside. They wrestled on the mat again. Konnan did a weird submission where he was on his back grabbing the legs of Eddie but wrapped his own legs on Eddie’s head. The difference in wrestling ability between Konnan and Eddie was very apparent. Eddie was too fast and Konnan wasn’t able to keep up but he was still trying to keep up with Eddie.

Konnan hit a sit-out powerbomb for the near fall. Eddie got pushed off the top rope by Konnan. Konnan barely connected with a dive. Eddie hit a big superplex

It was clear to me that Konnan just struggled with long matches while Eddie was totally at home. Eddie paced himself well where he could go in there with anyone for 20 minutes and look great. Eddie went for a hurricanrana but I guess Eddie landed on Konnan’s head crotch first and got low-blowed, as Konnan just covered him for the win.

Eddie refused a handshake and this was a bad finish to an otherwise decent match. This wasn’t a blow-away match or anything and as an opener, this really didn’t work in getting the crowd pumped up. If anything, it did the opposite because the fans weren’t into this match by the end.

Match Rating: **3/4

Mean Gene Okerlund interviewed Col. Robert Parker and Dick Slater. Col Parker thanked Dick for training as he was set to face Madusa tonight. Parker said he’s doing this for his family, for Mean Gene and Mississippi. He said he was gonna get that girl and “rub her face in it really good” which was a weird way of putting it. He called the male fans cowards. Dick said when the colonel whips Madusa, it was gonna be great. Col Parker said he’s gonna teach Madusa what a man stands for. I love Col Robert Parker’s heel mean promo where you’d really want Madusa to kick his ass. ON PAPER… this was a fine way to make you hate Parker and make you want Madusa to kick his ass. Keep that in mind.

Steven Regal vs The Belfast Bruiser

This match was a thing of beauty and by a thing of a beauty, I mean one of the stiffest matches I’ve ever seen! Remember when the Belfast Bruiser (a.k.a. Fit Finlay) debuted and he called out Regal? I mentioned that I could not wait for that match. I finally got my match and it was… glorious. This was the best thing on the entire show. It was a glorious… FIGHT between Regal and Bruiser. Two heel tough guys who beat each other up for 17 minutes and the commentators were into it and loved it. I loved it and the fans started to love it by the end. Then we got a crap finish which we’ll get to.

NOTE: If you’re new to the blog, I’m calling Belfast Bruiser just Finlay for the simplicity of writing this review. He was officially billed as the Belfast Bruiser but I’m just going with Finlay for these reviews.

Finlay threw his jacket at Regal to kick things off. Regal hit an absolutely fantastic hip toss as they got into a fight. A beautiful fight with uppercuts and knee lifts. Finlay was as ugly and tough as they come. He hit a beautiful clothesline which floored Regal and when I say he hit a beautiful clothesline, he SMACKED Regal across the chest and forced him to go down. This was not Regal needing to fall down in time. Finlay clobbered him and Regal went down as he was supposed to! This was great!

Regal locked a front face lock as Finlay and Regal growled during the hold! Regal locked on an abdominal stretch and Finlay’s response was a simple knee to the face! Finlay worked on the arm of Regal, ramming it into the ring post and then stomping on the arm,

Finlay had an arm wrench locked in but Regal fought his way up to his feet with strikes. Regal hit a fantastic dropkick on Finlay who was bouncing off the corner!

There was not one guy getting heat during this match. This was not a case of my turn, your turn. They WRESTLED for control throughout this match. They were both heels as far as I could tell and they were both two mean guys who were doing anything to get an advantage and it was great. This was not a routine face vs heel where a heel gets the heat and the face makes a comeback. This was refreshing to watch.

Finlay hit a big senton to a floored Regal. They punched and threw elbows at each other. Finlay exploded out of the corner with another beautiful clothesline. Finlay had some of the best clotheslines I’ve ever seen. He slammed Regal’s face on the mat. Regal booted Finlay right in the face! I loved just how ugly this match was! This was not pretty and it was not a performance. This was a fight!

They battled for the suplex off the apron and Regal won. Regal even pulled off an elbow drop from the apron. Some fans then started booing this match. I’m not going to advocate violence but if anyone would care to lend me a time machine, I’ll have no problem travelling back in time to sort out these fans! How could you possibly boo this match?

Dusty pointed out that “pain was being dished out by these guys.” EXACTLY. They were looking to HURT each other and that’s the name of the game. As Dusty said that, Finlay booted Regal right in the back! I loved every minute of this match.

Regal instructed the referee to move out of the way and Regal used this chance to boot Finlay right in the balls! Regal did a wrist lock but Finlay got his leg on the rope. Finlay pulled out pokes to the eyes like there was no tomorrow to get the upper-hand.

Finlay drove Regal’s face into the mat with his knee. Regal applied another wrist lock while pressing his knee into the back of the head of Finlay. Finlay then just literally threw Regal over his shoulders! This wasn’t a back drop. He grabbed Regal’s legs and launched him over his shoulders and threw his arse in the air! It was so great.

Regal started mouthing off and Finlay responded with a closed fist punched to the face and the announcers just started howling with laughter! They loved this. I loved this. Dusty is losing his mind at commentary over just the straight closed fist to the face of Regal!

Then we got the finish… The Blue Bloods came down and attacked the Belfast Bruiser for the DQ. They got up the Belfast Bruiser and Regal Slapped Belfast Bruiser right in the face. Finlay then hauled his arse up that ramp to beat up some of the Blue Bloods.

WHY… would you do a DQ finish? You have a match that the fans are getting into, the commentators are getting into it so much that you know is good watching and you’re just gonna do a DQ finish? Keep in mind, they promoted this entire PPV telling you the fans beforehand that every match was going to have no disqualifications. Yet in the second match and the best match, there’s a disqualification? Give me a break.

Match Rating: ***1/2 (It was a beautiful match minus a horrible finish)

I was reading a review of this show before I started writing my own and the dude who did this review (and I don’t have a link sorry) flat-out said there was not one good finish on this PPV. Other than the DDP vs Booty Man match where I could possible argue they had a good finish, he was pretty much spot on. There was some awful finishes on this show.

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Mean Gene interviewed Jimmy Hart and The Giant. Jimmy said nobody gets their hand on Jimmy Hart and gets away with it so I guess Loch Ness beat up Jimmy or something during one of the WCW Saturday Night shows. The Giant said to Loch Ness: “I’m gonna smoke you like bacon on a grill.” He told Mean Gene to tell Ric Flair he’s gonna tear him limb from limb. The Giant says the title was his and that’s all that’s got to be said. Simple but effective. The winner of The Giant vs Loch Ness match on this show got a title shot on Nitro. Mean Gene called Bobby the weasel to which Bobby just yells “BALDY” in such a bitter fashion! Bobby Heenan being Bobby Heenan was wondrous!

Mean Gene followed this up with an interview Loch Ness. He was billed as nearly 700lbs and I don’t remember if that was true or not. Loch Ness said that weasel face Hart got him from across the ocean. Loch Ness said Jimmy promised him a shot of Hogan in the Doomsday match but he got pulled out of the match. Tonight, he said he would take it out on his man The Giant. He said when he drops 700lbs, The Giant won’t get up. That he guaranteed. Mean Gene, standing right next to a 700lb monster, then tells Loch Ness that he’s got introduce him to a guy who is a dentist… and Loch Ness stares a hole into Mean Genes’ soul like he’s going to eat him!

Mean Gene demonstrated the biggest balls in the world, in kayfabe, with that line! Mean Gene casually cuts away to something else as Loch Ness stares him down. I thought this was great! I liked Loch Ness’ promo. It was concise and it was effective and sounded believable. You could believe that when Loch Ness drops all of his weight on The Giant, The Giant ain’t coming back up. You’ll have to stick around and see if he actually gets up from an elbow drop. I thought this was good

Madusa vs Col Robert Parker w/Dick Slater

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There was a big female pop for Madusa actually. Madusa was relatively over with this crowd so the Col. Robert Parker promo was effective in getting this crowd to get behind Madusa!

Col Robert Parker was suited and booted as he does an intentionally horrible job at bouncing off the rope before the bell sounded. Parker locked up with Madusa and powered her into the turnbuckle. Yes, Parker was winning on the former WWF women’s champion with a lock-up. My mind was blown as the whole story should be that the manager is the coward picking a fight with a woman but yet he cleanly wins the initial lock-up!

Madusa powered Parker into the corner herself and sent him flying with an arm drag to which Dusty sniggered at. The snigger was exactly like a friend of mine from work! Dusty was loving it!

Parker got Madusa for an aeroplane spin but then she reversed this into a sunset flip. She slammed Parker and Parker sold this like he was a fish outta water. The fans were proper into this match. Dick came out and encouraged Parker to go back in the ring…. again, there were issues with phrasing during this review!

Parker choked Madusa and slammed her down. Yes, he was OVERPOWERING MADUSA all on his own by this point. This was not like Madusa was mostly destroying Parker and he got a few lucky shots in. He was wrestling on par with supposedly the best female wrestler in WCW! Amazing.

Parker missed an elbow drop. Madusa did a standard dropkick and then did a front dropkick from the second rope. Madusa did a dive but Parker caught her and then they just fell down.

Madusa somehow pulled off a German Suplex but Dick Slater broke it up. This was the finish… Parker covered Madusa and pinned her. That’s it. He laid on top of her and pinned her. He didn’t hit a move. He didn’t do anything to her. He laid over, put all of his weight on Madusa and pinned her. Maybe Dick did something to Madusa but there was no clear sign of interference. Col Robert Parker pinned Madusa clean.

If you think to all of the trouble WCW went too when getting Alundra Blayze from the WWF. They had her drop the WWF women’s title in a trash can on national television, which was followed by a lawsuit. What have they done with her since that time? She lost clean in her first Nitro match against SISTER SHERRI and she lost her first pay-per-view to Col. Robert Parker. These two were both managers and they both beat Madusa CLEAN.

They had such a golden ticket in their lap with Alundra Blayze of all people. You could have developed a legitimate women’s division which is something the WWF didn’t really have anymore. You had girls coming in from AJPW who were brilliant in WCW, you could have brought in other good wrestlers for that division and you could have made Alundra a star in her own right at WCW. This was such an opportunity and they have shown to blow it a couple of months in. It’s remarkable.

Match Rating: **

Lee Marshall interviewed The Road Warriors. Animal said they wanna kick everyone’s butt. He said Sting and Booker T are gonna find out why they’re called the Chicago Big Bullies. Hawk said they’re gonna remove their brain stems which was a sick burn I guess in 1996. They said they get the job done when they say they will. They said it’ll be an all-out blitz and nobody cares, except for the Road Warriors. A weird promo and Lee Marshall didn’t really help with his introduction before this promo. He didn’t come off as a legitimate interviewer as he just came off as a character with a dramatic introduction about the tag team division. It was just very weird and it didn’t work at all.

The announcers at the booth did explain Booker T is siding with Sting for this tag team match because Harlem Heat want a shot at the tag titles.

The Booty Man w/The Booty Girl vs Diamond Dallas Page in an I Quit Wrestling match. If DDP wins, he gets his money back and the Booty Girl. If DDP loses, he quits WCW

DDP came out in scruffy clothes as they explained that DDP was down on his luck and had no money. DDP yelled at the fans. DDP kept refusing to get in the ring and kept yelling at the fans. One guys actually flexed in front of him, getting into the show themselves!

DDP and Booty went to the turnbuckles for cheers and boos and the fans were into this fun at least. DDP did an incredible sell early on, falling on his head as Booty Man did a shoulder tackle to him.

Dusty’s commentary included a line where he said: “Booty’s always got a good game plan.” Interesting choice of words! DDP yelled “shut up you fat pig” at a fan while Booty had him locked in a hold. Booty started strutting his stuff. DDP charged him to which Booty punched him and sends DDP flying out of the ring over the top rope.

DDP wanted to leave but Booty Man went after him and pulled him back into the ring. So… the story of the match is that if DDP walked out, DDP would quit wrestling right? Then why would Booty Man bring him back into the ring? Let DDP walk out of the ring and walk out on the company. Why would he bring him back into the ring?

Booty smacked DDP’s face into the three turnbuckles as he rolled onto the floor… PHRASING! Kimberley a.k.a. The Booty Girl came out in this ballerina dress. JEEZ LOUISE. The announcers were blown away by her and for good reason. She looked stupendous in this outfit. She was an absolute treat on WCW.

DDP and Booty did some criss-cross stuff. Booty Man did an Irish Whip. What resulted was that DDP fell down and Booty Man keeled over to which Tony just asked: “what was that?” I they were doing an arm drag spot (at least DDP was) but maybe Booty was going for a shoulder tackle and the communication got lost somewhere, maybe in the Jersey Shore.

DDP slammed him with a back suplex and taunted and even fellow heel Bobby Heenan is telling him to not waste time. DDP had a sleeper hold. Booty fought out of it but DDP knocked him down with the knee as Booty Girl said twice “he’s so cute.”

DDP then grabbed Booty Girl and kissed her to which Booty Girl slapped him, Booty followed this up by hitting the High Knee and won. The finish came out of nowhere. We had 15 minutes or so of non-action. They rushed to the finish and Booty Man won but I woud argue that maybe it was a decent finish, because at least the heel who was a prick to his girlfriend got what he deserved by the babyface couple. Booty Girl got a slap in and then Booty Man pinned him and won.

However, this match was such a snooze fest. Remember when DDP and Johnny B Badd some of the best matches on the PPVs? Now DDP was in one of the worst matches of the PPV and that’s really sad.

Booty Man gave Booty Girl a kiss and Booty Girl was literally blown away by it.

Match Rating: * and that’s been generous. This was long And boring but a satisfying ending

Mean Gene interviewed Lex Luger and Jimmy Hart. Jimmy said this would be his last night with Lex Luger. Jimmy left distraught as I figured maybe Luger didn’t want Jimmy around him as he tried to win favour with Sting his tag team partner. Luger said the Doomsday Cage match was the most dangerous match he’ll ever be in. If he’s referring to it being dangerous to his career, he may have a point! After all, two of the men in this match had their last ever wrestling match in this Doomsday Cage match! Luger said he had to watch his partner in action and he admitted it broke his heart for him not to be teaming with Sting. He said he had his back and being the competitor he is, he’ll step in the Doomsday Cage match. This was a fine promo and the Lex Luger character in the last month has been very solid.

The Giant w/Jimmy Hart vs Loch Ness in a number one contendership match for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship

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When I saw this match was going to happen on this pay-per-view, I could only speculate about how bad this match was going to be. The Giant, 5 or 6 months into the business, vs Loch Ness who could barely move. I figured this would be as big of a disaster as the Doomsday Cage match… this match ended up being fine.

It was not good but it was not a disaster. It was exactly as you’d figure this match would be. It went 2 and a half minutes and did not need to go a minute longer. This was the only match on this show that had the appropriate amount of time given to it! Time management on this show was horrible. Konnan got too long of a match, Booty Man got too long of a match, the Chicago Street Fight go 20 minutes too many and the Doomsday Cage match got 25 minutes too many. This one, in terms of the time, went as long as it needed to be.

The two monsters stared each other down. They locked up and The Giant ran wild with knees and like 5 chops. The Giant pushed his leg into the throat of Loch Ness.

Loch Ness fought back with some big big blows. The Giant threw some sloppy kicks again like he did against Hacksaw Jim Duggan a couple of weeks ago. The Giant goes for a big Stinger Splash and The Giant flies over the top rope and onto the floor. The Giant was going all out for this spot, which I assume was the only time he ever attempted this. This was Triple H going over the top rope from a catapult, except this was THE GIANT! He was too big to do a spot like that!

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Loch Ness hit a big elbow drop but instead of going for the cover, he went for one more but this time, The Giant moved. The Giant hit a clothesline and hit a super kick. The Giant did a horrible leg drop and won. The Giant yelled about Ric Flair after the match.

Match Rating: ½* mostly because of that bump to the outside. I give credit where credit is due and I appreciate the effort.

Lee Marshall interviewed Sting and Booker T. Booker mentioned that he and Sting talked about what was at stake. Booker talked some trash. Sting yelled at Booker saying that he needed him fired up and shoved him to get him hyped. He told Booker to knock out the Road Warriors. Sting said they were coming for them. Booker said it was gonna be nothing but a thing like a chicken wing. They were both pumped for this big match. This was a fine promo.

Sting and Booker T vs “The Road Warriors” Animal and Hawk in a Chicago Street Fight

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In my treasured notes, I’ve written 155 words for this match! These notes mostly consisted of the words “they brawled” as these two tag teams had a 29 minute match which had no right going any longer than ten minutes. The concept of the match and the concept of this being a war between these two tag teams was something I had no problem with. As a match though, they just kept brawling and brawling and brawling and it was so uneventful.

I’m not going to go through a play-by-play of everything that happened in this match because if I did, I’d still be writing this review for the next 10 years. The crooks of this match were that there was so much “muscle groin” offense as Mongo called it last week. Animal got attacked in the balls at least three times. Hawk got crotched, Booker got crotched, Sting got crotched I think. It was legitimately dick-based offense throughout this entire match!

There was so much choking and chair shots and casual chops and punches being thrown that although it’s crap in execution, it’s good in theory in the sense that they represented that this was a FIGHT. The only problem is that was all they did. It was good for a lot of it but I don’t remember any other moves they did to each other. There was certainly not a tag team move and here’s the thing. As a review on this link points out, the storyline of Booker and Sting having to “work together” is negated by a tornado tag team match when they are both off having their own brawls with other guys. They never needed to work together.

A couple of things to point is that Animal got crotched by Booker. Booker got a cover and Animal put his leg on the rope and the referee NICK PATRICK calls for a rope break in a CHICAGO STREET FIGHT. To everyone complaining about a recent AEW match a few weeks ago where they called for a rope break during a No DQ match, Nick Patrick did this throughout this match about 23 years ago. That’s the first thing.

The second thing was that Booker T was in mid spinaroonie and one of the Road Warriors laying around on the floor got in his way, which just tells you how clunky this match was. People were just in each other’s way and it did the match no favours.

Something else I want to point out as I’ll give credit where credit is due is that Animal choked at Booker and Booker hit a low blow in response. Booker pulled out a heel tactic but it was totally justified in this match as it was no disqualification and the Road Warriors were using dirty tricks for the last couple of weeks on Nitro. This spot I liked.

The weird thing is… the crowd and the commentators were into it. The announcers were trying their best to put this over and the crowd was into Sting as normal. It worked with the audience.

I’ll jump to the finish. Booker seemingly walked out on Sting as he waved off the match but Animal went after him. It was down to Hawk and Sting in the ring. Animal was shown backstage looking for Booker. They brawled backstage. Luger backstage accidentally got attacked by Animal so he and Stevie Ray and Jimmy Hart jumped Animal. They taped up Animal to a post as Luger continued to stomp away at Animal.

Sting tried a Stinger Splash on the outside but missed and hits the barricade. Booker came back and hit a side slam. Booker missed the Harlem Hangover. Stevie Ray came out and hit Hawk with a chair and Booker got the pin to FINALLY, FINALLY end the match.

Match Rating: ** (I didn’t totally hate it because it came off as a legitimate war. It was like a legitimate street fight. This was a true street fight in its nature and it worked out to a degree. It was longer than it had any right to be but what the hell, it worked with the crowd and the commentators were into it. It worked but it was WAY TOO LONG.)

Let’s all remember what Tony Schiavonie would say next, building up the Doomsday Cage match main-event.

Tony said: “The rules I understand are very simple.”

The rules were supposedly that Hogan and Savage must clear every stage of the Doomsday Cage and pin the opponents to move onto the next stage. I don’t think they even mentioned how to win the match. However, keep those “rules” in mind.

“The Mega Powers” Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage vs “The Alliance To End Hulkamania” Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, Taskmaster, Lex Luger, Z-Gangasta, The Ultimate Solution, Meng and The Barbarian in a Doomsday Cage match

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I didn’t write down all of Michael Buffer’s ring introductions although there’s a few lines I have to note before we get into the match. Buffer starts with the following introductions: “Welcome to an event like no other.” Writing this review, all I could think was that he was spot on! Nobody had or will ever do a match like this ever again. Maybe WCW did it in 2000 but that’s the closest anyone will ever come!

Notable introductions for the heels included “From some unknown part of the planet” for Meng and “From Hulk Hogan’s past” for Z-Gangsta. All the heels had ridiculous ring-introductions from Buffer but those two were noteworthy.

I don’t even know how to describe the structure of this Doomsday cage. There were at least 3 cages stacked on top of each other with scaffold holding the whole thing together. The only problem was that the actual cage with a ring to wrestle in was at the bottom. In this match, Hogan and Savage STARTED from the top and had to fight their way down. So therefore, all of the heels in the cage had to walk around menacingly on the metal floor which looked so unsafe. Most of the time, the heels were just clinging to the side of the cage for dear life. They did not trust that cage floor enough to take bumps.

It started with Hogan and Savage vs Arn and Ric on the top cage. Out of the eight men that made up the Alliance to End Hulkamania, the first two you’re going to feed to Savage and Hogan are ARN ANDERSON AND WCW WORLD CHAMPION RIC FLAIR? The two best workers of that team would be the FIRST OBSTACLE for the Mega Powers and would be eliminated first. It’s not like they left them for the final showdown at the end. They were gonna be beaten up first!

They fought on the top of the cage. They did not want to do a single wrestling move on that scaffold cage. I think I saw Arn try one bump. I did love Hogan grabbing Arn or Ric and yelling “get him Macho” as Savage laid in punches!

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There was some miscommunication where Savage did the same thing, grabbing Arn for Hogan to punch him and he had him held there for legitimately 30 seconds. I assume Hogan was so into his own stuff with Flair that he just totally forgot about Macho Man. Hogan started no-selling the chops of Ric, as Savage choked Arn. Bobby declared that “this is great television history” which was surpassing the Super Bowl. This is… factually incorrect. I don’t even consider that an opinion! They’re still doing Super Bowls! They’ve never done a Doomsday Cage match again since this match!

Arn did a slow Figure Four Leg Lock on Hogan while Ric did his own on Savage. At almost the exact same time, Savage and Hogan turned the tide on their opponents so at least their spot co-ordination was on point for this one. This would be an even greater spot, if the wrestlers weren’t so high up and the fans could’t see a thing. The fans could not see a single thing. They had no idea what was going on so there’s was little reaction to this spot or anything they did in that cage.

Ric passed something down below to Taskmaster. I think Ric dropped it to the floor as Taskmaster is shown looking down when they cut to a wide shot. Even Ric passing a weapon down to Taskmaster got screwed up. This whole match was falling apart.

Hogan and Savage whipped out white powder, threw it at Arn and Ric and escaped to the next floor. Then Tony just revealed that Ric Flair and Arn Anderson were eliminated. What? Hogan and Savage escaped the top cage after 5 minutes of brawling and Ric and Arn were just eliminated? It’s not even like they pinned Arn or Ric as the rules earlier said you had to pin a guy to move onto the next stage. The faces just got up and left, and so Ric and Arn were done! There was NO REACTION because the fans had no clue what the rules were and what was going on. I only know Ric and Arn were eliminated because Tony told me. The fans couldn’t hear the announcers so they didn’t know what was going on!

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Jimmy passed something to Taskmaster, which I think was whatever Ric dropped earlier. In the end, I don’t even remember what the weapon was. I just know Taskmaster and the referee ended up fighting over it which we’ll get to.

They move onto the next stage as The Faces of Fear work on Savage, while Taskmaster and Luger beat up Hogan. Hogan locked the Faces of Fear in one of the cages and left Taskmaster alone with Hogan and Savage. Taskmaster and the referee in the middle of this, wrestle over some weapon Taskmaster wanted to use in the middle of this. On a show where it was promoted as no disqualification and in the middle of a no disqualification cage match, the referee stops Taskmaster from using a weapon! This is not even the referee calling for a DQ in a Hell in a Cell match. The referee is screwing the heels by not letting them use a weapon which they are ENTITLED to use. In the Chicago Street Fight, Bobby Heenan flat out said you could get away with murder! This was an unbelievable logical catastrophe.

Hogan and Taskmaster battled on the scaffold as Dungeon of Doom and Arn tried to get to Taskmaster. Yes, the eliminated Arn Anderson tried to get at Hogan. Hogan tried kicking Taskmaster off the scaffold and Taskmaster hit a low blow to save his own life. Taskmaster tried to dump Hogan off the scaffold in revenge… all of this attempted murder is going on and nobody cared. This is right after the referee stopped Taskmaster from using a weapon.

Luger battled Savage as Hogan and Taskmaster just escape the cage and brawl outside of the cage. That’s dumb enough but then Savage and Luger both just escape the cage from another side to brawl with Hogan and Taskmaster on the ramp. So after being in the dangerous Doomsday Cage, four guys are just fighting on the ramp.

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The rules were just… there were no rules. There was no structure to this match. I’m 90% certain they just made it up as they went along because Hogan and Savage have escaped the cage but are still fighting with Luger and Taskmaster. I guess the Faces of Fear were just eliminated. Ric Flair and Arn Anderson suddenly vanished. Hogan and Taskmaster run down to the ring. Hogan takes Buffer’s mic and batters Taskmaster. It’s suddenly a tornado tag team match outside of the cage. What was going on? None of this made any sense… and then it just gets worse.

Hogan hits the big boot. He beats up Taskmaster in the ring. Then Hogan beats him up outside of the ring. Hogan fought back at the cage. Hogan then SNEAKED UP and attacked Luger to save Savage. Yeah, 6’8 HULK HOGAN sneaked up on someone like a dastardly villain!

All I could think was where was the Faces of Fear and Arn? If Luger and Taskmaster could just escape, where the hell were they so they could beat up Hogan and Savage? Tony even asked: “where was Z-Gangsta and Ultimate Solution?”

The fans finally cheered as they could see Hogan and Luger fighting in the ring. Tony just declares that everyone else is gone and eliminated. Taskmaster low-blowed Hogan in the ring. Hogan hit Luger with a chair a couple of times. Luger and Taskmaster turned things around. Savage chokes away at Taskmaster, which is apparently all these two could do together because every time I see Savage and Taskmaster that’s all I see them do is choking and punches to each other. Hogan and Savage did stereo punches to Luger and Taskmaster. At this point, Jimmy Hart led Z-Gangsta and Ultimate Solution down to the ring.

In case you were wondering, Z-Gangsta and Ultimate Solution weren’t even in the cage to begin with. Why they weren’t in the cage to begin with, if they were such big threats to Hogan, is a question that I’m sure only someone like Eric Bischoff could explain. The monsters brought Hogan and Savage back to the cage. They brought him back into the actual cage including the ring. The fans chanted for Hogan as Hogan, Savage, Z-Gangsta and Ultimate Solution squared off.

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Hogan kept getting pushed back by Ultimate Solution. Then all of a sudden… weird blue and red lights surround the ring so if the fans could see anything before in this cage, they couldn’t anymore because of this stupid lighting. It was like the Seth Rollins/Fiend Hell in a Cell match from a couple of weeks ago where the red lighting meant the fans could barely see anything. The parallels between 2019 WWE and 1996 WCW is astonishing,

Savage got Z-Gangsta wobbly with a double axe handle. No mention of the fact that Savage teamed with Z-Gangasta a.k.a. Zeus to battle Hogan before. Z-Gangsta did a dreaded bear hug. Hogan punched Z-Gangsta but Z-Gangsta no sold it as Hogan showed concern. Z-Gangsta started choking Hogan down. Hogan is literally down for a three count during this choke with his shoulders on the mat and the referee just stands there and watched Hogan and Z-Gangasta. He does not count or anything. This referee screwed the heels at least twice to my knowledge!

Ultimate Solution catches Savage in mid-air with a bearhug. THEN ALL OF A SUDDEN ARN ANDERSON AND RIC FLAIR are suddenly back in the cage and beat up Hogan and Savage! This was the most miserably plot-hole filled match in wrestling history. By this logic, the heels should have gotten every heel they could find back in that cage. Lex Luger had just disappeared. The Faces of Fear disappeared. For god’s sake, THE GIANT is with the group at this point right? THIS MAKES NO SENSE. Ric and Arn are just back out there like nothing happened as if they were not eliminated earlier. Keep this in mind by the way. I know I’ve said this like 5 times during this PPV review but this is the most important one. Seriously, let’s remember that Ric Flair and Arn Anderson were eliminated earlier.

Jimmy Hart cackles like a mad man. The two monsters just stand there as Arn and Ric do the actual wrestling. Z-Gangsta does these clobbering blows to Hogan. He does them like the Triple H poses in the corner and goes aaaaarrgggh (like he’s gonna sneeze) and then threw his arms down like he’s closing the boot off the car! One of the funniest punches ever thrown in a wrestling ring!

Hogan then runs wild with FRYING PANS! I kid you not. The Booty Man comes down, gives out frying pans to Hogan and Savage and then I don’t even remember seeing Booty Man again! He’s out there for his friends and could have helped them in a 2 on 8 situation but no, he gives them the weapons and fled like a coward. What an ally that Booty Man turned out to be!

Luger comes down and runs wild with these frying pans on the babyfaces. Tony Schiavone then said: “LEX LUGER IS OBVIOUSLY THE FRESH MAN, HE’S NOT BEEN HIT WITH THE FRYING PAN.”

At this moment, I had to pause the show. My brain could not take any more of this. I didn’t go for a walk but I needed to refocus my scrambled brain. At this point, I just concluded this was one of the worst matches I’ve ever seen. With the finish that followed, I soon concluded that this WAS the worst match I’ve ever seen.

I restarted the show. Luger gets a weighted coal-miners glove. Luger throws a punch at Savage but Savage ducked, Luger could see that Savage ducked and then Luger hits Flair with one of the most deliberate fake punches you’ve ever saw. I assume this is Luger turning babyface but it was hard to tell with what was going on. Lex Luger spent the entire match beating up Hogan and Savage. He was clearly a heel earlier on in the show against the Road Warriors. All of a sudden, he lays out Flair.

THEN, HULK HOGAN KICKS LEX LUGER’S ARSE. FOR NO REASON! Lex Luger was on his side and Hulk Hogan just beats his arse because Hulk Hogan’s character in WCW is that he’s the biggest dick in all of the land. Then Hogan tries to escape the cage to I guess win the match which again, we’ve just watched them brawling for 10 minutes outside of the cage. Why would Hogan try to escape the cage? Savage picks up on this and figures he needs to pin someone and so Savage pins Flair to WIN THE MATCH.

Ric Flair was eliminated earlier on in the match and then Savage out of nowhere is able to pin him to win the match all together? WHAT? Not to mention. I have no idea what the original plan was for the finish but the idea that out of all of the geeks in that heel stable, you had to pin the WCW World Heavyweight Champion Ric Flair? You couldn’t pin THE BARBARIAN, MENG or one of these geeks monsters we’ll never seen again? JEEZ LOUISE, this is the worst match I’ve ever seen.

Dusty finishes the show saying: “This PPV will go down as something never before seen.” My notes finish with the following line – This was an utter piece of shit.

Match Rating: -***** (MINUS FIVE STARS)

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I do believe this is the first time in the history of this blog I’ve ever given out a -5 star rating. When I give out this -5 star rating, it takes everything into consideration. The rating represents the build-up to the match, the weeks of convoluted tag team matches and so much more. This was everything that led to this debacle and the match itself which beggars belief. This represents everything a lot of wrestling fans look at when they see WCW. The absolute dirt-worst before the nWo arrive and although I figured this Doomsday Cage match would be bad, I had no idea.

With everything that was wrong with this though, I will briefly play the role of Mr Positive. This match felt like a necessary evil for WCW. I think this was likely the trigger for Hulk Hogan to finally figure out that it was time for a change. People did cheer Hogan during this match but this sort of old-school Hulk Hogan versus monsters booking just wasn’t working anymore. There’s a certain charm to it but ultimately, the audience was never gonna totally accept this rubbish for much longer especially when they’re in the middle of a wrestling war with the WWF. Hogan got one last babyface match to get this out of his system and then it was time to change up his character.

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As a wrestling show, this was half a decent show and half a disaster. That’s the best way I could put it. I figure if you just watch the first three matches, it’d be OK. If you just watch the last match, it’d be the worst pay-per-view ever. If you look at the finishes of the matches, it was a horrible pay-per-view up and down. If you look at the historical significance and how it inadvertently changed the way WCW booked its product, it was a necessary evil. Shortly afterwards, a new necessary evil would emerge in WCW and the wrestling industry would never be the same again.

WCW Nitro Reading Order

06.07.16

by Thomas Robinson

WWE’s Brock Lesnar To Fight Mark Hunt At UFC 200

How’s it going everybody? Thomas Robinson here with the Armbar Express with some big news coming from the world of professional wrestling and mixed martial arts. It was confirmed at UFC 199 that Brock Lesnar would be competing at UFC 200, as part of an historic event including three world title fights. It was confirmed on Monday that Brock’s opponent in this heavyweight bout would be accomplished fighter Mark Hunt. To say this is ground-breaking news would be an understatement.

A collaboration by WWE and UFC in this capacity is certainly unheard of. The nearest to this was probably Ronda Rousey being allowed to do her angle with The Rock, Stephanie McMahon and Triple H at WrestleMania 31. Even proposed plans for a Rousey vs Stephanie match fell through, due to the UFC not allowing Rousey to do more than the original one-off deal. Rousey showing up in a non-wrestling role is one thing. Brock Lesnar actually fighting in the UFC is on a completely different level.

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The WWE, for years, had been against the idea of collaborations with outside wrestling companies. With recent projects involving EVOLVE and other independent companies as part of their Cruiserweight Tournament, they are certainly turning a corner in that regard. This deal with their supposed rivals UFC is pretty big. The story is supposedly that Brock Lesnar was able to secure an agreement when negotiating his WWE contract in early 2015, with the option of one UFC fight being open to him. Chael Sonnen explained to Jonathan Coachman on ESPN that the door was always open for Brock to come to UFC, with Dana White not even having to call Vince McMahon in order to secure this fight with Brock.

With those details, it may not seem as much of a collabaration anymore. However, WWE is still promoting this news heavily on theory social media accounts. WWE released a press release about the news, as well as the news of Brock’s opponent being Mark Hunt. According to Wrestling Observer, it is also likely that Brock will be promoting this fight on WWE broadcasts as well. It’s almost as if WWE are still trying to turn this into more of a WWE deal than a UFC deal, by having Brock with Paul Heyman on RAW to hype up the fight.

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I personally believe that there’s probably a lot more to the story and that WWE is probably getting something in return. Whether that’s the big Ronda Rousey fight at WrestleMania or not is left open for debate. However, I’d be very surprised if WWE aren’t getting anything out of letting Brock fight. The reason I say this is because I believe, from a business perspective, that WWE have a lot more to lose from this than UFC.

However, UFC have hardly any trouble at all in building up stars as opposed to WWE. If Brock beats Mark Hunt and leaves, it’s not that much of a business tragedy. On the other hand, WWE have not generated a legitimate wrestling superstar in nearly ten years. They’ve never been able to develop a hugely socially-relevant larger-than-life WWE superstar since John Cena a decade ago. If Brock Lesnar loses this fight, it’s going to be very difficult for WWE to promote Brock for future programs. If Brock Lesnar loses this fight, Paul Heyman has to sell on the microphone that Brock is still an unbeatable badass when he just lost a legitimate fight. If Brock Lesnar loses this fight, the WWE are going to look so inferior in comparison to UFC.

Even though he officially called it a day on his UFC career in March 2015, Brock still thought that the issues with his health really did prevent Brock from achieving his full potential in the octagon. Brock said: “I felt robbed by diverticulitis. I felt robbed by being sick. I was feeling good and it took me a couple years to start feeling good. I’m at home, I’m working out, my life is great, everything’s in tune, my contract’s coming to an end with WWE, hey it’s been a great time but something’s missing.”

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For UFC, you get another big fight as part of the UFC 200 event that they’ve been building towards in the last few years. They tried to get every big fighter they could for this huge event, similarly to their UFC 100 event which, ironically, featured Brock Lesnar in the main event. Whether Brock Lesnar wins or loses, UFC get the box-office draw of Brock Lesnar. He was the biggest MMA draw when he was last with the UFC. Even in WWE, he has been the biggest draw on the WWE Network with his Network-Exclusive events gaining a lot of interest. Not only are UFC getting this dude, but the ball’s in their court whether Brock wins the fight or not. In their mind, it doesn’t matter if Brock wins the fight or not. Unless UFC have it in the back of their mind to do another fight with Brock down the road, they’ve got nothing to lose with this situation.

Now if Brock beats a top UFC star like Mark Hunt, maybe it’s detrimental in the sense that you’ve just fed a star or maybe the next big thing against… the next big thing. If Brock wins and leaves, there’s no way for that fighter to get his win back and a lot of work would need to be done in order to re-build his reputation.

The news was actually broken by MMA reporter Ariel Helwani, who was quickly banned for life from attending future UFC events as a certified media member for leaking the news about Brock. UFC lifted the ban on Monday, by releasing this statement.

“Following a conversation with the editorial team at SB Nation, UFC will not prevent MMAFighting.com from receiving media credentials to cover live UFC events. We respect the role the media plays in our sport and beyond, including MMAFighting’s ability to report news. However, in our opinion, we believe the recurring tactics used by its lead reporter extended beyond the purpose of journalism. We feel confident our position has now been adequately communicated to the SB Nation editorial team.

“UFC’s goal as the world’s leading mixed martial arts promotion is to cultivate interest in its world-class athletes and events, and deliver for the fans. We will continue to introduce this sport and its athletes to new fans across the world, and we will do so by working alongside media across all platforms.”

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That about covers everything that we know at the moment about Brock. I’m sure in the next month that a lot more will come out of this. What do you guys think? Do you think Brock will win? Do you think this will be the first of many fights from Brock? Tweet the @ArmbarExpress Twitter account or leave a comment to share your thoughts.

The Armbar Express

The Armbar Express rolls in with regular wrestling retro reviews, fantasy booking and much more.

Tag Archives: PPV

RETRO EXPRESS: WWF MONDAY NIGHT RAW (FEBRUARY 24TH 1997) – ECW INVADES MONDAY NIGHT RAW

RETRO EXPRESS: WCW SUPERBRAWL 1997 (FEBRUARY 23RD 1997)

RETRO EXPRESS: NWO SOULED OUT 1997 (JANUARY 26TH 1997)

RETRO EXPRESS: WCW STARRCADE 1996 (DECEMBER 29TH 1996)

RETRO EXPRESS: THE RETURN OF BROCK LESNAR #4 – BROCK LESNAR VS. TRIPLE H III (EXTREME RULES 2013)

RETRO EXPRESS: The Return of Brock Lesnar #1 – Brock Lesnar vs. John Cena (Extreme Rules 2012)

RETRO EXPRESS: WCW NITRO #63 (NOVEMBER 25TH 1996) – BAGWELL JOINS THE NWO AND A NEW US TITLE TOURNAMENT BEGINS

RETRO EXPRESS: WCW FALL BRAWL 1996 (SEPTEMBER 15TH 1996)

RETRO EXPRESS: WCW UNCENSORED 1996 (MARCH 24TH 1996)

WWE’s Brock Lesnar To Fight Mark Hunt At UFC 200

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