caley Posted May 6 Posted May 6 On 1/25/2025 at 12:03 AM, SirSmUgly said: The lighting person damn near drops a light on Jeff Jarrett as Jarrett walks down a hallway…A WCW tech tracks down the forklift that he’s been looking for and drives it away from in front of Booker’s door… (Yes I am just now getting caught up in This thread) This made me laugh really hard -the light part- and kind of encapsulates late-era WCW 1
SirSmUgly Posted May 6 Author Posted May 6 On 4/27/2025 at 11:51 AM, twiztor said: Late stage WCW is known for dropped angles. Were there any that Back around to this: Curt Hennig never bothering to get his revenge on the nWo after being kicked out The little person in the Scream mask attacking random people backstage in the Russo-Ferrara Era The lights going out and someone attacking people in the ring in the RFE Vampiro probably would have benefited from having that Saturn feud he was going to have based around who wore their corset the prettiest, too. His WCW run was stop-start for a long time.
zendragon Posted May 6 Posted May 6 (edited) Some quick thoughts on Greed Kid Romeo, Jason Jett, Kwee Wee, Helms and Skipper would have been good mainstays in a future CW division and I think all of them (minus Helms who had a very surprisingly long WWE run) pop up in TNA's X Division at some point. Also a lot of fun facials and character work in the opener making it not just a workrate sprint which I really appreciated. Even the stuff with Rick Steiner, Konnan and Morrus didn't outright suck (helps that they had Storm, Awesome and Booker to work with) Bam Bam v MEAT wasn't great but it only went 6 minutes so it was ok Cat v Konnan was some fun "sports entertainment" style wrestling as was the Dusty Flair segments of their match (also as expected Dustin and Jarrett looked great together) I have to say DDP had some life left in him as a main eventer. I was thinking maybe have him and Nash anchor that tag division as two aging veterans but he could be plugged in anywhere on the card it seems in a hypothetical 2000's WCW. Overall this PPV gets two thumbs up Edited May 6 by zendragon 1
caley Posted May 7 Posted May 7 On 1/29/2025 at 11:49 PM, SirSmUgly said: ..Dave wants Buff to take a DNA test, and Buff bops the doctor with his mic to get out of it Ah Russo finally gets to the zenith of daytime talk tv (which he is clearly obsessed with, how many hours of Jerry Springer must've have watched!), the Maury paternity test! As an aside, I found someone on YouTube who has uploaded nearly every episode of The Soup from 2007-2009 and it is STAGGERING just how much bottom-of-the-barrel reality tv there was (Cheaters, Stag Party, Tool Academy, Operation Repo (the latter of which I will cop to being a fan of for a bit!)). And I just wonder how much awful reality tv Russo must have cribbed from around this period of he was still booking (or was he still with TNA?!). 1
SirSmUgly Posted May 7 Author Posted May 7 18 hours ago, zendragon said: Some quick thoughts on Greed Kid Romeo, Jason Jett, Kwee Wee, Helms and Skipper would have been good mainstays in a future CW division and I think all of them (minus Helms who had a very surprisingly long WWE run) pop up in TNA's X Division at some point. Also a lot of fun facials and character work in the opener making it not just a workrate sprint which I really appreciated. Even the stuff with Rick Steiner, Konnan and Morrus didn't outright suck (helps that they had Storm, Awesome and Booker to work with) Bam Bam v MEAT wasn't great but it only went 6 minutes so it was ok Cat v Konnan was some fun "sports entertainment" style wrestling as was the Dusty Flair segments of their match (also as expected Dustin and Jarrett looked great together) I have to say DDP had some life left in him as a main eventer. I was thinking maybe have him and Nash anchor that tag division as two aging veterans but he could be plugged in anywhere on the card it seems in a hypothetical 2000's WCW. Overall this PPV gets two thumbs up I'm generally aligned with you on this. Dusty/Dustin vs. Flair/Jarrett was the perfect way to use all those workers for that match in front of that crowd. 34 minutes ago, caley said: Ah Russo finally gets to the zenith of daytime talk tv (which he is clearly obsessed with, how many hours of Jerry Springer must've have watched!), the Maury paternity test! As an aside, I found someone on YouTube who has uploaded nearly every episode of The Soup from 2007-2009 and it is STAGGERING just how much bottom-of-the-barrel reality tv there was (Cheaters, Stag Party, Tool Academy, Operation Repo (the latter of which I will cop to being a fan of for a bit!)). And I just wonder how much awful reality tv Russo must have cribbed from around this period of he was still booking (or was he still with TNA?!). Maybe the Nitro book is the source that covers this, but it's on record that he and Ed Ferrara mainlined that stuff while writing shows for the WWF. 1
caley Posted May 7 Posted May 7 1 hour ago, SirSmUgly said: I'm generally aligned with you on this. Dusty/Dustin vs. Flair/Jarrett was the perfect way to use all those workers for that match in front of that crowd. Maybe the Nitro book is the source that covers this, but it's on record that he and Ed Ferrara mainlined that stuff while writing shows for the WWF. It definitely shows, what with groups like The Oddities and all. Not that I would bestow this task upon my greatest enemy, nor that it may even be feasible, but it would probably be interesting to see how many plotlines/dialogue were lifted directly from 'Jerry Springer'. Given the perceived (or deserved) low-brow nature of both outlets, I can't imagine either side would be terribly concerned with the lifting of content or willing (Able?) to pursue it in court. You know, I should really read that Nitro book... 1
zendragon Posted May 9 Posted May 9 So I decided to watch the first TNA PPV to compare and contrast with the last WCW PPV... The first thing we see is Don West and Ed Ferrra looking like Al Jorgenson on vacation. i swear between the deaths of Don West, Jimmy Buffet, and The guy from Smash Mouth the Hawaiian shirt industry is unlikely to ever recover, then we get Jackie Fargo and a long promo segment to open the show. Is that still a thing on RAW? Would have made more sense to me to start the show with a HOT CRUISERWEIGHT OPENER of Jerry Lynn, Low Ki, and AJ Styles vs The Flying Elvi (Jimmy Yang, Sonny Siaki, Jorge Estrada) feels like the gimmick is more of Russo feeling the need to mock minorities, we get a short "midget match" which seems like a less than great way to use TV time on your debut show. As a wise man once said "it says wraslin on the marquee, it don't say midget beating off in a garbage can" the next two matches are Psicosis and James Storm vs The Johnsons which where literally wrestling penis's. Technically solid match but mostly just an excuse for the announcers to make dick jokes. Then you get York and Mathews vs The Dupps. both ex-ECW teams, Mathews would go on to success as half of MNM and Stan Dupp found success as Trevor Murdoch, Solid match but the Dupp's gimmick feels very retro grade and an excuse to mock southerners which is odd as NWA-TNA was trying to be the successor to WCW/NWA traditional southern wrestling. The main event is a twenty man battle royale featuring ex-WWF, WCW guys who didn't get picked up in the sale and an assortment indy talent. Kind of an interesting time capsule. Ken Samrock wins which feels like who Sam Mushnick would have voted for as NWA champ back in the day. The highlight of the match was I kid you not TOBY KEITH hitting a textbook vertical suplex on Jeff Jarrett (JJ attacked Keith earlier in the show) and then tossing him with Scott Hall. An actual good use of a celebrity in wrestling. The low point was an akward segment where West and Ferrara previewed the lingerie battle royale (how this fits in with the We Respect Tradition ethos espoused through the show is beyond me) and a segment between a couple of Nascar drivers and Ron Killing that had some unfortunate racial overtones, with one of the drivers saying Ron doesn't look like an athlete then Culture Vulture Brian Christopher jumps Killings. Show ends with Ed Ferrara who'd been doing a broke mans Lawler/Mark Madden impersonation all show dropping an R Bomb making a special olympics joke (that he pretty much botches anyway) This felt like they took most of the talent from 2001 WCW but with the creative of the Russo/Ferrara era, as the saying goes "you only get one chance to make a first impression" 2
twiztor Posted May 9 Posted May 9 6 hours ago, zendragon said: So I decided to watch the first TNA PPV to compare and contrast with the last WCW PPV... This felt like they took most of the talent from 2001 WCW but with the creative of the Russo/Ferrara era, as the saying goes "you only get one chance to make a first impression" AEW had already started when i got around to watching these earliest TNA shows. My takeaway was that TNA is what Russo-WCW would look like had it continued. AEW was more of a modern day continuation of JCP. That doesn't remotely hold up anymore, but which legends were shown and how they were featured gave me that impression. that first show (and really the first 6 months) are just a mess. Very little consistency in the roster. Match quality is all over the place. The reliance on the more sideshow aspects (the aforementioned midgets, wrestling genitalia, and WOMEN IN CAGES) is utterly ridiculous. The following 4ish months are Russo unfettered and it is the most awful run of a show i have ever seen. But by mid 2003 it becomes pretty watchable, and in early 2004 starts being legitimately good. 6 hours ago, zendragon said: Would have made more sense to me to start the show with a HOT CRUISERWEIGHT OPENER of Jerry Lynn, Low Ki, and AJ Styles vs The Flying Elvi (Jimmy Yang, Sonny Siaki, Jorge Estrada) i think you mean HOT X-DIVISION OPENER. Because this is not about WEIGHT LIMITS, it's about NO LIMITS! sorry, had to say it. I'm in late 2007 now and i gotta say, i'm surprised that "WE KNOW WHO THAT IS" hasn't been as egregious as its reputation would have you believe. But also Rellik (did you know that's KILLER backwards?) hasn't debuted yet, so i still have that whole thing in front of me. 2
Curt McGirt Posted May 9 Posted May 9 I think the funniest part is that they drug out Jackie Fargo who hadn't been a known face since the 1970s for a pop. 2
zendragon Posted May 9 Posted May 9 4 hours ago, twiztor said: AEW had already started when i got around to watching these earliest TNA shows. My takeaway was that TNA is what Russo-WCW would look like had it continued. AEW was more of a modern day continuation of JCP. That doesn't remotely hold up anymore, but which legends were shown and how they were featured gave me that impression. that first show (and really the first 6 months) are just a mess. Very little consistency in the roster. Match quality is all over the place. The reliance on the more sideshow aspects (the aforementioned midgets, wrestling genitalia, and WOMEN IN CAGES) is utterly ridiculous. The following 4ish months are Russo unfettered and it is the most awful run of a show i have ever seen. But by mid 2003 it becomes pretty watchable, and in early 2004 starts being legitimately good. i think you mean HOT X-DIVISION OPENER. Because this is not about WEIGHT LIMITS, it's about NO LIMITS! sorry, had to say it. I'm in late 2007 now and i gotta say, i'm surprised that "WE KNOW WHO THAT IS" hasn't been as egregious as its reputation would have you believe. But also Rellik (did you know that's KILLER backwards?) hasn't debuted yet, so i still have that whole thing in front of me. Jerry Jarrett wrote a book about year one TNA and goes into a good bit of detail about his issues with Russo. My review is in the book thread 1
SirSmUgly Posted May 9 Author Posted May 9 (edited) Halloween Havoc ‘95 notes: Link to go-home Nitro review: http://deathvalleydriver.com/forum/index.php?/topic/9193-smelly-watches-every-nitro-era-nitro-thunder-clash-and-ppv-while-sitting-and-sometimes-maybe-standing/#findComment-1108332 Halloween Havoc is one of my favorite PPVs in general. It’s one of those shows where the aesthetic was always cool even when the wrestling wasn’t. We’re in Detroit for this edition of Havoc, where something something monster truck battle, something something mummy humping, if my memory recalls correctly. In fact, we cut to the monster trucks revving in a circle on top of the former home of the Detroit Pistons, Cobo Hall. During the show's intro at the commentary desk, Bobby Heenan mentions Friends, which formed the naming convention for the Nitro review titles even though I’ve never sat and watched one full episode of that show all the way through, as a way to talk about Sting getting suckered in by Ric Flair again. Well, not completely suckered in. He knew that he was getting suckered in. It’s just that the little Stingers who were too young to remember the late ‘80s and early ‘90s didn’t know it and begged him to help Ric Flair out. (As an aside, not only is Friends an important pop cultural relic of the 1990s, but it also seems to have taught almost every South Korean kid under 25 a large chunk of their colloquial and conversational English. I suppose that the withering humor in Seinfeld probably isn’t as friendly and wouldn’t translate as well in international syndication. Speaking of, Seinfeld’s naming convention for its episodes was a bit too simple, which is why I chose to jump forward into the next decade and instead use It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’s naming convention for my Thunder review titles. Poor, misbegotten, somewhat dysfunctional Thunder. How much I mostly kinda liked you!) Hype video: Diamond Dallas Page gave Johnny B. Badd FOUR FLAT TIRRRRRRRRRRES, which in my headcanon is a trick that Page picked up from a heel locker room conversation with his buddy Paul Orndorff after hearing Orndorff’s stories from Mid-South. This caused Badd to miss his U.S. Championship shot against Sting that he won from Pillman. At least Badd can console himself by trying to lift the WCW World Television Championship off of Diamond Dallas Page tonight! I liked this feud a lot. I’m not saying that it should be on a Best Feuds list, but I quite enjoyed it. This is going to be a good opener almost certainly. Page and Badd are both good and have chemistry with one another. Hey, it’s Kimberly! Oh, and the champion DDP (w/Max Muscle, but forget that guy, the point is that he’s also w/Kimberly). Page has stolen the Badd Blaster at this point; he fires it off and generally acts hubristically. Badd has someone dress up as him and walk down the ramp so that he can enter from the crowd and commence with the asskickery. Yep, this is good. Page is taking bumps over the corner strut and Badd is landing offense with some energy. They have an energetic little crowd brawl that Badd dominates. They move back over the railing, where Badd puts a bucket over Page’s head and claps it; Page stumbles right into the post and CLANGs his bucket-wearing head into it. I dig that Page’s scumbag heeling is being turned back. They do a great Looney Tunes routine spot early on. Page yanks Badd’s hair twice to keep him from reversing an arm wringer, so Badd eventually does the same to Page to help leverage into an arm bar of his own. Page: OWWWWWW, HE’S PULLIN’ MY HAIIIIIIIR. Nick Patrick is hilarious, too, sternly telling both of them not to pull each other’s hair. Badd, still irritated at getting his hair pulled, responds with a LIKE THIS? and yanks back on Page’s hair again. Page whine-cries, then grabs at Patrick’s shirt. Patrick, getting as irritated with Page as Badd already is: “You better get off my shirt or you’re OUTTA HERE!” I loved that spot. It ruled. More heel wrestlers should watch Looney Tunes shorts and incorporate some Bugs/Daffy or Bugs/Elmer exchanges into their work. Page finally gets a bit of space by landing a Snake Eyes counter to Badd’s corner punches; Page calls for a ‘10’ from Kim, but she only fakes like she’s going to hold up the card until Page turns away. Page then derisively calls Badd a WOMAN, which probably explains why Kimberly is becoming as irritated with Page as Badd and Patrick are. About the only person who seems to actually like Page at this point is Max Muscle. Page hits a back suplex and finally gets Kim to hold up the ’10,” but she looks displeased as she follows that order. A Page pancake gets only two, so Page goes to the chinlock. He goes to the hair again when Badd tries to fight up from it and covers for two. Page gets in Patrick’s face, then begs off when Patrick is basically like You better get on outta here, fool. Page goes to the chinlock again, then tries an arm drag that gets reversed into a backslide for two. Guess what happens next? I know you can. Page covers for two off the lariat that he threw after kicking out of the babyface’s flash pinfall attempt, then blocks a sunset flip with a punch. He then casually sits down to make a cover and allows Badd to reverse the lazy pinfall attempt for two. Page gets back on top with a powerslam that gets two more and then receives Max Muscle’s help to win a lockup. None of his pinfall attempts seem to be working, so he decides to pull a Jim Duggan and use some tape to choke out Badd; Muscle, who Page directed to distract the ref beforehand, does a fine job of it. Kim stands at ringside wondering why she puts up with Page, doing so very broadly and by using huge facial expressions. Badd avoids some Max Muscle interference on another lockup and lands a back suplex on Page, but he’s taken quite a lot of punishment, so DDP is back to his feet first. Still, Badd fights back with a left to the gut and a leg sweep. Page tries to reassert control over the match with punches, but he whiffs when Badd ducks; Badd follows with a set of atomic drops and a slew of punches. DDP reverses a whip, but Badd hits a headscissors, then quickly goes up and lands a double axehandle. He asks Kim for a ‘10’ and gets it, but all his stalling to be awarded that ‘10’ delays his cover, and he only gets two. The challenger starts to pour it on, landing a sitout powerbomb for two, but Page counters his way into a leaping DDT – the Diamond Dream – on a rope run. He crawls over and covers Badd, but earns yet another two count. Page looks for a Diamond Cutter, but Badd blocks it by hooking the top rope. Badd attempts a lateral press, gets two, and then spills to the floor with Page before getting back in the ring and diving onto Page and Muscle. Badd puts Page back in the ring and lands a slingshot splash for two. Muscle tries to stop Badd from uncorking a Kiss That Don’t Miss, which he manages to do, but Page’s follow up attack whiffs; Page is then dropkicked into Muscle. Muscle tries to get involved again, but he clubs Page instead of Badd when Badd ducks. Badd fires a Kiss at Muscle that squarely lands, then turns around and covers Page for three and the title in a fun match that I wrote more about than I expected to when it started. DDP getting his comeuppance was satisfying. I still think all the derision from the online fans that he used to get in the late ‘90s is weird and unwarranted. This monster truck battle nonsense does nothing for me, and I’m a black West Coast libby-lib cosmopolitan dude who thinks that Grave Digger is dope as hell and should be seen as the king of all monster trucks. Zodiac walks out to Rey Misterio Jr.’s future theme, which I think I said at one point in this thread was a Jimmy Hart/Howard Helm special instead of the catalog track that it actually is. My wife just played an interesting video about all those catalog track albums made in the 1960s and 1970s that made me want to track down some of those old albums. The old school Monday Night Football theme (NFL, not Premier League, for any across-the-ponders reading this) might be the greatest catalog track ever made. Anyway, I should correct that when I finally make final edits. Also, this theme is completely lost on a goon like Ed Leslie. Macho Man Randy Savage is Zodiac’s opponent, and if Savage wins this match and Lex Luger wins his later match on this show, Savage and Luger will wrestle one another tonight as well. Savage is entertaining, so this brief match is fine. Also, a kid who looks like Jungle Boy jumps in the ring and is escorted out by security while Savage just works right past him, tossing Zodiac to the floor to give security time to corral the kid. Kamala was supposed to be in Zodiac's spot, but he left the company, so Heenan claims that the Mississippian Ugandan Giant was scared of Savage and thus was ousted from the Dungeon of Doom by Kevin Sullivan. Savage drops an elbow for three in short order. Gene Okerlund is chilling in the locker room and peddling rumors; this particular one is about Jimmy Hart talking to one of his former charges in the WWF. He then interviews new TV champ Johnny B. Badd. Badd believes in himself, and he wants the kids at home to believe in themselves too! Badd tries to step out, but Gene needs to stretch, so Badd comes back and helps him out. It’s all charming stuff. Badd is sorta goofy, sorta corny, but so heartfelt that I can’t help but root for him. Road Warrior Hawk versus Kurosawa (w/Colonel Rob Parker) sounds like a WCWSN special, and it doesn’t elevate things even considering that Kurosawa hit a Penta-style arm breaker on Hawk at the previous Clash to spark this mini-feud. Hawk at least opens with some energetic clubbering, but this really isn’t a PPV-appropriate match. It’s entirely forgettable fare. Kurosawa tries to drop a Savage Elbow, but he’s not Savage, so it doesn’t work out for him. Hawk lands a lariat on Col. Parker (Tony S., humorously: “He’s a-quiverin’!”), but that allows Kurosawa to get the drop on him back in the ring. Kurosawa scores a Samoan Drop, then uses the ropes and Col. Parker for leverage and gets three. Yeah, this could have been on Nitro. Or SN. Or Worldwide. In the back, Gene Okerlund interviews an antsy Randy Savage. Then again, when is Savage not antsy? Savage asserts the AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION in the previous match was because he just amps up the madness of the crowd by always existing within the madness himself. He promises that he can beat Hulk Hogan for the title if it comes down to that (untrue, sadly) and then informs Okerlund as to the following: YOUR MUSTACHE IS CROOKED! Okerlund basically replies that Savage’s barber failed to line up his beard (Savage: THAT’S OKAY). Pro wrestling needs its entertaining nutbars with tons of nervous energy like Randy Savage. Savage claims that he’s going to make sure that Luger gets past Meng later tonight so that he can meet Luger later on. Then, Savage drops one of his famous post-peak lines after Gene asks him how he feels about the monster truck deali-o that I don’t care about because Taurus and Kodiak are nowhere to be seen: MY CURIOSITY IS KILLIN’ ME JUST LIKE A CAT WOULD BE KILLED BY THE CURIOSITY! Randy Savage is co-holder of the “Smugs’s favorite wrestler[s] ever” title along with Bret Hart and forever will be as far as I’m concerned. Savage ends this interview segment with another line that should be about as famous as the previous one – MACHINE VERSUS MACHINE AND MAN VERSUS MAN, DOUBLED AND TRIPLED BY THE EXPOSURE OF THE WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP – and please just let this guy talk forever when he gets in this sort of groove. WCW should have found the money to pay him in 2000, maybe see if he’d be fine going back to color or something. Yes, I know, the shambling corpse of what was once Turner wanted to offload the company, but even so. Mr. J.L. and Sabu (w/the Sheik) come to the ring, and wait just a minute, this match will involve maybe a fireball or something of that nature that maybe Sabu claimed to have cost him a WCW contract. We talked about this early in this review thread at some point. Anyway, Sabu is the king of charming uniquities. He dives onto everyone, including the Sheik at ringside, and J.L. dives onto him, and everyone dives onto everyone. It all feels slightly out of control rather than super-choreographed like a lot of these dive spots tend to feel. Both guys bump like bumping is going out of style. The crowd is pretty subdued for two guys basically pretending to have a match in a bouncy castle. At the point where Sabu hits a super sunset flip, I’ve decided that this is going on a good list. Which one, I’m not sure yet. J.L. dropkicks Sabu from the top to the floor, but Sabu comes back with a springboard moonsault for three. That gets a pop. The Sheik hits J.L. with the flash paper fireball for good measure; the crowd is impressed. The Sheik waves around a scimitar. This ruled on the face of the work rather than being bad but strangely entertaining. Fun as hell. WCW should have used the ECW guys they brought in better, from Sabu and Jerry Lynn to Saturn, Raven and Hak. They’re consistently some of the most fun guys on these shows, especially from 1998 on when the TV becomes largely a slog until it finally picks up in 2001. King Curtis Iaukea and Kevin Sullivan do a whole live dealymabobber that sucks. King Curtis: SULLIVAN, MY SON. THE MOON HAS FALL [sic] OVER DETROIT, MICHIGAN. THE STARS, SULLIVAN, ARE LINED UP, AND THE GREAT MILKY WAY IS READY FOR YOU, MY SON. IN TOKYO, JAPAN; IN PEKING, CHINA; IT’S THE START OF ANOTHER DAY. THEY SAY SULLIVAN, MY SON, THAT THERE WILL BE A TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE SUN TODAY AROUND THE WORLD. BECAUSE, SULLIVAN, WE ARE HERE, RIGHT HERE AND NOW, AND TONIGHT, YOU WILL WALK UPON THE GALAXIES BECAUSE WITH YOUR GIANT AND THE INSURANCE OF THE YETAYYYYYY, YOU WILL DESTROY HULKAMANIA AROUND THE GLOBE. Yo, King Curtis Iaukea is a legend, but fuck off with all this. Sullivan adds his two cents. Fuck, okay, I’ll also write it verbatim: HOGAN, IN DETROIT, WE BROUGHT THE INSURANCE POLICY. IT IS WRITTEN FROM THE BONES OF BANARAS: A GIANT SHALL LEAD US THROUGH THE NEXT CENTURY. HOGAN, WHEN YOU PUT ON THE BLACK, THE EVIL THAT LIES INSIDE OF YOU IS NOW OUT OF CONTROL. THE MONSTER TRUCK, THERE’S NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT THAT. WHEN IT’S [inaudible], THE DUNGEON OF DOOM TRUCK’S THE STRONGEST OF THEM ALL. AND HOGAN, YOU DON’T HAVE A FRIEND IN THE UNIVERSE: STING, LUGER, AND SAVAGE ARE ALL VULTURES, CLICKING AT YOUR HEELS. TONIGHT, HULK HOGAN, DETROIT, LIGHTNING DOES NOT STRIKE TWICE IN THIS UNIVERSE. I bet that reading this promo, you might be thinking, Hey, that’s all kinda funny in a goofy way. Maybe so, but watching it was a terrible experience. Actually, even the stuff from this feud that people think is funny in a goofy way (THERE’S NO HULKAMANIACS HERE) is actually awful to sit through as part of this long-running piece of shit feud that is complete garbage and belongs in the WWF where at least Vince McMahon Jr. can make this sort of fucking bullshit at least somewhat interesting based on how he got the Undertaker improbably over and then also got Kane improbably over. Also, how do vultures click at one’s heels? First, the phrase is that one would be nipping at another's heels, but the correct metaphor that Sullivan was likely reaching for was buzzards circling overhead (even though that doesn't quite work in this instance, either). I also have no idea why in kayfabe, these mystical weirdos are like, WE THINK MONSTER TRUCKS ARE COOL. Eric Bischoff’s love of white Midwestern Boomer interests like Harleys and monster trucks does fit with WCW – these things generally align with the white Southerner Boomer interests of both Hulk Hogan specifically and a large part of the traditional WCW audience in general – but they don’t fit into places where they don’t make sense, like in the nWo or within an evil mystical cult that is trying to destroy a babyface! This was absolutely dirt worst level stuff here. Your mileage may well vary. Hulk Hogan vs. the Dungeon of Doom is also officially making an appearance on my Worst Feuds list. On the other hand, Tony S.’s pronunciation of THE YETAYYYYY's name is fantastic. I love it. All this hype for Reese in Ace wrap. Hulk Hogan, Jimmy Hart, and some ham ‘n eggers give away a chopper to a young winner and his very young-looking fiancée. This isn’t as good as when Randy Savage cuts a promotional promo. It’s pretty shitty, actually, but after the previous segment, I can’t get too annoyed with it. It’s too long, but that’s obvious considering a) it's promotional and b) Hogan is involved. Promo: The first World War 3 is lined up for our next PPV review! Heenan cuts a promo on the socioeconomic status of the chopper winner, but loses track of what he’s trying to say and sounds like a doofus. Meng (w/Kevin Sullivan) hooks it up with Lex Luger next; he’s beaten Luger already (Nitro Show #4) in what was a well-booked match tied to equally well-booked interlocking segments. Luger bumrushes Meng and bonks his head into the corner. It works?! Wow, so much for racial and ethnic stereotypes in pro wrestling! Anyway, this match is not as good as I remember that Nitro one being. There’s a struggle catapult spot in here, for one. I do like Meng trying to small package his way out of dodge, but for the most part, this is merely watchable enough. I don’t know; I’m probably underselling things. Both guys work hard. Meng finally gets Luger in a bit of trouble after Luger misses a corner charge and can’t manage to score a back suplex shortly after; Meng’s very ponderous beatdown (complete with super-long chinlock) doesn’t score a victory. I mean, why is this match so long? The Nitro bout was in and out in about five minutes, and it was good. This feels like quite the stretch for time. Again, both guys work hard, but Meng’s control segment is double the time that it needed to be. Luger makes a comeback with clotheslines and a power slam, then signals for the Torture Rack. Meng loads his hand and spikes Luger in the throat when Luger turns around to grab him, but Sullivan gets Meng disqualified on purpose by hopping in and stomping Luger because he wants to further advance the split betwen Luger and Savage. Meng is understandably pissed because he wants to go to the PAY WINDAH. The finish makes logical senses, but it bewildered the live crowd. I could write “that finish bewildered the live crowd’ about approximately 68.7% of all WCW finishes. Trust me. I’ve done the arithmetic. The Giant (in racing outfit) cuts an interview with Gene Okerlund in which he addresses Hulk Hogan and hypes their upcoming monster truck battle. Paul Wight should get more credit for overcoming the shitty booking and somewhat questionable presentation that WCW creative gave him early on. Okerlund sells a hand injury after the Giant grabs the mic while Gene’s hand is still holding it. The Four Horsemen are going to hornswoggle (not Hornswoggle) Sting yet again. In Sting’s defense, as I mentioned before, he sees the hornswogglin’ a-comin’ and has threatened Ric Flair with continued violence upon his person if and when said hornswogglin' happens. Brian Pillman and Arn Anderson wrestle a lone Sting as Ric Flair is faking an injury that he will soon un-fake so that he can beat up Sting after Sting wrestles a virtual handicap match against Pillman and Arn. The crowd chants for Flair during the match. Oh, you sweet summer children, you shall certainly have him. Sting’s explosive offense and the pinballing of the heels is enjoyable in the early going. I love that Arn and Pillman are glad to look like total doofuses, having their double-team attacks foiled, wobbling around like drunks who have been battered in the head with clubs for Sting’s punches. Sting actually takes most of this before Flair gets down here and steps onto the apron, mostly so he can watch Sting get his ass kicked up close. Sting escapes Pillman’s clutches, but can’t quite make a hot tag before Arn hits him with a back suplex. Sting tries to make another tag, but Pillman runs over and “distracts” Flair, who jumps off the apron and chases Pillman around the ring instead of making the hot tag. I was going to say that this match was good, as odd as it was, but I think it’s good in spite of the oddness. Essentially, it’s a proper tag match with a heel turn except that Sting took the whole opening shine for himself. The heels timing of their cutoffs is excellent. Sting is in an Indian deathlock, screaming for NAITCH; Flair stands on the apron and encourages Sting by yelling STAND TALL; I’M HERE, BUDDY! STAND TALL! Sting uses the positive talk to spur himself to crawl toward Flair while still in the deathlock. That was magnificent. The crowd desperately wants to explode by the time Flair gets a tag. Even though we all know exactly what’s coming, both at the time and on re-watch in the future, they still reeled us in. I can’t credit the competitors in this match enough for that. So, Flair hops in, the crowd explodes, and then Flair nails Sting with a right to the jaw. About twenty percent of the crowd pops happily because they want the Horsemen to re-form. The other eighty percent sort of collectively moans because they were suckered again. Sting fights back, irritated once more that Flair has fucked him over, but the numbers game gets to him. What a near-perfect bit of pro wrestling this was. Okerlund shills the WCW Hotline; we get video of Mike Tenay and Road Warrior Hawk pretending to have animated conversations while on the phone. That gives the Horsemen time to make their way down the ramp and cut a quick promo using Okerlund’s mic. Approximately one-fifth of the crowd in Joe Louis Arena are thrilled by their declaration that The Horsemen are back, baby, and y'all aren't going to like what comes of that. Sabu/J.L. and that previous tag match are both on the same Very Good/Sometimes Pretty Great Matches list of mine, which really illustrates the range of matches that live together on that list. I feel like this list is almost a bit too rangy, but I’m definitely not interested in splitting it up into more specific lists or anything like that. A point in favor of the range of matches on the list is that at least there'd be quite a bit of variety if a viewer set the playlist to shuffle. Lex Luger talks to Mike Tenay in the back about his upcoming match with Randy Savage. He seems to be as confused by the finish of his match with Meng as the crowd was, by the way. Recap: After Heenan cuts a promo on Hulk Hogan at the desk, we get a recap of this goofy Hogan/Giant feud so far. It’s a long promo. The monster trucks morph into the men they represent at one point. It’s dumb. Eric Bischoff has replaced Tony S. when we come back; he introduces a guy named Bob Chandler who talks about the specs of the Hogan monster truck. I don’t care about the specs. I just want to see Dennis Anderson try to leap it over a line of fifteen cars without spilling it. Car talk bores the fuck out of me in any context other than when I am buying a new one. As we go to the roof of Cobo Hall where Hogan and the Giant hear the rules from some dude for this monster truck deal, let me just mosey on over to the Absolute Dirt Worst list and plop this segment on there. I'm thinking that the match will also be placed with it in a joint pairing just for the YETAYYYYYY’s inappropriate dry humping of Hogan. Anyway, watching two trucks slowly shove each other is fucking boring. Monster trucks are fun when they make improbable jumps or race one another or crash (or any combination of those three things). This is not that. As an aside, this segment made me miss Monster Jam. I loved me some Monster Jam. At one point as a kid, Monster Jam and WWF Action Zone came on one after the other on whatever local station aired them at the time, which ruled. This doesn’t rule. After what might have been a couple of decades’ worth of time, the Giant loses the monster truck battle, tries to toss Hogan off the roof, and ends up taking the plunge all the way into the river or the parking lot or maybe a well-supported bit of scaffolding and a crash mat, who knows. Hogan’s acting after he sees this happen is absurd. Then again, the acting of the fellas at the desk makes Hogan’s acting look positively Emmy-worthy. Lex Luger and Randy Savage make their way back to the ring for their special challenge bout. Thankfully, Tony S. is back on commentary. Regrettably, all he and Heenan can seem to discuss is that stupid roof spot. Luger proffers his hand to Savage before the match, but Savage replies with fists to Luger’s noggin. Jimmy Hart walks down to ringside maybe a minute into the proceedings and watches Luger stomp away at Savage. This is another match that, while not bad, is just sort of there. Savage working from underneath is always interesting, but I’m a bit bothered by the match layout because a) Savage worked earlier in the night than Luger did and thus has had more time to recover and b) Savage finished off the Zodiac on a nearly no-damage run, but Luger got his ass kicked by Meng for a long-ass time in his match. The issue is that since Luger is the heel in relation to Savage, Savage ends up eating a bunch of offense as the underneath worker, but that doesn’t fit with what happened in their previous matches. The proceedings are also dampened by Heenan way overselling the trauma of seeing the Giant falling over the side of the building. You saw the segment, Heenan, and it was hokey as fuck. You’re not helping sell it. Hart distracts the ref while Luger tries to steal a leveraged pinfall on Savage, then has Luger clang into him when Savage reverses an Irish whip. Savage quickly goes up and launches a Savage Elbow that lands; he covers and earns the pinfall. This was sort of a bummer. Unnecessary recap: We see the end of that monster truck segment that we just saw like fifteen minutes ago. Heenan’s panicked overacting has me flirting with the idea of putting him on a bad list. The Giant lives! The challenger (w/Kevin Sullivan) makes it to the ring for his WCW World Heavyweight Championship match against Hulk Hogan (w/Jimmy Hart). Hogan walks out first and immediately denies any culpability for the Giant splattering himself because of course he does. Anyway, the Giant should win this cleanly to get the full effect of this stupid-ass “fall off the building” spot, so of course he doesn’t. At the point where I am doing this review (after finishing the main run of the Nitro Era), I was into a half-year's worth of Hogan-less WCW shows. That was not nearly enough time for me to recover from having to watch Hulk Hogan. I hate watching Hulk Hogan wrestle. On the other hand, I enjoy watching the Giant wrestle, so ultimately, this is watchable enough. And let me at least give Hogan a teensy bit of credit for spending most of this match selling an ass whipping. Then again, Hogan breaks out of a long bearhug and runs himself into a chokeslam…and kicks out at two. Fuck off. Hogan lands a body slam and a legdrop, so Jimmy Hart saves his charge by clobbering ref Randy Anderson with the big gold belt before Anderson can make a count. He pretends to then help the ref up, but instead hits Hogan with the belt. This gives the Giant time to recover and also makes space for Kevin Sullivan to get in the ring. The Giant locks Hogan in another weak bearhug while Sullivan throws blows at Hogan and Hart waves for the troops to enter the ring. Luger and Savage run to the ring together, and Reese THE YETAYYYYYYYY shuffles to the ring. Luger jumps Savage rather than help Mach save Hogan; THE YETAYYYYYYY and the Giant put on a Brazzers scene in the middle of the ring. The Giant wins by DQ (since Hart hit the referee and was Hogan’s manager at the time) and leaves with the big gold belt despite Michael Buffer's repeated clarification that the title cannot change hands on a disqualification. Havoc '95 was not a good show overall! However, the stuff that was good on the show was pretty damned good. This is a PPV best watched by cherrypicking the pretty damned good stuff. Link to follow-up Nitro review: http://deathvalleydriver.com/forum/index.php?/topic/9193-smelly-watches-every-nitro-era-nitro-thunder-clash-and-ppv-while-sitting-and-sometimes-maybe-standing/#findComment-1109025 Edited May 12 by SirSmUgly 3
SirSmUgly Posted May 9 Author Posted May 9 13 hours ago, zendragon said: So I decided to watch the first TNA PPV to compare and contrast with the last WCW PPV... The first thing we see is Don West and Ed Ferrra looking like Al Jorgenson on vacation. i swear between the deaths of Don West, Jimmy Buffet, and The guy from Smash Mouth the Hawaiian shirt industry is unlikely to ever recover, then we get Jackie Fargo and a long promo segment to open the show. Is that still a thing on RAW? Would have made more sense to me to start the show with a HOT CRUISERWEIGHT OPENER of Jerry Lynn, Low Ki, and AJ Styles vs The Flying Elvi (Jimmy Yang, Sonny Siaki, Jorge Estrada) feels like the gimmick is more of Russo feeling the need to mock minorities, we get a short "midget match" which seems like a less than great way to use TV time on your debut show. As a wise man once said "it says wraslin on the marquee, it don't say midget beating off in a garbage can" the next two matches are Psicosis and James Storm vs The Johnsons which where literally wrestling penis's. Technically solid match but mostly just an excuse for the announcers to make dick jokes. Then you get York and Mathews vs The Dupps. both ex-ECW teams, Mathews would go on to success as half of MNM and Stan Dupp found success as Trevor Murdoch, Solid match but the Dupp's gimmick feels very retro grade and an excuse to mock southerners which is odd as NWA-TNA was trying to be the successor to WCW/NWA traditional southern wrestling. The main event is a twenty man battle royale featuring ex-WWF, WCW guys who didn't get picked up in the sale and an assortment indy talent. Kind of an interesting time capsule. Ken Samrock wins which feels like who Sam Mushnick would have voted for as NWA champ back in the day. The highlight of the match was I kid you not TOBY KEITH hitting a textbook vertical suplex on Jeff Jarrett (JJ attacked Keith earlier in the show) and then tossing him with Scott Hall. An actual good use of a celebrity in wrestling. The low point was an akward segment where West and Ferrara previewed the lingerie battle royale (how this fits in with the We Respect Tradition ethos espoused through the show is beyond me) and a segment between a couple of Nascar drivers and Ron Killing that had some unfortunate racial overtones, with one of the drivers saying Ron doesn't look like an athlete then Culture Vulture Brian Christopher jumps Killings. Show ends with Ed Ferrara who'd been doing a broke mans Lawler/Mark Madden impersonation all show dropping an R Bomb making a special olympics joke (that he pretty much botches anyway) This felt like they took most of the talent from 2001 WCW but with the creative of the Russo/Ferrara era, as the saying goes "you only get one chance to make a first impression" I wonder if HOT X-DIVISION OPENERS ever became a legitimate thing for TNA. I've watched TNA television, but never all that regularly except for maybe a short time in 2008-ish. Psicosis and James Storm are a WCW-ass WCW random tag team pairing. Ferrara should have stayed off television, but when asked to make television without Russo's influence, he did pretty decently. The problem isn't hiring Ferrara, it's pairing him with Russo instead of with Terry Taylor or someone of that type who can ground the ideas in the writer's room and put together at least semi-consistently solid television. I don't think the last three months of WCW television set the world on fire, but some of it was very good in a way that it hadn't been since 1998 and immediately raised the floor for show quality. Ferrara as a TV personality is the absolute pits, though. Ken Shamrock never quite got the push that he needed to be a huge star, and that's down to his never working WCW. He's perfect for WCW or the NWA. Not so much for WWF or a Russo-fied TNA. Jeff Jarrett learning all the wrong lessons from WCW's demise because Vince Russo and Ed Ferrara tried to make him a main eventer was the death knell for this company's growth, both at the time and now. They'll always be what they are because they established themselves as low-rent late-era WCW in that first impression. And the second impression. And the third impression. And the fourth... 1
zendragon Posted May 9 Posted May 9 (edited) I remember one episode of TNA that started with a shot of Joe Ole kicking someone in the face (Daniels?) right as a live UFC fight night went off the air, That's the hottest opener I can remember HH95 thoughts; there's a story that the giant was supposed to pull a fish out of his singlet to signify that he fell into the river. we have pretty much the same all-time greatest shortlist NFL films and Spongebob Square pants share the same music library I was just listening to the DSOTR podcast episode they did on Kevin Sullivan and he goes into a lot of detail about booking the DOD feud to establish Hogan's confidence in him by having Hogan feud with his old nemesis such as Zeus, Kamala, Earthquake, ect to eventually get him to accept turning heel. He acknowledges it sucked. There's also some interesting comparison to the Hogan NWO turn to Cena's recent turn Edited May 9 by zendragon edited to add thoughts 1
zendragon Posted May 10 Posted May 10 https://x.com/Justin_SofOK/status/1355716823870828548 Only two types of guys where Hawaiian shirts Bears and big fat party animals! 1
SirSmUgly Posted May 12 Author Posted May 12 World War 3 ‘95 notes: Link to go-home Nitro review: http://deathvalleydriver.com/forum/index.php?/topic/9193-smelly-watches-every-nitro-era-nitro-thunder-clash-and-ppv-while-sitting-and-sometimes-maybe-standing/#findComment-1112547 It’s time for the Royal Rumble except somewhat worse! As a quick reminder, the big gold belt is on the line in the World War 3 match because it was held up as a result of the ending of Halloween Havoc’s main event. Hype video to open the show: If I was mind-wiped and was not able to remember actually seeing one of these WW3 battle royals, I’d be pretty excited by the concept. Tony S. and Bobby Heenan once again make up our commentary team, which is fine, but everything’s better with Dusty Rhodes! Tony S. picks Hogan to claim the title; Heenan splits his pick between Randy Savage and the Giant. We’ve got other matches, including a return match from the previous month between Lex Luger and Randy Savage and a Kensuke Sasaki U.S. Championship defense. Silly-ass promo: We cut to Gene Okerlund, who stands with Randy Savage, Sting, and that goof Hulk Hogan. Hogan tears off his black clothing – the subtext is pretty amazing here – and goes back to the red-and-yellow clothing that marks his complete uselessness as a WCW talent. Then, he burns a representation of the Observer because Dave Meltzer prints whatever the hell anyone tells him without actually checking things with multiple sources. Hogan is like MELTZER SAID THAT SAVAGE WAS HURT AND THAT THE GIANT WOULD WIN THE BIG GOLD BELT TONIGHT, BUT SAVAGE IS PHYSICALLY FUNCTIONAL BY THE STANDARDS OF A PRO WRESTLER’S TYPICAL HEALTH AND ALSO WE CHANGED THE FINISH, SO THERE, BROTHER. This was a strange promo. I don’t think anyone at the time thought that Hogan dressing in black and losing his mustache was meaningful or interesting, much less upon rewatch three decades later. They also probably didn't read the sheets! Recap of DDP and Kimberly having relationship issues, part one: Diamond Dallas Page has abused Kimberly one too many times; Kimberly tells him that she’s putting herself up as a prize against Johnny B. Badd’s TV title because she’s feelin’ really unappreciated, he’s takin’ her love for granted, baby, and she doesn’t know how much more she can take from him. She tells Page that he wouldn’t recognize a “10” if it was staring him in the face. Page looks baffled. You could at least bring her breakfast in bed once or twice, you dunce! For the second straight PPV, Diamond Dallas Page (w/Kimberly) and Johnny B. Badd open the show in a contest for the WCW World Television Championship. This time, Kimberly’s got an escape route out of her managerial contract with her unappreciative husband as well since her managerial services are also on the line this month. Page and Badd tangle early; after Page slaps Badd on a break in the corner, they hook up again and tumble to the floor, where things go poorly for Page. He retreats back into the ring and jumps Badd upon re-entry, but Badd scores two on a crossbody and then two more on a Samoan drop. I like the pace here, but Badd goes right into a headlock. I’m a Marc Mero truther. I think he’s a ton of fun and legitimately became a good worker, but he relies on working spots out of headlocks and arm wringers a bit too much. It’s not like he just sits there or anything, and when he’s got a good series of spots (as with the arm wringer/hair pull spots from his DDP match at Havoc ’95), I dig what he’s doing. However, he’s not consistent with being creative out of those spots. They in fact transition from headlocks to arm wringers and do hair pulling spots again, but at lower effectiveness than the previous month (though Page yelling SHUT UP, YOU BIMBO at a Badd fan who is insistently rooting him on from her spot in the crowd was pretty great). Badd gets to his feet and eventually sends Page to the floor before slingshot crossbodying him. DDP’s in trouble, so he gets out of a jam the way a true scumbag would: He sacrifices Kimberly, shoving her right into Badd to spark a transition back into control. The match heads back to the ring, where Page lands a back suplex and then kills a Badd counter-headscissors attempt with a slam. DDP calls for a “10,” but Kim’s still upset about the whole incident where Page shoved her into Badd and won’t give him one. Page in heel control is excellent television, which I think is maybe so obvious that I didn’t even need to write it. I actually think this control segment could have been longer, as we only get a couple of creative and well-timed cutoffs before Badd dives out of the way of a Page corner charge. Page posts himself and then whiffs on a follow-up kick besides. Page does land a right hand, but he blindly ducks down after whipping Badd to the ropes and gets kicked, all of which culminates in a proper babyface comeback. Said comeback is very good, especially Badd avoiding Page’s discus lariat and hitting a nice one of his own. He calls for the “10” after that one and gets a “10+,” which looks more like an ESRB rating than a score, but whatever. Badd follows up with 2.9 off a sit-out powerbomb; the crowd is audibky displeased with the cadence of Nick Patrick’s count and seems to wordlessly vocalize that it should have been slightly swifter. DDP manages to back elbow his way out of trouble; his leveraged pinfall attempt only gets two, and he follows up a tilt-a-whirl side slam with a casual cover that almost gets him counter-backslid for three. Alas, Badd’s reversal only gets two, and Page is up and stomping away at Badd. He shoots Badd in once more and eats a counter headscissors; Badd quickly tries to slingshot splash Page to finish him off (I don’t remember this signature move being called the Badd Mood, but Tony S. names it as such both here and back at Havoc); Page gets knees up, though. A Page struggle gutbuster gets two, and Page manages to stop Badd from gaining anything from a leap behind on a DDP powerbomb attempt by elbowing him. He doesn’t, however, stop Badd from reversing his Tombstone attempt, though Badd only scores a two count after landing it. No matter, though! Badd throws a Kiss That Don’t Miss, knocks Page to the floor, and follows with a seated senton on a wobbling Page for two; he tosses Page back into the ring and follows that up with a slingshot legdrop that earns a three count. That was quite the onslaught of offense to finish Page off there! Kim looks a bit shocked by the result, but she ends up hugging the champ. It gets a surprisingly loud pop out of the crowd, who I think was into these two as an on-screen couple based on some of the reactions they got here and that they got on those Nitros in the aftermath. This match wasn’t as good as the Havoc match, but it was good enough to add to a playlist. Gene Okerlund shills the hotline (The WWF steroid scandal is going to flare back up!) before interviewing Badd and Kim as they walk back up the aisle. Badd respects women, and you should too, kids at home! He even tells Kim that he’s glad to let her go do something else if she prefers because he’s not holding a woman to a contract. Kim appreciates the support, and maybe DDP should have been paying attention here considering what happens with those crazy kids in 2000. Badd plans to add another belt – the biggest, most gold-colored one - to his collection later tonight in the main event. Hacksaw Jim Duggan jumps Big Bubba Rogers in the aisle and batters him with taped fists to start their Taped Fist Match. What I get a kick out of is that he’s also brought the 2x4 with him; it is strapped around his neck with a piece of rope. He plans to use the board on Bubba, who begs off, and you know what Bubba throws nice punches and this match is fine so far. In fact, both men throw a number of punches and engage in lots of ringside brawling. They go from ring to ring. There’s a fun little creative spot where Hacksaw wedges Bubba’s neck between two posts from separate rings and then dislodges him with a punch. At the point that Duggan whiffs on a double axe from the apron to the floor and eats guardrail, I’m generally okay with this bout. It’s not what I typically want to see, but the fans seem to like it, and it’s pretty well worked for what it is. I usually prefer Bubba to Hacksaw, but Hacksaw’s opening shine segment was pretty energetic, and I sorta dug it. When Hacksaw Duggan decides not to simply go through the motions and stick to his tired routine, and when he doesn't insist on taking 70%+ percent of every match he's in, he can be pretty entertaining. At various points in 2000 and 2001, he was a net positive on WCW television, which I think supports my current position on him. Bubba tapes Duggan’s left wrist to the rope, and then they do a spot that looks terrible where Bubba bounces off the ropes and runs headfirst into Duggan’s outstretched right fist. I get what they were going for there, but it looked awful. Duggan manages to backdrop a charging Bubba to the floor as well; the ref unties Hacksaw, and he goes back to work on Bubba. Duggan lands a slam and a lariat, but, aw man, VK Wallstreet walks to ringside holding a chain. Duggan manages to cut Wallstreet off with a 2x4 to the gut, but Wallstreet manages to fling the chain to Bubba, who wraps it around his fist and tees off on Hacksaw’s forehead. That keeps Duggan down for a ten count and earns Bubba Rogers the knockout victory. I wouldn’t quite call this good, but it was easily watchable and had a couple of entertaining spots. Bubba gets the last entertaining spot of the night in, exiting the ring near the commentary table and yelling TELL ‘EM HOW GREAT I AM, BOBBY before stumbling away victoriously. It's back to Gene Okerlund, who interviews Ric Flair. Flair is cavalier about his matchup with the enraged Sting, at least if you ask me. A significant contingent within the Norfolk crowd thinks that Ric Flair kinda rules. Flair is bullish on his chances of winning the big gold belt in the big three-ring battle royal later tonight. A night before they get on my good list because of a Nitro match, Mike Tenay joins the commentary desk to help call Cutie Suzuki and Mayumi Ozaki vs. Bull Nakano and Akira Hokuto (w/Sonny Onoo). The thing I like about Nakano and Hokuto is that they are very mean bullies in the ring. For example, Hokuto deliberately walks Ozaki to the ropes while wrapping her in an abdominal stretch and holds Ozaki’s hand out as near to Suzuki as she can before slapping down Suzuki’s hand herself like the complete dick that she is. The heels beat the crap out of Ozaki, who manages to DDT her way out of trouble and hit a hot tag to Suzuki. Maybe the biggest pop in this match happens when Suzuki manages a half-crab on Hokuto, and when Nakano tries to break that up, Ozaki cuts her off and also half-crabs her. Norfolk was like WHOA, DUAL HALF-CRAB SPOTS RULE, and they’re not wrong! The next time that Suzuki wraps a half-crab on Hokuto, Bull just lariats her off the move. Suzuki and Ozaki get their wires crossed on a team-up attack and hit one another; Bull lands a powerbomb on Suzuki, but whiffs on a moonsault and eats a series of top-rope double stomps, the last of which gets two for Suzuki. The babyfaces are feeling their oats and try a double vertical suplex on Nakano, who blocks and reverses that. A quick tag from Bull to Hokuto bears no fruit, as Hokuto whiffs on her dive. The babyfaces dispatch of Bull for a brief moment and set Hokuto up for a double superplex, but Nakano recovers and drags them from their perches on the second rope by their hair. Bull holds on and stands them up for a Hokuto top-rope crossbody that lands. The heels both shoot the babyfaces into the ropes, and the babyfaces reverse into stereo ranas before landing stereo dives. Ref Pee-Wee Anderson finally clears the illegal women out of the ring; Ozaki and Hokuto are the legal women. They trade nasty suplexes. First, Ozaki hits a bridging half-nelson suplex for two, and right after that, Hokuto dumps Ozaki high on her neck with a German suplex. Nakano tags back in after that and tries to take out both women, who duck her clothesline, but don’t duck Hokuto’s second-rope missile dropkick that takes them both out. They go to the floor, where Nakano holds them in place for Hokuto’s somersault senton from the top. Geez, man, the heels are unloading. Right after that, things go back to the ring where the heels hit Ozaki with a Doomsday Device that again dumps Ozaki on her head. That should be it, honestly. That was a nasty flurry of offense that should wipe anyone out. I think it’s a mistake that Suzuki makes the save at two on the resultant cover. However, the heels dispatch of Suzuki and then set Ozaki up for a fucking guillotine legdrop from Nakano that decidently ends the match, so I'm ultimately fine with the earlier save. That match was extremely fun! Though thinking about things, Ozaki may have sacrificed her spine to entertain me, which is a sobering thought. We swing things back to Gene Okerlund, who shills the hotline again (WHO’D WE SIGN, WHO’D WWF SIGN?!) before interviewing Lex Luger and Jimmy Hart. This squirrely little bastard Hart hypes his client before Luger stares into the wrong camera while he promises to put Savage out of the main event by destroying him in their singles match that comes before it. He also, wouldn’t you know it, thinks that he’s going to be the new world’s champion. Chris Benoit is now in the Four Horsemen, and he’s also going to wrestle for the WCW United States Championship. The new champ, Kensuke Sasaki (w/Sonny Onoo) is one of those weird champs from this period whom I always forget held this title. One Man Gang is the other one. On another note, I am asking myself which of the following is more of a nagging annoyance to me: The chyron spelling his name Kensuki Sasake or everyone on commentarypronouncing his name KEN-SUE-KEY? I think it’s the latter because WCW’s chyron game is typically so bad that I half-ignore the chyrons at this point. Speaking of strange things, here's another sort of strange thing around this time: Benoit becoming the fourth member of the Horsemen with no real build-up. He is in these vignettes where he shows up in Atlanta to sign with the company and then – boop! – he’ssuddenly in the newly-reconstituted Horsemen. Maybe some of that build was off-loaded to Saturday Night. I haven’t seen 1995 WCWSN in the three decades since it aired, after all. (Mini-digression: I stopped to watch Sting lose the U.S. Championship to Kensuke Sasaki in NJPW, which happened shortly before this show. Sting fucking dove over the corner post on a dead run to hit Sasaki with a diving crossbody on the floor. I knew that Sting was a stellar athlete, but that spot still surprised me. Maybe I simply don’t recall him doing it much in the U.S.? I actually got a bit of a Hogan-in-Japan feeling from both that and some of the leveraged leg work he uses on Sasaki, including a nasty legbar in which he posts his boot right into the back of Sasaki’s knee and cranks back on the leg. The match is a solid one that is only somewhat marred by noticeable timing issues between the two in a couple of spots, but the fun of it is watching Sting adjust his work to his New Japan audience. I will continue to bang the drum that Sting is, in fact, underrated as a worker by the most knowledgeable fans online.) Benoit and Sasaki have a slow opening full of hammerlocks and knuckle locks and struggle and strife over who shall get the initial upper hand. Sasaki decides to dispense with all that and throws clubbering forearms and a couple of hard body slams, the latter of which gets two. Sasaki immediately goes into a chinlock. Benoit tries to confuse Sasaki with his agility, but all his leapfrogs and switches merely get him press slammed. Finally, Benoit manages to leg toss Sasaki to the floor and follow with a wild-feeling suicide dive. Why not spend some time out here, Benoit presumably thinks, as he uses the apron as a weapon to attack Sasaki’s back with before tossing him back in the ring at six and scoring a snap suplex for two. Benoit settles into a rest hold while Onoo joins the desk. We watch Onoo talk for a bit and don’t see how Sasaki escapes the hold; by the time we cut back to the ring, Sasaki is landing a powerslam for two. Sasaki tries a vertical suplex, but Benoit leaps out and hooks Sasaki for two rolling Germans; Sasaki back elbows his way out of a third and snaps off a nice running lariat to put an end to Benoit’s comeback. Sasaki looks for a Tombstone, but hasn’t he been watching the matches? This went poorly for DDP a couple of matches ago, and it bodes just as poorly for Sasaki. Benoit reverses it, drills Sasaki with a Tombstone of his own, and then goes up for a diving headbutt that only gets two because Benoit scrambled his own brains upon impact (is it kayfabe? is it a shoot?) and delayed the cover. Benoit next tries a super Frankensteiner, but that also only earns him a two count. Benoit seems a bit out of ideas (definitely only from a kayfabe perspective, mind you) and throws a few ineffective boots to Sasaki’s gut. Sasaki catches a boot and leverages Benoit up and into a nasty slam, then locks Benoit in an octopus hold. Benoit swings his legs and hooks one around the bottom rope to break the hold. Benoit tries a lariat, but Sasaki eats that for breakfast and lands a vicious lariat in turn. That puts Benoit almost out of it; Sasaki follows up with a brainbuster that puts Benoit completely out of the match and earns Sasaki a three count. This match was perfectly cromulent, but I expected better. I think it’s also weird to job Benoit here when you’re bringing him in as this big deal free agent signing and sticking him in the Horsemen. Jimmy Hart, Kevin Sullivan, and the Giant are next on the list to interview with Gene Okerlund. Sullivan cuts a mostly telligible, coherent promo in which he declares the Giant to be the UNCROWNED CHAMPION. Okerlund tries to stir up dissension in the Dungeon’s ranks by suggesting that Humorous – excuse me, Hugh Morrus – or the Booty Man – excuse me once more, the Zodiac – will want to become the champion themselves. He fails to do so, however. Then the Giant speaks. That’s unfortunate because the Giant says exactly this to Hogan: ROSES ARE RED, VIOLETS ARE BLUE, I’M GONNA KICK YOUR BUTT TO KALAMAZOO. Terrible. Take a lap. Tony S. does a little promoting for Starrcade ’95, which happened on a Wednesday night because Christmas Eve was on Sunday the 24th that year. If I watched modern pro wrestling, I would love a good Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday night PPV in the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day. Actually, one cool thing that I’ve done before is go to a Premier League game on Boxing Day. I’m sure AEW wouldn’t want to complete with the PL on Boxing Day, but it would maybe be a cool idea for them to find a gap in the winter holiday fixture list and put on a PPV someday, preferably in the UK (I tihnk Christmastime in the UK is the absolute coolest). Feud recap: Randy Savage and Lex Luger have quite a bit of beef, which wasn’t helped by Luger hitting Savage even though they were on the same team at War Games. Luger beat Savage on Nitro (Show #5), but Savage beat Luger at Havoc ’95. Neither win was entirely clean, so let’s see if someone can earn a squeaky clean victory in tonight’s rubber match! Randy Savage interviews with Gene Okerlund; it’s less contentious and not as focused on trading claims of uneven facial hair styling as it was the month before. Savage is a bit tense tonight. Maybe “jittery” is a better word, since Savage uses it. He claims I’M ALWAYS JITTERY; IT’S PART OF MY CHARM. Savage declares that his arm is A MILLION PERCENT healthy because, in his words, [THAT’S] BETTER THAN A HUNDRED PERCENT. Babyface Savage is a lot of silly fun mixed in with legitimate sparks of intensity. I think I’ve come around even to appreciating somewhat dorky heel Savage in 1997, ’98, and ’99. Tweener Savage in ’99 when he comes back with Team Madness is legitimately awesome, too. That match between Randy Savage and Lex Luger (w/Jimmy Hart) is next. Savage jumps on Luger immediately and lands chokes and fists. Savage even shakes off charging into a Luger boot and lands a quick clothesline in response, followed by wrapping on a Boston Crab that Luger breaks because of Savage’s questionable positioning and execution of the move. The match goes to the floor, where the fans tap the guardrail in front of them and demand that Savage bonk Luger’s noggin RIGHT HEEEERRRREEE. Savage obliges for a couple of them, then tosses Luger back into the ring and calls for the finish. He slams Luger and goes up for a Savage Elbow, which scores. However, just as in their Nitro match (again, Show #5), the ref is too distracted to make the count. Savage scores yet another visual three count while Jimmy Hart distracts the referee. Rather than wait for the ref, Savage dumps Luger to the floor to continue the punishment, but Luger is able to launch Savage into one of the ring aprons. Savage clutches his back while Luger rolls into the ring and breaks the count, at which point he rolls back outside and puts Savage in a Torture Rack. Luger only breaks the hold to beat the count; he puts Savage in the ring, flexes, and locks an armbar on Savage’s damaged, Ace-wrapped arm. That gets a submission or a knockout victory, but either way, Luger tries to completely destroy Savage’s arm until Sting enters the ring and convinces Luger to let Savage go. Luger, if you’ll recall from many reviews ago, did the same when Sting wouldn’t let Flair out of the Scorpion Deathlock (Nitro Show #10). The power of friendship really is something, huh? I mean, unless you’re too stupid to tell the difference between your closest friend and someone unconvincingly masquerading as your closest friend even though he’s standing right in front of you, and no, the conditions being dark and rainy doesn’t excuse you of being a dolt, Luger, you idiot. *ahem*, but yeah, friendship is magic. Another feud recap: Ric Flair deviates from trying to ruin Randy Savage’s life and instead tries to ruin Sting’s life for a little while. But will it be Sting that ruins Ric Flair’s chance to become world champ once again? Let’s find out together, reader. Flair enters first, followed by Sting. Flair gets in Sting’s face and tries to intimidate him. He is punched into the next ring, where he challenges Sting to follow him. Sting does and then lands another hard right and a press slam. The crowd is extremely into the proceedings. Sting is massively over as a babyface. I’m sure Hulk Hogan is feeling bad about himself backstage listening to this pop, and I feel great about this! I sure hope he really did feel badly! The likelihood that he did seems high! Flair does get in there with chops. He struts. That gets a huge pop. Everything these two do in these rings gets a huge pop. They’re not even doing that much. I’m not saying that they’re half-assing it, mind you. I just mean that they’re landing punches and chops and taunts punctuated by a bit of explosive offense from Sting, and the crowd is absolutely eating this up. Sting dropkicks Flair to the floor; Flair goes into the third ring and challenges Sting once more. At this point, production cuts to the ramp, where Col. Robert Parker and Sister Sherri are standing. These two lovebirds wander toward a spot on the stage from which they watch the match. Hmm. In the meantime, Sting has joined Flair in the third ring, where he snacks on a few Flair chops before landing a few strikes of his own, winding up a punch and landing it, and then clotheslining Flair to the floor. The long and short of this ringside brawl is that Flair barely escapes a Stinger Splash against the rails, which is the first time all night he looks like he has a remote chance of winning this match. Flair is blocked from using a chair on offense by ref Nick Patrick, but he uses chops and eye gouges to keep control…until he gets back in the ring, where a chop wakes Sting up and Flair has to land a forearm shot to Sting’s twig and berries to avoid being throttled. Flair drops knees on Sting and struts, as is his way. He can get away with it because Sting is too busy trying to forge through the pain in his ballsack. Flair sets up for the Figure Four next, landing an intricate series of moves that target Sting’s kne—oh, who am I kidding, he kicks the guy in the knee and lands a couple of kneedrops. Flair sends Sting over the top rope while Nick Patrick is indisposed so that he can hit some more knee kicks and chops. Back in the ring, Flair yanks at Sting’s lips and is generally a complete asshole. After a back suplex, Flair manages to lock on a Figure Four in the middle of the ring. However, Flair makes the tactical error of disrespectfully slapping Sting, who immediately finds the energy to turn Flair over. Sting follows up with a backslide for two; Flair kicks out, shoves the ref, gets shoved to the mat in retaliation, and then wakes Sting up with another chop. So, yeah, that was a kayfabe terrible sequence for Flair. Flair switches rings again, but Sting has too much FIGHTING SPIRIT to feel the knee injury that Flair gave him; he follows and lands offense until Flair jabs him in the eye. Luckily for Sting, Flair takes ages to go up top. You know what happens next. Sting shoots Flair into the corner. You know what happens next. Basically, it looks all over for Flair, and indeed it is. Sting lands a superplex and then wraps Flair snugly into a Scorpion Deathlock in the center of the ring; Flair submits, and Sting lets him go…and starts limping again as his adrenaline surge is now subsiding since he won the match. Nice touch. Sting is the best, y’know? What a wrestler. Anyway, I really liked this match mostly because 1995 Sting is fun as hell and the crowd loves these Sting/Flair encounters, which enhanced the proceedings. Hype video: How did the first WW3 Battle Royal go from being for a title shot to being for the title itself? Just read my Halloween Havoc ’95 review! And then read the review for the Nitro a couple of shows after that (Show #10), where Jimmy Hart tried some legal fuckery with the contract for the Havoc match that was nullified by WCW’s legal team! I think I like the idea of WW3’s title shot award being given at SuperBrawl rather than Starrcade. It theoretically allows them to choose some out-of-the-way winners because they don’t have to make sure to pick someone who would fit in the main event at their biggest show as WWE generally does. The biggest issue with this type of match is that it’s simply too derivative of the Royal Rumble with its battle royal winner gets a title shot stip. The second biggest issue with this type of match is that, as we talked about long ago in this thread, it’s simply too visually messy to be effective. It's the return of the Big Stinky Giant count, which lands on only one as Hogan shows rare restraint in this promo with Gene Okerlund. It’s still a crappy promo, mind you. It’s just less worse than you’d expect. I also need to standardize the Big Stinky Giant count as a running feature by underlining it in my past reviews rather than putting it in bold lettering. Anyway, Hogan thinks he’s going to win the title, per the theme of tonight’s Okerlund interviewees. Tony S. and Heenan commentate in front of ring number one. Eric Bischoff and Dusty Rhodes have their own commentary table in front of ring number two. Hooray, it’s Dusty! Dusty Rhodes essentially rules hard at everything he does, and yes, that includes booking (in the short term, at least). Chris Cruise is really a bit much over at the ring three commentary table, which he shares with Larry Z. OK, it’s main event time here in Roanoke. I’ll shout out any surprising or weird entrants: Barrio Brother Ricky, for example! Pistol Pez is out here, too. Sgt. Buddy Lee Parker and Lt. James Earl get in a shoving match on their way to the ring. Huh, Kanyon’s in this thing? That’s quite the early bird cameo ([tm] TV Tropes). Mike Winner, Big Train Bart, Dave Sullivan, both Super Assassins, and another Barrio Brother (Fidel this time, and I assume that’s Fidel Sierra) also troop out here, and I think to myself that this match would be better with more of the cruiserweights who came in by the end of 1996 in it. I can’t even get hyped for a small La Parka run tonight. Instead, I gotta watch Dave Sullivan. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Alright, folks, let’s do this one more time: · The Rumble’s other big advantage is having one person run down at a time so that everyone gets spotlighted. This is just a mass of bodies. · Super Invader 2 (I think) is your quiz answer for who the first man to be eliminated from a World War 3 battle royal was, just in case you were wondering, though Tony S. exclaims that Mike Winner hit the floor first. I’m not sure that he did. This is one to check on that bastion of research integrity known as Wikipedia. · Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair are doing a spot that the crowd is clearly reacting to. I know that Hogan and Flair are involved thanks to Chris Cruise's commentary. However, I can’t see the spot because of the thicket of bodies in the way and the unfortunate choices in camera coverage. · I do think that the announcers excitedly kicking it to one another to cover what’s going on in different rings feels sort of exciting. That’s a neat feature of how WCW is producing this match. It’s not enough to overcome the negatives obviously, but their hurried commentary and tossing it around the horn makes things feel hectic and busy. · But what’s really going on is punch-kick-choke mania. · They’re trying to sell storylines at the tables, including what the Horsemen and the Dungeon are up to and how Sting and Luger are interacting, but it’s too hard to see for me to get attached to any of these narratives running through the show. They get a great shot of Parker and Earl shoving one another after being simultaneously eliminated, though! And of course, no one at the desk mentions this one clear storyline development that has been easy to follow during this main event! WCW, everybody! · Sting helps a Nasty Boy land a Pit Stop on Disco. Disco sells the move exquisitely. · Big Train Bart is eliminated. He was out here looking like a poorly-groomed Mario. · Lex Luger and Arn Anderson fight each other on the floor, but I’m not sure either of them are eliminated. I feel that you should be subject to a ten count if you’re on the floor after going either through the middle of or under the ropes. · Sting and the Giant have their own extended fight in one of the rings; the Giant wins that fight and dumps Sting to the mat, then nudges him under the top rope and to the floor with his boot. That ring, which I think is ring number two, now empties as everyone still legal in it moves on over to ring number one. · Are Arn and Luger still fighting outside from earlier before, or did they once again spill to the floor? Who knows?! · A kayfabe injured Randy Savage (but not shoot injured if Hogan's earlier rant is to be believed) continues to dodge, dip, duck, dive, and dodge his way through this match. · A bunch of guys go out through the middle rope for some reason. All this floor fighting sucks. I hate floor fighting in battle royals. Keep that shit in the ring instead of having guys getting on the floor willy-nilly. Make hitting the floor a notable event in this type of match, please. · Sgt. Pittman makes the mistake of locking on a submission hold in a battle royal. Unless you’re in the final two, I suppose. He survives it, and in fact is able to easily eliminate Joey Maggs after locking him in a Code Red. That’s textbook Bad Process, Good Outcome stuff right there. · Now Savage and Luger fight on the floor. Luger has spent more time outside the ring than in it in this most busy and poorly booked of battle royals. · Scott Armstrong does a stretcher job, and I have no clue if this is a shoot or a work. · Tony S. points out Luger being on the floor for most of this match and points out that the referees need to quash that shit. Again, a ten count for uneliminated wrestlers on the floor that they must beat or thus be eliminated would solve all this! Also, institute VAR! · OK, on second thought, maybe don’t institute VAR. · Hogan tosses Kevin Sullivan over the top and to the floor; Savage and Luger go back outside to brawl some more. · DDP and Johnny B. Badd eliminate one another; Page stalks Badd on the floor to continue that battle. · Alright, there are sixteen guys left in this bout, all in the first ring, finally. Make it fifteen as Kurosawa gets tossed. · Hulk Hogan and Paul Orndorff renew their rivalry after a few years; Flair and Sting pick theirs up again twenty-five or so minutes after they last clashed. · Finally, we’re clearing the rest of the detritus: Zodiac goes, followed by Captain General Hubert G. Morrus-Rection III. · Our final ten: Sting, Eddy Guerrero, One Man Gang, Paul Orndorff, Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, Lex Luger, Arn Anderson, the Giant, and Ric Flair. · Eddy is the featured midcarder in this bout, by the way, which doesn’t work so well since Eddy hasn’t been discussed on commentary much if at all until this point. "This point" at which he gets attention encompasses him eating signature offense from Sting, Flair, and Arn and barely hanging on before finally being tossed. *sigh*, par for the course, WCW. · Shortly after Eddy and Orndorff are both eliminated, Sting slingshots Arn into Flair as Flair teeters on the top rope; Flair topples to the floor and throws a fit, unable to believe that an attempted top rope move backfired on him! Wow, I didn’t see that coming either, Flair! Arn also goes over the top and to the floor after that collision. · OK, the finish is a hot mess. So, Sting and Luger make an alliance to defeat the Giant. They hit a double lariat and then try to toss the Giant over the top. While that mass of humanity is leaning against the ropes, Hogan splits away from Savage, whom he is helping try to eliminate OMG, and tips that whole mass of humanity over. The eliminated Giant casually reaches in and yanks Hogan to the floor and underneath the bottom rope, which the single referee officiating this match misses because he’s too focused on Savage leveraging Gang the rest of the way over the top and to the floor. Randy Anderson looks around, sees no one else but Savage in the ring, and calls the match for Savage, who wins the gold in the shittiest way possible. · We didn’t see Savage eliminate Gang because we were too busy looking at Hogan bodyslam the Giant on the mats. What a bad finish, amplified by the missed shot of Savage eliminating Gang and intensified by Hogan not even going over the fucking top rope. At least have the Giant pull a Stone Cold and come back in the ring to toss Hogan over the top instead of the ref suddenly missing a wrestler going under the bottom rope for the first time all match. Hogan is a crying-ass catchphrase-stealing punk bitch about it, and only a small portion of the Roanoke crowd co-signs his argument that he went under the bottom rope. On third thought, maybe WCW should institute VAR after all. The WW3 match stunk, but otherwise, I am surprised that overall, this show was pretty good. No match was worse than “perfectly acceptable” and a considerable portion of the show was genuinely enjoyable. If you watched this show and then dipped out after Sting/Flair, you’d probably quite enjoy your two hours spent viewing it. I need to look back, but I think this might have been the best WW3 PPV overall, though it probably had the worst WW3 battle royal match as a part of it. Link to follow-up Nitro review: http://deathvalleydriver.com/forum/index.php?/topic/9193-smelly-watches-every-nitro-era-nitro-thunder-clash-and-ppv-while-sitting-and-sometimes-maybe-standing/#findComment-1113009 2
twiztor Posted May 12 Posted May 12 i LOVE the concept of a 60-man, three ring battle royal. Just hearing the phrase makes your eyes double in size from wonder and possibilities. the actual execution, on the other hand, was never any good. at all. just complete dog shit every time out. awful camera angles, the commentary not matching what's on screen, it all just sucked. i still kinda love them, tho. 3
zendragon Posted May 12 Posted May 12 Every Benoit match has at least one spot where your like "yep that's the one that did it" Does Hogan getting pulled under the bottom rope actually go anywhere? Or is that dropped the Ted Diabase being the money behind the NWO? 1
SirSmUgly Posted May 18 Author Posted May 18 (edited) Starrcade ‘95 notes: Link to go-home Nitro review: http://deathvalleydriver.com/forum/index.php?/topic/9193-smelly-watches-every-nitro-era-nitro-thunder-clash-and-ppv-while-sitting-and-sometimes-maybe-standing/page/2/#findComment-1118379 This whole WCW versus New Japan angle flopped both artistically and business-wise, didn’t it? Oh well, at least we get some interesting inter-promotional matchups at this show. This is the final WCW PPV that feels truly international, I think. Alright, it’s a three-man booth! Tony S. and Bobby Heenan are joined by Dusty Rhodes. AW YEAH As a reminder, one of the big angles is formed around Sting and Luger: Are they friends or not? If I shook a Magic 8-Ball, the response would be REPLY HAZY; TRY AGAIN LATER. Also, Hulk Hogan is on double-secret probation or something. Randy Savage is in possesion of the world title and will have to eventually face Ric Flair in the main event, so it’s a reasonable guess as to what the result of that bout will be! New Japan and WCW wrestlers are competing against one another in a best-of-seven challenge between the two companies. Chris Benoit and Jushin Thunder Liger (w/Sonny Onoo) hook it up in the opener, and I assume this will be a better match than the one they had in 1999 under the purview of Vince Russo’s stupid ass. Proud Iowan Onoo waves a large Japanese flag around, but Liger has been given a miniature Japanese flag to wave in the air as well. Abortions large Japanese flags for some, miniature American Japanese flags for others! Benoit tries to punch through his problems as is his way, so Liger gets on his horses and wins a couple of dropkicks, a baseball slide, and a rolling senton from the apron to the floor. Liger thinks that sequence is pretty cool, but the slack jawed Nashville xenophobes in the crowd have decided to boo him from not being from the United States and instead throw their support behind proud Canadian Benoit. What I love about Liger is how well he emotes with his body and even his face, though he is wearing a mask. He hits a rolling wheel kick and then stands there looking at the booing audience, hands on hips, the lower half of his face reading as though he’s thinking ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?! Benoit summarily tries to make a comeback with power, but Liger reverses a powerbomb into an arm drag and then sends Benoit right back out to the floor. Liger fakes a dive; Dusty decides that the fake dive’s technical terminology is “tipsy-toe…teeterin’ on totterin’” which gets a laugh out of the other two guys sitting at the desk. Back in the ring, Benoit’s litany of strikes seem to work for once; after a lariat, Benoit tries a high-angled crab, basically a Walls of Jericho before Jericho came to WCW. The Horseman can’t get a submission, so he drops Liger’s legs and tries for a pinfall attempt, but he only gets one. Liger tries to win a strikefest with Benoit, fails miserably, and eats a German suplex with a bridge for two. Benoit immediately covers again for two more. Liger trips Benoit as Benoit tries to follow up and immediately locks on a surfboard. Surfboards rule. I feel like if a female wrestler on modern television is looking for a finish, this would be a good one with how bendy the ladies tend to be. You can really get some nasty-looking torque on your opponent; it’d be a great visual. Both men trade counters; Liger reverses a powerbomb and hits a slam, but he’s caught when he goes up and is hit with a superplex that gets a huge pop. I am surprised at how amped Nashville is for the superplex. Benoit’s delayed cover gets only two, however. Benoit is next to go up top, but he wipes out on a diving headbutt attempt. Liger is fired up; he lands a running wheel kick in the corner, then scores a sit-out powerbomb for 2.7 or so. He’s looking to kill Benoit off now; a brainbuster gets another 2.7. Liger complains about the count to the ref, which allows Benoit to come back with a flurry of suplexes and a powerbomb of his own. Benoit goes up and lands the diving headbutt, but – ugh – this eternal Kevin Sullivan/Chris Benoit is in full swing, so Sullivan walks to the ring and distracts Benoit, who turns back around and into a struggle rana from Liger for three. This was an enjoyable watch, though not as good as you’d expect. Still good enough to watch on YouTube, though. New Japan Pro Wrestling 1::0 World Championship Wrestling. In the back, Eddy Guerrero tells Gene Okerlund that he is displeased with Sullivan’s antics and that he’s very honored to represent WCW against Shinjiro Otani later tonight. It’s a mediocre babyface promo that once again reminds us all that Eddy is best as a heel or a Bugs Bunny-style charming dickhead of a babyface. IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion Koji Kanemoto (w/Sonny Onoo) tries to extend New Japan’s lead over WCW in a match against Alex Wright. They have an early feeling-process than ends with a little standoff. Kanemoto out-quicks Wright and basically looks a bit too experienced for his German opponent. Wright has fire, though, and some solid European uppercuts, so he fights back. He’s simply not equipped to beat Koji on extended arm wringer spots. Tony S., after Heenan talks about the New Japan wrestlers coming over to the U.S. early and preparing for this event in the Smoky Mountains: “No one wrestles in the Smoky Mountains anymore!” Random shots fired at Jim Cornette! I often find enjoyment in the work of both Wright and Kanemoto, but this match is very slow to spark into life. Wright sends Koji to the floor, then hits him with a baseball slide. What little energy there is after that spot dissipates when Koji gets back in the ring, circles Wright for a bit, and…Wright goes to a chinlock. This is a dull match. I’ll tell you when something interesting happens. OK, after some heel wandering, stop-start action, and a lukewarm finishing run, the most interesting thing that ends up happening is the finish, which thankfully puts an end to the boredom. Kanemoto catches Wright on a leapover in the corner, drops Wright with a Snake Eyes and wraps Wright in a jackknife pin for three. Wait just a minute here. Snake Eyes? Jackknife?! Did Koji Kanemoto know something about the coming invasion that we didn’t?!?! No, he probably didn't. New Japan Pro Wrestling 2::0 World Championship Wrestling. Gene Okerlund interviews Sonny Onoo. Okerlund says that Onoo is COMING OUT OF HIS SHOES, and I say, Hey, are we not doing PHRASING anymore? Okerlund tells us to call Mark Madden for scoops on the WCW Hotline and then interviews Onoo, who plans to buy both WCW and the whole state of Iowa, both of which are apparently for sale at a cut-rate price! I think WCW running a xenophobic THE JAPANESE ARE BUYING UP AMERICA angle at the end of 1995 is not only generally annoying on its face, it’s also hilariously out of date. Japan was in a deep recession at this point and had been for years. Masahiro Chono (w/Sonny Onoo) versus Lex Luger (w/Jimmy Hart) sounds like a questionable matchup in terms of quality, but it is only the end of 1995, so this match could maybe surprise me. Luger overpowers Chono to start. Press slams rule. Luger is very over here in Nashville, by the way. Chono responds with a boot that sends Luger to the floor. No, this match isn’t going to surprise me. Just gimme a Torture Rack. It’s fine, and watching Luger in 1995 after having just seen him in 2000 and 2001 really drives home how stark his post-peak was as an athlete in the comparison. As for Chono, I think he generally sucks. If I have my story right, he was over enough that they were going to run with him on top in New Japan in a few years from this show, but he got injured. I frankly don’t get it and have never gotten it any time I’ve watched him. Anyway, Chono locks on an STF, but Luger gets to the ropes. Dusty has an excellent call to explain how Luger tucking his chin allowed him to keep Chono from snapping it in. Dusty then gets on Tony S. for calling a mafia kick: “Where do you get all this? The German suplex, the mafia kick. He kicked him with the bottom of a twelve-and-a-half boot right in the middle of the mush. That ain’t got nothin’ to do with the mafia, hell you talkin’ about?” Dusty and Heenan continue to riff (“Sicilian elbow! Yugoslavian neckbreaker!) right into the finish, which is Luger hitting that Sicilian back elbow to counter a Chono dive and racking Chono out of practically nothing for a victory and a huge pop. New Japan Pro Wrestling 2::1 World Championship Wrestling. Gene Okerlund interviews Sting, who backs Johnny B. Badd to win his upcoming match and then re-lives that loss he ate against Kensuke Sasaki which cost him the U.S. Championship. He’s looking to revenge himself with a win tonight. Sting then reasserts that he is friends with Luger, trying to make nice with Savage, and is eternally hating on Ric Flair. He speaks on his other match later tonight: Against Luger and Flair in a Triple Threat to see who will wrestle Randy Savage for the title. It's Kimberly! Doing cartwheels!!!! Look, I’m only a man. A fallible, imperfect man. Anyway, she’s here with Johnny B. Badd. Kimberly has to be one of the worst dancers I’ve ever seen in my life, by the way. I’m going to ignore it, though. Badd is wrestling the always grumpy Masa Saito (w/Sonny Onoo). This is a strange little matchup that I would imagine makes one of my good lists. Onoo does some boilerplate sexism on the mic toward Kimberly; Kimberly responds with some boilerplate racism. Le *sigh*. Saito controls Badd on the mat early; he trips Badd and locks on a Shinonomake, soon transitioning into a chinlock. Badd works up, and Saito shoves him to the mat, which pisses Badd off. They chop the shit out of each other for a minute. It’s rad. I don’t know if this is strictly good, but it’s rad. Saito decides to just punch Badd in the bridge of the nose and stop all that nonsense. Saito mauls Badd against the ropes, raking his face and yanking his nostrils; Onoo gets involved with a flagpole choke when the ref backs Saito off. A Saito back suplex gets two, and a follow-up lariat gets two more. More heel choke spots ensue; Saito lands a side Russian that gets Tony’s commentary partners once again riffing on his knowledge of geography-based wrestling move names. Badd makes a comeback with a double axe and a diving sunset flip for two. Badd opens up with left and right hooks, scores a vertical suplex…and only gets one. Sonny Onoo hops onto the apron and distracts Badd, who tangles with him. Saito comes over and tosses Bad over the top and to the floor, eating a DQ loss in the process. Kimberly gets in the ring and confronts Saito, who stalks her until Badd makes it back in the ring for the save; Badd eventually goes completely uncaught on a slingshot senton to the floor. Why book this match if you don’t want either guy to take a pinfall or submission? This wasn’t good enough to make a good list, but it was certainly interesting. New Japan Pro Wrestling 2::2 World Championship Wrestling. Promo: SuperBrawl ’96 is the next PPV in the order, though my next review of a big show will be for the January 1996 Clash of the Champions (XXXII, if you’re counting). Jimmy Hart and Lex Luger exude confidence about Luger’s chances to win his Triple Threat match later tonight and then to finish off Randy Savage once and for all as the reward for winning said match. Hart also plays down Kevin Sullivan causing Chris Benoit to lose the first match in the WCW/New Japan challenge. Luger shocks Okerlund by saying that he’ll go to the ring for the Triple Threat by himself; Hart is cool with being left in the back because he sees long-term potential in this relationship. It’s not just a situationship to him! That’s an accurate updated and modern representation of what he actually says about his relationship with Luger. Here comes Sonny Onoo once again, this time with Shinjiro Otani. Otani, if you’ll recall, is booked against Eddy Guerrero in the fifth match of seven between WCW and NJPW. One thing that I like about the modern wrestling era is that if AEW ran this same best-of-seven on a PPV against New Japan, there wouldn’t be all these weird xenophobic elements. The angle would just be focused on the spirit of competition and pride in the company rather than a country. Otani works the arm to start, using Eddy’s hair for leverage and moving quite a bit to work his holds. Eddy slips out of the back after Otani overleverages himself. Otani goes for the leg next, but Eddy counters with an enziguri. This is an enjoyable opening sequence built around mat wrestling and counters and counters to counters. The desk puts over Otani needing to ground Eddy to keep the advantage, and lo and behold, Eddy gets up to his feet and immediately sends Otani out to the floor with a headscissors. Otani gets back in the ring and cagily circles Eddy, who feints and then lands a standing dropkick, followed by a tope con hilo and a Boston Crab. That last move doesn’t earn a submission, so Eddy figures Why not knock this dude out instead? and lands a nasty powerbomb that, alas, does not knock Otani out. Eddy decides to multiple Otani’s pain by hitting a brainbuster, but Otani’s boot is in the ropes when Eddy covers. Eddy looks positively ascendant, but he misses on a corner charge as Otani flips himself over the top rope. Otani lands a springboard dropkick on a staggered Eddy from the apron; then, he follows Eddy outside with a springboard crossbody. Back in the ring, Otani shoots Eddy in and nails Eddy with a dropkick, but he goes for chokes instead of covering, which Heenan and Dusty both chide him for. Heenan, to Dusty: “If you’re Eddy Guerrero, what are you thinking right now?” Dusty: “I’m thinkin’ I lost a lot of weight, brother.” Heenan being on the receiving end of the goofy dad-level jokes that he gives out is pretty funny! Dusty does offer up legit suggestions about what he’d do in Otani’s place (land a high impact move , cover him and see if you got him since he's on a lot of accumulated damage). Instead of doing what Dusty advises, Otani gives Eddy room to recover by ineffectually locking him in holds; Eddy side suplexes his way out of trouble, but is slow to cover and only earns two of the requisite three slaps of the mat from the ref. Eddy tries to follow up but he’s still a bit woozy; Otani flips behind Eddy on a vertical suplex attempt with such suddenness and snaps off a German suplex with such authority that I think it should have been the finish. It only earns Otani two, however. Otani loves his springboards; he hits a springboard wheel kick. Then again, maybe he needs the springboard part to make his aerial moves land as he goes up for a regular top rope move and gets caught in no-man’s-land with a rana for two. Now, it’s Eddy’s turn to come close to victory. He lands a sit-out crucifix powerbomb for two and tries to follow up with another power move when Otani rolls through and tries an ankle lock that Eddy just gets to the ropes on. After the ref breaks it, Otani charges Eddy, who ducks. Otani goes to the floor, and Eddy follows, landing a springboard crossbody of his own. Eddy rolls Otani into the ring and tries to finish him off, but Otani reverses a vertical suplex. Otani lands another springboard move – this time a springboard missile dropkick that Eddy forward bumps for with authority – then attempts a full nelson. OK, so the finishing sequence is as nice as this whole match has been. Eddy back elbows his way out of the full nelson, then runs to the ropes and leaps. Otani pops him up for a powerbomb, but Eddy counters with a rana that Otani rolls through, then Eddy rolls through, then finally Otani rolls through again for three. That was easily the best match on this card so far. Very good bout. New Japan Pro Wrestling 3::2 World Championship Wrestling. Will Gene Okerlund and Randy Savage share another contentious interview segment on PPV? No. Savage is too focused on Tenzan to even think about Okerlund’s facial hair or defending his world title later in the night. He quotes Buzz Lightyear in the process. Twice. He also exhorts Sting to help him seal the victory for WCW. Hiroyoshi Tenzan (w/Sonny Onoo, of course) wrestles Randy Savage in match six of this WCW/NJPW challenge. OK, I think Ric Flair being too big a heel to bpther defending WCW works perfectly; he’s the only guy who doesn’t wrestle a match before the Triple Threat and only has to wrestle two matches to win the big gold belt, same as Savage does. This match is a Savage special. He gets beaten up a lot, then makes a comeback. Tenzan’s heel control is generally dull. I love Randy Savage, but in 1995, if he’s not wrestling a main event bout on PPV, you know what you’re getting from him. This is a match much like his TV matches. I mean, what he’s doing works – he gets to be the injured fighting champion who perseveres and his opponent gets shine from kicking him around for a bit – but there’s not much to say about that formula as one watches it. Savage reverses a vertical suplex after a struggle, drops Tenzan stomach-first on the top rope, then goes up and launches a Savage Elbow for three. The desk didn’t get that Savage dropped Tenzan over the top rope on purpose and instead claimed Savage dropped Tenzan on account of his arm being injured. I don't blame them beacuse the struggle over the vertical suplex was a bit visually messy. New Japan Pro Wrestling 3::3 World Championship Wrestling. Bobby Heenan does a physical comedy routine in which, distraught that it’s all coming down to match number seven, he knocks his chair over and gets it caught up in his microphone cords; he struggles to get his chair free, but he only makes things worse. It legitimately cracks Tony S. up. Gene Okerlund assures us that the WWF is gigafucked, and if you want to know more about it, maybe spend some money on the WCW hotline, won’t ya? He then turns his attention to an interview of Ric Flair, who looks completely fresh and pretty relaxed! For him, I mean. He doesn’t have to worry about defending WCW’s honor, so he can totally focus on winning the world title from Savage, which is a thing that he is very good at doing! WCW United States Champion Kensuke Sasaki (w/that damn Sonny Onoo) plans to win a gold-ish cup for New Japan just like he won WCW gold. Not on Sting’s watch, though! Sasaki and Sting had a decent match in Japan for that title, so I expect something generally enjoyable out of them at the least. Sasaki jumps Sting with many fists and a few feet and also a single choke. This commentary team of Tony S., Heenan, and Dusty is my favorite in WCW history; they balance jokes with good insight really nicely. Sting lands an early Stinger Splash, then eats a bit of Sasaki offense and dropkicks Sasaki to the floor. That’s what you get for your mock OWWWWWWWWW, Sasaki! Sting is very energetic, which is good! He energetically runs himself into a powerslam, which is bad! Unless you’re a backer of New Japan, I suppose. This match isn’t as good as their U.S. title match. Sting diving around and working like a slightly cocky American is way more fun than Sting working up from underneath with Sasaki in extended heel control. Sasaki shows the height of heel hubris by locking Sting in a Scorpion Death Lock. As Dusty says, Sting knows how to get out of this hold since he mastered it. Then again, Sting’s way of breaking it is just being strong as fuck and powering out of it with his legs and lower back. Sasaki is unsettled after failing to beat the Stinger with Sting’s own hold; he never quite gets back on track. Sting slips out of the back of a Sasaki slam attempt and is annihilated in short order by a series of explosive Sting offensive moves. Sasaki tries to crawl toward the ropes when Sting locks on a Scorpion, but Sting drags him right back to the center of the ring and uncles him ([tm] Dusty Rhodes). The rest of the WCW competitors in the competition hit the ring to celebrate with the Stinger. New Japan Pro Wrestling 3::4 World Championship Wrestling; World Championship Wrestling are World Cup of Wrestling winners. Gene Okerlund enters the ring to interview the winners; Sting and Luger grab the cup on both sides and hoist it in the air. AEW and New Japan should bring this competition back for one of AEW’s big PPVs, probably. As a note, Kensuke Sasaki kinda sorta lost twice tonight. He defended the WCW United States Championship against the One Man Gang in a post-main-event dark match in which OMG hit a splash, but only got two even though the bell rang and OMG was awarded the title. The match was re-started and continued to a finish in which Sasaki won, but that part wasn’t shown on television. What was shown was OMG getting the pinfall and being awarded the title. That is third in the chain of those weird Sting > Sasaki > OMG > Konnan title exchanges that happened completely off Nitro or PPV. The link to the edited WCWSN segment that shows the Sasaki/OMG TV finish is here if you are interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6uxyZw-UTA Hype video: Sting, Lex Luger, and Ric Flair will face off to get an immediate shot at Randy Savage’s WCW World Heavyweight Championship. This was a pretty good angle outside of Hulk Hogan needing to be kept strong or whatever. Alright, Lex Luger walks to the ring alone; he is soon followed by Ric Flair and Sting. I don’t get the tag rule being added to this match. These types of matches already have a lid on them in terms of quality, and the tag rule being in effect is absolutely no help. Oh man, I don’t like this. Sting and Flair start with Luger outside the ring. Sting blows away Flair to start, but I think without all three men in the ring, I know that what’s happening now doesn’t mean a whole lot. The finish of this type of multi-man match is built around who can get the last move in while the third opponent is incapacitated. Rarely, if ever, does any of the early work play into that type of finish. How is ECW still the only company to get this type of match layout right? It’s been three decades! Dusty is pushing an eventual Sting/Luger in-ring faceoff on commentary, and I do get that this is a draw as part of this match. I just don’t think it’s enough of a draw to justify the match layout. OK, I’ll let it go. Sting and Flair do their extended routine over the first three or five minutes of the match. Flair sidesteps a dropkick and tags Luger in taunts Luger before going back to attacking Sting. Tony S. reminds us that the last time Sting and Flair hooked it up at Starrcade, Flair was wrestling under the guise of the Black Scorpion. Flair launches Sting over the top rope. This is really boilerplate stuff. Let me tell you when things pick up. Luger tries to break up a Sting pinfall attempt, which Sting is aggy about even though only one guy can win; Flair sneaks up behind Sting and pushes him into Luger, who takes it as a tag. Flair’s on his bicycle from Luger now and has to land a knee in Luger’s balls to get any control. The thing is that Luger works like a babyface, so now Flair is doing half the spots he just did with Sting except with Luger in Sting’s place. Flair goes at Luger’s knee to take control; he even lands a weak chair shot to Luger’s knee when ref Nick Patrick is in an intense confrontation with Sting over on the apron. This match is so long, man, it won’t end. Flair locks Luger in a Figure Four, uses the ropes for leverage, wakes Luger up with disrespectful slaps, gets it turned over, etc. Team Package continues to pre-explode. FINISH PRE-EXPLODING, DAMMIT. This crowd is bored, too. It’s not just me! Flair finally tags Sting in so we can get Sting versus Luger. Sting and Luger stare longingly at one another. They stare and they stare. They shake hands. The crowd hoots their disapproval. Luger tells ‘em OH, SHUT UPPPPP. After a few more minutes…days…hours?!...they collar-and-elbow. They break it up in the corner. They do it again. They break it up in the corner. Eventually, Sting gets the upper hand, and Luger calls for time out in the corner. I have some suggestions for this show’s layout because there are still twenty-six minutes to go for the rest of this match and the main event match. Why not put a TV title defense on this card, for one? I dream of this match entering its finishing run. There’s a short floor brawl during which Sting takes control. The Stinger brings it back into the ring with a crossbody that gets a two count, but he eats knees on a Vader Bomb. Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy did they structure this bout as three ten-minute long singles matches? Even if you’re new to formatting this match type like WCW creative is, this seems like the least reasonable way to structure one of these bouts. Hark! Is that mayhaps a finishing run? Sting hits one Stinger Splash, but whiffs on a second. Luger hoists Sting upon his shoulders, but he swings Sting around and Sting’s boot catches the ref in the mush. Flair hops in the ring, takes out Luger’s knee, and then tosses Sting to the floor before stepping onto the apron and asking Nick Patrick to get up and – oh wow – count both men out. Sting almost makes it back at nine, but Luger grabs him before he can get into the ring. This finish SUCKED. This match was just barely more boring than bad, but that finish was some complete fucking copout nonsense that tipped the scales, and no, calling Flair the dirtiest player in the game doesn’t make it better even if you could at least argue that it’s a logical way for Flair to sneak-thief a victory. Fuck this match. You know what? This was so bad that it was actually the Absolute Dirt Worst. Fuck this match twice. Ric Flair remains in the ring as Sting cuts a look at a fallen Luger at ringside. Jimmy Hart joins Ric Flair in the ring and cuts a short-term managerial deal with him before this upcoming match between Flair and Randy Savage for the big gold belt. Michael Buffer’s Ring Announcing Quality Control: This guy called the World War 3 battle royal the greatest battle royal of all-time, which is too much for me even considering the levels of bullshit that pro wrestling promotion constantly aspires to reach. But no, seriously, the guy did fine. I feel bad about wanting a Randy Savage match to end, but this is yet another 1995 PPV card that is bafflingly ordered. Paul Orndorff walks out here in a neck brace, having been put out by the Horsemen on Nitro recently (Show #15). Savage usually likes to eschew any babyface shine segment and get beaten the hell up for the whole match; Flair likes to do the same sequence of heel stooge spots over and over. Whose will is imposed in this match? Mostly Savage’s, though Savage does indulge in a tiny shine segment before he eats a fist on a dive. Orndorff is walked away from ringside while Savage takes a beating against the railing. Jimmy Hart throws a free kick at Savage, who ends up in a hammerlock back in the ring. Savage makes a comeback that is aborted when Flair locks on a sleeper. Savage drops out of it, then blocks a Flair right and lands one of his own; he covers for two. Savage earns another near fall after a pair of lariats, then signals for a Savage Elbow. Jimmy Hart gets involved, draws the ref’s attention, and tosses Flair his megaphone. Savage intercepts it and clobbers Flair with it, but Hart is still drawing the ref. Flair, who has bladed, is food for a Savage Elbow that gets a visual three count. Pillman and Benoit try to intervene and are unsuccessful, but Arn Anderson scores a punch with a loaded fist that sends Savage to dreamland like his name was Kirby; Flair covers for three. This sucked. This show sucked, honestly. Even Benoit/Liger was merely solid when it could have been great. Guerrero/Otani was must-see television, though. Why didn’t this show wedge a TV title match in between the Triple Threat and the main event? As a bonus, a ten-minute TV title match shaves ten minutes off that awful Triple Threat. Furthermore, why didn’t every other promotion work their Triple Threats like ECW did? Anyway, this was a terrible Starrcade, which is the norm for Starrcade in the Nitro Era rather than an unfortunate blip. Starrcade ’96 being really good is the blip. That’s a darn shame! Link to follow-up Nitro review: http://deathvalleydriver.com/forum/index.php?/topic/9193-smelly-watches-every-nitro-era-nitro-thunder-clash-and-ppv-while-sitting-and-sometimes-maybe-standing/page/2/#findComment-1121831 Edited May 18 by SirSmUgly 1
SirSmUgly Posted May 18 Author Posted May 18 On 5/12/2025 at 2:30 PM, zendragon said: Every Benoit match has at least one spot where your like "yep that's the one that did it" This is no exaggeration! Quote Does Hogan getting pulled under the bottom rope actually go anywhere? Or is that dropped the Ted Diabase being the money behind the NWO? It doesn't go anywhere. The next night on Nitro, the tape doesn't play, and then Hogan gets mad about being screwed and gets suspended after attacking the Giant one too many times. 1
caley Posted May 18 Posted May 18 32 minutes ago, SirSmUgly said: This whole WCW versus New Japan angle flopped both artistically and business-wise, didn’t it? Oh well, at least we get some interesting inter-promotional matchups at this show. This is the final WCW PPV that feels truly international, I think. This show blew my mind as a teenager. I was vaguely aware of Japanese wrestling as a friend had taped that Superbrawl with Flair-Fujinami and had seen Great Muta once or twice, but I somehow had no concept that there were more than 1 or two Japanese wrestlers, never mind a whole federation including a guy with a sweet bodysuit and mask. I used to leave my TV on the PPV preview channel and look up and intently watch every time the Starrcade promo would come up (Had all the wrestlers standing in a row while Sonny delivered a motivational speech: "Liger? Fly high. Come down hard on WCW!" I can still remember that some...sigh....30 years later. But the new password I made LAST WEEK for my Apple account, completely gone! Oh, I should add, blew my mind as a teenage before I actually saw the show. All I saw was the preview and I may have listened to it in squigglevision. I finally tracked down a copy maybe 4-5 years later and gleefully purchased it and was STUNNED how matches with guys I had seen in good matches (Liger, Chono, Ohtani) and guys I had heard good things about (Kanemoto, Tenzan) wrestling actually good WCW wrestlers could be so stunningly BORING. 37 minutes ago, SirSmUgly said: Onoo does some boilerplate sexism on the mic toward Kimberly; Kimberly responds with some boilerplate racism. Le *sigh*. This is where she calls Onoo "Hop Sing", right? And the crowd is mild for it, everyone is mild for it, except Dusty Rhodes who flips out: "Hop Sing! She said Hop Sing!" [laughs uproariously]. 42 minutes ago, SirSmUgly said: I dream of this match entering its finishing run. This match was impossibly boring. Three great wrestlers in a poorly-structured mach should be able to overcome it and present something interesting but it is SO long and SO dull that it's one of the most disappointing things I've ever seen. 1
SirSmUgly Posted May 18 Author Posted May 18 1 hour ago, caley said: This is where she calls Onoo "Hop Sing", right? And the crowd is mild for it, everyone is mild for it, except Dusty Rhodes who flips out: "Hop Sing! She said Hop Sing!" [laughs uproariously]. Dusty is so thrilled that someone mentioned a character from Bonanza that I almost can't get mad at him. 1 1
Stefanie Sparkleface Posted May 18 Posted May 18 I love Dusty on this show. Him saying "that ain't got nothin' to dooooooo with the mafia!" after Chono's kick was great, but I also loved how he introduced Masa Saito. "The time for all the pageantry is over, because [Johnny B. Badd]'s about to meet the meanest man in the world." I've often said Dusty on commentary comes off like one of my uncles about four beers deep and giggleshouting things at the TV, and it's never been more prevalent than this show. God bless Dusty Rhodes. 2
zendragon Posted May 19 Posted May 19 I actually watched this show on Dailymotion a while back and actually enjoyed it. Even found the semi-main event interesting with the tag rules. Especially enjoyed Eddie and Benoit. Now I wonder if the best of seven would have worked better as a hook for a b-PPV not "the Granddaddy of them all!" I think one of the problems with late period Flair is that along with wrestling his touring match on TV every week is that a lot his signature spots where designed with the idea that he had no idea what stiff he was getting in what ever small town he was wrestling in that week. He looks exposed when he spams them on PPV. Now on the subject of triple threats one thing I've seen that works well is the psychology of Wrestlers A and B team up on Wrestler C but because its one fall to a finish the alliance inevitably breaks down leading to Wrestler C making a comeback. I don't know if I've seen this on a bigger show yet. Also Dusty Rules 1
SirSmUgly Posted May 26 Author Posted May 26 Clash of the Champions XXXII (January 1996) notes: Link to go-home Nitro review: http://deathvalleydriver.com/forum/index.php?/topic/9193-smelly-watches-every-nitro-era-nitro-thunder-clash-and-ppv-while-sitting-and-sometimes-maybe-standing/page/2/#findComment-1201725 Ah, Clash of the Champions! I thought that I might do a whole Clash review thread at some point, but I’m going to need a little break from WCW before I come back around to write that one. I watched this show, but didn’t write about it at the time. This is the last show that I didn’t write something about; the final shows that I didn’t cover in full will combine what I wrote about them with a few notes about them from my current perspective. Recap: If there’s been one thread running through these reviews, it’s the one where I miscounted Randy Savage’s world title wins. The one he managed over Ric Flair on the previous night’s Nitro (Show #21) is the most forgettable one (and in fact is the one that I always forget about), especially because Hogan pulled another WM IV and stole Savage’s title-winning glory yet again. At least Savage called him out for it after the match this time around. Lex Luger also loaded his fist behind Sting’s back to help win the tag titles from Harlem Heat, who really struggled to hold on to the belts in all of their early Nitro defenses. And of course, belt or no belt, Brian Pillman’s nutty! This card looks decent and also includes the shambolic Col. Robert Parker/Sister Sherri Martel wedding. I have reasonable expectations for this show to be good. After Tony S. and Bobby Heenan introduce the show with a bit of hypin’, we cut to Gene Okerlund at a quickie wedding chapel. “This is like a funeral parlor in reverse,” says Gene. Uh, wouldn’t a natal care wing be a funeral parlor in reverse? The Public Enemy’s theme plays over their promo in a junkyard. Ah, it’s been a minute since I’ve been able to type this: Fuckin’ Craig Leathers. And fuckin’ Annette Yother. Her too. TPE opens the Clash against the Nasty Boys, one of the first of their approximately four thousand matches they had over the next nine months. This starts as a (fresh at the time for a WCW crowd) four-way brawl with no tag structure. They do their whole brawling thing both in and out of the ring, though Grunge tosses in a back suplex on Knob(b)s pretty early in the bout. Meanwhile, Rocco Rock tries an Old School while walking the guardrail outside, but since he has zero mystical powers that hold his opponents in thrall, Sag(g)s just kicks the guardrail, crotches Rock, and then wanders off to grab a chair. This is what it is, which is to say that it’s perfectly adequate in 2025 and kinda exciting in 1995. Since it’s 1995, Rocco Rock isn’t quite so broken down as he was in 1999. He is clearly a couple of levels above Johnny Grunge in terms of his work. Both teams try to use that table, ignoring Nick Patrick’s pleas all the while, so Patrick throws the match out. Rock moonsaults Knobbs as Knobbs lays on the table, but the table doesn’t play along, I AM THE TABLE, etc. It finally breaks when Saggs flings the table at Grunge, who is standing outside the ring. See? Perfectly adequate. Promo: SuperBrawl is still up next in the PPV schedule! Eric Bischoff is interviewing wrestlers in the arena since Gene Okerlund is on wedding duty. He introduces Ric Flair, the Giant, and Jimmy Hart, who join him in the aisle. Flair and the Giant are facing Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage in tonight’s main event. Flair shrugs off the title loss the night before, and while Bisch doesn’t believe that Flair is okay with it, I do. Flair’s primary mission is to ruin Randy Savage’s life, and holding the big gold belt comes secondary to that. It’s a shocking loss of focus on Flair’s part, but he did stay laser-focused on the gold for twelve, fourteen years, so that’s pretty impressive. Flair and the Giant are, in a word, confident. Dean Malenko wouldn’t let Alex Wright out of the Texas Cloverleaf on the previous WCWSN, so he and Wright will have a grudge match tonight over the matter. They open with some counter wrestling. There’s a backflip in there. A Wright headscissors dumps Malenko on his crown and sends him rolling to the floor. Malenko gets back in the ring and targets Wright’s leg, peppering it with basement dropkicks and wrapping it around a post. He hits a dragon screw with a violence that shocks Bobby Heenan and then grapevines the leg in the center of the ring. Wright manages to make the ropes, so Malenko releases the hold and goes right back to work, landing boots and knees on Wright’s injured leg. Wright tries to make a comeback with a back elbow and a crossbody, but he limps away from that last move. He does manage to safely reverse a backslide and land a dropkick, but Dean Malenko doesn’t believe in coherent transitions! He hits a back suplex out of nothing and goes up top; Wright dropkicks him from the mat and knocks him into a sitting position. He follows this up with a big superplex on Malenko, then scores a bridging German suplex for two. Malenko stops short on a Wright dropkick attempt and clobbers his young opponent in the head. Wright tries to run at Malenko in the corner, but Malenko dropkicks his leg out from under him, then bridges over in a pin that he lets go a second early. Everyone agrees to pretend that it was a three count and moves on. That was a disjointed bout. I heard somewhere, maybe on Between the Sheets, that Kevin Sullivan was supposed to retire from in-ring work after the Pillman initially/Benoit afterward feud. Well, this would offer up an explanation as to why the feud went on forever and ever and ever. An Elvis impersonator comes out to Disco Inferno’s music to badly sing out the contents of a note that Disco decided to ditch his match against the Taskmaster to go to the wedding. Sullivan beats holy hell outta this dude. Important news: Bunkhouse Buck and Dick Slater have arrived at the wedding! I repeat, Bunkhouse Bunk and Dick Slater have arrived at the wedding! They are not excited to be here! Eric Bischoff interviews new tag champs Sting and Lex Luger; Luger denies that they won in a fashion less than unbefitting two above-board professional wrestlers. The interview is soon interrupted by the Road Warriors, who make a regular tag title challenge to Sting and Luger Sting is up for it, but Luger’s looking at defending against Harlem Heat, American Males, and, uh, State Patrol. Hawk is displeased and promises to soundly beat the champs as a way to fulfill the Road Warriors's beatings quota for the year. Seriously, he says the phrase “beatings quota” like three times! It comes off kinda awkward! Promo: WCW Magazine is turning a profit now, but don’t you worry. WCW will fuck it up in about three or four years by alienating their publishing partner. Pre-taped interview: Paul Orndorff explains his shoot neck injury and promises revenge on Brian Pillman and the Horsemen someday. That’s not going to happen, but would getting revenge on a few Natural Born Thrillers before injuring your neck again suffice? Orndorff claims that the Horsemen jumped on him because he turned them down long ago, which I find hard to believe in kayfabe. Orndorff seems like exactly the type of guy who would jump at the opportunity to be a Horseman. Hey, there’s Gary Spivey and his Brillo wig in the crowd! He believes in Mr. Wonderful! Wedding update: Col. Robert Parker hops out of a cab, but he lost his money at the craps table and tries to borrow fifty bucks from Okerlund. Okerlund doesn’t give him any cash, but he yells at the impatient, unpaid cab driver to KNOCK IT OFF WITH THE HORN while Parker answers a phone call from Sherri. Or maybe Madusa? Whichever one of those people he sees as his LIL’ FRIED PIE. Brian Pillman (w/pimp cane) enters the ring and does his nutbar act that is a bit much sometimes, y’know? His opponent is Eddy Guerrero. Pillman is distracted by hecklers in the crowd and is generally too unfocused to lock in. Eddy shoves him to the mat while Tony S. entices us to spend our hard earned money on a WCW hotline call so we can hear Eric Bischoff’s thoughts about the Billionaire Ted skits. Anyway, this match is fine. The best spot is Heenan’s THE FUCK ARE YOU DOIN?! when Pillman bails and grabs at the back of his jacket. Well, that certainly helped make Pillman seem more like a legit lunatic! Eddy hits bursts of offense; Pillman begs off, then cheats to take control. The thing about Pillman is that I’m not sure he’s very good as a heel, at least as a singles. Eddy almost gets two off a tornado DDT, but that move's really Chavo’s specialty. They trade roll-ups for two before Pillman wins a crossbody, lands on top of Eddy, pulls the tights for three, and accidentally freaks Heenan out again by starting to roll out of the ring and right onto the commentary table at ringside before he realizes that the table is there and exits on another side of the ring. Eric Bischoff as a bland heel interviewer is probably the least objectionable use of Eric Bischoff on WCW television. I again reiterate my wish that WWE Bischoff could have been transported into WCW for Bisch’s WCW heel runs. Anyway, he interviews Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, and Kevin Greene. Hogan talks to much (yo, he never shuts up). Everyone steals Savage’s catchphrase. Greene plans to win a Super Bowl ring off the Cowboys in a few days after this show. Nope! C’mon, Greene; your quarterback is Neil O’Donnell. You know you ain’t beating the Switzer-by-way-of-Johnson Cowboys. BIG STINKY GIANT COUNT: 1. I’m serious, Hogan talks too much (homeboy, he never shuts up). I have a soft spot for the Blue Bloods, who of course will be getting their asses kicked by Sting and Lex Luger in tonight’s WCW World Tag Team Championship match. Sting makes some unseen gestures toward Regal; we only see a tight shot of Regal’s (hilarious) facial expressions in response and that is probably for the best! Sting and Regal have very good chemistry, and Regal is happy to look like a goof, staggering around after Sting claps his ears before tagging out. Bobby Eaton takes a backdrop on the floor. Basically, the heels get pinballed quite a bit. Regal tries to jiggle his pecs after Luger does it, but he’s unsuccessful; he is immediately backed into the corner on a collar-and-elbow and frantically screams AHHH UNHAND ME UNHAND ME. Regal’s antics are easily the best thing about this match. The heels do briefly take Luger to FIP Land, but even an Eaton diving knee from the top and a Regal Stretch can’t put Luger away. Sting breaks up the Regal Stretch; Luger fails to catch Eaton on an Eaton dive, and instead just bonks heads with him on a rope run to spark the hot tag. Sting rolls both Blue Bloods and turns a negative into a positive when Regal hits him. He staggers backward and knocks Eaton off his perch on the top rope and into Regal, then locks Eaton in the Scorpion Death Lock and earns an immediate submission. I enjoyed this match for what it was. It's probably worth watching if only for Regal’s antics and makes for a slightly weaker than typical, though ultimately deserved, addition to my Good Matches playlist. Back at the chapel, Harlem Heat is not a fan of the grub (Booker T., infuriated: AIN’T NO NECKBONES?!), but Col. Parker is diverted from his attempts at mollifying them when Sherri shows up in a limo. The Colonel explains that he lost all his money at the tables, which sparks a huge argument on account of Sherri expecting a more lavish wedding than this one. On one hand, Sherri seems like one of those ladies more interested in the wedding than the person she’s marrying. On the other hand, the Colonel is a degenerate gambler. Why is Jimmy Hart talking out loud while he types in a chat box with the fans? I don’t know, and neither does he. Brian Pillman walks out and has a quick interview with Eric Bischoff. He’s a bit of a cornball in this thing, threatening to toss out all those cuss words George Carlin claims you can’t say on television before following up with an okay-ish promo in which he promises to make everybody respect him. Psicosis (spelled “Psichosis” on the chyron) is out here to put over Konnan (spelled “Konan” on the chyron). Man, WCW never used Psicosis correctly. From start to finish, they failed to get the most they could out of him. Konnan’s too big to land a lot of his offense cleanly, but in early 1996, he’s in much better physical shape than he is at any other point in his WCW run and acquits himself well enough here from a mechanical point of view. The match, however, is slow and plodding. It’s a typical Konnan match, in other words. At least vato Konnan had some personality. This version of Konnan is the personification of dull, though I do like the top-rope German/standing Figure Four combo that he wins the match with. Since there’s apparently no money to get into Rob Parker’s rented prep trailer, Sherri dresses in the backseat of the limo, and of course Gene Okerlund makes a shitty comment about Sherri being in the backseats of cars. Even if it’s true, so the fuck what, Gene? I bet she made those theoretical men (women? people?) very happy! Promo: Call the WCW Hotline, dammit! They've got what the kids apparently call “hot goss!” Also, you can play WCW trivia for prizes. I sure wonder what the prizes were. Sherri’s wedding dress is absolute NONSENSE. I can’t even describe this thing. It’s red and has a weird collar thing. I don’t know what to say. Gene blows up Parker’s spot by asking Sherri about what she said to the Colonel on the phone earlier tonight; confused, Sherri responds that she hasn’t talked to Rob since yesterday. Disco Inferno shows up and dances. Anyway, they walk up to the drive-thru window and order two cheeseburgers and a large chocolate milkshake. No, wait, they order up a marriage. Nobody objects to the marriage…initially. After a little while, Madusa storms out of Parker's trailer and attacks Sherri. She had a lot of time to storm over there considering how badly the drive-thru lady fucks up Col. Parker’s full name. It’s COLONEL. ROBERT. ANDY. PARKER. DAMMIT. Disco saved a couple of bottles of cheap champagne from the now-destroyed table full of food, which made me laugh just as it did the last time I saw him do it. Ad that was left in: Hot Pockets. Yuck. Michael Buffer, one of the few guys to stick with WCW through the whole Nitro era, introduces the Giant and Ric Flair (w/“Gentleman” Jimmy Hart) first; Randy Savage and Hulk Hogan (w/Kevin Greene, Woman, Debra McMichael, Ms. Elizabeth, and some other ladies) soon follow. Kevin Greene squares off with Ric Flair in the center of the ring. Flair bails and then claims over the house mic that he doesn’t want to hurt Greene right before the Super Bowl and get the league's officials mad at him. Heh. This match is fine. Flair gets his ass beat because of course he does. Hogan and the Giant eventually tag in and don’t do their best work. They actually have solid chemistry, usually. This just feels low-impact. Whatever, it’s a nothing little tag match. Jimmy Hart gets involved and diverts the ref; the Giant (the illegal man) takes the opportunity to haul Hogan outside and bash him against the rail. Alas, when Hogan re-enters the ring, Ric Flair’s chops merely help him block out the pain, counter-attack, and make a lukewarm tag because Vegas is sort of bored, I guess. Savage goes up and lands a Savage Elbow, but as Hogan and Giant go at it on the floor, Hart tosses some knucks at Flair, who loads his fist while Savage jostles with Hart. Savage punches Hart to the floor, but turns into a loaded punch from Flair that drops him for three. Greene tries to explain to the ref what happened, but Flair and the Giant make their escape. Zodiac and Brian Pillman try a sneak attack on the babyfaces and are quickly dispatched. Man, Pillman’s plan to make people respect him is off to a poor start, isn’t it? This show was okay, but I’m not sure that WCW’s Clashes and PPVs caught up to the excitement of even the early Nitros until Hall and Nash returned to the company. Link to follow-up Nitro review: http://deathvalleydriver.com/forum/index.php?/topic/9193-smelly-watches-every-nitro-era-nitro-thunder-clash-and-ppv-while-sitting-and-sometimes-maybe-standing/page/2/#findComment-1203398 1
zendragon Posted May 27 Posted May 27 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-i9GXbptog Hot Pocket!!! In his book David Penzer talks about how bad of condition TPE where in, also tells a story about stealing a ring truck Also The Dark Side of The Ring podcast had Missy Hyatt talking about how she would make up gossip for her day on the hotline 1
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