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WCW Monday Nitro Omnibus Thread


Zakk_Sabbath

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2 hours ago, Vader does my taxes! said:

Misread that as "Liger runs out and saves Sting from a beatdown..." and was both confused and intrigued.

Liger helping Sting against Vampiro and Muta wouldn't have been the worst way for that angle to have gone. Can't remember if Sting/Vamp was before or after this though.

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This thread inspired me to also watch some sweet early 90's Nitro. Started with January first of 1996 episode. Which features a damn good Regal/Benoit match. You know a match is good when my girlfriend questions whether it is fake or not.

I never claimed my girlfriend is a valour dictorian, but still....

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On 16/06/2016 at 2:16 PM, Dirty J. said:

I never claimed my girlfriend is a valour dictorian, but still....

Valedictorian, mate. Dictorian isn't a word by itself. 

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  • 2 months later...

My favorite current thing is the episode of NITRO the day after the Hogan turn.  They broadcast from Disney/MGM studios outside and had temporary stands set up and I guess they didn't have adequate wheelchair seating in those stands so all the wheelchair people got to sit around the ring.

The result is a row of people mostly in their 70s and 80s (and one dude in a neck brace) right in front of the hard camera all night and they are fucking into it, especially the Malenko/Mysterio and Eddie/Psychosis. 

It is, maybe, the most WCW thing ever.

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That run of Nitros between BATB and Hog Wild 96 was the absolute best. Great atmosphere and a constant uneasiness with the NWO lurking, which culminated with that legendary backstage brawl on the 7/29 episode. The midcard workrate guys were all in top form too, it just felt like everyone was super motivated and excited to be a part of something that felt that special.

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9 hours ago, Go2Sleep said:

That run of Nitros between BATB and Hog Wild 96 was the absolute best. Great atmosphere and a constant uneasiness with the NWO lurking, which culminated with that legendary backstage brawl on the 7/29 episode. The midcard workrate guys were all in top form too, it just felt like everyone was super motivated and excited to be a part of something that felt that special.

 

"But, if you take the worst thing you can think of and multiply it by 9,000,000 and then multiply it by infinity and beyond – it would be like one grain of sand in the Sahara desert, brother, because it’s really really scary thinking of what he’s going to do to Hulk.

 

DIG IT!"

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  • 1 month later...
On 9/17/2016 at 11:37 PM, piranesi said:

 

"But, if you take the worst thing you can think of and multiply it by 9,000,000 and then multiply it by infinity and beyond – it would be like one grain of sand in the Sahara desert, brother, because it’s really really scary thinking of what he’s going to do to Hulk.

 

DIG IT!"

 

Yeah, and Savage lost that match and looked like an even bigger puss later when he joined with Hogan.  I loved that promo too, but when you say shit like that and then don't even remotely deliver, the promo makes Savage a liar and a loser.  Unless you post it two decades later without proper context.

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

I started watching 96 Nitros and have been having fun with them.I think I started with the Memorial Day show because I wanted to see Hall debut again, which was pretty cool.  I actually thought the Enos/Steve Doll match that he interrupted was pretty fun until the commercial.  Enos fucking charged at him and they both went flying over the top.

I've been skipping around mostly, stopping at the clubbering big men matches usually.  I'm still trying to figure out why John Tenta decided to keep half his hair for weeks without shaving the rest, after Big Bubba shaved him.  Schiavone said he was using it as a reminder of the embarrassment but that doesn't even make sense.  Poor guy had to walk around for weeks like that.

I've been really impressed by The Giant and how decent he was as the wrecking machine until Hog Wild.  I also loved how Meng was trying to pick a fight with Lex Luger during the big backstage nWo angle where they destroyed everyone.  I didn't like seeing him and the Barbarian though dressed in business pants.  To me, they should be in some sort of jungle attire or something, eating plates full of meat while everyone else is worrying about Bagwell and Rey getting helped.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Does anyone know which Nitro has that really fun tag between the Outsiders vs I think, the Stenier brothers maybe?, where they have a real close match and the Steniers (although for some reason I'm thinking Ric Flair was involved so maybe it was against two of the Horsemen?) who almost beat Hall & Nash for the belts. The crowd were super into too IIRC. I have a vague recollection of the match which seems to be from a late 1996-1997 time frame. In hindsight it might not be so good but at the time it was a great tag match. 

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  • 1 year later...
  • 3 months later...

I'm reading that Guy Evans Nitro book and I decided to start watching Nitro from the beginning. Few notes from the first episode:

The Mall of America esthetic is really cool. I'm in the WCW holding shows in unconventional locations as a good move. It differentiates them from the WWE which lets face it has looked the same really since the 80's its all been shot the same.

Liger vs Pillman looks almost contemporary, It must have been a complete culture shock in 95, North American wrestling didn't look like that.

No matter how many times Flair and Sting wrestled each other it was really entertaining, they had it down to a science by 95. It was a fun match. I got a kick out of Flair and Arn fighting around ringside after the match and so did that crowd.

The show really did feel unpredictable, there was a controlled chaos element to the presentation, from Lugers surprise appearance to Scott Norton making his debuting by bullying Bischoff, Macho Man making the save which security holding Norton back. Anything could happen at any moment and it made for a fun atmosphere. 

Hogan's run in WCW before the nWo was so stale, here he's wrestling Big Bubba Rogers who he had a program with in WWF as Big Bossman. Thats the biggest criticism of Hogan in WCW even in the nWo run is that it's all just a retread of his WWF programs from upwards to a decade before hand. Match was by the numbers but fuck a Hogan title defense on free TV, Nitro was from the start was presenting a different wrestling show for the time.

The Dungeon of Doom coming out after the match was ridiculous, the rest of the show presented as new and exciting then this band of saturday morning cartoon villains who have vowed to rid the world of Hulkamania. it's all former WWF guys led by Kevin Sullivan as goofier characters and Hogan cleans house.

It does get interesting when Luger shows up and helps Hogan but then they get in a face off Sting and Savage shows up to alleviate the situation. Mean gene comes out and they set up Hogan vs Luger for the belt for the next week. Two World title defenses in two weeks was way different from anything being presented in televised wrestling from the time.

it really is an exciting show.

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I really think that early Nitro was a perfectly structured wrestling show. Everything moved at a really good clip, but not so fast you couldn't process it (*cough*Russo*cough*), everything was made to feel important in the moment, they showcased all sorts of talent and styles (if you think 95 Pillman vs Lyger was out of step for time and place, wait until Eddy and HWSNBN and Dean show up), the loose atmosphere and big shocks gave it a real anything can happen vibe, and they would set up the next week quickly and efficiently (as seen in the first episode booking Savage/Norton and Hogan/Luger for week 2 in a quick, clean fashion.)

Just a fantastic hour long show. I mean, some of the talent and gimmicks were bad, but the structure was amazing. Especially for the time period.

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Nitro 9/11/95:

They are in an actual arena this week by way of the James L Knight Center in Miami Florida. It's a relatively smaller venue but it looks super packed, the way it is shot everyone looks to be right on top of each other not only giving it the feel of a larger arena but also giving off an intimate feel as everyone is right there super close to the action and the crowd is on fire they seemingly excited  just to be there as they react loudly to everything. Plus the promotion has or had a history at the Knight Center the second Clash in June of 88 was held here too.

No matter how many times I've seen it Sabu in WCW is still so strange to me that I haven't completely been able to wrap my head around it. It's almost like Snoop Dogg signing to No Limit Records, although a cool concept ultimately it's two distinctly different styles that don't necessarily go together.  That being Said I enjoyed Sabu vs Alex Wright. Sabu stayed true to his style, he went after Wright from the jump and never let up. Wright looked like a man fighting for his life cuz in a sense he was. That table spot was cool but the reverse decision was bullshit Sabu pinned Wright clean in the ring than after the bell sent him crashing through the table.

That Flair Promo was odd, Flair's biggest complaint about Arn is Arn rather spend time with his family than get completely shitfaced with Flair. Then Luger shows up kinda rolls his eyes at Ric says something like "good to see you haven't changed much Ric" and that's the segment. Oh Mean Gene was there too

There's nothing much to the Sting vs VK Wallstreet match, other than the crowd being super into everything Sting does. Sting was over as fuck in late 95 so of course he was second fiddle to Hogan. I also like that the secondary title is getting defended regularly. It's the second Nitro and Stings second defense on the show. Thats missing from the current product. Oh fuck almost forgot to add Bischoff gave away the Raw main event and Mongo said that "They got their name from uncooked eggs" during Stings entrance. Shots fired in the Monday Night Wars!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Norton vs Savage was really fucking good ... until the finish, I'll come back to that. Seriously Norton had an impressive debut in WCW he dominated Savage for most the match. It was a wild and intense affair Norton tossing Savage around like a sack of potatoes but Savage was never truly out he matched Nortons brute force with his quickness and intensity. It's a shame Norton wasn't pushed to the top of the card cuz he would have been a huge star. So the finish happens when the Dungeon of Doom come out Randy drops Shark who falls on Norton's legs, Elbow drop, 1-2-3 Savage by way of John Tenta. That just killed all the momentum of Scott Norton right then and there. I will give it to him though Randy sold that beating from Norton and made him look like a total badass but god forbid you do the favors.

Luger vs Hogan was just kind of there. I have to admit there's something admirable about doing next to nothing like these to did and still eliciting the monster reactions from the crowd that they did. Maybe i'm just a jaded millennial, a child of the attitude era who needs a spot every 15 seconds are my attention spend wanders but it seemed to me like they were just stalling for the inevitable Dungeon of Doom run in.

Like  the prior episode the post match festives are more exciting than the actual main event itself.  Hogan and Savage are convinced Luger is in cahoots with the Dungeon of Doom. Paranoia is running rampant in WCW. Sting vouches for Luger but Hogan and Savage are not buying it. This is the start or a should say the baby steps of the Luger a heel expect when Sting is looking angle. Luger replaces the recently departed Vader in the upcoming War Games by the way. for how boring I thought the main event was all this distrust and high tension after the match was entertaining as hell you have all these explosive personalities with Mean Gene mitigating the whole thing and it comes off extremely well. 

 

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Luger is a pretty good example of the difference between the promotions at the time.

The WWF were incapable of making you care about a particular guy and their motives, as they simply refused to have anyone remotely interesting - they were either really good or really bad, nothing in between, straight forward motivations that Donny Dumbfuck could get.

WCW were really good at adding that extra bit of character, nuances and shades of grey that made you really think about things, which probably at times was counterproductive to their audience.What they weren't good at doing was pulling the trigger on guys who got hot from that, and making them *the* guy, whereas once Vince decided on a guy, this was the course of action, for better or worse. If you didn't like a guy, it wasn't because of wins and losses.

There was absolutely nothing interesting about Lex Luger from 93-95. Stars and stripes waving babyface. Exclusively that. Overnight, he became the most complex character in professional wrestling.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Nitro 9/18/95 Notes:

IDK where we are tonight but it’s another smaller but packed venue with a lively crowd.

I like the start of The Giant-Hogan feud with Giant as the son of Andre seeking vengeance for his deceased father. It gets dumb but at least it started out intriguing.

The Tag Title change was surprising especially since  the Harlem Heat dominated the American males for almost the entirety of the match. Plus the "scheduled match was the Blue Bloods vs American males with Book and Stevie beating up Bobby Eaton and making the match themselves and they won the titles the night before at Fall brawl. Col Parker just had to make out with Sister Sheri causing a distraction. Damn you Rob Parker.

Flair cut a better promo this week than the week before this one actually had a point to it, setting up Flair vs Pillman for later on in the night. Flair was in rare form too calling Pillamn an outsider and taking him to task for getting involved in the family spat between him and Arn.

Paul Orndorf's theme was really fucking cool, I'm kind of surprised with their trend of rehashing Hogans 80's feuds that WCW never ran Hogan vs Orndorff on a B-PPV. The Match against Johnny B Badd was good a little short even with the commercial break. Match as action packed though, Johnny hit a cross body to the outosde which was a high risk move at the time, finish was a little anti-climatic with Ornodoff countering Johnnys Sunset flip attempt and sitting on his head for the 3.

The thing I took away from Kevin Sullivan attacking Randy Savage on the set of Baywatch was Ric Flair referring to him as Devil. Sullivan's nickname among the boys was Devil in reference to his satanic gimmick in 1980's Florida.

Mean Gene interviewed Savage in the ring. They got alot of milage out of Okerlund thats for sure with two in ring promo's on an hour broadcast. Savage was something else entirely he had presence thats for sure and he still doesn't trust Lex Luger. This Luger program is very intriguing even 23 years later. 

So Giant debuted in WCW on the Fallbrawl pre show running over Hogan's motorcycle with a monster truck, we then get a clip of Giant attacking Hogan after the Wargames match. It's one hell of a debut I'll tell you that much. 

Pillman vs Flair was really good, the beat the shit out of each other. Flair must have been royally pissed off at Flyin Brain for costing him the match against Arn cuz he made him pay for it big time. Brain didn't take it laying down though he made sure to fight back. I'm a little shocked Flair won clean in post Hogan WCW lol. Match could have been longer but it wasnt bad.

Flair calls Arn out for the next weeks Nitro. For all the goofy shit going on in WCW their still some cool shit going on with Lugers ulterior motives and the Horsemen in fighting. 

 

 

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  • 2 months later...

On the January 1st, 1996 episode Sting and Lex Luger faced the Super Assassins who were Barbarian and Warlord in masks. So WCW had the Powers of Pain who had a history with Crockett and put them in masks.

 

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2 hours ago, Web Conn said:

On the January 1st, 1996 episode Sting and Lex Luger faced the Super Assassins who were Barbarian and Warlord in masks. So WCW had the Powers of Pain who had a history with Crockett and put them in masks.

 

I think Warlord only lasted a couple of weeks for whatever reason.

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2 hours ago, Brian Fowler said:

I think Warlord only lasted a couple of weeks for whatever reason.

Some brief research says this was actually his last WCW match. Was there about two and a half months. Why they were under the hoods is beyond me.

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