Even if faces talk a big mean game, they are often just too kind-hearted to go through with something like that. You see somebody in peril, and your instincts as a good person are to help them. Perhaps they have a storyline planned given Bischoff's line though.

I thought this post match was great, but then again I haven't studied proximate cause. Got the Giant over as a monster beating up several guys and being immune to the chair shot (strange concept to book your world champion as strong and to try and build new stars) and left the show on a cliffhanger wondering what will happen with the storyline.

Proximate cause in a nutshell is that you're only liable for the reasonably foreseeable consequences of your actions (established so that a railroad wouldn't be held liable for an absurd chain of events that led to a woman being injured by some other guy's fireworks). A wrestler can't reasonably expect that six different dudes are going to get beat up because he's late arriving for his match.

Re: Sting/Flair, I get what you're saying about faces talking a big mean game and then ultimately being too virtuous to follow through. It doesn't really sway me, but I get it.

In any case, I will say that I was entertained in spite of my perception that it was nonsensical, which still made it a lot better than what was being offered on the other channel.

Generally, extremely intelligent people are portrayed as villains in wrestling (Bockwinkel and Jericho, and of course THE Genius). And this makes sense to a degree given the anti-intellectualism in America that likely is even more prevalent among wrestling fans on average. So I can see how it makes sense to error more on the side of making a face wrestler too emotional rather than too rational.

But certainly at times faces are portrayed as being too stupid in wrestling. It makes sense that Sting would be fed up with Luger's antics though and isn't acting with a cool head (I think Luger no showed other matches on Worldwide and/or Saturday Night at this time, in addition to the heel tendencies sometimes shown). It still isn't really fair to say Luger 'caused' the mess. But my guess is very few people watching would pick up on that. It isn't as egregious as, say, Charlotte and Becky taking back Paige over and over after she betrayed them repeatedly.

Was the Giant being billed from somewhere other than the U.S. at this time, or was Duggan just being an idiot when he started the "USA" chants?

I'm not sure where they billed the Giant from, though there was still that silly Andre connection they would link from time to time, and Andre was French.

But I would guess that Duggan didn't really think about that too deeply. The "USA" chant was the one way he knew how to get the crowd behind him, even if it made no sense.

fwiw, Wikipedia lists the Big Show as only ever being billed from Tampa.

Duggan would start the USA chant even if both participants were from the USA. But then again, crowds did (and still do) chant USA during matches which contain no participants from the USA if they contain an "evil" foreigner. Know your audience.

Oh awesome. You've finally reached the greatest buildup with the worst payoff in the history of wrestling

May 13, 1996

RAW

Sioux City, IA

We open right up on the Bodydonnas heading to the ring sans Sunny. The camera picks up a fan wearing a Sunny shirt. Vince wonders where she is. Lawler: "Don't worry McMahon, Sunny's here. I saw her earlier. I just hope Shawn Michaels doesn't have her cornered back in the back somewhere." I'm afraid I've got some bad news, King.

Ahmed Johnson is going to face one of them in singles action. He cuts a backstage promo that I couldn't possibly transcribe without subtitles. Sunny interrupts and hits on him. Ahmed takes a step back and says something akin to, "My momma taught me to take trash out, not bring it in." Then he walks off as Sunny seethes.

Zip (w/ Skip) vs. Ahmed Johnson: Sunny comes out early in the match and confronts Ahmed. While this is happening, Skip pulls the switcheroo with Zip. Not for an ending sequence, but just to sub into the match I guess. Referee Mike Chioda never picks up on this, and the match just proceeds as Skip vs. Ahmed. Then Zip tries to sub himself back in later and Chioda stops him. Skip tries to take advantage and attack Ahmed, but gets beat up with a spinebuster and falls victim to the Pearl River Plunge, which Chioda counts for the 1-2-3. I won't pretend to understand the point of this match; it was basically Ahmed Johnson winning a handicap match against the tag team champions for no particular reason.



Warrior, sans face paint, does an advertisement for Warrior University. I'm sure that Rope-Shaking 101 course was a doozy.



Vader (w/ Jim Cornette) vs. Duke "The Dumpster" Droese: Vince says that they understand Yokozuna to be back to 100% and ready for his match with Vader at the PPV. Again, this is way too quick of a turnaround for the way they sold that leg injury originally. He should have stayed out for six months. Cornette heads over and joins the commentary team for the match.



This match follows the same formula that far too many superstar vs. JTTS matches seem to on Raw during this era. Star dominates, token offensive flurry by JTTS, star shrugs off the flurry and wins. This match features an extended reverse chinlock by Vader; it's not a great exhibition. A Vaderbomb ends it.

Result: Vader via pinfall

Vince mentions that still to come is our main event of Shawn Michaels vs. Hunter Hearst-Helmsley. Lawler: "Speaking of Shawn Michaels, I've got a big surprise for him: Mr. Perfect is in the house!" Vince: "Umm…well, whatever that means." They advertise Steve Austin vs. Marc Mero for next week's show.

Undertaker and Paul Bearer head down for an interview with Vince McMahon. Bearer wheels a gold-plated Goldust casket out. Goldust interrupts the interview. He does his usual sexual overtures, this time tailored to a dead man. "You're so clammy and…stiff." When Goldust reaches for Taker's hands, Taker gets mad and powers him down to the mat. Mankind attacks Undertaker from behind and again locks on the Mandible Claw.



Goldust blows in Mankind's ear in mid-claw and Mankind, looking weirded out, slinks off as Goldust mounts a seemingly unconscious Taker. This is too many exaggerated cartoon characters in one segment. Taker suddenly sits up, Goldust gets scared and runs off. I'm still waiting for the first moment of this Goldust/Taker feud that I like at all.

Justin "Hawk" Bradshaw (w/ Uncle Zebekiah) vs. Aldo Montoya: Zeb follows Cornette's lead and joins the commentary team for his man's enhancement match. Bradshaw's thing where he would throw up the longhorn sign and moo like a cow (or whatever noise it was that he was making) was lame. In any case, he goes over with the Clothesline from Hell in a routine squash.



Result: Justin "Hawk" Bradshaw via pinfall

We see footage from the WWF performing in Kuwait City. They show Shawn Michaels on the beach talking to some fans and then suddenly getting blindsided and beaten down by British Bulldog.

Shawn Michaels (w/ Jose Lothario) vs. Hunter Hearst-Helmsley: Shawn makes a play in mid-match for HHH's valet for the evening, which seems like an odd choice given that his current angle is that he's facing accusations of putting the moves on wrestlers' wives. They do a fun spot where Michaels holds HHH along the top rope and then hurts him simply by obeying Earl Hebner's order to break the hold.



Mr. Perfect strolls out wearing a dark green polo under a sport jacket and just watches for a while from the aisle. HHH was getting a nice showcase here in a long match, as he was HBK's boy and I'm sure that HBK was motivated to try to make him look awesome. This was a very good match, with the only big negative being that you couldn't really believe that Helmsley had any chance to win. Shawn eventually goes over with the superkick. Mr. Perfect never gets involved, and just walks off after the match ends.

Result: Shawn Michaels via pinfall

Backstage interview with British Bulldog, who is barely understandable, but threatens Shawn Michaels not to get involved in his match against Jake Roberts next week even though he'll be out there on commentary. That interview ends the show.

Overall: A strong main event helps somewhat salvage a show that was going pretty terribly before it. Still just an okay episode at best.

NITRO

Nashville, TN

Eric Bischoff opens by asking if a third time will be a charm for Lex Luger. Says he has missed two previous title shots at The Giant, but that he's here tonight. They show footage of Luger actually camping out outside of the arena in Nashville last night, so I guess we're not going to get Giant vs. Scotty Riggs or something.

Steiner Brothers vs. Public Enemy: Jobber entrance for PE. The announcers spend substantial time talking about how the Steiners will be matched up against each other on Sunday at Slamboree. Rocco Rock hits a somersault sentan after being thrown overhead by Johnny Grunge off the ropes, but only gets two. An attempt at a second such move comes up empty, Rick Steiner gets the hot tag, four-way chaos leads to Rocco Rock going for a somersault plancha over the top that accidentally hits his partner on the floor. Rock goes back inside, eats a frankensteiner, and Scott makes the pin. Okay match, probably worse than most of the Steiners' recent stuff but still watchable.



Result: Steiner Brothers via pinfall

Eric Bischoff made the announcement during the last match that, starting in two weeks, Monday Nitro will be a two-hour show each week. Well that will slow me down in my thread progress, but at least it will give me a 2:1 ratio of the superior program vs. the inferior one.

During the next ring intros, Bischoff says that DDP found a benefactor who got him back into WCW. It's almost like those retirement stipulations on matches are meaningless.

Chris Benoit vs. Squire David Taylor (w/ Jeeves): I would rather watch Benoit work with either of the other Bluebloods. Taylor just wasn't interesting. He does do a decent sequence of moves late in this match, including an electric chair drop and a fallaway slam that he floated over quickly into a pinfall attempt, but he ends up losing to a dragon suplex by the Crippler. Mongo McMichael hears that Randy Savage has arrived and says, "Good! I'm gonna go see him" and abruptly leaves as Bischoff and Heenan act confused as to why.



Result: Chris Benoit via pinfall

After commercial, Gene Okerlund is outside the building with Randy Savage, who isn't allowed inside the building. Mongo comes out and greets him, saying that if anyone can sympathize with Savage on this recent stuff then he can. He says that it's one thing for Flair to do what he does in front of the whole world to get some publicity, but he says, "When you come back in the locker room, messing with family, baby? You made it real now, darlin'. I'm gonna do something about it. Just chill out Macho, because I've got a plan." I do not know what Flair allegedly did in the locker room. I guess the implication is that he hit on Debra backstage.



Mongo, having said his part, goes back inside. Gene still attempts to interview Savage, telling him he's lost it. With regard to Flair, Gene says, "Randy Savage, you are going to have to co-exist this Sunday. … If you want to get to Battle Bowl, you're gonna have to make it happen with this man." Savage: "Wait a minute, I don't have a problem with that at all. I don't mind dragging a dead tag team partner to the ring." Gene gets indignant and says that Savage is out of line.

We get our weekly Blood Runs Cold promo. They still don't clarify or really even hint what's coming soon to WCW.

During the next intros, Mongo says that he and Kevin Greene are working something up, but that he's not going to get into the details just yet.

Ric Flair (w/ Woman & Miss Elizabeth) vs. V.K. Wallstreet: Mike Rotundo was pretty slow and washed up here. Flair gives this match a go, but he can't successfully make it all that interesting, especially as the crowd is just yawning at Wallstreet. Flair wins with the figure-four leglock, getting the additional leverage from Woman from the outside of the ring that referee Randy Anderson doesn't notice.

Result: Ric Flair via submission

Mean Gene with Ric Flair. Flair cops his usual feels on Woman and Liz while cutting a promo on Savage. Gene brings up Mongo. Flair: "You gonna bring up that football player that dares to be a defensive lineman talking to Joe Namath? … While you were rolling in the dirt, I was throwing TD passes…and <arms around the women> look at my wide receivers." Okay then.



WCW Title - The Giant (c) (w/ Jimmy Hart) vs. Lex Luger: Both wrestlers get jobber entrances after the commercial break, so right away I'm feeling a title change coming. Flair sits ringside for the match with the ladies at a banquet table, happily sipping champagne and eating from a spread in front of them. The Giant pulls Lex Luger over toward that table after a few minutes and chokeslams him through it. Jimmy Hart even tries to stop The Giant as Flair looks historically shook and Sting runs in to throw himself over Luger to stop the beating.





Result: Lex Luger by DQ? Or no contest. Or double countout.

Luger lays there motionless as he gets attended to. Mongo and Bischoff say that if there were any doubts about Luger's intentions, he put them to rest tonight. Mean Gene tries to get a word, and Sting angrily yells, "Not now Gene, get out of here!" Heenan cracks a bad joke about Luger and Bischoff snaps at him angrily to shut up, then doesn't play along as Bobby tries to keep it going. Those are some subtle but nice touches to put over the purported seriousness of a kayfabe injury. They show replays, but the broadcast team lays out as they play silently. This was a damn strong way to put their monster champion over.

They go back to the broadcast desk. Heenan is still happy about what he just saw while Bischoff and Mongo are rattled by it. Bischoff said that if Sting needed any more of a motive to get up for his match with The Giant this Sunday, he just got it. Heenan teases that he just got word of something over his headset, but the show goes off the air.

Overall: Pretty good episode. The final segment put The Giant over really strong and did the best job possible of building the Sting vs. Giant main event for the coming PPV. The wrestling wasn't the greatest on this episode, but it wasn't bad, and the overall episode worked.

---

Ratings for 5/13/96: Raw 3.5, Nitro 2.3
Ratings Running Score: Raw, 16-14-2

Better Show: Nitro was far more complete and compelling, regardless of the nice main event on Raw.
Better Show Running Score: Nitro 26-6

Match of the Night: Shawn Michaels vs. Hunter Hearst-Helmsley

I would be lying if I told you that I was optimistic about these upcoming PPVs. I vaguely remember both of them sucking.

But, to put it another way...the shows will be awesome if I let them be awesome.

I don't remember Uncle Zebekiah at all (And I knew him from when he wrestled as Dutch Mantell). I was a huge Steve Austin fan and him being the Ringmaster, another apparent master squandering of a former WCW talent along the lines of "The Widowmaker" and "The Dragon", limited my interest in sitting through the rather poor WWF product.

He was around as far back as early '95, managing the Harris Twins as Jacob and Eli Blu. I guess they just had him on hand to step in as manager whenever they wanted to do a gimmick where the character was from some rural backwoods area. He competed for market share with Hillbilly Jim.

A billionaire parody of V.K. McMahon character played a face role in that match with Flair. Was this some kind of challenge to see if Flair can really get any face over?

There is a WWF In your house PPV coming up in the beginning of 97 that almost made me stop watching wrestling just when I was getting back in the swing of it. I think there was 6 matches in the card. I can't remember one match up it I do remember out of the six, at least four had non finishes. I felt so ripped off that I didn't watch WWF for a while and if WCW wasn't so good at this time, I probably would have quit altogether.

If it's the Final Four one, I would think that the main event Final Four match by itself is enough not to come out of that PPV being all that mad. I don't really remember anything about the rest of the show though.

I don't remember it being anything special, maybe I'll try and look it up. I won't post it here though, I don't want to ruin you gig here.

No problem. I'm a big fan of that match though, I really see it as Vader's finest WWF performance. I look forward to eventually getting to it here.

It was the May of 97 IYH. And I was a little off. It was 3 of the 5 matches were non finishes.

Ah, gotcha. That's right before the GOAT In Your House, Canadian Stampede.

This. Final 4 was all kinds of a great match

WCW SLAMBOREE '96



Baton Rouge, LA

Mentioned it in a Nitro recap along the way, but here's the setup: The Lethal Lottery puts wrestlers on 16 random teams to face each other. Some get put on teams with friends, some with enemies. For once, there's an actual good motivation for enemies to work together, because the teams these guys are on need to win twice, at which point the field will be whittled down to 4 teams, or 8 wrestlers, who will then compete in the Battle Bowl battle royal. The winner of that battle royal will not only be given the really lame title of "lord of the ring," but more importantly they will get a world title shot at the next PPV. I like the concept very much.

Our announce team for the evening is Tony Schiavone, Dusty Rhodes, and Bobby Heenan.

Lethal Lottery First Round - Road Warrior Animal & Booker T vs. Road Warrior Hawk & Lex Luger: Okay, I guess Luger has healed in the past six days. Right away we've got two usual teammates on opposite teams. After some dull brawling, Booker T hits a scissor kick on Luger and goes for the pin. Hawk saves Luger. For some reason Luger gets angry about being saved and confronts Hawk.



Animal, Luger's partner, runs in and attacks Luger. All four brawl on the outside, with the sets of temporary teammates fighting each other. We hear a bell, and this thing is declared a double countout as the Road Warriors proudly hold the ring. Booker T wanders off declaring, "We won." He then follows with, "This thing ain't over." Tip of the cap for saying two directly conflicting things and having neither be true. So the big advertisement for the night, among other things, is that teammates would have to go at it. Obviously they kick off the night by having Animal and Hawk go totally against the spirit of the night, never touching each other and in fact teaming up. Idiocy.

Result: Double countout (6:54)
Rating: 0*

Lethal Lottery First Round - Public Enemy vs. The Taskmaster (w/ Jimmy Hart) & Chris Benoit: Couldn't poor Rocco have gotten assigned a better partner just for this one night? The Taskmaster and Benoit share a high-five before the match as some attempted show of solidarity even though they had a feud beginning to simmer. This one also devolves into a four-way brawl outside the ring. Taskmaster blatantly hits Rocco with a chair a couple of times, then places him on an outside table. He's going to do the somersault sentan onto the table to put Sullivan through it, but Benoit cuts him off with a clothesline.

Back to brawling outside, PE actually get both Benoit and Sullivan onto the table. Rocco goes for the somersault again, Sullivan moves and only Benoit gets put through the table. The Crippler gets sent back inside, and the pin is a formality. Obviously Benoit will be less than pleased that Sullivan saved himself and not him.



Result: Public Enemy via pinfall (4:44)
Rating: *

Incidentally, I can see just from the search bubbles at the bottom that this show consists of 20 billion matches that are about five minutes long each. That's basically never the formula for a good show.

Lethal Lottery First Round - Sgt. Craig Pittman (w/ Teddy Long) & Scott Steiner vs. The Booty Man (w/ The Booty Babe) & Rick Steiner: "The Pitbull Craig Pittman, one of the finest mat wrestlers the sport has ever seen." Tony Schiavone had that ridiculous hyperbole machine fired up, I see. I had wondered what became of that angle where Pittman was desperately seeking a manager…the fact that it ended up with Teddy Long is about the saddest thing ever. This match doesn't cop out like the Road Warrior match earlier; Scott and Rick actually do wrestle each other. It…isn't exactly Bret vs. Owen. One nice belly-to-back suplex by Scott, but otherwise a fairly dull exchange.



Sgt. Craig Pittman has an armbar submission hold on Booty Man, who slowly works his way over to the ropes from the hold and tags Rick Steiner (illegally through the middle rope, as Bobby Heenan points out but everyone ignores), who enters and goes behind and executes a German suplex for the win.

Result: Rick Steiner & The Booty Man via pinfall (8:21)
Rating: *

Lethal Lottery First Round - The Bluebloods (w/ Jeeves) vs. Hacksaw Jim Duggan & V.K. Wallstreet: This is the Regal/Taylor rendition of the Bluebloods.



Heenan on Duggan: "Back in that ring. After that operation. Can you believe that?" Tony: "What operation?" Heenan: "He's a brain donor." Duggan and Wallstreet have some infighting. This is followed by Wallstreet gator-arming his way out of a tag, and Duggan clocking him in response. Hacksaw tapes his fist, punches our Squire David Taylor, and makes the pin. Lovely little burial of the Bluebloods; they basically just jobbed out to Hacksaw Jim Duggan by himself.

Result: Hacksaw Jim Duggan & V.K. Wallstreet via pinfall (3:46)
Rating: 0*

Lethal Lottery First Round - Dick Slater (w/ Col. Parker) & Earl Robert Eaton (w/ Jeeves) vs. Alex Wright & Disco Inferno: There's nothing here. Just like the rest of the matches, really. The announcers focus on talking about Flair and Savage teaming up later. Dick Slater clobbers Disco Inferno with his cowboy boot while Disco is dancing, then pins him.

Result: Dick Slater & Robert Eaton via pinfall (2:56)
Rating: 0*

Lethal Lottery First Round - Diamond Dallas Page & The Barbarian vs. Hugh Morrus & Meng: It's funny when you think about what's happened with DDP's music on the WWE Network. His actual theme was a generic ripoff of Nirvana. The WWE Network version is a ripoff of that ripoff, where all you hear is same vaguely familiar guitar riffs. Somebody else needs to buy the rights and water it down further. Not a single babyface in this match. DDP is the only heel here who is actually over at all. Needless to say, the crowd is thrilled with this matchup. Page does about two moves, and the announcers all start gushing about how impressive he looks, and how he doesn't have any ring rust. I feel like I'm watching Jake Locker play football.

Meng & Barbarian, usually a tag team, go right after each other. And then no-sell the hell out of each other. Morrus tags in, hits a flying elbow on Barbarian, covers and then voluntarily sits up at 1. Goes back up top, DDP knocks him off and crotches him, and Barbarian does a nice belly-to-belly superplex from there. Meng saves the pinfall by kicking Barbarian off.



Morrus connects on his finisher moonsault, but DDP makes the save. Four-way chaos, Barbarian pins Morrus while Meng pins DDP, referee counts the two down simultaneously. Barbarian and Morrus were the legal men and that's the only pin that should count. Randy Anderson actually does get it right for the wrong reasons, saying that DDP got his foot on the ropes before three. Well, even after that goofy ending, this may sadly be our new leader for match of the night.

Result: The Barbarian & DDP via pinfall (5:15)
Rating: *1/2

Lethal Lottery First Round - Big Bubba & Stevie Ray vs. Fire & Ice: So apparently Bubba has a new look and has joined the Dungeon of Doom. Not a REALLY new look, but just a slightly new look where he looks more rugged, and is dressed in biker **** instead of in a suit. Dusty: "Scott Norton is so powerful. I mean, he possesses so much…power." Indeed, nobody did power offense like Scott Norton:



Tony: "And another clothesline. It's like…clothesline-o-mania here." Even Schiavone isn't pretending to enjoy this match. Fire and Ice go over when they hit a very ordinary-looking double shoulderblock.

Result: Fire & Ice via pinfall (3:32)
Rating: 0*

Lethal Lottery First Round - Eddie Guerrero & Arn Anderson vs. Ric Flair & Randy Savage: Flair doesn't answer his own intro music. Eventually Savage's music comes on instead, and Savage does come out for that. The announcers speculate that something must have happened backstage. They try Flair's music again, and he actually does come sprinting down once Arn has attacked Savage before the bell. Flair hits the ring and joins in the beatdown on his own partner. Eddie Guerrero attacks Flair, and I guess we're settling into an actual tag match as Savage is shaken up on the apron.

After fighting Eddie for a bit, Flair goes and forcibly tags Savage as Savage is still recovering. He then grabs Eddie's hand and runs him across the ring and makes him tag Arn so that Arn can come in and beat on Savage. This is fun. Flair and Savage continue the infighting, Arn actually comes in and nails the DDT on his own partner Eddie, goes and ambushes Savage at ringside, and Flair makes his way over to capitalize on the DDT and pin Eddie. This was really short and I wish they'd gotten longer, but I enjoyed it a lot.



Result: Ric Flair & Randy Savage via pinfall
Rating: ***1/4

After the match, Flair carries Liz, who had come down with Woman late in the match, in his arms toward Savage. They hold Randy up while she slaps him, then Arn DDTs him on the floor. Flair and Anderson are the greatest.



That ends the first round. There will be a drawing for who gets the bye into the Battle Bowl.

Advertisement for the Great American Bash. Now THAT show I'm looking forward to.

Mean Gene is with three Hooters girls at the top of the ramp for second round drawings. Fire & Ice receive the second round bye. Dick Slater & Earl Robert Eaton will face Jim Duggan & V.K. Wallstreet. Boy, that'll be a classic.

Tony Schiavone mentions that "the youngster" Dean Malenko (age 35, by the way) beat Shinjiro Otani this past weekend to become the WCW Cruiserweight Champion right after Otani first won it.

WCW Cruiserweight Title - Dean Malenko (c) vs. Brad Armstrong: What an odd person to get the first-ever PPV title shot at the Cruiserweight Title. Malenko feigns like he's going to cooperate with a test of strength, then does one of his great targeted dropkicks to take Armstrong's knee out.



Dean relentlessly works that leg going forward in the match. He even busts out the stump puller, which I always love as a submission move. Unfortunately Armstrong pretty much forgets all of the leg work shortly into a babyface comeback, but the comeback doesn't last. Malenko connects on the second-rope gutbuster for the three-count. Okay match, but pretty low on the list of Cruiserweight Title matches on WCW PPV.

Result: Dean Malenko via pinfall
Rating: **1/4

Gene with the Hooters girls again. Our drawings for the second round: Public Enemy vs. Randy Savage & Ric Flair, and DDP & The Barbarian vs. The Booty Man & Rick Steiner.

Lethal Lottery Second Round - Dick Slater (w/ Col. Parker) & Earl Robert Eaton vs. Hacksaw Jim Duggan & V.K. Wallstreet: Duggan and Wallstreet start brawling again at the opening bell. Then a minute later they work together to whip Slater and Eaton into each other. Then Wallstreet hits a jumping knee on Duggan to knock him out of the ring. They really should have pretty much left the dysfunctional team bit to mostly being a Savage/Flair thing. It settles into a normal tag match for a bit until Wallstreet probably-not-inadvertently punches Duggan on the corner, Duggan punches back, and Wallstreet falls into a schoolboy to get pinned. Awful match.

Result: Dick Slater & Earl Robert Eaton via pinfall (4:08)
Rating: 0*

Lethal Lottery Second Round - Public Enemy vs. Randy Savage & Ric Flair (w/ Elizabeth & Woman): Randy Savage doesn't come out for his entrance music. Flair's entrance music hits next. Ric does come out, women in tow, but Savage comes sprinting out of the back and attacks as security tries to round him up. The two brawl until a whole host of babyfaces restrain Savage as Flair runs off. Public Enemy are declared the winners by forfeit.



Result: Public Enemy via forfeit (0:00)
Rating: N/A

Lethal Lottery Second Round - DDP & The Barbarian vs. The Booty Man (w/ The Booty Babe) & Rick Steiner: DDP puts the badmouth on Kimberly before the match. All involved seem pretty damn lethargic here. Apparently that earlier 5 minutes of tag team action was enough to gas everyone for the night. Booty Man has Barbarian pinned twice, DDP interferes both times. After the second time Barbarian is just randomly able to pin Booty Man for no apparent reason. Garbage.

Result: DDP & The Barbarian via pinfall (5:05)
Rating: 0*

So that means our collection for the 8-man Battle Bowl later is: DDP, The Barbarian, Dick Slater, Earl Robert Eaton, Rocco Rock, Johnny Grunge, Scott Norton, Ice Train. Are you ****ing kidding me that they built a whole PPV around that group?

Mike Tenay joins the commentary team for the upcoming US Title match.

US Title - Konnan (c) vs. Jushin Thunder Liger: Konnan is mostly bald, but has multiple "K"s shaved into his head. It looks like the douchiest thing ever. Tenay explains it to be something from a non-wrestling TV show that Konnan is on, so I guess he's forgiven. There's some aerial offense early, but it gets grounded from there into some fairly dull mat wrestling. Liger hits a superplex, follows directly after with a top rope splash, and Konnan still kicks out at 2. Dude. That's kind of a superman kickout. Konnan goes to take a breather, Liger follows out with an attempted plancha from the top, and Konnan dropkicks him on the way down to put him down hard. The match clearly picked up on this last series.

Fisherman buster by Liger, still only gets two. Konnan hits an Alabama slam a moment later and rolls through into a pinning combo that gets a near-fall where the ref actually counts to three but doesn't wave the match off. Liger sunset flip gets two. Liger small package gets two. Ligerbomb gets two. Konnan gets his feet up to thwart a diving headbutt, connects on a crucifix powerbomb, and gets the 1-2-3. This match got really good after the slow start.



Result: Konnan via pinfall (9:30)
Rating: ***1/4

Mean Gene brings out Flair, Arn, Woman, and Liz. After preening about the party they're going to throw tonight, Flair moves on to talking about Mongo McMichael. He acts offended that Mongo told him to back up. He says "I can't back up if I can't get your wife out of my back pocket, brother." Mongo interrupts as Flair hides behind Arn. Flair, well-protected, challenges Mongo to go find any old teammate, and in fact anyone he wants, to team against himself and Double A. McMichael gleefully says that he's got his first round draft choice here tonight, and he introduces Kevin Greene. Flair takes umbrage and says, "I said retired player." He said no such thing. This sets up Flair/Arn vs. Mongo/Greene for the next PPV.



Schiavone mentions that Nitro is 90 minutes tomorrow. And then it will be two hours every week thereafter. Out come our Battle Bowl participants.

Battle Bowl - Public Enemy/Scott Norton/Ice Train/Barbarian/DDP/Dick Slater/Robert Eaton: Tony: "Isn't this what's great about WCW? Who would have thought that these would be the men involved?" This is definitely not an example of what's great about WCW. DDP gets dumped out over the top first, it sure looks like both feet hit the floor, but he holds the ropes and goes back in. I'm pretty sure he ****ed that up. Schiavone insists that he should be out, but he's going to stay. Rocco Rock is first out, closely followed by Robert Eaton. For some odd reason Col. Parker gets on Eaton's case for being eliminated even though Parker isn't his manager, so Eaton correctly clocks him really hard. Dick Slater gets eliminated in the meantime and fights with Eaton for attacking his manager. You can just see the WCW Worldwide feud brewing. Scott Norton out quickly too.

Field got cut in half quickly to DDP/Barbarian/Ice Train/Johnny Grunge, and only has one viable winner left in the group. DDP hits the Diamond Cutter on all three of the other guys. Pins Grunge and Ice Train, only gets a two-count on Barbarian. These two battle for a while. Barbarian hits a tombstone for a near-fall. Powerbomb for another one. He ultimately succumbs to an abrupt Diamond Cutter. DDP wins a title shot at the World Champion and the incredibly lame title of Lord of the Ring. As you can see, approximately one fan in the whole audience even reacts as though the match has ended or that anything else has happened.



Result: DDP wins (9:33)
Rating: *1/2

Mean Gene gets an interview out of The Giant. Not one that you can actually understand or anything, but his lips definitely moved and there was the basic sound of words coming out.

WCW Title - The Giant (c) (w/ Jimmy Hart) vs. Sting (w/ Lex Luger): Apparently a stipulation was added for this match where Lex Luger and Jimmy Hart were to be handcuffed together at ringside, so that's happening. Sting bounces off The Giant on an early cross-body attempt. It was an effective spot for making the big man look invincible early.



Giant takes Sting outside, and toward a ringside table. He was going to repeat the chokeslam through the table that he did to Luger on Monday, but Luger cuts it off by putting Jimmy Hart on top of the table and in the way. This stays Giant's hand. Luger also helps Sting out by pulling him down and out of the way when Giant comes charging in with a dropkick.

Sting inadvertently elbows the referee down for the ref bump. Naturally this is when he finally gets some successful offense going. Luger and Hart up on the apron. Giant puts a chokehold on Luger. Three straight Stinger Splashes on Giant finally enable Sting to break the big man's chokehold on Luger, then put him down. Jimmy finds himself up on the ropes while cuffed to Lex, Sting gets greedy and goes for a Stinger Splash on him as well, but Jimmy falls out of harm's way and there's a question of whether Luger pulled him. Either way Sting comes up empty and then falls head-first into Giant's crotch. As the referee comes to, Sting hits a splash off the top, but Giant throws him off hard on the two-count, throws him into the referee and causes another ref bump.

Another top rope splash. Hart up on the apron with the megaphone. Luger tries to wrestle it away…you know where this is going. Luger pulls it away and accidentally clocks Sting with it. Giant chokeslam, gg. This was actually surprisingly good; far better than I expected.



Result: The Giant via pinfall (10:41)
Rating: ***

Tony and company recap the show and sign off.

Overall: That whole Lethal Lottery/Battle Bowl event was mostly just the absolute worst. And it was also most of the show. I guess the best way to sum it up is that this is about as bad as an event could be while still having three matches that were 3+ stars. To give due credit, the surprisingly good main event makes it feel a decent bit better than it felt at the conclusion of DDP's win.

Can't wait for IYH: Beware of Dog (both of them!) Although those of us that got Beware of Dog 2 for free got what we paid for.

While I remember that show being bad, I also was undoubtedly annoyed that I had friends over and we spent over an hour staring at a screen telling us "technical difficulties, bear with us, brb" while the PPV was supposed to be going on. I'm interested to see what I think upon rewatch, because I don't think I've seen it since it aired.

But I'm still confident that Goldust vs. Undertaker will be terrible, because I do distinctly remember thinking that all of their matches were just the absolute worst.

I think you should subject yourself to an hour of dead air just to recapture the experience as faithfully as possible.