And just as a heads up, that's probably it for new writeups for a couple of weeks. I'll fire things back up again either late this month or early next month.

awesome job man

that one seems like a solid ppv

It is amazing how close together in time the start of the NWO and the Austin 3:16 promo are. Less than a month apart. And with them the best year and a half of US wrestling in the past 25 years, maybe ever, begins.

All that and it probably still won't get PPV of the month.

Finishing up The Death of WCW book...I can't imagine the fun you are going to have with these episodes should you ever get that far.

Being we are quite a bit of ways from that, I've had the thought that you'll say something like "WWF wasn't that good but WCW was so amazingly bad that I'll give them the nod for best show this week."

I get the impression that if I ever went back and watched all the attitude era raws - or more likely wait for you to get there - that a lot of it won't be nearly as cool as I thought it would be from when I was 15-17 years old.

Yeah, honestly I'm guessing that I might be a harsher critic of the Attitude Era than many would be, just because there are a lot of midcard characters that were very over that I rolled my eyes at even as a teenager. But I'm still expecting to enjoy it.

The Attitude Era's popularity shows the great impact a couple of really huge stars doing entertaining things can have on the overall quality of a show. Especially watching it live. Even when something really terrible is on screen, the thought that Stone Cold might come out soon can keep you feeling some anticipation as opposed to sheer, unadulterated boredom or disgust

Agree that attitude era raws had lots of terrible storylines and characters. Today's raws have that too but also unfortunately lack the compelling top of the card characters that attitude era had in rock, scsa, etc

People always talk about the incredible depth of the rosters during attitude era. I actually think the roster is deeper nowadays but obviously lots of the low and mod card guys are terribly misused.

This is actually the consensus nowadays on wrestling forums which I wholeheartedly agree with.

The roster was incredibly deep in 2002 or so after they picked up so many WCW and ECW guys.

Attitude Era, not so much, although I can see how somebody who watches wrestling for the characters and storylines might think it was deeper then because there was less wrestling and more character development. And the Attitude Era had more protected full time guys and less guys booked as 50/50 midcarders.

I agree though, the tragic death of the Intercontinental Title is owed in significant part to the massive increase in title changes during the Attitude Era, but it's also owed to the fact that they strapped guys who had no business being in the fraternity of IC Champions, which might speak to a shallow midcard. Once I potentially get there I guess I'll see what other options they could have had.

I actually quit watching wrestling for 10 years after Chyna won the IC title. That's how disgraceful those days were

Previously on the Monday Night Wars…

WCW superstars redoubled their efforts to force Scott Norton to sell even one move, but to no avail.



The Cruiserweight Title has officially arrived in WCW.



The Horsemen have officially declared war on the Dungeon of Doom…



…oh, and there are Four Horsemen once again.



Mick Foley arrived in the WWF as Mankind and promptly swung for the fences by taking a run at The Undertaker, beating him down on the night of his debut…



…and then defeating him in their first match.



The Giant took the WCW Title from Ric Flair, and has been squashing everybody in his path ever since.



Shawn Michaels took the WWF Title from Bret Hart, and then celebrated by getting fresh with Bret's sister.



Okay, not really, that was just an angle with the British Bulldog that led to a great main event at King of the Ring.



But most importantly,

The Outsiders have arrived in WCW, and have promised to take over. Like a good SEC team, they figured they'd start off with a tomato can.



WWF bid a fond farewell to Ted DiBiase. As a result, the Million Dollar Dream gave way to the Stone Cold Stunner…



…and passable but forgettable heel promos gave way to GOAT-level heel promos.



Our current champions as of June 24, 1996:

WCW World Champion - The Giant



WCW US Champion - Konnan



WCW TV Champion - Lex Luger



WCW Cruiserweight Champion - Dean Malenko



WCW Tag Team Champions - Sting & Lex Luger



WWF World Champion - Shawn Michaels



WWF Intercontinental Champion - Ahmed Johnson



WWF Tag Team Champions - The Smoking Gunns



WWF Women's Champion -

It's about to happen

yeah but whos side is he on?

June 24, 1996

RAW

Green Bay, WI

We start right off in the ring, with Hunter Hearst-Helmsley awaiting the new Intercontinental Champion. Ahmed gets the "NEW Intercontinental Champion" announcement from Howard Finkel and some pyro for his arrival.

Ahmed Johnson vs. HHH: Ahmed, always noted for his sloppiness, seems to be even sloppier than usual to start tonight. Sloppy clothesline in one spot, and then a bad botch on a spot where his momentum was supposed to carry him out of the ring and only ends up getting him halfway there. We get a mid-match PIP promo from Goldust, who threatens revenge against Ahmed Johnson - I'm almost sure they never meet on PPV again - and then threatens The Undertaker, his PPV opponent for this month.

Back to the match, Ahmed had the ability to be fairly entertaining at times in the ring when he would do high-risk stuff that showed off his impressive athleticism, but sometimes his matches would look more like this, where he's just stumbling around the ring and not doing anything interesting. In any case, HHH is still very much in the throes of the MSG curtain call punishment, so this one is always headed toward a Pearl River Plunge for the Ahmed victory.

Result: Ahmed Johnson via pinfall



Dok Hendrix joins Ahmed in the ring, noting to him that he must be proud of being the first-ever African-American IC Champ. Ahmed: "First of all, Mike - Dok - I am very proud to be the first African-American champion of the world." I hope that Mike breaks it to him gently that he didn't win the world title. The rest of this is a generic celebratory promo. Ahmed just wasn't a coherent talker at all.

Sunny comes out and joins the commentary team.



The Bodydonnas (w/ Kloudi) vs. The Brooklyn Brawler and unnamed local jobber: The Bodydonnas have turned face, but there is no detectable crowd reaction for them. None. And this Kloudi thing is one of the biggest facepalms they've ever rolled out. Sunny mentions on commentary that she plans to bring in a singles wrestler to go after the title of Shawn Michaels or Ahmed Johnson. Bodydonnas finish the squash with a top rope hurracanrana from Skip and a seated splash by Zip.

Result: Bodydonnas via pinfall

Kloudi chases Sunny to the back after the match.

Shawn Michaels vs. Marty Jannetty is advertised for next week. They show some historical clips of their background, including the famous Barber Shop breakup.

Vader, Owen Hart, & British Bulldog (w/ Jim Cornette) vs. Savio Vega, Aldo Montoya, & Barry Horowitz: If you're Savio Vega and you show up to the arena on this night, you have to be sick seeing that you've been assigned to an obvious jobber team here. Cornette joins the commentary team for the match, and he and Vince combine to hype the 6-man main event for the next PPV. As far as the squash goes, the heel team's combined awesomeness makes it sorta fun to watch them go through their spots. Bulldog hits a running powerslam on Montoya and starts to go for the pin, but instead decides to stand up and tag Owen, who exaggeratedly celebrates getting to finish the match off. Sharpshooter applied, gg. The fans like Owen better than they like the Bodydonnas.



Result: Vader, Owen, & Bulldog via submission

Brian Pillman limps out to ringside on crutches. He yells at Vince McMahon and asks where his money is. Vince says he hasn't wrestled yet. Pillman says he doesn't have to, and keeps after it a bit. Vince just says "I'm sure we'll get to the bottom of this" and cuts things off there. No idea what that's about.

Steve Austin vs. The Undertaker (w/ Paul Bearer): Vince notes that Undertaker lost to Mankind last night due to inadvertently being hit by Bearer's urn. Like Owen Hart on commentary the night before, King says it wasn't inadvertent. King even goes over and harasses Bearer, repeatedly asking him what happened last night. He gets a cold shoulder.



The match is a fairly boring one. The crowd is sitting on their hands throughout, and only really first reacts to anything when they see Goldust walk out late in the match. Taker chokeslams Austin, sets up for the tombstone, Goldust gets up on the apron and throws gold dust in Taker's face for the obvious DQ. So stupid.

Result: Undertaker via DQ

Taker and Austin brawl after the bell, with Austin ultimately getting knocked out of the ring and then heading to the back. Usual Taker celebration in the ring afterward, but Lawler again sticks his nose in and gets up on the apron yelling into the microphone at Taker to wake up and realize that Paul Bearer isn't on his side anymore. Taker goes to attack Lawler, Lawler scurries off the apron, and the show signs off.

Overall: Complete waste of an episode, as partially evidenced by the total lack of gifworthy moments. On paper the opening and closing matches could have been alright, but both were boring, the crowd is dead all night (which means it's probably going to be dead for most of the next three episodes), and nothing interesting was advanced.

NITRO

Charlotte, NC

Tony Schiavone and Larry Zbyszko are our hosts to start, and Tony says that Eric Bischoff is out again tonight, still recuperating from the powerbomb through the table by Kevin Nash at Great American Bash. They show the clip again of said powerbomb, and then throw it to Mean Gene.



Gene is backstage with Sting, Lex Luger, and Randy Savage, all adorned in Sting facepaint tonight. Savage hypes his allies up and then leaves. Sting cuts his end of the promo, and then over to Luger, who says, "We're unified as a team. WW…WCW stands tall." Well that was almost quite a botch. Steiners and Harlem Heat enter the shot, everyone starts yelling, and we're getting a triangle match among those three teams for the Tag Team Titles later.

Bluebloods (w/ Earl Robert Eaton and Jeeves) vs. Public Enemy: Public Enemy has a PIP promo during their entrance that makes no sense because the first half is muted out, probably for music dubbing reasons. Steven Regal is less than amused with PE's dance moves.



Public Enemy is just unwatchable most of the time, and this is one of those times. Not a single interesting spot in the match, and the match has a silly and abrupt ending when Johnny Grunge hits Squire David Taylor with his cast (apparently from a broken wrist or something that I don't remember being mentioned previously).

Result: Public Enemy via pinfall

The Taskmaster (w/ Jimmy Hart) vs. local jobber: Taskmaster stomps angrily to the ring and then promptly throws the jobber out and drags him through the audience up toward the concourse, mimicking how his recent match with Chris Benoit went. Efforts to take the fight into the bathroom are thwarted.



Sullivan continues beating on the jobber against a Subway counter and then finally gets escorted back through the crowd by the referee, the match seemingly over. Schiavone speculates that Sullivan may have been disqualified, but no such official announcement is made.

Result: No Contest or whatever

Mean Gene joins Kevin Sullivan and Jimmy Hart in the ring. Sullivan says that this was him sending a message right in the middle of Horsemen country in Charlotte. Jimmy says he's going to strangle himself if he has to hear Flair trot out his tired catchphrases even one more time. At Bash at the Beach, Sullivan and The Giant are going to team up to face Arn Anderson and Chris Benoit. If Anderson and Benoit win, a Horseman gets a title shot at The Giant the following night.

Glacier promo, coming to WCW in July.

Cruiserweight Title - Dean Malenko (c) vs. "Hard Work" Bobby Walker: I will never type out "'Hard Work' Bobby Walker" without wondering how the **** they actually nicknamed somebody "Hard Work." Walker could move well in the ring, but just doesn't seem like much of a worker, and this match had trouble going anywhere interesting. Malenko throws a powerbomb and transitions into the Texas Cloverleaf, but gets distracted and drops the hold when Disco Inferno comes strolling out to ringside. You see, Disco Inferno never beats anybody ever and doesn't really work a cruiserweight style, nor is he overly small, but is getting the next PPV title shot at Malenko's belt for some reason.

Disco gets on a mic and tells them to hit his music, and Disco's theme plays as he gets in the ring. Tony is screaming "THE MATCH IS STILL GOING ON!" as Disco gets in and just starts dancing while Malenko stoically attempts to ignore the whole thing and keep wrestling. Truly hilarious; the whole thing had me laughing pretty hard.



Malenko dropkicks Walker into Disco, sending Disco spilling out over the top to the floor, then Dean executes a northern lights suplex for the three-count. A tip of the cap; they found a way to get me to enjoy a Bobby Walker match.

Result: Dean Malenko via pinfall

Enter Mean Gene. Malenko says he takes this Cruiserweight Title seriously. Disco says, "Hey, this show is about television ratings, and you and Bobby Walker were stinking up the joint. Everybody here wanted to see me dance." Malenko says that he's the man of 1000 holds, but that at Bash at the Beach it will only take one. Having Dean talk was rarely a good idea.



Barbarian vs. Eddie Guerrero: Eddie takes a hard corner bump on an Irish whip, then staggers out into a kick to the gut and a high-impact powerbomb by the Barbarian for a two-count. Pumphandle slam by Barbarian to follow. Two again, as on both occasions Barbarian has just tried to pin Eddie with really lackadaisical covers. Eddie botches a hurracanrana counter hard, but executes a back suplex. Tries to follow off the top rope, but Barbarian gets there early and crotches him, then executes his belly-to-belly from the top that sends Eddie spilling all the way out to the floor.



Eddie makes it back up to the apron, Barbarian keeps up the beating and takes Eddie up to the top turnbuckle with him. Goes for the superplex, has a hard time fully getting Eddie up, Eddie falls on top on the way down and gets the three-count just as Barbarian kicks out. Obviously like Guerrero going over here, but I didn't like how weakly he was booked throughout this match; it came off less like an underdog persevering for the win and more like a ridiculous fluke that stole the match.

Result: Eddie Guerrero via pinfall

Mean Gene with Eddie. Gene takes us all the way back to the clip of Eddie losing to Konnan at Uncensored on a Thesz press gone wrong that the announcers pretended was a low blow by Konnan. Eddie says that he thinks he deserves another shot at Konnan. I like the booking of this match just now even less if they were setting Eddie up to gripe about being unlucky in that match a few months ago and saying that he deserves another shot. But, whatever.

We hit the second hour of the show, so we're off of Zbyszko and onto Heenan.

Arn Anderson & Chris Benoit (w/ Mongo McMichael) vs. The Rock 'n Roll Express: The Rock 'n Rolls come out to resounding boos in Horsemen country. That couldn't be a common reaction for them. This match is another pretty boring one without any interesting spots. Amidst a ref distraction, Mongo McMichael cracks Robert Gibson over the head with the Haliburton, enabling Benoit to make the pin.



Result: Anderson and Benoit via pinfall

Joe Gomez runs in after the match and promptly gets beaten down by the Horsemen, then paintbrushed repeatedly by Mongo as Arn and Benoit hold him up. Randy Savage and Kevin Greene run to the ring, and the Horsemen slip away and run to the back.

Mean Gene in the back with Ric Flair and the ladies. The Horsemen who were just in the ring join the promo, Ric Flair calls out Konnan for some reason, and…that's about it.

Tony and Bobby discuss the upcoming match with The Outsiders at Bash at the Beach.

At the end of the next ring entrances, Tony says that Ric Flair will face Konnan for the US Title at BatB, so I guess that explains the callout from a moment ago.

Lord of the Ring - DDP (c) vs. Alex Wright: I really don't remember the Lord of the Ring thing being a defendable title. I'm going to assume that WCW just forgets about it at some point in the relatively near future. Bobby Heenan continues riffing about the Outsiders, and says that they could change the entire face of professional sports. "I mean, they could come into baseball, basketball, football, hockey…they start with us, who knows where they go next." I don't know what Bobby's history with alcohol is, but I'm comfortable saying that he's not a teetotaler.



The action in this match is pretty good, which is an unfortunate combo with Tony and Bobby just flat-out ignoring it for the most part in favor of talking about the upcoming PPV main event. Page hits the Diamond Cutter and retains his title, or ring, or whatever this is. Sadly enough, this is probably the clubhouse leader for match of the night.

Result: DDP via pinfall

Mean Gene in the ring with DDP, who will face…Hacksaw Jim Duggan…at Bash at the Beach, in a "taped fist match." I don't even know what that is, but I'm sure that it's terrible. Page isn't too happy about being stuck in that kind of match either, but still vows to beat Duggan in it.

Our second Glacier promo of the night. It's weird how much they hyped this guy.

After commercials, Mean Gene is with Kevin Greene. Greene is obviously salty about Mongo turning on him at Great American Bash, but says he has to focus on football right now, and that the Carolina Panthers are going to surprise people and kick some ass. They did actually go from being a 7-9 team to making the NFC Championship game that year. Greene vows that after the season, he's going to "go on a Mongo hunt."

V.K. Wallstreet vs. Randy Savage (w/ Kevin Greene): Big "we want Flair" chants. Wallstreet goads Kevin Greene into jumping up on the apron and distracting the referee, and Wallstreet flings Savage out over the top on the other side. The action here is fairly slow and terrible, as Savage has seen his better days and Rotundo is completely done at this point. Savage wins after dropping the elbow. Sure feels like they do some rendition of this "Savage semi-squashes a completely worthless JTTS" match too often. On another negative note, Bobby Heenan - at odds with the Macho Man all of two weeks prior - openly cheers Savage's victory over Wallstreet because he's cheering for Team WCW at Bash at the Beach. Heenan basically gets especially neutered and lame from this point forward, and he wasn't even doing that good of a job previously. It's very frustrating that WCW Heenan just didn't work.



Result: Randy Savage via pinfall

Tag Team Title Triangle Match - Sting & Lex Luger (c) vs. Harlem Heat vs. Steiner Brothers: I really have no idea when Sting and Luger lose their tag belts, but it seems really obviously set up to happen right here. Again, the triangle match involves one wrestler or team being on the apron at all times, so it's not the superior tornado rules that three-way matches have evolved into. The Steiners and Heat kick things off. Pretty good back suplex by Rick on Stevie Ray. Rick tags Sting into the ring, so the Steiners are temporarily out. After a bit we see a mid-ring collision between Sting and Stevie, sending Stevie down and Sting stagger back into the ropes before doing the timberrrr faceplant into Stevie's crotch.

Stevie tags Booker, Booker goes for the top rope splash that misses, and Sting makes the hot tag to Luger. As Luger is cleaning house, Kevin Nash and Scott Hall suddenly appear in the crowd and make their way toward the ring wielding baseball bats. The ring fills up with not only the wrestlers, but rent-a-cops. Amidst the chaos, one of the Harlem Heat schoolboys Lex Luger and pins him. On the left side of the screen.



Result: Harlem Heat via pinfall, new Tag Team Champions



The Heat leave with the belts, and we see a lengthy standoff between Hall and Nash on one side and WCW and the rent-a-cops on the other. The cops are keeping their hands close to their holsters in response to Hall and Nash continuing to threaten to come into the ring and start swinging away with their baseball bats. I think it's an effective scene to hype the PPV, and the ensuing dialogue between Tony and Bobby, while a bit melodramatic and cheesy, works reasonably well. With that, we're off the air.

Overall: Not a good show. Lots of boring matches. I do think that the main event and the post-match were pretty good, so at least they ended on a decent note.

---

Ratings for 6/24/96: Nitro 3.3, Raw 2.7
Ratings Running Score: Nitro 19-17-2

Better Show: Nitro wins another, unfortunately another default victory.
Better Show Running Score: Nitro 32-6

Match of the Night: The selection tonight is utter crap, but I'll give it to DDP vs. Alex Wright.

MAY 1996 IN REVIEW

Arrivals:
WWF - N/A
WCW - Kevin Nash (from WWF), Rey Mysterio Jr. (from AAA with a brief stop in ECW)

Match of the Month: The first-ever PPV match for the Cruiserweight Title was a great one. Dean Malenko vs. Rey Mysterio Jr. from Great American Bash.

PPV of the Month: While King of the Ring was a good effort from the WWF, it really doesn't come all that close here. Great American Bash '96 was historically excellent and wins the month clearly.

Ratings: 3 of 4 for Nitro here. Going forward, Raw would love to just win the ratings one night per month.

Quality: Even during the month where Austin 3:16 was born, WCW was extending their lead here. While it's great that the real Stone Cold has arrived, the major impact on the WWF product was not immediate in the way that the Outsiders' arrival was for WCW.

That Malenko/Disco gif might be the one and only example I'll ever see of a wrestler having an enemy's theme start playing in mid-match and the wrestler just ignoring it and finishing off a win anyway while the music is playing. I love that moment way too much.

And people say finishers are less protected today. Granted "enemy's theme starts playing" is probably the most protected one currently.

At the time, Heenan getting behind WCW against the Outsiders was quite effective on me. I'd been watching Heenan from the second I watched wrestling, and he always was a bad guy. But even he opposes the Outsiders. Really sold me that this angle was distinct and bigger than the usual angle.

Of course it turned out that Heenan was much better at on the spot wit and playing himself/his longtime character than being whatever the company asked him to be.

Heenan siding with WCW made sense, but he needed to do it the way other heels in the company did it. Extending it as far as cheering Savage against other WCW heels like VK Wallstreet is just silly to me. I get what the justification is, that he kayfabe wants Savage at full strength for the coming match, but it still felt dumb. He just specifically had a feud with Savage at Great American Bash, so it needed to be a thing where he sided with Savage grudgingly against the greater evil rather than turning into an enthusiastic Macho Man cheerleader.