Monday Night Wars - The Comprehensive Recap
01-09-2016
, 10:50 PM
01-09-2016
, 11:59 PM
01-10-2016
, 11:08 AM
01-10-2016
, 05:44 PM
01-10-2016
, 06:14 PM
01-10-2016
, 10:56 PM
LKJ
01-13-2016
, 11:08 PM
July 29, 1996
NITRO
Orlando, FL
Tony Schiavone and Larry Zbyszko are here, and run down a few matches for the night: The Giant vs. Arn Anderson, Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. Eddie Guerrero, and the Steiner Brothers vs. the American Males. Tony turns the attention to the New World Order. Larry calls them the "New World ODOR" with all the smug satisfaction of the guy on the last work day of December who tells you that he'll SEE YOU NEXT YEAR. **** you, Larry. **** you, random guy who says that at work.
They show some footage that the nWo sent them, of some house show in Cincinnati where the Outsiders jumped Sting outside the arena. Tony says that Sting is okay after the attack, so the point was just to show them jumping a guy 2-on-1.
Mike Enos vs. Hacksaw Jim Duggan: …this is really their opener? Please stop using Duggan so damn much. Duggan clotheslines Enos hard over the top to the floor. Enos re-enters, the two stare down, and then each headbutts the other. Tony references the New World Order in commentary, and Larry is quick to jump in with, "Well, I like to call them the New World ODOR." Stop trying to make that a thing, you ****ing idiot. It's not funny.
Enos gets the boot up on a corner charge by Duggan, then showboats and slowly goes for a pin as if he just hit a really devastating move. Duggan kicks out on the one-count and probably should have kicked out before the one just to punish Enos for how silly of a cover that was. Tony calls this "as high-impact of a bout as you would want to find." There's that Schiavone hyperbole suddenly being cranked up to 11. Duggan hammers Enos in the corner, the referee tries to get in the middle, it creates an opening for Enos to turn things around and lay in his own shots, but the referee is at least consistent and steps in for no reason to stop Enos as well. As he's backing Enos down, Duggan tapes his fist, clocks Enos, 1-2-3. Glad to be done with that.
Result: Hacksaw Jim Duggan via pinfall
Mean Gene joins Hacksaw in the ring and asks him about the New World Order. Larry Zbyszko suddenly runs in and proudly says, "Well I like to call them…" Okay, I made that one up. Duggan cuts a promo on Hulk Hogan, emotionally ranting about what Hogan has turned his back on. I give him credit here; he's selling this better than most of the various wrestlers have since Hogan's turn. At least until he says, "Hulkster, you're a great technical wrestler…but I don't want to wrestle you. I want to beat you up." Really, aside from it being funny that he complimented the "technical" wrestling of Hulk Hogan, this was a good promo all around. Hacksaw perhaps had some talking ability if you don't slot him in the perpetual goofball role.
Ric Flair, Chris Benoit, & Mongo McMichael (w/ Debra, Miss Elizabeth, & Woman) vs. Sting, Randy Savage, & Lex Luger: So Flair showed up this week; no real explanation for why he was gone last week. Six-way brawling right away, with Sting 10-punching Flair off a corner mount in the ring, and then the two spilling back outside into the melee as the show goes to commercial. After commercial, they've reset the two sides across the ring from each other, and the bell actually rings, so I guess that the early brawling wasn't even part of the match.
After a brief exchange with Sting, Benoit tags out to Flair, and we get the classic Flair-Sting matchup rekindled again. Flair knocked from pillar to post, receiving shots from all three of the babyfaces; he ends up brawling with Randy Savage on the floor, and it feels like he's escaping when he runs into the ring and away from Savage. Sting tags Savage. Larry: "I'm surprised that Savage doesn't go to the floor and start choking Miss Elizabeth!" Tony: "Yeah, that's a good point." It is? Savage actually points at Liz on the floor, and Flair makes the A+ heel move of reacting by bailing to the floor and kissing her. Love it. That agitates Savage, and the brawl between them continues.
Flair tags Mongo and Savage tags Luger. Luger with a hard whip into the ropes, and Mongo actually falls through the middle in what I think was a botch. Not a bad one though. Flair tags back in and eats a delayed suplex from Lex, then promptly tags back out to Benoit. Benoit beats down Luger, Savage just jumps in illegally and starts attacking until referee Nick Patrick can finally contain him. The tags remain fast and furious, back to Flair and Sting, with Sting executing a superplex. Save by Benoit on the pin attempt. Benoit becomes the legal man and executes a crisp back elbow followed by a back suplex.
Flair in, puts the figure-four on Sting, but slaps some adrenaline into him and enables Sting to reverse the leverage until Nature Boy gets the rope break. Flair is quick to tag Benoit, and they keep Sting isolated. Jimmy Hart suddenly runs to ringside and screams frantically for a camera man to come to the back. Hart goes crazy up on the apron, screaming to everyone in the ring to help. The camera arrives in the back to find the Outsiders standing over a couple of fallen WCW wrestlers, wielding baseball bats. Arn Anderson and Marcus Bagwell are the two fallen wrestlers. I believe the match, which was fairly decent, is over.
Result: No Contest
Scotty Riggs emerges in defense of his partner, but Scott Hall puts him down with a weapon. Rey Mysterio runs out and dives at them, Kevin Nash catches him, and flings him like a lawn dart into the side of a trailer. One of those iconic moments of the nWo's beginnings.
Hall and Nash enter a black limo as the wrestlers from the six-man tag arrive, and they drive off even as Randy Savage has jumped onto the roof and clung to the ceiling. The Horsemen and their opponents attend to the fallen wrestlers outside, having put their differences aside. The wrestlers and announcers put over the seriousness of the injuries suffered here. This is done so well.
Rey Mysterio screams to Eddie Guerrero that there were four men. Nobody knows who those can be, as we only saw two. The rest of the show is disrupted for the moment, since these guys who are laid out were billed to wrestle later. Unlike The Giant falling off a roof, it seems like they won't be able to just pop back up and go. We see medics attending to them, and Rey getting stretchered off. The medic actually takes Rey's mask off as Rey covers his face. Tony understands well enough to talk about how unheard of that is, but in any case we don't see Rey's face. Rey keeps talking about four guys. It's a little weird that he's the one communicating that message since we saw him emerge and get put down…we should have seen everything that he saw.
They're doing a lot of stalling here, but that's really the only thing they can do in this spot, and it does help put over just how much the nWo ****ed everything up tonight. After a commercial, Eric Bischoff and Bobby Heenan are joining Tony and Larry in the broadcast area, Tony says that this is usually when they would hand over broadcast duties, but Bobby very seriously talks about his history of neck injuries and says that it's not worth it to him to risk being out here given what's going on. He walks off the set. Bischoff just says he's going to need some help, so I guess we'll go with the three-man booth.
Bischoff says that they're going to have to try to get the show going again. Tony says that the American Males were due up next, which obviously can't happen. Fans start to chant "boring," as they actually don't even have any sort of screen showing them what was happening in the back according to Schiavone. So the live fans did kind of get screwed by this angle; hopefully they got extra dark matches or something. I'm appreciative of them selling the angle for so long in the name of kayfabe. Ric Flair gets in the ambulance to ride with Arn Anderson to the hospital, and Sting actually gets in the same ambulance to ride with Marcus Bagwell. Finally we're going to get back to wrestling.
High Voltage vs. The Steiner Brothers: Steiners come out looking shook and unfocused because of the attack in the back. Scott starts the match off, and Rick hangs out on the floor watching the entryway for further signs of the nWo. Scott eventually goes to the floor to talk Rick into getting it together. The Steiners struggle more than expected because of this distraction factor. I can dig the story they're telling here. Rick makes a semi-hot tag to Scott, Scott with a butterfly powerbomb and then tags back out to Rick. Running clothesline, tag back to Scott, Steiner Screwdriver gets the win.
Result: Steiner Brothers via pinfall
I wish they hadn't promised Rey vs. Eddie just to rip it away, but I guess I'll forgive it this time.
Big Bubba (w/ Jimmy Hart) vs. Eddie Guerrero: After the intros for this match they go to break before starting. As it fades to break, Larry mumbles "New World ODOR…" It's only becoming increasingly clever and funny, Larry. Eddie gets some early offense, but gets caught and thrown up in the air for a high slam by Bubba, who slows the match down into his power repertoire. Eddie does escape behind during a snake eyes attempt and executes a back suplex, but Bubba is quick to recover and clock Guerrero to the mat. Bubba goes into some slow, methodical, and downright boring offense for a long time. I mean, this really turned unwatchable. Eddie tries to mount a comeback with a tornado DDT, Jimmy Hart jumps up on the apron to run distraction, and feeds the megaphone into the ring over the unaware ref's shoulder, Bubba can't pick it up successfully before Eddie sunset flips into the ring for the three-count. Regardless of an okay start to the match, this was complete garbage overall.
Result: Eddie Guerrero via pinfall
After commercial, we get our first-ever black and white nWo promo video, featuring the debut of nWo's theme music. Good stuff from all three guys here, as they talk **** about how they're going to take the World Title and taunt WCW about how well they're going to deliver on a fourth man.
When they get back to ringside, Eric Bischoff has gone to check for updates on the injured wrestlers. Tony: "Fans, if you're just joining us, we're literally in a state of shock here." No. They show footage of what happened earlier in the night.
Arn Anderson was supposed to get the WCW Title shot tonight, but he's out as well because of injury, so our new challenger is…Greg Valentine. Yes, Valentine will probably win the title and main event Hog Wild against Hulk Hogan.
WCW Title - The Giant (c) (w/ Jimmy Hart) vs. Greg Valentine: They do call Valentine "The Hammer," so I guess that's one gimmick that didn't belong to Vince McMahon. Valentine fights the good fight for about 90 seconds, but Giant chokeslams him twice for the win. Giant gets something of a face pop for the win, I'm sure partially because he's setting up to face Hulk Hogan and partially because his opponent was Greg Valentine. As I type that, we get another "New World Odor" from Larry.
Result: The Giant via pinfall
Mean Gene with Giant and Jimmy Hart. Giant starts the interview mocking Hogan by talking like him. He settles back in to being himself and cuts basically a babyface promo on Hulk. Jimmy follows suit, and then Mean Gene signs the show off.
Overall: The angle in the middle of the show is excellent and historic. The six-man tag that led into it was good. Everything that came afterward was pretty low-energy and bad, though it was by design…honestly, I can respect the artistic choice even though a lot of it was difficult to watch. An episode can successfully be carried by a single angle if the angle is great enough. This one was.
RAW
Seattle, WA
We start off with Justin Bradshaw already in the ring.
Justin "Hawk" Bradshaw (w/ Uncle Zebekiah) vs. Sid: Sid is MASSIVELY over here, just a huge pop for his entrance. For whatever he lacked in talent (and he severely lacked that), he was just loaded with "it" factor. He and Bradshaw throw bombs at each other here, Sid getting the better of it and then laying in some kicks to the chest as he holds Bradshaw down. He throws a chokeslam, but then Bradshaw goes and gets his bullrope with cowbell and clobbers Sid with it for the blatant DQ. I can't say I was expecting that ending.
Result: Sid via DQ
Zeb holds Sid up as Bradshaw hits him again with the cowbell. Sid launches a comeback anyway, powerbombing Bradshaw and then powerbombing Zeb as well to a huge crowd pop. Honestly, this was a strong opener. Although it's in the middle of a taping, it looks like Sid got the crowd energized from the beginning of the show. Short match hides his weaknesses, everyone has fun.
Vince McMahon throws it to a backstage interview with Faarooq Asad and Sunny. Sunny says that they're coming for Ahmed Johnson's Intercontinental Title at SummerSlam. Faarooq cuts a strong promo at Ahmed.
Vader (w/ Jim Cornette) vs. Marc Mero (w/ Sable): Cornette sits at commentary again. Cornette calls Sable a dog several times. I'm surprised they're having this match, since Mero still seems pretty protected, but Vader is obviously not losing right before his SummerSlam main event. So basically this is like 95% to be some sort of non-pin finish. Vader slugs away at the Wildman, throwing hard blows and a stiff headbutt in the corner before executing a short clothesline. Vader hits a big splash, but Mero somehow kicks out at one. Weird. Mero tries to fight back and throw fists, but Vader's fists are harder, and Mero is back on the mat. Vader stalls, Mero gets back to his feet, running cross-body by the Wildman gets two. Clotheslines Vader out over the top, then hits the trademark somersault plancha. Yep, they're keeping Mero all kinds of strong here. Vader back inside, but Mero hits a top rope axhandle.
Back up top once more, goes for the top rope sunset flip, misses, Vader unfortunately walks backward into the hold, tries to sit down, Mero dodges and Vader bumps his tailbone on the mat. Unfortunate that Mero missed on his jump, but that was still a strong exchange. Mero heads to the top, Vader catches him in a powerslam on the way down, and it appears that I overshot with the 95%, as Vader gets the 1-2-3. I kind of figured that I underestimated the odds of a pin when Mero got all of that offense in.
Result: Vader via pinfall
More footage from last Monday afternoon, as Clarence Mason tries to talk Gorilla Monsoon into allowing his wrestler into the WWF despite an apparent criminal record.
Vince McMahon in the ring for a face-to-face confrontation between Jim Cornette and Jose Lothario. Cornette cuts a hard promo at Lothario, calling him a worthless has-been, etc. Cornette is so damn good on the mic. Simply the ability to yell coherent thoughts that quickly and at that tempo and almost never tripping up is better than most can do, but he has good content most of the time too, sometimes great content. Cornette: "…because Jose Lothario, I think you're nothing but trash. And if you taught Shawn Michaels everything he knows, then that must mean that Shawn Michaels is trash too." Lothario grabs Cornette, then threatens Jim in broken English and lets him go. As he starts to walk away, Cornette charges, but Lothario spins around and clocks him. Honestly, as completely and utterly worthless as Lothario was, Cornette was still able to carry this segment into being a good one.
Randomly, the segment goes to a split-screen that had shown Shawn Michaels momentarily earlier, and he's now on the floor in the Mandible Claw. After commercial, they get fuller footage that Mankind ambushed him and did that. Seems like quite the non-sequitir.
They show footage of this past weekend on Superstars, where Aldo Montoya beat Jerry Lawler in a match that he dedicated to Jake Roberts. Lawler, from the commentary table, challenges Aldo to a rematch on Raw next week. During next ring intros, Aldo appears on-screen from backstage and accepts the challenge.
British Bulldog (w/ Owen Hart) vs. Henry Godwinn (w/ Hillbilly Jim): Owen joins the commentary table for the match. Hillbilly Jim comes over and threatens to slop Owen. Owen protectively grabs for his statute and says "keep that away from my Slammy!"
Vince mentions that the Bulldog will be taking on Sid at SummerSlam. Lawler calls this a preview of that match, since Bulldog is taking on a big strong guy with nothing in his head. Godwinn picks Bulldog up by the legs and does a front powerslam from there. Some half-decent back and forth brawling between Godwinn and Davey, as Owen rips on his brother Bret for being a coward and leaving because he lost. Obviously he wasn't actually gone for good. Vince harasses Owen for still wearing a cast this many months after allegedly breaking his arm too; Owen says he's just a few more months away from getting the cast off. HOG blocks a suplex and executes his own as the match goes to break.
After break, Bulldog hits his shoulder hard on an empty corner charge. Back elbow by Godwinn and a two-count. He sets up for the Slop Drop, Owen jumps up from the announce position and runs distraction, Bulldog hits the hog farmer from behind, picks him up, running powerslam, 1-2-3. Not a great match, though I did enjoy Owen's antics.
Result: British Bulldog via pinfall
They show footage of Mark Henry doing some competitive powerlifting. Vince says that the WWF is proud to be sponsoring him in that.
Steve Austin vs. The Undertaker (w/ Paul Bearer): Austin offers a handshake, but Taker isn't having it. Taker stalks him into a corner, Austin attacks, Taker counters into a chokehold and slams Austin into the turnbuckle. Arm-wringer, countered into a Stone Cold arm-wringer, but a hard right puts Austin to the mat. Undertaker with a kick to the gut, sends Steve in for the hard corner bump and then does his signature jumping clothesline. Walks the ropes to set up what we now know as Old School, but Austin yanks at him and causes him to get crotched along the ropes.
Austin drives an elbow along Taker's throat and works him over with something akin to a front facelock, but turns his head for a moment to pay attention to the official and gets clocked. Still, Austin is right back on offense soon after kicking backward for a low blow. Flying front elbow by Stone Cold off the second rope. Austin with repeated shoulderblocks into Undertaker's midsection in the corner. Throws some rights, but Taker fights back with rights of his own, stuns Austin, then ties Austin up in the ropes and works over the helpless King of the Ring. Referee Mike Chioda finally gets Austin loose, but Taker continues the assault.
Scoop slam by the dead man. Elbow drop misses. Austin chokes him across the top rope, then jumps down to the floor and hangs Taker across it. As the show goes to its final commercial, they show on split-screen that Mankind is emerging from the boiler room of Key Arena. Back from break, Taker is down on his knees hammering on Austin. Whip into the ropes, Taker ducks early, Austin counters into a piledriver. Nice.
Instead of attempting a pin, he heads up top, and Taker gets up and staggers into the ropes, crotching Austin. Chokeslam carries Austin from the top rope to the mat. Taker picks him up for a tombstone, then gets distracted by Mankind, leaving the ring and going and brawling with him. Mike Chioda counts Taker out, and Austin stands victorious. Pretty decent main event, certainly above my expectations since having good matches wasn't really an Undertaker thing at this point.
Result: Steve Austin via countout
An angry Undertaker comes back to the ring, and instead of following the generic heel textbook and running, Austin attacks. But he gets tombstoned for his efforts. Ah well. Vince joins Taker and Bearer in the ring and asks them about the upcoming boiler room brawl at SummerSlam. Taker just says some gothic ****, and the show goes off the air.
Overall: Very solid hour of wrestling from top to bottom. Enjoyed this far more than most Raws from this year; I basically liked every segment on some level.
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Ratings for 7/29/96: Nitro 3.1, Raw 2.1
Ratings Running Score: Nitro 24-17-2
Better Show: Well, you know me by now; even on the weeks that I praise Raw, I find myself shrugging and calling Nitro the better show. Honestly, front to back, Raw kept up a much more consistent level of quality than Nitro did this week, but this was a legitimately historic episode of Nitro, and there's zero reason to actually remember this Raw. You have to give it to the show that has a historic episode. Nitro wins again.
Better Show Running Score: Nitro 37-6
Match of the Night: I'll go with Flair/Benoit/Mongo vs. Sting/Savage/Luger from Nitro, incomplete though it was.
NITRO
Orlando, FL
Tony Schiavone and Larry Zbyszko are here, and run down a few matches for the night: The Giant vs. Arn Anderson, Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. Eddie Guerrero, and the Steiner Brothers vs. the American Males. Tony turns the attention to the New World Order. Larry calls them the "New World ODOR" with all the smug satisfaction of the guy on the last work day of December who tells you that he'll SEE YOU NEXT YEAR. **** you, Larry. **** you, random guy who says that at work.
They show some footage that the nWo sent them, of some house show in Cincinnati where the Outsiders jumped Sting outside the arena. Tony says that Sting is okay after the attack, so the point was just to show them jumping a guy 2-on-1.
Mike Enos vs. Hacksaw Jim Duggan: …this is really their opener? Please stop using Duggan so damn much. Duggan clotheslines Enos hard over the top to the floor. Enos re-enters, the two stare down, and then each headbutts the other. Tony references the New World Order in commentary, and Larry is quick to jump in with, "Well, I like to call them the New World ODOR." Stop trying to make that a thing, you ****ing idiot. It's not funny.
Enos gets the boot up on a corner charge by Duggan, then showboats and slowly goes for a pin as if he just hit a really devastating move. Duggan kicks out on the one-count and probably should have kicked out before the one just to punish Enos for how silly of a cover that was. Tony calls this "as high-impact of a bout as you would want to find." There's that Schiavone hyperbole suddenly being cranked up to 11. Duggan hammers Enos in the corner, the referee tries to get in the middle, it creates an opening for Enos to turn things around and lay in his own shots, but the referee is at least consistent and steps in for no reason to stop Enos as well. As he's backing Enos down, Duggan tapes his fist, clocks Enos, 1-2-3. Glad to be done with that.
Result: Hacksaw Jim Duggan via pinfall
Mean Gene joins Hacksaw in the ring and asks him about the New World Order. Larry Zbyszko suddenly runs in and proudly says, "Well I like to call them…" Okay, I made that one up. Duggan cuts a promo on Hulk Hogan, emotionally ranting about what Hogan has turned his back on. I give him credit here; he's selling this better than most of the various wrestlers have since Hogan's turn. At least until he says, "Hulkster, you're a great technical wrestler…but I don't want to wrestle you. I want to beat you up." Really, aside from it being funny that he complimented the "technical" wrestling of Hulk Hogan, this was a good promo all around. Hacksaw perhaps had some talking ability if you don't slot him in the perpetual goofball role.
Ric Flair, Chris Benoit, & Mongo McMichael (w/ Debra, Miss Elizabeth, & Woman) vs. Sting, Randy Savage, & Lex Luger: So Flair showed up this week; no real explanation for why he was gone last week. Six-way brawling right away, with Sting 10-punching Flair off a corner mount in the ring, and then the two spilling back outside into the melee as the show goes to commercial. After commercial, they've reset the two sides across the ring from each other, and the bell actually rings, so I guess that the early brawling wasn't even part of the match.
After a brief exchange with Sting, Benoit tags out to Flair, and we get the classic Flair-Sting matchup rekindled again. Flair knocked from pillar to post, receiving shots from all three of the babyfaces; he ends up brawling with Randy Savage on the floor, and it feels like he's escaping when he runs into the ring and away from Savage. Sting tags Savage. Larry: "I'm surprised that Savage doesn't go to the floor and start choking Miss Elizabeth!" Tony: "Yeah, that's a good point." It is? Savage actually points at Liz on the floor, and Flair makes the A+ heel move of reacting by bailing to the floor and kissing her. Love it. That agitates Savage, and the brawl between them continues.
Flair tags Mongo and Savage tags Luger. Luger with a hard whip into the ropes, and Mongo actually falls through the middle in what I think was a botch. Not a bad one though. Flair tags back in and eats a delayed suplex from Lex, then promptly tags back out to Benoit. Benoit beats down Luger, Savage just jumps in illegally and starts attacking until referee Nick Patrick can finally contain him. The tags remain fast and furious, back to Flair and Sting, with Sting executing a superplex. Save by Benoit on the pin attempt. Benoit becomes the legal man and executes a crisp back elbow followed by a back suplex.
Flair in, puts the figure-four on Sting, but slaps some adrenaline into him and enables Sting to reverse the leverage until Nature Boy gets the rope break. Flair is quick to tag Benoit, and they keep Sting isolated. Jimmy Hart suddenly runs to ringside and screams frantically for a camera man to come to the back. Hart goes crazy up on the apron, screaming to everyone in the ring to help. The camera arrives in the back to find the Outsiders standing over a couple of fallen WCW wrestlers, wielding baseball bats. Arn Anderson and Marcus Bagwell are the two fallen wrestlers. I believe the match, which was fairly decent, is over.
Result: No Contest
Scotty Riggs emerges in defense of his partner, but Scott Hall puts him down with a weapon. Rey Mysterio runs out and dives at them, Kevin Nash catches him, and flings him like a lawn dart into the side of a trailer. One of those iconic moments of the nWo's beginnings.
Hall and Nash enter a black limo as the wrestlers from the six-man tag arrive, and they drive off even as Randy Savage has jumped onto the roof and clung to the ceiling. The Horsemen and their opponents attend to the fallen wrestlers outside, having put their differences aside. The wrestlers and announcers put over the seriousness of the injuries suffered here. This is done so well.
Rey Mysterio screams to Eddie Guerrero that there were four men. Nobody knows who those can be, as we only saw two. The rest of the show is disrupted for the moment, since these guys who are laid out were billed to wrestle later. Unlike The Giant falling off a roof, it seems like they won't be able to just pop back up and go. We see medics attending to them, and Rey getting stretchered off. The medic actually takes Rey's mask off as Rey covers his face. Tony understands well enough to talk about how unheard of that is, but in any case we don't see Rey's face. Rey keeps talking about four guys. It's a little weird that he's the one communicating that message since we saw him emerge and get put down…we should have seen everything that he saw.
They're doing a lot of stalling here, but that's really the only thing they can do in this spot, and it does help put over just how much the nWo ****ed everything up tonight. After a commercial, Eric Bischoff and Bobby Heenan are joining Tony and Larry in the broadcast area, Tony says that this is usually when they would hand over broadcast duties, but Bobby very seriously talks about his history of neck injuries and says that it's not worth it to him to risk being out here given what's going on. He walks off the set. Bischoff just says he's going to need some help, so I guess we'll go with the three-man booth.
Bischoff says that they're going to have to try to get the show going again. Tony says that the American Males were due up next, which obviously can't happen. Fans start to chant "boring," as they actually don't even have any sort of screen showing them what was happening in the back according to Schiavone. So the live fans did kind of get screwed by this angle; hopefully they got extra dark matches or something. I'm appreciative of them selling the angle for so long in the name of kayfabe. Ric Flair gets in the ambulance to ride with Arn Anderson to the hospital, and Sting actually gets in the same ambulance to ride with Marcus Bagwell. Finally we're going to get back to wrestling.
High Voltage vs. The Steiner Brothers: Steiners come out looking shook and unfocused because of the attack in the back. Scott starts the match off, and Rick hangs out on the floor watching the entryway for further signs of the nWo. Scott eventually goes to the floor to talk Rick into getting it together. The Steiners struggle more than expected because of this distraction factor. I can dig the story they're telling here. Rick makes a semi-hot tag to Scott, Scott with a butterfly powerbomb and then tags back out to Rick. Running clothesline, tag back to Scott, Steiner Screwdriver gets the win.
Result: Steiner Brothers via pinfall
I wish they hadn't promised Rey vs. Eddie just to rip it away, but I guess I'll forgive it this time.
Big Bubba (w/ Jimmy Hart) vs. Eddie Guerrero: After the intros for this match they go to break before starting. As it fades to break, Larry mumbles "New World ODOR…" It's only becoming increasingly clever and funny, Larry. Eddie gets some early offense, but gets caught and thrown up in the air for a high slam by Bubba, who slows the match down into his power repertoire. Eddie does escape behind during a snake eyes attempt and executes a back suplex, but Bubba is quick to recover and clock Guerrero to the mat. Bubba goes into some slow, methodical, and downright boring offense for a long time. I mean, this really turned unwatchable. Eddie tries to mount a comeback with a tornado DDT, Jimmy Hart jumps up on the apron to run distraction, and feeds the megaphone into the ring over the unaware ref's shoulder, Bubba can't pick it up successfully before Eddie sunset flips into the ring for the three-count. Regardless of an okay start to the match, this was complete garbage overall.
Result: Eddie Guerrero via pinfall
After commercial, we get our first-ever black and white nWo promo video, featuring the debut of nWo's theme music. Good stuff from all three guys here, as they talk **** about how they're going to take the World Title and taunt WCW about how well they're going to deliver on a fourth man.
When they get back to ringside, Eric Bischoff has gone to check for updates on the injured wrestlers. Tony: "Fans, if you're just joining us, we're literally in a state of shock here." No. They show footage of what happened earlier in the night.
Arn Anderson was supposed to get the WCW Title shot tonight, but he's out as well because of injury, so our new challenger is…Greg Valentine. Yes, Valentine will probably win the title and main event Hog Wild against Hulk Hogan.
WCW Title - The Giant (c) (w/ Jimmy Hart) vs. Greg Valentine: They do call Valentine "The Hammer," so I guess that's one gimmick that didn't belong to Vince McMahon. Valentine fights the good fight for about 90 seconds, but Giant chokeslams him twice for the win. Giant gets something of a face pop for the win, I'm sure partially because he's setting up to face Hulk Hogan and partially because his opponent was Greg Valentine. As I type that, we get another "New World Odor" from Larry.
Result: The Giant via pinfall
Mean Gene with Giant and Jimmy Hart. Giant starts the interview mocking Hogan by talking like him. He settles back in to being himself and cuts basically a babyface promo on Hulk. Jimmy follows suit, and then Mean Gene signs the show off.
Overall: The angle in the middle of the show is excellent and historic. The six-man tag that led into it was good. Everything that came afterward was pretty low-energy and bad, though it was by design…honestly, I can respect the artistic choice even though a lot of it was difficult to watch. An episode can successfully be carried by a single angle if the angle is great enough. This one was.
RAW
Seattle, WA
We start off with Justin Bradshaw already in the ring.
Justin "Hawk" Bradshaw (w/ Uncle Zebekiah) vs. Sid: Sid is MASSIVELY over here, just a huge pop for his entrance. For whatever he lacked in talent (and he severely lacked that), he was just loaded with "it" factor. He and Bradshaw throw bombs at each other here, Sid getting the better of it and then laying in some kicks to the chest as he holds Bradshaw down. He throws a chokeslam, but then Bradshaw goes and gets his bullrope with cowbell and clobbers Sid with it for the blatant DQ. I can't say I was expecting that ending.
Result: Sid via DQ
Zeb holds Sid up as Bradshaw hits him again with the cowbell. Sid launches a comeback anyway, powerbombing Bradshaw and then powerbombing Zeb as well to a huge crowd pop. Honestly, this was a strong opener. Although it's in the middle of a taping, it looks like Sid got the crowd energized from the beginning of the show. Short match hides his weaknesses, everyone has fun.
Vince McMahon throws it to a backstage interview with Faarooq Asad and Sunny. Sunny says that they're coming for Ahmed Johnson's Intercontinental Title at SummerSlam. Faarooq cuts a strong promo at Ahmed.
Vader (w/ Jim Cornette) vs. Marc Mero (w/ Sable): Cornette sits at commentary again. Cornette calls Sable a dog several times. I'm surprised they're having this match, since Mero still seems pretty protected, but Vader is obviously not losing right before his SummerSlam main event. So basically this is like 95% to be some sort of non-pin finish. Vader slugs away at the Wildman, throwing hard blows and a stiff headbutt in the corner before executing a short clothesline. Vader hits a big splash, but Mero somehow kicks out at one. Weird. Mero tries to fight back and throw fists, but Vader's fists are harder, and Mero is back on the mat. Vader stalls, Mero gets back to his feet, running cross-body by the Wildman gets two. Clotheslines Vader out over the top, then hits the trademark somersault plancha. Yep, they're keeping Mero all kinds of strong here. Vader back inside, but Mero hits a top rope axhandle.
Back up top once more, goes for the top rope sunset flip, misses, Vader unfortunately walks backward into the hold, tries to sit down, Mero dodges and Vader bumps his tailbone on the mat. Unfortunate that Mero missed on his jump, but that was still a strong exchange. Mero heads to the top, Vader catches him in a powerslam on the way down, and it appears that I overshot with the 95%, as Vader gets the 1-2-3. I kind of figured that I underestimated the odds of a pin when Mero got all of that offense in.
Result: Vader via pinfall
More footage from last Monday afternoon, as Clarence Mason tries to talk Gorilla Monsoon into allowing his wrestler into the WWF despite an apparent criminal record.
Vince McMahon in the ring for a face-to-face confrontation between Jim Cornette and Jose Lothario. Cornette cuts a hard promo at Lothario, calling him a worthless has-been, etc. Cornette is so damn good on the mic. Simply the ability to yell coherent thoughts that quickly and at that tempo and almost never tripping up is better than most can do, but he has good content most of the time too, sometimes great content. Cornette: "…because Jose Lothario, I think you're nothing but trash. And if you taught Shawn Michaels everything he knows, then that must mean that Shawn Michaels is trash too." Lothario grabs Cornette, then threatens Jim in broken English and lets him go. As he starts to walk away, Cornette charges, but Lothario spins around and clocks him. Honestly, as completely and utterly worthless as Lothario was, Cornette was still able to carry this segment into being a good one.
Randomly, the segment goes to a split-screen that had shown Shawn Michaels momentarily earlier, and he's now on the floor in the Mandible Claw. After commercial, they get fuller footage that Mankind ambushed him and did that. Seems like quite the non-sequitir.
They show footage of this past weekend on Superstars, where Aldo Montoya beat Jerry Lawler in a match that he dedicated to Jake Roberts. Lawler, from the commentary table, challenges Aldo to a rematch on Raw next week. During next ring intros, Aldo appears on-screen from backstage and accepts the challenge.
British Bulldog (w/ Owen Hart) vs. Henry Godwinn (w/ Hillbilly Jim): Owen joins the commentary table for the match. Hillbilly Jim comes over and threatens to slop Owen. Owen protectively grabs for his statute and says "keep that away from my Slammy!"
Vince mentions that the Bulldog will be taking on Sid at SummerSlam. Lawler calls this a preview of that match, since Bulldog is taking on a big strong guy with nothing in his head. Godwinn picks Bulldog up by the legs and does a front powerslam from there. Some half-decent back and forth brawling between Godwinn and Davey, as Owen rips on his brother Bret for being a coward and leaving because he lost. Obviously he wasn't actually gone for good. Vince harasses Owen for still wearing a cast this many months after allegedly breaking his arm too; Owen says he's just a few more months away from getting the cast off. HOG blocks a suplex and executes his own as the match goes to break.
After break, Bulldog hits his shoulder hard on an empty corner charge. Back elbow by Godwinn and a two-count. He sets up for the Slop Drop, Owen jumps up from the announce position and runs distraction, Bulldog hits the hog farmer from behind, picks him up, running powerslam, 1-2-3. Not a great match, though I did enjoy Owen's antics.
Result: British Bulldog via pinfall
They show footage of Mark Henry doing some competitive powerlifting. Vince says that the WWF is proud to be sponsoring him in that.
Steve Austin vs. The Undertaker (w/ Paul Bearer): Austin offers a handshake, but Taker isn't having it. Taker stalks him into a corner, Austin attacks, Taker counters into a chokehold and slams Austin into the turnbuckle. Arm-wringer, countered into a Stone Cold arm-wringer, but a hard right puts Austin to the mat. Undertaker with a kick to the gut, sends Steve in for the hard corner bump and then does his signature jumping clothesline. Walks the ropes to set up what we now know as Old School, but Austin yanks at him and causes him to get crotched along the ropes.
Austin drives an elbow along Taker's throat and works him over with something akin to a front facelock, but turns his head for a moment to pay attention to the official and gets clocked. Still, Austin is right back on offense soon after kicking backward for a low blow. Flying front elbow by Stone Cold off the second rope. Austin with repeated shoulderblocks into Undertaker's midsection in the corner. Throws some rights, but Taker fights back with rights of his own, stuns Austin, then ties Austin up in the ropes and works over the helpless King of the Ring. Referee Mike Chioda finally gets Austin loose, but Taker continues the assault.
Scoop slam by the dead man. Elbow drop misses. Austin chokes him across the top rope, then jumps down to the floor and hangs Taker across it. As the show goes to its final commercial, they show on split-screen that Mankind is emerging from the boiler room of Key Arena. Back from break, Taker is down on his knees hammering on Austin. Whip into the ropes, Taker ducks early, Austin counters into a piledriver. Nice.
Instead of attempting a pin, he heads up top, and Taker gets up and staggers into the ropes, crotching Austin. Chokeslam carries Austin from the top rope to the mat. Taker picks him up for a tombstone, then gets distracted by Mankind, leaving the ring and going and brawling with him. Mike Chioda counts Taker out, and Austin stands victorious. Pretty decent main event, certainly above my expectations since having good matches wasn't really an Undertaker thing at this point.
Result: Steve Austin via countout
An angry Undertaker comes back to the ring, and instead of following the generic heel textbook and running, Austin attacks. But he gets tombstoned for his efforts. Ah well. Vince joins Taker and Bearer in the ring and asks them about the upcoming boiler room brawl at SummerSlam. Taker just says some gothic ****, and the show goes off the air.
Overall: Very solid hour of wrestling from top to bottom. Enjoyed this far more than most Raws from this year; I basically liked every segment on some level.
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Ratings for 7/29/96: Nitro 3.1, Raw 2.1
Ratings Running Score: Nitro 24-17-2
Better Show: Well, you know me by now; even on the weeks that I praise Raw, I find myself shrugging and calling Nitro the better show. Honestly, front to back, Raw kept up a much more consistent level of quality than Nitro did this week, but this was a legitimately historic episode of Nitro, and there's zero reason to actually remember this Raw. You have to give it to the show that has a historic episode. Nitro wins again.
Better Show Running Score: Nitro 37-6
Match of the Night: I'll go with Flair/Benoit/Mongo vs. Sting/Savage/Luger from Nitro, incomplete though it was.