Monday Night Wars - The Comprehensive Recap
10-10-2015
, 03:09 PM
October 9, 1995
RAW
Grand Rapids, MI
We kick things right off in the ring. Looks like we're also kicking off with the main event of the show. Raw used to do this. It's weird.
Diesel, Shawn Michaels, and Undertaker (w/ Paul Bearer) vs. Yokozuna, Owen Hart, and British Bulldog (w/ Cornette and Fuji): I wasn't expecting much out of this match, but they raised my expectations in a hurry with a strong start. The obvious benefit of a six-man tag is that if worked correctly, with frequent tags, everyone can go all-out for their stints in the ring instead of pacing themselves, and the whole match is significantly better off for it. Yokozuna had a decent bit to offer, especially in this setting where he could do a few power moves like a belly-to-belly and a Samoan drop and then quickly go take a breather.
As I type that, they did fall into a heat segment as the heel team isolates Shawn Michaels and slows things down a bit, but even this part didn't really drag. The match ends surprisingly when Diesel gets the hot tag, eats a powerslam from Bulldog, and then as the referee is distracted Yokozuna comes in and adds a big legdrop for good measure that allows Davey Boy to get a mostly clean pin on Diesel. Good match.
Result: Yokozuna, Owen and Bulldog via pinfall
After the match King Mabel gets involved, he lays out Undertaker, Dean Douglas to the ring and he lays Shawn Michaels out at ringside…those are two matches for the coming PPV, as well as Bulldog-Diesel, so this was setting heat up on a few fronts. Pretty excellent beatdown all around. They go to a commercial, and even afterward the company's top faces are still laid out in and around the ring. It's refreshing to see the heels go over this strongly on the build to the PPV.
Vince and Lawler say that next week is going to be the previously-advertised Bret Hart vs. Isaac Yankem cage match. As they talk this up, they show a whole damn bunch of the Bret-Yankem SummerSlam match. They seriously seem to show about the last 10 minutes of it. Did they forget to tape enough matches to fill this hour of TV?
Skip (w/ Sunny) vs. Fatu: This was the "make a difference" Fatu, in between the Headshrinker run and the later run as Rikishi. Skip, meanwhile, had jobbed to Barry Horowitz a couple of months ago and was now seemingly just in there to put even the low midcarders over. Fatu wins this one after knocking Skip off the top and then hitting a flying splash for the pinfall. This wasn't much.
Result: Fatu via pinfall
They send it to Dok to get word from the babyface locker room, but Dok says that he doesn't think it's a good time to interview them. We do get a bragging, gleeful promo from Jim Cornette and British Bulldog in the other locker room. They spend some more time hyping Bret vs. Yankem next week (they couldn't have seriously thought anyone cared that much) before finally signing off.
Overall: I mean, the six-man tag was a really good match, the post-match beatdown was also really good, but I don't understand why that was essentially the entire show. It's one thing when everything else on the show sucks, but they seriously basically did that one match and then stalled out all of the remaining airtime. Very odd.
NITRO
Chicago, IL
We open at the broadcast desk, where all three guys are rocking Bears jerseys. Lovely. Gotta say, I knew that Mongo was an accomplished Chicago Bear, but I had never actually put together that he was a starter on the 1985 Chicago Bear defense. Unfortunately that didn't make him a good wrestling announcer, but still, apparently he deserved more of my respect as a football player. Sting interrupts things, grabs a mic and says that later on, he's going to solve the problem between Lex Luger and Randy Savage.
US Title - Sting (c) vs. Shark: Poor John Tenta. A bum like Ed Leslie deserved the Dungeon of Doom, but somehow I hold Tenta in higher esteem than that. Sting goes over really quickly here (without looking, probably two minutes or less), winning with a splash off the top rope.
Result: Sting via pinfall
We get footage of last week's Nitro and the sneak attack on Hogan by the Dungeon of Doom. They show the whole damn thing. WTF, did they hear that WWF was pulling this long replay crap tonight so they felt like that entitled them to do it too?
Sabu vs. Mr. JL: Mr. JL is Jerry Lynn in a mask. Second Nitro appearance for Sabu, and he was again hitting his spots nicely while still executing a lot of his offense. This is good, fast-paced stuff, that wouldn't stand out in the WCW catalog of cruiserweight action, but was enjoyable here. The match ends when Sabu blocks JL's flying attack from the top with something of a double-leg takedown, then quickly wraps him into a camel clutch for a submission.
Result: Sabu via submission
Mean Gene is in the ring with Sting and Lex Luger. Sting calls out the Macho Man to come join he and Luger. Savage and Sting have some fun, intense back-and-forth before Sting puts forth the idea that if both Lex and Macho Man beat their opponents at Halloween Havoc, they rematch against each other. Luger balks, but Sting knows what Luger is and goes the really basic level zero caveman route by challenging his manhood, which causes Luger to accept. Apparently Sting's idea to make peace between the two was to convince them to fight each other again? Sounds about right.
They show Chris Benoit arriving in a limo and herald him as a great wrestler who had made a name for himself in Japan. His first Nitro appearance.
Disco Inferno is out dancing to his music again. Once again he doesn't actually have a match and is just attention whoring.
Big Bubba vs. Road Warrior Hawk: Bubba ambushes Hawk at the bell. After a few moves by Bubba, Hawk hits a scoop powerslam on him. Then Disco Inferno comes back out, gets on the apron and dances, which causes Hawk to attack him and chase him out of the ring. He gets counted out. I don't know what in the blue **** this was, but I'm all kinds of relieved that the match lasted all of about 60 seconds.
Result: Big Bubba via countout
We have a Hulk Hogan appearance. The red and yellow are gone (as well as the mustache), and we get Hogan out in all black. Hogan calls out The Giant. Gene tells him that there's a restraining order against The Giant and he can't come in. Hogan then rants angrily and asks where The Giant is again. Gene is now stuck in the role of David Duchovny in Zoolander going, "Seriously? I already told you that." Apparently the Giant is willing to violate the restraining order, as he's trying to drive into the building in a monster truck. Hogan leaves the ring, vowing to go after him. 1995 Hogan was so, so, so bad in every way.
Cage Match - Ric Flair vs. Arn Anderson: Nice, stiff work early with some hard chops. Cage matches tend to get overly repetitive with the workers being thrown into the cage repeatedly, and this is no exception to that. Brian Pillman tries to get into the cage to interfere, but as he attempts to climb in, Flair climbs up and knocks him off. Naitch goes for the figure-four, but as he tries to lock it in, Arn hits Flair with a foreign object and renders Flair unconscious, allowing Arn to again pin him. Okay match, but nothing too great.
Result: Arn Anderson via pinfall
A crazed Ric Flair hits the broadcast position and challenges Arn and Pillman to both fight him next week, saying that if he can't find a partner he'll do it as a handicap match.
They advertise DDP vs. Johnny B. Badd for next week. Also Chris Benoit vs. Eddie Guerrero and Jim Duggan vs. Meng. And we're done for the night.
Overall: There were things that were working (Flair-Arn, Luger-Savage, cruiserweight wrestling) and there was Hogan. Thankfully the former got more screen time than the latter. Decent show.
---
Ratings for 10/9/95: Raw 2.6, Nitro 2.6
Ratings Running Score: Raw 2-1-2
Better Show: Raw would have had it won if the game ended at halftime, but they went full Mike McCarthy. Nitro had the more complete show and I have to call it the winner of the night.
Better Show Running Score: Nitro 4-1
Match of the Night: Diesel/Taker/HBK vs. Yoko/Owen/Bulldog
RAW
Grand Rapids, MI
We kick things right off in the ring. Looks like we're also kicking off with the main event of the show. Raw used to do this. It's weird.
Diesel, Shawn Michaels, and Undertaker (w/ Paul Bearer) vs. Yokozuna, Owen Hart, and British Bulldog (w/ Cornette and Fuji): I wasn't expecting much out of this match, but they raised my expectations in a hurry with a strong start. The obvious benefit of a six-man tag is that if worked correctly, with frequent tags, everyone can go all-out for their stints in the ring instead of pacing themselves, and the whole match is significantly better off for it. Yokozuna had a decent bit to offer, especially in this setting where he could do a few power moves like a belly-to-belly and a Samoan drop and then quickly go take a breather.
As I type that, they did fall into a heat segment as the heel team isolates Shawn Michaels and slows things down a bit, but even this part didn't really drag. The match ends surprisingly when Diesel gets the hot tag, eats a powerslam from Bulldog, and then as the referee is distracted Yokozuna comes in and adds a big legdrop for good measure that allows Davey Boy to get a mostly clean pin on Diesel. Good match.
Result: Yokozuna, Owen and Bulldog via pinfall
After the match King Mabel gets involved, he lays out Undertaker, Dean Douglas to the ring and he lays Shawn Michaels out at ringside…those are two matches for the coming PPV, as well as Bulldog-Diesel, so this was setting heat up on a few fronts. Pretty excellent beatdown all around. They go to a commercial, and even afterward the company's top faces are still laid out in and around the ring. It's refreshing to see the heels go over this strongly on the build to the PPV.
Vince and Lawler say that next week is going to be the previously-advertised Bret Hart vs. Isaac Yankem cage match. As they talk this up, they show a whole damn bunch of the Bret-Yankem SummerSlam match. They seriously seem to show about the last 10 minutes of it. Did they forget to tape enough matches to fill this hour of TV?
Skip (w/ Sunny) vs. Fatu: This was the "make a difference" Fatu, in between the Headshrinker run and the later run as Rikishi. Skip, meanwhile, had jobbed to Barry Horowitz a couple of months ago and was now seemingly just in there to put even the low midcarders over. Fatu wins this one after knocking Skip off the top and then hitting a flying splash for the pinfall. This wasn't much.
Result: Fatu via pinfall
They send it to Dok to get word from the babyface locker room, but Dok says that he doesn't think it's a good time to interview them. We do get a bragging, gleeful promo from Jim Cornette and British Bulldog in the other locker room. They spend some more time hyping Bret vs. Yankem next week (they couldn't have seriously thought anyone cared that much) before finally signing off.
Overall: I mean, the six-man tag was a really good match, the post-match beatdown was also really good, but I don't understand why that was essentially the entire show. It's one thing when everything else on the show sucks, but they seriously basically did that one match and then stalled out all of the remaining airtime. Very odd.
NITRO
Chicago, IL
We open at the broadcast desk, where all three guys are rocking Bears jerseys. Lovely. Gotta say, I knew that Mongo was an accomplished Chicago Bear, but I had never actually put together that he was a starter on the 1985 Chicago Bear defense. Unfortunately that didn't make him a good wrestling announcer, but still, apparently he deserved more of my respect as a football player. Sting interrupts things, grabs a mic and says that later on, he's going to solve the problem between Lex Luger and Randy Savage.
US Title - Sting (c) vs. Shark: Poor John Tenta. A bum like Ed Leslie deserved the Dungeon of Doom, but somehow I hold Tenta in higher esteem than that. Sting goes over really quickly here (without looking, probably two minutes or less), winning with a splash off the top rope.
Result: Sting via pinfall
We get footage of last week's Nitro and the sneak attack on Hogan by the Dungeon of Doom. They show the whole damn thing. WTF, did they hear that WWF was pulling this long replay crap tonight so they felt like that entitled them to do it too?
Sabu vs. Mr. JL: Mr. JL is Jerry Lynn in a mask. Second Nitro appearance for Sabu, and he was again hitting his spots nicely while still executing a lot of his offense. This is good, fast-paced stuff, that wouldn't stand out in the WCW catalog of cruiserweight action, but was enjoyable here. The match ends when Sabu blocks JL's flying attack from the top with something of a double-leg takedown, then quickly wraps him into a camel clutch for a submission.
Result: Sabu via submission
Mean Gene is in the ring with Sting and Lex Luger. Sting calls out the Macho Man to come join he and Luger. Savage and Sting have some fun, intense back-and-forth before Sting puts forth the idea that if both Lex and Macho Man beat their opponents at Halloween Havoc, they rematch against each other. Luger balks, but Sting knows what Luger is and goes the really basic level zero caveman route by challenging his manhood, which causes Luger to accept. Apparently Sting's idea to make peace between the two was to convince them to fight each other again? Sounds about right.
They show Chris Benoit arriving in a limo and herald him as a great wrestler who had made a name for himself in Japan. His first Nitro appearance.
Disco Inferno is out dancing to his music again. Once again he doesn't actually have a match and is just attention whoring.
Big Bubba vs. Road Warrior Hawk: Bubba ambushes Hawk at the bell. After a few moves by Bubba, Hawk hits a scoop powerslam on him. Then Disco Inferno comes back out, gets on the apron and dances, which causes Hawk to attack him and chase him out of the ring. He gets counted out. I don't know what in the blue **** this was, but I'm all kinds of relieved that the match lasted all of about 60 seconds.
Result: Big Bubba via countout
We have a Hulk Hogan appearance. The red and yellow are gone (as well as the mustache), and we get Hogan out in all black. Hogan calls out The Giant. Gene tells him that there's a restraining order against The Giant and he can't come in. Hogan then rants angrily and asks where The Giant is again. Gene is now stuck in the role of David Duchovny in Zoolander going, "Seriously? I already told you that." Apparently the Giant is willing to violate the restraining order, as he's trying to drive into the building in a monster truck. Hogan leaves the ring, vowing to go after him. 1995 Hogan was so, so, so bad in every way.
Cage Match - Ric Flair vs. Arn Anderson: Nice, stiff work early with some hard chops. Cage matches tend to get overly repetitive with the workers being thrown into the cage repeatedly, and this is no exception to that. Brian Pillman tries to get into the cage to interfere, but as he attempts to climb in, Flair climbs up and knocks him off. Naitch goes for the figure-four, but as he tries to lock it in, Arn hits Flair with a foreign object and renders Flair unconscious, allowing Arn to again pin him. Okay match, but nothing too great.
Result: Arn Anderson via pinfall
A crazed Ric Flair hits the broadcast position and challenges Arn and Pillman to both fight him next week, saying that if he can't find a partner he'll do it as a handicap match.
They advertise DDP vs. Johnny B. Badd for next week. Also Chris Benoit vs. Eddie Guerrero and Jim Duggan vs. Meng. And we're done for the night.
Overall: There were things that were working (Flair-Arn, Luger-Savage, cruiserweight wrestling) and there was Hogan. Thankfully the former got more screen time than the latter. Decent show.
---
Ratings for 10/9/95: Raw 2.6, Nitro 2.6
Ratings Running Score: Raw 2-1-2
Better Show: Raw would have had it won if the game ended at halftime, but they went full Mike McCarthy. Nitro had the more complete show and I have to call it the winner of the night.
Better Show Running Score: Nitro 4-1
Match of the Night: Diesel/Taker/HBK vs. Yoko/Owen/Bulldog
10-18-2015
, 09:15 PM
October 16, 1995
NITRO
Albany, GA
We get footage from this past weekend showing Sting finally caving and agreeing to be Ric Flair's tag partner for Nitro, with a stern threat that if Flair serves him in any way, he will leave Flair for dead.
DDP (w/ Diamond Doll) vs. Johnny B. Badd: Kimberly was so unbelievably hot. Well…we don't actually get a match here. DDP clobbers JBB with the TV Title belt and knocks him out cold before things get going, and we have either a DQ or a no contest. It sounded to me like the ring announcer announced it as a DQ.
Result: Johnny B. Badd via DQ
Eddie Guerrero vs. Chris Benoit: This is Benoit's WCW in-ring debut. These guys run at such a ridiculous pace that they make the rest of the matches look like they're happening in slow motion. Highlights here include a great dive off the top to the floor by Eddie, a beauty of a hammerlock northern light suplex combo from Benoit, an absolutely sick tornado DDT by Guerrero as he launched backward off the second rope, and an absurdly strong powerbomb spot by Benoit on Eddie. We finish when Eddie throws a punch with an arm that had been getting worked, immediately recoils by selling the pain beautifully, and as he's favoring the injury Benoit locks up from behind and hits a dragon suplex for a three-count. Fantastic match, best on Nitro to this point.
Result: Chris Benoit via pinfall
Mean Gene is in the ring and plugs the hotline with teasers of "a top WWF official is out over the weekend" and "one of their stars got into a fight with a fan in the parking lot over the weekend." Can't say I'm not curious what people he's talking about there, since I have no idea.
Now out to join Gene are The Giant and The Taskmaster. Sullivan does most of the talking here, and it's really ****ing stupid. Giant vows to try to push Hogan off the roof at Halloween Havoc. I'm sure we're all glad that the roof-pushing went exactly as it did.
For the third straight week, Disco Inferno's music hits and Disco himself comes out unscheduled to dance. Bischoff, acting disgusted, says, "This guy makes me want to cough up my toenails!" Wat.
Meng vs. Hacksaw Jim Duggan: Another one that gets kept mercifully short, with some basic brawling giving way to a quick finish when Meng lays in the spike on Duggan and wins by submission. Thumbs up for giving decent time to Guerrero-Benoit and giving almost none to this.
Result: Meng via submission
Backstage promo by Hulk Hogan, still in all black, and referring to his fans as "Hulkamanioids" for some reason. Generic promo, nothing much to say here.
They keep playing ads for Halloween Havoc, now only two weeks away, and all I know about the card is the Hogan vs. Giant match. Please tell me that show has something worthy on the undercard.
Arn Anderson & Brian Pillman vs. Ric Flair & Sting: Sting had agreed to team with him, but Flair comes out alone and just seems to be ready to take this on as a handicap match. Sure enough, we do get going 1-on-2, and Flair gets the crowd behind him as he fights off both men. After Flair has proven that he really was willing to take these two guys on, Sting races in from the back and gets up on the apron as Flair falls into face-in-peril mode. Once Stinger gets the hot tag, he clears house on both guys. Arn and Pillman take a hike, and Flair/Sting win by countout.
Result: Flair & Sting via countout
Mean Gene in the ring after the break with Sting and Flair, and says that they're going to team up against Arn and Pillman again at Halloween Havoc. Gene asks Sting about his reluctance to team with Flair. Sting says that might be out the door now. He compliments Flair's guts and heart, and the two high-five and leave together as friends. God I love this angle. We get some basic wrap-up at the desk to end the show.
Overall: Very strong show, between a great Guerrero-Benoit match and more good movement on the Flair/Sting-Arn/Pillman angle. Those two things were enough to carry an hour nicely.
RAW
Grand Rapids, MI
We get a graphic to open that hypes a cage match between Bret Hart and Isaac Yankem that night. I remember this being pretty damn bad. There's a stipulation on that Bret-Yankem match that if Lawler got involved he would have to be put in a cage that hung from the ceiling.
They mention that Undertaker was hurt as a result of last week's beating and would be out for several months. Apparently that was legit; Mabel really did get sloppy and injure him. It's amazing that Mabel continued to last in the company for so long.
Triple H vs. Doink: They mention Shawn Michaels getting beaten up in Syracuse on Friday. That must have been what Mean Gene was teasing earlier. This match is an okay if entirely predictable opener, with the still-undefeated HHH going over again with a Pedigree.
Result: Triple H via pinfall
We now go backstage, where Barry Horowitz is Americanizing Hakushi because Hakushi is a face and foreign faces must be American. I don't know, kind of a half-funny segment I guess.
Before the next match gets going, they send it backstage to Gorilla Monsoon, who books King Mabel vs. Yokozuna for the PPV. Lovely.
Tag Team Titles - Smoking Gunns (c) vs. PG-13: I'm truly baffled now. PG-13 even made it up to getting a title match? I don't know how this 100% escaped my memory…most of this stuff I can recall once you put it in front of me like this. In before they win the titles and had an entire title reign that I blacked out for. The action here is alright, nothing special. The Gunns go over clean after a Sidewinder.
Result: Smoking Gunns via pinfall
We get an advertisement for Alundra Blayze vs. Bertha Faye on Raw the next week. That'll put butts in seats.
In the ring with Dok Hendrix are Jim Cornette and Davey Boy Smith, who are there to cut a promo on Diesel. Decent promo from Cornette; decent incoherent grunting from Davey.
After the commercial, we get a pre-taped promo from Ahmed Johnson. Promos were not an optimal way to get him over.
Dean Douglas vs. unnamed local jobber: With Dean scheduled to face Shawn Michaels on the PPV, this match provides an opportunity for Vince to say that 10 men attacked Shawn Michaels outside of a nightclub in Syracuse that weekend. Michaels calls in from San Antonio during the match and vows to be there no matter what on Sunday. I suppose he chose his words well. Douglas wins with the fisherman suplex.
Result: Dean Douglas via pin
We get a rundown of the card for a PPV coming up on Sunday that I remember being pretty damn bad.
Cage Match - Bret Hart vs. Isaac Yankem, DDS: The action here would be acceptable if it had been at least 10 minutes shorter, but this match drags on and on and on, and there are limitations to how much you can do in a cage match with no pin attempts being available. Jerry Lawler does get involved, which gets him placed in a hanging cage. We eventually get put out of our misery here when Bret escapes for the win.
Result: Bret Hart via escape over the top
Overall: Pretty awful episode. Hart-Yankem drags badly, everything else spans from squash to semi-squash. This is a go-home show for a PPV, which incidentally doesn't advance a single thing about the upcoming PPV except to dub in the news about Shawn Michaels being injured. WWF was looking increasingly like the minor leagues next to WCW at this point in terms of show quality.
---
Ratings for 10/16/95: Raw 2.6, Nitro 2.2
Running Score: Raw 3-1-2
Better Show: Nitro in an absolute blowout this week. That ratings win for Raw is very weird to me. What the hell were people tuned in for? Maybe the teases on the actual news about Shawn Michaels?
Running Score: Nitro 4-1
Match of the Night: Eddie Guerrero vs. Chris Benoit
NITRO
Albany, GA
We get footage from this past weekend showing Sting finally caving and agreeing to be Ric Flair's tag partner for Nitro, with a stern threat that if Flair serves him in any way, he will leave Flair for dead.
DDP (w/ Diamond Doll) vs. Johnny B. Badd: Kimberly was so unbelievably hot. Well…we don't actually get a match here. DDP clobbers JBB with the TV Title belt and knocks him out cold before things get going, and we have either a DQ or a no contest. It sounded to me like the ring announcer announced it as a DQ.
Result: Johnny B. Badd via DQ
Eddie Guerrero vs. Chris Benoit: This is Benoit's WCW in-ring debut. These guys run at such a ridiculous pace that they make the rest of the matches look like they're happening in slow motion. Highlights here include a great dive off the top to the floor by Eddie, a beauty of a hammerlock northern light suplex combo from Benoit, an absolutely sick tornado DDT by Guerrero as he launched backward off the second rope, and an absurdly strong powerbomb spot by Benoit on Eddie. We finish when Eddie throws a punch with an arm that had been getting worked, immediately recoils by selling the pain beautifully, and as he's favoring the injury Benoit locks up from behind and hits a dragon suplex for a three-count. Fantastic match, best on Nitro to this point.
Result: Chris Benoit via pinfall
Mean Gene is in the ring and plugs the hotline with teasers of "a top WWF official is out over the weekend" and "one of their stars got into a fight with a fan in the parking lot over the weekend." Can't say I'm not curious what people he's talking about there, since I have no idea.
Now out to join Gene are The Giant and The Taskmaster. Sullivan does most of the talking here, and it's really ****ing stupid. Giant vows to try to push Hogan off the roof at Halloween Havoc. I'm sure we're all glad that the roof-pushing went exactly as it did.
For the third straight week, Disco Inferno's music hits and Disco himself comes out unscheduled to dance. Bischoff, acting disgusted, says, "This guy makes me want to cough up my toenails!" Wat.
Meng vs. Hacksaw Jim Duggan: Another one that gets kept mercifully short, with some basic brawling giving way to a quick finish when Meng lays in the spike on Duggan and wins by submission. Thumbs up for giving decent time to Guerrero-Benoit and giving almost none to this.
Result: Meng via submission
Backstage promo by Hulk Hogan, still in all black, and referring to his fans as "Hulkamanioids" for some reason. Generic promo, nothing much to say here.
They keep playing ads for Halloween Havoc, now only two weeks away, and all I know about the card is the Hogan vs. Giant match. Please tell me that show has something worthy on the undercard.
Arn Anderson & Brian Pillman vs. Ric Flair & Sting: Sting had agreed to team with him, but Flair comes out alone and just seems to be ready to take this on as a handicap match. Sure enough, we do get going 1-on-2, and Flair gets the crowd behind him as he fights off both men. After Flair has proven that he really was willing to take these two guys on, Sting races in from the back and gets up on the apron as Flair falls into face-in-peril mode. Once Stinger gets the hot tag, he clears house on both guys. Arn and Pillman take a hike, and Flair/Sting win by countout.
Result: Flair & Sting via countout
Mean Gene in the ring after the break with Sting and Flair, and says that they're going to team up against Arn and Pillman again at Halloween Havoc. Gene asks Sting about his reluctance to team with Flair. Sting says that might be out the door now. He compliments Flair's guts and heart, and the two high-five and leave together as friends. God I love this angle. We get some basic wrap-up at the desk to end the show.
Overall: Very strong show, between a great Guerrero-Benoit match and more good movement on the Flair/Sting-Arn/Pillman angle. Those two things were enough to carry an hour nicely.
RAW
Grand Rapids, MI
We get a graphic to open that hypes a cage match between Bret Hart and Isaac Yankem that night. I remember this being pretty damn bad. There's a stipulation on that Bret-Yankem match that if Lawler got involved he would have to be put in a cage that hung from the ceiling.
They mention that Undertaker was hurt as a result of last week's beating and would be out for several months. Apparently that was legit; Mabel really did get sloppy and injure him. It's amazing that Mabel continued to last in the company for so long.
Triple H vs. Doink: They mention Shawn Michaels getting beaten up in Syracuse on Friday. That must have been what Mean Gene was teasing earlier. This match is an okay if entirely predictable opener, with the still-undefeated HHH going over again with a Pedigree.
Result: Triple H via pinfall
We now go backstage, where Barry Horowitz is Americanizing Hakushi because Hakushi is a face and foreign faces must be American. I don't know, kind of a half-funny segment I guess.
Before the next match gets going, they send it backstage to Gorilla Monsoon, who books King Mabel vs. Yokozuna for the PPV. Lovely.
Tag Team Titles - Smoking Gunns (c) vs. PG-13: I'm truly baffled now. PG-13 even made it up to getting a title match? I don't know how this 100% escaped my memory…most of this stuff I can recall once you put it in front of me like this. In before they win the titles and had an entire title reign that I blacked out for. The action here is alright, nothing special. The Gunns go over clean after a Sidewinder.
Result: Smoking Gunns via pinfall
We get an advertisement for Alundra Blayze vs. Bertha Faye on Raw the next week. That'll put butts in seats.
In the ring with Dok Hendrix are Jim Cornette and Davey Boy Smith, who are there to cut a promo on Diesel. Decent promo from Cornette; decent incoherent grunting from Davey.
After the commercial, we get a pre-taped promo from Ahmed Johnson. Promos were not an optimal way to get him over.
Dean Douglas vs. unnamed local jobber: With Dean scheduled to face Shawn Michaels on the PPV, this match provides an opportunity for Vince to say that 10 men attacked Shawn Michaels outside of a nightclub in Syracuse that weekend. Michaels calls in from San Antonio during the match and vows to be there no matter what on Sunday. I suppose he chose his words well. Douglas wins with the fisherman suplex.
Result: Dean Douglas via pin
We get a rundown of the card for a PPV coming up on Sunday that I remember being pretty damn bad.
Cage Match - Bret Hart vs. Isaac Yankem, DDS: The action here would be acceptable if it had been at least 10 minutes shorter, but this match drags on and on and on, and there are limitations to how much you can do in a cage match with no pin attempts being available. Jerry Lawler does get involved, which gets him placed in a hanging cage. We eventually get put out of our misery here when Bret escapes for the win.
Result: Bret Hart via escape over the top
Overall: Pretty awful episode. Hart-Yankem drags badly, everything else spans from squash to semi-squash. This is a go-home show for a PPV, which incidentally doesn't advance a single thing about the upcoming PPV except to dub in the news about Shawn Michaels being injured. WWF was looking increasingly like the minor leagues next to WCW at this point in terms of show quality.
---
Ratings for 10/16/95: Raw 2.6, Nitro 2.2
Running Score: Raw 3-1-2
Better Show: Nitro in an absolute blowout this week. That ratings win for Raw is very weird to me. What the hell were people tuned in for? Maybe the teases on the actual news about Shawn Michaels?
Running Score: Nitro 4-1
Match of the Night: Eddie Guerrero vs. Chris Benoit
10-23-2015
, 10:51 PM
WWF IN YOUR HOUSE 4: GREAT WHITE NORTH
Winnipeg, Manitoba
I may deeply regret taking the time to watch this show. At least if it's really bad like I remember it will only be for a runtime of less than two hours.
After the Canadian national anthem, we get an announcement from Gorilla Monsoon that he will not allow Shawn Michaels to compete that night, and will ask Shawn to forfeit the title publicly to Dean Douglas, who will then defend the title against Razor Ramon.
Triple H vs. Fatu: Hey, it's Hall of Famer vs. Hall of Famer! Then again, so was that Bret Hart vs. Isaac Yankem cage match from the last Raw (it will be, at least). Both of these guys were decent hands in the ring; HHH would get better, but this was probably about Fatu's in-ring peak before he got huge (though obviously his career peak happened after he got huge). The crowd finally seems to get into this one and get behind Fatu late, but he misses with a splash off the ropes and HHH capitalizes with a Pedigree for the win. This wasn't bad.
Result: HHH via pinfall (8:06)
Rating: **1/4
After the match, HHH gets interviewed by Jerry Lawler at ringside, and in mid-interview Henry Godwinn sneaks up to try to slop him, but HHH sees him coming and escapes. I was ready to lower my grade of the opener to zero stars.
Tag Team Titles - The Smoking Gunns (c) vs. Razor Ramon and the 1-2-3 Kid: This must have been mostly built up on weekend shows? Razor and the Kid did bury the hatchet a few weeks prior, but I hadn't even noticed them mentioning this match on Raw. It looks like Billy Gunn got a haircut since the last Raw taping. Pretty entertaining action here, and some good subtle heeling by the Kid, who was still just a babyface teasing a turn. Nice false finish late as well, where Razor sneaks in and reverses a pinning predicament to put the Kid on top. The crowd bought big into that one. Our ending occurs when Razor hits a Razor's Edge on Billy, then the Kid begs to tag in to finish things off, but his pin gets reversed into a cradle pin by Billy for the win.
Result: The Smoking Gunns via pinfall (12:46)
Rating: **3/4
After the match, Razor has started to leave and the 1-2-3 Kid hangs around and sneak attacks the Gunns, clearing them both out. Razor returns to the ring to calm the Kid down and makes peace with the Gunns.
Goldust vs. Marty Jannetty: This was the long-hyped debut of Goldust. Until he took the wig off here, I know that I had no idea this was Dustin Rhodes in an elaborate costume. This is a slow, plodding match, with Jannetty bumping well on a few power moves but mostly a lot of restholds and waiting.
The crowd, which had been pretty hot to this point, was 100% dead for this. When you hype a guy for this long, putting him in what felt like a lengthy back-and-forth struggle against Jannetty is not a way to capitalize in his debut. This should have mostly been a dominant squash, and while Goldust doesn't work very impressively here, the booking did not do him any favors. He eventually wins his debut with the very lame Curtain Call (face-first suplex) finisher.
Result: Goldust via pinfall (11:15)
Rating: 1/4*
Yokozuna (w/ Cornette and Fuji) vs. King Mabel (w/ Sir Mo): A heel vs. heel match between one guy who needed carrying (Yokozuna) and one guy who was maybe uncarryable (Mabel). I don't know how this could go wrong. Thankfully it didn't carry on TOO long, and ends when Yokozuna botches a bump he looked like he was supposed to take on a bulldog and rolls outside, then posts Mabel out there. The two get counted out, then face off in the middle of the ring again before hugging it out. Completely and utterly pointless.
Result: Double countout (5:12)
Rating: 0*
Dok Hendrix in the ring with Gorilla Monsoon. Dean Douglas is introduced, and we get our segment where Shawn Michaels forfeits the IC Title. I do enjoy the dickish way that Douglas walks in and forcefully takes the belt out of Michaels's hands as Michaels is sadly moping his way toward Gorilla Monsoon to give him the belt.
IC Title - Dean Douglas (c) vs. Razor Ramon: This is an incredibly dull match. Not only did the kliq politics obviously make sure that this belt stayed in the fold, but Razor just 100% mailed in the performance here, with lots of slow restholds and then a finish where he suddenly wins on what looks like an entirely unremarkable back suplex, with the pin coming with one arm draped across Douglas. Douglas's foot was outside the ring during the three-count, so there was that, but Douglas wasn't long for the company after this.
Result: Razor Ramon via pinfall, new IC Champion (11:01)
Rating: 1/4*
WWF Title - Diesel (c) vs. British Bulldog: We get Bret Hart on commentary in replacement of Jerry Lawler, as Bret runs Lawler off as he gets to the broadcast table. Some decent power stuff back and forth early creates some hope that Bulldog might at least be able to make this match work to a similar level to his recent work against The Undertaker, but after the first couple of minutes this become a slow, dull limb match where Bulldog just works incessantly to hurt Diesel's knee. I give Jim Ross credit for trying to put this over by talking about Kevin Nash's problematic knee history stretching back to his basketball career, that helps put over the psychology a bit, but it doesn't make it any more watchable.
A variety of strikes or attacks on the knee would be one thing, but Bulldog is content to just lay there in a variety of restholds that target the knee. Diesel starts to launch a comeback, the action goes outside, and Bulldog takes a random swipe at Bret Hart at the desk. Bret follows Bulldog into the ring to attack him back, and we get a lame DQ finish to close out an awful, awful match.
Result: British Bulldog via DQ (18:14)
Rating: 0*
Diesel, angry about losing the match by DQ, attacks Bret and the two brawl until the show mercifully ends.
Overall: The show starts out okay, and then spends the last 90 minutes being the most dreadful thing to ever appear on televised wrestling. Overall, this was historically miserable on a level that even 2015 WWE is incapable of lowering itself to (at least with regard to PPVs/specials). Thankfully the WWF Title would be in better hands soon.
Winnipeg, Manitoba
I may deeply regret taking the time to watch this show. At least if it's really bad like I remember it will only be for a runtime of less than two hours.
After the Canadian national anthem, we get an announcement from Gorilla Monsoon that he will not allow Shawn Michaels to compete that night, and will ask Shawn to forfeit the title publicly to Dean Douglas, who will then defend the title against Razor Ramon.
Triple H vs. Fatu: Hey, it's Hall of Famer vs. Hall of Famer! Then again, so was that Bret Hart vs. Isaac Yankem cage match from the last Raw (it will be, at least). Both of these guys were decent hands in the ring; HHH would get better, but this was probably about Fatu's in-ring peak before he got huge (though obviously his career peak happened after he got huge). The crowd finally seems to get into this one and get behind Fatu late, but he misses with a splash off the ropes and HHH capitalizes with a Pedigree for the win. This wasn't bad.
Result: HHH via pinfall (8:06)
Rating: **1/4
After the match, HHH gets interviewed by Jerry Lawler at ringside, and in mid-interview Henry Godwinn sneaks up to try to slop him, but HHH sees him coming and escapes. I was ready to lower my grade of the opener to zero stars.
Tag Team Titles - The Smoking Gunns (c) vs. Razor Ramon and the 1-2-3 Kid: This must have been mostly built up on weekend shows? Razor and the Kid did bury the hatchet a few weeks prior, but I hadn't even noticed them mentioning this match on Raw. It looks like Billy Gunn got a haircut since the last Raw taping. Pretty entertaining action here, and some good subtle heeling by the Kid, who was still just a babyface teasing a turn. Nice false finish late as well, where Razor sneaks in and reverses a pinning predicament to put the Kid on top. The crowd bought big into that one. Our ending occurs when Razor hits a Razor's Edge on Billy, then the Kid begs to tag in to finish things off, but his pin gets reversed into a cradle pin by Billy for the win.
Result: The Smoking Gunns via pinfall (12:46)
Rating: **3/4
After the match, Razor has started to leave and the 1-2-3 Kid hangs around and sneak attacks the Gunns, clearing them both out. Razor returns to the ring to calm the Kid down and makes peace with the Gunns.
Goldust vs. Marty Jannetty: This was the long-hyped debut of Goldust. Until he took the wig off here, I know that I had no idea this was Dustin Rhodes in an elaborate costume. This is a slow, plodding match, with Jannetty bumping well on a few power moves but mostly a lot of restholds and waiting.
The crowd, which had been pretty hot to this point, was 100% dead for this. When you hype a guy for this long, putting him in what felt like a lengthy back-and-forth struggle against Jannetty is not a way to capitalize in his debut. This should have mostly been a dominant squash, and while Goldust doesn't work very impressively here, the booking did not do him any favors. He eventually wins his debut with the very lame Curtain Call (face-first suplex) finisher.
Result: Goldust via pinfall (11:15)
Rating: 1/4*
Yokozuna (w/ Cornette and Fuji) vs. King Mabel (w/ Sir Mo): A heel vs. heel match between one guy who needed carrying (Yokozuna) and one guy who was maybe uncarryable (Mabel). I don't know how this could go wrong. Thankfully it didn't carry on TOO long, and ends when Yokozuna botches a bump he looked like he was supposed to take on a bulldog and rolls outside, then posts Mabel out there. The two get counted out, then face off in the middle of the ring again before hugging it out. Completely and utterly pointless.
Result: Double countout (5:12)
Rating: 0*
Dok Hendrix in the ring with Gorilla Monsoon. Dean Douglas is introduced, and we get our segment where Shawn Michaels forfeits the IC Title. I do enjoy the dickish way that Douglas walks in and forcefully takes the belt out of Michaels's hands as Michaels is sadly moping his way toward Gorilla Monsoon to give him the belt.
IC Title - Dean Douglas (c) vs. Razor Ramon: This is an incredibly dull match. Not only did the kliq politics obviously make sure that this belt stayed in the fold, but Razor just 100% mailed in the performance here, with lots of slow restholds and then a finish where he suddenly wins on what looks like an entirely unremarkable back suplex, with the pin coming with one arm draped across Douglas. Douglas's foot was outside the ring during the three-count, so there was that, but Douglas wasn't long for the company after this.
Result: Razor Ramon via pinfall, new IC Champion (11:01)
Rating: 1/4*
WWF Title - Diesel (c) vs. British Bulldog: We get Bret Hart on commentary in replacement of Jerry Lawler, as Bret runs Lawler off as he gets to the broadcast table. Some decent power stuff back and forth early creates some hope that Bulldog might at least be able to make this match work to a similar level to his recent work against The Undertaker, but after the first couple of minutes this become a slow, dull limb match where Bulldog just works incessantly to hurt Diesel's knee. I give Jim Ross credit for trying to put this over by talking about Kevin Nash's problematic knee history stretching back to his basketball career, that helps put over the psychology a bit, but it doesn't make it any more watchable.
A variety of strikes or attacks on the knee would be one thing, but Bulldog is content to just lay there in a variety of restholds that target the knee. Diesel starts to launch a comeback, the action goes outside, and Bulldog takes a random swipe at Bret Hart at the desk. Bret follows Bulldog into the ring to attack him back, and we get a lame DQ finish to close out an awful, awful match.
Result: British Bulldog via DQ (18:14)
Rating: 0*
Diesel, angry about losing the match by DQ, attacks Bret and the two brawl until the show mercifully ends.
Overall: The show starts out okay, and then spends the last 90 minutes being the most dreadful thing to ever appear on televised wrestling. Overall, this was historically miserable on a level that even 2015 WWE is incapable of lowering itself to (at least with regard to PPVs/specials). Thankfully the WWF Title would be in better hands soon.
10-27-2015
, 10:49 PM
October 23, 1995
RAW
Brandon, Manitoba
We open on a highlight package, and then straight to the ring that is now filling up for a battle royal, the winner of which will face Razor Ramon for the IC Title the next week.
20-man Battle Royal: I don't remember this match at all, though from context or getting a title shot at Razor next, I have a pretty good idea who wins. The lineup in the ring is mostly jobbers, and it appears that the only viable winners in the ring were Owen Hart, Sid, HHH, 1-2-3 Kid, Bam Bam Bigelow and maybe Jean Pierre Lafitte given that he just got to have a program with Bret. Sid gets eliminated with six left, so umm never mind about the "good idea" I thought I had.
Our final four is Owen Hart, Savio Vega, Marty Jannetty, and Jean Pierre Lafitte. It drags forever from there and takes an extremely long time before anyone else leaves the party…finally, Marty Jannetty dumps Savio, and then quickly ducks a charge by Jean Pierre Lafitte that causes him to spill out over the top, so it's Jannetty vs. Owen for a final two. I definitely don't remember this match. Jannetty goes out through the middle ropes, British Bulldog runs in from the back to lay a beatdown on him, and once he gets rolled back in he's easy pickings for Owen. Owen tosses him out for the win. Obviously I love the result, but they ate up 20 minutes with this match and it was just SO much stalling. Pretty bad battle royal.
Result: Owen Hart wins
We get highlights of the Diesel-Bulldog championship match last night, including the DQ ending.
Vince sends it to Dok Hendrix for a Survivor Series report. We're set with a main event of Diesel vs. Bret for the WWF Title. We also have a wildcard survivor match where faces and heels will be thrown together to team up. The completely random teams are:
Shawn Michaels (face)/Sid (heel)/British Bulldog (heel)/Ahmed Johnson (face)
vs.
Dean Douglas (heel)/Yokozuna (heel)/Owen Hart (heel)/Razor Ramon (face)
And then we're treated to an incoherent Ahmed Johnson promo…a redundancy, I admit.
Avatar vs. local jobber: Avatar is Al Snow, who comes out unmasked and then puts on a mask when he gets to the ring. This was his WWF debut in this role (maybe in any role). He has a notable botch where he falls off the top turnbuckle, and he finishes the match with a standing moonsault.
Result: Avatar via pinfall
They advertise Razor vs. Owen and Goldust vs. Savio Vega for next week.
Women's Title - Bertha Faye (c) (w/ Harvey Wippleman) vs. Alundra Blayze: They seemed to have all of about 2-3 women's matches per year at this point. If nothing else, this match result did at least create an iconic moment in the Monday Night Wars. Mostly not a good match, though there's a decent sit-out powerbomb spot by Bertha and Bertha does bump pretty well. Alundra goes over with a German suplex to regain the women's belt.
Result: Alundra Blayze via pinfall, new Womens' Champion
We get a sit-down interview with Shawn Michaels backstage, who is still showing the bruises from the beating he took in Syracuse. He vows to be back soon, "hopefully within a week." That immediately made me think that he was wrestling on the tapings that very night, to be aired in a future week, which would have been all kinds of shameful after not going out and laying down the night before, but it looks like he didn't actually wrestle on TV again until Survivor Series.
And with that interview, Vince and Lawler sign off from the announce desk from another really lame episode of Raw.
Overall: God, this company was really circling the drain at this point. Every Raw felt like they were just trying to run out the clock and get through the hour.
---
NITRO
Huntsville, AL
We start right off with a match.
Randy Savage vs. Kurasawa (w/ Col. Parker): I barely remembered that there ever was a dude named Kurasawa, but he was pretty fun to watch. He operated at a Fit Finlay level of stiffness that is hard not to appreciate (while also appreciating his opponent for taking it). Mostly enjoyed this, though it ends on a Savage flying elbow that Kurasawa has to do a ridiculous amount of getting into position for. He was face-down, and from head-to-toe he was pointed directly at the corner Savage jumped from. He had to roll over to his back, then awkwardly move himself over to the side and into the position where Savage could hit it. Macho was just asleep at the wheel when he set that up. Still not a bad match despite the ****ty ending.
Result: Randy Savage via pinfall
Eric Bischoff promises that Hulk Hogan, The Giant, and the whole Dungeon of Doom are there tonight. Well that's just dandy. As the announcers are introducing the rest of the show, the lights go out. Some cartoonish Dungeon of Doom guy shows up on the big screen in the arena speaking unintelligibly.
Over to Gene with The Taskmaster and The Giant. There's a large block of ice. I gather that the Taskmaster just said that The Yeti is inside. Please tell me that we're getting all of this Hogan/Giant stuff out of the way for the whole show now.
Back from commercial, out comes Hogan to talk to Gene. "I fear no evil dude, because the only thing to fear is evil itself, brother!" What the HELL, Hogan. After trash-talking Giant for a while, Hogan even calls out Sting, Luger, and Savage, and says "the 'BAD GUY' Hulk Hogan will be waiting to take you down." Well that's quite a coincidence; I'm certain that his heel turn against those three guys as a unit wasn't planned yet.
Chris Benoit & Dean Malenko vs. Eddie Guerrero and Mr. JL (w/ Alex Wright): Alex Wright is out on crutches. I have no idea what his relation was to this matchup; had to be some sort of weekend stuff. Nitro really needed to be better about including weekend setup context. The match starts a little sloppy, has a great but overly brief Eddie-Malenko exchange, and…we cut to the back to show Shark brawling with Scott Norton. **** you guys. Thankfully not as long as the Hogan cut-away of the previous week. Nice combo move where Chris Benoit does a rolling neck snap on Mr. JL that is immediately followed by a targeted low dropkick to the back of JL's head by Dean. Our finish comes on a victory roll by JL on Malenko after Alex Wright interferes from the outside. Lots of good stuff here, even if not quite the absolute classic you may expect on paper from these four.
Result: Eddie Guerrero & Mr. JL via pinfall
As Eddie is leaving the ring, Brian Pillman randomly comes out and ambushes him, leaving him laid out. Okay.
Harlem Heat (w/ Sister Sherri) vs. Sting & Lex Luger: As the Heat head to the ring, Eric Bischoff references last night's In Your House PPV. Mongo says, "More like 'in your OUThouse.'" Hey, they were childish and unfunny, but they weren't wrong. I always wonder if Stevie Ray issued regular thank you notes to Booker T for carrying his ass throughout their entire run together, because Stevie was just absolutely nothing compared to his brother. This match is alright; pretty formulaic and certainly nothing special, but not bad. Sting wins on a top rope splash amidst the chaos following a hot tag after Luger played face-in-peril for much of the match.
Result: Sting & Luger via pinfall
As the match ends, The Giant and the Dungeon of Doom hit the ring to go at Sting and Luger. Those two both eat chokeslams. Savage out to try to make the save. As he's having a standoff with Giant, Hogan hits the ring and asks Savage to go away so that he can take on the Giant himself. Savage obliges. Hulk tries to hit the Giant, but the Giant no-sells and clobbers him. This causes Hulk to no-sell and Hulk Up. Apparently that forced Giant to start selling too, but as Hogan gets the upper hand the whole Dungeon of Doom runs in. Hogan and Savage get the upper hand and clear the ring anyway. As the show is readying to go off the air, the Yeti (mummy) breaks through the ice, but we only get a moment of that before the show has faded to black. Worst tease ever.
Overall: Don't know where the hell the Flair/Arn build was; that was the best angle going in wrestling and got totally left off the go-home show. The Hogan/Dungeon of Doom overload really hampered this show, but it still wasn't TOO bad.
---
Ratings for 10/23/95: Raw 2.2, Nitro 2.6
Ratings Running Score: Raw 3-2-2
Better Show: Nitro wins without hesitation, which is saying something since it was one of the weaker Nitros to date. As a kid who grew up on WWF I remember that I was more inclined toward Raw than Nitro during this time, but man was I wrong, at least during this particular period. Obviously there were better days ahead for Raw.
Better Show Running Score: Nitro 5-1
Match of the Night: Eddie Guerrero/Mr. JL vs. Chris Benoit/Dean Malenko
RAW
Brandon, Manitoba
We open on a highlight package, and then straight to the ring that is now filling up for a battle royal, the winner of which will face Razor Ramon for the IC Title the next week.
20-man Battle Royal: I don't remember this match at all, though from context or getting a title shot at Razor next, I have a pretty good idea who wins. The lineup in the ring is mostly jobbers, and it appears that the only viable winners in the ring were Owen Hart, Sid, HHH, 1-2-3 Kid, Bam Bam Bigelow and maybe Jean Pierre Lafitte given that he just got to have a program with Bret. Sid gets eliminated with six left, so umm never mind about the "good idea" I thought I had.
Our final four is Owen Hart, Savio Vega, Marty Jannetty, and Jean Pierre Lafitte. It drags forever from there and takes an extremely long time before anyone else leaves the party…finally, Marty Jannetty dumps Savio, and then quickly ducks a charge by Jean Pierre Lafitte that causes him to spill out over the top, so it's Jannetty vs. Owen for a final two. I definitely don't remember this match. Jannetty goes out through the middle ropes, British Bulldog runs in from the back to lay a beatdown on him, and once he gets rolled back in he's easy pickings for Owen. Owen tosses him out for the win. Obviously I love the result, but they ate up 20 minutes with this match and it was just SO much stalling. Pretty bad battle royal.
Result: Owen Hart wins
We get highlights of the Diesel-Bulldog championship match last night, including the DQ ending.
Vince sends it to Dok Hendrix for a Survivor Series report. We're set with a main event of Diesel vs. Bret for the WWF Title. We also have a wildcard survivor match where faces and heels will be thrown together to team up. The completely random teams are:
Shawn Michaels (face)/Sid (heel)/British Bulldog (heel)/Ahmed Johnson (face)
vs.
Dean Douglas (heel)/Yokozuna (heel)/Owen Hart (heel)/Razor Ramon (face)
And then we're treated to an incoherent Ahmed Johnson promo…a redundancy, I admit.
Avatar vs. local jobber: Avatar is Al Snow, who comes out unmasked and then puts on a mask when he gets to the ring. This was his WWF debut in this role (maybe in any role). He has a notable botch where he falls off the top turnbuckle, and he finishes the match with a standing moonsault.
Result: Avatar via pinfall
They advertise Razor vs. Owen and Goldust vs. Savio Vega for next week.
Women's Title - Bertha Faye (c) (w/ Harvey Wippleman) vs. Alundra Blayze: They seemed to have all of about 2-3 women's matches per year at this point. If nothing else, this match result did at least create an iconic moment in the Monday Night Wars. Mostly not a good match, though there's a decent sit-out powerbomb spot by Bertha and Bertha does bump pretty well. Alundra goes over with a German suplex to regain the women's belt.
Result: Alundra Blayze via pinfall, new Womens' Champion
We get a sit-down interview with Shawn Michaels backstage, who is still showing the bruises from the beating he took in Syracuse. He vows to be back soon, "hopefully within a week." That immediately made me think that he was wrestling on the tapings that very night, to be aired in a future week, which would have been all kinds of shameful after not going out and laying down the night before, but it looks like he didn't actually wrestle on TV again until Survivor Series.
And with that interview, Vince and Lawler sign off from the announce desk from another really lame episode of Raw.
Overall: God, this company was really circling the drain at this point. Every Raw felt like they were just trying to run out the clock and get through the hour.
---
NITRO
Huntsville, AL
We start right off with a match.
Randy Savage vs. Kurasawa (w/ Col. Parker): I barely remembered that there ever was a dude named Kurasawa, but he was pretty fun to watch. He operated at a Fit Finlay level of stiffness that is hard not to appreciate (while also appreciating his opponent for taking it). Mostly enjoyed this, though it ends on a Savage flying elbow that Kurasawa has to do a ridiculous amount of getting into position for. He was face-down, and from head-to-toe he was pointed directly at the corner Savage jumped from. He had to roll over to his back, then awkwardly move himself over to the side and into the position where Savage could hit it. Macho was just asleep at the wheel when he set that up. Still not a bad match despite the ****ty ending.
Result: Randy Savage via pinfall
Eric Bischoff promises that Hulk Hogan, The Giant, and the whole Dungeon of Doom are there tonight. Well that's just dandy. As the announcers are introducing the rest of the show, the lights go out. Some cartoonish Dungeon of Doom guy shows up on the big screen in the arena speaking unintelligibly.
Over to Gene with The Taskmaster and The Giant. There's a large block of ice. I gather that the Taskmaster just said that The Yeti is inside. Please tell me that we're getting all of this Hogan/Giant stuff out of the way for the whole show now.
Back from commercial, out comes Hogan to talk to Gene. "I fear no evil dude, because the only thing to fear is evil itself, brother!" What the HELL, Hogan. After trash-talking Giant for a while, Hogan even calls out Sting, Luger, and Savage, and says "the 'BAD GUY' Hulk Hogan will be waiting to take you down." Well that's quite a coincidence; I'm certain that his heel turn against those three guys as a unit wasn't planned yet.
Chris Benoit & Dean Malenko vs. Eddie Guerrero and Mr. JL (w/ Alex Wright): Alex Wright is out on crutches. I have no idea what his relation was to this matchup; had to be some sort of weekend stuff. Nitro really needed to be better about including weekend setup context. The match starts a little sloppy, has a great but overly brief Eddie-Malenko exchange, and…we cut to the back to show Shark brawling with Scott Norton. **** you guys. Thankfully not as long as the Hogan cut-away of the previous week. Nice combo move where Chris Benoit does a rolling neck snap on Mr. JL that is immediately followed by a targeted low dropkick to the back of JL's head by Dean. Our finish comes on a victory roll by JL on Malenko after Alex Wright interferes from the outside. Lots of good stuff here, even if not quite the absolute classic you may expect on paper from these four.
Result: Eddie Guerrero & Mr. JL via pinfall
As Eddie is leaving the ring, Brian Pillman randomly comes out and ambushes him, leaving him laid out. Okay.
Harlem Heat (w/ Sister Sherri) vs. Sting & Lex Luger: As the Heat head to the ring, Eric Bischoff references last night's In Your House PPV. Mongo says, "More like 'in your OUThouse.'" Hey, they were childish and unfunny, but they weren't wrong. I always wonder if Stevie Ray issued regular thank you notes to Booker T for carrying his ass throughout their entire run together, because Stevie was just absolutely nothing compared to his brother. This match is alright; pretty formulaic and certainly nothing special, but not bad. Sting wins on a top rope splash amidst the chaos following a hot tag after Luger played face-in-peril for much of the match.
Result: Sting & Luger via pinfall
As the match ends, The Giant and the Dungeon of Doom hit the ring to go at Sting and Luger. Those two both eat chokeslams. Savage out to try to make the save. As he's having a standoff with Giant, Hogan hits the ring and asks Savage to go away so that he can take on the Giant himself. Savage obliges. Hulk tries to hit the Giant, but the Giant no-sells and clobbers him. This causes Hulk to no-sell and Hulk Up. Apparently that forced Giant to start selling too, but as Hogan gets the upper hand the whole Dungeon of Doom runs in. Hogan and Savage get the upper hand and clear the ring anyway. As the show is readying to go off the air, the Yeti (mummy) breaks through the ice, but we only get a moment of that before the show has faded to black. Worst tease ever.
Overall: Don't know where the hell the Flair/Arn build was; that was the best angle going in wrestling and got totally left off the go-home show. The Hogan/Dungeon of Doom overload really hampered this show, but it still wasn't TOO bad.
---
Ratings for 10/23/95: Raw 2.2, Nitro 2.6
Ratings Running Score: Raw 3-2-2
Better Show: Nitro wins without hesitation, which is saying something since it was one of the weaker Nitros to date. As a kid who grew up on WWF I remember that I was more inclined toward Raw than Nitro during this time, but man was I wrong, at least during this particular period. Obviously there were better days ahead for Raw.
Better Show Running Score: Nitro 5-1
Match of the Night: Eddie Guerrero/Mr. JL vs. Chris Benoit/Dean Malenko
10-28-2015
, 05:13 PM
10-29-2015
, 07:14 PM
WCW HALLOWEEN HAVOC '95
We start the show with Hogan and Giant facing off and jostling in monster trucks, though apparently their monster truck fight isn't until later. To the desk, we get the announcement that Ric Flair was laid out and attacked by Arn Anderson and Brian Pillman, and that his participation in the tag match as Sting's partner later was questionable.
We also get a video recap of the DDP/Johnny B. Badd feud.
TV Title - DDP (c) (w/ Diamond Doll and Maxx Muscle) vs. Johnny B. Badd: As DDP waited in the ring, a fake JBB started to enter to JBB's music to distract Page, and the real Johnny entered through the crowd and ambushed DDP to open the match. Nice early pace as Badd takes the fight to the champ, but once DDP gets control the match slows to an absolute crawl and gets pretty damn boring. As Page executes resthold after resthold, the announcers push along the storyline that Diamond Doll isn't happy with him, which is reflected in her reactions to the moves. Match picks up and gets more interesting again once Badd launches a comeback; it was really Dallas dropping the ball here. Johnny B. Badd picks up the win when an errant clothesline by Maxx Muscle connects with DDP instead of Badd. Not the greatest ending. Not the greatest match in general, though it was alright at a couple of spots.
Result: Johnny B. Badd via pinfall, new TV Champion (17:01)
Rating: **
Zodiac vs. Randy Savage: Zodiac had what would become Rey Mysterio Jr.'s music. Not much here. Savage wins in basically a squash.
Result: Randy Savage via pinfall (1:30)
Rating: N/A
Mean Gene is backstage with the hotline plug and also with an interview with new TV Champ Johnny B. Badd. Badd cuts a high-intensity but generic promo.
Kurasawa (w/ Col. Parker) vs. Road Warrior Hawk: This gets pushed as a grudge match due to Kurasawa breaking Hawk's arm in a match earlier that year. Hawk is not particularly good here, but Kurasawa takes a nice bump on a missed elbow, another nice post bump, and then suddenly he gets a dirty pin with rope leverage. Not that I want a Hawk match to go on forever, but this felt like it at least deserved 3-4 more minutes.
Result: Kurasawa via pinfall (3:15)
Rating: *3/4
Sabu (w/ The Sheik) vs. Mr. JL: This is our one cruiserweight match of the night, and it's less than stellar. No real storytelling here, just two guys going from spot to spot, and then doing a lot of the spots pretty sloppily. Sabu goes over pretty abruptly with a springboard moonsault. Probably the coolest part of the match happens shortly after it ends, when The Sheik goes over and blasts Mr. JL in the face with some sort of fireball.
Result: Sabu via pinfall (3:25)
Rating: **1/4
After discussing at the desk for a moment, Tony throws it some embarrassing pre-taped Dungeon of Doom sketch. This fat bald dude on the throne yells unintelligibly. I genuinely have no idea what he's saying. That's probably just as well.
We also get Hulk Hogan cutting a promo and giving away a motorcycle or something.
Meng (w/ The Taskmaster) vs. Lex Luger: Stipulation here is that if Luger wins, he'll face Savage later since Savage won earlier. This is some semi-watchable brawling. Certainly not the biggest variety of offensive moves, but they did mostly stay away from restholds aside from one mid-match chinlock by Meng. It did drag on too long though…who made the call to make this one of the longer matches of the night? And then we get the super ridiculous finish where Meng has Luger pinned after a weapon shot and Kevin Sullivan walks in and kicks Luger (yes, while Luger is laying on his back being pinned) to give Luger the DQ win. Apparently he had some motive to cause Luger to have to face Savage later.
Result: Lex Luger via DQ (13:14)
Rating: *1/2
Arn Anderson & Brian Pillman vs. Sting & Ric Flair: After Arn and Pillman enter, Sting comes to the ring by himself, with Flair seemingly out of action because of the backstage beatdown. Shoe is on the other foot from the Nitro match, where Flair wrestled by himself when Sting was a no-show at first, until Sting arrived late. Here, Sting holds his own in the handicap match early against both men until Flair finally arrives in street clothes. He tries to attack Arn and Pillman, but Anderson forces him to the corner to await a tag. We get a few teases where Sting nearly makes the hot tag, but he gets stopped repeatedly (in a heat segment that honestly goes on far too long and makes the match a bit worse) before finally getting there. And when he gets there, we get our payoff: Flair enters, struts, bounces off the rope, and throws a haymaker at Sting to complete the betrayal that Sting openly admitted to fearing for weeks.
Just beautiful. Sting loses his **** on Flair as promised, but Arn and Pillman are in on the beatdown now and the three have their way with Stinger. 1995 was a ****ty wrestling year, but this was truly a bright spot.
Result: No contest (17:09)
Rating: ***1/2
The three Horsemen gather around a mic. Flair: "You don't walk, talk, or breathe unless the Horsemen want you to." Good times.
We get hype for the monster truck crap, and then we actually get the monster truck matchup on the roof of the arena that brings us one of the funniest moments of all time. Hogan's truck pushes Giant's truck out of the circle of flares, and as this is operating under sumo rules, Hogan apparently wins the truck matchup. A pissed off Giant jumps out of the truck and goes at Hogan. They brawl toward the edge of the roof as a frantic Eric Bischoff screams for security to get up and separate them. As they struggle on a ledge, the Giant loses his balance and falls off the roof. Bischoff channels Minnesota Viking radio announcer Paul Allen and sounds a lot like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mL8S4G9zFK8
A guest commentator who was a monster truck expert or something very monotonously adds, "That wasn't supposed to happen." Bischoff is listening in trying to get word from the back. Heenan asks, "Which side did he fall off? The water side, the street side, or what?" Bischoff dismissively replies, "Well, you've got a parking lot and you've got a river, what difference does it make?" Heenan facepalms hard on the desk. After a couple of minutes of acting panicked about the death we just witnessed, let's throw it back to the ring for more action.
Lex Luger vs. Randy Savage: Luger offers a handshake and Savage responds with a kick to the stomach. Early in the action, Jimmy Hart shows up at ringside for some reason. Heenan keeps at least trying to put over the Giant's fall and acts like it's too much of a struggle to announce a match. Schiavone is like, "Dude, get over it. So do you think Luger is in the Dungeon of Doom or what?" This isn't much of a match…kind of a dull but brief brawl that ends when Jimmy Hart gets up on the apron and Savage sends Luger into the ropes to cause a collision, then follows with the elbow for the win.
Result: Randy Savage via pinfall (5:23)
Rating: *
Well, it's time for the main event, and despite the fact that one of the wrestlers can't possibly wrestle and might not be alive, we just proceed to the ring for the introductions. They start to introduce The Giant, but then Hogan's music plays and he gets introduced first instead. He keeps a somber look, signals to cut the music, takes the mic and says that what happened was an accident. Then he gets interrupted by a totally unscathed Giant marching to the ring. Oh, well that's a relief!
WCW Title - Hulk Hogan (c) vs. The Giant: It's mostly the sort of punch-punch-kick-kick brawl that you would expect from these two. I do appreciate the way that the Giant takes a clothesline over the top rope; his size makes it look like a cool spot. Our endgame is as follows: Giant chokeslams Hogan. Hogan hulks up. Big boot, legdrop, and then as he goes for the pin Jimmy Hart jumps in and clobbers the referee with the belt. Hogan goes "WTF" and then goes back to attacking Giant, but Jimmy completes the double-cross by hitting Hogan from behind with the belt.
Giant gets Hogan in a bearhug, Luger and Savage seemingly in for the save, but Luger attacks Savage as the Yeti (the gigantic mummy) comes to the ring and butt****s Hogan as Hogan remains in the Giant's bearhug.
Giant finally lets go and Luger puts him in the Torture Rack, obviously joining the Dungeon of Doom. Savage gets the bearhug/butt**** combo and then a Torture Rack as well. They declare The Giant to be the winner by DQ. What? Jimmy attacked Hogan. Oh yeah, Jimmy attacked the ref first, and that was in his capacity as Hogan's manager. Well, whatever.
Result: The Giant via DQ (14:30)
Rating: *
Overall: There was the glorious Horsemen stuff and there was everything else. The rest of the show was pretty difficult to sit through, and there was a lot of it. It's purely by default that WCW managed to have the better PPV this month, because overall this was pretty damn bad.
We start the show with Hogan and Giant facing off and jostling in monster trucks, though apparently their monster truck fight isn't until later. To the desk, we get the announcement that Ric Flair was laid out and attacked by Arn Anderson and Brian Pillman, and that his participation in the tag match as Sting's partner later was questionable.
We also get a video recap of the DDP/Johnny B. Badd feud.
TV Title - DDP (c) (w/ Diamond Doll and Maxx Muscle) vs. Johnny B. Badd: As DDP waited in the ring, a fake JBB started to enter to JBB's music to distract Page, and the real Johnny entered through the crowd and ambushed DDP to open the match. Nice early pace as Badd takes the fight to the champ, but once DDP gets control the match slows to an absolute crawl and gets pretty damn boring. As Page executes resthold after resthold, the announcers push along the storyline that Diamond Doll isn't happy with him, which is reflected in her reactions to the moves. Match picks up and gets more interesting again once Badd launches a comeback; it was really Dallas dropping the ball here. Johnny B. Badd picks up the win when an errant clothesline by Maxx Muscle connects with DDP instead of Badd. Not the greatest ending. Not the greatest match in general, though it was alright at a couple of spots.
Result: Johnny B. Badd via pinfall, new TV Champion (17:01)
Rating: **
Zodiac vs. Randy Savage: Zodiac had what would become Rey Mysterio Jr.'s music. Not much here. Savage wins in basically a squash.
Result: Randy Savage via pinfall (1:30)
Rating: N/A
Mean Gene is backstage with the hotline plug and also with an interview with new TV Champ Johnny B. Badd. Badd cuts a high-intensity but generic promo.
Kurasawa (w/ Col. Parker) vs. Road Warrior Hawk: This gets pushed as a grudge match due to Kurasawa breaking Hawk's arm in a match earlier that year. Hawk is not particularly good here, but Kurasawa takes a nice bump on a missed elbow, another nice post bump, and then suddenly he gets a dirty pin with rope leverage. Not that I want a Hawk match to go on forever, but this felt like it at least deserved 3-4 more minutes.
Result: Kurasawa via pinfall (3:15)
Rating: *3/4
Sabu (w/ The Sheik) vs. Mr. JL: This is our one cruiserweight match of the night, and it's less than stellar. No real storytelling here, just two guys going from spot to spot, and then doing a lot of the spots pretty sloppily. Sabu goes over pretty abruptly with a springboard moonsault. Probably the coolest part of the match happens shortly after it ends, when The Sheik goes over and blasts Mr. JL in the face with some sort of fireball.
Result: Sabu via pinfall (3:25)
Rating: **1/4
After discussing at the desk for a moment, Tony throws it some embarrassing pre-taped Dungeon of Doom sketch. This fat bald dude on the throne yells unintelligibly. I genuinely have no idea what he's saying. That's probably just as well.
We also get Hulk Hogan cutting a promo and giving away a motorcycle or something.
Meng (w/ The Taskmaster) vs. Lex Luger: Stipulation here is that if Luger wins, he'll face Savage later since Savage won earlier. This is some semi-watchable brawling. Certainly not the biggest variety of offensive moves, but they did mostly stay away from restholds aside from one mid-match chinlock by Meng. It did drag on too long though…who made the call to make this one of the longer matches of the night? And then we get the super ridiculous finish where Meng has Luger pinned after a weapon shot and Kevin Sullivan walks in and kicks Luger (yes, while Luger is laying on his back being pinned) to give Luger the DQ win. Apparently he had some motive to cause Luger to have to face Savage later.
Result: Lex Luger via DQ (13:14)
Rating: *1/2
Arn Anderson & Brian Pillman vs. Sting & Ric Flair: After Arn and Pillman enter, Sting comes to the ring by himself, with Flair seemingly out of action because of the backstage beatdown. Shoe is on the other foot from the Nitro match, where Flair wrestled by himself when Sting was a no-show at first, until Sting arrived late. Here, Sting holds his own in the handicap match early against both men until Flair finally arrives in street clothes. He tries to attack Arn and Pillman, but Anderson forces him to the corner to await a tag. We get a few teases where Sting nearly makes the hot tag, but he gets stopped repeatedly (in a heat segment that honestly goes on far too long and makes the match a bit worse) before finally getting there. And when he gets there, we get our payoff: Flair enters, struts, bounces off the rope, and throws a haymaker at Sting to complete the betrayal that Sting openly admitted to fearing for weeks.
Just beautiful. Sting loses his **** on Flair as promised, but Arn and Pillman are in on the beatdown now and the three have their way with Stinger. 1995 was a ****ty wrestling year, but this was truly a bright spot.
Result: No contest (17:09)
Rating: ***1/2
The three Horsemen gather around a mic. Flair: "You don't walk, talk, or breathe unless the Horsemen want you to." Good times.
We get hype for the monster truck crap, and then we actually get the monster truck matchup on the roof of the arena that brings us one of the funniest moments of all time. Hogan's truck pushes Giant's truck out of the circle of flares, and as this is operating under sumo rules, Hogan apparently wins the truck matchup. A pissed off Giant jumps out of the truck and goes at Hogan. They brawl toward the edge of the roof as a frantic Eric Bischoff screams for security to get up and separate them. As they struggle on a ledge, the Giant loses his balance and falls off the roof. Bischoff channels Minnesota Viking radio announcer Paul Allen and sounds a lot like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mL8S4G9zFK8
A guest commentator who was a monster truck expert or something very monotonously adds, "That wasn't supposed to happen." Bischoff is listening in trying to get word from the back. Heenan asks, "Which side did he fall off? The water side, the street side, or what?" Bischoff dismissively replies, "Well, you've got a parking lot and you've got a river, what difference does it make?" Heenan facepalms hard on the desk. After a couple of minutes of acting panicked about the death we just witnessed, let's throw it back to the ring for more action.
Lex Luger vs. Randy Savage: Luger offers a handshake and Savage responds with a kick to the stomach. Early in the action, Jimmy Hart shows up at ringside for some reason. Heenan keeps at least trying to put over the Giant's fall and acts like it's too much of a struggle to announce a match. Schiavone is like, "Dude, get over it. So do you think Luger is in the Dungeon of Doom or what?" This isn't much of a match…kind of a dull but brief brawl that ends when Jimmy Hart gets up on the apron and Savage sends Luger into the ropes to cause a collision, then follows with the elbow for the win.
Result: Randy Savage via pinfall (5:23)
Rating: *
Well, it's time for the main event, and despite the fact that one of the wrestlers can't possibly wrestle and might not be alive, we just proceed to the ring for the introductions. They start to introduce The Giant, but then Hogan's music plays and he gets introduced first instead. He keeps a somber look, signals to cut the music, takes the mic and says that what happened was an accident. Then he gets interrupted by a totally unscathed Giant marching to the ring. Oh, well that's a relief!
WCW Title - Hulk Hogan (c) vs. The Giant: It's mostly the sort of punch-punch-kick-kick brawl that you would expect from these two. I do appreciate the way that the Giant takes a clothesline over the top rope; his size makes it look like a cool spot. Our endgame is as follows: Giant chokeslams Hogan. Hogan hulks up. Big boot, legdrop, and then as he goes for the pin Jimmy Hart jumps in and clobbers the referee with the belt. Hogan goes "WTF" and then goes back to attacking Giant, but Jimmy completes the double-cross by hitting Hogan from behind with the belt.
Giant gets Hogan in a bearhug, Luger and Savage seemingly in for the save, but Luger attacks Savage as the Yeti (the gigantic mummy) comes to the ring and butt****s Hogan as Hogan remains in the Giant's bearhug.
Giant finally lets go and Luger puts him in the Torture Rack, obviously joining the Dungeon of Doom. Savage gets the bearhug/butt**** combo and then a Torture Rack as well. They declare The Giant to be the winner by DQ. What? Jimmy attacked Hogan. Oh yeah, Jimmy attacked the ref first, and that was in his capacity as Hogan's manager. Well, whatever.
Result: The Giant via DQ (14:30)
Rating: *
Overall: There was the glorious Horsemen stuff and there was everything else. The rest of the show was pretty difficult to sit through, and there was a lot of it. It's purely by default that WCW managed to have the better PPV this month, because overall this was pretty damn bad.
10-31-2015
, 12:52 PM
October 30, 1995
NITRO
Dayton, OH
We get some Havoc recap from the broadcast desk before sending it to the ring.
Sgt. Craig Pittman vs. Eddie Guerrero: Clash of styles here; they spend a fair bit of time feeling each other out, and I'm going to guess they hadn't worked together previously since they have a difficult time getting much of a rhythm going together even though there was enough combined talent to put on something good. Eddie finally scores the win with a rolling pinning combo on a reversal. Pretty rough match.
Result: Eddie Guerrero via pinfall
We get a history lesson of an apparent feud between Shark and Scott Norton, who will meet in the ring next. Count me in as "not hopeful."
Shark vs. Scott Norton: At some point I started enjoying watching Scott Norton matches just because of the unintentional comedy of watching him sell absolutely no moves for anyone ever.
^ you may not be able to tell, but I'm pretty sure that's right after he's just been shot in the face by a bazooka.
Norton does bodyslam Shark with relative ease, so I guess that's something. They end up brawling on the floor to a double countout, which I'm guessing is done to set up a future rematch. So, uhh, we have something to look forward to.
Result: Double Countout
Bobby Heenan has made his way over to a table in the arena that has some beautiful women and Sonny Onoo. Maybe Onoo has yet to debut, as the announcers don't seem to act like they know who he is. Heenan takes a bribe. I have no recollection of what that's about.
Tony Schiavone in the ring, brings out the three new Horsemen for a fun promo segment. Arn says explicitly that there will soon be a fourth. IIRC they soon add that fourth, Chris Benoit, on a throwaway interview segment on an episode of WCW Saturday Night.
They advertise matches for this coming WCW Saturday Night, and they include a tag team title match featuring champions Harlem Heat. I guess that silly American Males title reign was short-lived and ended on a B-show.
Sabu vs. Disco Inferno: Decent action here, though nothing more. I give them credit for keeping a good pace to the match. Feels like an abrupt ending, with Disco coming up empty on a corner charge and falling down, then Sabu following by going outside and re-entering with a somersault legdrop for the pin.
Result: Sabu via pinfall
Sabu pretty much no-sells the final bell and just keeps beating on Disco. This beatdown culminates in him setting Disco on a table outside, then trying to somersault into him on the table. Disco moves and Sabu gets nothing but table, and the table doesn't give.
...so that sure looked painful.
Lex Luger & Meng (w/ Jimmy Hart and The Taskmaster) vs. American Males: This is the Nitro debut of heel Jimmy Hart and heel Lex Luger. The Males get some decent offense in, and they take it as far as Marcus Bagwell actually having Luger pinned during a ref distraction, but during the same distraction Meng sneak attacks, and the ref only turns around to see Luger racking Bagwell. GG. Once again, pretty meh match.
Result: Lex Luger & Meng via submission
They close the show by treating us to the last five minutes of Halloween Havoc, then giving us a Dungeon of Doom promo in the ring. Jimmy, why'd you turn on Hulk? "Maybe I'll tell it in a book, maybe I'll tell you next week on Nitro." Whatever. Of note, the Giant did apparently make off with the title belt from Halloween Havoc even though he only won by DQ and therefore isn't actually the champion.
Overall: Awful show, with nothing really enjoyable aside from - you guessed it - the Horsemen segment. And that was pretty brief. Surely Raw is going to win this night from a quality standpoint?
RAW
Brandon, Manitoba
We have a Halloween-themed intro to the show. Oh boy. This, combined with the thumbnail for this show that had Vince wearing a jailbird costume, makes me think that this episode might just be lame as hell.
Savio Vega vs. Goldust: Goldust with the ambush on Savio at the conclusion of his elaborate entrance. From there, he unfortunately plays slow-down, and his deliberate style was just not at all fun to watch. He got better somewhere along the way, but early Goldust was pretty damn bad in the ring. Savio misses on a spinning wheel kick, Goldust slowly walks around the ring and then eventually kneels down and wraps up Savio in a pinning combo that is basically not much more than hooking a leg. And that wins it. Okay. Vince: "Now THAT was impressive!" WTF, when did hooking a leg become impressive?
Result: Goldust via pinfall
Dok Hendrix brings us our Survivor Series report, which features an announcement that Diesel vs. Bret Hart will be no DQ, no countout, no time limit.
Backstage, Razor Ramon and the 1-2-3 Kid are in an argument.
Another Barry Horowitz/Hakushi segment as well. As odd couples go, they were no Head Cheese.
Marty Jannetty vs. local jobber: They were certainly giving Jannetty enough screen time here. Guess they were still holding out hope that he could reach a next level. This is a garden-variety squash.
Result: Marty Jannetty via pinfall
An ad for next week features a preview for Bret Hart & Hakushi vs. Jerry Lawler & Isaac Yankem. For the love of God, stop it with this Bret Hart-Isaac Yankem stuff.
In the ring when we come back is Vince McMahon, to interview Jim Cornette, Clarence Mason, and the British Bulldog. Cornette gripes about Bulldog winning by DQ over Diesel at the PPV and then not getting a title shot directly after. The conversation turns to Marty Jannetty, who Bulldog is facing next week. Bulldog trash-talks Marty for a bit until Marty emerges from the back and clears the ring of everyone but Mason, who he corners before showing some mercy and then playing to the crowd.
The Smoking Gunns vs. local jobbers: They use this as an opportunity to air a PIP promo by the 1-2-3 Kid regarding his post-match attack on the Gunns at In Your House. It starts out as an apology and turns into a demand for a rematch. Also the Kid seemed to be on drugs, which is weird for something obviously pre-taped. As far as the match, it's a standard squash ending in a Sidewinder.
Result: Smoking Gunns via pinfall
Speaking of pre-taped promos, here's one by Bret Hart about Diesel and their upcoming match.
IC Title - Razor Ramon (c) vs. Owen Hart: Love Owen's bump on the patented Razor clothesline over the top rope early on. Quite a bit of decent back-and-forth mat wrestling from there. At the midway point, Yokozuna saunters down to ringside. Couple more nice spots from Owen with a baseball slide and a missile dropkick off the top.
I remember not thinking that highly of their 1994 King of the Ring tournament final, so I was pleasantly surprised at just how good this was. Unfortunately they bring it down with a crap ending where Yoko runs in as Razor sets up for the Razor's Edge and causes a DQ.
Result: Razor Ramon via DQ
After the match we get an Owen/Yoko beatdown on Razor. 1-2-3 Kid temporarily disrupts things before being set aside, but then we get an Ahmed Johnson run-in where he promptly bodyslams Yokozuna.
I'm guessing that Vince wanted to take away the notion that WCW had the only guy who could do such a thing. Bulldog runs in to try to deal with Ahmed as Raw goes off the air with the Schiavone "we've gotta go! See you next week!" finish.
Overall: The main event saved the show and at least gave us something worth watching. I believe that was Ahmed's debut after weeks of hype too, and it was well done. Everything before the main event was crap, but going out on a high note is worth a fair bit.
---
Ratings for 10/30/95: Raw 2.1, Nitro 2.3
Running Score: Tied 3-3-2
Better Show: Owen vs. Razor was the only thing worth watching on either show the whole night, so by default Raw has to take this down.
Running Score: Nitro 5-2
Match of the Night: Razor Ramon vs. Owen Hart
NITRO
Dayton, OH
We get some Havoc recap from the broadcast desk before sending it to the ring.
Sgt. Craig Pittman vs. Eddie Guerrero: Clash of styles here; they spend a fair bit of time feeling each other out, and I'm going to guess they hadn't worked together previously since they have a difficult time getting much of a rhythm going together even though there was enough combined talent to put on something good. Eddie finally scores the win with a rolling pinning combo on a reversal. Pretty rough match.
Result: Eddie Guerrero via pinfall
We get a history lesson of an apparent feud between Shark and Scott Norton, who will meet in the ring next. Count me in as "not hopeful."
Shark vs. Scott Norton: At some point I started enjoying watching Scott Norton matches just because of the unintentional comedy of watching him sell absolutely no moves for anyone ever.
^ you may not be able to tell, but I'm pretty sure that's right after he's just been shot in the face by a bazooka.
Norton does bodyslam Shark with relative ease, so I guess that's something. They end up brawling on the floor to a double countout, which I'm guessing is done to set up a future rematch. So, uhh, we have something to look forward to.
Result: Double Countout
Bobby Heenan has made his way over to a table in the arena that has some beautiful women and Sonny Onoo. Maybe Onoo has yet to debut, as the announcers don't seem to act like they know who he is. Heenan takes a bribe. I have no recollection of what that's about.
Tony Schiavone in the ring, brings out the three new Horsemen for a fun promo segment. Arn says explicitly that there will soon be a fourth. IIRC they soon add that fourth, Chris Benoit, on a throwaway interview segment on an episode of WCW Saturday Night.
They advertise matches for this coming WCW Saturday Night, and they include a tag team title match featuring champions Harlem Heat. I guess that silly American Males title reign was short-lived and ended on a B-show.
Sabu vs. Disco Inferno: Decent action here, though nothing more. I give them credit for keeping a good pace to the match. Feels like an abrupt ending, with Disco coming up empty on a corner charge and falling down, then Sabu following by going outside and re-entering with a somersault legdrop for the pin.
Result: Sabu via pinfall
Sabu pretty much no-sells the final bell and just keeps beating on Disco. This beatdown culminates in him setting Disco on a table outside, then trying to somersault into him on the table. Disco moves and Sabu gets nothing but table, and the table doesn't give.
...so that sure looked painful.
Lex Luger & Meng (w/ Jimmy Hart and The Taskmaster) vs. American Males: This is the Nitro debut of heel Jimmy Hart and heel Lex Luger. The Males get some decent offense in, and they take it as far as Marcus Bagwell actually having Luger pinned during a ref distraction, but during the same distraction Meng sneak attacks, and the ref only turns around to see Luger racking Bagwell. GG. Once again, pretty meh match.
Result: Lex Luger & Meng via submission
They close the show by treating us to the last five minutes of Halloween Havoc, then giving us a Dungeon of Doom promo in the ring. Jimmy, why'd you turn on Hulk? "Maybe I'll tell it in a book, maybe I'll tell you next week on Nitro." Whatever. Of note, the Giant did apparently make off with the title belt from Halloween Havoc even though he only won by DQ and therefore isn't actually the champion.
Overall: Awful show, with nothing really enjoyable aside from - you guessed it - the Horsemen segment. And that was pretty brief. Surely Raw is going to win this night from a quality standpoint?
RAW
Brandon, Manitoba
We have a Halloween-themed intro to the show. Oh boy. This, combined with the thumbnail for this show that had Vince wearing a jailbird costume, makes me think that this episode might just be lame as hell.
Savio Vega vs. Goldust: Goldust with the ambush on Savio at the conclusion of his elaborate entrance. From there, he unfortunately plays slow-down, and his deliberate style was just not at all fun to watch. He got better somewhere along the way, but early Goldust was pretty damn bad in the ring. Savio misses on a spinning wheel kick, Goldust slowly walks around the ring and then eventually kneels down and wraps up Savio in a pinning combo that is basically not much more than hooking a leg. And that wins it. Okay. Vince: "Now THAT was impressive!" WTF, when did hooking a leg become impressive?
Result: Goldust via pinfall
Dok Hendrix brings us our Survivor Series report, which features an announcement that Diesel vs. Bret Hart will be no DQ, no countout, no time limit.
Backstage, Razor Ramon and the 1-2-3 Kid are in an argument.
Another Barry Horowitz/Hakushi segment as well. As odd couples go, they were no Head Cheese.
Marty Jannetty vs. local jobber: They were certainly giving Jannetty enough screen time here. Guess they were still holding out hope that he could reach a next level. This is a garden-variety squash.
Result: Marty Jannetty via pinfall
An ad for next week features a preview for Bret Hart & Hakushi vs. Jerry Lawler & Isaac Yankem. For the love of God, stop it with this Bret Hart-Isaac Yankem stuff.
In the ring when we come back is Vince McMahon, to interview Jim Cornette, Clarence Mason, and the British Bulldog. Cornette gripes about Bulldog winning by DQ over Diesel at the PPV and then not getting a title shot directly after. The conversation turns to Marty Jannetty, who Bulldog is facing next week. Bulldog trash-talks Marty for a bit until Marty emerges from the back and clears the ring of everyone but Mason, who he corners before showing some mercy and then playing to the crowd.
The Smoking Gunns vs. local jobbers: They use this as an opportunity to air a PIP promo by the 1-2-3 Kid regarding his post-match attack on the Gunns at In Your House. It starts out as an apology and turns into a demand for a rematch. Also the Kid seemed to be on drugs, which is weird for something obviously pre-taped. As far as the match, it's a standard squash ending in a Sidewinder.
Result: Smoking Gunns via pinfall
Speaking of pre-taped promos, here's one by Bret Hart about Diesel and their upcoming match.
IC Title - Razor Ramon (c) vs. Owen Hart: Love Owen's bump on the patented Razor clothesline over the top rope early on. Quite a bit of decent back-and-forth mat wrestling from there. At the midway point, Yokozuna saunters down to ringside. Couple more nice spots from Owen with a baseball slide and a missile dropkick off the top.
I remember not thinking that highly of their 1994 King of the Ring tournament final, so I was pleasantly surprised at just how good this was. Unfortunately they bring it down with a crap ending where Yoko runs in as Razor sets up for the Razor's Edge and causes a DQ.
Result: Razor Ramon via DQ
After the match we get an Owen/Yoko beatdown on Razor. 1-2-3 Kid temporarily disrupts things before being set aside, but then we get an Ahmed Johnson run-in where he promptly bodyslams Yokozuna.
I'm guessing that Vince wanted to take away the notion that WCW had the only guy who could do such a thing. Bulldog runs in to try to deal with Ahmed as Raw goes off the air with the Schiavone "we've gotta go! See you next week!" finish.
Overall: The main event saved the show and at least gave us something worth watching. I believe that was Ahmed's debut after weeks of hype too, and it was well done. Everything before the main event was crap, but going out on a high note is worth a fair bit.
---
Ratings for 10/30/95: Raw 2.1, Nitro 2.3
Running Score: Tied 3-3-2
Better Show: Owen vs. Razor was the only thing worth watching on either show the whole night, so by default Raw has to take this down.
Running Score: Nitro 5-2
Match of the Night: Razor Ramon vs. Owen Hart
Last edited by LKJ; 10-31-2015 at 12:58 PM.
11-01-2015
, 04:08 PM
November 6, 1995
RAW
Brandon, Manitoba
Because Jerry Lawler is wrestling tonight, we get Dok Hendrix on the call with Vince McMahon.
British Bulldog (w/ Jim Cornette) vs. Marty Jannetty: Jannetty ran in and busted up Bulldog's promo last week - to be fair, Bulldog was spending his promo time running Jannetty down - so here we are. Good early pace with Jannetty controlling early, but Bulldog slows things down for a heat segment as we get a PIP promo from Clarence Mason saying that he used his legal ninja skills to get the Bulldog a title shot at the December PPV. Nice bump taken by Jannetty on a running clothesline. Marty was definitely a good hand in the ring; it's just unfortunate that he could never stay clean. The decent spots are too few and far between for this match to be anything worthwhile…felt like far too much time being wasted in a reverse chinlock. Bulldog gets the win with a running powerslam after Jannetty goes shoulder-first into the ringpost on a corner charge.
Result: British Bulldog via pinfall
Some Bill Clinton impersonator says that he'll be at Survivor Series. Shoot me.
Generic promo by Jim Cornette and British Bulldog about the Bulldog's future title shot.
Backstage segment with Barry Horowitz translating for Hakushi as Bret Hart and Hakushi prepare to team up.
Recap of a WWF Superstars segment from the weekend that set up Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Goldust for Survivor Series.
Henry Godwinn vs. local jobber: Babyface Henry Godwinn just coming down to slow banjo music and hog calls was one of the weirder attempts at a face run since Greg Valentine circa WrestleMania VII. If the crowd isn't going to cheer for someone, at least drown them out with entrance music. It felt a lot less weird once he adopted Hillbilly Jim's music. They use this squash to hype the ongoing Godwinn vs. HHH feud. Obviously Godwinn goes over with the Slop Drop, a reverse DDT before Sting made it cool.
Result: Henry Godwinn via pinfall
After the match, HHH sneak attacks Godwinn from behind and then delivers the Pedigree on the floor before picking up Godwinn's bucket of slop and pouring it on him.
Todd Pettengill is along to bring us the Survivor Series report. We get an announcement of Undertaker/Savio Vega/Henry Godwinn/Fatu vs. King Mabel/Jerry Lawler/HHH/Isaac Yankem. We also get a pre-taped promo from Diesel hyping the Diesel vs. Bret match.
Kama (w/ Ted DiBiase) vs. local jobber: This whole match was devoted to a phone call with Vince interviewing Shawn Michaels about his return; I'm not actually sure that Kama was acknowledged by name even once by the announce team. I wonder why they gave him this squash since he was just kind of a JTTS, but I guess if you're going to light it on fire by talking to some unrelated superstar then Kama is as good of a choice as any. Especially since he wins with…a punch. I spent the match wondering WTF Kama's finisher actually was, and it appears that he didn't actually have one.
Result: Kama via pinfall
We get a weird promo about Razor defending the IC Title next week against Sid, with the 1-2-3 Kid as guest referee. The reason I say that it's weird is that this match was already taped at the time of this airing, definitely wasn't taped as a title match, and if my memory serves me correctly they just start the next show by going "oh btw, Gorilla Monsoon decided that this isn't a title match."
Bret Hart & Hakushi (w/ Barry Horowitz) vs. Jerry Lawler & Isaac Yankem: An over-the-hill Jerry Lawler was really the only bad worker involved here, but this still wasn't very good. There is a pretty sick springboard dropkick spot by Hakushi that serves as the highlight of the match. We get back-to-back piledrivers from the King on Hakushi with no pin attempt for some reason. Hakushi plays face-in-peril for a very long time, but he eventually makes the hot tag, Bret executes the five moves of doom, locks in the Sharpshooter, but even as Yankem is trying to tap the referee gets distracted. Lawler slides in with a chair, Barry Horowitz intercepts him and pulls the chair away, and the referee turns around and DQs the faces. Horrible finish is horrible.
Result: Jerry Lawler & Isaac Yankem via DQ
Vince and Dok hype next week's show and sign off.
Overall: Another complete dud of a show. I knew that it was a bad idea to sign myself up to recap WWF circa 1995. This is only serving to remind me that I wasn't wrong about how bad this year was for this company.
NITRO
Jacksonville, FL
We get an interactive Nitro tonight, where the fans would call in and vote for what the main event would be, choosing between two groups. In the red (heel) locker room, the options were Ric Flair, Meng, DDP, Bluebloods, Big Bubba, Shark, and Scott Norton. So with DDP just being a midcarder here who wasn't at all big yet, certainly we were getting Flair. In the blue (face) locker room, the options were Sting, Johnny B. Badd, Hacksaw Jim Duggan, Dave Sullivan, Alex Wright, Nasty Boys, and J.L. Certainly this was lined up to be a Sting vs. Flair revenge match.
The Giant (w/ Jimmy Hart) vs. Cobra: Cobra came down first, and his music was…morse code? If ever there was a time for the "already in the ring" treatment, this was it. The Giant wears the WCW World Title belt to the ring and then bullies the ring announcer into calling this a title match. Then he we get ding-chokeslam-ding and The Giant ships the match in about 10 seconds.
Result: The Giant via pinfall
Mean Gene reports from the heel locker room. Tony Schiavone reports from the face locker room. Sting says he wants Flair bad.
We go on location to…I don't know where, where Hulk Hogan has Randy Savage with him, says Savage has seen the light and is joined with him. As much as Savage hated segments where he was Hogan's bitch, he still always sold it like a pro.
The Taskmaster (w/ Jimmy Hart) vs. Renegade: Nothing much to say for this match. Renegade gets some early offense, but Taskmaster goes over fairly quickly and cleanly with a double stomp. I almost never enjoyed watching Kevin Sullivan do anything.
Result: The Taskmaster via pinfall
After the match, Jimmy Hart splashes a cup of water in Renegade's face, produces a towel, and wipes the red and yellow paint off of his face while yelling at him that he's nothing. That was a rare aggressive moment out of Jimmy, who was usually the pipsqueak who repped the cocky heel and would do underhanded **** to help them win, but usually wasn't the "vicious and evil" type.
Mean Gene in Team Heel's locker room, where we get a promo from Flair on Sting. Wonder how the vote will turn out…
Chris Benoit vs. Eddie Guerrero: "Back by popular demand," Bischoff says. Obviously they got good feedback on that excellent October 16th match. Benoit is as sharp as ever, throwing a number of great suplexes including a great-looking superplex. Hammers Eddie home with a fierce powerbomb as well.
Eddie wasn't terrible or anything, but it was something of an off-night for him to my eyes, and several of his moves were just a little off. Guerrero goes over in this one when he falls on Benoit during Benoit's suplex attempt, and the referee fails to notice that Benoit's leg was very clearly on the rope since the count of one. This one fell a decent bit short of their 10/16 encounter, but it was still easily the best thing I've seen so far from either show from 11/6.
Result: Eddie Guerrero via pinfall
Back in the face locker room, Sting is still all kinds of furious at Ric Flair and wants at him.
Sting vs. Ric Flair: Sting out first, and he's chomping at the bit to get his hands on Flair. He does, and takes the fight to him early, but Flair does evade a Stinger Splash that Sting tries to execute on the steel barricade outside the ring, causing Sting to take a decent bump. After a commercial break, the announcers say that Flair connected on a low blow during the break, explaining that's why he's in firm control. Flair with the figure-four, but Sting gets some adrenaline going and powers his way out before falling back behind in the match due to a thumb to the eye. Flair even gets a brass knuckle shot in on Sting and it doesn't prove to be enough to get more than a near-fall. Sting's kickout from the brass knucks is followed by a superplex and a Scorpion Deathlock that causes Flair to submit.
Result: Sting via submission
Sting refuses to release the hold after the bell. Officials try to get Sting off, and he refuses. Random babyfaces from the back try to convince Sting to let go, and he still won't. Finally enough of them come out to physically pull him off. Sting gets halfway down the ramp, then turns around and sprints back into the ring and reapplies the Deathlock. Lex Luger comes down, simply says something, and for some reason Sting agrees to release the hold and leaves with Luger. The announcers act baffled at how Luger could have convinced him so easily.
After commercials, Mean Gene is in the ring with The Giant, Kevin Sullivan, and Jimmy Hart. Hart says that he had the power of attorney to sign contracts for Hogan, which included his match contract with The Giant, and slipped in a clause stating that if Hogan got DQ'd then The Giant would become the champion. Remember that The Giant won by DQ because Jimmy attacked the referee in his capacity as Hogan's manager.
Some random lawyer comes out and reads a statement on behalf of the WCW Championship Committee saying that the clause Jimmy talks about is legit, but that given the nature of the DQ, the title would be vacated and would be awarded to the winner of the WW3 three-ring 60-man battle royal.
I guess this was just another way of Hogan not having to really job a title away.
The announce crew wraps the show up, advertising Randy Savage vs. Meng, Eddie Guerrero vs. Johnny B. Badd, and Sting vs. Dean Malenko for next week.
Overall: Just an okay episode. Benoit vs. Guerrero was pretty good, Sting vs. Flair was decent, the rest was whatever.
---
Ratings for 11/6/95: Raw 2.6, Nitro 2.2
Ratings Running Score: Raw 4-3-2
Better Show: Once again we have a situation where one was okay and the other was significantly worse than okay. Nitro wins by default.
Better Show Running Score: Nitro 6-2
Match of the Night: Chris Benoit vs. Eddie Guerrero
RAW
Brandon, Manitoba
Because Jerry Lawler is wrestling tonight, we get Dok Hendrix on the call with Vince McMahon.
British Bulldog (w/ Jim Cornette) vs. Marty Jannetty: Jannetty ran in and busted up Bulldog's promo last week - to be fair, Bulldog was spending his promo time running Jannetty down - so here we are. Good early pace with Jannetty controlling early, but Bulldog slows things down for a heat segment as we get a PIP promo from Clarence Mason saying that he used his legal ninja skills to get the Bulldog a title shot at the December PPV. Nice bump taken by Jannetty on a running clothesline. Marty was definitely a good hand in the ring; it's just unfortunate that he could never stay clean. The decent spots are too few and far between for this match to be anything worthwhile…felt like far too much time being wasted in a reverse chinlock. Bulldog gets the win with a running powerslam after Jannetty goes shoulder-first into the ringpost on a corner charge.
Result: British Bulldog via pinfall
Some Bill Clinton impersonator says that he'll be at Survivor Series. Shoot me.
Generic promo by Jim Cornette and British Bulldog about the Bulldog's future title shot.
Backstage segment with Barry Horowitz translating for Hakushi as Bret Hart and Hakushi prepare to team up.
Recap of a WWF Superstars segment from the weekend that set up Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Goldust for Survivor Series.
Henry Godwinn vs. local jobber: Babyface Henry Godwinn just coming down to slow banjo music and hog calls was one of the weirder attempts at a face run since Greg Valentine circa WrestleMania VII. If the crowd isn't going to cheer for someone, at least drown them out with entrance music. It felt a lot less weird once he adopted Hillbilly Jim's music. They use this squash to hype the ongoing Godwinn vs. HHH feud. Obviously Godwinn goes over with the Slop Drop, a reverse DDT before Sting made it cool.
Result: Henry Godwinn via pinfall
After the match, HHH sneak attacks Godwinn from behind and then delivers the Pedigree on the floor before picking up Godwinn's bucket of slop and pouring it on him.
Todd Pettengill is along to bring us the Survivor Series report. We get an announcement of Undertaker/Savio Vega/Henry Godwinn/Fatu vs. King Mabel/Jerry Lawler/HHH/Isaac Yankem. We also get a pre-taped promo from Diesel hyping the Diesel vs. Bret match.
Kama (w/ Ted DiBiase) vs. local jobber: This whole match was devoted to a phone call with Vince interviewing Shawn Michaels about his return; I'm not actually sure that Kama was acknowledged by name even once by the announce team. I wonder why they gave him this squash since he was just kind of a JTTS, but I guess if you're going to light it on fire by talking to some unrelated superstar then Kama is as good of a choice as any. Especially since he wins with…a punch. I spent the match wondering WTF Kama's finisher actually was, and it appears that he didn't actually have one.
Result: Kama via pinfall
We get a weird promo about Razor defending the IC Title next week against Sid, with the 1-2-3 Kid as guest referee. The reason I say that it's weird is that this match was already taped at the time of this airing, definitely wasn't taped as a title match, and if my memory serves me correctly they just start the next show by going "oh btw, Gorilla Monsoon decided that this isn't a title match."
Bret Hart & Hakushi (w/ Barry Horowitz) vs. Jerry Lawler & Isaac Yankem: An over-the-hill Jerry Lawler was really the only bad worker involved here, but this still wasn't very good. There is a pretty sick springboard dropkick spot by Hakushi that serves as the highlight of the match. We get back-to-back piledrivers from the King on Hakushi with no pin attempt for some reason. Hakushi plays face-in-peril for a very long time, but he eventually makes the hot tag, Bret executes the five moves of doom, locks in the Sharpshooter, but even as Yankem is trying to tap the referee gets distracted. Lawler slides in with a chair, Barry Horowitz intercepts him and pulls the chair away, and the referee turns around and DQs the faces. Horrible finish is horrible.
Result: Jerry Lawler & Isaac Yankem via DQ
Vince and Dok hype next week's show and sign off.
Overall: Another complete dud of a show. I knew that it was a bad idea to sign myself up to recap WWF circa 1995. This is only serving to remind me that I wasn't wrong about how bad this year was for this company.
NITRO
Jacksonville, FL
We get an interactive Nitro tonight, where the fans would call in and vote for what the main event would be, choosing between two groups. In the red (heel) locker room, the options were Ric Flair, Meng, DDP, Bluebloods, Big Bubba, Shark, and Scott Norton. So with DDP just being a midcarder here who wasn't at all big yet, certainly we were getting Flair. In the blue (face) locker room, the options were Sting, Johnny B. Badd, Hacksaw Jim Duggan, Dave Sullivan, Alex Wright, Nasty Boys, and J.L. Certainly this was lined up to be a Sting vs. Flair revenge match.
The Giant (w/ Jimmy Hart) vs. Cobra: Cobra came down first, and his music was…morse code? If ever there was a time for the "already in the ring" treatment, this was it. The Giant wears the WCW World Title belt to the ring and then bullies the ring announcer into calling this a title match. Then he we get ding-chokeslam-ding and The Giant ships the match in about 10 seconds.
Result: The Giant via pinfall
Mean Gene reports from the heel locker room. Tony Schiavone reports from the face locker room. Sting says he wants Flair bad.
We go on location to…I don't know where, where Hulk Hogan has Randy Savage with him, says Savage has seen the light and is joined with him. As much as Savage hated segments where he was Hogan's bitch, he still always sold it like a pro.
The Taskmaster (w/ Jimmy Hart) vs. Renegade: Nothing much to say for this match. Renegade gets some early offense, but Taskmaster goes over fairly quickly and cleanly with a double stomp. I almost never enjoyed watching Kevin Sullivan do anything.
Result: The Taskmaster via pinfall
After the match, Jimmy Hart splashes a cup of water in Renegade's face, produces a towel, and wipes the red and yellow paint off of his face while yelling at him that he's nothing. That was a rare aggressive moment out of Jimmy, who was usually the pipsqueak who repped the cocky heel and would do underhanded **** to help them win, but usually wasn't the "vicious and evil" type.
Mean Gene in Team Heel's locker room, where we get a promo from Flair on Sting. Wonder how the vote will turn out…
Chris Benoit vs. Eddie Guerrero: "Back by popular demand," Bischoff says. Obviously they got good feedback on that excellent October 16th match. Benoit is as sharp as ever, throwing a number of great suplexes including a great-looking superplex. Hammers Eddie home with a fierce powerbomb as well.
Eddie wasn't terrible or anything, but it was something of an off-night for him to my eyes, and several of his moves were just a little off. Guerrero goes over in this one when he falls on Benoit during Benoit's suplex attempt, and the referee fails to notice that Benoit's leg was very clearly on the rope since the count of one. This one fell a decent bit short of their 10/16 encounter, but it was still easily the best thing I've seen so far from either show from 11/6.
Result: Eddie Guerrero via pinfall
Back in the face locker room, Sting is still all kinds of furious at Ric Flair and wants at him.
Sting vs. Ric Flair: Sting out first, and he's chomping at the bit to get his hands on Flair. He does, and takes the fight to him early, but Flair does evade a Stinger Splash that Sting tries to execute on the steel barricade outside the ring, causing Sting to take a decent bump. After a commercial break, the announcers say that Flair connected on a low blow during the break, explaining that's why he's in firm control. Flair with the figure-four, but Sting gets some adrenaline going and powers his way out before falling back behind in the match due to a thumb to the eye. Flair even gets a brass knuckle shot in on Sting and it doesn't prove to be enough to get more than a near-fall. Sting's kickout from the brass knucks is followed by a superplex and a Scorpion Deathlock that causes Flair to submit.
Result: Sting via submission
Sting refuses to release the hold after the bell. Officials try to get Sting off, and he refuses. Random babyfaces from the back try to convince Sting to let go, and he still won't. Finally enough of them come out to physically pull him off. Sting gets halfway down the ramp, then turns around and sprints back into the ring and reapplies the Deathlock. Lex Luger comes down, simply says something, and for some reason Sting agrees to release the hold and leaves with Luger. The announcers act baffled at how Luger could have convinced him so easily.
After commercials, Mean Gene is in the ring with The Giant, Kevin Sullivan, and Jimmy Hart. Hart says that he had the power of attorney to sign contracts for Hogan, which included his match contract with The Giant, and slipped in a clause stating that if Hogan got DQ'd then The Giant would become the champion. Remember that The Giant won by DQ because Jimmy attacked the referee in his capacity as Hogan's manager.
Some random lawyer comes out and reads a statement on behalf of the WCW Championship Committee saying that the clause Jimmy talks about is legit, but that given the nature of the DQ, the title would be vacated and would be awarded to the winner of the WW3 three-ring 60-man battle royal.
I guess this was just another way of Hogan not having to really job a title away.
The announce crew wraps the show up, advertising Randy Savage vs. Meng, Eddie Guerrero vs. Johnny B. Badd, and Sting vs. Dean Malenko for next week.
Overall: Just an okay episode. Benoit vs. Guerrero was pretty good, Sting vs. Flair was decent, the rest was whatever.
---
Ratings for 11/6/95: Raw 2.6, Nitro 2.2
Ratings Running Score: Raw 4-3-2
Better Show: Once again we have a situation where one was okay and the other was significantly worse than okay. Nitro wins by default.
Better Show Running Score: Nitro 6-2
Match of the Night: Chris Benoit vs. Eddie Guerrero
11-01-2015
, 10:55 PM
