Monday Night Wars - The Comprehensive Recap
09-14-2016
, 11:58 AM
09-14-2016
, 12:26 PM
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09-14-2016
, 02:13 PM
09-16-2016
, 03:41 PM
09-17-2016
, 07:19 AM
WCW SUPERBRAWL VII
San Francisco, CA
We cold-open on Roddy Piper opening up his Alcatraz cell and escaping, apparently to go to this event from across the water. He mutters some threatening things into the camera and then embarks onto a boat as we go to the arena.
Cruiserweight Title - Dean Malenko (c) vs. Syxx: Dean jumps Syxx right at the bell, selling from the word go that this has gotten personal. He connects on a vicious-looking heel kick early and then actually pulls him up in the middle of an early two-count. Pulling a guy up after two is almost always lame, but I sort of loved that as a tone-setter for the match.
Dean beats on Syxx in the corner, then executes a delayed brainbuster. Two-count, and again Dean just gets up before Syxx can kick out. Tony points out how far out of character this is for Malenko, who usually plays up stoicism to the max. Syxx raises his boot and connects on a Malenko corner charge, but as a follow-up he runs into a scoop powerslam by the champion, who gets a legitimate two-count that he doesn't back off from. Reverse chinlock and an elbow by Dean. Kick kick kick in the corner, Syxx reverses a whip, but comes up empty jumping in after.
Malenko goes for the Texas Cloverleaf, but Syxx eye-gouges his way free. Syxx now selling a leg injury, as Malenko hits a running cross-body that carries them both out over the top to the floor. He rolls Syxx back inside. Syxx ducks a clothesline and hits a jumping kick that puts the champion down. Both slow to regain their feet, as Syxx is still favoring one of his legs heavily. He's limping around well, but then he just goes into an extended kicking sequence with the injured leg, which I guess is suddenly healthy. And…yep, he's totally forgotten about it. Quick running legdrop by Syxx gets two.
The challenger is almost all kicking and chopping, showing no real intention of doing any interesting spots. After I say that, he hits a guillotine legdrop off the top…it wasn't anything special, but it did break up the monotony. Syxx starts fading Malenko out with a sleeper, but Malenko eventually fights his way out, then puts his own sleeper on. Syxx escapes, the two have a mid-ring collision, and both are slow getting up. Syxx up first, heads to the top, Malenko catches up from behind and crotches him hard along the top. Goes for the back superplex, Syxx telegraphs that he's going to fall on top and then botches it horribly.
Syxx goes to get the title belt, but before he can use it, Eddie Guerrero races out and tries to grab it away from him. Tug-of-war ensues, and this leads Syxx to grab it away and he incidentally ends up clocking the **** out of Malenko with it. We have a new Cruiserweight Champion. This one started strong and then petered out badly, with an annoying result to boot; I remember wishing they would just leave the cruiserweights alone instead of infecting them with nWo crap as well, but here we are.
Result: Syxx via pinfall, new Cruiserweight Champion
Rating: **3/4
Mean Gene is backstage, shilling the hotline and then bringing in Diamond Dallas Page. Page doesn't know who he's facing tonight, but it's going to be someone from the nWo. He starts going through a process of elimination to eliminate possibilities, but Gene gets word in his earpiece that the opponent is going to be Buff Bagwell. DDP's official reaction seems to be: "<indecipherable mumbling> BANG!"
Konnan, La Parka, & Villano IV vs. Juventud Guerrera, Ciclope, & Super Calo: This isn't exactly the best collection of luchadores, but I'm still intrigued. I enjoy the format of these matches, where partners enter legally when the legal man gets knocked out of the ring. Mike Tenay joins the booth to add his luchadore expertise. We start on Villano vs. Ciclope. They trade holds and counterholds, wrestling to an absolute stalemate before both tag out, to Juventud and Konnan. Konnan with his signature whip --> forward roll --> clothesline combo. Flying headscissor by Guerrera, followed by a springboard front dropkick. Konnan reverses a whip, then catches Juvi into a backward slam. He powerbombs Ciclope hard before tagging La Parka…Super Calo enters on the babyface (or tecnico) side.
La Parka hurts his shoulder against the post when coming up empty on a corner charge. Calo hops up to the top, then connects nicely on a reverse hurracanrana. La Parka gets sent through the ropes, and Calo first dropkicks him through the middle rope and then hits that great slingshot splash from the ring to the floor. His high-risk offense takes a turn south though, missing entirely on a springboard move. La Parka grabs a folding chair, sets Calo on it, and then returns to the ring just long enough to get a running start for a suicide dive.
We get another talent reset, and we're back on Ciclope-Villano. Ciclope dropkicks him to the outside, then botches an asai moonsault attempt terribly and lands hard on the floor. Villano, now at the advantage, rolls Ciclope in, suplexes him, and gets a two-count. Juventud enters for Ciclope, puts Villano down, then we get treated to a botched 450 splash with a terrible close-up camera angle. Juvi flips and escapes out of a German suplex attempt, laying in a couple of hard chops, but missing on a corner charge. La Parka quickly enters, hitting a somersault sentan from the top rope. He sets Guerrera up on the top turnbuckle and climbs up there with him, but Guerrera manages to knock him off and crotch him along the ropes. Great springboard hurracanrana by Juvi gets two after Konnan makes a save. Villano double-teams with Konnan to hit the Road Warriors' old Doomsday Device.
Konnan and Villano continue the double-team, locking in some grounded hold that I can't describe, which leads to an even bigger hold that I can't describe after Ciclope and Calo come in to aid their partner. Bobby Heenan describes it as "the world's toughest club sandwich."
All six in the ring fighting. Konnan sends Juvi flying out over the top. He and Villano are back on the double-team, as they lock Ciclope and Calo into a rowboat, or Mike Tenay calls it a star. La Parka and Juventud rejoin the fray, with La Parka slamming Guerrera onto part of the star before executing an upside-down surfboard. The holds release, and the faces hit a triple dropkick that sends the heels out, then a triple suicide dive by the faces connects. Back inside, Juventud gets a near-fall on Konnan on a victory roll, but Konnan recovers quickly, hits a splash mountain, and despite Guerrera clearly kicking out, the referee counts three, and that's our match. This was botchy as hell, right up through the botched ending, but it had its fun moments.
Result: Konnan, La Parka, and Villano IV via pinfall
Rating: **1/2
TV Title - Prince Iaukea (c) vs. Rey Mysterio Jr: The announcers note that a champion has rarely been this big of an underdog. I'm not sure if there was ever another moment when announcers were openly hailing Rey Mysterio Jr. as a massive favorite in a PPV match, despite eventually getting to a state where he barely ever lost. Iaukea and Rey trade wristlocks, waistlocks, hammerlocks, etc. Rey backdrops Iaukea over the ropes, but Iaukea lands on the apron, springboards back in, (barely) hits a ****ty crescent kick and records a two-count. Knocks Mysterio outside, then gets nice elevation on a cross-body from the top to the floor.
Iaukea rolls Mysterio back in, then performs some pedestrian offense. Decent delayed brainbuster, I guess. The underdog champion heads to the top rope, but ends up jumping off into a dropkick by Mysterio. A moment later, Rey carries the Prince over the top and out of the ring with a flying headscissor. And…holy ****, Rey finally wakes me up to this match with a tremendous somersault backsplash from the ring to the floor.
Rey is slow to get up after that lunacy, but is still up before Iaukea, returning the action inside. Double springboard into a moonsault by Rey. I will never say anything nice about two springboards in a row. Mysterio with a snapmare, then a split-legged moonsault that barely connects and never looks very effective from a 75-pound dude anyway. Iaukea catches Rey scaling the ropes, puts him up on his shoulders, and hits a pretty cool Samoan drop off the ropes. The crowd rises to its feet, and former TV Champion Lord Steven Regal is sauntering toward the ring. As Rey sets up for a springboard hurracanrana, Regal pulls him off, bumping his head against the apron before rolling him inside.
Iaukea, unaware of the interference, capitalizes anyway with a pin and retains the belt.
Result: Prince Iaukea via pinfall
Rating: **3/4
Iaukea, realizing what happened, is pissed and actually tries to give his title belt to Rey Mysterio. That just makes him a ****ing idiot in kayfabe. Mysterio refuses and gives the belt back, then raises Iaukea's arm.
Mean Gene is backstage with The Giant. Nothing to report here.
Buff Bagwell vs. Diamond Dallas Page: Page slaps Buff across the face to kick this thing off. DDP wins an exchange of holds and then taunts. Bagwell is getting a decent bit of heat from the crowd at ringside. Nice swinging neckbreaker by DDP. Bagwell goes for a breather, Page tries to follow him out, but Bagwell manages to hang him along the top rope to turn things around. Something of a tornado DDT from the top rope by Bagwell, who then spends a bunch of time posing and taunting. There's no real flow to this. Bagwell gets into referee Scott Dickinson about a slow count, eventually getting close enough that Dickinson shoves him down and reads him the riot act. This lengthy delay allows Page to fight back, as he levels Buff pretty hard with a clothesline.
Powerbomb by Page gets two. Bagwell gets an elbow up on a corner charge, and gets a two-count as he tries to leverage the ropes during a pin attempt. Schoolboy by DDP gets two. Schiavone comments about how good the match has been just as I was thinking about how terrible it's been. DDP goes for the Diamond Cutter, Bagwell counters into a backslide…another two-count. Fisherman suplex, and in lieu of a pin he gets up and demands that Scott Dickinson count to 10 for a KO. Well that's unique. Page is clearly answering the 10-count, so Bagwell goes for a neckbreaker, Dallas counters into a Diamond Cutter, and the nWo pours in for the attack as Page escapes into the crowd. This was absolute trash.
Result: DDP via DQ
Rating: 1/2*
US Title - Eddie Guerrero (c) vs. Chris Jericho: Armbars, hammerlocks, reverse chinlocks to open, neither man getting a significant advantage. Eddie locks in a modified STF for a moment, but Jericho works his way over to the ropes. Guerrero with a jumping back elbow, then follows up with a back suplex that gets an early two-count. Jericho executes his own back suplex a moment later, applies some pressure with an abdominal stretch, and then, after doing a bit better in a test of strength, does a modified northern lights suplex for two. Delayed suplex. After an Alabama slam, he locks in a Boston crab, but doesn't fully sit down into a Lion Tamer. He actually starts to release the hold, gets legscissored down to the mat by Eddie, but he's right back to work on the champion with a reverse chinlock.
The challenger grabs the champion over his shoulders, holds him up overhead in a modified torture rack, and then he hits his knees for the argentine backbreaker drop (…yeah, I had to look up the generic name of Nikki Bella's finisher). Two-count. Jericho comes up empty on a springboard cross-body attempt. Clothesline by Eddie, into a nice powerbomb, which gets a strange two-count where Eddie clearly helps him kick out of it.
Great-looking brainbuster by Guerrero. Jericho rolls out of the way of Eddie's ensuing top-rope move, then Jericho executes a nice release German. Follows with a good release belly-to-belly; Eddie only kicks out this time via rope break. The challenger sets Guerrero down crotch-first on the ropes, then hits a springboard dropkick. And a springboard splash to the floor. Back into the ring, Jericho again jumps off the ropes, but Eddie drops to a knee and functionally hits an inverted atomic drop as a result. Backslide gets two. The two jump and kick each other, and then they make their way up and do a mid-ring collision. As both slowly rise up, Jericho catches a charging Eddie into a powerslam. Two. Eddie counters a suplex by escaping behind and rolling the challenger up for a two. Jericho with a magistral cradle for two. Eddie goes for a tornado DDT, but Jericho counters nicely into a northern lights suplex…again only two, but only because Eddie got his foot on the bottom rope again.
Jericho goes for a powerbomb, Eddie flips out, transitions into a sunset flip, and records a surprising three-count. Some scattered nice spots in this match, but mostly it was heatless and not very interesting. Most everything on the card is underperforming its on-paper potential tonight.
Result: Eddie Guerrero via pinfall
Rating: **3/4
We get the babyface handshake/hug after the match. Meh.
Faces of Fear vs. Public Enemy vs. Harlem Heat (w/ Sister Sherri): I suppose I should stop making some variation of the same comment every time Public Enemy appears, so just assume that I've thought it really damn loudly every time they show up in this thread. To be clear though, Stevie Ray is still easily the worst individual component in this match. Rocco Rock has shaved his head now, so the dreadlocks are gone and a really unattractive skull is on display.
Rocco and Barbarian start things off. Barbarian throws a powerslam for an early two-count, but Stevie tags Barbarian from behind to get in. He press-slams Rocco, Meng in for the save. Enter Johnny Grunge, who takes a kick from each side by the two members of Harlem Heat. Booker takes the tag from his brother and promptly connects on an axe kick. Two. Tony Schiavone notes that this isn't a #1 contender match as originally scheduled, because the Steiners aren't in. WTF? It's not? Booker with a spinaroonie into a side kick. The Heat 's isolation of Grunge finally reaches an end when Barbarian attacks Booker from the apron and Grunge desperately reaches out and tags Meng.
Faces of Fear now go to work on Booker. Barbarian with a belly-to-belly overhead superplex; Stevie breaks up the pin. Meng hits a soft-looking piledriver, but Grunge breaks that pin up. Double top-rope headbutt by the Faces of Fear, Meng backdrop into a Barbarian powerbomb, again Stevie on the pin breakup. After Barbarian knocks Booker out over the top, everyone comes in from the apron, and we get momentary chaos. Barbarian catches Rocco in mid-air, holds him upside down as if to set up a ganso bomb, but Grunge jumps off the top at both of them to put Rocco down on top, alerts the referee, and that's our three-count. This match had some of the usual good spots that the Heat and Faces of Fear trot out, but most spots felt inorganic and there wasn't really any sort of engaging story.
Result: Public Enemy via pinfall
Rating: *3/4
Mongo McMichael (w/ Debra) vs. Jeff Jarrett: Apparently the stipulation here is that a Jarrett win gets him a spot in the Horsemen. Schiavone says that he doesn't know if that meant they would go to five, or if someone would be out. This is an aggressively uninteresting angle. Jarrett gets the better of the first couple of exchanges and does some taunting, but Mongo catches him into a powerslam, then executes a couple of chop blocks to work Jarrett's leg and get the advantage. Jarrett rolls outside, Mongo goes to pursue him, and Debra seems to stop Mongo and create an opening for Jarrett to attack. As the action returns inside, she disingenuously insists, "They've got to stay in the ring." That said, a moment later Jarrett slaps on an abdominal stretch, tries to use the ropes for leverage, and she uses the briefcase to knock his hand off. She's trying to show neutrality.
Mongo with a press slam. The action goes back outside, where Mongo chokes Jeff with a towel and then drops him along the guardrail. He rolls the Tennesseean back in, but upon following up, Jarrett turns the tables and hits a facebuster. They trade attempts at a sleeper, Mongo second, with Jarrett suplexing his way out. Both slowly get up, jostle for position, McMichael with a side suplex. He takes his eye off the ball, Jarrett attacks, but McMichael again catches him into a one-armed front slam. Jarrett comes off the top and hits a cross-body, and they botch the following spot terribly, as Mongo does the power kickout, sending Jarrett sort of in the general direction of the referee, and they contrive an awful-looking ref bump out of it.
Mongo asks Debra for the briefcase during the ref bump. She won't do it. As he tries to force her, she throws the case into the ring over her shoulder, Jarrett grabs it and uses it, makes the pin, and wins an apparent spot in the Horsemen. Schiavone questions who she was trying to give the case to, as an entire nation watches on and thinks, "Who the **** cares?" As Jarrett marches happily away, celebrating the win, Debra stays behind and tends to her unconscious husband.
Result: Jeff Jarrett via pinfall
Rating: *
San Francisco Death Match - The Taskmaster (w/ Jacqueline & Jimmy Hart) vs. Chris Benoit (w/ Woman): Pursuant to the rules of the match, Jacqueline and Woman are strapped together outside the ring. As soon as that happens, the men and women pairings instantly come together and start brawling to a huge pop. Benoit and Kevin Sullivan trade the advantage back and forth early. He executes a butterfly suplex as the women take their fight into the ring and Woman whips Jacqueline repeatedly with the strap. She uses it on Sullivan as well. As Benoit comes to Woman's defense against Jacqueline, Jacqueline attacks Benoit with the strap. Among this chaos, the women get unstrapped from each other. That's probably unplanned, but Sullivan is quick to improvise and begin using the strap on Benoit anyway. He hangs Benoit over the ropes by the strap, and as he's prone, Jacqueline kicks him square in the balls. Woman goes in and attacks Sullivan. This is pure chaos, in a fun way.
As the women fight inside the ring, Taskmaster pulls Benoit out of the ring, and the two brawl up the aisle and into the crowd. You know, they don't have to do this crowd thing every single time. Are we headed to the bathroom again too? Well, not at first anyway. Sullivan slams Benoit on a truck on the concourse. They use a plastic trash can as a lame weapon on each other. They fight back out of the concourse, back through the crowd, back down the aisle, back into the ring. Sullivan sets Benoit up in the tree of woe, charges and hits him, connects on the double stomp, but Woman uses the strap on Sullivan repeatedly to get him up out of the pin. Piledriver by Benoit, who goes under the ring to get a table. He sets that table up in the middle of the ring, sets Sullivan on it, heads up the ropes, and Jackie lays on top of Sullivan…Benoit, without hesitation, just goes ahead and jumps on both of them anyway.
The table unfortunately doesn't break as it was almost certainly meant to, but Benoit covers Sullivan under the table and gets the three-count.
Result: Chris Benoit via pinfall
Rating: ***1/4
After the match, Sullivan and Jackie are both out cold. Benoit is passed out as well, apparently expending the last of his energy to have made that pin. Woman and Jimmy Hart act concerned about all involved, actually holding hands in concern for a moment. I've gotta say, this is a bit melodramatic given that the bump wasn't that insane. Again it really doesn't help that the table failed to break, but this wasn't anywhere near the level of Benoit swan-diving head-first into the damn ring bell on Nitro. It also undermines the seriousness of the situation that Lee ****ing Marshall is among the people who get to the ring to attend to the injured parties. Anyway, all three participants in the final bump are stretchered off and then loaded into ambulances to take a ride to the ER. Meh.
Tag Team Titles - The Outsiders (c) (w/ Syxx) vs. The Giant: Giant still doesn't have theme music since leaving the nWo, which is an incredibly rare trait for a top guy in 1997. Scott Hall starts things off for the champions. His best efforts at offense aren't working, as Giant keeps being able to overpower him. The big man slams Hall toward his corner and dares Kevin Nash to tag in. Hall gets up, spits in Giant's face, and then tags in big Kev. Giant follows a corner whip with a running clothesline, then holds off Hall when Hall comes in, and culminates the sequence by dropkicking Nash over the top rope. That was cool.
Giant follows Nash outside, picks him up and slams him back-first into the post. He returns him inside, connecting on an elbow-drop. During a ref distraction, Syxx comes in and hits Giant with a title belt, Hall capitalizes with a bulldog off the ropes, but Giant manages to kick out before three. The crowd, reacting to the numbers game, starts chanting for Lex Luger. Syxx goes for a spinning kick on Giant, who is draped across the ropes completely still, and somehow misses it. In Syxx's defense, he was probably on heavy drugs at this and all other moments. We continue with more of the same, Giant fighting valiantly against the odds. He puts down both Hall and Nash, but amid another distraction Hall hits Giant with a title belt. That knocks him staggering into Nash, who manages to powerbomb The Giant. I wondered if he had ever done that. He collapses as soon as he does, favoring his back.
The crowd pops, as Luger, adorned in street clothes, comes out to the ring. Eric Bischoff runs out to try to stop him, and Luger grabs him and flings him to the ground. He gets up on the apron and reaches out to Giant for a tag. Giant tags him in, it's treated as legit, and I guess Luger is the legal man? I sense another title change that won't hold up. He puts Nash up in the Torture Rack, referee Mark Curtis calls for the submission, and we apparently have new Tag Team Champions for the moment. Giant chokeslams Hall and pins him as well. The ending feels stupid, but the match provided as much entertainment as you could reasonably hope for out of this grouping.
Result: Lex Luger & The Giant via submission, new Tag Team Champions
Rating: **1/2
WCW Title - Hulk Hogan (c) (w/ Ted DiBiase & Vincent) vs. Rowdy Roddy Piper: Champ out first, which legitimately surprises me when the champ is Hogan. Bobby Heenan actually comments on it, saying that Hogan insisted on entering first so that he could show off more. Piper arrives on the scene wearing a tattered and dirty t-shirt, purportedly because he's been wearing it for a week straight. I don't know; I think I could wear a t-shirt for a week straight without wearing multiple large holes into it.
Hogan does some stalling outside the ring for a while until Piper finally goes out to get him and force him into the ring. Piper hits a blatant low blow in front of the referee, sheds the gross shirt, and repeatedly chokes Hogan with it. Back outside, Piper grabs a nearby chair and lightly blesses Hogan with it, again with the referee watching. Is this no DQ, or is Piper just pulling an Ultimate Warrior from SummerSlam '89? DiBiase gripes about it, but Piper chases him off and returns to work. Back inside the ring, Hogan hits his own low blow, but Piper just no-sells and bores straight ahead. This is some truly wretched brawling so far. I understand that wrestling moves will be at a minimum in this match, which even makes storyline sense, but the brawling action is horrendous and there's no story to take away so far.
Sting and Randy Savage show up at the top of the aisle. As Savage starts heading toward the ring, Sting stops him and tries to convince him to leave, but Savage goes ahead and stands at ringside. Sting remains at the top of the aisle. After the match continues for a bit, we see Sting turn around and leave. Hogan has taken over the advantage, ramming Piper back-first into the post and then posting his leg. Both guys appear to have been gassed basically since the first couple of minutes, so they're just sluggishly finding ways to fill some time until the go-home. Hogan gets Piper into a bearhug that causes Piper to begin to fade. Arm drops twice but not three times. Piper works his way free of the hold and attacks, but Hogan hits his own low blow. The referee, being consistent, ignores it. Piper slaps on the sleeper, the arm drops three times, and we seem to have a new WCW Champion.
Suddenly the referee starts waving the result off. We see Savage slip brass knuckles to Hogan. Hogan hits Piper with them and makes the pin to apparently retain the belt. This might be one of the worst matches in history. I cannot even reach to find even a slightly kind thing to say about it. Sort of a live crowd, I guess? That's it, and it's more than negated by the negatives here.
Result: Hulk Hogan via pinfall
Rating: 0 stars
So there's no official explanation offered as to why the **** the match got restarted after Piper had won. Schiavone speculates that maybe Hogan's foot was under the bottom rope. Rewinding…yep, Savage also pulled Hogan under the ropes after the match was over. Somehow the referee restarted the match on that premise. There's too much stupid here to even know where to start. That premise for restarting is ridiculous. Savage turning and helping Hogan, while I knew it was coming, is completely indefensible.
Anyway, Savage and Hogan hug and are apparently united. Savage clobbers Piper and spray-paints him. They take turns landing finishers on Piper. The booking team really went full WCW on this one.
Hogan and Savage preen and pose as the show goes off the air, and even though I knew it was coming (though I didn't remember the timing), I still sit here somewhat slack-jawed at the incredible stupidity that I just witnessed.
Overall: Before the main event, I thought the show was probably on the slightly low end of okay, and was mostly just forgettable. After the main event I'm downgrading this and calling it a pretty bad show.
San Francisco, CA
We cold-open on Roddy Piper opening up his Alcatraz cell and escaping, apparently to go to this event from across the water. He mutters some threatening things into the camera and then embarks onto a boat as we go to the arena.
Cruiserweight Title - Dean Malenko (c) vs. Syxx: Dean jumps Syxx right at the bell, selling from the word go that this has gotten personal. He connects on a vicious-looking heel kick early and then actually pulls him up in the middle of an early two-count. Pulling a guy up after two is almost always lame, but I sort of loved that as a tone-setter for the match.
Dean beats on Syxx in the corner, then executes a delayed brainbuster. Two-count, and again Dean just gets up before Syxx can kick out. Tony points out how far out of character this is for Malenko, who usually plays up stoicism to the max. Syxx raises his boot and connects on a Malenko corner charge, but as a follow-up he runs into a scoop powerslam by the champion, who gets a legitimate two-count that he doesn't back off from. Reverse chinlock and an elbow by Dean. Kick kick kick in the corner, Syxx reverses a whip, but comes up empty jumping in after.
Malenko goes for the Texas Cloverleaf, but Syxx eye-gouges his way free. Syxx now selling a leg injury, as Malenko hits a running cross-body that carries them both out over the top to the floor. He rolls Syxx back inside. Syxx ducks a clothesline and hits a jumping kick that puts the champion down. Both slow to regain their feet, as Syxx is still favoring one of his legs heavily. He's limping around well, but then he just goes into an extended kicking sequence with the injured leg, which I guess is suddenly healthy. And…yep, he's totally forgotten about it. Quick running legdrop by Syxx gets two.
The challenger is almost all kicking and chopping, showing no real intention of doing any interesting spots. After I say that, he hits a guillotine legdrop off the top…it wasn't anything special, but it did break up the monotony. Syxx starts fading Malenko out with a sleeper, but Malenko eventually fights his way out, then puts his own sleeper on. Syxx escapes, the two have a mid-ring collision, and both are slow getting up. Syxx up first, heads to the top, Malenko catches up from behind and crotches him hard along the top. Goes for the back superplex, Syxx telegraphs that he's going to fall on top and then botches it horribly.
Syxx goes to get the title belt, but before he can use it, Eddie Guerrero races out and tries to grab it away from him. Tug-of-war ensues, and this leads Syxx to grab it away and he incidentally ends up clocking the **** out of Malenko with it. We have a new Cruiserweight Champion. This one started strong and then petered out badly, with an annoying result to boot; I remember wishing they would just leave the cruiserweights alone instead of infecting them with nWo crap as well, but here we are.
Result: Syxx via pinfall, new Cruiserweight Champion
Rating: **3/4
Mean Gene is backstage, shilling the hotline and then bringing in Diamond Dallas Page. Page doesn't know who he's facing tonight, but it's going to be someone from the nWo. He starts going through a process of elimination to eliminate possibilities, but Gene gets word in his earpiece that the opponent is going to be Buff Bagwell. DDP's official reaction seems to be: "<indecipherable mumbling> BANG!"
Konnan, La Parka, & Villano IV vs. Juventud Guerrera, Ciclope, & Super Calo: This isn't exactly the best collection of luchadores, but I'm still intrigued. I enjoy the format of these matches, where partners enter legally when the legal man gets knocked out of the ring. Mike Tenay joins the booth to add his luchadore expertise. We start on Villano vs. Ciclope. They trade holds and counterholds, wrestling to an absolute stalemate before both tag out, to Juventud and Konnan. Konnan with his signature whip --> forward roll --> clothesline combo. Flying headscissor by Guerrera, followed by a springboard front dropkick. Konnan reverses a whip, then catches Juvi into a backward slam. He powerbombs Ciclope hard before tagging La Parka…Super Calo enters on the babyface (or tecnico) side.
La Parka hurts his shoulder against the post when coming up empty on a corner charge. Calo hops up to the top, then connects nicely on a reverse hurracanrana. La Parka gets sent through the ropes, and Calo first dropkicks him through the middle rope and then hits that great slingshot splash from the ring to the floor. His high-risk offense takes a turn south though, missing entirely on a springboard move. La Parka grabs a folding chair, sets Calo on it, and then returns to the ring just long enough to get a running start for a suicide dive.
We get another talent reset, and we're back on Ciclope-Villano. Ciclope dropkicks him to the outside, then botches an asai moonsault attempt terribly and lands hard on the floor. Villano, now at the advantage, rolls Ciclope in, suplexes him, and gets a two-count. Juventud enters for Ciclope, puts Villano down, then we get treated to a botched 450 splash with a terrible close-up camera angle. Juvi flips and escapes out of a German suplex attempt, laying in a couple of hard chops, but missing on a corner charge. La Parka quickly enters, hitting a somersault sentan from the top rope. He sets Guerrera up on the top turnbuckle and climbs up there with him, but Guerrera manages to knock him off and crotch him along the ropes. Great springboard hurracanrana by Juvi gets two after Konnan makes a save. Villano double-teams with Konnan to hit the Road Warriors' old Doomsday Device.
Konnan and Villano continue the double-team, locking in some grounded hold that I can't describe, which leads to an even bigger hold that I can't describe after Ciclope and Calo come in to aid their partner. Bobby Heenan describes it as "the world's toughest club sandwich."
All six in the ring fighting. Konnan sends Juvi flying out over the top. He and Villano are back on the double-team, as they lock Ciclope and Calo into a rowboat, or Mike Tenay calls it a star. La Parka and Juventud rejoin the fray, with La Parka slamming Guerrera onto part of the star before executing an upside-down surfboard. The holds release, and the faces hit a triple dropkick that sends the heels out, then a triple suicide dive by the faces connects. Back inside, Juventud gets a near-fall on Konnan on a victory roll, but Konnan recovers quickly, hits a splash mountain, and despite Guerrera clearly kicking out, the referee counts three, and that's our match. This was botchy as hell, right up through the botched ending, but it had its fun moments.
Result: Konnan, La Parka, and Villano IV via pinfall
Rating: **1/2
TV Title - Prince Iaukea (c) vs. Rey Mysterio Jr: The announcers note that a champion has rarely been this big of an underdog. I'm not sure if there was ever another moment when announcers were openly hailing Rey Mysterio Jr. as a massive favorite in a PPV match, despite eventually getting to a state where he barely ever lost. Iaukea and Rey trade wristlocks, waistlocks, hammerlocks, etc. Rey backdrops Iaukea over the ropes, but Iaukea lands on the apron, springboards back in, (barely) hits a ****ty crescent kick and records a two-count. Knocks Mysterio outside, then gets nice elevation on a cross-body from the top to the floor.
Iaukea rolls Mysterio back in, then performs some pedestrian offense. Decent delayed brainbuster, I guess. The underdog champion heads to the top rope, but ends up jumping off into a dropkick by Mysterio. A moment later, Rey carries the Prince over the top and out of the ring with a flying headscissor. And…holy ****, Rey finally wakes me up to this match with a tremendous somersault backsplash from the ring to the floor.
Rey is slow to get up after that lunacy, but is still up before Iaukea, returning the action inside. Double springboard into a moonsault by Rey. I will never say anything nice about two springboards in a row. Mysterio with a snapmare, then a split-legged moonsault that barely connects and never looks very effective from a 75-pound dude anyway. Iaukea catches Rey scaling the ropes, puts him up on his shoulders, and hits a pretty cool Samoan drop off the ropes. The crowd rises to its feet, and former TV Champion Lord Steven Regal is sauntering toward the ring. As Rey sets up for a springboard hurracanrana, Regal pulls him off, bumping his head against the apron before rolling him inside.
Iaukea, unaware of the interference, capitalizes anyway with a pin and retains the belt.
Result: Prince Iaukea via pinfall
Rating: **3/4
Iaukea, realizing what happened, is pissed and actually tries to give his title belt to Rey Mysterio. That just makes him a ****ing idiot in kayfabe. Mysterio refuses and gives the belt back, then raises Iaukea's arm.
Mean Gene is backstage with The Giant. Nothing to report here.
Buff Bagwell vs. Diamond Dallas Page: Page slaps Buff across the face to kick this thing off. DDP wins an exchange of holds and then taunts. Bagwell is getting a decent bit of heat from the crowd at ringside. Nice swinging neckbreaker by DDP. Bagwell goes for a breather, Page tries to follow him out, but Bagwell manages to hang him along the top rope to turn things around. Something of a tornado DDT from the top rope by Bagwell, who then spends a bunch of time posing and taunting. There's no real flow to this. Bagwell gets into referee Scott Dickinson about a slow count, eventually getting close enough that Dickinson shoves him down and reads him the riot act. This lengthy delay allows Page to fight back, as he levels Buff pretty hard with a clothesline.
Powerbomb by Page gets two. Bagwell gets an elbow up on a corner charge, and gets a two-count as he tries to leverage the ropes during a pin attempt. Schoolboy by DDP gets two. Schiavone comments about how good the match has been just as I was thinking about how terrible it's been. DDP goes for the Diamond Cutter, Bagwell counters into a backslide…another two-count. Fisherman suplex, and in lieu of a pin he gets up and demands that Scott Dickinson count to 10 for a KO. Well that's unique. Page is clearly answering the 10-count, so Bagwell goes for a neckbreaker, Dallas counters into a Diamond Cutter, and the nWo pours in for the attack as Page escapes into the crowd. This was absolute trash.
Result: DDP via DQ
Rating: 1/2*
US Title - Eddie Guerrero (c) vs. Chris Jericho: Armbars, hammerlocks, reverse chinlocks to open, neither man getting a significant advantage. Eddie locks in a modified STF for a moment, but Jericho works his way over to the ropes. Guerrero with a jumping back elbow, then follows up with a back suplex that gets an early two-count. Jericho executes his own back suplex a moment later, applies some pressure with an abdominal stretch, and then, after doing a bit better in a test of strength, does a modified northern lights suplex for two. Delayed suplex. After an Alabama slam, he locks in a Boston crab, but doesn't fully sit down into a Lion Tamer. He actually starts to release the hold, gets legscissored down to the mat by Eddie, but he's right back to work on the champion with a reverse chinlock.
The challenger grabs the champion over his shoulders, holds him up overhead in a modified torture rack, and then he hits his knees for the argentine backbreaker drop (…yeah, I had to look up the generic name of Nikki Bella's finisher). Two-count. Jericho comes up empty on a springboard cross-body attempt. Clothesline by Eddie, into a nice powerbomb, which gets a strange two-count where Eddie clearly helps him kick out of it.
Great-looking brainbuster by Guerrero. Jericho rolls out of the way of Eddie's ensuing top-rope move, then Jericho executes a nice release German. Follows with a good release belly-to-belly; Eddie only kicks out this time via rope break. The challenger sets Guerrero down crotch-first on the ropes, then hits a springboard dropkick. And a springboard splash to the floor. Back into the ring, Jericho again jumps off the ropes, but Eddie drops to a knee and functionally hits an inverted atomic drop as a result. Backslide gets two. The two jump and kick each other, and then they make their way up and do a mid-ring collision. As both slowly rise up, Jericho catches a charging Eddie into a powerslam. Two. Eddie counters a suplex by escaping behind and rolling the challenger up for a two. Jericho with a magistral cradle for two. Eddie goes for a tornado DDT, but Jericho counters nicely into a northern lights suplex…again only two, but only because Eddie got his foot on the bottom rope again.
Jericho goes for a powerbomb, Eddie flips out, transitions into a sunset flip, and records a surprising three-count. Some scattered nice spots in this match, but mostly it was heatless and not very interesting. Most everything on the card is underperforming its on-paper potential tonight.
Result: Eddie Guerrero via pinfall
Rating: **3/4
We get the babyface handshake/hug after the match. Meh.
Faces of Fear vs. Public Enemy vs. Harlem Heat (w/ Sister Sherri): I suppose I should stop making some variation of the same comment every time Public Enemy appears, so just assume that I've thought it really damn loudly every time they show up in this thread. To be clear though, Stevie Ray is still easily the worst individual component in this match. Rocco Rock has shaved his head now, so the dreadlocks are gone and a really unattractive skull is on display.
Rocco and Barbarian start things off. Barbarian throws a powerslam for an early two-count, but Stevie tags Barbarian from behind to get in. He press-slams Rocco, Meng in for the save. Enter Johnny Grunge, who takes a kick from each side by the two members of Harlem Heat. Booker takes the tag from his brother and promptly connects on an axe kick. Two. Tony Schiavone notes that this isn't a #1 contender match as originally scheduled, because the Steiners aren't in. WTF? It's not? Booker with a spinaroonie into a side kick. The Heat 's isolation of Grunge finally reaches an end when Barbarian attacks Booker from the apron and Grunge desperately reaches out and tags Meng.
Faces of Fear now go to work on Booker. Barbarian with a belly-to-belly overhead superplex; Stevie breaks up the pin. Meng hits a soft-looking piledriver, but Grunge breaks that pin up. Double top-rope headbutt by the Faces of Fear, Meng backdrop into a Barbarian powerbomb, again Stevie on the pin breakup. After Barbarian knocks Booker out over the top, everyone comes in from the apron, and we get momentary chaos. Barbarian catches Rocco in mid-air, holds him upside down as if to set up a ganso bomb, but Grunge jumps off the top at both of them to put Rocco down on top, alerts the referee, and that's our three-count. This match had some of the usual good spots that the Heat and Faces of Fear trot out, but most spots felt inorganic and there wasn't really any sort of engaging story.
Result: Public Enemy via pinfall
Rating: *3/4
Mongo McMichael (w/ Debra) vs. Jeff Jarrett: Apparently the stipulation here is that a Jarrett win gets him a spot in the Horsemen. Schiavone says that he doesn't know if that meant they would go to five, or if someone would be out. This is an aggressively uninteresting angle. Jarrett gets the better of the first couple of exchanges and does some taunting, but Mongo catches him into a powerslam, then executes a couple of chop blocks to work Jarrett's leg and get the advantage. Jarrett rolls outside, Mongo goes to pursue him, and Debra seems to stop Mongo and create an opening for Jarrett to attack. As the action returns inside, she disingenuously insists, "They've got to stay in the ring." That said, a moment later Jarrett slaps on an abdominal stretch, tries to use the ropes for leverage, and she uses the briefcase to knock his hand off. She's trying to show neutrality.
Mongo with a press slam. The action goes back outside, where Mongo chokes Jeff with a towel and then drops him along the guardrail. He rolls the Tennesseean back in, but upon following up, Jarrett turns the tables and hits a facebuster. They trade attempts at a sleeper, Mongo second, with Jarrett suplexing his way out. Both slowly get up, jostle for position, McMichael with a side suplex. He takes his eye off the ball, Jarrett attacks, but McMichael again catches him into a one-armed front slam. Jarrett comes off the top and hits a cross-body, and they botch the following spot terribly, as Mongo does the power kickout, sending Jarrett sort of in the general direction of the referee, and they contrive an awful-looking ref bump out of it.
Mongo asks Debra for the briefcase during the ref bump. She won't do it. As he tries to force her, she throws the case into the ring over her shoulder, Jarrett grabs it and uses it, makes the pin, and wins an apparent spot in the Horsemen. Schiavone questions who she was trying to give the case to, as an entire nation watches on and thinks, "Who the **** cares?" As Jarrett marches happily away, celebrating the win, Debra stays behind and tends to her unconscious husband.
Result: Jeff Jarrett via pinfall
Rating: *
San Francisco Death Match - The Taskmaster (w/ Jacqueline & Jimmy Hart) vs. Chris Benoit (w/ Woman): Pursuant to the rules of the match, Jacqueline and Woman are strapped together outside the ring. As soon as that happens, the men and women pairings instantly come together and start brawling to a huge pop. Benoit and Kevin Sullivan trade the advantage back and forth early. He executes a butterfly suplex as the women take their fight into the ring and Woman whips Jacqueline repeatedly with the strap. She uses it on Sullivan as well. As Benoit comes to Woman's defense against Jacqueline, Jacqueline attacks Benoit with the strap. Among this chaos, the women get unstrapped from each other. That's probably unplanned, but Sullivan is quick to improvise and begin using the strap on Benoit anyway. He hangs Benoit over the ropes by the strap, and as he's prone, Jacqueline kicks him square in the balls. Woman goes in and attacks Sullivan. This is pure chaos, in a fun way.
As the women fight inside the ring, Taskmaster pulls Benoit out of the ring, and the two brawl up the aisle and into the crowd. You know, they don't have to do this crowd thing every single time. Are we headed to the bathroom again too? Well, not at first anyway. Sullivan slams Benoit on a truck on the concourse. They use a plastic trash can as a lame weapon on each other. They fight back out of the concourse, back through the crowd, back down the aisle, back into the ring. Sullivan sets Benoit up in the tree of woe, charges and hits him, connects on the double stomp, but Woman uses the strap on Sullivan repeatedly to get him up out of the pin. Piledriver by Benoit, who goes under the ring to get a table. He sets that table up in the middle of the ring, sets Sullivan on it, heads up the ropes, and Jackie lays on top of Sullivan…Benoit, without hesitation, just goes ahead and jumps on both of them anyway.
The table unfortunately doesn't break as it was almost certainly meant to, but Benoit covers Sullivan under the table and gets the three-count.
Result: Chris Benoit via pinfall
Rating: ***1/4
After the match, Sullivan and Jackie are both out cold. Benoit is passed out as well, apparently expending the last of his energy to have made that pin. Woman and Jimmy Hart act concerned about all involved, actually holding hands in concern for a moment. I've gotta say, this is a bit melodramatic given that the bump wasn't that insane. Again it really doesn't help that the table failed to break, but this wasn't anywhere near the level of Benoit swan-diving head-first into the damn ring bell on Nitro. It also undermines the seriousness of the situation that Lee ****ing Marshall is among the people who get to the ring to attend to the injured parties. Anyway, all three participants in the final bump are stretchered off and then loaded into ambulances to take a ride to the ER. Meh.
Tag Team Titles - The Outsiders (c) (w/ Syxx) vs. The Giant: Giant still doesn't have theme music since leaving the nWo, which is an incredibly rare trait for a top guy in 1997. Scott Hall starts things off for the champions. His best efforts at offense aren't working, as Giant keeps being able to overpower him. The big man slams Hall toward his corner and dares Kevin Nash to tag in. Hall gets up, spits in Giant's face, and then tags in big Kev. Giant follows a corner whip with a running clothesline, then holds off Hall when Hall comes in, and culminates the sequence by dropkicking Nash over the top rope. That was cool.
Giant follows Nash outside, picks him up and slams him back-first into the post. He returns him inside, connecting on an elbow-drop. During a ref distraction, Syxx comes in and hits Giant with a title belt, Hall capitalizes with a bulldog off the ropes, but Giant manages to kick out before three. The crowd, reacting to the numbers game, starts chanting for Lex Luger. Syxx goes for a spinning kick on Giant, who is draped across the ropes completely still, and somehow misses it. In Syxx's defense, he was probably on heavy drugs at this and all other moments. We continue with more of the same, Giant fighting valiantly against the odds. He puts down both Hall and Nash, but amid another distraction Hall hits Giant with a title belt. That knocks him staggering into Nash, who manages to powerbomb The Giant. I wondered if he had ever done that. He collapses as soon as he does, favoring his back.
The crowd pops, as Luger, adorned in street clothes, comes out to the ring. Eric Bischoff runs out to try to stop him, and Luger grabs him and flings him to the ground. He gets up on the apron and reaches out to Giant for a tag. Giant tags him in, it's treated as legit, and I guess Luger is the legal man? I sense another title change that won't hold up. He puts Nash up in the Torture Rack, referee Mark Curtis calls for the submission, and we apparently have new Tag Team Champions for the moment. Giant chokeslams Hall and pins him as well. The ending feels stupid, but the match provided as much entertainment as you could reasonably hope for out of this grouping.
Result: Lex Luger & The Giant via submission, new Tag Team Champions
Rating: **1/2
WCW Title - Hulk Hogan (c) (w/ Ted DiBiase & Vincent) vs. Rowdy Roddy Piper: Champ out first, which legitimately surprises me when the champ is Hogan. Bobby Heenan actually comments on it, saying that Hogan insisted on entering first so that he could show off more. Piper arrives on the scene wearing a tattered and dirty t-shirt, purportedly because he's been wearing it for a week straight. I don't know; I think I could wear a t-shirt for a week straight without wearing multiple large holes into it.
Hogan does some stalling outside the ring for a while until Piper finally goes out to get him and force him into the ring. Piper hits a blatant low blow in front of the referee, sheds the gross shirt, and repeatedly chokes Hogan with it. Back outside, Piper grabs a nearby chair and lightly blesses Hogan with it, again with the referee watching. Is this no DQ, or is Piper just pulling an Ultimate Warrior from SummerSlam '89? DiBiase gripes about it, but Piper chases him off and returns to work. Back inside the ring, Hogan hits his own low blow, but Piper just no-sells and bores straight ahead. This is some truly wretched brawling so far. I understand that wrestling moves will be at a minimum in this match, which even makes storyline sense, but the brawling action is horrendous and there's no story to take away so far.
Sting and Randy Savage show up at the top of the aisle. As Savage starts heading toward the ring, Sting stops him and tries to convince him to leave, but Savage goes ahead and stands at ringside. Sting remains at the top of the aisle. After the match continues for a bit, we see Sting turn around and leave. Hogan has taken over the advantage, ramming Piper back-first into the post and then posting his leg. Both guys appear to have been gassed basically since the first couple of minutes, so they're just sluggishly finding ways to fill some time until the go-home. Hogan gets Piper into a bearhug that causes Piper to begin to fade. Arm drops twice but not three times. Piper works his way free of the hold and attacks, but Hogan hits his own low blow. The referee, being consistent, ignores it. Piper slaps on the sleeper, the arm drops three times, and we seem to have a new WCW Champion.
Suddenly the referee starts waving the result off. We see Savage slip brass knuckles to Hogan. Hogan hits Piper with them and makes the pin to apparently retain the belt. This might be one of the worst matches in history. I cannot even reach to find even a slightly kind thing to say about it. Sort of a live crowd, I guess? That's it, and it's more than negated by the negatives here.
Result: Hulk Hogan via pinfall
Rating: 0 stars
So there's no official explanation offered as to why the **** the match got restarted after Piper had won. Schiavone speculates that maybe Hogan's foot was under the bottom rope. Rewinding…yep, Savage also pulled Hogan under the ropes after the match was over. Somehow the referee restarted the match on that premise. There's too much stupid here to even know where to start. That premise for restarting is ridiculous. Savage turning and helping Hogan, while I knew it was coming, is completely indefensible.
Anyway, Savage and Hogan hug and are apparently united. Savage clobbers Piper and spray-paints him. They take turns landing finishers on Piper. The booking team really went full WCW on this one.
Hogan and Savage preen and pose as the show goes off the air, and even though I knew it was coming (though I didn't remember the timing), I still sit here somewhat slack-jawed at the incredible stupidity that I just witnessed.
Overall: Before the main event, I thought the show was probably on the slightly low end of okay, and was mostly just forgettable. After the main event I'm downgrading this and calling it a pretty bad show.
09-17-2016
, 02:11 PM
February 24, 1997
NITRO
Sacramento, CA
I've gotta say, this is an episode thumbnail that's difficult to get excited about as I press play:
But on the bright side, at least once I press play I hear the music of…Public Enemy. Man, at least in ECW they entered to "Here Comes the Hotstepper." Their WCW music sucks.
Public Enemy vs. Jeff Jarrett & Mongo McMichael (w/ Debra): Mongo just seems to be soldiering up and accepting last night's stipulation and result; he doesn't act friendly with Jarrett on the way out, but he acts matter-of-fact about the situation even though Tony Schiavone speculates that he's probably not happy. In any case Jarrett is a Horseman now, making this late incarnation of the group even sadder. Johnny Grunge runs offense on Jarrett, tags in Rocco Rock for the double-team, and Rocco continues at the advantage until he comes up empty on a corner charge and Mongo assists Jarrett by hitting Rock from the apron. Jarrett tags out, and the new partners double-team Rocco. They work together with great cooperation.
Rocco tries a Thesz press, Jarrett counters into something of a powerbomb, Grunge breaks up the pin, but while the referee tries to push Grunge out, Debra feeds the briefcase to Mongo, who…waffles Jarrett with it to a big pop.
Rocco makes the pin.
Result: Public Enemy via pinfall
Mongo screams at Jarrett, then appears to have some stern words for Debra. Arn Anderson, Ric Flair, and Mean Gene come to the ring. Mongo rants about what happened last night and how it wasn't right. He says that he has to welcome Jarrett to the Horsemen, but that, like when your brother messes with you, you have to get back at them. Flair and Arn try to stand in the middle to keep the peace. Flair says that he promised on Saturday night that if Jarrett won at SuperBrawl, he was in. He tells Mongo that they need team players.
Arn gets the stick. "The Dungeon is getting stronger. The nWo is getting stronger. Lex Luger and The Giant have aligned. And the Horsemen are getting weaker. Flair's not well, I'm hurtin', Chris Benoit may never be back. He's in the hospital. If you don't get it, you two are the only two members of the Horsemen who are healthy." Arn demands that they shake hands. Mongo says, "I never said that you wasn't family, my brother. I might mess with you, but nobody else better. Here's my hand." He offers to shake. Flair demands that Jarrett shake. He does. They raise the four fingers and continue on with the group. This is like watching the Bulls after Jordan retired and Pippen left town.
We get some banter at the announce table, where Larry Zbyszko says that it looks like we may be seeing the beginning of the end of the Horsemen.
Galaxy vs. Hacksaw Jim Duggan: I had to look up who Galaxy was…apparently this is Damian 666 under a mask. Damian was nothing but a jobber under that moniker too, so I guess there's no significant difference. Strangely, Hacksaw seems to be wearing purple tonight. And gold boots. My money was going to be on him misplacing his ring gear during a cocaine binge or something, but Tony Schiavone points out that he's wearing WCW colors. Okay. He takes the fight with Galaxy outside, pulls one of the mats up to expose the concrete floor, and slams Galaxy directly on that concrete. This pointless squash match wraps up when Galaxy misses on a moonsault and Duggan hits him with the clothesline out of the three-point stance and then hitting him with a taped fist.
Result: Hacksaw Jim Duggan via pinfall
Mean Gene grabs a promo with Duggan, who rants angrily at Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage. "Hulk Hogan, you know I can beat your A." Yes, he said "A." As he does, Gene gives him the "whoa whoa whoa, we're on TV." Strong work all around, gentlemen.
Joe Gomez vs. Hugh Morrus: Seriously, enough with the Hugh Morrus squash matches. He executes that top-rope moonsault well, but I can't remember a single other interesting spot from him ever. This match is no exception to that…totally uninteresting squash match that seems to get an ongoing audible groan from the crowd, though they do pop for the moonsault finisher. At least it wasn't very long.
Result: Hugh Morrus via pinfall
After commercial break, Tony Schiavone brings us back to "the most incredible match he's ever witnessed," in reference to the Chris Benoit-Kevin Sullivan match from last night. Which, by the way, was probably not even the most incredible match in this particular feud. We get stills and a recap of that.
La Parka vs. Ice Train (w/ Teddy Long): We get a pre-taped PIP promo from Teddy Long, who for some reason cuts a promo in the direction of Jacqueline, telling her that it's stupid for her to sacrifice herself to try to help Kevin Sullivan. To the match: Ice Train, who is rocking some ill-advised sideburns, controls the early action. La Parka ducks a clothesline, hits a jumping kick, then follows with a spinning wheel kick off the top rope that connects (not very well, but connects). His comeback gets stopped when his ensuing cross-body gets caught into a powerslam by Ice Train. Corner whip and an avalanche in the corner by Train. La Parka counters with a jawbreaker, another wheel kick, and…yet another wheel kick. He seems to just be mashing the same button over and over. As I say that though, Ice Train has gone outside to regroup, and La Parka shows some flash with a twisting over-the-top dive from the ring to the floor.
La Parka returns the action inside, where Ice Train is quick to get back on the comeback trail. He again catches a cross-body into a slam, then hits his jumping splash - Schiavone coins it the "Trainwreck" - and records the pin.
Result: Ice Train via pinfall
Before the next match, we see highlights of Eddie Guerrero beating Chris Jericho last night after the counter into the sunset flip.
Eddie Guerrero & Chris Jericho vs. The Faces of Fear (w/ Jimmy Hart): Barbarian and Jericho kick things off. Jericho fights Barbarian off with a dropkick off the ropes, tag to Eddie, slingshot splash connects, but Barbarian kicks out and then sends Eddie airborne a moment later to land splat on the mat. Barbarian flings Guerrero into the corner, tags Meng, and the attempt to isolate the US Champ is on. Big powerbomb by Meng. Eddie ducks a clothesline and takes Meng over with a flying headscissor, quickly seizing the opportunity to tag Jericho. Double backdrop, then a running backsplash by Jericho. His momentum is halted when he takes a knee to the back from the apron by Barbarian, allowing Meng to put Jericho down and then to tag Barbarian in.
Belly-to-belly superplex by Barbarian. Eddie saves the pin. Jericho with a surprise roll-up, but that's no good. He hits a springboard cross-body on Meng for a two-count, but again Meng is back to being the aggressor, putting Jericho down and choking him on the mat. Meng backdrops Jericho into Barbarian for the big powerbomb. Again Eddie on the pinfall save. Jericho is barely hanging on, again needing a save after taking a double headbutt. Jericho fights his way free with a springboard moonsault off an Irish whip, followed by an enziguri. Hot tag to Guerrero. He tries fighting Meng, Jericho enters illegally to double-team, Barbarian tags in, and a double suplex by the babyfaces. Jericho goes to polish things off with a Lionsault, but Meng trips him as he hits the ropes, causing him to fall through. Eddie tries for a frog splash, but Dean Malenko runs interference, coming to the ring and pushing Eddie off the top rope, straight into a big boot by Barbarian. 1-2-3. Decent match.
Result: Faces of Fear via pinfall
Enter hour two. Enter Mike Tenay and Bobby Heenan. Exit Larry Zbyszko. We get some announce table banter about Roddy Piper getting screwed at SuperBrawl, and also about the Horsemen stuff earlier tonight.
Juventud Guerrera vs. Rey Mysterio Jr: The two jostle for position in the corner, with Juventud getting the advantage and laying a hard chop in. After a reset, Mysterio locks Juventud into a behind-the-back surfboard. Guerrera escapes and transitions into a nice DDT. He goes out to the apron and throws a springboard dropkick, then grapevines Mysterio's leg. Mysterio kicks his way free, the two enter into a test of strength, they end up temporarily in a double pin but simultaneously bridge out. After separating, Guerrera hits a spinning back kick, then a back elbow a moment later. Two.
Juventud backdrops Rey, Rey lands on his feet on the apron, hops up to the top rope, misses on a moonsault, Guerrera goes up and connects on his own moonsault, but again just settles for a two-count on Rey. Rey with a flying headscissor that pulls Guerrera out of the ring. He follows him out with a baseball slide into a headscissor, a pretty stupid spot just given how obviously Guerrera participated. Upon re-entry, Mysterio goes up top, but Juventud freezes him in place with a punch, then jumps up and does a nice powerbomb spot off the ropes. Close near-fall after that one.
Guerrera knocks Mysterio out, then hits him with a suicide dive from the ring. He rolls Rey in, springboards off the top rope to re-enter, but runs into a counter powerbomb. Rey quickly to the apron, springboard hurracanrana pinning combo, 1-2-3. These guys worked very well together here; good match, and a good showcase to try to help put Juventud on the map.
Result: Rey Mysterio Jr. via pinfall
TV Title - Prince Iaukea (c) vs. Pat Tanaka: Tanaka comes out to what will become Goldberg's music. It…doesn't seem to fit him. So I know it's only been going on for a week now, but can we be done with this Prince Iaukea title reign? It's very insulting to the title. He turns Tanaka inside out with a clothesline. Tanaka connects on a sit-out powerbomb. Iaukea with a Samoan drop, then a springboard splash from the apron. Top-rope cross-body wins the match. The announcers make my ears bleed by trying to pretend that Iaukea is impressive.
Result: Prince Iaukea via pinfall
Dean Malenko vs. Ultimo Dragon (w/ Sonny Onoo): Full match writeup here. Good match, with further character development by Malenko, who seems to be fully heel after this one. Early on, he offers a handshake and then takes a cheap shot.
Fast-forward through some good action…
…and after connecting on the nice release German suplex, Malenko seems to snap, going for a choke instead of a pin and then refusing to relinquish it, ultimately getting disqualified for his actions. Thought it was good storytelling and a good match, albeit below the standard of what I hoped I would get from a Malenko-Dragon match that Meltzer (probably) gave four stars to.
Result: Ultimo Dragon via DQ
Mean Gene goes out to grab a word with Malenko. Calls him "a technician and consummate professional," then adds, "but all of a sudden the discipline is gone." Gene tries to protest that Eddie Guerrero made an honest mistake last night. Malenko says that he hasn't forgotten about Syxx, and fully intends to take care of that situation. He goes on to say Eddie Guerrero is the last person he would have expected to cost him his belt, but that two can play that game. He walks off, still angry.
Diamond Dallas Page vs. Squire Dave Taylor: Taylor jumps Page before the bell and gets his licks in early. In a minute or less DDP has executed the Diamond Cutter, but here come Scott Hall and Kevin Nash. They slowly walk to the ring, surround Page from the outside, and as they set to enter, here comes Randy Savage down the aisle. Savage sneaks into the ring and blindsides DDP. As this situation was developing, Taylor just sort of disappeared, so I guess this is a no contest.
Result: No Contest
As the nWo begins to celebrate, an idiot fan runs in. Hall attacks him, Savage gets a couple of boots in, and Nash dumps the fan out of the ring. Savage spray-paints DDP's back and, for the first time, puts an nWo shirt on. Savage drops a flying elbow for good measure.
After a commercial, we come back to nWo music, and the same three are still in the ring. Hall has a mic and gives love to Randy Savage. He says that they're not only going to give the crowd one icon tonight. He calls out Hulk Hogan. I guess I'll just get ready to screenshot another pose. Hall says that they have a surprise for Macho…and out come Eric Bischoff, Ted DiBiase, and "our present to the Macho Man," Miss Elizabeth. For the first time since being part of this group, she comes out smiling, and I guess she's reunited with Savage despite it not making any sense that either one is in the nWo.
At least it appears that we got spared more Hogan posing on this night.
Tag Team Titles - Lex Luger & The Giant (c) vs. Harlem Heat (w/ Sister Sherri): The opening bell rings, but here comes Eric Bischoff and a lot of the nWo to interrupt things before the match actually gets started.
Result: No Contest
Bischoff says that the tag belts belong to The Outsiders since Luger was not allowed in last night's match. Luger says that you'll have to carry him out on a stretcher in order to get the belt from him. Alternatively, Luger lays down a challenge, that if the nWo will put up all the belts, both tag and single, in a WCW vs. nWo match at Uncensored, he'll hand over the tag belts right now. Bischoff instantly agrees, and Luger does hand the belts over.
Here comes Sting. As usual, he has his bat, and stands in the middle of the ring. He stares through Hogan. After a long pause, Hogan walks up and hugs Sting, though it isn't reciprocated. Sting just stands there and allows it, not really reacting…and the show goes off the air as the nWo celebrates as if Sting just joined the faction as well.
Overall: Couple of good matches in Malenko-Ultimo and Rey-Juventud. Half-decent Guerrero/Jericho vs. Faces of Fear tag match as well. The only storyline stuff that was interesting was the character shift in Dean Malenko. The Horsemen stuff is trash, the Sting angle has very few interesting segments, and everything to do with Savage turning is terrible. Overall...meh, I've seen worse, since there's enough good wrestling to sort of salvage the episode.
NITRO
Sacramento, CA
I've gotta say, this is an episode thumbnail that's difficult to get excited about as I press play:
But on the bright side, at least once I press play I hear the music of…Public Enemy. Man, at least in ECW they entered to "Here Comes the Hotstepper." Their WCW music sucks.
Public Enemy vs. Jeff Jarrett & Mongo McMichael (w/ Debra): Mongo just seems to be soldiering up and accepting last night's stipulation and result; he doesn't act friendly with Jarrett on the way out, but he acts matter-of-fact about the situation even though Tony Schiavone speculates that he's probably not happy. In any case Jarrett is a Horseman now, making this late incarnation of the group even sadder. Johnny Grunge runs offense on Jarrett, tags in Rocco Rock for the double-team, and Rocco continues at the advantage until he comes up empty on a corner charge and Mongo assists Jarrett by hitting Rock from the apron. Jarrett tags out, and the new partners double-team Rocco. They work together with great cooperation.
Rocco tries a Thesz press, Jarrett counters into something of a powerbomb, Grunge breaks up the pin, but while the referee tries to push Grunge out, Debra feeds the briefcase to Mongo, who…waffles Jarrett with it to a big pop.
Rocco makes the pin.
Result: Public Enemy via pinfall
Mongo screams at Jarrett, then appears to have some stern words for Debra. Arn Anderson, Ric Flair, and Mean Gene come to the ring. Mongo rants about what happened last night and how it wasn't right. He says that he has to welcome Jarrett to the Horsemen, but that, like when your brother messes with you, you have to get back at them. Flair and Arn try to stand in the middle to keep the peace. Flair says that he promised on Saturday night that if Jarrett won at SuperBrawl, he was in. He tells Mongo that they need team players.
Arn gets the stick. "The Dungeon is getting stronger. The nWo is getting stronger. Lex Luger and The Giant have aligned. And the Horsemen are getting weaker. Flair's not well, I'm hurtin', Chris Benoit may never be back. He's in the hospital. If you don't get it, you two are the only two members of the Horsemen who are healthy." Arn demands that they shake hands. Mongo says, "I never said that you wasn't family, my brother. I might mess with you, but nobody else better. Here's my hand." He offers to shake. Flair demands that Jarrett shake. He does. They raise the four fingers and continue on with the group. This is like watching the Bulls after Jordan retired and Pippen left town.
We get some banter at the announce table, where Larry Zbyszko says that it looks like we may be seeing the beginning of the end of the Horsemen.
Galaxy vs. Hacksaw Jim Duggan: I had to look up who Galaxy was…apparently this is Damian 666 under a mask. Damian was nothing but a jobber under that moniker too, so I guess there's no significant difference. Strangely, Hacksaw seems to be wearing purple tonight. And gold boots. My money was going to be on him misplacing his ring gear during a cocaine binge or something, but Tony Schiavone points out that he's wearing WCW colors. Okay. He takes the fight with Galaxy outside, pulls one of the mats up to expose the concrete floor, and slams Galaxy directly on that concrete. This pointless squash match wraps up when Galaxy misses on a moonsault and Duggan hits him with the clothesline out of the three-point stance and then hitting him with a taped fist.
Result: Hacksaw Jim Duggan via pinfall
Mean Gene grabs a promo with Duggan, who rants angrily at Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage. "Hulk Hogan, you know I can beat your A." Yes, he said "A." As he does, Gene gives him the "whoa whoa whoa, we're on TV." Strong work all around, gentlemen.
Joe Gomez vs. Hugh Morrus: Seriously, enough with the Hugh Morrus squash matches. He executes that top-rope moonsault well, but I can't remember a single other interesting spot from him ever. This match is no exception to that…totally uninteresting squash match that seems to get an ongoing audible groan from the crowd, though they do pop for the moonsault finisher. At least it wasn't very long.
Result: Hugh Morrus via pinfall
After commercial break, Tony Schiavone brings us back to "the most incredible match he's ever witnessed," in reference to the Chris Benoit-Kevin Sullivan match from last night. Which, by the way, was probably not even the most incredible match in this particular feud. We get stills and a recap of that.
La Parka vs. Ice Train (w/ Teddy Long): We get a pre-taped PIP promo from Teddy Long, who for some reason cuts a promo in the direction of Jacqueline, telling her that it's stupid for her to sacrifice herself to try to help Kevin Sullivan. To the match: Ice Train, who is rocking some ill-advised sideburns, controls the early action. La Parka ducks a clothesline, hits a jumping kick, then follows with a spinning wheel kick off the top rope that connects (not very well, but connects). His comeback gets stopped when his ensuing cross-body gets caught into a powerslam by Ice Train. Corner whip and an avalanche in the corner by Train. La Parka counters with a jawbreaker, another wheel kick, and…yet another wheel kick. He seems to just be mashing the same button over and over. As I say that though, Ice Train has gone outside to regroup, and La Parka shows some flash with a twisting over-the-top dive from the ring to the floor.
La Parka returns the action inside, where Ice Train is quick to get back on the comeback trail. He again catches a cross-body into a slam, then hits his jumping splash - Schiavone coins it the "Trainwreck" - and records the pin.
Result: Ice Train via pinfall
Before the next match, we see highlights of Eddie Guerrero beating Chris Jericho last night after the counter into the sunset flip.
Eddie Guerrero & Chris Jericho vs. The Faces of Fear (w/ Jimmy Hart): Barbarian and Jericho kick things off. Jericho fights Barbarian off with a dropkick off the ropes, tag to Eddie, slingshot splash connects, but Barbarian kicks out and then sends Eddie airborne a moment later to land splat on the mat. Barbarian flings Guerrero into the corner, tags Meng, and the attempt to isolate the US Champ is on. Big powerbomb by Meng. Eddie ducks a clothesline and takes Meng over with a flying headscissor, quickly seizing the opportunity to tag Jericho. Double backdrop, then a running backsplash by Jericho. His momentum is halted when he takes a knee to the back from the apron by Barbarian, allowing Meng to put Jericho down and then to tag Barbarian in.
Belly-to-belly superplex by Barbarian. Eddie saves the pin. Jericho with a surprise roll-up, but that's no good. He hits a springboard cross-body on Meng for a two-count, but again Meng is back to being the aggressor, putting Jericho down and choking him on the mat. Meng backdrops Jericho into Barbarian for the big powerbomb. Again Eddie on the pinfall save. Jericho is barely hanging on, again needing a save after taking a double headbutt. Jericho fights his way free with a springboard moonsault off an Irish whip, followed by an enziguri. Hot tag to Guerrero. He tries fighting Meng, Jericho enters illegally to double-team, Barbarian tags in, and a double suplex by the babyfaces. Jericho goes to polish things off with a Lionsault, but Meng trips him as he hits the ropes, causing him to fall through. Eddie tries for a frog splash, but Dean Malenko runs interference, coming to the ring and pushing Eddie off the top rope, straight into a big boot by Barbarian. 1-2-3. Decent match.
Result: Faces of Fear via pinfall
Enter hour two. Enter Mike Tenay and Bobby Heenan. Exit Larry Zbyszko. We get some announce table banter about Roddy Piper getting screwed at SuperBrawl, and also about the Horsemen stuff earlier tonight.
Juventud Guerrera vs. Rey Mysterio Jr: The two jostle for position in the corner, with Juventud getting the advantage and laying a hard chop in. After a reset, Mysterio locks Juventud into a behind-the-back surfboard. Guerrera escapes and transitions into a nice DDT. He goes out to the apron and throws a springboard dropkick, then grapevines Mysterio's leg. Mysterio kicks his way free, the two enter into a test of strength, they end up temporarily in a double pin but simultaneously bridge out. After separating, Guerrera hits a spinning back kick, then a back elbow a moment later. Two.
Juventud backdrops Rey, Rey lands on his feet on the apron, hops up to the top rope, misses on a moonsault, Guerrera goes up and connects on his own moonsault, but again just settles for a two-count on Rey. Rey with a flying headscissor that pulls Guerrera out of the ring. He follows him out with a baseball slide into a headscissor, a pretty stupid spot just given how obviously Guerrera participated. Upon re-entry, Mysterio goes up top, but Juventud freezes him in place with a punch, then jumps up and does a nice powerbomb spot off the ropes. Close near-fall after that one.
Guerrera knocks Mysterio out, then hits him with a suicide dive from the ring. He rolls Rey in, springboards off the top rope to re-enter, but runs into a counter powerbomb. Rey quickly to the apron, springboard hurracanrana pinning combo, 1-2-3. These guys worked very well together here; good match, and a good showcase to try to help put Juventud on the map.
Result: Rey Mysterio Jr. via pinfall
TV Title - Prince Iaukea (c) vs. Pat Tanaka: Tanaka comes out to what will become Goldberg's music. It…doesn't seem to fit him. So I know it's only been going on for a week now, but can we be done with this Prince Iaukea title reign? It's very insulting to the title. He turns Tanaka inside out with a clothesline. Tanaka connects on a sit-out powerbomb. Iaukea with a Samoan drop, then a springboard splash from the apron. Top-rope cross-body wins the match. The announcers make my ears bleed by trying to pretend that Iaukea is impressive.
Result: Prince Iaukea via pinfall
Dean Malenko vs. Ultimo Dragon (w/ Sonny Onoo): Full match writeup here. Good match, with further character development by Malenko, who seems to be fully heel after this one. Early on, he offers a handshake and then takes a cheap shot.
Fast-forward through some good action…
…and after connecting on the nice release German suplex, Malenko seems to snap, going for a choke instead of a pin and then refusing to relinquish it, ultimately getting disqualified for his actions. Thought it was good storytelling and a good match, albeit below the standard of what I hoped I would get from a Malenko-Dragon match that Meltzer (probably) gave four stars to.
Result: Ultimo Dragon via DQ
Mean Gene goes out to grab a word with Malenko. Calls him "a technician and consummate professional," then adds, "but all of a sudden the discipline is gone." Gene tries to protest that Eddie Guerrero made an honest mistake last night. Malenko says that he hasn't forgotten about Syxx, and fully intends to take care of that situation. He goes on to say Eddie Guerrero is the last person he would have expected to cost him his belt, but that two can play that game. He walks off, still angry.
Diamond Dallas Page vs. Squire Dave Taylor: Taylor jumps Page before the bell and gets his licks in early. In a minute or less DDP has executed the Diamond Cutter, but here come Scott Hall and Kevin Nash. They slowly walk to the ring, surround Page from the outside, and as they set to enter, here comes Randy Savage down the aisle. Savage sneaks into the ring and blindsides DDP. As this situation was developing, Taylor just sort of disappeared, so I guess this is a no contest.
Result: No Contest
As the nWo begins to celebrate, an idiot fan runs in. Hall attacks him, Savage gets a couple of boots in, and Nash dumps the fan out of the ring. Savage spray-paints DDP's back and, for the first time, puts an nWo shirt on. Savage drops a flying elbow for good measure.
After a commercial, we come back to nWo music, and the same three are still in the ring. Hall has a mic and gives love to Randy Savage. He says that they're not only going to give the crowd one icon tonight. He calls out Hulk Hogan. I guess I'll just get ready to screenshot another pose. Hall says that they have a surprise for Macho…and out come Eric Bischoff, Ted DiBiase, and "our present to the Macho Man," Miss Elizabeth. For the first time since being part of this group, she comes out smiling, and I guess she's reunited with Savage despite it not making any sense that either one is in the nWo.
At least it appears that we got spared more Hogan posing on this night.
Tag Team Titles - Lex Luger & The Giant (c) vs. Harlem Heat (w/ Sister Sherri): The opening bell rings, but here comes Eric Bischoff and a lot of the nWo to interrupt things before the match actually gets started.
Result: No Contest
Bischoff says that the tag belts belong to The Outsiders since Luger was not allowed in last night's match. Luger says that you'll have to carry him out on a stretcher in order to get the belt from him. Alternatively, Luger lays down a challenge, that if the nWo will put up all the belts, both tag and single, in a WCW vs. nWo match at Uncensored, he'll hand over the tag belts right now. Bischoff instantly agrees, and Luger does hand the belts over.
Here comes Sting. As usual, he has his bat, and stands in the middle of the ring. He stares through Hogan. After a long pause, Hogan walks up and hugs Sting, though it isn't reciprocated. Sting just stands there and allows it, not really reacting…and the show goes off the air as the nWo celebrates as if Sting just joined the faction as well.
Overall: Couple of good matches in Malenko-Ultimo and Rey-Juventud. Half-decent Guerrero/Jericho vs. Faces of Fear tag match as well. The only storyline stuff that was interesting was the character shift in Dean Malenko. The Horsemen stuff is trash, the Sting angle has very few interesting segments, and everything to do with Savage turning is terrible. Overall...meh, I've seen worse, since there's enough good wrestling to sort of salvage the episode.
09-18-2016
, 04:13 AM
09-18-2016
, 01:00 PM
February 24, 1997
RAW
New York, NY
We're back in the Manhattan Center tonight, the original home of Monday Night Raw, and we're starting right off on a match as Vince McMahon welcomes us to the show. I was hoping he was done and that we were onto Jim Ross as a permanent move. It's Vince and Jerry Lawler tonight.
The Godwinns vs. The New Blackjacks: The New Blackjacks are repackaged renditions of Barry Windham and Justin Hawk Bradshaw, I guess now as Blackjack Windham and Blackjack Bradshaw. Vince says they made quite a splash on the weekend shows, but doesn't specify how. The match gets started quickly, with Phineas Godwinn clotheslining Bradshaw hard over the top to the floor. Back on the inside, Henry Godwinn takes it to Windham. Phineas gets the tag in and somehow botches the simple spot of "get his boots up on a corner charge," leading him to awkwardly turn it into some headscissor that Windham has to try to take.
We're on Bradshaw vs. Phineas now. Phineas was a significantly worse worker than Henry, and it always annoys me that he seems to spend more time in the ring when the Godwinns wrestle. On cue, Henry is now in, double shoulderblock by the Godwinns, then Henry reverses a corner whip and executes a backdrop. His momentum gets halted in its tracks after a cheap shot from the apron by Windham. We see Ken Shamrock in a ringside seat, at this time just being shown as a celebrity from UFC that's here tonight as a fan. Henry hits a back suplex on Bradshaw. Both men tag out. Phineas fights off both Blackjacks at first, but can't hold them off forever; Bradshaw hits the Clothesline from Hell, Windham makes the pin, Phineas actually gets his foot on the rope but referee Mike Chioda misses it and counts to three. The Godwinns get pissed and slop Chioda, who plays slip-and-slide for a while.
Result: The New Blackjacks via pinfall
We come back from break to find The Eliminators executing Total Elimination on some random dude that Vince identifies as a ring attendant. Paul Heyman comes in screaming, "YOUR CHALLENGE HAS BEEN ACCEPTED. ECW IS IN THE HOUSE!"
After another break, Heyman (as Paul E. Dangerously) introduces Little Guido and then calls for them to hit the music of Guido's opponent. The bWo (ECW's nWo parody group) comes out, and it looks like Stevie Richards is getting the nod to face Little Guido.
Stevie Richards vs. Little Guido: They're identifying Richards as "Big Stevie Cool." Okay. Guido jumps Blue Meanie from behind, but Stevie comes to his partner's aid and attacks as the match gets going. Heyman joins in on commentary. Lawler calls the bWo "another ECW ripoff." Heyman asks him to identify who the bWo is ripping off. Lawler shuts up. Raven, at this time the ECW Champion, shows up at the top of the aisle. He seems to have undergone a change since his last Raw appearance as Johnny Polo. Guido gets a two-count after a powerbomb. They do a PIP interview with Goldust, but the arena sound largely drowns him out.
The various distractions aren't allowing much chance to watch the match, but Stevie gets his own powerbomb in. He tunes up the band, hits the Steviekick, and records the pin.
Result: Stevie Richards via pinfall
Sunny, preparing for an apparent arm wrestling match with Marlena later, talks for a second from backstage (and says nothing).
After a commercial, the Honky Tonk Man is in the ring. He's officiating the arm wrestling. Here comes Sunny, wearing a robe to the ring. She does the Rick Rude intro basically word-for-word, then sheds the robe. I…have no complaints.
After Marlena enters, Sunny offers to Marlena that she can just forfeit. Marlena responds, "We're all glad to see that Sunny stopped working 42nd long enough to be with us tonight." She admits that a forfeit might be smart, but says she'd sooner be on her death bed than forfeit to Sunny. Sunny keeps teasing a start and then stalling. Then Marlena does the same. They finally get going, and after a struggle Marlena appears to just about win when Sunny suddenly tosses some white powder in her face. Now here's Savio Vega in the ring for some reason, accosting Marlena. Goldust is down to take up for his wife and attack Vega. I guess this is a match now?
Savio Vega vs. Goldust (w/ Marlena): I see that Savio has at least gotten away from the crappy-looking red garb and into a black top that matches more with Faarooq's gear. Vince welcomes Miguel Perez on commentary, who wrestled at least one Nitro match in the past but has had no real introduction on WWF TV yet. He's just here in street clothes, an apparent countryman of Savio Vega, and he talks about his disappointment with Savio in joining the Nation. He cuts some sort of promo on him in Spanish as well. Savio chops repeatedly at Goldust in the corner, then chokes away at him. Crush runs interference on the outside, piledriving Goldust on the floor.
This match is extremely difficult to follow…they don't seem to have all the camera angles to follow everything outside, and obviously the hard camera view doesn't catch everything. On top of that, they've spent some of the focus on split-screening to Miguel Perez. On the bright side, it feels like there's no particular chance that this match is actually any good even if it was getting better coverage. Vince promises "a real big surprise" coming up later. I'll begin preparing to mock him for whatever the hell that will be. Goldust ducks two clotheslines off an Irish whip, cross-body gets two, but then he stands up into a hard spinning heel kick.
After Nation members repeatedly run minor interference and distract Goldust, Crush finally decides to shrug off the pretenses, as he just runs into the ring and attacks Goldust at no seemingly important point in the match. This was a long time to give to these two, all to culminate in a worthless non-finish.
Result: Goldust via DQ
Miguel Perez runs in from ringside, throwing a missile dropkick at Savio and clearing him out, then helping clear Crush out as well. The crowd has no idea who he is, so there's no real reaction. Vince again promises "a huge surprise coming up." Then he notes that next Monday, we will be in Berlin, Germany, where the first European Champion will be crowned.
After commercial, Jerry Lawler has headed over to ringside to grab an interview with Ken Shamrock. Lawler spins a yarn about how he taught Shamrock a lot of his MMA holds, and he asks Shamrock to describe what it was like to work out with a king. Shamrock looks at him incredulously and says, "You're kidding, right? I don't know you." Then Lawler keeps insisting. Then Shamrock keeps repeating his answer. Then Lawler insists again. Then Shamrock says the same thing again. That is the entirety of the interview.
After the break, Paul Heyman is back on camera, and he introduces Mikey Whipwreck. And here's Taz, along with Bill Alfonso, another like Raven who was almost certainly previously on Raw under a much different persona (in Alfonso's case, just as a regular referee).
Taz (w/ Bill Alfonso) vs. Mikey Whipwreck: Taz grapples Whipwreck to the mat a couple of times, with Whipwreck forcing rope breaks. Northern lights suplex by Taz gets two. Great release tiger suplex to follow.
As the action continues, we get a PIP interview with Faarooq, who just cuts a basic promo on The Undertaker regarding their match coming up later. Alabama slam by Taz. The crowd rises up in unison, and suddenly we see Sabu dive from the top of the Raw sign into a group of…I don't know.
Taz slaps on the Tazmission and gets the quick submission.
Result: Taz via submission
As the Headbangers enter, Vince says, "Here we go, a big surprise." I should have realized what was coming next.
Okay, that was a legit surprise worthy of Vince hyping it earlier in the show.
Legion of Doom vs. The Headbangers: Diving shoulderblock by Animal knocks Mosh to the mat, and he scurries over to tag in Thrasher. The LOD advantage continues, Animal executing an arm-wringer and then bringing in Hawk to enter with an axhandle off the ropes. Loud "Nitro sucks" chant from the fans facing the hard camera. Lawler: "What are they chanting?" Vince: "Ha…well, this is New York City." He goes on to add, "And again, no censorship here in the WWF. Bring your posters, and whatever it is you have to say, I'm sure we will very clearly pick it up on mic." Setting aside that I have no idea how they're using a mic to pick up posters: I ****ing hate Vince McMahon for saying **** like this and then doing the exact opposite the moment that the opposite becomes more convenient.
Powerbomb by Animal gets two; Thrasher on the save. Now the same audience members breaking into a "this show sucks" chant. Lawler: "Time for some censorship!" Bodyscissor and rear choke by Hawk. He releases, back up to a vertical base, and he blocks Mosh's sunset flip attempt as he stands up straight and then punches down. Delayed suplex by the Road Warrior. Mosh continues to fight back, but the Road Warriors aren't doing much of any selling here. Hawk does hurt his shoulder diving low on a corner charge that comes up empty, so maybe the selling will finally commence.
After commercial, Thrasher hits a diving clothesline off the ropes, and Hawk does appear to have fallen into a heat segment. A moment later though, he pushes through a double clothesline with no effect, then clotheslines both Headbangers on the way back. Tag to Animal, who enters with a powerslam on Mosh. All four battling now, the fight spills to the ringside area, and as they brawl out there, they lose track of the count. Hawk realizes what's up and tries to scramble back in, but we have a double countout.
Result: Double Countout
The Road Warriors, despite not having won the match, do perform the Doomsday Device.
Vince notes after the match that Shawn Michaels is undergoing physical therapy right now, and notes that Marc Mero is as well, due to "really bad knees." Mero just wrestled last week on Raw, and on the PPV the night before it, so I guess this injury just occurred. He'll be back at some point. In the meantime, they send us to a nauseating encore presentation of the Shawn Michaels "Tell Me a Lie" video.
After commercial, we're getting another ECW match. Paul Heyman introduces D-Von Dudley. He's going to face off with Tommy ****ing Dreamer, who is accompanied to the ring by Beulah.
D-Von Dudley vs. Tommy Dreamer (w/ Beulah): Dreamer with something of an inverted atomic drop. D-Von reverses a corner whip, but Dreamer comes exploding out with a bulldog. He dumps D-Von over the top, then follows him out and seems to break a frying pan(?) over his head. Dreamer gets a cane from someone in the ringside crowd, and uses that as well. Though I can't hear any particular chants going on, Vince says, "Well, umm, I think we might be needing to draw some mics, ladies and gentlemen…" Lawler calls him out for insta-contradiction. Dreamer sets up steel steps on the apron, then baseball slides them into D-Von. He then dumps the stairs into the ring. Vince questions what he's doing. Lawler sarcastically says, "Oh, we're gonna see some wrestling."
D-Von hauls off with an unprotected chair shot to the head. Side slam on the chair. Lawler is in the middle of a hard rant now, talking about how he's been working in wrestling for 20 years, and has never been ashamed of anything about the wrestling industry, but that when he looks at "this crap," he is ashamed.
He and Heyman start yelling back and forth over each other. Dreamer piledrives Dudley on the steel chair still inside the ring. All of these weapon shots are largely just being instantly no-sold by the competitors. Anyway, Dreamer rares back with the chair, but Dudley pulls Beulah into the ring and into his way as a shield. Beulah throws a kick backward to hit a low blow, Dreamer hits a DDT on the chair, 1-2-3.
Result: Tommy Dreamer via pinfall
Bubba Ray Dudley (then Buh Buh, I think) attacks Dreamer from behind, and the Dudleys hit the 3D on him. Here's Sandman for the save. Paul E. plugs his April PPV, seems to walk off, then doubles back and charges at Lawler. Vince intercedes and holds Paul back. A bunch of ECW wrestlers stand in the way to keep them apart. That's the end of the ECW stuff for the night, they say. This appearance sure seems to have a lot more upside for Heyman than for Vince; unless there were further plans that just got scrapped, I'm not exactly sure why Vince had this ECW-heavy episode. Maybe just a tester to see if it would pop ratings.
We get a recap of the Sid vs. Bret Hart stuff from last week. It's an odd thing, but we're over halfway through this show, four weeks before WrestleMania, and none of Bret Hart, Steve Austin, or Sid had been so much as mentioned so far. But anyway, we get the footage of Sid winning the title after Austin interfered and screwed Bret. Also here's post-match footage that hadn't aired until Superstars this past weekend, with Bret Hart going backstage and raging. It's amusing to see Bret Hart returning backstage from a title loss, angrily yelling "Where's that son of a bitch? WHERE IS HE?!" as Vince McMahon walks right behind him. Nine months later I would be saying, "Uhh, dude, he's right there."
Faarooq has challenged Ahmed Johnson to a WrestleMania match. Vince says that they haven't heard back from Ahmed yet, but is sure he'll respond favorably.
Todd Pettengill is ringside for a second attempt at interviewing Ken Shamrock. He introduces his wife and father. Todd asks for a prediction on the biggest WrestleMania matches. Shamrock picks Undertaker, but calls Bret-Austin a tossup.
Faarooq, entering for the main event, stares Shamrock down on the way to the ring, then calls for his music to stop and cuts a promo on Shamrock. "If you think you're a man, why don't you step your ass into that ring?" Shamrock smirks, and at first doesn't respond, but then fires back about how Faarooq isn't man enough to step into the ring one-on-one, but that if Vince McMahon sets something up, he'd be willing to take him on. With that, the show goes to the break before the main event.
Faarooq (w/ the Nation of Domination) vs. The Undertaker: Taker takes the fight to Faarooq early, walking the top rope and dropping the hammer. He clotheslines the Nation leader out over the top as well. Lawler, still hung up on the Ken Shamrock thing earlier, says, "I used to teach him how to choke guys out." Vince: "Well let's stop getting into…choking, and things of that nature." Are you listening, Bryan Danielson? Undertaker runs Faarooq from one corner into the other until Faarooq throws up a back elbow. Vince sends out condolences to Jim Ross, whose dad apparently passed away in the week prior, so that's our explanation as to why he's not here tonight.
Taker is back in control. This match, as you would expect, is terribly boring so far. Punches, kicks, clotheslines…it's like a Jim Duggan match with more colorful characters. D-Lo Brown clips Taker's leg on the outside of the ring, and the Nation starts getting some licks in (presumably out of the referee's view) as the show goes to commercial. Upon return, Faarooq is in the driver's seat, throwing another chop block at the dead man's leg, as that's the apparent focus. He uses the ring posts to continue to cut Taker down to size. Several minutes go by without me being able to find anything to say. Faarooq attempts to attack Undertaker outside the ring with steel steps, but Taker gets a boot up and sends the steps into Faarooq's face instead. The action returns inside, and…we have another match end on a Nation run-in, as Savio and Crush come in to attack.
Result: Undertaker via DQ
Legion of Doom come out for the save as the show goes off the air.
Overall: Pretty much hated this episode. The WWF matches were all terrible. The ECW stuff was a bit more interesting, but mostly had no actual point. It felt like a total filler episode that advanced almost nothing about WrestleMania, which is less than a month away at this point.
RAW
New York, NY
We're back in the Manhattan Center tonight, the original home of Monday Night Raw, and we're starting right off on a match as Vince McMahon welcomes us to the show. I was hoping he was done and that we were onto Jim Ross as a permanent move. It's Vince and Jerry Lawler tonight.
The Godwinns vs. The New Blackjacks: The New Blackjacks are repackaged renditions of Barry Windham and Justin Hawk Bradshaw, I guess now as Blackjack Windham and Blackjack Bradshaw. Vince says they made quite a splash on the weekend shows, but doesn't specify how. The match gets started quickly, with Phineas Godwinn clotheslining Bradshaw hard over the top to the floor. Back on the inside, Henry Godwinn takes it to Windham. Phineas gets the tag in and somehow botches the simple spot of "get his boots up on a corner charge," leading him to awkwardly turn it into some headscissor that Windham has to try to take.
We're on Bradshaw vs. Phineas now. Phineas was a significantly worse worker than Henry, and it always annoys me that he seems to spend more time in the ring when the Godwinns wrestle. On cue, Henry is now in, double shoulderblock by the Godwinns, then Henry reverses a corner whip and executes a backdrop. His momentum gets halted in its tracks after a cheap shot from the apron by Windham. We see Ken Shamrock in a ringside seat, at this time just being shown as a celebrity from UFC that's here tonight as a fan. Henry hits a back suplex on Bradshaw. Both men tag out. Phineas fights off both Blackjacks at first, but can't hold them off forever; Bradshaw hits the Clothesline from Hell, Windham makes the pin, Phineas actually gets his foot on the rope but referee Mike Chioda misses it and counts to three. The Godwinns get pissed and slop Chioda, who plays slip-and-slide for a while.
Result: The New Blackjacks via pinfall
We come back from break to find The Eliminators executing Total Elimination on some random dude that Vince identifies as a ring attendant. Paul Heyman comes in screaming, "YOUR CHALLENGE HAS BEEN ACCEPTED. ECW IS IN THE HOUSE!"
After another break, Heyman (as Paul E. Dangerously) introduces Little Guido and then calls for them to hit the music of Guido's opponent. The bWo (ECW's nWo parody group) comes out, and it looks like Stevie Richards is getting the nod to face Little Guido.
Stevie Richards vs. Little Guido: They're identifying Richards as "Big Stevie Cool." Okay. Guido jumps Blue Meanie from behind, but Stevie comes to his partner's aid and attacks as the match gets going. Heyman joins in on commentary. Lawler calls the bWo "another ECW ripoff." Heyman asks him to identify who the bWo is ripping off. Lawler shuts up. Raven, at this time the ECW Champion, shows up at the top of the aisle. He seems to have undergone a change since his last Raw appearance as Johnny Polo. Guido gets a two-count after a powerbomb. They do a PIP interview with Goldust, but the arena sound largely drowns him out.
The various distractions aren't allowing much chance to watch the match, but Stevie gets his own powerbomb in. He tunes up the band, hits the Steviekick, and records the pin.
Result: Stevie Richards via pinfall
Sunny, preparing for an apparent arm wrestling match with Marlena later, talks for a second from backstage (and says nothing).
After a commercial, the Honky Tonk Man is in the ring. He's officiating the arm wrestling. Here comes Sunny, wearing a robe to the ring. She does the Rick Rude intro basically word-for-word, then sheds the robe. I…have no complaints.
After Marlena enters, Sunny offers to Marlena that she can just forfeit. Marlena responds, "We're all glad to see that Sunny stopped working 42nd long enough to be with us tonight." She admits that a forfeit might be smart, but says she'd sooner be on her death bed than forfeit to Sunny. Sunny keeps teasing a start and then stalling. Then Marlena does the same. They finally get going, and after a struggle Marlena appears to just about win when Sunny suddenly tosses some white powder in her face. Now here's Savio Vega in the ring for some reason, accosting Marlena. Goldust is down to take up for his wife and attack Vega. I guess this is a match now?
Savio Vega vs. Goldust (w/ Marlena): I see that Savio has at least gotten away from the crappy-looking red garb and into a black top that matches more with Faarooq's gear. Vince welcomes Miguel Perez on commentary, who wrestled at least one Nitro match in the past but has had no real introduction on WWF TV yet. He's just here in street clothes, an apparent countryman of Savio Vega, and he talks about his disappointment with Savio in joining the Nation. He cuts some sort of promo on him in Spanish as well. Savio chops repeatedly at Goldust in the corner, then chokes away at him. Crush runs interference on the outside, piledriving Goldust on the floor.
This match is extremely difficult to follow…they don't seem to have all the camera angles to follow everything outside, and obviously the hard camera view doesn't catch everything. On top of that, they've spent some of the focus on split-screening to Miguel Perez. On the bright side, it feels like there's no particular chance that this match is actually any good even if it was getting better coverage. Vince promises "a real big surprise" coming up later. I'll begin preparing to mock him for whatever the hell that will be. Goldust ducks two clotheslines off an Irish whip, cross-body gets two, but then he stands up into a hard spinning heel kick.
After Nation members repeatedly run minor interference and distract Goldust, Crush finally decides to shrug off the pretenses, as he just runs into the ring and attacks Goldust at no seemingly important point in the match. This was a long time to give to these two, all to culminate in a worthless non-finish.
Result: Goldust via DQ
Miguel Perez runs in from ringside, throwing a missile dropkick at Savio and clearing him out, then helping clear Crush out as well. The crowd has no idea who he is, so there's no real reaction. Vince again promises "a huge surprise coming up." Then he notes that next Monday, we will be in Berlin, Germany, where the first European Champion will be crowned.
After commercial, Jerry Lawler has headed over to ringside to grab an interview with Ken Shamrock. Lawler spins a yarn about how he taught Shamrock a lot of his MMA holds, and he asks Shamrock to describe what it was like to work out with a king. Shamrock looks at him incredulously and says, "You're kidding, right? I don't know you." Then Lawler keeps insisting. Then Shamrock keeps repeating his answer. Then Lawler insists again. Then Shamrock says the same thing again. That is the entirety of the interview.
After the break, Paul Heyman is back on camera, and he introduces Mikey Whipwreck. And here's Taz, along with Bill Alfonso, another like Raven who was almost certainly previously on Raw under a much different persona (in Alfonso's case, just as a regular referee).
Taz (w/ Bill Alfonso) vs. Mikey Whipwreck: Taz grapples Whipwreck to the mat a couple of times, with Whipwreck forcing rope breaks. Northern lights suplex by Taz gets two. Great release tiger suplex to follow.
As the action continues, we get a PIP interview with Faarooq, who just cuts a basic promo on The Undertaker regarding their match coming up later. Alabama slam by Taz. The crowd rises up in unison, and suddenly we see Sabu dive from the top of the Raw sign into a group of…I don't know.
Taz slaps on the Tazmission and gets the quick submission.
Result: Taz via submission
As the Headbangers enter, Vince says, "Here we go, a big surprise." I should have realized what was coming next.
Spoiler:
Okay, that was a legit surprise worthy of Vince hyping it earlier in the show.
Legion of Doom vs. The Headbangers: Diving shoulderblock by Animal knocks Mosh to the mat, and he scurries over to tag in Thrasher. The LOD advantage continues, Animal executing an arm-wringer and then bringing in Hawk to enter with an axhandle off the ropes. Loud "Nitro sucks" chant from the fans facing the hard camera. Lawler: "What are they chanting?" Vince: "Ha…well, this is New York City." He goes on to add, "And again, no censorship here in the WWF. Bring your posters, and whatever it is you have to say, I'm sure we will very clearly pick it up on mic." Setting aside that I have no idea how they're using a mic to pick up posters: I ****ing hate Vince McMahon for saying **** like this and then doing the exact opposite the moment that the opposite becomes more convenient.
Powerbomb by Animal gets two; Thrasher on the save. Now the same audience members breaking into a "this show sucks" chant. Lawler: "Time for some censorship!" Bodyscissor and rear choke by Hawk. He releases, back up to a vertical base, and he blocks Mosh's sunset flip attempt as he stands up straight and then punches down. Delayed suplex by the Road Warrior. Mosh continues to fight back, but the Road Warriors aren't doing much of any selling here. Hawk does hurt his shoulder diving low on a corner charge that comes up empty, so maybe the selling will finally commence.
After commercial, Thrasher hits a diving clothesline off the ropes, and Hawk does appear to have fallen into a heat segment. A moment later though, he pushes through a double clothesline with no effect, then clotheslines both Headbangers on the way back. Tag to Animal, who enters with a powerslam on Mosh. All four battling now, the fight spills to the ringside area, and as they brawl out there, they lose track of the count. Hawk realizes what's up and tries to scramble back in, but we have a double countout.
Result: Double Countout
The Road Warriors, despite not having won the match, do perform the Doomsday Device.
Vince notes after the match that Shawn Michaels is undergoing physical therapy right now, and notes that Marc Mero is as well, due to "really bad knees." Mero just wrestled last week on Raw, and on the PPV the night before it, so I guess this injury just occurred. He'll be back at some point. In the meantime, they send us to a nauseating encore presentation of the Shawn Michaels "Tell Me a Lie" video.
After commercial, we're getting another ECW match. Paul Heyman introduces D-Von Dudley. He's going to face off with Tommy ****ing Dreamer, who is accompanied to the ring by Beulah.
D-Von Dudley vs. Tommy Dreamer (w/ Beulah): Dreamer with something of an inverted atomic drop. D-Von reverses a corner whip, but Dreamer comes exploding out with a bulldog. He dumps D-Von over the top, then follows him out and seems to break a frying pan(?) over his head. Dreamer gets a cane from someone in the ringside crowd, and uses that as well. Though I can't hear any particular chants going on, Vince says, "Well, umm, I think we might be needing to draw some mics, ladies and gentlemen…" Lawler calls him out for insta-contradiction. Dreamer sets up steel steps on the apron, then baseball slides them into D-Von. He then dumps the stairs into the ring. Vince questions what he's doing. Lawler sarcastically says, "Oh, we're gonna see some wrestling."
D-Von hauls off with an unprotected chair shot to the head. Side slam on the chair. Lawler is in the middle of a hard rant now, talking about how he's been working in wrestling for 20 years, and has never been ashamed of anything about the wrestling industry, but that when he looks at "this crap," he is ashamed.
He and Heyman start yelling back and forth over each other. Dreamer piledrives Dudley on the steel chair still inside the ring. All of these weapon shots are largely just being instantly no-sold by the competitors. Anyway, Dreamer rares back with the chair, but Dudley pulls Beulah into the ring and into his way as a shield. Beulah throws a kick backward to hit a low blow, Dreamer hits a DDT on the chair, 1-2-3.
Result: Tommy Dreamer via pinfall
Bubba Ray Dudley (then Buh Buh, I think) attacks Dreamer from behind, and the Dudleys hit the 3D on him. Here's Sandman for the save. Paul E. plugs his April PPV, seems to walk off, then doubles back and charges at Lawler. Vince intercedes and holds Paul back. A bunch of ECW wrestlers stand in the way to keep them apart. That's the end of the ECW stuff for the night, they say. This appearance sure seems to have a lot more upside for Heyman than for Vince; unless there were further plans that just got scrapped, I'm not exactly sure why Vince had this ECW-heavy episode. Maybe just a tester to see if it would pop ratings.
We get a recap of the Sid vs. Bret Hart stuff from last week. It's an odd thing, but we're over halfway through this show, four weeks before WrestleMania, and none of Bret Hart, Steve Austin, or Sid had been so much as mentioned so far. But anyway, we get the footage of Sid winning the title after Austin interfered and screwed Bret. Also here's post-match footage that hadn't aired until Superstars this past weekend, with Bret Hart going backstage and raging. It's amusing to see Bret Hart returning backstage from a title loss, angrily yelling "Where's that son of a bitch? WHERE IS HE?!" as Vince McMahon walks right behind him. Nine months later I would be saying, "Uhh, dude, he's right there."
Faarooq has challenged Ahmed Johnson to a WrestleMania match. Vince says that they haven't heard back from Ahmed yet, but is sure he'll respond favorably.
Todd Pettengill is ringside for a second attempt at interviewing Ken Shamrock. He introduces his wife and father. Todd asks for a prediction on the biggest WrestleMania matches. Shamrock picks Undertaker, but calls Bret-Austin a tossup.
Faarooq, entering for the main event, stares Shamrock down on the way to the ring, then calls for his music to stop and cuts a promo on Shamrock. "If you think you're a man, why don't you step your ass into that ring?" Shamrock smirks, and at first doesn't respond, but then fires back about how Faarooq isn't man enough to step into the ring one-on-one, but that if Vince McMahon sets something up, he'd be willing to take him on. With that, the show goes to the break before the main event.
Faarooq (w/ the Nation of Domination) vs. The Undertaker: Taker takes the fight to Faarooq early, walking the top rope and dropping the hammer. He clotheslines the Nation leader out over the top as well. Lawler, still hung up on the Ken Shamrock thing earlier, says, "I used to teach him how to choke guys out." Vince: "Well let's stop getting into…choking, and things of that nature." Are you listening, Bryan Danielson? Undertaker runs Faarooq from one corner into the other until Faarooq throws up a back elbow. Vince sends out condolences to Jim Ross, whose dad apparently passed away in the week prior, so that's our explanation as to why he's not here tonight.
Taker is back in control. This match, as you would expect, is terribly boring so far. Punches, kicks, clotheslines…it's like a Jim Duggan match with more colorful characters. D-Lo Brown clips Taker's leg on the outside of the ring, and the Nation starts getting some licks in (presumably out of the referee's view) as the show goes to commercial. Upon return, Faarooq is in the driver's seat, throwing another chop block at the dead man's leg, as that's the apparent focus. He uses the ring posts to continue to cut Taker down to size. Several minutes go by without me being able to find anything to say. Faarooq attempts to attack Undertaker outside the ring with steel steps, but Taker gets a boot up and sends the steps into Faarooq's face instead. The action returns inside, and…we have another match end on a Nation run-in, as Savio and Crush come in to attack.
Result: Undertaker via DQ
Legion of Doom come out for the save as the show goes off the air.
Overall: Pretty much hated this episode. The WWF matches were all terrible. The ECW stuff was a bit more interesting, but mostly had no actual point. It felt like a total filler episode that advanced almost nothing about WrestleMania, which is less than a month away at this point.
09-18-2016
, 01:14 PM
FEBRUARY 1997 IN REVIEW
Arrivals: WWF - Legion of Doom (from WCW by way of stopover in multiple Japanese companies), Ken Shamrock (from UFC)
WCW - none in particular
Match of the Month: The Final Four main event, Bret Hart vs. Steve Austin vs. Vader vs. Undertaker
PPV of the Month: Relatively easy nod to WWF IYH: Final Four here.
Ratings: Nitro's long win streak continues.
Quality: I dunno. Neither one is that good right now. I gave 2 of 3 head-to-head Monday night wins to Nitro this month, with the better PPV to WWF. It doesn't feel like I strongly prefer one company to the other during the past few weeks. Maybe still WWF by a little? Certainly not by much.
Gif of the Month:
(Wanted to go with the Calo/ringside fan exchange from earlier in the month, but the gif just doesn't quite capture the whole sequence as well as TV did.)
Arrivals: WWF - Legion of Doom (from WCW by way of stopover in multiple Japanese companies), Ken Shamrock (from UFC)
WCW - none in particular
Match of the Month: The Final Four main event, Bret Hart vs. Steve Austin vs. Vader vs. Undertaker
PPV of the Month: Relatively easy nod to WWF IYH: Final Four here.
Ratings: Nitro's long win streak continues.
Quality: I dunno. Neither one is that good right now. I gave 2 of 3 head-to-head Monday night wins to Nitro this month, with the better PPV to WWF. It doesn't feel like I strongly prefer one company to the other during the past few weeks. Maybe still WWF by a little? Certainly not by much.
Gif of the Month:
(Wanted to go with the Calo/ringside fan exchange from earlier in the month, but the gif just doesn't quite capture the whole sequence as well as TV did.)
09-18-2016
, 02:55 PM
09-18-2016
, 03:12 PM
Well I found this explanation of an apparent ongoing tournament:
(I redacted the result in case anyone following doesn't want the spoiler.)
I really don't think any of those prelims were televised. Owen beating Bret again must have been more Austin shenanigans, but if it all took place over the course of a week, it probably all just happened on the European tour and culminated in this taped Raw from Germany.
(I redacted the result in case anyone following doesn't want the spoiler.)
I really don't think any of those prelims were televised. Owen beating Bret again must have been more Austin shenanigans, but if it all took place over the course of a week, it probably all just happened on the European tour and culminated in this taped Raw from Germany.
09-18-2016
, 03:46 PM