February 26, 1996
NITRO
Knoxville, TN
We start, as usual, at the broadcast desk. Apparently the line they took on Ed Leslie coming back to Hogan's aid is that he was a spy in the Dungeon of Doom. Leslie turned on Hogan like 15 months ago and has been doing battle across from him each week, including main eventing a ****ing Starrcade against him, so saying that he was just a spy is a bold choice…
As we go to the first match on Nitro, Bischoff says, "And right off the bat, I want to let all you fans know, with remote controls in your hand, that the World Whiny Federation, here's how it goes down: DQ, Yokozuna in a handicap match. Jake Roberts - you talk about digging up some bones here - over Isaac Yankem. And Diesel over…Bob Holly? He's still around." To give the authentic Monday night experience, I figure I might as well pass along the actual spoilers that were hitting TNT at the start of the shows on the weeks that I do Nitro first. On the other hand: ****, that sounds like a pretty bad show to sit through after this.
Big Bubba vs. Sting: Either I've already seen this match or am just totally uninterested in the idea of it. It actually isn't too bad, with both guys working pretty hard and giving it a go, but it was hard to shake the feeling that it was pointless filler. The best moment of it was some old grandma threatening Bubba at ringside.
Eric Bischoff starts shilling Uncensored, says that you'll see stuff at it that you won't see anywhere else, or ever again. IIRC, that's more of an advertisement for everything else than for Uncensored. Sting wins this match with a cross-body off the top rope. It was more watchable than I expected.
Result: Sting via pinfall
Mean Gene is with Sting and Lex Luger after the break, but Road Warriors come out right away as well. Animal screams at both for a while. Luger brags about being from Chicago and being every bit as tough as them. Sting yells at Luger that he's from the high-rent district and they're from the streets…which I think was meant as a put-down at Lex. In any case, Luger happily accepts a challenge to a Chicago street fight as Sting throws up his hands. The Road Warriors leave. Mean Gene says, "The Road Warriors, Sting and Luger, in a Chicago street fight?" Now that the Road Warriors are gone, Lex earnestly says, "Hey, what does that mean anyway?" Luger is awesome in this segment, just being blissfully oblivious. Sting leaves, angry at him.
The Renegade vs. Lex Luger: Also pointless. Luger and Sting are just wrestling random singles matches to put themselves over for no apparent reason during a build to a tag team title defense? Surely there's a better use of this airtime. Unlike Sting vs. Bubba, this match is without any particular redeeming value. Jimmy Hart, who didn't accompany Lex to ringside, shows up at an opportune moment late in the match and shoves Renegade off the top rope. It's academic from there, as he goes up into the torture rack for the submission. Jimmy Hart celebrates like a clown for maximum heat.
Result: Lex Luger via submission
Sting runs down, angry at Luger for taking Jimmy Hart's help. Luger, who was just joyfully celebrating with Jimmy, says he doesn't know why Jimmy was out there. While pleading innocence, Luger goes and raises Renegade's arm. Luger is amusing me tonight. He's not amusing Sting though, who really starts laying into him. After being told off, Lex slinks out of the ring to end the segment.
Harlem Heat vs. Road Warriors: It's very difficult for me to watch a Harlem Heat match without wanting to write a whole manifesto about how bad Stevie Ray was. Honestly, the Road Warriors weren't much better at this point. This is all to say that as good as Booker T was, he wasn't salvaging this whole situation, especially when Stevie got the majority of the Heat's ring time. Booker did seem to have the match won with the Harlem Hangover, but it was during a ref distraction, and the Road Warriors take advantage and go over dirty with a cheap shot kick to the Booker's face as he goes to see what the hell the referee is doing. Weird face/heel flip in how they did the ending.
Result: Road Warriors via pinfall
Ric Flair, Arn Anderson & Kevin Sullivan (w/ Woman and Miss Elizabeth) vs. Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage & The Booty Man: Early on in the match, we randomly get an appearance from Kimberly, formerly the Diamond Doll. I'm pretty sure that means we've seen the end of Johnny B. Badd. Must have been an abrupt departure, since they just put him over DDP at the PPV 15 days prior. Kimberly just seems to be eying the ring with no real explanation. Then she disappears.
This match doesn't do much for me; it strikes me as the type of main event you would see on Raw in 2015. Hulk Hogan pins Arn Anderson after a legdrop following a semi-hot tag.
Result: Hogan/Savage/Ed ****ing Leslie via pinfall
The second Hogan scores the pin, Ric Flair attacks him from behind. Elizabeth handcuffs him to the corner, and Flair continues to beat on him, whipping him with something as Hogan is cuffed to the corner. It's on this note that the show goes off the air. No Nitro next week by the way…it's pre-empted by some Civil War mini-series or something.
Overall: Some of the Sting/Luger stuff was fun, but this was certainly a sub-par episode anyway.
RAW
Cincinnati, OH
After a video package telling us what we're going to see, we hear the abrasive sound of a dental drill. I notice that they didn't open on Sunny tonight for the first time in what feels like at least six weeks.
Isaac Yankem vs. Jake "The Snake" Roberts: Vince labels this as "the DDS vs. the DDT." Hadn't thought of that, but yeah, Yankem's finisher was actually a DDT that he lamely called the DDS. Jake was definitely over big here, just as he was at the Royal Rumble. He was well over the hill at this point, overweight and pretty hopeless in the ring, but I can't fault Vince for giving him a bit of a nostalgia run. I will say, even as a huge fan of Jake's back when he departed WWF in 1992, this return didn't do anything for me outside of enjoying seeing him making that one Rumble appearance. Jake blocks Yankem's DDT here and then registers his own for the three-count. Honestly, especially at this stage of their careers, I don't think that Jake's DDT held up to Arn Anderson's at all.
Result: Jake Roberts via pinfall
Jerry Lawler is all freaked out about a snake being ringside after getting a snake set on him during the Royal Rumble. Vince keeps teasing him by acting like the snake is going to come out. He finally says, "Alright, I guess we're not going to see that. But we're going to see this:"
That introduces a video package for the Ultimate Warrior, again hyping him up. Vince says "we just hope he's coming back." So it still wasn't official to the viewing audience yet, but yeah.
Bob Holly vs. Diesel: If Bob Holly's gimmick wasn't lame enough, the fact that they made him wear the WWF logo on his ass was the real guarantee that he couldn't be anything but a jobber. Diesel keeps looking down and checking the ring, selling that he's paranoid that Undertaker could be underneath again. Even as Diesel is distracted, Bob Holly gets only the slightest hint of offense in. Diesel goes over with a really bad jackknife. It's amazing to me how bad of a job he did with his own finishing move. The release always looked like he was just losing his grip on the guy, or something.
Result: Diesel via pinfall
As Diesel heads back down the aisle, Taker's music hits and the lights go out. Taker is in the ring when the lights go up. Diesel actually makes like he's going to go in after him, but the lights go down again, and when they come back up Diesel is in the ring alone. One more time with the lights out. Taker then shows up on the video screen and vows to see Diesel "on the darkside." Whatever.
Bret Hart vs. HHH and Shawn Michaels vs. 1-2-3 Kid advertised for next week. There's potential there.
Ahmed Johnson vs. Shinobi: Shinobi was Al Snow in another masked gimmick. Not really sure why they were trying to make "Al Snow in a mask" a thing. He didn't have a bad look and wasn't a bad talker. This match is just a squash, and it's devoted to Goldust calling in and cutting a homoerotic promo on Roddy Piper. I don't know what happened here to transition a planned Goldust vs. Razor WrestleMania match into Goldust vs. Piper (Razor was not gone yet), but this obviously started it. Ahmed wins this match with the Pearl River Plunge.
Result: Ahmed Johnson via pinfall
To another pre-taped Mankind promo. He cuts this one while holding a rat in some dark place.
They show highlights of Owen Hart and the British Bulldog beating Hakushi and Barry Horowitz this past weekend in the tag team tournament. They also mention that this coming weekend will feature The Godwinns against The New Rockers. So Al Snow is onto the Leif Cassidy thing starting immediately.
After commercial, Vince McMahon is in the ring and ready to conduct an interview. He brings out both Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart, who each get extended entrances. I don't know how anyone could cheer for Shawn Michaels in this outfit.
Bret and Shawn do the mutual respect thing, but also talk some trash. The crowd favors Shawn and boos Bret a bit. Roddy Piper shows up in mid-interview. Piper not only acknowledges people booing Bret, but actually admonishes the crowd for doing it. Well that's a very non-Vince way of handling things. Piper says he wants a definitive result, and proposes that they should settle this based on who could get more falls over the other. He officially sets it as a 60-minute ironman match. Bret and Shawn shake hands. Solid segment.
Handicap Match - Yokozuna vs. Owen Hart and the British Bulldog (w/ Jim Cornette): Yoko dominates both opponents early, but Owen connects on a nice missile dropkick to set the big man down.
Owen and Davey control from there, but when Yoko starts to come back and regain control, Vader comes down to ringside. Against Jim Cornette's urges, he goes in and attacks, and the 3-on-1 beatdown is on.
Result: Yokozuna via DQ
Ahmed Johnson and Jake Roberts come down for the save. Vader is willing to stand his ground and go 1-on-3, but Jake brings the snake out and is able to chase Vader out of the ring with it.
Back to the announce table, Vince hypes the Shawn Michaels vs. 1-2-3 Kid and Bret Hart vs. HHH matches for next week, then sends his show off on a sour note by again throwing it to another Billionaire Ted sketch. That's how the show ends.
Overall: Not a good episode. The Bret/Shawn segment was decent, but that's about all.
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Ratings for 2/26/96: Nitro 3.2, Raw 3.1
Ratings Running Score: Nitro, 11-10-2
Better Show: Neither really impressed, but Lex Luger was the MVP of the night and entertained me enough that I give it to Nitro.
Better Show Running Score: Nitro 19-4
Match of the Night: Man, there's nothing here. Sting vs. Big Bubba, that's your match of the night.