– Live from Nashville, Tennessee.
– Your hosts are Tony, Bobby and Dusty.
– I stumbled across this show on one of my tapes from last year, and I could have sworn that I did a rant of some kind on it when it happened, but my archives have nothing and Dejanews says I didn’t post anything on it, and my master notebook doesn’t have it, so I guess I didn’t. Weird. Anyway, it’s an interesting show for a few reasons, to be explained later.
– Opening match, US title: Jeff Jarrett v. Steve McMichael. Jarrett is fresh from being punked by the Horsemen here. Debra was busy forming her awesome stable of Jarrett, Eddy Guerrero, Alex Wright and Bill Goldberg. It didn’t go anywhere, in case you’re wondering. Jarrett is drawing zero heat, even in his hometown, as usual. Mongo’s selling is downright idiotic at times. And he yells a lot. Jarrett does seem to be “on” here. Couple of good rides to the steps for Mongo. A Sabu match, by which I mean spot-spot-spot with no transitions in between. If that word scares you, you’re not alone so don’t fret. I just mean that they do a move, then kind of get up and do another move, then kinda move to their next position and do another move. It’s very awkward to watch, especially with two guys who ended up wrestling each other as much as these two. Mongo eventually gets him in a sleeper, but Eddy runs in and leaps off the top with the title belt. Mongo moves Jarrett into his path, and Jarrett takes it in the mush. Mongo covers, and we have a new US champion. Fans pop like the second coming of Jesus for this one. A lowpoint for the US title, to be sure. **
– Mean Gene interviews Alex Wright. RSPW’s praise of his heel interviews was inflated, I might add. He’s not that great on the mic here.
– Dinner and a Movie guys do an interview with Mean Gene.
– Stevie Richards v. Raven. Raven is using some bastardized silverchair music as his theme. The first match between these guys, ever, and it’s in WCW. Life is weird. A bit of background: There was no Flock at this point, and Raven was supposedly without a WCW contract so all his matches were under his rules. Raven gets a bigger pop as a babyface then he ever has since. And he puts in *lots* more effort than he has since, doing some stuff that’s almost high-flying by his standards. Total Raven squash. He debuts the drop toehold-to-chair in WCW. Stevie makes a brief comeback, but Raven blocks the Steviekick and then goes on to hit what would be known as the Evenflow DDT. So long, Stevie. **1/2
– Special vignette on Ultimate Dragon, who was rechristened Ultimo Dragon as a result, thus correcting the mistake originally made by WCW upon his entrance.
– TV title: Ultimo Dragon v. Alex Wright. Yes, you read that right. These two were actually contending for the TV title last year. Dragon gets little crowd reaction. Wright gets good heel heat, though. Some good stuff to start, but Wright can’t keep up on his own. He relies mainly on mat stuff and heel tactics. Dragon does the SWANK kick combo and pulls out some STIFF kicks that have the crowd oooo-ing and aaaaa-ing. Wright does get some nice stuff in now and then, which Dragon happily sells like he’s dead. Ad break produces a chinlock. Wright stalls some more. If anyone needed (and still needs) a run in New Japan, it’s Alex Wright. He just looks constantly confused as to what to do next. The requisite outside sequence occurs and of course builds to the Asai moonsault. Nice finishing sequence back in the ring as both guys get suplex attempts and rollup reversals before Wright manages a German suplex with bridge for the pin and the title. ***1/2 Very good match. I’m in shock that they gave this thing 15 minutes to develop as well as it did, given the 2 minute specials that the cruiserweights endure today. The fans were really into this match, too, by the end, because the guys were allowed the time to tell a story.
– Cruiserweight title: Chris Jericho v. Eddy Guerrero. Man, it’s *SO* hard to even picture *this* Jericho and *that* Jericho as the same guy anymore. He was SUCH a weenie. Eddy is in full taunting rudo asshole mode here, and more power to him. Fans hate Eddy’s guts. Eddy single-handedly carries the entire match. Jericho actually has the nerve to pull out a giant swing, at which point he blows up. For those not familiar with the term, “blow up” means a wrestler with poor endurance will use up their given energy early in the match and will be sucking wind for the remainder, necessitating the other guy do *all* the work. That’s exactly what happens here, as Jericho blows move after move and can barely get over to cover him after one. Eddy *literally* carries Jericho through a reversal series, then another one which results in a Jericho pinfall to retain the title. ***, but it was 100% due to Eddy. It’s fascinating, actually, to replay the finishing sequence in slo-mo and you can actually *see* Guerrero doing the work and pushing Jericho’s body over his at points. Guerrero was so on at this point it wasn’t even funny.
– Psycosis, Villano IV, Villano V and Silver King v. Super Calo, Lizmark, Juventud Guerrera and Hector Garza. Juvy gets almost no airtime here. Garza is the focal point of the match, which is yet another over-choreographed spotfest. Including the trainwreck spot, of course. That leaves Psycosis and Super Calo in the ring, which results in a legdrop and pin for Psycosis. No rating, I don’t like rating lucha.
– Another Dinner and a Movie segment. This time, the chefs go nWo and DDP beats the crap out of them. Silly but cute.
– Ric Flair & Curt Hennig v. Syxx & Konnan. This was before Hennig started “seeing spots.” Konnan says “arriba la raza” like 16 times in a desperate attempt to draw heat. Crowd gets bonkos when Flair gets in. Syxx rules at this point, btw, selling like Shawn Michaels Jr. Gets really bad when Hennig and Konnan are in, but at least it’s short. Pier-syxx brawl erupts and Hennig hits the fisherman’s suplex on Konnan for the win. Four minutes long if that. *1/2 Flair asks Hennig yet again whether he wants to join the Horsemen, and Hennig dodges the question yet again.
– Main event, WCW tag team titles: Scott Hall & Randy Savage v. Lex Luger & DDP. Nash gives Savage his half of the tag titles to defend here. Tony coins the term “Wolfpac” in regards to the nWo for the first time here. Luger gets beat up a bunch, then DDP gets beat up a bunch, and everyone sucks. Luger gets the hot tag and puts Hall in the rack, but Savage breaks it up and thumbs DDP in the eye. DDP is blinded and diamond-cuts Luger by accident, Hall covers for the win. DUD.
– The nWo celebrates and the Sting-vulture incident occurs, which I won’t elaborate on because if you’ve seen it you know what I mean and if you haven’t it wouldn’t make sense anyway. Suffice it to say it became an RSPW running gag for weeks afterwards.
The Bottom Line:
Here’s the interesting bit about this show when compared to something from the WWF around the same time: Nothing, and I mean nothing, that happened on this show had any affect on anything that’s happening today in WCW. The storyline turnover is about two months and then everyone moves onto something new and the past is forgotten. On the other hand, stuff going on in the WWF (including the formation of DeGeneration X and the prelude to the Kane angle and Austin v. McMahon) are still being played out to this day. Is it necessarily better that way? No, but it’s certainly demonstrative of a more consistent and intelligent writing style, I think, and it makes for a more satisfying payoff.
On another track, the mid-carders got some serious airtime on this show. Raven-Richards, Dragon-Wright, the lucha match and Eddy-Jericho made for most of the show! And each match got around 10 minutes. That’s unheard of for WCW recently. Why they can’t do that with Thunder? This was a very highly rated Clash, too. If Thunder was as solid, well-paced and CLEAN as this show was (no DQs or countouts or run-ins!) I’d have nothing to complain about on Thursdays. But this was during the height of Terry Taylor’s booking powers, so I guess that’s what was going on.
Still, a good show. Recommended.
