The SmarK Rant for WCW Monday Nitro – 11.06.95
My quest to slay the white whale, the 9/25 Nitro, continued tonight with suggestions from people for alternative delivery methods. So for the record, it’s not in the archives in Roku (either streaming stick or Roku 2), PS3, Xbox 360 or Xbox One. Yeah, I have a lot of shit hooked up to my TV, sue me. I shall continue this pursuit until it bests me! IT TASKS ME! KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!
Congratulations to Derrick for winning this boring, boring, deadly dull season of Big Brother and pretty much cementing his place as the greatest BB player ever. Really the result wasn’t in doubt since day 2.
Live from Jacksonville, FL
Your hosts are Eric Bischoff, Bobby Heenan and Mongo.
So the high concept for this show is that there’s two groups of wrestlers divided into separate locker rooms, and fans can vote for what they want to see in the main event via the WCW hotline. That was actually kind of ahead of its time, in fact, given the Twitter polls that clog up current programming now.
“WCW Title”: The Giant v. Cobra
The announcers are immediately pushing Flair v. Sting as the choice fans should vote for. Giant immediately chokeslams Fake Sting at 0:15 to “retain”.
Meanwhile, in the red locker room, you can vote for Ric Flair or a bunch of midcard scrubs. Gee, I wonder who will win?
Meanwhile, in the blue locker room, you’ve Sting and what looks like 7 or 8 guys they hauled off the street and trained that day. Hopefully WCW can successfully rig this vote without fucking it up.
Meanwhile, in Venice Beach, the Megapowers chill out on the dark side with what appears to be a homeless guy and a guitar player on LSD. This was a weird period for Hulkamania, brother.
Kevin Sullivan v. Renegade
Renegade attacks and clotheslines him to the floor, but stupidly goes after Jimmy Hart and gets clobbered. Back in, Sullivan stomps him down and tries a slingshot senton (?!), which misses. Renegade comes back with a handspring elbow, but misses a charge by a mile and gets hung in the Tree of Woe. Kevin finishes him with the double stomp at 2:38. Jimmy rubs off Renegade’s face paint after the match and declares that he’s just “plain old Rick” now. And yet things got worse for the poor guy. DUD
Chris Benoit v. Eddie Guerrero
Well OK then. Benoit with a snap suplex as the NJPW contingent eats dinner by the ring. Eddie comes back with a tilt-a-whirl slam and Benoit bails, so Eddie follows with a dive off the top and back in for a brainbuster. They fight on top and Benoit brings him down with a superplex for two. The MDK powerbomb gets two as Benoit just BOUNCES his head off the mat with that one. Eddie comes back with a rollup for two and another one off a running knee for two, but Benoit slugs him down again. Bridged german suplex gets two. Northern Lights suplex gets two. Eddie escapes the dragon suplex, so Benoit drops him on the top rope and they do a crazy slugfest on the apron before Benoit suplexes Eddie back in, but Eddie falls on top for the pin at 6:31. Nothing wrong with this. ***1/4
Sting v. Ric Flair
Sting attacks and starts throwing press slams immediately, and we get a Flair Flip to put him on the floor. Sting no-sells the chops, but Flair gets a suplex and Sting pops up from that too, before missing his splash into the railing. And we take a break. Back with Flair in control via figure-four and some cheating, but Sting powers out of it. Flair throws chops and Sting is having none of that. Mongo: “Fear makes cowards of us all.” And obvious things are obvious. Flair pokes him in the eyes and tosses him, but takes a running charge with a chair and has it intercepted by the ref in a funny spot. Back in, Flair slugs him down and gets two via the ropes, and they go into the pinfall reversal sequence. Flair goes up and gets slammed off and Sting starts going crazy on Flair, but a well time pair of brass knuckles turns the tide. Flair’s crazy old man elbowdrop gets two and Sting starts no-selling again. How can you not love this match? Another press slam and a superplex set up the Scorpion Deathlock to finish at 14:00, but Sting is so enraged that he refuses to let go. We then get a major WCW-level botch as Bischoff starts yelling about Lex Luger coming down to break it up, when in fact Luger was nowhere to be seen due to missing his cue. Finally the other blue room losers break up the hold and finally Luger finishes rubbing one out in the back or whatever he was doing, and Sting then has to put Flair BACK in the hold so that Luger can talk him out into releasing again. He’s the Sting whisperer! The ending was WCW-riffic, but it was a hell of a match. ***1/2
Jimmy Hart reveals the secret stipulation from Halloween Havoc, as apparently Hogan signed a contract that waived the DQ rule, so Giant is in fact the WCW World champion. WHAT A TWIST! So Mean Gene brings out the electrifying lawyer NICK LAMBROSE, who announces that although Giant may legally be the champion, he’s being stripped of it because, uh, WHAT THE HELL IS THAT OVER THERE?!? So the winner of the World War 3 battle royale gets the belt. So Abeyance makes his Monday Night Wars debut!
Next week: Randy Savage v. Meng! Eddie Guerrero v. Johnny B. Badd!
