The SmarK Rant for WCW Monday Nitro – 11.13.95
Taped from Jacksonville, FL. But…but…I thought only the WWF did stinky old taped shows?
Your hosts are Eric Bischoff, Bobby Heenan & Mongo
Meanwhile, shit gets really weird for Hulk Hogan. So now he’s the Phantom of the Opera or something, cutting crazy promos from a graveyard and going on about the dark side and light side of Hulkamania. It’s like he mashed up pop culture touchstones like Star Wars, and then COMPLETELY MISSED THE POINT.
Randy Savage v. THE MONSTER MENG
Oh, also Randy Savage is now being introduced as hailing from “the dark side of Venice Beach, California”, where presumably they do REALLY sick stuff for their steroid fix. Weird stuff. Butt stuff. Savage, dressed like nWo era Macho, attacks Meng and chokes him out, but Savage gets distracted by Kevin Sullivan and falls victim to the Tongan martial arts. They fight on the floor as Meng takes over, and back in for some chops in the corner. And lots of choking. Meng misses a dive, however, and Savage finishes with the big elbow at 4:48. Apparently dark side Macho Man gets 30 seconds of offense in before taking the formulaic beating. * Lex Luger, Zubaz all over, attacks him afterwards and injures the arm again.
Chris Benoit v. Kensuke Sasaki
Benoit attacks to start, but gets pounded down and powerslammed. Bulldog out of the corner as Sasaki is so stiff (as in immobile) that he can barely get down for moves. Elbowdrop gets two. Benoit counters a suplex for two and hits his own german suplex, another one right out of that, and into a dragon suplex for the pin at 2:30. What a finish! You might ask why they’d have Sasaki do a clean job on national TV and then put him over Sting for the US title in Tokyo, but really do you need an answer besides “Because WCW”? **
World TV title: Johnny B. Badd v. Eddie Guerrero
They trade wristlocks to start and Badd gets a backbreaker for two. Eddie charges and hits elbow, and Badd slingshots in with a legdrop for two. Eddie gets a rana for two, but Badd comes off the top with a sunset flip for two and they trade pinfall reversals off that. Eddie misses another charge and hits the floor this time, and Badd follows with the flip dive. Back in, Badd misses a splash and Eddie gets two. Rollup gets two. Victory roll gets two. La Majastral gets two. Badd slugs back out of frustration and knocks Eddie to the apron, and tensions run high. They slug it out in the corner until the ref breaks them up as Bischoff is disappointed in the behavior from both of them. So Badd goes to a headlock instead, but Eddie slingshots onto him with a senton for two. Badd tombstones him for two. Eddie gets a tornado DDT for two. They collide on a bodypress attempt with time running out, but it’s a draw at 9:00. Are they really incapable of running a stopwatch properly? Super fun match showing guys getting angry because they’re trying to win a title, but unfortunately it never went anywhere. ***
The Giant and his entourage join us. A minor gaffe from Mean Gene, as he talks about what happened “two weeks ago” at Halloween Havoc, but this would be three weeks later at airtime. Giant is gonna win the battle royale, you know. Actually, he was supposed to, but people freaked out because it was leaking, so they changed it to Randy Savage instead.
Sting v. Dean Malenko
They trade matwork to start and we take a break, returning with Dean in control and working on the leg. Sting comes back and misses the Stinger Splash, but Dean goes for the Cloverleaf and gets reversed into a small package for the pin at 7:55. This was fine, although not much to it. **1/4
Next week: Hulk Hogan v. Sting!
Good show this week, although a bit bland outside of the batshit crazy Hogan stuff.
