Another week, another episode of WCW Monday Nitro… this one is available on the WCW Youtube channel and has been since last year. And it’s a pretty significant episode in some ways.
We open with a tag match between NEW tag champs Sting and Lex Luger retaining over former champs Harlem Heat, who lost the titles on WCW Saturday Night when Jimmy Hart threw the towel on their behalf… because I guess he wants Luger to have the title, I guess? I’m not quite sure whether Luger is supposed to be with the Dungeon or without the Dungeon, but regardless, opening tag match was fun. Also fun was the Parking Lot Brawl between Lord Steven Regal and Fit Finlay that’s just two big bad Brits beating the living Brits out of each other before Regal almost kills Finlay with a piledriver on top of a car for the win. That looked painful.
And in the main event, The Giant defeated WCW World Champion Ric Flair to win the World title. The bit where Giant grabs Flair’s throat while in the figure four to prep for the chokeslam is a thing of beauty and him getting the winning pinfall why the ladies watch and scream in horror is absolutely amazing. Somehow, Liz forgot her shoe and never gave it to Flair… or maybe she’s having second thoughts about this whole relationship. Who knows? Who cares? None of this is going to matter in a few months time.
In any event, there you go. The Giant won the WCW World Title for the second time (or first if you don’t want to count that whole Halloween Havoc business from the prior year) and he did it in his rookie year. If you want to talk about someone being pushed hard right out of the gate, here’s a pretty good exhibit of that. WCW did everything they could to make The Giant look like a monster right out of the gate and I think they succeeded for the short term. And give some credit to Paul Wight; the guy was young and green, but he oozed some charisma and presence that can’t be taught. As much as I poke fun of his quirks and booking later down the road, the man deserves credit for making the most of what WCW gave him. It almost makes me wonder how things would have played out had they stayed the course.
Sadly, staying the course is not on the agenda, since we’re a month away from getting an uninvited guest on the program. Enjoy this ride while it’s happening, kids, because pretty soon, this will be all over and it’ll be the nWo show from here on out. And also enjoy these brief musings of Nitro programming while they last because once Scott Hall hits the scene, this show is over and we move on to something else, which was pretty much the plan from the very beginning.
dtm666 