Category: Wrestling Television Musings

We open the show with Randy Savage struggling against some New Japan guy whose name I don’t remember before getting a comeback and hitting the elbow for the win. This is followed by a Dungeon Of Doom promo threatening the end of Hulkamania and then that’s followed by another Hulk Hogan in black promo, who continues to tease his evil side that we’d be more familiar with in later years, but that’s besides the point.

And there’s a block of ice ready to burst or something.

Eddie Guerrero and Mr. JL defeated Dean Malenko and Chris Benoit with an assist from an injured Alex Wright, who tripped up Malenko with his crutch, allowing JL to nail Malenko with the dealiest move in modern day pro wrestling: the dreaded ROLL UP FOR THE PIN. And then Brian Pillman comes out and nails Guerrero on his way to the back. A pretty solid match with four talented workers. It’s worth noting that JL is subbing for Alex Wright, who was supposed to be Guerrero’s partner, but was injured. Nothing against Wright, but we got a slightly better match out of it with the swap.

The main event of the show Sting & Lex Luger duke it out against Harlem Heat in a pretty ho-hum main event that saw Sting pin Booker after landing a flying lariat. This is followed by the Giant coming to attack the babyfaces, which prompts Hogan and Savage to chase after Giant… but then the ice break and out comes THE YET-AY… who is a tall guy in a mummy costume… thank fuck they called it THE YET-AY and not the Yeti, which is the name of the abominable snowman, not a mummy. You morons.

Anyway, the YET-AY emerges and the feed dies… and that was Nitro, everyone… the go-home show for Halloween Havoc… was the debut of the YET-AY. I sure can’t wait to watch that PPV!

Oh wait… 

Today’s episode of Nitro opens with a clip from WCW Saturday Night where Ric Flair is pleading with Sting to be his partner in his feud against Arn Anderson and Brian Pillman… and of course, Sting accepts because he’s a stupid idiot babyface and we all know what’s going to happen when this match takes place at Halloween Havoc. Though, to be fair, Sting did warn Flair that if Ric went bad, he’d be left for dead… and, well, that didn’t happen.

There’s a DDP/Johnny B. Badd interaction that goes nowhere, which is followed by a short but great Eddie Guerrero/Chris Benoit match that sees Benoit win with a Dragon Suplex, followed by a Giant/Kevin Sullivan promo… at some point, Mean Gene even pimps the WCW Hotline. Meng murders Jim Duggan with his Golden Spike thing… I kinda preferred the Tongan Death Grip myself, but we’re still ways off from that, are we? And then, Hogan comes out in his black get-up to try and convince us that he’s an evil bastard… well, there’s some truth to that, but this promo is mostly laughable.

And in the main event, Ric Flair & Sting defeated Arn Anderson & Brian Pillman in a fun match that saw Flair do most of the work before he tags in Sting and he does a billion splashes to win the match. And then he agrees to be Flair’s partner at Halloween Havoc… in the same match-up we saw on Nitro… on free TV… and they want you to pay for the rematch… where Flair will turn on Sting. That’s not a spoiler; that’s business as usual.

A couple good matches in this hour-long show makes this an easy watch.

So it’s worth noting – at the risk of breaking the kayfabe of these musings – that I’m wrote most of these earlier in the year when WCW’s YouTube channel… think about how awkward it is to say that about an official channel…. anyway, they’re uploading the first few episodes in aired order until the Oct. 2nd episode, which is later followed by the Nov. 27th, 1995 episode that takes place a month later. Obviously, Nitros not being uploaded in order kinda hurts this whole project that’s supposed to be about following this show in episodic order.

Fortunately, a buddy of mine had recorded a whole bunch of Nitros off the WWE Network when that was still an on-air TV channel as part of the Rogers package on to a bunch of DVD-Rs and kindly gave me his batch as a sort of “get well” gift as a result of my earlier health scare. And so whenever I need to fill holes in the Youtube playlist, this will be my go to.

And just as well to because I’m actually enjoying these more than I thought I would.

Continue reading “WCW Monday Nitro (Oct. 9th, 1995) – Eh…”

Five episodes into Nitro… and we’re still watching this somehow… honestly, this hasn’t been that bad of a show. Sure, a couple times have been slow, but it hasn’t gotten to the point where I want to quit. The promos, if nothing else, have been fun.

This, however, was a good show and it begins with…

Continue reading “WCW Monday Nitro (Oct. 2nd, 1995) – A Clean Shave”

Someone had asked if there was any chance of me doing Thunder since those are also on the WCW Youtube channel… the answer is kinda, sorta no.

No, seriously, the answer is no.

And now, on with Nitro… but before we do, allow me to extend congratulations to Stephanie McMahon, future WWE Hall Of Famer and champion of VPN services everywhere! I expect many ear plugs to sell out in preparation for the oral violation that is to occur with that acceptance speech.

But enough about that! On with Nitro!

Continue reading “WCW Monday Nitro (Sept. 25th, 1995) – Yep.”

The show opens with Gene Okerlund interviewing Kevin Sullivan and the Giant… and yes, there was a time where they tried to pass off Giant as the son of Andre The Giant – hence the similar looking singlet… except Paul Wight is obviously not French. Harlem Heat somehow lose the tag titles to the American Males (Bagwell fell on top of Booker for the win)… don’t worry, the Heat would get them back eventually. After another Ric Flair promo taunting Arn Anderson, Paul Orndorff, somehow looking 80 years old despite being half that age, defeated Johnny B. Badd in a nothing match.

Randy Savage refuses Flair’s help with Lex Luger, which draws out Lex Luger so they can go at it verbally. This is followed by a replay of some WCW show where Hulk Hogan’s motorcycle is run over by the Giant’s monster truck… see, because they’re gonna have a monster truck battle at Halloween Havoc. And finally, Ric Flair defeated Brian Pillman via submission in the main event that lasted a little over five minutes, but it was fun while it lasted, I guess.

Three shows in and the matches are starting to feel less big time than the did initially. For what it’s worth, it wasn’t a bad show… but it also wasn’t all that important unless you really want your American Male fix.

For anyone wondering… I do plan on eventually making a nicer banner for these Nitro musings rather than reusing the old banner that I made for the final Nitro episode musings that I wrote ages ago. Sure would be nice to have something a little more lively for these things.

In any event, this is episode 2 of WCW Monday Nitro and the first episode to go head-to-head with Monday Night RAW. Unlike last episode, which took place at the Mall Of America, this takes place in a proper arena and so we have the classic WCW Nitro set.

Continue reading “WCW Monday Nitro (Sept. 11th, 1995) – Sabu Debuts”

On this day – thirty years ago, to be precise – the very first episode of WCW Monday Nitro took place at the Mall Of America in Minesota. It was a sixty minute episode where, among other things, a former WCW champion made his return to the company shortly after his run in WWF, another Ric Flair vs. Sting match took place, and Hulk Hogan sold Hulkaroos to the few Hulkamaniacs who weren’t booing his ass at WCW shows.

WWE launched a WCW Youtube channel earlier this year, which featured uploads of WCW Monday Nitro. So we’re gonna watch these as they go up and for the rest, I was provided with some recordings thanks to a buddy of mine. These aren’t full-blow reviews or anything like that – you can get those anywhere – just some mild observations. If you’ve read my 21 Years Ago In TNA project that I did a while back, you’ll have an idea of what this will be about… although unlike those early NWA-TNA runs, I don’t anticipate hating these. In fact, a lot of these I never got to see, so it’ll be a genuinely fresh experience.

Continue reading “WCW Monday Nitro (Sept. 4th, 1995) – Lighting The Fuse”