Category: WCW Monday Nitro (1995-2001)

We open today’s edition of WCW Monday Nitro with the Giant NOT making short work of Hacksaw Jim Duggan… because he ain’t doing a job without getting his shit in, tough guy! Hey, at least now I know it’s not just a lack of wanting to put over that German kid Alex Wright in ’99; this was fairly consistent behavior for an otherwise swell guy.

Speaking of Alex Wright, he gets beat by Lex Luger in a thing that happened and Hulk Hogan and his band of merry idiots (the Macho Man and the BOOTY MAN… fucking shoot me) overcome the odds… but the most significant piece of business is the return of the STEINER BROTHERS to WCW, where they have a match with the Road Warriors that turns out to be quite a fun spectacle before Rick eats a spiked weapon from Animal and gets pinned by Hawk. Well, that was odd… but then again, maybe it’s odd now knowing which of these teams stuck around and which didn’t.

Yeah, so other than the one tag match, this Nitro didn’t do much for me… but then again, it’s hard to get excited for this show when we’re building towards one of the most worst WCW PPVs to ever be conceived by human hands: WCW Uncensored 1996.

You know… the one with the Doomsday Cage match.

If you don’t know, here’s a refresher.

Now you do.

Fuck.

Opening match see Sting defeat Big Bubba (a.k.a. the former Big Bossman is he big, Ray Traylor) with a crossbody in a pretty fun opening match, which is followed by the Road Warriors challenging Sting and Lex Luger to defend their titles in a Chicago Street Fighter at the upcoming Uncensored PPV… which is in Tupelo, by the way… the farthest thing from “Chicago” as you can get. For those who have seen the Monday Night Wars DVD, this is where the clip of Eric Bischoff giving away RAW results is taken from. You’ll note that I don’t make mention of these happening all that often because I try to blank out on commentary… and part of that has to do with Mongo, who started off tolerable and sometimes even good, but had since degraded into unintelligible twat that it’s almost sad. It’s probably for the best that he eventually transitioned to wrestler in a couple months.

Lex Luger defeated THE RENEGADE via Torture Rack with an assist from Jimmy Hart, which causes Sting to come out and cry foul. The Renegade is no longer wearing any facepaint, but still maintains some Warrior mannerisms. It’s too bad the guy stuck with this Warrior rip-off gimmick and never bothered to remake his image because I’d imagine he would have had some modicum of success for being his own man rather than being a rip-off… maybe he wouldn’t have taken his own life as a result… yeah, I’m being grim here. Sorry.

Road Warriors defeated Harlem Heat to cement their status as challengers for the tag titles. Good match for what it was and this is followed by our main event, which features Hulk Hogan, Macho Man, and the BOOTY MAN (Ed Leslie’s 48,882,802th gimmick change after being Zodiac… his sudden turn from the Dungeon Of Doom being explained that he was actually a SPY for Hogan… so that whole thing with Starrcade ’94 and them fighting for the World title was a ruse? My brain hurts more than it deserves to be hurt – why are you stupid, Nitro?! WHY?!! Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah…) facing off against Ric Flair, Kevin Sullivan, and Arn Anderson – the last one being the recipient of a Hogan legdrop as the Huckster gets his win back, JACK!

The show ends with Hogan helping Liz put handcuffs on him so that he can get pummeled by Flair and friends. An absolutely wretched main event to close an otherwise serviceable Nitro.

So quick note before we close up: there’s no Nitro Musings next week because Nitro didn’t air next week, so we’ll be continuing two weeks later. However, Nitro musings will resume on Wednesdays rather than Thursdays for the simple reason that 1996 was a leap year (every fourth year, February has 29 calendar days) while 2026 is not. That way, we can continue the gimmick of “On This Day 30 Years Ago…” that these Nitro posts have adopted.

With that said, there is going to be something to fill the void, but you’ll have to wait and see…

The show opens with Hulk Hogan beating on Arn Anderson for a bit before run-ins galore, ref is distracted and sees Savage in the ring, and ends up DQ’ing Hogan, which gives Arn another win over Hogan. Wow, would you look at that?

Belfast Bruiser… took me a while to figure out that this was Fit Finlay because I almost didn’t recognize him with the messy long hair and ‘stache… anyway, he beats up on perennial journeyman Brad Armstrong and it’s perfectly acceptable fodder. Unfortunately, we’ve got another Loch Ness match, with Alex Wright being the sad recipient of a large dent. The show ends with Ric Flair retaining his WCW title over Macho Man thanks to another shoe because… sure, why not? That’s our only fucking finish these days.

This show was a bit of a slog and then it dawned on me. We’re on our way to Uncensored and the DOOMSDAY CAGE match. People are going to have to try and convince me that this show is still good while we’re building towards THAT pile of shit. Good luck.

“Did you tell them my mother was weight-challenged?”
“No, I just told them what to write.”
Al Borland and Tim Taylor
Home Improvement Season 6 Episode 14
The Karate Kid Returns

Long story short – if you like weight-challenged wrestlers, this is the Nitro for you. Otherwise, see you next week.

Continue reading “WCW Monday Nitro (Feb. 12th, 1996) – Mrs. Borland’s Favorite Nitro”

A bit of a historical record breaking moment.

Oh, I’m not talking about Nitro, although I will say that this is probably one of the better episodes I’ve seen in a while as far as general interest goes. But with this post, we have officially surpassed the NWA-TNA run from a couple years ago, when I dropped off after 21 weeks due to the debut of “OH SHIT! IT’S VINCE RUSSO!” and that’s when I decided, “Nope. Not for me.” Fortunately, Russo isn’t anywhere to be found here in 1996, but we are a couple months away from the end of the road when Scott Hall shows up and Nitro expands to two hours. I’m still on the fence as to how to proceed beyond that, but we’ll cross that bridge eventually.

Right now, let’s talk about this Nitro show…

Continue reading “WCW Monday Nitro (Feb. 5th, 1996) – A Breeze Monumental Moment”

This is the show with the Ric Flair/Hulk Hogan match where Ric Flair beats Hogan with Elizabeth’s shoe. Yes, a bunch of run-ins and a really stupid finish took place, but let’s not bury the lede here: after four years across two promotions, Flair finally gets a rare win over the Hulkster. That’s pretty much the only thing worth mentioning on this show.

Well, the Road Warriors make their return and there’s some further squabbling between Kevin Sullivan and Brian Pillman also featured Arn Anderson, who left his glock at home and instead issues a challenge.

Not much to this one. Next.

So let’s do the abbreviated notes. Macho Man defeats Ric Flair in a good opening match to win his second WCW World title, which leads to sportsman of the century Hulk Hogan congratulating the man and demanding his long-awaited shot… which Macho responds by saying that when he beats Hulk, then Hulk has to shake his hand… good luck with that one, Mach.

Brian Pillman defeated Dean Malenko via Malenko getting his foot caught in the ropes and Pillman taking advantage. I have no idea what that finish was and the match itself was just there. And then Sting and Lex Luger win the tag titles from Harlem Heat after Luger whacks Booker with some coinage for the cheap win. I suppose this makes up for the screwjob finish from last week or something. And then Hulk Hogan beats One Man Gang in a quick match before getting mauled by the Dungeon Of Doom and Horsemen before Macho Man comes out to help or something.

I will say that the Savage/Flair match was the best part of the show and the rest is skippable. Moving right along.

We’ve got a rather eventful episode of Nitro this week where a couple of significant things happen going forward. And it’s actually a pretty good episode as well.

Continue reading “WCW Monday Nitro (Jan 15th, 1996) – And Then Public Enemy Appeared”

Today’s Nitro offering begins with Chris Benoit making short work of this Alex Wright fella… I’d use some other word to describe the massacre involved, but… yeah, it’s already feeling awkward. This is quickly followed by a pretty fun match between Eddie Guerrero and Lord Steven Regal that saw Eddie win with a backslide pin, which is a nice, sneaky move that fits the man. I’d use some other word, but that’s being too cute shortly after the awkwardness of the Benoit match.

Mean Gene interviews Sting and Lex Luger, where Luger suggests that he and Sting go after the tag titles, even though Luger is somewhat of a spotty individual. This transitions to a match between Sting and DDP (still a scummy heel at this point, for those keeping track) that sees Sting submit Yoda Man with the Scorpion Deathlock. And then we have our main event tag match that sees Hulk Hogan and Macho Man defeated Ric Flair and Arn Anderson via Hogan dropping the leg on Arn for the pin… and then Benoit and Brian Pillman are brawling with some Dungeon of Doom dorks while Giant comes out and chokeslams the babyfaces to close the show.

A nice breezy hour of Nitro; not much happening, but the wrestling was solid and I was entertained. That’s all I ever want out of an entertainment program. Good job.

 

Happy New Year, everyone!

Needless to say that I’ve recovered from my musings over that Bash At The Beach show that I’m suddenly in a good mood thanks to the new year… or maybe this was written ahead of time and I’m just dropping this opening bit as a clever means of transition from the morbid mood that last show left me in.

Thankfully, we’re starting the New Year with a quick recap of today’s edition of 30 Year Old WCW Monday Nitro… which we’ll get out of the way now so that the more important post of the day – the annual Winners And Losers list for 2025 – can be posted about a half hour later and get most of the attention.

In the meantime, we have WCW Nitro from the Omni in Atlanta, where Ric Flair is set to defend the WCW World title against the Orange Goblin himself, Hulk Hogan. Will this match work for the Huckster, brother? Let’s find out.

Continue reading “WCW Monday Nitro (Jan. 1st, 1996) – Where The Big Boys Have A Happy New Year”