This Week In The WCW
This Week In The WCW
WCW Monday Night Nitro - Monday, 04/14/97
- Show starts with Schiavone announcing that Luger wants the shot against Hogan that he earned at Spring Stampede tonight. Cue the nWo music and they come to the booth. Nash gets a decent pop announcing that Philadelphia is nWo country. Nash says Luger has to go through him tonight to get his shot against Hogan. Crowd goes friggin' nuts for the nWo.
- "Crippler" Chris Benoit pinned Barbarian after a flying headbutt.
- Huge pop for Benoit when he comes out. He is alone tonight. Even huger pop when he pins Barbarian.
- After the match, the Dungeon of Doom rush the ring and lay a world of hurtin' on Benoit. Jarrett and Mongo run in and make the save.
- Okerlund interviewed Benoit after the match. Guess what? The interview went absolutely nowhere. Hard to believe given the verbal skills of the two men involved.
- U.S. Heavyweight Champion "The Man of 1,000 Holds" Dean Malenko made Hector Guerrero submit with the Texas Cloverleaf to retain the championship.
- Schiavone announced that next Monday's Nitro would have a big announcement about a review of Bischoff's files.
- Eddie, with his arm legitimately in a sling, came to the ring when Malenko wouldn't release the hold. He said, "If you hurt my blood, you'll see a side of me you don't want to see". To which Dean said, "I, and all of these people, already know what you're all about". Wow, I haven't seen drama like this since Little House on the Prairie.
- Quick Quiz: Hector Guerrero currently works under a mask on occasion in WCW and, at one time, worked under a different mask in the WWF with another gimmick. Can you name them? Answer is at the end of the report.
- Exclusive clips of the movie Volcano. Gee, thanks, much better than the wrestling I was planning on seeing.
- Reggie White is in the crowd. Schiavone confirmed the AP report that Reggie has signed with WCW to wrestle Mongo.
- Rey Misterio, Jr. pinned Juventud Guerrera with a very crisp hurricarana.
- A spontaneous "ECW, ECW!" chant started during the match. It stopped very abruptly. They must have flashed a sign saying that if the chant didn't stop, they were going to have Hacksaw Duggan and "Squire" Dave Taylor come out and wrestle.
- A flying headscissor that took them both out of the ring may have been a blown spot.
- Okerlund interviewed Luna Vachon. He mentioned that the first time he met her was at Plato's Retreat in New York City. Actually, that was pretty funny. Luna said she was going to be the person to take the belt from around Madusa's waist. Belt? What belt? Her chastity belt? Uh, Luna, you've been taking history lessons from Okerlund. Hokuto has the belt, not Madusa.
- Ultimo Dragon pinned Lane Carlson with a Dragon Suplex and bridge to retain the WCW World Television Championship.
- Syxx made Prince Iaukea submit with a Buzzkiller (combination chicken wing and crossface) to retain the WCW World Cruiserweight Championship.
- Syxx DOES have a long tongue. Sorry, just an observation.
- You know, I do like the dance Prince Iaukea does before the match.
- By the way, Nick Patrick has petitioned to become a WCW referee again. Gee, next thing you know, Hogan will turn face, too. Gee, can't imagine that happening.
- Some guy in the front row kept holding up his big Four Horsemen foam hand holding down all the fingers except the middle one.
- Okerlund interviewed Flair, Piper, and Kevin Greene. Piper talked nonsense. Greene started to put it together talking about his respect for Flair and Piper as they made the sport what it is today. Then Flair talked about his career. Then, when I was actually starting to enjoy the interview, the Three Stooges started dancing around again. Oh, well.
- Zbyszko noted: "Kevin Greene, this guy's a goof, too!"
- Umm, does Piper ever wrestle?
- Public Enemy def. High Voltage in a Philadelphia Street Fight when Rocco Rock pinned Rage after doing a drive-by on Rage and putting him through two tables.
- Public Enemy came out wearing Flyers jerseys to the crowd's delight. That incited a number of "Let's go, Flyers!" chants during the match.
- Surprisingly, only one "ECW, ECW!" chant during the match.
- The match included garbage cans and baking pans and, of course, a toilet seat. Always a crowd pleaser.
- The Giant pinned Big Al following a choke slam.
- The Giant's butt cheeks were sticking out again. That's nasty!
- The match was really lame. Criminy, you could see a better fight between a couple of drunk guys on a Saturday night at the Sigma Pi fraternity house at Drury College.
- "Diamond" Dallas Page pinned Konan after a Diamond Cutter.
- Man, Kimberly is incredible from the neck down. Of course, from the neck up ain't chopped liver, either.
- Konan made a very obscene gesture at Kimberly in the beginning of the match.
- Savage and Elizabeth appeared in the crowd after the match and Savage taunted DDP. DDP stormed through the crowd after him but Savage skeedaddled.
- Lee Marshall's at a red hot Nitro party in Saginaw, Michigan. Yeah, right. Probably sitting a Motel Six room by himself watching pornos.
- Announcers are still talking about Bischoff's files being confiscated by the WCW executives. Since it would seem that Scott Hall is not coming back anytime soon, I think they are going to strip the Outsiders of the title.
- Steve "Mongo" McMichael & Jeff Jarrett def. Harlem Heat via DQ when Sister Sherri started choking out The Queen of the WCW.
- At the end, Sherri went to hit Debra with the Haliburton. Debra ducked and Sherri clipped her anyway by accident.
- In the post match interview, Okerlund referred to Jarrett as Double J, which is a trademark infringement on the WWF. What a moron.
- McMichael insulted Reggie White in the post match interview. White jumped in the ring and they had to be separated.
- A couple of people at the show e-mailed me to say that half the crowd was cheering him and the other half were yelling "Reggie sucks!" and "You sold out!"
- The thing with Debra is interesting because supposedly WCW wanted her to feud with Woman but Debra had absolutely refused to get physical in the ring.
- "The Total Package" Lex Luger def. Kevin Nash via DQ when the nWo rushed the ring.
- The match started with the nWo surrounding the ring. It looked like a Lumberjack Match.
- After the match, DDP ran in to make the ring and got a beating for his trouble.
- The Giant then came out and Nash stood in the ring with a lead pipe.
- Sting then came out and tossed bats to Luger, Page, and Giant and then went in ring with his own bat.
- Nash went after Sting with the lead pipe. Sting ducked and hit a double on Nash. The WCW guys came in the ring and the nWo guys rolled out.
- Time for Robin Hood!
- An arena report from John Pabst who was at the show:
- There were two dark matches. The first one was the Extreme (with some valet that I'd never seen before) against Joe Gomez and Ice Train. [Editor's Note: The valet was Kimona Wanalaya of ECW. She is most famous for a striptease she did at an ECW show (she was wearing pasties). It was rumored that she might manage the "new" Four Horsemen which would be led by Chris Benoit. Seemingly, this was a tryout for her.]
- The Extreme did great work, with a real cool move on Joe Gomez. They threw him out of the ring, then one of them hit Gomez with a body press over the top rope. The other member hit him with a dropkick off the apron when he stood back up.
- The match ended when Ice Train cleared the ring after Gomez got stomped for a while and was able to make the tag. Train pinned Ace Darling after a big splash.
- The second match was Luna Vachon vs. Madusa. I was suprised this wasn't going to be a televised match.
- The match lasted about 5 minutes. Luna was DQ'd for accidently kicking the ref in the groin when Madusa attempted a German Suplex. Really dumb.
There were alot of nWo fans in the crowd, with people walking around on the floor trying to get things riled up.
I don't know what was shown on TV, but here's a few more interesting tidbits:
- Reggie White was in attendance, and was introduced to the crowd during a comercial break. The Spectrum went nuts.
- Many of the fans in attendance started chanting "ECW! ECW!" during some of the matches. There were a lot of ECW shirts in the crowd, also.
- Public Enemy got a HUGE reception. The people went nuts through the whole match. It was worth the price of admission alone. They had five guys cleaning the ring after the match, sweeping out the glass.
- I didn't think the crowd could get any louder when Ric Flair came out...until Piper showed up. They screamed louder for him than anyone else the whole night. Even Reggie White.
- I don't know if they went to commercial in the middle of the Horsemen/Harlem Heat match [Editor's Note: They did], but the music for Nitro started playing, then the match temporarliy stopped. Mongo and Jarrett got in the ring together after clearing it and strutted together. Sherri was yelling and screaming outside the ring, trying to get at Debra, Mongo and Jarrett got between them, and Harlem Heat pulled Sherri away repeatedly. This went on for a few minutes before they started wrestling again.
- I don't know how they ended the show, but Sting was ringside with the Giant and DDP when Lex was attacked. He gave everyone a bat, and then went into the ring. Kevin Nash went after him, and was hit in the stomach, then behind the leg to be taken down. The WCW guys then cleared the ring, and the nWo had to drag Nash back to the dressing room. He tried to charge the ring twice, and gave the finger to everyone in the ring, screaming and yelling. DDP got on the turnbuckle and gave the nWo the finger back.
Many thanks to John for zipping in this report.
- Hector Guerrero is also known as LaserTron in WCW and was the Gobbledygooker in the WWF. The fact that they had a wrestler portraying the Gobbledygooker would imply that the Gobbledygooker was eventually supposed to get in the ring. Thankfully, the angle died a mercifully quick death before it could happen.
WCW {Pro} Wrestling - Sunday, 04/13/97
WCW {Pro} was preempted by a late-running baseball game this week
WCW Saturday Night - Saturday, 04/12/97
- "Lionheart" Chris Jericho pinned Mr. J.L. following a missile dropkick.
- "Crippler" Chris Benoit and Woman were interviewed. Benoit would not reveal who the "he" in "he was not supposed to be here (Spring Stampede)" was.
- Greg "The Hammer" Valentine pinned Buddy Lee Parker following a Hammer elbow drop.
- My guess is that Valentine is not "allowed" to use his famed figure four leglock since Jeff Jarrett is already using it as a finisher.
- "Lord" Steven Regal uncled "Beautiful" Bobby Eaton with a Regal Stretch.
- Dusty Rhodes, in the understatement of the year, touched on the fact that Mongo and Kevin Greene had a "falling out" some time ago. Yeah, Dusty, that explains the dropped angle adequately.
- Too add insult to injury, Regal reapplied the hold on Bobby in the walkway as he was trying to go back to the dressing room after the match.
- Bobby Eaton really deserves better than this.
- The Faces of Fear def. T. Rantula and Big Al when Meng pinned T. Rantula after a real spike piledriver.
- This match was terrible, even by WCW Saturday Night standards. It was four sleepwalking wrestlers blowing one spot after another.
- The highlight was the ending. The seemingly scripted ending, after a double headbutt from the Faces of Fear on T. Rantula, got screwed up as the ref stopped counting when Big Al successfully made a save he wasn't supposed to make. As a result, Meng lifted T. Rantula up for a powerbomb and Barbarian went to make it a double powerbomb, but T. Rantula got dropped on the back of his neck for a real spike piledriver instead. Luckily, he did not seem to be genuinely hurt and actually seemed to be laughing after the match.
- Jeff Jarrett uncled Villano IV with a figure-four leglock.
- Dean Malenko was interviewed. Criminy, he must have gone to the Chris Benoit school of interviewing techniques! He flubbed every line! Given that they can do as many takes as they want (that locker room is really a studio in the CNN tower), I can't imagine how bad the other takes were.
- Maxx uncled Roger Boone with a swinging full nelson.
- Maxx is absolutely huge!
- Maxx has a big tattoo on his right calf. Either I'm imagining things or the cameraman were trying very hard to make sure you didn't get a good look at it.
- High Voltage def. Ciclope and Galaxy when Rage pinned Galaxy after a Voltmeter.
- I'm not sure how long it's going to be there, but the official WCW home page has a feature on High Voltage.
- Congratulations to Ciclope for not hurting himself during a match for a change.
- "Crippler" Chris Benoit uncled Scotty Riggs with a Crippler Crossface in a match that went way too long.
- Harlem Heat def. The Armstrong Brothers when Stevie Ray pinned Scott after a reverse piledriver off the second turnbuckle (a new move for the Heat).
- Sizewise, Harlem Heat dwarfed the Armstrongs.
- At one point, Scott Armstrong made a weak save on his brother. Rhodes appropriately noted, "If you're gonna' make a save, knock his head off!"
- A commercial for IGI'A Permanent Hair Removal System. They should have showed this right after the T. Rantula match.
- "Taskmaster" Kevin Sullivan w/Jacqueline, Konan, Hugh Morrus, Barbarian, Meng, and Jimmy Hart def. Hardbody Harrison/Harris/Henderson (he's been called all three) via DQ after Chris Benoit interfered.
- Partway through the match, Benoit and Woman appeared in the entranceway and Woman was holding a claw hammer. Eventually, Benoit jumped in and got a few shots in on Sullivan, thereby causing the DQ, but he rolled out before the rest of the Dungeon of Doom could jump him.
- When it was all said and done, Jacqueline splashed Harrison/Harris/Henderson a few times from the top turnbuckle for good measure.
- "The Total Package" Lex Luger and The Giant def. The Power Team when the Giant pinned one of the power team after a chokeslam.
- The Power Team are a couple of short, stocky guys I've never seen before. The look alike and wear the same outfit. They were never given individual names and they are hard to tell apart.
- Schiavone noted how "big" it was of Luger to tag Giant in right before the win. Dusty noted, "Yeah, it's a nice gesture, but there's not nearly as much on the line here as there was at Spring Stampede". Wow, two lucid comments by Dusty in one broadcast. He must be on the wagon.
- While the chokeslam was not particularly vicious, Giant held the guy about seven feet in the air for quite a while.