This Week In The WCW
This Week In The WCW
- For those of you who tune in to this page in the middle of the night, a word of warning. On Monday, August 4th, between 2:00 and 5:00 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time, my ISP, Wizard, will be physically relocating their server from Merrifield, VA to McLean, VA. While that means a new dial up number and such for me, nothing should change for you, the pro wrestling web page consumer. However, the site will be down for those three hours in the middle of the night, in case anybody cares. Supposedly, their new set up will give them ten times the throughput, so starting 8/4, my site should be faster. We'll see.
- For a change of pace, WCW is doing a pay-per-view on Saturday rather than Sunday. Road Wild will be on Saturday, 8/9. That means I'll actually get a chance to see it and I'll be able to post the report immediately afterward.
- I got an interesting e-mail from Mungin in Seattle, WA: "Did you notice that Villano IV is Ray Mendoza Jr.? I finally figured it out when, on Nitro they said that the Villanos are all sons of Ray Mendoza Sr. A few months ago on Saturday Night they showed Ray Mendoza Jr. and he was wearing tights with the roman numeral (IV) on them. So I just put them together."
WCW Saturday Night - Saturday, 07/26/97
- In a four corners Lucha Libre tag team match, the team of Juventud Guerrera and Super Calo def. La Parka and Silver King when Super Calo pinned La Parka with a hurricarana after a head scissors from the top rope.
- The teams were Juventud Guerrera & Super Calo, La Parka & Silver King, Hector Garza & Lizmark, Jr., Villanos IV & V.
- The ending of this match was awful. After the head scissors, La Parka was lying flat and he purposely stuck his legs up and rolled himself backwards so Super Calo could catch him in the hurricarana.
- Greg Valentine pinned Tim Cheeks after an elbow to the head.
- Scheme Gene wants you to spend $1.59 a minute to find out who the "new WCW champion" is that was crowned overseas. I'm guessing it's a new women's heavyweight or women's cruiserweight champion. If anyone knows who the new champion is, let me know. Damned if I'm going to line Mean Gene's pockets. (Since the original posting of this, I got a response. See the Monday Nitro report for the answer.)
- Mortis pinned Psychosis following the Flatliner.
- Unlike Tuesday's Nitro, Psychosis didn't fall to the floor when he ran up the ropes in the corner tonight.
- After the match, La Parka chaired Mortis across the back. And he actually did it with a real metal chair instead of a balsa wood prop chair. Wrath then came in and gave La Parka the Death Penalty.
- Scheme Gene interviewed Curt Hennig. Yadda, yadda, yadda. Hennig will be facing "Diamond" Dallas Page at Sturgis.
- "Das Blunderpinned" Alex Wright pinned Doc Dean with a German Suplex and a bridge.
- "Dirty Rotten Scoundrel" Steve Regal made Chad Fortune submit to the Regal Stretch.
- The nWo came out to babble. I think the brunt of it was that they are going to try to take over WCW Saturday Night again.
- Nash: "Just in case your single-wide doesn't have cable access..."
- Nash (referring to the men in the nWo): "These are some of the most camera-friendly faces you'll ever see..."
- "Squire" Dave Taylor pinned "Beautiful" Bobby Eaton following a butterfly suplex.
- Scheme Gene interviewed "Nature Boy" Ric Flair. Flair says he is going to knock Syxx's teeth out. In a cool spot in the interview, Flair went through the list of names of the wrestlers that have tried to put him out and failed, including Bruiser Brody "God rest his soul", Murdoch, Wahoo McDaniel, and others.
- "American Male" Scotty Riggs pinned Julio Sanchez following a Flying Jalapeno.
- The Faces of Fear def. The Southern Posse when Barbarian pinned the Southern Posse guy without body hair after the Kick of Fear in a complete squash.
- After the match, the camera focused on some humanoid in the crowd giving a thumb across the throat. The guy had huge sweatpits.
- "Crippler" Chris Benoit def. WCW U.S. Heavyweight Champion Jeff Jarrett via DQ when Eddie Guerrero interfered. Why? I don't know.
- Benoit cleaned house of Guerrero and Jarrett after the match.
- Jarrett, of course, retains the title on the disqualification.
- Giant came to the ring and said that if anybody in the nWo has any guts, they should come out right now. Savage came out and other members of the nWo held him back. As Savage tried to make his way to the ring, the show ended.
- Given that ending, I thought I was watching Nitro.
WCW Worldwide - Sunday, 07/27/97
- The Steiners Brothers over Jim Powers and "Hardwork" Bobby Walker w/ Teddy Long
- Before the match, Rick Steiner kept pointing at Teddy Long, and yelling at the referee about something.
- Tony and Brain hype Steiners vs Outsiders.
- Walker had a big missed spot, when he attempted to walk the ropes, and do a leap frog, but instead just sort off fell into the ring.
- Rick Steiner grabbed Teddy Long's head from inside the ring and started rubbing his head!
- Top Rope Bulldog for the win.
- Prince Iaukea over Rick Fuller
- You can set your watch by Fuller's weekly jobs
- For my weekly compliment about Fuller, he had a great superplex on the Prince
- Missile Dropkick followed by a Cross Body Press for the win
- Interview - Lee Marshall with Curt Hennig
- WCW is coming back to Chicago, September 7
- Announced matches so far:
- Luger/Giant vs Hogan/Nash
- Death Match: DDP vs Savage
- Flair vs Hennig !?!
- Must be old, Lee didn't ask about the Four Horsemen
- Hennig says that it's a pleasure wrestling Flair, it'll be a great match.
- Well, I guess Hennig is turning on some more people
- Nitro Highlights - Orlando
- Giant attack on referee, Iaukea
- Nash denies being Sting
- Sting as Nash as Sting
- Greg " The Hammer" Valentine over Jerry Flynn
- Hammer looks old!!
- Why is he still wrestling? Why is he winning?
- Slow match
- Brainbuster Elbow followed by "The Hammer" Elbowdrop for the win
- Interview - Lee Marshall with Jeff Jarrett w/US Belt
- In the last twenty minutes, these matches just added:
- Hall/Syxx vs Steiners
- Jarrett vs Malenko for the US belt !?
- Again, old interview, no talk about truce between JJ and Malenko
- Jarrett talks about giving a rematch, strutting in with the belt, and strutting out with the belt
- Main event - "Lionheart" Chris Jericho over La Parka
- La Parka, the man who's gotten over because of a match with only his outfit wrestling.
- This match had to be taped before the DDP as La Parka stunt, because La Parka was wearing his only outfit, and getting a lot of heel heat.
- Jericho was on last week, the week before that, etc. Why? Well, it seems that WCW chooses to play matches of people they're pushing for many weeks in a row. For example, last fall, we saw about 5 or 6 straight weeks of Chris Benoit beating people, and never since. Jericho's going on about 4 in a row now, so he'll probably not be on for a while after this.
- Back to the match, huge powerbomb by La Parka.
- Tony and Brain talking about La Parka could still be DDP.
- Brain "I like the nWo, except for Hogan". Wolfpack anyone?
- La Parka misses from the top, Jericho goes to the top, waits, waits, hits.
- Jericho with Missile Dropkick.
- Scheduled for next week: Billy Kidman, Dean Malenko, Meng, and High Voltage
WCW {Pro} Wrestling - Sunday, 07/27/97
- Do you really believe:
- Do you really believe that Flair vs. Syxx will have a clean pin ending without interference, thus bringing the feud to an end?
- My girlfriend and I were talking about great fad pinning moves, such as...
- For example, Hugh Morrus' Last Laugh is good.
- In a tag-team match, two people from one team pinning one guy from the other team, like Public Enemy last week on Road Block, is another good trick.
- King Kong Bundy in the 1980's, when he was managed by Heenan, after he got the three count, demanded the ref to count two more times for a five-count.
- Chris Jericho pinned Dave Heath after a Missile Dropkick.
- Jericho came out without the belt. Look for him to lose it in the near future.
- Lizmark Jr. beat Super Calo after a failed hand-spring move.
- "Das {Bracketlover}" Alex Wright beat Tony Carr with a German Suplex.
- Larry Z. on Wright's dancing: "He's auditioning to become a Nitro Girl." Ha! That makes me laugh.
- Gene-O came on after the commercial and said "Attention Hotline Fans." HA! That's really laughable. Again, if you don't understand,
send an e-mail.
- Dave Taylor beat Doc Dean after a Double-Hook Suplex.
- Giving Taylor a push for the TV title blows. It wasn't beneath a superstar like Arn to hold it. So there's no reason for guys like DDP or Benoit to go after it instead of Dave "The Jobber" Taylor. Sad.
- Note: Even last week, after I told this to someone, she said, "Who the hell is Dave Taylor?" He is obsolete.
- P.S. A regular bum on the street would beat Dave Taylor.
- Jeff Jarrett (w/Debra but w/o the belt) beat Hector Guerrero with the Figure-Four.
- At the start of the match, there was only 6 minutes left in the show. Nothing like a 3 1/2 minute match. Sad.
WCW Monday Night Nitro - Monday, 07/28/97
- Boy, did I ever get a ton of mail on this. I made the mistake of translating Scott Hall's "jabron" to "goat". I got a number of corrections:
- Hi Bill, my name's Dario. Just wanted to point out a small thing: I didn't catch that part of the interview, but I have a feeling Hall said "cabron" instead. Goat in spanish is "cabra." And, as a point-of-information, "cabron" happens to mean "a**hole." Couldn't find "jabron" in the dictionary. Just thought you might like to know. Maybe WCW's trying to pull even somewhat with WWF's repeated use of the word "ass"...;)
- This is Dean, from Tampa Florida. just to let you and the guys know, "cabrón" or "cabrones", like Konan says and more recently Hall, does not mean goat. I'm originally from Puerto Rico, and if you say that to someone where I'm from, you get shot.
It does come from "cabra", which means "goat", but the cool thing is that it implies that you have horns behind your head without you knowing it. In other words, your wife is cheating on you and you don't know it but everyone else does - the ultimate insult!!
Well, anyway, in Mexico, the insult is more casual. It's more like "motherfu---". So, every time you hear Konnan say, "arriba la raza, cabrones!", he's saying, "long live the Mexican race, motherfu----!!!"
Hope this tidbit enlightens you - since Konan and Hall get away with big-league Hispanic cursing!!
P.S. He also says "puto", which means "male whore"!! he really cracks me up!!
- Hugo G. says: "My little contribution to a great page. A "cabron" is actually a man whose wife/girlfriend cheats on him".
- Johnny D: Are you sure Scott Hall said "Cabrone"? Earlier in the interview he used the word "gibroni" (pronounced je-brow-nie) which is a term Jerry Lawler uses a lot to refer to a jobber. Don't ask me where it comes from but it may be a common term or maybe Jerry taught it to him when they were both in WWF. Not sure, though, just a thought.
- As for the "new WCW champion" that Scheme Gene wants us to spend $1.59 a minute to find out about, G.P. from the University of Connecticut writes: "Well, according to Dean Rasmussen's post to RSPW, Yoshika Tamura beat Toshie Uematsu for the Women's Cruiserweight Title in Japan on the 18th. Hope that helps. Not surprised that That Bald-Headed Pygmy (as I like to refer to him) is trying to sucker people into calling the hotline, though."
- You know, every week I think Robin Hood (go ahead, I dare you to click on the link) can't get any worse and I'm proved wrong. You might be asking why I suffer through it and whine about it rather than just turn on the TV at 8:00 p.m. MST. The reason I don't is that I remember some six months ago when Nitro used to start a few minutes early. One week, it started something like ten minutes early and the show opened with Hall and Nash standing in the ring with chairs in their hands. The Nasty Boys and High Voltage were both laid out unconcious in the ring, having been just knocked into dreamland by the Outsiders. That was the way to start a night of wrestling. No such luck tonight. Tonight, Robin Hood is fighting a mirror image of himself. Reminds me of that scene on I Love Lucy with Lucy and Harpo Marx. And what is up with the chicks in the red dancing around Maid Marion? Does anyone actually think this is good TV?
And for the grand finale, Robin is fighting Darth Vader with light sabres. You'd think they'd at least change the colors of the light sabres so it wasn't exactly like Star Wars.
Whoops, that wasn't the grand finale after all. After copying I Love Lucy, and then copying Star Wars, immediately after saving themselves from near death, the protagonanists playfully barb each other, and a whimsical bar of music is played. Original Star Trek, anyone?
- The Nitro Girls start off the show. Somebody sent me an e-mail asking why Kimberly isn't featured more as the lead Nitro Girl. My guess is that of all them, except Kimberly, are trained professional dancers. While Kimberly can cut a mean slice of rug, I don't think she is a pro.
- Some major announcement concerning the World Heavyweight Championship is going to be made tonight.
- "Nature Boy" Ric Flair and Curt Hennig def. Buff Bagwell and Scott "Flash" Norton when Hennig pinned Bagwell with a Fisherman's Suplex (the move formerly known as the Perfectplex).
- My initial thought when Hennig came out with Flair was that Hennig was going to abandon another partner tonight.
- I figure that Malenko will be turning on Jarrett at Road Wild and joining the Horsemen.
- Hmmm, the announcers start off repeating "I guess Hennig is not with the nWo".
- Hennig is showing some serious ring rust. Probably due to that, Flair worked most of the match.
- You know, if Norton takes any more steroids, I think he will literally explode.
- J.J. Dillon will be making some sort of big offer to Sting tonight.
- Flair got Bagwell in the figure-four right before the commercial break in the middle of the match. Norton tried to make the save but Hennig prevented it. Bagwell got out of the figure-four on his own by poking Flair in the eyes. You'd think that after all these years, Flair would know enough to lay back on the figure-four.
- Scott Steiner is fighting Randy Savage later tonight. Yeah, that match will go to a clean finish.
- Syxx came out during the match and pulled Flair off the apron (and causing Flair to show a half moon) and they started to get into it. I figured it was going to lead to Hennig being abondoned in the ring. Instead, Flair showed his ring presence by taking a break from beating on Syxx to pull Norton out of the ring so Hennig could get the pin.
- When Flair's tights got pulled down, Zbyszko said "That's disgusting!" On the replay, which I saw, Zbyszko's comment didn't make all that much sense since the tights didn't get pulled down that far. However, Steve R. let me know that on the live broadcast, there was definitely a "bad moon rising" which was edited out in the replay.
- More Nitro Girls. Hmmm, I'm starting to get a little excited. Oh, there's Mean Gene. [shrivel]
- Scheme Gene interviews Flexy Lexy. Luger takes off his shirt to squeals from the ladies. What is this, Regis and Kathie Lee? The "big announcement" is that Luger said the WCW lawyers are going to start enforcing the 30-day mandatory title defense clause. So, Luger and Hogan are signed for a title match on next Monday's Nitro. Wow! Luger might get a clean victory over Hogan and bring the storyline to a conclusion so we won't need to spend $30 on the pay-per-view. And what do you think the odds are of that happening?
- WCW World Television Champion Ultimo Dragon made Prince Iaukea submit to the Dragon Sleeper to retain the title.
- I do like the Prince's dance before the match starts.
- Some humanoid in the crowd is holding up an "I love Tina" sing. Bah! Hold up a DDT Digest sign next time!
- What's up with all the empty seats in the first few rows in the main camera angle?
- Wow, there's a kid in the crowd with a La Parka mask on. Where do you buy those?
- Can you believe that Iaukea was Television Champion for three months? I had no idea that there were enough jobbers in all the world for him to make "title defenses" against to keep the title that long.
- The match was pretty even. Ultimo Dragon did a good job of putting Iaukea over.
- Scheme Gene comes out and introduces Ric Flair. Okerlund asks Flair if Hennig is a Horseman. Flair says, yes, indeedy-do. Hennig comes out to say it's not true. Benoit and Mongo come out looking a little peeved. Hennig insists he is still a free agent. Benoit and Mongo do not look happy at all and they walk to the ring for their match.
- The cameras zoom in on a "Raw is Weak" sign. Nice.
- A "Get Well Soon, Arn" sign.
- "The Crippler" Chris Benoit and Steve "Mongo" McMichael def. The Texas Hangmen when Benoit forced one of the Hangmen (they both look the same) to submit to the Crippler Crossface.
- No idea who the Texas Hangmen are. Built the same, wearing masks. According to Tenay, they've been around for years. Anybody got info on them?
- For some odd reason, Hall and Nash call in collect to hassle Schiavone and Zbyszko. Schiavone would only take the call if it was on 1-800-COLLECT.
- The ending was really odd. Mongo scored a reverse piledriver which almost got real ugly. Nick Patrick then waved Mongo off and Benoit came in. Patrick wouldn't accept the submission until Benoit got the Hangman's legs out from under the ropes.
- Nitro Girls again. They must spend more time changing their clothes than dancing.
- In a huge upset, "Das Blunderpinned" Alex Wright cleanly pinned WCW World Cruiserweight Champion "Lionheart" Chris Jericho with a German Suplex to .
- "WWF Sucks" sign. Nice.
- Interesting that this was a match for the Cruiserweight Belt since, recently, on an online chat, Eric Bischoff said that Alex Wright had put on about 25 pounds and was way beyond the Cruiserweight weight limit. Anybody else think he is a little too big and muscular now to be a cruiserweight (<= 225 pounds)?
- Crowd chanting "Faggot...faggot..." as Alex Wright threatens to leave in the middle in the match.
- Didja' ever notice that Jericho sells moves by making a face like he just stuck his toe in a cold pool to test the water?
- A completely clean job, no less.
- And the best part? After the match, Alex Wright put the belt down in the center of the ring and danced over it.
- Jarrett, Malenko, and Debra came out to announce that Malenko is on Jarrett's team.
- Syxx defeated "Diamond" Dallas Page via pinfall after Curt Hennig brained DDP with an international object from behind while Vincent was distracting the referee after DDP had hit Syxx with a Diamond Cutter. Hennig then rolled an unconcious Syxx on top of an unconcious DDP.
- Schiavone making a point of saying that since Nash and Hall called in long distance, they must not be here. Hmmm, they've never pulled that stunt before.
- DDP is so over with the crowd, it's unbelievable.
- DDP used the pancake piledriver as a set up for the Diamond Cutter. Haven't seen that for a while.
- By the way, I noticed that Harlem Heat are on the card for Road Wild after all. Remember what I said about the racist bikers whooping it up every time the Harlem Heat got hit last year. I'm guessing we'll see a repeat performance this year.
- "The Man of 1,000 Holds" Dean Malenko made Hector Guerrero submit to the Texas Cloverleaf.
- The nice thing about a match like this was that I was able to type out the result of the match before it even started since it was such a sure thing.
- Jarrett distracted Hector somewhat leading to the finish. After Jarrett came into the ring, Chavo, Jr. came to the ring to take exception to Jarrett's appearance. Malenko clobbered Jobber, Jr.
- After the match, Malenko's displeasure at Jarrett's and Debra's presence was very apparent.
- K-Dog came out unannounced to talk to Mean Gene. K-Dog had a great line to the folks out there in TV land: "If your picture is fuzzy, gray, or out of focus, don't adjust your tracking, it's just Mean Gene." K-Dog says he is going to put Misterio out for good and he is going to go through the "Mexican familia" one by one, starting with La Parka tonight.
- The Giant pinned The Great Muta following a chokeslam after Muta attempted to mist the Giant and Giant blocked it with his forearm.
- Interesting that when the Giant comes out alone, he comes out to no music at all.
- Savage harassed Giant from the stands before the match. You could barely see Savage in the crowd with all the humanoids jumping up and down in front of him. (Yeah, like if I was there I wouldn't have been jumping up and down in front of him, too.)
- At the beginning of the match, Bischoff came to the announcers' booth and, for some strange reason, Heenan and Tenay ran off so Bischoff could take over with Schiavone. I have no idea why Heenan and Tenay would run away from Bischoff when he is alone since he has been "suspended".
- Muta's getting a pretty serious bald spot.
- Bischoff asked Schiavone, "Are you and J.J. Dillon on the same diet plan?"
- After the match, Zbyszko confronted Bischoff at the announcer booth. Zbyszko coaxed Bischoff to the floor. Zbyszko then grabbed Bischoff in a headlock, dragged him off to the ring, and rolled Bischoff into the Giant. The Giant thanked Zbyszko with the index finger to the forehead twirling downward that Zbyszko does when he is introduced (kinda' cool). Giant picked Bischoff off and delivered a thunderous chokeslam. Almost as good as the one he gave Vincent a few months ago, but not quite.
- As Zbyszko was dragging Bischoff to the ring, I was sure it was a set up for Hall to come out and attack Zbyszko. I was wrong on that one.
- Nitro Girls again.
- K-Dog made La Parka submit to the Tequila Sunrise following a 187.
- La Parka, "The Chairman of WCW", came out with a chair with "Konnan" written on it.
- Psychosis made the save on La Parka after the match before K-Dog could do further damage.
- Before cutting to commercial, they replayed Bischoff getting chokeslammed in slow motion. The announcing team was laughing hysterically. Heenan asked as Bischoff was eight feet in the air facing upward, "Hey, Eric, what's the wattage on that bulb up there?"
- J.J. Dillon called in. The "big" announcement is that the goal is to get Sting back in the ring in September. Oh, dear, I can hardly catch my breath. And, are you still sitting down? Sting may be on Nitro next week! Goodness, get me a defilbrulator. I may drop from all these exciting announcements. *yawn*
- Scott "Steroid" Steiner def. Randy "Macho Man" Savage via DQ when The Outsiders interfered after Scott hit Savage with a Super Frankensteiner from the top turnbuckle.
- Scott doesn't look as huge with the new goatee. He needs a shave.
- When Savage got tossed outside the ring, he gave Rick Steiner a shot in the face. That's a good idea, ya' friggin' idiot.
- Savage and Steiner were fighting in the crowd at one point. Some guy took one of those big foam hands and held down all of the fingers except the middle one so he was flipping a big, huge, foam hand bird. Cool.
- Steiner and Savage went back into the crowd a second time. Some guy in the crowd gave a great look to the camera as in "What the hell?"
- When the Outsiders interfered, the first thing Randy "Pee Wee" Anderson did was protect Miss Elizabeth because the garbage started flying.
- Giant came out to even up the odds after the Outsiders interfered.
- As Hall and Nash were leaving, Nash laughingly said "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry".
- The Giant grabbed the microphone and said he'd get Savage at Sturgis, so he wanted the big guy now. Nash said he didn't want to fight his way through all the security. In a great spot, Doug Dillinger and the Keystone Cops said "Go ahead" and they stepped aside. As Nash was about to go into the ring and face the Giant, guess what happened? Nitro ended.
Ed, who I can't respond to via e-mail so I'm saying thank you here (Thanks, Ed!), sends the following arena report:
- Two Dark Matches:
- Chavo Guerrero Jr. (When are they going to have Chavo Sr. out for a father/son tag match? I'm sure Mike Tenay has suggested it) over Gorgeous George. The only things I remember about this match is 1) Gorgeous George is about as Gorgeous as my old, dead, dog (also named George), and 2) Gorgeous George looks like a drag queen. In fact, many people took delight in yelling out "you f***ing queer" whenever he looked towards the crowd.
- Harlem Heat over the Vanilla,...ahem Villanova, I mean, uh, the Villano Twins. Hey, head right over to the World Championship Wrestling official site for an inside look at the Villano Duet. Read about the hopes and aspirations of the men they call Villano IV and Villano V. (I am not making this up.) The Heat got a pretty good pop, especially for the Heat guy who was in the 1-800-COLLECT commercial (Booker T.).
- Of course, the pop to pop all pops went to Ric Flair at the beginning of the show. I should have expected this, since I heard people doing Flair trademark 'Whooo' everywhere I went, from getting tickets to looking at the WCW shirts to eating at the Subway in the mall across the street.
- The Giant, DDP, and especially Larry Zybyszko all got good pops, too. Other points of interest:
- I've heard people talk about the debris thrown in the ring, but they do have the announcer say to everyone to not throw stuff into the ring. Of course everyone booed him, and then when Alex Wright won the belt, he got pelted with ice. A good flow of debris went into the ring at the end of all the other matches, until the ending finale when everyone who bought drinks or nachos threw their empty (or occasionally full) containers down at the nWo.
- Also, there was a VERY loud chant of "faggot" toward Alex Wright during the match, encouraged by Jericho.
- I don't know when the cameras stopped rolling, but at the end, the Giant came down and cleaned house, then challenged Nash to a fight. Nash was about to get in the ring, and the fans went wild, and then Nash laughed at the way the fans actually thought something would happen without the cameras rolling, and walked off. Well, that's about it. A nice show, but the ending kinda' sucked, and everyone was kind of worn out after the first match.