WCW Monday Nitro - Monday, 06/29/98

WCW Monday Nitro - Monday, 06/29/98

By Wade

Arthur Murray, Class of '98
You should be dancin', yeah...
Michael D. from University of Southern Florida, and curator of the Unofficial DX Homepage, sends in the following arena report:
There were rumors outside the arena that Kevin Nash had quit the WCW directly before the event this evening, and I have a feeling that Sting’s new tag partner with his new belt, could be substantiating evidence. Scott Hall and Kevin Nash were at the arena a few hours before the show, but neither showed up for any action tonight. In fact, the entire Wolfpac was pretty dormant tonight.

The biggest pops went to Goldberg, of course, and in fact, the ‘pre-recorded’ Goldberg chants weren’t even necessary tonight. The other huge pop went to Dean Malenko, who wrestled about 5-10 miles from his high school Alma Mater, Jesuit High School of Tampa. He was the hometown hero tonight, and got a huge pop during his match with the Ultimo Dragon.

The crowd booed during the entire ‘nWo Late Hour with Eric Bischoff’ segment. What a lame concept. The WCW is trying so hard to give Scott Steiner a push, but they’re failing miserably. The whole crowd was booing loudly, so I didn’t hear, nor did I care about, the entire interview.

Everyone in our section thought that three of the Four Horsemen were going to be formed tonight, with the Harlem Heat match. I’d not seen so many ‘Four Horsemen’ hand gestures since mid-last year. We all thought the Stevie Ray/Booker T split was going to be tonight, so the Booker T/Bret Hart angle was actually a big surprise. Bret Hart made some highly obscene gestures to the crowd after laying out Booker T with the chair.

There were too many Steve Austin and Bill Goldberg look-alikes to count tonight. It was pretty ridiculous.

During the Eddie/Little Dragon match, my dad thought that Little Dragon was Chavo in a mask. He turned out to be wrong, but they do have much the same style, so I thought it was a good guess, and worth mentioning. I personally thought Little Dragon was Wildcat Willie in another costume.

Overall I had a great time, and Hogan getting ‘slam-dunked’ was worth wading through the terrible traffic after the show was over. The show could have used a little more flair (pun intended), but overall not a bad show.

Regarding the 'house band', Matt T. sends the following:
In the "you didn't ask but I'm telling you anyway" category, the house band for Bischoff's incredibly lame "Late Night" bit was none other than the great Rev. Billy C. Wirtz and his Polyester Prophets.

The Rev. was born in South Carolina, raised in Washington DC and currently resides in nearby St Augustine, FL. (I'm in Gainesville, btw). The Rev. was tutored by none other than blues piano legend Sunnyland Slim, serving for a time as the maestro's chaffuer.

Rev. Billy is quite frankly one of the finest social commentators in music today. He's attacked religion ("Butt for the Grace" and "It's a Small, Small Mind" (concerning the Southern Baptists boycott of Disney)), politics ("Right-Wing Round-Up" and the parody of "Big John," "Big Jess"), fallen relationships (the biting "Just Friends"), social outcasts ("Mennonite Surf Party"), little old ladies driving humongous cars ("Grandma's Behind the Wheel") and even lesbian truck drivers from Venus ("Brenda"). He's even took on pro wrestling fans with the touching "Grandma vs. the Crusher," and frequently mentions Ric Flair in his spiels. His albums include Tales of a Hillbilly Love God, Pianist Envy, Deep Fried and Sanctified and Songs of Faith and Inflamation.

Rev. Billy's live shows are a combination of his own side-splitting songs, fantastic covers of blues tunes with the Prophets, and his side-of-mouth comments that can only be described as a cross between Twainian commentary and slick backwoods evangelism. His shows always promise a good time, and the Rev. is a fantastic piano player, as showcased by his beautiful versions of Floyd Cramer's "Last Date" and Dizzy Gillespie's "What a Wonderful World." If you ever get a chance, check him out when he comes to your town.

On a personal note, I've hung out and interviewed the Rev., and found him to be incredibly funny, highly intelligent and a genuinely nice cat. I'm glad to see him get some national exposure...but I do hope he was doing it for the money.

Aldo D. sends the following:
First off, thanks for the "shout out."  The following is a live arena report from yesterday's Nitro attended (unfortunately, I'll get to this later) by myself and a good friend of mine.  And, on we HOOOOO, I mean goooo!!  How did that get in there? :)
Doug took a road trip to go see Nitro:
My friend and I arrived early at the Ice Palace to see if we would run into any wrestlers. The Ice Palace was promoting a meet and greet before the show. We paid $6.95 to get into the restaurant at the Ice Palace. A meal and autograph signings were included. At the autograph signings were: In the hallways before the match, a lot of people were chanting "Goldberg" and "Whoooo!!!". There were a lot of guys walking around with their bald heads...a lot of Goldberg and Steve Austin wannabes.

Goldberg chants were happening all night long. I believe these were real. When Goldberg came out for the main event, it was obvious that the chant was being piped in through the sound system.

We were able to watch the TV feed on the Ice Palace big screens at the top of the arena. The 18-wheeler shots were obviously taped the night before because when the truck arrived at the Ice Palace, there were no cars in the picture. In reality there were cars all around the Ice Palace and would have shown up on the picture.

The nWo-Late Night segment with Bischoff was booed from beginning to end. At one point, I couldn't even hear what they were saying because the booing was so loud.

Outside of Goldberg's first entrance, the biggest pop of the night went to Disco Inferno...I thought that was pretty funny. Malenko was warmly received also.


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