This Week In The WCW
This Week In The WCW
WCW Monday Night Nitro - Monday, 12/16/96
- The show opened with Schiavone and Zbyszko. About ten seconds into it the nWo music started and Bischoff, DiBiase and Vincent appeared and went to the booth and told Schiavone and Zbyszko to leave. Zbyszko refused to leave at first and threatened to fight but eventually left. Bischoff renamed the evening nWo Monday Nitro and announced Hogan was in the building.
- "Lord" Steven Regal def. Psychosis via submission with a Regal Stretch after Psychosis missed a flying head scissors.
- Regal retains the WCW World Television Title.
- "Big" Bubba Rogers pinned Chavo Guerrero, Jr. after Chavo jumped right into a Bubba Slam.
- Okerlund interviewed Sonny Ono and Masa Hiro Chono. Ono started talking about how he was Chono's agent and he was trying to get Chono to sign with New Japan. Chono threw off his coat to show he was wearing an nWo t-shirt. He then picked Ono up and threw him aside.
- "Lionheart" Chris Jericho defeated Masa Hiro Chono via disqualification when Chono starting choking Jericho out when
Jericho was hanging outside the ring when his foot got caught in the ropes.
- Chono no-sold almost all of Jericho's moves.
- During the match, Bischoff did an Al D'Amato-style imitation of a Japanese accent.
- Bischoff also specifically mentioned McMahon and made fun of the previous evening's WWF pay-per-view.
- Okerlund interviewed Flair, Anderson, and the McMichaels.
- Anderson said he was going to mend Sullivan's broken heart by breaking his body.
- Anderson: "Over the course of history, the kiss of a woman has poisoned a lot of great minds."
- As my buddy said about Debra McMichael when she was prattling on: "What a cracker!".
- "The Man of 1,000 Holds" Dean Malenko pinned David Sammartino with a double underhook rollover.
- The finish was a totally blown spot. Sammartino's right shoulder wasn't anywhere near the mat when the referee started counting.
- Malenko retains the World Cruiserweight Title.
- David Sammartino has lost a lot of weight and is really cut. He is now in the Cruiserweight division.
- At the beginning of hour number two, Bischoff and DiBiase voluntarily relinquished the booth to Schiavone, Tenay, and Heenan.
- Ice Train defeated Jerry Flynn with a heel-lock submission. (It looked like a half Boston Crab, but the pressure is on the heel rather than the back.)
- When Jerry Flynn entered the arena, my Jobber-Matic 5000 immediately red-lined.
- When Ice Train made his way to the ring, Teddy Long tripped and fell before coming down the aisle.
- At the end of the Ice Train match, the Outsiders came out and challenged the Faces of Fear to fight them there in Pensacola before the end of the show.
- Ray Misterio, Jr. pinned "Beautiful" Bobby Eaton following a flying head scissors delivered when Eaton was perched on the second rope.
- "Taskmaster" Kevin Sullivan pinned "The Enforcer" Arn Anderson after giving him a seat. Mind you, the seat was delivered to the back of Anderson's head.
- Before the match, they showed another Benoit/Woman video. Benoit and Woman made baby talk in French to each other. Benoit asked Sullivan, "Doesn't life suck?" Then Benoit asked Sullivan what being lonely and a loser felt like. This just incensed Sullivan even more before the match.
- The match immediately spilled out into the crowd and chairs were involved.
- Back in the ring, the referee and Anderson both got blinded at one point and Anderson accidentally DDT'd the referee.
- After DDTing the referee, Anderson was about to go after Sullivan. Hugh Morrus rushed the ring and was immediately DDT'd for his trouble. Konan then rushed the ring only to have an unexpected meeting with Anderson's fisties. When Anderson went after Jimmy Hart, he got chaired by Sullivan. Hart revived the referee who then counted the pinfall on Anderson.
- All night long, the nWo had touted that Sting was going to make his nWo debut tonight in a fight against Rick Steiner. After the Steiner Brothers came to the ring for the match, Sting and the nWo Sting (Cobra) came to the ring together. To the nWo's surprise, real Sting then gave nWo Sting a reverse DDT. The real Sting then left the arena.
- Hogan, Giant, Elizabeth, DiBiase, and Vincent came to the ring and Hogan challenged Piper to come out claiming that Piper was in the building. (He knew full well that Piper wasn't there). He sent Vincent in the back to dig Piper out. While Vincent was looking, Hogan said he could beat up Flair and Piper at the same time. Then Hogan made Elizabeth kiss him. She did so reluctantly. Vincent came back and said Piper ran out the back door when Hogan came in the front door. Hogan then gave the nWo-ites a treat by posing.
- The Faces of Fear and Outsiders match lasted about one minute before "Big" Bubba Rogers rushed the ring. However, instead of siding with the Faces of Fear, he attacked them. Thus, he was the newest convert to the nWo. The remainder of the Dungeon of Doom rushed the ring and sided with the Faces of Fear. Very quickly, all of the wrestlers in the building rushed the ring and began fighting it out. Aside from the general clubbering, there were a few elements of note. M. Wallstreet fought alongside the nWo. When Scott "Flash" Norton came out, he fought alongside the nWo (another convert). At the end, Sting rushed the ring. He was attacked by Anderson and Anderson was decked by Sting. The same result happened when Steve "Mongo" McMichael went after Sting and got decked. Misterio tried to jump Sting and Sting swatted him away like a fly. The announcers made a big thing out of the exchanges with Sting saying he must be nWo after all, but I think the angle is that he only attacked people who attacked him. (NOTE: In my original posting on this subject, I noted that I thought that the Sting that came to the ring at the end was the nWo Sting. However, I've gotten a couple of e-mails saying I was wrong. Given the response, I must have been mistaken.)
WCW {Pro} Wrestling - Sunday, 12/15/96
WCW {Pro} Wrestling was preempted this week by the TBS
James Bond marathon.
WCW Saturday Night - Saturday, 12/14/96
- "The Man of 1,000 Holds" Dean Malenko made Billy Kidman submit with the Texas Cloverleaf. Malenko retains the WCW World Cruiserweight Title.
- The Renegade and "Desperado" Joe Gomez def. High Voltage when Renegade pinned Kaos (sic) after a splash off the top rope.
- Jeff Jarrett def. Larry Santo via submission with a Figure-Four Leglock.
- I was going to comment that the match was mercifully short until they used the extra time to replay the Sting "I need a hero" montage.
- "Diamond" Dallas Page pinned Rex King following a back body drop directly into a Diamond Cutter.
- In the post-match interview, Page referred to Eddie Guerrero as "Senor Eddie, the Dorito Boy".
- It was supposedly a post-match interview, but was obviously filmed at another time.
- Ice Train pinned "Luscious" Luther Riggs following a John Tenta squash.
- If wrestling doesn't work out for him, Luther Riggs has a fine career ahead of him as a Donald Trump impersonator.
- The Faces of Fear def. "Big" Ron Studd and (Rochester) Road Block when Barbarian pinned Road Block following a Kick of Fear.
- Lee Marshall showed "Taskmaster" Kevin Sullivan another Benoit/Woman video.
- Benoit: "Woman gets to be with the stallion".
- Woman: "Woman gets what Woman wants. She always has and she always will."
- Afterwards, Sullivan said he was going to take it out on Anderson for bringing Benoit into the WCW and the Horsemen. Sullivan said it's now personal.
- "Lord" Steven Regal pinned "The Laughing Man" Hugh Morrus with a powerbomb and a bridge after pulling Morrus off the ropes as Morrus was setting up a moonsault. Regal retains the WCW World Television Title.
- In the nWo match, The Giant pinned K.C. Sunshine following a chokeslam.
- K.C. Sunshine was the unnamed jobber that Kevin Sullivan squashed on Nitro.
- During the match, Hall in referring to the Giant said, "He's literally a ball o' fire".
- Nash referred to the Giant's small package as a large package.
- "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan pinned "Squire" Dave Taylor after a sock in the mush with a taped fist. *yawn*
- The show ending with a few very serious words from Arn Anderson. The soliloquy was delivered straight, without any change in camera angle. It was one of the best, and most serious, wrestling interviews I've ever seen.
"I asked for a little of WCW's valuable time. I never ask for anything but I called in a marker on this one. You see, something's either happened or is about to happen of unbelievable magnitude. A couple of years ago, I was in Japan wrestling and I saw a kid named Chris Benoit. And it just flew off the page. That's a Horseman. I went to WCW officials. I played a very big part in getting Chris Benoit here. And he's exceeded all of our expectations. And I told him, the first rule is, Chris, anything you want in this sport, the road doesn't rise up to meet any man. You've got to reach out there and take it. But, you see there's an unwritten rule, also. A cardinal rule. It doesn't just apply to wrestling or sports. It applies to every, every, every aspect of a man's life. Number one, you take care of your family. Rule number two, you don't mess around in another man's family. You see, I know now that you're in Germany. We can't find Woman. We deduce whatever we will. The fact of the matter is, Chris, there's going to come a time, and it's not that far down the road. You see, I've got more age and years. I've got more age in the business, in this great sport. And age denotes wisdom. There's going to come a time in my life and in your life when there's no more cameras. No more TV lights. No more people running up to you at the mall saying, "Can I have your autograph?" And whether you walk away from this great sport, or whether you limp away, or whether they roll you away in a wheelchair, the one constant will always be in your life, is your
family. They're there. They pat you up when you're hurt. They prop you up. They build your ego up. And they send you back out that door. Well, Chris, I'm just going to ask you one time. Is this obsession with destroying every aspect of Kevin Sullivan's life worth losing your soul? Well, is it?"