WCW Thunder - Thursday, 03/19/98

WCW Thunder - Thursday 03/19/98

By Xavier Doom of Xavier Doom's Slayground and Red

"Drag him outside! He's messing the carpet again!!!"

Hello, all. I'm back from surgery and was able to muster enough energy to get online and post Xavier Doom's report. Actually, all things considered I'm in pretty good shape and actually feeling better less than 24 hours after the surgery than I felt last summer with the bad disk. And, I am not kidding about this, when I woke up from surgery, I saw my girlfriend. She asked me how I felt and this is the first thing I said after waking up from surgery.
Trivia Question from Dean Ayass: What was the name of the tag team Chris Jericho was in whilst in Smoky Mountain Wrestling, and who was his tag partner? (Answer at bottom of my comments)
The mailbag:
- From Matt O.:
  One thing that you did not mention in your Thunder report was the Hennig/Rude interview. The funniest thing about the interview was that if Rude and Hennig are supposed to be life long friends, Rude still does not know how to pronounce Hennig's name right. Twice he called him Henning. He started out calling him Henning, then caught himself and said Hennig, and finally he called him Henning once again at the end of the interview. They also mentioned beating up people with Norton since they were in school. I find it funny that all Rude has to do is give interviews and pretend he is best friends with Hennig, and he can't even do that correctly.
- From Victor P., regarding Raven's critique of Brad Armstrong on Thunder:
  Brad Armstrong should've grabbed the mic from Raven and did a shoot of "I beat you for the light heavyweight title in '92, didn't I?" as Raven was talking about Armstrongs title history, and failures in the sport. That would've been sweet.
- From Joel S., on getting married in style:
  I am going to the next ECW PPV with two friends of mine that are getting married the week before. He is going to have a sign that says "Just Married: This Is Our Honeymoon" and they are also going to donate the bride's garter belt and bridal bouquet to be used as weapons.
I got to tell you guys, I'm a little disappointed. I bought a card for my PC that captures a TV feed and put some of the JPGs in Wade's Monday report. Not a single comment, positive or negative, on the new "multimedia" format of DDT Digest. $220 and not a single e-mail, other than one asking for permission to copy my slightly modifed 1-800-YES-B**BS picture. Sheesh!!! Well, regardless, I will be peppering the reports and the site with some little JPGs to give it a little color, especially for those of you who don't catch the broadcast. With the 56K standard finally being approved, I figure I can beef up the bandwidth a little to jazz up the site. The pictures tonight aren't that good quality because I got them off videotape. Live feed, like I had Monday, or commercial grade videotape produces much better results.
If you haven't checked it out in the last few days, Arn's official site has been updated with a bunch of stills from the first War Games. You should check them out. Also, you can now order one of the first 1,000 books directly off the site.
Trivia Answer: The Thrillseekers, with Lance Storm, now in ECW.
And now on to Xavier Doom's report.

Okay, the show's starting up. I'm here, Trixie's here and so is Red. The television is on, and so far, that's a good thing.
I'm dreading another Hogan-dominated Thunder. Some pretty credible newspages are reporting that there is genuine tension backstage between Hogan and other members of the nWo. Why? Cuz Hogan's gotta steal the spotlight all the time.
It was because of Hogan that Red and I nearly fell asleep during Uncensored. Tonight, we're hopped up on caffeine and Frank Zappa music. Me, I can't stop singing "Truck Driver Divorce". This had better be a good Thunder; I could be watching Leafs-Bruins on TSN.
Opening segment: A recap of Sting dropping from the sky on Nitro. An underwhelmed Red sez "You know what Thunder needs? Gary Glitter music." No, that wasn't supposed to make any sense.
We're live and in kull-ah in Terre Haute, Indiana.
We go to the three shot. Tony yaks about Uncensored, and the nWo situation. After Tony gives WAY TOO MUCH background, Lee Marshall talks for about 30 seconds and says absolutely nothing. Heenan says Savage wants to win the WCW title to piss off Hogan.
Match One: WCW World Cruiserweight champ Chris Jericho vs. Super Calo
- Jericho: "Everybody here knows that Terry Hutt is my favourite town."
- Hey, Chris! Terry Hutt was Jabba's brother, right?
- Trixie wants to know what's on Super Calo's face. Red says it's a prophylactic.
- Jericho dominates the match.
- Calo recovers and hits Jericho with some punches. He works the crowd and gets little reaction.
- Jericho does the Syxx back-heel kick in the corner.
- Jericho misses an avalanche, flies outside and gets nailed with a suicide dive.
- Back in the ring, Calo shows incredible slowness as he's whipped to the corner.
- Jericho ties up Calo in the Liontamer. You know the drill.
- Marshall: "Jericho retains the title." Well, DUH.
Tease for WCW Saturday Night. They're promising Glacier. Oh boy!
Match Two: El Dandy vs. Kendall Windham
- I can't believe that Windham was once the skinniest guy in wrestling.
- The crowd's not watching, they've turned around to look at something off camera.
- Ah, the crowd was watching Raven's Flock come to ringside.
- Raven has DDP's US title belt.
- Windham nails the bulldog and wins an uninspired (but short) match.
- Schiavone is promising to show how Raven got his hands on the belt.
Schiavone takes the microphone and interviews Curt Hennig and Rick Rude
- Hennig throws the towel over his shoulder.
- They talk about Hennig's match with Rick Steiner later this evening.
- Hennig and Rude talk about the ass-whuppin' they gave Bret Hart at Uncensored.
- They're obviously trying to build heat around Hart
Match Three: La Parka vs. Saturn
- La Parka's got the chair and some... sort... of... apron.
- You just know Bill's marking out right now. Or he will when he sees the tape.
- Anyone who hasn't seen any of Saturn's ECW matches doesn't know how badly WCW is misusing the man.
- Saturn gets the early advantage, attacking Parka as Parka mocks him.
- Saturn vertical suplexes Parka into the ring while standing on the second rope. Awesome.
- Saturn with a Taz-like t-bone supplex.
- La Parka nails him with a clothesline.
- La Parka blows a leapfrog.
- La Parka dives from the top and nails Saturn and Lodi.
- Lodi has Kilroy on his back. Hmmm...
- La Parka gets his chair, but gets dropkicked into it.
- Saturn hits a great belly-to-belly suplex and ends it with The Rings of Saturn.
- That was Saturn's best WCW match yet.
- Red: "So far, this is better than the last Thunder we saw (two weeks ago)."
Video of Diamond Dallas Page on MTV.
- "What about Raven?" Blah, blah, blah...
- Ow! Raven sneaks up behind DDP and BLASTS him with a stop sign.
- Raven nails the DDT on DDP and steals the belt.
Match Four: Barry "Repo Man" Darsow vs. Ray Traylor
- I can't believe they booked these guys to fight each other on international television.
- Trixie's left the living room. Good timing.
- An out-of-shape Darsow nearly falls over after delivering a knee lift.
- Traylor does a baseball slide out of the ring, stops, and punches Darsow. Why so much effort to deliver a punch?
- Darsow stretches Traylor's right arm. Guess he's trying to repossess it.
- Red: "He (Darsow) needs a bra."
- Punch, punch, kick, kick, slam, slam, yawn, yawn.
- Darsow runs throught the turnbuckles into the ringpost.
- Traylor Trash and pin.
- Traylor yaks at Hogan: "You ain't gonna get rid of me." Say it ain't so.
- Tony says he has a major announcement to make. Okay, so make it already...!
- We go to commercial anyway.
This week in WCW Motorsports. Why? Why?
- Schiavone promises to make the announcement after this segment.
- Tony warns us to sit down. The announcement may be hazardous to our health.
- Thanks for the warning, Tony!
Tony makes the announcement
- It's official! Roddy Piper is coming to Nitro to make a challenge!!!
- Oh... this is so exciting. My heart... my heart... Trixie... help...!
Match Five: Prince Iaukea vs. Yugi Nagata
- Armlock switches to start.
- These guys aren't great, but both have potential.
- Everytime Red sees Iaukea, he thinks Jimmy Snuka. I think King Tonga (Meng, circa 1985).
- Little crowd heat for this one.
- Good kicks by Nagata.
- Red's falling asleep on the couch.
- Upper body scissors by Nagata.
- Nagata with a shot to the throat.
- Heenan: "Last time I saw the Prince holding his throat like that, he'd just woofed down a bowl of poi."
- Great belly-to-belly suplex by Nagata.
- Sonny Ono goes up to the apron, and accidentally kicks his man.
- Northern Lights suplex by the Prince. He gets the pin.
Uncensored clips. The Giant vs. Kevin Nash. Nash is shown jumping in the pool on Nitro. What's the point?
Match Six: Brian "Crunchie" Adams vs. Marty Jannetty
- If you want to know why I call Adams "Crunchie", check out my Thunder report from two weeks ago.
- Red says he'd rather watch Jim Neidhart. He says Jannetty looks like Barry Manilow.
- Crunchie starts the squash.
- Highlights: none.
- Crunchie is incredibly strong. He tosses Jannetty around with little effort.
- Jannetty hits a Lex Luger "no contact" atomic drop.
- He follows with a missile dropkick and a sleeper.
- Slllllllooooooooowwwwwwwwww tilt-a-whirl suplex by Crunchie.
- Pin.
1-800-YES-YES-YES-YES-YES-YES-B**BS!!!
Bruise Cruise promo. Bill...?
Three shot again. Hey, Marshall's gone! Tenay's there.
- Sting's Nitro helicopter stunt is shown.
- Tony, Heenan and Tenay talk about how dangerous this was.
- So?
- This is really freakin' boring.
Match Seven: Psychosis vs. Eddy Guerrero
- Red: "This could be good."
- When Red's right, he's right.
- Yo, Bischoff!!! GIVE EDDY SOME GOLD!!!
- Good arm-twist/clothesline combo by Eddy.
- Eddy shows Crunchie how to do a tilt-a-whirl.
- Great luchadore switches by both guys.
- "Eddy Sucks" chants. These Terry Hutt people are darn rude.
- Baseball slide into a dropkick by Psichosis. Note to Traylor -- a baseball slide should lead somewhere.
- Corkscrew moonsault by Psichosis. Well done.
- Another corkscrew attempt. Psichosis misses.
- They grapple on the top rope. Eddy tosses Psichosis off.
- Frog splash. Stick a fork in him, he's done!
Match Seven: Raven vs. Brad Armstrong
- Raven displays "his" US title belt.
- Armstrong displays his shirt: "Armstrong Curse".
- Armstrong gets in Raven's face.
- The match hasn't started, and The Flock attacks.
- Reese and Hammer blast Armstrong. The Flock holds him.
- Hey, it's Kidman! Humperdido!!! (No, you won't understand that comment unless you read the DC Comic "Preacher")
- Raven tells Armstrong that he has offered to save his soul.
- He then natters on about the MTV fiasco. Yadda, yadda, yadda.
- "What about Raven?" Yeah, what about him?
- He demands Armstrong, and gives him the DDT.
- Even though the bell never rang to start the match, the ref counts Armstrong's shoulders down.
Promo for Bret Hart
- Question for Canadian (or any) fans: Is Hart better than fellow Canucks Jericho or Benoit?
- E-mail me if you have an opinion.
Match Eight: Scott Norton (with Vincent) vs. Chris Benoit
- Red was gonna get up to get some ice cream , but it's Benoit. Eyes front!!!
- Benoit nails Vincent and Norton with stiff chops.
- Norton hits Benoit with a good shoulderblock.
- Red says WCW should further the US title angle by having Benoit fight DDP, win the championship, and then go after Raven to get his belt. Not bad...
- Norton uses the chop-clothesline attack.
- Powerslam by Norton. We get a two-and-three-quarters count.
- Norton with a backdrop.
- My bud Wheezer© calls. He's forsaken Thunder for the Leafs-Bruins game.
- Benoit comes back and slaps on the Crippler Crossface.
- Vincent gets on the apron, and Benoit breaks the hold.
- Norton hits a great shoulderbreaker. He pins Benoit!
- Norton finally shows why he's a name in Japan.
- Let's see him do it again (without a guy like Benoit to sell his moves).
Match Nine: Bill Goldberg vs. Wayne Bloom
- The usual pop for Goldburp.
- Bloom sure has fallen a long way since his days in The Destruction Crew and Beverly Brothers.
- Goldburp breaks a full nelson, applies his own, and slams Bloom.
- Pumphandle suplex by Goldburp.
- Bloom with a series of punches and whip to the corner.
- Goldburp flies out of the corner with the spear.
- Jackhammer, pin. Time of the match, 1 minute, 19.41 seconds.
- Saturn climbs the rail, teasing a confrontation with Goldburp.
- It doesn't happen. Yet. Maybe at Spring Stampede?
Match Ten: Curt Hennig (with Rick Rude) vs. Rick Steiner (with Ted DiBiase)
- Lee Marshall starts to talk. I start to sing to drown him out: "Truck Driver Divorce -- It's really sad. Oh the wife! Oh the kids! Oh, the waitress..."
- Steiner dominates a short match.
- Rude interferes, causing a disqualification.
- DiBiase gets physically involved, and tossed out.
- The nWo B-team rushes the ring. No sign of Scott Steiner.
- Traylor comes out to help Rick Steiner.
- Rick, Traylor and DiBiase take an ass kicking!
- Goldberg comes out!!!
- He destroys Hennig, Crunchie and Norton with the spear.
- Goldberg leaves.
- There you have it: Goldberg's first push into the upper ranks in WCW.
- A great way to end the show -- a show that was better than Uncensored.
Trivia answer: The doll's name was "Mine".

WCW Thunder - Thursday 03/19/98

By Xavier Doom of Xavier Doom's Slayground and Red

"Drag him outside! He's messing the carpet again!!!"

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