Pre-show notes:
– Click here to watch this week’s episode on WWE Network. If you’d like to read about previous episodes, check out the WCW Monday Nitro tag page.
– In case you missed it, the retro Best and Worst of WWF Monday Night Raw column has jumped ahead to 1996. We’re doubling up on Raws this week to compensate for losing Monday to SummerSlam.
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And now, the vintage Best and Worst of WCW Monday Nitro for Aug. 5, 1996.
Worst: It Takes A Village
This week’s opening match is the poor old Rock n’ Roll Express trying to win the WCW Tag Team Championships from Harlem Heat and their weird Death of a Salesman management team.
The RnRs hit a double dropkick on Booker T and look to have the match won, which is a weird fantasy straight from the mind of your dad when he’s 50 but thinks he could still beat up the local 20-year-olds. Anyway, Gibson has Booker pinned, so Sherri climbs into the ring and starts Frenching him. That pisses off Colonel Parker, who climbs up onto the apron and tries to fight Gibson. That finally provides enough distraction for Gibson to get rolled up (with his feet just straight-up tangled in the ropes) and lose.
There’s just so many steps here. You’re relying on an antiquated, possessive plantation owner to be present and get hot about seeing his salty, on-again-off-again MILF girlfriend force herself on people while they’re trying to work for interference. Couldn’t they cut this Tennessee Williams sh*t out and just like, bring a hammer to the ring? Oh no, Robert Gibson’s pinning my dude, referee’s distracted, boom, hammer to the back of the head. Robert Gibson’s legally dead, and you’re still the tag champs.
We Know The nWo Is Here And That’s Important But As A Reminder, Glacier Is Coming
Maybe they could add Glacier to Harlem Heat’s entourage. Harlem Heat wrestles Desperado Joe Gomez and The Renegade. Joe Gomez hits his finish (a hip toss, or whatever) and goes for the pin. Sherri sees it, crawls in under the bottom rope and puts her tongue in his ear. Colonel Parker gets on the apron waving around a handkerchief, which summons Glacier to ninja into the ring and rips off Gomez’s head with the spine still attached.
What would be a better addition to the Harlem Heat than a karate gym teacher in a Sub-Zero costume? We could call them, “Fire & Ice.”
Worst: The Nasty Boys Ride The Fence
After the first match, Mean Gene confronts The Nasty Boys about their attempts to be Diamond Dallas Page in this nWo story. They address Knobbs’ real-life friendship with Hogan, and Knobbs says he doesn’t care what Hogan does in his spare time. IF ONLY HE KNEW. The Nasties don’t stand with the nWo OR with WCW, they stand where they’ve always stood, “in Nastyville.” It’s like Dudleyville, but above the Mason-Dixon line.
Looking back, I kinda wish the fate of WCW had depended on the alignment of the Nasty Boys. “You might have all the top stars in wrestling, nWo, but we’ve got these two kinda tallish fat guys who will hit you all with aluminum trashcans!”
Worst: Madusa Vs. All Asians, Indiscriminately
At HOG WILD, WCW is doing Madusa vs. Bull Nakano. I can’t wait to write about that show, because it was booked by the most short-sighted people in wrestling history. You’re running a show at a motorcycle rally in the Dakotas. What person who has never watched wrestling ever thought, “Hey, you know what those people would like? Women’s wrestling, black guys as tag champs, puroresu stars and 30 minutes of scientific mat wrestling with two false finishes.” You know what they actually wanted to see? Hulk Hogan and bodyslams.
Anyway, they try to add some relevance to the women’s match. WCW uses their penchant for assuming every Asian person is an equal, evil foreigner by pitching the match as USA vs. Japan. To make it relevant to bikers, they say the winner will get to smash the loser’s motorcycle, which would be great if the past six months of Nitro had been Bull Nakano driving around on a Kawasaki, bragging about the superiority of Japanese craftsmanship. Instead, it’s a Japanese lady who will be upset because a different, unrelated thing from Japan is being destroyed. Imagine if they brought you into work one day and said, “Hey, you did a bad job on that presentation, so we’re smashing this Cutlass Supreme.”
To build to this, Madusa faces the only Asian lady they can get to central Florida, Malia Hosaka. She’s managed by Sonny Onoo, because of course she is. Nobody tell Sonny she’s from Hawaii. Madusa’s offense here is like 30 percent “big slaps to the belly,” which is weird. If Hosaka tries anything, Madusa gives her a big slap to the stomach and stuns her. They build to Madusa dropkicking Onoo off the apron, Hosaka pinning her off a successful dropkick landing and having Onoo hold her feet to keep her from kicking out. I screencapped it specifically to show you the referee staring at Onoo while he counts.
¯_(ツ)_/¯
Best: Chris Benoit Vs. Alex Wright, Or
Worst: Jimmy Hart, Random Match-Ender
Chris Benoit wrestles Alex Wright, and it looks like it’s going to be a great match. Benoit’s his usual aggressive self, but Wright comes prepared; when Benoit starts in with the heavy chops, Wright gets aggressive right back, firing off some impressive, urgent offense that says, “please do not keep lumping me in with Jim Powers, Joe Gomez and The Renegade.”
Unfortunately, we don’t get much of it. Jimmy Hart runs out to confront Woman about how she’s making Kevin Sullivan crazy, and how she should come with him to be the back. Larry Zybyszko chimes in with, “WOMEN ALWAYS DO THAT TO MEN, IT COMES NATURALLY.” When she won’t comply, Dean Malenko shows up to drag her to the back, and Benoit jumps Malenko in defense. This gets him counted out, and sets up the ill-fated Benoit/Malenko match at Hog Wild. And, comma, makes us breathe nervously through our teeth about more Benoit/Sullivan/Woman stuff on Nitro.
One of the strangest aspects of the finish is that throughout the episode, the announcers point out that WCW wrestlers have chosen to be “security” for the show and sit at ringside to protect the matches, regardless of past grudges. You’ve got Dungeon of Doom members Big Bubba and Meng sitting at ringside doing nothing for this entire match, then a DIFFERENT sect of Dungeon of Doom reps running out to screw it up. Nobody seems to care about WCW guys running out to ruin matches, but if WCW guys show up, that’s a different story.
wait–
Worst: Randy Savage Mails Us Into Hour 2
Macho Man Randy Savage wrestles Lord Steven Regal, and about a minute in, the HOUR TWO DYNAMITE pops up in the corner. As you know if you’re a regular reader of the column, anything happening when Nitro goes from hour one to hour two is doomed to failure, and this is no different. Instead of being this wonderful hidden gem full of hilarious facial expressions and dudes hitting each other way too hard, it’s your standard, mailed-in 1996 Macho Man match. They fart around for like six minutes until Savage hits the elbow and wins. They shoot off fireworks in the middle of the match, of course, and even the camera zooms back to watch them instead of the wrestling.
To make things worse, the announce team has to stick around for hour two because Eric Bischoff and Bobby Heenan are missing. GASP. Also, they spend the entire time building up next week’s main event, which is Macho Man challenging the winner of the WCW Heavyweight Championship match at Hog Wild. Spoiler alert, he doesn’t wrestle either of them. He wrestles Flair.
¯_(ツ)_/¯¯_(ツ)_/¯
Best: Limo Ribs and Dated References
During the match, a mysterious limousine drives up to the WCW set and parks. If you’re a WCW fan, you know that “recently parked vehicles” are the most entrancing thing in the world, and cause whoever is around to stop whatever they’re doing and try to solve a bunch of assumed, car-related mysteries.
Here, Team WCW investigates and finds out that the passenger of the limo is a BOUQUET OF FLOWERS — I’m not sh*tting you — with a “condolences on the death of WCW” ribbon around it. Maybe they were trying to drive to Scott Keith’s house? Apparently this was a rib on Jim Cornette, who once sent sympathy flowers to Jim Herd in the early ’90s. References we can all understand!
In response, Team WCW takes the flowers to the ring and punts them, announcing that WCW is “very much alive and well.” Mean Gene goes for the world’s most dated reference, saying that Macho Man is, “kinda like Freddy Cox here!” If you’ve been living under a rock, Fred Cox was the Minnesota Vikings placekicker from 1963 until 1977. He also invented the Nerf football, so either Gene hadn’t watched pro sports in 20 years or is a huge fan of f*cking around in the yard with his grandkids.
Worst: The Booty Man Still Exists
oh great
So here’s a serious question: If you’re wondering which of your WCW stars could be a mole for Hulk Hogan and the nWo, why not go straight to the guy who was Hulk Hogan’s mole in the Dungeon of Doom?
If you want to see someone who is dead inside, watch Kimberly Page say “you all look BOOTY-full!” as she walks to the ring with the My Little Pony version of Dog The Bounty Hunter strutting behind her. This is Booty Man’s last Nitro appearance and is just 3 minutes of Ric Flair beating him to death before the Horsemen show up and make it worse. He’d make his final appearance at Hog Wild, which I’ll spoil for you next week.
RIP The Booty Man, you were too bootyfull for this world.
Best: Hulk Hogan Vs. CRAIG LEATHERS
1. The nWo air another paid advertisement, and it features one of Hulk Hogan’s favorite things: the ability to say FEE-FI-FO-FUM in a promo against The Giant. He LOVES IT. I’m honestly surprised he didn’t buy a separate commercial break just to say “big stinky giant” over and over.
2. Sting and Lex Luger have had enough, and confront spectacularly named producer CRAIG LEATHERS about pulling it off the air. He tries to explain to them that the nWo paid for the time and it’s out of his hands, but Sting tells him not to “put trash on the air.” I guess Sting hasn’t been watching any Jim Duggan matches recently and isn’t aware there’s a precedent. Sting and Luger manage to shirtlessly bully them enough to get it pulled, and we awkwardly jump back to Tony, Larry and a production assistant. Tony weighs in on the debate in the most milquetoast, Tony Shiavone way possible: “In defense of Craig Leathers, it was a paid announcement from the nWo, but Sting has a good point … throw ’em off the air!”
3. If Hulk Hogan got signed to NXT, his new name would be “Craig Leathers.”
Best: Teddy Long Gets Dropped
Giant wrestles Sgt. Craig Pittman, referred to by Tony as “one of the greatest amateur wrestlers of all time,” because “easily one of the greatest dog-themed army guys In The History Of Our Sport” didn’t say enough. I’m shocked Giant would step into the ring with someone of Pittman’s skill level only a week after defeating 85-year-old Greg Valentine, but there’s a reason he’s WCW Champion.
Anyway, Giant quickly disposes of Pittman and becomes my hero by chokeslamming Teddy Long, as well. Larry yells about how Teddy’s going to “have a heart attack,” which is true, but only like 12 years later during a wedding. Giant cuts another one of his shockingly good promos, saying that if Hogan has the guts to show up at Hog Wild, “he’ll show them to him.” Kinda wish they’d kept him in this “I’m the Juggernaut, bitch” persona his entire career.
Best/Worst: DEATHNOTE
Last and probably least, Sting and Lex Luger defeat the TWEENER SUPERSTAR Nasty Boys by submission with a Scorpion Deathlock. It’s all an appetizer for the true main event, which is another limo pulling up, and Sting and Luger having to investigate it like a spooky mystery.
Instead of funerary flowers (cc: Matt Striker), Sting is thrown a backpack with a ransomless ransom note from the nWo inside. It’s got their logo at the top and is printed in nWo font and everything. In it, they razz him about Hog Wild and say Rey was right about a fourth member … but that there’s also a fifth one. Keep in mind that the original nWo ended up having 33 members, so poor Sting’s got a lot of spooky notes stuffed into backpacks and thrown at him from limousines to go.
Next week: Bikers meet Harlem Heat, and it doesn’t go well.
