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. We also do a retro Best and Worst of WWF Monday Night Raw to coincide with the Nitro report.
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And now, please enjoy from the vintage Best and Worst of WCW Monday Nitro for August 26, 1996.
Best: Juventud Guerrera Vs. Billy Kidman, Round One
This week, we’re opening with two future Cruiserweight Division mainstays: Billy Kidman, and the debuting Juventud Guerrera. Kidman would win his first Cruiserweight Championship from Guerrera two years later, and they share 6 championships between them. If you’re starting from the beginning of the Best and Worst of Nitro and are experiencing everything for the first time, you may remember Kidman as that nice, Paul Pfeiffer-looking kid Dean Malenko took to the f*cking woodshed at Disney World.
As far as 4-minute matches between curtain-jerking unknowns goes, it’s hard to be better than this. The show goes right into the match, and Kidman and Juvy are just like, “f*ck it, let’s get our sh*t in.” Slingshot legdrop from the inside to the floor? Check. Springboard tornillo? Check. POWERBOMB TO THE FLOOR? SPRINGBOARD COUNTERED INTO A POWERBOMB? SHOOTING STAR PRESS? DRAGONSTEINER? WE GOT FOUR MINUTES, BOYS, BURN IT TO THE GROUND.
One of my favorite things to look for in the crowd is low expectations turning to surprise, turning to excitement. Sometimes you’ll see a guy in the crowd respond to a big move by standing up, turning around and trying to make sure that was as amazing as he thought. It happens a few times here, and by the end everybody’s standing and cheering. Watching somebody change their mind is one of the cooler things about wrestling done right.
Worst: Juventud Guerrera Vs. Mean Gene
Juvy gets the win, and he’s going to sub-in for the injured Psicosis and get a shot at Konnan’s Mexican Heavyweight Championship at Fall Brawl. He sticks around to talk to Mean Gene after the match, which would be fine if he knew how to speak English, or if Gene would be cool with him speaking Spanish. Eventually Juvy would be speak English well enough to be hilarious on Thunder color commentary — “I prefer da real juice, baby!” — but here it’s just … unfortunate.
Jump to the 4:50 mark in the video. Gene’s all, “hey amigo, I know you don’t speak English, but stand here on live TV with a live microphone and try to speak English.” Basically this is what would happen if you sent me to the Tokyo Dome and were like, “you know like 10 phrases in Japanese, right? Get over with this crowd.” After a while, Gene interrupts with, “you’re gonna have to give it a rest, pal,” like poor Juventud’s trying to be insulting. Kinda want Scheme Gene to catch a Michinoku Driver here, not gonna lie.
Speaking Of Konnan …
Let me speak on this: The Ninja Turtle version of Konnan is no more! Only a couple of weeks after accidentally turning himself heel, the Mexican Heavyweight Champion is now the ARRIBA LA RAZA version of Konnan you remember. He’s just chilling in the crowd in full costume, watching the matches. This all leads to the two most important moments in Konnan’s career:
1. the Disco Inferno version of his music video, and
2. him walking to a warehouse in a rainstorm to forge a cane of Valyrian steel (or whatever) to help protect Prince Puma on Lucha Underground.
He spends the 20 years between those moments throwing his shoes at people and hanging out with the TNA version of the Road Dogg. Nobody’s perfect. I’m excited for the next few years of typing out Konnan’s entire pre-match catchphrase, which is like 10 sentences long and involves him calling people absurdist shit like “straight up strawberries.” I think only Stevie Ray and his crackerjack, milk-drinking fruit-booties had weirder food-centric identifiers.
Best: Nick Patrick Is Also In The Dungeon Of Doom
So here’s something you wouldn’t expect: Marcus Alexander Bagwell replaced the injured Scotty Riggs with Jim Powers (and his armpit veins) and had a really good match with The Taskmaster and Big Bubba. I don’t even know. Bagwell was on some next-level face-in-peril sh*t here as he hadn’t yet developed his “Buff” persona and the new, cooler wrestlers were showing up and passing him by. Jim Powers was a piece of driftwood floating on a calm ocean of boring, but he had a Robert Gibson thing going for him. You know how Robert Gibson was useless, but had to be there to take a hot tag, pump his fists and do like five basic-ass wrestling moves so Ricky Morton could recover for a second and do the finish? That was Jim Powers. If you needed a gassed-out ’80s dude to to smash two undercard heels’ heads together like coconuts, Jim Powers could knock it out.
That’s what this is. Bagwell takes a beating for a while, gets the crowd fired up and hot tags the sh*t out of Powers. Imagine them as the white, 1996 Prime Time Players. That … actually works really well, if you think about it. They manage to upset the Dungeon and pin Big Bubba, who kicks out at 4. The good news for Bubba is that NICK PATRICK is the referee, which means he thinks a guy raising his arm after the damn pinfall is counted means he kicked out. Patrick restarts the match behind Powers and Bagwell’s backs, giving the Dungeon a chance to attack them from behind and win instead.
I’m starting to wonder if Nick Patrick was ever the “nWo referee,” and not just an extremely stupid guy who didn’t know how referees worked and wanted a free shirt. You know how sometimes he’ll count to two and just jam his arm under a guy’s shoulder to make them kick out before three? Maybe that wasn’t a work. Maybe he just wanted them to kick out and thought he was helping.
Anyway
After the match, Bubba and Sullivan stick around for a promo, and two crucial moments happen: Bubba challenges Glacier, should he ever actually show up, and Mean Gene drops some AMAZING foreshadowing. Sullivan says he saw Mean Gene hanging out on a boat with Hulk Hogan. Gene takes offense, saying it was probably Eric Bischoff. Nobody lingers on it, but Gene Okerlund just blatantly called out Bischoff as an nWo member 3 months before it happened. Motherf*cker wasn’t lying about having the hotline scoops, I guess.
And Wither Glacier?
If you’re wondering why Glacier got announced in May and still hasn’t shown up by the end of August, this new video will explain it. He had to find a stick. That takes a while. Glacier found it, though, and he can do karate with it, so he’ll be arriving soon to change our world and change the temperature of running blood.
Worst: Rough And Ready Try TWIN MAGIC
Remember a few weeks ago when “Rough And Ready” broke up after an 8-man tag match on Nitro? No? Well, uh, that happened. If you forgot it, don’t feel bad; WCW forgot it, too, and “Dirty” Dick Slater is now using TWIN MAGIC — I sh*t you not — to help his partner win matches.
Two problems, here: (1) have you seen Mike Enos? Have you seen Dick Slater? One of them’s a Beverly Brother, and the other looks like Terry Gordy and Greg Valentine had a racist baby. They aren’t the same size, they don’t dress the same, and one of them’s 12 years older than the other. Still, they’re out here going for goddamn Twin Magic, and (2) losing. F*cking Fire & Ice had a better chance of pulling that switcheroo. Slater switches places with Enos, gets caught in a rollup by Chavo Guerrero Jr. and loses the match, suggesting that he is neither rough NOR ready. Maybe Mike Enos was both of them?
Worst: Wait, Why Isn’t Rey Mysterio Vs. Jerry Lynn Good? :(
I’ve written a little about it before, but I’ll never understand why Mr. JL wasn’t better. He’s Jerry Lynn, for crying out loud. And before you say anything, his name is “Mr. JL,” so it’s not like I’m breaking through any mysterious kayfabe walls. “Good morning, class. A certain agitator, for privacy sake, lets call him “Jerry L.”…. No that’s too obvious… uuh. Let’s say “J. Lynn.”
JL wrestles Rey Mysterio Jr., which in the summer of ’96 should be an instant win. Instead, pretty much everything wrong with WCW happens at once. The first half of the match is just restholds, and we almost immediately leave it entirely to go to the back and watch the nWo “vandalize” production trucks. Tony Schiavone is extremely upset by that, and clarifies that WCW does not condone vandalism, even if these super cool guys are doing it and making thousands of people throw them free popcorn and sodas. Once the match actually gets going, Dean Malenko wanders out to scout things, and the crowd just kinda dies as we watch a man exist near the ring instead of caring about what’s happening inside it.
If that’s not enough, guess when WCW decides to shoot off their beloved hour 2 fireworks? After three damn interrupts and 14 minutes of everyone (including the wrestlers) sitting on their hands, Rey finally puts Erry-jay Inn-lay out of his misery. A total stinker, and it didn’t have to be.
Worst: Cheating Ass Jim Duggan Thinks The Tightness Of The Tape Is The Problem
Speaking of total stinkers, here’s cheating-ass, trifling-ass, stinking-ass Jim Duggan once again thinking warming up a roll of athletic tape under his balls like a f*cked-up hen and wrapping it around his fist is gonna give him the Divine Power necessary to knock out the 7-foot, impervious-to-chairshots Giant. Balls tape.
Duggan pulls it out, punches Giant and Giant no-sells it. Duggan does a double-take, looking down at his toilet paper hand all, “I MUST HAVE MISCALCULATED.” He spins his arm around a bunch to make the tape wrap even tighter, but Giant just kinda wobbles. That cues Jimmy Hart to start — get this — HOPPING UP AND DOWN ON THE APRON holding Duggan’s 2×4. Cheating-ass Jim Duggan hates cheaters because he’s a humongous f*cking hypocrite, and that distraction allows a 7-foot former champion to get a much needed drop on a hambone mental incompetent who is basically the pro wrestling equivalent of wrapping paper.
Also, THE FOURTH MAN
The Million Dollar Man Ted DiBiase does the Roman Reigns entrance during the match and takes a seat in the front row, where he announces (via pantomime, mostly) that he’s the fourth member of the nWo, and that next week we’d see number five. In a bit of accidental foreshadowing, it turns out to be one of the guys in the ring. Yes, Jim Duggan joins the New World Order next week and spends the rest of 1996 pulling cans of spray-paint from his dick satchel.
Best: The Insane, Existential Horsemen
Ric Flair and Arn Anderson squash the Rock n’ Roll Express with a perfect anti-RNR gameplan: instead of beating up Ricky Morton for 15 minutes until Robert Gibson can power up, beat up Gibson first. When Morton tags in, Gibson will be so cross-eyed and weary that he’ll be easily distracted that you can double-team Ricky, hit him with a few finishers and win before they can get it together and come back. Somewhere in Stamford, Jim Cornette’s watching this like, “well sh*t.”
Note: there are few things in wrestling more purely beautiful than Arn Anderson sliding into a ring, hitting a big move and sliding out. Remember when he showed up at WrestleMania and hit Undertaker with maybe the greatest spinebuster ever? Any time he capitalizes on a referee distraction by hitting a DDT and sliding away like butter on a hot frying pan, it’s a work of art.
After the match, Flair makes at least 100 crazy faces as the Horsemen scream about how they were in the first War Games, and how they’ll be in the last. THEY ARE THE ALPHA AND THE OMEGA, THE BEGINNING AND THE END, AND ALSO MONGO.
Best: Welcome To Monday Night Jericho
And now, the debut of my undisputed favorite wrestling character of all time: WCW Chris Jericho. There’s a reason why Jericho showed up in WCW as a relative unknown, and left as a guy the WWF would build a millennium clock around, have debut in a segment with The Rock and make a multiple-time World Champion.
At first, Jericho is the “Lionheart.” He shows that in his debut match, where Alex Wright gets injured and counted out, but Jericho won’t accept the win. That’s an old babyface wrestling trope I desperately missed, that would be seen as weak or lame in 2015 … a guy who values competition and respects wrestling and wrestlers so much that he wants to actually win something, not just “get a win.” He wants to prove himself, and if happenstance causes a f*ck-finish, he won’t have it. I loved that as a kid. After the match, he delivers a dorky promo about how he and Alex Wright are both gonna stand tall and fight for WCW in the war against the nWo.
This sincere-ass Bobby Garfield would eventually become a paranoid, racist treasure hunter in a top-knot being escorted to the ring by a toothless guy in a half-shirt and a ninja, and would singlehandedly change my views on how well comedy and irreverence could work in pro wrestling. That’s a story for later. Right now, he’s only got about 400 moves. It gets better.
Worst: The Steiners Are Fine Landing On Their Heads, It’s Fine
The Steiner Screwdriver is the second most dangerous move in the Steiner Brothers’ arsenal. The only thing more dangerous is “any time the Steiners are asked to backflip,” because they can’t really do it, and have like a 40/60 chance of landing on their heads. If you’ve ever seen Scotty Steiner’s moonsault powerslam, you know what I’m talking about. Even that video clip shows him doing it twice and almost breaking his neck on the first one.
Rick Steiner had a spot where he’d be up on his opponent’s shoulders during a tag match, and a guy’d jump off the top rope at him only to get caught with a counter suplex. He pulled it off beautifully most of the time, but sometimes would end up going straight backwards onto his head. That’s what happens in this match, where the Blue Bloods are about to hit their famous DOOMSDAY DEVICE finisher. Earl Robert Eaton comes off the top, Rick tries to counter it with a powerslam and accidentally Steiner Screwdrivers himself. It’s fine, though, as Rick just floats over and pins him anyway. Sure! Thank God the Steiners’ heads are just peach bowling balls with angry faces drawn on them in magic marker.
Best: As A Reminder, Scott Steiner Has Always Been Insane
After the match, Bobby Eaton has had enough of this motherf*cking monarchy and the Blue Bloods come to blows. We don’t get to see most of it, though, because Mean Gene’s busy interviewing the Steiners about something else entirely. Maybe next week, Dave Taylor will show up during Eaton’s singles match and try to do Twin Magic.
Anyway, the point here is that Scott Steiner makes a rooster noise and gets it totally wrong (pictured). You know that Arrested Development joke about how everyone in the Bluth family has a chicken dance, but none of them have ever seen a chicken? That’s Scott Steiner in real life. THE ROOSAH GOES COCK-DOCKA-WEEDLE-DWEE GENE. OMACDONNA HANNA FARM, MEAN GENE, ANNA COW GOES BROMMMMP.
Best/Worst: Here Comes The Spraypaint
Last week, Sting and Lex Luger asked to be Ric Flair and Arn Anderson’s tag team partners in War Games, replacing Chris Benoit and Steve McMichael. Benoit and Mongo were both in the ring when it happened, and both were asked how they felt. They both responded with, “we want to be in the match, but we’ll do whatever Flair and Arn tell us because we respect them.” This week, Benoit and Mongo have totally changed their minds, and want a match to prove their worth. Speak now or forever hold your peace, guys.
As you might’ve guessed, it (as most things do, going forward) ends with the New World Order interfering and beating everyone up while the crowd turns the ring into a trash heap. They either SUPER HATE this, or they’re really into launching giant cups of soda from the cheap seats. Either way, everyone gets trashed. This is the Nitro debut of guys getting “NWO” spray-painted on their backs, and Flair gets a spray-paint skunk line drawn on his hair. He also gets it in his eyes and mouth, which seems like a terrible idea.
That’s how we end the week. The nWo takes over the announce booth, spray-paints that, and promises more chaos next week. MAN FIVE AHOY!
