Previously on the Best and Worst of WCW Thunder: Our first Thunder column (for the second episode, thanks WWE Network timing) covered Rey Mysterio winning the Cruiserweight Championship, Chris Jericho almost breaking his own neck again, and Hulk Hogan’s hilarious dramatic gulp.
If you’d like to watch this week’s episode on WWE Network, click here. In the coming weeks you’ll be able to read all the Thunder recaps on its UPROXX tag page, and of course if you’re reading these, you’re hopefully reading the corresponding Nitro bits as well.
Note: This is still a relatively new vintage column in the rotation, so if you like it, please make sure to comment below and share the column on all (or at least some) of your social media. It helps, especially when you’re writing about the B-show that’s honestly more like the C-show to Saturday Night.
And now, the Best and Worst of WCW Thunder for January 22, 1998.
Best: Scott Steiner Is Being Driven Mad By How Cool Muscles Are
Over the past few weeks, Scotty Steiner has been getting more and more indignant about being the strongest member of his team, so he’s been wrestling entire matches and refusing to tag out or hit tag team finishers. Rick’s visibly upset about it, but he also probably realizes he should’ve said something 60,000 push-ups ago. On Nitro, Buff Bagwell posed in front of Scott and made him realize something that would change his life forever: muscles are cool looking, and if you have a lot of them you should stop whatever you’re doing and show people.
On Thunder, Scotty has a match against Konnan, the opposite of Scott Steiner in almost every way, and beats him so bad Konnan spends most of the match sitting on the corner of the outside railing making faces like he sat on a tack. Eventually, Vicious and Delicious show up and cause a disqualification. Rick Steiner, Ted DiBiase and Ray Traylor show up dressed like they work at the Bass Pro Shop to make the save.
“The save” might not be the right word, though, because once the ring’s been cleared, Scott Steiner completely ignores his friends to stand in the ring and make muscle poses at Buff. Buff even sticks around at ringside to have a pose-off, because “someone’s interested in looking at my muscles” is a real breakthrough for him. The others are never going to understand. Muscles are cool to look at. First you get the peaks, then you get the freaks. Then you get the money!
Best: Louie Spicolli Joins The Club
Remember Louie Spicolli, the jobber who looks like Gerry Garner from Heavyweights and loves the nWo? He’s back, now wearing an Outsiders shirt, to deliver Larry Zybszko’s prized (?) golf clubs to Scott Hall. Hall basically tells Louie to try out each of the clubs, and despite a golf ball never being involved, Louie is progressively madder and madder about their performance. So he starts breaking them, and that brings out Larry.
It’s not a great angle, but it’s so perfectly executed that you can’t help but enjoy it. Larry points out that Scott Hall’s basically a gigantic non-wrestling coward and challenges him to a fight, but Louie steps in and says Larry can’t beat Hall … Larry can’t even beat him. They decide to fight, and before Louie can even do anything, Larry’s got him on the ground in a guillotine choke. Hall runs back in to break it up, but Larry sees it coming and rolls out of the ring before he can touch him.
I don’t think anybody expected Larry Zybszko to throw hands at Scott Hall, but WCW made a great point of showing how Larry’s veteran expertise, lifelong heeling and basic amateur wrestling talent could dismantle a lot of guys, especially the ones who aren’t taking him seriously. Good stuff, surprisingly! Thunder’s got a great way of focusing on the non-main event stories and giving even folks like Spicolli TV time to shine.
Best: Poor Super Calo Runs Into La Parka Again
My ultimate WCW luchador favorites, La Parka and Silver King, team up to face Chavo Guerrero Jr. and our favorite punching bag rap mascot, Super Calo. Calo has dropped the Saturn-themed Public Enemy attire and is now dressed like a goth MC Skat Kat.
I got really interested in why La Parka was always so cruel and unusual to Calo, who just seemed like he wanted to dance around and slingshot headbutt himself into the ground in peace, so we asked someone who’d know — Konnan — for an explanation.
“Bro, [La Parka] was like a bully, man … He’s like a bully, and if you let him, he’ll do stuff to you like that. He hit Calo with a chair in the face … I don’t remember if it was metal or plastic, I do remember a chair to the face, and he broke [Calo’s] nose, and they had to send him to the hospital.
“And then I remember a couple weeks later, he hit Hector Garza, he hit him with a chair real hard, and I was real mad, because I thought [Garza] was always kind of a punk, because he wore those little short shorts … I was like, [laughing] ‘Come on, dude, Daisy Dukes are for women.’ So I got really mad at Park, and I go, ‘Bro, you already hit Calo, and you hit this guy, and now you hit Garza, and if you do it again, you and me are gonna have a problem.’ And [Garza] pushed me to the side, and he goes, ‘You don’t gotta defend me, I’ll bust his ass myself.’ And I had to separate them. But [La Parka] had mega heat with the boys because of that.
“I don’t know he’s like that. He must have a lot of hate inside, or something. Only a hateful person would think like that. You don’t want to injure a guy that’s giving you your face with a chair.”
So La Parka of course beelines to Super Calo after the match and destroys his shoulders with a chair, and that triggers a big random luchador run-in party to set up the atómicos match at Souled Out. Juventud Guerrera runs in, followed by Lizmark Jr., and then Psicosis shows up, and on and on. Eventually everyone’s jumping over the ropes onto everyone else, and it’s great. The match at Souled Out is one of my favorite WCW matches ever, almost exclusively for the La Parka-centric post-match stuff. We’ll get to that next week.
Until then, enjoy this GIF of Silver King trying to stop a missile dropkick by lazily lobbing a steel chair.
Worst Best: Thunder Is Booked Like A Better Version Of 2002 TNA
You know how when TNA first started they (and everyone else at the time) were trying too hard to be ECW, so they booked all their matches and segments to run into each other? In ECW that usually worked, but in TNA that meant somebody would be doing an interview and get interrupted, and then a brawl would break out behind them, and then we’d follow that brawl out into the parking lot where ANOTHER thing would happen, and then a grandma would show up and run somebody over with a car? And then somebody would flip the car? It made it so that you couldn’t really pay attention to anything.
Thunder is a lot like that, at least moreso than Nitro. You can tell they’re going for a different vibe. For example, Nick Patrick is backstage complaining about how he hasn’t had any interview time lately. He’s interrupted by Rick Martel walking through the door, and Martel’s quickly stopped by Kidman, who’s mad at him for stopping the Flock from attacking Booker T. Push comes to shove, and then Saturn shows up and throws Martel through the door. That leads to Martel vs. Saturn, which Martel wins, because even covered in shards of glass, Alex Wright’s polite-ass Canadian dad is unstoppable.
The same thing happens later in the show on a much bigger scale. Eddie Guerrero challenges Rey Mysterio Jr. for the Cruiserweight Championship, and Rey’s got a lot against him. His knee’s injured, and the past two Thunders have seen cruiser title changes. That can’t happen this week, though, because Chris Jericho shows up (in a Rey Mysterio t-shirt) and attacks Rey, causing a disqualification. Jericho and Guerrero double-team Rey to injure him, but then they start arguing with each other.
While that’s happening, Chris Benoit shows up and sneaks up behind Jericho, because Benoit vs. Jericho is the next match. Eddie distracts Jericho long enough for Benoit to scare him, so Jericho begs off, but then tries a cheap shot and gets stopped. There’s just so much going on that you can’t stop and say, “okay, here’s what I think about this.”
Best: Chris Jericho
That said, two great things. The first is that Jericho taps out of the Crippler Crossface before it’s even on, which is smart because (1) Jericho’s a total coward who wants to take the easy way out, and (2) he’s got a title match coming up at Souled Out, so he clearly “gives up” instead of being submitted. It’s a subtle difference, but it’s enough to justify the action. The second great thing is Jericho’s very Michelle Tanner reaction to realizing Benoit’s behind him:
If that New Japan feud wasn’t enough, this GIF should convince you that Chris Jericho was the original Kenny Omega.
Also On This Episode
WCW Boston Brawl is coming up, and if you’re like, “the hell is a Boston Brawl,” don’t worry, you didn’t miss it … it was WCW’s attempt at a pay-per-listen, which is exactly what it sounds like. Have you ever wished pro wrestling was JUST the commentary? Give us eight dollars!
Dean Malenko defeated Marty Jannetty with the Texas Cloverleaf, because they haven’t really had anything for him or Eddie Guerrero to do since Starrcade, and Marty’s the Starscream to Rick Martel’s Megatron in the Decepticons of old WWF guys taking up mid-card spots. Marty’s really good here, though, as he’s still got a lot of snap to his offense and breaks out some quick roll-ups to counter Malenko’s complete mastery of grounding you and grinding the shit out of your limbs.
The good news is that yeah, Chris Jericho’s blowing up and taking up all the cruiserweight division time, but eventually they figure out what a good foil aggressively upset little dad Malenko would be for him, and it gets real. Stinko Malenko, coming soon.
William Scott Goldberg makes quick work of Kendall Windham, now using (at least on the Thunder graphics) the shoot spelling of his first name, “Kendell.” Goldberg, seen here turtling, wins with a series of dropkicks in the corner followed by a big Falcon Arrow off the top. Just kidding, he wins with the tackle and jackle.
Best: Big Show Discovers He’s Strong Enough To Break Rings
This was my favorite Tarzan scene in Magic Mike, by the way.
Early in the show, Kevin Nash shows up dressed like one of the kids from Home Improvement and declares that within about an hour and a half, he’d be $1.5 million dollars richer. He’s apparently come up with a can’t-miss plan to get the Giant to attack him and forfeit the money he’s put up for their match at Souled Out. Want to know what that plan is? Run in during The Giant’s match with Scott Hall and start attacking him. GREAT PLAN BIG KEV.
As usual, the main event is booked into oblivion. It ends in about two minutes when Hollywood Hogan attacks the Giant for some reason. That brings out the Macho Man Randy Savage, which brings out Lex Luger to Torture Rack him, so Nash is like “fuck it” and gets in the ring and pounds on the Giant. He can beat up the Giant all he wants, I guess, but Giant can’t touch him. So why hasn’t he been out here shit-kicking the Giant every second between the announcement of those bonds and the match?
Anyway, Giant is furious that he can’t touch Nash (and Luger just stands around like an asshole instead of like, helping), so he takes out his frustrations on the ring. You’ve seen his butt break the ring a couple of times, but have you seen him dismantle it from one of the corners? Now you have, with bonus over-selling Scott Hall doing the Watusi in the middle.
And that’s the show!
Next Week On Thunder:
We get the fallout from Souled Out, Goldberg faces Yuji Nagata in a very Fire Pro Wrestling match, and a man with an Office Max in his underpants makes his triumphant return to television. Be there, tough guy.
