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.
With Spandex is on Twitter, so follow it. Follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook. You can also follow me on Twitter.
And now, please enjoy from the vintage Best and Worst of WCW Monday Nitro for September 2, 1996.
Best: Bang
As we’ve mentioned before, one of the best parts of going back through these shows with a new set of eyes is realizing that Diamond Dallas Page was Stone Cold Steve Austin before Stone Cold Steve Austin. Austin had dropped his “Austin 3:16” nuke at the King of the Ring, but until Bret Hart showed up in November, he was still just a talented mid-carder struggling to make jokers like Marc Mero look good. Meanwhile, DDP was becoming the prototypical Stone Cold: a blue collar dude with a cutter who was building a rabid following and destined for so much more.
Up until now, they’re both missing signature hand gestures. WWE’s a little ways away from realizing they can monetize a middle finger, and Page has been just kinda throwing up his hands as a taunt. The crowd’s picking up on it, but it’s not special. On this week’s Nitro, he counters a Tiger Wall Flip from Alex Wright with a boot to the stomach and a Diamond Cutter out of the corner. The crowd pops huge for it, because wrestling fans love knowing things and recognizing the definite. The Diamond Cutter ends matches. It allows everyone to do simple math in their head. When it’s over, Page throws up his hands … and tilts them in 45 degrees to form a diamond. Welcome to the next level, my dude.
I’m gonna give a rare supplemental Best to Larry Zbyszko for explaining why the Diamond Cutter’s so devastating. He points out that Page is unexpectedly tall — 6-foot-5 — and that by throwing his body out and getting a big extension with the move, he’s creating extra pressure on the neck. Anybody can do a cutter, right? But only this creative lanky dude can do it like this. His body’s built to make it effective. God, I wish this happened more on wrestling commentary. It doesn’t matter if the science checks out. Every picture tells a story, just give me a reason to believe.
Best: The Continuing, Bizarre Love Story Of Col. Parker And Sister Sherri
I love the Col. Parker and Sister Sherri romance, because it managed to survive a Las Vegas drive-through wedding chapel infidelity scandal and only seems to exist so Harlem Heat can be managed by a non-interrecial interracial Plantation romance.
Mean Gene tries to interview them backstage, but Parker explains that the Harlem Heat are on their own tonight: he’s come to woo “twinkle-eyes” with gifts. The promo is just Sherri opening presents — a leather vest with matching chaps — while Parker explains that they’re going to take a break from wrestling and spend more time on his land. “She’s goin’ to my farm to ride my prize Tennessee walking horse, John Henry! He’s a big, tall stepper like I am, but I’m sure she can handle him!” Mean Gene responds with I KNOW ALL ABOUT JOHN HENRY, which is hilarious. How the f*ck do you know about Rob Parker’s horse, Gene?
The interview ends with Parker carrying Sherri away, shouting, “We’re going to the mall, now!” Tony mentions that it’s Labor Day, so it’s a great time for mall bargains. I don’t know what’s funnier, a wrestling colonel carrying his DTF monster bride to a mall, or Tony Schiavone putting over Labor Day.
Worst: Buddy Valentino Makes Joe Gomez Look Like Rey Mysterio Jr.
The good news for the Heat is that they’re up against the worst team imaginable: 45-year old Greg “The Hammer” Valentine and his partner, Buddy Valentino. Try to figure out why they’re tag team partners! The ’96 version of Valentine has the physical appearance and wrestling ability of Ma Fratelli from The Goonies, and Valentino looks like a guy you’d be ashamed to see in the ring at a local show. How the hell did BUDDY VALENTINO get a spot on Nitro? Were they afraid the WWF was gonna scoop him up? He looks worse than Bobby Heenan would’ve looked in the ring in 1996.
The Heat destroy them, and Booker finishes with a Harlem Hangover on Valentino. It’s so sad that Greg Valentine doesn’t even try to break it up, he just kinda steps into the ring and makes a sad face. I guess that could describe the last 20 years of Valentine’s career. After the match, the Nasty Boys jump Stevie and Booker and lay them out with spike piledrivers to set up a tag titles match at Fall Brawl. Don’t worry: Parker and Sherri are done f*cking on a stuffed unicorn or whatever by then and are present to make sure everything’s as overbooked as possible.
Best: The Man Of 1,000 Holds Meets A Guy Who Knows 4 More
The next match is full of little milestones. First, it’s Chris Jericho’s second Nitro match and his first WCW encounter with a man who’d go on to be his greatest WCW rival, Dean Malenko. The feud these guys had gave me unrealistic expectations for a kind of pro wrestling that’s exciting and funny, and kinda-sorta singlehandedly turned teenage me into a raging smark. It was that good. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen Jericho read move names throughout an entire commercial break, or Dean Malenko get the biggest pop of the year by dressing like an Odysseus-ass luchador nobody liked.
Another milestone is a few fans in the crowd recognizing Jericho and Malenko from their ECW days and starting an, “E-C-DUB!” chant. To my knowledge, this is the first time an ECW chant made it onto Monday night, but Jesus, it wasn’t the last. Some crowds are still busting it out, and there are kids in high school today who weren’t alive when ECW went out of business.
The match itself is really good, and the kind of match you wish Nitro would have more often. It’s a cruiserweight match, but between two guys who don’t really fly … that leaves it to be structured like the world’s lowest-stakes New Japan main event. The finish is a long counter sequence complete with Okada-style wristlock go-behinds, ending with a German suplex countered into a victory roll by Jericho for an upset win. It’s helped a lot by crowd distraction Ted DiBiase leaving in the middle, allowing the guys in the ring to actually push their way through the nWo conversation and have a match worth noticing. If you get a chance, check this out. It’s so obscure that you can’t even find a good copy of it on YouTube.
Worst: This Guy
I don’t know if you’re following the Nitro Fans tumblr, but I had to give this guy a special mention. A headband, arm tassels, a date-rape drug crop-top and front row tickets to Nitro. I hope he grew up to be an investment banker. Maybe he was just really, really insider and knew about Joel and Jose Maximo four years before they debuted.
Best: Jobber Squash Foreshadowing
The Giant squashes Brad Armstrong, and there are really only two available talking points:
1. Armstrong gets in some unexpected offense, and the announce team wonders if The Giant’s preoccupied with something. It turns out he is, and it has to do with modest housing. Not a joke. More on that later.
2. Brad Armstrong has one of the best WCW entrance themes ever. He played a lot of ridiculous side characters, but “Brad Armstrong” never really got character development beyond, “he’s a babyface, and also Lee Greenwood?” That theme sounds like something that should be playing in a fighter jet as it approaches the enemy. It’s puro as hell. The only theme from the era that beats it is Jericho’s pre-‘Evenflow’ number.
Worst: More From The Naked Yeti
If you haven’t read my lengthy history of how The Yeti became “Big Ron Studd,” go read that now. I don’t have the heart to type it again. All you really need to know is that a Himalayan ice mummy became a ninja, then stopped doing ninja sh*t to be a 7-foot, phallic jobber.
Big Match Ron runs into the Macho Man Randy Savage this week, and you should know the Randy Savage “I’m not wrestling someone important” drill by now. His opponent dominates for like two minutes, Savage totally no-sells it and hits the flying elbow for the win. He did it to Kurasawa, he did it to Tenzan and now he’s in here doing it to the enormous molerat that lived inside The Yeti. Que sera sera, or whatever.
After the match, Savage guarantees that he’ll beat both The Giant and Hollywood Hulk Hogan, and shills the Hogan vs. Savage 2-months-away main event at Halloween Havoc. That match ended up doing big business, so I guess it pays to make Ronald Studd look like 7 feet of tire fire.
Best: Nick Patrick Is The Worst
Early in the show, Mean Gene pulls Nick Patrick aside again and tries to get to the bottom of his bullsh*t. Patrick goes full Judge Dredd, saying that when you’re in the ring with him, no matter how big and tough you think you are, he is the law.
That comes back later in the night, when Lex Luger and Sting team up against the Steiner Brothers. The first move of the match is Luger and Rick Steiner tying up, and Steiner shoving him backwards. Luger’s arm grazes Patrick, and Patrick STRAIGHT-UP DISQUALIFIES HIM. I know they eventually turn Nick Patrick into an nWo also-ran, but man, the heat for this is UNREAL, and for like a month he was the best heel in the business. He flees, Sting and Luger give chase, and that’s the end of things.
Spoiler alert: kidding, it’s about to get way worse.
Worst: Sting And Luger In, Let’s Go To Prison
They end up chasing Patrick all the way into the parking lot, where he jogs by the nWo limo. Sting and Luger see Ted DiBiase getting into it, so they decide to bumrush the sh*t out of him and throw cinderblocks through his windows. That … may be an overreaction to a guy who hasn’t really done anything being tangentially related to a bad DQ call, but whatever, I’m not on steroids in 1996.
The limo (smartly) drives away, and the faces want to give chase … so they SHOVE A COP and STEAL A COP CAR. This is not a drill, people. The Four Horsemen and the Dungeon of Doom are trying to have an 8-man tag, but we’re back here watching our heroes do sh*t that should for real land them in prison. I can understand those Randy Orton situations where he runs outside and steals a fan’s car, because you can imagine that sure, the fan’s gonna think it’s cool that they got jacked by The Viper or whatever and Orton could pay him off with a bunch of signed 8x10s and game-worn underpants. But yo, Sting shoved a cop and stole his car. How do you explain that? “Oh, we’re sorry, officer, we got caught up in this wrestling rivalry … I swear it makes sense if you watch the show. They’re beating us up in UNSANCTIONED SCENARIOS. Wait why are you spraying me with bear mace”
Maybe Sting started painting himself like The Crow and lived in the rafters for a year to escape these charges.
Best: Dick-Kickin’ Babyface Ric Flair, Or
Worst: The Fifth Man
First of all, this era of Ric Flair as a vigilante babyface is the greatest. He stopped doing pro wrestling moves in favor of just attacking large groups of people, hitting them all in the dicks and swiveling his hips. It’s amazing. He does the same thing at Fall Brawl, and the crowd loves it. He’s just like STRUT, WOO, DICK KICK, DICK KICK, STRUT, DICK KICK, WOO, STRUT.
The match ends with another nWo run-in, which is retroactively terrible but in-context still hot as hell. It’s important to remember to think about these moments in context. We’ve sat through 20 years of Attitude Era retreads, but these shows were happening in the nucleus of the damn thing. It was a cultural event. Crowds weren’t throwing food and trash at the nWo because it was their established television cue, they were throwing stuff at them because they hated them.
With Sting and Luger gone (forever, if we’re being real), the nWo destroys the Horsemen, the Dungeon and a trying-to-be-helpful Macho Man. That brings out WCW’s big weapon, The Giant, as the final line of defense. Unfortunately for them, The Giant is also The Big Show, pro wrestling’s least trustworthy character, and he turns on them. It doesn’t make a damn lick of sense — he’d been fighting them since they appeared, and Hogan cheated him out of the WCW Championship at Hog Wild — but whatever, we’re doing it. The crowd goes dicknuts for it, too, so it’s safe to say it worked.
As the story goes, this was supposed to be The British Bulldog jumping ship and becoming the fifth man. If you can imagine Hall, Nash, Hogan and THE BRITISH BULLDOG as a sassy irreverent faction, you’ve got me beat. They also tried to get Sean Waltman over, but they couldn’t pull it off in time, so they were just like, “welp, The Giant!” That set a wonderful, 20-year precedent of “welp, The Giant” heel turns, which we’re still living through today.
After the match, the nWo takes over the announce table, allowing Giant to explain himself. He tries to get through a long-winded promo about Ted DiBiase asking him to fly to Hulk Hogan’s house and see his possessions, which I guess made the Giant envious because he lived in a “modest home.” I thought he lived in a dungeon of doom? Anyway, it’s funny because he keeps getting cut off, first by the WCW guys, and again by Hogan himself, who figured he could say in a couple of sh*tty sentences what Giant was trying to say in 30. As they flip over the table, Gian’t still all, “I WENT TO HOGAN’S HOUSE AND SAW HIS CARS,” but is forced to give up. I bet he practiced that promo all week. :(
Join us on next week’s Nitro, where everyone gets arrested and it’s just two hours of Joe Gomez wrestling The Renegade.
