Previously on the Best and Worst of WCW Monday Nitro: Hollywood Hogan teamed up with the latest members of the New World Order, Grace Jones and Robert Vaughn, to film McCinsey’s Island, a movie about ex-military searching for buried treasure or something and breakdancing with sassy parrots. I don’t know, nobody’s ever actually seen it. Also on the program, Glacier kicked a cyclops in the eyeball and almost got his own eyeball removed via helmet. It was weird.
Click here to watch this week’s episode on WWE Network. You can catch up with all the previous episodes on the Best and Worst of Nitro tag page.
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And now, the Best and Worst of WCW Monday Nitro for April 28, 1997.
Note: This week’s episode is only an hour long, because TNT was airing the NBA Playoffs but didn’t want to completely preempt their unexpected ratings cash cow. Plus, there are still what, 200 weeks before Slamboree? How far away is this thing?
Best/Worst: Our Guy Beat That Guy People Are Talking About!
In case you missed it in last week’s vintage Best and Worst of WWF Raw is War, The Man We Called Big Van Vader But They Just Call Vader was detained in Kuwait and had to go to court for threatening a talk show host who asked if pro wrestling was fake.
It was legitimate news, so WCW capitalized by opening this week’s Nitro with footage of Ric Flair defeating Vader at Starrcade ’93. It’s ridiculously petty, especially when they edit the footage to make it look like Flair just beat Vader’s ass, which is the opposite of the story they told. I’m giving it a Worst for the Monday Night Wars of it all, and giving it a Best because that match rules and they tore the house down.
Note: Speaking of great Ric Flair moments and doing the opposite of things, here’s this week’s Nitro.
Worst: As The Haliburton Turns
If you’re wondering what’s up with everyone’s favorite briefcase-dependent ex-football star and the long-haired Abby Wambach cuckolding him, here’s our weekly rundown.
WCW’s trying to build two Slamboree matches for the ass-end of the Four Horsemen; Steve McMichael versus NFL star Reggie White, because they’re both football guys, and Jeff Jarrett challenging Dean Malenko for the United States Champion, because … honestly, I’m not sure why, but Eddie Guerrero’s hurt and the Dungeon of Doom can’t remember their own angles with six days off between shows so why the hell not?
Jarrett chimes in via picture-in-picture to challenge Malenko during a Prince Iaukea squash, built around the idea that Iaukea is dumb enough to take Malenko to the mat despite having the wrestling ability of a fucking carp. Even Larry Zbyszko, who has never been right about anything else in his entire life, is like, “wow, Prince Iaukea is pretty stupid.”
Later, WCW attempts to build Mongo as a legitimate physical threat by having him get his ass kicked by The Barbarian for like three minutes until he can free himself up enough to hit Barb in the face with a briefcase once. It’s probably twice as bad as you’re imagining.
The weirdest part is that last week Reggie White jumped the rail and snatched it away from Mongo, promising that if Mongo wanted it back, he’d have to come and claim it. This week, Mongo just has the Haliburton again. There’s some light effort from the announce team to say it’s a new, second briefcase, but that shit is smushed like a torta from being used as a foreign object every week for a year. You aren’t fooling anybody. You just forgot until you showed the “last week” clip.
Best While It Lasted, Which Wasn’t Long: Chris Benoit vs. Lord Steven Regal
As you may notice, this screenshot is a wide shot of the arena. Yes, Benoit and Regal knucklelocked and headbutted each other until one of them bled like two minutes into the match, which is what always seems to happen when they wrestle. Or any time Regal fights someone who hits back.
Since this is only an hour-long show and they realized we weren’t gonna watch 1/8 of the episode from the nosebleeds, Kevin Sullivan — SULLIVAN! — wanders out and starts punching people, ending the match in a disqualification. Derp.
Regal just kinda magically disappears to get stitched up (and catch a stern lecture about not using his skull to bash Chris Benoit in the face every time he sees him, because that is not good for at least one of your brains) while Benoit and Sullivan brawl. Ultimately THE MONSTER MENG shows up and Tongan Death Grips Benoit, continuing to set up the first of their two 1997 Summer Death Matches at Slam Jamboree.
Between Sullivan, Woman, Jimmy Hart and Jacqueline, there’s a lot of standing around and screaming and accusatory glances that suggest we needed to go to Babagge’s and buy the strategy guide.
So now that we’ve established 3/4 of the Four Horsemen are either goofy or helpless, what’s up with Ric Flair? Has he stopped hanging around Brave Cowardly Lion Kevin Greene and Dean Ambrose’s homophobic dad, because-
Haha, no, of course he hasn’t.
Worst: Rowdy Roddy Piper Hates Millennials
At the top of the show, Rowdy Roddy Piper and business casual Ric Flair show up to fire back at the nWo for countering their “WE CHOPPED DOWN TREES AND LAYED ASPHALT” promo with a, “you left potholes in the road” response. Piper’s response to the response is that the young generation is too lazy to fill in a few potholes, saying they just love to “skateboard and collect checks.” Does … does Roddy Piper think young people are Tony Hawk? Is 39-year old Scott Hall a skater boi?
Piper says that they don’t have to wait until Slamming Jamboree, he wants the nWo to come out here RIGHT NOW and give it their best shot, or “don’t bother shooting at all.” That shoot comment is a shoot! Flair gets so hyped by this he just kinda starts Riverdancing in place:
Tony Schiavone is my patronus in this GIF.
Best: Send For The Man
Somewhere in the middle of the episode, the Wolfpac takes over the announce table to respond to the response to the response, and Pro Skater Scott Hall almost cracks Kevin Nash up by responding to the entire challenge with, “whatever.”
The delivery of the line is incredible, and Nash’s face is probably the best part of the entire episode.
Before we get the payoff (cough) of the Flair and Piper vs. the New World Order angle, let’s make sure we cover everything else that happened on the show.
Best: Syxx And Juvy Become Benoit And Regal
Last week, Sean Waltman took a break from being the nWo’s cameraman to actually wrestle and be the Cruiserweight Champion against Rey Mysterio Jr., and it was great. Syxx used his veteran no-how to control the pace of the match, and tell a better in-ring story than the cruisers usually get. He does it again this week against Juventud Guerrera, but replaces Mysterio’s knack for timing with the suggestion that they just kick each other in the face as hard as possible. The above picture is Juventud smashing Waltman’s teeth in with a springboard somersault dropkick.
Want to know why that looks so stiff? Because earlier in the match Juventud was supposed to walk up the ropes and backflip but stumbled a little, and Syxx responded by kicking him so hard it practically decapitated him:
Jesus. It’s like he’s kicking through his head. Syxx gets the win with the Buzzkiller, and Juventud walks backstage trying to hold his skull on his spine while Super Calo sits around happy as hell to just be backflipping on Konnan clotheslines.
Lex Luger And The Giant Defeated The Amazing French-Canadians
My analysis of this match is, “Lex Luger and The Giant defeated the Amazing French-Canadians.”
The announce team reminds us that Luger is still owed a shot at Hollywood Hogan’s WCW/nWo Heavyweight Championship at some point, presumably when Hogan and Jon Voight and Iman aren’t being nWo 4 Life™ on the set of Corky’s Jetski And Puppies Adventure or whatever.
Worst: Lee Marshall, Professor Of Native American Studies
Lee Marshall’s 1-800-COLLECT Road Report is truly a trail of tears.
Worst: Anyway, Back To Flair And Piper
With the NBA Playoffs only minutes away, Roddy Piper and Ric Flair return from embarrassing their children at Thanksgiving or whatever to face off with the nWo. As Flair is talking, thousands of sheets of paper fall from the ceiling, revealing NWO PROPAGANDA that is still trying to get “bite me” over as WCW’s pre-Crisis “suck it.” Here’s a closer look:
They should’ve done the Okada money drop, but with Syxx-dollar bills.
Anyway, the nWo eventually shows up on the ramp, and Flair charges at them and starts fighting. Piper stands in the middle of the ring crumpling up paper. Flair takes out Hall and Nash and puts Syxx in the figure-four on the floor — the FIGURE FLOOR — and uses the security railing as cheat leverage. Roddy Piper … uh, stands in the middle of the ring crumpling up paper.
Hall and Nash recover, and Flair starts taking a 3-on-1 beatdown. At one point they’re holding his arms behind his back while two guys are punching him, and Flair is yelling “PIPER! PIPER! PIPER!” Piper stands in the middle of the ring crumpling up paper. I don’t know if he blacked out or went snowblind because of the paper or what, but it takes him like two minutes to realize Flair isn’t in the ring anymore and needs his help on the outside. It’s so ridiculous and absent-minded that they have to open next week’s Nitro with Piper explaining why he has the reaction time of one of those Zootopia DMV sloths.
After FOREVER, Piper slowly takes off his belt, slowly walks to the outside and slowly begins whipping Kevin Nash. And that’s where the show ends. WCW Roddy Piper is the worst person, the worst employee, and the worst friend. I can’t believe Flair actually improved his circle of friends by hanging out with a dickless football yokel and an actual murderer.
Next Week: The playoffs continue, and we ask Roddy Piper why he’s such a garbage pal.
