Previously on the Best and Worst of WCW Monday Nitro: WCW Uncensored 1997 happened, headlined by the helplessness of WCW and the self-centered futility of Rowdy Roddy Piper and the Four Horsemen teaming up to let the nWo win another goddman beneficial main event. Now the nWo gets a title shot whenever they want whenever they want it, which is different from how they normally operate, somehow.
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. If you want to check out the Raw that aired opposite this Nitro, click here.
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And now, the Best and Worst of WCW Monday Nitro for March 17, 1997.
Best: Rey Mysterio Almost Kills Psicosis
Up first this week is tiny jumping lizard Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. lanky suicide bull Psicosis. These two have a storied rivalry built around a sort of Mozart/Salieri dynamic, where they came up together and trained together, but Mysterio’s one of the greatest luchadors of all time and Psico has to follow him around wherever he goes trying to prove that shut up, he’s good, too.
Here we see an expertly executed hurricanrana, in which Rey MysterOH GOD–
I don’t know if Psico was rattled and forgot the flip bump or if Mysterio swung straight into his leg and prevented it, but holy shit, that’s poor Psicosis shoot DDT’ing himself at maximum velocity. I wonder if he grew out that Weird Al hair so he’d have something to land on when he’d like, jump asshole-first into the top turnbuckle and fall on his brain?
Not a bad match, but probably in the low 400s in the 500 or so Rey Mysterio vs. Psicosis matches you could be watching.
Worst: Arn Anderson Has To Retire And Is Extremely Old Man About It
Speaking of people who’ve accidentally destroyed their necks, Arn Anderson shows up for an interview and reveals that he’s having the fifth, sixth and seventh vertebrae in his neck fused because of paralysis in his hand. As you might recall, Arn’s last match happened a couple of months earlier, and ended with him standing on the apron while Mongo attacked the Amazing French-Canadians with an empty metal briefcase.
Around this point is when the conversation becomes an episode of Who’s More Grizzled? Arn compares him holding on to his wrestling career to the death of his grandmother, saying he saw her on her deathbed, battling cancer, and asked “why, Granny?” She had asked the lord to let her hold on until she saw Arn as “a mature, responsible adult that could be the head of your family.” She’d seen that, so she let go and died. He follows that with an anecdote about how he saw Kevin Sullivan’s son Ben tell his father that in his eyes, his father was dead. “No parent should ever have to bury a child, it looks like the child buried you, the fact is you’re dead to each other.” Arn explains that if he’d known Sullivan’s life would be so sad, he wouldn’t have kicked him in the ribs, and that after his operation he wants a clean slate.
Arn is like, “don’t worry though, it’s fine, I’ll be back,” but he won’t, not really. And I just kinda sit here in silence in the dark thinking about my grandmother and the nature of fathers and sons, and I’ve never, ever wanted a Jim Duggan match on a Nitro more than I do right now.
Worst: World Wrestling Confederation
Hey look, it’s a picture of America.
After hearing about the horrors of a neck injury and seeing one happen in real time, we move on to Maxx Muscle, a guy whose neck is 100% because he’s never done anything more athletic than a full nelson without his fingers clasped. He loses quickly to Diamond Dallas Page, and even if Savannah, GA, hadn’t brought confederate flags to the show I would’ve worsted this for nobody mentioning Maxx and Page’s long, unforgettably forgettable history. Maxx used to help Page cheat at arm wrestling, and Page was sort of The Miz to Maxx’s Alex Riley. They even broke apart and feuded, and Dusty Rhodes once compared their rivalry to the existence of Santa Claus.
Anyway, Diamond Dallas makes Nitro great again with a Diamond Cutter.
Best: Macho Man Wants To Do It
After the match, Macho Man Randy Savage and Vixen Elizabeth use the crowd infiltration techniques Savage learned during his Vacation Bible School or whatever with Sting to stand in the crowd and give Page further shit for being married to a hot lady. Savage drops some awesome heel work here, refusing to say Page’s name, calling him “Kimberly’s husband” and “the wrestler with no name.”
Page wants a match, and Savage is like, “I dunnooooo, should I do it? Should I do it now? Should I do it laterrrrr.” Eventually Page gets fired-up fed up, climbs into the crowd and runs up the steps to chase them off. This is the feud that officially makes DDP a thing, and it’s crazy to think that he went from slumming it with Johnny B. Badd to main-eventing two of the next three pay-per-views in like a year.
Worst: You’re Tearing Me Apart, Renegade
In this divisive world, let’s look to the everlasting friendship between Fake Ultimate Warrior The Renegade and Fake Steve McMichael Joe Gomez. Wait, they’re breaking up too? WHO CARES ENOUGH ABOUT JOE GOMEZ AND THE RENEGADE FOR THEM TO BREAK UP?
So yeah, Renegade and Desperado Joe take on the worst possible Dungeon of Doom tag team, Hugh Morrus and Konnan. Keep in mind that the Dungeon of Doom included an immobile 60-year old covered in baby powder, Brutus Beefcake dressed like a zebra and a butt-fucking Himalayan ice mummy and the worst possible combination of Doom Dungeoners is Konnan and Hugh Morrus.
Gomez gets the crap beaten out of him for a while, building to a “hot tag” in quotes to Renegade. Renegade throws two clotheslines and two bodyslams, then TAGS BACK OUT. Gomez is like, “what the hell, dude, I’m not Ricky Morton, I’m not 100% regenerated because I gave you a diving low-five,” and gets quickly destroyed. No Laughing Matter ends it, and Gomez and Renegade are left in the ring making confused faces at each other. Desperado had really enjoyed making that hot tag, but these things that are pleasin’ you can hurt you somehow.
Join us never for the conclusion of this angle.
Best: Dean Malenko’s Smart Squashes
Now that the American Males are officially broken up and Scotty Riggs has lost two straight to Buff Bagwell — possibly the only time anyone’s ever used “the American Males” and “too straight” in a sentence — here’s Riggs … still pretending to be an American Male? I wish Mean Gene had asked him about it, and Riggs had been like, “I was a fake Chippendales guy before I met Mark, I’m not gonna stop being a loser stripper just because he doesn’t want to do it with me anymore.”
He has an extremely short but honestly pretty good 2-minute loss to Dean Malenko, who is probably high from having one of the dopest matches of the year at Uncensored and thinking, “if I’ve only got two minutes and it’s against CFNM Marty Jannetty, I’m gonna make it work.” It’s Malenko vs. Guerrero if Guerrero only knew like four moves. That’s the story. Riggs is able to hang with him surprisingly well in a pinfall reversal sequence, but all he’s really got beyond that is dropkicks. Malenko gets caught early on, but adapts, knows enough moves to counter a dropkick and just victory rolls him for three. One of those rare moments where “knowing how to wrestle” becomes important in a wrestling match.
That’s good enough to be the Valvoline People Who Know Use Valvoline™ Valvolinic Knowledge of the Week. After the match, Scotty Riggs puts Liberty Gold Plus into his car and is like, “ughhhh what am I doing wrongggg”
Best: A+ Jobber Names
Get ready for some Best and Worst of NWA World Championship Wrestling-quality jobbers here as Lex Luger and the Giant take on T. Rantula and Knuckles Nelson. Holy shit. I don’t know if they’re wrestlers or Dick Tracy villains.
If you’ve got a minute, check out T. Rantula’s extremely in-depth Wikipedia page absolutely not written by T. Rantula himself, featuring notes about how his one match on Nitro “greatly enhanced his profile on the independent circuit as promoters were eager to book him on their shows,” and a story about how Jim Cornette told him he should’ve been a huge star. Also, notes about how Beyond the Mat exposed the business and why the WWE Performance Center is ruining wrestling. On T. Rantula’s Wikipedia page.
After spending two minutes on TV ever, T. Rantula and Bumpy Knuckles lose to stereo finishers. Luger cuts a promo saying that Sting’s “return home” has him believing in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy, but never actually contains the words, “and I’m sorry for thinking a guy dressed like you was you even though you said it wasn’t and I knew you were in Japan, it was raining and I’m stupid.” Also, neither of them is like, “hey Sting, if you were gonna drop down from the ceiling and beat up the nWo, could you have done it at the end of the match when WCW was down 4-1 and Luger was in there by himself? If we’d won that match they’d have been banned from the sport for three years and we’d have all the titles back, and you’d be saving yourself a lot of work.”
Best: No-Selling A Soda
Speak of the devil, the nWo get an uninterrupted promo where they brag about winning at Uncensored and having the right to challenge for any WCW title they want whenever they want to. Keep in mind that they already have the WCW World Heavyweight Championship, the Tag Team Championship and the Cruiserweight Championship. So what, did the big WCW vs. nWo war come down to the bad guys winning a shot at Prince Iaukea’s TV title?
Hahahaha, spoiler alert.
Anyway, the point of the segment is the announcement that the Outsiders will defend the Tag Team Championship against the Steiner Brothers at Spring Stampede. Except they won’t, and they don’t. I guess the actual point is this, where Scott Hall gets smashed in the head by a soda thrown from Heaven and no-sells it WITH STYLE.
That is SMOOTH. Also, if you’re feeling down today, take a moment to imagine Roman Reigns in the middle of one of his “hey, here’s what’s been happening for the last month, I don’t care” promos and then boom, 64-ounce Dr. Pepper to the dome. You should never, ever throw things into the ring and if you do somebody should kick your ass, but thinking about it is pretty funny.
Worst: Kayfabe, Guys, Come On
During the show we jump back to the Series of Tubes Control Center of whatever where Riff Raff from Rocky Horror is helping an unmasked Ultimo Dragon (whoops) and Sonny Onoo through an online chat. Dragon is trying his best to cover his face while communicating STOP SHOWING MY FACE, IDIOTS, and Sonny is wearing a St. Patrick’s Day t-shirt about how he got lucky at a Savannah bar. WCW, y’all.
Later in the episode, Dragon beats Bobby Eaton in about 70 seconds, either because he had to get back to his live Q&A or because that’s the most performing they could get out of him after he karate kicked the chest of the shit out of the producer that thought showing his face was a great advertisement for the Internet.
After the match, Bobby Eaton picked himself up, dusted himself off, and got back to his live AMA on the WCW abacus.
Worst: As The Haliburton Turns
Mongo and Jeff Jarrett were supposed to face the Public Enemy at Uncensored, but they got drafted to be members of Rowdy Roddy Piper’s self-serving “family” instead. So they didn’t wrestle Public Enemy, but chose to show up and attack them anyway. My theory was that they’d booked the match finish, forgot they’d subbed in Harlem Heat for the Horsemen and decided to stick with the finish even though neither Booker T nor Stevie Ray hit people with briefcases.
So on Nitro, Mongo and Jarrett take on the team of COCKSTAR, Alex Wright and Mark Starr. They beat them in seconds, because (1) it’s important to show that Mongo and Jarrett are Keyword The Bomb when they work together, and (2) if a match goes over 2 minutes tonight, the show will explode.
After the match, Public Enemy runs out and attacks them. Debra saves Jarrett by hitting Johnny Grunge in the back with the Haliburton, which he mostly no-sells. He gets in her face and threatens her, so Jarrett saves Debra by hitting Grunge in the back with the Haliburton. Which he totally no-sells. The teams brawl to the back, and Public Enemy kinda disappears so Mongo et al can cut a promo.
It’s one of two Horsemen shoulder-to-shoulder-we-suck promos on the night. The second one happens a little later, when WCW realizes they booked 15 20-second matches and need to fill 10 minutes. Chris Benoit uses the brain power of a hamster to reiterate what Arn said earlier about Kevin Sullivan’s son, and the Nature Boy goes full Colonel Guile talking about Roddy Piper:
Apparently all this Horseman discord and the Malenko/Guerrero angles were supposed to intersect in the “Apocalypse” angle with Brian Pillman, where he’d leave and come back to form his own pre-millennial Millennial Four Horsemen full of young super-workers and straight shooters to battle the old guard fogey contingent. Pillman got a real release to do a worked thing where he’d go to ECW and stir some shit, but he got into a car accident that put an expiration date on his in-ring career and decided to use free agency to just go to the WWF instead. Some folks say this era of awkward Four Horsemen mid-cardery was supposed to lead to an updated version of the Apocalypse group (sometimes called “Apocalypse X,” or “X Apocalypse,” or Jeff Jarretts of Future Past) with Lord Steven Regal subbing in for Pillman. Chris Jericho’s book says the group he was pitched was Pillman, Benoit, Guerrero and Jericho, so with the ongoing weirdness between Guerrero and Malenko and Guerrero and Jericho, maybe Jericho was getting subbed in.
No matter what it was actually supposed to be it didn’t happen, and all the names in this paragraph got to fart around in circles for years until something better came along. Which, like Pillman, ended up being the WWF. Whoops!
Best: The Last Piece Of Benoit
Benoit gets a way-too-quick win over Billy Kidman in a match that’s three moves long and lasts about 1/4 as long as the promo, but it does feature one very important moment: the debut of the Crippler Crossface.
That move hurts so bad it could get you kayfabe addicted to heroin, making you scratch yourself all the time and convince you that befriending a bunch of jobbers who follow around an Eddie Vedder type who misquotes Poe and is a little too into the Offspring is a good idea.
Best: Scott Norton Powerbombs
Scott Norton wrestles like a dick sometimes and doesn’t sell shit for shit, but his powerbomb makes Kevin Nash’s look like like a damn Mark Starr armbar. Look at that thing. And you wonder why Chavo Guerrero went nuts and spent the rest of his WCW career riding hobby horses and selling Amway. BECAUSE YOUR BRAIN ISN’T SUPPOSED TO HAVE AN EVERYTHING DROPPED ON IT LIKE THAT.
When everyone went to the bar after this show, Chavo and Psicosis sat in the basement of the arena guarding a bee in a jar.
Best/Worst: He’s Bunkhouse Buck And Here’s Here To Funkhouse Fuck
The fighting Tag Team Champions The Outsiders have a match that’s surprisingly against someone other than The Extreme, but it’s not much better. They take on the ultimate roughneck team of Mean Mike Enos and BUNKHOUSE BUCK, aka “Rough N’ Not Ready.” Buck hasn’t been in an actual match on an important WCW show since like Fall Brawl 1995, so if this is your first time seeing him, imagine if Terry Funk’s entire character was, “just stepped out of an outhouse in the old west.”
This is hilariously one of the longest matches on the show, with Scott Hall doing that thing WCW workers do sometimes where they get real into Mike Enos and want to make him look good on TV. Mike Enos is like, secret Ric Flair. He can’t have a five-star match with a broomstick, but he’s the broomstick you’d choose if you were trying.
The Outsiders win, obviously, and it isn’t a great match, but Jesus, it’s at least a match.
Worst: The Main Event
This week’s main event is Harlem Heat vs. the Steiner Brothers. Here’s a picture of it:
I know, I’m shocked too.
The match ends about three minutes in when the nWo attacks, and Lex Luger and the Giant show up to team up with Harlem Heat and the Steiners and drive them away. Then, after the nWo has clearly fled, Sting rappels down from the ceiling again to join WCW (again) and point his bat at them. Combine this with the Uncensored finish and you’re like, “hey Sting, you want to like, hang out on the ground so you can walk out here when we need you, instead of taking five extra minutes to secure a bungee cord?”
Join us next week when [checks papers] uh, Sting doesn’t show up at all. And Prince Iaukea main-events? Oh for the love of-
