Previously on the Best and Worst of WCW Monday Nitro: A bunch of future Dragon Gate stars debuted, Macho Man Randy Savage got run over by a mysterious red and yellow car surrounded by New World Order types, and WCW held a “pay-per-listen.” How great would it be if you couldn’t watch WWE pay-per-views, you could ONLY listen to the announce team?
Click here to watch this week’s episode on WWE Network. You can catch up with all the previous episodes of WCW Monday Nitro on the Best and Worst of Nitro tag page and all the episodes of Thunder on the Best and Worst of Thunder. Follow along with the competition here.
Remember, if you want us to keep writing 20-year-old WCW jokes, click the share buttons and spread the column around. If you don’t tell them how much you like these, nobody’s going to read them. These are my favorite things in the world to write, and it beats reading about In Your House: Badd Blood Money.
Up first, let’s make sure we’re covered for our Thursday night content.
The One-Page Thunder Recap For April 9, 1998
What You Need To Know About This Week’s Thunder
- Buff Bagwell will face Lex Luger on Nitro, and now has a vest with his own giant face airbrushed on the back (pictured)
- Tony Schiavone announced that Ric Flair couldn’t be there because of “bad weather.” He was actually bailing on the show to go watch his son wrestle in an amateur tournament, which turned out to be a way better use of his time than going to WCW’s B-show and losing to Scott Steiner. Steiner and Eric Bischoff show up to drag Flair’s name through the mud in an especially skeevy kind of way, so much so that Arn Anderson wanders out to defend him. Bischoff calls Arn fat, and it turns into a Steiner and Bischoff vs. Lex Luger and Rick Steiner brawl. All of that is as good as you’re imagining.
- Bischoff also proves that Hogan is better than Flair by showing a clip from Hogan’s 3 Ninjas movie. If you want to know how good THAT is, watch the trailer. It’s the thrill-ride of the year!
- yes, the movie includes Ernest falling off a roller coaster
- yes, Hulk Hogan in 3 Ninjas looks like Sam Elliott got cast in a Karate Fighters toy movie
- Chris Jericho is for some reason suddenly obsessed with the idea that Prince Iaukea is too fat to be a cruiserweight, calls him “saddlebags,” and makes him weigh himself on a bathroom scale. At least he won’t have to worry about the weight being off because of shoes. Iaukea weighs 218, well under the 225 limit, so Jericho smashes him in the face with the scale.
- Curt Hennig and Rick Rude have run out of Hart Foundation guys to handcuff to the ropes and beat up, so they find the next best thing: trifling-ass, cheating-ass Jim Duggan. Watching Duggan get handcuffed to a rope and beaten is like watching George shoot Lenny in Of Mice and Men.
- if for some reason you’d like to watch anything you just read about, here’s the link on the Network
And now, The Best and Worst of WCW Monday Nitro for April 13, 1998.
Worst: Rowdy Roddy Piper Falls Victim To The Least Vicious Attack In Wrestling History
wait
So yeah, Somewhat Commissioner Rowdy Roddy Piper (wearing a custom Tasmanian Devil shirt that makes him look like he shops exclusively at amusement park gift shops) tells Mean Gene that he’s tired of those terrible gays Hollywood Hogan and Kevin Nash “wining and dining each other” and “signing prenuptial agreements,” so he’s putting them in a match against each other tonight. When that’s done, Piper claims, he’s coming for Hogan himself.
Hogan responds to this by running up to Piper before the segment’s even over and punching him in the face. Don’t make me like you, Hulk. That quickly gives way to the Disciple, who Hogan orders to hit Piper with, “the apocalypse, the end of the world!” If you don’t know what that is, it’s Brutus Beefcake doing a terrible Stone Cold Stunner. Here’s a GIF of him doing it to Piper in a hallway, where he can have more room, because a … Stunner on the concrete floor hurts more, I guess? Because the pressure of a guy dropping asshole-first onto the floor transfers up into the shoulder and hurts your chin more?
If you have young children reading the column, please don’t let them see that horrific and graphic violence. It’s enough that Piper has to be taken to a Local Medical Facility, and Hogan once again has to flee the scene of a crime, presumably in a car that is normal colors. But wait, now the Hogan vs. Nash match that was promised is in question. WCW wouldn’t bait and switch us, would they?
Also, RODDY PIPER Is A Gay
It’s not just Nash and Hogan who are gay; according to Kevin Nash, it is Roddy Piper who is the ball-licker. Here’s Nash’s statement, and I’ve made sure to include the part in the middle where he stumbles over his words because he can’t remember the name of the gay celebrity he’s trying to name drop.
“It looks to me like it’s gonna be a long night for Piper. Hogan got to him, a theh a theh law got a hold of his buddy GEORGE MICHAELS last week.”
Yes, famous singer George Michaels. He’s almost as gay as Boys George!
Sting (who is straight, and loves the Lord) shows up and says he’s sick and tired of Nash bitching, and wants to face him right now. James J. Dillon shows up to get between them, because a WCW Executive Official’s number one goal is to make sure nothing exciting happens, and tells them if they want to fight, it’ll have to be in tonight’s main event. So they could’ve just totally skipped the Piper and Hogan thing, couldn’t they? Did they tape that during last week’s Nitro and air it as a backstage segment with a change of clothes to make people think Hogan and Piper were there?
Anyway, the match is made and Sting convinces Dillon to reinstate the powerbomb so Nash won’t have any excuses. Sting is an extremely smart character who isn’t bringing all of this on himself, if you’re wondering.
I Know I Don’t Have To Keep Doing The “I Bet You Don’t Know How THAT Match Ends” Bit, But YOU Try Coming Up With Something New To Say About Three Straight Years Of nWo Disqualifications
I bet you don’t know how THAT match ends!
You know, you can always tell how well a WCW main event is booked by how much garbage ends up in the ring. By the time the Macho Man Randy Savage has blasted Sting between the shoulder blades (?) with his arm cast and the entire nWo is in the ring beating him to death, it’s practically a landfill. You can count on the random drunk guy to toss his soda at Scott Hall or whatever, but people are throwing like, bags of trash into the ring. If they’d left the cameras rolling we could’ve seen a raccoon join the nWo.
Oh, real quick. You know how Bret Hart has been complaining for weeks about “being screwed?” Well, this week is different. This week, he-
Okay, well, he does that again. I don’t think I’ll get as much action in my entire life as Bret got in November of 1998. But to his credit, he actually runs out and tries to help Sting fight off the New World Order at the end of the show. He’s still not wrestling, and he’s still just wearing a hockey sweater instead of ever bringing his gear, but at least he’s putting the screws to someone other than himself.
Don’t worry, he wrestles again soon! Not at the next pay-per-view, though. He and Sting face Nash and Savage on the next episode of Thunder, which along with his appearance at the pay-per-listen is one of his two (2) matches between March 15 and May 17. I bet you don’t know how THAT match ends!
Best? Future Nitro Girl
Way back in the Best and Worst of WCW Monday Nitro for October 6, 1997, I used the above image as the header for the column. In this episode, we see this:
I really hope that baby shows up once a year, and is somehow one of the Nitro Girls before the company goes out of business. Also, get the baby a new shirt you guys.
Worst: The Weird Trend Of Fans Attacking Raven
On Thunder, this happens when Raven’s trying to cut a promo:
I don’t know what Curt Schilling has against Raven.
On Nitro, Diamond Dallas Page has a match against High Voltage’s Robbie Rage. Rage pins him cleanly with a Burning Hammer, obviously. No, Page wins with the Diamond Cutter with minimum effort, and Raven shows up with the United States Championship to taunt him from the ramp. The Flock jumps in to keep Page from getting to Raven, at which point another fan bumrushes Raven from behind. Security has to wrangle him to the ground and choke him out:
What’s weird about this is that I think they were plants, and WCW did it on purpose. They weren’t above this kind of shit to begin with, and next week’s Nitro is the one where Raven wrestles Goldberg and the big moment of the match is fans getting together to keep Raven from leaving. So … so did WCW use random fans attacking Raven to foreshadow how fans should attack Raven?
Speaking Of The Flock
Two things:
- 1. there have been some problems within The Flock recently, as membership is starting to reach critical mass and they’re running out of front row seats for everybody, and
- 2. Perry Saturn is starting to go crazy, wants to fight his own friends, and is trying to pick a fight with William Scott Goldberg, of all people.
So on Nitro, we’re treated to a Saturn vs. Hammer match. It’s probably better than you’re expecting, because Saturn is has always been a little better than anyone seems to remember, but Heavy Metal Van Hammer’s best effort is a good wrestler’s worst night.
And Speaking Of Goldberg
LOL, more like BYE BOI Rocco Rock.
After the match, The Flock shows up to fight Goldberg as a group — following up on a similar moment from Thunder — and are thrown to death with extreme prejudice. Saturn tries to stomp to the ring to join in, but Raven grabs him by the hair and pulls him back, effectively saving his life. I think he learned that hair move from a fan.
Best: Chris Jericho Is Foreshadowing His Own Masked Imposter Downfall
Man, lots of foreshadowing in this episode. On Thunder, Prince Iaukea continued his quest to destroy everything fans of good wrestling could ever hope to love by pinning Yuji Nagata with that Northern Lights suplex where he’s barely bridging. Jericho got so paranoid about him that he tried to loophole him out of a Cruiserweight Championship match by saying he was too heavy to be in the division. Then he smacked him in the face with a scale. You read about it.
On Nitro, Jericho continues to be paranoid about the Prince and accuses Super Calo of just being Prince Iaukea in a “horrible Super Calo costume.” First of all, LOL at Jericho calling Super Calo’s best gear a horrible Super Calo costume. Second of all …
… don’t worry, it’s the real Super Calo.
After the match, Prince Iaukea runs out to make the save for Calo and Jericho does his Michelle Tanner surprised face. “I didn’t know Prince Nakamaki had a twin brother!” See you on the laughing my ass off cruise.
Also On This Extremely Long And Arduous Episode
Public Enemy member John Grunge does better than his friend by defeating Chavo Guerrero Jr. via teabag. Not only will Grandma Guerrero be sad about Chavo taking another loss, she’ll have to deal with her grandson’s face smelling like stale Newports and gym-short ball sweat for the next week and a half.
Hey, us too!
If we’d had a clicker we could’ve jumped over to Raw to watch Vince McMahon and Stone Cold Steve Austin fight each other and not had to watch Rick Steiner vs. Konnan. I know I’m a WCW homer through and through, but I would be a lying motherfucker if I said Raw wasn’t at least a thousand times better than Nitro right now. I still love watching these shows for the nostalgia and the great undercard wrestling, but that sweet spot between “good cruiserweights” and “embarrassingly funny main-events” has more garbage in it than a ring during a Kevin Nash match.
Steiner gets the win when nWo Vincent tries to interfere, Ted DiBiase stops him, and Konnan falls victim to a diving bulldog via standing still and looking over his shoulder at Rick for too long.
You know, it’s 20 years later and I’m still disappointed that my 1998 Dream Match of Glacier vs. Chris Benoit is kinda boring and ruined by the fact that Glacier’s in the middle of a meandering heel turn, so he’s doing a lot of nerve holds and choking instead of cool Mortal Kombat ice ninja stuff. Benoit vs. Glacier in a modern world would be great for a lot of reasons, including child murder avoidance, but also because Benoit would’ve been good enough to work out a bunch of really creative counter-holds and spots for Glacier’s kicks and made them both look great. But mostly for the first thing.
Benoit wins, of course, when Glacier slowly walks at him arm first and is surprised when it’s countered into the Crossface. Benoit celebrates on the apron by reducing his body fat to negative percentages and looking like somebody caught too many snakes in a flesh-colored sack.
The Lex Luger vs. Buff Bagwell match they spent five minutes advertising on Thunder ends in a disqualification — who knew? — when Eric Bischoff shows up and kicks Lex in his highly developed latissimus dorsi. Bischoff gets racked in response, and it turns into a Luger/Steiner vs. Bagwell/Steiner thing again.
It’s not really worth mentioning except for the chance to share this screenshot, which made me laugh for like 20 minutes:
I also gave you two shots there so I didn’t have to screenshot anything from Ultimo Dragon vs. Lenny Lane.
Finally, in ANOTHER match that would be great if WCW had any idea what people liked about their characters, Booker T squashes La Parka. When it’s over, La Parka tries to save the segment by attacking Booker with a chair, but Chris Benoit intercepts it and ALSO beats La Parka down. The time of skeletons and ninjas is truly over, folks. Benoit and Booker will continue their rivalry in one of the handful of watchable matches at Spring Stampede in six days.
Also, The Nitro Girls Are Easter Bunnies
That’s it for this week. Whew. Don’t worry, we’re about to split the New World Order into warring factions and build to another summer of basketball player matches. Wait, did I say don’t worry?
Next Week:
It’s time for Spring Stampede, featuring:
- Saturn and Goldberg working out their problems in a match that popped an entire room of me and my stoner friends
- Raven and Diamond Dallas Page figuring out which one of them should be United States Champion for almost an entire day
- Bret Hart not wrestling
- A Mean Giant and his best friend the living Gaydar teaming up in a bat match
- Sting definitely not looking like a stupid weak idiot
Be there!
