Tumblr photography presents WCW Monday Nitro
Previously on the Best and Worst of Nitro: WCW went back to Club La Vela to celebrate Spring Break and Cinnaburst® brand chewing gum, and Sting rappelled into the ring from a Scorpion-themed helicopter. But now WrestleMania XIV is only a few days away and WCW’s feeling the heat, so they’ve got to put on a good Nitro. Or, at least, an interesting one.
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.
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Up first, let’s make sure we’re covered for our Thursday night content.
The One-Page Thunder Recap For March 19, 1998
Now that WCW Thunder has been on the air for a couple of months, they’ve stopped including any matches or angles that matter, and mostly fill it with WCW Saturday Night matches with lightning lighting. For example, the Thunder before Uncensored featured Scott Steiner vs. Johnny Grunge and was main-evented by two straight nWo run-in disqualifications. The only thing I would’ve even have wanted to write about was Lenny Lane wearing Juventud Guerrera’s mask and pretending to be Chris Jericho for the first time.
So instead of devoting 2,000 words of mental real estate to these shows that were thrown together by manatees on Thursday afternoons, I’m going to start including one-page Thunder recaps to open up the Nitro columns. If you really hate this format, I’ll go back to trying to find three paragraphs worth of content about trifling-ass, cheating-ass Jim Duggan vs. Kendall Windham, but it’s going to be ugly.
What You Need To Know About This Week’s Thunder
- If you’d like to watch it, here’s the link.
- We got the announcement that Rowdy Roddy Piper has been brought back to WCW as a “special consultant” to help with the ongoing threat of the New World Order, because who better to solve the problem than the guy who got chained to a cage and beaten to death by the nWo and once locked himself in Alcatraz for a week to fight Hulk Hogan
- star-studded wrestling matches such as Brian Adams vs. Marty Jannetty, Kendall Windham doubting El Dandy, and a very WWF Superstars B-sides contest between Ray Traylor and Barry Darsow
- Diamond Dallas Page made an appearance on MTV Live, hosted by a pre-TRL Carson Daly, to promote Stuck Mojo’s new music video. Other guests on the show included Matthew McConaughey and the Foo Fighters, which gives us this absolutely incredible GIF of Page getting brained by a stop sign while Dave Grohl shuffles away snickering:
- that segments ends with Raven hitting an Evenflow DDT on Page and putting him through a very tiny coffee table with a leopard-print throw over it, in the shadow of a dragon piñata, while everyone else is clearly laughing to themselves about how fake and corny wrestling is
- Raven goes on to defeat Brad Armstrong (tough one) and throw up a Diamond Cutter sign, because he’s a jerk who probably didn’t even like The Colour and the Shape
- the main event of Curt Hennig vs. Rick Steiner ends in a disqualification when the nWo runs in, because of course it does, but it’s memorable for a WCW run-in from William Scott Goldberg, who just spears everybody and bails. It’s the first time Goldberg runs afoul of the New World Order and establishes himself as a major player, maintains his coolness by not having him linger, and sets him up to run through every one of these guys during the summer
And now, the Best and Worst of WCW Monday Nitro for March 23, 1998.
Worst: Rowdy Roddy Piper Is Back, So Of Course He And Hogan Are Making It Sexual
As mentioned above, WCW decided to handle the nWo problem by bringing back an apparently schizophrenic old man who was last seen being beaten back into semi-retirement by the nWo. Rowdy Roddy Piper is back, and he’s got a series of announcements … but first he has to make sure you know that Macho Man Randy Savage and Hollywood Hogan are having issues because they’re “ex-lovers.” What a couple of gays, am I right?
The announcements: tonight it’ll be Rowdy Roddy Piper vs. number one contender to the WCW World Heavyweight Championship Macho Man Randy Savage in a Wrestling Until The DQ match, and Kevin Nash will take on The Giant. That quickly becomes Nash and Hogan in a handicap match against Giant — explained away by the ancient Fall Brawl stipulation, per Tony Schiavone, which is at least an attempt — but it’s no problem, because Piper says Giant’s in the back eating bacon, eggs, and midgets (?) so he can “smash Nash.” Look, we’ve already got Diamond Dallas Page threatening to “bang” everything in sight, I don’t need to hear about who The Giant wants to smash.
His major announcement is that at the upcoming Spring Stampede, he’s going to team up with The Giant to take on Hollywood Hogan and Kevin Nash in the first ever “bat match.” He adds that until then, bats are banned, which I guess they weren’t already? Can we have an nWo Interference Match at Starrcade 2000 and ban nWo interference until then?
Hogan is never worse (on screen) than when Piper is around, so he’s back on his “big stinky Giant” Dungeon of Doom shit and telling fans they’re “turned on” by Piper’s legs sticking out from under his “itsy-bitsy, teenie-weenie, little yellow polka-dotted miniskirt” — his sisters, Hogan adds — which doesn’t even fulfill the promise of the rhyme scheme it sets up. “Riddle me this, riddle me that, who’s afraid of the Big Stinky Giant and Pantyhose Piper without the bat?” is the full quote in that photo. Then Hogan’s like, “actually who’s afraid of Piper WITH the bat,” to make it worse. There’s no way the oopsie-poopsie “walking talking” Giant with his stinky-winky bottom and his friend the Gay Skirt-Wearer From Pantyhose Town will ever stop the nWo!
Very 1998 Note: Hogan’s down for the bat match, and mentions that because Rupert Murdoch is trying to buy the Los Angeles Dodgers, he’s invited Hollywood to LA to teach the team how to hit home runs. Not only is this hilariously dated now, but it shows the extremely fine line between what Hogan lies about in promos and what he lies about in real life. Unless “I was almost in Metallica” and “I’m too big of a star to be on the A-Team” were heel promos.
In case you’re reading this 20 years later and are getting really excited to see Piper take on the Macho Man, yes, it ends by disqualification when Nash and Hogan jog out with their “banned” baseball bats and get into an argument over who they should hit first. That allows Sting to run in to make the save for Piper, which of course (of course) allows Savage to knock Sting out again. Poor Sting. The Walking Talking Fire-Breathing Giant shows up and uses his poopy diaper or whatever to run the nWo off.
Just to remind you, this was the followup to Thunder, which ended with Goldberg beating up three top nWo guys by himself. That seems to be completely forgotten already, because they’ve got to focus on Roddy Piper. Real quick, who do you think fans in 1998 want to see more, and how many more months of television do you think it takes WCW to figure that out?
Best: Sting Vs. Diamond Dallas Page
Want to know the rarest thing that ever happened on Nitro? In the early days of 1998, when the Attitude Era was blossoming, the nWo were still running wild, and the wrestling part of wrestling shows were becoming more and more insignificant, WCW — WCW, mind you — announced Sting vs. Diamond Dallas Page for the WCW Heavyweight Championship as a match in the middle of a Nitro. The match goes for about 13 minutes, the crowd’s going ape shit the entire time, there’s NO INTERFERENCE WHATSOEVER, and we get a clean finish. I might as well be telling you there was a special guest appearance from Ho-Oh the Rainbow Pokémon.
This is one of the truest classics of Nitro, and is so good they decided to stretch it out and do it move for move again in 1999, same finish and all. The structure of the match is similar to a lot of Sting’s best face vs. face matches, most notably him and Luger vs. the Steiner Brothers, where they skip a lot of the traditional give and take of a match and just throw bombs at each other the entire time until one of them drops. Here, Page gets cocky and goes for the Diamond Cutter too early and Sting has it scouted. Watch the crowd reaction when Sting counters:
That’s beautiful. Sting even hangs out after the match to throw up a Diamond Cutter and put DDP over, and they hug while Tony Schiavone points out that this is what WCW is all about. And in my head I’m like, “YES, YES IT IS,” and then I wonder why nobody who was actually running the company or booking the shows between 1997 and 2001 agreed. The crowd was already getting desensitized to the New World Order, and matches like this or the meteoric rise of Goldberg suggested they just wanted to see people they like doing cool wrestling stuff. It sure beats the hell out of watching 15 guys in matching clothes do bad stomps to end the last three matches on every show.
The only negative is that there’s a minute and a half-long rest hold in the middle of the match, but it’s good to give the crowd a break and get them hyped for the finish, and also as an adult I have to accept that Sting stopped having any semblance of cardio after 1996.
Best/Worst: Scott Steiner Gets His Real Name
Best: While he’s walking to the ring in his hilarious fur hat like Jamiroquai on Bane Venom, Scott Steiner’s asked to turn around and show the back of his singlet. Airbrushed on the back is his new nickname, “Big Poppa Pump.” Tony shrugs it off, confirming that he does not hear Steiner, and therefore cannot holla for him.
Worst: He’s still officially “Superstar” Scott Steiner and several months away from leaning into the better nickname, and also we have to watch him wrestle Wayne Bloom, who looks like Brad Garrett climbing out of a swimming pool.
Worst: The Opposite Of Sting Vs. Diamond Dallas Page
Quick, name the worst Nitro match you can think of.
Was your answer, “Konnan vs. Prince Iaukea?” Congratulations! Here’s the Prince forgetting to do a drop toe-hold, Konnan selling it anyway, Prince picking him BACK UP to do the drop toe-hold that was already sold, then just letting it go and standing up because he realizes he doesn’t know any other wrestling moves.
If you’re wondering, the next move in that sequence is Prince pulling Konnan up again just to put him in a small package. Brutal. Prince actually ends up WINNING this, somehow, because they wanted a “surprising upset” for the middle of Nitro, and because Prince Iaukea definitely has some compromising photos of Eric Bischoff and blackmails him into a push every six months. Either that, or everybody’s stupid and nobody’s paying attention. One or the other.
Best: The Guerrero Family
I love this feud so much.
If you haven’t been reading along, Chavo Guerrero lost a match and agreed to do whatever his uncle Eddie says to improve his career. Eddie, being an opportunist and also a complete and utter scumbag, decides to put Chavo in a “MY FAVORITE WRESTLER IS EDDY GUERRERO” shirt and just follow him around screaming at him for not being better. Eddie’s a 10-year veteran at this point and Chavo’s barely been wrestling for two, but Eddie insists that he’s an unforgivable embarrassment if he doesn’t constantly win, then gets in the way and shouts at him so much there’s no way he could win. It’s enough to drive you crazy. Spoiler: it does.
Here, Chavo opens the show with a loss to Ultimo Dragon, because it’s ULTIMO DRAGON. Eddie stands on the outside dramatically facepalming the entire time, then gets in the ring after the loss to make Chavo apologize to the entire family individually. Chavo Sr., Hector, Mando, all of them. “MA, PLEASE DON’T CRY. I KNOW HE’S AN EMBARRASSMENT — APOLOGIZE TO GRANDMA! APOLOGIZE TO GRANDMA! YOU SAID YOU WERE GONNA DO WHAT I SAID, NOW APOLOGIZE TO GRANDMA!” “Sorry, grandma.” AMAZING.
Eddie notes that he’s got a match coming up with “another Japanese wrestler, probably better than the one you just lost to,” and that Chavo should accompany him to the ring to see how it’s done. That wrestler? Kaz Hayashi. Chavo’s up against the Ultimo Dragon, and Eddie’s facing a guy in his second-ever Nitro match. Such a great touch. Also, check out this great camerawork callback:
The match is basically Eddie dismantling Kaz for several minutes, including hitting him with what might be the most painful looking backbreaker I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s more or less a Dick Togo senton off the top onto the point of a guy’s knee. If Kaz’s entire body had fallen in half I wouldn’t have been shocked. Also great is Eddie breaking out a dropkick counter to Hayashi’s moonsault, which we can consider the grandfather of Adam Cole’s counter to Ricochet at TakeOver Brooklyn.
Really great stuff. Watch this match if you want to see Guerrero at his slimy best.
Best: Speaking Of Slimy And Best
Back on the Thunder before Uncenscored, Jericho tried to get one up on Dean Malenko by sending out Lenny Lane in his gear and Juventud Guerrera’s mask, pretending to be Jericho. Malenko ended up winning that match and thinking he’d won the Cruiserweight Championship, only for Jericho to show up, attack both men with the belt, and promise to see them on the Jericho Cruise.
On Nitro, Lenny shows up to interrupt Jericho and tell him he was promised $1,000 for his role in the ruse. Jericho says he doesn’t know what Lane is talking about, then says Lane screwed it up, then goes into a great bit about how Lane actually went into his bag when he wasn’t around and stole his gear. Also, possibly his “Loverboy tape.” Jericho claims HE is now owed a thousand bucks because he “can’t get the smell out” of the gear and can never wear it again. Magnificent. Jericho wins a short match that actually puts over Lane as a scrappy up-and-comer, and probably would’ve done more if Lane didn’t sound like Kermit the Frog every time he talked into a microphone.
This isn’t the last we’ll hear of that Loverboy tape either, so stay tuned. Also fun: before he was interrupted, Jericho was cutting a promo in Louisville about how he’s rooting for Stamford (Kentucky’s upcoming opponent) to go all the way in the NCAA tournament. This is especially fun because Kentucky stars Cameron Mill and Scott Padgett are in the audience, only a day after defeating Duke thanks in part to The Shot Heard ‘Round The Bluegrass.
Mills is wearing a “Kentucky World Order” t-shirt, which wasn’t an easy thing to get made back in the days before Pro Wrestling Tees. Mills went on to become a minister, but you may recognize Padgett as the current head coach for Samford University, or from his NBA career playing for the Jazz, Rockets, Nets, and Grizzlies. Here he is fitting into the modern NBA about 10 years too early.
Best/Worst: Best Of One
We get one of our first tastes of what would become a true WCW fan’s under-the-radar favorite rivalry, Booker T vs. Chris Benoit, in a TV title match. It’s good, because it’s always good, but the reason I’m giving it the dreaded, middling Best/Worst is because they want to set up more matches for the future by doing a television time-limit draw, but don’t have the time (or want to put in the effort) to actually doing a time limit draw, so they call the 10-minute timer at about 7 1/2 minutes. That’s actually being generous.
These two will get their day, though, as the legendary “best of seven” series starts up in May. They’d try to do it again in WWE in 2005, but Booker got hurt in the middle of that one and was replaced by Randy Orton. So, uh, that one was way less fun.
Also On This Episode
Lodi declares himself “LUCHADOR LODI” via sign to take on Actual Luchador Psicosis. Lodi has a great ability to play to the crowd with some next level Memphis-ass stomping around and covering his own ears to stop people from booing, but didn’t have any of the wrestling to back it up. Still, this is pretty fun, and features Psicosis pulling off a Whisper in the Wind from the top rope to the floor because he’s a crazy person without any bones.
Remember how WCW signed one of the best wrestlers in the entire world, Bret Hart, back in November? Remember how they’ve only had him wrestle like three times since then, because reasons? And now they’re doing a Curt Hennig vs. Bret Hart feud where Hennig keeps beating up members of the Hart Foundation, even though the “Hart Foundation” isn’t and can’t be a thing in WCW, and Bret’s rarely even around to respond to it?
That all continues this week, as Hennig loses to the British Bulldog via disqualification when Rick Rude decides to handcuff Bulldog to the ropes and punch him to death. This FINALLY brings out Hart, who of course didn’t even bring his gear tonight (because why would he), and sets up another promo about how Bret was screwed in Montreal and is a sheriff or whatever and doesn’t want it to happen to anybody else. I don’t know how to tell you this, man, but punching the one guy in the nWo who legally isn’t allowed to bump isn’t going to curb many injustices. Have you thought about wrestling in wrestling matches?
Lex Luger defeats Rick Fuller again, and I’m pretty sure Fuller only gets on TV when Lex hasn’t had a match in a while. They’re like, “oh shit, Lex Luger still works here, send him out there to Torture Rack a big guy so we can justify paying him hundreds of thousands of dollars a year,” and then they realize they’re feuding the only two really big guys on the show already, so they’re like, “shit, call Roadblock.” And when they can’t find Roadblock’s number, they call the telephone booth near the Y where Rick Fuller lives.
Worst: Who Is The Real Giant, Asked Nobody
I probably should’ve just included this with the Rowdy Roddy Piper section at the beginning, but yes, of course The Giant vs. Hollywood Hogan and Kevin Nash ends with The Disciple running in and causing a disqualification. Hogan can kick The Giant’s ass by himself and Nash can kick The Giant’s ass by himself, but together they’re super helpless and constantly begging off, and need FX Presents Brutus Beefcake to fight their battles for them. This ends with Hogan, Nash, and Beefcake all escaping unscathed, and Bischoff eating another chokeslam. Gotta sell that BATMATCH!
Finally, The Renegade Is A Prophet
His opponent:
LOL.
Next Week:
Nitro heads to Chicago for the return of Glacier (for a terrible reason), Rowdy Roddy Piper vs. Hollywood Hogan (guess how it ends), and that High Voltage vs. Wayne Bloom and Mike Enos match you’ve been begging for. WCW is definitely staying on top forever!
