Best and Worst of WCW Monday Nitro 5/4/98: The Pack Survives

Previously on the Best and Worst of WCW Monday Nitro: Nitro celebrated being preempted by the 1998 NBA Playoffs on TNT by splitting the show into two episodes, giving us two Goldberg and two Chris Jericho segments, and having Alex Wright get thrown out for dancing when he’s not supposed to dance (twice).

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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And now, the Best and Worst of WCW Monday Nitro for May 4, 1998. May it be with you!

A Couple Of Notes Before We Begin

1. There’s no Thunder this week, or next week, due to the NBA playoffs
2. If you “checked your local listings” you’ll see that this week’s Nitro is just one episode on Monday, but it’s been cut down to two hours, making it instantly 100% easier to watch (because no wrestling show without “Mania” behind it needs to be three hours long, and even that’s debatable).

Worst: We Hope You Like Konnan TV Time

This week’s show opens with a video package reminding us of last week’s “Konnan joins the Wolfpac” segment. Then, about three minutes later and before the first match begins, we see the segment replayed again. Yes, in about six minutes Nitro shows us the same segment we saw last week twice. What is this, Raw?

NOVEMBER WHISKEY OSCAR

I guess when WCW got the memo that Nitro would only be two hours instead of three, they decided to punt and turn in a sheet paper with “KONNAN” written on it in crayon. That’s really all you get this week, as five of the eight matches end in disqualification due to outside interference, and three of those five disqualifications are caused by the nWo Wolfpac. Oh boy!

The first match that gets interrupted is the Nitro debut of Scott Putski, who has jumped ship from the World Wrestling Federation looking like one of the New Age Outlaws’ blow-up dolls. Seriously, what’s wrong with his face? He looks like someone tried to texture-map a caricature of Sylvester Stallone’s face onto an N64 No Mercy character head. Also he looks like he’s wrestling in chaps.

Anyway, we never get the ending of the barn-burner Scott Putski vs. Kidman match because the nWo show up like The Shield in their brand new red and black t-shirts and attack everybody. Kevin Nash officially nicknames them the “red and black attack,” and introduces us to their newest member: Curt Hennig?

So yeah, the group that was once Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, and Syxx (as on off-shoot of the unofficially recognized Kliq) is now Nash hanging out with Harvard Lampoon’s Real Man Of The Year, a guy in JNCOs who falls down if he takes more than two steps in any direction, and the guy who turned on the Four Horsemen to join the nWo and then turned on the nWo to join a smaller nWo. Not much of a vetting process here at Wolfpac Industries. Hollywood Hogan acolyte Bryan Adams shows up and gets mad at Hennig for defecting, and/or for having never really, really really ever loved a woman.

Kevin Nash uses this time to finally explain Scott Hall’s absence, saying Hogan and Bichoff won’t let him on TV with a live microphone, but that he’ll be at the country bear Slamboree. The best part of the segment is Macho Man saying that Bret Hart won’t get screwed unless it’s something he wants. I didn’t even have the internal strength to screencap those captions and throw up piper-boat.jpg. The more you watch it, the more you realize popular-ass 1998 pro wrestling is just the bath house scene from Final Fantasy VII.

Worst: Konnan Returns

That segment sets up Konnan vs. Brian Adams, which in modern terms would be like something on Raw setting up Jinder Mahal vs. a second, sweatier Jinder Mahal in three-sizes-too-big khaki pants. As a fun aside, Adams tries to earn points by telling the crowd to have a “warm cup of shut the hell up,” which Only 90s Kids Will Remember is one of the best quotes from Happy Gilmore. Hollywood Hogan eats pieces of shit like you for breakfast!

Bret Hart, who is now a Hulk Hogan loyalist for some reason, tries to help Adams cheat to win. That just causes the Wolfpac to hit another limit break and cause another disqualification, and Kevin Nash powerbombs Adams. Adams says “please forgive me,” but that jackknife came straight from the heart.

Worst: Konnan Forever

The night’s main event is supposed to be Kevin Nash vs. Lex Luger, but that’s a dangerous amount of TV time without Konnan present, so the Wolfpac shows up to cause their third interference disqualification in about an hour and a half of actual wrestling show. On the bright side, all these DQs saved us from a Brian Adams match, a Lex Luger match, and Scott Putski’s face.

As a fun (read: not fun) aside, Luger’s saved by WCW’s two bravest soldiers, Sting and The Giant. The reason that’s fun is because within the next month, both Sting and Luger would end up in the nWo Wolfpac, and Big Show executes one of his contractually mandated heel turns next week to join nWo Hollywood. With Bret Hart defecting at Spring Stampede, that puts four of WCW’s only remaining main-event stars on the bisected heel team, and only really leaves Diamond Dallas Page and randomly occurring weirdo Roddy Piper to represent WCW. Whoops!

Speaking Of WCW Being Idiots

One of the low points of the episode is a promo in which an “injured” Scott Steiner shows up on crutches and begs his brother Rick to take him back. Scott’s literally crying, mumbling in his Scott Steiner way about how Hogan doesn’t mean anything to him, and how he wants things to go back to the way they were.

To his credit, Rick is like, “Mean Gene, I can’t trust him,” but then Scott’s like “but actually you should,” and Rick says, “okay, this is fine.” They hug, and before the hug is even over, goddamn Brian Adams shows up again and smashes a bat over Rick’s back. Scott reveals that he’s actually fine, he and Demolition Droz too-sweet each other, and WCW’s fans are reminded that anyone not wearing a black t-shirt is a fucking moron. Great job, everyone!

Best/Worst: Let’s Get Let’s Get Let’s Get Let’s Get Flocked

Perry Saturn and Nipple Ring Van Hammer have been beefing for the past few weeks, so they agree to have a loser leaves the Flock match. It’s pretty clear from Kidman’s pre-match announcement that the Flock wants Saturn out, because he’s kind of a cross-eyed loose cannon, and doesn’t fit the Flock’s “gang members in the background of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie” aesthetic.

On last week’s show, a mysterious fan showed up to attack Kidman. This week, that same fan shows up with a tray of drinks and attacks Saturn AND Hammer, and I’m honestly not sure how many attacks like this we get before we find out it’s Chris Kanyon. But hey, Kanyon’s about to be a thing, which means we’re only about a year and a half away from “Positively Kanyon,” the very best thing about WCW’s dying days. Side note: check out the magic of that screencap, and how the drinks in a tray maintain a basic tray shape when you bring the tray down too fast and all the drinks fall out.

Both Flock members are KO’d, but Hammer falls on top of Saturn and gets the three. Saturn is now ousted from The Flock, and looking back I’m honestly surprised this didn’t lead to the formation of nWo Denim and Flannel.

Best: Michael Jackson Versus The Mummy

Sorry, I had to screencap Tony Schiavone’s vocal gymnastics there. “He shoved the little man down, did Boulder!”

Juventud Guerrera has a match with Sick Boy, which of course ends with Hulk Hogan’s terrible nephew shoving Juvy in the ass and causing a disqualification. The announcers don’t know if matches featuring Raven’s friends are “Raven’s Rules” matches or not, and the referee doesn’t seem to know either, so he just ends up calling it off. The reason I’m giving it a Best here, besides that Tony call that sounds like two different euphemisms smashed together, is because the Flock attacks Juvi after the match and gets my man REESE involved.

And then William Scott Goldberg shows up and JACKHAMMERS A BUTT-FUCKING HIMALAYAN ICE MUMMY

That’s extremely impressive, as Goldberg lifts a seven-footer like he’s a tiny child, but I’m forever disappointed that this didn’t happen while Reese was The Yeti. How do you create a Hulkamania-buggering giant mummy, keep the man employed, and repackage him as a weirdly tall grunge guy? Don’t you want to see Goldberg fight a mummy? I’m 95% sure I’m going to write that script and pitch it to The Asylum this weekend.

Also, I can’t believe how much I want to see a regular Goldberg/Juventud Guerrera tag team now. Let Juvy ride him to the ring like a caragor from Shadow of Mordor.

The Lord Loves A Hanging

While the Flock is all huddled together in the locker room watching the match, Diamond Dallas Page barges in with a bull rope around his neck for some reason and kicks the shit out of all of them. He ends up dragging Raven to the ring by his neck, beats him up some more, and after a brief comeback of a low-blow and Evenflow attempt, Page ends up “hanging” Raven over the ropes.

You’d think they were setting up a bullrope match for Slamboree, but they’re actually building toward a “Bowery Death Match,” which is one of those “Raven’s House Of Fun” or “Clockwork Orange House of Fun” things where it’s just a normal Raven’s Rules match where anything goes, but the production team’s put some plunder nearby. They should’ve called it a “we provide the kendo sticks” match. But anyway, yeah, hanging visuals were a thing old school pro wrestling used to love before a popular pro wrestler killed his family and then himself in a sensationalized hanging.

In a completely unrelated note,

Best: Game, Blouses

We have a new World Television Champion, thanks to Chris Benoit showing up in Seinfeld’s puffy shirt (with INCREDIBLE hockey hair) and distracting Booker T. He couldn’t get the job done himself, so he took a shortcut and helped someone ELSE do it, so he could then try to beat them. Who is the new champion, you might ask? Why, it’s a man who loves to fight, and is the deadbeat dad of a formerly mute leprechaun who was given the power of speech by Santa Claus!

Note: surprisingly not a WCW story

Yes, Fit Finlay is your new Television Champion. As I’ve mentioned a few times, I thought Finlay was super boring when I was younger, so I look forward to enjoying his TV title run in the same way I realized I was an idiot for not loving Lord Steven Regal sooner. I mean, I won’t enjoy him as much as I enjoy Regal, but I don’t enjoy breathing as much as I enjoy Lord Steven Regal.

Best: Don’t Bore Us, Get To The Chorus

This week’s best segment belongs to (surprise!) Chris Jericho, who decides to pivot from “funny burns on Dean Malenko” to “outright hateful burns on Dean Malenko,” because they’re building to something very, very good. Jericho plays a video of Dean talking about the passing of his father, wrestling legend Boris Malenko, and says Boris is ROLLING IN HIS GRAVE because Dean’s such a failure. He says none of the Malenkos can wrestle, Dean’s career was a “mediocre joke,” and even says Malenko got the “man of 1,004” nickname because WCW knows he’s boring as shit and doesn’t know what else to do with him. God damn.

And then, of course, we pivot back to the Chris Jericho we know and love as he brings out Dean’s dead father to wrestle. Meet Bore Us Malenko, the man of one …

… hold. I hope you’ve enjoyed my several year build to this one joke. Hold your applause.

Oh, and if you’re wondering, Bore Us’ one move is a “full armdrag and twist.” He hits in on Jericho early, but doesn’t know what else to do. Jericho starts pretending he’s “in trouble” against Bore Us, played by WCW jobber Johnny Boone, and starts orchestrating his own exciting near-falls.

Amazing. Jericho taps out Dean’s dead father to the Liontamer, holds it on too long, and professionally signs a contract guaranteeing an ass-beating of Biblical proportions very, very soon.

Also On This Episode

Best: Eddie Guerrero decides to prove to his nephew that he’s the best uncle in the world by going one-on-one with Scott Norton, to give Chavo a wrestling lesson. Then about 10 seconds into the match, he (once again) proves he’s the worst uncle in the world by faking a knee injury, rolling out of the ring, and making Chavo take a shit-kicking for him. Perfect.

Worst: Public Enemy is literally garbage.

But no, it’s another Barbarian and “Humorous” vs. Public Enemy street fight, with the announcement that since anything goes, Jimmy Hart can get involved and is technically part of the match. That announcement comes in handy, Drake Maverick style, when Johnny Grunge powerslams and splashes him to win the match. I don’t have much to say about this, other than to remind you that Jimmy Hart and Giant Baba have the same body at different scales.

Best: The Hottest Feud In Wrestling Continues