Previously on the Best and Worst of WCW Thunder: The debut of our Best and Worst of WCW Thunder column (thanks, WWE Network!) saw Kevin Nash take on the Giant with a hot coffee mod, Rey Mysterio Jr. become Cruiserweight Champion, and Chris Jericho almost paralyze himself on TV for like the fourth time in a year.
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. Follow along with the competition here.
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And now, the Best and Worst of WCW Monday Nitro for January 19, 1998.
Best: If I Had One Guess Then I Guess I’m Just New Orleans
This week’s show comes to us from the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans, and if you’d like a window into how unbelievably over everything was in 1998, watch Eddie Guerrero and Rick Martel open Nitro. Guerrero’s been pretty low on the totem pole since Starrcade and Martel hasn’t gotten a reaction in WCW beyond polite applause, and the NOLA crowd’s treating it like they’re watching Rock vs. Hogan at WrestleMania 18. There’s a point where Eddie’s working a submission and he’s just standing there, and the crowd is nuclear. It’s kind of incredible.
The story of the match is fun, too, with Guerrero being the quicker and more technically gifted younger man with rage and self-esteem problems. The former “model” has the opposite of self-esteem problems, so he’s able to use his vennern instinct to weather the limb work, persevere, and capitalize when Eddie gets cocky and starts making mistakes. For a three-minute match, it’s about as good as you can get without Goldberg spearing somebody through a barricade.
This isn’t the only appearance from House Martel on this episode …
Oh God, Worst: Mortis Breaks His Skull
Three things here:
- Booker T defends his Television Championship against Mortis and wins, but gets threatened post-match by Wrath. Rick Martel once again shows up to stick up for Booker, and when Wrath bails, Martel formally asks Booker for a title shot at Souled Out. Booker says yes, because he’s a fighting champion, as long as Martel goes through the proper channels and gets the match signed. Babyfaces!
- During the match, Tony Schiavone mentions that starting next week every episode of Nitro will go to three hours, because Nitro’s popular and Thunder’s popular now and it’s basically a three-hour show already. If you’re wondering, the difference between two hours and three hours in WCW terms is basically, “does Brad Armstrong have time for a match?”
- This is the match where Booker almost snaps Mortis in half at the neck with a powerbomb. “Holy shit” warning:
Just because you can see his bones doesn’t mean you’re supposed to break them, Book.
Worst: The Cat And Jerry Flynn Have The Worst Karate Fight You’ve Ever Seen
I’m a big fan of Ernest Miller, and y’all know I love drunk karate uncle Jerry Flynn. Having said that, please enjoy this GIF of Ernest Miller and Jerry Flynn having problem the worst martial arts battle you’ve ever seen. In one GIF you’ve got Jerry (1) selling a kick to the back of the leg by bending over, (2) accidentally no-selling a kick by spinning around in place and covering his stomach, and (3) selling the final kick to the face before Miller’s leg is even up to his shoulder.
The match is saved in part by the finish, in which Miller goes for the run-up-the-ropes Feliner. The referee apparently doesn’t realize that’s what he’s doing and starts walking toward him trying to count him off the ropes, and Earn has to Vince Carter over him and finish the move. It’d be a hell of a moment if he’d connected and hadn’t just boot-scraped Flynn’s hear on the way down, but I say that as a wrestling blogger who couldn’t run the length of the ring diagonally without falling down, much less connect with a flying kick.
Best: A Good Night For Undercard Babyfaces
There’s an unusual amount of attention (for WCW) paid to undercard babyfaces on this episode. First we have Rick Martel showing up to stick up for Booker T and politely earn a TV title shot, and now we’ve got Marty Jannetty recovering enough to help Chris Benoit fight off The Flock despite having just lost to him. One of the most difficult things about the nWo blowing up when it did is that WCW’s story became “us vs. them,” and a lot of the “who am I?” stuff got ignored. We didn’t really need to know who these guys were, just which side they were on.
I think the Raven feud did a lot to get Benoit even more over with the crowd, which he needed after all the work those big Kevin Sullivan matches did was compromised by the nWo making the Four Horsemen look like expendable jokes. There wasn’t much difference between Benoit and Mongo there for a while, if you need it phrased another way. Raven gave a guy who’s ostensibly a wrestling buzzsaw something to focus on, which gives him context. Without that, wrestlers can feel empty, even when their work is good. As a bonus, we’re finally about to have an actual, INCREDIBLE Benoit vs. Raven match at Souled Out, which is great because if they’d stretched it out for another pay-per-view it wouldn’t have felt as urgent. Good stuff.
Best: Heel Turn Foreshadowing
One of my favorite things about going back through these old shows is picking up on all the foreshadowing I missed the first time around. This week’s episode has two big ones.
The first and most important is the ongoing, surprisingly slow-burn heel turn of Scotty Steiner. The Outsiders cheated the Steiners out of the Tag Team Championship again, and instead of handling it well, Steiner got it in his head he needed to be more aggressive and prove himself. That caused a couple of tag team matches where he seemed more like a singles guy than a tag partner, with him suplexing the nuts off guys and Rick standing on the apron with his hand out wondering what the hell’s going on. This week, the Steiners face Konnan and Buff Bagwell in a tag match and Scotty wrestles the entire thing by himself, front to back. And he WINS, but Rick is now officially not feeling like part of the team and is ready to punch about it. Ted DiBiase can’t talk any sense into him, either.
The best part of this is after the match, when Buff (despite losing) tries to out-pose Steiner. Steiner becomes OBSESSED with out-posing him, ignoring his friend and family to show this muscle-themed guy that his muscles aren’t great. Buff’s leaving the ring flexing his bicep and Steiner’s like, speed-walking to the ropes to pose more. Is this the moment when Steiner realized muscles are a thing you can be braggy about? Is that what made him sick in the head? That and the hair dye? Pretty excited for the upcoming debut of White Thunder, and then his merciful but hilarious renaming. HOLLER IF YOU’RE ABOUT TO HEAR ME.
The other bit, which I completely missed the first time, is Scott Hall’s love of Dusty Rhodes.
Hall’s been beefing with Larry Zbyszko for a while, simultaneously over and under-confident he can beat Larry in a fight. Larry keeps getting involved in matches and signing up to be special guest referee, and on Thunder he interjected in a Hall vs. Louie Spicolli match and got attacked 2-on-1. This week, Hall addresses Larry directly, pointing out that yeah, he was AWA World Heavyweight Champion, but the AWA went out of business with him as champ, and he’s not even the best former pro wrestling doing commentary in the company right now. He’s “no Dusty Rhodes,” Hall says. Larry’s response is to roll his eyes and mouth, “thank God.” Hall says Dusty would be proud of him for what he’s doing, and it’s all building to Big Dust’s still-sorta-irrational nWo ship-jumping at Souled Out.
It’s not Hulk Hogan dressing like the Phantom of the Opera and trying to kill people with a broadsword obvious, but it’s there, and that’s good.
The Best And Creepiest Nitro Party
This week’s featured Nitro Party is one of the best and weirdest they’ve ever shown. Usually it’s just a frat squatting in a room watching on a tiny 1997 tube TV or like, co-eds in school sweaters saying “nWo FOR LIFE, WOOOOO” in bad handicam lighting. This week though we get a Nitro party for children, featuring a group of child Nitro Girls with a choreographed dance routine about how “WCW can’t be beat,” and a full-on fake Sting coaching children with head wounds (?) on what to say. Did you do that, fake Fake Sting? Super weird.
You don’t get much more 1990s than Crow Sting and a Looney Tunes sports sweatshirt.
Best: Chris Jericho
Get used to these Jericho entries, because he’s the best part of any Nitro or Thunder he’s on for the next year and a half.
This week, Jericho once again apologizes for what happened to Rey Mysterio Jr. — if you missed it, he jumped Rey from behind but claimed Rey was muttering insults under his breath only he could hear — and to his opponent for the night, Juventud Guerrera. They have a good little match, because they always do, which ends with Jericho tapping him out to the Liontamer. When Jericho wins, he refuses to release the hold, even when Charles Robinson is in his face doing dramatic umpire gestures.
When he finally releases the hold, he cuts another promo about how he didn’t realize Juventud was tapping, because the referee didn’t make it clear enough to him. If that wasn’t glorious on its own, he apologizes to Juvy and swears it’ll never (ever) happen again. When Juvy just shakes his head and tries to leave the ring having, you know, lost the match and been locked in a submission for way too long instead of acting gracious, Jericho gets pissed and attacks him from behind again. AMAZING. Rey rushes out to make the save and they send Jericho packing with some awesome 2-on-1 lucha combo moves. Every part of this rules. I’m so happy to go back and find out Jericho’s heel turn and character were exactly as great as I’ve been insisting for the past 20 years.
Best: Every Screenshot Of Ric Flair Reacting To Things
Not much development in the Ric Flair vs. Bret Hart feud this week. They come to the ring for another interview, Flair’s still like, “don’t say you’re the best there is the best there was and the best there ever will be, I’m actually the best,” and Hart’s still like, “I’m the best there is, the best there was and the best there ever will be. I’ve got t-shirts and stuff that say it.” It’s fine.
I think the weirdest thing I can say is that Ric Flair wrestled Bret Hart at Souled Out and it was the fourth or fifth best match on the show. It’s a real shame WCW didn’t figure out how to lean into Bret and Goldberg’s popularity and kept refocusing and refocusing on the nWo until it went out of business. Ah well.
Mostly Worst: The Build To The Very Dumb Souled Out Main Event
Souled Out’s entire build has been about two matches: The Giant vs. Kevin Nash and Ric Flair vs. Bret Hart. Because politics, a completely throwaway match between Lex Luger and Macho Man Randy Savage with no consequence ends up going on last. Let’s see how we get there.
Up first is a promo from The Giant. Don’t think WCW can overbook a promo? What if I told you he was interrupted by Hollywood Hogan with a baseball bat and Kevin Nash with a cup of hot coffee, doing another one of those “you can’t touch me, you can’t touch me” heel bits? And then Macho Man showed up because he hates Nash now and bumps Hogan from behind, knocking him into Hogan so Hogan bumps into Nash, and Nash bumps into Giant. You’re like, “oh cool, now Giant has been physically provoked and can kick Nash’s ass without risk of losing his $1.5 million performance bond,” which is a thing, but Hogan beats up Giant before that can happen.
Sting shows up to make the save, dropping Hogan. Hogan recovers from this almost instantly to flee, and the Giant’s recovering almost instantly from (1) having hot coffee thrown in his face again, and (2) Hogan attacking him with a baseball bat. Giant needs a stat boost, so Sting jams his tongue in Giant’s ear to motivate him. No seriously, look:
I hope he was just screaming random Spanglish in his ear like at the end of Starrcade. Hogan vs. Giant is the night’s main event now.
Later in the night, Lex Luger gets a disqualification win over Scott Hall when the Macho Man runs out again and attacks him. You know a run-in’s played out when the announcers’ response is, “yes, we knew this would happen, this happens all the time.” There’s almost no mention of Nash vs. Giant during the match, but they can’t get enough of the upcoming Luger vs. Savage match, which has almost no story behind it. It’s a WCW guy vs. an nWo guy and they’re both stars. Savage has been feuding with Page and Nash and even Hogan over Luger. I dunno. Remember like a week ago when James J. Dillon was like, “we’re going to punish anyone who cheats?” That lasted a long time!
In the main event, Hogan — get this — completely kicks the shit out of the Giant. Body slams him, leg drops him, has him pinned clean. He only misses out on a pin because — GET THIS — the Macho Man does a run-in. “Does a run-in” is pretty strong I guess, because what he actually does is slowly climb the ropes and miss his cue, causing Randy Anderson to have to stop his count at two and turn and look over his shoulder to see the interference. The announcers have scramble to explain why Anderson didn’t just finish the count, and it’s barely justified.
Savage tries to go after Hogan, but The Giant goes after Savage, at least until Nash joins in and hits a flying crotch to the back to stop him. Luger shows up to attack Savage again, which brings out the rest of the nWo.
THAT brings out Sting, who rappels 27 stories from the ceiling to the ring despite having jogged to the ring from the entrance earlier in the show. Did the dude go back up to the catwalk and get his bungee gear ready just in case? Why didn’t he just stay down there? Anyway, WCW manages to rid the ring of the nWo and ends the show standing tall, which is a great moral victory for the company that won the rights to its brand at the December pay-per-view and in January’s headed into “WCW/nWo Souled Out.”
Next Week:
It’s time for Souled Out, which improves upon last year’s nightmare show with no Hogan, The Giant and Kevin Nash both almost dying on a single power bomb, and three of the best pay-per-view matches of the year.
