Previously on the Best and Worst of WCW Monday Nitro: Mean Gene Okerlund tried to solve the mystery of William Scott Goldberg and came up with only a photograph. El Caliente debuted (and lost), Sting stood next to a weird Andre the Giant pillow person, and Alex Wright wore pants so yellow he looked like a banana giving birth to a second, slightly smaller banana.
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, originally aired on October 6, 1997.
Before We Begin, The Most Unfortunate Tonal Shift In The History Of Our Sport
As you know if you’ve been reading the Best and Worst of WWF Raw Is War and/or lived through this 20 years ago, former WCW star Brian Pillman died from arteriosclerotic heart failure about six hours before In Your House: Badd Blood. Pillman spent the majority of his career and the better part of a decade in World Championship Wrestling as Flyin’ Brian, one half of the Hollywood Blondes, and the “Loose Cannon” who joined the Four Horsemen and personally burned down kayfabe in February of ’96.
It’s a solemn reminder that no matter how special we are, no matter how long we’ve been here and how many hardships we’ve endured, life is fleeting, and can be taken away from us in, quite literally, a heartbeat.
The next thing we see is one of the Nitro Girls’ boobs falling out.
Approaching this from a purely anthropological point of view, this in its day was one of the great pre-Internet “wait, what did I just see” Jacket-Jackson-Super-Bowl moments in the lives of various awkward little wrestling fans going through puberty. WWE Network pixelates it, of course, and I recommend watching the full scene just for the amazing tight shot of the right three Nitro Girls with Kim Page glaring directly into the center of the camera.
Also in this episode prefaced by an In Memoriam graphic for the real life death of a young wrestler, we begin Billy Kidman’s new “I’m on heroin” gimmick. This one’s a real roller coaster.
Best: Flock Of Ages
Getting?
So yeah, this week we get the “he’s a real wrestler now” debut of occasional Nitro jobber and shooting star presser into nowhere Billy Kidman. He has music and moves and actual offense now, which is great, as he ends up a 3-time Cruiserweight Champion and 3-time tag champ, counting the cruiserweight tag straps.
Unfortunately (fortunately) for Kidman, he loses this match to Alex Wright despite having him [checks notes] dead to wrights due to a ringside distraction from Raven. And PERRY SATURN. CAW CAW, VULTURE SQUAD TRANSFORM!
Mike Tenay recognizes Saturn and notes that he and Raven “have a long-time association in another wrestling organization,” which isn’t entirely accurate but we’ll work with it.
Saturn’s replacing Stevie Richards here, and it’s the official start of the angle that makes Raven a bonafide WCW Superstar, The Flock. The faction would eventually grow to include such luminaries as the pirate version of Scotty Riggs, ‘Heavy Metal’ Van Hammer minus guitar plus nipple rings, street clothes Yet-tay Ron Reese and Hulk Hogan’s terrible nephew Horace. As you might be able to tell from that description, it ruled.
Perry Saturn and Billy Kidman are your first members of the crew. Funny enough, a couple of years later it would be those two teaming up to defeat Raven in a match to disband it. Fearful symmetry in the WCW mid-card, everybody.
Worst: The Halliburton Turns For The Final Time
With the Four Horsemen disbanded, Jeff Jarrett and Steve ‘Mongo’ McMichael have no choice but to jump dicks-first back into the “a southern dandy has cuckolded me” Debra angle that’s been going on since 1885.
Future WCW World Heavyweight Champion Jarrett takes on future WCW World Heavyweight Champion (and championship rival) Booker T, and loses when Mongo jogs out and choke-punches him over Debra. As you do. The referee sees the entire thing happen and is like, “this is fine.”
Later, we find out that Mongo will be facing Jarrett at Halloween Havoc in a match where if Mongo wins, Debra will have to leave WCW. If your booking plan for that is, “swerve, Jarrett actually quits the company before it can happen and Mongo ends up losing to Alex Wright and everyone gets beaten up by Goldberg,” congratulations, you’re certifiably insane and fit to book World Championship Wrestling.
Worst: Roddy Piper Would Attack You For Saying He’s Bengay
Early in the show they announce Macho Man Randy Savage vs. Chris Benoit as the main event, so you know it doesn’t happen. In the most Grandpa Simpson moment he’s ever attempted, Larry Zbyszko cuts a promo on Macho by holding up a package of Bengay, noting that he “pulled it out of his golf bag today as he took all the Olsonawskis money” and explaining that he uses this fine product™ before he golfs so he can “beat everybody.” If Macho Man is “real nice,” Larry will have “the boys” take the Bengay backstage to him after the match.
I think Schiavone and Tenay’s faces tell you everything you need to know. Holy shit, Larry, Lee Marshall could’ve called in and called Savage the “Macho Weasel” and it would’ve hit harder than “I went to Walgreen’s after I golfed today and had this great idea for a bit.”
By The Way, If You’re Wondering Why Macho Man Vs. Benoit Doesn’t Happen …
Diamond Dallas Page challenges the Disco Inferno for the Television Championship, which as you might be thinking is the October ’97 equivalent of Brock Lesnar vs. Jinder Mahal. Page has the match easily won, of course, when the Macho Man runs out and attacks him.
Savage pulls up the ringside padding and tries to end Page’s career (or whatever), so Interim Commissioner Rowdy Roddy Piper, possibly responding to the bat signal of someone saying the word “gay” so many times on Nitro, shows up to stop him. Piper spits in Savage’s face, and that’s enough of a distraction for DDP to drop Mach on the concrete with a Diamond Cutter.
Macho Man ends up getting stretchered out of the building, because a Diamond Cutter onto concrete in 1997 is like the Freebirds trying to kill Ted DiBiase. That means Macho Man won’t be able to face Benoit in the announced main event. Oh, and during the TV title match they announce that Disco Inferno vs. Miss Jacqueline for the belt is official for Halloween Havoc, so that’s two matches in the span of about a minute that don’t happen as announced. WCW! [tossed confetti]
Best: The One Where Hulk Hogan Cuts The Best Promo On The Show
After spitting in a wrestler’s face and getting him injured, Very Good Commissioner Roddy Piper sticks around to make a bunch of bald jokes about Hulk Hogan, mention lakes too many times because they’re in Minnesota and other assorted senile nonsense. He declares that the Outsiders have to defend the Tag Team Championship next week or they’ll be stripped of the titles — something that absolutely doesn’t work, as we’ve seen, especially since “the nWo get title shots whenever they want” is still a contractually obligated thing they sometimes remember — and announces that the upcoming Savage/Page match at Halloween Havoc will be performed under PIPER’S RULES. Raven’s in the front row, that must’ve been where he got it.
That brings out Eric Bischoff and Hollywood Hogan, and here’s something I can’t believe I’ve typed twice in the same section: Hulk Hogan cuts the best promo on the show.
What’s great about it is that instead of being the normal blowhard Hogan shit calling everyone stinky winkies or whatever, it’s pointed and focused and razor sharp. He starts it by realistically pointing out that Piper can’t be the “icon” because Hulk Hogan exists, Piper’s spent the past 15 years in his shadow, and he needs to cut it out with that corny shit. Then he brings up Piper’s long-forgotten promise to his family to stop wrestling and go home and be a husband and father, promising to make those words true by putting him in a wheelchair. He does call him “teeny man” at one point, but it’s about as close to perfect as non-cocaine-raging ’80s Hogan gets.
Even the fight that erupts is good, with Hogan saying he’ll kick Piper’s ass right here right now only for Bischoff to cheap shot Piper from behind and give Hulk the unfair advantage. Piper uses his SCRAPPY INTANGIBLES to fight back, causing Bischoff to accidentally kick Hogan, and ends the segment swinging the World Heavyweight Championship over his head like the Ultimate Warrior to keep the nWo at bay. Really good stuff.
Best: Scott Hall, Kabuki Quantum Fighter
Piper’s Outsiders announcement is a result of this hilarious pre-match promo from Scott Hall, where he reveals that Kevin Nash has injured his knee. Here, just read this.
“Now onto something a little more serious … I’m sure you can tell there’s one member of the Wolfpac missing, that’s Big Kevin Nash. He hurt his knee, he’s at home gettin’ well. Now it’s obvious that I’m severely injured as well. The average man would be hospitalized by now, but we wouldn’t disappoint the fans like that. Now please, a lot of people want to know, how could Kevin Nash and Scott Hall get hurt at the same time. It’s a little bit Kabuki-ish, I’ll admit, but I’m gonna tell you exactly what happened. We were over at Kev’s house, we took out some old wrestling tapes. [crowd chants “Larry, Larry”] That’s who it was, we got out those old Zbyszko tapes, we started watching ’em, I started laughing so hard that I threw my back out. Kev fell off his stool and hurt his knee.”
A LITTLE BIT KABUKI-ISH, you guys.
Hall beats Hector Garza and then Torture Racks referee Billy Silverman for no reason, continuing his blood feud with all referees and making it very obvious that his ribs are fine. My only complaint is that this angle didn’t end with all the referees attacking Hall en masse like when you fuck with the cuccos in Zelda.
Other Matches I Don’t Have Much To Say About
Here’s Mortis and Ernest Miller almost killing each other trying to do a Rocker Dropper off the second rope.
The Blood Runs Cold angle is in a real state of “… are we still doing this?” right now, with Mortis and Wrath kinda drifting into the tag team division, Ernest Miller suddenly wrestling singles matches he’s in no way prepared for and Glacier mostly stuck on Saturday Night and WCW Pro. This match doesn’t help at all, but is more or less saved by the finish, as it’s impossible to not like Miller’s no hands up-the-corner springboard version of the Feliner. That move is forever dope. Ernest Miller vs. Will Ospreay for WrestleMania weekend, please and thank you.
Eddie Guerrero defends the Cruiserweight Championship against Ultimo Dragon in a match that SHOULD be good, but they very obviously aren’t on the same page and can’t get it together, so it isn’t. I think that’s the thing that keeps Ultimo Dragon from being seen as one of the best wrestlers of his time. He had so much influence in being a WCW cruiserweight tent pole and creating Toryumon, but far too often he gets iffy in big American TV or pay-per-view matches and doesn’t deliver. It’s a shame, too, because he’s great.
The highlight (and defining moment) of the match is Dragon getting into position for a frog splash, and Eddie deciding to go to the wrong corner on purpose and try to make the leap. He’s going for that shit at “Brock Lesnar shooting star press” distance. He connects, God bless him, but the frog splash becomes more of a flying headbutt and looks really desperate. It’s fine, brother’s about to have the best WCW cruiserweight match of all time at Halloween Havoc.
Best: Chris Benoit Is Trying To Kill Curt Hennig
I swear that’s not a Benoit joke, there’s just no better way to describe it. Look at that.
Hennig is Macho Man’s replacement in a match against the toughest guy on the Four Horsemen’s War Games team, which is absolutely a mistake. Benoit jumps him on the aisle and lights him the hell up the entire match. That picture is a suplex onto the top rope that doesn’t quite go far enough, causes Hennig’s thighs to hit the top rope instead of his stomach and sends him flipping down onto his head. The GIF version doesn’t look any safer. And if we’re talking dangerous looking GIFs, watch as Hennig brings back the legendarily insane Ultimate Warrior chop sell and ups the ante by bumping on the corner of the steps. BRUH.
There’s a palpable hate here that really elevates the match. Even the chops in the ring get sold like Hennig’s been blasted in the face with a shotgun.
Hennig is in there throwing avalanche dragon screw leg whips too, and man, I wish anything else on this episode was at this level. This is GREAT. Hennig gets a cheap win by exposing a turnbuckle, sending Benoit into it and hitting a Perfect Plex. This is as close to “Mr. Perfect” as Curt Hennig ever got in WCW, I think.
After the match, the nWo shows up to beat up Benoit for doing too well, setting up the even more hate-fueled return of Ric Flair. Flair sprints to the ring, unleashes hell, then chases Hennig out of the building and into the damn streets of Minnesota.
The best part of the entire thing has got to be Flair stiff-arming Doug Dellinger to the ground and establishing himself as pro wrestling’s greatest running back.
After Hennig’s escaped into the night don’tcha know, Flair returns to cut a heated promo about how he’s going to hurt Curt “for real, for a long, long time.” One of the things Flair always did best was knowing when to wrestle and when to fight. See also the time he returned from injury to put the fear of God into Bob Orton and Dick Slater with a baseball bat, or any part of the ‘I Quit’ match with Terry Funk from New York Knockout. He always knew when to cut the “pro wrestler” shtick and get real.
He’s also the best at making a wonderfully horrifying face during any attempt at pausing his promos:
Next Week
It’s the go-home show for Halloween Havoc as WCW’s two longest-running angles come to a close at the same time, Syxx accidentally wrestles his final WCW match, and Sting once again disguises himself as Sting.
