WCW Thunder: The Best and Worst of February 19, 1998

Previously on the Best and Worst of WCW Thunder: Macho Man Randy Savage and Hollywood Hogan got into a battle of passive-aggressive apologies to set up a tag team match against Sting and Lex Luger on Nitro. This turned into an aggressive-aggressive battle of everybody punching each other.

If you’d like to watch this week’s episode on WWE Network, click here. In the coming weeks you’ll be able to read all the Thunder recaps on its UPROXX tag page, and of course if you’re reading these, you’re hopefully reading the corresponding Nitro bits as well.

Note: This is still a relatively new vintage column in the rotation, so if you like it, please make sure to comment below and share the column on all (or at least some) of your social media. It helps, especially for shows most people didn’t even watch 20 years ago.

And now, the Best and Worst of WCW Thunder for February 19, 1998.

Worst: Before We Even Begin, Here’s An nWo Run-In

Instead of waiting for the main event to go on for 40 seconds before sending everyone on the team into the ring for some battle royal violence, the New World Order cuts out the middle-man this week by simply attacking their opponents en masse while they’re walking through the parking lot. They catch Macho Man Randy Savage scandalously talking to Lex Luger — they think it’s about Savage wanting to turn on them or something, but if they’re having a parking lot conversation there’s a 75% chance it’s about drugs — and beat the shit out of them. They carry Savage into the arena themselves. WE HOPE THIS DOESN’T CAUSE OUR ANNOUNCED MAIN EVENT OF STING VS. MACHO MAN RANDY SAVAGE TO BE BAIT-AND-SWITCHED, FANS.

Somewhere in the middle of the show, we get a quota-fulfilling Hollywood Hogan promo about how he’s The Man and how Savage sucks, and how Nick Patrick deserves to be the referee for his SuperBrawl match against Sting because, let’s face it, Sting lost both of those matches clean. It’s not Hogan or Nick Patrick’s fault that Sting spent a year painting his face and hanging out on arena catwalks bein’ all spoopy instead of, I don’t know, working out and trying to win wrestling matches.

When it’s time for the main event, the nWo carries Savage out to the ring like he’s in Spider-Man 2, covered in spray-paint and a Sting mask. Hogan’s like, “if you want to see Sting wrestle, you’ll have to tune into SuperBrawl® brand pay-per-view to see it.” Add in your own “brothers” for color. Hulk assures us that Sting is too much of a coward to run out here and face him right now, so of course Sting jogs out there and faces him right then.

This turns into Sting and Lex Luger vs. the New World Order with an unconscious Sting-flavored Macho Man in the middle of the ring, and that’s our go-home segment for SuperBrawl. It’s not much, but if you expected something other than “the three-to-five good guys fight off the 10-12 nWo guys and we’re out of time,” you haven’t been paying attention. It’s like expecting an episode of Modern Family to end without an emotional speech from an off-brand Hallmark card.

Nothing like taking a few weeks off to recharge and then coming back to, “the nWo attacked everybody and none of it really mattered,” huh?

Best: The New World Order Vs. The Police State

The remainder of the nWo content from this week’s Thunder is more intimate and character based, by which I meant to say there’s a lot of top level heels teaming up to beat jobbers and random bystanders within an inch of their life.

The most notable match is a rare tag team affair from The Outsiders, as they team up to prove they deserve their upcoming Tag Team Championship match at SuperBrawl by taking on the artists formerly known as the Beverly Brothers. “The Mauler” Mike Enos was accidentally a good luck charm for the nWo … he’s in the ring when Scott Hall debuted on Nitro and started the story, and here he is taking a loss to Hall right before they pull a big championship swerve and turn a threateningly dumb collegiate-wrestling Michigander into a psychosexual Godzilla. More on that at SuperBrawl.

The Bevvies actually get the win when Kevin Nash punches the referee in the face for no reason and uses the dreaded Banned Powerbomb on Wayne Bloom for a disqualification. Nash briefly pretends to use WCW security as a human shield with finger guns (pictured) as he’s being taken to a Local Detention Facility.

A banned powerbomb isn’t the most deadly thing the nWo uses this week, however; here’s Rick Rude going full Daniel Bryan and choking Davey Boy Smith with his tie, a fireable offense only 12 years later.

It starts as a promo, with Rude and Curt Hennig remembering that Bret Hart exists — a rare thing in early 1998 — and insulting him until Bret’s bannermen the British Bulldog and the Anvil show up. They’re sworn to protect him, so we get an nWo vs. Hart Foundation brawl featuring (1) none of the important people from the nWo, and (2) nobody actually named “Hart” involved at all. For some reason WCW was like, “the Hart Foundation works best if we never actually let Bret hang out with these guys.” It’s like in NXT when Sasha Banks and Charlotte Flair came to the ring with a cardboard cutout of Summer Rae’s head on a popsicle stick, only this one cost millions of dollars.

Best: Flock Of Ages

The Flock does the heavy lifting for the show’s in-ring work again this week in three matches; the first being a Television Championship division (?) bout between Booker T and Scotty Riggs, intended to add a little understated drama to Sunday’s SuperBrawl triple threat. To catch you up, Booker, Perry Saturn of the Flock and Canadian’s Wunderdad Rick Martel are facing each other at the pay-per-view in two matches, with the eventual winner becoming the champ. Booker and Martel have a competitive friendship going, and The Flock’s trying to drive a wedge between that while also sneak-attacking them to death in the hopes of actually accomplishing something.

So up first we get Booker and Riggs, which Booker wins. Saturn raises some eyebrows by ordering The Flock to not attack Booker, calling into question Book’s allegiances before the pay-per-view. Also of note is Brother Lodi’s sign, which is either an early days posterboard subtweet of the Hardy Boyz or a very early advertisement for Team Cody. Is it too late for Van Hammer to join the Firing Squad?

My favorite match from the episode is Diamond Dallas Page teaming up with Chris Benoit to take on Raven and Saturn, which is about as good as the WCW mid-card gets from an old school in-ring perspective. These guys know exactly what to do and exactly when to do it, so they build and build to an incredible finish of Benoit using a desperation headbutt to break up the Rings of Saturn and set up stereo Cutter/Crossface finishers on the Flock to put them away.

WCW’s mid-card is basically here to remind you that wrestling’s supposed to be exciting sometimes, and that sometimes you’re supposed to be as excited for what the wrestlers do as for who the wrestlers are. That’s the major difference in card placement for WCW, and eventually modern WWE. If random casuals in the middle of the nowhere know your name and your deal, that makes you a main-eventer no matter how good or bad you are. David Arquette, I’m looking in your direction. If people in the business and diehard fans know how you are, it will never matter who you are, but what you do.

Now’s a good time to get used to the “Raven and Saturn had a tag match that was the best part of the show” talking point, because that carries through most of the rest of the year.

Match three for the Flockers is Bill H. Kidman vs. Juventud Guerrera. The “H” stands for “heroin.” These two would have much more important cruiserweight division matches down the road, including one at a future Starrcade. Here, Juvy’s only a few days from challenging for the Cruiserweight Championship in a luchas de apuestas match, so he finishes off Kidman with a 450 and gets attacked by Chris Jericho. Jericho tries to unmask him early, but Juvy’s able to fight him off and send him fleeing.

Speaking of “these two would have much more important cruiserweight division matches down the road,” Jericho returns later in the night to get a surprisingly clean win over future blood rival Dean Malenko. That gives him a little Actually Good At Wrestling momentum heading into SuperBrawl, and the Cruiserweight Division continues to be delicate magic despite being full of guys who are never gonna get a real shot until they jump ship, working a series of thrown-together matches you’re never sure are actually supposed to get them over. Just a supernatural level of talent in that group.

Now That We’ve Complimented The Cruiserweights, Here’s Super Calo

Chavo Guerrero Jr. and Psicosis Esquire III have a really fun one-on-one match near the top of the show, but we know where our bread is buttered, and until Hacksaw Jim Duggan shows up again, our best topic of conversation is how much La Parka hates Super Calo.

They have a match on Thunder because WCW truly hates Calo, and isn’t paying attention to how every time he’s in the ring with La Parka he gets his prefrontal cortex smashed in by the ass-edge of a plastic chair. Sometimes he gets the wooden or metal varieties, too. I wish I had more to say about this one, as they play it pretty straight, and things only get ridiculous when Disco Inferno shows up trying to execute the worst run-in in human history. Enjoy Super Calo getting mauled in the background:

Best: Mannheim Steamroller

This might not be the first episode where Goldberg is referred to as “DA MAN,” but it’s certainly the first time you’ll notice it, as Bobby Heenan sees someone’s sign about Goldberg being The Man and decides to go ALL-IN on making it a catchphrase. He’s practically salivating over it, like back when he was into Lex Luger being a narcissist and kept calling him “nar-SIS-us.”

William Scott Goldberg’s undefeated streak continues with a victory over Fitness Finlay, who at one point in the match almost gets thrown into the sun by his ankles. It feels a lot like what Goldberg vs. Lord Steven Regal should’ve been, but hey, we’ll always have those six beautiful minutes of awkward European uppercuts.

Next Week:

Now that we’re back on schedule, it’s time for a SUPER BRAWL. Things you have to look forward to include Scott Steiner evolving into his perfect form, Juventud Guerrera switching to the much worse-tasting Quasi Juice, Goldberg vs. Brad Armstrong ON PAY-PER-VIEW, and so much more.