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Pro Wrestling

RAW vs. Nitro Week 4 – 9/25/95

Week 4

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RAW: 9/25/95
Grand Rapids, MI

RAW won last week with the go home show for In Your House. This week, we’ll get the RAW that followed that show. It should be noted there was a controversial decision at the PPV that probably ticked off a lot of fans, but we’ll get there, we’ll get there.

Well, Vince is going over it anyway, so let’s explain.

The match was Diesel and Shawn Michaels against Yokozuna and Owen Hart. Diesel was the World Champ, Shawn the IC Champ, and Owen and Yoko the tag champs. All titles were on the line and the show was sold on the fact that there was a guaranteed title change.

Well, Owen didn’t show and The British Bulldog took his place. Owen though interfered in the match and Diesel ended up pinning him to win the tag belts. Now we get a segment of Jim Cornette and his lawyer (the debut of Clarence Mason!) arguing with President Gorilla Monsoon that Owen wasn’t legally in the tag match. Monsoon agreed, and Yoko and Owen kept their belts. So basically, the WWF said screw you to the fans with their “guaranteed title change” proclamation. Perhaps it was a way to drum up interest for RAW…but I mean, then you need a better segment than Vince explaining it to us. Bad start there.

Skip vs. Marty Jannetty

Vince tells us that Jannetty is returning to the WWF here. Really had no idea he was even gone at this point. I do remember a 1995 ECW run from him though.

Sadly when I think Jannetty and Candido I think of two guys who should have achieved a lot more in professional wrestling. Same goes for Sunny. This REALLY rings true for Jannetty though.

Ha, Sunny and Skip hug, but when Sunny yells at the crowd Jannetty attacks Skip. Sunny then turns to hug “Skip”, but hugs Jannetty then panics realizing what happened. THAT’S where Shawn Michaels learned that spot…he did that to Melina at Survivor Series 2006.

Dean Douglas comes out to take notes on the match. Seems like a step down.

Marty Jannetty pins Skip in 9:41. Jannetty nails the Rocker Dropper and then a top rope first drop for the win. This was a very good back and forth opener. It would be nice to say Jannetty finally cleaned up his act (he could have been a really good IC title foil for Goldust in 1996), but he got stuck in the New Rocker Tag Team and didn’t make it through 1996.

We get more information about why Owen and Yoko kept the belts…but Monsoon adds that the champs will defend the titles on RAW vs. The Gunns.

WWF World Tag Team Championship
Owen Hart and Yokozuna© vs. The Smokin’ Gunns

There’s history here. Owen and Yoko debuted as a team at Mania XI when they beat the Gunns for the tag title.

Billy Gunn takes Yoko down with a bulldog. I always thought Yoko sold a little too much later in this WWF run. It’s how you knew he was never getting back to the very top.

Owen’s neckbreaker gets semi-botched as Gunn drops too early.

Does Yoko EVER hit that elbow drop?

The Smokin’ Gunns wins the Tag Titles when Bart Gunn pinned Owen Hart in 12:13. Owen and Yoko collide, and Yoko falls in the corner. The Gunns hit the Sidewinder, and Yoko accidentally squashes Owen. Billy dropkicks Yoko out, and Bart pins Owen. Another good match! Crowd popped HUGE for the title change. If Yoko and Owen were in line for pushes, this makes a lot of sense. Problem is, that didn’t happen. Shawn and Diesel come in to celebrate with the Gunns.

Next week we have Bret Hart vs. Jean Pierre Lafitte II and a Razor Ramon vs. 1-2-3 Kid rematch as well.

Gorilla then runs down the next In Your House card. Goldust vs. Marty Jannetty. Undertaker vs. Mabel (which would change to something a lot worse), and for the WWF Title: Diesel vs. the Bulldog. Bret also gets the winner at Survivor Series. By the way, that card listing is awful.

The British Bulldog vs. The Undertaker

Interesting spot here now. The super protected Undertaker vs. the #1 Contender to the WWF Title that needs to look strong: the British Bulldog.

Great heel manager spot: Undertaker goes for the Rope Walk (feels weird calling it Old School in 1995), but Cornette shakes the ropes allowing Bulldog to armdrag Undertaker off the top.

Taker gets clotheslines over the top, but lands on his feet and choke grabs Cornette. More awesomeness here. Bulldog gets the advantage here with an attack from behind.

King Mabel is looking on! Oh boy!

Now Waylon Mercy is looking on. I actually don’t know where that one is going. Taker-Mercy feud was potentially in the works perhaps?

Taker is selling the leg injury big time. I didn’t know Taker sold stuff in 1995.

Great piledriver from the Bulldog!

The Undertaker wins by DQ in 9:20. Mabel comes in, but Taker confronts him. Bulldog nails Taker into Mabel, who plants Taker with a belly to belly suplex. Bulldog and Mabel attack, but Shawn and Diesel make the save. Owen, Yoko and the Gunns all come down. Eventually Taker makes it to his feet and shakes all the faces’ hands, which is a little weird. Anyway, Taker had this won with a chokeslam before Mabel came in, so I don’t know how strong the Bulldog really looked…but I think it’s doable overall. Match was also really good. Taker did an awesome sell job, even afterwards (which is strong enough for the Bulldog I think) and Bulldog looked really motivated here. Probably because he had a bunch of PPV main events lined up. 3/3 for RAW tonight!

Shawn dances to bring us home for some reason.

If this show had any remote historical significance, it would get a super high rating. But did anything here matter at all long term? The only major thing that comes out of this is that it does lead to Owen vs. Shawn eventually, which is the concussion angle of course.

It should be noted that despite the good show, the rating for RAW pretty much blew. I think one thing hurt this that wasn’t Nitro related: the PPV the night before. I just don’t think a bait and switch like that is going to work. Then again, maybe Nitro did something that was just blow away.

TV Rating: 1.9 (-0.8)
Grade: B+

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Nitro: 9/25/95
Florence, South Carolina

Alex Wright vs. Disco Inferno

We first saw Wright on Nitro a couple of weeks ago against Sabu.

I like how Disco Inferno had no character development for three years. He’s the same guy until he tries to join the Wolfpac.

Alex Wright almost messed up that springboard dropkick bad. It was passable though.

McMichael kills Monday Night Football on the broadcast. He says the Niners have it won. I like that RAW wasn’t the only show they took shots at.

Alex Wright pins Disco Inferno in 4:00. Wright gets a backslide out of nowhere for the win. It was a pretty good match with Disco controlling it, then it just ended abruptly. Not bad, but it could have used a proper Wright comeback if they are going with him.

WCW World Champion Hulk Hogan has a neck brace, but he’s letting us know he hasn’t missed a workout since Fall Brawl. Hogan makes the challenge for a Monster Truck Match at Halloween Havoc against The Giant. And then he challenges him to a WCW Title match as well. Hogan actually says he’s gonna bury Giant right next to his father, which seems distasteful although I’m sure he didn’t mean it that way.

SNAP INTO A SLIM JIM!

We go over what happened last week with Lex Luger and Randy Savage.

It doesn’t take long for Luger and Savage to verbally go at it again. Savage is brilliant here. Luger challenges Savage to a match on Nitro next week. Luger says he’ll leave WCW if he can’t beat Savage. Well, that’s a headliner for sure. I wonder if this segment was key in the ratings war this week.

Bischoff hypes “MACHINE VS. MACHINE”. I wonder if he really thought that was a big draw.

Sgt. Craig Pittman vs. Kurasawa

Kurasawa is hyped as the man who broke Road Warrior Hawk’s arm.

A lot of kicks from Kurasawa.

Crazy back and forth here. Each guys turn armbars into suplexes.

Kurasawa pins Pittman in 4:26. Kurasawa gets a German Suplex, but Pittman flails around and it looks pretty bad for the three count. Still a pretty good match for 4 minutes. It seems like they both just threw whatever moves they could out there and just hoped it worked out, which it did.

Arn Anderson and Flyin’ Brian Pillman interview.

Pillman with a great promo, running down Ric Flair. Double A points out that Flair’s been asking help from guys he’s turned on over the years (Savage, Sting, etc.). It’s a pretty brilliant promo.

We get a replay of the Savage-Kevin Sullivan beach fight we saw last week.

Kevin Sullivan vs. Randy Savage

The Zodiac makes his way out and posts Savage quickly.

Kevin Sullivans wins by DQ in 2:58. Savage throws Sullivan to the outside, brings the Zodiac in, beats him up, then throws the ref for the DQ[/b]. Fun little brawl for three minutes I guess, but not much to say here.

The Giant lays out Savage! Some WCW jobbers I never heard of come down and Giant kills them. Alex Wright runs down, also killed by the Giant. Lex Luger comes in…but stands over Savage. Giant attacks him and hits a chokeslam, and Sullivan takes him away angrily. GREAT segment to get the Giant over there. Giant’s falling chokeslam is awesome.

Meng runs down for his match with Luger, since Luger is still down.

Lex Luger vs. Meng

We get told Hogan will be on Nitro next week.

Nice piledriver from Meng on Luger.

Sadly after that piledriver it slows down as we get a bunch of chokes. Ah well.

Gutwrench hip breaker with the foot by Meng? Okay then.

Meng pins Lex Luger in 6:46. Meng gets the spike and knocked Luger out in his comeback for the pin. WHAT? How was that a finish that made any sense? Meng beats Luger without any help or anything. And I’m supposed to buy Luger against the Savages and Giants of the world? Huh? Match was decent if not a bit boring. A downer of a main event.

I think Nitro won this rating battle because of its segments and not its matches. Double A and Pillman were gold. Savage and Luger were good. Hogan’s promo was ridiculous but probably was “must see” since he didn’t get a “live” interview of him the week before. The wrestling wasn’t bad either, although the main event left something to be desired. Still, most of the character development hit here, especially with The Giant.

TV Rating: 2.7 (+0.8)
Grade: B+

Weekly Review

Oddly enough, RAW had the wrestling this week while Nitro had the interviews and segments. While RAW’s matches were very good, the build-up to the next In Your House was really disappointing. I mean, all we get is Gorilla Monsoon announcing the matches for the next PPV? What kind of build is that? At least we got some Taker-Mabel interaction for build, but soon we’ll see that won’t mean a thing. But good wrestling is good wrestling, and we got a title change no less.

Nitro continued its great build for Halloween Havoc. We are still missing some of the excitement we got from the first two shows, but when you have strong segments like the Double A and Pillman interview, the Luger-Savage challenge and the Giant killing everyone, I’m going to buy that.

A tie for this week seems appropriate. Nitro’s first win in the ratings column had to be very exciting for them as well. I assume again it was because of the strong promos and the Giant.

TV Ratings Score: 2-1 RAW

Grade Score: 1-1-1 Tie

September 1995 Monthly Review

Stats

9/4/95 (Nitro 2.5, RAW: N/A)
9/11/95 (RAW 2.5, Nitro 2.4)
9/18/95 (RAW 2.7, Nitro 1.9)
9/25/95 (Nitro 2.7, RAW 1.9)
Rating Average: Nitro 2.48, RAW 2.37
TV Ratings Score: 2-1 RAW

9/4/95 (Nitro A+, RAW: N/A)
9/11/95 (Nitro B+, Raw B )
9/18/95 (RAW B, Nitro C+)
9/25/95 (RAW B+, Nitro B+)
Grade Average: Nitro B+, RAW B
Grade Score: 1-1-1 Tie

The first month of the Monday Night Wars was a full on assault from WCW and I think they delivered. First they attacked when RAW wasn’t on and put on a can’t miss show. They had a major surprise with Lex Luger. They put Hogan and Luger on in the main against RAW right away. They gave away HBK vs. Sid. Attack, attack, attack from Nitro. For WCW to just debut on Monday Night and be on par and at times better than the WWF was pretty incredible. WCW only had one show early on that I thought was a miss.

It’s not like the WWF had a bad month. It was a pretty strong run of shows considering most of them were taped and still had squash matches. Vince definitely picked it up on the 9-25 show though. He was in the fight of his life.

Overall, Nitro was just better this month.

September 1995 Grade
Nitro: A
RAW: B+

Pro Wrestling

RAW vs. Nitro Week 3 – 9/18/95

Week 3

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Nitro: 9/18/95
Jefferson City, TN

It’s the night after Fall Brawl! Nitro had the better show last week so they’ll go first!

An ambulance starts the show…and inside is Kevin Sullivan and The Giant. Mean Gene tells him that this father would be disappointed. Remember, he’s the son of Andre! Kinda funny promo from the Giant. He had a solid three months in pro wrestling at the time, so we’ll have to cut him some slack.

The American Males vs. The Bluebloods

This would be Regal and Bobby Eaton. Jean-Paul was gone at this point.

Well, it wouldn’t really be them either, since Harlem Heat attacks. They offer the American Males a World Tag Team Title shot. The American Males get a free shot at the tag title just like that!

WCW World Tag Team Championship
Harlem Heat© vs. The American Males

Riggs sells the Axe Kick in seemingly slow motion. At least it wasn’t Booker’s finisher yet.

Booker’s flying side kick was always awesome. Watching Booker knowing what I know now I can’t say it’s surprising he became a big star.

Nice “WE WANT IT RAW” sign in the crowd there.

The American Males win the title in 4:40 when Marcus Bagwell pinned Booker T. Sherri Martel is about to hit Bagwell, but Col. Robert Parker comes down and Sherri falls into his arms (I totally forgot the slave owner angle of Harlem Heat. Yikes). Sherri and Parker are apparently in love. Whatever. Anyway Bagwell reverses a pump handle slam into a bodypress pin and gets the win. It’s a weak victory, but once again, something notable happens on Nitro.

SNAP INTO A SLIM JIM!

Ric Flair interview. He’s angry that Arn Anderson got a non-Horseman to help him in their feud (referring to Brian Pillman). He also calls it Johnson City, Tennessee. Based on what Mene Gene says I think that was a sexual reference.

Mr. Wonderful vs. Johnny B. Badd

I really love that music for Orndorff.
Badd was on his way out here. He’d be Marc Mero in the WWF in five months.

Mr. Wonderful pins Johnny B. Badd in 6:40. Orndorff blocks a sunset flip. The finish is botched though, as Badd’s shoulders were clearly up and the ref didn’t seem to actually count the three.

Randy Savage gets attacked by Sullivan on a beach, so Savage responds in an interview. Flair is one of those who help him. Savage says he thinks Luger is joining the Dungeon of Doom. Luger comes out to respond. He wants a match right now but Mean Gene says this isn’t the time of the place (the middle of the ring on Nitro?!).

We go back to the day of Fall Brawl for a Hulk Hogan interview. The Giant comes in on a monster truck and smashes the motorcycle Hogan was on. This would lead to the Monster Truck Match at Halloween Havoc of course. There’s a funny scene here where Hogan is slamming on the truck and Giant is just laughing.

Then a Fall Brawl recap of Giant at Fall Brawl interfering in the War Games, where he attacked Hogan.

Ric Flair vs. Flyin’ Brian Pillman

Flair actually comes off the top rope and hits Pillman with an axhandle smash on the floor. Didn’t expect that from Flair.

This match has been ALL Flair.

Flair goes for the Figure Four, but Pillman reverses into a small package, but doesn’t get the hook of the leg.

Ric Flair wins by submission in 5:24. Figure Four gets it done. Total burial of Pillman there? I mean I think he got two moves in. Flair taunts Arn afterwards.

Overall, I think this was a step back for Nitro. The first show felt like can’t miss TV. Same with the second show (with Sabu and the Hogan vs. Luger title match). Here? Nothing special really. American Males winning the tag titles is cool I guess and a moment for sure, but it doesn’t compare to watching international talents like Sabu and Jushin Liger. And Flair vs. Pillman wasn’t that good either.

Every show can’t be blow away, but there isn’t anything to take me away from RAW this week. Unless of course the RAW show blows. The rating here also indicated that this was a step back.

Oddly, they didn’t give away any RAW Results this week.

TV Rating: 1.9 (-0.5)
Grade: C+

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RAW: 9/18/95
Canton, Ohio

We get a recap of the 1-2-3 Kid vs. Razor Ramon issue from last week.

It should be pointed out that Vince keeps saying this is a special Thursday edition of RAW…but nothing else seems to indicate that. The research I did. The Network. Etc.

This is still taped from August, so no responding to Nitro yet.

1-2-3 Kid vs. Razor Ramon

Kid starts off fast. All of this would lead to the eventual Kid heel turn.

Nice flying over the top rope dropkick from the Kid!

The Kid has dominated the match-up. We also get a sleeper, which is also when they go to commercial. I’m okay with commercials during matches during a hold though.

We got a ref bump!

The 1-2-3 Kid pins Razor Ramon in 7:08. After a collision where the ref got hurt, Dean Douglas comes flying off the top onto Ramon. Kid rolls in to get the pin. The wheels of the turn were starting.

Dean Douglas interview now. Kid gets a D for dumb. Ramon gets an E. Elevate. He’s doing that in order to face Dean Douglas. A for Douglas! The PPV this weekend gets a N. No-Brainer on who will be victorious. That spells Dead. To be honest, that was a good promo.

Tatanka and Kama Mustafa vs. Savio Vega and Bob Holly

Crowd is pretty dead for this, although Vega got a solid reaction for his entrance.

Vega is your face in peril.

We don’t even see the hot tag to Holly on camera.

Kama and Tatanka win when Kama pins Holly in 5:47. Holly comes off the top with a bodypress, but Kama “rolls” through and gets the pin. Ugly finish. Match wasn’t too bad though.

Ramon interview. He’s of course responding to Douglas.

Jean Pierre LaFitte vs. Brian Walsh

Squash match for the pirate ahoy! We go over LaFitte stealing the Hitman sunglasses from fans. Yeah, that wasn’t Bret’s best feud.

We get Bret on the phone. He’s upset that Bret has gotten his jacket and stuff stolen. He’s also confused as he didn’t know pirates still existed. Poor Bret.

LaFitte pins Walsh in 3:18. Cannonball (Swanton?) for the win. I hope this is the last squash we get on RAW ever.

We get some hype about the In Your House main event of HBK and Diesel vs. Owen and Yoko. All titles on the line!

Owen Hart and Yokozuna vs. Men on a Mission

Non-title match here. This is your main event! It’s also heel vs. heel, which is strange.

Owen is playing the face in peril. Interesting. Well it can’t be anyone else in this match for sure.

Here comes Yokozuna! We get Yoko and Mabel going at it as Owen now plays the heel. I actually like both teams cheating. It’s an interesting dynamic.

Mo and Owen both go for spinning wheel kicks at the same time. Never seen that before.

Weird, now Mabel is playing the face making the big comeback.

Owen Hart and Yokozuna win when Owen pinned Mo in 9:30. Yoko kills Mo with the big legdrop, and then holds Mabel’s foot so he can’t break up the pin. Pretty good match amazingly. Owen carried the whole thing, and the heel vs. heel dynamic oddly worked.

Diesel and HBK interview about Owen and Yoko. Something about John Madden.

Cornette interview. Runs down HBK and Diesel of course. He brings up a good point that the last time Diesel and HBK were a team, they broke up.

Lawler predicts Yokozuna walks out of In Your House with the WWF Title. Vince then tells us that we are getting Undertaker vs. British Bulldog on RAW next week. Not bad.

Anyway…solid showing here. A good opener and a surprisingly good main event bookends a lot of boring stuff. The wrestling itself was also better than this week’s Nitro. Sure, nothing between Summerslam and Survivor Series really mattered, but they still had to get to Survivor Series…right?

TV Rating: 2.7
Grade: B

Weekly Review

All the talent in the world and that’s the Nitro we get? Shoulda just scrapped Badd vs. Orndorff and let Pillman and Flair go another five minutes in that case. Nitro for the first time felt like it could be a miss, unless you like monster trucks or something.

That doesn’t mean RAW was can’t miss either. But there were better matches on RAW, and solid build for a PPV no one was really talking about at all.

TV Ratings Score: 2-0 RAW

Grade Score: 1-1 Tie

Pro Wrestling

RDT Reviews WCW Fall Brawl ’95

WCW Fall Brawl ‘95
September 17, 1995
Asheville, NC

The War is on! WCW Nitro had launched two weeks prior to this show and had surprised everyone by being competitive in the ratings with WWF Raw. WCW hit the WWF right where it hurt when they stole Lex Luger away and he made a surprise appearance on the first Nitro. The WWF, with taped shows already in the can, couldn’t do anything to stop WCW early on. WCW also had the first PPV since the Monday Night Wars started, and here it is. The main event here is a bit questionable…we have the four big faces (Sting, Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage and Lex Luger) against a heel group without remotely the star power to match the face team (The Dungeon of Doom) so you know who’s winning here. Should WCW just went for the kill right away with Luger and Sting vs. Hogan and Savage? We’ll never know.

Still, a good PPV here and the WWF would really be in trouble. Could WCW pull it off?

The Card

#1 Contender for the United States Championship
Flyin’ Brian vs. Johnny B. Badd

Badd looks exactly like he would a year later as “Wildman” Marc Mero when he was the IC Champ, red outfit and all.

Hilarious first moment. Badd tries to throw a Frisbee into the crowd, but accidentally hits the ringpost and it goes nowhere, getting a noticeable groan from the crowd.

Michael Buffer is announcing the opener. How confusing.

Pretty slow start here. Most notable moment in the first five minutes was a double dropkick.

Beautiful bridge trap by Pillman for a two count.

About eight minutes in Pillman starts to bring out the heel stuff. I expect this to pick up now.

Great variation of the surfboard from Badd. So far this is the best Mero match I’ve ever seen.

Buffer says five minutes remaining…so we know where this is going.

Thing really pick up at this point though. Badd starts to fly with a plancha onto the floor!

Pillman takes out Badd with an awesome dropkick as Badd comes off the top! Only two for that.

The big moves are coming! Powerbomb from Badd gets two, Tombstone from Pillman also gets two!

Badd counters the Tornado DDT from the top!
Ugh. Badd goes into a hold, which doesn’t make sense at this point. There’s only two minutes left!

We get to the time limit, but the referee declares that there has to be a winner considering they need a #1 contender…so overtime!

Great elevation on a top rope sunset flip from Badd. I woulda bought that as a 1995 finish for sure.

Top rope hurricanrana…but Pillman still kicks out.

Pillman hits the Tornado DDT this time…but Badd survives! Great idea for OT not to last a mere 2 minutes or something.

Badd throws Pillman off the top rope onto the guardrail! Ouch!

Pillman hits a suicide dive through the ropes and gets a lot of distance. Announcers claim Pillman didn’t really hit it, which is a shame because it looked awesome.

Johnny B. Badd pins Flyin’ Brian in 29:17. Double crossbody, and despite Pillman landing on top they make it seem like Badd got the best of it and he makes the cover for the win. Pretty disappointing finish considering everything else. I thought this was a great 20 minute match masquerading as a 30 minute match, but that doesn’t change that it was very good overall. Interestingly, both Badd and Pillman would be gone from WCW within six months. Easily the best Badd match I’ve ever seen.

Ric Flair on the mic and he really knows how to sell something special. He talks about the broken families he and Arn Anderson had went through and you can’t help but feel the damaged friendship between them.

Sgt. Craig Pittman vs. Cobra

I have no idea what this feud is about. Looks like a military vs. military thing or something.

Some random soldier comes down to distract Cobra as Pittman comes from the ceiling. Pittman chokes him out with his ammo belt.

Craig Pittman makes Cobra submit in 1:22. Code Red armbreaker for the win. At least this was short. Why was this on the PPV anyway? What was the point?

We get a video of Mr. Wonderful angrily doubting himself in the back. Some psychic tries to talk to him and get him back on track. Uh…Orndorff retired shortly after this. I don’t blame him, this was awful.

WCW Television Championship
The Renegade© vs. Diamond Dallas Page

The Renegade is an Ultimate Warrior ripoff.

Pretty funny how far DDP would come in the next 18 months. He looks ridiculous here.

DDP runs into the ring post by himself then takes a bump over the guardrail. That was strange for sure.

This was a time that Page and Kimberly weren’t getting along because Page treated her like crap. Page does manage to get all the heat here with no help at all from the Renegade.

Renegade’s comeback was pretty decent actually.

Diamond Dallas Page wins the title by pin in 8:07. Maxx Muscle holds Renegade’s foot, and DDP hits a pretty bad Diamond Cutter for the win. Nothing really to say here, although this could have been a lot worse.

WCW World Tag Team Championship
Bunkhouse Buck and Dick Slater© vs. Harlem Heat

The real point of this feud is that there’s some strange relationship deal with Sherri and Col. Robert Parker, which sounds awful just typing it.

Bobby Heenan reciting a poem is the highlight so far. Otherwise, we’ve just had a few minutes of punching and kicking so far.

The crowd is dead quiet here.

Terrible atomic drop from Slater.

Booker gets trapped in there and we get one of the most boring heat segments I’ve ever seen in a major tag team match. Were Slater and Buck just going through the motions here?

In the 2nd ring Sherri starts crawling toward Parker and they start making out…

Harlem Heat win the title when Booker pins Buck in 16:49. The Nasty Boys come out and take out Buck with a boot shot to the heat for Harlem Heat’s win. Parker would move onto co-manage Harlem Heat with Sherri…but they’d lose the belts to The American Males the next night. Anyway, this was awful. Seventeen minutes of just about nothing.

Ric Flair vs. Arn Anderson

Flair and Double A had been as close as brothers, but things began to go wrong thanks to Vader. The story pushes that Flair hasn’t been the same for a year since he lost the World title to Hogan. Anderson wanted to see Flair be the best again. Flair blamed Anderson for not helping him at crucial spots.

I love Double A’s demeanor throughout the opening sequence. Just straight out seriousness with the occasional mocking of Flair.

Smart booking decision to have Anderson dominate the early going. If there was anyone who thought Anderson wasn’t on Flair’s level, this would be showing them otherwise.

Commentators do a great job explaining why Anderson’s armbars hurt so much. That’s something that’s just missed in today’s wrestling.

Flair takes total control. Once again, the commentary is great, and now its question about whether or not Double A can hang with Flair. You really want Anderson to pull this one out.

Anderson blocks the Figure Four by holding Flair’s leg when he tried to come down with it. Can’t say I’ve seen that one before.

Crowd erupts when Anderson reverses the Figure Four. Hell, crowd goes nuts for each false finish here.

Arn Anderson pins Ric Flair in 22:37. Brian Pillman climbs onto the apron when Flair has Anderson down and kicks Flair in the head. Double A drops Flair with a DDT and gets the upset. Crowd ultimately was mixed on the finish (I think they were into the match…but this is still Flair country…nevermind that it wasn’t clean). All of this would lead to the reunion of the Horsemen, although I don’t remember how it played out.

War Games
Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, Lex Luger and Sting vs. Kamala, The Shark, The Zodiac and Meng

If the Hulkamaniacs win, Hogan gets five minutes with The Taskmaster.

This was a cartoonish feud that didn’t really jive with the rest of what WCW was doing at this point. Kevin Sullivan’s pre-match promo/video is just laughable.

A side story to this is the debut of The Giant, who was being promoted as Andre’s son.

This has to be one of the most unbalanced multi-man tag team matches in wrestling history. There’s literally no way the Dungeon of Doom can win no matter how much the “can the good guys trust one another” story is shoved down our throats.

The Hulkamaniacs are in camouflage and have an American flag. Uh…is Kevin Sullivan not from the US or something?

Dungeon of Goom. Really Hogan?

Beefcake looks ridiculous, even for him, as the Zodiac.

We start off with Sting and the Shark.

Entertaining start, with Sting diving over both top ropes and taking out the Shark.

No idea if this was planned, but the Shark tries the same over both top ropes dive that Sting did earlier, but gets caught up on the ropes. I like John Tenta, but he shouldn’t be trying anything like that for sure.

Not a bad opening period. Of course the heels win the coin toss and here comes the Zodiac.

Things have slowed down since the Zodiac got in. Randy Savage comes in to save Sting from an uninspiring two on one beat down.

Kamala is next and this has just turned into a sloppy brawl.

Luger comes and evens the odds are again. Only decent part so far has been Sting-Shark and even that wasn’t that great.

Luger and Savage accidentally hit another and go at it…at least something interesting happens. Here comes Meng.

Luger sells a kick from Meng that doesn’t even remotely hit.

Hogan comes in and throws powder in everyone’s eyes. And he’s the top good guy!

Zodiac oversells some Hogan punches. That was embarrassing.

The Hulkamaniacs win when Hogan makes Zodiac submit in 18:47.

We get a terrible Camel Clutch (called a reverse chinlock) for the win. It’s not like Sting and Luger have finishers that are submission holds afterall. Hogan didn’t take one move, it was all offense and that was it for the Dungeon of Doom. Absolutely horrible all around here with a shit finish. Second worst War Games in the history of the match (’98 is worse for sure).

Hogan then beats up Sullivan for a while, before the Giant comes in and chokes Hogan and injures his neck. Even in getting beat down, Hogan doesn’t take a bump. What an embarrassment.

Two really good matches but a whole lot of garbage inbetween. WCW needed to move past this Dungeon of Doom thing, but really wouldn’t until mid-96 when Scott Hall showed up.

A least the Nitros have been good so far.

Final Grade: C