Sunday, June 24, 2012

WCW Monday Nitro - 1/15/96

Welcome to "the hottest wrestling show on the planet", coming to you live, 16 years ago, from the ever-hot Miama, Florida! The arena seems tiny and it looks like there's maybe 200 people in attendance but boy is it a full show tonight! Scheduled matches are The Nature Boy Ric Flair vs Sting for the title, Hulk Hogan vs anyone in the Dungeon of Doom, Taskmaster Kevin Sullivan and Hugh Morris vs The Enforcer Arn Anderson and Flyin Brian Pillman, and finally Macho Man Randy Savage vs Lex Luger. Sounds exciting, right? Dead wrong.

As Savage makes his way to the ring, Eric Bischoff announces that Savage has just signed the paperwork making him the #1 Contender for the World Heavyweight Championship, regardless of who wins the Flair/Sting match tonight. With both men in the ring, the bell sounds and Luger immediately bails out. He grabs a chair from ringside and uses it to distract the ref, allowing him to hit a few cheap shots on Savage and take the momentum early on. The crowd is really strongly chanting for Luger for whatever reason. Nitro crowds tend to just be a lot of loud noise, so any audible chants are out of the norm. Luger dominates most of the match. As soon as Savage starts to turn the match around, Luger rakes his face and takes the momentum back. Savage eventually gets Luger to the mat, climbs the turnbuckle, and goes for his elbow drop. He misses, allowing Luger to scoop him up and put him in the Torture Rack. Savage submits cleanly in the middle of the ring.

Up next is the scheduled Dungeon vs Horsemen tag match, but something's amiss. All of the Dungeon of Doom come out, not just Taskmaster and Hugh Morris. And out with them comes the Horsemen! Flair is wearing his robes, Anderson and Benoit are wearing suits, and Pillman is wearing a cut-off Horsemen tee and a pair of tight jeans. One Man Gang is carrying the United States title since he won it off Sting on Saturday Night's Main Event. AA and Kevin Sullivan announce that they've had a meeting of the minds backstage. Anderson explains that protecting Ric Flair's belt and making lots of money is the priority and starting a war with the Dungeon would just distract them from that priority. Sullivan says that he respects Flair enough to uphold this truce, and will lend the Horsemen the Giant at Clash of the Champions next week, but he says the Horsemen have to keep Pillman inline. Pillman starts to scream at Sullivan and Anderson slaps him down.

Instead of the advertised tag match we get a much more exciting match in Public Enemy's debut match against the American Males. We have a two-on-two situation in the ring as the bell rings. Public Enemy and Males take turns clearing the ring until a tag situation occurs. Loud ECW chants present. Grunge is working over Riggs until he manages to make the hot tag. Rocco interrupts the momentum however by absolutely leveling Riggs as he climbs onto the apron. Grunge and Rocco double team Marcus Bagwell until Grunge pulls off a schoolboy with a handful of tights to get the win. After the match, Public Enemy continues beating on Bagwell while Riggs lays knocked out on the floor. They set up a double-decker table outside the ring, they stick Bagwell on top of it, and Rocco senton bombs right through him from the top rope.

Sting comes out to the ring next and proceeds to do a real limpwristed Horsemen handsign. Flair heads down accompanied by Jimmy Hart. Sting takes advantage in the match early, reversing all of Flair's attempts at offense and doing some real cool kip-ups out of Flair's wristlock takeovers. Sting's so dominant in the early goings he manages eight punches in a turnbuckle mounted punches spot followed by a stalled military press. A thumb to the eye and a chop, however, shifts the momentum over to Flair. After sneaking in some offense, Flair goes high rent but gets caught with a superplex, sprawling both men. Flair throws some real hard chops which Sting completely no-sells. Jimmy Hart sees the danger Flair's in and hops up on to the apron with his megaphone, quickly followed by Lex Luger. Luger wrestles the megaphone away from Hart and "accidentally" nails Sting with it. Sting is out and Flair locks in the Figure Four Leglock and wins the match via pin to retain his belt. Luger jumps in the ring and beats up Flair until Hogan and Savage come out and chase the two of them into the back

Mean Gene gets to the ring with a mic. Hogan and Savage are trying to turn Sting on his tag team partner, Luger. Savage is gloating because he told Sting that Luger wasn't to be trusted last year! Hogan is just screaming "Luger knocked you out!" at the top of his lungs. Sting storms off to get the truth out of Luger. Hogan now has beef with Savage. He saw Savage lose to Luger and thinks that he isn't good enough to deserve the #1 Contendership. Savage explains that he earned that contract and tonight's match doesnt change that. He yells "Later!" and storms off.

Hogan vs Meng is tonight's main event and Meng is accompanied to the ring by Kevin Sullivan. The two double team hogan with chokes and trap holds and throat strikes. Meng body slams Hogan but misses a second rope splash, giving Hogan the opening to take control of the match. Meng tries to cheat but this just makes Hogan hulk up. Sullivan goes to throw the Golden Spike thumb-blade to Meng but Savage stops him and Hogan grabs the spike. He spikes Meng and gets the pin to close out the show.

Official Brother Count: 12, a new record, or .2 brothers per minute.

Did Hogan Go Over? Yes and relatively cleanly (for Hogan).

The Pepe Award for Pepe's Costume: A pair of tiny sunglasses and a tiny snapback and what looked like a windbreaker, which I'm calling the Miami Papi Pepe costume.

Move of the Show: In a pretty rough show, the top spot was definitely the table spot from the Public Enemy/American Males match.

The American Males Memorial Buff Bagwell Sighting: An entire American Males match was shown this week, ending a two week Buff-less streak with some Marcus Alexander Bagwell.

The I Love the 90s Award for Relevancy: Next week on Saturday Night's Main Event, see an interview with Jim Belushi.

Mongo Sucks: About a superplex, "Anything that goes up so high up there better get some peanuts and a drink."

Broski of the Week: A granny in the crowd wearing an evening dress and a pair of sunglasses, slackjawedly going crazy for the American Males.

Advertised Next Week: Savage vs Flair for the World Heavyweight Championship

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