Now there's basically four angles that have lasted all year: the TV title, the Horsemen, Hogan, and the cruiserweight division. The first Nitro established two of those angles.
At the Mall of America, in front of Hulk Hogan's Pastamania and thousands of Pastamaniacs, "Flyin" Brian Pillman wrestled Jushin "Thunder" Liger, Ric Flair and Arn Anderson jumped and beat up Sting, dustying up the Sting/Flair match, and Hulk Hogan wrestled Big Bubba Rogers, WWF's Big Bossman. The real surprise in this first episode was Lex Luger, who had just jumped ship from the WWF. I wasn't watching wrestling at the time and I haven't read the Observer from around this time but I'm under the impression that the WCW managed to keep their signing of Luger and his scheduled appearance a total secret. Luger had just wrestled a house show for the WWF the prior day.
After the match, if i remember correctly, the Dungeon of Doom runs out and attacks Hogan. The Hulkamaniacs and Luger come out, beat back the Dungeon, and Luger then challenges Hulk Hogan. Dude says he's tired of playing with kids, and wants to take on the big boys. WCW had the absolute worst slogan ever at this point, "Where the big boys play!" Luger says he wants a title shot someday. Hogan accepts. Also debuting this episode was Steve "Mongo" McMichaels aka the worst commentator of all time. Worse than Taz.
So, from there:
The next week, Sabu debuts. Homicidal, suicidal, genocidal, etc. He does some hardcore spots and the slippery slope to Norman Smiley, Hardcore Champion begins.
After him, Jerry Lynn, under a mask as "Mr. JL," debuts. Followed by Eddie Guerrero. They start airing hype packages for the Canadian Crippler, fresh off his tour of Japan, Chris Benoit. The best part of this is the first package they play, is just Benoit stepping out of a limo and saying, "Where the big boys play, huh?"
At Starrcade 95, Benoit wrestles Liger in a super great match. Guerrero also wrestles a Japanese dude but i forget who!
The Renegade was the TV Title holder in September. The Renegade was hilarious and sad because they hyped him up as a dude who was huffing and puffing and shaking the ring ropes and would run everywhere and wore tassels and makeup. It was apparently convincing enough as Warrior had disappeared from the face of the earth. A few months into Renegade's run, Warrior started to show up in PWI and stuff, revealing that the Renegade was not, in fact, Warrior, just some jobber in tassels using Warrior's moveset. He dropped the title to DDP at Fall Brawl 95 but kept wrestling as the Renegade for a few weeks until he was attacked by the Dungeon, and Jimmy Hart in particular, who washed off his facepaint and yelled, "You're not a renegade, you're just Rick!" He's been off TV since. He apparently will come back to job from 96-98, when he finally got fed up and quit. He killed himself a few months later. WCW aired a tribute to him that puts his name ("Rick Williams") as "Rick Wilson." RIP dude.
Anyway, at Fall Brawl, The Renegade loses his title to Diamond Dallas Page. DDP is cool. He's not the best wrestler and doesn't have the best handle of psychology at his absolute peak, so in 95 he was pretty much running entirely on gimmick. At this point, I think he was still a pimp? Was that what the gimmick was supposed to be? Anyway he had this big bouncer dude, Max Muscle, and his wife, Kimberly, playing his slave, the Diamond Doll. Whenever DDP did a cool move, he made the Diamond Doll hold up a sign that said "10" on it.
The Diamond Doll starts to resent DDP and cheer for his opponent, Johnny B. Badd. Johnny B. Badd was Marc Mero, a white guy with dark skin who WCW hired to do a Little Richard gimmick. Mero might be best known for being married to Sable and being a ridiculously hated dude backstage in the WWF.
So, the Diamond Doll cheers for Johnny B. Badd and this pisses DDP off. At Halloween Havoc, the Diamond Doll ends up being the equalizer, cheating for Johnny B. Badd to counter out DDP cheating for himself. Badd gets the TV title. A month later, at World War 3, if i remember correctly, Johnny B. Badd wins a match freeing the Diamond Doll from Page. She starts going by Kimberly now, instead of just the Diamond Doll and shoots a confetti gun during Johnny B. Badd's entrance. Apparently, Mero didn't like this angle or where it was heading and was trying to leave by the end of the year. They will be releasing him in early 96, but until then he's still the TV champion.
So, the Horsemen.
Brian Pillman starts acting super erratic. He loses to Johnny B. Badd at Fall Brawl. Meanwhile, Arn Anderson starts ranting and raving about how Flair was like a brother to him, but now it is time for brother to destroy brother or something. Eventually, Pillman joins with Anderson to start tormenting Flair. The two of them beat Ric down at Fall Brawl. Ric can't handle both of these guys on his own so he begs Sting to help him, the same Sting that he has feuded with for years. Sting doesn't trust him so, in a tag match on Nitro between Anderson/Pillman and Flair/Sting, Sting refuses to come out until Flair is getting real beat up. He comes down and they win, the rematch is at Halloween Havoc.
At Halloween Havoc, Anderson/Pillman jump flair backstage before the match. Now a handicap match, Anderson and Pillman are taking care of Sting. Eventually he finds himself in the same position as Flair in the last match, and Flair comes out, a huge bandage on his head, to make the save. Except instead of making the save, he joins in the beat down on Sting. He tears off his bandage to reveal no wound and throws up four fingers.
They then add Benoit to the group, making the Horsemen Arn Anderson, Chris Benoit, Ric Flair, and Brian Pillman. What a rad stable filled with legit crazy dudes. Anderson must have had his hands full. Pillman is entirely out of control at this point, grows a beard and spikes Paul Orndorff on the stage, ending Mr. Wonderful's career. I should mention that Mr. Wonderful's career was already over, but Gary Spivey of the Psychic Friends Network had come by earlier in the month and taught him how to remember how Wonderful he was so he could return to the ring and get murdered by Pillman. They dedicated screen time to this.
Hulk Hogan's angle is the dumbest most awful stuff.
At some point, I'm not sure when, Kevin Sullivan, WCW's booker, started a stable called the Dungeon of Doom. By the first episode of Nitro, the Dungeon consists of Sullivan, Kamala, Meng, Earthquake (who is now called Shark and went under the needle for hours to change his tiger tattoo into a shark tattoo, for this crappy gimmick), and Ed Leslie as the Zodiac. Also involved with the Dungeon is Sullivan's father, The Master, and Andre the Giant's kayfabe son, The Giant, WWF's Big Show.
In addition to just running in and ruining the finishes for Hogan matches, Sullivan has been using the Giant to torment Hogan. They threw an enormous shirt at him and this made Hogan really mad. The Giant hasnt been seen in the ring yet, though.
Sick of the Dungeon's antics, Hogan and his Hulkamaniacs (Sting, Macho Man, and Vader) and his best friend Jimmy Hart challenge the Dungeon to a War Games match at Fall Brawl. If Hogan's team wins, he gets five minutes alone in the double cage with Kevin Sullivan. Vader's contract ran out before the event and he left the company. Hogan used this as an excuse to bury him and the WWF, but the week before Fall Brawl he, reluctantly, allowed Lex Luger onto his team. Luger's allegiances were interminable at this point. He's friends with Sting, he hates Macho Man, and he wants Hogan's belt, but Sting talks Hulk into letting him on the team.
Come Fall Brawl, the Hulkamaniacs trounce the Dungeon of Doom. It is now Sullivan's time to get his comeuppance and blow off this terrible angle. But no, The Giant gets in the ring with Sullivan and breaks Hogan's neck. He grabs Hogan's head and twists it like he's Sam Fisher. Hogan is dead now.
The next time he comes out on Nitro, the Giant twists his head off again, but this time they shave his fu manchu into a hitler stache. This causes Hogan to abandon the red and yellow and embrace his darkside.
Darkside Hogan just wears all black. That's it. He still wrestles heels. He still cuts promos about prayers, training, vitamins. He still hangs around with Sting and Macho and Jimmy Hart. While this is all happening, Kevin Sullivan starts wearing red and yellow. What.
Meanwhile, a block of ice has showed up at Nitro and there's a Yeti inside it.
At Halloween Havoc, Hogan and the Giant are scheduled to have a monster truck sumo match followed by a regular wrestling match for the world heavyweight title. Hogan wins the monster truck match and throws the Giant off the roof. The Giant is now literally dead. On commentary for this match is Bob Chandler, the creator of Bigfoot. He did not attempt to cut down the video feed when the Giant fell off the roof etc etc etc
They go inside for the match. Hogan is celebrating having killed "the big, stinky Giant" when who should arrive but the Giant and Kevin Sullivan. Making him do only Andre's moves really limited a dude as mobile as The Giant. You see what he's doing now in the WWE and imagine what he could have been doing when he was thin and young.
Anyhow, Jimmy Hart turns on Hogan, knocking him out with the belt. The match now over, the Dungeon starts attacking Hogan. Suddenly, the ice melts and the Yeti, or as Tony Schiavone would put it, the Yet-tay, comes out and he's not so much a yeti as he is an enormous mummy. He and the Giant and Jimmy Hart pound on Hogan when Hulkamaniacs Macho and Luger run out to make the save. But, oh no! Luger hauls Macho Man up in the torture rack, turning heel and aligning with the Dungeon of Doom!
The next night on Nitro, Jimmy Hart explains that, thanks to a clause he snuck into the contract, The Giant is now the World Heavyweight Champion. A WCW official comes out and explains that the language in the contract states that if the match ended in disqualification, Hogan would lose the belt. It does not say that the Giant would win the belt, so the big gold belt is vacated and the winner of the 60-man three-ring battle royal at World War 3 would be the new WHC.
One day, Hogan is hanging out in a cave.
Um.
One day, Hogan is hanging out in a cave with a sword.
Here, just:
So, at World War 3, shenanigans happen.
The show starts with Hogan and Macho Man and Sting talking with Mean Gene. Hogan lets everyone know that the Darkside is over. That it was all just a "swerve." All the haters were saying Hogan was going to be a bad guy now. All the haters had no faith in the power of the prayers and the training and the vitamins. Hogan tears off his black shirt to reveal a red and yellow shirt and tears off his black bandana and reveals a red and yellow one. Sting throws them in a trash can and lights the trash can on fire. Hogan then pulls out a copy of the Wrestling Observer and yells, "Observe this, brother!" He calls it a dirt rag, says that they think they know everything but they only know yesterday's news, because "the internet's got the scoops, brother." He then throws the Observer into the burning clothes fire.
Now, if i can do some uneducated analysis and blind assumption here, what I think was the plan was supposed to be was Sullivan and Hogan doing a double turn. Hogan would take over the Dungeon of Doom and Sullivan would be trying to break the Master's darkside hold on Hogan with the Hulkamaniacs. Hogan started wearing Sullivan's makeup and Sullivan was wearing like exclusively red and yellow by WW3. They never pulled the trigger on the actual turn, choosing instead to keep Hogan a babyface for fear of ratings probably, and Darkside Hogan wasn't getting over at all. I think Meltzer said the plans for the main event at WW3 were Hogan turning heel for real this time, so they decided to swerve the fans and bury the Observer. In the end, this was obviously the right decision, given what was going to happen in 1996, but they should have, you know, not done the Darkside Hogan angle at all. So terrible
The show is mostly rad from here to the main event, with a joshi tag match featuring Bull Nakano. The main event, however.
World War 3 is, in theory, not a terrible idea. Three rings, 60-men, over-the-top-rope elimination, royal rumble-style match. Except. Except you could leave your ring and wander into other rings. They had three announce teams trying to keep an eye on what was happening and three picture-in-picture camera shots of the rings. I watched the highest quality rip of this I could find on a 36" TV. I could not follow a single thing that was happening in any of the rings. However, thanks to the commentary, I learned that a number of new Dungeon of Doom guys showed up. Bill DeMott, of Tough Enough fame, was there as General Rection I think. One Man Gang had jumped ship to the WCW for WW3 and joined the Dungeon. And, i think this happened at this show, Big Bubba Rogers had thrown his hat in for the Dungeon. Also, the Yeti was in the match, sorry, the Yet-tay, except he wasn't a mummy this time he was the world's largest ninja except his ninja robes appeared to be made of bath towels. I believe the Yet-tay was the first man to be eliminated too, even though he was advertised as an unbeatable, immortal giant, like Hulk Hogan or the Giant.
Now, conventional logic would state that once you no longer needed three rings to house the number of dudes in the match, you should condense everyone together into one ring. The last five men, if i remember correctly, were Ric Flair, The Giant, Hulk Hogan, One Man Gang, and the Macho Man. Flair gets eliminated in one ring. Hogan, OMG, and Macho are in a second. The Giant is standing alone in a third. Hogan hops out of the ring, heads over to the Giant and hauls him out over the top rope. Meanwhile, Macho has eliminated One Man Gang. As even the referees could not follow what was happening and "the camera feed was lost," Macho Man was declared the winner and the new world heavyweight champion. Of course, you can't have someone who isn't Hogan win the big belt without it putting Hogan over so he starts picking a fight with Macho saying that he wasn't eliminated etc. The WCW officials support the decision. Macho Man, world champion.
The next night Alundra Blayze, Madusa, dumps the WWF Womens Title in a trashcan. She is not seen on TV for the rest of the year.
Hogan is like pissed off or something because he keeps running in and hitting people with chairs until he is suspended. The main event of Starrcade is announced: The winner of a triangle match between Sting, Lex Luger, and Ric Flair will go on to face Macho Man Randy Savage for the title. Hogan is banned from the event. Meanwhile, Kevin Sullivan is courting the Horsemen and establishing an uneasy truce between them. If they keep Pillman in check, the Dungeon won't interfere in their matches.
Starrcade is pretty cool, its basically an exhibition of NJPW and WCW talent. There's a cool Liger/Benoit match, Masahiro Chono jobbing to Lex Luger, and Eddie Guerrero cutting a real cool promo and losing to Shinjiro Otani.
Flair won the triangle match, which has really bad and dumb rules. Basically, there are two men in the ring at all times, a third on the apron. You have to tag in if you want to compete in the match. This works with like a four corners tag match or would even work under lucha rules, but it falls totally flat in WCW imo.
In the main event, Macho Man has Flair on the ropes until the Dungeon of Doom's Jimmy Hart comes out and throws his megaphone into the ring. Flair grabs it and swings at Macho Man, but Macho counters and hits Flair with it instead, busting Flair wide open. I hadn't seen Flair bleed in 95 yet, so the amount of blood pouring out of his head was absurd to me. Macho goes for the pin when REF BUMP. Brian Pillman just runs full force into the ref and sits on him. Anderson hits Savage with brass knuckles and Flair picks up the pin, winning the world title yet again. The Horsemen celebrate in the ring to close out 1995.
This was absolutely terrible. I stand by my position that the absolute ludicrous nature of the Dungeon of Doom angle did more to expose the business than all the steroid trials and curtain calls in the world. Just tremendously terrible. I did however enjoy the Horsemen before they got mixed up in all this Dungeon business and think that their 95 incarnation is one of the, if not the, strongest lineups the Horsemen have ever had. Hopefully the Cruiserweight stuff will take off soon, I'm chomping at the bit to see Ultimo Dragon.
I wonder, though, if Hogan weren't as horrendously overexposed, boring, and awful as he was in 95, would the NWO have taken off? Would the fans be ready to accept Hogan as a heel?
I have a lot of "What if..." propositions about the NWO that we can get into as Bash at the Beach nears, like what if Diesel and Razor weren't already going to WCW when the curtain call happened, or what if they turned Luger again instead of Hogan, etc.
Train hard, say your prayers, take your vitamins: The Alliance To End Hulkamania is coming in 1996.
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