Wednesday, January 30, 2013

WCW Monday Nitro - 4/15/96

We open cold from Charleston, West Virginia with some "real, live, and fresh" wrestling action. Hulk Hogan is in the ring against Taskmaster Kevin Sullivan and the Enforcer Arn Anderson. Originally supposed to be Hogan and the Booty Man vs the Alliance, it turned into a handicap match with a dumb stipulation after Booty got injured on Saturday Night. If the heels win, they get five minutes alone with the Booty Babe. If Hogan wins, he gets five minutes alone with any of the Alliance to End Hulkamania's three managers. So of course Hogan dominates the entire match. He throws some of the weakest chair shots in history and just tosses Sullivan and Anderson around. He goes through his moves and drops the leg on Taskmaster to win. Hogan teases his five minutes alone with Woman. Then he teases five minutes alone with Elizabeth. Hogan is insinuating he is going to rape these women. He then chooses Jimmy Hart, runs through his moves on him, and is about to drop the leg when the Giant makes the save. He chokeslams Hogan but Hogan gets right back on his feet and bodyslams the big, nasty, stinky Giant. Mean Gene shows up in the ring and Hogan teases bodyslamming him but instead screams that he's gonna climb the ladder back to the title picture and put away Flair for good.  Again. Over and over again. For the next five years.

Our second match is the Nasty Boys vs Public Enemy in a street fight. The Nasty Boys got jumped some weeks ago and rumor spread around the WCW locker room. Was it the Steiners? Was it the Road Warriors? We discovered two weeks ago that it was, in fact, Public Enemy who jumped the Nasties and then cost them their match in the Triangle Tag Team on Nitro! Out for revenge, the Nasty Boys jump the Enemies during their entrance. This match is awful and boring and WCW's presentation doesn't help. In trying to follow the action, they put two camera angles in very tiny split screen, a la World War 3, which makes it literally impossible to pick the wrestlers out of the muddy background. This is the slowest hardcore match ever, with full minutes in between spots. If you ever wanted to know what made ECW so absolutely special, just watch what their competition was doing at the same time, as far as garbage matches were concerned. Rocco puts himself through a table for the finish, letting Saggs pick up the pin. After bell, the Enemies keep the brawl going and put Saggs through a table with Rocco's senton tope.

Third up is Earl Robert of Eaton vs the Macho Man Randy Savage. This is essentially a squash match. Eaton gets in a little offense and does a Ric Flair impression. He struts around, wooos, puts Savage in the Figure Four and waves a Four Horsemen shirt in his face. This only serves to piss Savage off. He whips the Earl of Eaton and his manservant Geaves before dropping the big elbow for the pin. Savage then goes up for the elbow drop a second time, incensed. The locker room spills out, trying to stop him from killing Eaton. He drops the elbow anyway so security handcuffs him and drags him away.

Finally, we reach the main event of the evening, a tag team title match between Ric Flair & the Giant and the Tag Team Champions of the World Sting & Lex Luger. The match starts with Luger as the babyface in peril. He is an awful babyface in peril. Sting is a great babyface in peril. Why don't they do that more often? The Giant is real good for someone so green but even the combined powers of him, Flair, and Sting can't carry this stinker. It goes on forever, plodding its way to a nothing finish. Sting gets the hot tag, he puts Flair in the Scorpion Death Lock, Woman goes to throw coffee in Luger's eyes but hits Sting instead, resulting in a DQ. The Giant comes in and chokeslams everyone and Flair struts over our heroes' corpses. Bischoff handcuffs Heenan to close the show.

Brother Count: Only four brothers this week, Hogan clearly restrained himself.

Did Hogan Go Over? Yes, to the point of no-selling a chokeslam.

The Pepe Award for Pepe's Costume: Orange camo. He's going hunting this week.

The American Males Memorial Buff Bagwell Sighting: No Marcus this week. He's probably too busy doing the press circuit for his NEW FILM.

Mongo Sucks: Its a real doozy this week, folks. God as my witness, this is a direct quote: "Last time I saw someone get the boots to them this bad, it was Rodney King saying, (in mocking tone) 'Can we all just get along.'" Bischoff quickly tried to cut him off and Heenan was in shocked silence. Jeez, Mongo.

The I Love the 90s Award for Relevancy: In addition to the relevant Rodney King "joke," they also name drop the "new Hanna-Barbera cartoon on the Cartoon Network" Dial M for Monkey and Savage's voice role in it. They then cut to an enormous mascot of Fred Flintstone, hand to its head, in the crowd.

Move of the Show: There were no moves this week. None at all.

Broski of the Week: This has to go to Debra McMichael. At ringside, she did a great job of looking tempted by the money and power of Ric Flair and then suddenly remembering she's married to a commentator.

Next Week on Nitro: Who knows!

Slamboree: Its in Baton Rouge, it features a Lethal Lottery tournament they're calling Lord of the Ring. No idea what the date is. They did, however, reveal that Public Enemy were lucky enough to pull each other's name in the lottery so they will be tagging together.

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