PWPNation.com Presents
FROM THE VAULT
This week’s Nitro starts out with a recap of Hogan getting his neck snapped by The Giant last week. The commentators don’t care about that, though, they care more about his stupid looking mustache being shaved.
Also, all the commentators ever care about in any circumstances is Hogan. Like, they call some moves occasionally, but every possible excuse to go back to Hogan they do. “Nice legdrop there from Pillman! Speaking of legdrops…”
I digress, though. Sting comes out to yell at the commentators and promises he’ll fix the problems between Randy Savage and Lex Luger. He also has a US title match with Shark for some reason.
WCW UNITED STATES CHAMPIONSHIP
STING (c) vs. SHARK
So yeah, I really wish this Dungeon of Doom crap would come to a close. I don’t have anything against Tenta or anything but it seems like he’s half-assing his entire Dungeon stint. Shark starts off the match by attacking Sting from behind, which the commentators basically ignore to talk about Hogan. He hits a legdrop, which actually does segue into a tangent about Hogan. Guys, I was joking…either way, Sting hits some corner splashes and then a splash from the top rope to win.
Wow, great match. This match length issue on Nitro is really getting out of hand. The commentators barely mention the end of the match while they continue their Hogan discussion and start a Hogan replay. There might as well be only one person on the roster at this point, and I’m not even exaggerating.
One thing I didn’t mention about last week’s Hogan stuff: Mean Gene trying to actually act to sell something is hilariously bad. At least he gave it a shot, unlike some washed up football player hacks on the commentary desk. I’m not getting at anything here, I promise.
SABU vs. MR. JL
We get a hilariously bad Halloween Havoc promo package, which leads into our (hopefully) first real match of the night: Sabu vs. JL.
Kind of a weird thing to be on Nitro, but alright. Sabu starts the match with some flippy shit, including a really botched looking springboard wheel kick. And also a rest hold, because that’s good in a Sabu match.
JL mounts a comeback, hits a shoddy looking enziguiri on Sabu’s back and does the good ol’ weekly mandated over the top rope spot.
Sabu immediately reverses something and hits another over the top rope spot, leading into his good ol’ chair springboard spot into the barricade. And, of course, as is Nitro tradition, JL completely no-sells something that probably should have killed him.
A decent looking clothesline to the SOLAR PLEXUS leads into a camel clutch, which McMichael helpfully informs us is a submission hold. We also get a casual top rope hung DDT in the corner, which is…kind of out of place, to say the least.
Sabu messes up a frankensteiner from the top, counters a flying nothing into a powerbomb and finishes with the camel clutch. No, I have no idea why Sabu’s finisher is a submission. We, of course, skip the end-match beatdown to talk about Hogan. Maybe it’s genius foreshadowing? Nah, probably not, WCW wasn’t smart enough for that. I mean, it was better than the WWF in every conceivable way, but it still wasn’t smart enough for over half a year of foreshadowing for something.
Up next, we get our weekly pissing contest with Macho Man and Lex Luger, except this time with THE MAN CALLED STANG there as well. Sting complains about the Giant beating everyone up, and Savage turns the stupid conspiracy theory to Sting, which of course starts another screaming match. So, the sitrep is: if Macho wins against Kamala and Luger wins against Meng they have a match later on the card. Which is…incredibly stupid. Why do they have to win against the Dungeon of Scrubs? It’s just…stupid.
We get a shot of Chris Benoit (stupid looking mullet and all) arriving to WCW. Up next, we get our weekly mandated stupid Disco Inferno spot. Is there a method to this madness or is it just really badly executed comedy?
BIG BUBBA ROGERS vs. HAWK
Yeah, this is really stupid. This Disco Inferno stuff does nothing but distract from the matches at hand. I mean, it’s not like Bubba Rogers vs. Hawk is going to be a 5 star classic anyway, but it doesn’t need to be relegated to this garbage. Inferno steals a hat and puts it on Hawk’s shoulderpads because comedy. Alright, alright, you have one guess: what are the commentators talking about right now? If you guess it correctly, you get a prize. Disco Inferno gets on the apron and Hawk chases him to the ramp for the countout.
Up next, we get a Hogan interview, which is great because that’s the one man this company actually cares about. He comes out to the ring dressed in all black, which is something Mean Gene has never seen before in his life, apparently. I guess a guy wearing black is far too much for some people to comprehend. Also, apparently the Giant is canon Andre the Giant’s son now? I don’t know when that happened but that’s news to me. Hulk takes some stupid shots at the WWF, and predicts that in a few years the WWF will be dying. Haha, nope, and frankly you deserve it this way.
Also apparently Hogan getting his mustache shaved is the equivalent of burning an American flag or spraying graffiti on the Washington Monument. No, I don’t think that’s quite the same. Hogan goes out to the back to confront Giant to end the segment. Yup, that was what 20 minutes of buildup was leading up to – basically nothing.
STEEL CAGE MATCH
RIC FLAIR vs. ARN ANDERSON
We get the exact same Havoc video package as before to lead into the Steel Cage match, which just reminds me of how terrible WCW’s steel cage was. It legitimately looks like they took a few pieces of chain link fence and cobbled them together. Also, Arn gets the jobber entrance, which is great. Gotta make some more time for those Hogan promos. We start the match off with some generic face-ram steel cage spots, which doesn’t really work when the cage is complete garbage and would probably fall apart if you looked at it wrong. We almost immediately go to commercial break, which is pretty awful timing. Not as bad as the WWF’s commercial break timing though.
Soon after we fade back in, Arn hits a spinebuster while Heenan complains about Flair’s face turn, essentially. We get a replay of an important spot that happened during the commercial break which is always good. We get constant Irish whip into the cage spots because if there’s one company that can somehow make a cage match between Ric Flair and Arn Anderson bad, it’s WCW. Seriously, this is just like you took all of the cage spots from a regular PPV steel cage match and made the cage a complete piece of trash. Brian Pillman effortlessly scales the cage, gets knocked off and Arn works off the distraction to hit Flair with brass knuckles for the win. Wow, that was awful.
Yeah, this was a terrible show, but it was still better than RAW. To end the show, Flair comes up to the commentary desk and challenges Arn again for next week. He also breaks Bischoff’s headset in the meantime, which is kind of a shame. Why didn’t you break McMichael’s headset instead?
WCW 4 – WWF 2
