Monday
Nitro #198
Date: July 26, 1999
Location: Mid-South
Coliseum, Memphis, Tennessee
Attendance: 7,201
Commentators:
Scott Hudson, Bobby Heenan
Reviewed by Tommy Hall
We're less than three
weeks away from Road Wild and the top of the card is starting to come
into focus. Nash took a very sharp heel turn last week, seemingly
for no reason other than Hogan vs. Nash needed to be face vs. heel.
On top of that, Thunder actually set some stuff up for tonight, such
as Nash/a mystery partner vs. Hogan/whomever he can find, plus Hennig
vs. Goldberg. Let's get to it.
We
open with a long recap of last week's major events, including Sting
winning control back and Rodman attacking Savage.
Recap
of Hennig challenging Goldberg from Thunder.
Video on Goldberg.
Gene brings out Hogan
for an opening chat and brings up Nash's challenge for the tag match
tonight. Hogan doesn't have a partner, but he does have the title.
Cue Nash, Steiner and Sid to beat Hogan down until Sting makes the
save.
Back from a break with
a recap of what we just saw.
Psychosis/Juventud
Guerrera vs.Kendall Windham/Bobby Duncum Jr.
Juvy
wants to start and springboards in, only to dive into Bobby's boot.
The Rednecks take over to start with their slow Texas pummeling until
Duncum charges into a boot to the face. A missile dropkick sends
Bobby into the corner for the tag off to Kendall, who knocks Guerrera
into the corner. Juvy doesn't tag for some reason, allowing the
Rednecks to beat him down even more. Bobby misses an elbow to the
jaw and Juvy finally tags out.
It's
Psychosis in with some fast kicks to the face followed by a
springboard missile dropkick from Guerrera. Kendall comes back with
a hot shot and BIG lariat to take Psychosis down as the Rednecks
regain control. Duncum gets two off a shoulder breaker, setting up a
Windham belly to back superplex for two on Psychosis. An attempted
tag to Juvy goes nowhere and a double bulldog is enough for the pin.
Rating:
C.
The ending here was kind of awkward but the luchadors put on a decent
effort. This is the weaker half of the Rednecks and it's getting a
bit annoying to see the team out there getting cheered when we're
supposed to be booing them because WCW doesn't understand its own
fans. Nice little match though and that's a step up for WCW.
Country singer Chad
Brock will be performing live in two weeks.
Madusa
and Miss Madness will be having a match at Road Wild but they can
still insult Gorgeous George. Ignore the phone ringing during this
segment.
Vampiro
vs. Rey Mysteiro Jr.
Non-title
because the Cruiserweight Title means nothing anymore. The Insane
Clown Posse is in Vampiro's corner because they think they're
wrestlers. Vampiro easily shoves Rey down to start and nails him
with a clothesline. Rey finally gets up and dropkicks the knee out
before a regular dropkick puts Vampiro on the floor. The Clowns have
a quick meeting with Vampiro outside before he heads inside for a
Rock Bottom to plant Mysterio again.
Rey ducks a spinwheel
kick though and nails a Fameasser in the ropes. The Clowns offer a
distraction though and the Nail in the Coffin knocks Rey silly.
Vampiro goes up though, only to get crotched. We're not done with
the Clowns though, as Jay holds Vampiro's legs to prevent a super
hurricanrana, allowing Vampiro to powerbomb Rey off the ropes for the
pin.
Rating:
C.
Again the match was fine and it's nice to see someone new getting a
bit of a push, even though it has to be thanks to the Clowns. That
being said, this was a nice change of pace as the underdog good guy
was fighting big odds and lost to cheating heels. That's wrestling
101 and it's going to work every time. Granted it helps that these
wrestlers aren't my grandparents' age.
Eddie runs out to save
Rey from a beatdown.
Vincent vs. Stevie
Ray
Well
you knew the good stuff wasn't going to last forever. Vincent, with
Horace in his corner, rips on Stevie for having a heart about his
brother before jumping Ray on the way into the ring. Ray shrugs him
off and nails a hard elbow to the face, setting up a Flair Flop. A
powerslam puts Vincent down again but he comes back with a low blow,
which is totally legal anymore in WCW. Horace tries to interfere but
Ray whips Vincent into him to knock Sergeant Nepotism (David Flair
would be the Captain of course). Ray loads up the Slap Jack as
Booker comes out to cut off Adams. The Slap Jack (move) is enough to
end Vincent.
Rating:
D.
If this is what it takes to finally end the NWO, I guess I can
survive it. It's still not a good match or anything, but at least
they kept this under four minutes. Unfortunately it means we have to
see Booker T. get dropped back into the tag team scene instead of
moving up the card like he should be. Granted, that's probably a
good thing at this point.
Sting
goes into Hogan's dressing room.
Post
match here's President Sting to say that he's made his first decision
as boss: he's going to be Hogan's partner tonight. Hogan comes out
and says he's not Hollywood anymore and promises not to stab Sting in
the back. Sting says that's fine, but if Hogan does screw him, Sting
will “getcha”.
Jason
freaking Hervey joins the broadcast booth to make up for the bad
taste Arliss left on him last week.
Prince Iaukea vs.
Lash Leroux
Iaukea grabs a quick
armdrag to take Lash down but slaps him in the face. Not that it
matters as Savage and George come out to beat up both guys for the no
contest less than a minute in.
Savage babbles about
running for President until Madusa and the former Miss Madness come
out to insult George. Madusa is on Savage's side in this, but George
is the real problem. In the distraction, Dennis Rodman sneaks in and
kidnaps George.
KISS is coming.
Savage is looking for
George.
Goldberg comes out,
says he's going to hurt Hennig, and that's about it.
The Cat vs. Evan
Karagias
Miller
makes his usual offer as Hervey plugs some movie he's in with DDP.
Of course he doesn't mention the name of the movie or when/where we
can see it but he does mention it. Cat takes Evan down with a
clothesline to start and we appear to be in squash mode, which makes
me think there's a swerve coming. Kicks abound, broken up by a
dancing elbow from Miller.
A sunset flip doesn't
get Evan anywhere so Ernest dances and kicks him in the face. Evan
comes back with a forearm and a nice springboard cross body. Cue
Onoo for a distraction so Miller can get the shoes, but he finds
bunny slippers instead of the ruby slippers. Bagwell pops up on
stage with the red shoes, allowing Evan to get a rollup for the pin.
Rating:
D+.
Somehow this was tolerable as Miller is starting to get the hang of
being a heel. He's still nothing to see in the ring but at least
he's starting to find something other than just kicking all the time.
This is a waste of Bagwell, but at least he might get a win out of
the thing.
Mikey Whipwreck vs.
Steven Regal
The
announcers explain that Finlay has injured his leg in a hardcore
match last night and may never wrestle again. During Regal's
entrance, a fan jumps the barricade but is quickly taken down by
security. As you would expect, Regal takes it to the mat to start
and easily rides Whipwreck. Back up and Mikey tries to quicken the
pace with some armdrags and a headscissors, sending Regal over to the
warm cuddling arms of Dave Taylor.
Regal
gets back in and takes Whipwreck down again before cranking on the
arm. That goes nowhere though because Hart's First Family (about as
over as anyone all night) comes out to say the Brits can get the
Hardcore Trophy back at Road Wild. We get an Andy Kaufman reference,
allowing Hervey to try to sound intelligent, making him all the ore
annoying.
The
distraction lets Whipwreck grab a quick rollup for two and a nice
pinfall reversal sequence doesn't get anyone anywhere. Regal drops a
leg for two but gets rolled up for the same. Now it's Mikey taking
him into the corner for the top rope hurricanrana, only to have
Taylor blast him with the Union Jack, setting up the Regal Stretch
for the submission.
Rating:
C.
They're actually bringing some decent wrestling tonight, perhaps due
to letting talented people get a few minutes in there. The match
wasn't anything great, but it was nice to see some wrestling going
on. You know, in between the various interference that this match
just had to have. I'm still not quite sure why Mikey was hired,
unless it was so that he couldn't work for ECW.
Mike gets covered by
the Union Jack.
Here are David Flair
and Torrie for a chat. David does all his dad's catchphrases
(including saying to be IN the man) and has Torrie say he looks good.
Short version of this is David will be champion as long as he wants.
Savage swears a lot and
storms into Rodman's trailer with the censor missing an F bomb.
Shane Douglas is here
to help his friends and cut out the cancer called Ric Flair. I
really don't like it when you hear wrestling angles called cancer.
Goldberg vs. Curt
Hennig
Hervey
brags about having access to WCW clips and how great a job Goldberg
does. Hudson: “I don't think Goldberg does jobs at all!” I
chuckled a bit. Anyway Goldberg throws Hennig around with ease and
slams him out to the floor. The Rednecks offer a distraction so
Hennig can nail Goldberg with a cowbell for no cover. Goldberg pops
back up and powerslams Hennig down, drawing in the Rednecks to be
quickly dispatched. Curt grabs a chair but backs down instead,
giving Goldberg a DQ win due to the interference. They couldn't have
Hennig get pinned by GOLDBERG?
Goldberg
spits on Hennig post match to draw him back in, only to knock Curt
right back to the floor.
Video on Hogan vs.
Nash, featuring a big backstory on the NWO. I'll give them points
for making it feel like a big deal, but making it face Hogan vs. heel
Nash has really hurt my interest in the match.
Patty Stone Grinder
vs. Madusa
Stone
Grinder is former WWF Women's Champion Lelani Kai as a biker. Hervey
spends the entrances bragging about being a network actor, making him
better than Arliss. Patty jumps Madusa as she gets in the ring and
chokes her with a chain. Some bad looking knees have Madusa in
trouble as Hudson runs down upcoming Nitro dates. Patty drops her
with a butterfly suplex but Madusa comes back with a clothesline to
knock Grinder to the floor for a big dive. Back in and the German
suplex ends Patty to end the Wrestlemania X rematch.
Rating:
D.
You know, I had a big rant set up about how this is the best WCW can
do to compete with the WWF's women's division, but then I realized
that Fabulous Moolah was about three months away from winning the
title again. However, that at least had some nostalgia and charm to
it. This was Madusa beating up whatever relic WCW could find who
could work a passable match. It's really all the proof you need that
they didn't care about this division and just put it together for the
sake of saying they had one. To be fair though, that's basically
what WWF did with the light heavyweight division around this time.
Shane
Douglas vs. Scott Putski
Scott
actually gets the first blows in with some clotheslines and a snap
suplex for two. A backdrop has Shane in even more trouble but he
finally grabs a neckbreaker to take over. We actually get a
reference to Shane's WCW tenure back in 1992. Shane piledrives
Putski for two and we hit a chinlock. Way to show WCW that fire
you're bringing with you Douglas. Putski fights up like a jobber
should and walks into the Pittsburgh Plunge (fisherman's buster) for
the pin.
Rating:
D+.
So to recap, Shane Doulgas is back from ECW to cut out the cancer
known as Ric Flair for holding Shane down in ways he never has the
time to explain and he starts by having issues beating Scott Putski.
I've never been a Douglas fan and this is yet another reason of why I
feel justified in that thinking.
US Title: Chris
Benoit vs. David Flair
Little
Naitch is refereeing and Benoit is challenging of course. Benoit
easily takes him down to start and rips David's chest off with chops
to send the champ to the floor. David tries to leave but Robinson
tells him to keep going. Back in and more chops have David
screaming, followed by a backbreaker and Liontamer. The champ taps
but Robinson just lets him suffer. The Swan Dive sets up the
Crossface, only to have DDP come in with a belt shot to give David
the pin.
Rating:
D.
Do I need to explain this one? Again, I actually like the idea
behind Flair as they're openly acknowledging that he's horrible and
only there because his dad was the boss but.....wait why can they
still get away with this cheating with Sting in charge now?
Shouldn't that have stopped immediately?
Malenko, Saturn,
Douglas and the rest of the Triad run in for a big brawl.
TV
Title: Chase Tatum vs. Rick Steiner
Tatum,
a No Limit Soldier, comes out to heavy metal. Steiner just mauls him
in the corner with right hands and knees to the back. A shoulder
drops Rick for a few seconds but another suplex sets up the Steiner
Bulldog to retain.
Hollywood
Hogan/Sting vs. Kevin Nash/Sid
Of
course it's Sid, because that's the least logical option outside of
Randy Savage. Somehow that means this could be worse if you can
actually believe that. Hogan doesn't bring the belt with him for no
apparent reason. Speaking of no apparent reason, there is no reason
for either of these teams to trust each other given their recent and
distant histories. Again, Sid tried to MURDER Nash a few months back
and it's just forgotten here. By the way, average age of the people
in this match: 43, with Sid as the young pup of the group at 38.
Sid
tries to take Hogan into the corner to start but Hollywood takes him
in instead with a series of right hands. An atomic drop puts Hogan
down but Sid is nice enough to help him up. Hogan and Sting get Sid
caught between them for a barrage of right hands but Sid blocks a
slam. It's Sid slamming Hogan though, only to miss an elbow drop.
Everything breaks down and the good guys clean house.
Back
in and Nash slows things down but misses the framed elbow. Sting
tries to jump over Nash in the corner but gets caught in Snake Eyes.
It's back to Sid who rakes the eyes to stop Sting's comeback and we
hit the chinlock. Sting fights back again but his splash hits knees
and it's back to Nash. Another comeback is quickly stopped though as
Nash knocks Hogan to the floor, leaving no one for Sting to tag.
Nash sends him into the
corner and Sting tries another jump, only to have Nash stay in the
middle, leaving Sting to just crash into him. Now we get the hot tag
to Hogan as everything breaks down again. The referee takes the
Stinger Splash by mistake so here's Rick Steiner to blast Sting with
a chair. Hogan cuts his forehead, starts bleeding, and then gets hit
in the head to bust him open, giving Nash the easy pin.
Rating:
D.
Were you expecting anything else here? This was your standard main
event tag but the things like Sting just crashing into Nash or Hogan
clearly blading in the middle of the ring and bleeding before anyone
hit him in the head took away any fun this match could have had.
Also, anytime Rick Steiner gets closer to the main event, the match
loses more of its value.
Goldberg
comes out for the save but gets beaten down as well to end the show.
Overall
Rating: C-.
This show wasn't horrible actually as the wrestling and story
advancement carried it to a decent enough performance. Things have
actually settled down over the last few weeks and a lot of the
insanity has gone away. Unfortunately a lot of the ability to
remember plot points from week to week has gone away as well, making
a lot of the story developments mean absolutely nothing. At least
the wrestling helped things out here though, which is better than
what you get most of the time anymore.
Remember to check out my website at kbwrestlingreviews.com and head over to my Amazon author page with wrestling books for under $4 at:
http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hall/e/B00E6282W6
Patty Stone Grinder. That is the most perfect bull dyke name ever
ReplyDelete"The announcers explain that Finlay has injured his leg in a hardcore match last night and may never wrestle again."
ReplyDeleteThis was a huge meme on the old Wrestlecrap forums for some reason, especially when WWE started doing the "Did You Know" factoids.
"By the way, average age of the people
ReplyDeletein this match: 43, with Sid as the young pup of the group at 38."
Somebody's been watching those Billionaire Ted sketches with Scott recently. ;)
You know, I'm actually shocked that a WCW main event went all the way to a pinfall. Usually it was a few minutes of wrestling, then the patented RUN-IN-WE'RE-OUT-OF-TIME!
ReplyDeleteThis Douglas-Flair feud is one of my guilty pleasures. It's great when Flair tears him apart verbally.
ReplyDeleteFlair calling Douglas a "dipshit" at Slamboree 2000 is one of the best lines ever.
ReplyDeleteJesus Christ, LEILANI KAI? She looked old in the fucking late 80s!! At least Moolah & Mae Young were SUPPOSED to be old relics and were there for comedy.
ReplyDeleteLooking at these shows in order is so fascinating, because you can see the guys who were getting big pushes that turned into nothing. Remember when Saturn was one of the hottest acts in the company? And the Booker/Benoit series? And poor Juventud was getting some AMAZING stuff done in the Cruiserweight division while Rey was hurt, and is now back to basically being a JTTS.
This era of WCW reminds me of modern WWE in a lot of ways- chief among them is that they just ax the momentum of popular guys for no reason at all, then act surprised that nobody gives a shit anymore.
Duncum Jr and Kendall are actually the... better... of the four Renecks at this time. That's sad.
ReplyDelete