Monday
Nitro #172
Date:
January 18, 1999
Location:
Value City Arena, Columbus, Ohio
Commentators:
Tony Schiavone, Mike Tenay, Larry Zbyszko, Bobby Heenan
Reviewed by Tommy Hall
We're
past the first pay per view of the year and nothing has really
changed. Last night Goldberg beat Scott Hall in the tazer match but
Hall wound up knocking him out to end the show. The other main event
saw the Flairs beat Curt Hennig and Barry Windham when David got a
pin thanks to Arn Anderson. Hollywood Hogan came in and beat up
David after the match as Ric had to watch, which should set up
SuperBrawl. Let's get to it.
We
open with stills from last night of the tag match before going to the
back to see Flair freaking out and throwing trash cans. Hogan will
pay for what he did.
The
NWO limo arrives and the Horsemen attack it with tire irons but the
limo pulls off.
Flair
comes out to the arena and rants about how Hogan works for him. The
title match is made official for SuperBrawl. Flair says that it's
not him challenging because Hogan is going to have to kill him to
keep the title. Hogan may have kids of his own, but he isn't man
enough to do anything by himself.
That
brings Flair to Bischoff, who he knows is behind everything that
happened last night. Bischoff comes out to the stage and has a mic
of his own. Ric says Bishcoff has the chance to do something
promoters have wanted to do for years, but we have to wait for the
fans to boo Bischoff out of the building first. Tonight it's Flair
vs. Bischoff but Eric doesn't seem to think it's happening. His
contract doesn't say he's a wrestler but Flair offers to put up his
hair. That's not enough for Eric and the match still isn't on.
Flair ups the ante and says Bischoff can have control back.
Now
Eric is interested but David Flair comes out and yells loudly about
what Bischoff did last night. David wants to fight Bischoff tonight
and Eric is really interested. Now the deal is Bischoff vs. David
with Flair's hair and control of the company on the line. Bischoff
leaves so Ric throws in Bischoff's hair as a bonus stipulation. That
was quite the rapid fire exchange.
Opening
sequence.
Stills
of the main event and Cruiserweight Title match from last night.
Nitro
Girls.
More
stills of the ladder match.
Chris
Jericho vs. Booker T.
This
was set up last night when Jericho interrupted a Booker interview.
Booker raises the roof to start and Jericho gets annoyed. A
wristlock into a clothesline puts Jericho down and he complains about
whatever he can think of. He ducks a second clothesline but walks
into a spinning kick to the face for two instead. A missed dropkick
lets Booker catapult Jericho into the buckle and a belly to back gets
two. Jericho sends him outside for a springboard dive to take him
down.
Jericho
grabs a suplex of his own for the arrogant two but the spinning
sunset flip out of the corner gets two for Booker. We hit the
chinlock by the Canadian before a knee sends Booker outside again for
some choking. Back in and a nice springboard forearm gets two before
Jericho goes after the back for a bit.
To
the shock of no one, the announcers have ignored the match almost
entirely to talk about Flair vs. Bischoff. Jericho goes up for the
jump into a raised boot spot, allowing Booker to hit the side kick
and spinebuster for two. Chris comes back with a flapjack but Booker
spins up and hits another kick, followed by the missile dropkick for
the win.
Rating:
C+. This is what would help a
lot of WCW's problems: a nice, back and forth wrestling match.
Booker continues his steady rise up the card due to staying away from
all of the main event nonsense. It's very nice to see him getting a
push like this as he puts on some of the most consistently good
matches week in and week out.
JJ
Dillon suspends Scott Dickinson for thirty days. Also we're getting
Hall vs. Goldberg vs. Bigelow tonight. Dillon makes the Flair vs.
Bischoff match official because apparently it wasn't earlier.
We
recap the opening segment and
the announcers talk about it for awhile.
Gene
is having a sitdown interview with Rey Mysterio Jr. and asks him why
he hasn't shed the LWO colors. Rey says the red, white and green are
his brown pride and it's not his time yet. Gene asks if the mask
means the same thing it meant when he debuted and Rey says of course
it does. The mask will never come off because it's who he is. That
question came out of nowhere. Also Rey isn't intimidated by the NWO
and will face Lex Luger
anytime.
Here
are the same stills of the Flair match that opened the show.
David
Flair vs. Eric Bischoff
This
is going much earlier than I expected. David
comes out on his own here for some reason. We get an old school
weapons check and now we're ready to go. Some light kicks put David
down and Bischoff walks over his back. Back up and David hits
Bischoff with a roll of quarters for the pin, despite Bischoff's foot
being in the ropes and David pouring the coins over Bischoff after
the match.
The
Horsemen come out and we get the shaving. Bischoff's
hair goes from jet black to gray in front of our eyes. Eric wakes up
and of course freaks out. It's nice to see Bischoff get what's
coming to him, but just like the match three weeks ago, how many
people remember this as compared to the Starrcade match?
A
replay shows that Randy Anderson slipped Flair the roll of quarters.
Schiavone, the most biased announcer of all time, is totally fine
with this.
Jericho
is with JJ Dillon in the back and makes it clear that Saturn has to
wear a dress all the time when
he's in the arena, not just
in the ring. Saturn comes up and says he'll do it.
Here's
Konnan with something to say. Konnan
talks about his former teammates being traitors and being in cahoots
with Hogan since the team started. Nash and Luger got him back on
his feet when his life was falling apart and then they turned their
backs on him. When they did that, they turned on these people who
put him here tonight. Konnan is going to be on them like a pair of
tight jeans. He'll get
whatever help he needs and is coming for every member of the NWO he
can. This was actually a really solid and serious promo from Konnan,
which isn't something you expect.
Stills
of Luger vs. Konnan. Makes sense.
Stills
of the Flair match from last night. Egads we get it already.
World
Tag Team Tournament First Round: Bobby Duncum Jr./Mike Enos vs. Faces
of Fear
In
case you weren't bored enough by the first go around on Thunder where
the NWO interfered. It's a
brawl to start until we get down to Meng vs. Bobby. Duncum
takes him down and dives over the top rope to take out Barbarian as
well. Back in and everything breaks down again with a spike
piledriver planting Barbarian and the Kick of Fear from Meng knocking
Bobby on top for two.
Meng
kicks Enos down as well and the Faces of Fear take over. A
nice double top rope headbutt have Enos in big trouble and the
standing version of the same
move makes it even worse.
Meng loads up a backslide of
all things as everything breaks down again. The referee lets it go
on far longer than you would expect before Meng plants Enos with a
piledriver (not a tombstone Tony) and we cut to a split screen to
show the NWO arriving. Hogan
is ticked off about Bischoff's hair and the NWO is coming to the
ring. After some more
brawling, the Red and Black comes in for the no contest.
Rating:
D+. This started off as a fun
brawl but went on WAY too long. The Faces of Fear are like the Nasty
Boys: if you let them do their trashy brawling they're fine, but when
you try to make them have a wrestling match, things get bad in a
hurry. Duncum's dive at the beginning was good but he almost
vanished after that.
Nash
reiterates that there won't be a tournament. Hall says the hair cut
is Armageddon for WCW and shows us David's blood on his weight belt.
The title match is accepted for SuperBrawl and that's about it.
Package
on Goldberg vs. Hall vs. Bigelow.
Disco
Inferno vs. Wrath
The
dancer has the Wolfpack shirt and is wearing red and black tights.
Wrath shoves him around to
start and hits some hard chops. Tony talks about Alex Wright not
showing up to be in Disco's corner for reasons not explained. Hall
sneaks out with the tazer as Wrath drives knees into the ribs. Disco
comes back with the swinging neckbreaker and dancing elbow for two
before we hit the chinlock.
Some
shots to the knees have Wrath in more trouble but he backdrops Disco
with ease. A hard dropkick puts Disco on the floor and Wrath follows
up with a slingshot elbow to the jaw back inside. The Death Penalty
looks to set up the Meltdown but Hall uses the Tazer to distract
Wrath, allowing Disco to hit the Chartbuster for the upset.
Rating:
D+. And that's it for Wrath
meaning anything at all. As soon as the first loss happened you
could tell his career was going down, but this is a big fall down for
him. This isn't one that you can say he's going to bounce back from
either. Wrath's push is officially dead in the water and he's
another talent wasted in WCW.
Nitro
Girls but Scott Steiner
interrupts. Scott hits on Chae but switches over to Kimberly to
insult DDP a bit. End
segment.
Scott
Steiner vs. Perry Saturn
Non-title
but Steiner doesn't even
have the belt with him anyway. Steiner
rants about seeing Saturn in a dress in the back and wanting to beat
some sense into him. Steiner
makes sure to throw in a gay slur before getting punched in the face.
Saturn hammers away for a
bit and knocks Steiner to the floor, only to get kicked low back
inside to stop the momentum.
Now
it's Saturn being knocked to the floor and sent into the barricade.
Steiner takes a Michigan hat
from a fan to really tick off the crowd but Saturn comes back with a
suplex and right hands. A
dropkick sends Steiner to the floor and a big dive puts him down as
well. Back in and the top
rope splash gets two as Saturn has to lay out Bagwell. Buff
breaks up the Death Valley Driver and a belly to belly suplex lets
Steiner put on the Recliner for the win.
Rating:
D+. This was a bad clash of
styles as Saturn works a more athletic style as compared to Steiner's
brawling. It didn't work that well and the match was all over the
place. Saturn was trying, but the dress looks more out of place here
than I thought it was going to. Not
a terrible match but it was an odd pairing.
Nitro
Girls again.
Clips
of Luger attacking Mysterio last week.
Here
are Nash, Luger and the now augmented Liz with something to say.
Nash: “Yo yo yo let me
speak on this. OIL OF OLAY!” He heard what Konnan said but even
Konnan knows that without the Wolfpack, he'd still be jerking the
curtain. Konnan has no heart, endurance or soul and can talk about
salads and potatoes all he wants, but all that matters is the money.
Luger says he'll take Rey's mask if they get in the ring together
tonight. He'll even let Rey
off if Rey hands the Wolfpack the mask in advance.
Scott
Steiner goes into the Nitro Girls' locker room but security
runs him off.
Psychosis
vs. Juventud Guerrera
Psychosis
chops away to start and takes Juvy down with a quick swinging
neckbreaker. Juvy comes back with a headscissors and we take an
early break. Back with Psychosis taking Juvy down and we hit the
chinlock. A running
dropkick puts Juvy on the floor and a bottom rope suplex brings him
back inside for two. Juvy
quickly goes up but gets dropkicked out of the air for another two
count. Psychosis fights out
of a superplex attempt by crotching Juvy to send him outside.
It's
Psychosis hitting the big dive to send Guerrera into the barricade
before a missile dropkick to the back of the head gets two on Juvy.
Back up and Psychosis tries
a German suplex but Juvy backflips out. Now obviously Psychosis
should know Juvy flipped out as he could feel Juvy escape and also he
didn't hear Juvy hit the mat. Therefore, why he stood with his back
to Juvy and celebrated is anyone's guess. Why he turned around when
Juvy was shouting JUVY DRIVER is due to general stupidity.
Thankfully
he spins out and hits a reverse suplex for
another two count. Juvy has been watching his Kidman tapes as he
counters a powerbomb into something resembling a DDT. The 450 is
countered with another crotching but he does the same to break up the
guillotine legdrop. A superplex is countered into a top rope sitout
gordbuster, setting up the guillotine legdrop to give Psychosis the
pin.
Rating:
B-. Well that was rather
surprising. It's nice to see a little curve thrown in there every
now and then to keep things from getting too predictable. Thankfully
that gordbuster wasn't wasted on another near fall as Juvy should
have been out cold for about a week after something that big.
Lex
Luger vs. Rey Mysterio Jr.
The
bell rings and Luger asks for a mic. He offers to let Mysterio leave
in exchange for his mask and shirt. Rey
says no and gets pummeled for his efforts before Luger throws him
around with ease. Lex misses a charge into the corner and Mysterio
hammers away before getting two off a split legged moonsault. Luger
comes right back with a powerslam as Nash comes out. A press slam
draws cheers from Big Kev and there's the running forearm for good
measure. Luger wants the mask and Rey gets all fired up but Nash
comes in for the DQ.
Rating:
D+. This was more of an angle
than a match but I'll give them points for having Rey in there with
some far bigger names for a change. It's like they're actually
trying someone else out in a higher level instead of having him run
around in cirles for months on end. Imagine that.
Post
match Luger and Nash hammer on Rey until Konnan makes the save with a
chair. Logical story
progression.
We
see Diamond Dallas Page at the ground breaking of the Nitro Grill in
Las Vegas.
Steiner
follows Kimberly into a bathroom but security intervenes again.
Scott
Hall vs. Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Goldberg
Bigelow
and Goldberg double team Hall to start and the fans chant as you
would expect them to. Goldberg
gets jumped by the other bald guy but he knocks him down with ease.
Now it's Goldberg being double teamed but he spears both guys down at
the same time to fire the crowd up again. Hall
breaks up the Jackhammer on Bigelow so Goldberg hits it on him
instead, only to have the NWO come in for the no contest. Too short
to rate but Goldberg dominated most of it.
Goldberg
is in trouble but the Horsemen come out with Flair chasing off the
entire A-Team on his own.
He catches Hall and chops him down before chasing the limo off to end
the show.
Overall
Rating: C+. It's not a great
show but it's WAY better than the stuff they've been doing lately.
This show had some good wrestling on it and some nice, logical story
progression to cap it off. Hogan vs. Flair is the logical match for
the next pay per view main event and thankfully they've got a lot of
time to set up the match instead of having to fly through the build
like they did for Souled Out.
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
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