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Episode 14: Starrcade '96
35 Plays6 years ago
It's the episode of a decade! No, make that a century! Or a lifetime! Take your pick. At Starrcade '96, Roddy Piper returns to face ultra-heel Hollywood Hogan to save WCW from the evil NWO as we see just how much a company can change in one short year. Meanwhile, Ultimo Dragon and Dean Malenko fight for more belts than either could even possibly carry alone, Sting enters his brooding, rebellious phase and goes to hang out in the rafters, and 14 episodes in we finally see a women's wrestling match. For all this and more, let's go to the ring!
Music by Michael Gary Brewer at https://www.instantmusicnow.com/
Follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/letsgo2thering , or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/LetsGo2theRing/
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Transcript
Dusty Rhodes' Real Identity
00:00:00
Speaker
Now, like, did Dusty's parents, like, name him that as, like, a joke, or...? No, his actual name is Virgil Runnels. Yeah, his name isn't actually Dusty. His name is not actually Dusty Rhodes. Well, then that's not good. I think I just found my show intro.
00:00:43
Speaker
Hello
Introduction to the Podcast & WCW
00:00:44
Speaker
everyone, and welcome to Let's Go to the Ring, where we take a look at the good old days, and not so good old days, of World Championship Wrestling, series by series. I'm your host, Bob Moore, wearing an Alec Prigen jacket, and I'm here with Alec Prigen, wearing a John Mullens jacket. I have good fashion taste, what can I say? And John Mullens wearing a Bob Moore jacket. We won't talk about it.
00:01:07
Speaker
Tonight, we're taking a look at Starrcade 96, not your typical warm, fuzzy holiday special. As opposed to last year's show, which does definitely that. It was full of tribbles. Yeah. I did not get this subtitle. It's... it's weird.
00:01:25
Speaker
Starrcade 96 was held on December 29th, 1996 at the Nashville Municipal Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee, in front of a sold-out crowd of 9,030 fans, 8,327 paid. It received about 240,000 pay-per-view buys. That's the largest amount yet for a Starrcade, and it's actually about 65,000 over the next highest amount, Starrcade 90's, 175,000. There you go.
00:01:55
Speaker
Put another way, if you combine Starrcade 94 and Starrcade 95's pay-per-view buys, that's $140,000 and $95,000 respectively, you wouldn't quite reach Starrcade 96's $240,000. So yeah, they're doing quite well. Yeah. If Hogan wasn't on a For Show, that would be all the case he would need to prove how successful he was. And look at these two previous shows. Oh, it's as good as my show. Yeah.
WCW's Ratings Success
00:02:20
Speaker
In fact, WCW is currently smack in the middle of its famous winning streak over the WWF in Monday Night TV ratings. A set of victories which started with the WCW Monday Nitro June 17th, 1996, and ended with WWF Raw's first victory in nearly two years on April 13th, 1998.
00:02:44
Speaker
So quite a long hot streak for WCW that we're near the near the beginning of at this point. Almost enough to name an entire show after. And by the way, if you think that this pay-per-view total is big, just wait for next year's. Why?
00:03:03
Speaker
Because it's really, really good. No, seriously, the amount that it went up this year over 95, not even close. It will blow your mind the difference between this year and next year.
00:03:21
Speaker
Two of wrestling's biggest icons lock up in this all-important reunion. Hollywood Hulk Hogan. You got a real big problem, my friend. Versus Rowdy Roddy Piper. I'm the only guy you have never met.
00:03:37
Speaker
As they say under the big top, it's show time. Hogan leads the NWO. We are going to build a dynasty. Piper walks alone. I am not with the WCW. I am not with the NWO. I'm Roddy Piper. Hollywood Hulk Hogan. Piper.
Formation of NWO and Hulk Hogan's Betrayal
00:04:13
Speaker
We open with a video package covering the main event for tonight's show. Rowdy Roddy Piper returning to WCW to face Hollywood Hogan, leader of the NWO.
00:04:27
Speaker
Wait, the NWO? What's that? Yeah, we kind of jumped ahead, didn't we? Yeah, we've we've skipped a lot. I mean, this is one of the weird things about doing the show this way. When there is a major storyline that happens midway through the year, we're skipping over it at the moment. We're going to see the beginnings of this later. But normally we like to focus more on the storyline immediately leading up to a show. But in this case, this is so huge. I feel like I need to go back a little bit and know we actually lead up to this a little.
00:04:57
Speaker
It supersedes like four of the eight matches practically. Yeah. So a lot happened in 1996, and WCW has almost entirely changed as a company. At Bash at the Beach 1996, there was a three versus three match pitting WCW wrestlers Sting, Savage, and Luger against men called The Outsiders, Kevin Nash, and Scott Hall.
00:05:23
Speaker
who had until recently been employed by the WWF as Diesel and Razor Ramon, respectively, and had come to prove their superiority over WCW. That's who it is. I knew it was Razor Ramon, but I forgot what they called him in the show. Yep. The Jerry Curl, or the Grease, or whatever. Yep. Instantly, we almost saw both of them earlier. That's true. On, I believe it was, 91? 91, yeah. We were promised they won't be on the show.
00:05:53
Speaker
But Hall was injured and Nash was just not there, I guess. Hall got to hang on the back with his arm and a sling and wearing a speedo. That's right. Just normal wear. He brought the house. Now, I don't know if this will make the final cut, but when they announce them back to back, it almost sounds like they're saying Hall and a**. They're just letting you know. Yeah, true. That's true. I didn't know if that was intentional. I thought it was hilarious. That does sound like they can hear it now. That's all I'm going to hear right now. Yep. You're welcome.
00:06:25
Speaker
The Outsiders began the match without their third man, his identity still a mystery, but late in the match, the third man arrived, Hulk Hogan. With the crowd raining trash on the ring over this betrayal, Hogan dubbed himself, Hall and Nash, the New World Order of Wrestling. Hogan, now going by Hollywood Hogan,
00:06:50
Speaker
took the world title from the Giant at Hogwild 1996. Since then, Hogan and the NWO have added more wrestlers and staff to their ranks, including, recently, WCW Executive Vice President Eric Bischoff, which gave them significant power within WCW itself. Also, kind of oddly, they added the Giant, despite Hogan winning the title off of him not long prior.
00:07:14
Speaker
There's one other major change, this time regarding Sting. His loyalty to WCW was questioned in the lead-up to a Wargames match against the NWO at Fall Brawl 1996, and feeling betrayed, he's withdrawn from competition since.
Sting's Transformation and Storylines
00:07:30
Speaker
Now dressing in an outfit that, if we're generous, we'll say was inspired by the dark superhero movie The Crow, Sting is only glimpsed periodically in shows, or sometimes enters the ring to deliver his new scorpion death drop move. His motivations are a mystery.
00:07:50
Speaker
So that's where we are now. We're about half a year into what may be the single most famous and influential storyline that WCW ever had. Do you know who famously coined the Express in New World Order? It's from a speech about a few years before... Isn't it Bush? George Herbert Walker Bush, yeah. 1991 I believe.
00:08:13
Speaker
Tony Schiavone yells over massive amounts of fireworks to welcome us to Starcade, and builds up Match of the Decade, Piper versus Hogan, as he introduces his co-host, Dusty Rhodes, so cool he wears sunglasses indoors, and Bobby the Brain Hienan. Dusty calls Piper versus Hogan the Match of the Century. That was a quick upgrade. Hienan says that Hogan has never defeated Piper, and he won't do it tonight.
00:08:41
Speaker
I got curious, so I looked this up in cage-match.net's rivalries database. There were several singles match victories for Hogan over Piper, but All But One were recorded as disqualification or count-out. Correct. So yeah, as far as I can tell, Hogan has at this point solidly beaten Piper one-on-one once.
00:09:01
Speaker
All told, that's one of the smaller wrestling exaggerations then. The trade-off is that there's no point, unless you can have one I missed, where Piper beats Hogan. That's true. So it's not like the version we'll see later where it's like, I beat you before and now I'm back. Right. It's just you couldn't beat me at a very limited technical view of things and I'm here to fight you again. Yeah. It's still impressive. Yeah, I was expecting it to be a much bigger lie than it was.
00:09:28
Speaker
Ironically, the brawl to end it all ends in a DQ, I believe, and or a count-out. Famous show they ran on MTV in the 80s during the Rockin' Wrestling period. But in fact, I did nothing, given that we're here now covering a show 10 years later. Clearly, it took care of everything. Also, this is a really interesting element of the NWO era.
00:09:51
Speaker
Bobby Heenan, who generally cheers on heels and makes excuses for them, has not changed his views on Hogan one bit. He hated Hogan as a face, and he still hates him as a heel.
00:10:02
Speaker
I actually, I really love that consistency in this character. That's a neat story element. It'd be a intriguing thing if it ever come up, but it doesn't. If somehow Flare ever joined the NWO, like, how would his loyalties work? Oh my gosh, he would... I don't really want to see that. He would just explode. That's, wow. I know what he would
Ultimo Dragon vs Dean Malenko
00:10:20
Speaker
have done. Yeah. It's time for our first match, so let's go to the ring.
00:10:29
Speaker
Our first match is Altimo Dragon with Sonny Ono versus Dean Malenko and its titles, plural, versus title, for Altimo Dragon's Jay Crown and Dean Malenko's WCW Cruiserweight Championship. The referee for this match is Scott Dickinson.
00:10:49
Speaker
In August, in Japan, Jushin Liger came up with the idea of unifying all of the light-heavy weight and or welter weight, cruise weight, whatever terminology you would use, titles together so they can sort of do branded business together so you'd have one champion the way the N.B. Way had. Rick Flair would come in new territory and so on and so forth.
00:11:09
Speaker
They held a big tournament, and basically every one of the champions, all eight of them, entered it, and whoever won got all the belts. Ended up being Dragon, obviously, as you see him now at this point, but he didn't actually win the tournament. GreatSoska actually wins the tournament, but never shows up on WWE TV as far as I know. Yeah, and then Dragon wins the titles collectively from him later, right? Correct. Okay.
00:11:31
Speaker
So yes, the J Crown Octuple Unified Championship was established August 5th, 1996. And there's eight different junior heavyweight or cruiserweight titles from different organizations included in it. So it includes the British Commonwealth Junior Heavyweight Championship, the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship, the NWA World Junior Heavyweight Championship, the NWA World Welterweight Championship,
00:12:01
Speaker
The UWA World Junior Light Heavyweight Championship. Good gosh, there's a lot of descriptors in that one. Oh yeah. The WAR International Junior Heavyweight Championship. The WWA World Junior Light Heavyweight Championship. And the WWF Light Heavyweight Championship. I know it had three countries, but that's crazy. So yes, you may have noticed that last one.
00:12:31
Speaker
The J-Crown includes the WWF Light Heavyweight Championship, and is being defended on a WCW show. So apparently here's what happened. The WWF had created the belt in 1981 for the Universal Wrestling Association based in Mexico as a partnership, then basically forgot about it. Pretty much, yeah. It ended up in the hands of Mishinoku Pro Wrestling in 1995 in Japan.
00:12:57
Speaker
In November 1997, the WWF would eventually decide to bring back that old light heavyweight title, realize where it was, until the current J. Crown holder at that time, Shinjiro Otani, he of the Amazing Springboard, moves last year to send it back. He did so on November 5th, 1997, leading to the J. Crown's retirement as Otani also vacated the other belts, except for the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship.
00:13:24
Speaker
I also kind of find it a little interesting that there's NWA titles in there given that WCW left them a while back. Yeah, that's true. Well, in fact, NWA has two different belts as well. That's true, yeah. Boxing is where most of the weight division stuff is from. So I'm sure there's some minor technical note of like, one is up to like, say, 195 pounds, one of 215 or something, but it seems still that there's a welter weight and a junior heavy weight. Yeah.
00:13:53
Speaker
Incidentally, during this time, Ultimo Dragon is also recognized as holding the NWA World Middleweight Championship. Though it appears he wasn't actively defending it at this time, and it was not part of the J crown. So all told, that means that Dragon is the holder of nine titles at the start of this match.
00:14:15
Speaker
Dragon, wearing sparkling green with an awesome mask and cape, and Sunny Ono come down to the ring, with Ono carrying Sumo Dragon's ridiculous number of titles. It's an amazing shot with all those belts out there. Dragon blows mist upon entering. How is it possible that the entire WCW vs. Do Japan show went by without that, but we get it like four minutes into this show? Making up for lost time, really. I guess so. Clean air laws.
00:14:47
Speaker
Malenko comes down to his intimidating JRPG evil empire music with only one belt. Tony brings up Malenko's nicknames, the Man of a Thousand Holds and the Ice Man, and offers Iron Mike Tene a seat between him and Bobby Heenan to help them call the match.
00:15:06
Speaker
Not that we're actually showing this, mind you. No. I'm still not clear whether Mike Keneet even actually physically exists at this point. He definitely says I'm going to put him between me and Hienan. And I doubt he was talking about a laptop with a good Wi-Fi connection at this period. I don't know. They don't really cut to the announcers during the match, do they? No, not in this show. I can't recall them ever doing that. That was something they do in the past sometimes. Yeah. It's very strange.
00:15:32
Speaker
Well, definitely on like a weekday show they would do that too. Oh yeah, on Nitro, yeah. They would cut to them, they would talk to the camera directly. They do at least a couple times in the previous show. Oh yeah, yeah, that's something we've seen before. Yeah, but they can get more celebrities to sit with them if they never cut to them. Extremely smooth holds to start, with some acrobatic escapes. Ono says that Milenko has no chance, and wonders what he should do with the extra belt. He decides he'll use it to hold up his pants.
00:16:01
Speaker
Okay. Feels like he had the start of a joke and then the camera just kind of stayed on him, so he suddenly had to think of the punch line. Yeah, pretty much. We get go, Dean, go chance. Dragon hits kicks, and Tony and Hina note their force.
00:16:18
Speaker
More smooth sequences of holds by Malenko, but Dragon fires back with strikes and a nice snap suplex for two. We get a weird moment as the announcers argue over Tony calling Dragon's half crab kind of a half crab. It goes on for quite a while. Aren't that weird, Britannic? Yeah.
00:16:36
Speaker
They pick up the pace, moving swiftly about the ring. Dragon dives over a Milenko monkey flip attempt and lands more kicks, but Milenko counters a whip into the corner and throws Dragon to the apron, then knocks him to the floor with a nasty forearm shot, only for Dragon to dodge his baseball slide and land a kick and slam to the floor. Great spot as Dragon goes back in to dive, but notices Milenko dodging, so he backflips off the ropes, then dives right out onto Milenko when Milenko thinks he's safe. I love that bit.
00:17:05
Speaker
It takes them both out for a second, too. Yeah, yeah. The announcers note they actually knock heads during it. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Back in, they trade pin attempts off of a dragon elbow drop, Milenko Suplex, the dragon recovers first and tries the pin there, Milenko Sunset Flip, and Dragon Neckbreaker. Tene talks up dragon's Asahi Moonsault, a move named after his real name, Yoshihiro Asahi. And not the berry, sorry.
00:17:33
Speaker
Malenko gets two off a released German suplex, as Henan advises him to hook the trunks next time. He's wonderful! Yeah, they got a dusty entire- No! Malenko gets a single leg lock, but Dragon reaches the ropes, so Malenko breaks the hold, drags him back to the center, and slaps the hold right back on. Nice.
00:17:56
Speaker
Malenko continues working Dragon's legs. Malenko dodges a handspring elbow, Dragon counters a corner charge with a boot, and Malenko counters a charging Dragon with a power slam. Malenko's unable to cover, though. We get big moves now. Dragon with a spinning wheel kick and power bomb for two, and Malenko counters a tombstone pile driver into his own for two and three quarters.
00:18:19
Speaker
Milenko tries his Texas cloverleaf hold, but Dragon gets the ropes before he can lock it in. The announcer's nicely built up that Dragon's been scouting Milenko for the past few weeks, so he's become very familiar with how he puts that hold on and recognized it immediately and just dashed for the ropes. His transition to that hold is so quick. Yeah, it's very nice.
00:18:43
Speaker
Beautiful Milenko double underhook powerbomb for two. Milenko tries to crossbody both out, but Dragon doesn't fall with him, rolling out afterwards. Couldn't tell if that was a botch or what they intended, honestly. It's a tricky move, it's hard to say, yeah. Dragon hits the Asai moonsault from the apron to the floor, and today makes sure to point out that's the move he mentioned before. Dusty and Tony point out that neither man wants a countout here, as both have belts to win, which I thought was a nice point. True.
00:19:13
Speaker
Back in, Malenko dodges a moonsault and Dragon hurts his knee, so Malenko locks in the Texas cloverleaf to massive cheers. Ono gets up on the apron, so Malenko breaks the hole to go after him, and Dragon rolls Malenko up for one, two, kick out. I swear I thought that was gonna be it at the time. It was really close. Yeah.
00:19:35
Speaker
Milenko brainbuster for two and nine tenths, but Dragon flips out of another. Dragon counters a Milenko charge into a Dragon Suplex attempt, but Milenko twists around into his own, but Dragon drops down and rolls back, and Milenko goes to whip him up by the legs but momentarily stumbles and leans on Dragon, so the ref nicely covers by counting two for that.
00:19:56
Speaker
Malenko whips Dragon up by the legs, but Dragon slips free and gets a Tiger suplex for the 3 count and the win. Even Dragon can't believe he's won, as Ono celebrates with him.
00:20:09
Speaker
So following this victory, Ultimo Dragon is the holder of 10 titles. By my understanding, that is still the record for the most simultaneous championship reigns by a single wrestler. WCW only acknowledges nine here, ignoring, I assume, the NWA World Middleweight Championship. Thoughts on this one? It's a really good one. The thing about it is that it's very technical.
00:20:37
Speaker
There are so many holds, so many, you know, suplexes and moves like that. Everything feels very natural with them. I can't remember if I get a comment of the curve they've wrestled before, but they must have at some point. You can tell first time, for instance, even with really good wrestlers, like we see later in the show, versus more experienced combatants where they go to each other several times. Little subtleties they pick up, wrestling with somebody, you do that better.
00:21:04
Speaker
So it definitely feels like it's not their first match, but I'm pretty sure it's not. Well, I was worried going into it. I know the match from Edwardation is very good. I mean, it's Dragon and Blynka. How is it not going to be good? Yeah. Unless somehow they're both like fully wasted, you know. I can't imagine them as like... Then it's better. True. There you go. It's just different, nothing else. Would he be the Ultimo Drunken then? Yeah, man. The Man of a Thousand Beers.
00:21:35
Speaker
But I was worried watching this match going into it thinking, is that would they hold the crowd? Because there's a lot of time to hold, there's a lot of submission attempts. But thankfully they bring in enough strikes and then we'll see Dragon, a lot of flying moves without it being like a high flying spectacle per se. So that's enough of the crowd reacts to everything.
00:21:58
Speaker
There is one dude in the crowd that briefly goes out, boring. Yeah, you caught that too? And I thought it was the main guy that I keep on watching throughout all the matches and he's in a gray shirt with horizontal stripes that's like leading the charge for everything. He's a one man like wave.
00:22:17
Speaker
Like, he is up and cheering before anyone else, and there's a few in the back, but he's active in every single pen or whatever throughout the whole thing, and I watched him quite a bit during this show. Good. Everything else, yeah, the crowd is super hot for this one. Yes. A lot of close calls. A lot of close calls. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
00:22:36
Speaker
Yeah, my baseline summary is it's really strong, really tactical, and they really nail the drama of it, because some of these matches can't be dry. I had to pick on matches, good matches too much per se, but then the match we had with Masayo Chono and Great Muta, I had set a hopes for, and it is really well done. I got nothing from the matches. There's no drama for me. There's just people doing holds in each other. Yeah.
00:23:01
Speaker
That's the sort of thing attributed to Malenko, I think, falsely, because his whole character is not being really dramatic. But he does actually show good drama and good energy in this match, so it's definitely a good showcase of both of them, I would say. And possibly the strongest opener, but yeah, much doesn't look a pair of everything. Yeah, it's a good opener, definitely. Definitely up there.
00:23:22
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. This is a very strong opener. I know the 95, I was happy to have a quick one or something wasn't drawn out or anything, but you know, there was about 20 minutes in this match, maybe, maybe 18, once you count the intros and everything, but it was a long match and I didn't mind that at all. Uh, lots of reversals. Um, I got some new found respect for Malenko.
00:23:43
Speaker
Ultimo Dragon was awesome. I like the one bit where they get out of a hold and they do like a little back flip and move and you know, and then Malenko does the exact same thing back. Oh, yeah, that was cool. I thought that was a good exchange.
00:23:55
Speaker
perfect amount of groundwork, rope work, inside, outside, you know, it was all over the place and there was some holds here and there and that was boring or whatever. But, you know, there was no bear hug boring. No, no. And they did have a little bit of narrative, you know, like obviously, once Ultimo hurts his knee that Linkov just seizes that opportunity and concentrates on it for the rest of the match. And it works in to, you know, his four leaf clover.
00:24:23
Speaker
thing. Texas Globe Relief. Yeah. Yeah. It was a great match. I enjoyed it quite a bit and there was a little bit of stress on my end. I'm like, this guy can lose eight belts. Yeah. No. Yeah. And I'm like, he has to win and I was going to be so like, as soon as they cut to Oh no. I was like, Oh, don't brag because that usually sets up a loss. I just, please just don't talk. Like we got this in the bag. Oh no. Yeah. There you go. His name. Yeah.
00:24:53
Speaker
Yeah, there were so many moments in this one where I was like, oh my gosh, that's gotta be it. And it wasn't, but it didn't feel...
00:25:02
Speaker
Disappointing when it got to the end. It didn't feel like an underwhelming finish like the konomoto match last year I kept on waiting for the crowd To not react but that never happened. No, it was it was up down up down just they were getting as much exercise out in the crowd As the two combat I think it's the brain buster where you know It gets like two and nine tenths in the crowd all like launches to their feet thinking that he's won and then realize oh I didn't like you could see the like air go out of him for a moment
00:25:32
Speaker
It was really neat, yeah. Well, I was really happy that Ultimo won. It would be so, like, messed up if you lost eight belts. And then I'd have to, like, figure out where they go, you know, like, later on. And I'm glad they didn't do that.
00:25:47
Speaker
I think it also opens up a redemption match where there's like only one belt on the line kind of thing and they could try to get it back. But great match. I enjoyed it quite a bit. I think it sets an awesome tone for 96. Yeah. What a match. Incredibly
Akira Hokudo's Championship Journey
00:26:02
Speaker
complex, but they kept a very quick pace for the whole time. They had loads of creative holds and transitions between both of them intermixed with dragons. Excellent kicks and some impressive acrobatic work that you guys were mentioning and very clever spots.
00:26:17
Speaker
I also appreciate how Malenko makes sure to do different versions of many moves from the usual ones you'll see. So like he won't do a regular powerbomb, but he'll do a double underhook powerbomb. Both guys had a seemingly endless supply of moves. They just kept coming and whenever I thought I knew how something was gonna go, I was wrong. The finishing sequence was great. I love a fast and complicated finish like that. Excellent, excellent match with a really hot crowd. Except for the one jerk that yelled boring.
00:26:48
Speaker
I think the guy standing up in the gray and striped shirt makes up for it. Yeah. You're going to rewatch this, and that's all you're going to see. Yeah, I'm going to look for him now. I'm going to go back and look for him. He's in the front row in the red seats. Or there's just two people in red shirts next to him. In the red seats. You'll see it. All right, I will look for him. I will look for him.
00:27:09
Speaker
Well, it's like there's one guy who goes to a lot of WWE shows. I always wear the same outfit so you know he's there. He wears like this beige cap. It's a little like, just the chin goatee. It's this little stubble on the bottom. And like this neon green like smiley face shirt he wears. He's on so many shows. To your point, do you notice people? I watch the first of the WWE shows, I watch part of it anyways. And on the hard camera, who do I see? Green shirt guy, I'm like, oh no, you betrayed them.
00:27:39
Speaker
Pregnant guy, I don't know. That's funny. I definitely know you feel like one guy. That's great when the crowd is effectively part of the show and you definitely get that feeling tonight.
00:27:53
Speaker
Coming out of this, Dragon has a big title defense in Japan against Liger, which he loses, unfortunately. So he lost his eight belt, but I don't think he loses his ninth belt. I think he keeps it one extra. Yeah, that's not part of the J crown. Right. And it's a record that matches in January. Of course.
00:28:12
Speaker
There is a rematch between Demolinko and Ultimate Dragon. However, it's not a pay-per-view like I was into because January show was something much worse than implement on that. So instead at class of champions, you get the rematch where dragon comes in with now just officially just the WWE because we're title again to Blanco who wins it back. Alright. Also in January. Yep.
00:28:37
Speaker
So yeah. Not a good January for the dragon. No. But a very good December. Yes. His next appearance is on Super Brawl in a dark match. So he goes from opening Starkade with eight title belts to a dark match with no title belts in a month and a half. All right. Sadly, a bit of a fall form.
00:29:01
Speaker
we go right to the next match. No messing around on this show. So our second match is Akira Hokudo with Sunny Ono and Kintsuke Sasaki versus Medusa to establish the inaugural WCW Women's Heavyweight Champion. The referee for this match is Mirror Universe Nick Patrick. He's got a nice goatee going on there. No weird owl hair too. Like if it was trimmed.
00:29:30
Speaker
Oh, I thought you were talking about me. I thought I was confused. No. You're just an owl. Well, I thought we were an owl name. We're an owl name. Yes. Actually, before the show we just covered Star Kid 95, famously in October of 95, they bring a Medusa who still holds the WWF Women's Championship. She shows up, walk up to the booth when they're actually filming the booth and complain about how bad the belt is and dumps in the trash.
00:30:00
Speaker
which basically got her blackness and WDF until like three years ago. Following this big tea moment and bringing her in, they did nothing.
00:30:11
Speaker
There's no women's division at all in WSW at this point, in 95. Going into 96, there's still not one. They finally start giving her matches. She has a series of matches in 96 against people like Bull and Ocono, but there's no title they're fighting for. It's not until November where they decide, okay, maybe we should have a title, given that we brought her in specifically because she left the company who was not supporting the title she had.
00:30:36
Speaker
Yeah, maybe you should do that, I guess. Yeah. So they hold an eight-woman tournament, which is seven women from Gaia, a Japanese wrestling promotion, and Medusa. Okay.
00:30:49
Speaker
So yeah, this is a cross-motion belt, kind of like WDF's belt was initially. I got the sense that this was like inspired, I mean, this is pretty progressive for WCW. So I thought this was going to be inspired from Japan. And now that you said that, that is confirmed. Like 100%.
00:31:07
Speaker
Yeah, Gaia is an all-female, or was, I think it's not right anymore, all-female Japanese dressing promotion. And I think that's great. No, yeah, absolutely. Hugato works for them, yeah. I mean, there's a lot more thought into her, you know, costume and everything else and her personality. Oh my gosh, yeah.
00:31:22
Speaker
And Medusa, I'm like, there is no Greek inspiration. Her name might as well be Mad USA. That's actually, I should let you know, her name is a shortening of Made in the USA. Oh, I thought it was Mad. That's literally, yeah, she's angry. Yeah, it's confusing. Okay. To turn anyone to stone is always disappointing. Mine is five stars. Yeah, it is. So the next match, oh, sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah, turn to stone.
00:31:51
Speaker
So like Al said, this is the final match in a tournament meant to crown the WCW Women's Heavyweight Champion. In starting matchups, Medusa beat Reina Yabuki, Zero beat Malia Hosaka, Kauru beat Sanoko Kato, and Akira Hokuto beat Miyako Sadamura. In the semi-finals, Medusa beat Zero and Akira Hokuto beat Kauru.
00:32:16
Speaker
So, Al, what's slightly strange about all this? The woman that Medusa beats in their first Rome match is Akira Hokuto wearing a mask. So it's not really seven, it's... It's six with one of them being twice, yes. Six different women, basically. Yes.
00:32:35
Speaker
So yeah, Reina Yabuki is Akira Hokuto wrestling in a mask. This was apparently, from what I've been understanding, an actual alternate gimmick that she just regularly did. Correct. Yeah. Oh. So yeah, Hokuto, as Reina, lost to Medusa, then wrestled unmasked to beat Meiko Sadamura and Kauru to earn her way here. So I kind of wonder, what would have happened if Reina had beaten Medusa in zero? Would they have put somebody else under the mask so she could face Akira?
00:33:03
Speaker
No, one wouldn't show up and they'd win by default. There you go. There you go. That is the WCW booking way, John. Yes. Hokkaido has an amazing sparkly white and gold outfit with weird gas mask and wild white wig that I can only describe as post-apocalyptic bridal wear. Yes. Yeah, yeah. I can see that. Sasaki has a striped shirt.
00:33:32
Speaker
Quite a downgrade from his God of Fire jacket the previous year. I was getting a lot of Borderlands slash Mad Max fields too. Oh, designer apocalyptic wear. Yes. Her actual wrestling gear looks more like kind of fantasy barbarian queen, I thought maybe.
00:33:51
Speaker
Sasaki and Hokkaido are married. In fact, John, as the one of us to actually attract a mate, I got a question for you. How long did it take you from meeting her to proposing? One year. One year? One year, maybe one month. Okay. Okay. Kintsuke Sasaki has you beat. He proposed during the first date
00:34:18
Speaker
Well, he knows what he likes. Yeah. That jacket should have said God of love, huh? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's true. And he was still married to this day. Yep. Like two or three kids, yeah. That is super cool. I mean, love at first sight right there. Yeah. No, I think my dad and my mom dated for like six weeks before he proposed. There you go. See, that's a marathon. I mean, it's been six weeks. Yeah. Saying, hey, what took you so long? Yeah.
00:34:50
Speaker
Tony welcomes Lee Marshall to the table to help call this match. Lee's here because he and Dusty called the matches for the women's tournament. Yes. Fun note here, Lee Marshall was the voice of Tony the Tiger from 2005 until Marshall's passing in 2014. That's true. So this match is called by Tony Schiavone and Tony the Tiger. It's great. I'm sorry. I hope we avoid that.
00:35:20
Speaker
Could you detect in his voice, John? Does it sound familiar? Yes. Yeah. It's like when the guy is on random one. When you find out he used the voice of the Taco Bell Chihuahua, you're like, oh, now I hear it. Medusa has a sparkly America outfit and US flag. It kind of made me think of American gladiators.
00:35:42
Speaker
My first thought is that she took the flag that Sting left backstage a year ago. Yeah. Also against the Saki, by the way. Good point. Yeah. Yeah. Bob, you just unlocked a part of my brain that I forgot about. I forgot American Gladiators came back and I just watched like three of them. And that is not good. I'm fearful of tennis balls now. Yeah. But yeah, I see that now totally. Yep. Yeah. Very familiar looking outfit there.
00:36:11
Speaker
blast. They all have names like that. Jazz wasn't one of them. Jazz or something like that. That's an Autobot. Yeah. Yeah. I get American glad ears and Transformers confused all the time. It's a sound effects.
00:36:29
Speaker
Hokuto ambushes Medusa as she poses on the turnbuckle and flings her to the mat. Hokuto hurls Medusa around the ring by her hair, and Ono cuts off a Medusa comeback with a trip. Dusty points out that Sasaki gets in Ono's face for that. Hokuto drags Medusa up in the corner for a suspended choke.
00:36:50
Speaker
Tony and Dusty are aghast that Nick Patrick is the ref here, as they are sure he is a member of the NWO. Not Nick Patrick, I won't believe it. I mean, come on. He is the most honorable referee. Haven't we always said that? You keep saying it. Yeah. Slander, I tell you. Slander.
00:37:12
Speaker
Medusa counters a Hokkaido top rope move with a handstand's head scissors, but Hokkaido knocks her down and chokes her on the ropes by standing on her shoulders. Impressive balance there. Before getting a scorpion deathlock. I guess she figured we'd miss it with Sting hanging out in the rafters these days. She transitions to an STF and then to footbiting. As Dusty says, she's a teethen on a foot.
00:37:39
Speaker
I don't know. It seems like biting a boot would be tougher on your own teeth, actually. I would think so. Yeah. Unless your jaw is from James Bond movie. And Medusa actually has the same wrestling shoes that I wore when I wrestled. Really? Yeah. Same ASICS blue. Yep. That's cool. Kind of. Yeah. Yeah. You got a connection, John.
Commentary and Promos: Lee Marshall and Roddy Piper
00:38:01
Speaker
Yeah. If you ever meet her, you can share your love of that particular wrestling shoe.
00:38:06
Speaker
No. Oh. Sure you love American gladiators? No. No. Okay. So you used to drive monster trucks. This is true. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was our post-rusting career of monster trucks. Yep. I could see that was an easy transition. Yeah. Yeah.
00:38:22
Speaker
Hokkaido gets one off a high angle slam as Medusa bridges out, and Medusa comes back with flying takedowns and her own high angle slam for one. Tony implies that the count was slow, but certainly not.
00:38:47
Speaker
Hokkaido gets a suspended double choke slam and some choking before a beautiful bridging suplex for one. They fight over an armbar, and Medusa counters a clothesline with a sloppy float over DDT. Notice Hokkaido's head does actually contact the map pretty hard there, but she's fortunately okay. That did not look like a lot of fun. That's been all that neck work you talked about last show. Next to steel in Japan.
00:39:11
Speaker
Hokuto floats over a medusa slam and hits a bridging German suplex for one. Lee points out Sasaki and Hokuto train together and share holds. And Dusty says, he bets that's not all they share. Their husband and wife, why are you saying it like it'd be scandalous? Yeah, not any window. It's really weird.
00:39:31
Speaker
Medusa gets a spinning DDT and a smooth powerbomb for two. Another powerbomb attempt, but Hokkaido comes down on her for two. Tony says that Patrick counts faster for Hokkaido's pins. Hokkaido gets a nice German suplex for two and a superplex for two, but goes up too slowly and Medusa dropkicks her to the floor.
00:39:52
Speaker
Sasaki checks on his wife, and Patrick goes to order him away, so Ono nails Medusa with the US flag. Hokuto hits a missile dropkick from the top turnbuckle. As Patrick props the flag in the corner, Hokuto hits the Northern Lights bomb and a casual seated pin. I really love that. For the three count and the win. Hina points out that Japan's wrestlers are up over WCW's 2-0, so I guess this is kind of an unofficial Second World Cup of Wrestling.
00:40:20
Speaker
I was getting that. Yeah. Yeah. Sasaki checks on Hokuto as Ono takes the US flag and seems about to attack Medusa, but Sasaki comes over and knocks the flag away, so Ono quickly scampers over to celebrate with Hokuto. Is this our first women's match?
00:40:39
Speaker
Yes. Yes. Oh, that's a sad statistic, isn't it? Yes. 14 episodes in? Yeah. I can't remember. I can't remember. I can't remember. I can't remember. I can't remember. I can't remember that far back.
00:40:59
Speaker
who also literally owned the belt and they just left it away and they're like, we're good and didn't bother. Hardball already there. Yeah. They just never bothered to make another title for like 12 years. Wow.
00:41:11
Speaker
I thought this was a great follow-up. You know, like again, I said, this was very progressive and I thought that it was an awesome start first two matches. I really enjoyed it. I actually kind of liked that her husband was there to support her. Usually you have some henchmen or, or everything. And, and Ohno was a little subdued in this one. He wasn't bragging the whole time. So I was like, okay, there's still still a good chance that Japan can still come up ahead. Yeah.
00:41:36
Speaker
I don't understand why Nick Patrick would come across the flag and think it's totally fine. That was a little weird. He was like, ah, why is this here? I think he was just covering for, you know, it's supposed to be out of the ring by now. Yeah. It was a good match. I was surprised how many moves you could do while pulling someone's hair, which I was a little annoyed with, actually. I was like, this is not good. I was worried for their necks, not Akira's neck though, because network. Clearly.
00:42:05
Speaker
I did like the opening ones, though, where she's flinging her buyer hair across the ring just because Akira Hokuto is the loudest wrestler in the universe at that point. It's like just howling crazed there. Akira is selling. She was louder than Luger ever is, actually, which is amazing.
00:42:25
Speaker
I'm a little more mixed on this match than you are. The thing for me is it's two different things I'm going to match. So half the time they'll be doing really good moves like the finish with the drop kick and the light bomb. Like they did a suplex or whatever off the turnbuckle at the top with both of them. I thought that was really done really well.
00:42:46
Speaker
So there's moves like that that look really good, but then there's stuff that's just kind of awkward. Like a lot of the hair pulling, some of it looked good, but some of it was a little awkward. I would say that they didn't work together about it, so they rested at least once with each other. I said to Muddus, I didn't realize that was her the whole time. But you know, trust me, maybe she didn't. So it kind of felt like the awkwardness you get in first matches when it's not covered well enough for me.
00:43:10
Speaker
That's the thing that's weird for me is one move would be like, oh, it's not that great, but then they'll do two or three really good moves. So it's not all badness, but it's not all good for me. Okay. So I came into wrestling after this, almost all WWE shows and ended. My friend ran into women's wrestling is more like Trish Stratus. I guess he was really coming into run at this point.
00:43:30
Speaker
There's so many moves that Medusa does here, like that bridge out of the pin, the head scissors off the mat, that Trish did. And I just assumed she made those up. I had no idea someone was doing them like five years earlier. I'm like, oh, sorry, Trish. I gave you way too much credit, apparently. I was surprised that I not watched all of Medusa's stuff because the C you were doing with me was like, oh, I know she did them before.
00:43:55
Speaker
Well, I thought it was a good pair of... I'm not saying the second match was amazing. I'm just saying it was a nice... If you take them as a whole, it's a great start. No, yeah. Yeah. I was just more mixed onto the match of the world than you were. That's all I'm saying.
00:44:08
Speaker
I think I'm more with Jon on this one. I thought it was quite a nice match. They had a fast and hard-hitting fight. Hokkaido's submission holds were nice, but they did feel like they hadn't quite been adequately built to. Kind of feels like they popped in out of nowhere. Yeah, yeah. Let's see that. Otherwise, both were capable of some really good strikes and a smooth mix of agility and power moves.
00:44:30
Speaker
It was really nice, I noted, how this match started off with one count and built to two counts, rather than just going for two counts right away like a lot of the matches we've seen. Interesting. Much like Sasaki, I could have done without the interference. They probably wanted to protect Medusa with it, but I actually would have really loved to see Sasaki just outright stop Ono and Hokuto win clean. It would have been a cool twist. Still, while this was short, it was energetic and hard fought, and the interference didn't spoil a fun match for me.
00:45:01
Speaker
This does start a storyline between them that goes over the next few shows. Unfortunately, the long term, it doesn't really amount too much, and the title itself is not actually in existence by the time the next show happens. Wow. The last champion wins it in September of 97, and it's vacated at some point, like October to November.
00:45:23
Speaker
Wow. That's really sad, considering, I mean, this was, like we said, a very good match here. Yeah. This would have been a nice way to kick off a good women's division, but, you know. Yeah, the thing is they never really hired any other lady rather than besides Medusa at that point. They would bring in Hokuto, and like I said, Buonakano came in a bunch of matches, we'll get back to him when we cover other shows at Great American Batch, for instance. But yeah, they never really committed to it. They hired her, yeah.
00:45:52
Speaker
Well, they have a lot of entourages. Couldn't they have gotten them involved? That happens occasionally in wrestling and it varies in how well it happens. There's a lot of clear buildup to something big with her coming in and don't tie on the trash, but they really don't fall out. Yeah. Considering she literally burns her relationship with the other wrestling company to come in for them. You'd think that they would try. Yeah. Yeah. It's a shame.
00:46:19
Speaker
They would later make the WWE Women's Cruiserweight Championship, which is even more obscure than this belt. Because this belt was, as obviously seen, defended on pay-per-view, whereas the other one was not. Never defended once in America. And Medusa's not involved in that either.
00:46:40
Speaker
We see a clip of Diamond Dallas Page answering questions at wcwwwrestling.com and blowing smoke at the face of a guy running the computer. Tony says DDP is a bum. I'll say we also get a quick glimpse of Mark Madden in the corner of the frame. You'll eventually see a lot more of by the end of the series and you'll not be happy about it. That's all I will say.
00:47:06
Speaker
We go backstage to Gene Okerlund, who says some call the upcoming Hogan vs. Piper match, Match of the Decade, but he calls it Match of the Century. Decide, guys. I couldn't help but notice yellow tape on a locker, marking it as private for WCW only. What, that specific locker? Okay. Is that the one they've got set aside just in case Vader comes back and wants to punch a locker? You know you should have that prepared. That's a good idea, yeah.
00:47:37
Speaker
Gene brings in Rowdy Roddy Piper. Here comes the insanity.
00:47:42
Speaker
gentleman i thank you very much we are back in the locker room area tonight the big main event summer calling at the match of the decade i've got to say it is the match of the century from the n w o hulk ogan will be facing my guest at this time in the role of challenger he's done that many times over the years when i've covered him rowdy rowdy piper welcome to music city u s a it seems like we get together traditionally at this time of the year one reason or another but that i i guess much more important
00:48:11
Speaker
Since you arrived at Halloween Havoc, you have made your intentions perfectly clear. You're standing on your own ground, not for world championship wrestling, but for Rowdy Roddy Piper, and Hogan has really done it this time. He has stirred up a hornet's nest.
00:48:30
Speaker
I gotta tell you. Ah, Music City USA. I sing like a bird, like a vulture. People telling me, oh you're gonna kick Hogan's butt, that's gonna be no problem. Are you kidding? He's six foot seven, 270 pounds.
00:48:47
Speaker
I'm a midget! Sky Lolo! Me, right there, baby! This is, with Hogan, gonna be a walk in a park. Jurassic Park, honey. Have you seen this guy? Have you seen what he's thinkin'? I have! I don't listen to him. I just look at him.
00:49:05
Speaker
I watched that big, dumb mug. It's perfectly sun-tanned. I watched him come in, in the limousine, the long Volkswagen, and here he comes, and here it is! The match of the icons! Not wound up yet, but I'm getting there.
00:49:21
Speaker
There's plenty, folks, of icons. The thing that's been kind of P.O. in me is like we are the only icons ever in the history of the sport of professional wrestling. There's a little man out there that bought all from 77 to the rest of the time was in a dusty road, the American dream.
00:49:43
Speaker
There's the guy Strangler Lewis. Couple of folks heard of him. Guy George, Gorgeous George. Couple of folks heard of him. Then there's this big mountain Hogan. You know when I was a little kid, I wanted to be something. She said, I want to be something. Give me an instrument. They gave me the bagpipes and a dress. I'm the one that can call a dress. You know why? Because I'm tough enough.
00:50:09
Speaker
What am I gonna do? A piano? Hard to carry in a parade, brother. Hard to carry. My whole life has been hard. Six kids I've had to feed. My whole life has been hard. I left home when I was 13. You think I'm gonna give up? Not a chance.
00:50:30
Speaker
Of course it's the season. The 18th that was tidings in reverse. No, it wasn't. And they say it's better to give than receive. This will not be a problem. You see, if you take Hogan's ego, did I say Hogan's? Hogan's ego? What's your name? Roseanne Barnes brought cup, put it on his head. It's a Yamaka. See you later. Wait a minute, Roddy, don't go away. I've got to ask you this in closing. What about the hip?
00:50:58
Speaker
Piper hops on one foot out of shot. Piper's artificial hip, replaced due to the wear and tear of a lifetime of wrestling, had been the subject of taunts from the NW earlier, and they exposed this surgical scar during a beatdown. They famously referred him as Peg Leg Pete. Bonkers promo here. I think it was three promos.
00:51:28
Speaker
It was a lot of fun, though, I think. Yeah. Someone clearly told them, OK, so Savage is not going to be here. So you got to do your promo and Savage is together.
00:51:38
Speaker
Yeah, he is wild and he's all over the place filled with manic energy. Only about half of the promo actually makes any kind of sense, I think. But it is an interesting concept for the feud, actually. Hogan isn't claiming to be the only icon. He's claiming he and Piper are the only icons. So Piper, despite his inclusion, is mad on behalf of the people not included. The disrespect of wrestling legends. So I kind of thought that was a cool concept for it anyway.
00:52:07
Speaker
Piper does a good job building up Hogan's reach and strength advantages, but his own refusal to give up. So for me, there were weird lines here and there and a really weird ending, but he does a good job of just rattling through the promo, even past any flubs he makes, and I had fun with it. Yeah, I know. For better or for worse, it is truly a Piper promo. Yes.
00:52:28
Speaker
I'm like, can I get qualifiers? Good, bad, weird, just, there's a pipe of promo left for you yet. Yes. I can go with that. He seemed to be like worked up and then like he forgot to be worked up and then there's like, there's like some trigger word that he said, he triggered himself.
00:52:46
Speaker
He goes from like this guttural howl to like, oh, I'm just going to be flipping about things and talk about his tan and get back into like, but I mean, I think a good promo does build up your opponent, but like he was like kind of like fawning over him in the beginning, which is a little weird. Yeah. Yeah. He maybe goes a little bit too far with like, oh, he's like so much bigger, so much stronger. You're like, wait, does that mean you have no chance to win? But I think he kind of brings it back afterwards pretty well.
00:53:14
Speaker
Our third match is Jushin Thunder Liger versus Ray Mysterio Jr. The
Liger vs Mysterio: High-Flying Action
00:53:21
Speaker
referee for this match is Mark Curtis. The only real setup is given actually during the match, which is that Liger is set up to challenge for the J-Crown and upcoming New Japan show, and this served as a testing ground match for him.
00:53:37
Speaker
I think Tanay mentions at some point that they have faced each other once in Japan in a tag match, but never in a singles match. It was kind of a dream match thing that people were expecting. Which is good enough.
00:53:52
Speaker
Liger is not accompanied by Sunny Ono. The streak is broken. Yep. For matches involving Japanese wrestlers that we've seen, that's like nine straight matches, right? That's correct, yeah. So, to be clear, Sunny Ono has accompanied Japanese wrestlers on Star Cades for one less match than Ultimo Dragon now has belts. That's true, yeah. Yeah. It depends on who you ask. There you go.
00:54:16
Speaker
Liger does still have his awesome cape. Rey Mysterio Jr. is the nephew of the original Rey Mysterio, who showed up on Starrcade 90 as part of the Pat O'Connor Memorial Tag Team Tournament and was variously referred to as Rey Mysterique or Rey Mysterioso. No tomato. I like that. So at least that's been ironed out for Mysterio Jr. Tanae joins us again for this one.
00:54:43
Speaker
We get a USA chant to start, and Liger complains to the ref, so the crowd changes to go-ray-go. How obliging of them. Yeah. Handshake, and we're off. Liger proves the stronger immediately by shoving Mysterio hard into the corner, but Mysterio replies with a takedown and surfboard, only for Liger to reverse it, only for Mysterio to forward flip out of it and double kick Liger in the face.
00:55:08
Speaker
Fun bit as Liger shoulder blocks Mysterio down, but Mysterio kips up, so Liger drop kicks him right back down. Liger slam into an effortless stalling suplex. I'm sure it helped that Mysterio is small, but still, that looked good.
00:55:25
Speaker
Tineh mentions that Liger had a brain tumor removed in August 1996. That's true, and Liger was actually wrestling again in September. No joke. Out for like a month for brain surgery. Awesome. Yeah. Tony sounds about as oppressed as I was. Yeah. It also looks really bulky.
00:55:51
Speaker
Yes, yeah, he's definitely put on a little bit weight, which I believe Dusty comments on later in the match. Liger continues to dominate with power. Liger powerbomb, but Mysterio counters another with a Hurrican Rana. Liger tries to counter a second, but Mysterio twists around and Hurrican Rana's him out over the ropes and falls on the apron himself. So, DQ credit, I guess, for going over to. Yeah, yeah. Thanks, that works.
00:56:16
Speaker
Mysterio tries a dive, but Liger dodges, so Mysterio whips around through the ropes and back into the ring, shades of his future 619 move. Mysterio tries to suplex Liger in, but Liger counters and dumps Mysterio to the floor, then power bombs him on the floor mats.
00:56:32
Speaker
The announcers comment on Liger's new, more power-based style, and Dusty really nicely states how amazing it is that Liger's even here after what he went through. There's a trend in modern wrestling now, do a lot more stuff involving the ring apron. So many moves you can think of are done that way now. You're like Powerbomb into the apron. Yes, which Kevin Owens obviously made famous in WWE. So when I'm watching this match with you and I rewatch it, even though especially the second time, I should know how the match goes.
00:57:02
Speaker
By seeing him grabbing him near the apron and nuke of power, I might as well assume he's going to have power from off the apron. I'm like, oh right, he didn't do that before. It's so conditioned to expect that now. Back in, Liger bats aside a Mysterio top rope dropkick called the Z-Man. Dusty gets annoyed as Henan ignores a comment about Liger's increased weight, so Henan says, sure, he looks heavier than a minute ago. How's that?
00:57:29
Speaker
Liger tilts a Whirl backbreaker into a suspended surfboard hold, but Ray won't give up. So Liger breaks the hold and catapults Mysterio to the mat and questions Ref Mark Curtis.
00:57:41
Speaker
Mysterio gets a released German suplex and a standing moonsault for two. Then a DDT and seated springboard moonsault for another two. Mysterio's springboard dropkick and camel clutch. Mysterio's springboard splash, but Liger catches him in midair with a dropkick for two. Really, really nice timing there. Oh yeah, absolutely.
00:58:02
Speaker
Liger gets a released German for two, and a single-leg crab, but Mysterio gets the ropes. Liger hits a dragon-screw leg whip, and Dusty is in stitches at that move's name. Saying he's going to have to remember that. Hey, honey, what was that? Oh, that was the dragon-screw leg whip. Yeah. Learning so much about Dusty's personal life, I did not ever want to know. No. Liger hits a front flip kick in the corner, which Tanae calls the somersault capo kick.
00:58:32
Speaker
Yeah, I knew that. Dusty jokes. Mysterio hits a monkey flip and spinning wheel kick, then a reverse her income Rana.
00:58:41
Speaker
rapid acrobatic dodges, and Liger slides out. So Mysterio hits a springboard moonsault from the top rope to Liger on the floor. Tene points out its similarity to the Asahi moonsault, but one rope higher. It looks like Liger has to rush forward to, like, break that fall. Like he overshot the pad. Oh, I could, yeah. And, like, I could imagine it from, like, I mean, obviously it was aimed the right way, but, like, I mean, I was thinking also outside if Liger, like, rushed forward.
00:59:11
Speaker
a little bit to like save. Yeah, yeah, he definitely makes sure that he doesn't hit the concrete. I'm so glad that he hit Lyger. Yes, yes. We get a weird bit as Mysterio makes it back in at a count of nine, but ref Curtis just stops counting even though Lyger's still outside. He didn't quickly covers by saying that Mysterio asked Curtis to stop counting as he didn't want to win that way.
00:59:36
Speaker
He just kind of gesture towards the left. He just makes it a thin air, but yeah. It doesn't normally work like that. Does the other wrestler get a say in that sort of thing? Yeah, not normally. Liger gets back to the apron, and Mysterio knocks him propped across the second rope, then springboard leg drops him for two, as Liger gets a foot on the ropes.
00:59:56
Speaker
Liger dodges a second springboard leg drop and hits a diving headbutt for two and three quarters. Liger is shocked. They trade strikes, and Liger goes up top. Mysterio tries a top rope hurricane runner, but Liger blocks and hits a front flip kick and the Liger bomb for three. Mysterio is just a split second too slow to kick out. Japan 3, America nothing, Henan says.
01:00:22
Speaker
Tony says goodbye to Tanay, and we're done with guest announcers for the show. Thoughts on this one? When I started watching wrestling, Mysterio was pretty well established. He was also sadly in his unmasked period, which is Bob's least favorite Mysterio period. Oh my gosh. We'll get into that more when they actually have that point. So I see him in that dying to his WCW. Then I see him come back when they essentially remasked him, which breaks all lucha rules, but who cares?
01:00:50
Speaker
going back further to seeing even younger Mysterio at this point. He has like what, two tattoos? Yes. As opposed to now where he's 80% tattooed. He's also more tattooed than human being at this point. It's really amazing to see that because as good as he honestly still is after like three or four knee replacements and all this stuff.
01:01:10
Speaker
He's amazing to watch when he's that young, that quick. He's actually really more precise at this point as well. You would expect that that's what you would get better at with age, like aiming things better for the most part. Except for maybe the dive where he goes not far enough. But generally speaking, he's way more precise with moves, like the landing of them here than he seems to be. It layers Crows is interesting as well. Doesn't seem to go that way.
01:01:38
Speaker
If this really is the first Liger theory match, not counting apparently a 30 second interaction as they say in a tag match, they cover that issue pretty well. Or you can usually tell- You would not guess. No. You would not guess, no.
01:01:52
Speaker
My first thought, I thought the finish was a little spotty, but then rewatching actually does flow better than I thought. My only critique would be maybe I'd wish that he just countered the Hercerman into the Liger Bomb just as in one move, but the sequence is really still all this good on the same. He does a good job getting down off the turnbuckle and right into that flip too, which is nice.
01:02:13
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. I was like, if I first thought I looked a little awkward where he sort of hops off the ropes, like he didn't mean to, but it absolutely does look 100% legitimate and intentional when he rewatched it. It's amazing to think how many moves Peter does that maybe aren't the first time we've seen them, but at least very rarely done. I mean, setting, like I said, setting moonsault. Yeah. Who have we seen do that at any point? Nobody. Yeah.
01:02:36
Speaker
And like for springboards, the only other guy I can think of that's done a lot of those was a Tawny last year. For me, this year is pretty much on par with him as well. Yeah, he did a very, very nice job with those.
01:02:46
Speaker
I'll say that same volume though, but yeah, there's more variety to the move I think Mysterio does with it. Take another thing away from this amazing- He does like the leg drop and the backflip moonsault off the ropes too, which one thing I'll say is it's telling that they do mention how Mysterio does the moonsault to the outside. And then ultimately he does one up dragon, then he does the top rope and the middle rope. That says a lot about him as well, that he's just doing things slightly higher than what else is doing, even at this point in his career, which is pretty amazing.
01:03:16
Speaker
Hoping he would win, but I knew going into the setup that he couldn't, basically. Unless you're having to challenge Liger after that match, he has a dragon, you don't want to have him beat Liger at this point. Going into a title. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I think I have lucha fever. Like, I like masked fighters now. Oh yeah. You know, starting out with Ultima Dragon, I was like, okay, I got my fill. I'm like, oh, now I got more.
01:03:42
Speaker
It was very weird to see Jushin Liger being the strength, like the raw strength portion of the match. Oh yeah. Some of those slams and throws and you just push them around, looked very, very forceful and to
01:04:01
Speaker
Mysterio juniors credit you know he sold stuff and he moved really quick he was definitely the nimble fighter is there was a strength and nimble but you still have great acrobatics from both oh yeah the highlight of the match still was you know with my interpretation when
01:04:16
Speaker
They do the moonsault off the top rope, and Liger seems to run forward to catch him. Yeah. And I thought that was good sportsman or good coverage and everything, and he seemed to pay for it. Yeah. I was really happy that Japan won. I don't know why. You know, like I thought this... Yeah, there's no stakes at this point. There's no stakes, but like I thought that they were going to do like there was going to be a continuing thing.
01:04:40
Speaker
Yeah, it felt like it. I thought they were going to do that, you know, and nope, I don't think it goes farther than this. Nope. Yeah, this is just the first three matches. It's like, oh, hey, it's Starrcade 95 again. Here's a one third scale trophy. Yeah, that would be hilarious. Well, the good thing was, it was like, oh, I don't have to feel like awkward with Ohno. So there was an upside to that.
01:05:08
Speaker
I don't recall Weigerbaum looking like that, but it still looked very forceful as the finishing move. I will say he has a few versions. I've seen him do the one he does there. He will also do a running version as well. I've got the guy in the corner right now. I've been doing that as well. But he does that release at the end where they drop and then his legs go over their arms. That tends to be how he does it.
01:05:29
Speaker
You know how they're making fun of the names and everything? I think it's, correct me if I'm wrong, I think it's Dusty who's narrating at the point when they're doing the bomb. And I'm like, I think there's Dusty just making up stuff. Like because he was still chuckling over the dragon screw leg whip. Yes, yes. Yeah, he busts a gut when today says that is great. And the move did look pretty forceful too, so I thought that was cool.
01:05:58
Speaker
A lot of new variations and it was nice to see that there was a big difference between two flyers. Go Japan. Brilliant match. It's going to be a really hard choice for match of the night tonight, I can tell. Mysterio is absolutely amazing and I'm glad that we've reached his time in WCW now. He is so incredibly fast and agile and he had quite an array of amazing flips and dives all executed with grace like you were saying.
01:06:28
Speaker
Like you said, John, it was really weird to me to see Liger play the power guy, but I thought he did a good job with it and he hit a lot of impressive spots. And like you were also saying, he had good acrobatic kicks too. He didn't leave all the high flying to Mysterio.
01:06:43
Speaker
impressive match that definitely felt like it could have gone either way. Both came off looking really great here. And I also loved the Liger bomb. It does a great job of jumping with it to kick his legs right out into position for the pin. So it looks really smooth, but also really powerful. Yeah, so yeah, good match.
01:07:02
Speaker
This is a great three-match start. I know, isn't it? I totally forgot about 95. Not the bad parts. So I didn't forget about any of it. So as I noted earlier, Lyger won the Jcrown from Dragon.
01:07:22
Speaker
Leiger holds the crown for actually quite a bit of time. He holds it in January through July. Weirdly, he used it July 6th, so the day after by 14th birthday. There you go. I feel like it's somewhat of my fault, but... Yeah, it probably is. Most things are. Exactly, yeah. I must have been a really confusing birthday wish and somehow, I mean, he lost his belts. I don't know. Did you know who he was when you were... I had no idea who he was at that point, no.
01:07:46
Speaker
So it's only partially your fault. Oh, okay, there you go. Something about a masked man in belts, probably. Did he ever root for Rita Propulsa on the Power Rangers or something like that? I don't think I ever did, no. No. There's unfortunately no rematch from these two, at least not in maybe many times soon, as cool as that would be. So your role now, he's been really established, is to always have just really strong, interesting matches in the show. He has plenty more good stuff in his future.
01:08:19
Speaker
We go right to the next match again.
Chris Benoit vs Jeff Jarrett Feud
01:08:22
Speaker
So our fourth match is Chris Benoit with Woman versus Jeff Jarrett in a no disqualification match. Referee for this match is Mark Curtis.
01:08:33
Speaker
This is part of that uncomfortable angle that I mentioned last show with the future Nancy Benoit playing woman here alongside Chris Benoit. Again, I just want to make clear that our comments about this match relate only to the performance as part of the show and should not be taken as any comment on the actual people involved.
01:08:54
Speaker
back in October, Jeff Jarrett leaves WDF under very interesting circumstances. Like literally after the show, I believe, right? Yeah. Yeah. So he comes into WCW as a hot free agent and stories that he's being quartered by both the four horsemen who let them fill their ranks and the NWO.
01:09:13
Speaker
Flair is really on his side for whatever reason, thinking he's the guy that's gonna make the forestmen big again, take them to the UO, so he is 100% on board Jeff Jarrett. Basically, he's the only one in the group that's that way. Mongo is not for him, Orange really not, and Benoit definitely is not.
01:09:32
Speaker
So escalate to the point where there's attention to the group and sort of up settle this, they're going to have a match just to get all the, all the hot air out essentially. And so they can get back to do when they do be a strong unit, win titles and take down the bureau.
01:09:47
Speaker
The other ongoing story is that their ascension between Kevin Sullivan, who is still running his group of the Dungeon of Doom, although none of the really crazy people are there at this point. There's no sharks or yetes or... Zodiacs. Yes. No. What? It'll make more sense later. Anyway. Zodiac's gimmick was that he could only say yes or no. Oh. It doesn't make any more sense now. No.
01:10:16
Speaker
The story is that Benoit starts courting Nancy who at this point is in real life married to Kevin Sullivan and the story is that he's pulling her away from her husband Which would lead to them actually that actually really happening. Yeah But that's explained something that happens later in the match to give more context. Yeah
01:10:39
Speaker
Dusty asks Henan if he's seen the Taskmaster, Kevin Sullivan, around tonight, because Henan hangs around places like the Dungeon of Doom, which, yes, is an actual location, though sadly we won't see it in our Starrcade run.
01:10:56
Speaker
What? Sorry. So many jokes you will not get. When we reached Halloween Havoc. Oh boy. Oh my gosh. All this. You'll think back to all this stuff. You'll be like, I get that. All that random crap that was hilarious. Jeff Jarrett comes out in the stupidest outfit in the universe.
01:11:17
Speaker
It's white on the front, black on the back, with the top being this strange construct of thick strands connected to a collar on top and to the waist of the tights. And then he's got gold boots just to make sure he kind of clashes with the rest of the outfit there. It looks so incredibly dumb that I can't believe that someone put this costume together, took a look at it on him, and was like, yeah, that's acceptable. And he wears it for how many years? He wears it for a long time. For like three years he wears his outfit.
01:11:45
Speaker
My theory is that the strand is supposed to be like the strings and neck of a guitar. It's coming from WWF to here, then back again, then back here again. It's all related to country western, whether it's literally using a guitar or being a western singer. Yeah. So having the body of a guitar thing makes sense. Maybe. I thought he was like a Reno, like dancer.
01:12:08
Speaker
Like cowboy yeah that fits the the attire Yeah, yeah now normally. It's all one color like it's an all-white Yeah, it was weird tonight with a black on the back. Yeah, the back is one color if I did not get that I did not notice that I
01:12:27
Speaker
Dusty says Jarret has home-field advantage because he was reared and trained and traditionalized and history-ed in Nashville. He speaks Nashville, Henan says of Dusty. Benoit shows his disrespect, miming kicking dirt on Jarret, then repeatedly tries headlock takedowns only for Jarret to counter into a head-scissors hold. Three times. Stop trying that, he clearly knows how to counter.
01:12:55
Speaker
Benoit slaps Jared in the face to big ooze from the crowd, then uses Ref Mark Curtis as a shield. Benoit continues disrespecting Jared as he controls, but turns his back so Jared gets up and lands big haymakers and a drop toehold, then walks on Benoit's back and struts. More even now, and Benoit takes things more seriously. Benoit stomps on Jared in the corner and yells, Horseman, don't forget it! Dusty says he was stomping a mud hole and had a filibuster going at the same time.
01:13:26
Speaker
keep waiting for the other half of JR's verse in that line. We just don't make a mud hole and walking it dry. Yeah. When you don't see their half, I'm like, yes, and? No.
01:13:36
Speaker
They roll around, trading punches, and Benoit rolls out, followed by Jared. Benoit walks around by woman, and she grabs Jared's shoulder. He turns, and Benoit nails him from behind. Dusty says, to be careful if a lady on the corner grabs your arm, and heen and quick as whip says, remember that, Tony. Benoit beats Jared up in the ring, and Dusty says, he's taking the paint off the woodwork.
01:14:02
Speaker
Jarett chokes Benoit on the ropes, then tries to jump on him, but woman pulls Benoit out of the way, and Jarett crotches himself on the middle rope. Benoit clothesline for two, and he flings Jarett out over the top rope. It's a no DQ match, so that's okay.
01:14:17
Speaker
They beat each other up outside and ram each other into railings. Back in, Benoit backdrop for two and three quarters. Benoit sleeper hold, and he uses the ropes for extra leverage, just as Dusty was saying that he might. Good call, Dusty. Curtis checks the arm twice, then oddly checks both arms the third time. I'm not sure why, as Jared keeps both up.
01:14:40
Speaker
Jared backdrops out and gets a roll up for two. Jared tries nothing specific off the second rope, and Benoit kicks him for two as Jared gets a foot on the ropes. So, Benoit hooks the leg for another two. Nice touch there. Trading blows, and Jared gets a nice drop kick for two and an overhead belly-to-belly suplex. Benoit tries to suplex him out, but Jared reverses and drops him on the top rope. Jared tries the figure four, but woman claws his eyes.
01:15:08
Speaker
Benoit rolls out and Arne Anderson walks on down to ringside, ignoring Benoit as the announcers wonder if he's following Flair's lead. Back in, Jarrett and Benoit brawl. Jarrett back body drop and Benoit rolls out, dodging a Jarrett baseball slide to slam him face first into the cameraman platform at ringside.
01:15:27
Speaker
Jared and Benoit brawl around the corner of the ring, and the Dungeon of Doom members Conan, who we last saw on Starrcade 90 as well, and Hugh Morris suddenly run down the ramp to try to kidnap woman. She boots Hugh Morris in the nuts, which amuses Dusty to no end.
01:15:45
Speaker
Curtis comes over to help her. Jarrett knocks Benoit down, and Anderson motions for him to roll Benoit in the ring. Jarrett does. And Anderson quickly DDTs Jarrett on the floor. But exactly as he does, Kevin Sullivan charges into the ring and breaks a wooden chair over Chris Benoit's head. It looked like Sullivan was also wearing a Four Horsemen shirt, oddly enough. He was, yes.
01:16:08
Speaker
I think Tony actually later points out, I didn't catch this, but Tony points out later that Benoit and Anderson's faces on the shirt that Sullivan's wearing were cut out. It must have been a Trojan Horseman. There you go. Anderson rolls Jared into the ring, but looks away as Jared's arm slumps on top of Benoit and Curtis counts the three to give Jared the win. Woman and Anderson yell at each other about Benoit's loss and the dungeon's interference. Thoughts on this one?
01:16:38
Speaker
There's definitely a match where I have to put aside everything I know about everything else and just focus on the match because obviously there's a lot to connect with that. So with that said, I thought it was really good.
01:16:52
Speaker
Benoit and Jared work really well together. They both are fairly even and at least peer even on a technical standpoint. So they can do the trade holds thing that the Surristan, Dragon and Link are doing as well. They can also keep the same pace, which is nice. There's not one point where one of them is clearly faster and one's got to adjust. Benoit is definitely very willing to do nice big strong hits, but also take big strong hits.
01:17:16
Speaker
That backdrop, especially, looked especially unpleasant. Yeah. Because Douglas has a full rotation over, like I had before, where his feet were almost down. That was like his feet hit the ground before his body does. Because he goes further over and back than normally you go in that move. And he hits that, running below the belly, which looks very much like Kurt Angle would do. Yeah, that was good. Oh, yeah.
01:17:38
Speaker
Best and worst thing for me is the no DQ part of it, because they make a point of the no DQ so they can do the over top rope toss one time, but then they don't use weapons. No. But then they also make a point of tracking their free from everything going on the ring, which occludes both the DT of Jared and the tear shot to Benoit, as if him seeing it would somehow affected things. That's true, yeah.
01:18:02
Speaker
I don't know that I'd necessarily say that the intent of Hugh Morris and Conan is to distract the referee. I think it may be more of a, we're coming for woman. And it just happens that the referee's in there in the story of the match anyway. But yeah, it is a little funny that it's like, it doesn't matter if the ref sees this finish, it's no DQ match.
01:18:23
Speaker
I don't like cheap finishes like this, but this is like the best version of a cheap finish because they clearly, I'm guessing Sullivan especially, I'd say in booking how exact all this timing goes down because you have to have fear and you have to have spot on the outside, spot on the inside and roll in just the right way.
01:18:43
Speaker
The only thing kind of cheap about the way they do that is, so Arne to the DDT, the guy, rolls into the ring and decides to just stare at the ground, I guess. Can't take his breath. He's staring just straight down so he can't see. Ben wants it down to roll him in there. That's the only negative. Yeah. And maybe he could have found something like just, you know, turn away and taunt the crowd or something like that. Yeah, that would be fine. He has to not see it, I kind of get that. But the way he does it, it's like he's super winded from doing one move to the guy.
01:19:12
Speaker
Yeah, the timing on that load, like you said, that is brilliant timing. He literally hits the DDT exactly as the chair hits Pimwap, which is amazing. Re-watching it, you can tell Jared rolled and his hand just sort of flops over. Yes. There is no intention on his part. He is unconscious, but it's just, yeah. Yeah, it just followed over right into place. It's not even like he just puts an arm over afterwards. It's part of the rolling itself.
01:19:36
Speaker
So I really wish they hadn't done all of that. I kind of wish they had a more clean finish to everything. Especially given this NODQ anyways, you have no need for some of this stuff. But the actual match itself up until that point is really well done.
01:19:52
Speaker
I don't give Jared enough props overall, I think. But see that one drop kick he does is really good. Oh yeah, yeah. I was going to mention that too. Yeah, he has an excellent, just really beautiful smooth drop kick that just- The height on that- Good height, yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
01:20:08
Speaker
Yeah, it's a really good match. I just kind of wish they had done so much excess stuff at the end. As well as they did it, I just wish it wasn't there. Okay. I thought this match was all over the place. I usually get distracted when there's all kinds of extra things going on the whole time. Sure. You know, I did like Jared in that, you know, he definitely had some either slick or powerful moves, a lot of variations.
01:20:32
Speaker
If you can look past the straps, it's still, it's a good deal. Honestly, the first time I watched it, I didn't even know that there was a chair hit or anything like that. You see just a sliver of wood flying across the mat, but it's only like, what, 10% of the shot? So I was like, what's going on?
01:20:53
Speaker
After the pinfall, I went back about 30 seconds or whatever and figured it out. And they replay it nicely. Well, I didn't even wait for the replay. I was like, what went wrong? Gotcha.
01:21:05
Speaker
You know, there was a lot of interference by women. And the one thing I don't get about this no DQ is like, you know, it's like one of those, another match where it is like, there's like weapons everywhere. Like I'm thinking of Cactus Jack here, you know, like you can just basically beat the crap out of each other. With the no DQ, does that also go towards like Benoit was putting his legs on the turnbuckle or on the ropes to like, you know, hold his pen or whatever. Do they still ask you to break?
01:21:32
Speaker
that varies honestly yeah that varies i mean basically i think basically a lot of refs will still ask you to break but then if you don't they just can't do anything about it right they just won't continue counting that's that's one thing that they can do is the ref
01:21:45
Speaker
can't force you to not use the ropes, but he can refuse to like count a pinfall or something if you're using the ropes still. He just can't DQ you. But if the guy's giving up, I think that'd be a different thing. I mean, sometimes rest will physically move your feet off the ropes in some cases, but it's so variable on that. Okay. And despite the onwardness.
01:22:11
Speaker
You know, when he walks in the first time and they exchange that glance or whatever, I'm like, no, he's still on his team. You know, like I never, they tried, the announcers tried to build some sort of tension or whatever. Yeah. Well, because he... I knew that was going to happen. ... brushes past him is the idea. Yeah. And Arne and Flair have such a long relationship that it is, I think, legit for them to question, okay, wait, Flair likes this guy. Will Arne, whether he actually likes him or not, still go with Flair's interpretation? But yeah, I get what you're saying. Yeah.
01:22:40
Speaker
Well, it was an interesting match, but honestly, I was so happy about the matches that came before it. It was still pretty good. I didn't like the finish. I thought it was interesting that they just counted out because his arm was up. One shoulder was higher than the other. Essentially, one arm was across. That's about it. Yeah. You sort of rolled his arm into the right spot. Yeah. So it was an interesting finish. I'll give you that. And without going back and looking at the chair and chair hit, I was like, what's going on?
01:23:10
Speaker
Yes.
Sting's Role and Luger vs Giant
01:23:12
Speaker
Yeah, I thought this was a pretty nice match. Had a hard fought and often hard hitting feel and was quite emotional. Several times Benoit mocked Jarrett when he could have had a chance to deal real damage or to beat him. And Jarrett started out strutting around and showing off, but later he just fought and fought hard as he got angry about Benoit's treatment of him.
01:23:31
Speaker
The no DQ step I thought was used pretty well, with Benoit and women frequently making use of it to do some extra damage, but never really overdoing it. It never feels like Jarrah's situation is totally hopeless, just like Benoit has more freedom in how to turn things around if Jarrah starts getting the upper hand. Right.
01:23:48
Speaker
like you guys, or more like Al. I'm rather torn on the ending. It's very well performed with perfect timing as we mentioned, but like you said, it doesn't make a lot of sense why Anderson just looks away after rolling Jared in the ring.
01:24:06
Speaker
in all honesty, I don't like the idea of the ending still. I really wanted this to be a solid ending to this match because it had been quite good. I guess what I would say, it's a well-performed bad idea.
01:24:25
Speaker
I don't think it hurts the match that much overall. I started out thinking that I wasn't gonna like this one, but it really won me over as the match went on. Yeah, I agree. It did not win me over. No.
01:24:37
Speaker
It wasn't a bad match. I'm just saying it like there was no one in a mask. So obviously it wasn't going to be any good. That's a juggling condition for you now. Mask. Yeah. As you mentioned in the previous show, sadly Benoit was unmasked back in 1991 by Liger. So he couldn't wear his mask, be wild Pegasus again. It's a shame. I know. It's okay. One day you'll get to experience the greatest luchador of all time, La Parca. He will come and you will be happy.
01:25:07
Speaker
Al loves La Parca. It's like, it's like Arne Anderson level love. I need a La Parca shirt. You do need a La Parca shirt. What are you doing? I got an Arne Anderson shirt. Wouldn't you wear like a La Parca Parca? Yeah. John's theoretically got a mug. Did you get that? Did you get it, John? Yes, I did. I meant to thank you for that. I need to post that. Yeah. John's got a Jushin Thunder Liger mug now. So he and I have something for our guy that we're really happy about. You got to get on the ball game. I mean, I've already seen your mask. I just don't wear it.
01:25:38
Speaker
I actually do. So now do we have a swag page? We should, I guess. Oh, did you get my random box of things I sent you as well? I got squirrels, yes. Yeah. That was what I got you. Yeah. And is that squirrel knife like Burger King? Yeah. Okay. Burger King McDonald's, this is for Night of the ZM2. Thank you, Al. Okay.
01:26:01
Speaker
They will continue to do the story of the dissension of the Four Horsemen leading to match Super Brawl, which unfortunately is Jared and Mongo, so the quality is probably going to drop noticeably. A little bit. Speaking of. Yes. Here comes Mongo. Mean Jean comes down to the ramp to try to get an interview with anyone involved in this match. Jean's mic is working very poorly. Yeah.
01:26:26
Speaker
Anderson brushes him off, as does Jarrett, and even Benoit and Woman. Fortunately, horseman Mongo McMichael is there with his wife Deborah, who wears a beauty pageant queen sort of outfit with Queen of WCW on a sash to shine some light on the situation.
01:26:47
Speaker
What do you got to say? What about Benoit? I mean things are very unstable right now. I think this group could go up and smoke.
01:27:06
Speaker
Listen baby, I've been a winner all my life. I know about that. And you understand that, and in a little town called Chicago, if you didn't measure up to my standards, you got your butt run out of town with a bus ticket and an apple in your hand.
01:27:21
Speaker
Now Chris Benoit baby, that woman's got you weak in the knees, in the adult, in the brain. What's wrong with you? Double J got served up to you on a silver platter like a dead man and you can't beat him. I don't know what else to say. I don't know what to say. Wait a minute, wait a minute. Hey, you zipperheads, such a pow. A lady's trying to talk.
01:27:52
Speaker
Loudest booze on the show, right there. It's amazing. You know, that right over there is a really big win. I mean, just like you said, I was a winner, and Jeff Jarrett is a winner. I mean, Jeff Jarrett is definitely horseman material. Now, those two other things, you know, like Chris and Nancy, I don't think so. That girl has been rode hard and put up wet.
01:28:16
Speaker
Please, we are on the air, you can't- Oh yeah, well, you know, enough about those losers. Let's talk about a winner like myself. I mean, I know all you guys out there really wanted me under your Christmas tree, but you know what? It's not gonna happen because I only have eyes for my Stevie.
01:28:39
Speaker
Hey, hey, hey. That's right. That's right. So you're going to have to settle with your plump little wives and your boring wives because I'm definitely too much woman for you guys to handle. Happy New Year.
01:28:56
Speaker
Not right at all. All I can tell you, Tony, Dusty, Bobby, gentlemen out there, there is definite trouble as far as the Four Horsemen concerned, woman, and Chris Benoit may be at the root of it. Let's go back to you. Oh, what a mess this segment was. We get significant audio difficulties that make it really hard to hear, and Mongo and Deborah are not exactly terrific promos to begin with.
01:29:24
Speaker
I do think Mongo gets across the idea of the storyline pretty well that the Horsemen aren't the elite force they usually are, in part because of this distraction with Benoit and Woman and their feud with Sullivan. But that's in between weird statements and a lot of self-promotion. I mean, I know everybody does it, but Mongo and Deborah kind of seem to focus on themselves here more than I'd expect when they're commentating on someone else's storyline.
01:29:51
Speaker
Mongo's still kind of oddly entertaining to me, though. I don't know. I think they knew the mic wasn't working, so he had to just yell to the crowd. Yeah, so it kind of stole a little bit to get the crowd booing so that the mic can work for her. That's a nice, yeah, that's a good point. And he was just trying to pick up whoever had some level on their mics, they would get picked up and basically project. And I think that's why he comes over as a little bit over the top.
01:30:21
Speaker
Deborah, I don't know. She sounds like she's trying to deliver rehearsed lines regardless of crowd reaction, and while she kind of manages the character side to some extent, it doesn't feel like a natural interaction with Jean, really.
01:30:36
Speaker
She reminds me of, like, one of those tour guides that are on the, like, are you going to Islands of Adventure or something, or some theme park where they explain things and then, like, giving exposition before the trip goes wrong. Yeah. Like, it's very rehearsed and formulaic and, you know, she's just snarky for whatever reason.
01:30:56
Speaker
Or the guy that's driving your boat in the Jaws ride, and he's constantly surprised that the boats are attacked. And he got to pull his grey launcher by the shark. That level of acting? Yes.
01:31:09
Speaker
So all of the show, there's three moments where the cameras are just not in the right spot right away, and two of them are in this section. Because the first is the one where you get none of the chair shot to Benoit on the main camera that you use. On the replay you see it, and clearly the other camera guy, the guy on the step gets it.
01:31:33
Speaker
But the main camera doesn't get it. Then once the segment is beginning, when they're in the wide shot where you can see people walking past Jean, you can clearly see Mongo and Deborah on the other side of the screen. Getting ready. In the far wide shot. I missed that. Yeah. They're just in the edge of it, like looking around the corner and waiting for their cue. It reminds me of other star gates. Uh-oh.
01:31:57
Speaker
Oh yeah, like Starrcade 1 where Dusty's mic wouldn't work at all. That first promo. Did the promo twice, yeah. Yeah. Well, if you read his lips, you can tell what he's saying. Thank you, Gordon Soli. Tony and Hienan review the match ending, and everybody enjoys a good chuckle over Morris getting booted in the nuts again. Hienan is disappointed in the horsemen after Benoit's loss.
01:32:23
Speaker
Tony throws to a video package focused on Sting, saying that the last time he saw Sting, he was sure that Sting was NWO.
01:32:55
Speaker
We need you, and we want you back. Don't do what you're doing. As he sneaks through the balcony, he's grabbing at our people. He comes up, sneaks up behind us, and you drop him. What is he doing? Look, look at the balcony. This thing is in the rafters. What can be going through his mind? Is he NWO? Or what? I'm not NWOL. I'm AWO, the Anderson World Order. Oh, OK.
01:33:22
Speaker
Through some intentionally distorted audio, we hear Sting being invited to join the NWO, Lex Luger apologizing to Sting and begging him to return, and the Steiner is blaming Sting for attacking them.
01:33:33
Speaker
The video, meanwhile, shows Sting attacking both NWO and WCW wrestlers, most notably the fake NWO Sting, who was responsible for WCW originally doubting Sting's loyalties. It's short and a little weirdly put together, but it does get across the general concept of what's going on with Sting at the moment, at least.
01:33:54
Speaker
I actually really liked them, including Luger's apology in this. It's a nice use, again, of the Sing and Luger year-long storyline. Luger doubted Sting back at the WarGames match and told him off to his face, despite how often Sting had stuck up for him over the past year. And his apology here keeps that relationship front and center with the question of whether their friendship can now be repaired. Any Steiner promo Rick or Scott?
01:34:20
Speaker
already sounds a little weird from the delivery. So when we already go distorted, it sounds even weirder. It was very strange. Yeah. I had no idea what I was watching. Yeah. It's kind of confusing the way they put it all together.
01:34:37
Speaker
And I was going to comment that he does look like the crow, but you already mentioned that earlier. I was going to ask if you'd recognize that. Brandon Lee, yeah. From what I'd read, that was a suggestion actually of Scott Hall. Yes, sir.
01:34:53
Speaker
who also, you know, the razor of Ramon gimmick was famously based off of Scarface. So I guess, uh, Scott Hall, just big movie fan. And if he didn't have the black makeup in it like he did, I would, I would have guessed Michael Myers. Yeah. I could see that too. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it would be cool if he had like a Spock or not Spock.
01:35:11
Speaker
Shatner. Shatner. I don't know what Shatner makeup looks like. Yeah. The crow sting thing is definitely very on the nose at first when he starts doing it. They definitely tone it down as far as being directly from the comics and film. I do appreciate it. He at least keeps the scorpion iconography on his shirt and stuff too.
01:35:35
Speaker
I mean, I guess it could be just a video package and everything, but like, you know, stings got dark. Yeah. If you see the overall year long storyline, it feels more like a slow burn type of thing. So it's interesting going through the shows this way. We're like, oh, that's a sudden shift. Why is Sting suddenly the crow? Yeah.
01:35:59
Speaker
Our next match is the Outsiders, Kevin Nash and Scott Hall, with six versus the Faces of Fear, Meng and the Barbarian, with the Mouth of the South, Jimmy Hart, for the Outsiders WCW World Tag Team Championships. Referee for this match is Nick Patrick.
01:36:20
Speaker
So, 1996 would be a very big year for the world tag team titles. Be highly contested and actually have numerous champions. There's like four or five notable teams that win it over 96, leading up to not all of Nash wing it. Harlem Heat gets a brief frame with it, the Diner brothers do, and of course, Public Enemy gets a brief run of the tag titles. Everyone gets their chance.
01:36:42
Speaker
coming into this show specifically, the outsiders would win the tag titles and then take them to the dark side. Although strangely, they never spray-painted their belts. Yeah, that was a little strange. The world title, when they win it, they spray-painted NWO, but they don't do it with the tag titles. Any of the belts, they don't spray-paint them. Yeah, that's only for the world title. I'll give myself a contract. Only I can spray-paint belts. I guess so.
01:37:05
Speaker
The Faces of Fear are not a choice for this because I don't think they're really good guys at this point in the story. They're sort of tangentially part of the Denton of Doom, but it's basically just anyone that's not the NWO. It's a face as far as the booking goes. Clearly based on the crowd reaction, it's definitely more the way around.
01:37:24
Speaker
This card at least seems very pro-NWO, but they're not supposed to be. They're supposed to be that Face of Fear are going to be the big tough challengers, they're going to steal the tag titles back and put them in the right hands. Ah, the NWO theme, banged of my existence.
01:37:44
Speaker
It isn't necessarily an awful theme song, but you just have to listen to it so often during this period that I have grown to hate it. It's not so bad on this show, but there are shows where it plays a simply ridiculous amount of times because of the sheer number of NWO guys with matches on the show. It's even worse when they also win. Oh yeah.
01:38:05
Speaker
It's like you went on a three hour road trip through an area with a terrible signal and only remembered to download one song to your phone before leaving. No matter how good the song is, you're going to hate it by the end of that drive. It's OK. It's OK. I'll sway you with a truly epic mix of this and Palm Circumstance. Like Mega mix them together. I think it'll sell you back on both of them. No. You throw in Zoot Suit Riot. There's like a third. I like that song.
01:38:33
Speaker
It's a good song until you listen to it thousands and thousands, but yeah. Sign in the crowd. Welcome to Hall and Nashville. Okay, I'll give you that one.
01:38:46
Speaker
Less okay as the guy right behind the one holding that sign with a freaky rubber Hogan mask, who oddly chose to dress mostly in Hogan's NWO black and white, but also put the red and yellow Hulkster shirt on over it. Choose, man. But seriously, I'm gonna see that mask in my nightmares. I'm gonna miss that. Yeah.
01:39:08
Speaker
Rather nicely, WCW manages to cut right from a shot of a fan giving the NWO4Life hand signs to Hall doing the same sign as he comes down the ramp. How strangely competent of you, WCW. Sadly, Hart has a Jimmy Hart jacket rather than a Faces of Fear one.
01:39:27
Speaker
Meng and Hall start, and Meng dominates with big elbows and a clothesline into some chops before Hall manages to stun him and at a second rope bulldog for less than one as it just makes Meng bad.
01:39:39
Speaker
Tag to Barbarian and tag to Nash. We get a diesel chant. Nash gets several big forearms and knee strikes and a charging elbow, but Barbarian counters a second and chokes Nash and hits chops on the corner. Patrick warns him and Barbarian gives him a look, so Nash clotheslines him from behind, only to be clotheslined by Meng.
01:40:00
Speaker
Meng and Barbarian beat Nash down, and Nosel, a double noggin knocker, hitting double headbutts instead before Meng finally exits. Barbarian side-slam for a very slow two-count. Nash dodges a second rope elbow and drops Barbarian on the top turnbuckle. Barbarian is stunned, and Nash distracts Patrick for Hall to Clothesline Barbarian. Meng protests as Patrick asks, what happened?
01:40:27
Speaker
Nash lands nice big rotation forearms in the corner and a boot choke. Patrick warns him, so Hall lands another clothesline. Tag to Hall and he hits great punches, but Meng grabs him by the hair, drags him to his corner, and beats him up with Barbarian. He fights back, but eats a Barbarian big boot, and Patrick even sympathy sells. Patrick goes, whoa! Yeah, I know that too.
01:40:53
Speaker
barbarian covers, but Patrick suddenly finds it necessary to warn Jimmy Hart about nothing, so it gets a slow two. Much like Bobby Heenan, I have to admit this is a little suspicious, Al.
01:41:03
Speaker
I am. I'm getting my doubts. You know, I don't want to believe it, but it's possible. I don't know. Keep the faith. Okay. We get a tag to Meng, and he takes a couple tries to hit a pile driver for another slow two, as Patrick unnecessarily runs around to the other side before counting. The face is a fear, trade-off beating up Hall, and Barbarian oddly goes for a pin while he's not the legal man, so Patrick justifiably won't count.
01:41:31
Speaker
It's a weird spot that gets weirder as Patrick tries to get Barbarian to leave, but he won't, so Patrick just gives up. I'm guessing there was supposed to be an actual tag and they just forgot. Hall visibly calls a spot, and Nash hits Barbarian from behind to stun him for a Hall clothesline. Hart protests, but Six steals his megaphone and completely fails to operate it as he chases Hart up the ramp.
01:41:55
Speaker
Barbarian gets a nerve hold on Hall, and he fades, but Patrick finds every excuse he can to avoid checking the hand, so Hall recovers and hits a back suplex, which Dusty calls suplay, like Gordon Sola used to as Tony compliments him for it. Yes. Tag to Nash, and he trades blows with Barbarian and hits a big boot for two. Meng saves with an elbow drop that definitely catches Nash solidly in the head. Ow. That was a rough one.
01:42:25
Speaker
Haul and Mangbrawl and spill out of the ring. And Nash hits the jackknife powerbomb on Barbarian for the three count and the win. Hienan notes that Patrick Schur was fast getting in position for that one. Thoughts on this one?
01:42:39
Speaker
My description was it was a rough and rugged match. It was pretty generous, but also an honest assessment of it. Strikes definitely felt very real. Definitely a lot of oomph on everything. I do have a question about the psychology about what is and isn't sold on the match. So if you head by the men against each other, they feel nothing.
01:43:02
Speaker
And the headbutt you, they feel nothing. But you drop their head on the terminal pad to the same area they're headbutting with. It stuns them. Yeah. Okay, I'm just trying to... It boots the face also. Again, the same area they're headbutting with. Stun them. It just tells you just how hard those moves hurt, Al. Electric fencing. There you go. Okay. There's a taser in there. That's a different show. Yeah, that's the Japan.
01:43:33
Speaker
It was funny seeing Six try and fail to use the megaphone. Yeah, he has no clue, no clue whatsoever. He's clearly holding it up in front of him, but he's like not pulled something or not turned it on or... Yeah, I assume it was on before. It's hard for once being polite and not turning it on. His name is Six? Yes. Six Ball. That's what's on his shirt, yeah. Yeah, I guess I should explain. The famous Six Ball. Here's your cue.
01:44:02
Speaker
heard two different versions of this. I'm not sure which is right, or maybe they both are, or maybe they're both wrong. But I believe he's supposedly the sixth member to join the NWO, the sixth, but also his gimmick in the WWF was the one, two, three kid. So one plus two plus three. Six. 123. So yeah, that's, that's the name. Or one times two times three.
01:44:30
Speaker
It's also six. It's also six. That is true. Although dividing it is no. Blew my mind. Yeah. Now it, you don't see it in writing, but it is spelled six S Y X X. Yes. Just so you know, it's proper 90 spelling. Yeah. It is the nineties after all. Yeah. They made a movie about it called big hero six.
01:44:51
Speaker
Yes. Yep. I don't recall X-Pac being in that. No. Wait, it's X-Pac? Oh, yeah. Yes. Oh, I forgot about that. Yeah. Yeah. This is X-Pac. Sorry, I'm just used to saying that. I didn't think- Should it be like VI-Pac or something? I don't know that it's ever used in WCW or the WWF, but when he shows up in TNA, he does go by 6-Pac. That's about as abs.
01:45:18
Speaker
My biggest problem with the match, honestly, besides the fact that it's so focused on Nick Patrick, like he's the second competitor in this, is the fact that the finish feels very abrupt to me, because they're fighting and it seems very even, and then it's just, oh, well, they run to the back, so I'm just going to boot him and do the power bomb and win. It's very much the, okay, everybody get in, it's time for the finish thing that we saw all the time at, what was it, 89? Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
01:45:45
Speaker
It's not that I'm downplaying that move, because especially on a guy his size is pretty impressive, he does the move. But it's just like, no build up to it. And it's just, boot him, lift him with ease. Guy doesn't struggle at all, falls down and just... Yeah. It just feels very abrupt and doesn't seem to fit the story of the match. These people, they're fighting him at every turn. It's just, nope, I can do it right now.
01:46:06
Speaker
Yeah. I'm gonna agree with you there, Al. It seemed like they had, you know, a bunch of holds or lulls in the action right before the end. Another tag match. Wait, this is the first one. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I was actually going to be disappointed. I was like, well, you know, they've had these one-on-one matches, you know, the cameras, you're gonna get in all the action. I thought this is gonna be one of those things that's gonna be drawn out and slow, and it was not that. No, that's true.
01:46:32
Speaker
There was a lot of, I don't know if they even actually tagged. I think just every time they got them in the corner, they were just basically beat up on each other. Yeah. They definitely don't tag that last time, but also neither do Hall and Nash, so. I was impressed with the Barbarian. Yeah. It was nice. He's like a proto Jason Momoa. I can see that, yeah. The Aquaman template. Yeah.
01:46:56
Speaker
I think we got him on one show. I think one of the Battle Bowl, I think. We got him fighting superstar Billy Graham back on 85. Oh, we did. That's right. Yeah. And then he was, I believe, on one of the Battle Bowls as well. Yeah. I forget which one.
01:47:07
Speaker
I'm getting like an undertaker big show all kind of you know big person vibe I guess like he fits that archetype. Yeah, even the hairstyle I enjoyed the match a little bit But I did not like it when it went to like a grinding halt in the middle where they were just kneeling But it was intense it was wasn't monotonous for the most part and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would okay
01:47:36
Speaker
Yeah, I actually really liked this one. There's a lot of good big man action. Nothing complicated, but the moves look good and powerful in general. The attack dynamic is used pretty well, I thought, with some nice double team spots by the Faces of Fear. And I thought actually a really good use of the crooked referee dynamic for Hall and Nash to get the advantage. I really liked Patrick's part of this match a lot. I think overall it was good. It was just, yeah. Yeah.
01:48:00
Speaker
I honestly had no problem with him being such a focus on it because he does a fair job with the act here. He starts off pretty subtle with it early on, but moves to make it more and more obvious as the match goes on. But even at his most obvious, he always has at least an excuse
01:48:17
Speaker
Like, when he doesn't check Hall's arm during the nerve hold, he acts like he's going to check on the tag partners. So he's not just blatantly ignoring it, like you'll see in some, you know, guest referee matches or something. So I liked it better, even though it was still an obvious ploy.
01:48:33
Speaker
It does feel kind of weird, though, that when Barbarian or Mang do something, they actually would give Patrick a pretty good excuse to de-hue them. He doesn't. True. So, still, I really enjoyed this one. And this has been a really good night so far.
01:48:49
Speaker
One thing I will say with this match, I think it may balance it fairly well. There's weird smatterings of it being like a real late 80s old school mentality, like not 100%. It's not like it's a night and day situation, but like with face of fear versus the outsiders. But I mean, you have the basically playing a softened version of the crazy savages characters.
01:49:11
Speaker
They don't lean too far into the integral head thing other than the one spot. It's definitely a toned down version of that thing we saw before. Yeah. With the Samoan and other versions like that. And even after you mentioned this, they imply that Barbarian was loading his boot up for Superkick.
01:49:30
Speaker
I've forgotten about that, yeah. That's a very old school thing you do, you're like, apparently if you stomp your boot like three times, usually I think that's how it works. Somehow, something in your boot is loosened, so like, there's metal that's like... Like shifts lead down into something, yeah. Yeah, you have it in the back of your boot, stomping makes it fall under your boot, and then you stomp a guy. Iron Sheik would do that, so for better or worse, they sort of...
01:49:52
Speaker
I would say Arab, but Middle Eastern character thing they would do a lot. And it's weird that Barbarians doing that as a face. Just kind of a loaded boot thing. I think that's the thing is they're not really intended to be faces so much in this. It's more... Well, it's in their name, Bob.
01:50:07
Speaker
That's true. That's true. You got me there. But I think just the idea is that it's more like just look at how bad the NWO is. They even are bad guys want to beat them. Holland. Yes. Yes. They might go from Holland to beaten, obviously.
01:50:29
Speaker
No, I get that. Just, but yeah, I was thinking about it as a weird mix of old school and new school mentality in this match. Same way you see randomly seeing the, uh, little dungeon of doom row in the show on the same show with the NDBO. Yeah. It's, it's such a weird thing that those actually cross over. The segue is not as smooth as you would hope. Yeah. So they keep the storyline of the outsiders trying to control the tag titles.
01:50:55
Speaker
as iffy as this story finish was with obviously having the cooker up the whole time. To point out, even the one announcer is implying there's no way they can win because Nick Patrick won't count. Still thinking he should have been sold to the poor guy. He doesn't have anything wrong yet. But they usually pull the same act the next few shows where someone beats them and then it's overturned.
01:51:14
Speaker
That's worse. I do think when they're talking about that during the match, I forget who, but someone says, what if they just put him in a submission hold and just keep him in there? Eventually you're going to tell the ref to count you out anyway. So that was kind of a nice touch, I thought. Yeah, they aren't telling the story and how to play it whatsoever for the next shows.
01:51:40
Speaker
Tony corrupts our title by saying, let's go to the NWO. And we cut backstage to see Ted DiBiase with the big gold belt slung over his shoulder, spray painted with the letters NWO. He is accompanied by Vincent, formerly Virgil in the WWF, and Miss Elizabeth. A few moments into his promo, Hogan enters as well. It's got a good spotlight, you know.
01:52:07
Speaker
You know, Piper, the time for talking is over. You know, there's an old saying, you better be careful what you ask for because you just might get it. Well, you asked for it, brother. You come strolling back in here saying, hey, I'm as big an icon as Hollywood Hulk Hogan. I'm as big a star as Hollywood Hogan. I want him all to myself in the middle of the ring. Well, Piper, you got what you want, but you're going to regret it.
01:52:43
Speaker
I thought he pinned all six kids too.
01:52:57
Speaker
I begged and begged and begged when I came to Nashville. Tell me it ain't so. Tell me it's not really happening. Tell me that the man that wears the crinkled skirt didn't climb on the plane, didn't already fly back to mother's disaster in the Portland Pacific area and he's not running for his life. And up until just a moment ago,
01:53:22
Speaker
I thought I was going to have to go out into the ring with thousands of thousands of Hollywood Hogan fans wearing my shirt and tell them the real truth that Rowdy Roddy Piper ran for his life. I'm the only icon. The belt stays with the NWO.
01:53:41
Speaker
And he's scared to death. But I saw one of his snotty nose kids running around trying to bum a quarter to buy a coke. And I know that Roddy Roddy Piper, no matter how much of a liar, no matter how much of a cheater, and no matter how much of a woman he really is underneath that skirt, it's the nature of the beast. You don't leave your kids behind. So all I gotta say, dudes,
01:54:10
Speaker
Hollywood style is like sushi rolls.
01:54:35
Speaker
To prove a point, to put the final period on my legacy, to show everybody, the people, the producers, everybody in the wrestling business that I made this business, I'll make it tomorrow. And if it wasn't for me, the wrestling business wouldn't be on the map. And I'm not acting with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Sloan, or any of those chumps. We're doing it the Hollywood way. Piper.
01:55:03
Speaker
What you gonna do? He totally would have been in the expendables if he could. Yeah, absolutely. So this was a weird promo, and not entirely the good kind of weird like Piper's. No. Hogan does not appear to know how time zones work, and he kind of undercuts his own point about Piper being a coward by saying Piper would never abandon his kids, which seems like an admirable thing.
01:55:32
Speaker
The Hollywood day line just comes out of nowhere and feels less heelish than just confusing. He does at least get across a good feeling of arrogance, but there were just too many perplexing comments in there for me to get invested with it. Admittedly, he's not that long into his heel run, and it's been a very long time since Hogan played heel. I'll give him some credit for just not being in practice. The laugh at the end is great. Yeah.
01:55:59
Speaker
And then it's not. It's like, let's all supervillain laugh. So yeah, I like how he brags about how he wouldn't work with Schwarzenegger or Stallone or anything like that. No, no, he will said work with the cast of three ninjas. Yes. Those are the big stars he's going to work with. Yes.
01:56:17
Speaker
I remember going to Universal Studios and they always have those things where you get to volunteer and stuff and they'd line you up and then you play a part later on. They always try to do a little bit of acting before you go in there. And then they made me do, and they went like, give us your best evil laugh or whatever. And nothing makes things more awkward with everyone else that's there than doing a real loud, medieval laugh.
01:56:45
Speaker
If I could revise it, I would be like, ha ha, evil. But I didn't do that. What was it like? No, I'm not doing it. Really? You're going to set that up and you're not going to do it for us? Yeah, exactly. Just like Hogan. The laugh was very similar to Hogan's. Oh, OK. I can't do it right now. Maybe next time. That wasn't it. That was actually a good one. That would go to the trillionaire Ted thing. Yeah, true, yeah.
01:57:13
Speaker
Money, money, money, money, money. He looks like a really fat William Weicker. He kind of, yeah, he resembles Weicker, yeah. I think it's just the haircut and the beard, but I was laughing. Now, if B.I.C. had entered the room awkwardly stepping over a chair to sit down, then you'd know for sure he's round the freaks. That's just his things, climbing over the chairs.
01:57:37
Speaker
Yeah, it's not the most extreme version of the individual promo. We'll get plenty worse of those where the camera is constantly pivoting. It's all black and white. Yeah. And they play music the whole time, like louder than they need to. They haven't gotten quite full insane yet. It's just them in front of a black backdrop taunting Piper. Yeah. It's not quite there yet, but I guess that's good because it's really annoying later on. Yeah.
01:58:03
Speaker
Our next match is Diamond Dallas Page versus Eddie Guerrero for the vacant WCW United States Heavyweight Championship. The referee for this match is Scott Dickinson.
01:58:17
Speaker
Going into late October, September, Ric Flair is the United States champion. Because obviously you can't have the world title against Hogan because big greasy mitts all over it. So it's a big second best. Fortunately, he is legitimately injured during a match. I forget which match it is. So they write in the story that he's injured by the N.W.O. and the giant who's responsible for the attack takes the belt and walks around with it backstage.
01:58:46
Speaker
for quite a while, actually, as if he's a champion. And you keep constantly told he's not, but he's not the kind of guy you really tell, they know to, so. Yeah, I mean, who's going to walk up to him and say, hey, could we have that back, please? Right. Yes. You take that off his arm. Exactly. So it's WCW. Their only solution is to have a tournament because that's how you solve every problem you have. Well, yeah.
01:59:12
Speaker
I was trying to decide what to make for dinner tomorrow, and I decided I'll have a tournament. I'll set up all the boots. Oh, nice. I did see a meme where they took Smash Brothers and then wrote down their custom names. It was like pizza, Chick-fil-A, and then they had them bot battle. So they were not far off. I should do that. And I think they actually just had Sonic for Sonic Bird. I mean, yeah. That works. Yeah.
01:59:39
Speaker
Mario just covers all Italian food in general, I guess. Yeah. But yeah, so they held a tournament for the UNSC championship that they don't actually physically have because Giants don't bring it back. So it comes down to this match where this is the finals between DDP and Guerrero. Yep. I believe they actually do have a belt now. They've made a new belt because Giants still has the old belt. When they started to have the tournament, they didn't have a belt. That's what my point was.
02:00:06
Speaker
DDP, who we haven't seen in many years, I think, was it the first Battle Bull or the second? First one, yeah. DDP and his comically large cigar enter to a really obvious sound-alike of Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit. They haven't taken an absolutely note-for-note, but this is an incredibly clear rip-off as the arachnoman of music.
02:00:28
Speaker
And somehow, yeah, there's no issue with this. I'd expect that this would be a kind of music that WU Network would not be paying for and avoid lawsuits, but no. It's still here. Yeah, it's strange. They could. Jericho is music half the time, but not this ever. Yeah. Eddie Guerrero is wearing his white and red sparkly jacket again, but this year he's got the matching white and red tights. I was really hoping it would be hanging in the background in Piper's Promo. That would have been great. Keep the theme from the 5th Arcade.
02:00:57
Speaker
Guerrero gets the better of an initial exchange, sending DDP flying with an arm drag. Tony notes that DDP got help from the NWO getting here, but Dusty builds up DDP's diamond cutter. Henan mistakenly calls Guerrero's frog splash the jackknife splash. Mine's still on Nash, I guess. Still a better name. That's actually a pretty decent name, yeah. DDP slaps Guerrero, but Guerrero tackles him into the corner and slaps him right back. Nice.
02:01:27
Speaker
DDP lands forearms, but Guerrero dodges a knee and lands a forearm and dropkick to knock him through the ropes. Dusty points out Guerrero was going for the dropkick first, but DDP was coming in too fast so he hit the forearm first to set it up. Nice touch. Guerrero whips DDP to the barricade outside, but DDP pokes his eyes and hits an elbow before slamming him into the steps.
02:01:51
Speaker
On the apron and DDP clubs Guerrero in the chest as some fans chant DDP. Dusty is shocked and Tony says DDP did prove a lot this year. Guerrero snap marries him out. Pretty cool moment there. But puts him back in and launches himself over the ropes onto DDP for two. Guerrero works DDP's arm.
02:02:13
Speaker
DDP pulls the hair, but Guerrero returns the favor. DDP charges so Guerrero ducks and DDP spills out of the ring. Guerrero dives over the top rope to land on him. Back in, Guerrero lands punches, but DDP dumps him on the top turnbuckle and top rope and gets a nice pile driver to cheers. DDP beats Guerrero up and hits a smooth suplex for two, yelling at ref Scott Dickinson about the count.
02:02:40
Speaker
abdominal stretch, and DDP uses the ropes. And some of the crowd actually defend him when the ref asks. Hienan lectures on the finer points of cheating by noting that his leverage would be better if he used the second rope instead of the top. Tony proposes a Hienan book of cheats, which Dusty loves. I'd buy it. Absolutely.
02:03:01
Speaker
DDP elbows Guerrero in the ribs, but Guerrero gets a sunset flip. DDP tries a punch, but Guerrero slides away and small packages him for two. Dusty says DDP was a little disorientated.
02:03:18
Speaker
DDP neckbreaker and back to the abdominal stretch, but Dickinson catches him using the ropes, so DDP shoves him. Dickinson drives him all the way across the ring, threatening to DQ him. DDP gives up and goes back to Elbow and Guerrero in the head. Guerrero tries his own abdominal stretch, but can't quite lock the hold in fully with DDP's height advantage, so he rolls DDP up for two.
02:03:41
Speaker
Guerrero ducks a clothesline, but DDP whips around for a second monster clothesline to take back over. They're very good to sell there. Yes, bam. DDP shoulder block as Hienan jokes that Guerrero's gut hurts like he just ate some of Mrs. Guerrero's chili. Poor lady, they're chilling. He is always on that during this period. Guerrero dodges a second, and DDP hits the ring post. Guerrero whips his leg out from under him so fast, he lands on the back of his head. Awesome spot.
02:04:11
Speaker
Guerrero sends DDP butt over tea kettle with a monster European uppercut. Hienan says if his boots weren't tied, he'd be out of them right now, and it takes Dusty several moments to get it. Yeah, it's weird that that's an expression he could not have heard of. Yeah, but it's like playing possum last year. Yeah, yeah. That sounds like a thing he would use all the time. Yeah.
02:04:34
Speaker
Suplex by Guerrero gets two. Back Suplex sets up the Frog Splash, but DDP mostly dodges. Guerrero's knee still clips him, as Tony points out. DDP crawls over for two. DDP power slam for two. Huge DDP gut buster and he goes up top, but Guerrero hits the ropes and he crotches himself.
02:04:54
Speaker
Guerrero climbs up with him, but DDP punches him down, then jumps off, but Guerrero catches him with an atomic drop. Small package, backslide, and counter of the diamond cutter into a backslide by Guerrero for two each. Guerrero wins a slugfest, but DDP hits an amazing spinning powerbomb for two and three quarters. It leaves dusty, flipper gasted.
02:05:22
Speaker
DDP and Guerrero knock heads on a whip, and Guerrero falls through the ropes. Dickinson checks on Guerrero as Six, Hall, and Nash come down. Six distracts Dickinson, and Hall hits the Outsiders Edge, a crucifix powerbomb, on DDP. Nash did nothing. I'm not sure why he came down. Just support. Oh, there you go. You got it, buddy. You got it.
02:05:43
Speaker
Unaware, Guerrero gets back in and hits the Frog Splash on DDP for the three count and the win. Jackknife dive. Yeah, Jackknife splash. There you go. Eddie Guerrero is the new United States champion. As Guerrero celebrates Unaware in the ring, we see Nash and Hall on the entrance ramp. C-Page, Nash says, you should have joined.
02:06:05
Speaker
Guerrero spots the NWO and seems to understand what just happened, so he drops the belt. Nash, Hall, and Six charge the ring, but Guerrero boots the top rope into Nash's crotch and fights off all three NWO members for a time until Nash finally recovers and clotheslines him down. The crowd hurls trash as the NWO beats up Guerrero. Six finishes off with a kick combo and steals the new US title, and Hall taunts the still-barely-conscious page. Thoughts on this one?
02:06:35
Speaker
This is a really good match for the most part. The chemistry between Guerrero and DDP is really solid. As I mentioned, they said they know each other very well. So they have the benefit of experience. So they can try a new move. And I'm sure if I went back and watched all their matches like before this, I would see European spots. So you can see them sort of getting the timing right and say that power bomb, for instance, even simple stuff like diving at the right time at the corner or something like that.
02:07:03
Speaker
It definitely builds them up both very nicely. I like that DDP is definitely getting face reactions from the crowd, but he's not letting him fully taint his character. Yeah. Mostly because I'm sure he wrote a 20-page book explaining how the match is gonna play out. Probably. Because it's just style. He was not gonna deviate from that. At least not in any major way. So he still plays healish with why I felt it was a very long abdominal stretch. He did.
02:07:31
Speaker
little things like grabbing the ropes and that, but was it me or did that feel really long? I didn't notice that honestly. I felt he was doing so much with it that I was totally cool with it.
02:07:44
Speaker
I mean, I know it's not a bear hug, but I just figured that I felt longer than the normal dumbbell stretch spot to me. Yeah, just, I don't know, for me, it was just doing so much. I don't know. Stretching prevents injury. It's being helpful, although I should do it before the mat, not during, but yeah. Work it in when you can. Oh yeah, that's true. That's very true. Obviously, you know, my issues are going to be, which is the finish, because it's a lot of individual nonsense being involved there.
02:08:12
Speaker
So, Dickens is already outside with Guerrero, and Six has to also be over there to make extra, make sure they don't turn around. Yeah, I don't know why they necessarily needed him to go over if you'd just done enough with Guerrero. Right. So, and he's looking away and, of course, temporarily deaf as all refs are when their backs are turned.
02:08:30
Speaker
And so this isn't as extreme degree as we got from StarKend95, where a ref looks away for five minutes and suddenly Rick Flair's head has exploded with blood and all these people are down. It's not that extreme degree, but what does the ref think happen? Well, I actually have a point on that. Okay, go ahead.
02:08:48
Speaker
When they knock heads, DDP actually does go down from it. So I could actually see, again, we have to ignore the deafness thing, but that's for basically any interference spot. Sure, sure. But I could actually see both the ref and Eddie Guerrero thinking DDP just never got back up from that. They knocked heads and DDP was just down from that still. Just because of that point. It may be better than other instances where they're clearly both fighting and suddenly one of them... Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely. Okay, so fair play. That may be covered a little better.
02:09:18
Speaker
But I just really wish they could have let it be a clean finish. Had them lurker on ringside, I'm gonna affect the match. Maybe it distracts DDP. Maybe DDP is distracted to go in the top rope and gets knocked off, and then there's a frog splash, for instance. So you still get the storyline where they're costing him the mat, because he wouldn't join. But that is a blade net. They have to come in the ring, do the move that knocks him down, and then get her to come in a second move and get what's basically half a victory. Yeah.
02:09:46
Speaker
Things match was so good up to that. I really wish they could have left that alone, but I could see that this is 96 97 W is not gonna leave any finish and to be related alone. So I guess it's gonna accept it Okay, my favorite part of it I know I know that that you don't like the ending but my favorite part of it was after they had The ref arguing with the other member it cuts back to Eddie Guerrero again now and it looks like him and the ref are getting out from underneath the ring and
02:10:15
Speaker
I guess Eddie was just like leaned up against it or whatever. It looks like they were just hanging out underneath the ring for the whole duration. Maybe like, I lost my chair. Let's look for it. That'd be funny. I thought that was a funny cut. It was a pretty good match. You know, when you're dealing with Eddie Guerrero, it's going to be a nice technical and or vicious striking match. Dr. Pepper was holding his own as well.
02:10:45
Speaker
I don't really care for a diamond dollars page, but I did like that when he did a move, he really committed to it. And then instead of taking a pause or doing it ever like there's, he immediately falls up with one or two other strikes or a move that's right after anything, then pauses and then sets up for the next set of things. And I really enjoyed that it makes everything he does look like a combo. And for whatever reason, it adds a lot of power to both moves.
02:11:12
Speaker
It makes things look smoother, even if they're not technically smoother, but I'm like, oh, he knocked them back and then speared them into the turnbuckle, which did look pretty vicious. Or the Mr. Clothesline whip right around and do another one spot, too. Right. He just follows up everything he does over and over again. He has a certain knack for that, I think.
02:11:35
Speaker
I was joking about it, but he is famous for meticulously playing at all his matches. Like his matches are not called in the ring like some wrestlers do, where they have a general outline and they call the spots as they go through, and sort of ebb and flow is decided that way. So that would go to that point.
02:11:51
Speaker
having anything connected does make sense if you've written it all out and have planned that detail. It's not like, oh, just move and then I don't know what something something and then we just move. Yeah. You have everything already decided. He knows what the combo is going to be going into it. Yeah. Actually, Randy Savage is much the same way.
02:12:07
Speaker
Hilariously, I think actually next year at 97, isn't it? That we actually get a feud, not at Starrcade, but throughout 97. There's a feud between DDP and Randy Savage. That is true, yeah. Which I can only imagine was joyful for both of them because finally we're working with someone who gets it. I would really like the NWO stuff to stuff.
02:12:32
Speaker
Oh my gosh, one show went to the end of your era. I think, I think you both kind of set that up for me though. Yeah. It will end the next show. Sorry. Oh man. Yeah. Nice. That was my worst. I mean, just like the, um, interference with woman, I, I really just want to see the match. I mean, I know that's an element in everything, but at the same time, it can't be 30% of the match. No, I agree.
02:13:00
Speaker
I do like the scenario where someone hits you with a chair or whatever, but you still eke out a victory. I like that. But even then, that can get old hat. Sure. This is not going to be your favorite era. I will tell you that. Maybe I'm going to make a game out of it, a drinking game, hopefully.
02:13:23
Speaker
For me, this was really fascinating. Like I said, we haven't seen DDP since Starrcade 91. Five years later, he's a very different wrestler, much more developed as a performer. Back then, he had the character, but not much in the way of moves. Now he's still got his character down pat, and he's added an impressive array of offense. Guerrero is as masterful as ever, and does a good job of changing up his style for facing the very tall and lanky DDP, and incorporating the height disadvantage into the match.
02:13:51
Speaker
He uses clever trips and DDP's own momentum against him very well. With DDP being so tall but so agile, I always love seeing him go end over end. As you get a really good sense of motion and impact there, he sells very well.
02:14:07
Speaker
I like that Guerrero legitimately could claim not to know DDP had been attacked for the finish. It keeps him a good face even if he's accidentally accepting NWO help here. And I like that once he notices it, he kind of drops the belt like he's no longer comfortable with what just happened. Like you said, and like you said as well, John, I'd have preferred a clean finish to what had been a really good matchup till then.
02:14:30
Speaker
But it does work from a storyline perspective. DDP had been invited to join the NWO, but turned them down, so they're all insulted about it. And I know where this is going for DDP, and it's very big. So I'm not as heard about this as I would be, I guess.
02:14:47
Speaker
I loved that you could tell the crowd so badly wanted DDP to be a good guy here. Yeah, they are very ready to cheer him and indeed at some points they do and even Bu Guerrero at points. DDP has gotten over big time in the past like half a year.
02:15:03
Speaker
As for the post-match, like I said, I like Guerrero realizing what happened and looking conflicted. The NWO stealing the replacement title belt for the belt they've already stolen feels kind of weird, right? Now, I didn't want to follow up Nitro, but if Giant comes out with both belts over his shoulders, that would be good. That'd be worth it, maybe. I like their hair products. A lot of volumizing, yeah.
02:15:31
Speaker
Eddie would go on to face a number of interesting and really strong calendars in the coming months as U.S. Champion, which includes Chris Jericho and Dean Malenko. That would be good. And as you sort of hinted at, DEP segues into a face turn, which comes very shortly after the show, I believe, and a basically year-long feud to some degree with the NWO, different members and parts of that.
02:15:58
Speaker
There's a really weird sudden fade to black. I wonder what was cut there. I actually have an answer for that. Yeah. Or at least an inference that I remember watching recently. During the beat down part of it, Tony says that the interview paid for air time to promote their next show. The interview sold out. So my guess is they cut that's on the show with some reason that's cut on the network. I have no idea why. So for once they don't want to show you'd rather watch.
02:16:26
Speaker
And especially knowing what show it is, you definitely would not have rather watched it. You would not rather watch that show. Yeah. Anyway, we come back a moment later with the announcers discussing the theft of the new US title. Hienan says, I love this line, Hienan says the NWO could have 35 belts hidden in the trunk of an old car someplace, but it doesn't matter. Eddie Guerrero is still the US champion. Once again, we go right to the next match.
02:16:52
Speaker
Our seventh match is The Giant versus Lex Luger. Referee for this match is Mark Curtis. The Giant, as we mentioned, is beaten for his world title by Hogan and then he needs to join the group because I guess, I don't know, I guess they thought they were really good. The fact that they totally screwed him out of his belt, I wouldn't give it back. Yeah. It's really self-deprecating maybe as a person. He felt he deserved it.
02:17:18
Speaker
From what I've heard, the real reason is that they thought that someone was coming in from the WWF, that they'd gotten a new recruit, so they'd already built up that there was a new NWO member that would be happening, but then that fell through. Yes. It was supposed to be the British Bulldog. Yeah, it was supposed to be the British Bulldog. So that fell through. So, quick, let's think of something. Let's turn the giant, even though it makes no sense. Yeah. Well, maybe he disrespects strength, and since someone had beaten him,
02:17:46
Speaker
I think the idea more is that they bribe him with lots of money. Yeah. When you see how the match plays out, it may be no feel that that works in exhalation. I will say I kind of disappointed that they turned giant. Although obviously, I got good material with him in the WO.
02:18:02
Speaker
I kind of wanted the stark visual of the British Bulldog not wearing his red, white, and blue Rupertania gear. Seeing him in black and white would be really jarring. That would be interesting. Especially if you did like the flag cape in black and white. That would have been sweet. Kind of like Kurt Henning when you eventually see him and then you're like, wait, you're not wearing like a bright orange singlet? Are you wearing a boring black shirt and jeans? Like a monochrome Union Jack would look awesome. Yeah, I would. Yeah, absolutely. I missed that opportunity there.
02:18:30
Speaker
I mean, even if they just like did different grades for the, you know, the blue and the red. Yeah, you won't use a gray scale. Anyways, the giant joint interview. Oh, it's about everything that happened to him.
02:18:41
Speaker
And obviously he's walked around with the US title. Going into this show, he wins the World War III match, which gets you a future title shot, which at this point is against Hogan. And maybe it would have not like that someone is trying to get a shot against Hogan's title, because they certainly wouldn't allow that in a Starrcade. So that's put him on the outs with the group. They don't necessarily like him, but he's part of the group and he's obviously very tough, so you don't want to make him mad.
02:19:08
Speaker
On the flip side, the Sugur stock is rising due to Hogan, the perennial babyface being a bad guy now, and Sting having run off to hide in the raptor with vultures and makeup.
02:19:20
Speaker
So he's basically coming up as the big face is going to say at the company. He's taking on that role. He's really willing to do it. He stopped being a sort of tweener character who is sometimes good to know is bad. The big story going into this is that I can't fully verify this, but the individual has not been beaten in a singles match or tag match since they formed.
02:19:42
Speaker
I feel like that's actually probably right. It hasn't been that long since they've formed. Granted, yeah. It's July, but I mean, I didn't scour through every nitro to check that or, you know, whatever. But it's true enough anyways. So he's going to be the one that's going to give them their first loss is the idea.
02:19:58
Speaker
And is this the angle where he builds up to it by him demonstrating he can do the torture rack on all the big people? That is, yes. That is indeed. Lean to the hilarious match with him versus the, what's his name, Roadblock? Roadblock. Who's this really big, chunky guy that Luger, I believe it takes him like three or four tries, but he does get him in the torture rack, which does look legit awesome when it finally works. He just keeps trying to lift the guy and not quite working, and then it actually motions the crowd like, okay, one more time.
02:20:28
Speaker
Yeah, he leans into it. It was nice. Yeah, I appreciate that about him. I do see that he could fill that void of Sting and even in an odd way, Flair. He's got that big showboatey entrance or whatever. He's got a little bit of swagger to him. Maybe it's the hair color. I mean, he was already put into a place where he had to replace Flair in the past, so yeah, not surprising. Yeah, true. Like a fit Flair. His muscle Flair. Yes.
02:20:58
Speaker
No Carp's Flare. Solar Flare would be an awesome name. Yeah, there you go. If he had a mask. His hair can be very shiny. Yeah, there you go. Argan Oil. Giant Centrance gives us our second NWO theme of the night.
02:21:14
Speaker
The Giant, who will later be the WWF's big show, is about a year into his professional wrestling career here. Oddly, he doesn't come out with a stolen US title. Right? Yeah, that was a little weird, but maybe they thought it'd be confusing with the previous match crowning a new US champion whose belt was also stolen by the NWO, where maybe Six successfully argued backstage that he was now the NWO's official US champ. Kind of seems like The Giant would win that particular argument, though, but honestly, it's probably due to events later in the night.
02:21:44
Speaker
I like Luger's theme in this, actually. Yeah, it's oddly catchy, isn't it? Well, there's a certain guitar part that reminds me of Mega Man. Normally, I like the actual vocal themes more in this era, but Luger's theme is a guilty pleasure, definitely.
02:22:10
Speaker
Tony says Luger has become the effective leader of WCW at this point, and thus he builds up how much what's going on with his friend Sting has to be weighing on his mind. Heaton is now calling the Piper vs Hogan match the match of a lifetime. I'm not sure if that's an upgrade or a downgrade from Match of the Century. It depends what lifetime, I guess. If we're talking Methuselah, it's a heck of an upgrade.
02:22:33
Speaker
I mean, Kirk Douglas is 102 right now, so it's a flat upgrade. It could be, yeah. Life expectancy is going up for now. There you go.
02:22:41
Speaker
The fans chant for Luger. Giant forces Luger back into the corner, but Luger struggles and manages to force Giant all the way across the ring to the other corner before Giant finally shoves him down. Luger hits forearms and punches that he sells louder than the Giant, humming back every time Giant shoves him away. Finally, Giant lunges out with a monster clothesline that knocks him flat and an impressive high jumping elbow drop. Terrific shot of Giant giving a confident smile before booting Luger in the ribs to send him through the ropes to the floor.
02:23:12
Speaker
Luger crawls to the apron and Giant brings him back in with a nice stalling suplex and works Luger's back in between choking with a boot. Hienan notes that Giant's trying to make sure Luger can't lift him for the torture rack. How do you feel now, Lex? Giant bellows. Man, I'm gonna tell you, he's loud, Dusty says. Hienan asks if they smell Giant's breath. Somp to Lex and Giant stands on his ribs. Of course, bad breath is better than none at all, Hienan jokes.
02:23:42
Speaker
Luger tries to fight back, but can't lift Giant for a slam, and Giant falls on top, but gets off and hits a elbow drop, and headbutts Luger in the gut. Luger dodges a charge, and Giant ends up propped on the top rope for Luger strikes. Luger eats a Giant boot.
02:24:02
Speaker
Giant tries a drop kick, but Luger dodges and Giant's foot catches the top rope to plant him on the mat. Luger lands strikes and close lines to get Giant wobbly and a neckbreaker for two, but Giant presses him airborne and Luger lands on ref Mark Curtis knocking him out.
02:24:26
Speaker
Luger slams giant and gets the torture rack, but Nick Patrick sneaks in and kicks Luger in the back of the knee to break it up. What? Yep. That's what bends. Oh yeah. Hienan is now 100% certain that Patrick is NWO. Do we have to admit it now, Al? I think we might. I think how evidence points against us. Yeah. He's let us down. Disappointed. I'm heartbroken.
02:24:56
Speaker
single tear. Just one. Half a tear. We see Sting coming through the crowd as Luger flings Patrick to the mat, and Patrick slides all the way through the ropes into the floor. Luger gets the torture rack again, but Six runs in and kicks Luger in the face to knock him down. Six and Patrick help Giant up, and Six exits just before Sting arrives.
02:25:22
Speaker
Patrick applauds, but Sting uses his baseball bat to shove him away. The fans erupt in cheers as Patrick flees. But Sting drops the bat in the center of the ring, and whispers to Luger and the Giant in turn, then leaves, leaving the bat behind.
02:25:38
Speaker
Luger crawls to the bat, but Giant steps on it. Luger punches Giant in the balls, jams the bat into Giant twice, and clubs him in the back of the knee with it. Luger shoves the bat out of the ring, takes a couple of tries, and pins the Giant as Curtis drags himself over for the three count. The crowd counts along and cheers wildly for Luger's victory.
02:26:00
Speaker
Luger celebrates with elated fans as Giant looks on in pain and disbelief. Giant's expression turns angry as the announcers ask where the Outsiders and Hogan were for the Giant. Great bit of acting there by the Giant, I thought. Very subtle changes in expression that really drove home that the target of his anchor is not Luger. Thoughts on this one?
02:26:22
Speaker
So this is an interesting one because I was talking before about how the match with the face of fear and the outsiders was a mix of like old school mentality and new school mentality. This one feels very old school. It feels like this is a pretty basic Bobby while executed Hogan versus giant guy match. Like Luger is Hogan, he'd be, you know, forcing his way up and then knocked down. You have Andres walk across the back spot.
02:26:50
Speaker
Obviously, Onder is not doing the dropkick attempts or splashes the corner like that. So there's some differences. Understandably, this is a little over a year in a giant career. It's like October 95 is like his first official match. So it's understandable that you have someone like Sluger has been wrestling since like, what, the mid 80s? Understandably, he calls the match and sort of structures it together, probably with help with someone like Arne or someone to the back.
02:27:18
Speaker
It works. I think guys, the fans are really into the match, but there's definitely a lot of the bad side of old school wrestling. The fact that they have to walk across the ring really slowly as a passive strength. They don't do the knuckle lock thing, do they? They did not do the knuckle lock. That's the only thing they missed. Yeah. Otherwise that's a hundred percent classic Hogan match. Just that leg drop, obviously.
02:27:41
Speaker
It's nice to see the little things that Giant can do, like set the Tropic Attempt, even if he's awkward with the end of it because he knows he's going to miss it. Both legs should be up, there were only one really up. I understand that. But his splash is really nice. And like I said, his character moments do sort of ease through the match.
02:27:59
Speaker
And when you see him walking out, I think he was trying to look like he hasn't slept in like three or four days, because he has really deep rings in his eye, and he's been in thought and everything. Once the mat goes his way, he's something much happier. He's got this in the bag.
02:28:14
Speaker
The sting stuff's interesting. I mentioned before how there's three moments where they get the camera in the wrong spot, this being the third one, is you can't see Sting pointing the bat at Nick Patrick with the first angle they use. I don't know if you want to blame them for using the hard camera angle and Sting maybe should have been the other way, but the big moment of him pointing the bat is just, it's really muted. We catch it afterwards.
02:28:37
Speaker
In the crowd you would see it, the Reenie would see it, but yeah, you see him pointing his arm out, and Nick Patrick and Cass, like I see in a ghost, and they don't know what's going on. Once they turn, they're like, oh, he has a bat at him. It's a shame that one like that is kind of ruined a little bit. Obviously, Luber's song is great, so yes. Ever been mad at that? Giant, super loud voice is a nice accent to that.
02:28:59
Speaker
I would say they've accepted this point, watching previous NBA matches and knowing the story of this show that there's gonna be interference. Not a happy acceptance, just eh, it's gonna happen. At least it's Sting. At least it is Sting, yeah. Although there's Patrick and Six first, but yeah.
02:29:15
Speaker
by the way to the old school mentality as well like Nick Patrick sneaking up the stairs like he snide the whiplash yes that was hilarious I miss that yeah he's literally like hiding behind the the ring post he's like an old-school silent movie film that's sneaking up he's gonna tie the woman to the train tracks
02:29:32
Speaker
And he's hiding behind the ring post while Lex looks straight at him if he doesn't see him. What's the magic mindset? I've been disguising myself as being a healer free for the interview for months at this point. So I think Momo is going to be a really weak kick to the back of his leg while he's not looking. He did not follow through with that very well. Kind of a shame if he really truly was evil all this time.
02:29:56
Speaker
that he didn't do a very good job of actual payoff. At least he did it overtly, even though it didn't look powerful. It wasn't like he nudged you or just slowly stepped on him and leaned into him.
02:30:11
Speaker
It was a fun match, but it's definitely, it takes a lot of get going because that's our old school mentality. It's a bit plotting in the beginning, but it pays off. I didn't pick up on the, the classical strong guy versus Hogan or whatever. I don't really have that big repertoire to make that thing. But it did feel very comical, especially with the windmill punch from Luger, where he's like the super wind up.
02:30:36
Speaker
I know that they were trying to hit all those spots, like, you know, I think it was like the third attempt or whatever, even got them on the rack. It's usually how it is. Yeah, the rule of three. Great performers, Luger, you know, obviously doing a little bit more than Big Show or sorry Giant.
02:30:55
Speaker
That's okay. You can tell that he hasn't really come into his own yet, but at the same time, puts pretty good effort into what he can do. Everything he does is gonna look a little bit powerful. And it's really comical to see, even as tall as Luger is, trying to pull off these moves. Instead of putting your arm around someone in the back, he has to reach up and go around the back of his neck to do it. I was happy that Sting showed up and...
02:31:22
Speaker
that was the only thing that made the interference okay for me. Okay. Yeah, there's interference, but then the match still ends. Not quite clean, but you know. He also misses the ref too, which I thought was nice. Yeah. And the fact that you're whispered to both of them kind of makes me think, oh, is he like a covert agent or is there something else going on? Exactly. So they're going for it. Yeah, it's very mysterious. Yes. And if there's intrigue,
02:31:50
Speaker
If there's something unique about it, I'm not so opposed to it. Okay. Literally, he just leaves the bat in the middle, so he's not like he's on any one side. He's just an agent of chaos, which is great. Okay. I'm cool with that. It was a decent match, but it's not my favorite. Sure.
02:32:07
Speaker
Yeah there's not a ton of variety to this match and it gets somewhat repetitive, but I still really enjoyed it. There's two big guys here just trading off hitting big strikes and big moves to each other. It's genuinely awesome to see Luger manage to get the giant up for the torture rack not once but twice.
02:32:24
Speaker
and Giant's Agility is really surprising. And like you mentioned, the crowd is super into this. And Luger is so hot right now. And aside from two guys in the front row who were clearly fans of the Giant, the crowd kept chanting for Luger. If you're one year into your professional wrestling career, you should be super proud of this match. This is very, very good for someone that early in his run. It's a good match, period.
02:32:51
Speaker
As far as the ending, like you, John, I like the sense of intrigue about Sting's involvement and the lingering uncertainty about his motivations. What I don't like is that the hero, Luger, actually does have to stoop to cheating to win. That's how you turn them. I get that he had Giant legitimately beat twice and only didn't win then because of the NWO, but I just feel like for WCW to be the good guys here, they should definitely be the more ethical.
02:33:20
Speaker
I don't know. Still, it's a fun big man match that used the characters well, and it left things in an intriguing place story-wise.
02:33:27
Speaker
I realized what Sting bit reminds me of. There's a scene in The Dark Knight with the Joker. He's taken over of the gang. Right. And he breaks the pull cue over his knee and says, I'm only taking two of you and drops it between all of them and leaves. Right, right, right. That's what Sting's doing. There you go, yeah. To your point about good and bad, I mean, yeah. Sting is a Joker, and well, they're both bad guys, really. Yeah, there's no good guy in this scenario, I guess.
02:33:56
Speaker
Yeah. Like prove yourself to me and then like leave the... Yeah. Yeah.
02:34:02
Speaker
Yeah, I do think it's an interesting part, and I do like how, again, it reflects on the Sting and Luger storyline, that you think at first, oh, he's coming down to help Luger because he's his friend, but he's still ticked at Luger, most likely for the insults and getting in his face and everything during the War Games bit. So he's not just there to help Luger, he's just there to give him a chance. But then he's going to walk off and see what happens.
02:34:27
Speaker
So it's a really interesting moment. I just, I don't know, a little part of me is like, I kind of wish that it would have been like giant gets the bat, but Luger wins anyway, or something like that.
Piper Challenges Hogan
02:34:37
Speaker
No, I can absolutely see that. In fact, he has to resort to punching with the balls. Then he has the bat also there. Yeah. Yeah. I can see that. As amusing as that was. Oh yeah. Like bicepting him in the ball. He pushes like around behind him. Oh yeah.
02:34:51
Speaker
Our final match is Rowdy Roddy Piper versus WCW World Heavyweight Champion, Hollywood Hulk Hogan with Miss Elizabeth, Vincent, and Ted DiBiase. The referee for this match is Randy Anderson. So at the end of Halloween Havoc, Mike Piper shows up and cuts a promo challenging Hogan to a match. Hogan, of course, doesn't want to do that because he doesn't want to fight at Piper initially, but then he seems to turn after basically being threatened enough.
02:35:21
Speaker
They use a wrinkle in that there's been some sort of delay for him getting the match, which turned out to be the reveal of Eric Bischoff becoming part of the NBO, which really he's not even on the show at all, which is weird that he's a big part of the buildup to the main event and he's not even featured once, not even at Backstreet Promo. He keeps saying like, oh, we're working with Piper's agent to try and get approval, but it turns out that he's just not actually been talking to him. He's been trying to stall the match because it won't happen yet.
02:35:49
Speaker
Yeah, as mentioned, the promo hyper says he's one man Hogan hasn't beaten, which you already covered, and there's also more people who also make that list, but they'll show up later. Yeah. Ring announcer Michael Buffer introduces this as a match between two living legends and says people are calling this the match of the decade, but it might actually be the match of the century. I don't get why they don't just call it match of the century right out. There's no need for the decade stuff if you're just going to upgrade it. It's weird.
02:36:18
Speaker
Oddly, Hogan comes out first despite being world champ, normally champion enters second. True. Yeah, and then with that, but yeah, you're right. He plays air guitar with the title belt and points out NWO signs in the crowd. The announcers decry the disrespect of the big gold belt. Piper is out second and gets extremely long pyro. Yes. I comes to fight, baby. Dusty yells. Chance for Piper as Hogan tries to quiet the crowd.
02:36:48
Speaker
Hogan kisses the big gold belt and hands it to Vincent, and Vincent and Miss Elizabeth exit while Dibiase stays at ringside. Hogan chats outside with Dibiase and makes Ref Randy Anderson keep Piper back so he can get in. Hogan pushes Piper in the corner and tells Ref Randy Anderson to watch Piper on the break as he doesn't trust him, then slaps Piper. Okay, that was kind of funny. Yeah, I'll give him that one. Piper charges but gets slapped again, but blocks a third try and lands several punches to send Hogan spilling out.
02:37:18
Speaker
Hogan back in, and he rakes the eyes. Then takes over with striking, turnbuckle slams, and chest rakes, because those were needed. Piper pokes him in the eyes and clotheslines him down to send Hogan out again for some more fun stalling. If you want to enjoy the stalling, just hear the Jeopardy theme in your head. It really makes it go much faster. Piper holds on to a side headlock as Hogan keeps trying to push him off, even through a backdrop. But Hogan takes back over and whips Piper's neck across the ropes to send him to the floor.
02:37:48
Speaker
Hogan beats Piper up outside and uses a back rake. But Piper hits a kinda sorta enziguri and gets his kilt's belt to whip and choke Hogan. Tony says that Anderson knows what this match means to these men in the sport, so he won't dequeue them. It would mean a lot to me if he had, frankly. I know it was a lot later, but I think even at this point Hogan has been doing the whipping with his own weight belt as well, so there shouldn't be a surprise that the belts are in there. Yeah.
02:38:18
Speaker
Piper actually belts Hogan. It looks like he's a clown. The jump he does? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Piper slams Hogan, but D.B. Asi grabs his foot, and Piper goes after him, so Hogan hits him from behind and uses the steps and barricades on him. Back in, Hogan works on Piper's replaced hip. Never thought I'd say that line. D.B. Asi grabs Piper's leg, but Piper takes Hogan down too, and lands punches and hair pulls, as Hienan jokes that it shouldn't take long to pull out all Hogan's hair.
02:38:48
Speaker
Careful if you say that too many times, they'll quit the company and sue you. Piper Cradles Hogan for two. Aw. They trade punches. You know how that sounded. Oh, come on. Look at that sound. That sounded so sweet. Okay. Hey, give me that one. Yeah. They trade punches and eye pokes, and Piper Suplexes Hogan for two. I think Dibiase pulled Hogan's leg to free him, but the camera doesn't catch it. Shocking.
02:39:19
Speaker
Hogan dodges a knee drop, and Piper's leg is hurt. Hogan tries the big leg drop, but Piper dodges and hops around on one foot, to prove that he was actually playing possum. Then knocks Hogan down with kicks as the Giant comes in. Anderson checks on Hogan as Giant grabs Piper, and Hogan stumbles around so that there's really no way that Anderson didn't see Giant. Giant lifts Piper by the throat. And a crazed fan chooses that moment to charge the ring.
02:39:47
Speaker
Anderson and Hogan hold him back, and the fan is dragged out by security as Giant keeps Piper up in the air, waiting for the planned spot. Hogan comes over to join Giant, but Piper kicks Hogan down and bites Giant to free himself. Piper shoves Giant out over the ropes and gets the sleeper hold on Hogan. Anderson checks the arm. It goes down once, twice, three times. Three times, lady. There's no sudden finger wiggling this time, and Piper wins the match.
02:40:14
Speaker
Fireworks go off as the announcers are elated. Piper poses standing on Hogan with one foot, and the outsiders come down, but Piper fights them off and escapes the ring. The Giant waits on the ramp, but avoids Piper, glaring back towards the fallen Hogan and the outsiders. Giant just lets Piper leave, and Piper poses with one of his kids at the entrance, then leaves. Quite a bit more to the aftermath here, but before we get to that, let's talk about the match. What do you think, John? I'm kinda curious of your thoughts before I talk.
02:40:44
Speaker
Well, it is a classic match as well, like if we're going to use those terms. Okay. I'm still not used to Hollywood, what Hollywood is. Yeah. No, that's understandable. I know that he's only been a heel for a certain period of time, but it kind of makes me sad to see them fight, if that makes sense. I'm not saying there's less fire or whatever, but it's just,
02:41:14
Speaker
I have matches in my head that are built for these two and this is not one of them. As you probably already have guessed, Piper is still the highlight of the match for me. Sure, it's fine.
02:41:30
Speaker
his storyline or his role in this. He's like, I'm here. I'm going to deal with whatever I actually did. Like when he puts the ref on the right. Yeah. Yeah. Like, you know, he's like, just use, get out of the way. We're good. This match will go through. Don't worry. One of the times Hogan goes out of the ring. Piper starts to go to follow him, but Anderson gets in his way and he just takes him and sets him on the turnbuckle. It's pretty funny. Yeah.
02:41:53
Speaker
So, you know, I mean, there is a little bit of character to it. Yeah. But he is definitely playing the character was like, you know what, you can throw whatever you want at me or, you know, have people come, come at me and I'm still gonna battle my way through. And I like that.
02:42:08
Speaker
Yeah. Sure. Other than that, not the best showing from either person. So I gotta ask the question. You know, I gotta ask the question. This match or Piper versus Valentine. Rope. Yes. Any day. Yeah. It's so weird, isn't it, for us going through this way that we saw Piper
02:42:30
Speaker
83 he's not that old. I'm sorry Yeah Yeah, that's dark 883 we saw Piper versus Valentine and now what is this 13 years later? Yeah, we see him versus Hogan It's just like I mean it's it's obvious that there's gonna be differences, but you know like it's a really shocking change, isn't it? Yeah, when you just go between those two matches alone. Mm-hmm
02:42:57
Speaker
I do like the story part where he's the undefeated, giving Hogan another chance as these icons. I don't know why they keep on picturing like a window screen with things they click on. Like these icons are legends or whatever. I see it as another chance to reclaim a part of glory or something. So Piper's being enticing and saying, Hey, you know what?
02:43:21
Speaker
For you, Hogan, let's settle this for sure. You know, settle it once and for all. You haven't defeated me before, can you defeat me now? And I like that. No, yeah, I can understand that. I will say when I first watched this method, Bob, I know verbitation I had actually not watched the match before. So I was expecting to be really bad and slow and just a lot of punching and stalling and more stalling and this generic, uninteresting 80s wrestling stuff carried over because it's Hogan and Piper.
02:43:50
Speaker
rewatching it, it's definitely still, that's definitely still all there. It's not like they don't stall less than I remembered and definitely like, there's still back rakes and there's a lot of punching and kicking that's not super interesting. But um,
02:44:05
Speaker
rewatching it, seeing what the crowd is into it, it helps. It's like watching bad movies with another audience, especially if they're into it, which is weird. You're like, okay, fine. They're getting enjoyment. I can at least, and you try to be nicer towards it. You try to find things. I was definitely expecting to come into this super hating of it and be really mean, but I do like Piper a lot.
02:44:27
Speaker
Awesome, I feel that Hogan are pretty clear by now. So that's no mystery. But yeah, it's definitely not a good match. And definitely on the show with Liger and Mysterio, DDP and Eddie Guerrero, Bolinko and Dragon, it feels out of place. Which is funny because
02:44:49
Speaker
The one other famous Piper match that feels really out of place is from Kindergarten 94, which they've begun the new generation era. Here's the new stars. There's a young, fresh, different wrestlers, even if Bret Hart's not actually new, but whatever, let's go with it. That show, in spite of the new generation tag, is headlined by Jerry Lawler and Roddy Piper. I don't think I've seen a lot of Lawler fighting.
02:45:14
Speaker
Yeah. Hogan definitely has more interesting character, even an early version of Hollywood Hogan, I think, for me than Lawler. So this probably gets to maybe a little edge, but no one really wins in this scenario. It's funny, the interference should not be happening. Obviously, people should be running everything like that, but it almost makes it more entertaining because Johnny had to hold him for so long. And the payoff is Piper sort of
02:45:41
Speaker
Awkwardly shoving Kogan with two feet. And then biting Giant, which we don't see because of the camera angles. So moment number five, apparently, whatever we're up to. Or 12, who knows.
02:45:52
Speaker
So it makes it funnier to me because they stall the spots so long because the guy runs in. The weird way he makes it better. I do appreciate Giant, you can tell, at least he is clearly supporting Piper on his back as well, not just holding him by the throat the entire time. Oh yeah, he has his arm underneath his legs. Still, that had to be terrible. Yes. I was hoping it was the fan from the other side that had him around. Yeah. The creature.
02:46:17
Speaker
But yeah, it's not a good match, I'm not gonna ever say that, but it's a match that I didn't enjoy, but clearly a lot of people watching did, so I think that's what it's worth. Yeah, this was pretty bad. What?
02:46:32
Speaker
Oh yeah. It's nowhere near Hogan versus Butcher, bad mind, but still pretty bad. The main difference here is that both guys have character like you guys were saying. So rather than just one having character like that match, both are capable of doing the character moments and both are capable of selling.
02:46:50
Speaker
So this has at least the very basics of a wrestling match, right? But that's about it. Yeah. They do so very little. There's just a bunch of very basic striking and I remain mystified by chest and back rakes. It's like once again, guys, you have muscles. Try using them.
02:47:06
Speaker
Lots of stalling here, and this is so much longer than it has any right to be. It's about 15 and a half minutes. Cut it in half or maybe to a third, and I think the two probably have enough personality alone to carry it, but as it is, it just drags on. It became clearer and clearer that the basics really were all that they had to work with.
02:47:25
Speaker
There's a standard suplex that's treated as this massive spot here, the sort of move that we see pulled off time and again in earlier matches. It built up like, oh my gosh, you should be really impressed. Can't believe he suplexed Hogan. Yeah, the high spots, yeah, definitely. And suplexing Hogan and bison Hogan. You're like, oh, okay. That's like what you learned in the first week of wrestling.
02:47:46
Speaker
Add in the completely inexplicable lack of DQs for blatant and repeated rule-breaking by both competitors, and it's difficult to find any entertainment value in this for me. The most interesting spot is the bit where the fan charges the ring and gets his butt kicked, and that just shouldn't be the case. It's a really flat final match, especially after some really good matches earlier on, like you were saying. The build makes it sound like this should be epic, but it very much is not.
02:48:15
Speaker
This show is so strong and then this match happened, I think it makes it worse. Yeah. I think that they hyped it the right way though. We've seen so many promos and things that have nothing to do with the show. True, yes. They each got their own rambling and they got to do that.
02:48:35
Speaker
And the final product is exactly what you expect after those first two promos, but at least they put it in the show in an order that makes sense. And that's saying something.
02:48:50
Speaker
After the match, Hogan wakes up and he, the Outsiders, and Dibiasi go to confront the Giant. The Giant shoves Hogan and yells at him that Giant watches his back, but where was Hogan when Giant needed him? Giant backs up Hogan and the Outsiders, but they didn't take care of him. Hogan says Giant dropped the ball, and Giant is incredulous. Giant bellows, where were you three?
02:49:16
Speaker
The crowd chants for Giant. Hogan again tells Giant he dropped the ball and Giant suddenly glares at him, then stalks off through the entryway as Hogan and the Outsiders march back to the ring, Hogan still blaming Giant for his loss.
02:49:31
Speaker
That is a bit intriguing and leaves Giant in a really interesting place. Yeah. So yeah, this leads to Giant kicked out of the group because he wants a title shot and they flame him for everything that went wrong here. So it becomes a face leading up to a less than impressive match at sold out. Yeah. Good in one way, bad in another, I guess. Yeah. It's an interesting angle though. Yeah, sure.
02:49:58
Speaker
Hogan tells Vincent to get out there with his title belt. Tony asks, Hogan still has the belt? Hogan says he's still the champion, and Tony says, well, he might be the champion, but he's not the winner. From the sound of Tony's voice, I think he just realized what Hogan then confirms.
02:50:18
Speaker
This match was actually non-title. With Shyamalan Twist. Hogan spits on the camera lens and Hienan sarcastically calls him a classy man. Hogan celebrates his non-win with his belt. So, okay, question for you guys. Was there any indication going into this match for either of you that this was non-title? Nope.
02:50:41
Speaker
So I already knew that, obviously, but I was going looking for that to see any giveaway and there's really not much, no. Everything about it.
02:50:49
Speaker
feels like it's gonna be a title match. I believe that Buffer doesn't say it during the intro, and that's the only sign, really, that you get, I think, going into it, that, oh, it's not actually a title match. Piper talks about beating him, but he never mentions the bell, but he doesn't. It's implicit. I mean, you're beating the guy who's a champion, but yet it's not. Right, yeah. Well, he also, if you caught it too, as Piper is leaving,
02:51:16
Speaker
Dusty goes, there goes the world champion. And then someone like pokes him clearly. Or is he? That's a quick thing. I'm not sure that the announcers are clued in on that at all. Clearly Bischoff's in the headset like, shut up dude, don't say it.
02:51:33
Speaker
Well, like even Hogan kissing the belt, you know, it's like he's putting on the line. Yeah. I mean, that was what Bret Hart would always do before his matches for the title was give the belt a kiss and hand it away. And it's like that, you know, this might be my last time with the title. That's the message there. Hogan does that here, but it's not even on the line.
02:51:52
Speaker
Yeah, this was really, really dumb for me. For the entire show, this is built up like this is a mega match. Piper striking back against Hogan, who's been running roughshod over WCW for months. The announcers cheer Piper on, giving every indication that his victory over Hogan's gonna be meaningful and important. The match of the decade, the century, a lifetime, whichever of those is higher, they give Piper fireworks for his win. The crowd pops huge, but it's non-title.
02:52:20
Speaker
Why is it non-title? There's no real indication here. Maybe it's Piper just didn't care about the title, but in that case, why does WCW, which really wants its belt back, care that much about this challenge? Or maybe we're supposed to gather that Bischoff drew up the match contract and Piper didn't read the fine print. Either way, it's such a terrible end to this show, isn't it? So Piper doesn't get upset and try to give a belt and they tell him he can't have it. He's 100% aware that not for the belt, apparently.
02:52:49
Speaker
Yeah, either that or he assumes he'll be given it when he goes backstage. He's like, I'll do one match and he doesn't want to fight again. Maybe he just doesn't have it in him. Except that actually he does another match next year early on. But you know, I mean, like this agreement might have been like, yeah, if I win the belt, now I got to go through like three months of whatever and I don't want to do that. Yeah, true. It's just, I mean, to me, this felt like such a bad way to end the show.
02:53:19
Speaker
The face's victory over the heel is rendered almost entirely meaningless. And not even in a Starrcade 85 kind of way where, you know, Piper would get to celebrate on the show but then it's overturned later.
Starrcade 96 Recap and Critique
02:53:29
Speaker
No, Hogan shows us that he's still champion right now, so we don't even get to be happy for a little bit. Yeah.
02:53:36
Speaker
utterly ridiculous ending. It comes across as like whiny too. Two things on that. First, if you go back to when you're talking a three episode, which Piper apparently beats Craig Valentine, but it's also not for his US title. That's true. Yeah. I jokingly say, well, at least that'll never happen again. Yep. So I was committed all the way back and we recorded that. So by all means, we download that because we need the numbers.
02:54:03
Speaker
Second, I can think of one way this works, although it's still bad, like with the whole Benoit thing.
02:54:11
Speaker
Like, the best way you could do a bad idea. Have the match as bad as it goes. Have it play out with them, because you can't really fix that with who's there. And have Piper celebrating, grab the belt, and walk to the back really happy. Like, hold it with his son, and whoever that guy walking with his son is, by the way, is that never answered? Yeah, I wasn't sure on that. You notice that too, John? The guy walks out with Piper's son? I don't know if there's a guy that walks out with him. Like, I know there's another person. Yeah, that guy. The guy with the big leather fanny pack.
02:54:41
Speaker
Who not who not identify just walking out with Piper's kid and walk bodyguard. Yeah, I guess it's weird. They don't say that so Haven't walked but have him with the title and celebrating. I know you hate this part. You have to play the theme again
02:54:56
Speaker
Yeah, for that for effect, a bishop comes out, cuts him off and then tells him that he didn't read the fine print. It's not for the title. Right. And Vincent takes the belt and walks about. Have you at least explained why? Yes. On this show. Yeah, it may have been kind of acceptable. My point.
02:55:13
Speaker
Just make a story of it, not just, I just hope he can go on. Where's my belt? Even better. Piper takes the belt and they start to interview him in front of that locker. And then the locker bursts open and the hand comes out and it's either sting in the locker or like the giant. I think either one of us crammed himself in the locker. Oh, that'd be great. You suddenly see this and then to the top for his head. Oh, yes. That would turn this from one of the worst stargate endings to one of the best stargate.
02:55:44
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's just, it's so annoying. It's win or lose. The NWO still gets to celebrate in the ring to close the show. And Piper's nowhere to be seen after making his really quick exit. So it's pretty sad. At least he's hugging his kid. Yeah. It's sweet, but then... Yeah, you get that image, but then it goes away. It should have faded right then. Yeah. Yes.
02:56:06
Speaker
skipping paths sold out, thankfully, that we would get a return match, yay, of Piper and Hogan, this time with Heddle definitely on the line. Although, weirdly, reading the recap for it, Hogan goad Piper into the mat, not the way we were around. Yeah. I guess he did technically lose here, so he wants to
02:56:26
Speaker
Yeah, it's weird that he's like goading Piper into accepting a match to try and win his title from him. Yeah, that is a little odd. But I'll watch maybe play that more sense, but in text it's really weird. He makes the match happen. Tony wraps up the show as Hogan and the Outsiders celebrate, and Starrcade 96 is done. So overall thoughts on Starrcade 96?
02:56:50
Speaker
It's a show with really good wrestling on it. If you're going purely for the sport and spectacle, I'd definitely recommend it. But the conditions to it would be, it's really more the first half you get all of that. The second half, where WWE is generally more important for whatever reason.
02:57:09
Speaker
Suddenly the NBO was a lower it there's you know, no interference and if you want interference in the first like three or four matches then suddenly Every match has all of them hanging around ringside to point the reason we should just just had patio seats and just sat there waiting all time Rather than making the entrance like we know you're coming out. Just just hanging around you're good Like tailgating just hang out there at the intro way really coming out to interfere the matches. I
02:57:33
Speaker
And obviously there's a big drop off in just pure wrestling quality from the first seven matches to match number eight. That said, if you're the mindset of clearly the people watching this show live and you're in the static feel of it, it's totally disappointing. But if you know coming in, it's Piper and Hogan fighting at this point in their careers, set your expectation to the right level. I think you can at least enjoy it. I still recommend it compared to dragon and
02:58:01
Speaker
in Blinco and all the other matches, but it's not like a complete train wreck that ruins the show. It's just really just pointing into a show with the blustering action up until that point. It's interesting that it's kind of like the opposite of what we said on some of those earliest arcades where it's like, oh, this was kind of dull, but then like the last four matches hit and like, oh, wow, it was so amazing. Here's Steamboat, here's Flare, yeah. Yeah, where now it's, oh, the first seven matches are great to pretty good. And this final match is like, ugh.
02:58:30
Speaker
Yeah, but it doesn't kill the show, but it's just like, yeah. I mean, you still have headliners, a headliner for each of the last half of the thing. It's just, they were dead matches.
02:58:42
Speaker
I think I mentioned in the last show, it's kind of interesting looking at a trend when you see these shows year to year like we do. So 94 Starrcade made by Hogan and Butcher, 95 Starrcade, no Hogan, no Butcher, 95 Starrcade headlined by Randy Savage, Ric Flair, 96 Starrcade, no Savage, no Flair. That's true. Yeah, that's interesting. It's a weird occurrence of a piece like that. Yeah, that's interesting.
02:59:08
Speaker
The bar was definitely raised in the very beginning. It notched up and up and up and up and up. And unfortunately, I don't think anything else after that passed it. There was always either a comical or some sort of annoyance associated with each of the matches that followed.
02:59:23
Speaker
You know, like Al said, if you set your expectations the right level, you could really enjoy that last match. Those are people that you could have associated, you know, wrestling with, like distill it down. These are the people I want to watch and enjoy that, hey, they're still in the ring. That in itself has some value.
02:59:45
Speaker
big change from 83 to 96 for Piper. And for me, that is a little bit of a little crestfall. And after all that, he still didn't even get a belt out of it. And that to me kind of
03:00:02
Speaker
sums up my impression of the whole show where it had great potential. There are some great things in it, but I think at the very end of the day, it fell short for me. It was not what it promised. And for that, I'm a little annoyed.
03:00:24
Speaker
It feels so weird because you start out feeling really strong about it and then at the end it annoys you. So this is an interesting question. If the Hogan vs. Piper match was the second to last match, and I don't know, say Luger vs. the Giant was the last match, do you think your mood would be better?
03:00:47
Speaker
My mind right now is actually trying to figure out how the storyline changes. Give me a second. Honestly, slightly better?
03:00:58
Speaker
I was just thinking at least because then it ends with it's still interference but it's an interference that actually gets resolved and it's a definitive ending to the match where the Hogan one is kind of a weird mush of what actually happened. I just don't like the ending tacked on just like when Vader just shows up in the parking lot.
03:01:20
Speaker
in the locker room and just goes off. Yes, it creates drama, but I think it creates the wrong drama. It needs to be about Starrcade and not what's to come. I think they need to have some sort of finality about that. You want this to be the ending point and then whatever you can start up on the next show.
03:01:38
Speaker
Yeah the old the whole midpoint of the show or the you know throughout the whole show you can build up what's going to come later and everything and you can give some some final points at the end about everything that's unresolved but that needs to be narration that can't be coming from the.
03:01:53
Speaker
the stars themselves. I think that commentary can put a nice ribbon on that, and having people whining or not even giving people credit at the end, I think diminishes the whole process. Mm-hmm. Sure. Yeah, because that's a good point, yeah. Like, I honestly, coming from this, I actually, my mental image of Hogan is damaged, because this doesn't jive with anything else I've seen.
03:02:22
Speaker
And it's not damaged in the good way where it's like the storyline is, he's a bad guy, so I should dislike him. It's damaged in a, wait, why the heck did that happen? Yeah. Right. It's disingenuous to who he was through as a character and as a superstar leading up to this point.
03:02:43
Speaker
I mean, I know that he's being a sore loser and everything, but the fact that they give him lots of screen time while being that, acting that way, bothers me. They could have rolled credits and still said, okay, fine, they're upsetting everything. That's fine. You see that for Nitro. He can come out and go say he won or take his soul. Take his soul. That's a promo anyways. It's a little slightly bitter taste. Yep.
03:03:07
Speaker
Yeah, okay, so about 80% of this show is quite good, I think. Seems fair, yeah. It's eight matches. The first seven are, at worst, acceptably fun and, at best, really great. Not every match is an absolute standout, but I had fun with all of the first seven. And aside from some weird endings from time to time, I thought they worked really well. The promos were hit or miss, and the Sting video package was strange but intriguing.
03:03:33
Speaker
Even the match endings that were stranger non-finishes at least tended to leave their stories in an interesting place. Yeah. Unfortunately, the last match happened. And that put a damper on the show. The main event here is just bad, and while it isn't as bad as Hogan vs. Butcher, it stands out a lot more, because otherwise this show had been a lot better than Starrcade 94. Yes. It feels so strange. The show's just rolling along fine, and then suddenly just tanks.
03:04:00
Speaker
I couldn't help thinking about the great matches I'd seen earlier in the night, and this just did not measure up. It didn't even get close. On 94, the bad main event was just the culmination of an overall poor night. On 96, it's like, I don't know, you got a really great ice cream, but mixed in with all your favorite toppings was a dried up dog turd. Just plop right there in the middle. Main attraction.
03:04:24
Speaker
There are a few other missteps here and there. The announcing was variable tonight. I think it's strongest when it's the three-man team of Tony, Dusty, and Hienan. When they add a fourth announcer in the first three matches, it's just too many guys out there. Tine does a good job, don't get me wrong, but you don't get as good a back-and-forth feel of discussion with four guys. It just doesn't feel as graceful. The announcers do a good job of highlighting the storylines in the later matches, though.
03:04:53
Speaker
They feel invested in the NWO storyline overall, and they do an especially great job highlighting the angles involving Sting, Nick Patrick, and the Giant. I think they make it to a good performance overall, but it's a little touch and go at times.
03:05:07
Speaker
One other fun thing, there was a ton of Pyro used for this show, which got a really good reaction out of the announcers every single time they were loving it. It was pretty funny. I like Pyro for entrances, probably not great for the company budget, but it does add a lot of oomph, and it contributes to a larger than life feel, which I think is important for these shows. Absolutely. I like it a little bit less when it's used to emphasize a non-title win in a match that should have been a title match, but whatever.
03:05:36
Speaker
It's like the SummerSlam did with Lex Luger. Yes, that's what I was trying to think of. Lex Luger beats Uxuna, who's the WF champion. He knocks him out and he falls out of the ring and wins via count-out. So it doesn't win the title. And they drop like Loon to Kefati and he's like celebrating the whole locker room like, yay, he won. It's like, this means nothing. Yeah, pretty much. This is cool. Yeah.
03:06:01
Speaker
Overall, this was actually a really good show that was easy to watch, and the company is in a very interesting place with this company-wide NWO angle being such a large focal point. Major stars like Sting and Hogan becoming vastly different characters, and performers like Ray Mysterio Jr., the Giant, and DDP clearly on the rise.
03:06:21
Speaker
Despite the bad ending to the show, WCW feels like it's a sentence, with tons of potential in both veteran performers and new faces. An enjoyable show, just stop it before the last match if you want to leave it totally happy. Seems fair, yeah. Yeah. I still haven't decided on one of my guests, but I'm working through it in my head. I know what my favorite match is.
03:06:48
Speaker
All right, well, you want to let Al start and figure it out? Yeah, go ahead. Okay. Okay, so a lot of starting conditions from Madison Knight. It was actually like, unlike 94 Starrcade, it was hard because there's so many good options.
03:07:01
Speaker
Ultimately it came down for me. There's a bunch of matches that I really liked, but with the endings that way they were, they didn't quite, I think complete package. So the Benoit Jared matches because it is the way it disappoints me. Same with the DDP, a Gura match. It's really good, but then the way it plays out, I'm not super happy with it. For me, it comes down to the first match, which is when we call it dragon or the third match. Got it figured.
03:07:31
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, so it's a really tough call. I have come back and forth on that a couple times before writing down my answer, but I think I'm going to stick with what I wrote, which is my match tonight is Houston Sutter Liger versus Mr. Junior. I thought it all worked really well. Mr. Junior comes on the screen for us anyways, the first time in a huge way.
03:07:51
Speaker
doing moves no one's ever seen before, or doing versions of the moves that are bigger and better than the other one beforehand. He's one up, and yeah. Absolutely. And it's not even just spectacle. He has nice little character moments like begging to the ref when he thought he got a three count, selling his injuries, taking big bumps. It's 100% giving performance, so for me, that's match to the night. MVP, again, I went a little back and forth on. I was debating whether or not I could separate match to the MVP.
03:08:21
Speaker
I was thinking, could I give it, for instance, give it to DDP for me starting performance with Eddie Guerrero and to buy the match itself, not being what I wanted to with Eddie Guerrero. Could I get it in two shows in a row with that, you know, just him in that match. But I think for me, it has to be Mr. Junior because he comes out so strong in his first performance in our show. I have to give it to him. Okay. Respectable choices.
03:08:50
Speaker
John, you made up your mind? Yeah, I think so. Okay.
03:08:54
Speaker
Now the match of the night, uh, the first and third were my favorite matches. And those again, like Al, mass fighters, um, I thought that they were, they were both fantastic. Action was great. The variety was great. Not everything was smooth, but 99, whatever 90% of it was, was, was awesome. Yeah. No weird hiccups. No, no, no other story other than Japan was winning against America.
03:09:21
Speaker
But I'm gonna give it to the Ultimo Dragon and Milenko. Okay. Because it was the strongest opener for any Starrcade, I would think. Wow. Yeah, no, yeah, I was thinking the only one that comes close to it probably is the Benoit Liger one last time, but this one had a clean finish, so.
03:09:44
Speaker
Yeah, really strong. And for me, I mean, I guess the extra sprinkles or salt or whatever you put on top of your Sunday or whatever that makes it that unique thing as having a new character in there and developing a bit more respect for Malenko just sweeten that whole match for me. Yeah, great. Sure.
03:10:05
Speaker
It had all kinds of new nuances for me. And I don't know how to explain it better than that, but yeah, it was, it was a great match. Despite it being one of the longer openers, I did not mind what whatsoever. There was always something there. MVP.
03:10:22
Speaker
I'm going to go with Jushin Ligon because of his recovery. Just because you know out of anyone else that's here, his brain damage to several people might be on the show. He's the only one that's fully functioning.
03:10:39
Speaker
I wanted to give it to him for that, not just for his performance, but to show that he is dedicated to what he did. Not to take away from that, but one thing I didn't say about the first match, none of the other matches had tension for me, but the fact that there was nine belts on the line meant something. And that is why the ending is so bitter to me, because the ultimate belt was not on the line.
03:11:06
Speaker
That's true. Yeah, there you go. Yeah. Yeah, Malenko and Dragon fight over nine belts. Hogan and Piper can't even fight over one. Yeah, if you really want to make me happy, make that the last one. There you go. Yeah, that would be cool. Yeah, watch the whole thing in reverse. Well, on a Liger note, he's been on his retirement tour for the last year or so. January of 2020, he's having his final match in New Japan.
03:11:31
Speaker
All right. Hey, good for him. That's 24 years later. That's so great. They had such a long career. It's wonderful. And I actually had thought about mentioning the ref because he had the most character development for that. Patrick? Patrick? Yes. I considered giving it to him too. I have not, but I will get to that in a moment.
03:11:55
Speaker
So Match of the Night for me, this was a really hard choice. There are several terrific matches tonight and it's a really enjoyable show to watch. I think both of you guys had really excellent choices on that. It makes sense. But I'm going to go with DDP versus Guerrero. Okay.
03:12:13
Speaker
It just has that great combination of match, story, and emotion that nudges it that tiny bit ahead for me. I feel like even if I hadn't known what was going on between these two before watching this match, I'd get enough just from their performances to understand their relationship. And there's a real sense of the larger story between them here, the history between them.
03:12:35
Speaker
They work together really well, and both are clearly into it and putting their all in their performance. Ending with interference would normally be a problem, but honestly, even that couldn't ruin this for me. That's how good it was. Though it also helps that I know that that's part of a great story as well. DDP and Guerrero are both on the rise in this company, and this match made it very clear why.
03:12:59
Speaker
I like the way you explained that. It's like they're still equals and one just one because of a technicality. Yeah. It was so interesting to me watching too. I'm not sure if I would have the same reaction if you hadn't been for the fact that the last time I saw DDP was back at Starrcade 91. Yeah. And so I've seen this big jump in his performance, but it's just such a great development for him. No, I agree with that. Yeah. And then Cabrera was just awesome.
03:13:27
Speaker
Like I can certainly do DDP just for the character growth separate from me, not like I'm winning a match, but I had to go with mature. Yeah. And from IMVP, going the same as you, John, I'm going with Jushin Thunder Liger. There's a ton of exceptional performances here, and honestly, if we'd gotten a diamond cutter in DDP's match, it might've been DDP. Bad point, yeah. But Liger pulling off the great performance that he did, less than half a year removed from brain surgery, is absolutely incredible.
03:13:55
Speaker
Even beyond that, it was really cool to see him wrestling in a very different style than on prior shows, but still putting on a terrific performance, playing the power guy rather than the agility guy and proving equally good at it. It's a great showing from Liger here, and his personal story nudges him up to the top.
03:14:15
Speaker
And that wraps up our review of Starrcade 96. If you've enjoyed listening to us tonight, you can search for us on Twitter or Facebook as Let's Go to the Ring. Follow us for episode announcements and other show details, and share your own thoughts about the Starrcades as we go through. And please, if you've enjoyed this show, give us a rating and review, and share the show through your favorite social media platforms to help others discover us. Many thanks to OSW Review for our attendance in pay-per-view figures, and to Gina Trujillo for our logo.
03:14:45
Speaker
Join us next time for Starrcade 97, paybacks are hell. In the midst of an incredible hot streak, WCW has its biggest Starrcade yet, focused around the culmination of the year and a half long NWO storyline.
03:15:02
Speaker
With the WWF in disarray after the shocking exit of its world champion, Bret Hitman Hart, WCW has its best chance to land a knockout blow on its primary rival and claim supremacy, sending the WWF spiraling into obscurity. You may have noticed that here in 2019, the WWF, now WWE, is still around and WCW is not. I don't think so.
03:15:29
Speaker
How do we know if next year is the pivotal point? That's the question. We'll see what your judgment on it is over time. Okay. This is Bob Moore for Alec Pridgen and John Mullins signing off. Good night, everybody. Happy wrestling. Train your scorebox.
03:16:02
Speaker
I was afraid we were going to get through the episode without a Scorpahawks reference. Nope. I did think about a logo for it, actually. Yeah? Awesome. Where it's got the hawk body, and then instead of claws, it actually has the pincers. And then on its head between the eyes is the stinger that comes down like an embossed thing. It would be sweet. Yeah, there you go. And just put it in a circle kind of thing.