WCW Nitro 12/30/96

1. The Amazing French Canadians vs. Public Enemy

ER: This had some odd uses of time, with the Canadians giving us the whole interrupted off-time National Anthem bit, and Public Enemy taking forever to get into the ring, really hitting every side of the ring to see how many people in Knoxville are waving their hands in the air. When they're wrestling, it's an amusing match. There are fun sloppy punch outs and an old lady in the front row giving advice and encouragement to PE. Both Canadians take nice backdrops (Carl went higher) after a fun punch out, but then get kept on the floor for while PE block the ropes for nearly a third of the match. Rougeau is great at getting himself on a table for PE, something hardly anyone does well. Jacques moves so Rocco Rock puts Grunge through a table with a Drive-By, and then the Canadians win in-ring with their own top rope assisted senton. I don't know what they call drive-bys in Canada, but it's probably got something to do with kicking at someone while riding a black horse. 

2. Jushin Thunder Liger vs. Ultimo Dragon

ER: These two were the big cruiserweight winners at Starrcade the night before, each getting a long time in their matches to build whatever they wanted. Here they didn't even get a third of the time they got at Starrcade, and the match felt disjointed and incomplete because of it. Dragon's strikes all looked very light, and his timing was off on his tilt-a-whirls. Liger had a lot of crisp stuff, like a nice cartwheel tope en reversa and follow up rolling senton, and a hard powerbomb (that was far more respectful than any of his powerbombs to Rey the night before). Dragon can be really lazy about how he sells opponent offense and sets up his own offense, like when he hits a light body slam and nothing else to set up a big missed top rope splash (a move I've never seen him do unless he catches boots on the landing). I did like Dragon using Liger as a jungle gym, scrambling all over him in the corner to hit a nice frankensteiner, and the tiger suplex follow up looked painful while also surprising for the finish. It seems crazy to me to have Liger win a long dominant match against Rey, only to turn around and have Ultimo Dragon take some offense until it was his turn. Things feel wrapped up too neatly and too feebly. 

3. Strap Match: Konnan vs. Michael Wallstreet

ER: This was supposed to be Konnan vs. Big Bubba, which sounds better on paper than Konnan vs. Wallstreet. Wallstreet issues a threat on Bubba's behalf before cheapshotting Konnan with a strap. Believe it or not WCW didn't run many strap matches in their existence, only a dozen or so (and half of those were Sting/Vader). But somehow one of the strap matches they chose to run was a Michael Wallstreet match, all 2.5 minutes of it. Wallstreet whips Konnan, takes a long journey to climb the ropes only to jump off into Konnan's boot, and then Konnan whips Wallstreet. Even with this match being under 3 minutes, they still managed to give us the most common strap match finish, taking up a huge portion of the match with it, and the second any viewer saw Konnan tag the turnbuckle immediately after Wallstreet tagged his first buckle they should have know where this was heading. 

4. Hugh Morrus vs. Kensuke Sasaki

ER: At minimum, this was a couple of guys who had no problem hitting hard and not backing down. They didn't take that as far as they could have, and the finish was as weak as can be, but it's fun to see Kensuke Sasaki hit Hugh Morrus as hard as he can while Morrus acts like none of it phases him. There are hard hitting shoulderblocks, lots of kicks to the stomach, and fast clubs to the back. Sasaki throws whistling chops, Morrus rakes the eyes and throws mediocre punches, makes hard impact on his clotheslines and hits a pretty unforgiving avalanche. Sasaki hits how own just-as-hard lariat, a big powerslam, and his over the shoulder rolling arm drag. The finish is incredibly lazy and one that WCW went to a lot, where someone with a top rope finisher would just take a lot of offense, then hit one singular bodyslam and hit their finisher. The No Laughing Matter hits, and the ref has to slow down his count because Sonny Onoo is late breaking up the pin. This was just two guys filling time until an uninspiring finish, even playing as background to Eric Bischoff confiscating a VHS tape of Hogan losing to Piper, but they hit each other hard and that's enough to make it the best match of the first hour of this Nitro. 

5. Harlem Heat vs. Faces of Fear

ER: This had some timing mistakes and a messy finish, and is really only saved by Faces of Fear's willingness to lean into Harlem Heat's kicks. Harlem Heat really don't show a lot of team chemistry (although to be fair, a lot of that is Stevie Ray being where he doesn't belong), and a lot of their simplest strikes show a lot of light. There are a few big moments in the match, like Barbarian taking a stiff Booker axe kick and not going down, only to get leveled right after by a Harlem sidekick. Barbarian also hit an insane top rope belly to belly on Booker that really threw him to the opposite corner, and to put over how dangerous that landing could have been, Col. Parker came out in his French Legionnaire get-up and whipped Sherri's ass with his riding crop. French Canadians interfere, Harlem Heat get the win even though the interference was aimed at them, and this should have ended with Faces of Fear massacring everyone instead of just rolling away. 

6. Disco Inferno vs. Glacier

ER: This was great, loved every second of it. Glacier was still pretty new, only a few months in, and I'm not sure there was a person on the WCW roster who could stooge better for Glacier's offense at this point. He's great at setting up his own ass kicking, too, taunting Glacier on the mic after Glacier's long entrance. "Look Glacier, you're career is just starting." Telling Glacier that if he knew what was best for him he'd leave, before Disco embarrassed him. I love that stuff. When Glacier finally just grabs him with a top wristlock throw, Disco holds onto the mic the entire time and yells into it in pain through the whole bump. Not all of Glacier's kicks and palm thrusts look great, but Disco makes every single legsweep and leaping kick and palm strike look as great as they will look. Disco pinballed and did pratfalls and made a ton of great OFF noises every time he caught heel (palm or foot) to the breadbox. 

There's a great transition to Disco's control, when he tries to use referee Scott Dickinson as a human shield, distracting Glacier enough to plaster him with a great western lariat. All of Disco's offense looked great, like his snapped off swinging neckbreaker or his elbowdrop straight down onto Glacier's throat. But what looks even better is Disco posing for far too long on the turnbuckles as Glacier does a kip up to a big reaction (obviously, because kip ups are cool) in the background, then hits a flat out gorgeous highlight reel Cryonic Kick as Disco turns around and jumps right into it. You could make an effective Glacier video package using shots of this kick a few times. His form is excellent, the arc on the kick is impressively vertical, and it looks straight out of a John Woo movie. This is the finisher of a guy who is justifying his push. Loved this. 

7. Chris Benoit vs. Chris Jericho

ER: A great example of the 4 minute Nitro workrate match. It's a fairly breathless 4 minute sprint, exactly what fans of these two would enjoy seeing. Tenay refers to him as "Mr. Intensity" Christ Benoit, but that nickname doesn't really fit (and I don't think ever caught on). Benoit isn't really intense here, so much as he has a real vicious dead-eyed performance. Both guys are showcased and get big spots, and things ramp up quick with a great Jericho springboard dropkick that sends Benoit sprawling off the apron, and follows it up with a missile dropkick to the floor! Benoit's offense is delivered really violently; he catches Jericho with a hotshot, throws hard stomps to the back of the head, blistering chops, and a hard landing fast elbowdrop. Jericho refuses to get run over and slams into Benoit with a stiff falling lariat to give the match a good breath. Benoit wins fairly easily with a big back suplex off the top, but this was an action-packed 4 minutes. 

A super entertaining promo happens in the entrance way after the match, with Flair strutting around in a college pullover, Woman looking drop dead gorgeous, Mongo wearing a chambray shirt the same color as his jeans, and another great Debra McMichael promo. Debra is an extremely underappreciated character in wrestling. A condescending Texas Christian who slurs her words and insults you to your face with a "bless your heart" smile just begging to be slapped. Debra does Dynasty party talk better than Dynasty did party talk. When Woman leaves after getting into it with Debra, Debra tells Gene "she's got all these built up hostilities because of her weight gain over the holidays". It's so cutting. Mongo has incredible denim meathead energy, yelling at Woman "That'll be the day, when a skirt like you tells Mongo what to do!" The McMichaels are amazing. 

8. Mascarita Sagrada/Octagoncito vs. Jerrito Estrada/Piratita Morgan

ER: I had no memory of WCW attempting a minis division, and it's pretty wild to just throw out 4 minis unannounced to the Knoxville crowd in the third hour of Nitro and give them 2 minutes to get over. I'm not sure why you even bother sending guys out to that kind of fate. Still, they work a lot of cool spots into less than 2.5 minutes and the fans do start reacting to it. WCW only used these guys for two matches, and this reaction was probably at least as good as any of the reactions they got in front of cold disinterested WWF shows from 97-99. Jerrito bumps appropriately big for a mini version of Jerry Estrada, doing strong base work for all of Sagrada's headscissors and monkey flips. Piratita takes a couple of really big bumps for a big boy, including a great somersault bump past the ringpost to the floor, and there was a fun extended sequence where the rudos kept being lured into doing chain offense to each other. I am not sure why this happened, but it was an enjoyable blink. 

9. Dean Malenko vs. Rey Misterio Jr. 

ER: Matches like these are why a lot of us were switching over to Nitro in 96/97, but a lot of them are weird time capsules now. The moves look good, there's often little story behind them aside from "get up and do more" and the crowds react with most arms folded silence until the matches end in confusion. Here a 9 minute match gets the 10 minute time limit draw treatment, a bell just ringing in the middle of an exchange like the recess bell sounding during a game of capture the flag. The fans weren't reacting to any of the several ungiving back bumps that Rey took, and suddenly ending a match in a draw wasn't going to help. Malenko and Misterio work well together, that's no secret, because Rey can get his head powerbombed into the mat several times a match and Dean is great at catching complicated headscissors and ranas. Early on Malenko works over Rey's back in painful ways, getting him vertical with a single leg crab while digging his knee in, throwing him way up into the air for an awesome flapjack, his great press slam gutbuster, bouncing Misterio with a Last Ride style powerbomb, all punishing stuff. The problem is that for Rey to get in any offense, he has to ignore that he just got his cerebellum smashed into the mat at concussion speed and bounce back to his feet to sprint around. Rey has some crazy moments, like an unhinged butt splash senton from the top rope over the ringpost to the floor, and a cool rana to the floor where he Fuerza bumps his way into getting his legs around Malenko's neck. There were a couple of cool reversals that played off early spots, like Dean catching a headscissors and sitting down into a sideslam, or Rey flying over Dean's head and turning a pop-up powerbomb into a Manami Roll. It all looked cool, but it didn't really play as a full match, and when they just went into a few rapid fire pinfall exchanges they felt like they came from a different match. It's a recommendable match because it's 10 minutes of cool stuff, but every move feels like it happens in its own vacuum.

10. Lex Luger vs. Greg Valentine

ER: Greg Valentine is in his mid-40s here, but when your wrestling style revolves around dropping heavy elbows, throwing stiff chops, and leaning into strikes, well then that's a style that is going to age well. He does feel like an anachronism in this era, but this was a fun short match made up almost entirely of punches, elbows, and clotheslines. When two guys are good at throwing punches and elbows you really don't need much more than that to fill a fun 3 minutes. Valentine really roughs up Luger, and when it's his time to sell he does some great tip toes selling for Luger's punches, and goes down with a thud for Luger's clotheslines. Luger drags Valentine over the ropes from the apron to Rack him, which is a cool babyface visual. 

The show ends on a great segment, with Hogan and the FULL cast and crew of the nWo surrounding Piper and giving him a stiff beatdown. They bash his surgically repaired hip with a chair, Scott Norton really puts the boots to him, Hall/Nash/Hogan do an ill-advised three man press slam and throw spike Piper chest first across Norton's knee, just a total beatdown. Piper gets stretchered out, the garbage rains onto the ring and the nWo (Scott Hall ignoring a full box of popcorn hitting his back, Bischoff never flinching at soda cups. It all leads to the Giant standing up to Hogan and choking him, then fighting off a ton of nWo flunkies. Giant looked like a real monster, and there was a cool visual of Hogan directing the full nWo roster to surround the ring. Bagwell attacks first, leaping off the top rope onto Giant's back and getting flung across the ring. Vincent runs directly into Giant's hand, and Giant palms his head like a basketball while wasting him with a chokeslam. nWo Sting takes another great chokeslam, before the big guys get involved and they swarm the Giant. This is part of what made the nWo great. It was a common talking point at the time that allowing a ton of "lesser" workers into the nWo weakened the entire operation, made it into a club with no kind of exclusivity. But you NEED members to strengthen your gang. You NEED bodies. You need cannon fodder. Vincent is a great guy to get pushed by Hogan into a chokeslam. It's great to have a fake Sting who gets his ass kicked. Even Michael Wallstreet, in his mullet and sleeveless nWo shirt, actually looked cool for the first time in who knows when. He looked like a guy who would get his ass beat in a Bronson movie, and the nWo needed guys like that. Bray Wyatt only recruited like one guy into his cult. How stupid is that?? You recruit EVERYBODY YOU CAN. 

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WCW Starrcade 12/29/96

1. Ultimo Dragon vs. Dean Malenko

ER: It's a bold move to start your Nashville PPV with a AAA minis dark tag and a 20 minute cruiserweight match. This is the first 12 minutes of a strong cruiserweight match, with a lot of mid 90s juniors matwork to start, and quick exchanges that don't really go anywhere but give us something to build off. They build to some quick rope running exchanges and some snap suplexes, and it plays like a very crisp New Japan juniors match. The Nashville crowd isn't really on board with it until Ultimo starts working a little more than just de facto heel. He had been the automatic heel by virtue of being Japanese in Nashville, but they wake up a bit when Dragon starts landing nice looking kicks to the grounded Malenko's ribs and a little toe kick to Malenko's temple. Once Ultimo is actually working with mild disrespect the crowd picks up on it immediately. It peaks with a great spot where Dragon feints a dive with Malenko on the floor, landing on his feet in ring with a quebrada and turns that into a flat footed tope with emphasis on making it look like a flying headbutt. Dragon even started selling like a heel, taking a couple of nasty Malenko back suplexes on his shoulders and acting like a heel getting punished. 

It's a match that is building to something strong, but Malenko makes the decision to throw some ice on things by grabbing a kneebar for a couple long minutes, really getting things silent in the arena. It threw off their vibe as Ultimo HAD been working as a luchador working as southern heel, and then in a couple minutes Malenko started working heel legwork while Ultimo valiantly kept having to struggle to the ropes and work a knee injury. It went instinctively against the fans' instincts to cheer the legwork the way it was being worked, as Ultimo was clearly face in these exchanges. A couple of awkward cross ups when they came out the other side of the legwork only extended the weird vibes. Malenko hits a body press with Ultimo leaning in the ropes, but Dragon stays put on his feet while Malenko tumbles to the floor, with Ultimo feebly rolling out after. Crowd is getting silent by the second and suddenly snaps awake in unison when Malenko looks like he has the match suddenly won after a nasty tombstone. The entire Nashville Municipal Auditorium thought they were seeing a Malenko win. With the crowd now suddenly heavily invested in a Malenko win, it really added to the closing stretch. I think they went with a couple too many nearfalls and the Onoo interference to break up Malenko's center of the ring cloverleaf weakened things, but there were some good nearfalls that the fans bit at. A Malenko release sitout Tiger suplex got a huge reaction, he plants Dragon with a disgusting brainbuster for another, and there was a great match-winning go behind waistlock battle that ended with a fantastic Tiger suplex for Dragon. This was the kind of PPV opener that a lot of WCW fans came to expect, with a lot of big moves and nearfalls. There were some stretches that didn't work and felt out of place, and they didn't really explore the stories they set up, but a lot of the action looked really good.

2. Akira Hokuto vs. Madusa

ER: This was not the match the crowd wanted to see. The crowd was far less familiar with Hokuto than they were with Ultimo Dragon, but even a Japanese competitor against a white woman wearing a sequined stars and stripes aerobics thong couldn't inspire them to get involved. Hokuto works holds with a short match they probably would have had a better chance going straight to fireworks. By the time they build to some big German suplexes and a couple hard missile dropkicks I was expecting them to react but it was still real light. The best reactions came from two pieces of Sonny Onoo interference, yanking Madusa's ankle from ringside to allow Hokuto to take over, and coming in later with to smack Madusa in the back of the head with a full American flag on a pole. This was laid out pretty heavily for Hokuto, never really feeling like Madusa was going to win, and Madusa's big moments on offense came off flat when a tornado DDT didn't really get pulled off. Hokuto wins with a nasty northern lights bomb, and it come off like an easier victory than the crowd was expecting. This was not the show to have Akira Hokuto win the inaugural WCW Women's Title Tournament, and an omen for how the Women's division would eventually wind up in the coming months. 

Roddy Piper does an interview with Mean Gene, and well, Piper's interviews in 1996 were really bad. He had taken coked up 1986 Hot Rod promos and now it felt more like a man performing comedic impressions of Cocaine Rod. He makes weird references to Strangler Lewis and Sky Low Low, says that he and Hogan ("can I call him Hogan?") are the only two icons, makes a joke about Roseanne Barr that barely felt like a reference (let alone a joke), and hops out on one leg when asked about his hip injury. This was like a hopped up Roger Rabbit promo that made the heavily promoted "Match of the Century" feel like it was about to be a tremendous disaster. 

3. Jushin Liger vs. Rey Misterio Jr. 

ER: This match was a major deal among tape traders, a first time (and last time, it turns out) singles match between two of the very best. So, of course this match starts with an enthusiastic USA chant, which Misterio happily accepts as his, and that's just fine. It also becomes apparent pretty early into this match that this crowd is tired of seeing a Japanese wrestler against a WCW regular. The commentary has some real wild tone shifts too, as Tenay starts the match talking about Liger's brain tumor surgery, and within minutes we take a weird sidetrack. Dusty ends up going on for far too long about Liger "looking heavier" than the last time he saw him, and none of the four man announce crew picks him up. He keeps trying to get anyone else to chime in, repeatedly asking whether or not he's crazy for thinking Liger is heavier. The crowd pays about as much attention to the match as commentary does, but it is surprising that people don't react louder for the beating that Misterio takes. Liger is very punishing, hitting an in-ring powerbomb about as hard as you can powerbomb someone, hits a crazy vertical suplex to the floor (and Rey really splats on that floor), then hits a powerbomb ON THE FLOOR! The actual wrestling in the match is great, it's nothing but offense, but it doesn't draw the crowd in like it should. They occasionally get them to notice, but they don't keep them hooked. 

Liger is super dominant here, brushing aside a missile dropkick and locking in a stretching surfboard, a release German suplex that folds Rey, a kappo kick in the corner, a dragon screw that would snap the surgically repaired knee of 2021 Rey Mysterio, and a really sunk in half crab. Rey had some comebacks, some flash to counter Liger's dominance, but Liger keeps effectively cutting him off. When Rey goes on a big tear with a headscissors and beautiful Asai moonsault, I foolishly thought that all of Rey's offense got backloaded into the match. But Liger immediately blocks a top rope Frankensteiner by hopping down to the mat, nails a kappo kick, and then drills Rey's head into the mat with a definitive Liger Bomb for the win. So far this PPV has had three Japanese wrestlers win the first three matches, and it is clearly not what anyone in attendance expected or wanted. This match was as good as could be expected with no fan involvement, and a suitably entertaining Dream Match with Liger really assaulting Rey and Misterio flying and splatting in cool Misterio ways. But, this also seemed like a match where Rey was to be the OBVIOUS winner, and even the finish looked like he kicked out before 3, which didn't help the reaction. Liger wasn't around in any way in 1997 WCW, so letting him destroy Misterio like this on WCW's biggest PPV of the year was a really strange decision. 

4. Chris Benoit vs. Jeff Jarrett

ER: This was kind of a peculiar match, as it was billed as No DQ but was not worked in any way as a No DQ match. The match didn't need the stip to work, as we find out that they really only made this No DQ to allow for a rush of outside interference right at the end. The match started like a strong Benoit/Jarrett match, both working some nice mat exchanges and Jarrett getting lit up by chops, but there's a weird tone as both men are clearly working as heels. Benoit rubs Jarrett's face in the mat and grinds his boot into the back of Jarrett's head after getting the best of a mat exchange, and later when Jarrett does the same he runs up the length of Benoit's back and then struts around the ring. Jarrett is the Nashville boy but isn't rallying the crowd behind him, and every single thing Benoit does is delivered as a heel. So the crowd doesn't get into this match the way they could have. They both work the match with a lot of aggression, and the pace feels really good, even if Benoit has a lot of strikes that show noticeable light. Benoit's stomps in the corner all whiff by 6" or more, and it's odd that the guy known for working stiff appears to be pulling his shots so much. Woman interferes from the floor, except her and Benoit continue to act like they don't realize the match is No DQ, as she sneaks in her interference behind Brian Hildebrand's back, and later on Benoit does the whole feet on the ropes bit with Hildebrand just missing his cheating each time. 

This is a match where Benoit could have just choked Jarrett with a chair, so holding a grounded headlock with his feet on the ropes behind the ref's back made zero sense. At a certain point Benoit didn't even have his arm wrapped around Jarrett's neck, looking more like he was just pinning him across the shoulders. Jarrett's comeback doesn't get a reaction, since he didn't decide to show the fans of Nashville that he was their guy, but he looked good. I liked his clothesline and super high belly to back suplex, but that's when everything goes to hell. Woman gets on the apron, Arn comes out, Hugh Morrus and Konnan attack Woman, she kicks Morrus in the balls while Konnan holds her in a snug headlock, Kevin Sullivan breaks a wooden chair over Benoit, Arn DDTs Jarrett, and somehow through it all Jarrett just gets rolled back inside and pins Benoit. So we had a No DQ match where it seemed like neither guy realized that was the case, all the DQ worthy events were caused by guys that came out at the very end of the match, and even after the match the crowd had no clue which one of them to cheer for. This felt like nobody knew what role they were actually playing and the match fell apart because of it. 

Arn Anderson and Jeff Jarrett blow off Mean Gene's interview requests after the match, but Steve and Debra McMichael have no problems repping the Horsemen on the mic. McMichael says Benoit is getting too distracted by Woman, and Debra says that Woman is looking rode hard and put up wet (to which Gene covers the microphone) and then calls her plump. I really wish we had been given a Woman reaction to being called "plump" by Debra McMichaels' perfectly slurred judgmental Alabama Christian voice. 

The Outsiders vs. The Faces of Fear

ER: This was heading towards being a truly great big man tag match, but a slow third act that dropped all the big man clubbering left us with a kind of unsatisfying finish. These guys all have great chemistry and have no problem hitting hard, and the match forgoes a lot of structure and instead mostly just exists as four tough guys hitting each other hard. You don't really need to cut off the ring with guys this large, as it's incredibly satisfying to have them constantly cutting each other off, able to turn any tide at any time with a hard clothesline or harder headbutt. It's hard not to get excited for a tag match made up wholly of big guys hitting each other hard, and commentary gets into it as much as the crowd does. The action is steady and nobody remains in control long. Nash really punishes Barbarian in the corner with kneelifts and heavy back elbows, hits a lariat to the side of Barbarian's neck when Nick Patrick steps in. Meng and Nash come off like superstars, with Meng having no trouble standing up to either Outsider and Nash getting roars whenever he gets into the ring. 

Meng's chops look like something that Hall and Nash legitimately hate taking, and you get some cool bigger spots like a Hall second rope bulldog on Meng, a great missed middle rope elbowdrop from Barbarian, Meng fighting to get Hall up for a piledriver before finally spiking him, and not long after that a big Barbarian powerbomb on Hall. The match also has a bunch of cool clotheslines and lariats from everyone, like Hall running the length of the apron to nail Barbarian in the corner, or Hall whipping Barbarian into a Nash apron lariat and then hitting one of the hardest possible diving lariats as Barbarian is reeling. Everyone in the match is showing stiff shots from the apron whenever an opponent gets anywhere near, and I love tag team fights like that. Things do take a bit too much of a cool down when Barbarian locks in a LONG nerve hold on Hall that the match didn't really need. 

The only formula the match had settled into by then was four guys kicking ass, with Hall and Barbarian each being briefly separated from their partners. But this late in the match you don't need a long nervehold to build to a Nash hot tag, as the crowd was hot every time Nash had been in and the hold went on so long that the hot tag was literally Nash's quietest part of the match. The hold cooled things down too much and took the energy away, and then for whatever reason Barbarian didn't make his own hot tag out when Nash made his big tag in. Hall and Barbarian had clearly been building a long sequence that was supposed to build to Meng and Nash absolutely wailing on each other, and instead Barbarian just stays in the ring. It's a bit anticlimactic as Nash tags in and Hall immediately drags Meng to the floor, and Nash fairly easily beats Barbarian with a jackknife. The match deserved a finish that was a bit more thought out than that, but the bulk of this was hard hitting heavyweight wrestling that I loved. 

Hogan cuts a truly unhinged promo backstage with Dibiase and Vincent laughing along with him. If you show this promo back to back with Piper's promo earlier you get 10 minutes of what feels like it is going to be the craziest match you've ever seen. He keeps building towards a big ending but keeps getting derailed, until he's just shouting out the names of celebrities and calling Piper a woman. This kind of manic old man insanity is making this match come off far more exciting than I've been lead to believe.

Diamond Dallas Page vs. Eddie Guerrero

ER: This was the finals of the WCW US Title tournament, a very fun match that is perhaps too long, but finishes strong. It's always best when a match goes out on a high note, and the finishing stretch makes this worth seeing. This is cool because Page fights Eddie as an equal and makes it work, going toe to toe with both throwing elbows and chops as heavyweights (even though Eddie is much smaller than DDP here). DDP is great at doing fast armdrag and leapfrog exchanges, and both know how to salvage minor miscommunications by taking big bumps. DDP takes an awesome backwards bump through the ropes off a dropkick, both good at working a back and forth match without it ever feeling like they're just trading moves. It's really hard hitting, with Eddie getting harder than expected impact an avalanche, pescado, and big back suplex. Page has a bunch of cool offense - a couple of unique gutbusters, nice right arm clothesline immediately following a missed left arm one, and a nasty kneeling piledriver - so it's a little disappointing when he locks in a too long abdominal stretch. 

The match had kind of been babyface/babyface and DDP wasn't working heel enough to build to a big Eddie comeback. But things really do come alive for the push to the finish, when DDP starts really throwing himself back into offense. He hits a hard shoulderblock in the corner and then misses another into the turnbuckles just as hard. Eddie sweeps DDP's legs and DDP takes it on the back of his head like Psychosis, Eddie lifts him in the air with a European uppercut (that makes Dusty lose his mind),and then drops DDP with a brainbuster. We get a crazy run of bigger and bigger spots, like Eddie catching DDP in an atomic drop off the top rope, and DDP hitting a bananas spinning powerbomb. There were several great nearfalls off of Eddie backslides (set up nicely by DDP's missed spinning clothesline or Diamondcutter attempts). The finish itself is a bit of a stretch, as the ref had to be distracted for far too long so that Scott Hall had time to run in and hit DDP with an Outsider's Edge (for turning down the nWo's invite), and then Eddie hits the frog splash for the title. This match could have gone 12 instead of 15, as trimming out the bullshit would have easily made this the tightest and best match on the card. As is it was strong, and the peaks lift it higher than its valleys lower it. 

The Giant vs. Lex Luger

ER: This was great, the best Giant singles match and performance so far (easily), and an excellent Luger performance that completely rewards the loud crowd. The Nashville crowd were cheering louder for Luger before the first lock-up, than any other babyface so far this PPV (Nash got the loudest cheers, but that's just because people are going to cheer the coolest guy in any room). Giant had a year of ring work at this point and was improving, but having a guy like Luger in there to guide the match really elevated this. Luger knew exactly what to do and the fans were behind him doing just that. I loved Luger's lock-up to start, getting a low base, taking big super ball bumps when Giant would throw him away. Every time Luger got thrown off, he would come back in with left and right elbows, and then began measuring Giant with right hands. Luger would rear back and throw one big right, send the Giant rocking and wobbling in the corner, then throw another. It was a great way to start the match and they used the ring incredibly well to make this feel like a big fight. Luger would get bumped to the opposite corner, and the camera would pull back and show the distance between the men, making Luger look like even more of a walking tall babyface every time he would stomp back across the ring to punch Giant. Both were good at selling the early fatigue, and I liked how Giant shut things down by just charging out of the corner with a straight arm clothesline to the chest. 

I thought Giant looked good in control, and Luger looked great bumping for him. They worked a long control section and the Giant has a lot of ideas on how to fill time, and Luger's selling keeps the crowd interested. The Giant gets insane air on an elbowdrop, throws a stiff kick to Luger's ribs (that Luger bumps through the ropes to the floor) and brings him back in with a big delayed vertical suplex. The Luger comeback teases are good, like a quick bodyslam attempt that ends with the Giant flattening him and then hitting another elbowdrop. We're over a year into the Giant, and he's still trying weird  things and I love it. He weirdly does the Shawn Michaels "draped over the corner ropes" spot after missing an avalanche, struggling to get his legs into position but even getting turned over by kicks the way Michaels would. I don't think I've ever seen a 400 lb. guy do that spot - probably because it looked pretty stupid - but I am all for wrestlers taking a risk of looking stupid. Even better, is how Giant sets up Luger's comeback by missing a running dropkick in the ropes when Luger moves out of the way. Giant really just ran and threw a dropkick into the ropes like he was a luchador, top foot nearly getting tangled on the top rope and sending him to the mat head first. Giant was lucky the landing was better than it could have been, but a giant doing crazy spots is impossible to hate. 

Luger starts punching the reeling Giant and really knows how to milk the reaction, the crowd getting louder and louder whenever it looked like Giant might fall over, and when Giant is reeling back far enough Luger gets the loudest reaction of the night by taking Giant down with a Rude Awakening style neckbreaker. It's a great nearfall, fans literally jumping up and down in their seats after seeing a neckbreaker. It's beautiful. Luger gets pressed onto Mark Curtis during the kickout, and this allows all the bullshit to start, and I loved all the bullshit. Luger finally has the advantage over Giant, but with no ref we get Nick Patrick finally showing up (with Syxx), and I love it when Nick Patrick shows up. I'm someone who is sick to death of rudo lucha refs, and yet I love Nick Patrick's stooging and idiocy. Luger bodyslams Giant and gets him up in the Rack (an awesome feat) and Patrick actually kicks Luger in the back of the knee! Patrick gets thrown across the ring and Luger Racks the Giant again, this time eating a spinkick from Syxx and unceremoniously dropping Giant again. To add to the great bullshit, Sting comes through the crowd, a man who looks like Jimmy Del Ray but with the flat out craziest eyes actually bumps faces with him before being pulled away by security, man looking like he actually wanted to fight or assassinate Sting. There's a great moment where Sting gets in the ring and shoves his bat into Patrick's chest, throws Patrick again to get him out of there, and Patrick punches a still ailing Mark Curtis in the face on his way out! 

The bullshit leads to a really great finish with some great theater, when Sting whispers separately to both Luger and Giant and leaves his bat in the middle of the ring. Commentary was strong this entire match, putting over and questioning everyone's motivations and getting fired up for Luger and Giant, making it really feel like a clash of the titans. They nail all of the visuals, with Luger reaching the bat but Giant getting there right after and standing on it. The crowd really seemed frozen in excitement waiting to see what was about to happen, and finally Luger just punches Giant in the balls and then beats him in the legs and body with that baseball bat. Mark Curtis dramatically drags himself over and counts the pin, and the fans rightly lost their minds for all of this. Luger cannot be denied. 

Hollywood Hogan vs. Roddy Piper

ER: Commentary calls this the biggest match of our lifetimes, and Michael Buffer manages to top that by calling it the Match of the Century. It's ridiculous, sure, and got mocked by smart fans at the time, but over 9,000 people in Nashville all bought into it to some extent. Buffer's intro is one of his best, genuinely adding to the match hype. Hogan looks like he's having a blast as a heel, with his broad MJF-esque "I'M a HEEL" shtick playing out like Hogan had been dying to do house show heel routines for a decade. It's a really great Hogan performance and it really felt like both men were playing up to their current abilities. Piper moves older than his actual age (and it's crazy that Hogan and Piper were only 43 and 42 here, respectively) and so Hogan really carries this by having a super active performance. Piper was limited but spirited, and he's good enough to make that work, but Hogan was the one working to make this big. Hogan stalls and stooges and tries to avoid Piper, slaps him on breaks and bails to the floor each time. Piper is mostly limited to punches and clotheslines and can't move quick, so Hogan avoiding him works and it makes it better when Piper finally tees off. Piper used a few different eye pokes and I love how Hogan sold each one. 

Piper is not going to be above fighting dirty and the crowd was fully behind Piper fighting dirty to combat Hogan's dirty fighting, and Piper moves stiffly enough that he draws a lot of sympathy, and he's able to pull off the performance of an old dog dragged back to another fight. Things get great when Piper gets knocked to the floor, tumbling hard, but fights back against Hogan and Dibiase. Piper gets his belt and whips Hogan around ringside like in a great LA Park match. All the belt shots looked really nasty, Piper not holding back and Hogan leaning into all of them. The whole match was an escalation of dirty fighting, and it peaked when Hogan started kicking at Piper's long visible hip surgery scar, even locking in an abdominal stretch while hammering on that scar. They don't quite know how to transition into the finishing stretch but there are some big moments, like Piper pulling off a vertical suplex while Schiavone wondered if his legs would hold, and a big missed Hogan legdrop. Schiavone was great at covering for things while keeping the excitement live, and his excitement really added to the chaotic ending. 

The Giant comes out and lifts Piper for a chokeslam, but a fan also charges the ring and grabs Hogan's legs, so the Giant has to keep Piper in the air while security roughs up the fan. It throws off the timing but still plays huge when Piper bites Giant in the face and dumps him to the floor, then somehow beats Hogan with a sleeper, with Randy Anderson delivering a great shocked face when Hogan's arm drops a third time. I was really into this match and thought it was far better than most thought at the time. The moment was hurt by being non-title. I'm not actually sure they ever said it was non-title, they just never announced it was FOR the title and didn't talk about it during the match, like they were intentionally avoiding it. Dusty even calls Piper the champ after the win, with some immediate awkward silence as Dusty clearly gets corrected off-mic. 

This was not the great workrate PPV that it has the reputation for being, a rep that it mostly got by having two long singles matches early in the card between cruiserweight legends. This was still a good in-ring show, but not to the level it has been written about being. The two cruiserweight matches have flaws that weren't as glaring in 1996, but even though they aren't the MOTYC that people wanted them to be in 1996 doesn't mean they aren't still entertaining as hell. The Hogan/Piper match doesn't deserve the bile that it got at the time as I thought it was an excellent Hogan performance, working around a guy who hadn't wrestled an actual match in 10 months. It was a top to bottom mix of styles and matches, and that gives a show a high floor. 

Best Matches:

1. Lex Luger vs. The Giant

2. Outsiders vs. Faces of Fear

3. DDP vs. Eddie Guerrero

4. Jushin Liger vs. Rey Misterio Jr. 

Weakest Matches:

1. Akira Hokuto vs. Madusa

2. Chris Benoit vs. Jeff Jarrett

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WCW World War 3 11/24/96

From beautiful (?) Norfolk, Virginia, in front of over 10,000 wrestling fans looking at three large gleaming wrestling rings set up like the Tri-Force, comes the only PPV appearances of Roadblock and Tony Rumble. Who wouldn't want to watch this!? I've never seen it. Let's ride.

1. Rey Misterio Jr. vs. The Ultimate Dragon

ER: This was wild. Ultimo (I'm going to call him Ultimo, but used their weird Ultimate spelling above since they had it in their graphic) took like 85% of this match and won the thing about as definitively as someone could win a match. I guess I had forgotten that Rey became a big star, but they were still pushing Ultimo as a clearly bigger star. Dragon broke out every single piece of offense he knew and it all looked great. This whole thing is just a straight run of bigger and bigger moves. His leg kick combos looked crisp and looked really good for a guy who prides himself on not working stiff. His bodyslams looked Finlay stiff, so that was an awesome surprise. Soon he was building up to big backbreakers, a great tombstone piledriver, a piledriver on the floor, a powerbomb, a RUNNING powerbomb, vicious brainbuster...I mean it was a crazy one-sided beating and Misterio is really great at taking a one sided beating. The crowd gets almost uncomfortable watching Dragon just wreck Rey over and over.

Heenan: "Misterio has landed on the back of his head at least 15 times in this match!"

He's not wrong. Rey finally makes a little run by getting a boot up in the corner, but he overshoots an ambitious two rope split legged moonsault. Even Dusty has to point out on commentary that Misterio got like none of it. Rey has a couple nice rana roll ups, but it just makes more want to see more of Ultimo's awesome video game offense. And boy do I ever get my wish. Rey goes for a huge springboard rana, but Ultimo catches it, bounces him off the top rope, and then absolutely PLANTS Rey with a sitout powerbomb. It finishes the match, and looked like something that should have DEFINITELY finished the match.

2. Nick Patrick vs. Chris Jericho

ER: Goddamn this match rules. This makes me so pissed that we didn't get a run of Nick Patrick as a worker during this era WCW. He's like a god tier Danny McBride character in this match, just a magnificent stooge who genuinely looked like a better worker here than half of the active roster (and WCW had an impressive as hell roster). This match is brilliant. Jericho has one arm tied behind his back, and they work a fantastic match not only based around Jericho with one good arm, but Patrick doing mean offense to a guy with one arm while also convincingly taking a beating from that same man. Both guys' offense looks really good in this, Jericho pulling out a really impressive performance with use of only one arm, breaking out with a cool kick combo, a big leaping shoulderblock, actually some pretty impressive stuff with your body balance thrown off. But Nick Patrick is a real marvel here. He works like a great Memphis worker, throwing nice submarine angle uppercut right hands and fast excellently worked left jabs. He has as many doofus stooge faces as John Tatum, and any wrestler who tips the Tatum Scales for me is going to immediately be a guy who I champion. Patrick is not only a great bumper, he's able to take great bumps while conveying a guy who isn't someone who should be taking bumps.

I remember seeing an interview with Martin Landau about his wonderful performance in Ed Wood, where he talked about how seriously he took the role of Bela Lugosi; how he thought Lugosi was a true legend who he wanted to honor, so much that he thought out each aspect of the character in detailed fashion. And he talked about the crazy method depths he went to properly capture Bela, down to the fact that he didn't just want to do an accurate Romanian accent, he wanted to do an accent of a Romanian man who was insecure about his accent negatively affecting his career. Nick Patrick seems to understand his role in this match as well as Landau knew what tone to use to play Lugosi. Nick Patrick brawled like Windham and stooged like Tatum, and that's something I'm going to be impressed as hell by. Patrick uses the setting really well, brawling to the floor, hitting a cool ring post bump into a ring post joining two rings, setting up a spot where Jericho missed a punch and decked the ring post (Jericho played into all these transition spots GREAT), Patrick found cool ways to take this match into a couple rings and show off to several sides of the arena. That's an AMAZING skill. Patrick throws a ton of great punches throughout, great quick jabs, and then to show you how much of a rebel badass he is Nick Patrick does the Curt Hennig rolling neck snap! Patrick even takes a back drop bump, with Jericho setting it up impressively for a guy with one arm. This match was an absolute blast, I can't believe it isn't some kind of cult favorite. It's really great. Patrick is a legend and there's no sign that he'd even worked a match in the prior decade, and then he turns in this incredible performance?? I would have this super high on a 1996 MOTY List, as ridiculous as that sounds. Not just a superior gimmick match, but a superior pro wrestling match.

3. Giant vs. Jeff Jarrett

ER: This was pretty great, a cool bout derailed by a Crow Sting appearance that should have pissed off Jarrett and Giant. This match felt like a cool Coliseum Video hidden gem, like a cool Doink vs. Giant Gonzalez match that you've never heard anyone talk about. Giant was really quick and had different movement than when he was older and slower, so it was cool to see him throw a hard lariat with a lot more lunge. Jarrett bumped nice for him but also made sure his own shots looked good, and I like seeing the kind of shots in David/Goliath matches where the smaller guy jumps up for corner 10 count punches but gets shoved off, bumping backwards, and these two do a great version of that. Sting comes out and walks around the rafters, and Jarrett and Giant have to continue showing interest while literally the entire crowd is now watching Sting. But these two are good soldiers and this is a fun professional well worked match. Giant takes a big bump to the floor, and misses a big elbow drop off the middle buckle. He hits a hard bodyslam and this whole show can do no wrong.

We got a really great Hogan/Piper contract signing, genuinely up there with the great contract signings of all time, and I'm someone who really likes a good contract signing. The whole nWo is out there surrounding Piper, Hogan, Nash, Hall, Bischoff, Giant, all closing in as Piper talks tall. Hogan is really mean on the mic, some of his best mic work I've heard from this era. He keeps needling Piper about his hip, makes Piper lift up his kilt to show his hip surgery scar, says "I normally don't beat up cripples, but I can't wait to beat up a gimp!" Holy shit, that's pretty cruel. Piper getting jumped and doing his best to fight back while going down was great, and him staggering back to his feet before the nWo had completely left was a strong visual. I'd never really heard about this segment (and wasn't watching wrestling when this originally aired) but this should be talked about as one of the best examples of building interest in a match with a hot contract signing. I really want to watch Starrcade 96 right now.

4. Amazing French Canadians vs. Harlem Heat

ER: Guess what, this also ruled. This felt like an ECW house show tag, 4 big guys hitting hard and bumping hard, building to some awesome highspots. Rougeau was a great bumper in tags like this, really made Harlem Heat look like stars. Booker misses a high sidekick and catches the top rope, and the Canadians take control and the match keeps getting more fun. We build to this insane spot where the Canadians stack up a table across the ring corner, then put the RING STEPS on top of that table, and then already-insane-in-1996 PCO climbs to the top buckle and to the top of the ring steps, and MISSES the biggest cannonball ever attempted. This would have actually murdered Stevie Ray if he didn't get out of the way. I watched his ROH match from Mania weekend the day before I watched this and in that he gets powerbombed from the ring down to the floor - nobody catching him, just literally a powerbomb to the floor - and miss a cannonball from the top to the ring apron. This guy really is genuinely crazy, it's been happening for at least 23 years and at a certain point it can't be a work. PCO is nuts. Booker throws a ton of cherries on this delicious sundae with a vicious Harlem Hangover, that leg whipping perfectly and safely across PCO's jaw. Great 10 minute banger, best PPV ever so far.

We get a brief brawl between Col. Parker and Sherri Martel as part of the tag match stipulation, and it's freaking great. Sherri jumps him and the fans get way into it. Parker takes a huge bump over the top to the floor and Dusty is losing his shit the entire time, going absolutely bonkers. Sherri hits a couple flying clotheslines and a big crossbody off the top and the entire crowd is standing when she hits that crossbody. This is the perfect way to do a manager brawl, and I even wish we got a longer version of it.

5. Psychosis vs. Dean Malenko

ER: Goddamn this PPV absolutely smokes. This is a tough match with both guys staying tight and grounded, relying on some nice strikes and building to a couple big bumps, working a lot of more BattlArts style submission sections. The crowd is silent as hell which is a shame, they've been so hot for everything else and maybe they were already burned out? The PPV has been nothing but great matches and great promos. It's such a fun match to be quiet during, and they seem like a crowd who would be into their thing. Psychosis does his rope flip bump but lands on his feet instead of head, and turns it into a cool spinkick comeback; it's like he used that bump the same way you see a rebound lariat and it was cool. Psychosis does make up for the missing "crazy bump" quota and take a nutso leap to nothing off the top, catching his face on the guardrail. It's one of those dangerous Psychosis bumps where you can't tell if he botched something, or if he's an all timer and missed that ugly on purpose (I think it was the latter). Dusty excitedly says "We in the midst of it" and it sounds cool and he's absolutely right. This whole thing had a cool WCW BattlArts vibe, cool subs and matwork with some flashy quick armdrag variations and some nice strikes, something that I might not have known how to process when this originally aired. Maybe that's why the crowd was so quiet. I seem to remember the general opinion being that these two were a disappointing "mainstay" cruiserweight match-up in WCW, but maybe that was just a stupid guy's opinion that got amplified too loud? Because this match ruled.

6. The Outsiders vs. Faces of Fear vs. The Nasty Boys

ER: Shit this PPV really does feel like the total embodiment of Where the Big Boys Play. This PPV has had a ton of big dudes running into each other. This match is filled with a cool mixture of stiff motherfucker and sneaky motherfucker, and that's a combination you don't often get from a big time professional wrestling company. This is more like a three way race on Scooby's Laff-A-Lympics, and Laff-A-Lympics as Wrestling is something I want right this very second. FoF and Nasty Boys especially kick the shit out of each other, mean knees to the face, chops to the neck, full force collisions; at one point Meng clotheslines Knobbs so hard that you wonder why you ever watch anything that isn't pro wrestling. Outsiders do an amusing job of staying out of this while the other two teams beat bruises into each other, clapping from the apron at the men performing for them. BUT then they get tagged in and Hall is throwing a nice right hand one moment, but then being choked and thrown violently into the corner by Barbarian. This is a legendary big boys battle and nobody is talking about it! I've heard absolutely no opinions on this show and it's fucking incredible. Barbarian slams into Hall with an avalanche that is not so much an avalanche as it is just Barbarian running full speed into Hall. We get an incredible moment of various guys leaping at and attacking guys on the apron, the whole thing feels messy and violent in the best ways. I think every guy in this match misses an elbow drop that they don't actually expect to me a missed elbow drop. Like there is honestly a match-long prank war to see who can make someone miss an elbow more painfully. There are multiple piledrivers, Jimmy Hart is wearing his Misfits jacket with fucking skulls on the shoulders, this whole thing rules. It's a long match, too, over 15 minutes, and it completely rules. I am so in the bag for this show. My god.

7. WORLD WAR 3!!!

ER: These things were terrible, right? I have a very large TV, and when they cut to three separate screens you officially can barely see a thing. I would wager most 1996 viewers were watching this, somehow, on a TV at least half the size of my 2019 TV. This is a 60 person nude beach fuckfest filmed by a guy hiding a half mile away in the bushes. It's the kind of thing that would actually be better if it was just fullscreen and they just switched cameras a ton. It's a damn shame really, you hate to see it, because you can't see it. Because from every minuscule camera shot this whole match REALLLY looked like it ruled. First, it's freaking weird. The entrance might be the best part as 60 different WCW guys just walk out single file and the order is almost completely unplanned, just an endless parade of guys that you mostly know. The whole thing had great energy, you just couldn't see 90% of it at any given time. 

We start with Benoit jumping Sullivan on the floor and brawling through the crowd (with Konnan and Ray Traylor?), Tony Rumble is not only in this match for reasons that wouldn't make any sense to me or anybody, but he's also the first eliminated and Dusty yells out on commentary "Tony Rumble IS GONE!" From there we get flashes of brilliance when we can actually see any of what's going on. Villano IV punches the hell out of Jarrett, Parka punches people, a ton of eliminations look fantastic (Dave Taylor flies wildly off an Alex Wright dropkick, Road Block - in his only PPV appearance - eats a huge clothesline, we get a spot where 8 different guys do running corner attacks on Ron Studd and then DOGPILE him in the ring!), and the final 10 is a fantastic collection of the nWo vs. DDP, Regal, Luger, and Rey. It's so damn good. 

Once they get back to fullscreen and run through all the nWo vs. WCW, it really shows how hot of a battle royal this appeared to be. Regal tricks DDP into charging him and DDP flies to the floor, it takes Hall, Nash, and Syxx to eliminate Regal and he fights the whole way, and while the Giant win was exciting it really should have been Luger. The EASY MVP of the match was Regal. Every single time he popped into camera he looked like a megastar, and he was by far the greatest part of that final 8. Regal was an incredible fighting babyface here, and he stood out more than anybody throughout the entire match; from lacing into Riggs early on to walking tall right up to his elimination, this is an underrated great Regal performance.

ER: Wow, what a PPV. This is honestly one of the best PPVs I've ever watched. This needs to be discussed more. I need to do a podcast where I have a new guest on and we just watch and talk about World War 3 1996. New week, new guest, same PPV.

World War 3 and Me.

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My Favorite Wrestling: WCW WorldWide 11/3/96

We continue our little mini journey through '96 WCW. This episode turned out to be one of the all time best episodes of WCW syndicated TV. Catch it!


1. Scott Norton vs. Mike Marcello

Total glorious massacre. Marcello was like the nerdy Masao Inoue of waiting in the ring jobbers. He had a cotton ball in his ear and Schiavone talked about how he had an ear infection. Good grief. Marcello starts off really fun by rolling under a Norton clothesline, hitting a dropkick, rolling out of the way of a Norton elbowdrop (and Norton really plants his elbow on the miss), then leaping onto Norton's back like Inigo Montoya, but from there it's all Norton massacring him. Norton breaks out a couple headbutt variations that I've never seen him use (one with him holding Marcello's head and the other more of a thrust headbutt). Marcello was really good selling the headbutts, checking his head for blood. Okay, he clearly just thought he got busted open hardway, but it added to the match. He bumps around real nice for Norton, Norton destroys him with the shoulderbreaker. Yeah, this is what you'd want out of Norton vs. Mike Marcello. Mike Marcello, the poor man with the ear infection.

2. Dave Taylor vs. Bobby Eaton

We cut to the crowd booing Taylor, particularly a mother and her 10 yr old daughter, both of whom are seen wearing midriff halter tops. And oh shit this match is great (except for the stupid pinfall finish). This gets almost 6 minutes which is surprising, but Taylor jumps Eaton before the bell and just blasts him with a couple uppercuts, but the whole match is Eaton fighting back with his gorgeous and violent punches. Taylor does a bunch of fun bumps for all the punches, a few slow falling tree bumps, a comic spill through the ropes to the floor, and Eaton mixes up the blows between his beautiful shot to the jaw and blows to the body. A great spot sees Taylor go for a boston crab only for Eaton to punch him in the stomach, dropping Taylor at the waist, who then takes a punch to the face. Do you like perfect punches? Do you like nasty uppercuts? You'll like all of this. Finish is goofy now but may have seemed novel 20 years ago, as Taylor traps Eaton in the same boston crab position and does a flip over cradle, but Eaton gets a shoulder up and Taylor is the one who gets counted down. Which obviously makes no sense since nobody would have possibly thought Eaton was pinning Taylor in his position, but they tried to get cute on us. Taylor kicks the shit out of Eaton afterwards, as he should. Both guys looked killer here. Taylor had some cool leg picks and both had no problem dishing out stiff shots. One of the best Taylor syndicated matches, as usually his matches (win or lose) only get 2-3 minutes.

We get a perfect Arn Anderson promo on Luger, talking about how Luger has unquestionably the best body in the biz, and Anderson says "And you know, I think I look pretty good myself, but nobody would say I have a perfect body. But beneath your exterior, your body is made of paper mache, and I'm gonna expose that." There have been a lot of great promo guys in wrestling history, but I think Arn Anderson is far and away the greatest pre-taped backstage promo guy in wrestling history. There were always cool little layers to his backstage promos, things he would set up at the beginning and wrap up throughout the whole promo, neat little moments of personality, just perfectly delivered. Go ahead, name me one guy who is better at these type of promos. NAME ONE!

3. Faces of Fear vs. Casey Thompson & Cliff Sheets

What an odd little jobber squash. Casey Thompson and Cliff Sheets sound PRECISELY like the names of two men who deserve to have the shit kicked out of them by Faces of Fear. Except Thompson and Sheets didn't quite get the message. Meng jumps them at the bell with some absolutely nasty shots that neither of them expected, but they kept doing little things to be really annoying to Meng and Barbarian. Sheets and Thompson were wearing these ill-fitting matching singlets, but keep seeming to go against the script. They take the double teams, they take some nasty vertical suplexes (with a follow up stiff Meng splash off the top), but then do these little irritating things that just...feel like things they're not supposed to do. Like when Meng goes for an elbowdrop and Sheets moves, Meng seems like he didn't expect Sheets to move. THAT'S not supposed to be what happens!! Sheets is supposed to be the guy taking an unexpected elbow to the face. Meng isn't supposed to be the guy unexpectedly whiffing on a elbow! Later we get some hardway powerbombs where is seems like neither of our heroes Thompson and Sheets would quite rotate and land properly. Barbarian hits a nasty Kick of Fear and....Thompson saves his partner from the pinfall? Jobbers don't break up pins against the Faces of Fear! FoF actually seem genuinely confused, looking at each other like "who the fuck are these guys!?" Sheets and Thompson take headbutts, shots to the throat, Meng fishhooks one of them while biting their face, Hugh Morrus gets involved with actual capable punches, and these men finally get pinned. Who were these men, who tried to go off script with Meng? I fear for them and their loose cannon brains, but am also glad they existed 20 years ago. With their clear deathwish they probably drove home that night headlong into traffic.

4. Juventud Guerrera vs. Konnan

Holy shit you guys. This was great. Wanna see Konnan trying to work like Negro Navarro? Here ya go. Konnan locks on some weird submissions, works a cravate, works some weird Regal leg reversals, the world is confused. Juvy was crazy in '96, and Konnan clearly respected him as this might be the only '96 Konnan match I've seen that wasn't just a sloppily assembled Konnan moves exhibition. Konnan is a total dickhead standing and jumping on Juvy's face, but he also gives Juvy a bunch of stuff, taking all of his spin kicks and dropkicks. Juvy takes a wild flapjack bump to the hard rotating WorldWide stage, then flips out of a Konnan powerbomb on the floor, and since Juvy is a crazy person he ends up taking an electric chair bump on the freaking ring apron. You picture that being done in 1996. That feels like something that would happen in a modern indy dream match. Back in and Juvy botches a springboard whoknowswhat, redoes it into a backflip only to get brained by a brutal Konnan lariat for the win. I never EVER would have thought a Konnan match could have made a comp tape, but ladies, here it is. This match was bananas. Maybe the only good Konnan WCW match I've seen.

5. Diamond Dallas Page vs. Eddie Guerrero

God I miss Eddie. He looked so damn good here. DDP also looked good and is a guy who ages really well on rewatch, just because you can tell he's always working so damn hard in his matches. Eddie starts the match at a super fast pace, and DDP is a loon so he aims to match Eddie's pace for the entire  8 minutes. That's awesome, and the result is awesome. You get him taking fast Eddie armdrags, and early DDP gets hung up in the ropes like when TJ Perkins does his Spiderman feint, grasping the ropes horizontally to lure his opponent. DDP treats it like a "Andre trapped in the ropes" spots and it works smashingly. God I love DDP. Eddie is not to be outdone in this so the match sees him taking three different and unique flapjack bumps (one off a super high flapjack, another with DDP doing a belly to back suplex but Eddie lands on his stomach, and another flapjack bump from the ring to the floor!), DDP does a really cool gutbuster, holding Eddie up on his shoulder like Scott Norton's shoulderbreaker, but then dropping him down stomach first over his knee. We get a hold the ropes abdominal stretch spot, but DDP spices it up by taking palm strike shots at Eddie's ribs. Eddie does a cool little armdrag to get out of it.

And then...

We hit one of the absolute worst WCW syndicated finishes I've seen. Maybe THEE worst. I had no memories of there being so many terrible finishes to these syndicated matches. I foolishly remember the opposite, with there being a nice hierarchy established and there being actual satisfying finishes. Clearly I was a fool. Here's the finish to Eddie/DDP: Eddie takes a bump to the floor, lands near Chavo. Eddie then gets DQ'd for Chavo interference. Chavo never touched anybody, literally was just standing at ringside. Eddie fell near him. Eddie was the one who took the bump, and then got DQ'd immediately after the bump. DDP was nowhere near either man at this point. It would have made just as much sense to say the overweight woman sitting on the Rascal wearing a No Fear shirt interfered, as she was just as close to DDP. We've officially found the worst ending of any match in history. If whatever happened here was worthy of a DQ then I'm not actually sure how pro wrestling exists. The DQ bell would sound whenever two guys looked somewhat cross at each other.

Horrible, awful finish to an otherwise completely awesome episode.

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My Favorite Wrestling! WCW Worldwide 11/9/97

1. Mark Starr vs. Goldberg

Wow, the fans are booing Goldberg as he comes out. Old ladies are giving him the thumbs down. That means that they were giving Mark Starr the thumbs up right before this. How bizarre is that taken out of context? Look into the future just a couple months and see where Goldberg is. But here he is on Worldwide getting booed by old ladies. The match isn't much but it's really fun seeing a huge era in its infancy, maybe the last time that WCW got something right. You can tell that they knew what they were doing here. They couldn't have known just how big he was going to be, but it's really satisfying knowing that they at least had a plan and were seeing it through. Brain and Tony were talking big things for Goldberg the whole match, saying how he was gonna win WW3 and fight for the title. He was already using the "Who's Next?" catchphrase after the match. They were already putting over the spear and jackhammer finish. Goldberg has a nice powerslam here, and shows some major power by deadlifting Starr a couple times...and also awkwardly stands around for large amounts of time, just waiting for...stuff to happen. But again, it's really fun to see such a major part of wrestling history in its infancy.

2. Mike Rapada vs. Scott Hall

Damn, it's kind of crazy that guys like Hall were still appearing on Worldwide at this point (and in the 2nd match of the show!). I'd bet serious money that nobody anywhere near as big as Hall appeared on Worldwide from '98 to the end. And by the way this squash was really fun. Rapada got absolutely zero offense, but bumped HUGE for Hall, and Hall and Syxx stiffed the bejesus out of him. Hall threw some of the nastiest punches of his career, threw a corner clothesline so stiff that Tony and Bobby couldn't stop talking about it, Syxx cheated constantly and played it up to the crowd great (punching Rapada and then blowing on his fist, elbowing him on the apron and then hamming it up by shaking out his elbow). This is what a jobber squash should be.

3. Scott & Steve Armstrong vs. Harlem Heat

It's been kind of eye opening how bad Harlem Heat were in retrospect. It's no revelation that Stevie Ray looks bad in the ring, but I had really fond views on Booker before starting this. I remembered the Benoit matches, the Saturn and Martel matches, and generally liked his WWE run. But boy has he looked pretty lousy upon rewatch. I don't think I could name 5 sloppier guys in the promotion. He must have just had a really great Jan/Feb '98 and that's where my brain froze. All that being said, the match was alright. HH looked bleh, but they worked stiff so it kind of made up for it. Armstrongs are always game but really they weren't given tons here.

4. Shiima Nobunaga/Sumo Fuji vs. Meng/Barbarian

Well this was fun. The FoF squash the Toryumon boys for 4+ minutes, and while they no sold their offense the whole way through, they still allowed the boys do at least do stuff. CIMA hits a bunch of slick dropkicks, Fuji gets to actually work shoulder block sequences with Barbarian (and holds his own!) and the FoF throw tons of big boots to the face, big chops and big slams.

5. Renegade vs. Steve McMichael

Yeah, yeah. You see those two names up there and you know it's not going to be very good, right? Renegade walks out first and you go "Oh. Renegade is in the main event. Huh." And then Mongo comes out and you just kinda know what you're in for. And you know? It wasn't very good. But really this wasn't *that* bad. This was probably the best match these two are capable of, and that has to be worth something. It's almost 5 minutes, and the main thing that stood out to me was that they didn't rest at all. No chin locks. I've gotten so used to 4 minute WWE matches that no matter what have to include a chinlock transition to comeback, that it was kind of jarring seeing two big guys work a 5 minute sprint. Yeah, some of the moves didn't look good. Renegade looks like he couldn't punch through paper. But for what it was, an actual fast paced match between a couple of lugs, this worked for me.

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My Favorite Wrestling! WCW Pro 8/24/96

Good grief Larry is wearing an absurd button up tie dye shirt and really seems like he's attempting to look worse than any number of crowd members wearing t-shirts with Taz dunking a basketball. I'm also convinced that t-shirts were only made in color "white" during most of the 90s. Thinking back to all of my No Fear shirts when I was in 7th grade and those were all white. This is just a whole crowd of white shirted people in weird fitting pants. You can't see much detail, but I'm assuming there were at least 7 Big Johnson shirts in this crowd.

1. Mike Enos vs. Chad Brock

Shit yeah this sounds fun on paper, and it really was a fantastic Enos showcase. Not only does Enos tear into Brock but he also makes Brock's sub-par stomach kicks look good. Enos shows ass for Brock and misses a giant elbow drop. Enos also hits an insane standing overhead belly to belly which is really impressive since Brock isn't a tiny guy. Enos' strikes look great and he came off like an absolute mauler here.

2. Faces of Fear vs. Chip Minton/Billy Payne

You know what? I'm calling bullshit on the monster Meng. This dude was the Bruiser Brody of the 90s. Everybody has heard so many stories about Meng biting peoples' noses off and bar fights and Finlay backstage staredowns and they just think this guy is thee fucking shooter. But you know what? Meng usually looks like dog shit in the ring. His strikes usually look like garbage and he rarely stiffs up jobbers. Billy Payne had a jheri curl mohawk and a horrible singlet. Nobody deserved a stiff beating more than this guy. And it just didn't happen. Barbarian worked Payne's ass over something fierce. Booted his face, threw some crazy stiff chops. Meng just makes goofy faces and locks on his death grip. He does hit a stiff atomic drop on Chip Minton, but that seemed more like Minton getting his trademark crazy height on moves and launching himself balls first into Meng's knee. So that's it, this is the moment where I no longer get excited for Meng vs. jobber matches. The guy was just too much of a lovable teddy bear to hurt poor little jobbers. All rep no actual video to back it up. Yeah, it was amazing that one time he speared the cardboard cutout of Goldberg, but I need some nose biting or finger breaking before I come back on board.

3. Chavo Guerrero Jr. vs. Rey Misterio Jr.

According to Chris Cruise this is the first time these two have met, and that's pretty damn cool if true (and it's not unbelievable as I don't think Chavo really worked anywhere before WCW. If he did then I've never seen it). Rey takes a lunatic monkey flip bump that lands him into the ropes and he and Eddy are like the only guys I've seen do that spot regularly and it just seems super dangerous. Rey recovers and sends Chavo to the floor, and hits a somersault senton and just splats butt first into Chavo and Chavo lands with a brutal thud onto the unforgiving rotating platform that the Pro ring is placed on. And Rey comes up limping and holding his knee. Hmmmm. I mean, knowing what I know now it's not a stretch to think that Rey's knees were already feeling like a bag of potato chips that had been stomped on, but we'll see how this plays out. Back in and Chavo starts wrenching and elbow dropping the knee so thank god. Makes me just think that Dean was missing physical cues in that other match, but...naw I have no clue what happened in that match. And HOLY FUCK Chavo hits a plancha to the floor and Rey absorbs it halfway on the stage and half off and they splat right onto the edge of that stupid ass stage set up and Rey has those 2009 Misawa "awwww fuck that hurt" eyes going on. Back in and Chavo hits a beautiful moonsault press just like his daddy, but misses a springboard crossbody and Rey pins him. Chris Cruise says that was impressive because Rey showed that he can hang on the mat as opposed to just aerial attacks, but Rey literally did nothing whatsoever on the mat in this match. Still, match was plenty fun.

4. DDP vs. Craig Pittman

Well...that was an 8 minute DDP/Craig Pittman match. About 3 minutes of this was DDP holding a chinlock, building to him getting caught with his feet on the ropes. So that whole gag happened. Pittman is a real odd duck as sometimes he looks really cool in the ring and other times his style just does not mesh and he moves really clunky. Like here. DDP will bump big for an old man and Pittman ate a clothesline real nice and took the Diamond Cutter on the floor but...this just didn't work out.

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