Post by MT on Sept 2, 2014 10:25:08 GMT -4
I don't know about anyone else, but I was pretty excited to see WCW Monday Nitro show up on the WWE Network yesterday (did you know you can subscribe for just 9.99 per month with a six month commitment?). So much so that I felt compelled to write this goofy little review and start a thread about it.
WCW Nitro
episode 117, Memorial Day 1996
This seems like a good place to start watching, since this is were the "Monday Night Wars" really began. There were still plenty of the hallmarks of "down home rasslin" that was a fixture of TBS at 6:05PM Saturday throughout the 80s, a little of the cartoon show of early 90s WCW with Dungeon of Doom and the Blood Runs Cold tease, and a little flashes of what was to come. This being the first two hour broadcast there were still a few kinks to be worked out as far as the format. Shadowy 18 year old memories lead me to recall that I could tell something big was on the horizon, but there was no way to tell just how big it would get at that time. The "internet wrestling community" was not really a thing yet, but anyone who read a magazine or hopped on one of those old forums knew Hall and Nash had jumped ship and were headed to WCW a little while before Hall's "invasion" here, but it was still kind of cool to watch unfold. I figured they'd come up with some cheesy variations of "Razor Ramon" and "Diesel" (Blade and Big Rig?) and ruin the whole damn thing based on prior performance. Of course we know how it turned out now, but that was my thought at the time.
Tony Schivonne and Larry Zbyszko did the show into and Tony announced that from that night forward they'd be moving to two hours, with Eric Bishcoff and Bobby Heenan handling announcing duties on hour number two. Tony said the show's main event would be a WCW title match between champion The Giant and recently ousted Dungeon Of Doom member The Shark (AKA Earthquake, later to become Golga of the Oddities in a very strange and sharp downward trajectory of a career). Shark getting a WCW title match made as much sense 18 years ago as it does to anyone reading it out of the blue today. In other words, none whatsoever. They wasted no time getting started with the opening match.
MATCH #1:
Ric Flair and Arn Anderson (w/Woman and Elizabeth) beat American Males, Scott Riggs and Marcus Bagwell
Flair and Arn really went all out to make Bagwell and Riggs look good in this fifteen minute match. It seems clear in hindsight that this was all about breaking Bagwell out of the pack, and a couple of miscues by Riggs at the end cost his team the victory. Flair and Arn had a "VIP section" at ringside and were serving champagne to the commentary team.
After the match Mean Gene interviewed the winners beside the catered VIP section. They talked about the team's issues with Steve McMichael because Flair had been making overtures to Mongo's wife, and how Mongo had recruited Kevin Greene to come in for a match against the Horsemen. At the same time there's the issue with Flair and Savage over Elizabeth. Flair mentioned that Elizabeth was using her alimony "Savage's big bank roll" to be Flair's "sugar mama". Classic Flair stuff and they're still rolling with a WWF story from years prior. A suspicious man might think Flair was writing this himself, what with every woman in the building either hanging on his arm or supposedly wanting to.
After the break they showed Mongo and Kevin Greene training in the gym for their match with Flair and Arn. Generic weight lifting montage with them grunting and calling out Flair's name as the eek out sets of dumbell rows and things of this nature.
MATCH #2:
The Mauler w/ Col Parker vs. Steve Doll
In the opening segments the commentators had talked about how Colonel Rob Parker was so proud of his new protege he was going to debut that night. He brought out "The Mauler", who was Mean Mike Enos (or Blake of the Beverly Brothers) wearing leather chaps. His opponent was Steve Doll, very recently Steven Dunn of the WWF tag team Well Dunn. So it's basically a member of the Beverly Brothers against one half of Well Dunn with everything interesting about those two midcard WWF teams stripped away, and the fans seem quite aware of this fact. This one went far longer than it should have, with them even taking a commercial break in the middle. They came back from break with SCOTT HALL making his way through the crowd.
Hall was the real point of this entire match and segment, as he brazenly stepped over the guard rail and into the ring WITH NOT ONE MEMBER OF SECURITY TRYING TO STOP HIM. This seemed very odd at the time, but it was kind of a slow burn reveal as to why he got away with that one (Eric Bischoff was in on it the entire time, fools!). Anyway, Doll left straight away and Enos took off at the urging of Colonel Parker, never to be featured outside of WCW Saturday Night again. Hall made some remarks about coming in and taking over and that he'd have a challenge to make in the second hour. This format of using the first hour to set up the "money hour" when they'd be head to head with RAW, was established straight off the bat and would continue until RAW escalated the war by matching them at two hours (which led to hour number THREE of Nitro, but I'm getting way ahead of myself). At any rate, Hall once again walked away completely unmolested by security, not a wrinkle on his righteous Canadian tuxedo (shirtless with the sleeveless jean jacket variation).
MATCH #3:
Craig "Pitbull" Pittman w/Teddy Long vs. Diamond Dallas Page
Long was acting kind of in the Reverend Slick role here, "saving" the bad guy Pittman and showing him the high road to low success. Diamond Dallas Page was still the slick talking bad guy coming off a tainted Battle Bowl PPV victory and sporting the sweet Battle Bowl championship ring to prove it, just developing the character that would propel him to major success a few years down the road.
Let me sidetrack here and bitch about Craig Pittman. I never liked this guy in the ring. To me he always reeked of the type of guy who was never a fan and thought there was "money to be made in that stuff". Don't get me wrong; they guy had legitimate credentials on the mat as a champion amatuer and good martial arts skills being a member of the USMC. But he always did the hokiest "mean mug" look coming to the ring, his strikes looked like a kid pulling punches in a play fight, and he never did seem to get what it took to make a decent pro. But dammit that didn't stop WCW from giving him a hundred chances to stink up the joint on TV trying to prove he could do it as a pro. He never did.
The match its self was okay for a Pitbull match, with DDP winning via Diamond Cutter after shit canning Long against the guard rail, distracting Pittman in the process.
Next up was a video package detailing the spiraling out of control nature of the Macho Man. MACHO MAN IS NUTS, KIDS! Also, the sky is blue, grass is green, and the pope does indeed shit in the woods. Video detailed how ELizabeth showed up spending his money (her divorce settlemen) on the Nature Boy and he lost his mind. You know, as one does. Anyway, he was banned from the building at this point, he kept trying to get in, again this video put that fact over.
Mean Gene did a backstage interview with Shark. "Backstage" being that corny locker room set they used to use. Shark was mad about being kicked out of the Dungeon of Doom. I suspect it was because even they decided he looked completely ridiculous with the shark teeth painted on his face. Shark was apparently feeling kind of funny took, because he had to make a comment about how he was the man who almost ended Hulkamania. Once again, that was in the WWF and it was about six years prior to this, but Shark probably felt he needed to say something to make himself seem like a threat to the Giant since he had been booked basically like the clown he looked like up until that point.
Gene used that comment about Hogan to transition to what seemed at the time like a completely obnoxious video package detailing how Hogan had been hob nobbing "in Hollywood" and all of the celebrities that were Hulkamaniacs. In hindsight I think you can see where they wanted to go with that. Hogan had allegedly not gotten on board with that direction just yet (I write "allegedly" because when dealing with WCW from about 1996---oh, right up until the time they cloesd, it's hard to tell what was real and what was fiction when dealing with backstage stories). From a fans perspective in 1996 this just looked kind of like celebrity pandering.
Hour 2 kicked off well before the top of the hour, obviously trying to hook people in so they wouldn't turn whe RAW came on USA. In fact on Netork "hour 1" wraps up about 38 minutes into the 1 hour 38 minute video, meaning hour 2 actually went a full hour after commercial breaks got cut out (math wizard that I am I didn't even need a calculator to figure that one out!).
Bischoff and Heenan did the hour two kickoff, with Bischoff saying he wouldn't dignify the interruption of "that guy" with a response all the while talking about it as much as possible. But he wouldn't say "that guys" name, so it must have been legit. Dammit, the WWF was coming to invade and Eric couldn't force himself to admit that Razor Ramon was about to come in and tear up his down home rasslin product!
MATCH #4:
The Giant w/Jimmy Hart vs. The Shark for the WCW title
Yep, Earthquake in a ridiculous get-up that wouldn't even take third place in the office Halloween costume contest got a WCW title match to kick off the first ever "money hour" of WCW Nitro. Giant was green as grass here. His timing was awful, his selling was horrendous, but damn he was strong and he looked impressive all lean with that amazing lion's mane of hair. At one point he lifted Shark for a body slam like he was a cruiserweight, turned with him, took a step, then deposited him on the mat WITH AUTHORITY. Kind of like another dude would do to him 18 years down the road to win the Andre The Giant battle royal, come to think of it. Actually not a bad match, but Giant really showed he was the most inexperienced champ in WCW history to that point at the end. Shark gave him an impressive flying clothesline off the second rope, but Jimmy Hart got on the apron to interfere. Shark turned his attention to Hart, and Giant IMMEDIATLY got up and hit Shark from behind, completely blowing the timing of the finish and making Shark's offense look like garbage with the no sell. If he could get up that damn quick then why did Hart even bother interferring? Anyway, Giant put down Shark for the pin and "leather bar" Bubba Rogers did the run in to shave HALF of Shark's head. Yes, the Dungeon of Doom had remade Bubba "Big Bossman Boss The Man Guardian Angel Probably Another One I'm Forgetting" Rogers into a meaner tougher---well, he looked like a leather daddy, honestly. I have no idea why shaving only half Shark's head was relevant or what it was supposed to mean, but he did end up walking around with half his head shaved for a while after that like he was too broke or too confused to buy a razor to take care of evening that stuff up.
MATCH # 5:
Lex Luger vs. Maxx for the WCW TV title
Maxx was the typical WCW Power Plant stiff: huge, puffy muscled dude in black trunks with silly haircut. He was around for a while , always floating around the fringes of WCW. I think I remember him doing some stuff as DDP's bodyguard at one point, and I'm pretty sure he was hanging out in the background as a member of Dungeon of Doom for a second there. Anyway, his offense was everything WCW Power Plant puffy muscular dudes did: power slam, stiff legged stomps, mid-chest clothesline, awkward elbow drop. Luger got the win with the Torture Rack.
After the match Mean Gene got in the ring to talk to Lex about his upcoming WCW title match with The Giant at Great American Bash. Gene also tried to stir the crap about how Lex got the title shot, maybe some dissention with Sting over a screwy finish involving Jimmy Hart and a megaphone. Was Lex turning into a bad guy and turning on Sting (the most trusting man in wrestling history) for the 107th time in his career? Lex played it perfectly, not denying anything and saying he wasn't on the championship committee and had no say in how he got the title match.
MATCH #6:
Hardwork Bobby Walker vs. Brad Armstrong
Walker was another WCW Power Plant project. He came out with the stereotypical Rocky type music wearing a boxing robe and flicking the weak jabs. Lots of talk about his work ethic form Eric on commentary, but Bobby wasn't buying in. Walked nearly bit it hard when he tried to jump up to the top rope on the run, but ended up saving himself from falling straight out of the ring and hit an awkward cross bodyblock. Armstrong really carried this unpolished turd, and Walked got the win after another clumsy top rope move where he nearly killed himself in the process. This was a clear example of the better man not winning. Heenan let his displeasure be known on commentary, covering for Armstrong even though Bobby was supposed to be the guy who was always rooting for the bad guy. Walker was clearly not ready for prime time and is lucky he survived those two hideous botched attempts at jumping to the top rope.
MATCH #7:
Lord Steven Regal vs. Alex Wright
I've got to say I really underestimated the skill of Das Wunerkind at the time. In hindsight if I can look past the German dance club kid persona and the dance moves and look that would have jackass 20-something fans chanting "twink! twink! twink!" at him on any independent show in the country today, I can see a lot of raw talent. Nice match, with Regal getting the win after blocking a monkey flip out of the corner and using a jacknife rollup for the pin.
Mean Gene hopped into the ring once again for a interview with Regal. Regal was positioning himself for a shot at Sting, saying anyone who wanted to invade the company would have to go through him. The guy was on his game and deserved to be in the mix on the upper tier of the card at that point, but the nWo thing happened and Regal got shuffled to the backburner. Damn shame, but there was no spot at the top where he wouldn't have made the main event guys look absolutely silly in the ring so he had to go.
During the match they hit a commercial break and we got one of those "Our World Is About To Change" video packages heralding the arrival of Glacier. This is where the cartoon era of the previous couple of years came into stark contrast with the stuff that was about to come. Indeed things were about to change but Glacier had nothing to do with it.
MATCH #8:
Sting vs. Scott Steiner
Scotty was still one half of the Steiner brothers and Sting was still the good guy in the neon colors. However, Scott was already getting HUGE and Sting had let the hair grow out and get dark, so once again the changes were on the horizon. Helluva match. Sting broke out the Scorpion Death Drop before it became his signature move, and Scott hit an awesome Dragon suplex that brought out Sting's partner Lex Luger to cheer him on. Rick Steiner followed right behind and then things got out of control. Sting suplexed Scott from the ring to the floor, but Scott landed on his feet and tried to suplex Sting on the floor. Lex ran over and prevented it, and that pissed off Rick. Eventually all four dudes ended up brawling in the middle of the ring and we once again got the first look at what would become a WCW staple: a great match between top guys ending in a screwy non-finish.
Eric and Heenan were wrapping up the show when that guy who would remain nameless came out to interrupt again. He said "we" are coming to take over WCW and challenged them to send in any thee guys to face "them" in the ring. Again, WCW seemed pretty inept here since Hall was allowed to come out of the crowd, apparently make his way to the backstage area, then show up again at the end to interrupt the show close.
WCW Nitro
episode 117, Memorial Day 1996
This seems like a good place to start watching, since this is were the "Monday Night Wars" really began. There were still plenty of the hallmarks of "down home rasslin" that was a fixture of TBS at 6:05PM Saturday throughout the 80s, a little of the cartoon show of early 90s WCW with Dungeon of Doom and the Blood Runs Cold tease, and a little flashes of what was to come. This being the first two hour broadcast there were still a few kinks to be worked out as far as the format. Shadowy 18 year old memories lead me to recall that I could tell something big was on the horizon, but there was no way to tell just how big it would get at that time. The "internet wrestling community" was not really a thing yet, but anyone who read a magazine or hopped on one of those old forums knew Hall and Nash had jumped ship and were headed to WCW a little while before Hall's "invasion" here, but it was still kind of cool to watch unfold. I figured they'd come up with some cheesy variations of "Razor Ramon" and "Diesel" (Blade and Big Rig?) and ruin the whole damn thing based on prior performance. Of course we know how it turned out now, but that was my thought at the time.
Tony Schivonne and Larry Zbyszko did the show into and Tony announced that from that night forward they'd be moving to two hours, with Eric Bishcoff and Bobby Heenan handling announcing duties on hour number two. Tony said the show's main event would be a WCW title match between champion The Giant and recently ousted Dungeon Of Doom member The Shark (AKA Earthquake, later to become Golga of the Oddities in a very strange and sharp downward trajectory of a career). Shark getting a WCW title match made as much sense 18 years ago as it does to anyone reading it out of the blue today. In other words, none whatsoever. They wasted no time getting started with the opening match.
MATCH #1:
Ric Flair and Arn Anderson (w/Woman and Elizabeth) beat American Males, Scott Riggs and Marcus Bagwell
Flair and Arn really went all out to make Bagwell and Riggs look good in this fifteen minute match. It seems clear in hindsight that this was all about breaking Bagwell out of the pack, and a couple of miscues by Riggs at the end cost his team the victory. Flair and Arn had a "VIP section" at ringside and were serving champagne to the commentary team.
After the match Mean Gene interviewed the winners beside the catered VIP section. They talked about the team's issues with Steve McMichael because Flair had been making overtures to Mongo's wife, and how Mongo had recruited Kevin Greene to come in for a match against the Horsemen. At the same time there's the issue with Flair and Savage over Elizabeth. Flair mentioned that Elizabeth was using her alimony "Savage's big bank roll" to be Flair's "sugar mama". Classic Flair stuff and they're still rolling with a WWF story from years prior. A suspicious man might think Flair was writing this himself, what with every woman in the building either hanging on his arm or supposedly wanting to.
After the break they showed Mongo and Kevin Greene training in the gym for their match with Flair and Arn. Generic weight lifting montage with them grunting and calling out Flair's name as the eek out sets of dumbell rows and things of this nature.
MATCH #2:
The Mauler w/ Col Parker vs. Steve Doll
In the opening segments the commentators had talked about how Colonel Rob Parker was so proud of his new protege he was going to debut that night. He brought out "The Mauler", who was Mean Mike Enos (or Blake of the Beverly Brothers) wearing leather chaps. His opponent was Steve Doll, very recently Steven Dunn of the WWF tag team Well Dunn. So it's basically a member of the Beverly Brothers against one half of Well Dunn with everything interesting about those two midcard WWF teams stripped away, and the fans seem quite aware of this fact. This one went far longer than it should have, with them even taking a commercial break in the middle. They came back from break with SCOTT HALL making his way through the crowd.
Hall was the real point of this entire match and segment, as he brazenly stepped over the guard rail and into the ring WITH NOT ONE MEMBER OF SECURITY TRYING TO STOP HIM. This seemed very odd at the time, but it was kind of a slow burn reveal as to why he got away with that one (Eric Bischoff was in on it the entire time, fools!). Anyway, Doll left straight away and Enos took off at the urging of Colonel Parker, never to be featured outside of WCW Saturday Night again. Hall made some remarks about coming in and taking over and that he'd have a challenge to make in the second hour. This format of using the first hour to set up the "money hour" when they'd be head to head with RAW, was established straight off the bat and would continue until RAW escalated the war by matching them at two hours (which led to hour number THREE of Nitro, but I'm getting way ahead of myself). At any rate, Hall once again walked away completely unmolested by security, not a wrinkle on his righteous Canadian tuxedo (shirtless with the sleeveless jean jacket variation).
MATCH #3:
Craig "Pitbull" Pittman w/Teddy Long vs. Diamond Dallas Page
Long was acting kind of in the Reverend Slick role here, "saving" the bad guy Pittman and showing him the high road to low success. Diamond Dallas Page was still the slick talking bad guy coming off a tainted Battle Bowl PPV victory and sporting the sweet Battle Bowl championship ring to prove it, just developing the character that would propel him to major success a few years down the road.
Let me sidetrack here and bitch about Craig Pittman. I never liked this guy in the ring. To me he always reeked of the type of guy who was never a fan and thought there was "money to be made in that stuff". Don't get me wrong; they guy had legitimate credentials on the mat as a champion amatuer and good martial arts skills being a member of the USMC. But he always did the hokiest "mean mug" look coming to the ring, his strikes looked like a kid pulling punches in a play fight, and he never did seem to get what it took to make a decent pro. But dammit that didn't stop WCW from giving him a hundred chances to stink up the joint on TV trying to prove he could do it as a pro. He never did.
The match its self was okay for a Pitbull match, with DDP winning via Diamond Cutter after shit canning Long against the guard rail, distracting Pittman in the process.
Next up was a video package detailing the spiraling out of control nature of the Macho Man. MACHO MAN IS NUTS, KIDS! Also, the sky is blue, grass is green, and the pope does indeed shit in the woods. Video detailed how ELizabeth showed up spending his money (her divorce settlemen) on the Nature Boy and he lost his mind. You know, as one does. Anyway, he was banned from the building at this point, he kept trying to get in, again this video put that fact over.
Mean Gene did a backstage interview with Shark. "Backstage" being that corny locker room set they used to use. Shark was mad about being kicked out of the Dungeon of Doom. I suspect it was because even they decided he looked completely ridiculous with the shark teeth painted on his face. Shark was apparently feeling kind of funny took, because he had to make a comment about how he was the man who almost ended Hulkamania. Once again, that was in the WWF and it was about six years prior to this, but Shark probably felt he needed to say something to make himself seem like a threat to the Giant since he had been booked basically like the clown he looked like up until that point.
Gene used that comment about Hogan to transition to what seemed at the time like a completely obnoxious video package detailing how Hogan had been hob nobbing "in Hollywood" and all of the celebrities that were Hulkamaniacs. In hindsight I think you can see where they wanted to go with that. Hogan had allegedly not gotten on board with that direction just yet (I write "allegedly" because when dealing with WCW from about 1996---oh, right up until the time they cloesd, it's hard to tell what was real and what was fiction when dealing with backstage stories). From a fans perspective in 1996 this just looked kind of like celebrity pandering.
Hour 2 kicked off well before the top of the hour, obviously trying to hook people in so they wouldn't turn whe RAW came on USA. In fact on Netork "hour 1" wraps up about 38 minutes into the 1 hour 38 minute video, meaning hour 2 actually went a full hour after commercial breaks got cut out (math wizard that I am I didn't even need a calculator to figure that one out!).
Bischoff and Heenan did the hour two kickoff, with Bischoff saying he wouldn't dignify the interruption of "that guy" with a response all the while talking about it as much as possible. But he wouldn't say "that guys" name, so it must have been legit. Dammit, the WWF was coming to invade and Eric couldn't force himself to admit that Razor Ramon was about to come in and tear up his down home rasslin product!
MATCH #4:
The Giant w/Jimmy Hart vs. The Shark for the WCW title
Yep, Earthquake in a ridiculous get-up that wouldn't even take third place in the office Halloween costume contest got a WCW title match to kick off the first ever "money hour" of WCW Nitro. Giant was green as grass here. His timing was awful, his selling was horrendous, but damn he was strong and he looked impressive all lean with that amazing lion's mane of hair. At one point he lifted Shark for a body slam like he was a cruiserweight, turned with him, took a step, then deposited him on the mat WITH AUTHORITY. Kind of like another dude would do to him 18 years down the road to win the Andre The Giant battle royal, come to think of it. Actually not a bad match, but Giant really showed he was the most inexperienced champ in WCW history to that point at the end. Shark gave him an impressive flying clothesline off the second rope, but Jimmy Hart got on the apron to interfere. Shark turned his attention to Hart, and Giant IMMEDIATLY got up and hit Shark from behind, completely blowing the timing of the finish and making Shark's offense look like garbage with the no sell. If he could get up that damn quick then why did Hart even bother interferring? Anyway, Giant put down Shark for the pin and "leather bar" Bubba Rogers did the run in to shave HALF of Shark's head. Yes, the Dungeon of Doom had remade Bubba "Big Bossman Boss The Man Guardian Angel Probably Another One I'm Forgetting" Rogers into a meaner tougher---well, he looked like a leather daddy, honestly. I have no idea why shaving only half Shark's head was relevant or what it was supposed to mean, but he did end up walking around with half his head shaved for a while after that like he was too broke or too confused to buy a razor to take care of evening that stuff up.
MATCH # 5:
Lex Luger vs. Maxx for the WCW TV title
Maxx was the typical WCW Power Plant stiff: huge, puffy muscled dude in black trunks with silly haircut. He was around for a while , always floating around the fringes of WCW. I think I remember him doing some stuff as DDP's bodyguard at one point, and I'm pretty sure he was hanging out in the background as a member of Dungeon of Doom for a second there. Anyway, his offense was everything WCW Power Plant puffy muscular dudes did: power slam, stiff legged stomps, mid-chest clothesline, awkward elbow drop. Luger got the win with the Torture Rack.
After the match Mean Gene got in the ring to talk to Lex about his upcoming WCW title match with The Giant at Great American Bash. Gene also tried to stir the crap about how Lex got the title shot, maybe some dissention with Sting over a screwy finish involving Jimmy Hart and a megaphone. Was Lex turning into a bad guy and turning on Sting (the most trusting man in wrestling history) for the 107th time in his career? Lex played it perfectly, not denying anything and saying he wasn't on the championship committee and had no say in how he got the title match.
MATCH #6:
Hardwork Bobby Walker vs. Brad Armstrong
Walker was another WCW Power Plant project. He came out with the stereotypical Rocky type music wearing a boxing robe and flicking the weak jabs. Lots of talk about his work ethic form Eric on commentary, but Bobby wasn't buying in. Walked nearly bit it hard when he tried to jump up to the top rope on the run, but ended up saving himself from falling straight out of the ring and hit an awkward cross bodyblock. Armstrong really carried this unpolished turd, and Walked got the win after another clumsy top rope move where he nearly killed himself in the process. This was a clear example of the better man not winning. Heenan let his displeasure be known on commentary, covering for Armstrong even though Bobby was supposed to be the guy who was always rooting for the bad guy. Walker was clearly not ready for prime time and is lucky he survived those two hideous botched attempts at jumping to the top rope.
MATCH #7:
Lord Steven Regal vs. Alex Wright
I've got to say I really underestimated the skill of Das Wunerkind at the time. In hindsight if I can look past the German dance club kid persona and the dance moves and look that would have jackass 20-something fans chanting "twink! twink! twink!" at him on any independent show in the country today, I can see a lot of raw talent. Nice match, with Regal getting the win after blocking a monkey flip out of the corner and using a jacknife rollup for the pin.
Mean Gene hopped into the ring once again for a interview with Regal. Regal was positioning himself for a shot at Sting, saying anyone who wanted to invade the company would have to go through him. The guy was on his game and deserved to be in the mix on the upper tier of the card at that point, but the nWo thing happened and Regal got shuffled to the backburner. Damn shame, but there was no spot at the top where he wouldn't have made the main event guys look absolutely silly in the ring so he had to go.
During the match they hit a commercial break and we got one of those "Our World Is About To Change" video packages heralding the arrival of Glacier. This is where the cartoon era of the previous couple of years came into stark contrast with the stuff that was about to come. Indeed things were about to change but Glacier had nothing to do with it.
MATCH #8:
Sting vs. Scott Steiner
Scotty was still one half of the Steiner brothers and Sting was still the good guy in the neon colors. However, Scott was already getting HUGE and Sting had let the hair grow out and get dark, so once again the changes were on the horizon. Helluva match. Sting broke out the Scorpion Death Drop before it became his signature move, and Scott hit an awesome Dragon suplex that brought out Sting's partner Lex Luger to cheer him on. Rick Steiner followed right behind and then things got out of control. Sting suplexed Scott from the ring to the floor, but Scott landed on his feet and tried to suplex Sting on the floor. Lex ran over and prevented it, and that pissed off Rick. Eventually all four dudes ended up brawling in the middle of the ring and we once again got the first look at what would become a WCW staple: a great match between top guys ending in a screwy non-finish.
Eric and Heenan were wrapping up the show when that guy who would remain nameless came out to interrupt again. He said "we" are coming to take over WCW and challenged them to send in any thee guys to face "them" in the ring. Again, WCW seemed pretty inept here since Hall was allowed to come out of the crowd, apparently make his way to the backstage area, then show up again at the end to interrupt the show close.
