Week Five: WCW Monday Nitro – October 2, 1995
Welcome back to Pops & Botches: Monday Night Rewind, a look back at the Monday Night Wars through the lens of someone who didn’t really live through them. Previously on Nitro, the midcard was on fire, Hogan was Hogan, and Lex Luger had me in my feelings.
This week, the midcard is still on fire and the main event joins it! That’s right, a near perfect episode of Nitro…no, please, don’t look at the red and yellow catastrophe over ther—oh, too late, it’s here now.
POP: Big Meaty Men
Before we have to deal with the inevitability of Hulkamania, we thankfully get a great match and a half (more on that fraction later) of WCW’s two best varieties. The first is the opener between Lex Luger and Randy Savage. First things first, I think today’s product could be greatly enhanced by bringing back sparkler pyro. Keep your Saturday morning CGI, this is wonderful in its simplicity.
The fight is a legitimate contest of strength. As I’ve said before, I love the flippy shit, but there’s something to be said for two brick shithouses just beating the tar out of each other. The opening lockup actually goes through the ropes and into the commercial break, never once breaking. The top spot, however, goes to the most unexpected thing ever: dueling backslides.
About midway through, Luger and Savage are locked up again, this time back to back. They struggle back and forth to get the other off his feet, until Randy manages to get the upper hand. Crafty Lex catches the rope with his foot, though, preventing Savage from completing the pinning maneuver. Luger then brute forces Savage back up and successfully pulls off his own backslide, so the Macho Man has to expend even more energy kicking out. Great stuff, really showcasing how evenly matched these two are.
The endgame, unfortunately, is never really in question. With Luger putting his WCW career on the line only a month after getting there, it’s clear who has to win, even if you’re not looking at it through the lens of history. I know kayfabe was still somewhat a reality in the mid-90’s (it’s one of the biggest reasons the nWo was so groundbreaking at first), but I can’t imagine anyone thought he’d be gone so soon.
Sure enough, the Giant eventually stomps down to the ring and chokeslams Randy into oblivion while the ref and Lex are both out cold. Luger comes out of it and gets Randy up into the Torture Rack, and that’s the match. The questions of Lex’s loyalties still remain; was he really unaware of what the Giant was up to? Is this all part of a larger ruse? I’m still invested in this twenty-five-year old story, and that’s a testament to the players in it.
POP, WITH A BOTCH FILLING: The Future of Cruiserweights, Today!
Don’t let this split screen image fool you, we cut entirely away from the banger Eddie Guerrero/Dean Malenko match currently ongoing to give Hulk Hogan a promo. I won’t go into the details of it, as he gets an entire segment of his own after this match. The eventual epically bad mishandling of the cruiserweight division is one of the broad strokes of the Monday Night War that even I’m aware of, and it’s a damn shame to see it foreshadowed here.
Even when they’re actively being overshadowed, though, the cruiserweights almost always put on a great show, and this match is no exception. Eddie and Malenko are pillars of the division, for good reason. Eddie’s flinging himself through the air while Dean puts on an absolute clinic in the ground game.
The ending comes extremely abruptly, as Eddie just kind of sits down on Malenko to get the pin after Dean can’t quite pull off a submission attempt. I’m not sure if they ran short on time for the sake of You-Know-Who or if it was planned that way, because it’s immediately followed by a quick back-and-forth of “You got lucky, I want a rematch,” and “Anytime, anyplace.” Too short, too interrupted, but still entertaining as hell; I just want more, and I hope that means it’s coming.
BOTCH: [Vague Gesturing]
As previously mentioned, Hogan gets an entire segment after interrupting the last match. He cuts pretty much the exact same promo, too, but this time he tries to guilt trip us with Make-A-Wish kids on top of everything else. Something, something, big stinky Giant; something, something, what’cha gonna do. But then, as Hulk is glad-handing with the crowd, A WOMAN!
The best part of this whole debacle is Mean Gene dramatically screaming, “There’s a woman! With a cane!” for the benefit of the live crowd. It is, of course, no woman, but Kevin Sullivan doing his best Norman Bates impression (shout out to Bobby Heenan for that one). Giant proceeds to hand out another beat down, culminating with him once again breaking Hogan’s neck “choking out” Hogan.
Closing out the segment is Sullivan playing the Delilah to Hogan’s Samson by shaving off the apparent key to his power, the handlebar mustache. Uncomfortable close-ups of passed out Hulk Hogan is just what this episode needed.
If we could go ahead and just skip to the monster truck fuckery, that would be greeeat. Please?
POP: Nature Boy v Murder Dad: Dawn of Horsetice
It’s a damn shame the “Fight forever” chant didn’t exist yet, because if ever there was a feud that deserved that, it was this one. I could seriously watch Ric Flair and Arn Anderson duke it out every day. This particular chapter is more of a steppingstone to the next one, but it’s still a fun outing.
As the two of them beat the absolute hell out of each other, the booth does a great job of helping to write the story. They bring up the fact that Arn isn’t called “The Enforcer” for nothing. Ric stood back and watched Double A wreck fools for years, so he knows exactly how dangerous the man is. This, quite rightly, makes him very nervous. His game isn’t as on point because of that, and we see a lot more desperation offense than normal from the Nature Boy.
A down and dirty grudge match, through and through, the match is only slightly marred by the ending. Flair finally manages to wrap Arn up in the Figure Four, which Double A actually uses against the Nature Boy, holding Flair’s foot to keep the move locked in and Flair immobilized as Brian Pillman runs out and hits a splash from the top rope. This would have been a great ending as written there, but for some inexplicable reason, Arn taps out when he sees Pillman climbing the turnbuckle. The only thing that does is give Flair the clean win, instead of a DQ asterisk.
In the long run, though, I’m not too upset. After we come back from the post-beating commercial break, Bischoff announces that next week we’re getting a steel cage rematch. You’re telling me I get to watch these two continue to attempt murder on each other? And now it’s inside the cage? Ohhh, Ric’s gonna bleed something fierce, ain’t he? Bring it on, you maniacs.
That wraps up this week’s edition of Monday Nitro. It really was an almost near perfect episode, probably the best one of the show’s short run so far, in fact; it was really only dragged down (as usual) by Hogan’s loud ass mouth. Next week, we get the aforementioned steel cage match, Sting fighting the Shark, and the return of the man who will apparently only die happy if it’s in the middle of the ring, Sabu.
Follow the other front of the Monday Night War in the Raw section, join us in our Discord for live chats of current wrestling events, and I’ll see you right back here for the next chapter of the Monday Night Rewind! Thanks for reading!
