[RESULTS/OPINION] WCW Monday Nitro (2/10) - Quick Shotgun Saturday Night (2/8) Recap: * The Godwinns defeated Faarooq & Crush when Savio Vega interfered. * Hunter Hearst Helmsley defeated The Undertaker via DQ. * Savio Vega and Aldo Montoya went to a no-decision brawl involving the Godwinns, Faarooq and Crush. WWF Monday Night RAW: Not on - RAW this week was preempted by the USA Network's yearly coverage of the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. Comments: I'm sure at least one person on the wrestling newsgroup will say that "RAW has been cancelled!" or that this is a sure sign that I will be. Please people... USA does this every year and the WWF always schedules itself around it. (I've already gotten one E-Mail from someone suggesting that RAW was "done for" because of the lack of "respect" the USA Network was giving the WWF. I haven't heard back from them yet as to why then, that USA was giving the WWF two hours live on Thursday). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- WCW Monday Nitro: Live. HOUR ONE: Hosted by Tony Schiavone & Larry Zbyszko. - DEAN MALENKO vs. EDDIE GUERRERO This match started off with spectacular potential to be a classic. As Guerrero comes out Malenko grabs a mic and challenges Syxx to come out (Syxx stole Malenko's Cruiserweight Title belt last week) to get the "wrestling lession of [his] life!" The two wrestlers start off trading pin attempts, showing how evenly matched they are and doing so without making the match look anything like the one they did just a few weeks ago on Nitro. They maintain a fast pace, and the crowd is really getting into the match. Unfortunately less than six minutes into the match Syxx does come out and tries to re-steal Guerrero's U.S. Title belt. Syxx slugs announcer David Pinzer and grabs the belt. Guerrero spots him, exits the ring and tugs the belt away from him. Syxx flees through the crowd. Meanwhile the referee has counted Guerrero out, giving Malenko the win. Malenko pulls his arm away when the ref raises it. He grudginly slaps Guerrero's hand when Eddie offers it. - Diamond Dallas Page comes to the ring in street clothes. Over the house mic he says he knows he's a marked man, and if anything is going to happen to him, that it can happen tonight. Out comes Sting and Randy Savage through the crowd. Page, like Savage a few weeks ago, sits in a chair as Sting and Savage circle him, hitting the legs of the chair with an aluminum baseball bat. Sting then pokes Page in the chest, pushes him into the corner ... etc. We've seen all this before. Page declines to hit Sting with the bat, then Savage and Sting leave. Page follows ... eventually. Tony and Larry come to the conclusion that this was an initiation. - KONAN vs. BOBBY EATON Konan beats Eaton with a Brainbuster suplex in about a minute and a half. This is really sad. - They show a clip of the "beating" Lex Luger didn't recieved last week. Lex comes out for a match wearing a big cast on his left forearm and wrist. He stops to pose, then heads to the ring, but is cut off by Eric Bischoff. Luger says "this is where the big boys play" and that he's ready to wrestle. Bischoff says he has a "responsibility" to keep WCW's atheletes healthy, and unless Luger has a doctor's release, he isn't wrestling tonight. It's clear that Luger doesn't, and Bischoff goes on to warn that not only won't Luger wrestle tonight, but he'll also lose his match with the Giant against the Outsiders at SuperBrawl VII. Luger stalks off and Bischoff goes off on a rant about his responsibilities and integrity and so on. This allows the Giant to come out from behind (Bischoff thinks the cheers are for him). Bischoff, upon coming face-to- face with the giant heads for the hills. The Giant then goes to the ring and ... - THE GIANT vs. RON POWERS ... destroys the jobber with an impressive chokeslam. The Giant then calls Luger out. He asks Luger if he'd give up when given the chance to go for the tag titles. Luger says that he wouldn't. Mike Tenay conducts the interview as the Giant tells Luger that when he, the Giant, beats Hall and Nash at SuperBrawl VII, that he'll give the other World Tag Team Title belt to Luger. - Scott Hall and Kevin Nash (along with Big Bubba and Syxx) are shown out in the parking lot. The Outsiders are dressed to wrestle later in the show. - THE STEINER BROTHERS vs. HIGH VOLTAGE The Steiners, apparently acquiescing to the absolute power of Eric Biscoff, admit that they will have to fight their way back up the tag team ranks. Schiavone mentions that there will be a "Four Corners" match to decide the number one challengers at SuperBrawl: Steiners vs. Harlem Heat vs. Faces of Fear vs. Public Enemy. Where have we seen this before? The Heat and the P.E. are again out in the audience. Why are the P.E. even contenders, given that they haven't won a match in months? Scott Steiner still lets Rick do most of the work. The Voltage show they are bearable ham 'n eggers, but show little offense. Rick nails one of them (Slappy?) with the Bulldog off the top for the win. - Bischoff, Syxx, Nick Patrick and the Outsiders take over the booth. Eric says that recently terminated referee Randy Anderson has requested an audience with King Bischoff. Out comes Anderson with his wife wife and children. Randy begs for his job back. Bischoff acts regretful, then tells Randy's son Montana to tell his dad that he's still fired. Randy says he'll do anything. Bischoff says he'll prove that he has a heart. Randy can come out next week and get in the ring for a match against Nick Patrick. Randy's wife tells him no, that the doctor wouldn't allow it, but Randy agrees. Bischoff then asks the champs if they wan't to wrestle. "We're the working man's champions!" Out comes The Extreme, the "Eastern Seaboard Champions!" exclaims Bischoff. - THE OUTSIDERS vs. THE EXTREME Hall and Nash totally destroy them like they did two weeks ago. Bischoff brings in Larry Zbyszko to do color commentary. Larry calls them cowards. Hall chokeslams one of the Extreme, while Nash Torture Racks the other. Syxx gets on the mic and does his best not to swear. Hall and Nash then spend a minute or two showing why Vince McMahon kept them away from microphones as much as possible. You know ... watching the first hour live, I was fairly entertained. Then I rewatched it (to do this Recap) and was surprised at just how blah the first hour really was. Oh well, there's still the second hour. The money hour. NOW they'll knock our socks off! HOUR TWO: Hosted by Tony Schiavone, Bobby "The Brain" Heenan and Mike Tenay. - REY MYSTERIO JR. vs. LORD STEVEN REGAL To boil this one down to it's bare essentials, Mysterio is a lock to win the TV Title soon. The set up is that Mysterio just doesn't have enough time in a TV match to win the belt. These guys are just too mismatched in size to work together convincingly. Mysterio is forced to pull way back, while Regal has to sell some pretty weak moves to keep Mysterio in the match. For the most part this was a really slow stomp-fest. Regal kills a lot of the match time playing to the crowd (giving away the eventual finish). They do pull off a nice huracanrana together, then finally go into "two minute offense" mode and pull out a few nice moves. Mysterio rolls up Regal for a pin but Regal kicks out. The timekeeper accidentally gives the bell a quick ding. They then repeat the move and this time the timekeeper does the right thing by ringing the bell before the ref can finish the three count. "If only Mysterio had more time ..." laments Tony. Look for Mysterio to win the belt at SuperBrawl, or an upcoming Nitro where the time limit is increased. What was the time limit supposed to be, anyway? The time limit in this one, if you count from when they locked up, was about six minutes. Eight or nine if you count the entrances and the time Regal killed working the crowd prior to locking up. The only way this could have been the usual ten minute time limit is if they started the clock when they came back from the previous commercial break. - Lee Marshall phones in from Tampa, Florida. He reeaaaaaally has to stretch to come up with a "Weasel" joke this week. - TASKMASTER (w/ Miss Jacquelyn & Jimmy Hart) vs. MAVERICK WILD Oh, man, you know this guy is gonna get killed. But by WHOM was the surprise here. Sullivan stomps on him a bit, then tosses him out of the ring. Miss Jacquelyn then moves in and slams him against the apron, then follows with a trio of forearm shots to the chest. She whips him against the railing, then catches him with a lariat as he rebounds. Tony, Bobby and Mike are going nuts, declaring her tougher than Sullivan. She tosses this miserable excuse for a man back into the ring, where Sullivan awaits to do some more stomping. "Oh Woman, run for your life!" (Woman will be strapped or handcuffed to Jacquelyn at SuperBrawl during Sullivan's match with Chris Benoit). Sullivan tosses Maverick back out and Jacquelyn snap mares him, slugs him in the chin, then bodyslams him! Brain: "I don't believe this! She has slammed Maverick Wild!" Schiavone: "Someone go raise her hand right now!" Brain: "Someone go sign her up!" Schiavone: "The Ladies' Champion Akira Hokuto in Japan should be watching this." Brain: " ... and get on a plane and go a little further-maybe to China or Burma!" Back in the ring Sullivan hangs Wild from the Tree of Woe, backs into the opposite corner so Jacquelyn can scratch his back, then charges Wild, delivering a knee. He finishes him off with the double stomp to the belly. Jacquely gives Maverick one more shot to the chin for the road. Kevin Sullivan then does an interview playing with the heads of the smart fans, dropping names like "Paul E.," "Jim Barnett," "Mark Lewin" and "King Curtis." He says Woman isn't tough, that all she's presented over the years has been a front, because she came from a "community," while Sullivan and Jacquelyn came from a "neighborhood." He makes several cryptic, personal references to "pulling nines [guns]" and biting someone's nose off. He says that is Nancy tries to cheat in any way at SuperBrawl, ("pull something out from under her dress"), she owes that to him, and she's not doing it as part of her true nature. Miss Jacquelyn's attacking the jobber was one the funniest things I've seen in a long time. If I do give Nitro the win this week, it'll be because of this. The interview didn't do anything for me, however. Sullivan has a tendency to try a little too hard to sell the "shoot." - They play, nearly in it's entirety, the Hogan/Piper confrontation from last week. I liked it last week, but why waste premium Nitro time replaying it? Especially in light of the fact that they'd be doing it again (or something similar) this week at the end of the show. It's not as if they didn't replay it over the weekend. - HUGH MORRUS vs. ALEX WRIGHT Ay carumba! What a waste! Here they're in their big ratings stretch, unopposed by RAW, and they waste it with crap like this! Hey WCW fans ... they're as much as saying "we can show just about anything and you'll have to like it. Heaven forbid we show you Ric Flair or something you'd be interested in!" Morrus beats him with a moonsault. Guess this tune: * Hugh Morrus won, and I don't care ... * * Hugh Morrus won, and I don't care ... * * Hugh Morrus won, and I don't care ... * * They pissed five minutes awaaaaaaay! * - CHRIS BENOIT/STEVE MCMICHAEL vs. JEFF JARRETT/CHAVO GUERRERO JR. Benoit and Mongo are accompanied by Debra and Woman. Chavo and Benoit start off fast and furious. Benoit takes command first with a kick to the midsection, then some stiff chops. After a whip to the ropes Chavo hits a glancing dropkick. He then drops Benoit with a pair of headscissor takedowns, followed by a tilt-a-whirl side breaker. He snap mares him and tries twice for a pin, dropkicks him, then tags in Jarrett. They double whip Benoit into the ropes. Chavo drops him to the mat with a leg takedown, then Jarrett hits an elbowdrop. Jarrett then whips Benoit into the corner and catches him in a back suplex coming out. Jarrett gives the crowd a strut. Benoit manages to reverse a whip and drives a blow to Jarrett's midsection. Benoit traps Jarrett in his team's corner and tags in McMichael. Mongo does a powerslam then tags Benoit back in. He and Jarrett trade chops and such until Jarrett can get over and tag Chavo in. Chris and Chavo trade blows, with Chavo getting the upper hand. Mongo comes in and Chavo catches him with a dropkick, then another, then a third. The camera cuts over and we see Jeff Jarrett down on the floor catching his breath and being detained by Debra. Chavo meanwhile has hit Benoit with a moonsault, but Mongo comes in with a stomp to break up the pin. He and Benoit then double team Chavo as Jarrett is occupied on the floor by Debra. Her fiddling with Jarrett's shorts brings over the ref, allowing Benoit and Mongo to tag in and out at will, Mongo finishing Chavo off with a Tombstone Piledriver. Tenay: "She's inspecting his suspenders." Schiavone: "Thank you, Mike." Brain: "You being an expert on suspender inspecting." Arn Anderson and Ric Flair come out and Tenay conducts an interview. Tenay calls Arn the voice of reason, which Arn scoffs at. Arn runs down the state of things in WCW, finishing up by telling Jarrett he may have caught Debra's eye, but that it means nothing to the rest of the team, and that all Benoit has left to do regarding Kevin Sullivan is bury the body. Flair gets on the mic and spouts some boilerplate. Benoit tells Sullivan that he can "stick it" as far as his head games go. Mongo takes an opportunity to dump on the Jacksonville Jaguars. He then confronts Debra regarding Jarrett. "That man don't pay your charge card bills!" Debra says she's had some problems focusing lately. Mongo says Jarrett's only chance to beat him at SuperBrawl is if an earthquake swallows him up. - "Rowdy" Roddy Piper comes to the ring. Hulk Hogan is on the monitors live "via satellite" from the "NWO Studios in Hollywood." Piper says all this stuff involving families is too much for him. He calls Hogan a "bald headed geek!" "You and Eric Bischoff-what're you-married, man, you're in 'Frisco now ... " Piper says his son telling him to "go get him!" was a license to kill, and Hogan was the target. Hogan asks if Piper told his son that he already tried to get him and failed? Had he showed his son the "doctored footage?" Hogan calls Piper a "coward" and a "puke." Piper tells him to shut his "fat mouth," then makes a weak O.J. reference. Hogan, for some reason, flies off the handle, telling Piper he went out of bounds with that. Piper wraps up this miserably lame exchange by saying the difference between Hogan and Dennis Rodman is that Hogan can't jump. One could almost hear the air of expectancy being let out of the crowd's collective anticipation ballon. - Next week's main event: The in-ring return of Ric Flair. Comments: As I said above, the first hour was kinda dull. With the exception of Miss Jacquelyn and some brief good wrestling in the Horsemen and Regal/ Mysterio matches, the second hour was a bust. Piper seemed to be completely lost on the mic, and what Hogan was saying barely seemed to match (as if it was pretaped and Piper was supposed to adlib and fill the gaps. I don't think this was the case, but that's how it came off). The situation involving the tag teams show just how few ideas WCW has in that regard these days. It reminds me of the mindless booking they were doing in the summer of '95. It doesn't help when the titles aren't in the mix. It's pretty clear that the Outsiders won't drop the belts until they are ready to push Nash into a singles title (or title challenger scenario). the belts are just trinkets to keep the two happy, and it's just too hard to believe that any other team in WCW is a credible challenge. It's the same problem they had when Sting and Luger were the champs. They held the titles, but were continually involved in higher level singles angles. Six of the nine matches tonight were little more than squashes. The Konan/ Eaton and Wright/Morrus matches served no purpose other than to kill time. They did a lot of that tonight. Where were the Mexican and Japanese cruisers this week? Cutting the Konan/Eaton match would have given them the ten minutes needed to do the time limit draw in the Regal/Mysterio match. They showed us Big Bubba, but neither he nor any of the other dozen NWO members were on the card (other than Hall and Nash). Where were Bagwell, Riggs, Ultimo Dragon, Super Calo, Juventud Guerrera or (*gack*) Glacier? This really had the look and feel of one of those cards where most of the wrestlers were either sick, injured, or missed the bus, (plane, train, etc). With no RAW tonight, WCW could have realistically tried for one of the highest rated shows ever. I'll be surprised if they get anything better than average ratings. Wouldn't tonight have been a good time for one of those all-out NWO invasions? [NOTE: I checked around the web prior to posting this and came up with this week's ratings: Nitro had an average of 3.8 (3.5 the first hour, 4.2 the second). The Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show in RAW's place pulled in an averaged rating of 3.7 for it's two hours. Not only did Nitro fall short of pulling in a spectacular rating, they barely beat the dog show. It was, though, still a very strong rating for the Nitro, and RAW will be very lucky to do anywhere near as good on Thursday-especially up against NBC's "Must See TV" lineup.] Oh yeah ... Luger is so obviously NWO bound it's not funny. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Bottom Line: SuperBrawl, on paper, is starting to look like an extended Nitro installment, but has some potential. Here's the card so far: * Hogan vs. Piper. Little potential here. I'm predicting that Piper will win the belt, then either have it stripped the next night on Nitro, or he'll "retire," thus vacating the title. In actuality, interference by the NWO is the likeliest outcome. * Outsiders vs. Luger & the Giant. Luger turns on the Giant. Look for Luger and the Giant to feud for the next several months. This is, of course, assuming that Luger gets a "medical clearance." Otherwise the it will be be a handicap match. * Steiners vs. Heat vs. Faces of Fear vs. Public Enemy. Either the Steiners or Heat will win. I'm betting the Heat (though Hall and Nash have yet to face the P.E. as top contenders. They've already faced the other three teams at PPV's). * Sullivan vs. Benoit. It'll be real sad if they end up in the bathroom again. Maybe the parking lot this time. Since the Horsemen seem to have forgotten how to look out for their own, I gotta give this one to Sullivan. I don't see Jacquelyn's being cuffed to Woman as adding all that much to the match, but it will most assuredly figure in the finish. * McMichael vs. Jarrett. Obviously a screwy ending involving Debra. I actually think Mongo will get the win and we won't hear much more about Jarrett as a Horseman. * Mysterio vs. Regal. I don't know if this is part of the card, but if it is, Mysterio wins the belt. * Malenko vs. Syxx. Syxx will probably job and Malenko will recover his belt. Don't rule out NWO interference though, giving Syxx his first (and probably only) WCW title. * Big Bubba vs. Diamond Dallas Page. Ugh. * Eddie Guerrero vs Chris Jericho. This one has potential, but I see Eddie winning cleanly. * A six man Mexican Tag match. Yay. It's a loaded card, but there seems to be only a slight chance of any great matches. I see lots of screwy finishes. Let's start the countdown for Curt Hennig not showing up. I also don't see anything major happening with Sting, Savage and Page, other than the three showing up for a minute or two in the audience. We should get at least one title change, and Luger's turn may be the biggest "surprise" of the show. Hogan losing the title would make it "historic," but I think the card is, at best, shooting for "memorable," which doesn't necessarily mean it'll be good. ("Souled Out" was memorable. "Uncensored" was memorable. Neither were good). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- This Week's Winner: I'll post the "Thursday RAW Thursday" results and announce the winner at that time. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------