Thunder Results April 16th, 1998. Live/Taped: Live. Length: Two Hours+. Location: Fargo, North Dakota. Hosted By: Tony Schiavone, Bobby "The Brain" Heenan and Lee Marshall. The show opens with clips from the closing moments of Nitro. In the opening hype segment (during which they show a crowd reportedly 20,000+ in size) Tony Schiavone announces that Sting and Bret Hart will face Kevin Nash and Randy Savage. Buff Bagwell delivers pretaped comments which are only a few porno references shy of what Val Venis is doing. BUFF BAGWELL (w/ Vincent) vs. RICK STEINER (w/ Ted DiBiase) Before the match can even really get anywhere Scott Steiner runs in, DQ'ing Bagwell. Lex Luger is quick to come out to make the save. Why do so many of WCW's angles seem to be resulting in meaningless tag team matches? "Hollywood" Hogan makes a few pretaped comments. In case anyone's missed it, Hogan and WCW are essentially claiming that Savage was run over by the mystery driver in the Dodge Viper. Don't try that one at home, kids. This week's "Movies For Guys Who Like Movies" selection is "Stone Cold", starring Brian Bosworth. If that isn't wishful thinking, I don't know what is. Kevin Nash heads out to deliver comments. He says Hogan thinks he can walk on water, which is true because "we all know a turd floats!" Didn't WCW trash the WWF and Shawn Michaels for saying something similar about Owen Hart? Anyway, Nash rattles on and on and on, getting himself over with the crowd but not saying anything of much substance. They replay one of the Bret Hart interview clips from Monday. After the commercial they replay the Bill Goldberg video from Monday. Maybe they could tells us in advance on their website how much of Nitro they will be replaying every week on Thunder. That way I can switch channels and catch up on some "Must See TV". BILL GOLDBERG vs. BARRY DARSOW One guess. More Hogan comments. A Raven/Diamond Dallas Page video is shown. J.J. Dillon announces that Bill Goldberg will get a U.S. Title shot next week on Nitro against the winner of the DDP/Raven match at Spring Stampede. BOOKER T. vs. RICK FULLER Booker gets a speedy win after impressively manhandling Fuller. Even more Hogan comments. After the break another video clip is recycled from Nitro: this the one laying out the Hogan/Nash/Savage situation. Tony Schiavone announces that a tag team match will take place at the PPV with Buff Bagwell and Scott Steiner against Rick Steiner and Lex Luger. Bagwell and Steiner come out to warn Schiavone to cancel that match, because they won't show up. CHRIS BENOIT vs. SCOTT NORTON (w/ Vincent) In another quick match Benoit wins via DQ when Vincent interferes. Remember the uproar raised when Norton beat Benoit several weeks ago? Booker T. comes out to help, just like Benoit has done in Booker T's matches lately. Benoit is now 0-1-1 against Norton in recent months. Another Bret Hart clip from Monday. "Rowdy" Roddy Piper rides out to the ring on the Giant's shoulders and does an interview. Piper doesn't let the Giant talk, which is probably a good thing. CURT HENNIG (w/ Rick Rude) vs. SUPER CALO Hennig must have taken a shine to Calo, because he wrestled this match sporting a major chubby. Calo falls victim to the Hennig-Plex. Rude sits in on color commentary as usual. Hogan shares his thoughts on DDP. Seeing as how they screwed it up last week, they replay the "Lost in Space" theatrical trailer again. "Lost in Space" needs all the hype it can get, however: it dropped over 30% at the box office last weekend. CHRIS JERICHO vs. CHAVO GUERRERO, JR. (w/ Eddie Guerrero) A real quickie. Jericho puts Chavo in the Lion Tamer. Chavo crawls and makes a grab for the bottom rope, but Eddie slaps it away. Jericho wins. Prince Iaukea then comes out and beats on Jericho with a bathroom scale. After this Eddie makes Chavo a deal: if he beats Ultimo Dragon at the PPV, then Eddie will release him from their agreement. "Hollywood" Hogan and Eric Bischoff come out to jaw a bit. Bischoff admits what a failure he is now that the WWF has beaten them. Well, no, not really, but he does make some kind of nonsensical joke about littering. Hogan then badmouths Kevin Nash. Yet another Hart clip. J.J. Dillon comes out to make a few announcements. He reiterates that Goldberg will have his title match on Monday. He assures the fans that Bagwell and Scott Steiner will face Rick Steiner and Luger at the PPV. He also announces that Randy Savage will face Sting for the World Title, but only if Savage gets a doctor's release and has his cast removed. If he doesn't do these two things, either DDP, Nash or Hogan will get the title shot. Savage comes out and trades some barbs with Dillon. THE GIANT (w/ Roddy Piper) vs. BRIAN ADAMS (w/ Vincent) The match ends mere moments after it begins due to the rest of the NWO running in. What a joke. A Raven video segment plays. Thunder will be on Wednesday next week instead of Thursday. SATURN vs. SILVER KING It takes maybe a minute for Saturn to win with the Rings of Saturn. They show a DDP video segment. Schiavone then interviews the beltless champ in the ring. DDP says he's anxious to lock-up with Goldberg. KEVIN NASH/RANDY SAVAGE (w/ Elizabeth) vs. STING/BRET "HITMAN" HART There's less than two minutes of airtime when they come back from their last commercial. There's less than a minute left when Nash and Savage come out. Sting and Hart come out a minute into "overtime". Schiavone launches into a lengthy diatribe about how WCW gives the fans want they want by running over like this. The match itself wasn't bad, though everyone involved looked like they were taking it easy. At about the eight minute mark Hogan and the Disciple come out, halting the match. Hogan pushes Savage off the ropes. Nash goes after Hogan. The rest of the NWO comes out to keep those two apart and the show ends. Next Monday: Goldberg U.S. Title Match. Next week: Nothing announced. Comments: WCW is a boring promotion to watch now that they have phased out most of the Cruiserweights. I'm hoping this will all change after Spring Stampede has passed. WCW established most of the matches for this PPV the night after the last, and since then we've had to watch the same small group of wrestlers over and over--ideally to build interest in the next PPV, but in reality making the PPV seem unimportant because we've seen most of the matches by the time it takes place. Aside from the main event, I'm not sure if any match ran over three or four minutes in length, and at least three of them barely went a minute. On the other hand, I'm betting they killed at least ten minutes replaying stuff from Nitro. The show ran so far over (a full ten minutes) that the tape I was recording it on ran out midway through the main event. The announcing crew tried to inject all kinds of artificial hype into the show, but there was no way they could make up for what a dull offering it was this week. The crowd was stone dead compared to Monday's Minneapolis crowd. The main event was one of the biggest ever on Thunder and the crowd simply wasn't into it. The only thing the show did serve to do was build up the PPV, doing a much better job than Nitro did this week. That's not saying much, though, given how bad both Nitro and this show was. At least they finally got around to addressing the main event, as well as officially announcing a match or two. Here's the PPV line-up: Hogan & Nash vs. Piper & the Giant. Baseball Bat Match. Sting vs. Savage. World Title Match. (Maybe.) Raven vs. DDP. U.S. Title Match. Chris Benoit vs. Booker T. TV Title Match. Chris Jericho vs. Prince Iaukea. Cruiserweight title Match. Goldberg vs. Saturn. Chavo Guerrero vs. Ultimo Dragon. Scott Steiner & Buff Bagwell vs. Rick Steiner & Lex Luger. A lot of "big" matches, but only a couple of them look like they may be any good. We've also seen almost every wrestler compete two or three times a week over the last month (Nitro, Thunder & Saturday Night), making the notion of paying money to watch them on PPV less than appealing. I'm sure glad I decided to not go to this show. It was only a two hour drive from my home. I'd have been cussing like a sailor all the way home had I gone out to see this one. Will Goldberg win the U.S. Title, or will his winning streak end? I'm interested to see which happens next Monday, though believe me--I'm not expecting any kind of decent match to come out of it. Interference by DDP, Raven or Saturn (depending on who Goldberg faces) seems like a given.