Slobberknocker Central Monday Night Recap #129 May 4th, 1998 WCW Monday Nitro: Live/Taped: Live. Length: Two Hours. Location: Indianapolis, Indiana. HOUR ONE Hosted By: Tony Schiavone, Mike Tenay and Larry Zbyszko. - Things get underway this week with a clip of Kevin Nash, Randy Savage and Konan from last week's show. Good idea: it's not as if anyone saw it last week (*chuckle*). - Nitro Girls. - They again replay the clip of Konan defecting to the Wolfpack. - EDDIE GUERRERO (w/ Chavo Jr.) vs. SCOTT "FLASH" NORTON Before the match Eddie tells Chavo that he'll show him how to be a real Guerrero. Eddie then fakes a knee injury and forces Chavo to wrestle the match in his place. Less than two minutes later Norton gets the pin. Ultimo Dragon comes out to see if Chavo is okay, but Eddie tells him to beat it. Eddie then chews Chavo out for losing. Remember when Eddie Guerrero used to actually wrestle? Is he injured or something? - SCOTT PUTSKI vs. BILLY KIDMAN Putski makes his Nitro debut and looks good in the three or four moves he's able to do before the match is interrupted by ... Nash, Savage and Konan enter through the crowd. Nash lays out Putski with a Jackknife. Kidman disappears. Nash gets on the house mic, gives a shout out to Scott Hall and points out the new colors he and the Wolfpack are wearing: black & red. Savage takes over and badmouths "Hollywood" Hogan and Bret "Hitman" Hart. Nash takes the mic back and introduces their newest member ... Curt Hennig. Brian Adams comes out and asks him what he's doing. Hennig brushes him off and hits the ring, removing his black & white NWO shirt to reveal his black & red NWO shirt. Nash tells Adams to beat it. Konan takes the mic and lays down some ethnic lingo. Nash closes out the segment by challenging Lex Luger, daring Sting to watch the match from wherever he is. Quick aside on Putski: I read an interview he gave where he blasted the WWF for making him a Light Heavyweight. Now he's in WCW and Mike Tenay, during the match commentary, pegs him as a Cruiserweight. - Raven delivers some rambling comments in a pretaped segment. You know, most people are traumatized by adolescence and high school--not kindergarten. - They show a clip of Chris Jericho doing his rundown of Dean Malenko. - Jericho comes to the ring for some more degrading Malenko comments. He runs an old Malenko interview clip where Dean is talking about his father, Prof. Boris Malenko. Jericho calls Dean a disgrace to his family. He then brings out his opponent for the night ... - BORE-US MALENKO vs. CHRIS JERICHO "Bore-us" is some jobber who looks, acts and dresses like Dean Malenko. He has a big "(1)" on his trunks instead of "1000" like Malenko. Jericho takes little time to put the guy away with the Lion Tamer. - Nitro Girls. Alex Wright shows up when they're done and starts dancing. Tenay, Schiavone and Zbyszko complain about his presence until he's dragged out by security. Yeah, the best angles are ALWAYS the ones WCW doesn't bother to explain. What's going on ... why is he there ... why are they arresting him ... will any of these questions ever be answered? Bigger question: who cares? - They replay Hogan's comments from last week regarding Bret Hart. This would constitute Hogan's only appearance on tonight's show. - PUBLIC ENEMY vs. HUGH MORRUS/BARBARIAN/JIMMY HART A "Street Fight". Allegedly. The four wrestlers pair off and bash each other with tinfoil objects. Two tables are broken. Johnny Grunge and Jimmy Hart end up in the ring together. Grunge tears Hart's shirt off, bodyslams him and covers for the pin. Maybe that ECW PPV wasn't so bad after all. - "Mean" Gene Okerlund interviews Brian Adams. Adams tells Okerlund and the fans to "go out and a nice warm cup of shut-the-hell-up!" Adams sings the praises of Hogan, showing which side of the fence he's on. Adams agrees to a match with Konan for later in the show. - Pretaped comments from Booker T, regarding his Spring Stampede match with Chris Benoit are played. Booker T. says he'll give Benoit another title shot at Slamboree. Apparently none of the TV Title changes which occurred over the weekend will be acknowledged, even though the latest took place at the "Profiles in Pain" Internet broadcast. I guess we Internet and live event fans just don't count. Thanks WCW ... screw you too. - Bret Hart's whiny comments from last week are replayed. HOUR TWO Hosted By: Schiavone, Tenay and Bobby "The Brain" Heenan. - SATURN (w/ Kidman) vs. HAMMER Kidman announces that this is a "Loser Leaves the Flock" match. It turns out to be the first really decent match of the show. Raven and the Flock are shown via split-screen watching from the back. Saturn does a leap from the apron into a huracanrana on the floor. Hammer reverses a splash of the top into a powerslam. Saturn later brings a chair in and uses it to springboard splash Hammer in the corner. He tries it again but Hammer pulls the ref in the way. Suddenly we see a lost soda vendor wandering outside the ring. This vendor, who is also the fan who has been attacking Raven and Kidman over the last several weeks, enters the ring and nails Saturn with his soda tray. The pop explodes everywhere, making for a great visual. He then nails Hammer with the chair. He lays Hammer on top of Saturn. The ref then recovers and makes the three count. If it sticks, Saturn is now out of the Flock. (I doubt it'll stick, though.) They cut to Raven, who begins to head to the ring to sort things out. Before he can exit his dressing room, though, he's jumped by Diamond Dallas Page, who nails him with a stop sign. He whacks the other Flock members with a bull-rope with a cow-bell attached. DDP slams Raven against a steel sliding door, then loops the rope around his neck and drags him to the ring. There he throws Raven over the top rope and hangs him. WCW decides it's time to cut away at that point. Wild stuff. This whole segment, to me, was more entertaining than the entire ECW PPV. - Nitro Girls. - SICK BOY (w/ the Flock) vs. JUVENTUD GUERRERA A solid follow-up to the last match, though nowhere near as spectacular. Guerrera is actually on the verge of hitting the 450 Splash for the win when the other Flock members run in, drawing the DQ. Things look pretty bad for Juvi, but he saved by the arrival of Bill Goldberg. Goldberg spears Horace Boulder and Jackhammers Reece. In a bit of an amusing sight, Goldberg forgets himself and starts to make a pin cover on Reece. (He must really have to practice the few moves he does.) Goldberg's appearance draws nearly the loudest reaction of the entire show. - "Mean" Gene interviews Rick Steiner. Rick calls for his brother Scott to come out, saying he want to finish things between them once and for all. Scott comes out on a pair of crutches. Rick practically laughs, accusing Scott of faking whatever injury he's supposed to have. Scott then launches into a poorly delivered, yet emotionally charged speech about how he was wrong to join the NWO. He says what happened to Buff Bagwell has made him reevaluate his career direction. He asks Rick to forgive him and let them go back to being the Steiner Brothers. Rick, the biggest puppy dog babyface in the sport, mulls it over a bit before deciding to give his brother a second chance. The two embrace. What a perfect opportunity for Brian Adams to come out and whack Rick with a baseball bat! Scott cheers him on, directing where to place the next few bat shots. Evil rules the day. Scott's poor mic work aside this was a well executed segment. Rick, needing some time off to recuperate from a shoulder injury, now has a storyline to explain his upcoming absence. - BRIAN ADAMS vs. KONAN Man, who did Adams bribe this past week? This has really been his night. Konan starts things off with a string of quick moves. Adams then comes back, taking control of the match. Suddenly Bret Hart appears and slams Konan against a guard rail down on the floor. Tossed back in the ring it's just a formality for Adams to get the win. This never comes to pass, however, as Kevin Nash shows up. A Jackknife later and Adams is awarded a DQ win. Neither competitor in this match was very over with the crowd, and Nash got a far louder reaction than Hart. - Nitro Party Video. - FIT FINLEY vs. BOOKER T. Slow match. Finley has the upper hand at first, with Booker then using high impact moves to stage a comeback. Who should show up then but Chris Benoit. Dressed in street clothes, he saunters to the ring. Booker T. is distracted just long enough for Finley hit him from behind, Tombstone Piledrive him and cover for the shocking upset pin! New Television champion for the fifth straight night, though this is the only one WCW is actually acknowledging. A "bull****" chant could be heard from the crowd as they replayed the pin. One young fan at ringside looked totally devasted by Booker's loss, which was pretty funny actually. What a mess. I'd bet money that Booker T. wins the belt back on Nitro before the PPV. I have no idea if Benoit will win the belt again and frankly, at this point, I just don't care. - KEVIN NASH (w/ Konan & Randy Savage) vs. LEX LUGER This one's about three minutes of back-and-forth action before Konan and savage run in. Out comes Sting and the Giant to even up the odds. Brian Adams then comes out, but he's stopped halfway to the ring by Bret Hart, who points out what a beautiful site it is for all these guys to be brawling amongst themselves. The show ends nearly five minutes early, just missing going head-to-head with RAW by about a minute. - This Thursday: Thunder isn't on again this week. - Next week: Nothing announced. Comments: For the first time in many weeks WCW actually delivered an entertaining show. One big key was only running two hours, which meant we didn't have to sit through matches involving the likes of Wayne Bloom, Barry Darsow and Jerry Flynn. They also seem to be emulating the WWF somewhat in that they're paying a lot of attention to the angles, but at the cost of quality matches. Not one match on the show really compared to the usually decent matches they were putting on a few months ago. The Cruiserweights have all but disappeared, while guys like Benoit, Ultimo Dragon and Eddie Guerrero are only seeing limited in-ring time. Chris Jericho, who is arguably the best thing WCW has going for them these days in the mid-card, either fights jobbers like he did this week or the same small group of contenders. It's also hard to consider all this a "push" for Jericho since it's all building to the return of Dean Malenko. Malenko will most likely crush Jericho upon his return, which would hurt Jericho's image and status. On the other hand if they have Jericho win, then Dean's return and the build that lead to it would be meaningless. WCW's going to have to work real hard to keep these two guys interesting after their eventual showdown. This feud may be too far down on the card to devote the time to it needed to keep both wrestlers "alive". Nash and his Wolfpack have essentially become babyfaces. Too bad we have to sit through all this NWO nonsense just to keep the merchandising alive. The NWO is dead, but they'll never admit it so long as they can sell t-shirts. Speaking of the NWO, no explanation Bret Hart ever gives will convince the fans that he isn't NWO at this point. Sure he just wants to beat Hogan for the title, but so does Nash and Savage. The only reason Hart will never "officially" be NWO is because he won't wear the shirt. If Nash and Savage can openly feud with Hogan and still be NWO, then why isn't Hart? If WCW doesn't do this right the fans will be cheering for Hogan when it comes time for the two to step into the ring. Hogan may be a "bad guy", but he's a "bad guy" the fans can understand. Hart, on the other hand, is just a whiny, back-stabbing, two-faced, egotistical jerk. Schiavone made an oblique reference to Ric Flair at one point in the show, lumping him in with Scott Hall by talking about guys who were being kept off TV due to "litigation and personal problems". Much of the show's commentary revolved around speculation regarding where Scott Hall was, would he be at the PPV, and whose side will he be on when he does return. I'm not exactly sure that Hall siding with Hogan will "change wrestling history forever!" as the Slamboree promo is promising. Maybe that's when the Ultimate Warrior will be making his WCW debut? Either WCW pulled some strings, or the NBA playoffs are progressing in such a way that WCW will be returning to their regular time and length next week. That has to calm Eric Bischoff's nerves somewhat. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- WWF RAW is WAR: Live/Taped: Taped 4/28. Length: Two Hours. Location: Richmond, Virginia. WWF RAW Hosted By: Jim Ross, Michael Cole and Kevin Kelly. - The Austin/McMahon saga is recapped. Notice how everyone call Vince "Mr. McMahon" these days? Everyone, that is, except "Stone Cold" Steve Austin. - The music for the "Love Shack" starts up, but is halted at the request of Mick Foley. Foley asks the fans if they know who he is, then admits that he's not too sure himself. He talks about his match with Steve Austin at "Unforgiven", then criticizes the fact that he wasn't rewarded for his efforts. He complains about Goldust being given the title shot last week, then further complains that he has to face Terry Funk in a "No Holds Barred" match later tonight. He calls McMahon a "low-life scum" and says he'll never wrestle as Dude Love again. Foley, calling himself Cactus Jack, calls Vince McMahon out. Enter McMahon. Mick throws the Dude Love outfit at him. Vince then laces into Foley, asking him just who does he think he is to call the owner of the World Wrestling Federation out? McMahon says Foley didn't get the job done at the PPV, nor the night after. He says Foley is just making excuses for his own failures, and that the match tonight isn't a punishment, but an opportunity. He tells Foley that if he wins the match tonight, he'll be back on track as the number one contender. Almost belching fire and brimstone, McMahon tells Foley that he sacrifices made here tonight will give Foley what he needs to become the top contender, beat Steve Austin and ultimately become the WWF champion. McMahon answers Foley's throwing of the Dude Love clothes at him with a slap to the face. Foley grins, as he begins to understand McMahon's master plan. *KEE-RASH!* McMahon hightails it to the ring as Austin comes out, carrying a rope and grappling hook. After menacing McMahon a bit he takes the rope and hook and uses it to tear the "Love Shack" set down. Foley looks on from the shadows of the entryway. Great interview segment. I'm not sure how he did it, but McMahon has become one of the best heels in wrestling. Unbelievable. - OWEN HART/ROCKY MAIVIA (w/ the Nation) vs. STEVE BLACKMAN/FAAROOQ Jim Ross says that Owen's position in the Nation is as an equal to Rocky. They play a clip of Owen turning of Shamrock last week. Commissioner Slaughter comes out and kicks the other Nation members out of the ringside area. An okay match, though nothing flashy. Jim Ross was all over the map in commentary, talking about a whole lot of stuff, while managing to still call some of the match. Ross thanks the fans for making last week's show the most watched "sports entertainment" show ever on cable TV. The highlight of the match comes when Faarooq plants Rocky with a spike piledriver. Rocky's head smacks the mat and his whole body, vertically upside-down, bounces about a foot in the air! Owen gets the pin when Jeff Jarrett makes a sneak attack, taking out Blackman. - A special tribute video for Gerald Brisco is played, featuring old black-and-white photos of him, footage of him in the ring, and candid footage of him at play with his family. The auto body shop he and his brother Jack run in Florida is shown. Brisco, in a "WWF Attitude" shirt, says he owes everything to Vince McMahon. This was done seriously but it came so far out of nowhere that it was good for a laugh. - A video vignette teasing the latest WWF superstar soon to arrive, "The Edge", is played. The Edge--AKA Adam Copeland--looks like Chris Jericho with Hunter Hearst Helmsley's hair. His gimmick looks a bit like Raven's, except that The Edge appears to bathe every once in a while. - The DeGeneration X crew hit the ring to deliver comments. Helmsley does his Michael Buffer imitation again, then throws in his usual crude sex joke. Road Dog does his high energy New Age Outlaws intro. Pretty much the usual stuff, all directed at the Disciples of Apocalypse, who have a title shot scheduled for later in the show. LOD 2000 and Sunny appear on the stage. Hawk cracks a few crude jokes at the expense of each D-X member. He then challenges them to change the Tag Title match into and eight-man tag match. X-Pac tells them to bring it on. Animal takes a shot back at X-Pac. Typical exchange in all this: ANIMAL: "X-Pac .. Ex-Lax, whatever the hell your name is, we want your scrawny little ass in the ring tonight!" HAWK: "Hey, little man, I'm talking to you!" X-PAC: "Why don't you talk to THIS right here!" (Crotch chop.) HAWK: "I can't see it!" The upshot of all this is that the DOA get screwed out of a Tag Title match, instead having to tag with the LOD in an eight-man match. In a truly bizarre moment, a computer generated clip is played as they go to break of an iron-plated WWF logo walking into a bar, chugging down a beer and letting out a loud belch. The WWF's new target audience seems to be the whole MTV/Sony Playstation crowd (which, ironically, is the same fan base the WWF targeted when they cooked up the "Rock & Wrestling" concept in the 80's). - They play a few seconds of Paul Bearer's revelations regarding Kane being his son. - DAN "THE BEAST" SEVERN vs. SAVIO VEGA More or less a squash, with Severn getting a submission win in less than two minutes. Jerry "the King" Lawler is shown in the back waiting to interview Paul Bearer. They cut to a break, but uh-oh ... it seems someone forgot to shut off the camera! For the next few minutes we get a hilariously candid discussion between Lawler and Bearer about how he lost his virginity to the Undertaker's mother. Lawler cracks all kinds of jokes about the situation, while Bearer relates the experience and how a very young Undertaker nearly caught him and his mother in the act. The funniest line from Bearer was "I wasn't fat then like I am now. In fact, Jerry, I was kind of studly!" The cameraman, who had set the camera down to get Lawler some bottled water, apparently notices that the camera is still on and cuts it off abruptly. - A solemn looking Jerry Lawler apologizes for whatever it was we may have heard he and Paul Bearer talking about. During the break I asked my brother "wouldn't it be great if when they come back Lawler makes an apology?" Great minds think alike, I guess. - They show a clip of Sable challenging Marc Mero last week, then some footage of her working out in the gym. Damn, she got some big 'uns! - MARC MERO vs. JEFF JARRETT (w/ Tennesse Lee) No match. Steve Blackman comes out and attacks Jarrett before the two can lock up. They then cut to commercial. - DOA/LOD 2000 (w/ Sunny) vs. DEGENERATION X (w/ Chyna) Sunny is kicked out of the ringside area. They try to do the same to Chyna, but it's revealed that she will be wrestling in the match instead of X-Pac! X-Pac is then forced to leave the ring area. Not a bad match, actually. Chyna tags in a couple of times and gets the crowd going. The first time she does a huracanrana on one of the DOA (requiring a fair bit of assistance from her opponent to pull it off). The next time she tags in she climbs on the turnbuckles. She plays up to the crowd, getting an okay reaction. Hawk then comes over and knocks her to the floor, which draws an even bigger reaction. The match itself, which lasts over ten minutes, comes to an end when the LOD and DOA inexplicably start fighting amongst themselves. The D-X members look on laughing as a chair swinging brawl breaks out on the floor. After the commercial break they show footage of the two teams brawling in the back. The above match runs over into the War Zone, preempting the usual opening sequence. WWF WAR ZONE Hosted By: Jim Ross and Jerry "The King" Lawler. - GOLDUST vs. KANE No more "Artist Formerly Known As ... " crap. He's also gone back to his old music. No Luna, either. This match only goes for a few minutes, with Kane dominating (though Goldust gets in a bit of offense by working over Kane's bandaged arm). The match ends when the Undertaker runs out and attacks Paul Bearer. He and Kane engage in a pull-apart brawl. - They run a lengthy video feature detailing the relationship between Mick Foley and Terry Funk. Interviews clips are shown, as well as some of the Foley teenage home videos, and lots of footage of the two fighting in bloody gimmick matches in Japan. Man, they're hyping this one as if it were a PPV match! - Val Venis and porn star Jenna Jameson play some wargames in the bushes in Venis' latest video teaser. Jenna, if you've never seen her, is quite an eyeful. *Boi-oi-oi-oing!!!* - Steve Austin comes out to join the announcing crew. He takes a seat after appropriating a tray full of beers from a vendor at ringside. - MICK FOLEY vs. TERRY FUNK Pat Patterson is announced as the special guest referee, which doesn't sit well with Austin. Stone Cold spends the first few minutes of the match praising the two wrestlers for their toughness. The match itself starts off down on the floor with Foley and Funk trading chair shots. After a trio of wicked shots by Funk, Foley is gushing blood from his scalp. The match then goes into autopilot as a mini-angle plays out with Austin and his headset. Audio distortion starts to cut out Austin's commentary. Austin takes Jerry Lawler's headset, but that too shorts out. Venting his anger he hauls Lawler out of his seat and nails him. After chewing out Jim Ross for a bit the problem goes away. Foley and Funk, meanwhile, have battled their way into the crowd. They head over to a concession area, where Foley takes out two vendors with clotheslines and DDT's. Funk nails Mick with a Pepsi bin, which puts him down long enough so that he can climb up to the elevated seating section and do a moonsault from about seven or eight feet off the floor! Foley and the two vendors are wiped out. Funk grabs at his shoulder and starts twitching, yelling for the match to stop because he's injured. Foley ignores his pleas and hauls him onto a table, which he piledrives him through. Foley then drags Funk under the bleachers to an area leading to the back, leaving the camerman behind. Cut to a commercial. The brawl has continued through the break, with Foley slamming Funk into a table in the back. Mick tries a cover but Patterson is slow with the count. They pass through a pair of doors and make their way back to the ring. That's only temporary, though, as Foley clotheslines Funk to the floor in front of the announcer's desk. Mick tears the top of the desk off and nails Funk with it. He than lays Funk on the desk and hits him with a running chair smash off the apron. Back in the ring Foley delivers a piledriver, then a second piledriver onto a chair. That's enough to put Funk way for the pin. He continues to beat on Funk, bashing his head against the chair, which brings Austin into the ring--beer in hand. Words are exchanged and Austin throws the beer in Foley's face. Mick makes a grabs for Austin and slaps on the Mandible Claw, but being blinded by the beer he grabs referee Patterson instead of Austin. Austin backs Foley into the corner, then turns to meet Patterson, who had been trying to sneak up behind him with the chair. A kick to the gut and Patterson falls victim to the Stone Cold Stunner. Foley slowly makes his way up the ramp as Austin stands tall in the ring. Stone Cold's music, which had just started moments before, is suddenly replaced with Dude Love's music. In perhaps the strangest sight ever on RAW, Vince McMahon comes out with the two Dudettes and begins to dance! He embraces Foley and the two dance with the girls as the show ends. - Next week: Sable vs. Marc Mero. Comments: A very good installment of RAW with only a few weak points. The biggest was the seeming lack of any matches this week. There were only six matches, with just three of them actually going to a finish. If you could get past that, though, this was a pretty entertaining show for the most part. I just can't get the image of Vince McMahon dancing out of my head. It's the kind of thing that makes you laugh until it hurts, then have nightmares about it that night. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Bottom Line: If I have any hope of getting this sucker out on time I'll forego any long- winded rants here. I'll just note how much the two promotions have changed in recent weeks, and how nice it is to see some new angles, pushes, etc. Next week will be huge. Both shows are live. Both will go all out, with the WWF hoping to hold onto a lot of those WCW viewers they pulled in these last two weeks, while WCW will be desperate to get them back. Things could get messy and ugly next week. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- This Week's Winner: RAW. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Slobberknocker Central" and "Monday Night Recap" are copyright 1998 by John Petrie, and all opinions expressed therein are his own, and not those of "Internet Access, Inc". Check the "Slobberknocker Central" main page for info on how to receive the "Recap" free via E-Mail every week. Volume One, Number 129 of the "Monday Night Recap", May 4th, 1998.