Slobberknocker Central Monday Night Recap #115 January 26th, 1998 WCW Monday Nitro: Live/Taped: Live. Length: Three Hours. Location: Ft. Wayne, Indiana. HOUR ONE Hosted By: Tony Schiavone, Larry Zbyszko and Bobby Heenan. - They show "Rowdy" Roddy Piper making his announcement regarding the World Title at Souled Out. The intro then runs and Nitro is now being rated as "TV14", with a "V" advisory for violence. Tony Schiavone announces that the Giant has been injured at the hands of Kevin Nash. They begin to hype a major announcement coming later in the show. Dusty Rhodes turning on WCW and joining the NWO is just barely mentioned. - EL DANDY vs. ULTIMO DRAGON Raven and his Flock arrive at ringside during the match. In recent weeks they've been getting kicked out, but it's explained that tonight they bought tickets to the event. You mean they hadn't in the past? Weren't they then taking away seats from some ticket buying fans? Ultimo beats the unimpressive El Dandy in about two minutes, making him submit with the Dragon Sleeper. Going into the break they play pretaped comments from Lex Luger regarding Kevin Nash's injuring the Giant. - They go live via satellite to Chattanooga at the University of Tennessee, where Mean Gene is hosting the first Nitro Party winner spectacular. The Lambda Chi Alpha frat house is the host to several hundred people standing around, yelling and being generally pissed that they can't drink. Security guards are peppered throughout the crowd. The Nitro Girls stand around and occasionally dance a bit. Kimberly looks half drunk and half bored out of her skull. Mean Gene promises all kinds of games and excitement-none of which is shown in the other times throughout the night when they cut back to the "party". - BRAD ARMSTRONG vs. BILL GOLDBERG Goldberg is as over with the crowd as Steve McMichael used to be. No- selling all of Armstrong's offense, he very quickly beats him with the Jackhammer and the pin. Diamond Dallas Page delivers anti-Nash comments. - The footage of Kevin Nash Jackknifing the Giant on his head is shown about a dozen times. Mike Tenay then brings out J.J. Dillon, who brings up what happened to the career of Arn Anderson. He points out how wrestlers in general are getting bigger and stronger, and that it's time to look at the rules of the sport and start making some adjustments. He says he has no update on the Giant's condition, but hints that the Giant's career is over. Dillon announces that the Jackknife powerbomb-or any variation of it, is barred from WCW. Any wrestler who uses it will be DQ'ed, fined and possibly suspended. He says this goes for all WCW and NWO wrestlers, then specifically warns Kevin Nash that if he does the move, he'll be escorted from the arena and WCW will look into criminally prosecuting him. The announcers agree that this is a good idea and discuss past banned moves like coming off the top ropes and jumping from the apron to the floor. My brother and I begin a contest to see who is the first one to spot a wrestler forgetting and doing the move without being punished. It's almost sure to happen, since numerous forms of the powerbomb are part of virtually every WCW wrestler's arsenal-especially the cruiserweights. - JERRY FLYNN vs. KONAN (w/ Vincent) Near-squash for Konan. Flynn gets in a good move or two, and a brief stint on offense, but the match is mostly all Konan, who wins with the Tequila Sunrise submission hold. - Back to Chattanooga for the "party". Mean Gene asks the guy who sent in the winning party tape a few question. The Nitro Girls shimmy while trying not to be groped by horny college students. Okerlund gets comments from Kimberly, who seems more doped up than drunk. (No ... that's mean. Let's just say she looked about as excited as an astronaut at a bingo game). - Mike Tenay interviews Steve "Mongo" McMichael. Mongo trashes all the new guys coming from "up north" who brag about themselves. Mongo says he'd like to get his hands on some of them. Davey Boy Smith-the British Bulldog-limps out. Davey Boy says he's looking for a big bone to chew on. (Insert own Shawn Michaels joke here.) Mongo challenges him to a match. The Bulldog accepts and limps away. Make that three straight Hart Foundation members who have made unspectacular WCW arrivals. The crowd either didn't know who Smith was ... or didn't care. - BUFF BAGWELL (w/ Vincent) vs. RICK STEINER (w/ Ted DiBiase) Schiavone announces that the NWO has arrived in their limos, but that Randy Savage isn't with them (even though Elizabeth is). So-so match, with an almost 50/50 mix of power moves and restholds. Rick seems on the verge of winning when Scott Steiner comes out and attacks Vincent. Scott throws Vincent into the ring, which causes the ref to stop counting what is a sure pinfall for Rick. The ref yells at Scott, causing him to nail the ref. The referee DQ's Rick and assesses a $5000 fine on Scott. Scott tells DiBiase to pay the man. DiBiase and Rick agree that the money will come out of Scott's pocket. HOUR TWO Hosted By: Tony Schiavone, Larry Zbyszko and Bobby Heenan. - Kevin Nash-coffee in hand, and Eric Bischoff come out for comments. Eric accuses WCW of selectively singling Nash out for their new rules. Nash tells of how the Giant was unable to continue in their Souled Out match, which is why Nash splashed coffee in his face. That didn't work, so Nash, comparing the Giant to "Old Yeller", dropped him off his head. Nash says that from now on he's to be referred to as "Big Sexy, the Giant Killer". ("Show Stopper", "Main Eventer" and "Icon" already being used.) - WAYNE BLOOM vs. JIM "THE ANVIL" NEIDHART Proof positive that it's impossible to fill three hours a week with quality matches. Neidhart wins via powerslam, catching Bloom coming off the top rope. (Bloom was responsible for about 95% of the action in the match.) Zero crowd reaction. - Tenay interviews Ray Traylor, who says everyone in WCW is thinking of the Giant and that a lot of the wrestlers are now afraid of Nash. Traylor challenges Nash to a match later in the show. - PSYCHOSIS vs. CHAVO GUERRERO, JR. Somewhat of a disappointment as both men wrestle at about half-speed early on. They do one spot to the floor: Psychosis gets knocked off the top rope. Guerrero then hits him with an over-the-top-rope senton. Back in the ring they jockey back-and-forth a bit, with Psychosis getting the win following a legdrop off the top. Good match, but far below the usual stellar cruiserweight level. The crowd wasn't really into the match, and Psychosis gets almost no reaction of any kind following the pin. - Louie Spicolli comes to the ring carrying Scott Hall's Tag Title belts. Hall does his survey. Hall briefly mentions that Dusty Rhodes has joined the NWO, then moves on to the fact that Spicolli is looking to join. This following match is an initiation for him. Surprisingly little crowd heat. - LOUIE SPICOLLI vs. JUVENTUD GUERRERA Hall leaves before the match starts. During the match they show Randy Savage arriving in a rental car. Savage is mumbling to himself that he's going to get things straightened out. The match doesn't amount to much (though the two actually do a few decent moves in the short time they have). Guerrera sends Spicolli to the floor. Savage runs in and piledrives Guerrera. He begins ranting over the house mic for Lex Luger to come out. Spicolli pats Savage on the back and Savage nails him as well. Savage says the only reason Luger beat him at Souled Out was because of his "three stooges" NWO teammates. He tells Hogan, Bischoff and Nash that he never wants their help again. The NWO comes to the ring. Bischoff tells Savage to calm down. Savage says they make him sick. Hogan tells Savage that as long as he's part of the team that the rest will be around to help-especially since Savage wasn't doing so well against Luger. Hogan mockingly says they "care for him" and are looking out for his welfare. Hogan says Savage just wasn't looking too good in his match against Luger. Savage retorts that Hogan doesn't look so good now without the World Title. Hogan starts sputtering about how everyone knows he's cleanly pinned Sting twice. Savage slips out of the ring and grabs a chair. Bischoff begins yelling for some order. Savage leaves, with Elizabeth meekly following behind him, looking as worried as ... well, as worried as Liz always looks. Savage played up to the crowd as he left and got a fairly positive reaction. - Back to the party in Chattanooga, where some students have started up a weak looking limbo dance line. A blindfolded student plays "Pin the Tail on the Nitro Girl (Poster)". They then bring in someone dressed as Sting and ask the Nitro Girls to rate him. Kimberly gives him a "2", while another gives him a "9". - RAVEN vs. MORTIS (w/ James Vandenberg) A pretty entertaining match, as Mortis kicks things off by drop-kicking Raven in the groin as Raven sits in the corner of the ring. Mortis then sends him outside and slams him into the ringsteps. After another toss into the steps he grabs him by the hair, drapes a leg over him and jumps off the apron, riding him down onto the steps, slamming Raven into them facefirst. Back in the ring they trade punches and short forearm clotheslines. Raven sends Mortis to the floor and flips the ring steps up, using the steps as a running springboard platform to land a flying knee. He repeats the move. From there the match settles down into a series of traded pin attempts. Mortis ends up with a chair in the ring and takes a swing at Raven, but Raven ducks it, nails the DDT and gets the pin. The crowd noise picked up a bit near the end, but they promptly went back to sleep once the match was over. - DIAMOND DALLAS PAGE vs. WRATH (w/ James Vandenberg) Other than a clothesline off the top by Wrath and a flying headscissors pulled out of nowhere by DDP (but still thanks to Wrath, who does all the work for the move), this match was nothing. Mortis tries to interfere, nails Wrath instead and DDP hits the Diamond Cutter for the win. As usual DDP leaves through the crowd. Wrath, not quite recovered from the Cutter, nails Mortis with Death Penalty when Mortis tries to help him up. Wrath then gives Vandenberg the stink-eye. HOUR THREE Hosted By: Tony Schiavone, Larry Zbyszko and Bobby Heenan. - Tenay interviews Bret Hart (hyping him as the "Five Time World Champion"). Hart has new music, which is even closer to being a rip-off of his old music than his other WCW music was. (I think Neidhart also came out to the same music.) Hart says Ric Flair will always be the man. He then announces his intention to go after the World Title. He says he's cool with Piper's decision, and that he wants to prove that he should be WCW Champion. He essentially lays out a challenge to whoever wins between Hogan and Sting at SuperBrawl. - One last time to the party in Tennessee. Mean Gene does Scott Hall's survey and the crowd boos the NWO. The Nitro Girls then do a number: no two of them doing the same steps. Even though nothing has happened there they declare the party a smashing success and sign off. - BOOKER T. vs. SATURN (w/ Lodi) My brother asks me if Booker T. lost weight. "Yeah ... Stevie Ray." I reply. Blah match with but a few okay moves sprinkled here and there. Booker sets up Saturn for the Harlem hangover, but the Flock runs and begins to beat on him. Rick Martel is quickly on the scene to make the save. Martel, Saturn and Booker T. all stare down in the most blatant "Triangle Match" tease I've ever seen. - Tenay interviews Chris Jericho. Jericho's a bad guy now, don'tcha know? Next. - STEVE "MONGO" MCMICHAEL vs. DAVEY BOY SMITH Davey Boy limps to the ring. Mongo proceeds to beat the hell out of him for several minutes until Smith nails a crappy, half-assed powerslam for the win. - KEVIN NASH vs. RAY TRAYLOR Nash throws "hot" coffee at Traylor, hits him with a low blow then Jackknifes him. The ref calls for the bell and Nash is handcuffed by Doug Dellinger, then escorted away by security. Nash yells "Attica!" as Traylor, who's neck is now most assuredly broken by the insidious powerbomb variation, has to be attended to by several WCW referees. - Scott Hall comes to the ring and taunts Larry Zbyszko. Zbyszko starts toward the ring but is held back by WCW officials. They cut to a commercial. - Back from the break they run a SuperBrawl VIII promo (which, like Souled Out, is being billed as a "WCW/NWO" PPV). Only lasting a few seconds, the whole thrust of the promo is that everyone wants the World Title, but only one man can win in, which seems to suggest that the promo was made when WCW was considering doing a tournament for the title. (On a side note: that's also the idea implied in the print ads for the February PPV listings.) - LEX LUGER vs. SCOTT HALL Lex Luger only wrestles two kinds of matches: his standard match where he gets beat up the whole match, hulks up and puts his opponent in the Torture Rack; or there's the one where he actually gets in almost all the offense, hulks up even more and puts his opponent in the Torture Rack. Lex wrestles formula #2 this time out, letting Hall get in almost no offense. He then Racks him. Randy Savage runs in with a chair and kicks Luger in the back (causing Luger to win via DQ). Savage tosses Hall out of the ring and goes to work on Luger with the chair. He then drops an elbow off the top turnbuckle. He sets up for a second when Sting suddenly drops down from the ceiling PRECISELY AT THE SAME CORNER SAVAGE JUST HAPPENED TO CLIMB ONTO!!! Sting kicks Savage, knocking him to the mat. Sting unhooks his gear and enters the ring, After a quick Stinger Splash he slaps Savage into the Scorpion Deathlock. Hogan saunters to the ring and he and Hall circle it, looking on but doing nothing to help Savage. Sting releases the hold and he and Hogan do some finger pointing as the show ends. - This Thursday: Nothing announced. - Next week: Nothing announced. Comments: Boy, it sure was lucky for Sting that he happened to drop down right where Savage was perched. The odds are, what ... 25% of Savage happening to be in the right corner for that to come off just right? Some okay wrestling action and a few "big" moments aside, this was overall a terribly dull show. Unless you hadn't quite guessed, Nash is getting a monster push. Look for what happened this week to be repeated over and over until the Giant comes back. He then should get his revenge (though I wouldn't consider it a lock, given Nash's pull in WCW and his general Shawn Michaels-esque attitude toward jobbing). In case you're wondering, the Giant apparently did get a minor concussion from the move at Souled Out, but he appears to already have recovered completely-though WCW is going to play it out like a "career threatening injury" and keep him on the shelf for as much as two months. (By the way ... the Giant's WCW contract is supposedly up in the next few months, which makes his absence VERY interesting to say the least. Odds are that he'll re-sign, though). WCW has also announced that Traylor is out with an injury on their hotline, though that is most undoubtedly a complete work to further get Nash over as a crippler. Say ... didn't Dusty Rhodes join the NWO? Shouldn't they have at least shown us a still photo of it? Shouldn't Dusty have been on the show in person? Wanna bet they're saving it for Thunder? Wondering why Rhodes turned? Apparently it's due in great part to the fact that Tony Schiavone is getting burned out from all the announcing he's had to do lately. Word is that Rhodes will move from WCW Saturday Night to Thunder, where he-and possibly Eric Bischoff-will comprise a mostly NWO announcing team (along with Heenan, Lee Marshall or Mike Tenay). Three hours is just too damned much TV time for a non-PPV event. It's even worse when you add in the two hours of Thunder each week. I question the sanity of anyone who actually sits through all seven hours of WCW each and every week (when you count in WCW Saturday Night. Hell, over on the WWF side of things I myself only watch RAW-and occasionally Superstars, to see something interesting that happened on Shotgun). When Wayne Bloom gets in a match on Nitro you have to start questioning just how low the quality bar has been lowered to accommodate all this TV time. Sure, Nitro is still doing monster ratings. Thunder, on the other hand, has dropped each of the two weeks since its debut. WCW Saturday Night is plugging on as always, drawing about what they usually used to on the average (occasionally going up a bit). By the way ... La Parka apparently injured himself in a dark match before Nitro. This makes about a dozen or more guys in WCW now walking around with some form or another of injury. Tell me again that the increased workload on the wrestlers isn't having an affect on their bodies ... ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- WWF RAW is WAR: Live/Taped: Taped 1/20. Length: Two Hours. Location: Davis, California. WWF RAW Hosted By: Jim Ross, Michael Cole and Kevin Kelly. - They flash a tribute to the late Bobo Brazil before the intro. They then recap the Austin/Tyson incident. - KEN SHAMROCK vs. MARK HENRY (w/ the Nation of Domination) Shamrock comes to the ring with Ahmed Johnson and Skull and Crush of the DOA. Jim Ross mentions that Henry was in one of the Olympic commercials shown during the Super Bowl on Sunday. Henry gets to look good by dominating with a bearhug and a number of bodyslams. Shamrock just manages to fight back and apply a belly-to-belly suplex when everyone at ringside runs in. - They show a LENGTHY highlights package recapping the entire Undertaker/ Kane situation, including a few seconds of post-Rumble footage where the flaming casket was put out and opened, revealing that the Undertaker had disappeared. Let me just break in here and fairly note that almost twenty-five minutes have passed without much of anything happening in the show. Fortunately things would pick up and stay lively from here on. - JEFF JARRETT/BARRY WINDHAM (w/ Jim Cornette) vs. THE LEGION OF DOOM The Rock & Roll Express, wearing the NWA Tag Team Title, accompanied Cornette and his men to the ring. Pretaped comments from Windham and Jarrett are shown split-screen, with Windham saying he was tired of tagging with "Yosemite Sam". Windham didn't look too bad in this one (though a far cry from his peak- which wasn't all that much anyway, if you ask me). As is the usual (and as I've pointed out often) the LOD look good for the first few minutes of the match. The finish comes when Cornette tosses Windham the tennis racquet. As has been the case for the last fifteen years, the referee somehow doesn't hear the shotgun blast sound of the racquet connecting with Animal's back. Windham tosses it out and covers for the pin. Okay match, which deserves extra points for the nostalgia it evokes. I just hope this angle continues to build into something big. As they go to break they show DeGeneration X in the lockerroom. Unfortunately Hunter Hearst Helmsley drops his drawers in front of the camera. Fortunately Chyna holds up a title belt just in time to block out the naughty bits. Unfortunately Shawn grabs the belt and hold out another one, which allows far too much of Hunter to be seen in the transition. Fortunately the human brain has a mechanism by which it blots out unsavory memories such as this. Unfortunately I had to watch it again in the writing of this Recap. Fortunately I've run out of material to continue this running gag. - They show clips of Michaels on the game show "Pictionary". They then do a LENGTHY recap of the Tyson/Austin situation. Yup ... this is a taped show alright. - Helmsley, dressed in a towel and his European Title belt, delivers comments as Chyna wraps up Hunter's injured knee. Hunter painfully grunts his way through the interview. Michaels then says he'll do the right thing and forego his title defense against Steve Austin at WrestleMania so that Austin and Mike Tyson can duke it out at the PPV. Hunter says Shawn can't do that because he's the "Icon", "Show Stopper", etc. and that he has to be part of the biggest PPV ever. Shawn mulls over his options, eventually opening his coat to reveal a referee's shirt. Shawn says he could be the referee in a Tyson/Austin match. Back in the arena Kevin Kelly makes it clear that nothing is set, and that Michaels is still scheduled to face Austin in the main event. The Foot Action "Slam of the Week" is a shot of Cactus Jack suplexing Chainsaw Charlie onto two chairs during the Royal Rumble match. - THE ARTIST FORMERLY KNOWN AS GOLDUST (w/ Luna) vs. VADER Goldust is dressed somewhat like Vader (which is something I've been expecting for some time). Luna as well. Okay match, but short (and almost a squash on Vader's part). Vader nails "VaderDust" with several good power moves, leading up to a Vaderbomb and an imminent pin. The lights go out ... explosions .. red lights ... it's Kane! Kane comes to the ring followed by Paul Bearer. In possibly the best "mark-out" moment of the night for either show, Vader begins to lay shots into Kane. The crowd goes nuts. A kick doubles him over and Vader hoists him up and plants him with a piledriver. Vader then goes over to Paul Bearer. Unseen behind him Kane gets up. Vader quickly falls victim to a Tombstone at the hands of Kane. - Closing out the first hour they show Mick Foley and Terry Funk, taped earlier in the day, sitting in the ring and talking about Cactus Jack and Chainsaw Charlie (as if they were different people). Foley asks Funk how old Charlie is ("57 ... 58?"). Funk replies "nah ... he's in his early- to-mid 40's!" WWF WAR ZONE Hosted By: Jim Ross and Jerry "the King" Lawler. - THE NEW AGE OUTLAWS vs. CACTUS JACK/CHAINSAW CHARLIE The Outlaws head to the ring wearing baseball catcher's gear. A great brawling match. Cactus and Gunn fight out on the ramp as Road Dog and Charlie go at it in the ring. They settle into a standard tag match, with Charlie playing the rag doll for Gunn and the Dog to work over. Charlie is eventually able to tag Cactus in. Cactus cleans house. Charlie then goes nuts and starts tossing chairs into the ring. Cactus sends Gunn to the floor, goes over to the Dog, pulls out his (Road Dog's) protective cup and low kicks him. He then wails him on the head with a chair (as Charlie does the same to Gunn down on the floor). Cactus then does his patented flying chairsplash from the apron to the floor on Gunn. The ref calls for the bell, throwing out the match. The mayhem continues, culminating in Charlie doing a moonsault onto Road Dog, who has several chairs piled onto him. The Outlaws are declared the winners via DQ. - They show a video package which rather flippantly recounts Taka Michinoku's rise to the top of the Light Heavyweight Division. The Honky Tonk Man announces the competitors for the next match. (What, no Sunny?!) - BRIAN CHRISTOPHER vs. PANTERA The winner will go on to face Taka at the IYH PPV. An okay match, with the two different styles managing to merge fairly well. Christopher does a nasty looking Sunset Flip over the top rope, powerbombing Pantera from the apron onto the floor. After a few traded pin attempts and missed moves, Pantera rolls Christopher up for the pin. After the match Jerry Lawler, who vowed to shake the hand of the winner, gives Pantera a sucker punch. They cut to the back, where Cactus and Charlie are waiting to deliver comments. Cactus said the match for them was fun. They are then interrupted by Michaels and Helmsley, who mock the "hardcore legends". All of a sudden the chain link backdrop which they usually do the interviews in front off falls over, pinning Cactus and Charlie underneath. Road Dog and Billy Gunn pop out from behind the set and, along with Michaels and Helmsley, lay in a massive stompin' and a beatin'. Trash cans and other garbage are used. - HEAD BANGERS vs. THE QUEBECERS Typical tag team match-nothing special. The Head Bangers get something of an upset when the Quebecers take too long to set up their finisher. The Canadians continue to fight after the match, though. They do their finisher on Mosh anyway, which consists of a legwhip into a powerbomb applied by Jacques. He then holds on to the legs and rolls the man over into a Boston Crab. Finally Pierre comes off the top with a legdrop, landing on the hapless victim's back. As Lawler puts it, the Head Bangers won the battle, but lost the war. - Nine weeks to WrestleMania. - OWEN HART vs. HUNTER HEARST HELMSLEY (w/ Chyna) Very quickly it's apparent that it's not Hunter heading to the ring, but is in fact Goldust dressed as Hunter. He's wearing Hunter's gear, robe, a blonde wig and a huge fake nose. It's HunterDust! Luna is dressed as Chyna, carrying the European Title belt. (I can't tell how funny this all looked.) HunterDust does the X-chop to his crotch. Owen is seriously pissed at Hunter's for trying to make a fool of him. Owen yells for Hunter to come out, but is attacked by HunterDust. After a relatively long match (lasting through a commercial break) Owen knocks off the fake nose with an enzuguiri kick. Owen the does a drop-kick off the top. HuterDust comes back and applies the Pedigree (hah!), but Owen reverses it into a Sharpshooter. HunterDust quickly submits. The real Hunter, Chyna and Michaels appear on the Titan-Tron. They start ragging on Owen for being such a dope. Commissioner Slaughter makes his way to the ring at that point and announces that since Hunter "really got us this time", and that due to his poor eyesight, as far as he was concerned, Owen had defeated "Hunter Hearst Helmsley". What's more, since it was a title match, Owen is now the new European Champion. Hunter and Shawn fly off the handle, of course, but it's Owen who has the last laugh as he's handed the belt. - They again recap the Austin/Tyson situation in full. ENOUGH already! - In pretaped comments, Don King says they'd like to set up a match between Tyson and Austin, but that the Nevada State Athletic Commission won't let them. He says he and McMahon will continue to figure out a way for Tyson to appear at WrestleMania. - "Stone Cold" Steve Austin come to the ring to deliver comments. Short and sweet: Austin challenges Tyson to show up at the "No Way Out" PPV in Texas February 15th. - Next week: Nothing announced. Comments: Real slow start this week, but it picked up about a half-hour in, stayed really good most of the way through, then kind of petered out at the end. The Austin interview, which served a valuable purpose in setting up the possibility of Tyson at IYH, was still just an average Austin speech. I did enjoy a number of the matches this week, though. Having Hunter avoid a clean job to Owen was a bit cheap, though I understand why they did it. First off, Hunter is still injured. Since he made the challenge, it wouldn't have made sense for him to go into a match which we all know he couldn't win without help from Michaels and Chyna. With the injury, though, the WWF had to get the belt off him. That means there'd have been a lot of interference by D-X, possibly putting the spotlight back on the Owen/Shawn feud (which the WWF isn't ready to get back to just yet). The known injury also rules out Slaughter ordering a "mandatory title defense". What the WWF would have had to do in a case like that was just strip Hunter of the belt, then hold a tournament (which the WWF neither has the time nor inclination to do right now). That only left a scenario whereby Hunter figured he was "putting one over" on Owen. Thus "HunterDust". Owen gets to win the belt in a clean fashion (more or less), while Hunter's reputation is still protected. The feud between the two is still intact, ready and waiting for Hunter to get better and return to action. The only thing that suffers is the already non-existent reputation of the title, which may possibly benefit if Owen is able to defend it with any kind of regularity. I really didn't expect much this week, especially since I had read the results the week before. The show surprised me quite a bit, in that what they showed came off a lot better than it was described over the Net. It wasn't as strong a show as other recent installments, but was still very entertaining (displaying what I thought was a definite upswing in the overall match quality). And ... no Los Boricuas! Or Truth Commission! Or Godwinns! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Bottom Line: Let's clear this up once and for all: Tyson will NOT wrestle at WrestleMania! He will referee the match between Austin and Michaels. Look for the tensions to settle somewhat between Austin and Tyson, while they increase between Tyson and Michaels. They'll then go into WrestleMania with the question being "who will Tyson favor in the match-if either man?" You can then bet that Austin will win the title, which will lead to a disgruntled Michaels getting into it with Tyson (thus satisfying those who wanted to see Tyson fight). Tyson ends up looking like a good guy because he sided with Austin and laid out Michaels. The actual booking may differ, but I guarantee some scenario similar to this is what's being planned. For those asking "isn't it cheap that the WWF is making us think Austin and Tyson will wrestle?", my answer is that with nine weeks to go until the PPV it's pretty much your own fault for assuming anything this early. You can't even buy the PPV yet, so don't get so worked up over it. Speaking off PPV's, as solid as Souled Out was, WCW once again delivered a show which ultimately proved nearly meaningless. Okay, so Nash got the big push while injuring the Giant. Other than that, just what happened? Rhodes turning NWO? Yeah, like that has an impact on anything. Flair lost to Hart? Who's going to remember it in a week or so when Flair is back and "whoo!"-ing like nothing happened? The angles involving Savage and the NWO, as well as the Scott Steiner storyline, both saw only minuscule development-nothing more than was done on the live TV shows before and this week's Nitro after. Hall and Zbyszko talked and acted like they hadn't even wrestled, and that the Rhodes turn never even happened. Piper came back, assuming the role he had when he left, and pretty much just postponed any development in the World Title situation until the next PPV. Even Chris Jericho winning the Cruiserweight belt had no more impact than the half dozen title changes in that division leading up to it. (Sure, a Jericho/Mysterio feud was born: one which is immediately put on hold for a couple of months while Mysterio rehabs his knee.) Benoit beat Raven and two nights later Raven acts as if nothing happened, while Benoit seems to have dropped off the face of the Earth. The angle surrounding the TV Title is the same as it was three or four weeks ago. Sting, who a month ago was the "savior" of WCW, is once again a guy who doesn't wrestle, isn't the champion and just sits up in the ceiling until it's time to drop down and beat someone up. I daresay next week WCW could replay a Nitro from November and nobody would would be able to tell the difference. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 115 of the "Monday Night Recap", January 26th, 1998.