Thunder Results
June 18th, 1998.
Live/Taped: Live.
Length: Two Hours+.
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Hosted By: Tony Schiavone, Bobby "The Brain" Heenan and Lee Marshall.

Right off the bat Lex Luger and Konan head to the ring. To make a VERY long 
story short, Luger talks for almost seven minutes, telling "Hollywood" 
Hogan that while he was gone recently the Wolfpac came about and guys like 
Bill Goldberg rose to the top. In essence, nobody likes Hogan. I hear next 
week Luger's going to spend a half hour explaining how ice works. This was 
not a good way to start the show. The crowd ate it up, though, chanting 
"Hogan sucks!" at the right spot.

Schiavone confirms that Karl Malone, as the entire world saw the night 
before on "The Tonight Show", will wrestle with Diamond Dallas Page against 
"Hollywood" Hogan and Dennis Rodman at Bash at the Beach next month. The 
official announcement was made earlier in the day at a press conference, 
which will be aired in its entirety next Monday on Nitro. (Why bother at 
this point?) They then announce that Randy Savage has a broken leg: caused 
by a well placed kick from Eric Bischoff. Well ain't Uncle Eric a badass?!
He is truly a mighty, mighty man. Going to the break they show an annoying 
snippet of Rodman's appearance last week. Further footage will air prior to 
each commercial break for most of the rest of the show. I've mentioned in 
the past how much this annoys me.

STEVE "MONGO" MCMICHAEL vs. "MEAN" MIKE ENOS
Enos actually gets in tons of offense, working over Mongo's injured arm. 
Mongo, only showing a little ring rust, suddenly stops selling the injury 
and gets the win with a Tombstone Piledriver. I hate to say this, since I 
actually kind of like Mongo, but at times in this match he looked like 
"Hacksaw" Jim Duggan. Schiavone actually mentions the "Horsemen" during the 
course of this one. Mongo holds up a Horsemen sign--taken from a 
fan--following the match.

Raven hits the ring to do a whiny, "What about me?!" interview. He gets an 
assurance from Reese that he'll win the U.S. Title from Goldberg tonight. 
He then rambles on about Saturn. On one hand he says he dumped him, then 
turns around and whines about Saturn betraying him and the Flock. Raven is 
obviously obsessed with Saturn, making this whole angle seem every bit as 
tawdry as has been teased. Saturn then comes out and says it's Raven who 
turned on him. The Flock then jumps Saturn, but he's able to fight them 
off. Kanyon runs out to help, but Saturn doesn't appear that interested 
when the two get real close. I guess he doesn't swing that way. The Philly 
crowd seemed to get a kick out of this latest installment of "Slacker 
90210".

Goldberg video.

BRAD ARMSTRONG vs. FIT FINLEY
Finley, who just a few weeks ago might have really gotten over with this 
crowd if he still had the TV belt, is booed unmercifully. The usual 
"Boring!" chants break out, the first coming maybe ten seconds into the 
match! Finley wins with the Tombstone, drawing a big boo from the crowd. 
One of those rare instances where I actually liked the match more than the 
live crowd did, (Not by much, though.)

DISCO INFERNO vs. THE GIANT (w/ Vincent)
Disco stops off at the desk to tell the announcers to tell us fans that 
he's the new "Icon". The Giant lights up again, causing Disco to tell him 
over the mic that the people are there to see him dance, not to see the 
Giant smoke cigarettes. Thirty seconds later he's staring up at the lights, 
as the Giant celebrates his easy chokeslam victory.

Schiavone interviews Dean Malenko re: Chris Jericho.

CHONO/TENZAN vs. THE BRITISH BULLDOG/JIM "THE ANVIL" NEIDHART
This looked like one of those matches where they just throw some guys 
together because someone missed their flight. The Japanese dominate the 
bulk of the match, with Neidhart getting in virtually no offense. The 
Bulldog comes in twice and does a few moves. The second time in he plants 
Chono with a powerslam, but Tenzan whacks him with his IWGP Tag Title belt, 
drawing a DQ.

Schiavone interviews "Ravishing" Rick Rude. Rude badmouths Konan and 
Goldberg. Everyone's favorite chant starts up.

ALEX WRIGHT vs. KONAN
Good match, but I didn't care. This should have been a squash, but the 
appearance of Rude at ringside allows Wright to get in some extra offense, 
dragging the match out by several minutes. Konan looked better than usual, 
and got a good response from the crowd. He gets the pin with an unusual 
rolling bridge maneuver. This reminded me of the Steve Blackman/Jeff 
Jarrett matches in the WWF: they're okay, but I'm just not interested in 
either wrestler.

Just like clockwork, WCW shows the entire Rodman clip they've just spent 
the last 90 minutes showing piece-by-piece before the commercials.

EDDIE GUERRERO vs. CHRIS BENOIT
Benoit starts off working Eddie over in the corner. He brings him out, 
knocks him down, then follows with a snap suplex. Benoit tries a whip into 
the corner, but Eddie reverses it, then catches Benoit in the back with a 
clothesline. A few stomps, then Eddie does a suplex. He follows with a walk 
on the top rope, coming off and rolling Benoit into position for a two 
count. Eddie then works over Benoit's leg, hooking it with his own and 
dropping back into a bridge. Another suplex attempt, but Benoit escapes and 
does his rolling belly-to-back suplex (only twice, though). He then goes 
for the headbutt off the top, but Eddie moves. Eddie goes for the Frog 
Splash, but Benoit moves. He tries a suplex, but Eddie escapes and starts 
to apply a sleeperhold. Benoit escapes, slapping on the Crippler Crossface 
for the win. Good match for what it was, but at four minutes it was just 
far too short to be considered really good. As it was it was maybe halfway 
to being a tremendous match.

Chavo Guerrero, Jr. then comes out and picks on Eddie, calling him "little 
trooper" and telling him he's a Guerrero. (Basically all the stuff Eddie 
used to do to him.) Chavo rattles off a series on nonsensical sayings, such 
as "Every dog has his day. Well, not every dog." The crowd didn't go for 
this and neither did I. Didn't these two settle things at the PPV?

PUBLIC ENEMY vs. SICK BOY/SCOTTY RIGGS (w/ Lodi)
A "South Philadelphia Street Fight". The P.E. bring a wheelbarrow full of 
weapons to the ring. Two tables are also stacked up at ringside. This 
wasn't as bad as Monday's "street fight" farce, but it wasn't much better 
either. Nobody sold anything for more than ten seconds. Most of the weapons 
were again either tinfoil or rubber. Rocco takes a ride in the wheelbarrow 
into the guard rail, hearkening back to all the dumpster and wheelchair 
rides he took in years gone by. The crowd does a shameful "ECW!" chant. 
(And really, WCW: why do a match, the sole purpose of which is to get the 
crowd to chant the initials of one of your competitors?) Riggs takes the 
match down a notch by wearing a toilet seat around his neck for most of the 
"match". No one even bothers to try and wrestle. It's just bash, bash, 
bash, bash, bash. (Kind of like this review.) As you'd expect, Rocco Rock 
puts Sick Boy through the double-stacked tables. He then rolls him back in 
the ring for the pin. The sad thing here is some fans out there, who 
probably haven't even seen ECW (especially in its heyday) will call this 
match "great" and "ECW-like". Unfortunately it was neither.

GOLDBERG vs. REESE (w/ Horace)
Goldberg no-sells a stop sign shot. He no-sells a suplex. Spear ...
Jackknife. Win #101. The announcers actually have to gall to question 
whether or not Goldberg can Jackknife the big man. I guess we're all just 
supposed to forget that three or four weeks ago Goldberg Jackknifed both of 
these men following a match with ease.

Next Monday: Rodman/Malone press conference.

Next week: Nothing announced.

Comments:

Crowd pleasing finish to a mostly dull show. Zero in the way of angle 
development, unless you count them officially announcing the Rodman/Malone 
match. They actually managed to do more matches here in two hours than in 
three hours on Nitro this past Monday. The matches were better, generally 
speaking, as well. I still can't give the show much of an endorsement 
though, (unless you consider "well, it didn't stink!" an endorsement).

WCW got a huge P.R. windfall the night before with Hogan and DDP's 
appearance on "The Tonight Show". Why couldn't they follow that up here? 
None of the four appeared. They didn't even show footage from the Leno 
show, or the press conference earlier in the day. Instead they just showed 
the same clip all the Leno viewers saw, with the request that we all tune 
in on Monday. I'm not sure how I'd react to that if I were, say, an NBA fan 
who decided to tune in to see what the whole deal was with Rodman and 
Malone wrestling. Of course what could WCW do with Hogan, Rodman, Malone 
and DDP all out in L.A. for the press conference. Even with Savage and his 
"broken leg", that still left Bret Hart, Kevin Nash, Sting and Roddy Piper 
all unaccounted for. I guess with the real star of WCW gone for the night 
(Hogan), there was no need to bring in everyone else.