Thunder Results June 24th, 1998. Live/Taped: Live. Length: Two Hours+. Location: Orlando, Florida.. Hosted By: Tony Schiavone, Bobby "The Brain" Heenan and Lee Marshall. Man, if I hadn't been surfing the 'Net this evening I wouldn't have known Thunder was on tonight! I watched this week's Nitro twice and never caught any announcement about Thunder being on Wednesday. I guess I should check the schedule I have on my website more often: that listed Thunder as being on tonight. So anyway I scrounged up a tape and got ready for the show with mere moments to spare before it began. The show opens with a stylish promo hyping the Rodman/Malone match at Bash at the Beach. A Goldberg chant breaks out during the opening hype segment. Real or Memorex? Sounded real to me, actually. Too bad he--whoops, can't give that away just yet. The Giant, accompanied by Vincent, comes out and challenges Sting to a World Tag Team Title match. The Giant says he knows Kevin Nash isn't in the building, so it's okay for him to pick any partner he wants. PUBLIC ENEMY vs. RAVEN/SICK BOY Before the match Raven tosses out a comment about Kanyon, then tells the P.E. that this match will be fought under Raven's Rules. The match itself is a lot like Monday's match, except Raven is replacing Horace. All of the action stays in the ring, with the P.E. doing their damnedest to look competently mediocre. "Raven's Rules" only come in to play for the finish, which involves Saturn running in and putting Raven through a table with a splash off the top turnbuckle: a move which put to shame every table spot the P.E. has done in the last two years. Rocco Rock pins Sick Boy following the Drive-By. EDDIE GUERRERO vs. HUGH MORRUS (w/ Jimmy Hart) Eddie looks impressive as he somehow dominates the big man. He seems on the verge of winning when his nephew Chavo comes out, acting all mental and what-not. Jimmy Hart, who was about to whack Eddie with a steel chair, ends up getting nailed by Chavo. Eddie watches all of this instead of putting away Morrus, which delays him long enough so that when he finally finishes the top turnbuckle move he had planned Morrus is ready for him, catching him in a powerslam. A moonsault follows, earning the three count and win for Morrus. Chavo pesters Eddie all the way to the back. Sting and Konnan come to the ring. Sting accepts the Giant's challenge, saying he and Konnan decided that Lex Luger will get the nod as his partner. This falls under the auspices of "Wolfpac Rules", which allows any member of the Wolfpac to defend the Titles. (Does that mean X-Pac is technically a co-holder of the WCW Tag Team Titles? You're "NWO 4 Life!", right?) During the above speech Sting, who is sporting his hair tied back in a ponytail, makes a joke about Kevin Nash dropping the Giant on his head. Remember when that was considered such a heinous act that the Jackknife was banned? Schiavone talks about Chris Benoit flashing the Horsemen sign the last few weeks. They cut to Mike Tenay in the back, who is trying to get some clarification as to what the sign means. There we see Arn Anderson talking to Chris Benoit. Arn asks Tenay to leave so that the two of them can talk. Tenay leaves, but the cameraman only goes a few feet down the hall, so we can eavesdrop on the conversation. In short, Arn says he can't be a part of the Horsemen again. Benoit seems to be trying to get his blessing, though, to revive the group on his own. Arn spots the cameraman and chases him off. STEVIE RAY vs. SUMO FUJI Total squash. Stevie wins following a facebuster to the mat. Chris Jericho, clean shaven for the first time in ages, makes his way to the ring. There he says that there's no way he's going to defend his Cruiserweight Title against Dean Malenko. J.J. Dillon comes out and informs him that the Executive Committee has changed the "Ed 'the Strangler' Lewis Loophole" that Jericho dug up. Jericho will have to face Malenko at the PPV after all. Why would they have to overturn an NWA era rule which they said weeks ago doesn't apply to WCW? CHRIS JERICHO vs. ULTIMO DRAGON This starts off as one of the finest matches on WCW TV this year. They then cut it off with a commercial. Still it manages to pick back up and, just as Ultimo is about to win the Title with the Dragon Sleeper, Dean Malenko runs in and kicks Jericho, drawing the DQ. Gaaaaaaawwwwwwwwddddd nnnnnnnooooooo! A great match ruined by the finish. In a blatant bit of product endorsement, WCW introduces a new "feature" whereby they play the trailer for an upcoming theatrical release. This week it's "Small Soldiers". This is similar to what they've done before with movies such as "Lost in Space" and "Quest for Camelot", but now the segment has it's own graphic and title. I guess this will be a weekly thing. Eric Bischoff conducts a lengthy interview with Scott Steiner. This consisted of them watching a clip of the Steiner Brothers in action circa 1996, with Scotty running down his brother Rick for not doing anything in the match. At four minutes or so this still went way too long. Zero crowd heat. Schiavone conducts a telephone interview with Diamond Dallas Page, who is in Salt Lake City, Utah. DDP says he and Malone are getting ready for Nitro next week and will be bringing Malone's eighteen wheeler. Those who know anything about Malone know he's something of a big rig enthusiast, and has one of his own which he tools around in during the off-season. DDP says they're going to fill the trailer full of steel chairs, and challenges "Hollywood" Hogan and Dennis Rodman to show up as well. "HACKSAW" JIM DUGGAN vs. THE BARBARIAN Just an awful match, with Duggan getting the pin after Hugh Morrus comes out and throws Duggan's 2X4 to the Barbarian. The Barbarian is distracted and falls prey to a running clothesline. A kneedrop finishes him off and Duggan covers for the pin. Cut to the back, where Chris Jericho is smooth-talking Ultimo Dragon, telling him Malenko cost him the Title and that he should go to the Executive Committee and lobby to get the Title match at the PPV. Dean Malenko can be heard approaching and Jericho shuffles away, with Malenko waddling in pursuit. DISCO INFERNO/ALEX WRIGHT vs. CHRIS BENOIT/STEVE "MONGO" MCMICHAEL This was an okay match, though I can't believe it took these so-called "Horsemen" ten minutes to put these two away! Wright is made to look like a World Title contender, while Benoit spends most of the match playing hurt, selling an unspecified injury which the announcers talk about quite a bit. Benoit pins Disco following a headbutt off the top. Early in the match Mike Tenay says something about Benoit perhaps not being a member of the Horsemen in name, only in spirit. Huh? STING LEX LUGER vs. THE GIANT/BRIAN ADAMS (w/ Vincent) Michael Buffer does the introductions, which last more than eight minutes due to a commercial break in the middle. The match lasts maybe three minutes. Luger gets Adams up in the Torture Rack for the win. Here comes Hennig and Rude leading the NWO. Konnan comes out to help, but the numbers are still in the NWO's favor. Schiavone yells "we're outta time!" (the show having run seven minutes over its usual finish time). They then replay the minute long PPV promo that kicked off the show, showing that they weren't as out of time as Tony though. Next Monday: Karl Malone's eighteen wheeler. Next week: Nothing announced. Comments: An okay show this week, which I'm actually going to give something of a "thumbs up" to, for the first time in ... well, months, I guess. Probably the biggest improvement was the absence of repeated flashback clips. In fact, I don't think they showed a single second of old footage this week! It was a bit odd, though, in that it almost totally ignored what took place this past Monday. The lack of old footage gave the show a fresher, more live feel. The cynic in me wants to say it's just because Monday was so uneventful that they had no footage to play out here, but again I liked it so I'm not complaining. Say, didn't something happen Monday involving Kevin Greene, Curt Hennig, the Giant and Goldberg? Instead of showing any footage they just talked about it. Again, I'm not complaining. They could have shown a few seconds of footage from the incident, though given the choice I'd pick what they did here over their usual practice of replaying the entire footage. Kudos to WCW for operating under the assumption that just maybe we fans already saw what had happened Monday. Somebody explain to me the point behind the whole Guerrero family feud? Chavo won at the PPV, didn't he? What's the payoff to all this? Does he need to beat Eddie again to regain his sanity? How long are they going to humiliate Eddie and continue to destroy his career? My Dad--WCW Fan #1--has lately been rooting for Eddie to smack Chavo in the head. Could that be WCW's plan: turn Eddie babyface by making Chavo an annoying heel? All I know is this thing's been going on for four months now and I'm pretty sick of it. Okay, Chavo's funny. Hah, hah, Chuckle. I get it, but is it worth sitting through matches like this and Chavo's antics every week just to see him do one or two "funny" lines? Putting Ultimo Dragon into the Jericho/Malenko feud was an odd twist. I'm interested to see where they go with it. Here's my bet as to what happens on Nitro next week: Hogan and Rodman pull up to the arena on motorcycles, parking them in a special reserved parking area. DDP and Malone later pull up in the semi and run the bikes over. Remember, you heard it here first if it happens. Hey, maybe Malone could bring his big rig to the PPV, while Hogan brings his monster truck. They could have a vehicle tug-of-war in the parking lot. (Don't laugh: you know WCW would do it if they could.) Looking back over the whole card not much really happened. I think what I liked, though, wasn't really what they did, but how they did it. I've always admitted to being more attracted by style than substance (though both obviously matter). Style is the reason I like the WWF so much more right now. Thunder this week was the first WCW show in a long time to score style points with me. Throw in some okay wrestling and it was a show I actually found myself enjoying from time to time.