Thunder Results July 16th, 1998. Live/Taped: Live. Length: Two Hours+. Location: Oakland, California. Hosted By: Tony Schiavone, Lee Marshall, Mike Tenay and Bobby Heenan. The usual Nitro recap, fireworks and announcer babble takes us into the first feature of tonight's three hour show. A taped interview with Kevin Nash is shown. Conducted by Mike Tenay Monday right after Nitro, Nash talks about Scott Hall turning on him. Nash says Scott is having some personal problems and he's choosing to side with Hogan as a result. Nash likens his relationship with Hall to one as intense as familial bond. He notes that over the last eight years he's been with Hall more than he has with his own wife. Nash says the attack on Monday was "strike two" and that he'll have to use some "tough love" to straighten Hall out. Not a great interview, but an okay one which has been long overdue to set the stage for this feud. I'd maybe have liked this one better were it not conducted by Tenay. ("Some feel you two were the greatest tag team ever.") KONNAN vs. EL DANDY Close enough to a squash for me to not have to talk about it. Konnan with the Tequila Sunrise. ULTIMO DRAGON vs. LIZMARK, JR. A good, short match. The Dragon wins with the Dragon Sleeper. I'd go into more detail but this show's three hours tonight. I need all my strength for what's still to come. Remember how Curt Hennig weaseled his way out of the match last week against Diamond Dallas Page? Well, they're going to try and get the match done this week. Schiavone interviews DDP, who says "BANG!" in all the right places. PUBLIC ENEMY vs. DISCO INFERNO/ALEX WRIGHT (w/ Tokyo Magnum) This is one of the ugliest matches you're likely to see which doesn't involve Jim Duggan. WCW has it's own "Brawl For All" going on right now and it involves a number of guys competing to see who is the worst wrestler ever. Johnny Grunge is climbing the ladder fast. The finish to this week's masterpiece in dreck sees Johnny Grunge climbing to the top to put Wright through a table. Magnum comes in, pulls Wright off the table and flips the table onto its side. Grunge comes off and lands on his feet, hunched over at the waist, with his midsection missing the table by a good two or three inches. He slumps to the ground holding his gut. It's bad enough that he missed, but Magnum also flubbed with the table, flipping it over too far and taking too long to set it back up, so that he was essentially holding it in place for Grunge to hit. Rocco Rock yells something at Magnum which gets bleeped out, revealing to the world that Thunder, like RAW, is on a few second tape delay. The referee DQ's Disco and Wright for illegal use of the table ... I guess. Somebody oughtta smack Dusty Rhodes in the mouth. Schiavone interviews Dean Malenko. Dean asks--nay, demands--that Arn Anderson, who is somewhere in the building, come talk to him tonight. "HACKSAW" JIM DUGGAN vs. ROADBLOCK Compared to the last one this was a five star match. Well, three stars. Maybe one-and-a-half. Duggan wins with his Sagging Belly Kneesplash. Bret Hart comes out to clear up a few things. First, remember Ric Flair? Hart ran him off. Roddy Piper? Hart's got him cowering at home in fear. Randy Savage? T'was Beauty Hart who killed that Beast. Chris Benoit? Hart put him on the shelf. Booker T.? "Who's got 'lazy legs' now?" asks Hart. Hart, not content to be the "New Sheriff In Town" is now the new Crippler. Hart serves notice to every other WCW Superstar that if they get in his way he'll hurt them. I seem to remember him saying something like this a year ago. I guess that puts him on schedule to get "screwed" in about four months. Fortunately for Hart he doesn't have far to fall if it happens again, this time being stuck in the mid-card and all. By the way, the above is all written in a far more entertaining manner, if I do say so myself, than Hart actually outlined it. The crowd, for their part, gave off a lot of heat, coming to the conclusion that Hart sucks eggs. One fan attempted to facilitate this image by actually throwing one at him, hitting him squarely in the chest. Hart, the pro that he is, managed to avoid letting any cusswords slip out, though you could tell they were there, brewing just below the surface. SATURN vs. KANYON I'd really like to see WCW establish a one week moratorium on all existing feuds. There's a number of guys I'm just plain getting sick of seeing fight each other. These two, along with Raven, make that list. That being said this was a good match. Kanyon shows off all the moves he's stolen from the Mexicans and Japanese, with Tenay giving him all the credit for inventing them. The best is a dive off the top by Saturn which Kanyon turns into a cradle suplex. Numerous close pins followed. Saturn eventually gets the win with a Death Valley Driver. Good, Saturn's better than Kanyon. Case closed. Can we move on now, WCW? Probably not. I'm shocked as hell that Raven and/or the Flock didn't run in. PSYCHOSIS vs. EDDIE GUERRERO Hey, Eddie isn't wrestling a 300 pounder this week. Maybe he'll win? Another good match, with Chavo eventually coming out with a Zorro mask to interfere on Eddie behalf. Chavo pushes Psychosis off the top rope. Eddie then lands a Frog Splash for the win. Chavo, his work done here, rides his stick pony off into the sunset. In case we didn't get the point the first time, they replay the ENTIRE Kevin Nash interview. Don't you like the way WCW rewards those fans who were either loyal enough or dumb enough to watch the show from the start? Of course this week they've got three hours to fill instead of two. Scott Hall, by way of rebuttal, comes out to run down his former partner Nash. Hall alludes to those "personal problems" Nash mentioned, which all we "smart" fans are supposed to know is Hall's recent divorce. Hall says he lost a lot of money and it was Eric Bischoff and "Hollywood" Hogan who helped him out. WCW is rapidly becoming a showcase for taking personal tragedies and turning them into sleazy angles. Hall tells Nash he isn't hard to find if he's really looking for him. Hall says he may just have to become known as "Medium Sexy, the Nash Killer". SCOTT "FLASH" NORTON (w/ Vincent) vs. CICLOPE Norton no-sells everything and wins in under a minute with a jackknife powerbomb. Four announcers in the booth and none of them can come up with a name for the move. Schiavone interviews Stevie Ray, who still has his brother Booker T.'s TV Title belt. Stevie again explains how Booker signed "power of attorney" over to him to defend the belt. Tony says he and Tenay have tried to contact Booker to confirm, but can't reach him. Stevie produces a handwritten note given to him by Booker. Schiavone points out that it's not notarized, and probably isn't legally binding. Stevie continues on saying Booker gave him a list of the top ten contenders to the title who he should defend the belt against. Stevie gives his opponent an intro, giving the impression that it would be Konnan. Instead it's Damian. Don't ask me why, but this whole segment struck me as really funny, and was the one of the few genuine bits of entertainment I derived from the show. STEVIE RAY vs. DAMIAN Quick win for Stevie, who gets the pin following the Slapjack, which he alters a bit this time so it doesn't look so much like the Pedigree. Stevie dedicates the win to his brother, who really is out with a legitimate knee injury. Curt Hennig, Scott Hall, Rick Rude and Vincent all come to the ring. Rude badmouths DDP, calling him "nothing more than a fart in the wind!" Oh, that's pretty. Hennig calls DDP "Dirtball Dallas Punk". He says DDP may have been on Leno, and in USA Today, but that he put that paper in his bridcage and now his bird is constipated. Konnan comes out and threatens to do bad things to Hall and Hennig. Konnan and Hennig ... Konnan and Hennig ... didn't these two have something going six, eight weeks ago? Oh yeah, they hated each other, or something like that. Konnan, without the back-up of Sting, Luger or Nash, doesn't get much crowd response here. JUVENTUD GUERRERA vs. REY MYSTERIO, JR. A good match, en route to being a classic, when Bret Hart messes it all up. Mysterio is on the top turnbuckle, about to do a move, when Hart runs in with a chair, which he uses on Rey. He gives Guerrera a shot too, then slaps him in the Sharpshooter. Breaking the hold he slugs the ref. Hart then grabs Mysterio in the corner and applies the ring-post Figure Four. Yup ... Bret's snapped again, and this time he's beating up little kids. THE BARBARIAN/HUGH MORRUS (w/ Jimmy Hart) vs. CHRIS ADAMS/MARTY JANNETTY Err--let's blow through this one, shall we? Morrus pins Jannetty win the "No Laughing Matter" moonsault. Meng then runs in and attacks him and the Barbarian, then chases Jimmy Hart to the back. Schiavone is in the ring with Dean Malenko, getting an update on the Arn Anderson situation. Here comes Arn, followed by Steve "Mongo" McMichael. Malenko gives a passionate speech about how he, Chris Benoit and Mongo are desperate to form a new version of the Horsemen. Arn responds by really ripping into Malenko, saying you don't "apply" to be a Horsemen. Arn relates some of the trials of his life, and how they were all secondary to his commitment to being a Horsemen. Arn says it eats at him that no matter how much he'd like to go at it again, he can't. He tells Malenko that he hasn't earned the privilege to raise those four fingers. "Nobody gets it!" Arn removes his shirt. "This is the man I used to be," then turns around, "and this is the man I am now," showing Malenko the scar running down his neck: evidence of the surgery which ended his career. "The fact is--oh I want it! I want it real bad. 'Cuz I've got to stand in that back and every time one of you go through that curtain I wanna be going with you. I got the heart, but I don't have the tools. So I'm telling you, and Benoit you're at home somewhere, I'm asking you ... if you got any humanity left in your body, just let it be! Let it be." A few years back someone asked my if I started my own wrestling promotion, who would be the first guy I would sign? My answer then--as it still is now--is Arn Anderson. Hennig, Hall and Rude make their way to the ring. DDP then comes out, followed by Konnan. After a commercial break they announce that the main event will be a tag team match instead. Hey, why not? We've already seen the best parts of the show anyway. CURT HENNIG/SCOTT HALL (w/ Rude & Vincent) vs. KONNAN/DIAMOND DALLAS PAGE My eyes just glaze over during for matches like these. Even if one team does get a clean win it doesn't really mean anything, and a run-in interference finish is usually more likely. You could insert Sting, Lex Luger, the Giant or Randy Savage in for any of the above competitors and still get the same match. This one was ugly, lasting for almost fifteen minutes. A couple minutes in DDP and Hall get into a weird exchange. DDP tries to apply the Diamond Cutter, but Hall evades it by simply squatting in place. DDP himself is obviously screwing up the move by dropping to one knee instead of kicking his legs out from under himself. He does this three times, then simply walks away as if he's completely stymied. Hall, meanwhile, staggers across the ring like he's drunk. A bit later they go to a commercial. Once they come back the wrestlers, maybe having missed a cue, decide to take their restholds, giving us several minutes of armbars and such. DDP finally gets his Diamond Cutter on Hall after making a hot tag to Konnan. Konnan then goes and falls victim to a Hennig-Plex, even though just a second earlier he was clearing the ring. An abrupt finish, due no doubt to the show starting to run over its allotted time. Next Monday: Nothing announced. Next week: Not on. Thunder returns Wednesday, August 5th. Comments: It's hard for me to get enthusiastic about a show which ran three hours and two minutes and featured as much crap as this one did. Still there was quite a bit of decent wrestling, as well as one good and one great interview. Overall I applaud WCW for the improvement, but don't look for me to let up on them anytime soon. They've still got a long way to go. If anything they proved they can do a show without shoving "Hollywood" Hogan in out faces every five minutes. They also showed how easily they can hold back Goldberg and still do a "decent" show. It wouldn't surprise me if Goldberg came out just after the cameras went off. All I know is I didn't miss him, and if other more diehard WCW fans say the same thing, WCW could be in for some trouble. There were plenty of Goldberg chants throughout the night, though. There were several Ric Flair chants also. My only real complaint about the show was the one I would have given going in tonight: I'm just so burned out on WCW I wasn't in the mood to watch Thunder, no matter how good it was. That will fortunately change coming up, as Thunder will be preempted by the "Goodwill Games" for the next two weeks. I'd actually look for this to help Nitro in the ratings, as it'll place more emphasis on the show, making it more important. It'll also maybe kill Thunder's ratings when it finally does return, which is on a Wednesday night. The last time Thunder disappeared for two weeks it lost almost a full ratings point from it's average. Add into that the show going to a live/taped format this fall and ratings could drop to the point where it'll be hard for TBS to justify keeping both it and WCW Saturday Night. WCW should give some serious consideration into shortening Nitro back to two hours. That could, in the long run, help both shows.