Slobberknocker Central Monday Night Recap #141 July 27th, 1998 WCW Monday Nitro: Live/Taped: Live. Length: Three Hours. Location: San Antonio, TX. HOUR ONE Hosted By: Tony Schiavone, Mike Tenay and Larry Zbyszko. - Last week's show is recapped in a series of clips. The Bischoff/Leno angle takes precedence, though most everything is touched upon. WCW Saturday Night announcer Scott Hudson does a voice-over. The intro follows. Nitro Girls. Schiavone announces that Diamond Dallas Page has recovered from his beating last week and will be on hand tonight to get revenge on "Hollywood" Hogan. We'll also hear Goldberg give his first interview ever. (Well, make that his third or fourth interview ever.) - The New World Order hits the ring. Scott Hall works up the crowd and badmouths Kevin Nash. The Giant makes funny faces. Brian Adams, who I only just now realized has been gone the last few months, talks tough and threatens Goldberg. It seems he's been in Japan and missed the whole Goldberg "revolution". Adams calls him a "fluke" (which may be true) and says Goldberg's opponents have been "hand-picked" (which is definitely true). Adams promises to beat him for the World Title tonight. Is this a challenge, or Adams just announcing a match? They show a clip of Bischoff from last week leading into the commercial. Another clip welcomes us back from the break. - Raven is in the ring and launches into one of his "what about me?!" soliloquies. Saturn then ambles out and calls him a "spoiled rich kid". They start to fight, but Kanyon shows up out of nowhere and attacks Saturn. Raven wanders away after being saved from a Death Valley Driver by Kanyon. So is Kanyon in the Flock, or does he just hate Saturn more than he hates Raven? Does WCW even know? Does anyone care? I think you can answer "no" to all those questions. - THE BARBARIAN (w/ Jimmy Hart) vs. "HACKSAW" JIM DUGGAN Hiii-yyyooooooooo--this sucks! Duggan, in action, looks like a sack of potatoes being pushed down a flight of stairs. He takes about two minutes to dispose of the Barbarian using one of the oldest finishes in the book. Jimmy Hart jumps up on the apron, holding Duggan in place against the ropes. The Barbarian kicks, but Duggan moves and Hart flies off the apron. Duggan then rolls the Barbarian up for the pin. (I thought Jeff Jarrett and Tennessee Lee were the only ones still using this finish these days?) Hugh Morrus then runs in and he and his partner the Barbarian beat on Duggan, until Meng makes the save. Afterwards the two look close to sharing a moment, but Meng instead slaps on the Tongan Death Grip. Didn't these two chunks have a feud back in the WWF several million years ago? Someone want to tell WCW that it's crap like this which nearly put the WWF out of business circa 1990. (Sadly the San Antonio crowd was waaaaay behind Duggan in this one. You'd have thought he was Shawn Michaels or something.) This concludes the actual wrestling content of Nitro for the first hour. Up next: NWO Nite Cap. - NWO Nite Cap. What we've seen the last few weeks have only been a tease. Here Bischoff does a facsimile of an entire talk show. First he comes out and smooches up to the crowd, which has already turned unruly over this. Bischoff then launches into an entire "joke" filled monologue (most of the jokes being about Jay Leno's chin). Canned crowd cheers and applause fail to cover up the boo's, profanity and death threats being yelled out by the crowd. The "jokes" again seemed to be cribbed from recent "Tonight Show" monologues, with the Leno jokes completely lacking in humor. (I assume this is all on purpose.) If that wasn't bad enough. Bischoff then sits at the desk and engages in some banter with Elizabeth and his band leader. He THEN rips off Leno's "headlines" bit, showing newspaper headlines and stories and making fun of them. But wait, there's more. "Hollywood" Hogan then comes out. They talk about Leno, showing IN ITS ENTIRETY the clip from last Thursday's "Tonight Show" where Leno and his band leader talked about Bischoff and Hogan. Hogan repeats his threat to beat up Leno at the biker rally in Sturgis if Leno doesn't shape up. Finally they run out of time and the piece is ended. All together this segment ran damn close to TWENTY MINUTES. My thoughts on this are below at the end of the Recap. - Nitro Girls. Nitro Party Video. - "Mean" Gene Okerlund interviews Diamond Dallas Page. Page reveals that it was Hogan who beat him up backstage last week. DDP says "Hogan ... you suck!" which actually gets bleeped by the censors. Talk about lame. The two will fight tonight in the main event, assuming Hogan accepts his challenge. That's two main event we're now supposed to believe wasn't in the works prior to the broadcast. - They show a video highlighting the feud between Chris Jericho and Dean Malenko. For once the letterboxing used is normal and not just their regular fiery "squish-o-vision". Conveniently omitted from the clip is all the bad stuff which has happened to Malenko during the course of this feud. HOUR TWO Hosted By: Schiavone, Tenay and Zbyszko. - Dusty Rhodes, Scott Hall and Scott Norton of the NWO show up at the announcer's desk. Hall challenges Sting to a match, filling out the third mandatory "impromptu" challenge match of the night. Dusty then blubbers something about them getting a "Texas gag order" preventing Larry Zbyszko from "getting up in the business of the NWO". Is this an angle, or just alcohol at work? Shouldn't it make sense? What the hell are they talking about? I'm sure there's more to come and I'm also sure I'll care even less then. Anything that risks seeing Zbyszko or Rhodes in the ring again is flat-out a bad thing. - SCOTT "FLASH" NORTON vs. JIM "THE ANVIL" NEIDHART Squash. Norton wins in less than twenty seconds. Yup ... this was a good career move for Neidhart. - Goldberg video. Afterwards they cut to the back, where Doug Dellinger and his security crew are waiting to accompany Goldberg to the ring. Dellinger knocks, but no one answers. Opening the door they discover that Goldberg's dressing room has been trashed, with "NWO 4 Life!" and other similar slogans have been painted on the walls. No Goldberg. (Wouldn't it be funny if Bret Hart called this "racist" and blamed it on Shawn Michaels and Hunter Hearst Helmsley?) - The fireworks go off, signaling the star of hour two ten minutes too late, or the start of hour three 50 minutes too early. - Bret Hart hits the ring, saying he's no racist and accusing the lockerroom trashing on Shawn Michaels and Hunter Hearst Helmsley. No, wait--he's actually just badmouthing DDP and saying he's the best U.S. champion ever. He also says there's no hard feelings over what happened between he and Sting last week. He denies being a part of the NWO, saying he's still on the fringe. He says "ass", which doesn't get bleeped, then "screwed", which does! He calls the fans "scum" and says he's Sting's friend. Looks like a feud between the two, with Hart claiming his Sharpshooter cam before Sting's Scorpion Deathlock. - DEAN MALENKO vs. CHRIS JERICHO According to Jericho this is Malenko's last shot at the Cruiserweight Title. Somehow I doubt that is in any way enforceable. Really good match, lasting almost ten minutes. (It'd take me an hour just to do a detailed blow-by-blow account.) The finish comes when Jericho rolls to the floor and pulls a foreign object out of his boot. He tries to nail Malenko, but Dean spots it and takes it away. He then nails Jericho. The ref, who had taken a slight bump moments before, sees Jericho down and Malenko with the object. He calls for the bell, DQ'ing Dean and ending his last chance ever (*snort*) to beat Jericho for the title. Whatever. "Mean" Gene is in the back looking for Goldberg. - Nitro Girls. - Road Wild/Travis Tritt promo. - CURT HENNIG (w/ Rick Rude) vs. STEVE "MONGO" MCMICHAEL It takes Hennig all of two minutes to outmaneuver Mongo and slap him into the Hennig-Plex for the win. The announcers say this was Mongo's big chance to show how good a Horseman he could be. - They show a few seconds of the second Leno segment, from last Friday, where he brings out a midget Hogan. Out comes Hogan and Bischoff to the ring. Bischoff says he's going to fire whoever cued up that clip. Hogan then accepts Hogan's challenge (commenting him on taking an "ass kicking"--which doesn't get bleeped). Hogan's going to saddle DDP up and ride him around the ring. - "HOLLYWOOD" HOGAN/DENNIS RODMAN vs. DIAMOND DALLAS PAGE/KARL MALONE Yes, it's the main event from the "Bash at the Beach" PPV. Yes, it's the match WCW asked everyone to pay $30 for just a few weeks ago. Yes-- having now seen it--it did suck big time. They show not only the match, but the intro by Michael Buffer, the ring entrances, everything. The match starts with Rodman and Malone locking up. Rodman slaps on a headlock, but Malone shoves him into the ropes. Rodman bails out of the ring, then tags Hogan in. Hogan slaps a wristlock on Malone that looks so pitiful it's impossible to describe. Malone powers out, looking more like the two are holding hands in the air and dancing. Rodman comes in to hit Malone from behind. Hogan takes over, punching, stomping and kicking the prone Malone, who oversells it all. Rodman comes in and picks Malone up, holding him for Hogan. Hogan throws a punch, which misses, and Malone sells it so hard that Rodman (in his apparent drunken state) stumbles sideways and falls over. Malone manages to tag in DDP and he goes wild, only to be stopped by a knee to the back from Rodman. Hogan tags in Rodman and the two give DDP a double clothesline. Rodman then just goes back out, with Hogan staying in the ring (no tag). The crowd chants for blood. Hogan beats on Page for the next minute or so, then tags Rodman back in. The two do a double boot to the face (with Rodman again almost falling down). Rodman then just goes back out like before, then tags Hogan and comes back in! Rodman puts a front facelock on DDP and backs him into the corner. Having done next to nothing he's still winded and needs to tag back out. Hogan takes over, beating on DDP for a few more minutes. Rodman unconvincingly chokes DDP as Malone has the ref occupied, trying to get in to help his partner. (I should mention here that almost all the match is shot from one camera angle, looking straight-on at the ring from some distance away. Only occasionally do the cut to other angles.) Hogan tags Rodman in again and the two shove DDP into the corner. Rodman exits, his notion of "tag team" wrestling apparently being that Hogan wrestles the whole match and he only comes in for ten seconds when Hogan tags him. DDP fights back with some elbow shots which Rodman reacts to, but doesn't really sell (i.e. act hurt in any way). Hogan takes DDP down with a drop toehold (WRESTLING!) Rodman comes in and applies a two minute chinlock, with some drama thrown in as DDP tries to break the hold and actually makes the tag, which the ref misses because Hogan has him tied up. Hogan and Rodman drop DDP with some punches. Rodman exits the ring (no tag). Wait a minute ... the ref just chased Malone out, even though DDP was right there and could easily have made the tag, yet Rodman just walks out of the ring and Hogan can stay in--even though he was fifteen feet away from being able to make the tag?! The beating continues, with DDP eventually tagging Malone in. Hogan suddenly goes chicken, begging Malone to spare him. Malone drops him with two so-so looking clothes- lines. Rodman comes in and he takes one as well. Malone then bodyslams the two, with Rodman clearly positioning himself so that Malone can slam him easily. Meanwhile the Disciple runs in, hits DDP with a Stone Cold Stunner, and Hogan covers for the pin. Back to "live" action several fans flash the sign of the Devil to the camera, which is apropos, since I feel like Hell after watching that. They show a few more seconds of the Leno/Hogan midget clip. Didn't Bischoff threaten to fire whoever it was that played that? HOUR THREE Hosted By: Schiavone, Tenay and Bobby "The Brain" Heenan. - World Champ Goldberg makes his way to the ring to give his "first ever" interview. (I guess those other interviews he's given on Nitro last year and WCW Saturday Night don't count). With a voice and interview style fairly similar to Scott Norton, Goldberg says the NWO crossed the line by trashing his dressing room. Who's next? Brian Adams. Goldberg is competent enough behind the mic to make one ask why the hell didn't WCW let him talk for the last nine months. - "Mean" Gene gets a few comments from Arn Anderson. Arn says he watched Dean Malenko and Steve McMichael tonight to see if they had what it took to become Horsemen. He said both lost matches they could and should have won. He seems to indicate that they could really use some direction and inspiration, then tells them and the injured Chris Benoit "before I asked you to 'let it be'. Now I'm telling you." I like Arn and all, but this angle still isn't going anywhere, and the possible end result--a new Four Horsemen--is one I'm against no matter who is involved. - STING vs. SCOTT HALL The first of the "main events". This one starts off slow because fireworks set off on the posts cloud the ring in smoke. Before the match can really get anywhere Bret Hart comes out. Sting punches him. Hennig and Vincent then come out to beat on Sting. Lex Luger and Kevin Nash come out to help their Wolfpac partner. Nash ends up fighting with Hall in the ring as Hart just sits there and watches. He and Sting then get into it again and Sting almost slaps on the Scorpion Deathdrop, which Hart, being a master of the Sharpshooter, recognizes and is able to escape from. The announcers make a big deal over the fact that Hart didn't really fight back. Looks like Hart wants all the "bad-ass" rep a heel gets without actually being a heel. Bottom line, I think the guy just can't stand being booed, yet desperately wants attention. - They show footage of Buff Bagwell's despicable "heel turn" from last week. "Mean" Gene then calls for Buff and Scott Steiner to come out. Scott wheels Buff out and they do a little skit where Buff--in a wheelchair--accidentally rolls down the ramp and crashes. Scott asks Buff if he's okay. Buff pops up, does a little jig and flexes his muscles. He also shows off the scar from his surgery, proving that the injury was real. He and Scott talk about how they fooled Rick Steiner. Commissioner J.J. Dillon eventually comes out and tells them how disgusted he is, and he promises to set up a match between the two Steiner brothers at the PPV. (Didn't they already announce the match last week?) - GOLDBERG vs. BRIAN ADAMS (w/ Vincent) Once again Goldberg is accompanied by security guards through the back hallways (which they also did for the above interview). Add in the bit with the fireworks and the intro takes almost three minutes--which is twice as long as the match lasted. Adams gets in a few punches, a blow off the turnbuckles and a suplex before Goldberg hulks up, nails the spear, nails Vincent with the spear, lands another spear on Adams, then Jackhammers him for the pin. Win #121 for those still counting. - "HOLLYWOOD" HOGAN (w/ the Disciple) vs. DIAMOND DALLAS PAGE Hogan's music starts playing, then stops so Michael Buffer can do the intro's (which he also does in Spanish for the San Antonio crowd). Then the music again. The action starts off evenly match, with the two going at each other tooth-and-nail. Hogan quickly establishes himself as the dominant force. Suddenly the Ultimate Warrior runs in! He's wearing a WWF t-shirt and waving a chainsaw!!! Bet that woke you up. Anyway, the match goes on, looking every bit as dull and mediocre as the twenty minute match we already watched these two in earlier in the show. Out of nowhere DDP nails the Diamond Cutter and is just about to pin Hogan when the rest of the NWO runs in. They beat on DDP until the Wolfpac members run in. The NWO still have the advantage though, so out comes Goldberg. He clears the ring, but fails to see the Giant coming in behind him. The Giant hauls him up and down in a mighty chokeslam as the show ends. - This Thursday: Thunder returns next week. - Next week: Nothing announced. Comments: Wow. What else can I say about a show this overwhelmingly bad? In three hours there was barely 40 minutes of wrestling, with almost half of that being taken up by the PPV match. Not counting that and the Benoit/Malenko match, I think the "NWO Nite Cap" segment was actually longer than all the other matches combined. And what matches they were! Besides the admittedly good Malenko/Jericho match, everything else ranged from dull to terrible. Actually "dull" may be the wrong word as the longest of these matches was the main event, which only clocked in at about four minutes in length. Adding together the highlights, lowlights, everything--together in my head it's still hard to figure out how they killed three whole hours. The "Nite Cap" segment immediately takes a place amongst the worst ever interview segments, and while most of the other interviews were okay, none of them really amounted to much beyond some very minor character work and plotline advancement. The Bagwell/Steiner interview was pretty bad, though, and was shown at least an hour too late in the show. I think they flubbed the finish of the show. The small copyright logo flashed while the NWO/Wolfpac brawl was taking place. Instead of cutting away, though, they stuck with Goldberg coming out. Then they suddenly cut away just as the Giant pounds him into the mat. Maybe we were meant to see that, maybe not. Anyway, Goldberg Jackknifed and pinned the Giant shortly after the cameras went off the air. I guess at some point in the show they announced that instead of Hall and Nash fighting at the PPV (which was a dumb idea to begin with), they will instead be part of a larger eight-man tag team match between the NWO and Wolfpac. A smart decision business-wise, though the resulting match is one we all know doesn't mean anything. My early bet is that Hall gets the win, hyping the eventual one-on-one showdown between he and Nash. Explain this one to me: how can you run a show in San Antonio and not feature ONE Mexican wrestler? Okay, I know how--I saw that this week--what I mean is WHY would WCW do that? Clearly the home audience means much more than the live crowd. That's not necessarily a bad thing, mind you, and I'm not exactly complaining here. Still, it seems like WCW did the crowd a huge injustice by not featuring one of the Guerreros, Konan, or any of the other numerous lucha guys. Take away the three main event matches, the Norton squash, the PPV and Hennig/Mongo matches, that left WCW with ONE match to put together this week. Are they seriously telling us that Duggan vs. the Barbarian is the BEST match WCW has to offer? Nash, Luger, Konan, Raven, Saturn, Kanyon, the Giant and Hart were all in the house and NONE of them could be put into a match?! The really scary thing this week is that the show did so relatively well in the ratings. They still lost to RAW, though depending on how you bend the numbers you can come up with a tie or a statistically insignificant win for Nitro. Given that, I'm already having nightmares about what lessons Bischoff takes away from the show. I can see it now: from now on all of hour one will consist of the "NWO Nite Cap". Hour two will be all interviews. Hour three will feature past PPV main events, capped off by a Goldberg squash and the NWO running in to close out the show. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- WWF RAW is WAR: Live/Taped: Live. Length: Two Hours+. Location: Anaheim, California. WWF RAW Hosted By: Jim Ross and Jerry "The King" Lawler. - Clips and still photos from the PPV open the show. After the opening, fireworks and crowd shot Jim Ross announces some of what we'll see tonight. Included is a "Triple Threat" match between Hunter Hearst Helmsley, X-Pac and Rocky Maivia. Jerry Lawler will also present the PPV Bikini Contest winner with a trophy. - The Undertaker to the ring accompanied by his new theme music (debuted at the PPV) and with both WWF Tag Title belts (which are new copies featuring the same old design). There he says he and Austin are the Tag Team Champions, though they will never really be partners until Austin comes out and apologizes to him. "An apology? You want an apology?" asks Vince McMahon as he and his stooges come out. Vince brings up the "conspiracy theory" again by pointing out that the Undertaker was sure able to easily beat Kane at the PPV, needing only one Tombstone Piledriver to put him away. He needed three to do the same at WrestleMania. McMahon orders the Undertaker to apologize for attacking him last week, which resulted in him suffering a neck injury. The Undertaker threatens to do it again. McMahon responds by announcing that his and Austin's first Tag Title defense will be against the New Age Outlaws. Here comes Austin and he too has a new customized World Title belt (this one looking nothing like the belts the WWF has used for the last ten years. This one is silver with a snake skin lined strap, bearing a skull on the front). McMahon bids a hasty retreat. Austin, by way of apology, flips the Undertaker off. - VADER vs. D-LO BROWN Another non-title match for D-Lo. Presumably he's afraid to lose his title, so he's never going to put it up unless he has to. (That's just a guess on my part.) They replay a clip of D-Lo winning the belt last week. before the match he makes a Euro-Disney reference, working his two finishers into it: the "Sky High" and the "Lowdown". They take a commercial before starting the match. A so-so match with a few things worth mentioning. D-Lo dominates Vader for most of the match, actually managing to bodyslam him twice and land a moonsault. Vader kicks out of the pin cover. Some of D-Lo's offense before that looked weak: in particular a series of kicks and punches in the corner. The action spills to the floor, where Vader rips off D-Lo's chest protector and splashes him. Sliding back into the ring just before ten he manages to get a cheap countout victory. Looks like Vader is on the road back from being a "fat piece of sh*t!" They show Steve Williams and Bart Gunn in their respective dressing rooms getting ready for the next match. Ross adeptly segueways into a short piece by mentioning that Darren Drosdov is still in the "Brawl for All" tournament, setting up something called "Droz's World" (a direct rip-off of MTV's "the Real World"). They show clips of Droz at home with his snake, puking on his deck, shooting guns and talking about "freaky, big-haired Jersey girls". He just starts to tells an anecdote about Mark Henry when they fade out to commercial. This might have been funny had it lasted longer than 20 seconds. [Note: during this break I notice that Cinn-A-Burst gum commercial where the two sharks joke about eating a pro-wrestler. This commercial plays many times each week during both RAW and Nitro. Anyone else think the people at Cinn-A-Burst are huge assholes for biting the hand that feeds them? (No pun intended.)] - BART GUNN vs. "DR. DEATH" STEVE WILLIAMS "Brawl for All" match. The "Brawl for All" theme music is almost as cool as Steve Blackman's. They show clips of Gunn and Doc's last fights. Williams gets a takedown right away, contributing to his leading after the first round. (Some yahoo in the crowd starts yelling "bor-ing!" ten seconds in. What a jerk.) Round two sees Bart get a takedown, so that he trails Doc 15 to 5 going into the third (Doc apparently having thrown more punches in the first two rounds). Things suddenly get wild in the third round as Bart takes Doc down again. Doc comes up favoring his ankle. Gunn spots his opportunity and starts laying in some heavy leather. A big left catches Williams in the jaw and down he goes. You can almost see the tweety-birds circling Doc's head as the referee declares a knockout! Williams can't even get up. Ross and Lawler do their best to salvage some dignity for Williams by saying he'll be back. As things are still being cleared in the ring Owen Hart's music starts up. He makes his way to the ring as Ross hollers "what's going on? Something's up!" After the break they run a video promo for "WWF Sunday Night Heat" done in the style of the "60 Minutes" ticking stopwatch. They then show a clip of Williams being helped up the ramp. Owen, meanwhile, is in the ring and is telling the crowd he's no nugget. He brags about beating Ken Shamrock at the PPV and challenges any WWF Superstar to come out and fight. "Enough is enough, and it's time for a change!" Out comes comedian Jason Sensation in his Owen Hart costume. After an obligatory nose joke he whips the crowd into a "nugget!" chant. Owen starts up the ramp with murder on his mind, but he's stopped cold by the arrival of Dan Severn. Severn, in his suit and tie, signals that he accepts Owen's open challenge. In the ring Owen jumps him before he can gets his shirt and tie off. Owen works him over for a bit, then puts the Sharpshooter on him. Severn powers out of it, maneuvering Owen into an anklelock (drawing the biggest pop Severn's ever gotten in the WWF). He then lays in some ugly slaps and punches (looking far less than a WWF caliber athlete). Suddenly Ken Shamrock runs in through the crowd, clotheslines Owen and slaps on a reverse sleeperhold. Even more suddenly Severn attacks Shamrock! The Beast slaps the same sleeperhold on the World's Most Dangerous Man. Steve Blackman and a bunch of referees show up to pull the two apart. Severn vs. Shamrock moves a notch closer into focus, (though this was a weird way to do it). - Michael Cole tries to get comments from Shamrock but is bowled over, taking out the interview set in the process. - SCORPIO/FAAROOQ vs. THE DISCIPLES OF APOCALYPSE Bradshaw sits in for color commentary, explaining his change of attitude at the PPV. He vows to take out Terry Funk if and when he returns from his hiatus. Later on he threatens Jerry Lawler, telling him to cut out his "Comedy Central" jokes. They show a clip from last week of LOD Hawk letting down his partner Animal. A short, fast-paced, more-or-less pointless match. Scorpio looks good but that's about it. After just a few minutes Bradshaw snaps and attacks one of the DOA and Scorpio. He then engages in a slugfest with Faarooq (who no-sells all of Bradshaw's punches). Everyone fills the ring and the referees come out to break it up. Bradshaw gets in a shoving match with Commissioner Slaughter on his way out. I guess the point of this was to show what a bad-ass Bradshaw is. They replay Jerry Lawler's "sneak peek" of Sable's "swimsuit" from the PPV Free For All. WWF WAR ZONE Hosted By: Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler. - HUNTER HEARST HELMSLEY vs. X-PAC vs. ROCKY MAIVIA "Triple Threat" match. Maivia can lose his Intercontinental Title if Triple H or X-Pac pin each other: a stipulation which seems ridiculous going into the match. Instead of taking this easy avenue the three, who are all in the ring at once, go at it in earnest. Helmsley and X-Pac alternate between double teaming and taking turns beating on the hapless Maivia. This look bleak for the champ until Helmsley goes for a pin. All of a sudden X-Pac pulls him off, indicating that he wants to get the pin and thus win the title. Uh-oh. This scenario will b repeated a number of times, with the two Degeneration X partners eventually coming to blows. Amidst this chaos Maivia slips from the ring and allows himself to be counted out, thus saving his title. Slightly cheap finish to what had been a pretty good match up until then. Before the match Helmsley, when working up the crowd, mentions that it was his birthday. - BRAKUS vs. JESUS In the second hour? Ugh. Total squash win for Brakus. We get a look at Val Venis showering up for his match, though through the frosted curtain he seems to have too many arms. Something detaches itself from him and out from behind the curtain comes Mr. Yamaguchi's wife! - VAL VENIS vs. BRIAN CHRISTOPHER (w/ Scott Taylor) The match itself is nothing special. Val gets the win with a Fisherman Suplex. During the match Yamaguchi-san and Kaientai come out with a samurai sword (the Marto company recreation of the Highlander katana--I briefly owned one) and several large salami's. Christopher and Taylor attack Venis after the match, with Taka Michinoku running out to make the save. Afterwards Yamaguchi challenges Venis and Taka to a match against Kainentai next week. Yamaguchi-san promises a surprise for Venis: "I choppy choppy your pee-pee!" - Michael Cole gets comments from LOD 2000. As Animal does all the talking Hawk stands by looking drunk. Really. - GODFATHER KAMA/MARK HENRY vs. LOD 2000 Kama comes to the ring with a trio of ho's. Hawk, who comes out without his shoulder pads, trips getting into the ring. Ross mentions some kind of bad news Hawk got a few nights back, and how he looks a bit under the weather (a seeming invention to cover for the fact that Hawk is in "no condition to work"). I'm not sure where they're going with this, but it plays into the finish. Animal wrestles the whole match, unable to tag out because Hawk seems to have nodded off. Animal manages to get Kama up for the Devastation Device, but when Hawk climbs to the top turnbuckle he falls off. Kama nails Animal with a Death Valley Driver and gets the pin. Speculation is that this was some kind of shot at certain WCW wrestlers who have been "in no condition to work" as of late. Accepting that premise this was funny, though it made for an awful match. Sable is in the back getting ready to accept her trophy. - Lawler is in the ring to present the trophy to the Bikini Contest winner. Marc Mero and Jacqueline come out also so that she can accept the smaller runner-up trophy. After Sable comes out Lawler begins the presentation, only to be slipped a note from the Mr. McMahon. It seems the boss is upset with the stunt Sable pulled, so he disqualified her from the Bikini Contest. Jacqueline is named the winner by default. Mero and Jackie celebrate their victory. Sable says she's not surprised, and is disappointed that McMahon wasn't man enough to do the job in person. Out comes Vince, asking if Sable is seriously questioning his manhood. McMahon says she owes him for bringing her back to the WWF, and when people owe him, he usually collects. After stroking her chin (ewwwww ... he's pulling a Bischoff!), he says she still has a place in the WWF, "just so long as you don't become an ungrateful bitch!" Ay carumba!!! Sable flips him off behind his back (huge crowd reaction) then removes her shirt, revealing a tiny tiger-striped bikini. This whole segment was a lot hotter than I could really describe. - "STONE COLD" STEVE AUSTIN/THE UNDERTAKER vs. THE NEW AGE OUTLAWS Good match, hot crowd, everything we've come to expect from Austin. The Outlaws dominate much of the match, with both Austin and the Undertaker staying for extended lengths of time to set up hot tags. The end comes when Austin nails Road Dog with the Stunner and covers for the pin. Stone Cold then grabs a few beers from his cooler, heads partway up the ramp, then comes back and tosses the Undertaker a can. The Undertaker gives it a long look before popping it open and taking a swig. Just as everyone is celebrating Austin and the Undertaker's seeming reconciliation, Kane and Mankind pop up out of the blue and attack. Kane stomps on Austin, while the Undertaker and Mankind go at it, as the show fades out. - Next week: Val Venis & Taka Michinoku vs. Kaientai. Comments: I kind of blew through the events of the last half hour of the show. I've been writing this for two days now and I think I'm starting to hallucinate from lack of sleep. An entertaining show, even though the overall quality of wrestling was lacking this week. There were two good matches and that was about it. Everything else was fairly unpredictable, with the card for SummerSlam being no clearer yet than what we knew (or assumed) last week or following the PPV. Austin vs. Undertaker is set, but everything else has yet to be announced and set up. I expected a certain batch of things to happen this week and almost nothing I expected came to pass. I wonder how big a blow Steve Williams losing to Bart Gunn was? The WWF apparently was hoping for Williams to face Severn in the Brawl for All final. I'd have to say Bart is now the favorite to win, which would probably go over well with the fans. The D-X tension is an unexpected twist. It'll be interesting to see if they actually run with this, or if it's just a diversion to carry the Helmsley/ Maivia feud along until the PPV. Not a great show, but I liked it nonetheless. Can't think of much more to say about it than that. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Bottom Line: I realize this whole Leno thing is supposed to purposely be bad, but it's hard to watch with detached emotion and not utterly hate Eric Bischoff. Maybe that makes him a genius, but that's little consolation when you figure that if I were to meet he and Vince McMahon in a room right now I'd shake McMahon's hand; on the other hand I'd wring Bischoff's ugly chicken neck. As he gurgled his last breath I'd tell him "yes, you did an excellent job in making me hate you. Now go to hell where you belong! Mr. McMahon, can I get you a coffee or something?" Whatever WCW's intentions here I can honestly say they failed in respect to me. No, I will not buy the Road Wild PPV to see Jay Leno. If forced to chose I would not watch Nitro any more. This grandstand display has utterly destroyed any respect I may have had for Bischoff (which was only of the most abstract nature to begin with). Here is an unprecedented opportunity to make WCW bigger than ever and Eric is squandering it by playing to his own ego. The idea here stinks, and Bischoff's execution is terrible. Yes, I hate him like I should hate any heel, though it's hate to the point of apathy. I hate him so much I no longer want to see him. I don't even care of Leno does wrestle him or punch him or beat him up or whatever. I just don't care. I don't even have any curiosity in seeing Leno wrestle, which should be one drawing point of this angle. There's less than two weeks to go to the PPV and WCW hasn't even done the obvious and announced any kind of match. All we have is Bischoff and Hogan acting stupid and Leno (rightly) making fun of them. All we have is Hogan making threats. While wrestling fans can safely assume "something is up", WCW has done nothing yet to hype this thing to the point beyond drawing more than the usual diehard fans to the PPV. The rest of the world doesn't yet know anything is up. Even regular "Tonight Show" viewers who don't watch wrestling can't have any idea what's going on. All Leno's doing is making fun of Hogan. Word has yet to leak to the "mainstream" media, which means the only thing his fans can read into it is the unusual nature of him touching upon it three times in the last week. (He jokes about President Clinton every night, though I don't think Leno fans expect the two of them to fight anytime soon.) Even we Internet fans don't know exactly what's going to take place. Will Leno wrestle Bischoff? Will it be in a tag team match? Who is Leno's partner? Is it DDP? Will it be a tag team match, or a six-man involving others? Will Leno just be in DDP's corner in a match against Hogan? NOBODY on the 'Net can state with 100% certainty which it'll be. It's late Tuesday as I write this and I just watched Leno's latest "response" on the "Tonight Show". He again cracked jokes, treating this as all one big farce. That's perhaps the biggest problem with all this. How can anyone possibly believe all of this is real? WCW has tried comparing this to the Andy Kaufman/Jerry Lawler incident. Sorry, but the two aren't even remotely similar. For starters, it was the celebrity who was the heel, and the fans wanted to see him get beaten up. Here Leno is the good guy and, realistically, he has absolutely no chance of doing anything to either Hogan or Bischoff. Leno doesn't have any kind of reputation as being anything even closely resembling an athlete. Hell, at this point the average viewer has to assume it's Hogan and Leno who are going to fight, not Leno and Bischoff! Hogan is the one threatening to beat up Leno, not Bischoff. Explain to me what possible appeal a Hogan/Leno match has (other than to Hogan fans and Leno haters)? For all the high profile attention this is supposed to draw, the odds of the resulting match being anything close to good or entertaining are abysmal. Speaking of which, just when is all this "high profile" attention supposed to kick in? Going back to Dennis Rodman and Karl Malone, just what did WCW get out of that. Oh sure, they popped a higher-than-average PPV buyrate, but reaction across the board to the match itself was negative. Other than generate some extra PPV revenue--most of which went to pay Rodman and Malone for their participation, what else did it get WCW? Is WCW a bigger "household name" than they were before? Arguably at best. Did the TV ratings go up? Actually no, for the most part, they didn't. Has WCW improved quality-wise? I think most would actually say "no", as the amount and quality of matches done on TV and PPV seems to have decreased in the last two or three months. Compare that to the WWF and their gamble with Mike Tyson. Mainstream reaction was less than positive, but it didn't seem to foster the outright hostile reactions that were generated by Rodman and Malone in WCW. The WWF's business, on the other hand, went through the roof. TV ratings went up, with RAW eventually retaking the number one spot most every week. PPV buyrates went up--not just one month, but for most of the months following. Most importantly, the WWF took advantage of the increased exposure to change their product, improving it drastically in the eyes of most fans. As a WWF fan I can actually point to what has improved. I don't have to just desperately cling to platitudes such as "well, at least they're getting a lot of mainstream exposure out of this." I suppose that's nice for them, but couldn't they improve their product as well? Just how long is "mainstream exposure" supposed to make up for original angles, decent interviews and great matches? It's nice to see the WWF featured in news stories on ABC and Fox, seeing Steve Austin on MTV or the cover of TV guide, and seeing Triple H show up on "Pacific Blue". What good would that all be, though, if the WWF itself weren't putting on a show worth watching each week? Back to the Leno angle, almost all of the hype for this will have to take place next week. Bischoff and Hogan may show up on the "Tonight Show" this week, though we'll all have to watch to be sure (which pretty much shows you what Leno is getting out of all this: viewers). Leno then MAY show up next week on either Nitro or Thunder, though that's just a guess at best. Then it's the PPV a week from Saturday. This could well be the biggest angle ever in WCW and with just over a week to go they have yet to even officially announce any kind of match! There are times when I love being a wrestling fan, and times when I hate it. Right now WCW is making me hate being a wrestling fan. It's stuff like WCW is doing here that makes non-wrestling fans roll their eyes and ask me "you DO know it's all fake, don't you?" I've no problem defending myself as a wrestling fan, but I'll be damned if I'm going to stand there and defend what WCW is doing. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 141 of the "Monday Night Recap", July 27th, 1998.