Monday, October 16th, 1995
Albany Civic Center
Albany, New York
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Eric Bischoff, Bobby Heenan and Steve McMichael kick things off talking about the potential team of Ric Flair and Sting for tonight.
WCW Television Championship Match
Diamond Dallas Page vs. Johnny B. Badd
DDP knocks him out from behind with the title belt while Badd is still finishing his entrance in the ring. DDP pins him and counts to 3 himself before shooting off Badd's canon. They announce it as a disqualification. So yeah, this was no match.
Match Rating: No Rating
Eddie Guerrero vs. Chris Benoit
This isn't the beginning of the cruiserweight division, but this is the beginning of WCW's credible side of ring wrestling on Nitro. I know a youngster like myself had never seen wrestling like this in 1995. We get a cool spot where Eddie is going for a back suplex and their momentum takes them to the floor. The crowd is reacting to the moves, which is a start also. Guerrero hits a nice springboard DDT despite his injured arm. McMichael says that if we aren't a WCW fan after this match, you are dumber than dirt. Eddie goes for the Frog Splash, but Benoit gets his knees up. Benoit hits the powerbomb into a pin, but Eddie is able to kick out. Benoit hits a full nelson belly to back suplex into a bridge and this time it's enough. These guys were given time and they delivered.
Match Rating: ***1/4
Bischoff then tells us that they are working on a cruiserweight division. We then go to Mean Gene in the ring, who hypes up the WCW Hotline with mentions of Shawn Michaels getting beat up by a fan. He then brings out Taskmaster and Giant. The Dungeon of Doom is infamous for a reason and all of this is just beyond cringe.
On WCW Saturday Night, it's going to be Disco Inferno vs. Alex Wright and Jim Duggan vs. VK Wall Street.
Disco Inferno is out again before our next match.
Meng vs. Jim Duggan
Meng attacks Duggan while he's up on the turnbuckle waving the flag. Duggan is over with the crowd, as per usual. We get his usual punch and clothesline match. Meng no sells a body slam and hits Duggan with a superkick. He puts the spike in the side of the throat and that's it? That was a brief squash for a guy like Duggan without any shenanigans.
Match Rating: 1/4*
We hear from Hulk Hogan and Jimmy Hart in all black again. He claims to be able to stop an elephant in his tracks and make a promoter get down on his knees and cry. Hogan always sucked to me, but this is next level bad Hogan.
Arn Anderson & Brian Pillman vs. Ric Flair & Sting
There is no Sting in the corner of Flair to begin. The crowd is chanting "We want Sting", but it's still Flair on his own and he gets hit in the back of the head with an elbow from AA. Flair then somehow puts on the Figure Four (after somehow trying to put it on the wrong way). He gets it on both guys, but the numbers game is too much. Arn hits a spinebuster and out comes Sting to a big pop. Pillman gets a cheap shot in on Sting and they continue to work on Flair. He gets a tag into Sting and he cleans house. Sting hits an inverted atomic drop and then clotheslines Arn over the top. He then crotches Pillman on the top rope and he too falls to the floor. That's a countout and a really lame finish for the match. Bischoff has often said that WCW's worst trait was their finishes and it has definitely been on display in the early days of Nitro. This was very house show.
Match Rating: *1/4
Sting and Flair get interviewed by Mean Gene and they are best friends now. I'm sure that will not backfire at all.
We go back to the announce team for the recap. Next week, we'll get to see Sting and Lex Luger against Harlem Heat, who surprisingly haven't been on the show much yet.
This was a pretty good show that was highlighted by the Benoit/Guerrero match. The rest of it wasn't anything special, but it was an easy watch.
Overall Rating: 59%
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