Monday, September 4th, 1995
Mall Of America
Minneapolis, Minnesota
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I finally made it here. It's taken me a few years, but I am finally here for the Monday Night Wars. Eric Bischoff and Steve McMichael are in the only building big enough to hold the debut of Nitro, the Mall Of America. In walks Bobby Heenan and of course McMichael has a buzzer on his hand for when he shakes Heenan's hand.
Jushin Liger vs. Flyin' Brian
As far as first matches ever on a TV program go, this was a pretty cool choice. We get a little bit of a mess up with Liger taking a little too long climbing up the turnbuckles and Pillman stuck standing there having to wait. It's kind of funny that Nitro followed Raw's formula of having the third "celebrity" announcer in McMichael. Now, obviously he was training for more, but it's just kind of a funny coincidence. Kudos to the crowd for popping for Liger's surfboard. Pillman dumps Liger out to the floor and then hits a splash off the top. Back in the ring, Pillman tries to climb the ropes and Liger slaps the top rope to crotch him. Liger hits a superplex and gets a 2 count. Liger goes off the top, but Pillman catches him with a dropkick and we get another nearfall. Liger hits him with a powerbomb and we get another 2 count. We get a roll through finish with Pillman picking up the victory. This was very lively, but also sloppier than you would expect from these two.
Match Rating: **1/4
Bischoff interviews Hulk Hogan in front of Pastamania and he says that about 75 times in the matter of 90 seconds.
Ric Flair vs. Sting
We get our first almost WWF reference from McMichael when he says that if you don't like watching these two wrestle, you might as well watch...and Bischoff told him not to say it. Just as the bell is ringing, Lex Luger walks down the aisle. Still one of the all time mess ups in WWF history is letting him appear on WCW television while he's in the middle of an angle. I mean that is just absolute stupidity. We get our usual Sting/Flair stuff here and the crowd is eating it up. As cheesy of a choice as Mall Of America seems to me, it honestly worked out about as well as it could have. We come back from commercial break and now Arn Anderson is out. Flair is able to shove Sting off the second turnbuckle, but he isn't able to do anything with it. Sting hits the top rope superplex, but it's not enough. Sting gets distracted by Arn and Flair hits him with the chop block. Flair slaps on the Figure Four. Sting tries to reverse it, so Flair grabs the ropes. As the ref is trying to make Flair release, Arn comes in and we have a DQ. Arn goes after Flair. It then leads to Scott Norton coming out and confronting McMichael. Out comes Randy Savage and says that he'll take him on right now. Bischoff isn't having it. I have absolutely no recollection of this. It was kind of cheesy, but in a fun way. I guess we'll call this a no contest.
Match Rating: *3/4
We get a vignette for Sabu. I think he'll fit in great in WCW.
Mean Gene is in the ring and announces the winner of the Harley Davidson contest winner. Bischoff then hypes up WCW Saturday Night.
We then hear from Michael Wall Street and he tries to make fun of the New Generation. He also says that the IRS will be watching him closely.
WCW Championship Match
Big Bubba Rogers vs. Hulk Hogan
If you didn't expect this one to follow the Hogan formula, then I don't know what to tell you. Hogan's mullet is really long here. So long that the referee pulls him off of Rogers by it in a weird move. This allows Rogers to make his comeback. He then goes after Jimmy Hart and that ends the comeback. Hogan hits a body slam and a series of elbow drops before stepping on his face. Rogers comes back again and hits his finisher, but Hogan of course kicks out. He hits the big boot and leg drop for the win. If you've seen Hulk wrestle, then you've seen this match 100 times.
Match Rating: *
After the match, Kevin Sullivan and his dopey gang come out to attack Hogan. Luger comes out too and helps Hogan. They clear the ring and then they go face to face. Savage and Sting come out to break it up.
When we come back from commercial, Luger tells us that he is here to take his title and he's sick of hanging out with kids. Hogan says that Luger doesn't have to prove anything to him. He just needs to stick his "stinky palm" out and he'll get a title shot next week. I feel like we don't talk enough about the stinky palm comment. They then try to do the boxing pull apart.
The announcers hype up next week's show, which has a strong card and we're off.
There isn't much to be said here that hasn't already been said. Nitro made history and debuted much stronger than Raw did 2 years earlier. In order to make a mark, they kind of had to, but they did it in about the biggest way possible when Vince McMahon was stupid enough to not realize that Lex Luger could show up on their show. This show was still very 90s, but it had a very lively vibe to it and it worked.
Overall Rating: 72%
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