Monday Nitro 12-25-95 Review

Original Airdate: Monday, December 25th, 1995
Augusta-Richmond County Civic Center
Augusta, Georgia

Follow me on Twitter: @WorkTheNetwork22

We get a taped episode of Nitro this week with it being Christmas and all. Raw did not run a show, but I guess Nitro saw this as an easy opportunity to get some late night viewers ahead of their big show on the 27th. 

Lex Luger vs. Scotty Riggs

Riggs actually gets a lot of offense in here for some reason. I actually always kind of liked Riggs but also haven't really watched him wrestle since the 90s. Luger finally turns things around and hits a big suplex for a 2 count. Riggs tries to get a burst in, but misses with a missile dropkick. The crowd gets to their feet knowing the Totrture Rack is coming up and they are indeed correct. This was a spirited little match here. It's crazy how much more confident Luger is in this run compared to his WWF run. 

Match Rating: *3/4

Mean Gene is with Sting and asks about his relationship with Luger. Sting hates it and says that they are friends. He's going to be taking on Big Bubba after the commercial break. 

Big Bubba vs. Sting

Bubba gets in less offense than Riggs did before Sting hits him with a single hand bulldog. He hits another one outside the ring. Bubba slows things down. We then get kind of a weird finish where Sting goes up to the top rope. Bubba gives him a thumb to the eye and goes for a suplex. Sting counters that into an inside cradle and picks up the win. 

Match Rating: *

Mean Gene is now in a Santa hat to interview Lex Luger and Jimmy Hart. He says he and Sting have been friends for 10 years and that's how it is going to remain. Out comes Craig Pittman and he asks Jimmy Hart to manage him. Jimmy makes Pittman take his shirt off and compares his body to Luger and asks why he would want to manage someone like him. Whatever. 

Dean Malenko vs. JL

Malenko hits a dropkick to the back of JL when he's turned around and we are under way. JL hits a somersault dive off the apron onto Malenko on the floor to shift the momentum. We get some more back and forth action that would later define this division. JL hits a sit down powerbomb and that gets a 2 count. Malenko sets up for a powerbomb but turns it into a stun gun. Malenko has him on his shoulders on the second rope and hits a leaping gutbuster. Malenko puts on the leg lock and that's all for JL. I've really enjoyed the genesis of the cruiserweight division here. 

Match Rating: **

Mean Gene is with Ric Flair and Jimmy Hart says what Kevin Sullivan was rude to interrupt him last week. Jimmy says that he owes Flair for saving him a couple of weeks ago and he always pays his debts. He wants to go down with him when he wins the title tonight and Flair is good with it. 

WCW Championship Match
Ric Flair vs. Randy Savage

I am really enjoying this episode tonight. I'm not really sure what else they have planned here with 18 minutes left in the show. Make sure to call your pay per view provider now to make sure you have Starrcade. You know, the show we have hardly talked about other than the main event. Savage gets a Figure Four locked in really early in the match for some reason. He grabs the ropes like 3 times before Savage has to finally break it. We go outside the ring but we have to take a commercial break. When we come back, they are near the entrance ramp and he throws Savage into the guardrail. This match feels a little disjointed and we get another commercial break. They are heavy into selling how injured Savage is here in this match and as always, Savage is selling like a pro. Flair puts on the Figure Four for a lengthy amount of time. Savage gets out and Flair goes up top. You know how this ends and that's with Flair being thrown off. Savage reverses a piledriver and the crowd is kind of flat for this even though they have been good the majority of both episodes. Jimmy Hart gets on the apron and Savage knocks him off. Out comes Luger and we have a DQ finish. Out comes Sting and he goes after Flair and both faces stand tall. They bump into each other and start shoving intensely. I like ending the show with those two guys being the last thing you see. The match was pretty flat, but I am good with that ending. 

Match Rating: *1/4

I liked this show overall, even if the Savage/Flair match was disappointing. It was easy to digest and really the only major gripe is I still have no clue what the other matches are for Starrcade other than New Japan will be there. Maybe they talked more about those matches on Saturday Night? 

Overall Rating: 62%

Superstars 12-23-95 Review

Original Airdate: Saturday, December 23rd, 1995
Stabler Arena
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

Follow me on Twitter: @WorkTheNetwork2

You'd think we'd get a recap of In Your House, but instead it's just a quick blurb about Ted Dibiase's Santa Clause, since that is definitely the one thing on every fan's mind. 

WWF Tag Team Championship Match
Skip & Rad Radford vs. Smoking Gunns

We get a spirited opening sequence from Billy and Skip that leads to Skip rolling out of the ring to step away. The Gunns hit a double side Russian leg sweep on Radford for a 2 count. A distraction from Sunny allows Skip to dive off the apron. Their advantage doesn't last long with Billy being tagged in. Skip gets a thumb to his eye, but Bart comes in and throws Skip off the top rope into Radford and the champions retain. They kept up a pretty good pace and got a lot in a fairly short match. After the match, Sunny grabs the mic and berates Radford. She tells him that he's fired and then slaps him. Skip attacks him from behind and they bolt to the back. 

Match Rating: **

We go to Dok Hendrix's house for the Slam Jam. He talks Royal Rumble and we hear from one of the first participants, Diesel, and he wants his title back. Owen Hart then talks about putting Shawn Michaels away. Don't forget about Jeff Jarrett vs. Ahmed Johnson. 

Xanta Klaus vs. Scott Taylor

Well, this is a pretty infamous bad gimmick played by Balls Mahoney. We do hear from DiBiase and he lets us know that he's searching high and low for his next top superstar. Xanta puts on the Camel Clutch and gets the easy win. I see big things for this guy in the near future. 

Match Rating: 1/4*

Buddy Landel vs. Matt Hardy

Landel has already been entered into the Royal Rumble. Huge if true. I mean, what were they really hoping to get out of Landel in 1996? It's easy to see why they ended up signing Hardy, as he always does a good job of selling for his opponents. Landel wins with an elbow drop. That should tell you all you need to know. 

Match Rating: 1/4*

We see the Undertaker/Diesel confrontation from In Your House. 

Henry Godwinn vs. Brooklyn Brawler

We come back from commercial and the bell rings for this match with no entrance for Godwinn. There's also some awkward silence before Vince starts talking. We hear from Godwinn and he talks about being in the Royal Rumble. The stakes just keep getting higher with all of these top stars being entered in. Brawler tries to go off the top rope, but Godwinn slams him off and then hits the Slop Drop for the easy win. 

Match Rating: 1/4*

We get a recap of what transpired between Goldust and Razor Ramon at In Your House. 

British Bulldog vs. Marty Jannetty

Marty has been pretty sharp for the most part during his 15th return to the company here. Marty has a good flurry of hip tosses and dropkicks before Bulldog slows it down. We come back from commercial break and Bulldog hits a delayed vertical suplex. We get some back and forth wrestling from here. Marty goes up top but Cornette pulls Bulldog out of the ring. Jannetty hits him with a baseball slide. Back in the ring, Marty goes up top again and Bulldog catches him and puts him up for the running powerslam for the win. Even Mr. Perfect was impressed with this match. This was a good Superstars main event. 

Match Rating: **1/2

We go back to Dok and he keeps hyping up how shocked we'll be at the names trying to get into the Royal Rumble. Diesel, Owen Hart and Buddy Landel but then we go to the title match, Bret Hart vs. Undertaker. We hear from both competitors. 

It's time for the special music video of Shawn Michaels, who will definitely never compete again. This is the famous "Tell Me A Lie" music video. 

They actually kind of pulled out a good episode of Superstars out of nowhere. Both feature matches delivered and the rest was very easy to digest. The Rumble is looking pretty weak so far outside of the main event, so that has to be a bit of a concern. 

Overall Rating: 53%

Monday Nitro 12-18-95 Review

Monday, December 18th, 1995
Augusta-Richmond County Civic Center
Augusta, Georgia

Follow me on Twitter: @WorkTheNetwork22

Eric Bischoff, Bobby Heenan and Steve McMichael kick off the show. They are interrupted by Madusa, better known as Alundra Blayze in WWF. She says that she's always been Madusa and she puts the WWF Women's Championship in the garbage can and we get one of the more famous moments from the early days of the Monday Night Wars. It obviously went on to change nothing in the long run. Now McMichael brings up William "Refrigerator" Perry and he squeezes Heenan's hand and that's all. Alrighty then. 

Ric Flair vs. Eddie Guerrero

Eddie is already in the ring here, but you have to love Eddie continuing to get his shot to shine here on Nitro. We get a slow burn here to start, but the crowd is into it. Eddie tries a few quick pin attempts just to rattle Flair a little. They trash Mike Tyson and I have no recollection of which fight they are referring to, nor do I really care. Guerrero hits a springboard hurricanrana and for whatever reason, that didn't get much of a reaction. Eddie falls out of the ring and hurts his knee. Flair slaps on the Figure Four and Flair is able to gain some extra leverage from the top rope while the ref checks on Eddie. Eddie passes out and Flair gets the victory by pinfall. This one never really got going. 

Match Rating: *1/4

Arn Anderson comes out and joins Flair for an in ring interview with Mean Gene. Arn talks about Paul Orndorff and says that he got to see what happens when you mess with the Horsemen. Kevin Sullivan and Jimmy Hart come out and interrupt. Sullivan talks about the respect he has for Arn, but he wants them to keep Brian Pillman on a short list. Arn tells him that if you come looking for Pillman, he might just find the Horsemen. 

Sgt. Craig Pittman comes out and interrupts the announce team and he is so green that he doesn't even know that he has to hold a mic so that people can hear him. He says he's been doing his homework and he realized that Bobby Heenan used to be one of the great managers. He must have spent a lot of time to uncover that information. He then asks Heenan to manage him, but Heenan says he can only help behind the scenes and not in the ring. I bet you not one person was talking about this after it happened. 

Lex Luger vs. Marcus Bagwell

Luger misses in the corner and Bagwell gets a little bit of offense in. Luger comes back pretty quickly with a powerslam. He puts him up in the Torture Rack and that's all. This was just a high profile squash, as it should have been. 

Match Rating: 1/4*

Mean Gene now interviews Hart and Luger. Hart reminds us that Luger is the uncrowned champion and Gene says that he's just a top contender. 

They hype up Saturday Night and it actually has a few moderately good matches. 

Earl Robert Eaton vs. Sting

Here's a squash match that I can get behind. The Luger/Sting story continues the most intriguing thing going in WCW. We get a lot of talking about other stuff during this one. Eaton misses with a top rope knee drop and Sting makes his comeback. He hits a Stinger Splash and slaps on the Scorpion Death Lock for the quick win. 

Match Rating: 1/2*

Sting talks with Mean Gene and he talks about how many little kids Flair disappointed and that he'll be the WCW Champion at Starrcade. 

WCW Championship Match
The Giant vs. Randy Savage

We get Giant manhandling Savage to start. Giant tosses Savage over the top rope from the floor to put him back in the ring. We get a fun moment where Giant misses off the top rope and Savage runs up top and hits the top rope elbow drop. Giant then throws Savage off at the 2 count. Giant lifts up the padding on the outside of the ring and goes for a suplex. Savage grabs the ropes and Giant falls to the floor. Back in the ring, Giant hits a chokeslam but for some reason doesn't go for the cover. He hits a leg drop and out comes Hogan and hits him with a chair. Sullivan tries to help, but Hogan shoves him off. He hits Giant with the chair a few more times and out of the ring. For some reason McMichael and Perry try to stop Hogan and he kind of hits Perry with the chair. We have a very pro-Hogan crowd here tonight, which hasn't been the case on most other nights. The match was fun for the length they were given. 

Match Rating: **

Mean Gene is with Savage and Hogan and out comes Giant again. Sullivan and Pittman try to hold him back and that allows Hogan to come out and hit him with a chair. He then runs back in the ring and says that he's sick of this probation stuff. He tells Savage that he owes him a title shot. Unhinged Hogan is slightly better than what we've been seeing I guess. 

A lot of stuff was crammed into this episode, but I'm not sure any of it was really worth anything to me. I appreciate the effort though they do seem to be putting into most every episode though. It would be nice if they would actually give us a reason to care about Starrcade though. 

Overall Rating: 51%

Off The Grid, Volume 59: Beach Blast 1993 Review

Sunday, July 18th, 1993
Mississippi Coast Coliseum
Biloxi, Mississippi

Follow me on Twitter: @WorkTheNetwork2

Off The Grid, Volume 59:

Eric Bischoff and Missy Hyatt welcome us to the show and then immediately pass it off to Tony Schiavone and Jesse Ventura. Jesse is of course at the bar with a group of young ladies before getting escorted to the announce table. Jesse having goggles on his head is a nice touch. This just feels like stalling for the sake of stalling. 

WCW Television Championship Match
Ron Simmons vs. Paul Orndorff

If Orndorff is disqualified, he loses his title. Within 2 minutes of the match, I have no clue why they chose this to open the show. Simmons puts on a Figure Four but Orndorff is right by the ropes. Orndorff pulls Simmons out of the ring and risks DQ by slamming his head on a TV monitor. For a title that has a time limit on it, it feels like we passed it 5 minutes ago. I still have to sit through Maxx Payne and Erik Watts on this show. Simmons hits a powerslam out of nowhere and gets a 2 count. Simmons hits a flurry of moves and goes for the cover after a vertical suplex but Orndorff grabs the bottom rope. Orndorff goes for a piledriver and Simmons blocks it. He goes for it again and Simmons hits a back body drop that sends Orndroff over the top rope and to the floor. The ref rings the bell for a disqualification because WCW has terrible rules. This was a terrible opening match.

Match Rating: 1/2*

Missy Hyatt is with Paul Orndorff and Equalizer. Do we really need more of this? Equalizer has to be one of the worst wrestlers to ever be employed by WCW. Missy is so bad in this role too. 

Erik Watts vs. Lord Steven Regal

The announcers come out and tell us that "Hey, maybe Watts will learn something here". I'm not sure what they are going for so far, but it's not working. Regal finally turns up the intensity but then misses a knee drop. Watts puts on the STF but Sir William slaps him. The distraction works and Regal rolls him up for the win. This was awful and had no business on pay per view. 

Match Rating: 1/4*

Too Cold Scorpio & Marcus Alexander Bagwell vs. Tex Slazenger & Shanghai Pierce

Don't go messin' with a country boy. This one at least is waking up the crowd and probably would have been a much better choice for the opener. We'll see if they can keep up this pace. I think Scorpio may have more success in WWF if he would have been on the roster during this time rather than 1996. The faces get a longer advantage than expected before the heels use traditional heel tag team wrestling. Pierce hits a really nice gutwrench powerbomb for a 2 count. This has really just been a solid match. Scorpio gets a hot tag and hits a superkick. He hits a big splash off the top rope, but Tex breaks up the pin attempt. All four men are in the ring and they throw the two big Texans into each other. Bagwell hits a back suplex and Scorpio hits the 450 splash for the win. Nice match. 

Match Rating: ***

Jesse interviews Regal after the match. He tells Orndorff that he's on a mission to win the TV title back. He kicks it to Bischoff and they talk about this big grudge match coming up between Maxx Payne and Johnny B. Badd by showing us one thing that happened. 

Maxx Payne vs. Johnny B. Badd

Payne comes out playing guitar and Badd is wearing a pink mask. Badd goes right for him and starts throwing right hands. Payne takes control and slows the match down. He gets his finisher locked in but Badd is right by the ropes. Badd hits a dive over the top and they brawl outside. Back in the ring, Badd hits a crossbody off the top rope and gets the win? I mean, I didn't need to see any more of this, but I am surprised it was that quick. 

Match Rating: 3/4*

WCW Tag Team Championship Match
Arn Anderson & Paul Roma vs. Hollywood Blonds

This is obviously a master class in how to start a match when you have the crowd invested. We also get lots of Jesse complaining about closed fists and Tony having to agree. With that being said, not a whole lot of note happens here in the first 10 minutes of the match, but I am invested. Roma finally gets Arn in for the hot tag and he hits a big DDT. The ref is distracted and Austin breaks up the pin attempt. Roma makes a few mistakes of accidentally distracting the referee when Arn has pin attempts and Jesse is all over him. Arn and Pillman collide and only Pillman can make the tag. Arn sort of half suplexes Austin over the top and to the floor and this leads to my favorite argument as to why it isn't a disqualification. Arn finally makes the tag to Roma and they get a nearfall after Arn hits an illegal spinebuster. We get another ref distraction that hurts their team and Austin rolls up Roma for the victory. This was a fine match, but it never really got beyond that. They could have easily shaved 5 minutes off and no one would have noticed. 

Match Rating: ***

Bischoff and Missy try to hype up the Iron Man match, but fail. 

Iron Man Challenge For The United States Championship
Rick Rude vs. Dustin Rhodes

I'm glad that Jesse feels the same way about Rhodes' music as I do. They do have a timer here for the match. We get a real slow burn here to start and the timer goes away until the 25 minute mark. To say that they are starting slow would be an understatement. We are at the 10 minute mark and Jesse lets us know that there have been no pinfalls. There has hardly been any action, let alone pinfall attempts. Rude finally hits a Rude Awakening and finally gives us a pin. I would write about this match, but something would actually have to be happening in order to do so. Rude has him in the sleeper hold and looks to be out. Miraculously, his hand doesn't hit the third time and he starts to battle out of it. Things finally pick up with about 4 minutes left. Rhodes hits a bulldog and ties it up at 1-1. Rhodes is giving it all he can, but Rude is able to kick out each time. Rhodes slaps on the sleeper hold with a little over 30 seconds left. Rude uses a jawbreaker to release the hold. Rhodes hits a DDT and the time runs out when the ref gets to the 1 count. I mean the last few minutes were fine, but having to watch 20+ minutes of nothing to get to that finish felt like torture. 

Match Rating: 3/4*

NWA World Heavyweight Championship Match
Ric Flair vs. Barry Windham

There already has been more action in the first 90 seconds than there was in the first 25 minutes of the last match. The crowd is a little flat for a Flair match here though. Things slow down a bit and it's really quiet. I honestly don't think Flair can believe it. Windham hits a superplex and even that doesn't really get a response. Flair does his usual spin over the top turnbuckle and runs up to the top. He actually hits a dive of some sort, but Windham rolls him over and gets a 2 count. Flair slaps on the Figure Four and then the referee counts 3 with Windham's shoulders on the mat and that is one of the uglier finishes you will see, but that's WCW for you. This show has sucked. 

Match Rating: **

Even Flair's post-match interview with Jesse is flat. He can't be happy with that finish. 

We go to Bischoff and Missy again just in case this didn't show suck enough yet. 

Sid & Vader vs. Davey Boy Smith & Sting

It should come as no surprise, but after some really flat matches, Sting understood the assignment. His energetic offense doesn't last long, as Sid isn't having it. Sting and Davey Boy wake up the crowd with a double clothesline off the top rope. Davey Boy hits a delayed vertical suplex on Vader to a good reaction. We do get a small but audible "Vader" chant going even though the majority of the crowd are behind the faces. Sting gets a hot tag and he unloads on both big men. It doesn't last long and we're back to the big men dominating. The match breaks down and Sid takes Sting to the entrance ramp. Vader hits a moonsault on Davey Boy. Sting runs in and dives on Vader to prevent a pin attempt. Davey goes for a crucifix pin attempt and gets Vader down and pulls off the victory. This was everything it needed to be and while it wasn't good enough to be a show saver, it saved it from being a complete turd of a show. Great work by all four men. 

Match Rating: ***1/4

This was not a good show at all. 1993 WWF is always destroyed for its quality, but it really was just American wrestling in general. Like in WWF, there are some good things happening, but on some nights it just isn't enough. 

Overall Rating: 38%