Andrew Lutzke
No RAW this week so I’ll cover the post Superbrawl Nitro and then move right on to the next head to head shows from a week after that.
February 12th 1996 Nitro
Sherri Martel was fired in the past week as she showed up for last week’s Nitro in no condition to perform. That’ll force a re-write in the Col. Parker angle.
Scott Norton and Ice Train were also put together as a team, and the Wrestling Observer says Norton was not happy about it at all.
“Macho Man” Randy Savage vs. Hugh Morrus
Morrus jumps Savage but Macho is pissed about losing the World title a day earlier so he quickly reverses that and chokes away at Morrus. Macho controls much of match with punches, choking and elbows. Morrus misses a moonsault and Macho hits the big elbow. He hits another to drive home a point and makes the pin. Macho threatens another elbow drop but Morrus rolls away before Savage can fly. Randy will get his rematch with Ric Flair next week.
Scotty Riggs vs. Loch Ness
Loch Ness is 53 years old here apparently. He’s billed at nearly 7 feet tall and 600 pounds. Ness no sells a bunch of punches and drop kicks. Riggs bounces off during a crossbody attempt and is squashed. A pair of elbows finish Riggs quickly.
Miss Elizabeth and Woman wheel Ric Flair out on a gurney and Liz informs Gene that they fucked Ric until he couldn’t walk. Flair pops off the stretcher and proceeds to cut a vintage crazy Flair promo. He dances and mocks the babyfaces over his title win. Awesome stuff…then Liz gets a chance to cut a promo. She mocks Randy for losing half his stuff in their divorce and reminds him that it’s his own fault for treating her shitty for so many years. She does freeze up and trail off and Flair jumps in to save her but Liz recovers and finishes herself.
Konnan vs. Devon Storm
Storm looks like a total geek with his Rockers outfit, mullet and sunglasses. Storm drop kicks Konnan to the floor, then props a chair in the ring and proceeds to use it to propel himself over the top and onto Konnan. He then sits Konnan up on a chair and tries to use the stairs to propel himself into him, but Konnan catches Storm and powerbombs him on the cement. Konnan hits a hurricanrana and some lucha spots. He hits 2 different modified suplexes and locks on a wacky leglock. Konnan flips Storm off the apron and sends him crashing into the floor again. Storm rallies briefly but Konnan reverses a top rope hurricanrana attempt into another power bomb. Konnan rolls through on the landing and gets the pin. A spotfest, but a fun watch.
Hulk Hogan vs. Arn Anderson
Bischoff casually mentions that Brian Pillman is probably gone from WCW after what happened at Superbrawl. He also publicly apologizes for insinuating that the WWF was behind the power outage last week. The original plan for this unopposed Nitro was a full on attack on the WWF to avenge the Billionaire Ted skits, but Turner’s legal department informed Eric that he was not allowed to get in a pissing match with Vince.
Hogan gets the best of Arn right away and cuts off any Anderson offensive attempts. Arn bails to the floor and tries to piledrive Hpgan on the cement. Hulk reverses that into a slingshot and Arn’s head meets a steel post. Hogan slams Arn’s shoulder into the post for good measure and slams Anderson’s arm into the post several times. Hogan continues the dominance back in the ring with his power heavy offence.
Hogan runs into an elbow but Arn is cut off again with a low blow. Arn finally goes after Hogan’s bad eye and that slows the Hogan buzzsaw. Arn nails a spine buster but Hogan Hulk’s up off of that. Flair wanders down with Liz. Hogan mocks Flair by locking his best friend in a figure-four. Flair runs in and Hogan small packages Flair while still having the figure-four locked on Arn.
Woman gets up on the apron and blinds Hogan with powder and Arn whacks Hogan with Liz’s shoe for the pin. Hogan pops up and beats up Arn and Flair. Savage runs in and helps clear the ring. Flair and Arn chase the announcers away and mock Hogan. Arn compares Hulk Hogan losing to a sign of the apocalypse. Arn claims he can beat Hogan again. Hogan and Savage chase them off and cut their own crazed promos to end the show.
With Pillman officially released, it allowed him to jump to ECW:
For the record, the dog show that replaced RAW beat Nitro in the ratings…
Nitro February 19th 1996
Hulk Hogan vs. Arn Anderson (again)
Hogan rakes Arn’s back and chokes him with his own jacket. Hogan cuts off Anderson’s attempt at offense and chokes and bites him. Bischoff calls the WWF whiners and talks about Paul Orndorff kicking Vader’s butt in a locker room conflict.
Hogan continues his blitzkrieg in and out of the ring, using a particularly aggressive and rule bending offensive. Hogan’s five minutes of straight offense leads to a “Hogan sucks” chant starting. Arn has his offense cut off and Hogan sends Arn over the top rope. Hulk pops out of a DDT attempt and Hulks up without having even taken a bump. A big boot sets up a figure-four.
Kevin Sullivan and Randy Savage run in and Arn Anderson gets a DQ win.
A total squash but I suppose that was Hogan’s version of “putting over” the heels. Match wasn’t anything special and had about as lame of a finish as possible.
Mean Gene interviews the WCW NASCAR driver who won some low-end race over the weekend. I don’t follow that stuff at all so this was thrilling TV.
Alex Wright vs, Loch Ness
Why squash your pushed cruiserweight talent when you have 70+ guys on the roster? This is total WWF style booking. Ness no sells some dropkicks, so Wright tries a sleeper until he’s tossed off. Wright leaps into a bear hug. Wright runs at him again and ends up booted down and elbow dropped for the pin. Just a squash.
This Saturday night…Johnny B Badd vs. Chris Benoit…Konnan vs. Scott Armstrong…The Road Warriors…and Public Enemy vs. Sting and Lex Luger
Brad Armstrong vs. “Belfast Bruiser” David “Fit” Finlay
Finlay wrestles him to the ground and rips at Brad’s face. Fit keeps him down with a headlock and surfboard. Finlay fights out of a side head lock and drives Brad’s jaw into the edge of the mat. Bruiser whips Brad’s knee into the edge of the ring and then into the ring post. Finlay locks on a few leglock variants to try and wound Armstrong but Brad manages to get out and both men topple to the cement. Brad nails a nice back suplex but Fit hits a tilt-a-whirl suplex for the duke. Solid outing.
Finlay wants Lord Steven Regal.
World Champion “Nature Boy” Ric Flair vs. Randy “Macho Man” Savage
Savage is all over Flair to start but he ends up on the cement and injured. Flair chops away. Savage chases Woman away so Flair is able to sneak attack him. Woman claws at Macho’s eyes for revenge.
Savage wins a slugfest back in the ring and slams Flair off the top rope. Macho locks on the figure-four in a mocking moment of poetic justice. Flair struggles to the ropes. Flair manages a side suplex and both men are down and out. Flair nails a knee breaker and locks on the figure-four. Macho manages to reverse out of it.
Savage starts to no sell Flair’s chops and pops off fisticuffs as a counter attack. Savage hits the double ax handle from the top and intercepts Woman’s shoe as she attempted to toss it to Flair. He cracks Flair with it but can’t get the 3 count. Arn sneaks in with a DDT and Flair gets the pin. Hogan runs in and fights off Arn, Flair and Kevin Sullivan as Brutus Beefcake turns face by running in to help even the odds. Beefcake clears the ring and chases the heels to the back.
Flair runs by the announcers and starts bragging so Hogan and Beefcake run over there and Hogan declares Beefcake to be the Booty Man. Hogan asks for a 6 man match next week with the principals involved in the finale here. Oddly no mention from Hogan about the Loch Ness Monster hunting him down.
RAW
We open with a quick PPV recap and a tease about The Ultimate Warrior. It seems eye rolling now, but if you were an 80’s WWF mark who was hoping they add some talent in this war, then the Warrior’s return felt like a big deal. I attended a RAW taping in July of 1996 and an appreciable amount of fans left the building after the Warrior’s first match that night.
Razor Ramon vs. Goldust
I’m almost positive that 2 weeks earlier at the last RAW this was announced as Undertaker vs. Goldust. Marlena blows smoke in Razor’s face, so he chucks his toothpick in her face. Goldust is then attacked and battered before being tossed over the top rope. Goldust rubs himself down so Razor spits in his face. Razor slugs away and whips Goldy around by his arm. Ramon attempts a Razor’s Edge and ends up back dropped to the floor. When he tries getting back in, he’s met with a flying butt-butt. They trade sleeperholds and Razor manages to then superplex Goldust.
Razor flings Goldust over the top rope and delivers a back drop from the second rope. Goldust then runs away, accepting the count out loss. Razor gets on the mic and says he wants Goldust’s ass not his belt. Razor then says he doesn’t want kids to see people like Goldust on TV (right after saying he wants his ass…).
He wants Goldust in a rematch ASAP and he mocks President “Rowdy” Roddy Piper in a strange bit. Good match before the lame finish.
Barry Horowitz and Aldo Montoya vs. Body Donnas
Match never starts as Vader comes down and beats down both faces.
We get an Ultimate Warrior highlight package.
Sunny in lingerie wishes Bill Clinton a Happy Birthday.
Marty Jannetty vs.“The Ring Master”
Vince refers to The Ring Master as being “a Stone Cold individual”. The announcers mention that Marty has a new partner and that they will be part of a tag team tournament for the World titles. They fail to explain why the Gunns are no longer champions however.
Marty and Austin trade go behinds before Austin gets a pair of cradles and chucks Marty to the floor. Austin nails a stun gun and locks in an STF. Then Austin locks on a body scissors/chin lock combo that I’m not sure I’ve ever seen before. Marty rallies with a brief flurry but is locked in the Million Dollar Dream for the win. Not a bad little match. Crowd was dead for all of it.
Mankind is in a cellar somewhere and he goes over all his missing body parts and cries.
Undertaker vs. Tatanka
Taker chokes away and no sells Tatanka’s chops. They blow a big boot spot and Tatanka hits a Samoan drop. Diesel comes down before everyone can turn to Nitro from this epic main event and he drags a cameraman to the back. Tatanka escapes a Tombstone and manages to piledrive Taker in the ring.
Meanwhile Diesel takes an axe and destroys the Undertaker’s casket in the back. Taker hits a Tombstone to end this place holder match. Taker sees a replay on screen of Diesel wrecking his casket and he makes his way to the back.
“Larry Fling Live” Larry interviews Billionaire Ted. Nacho Man is going bald. The Huckster is injured from a lady’s shoe and can’t make it to Nitro. Ted refuses to talk to the media about WCW losing money.
Final thoughts:
RAW was a pretty flat show considering it was a live show and they have Wrestlemania a few weeks away. Nitro still has another month of Hulk Hogan’s ego vs. the heel roster before things start to truly shake up.
I’m actually very excited to watch Uncensored as I’ve never seen the debacle that is the 8 on 2 main event and sometimes a healthy dose of wrestlecrap can be a good thing!
Meanwhile I have watched the Bret/Shawn Ironman match before, and I’m a bit afraid to revisit that encounter as I recall it being tedious. I consider Wrestlemania 12 to be underrated overall though, so I am interested in watching the show again.
