From: Buffalo, NY
Nitro kicks off with footage from last week where Hulk Hogan and Chuck Vito went to the same gym as David Flair while the Horsemen watched on from the arena to close out last week’s show. Ric didn’t really try all that hard to look for Bischoff as he just walked down the hallway a few times.
Tony Schiavone, Mike Tenay and Larry Zbyszko are on commentary. They hype up Hogan vs. Flair at Superbrawl IX. Footage from Thunder is shown where Arn Anderson was talking to Ric over the phone asking about David and if he was okay. We aren’t able to hear what Ric was saying so the whole segment is pretty dumb.
As we see the Nitro Girls dancing, Diamond Dallas Page is watching his wife to make sure nothing happens.
Backstage, Disco Inferno knocks on the New World Order locker room door where we end up seeing Arn Anderson laid out on the floor due to Kevin Nash and Scott Hall apparently having beaten him. We don’t see Inferno whip Anderson, but we are led to believe that he did with his belt.
A woman (Torrie Wilson) is at a pool bar where she is talking to the camera. Who is she talking to?
A video of Chris Kanyon arriving to Raven’s mansion is shown. Raven is just hanging out on a coach and says “what a mark” after looking into the camera. Raven introduces Kanyon to all of his fancy cars and says that he isn’t really depressed all the time and just does that to piss off his mother. They drive off.
Back to Raven and Kanyon where they have arrived to a bank so that Raven can get his money. Raven gets 10,000 in $1 and 10,000 in big bills. They leave the bank with Raven saying they need to get Kanyon the right clothes.
Backstage, Eric Bischoff is in the bathroom not happy as Jimmy Hart tells him that there isn’t any toilet paper left in the stalls. Meng and Barbarian enter and take dumps. Bischoff leaves disgusted.
Backstage, Hulk Hogan tells Brian Adams that he wants him to be the leader of the Black and White.
Mean Gene is standing in the ring to interview the WCW President Ric Flair. Flair agrees with Gene when he said that Disco Inferno better be looking for a way out of Buffalo. Flair takes his coat off and begins to go nuts only a minute into the interview. Flair turns his attention to Kevin Nash and Scott Hall. Flair says that he and Mongo will burn down Buffalo as they wrestle Nash and Hall! Flair brings up Hulk Hogan. Flair tells Hogan that he only has two weeks to be WCW World Heavyweight Champion. Flair proceeds to elbow drop the mat several times after saying he is going to beat Hogan in Oakland. Flair also locked in a invisible figure four. Flair calls out WCW United States Champion Bret Hart to come out and drop the title off to him. Hart makes his way down to the ring, not happy about this! Flair reminds Hart that he doesn’t have the same contract as Hulk Hogan. Flair say that Hart will wrestle a surprise opponent at Superbrawl or he will be stripped of the championship. Hart assures Flair that he is injured and can’t be forced to defend the championship. Flair now switches up and says that Hart will wrestle Roddy Piper tonight for the WCW United States Championship! Flair struts around the ring while Hart is pissed off over the announcement!
Back to Torrie Wilson who wants the mystery man to sit next to her in the car. She says she won’t bite.
A rather good video promoting the WCW World Tag Team Championship tournament is aired.
Backstage, Hulk Hogan tells Stevie Ray that he wants Ray to be the leader of the Black and White.
Back to Torrie Wilson once again as she is going to a hotel room with the mystery man.
Backstage, Hulk Hogan tells Vincent that he wants him to be the leader of the Black and White. Hogan tells Vincent the same old story as the previous guys.
Mean Gene is in the ring and introduces Bam-Bam Bigelow who has a piece of paper with him. Gene talks about Bigelow arriving in WCW by mysterious ways and hypes up Bigelow’s match with Goldberg at Superbrawl in thirteen days. Bigelow’s plan was to work over Goldberg piece by piece until he got his shot at Goldberg. Bigelow wants Goldberg to put his mind on their match at Superbrawl. Bigelow has a article where Goldberg said he was sickened by dog fighting. It was published in the New York Times. Bigelow believes that Goldberg should have his mind on him and not animal fighting. Bigelow insults Goldberg’s wife by saying he will adopt an animal, referring to Goldberg’s wife. Goldberg shows up and shoulder blocks Bigelow down to the mat. They roll around on the mat briefly until security runs down to pull them apart.
Backstage, Diamond Dallas Page is hanging out with Jason Hervey and some Rita chick. Hervey acts like he is talking on the phone, though he doesn’t say anything and was just nodding the whole time like a dope.
Raven and Kanyon have gone to the mall where Raven is going to buy Kanyon some clothes. Kanyon ends up telling Raven that today was the best day of his life. Raven’s mother comes home and Kanyon acts like everything is okay with Raven. WCW called Raven’s mother during a meeting and want Raven to come back to work.
Before the next match, Ernest Miller talks about being the greatest ever and having beaten anyone he wrestles on Nitro. Miller threatens several fans until we see the New World Order telling Vincent that Miller is talking smack about Vincent. Vincent leaves to answer the challenge while his partners laugh. Vincent tried to get Disco Inferno to fight the battle for him but Inferno didn’t fall for it.
Backstage, Diamond Dallas Page has attacked Scott Steiner until Steiner low blows DDP. Steiner manages to get in a car that Kimberly has entered. Steiner drives off as DDP runs after the car Steiner turns the car around and tosses Kimberly out of the car! DDP demands that they get an ambulance right now! After a commercial break, EMT’s put Kimberly in ambulance.
Footage from Mad TV where Bret Hart acted in a skit and ended up getting “too physical” with the actors is aired. Hart ended up hitting Will Sasso over the back with a steel chair. Several people in the audience were laughing during the skit as Hart put Sasso in the Sharpshooter.
Backstage, in the bathroom, Larry Zbyszko taunts Eric Bischoff for his work in the bathroom. Bischoff hasn’t done a good job maintaining the bathroom, by the way.
End of show.
My Take: Rey/Blitz was a really average contest but it turned out to be the match of the night. I’ve been a lot better Cruiserweight matches as it seemed like there were a few botches throughout the contest. I’m not really sure why Rey is still working with Cruiserweights considering he has a big tag match with Konnan against the New World Order at Superbrawl. I would think they should have Rey wrestling bigger opponents.
I was disappointed with the Booker/Finlay match. They could have done a lot better than that in my opinion. I also didn’t like that there were two backstage segments during the match. That sort of thing is going to lose your audience. Those segments could have happened after the match and not during the match. No need for all that stuff.
The tag title tournament match and DDP/Kaos were two matches that I had zero interest in.
Flair’s interview and interaction with Bret Hart was rather lackluster. Roddy Piper is one of the oldest guys on the roster, who really wants to see him compete still? Apparently people in Buffalo liked the surprise of Piper wrestling Hart for the US championship. It’s too bad that it is 1999 and not 1992.
Bigelow’s interview segment was pointless until he made the remark about treating Goldberg’s wife like an animal. That got him some good heat and made the interview worth the airtime.
I’m not sure where they are going with the Raven skits. Not a big fan of it being revealed that Raven is rich and just acting like he is depressed and whatnot. It really takes away from his character.
The whole Steiner/Page angle with Kimberly being tossed out of a car is something I’m not sure about. I don’t know how I feel about it. It continues to add some major heat and conflict for that feud. Their feud has to be the most enjoyable feud going right now in WCW.
When you lose to Vincent on Nitro you know you are in trouble. I don’t know why on earth Vincent would go over Miller on this show. I can’t remember the last time Vincent won a match on television but if I had to guess it had to be around 1993. What a joke and a insult to Miller.
Giving Piper the US Championship is just horrible. This would have been a great spot for Booker T to win the strap and get a push into the upper mid-card. The match was just horrible. I feel like I need to watch their WM VIII match to remember that they could work a good match with each other.
Another main event that fails to deliver which isn’t a shock since this has been going on for three years now. Goldberg continues to get the biggest pops on the show while only being on the show for a combined five minutes. That makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it?
Overall, the first hour was okay but the show just got progressively worse. I’ll have to give this week’s Nitro a thumbs down.
Thanks for reading.