Welcome
to the first-ever Retro Recapitation! In this
experiment, I dust off an old VHS tape and see what
wrestling’s biggest shows from the past have to teach us
in the present.
Before we get going, I should set
the stage with all the relevant historical information
on the epic Monday Night War:
Vince
won.
THE FINAL WCW
MONDAY
NITRO
Panama City Beach, FL
Aired live
on TNT, 3/26/01
Backstage at Raw (in Cleveland, OH)
Vince McMahon opened the show gloating about how he
purchased WCW. The fate of WCW “is in my hands,” he
ominously crowed. He vowed that all would be revealed on
the first-ever Nitro/Raw simulcast later in the evening.
On a Surreal Scale from 1-10, this was a
27.
The horrid late-2000 open for Nitro aired
one last time. Tony Schiavone welcomed us a “landmark”
night for the sports entertainment. Schiavone and Scott
Hudson were at the broadcast table and Tony, in
particular, looked like someone had slipped a turd in
his double-decker taco supreme. Well, given the fact
that Tony was none too popular with the slew of WWF
staff that was backstage all day, that may be more than
just a figure of speech.
The show was called both
“A Night Of Champions” (because all the WCW gold was on
the line) and “Spring Breakout 2001” (because it was
their annual outdoor show complete with swimming pool
set).
Ric
Flair walked out to a huge pop and I’d give half of my
uncensored Gail Kim pics to know what was really going
through that man’s mind at that moment. Flair rattled
off a list of past WCW greats…and Buff Bagwell. The
hell? Flair said that at “12:00 today,” someone special
to him told him not to go out on that show, knowing he
would be on TNT for the last time. Flair put over his 14
World Titles and called WCW “the greatest wrestling
organization in the world.” Flair talked about how WCW
was “on a par with any wrestling organization in the
world” thanks to the Horsemen, the Steiners, the Road
Warriors, and “the Stings?” Well, there was also NWO
Sting, so why not? By the end, he was a better worker
than both Steiners, that’s for damn sure. Flair said
they ran neck-and-neck with Vince McMahon for years, and
pointed out that when Vince Sr. was on the old NWA Board
Of Directors, he voted for Flair to be the World
champion. Line of the night. A fan in a La Parka mask
held up a sign that said “McMahon is Satan.” Just
perfect. Flair said it was never about the boys; it was
always WWF vs. WCW. Flair talked about the wrestling
lifestyle as only he can, and vowed that Vince can’t
control them (the boys) or their futures. In closing,
Flair said that his “greatest opponent” over the years
in WCW was Sting, so to go out on a high note, Flair
wanted one more match with Sting. Flair told Sting it
was his last chance to be the man. A goosebump-inducing
promo that ranks right up there with the best of ‘em.
Whether you loved or hated WCW, this was an emotional
night for wrestling fans, and if you couldn’t appreciate
the weight of Flair’s words at that moment, then I feel
sorry for you.
Some people were actually mad that
Flair put over Sting as his “greatest opponent,” feeling
that he shortchanged Rick Steamboat. Usually, I’M the
one kvetching about historical minutia like that, but
this time and this time only, gimmie a fucking break.
Flair was doing what Flair does best, and that’s put
over his match. Should Flair have called Sting his
“SECOND-greatest opponent ever”? The fact of the matter
is that it didn’t get any more WCW than Flair vs. Sting,
which was always something of a fallback feud over the
years for WCW. They’d teamed together, fought each
other, and traded a lot of gold over the years. In fact,
Flair vs. Sting was one of the marquee matches for the
very first Nitro, back on 9/4/95, so tonight really was
coming full circle for them, if not the fans. I’d even
go as far as to say that these were the two most popular
wrestlers in the history of the promotion. Face it,
Flair vs. Sting was the best (and I’d even say, the
ONLY) possible main event for the final WCW television
program ever.
As they panned the crowd, a crude
fan sign taunted, “VINCE, 1ST XFL, NOW WCW, YOU’RE A
DUMBASS.” I’m pretty sure the director knew he wasn’t
Stamford-bound, so he chose to get in his licks where he
could.
1) U.S. champion Booker T pinned Scott
Steiner (w/ Midajah) in a title vs. title match to keep
the U.S. Title and regain the World Title at
5:08.
All joking aside,
Vince’s purchase of WCW was finalized literally days
before the show took place, and before the last “i” was
dotted, many of the wrestlers and crew figured they’d be
officially unemployed come 3/27/01. To wit, Steiner’s
website floated a rumor that Big Popeye Pump “might just
forget what’s supposed to happen” in his match,
insinuating that he would shoot on Booker and run off
with the World Title, or somesuch. Didn’t happen. This
was a surprisingly fast-paced match, seeing as how
Steiner’s mobility was limited due to a major foot
problem. Hudson said that there were 31 various WCW
title reigns between these two over the years, spanning
the World, U.S., TV, and Tag championships. Hot
finishing sequence saw Steiner counter an attempted
Bookend into a northern-lights suplex for a nearfall,
then as Steiner went for a powerbomb, Book jumped clear
and hit the Bookend for a clean pin. Good, heated match.
Kinda strange that they wanted to get the advertised
title vs. title main event out of the way first. I found
it fitting that Booker was the last World champion of
the Turner network, if only because he was one of the
few guys left who was not only a home-grown talent, but
consistently improved over the years to where he earned
every bit of his success. (David)
Trivbit: Scott
Steiner was the only wrestler to compete on both the
last Nitro and the first Raw, where he and Rick squashed
a masked jobber team called “The Executioners”
(1/11/93).
The
first of many segments aired with Vince in his office
backstage at the live Raw. Vince was on the phone with
his lawyer running down WCW’s last show being aired in a
“drunken redneck bar on the panhandle.”
2) Rey Misterio Jr. & Billy Kidman won
a sudden-death three-way over Two Count (Shannon Moore
& Evan Karagis) and The Jung Dragons (Kaz Hayashi
& Yang) to earn a shot at the CW Tag Title later in
the show at approximately 3:36 (no opening bell).
Ever see six careers’ worth of highspots
packed into a three-minute match? Tony put over Kaz’s
“Back Leg Front
Kick,” which broke up Moore’s
sunset flip on Kidman. Well, it took them five years,
but with literally minutes to go before the promotion
closed, they finally named Kidman’s shooting star to the
floor (the “Kidmankaze”). Here’s a blow-by-blow account
of the last two minutes: Spot, pin attempt, save, spot,
pin attempt, save, spot, pin attempt, save, spot, pin
attempt, save, spot, pin attempt, save. Rey-Rey finally
pinned Moore with a guillotine legdrop. Fun, but too
schizophrenic to fully keep track of and enjoy. My guess
is that all the guys wanted to get in all their stuff,
not knowing if they’d ever make it back to basic cable.
(David)
Trish
Stratus brought Vince some champagne to celebrate. Vince
ravished her, throwing the bottle to the carpet, where
its contents gushed out. You can’t tell me that this
wasn’t one of those planned Vince double-entendres. WCW
employees didn’t know if they were going to be on the
breadline the next day, while he let champagne go to
waste on the floor. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t Nero
playing the fiddle while Rome burned, but for today,
it’s close enough.
3) CW
champion “Sugar” Shane Helms pinned Chavo Guerrero Jr.
to retain the title at 4:40.
The surviving (read:
less important) Nitro Girls were Shane’s dancers, the
Sugar Babies. They aired clips from previous PPVs,
showing the lads trading victories. All the emphasis was
that tonight’s match would once and for all determine
who was the better man. I swear, I thought this was
going to have a double-DQ finish. I really, really did.
Finish saw the guys dance well until Helms got the pin
after finally hitting his sweet “vertebreaker” finisher
that the WWF made him stop doing. Another great little
fast-paced match amongst the chaos of the night (notice
a pattern yet?). It’s kinda funny that out of all the
WCW guys who were immediately scooped up by the WWF,
these two made it big better than any of their WCW
peers, and still have jobs today. And this was the
Cruiserweight Title match, to boot. How’s that for
irony? Throughout the entire Monday Night War, the one
and only thing that WCW always did consistently better
than the WWF was their showcasing of the cruisers.
(David)
Not
to be outdone in the emotional promo department, a
contemplative Booker T said he had mixed feelings as he
was both the World champion and U.S. champion, yet it
was the closing of WCW. Book said this was the end of
one chapter, but there were many more to come as he
continued to prove that he was the best wrestler in the
world. You could tell that tonight got to the Bookerman
as much as anyone. Told ya he was a great pick for
Nitro’s last World champion.
Almost as an
unintentional counterbalance to Book’s earnest words,
Lance Storm came out in character and demanded fans rise
for the Canadian National Anthem. Well, the final WCW
show was still a WCW show, after all.
Back
on Raw, Michael Cole interrupted the Vince-Trish
snugglefest. COCK BLOCK~! Cole asked Vince what would
become of fans who were worried that they would never
see “their brand of sports entertainment again,” or for
that matter, “WCW competitors who don’t know if they’ll
ever get the chance to compete again.” Vince
understandably blew up at Cole, which understandably
turned Trish into a quivering mound of
silicone.
Back at the Nitro broadcast table, Tony
slowly disintegrated before our very eyes. His big
meltdown is coming up shortly…
4) World Tag champions Chuck Palumbo &
Sean O’Haire beat Lance Storm & Mike Awesome to
retain the title at 3:21.
All four worked hard
for yet another good high-octane match. Finish saw the
future Mrs. Billy Gunn escape the Awesome bomb and hit
the jungle kick, which set up SOH’s Seanton bomb for the
pin. (David)
5) Shawn Stasiak (w/ Stacy Keibler) pinned
Bam Bam Bigelow in a “tattoo match” at 1:24.
Stip was that if
Stasiak lost the match, he would be forced to get a
tattoo. Strangely enough, I wasn’t paralyzed with
sentimentality over watching the final stupid WCW stip
match that no one wanted to see in the first place.
Stacy intro’ed SS to the ring, doing the world’s worst
Tammy Sytch impression. Tammy would later get revenge by
consuming several Stacy-sized sandwiches (Subway sells
‘em three-for-$12 on weekends!). Bam hit the diving
headbutt 50 seconds in, but Stacy distracted the ref.
BBB picked up SS for his “Greetings From Asbury Park”
finisher, but Stacy helped SS escape, allowing him to
hit a terrible neckbreaker for the pin. Schiavone was
indignant that tonight, on the final Nitro, a man was
not going to get tattooed against his will. All the
signs were there that Tony was cracking, I tell you.
Even for a 90-second match, this was horrendous. Only
truly bad match of the night, though. Like it sucked up
the “suck” from everything else for the evening.
(kevin)
Over on Raw (well, you know what I mean)
then-WWF Commissioner William Regal went to Vince with
his apprehension about the WCW purchase. Regal’s
diatribe (which he delivered beautifully) turned out to
be arguably the most controversial part of the whole
show.
"I’ve heard you’re
buying WCW. Are you sure you want to do that? I know
quite a lot about that place. It’s a bloody awful place.
The nonsense that goes on there is unbelievable. I mean,
I don’t want to second guess you, but are you really
sure? I mean, it leaves rather a stench in the air. As
much as I think of you, I wouldn’t want you to get in
any trouble above yourself or
anything."
Vince thanked Regal for his
concern, but assured him that he was “on crack.” Or
maybe he said, “On the case.” History soon revealed the
true answer.
A promo from “earlier
today” aired, with DDP waxing nostalgic about the long,
strange, ride that was WCW. DDP thanked everyone for
letting “a kid from the Jersey shore become Diamond
Dallas Page.” DDP continued, “it’s not really the
promoters who decide who’s over; it’s the fans.”
Interesting comment from a guy who got his big break
because he was tight with Dusty Rhodes, then got his
career push because he was Eric Bischoff’s neighbor and
buddy. DDP thanked the WCW fans and his then-wife,
Kimberly, concluding that the dream wasn’t over
yet.
A video feature aired focusing on the turkey
plate, showing clips of all the great legendary WCW
World champions. Somehow, Kevin Nash snuck in there,
too. From Thesz to Dusty to Flair to Sting to Vader to
Bret to Booker, this thing reached David Sahadi levels
of awesomeness, but it was way too short. Before they
went to commercial, Tony managed to sneak in, “Champions
never die.”
Vince
said it was “just about that time,” so he hung up the
phone and picked up his sports jacket. I don’t think he
meant “Time for Tony Schiavone’s career-ending public
meltdown,” but dammit if that isn’t what happened as the
next match started. Here’s the gospel from Mr.
S:
"You
know, I don’t want to sit here and – and as a person who
has been on Monday Nitro for many years – take issue
with anything anyone said. Mr. McMahon, it’s – it’s his
money. He can do whatever he wants. He can – And I don’t
know what he’s going to do tonight. But let me say this:
To sit here and listen to their Commissioner rip WCW?
Come on. I mean, we’ve had to do some crazy things,
STEVE Regal, including put your ass over on
TV!"
From there, Hudson tried to literally
make the save for his broadcast partner, begging that
they call the match with “four guys that we’re gonna
build the future of wrestling around in the ring right
now. Give them their just due.”
Tony
ran with the ball, or more to the point, the Fisher
Price dig-your-own-grave play shovel, pointing out that
the match was “an example of what we do better than
anybody in the world, and that is the cruiserweight
division!” The next few seconds of Tonyspeak were muted
out, as his mic was briefly turned off. As Tony got back
to business, a fan sign helpfully suggested, “BISCHOFF,
SUBWAY IS HIRING.” The timing couldn’t have been
better.
6) Misterio &
Kidman beat “Primetime” Elix Skipper & Kid Romeo to
win the CW Tag Title at 4:43.
Best match yet, as it
had all the highspots we’ve come to expect from the
night, yet the lads actually took a little time to set
up their stuff, and you know, SELL. Finish saw Kidman
escape PT’s “play of the day” finisher, and hit his own
“Kid crusher” finisher for the pin. Trivbit: Rey &
BK are the only team in WCW history to have been both
World Tag champions and CW Tag champions. Granted, these
two teams were the only CW Tag champs in WCW history as
PT & Romeo won a tourney to crown the inaugural CW
champs at the Greed PPV eight days earlier, but
still…trivia is trivia. (David)
For old time’s
sake, Sting cut one last short energetic promo from a
room with black baseball bats hanging from the ceiling.
Sting hit his more memorable catchphrases in the
allotted time, and pointed out that he and Flair started
“this thing” years ago, and tonight, they’re going to
finish it once and for all. Another irony: That’s a
clichéd line for a wrestling promo, but tonight it was
100% true. You could FEEL the minutes ticking down on
WCW at this point. Even now, it hurts just to type those
words.
Vince
power-walked to the Raw ring, almost paralleling Ric
Flair’s final walk to a WCW ring for the main
event.
7) Sting beat Ric Flair by submission in
WCW’s final match at 7:17.
During intros, Tony did
an amazing job summing up what both the “Nature Boy” and
the “Stinger” meant to WCW, and vice versa. “This is one
for all the fans who loved WCW over all the years!”
Testify, Tony. Hudson followed it up by pointing out
that Sting was the one who never jumped to the WWF when
it was “en vogue.” (Meaning when, exactly? The 1900s?)
Hudson’s cred folded about 20 minutes before WCW itself,
as he said Sting was “a Horseman for so many years.”
Sting’s cup of coffee with the 4H lasted for maybe four
months from late-1989 to early-1990. Flair wrestled
wearing a Nitro t-shirt. The guys did all their classic
spots and the psychology was right there where they left
it. Flair briefly took over with a low blow, prompting a
chant of “Stinger.” Sting officially started his
comeback after – you guessed it – reversing a
figure-four. After all these years, Flair’s chops still
have no effect on Sting. Personally, I could have
cracked up had he sold the last one like he was dead.
Finish saw Sting superplex Flair to set up for the
scorpion deathlock. Flair submitted clean, straightaway.
Schiavone ironically screamed, “It’s over! It’s over!”
After the bell, Sting helped Naitch to his feet and the
guys hugged and shook hands. Hudson got his cred back by
putting over how Flair made Sting at the first Clash Of
Champions, and thanked them both for the memories. I
couldn’t have put it better myself. As curtain calls go,
this one was more than appropriate for WCW. The
announcing, heat, and significance of the match bumps it
up a notch. (Kerry)
They
crudely cut away to Raw as Vince made Lilian Garcia
re-introduce him in a clever spot (McMahon had a minute
to kill after a timing miscue). Seeing the WWF logo in
one corner of the screen and the WCW Nitro logo in the
other corner of the screen was about a six-billion on
the Surreal Scale of 1 – 10. Vince tried to get over the
enormity of the first-ever simulcast, but screwed the
pooch out of the gate by saying this simulcast was also
airing on “TNN – Turner Network
Television.”
Vince bragged that Time Warner
practically “begged him” to take WCW off their hands.
Not 100% true, but close enough. Vince demanded that Ted
Turner walk down to his ring in six days at WM17 and
sign over WCW to him personally. Wishful thinking on the
part of Vince Caesar The First. Vince proceeded to put
over his WM17 streetfight against Shane McMahon. (In all
fairness to Vince, he was seriously overworked this
week. In addition to tonight, his biggest – and best –
Wrestlemania ever was set to air six days later, on
4/1/01.)
Vince then took a Scott Hall-style
survey about just what he should do with his new toy. He
teased that he was going to put WCW on the shelf and sit
on their video library. Don’t worry, though, it was just
a worked promo in his heel charac – Yeah, yeah, we all
shoulda known then. Vince engaged the crowd in a game of
“Pop Association” with a list of names from
Dubya-See-Dubya.
Hulk Hogan = Surprisingly loud
boos
Lex Luger = Unsurprisingly loud boos
Buff Bagwell =
Surprising pop (Kiss my ass,
Cleveland)
Booker T = Mixed reaction
Big Poppa
Pump = Big Popping Pump
Sting = Another mixed
reaction
Goldberg = Biggest pop of them
all
Vince felt that he HAD to include Goldberg
because fans started chanting “Goldberg” halfway through
this thing. Vince continued his thinking-out-loud promo,
talking about WCW’s last show being in a “beer hall,”
and threatened that he almost went down to Nitro himself
just so he could tell each and every WCW employee,
“YERRRRRRR FIRRRRRRRRRED!!”
Vince vowed to bury
WCW, “just like anyone in the world who gets in my way!”
Fans started chanting “asshole,” causing Vince to throw
a hilarious in-character tantrum. Shane’s music (which
at the time, was also Vince’s music) hit, and
Shane-O-Mac walked to the Nitro ring in Florida. Shane’s
audio was on a delay at first, but they quickly switched
feeds so Shane’s words caught up with his mouth. In the
best promo of Shane’s career, he revealed that because
Vince and his ego wanted to hold off “finalizing the
deal” until WM17, it allowed Shane to sneak in and steal
WCW away from his old man. So now Shane officially owns
WCW, and Shane vowed that WCW would kick Vince’s ass all
over again, just like Shane himself would in six days at
WM17. This was a great angle that had me marking out
huge and wondering where they would go with this bold
new concept.
Now remember, all of this was airing
on TNT. The Nitro copyright appeared for the last time
as Raw announcers Jim Ross and Paul Heyman were going
nuts, selling the Vince-Shane angle as if we’d just
witnessed the beginning of the next chapter in the WWF
vs. WCW war. They threw to commercial with a plug for
Raw’s “slobberknocker” main event (Rock & Steve
Austin vs. Undertaker & Kane), followed by a quickie
commercial for WM17.
And that was it.
Overall over-analysis: Lex Luger
returns. Scott Hall invades. Misterio vs. Malenko. How
will DDP hit the diamond cutter this week? The Giant’s
promos with the WCW World Title slung over his shoulder.
Sting tells the fans to “stick it.” Diamond Dallas
Parka. Jacqueline’s oufits. The NWO's Horsemen spoof.
Rick Rude pulls a double-shift. Booker T’s first TV
Title win. “Apologize to Grandma!” Jericho vs. Malenko.
Goldberg beats Hogan. The Dancing Fools. Saturn frees
the Flock. Kidman vs. Juventud. Ric Flair returns to the
heart of Horsemen Country. The big wiggle. Bret and
Benoit pay homage to Owen in the best way possible. Who
betta than Kanyon? Goldberg spears Bret’s metal
chestplate. Lance Storm is a gold magnet. The locker
room gives a standing O to new U.S. champion Hugh
Morrus. Mark Madden and The Cat snipe at each other.
Cruiserweights. Luchadores. Japanese wrestlers. Nitro
Girl nipple slips. Racing home from work to catch the
live show, then watching the replay, too.
Say what you want about
WCW, Ted Turner, Eric Bischoff, Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash, Kevin Sullivan, Vince
Russo and all the other fools. For myself and millions of others, 1995 was the
year that we had to memorize which channel was TNT on our cable/satellite
providers. Without Nitro, there would not have been the wrestling boom of the
late 90s. At its best, Nitro was edge-of-your-seat must-see-TV that
revolutionized an industry. At its worst, Nitro made even the die-hards ashamed
to be fans. If you want to know the full painstaking story of how Nitro went
from one extreme to the other, I STRONGLY recommend picking up “The Death Of
WCW” by two of my pals who happen to be two of wrestling’s best writers, R.D.
Reynolds & Bryan Alvarez. Far as I’m concerned, this book is required
reading for any serious student of the biz. Go treat yourself. You can find
ordering info
here:
Okay, back to the present,
already. For the purposes of a review, to just try and
isolate this as one wrestling television show is grossly
short-sighted and does a major disservice to just how
significant those two hours were to myself personally,
and the industry as a whole. For the first time in my
life, there was only one major wrestling company in the
country. Still though, “Shane’s coup” had me marking out
in ridiculous proportions. At the time, I thought it was
the single best possible thing that could have happened,
given the circumstances. Hey, how was I supposed to know
that the McMahons would ruin the single biggest “sure
thing” angle in wrestling history? But I
digress.
The promos from Booker, Sting, and
especially Flair. A bunch of good little fast-paced
matches. The fact that Stasiak-Bigelow was too short for
me to remember (I’ve already forgotten it all over
again). The underlying emotion of the whole damn night.
And most importantly, all the great WCW memories it
brought back. Even years after the fact, this epic show
still puts a smile on my face.
This Observer’s
Thumb……………………..is
up.
-HDS-
Harry Simon is a trivia-fueled wisenheimer
who has been writing about pro wrestling off and on for
16 years and counting. Harry has written trivia pieces
for both the Wrestling Observer and Live Audio Wrestling
websites, and contributed a ton of research to his
fellow Las Vegan Mike Tenay in preparation for the first
NWA TNA PPV in 2002. Harry has also done play-by-play,
color commentary, and ring announcing for indy
promotions. Harry invented the Von Erich Match Rating
System, which you can learn about
HERE.
FEATURED
COLUMN
THE 4TH FALL!
by Stephen Rivera
THE TWF "MENTAL WELLNESS TEST!"
TWF FLASHBACK
November 2006
SATIRE: DISCONTINUED WWE XMAS PRODUCTS!
by Sean Carless
With Christmas just around the corner, what better way to spend your few remaining dollars (left over after the seemingly infinite line-up of fucking pay-per-views ) then on the following "quality WWE merchandise!" After all, if they don't move this stuff, and fast, stockholders just might get time to figure out what "plummeting domestic buyrates" means!... and well, I don't think they need to tell you what that means! (Seriously. They're not telling you. Everything is fine! Ahem.).