- The following is a review of the May 12th, 1997 episode of Monday Nitro. No insperation of doing this other than to see the final episode of Nitro leading into the Slamboree '97 Pay-Per-View. For unknown reasons, this episode was only one hour long, probably because TNT was promoting another horrible made-for-TV Movie featuring Hluk Hogan, since his theatrical releases were bombing worse than Batman & Robin. Also, Michael Buffer seems to be a special ring announcer for the entire show... whatever. (nevermind, he only did the opening)
- Macho Man and Elizabeth (Boing....) come out during the opening of the show. Savage is pumped up full with adrenaline... and a at the time undetectable steroid. He threatens to slap DDP "Hollywood Style." I thought Savage was from Sarasota, FL, not Hollywood. Oh well, Logic in a WCW Broadcast.
- Commentary team tonight is Tony "Buy Surge" Schiavone, Bobby "The Half-Assing Brain" Heenan, and "Legend in his own Mind" Larry Zybysko.
- WCW Television Championship Match:
The Ultimate Dragon © (w/ Sonny Onoo) vs. Juventud Guerrera:
I'm pretty sure the ring announcer said this was for the title, but who cares, we already know Ultimo loses it to Steven Regal at Slamboree. Yes, I refuse to call him "Ultimate." It's Ultimo god dammit! Split-screen promo from the former Lord Steven Regal. He's going back to his roots apparently. Lockup and Ultimo grabs a headlock. Ultimo with a shoulder tackle, and a go-behind waistlock. Juventud escapes and comes off the ropes with a moonsault for a two count. Irish whip, and Juventud with a head scissors, sending Ultimo out of the ring. Irish whip inside, and Ultimo comes back with a series of kicks to the body and a spinning heel kick to the face. Irish whip, and Ultimo turna s tilt-o-whirl into a torture rack back breaker! Snapmare by Ultimo, and into a reverse chinlock. Irish whip, and Juventud comes off the ropes with a "jumping spin wheel kick" (Schiavone's words) for a two count. Ultimo goes for a DDT, but Juventud counters with a northern lights suplex for a two count. Juventud escapes a german suplex, but gets dropped with a powerbomb doing a hurricanrana. Ultimo fakes a moonsault, and a hurricanrana is reversed by Juventud for a two count. Asai Moonsault by Dragon gets a two count. Juventud counters several suplex attempts with a roll up for a two count. Irish whip to the corner, and Juventud eats boot. Juventud blocks Ultimo's top rope assault, but Ultimo in return does the favor, then takes Juventud over with a superplex. Several waistlock counters leads to both men spilling outside. They exchange slaps across the chest, and Ultimo rakes the eyes. Onoo pulls Juventud off the apron, and here comes Ultimo with a kick to the back of the head. Onoo beats Juventud's ass, then tosses him back in the ring. Ultimo takes him to the top with a hurricanrana, and the Dragon Sleeper ends Juventud's night at 5:15. **1/2 Pretty good for the time allowed, but pretty much heatless (more on Juventud's side), and spotty spelling. Still, it was smoking the main events, so who cares? Castrol GTX gives us some replays of the big moves of the match.
- Mean Gene Okerlund is in the ring and brings out "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, "13 Time Champion" Ric Flair, and Kevin Greene... who doesn't belong. Only 1 guess, and here's a hint: 1 of them doesn't cut rambling, incoherent promos... or does he? Tune into Nitro to find out! For those that don't remember, these guys will be facing the Outsider and Syxx at Slamboree. What happend to Hollywood Hogan? We get a pre-taped promo backstage from the three in question.
- Steve McMichael (w/ Debra & Jeff Jarrett) vs. Dean Malenko:
McMichael screams at the camera, apparently at Reggie White. At least he cuts a better promo than the other worst Horsemen ever. McMichael threatens to send White back to Green Bay in a cheese box. OK, that was kind of funny. Malenko is the United States Champion, but I hear no title introductions. Lockup to start, and McMichael shoves Malenko into the corner. Malenko returns the favor, so McMichael shoves. Malenko kips up, and takes down McMichael with a drop toe hold. Side headlock by Malenko, followed by a dropkick. McMichael swats away a second dropkick, and pounds away. Irish whip to the corner, and Malenko boots him in the chest, then dropkicks him in the leg. McMichael counters a Cloverlead attempt, and chokes Malenko across the bottom rope. Reverse chinlock applied, but Malenko escapes. Irish whip, and a side heel kick drops him for a two count. Irish whip is reversed, and Jarrett trips Malenko up. McMichael takes out the knee of Malenko, but knocks out the referee during a Powerslam attempt. Reggie White comes to the ring. He sends McMichael to the corner, and drops him with a clothesline. Big Splash nearly misses, and now Jarrett wants some. What's with Jarrett picking fights with Football players? In the meantime, Malenko rolls up McMichael, and thats it at 3:17. 1/2* Not Dean Malenkos greatest moment, especially since the crowd is chanting "Reggie" after the bell. After the match, Gene Okerlund interviews Reggie White. Pass...
- Lee Marshall is on the road in Asheville, NC, courtesy of 1-800-COLLECT. How do I know? Because there's a picture of him on the phone, and a picture of the United States with a label reading "Asheville, NC" on it. Would WCW lie? Don't answer that.
- Scotty Riggs vs. Wrath (w/ James Vandenburg & Mortis):
It's The Mortal Kombat Appreciation Match! Vandenburg finally reveals Wrath's name (after 2 months of random appearences), but we already knew it. He's Bryan Clarke, byt the way, formerly the Nightstalker and Adam Bomb. Mortis is, of course, Chris Kanyon. Eric Bischoff must've really loved Mortal Kombat, going out of his way to create THREE gimmicks that looks like they were straight out of the video game. Why not pay Acclaim to use the name "Sub-Zero"? It would've sounded better than "Glacier." Wrath choke throws Riggs into the corner, and kicks him in the chest WITH INTENSITY! Riggs comes back with a couple of dropkicks. Irish whip is reversed, and Wrath catches him with a tilt-o-whirl back breaker. Irish whip to the corner, and Wrath with a Rock Bottom (or whatever) for the pinfall at 1:03. Woah, I didn't know they did squashes on Nitro back then. DUD Afterwards, the entrance of Glacier comes on, and out comes Sub-Zero's number one fan himself! Glacier should've debuted a Japanese guy who did a 10 second bicycle kick to fight them off... but Ernest Miller works too I guess.
- Alex Wright & Ice Train (w/ Teddy Long) vs. Hugh Morrus & Konnan (w/ Jimmy Hart):
I don't understand these teams at all. That's what happens when you never watch WCW. Teddy Long was actually managing in 1997?! Ice Train is a fat black guy, Alex Wright is a skinny white guy. They're the original Odd Couple! The heels double team Train and Wright bails out on him. Irish whip, and Ice Train clotheslines Konnan. Morrus with a rake of the eyes, but Ice Train comes back with a powerslam. Wright wants the tag in now, and gets it. He hammers on Morrus with boots and rights. Wright stomps a Kaiser Mudhole in Morrus' ass, then punches him... to piss him off. Ice Trian gets the tag, so Morrus pulls him in, but Ice Train is too fat to be pulled in. Morrus with a scoop slam, followed by a clothesline. He knocks Wright off the apron, so Wright does some dancing. In the meantime, Konnan with some cheap shots in the heel corner. Train gets weakly whipped to the corner, but Morrus misses a charge. Train with a clothesline in the corner, but Wrigh won't tag in. Konnan clips the knee of Ice Train, and the heels continue working him over. Morrus with a swinging neck breaker, and the Tequila thingy ends it at 3:20. 1/4* Yuck... I guess this set up Alex Wright's heel turn, which explains the unlogical pairing up of him with Ice Train. I still don't know why Konnan was teaming with Hugh Morrus.
- Last Week on Nitro... Diamond Dallas Page and Kimberly's boobs come out, but after Savage distracted Page, Hulk Hogan attacked him from behind with a crutch. That epxlaisn Hogans absence... he needed new crutches to get around the ring... but we take an emergency cut backstage, where Roddy Piper has fallen, and he can't get up. We speculate that the New World Order did it, because Syxx-Pac was wearing a goofy mask (or maybe face paint), and some guys much bigger than him. Maybe it was Tiny Tim tip-toeing through the tulips.
Eric Bischoff comes out to the ring to conduct a special MAIN EVENT Interview with the man called Sting. The camera keeps cutting to ugly, buck-toothed kids wearing nWo shirts. Now that I think of it, Nash and Hogan had a point to be so protective. The majority of the crowd is wearing nWo merchandise... and this was after WCW got desperate by bribing fans to wear Hulk Hogan's stuff because he was getting boo'ed in 1995. OK, I'm kidding.
(Huckster: I gotta win that match for the Huckstermaniacs who by my merchandise!
Savage: The only reason they wear your crap, is because they pass it out for free brother!)
Sting, obviously, isn't Sting. It's not even theguy who played Sting earley in the nWo's run, but I have no idea who it is... maybe Steve Lombardi? This Sting is considerably shorter too, looking barely at the height level of Eric Bischoff, who isn't that tall. After a lot of nothing, the REAL Sting comes out, reveals his hidden bat, then beats the shit out of the fake Sting (OK, all he did was Scorpion Deathdrop him). Bischoff runs like a scalded dog. Believe it or not, but this is all Sting did for all of 1997. Appear for 10 seconds, hurt someone, and leave, It worked though.
Final Thoughts: If there was ever a show that was described as filler leading up to a PPV, this was it. No big stars in any of the matches, and the only ones we saw were around for about 30 seconds each (and in the Outsiders/Syxx case, might've been taped beforehand). A squash and a horrible tag match with a heel turn no one cared for padded out the rest of the show, as well as Sting's 10 second appearence. Not too promising leading up to a PPV, was it?
Ah, the days when Juvi was still wearing a mask and a total jobber.