WCW Monday Nitro (January 15, 1996)

Original Airdate: January 15, 1996

From Miami, Florida; Your Hosts are Eric Bischoff, Steve McMichael, and Bobby Heenan

Randy Savage v Lex Luger: These two wrestled each other so damn much during this period. This is already their third match together on Nitro alone. Luger throws a chair at Macho from the outside as a distraction, and charges Savage as the referee tries to take the weapon away from him. To the outside, Luger rams him into the steps, but Randy rams him into the guardrail. Macho hits a flying axehandle for two on the way inside, and a backelbow gets two. Luger hides in the ropes, but Savage is relentless, and keeps working him over. Savage goes up for the Flying Elbowdrop, getting some crazy air, but missing. That allows Lex to apply the Torture Rack, and Macho is done at 5:10. For two guys who were booked together so often, these two had very little chemistry. Gotta give the edge to the Hart/Jannetty match on RAW. This had more star power, but that was a much better match. ½*

Next up, we're supposed to get Arn Anderson/Brian Pillman v Kevin Sullivan/Hugh Morrus in tag action, but both the Four Horsemen and the Dungeon of Doom come out together, and decide they're better off burying the hatchet and unifying their heel efforts than in-fighting. Pillman and Sullivan can't seem to put their differences aside though, so Arn slaps Brian around to get him to fall into line. This was like some sit-down between two opposing mafia factions, which would have absolutely been cool if one of the factions wasn't the cartoony Dungeon of Doom. I'd still give this the edge over the various inconsequential backstage stuff going on over on RAW

The American Males v Public Enemy: This is PE's surprise debut, as a 'standby match' since we're not getting the scheduled Horsemen/DOD match. I like it when they actually bother to note stuff like that because it makes it feel more realistic. PE try jumping them, but the Males fight them off, and clean house. PE respond by pulling them both to the outside for a brawl, and they get the better of that. Inside, they double up on Scotty Riggs, so Marcus Alexander Bagwell comes off the top with a flying bodypress on both guys to clean house again. Dust settles on Riggs and Johnny Grunge, with Scotty dominating, but running into a cheap shot from Rocco Rock. Did no one ever bother to question why a team named after a rap group are comprised of 'Grunge' and 'Rock'? Riggs manages a tag to Bagwell, and Roseanne Barr the door! Marcus tries a rollup on Grunge, but Rock hits him from behind, and Johnny schoolboys at 3:28. Pretty rough. Afterwards, PE put Bagwell through a stack of two tables to get their gimmick over. Those tables looked splintery as hell too, not like the polished ones we see today. This aired opposite the end of Ringmaster's debut squash, a Shawn Michaels vignette, and a backstage report from Dok Hendrix. Call it a slight win for Nitro. ¼*

WCW World Title Match: Ric Flair v Sting: And you thought Savage and Luger were fighting each other too much. Why is Sting dressed for Halloween every week lately? Did he get some deal on orange and black makeup in bulk, or something? Sting no-sells some stuff, so Flair tries tossing him to the outside, but Sting hustles right back in and corners him for a ten-punch. Hiptoss and a dropkick lead to a press-slam, and Sting cross corner whips him to flip Flair into a clothesline on the apron. The challenger with a vertical suplex for one, and Flair is actively begging off. He goes to the eyes to shake Sting off, allowing the champ to start cracking him with chops, as the announcers talk about all the celebrities who supposedly love WCW. Sting vertical superplexes the champ, but a splash hits knees in dramatic fashion, and Ric goes to work. Sting escapes a side suplex, and tries a bodypress, but Flair sidesteps, and the challenger goes crashing into the ropes. That allows Flair a kneedrop for a few leveraged two counts, and he tosses Sting over the top. Took two attempts there, as Sting failed to get over it on the first go. It's all a set up for Jimmy Hart to take a cheap shot at the challenger on the outside, and back in, Ric knife-edge chops him for two. Cross corner whip backfires when Sting barrels out of the corner with a clothesline, and he puts Ric in a sleeper! Flair escapes with a side suplex, and they slug it out, with the Stinger flopping Flair. Dropkick misses, allowing Ric to try for the Figure Four, but Sting counters with a small package for two. Backslide gets two, so Flair tries dumping him, but Sting comes right back at him with a slingshot sunset flip. Ric is running scared, but Sting keeps coming with a press-slam. Flair goes up, but gets slammed off, and Sting hits another press-slam. Another ten-punch, but Lex Luger comes out to object to something Jimmy Hart is doing, and accidentally ends up getting in the way of the Stinger Splash in the process - allowing Flair to slap on the Figure Four at 14:04. Luger then attacks Flair after the bell, but Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage run out to prevent Sting from getting beat up as well, and chase them both off. Gene Okerlund joins them in the ring to let everyone rant and rave, with Hogan and Savage giving Sting the usual spiel about not being able to trust Luger, before starting to bitch at each other over who deserves a title shot more. Or, you know, the same exact stuff they talk about almost every week since World War 3. We get to see some of that quality acting that made Hogan such a big Hollywood star here. WCW obviously thought they had the WWF on the ropes, because they were going for the KO with world title match after world title match on almost every Nitro. Meanwhile, Bret Hart hadn't defended the WWF Title once on RAW since winning it in November, and hadn't even wrestled on the program in over a month. Give the match the edge over the Smoking Gunns squash, Billionaire Ted skit, Goldust interview, and the horrible Undertaker/Yankem match on RAW - though that Billionaire Ted skit was pretty funny stuff. ** ¾

Hulk Hogan v Meng: Meng and Kevin Sullivan assault two members of the ring crew before the match, in a nice bit of heeling. It's a shame that they wasted some truly talented guys with this cartoony Dungeon of Doom stuff. Meng goes right at Hogan, and headbutts him to the outside for Sullivan to abuse. Inside, Meng chokes him down, and slaps on a nervehold. Chop gets two, and Meng chokes him some more. Bodyslam sets up a flying headbutt, but Hogan rolls out of the way, and delivers a cross corner clothesline. Sullivan passes Meng a weapon to slug Hogan down with, but it only gets two, and triggers the HULK UP!! Fists of Fury! Big Boot! Weapon Shot! 4:41! The first part of this aired opposite the wild Ramon/Goldust backstage brawl on RAW, but most of it aired unopposed due to the overrun. I'd give the WWF the advantage for the head to head portion though, because this sucked. Actually kind of depressing really, like watching some has-been desperately trying to hang on to his glory days. Like the wrestling equivalent of a balding guy wearing a ponytail. DUD

BUExperience: Though this episode did monster ratings (topping RAW by over a full point), I have a feeling it might have had something to do with extenuating circumstances (like, perhaps whatever the lead-in program was), because there was nothing on here that I would think would warrant such a huge spike. To put it in perspective, Nitro had never done above a 2.8 before this. A better episode than RAW though, regardless.

Monday Night Wars Rating Chart

	1/15/96
Show	RAW	Nitro
Rating	2.4	3.5
Total Wins	8	8
Win Streak		1
Better Show (as of 1/15)	3	13