WCW Monday Nitro (April 22, 1996)

Original Airdate: April 22, 1996  

From Albany, Georgia; Your Hosts are Eric Bischoff, Steve McMichael, and Bobby Heenan

Public Enemy v The American Males: The Males flinging themselves over the top rope in stereo is pretty cool. The Enemy don't give a shit though, and attack before the bell, but the Males fight them off when Marcus Alexander Bagwell comes off the top with a flying clothesline. They clean house to set up stereo planchas, before the dust settles on Johnny Grunge and Scotty Riggs. Riggs sticks and moves on his way to dumping Johnny, then puts Rocco Rock down with a dropkick. The Males work Rocco over with quick tags, but Bagwell runs into a cheap shot, and Grunge comes in to turnbuckle smash him into oblivion. Rock adds a springboard moonsault for two, as the Enemy go to work cutting the ring in half on Bagwell. Rock goes for the kill with a flying somersault senton splash, but Marcus moves, and there's the hot tag to Riggs - Roseanne Barr the door! In the chaos, the Enemy toss Riggs over the top though, and that's a DQ at 7:27. But they put Scotty through a table anyway, since why not? This was nothing special, but better than the uber boring Goldust/Vega match over on RAW - which Bischoff helpfully gave away the finish to anyway. *

Gene Okerlund is out to announce some of teams and matches drawn for the Lethal Lottery ahead of Slamboree. At least they've actually smartened up enough to announce the teams in advance so they can spend weeks promoting it, as opposed to doing the drawings live at the show. The live drawings (with separate heel/face holding rooms) were always fun, but made little sense from a marketing standpoint. This aired opposite the conclusion of the Goldust/Vega match, and let's call it a push

Eddie Guerrero v Chris Benoit: Benoit wants to play mind games to start, so Eddie snaps off a quick pair of armdrags, then sends him to the outside with a dropkick. Chris hides in the aisle to avoid a dive, and back in, he dominates a reversal sequence by resorting to hair pulling. That allows him to absolutely DRILL Guerrero with a side suplex, and a snapmare leads to a chinlock. Guerrero escapes and uses a headscissors takedown, so Benoit tries cutting him off with some chops, but Guerrero reverses a saito suplex on him. Chris still recovers first with a bridging German suplex for two, but Eddie holds his own in a slugfest, so Chris dumps him to the outside to buy time. He's unable to follow-up though, allowing Guerrero to dive at him with a flying rana for two, but Chris reverses a sunset cradle into a leveraged pin at 8:03. The work was as good and crisp as you'd expect given the participants, but there wasn't a whole lot to the actual match. Still, much more interesting than Vader/Fatu, and highlights of a Bulldog/Roberts confrontation that took place at a German house show. **

Okerlund brings out Rob Garner (supposedly one of WCW's Vice Presidents) to talk about Randy Savage's recent behavior, but as Gene goes through his endless preamble, Savage himself joins us. And he's not too happy. Especially when Garner suggest Randy seek 'professional help' in the way of a psychiatrist. The poor guy looks like he's legitimately on the verge of shitting his pants. Either that, or he's quite the actor. Give this the edge of the lame Godwinns squash over on RAW

Jim Duggan v Meng: Meng stalls on the outside for a while to start, apparently afraid to get into it with Duggan, which is all the proof you'd ever need that wrestling is fixed. As that goes on, Bischoff gives away the results to RAW, making sure to refer to Goldust as a 'transvestite RuPaul impersonator' in the process. Well, he picked the right time to do that, since this match certainly makes me wish I could change the channel. Meng continues to stall, and stall, and stall, until Duggan finally grabs him, but Meng quickly fights him off, and ropechokes him. Bootchoke follows, then on to a nervehold, which Duggan sells by sticking his tongue out and making goofy faces. What a worker. Jim escapes, but Meng cuts off the comeback with a chop, and it's back to the nervehold. He misses an elbowdrop, however, allowing Duggan to make another attempt at a comeback, and this one sticks. 3-point stance looks to finish, but Meng sidesteps, and Hacksaw runs himself into the corner. Superkick, but Duggan is in the ropes to prevent the count, and he bails to the outside to wrap his fist in tape - bopping Meng with it for the pin at 6:00. Oh man, this was brutally bad. The Mankind/Montoya match on RAW sucked, but even not nearly as much as this did. -**

Okerlund is back out to announce more teams for the Lethal Lottery, and hit on women. And he's all out of teams to announce

WCW World Tag Team Title and WCW Television Title v WCW World Title Match: Lex Luger and Sting v Ric Flair and Giant: Okay, so the tag belts are on the line, but if Luger gets pinned he loses the TV belt to the guy who pins him, and same deal for Flair's world title. Randy Savage runs out during the entrances to try and get his hands on Flair, but security cuts him off, and he's dragged away in handcuffs again. The intensity and realism they'd bringing to this angle is great stuff. Sting and Giant start, with Giant going right to trying to power Sting around, but Sting coming at him with pep. Giant counters that with a bearhug, so Luger comes in without waiting for a tag, and then work together to tandem clothesline the monster over the top. That brings a pissed off Flair in, but Sting press-slams him, and the tag champs dispatch him over the top as well! Dust settles on Luger and Flair, and Ric quickly swipes at him with a cheap shot, but Lex no-sells a backelbow, and hits a press-slam. Pair of clotheslines and an earringer from Sting flops Flair, and the Stinger ten-punch counts him to set up a hiptoss and a dropkick. Stinger Splash, but Flair uses an elbow to block, only to get slammed off the top as he climbs to follow it up. That allows Sting a vertical superplex, as they run through a condensed version of their usual match. Flair bails, so Sting follows with a Stinger Splash against the rail, but Ric dodges, and the tag champ wipes out. Back in, Ric delivers a hanging vertical suplex, but Sting no-sells, so Woman preps a cup of coffee. Luger tags in to hit Flair with a corner whip and a powerslam, so Giant comes in without a tag to Chokeslam him - only for Sting to cut that off with a flying clip to the knee! That was really cool, and the crowd is eating it up! Flair knows things are looking bad, so he grabs the coffee from woman - only to accidentally throw it into Giant's eyes, getting himself disqualified at 7:18. Ric immediately goes into damage control mode, desperately trying to calm Giant down, but the big man is good and pissed. He wants Flair for the world title right here next week! I liked this a lot better than the match from last weeks show, and it built to something that turned out to be pretty major as a bonus. Much better than the Shawn/Diesel recap on RAW. ** ¼

BUExperience: This was a pretty solid episode (aside from one major exception), and I’m actually surprised RAW was able to beat them so handedly in the ratings.

Monday Night Wars Rating Chart

	4/22/96
Show	RAW	Nitro
Rating	3.3	2.7
Total Wins	13	14
Win Streak	3
Better Show (as of 4/22)	8	18