ThunderStruck: WCW Monday Nitro Retro Review 10/09/95

Live from the windy city of Chicago, it’s the October 9th edition of WCW Monday Nitro in the year 1995!

Bischoff, Heenan and McMichael have jerseys on representing the Chicago Bears. Heenan’s has a question mark instead of a number. Ha.

We’re told that the Giant and Hogan are both here tonight. Sting comes to the announce area with his US Title. Sting says this thing between Macho Man and Lex Luger needs to change and something’s gotta give. Sting says he will solve their problem later tonight.

The Shark(John Tenta aka Earthquake) takes on Sting for the US Title in our first match. Sting wins the match in about a minute and a half with a flying crossbody from the top rope.

^That was a joke. A couple splashes in the corner and a flying crossbody to end a match? Not even two minutes? Wow. I feel ripped off even now in 2014.

Sabu takes on the masked Mr. JL. Sabu wins the match in four and a half minutes with the camel clutch. He attacks Mr. JL after the match with a sunset flip into a powerbomb to the concrete floor.

^That was fun, but it was incredibly short as well. We’re a third of the way through the show and we’ve had two short matches. Hmm.

Sting is in the ring with Mean Gene and Lex Luger. He wants the Macho Man to come out and join them. He does. Sting talks about the Giant beating everyone down. Sting calls Savage insecure when he wants to know why the Giant hasn’t gone after Sting. Sting proposes a rematch with Luger and Savage at Halloween Havoc AFTER they each wrestle a singles match against a Dungeon of Doom member. Luger initially declines but Sting taunts him into it.

^Crazy and confusing promo work here. What’s the point of them wrestling other matches before wrestling each other? It’s silly and non-sensical.

A limo pulls up and it’s the WCW arrival of Chris Benoit(the performer).

Disco Inferno comes out dancing. I now have a headache. Big Bubba comes out and walks past Disco as he goes to the ring. Hawk comes out and scares Disco. Disco runs up and puts a kid’s hat on Hawk’s shoulder pad spike where he doesn’t notice it. More silliness from these comedians.

Big Bubba takes on Road Warrior Hawk. The match goes roughly one minute before Hawk attacks Disco Inferno(who got on the ring apron) and beats on him in the aisleway. And Hawk gets counted out. The match was just over a minute and a half.

^Are you serious? A third match being not only short, but less than two minutes? Guess they really don’t care about delivering the goods this week.

Mean Gene brings out Hulk Hogan with Jimmy Hart. Hogan is wearing all black this week and so is Jimmy Hart. Hogan talks about that “no good stinky Giant” and Hogan wants him now. Mean Gene tells us the Giant isn’t allowed in the building.

We see a cop car chasing the Giant, Kevin Sullivan and the Zodiac in a Monster Truck as they aren’t being allowed in the building. Did I mention how silly WCW happened to be on this night?

Hogan heads for the back to go after the Giant. That interview was longer than most of the matches so far.

The Rosemont police come out and talk to Bischoff. He says the police are keeping Hogan and Giant apart.

^Now that we’ve had six minutes of commercials and filler since Hogan’s interview, there are seven minutes of this program for the main event steel cage match!

Ric Flair takes on Arn Anderson inside a steel cage. The match goes four and a half minutes when Arn Anderson hits Flair with a foreign object to counter the figure four and picks up the three count. Anderson leaves with Brian Pillman to celebrate as the show ends.

^Decent performance for four minutes of action, but it was more of a mat wrestling tease than anything else. A bit short compared to their match last week.

Ric Flair comes to the announce desk to call out Pillman and Anderson next week in a handicap match.

^So we had two matches go four and a half minutes and two matches go less than two minutes? Thanks for that. Oh, and we had a Hogan promo so everything must be right with the World.

This show sucked. I can’t even give it a grade; it was just poorly booked. It’s like two different people were responsible for the booking of the shows when you compare last week’s episode to this one.

Thanks for reading!

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