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WCW Monday Nitro 7/19/99
Hulk Hogan is the new champion, Kevin Nash might have turned heel, and Sting is looking to gain control of WCW tonight.
Recap of last week's show. Scott Hudson was filling in for Tony tonight. ICP, Dennis Rodman, and Robert Wuhl are here tonight. Remember that they referred to the actor by his name, and not the character name.
Highlight package of Ric Flair being driven crazy since becoming WCW president.
Sid comes to the ring. He can tell the fans feel the same anticipation that he feels in his blood. Mr. Hogan has something that belongs to him. I assume he means the WCW Championship. Not that I really want to see this match again, but they probably could have promoted it and at least for a decent rating. I never understood why WCW (and WWE) thought that throwing random huge matches out unannounced was better than promoting them. Either tune in and have no idea what you're going to get (it could be Sid vs Hogan for the title, or it could be Konnan vs Hammer) or tell someone a week or two in advance exactly what big match they're going to get and get them excited over it. Seems like the most basic and logical way to book a wrestling show.
Fit Finlay vs Jerry Flynn
Jimmy Hart popped up on the screen and said Finlay can get his trophy back at Road Wild. It's the first match and Hudson is already talking about the format being different than what's happening. THINGS ARE OUT OF CONTROL! Lol at Brain saying Jerry Flynn is going to be a big star. Jimmy Hart again popped up on the screen to motivate Jerry Flynn. Fit has the match won and decides to run after Jimmy Hart. Jimmy sees this and tries to hide under a bus. When Finlay gets out there, he's ambushed by the First Family.
TO THE BACK. JoJo is having a meeting with Lenny and Lodi about something important. They think it is about being gay, but it is actually about their contracts. "It's not like we're they only ones in the company." "Oughh, I know you're not the only ones in the company. You think I live in the closet or something?" Apparently they signed the same last name, which made JoJo think they were brothers.
TO THE MEAN BROTHERDUDEJACK. Hogan's first appearance as new champion. Hollywoodmania is running wild. Being injured made him realize he needed to change his ways. So he's going back to being a face that is an asshole and wrestles like a heel instead of a heel that is an asshole and wrestles like heel.
Recap of some Sting/Flair stuff. But only from this year. There are 11 years of footage of them wrestling and they only use stuff from the last 4 months.
NORMAN SMILEY vs Lodi
Mother fucking Norman is back! He's been off TV for months, but now he's back and that means dancing gifs! Lodi did 3 Amigos. Norman won with the La Magistral. He didn't even get to dance. When he did, they cut away from him and showed Lenny and Lodi dancing instead. Bullshit.
DJ Ran says some bullshit. Goodie, Bischoff comes out for hour 2. Did he think that him being at the table would make people want to STAY on Nitro?
Sting vs Ric Flair For Control of WCW
Sting lays out Robinson before the match even starts. He displays his inner Bork by picking Robinson up with one arm and getting him out of the way. Bischoff is really trying to claim that Sting never really got the chance to be the top guy. I guess 1990-1994 don't count. Or that whole year where he was the top face without even having to wrestle. Bischoff won't stop dicking around with his mic, which means everyone gets to hear that fucking sound of some dude palming and breathing into a mic whenever he isn't talking. Which is for much of the match. Arn punched the new ref and Sid laid Sting out. Other than that, it's the same match they always have. A 2nd ref bump. Born again Christian Sting again strikes a woman. Flair gave up, but sicne the ref was out, no one was there to ring the bell. So Bischoff gets in the ring and calls for the bell. Sid came back out and powerbombed him to the biggest pop of the show so far. Hogan came out and Sid bailed. Of course Sting wins control of WCW and Hogan is the one standing tall. But we've been through this before. Bischoff doesn't have the power to make a decision in the ring. Remember when he did that for Piper vs Flair and he was overruled the next night? So he did the same thing here, will it stand? He did count a pinfall for Kidman last week and it counted so who knows. Who cares? No one is buying Bischoff as a face.
Rick Steiner vs Horace WCW TV Championship
Another boring heel vs heel match that no one wants to see. Somehow the ref misses Horace doing 4 or 5 chair shots even with the ref right next to the guys. Nash came out and attacked Horace, allowing for Rick to hit the bulldog for the win. Nash then fist bumped Rick and celebrated with him. Hulk comes out wanting to know what kind of personal bullshit this is. It's REAL personal.
Psychosis vs Eddie Guerrero
Nothing much of note. Eddie won with the frog splash. After the match, La Parka and Villano X beat up Eddie. Rey came out and made the save. Eddie and Rey have a tense handshake after the match. Another heel vs heel match.
TO THE BACK. Stevie Ray tells the B Team that he's sick of the Triad. He just wants the B Team to watch his back. Crush wants to know if he's still nWo or if Harlem Heat is back together.
Stevie Ray vs Kanyon
DDP starts with talking about Stevie's Cheese Whiz sucking ass and then they do Yo Mama jokes. Triad is the worst. But here is another heel vs heel match. At least Stevie is in the midst of a face turn of sorts. Bam Bam and DDP caused a DQ. Shocker. They attempt to tie Stevie up in the corner, but Booker makes the save.
Arliss is at the announce table saying he's bringing WCW to HBO for the first time ever. Mind you, at the start of the show, they announced the actor by his name, star of Arliss. But now they're referring to him AS Arliss, and he's in character. For those of you that don't know or remember, Arliss was an HBO sitcom about a sports agent.
Randy Savage vs Kidman
Randy Savage, George, and Molly Holly come to the ring. Randy Savage announces that he's running for president in 2000, not just to hurt Hogan, but for real. Arliss is still in character and talking up Dennis Rodman. I can't decide where this falls on the Chucky and Robocop scale. I mean, they said who the actor was before he was on the show, but once he appeared, he's the character. At least with Chucky and Robocop they didn't say who the actor was first. Super boring match. Savage did a sweet piledriver and hit the elbow. He then broke the pin to do a second one. Then he punched the ref, so I assume this will be a DQ. Second elbow. Dennis Rodman comes out and attacks Savage. Arliss jumped in the ring to celebrate with him. Rodman was wearing a pimp hat, waist high leather pants, a halter top, white boa, pink lipstick, and a jacket made out of 30 other jackets. Gene and security hit the ring to get a word. Gene, Tony, and Tenay all have mics up by Rodman. Wait, Tony is there? Why isn't he doing announcing tonight? The two trade some barbs, with Savage saying he would make Rodman his bitch. This made Rodman offer his ass up. Madusa came out and get into a fight with Molly Holly.
We're shown highlights of Konnan vs Vampiro from last week, with Hudson saying "the lucha libre" about 7 times.
Konnan vs Vampiro
They talk about the heat between these two like everyone in America watches AAA and the lucha libre. ICP attack Konnan and cause a DQ. Skinny clown does a top rope leg drop. Raven is also out there. Rey comes down for a save and gets powerbombed. Fat clown does a moonsault that the camera mostly misses because they were busy looking at Raven not giving a shit. I'm surprised they did both of the celebrity angles back to back.
Nitro Girls dance.
Recap of Savage losing his title to Hogan last week.
Buff comes out to Cat's music in black face and with a guy as Sonny Onoo with an Asian Halloween mask on. Nothing offensive about this. "How do you say chicken in Japanese?" God damn. The weirdest thing about this is that Buff's normal super tan skin tone is darker than Cat's normal skin tone to start with. Another round of Yo Mama jokes. Cat and Sonny hit the ring. Buff fights them off, but Cat hits Buff with a ruby slipper. Cat then dances and does a moonwalk people's elbow. Buff went from feuding with Flair and Piper to a mid card feud with The Cat where he's been laid out twice in a row and dresses up in black face.
Curt Hennig/Barry Windham vs Chris Benoit/Saturn
The Rednecks continue, but their angle is dead. The angle with Benoit/Dean/Saturn/Buff against the man seems to be dead as well. And this goes a few minutes before another DQ. Malenko came in for the save and was also beaten down. Then SHANE DOUGLAS runs in and makes the save! The Franchise (HA HA) Shane (HA HA) Douglas (HA HA)! He's here to cut out the cancer in WCW.
Nitro Girls dance.
Sid vs Hollywood Hogan WCW Championship
Brain doesn't think these two have ever had a match together. I guess Flair losing at WM8 was so traumatic to him that he forgot the main event that night. Sid does a whole lot of stalling. The match finally starts and Sid goes after Hogan's knee. They cut to an unexpected commercial right in the middle of a move since they went into over time. They should have stayed on commercial, because this is death. As Hogan was about to hit the leg drop, Nash ran in and caused another DQ. Sting hit the ring. Then Rick Steiner hit the ring. Terrible music hits and it's GOLDBERG! He cleans house as Nash, Sid, and Rick Steiner hold each other's arms up on the floor. That's right, Kevin Nash is now not just helping Sid to get at Hogan, but celebrating with Sid. The same guy who literally tried to murder him just last month. It's Goldberg's first appearance since two weeks ago when he said he was back.
DQ Count: 5 out of 10, with one count out and one possible no contest. 5 disqualifications IN A ROW. 2 clean finishes the whole show.
This shit is garbage. I'm watching most of the shows lately at 1.30x and slowing them down for gifs and they're still killing me. Arliss in character on the show, even though he was announced as the actor. ICP. Dennis Rodman being brought back. Hogan as top babyface champion again. Eric Bischoff still doing the good guy face boss thing that no one buys or cares about, doing yet another finish where he has no authority to make the call. Nash and Sid are now friendly with each other. Shane Douglas debuts and says insidery things about Ric Flair without saying his name because everyone is supposed to know about their real heat.