April 4, 2009
Matt Peddycord
The Powerdriver Review

WCW Monday Nitro
January 15, 1996
Miami, FL
James L. Knight Center

The current WCW champs were as follows:
WCW World Champion: Ric Flair (12/27/1995)
WCW U.S. Champion: One Man Gang (12/27/1995)
WCW World Tag Team Champions: Harlem Heat (10/28/1995)
WCW World Television Champion: Johnny B. Badd (10/29/1995)

Your hosts are Eric Bischoff, Bobby Heenan, and that Emmy-award winning Steve “Mongo” McMichael.

Lex Luger vs. Randy Savage
To explain his absence, Jimmy Hart is having a meeting with Ric Flair right now. Bischoff is already hyping Savage’s title match with Flair for next week. Luger tosses a chair into the ring to distract Savage so he can nail him from behind. While the ref is getting rid of the chair, Luger throws Savage over the top rope to the floor. Lex posts Savage, but gets pulled back out to the floor to eat the guardrail. Savage slams Luger’s face on the steps and throws Luger in the ring for a double ax handle. Cover, 1-2-NO! Savage chokes Lex in the ropes. Luger rakes the eyes and kicks Savage around, but then Savage kicks back and slams Luger for the MACHO ELBOW! Oh he missed. Luger grabs the TORTURE RACK until Savage’s arm drops three times. (5:10) Savage did not give up, folks. Now Luger has four straight wins over Savage, but Savage still gets the title shot even after he’s had his rematch since losing the title? Way to keep Luger down. **

OH SNAP! The Four Horsemen and the Dungeon of Doom come out together to the ring. Gene Okerlund asks at the risk of sounding negative, WHAT THE WHAT? Arn and Benoit are dressed for business, Flair is dressed in his robe for his match, and Pillman comes out in jeans and a t-shirt. At least it’s a Four Horsemen t-shirt. Arn reprimands him for that. There was supposed to be a tag match with Arn Anderson & Brian Pillman taking on Kevin Sullivan and Hugh Morrus, but that obviously will not happening because the Horsemen and the Dungeon of Doom are working together! The main event at the upcoming Clash in eight days is now set in stone. Because of the respect Kevin Sullivan has for Flair, he’s going to let him borrow the Giant in a tag match against Hogan and Savage. Sullivan also says he respects Arn Anderson, but he’s got no respect for Pillman. Arn responds to Sullivan saying that the feeling is mutual, but he shouldn’t confuse respect with fear. Pillman jumps up and down over that, and gets SLAPPED hard by AA! SHUT UP, PILLMAN! And that ends the business meeting.

The Public Enemy vs. The American Males
And this would be the WCW debut of Public Enemy. They have traded in their black and white pin stripe jerseys for comical orange. Rocco Rock has ‘Naughty by Nature’ printed on the back of his jersey while Johnny Grunge has ‘Violent By Design’ on the back of his jersey. And what makes it even funnier is that they are facing the most anti-ECW tag team ever in the American Males. However, the Males clean house on PE. They pull the Males out for a beatdown though. Back in the ring, Scotty Riggs draws Public Enemy into a flying crossbody from Bagwell, which clears the ring of PE once again. Back in, Riggs gets a Jack Brisco rollup on Grunge for two. Random hot tag to Bagwell. He cleans house on PE AGAIN! What kind of debut is this? Out of an O’Connor roll, Rocco Rock breaks it up with a blow to the back, allowing Grunge to school boy Bagwell with a handful of tights for the 1-2-3. (3:28) Most unimpressive debut for Public Enemy. That is until they set Bagwell up on a double stack of tables. Rocco Rock puts him through the tables nicely with a somersault plancha. And that’s all we will take from this debut. Over on ‘the other program’ as Bischoff likes to call it, another ECW star defects to the WWF and makes his WWF in-ring debut - except this guy turns out to be one of the biggest stars ever in wrestling. Can you guess who it is?! *

Coming up next on TNT – it’s fists and feet of fury when a kick boxer takes on a group of Chinese fighters in the world championship. Test your kick boxing skills with To Be The Best!

WCW World Heavyweight Champion Ric Flair (w/Jimmy Hart) vs. Sting
As Sting says to the camera on his way to the ring, ‘here we go again’. FINALLY, Sting gets a fair shot at the gold. It makes sense since he felt he was slighted at Starrcade, but when is Luger going to get a freakin’ chance? Is the selling point of the Clash of the Champions show really the Col. Parker/Sherri wedding? Seriously? It starts off like typical Sting/Flair where Sting NO-SELLS and press slams Flair. Flair rakes the eyes and chops Sting down to take over. Sting blocks a suplex and kills Flair with a top rope superplex! Oh, but the jumping splash hits knees. Let’s take a break. When we come back, Sting lunges at Flair up against the ropes and misses. Flair hits the Rolling Knee Drop and covers Sting with his feet on the ropes for a bunch of nearfalls. While Jimmy has the ref, Flair throws Sting over the top rope. The man is such a rule breaker, that he’ll break rules even when it’s totally unnecessary. Back in, Flair chops the crap out of Sting until he explodes out of the corner with a clothesline. Sting grabs a sleeper, but Flair slips out and gives him a back suplex. Sting blocks the FIGURE-FOUR and pulls Flair in for a small package for 1-2-NO! Backslide gets another two. Sting delivers a sunset flip and yanks Flair’s tights down, but still doesn’t take him over for the pin. Another press slam to Flair. Sting slams him off the top and NO-SELLS some more chops. With Jimmy Hart up on the apron, Lex Luger comes down and tries to get him to stop yelling through that megaphone of his. Luger pulls it away from Jimmy and nails Sting with the megaphone as he leaps into the Stinger Splash. Uhh, Luger was standing on the wrong side of the apron to do that, but the result is the same here. Luger hit Sting with the megaphone by “accident”. Flair hooks on the FIGURE-FOUR, but it doesn’t matter because Sting is KO’ed. Ref counts 1-2-3 and Flair retains the world title for another week. (11:07 shown) Standard Sting/Flair match with a messed up ending. Flair still has the hold locked in after the bell, so Luger pulls Flair off his buddy. In comes Hogan and Savage to scare them both away. **¾

Gene Okerlund meets the good guys in the ring. Hogan and Savage both tell Sting what a dope he is for trusting Luger, because now it just cost him the gold. Sting is so loopy after getting hit with the megaphone, he doesn’t know what happened. He runs to the back to talk to Luger. Now it’s just Hogan and Savage. Hogan confronts Savage about him getting another title shot next week on Nitro when he thinks he’s the one who deserves a title shot. Of course you do, Hulk. And Savage just leaves. Will these two ever get along?

WCW Saturday Night! Watch it! 6:05PM eastern! TBS! Hulk Hogan will be there! The tag champs Harlem Heat take on Sting & Lex Luger! Plus, an exclusive interview with…Jim Belushi? Why not. Don’t miss it! It’s the MUTHASHIP! PAY WINDAHS AND ALL THAT PLUNDAH, BABY!

Hulk Hogan vs. Meng (w/Kevin Sullivan)
Meng and Sullivan stomp a ringside photographer to show how evil they are. Do I even need to do PBP for this one? Meng chokes and squeezes the crap out of Hogan for four minutes. Meng misses a flying headbutt, allowing Hogan to Hulk Up and Big Boot Meng. Just as that happens, Sullivan hops up on the apron with the GOLDEN SPIKE~! Randy Savage runs down and tries to stop Sullivan unsuccessfully. Wasn’t he sort of mad at Hulk like five minutes ago? Hogan takes the spike away from Sullivan, jabs Meng with it, and gets the 1-2-3. (4:39) Did anybody really think Meng would go over here? ½*

After losing to Raw in the ratings war two weeks in a row, Nitro stacks up their card and gets their highest rating to date with a 3.5; beating Raw in the ratings by a whole point.

Oh yeah, AND WE OUT!