February 11, 2009
Matt Peddycord

WCW Monday Nitro
November 6, 1995
Jacksonville, FL
Jacksonville Coliseum

The current WCW champs were as follows:
WCW World Champion: The Giant (10/29/1995)
WCW U.S. Champion: Sting (6/18/1995)
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.

Tonight, WCW goes interactive! If you call 1-900-370-3WCW, you get to pick tonight’s main event! Where’s my phone?! From the heel locker room, you can choose Ric Flair, Meng, Diamond Dallas Page, the Blue Bloods, Big Bubba Rogers, Shark or Scott Norton to face Sting, Johnny B. Badd, Hacksaw Jim Duggan, Dave Sullivan (yeah right), Alex Wright, the Nasty Boys, or JL. What, is JL not a man anymore? The commentators spend the whole night hyping Sting vs. Flair without actually saying it will happen later in the night.

WCW World Heavyweight Champion The Giant (w/Jimmy Hart) vs. Cobra
Man I wish I could turn over to Raw right now. Davey Boy Smith vs. Marty Jannetty? Heck yeah. Okay, sorry. Back to Nitro. It’s not a title match, you guys. Even though Giant picks up ring announcer Dave Penzer and forces him to say it is. Chokeslam. It’s over. (0:17) Rock rock ’til he drops, rock rock never stops, Marty Jannetty. Yeahhhh.

Gene Okerlund is in the heel locker room. Shark and Norton get into an argument. Over in the good guy room, they’re all pumped up and charismatic with Tony Schiavone. Sting wants the Nature Boy BAD!

They show a video of Hulk Hogan “returning to his roots” in Venice Beach, California where he hangs out with a bunch of street bums and talks about being on the dark side with his friend Randy Savage. Now Hogan’s got Macho Man wearing all black too!

Kevin Sullivan (w/Jimmy Hart) vs. Renegade
We haven’t seen Renegade since Fall Brawl! He goes nuts on Sullivan to start, but Jimmy Hart distracts him on the floor. Sullivan drops Renegade crotch first on the guardrail and sends him into the steps. Back inside the ring, Renegade makes his little comeback with a Handspring Elbow in the corner. He charges again, but gets caught in the tree of woe. Sullivan runs knees-first into Renegade and then finishes him off with a Double Stomp off the middle rope. The Dungeon of Doom Heimlich Maneuver? (2:44) After the match, Jimmy Hart dumps water in Renegade’s face and wipes off the red and yellow paint. He’s lost his identity! Talk about being buried. ¾*

More hijinks ensue in the heel locker room. Choose Sting vs. Flair!

Chris Benoit vs. Eddie Guerrero
Oh so sweet. Benoit attacks early and delivers a serious snap suplex. He keeps it coming with a back suplex and a SICK spinebuster to set up the Walls of Jericho. We look over to see Sonny Oono enjoying Japanese cuisine with Masa Chono, Hiro Saito, Kensuke Sasaki and Jushin Liger. Poor Liger can’t enjoy the food though. You know, he’s wearing the mask. Back over in the ring, Eddie counters a powerbomb with a lucha armdrag. He follows up with a springboard armdrag and then a tilt-a-whirl sideslam. Benoit escapes out to the floor to take one of Eddie’s signature planchas down the aisleway. Back in, Guerrero delivers the Brainbuster. Benoit stops Eddie up top before he can be put away with the Frog Splash and brings Guerrero down with a top-rope superplex! Slow cover gets 1-2-NO! Benoit gives Guerrero a neck breaking Snap Powerbomb for 1-2-NO! Guerrero tries to get a pin out of nowhere like he did last week with Pittman as he executes a torso rollup for 1-2-NO! Bridging German Suplex from Benoit gets two. He holds onto Eddie for a Northern Lights Suplex for 1-2-NO! Guerrero goes to the ropes to avoid a Dragon Suplex that cost him the match on Nitro two weeks earlier. Benoit hangs Eddie out to dry across the top rope. They fight on the apron, but Eddie falls on top of Benoit when he tries to back suplex Guerrero into the ring for 1-2-3! (6:29) Benoit had his feet under the bottom rope though. Rematch! ***¼

Sting vs. Ric Flair
No votes tallied, no bar charts, no percentages. This is *your* Nitro main event. Sting’s a week from losing the US title and he’s not even wearing the belt to the ring. Oh well. Everyone wants to see Sting and Flair HOOK IT UP! Hot start as Sting fires away on Flair and gives him a press slam or two. You knew it was coming. Ten-count corner punch leads to the Flair Flip to the apron and a clothesline. Sting punches Flair around the ring and goes for his Stinger Splash up against the guardrail, which NEVER works. We have to take a break! After some commercials, Flair is chopping away. Back suplex from Flair sets up the FIGURE-FOUR. He proceeds to cheat like a muthatrucka by grabbing every rope possible. Sting eventually begins to NO-SELL the pain and turns the hold over. Press slam to Flair! Hiptoss out of the corner leads to a dropkick. Flair cools him off with a thumb to the eye. WOO! Back to the floor we go, where Flair gouges Sting’s eyes real good. He wants to use a chair, but ref Randy Anderson says no way. Inside the ring, Flair takes open shots at the Stinger and covers him with his feet on the ropes. Headlock/backslide sequence follows. That gets two for Sting. Flair goes up top and goes down to the mat. Sting unloads on Flair in the corner. So much in fact, he has to literally pick up Randy Anderson and place him in the opposite corner. That allows Flair to pull out his foreign object from his tights! BAM! Right in the kisser. Flair styles and profiles all over the ring and then drops an elbow on the KO’ed Sting. Cover, 1-2-NO! Flair’s blows stop affecting the Stinger! Another press slam. Sting follows up with a top-rope superplex and applies the SCORPION DEATHLOCK. Now see, I would have had AA and Pillman come down to break it up for the DQ to lead to set up the PPV match since Sting didn’t get his full revenge. But instead, Sting gets the submission win. (9:16) Even after the bell, Sting refuses to let go of the hold. A bunch of babyface midcarders come into the ring to talk to him, but nothing works. That is until recently turned heel Lex Luger walks down to whisper something to Sting. What could it possibly be? Whatever it was, Sting lets go of Flair and then heads to the locker room with Lex. Huh? ***

In the ring, Gene Okerlund is standing with WCW World Champion The Giant, Kevin Sullivan, and Jimmy Hart. Jimmy explains why he broke up with Hogan. He says while Hogan was making B-rated straight-to-video movies and doing charity work with Randy Savage for all the little kids, he was taking care of business in WCW as his power of attorney. Jimmy Hart was the one who signed the contract for the Hogan/Giant match and stuck in the clause that if Hogan lost the match by DQ, he would lose the belt to the Giant. Well, Jimmy Hart made sure Hogan lost by DQ and here we are. However, Okerlund brings out a *real* lawyer to dispute this fact. He says that after talking with WCW Commissioner Nick Bockwinkel (who is no longer a part of WCW), the WCW world title would be made vacant because of the way Hogan lost the match. Well ain’t that a B. A new champion will be decided at World War 3 in the 60-man battle royal. Sullivan calms Giant and Jimmy Hart down by saying that nobody can possibly eliminate the Giant, so who cares if they take the belt away now? He’ll get it back at World War 3 and there will be no disputing that Giant is the world champion. Good call, Kev.

Next week: Randy Savage returns to take on Meng, WCW TV champ Johnny B. Badd defends against Eddie Guerrero, and Sting battles Dean Malenko!