February 21, 2009
Matt Peddycord
The Powerdriver Review

WCW Monday Nitro
December 11, 1995
Charlotte, NC
Independence Arena

The current WCW champs were as follows:
WCW World Champion: Randy Savage (11/26/1995)
WCW U.S. Champion: Kensuke Sasaki (11/13/1995)
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.

Eddie Guerrero vs. JL
Oh man we’re in the middle of an abdominal stretch by Eddie Guerrero. JL escapes a powerbomb with a lucha armdrag, but gets caught off a crossbody block for an inverted atomic drop. A tilt-a-whirl headscissors puts Eddie on the floor, but he’s back in off the top rope with a hold of JL’s hand for a flying armdrag! Nice! JL blocks a monkey flip and places Guerrero on the top turnbuckle and then puts him on the floor and into the guardrail with a springboard dropkick. He comes off the apron with a cannonball splash to wipe out Eddie some more. Back in, JL gets two. Suplex gets two. Nice corner dropkick by JL. Guerrero counters a cross corner whip into a twisty leg rollup. They counter that back and forth until Eddie gets the pin. (2:57 shown) Good, not great. Of course we missed several minutes of the match thanks to Bischoff deciding to start the show too early. **¼

Gene Okerlund is with Lex Luger and Jimmy Hart. Jimmy calls Luger the uncrowned champion after destroying Savage with the Torture Rack at Halloween Havoc. Of course they don’t mention Savage pinning Luger earlier that night with the Macho Elbow Drop. Then we look at World War 3 where Luger worked an armbar to the point Savage passed out from the pain. And if it wasn’t for Hogan stopping the count last week on Nitro, Luger would be the champ right now. But since he’s not the champ, may the best man win in the triangle match at Starrcade.

Paul Orndorff vs. Disco Inferno
Yeah it’s time to call it a career now, Paul. When your music and gimmick is this bad to where you have confidence issues and you have to call up Gary Spivey and Dionne Warwick at the Psychic Friends Network, you might want to just stop. Anyways, Disco sees that Orndorff cares more about his hair than he does about his own hair and attacks him at the bell. Stomps, elbows, and chokes continue until Disco runs into an elbow out of the corner. He hits his ultra cool boogie woogie vertical elbow drop. I love it! Orndorff nails Disco with a SICK back suplex that gives him the win. (2:23) Now go have your neck surgery, Mr. Wonderful. You have been great. ½*

Gene Okerlund calls out three of the Four Horsemen. The Horsemen have new shirts! No Benoit because he’s over in Japan getting ready for the Super J Cup. Pillman talks about how great it is to be apart of the Four Horsemen. He says everybody wanted to be a member of the Horsemen – even Hulk Hogan. Huh? Because of his three demandments, he couldn’t handle the whiskey drinking and limo riding lifestyle the Horsemen are accustomed to living. What is he talking about? He continues to say that Hogan had the luxury of being able to rip off the black clothes and throw them into the burning trashcan, but the Horsemen can’t rip out their black hearts because they are the bad guys. What? He calls future Horsemen member Steve McMichael that he’s pretty flexible for a big guy. He goes on to make fun of the Dungeon of Doom. Now he brings up Paul Orndorff and says he wanted to be a Horseman, but now he’s a member of the Psychic Friends Network spilling his guts to Gary Spivey and Dionne Warwick for $4.99 a minute. Alright that’s enough from you, Brian. We go over to Flair. Instant crowd reaction. He begins to talk about when Hulk Hogan and Sting walk the aisle when Paul Orndorff comes down to confront Pillman for what he said just a minute ago. Arn tries to cool him down, but Orndorff is PISSED! He calls Pillman the “bag carrier” and “chauffeur” for the Four Horsemen. Pillman strikes the first blow by slapping Orndorff across the face. You want to get nuts? Let’s get nuts! When you attack one of the Horsemen, they all come after you. The Horsemen need to make a point here, so Flair and Arn wind up giving Orndorff a SPIKE PILEDRIVER on the concrete! That puts Orndorff on the shelf so he can get his neck surgery. Great angle, by the way. After the break, the EMT guys are testing Orndorff for any nerve damage before putting him on a stretcher. Bobby Heenan left the announce table to check on his former employee. CONTINUITY~!

Lex Luger (w/Jimmy Hart) vs. Jim Duggan
And the show must go on with one of the worst matches I’ve seen on Nitro to date. It’s just back and forth punches and turnbuckle smashes in between shots of Orndorff being taken onto an ambulance. Duggan wants his Three Point Stance, but Jimmy Hart gets on the apron to point out how ridiculous it is to have a 2×4 at ringside. Duggan pulls out some tape from his trunks and tapes up his fist to nail Jimmy, but Luger runs Duggan into his own 2×4 to stagger him up into the TORTURE RACK! See ya. (2:44) Next. ¼*

Gene Okerlund is standing by with WCW World Champion Randy Savage. Gene reminds Savage just how busy he is with all these upcoming title defenses. Next week, he was to wrestle The Giant. At Starrcade, he has to wrestle twice! He’s not thinking about Starrcade at all, just the Giant. DIG IT!

Hulk Hogan & Sting vs. Ric Flair & Arn Anderson
When the Horsemen go up against him in Charlotte, its obviously an anti-Hogan crowd. I’m talking “Hogan sucks!” chants and everything. Poor Sting. Arn and Sting start us out. Sting shoves off a headlock and tries a hiptoss, but Arn counters with a fireman’s carry throw. The crowd goes nuts. Arn cheapshots Sting from behind with an elbow from a hammerlock position. Sting comes back with a press slam during a THUNDEROUS and completely undeniable “Hogan sucks” chant. Hogan takes a shot at Arn and now Arn wants him a piece of the Hulkster. Tag to Hogan. Everyone boos. Arn plays with Hogan’s head a bit and tags in Flair. WOO! Hogan NO-SELLS chops and backdrops Flair out of the corner. Flair Flip sends him right into an ear clap from Sting. With Flair and Sting out on the floor, Arn nails Hogan from behind to a great reaction. He NO-SELLS Arn too! Back inside, Flair pokes Hulk in the eyes, which he finally sells. Hogan gets stuck in the wrong side of town momentarily. Hogan ducks a chop from Flair and makes the tag to Sting. Press Slam to Flair! Dropkick gets two. Flair goes low and takes over on the Stinger. A headlock sequence leads into a Sting backslide for two. Flair stops a ten-count corner punch with an inverted atomic drop and tags AA. He heads up top and gets slammed down. SCORPION DEATHLOCK! Flair runs in as Sting releases and applies the SCORPION DEATHLOCK on Flair! When Sting turns around with hold in place, AA drops him with a DDT! Awesome. Charlotte erupts. Cue Lex Luger and Jimmy Hart. While Jimmy has the ref, Luger runs over and pulls Hogan off the apron. He posts Hogan and puts him up the TORTURE RACK! YES! After he’s had him up in the hold for a couple seconds, he drops Hogan and storms to the back with Jimmy. Great stuff. Meanwhile, Flair is taking Sting to school. Sting fights back and reaches his corner for a tag, but there’s no Hogan. He gets pulled back into enemy territory. More leg work from the Horsemen leads to the FIGURE-FOUR! Hogan is back on the apron now as Arn helps out with some leverage. Flair begins to slap Sting, which history teaches us this action only gets Sting more fired up. Sting drags Flair while he’s in the hold all the way over to Hogan for a false tag. Arn and Flair stay on the knee until Flair starts to chop Sting’s chest. He NO-SELLS and slams Flair off the top for 1-2-NO! The Horsemen STILL cut off the tag to Hogan. Arn nails Hogan, but then Sting gets a desperation face slam and makes the hot tag to Hulk! Arn immediately goes to the eyes and whips Hogan in for the Spinebuster. Ugh, he NO-SELLS! Punch, punch, punch. Big Boot to Arn. Big Boot to Ric. Hogan hits the LEGDROP as Flair takes a Stinger Splash. Hogan covers and gets the 1-2-3. (13:25) Great heat segment with Sting as they beat the paint clean off him since Hogan wouldn’t take anything besides Luger’s Torture Rack. No-selling Ric Flair and Arn Anderson in Charlotte should result in a fate worse than death. ***¼

Right after the bell, Pillman comes in for the 3-on-2 attack. Luger runs back down and pulls Pillman off Sting. He tries to keep Sting from helping out Hulk, but not even Luger could keep him back. Sting is nailing everybody and when Savage runs up behind him and grabs him from behind, he turns around and punches Savage down. It’s the same deal from last week where a friend accidentally hits another friend. It’s all a big misunderstanding. Hogan convinces Savage that Sting is on his side since he helped Hulk against the Horsemen. Ahh this is all too complicated - and yet so familiar.