Monday Night Wars

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

The clip before Nitro of Flair and Steamboat's last match (from WCW SN) is pretty neat.

 

So far so good with the July 7th Nitro, I can see why King liked it so much. I'm really enjoying this Vicious and Delicious vs. Guerreros tag match. Kane is the first guy I remembered seeing pull of the "reverse a two man suplex into suplexing two men" spot, but here's Scott Norton doing it.

 

Heenan getting pissed at Larry not giving up his headset and chair is pretty amusing.

 

La Parka vs. Savage is great too.

[Aero 0]

I have to say, La Parka being revealed as DDP was a surprise to me. And I don't care what anyone else says... DDP is awesome.

[bob_barron 0]

The La Parka-DDP angle is one of the best things WCW ever did.

[10 Pounds 0]

That Nitro was very good, I would have bought Bash at the Beach 10 years ago.

 

-As mentionned, the DDP-Savage angle was great and completely caught me by surprise.

 

-I didn't remember that Stevie Richards made the jump to WCW. Did it last long ?

 

-Anybody picked up the mistake by Mean Gene during the Harlem Heat interview ? "Virgil uh-Vincent !"

 

-Even though we would see it too many times, I still get a kick out of the fans pelting the ring with crap during the nWo main-event segment.

[Guest]

I didn't remember that Stevie Richards made the jump to WCW. Did it last long ?

Nope, it was quite short.

[cabbageboy 0]

Yeah I enjoyed this Nitro pretty well. I don't know if I liked it better than the Raw opposite it, but it was close. More starpower at any rate. I might give a slight edge to Nitro since Raw had entirely too much Brian Christopher.

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

The news I was hearing in 1997 was after Richards extremely brief stint in WCW (it may actually end after his match with Raven at the Clash of Champions being shown next month) he was retiring from the business due to a neck injury and was going to run a video game store. Obviously he did not retire.

[tapout 0]

Nitro was awesome. I never get tired of Flair/Piper. I have a question though? Was that DDP helping Piper during the Horsemen beat down? The camera zoomed all the way out, and they went to a commercial break.

[bob_barron 0]

It was Jarrett. There was a Steiners-Benoit/Mongo match that explained the angle in more detail.

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

I received the WON reviewing this Raw, Nitro, and Canadian Stampede. I'll probably post the notes in the appropriate Raw/ Nitro threads - I was thinking of just putting the Stampede notes in the Raw thread since that what the build has been lately but maybe I could spin that off into a General thread?

[Guest]

A *share your WON notes* thread would be pretty good. If people actually wanted to share, that is.

[packwingfn 0]

I really enjoyed this Raw. The Bret Hart speech is a classic one.....Opening match was good

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

So let's take a look at some inside notes about these recent Raw shows via the WON:

 

* Sabu vs. Flash Funk is indeed the end of the WWF/ECW relationship. Lawler (or Sabu) and RVD vs. Dreamer and Sandman was in the works for SummerSlam but is now off the table. Federation officials were not pleased with RVD and Sabu's attitude towards their planned match finishes on the 6/23 Raw. More on this to come in General Wrestling.

 

* The 7/7/97 Raw drew 9,500 people (7,108 paid) to take in a $135,270 gate. This was the highest gate ever for a Raw taping, but because of the exchange rate, it was actually about $99,000 US, lower than the previous record of $115,271 from March 10th in Worcester, MA.

 

* I've never really noticed this, but Meltzer noted that Bret takes his bump before Austin hit him with the chair because he noticed Bulldog and Owen go down.

 

* Dave feels Taka / Sasuke was the best match of the night between Raw and Nitro, but the Villanos match on Nitro was close.

 

* Believes the 'Cain' angle is currently a lemon and not working and that Bearer's interview on the show was also a lemon.

 

*Off TV, Brian Christopher and Sunny left arm-in-arm.

 

* Sid is off TV due to a sciatic nerve problem but they hope he's back by SummerSlam (I bring this up because I believe he appears on the next Raw, then never again).

 

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

Some Nitro notes from the WON:

 

* The 7/7/97 Nitro drew 7,799 fans (7,230 paid) for a gate of $114,705. It was just shy of a sell out and actually drew a few hundred less than their previous show in Memphis, but higher ticket prices resulted in the largest gate ever for a Memphis wrestling show.

 

* Dave believes based on TV, Page's partner on PPV will be Hennig or Zbyszko.

 

* Called Juvi and Hector Garza vs. Villanos a great TV match, noting Juvi nailed every spot "on the money". The heels looked unspectacular, but their steadiness made the faces shine. Both teams got a standing ovation after the match.

 

* Called the DDParka deal an "excellent angle" (no argument here). "Page's work and timing was incredible, right down to doing the Parka strut ealry".

 

* Not even Psycosis and Silver King vs. Miller and Glacier bothered him as he felt it was great TV with the three team brawl post match. "Lots of people are down on the arcade game wrestlers gimmick, but Mortis has potential to be a great worker".

 

* "For anyone who has seen ECW in the last six months, the thing with Richards going in the time machine back 18 months would have been really lame".

 

* For the 6/30/97 Nitro, Rey Mysterio was supposed to get a fluke win over Nash by hitting him with a roll of coins then get destroyed post-match. Plans were changed between Saturday and Monday, which is "just as well as nobody would have bought that finish".

 

[tapout 0]

Nitro was awesome. I never get tired of Flair/Piper. I have a question though? Was that DDP helping Piper during the Horsemen beat down? The camera zoomed all the way out, and they went to a commercial break.

 

That's right. Thanks Bob.

[tapout 0]

It was Jarrett. There was a Steiners-Benoit/Mongo match that explained the angle in more detail.

 

Thanks Bob. sorry about the double post guys

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

I really enjoyed the 7/14 Raw. Maybe I was in a good mood watching it? The opening segment was fun stuff, I was pleasantly surprised with Putskis vs. Lawlers, Tajiri Yoshihiro vs. Taka was good, and I had never seen the whole Dude Love debut segment and that was pretty enjoyable. I'm also a sucker for big parking lot brawls. The ending to Shamrock vs. Neidhart was a bit of a head scratcher though.

[Detox 0]

Thank for the WON notes DrVenkman PhD, I enjoyed this RAW, I was not watching at this point, and it is nice to see what I missed. I really enjoyed the show overall, the whole Los Boricuas/DOA feud really does not interest me very much, but I like how every person in the Hart Foundation (except Neidhart) have good built in feuds. Excuse my WWE 24/7 ignorance, but what are the chances that we get to see Summerslam 97' soon? , I also thought it was strange to see a WCW Clash of Champions from August while we are still in July on Nitro.

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

You're quite welcome.

 

They showed SummerSlam last August (along with the Raw that will be in the week 3 update this month). In my experience with the network, Big Ones or Specials that correspond with weekly TV are coincidental at best. The one and only time it happened during the time I've been a subscriber was when the Buried Alive show and the October 96 MNW episodes that built to the PPV were up at the same time. The end of the Raw before the PPV had a graphic saying "Watch IYH Buried Alive on 24/7 Now!" or somehting along those lines.

[Nitro 24/7 0]

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

Sometime in 98, I think. They may have had monthly 3 hour shows after the upcoming August one though, I don't quite remember nor do I recall if Canada ever got 3 hour Nitros. Actually, yeah, I know at one point we did from 3-6pm on Tuesday.

[Nitro 24/7 0]

[cabbageboy 0]

The 3 hour Nitros never seemed to drag? Maybe not at first, but once WCW started sucking those shows were excruciating. I used to tape the last 2 hours of Nitro and watch those shows the next day (this was circa 1999).

[King Kamala 0]

No, three hours were always kind of a drag but especially in the last six months or so of them. The first hour was almost always entirely WCW Saturday Night quality matches and other various filler.

[Guest]

I liked it because the first hour was a non-compete hour with the WWF...more wrestling. Didn't care if it was good or not.

[cabbageboy 0]

Oh sure, the 8-9 hour was some filler during that era before Raw came on. But then WCW would at times do the crazy stuff like have the entire first hour contain zero matches and just a bunch of weird skits.

[Nitro 24/7 0]

[Brett Wolverton 0]

Alright, in the opening match of the current Nitro, when Giant is chokeslamming all the security guys, I'm 100% sure that one of the security guys is actually Psicosis unmasked. In fact, I think a couple of the guards might've been luchadores without their hoods on.

[zappafrank 0]

Since there's no Clash XXXV thread, I guess I'll ask here: on the original broadcast, did all the sound go out at the end for the Sting theme/voiceover?

 

On a more general note, why is Jericho's original WCW theme edited out? It doesn't sound like it's anything major, but apparently it's major enough b/c his "happy"/pre-Evenflow rip-off is never there (and you can never hear what he's saying to the camera b/c of the overdub).

 

Anyone able to tell what themes tend to be dubbed over? On the Clash, there was something funky with Raven's music. The announcers said there was no music, but on 24/7 there was, and it was clearly over something. But Scott Keith's old review says there was music, while his new review says there was no music originally.

 

I think there are some other overdubs on Nitro, but they tend to be for lower mid-carders.

[UseTheSledgehammerUh 0]

Jericho's first stock music is not owned by World Wrestling Entertainment.

 

Raven had no music at Clash XXXV. He did have a stock theme shortly after.