WCW Monday Nitro
September 29, 1997
Worcester, MA
The Centrum

The current WCW champs were as follows:
WCW World Champion: Hollywood Hogan (8/9/1997)
WCW U.S. Champion: Curt Hennig (9/15/1997)
WCW World Tag Team Champions: The Outsiders (10/27/1996)
WCW World Television Champion: Disco Inferno (9/22/1997)
WCW Cruiserweight Champion: Eddie Guerrero (9/14/1997)

HOUR NUMBER ONE! Your hosts are Tony Schiavone, Larry Zbyszko, and Mike Tenay.

NITRO GIRLS! Smart way for Tony to take time and give the rundown on what we will see tonight.

Video package airs to emphasize how personal the Savage-DDP feud has been. No footage involves anything since the Great American Bash, but what else can these two be doing right now but feuding some more?

• Diamond Dallas Page vs. Buff Bagwell (w/Vincent)
  

DDP is over like gangbusters here. Bagwell works a headlock to start. DDP breaks loose, but gets run down with a shoulderblock. Lots of posing here from Bagwell. Raven is shown in the audience with Stevie Richards sitting behind him. Back to the match, DDP hits Bagwell with his spinning clothesline and then dumps Bagwell out for a pescado. Back in, Bagwell feigns a knee injury off a leapfrog. DDP isn’t buying it, but the ref gets in his way and that allows Bagwell to nail Page from behind. Bagwell keeps him grounded for a while, but Page comes back and calls for the Diamond Cutter. Oops, low blow from Bagwell sets up a swinging neckbreaker. Cover with his feet on the ropes gets two. Bagwell gets in the ref’s face, which he falls back into a school boy for 1-2-NO! Vincent distracts the ref and during all that, DDP collides with the ref. DDP blocks the FISHERMAN’S SUPLEX with that armbar takedown he does. In comes Vincent, who gets BANGED. DIAMOND CUTTER to Bagwell! Ref Mickey Jay crawls back in and counts the 1-2-3. (6:36) Nothing much to the match, but DDP was definitely on fire during this period. As DDP goes through the crowd, he locks eyes with Raven on his way backstage. *½

Mike Tenay narrates over a video package entitled: Lucha Libre and the Mexican Luchadores. He explains why the masks, how they’re made, and the tradition behind lucha libre. Well, I guess he’ll tell us all of that later.

• Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. El Caliente
  

A masked Caliente takes the mask away from Rey that he would have given to a small child and puts it on to mock him. Even Tenay is stumped as to who this El Caliente character is. Only the commentators are befuddled because the crowd is chanting “Eddie” after he hits a Hilo. Mysterio makes a comeback and steals back his mask only to throw it out to the crowd. Rey misses a moonsault press and takes a back suplex from Caliente. When Caliente can’t rip off Rey’s mask, he drills him with a NASTY powerbomb for 1-2-NO! Caliente delivers a superplex and thinks about going up to the top, but that would give away his secret identity! Awesome double-jump Hurracanrana from Mysterio gets the three-count. (5:39) Mysterio grabs hold of the mask and slowly rips it off Eddie Guerrero by force. Well, now Tony is convinced. If only the Cruiserweight title had been on the line! The mask part was pretty goofy, but not even that stops these two from being awesome. **½

Gene Okerlund brings out the Giant to chat about his match tonight with Curt Hennig. Sticking up for WCW and what happened at Fall Brawl, Giant looks for revenge on Hennig. Paybacks are hell, Curt.

The camera has found the REAL Sting in the audience. Let’s take a commercial break. That’s more than we can handle right now.

• Bill Goldberg vs. The Barbarian
  

Match number two for Goldberg. A week has passed and Tenay has found out all about Goldberg’s football career. Being a Georgia Bulldogs fan, you would THINK Tony would know about this guy. Goldberg does a bunch of different things that you would never see in 1998 like a clothesline off the second rope, a dropkick, and going to the top rope for anything. Barbarian slams him off the top, but only gets two. Goldberg even delivers a knee drop, which is odd to see now. Sloppy JACKHAMMER gets the win. (3:10) He’s 2-0, you guys! Okerlund tries to get another interview with Goldberg and even holds up a picture of him during his football days, but again Goldberg walks away without saying a word. Gene can’t BELIEVE the disrespect he’s being shown by this meathead. ¾*

Instead, Gene Okerlund calls over Larry Zbyszko to have a word. Larry Z will be the special guest referee for Lex Luger and Scott Hall at Halloween Havoc. When he’s asked about if he will help Luger beat Hall since he hates Hall’s guts so much, Zbyszko feels that the worst thing he can do to Hall is make it fair. He wants to give Lex Luger the chance to show the world what Hall looks like when he has to wrestle to make a living. He’s heard the low-class war cry from the new World order for months now, but now he wants to know how it feels when someone stands up and bites *you*.

NITRO GIRLS!

Tony announces that Ric Flair will make a major announcement concerning his career later on tonight.

• WCW World Television Champion Disco Inferno vs. Juventud Guerrera
  

I believe Larry Z is comparing Disco Inferno legendary wrestler Ricki Starr (which sounds like a porn star name today). One did ballet, the other likes to disco for crying out loud. If you don’t know who Ricki Starr is, YOUTUBE IT. Disco uses his weight advantage to control Juventud to start. That’s when Guerrera starts to fly with headscissors takedowns and springboard dropkicks. Disco has to roll out, but that’s not a safe place either. Guerrera hits him with a somersault plancha. Back inside, Inferno blocks another headscissors and drops Juventud straight down onto the top rope. Hey look, it’s Alex Wright looking VERY European tonight. After Disco hits Guerrera with a swinging neckbreaker, Wright helps put Juventud’s foot on the bottom rope. Now here comes Jacqueline to tell Alex Wright to beat it. As Juventud tries to get a quick win over Disco, Jacqueline trips up Juvi. Disco delivers a gourdbuster and gets the three-count. (4:40) Afterwards, Disco takes his belt and walks right past both Jackie and Wright. *½

This WCWwrestling.com commercial is amazing. There’s news, special features, you can buy merchandise (which is just an ad for the PO Box or phone number, because it’s 1997), a chat room (yes, a chat room), and something about the WCW hotline. DOWNLOAD THIS! Netscape Navigator, anyone?

HOUR NUMBER TWO! Your hosts are Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan, and Mike Tenay.

Randy Savage and Elizabeth kicks off the second hour. He tells Roddy Piper not to get too creative with his match against DDP at Halloween Havoc. When prompted, Liz tells Macho that he’s the best wrestler in the world past present and future. Savage has lost it. He’s even calling out Sting to get him a piece of Savage.

• Jeff Jarrett (w/Debra) vs. Steve McMichael
  

Jarrett wraps up any loose ends before he heads back to the WWF. Tenay informs us that Mongo and Debra have officially split and she has moved to Georgia. Worcester clearly feels that “Jarrett sucks”. Despite all the confusion in the beginning, this has been one of the most enjoyable feuds of the summer resulting in some very fun ‘RASSLIN Nitro matches. This match goes into commercial and when we come back, we see some ringside violence where Mongo gets posted a couple times. Back in the ring, Jarrett puts McMichael down with a sleeper. Mongo counters, but Jarrett puts him down with a jawbreaker. McMichael NO-SELLS turnbuckle smashes and slams Jarrett down. Mongo Spike is blocked as Jarrett takes him to school. McMichael kicks away the Figure-Four. Debra tries to stop Mongo from giving Jarrett the Snake Eyes, but is entirely unsuccessful. She starts to yell at McMichael and slaps him one good time, which serves him right for getting a knee in the back from Jarrett. Rollup and his feet on the ropes scores the pinfall win for Jarrett. (8:24 shown) Not one of their stronger outings, but the crowd still dug the feud. Mongo stalks Debra backstage and I don’t know what happened to Jarrett. *

Some PhD students from Brown University get some attention. They have a Nitro Party video to show us a little bit later.

NITRO GIRLS!

• Chris Jericho vs. Syxx (w/Scott Hall)
  

Scott Hall comes out walking on crutches. The crowd loves these two being we’re in WWF territory. Apparently, Tony feels the injury is legit. I believe it is survey time before Jericho comes out. WCW gets booed and the nWo gets cheered, obvs. Hall cuts a promo on Luger and tells him he will fight at Halloween Havoc if he has to crawl to get there. If Zbyszko doesn’t call the match fair and square, Hall says he will put him on the shelf just like the nWo has done to Piper and Flair. Syxx gets his kicks in and delivers the Bronco Buster. He misses the somersault off the top and takes the springboard dropkick to send him off the apron hard onto the floor. Jericho hits Syxx with a plancha and comes back inside with a flying bodypress for two. Giant swing! Lionsault leads to the LIONTAMER, but Hall distracts him. Syxx applies the BUZZ KILLER and before Jericho can submit, Hall comes in and starts abusing ref Scott Dickinson. This will be ruled a no-contest. (5:00) Hall is obsessed with the fat stomach on Dickinson for some reason. Larry Zbyszko comes down and first pulls Syxx off Jericho. As Larry Z is being surrounded, he starts to unbutton his shirt signifying he might be in for a fight here. Lex Luger appears to even the odds, so Hall and Syxx decide to bail. *½

Tony, Bobby, and Mike speak with Ric Flair via telephone. Tony is excited just to hear Flair’s voice. WEIRD! As strange as it may seem, Flair THANKS Curt Hennig for giving him the wake-up call he needed. Flair feels he has been guilty of being caught off guard, and he paid the price at Fall Brawl. The stitches come out next week and he will soon be back in Hennig’s face. As for Hollywood Hogan, he saw what he did to his red robe. Flair feels that Hogan couldn’t fill his shoes and he darn sure can’t wear his robe, pal. He’s promises to come back and get that robe. WOO! As for the Four Horsemen, he thanks Chris Benoit and Steve McMichael for all they have done. Flair puts Benoit over as the greatest wrestler pound for pound today and tells him to go on his own. He puts over Mongo as well and sends him on his merry way. Since everything has gotten so personal, Flair doesn’t want them to worry about his future any longer. Basically, he’s been disbanding the Four Horsemen. He again thanks Hennig for the wake-up call and serves him notice that he’s coming back. Flair tells Tony that he loves him, (of course Tony returns the “I love you”) and hangs up the phone. Epic stuff.

Time for our first ever Nitro Party video from the Brown University PhD candidates. You don’t care about this.

Speaking of a man who loves each and every one of us, here comes Eric Bischoff to the ring. How rude of Sting not to show up when Hollywood Hogan had to leave movie sets to be on Nitro. Then when he knows Hogan isn’t advertised to be here, he shows up! Bischoff tells Piper what Hogan is going to do to him at Halloween Havoc. They are all pretty childish threats. All he asks of Piper and of Sting is to “show up” if they really want Hogan.

• Lex Luger vs. Wrath (w/James Vandenberg)
  

This feels like a Superstars main event from 1994. Tony announces that Mongo and Jarrett will meet at Halloween Havoc. I’m assuming this is perhaps a bargaining chip to get Jarrett to resign. This goes on longer than you would think. Wrath controls for a bit with kicks and a flying clothesline for two. Lex counters a suplex and mounts his comeback with clotheslines, a powerslam, and the TORTURE RACK gets the win. (4:46) Standard Luger affair. ½*

NITRO GIRLS! Eric Bischoff walks over and scares away Heenan and Tenay to join Tony for some main-event commentary.

• WCW U.S. Champion Curt Hennig vs. The Giant
  

Giant beats the heck out of Hennig to start until he misses a charge and goes flying over the top rope down to the floor. Back inside, the incredible HENNIGPLEX to Giant gets 1-2-NO! Using the ropes, Giant KIPS UP and delivers the CHOKESLAM. Here come the troops. (3:19) The numbers advantage finally catches up to the Giant once Norton clobbers him with the U.S. title belt. Carrying a baseball bat, Sting power walks to the ring. He drops the bat and he’s fighting them – each and every man. Ahh, I got goosebumps even today. Bischoff swears that Roddy Piper is behind this massacre. Kudos to Hennig for that suplex. Holy crap. ¾*

That’s a classic Nitro ending right there.

WCW and Slim Jim presents Halloween Havoc on October 26 from Las Vegas, Nevada at the MGM Grand Garden Arena. Here is what the card looks like as we speak:

MAIN EVENT: Non-title Cage Match – Hollywood Hogan vs. Roddy Piper
Diamond Dallas Page vs. Randy Savage
Special Referee: Larry Zbyszko – Lex Luger vs. Scott Hall
Steve McMichael vs. Jeff Jarrett