Released: 8/12/14

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DISC TWO
The Extras:

• Scaffold Match: The Road Warriors (w/Paul Ellering) vs. The Midnight Express (w/Jim Cornette) – (NWA Starrcade 1986)

This match was extremely dangerous for its time as you have four men trying to keep their balance and fight on possibly a five-foot wide scaffold that is ascended about twenty-feet above from the ring. The object of the match is to make your opponent fall from the scaffold and not fall yourself. Animal pairs off with Eaton and Condrey with Hawk for the whole match. LOD controls to start, but then the Express take over by tossing powder into their eyes and they still can’t get the LOD to fall. Eaton has a near-fall experience, but then grabs hold of a ladder that leads up to the scaffold. Eventually, Hawk and Condrey fall down onto the ladder beneath the scaffold to make the fall a little safer. Now Animal and Eaton make it onto the ladder on the opposite side. Eaton and Hawk shimmy towards the middle of the scaffold as though they were playing on monkey bars. They begin to chicken fight underneath the scaffold as Condrey falls followed by Eaton to give LOD the win. (7:28) For some reason, Cornette thinks he’ll be safe by climbing up the ladder to the scaffold, but then he falls to the mat below and messes up his knee for probably the rest of his life. By the way, you’re crazy if you think I can possibly rate this match. It was more of a spectacle than a wrestling match.

The Return of Robocop – (NWA Capitol Combat 1990)

Robocop is here! Gordon Solie is the first to spot him, but then the video feed goes bad and we’re back to live action. Sting makes his way down to ringside as he’s followed by Robocop. Since that guy is SO slow, the Horsemen seize the moment and lock Sting inside Cornette’s cage! Robocop finally gets to the ring, but the Horsemen are long gone, so he just uses his robot powers to RIP open the cage door. That’s coming out of your appearance fee, pal. Sting and Robocop get all buddy-buddy and head to the back.

• Chamber of Horrors Match: Sting, El Gigante, Rick & Scott Steiner vs. Big Van Vader, Diamond Studd, Cactus Jack & Abdullah the Butcher – (WCW Halloween Havoc 1991)

This match, which is infamous for the sheer ridiculousness of the gimmick, is the big return match for Scott Steiner after he suffered a bicep injury in the early summer. Remember kids, he was good once. Vader is also making his return to WCW in this match and received a full-time contract as well. The coolest entrance has to be Cactus Jack bringing a chainsaw to the ring with him. Diamond Studd (better known as Scott Hall) is subbing for Barry Windham. The match is basically a Thunderdome cage match free-for-all complete with wooden caskets and kendo sticks until the “chair of torture” is dropped down into the center of the ring around five minutes into the match. Once the “chair of torture” or “electric chair inside of another small cage” is placed in the ring, the first man to strap a wrestler from the opposing team in the chair and have the “electricity” flow through his body by having a “fatal” lever pulled which is placed WAYYYYYY up on one of the Thunderdome cage walls, wins. Sting and Rick Steiner beat on Abdullah and Cactus on the rampway while Scott hits his first tiger bomb since his return on Diamond Studd. Can’t forget about the Refer-Eye camera that Nick Patrick is sporting there. It’s basically a camera placed on a bicycle helmet for all of us to get a point of view from someone inside the ring every now and then. The match is just mindless brawling with slams on the caskets and Sting busting Cactus and Abdullah open with kendo sticks. The best spot of the match is Scott giving Cactus a DDT off Rick’s shoulders right as the “chair of torture” is being lowered. Meanwhile on the floor, Sting drops the top of a casket on Cactus’ head as some jobbers dressed all in white come down with a gurney to haul off the “final victim”. Notice how I’m not mentioning El Gigante here. Oh, you didn’t notice? I didn’t think you would. He spends the whole match pounding on people, but not really having any kind of effect on the match. Scott gets in a good WHACK on Cactus’ face with the kendo stick. Man, Cactus is taking WILD bumps throughout this whole match. All the faces minus Gigante take turns in the chair, but they all escape before any “harm” can be done. The finish comes as Rick Steiner does the ol’ switcheroo on Abdullah by giving him a belly-to-belly suplex into the chair when Cactus, who is up by the lever, wasn’t looking. Cactus just hears the door shut on the cage thinking its Rick who is strapped in the chair and pulls down the lever to cook Abdullah and give the faces the win by accident. (12:37) Yeah, I don’t believe this concept was ever used again. Explosions go off around Abdullah to make you think he’s really being electrocuted, but I don’t think anybody was fooled. Cactus Jack goes over to console Abdullah, but the guy goes crazy and beats the crap out of everything that’s moving around ringside. The Cactus Jack stuff really made the match, so I’ll give it some stars for that. Tony ~ “Well I guess when [Abdullah] opened his eyes, he thought he was in heaven and knew he shouldn’t be there!” Ouch. **

• Super Grudge Match: WCW World Heavyweight Champion Big Van Vader (w/Harley Race) vs. Cactus Jack – (WCW Saturday Night 4/24/93)

This is the rematch from the CRAZY brawl from last week that ended with Cactus defeating Vader by countout. This one starts during the commercial break and when we are JIP, Cactus comes off the middle rope and gets caught in mid-air for a powerslam. Vader comes off the ropes and drops an elbow into Jack’s midsection. We see Jack’s nose is all taped up after those brutal shots from last week. Cactus fires back on Vader and knocks him down into the ropes. He hits a huge body attack off the middle rope to put down Cactus again. Race directs a couple of Vader Bombs, but he misses a splash or something. HERE COMES CACTUS! He legdrops Vader’s throat to the bottom rope and Cactus Clotheslines him to the floor. Whoa, big slam by Cactus. Time for a CANNONBALL off the apron, but Vader moves and Cactus goes splat. Race peels back the ringside mats so that Vader can delivers a POWERBOMB on the exposed concrete. Well, that’s enough to give Vader the win this week via countout. (5:48 shown) One guy seems to be a serious sadist, the other has masochistic tendencies. That’s a recipe for just straight up violence. **

• King of the Road Match: Dustin Rhodes vs. Blacktop Bully – (WCW UnCeNSoReD 1995)

We find ourselves watching Rhodes and Darsow fighting each other in the bed of an 18-wheeler that’s driving down nothing roads outside of Atlanta several days before this show. The object of the match is to activate the truck horn. It’s almost like a “Horn on a Pole” match because they both have to climb up to reach it. They have camera men on the back of the truck, camera men riding alongside the truck, and a camera shooting this from a helicopter. Oh wait, no that’s just Sarah Palin looking for a moose to shoot. BA-ZING! There’s bales of hay and fence posts in the truck bed for weapons and that’s about it. Somehow these two blade. I never saw when they did or any evidence of blood through the whole “match” because this thing is so heavily edited. At one point, the truck has to stop for a church bus to pass them by. Pretty hilarious stuff. Blacktop Bully blows the horn for the win. (12:35) There was a big mix-up over whether or not the guys could blade or not. When they did blade, both guys were fired including the man who supposedly said it was okay: one of the bookers at the time Mike Graham. This was a terrible way for Dustin Rhodes to go out. Barry Darsow was the Repo Man and this was still worse than anything he had to do as that character. What a debacle this was.

Sumo Monster Truck Match: Hulk Hogan vs. The Giant – (WCW Halloween Havoc 1995)

It’s time for the MONSTER TRUCK BATTLE! Simply put, it’s a sumo match with the trucks. Hogan wins. Surprise, surprise. Giant attacks Hogan on top of Cobo Hall and tries to throw him off the roof, but Hogan turns the tables on him and that accidentally causes Giant to drop from the roof to the ground below! OH MY GOSH! Don’t worry folks, he’s immortal.

• WCW World Heavyweight Champion Hulk Hogan (w/Jimmy Hart) vs. The Giant (w/Kevin Sullivan) – (WCW Halloween Havoc 1995)

Bobby Heenan continues to go ballistic on Tony Schiavone regarding why he can’t get any word as to what is happening outside with the Giant. Bobby’s doing a great job and probably using some of his frustration with WCW to fuel what he says. Hulk Hogan comes down to the ring in his black and white nWo gear (minus the painted on beard) and fills us in as to what happened to the Giant. It wasn’t supposed to go down like that, dude. And wouldn’t you know it, the Giant and Kevin Sullivan make their way to the ring! HE’S IMMORTAL, YOU IDIOT! Giant chases Hogan out of the ring and for good reason. Once Hogan’s in the ring, he pulls off his doo rag to show the Kevin Sullivan markings on his forehead. Tony ~ “It’s the dark side of Hulk Hogan!” Hulk fires away and tries a slam, but that hardly ever works on the first try! Giant takes over and pounds Hogan down. They work a knucklelock that puts Hogan on his knees. He tries to fight out, but Giant gives him a slam. Giant misses a legdrop and Hogan starts his comeback. Ten-count corner punch follows, as does a bunch of back rakes. Hogan keeps the offense coming with a trifecta of clotheslines to put Giant over the top rope to the floor. Sullivan starts to take Giant up the aisleway to the locker room, but Hogan stops them both for a double noggin knocker. Back to the ring, Hogan continues to punch on the Giant. When that stops working, Giant grabs Hogan for a backbreaker. That gets two. We hit the bearhug. Hogan escapes once, but he goes right back in it. On the second time, he shakes his finger and punches his way out. He charges off the ropes right into a CHOKESLAM! Cover, 1-2-NO! Hulk up time. He points the finger. He fires away and whips Giant in for the Big Boot. He doesn’t go down, so Hogan asks the crowd if they want a slam. Oh yeah they do. He slams him and hits the LEGDROP! Wait a minute. Jimmy Hart just decked ref Randy Anderson with the Big Gold belt. Hogan has no idea what Jimmy just did though. They help the ref up to his feet together, but when Hulk turns his back, Jimmy shoves ref Randy Anderson down and hits Hogan from behind with the belt! Hogan’s not effected though and grabs Jimmy Hart to nail him one good time. Giant saves him by grabbing Hulk for another bearhug. Luger and Savage run down to save Hulk, but then we see Savage go down and Luger starts stomping Savage. In comes the Yeti to violently join in on the hugging of Hogan. He’s just Reese from Raven’s Flock dressed up as a mummy, which is not what a yeti is at all. Whatever. Luger racks Hogan as if there was any doubt as to who’s side he was on here. After Hogan has his turn, Luger racks Savage too. I never heard a bell, but we’re stopping it right here. (17:02) Since it was Hogan’s manager who nailed the ref, Giant wins by DQ. He walks out with the belt too! Also, we find out that Giant is indeed the champion because of an unknown “contract clause” that stated Hogan could lose the belt on a disqualification. It was all a plan! This was slightly more energetic than Hogan/Andre at WrestleMania III, which they were trying to recreate here, but with the overbooking feel of a TNA main event. *

Scott Hall Appears on Monday Nitro – (WCW Monday Nitro, 5/27/96)

We come back to see RAZOR RAMON walking down the arena steps. Everybody is standing up and pointing at him in disbelief. He walks behind the floor seats and jumps the railing over by the ringside announce table. Both Tony and Larry are baffled by what is happening right before their eyes. They never mention his name because there’s no need. You know who he is. Razor demands a mic and gets in the ring as everybody clears out – including referee Nick Patrick, which if I believe so, will become important MUCH later.

Scott Hall ~ “Hey, you people – you know who I am, but you don’t know why I’m here. Where is Billionaire Ted? Where is the Nacho Man? That punk can’t even get in the building. Me? I go wherever I want, whenever I want. And where, oh where, is Scheme Gene? ‘Cause I got a scoop for you. When that Ken doll look-a-like, when that weatherman wannabe comes out here later tonight, I got a challenge for him, for Billionaire Ted, for the Nacho Man, and for anybody else in uh, WCW. *goofy laugh* Hey, you want to go to war? You want a war? You’re gonna get one.”

Ref Randy Anderson gets on the apron and tells the yet unnamed Scott Hall to get out of the ring. Hall drops the mic, peacefully exits the ring, and heads to the back (?) as we go to commercial.

Eric Bischoff Has An Answer for the Outsiders – (WCW Great American Bash 1996)

Eric Bischoff brings out the “interruption”. He asks Hall and Nash straight up whether or not they work for the WWF. They both quickly answer no and demand to know who their three opponents are for the Bash at the Beach on July 7. Whip out the checkbook, Billionaire Ted. When Bischoff refuses to tell them who their opponents will be, Hall jabs Bischoff in the gut to set up a POWERBOMB from Nash off the STAGE through a TABLE! These boys mean BUSINESS. This huge moment in WCW history that turned the nWo angle up a notch had to be pretty sweet for the ECW fan boys who hated Bischoff at the time.

Disc THREE is coming up later today!