WCW: Monday Nitro
November 10, 1997
Memphis, TN
Mid-South Coliseum

The current WCW champs are as follows:
WCW World Champion: Hollywood Hogan (8/4/1997)
WCW U.S. Champion: Curt Hennig (9/15/1997)
WCW World Tag Team Champions: Rick & Scott Steiner (10/13/1997)
WCW World Television Champion: Perry Saturn (11/3/1997)
WCW Cruiserweight Champion: Rey Mysterio (10/26/1997)

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

Out comes the new World order in all their glory. They’re wearing smiles all over their faces carrying Canadian flags with them. It’s actually quite ridiculous how many Canadian flags they have here. Hogan is even wearing a few in his boots. Eric Bischoff has two announcements to make. The first being the return of Kevin Nash himself. Syxx wheels him down the aisle in his wheelchair with a Canadian flag covering his legs like he’s FDR covering up the leg braces, but Nash stands up and giggles about it as he and Syxx head into the ring. The Outsiders are carrying fake WCW world tag belts with them as well, which I’m sure confuses most people because they never actually acknowledge the belts they have – as if they never lost the belts to the Steiners a month ago. When Bischoff lets Nash speak, he does his best Lou Gehrig impression. After listening to the Giant run his mouth ever since he’s been gone, Nash says the only thing he would rather do than beat up the Giant is win Ben Stein’s money. Crowd wants Sting. He calls out the Giant to meet him in his hometown at World War 3. Now back to Bischoff. Since he enjoys surrounding himself with the coolest dudes on the planet and spending a billionaire’s money, he announces that he has now signed Bret Hart (a real “knockout” kinda guy) to the new World order. To welcome him into the crew, the nWo form a choir and start to sing a few bars of “O Canada”. I think Bischoff realizes how much this is not working and wraps it up a little early.

In case you have no idea what is happening with Bret Hart and a rival promoter, Gene Okerlund offers to tell you all about it on the WCW Hotline for just $1.59 a minute! Alright then. Having zero short-term memory, Tony doesn’t seem to believe that this could all just be smoke and mirror tricks from the nWo heading into World War 3 as Larry Z wisely suggests.

• Harlem Heat (w/Jacqueline) vs. The Blue Bloods
  

Blue Bloods surprisingly dominant here as the Heat are even called out as seven-time tag champs. Stevie Ray gets a hot tag and runs down the Bloods. Tag back over to Booker T, he misses a flying splash and gets booted out to the floor. Meanwhile, Taylor chopblocks Stevie Ray while he’s trying to slam Regal. Taylor delivers a butterfly suplex with a press and gets the win. (2:57) Just a random big win for the Blue Bloods as they haven’t even appeared together as a team in well over a year on Nitro. I guess this is their idea of creating new challengers for the Steiners for WW3. ¾*

NITRO GIRLS!

They take us back to last week when Perry Saturn dominated Disco Inferno and won the WCW TV title in his first match here.

• Disco Inferno vs. Chris Jericho
  

The crowd is distracted by Raven and his Flock finding their seats. Some back and forth hockey brawling here. Jericho connects with a spinning heel kick and a butterfly backbreaker to set up the LIONTAMER for the tapout. (1:59) Jericho declares that Disco is dead. On his way to the back, Disco gets water thrown in his face by Kidman. Disco pulls him over the rail to trigger a fight with the whole crew until Scotty Riggs appears looking like the Governor from the Walking Dead. He helps out Disco and pulls back to punch Raven, but he stops himself and gets grabbed by Saturn and Sick Boy. Raven crawls over the rail and forces his crew to let Riggs go. As Raven goes back to his seat, Riggs slowly walks away as we go to commercial. For about the third or fourth time on this episode, our esteemed commentators have mentioned how something they have witnessed on this show just doesn’t make sense. HA! ¾*

• Barbarian vs. Glacier
  

For some reason, my tape joins this match in progress. Jimmy Hart makes his return to WCW in Memphis of all places. The crowd LOVES seeing him. Anyways, he’s back by Barbarian’s side here. The match turns around shortly for Barbarian, but then Glacier delivers CRYONIC KICKS to the both of them and gets the pinfall on Barb. (2:37 shown) Afterwards, Meng appears and gives Glacier some payback with the TONGAN DEATH GRIP. And why not? ½*

When we return, Raven and Perry Saturn are in the ring. Raven apologizes to Riggs for what happened to his eye. He says he feels Riggs’ pain. Just in case we are out of the loop, Raven reminds us of his childhood where he was bullied. Tony says he could see why Raven was bullied as a kid. HA. Would the ECW/WCW version of Raven be viewed as a babyface in 2015? He introduces Hammer to the Flock with his mesh tank top and nipple ring. His hair is straight instead of curly like we will see soon enough and looking a bit androgynous with all that makeup. Amazing how this guy has managed to stick around since 1991.

• Alex Wright (w/Debra) vs. Yuji Nagata (w/Sonny Oono)
  

When Nagata gets the better of Wright to start, Wright takes this to the floor for a beating. Back in, Nagata stops Wright up top for a superplex. Wright catches Nagata charging him in the corner and delivers a hotshot. Big flying stomp by Wright leads to some dancing. Not a good idea though, bro. Nagata stops him with an Exploder suplex. Wright fires back with a back suplex for two. Meanwhile, Sonny gives Debra some money and sneaks a kiss. WHAT IS HAPPENING? Well, Debra doesn’t like the taste of octopus and slaps him real good. Wright is more interested in what is happening down on the floor than where Yuji Nagata is. Nagata kicks him in the knee and applies the NAGATALOCK for the tapout. (3:22) Nagata continues his winning ways here on Nitro. If you ask me (because I don’t remember), I would assume some sort of breakup will occur between Wright and Debra at WW3. *

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

Hollywood Hogan and Eric Bischoff kick off the second hour. Apparently they have found out some disheartening news that Sting is trying to enter Hollywood with this new “The Real Reason Men Commit Crimes” movie. Hogan is convinced that Sting just wants to be like him, brothers. Hogan feels this is such an insult to him that he is calling out Sting to come out and face him – TONIGHT. Bischoff continues to berate Sting hoping he will appear, but we got nothing.

• WCW World Television Champion Perry Saturn vs. Chris Benoit
  

Very odd little match here. Benoit chops the crap out of Saturn all over the ring, but then Saturn blocks a Jack Brisco rollup and grabs the ropes for the cheap three-count. (2:00) No one seemed to know what was happening here as Benoit kept fighting after the bell. He cleans house on Kidman and Sick Boy, but then Hammer provides enough distraction for Fit Finley of all people to appear and drill Benoit with a short-arm lariat. He talks some trash and drops a few elbows on Benoit as Hammer continues to stand and stare at Benoit. ½*

Gene Okerlund welcomes out Ric Flair to talk about Curt Hennig at World War 3. First Flair wants to talk about Lex Luger. Tonight, Luger is #3 in this town behind Flair and Elvis. WOO! Luger just happens to get in his way and will be dismantled. As for Hennig, the countdown starts tonight to World War 3. He doesn’t care which appendage on Hennig gets broken, but something bad will happen to the man. Flair declares that after he wins WW3, he will become the world champion for the fourteenth time and will party all night long with Gene and the Nitro girls. WOO!

• WCW Cruiserweight Champion Rey Mysterio vs. Eddie Guerrero
  

The first Eddie/Rey rematch from Halloween Havoc. They set the bar so high with that match that there was no way they could ever surpass with these rematches. Nevertheless, Eddie wants him some of Rey. I know that because he attacks Rey at the bell. He gives him a SICK gutwrench backbreaker, followed by a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker for two. Eddie lands on his feet off a monkey flip, but gets caught with a headscissors. A monkey flip and a dropkick puts Eddie on the floor as Rey flips over the ropes and gives Eddie another headscissors takedown. Back in, Eddie gives Rey a superplex for 1-2-NO! Rey comes back with a springboard rana for 1-2-NO! Like I’ve said before, there’s a poetic fluidity in Eddie’s matches. Quebrada gets two. Split-legged moonsault hits knees. Then Eddie dropkicks Rey in the shoulder blades. Rey temporarily stops a powerbomb, but then Eddie whips Rey into the ropes and hoists him high into the air for a crash landing. Rey still manages to avoid the powerbomb and delivers the SPRINGBOARD MOONSAULT DDT, but its botched pretty badly. Definitely not the pretty one we saw at HH. Rey looks to put Eddie away with the SPRINGBOARD HURRACANRANA, but Eddie catches him and drops him throat-first on the top-rope! FROG SPLASH! Cover, 1-2-3. Ladies and gents, we’ve got another title change. (5:59) Well they sure crammed a lot of action in six minutes. Good match, but completely lackluster when you know what they were capable of. After the match, Malenko walks down and gives Guerrero a stern look to let him know he’s around. ***¼

We watch a Nitro Party video from a frat house at UTC. Once you’ve seen one of these, you’ve seen them all.

• Randy Savage (w/Elizabeth) vs. Ray Traylor
  

Big brawl to start out on the floor as Traylor wants a piece of Savage. He even cracks a chair over Savage’s skull. Back inside, Traylor catches Savage with the Spinebuster and delivers the Bossman straddle followed by the slide and uppercut. Elizabeth trips Traylor up top to turn this around for Savage. MACHO ELBOW gets the three-count. (3:42) While Elizabeth runs and gets a can of spray paint, Savage gives Traylor two more MACHO ELBOWS. Savage lets Liz spray paint Traylor’s chest and she seems to thoroughly enjoy that. Savage tells the camera that this is the way it’s going to be from now on. *½

NITRO GIRLS!

• WCW U.S. Champion Curt Hennig vs. Diamond Dallas Page
  

Rematch from October 13 when Flair ran out and got DDP disqualified. Slaps and loogies are traded to start. DDP sticks with a headlock and when Hennig does break free, he levels Hennig with a swinging neckbreaker. Hennig ducks out and grabs his title though when he feels the DIAMOND CUTTER coming. He gets half way up the aisle when DDP brings him back to the ring. Hennig yanks DDP into the corner and starts kicking his ribs. He pulls off the tape and cranks on an abdominal stretch. Hennig uses the ropes for leverage, but the ref knocks his hand loose and DDP takes him over with a hiptoss. Hennig thinks about bailing again, but DDP keeps hold of him by his tights. Series of punches to the face and one big shot lands as the crowd goes nuts. Memphis does love a good worked punch. DDP is no Jerry Lawler though. Pancake Slam connects, but Hennig stuns him with a jawbreaker. Before DDP can go for another Diamond Cutter, Hennig grabs his US title belt and whacks DDP in the ribs for the DQ. (7:05) This was a pretty good TV match. DDP starts off hot, Hennig turns the corner and works over the injury, and DDP mounts a comeback only for Hennig the heel to abruptly cut him off to retain his title. Has anybody worked harder on Nitro the past two months than Hennig? He’s been on basically every main event since Fall Brawl working his tail off. ***

• Ric Flair vs. Lex Luger
  

I’ve seen these two so many times, I could probably do a recap without even watching the match. Luger overpowers Flair to start and NO-SELLS whatever chops Flair is throwing at him. Once Luger turns his back though, Flair chopblocks him down and takes Luger to school. FIGURE-FOUR is applied, but Lex reverses it over in the ropes. Flair shows Memphis he can still thrust that pelvis and finds that one fat boy who seems to follow him all over the world. He wants to suplex Luger into the third row, but Luger counters the vertical suplex and starts to hulk up. He manages a press slam and sells the knee. Flair’s chops have no effect. The Ray Stevens corner bump leads to Flair flying right into Luger’s arms. He puts Flair up top and delivers a superplex. Luger hits the powerslam and calls for the TORTURE RACK when Curt Hennig runs down with his US title belt. (8:04) Luger clears the ring of Hennig and when he comes back inside, Luger throws Flair on top of Hennig, who then starts beating the crap out of Hennig all the way back to the dressing room. Flair just went from face to heel to face in about ten minutes. WOO! **½

Before we go, Hollywood Hogan and Eric Bischoff head down to call out Sting one more time. Sting actually does descend from the rafters and heads to the ring alone. He drops the bat, takes off the Mechanix gloves, and goes nose to nose with Hogan. Before Hogan even attempts to take a swing, Randy Savage is out to run interference as he and Hogan put Sting down. The rest of the nWo head out as well and Sting makes no comeback and looks thoroughly beaten. Where is DDP? Luger? Flair? Hogan declares he is God and legdrops our hero once more before we go off the air.

WCW presents World War 3 from the Palace in Auburn Hills, MI on November 23 LIVE on PPV! Here is the card as it stands on November 3:
MAIN EVENT: 60-man three ring battle royal
(WINNER FACES THE WCW WORLD CHAMPION AT SUPERBRAWL VIII ON FEBRUARY 22!)
No-DQ Match for the WCW U.S. Title: Curt Hennig (c) vs. Ric Flair
WCW Cruiserweight Title: Eddie Guerrero (c) vs. Rey Mysterio