WCW: Monday Nitro
July 27, 1998
San Antonio, TX
Alamodome

The current WCW champs are as follows:
WCW World Champion: Bill Goldberg (7/6/1998)
WCW U.S. Champion: Bret Hart (7/20/1998)
WCW World Tag Team Champions: The Giant & Scott Hall (7/20/1998)
WCW World Television Champion: Booker T (6/14/1998)
WCW Cruiserweight Champion: Chris Jericho (7/13/1998)

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

NITRO GIRLS~!

The nWo Hollywood crew (without Hollywood Hogan or Eric Bischoff) comes out to the ring to start the show. Scott Hall says he’s tired of hearing Kevin Nash crying and wants the nWo Wolfpac to meet the nWo Black and White Express at Road Wild for a battle royal. Brian Adams grabs the mic and says he came back to the US as soon as he heard that Goldberg got a fluke win over Hollywood Hogan and looks to kick his butt here tonight so he can win back the world title. That match will take place – TONIGHT! Exciting stuff.

They replay some of Eric Bischoff stealing Jay Leno jokes from last week.

In the ring, Raven sits down in the corner with his Flock surrounding the ring complaining. Saturn runs down and challenges him to a fight. Next thing we know, Kanyon appears only to take a T-Bone suplex from Saturn. Saturn then grabs Raven, but Kanyon saves Raven and drops Saturn with a FLATLINER. WHAT IS HAPPENING? Tony wonders if Kanyon did that on purpose. WHAT IS HAPPENING? Crowd actually boos this and couldn’t care less.

• Jim Duggan vs. The Barbarian (w/Jimmy Hart)
  

Sheesh, 1990 wants it’s Prime Time Wrestling back. Jimmy Hart grabs Duggan, but winds up taking the KICK OF FEAR for his troubles. Duggan rolls up Barb for the win and the crowd loves it. (2:42) Hugh Morrus runs out to attack Duggan, but Meng seems to have saved the day. Duggan helps Meng out with both Morrus and Barbarian only to turn on Duggan in the end because MENG IS CRAZY~! ½*

Time for the nWo Nightcap. The Kevin Eubanks guy is wearing some nWo New Year Eve glasses. It’s crazy how much of a parody the nWo has become. Where did it all go wrong? Eric Bischoff comes out with Elizabeth who is wearing a nice dress. Bischoff takes this Jay Leno joke stealing even further this week. Hollywood Hogan comes out as Bischoff’s guest. Hogan responds to Leno’s response to Bischoff’s response to Jay Leno with that first nWo Nightcap. Yeah, this is just terrible. Hogan gives Leno one more chance to keep his mouth shut before he comes over to the Tonight Show himself to kick Jay’s butt.

Fyre gives us a personal dance this week. It was not long enough.

NITRO PARTY~! Yes, they are still doing these.

Gene Okerlund brings out Diamond Dallas Page to the ring. He seems fine considering he did a stretcher job last week. He calls Hollywood Hogan “scum” and wants to bang him tonight.

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

Scott Hall, Dusty Rhodes, and Scott Norton interrupt over at the announce table. Since Kevin Nash doesn’t have the guts to face Hall tonight, he wants Sting. Dusty gets on the mic live and in public – if you will – and places Larry Zbyszko under a “Texas gag order” claiming Larry stole his announcing gig.

• Scott Norton (w/Dusty Rhodes) vs. Jim Neidhart
  

Apparently they are building up Norton for Goldberg. He grabs Neidhart and destroys him with a POWERBOMB for the win in just 0:16.

It’s time for Goldberg to do an interview because all this wrestling stuff is getting in the way of some really deep and interesting conservations. When security checks on Goldberg, it appears his locker room has been ransacked and tagged by the nWo Black & White Express.

The new WCW U.S. champ Bret Hart comes out to the ring. Not to wrestle, but do more TALKING. He’s sick of Diamond Dallas Page making excuses and that he should show up to fight or don’t show up at all. As for the U.S. title, Bret brings up Sting and says what happened last week was just a big misunderstanding. He says he won’t join Hollywood Hogan’s nWo out of respect for Sting. He thinks Sting needs to be a true champion and learn to take a loss. He also thinks Sting needs to understand that the people in the audience are the true scum of professional wrestling and they are fair weather friends, but not Bret Hart. Bret Hart is Sting’s friend. BOMBSHELL!

• WCW Cruiserweight Championship: Chris Jericho (c) vs. Dean Malenko
  

This is Dean’s last shot at the Cruiserweight title as long as Jericho is the champ. Jericho catches Malenko through the ropes with a dropkick to start and follows up with some guardrail violence. In the ring, Malenko blocks a dive off the top with a dropkick and punches away on Jericho’s face. They meet up in the corner where Malenko shoves Jericho down for a sunset flip, but Jericho rolls through for the LIONTAMER. Malenko makes the ropes and rolls to the apron, but Jericho drills him with the springboard dropkick. A plancha wipes out Malenko as we go to commercial. When we return, Malenko mounts his comeback with the flying knee kick and a release German suplex. Jericho, however, counters a suplex and delivers a reverse suplex to set up a Lionsault to the back for 1-2-NO! They trade double underhook attempts until Malenko delivers the Tiger Bomb. TEXAS CLOVERLEAF! Oh, but Jericho immediately goes to the ropes. They meet up top again where this time Malenko counters a superplex with a flying DDT! Holy cow! Cover, 1-2-NO! You may remember Malenko beating Scotty 2 Hotty with this move at Backlash 2000. Jericho rolls out, slaps himself to wake up, and pulls out the taped knucks from one of his kick pads. Instead of trying to hide anything, Jericho blatantly puts the gimmick on with his hand high in the air, which seemed odd to me. It just shows how little cheating matters. Malenko fights him off though and knocks out Jericho with the taped knucks instead and gets DQ’ed for the really unsatisfying finish. (6:49 shown) This finish should *not* be this hard to book. In fact, it should have been the first cage match where the cruiserweight title was involved. If you’re going to advertise this match, do it big. Good match up until that ending. WCW just boggles the mind some times. ***

Gene Okerlund gives us an update on Bill Goldberg. He’s now in his locker room upset over what happened, but Gene hopes to get him to talk in the next five minutes. Wow, what a super weak way of pushing back the interview deep into the show.

NITRO GIRLS!

They play some of Travis Tritt’s “T-R-O-U-B-L-E” while riding a Harley to hype his concert for Road Wild. I do like Travis Tritt, but I can’t possibly imagine this made anyone want to buy the PPV.

• Steve McMichael vs. Curt Hennig (w/Rick Rude)
  

Mongo is happy to get his hands on Hennig again since Hennig is the one responsible for destroying the Four Horsemen back last September. They snap each other’s necks on the top rope. Rude grabs McMichael’s leg so that Hennig can jump him and deliver the HENNIGPLEX for the win. (1:37) Mongo is pissed about the loss, but it doesn’t go anywhere.

They show Jay Leno bringing out a comically fake Hollywood Hogan on the Tonight Show for the lulz.

Hollywood Hogan, Eric Bischoff, and the Disciple head to the ring. Bischoff says he’s firing whoever showed that clip from Jay Leno’s show tomorrow morning. Hogan says he’s looking forward to riding DDP hard tonight, which works out fine since DDP wants to bang him.

They replay the ENTIRE (with six minutes edited out) Bash at the Beach main event with Hollywood Hogan and Dennis Rodman facing DDP and Karl Malone. While this aired on TV, the live crowd was treated to a rematch between Konnan and Eddie Guerrero where Chavo got involved in the finish.

They show another clip of Jay Leno picking on a fake Hollywood Hogan. I mean, if you’re already going to get fired. This little guy may or may not have been a member of the Lollipop Guild from way back.

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

Okay, now it’s time for the Bill Goldberg interview. Gene meets him in the ring. Goldberg wants to systematically destroy the nWo. Pretty much, he says Brian Adams is next.

More interviews. Gene Okerlund brings out Arn Anderson for an update on Four Horsemen. Arn is disappointed in both Dean Malenko and Steve McMichael losing tonight. Concerning bringing back the Four Horsemen, Arn first asked them to let it be but now he’s telling them to let it be.

• Sting vs. Scott Hall
  

Sting unloads on Hall to start and knocks him to the floor. Back in, Hall teases with a test of strength and pokes Sting in the eye to take control. Fallaway Slam gets two. Sting comes back with THREE Stinger Splashes. There’s the SCORPION DEATHDROP. He locks in the SCORPION DEATHLOCK when Bret Hart comes down. Sting lets off the hold and goes to meet Bret on the floor to slug him. Next thing we know, Curt Hennig and Vincent jump Sting and beat on him until he’s counted out. (3:09) WHAT? How was that not an immediate DQ? Lex Luger and Kevin Nash come out to help. After Nash gives Vincent a JACKKNIFE POWERBOMB, he grabs Hall only to be punched in the dick. Bret picks up Sting off the mat only for Sting to kick him in the balls. With Bret down on the mat, Sting tries the Scorpion Deathlock! Bret scurries to the ropes and escapes to the floor. The crowd went nuts for this. Now you’ve got a money match to build that people want to see. *½

Gene Okerlund wants to get a response from Buff Bagwell and Scott Steiner after the big angle last week. As Scott wheels Buff out to the ramp, Scott stops to pose and we’ve got a runaway wheelchair that crashes right in front of the camera. Hilarious. Buff hops back up, rips off the collar, and does his own pose. They mock the whole thing where Buff turned on Rick. JJ Dillon interrupts the laughs to shake his finger at Buff and Scott. He then makes a match between the Steiners at Road Wild. Scott is looking forward to it.

• WCW World Heavyweight Championship: Bill Goldberg (c) (“120-0”) vs. Brian Adams (w/Vincent)
  

Adams is all over Goldberg to start – even delivering a suplex that I thought was going to get countered. He tries another, but Goldberg rolls him over for a neckbreaker. There’s a bad looking SPEAR. Vincent comes in and suffers the same fate. Goldberg hits Adams with another SPEAR and finishes him off with the JACKHAMMER in 1:34.

• Hollywood Hogan (w/The Disciple) vs. Diamond Dallas Page
  

DDP is still wearing those dumb purple pants that make him look a little too fancy. He needed to stick with the jeans look as long as he’s the “People’s Champ”. Of course, he’s still got the ribs taped. Hogan jumps him as he enters the ring and chokes him with wrist tape. DDP chokes him back, but gets thumbed in the eye. Hogan hits a back suplex and starts pounding away. The running clothesline gets two. DDP avoids an elbow drop and hits the discus lariat. They go to the floor for some brawling. Both Hogan and Disciple try to slam DDP’s head off the guardrail, but DDP PUTS ON THE BRAKES and punches them back. In the ring, Hogan reverses a corner whip and clotheslines the crap out of DDP. There’s the Big Boot. Instead of going for the Legdrop, Hogan messes with the crowd. As he goes to slam DDP, he gets the DIAMOND CUTTER. Naturally, the nWo show up just in time to jump DDP for the DQ. (4:15) The nWo Wolfpac are joined by Goldberg to clean house on the nWo B&W. As the nWo Wolfpac clear out, the Giant appears and CHOKESLAMS Goldberg just as we close out the show. This actually wasn’t all that bad for a Hogan match. *½

Until then, so long for now.