Lex Luger

Mabel vs. Adam Bomb (and other King of the Ring 1995 Qualifying Matches!)

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8 WWE Matches Where The Crowd Was The Star – Page 3

Mabel vs. Savio Vega ending a PPV. This was so bad it feels like a hard-boiled noir detective should be doing narration over it.

KING OF THE RING QUALIFYING MATCHES (1995):
* Back for more King of the Ring Qualifiers- technically still part of my “Dream Matches” column, haha. And with a special edition of everyone’s favorite wrestling standby: FANTASY REBOOKING!!

This year’s King of the Ring was very well-represented on YouTube. This is the most infamously bad tournament in history, which is hilarious, as “on paper” it looks to be the biggest one ever- while most tourneys are foregone conclusions or are full of mid-level guys, this one had Lex, Owen, Razor, Shawn and even the UNDERTAKER wrestling, with a ton of matches having equal stars. So the disaster that was the ’95 KOTR is a true epic. Come watch as the long national nightmare of Savio Vega in a prominent role begins, plus how NOT to create a new Monster Heel.

Previous tournaments re-legitimized ex-champion Bret Hart and gave credibility to Owen for his feud with Bret. A third tournament could either legitimize another would-be champion (Shawn Michaels, in this case), or set up a challenger for Diesel, who’s coming out of a feud with Psycho Sid. It looks like Bob Holly beating Mantaur is not on YouTube, but I found the rest.

MABEL (w/ Mo) vs. ADAM BOMB:
(WWF In Your House, May 14th)
* This was a strange decision- putting the first KOTR Qualifier on the first-ever In Your House PPV as a throwaway bout. Mabel had just recently turned heel, while Bomb was spinning his wheels as a directionless babyface after splitting with Harvey Whippleman last year. Bomb’s in the red & yellow gear as usual (he only briefly wore other colors), while Mabel’s in black & purple.

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Juventud Guerrera vs. Blitzkrieg (and other Dream Matches!)

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Whatever Happened to WCW's Blitzkrieg? | Ring the Damn Bell

Welcome back to more Dream Matches! This time, I lead off with what is probably Blitzkrieg’s best match ever, as he takes on Juventud Guerrera on PPV. More Hossery as the Faces of Fear take on the Giant Jobber Division of Ron Studd & John Tenta at the same time! Then it’s a rare look at the 1-2-3 Kid in a JTTS match, as Damien “I was NOT a JOBBER!” DeMento takes him on! And I found one of Lash LeRoux’s early matches, up against a “long since stopped giving a fuck” Roadblock. And finally, my “King of the Ring Qualifying Matches” series continues, but with the only two bouts I could find on YouTube. No idea why 1993 & 1995 are there in their near-entirety, but this one only has a couple.

JUVENTUD GUERRERA vs. BLITZKRIEG:
(WCW Spring Stampede, 4/11/1999)
* Here’s another Blitzkrieg match- arguably his biggest, as he takes on Juventud on PPV! Juvi’s maskless and in mostly black (with silver & gold highlights), while Blitz has his best gear on- a slick black/red/silver get-up that’s not as loose as it sometimes is.

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Mr. Perfect vs. Doink the Clown (and Other Dream Matches!)

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King of the Ring (1993) - Wikipedia

WWF KING OF THE RING QUALIFYING MATCHES (1993):
* So for this week’s “Dream Matches” column, I decided randomly to take a look at the build up to 1993’s inaugural King of the Ring. As a 12-year old fan, I was way into the idea of this big tournament, and even now the set-up seems great- you have an 8-man tournament in one night on PPV, and in the weeks leading up to the show, you stick your stars up against JTTS guys in “Qualifying Matches” that are mostly foregone conclusions, except a couple of them have a legit question mark. It lets your “Featured Matches” actually count for something, and gives your name guys a big win on TV- and if you were watching back then, you know you only saw “Star vs. Star” matches once per week if you were lucky. I’ll see what I can find on YouTube for these (turns out it’s everything but Shawn/Crush, which ended in a Double Count-Out, which disqualified BOTH for some reason, so we had a different Qualifying Match instead).

The issue with KOTRs, of course, is that with 16 guys, 15 have to do the job. And when times are tough, Vince is squirrelly about letting guys drop legit falls. The real purpose of the first King of the Ring, of course, was to return some credibility to former champion Bret Hart, and set off his new feud with Jerry Lawler.

RAZOR RAMON vs. “EL MATADOR” TITO SANTANA:
* So Razor had debuted the previous year and been given arguably his biggest solo push ever, teaming with Ric Flair in the main program at Survivor Series and then facing Bret Hart for the WWF Title at the Royal Rumble. After his loss there, he was cycled into the upper-midcard, beating Bob Backlund at WMIX. Here, we’re a little bit away from the face turn that would forever change his career. Santana, meanwhile, has fallen all the way down the card and is only rarely featured on TV anymore- he’s been a JTTS for years by this point, and was looking pretty flabby compared to the ’80s. Both guys are in black, here- I don’t recall Tito in that look.

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Mike Reviews – WCW Monday Nitro (4th August 1997)

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Greetings Friends!

Another Nitro review today, as we cover one of Lex Luger’s greatest moments.

WCW was riding high during the summer of 1997, with the New World Order storyline continuing to be a hot hand for them, with a big Hollywood Hogan Vs Sting match still on the horizon for when they decided to pull the trigger on it.

It wasn’t just Sting gunning for Hogan though, as Lex Luger had been looking for a Title shot with The Woodster for most of the summer and he was due to finally get it on a 3 hour special of Nitro (Nitro hadn’t made the permanent move to 3 hours yet).

Interestingly this show was due to take place at The Palace of Auburn Hills, which was the site of one of Luger’s most infamous “chokes”, where he had failed to win the WWF Title from Yokozuna but still celebrated like he had, thus looking like a chump in the process.

Would he be able to shed the “choker” label for one night? Let’s watch on and find out!

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Mike Reviews – WCW Capital Combat: Return of RoboCop (19/05/1990)

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Hello You!

I haven’t watched this one in a while and I’ve always enjoyed it, so I decided to make it the show I review this week. I’m actually watching the UK version of the Turner Home Entertainment official VHS result for this one as opposed to the WWE Network version.

The main reasons I’m watching this version of the show are that it’s shorter, it doesn’t dub out some of the music (meaning we get “The Chase” for the Midnight Express’ entrance) and (at the time of writing this) the WWE has done a pretty lousy job with the move over to Peacock so, even though we still get the full version of the Network over here in the UK, the whole situation has left me with a bit of a sour taste so I’ve been on a bit of a physical media kick as a result.

Plus, I finally got a replacement remote for my VCR, so reviewing just became a lot more convenient as I don’t have to keep getting up to pause/rewind the tape on the actual VCR itself. There’s also that additional nostalgia factor of sitting down and watching a tape on a real VCR that takes me back to watching my wrestling tapes as a kid that I kind of like. I obviously won’t be swearing off The Network forever or anything, but right now I’m enjoying a bit of a blast from the past.

This show took place in the May of 1990, with current top babyface Sting out on the shelf with a knee injury due to a botched spot where he tried to climb a cage to get at The Horsemen. As a result of not really having any challengers for World Champ Ric Flair, Lex Luger was turned back babyface to feud with him. Of course this presented some additional issues for WCW, because Flair had given Sting his word that he’d be getting the belt from him once he was healthy, which meant Luger wouldn’t be getting it in this feud. Luger had failed multiple times in the past to defeat Flair for the Title though, so yet another failure wasn’t exactly going to do wonders for his “choker” image.

For this show they did at least give Luger a bit of an out by having him sell a leg injury, with the story being that he shouldn’t really be competing in the match but he was going to do it anyway because he was so gosh darn brave. You’d think that a stoppage finish where Luger’s leg went out and the referee ended it rather than Luger having to quit himself would be the most likely ending to the match seeing as it would be a way for him to lose without looking weak due to the match being in a cage, but WCW had other ideas (Oh my DID they!).

WCW had also been saddled with having to bring in RoboCop onto the show as RoboCop 2 was due to hit cinemas. Thus they had to pretend that RoboCop was an actual real super cop and not just some dude in a costume, which was overly silly even for something like wrestling. They couldn’t even get Peter Weller in to do it either, so it really is just a random bloke in the costume!

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What the World Was Watching: Starrcade ’95

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Note the typo on the video cassette box, which says “1996” instead of “1995.”  I guess this goes in the “because WCW” category?

–Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan, and Dusty Rhodes are doing commentary and they are live from Nashville, Tennessee.  Heenan appears to have put aside his complaints about working with Dusty, which drove him from WCW Saturday Night earlier in the year.

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What the World Was Watching: WCW Monday Nitro – December 25, 1995

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If you have not already, do not forget to vote for the Doomies.

–Eric Bischoff, Steve McMichael, and Bobby Heenan are in the booth for this Christmas edition of Monday Nitro and they are taped from Augusta, Georgia.  This is also the go-home show for Starrcade, which takes place in two days.

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What the World Was Watching: WCW Saturday Night – December 23, 1995

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–Tony Schiavone and Dusty Rhodes in the booth and they are taped from Atlanta, Georgia.  According to thehistoryofwwe.com, these matches took place on November 29 and 30.

–Schiavone announces that Hulk Hogan has been suspended from WCW because of his actions on Monday Nitro.

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What the World Was Watching: WCW Worldwide – December 23, 1995

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WCW Prime for December 18 featured a couple of original bouts, with Chris Cruise and Dusty Rhodes on commentary.  They are sporting Santa hats for the show.

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What the World Was Watching: WCW Monday Nitro – December 18, 1995

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–Eric Bischoff, Bobby Heenan, and Steve McMichael are in the booth and they are live from Augusta, Georgia.  According to thehistoryofwwe.com, 8,100 fans attended the show, with 3,000 paying to do so.

–Madusa interrupts the announce crew, holding the WWF Women’s Championship.  She says she will always be Madusa and she dumps the WWF Women’s title in the trash can.  The promo was terrible, but this was a HUGE shock at the time since Madusa had just competed at Survivor Series weeks earlier and plans called her for to face Aja Kong at the Royal Rumble.  This incident had long-term ramifications too as Vince McMahon feared Bret Hart would do the same to the WWF title if he retained at the 1997 Survivor Series, thereby leading to the Montreal Screwjob.  Also, the WWF would not restart its women’s division until 1998.  WCW would attempt to create its own women’s division with Madusa as a centerpiece, but it never worked out.

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What the World Was Watching: WCW Saturday Night – December 16, 1995

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–Tony Schiavone and Dusty Rhodes are calling tonight’s action and they are taped from Atlanta, Georgia.  According to thehistoryofwwe.com, these matches took place on November 29.

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What the World Was Watching: WCW Monday Nitro – December 11, 1995

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–Eric Bischoff, Steve McMichael, and Bobby Heenan are in the booth and they are live from Charlotte, North Carolina.  According to thehistoryofwwe.com, 4,500 fans attended the show, with 3,900 fans paying for tickets.

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What the World Was Watching: WCW Saturday Night – December 9, 1995

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–Tony Schiavone and Dusty Rhodes are in the booth and they are taped from Atlanta, Georgia.  According to thehistoryofwwe.com, these shows were taped on November 16 and 29 at Center Stage.

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What the World Was Watching: WCW Worldwide – December 9, 1995

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–Tony Schiavone and Bobby Heenan are doing commentary and they are taped from Orlando, Florida.

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What the World Was Watching: WCW Pro – December 9, 1995

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WCW Prime for December 4 featured a few new matches that will be recapped before WCW Pro.

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What the World Was Watching: WCW Monday Nitro – December 4, 1995

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–Eric Bischoff, Bobby Heenan, and Steve McMichael are in the booth and they are live from Phoenix, Arizona.  According to thehistoryofwwe.com, the show drew 9,000 fans, 3,000 of whom paid.

–Bischoff announces that the WCW Executive Committee decided forty-eight minutes ago that Hulk Hogan, the Giant, and Ric Flair are all on probation and if they do something wrong, they could be indefinitely suspended.

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What the World Was Watching: WCW Main Event – December 3, 1995

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–Gene Okerlund and Bobby Heenan handle studio duties for today’s show.

–Okerlund talks about a “dark cloud” that lingers over Randy Savage’s world title win at World War 3.  Since the company is not building to a Savage-Hulk Hogan match, continually casting Savage’s title win in this fashion is not doing him any favors.

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What the World Was Watching: WCW Worldwide – December 2, 1995

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–Tony Schiavone and Bobby Heenan are doing commentary and they are taped from Orlando, Florida.  Heenan puts over his business partnership with New Japan, ignoring that he took their money fraudulently for half of WCW Pro.

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What the World Was Watching: WCW Monday Nitro- November 27, 1995

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–Eric Bischoff, Bobby Heenan, and Steve McMichael are calling the action and they are live from Salem, Virginia.  According to thehistoryofwwe.com, the show drew a crowd of 5,000 fans, with 3,000 fans paying for entry.

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What the World Was Watching: World War 3 (1995)

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–Tony Schiavone and Bobby Heenan are calling the matches and they are live from Norfolk, Virginia.

–Gene Okerlund interviews Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, and Sting.  The crowd gives Hogan a mixed reaction as he talks about how he has not fully embraced the dark side and is going back to his babyface persona.  He sheds his black gear, which Sting tosses into a black container that explodes.  The problem is that the fire gets to be too much, so Sting has to keep going back to the container to pour water on it or keep down the smoke.  WCW technicians are eventually forced to put it out.  Savage tells Sting that he is cool with him again as Sting acts like a star-struck teenager.  Hogan says that Savage’s arm is not actually hurt and goes into a crazy rant about a “rag sheet” that said the Giant was going to win – the rag sheet in question being a copy of Dave Meltzer’s Wrestling Observer – and how the Internet has the “real scoops.”  The Observer copy is burned as regular fans at home have no idea what Hogan is talking about.

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