During the middle of a nothing match on Nitro, Scott Hall just walked out...
Listen to our May 1996 WCW podcast, reviewing the return of Scott Hall to WCW.
Subscribe to the podcast via: iTunes | RSS Feed | Email Newsletter
Subscribe to the podcast via: iTunes | RSS Feed | Email Newsletter
You Know Who I Am – but we don't know why he's here... yet. Scott Hall turned up on the first two hour Nitro and changed the game. Walking out during a nothing match between Steve Doll & The Mauler (a match that, in theory, is still going!) Hall cut a scathing promo throwing back to the WWF's Billionaire Ted segments from earlier in the year. The show ended with Hall telling Bischoff to bring the best WCW had to offer, because "we are taking over". Who's we? We'd have to wait to find out.
What kind of cologne is that? Is that embalming fluid number five? The Goldust and Undertaker characters are so far apart they're actually quite similar, but nevertheless the pairing still felt a bit weird, not more so when an angle on Raw went so far they ended up cutting half of it from the edit. From what we saw on TV Goldust clasped Undertaker's hands before the segment cut, what you didn't see was him licking Undertaker up the thigh... Goldust also featured this month giving Ahmed Johnson the kiss of life, which cheered up Ahmed no end!
Going To Two Hours After three weeks languishing at the 7pm timeslot thanks to the NBA Playoffs, Nitro was formally moved to 8pm on May 27th in a show that would now be two hours long. It was doubtless a risk, as we'd seen previous with Saturday Night – the one hour efforts were considerably better than the two hour shows. It did, as we will find out, offer more on screen opportunies for guys that wouldn't have otherwise got them.
Silouhette – A bizarre clip of the beginning of Raw was a preview of what was to come. A woman silhouetted to disguise her identity briefly spoke about her interaction with Shawn Michaels. Later the full clip aired, she said she was the wife of a former WWF wrestler who ended up sleeping with Michaels, the incident apparantly caused her husband to later lose a match against Michaels... quite what this was supposed to achieve I've got no idea. Even Vince McMahon on Raw said "That tape was provided to our producers, and got knows they would do anything for a rating".
Lex Luger – With Hulk Hogan away, Lex Luger has made a dart to becoming the number one face of WCW. The Torture Rack is the most over move in the promotion, and Luger gets strong reactions wherever he goes. Couple that with the fact his tweener act is now a riot to watch and you're onto a winner. Forget him failing to turn up for his title match, or the fact that he ended up "camping out" at Nitro the following week so he didn't – the Chokeslam he took through a table (thicker than your usual wrestling table fodder) was particularly memorable.
We Shall Fight Them On The Beaches – In amongst Ahmed Johnson winning WWF's first ever "Kuwaiti Cup" on the company's tour there was a couple of things shot for television. After Shawn Michaels framed the purpose of the tour for the viewer we saw him get blind-sided by Davey Boy Smith on the coast of the Persian Gulf in the bay of Kuwait City. Davey didn't quite drown him but he did give him a bloody hard time in the water. Revenge would be complete at In Your House...
"Junior Adolf" - One of the beneficiaries of the extra time on Nitro was Lord Steven Regal, afforded some promo time after he defeated Alex Wright. After calling Wright "Junior Adolf", Regal pretty much made an enemy of everyone near the top of the WCW card, calling out Randy Savage, the outsider (Hall) and "the man who calls himself the Franchise" (Sting, not Shane Douglas). It was a great promo and (probably) the best promo of the entire show...
Showing Restraint – There's nothing like a classic reversal angle to get Jim Cornette angry. Cornette came to the ring with Clarence Mason, Owen Hart and Diana Smith ahead of Davey Boy Smith's main event with Jake Roberts (one which Shawn Michaels was expected on commentary). Mason said he had a restraining order preventing Shawn go anywhere near Diana – which President Gorilla Monsoon upheld... of course he did this by ejecting Diana from the building, which got a big pop and lead to Cornette flipping out, him kicking the feet of referee Earl Hebner being a particular highlight.
Self High Five – I've written previously about the rise of Diamond Dallas Page, but I'd say if you want to trace the real genesis of Page being a big deal, May 1996 would be a good place to start. Sure, at this stage they were just playing favour (they thought enough for Page to win the tournament for the right to face the World Champion, but not enough of him to actually do the match). But an extended Nitro gave DDP time for a brief promo segment... keep an eye out for this one.
Warrior University – So yeah... this happened. It was quite the aside during the early stages of one of the Raw's, a short video package featuring a very coherent and unusually calm Warrior telling people about the virtues of his Warrior University. Nothing? Me neither!
RSS Feed