Hollywood Hogan is here to start things off along with Bischoff! I wonder if they already gave up on Thunder being a BIG DEAL as they never show anything that happens there in the show opener when showing us what happened last week. Its always stuff on Nitro. Bischoff got to where he is by following HOLLYWOOD’S RULES. Someone isn’t, however, and its SAVAGE. Hogan is gonna deal with it TONIGHT. Yes, HOGAN VS SAVAGE live on Nitro! Savage shows up in the crowd with a mic and tells Hogan he’s gonna TREAT HIM LIKE GARBAGE!
Larry Z is missing from commentary, but nobody knows why. Has he been jumped by the NWO? Simply missed his flight? Jumped to da WWF? We’ll have to wait and see!
Steve McMichael Vs Glacier
BLOOD RUNS COLD~! Glacier kicks the shit out of Mongo to start with, but he starts doing martial arts poses and gets clubbed from behind by Mongo 
. Louie Spicolli shows up with Larry Z’s bag, claiming they’ve become friends but he doesn’t know where Larry is but wants to give him his bag back. Ok. Commentary is more concerned with the Larry Z situation which is probably for the best because oh boy does this match suck lol. TOMBSTONE to Glacier and Mongo wins, but gets jumped from behind my MORTIS. Uhhh… isn’t Mongo feuding with Bulldog? Mongo recovers, decks James NotMitchell, and Tombstones Mortis. Ok.
Normal Smiley Vs Konnan
THE BIG WIGGLE~! Except I don’t think he does that shit yet 
. Botch within the first 30 seconds. Great! Norman has absolutely zero personality at this time and his in ring skills don’t seem to be as polished yet either. Which is odd saying during a match with fucking KONNAN lol. Konnan wins via submission. This lasted way longer than it should have, even though it was still a short match .
Oh look a WCW car. How exciting.
NICK PATRICK is in the ring looking like he’s ready to referee, so JJ comes out to tell him he’s still suspended. Patrick defends himself on the mic and wow, he does an incredible job and seems really comfortable talking! Dillon still kicks him out.
Yuji Nagata Vs Disco Inferno
I’ve got a fever. DISCO FEVER~! No wait, its just the flu. Nagata dominates the entire match with nice kicks and suplexes right up until the end when Sonny Ono tells Nagata to keep hurting Disco instead of finishing him, allowing Disco to hit a STUNNER and get the win. Solid match, but the highlight is afterwards when LA PARKA comes out and hits both men with a chair and dances 
.
LEX LUGER is out to do an interview with Mike Tenay. Where is Mean Gene? Lex is gonna destroy Savage after his match with Hogan later tonight.
Eddie Guerrero & Chris Jericho Vs Dean Malenko & Chavo Guerrero Jr
Eddie . Eddie is OVER because the show is in El Paso, Eddie’s hometown. Probably chabo’s too but who gives a fuck about him? Eddie goes right for chabo and the fans cheer . Chabo gets the best of Eddie using one of Eddie’s own moves and a DROPKICK. Chabo using a dropkick? I AM SHOCKED. Eddie backs off and tags in Jericho, who is still wearing his CW title just to make sure everyone knows he’s the champ! He’s forced to take it off though . Jericho wrestling with the belt still on would have been a cool gimmick. MALENKO with a massive pop when he tags in! Has the Dean/Chris stuff already happened or does it happen later in the year? Man, EVERYONE is over in the match except Jericho who is seemingly the only heel in the match . Good heel team work by Jericho and Eddie. They do the old double team abdominal stretch spot and when the referee checks, Eddie starts messing with his tights or his boot to give him a reason to have his arm behind his back. GOAT. Nice workover on Dean, who makes a few failed comebacks, including a really cool one where he lifts Eddie into the air and drops him onto the ropes, then Eddie bounces off and walks back into a back suplex. A missed Lionsault gives Malenko the chance to make a hot tag and chabo “dropkick” guerrero finally gets in. Eddie and Malenko fight outside, while chabo taps out to the Walls in the ring! Super fun tag match!
El Dandy Vs Juvitud Guerrera
They do stuff. I didn’t care. Sorry. Not sorry.
Jericho attacks Juvi after the match but Juvi fights him off, and Jericho cuts a promo claiming he came down to congratulate him . Juvi cuts a promo in Spanish, and challenges Jericho to a MASK VS TITLE match! Jericho accepts for Superbrawl VIII!!!
Video package for GOLDBERG. Seems they are finally really getting behind him as a company.
Lord Steven Regal Vs Goldberg
Oh shit, this match . The match that got Regal fired. To this day he claims he was told to have a competitive match with Bill, but Bill was totally lost in the ring and didn’t know what to do. Honestly, given how a lot of the matches have gone so far on Nitro this year with Goldberg, I can see Regal being told to have a competitive match with him as a lot of his opponents so far HAVE gotten in a lot of offense. Regal does what Regal does here, and Goldberg looks fine early on tbh. He counters an arm hold with his own, and counters Regal with that rolling leg hold he likes to do as well. But while Goldberg does keep countering holds, you can really tell that when Regal first does something, he looks almost confused as to what is going on and it takes him a few seconds to react and get going. Goldberg is still green, so that definitely doesn’t help, but could also be attributed to a clash of styles and the two of them simply not working together. I actually quite like this match lol, but can definitely see the issues with it. However, if this was the ONLY reason that got Regal fired then that is bullshit. But if there were other factors (his personal issues), then I can understand this being just one of the things that led to his release.
Louie Spicolli Vs Chris Adams
Oh hey, its Chris Adams! One of the few older guys I actually KNEW showed up in WCW around this time lol. They wrestle for a couple of minutes, then Adams hits the superkick, so Spicolli crawls over to the corner and grabs Larry Z’s briefcase and starts hitting Adams with it. Larry Z finally shows up and chases Spicolli off. I guess that means Louie was lying about changing his ways!
Booker T video package and its annoying as hell.
Ultimo Dragon Vs Saturn
Man, Saturn looks fantastic in this match. He sells Dragon’s offense nicely in the beginning of the match, but he really shines giving the offense here. Some great looking overhead belly to belly suplexes, and his kicks even look better than Dragon’s . The match perhaps goes a little TOO long for what it needed to be, and as a result I started to lose interest towards the end. Nitro really had it all wrong with match times imo lol. Some matches would get almost no time despite the fact they could be awesome given more time, while other matches drag on forever when really they only need to be short. This is in between in that it isn’t TOO much longer than it needed to be, but was definitely hurting from the length towards the end. Hell even Saturn seems to lose interest at one point, literally letting go of an arm bar for no reason and looking a little confused as to what to do next . Picks up again when Dragon makes his comeback. Saturn manages to avoid the Dragon Sleeper a couple of times and I just love what he’s doing in this match lol. Dragon hits Saturn with some more moves, then goes for the Dragon Sleeper a third time, only for Saturn to counter again, this time into a small package for the win! Saturn rocks!
THIRD HOUR, MOTHERFUCKERS!
Video package of Benoit/DDP from Thunder, and I might go back and check that match out because on paper it looks terrific, and the video package does a nice job of making me want to check it out even with a no finish.
Booker T Vs Raven – Raven’s Rules WCW TV Championship Match
This match isn’t even set as a chapter for the show on the wwe network . Raven cuts a promo about what happened on Thunder with Benoit/DDP, then tells Booker T he should give the TV title back to Saturn, and invites The Flock to attack Booker T. I guess this match isn’t happening which would explain no chapter marking on the network… though the bell rings . Booker takes everyone out then Raven finally attacks Booker and… the referee rings the bell again to stop the match? What the fuck is going on? I thought RAVEN’S RULES meant No DQ? Or are title matches not allowed to be Raven’s Rules matches? SOMEONE HELP ME . DDT to Booker, then Saturn comes in to apply the RINGS OF SATURN.
Hollywood Hogan Vs Randy Savage
Oh shit this isn’t even the MAIN EVENT! Apparently this is the first time 2 NWO members have wrestled each other. Savage jumps Hogan on his way to the ring, and takes out Bischoff too just for the hell of it. THUNDER LIPS IS HERE sign in the crowd . Savage ain’t being fancy here. He’s gouging eyes and ripping at the nose of Hogan, so Hogan responds in kind, but adds biting to the mix as well! Hogan keeps yelling at Savage while he beats him up. TELL EM WHO THE MAN IS. Sadly Hogan stops screaming and whatnot and the match just becomes very basic and very dull. Slams, elbows, kicks. Whatever. Picks up again towards the end when Hogan goes to use a chair and Liz takes it away from him, giving Savage time to recover and use the chair on Hogan himself. Elbow drop off the ropes! 1..2.. BUFF BREAKS UP THE COUNT. The entire NWO show up to maul Savage. Pretty bad match really. Savage recovers and jumps Hogan again as he makes his way back up the rampway, despite still being surrounded by the NWO. We go to break and that’s the end of that apparently .
Luger comes out, as he did promise he was gonna finish off Savage after his match with Hogan. Savage is nowhere to be seen, but Liz shows up instead. Lex gets on the mic to ask where Savage is… and Savage comes through the crowd and attacks him from behind! STING! STING shows up to save Luger and absolutely destroys the Macho Man! The NWO show up and a giant net drops into the ring . Lex sells the net dropping on him like death .
The Outsiders Vs The Steiner Brothers – WCW Tag Team Championship Match
MAIN EVENT, BABY!
The Steiners are still having their problems, but we still don’t really know if Hall and Nash are fully on the same page or not. Based on their entrance tonight they appear to be TOGETHER again, and that means they will have the advantage over the Steiners who are NOT on the same page!
The survey here in El Paso is very much PRO NWO, the first time in 1998 so far!
Hall and Nash awkwardly keep talking on the mic, as if they have to fill time but had no time to prepare . They run through all their NWo catchphrases, and Nash even shouts out to Syxx Pac who is injured but obviously not yet released from WCW.
FINALLY the match can start! Hall demands that Rick start the match, which is not the norm for a Steiner tag match. Hall no doubt knows that Rick started out over Scott will add some friction between the brothers right from the start! Scotty ends up getting a tag anyway, so Rick was barely in. Hall mocking The Giant any time he does a chokeslam always makes me . It costs him here though as he turns right around into an overhead belly to belly! Some dirty tactics by The Outsiders and Scotty is now in trouble. Damn, Scotty takes on hell of a big boot from Nash. Nash does nothing special, just lifts his massive leg up, but Scotty runs full fucking force into it and it looks NASTY. Nash teases a POWERBOMB and the fans start to erupt, but he just elbows Scotty instead and laughs . Massive double underhook suplex gives Scotty a fighting chance of making a hot tag, but he doesn’t want to as usual! Scott knocks Scotty into Rick, and the referee counts it as a tag! BULLDOG OFF THE TOP~! Steiners regain the WCW Tag Team Championships! Scotty isn’t too happy about it at first, but eventually celebrates the win even if he didn’t get it himself. Decent tag, nowhere near as good as the previous title match a few weeks prior. They are really going with a SLOW build to the Steiners splitting up and I gotta say I am fucking LOVING IT.
Show overall was half good and half shite. We had a great tag match with Eddie and co, good tag titles match, Dragon/Saturn in the surprise of the night for me, and Goldberg/Regal which I really enjoy lol. Rest of the matches were pretty bad. Still, I’m more invested in the angles with each passing week and lets face it, the TV shows are SUPPOSED to be here to build the angles to make you want to buy the PPV. Nitro right now is doing that for me.
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