1997 Discussion

Lord Steven Regal vs. Hacksaw Jim Duggan (TV Title, 01/06/97)
This was pretty neat, even better than the previous match. Duggan sucks even on his best day, but Regal made him look acceptable here. Leaning into his shitty punches and bumping around for him. Most of the match is Duggan on offence but it works well with Regal's storyline of keeping his TV title through time-limit draws. Anytime Regal does hit something, it's totally ignored and Duggan is back on top within seconds, but the crowd love it so whatever. The nWo are on commentary and it's awfully distracting as they ask women to submit polaroids of themself, I loved Nash's line "No fat chicks, please God, no fat chicks".

Hugh Morrus vs. Jim Powers (01/06/97)
Well, this was a piss-break if I've ever seen one. Teddy Long is at ringside and fuck me, he's clinically obese. How the fuck? He's like a twig these days. Nobody cared about this, literally nobody. I thought it would've been a squash but no, it's just back and forth shizzle for a minute and then Morrus hits the moonsault to end the match much to everyone's delight. Even Glacier got a better reaction than this.

Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. Psychosis (01/06/97)
Awesome, awesome stuff. This certainly got the crowd going, they went from sitting on their hands to doing jumping jacks. Psychosis bumps like a crazy motherfucker, like usual. Rey has a bunch of cool counters, a lot that I've never seen him bust out before. So instead of this match blending in with the bunch that is WCW's Cruiserweight Division, it stands out on it's own. I can't not mention Psychosis' attire, holy fuck, that shit could cause an epileptic seizure. Too bad the announce team spend half the match promoting Souled Out, cunts. Great stuff, though. Definitely worth a second look.

Kevin Sullivan vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr. (01/06/97)
Squaaaaaaash. I'd say that Chavo was a safe WCWSN regular at this stage, if even. Sullivan looks really blown up, but all he's doing in throwing Chavo around the ringside area. The finish felt anti-climactic, especially for a squash. Sullivan just hops on Chavo's belly, and I get that it would hurt and everything, but it just looks so 'bleh'. Match doesn't even touch the 2 minute mark. Sullivan booking himself in the easiest way possible, eh?

Eddie Guerrero vs. Alex Wright (01/06/97)
Two Guerrero matches in a row? Say it ain't so! This starts off with essentially a dropkick competition, and it's super fun. But they turn things into a mat-wrestling contest like the flick of a switch and that's fine and all, but it clearly bored the fuck out of the crowd. Eddie's look felt like it needed refreshening, the tashe was awesome though. I hated how early Syxx came out, he took everything away from the match just by being there. Suddenly all of the fan's attention is on this twat on top of the ladder. Wright wasn't made to look the best here, he hits Eddie with a million moves, but Eddie can recuperate and put him away with two moves? Things like that just stick with me. Fine match though, I've seen plenty worse.

Harlem Heat vs. The French Canadians (01/06/97)
This flat out sucked. I hate both teams. There's stupid shit like Booker missing a kick and because he lands on his ass, what better thing to do than the spinaroonie? God, I hate that. Steve Ray is no better, although I do like him on commentary. The finish looked shitty, I wouldn't even call it botched because everything HH do looks shitty. Why the fuck is Sherri managing HH? And is that Col. Parker managing the Canadians? I don't know. Stop this.

Lex Luger vs. Meng (01/06/97)
I thought this would suck balls, I genuinely did. But somehow, they make it work. I can't fucking understand how Luger is SO over. Meng works him over nicely, if anyone can believably beat the shit out of a guy Luger's size, it's Meng. So he kicks and he screams and he slams and he punches all to no avail. But holy fuck, once Luger starts a comeback? The crowd lose their shit. Even the tease of a Torture Rack sends them high in the sky. The last minute or two of this was great fun. Too bad Luger doesn't stick around, he gets the 3 count and practically sprints backstage. Nice one, dickhead. I've gone from hating to not minding to hating Luger again all in the space of a few lines. What even?

Chavo Guerrero vs. Mr. JL (Nitro, 01/13/97)
This was alright, nothing special really. Chavo hits a nice crossbody and a moonsault but all of his other stuff just blends together. JL didn't get much a chance here, he has a nice Frankensteiner on him, but I couldn't notice anything else notable about him. I genuinely thought JL was long gone from WCW by this stage, you'd think that after a few years he might have a different costume of some sorts. He looked like a bigger Mysterio, too bad he didn't move like one. Commentary didn't care, this was merely a chance to promote the rest of the show to them. Props to JL for continuing after a hard bump to the head on the concrete.

Chris Jericho vs. Sgt. Craig Pittman (Nitro 01/13/97)
Squashhhh. Pittman doesn't even get a move in. Jericho hits some nice stuff, but finishing with a missile dropkick? Kinda lame. Jericho as a babyface wasn't working the best here for me, he just seemed really bland here. Not as bland as Pittman, but still, vanilla midget-ish.

Harlem Heat vs. High Voltage (Nitro 01/13/97)
HH were pretty over here, surprising. I don't even know who High Voltage are, never heard of the kids. Just as the match was starting to get some decent momentum, they cut to a scuffle between Giant and the nWo backstage, completely killing any interest in the match. It didn't matter anyway, when they returned to the match, things only lasted for a little while longer. HH finisher is called the 'Heatseeker', WCW IS SHOOTIN' BROTHA. Shitty enough match, nothing to it really, just a showcase for HH really, and I'm not a HH fan in the slightest so meh.

DDP vs. Mark Starr (Nitro 01/13/97)
This didn't even reach the minute mark, and I spend most of that minute wondering 'Who the hell is Mark Starr?'. Pretty much THE only move in the match, the Diamond Cutter, they manage to botch it. However, that's irrelevant. What's cool is the angle played out afterwards with DDP tricking the nWo and being the first WCW guy to get some cumuppance on them. THIS is probably the moment that properly got DDP over with the fans. There's only so many squashes and Diamond hand-signs he can throw, but this did wonders for the guy.

Eddie Guerrero vs. Dean Malenko (Nitro, 01/13/97)
This was excellent stuff. For once, not a squash or a rushed match! These two got plenty of time, well, 12 minutes which in Nitro terms is an eternity, and they make great use of all that time. There's never any sense that one guy has a distinct advantage over the other, but there's a nice little story going on that each guy is one-upping the other, causing them to break and rethink their strategy. Some nice matwork, submissions are given importance here. The finish wasn't shown thanks to the feed cutting out but the replay afterwards showed that Dean hit a powerbomb for the win. Syxx was sitting on a ladder in the crowd, probably about 100m away from the ring, AND HE DISTRACTS EDDIE leading to the loss. So, Malenko gets the win but it's not concise, I'm imagining this lead to their awesome match at Uncensored a few weeks later. Either way, refreshing.

Konnan vs. Super Calo (Nitro, 01/13/97)
This was fun is you don't look too deep into it. Sure, it's movesy, and it's a bunch of fun seeing Konnan getting his ass kicked for a little while but there's the large error of Calo completely no-selling a double powerbomb, he just pops right back up and hits a headscissors on Konnan. Speaking of Konnan, his finisher was actually pretty cool looking, a nasty snap suplex sorta thingy. Anywho, fun, forgettable, much like a one night stand, except this was a two minute stand.

The rest of the show is absolute dirt wrestling-wise so I'll just quickly summarise things. Jarrett/Benoit lasted 3 minutes and was a nothing match, literally nothing special here. The Horsemen are being broken apart by women, ugh. Riggs/Kidman was an average quick squash, same story with Luger/Fuller. Luger's really over though. Anderson/Steiner was going alright until Arn just walks out and accepts a countout which turns this match to shit. Giant/Hogan sucks, we only see the first minute as the rest of the match is shown during the commercial breaks of Robin Hood, yeahhhh, not so good. It's just a shorter version of their Souled Out match and just as shitty.

AND THAT'S 01/13/97!

La Parka/Psicosis/Villano IV v Juventud Guerrera/Hector Garza/Lizmark Jr. (WCW 13/7/97)
--Thought this might be nothing more than a pile of moves (which admittedly I probably wouldn't have had a problem with), but I thought the little sub-stories involved were good. Started with Psicosis trying to get the upperhand on Lizmark but being foiled every time, and that kind of thing only lasted like 90 seconds, but it's kind of thing I can get into for that short time. Garza comes in to get Psicosis and Villano gets in and just cleans everyone and starts punishing Garza. Didn't think that would last long since I expected a whole lotta tecnico domination, and I was right. I could tell they going to win and control most of the match, but if knowing who wins is going to bother me in a match I wouldn't enjoy 75% of the stuff I watch. Just enjoyin' the ride. A fair bit of this felt a little choreographed, but I kind of got the impression if it was a Mexican crowd with Mexican commentary and shitty VQ I wouldn't have criticized it, so I won't. And actaully i thought some of the "you know this is coming" shit was really good. I knew Psicosis was going to miss that bump (love his bumps, btw), I knew Sonny Onno was going to accidentaly hit La Parka, I knew everyone was going to miss the top rope splashes after the second person, but it's all great. Didn't like the spinning top rope-to-the-outside-jump-on-everybody spot though, reminds me of Money in the Bank ladder stuff. Thought the rudos might have actually had a chance at winning after Villano V came out, which was a nice cherry on a tasty lil' sundae. Won't be surprised if this is somewhere from 90-100, and at the same time I won't be at all upset if it fell off completely. honestly when it comes to lucha in WCW I can be a guy who says sarcastically "lucha libre is short matches on Nitro", but this isn't actually at all far off from what AAA would be doing, and about as good an example of lucha libre in the US that I can think of.

Eddy Guerrero v Chris Benoit (WCW 20/10/97)
--I love how Guerrero comes to ring all mopy and curve-mouthed only to be yelling his fucking head off at his opponent when the match goes on. Thought Eddy himself was fantastic here, I mean there's onyl so much you can do in the amount of time they had, but they nailed it and Eddy was the star. It's awesome how he's been eating everything Benoit's got and after actually get into offense he taunts the crowd to make it look like Benoit's recovery was because of wasted time on Guerrero's part instead of Benoit being superman. I really, really doubt Benoit would have put himself off a superman, or anything similar, but in under six minutes to work with there's only so much offense a shitcocky heel shoudl get in whether he's reatining or not. Love how Benoit's chops played a role throughout, like in getting Eddy from the apron to the barricade so he can dive on him. Finish made Guerrero look like a dickhead who could've won without giving Benoit more punishment but he does anyway because he's Cruiserweight Champion and you piece a shit will count his shoulders down. What was the longest match these two had in WCW?