WCW Monday Nitro - November 27th 1995

• The commentary trio welcome us to the show and hype up that tonight is all about controversy: Macho Man is the new World Champion but Hogan says he was never eliminated and so they’re all reviewing tape and footage to decide how to proceed. Seems like they should just give Hogan a title shot, no? In the main event, babyface Sting and heel and Dungeon of Doom member Lex Lugar will team with each other! Last night at the PPV, Hogan and Macho said that they are friends with and trust Sting “whatever his trip is with Lex Lugar”. They’re friends, it's not that complicated.
• The opening match is a rematch between Johnny B Badd and DDP. The Diamond Doll Kimberly is now with Johnny and seems happier about it than she did last night. DDP comes out with a bouquet of flowers and tries to woo Kimberly back to his side before sucker punching Badd to start the match. At ringside during the match, Diamond Doll finds a steel chain hidden inside the flowers and looks really conflicted. DDP asks for the chain and she throws it to him…right between his legs where it's caught by Badd who uses it as a weapon to win the match. Badd seems confused and it's left kind of ambiguous as to whether she meant to give it to him or Page. Can The Diamond Doll be trusted, or is she still with DDP? Good stuff, I like this story.

• Mean Gene interviews The Taskmaster and Jimmy Hart, who have issues! Taskmaster wants to know why Lugar is palling around with Sting and even points out that if Lugar had continued his post-match assault on Macho Man last night he wouldn’t be World Champion today. He demands answers. Jimmy tells Sullivan that he has never lied to him or steered him wrong and assures him that he, Lex AND Sting “have a plan” which makes Taskmaster laugh and the two leave together. Jimmy is implying that Sting will be the next man to join the Dungeon of Doom via his friendship with Lex Lugar.

• Next up, a rematch of the same Japanese women’s tag team match we saw at World War 3. This time we don’t have Mike Tenay on commentary doing the heavy lifting so Bischoff, Heenan and Mongo just marvel at their skills and brutality. It’s another good one, but not as long as the PPV match. It was smart to have this rematch on Nitro as it was probably the best match on the PPV itself! The match serves as a chance for Bischoff and Heenan to talk about all of the “Japanese influence” we’re seeing in WCW at the moment and mention a big upcoming announcement regarding Starrcade. 
• Hugh Morrus (as in Humorous, his gimmick is that he laughs) is the newest member of the Dungeon of Doom and tonight he faces Hulk Hogan. Gosh, I wonder who will win this match? Hogan’s popularity is definitely waning but there’s no arguing that he was still crazy popular. There’s a lot of Hogan merch in the crowd, but as the story goes, WCW was handing it out to fans for free at some events. Shameless. The big 300lbs Hugh hits a moonsault (hits is generous, he misses by miles) which the fans barely react to and then Hogan Hulk’d up and puts down the DoD member with the big boot and Immortal Leg Drop. 

• Mean Gene has his second on-stage interview of the night, this time with the new WCW World Heavyweight Champion Macho Man Randy Savage. He says that he is the one and only World Champion and plans to go on “a reign of terror” whether his reign lasts a day or forever and a day. He welcomes all challengers and tells Hogan that he’s a friend of his but if he has a problem he can come out and sort it out. Hogan insists on showing the footage of himself being pulled out under the ropes and not being thrown over the top. Yes we get it Hulk, we get it. He’s explained this over and over and over...BUT, there’s some static and distortion on the footage and we can’t see what happened! Hogan protests but is jumped by The Giant. He chokeslams Macho Man onto the concrete floor and then beats Hogan down to the ring to continue the attack. Sting runs down to make the save and he provides a distraction long enough for Hogan to get a chair. He blasts Giant with shot after shot and it takes four of them to finally knock him down. During the melee, Hogan elbows the referee in the face and knocks him out cold and Sting has to try and calm him down - Hogan has snapped and with the Giant gone, he and Sting check on Macho Man who hasn’t moved since he hit the concrete. This was good stuff as well! At the end of the segment, Bischoff and Heenan examine that Sting was trying to stop Hogan’s attack - was he protecting The Giant? 

• In the main event, Sting and Lex Lugar take on two members of the Four Horsemen - Arn Anderson and Brian Pillman. He’s still known as Flyin’ Brian but I think that’s lame so I’m just going to keep calling him Brian Pillman. There’s a long delay before Lugar comes out, teasing us that Sting might have to go it alone but he does eventually come out…without Jimmy Hart. The match is high energy and the first bit of storyline drama comes when Sting locks Arn in the Scorpion Death Lock. Lex shoves Pillman off the top rope…right onto Sting, breaking up the hold and leaving him in trouble with the Horsemen. Was that intentional or accidental? Later, Pillman keeps Lex distracted and so he misses Sting’s tag when he desperately needed to make it. Is that just them being an inexperienced tag team or is Lex intentionally sabotaging Sting here? Sting gets the win with a roll up and Ric Flair runs down to attack Lex Lugar. The three Horsemen beat up Lugar and Sting, with Flair locking Sting in the Figure Four. Hulk Hogan runs down and fights off the three Horsemen, rescuing Sting and, by association, Dungeon of Doom member Lugar! He goes to attack Lex but Sting stops him and allows his buddy to leave. Sting pleads with Hogan to just leave Lex alone and The Hulkster seems very confused by his motives. This is a clever storyline, I do like this. The two of them shake hands to end the segment.

WCW Monday Nitro - December 4th 1995

• Nitro kicks off with a lot of news from this past weekend; at Starrcade there will be a triangle match for a shot at the WCW World title featuring Ric Flair, Sting and Lex Lugar. That match COULD change tonight as Lex Lugar will challenge Macho Man for the title tonight on Nitro. In other news, Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair and The Giant have been placed on probation based on their actions last week (striking referees) and may be suspended! There’s more big Starrcade news to come too but more on that later.

• The opening match is Harlem Heat defending the WCW World Tag Team titles against American Males Marcus Bagwell and Scotty Riggs. These two teams traded the titles back and forth last month. Col. Parker comes down to ringside with a gift for Sherri which she LOVES and she leaves with him, abandoning her team. It ends up not mattering as Booker scores with his big Axe Kick to pick up the victory and retain the tag team titles.

• Mean Gene interviews Lex Lugar and Sting and the Stinger lays it all out for us; he wanted to speak to him without Jimmy Hart. He tells Lex that he might not agree with the business side of his life at the moment but he’ll always be his best friend. He tells Lex that if he wins the title tonight, he’ll be winning the Triangle match and he won’t be taking it easy on him when he gets his title shot. Lex agrees with Sting’s predictions; he’ll win the title tonight and he’s sure Sting will win the Triangle match at Starrcade too. They end it on friendly terms, which leads into the next match which is Sting vs. Japan’s Kurasawa. It’s decent but doesn’t last very long before Sting locks in the Scorpion Death Lock for a submission victory. 

• There’s a commercial for Starrcade focusing on the gimmick of the night; the entire PPV is dedicated to WCW vs. New Japan Pro Wrestling. A full event of promotion vs. promotion matches to see who is superior. That’s in addition to the triangle match which is already announced.

• The Giant takes on Scott Norton. This is a squash match. It's quite a good one - it's very impressive that The Giant is able to lift and chokeslam the massive Norton. They’re pushing Giant hard.

• Mean Gene interviews Ric Flair in the ring but the Nature Boy brings famous basketball player Charles Barclay. I’m not familiar but they all keep calling him Sir Charles. He tells everyone to show respect to Flair and the Nature Boy says no one better mess with him because Sir Charles might just walk away from the NBA and join the Four Horsemen. Wooo. This was nothing but it popped the fans in the arena. Next week on Nitro, Flair and Arn Anderson will face the super dream team of Hulk Hogan and Sting. That’s a big main event.

• Tonight’s main event is for the WCW World Championship - Macho Man, still suffering an arm injury and the chokeslam on the concrete last week, defends against Lex Lugar (with Jimmy Hart). This match is heated and goes the distance, getting over 15 minutes which was rare for TV matches in this era. Eric Bischoff spends most of the match talking about how WCW has “wrestling, not people talking about wrestling” and how if the show runs over time (which it does, by about 10 minutes) it won’t get cut off “like some other promotions”. His shots at the WWF aren’t as constant as they were in the first few weeks of Nitro but they’re still there. The referee gets knocked down and Lugar exposes a turnbuckle bolt to use but Macho Man reverses it and then follows up with a diving elbow. Macho Man has the victory but there’s no referee to count. Savage gets distracted going after Jimmy Hart and falls prey to a sucker punch to the face from Ric Flair, who had a weapon in his hand for good measure. It seems like Flair might have cost Macho Man the title so Hulk Hogan comes out. He sees that the referee is about to count Savage down so he stops the referee from counting (which ends the match via disqualification) and then goes after Lugar. Sting comes down to defend his buddy/calm things down and Hogan accidentally hits him! The heels escape as Macho Man, Sting and Hogan almost come to blows. After a final commercial break, Mean Gene is in the ring to interview them and they seem to have calmed down and made up. Gene mentions that Hogan might have just gotten himself suspended by laying hands on another referee! The Hulkster demands that Sting explain himself and his friendship with Lugar. Sting reiterates that he is on THEIR side, but Lex Lugar is his best friend. He doesn’t agree with what he’s doing and is trying his best to straighten Lugar out. Sting says that he doesn’t always agree with them but he trusts them so why can’t they trust him? Macho called Lugar being a heel from the word go and Sting points out that maybe the reason he turned heel was BECAUSE Macho refused to trust him? He makes a good point! He tells Hogan that he has his back next week in the tag team main event because no matter how he feels about anyone else, he despises Ric Flair and Arn Anderson. Hogan tells Sting to keep Lugar out of his face and they won’t have a problem. I’ve said it a few times now but I really like this whole storyline. 

WCW Monday Nitro - December 11th 1995

• As the commentators welcome up to the show and talk about tonight’s main event, in the ring the opening match just starts; Mr. JL vs. Eddy Guerrero. Eddy is confirmed to be a part of Team WCW at Starrcade. They’re making it sound like a big team vs. team match but it's a series of singles matches. I’ll talk about the participants as and when it comes up but the full match card will be at the bottom of this preview as normal if you want to see what matches we have to look forward to. Eddy wins a short match after some impressive high flying with a sunset flip into a cover off the top rope. 

• Mean Gene interviews Jimmy Hart and Lex Lugar. Jimmy calls Lex the uncrowned WCW World Champion; he beat Macho Man at World War 3 and he had him beat last week if not for Hulk Hogan. He has a point, even if that second victory was far from clean. Lugar promises victory in the Triangle match at Starrcade as well as the World title match he’ll earn for winning it. 

• Mr. Wonderful battles Disco Inferno. The crowd chant “Paula” at Orndorff because in 1995, calling a man a girl’s name was the height of insults. Disco is really aggressive and shows a bit more intensity than we’ve seen from him previously. Orndorff fights back with his “famous left hands” and wins with a high angle back suplex, dumping Disco right on the back of his head. This match was nothing.
• Mean Gene interviews three of the four Horsemen - I’ve still yet to see Chris Benoit interact with the group on Nitro. Pillman speaks first and cuts an unhinged promo about how good it is to be a Horsemen and lists all of the men who begged and pleaded to join the group only to be passed over for him. He insults Paul Orndorff along the way and that brings Mr. Wonderful out to confront him. He doesn’t like being disrespected and says that Pillman is just their lackey who carries their bags and drives them around. It turns violent and Flair, Anderson and Pillman beat him down, giving him a spike piledriver onto the concrete floor. Orndorff doesn’t move for a long time, still being checked on after a commercial break and Bobby Heenan even gets up from commentary to go and check on his old friend. This marked the end of Mr. Wonderful’s in-ring career. He did wrestle again but always in short, novelty matches and never to his previous standards. The end of an era.

• Lex Lugar faces Hacksaw Jim Duggan. Duggan remains shockingly popular with his HOOOOOOOO chants. Lex wins this with the Torture Rack. A nice showcase victory for the Total Package. That leads into another Mean Gene interview, this time with WCW World Champion Macho Man Randy Savage. He calls him the hardest working World Champion of all time; he defended the title last week, he’s wrestling for WCW at Starrcade and will need to face the winner of the Triangle match but before that he has to defend the title against The Giant next week on Nitro! Macho Man says that he’s not focused on all that other stuff because right now all of his attention is on The Giant. He compares him to Andre the Giant, which WCW likes to do a lot. I still love Randy but he got a mixed reaction here; I think because he insulted Ric Flair, and this Nitro was in Flair’s hometown. 

• Speak of the devil, the main event is Ric Flair and Arn Anderson (fresh off ending Mr. Wonderful’s career) vs. Sting and Hulk Hogan. There’s more tension teased at the start of the match as Hogan seems confused that Sting rushed to the ring without him rather than entering as a united team. They are both huge starts with their own theme songs so I would have expected them to enter separately anyway, no? There’s a “Hogan sucks” chant at the start of the match. The Horsemen worked over Sting for the bulk of the match, focusing on his leg to soften him up for the Figure Four. Sting eventually gets the hot tag to Hogan who quickly dispatches Arn with a big boot and leg drop to win the match. He and Sting get no time to celebrate as Brian Pillman rushes the ring and attacks Sting and Hogan. Lex Lugar joins and while he stops the Horsemen from beating down Sting, he leaves Hogan to be assaulted. Sting finally gets free and saves Hogan and its chaos when Macho Man runs down too. He is punched in the face by Sting and returns it with a slap and with the heels bailing out of the ring, Hogan has to hold Macho Man and Sting apart and Mean Gene is on the scene to try and clear things up once again. Much like last week, Sting is forced to explain to them that he IS on their team and they CAN trust him but his friendship with Lex is a separate thing. Sting is stuck in the middle between his friends. Randy Savage says that he knows more about losing his temper and overreacting than anyone and wants them all to take a chill pill. They all shake hands and agree to stay friends and Hogan puts Savage back on path - he has The Giant next week! 

WCW Monday Nitro - December 18th 1995

• Nitro kicks off with one of the most infamous moments of the Monday Night War; WWF Women’s Champion Alundra Blayze shows up at the commentary desk. She declares she is back to being Madusa (her name in WCW in the early 90s) and then she drops the WWF Women’s Championship belt into a trash can! This moment was instrumental in the 1997 Montreal Screwjob - Vince McMahon was terrified that Bret Hart would do the same thing with the WWF title belt! But we’re a couple of years away from that being news. Still, a huge moment in wrestling here.

• The opening match is Ric Flair vs. Eddy Guerrero and some more news; we’re getting ANOTHER World title match next week on Nitro as whoever wins tonight’s Macho Man vs. Giant match will defend against The Nature Boy. That makes this a must-win match for Eddy as he has a chance to beat the next World Champion. Eddy goes for a big dive to the outside and lands awkwardly, hurting his knee. Flair wastes no time following up and goes right after the leg. He’s like a wild animal showing no mercy. He locks in the Figure Four and Guerrero puts up a good fight and holds on for a long time before passing out to the pain. The referee counts the three and Ric Flair wins. Mean Gene interviews Flair and Anderson who explain the golden rules of being a Horsemen; never put your personal goals ahead of the group, and if someone attacks one Horseman, they attack all four of them. The Taskmaster and Jimmy Hart interrupt and Kevin Sullivan takes issue with Brian Pillman. He calls him a loose cannon and tells Enforcer Arn Anderson that he better keep Pillman on a short leash - he insulted the Taskmaster and the Dungeon of Doom and that cannot stand. Anderson and Flair have Pillman’s back and tell them that if they come after Pillman, they might run into the rest of them too. 

• Sgt. Craig “Pitbull” Pittman approaches the commentary desk and asks Bobby Heenan if he will manage him to the World title. Heenan explains that he’s not a manager anymore but he suggests he speak to Jimmy Hart who might be able to help him. Pittman sucks so getting a manager is a smart move for him (in kayfabe)

• Speaking of Jimmy Hart, he leads Lex Lugar to the ring for a match with Marcus Bagwell. It’s a short match which Lugar wins with the Torture Rack and then most match, Gene interviews himself and Jimmy. They don’t say much - Lugar is the uncrowned WCW Champion and will be victorious at Starrcade. The sort of stuff you’d guess they’d say.

• Next up, Earl Bobby Eaton - one half of the Blue Bloods tag team with Lord Steven Regal - takes on Sting. Bobby is a Southern boy who was refined and cultured by Englishman Regal who taught the American to be less uncouth. That’s a good gimmick but it’s very 90s and wouldn’t work these days sadly. Sting hits the Stinger Splash in the corner and turns it into the Scorpion Death Lock for a submission victory. That’s three matches in a row tonight that have ended with a submission hold - WCW knows how to make all of its top guys look strong heading into the PPV. Mean Gene is back on the case to interview Sting - he’ll wrestle as part of Team WCW during the World Cup of wrestling and will also wrestle in the Triangle match. If he wins, he’ll also get a shot at the WCW title that same night so Sting might be three matches in one PPV away from being WCW World Champion. Sting doesn’t say much and fires up to talk about becoming a 6 time World Champion at Starrcade. 

• Main event time; another WCW World Heavyweight Championship match on Nitro. The Giant has Taskmaster and Jimmy Hart with him while Macho Man stands alone. This is a good match with Macho using his speed and brains to get advantage, jumping on Giant’s back with a sleeper hold and a really cool spot where he blocks a suplex on the outside by grabbing onto the ring ropes like Spider-man and letting Giant take a back bump. Great stuff. Giant plants Macho with a chokeslam and then a leg drop, likely about to win the title until Hulk Hogan runs down to break up the pin with a steel chair. The match ends via disqualification and Hogan goes nuts, hammering Giant with chair shot after chair shot and even hitting referees and officials. Steve McMichael even leaves commentary to try and help. Hogan is a mad man. Mean Gene comes down to restore order and while Hogan acknowledges that he might have just gotten himself suspended, he wants his title match with Macho Man. The two are all friends and Macho Man promises Hogan that once he’s done with Flair next week and makes it through Starrcade they can give the people what they want - Randy Savage vs. Hulk Hogan for the WCW Championship. That might not be up to either of them if Hulk Hogan is suspended! He hit referee Nick Patrick and head of security Doug Dillinger with a steel chair!

WCW Monday Nitro - December 25th 1995

• A special Christmas edition of Nitro. I really hope this one was pre-taped for the wrestler’s sake. I like the Christmas decorations and of course Pepe’s little Santa outfit. He’s the best member of the commentary team. There’s some big news this week; Hulk Hogan has officially been suspended and we’re not sure when he’ll be back. 

• The opening match is Lex Lugar vs. Scotty Riggs. Bischoff, Heenan and Mongo focus a lot on his relationship with Sting and what version of Sting we might see at Starrcade; just how important is their friendship and how much are they both prepared to give up for each other? Lugar gets a pretty positive reaction from the crowd here and just like last week, wins it with the Torture Rack.

• There was a lot of Sting talk during this match so fittingly he’s interviewed by Mean Gene afterwards. Sting gets exasperated when he’s once again asked about Lex and he repeats himself; they’re friends and he’s doing his best to straighten him out. Lugar snapped and maybe he snapped for the right reasons (what he’s getting at is that Macho and Hogan treated him like he couldn’t be trusted so maybe it's their own fault he turned and joined the Dungeon of Doom, which is a clever plot point). The next match is Sting vs. Big Bubba Rogers - so far, the show is flowing from one segment to the next pretty seamlessly. Rogers plays the slow, strong big man and clubs away at ring with punches and kicks but gets overconfident and Sting catches him unaware with a small package to win the match and get himself some momentum for Starrcade. 

• And just like that, we’re back to Lex Lugar and Jimmy Hart. Mean Gene asks Lex the same question he asked Sting; what's going on with them. Lex says the same thing Sting did. They’re friends and always will be, but business is business and his focus is on winning the Triangle match and then winning the WCW Championship. Sgt. Craig “Pitbill” Pittman comes out and asks Jimmy to be his manager. The Mouth of the South tells him to take his shirt off, compares his physique to Lex’ and then laughs in his face. Poor Pitbull.

• “Man of 1000 holds” Dean Malenko faces Mr. JL. This is a really good match with a nice array of suplexes and slams. JL hit a gorgeous sit down powerbomb for a near fall. Malenko gets the victory with a roll through into an odd looking heel-hook submission. 
• Mean Gene interviews Nature Boy Ric Flair about his WCW title match tonight. He’s interrupted by Jimmy Hart of all people, who apologises to him for what Taskmaster said last week. He does what he can to patch things up between the Horsemen and the Dungeon of Doom and says that since he owes Flair (he stopped him from being beaten up by Macho Man a couple of weeks ago) he wants to be at ringside to support and help Flair tonight. The Nature Boy basically tells him to do whatever he wants.

• That match is next and the story comes to the forefront quickly; Savage is exhausted and hurt, wrestling every week in World title matches with his heavily bandaged arm. He’s enduring a constant beating but refuses to back down or take a step back. Ric Flair focuses on his leg and arm, picking him apart and grinding him down. It seems like Savage’s schedule has caught up to him. He battles and fights and manages to score with his diving elbow but we’ll never know if Flair would have kicked out as Lex Lugar attacks him, ending this via disqualification. Lugar beats up Macho Man and Sting rings down to attack Flair! The two babyfaces out on top and then, with Flair and Lugar gone and Hogan not here this week to keep the peace they get in each other’s faces and it looks like it might turn violent as Nitro goes off the air.