The Monday Night Wars between the WWF and WCW were the most
watched era in professional wrestling history.
It has been romantized by fans as being an amazing era. Well….. It was not as great as one would
remember. I have been watching all of
the Raws and Nitros in order and have been comparing the builds to each month’s
pay per view card. Often times there
were tons of storylines and matches that were confusing, boring, and made no
sense. Before fans continue to clamor
for a return to this style of professional wrestling maybe they should read
these breakdowns for the Pay Per View builds.
(These comments were
adapted from an email to a lapsed casual wrestling fan who loved this era and
wanted me to explain what it was like to relive these shows)
November 1996 had the
WWF offering Survivor Series and WCW offering World War 3.
WWF Survivor Series
Shawn Michaels defends
the WWF championship against Sid.
In the month of RAWs leading up to this PPV... 1st
week Sid vs Owen and Bulldog interferes Sid makes the save 2nd week
Sid vs Bulldog and Owen interferes, Shawn makes the save. 3rd week
Shawn and Sid try to win tag titles against Owen and Bulldog. Shawn
accidently super kicks Sid. Bad guys win. Sid and Shawn fight each
other. Friendship over. If these
two crazy kids who once had a few month friendship before turning on each other
can’t make it, then what chance does humanity have. Slim, my friend, slim.
Undertaker vs Mankind
After having a BOILER ROOM BRAWL and a BUIRED ALIVE MATCH… This
bitter feud can only be settled in one way.... a REGULAR MATCH.... but in this
one Paul Bearer who had turned on Taker and joined Mankind in the boiler room
match at Summerslam in August, will be hung in a shark cage above the ring so
he can't interfere. This would make sense as a stipulation had Paul
Bearer actually INTERFERED in the previous matches. The Executioner,
who was a drugged up Terry Gordy from Fabulous Freebirds fame, who had actually
been interfering should have been the one to be locked up. They brawled a
few times in the buildup. Great feud that is on its last legs and should
have been over or at least taken a break.
Bret Hart vs Stone
Cold Steve Austin
Bret Hart was contemplating retirement or jumping to WCW.
Actually brought up in storyline. According to Bruce Prichard, Vince
didn't know if he was saying or going until his promo in the ring. Vince
thought Hart might just announce he was going to WCW to screw him. Austin
had been calling him out, saying Bret sucked and that he wanted to whip his
ass, etc.... Austin had been aligned with Brian Pillman and Owen Hart saying
that Bret sucked and that he wasn’t the Hitman but the Shitman but then Pillman
mentioned that Bret was good at wrestling. Do you think Stone Cold like
this? No. Uh-uh. So he beat the hell out of him and broke his
ankle with a chair. (The attack took place on Superstars the weekend show- they
just showed a clip on RAW) On Raw, Austin went to his house and tried to kill
Pillman while Pillman had a gun and tried to shoot Austin and said fucking on
live television. It was insane and a shit show. The next week they
barely mentioned that it even happened.
So let’s just ignore that one of our wrestlers tried broke into another
wrestler’s home intent on killing him and that gun was fired that made “explosions”. They didn’t want to say gunshots. Kevin Kelly, the announcer that was
dispatched to interview Pillman said, “Luckily no one was struck by any of the
explosions.” Like explosions fly through
the air and hit people.
Traditional Survivor
Series Match
Hunter Hearst Helmsly,
Goldust, Crush (Recently released for prison convict version not to be confused
with Demolition Crush, Hawaii Crush, or Japanese Sympathizer Crush), and
Jerry Lawler
vs
Marc Mero, The Stalker
(Old as shit Barry Windham in zubaz sweat pants and camo face paint, Mark
Henry, and Rocky Maivia (debut)
Hunter had been feuding with Mr. Perfect who was retired but
kept coming to ringside to steal Hunter's bitches during his matches.
Perfect and Hunter agreed to a match on RAW but Perfect was found beat up and
injured by Hunter in the backstage area. Perfect talked Marc Mero into taking
his place and defending the IC title against Hunter. Perfect hit Mero
with a chair. SWERVE!!! New champ.
Mark Henry had debuted and had been getting teased by Jerry
Lawler about thinking he could wrestle. (Turns out Lawler was right
because Henry got hurt trying to wrestle and was replaced in this match by
really old, fat, and drunk Jake Roberts but you didn't know that until the Free
for All)
Speaking of the Free 4 All look at this great matchup in
Survivor Series team history. It’s a
look how much more interesting these guys would be with a different character
All-Stars.
Jesse James (Road Dogg
but he is still just saying Jarrett can't sing and would sing Jarrett’s fake song on
the way to the ring)
Aldo Montoya (Justin
Credible with a jock strap on his face)
Bob Holly (Still race
car driver and not Hardcore in any way)
Bart Gunn
Vs
The Sultan (Rikishi in
a mask that covered his face because his tongue had been cut out managed by
Iron Sheik and Bob Backlund)
Justin Bradshaw (pre
JBL, pre APA, pre Acolyte just a cowboy with bad intentions)
Salvatore Sincere (If
Brother Love was athletic and an actual wrestler.
Billy Gunn
They also played promos of Rocky Maivia being a blue chipper,
third generation star. They showed the time he sacked Heisman Winner
Florida St QB and future New York Knick point guard Charlie Ward about a 1000
times. Fun Fact Rock lost his starting job at Miami to Warren Sapp.
The Smoking Gunns explode!! Bart grew tired of Billy being too
focused and trying to bang Sunny instead of their matches. So the team broke up. Billy couldn’t get over trying to get Sunny
so he turned on his brother. Now that he
is on his own….he doesn’t go after Sunny.
So you turn on your flesh and bone for some “flesh and bone” and then
you don’t even try???
Also a Survivor Match
featuring tag teams
-Bulldog, Owen, New
Rockers (Marty Jannetty and Leif Cassidy AKA Al Snow)
Vs
-The Godwins and new
comers Doug Furnas and Phillip Lafon. Just showed their pictures and
being told they were good. No build to this match.
Another Survivor
Series match
Savio Vega, Yokozuna
(who had not been mentioned in months) the debuting Flash Funk, and a mystery
man. They used a silhouette of Macho Man, Macho was not on TV for WCW
then because of contract negotiations so people thought it was going to be
him. Turns out it was Jimmy Superfly Snuka who was inducted into the HOF
the night before and was murdering his girlfriend 15 years before.
vs
Faarooq, (he ditched
the blue fat knight look and debuted the Nation of Domination Faarooq and got
in shape. The Faarooq personality change was a surprise the night of the
show. Vader, and "Razor Roman" and "Diesel"
This fake Razor and Diesel thing was dumb. Jim Ross turned heel
because he was sick of Vince running the company badly. He said he was
bringing Razor and Diesel back who were currently in WCW destroying people in
nWo. When Ross introduced them they were other guys playing the characters
and Ross just acted like everyone was crazy for saying they weren't Razor and
Diesel. Razor was played by Rick Bognar who did a good Scott Hall voice
impression, but looked like he ate Scott Hall and couldn't wrestle very well,
which would happen when you ate another human being as large as Scott Hall.
Diesel was Glen Jacobs who used to be Issac Yankem DDS. He was much
better than Bognar.
I learned from the
Prichard show that they did this dumb bullshit because Hall and Nash were
acting like they were Razor and Diesel when they first invaded WCW. This
showed that the characters were WWF property when WWF sued over it. They
got some money and WCW threw in to pay less money that if WCW were ever up for
sale and Vince got to buy it if he wanted. Seemed like a throw in at the
time but a few years later Vince gets all of WCW for pennies on the dollar and
makes $10 a month off of people like me who watch old Nitros because they
obviously hate themselves. Proof below.
WCW World War 3
60 man 3 ring battle
royal for #1 contender. You don't get too many names on the list for this
match but the main focus is on Lex Luger being on a roll and that he can stop
the nWo.
Chris Benoit vs Kevin
Sullivan
They just pick up this feud up from a few months ago. After
not caring about Benoit not being a quality Horseman and Sullivan now hates him
again. Apparently Sullivan doesn’t care
that Steve Mongo McMichael who joined the Horsemen midway through his FIRST
match. He must be up to snuff on the
Kevin Sullivan Scale of Horseman Rating.
If Sullivan hates the Horsemen why does he care if they have in what his
opinion is a bad wrestler? Shouldn’t he enjoy watching the Horsemen struggle
with subpar members? Sullivan keeps saying cryptic things about "She" If it doesn’t make sense blame Sullivan
himself because he was the head booker at this time and thought this story was
a great one to put himself in.
The Outsiders defend the
tag titles against the Nasty Boys and The Faces of Fear (Meng AKA Haku and
Barbarian)
So the Nasty Boys had hung out with the nWo in a hotel party and
were shown being told by Hogan to watch his back for weeks. They come to
the ring with the nWo and are celebrating some more evil acts perpetrated by
the nWo against WCW, when the Nasty Boys complain that, after looking at their
nWo contracts, that they were given last night that the pay isn't enough and
that Hulk forgot to sign it. Hogan laughs and the nWo beats them
up. This is supposed to lead to people rooting on the Nasty Boys and
their quest for revenge. Here's the problem though, so the Nasty Boys
wanted to turn against WCW and destroy them but the pay wasn't enough so now we
are supposed to like them like conquering heroes. Jimmy Hart rightly
brings up that the Faces of Fear have beaten tons of teams, (which they had
including Benoit and McMichael at the previous PPV) so they should get the
title shot. The Outsiders, who are supposed to cowardly sneak attacking
heels accept the challenge to fight them too.
Way to make your team from the invaders that people are supposed to hate
look like badasses for agreeing to fight the team of badasses that we are
supposed to hate unless they are facing the nWo. Huh?
Jeff Jarrett vs The
Giant
This is a rematch from last month since it ended in DQ.
They continue to squabble about the US title that Giant stole from Ric Flair
who is injured and still champion. Flair is backing Jarrett but the other
Horseman don't like it. Flair says I am the lead dog and you other guys
have to deal with it or pound sand because Flair obviously likes a guy he just
met better than people that have been having his back, and in the case of Arn
Anderson, people who have been getting his back for a decade.
Lex Luger vs Arn
Anderson
Another rematch from last month. Luger has not said two
words to or about Arn since last month. Arn keeps cutting promos that he
didn't think Luger had the anger in his soul that he showed last month and it
caught Anderson by surprise. This time he won't be surprised. He might be surprised to hear that Luger
apparently care about his match because he needs to destroy the entire nWo in
the World War 3 battle royal.
Dean Malenko defends
the cruiserweight title against Psychosis.
There was no build for this match, just hey, Psychosis, you
weigh below 205 pounds, you get a title shot.
Ultimo Dragon vs Rey
Mysterio
Another match with no real build for this match other than the
announcers saying that match will be exciting.
But they also say that about every single match on Nitro so their
credibility is squadoosh. Hey its Jim
Powers vs VK Wallstreet, this should be an amazing contest!!!
The Amazing French
Canadians (Carl Ouelett and Jacques Rougeau) They were freaking awesome as the Quebecers
in the WWF in the first year of RAW, now two years later they are fat and just
cashing checks. Vs
Harlem Heat
Harlem Heat blamed Col. Robert Parker for costing them the tag
titles to Outsiders and didn't want him to be their co-manager with his wife
Sherri. Parker kept coming to ringside for all of their matches on Nitro
with the Amazing French Canadians which led to shenanigans. Also this
made not only Sherri not want to be married to Parker anymore but also in her
words to "kill him" Apparently Sherri says winning a random
match on Nitro against the Amazing French Canadians who until this point had
not won a match on Nitro is more important than love. She is a career
woman, really ahead of her time. Parker joins the Amazing French
Canadians as their manager and helps them defeat an imploding American Males,
(Marcus Bagwell and Scotty Riggs.)
Chris Jericho vs Nick
Patrick (Jericho has to have one arm tied behind his back)
-Jericho is continuing
to accuse Patrick of being dirty and working for the nWo. This is how
Jericho has decided to take down the big bad nWo by accusing a referee in a
neck brace that he is secretly refereeing nWo matches on WCW Saturday Night,
where the take on jobbers, in a mask. What an American Hero Jericho is!!!
Also Roddy Piper came
out and confronted Hogan after he beat Macho Man last month and said that Piper
is better than Hogan. Bischoff has been trying to get Piper to sign a
contract to fight Hogan at Starrcade next month. Starrcade is WCW's
Wrestlemania. Unfortunately, Bischoff hasn't been able to get Piper to sign
anything because of agents and scheduling but he hopes to at World War 3.
Riveting! Call you cable or satellite provider now to see paperwork being
completed.
That is the build to the November 1996 pay per views so which do
you choose to plunk down your hard earned money on?
