We open Nitro with a recap of the assault on Hulk Hogan the week prior. From the Taskmaster's old lady act, to the shaving of the iconic Hogan stache. Nitro is live in Chicago for this week's edition. Bobby Heenan brings up that Hogan is there, and that there's been a restraining order put on the Giant and Taskmaster. Sting comes up the announce booth and says that something has to change with the situation involving Savage and Luger, and he's going to be the one to solve the problem.
Opening action tonight is Sting defending his WCW United States title against Sharkquake. Shark sneak attacks Sting and continues the assault, landing a slam and both and elbow and leg drop. Cover only gets a two. Sting avoids a charge in the corner and follows with some stinger splashes. He goes to the top rope and lands a flying cross body for the win in a super fast match.
We completely recap the Hogan assault again, but at the very least it wasn't a complete waste of TV time like recapping over half the Bret Hart/Isaac Yankem match.
Up next, we have Sabu in action against Mr. JL (Jerry Lynn). Sabu starts with strikes in the corner, a body slam, and slingshot leg drops, covering for two. He locks in a chinlock, then goes for a whip, only for J.L to get a spinning elbow. A loud "Hogan Sucks" chant from the crowd as Sabu and J.L wind up on the outside as J.L lands a suicide dive. Sabu ducks a clothesline and lands a spinning wheel kick, sending J.L to the outisde. Plancha by Sabu, who lands head first on the floor, while J.L smacks into the barricade. Sabu takes a chair and dives into J.L.
Back in the ring, J.L lands a German suplex, bridging for two. Dropkick in the corner by J.L, that smacks Sabu right into the face. Sabu comes back with a clothesline and follows with a springboard moonsault off the ropes. Camel clutch by Sabu but J.L grabs the ropes in time. Sabu goes to the top rope, but J.L turns it into a DDT off the top buckle. Cover, but Sabu kicks out. J.L goes up, but Sabu stops it. He tries for a frankensteiner, but J.L stops it. J.L dives, but gets caught in a powerbomb as Sabu reapplies the camel clutch for the win. He throws J.L out and hits a messy sunset flip powerbomb. A good match, very fast paced, but much like a Sabu match, it was very car crash. Lots of sloppy spots and painful looking bumps. But Lynn and Sabu worked well enough together.
Mean Gene is in the ring with Sting and Lex Luger. Sting calls out Randy Savage to hdlp solve this continuing heat between the pair. Sting brings up how the Giant has been going after everybody, which Savage interrupt by saying that Sting hasn't been affected. Sting says that everybody in WCW wants to be champ, and that makes them wanted. He tells Savage to shut up and stop slapping everyone. At Halloween Havoc, Savage faces Kamala and Luger faces Meng, so Sting suggests that if they win their matches, they face each other later. Luger says that he won't do it at Halloween Havoc, which Sting finds pathetic. He's tired of babysitting Luger since he came back, so he puts Lex on the spot. Luger angrily accepts the challenge to end what was a really good promo segment.
We get a vignette for the debuting Chris Benoit. Gotta admit, with it being almost ten years since Benoit murdered his wife and son, I have had zero interest in rewatching his work, despite how big a fan I was of his. Though with this fresh look through WCW during the Monday Night Wars, I am at least intrigued enough to watch his work and cover it here.
Disco Fever! Disco Fever! It's time once again for Disco Inferno to boogie down, even if nobody wants to see that right now. Perhaps not the best time to do so, as he's taking up valuable time from Road Warrior Hawk or Big Bubba Rogers. With his music interrupted, he gets down to his theme on a stereo. Then when Hawk comes out and tells him to get lost, Disco Inferno, having some sort of death wish, throws a ball cap on the shoulder spikes of Hawk. Yeah that'll show him!
Bubba sneak attacks Hawk (the third sneak attack open of the show. Dammit D'lo!). He splashes Hawk in the corner and follows with some punches. Hawk avoids a ram into the buckle, but Bubba continues the offense. Whip by Hawk, but Bubba slides out of the ring, only to get caught with a powerslam. Disco Inferno starts dancing to the camera again, which finally pisses Hawk off, and he focuses on beating the crap out of Disco on the outside, causing the count out. Hawk is an idiot. That, or Disco Inferno is a genius.
Gene Okerlund is in the ring to interview Hulk Hogan, who comes out to noticeable boos. He also comes out sporting all black. Almost like we're seeing Hollywood Hogan a year early. He tells Gene to shut up, and ditto Jimmy Hart. The games are over, dude! He's in all black because he's playing the Dungeon of Doom's game. Just like he beat Andre the Giant, so too will be the fate of the Giant. He wants the Giant in the ring, to which Okerlund mentions the restraining order. Hogan goes into a history lesson as the boos are quite loud. People are tired of Hogan-Senpai, brother! They're ready for the world to stop revolving around him, dude.
The Giant's monster truck rolls to the outside of hte arena with cops in tow . Hogan begs for the Giant to come in, and if he can't get in, Hogan will easily come out to face him. After the break, we learn from Eric Bischoff that Chicago P.D are outside to try to stop the ensuing assault.
It's time for our main event. A cage match between Ric Flair and Arn Anderson. After two matches that have involved Brian Pillman's involvement to aid Double A, the only way to control this situation is to lock the two former Horsemen up inside a steel cage. Arn tries to ram Flair into the steel, but Flair comes back with some chops and some patented Flair strutting. Whip to the buckle and a big back body drop by Arn, followed by a successful ram into the cage. Arn throws Flair into the cage, but Flair comes back with a chop. Some back and forth as we go to break.
When we return, Flair is in control with a chop. But Arn comes back with a whip and a spinebuster. Slow cover only gets a two. Flair throws arn into the cage and follows with a second. He rakes Arn's face into the steel mesh as the crowd chants "we want blood". This crowd is savage, but then again, it is Chicago. Arn blocks another throw into the cage and sends Flair into the cage instead. He grates Flair in the mesh, but Flair no-sells and lands a big clothesline. Stall suplex by Flair as both men collapse. It turns out the cage was ineffective as Pillman tries to climb in, only to get knocked down by Flair. Arn appears to have something in his trunks, but Flair comes back with an atomic drop. He goes for a figure four, but Arn smacks Flair with brass knuckles. Cover gets the three for Arn as Pillman and Double A celebrate.
A bit of an underwhelming cage match, but again I can forgive it as it still plays into the story. And that story being that no matter how hard Flair tries, thanks to Brian Pillman, Arn continues to get tainted victories. Clearly at this point, Flair needs to come up with a better strategy, but what? And yes, while it underwhelmed, as always, you get some top notch wrestling from both men, even if, considering this is a cage match, it wasn't a truly technical affair, which these two can almost always manage.
Flair is so angered that he will face both Pillman and Arn next week. He promises to look for a partner. Next week on Nitro, it's DDP vs Johnny B Badd, Chris Benoit vs Eddy Guerrero, Jim Duggan vs Meng and more.
A very solid edition of Monday Nitro this week. Lots of matches, albeit far more brief than what we've seen from Nitro for the most part so far. A couple non-matches really with Sting vs Shark being so brief and Bubba vs Hawk ending so abruptly thanks to Disco Inferno. I was expecting more from Flair/Arn in the cage, but it was still a great match, and Sabu/J.L, while a bit messy was still fast paced fun. I like the continuing saga between Randy Savage and Lex Luger with Sting being the dopey peacemaker. And what I loved most of all from this show, the loud "Hogan Sucks" chants. Thank you Chi-town. In the end, for having a lot going for it, this Nitro entertained, earning it a B.
WHO WON THE WAR WEEK #5: NITRO
Raw really felt lacking this week, particularly due to being a two-match, one angle show. There was simply no reason for over ten minutes to be wasted recapping the Bret Hart/Isaac Yankem match from Summerslam. Meanwhile, Nitro used its hour much better, added more content and continued multiple storylines, while also hyping up new talent. An easy win for WCW for the week of October 9th.