“I’m Tony Schiavone and Hulk Hogan you can go to Hell!”

7/7/96

Daytona Beach, Florida

Commentary: Tony, Dream and the Brain

We are welcomed to the show and everyone is hyped for the main event already.

Rey Mysterio Jr. v Psychosis

Hell of an opener that was helped by the fact that they slowed it down a bit for the WCW crowd. For me it blew all the stuff they did in ECW right out of the water. Great way to start the show no matter how you slice it. 1-1

Winner: Rey by reversing Splash Mountain into a Rana from the top.

Gene speaks to Konnan about his match with Flair. Not much to this.

Silver Dollars on a Pole: John Tenta v Big Bubba (w/Jimmy Hart)

So we started off great and even though I love these dudes they killed that momentum right out of the gate. Too slow and plodding following the hot opener. Just a big old bag of nope. 1-2

Winner: Tenta after stealing the bag from Jimmy.

Who is the third man?

Gene interviews Savage, Sting and Luger who seem relatively ready.

Taped Fist/Lord of the Ring match: Diamond Dallas Page v Hacksaw Jim Duggan

This was juuuuuust before DDP got good and well within the time Duggan was terrible. They just not mesh well at all and the dumb stipulation didn’t help. 1-3

Winner: DDP after a Diamond Cutter. Good guy Hacksaw attacked after the match because of reasons.

Gene interviews Arn and Benoit about the tag match later. Arn is awesome and Benoit makes threats about leaving Sullivan for dead. Yep.

Dog Collar match: The Public Enemy v The Nasty Boys

This was actually fun because all they did was beat the hell out of one another. I guess if you know a genre just work in that. It was sloppy but still entertaining enough where I didn’t care much. 2-4

Winners: The Nasty Boys after taking out Rocco. The toughest thing in the match was the table that didn’t break until the match was over.

Cruiserweight Championship: (C)Dean Malenko v Disco Inferno

Disco actually brought his “A” game and they put together a solid match. Malenko was in another world out there and him having anyone even halfway capable to work with always led to at least a solid match. I dug it. 3-5

Winner: Dean retained with the Cloverleaf.

Joe Gomez v Steve McMichael (w/Debra)

Mongo never had a good match. Joe Gomez never had a good match. That’s pretty much all I got for this one. 3-6

Winner: Mongo with a tombstone.

Flair, Woman and Liz are joined by Mean Gene. Flair is confident and Gene hits on Woman and she seems to be digging it.

United States Championship: (C) Konnan v Ric Flair (w/Woman and Miss Elizabeth)

This was fine. Flair was in a fun groove in this period and Konnan appeared to be motivated at this point. Copious amounts of cheating made this way more entertaining than I remembered. Also Woman ruled. 4-7

Winner: Flair got the pin following a shoe attack from Woman and a pin with his feet on the ropes.

Gene hangs out near the Outsiders dressing room being nosey.

The Giant/Kevin Sullivan v Chris Benoit/Arn Anderson

The Horsemen smartly had Mongo attack and distract The Giant in the aisle to leave them alone with Sullivan. I mean, it didn’t make the match better but it was a strategy. Having Sullivan even halfway playing face in peril never works. Disappointing. 4-8

Winner: The Giant returned and murdered Arn while Sullivan and Benoit brawled all over. Woman eventually stopped the beating on Sullivan and my stomach got a bit queezy for obvious reasons.

We get a recap video on the mysterious Outsiders.

The Outsiders are introduced by Michael Buffer but the third man isn’t with them…

Lex Luger/Sting/Randy Savage v The Outsiders/???

Hell of a story that started out with the red herring of Luger being taken out early. The match was nothing more than fine but the commentary and crowd really raised the stakes. Obviously the ending is one of if not THE most important moments in wrestling history. Gotta give it a point. 5-9

Winner: No Contest but Hulk Hogan arriving to drop the leg on Macho was wild at the time and still resonates with me today.

Hogan and the boys cut the first of a million nWo promos and the fans, Gene and commentary are pissed.

Final Tally? 5-9 All of the matches weren’t great or anything but this is one of those shows you owe it to yourself to see just because of what it meant to WCW.

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