–Tony Schiavone and Dusty Rhodes are in the booth and they are taped from Atlanta, Georgia. According to thehistoryofwwe.com, the matches on this telecast were taped on September 20 and 27 at Center Stage.
–Opening Contest: Road Warrior Hawk (4-1-1) pins Chris Kanyon after a fist drop at 1:53:
Kanyon’s pose on the ropes before the match is cut short when Hawk pulls him down and immediately pounds away. Hawk opts not to use the flying clothesline, opting for a simple fist drop.
–Schiavone and Dusty proceed to stumble over themselves hyping Sting and Ric Flair against Arn Anderson and Brian Pillman on Monday Nitro. The match is also booked for Halloween Havoc and if that is the case, why is the match happening on Nitro in the first place?
–Harlem Heat (w/Sister Sherri) (45-7-2) defeat the Southern Posse when Booker T pins Rick Thames after the Heatbomb at 5:49:
The Posse are a jobber tag team and it should not take the Heat more than four minutes to beat them. Booker T briefly spends some time in peril as Schiavone says that the members of the Posse are named Travis and Tritt, just like the country music star, even though they have had other names on prior shows. A hot tag paves the way for the Heatbomb as the Heat continue to look like the number one contenders to the tag team titles.
–Kevin Sullivan (18-5) beat Todd Wilder after a double stomp at 2:27:
Wilder did not learn his lesson from facing Sullivan on Worldwide on September 23, succumbing to another blitzkrieg attack before the bell and losing to a double stomp. Sullivan has a decent win-loss record in 1995, but it is light on big wins. It is a good thing that the Dungeon found the Giant to face Hulk Hogan because Sullivan does not have the credibility to face Hogan one-on-one at a big event.
–Another vignette airs for Hugh Morrus, who is coming to WCW to beat up Randy Savage. He laughs a lot for thirty seconds.
–The Renegade (w/Jimmy Hart) (22-1) pins Chris Nelson after the Renegade Splash in 48 seconds:
Schiavone makes a token effort at putting the Renegade over, saying he is immensely popular with fans. However, the fans are silent as the Renegade does his powerslam and Renegade Splash to vanquish another jobber in less than a minute.
–Arn Anderson & Brian Pillman (3-0) defeat Eddie Jackie & Todd Morton when Pillman submits Morton with a Texas cloverleaf at 6:12:
Like the Heat squash earlier in the show, this match goes much longer than it needs to, especially if the goal is to put over Anderson and Pillman as an effective heel team in the build to Halloween Havoc. After some tedious arm work, Anderson catches Morton with a spinebuster and Pillman is tagged in to apply a Texas cloverleaf. That is a nice one-two punch for a finish. It just took too long to get there.
–Gene Okerlund interviews Anderson and Pillman, casting their match against Ric Flair and Sting on Monday Nitro as a “warm up” bout for Halloween Havoc. Pillman says Flair has not been the same since Fall Brawl, with Anderson adding that Flair and Sting might be the best team on paper but they have no momentum.
–Meng (w/Kevin Sullivan) (28-2-1) beats Chris Sawyer via submission to a nerve hold:
Meng finishes Sawyer quickly so that fans see him as a threat to Lex Luger at Halloween Havoc. Any suspense for that match is gone, though, because of WCW focusing most of its attention on Luger’s issue with Randy Savage. This is the second time that Meng has defeated Sawyer in 1995.
–Okerlund interviews Sullivan and Meng. Sullivan openly admits that he is going to have the Zodiac and Meng lose their matches at the pay-per-view by disqualification so that Luger and Savage destroy each other and make it easier for the Dungeon of Doom to conquer WCW.
–A video package recaps the Hulk Hogan-Giant feud.
–Alex Wright (50-7-2) pins the Disco Inferno (5-1) after a German suplex at 4:37:
This is a return match from the September 25 Monday Nitro, where Wright handed Disco his first loss. Wright counters Disco’s big moves, avoiding a clothesline effort after backflipping into the ring off the top rope and then stopping himself on a blind charge. Disco dances too much after that last sequence and Wright surprises him with a German suplex to notch another win in the midcard. Rating: **
–Okerlund interviews Disco, who tells fans that he just won his last match. Okerlund complains that Disco’s recent advice to go to an Italian restaurant on 34th Street was terrible. He does some brief dancing with Disco before going to the commercial break.
–Scott Norton (1-1) pins Joey Maggs after a reverse shoulderbreaker at 1:15:
Norton seems bored throughout this squash, using a few power moves to destroy Maggs. Schiavone pitches the idea of another match against Randy Savage, who Norton lost to a month ago on Monday Nitro.
–Paul Orndorff (18-7) beats Mike Davis after a piledriver at 2:47:
Orndorff winning streak goes to six with this squash as he spams clotheslines before finishing Davis with a piledriver. Despite the win streak, Orndorff has not been plugged into a new storyline so it will be interesting to see where WCW takes his push.
–Okerlund interviews Orndorff, who speculates that Orndorff may want to put himself in the television title picture. Orndorff thanks Gary Spivey for getting him back on track and admires himself in the mirror.
–Sting & Lex Luger defeat the Barrio Brothers (2-8) when Luger makes Ricky Santana submit to the Torture Rack at 10:05:
Schiavone acts like Sting and Luger have never teamed before, insulting the intelligence of longtime WCW fans who remember them tearing the house down with the Steiner Brothers at the first SuperBrawl. Despite the Barrios getting a win on WCW Pro to setup this match, they are totally outclassed by the super team they are up against, mounting zero offense. The problem is that if the match is going to get booked that way then it did not need to last ten minutes. A Stinger Splash-Torture Rack combo finishes Santana as Luger and Sting cement their friendship, something that will become important for future Monday Nitro telecasts to end the year.
The Last Word: This was quite the squasherific broadcast, completing an awful Saturday of WCW programming. Things would not have been so bad if the tag team matches were given less time. It also would have been better to put Sting and Luger against a team like Dick Slater and Bunkhouse Buck rather than the Barrios, especially if WCW was going to slot the match into the main event. At least Slater and Buck were coming off a tag team title win and were in the process of getting jobbed out to new teams.
Up Next: WCW Main Event for October 15!