WEEK 1 - September 4th, 1995 (Nitro Only - No Raw this week) - Husky Harris

WCW Monday Nitro 

Best Match – Sting vs Ric Flair. Hands down. These two work so well together. No noticeable botches, just solid content throughout. The slight repetitiveness of Sting Gorilla Press Slamming Flair five times is the only downfall. From Sting’s high flying, heavy impact attacks to Flair’s “Dirtiest Player in the Game” approach, I enjoyed every second of it. 

The first match of the night, Brian Pillman vs Jushin Thunder Liger was solid as well, but a couple of bad botches pulls down the score for me.

Worst Match – Hulk Hogan vs Big Bubba. This wasn’t a bad match, but the worst out of the three. It was basically “let’s watch Hogan do what Hogan does,” all the way up until the Dungeon of Doom runs out into the ring and attacks Hogan. Lex Luger comes out, helps clear house and leads to….

Best Segment – Hulk Hogan and Lex Luger meet in the ring to discuss why Luger is there. He is there because he’s “Tired of playing with kids, and wants to play with the big boys.” And Hogan is the biggest boy in town. They set up a title match for Nitro the following week.

Worst Segment – The introduction of Michael Wallstreet. This backstage segment felt very disjointed and off. He stared off camera and rarely looked at us. Mike Rotunda, who had most famously played Irwin R. Schyster in WWF, even made a forced mention of the IRS watching him closely. I would have liked to have seen something less robotic and more charismatic.

Hottest Feud – Arn Anderson and Ric Flair. This apparently has been building for a while now. Anderson came out to the ring and caused a no contest in the Flair/Sting match and then proceeded to beat Flair until the Nature Boy ran away. This one will build quite a bit in coming weeks.

Coldest Feud – Scott Norton and Randy Savage. Nothing wrong with this, as much as it hasn’t really gotten started. Let’s see where this goes next week, since a match has been booked!

Star of the Show – Lex Luger. A huge pop for the Total Package showing up unannounced. He walks out of WWF and into WCW and directly into a World Title match at Week 2. Luger was never the best on the mic, but he was decent on this night. Looking forward to what this brings.

General Commentary – I think it’s a solid show. The first two matches were really good, and the Hogan/Bubba match was not bad either.  The personalities are good, and Bobby “the Brain” Heenan was great. Steve “Mongo” McMichael leaves a lot to be desired, but what do you expect from a guy like him. Eric Bischoff was solid, though the oversells on minor moves got kind of annoying. Mean Gene is always enjoyable. 

The wrestling was extremely good, the interviews/segments were above average. For a the very first Nitro, and only 45 minutes long without the commercials, I think it did a good job of introducing WCW to Monday nights.

GRADE: B+