WCW finally turned a profit in 1995, their seventh year as a company. The first half of 1996 was pretty much the same as 1995 with Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage feuding with The Dungeon of Doom and Ric Flair and the Four Horsemen and Sting and Lex Luger getting along and not getting along.
It would be the same old shit. The second half of 1996, however, would change the way professional wrestling history would be as we knew it.
Savage brought back Woman (Nancy Sullivan) to WCW early in 1996 and then also brought back his ex-wife Miss Elizabeth. Elizabeth returned to wrestling for the first time in nearly four years since she and Savage got divorced as WCW looked like the WWF from 1988-1991.
Savage and Flair traded the WCW World Heavyweight Championship in January and February. Both Woman and surprisingly Elizabeth betrayed Savage and helped Flair win the title back from Savage. Hogan continued his feud with The Giant before it ended for the moment at SuperBrawl VI in a Steel Cage match.
This setup perhaps the worst match gimmick ever at Uncensored in March called the Doomsday Cage match featuring Hogan and Savage against eight members of The Alliance to End Hulkamania (Dungeon of Doom + Four Horsemen).
I have a lot to write about this year so if you want to know more about the Doomsday Cage match and Uncensored PPV read it here. Hogan would go on a hiatus for a couple of months to make a movie as this would lead to the biggest story of 1996, maybe ever.
The best thing about the first half of 1996 for WCW was the craziness of "The Loose Cannon" Brian Pillman. Pillman took his unpredictable character to new heights going into 1996. Pillman did a great job with his character as you didn't know if this was a gimmick or if he was just that f'n crazy and uncontrollable with what he did and said.
At January's Clash of the Champions, Pillman went outside during a match and put his hands on commentator Bobby Heenan's neck as Heenan yelled "what the fuck are you doing?" live on TBS. Heenan had neck surgery shortly before and had neck problems in the past and the wrestlers are not allowed to touch him. Pillman did not know that.
Pillman's antics drew the ire of Kevin Sullivan as it created problems between the Four Horsemen and Dungeon of Doom as they were trying to take out Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage. Pillman and Sullivan feuded which culminated in a leather strap match at SuperBrawl with the winner had to make the loser say "I respect you."
Their match lasted not even a minute when Pillman yelled "I respect you, Booker man!" as Sullivan stood there stunned. Pillman did the unthinkable at that time, outing someone as the head booker. This further added to the Loose Cannon gimmick. It was reported that Eric Bischoff yelled and fired Pillman at the event.
However, that was a total work known only by Pillman, Bischoff, and even Sullivan. Bischoff let Pillman out of his contract sending him down to ECW to further work on his character, where Pillman ripped WCW and Bischoff in ECW, and would have Pillman return to WCW later.
Pillman was involved in a serious car accident and while he was recovering from the injuries, he was negotiating with WCW and also not known to Bischoff, he was negotiating with Vince McMahon and the WWF. He would ultimately sign with the WWF. Sullivan feuded with Horsemen member Chris Benoit, who took Pillman's place on Sullivan's shit list.
They had an incredible Falls Count Anywhere match at The Great American Bash where they even fought in the bathroom with the two of them slamming each other's heads into the stall door with Sullivan sticking Benoit's head in a toilet.
As part of the feud, Benoit began a storyline affair with Sullivan's real life wife Woman (Nancy Sullivan). Benoit and Nancy did a great job with the storyline affair as they decided to have a real life affair which led to the divorce of Kevin and Nancy. Benoit eventually married Nancy and they were together until their deaths in 2007.
They feuded for the next year until the 1997 Bash at the Beach PPV where Benoit defeated Sullivan in a Retirement match where Sullivan was forced to retire. This was used to have Sullivan focus more on his booking duties than being a wrestler.
Another good thing in WCW in 1996 was the introduction of the Cruiserweight division and the Cruiserweight Championship. In addition to established stars like Dean Malenko and Eddie Guerrero, WCW added more guys like Rey Mysterio Jr., Psicosis, and Chris Jericho to name a few. The Cruiserweights often put on the best matches on WCW events.
Tag team action again heated up with the Harlem Heat still carrying the WCW World Tag Team Championship but lost them to Sting and Lex Luger on an episode of Nitro in January. They won the titles back from them in June. The high-flying Public Enemy came over from ECW in January and feuded with The Nasty Boys.
The Road Warriors reunited also in January when Animal came back from retirement when his back healed up. The Steiner Brothers returned to WCW that year as well for the first time in nearly four years. The Steiners traded the tag team titles a couple of times with Harlem Heat in the summer. The Road Warriors soon left the company in the middle of 1996.
Randy Savage continued to feud with Ric Flair as well as Elizabeth as that was the only other thing good about the first half of WCW in 1996. The story was that since Liz turned on Savage and joined Flair, Flair and Liz were storyline spending money she got from her and Savage's divorce.
Flair and Liz would be shown on TV eating expensive dinners, Flair buying her expensive items, and even throwing his money into the crowd on his expense. Savage would be livid and go after both only to be taken out of the arena by security and even arrested one time and taken to jail.
The Giant defeated Flair to win the WCW World Heavyweight Championship on the April 29 edition of Nitro. This time his title reign was legit unlike the previous year at a Halloween Havoc. Then.Giant successfully defended the title against Sting at Slamboree and Lex Luger at The Great American Bash.
Slamboree featured the stupid Lethal Lottery Battle Bowl as it wasn't successful the first three times they did it, the fourth time certainly was not the charm. Diamond Dallas Page ended up winning the Battle Bowl as it would soon begin a huge push that would have to wait until 1997. Thankfully, help was on the way for WCW from up north in an unlikely source: the WWF.
Eight days later on the May 27 episode of Nitro from Macon, GA, which was the first two hour episode of Nitro, a surprise occurred right in the middle of the event. During the middle of a match, Scott Hall was wearing street clothes yet still portraying his Razor Ramon character came through the audience and entered the ring during the middle of a match.
Hall appeared eight days after his final WWF appearance in Madison Square Garden. Hall would grab the microphone and talked in his Razor Ramon accent. He said "you know who I am. But you don't know why I'm here!" He would go on to challenge several of WCW's top wrestlers like Sting, Randy Savage, and Hulk Hogan.
Hall told Eric Bischoff "you want a war? You got one!" as Bischoff would repeatedly give away WWF Raw results. Hall would then say "We are taking over!" referring to the WWF taking over. It was made to look like Vince McMahon sent his wrestlers down to invade WCW. He confronted Bischoff in the broadcast booth at the end to tell Ted Turner to pick three of his best wrestlers to fight.
Hall appeared again the next week on Nitro and again confronted Bischoff at the end of the event. Sting came out and confronted Hall and challenged him to a fight but Hall declines as he wants three of WCW's best. Hall throws his toothpick in Sting's face and Sting responds by slapping him in the face. Hall then tells Sting he has a "big surprise" for him next week.
The next week on the June 10 episode of Nitro, Hall again came out and again bothered Bischoff at the end of the night. Bischoff was wondering where the "big surprise" was. All of a sudden, Kevin Nash appeared behind Bischoff only to turn Bischoff around. Nash then challenged WCW to give them three of their best wrestlers and threatened Bischoff.
Six days later at The Great American Bash, Hall and Nash again appeared as per the request of Bischoff. He asked them if they were working for the WWF and they said no as the WWF filed a lawsuit against WCW to have them stop having Hall and Nash portray their Razor Ramon and Diesel characters and to stop saying that the WWF was taking over.
According to Hall, they made many in the WCW locker room believe they were still getting paid from Vince McMahon in addition to WCW as they believed they were still working for the WWF. The WWF responded with fake Razor Ramon and Diesel characters since they owned the rights and trademark to the Razor Ramon and Diesel names and characters.
Hall and Nash, who would be known as "The Outsiders", demanded Bischoff tell them the three wrestlers who would fight them and their surprise partner but Bischoff would not say. Hall then punched Bischoff in the gut as Nash gave Bischoff the Jackknife Powerbomb through a table as The Outsiders officially declared war on WCW.
Hall and Nash left the WWF and signed big guaranteed contracts with WCW in early 1996 as Bischoff and Ted Turner wanted to beat the WWF so badly. Hall and Nash returned to WCW after leaving there to go to the WWF in 1992 and 1993, respectively. It was in the WWF that they became superstars.
Hall and Nash would continue to invade WCW Nitro as police and security would try to force them to vacate the premises as it looked like a hostile takeover. It was announced that at Bash at the Beach that Hall and Nash and their third mystery partner would take on Sting, Lex Luger, and Randy Savage the "Hostile Takeover" match.
Many questioned who the third "outsider" would be if it was another WWF wrestler or maybe even someone on the inside. Bash at the Beach took place from Daytona Beach, Florida on July 7, 1996 as it would be the biggest PPV in WCW history.
Hall and Nash came out by themselves as they told Gene Okerlund the third partner was in the back and he would come out when they needed him. Sting, Luger, and Savage came to the ring all wearing matching face paint like Sting was wearing as WCW looked to be in unison.
Early in the match, however, Sting hit Nash with a Stinger Splash, but Luger was trapped in the corner and was knocked out by the blow. He was taken to the back as it left only Sting and Savage to take on Hall and Nash with the third teammate in the back.
I thought back then it was Sting who was going to be the third man as he would have been the biggest surprise since he was the Franchise of WCW. According to Scott Hall, the third man was going to be Sting and possibly Bret Hart as WCW was interested in Hart as Hart's contract in the WWF was up. I heard WCW wanted Hart so I thought Hart also would have been the third man.
Hall and Nash dominated Sting and Savage that is until Hulk Hogan came from the back and came to the ring. Hall and Nash left the ring as it looked like Hogan was there to help WCW. Hogan even ripped his shirt off and posed for the fans when the unthinkable happened.
Hogan dropped three leg drops on Savage as he was the third man and betrayed WCW two years after he came to WCW and two years at the event he defeated Ric Flair to win his first WCW World Heavyweight Championship in his WCW debut and the fans as he became the biggest heel in the business.
Eric Bischoff wanted Hulk to turn heel for some time and wanted him to be the third man all along but Hulk would not turn as he had creative control in his contract where he could veto any idea he didn't want to do. Eventually, Hogan decided to be the third man.
Hogan cut a promo with Hall and Nash in the ring after the match with Gene Okerlund. Hogan said the trio would be the "New World Order" of wrestling. He also trashed both the WWF and WCW and told the fans to "stick it" as the fans threw garbage in the ring.
The next night, Hogan came out in black and white instead of the usual yellow and red and began to refer to himself as "Hollywood" Hulk Hogan and eventually just Hollywood Hogan. Hogan soon grew a beard and dyed it black to go along with his signature blonde fu-manchu mustache.
Hogan, Hall, and Nash began to call themselves the New World Order and eventually just "nWo" for short. They wore black and white nWo t-shirts and soon began to sell nWo merchandise like their own separate entity and even sold their merchandise separately from WCW at WCW events to make it look like they were separate from WCW.
The nWo merchandise soon became the top-selling merchandise in the industry. Even though the nWo were a group of heels, their rebellious and anti-establishment ways soon gained a cult following as more and more fans soon came to the arena wearing their nWo t-shirts and gear and even cheered for the bad guys.
They were the cool guys while the WCW wrestlers, especially the faces, suddenly weren't so cool as fans these days began rooing for the bad guy (i.e. "Stone Cold" Steve Austin).
They would attack various WCW wrestlers each and every week on WCW Monday Nitro and other WCW events. The attacks looked so realistic as they would continue to invade WCW events and attack their wrestlers. They would even spray paint "nWo" in black on the fallen wrestlers. One famous moment was when Nash picked up Rey Mysterio Jr. and launched him facefirst into a trailer outside.
The nWo and their attacks would cross the line between scripted and real in terms of storylines in professional wrestling as wrestling was going more towards adult-oriented and realistic storylines. Many wondered if this was a story or it was realistic. The nWo helped put WCW ahead of the WWF and Monday Nitro defeated RAW in ratings for 84 consecutive head-to-head weeks.
Hollywood Hogan defeated The Giant to win the WCW World Heavyweight Championship at the inaugural Hog Wild PPV in August. Afterwards, Hogan's best friend Ed Leslie came out wearing an nWo shirt and was carrying a birthday cake for Hulk to celebrate as it was Hogan's birthday.
So how did Hogan repay his best friend? Simple, he and Scott Hall and Kevin Nash attacked and beat up on Leslie. Hogan said if he could do that to his best friend, imagine what he could do to WCW. He picked up the title belt and spray pained nWo and rechristened it the nWo World Heavyweight Championship. The nWo looked unbeatable.
This was personal as babyfaces and even heels of WCW would put their respective differences aside to join forces to take down the nWo. Even longtime rivals Ric Flair and Sting would put their differences aside in the war. Sting suggested that he and Lex Luger team with Flair and Arn Anderson to take on the nWo in a WarGames match at Fall Brawl which they agreed.
The Giant was the first new member of the nWo when he turned on The Dungeon of Doom and attacked them and helped the nWo attack them and Randy Savage. It was surprise as it was only a few weeks after The Giant lost the title to Hogan.
More and more wrestlers soon joined the nWo shortly after Fall Brawl and at the end of 1996 either coming from the WWF or simply turning on WCW. Million Dollar Man Ted DiBiase joined WCW. He was revealed as the nWo's "financer" and was nicknamed "Trillionaire Ted."
Sean Waltman (1-2-3 Kid from the WWF and Scott Hall and Kevin Nash's real life best friend and fellow "Kliq" member) came over to WCW and joined the nWo as "Syxx" as the "sixth member" of the nWo. Many even made the joke of the number six after adding up 1+2+3 and that equals six.
Former WWF wrestler Virgil came to WCW and joined the nWo as "Vincent." Former WWF wrestlers and current WCW wrestlers Mr. Wallstreet (I.R.S.) and Big Bubba Rogers (Big Boss Man) joined the nWo as did other WCW wrestlers Scott Norton and Marcus Bagwell (renamed "Buff" Bagwell).
Even Japanese wrestlers from New Japan Pro Wrestling joined the nWo as "nWo Japan." However, the nWo became too watered down with everyone and anyone from WCW just simply joining the nWo.
The WarGames match at Fall Brawl featured Sting, Lex Luger, Ric Flair, and Arn Anderson taking on the nWo's Hollywood Hogan, Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, and a mystery nWo member. It was hinted that it was going to be a WCW wrestler and everyone wondered who was going to turn on WCW and jump to the nWo.
We would get our answer six days before Fall Brawl on the September 9 episode of Nitro. Sting was not scheduled to be there and he was supposedly somewhere else. However during the event, Ted DiBiase is seen talking to someone in a limo in the parking lot and the voice sounds like Sting's.
Luger was told of what was going on and he went out to the parking lot to confront DiBiase. Soon after, "Sting" came out of the limo and attacked Luger as Sting looked to have joined the nWo and would be on their side at WarGames.
Just before the WarGames match at Fall Brawl, Sting confronted Luger, Ric Flair, and Arn Anderson and told them it wasn't him that attacked Luger, but they did not believe him. When it was time for the fourth and final nWo member to come out for the match, it was Sting as he attacked the WCW wrestlers.
When it was time for the fourth WCW wrestler come in, it was Sting!?!? Sting was telling the truth as the nWo had an imposter (Jeff Farmer) dressed like Sting. Sting attacked all four members of the nWo before he left the ring as he yelled "is that good enough for you Lex?!" and he left the cage.
The nWo easily defeated WCW after the real Sting left as the nWo Sting put Luger in the Scorpion Death Lock while Hogan locks in a front face lock simultaneously. Luger had no choice but to submit which at this time, the babyfaces rarely submitted to the heels as this was an attempt to make the nWo far superior than WCW. Luger would end the PPV crawling on his knees to the dressing room yelling for Sting only to be further attacked by the nWo.
The next night on the September 16 episode of Nitro, the real Sting went to the ring to cut a promo about how everyone doubted him about the week before. Sting said to everyone who doubted him "they can stick it!" Sting then said he was a "free agent" and would pop in from time to time and abruptly left. That was the last time we would see the colorful Sting.
For the next month, Sting would not appear when all of a sudden, he made an appearance wearing all black ring attire with a long black leather coat with long dark hair and wore white face paint with black accents. Many wondered if he joined the nWo.
Sting began to resemble the Brandon Lee "Crow" character in the 1994 movie The Crow. He would often be referred to as "The Crow" Sting. Sting would be shown sitting all alone in the rafters as everyone betrayed him. He would also not say a word and would not even wrestle for well over a year.
Scott Hall came up with the Crow gimmick. He noticed Sting was growing his hair longer and dying it darker so he pitched the idea about the Crow character from the file The Crow. Long story short, Sting pitched the idea to Eric Bischoff and the new character was created.
Sting changed from the cheery, colorful, and fun "surfer" hero that was beloved by everyone, especially the younger crowd to this more dark, loner, anti-hero. Sting received a much-needed change in his character as Bischoff wanted to change him heel to change with the times as Sting refused. The next best thing was to be an anti-hero and the fans really got behind him as he was the top babyface despite not even wrestling.
Sting would come from rafters and through the crowd and into the ring and attack unsuspecting WCW wrestlers who made comments about Sting. He would give them his new finisher the Scorpion Death Drop (inverted DDT). Sting would not attack any nWo wrestlers except for the bogus Sting as it made it look more and more like he was going to the nWo.
The next bizarre thing Sting did was come to the ring carrying a black baseball bat. He would go up to several WCW wrestlers and point the bat and even shove them with the bat. He would then attempt to hit them with the bat but would instead hand the bat over to the wrestler. Sting would turn his back and see if they would hit him with the bat. When they did not, he nodded, picked up the bat, and walked away.
One moment came on Nitro in December where Sting and the nWo Sting, who began dressing like the Crow Sting, both came to the ring to confront The Steiner Brothers. Both Stings handed the Steiners their bats and both turned their backs to them. Just when they did this, the real Sting gave the fake Sting the Scorpion Death Drop and left.
"Rowdy" Roddy Piper came to WCW and made his first appearance at the end of the Halloween Havoc PPV. After Hollywood Hogan defeated Randy Savage to retain his nWo Heavyweight Championship, Hogan celebrated in the ring saying he was the one true icon in professional wrestling.
All of a sudden, bagpipes played and out came Piper who confronted Hogan in the ring. Piper told Hogan he was the one true icon and said Hogan never beat him ever and made fun of Hogan's bald head. Hogan then challenged Piper for "one more war to settle the score."
Eric Bischoff was the brains behind the invasion angle and the nWo after seeing a similar thing occur in New Japan Pro Wrestling. Piper tried to get Bischoff and his powers to setup the Piper-Hogan match. Bischoff, however, would waffle around saying he was doing his best to get the match signed and even went to Piper's house in Portland to get the contract signed, but he wasn't there.
All of a sudden, Piper came out unannounced on an episode of Nitro and confronted Bischoff. He said Bischoff was a liar since he was home at Portland and never saw Bischoff. He then accused Bischoff of working for Hogan and tried to go after him only for Hogan and the nWo to run down to the ring to detain Piper.
Bischoff finally was revealed as the one behind the nWo all along as he was the guy who used his power and influence at Ted Turner's headquarters to "officially" give the nWo members jobs as WCW wrestlers without anything WCW could do about it. He even demanded that WCW wrestlers turn their WCW contracts over to nWo contracts "or else."
Piper took on Hogan in a non-title match in the main event at Starrcade in December. Despite the nWo's interference, Piper defeated Hogan with the Sleeper Hold. The next night on Nitro, the final Nitro of 1996, the nWo attacked Piper and really beat him down and even used chair shots on his bad hip that had surgery years before. Piper was taken out of the ring on a stretcher and onto an ambulance.
Hogan then blasted The Giant for not chokeslamming Piper like he wanted to and for costing him the match the previous night at Starrcade. He then slapped The Giant in the face and The Giant retaliated by grabbing Hogan by the throat and choking him.
Hogan was cowering as The Giant was making Hogan give him a world title shot which Hogan said yes. Then the nWo beat down The Giant, kicking him out of the nWo by ripping his nWo shirt off of him and turning Giant into a babyface.
1996 was such a huge year for WCW, well at least the second half with the nWo angle. That was their best year to date and it was the start of a two-year reign where WCW beat the WWF in the head-to-head Monday Night ratings war as Nitro beat Raw in head-to-head ratings from June 1996 until April 1998, 84 consecutive weeks.
However, their best year was yet to come and that would be 1997.
Tuesday, October 18, 2016
Monday, October 17, 2016
WWF 1996: Shawn Michaels on Top; WrestleMania Iron Man Match; The MSG Incident; The Birth of "Austin 3:16"; Pillman's Got a Gun; Bret Hart Leaves and Comes Back; The Ultimate Warrior Comes Back and Leaves; Mick Foley Debuts and Feuds with Undertaker; Rocky Maivia; Goldust
1996 began the way 1995 ended with Bret Hart on top as WWF Champion, The Kliq running the show backstage, and the WWF struggling in both ratings and financially as they were beginning to lose to WCW.
WCW would basically copy what the WWF had been doing but had more money and resources to make it more successful. The WWF would soon lose more of their top performers to WCW and nearly lost their biggest. However, they gained a major diamond in the rough that was discarded the previous year by WCW.
Bret Hart began the year defending his title against The Undertaker, Diesel, and Shawn Michaels. Hart lost to The Undertaker by disqualification at the Royal Rumble when Diesel pulled the referee out of the ring as the ref was about to count three to screw The Undertaker out of the title as the title could not change hands on a disqualification.
The Undertaker would pay back Diesel back at February's In Your House PPV when Diesel took on Hart for the title in a Steel Cage match. As Diesel was about to win the title, The Undertaker appeared from the bottom of the ring and pulled Diesel under the ring while Hart escaped the cage and retained the title. Diesel would lose to The Undertaker at WrestleMania XII.
Shawn Michaels returned to the ring at the Royal Rumble from his near "career-ending" concussion suffered at the hands of the beating he suffered the previous October outside a bar in Syracuse as well as a kick to the back of the head from Owen Hart. Michaels won the Royal Rumble for the second year in a row and challenged Bret Hart for the WWF Championship at WrestleMania XII.
To make their match memorable, Michaels and Bret would face each other in the WWF's first-ever televised 60-minute Iron Man match for the WWF Title at WrestleMania. Leading up to their historic Iron Man match, videos would be shown of both Michaels and Hart training for the match.
Michaels would look young and hip in his training while Hart looked weak as they showed him being taken down and pinned by his father Stu Hart. The WWF was doing everything to push Michaels to be their champion and have Hart pass the torch to him.
The Iron Man match was outstanding as the two traded move for move and near fall after near fall as they were both in tip top shape and looked like they could go two hours instead of one. Hart had Michaels locked in the Sharpshooter when time expired. Both men did not have a fall and the match was a draw as Hart retained the WWF Title, or so we thought.
WWF President Gorilla Monsoon declared that the match would restart in "sudden death overtime" and there must be a winner. Michaels would hit Hart with not one but two Sweet Chin Music superkicks to win his first WWF Championship. Michaels would supposedly tell Hart to "Get the hell out of my ring" after taking the title as it would set up a feud at a later date.
The feud would be put on hold as Hart would go on hiatus for seven months as he wanted to take some time off to spend with his family and even act in the TV series Lonesome Dove. He would go on tour in Europe and South Africa while finishing up his contract as he would not be seen in the United States until October.
In the meantime, Michaels would defend his WWF Championship the rest of the year against wrestlers like The British Bulldog, newcomer Vader, who left WCW to come to the WWF, another newcomer and former WCW wrestler Mick Foley (known as Mankind), and his former bodyguard-turned enemy-turned friend and returned enemy Sycho Sid.
He would lose the title to Sid at the Survivor Series in November. Michaels like usual wanted to work with his Kliq mates as WWF Champion, but there would be one problem. Three of the five members of The Kliq would leave the WWF for greener pastures in WCW.
In early 1996, Scott Hall's contract with the WWF was coming to an end and after receiving a fully guaranteed contract that offered significantly more than what the WWF could and would afford with WCW.
WCW's contract also called for Hall to work more than half the amount of dates that the WWF required so half the work for more than double, maybe triple the pay so Hall announced he was leaving the WWF to go WCW as he gave his 90-day notice.
Hall soon convinced Kevin Nash to join him in WCW and shortly after, Nash gave his 90-day notice to the WWF and too would join Hall in WCW as both Hall and Nash would return to WCW where they started. Hall and Nash would be two of the most highly-paid wrestlers in history at that time.
Hall and Nash would finish their remaining WWF commitments. Hall would be suspended six weeks for failing a drug test that according to Hall he took a long time before and all of a sudden, he was notified he failed it when he gave them his notice. Nash lost to The Undertaker at WrestleMania for his final WrestleMania appearance in six years.
Nash had a brief feud with Shawn Michaels following WrestleMania and lost to him for the WWF Title at April's In Your House: Good Friends Better Enemies. Hall returned for that event and lost to Vader. This would be Hall and Nash's final WWF TV appearances until 2002 as this was Hall's final TV appearance as Razor Ramon.
Hall and Nash had a European tour and their final WWF matches would take place at a house show on May 19, 1996 from the legendary Madison Square Garden. Hall and Nash would work with their Kliq buddies Shawn Michaels and Hunter Hearst Helmsley. Hall fought Helmsley and Nash took on Michaels for the WWF Title in a Steel Cage match in the main event.
Before the event, Michaels and Helmsley asked Vince McMahon if they could give Hall and Nash a proper sendoff to WCW at the end of the night. McMahon initially was against it as at the time, wrestling promotions wanted their wrestlers to remain "kayfabe" (in character) as faces and heels were mostly forbidden to hang out in public to protect the integrity of the business.
This was really before the internet got really big so it was easier to have their performers remain in character and protect the business. Since this was a house show and would not be televised, there would be no video of this to get out so he let The Kliq celebrate Hall and Nash's farewell.
What McMahon did not know was that two fans at the event snuck in a camcorder to record the event. Hall lost to Helmsley in the final match prior to the main event. Nash lost to Michaels in the Steel Cage main event.
Right after the main event was over, Hall and Helmsley ran into the ring as the four began to hug and embrace in the middle of the ring, something that had not been witnessed ever at a pro wrestling event. There would never be celebrations in the ring especially with faces and heels at the same time. Even wrestlers leaving the promotion would never be publicized except on their 900-hotline.
Soon after, video footage of the event seeing The Kliq celebrate in the ring would be shown and McMahon would be livid as the integrity of his company and business was violated. This incident would be commonly referred to as the "MSG Incident" or "The Curtain Call."
McMahon felt pressure from the other wrestlers and personnel in the WWF and needed to punish someone for this. With Hall and Nash gone over to WCW, they would not be punished. Shawn Michaels would not be punished as well as he was the WWF Champion and the top wrestler in the company.
So the brunt of the punishment fell on Hunter Hearst Helmsley. He was supposed to win that year's King of the Ring, but that honor would go to newcomer "Stone Cold" Steve Austin. Helmsley would fall to mid card and lose until later in the year he would receive a push and climb back up.
Helmsley took the punishment in stride and never complained and it earned the respect of many, including The Undertaker. He would end the year as Intercontinental Champion.
The Kliq would soon lose another member as The 1-2-3 Kid, Sean Waltman, left the WWF to join his buddies Hall and Nash in WCW. This left only Michaels and Helmsley as the only members of The Kliq in the WWF as according to Michaels, The Kliq "expanded" territories not disbanded.
Despite the fact Hall and Nash left for WCW, the WWF still owned the naming rights to Razor Ramon and Diesel and announced that Razor and Diesel were coming back to the WWF. Announcer Jim Ross kept saying they were coming back but everyone doubted him and told him to stop mentioning their names on air since Hall and Nash work for WCW.
On the September 23, 1996 episode of Raw, Ross delivered a worked-shoot promo where he ran down then-announcer Vince McMahon as the WWF owner and mentioned how he suffered his first bout of Bell's Palsy and was "fired" because of it in 1994. Ross was supposed to turn heel but it did not last. He then introduced Razor Ramon and Diesel as Razor Ramon's and Diesel's music played/
It wasn't Hall and Nash as it was two imposter wrestlers as fake "Razor Ramon" and fake "Diesel." The angle would not be received well and would soon be dropped. Glenn Jacobs portrayed "Diesel" before he would become known as The Undertaker's "brother" Kane.
Helmsley's punishment for the "Curtain Call" was the opening and break Steve Austin was finally looking for. Helmsley was supposed to win the King of the Ring for 1996 but now that honor would be bestowed upon Austin.
Austin joined the WWF in December 1995 as the "Ringmaster", the master of the ring. Austin hated that gimmick and who could blame him but he needed a paycheck. Austin was paired with the "Million Dollar Man" Ted DiBiase as his "Million Dollar Champion", a fake title belt that was never defended.
Austin wanted a name and character change so after some name suggestions by both Austin and the WWF, they finally agreed upon "Stone Cold" Steve Austin after Austin's then-wife suggested it to him. The name was based on a serial killer nicknamed "Stone Cold" on a movie he and his wife saw and Austin shaved off his long blonde hair to completely bald and grew a goatee.
Austin began a trend where being bald is awesome and gave men losing their hair plenty of hope of being bald. Instead of letting it thin or buying a wig, shave your head!! Austin's hair was thinning and if he kept it up he'd eventually look like Hulk Hogan, long blonde hair but no hair on top of his head. Austin began this gimmick where he had ice water in his veins and attacked anyone and everyone who got in his way, face or heel.
Austin soon went on his own after he lost a strap match to Savio Vega at May's In Your House and Ted DiBiase was forced to leave the WWF as a result. In reality, DiBiase left the WWF to join WCW. Austin claimed in interviews he lost on purpose as he didn't need DiBiase or anyone managing him as he could do it on his own as he was a loner.
Austin began his path to superstardom at June's King of the Ring PPV as he defeated Marc Mero, formerly Johnny B. Badd in WCW as he joined the WWF like Austin did under his real name, in the semifinals. Austin soon unleashed his new finishing move: the Stone Cold Stunner as it became one of the best finishing moves in pro wrestling history.
During the match with Mero, Austin suffered a cut on his lip and it was busted open. He was taken to the local hospital to get stitches and he walked back from the hospital to the arena to further grew his legacy. In the finals of the King of the Ring, he took on Jake "The Snake" Roberts, who returned to the WWF that year for the first time in four years.
Roberts had been battling drug and alcohol problems throughout his career and was even on a hiatus from wrestling. All his personal demons were documented on WWF TV as Roberts portrayed a born-again Christian and even brought an albino python to the ring with him named "Revelations."
Austin defeated Roberts to win the 1996 King of the Ring. Austin's coronation ceremony would be the birth of perhaps the greatest superstar in WWF/E history. Austin mocked Roberts' Christian beliefs saying "you have your psalms and John 3:16. Well 'Austin 3:16' says I just whipped your ass!"
"Austin 3:16" would be the most recognized and trademarked phrase in WWF/E history. "Austin 3:16" was also one of the best selling t-shirts in WWE merchandise history. This moment was one of if not the first moment of the start of the WWF/E's Attitude Era. Austin would eventually be the cornerstone of the WWF becoming number one going into the 21st century.
Austin soon began this persona where he would kick anyone and everyone's ass that he so pleased and it did not matter if they were a babyface or a heel. Austin would end each promo by saying "that's the bottom line 'cause Stone Cold said so!"
Austin would begin to cuss and swear and flip people the middle finger on TV and even drink beer on WWF TV in a time where profanity and especially drinking alcohol was definitely not allowed on WWF TV. ECW yes, WWF and WCW no.
Despite being a heel, the top heel in the company, the fans loudly cheered and supported Austin as the fans were sick of the same old garbage the WWF had been giving fans the last several years. They were sick of the same clean cut good guy and they looked at Austin as an anti-hero. Austin of course said he didn't give a "rat's ass" what the fans thought and flipped them off to keep him a heel.
During the summer and fall of 1996, Austin was kicking everyone's ass in his way and he soon wanted a new challenge. He would go and call out Bret "The Hitman" Hart constantly and challenged him to a match. Hart was on hiatus with the company yet Austin continued to call him out and calling him a "coward" for hiding from him.
Austin's good friend and former Hollywood Blonde teammate in WCW Brian Pillman signed with the WWF in the summer of 1996. He left WCW early that year as Eric Bischoff released him from his contract to go to ECW as a work to further develop and enhance his "Loose Cannon" character.
On April 15, 1996, Pillman was involved in a serious car accident when he slammed his Hummer H1 into a tree after he fell asleep. He suffered near-fatal injuries as he was in a coma for a week and suffered a shattered ankle as doctors fused the ankle into a walking position.
While he was rehabbing from the injury, Pillman negotiated with Eric Bischoff to return to WCW while secretly negotiating with Vince McMahon and the WWF. McMahon and the WWF gave him a better offer amazingly as Pillman signed the first guaranteed contract in WWF history as McMahon wanted to compensate for the loss of top talent to WCW.
Pillman would appear on WWF TV as an announcer and doing in-ring interviews while he was rehabbing his ankle. Pillman would side with Austin as Austin's lackey if you will at first as a potential Hollywood Blondes reunion was hinted even though Austin did not want to be friends with anyone.
Pillman, however, would side with Bret Hart as well since Pillman had a closeness with the Hart Family since he trained up in Calgary in Stu Hart's Dungeon starting as a pro wrestler and even wrestled in Stu's Stampede Wrestling up in Calgary.
To show why Austin was a snake, or "Texas Rattlesnake" as Jim Ross famously referred him as, Austin attacked Pillman after Pillman was shown to be cheering for Hart on an episode of Superstars in October.
Austin hit Pillman in the bad leg with his own cane and then put his bad ankle in between a steel chair and jumped on it several times, "re-breaking" his ankle dubbing it the "Pillmanizer" and saying "DTA: Don't Trust Anyone."
This would lead to the most famous or infamous incident and moment in WWF/E history on the November 4, 1996 edition of RAW named "Pillman's Got a Gun." Pillman would be shown recovering from the attack at his home in suburban Cincinnati with his wife Melanie and family as WWF interviewer Kevin Kelly was at his home interviewing him on RAW.
Austin threatened to go to Pillman's home, break into his home, and finish him off. Pillman's friends would be outside the home surrounding it to prevent Austin from entering the home. Pillman then told everyone if Austin did come into the home, he would be a "dead man walking" as "Austin 3:16 would meet Pillman 9MM" as Pillman pulled out a 9MM hand gun and threatened to shoot him.
Austin would eventually make his way to his house and beat up some of his friends. Eventually, Austin broke into Pillman's house and soon as he entered, Pillman aimed the gun at him as the camera faded to black as you can hear shots being fired.
The feed went back on as Pillman's friends were dragging Austin from the house, Pillman aimed the gun at Austin and yelled "I'm going to kill that son of a bitch!" Pillman then mistakenly yelled "get out of the fucking way!" on live television that could not be edited out. The WWF and Pillman apologized for the incident.
The animosity between these two seemed so surreal that this incident seemed real and not scripted. I remember watching and wondering this is fake and scripted, right? I even had my doubts. They did a masterful job of this to make it look legit as the WWF was going far away from the cartoonish and silly angles they had in the past to more serious adult ones.
Bret Hart was taking time off after WrestleMania XII to focus on acting and just resting from all the years of wrestling. Hart's contract with the WWF expired and Hart was looking to return to the WWF. However, WCW came calling and offered a contract of three years worth nearly $9 million, close to $3 million, about double a year of what the WWF was offering, which was double what Hart was making before.
Hart's "heart" if you will and loyalty remained with Vince McMahon and the WWF, but could not ignore the offer WCW was making. McMahon did not want to lose his top star to WCW so he decided to give him an unprecedented 20-year contract with the first three for wrestling and the remaining years working in the front office with the WWF.
Eventually, Hart made his decision in October 1996 to re-sign with the WWF and announced the decision live on the October 21 edition of RAW. Soon after, he accepted the challenge of "Stone Cold" Steve Austin to face him at the Survivor Series in November from the legendary Madison Square Garden.
Their match at Survivor Series was a classic as it was the start of a thrilling rivalry between the two. Hart showed a little bit of rust being off for nearly eight months, but still looked like the Hitman of old. Hart rolled up Austin after being locked into the Million Dollar Dream for the win after nearly 30 minutes of thrilling action. The match established that Hart still had it and that Austin was the next superstar in the WWF.
Billionaire Ted's "Wrasslin' War Room" skits began in January 1996. Vince McMahon decided to make fun of Ted Turner and even Turner's CNN's top guy Larry King as well as WWF "turncoats" who signed with WCW Hulk Hogan, Macho Man Randy Savage, and even "Mean" Gene Okerlund by creating characters based on them in parody skits.
Turner would be "Billionaire Ted", Hogan would be "The Hukster", Savage was "The Nacho Man", Okerlund was "Scheme Gene", and King was "Larry Fling" with the show "Larry Fling Live." They would mock Turner's bad business practices of losing money and stealing his wrestlers.
Hogan and Savage would be mocked for being too old and over the hill and that WCW can't create their own stars and have to steal theirs. Okerlund was mocked for having the 1-900 hotline that made up a bunch of rumors that weren't true just to make a buck.
WCW retaliated by bringing in Scott Hall and Kevin Nash as two WWF wrestlers coming to WCW to lead a hostile takeover by the WWF and even used their Razor Ramon and Diesel characters. The WWF soon put a stop to this by filing a lawsuit against WCW to stop saying the WWF is taking over and to stop having Hall and Nash use their WWF characters and their names.
Hall, Nash, and eventually Hulk Hogan would form what is known as the New World Order ("nWo") as they were taking over WCW as an independent group not the WWF. The group was "funded" by Ted DiBiase to take over WCW.
The weekly realistic feeling nWo takeover and invasion angle on Nitro would put WCW on top of the WWF in the weekly "Monday Night Wars." WCW would beat the WWF in head-to-head ratings on Monday Night as Nitro beat Raw in the ratings for 84 straight head-to-head weeks from June 17, 1996 until April 13, 1998.
The Ultimate Warrior returned at WrestleMania XII to quickly squash Hunter Hearst Helmsley. This was the Warrior's first appearance in the WWF in over three years. The Warrior was back for the third time in the WWF and quickly pushed for the short time he was back.
The Warrior was scheduled to team up with Shawn Michaels and Ahmed Johnson to take on Vader, Owen Hart, and Davey Boy Smith at the In Your House PPV in July. However before the PPV, Warrior was fired once again by Vince McMahon and the WWF for no-showing events. Warrior claimed the WWF had been selling his merchandise without giving him a percentage of the sales.
The Warrior and the WWF had lawsuits over the rights to the names The Warrior and Ultimate Warrior and character with the courts ruling in favor of The Warrior. The WWE released a DVD about The Warrior titled "The Self-Destruction of The Ultimate Warrior" where the WWE basically mocked and buried The Warrior on the DVD which led to another lawsuit by The Warrior, which was eventually dismissed.
Finally in 2013, The Ultimate Warrior buried the hatchet with Vince McMahon and the WWE and began appearing at WrestleCon at WrestleMania 29 doing some work with them on their video game WWE 2K14. In 2014, The Ultimate Warrior was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame and his induction took place on April 5, 2014.
He appeared the next night at WrestleMania XXX. The next night on April 7 on RAW, The Warrior appeared as he gave a speech as it turned out to be his final appearance on TV or in public in general. Sadly the next day on April 8, The Ultimate Warrior passed away at the age of 54.
Roddy Piper returned early in 1996 after newcomer Vader, from WCW, attacked WWF President Gorilla Monsoon and "injured" him to take him off TV for a few months. Piper was announced as the interim WWF President. He ran afoul of a peculiar individual by the name of Goldust.
Goldust was Dustin Runnels, formerly Dustin Rhodes in WCW, who came to the WWF dressed in a gold and black jumpsuit with a robe over it and gold and black face paint and a long platinum blonde hair wig over his short blonde hair. Goldust was obsessed with movies and film as he would creep out his opponents by using homosexual-like sexual mannerisms to play mind games with them.
The WWF would really push the envelope with homosexuality which never really been a thing in the past. There was even talks that he was transgender. This was the antithesis of the actual Dustin Runnels in real life as he is a Texas Cowboy redneck that chewed tobacco. Dustin did a great job with his character as tough as it could be as he truly wanted to break out of the shadow of being known as Dusty Rhodes' son.
Goldust's first real feud was with Razor Ramon, where he would flirt with Razor by sending him messages and gifts to screw with his head. He beat him for the Intercontinental Championship at the Royal Rumble. Goldust soon unveiled his then-real life wife Terri as his new valet Marlena.
Goldust would soon flirt with Roddy Piper as Piper challenged him to a "Hollywood Backlot Brawl" at WrestleMania XII and promised to "Make a man out of him." The match started in Hollywood as it was taped shortly before WrestleMania.
This would be Dustin Runnels' second such strange match in as many years following his match the previous year at Uncensored wrestling on the back of an 18-wheeler that got him fired from WCW.
The brawl in the Hollywood backlot was entertaining but Goldust got into his gold Cadillac and tried to run over Piper and fled the scene. Piper got into his white Ford Bronco and began chasing after Goldust on the LA Freeway just like the eery scene of O.J. Simpson running from the cops in a similar looking white Bronco on the same expressway two years prior.
Both men drove their respective vehicles to The Pond in Anaheim where WrestleMania XII was being held. Piper and Goldust fought to the ring and unofficially Piper won when he stripped Goldust of his gold jumpsuit as he wore some ladies undergarments underneath and fled. Piper left the WWF shortly after and showed up in WCW at the end of the year.
The end of the year saw Goldust turn face feuding with Hunter Hearst Helmsley over Helmsley being infatuated with his valet Marlena. Goldust did not like Helmsley trying to get with his wife. Jerry "The King" Lawler even asked Goldust if he was queer to which Goldust said "no" and then punched Lawler to further cement his face turn as the fans really got behind him.
The WWF signed "The World's Strongest Man" Mark Henry to a 10-year contract shortly after the 1996 Summer Olympics. Henry first appeared on the March 11, 1996 episode of RAW where Jerry Lawler was ridiculing him in an interview and Henry picked Lawler up and press slammed him.
Henry made his next appearance at SummerSlam doing commentary for the Lawler-Jake Roberts match. In the weeks leading up to SummerSlam, Lawler began mocking Roberts' alcohol and drug problems in what was an absolutely shocking angle in professional wrestling at the time.
His promo at SummerSlam before their match was classic as the WWF was entering the Attitude Era. Lawler defeated Roberts by hitting him with a Jim Beam bottle. Lawler then poured the Jim Beam on him until Henry ran Lawler off. The next month at In Your House, Henry made Lawler submit in his WWF debut.
They tried to sign another Olympian in Gold Medal amateur wrestler in Kurt Angle after the 1996 Summer Olympics after he won the gold medal. Angle, however, turned down the offer. He appeared at an ECW event later that year well check the 1996 ECW page whenever that's up. Eventually, Angle signed with the WWF in 1998 and became one of the promotion's top wrestlers.
1996 was also the year of Sunny. She joined the WWF in 1995 as the on and offscreen girlfriend of Skip (Chris Candido) and she was the manager of Skip and his new tag team partner Zip (Tom Pritchard) in 1996. She led them to the WWF Tag Team Championship.
After The Bodydonnas lost the titles to the Godwinns (Henry and Phineas Godwinn), she soon left the Bodydonnas to be the new manager of the Godwinns. Then the Smoking Gunns beat the Godwinns and she soon followed them until they lost the titles, which caused Bart and Billy Gunn to separate. She said she would follow the gold wherever it went.
Sunny is considered the WWF's first Diva. Sunny was so popular due to her good looks and sex appeal as the WWF was really getting away from the cartoonish gimmicks and more towards adult-oriented entertainment. She was also AOL's most downloaded woman of 1996.
She was the first manager for former WCW World Heavyweight Champion Ron Simmons, who joined the WWF as Farooq Asaad who was a gladiator who wore this weird blue and black gladiator outfit with weirdly shaped helmet. His debut came on the July 22, 1996 episode of Raw, where he attacked Ahmed Johnson during his match. Johnson unfortunately suffered a real-life kidney problems and they used Simmons' attack in the story.
Farooq eventually ditched Sunny and the gladiator gimmick and soon created The Nation of Domination. Farooq would soon act like a Nation of Islam and Black Panther member. He would have African American manager Clarence Mason as his new manager and had three unnamed African American men with him. The Nation soon grew to include other wrestlers.
1996 saw the berth of one of the best characters ever as Mick Foley signed in the WWF and was known as the Mankind. Mankind was this deranged lunatic who lived in a boiler room and wore a leather mask, squealed, shrieked "Mommy!", talked to a pet rat named "George", and pulled out his hair. He would often say his signature catchphrase "Have a nice day!"
Mankind made his WWF debut on the April 1, 1996 episode of Raw, the night after WrestleMania XII. He took on Bob Holly and defeated him with a move he used called the "Mandible Claw" where he stuck his middle and ring fingers down his opponents throat, which caused his opponents to go into unconsciousness and even sometimes "vomit." After he won the match, more gentler piano music played as Mankind was all calm and in a "happier place."
Later that night, Mankind interfered in The Undertaker's match with Justin Hawk Bradshaw (John Bradshaw Layfield). He would attack and manhandle The Undertaker rather easily and even put him in the Mandible Claw as Mick Foley entered into a high profile feud rather quickly.
Mankind continued to attack The Undertaker at will during or after Undertaker's matches as it looked like he owned The Undertaker. Mankind even popped out of a casket during The Undertaker's Casket match with Goldust at In Your House 8.
He put Undertaker in the Mandible Claw and threw him into and locked the casket, costing him another match. They faced each other at King of the Ring, where Mankind won when he put The Undertaker in the Mandible Claw. Paul Bearer tried to hit Mankind with the urn, but mistakenly hit Undertaker with it.
The Undertaker faced Mankind in the first ever "Boiler Room Brawl" at SummerSlam as Mankind had the home field advantage. The point of the match was the two fought in the arena's boiler room and to win you had to fight your way to the ring and grab the urn from Bearer.
The Undertaker looked to have won the match as he went to grab the urn from Bearer. However, Bearer refused to give the urn to Undertaker and then hit him with the urn. He gave the urn to Mankind as he betrayed The Undertaker after over five years being his manager. Mankind took Bearer as his new manager and even referred to him as "Uncle Paul."
Mankind earned a WWF Championship match with Shawn Michaels the next month at In Your House. The Undertaker and Vader interfered and attacked both men for a no-contest. Mick Foley said this was his best match ever. Mankind continued his feud with The Undertaker for the remainder of 1996.
Mankind fought The Undertaker in a Buried Alive match at In Your House: Buried Alive where the winner had to "bury" his opponent in a grave. Mankind won with help from The Executioner (Terry Gordy) and other heels to bury The Undertaker alive. The Undertaker came back and defeated Mankind at Survivor Series.
Dwayne Johnson made his WWF debut late in 1996 as "Rocky Maivia." The WWF hyped him up as their first third generation wrestler with his father Rocky Johnson and grandfather "High Chief" Peter Maivia. This would be before he would be famously known as "The Rock", one of the best superstars the WWF/E has ever had.
Johnson is from the legendary Anoa'i family with uncles Afa and Sika (The Wild Samoans) and his cousins Rodney (Yokozuna), Solofa (Fatu and later Rikishi), Matt (Rosey), and Eddie (Umaga). Current WWE Superstar Roman Reigns is also from the Anoa'i family among many other greats.
Rocky Maivia was a clean-cut, do no wrong babyface that was pushed early on despite having no experience and was nicknamed "The Blue Chipper." He made his in-ring debut at the Survivor Series in an eight-man Survivor Series Elimination match where Maivia was the sole survivor after eliminating Crush and Goldust.
Even though 1996 started the ground work for the upcoming "Attitude Era" along with its bright future superstars, the WWF was getting killed by WCW in ratings and in bringing in the elite talent with Ted Turner's budget.
Vince McMahon and the WWF did not have anywhere near the budget WCW had when it came to signing the biggest stars to guaranteed contracts. It would nearly put the WWF out of business.
The WWF started losing to WCW in May when the nWo was formed with former WWF Superstars Scott Hall and Kevin Nash and Hulk Hogan and pretty much was unbeaten for nearly two years.
WCW would basically copy what the WWF had been doing but had more money and resources to make it more successful. The WWF would soon lose more of their top performers to WCW and nearly lost their biggest. However, they gained a major diamond in the rough that was discarded the previous year by WCW.
Bret Hart began the year defending his title against The Undertaker, Diesel, and Shawn Michaels. Hart lost to The Undertaker by disqualification at the Royal Rumble when Diesel pulled the referee out of the ring as the ref was about to count three to screw The Undertaker out of the title as the title could not change hands on a disqualification.
The Undertaker would pay back Diesel back at February's In Your House PPV when Diesel took on Hart for the title in a Steel Cage match. As Diesel was about to win the title, The Undertaker appeared from the bottom of the ring and pulled Diesel under the ring while Hart escaped the cage and retained the title. Diesel would lose to The Undertaker at WrestleMania XII.
Shawn Michaels returned to the ring at the Royal Rumble from his near "career-ending" concussion suffered at the hands of the beating he suffered the previous October outside a bar in Syracuse as well as a kick to the back of the head from Owen Hart. Michaels won the Royal Rumble for the second year in a row and challenged Bret Hart for the WWF Championship at WrestleMania XII.
To make their match memorable, Michaels and Bret would face each other in the WWF's first-ever televised 60-minute Iron Man match for the WWF Title at WrestleMania. Leading up to their historic Iron Man match, videos would be shown of both Michaels and Hart training for the match.
Michaels would look young and hip in his training while Hart looked weak as they showed him being taken down and pinned by his father Stu Hart. The WWF was doing everything to push Michaels to be their champion and have Hart pass the torch to him.
The Iron Man match was outstanding as the two traded move for move and near fall after near fall as they were both in tip top shape and looked like they could go two hours instead of one. Hart had Michaels locked in the Sharpshooter when time expired. Both men did not have a fall and the match was a draw as Hart retained the WWF Title, or so we thought.
WWF President Gorilla Monsoon declared that the match would restart in "sudden death overtime" and there must be a winner. Michaels would hit Hart with not one but two Sweet Chin Music superkicks to win his first WWF Championship. Michaels would supposedly tell Hart to "Get the hell out of my ring" after taking the title as it would set up a feud at a later date.
The feud would be put on hold as Hart would go on hiatus for seven months as he wanted to take some time off to spend with his family and even act in the TV series Lonesome Dove. He would go on tour in Europe and South Africa while finishing up his contract as he would not be seen in the United States until October.
In the meantime, Michaels would defend his WWF Championship the rest of the year against wrestlers like The British Bulldog, newcomer Vader, who left WCW to come to the WWF, another newcomer and former WCW wrestler Mick Foley (known as Mankind), and his former bodyguard-turned enemy-turned friend and returned enemy Sycho Sid.
He would lose the title to Sid at the Survivor Series in November. Michaels like usual wanted to work with his Kliq mates as WWF Champion, but there would be one problem. Three of the five members of The Kliq would leave the WWF for greener pastures in WCW.
In early 1996, Scott Hall's contract with the WWF was coming to an end and after receiving a fully guaranteed contract that offered significantly more than what the WWF could and would afford with WCW.
WCW's contract also called for Hall to work more than half the amount of dates that the WWF required so half the work for more than double, maybe triple the pay so Hall announced he was leaving the WWF to go WCW as he gave his 90-day notice.
Hall soon convinced Kevin Nash to join him in WCW and shortly after, Nash gave his 90-day notice to the WWF and too would join Hall in WCW as both Hall and Nash would return to WCW where they started. Hall and Nash would be two of the most highly-paid wrestlers in history at that time.
Hall and Nash would finish their remaining WWF commitments. Hall would be suspended six weeks for failing a drug test that according to Hall he took a long time before and all of a sudden, he was notified he failed it when he gave them his notice. Nash lost to The Undertaker at WrestleMania for his final WrestleMania appearance in six years.
Nash had a brief feud with Shawn Michaels following WrestleMania and lost to him for the WWF Title at April's In Your House: Good Friends Better Enemies. Hall returned for that event and lost to Vader. This would be Hall and Nash's final WWF TV appearances until 2002 as this was Hall's final TV appearance as Razor Ramon.
Hall and Nash had a European tour and their final WWF matches would take place at a house show on May 19, 1996 from the legendary Madison Square Garden. Hall and Nash would work with their Kliq buddies Shawn Michaels and Hunter Hearst Helmsley. Hall fought Helmsley and Nash took on Michaels for the WWF Title in a Steel Cage match in the main event.
Before the event, Michaels and Helmsley asked Vince McMahon if they could give Hall and Nash a proper sendoff to WCW at the end of the night. McMahon initially was against it as at the time, wrestling promotions wanted their wrestlers to remain "kayfabe" (in character) as faces and heels were mostly forbidden to hang out in public to protect the integrity of the business.
This was really before the internet got really big so it was easier to have their performers remain in character and protect the business. Since this was a house show and would not be televised, there would be no video of this to get out so he let The Kliq celebrate Hall and Nash's farewell.
What McMahon did not know was that two fans at the event snuck in a camcorder to record the event. Hall lost to Helmsley in the final match prior to the main event. Nash lost to Michaels in the Steel Cage main event.
Right after the main event was over, Hall and Helmsley ran into the ring as the four began to hug and embrace in the middle of the ring, something that had not been witnessed ever at a pro wrestling event. There would never be celebrations in the ring especially with faces and heels at the same time. Even wrestlers leaving the promotion would never be publicized except on their 900-hotline.
Soon after, video footage of the event seeing The Kliq celebrate in the ring would be shown and McMahon would be livid as the integrity of his company and business was violated. This incident would be commonly referred to as the "MSG Incident" or "The Curtain Call."
McMahon felt pressure from the other wrestlers and personnel in the WWF and needed to punish someone for this. With Hall and Nash gone over to WCW, they would not be punished. Shawn Michaels would not be punished as well as he was the WWF Champion and the top wrestler in the company.
So the brunt of the punishment fell on Hunter Hearst Helmsley. He was supposed to win that year's King of the Ring, but that honor would go to newcomer "Stone Cold" Steve Austin. Helmsley would fall to mid card and lose until later in the year he would receive a push and climb back up.
Helmsley took the punishment in stride and never complained and it earned the respect of many, including The Undertaker. He would end the year as Intercontinental Champion.
The Kliq would soon lose another member as The 1-2-3 Kid, Sean Waltman, left the WWF to join his buddies Hall and Nash in WCW. This left only Michaels and Helmsley as the only members of The Kliq in the WWF as according to Michaels, The Kliq "expanded" territories not disbanded.
Despite the fact Hall and Nash left for WCW, the WWF still owned the naming rights to Razor Ramon and Diesel and announced that Razor and Diesel were coming back to the WWF. Announcer Jim Ross kept saying they were coming back but everyone doubted him and told him to stop mentioning their names on air since Hall and Nash work for WCW.
On the September 23, 1996 episode of Raw, Ross delivered a worked-shoot promo where he ran down then-announcer Vince McMahon as the WWF owner and mentioned how he suffered his first bout of Bell's Palsy and was "fired" because of it in 1994. Ross was supposed to turn heel but it did not last. He then introduced Razor Ramon and Diesel as Razor Ramon's and Diesel's music played/
It wasn't Hall and Nash as it was two imposter wrestlers as fake "Razor Ramon" and fake "Diesel." The angle would not be received well and would soon be dropped. Glenn Jacobs portrayed "Diesel" before he would become known as The Undertaker's "brother" Kane.
Helmsley's punishment for the "Curtain Call" was the opening and break Steve Austin was finally looking for. Helmsley was supposed to win the King of the Ring for 1996 but now that honor would be bestowed upon Austin.
Austin joined the WWF in December 1995 as the "Ringmaster", the master of the ring. Austin hated that gimmick and who could blame him but he needed a paycheck. Austin was paired with the "Million Dollar Man" Ted DiBiase as his "Million Dollar Champion", a fake title belt that was never defended.
Austin wanted a name and character change so after some name suggestions by both Austin and the WWF, they finally agreed upon "Stone Cold" Steve Austin after Austin's then-wife suggested it to him. The name was based on a serial killer nicknamed "Stone Cold" on a movie he and his wife saw and Austin shaved off his long blonde hair to completely bald and grew a goatee.
Austin began a trend where being bald is awesome and gave men losing their hair plenty of hope of being bald. Instead of letting it thin or buying a wig, shave your head!! Austin's hair was thinning and if he kept it up he'd eventually look like Hulk Hogan, long blonde hair but no hair on top of his head. Austin began this gimmick where he had ice water in his veins and attacked anyone and everyone who got in his way, face or heel.
Austin soon went on his own after he lost a strap match to Savio Vega at May's In Your House and Ted DiBiase was forced to leave the WWF as a result. In reality, DiBiase left the WWF to join WCW. Austin claimed in interviews he lost on purpose as he didn't need DiBiase or anyone managing him as he could do it on his own as he was a loner.
Austin began his path to superstardom at June's King of the Ring PPV as he defeated Marc Mero, formerly Johnny B. Badd in WCW as he joined the WWF like Austin did under his real name, in the semifinals. Austin soon unleashed his new finishing move: the Stone Cold Stunner as it became one of the best finishing moves in pro wrestling history.
During the match with Mero, Austin suffered a cut on his lip and it was busted open. He was taken to the local hospital to get stitches and he walked back from the hospital to the arena to further grew his legacy. In the finals of the King of the Ring, he took on Jake "The Snake" Roberts, who returned to the WWF that year for the first time in four years.
Roberts had been battling drug and alcohol problems throughout his career and was even on a hiatus from wrestling. All his personal demons were documented on WWF TV as Roberts portrayed a born-again Christian and even brought an albino python to the ring with him named "Revelations."
Austin defeated Roberts to win the 1996 King of the Ring. Austin's coronation ceremony would be the birth of perhaps the greatest superstar in WWF/E history. Austin mocked Roberts' Christian beliefs saying "you have your psalms and John 3:16. Well 'Austin 3:16' says I just whipped your ass!"
"Austin 3:16" would be the most recognized and trademarked phrase in WWF/E history. "Austin 3:16" was also one of the best selling t-shirts in WWE merchandise history. This moment was one of if not the first moment of the start of the WWF/E's Attitude Era. Austin would eventually be the cornerstone of the WWF becoming number one going into the 21st century.
Austin soon began this persona where he would kick anyone and everyone's ass that he so pleased and it did not matter if they were a babyface or a heel. Austin would end each promo by saying "that's the bottom line 'cause Stone Cold said so!"
Austin would begin to cuss and swear and flip people the middle finger on TV and even drink beer on WWF TV in a time where profanity and especially drinking alcohol was definitely not allowed on WWF TV. ECW yes, WWF and WCW no.
Despite being a heel, the top heel in the company, the fans loudly cheered and supported Austin as the fans were sick of the same old garbage the WWF had been giving fans the last several years. They were sick of the same clean cut good guy and they looked at Austin as an anti-hero. Austin of course said he didn't give a "rat's ass" what the fans thought and flipped them off to keep him a heel.
During the summer and fall of 1996, Austin was kicking everyone's ass in his way and he soon wanted a new challenge. He would go and call out Bret "The Hitman" Hart constantly and challenged him to a match. Hart was on hiatus with the company yet Austin continued to call him out and calling him a "coward" for hiding from him.
Austin's good friend and former Hollywood Blonde teammate in WCW Brian Pillman signed with the WWF in the summer of 1996. He left WCW early that year as Eric Bischoff released him from his contract to go to ECW as a work to further develop and enhance his "Loose Cannon" character.
On April 15, 1996, Pillman was involved in a serious car accident when he slammed his Hummer H1 into a tree after he fell asleep. He suffered near-fatal injuries as he was in a coma for a week and suffered a shattered ankle as doctors fused the ankle into a walking position.
While he was rehabbing from the injury, Pillman negotiated with Eric Bischoff to return to WCW while secretly negotiating with Vince McMahon and the WWF. McMahon and the WWF gave him a better offer amazingly as Pillman signed the first guaranteed contract in WWF history as McMahon wanted to compensate for the loss of top talent to WCW.
Pillman would appear on WWF TV as an announcer and doing in-ring interviews while he was rehabbing his ankle. Pillman would side with Austin as Austin's lackey if you will at first as a potential Hollywood Blondes reunion was hinted even though Austin did not want to be friends with anyone.
Pillman, however, would side with Bret Hart as well since Pillman had a closeness with the Hart Family since he trained up in Calgary in Stu Hart's Dungeon starting as a pro wrestler and even wrestled in Stu's Stampede Wrestling up in Calgary.
To show why Austin was a snake, or "Texas Rattlesnake" as Jim Ross famously referred him as, Austin attacked Pillman after Pillman was shown to be cheering for Hart on an episode of Superstars in October.
Austin hit Pillman in the bad leg with his own cane and then put his bad ankle in between a steel chair and jumped on it several times, "re-breaking" his ankle dubbing it the "Pillmanizer" and saying "DTA: Don't Trust Anyone."
This would lead to the most famous or infamous incident and moment in WWF/E history on the November 4, 1996 edition of RAW named "Pillman's Got a Gun." Pillman would be shown recovering from the attack at his home in suburban Cincinnati with his wife Melanie and family as WWF interviewer Kevin Kelly was at his home interviewing him on RAW.
Austin threatened to go to Pillman's home, break into his home, and finish him off. Pillman's friends would be outside the home surrounding it to prevent Austin from entering the home. Pillman then told everyone if Austin did come into the home, he would be a "dead man walking" as "Austin 3:16 would meet Pillman 9MM" as Pillman pulled out a 9MM hand gun and threatened to shoot him.
Austin would eventually make his way to his house and beat up some of his friends. Eventually, Austin broke into Pillman's house and soon as he entered, Pillman aimed the gun at him as the camera faded to black as you can hear shots being fired.
The feed went back on as Pillman's friends were dragging Austin from the house, Pillman aimed the gun at Austin and yelled "I'm going to kill that son of a bitch!" Pillman then mistakenly yelled "get out of the fucking way!" on live television that could not be edited out. The WWF and Pillman apologized for the incident.
The animosity between these two seemed so surreal that this incident seemed real and not scripted. I remember watching and wondering this is fake and scripted, right? I even had my doubts. They did a masterful job of this to make it look legit as the WWF was going far away from the cartoonish and silly angles they had in the past to more serious adult ones.
Bret Hart was taking time off after WrestleMania XII to focus on acting and just resting from all the years of wrestling. Hart's contract with the WWF expired and Hart was looking to return to the WWF. However, WCW came calling and offered a contract of three years worth nearly $9 million, close to $3 million, about double a year of what the WWF was offering, which was double what Hart was making before.
Hart's "heart" if you will and loyalty remained with Vince McMahon and the WWF, but could not ignore the offer WCW was making. McMahon did not want to lose his top star to WCW so he decided to give him an unprecedented 20-year contract with the first three for wrestling and the remaining years working in the front office with the WWF.
Eventually, Hart made his decision in October 1996 to re-sign with the WWF and announced the decision live on the October 21 edition of RAW. Soon after, he accepted the challenge of "Stone Cold" Steve Austin to face him at the Survivor Series in November from the legendary Madison Square Garden.
Their match at Survivor Series was a classic as it was the start of a thrilling rivalry between the two. Hart showed a little bit of rust being off for nearly eight months, but still looked like the Hitman of old. Hart rolled up Austin after being locked into the Million Dollar Dream for the win after nearly 30 minutes of thrilling action. The match established that Hart still had it and that Austin was the next superstar in the WWF.
Billionaire Ted's "Wrasslin' War Room" skits began in January 1996. Vince McMahon decided to make fun of Ted Turner and even Turner's CNN's top guy Larry King as well as WWF "turncoats" who signed with WCW Hulk Hogan, Macho Man Randy Savage, and even "Mean" Gene Okerlund by creating characters based on them in parody skits.
Turner would be "Billionaire Ted", Hogan would be "The Hukster", Savage was "The Nacho Man", Okerlund was "Scheme Gene", and King was "Larry Fling" with the show "Larry Fling Live." They would mock Turner's bad business practices of losing money and stealing his wrestlers.
Hogan and Savage would be mocked for being too old and over the hill and that WCW can't create their own stars and have to steal theirs. Okerlund was mocked for having the 1-900 hotline that made up a bunch of rumors that weren't true just to make a buck.
WCW retaliated by bringing in Scott Hall and Kevin Nash as two WWF wrestlers coming to WCW to lead a hostile takeover by the WWF and even used their Razor Ramon and Diesel characters. The WWF soon put a stop to this by filing a lawsuit against WCW to stop saying the WWF is taking over and to stop having Hall and Nash use their WWF characters and their names.
Hall, Nash, and eventually Hulk Hogan would form what is known as the New World Order ("nWo") as they were taking over WCW as an independent group not the WWF. The group was "funded" by Ted DiBiase to take over WCW.
The weekly realistic feeling nWo takeover and invasion angle on Nitro would put WCW on top of the WWF in the weekly "Monday Night Wars." WCW would beat the WWF in head-to-head ratings on Monday Night as Nitro beat Raw in the ratings for 84 straight head-to-head weeks from June 17, 1996 until April 13, 1998.
The Ultimate Warrior returned at WrestleMania XII to quickly squash Hunter Hearst Helmsley. This was the Warrior's first appearance in the WWF in over three years. The Warrior was back for the third time in the WWF and quickly pushed for the short time he was back.
The Warrior was scheduled to team up with Shawn Michaels and Ahmed Johnson to take on Vader, Owen Hart, and Davey Boy Smith at the In Your House PPV in July. However before the PPV, Warrior was fired once again by Vince McMahon and the WWF for no-showing events. Warrior claimed the WWF had been selling his merchandise without giving him a percentage of the sales.
The Warrior and the WWF had lawsuits over the rights to the names The Warrior and Ultimate Warrior and character with the courts ruling in favor of The Warrior. The WWE released a DVD about The Warrior titled "The Self-Destruction of The Ultimate Warrior" where the WWE basically mocked and buried The Warrior on the DVD which led to another lawsuit by The Warrior, which was eventually dismissed.
Finally in 2013, The Ultimate Warrior buried the hatchet with Vince McMahon and the WWE and began appearing at WrestleCon at WrestleMania 29 doing some work with them on their video game WWE 2K14. In 2014, The Ultimate Warrior was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame and his induction took place on April 5, 2014.
He appeared the next night at WrestleMania XXX. The next night on April 7 on RAW, The Warrior appeared as he gave a speech as it turned out to be his final appearance on TV or in public in general. Sadly the next day on April 8, The Ultimate Warrior passed away at the age of 54.
Roddy Piper returned early in 1996 after newcomer Vader, from WCW, attacked WWF President Gorilla Monsoon and "injured" him to take him off TV for a few months. Piper was announced as the interim WWF President. He ran afoul of a peculiar individual by the name of Goldust.
Goldust was Dustin Runnels, formerly Dustin Rhodes in WCW, who came to the WWF dressed in a gold and black jumpsuit with a robe over it and gold and black face paint and a long platinum blonde hair wig over his short blonde hair. Goldust was obsessed with movies and film as he would creep out his opponents by using homosexual-like sexual mannerisms to play mind games with them.
The WWF would really push the envelope with homosexuality which never really been a thing in the past. There was even talks that he was transgender. This was the antithesis of the actual Dustin Runnels in real life as he is a Texas Cowboy redneck that chewed tobacco. Dustin did a great job with his character as tough as it could be as he truly wanted to break out of the shadow of being known as Dusty Rhodes' son.
Goldust's first real feud was with Razor Ramon, where he would flirt with Razor by sending him messages and gifts to screw with his head. He beat him for the Intercontinental Championship at the Royal Rumble. Goldust soon unveiled his then-real life wife Terri as his new valet Marlena.
Goldust would soon flirt with Roddy Piper as Piper challenged him to a "Hollywood Backlot Brawl" at WrestleMania XII and promised to "Make a man out of him." The match started in Hollywood as it was taped shortly before WrestleMania.
This would be Dustin Runnels' second such strange match in as many years following his match the previous year at Uncensored wrestling on the back of an 18-wheeler that got him fired from WCW.
The brawl in the Hollywood backlot was entertaining but Goldust got into his gold Cadillac and tried to run over Piper and fled the scene. Piper got into his white Ford Bronco and began chasing after Goldust on the LA Freeway just like the eery scene of O.J. Simpson running from the cops in a similar looking white Bronco on the same expressway two years prior.
Both men drove their respective vehicles to The Pond in Anaheim where WrestleMania XII was being held. Piper and Goldust fought to the ring and unofficially Piper won when he stripped Goldust of his gold jumpsuit as he wore some ladies undergarments underneath and fled. Piper left the WWF shortly after and showed up in WCW at the end of the year.
The end of the year saw Goldust turn face feuding with Hunter Hearst Helmsley over Helmsley being infatuated with his valet Marlena. Goldust did not like Helmsley trying to get with his wife. Jerry "The King" Lawler even asked Goldust if he was queer to which Goldust said "no" and then punched Lawler to further cement his face turn as the fans really got behind him.
The WWF signed "The World's Strongest Man" Mark Henry to a 10-year contract shortly after the 1996 Summer Olympics. Henry first appeared on the March 11, 1996 episode of RAW where Jerry Lawler was ridiculing him in an interview and Henry picked Lawler up and press slammed him.
Henry made his next appearance at SummerSlam doing commentary for the Lawler-Jake Roberts match. In the weeks leading up to SummerSlam, Lawler began mocking Roberts' alcohol and drug problems in what was an absolutely shocking angle in professional wrestling at the time.
His promo at SummerSlam before their match was classic as the WWF was entering the Attitude Era. Lawler defeated Roberts by hitting him with a Jim Beam bottle. Lawler then poured the Jim Beam on him until Henry ran Lawler off. The next month at In Your House, Henry made Lawler submit in his WWF debut.
They tried to sign another Olympian in Gold Medal amateur wrestler in Kurt Angle after the 1996 Summer Olympics after he won the gold medal. Angle, however, turned down the offer. He appeared at an ECW event later that year well check the 1996 ECW page whenever that's up. Eventually, Angle signed with the WWF in 1998 and became one of the promotion's top wrestlers.
1996 was also the year of Sunny. She joined the WWF in 1995 as the on and offscreen girlfriend of Skip (Chris Candido) and she was the manager of Skip and his new tag team partner Zip (Tom Pritchard) in 1996. She led them to the WWF Tag Team Championship.
After The Bodydonnas lost the titles to the Godwinns (Henry and Phineas Godwinn), she soon left the Bodydonnas to be the new manager of the Godwinns. Then the Smoking Gunns beat the Godwinns and she soon followed them until they lost the titles, which caused Bart and Billy Gunn to separate. She said she would follow the gold wherever it went.
Sunny is considered the WWF's first Diva. Sunny was so popular due to her good looks and sex appeal as the WWF was really getting away from the cartoonish gimmicks and more towards adult-oriented entertainment. She was also AOL's most downloaded woman of 1996.
She was the first manager for former WCW World Heavyweight Champion Ron Simmons, who joined the WWF as Farooq Asaad who was a gladiator who wore this weird blue and black gladiator outfit with weirdly shaped helmet. His debut came on the July 22, 1996 episode of Raw, where he attacked Ahmed Johnson during his match. Johnson unfortunately suffered a real-life kidney problems and they used Simmons' attack in the story.
Farooq eventually ditched Sunny and the gladiator gimmick and soon created The Nation of Domination. Farooq would soon act like a Nation of Islam and Black Panther member. He would have African American manager Clarence Mason as his new manager and had three unnamed African American men with him. The Nation soon grew to include other wrestlers.
1996 saw the berth of one of the best characters ever as Mick Foley signed in the WWF and was known as the Mankind. Mankind was this deranged lunatic who lived in a boiler room and wore a leather mask, squealed, shrieked "Mommy!", talked to a pet rat named "George", and pulled out his hair. He would often say his signature catchphrase "Have a nice day!"
Mankind made his WWF debut on the April 1, 1996 episode of Raw, the night after WrestleMania XII. He took on Bob Holly and defeated him with a move he used called the "Mandible Claw" where he stuck his middle and ring fingers down his opponents throat, which caused his opponents to go into unconsciousness and even sometimes "vomit." After he won the match, more gentler piano music played as Mankind was all calm and in a "happier place."
Later that night, Mankind interfered in The Undertaker's match with Justin Hawk Bradshaw (John Bradshaw Layfield). He would attack and manhandle The Undertaker rather easily and even put him in the Mandible Claw as Mick Foley entered into a high profile feud rather quickly.
Mankind continued to attack The Undertaker at will during or after Undertaker's matches as it looked like he owned The Undertaker. Mankind even popped out of a casket during The Undertaker's Casket match with Goldust at In Your House 8.
He put Undertaker in the Mandible Claw and threw him into and locked the casket, costing him another match. They faced each other at King of the Ring, where Mankind won when he put The Undertaker in the Mandible Claw. Paul Bearer tried to hit Mankind with the urn, but mistakenly hit Undertaker with it.
The Undertaker faced Mankind in the first ever "Boiler Room Brawl" at SummerSlam as Mankind had the home field advantage. The point of the match was the two fought in the arena's boiler room and to win you had to fight your way to the ring and grab the urn from Bearer.
The Undertaker looked to have won the match as he went to grab the urn from Bearer. However, Bearer refused to give the urn to Undertaker and then hit him with the urn. He gave the urn to Mankind as he betrayed The Undertaker after over five years being his manager. Mankind took Bearer as his new manager and even referred to him as "Uncle Paul."
Mankind earned a WWF Championship match with Shawn Michaels the next month at In Your House. The Undertaker and Vader interfered and attacked both men for a no-contest. Mick Foley said this was his best match ever. Mankind continued his feud with The Undertaker for the remainder of 1996.
Mankind fought The Undertaker in a Buried Alive match at In Your House: Buried Alive where the winner had to "bury" his opponent in a grave. Mankind won with help from The Executioner (Terry Gordy) and other heels to bury The Undertaker alive. The Undertaker came back and defeated Mankind at Survivor Series.
Dwayne Johnson made his WWF debut late in 1996 as "Rocky Maivia." The WWF hyped him up as their first third generation wrestler with his father Rocky Johnson and grandfather "High Chief" Peter Maivia. This would be before he would be famously known as "The Rock", one of the best superstars the WWF/E has ever had.
Johnson is from the legendary Anoa'i family with uncles Afa and Sika (The Wild Samoans) and his cousins Rodney (Yokozuna), Solofa (Fatu and later Rikishi), Matt (Rosey), and Eddie (Umaga). Current WWE Superstar Roman Reigns is also from the Anoa'i family among many other greats.
Rocky Maivia was a clean-cut, do no wrong babyface that was pushed early on despite having no experience and was nicknamed "The Blue Chipper." He made his in-ring debut at the Survivor Series in an eight-man Survivor Series Elimination match where Maivia was the sole survivor after eliminating Crush and Goldust.
Even though 1996 started the ground work for the upcoming "Attitude Era" along with its bright future superstars, the WWF was getting killed by WCW in ratings and in bringing in the elite talent with Ted Turner's budget.
Vince McMahon and the WWF did not have anywhere near the budget WCW had when it came to signing the biggest stars to guaranteed contracts. It would nearly put the WWF out of business.
The WWF started losing to WCW in May when the nWo was formed with former WWF Superstars Scott Hall and Kevin Nash and Hulk Hogan and pretty much was unbeaten for nearly two years.
Saturday, October 15, 2016
WWF 1995: Worst Year Ever; Kliq Rules; HBK vs. Razor Ladder Match II; Monday Night Wars; Monthly PPVs; Bret Hart and Undertaker in Lousy Stories; Cartoon Gimmicks At All-Time Highs; LT in Main Event at WrestleMania; "With My Baby Tonight"
1994 ended with the "New Generation" ruling the WWF world following the departures of the grizzled old veterans moving down south in WCW. Diesel (Kevin Nash) ended the year as the top guy following winning the WWF Championship and won the WWF Triple Crown (all three major WWF titles) in one year.
Vince McMahon decided on putting Nash on top as he once again wanted a giant to rule his company. Bret Hart was the WWF Champion for most of 1994 before losing it to Bob Backlund who lost it immediately to Nash.
Hart apparently did not draw well in the United States at house shows in either of his first two reigns as WWF Champion. He drew well in Canada and anywhere else outside the U.S. but apparently not well in the U.S. so McMahon put the belt on Nash in attempt to draw bigger numbers. Unfortunately, it was even worse.
The problem was that Nash was an unstoppable giant heel that got over so well they wanted to make him babyface. Problem is and even Nash will tell you, the WWF made him this nice guy, smiling babyface that the fans did not believe and would not get behind.
They saw this as fake and manufactured and it's not Nash's fault as many want to hate on the guy. He's doing what is told and if a millionaire who is your boss is telling you something you do it regardless and especially if you are going to be the top paid guy in the company. Call me a Kilq sympathizer if you will and I am a huge fan, but I'm telling the truth.
Bret Hart moved down to number two babyface following Diesel's promotion to the top. Soon after, Bret was soon demoted as eventually Shawn Michaels would move to the top babyface and Diesel down to number two and even Razor Ramon probably number three.
Both Bret and The Undertaker took a major backseat to "The Kliq" and both Bret and Undertaker struggled in mid-card roles and were grossly underused. Hart was caught in some terrible feuds in 1995 including the Japanese wrestler Hakushi and continuing a stagnant feud with Jerry Lawler.
The Undertaker would have lame feuds with Ted DiBiase's Million Dollar Corporation members IRS (beyond terrible), King Kong Bundy, Kama after Kama "stole" his urn and melted it into a gold chain necklace, and then a terrible feud with the terrible King Mabel after Mabel accidentally crushed Undertaker's face by sitting on his face and breaking Undertaker's orbital bone.
Jerry Lawler accused Bret Hart of being "racist" towards Japanese wrestlers and especially Hakushi. His matches with Hakushi were actually good. Hart was buried in mid card as he didn't even appear on the actual ppv matches of the July and September In Your House ppvs. He would wrestle the dark matches of those events.
Even worse was his feud with Lawler's "personal dentist" Dr. Isaac Yankem DDS played by Glenn Jacobs. Jacobs would thankfully resurrect his careee by becoming Kane. Yankem was brought in by Lawler to take Hart out after Hart made him kiss his feet in a "Kiss My Foot" match at King of the Ring. A wrestling dentist was an awful and pathetic character gimmick.
Awful and pathetic sum up a lot of 1995 especially the gimmicks. The worst had to be Mantaur, who was half man, half "minotaur", get it? Mantaur? Plus he had horns painted on his bald head to make it look like he was wearing a Los Angeles Rams helmet.
Almost as bad was the "Portuguese Man 'O' War" Aldo Montoya, who at least saw success in ECW as Justin Credible who was one of my favorites. There was still Doink The Clown, who had long run his course, Henry O. Godwinn the resident pig farmer (initials H.O.G. get it?), and Duke "the Dumpster" Droese the WWF's garbage man which were just terrible.
Really terrible was Techo Team 2000, two "futuristic" guys named Travis and Troy wearing silver leather. One of them was none other than Erik Watts (see WCW 1992) and other I have no idea nor do I give a shit who he is. I guess according to Wikipedia he is a Monster Truck driver.
There was a magician "Phantasio" honestly I have zero recollection of him. There was Avatar who was Al Snow as a ninja as Al Snow himself was awesome. Fatu split from The Headshrinkers tag team and went from savage beast who could not speak to all of a sudden being this guy from the street who spoke all street and was "trying to make a difference." Ugh!!
Vince McMahon introduced a grunge rocker by the name of Rad Radford, who was Louie Spicolli. McMahon was always one behind the times as Grunge rock died like two-three years prior to Radford's debut. The late Louie Spicolli was very talented and a great worker but the character did not work even though I enjoyed it and Spicolli in general.
There was also Man Mountain Rock, who was formerly Maxx Payne in WCW before coming to the WWF. Rock was far different than his Maxx Payne character and was a guitar rocker that played a guitar that shot fireworks out of it while he was playing. Man Mountain Rock would not last long in the WWF.
Another bad gimmick was pair Lex Luger and The British Bulldog Davey Boy Smith as a teammate known as "The Allied Powers." Even worse was the WWF combined both their entrance themes together. Both were struggling midcard and the idea made sense but they were never given a push in the tag team ranks. Eventually, the pair split up as Smith became a heel while Luger left the WWF.
Lifetime jobber Barry Horowitz won his first WWF match ever. Sadly, Horowitz winning was actually one of the better things to happen to the WWF in 1995. Horowitz pinned Skip (Chris Candido) of The Bodydonnas. Skip's manager-valet was Sunny (Tammy Sytch) as she was one of the better things to ever happen to the WWF.
Everyone had to be some sort of gimmick in 1995 instead of real life which was starting to insult long time wrestling fans' intelligence. One such was Paul Levesque, who debuted in the WWF in 1995 as the blue blood, aristocrat snob Hunter-Hearst Helmsley.
Levesque worked in WCW for a little over a year prior to coming to the WWF where he was first Terra Ryzing and then later Jean Paul Levesque, who was a French aristocrat who did not speak any French whatsoever but just spoke English with a French sounding accent.
Levesque used the similar character in the WWF except he wasn't French but was from his actual hometown of Greenwich, Connecticut. Vince McMahon made him the typical aristocrat type guy from Greenwich that McMahon himself hated.
Soon after joining the WWF, Levesque joined the famous or infamous Clique, better known as "The Kliq." The Kliq had been formed by real life best friends Michael Hickenbottom (Shawn Michaels), Kevin Nash (Diesel), Scott Hall (Razor Ramon), and Sean Waltman (The 1-2-3 Kid) a couple years prior.
Levesque fit in with The Kliq, which was named that thanks to Lex Luger saying the group was nothing more than a Clique. They would also be nicknamed "The Wolfpack." The Kliq was notorious for being influential for booking matches and working high profile matches among one another.
Bret Hart was actually friends with Shawn Michaels, Scott Hall, and Kevin Nash and they suggested to Hart that he join them, but he refused as he did not want to be part of a group and wanted to do his own thing and work with his family. The Undertaker had his group of friends known as the "Bone Street Krew" that featured Yokozuna, Kama (later The Godfather), Fatu, Henry Godwinn, Crush, and Savio Vega.
The Kliq worked with each other as Shawn Michaels won the 1995 Royal Rumble and took on Diesel for the WWF Title at WrestleMania XI. Michaels lost to Diesel in a thrilling match and turned babyface the next night on RAW as Michaels' new bodyguard the returning Sid Eudy attacked Michaels after he blamed "Sycho" Sid for the loss and "fired" him.
Diesel rushed to Michaels' aid and the two reunited as on-screen friends: "Two Dudes with Attitudes." Vince McMahon wanted to turn Michaels babyface for a while due to the overwhelmingly positive crowd response towards Michaels so they didn't put the World Title on Michaels, yet. Michaels would become the Intercontinental Champion.
The WWF should have though and turned Diesel heel as Diesel according to reports was the lowest-drawing WWF Champion of all-time according to house show numbers. House shows averaged under 2,000 fans a night at house shows with Kevin Nash as champion.
Nash had a lame three-month feud with Sycho Sid and even teamed with Bam Bam Bigelow to feud with Sid and The Million Dollar Corporation that Sid was now a part of. Diesel then took on Mabel from Men on a Mission, who Vince McMahon decided to make the terrible decision of having him win the King of the Ring in June 1995 and pushing him in the main event was one of the worst decisions ever.
Diesel defeated "King" Mabel as he was known as then at SummerSlam in a terrible PPV and lousy main event. Even Diesel said Mabel was bad in the match. It wasn't Nash's fault that Mabel was pushed on him. Lex Luger made his final WWF appearance as he helped Diesel win and would go back to WCW shortly after.
Shortly before SummerSlam, The British Bulldog helped Mabel in attacking Diesel and turned heel I don't get why he helped or was associated with Mabel. It was good to have Davey Boy Smith turn heel and get him out of the crappy Allied Powers tag team with Lex Luger that was going nowhere and making him a main eventer.
Smith faced both Diesel and Bret Hart in separate WWF Championship matches at the In Your House PPVs in October and December, respectively. His latter match with Hart was a thrilling rematch from their epic encounter at SummerSlam 92.
SummerSlam 95 was a terrible PPV and the reception of having Diesel and King Mabel in the main event was poorly taken. So the WWF announced that the previously scheduled Shawn Michaels-Sid Intercontinental Championship match was scrapped for a Shawn Michaels-Razor Ramon WrestleMania X Intercontinental Championship rematch at SummerSlam.
Their epic ladder match was so greatly receptive that the WWF figured a rematch would help the struggling company and their struggling event. Both Michaels and Razor were babyfaces but still would put on a great show. Some say this ladder match was better than the first one as Michaels won it and retained the Intercontinental Title.
The Kliq's latest charade came in October 1995. Shawn Michaels was legitimately attacked and injured outside a night club in Syracuse, NY when he was beaten up by a group of Marines. Michaels was supposed to defend his Intercontinental Championship against Dean Douglas at that month's In Your House PPV from Winnipeg.
Shane Douglas came over from ECW to the WWF in the summer of 1995 and was forced to be the Dean Douglas teacher/educator character due to Douglas' real life career as a teacher. Douglas had a run with Kliq members Razor Ramon and The 1-2-3 Kid and now set to take on Michaels for the Intercontinental Title.
Michaels claimed the injuries he suffered from the attack would prevent him from wrestling as some thought he was able to wrestle. Michaels was forced to vacate the title to Douglas. However, The Kliq's politicking forced Douglas to drop the title immediately to Razor at the PPV. Douglas was living with The Kliq and their antics and soon left the WWF and headed back to ECW.
Other wrestlers who incurred the wrath of The Kliq were Chris Candido (Skip) over Candido's girlfriend Sunny (Tammy Sytch) as Michaels and Sunny apparently had a relationship while Candido and her had one. Also Bam Bam Bigelow had his problems with The Kliq and by the end of the year, he was gone from the WWF.
Then Carl Ouellet, who was then known as the French Canadian "Pirate" Jean Pierre Lafitte, had his issues with The Kliq, most notably WWF Champion Diesel. Lafitte had a great series of matches with Bret Hart in the fall of 1995, led by September's In Your House 3 thriller. He was set to take on Diesel at a house show in his home of Montreal.
Ouellet was supposed to lose cleanly to Diesel as Diesel was the babyface and Ouellet was the heel even though he would likely be the face in his hometown. Ouellet did not want to lose cleanly to Diesel in his home and the two argued a finish at the show in Montreal.
Eventually, the match would end in a double count out in a brutally stiff match where the two viciously would beat on each other even going back to the dressing room. Eventually, Ouellet got fired from the WWF late in 1995 and he blamed The Kliq for "burying" him.
WrestleMania XI was perhaps the worst WrestleMania ever. Read WrestleCrap's review here it's hilarious. WrestleMania XI took place on April 2, 1995 and was held at the Hartford Civic Center, which is actually a mall.
Well it's actually connected to a mall but still. You don't hold the top PPV in the company at a mall. That's for more like RAW or even one of the In Your Houses but not WrestleMania.
The main event and closing match for WrestleMania XI was Bam Bam Bigelow vs. NFL legend Lawrence Taylor. The background for the match happened at the Royal Rumble in January where after Bigelow lost a match, he saw Taylor sitting front row laughing at him.
Bigelow then pushed "LT" out of his seat making it look like he legitimately put his hands on a "fan." Bigelow then challenged LT to a match to which Taylor accepted. It looked bad to have an NFL player in the ring but it gave the WWF much needed press and mainstream exposure since LT would be in the ring.
Even the celebrities appearing at WrestleMania were really lame. There was Nicholas Turturro from NYPD Blue who was like the 3rd or 4th best person on the show. They had Jonathan Taylor Thomas from Home Improvement. I remember being 13 at the time and the girls my age in my grade were in love with him while I thought he was a little tool (Home Improvement, Tool Time, get it?).
Well what wasn't lame was Pamela Anderson, who accompanied Shawn Michaels to the ring and Jenny McCarthy, who came to the ring with Diesel. Diesel then left the ring with both Anderson and McCarthy, perhaps the two hottest girls in 1995. Salt-n-Pepa sang Whatta Man before the Bam Bam Bigelow-LT match.
Bigelow was accompanied to the ring by Ted DiBiase and the Million Dollar Corporation while LT was accompanied to the ring by football players both past and present: Ken Norton Jr., Chris Spielman, Steve McMichael, Rickey Jackson, Carl Banks, and the legendary Reggie White.
LT actually performed very well in his first professional wrestling match and defeated Bigelow when he gave Bigelow a flying forearm off the second turnbuckle for the 1-2-3. Bigelow would have a short run with Diesel before he would leave the WWF at the end of 1995. He went from the main event to out of the WWF in just seven months.
Even the Royal Rumble really sucked for 1995. The Bret Hart-Diesel WWF Championship match ended with numerous heel wrestlers interfering in the match and attacking both men. The Royal Rumble match itself sucked as the intervals for each wrestler to enter was only one minute down from two.
The reason for the reduction in time was simply the entry list for the Royal Rumble was its weakest ever. Shawn Michaels and Davey Boy Smith were the first two to enter the Royal Rumble and they were the final two when it was all said and done.
Smith looked to have thrown Michaels over the top rope to eliminate him, but Michaels' one foot would not hit the floor as he managed to have it not touch the floor as you need both feet to hit the floor to be eliminated. Michaels got his way back in and threw Smith over the top rope and eliminated him as Smith thought he won.
The WWF decided to help grow its much-needed revenue by increasing the number of PPVs from the big five of Royal Rumble, WrestleMania, King of the Ring, SummerSlam, and Survivor Series to now running a PPV every month of the year.
Starting in May 1995, the WWF introduced the In Your House PPV. The In Your House PPVs would only be two hours when compared to the big five, which was three. The original In Your House PPVs would be a lot cheaper though than the big five as it was only $14.95, a little more than half the price of the other big PPVs.
Every month where the original five PPVs were not being held the WWF would hold an In Your House PPV and would have a PPV all 12 months of the year starting in 1996 as 1995 have 10 PPVs in the 12 months as only February and March did not have one which was before the In Your House was created.
The original In Your House PPV originated from Syracuse, NY on May 14, 1995. The WWF actually gave away a house at the first In Your House PPV. The house was from Orlando, Florida. The first In Your House surprisingly sold well even though it wasn't a good PPV. This sold the best of the PPVs under the In Your House brand.
Soon after this PPV, all In Your House PPVs would have a tagline next to them like In Your House: Rage in the Cage, In Your House: Good Friends, Better Enemies, etc. Eventually by 1999, the In Your House name was completely dropped the the monthly PPVs would simply be like Judgment Day, No Way Out, No Mercy, etc.
At the second In Your House PPV on July 23, 1995 from Nashville, then-Intercontinental Champion Jeff Jarrett, whose character was an aspiring Country Music star from Nashville, "sang" his "hit country music song" "With My Baby Tonight" live in concert at the event. Weeks before the event, Jarrett unveiled the music video of the song.
Jarrett sung the song as it was bad and was being booed. As it later turned out, Jarrett lipsynced a prerecorded version of the song by his "Roadie" (Brian James best known as Road Dogg Jesse James). Jarrett then lost the Intercontinental Title to Shawn Michaels following botched interference from The Roadie.
Jarrett and The Roadie both left the WWF the day after the PPV. Jarrett returned to the WWF in December 1995, but left again shortly after and went to WCW. The Roadie returned in late 1996 and began a storyline where he was the real country singer not Jarrett. Roadie eventually became The Road Dogg Jesse James and formed a successful tag team The New Age Outlaws with Billy Gunn.
Bret Hart's lousy 1995 would end a lot better as he finally got a WWF Championship match against Diesel at the 1995 Survivor Series. He faced Diesel to a no-contest at the Royal Rumble but had to wait nearly an entire year before getting another World Title match as he spent the year buried in lame and pointless feuds.
Hart battled Diesel in a thrilling no disqualification match due to their previous two encounters ended in DQ finishes. Diesel sent Hart crashing through a table on the outside. He would then bring in a seemingly unconscious Hart into the ring to finish him off. However, Diesel had second thoughts as Hart was out.
All of a sudden, Hart rolled Diesel into an inside cradle to win the match and win back the WWF Championship as he was "playing possum." An angry Diesel would then give Hart several Jackknife Powerbombs after the match as he was slowly turning back into a heel. Diesel's reign as WWF Champion ended after 358 days, just shy of a full calendar year.
The WWF used Shawn Michaels' bar attack in Syracuse in their storylines. He returned to the ring following the attack at Survivor Series. The following night on RAW, Michaels faced Owen Hart. During the match, Owen gave Michaels a kick to the back of the head.
The match would come to an abrupt end when Michaels collapsed in the middle of the ring later in the match. The action was stopped and Michaels was taken out of the ring and to a local hospital via ambulance. The WWF made it look so real that no one knew this was a story.
Michaels had storyline received post-concussion syndrome from the attack in Syracuse and the kick to the head from Owen. It appeared that Michaels would be forced to retire from wrestling as he did not wrestle for the rest of 1995. Owen took credit for nearly ending Michaels' career. Michaels would eventually make his grand return to the ring at the Royal Rumble in January 1996.
Not only did WWF get real competition from WCW because of some of the past WWF superstars like Hulk Hogan and Macho Man Randy Savage among others signing in WCW, WCW entered and officially declared the "Monday Night Wars" in 1995 by launching WCW Monday Nitro to go head-to-head with WWF's RAW.
Nitro was live every Monday night whereas RAW was live one week but the next few weeks were taped right after the live edition. Unfortunately, many at the tapings knew the results long before they were played on their scheduled Monday Night broadcasts. Eric Bischoff would take advantage of this and give away RAW results on his live weekly Nitro.
Bischoff also used his Nitro as a platform to surprisingly bring back two WWF wrestlers back to WCW in Lex Luger and Madusa Miceli. Luger appeared on the inaugural episode of Nitro one night after wrestling his final match in the WWF without letting them know he was jumping ship to WCW.
Then in December, Madusa, known as Alundra Blayze, the reigning WWF Women's Champion appeared on Nitro and at Bischoff's request, she threw the Women's belt into the garbage. She would be blackballed from the WWE until 20 years later she was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, where at her induction speech, she brought out a trash bin and retrieved the old Women's title and brought it back to the WWE.
1995 was just a terrible year overall for the WWF. They had some of the lowest house show attendance and PPV buyrates in the history of the company. However, in terms of plain business not just the in-ring garbage, the worst was yet to come.
Vince McMahon decided on putting Nash on top as he once again wanted a giant to rule his company. Bret Hart was the WWF Champion for most of 1994 before losing it to Bob Backlund who lost it immediately to Nash.
Hart apparently did not draw well in the United States at house shows in either of his first two reigns as WWF Champion. He drew well in Canada and anywhere else outside the U.S. but apparently not well in the U.S. so McMahon put the belt on Nash in attempt to draw bigger numbers. Unfortunately, it was even worse.
The problem was that Nash was an unstoppable giant heel that got over so well they wanted to make him babyface. Problem is and even Nash will tell you, the WWF made him this nice guy, smiling babyface that the fans did not believe and would not get behind.
They saw this as fake and manufactured and it's not Nash's fault as many want to hate on the guy. He's doing what is told and if a millionaire who is your boss is telling you something you do it regardless and especially if you are going to be the top paid guy in the company. Call me a Kilq sympathizer if you will and I am a huge fan, but I'm telling the truth.
Bret Hart moved down to number two babyface following Diesel's promotion to the top. Soon after, Bret was soon demoted as eventually Shawn Michaels would move to the top babyface and Diesel down to number two and even Razor Ramon probably number three.
Both Bret and The Undertaker took a major backseat to "The Kliq" and both Bret and Undertaker struggled in mid-card roles and were grossly underused. Hart was caught in some terrible feuds in 1995 including the Japanese wrestler Hakushi and continuing a stagnant feud with Jerry Lawler.
The Undertaker would have lame feuds with Ted DiBiase's Million Dollar Corporation members IRS (beyond terrible), King Kong Bundy, Kama after Kama "stole" his urn and melted it into a gold chain necklace, and then a terrible feud with the terrible King Mabel after Mabel accidentally crushed Undertaker's face by sitting on his face and breaking Undertaker's orbital bone.
Jerry Lawler accused Bret Hart of being "racist" towards Japanese wrestlers and especially Hakushi. His matches with Hakushi were actually good. Hart was buried in mid card as he didn't even appear on the actual ppv matches of the July and September In Your House ppvs. He would wrestle the dark matches of those events.
Even worse was his feud with Lawler's "personal dentist" Dr. Isaac Yankem DDS played by Glenn Jacobs. Jacobs would thankfully resurrect his careee by becoming Kane. Yankem was brought in by Lawler to take Hart out after Hart made him kiss his feet in a "Kiss My Foot" match at King of the Ring. A wrestling dentist was an awful and pathetic character gimmick.
Awful and pathetic sum up a lot of 1995 especially the gimmicks. The worst had to be Mantaur, who was half man, half "minotaur", get it? Mantaur? Plus he had horns painted on his bald head to make it look like he was wearing a Los Angeles Rams helmet.
Almost as bad was the "Portuguese Man 'O' War" Aldo Montoya, who at least saw success in ECW as Justin Credible who was one of my favorites. There was still Doink The Clown, who had long run his course, Henry O. Godwinn the resident pig farmer (initials H.O.G. get it?), and Duke "the Dumpster" Droese the WWF's garbage man which were just terrible.
Really terrible was Techo Team 2000, two "futuristic" guys named Travis and Troy wearing silver leather. One of them was none other than Erik Watts (see WCW 1992) and other I have no idea nor do I give a shit who he is. I guess according to Wikipedia he is a Monster Truck driver.
There was a magician "Phantasio" honestly I have zero recollection of him. There was Avatar who was Al Snow as a ninja as Al Snow himself was awesome. Fatu split from The Headshrinkers tag team and went from savage beast who could not speak to all of a sudden being this guy from the street who spoke all street and was "trying to make a difference." Ugh!!
Vince McMahon introduced a grunge rocker by the name of Rad Radford, who was Louie Spicolli. McMahon was always one behind the times as Grunge rock died like two-three years prior to Radford's debut. The late Louie Spicolli was very talented and a great worker but the character did not work even though I enjoyed it and Spicolli in general.
There was also Man Mountain Rock, who was formerly Maxx Payne in WCW before coming to the WWF. Rock was far different than his Maxx Payne character and was a guitar rocker that played a guitar that shot fireworks out of it while he was playing. Man Mountain Rock would not last long in the WWF.
Another bad gimmick was pair Lex Luger and The British Bulldog Davey Boy Smith as a teammate known as "The Allied Powers." Even worse was the WWF combined both their entrance themes together. Both were struggling midcard and the idea made sense but they were never given a push in the tag team ranks. Eventually, the pair split up as Smith became a heel while Luger left the WWF.
Lifetime jobber Barry Horowitz won his first WWF match ever. Sadly, Horowitz winning was actually one of the better things to happen to the WWF in 1995. Horowitz pinned Skip (Chris Candido) of The Bodydonnas. Skip's manager-valet was Sunny (Tammy Sytch) as she was one of the better things to ever happen to the WWF.
Everyone had to be some sort of gimmick in 1995 instead of real life which was starting to insult long time wrestling fans' intelligence. One such was Paul Levesque, who debuted in the WWF in 1995 as the blue blood, aristocrat snob Hunter-Hearst Helmsley.
Levesque worked in WCW for a little over a year prior to coming to the WWF where he was first Terra Ryzing and then later Jean Paul Levesque, who was a French aristocrat who did not speak any French whatsoever but just spoke English with a French sounding accent.
Levesque used the similar character in the WWF except he wasn't French but was from his actual hometown of Greenwich, Connecticut. Vince McMahon made him the typical aristocrat type guy from Greenwich that McMahon himself hated.
Soon after joining the WWF, Levesque joined the famous or infamous Clique, better known as "The Kliq." The Kliq had been formed by real life best friends Michael Hickenbottom (Shawn Michaels), Kevin Nash (Diesel), Scott Hall (Razor Ramon), and Sean Waltman (The 1-2-3 Kid) a couple years prior.
Levesque fit in with The Kliq, which was named that thanks to Lex Luger saying the group was nothing more than a Clique. They would also be nicknamed "The Wolfpack." The Kliq was notorious for being influential for booking matches and working high profile matches among one another.
Bret Hart was actually friends with Shawn Michaels, Scott Hall, and Kevin Nash and they suggested to Hart that he join them, but he refused as he did not want to be part of a group and wanted to do his own thing and work with his family. The Undertaker had his group of friends known as the "Bone Street Krew" that featured Yokozuna, Kama (later The Godfather), Fatu, Henry Godwinn, Crush, and Savio Vega.
The Kliq worked with each other as Shawn Michaels won the 1995 Royal Rumble and took on Diesel for the WWF Title at WrestleMania XI. Michaels lost to Diesel in a thrilling match and turned babyface the next night on RAW as Michaels' new bodyguard the returning Sid Eudy attacked Michaels after he blamed "Sycho" Sid for the loss and "fired" him.
Diesel rushed to Michaels' aid and the two reunited as on-screen friends: "Two Dudes with Attitudes." Vince McMahon wanted to turn Michaels babyface for a while due to the overwhelmingly positive crowd response towards Michaels so they didn't put the World Title on Michaels, yet. Michaels would become the Intercontinental Champion.
The WWF should have though and turned Diesel heel as Diesel according to reports was the lowest-drawing WWF Champion of all-time according to house show numbers. House shows averaged under 2,000 fans a night at house shows with Kevin Nash as champion.
Nash had a lame three-month feud with Sycho Sid and even teamed with Bam Bam Bigelow to feud with Sid and The Million Dollar Corporation that Sid was now a part of. Diesel then took on Mabel from Men on a Mission, who Vince McMahon decided to make the terrible decision of having him win the King of the Ring in June 1995 and pushing him in the main event was one of the worst decisions ever.
Diesel defeated "King" Mabel as he was known as then at SummerSlam in a terrible PPV and lousy main event. Even Diesel said Mabel was bad in the match. It wasn't Nash's fault that Mabel was pushed on him. Lex Luger made his final WWF appearance as he helped Diesel win and would go back to WCW shortly after.
Shortly before SummerSlam, The British Bulldog helped Mabel in attacking Diesel and turned heel I don't get why he helped or was associated with Mabel. It was good to have Davey Boy Smith turn heel and get him out of the crappy Allied Powers tag team with Lex Luger that was going nowhere and making him a main eventer.
Smith faced both Diesel and Bret Hart in separate WWF Championship matches at the In Your House PPVs in October and December, respectively. His latter match with Hart was a thrilling rematch from their epic encounter at SummerSlam 92.
SummerSlam 95 was a terrible PPV and the reception of having Diesel and King Mabel in the main event was poorly taken. So the WWF announced that the previously scheduled Shawn Michaels-Sid Intercontinental Championship match was scrapped for a Shawn Michaels-Razor Ramon WrestleMania X Intercontinental Championship rematch at SummerSlam.
Their epic ladder match was so greatly receptive that the WWF figured a rematch would help the struggling company and their struggling event. Both Michaels and Razor were babyfaces but still would put on a great show. Some say this ladder match was better than the first one as Michaels won it and retained the Intercontinental Title.
The Kliq's latest charade came in October 1995. Shawn Michaels was legitimately attacked and injured outside a night club in Syracuse, NY when he was beaten up by a group of Marines. Michaels was supposed to defend his Intercontinental Championship against Dean Douglas at that month's In Your House PPV from Winnipeg.
Shane Douglas came over from ECW to the WWF in the summer of 1995 and was forced to be the Dean Douglas teacher/educator character due to Douglas' real life career as a teacher. Douglas had a run with Kliq members Razor Ramon and The 1-2-3 Kid and now set to take on Michaels for the Intercontinental Title.
Michaels claimed the injuries he suffered from the attack would prevent him from wrestling as some thought he was able to wrestle. Michaels was forced to vacate the title to Douglas. However, The Kliq's politicking forced Douglas to drop the title immediately to Razor at the PPV. Douglas was living with The Kliq and their antics and soon left the WWF and headed back to ECW.
Other wrestlers who incurred the wrath of The Kliq were Chris Candido (Skip) over Candido's girlfriend Sunny (Tammy Sytch) as Michaels and Sunny apparently had a relationship while Candido and her had one. Also Bam Bam Bigelow had his problems with The Kliq and by the end of the year, he was gone from the WWF.
Then Carl Ouellet, who was then known as the French Canadian "Pirate" Jean Pierre Lafitte, had his issues with The Kliq, most notably WWF Champion Diesel. Lafitte had a great series of matches with Bret Hart in the fall of 1995, led by September's In Your House 3 thriller. He was set to take on Diesel at a house show in his home of Montreal.
Ouellet was supposed to lose cleanly to Diesel as Diesel was the babyface and Ouellet was the heel even though he would likely be the face in his hometown. Ouellet did not want to lose cleanly to Diesel in his home and the two argued a finish at the show in Montreal.
Eventually, the match would end in a double count out in a brutally stiff match where the two viciously would beat on each other even going back to the dressing room. Eventually, Ouellet got fired from the WWF late in 1995 and he blamed The Kliq for "burying" him.
WrestleMania XI was perhaps the worst WrestleMania ever. Read WrestleCrap's review here it's hilarious. WrestleMania XI took place on April 2, 1995 and was held at the Hartford Civic Center, which is actually a mall.
Well it's actually connected to a mall but still. You don't hold the top PPV in the company at a mall. That's for more like RAW or even one of the In Your Houses but not WrestleMania.
The main event and closing match for WrestleMania XI was Bam Bam Bigelow vs. NFL legend Lawrence Taylor. The background for the match happened at the Royal Rumble in January where after Bigelow lost a match, he saw Taylor sitting front row laughing at him.
Bigelow then pushed "LT" out of his seat making it look like he legitimately put his hands on a "fan." Bigelow then challenged LT to a match to which Taylor accepted. It looked bad to have an NFL player in the ring but it gave the WWF much needed press and mainstream exposure since LT would be in the ring.
Even the celebrities appearing at WrestleMania were really lame. There was Nicholas Turturro from NYPD Blue who was like the 3rd or 4th best person on the show. They had Jonathan Taylor Thomas from Home Improvement. I remember being 13 at the time and the girls my age in my grade were in love with him while I thought he was a little tool (Home Improvement, Tool Time, get it?).
Well what wasn't lame was Pamela Anderson, who accompanied Shawn Michaels to the ring and Jenny McCarthy, who came to the ring with Diesel. Diesel then left the ring with both Anderson and McCarthy, perhaps the two hottest girls in 1995. Salt-n-Pepa sang Whatta Man before the Bam Bam Bigelow-LT match.
Bigelow was accompanied to the ring by Ted DiBiase and the Million Dollar Corporation while LT was accompanied to the ring by football players both past and present: Ken Norton Jr., Chris Spielman, Steve McMichael, Rickey Jackson, Carl Banks, and the legendary Reggie White.
LT actually performed very well in his first professional wrestling match and defeated Bigelow when he gave Bigelow a flying forearm off the second turnbuckle for the 1-2-3. Bigelow would have a short run with Diesel before he would leave the WWF at the end of 1995. He went from the main event to out of the WWF in just seven months.
Even the Royal Rumble really sucked for 1995. The Bret Hart-Diesel WWF Championship match ended with numerous heel wrestlers interfering in the match and attacking both men. The Royal Rumble match itself sucked as the intervals for each wrestler to enter was only one minute down from two.
The reason for the reduction in time was simply the entry list for the Royal Rumble was its weakest ever. Shawn Michaels and Davey Boy Smith were the first two to enter the Royal Rumble and they were the final two when it was all said and done.
Smith looked to have thrown Michaels over the top rope to eliminate him, but Michaels' one foot would not hit the floor as he managed to have it not touch the floor as you need both feet to hit the floor to be eliminated. Michaels got his way back in and threw Smith over the top rope and eliminated him as Smith thought he won.
The WWF decided to help grow its much-needed revenue by increasing the number of PPVs from the big five of Royal Rumble, WrestleMania, King of the Ring, SummerSlam, and Survivor Series to now running a PPV every month of the year.
Starting in May 1995, the WWF introduced the In Your House PPV. The In Your House PPVs would only be two hours when compared to the big five, which was three. The original In Your House PPVs would be a lot cheaper though than the big five as it was only $14.95, a little more than half the price of the other big PPVs.
Every month where the original five PPVs were not being held the WWF would hold an In Your House PPV and would have a PPV all 12 months of the year starting in 1996 as 1995 have 10 PPVs in the 12 months as only February and March did not have one which was before the In Your House was created.
The original In Your House PPV originated from Syracuse, NY on May 14, 1995. The WWF actually gave away a house at the first In Your House PPV. The house was from Orlando, Florida. The first In Your House surprisingly sold well even though it wasn't a good PPV. This sold the best of the PPVs under the In Your House brand.
Soon after this PPV, all In Your House PPVs would have a tagline next to them like In Your House: Rage in the Cage, In Your House: Good Friends, Better Enemies, etc. Eventually by 1999, the In Your House name was completely dropped the the monthly PPVs would simply be like Judgment Day, No Way Out, No Mercy, etc.
At the second In Your House PPV on July 23, 1995 from Nashville, then-Intercontinental Champion Jeff Jarrett, whose character was an aspiring Country Music star from Nashville, "sang" his "hit country music song" "With My Baby Tonight" live in concert at the event. Weeks before the event, Jarrett unveiled the music video of the song.
Jarrett sung the song as it was bad and was being booed. As it later turned out, Jarrett lipsynced a prerecorded version of the song by his "Roadie" (Brian James best known as Road Dogg Jesse James). Jarrett then lost the Intercontinental Title to Shawn Michaels following botched interference from The Roadie.
Jarrett and The Roadie both left the WWF the day after the PPV. Jarrett returned to the WWF in December 1995, but left again shortly after and went to WCW. The Roadie returned in late 1996 and began a storyline where he was the real country singer not Jarrett. Roadie eventually became The Road Dogg Jesse James and formed a successful tag team The New Age Outlaws with Billy Gunn.
Bret Hart's lousy 1995 would end a lot better as he finally got a WWF Championship match against Diesel at the 1995 Survivor Series. He faced Diesel to a no-contest at the Royal Rumble but had to wait nearly an entire year before getting another World Title match as he spent the year buried in lame and pointless feuds.
Hart battled Diesel in a thrilling no disqualification match due to their previous two encounters ended in DQ finishes. Diesel sent Hart crashing through a table on the outside. He would then bring in a seemingly unconscious Hart into the ring to finish him off. However, Diesel had second thoughts as Hart was out.
All of a sudden, Hart rolled Diesel into an inside cradle to win the match and win back the WWF Championship as he was "playing possum." An angry Diesel would then give Hart several Jackknife Powerbombs after the match as he was slowly turning back into a heel. Diesel's reign as WWF Champion ended after 358 days, just shy of a full calendar year.
The WWF used Shawn Michaels' bar attack in Syracuse in their storylines. He returned to the ring following the attack at Survivor Series. The following night on RAW, Michaels faced Owen Hart. During the match, Owen gave Michaels a kick to the back of the head.
The match would come to an abrupt end when Michaels collapsed in the middle of the ring later in the match. The action was stopped and Michaels was taken out of the ring and to a local hospital via ambulance. The WWF made it look so real that no one knew this was a story.
Michaels had storyline received post-concussion syndrome from the attack in Syracuse and the kick to the head from Owen. It appeared that Michaels would be forced to retire from wrestling as he did not wrestle for the rest of 1995. Owen took credit for nearly ending Michaels' career. Michaels would eventually make his grand return to the ring at the Royal Rumble in January 1996.
Not only did WWF get real competition from WCW because of some of the past WWF superstars like Hulk Hogan and Macho Man Randy Savage among others signing in WCW, WCW entered and officially declared the "Monday Night Wars" in 1995 by launching WCW Monday Nitro to go head-to-head with WWF's RAW.
Nitro was live every Monday night whereas RAW was live one week but the next few weeks were taped right after the live edition. Unfortunately, many at the tapings knew the results long before they were played on their scheduled Monday Night broadcasts. Eric Bischoff would take advantage of this and give away RAW results on his live weekly Nitro.
Bischoff also used his Nitro as a platform to surprisingly bring back two WWF wrestlers back to WCW in Lex Luger and Madusa Miceli. Luger appeared on the inaugural episode of Nitro one night after wrestling his final match in the WWF without letting them know he was jumping ship to WCW.
Then in December, Madusa, known as Alundra Blayze, the reigning WWF Women's Champion appeared on Nitro and at Bischoff's request, she threw the Women's belt into the garbage. She would be blackballed from the WWE until 20 years later she was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, where at her induction speech, she brought out a trash bin and retrieved the old Women's title and brought it back to the WWE.
1995 was just a terrible year overall for the WWF. They had some of the lowest house show attendance and PPV buyrates in the history of the company. However, in terms of plain business not just the in-ring garbage, the worst was yet to come.
WCW 1995: WCW Joins Monday Night Primetime, Monday Night Wars Officially Declared; Luger Jumps Back to WCW; The Big Show Before He Was The Big Show; Mega Powers Dominate; Four Horsemen Reunion; New Exciting Wrestlers Join; Pre-Big Show; The Rise of Harlem Heat
1995 would be a lousy year for WCW, at least mostly in the first half. Hulk Hogan would continue to be the WCW World Heavyweight Champion and would continue to align himself with Macho Man Randy Savage and Sting. Hogan reformed "The Mega Powers" with Savage from their WWF days.
Eric Bischoff was close to having at least either a PPV or a Clash of the Champions event every month of the year. 11 of the 12 months had either a PPV or a Clash; only April 1995 was PPV or Clash-free. Bischoff decided to increase the number of PPVs and decrease the number of Clash of the Champions events.
Bischoff believed that the caliber of matches the made up the Clash of the Champions being shown free on cable TV should be put on PPV for people to pay for them and create a much greater demand for them. The Clash of the Champions went from four events in 1994 to just two in 1995.
Bischoff debuted two new PPVs in 1995: Uncensored in March and World War 3 in November. Uncensored kind of replaced Spring Stampede from the previous year. World War 3 replaced the annual November Clash of the Champions event. More on these PPVs later. The Great American Bash made its return in June after a three-year hiatus.
Bill Watts tried to eliminate The Great American Bash for 1992 but was turned down. The Great American Bash was the second-longest running and second-most prestigious PPV in WCW only behind Starrcade, run from 1985-1992. The Great American Bash replaced the annual June Clash of the Champions event.
There would be one thing Bischoff manages to that we will discuss later that would help WCW fully compete with the WWF and for a time, even beat the WWF and nearly put them out of business. This would help WCW establish itself as the number one professional wrestling promotion in the United States ahead of the WWF.
Ric Flair was supposed to be "retired" following a loss to Hulk Hogan at 1994 Halloween Havoc due to stipulations. According to Flair, WCW was going to pay him to not wrestle for an entire in an attempt to build him up. Flair was going to work in the WCW front office and continue his role as head booker.
Flair would still appear on WCW television in non-wrestling roles such as appearing at January's Clash of the Champions XXX event where he "purchased" a front row seat and watched the event. He said he was retired and had no plans from wrestling.
However, Harley Race, who was Vader's manager at the time, was seriously injured in a car accident and his wrestling career was pretty much done, even his stint as a manager was done. WCW needed Flair back in wrestling capacity sooner than they wanted and wanted him to partner with Vader to take on Hulk Hogan.
At SuperBrawl V in February, Hogan defended his WCW Championship against Vader. This was actually a really good match. Flair again sat in the front row but this time, he ran into the ring to help Vader attack Hogan until Randy Savage and Sting made the save. It was better to have Hogan feud with Vader and/or Flair then Brutus "The Butcher."
The next PPV on the schedule might be one of the worst ever: Uncensored. The event took place on March 19, 1995 from Tupelo, Mississippi. This was supposed to be an unsanctioned WCW PPV that the WCW Board of Directors wanted nothing to do with and the matches would have weird and strange stipulations. The WCW titles would also not be on the line.
Let's start with the worst match and worst match gimmick ever. Dustin Rhodes and the Blacktop Bully, who was this lame truck driver character played by Barry Darsow known as Smash from Demolition and even more ludicrous The Repo Man, fought in a "King of the Road" match, which took place on the back of an 18-wheeler while it was driving on a road somewhere.
The match took place a few days before and was taped and heavily edited by WCW due to their strict "no blood" policy. Both Rhodes and Darsow were fired after the event for "blading", making each other bleed. Whoever made this match should have been the one that was fired.
Meng took on "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan in a "Martial Arts" match with Duggan who has no martial arts background whatsoever. Johnny B. Badd fought Arn Anderson in a Boxer vs. a Wrestler match. The Nasty Boys took on The Harlem Heat in a Falls Count Anywhere Texas Tornado match where the fight went into the concession stands.
Randy Savage fought Avalanche in what was supposed to be a "No Disqualification" match that ended in a disqualification. A "female" fan ran into the ring to attack Savage only to be revealed as Ric Flair dressed like a woman for some reason to further generate heat.
In the main event, Hulk Hogan took on Vader in a Leather Strap match with Hogan's WCW Title not on the line. Nothing like having a PPV where none of the titles, especially the World Title, were on the line. That's not a waste of $49.99 or whatever the hell it cost back then. Hogan's manager Jimmy Hart was "kidnapped" earlier in the night and was held backstage by Vader and Flair.
Before the event, Hogan unleashed an "Ultimate surprise" thinking it was The Ultimate Warrior. Close but we were way off. It was "The Renegade" a wrestler dressed like and supposed to be The Ultimate Warrior as The Renegade made his WCW debut aligning himself with Hogan. This totally bombed as it should not be a surprise.
Hogan defeated Vader in the strap match without actually having to defeat Vader. How? Let me explain. Ric Flair interfered in the match so Hogan put the strap around him and touched the four corners so he ended up winning the match. Well since this was a "non-sanctioned" event, the rules were thrown out the window, great job!!
Jimmy Hart emerged from the back where he was held. A masked man emerged earlier in the match to take out The Renegade, again with the fucking masked man angle!! Well the masked man again came back and looked to join Vader and Flair in attacking Hogan.
But the masked man turned on Vader and Flair and revealed he was Randy Savage as he joined Hogan. Arn Anderson came from the back tied up as he was the original masked man that Savage tied up.
Why the hell was Arn Anderson masked? It wasn't like when Brutus Beefcake was the masked man because they wanted to hide his identity in a swerve but Anderson wasn't trying to swerve Hogan. Anderson was already an ally to Ric Flair. So I definitely did not get that at all. I also don't know why they needed Flair to dress like a woman when we knew they were feuding.
This was supposed to be an ECW-type event only to fail miserably. WCW should be went out of business right after this and if it weren't for Ted Turner putting up the money and still in charge of Turner Broadcasting, it would have ended long before we witnessed this atrocity.
Hogan and Savage wanted retribution on Flair for his attacks, but Flair was still technically retired so Hogan and Savage pleaded for his reinstatement to the ring so they could tear him limb-from-limb. Eventually, Flair was reinstated and Hogan and Savage got their wish.
Hogan and Savage teamed to take on Vader and Flair in the main event at the next PPV Slamboree. Savage's father Angelo Poffo was inducted in the WCW Hall of Fame at the Slamboree event and he was in Hogan and his son's corner.
Hogan and Savage defeated Vader and Flair, but were attacked by Vader and Flair and Arn Anderson after the match. Angelo Poffo went into the ring to try to get them to stop attacking them, only for Flair to attack Poffo and putting the 70-year-old Poffo in the Figure Four Leg Lock.
Savage wanted to tear Flair apart for attacking his father. Savage lost to Flair at The Great American Bash when Flair took Poffo's cane and hit Savage with it. Savage got revenge by defeating Flair in a "Lifeguard" match, basically a lumberjack match, at Bash at the Beach.
The Bash at the Beach PPV was held on a beach in Huntington Beach, California on July 16, 1995. It was really cool seeing that but there was a huge problem though. People had to pay to watch it and people had to pay to witness the event but those who were just on the beach, got to see the event for free if that makes any sense.
The Bash at the Beach PPV saw Hogan defeat Vader in a Steel Cage match. The PPV was notable for the first major appearance of Paul Wight, known now as The Big Show. Wight had been seen several times before sitting in the stands as this mysterious giant. He approached Hogan during an interview on The Main Event just before the PPV.
He had a white shirt similar to what Andre the Giant used to wear and threw it at Hogan yelling "remember this?" A visibly shaken Hogan recognized this as the shirt of the late Andre. Wight was originally supposed to be the son of Andre who was looking to get revenge on Hogan. Thankfully, Wight would just be known as "The Giant" and would just be a giant since he wasn't related to Andre.
It appeared that Kevin Sullivan, who underwent this transformation into "The Taskmaster" after he found "The Master" in a really stupid angle. Sullivan created The Dungeon of Doom, a stable he created to take out Hulk Hogan and The Giant was his crown jewel to end Hulkamania.
These lame gimmicks were all cute and all but WCW needed to figure out what it was going to take to overtake the WWF. After Ted Turner met Eric Bischoff where Turner asked Bischoff what it would take to beat the WWF, Bischoff replied by asking for a live primetime spot on one of his networks.
Turner not only gave him a live primetime show on his flagship TNT network, he gave him one hour live at 9:00 on Monday night to compete against the WWF's Monday Night Raw show. WCW would call their show WCW Monday Nitro. This would be the launch of the infamous "Monday Night Wars."
This would be unlike anything seen in professional wrestling at the time: a live weekly show on primetime on Monday nights. Sure, WWF had Raw which originally was live, but soon became taped. Nitro was going to do every one of its shows (with few exceptions) live every week.
Prior to Nitro, and even Raw, wrestling shows were taped weeks if not months (see Disney tapings) at a time and shown on various WCW and WWF cable and syndicated TV shows known as TV tapings. As we know especially from past TV tapings, again see Disney, we would find out future title changes before they were scheduled to happen.
The debut episode of Monday Nitro took place on September 4, 1995, Labor Day, from the Mall of America in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The put a ring in the middle of the mall where the action would take place in a really creative and genius idea.
After this, Nitro would happen at arenas with the occasional Spring Break episodes originating from Spring locations in South Florida. Nitro set to change professional wrestling on network television as their show Nitro would mostly feature PPV-caliber type of matches instead of one or two big matches but mostly matches featuring mid-carders and jobbers like RAW was doing at the time.
Bischoff would be one of the announcers along with Bobby Heenan and former Chicago Bears Defensive Lineman Steve "Mongo" McMichael, who joined WCW as an announcer and soon a wrestler. Bischoff often used the tagline "This is Where the Big Boys Play" when describing WC and Nitro. Nitro would originally be shown live from 9-10 p.m., one hour after WWF's Raw.
Bischoff would often use the practice of giving away Raw results on his live Nitro. Back then, Raw would have one live show followed by a few weeks worth of shows taped right after and shown on the next few Monday nights. Results from the taped RAWs got out and Bischoff would reveal the results on his show or have other announcers to do the same.
On the debut episode of Nitro, it was only fitting to have the two top WCW wrestlers all-time Sting take on Ric Flair. In the middle of the match, Lex Luger appeared in the aisle way in dress clothes as cameras were focused on him and even the announcers thought he was an unwanted guest as it appeared as if he was here while still with the WWF.
In reality, Luger left the WWF just before the first episode of Nitro. Luger was sick of the WWF and wanted to return to WCW for the first time in nearly four years. In fact, Luger just wrestled the night before at a WWF house show in his final match.
His contract was coming up and he never let the WWF, especially Vince McMahon, know he was leaving the WWF to return to WCW so everyone was shocked he was on WCW television. Luger made it a secret as Eric Bischoff only let a few people know he was coming back to WCW to further the "shock value" for the first episode of Nitro.
This would not be the only shock of a WWF wrestler coming back to WCW surprisingly appearing on Nitro. On the December 18, 1995 episode of Nitro, Madusa Miceli returned to WCW after three years as she appeared on Nitro. She had a stint in the WWF as "Alundra Blayze" and was the current WWF Women's Champion at the time of her surprise appearance.
She appeared on Nitro and per Eric Bischoff's request, she threw the WWF Women's Championship belt into a garbage can. Miceli went back to her Madusa name.
No debut episode of Nitro could not have Hulk Hogan as "The Huckster" defended the WCW World Heavyweight Championship in the main event against Big Boss Bubba Guardian Angel Rogers as Ray Traylor kept getting new names every time. Hogan won the match, but would be attacked by The Dungeon of Doom afterwards. Sting and Randy Savage came out to help Hogan and so too did Lex Luger.
After they cleared the ring, Hogan and Luger bumped into each other and both looked to strike each other before pulling back. "Mean" Gene Okerlund interviewed the foursome in the ring. Hogan was wondering why Luger was here and he said he wanted to be a part of WCW. He challenged Hogan to a World Title match the next week on Nitro, to which Hogan accepted.
Luger faced Hogan on the September 11, 1995 edition of Monday Nitro for the title in the main event. The Dungeon of Doom ran in and attacked both as the match ended in a no-contest. Again, The Dungeon of Doom attacked both men as Savage and Sting came to make the save.
Afterwards, they were all being interviewed. Sting suggested that Luger take Vader's place in their WarGames match against The Dungeon of Doom at Fall Brawl. Sting was Luger's best friend so naturally he would defend him.
Vader was set to team with Hogan, Savage, and Sting, but Vader was fired from WCW shortly before due to a real life backstage fight with Paul Orndorff. Savage said no as he didn't like or trust Luger. Hogan eventually allowed Luger to be their fourth for WarGames.
This was the worst WarGames match ever. Hogan's crew won and Hogan got five minutes alone with "The Taskmaster" Kevin Sullivan as a result. However, The Giant broke into the cage by ripping the door off of it and choked Hogan and proceeded to "twist" and "break" Hogan's neck.
Hogan was set to defend the WCW Championship against The Giant at Halloween Havoc. But before their title match, Hogan met Giant in a really stupid "Monster Truck Challenge" also at Halloween Havoc.
The monster truck battle would be both men in their monster trucks in a sumo wrestling type match where the winner had to push the other out of the circle. The event took place on the roof of Cobo Hall in Detroit, where Halloween Havoc was being held.
The event took place a day before and was taped and shown on Halloween Havoc. Hogan defeated The Giant in the Monster Truck Challenge. Afterwards, The Giant pulled Hogan out of the truck and attacked him. However, Hogan fought back as The Giant fell off the roof and "plunged" into the river. This looked real and looked like it was a tragic accident and possibly The Giant's death.
A "visibly shaken" Hogan appeared for their title match and said what just happened wasn't supposed to happen as he sold it like it was real. However, The Giant's music played and to the shock of everyone, The Giant was fine after falling off the roof and into the river.
The end of the match happened as Hogan looked to beat the Giant. However, Hogan's manager Jimmy Hart hit the referee with the World Title belt, knocking him out. Hart then ran into the ring and hit Hogan with the belt as he turned on Hogan.
The Giant and Kevin Sullivan and this strange 7 ft 6 mummy called "The Yeti" all attacked Hogan. Lex Luger and Randy Savage ran down to the ring to help Hogan. However, Luger attacked Savage and then joined in on beating up Hogan. Luger then put both Hogan and Savage in the Torture Rack as Luger appeared to join The Dungeon of Doom along with Jimmy Hart.
The Giant left the ring with Hogan's World Title as he won the match but by disqualification and the title does not change hands on a DQ, or so we thought. As it turns out, Hart further screwed Hogan out of the title as he put in the contract that the title could change hands on a DQ and since he was Hogan's manager that night, Hogan lost the title.
WCW said Hogan was no longer the champion as his 469-day reign as champion came to an end. He remains the longest-reigning WCW Champion of all-time. However, WCW decided that The Giant would not be the champion as well and made the World Title vacant.
Even though Luger was now a heel and feuding with Hogan and Randy Savage, Sting was still an ally with Luger in a really rare face/heel team as Hogan and Savage were not trusting Sting.
This even led to a match with Sting taking on Hogan in a must-see Sting-Hogan match that we all waited for since Hogan entered WCW on the November 20, 1995 edition of Nitro. Sting had Hogan in the Scorpion Death Lock before The Dungeon of Doom ran and attacked both. Both Hogan and Sting patched things up.
WCW added a new PPV called World War 3 on November 26, 1995. World War 3 featured the three-ring, 60-man World War 3 battle royal and the winner of the battle royal would be the new WCW World Heavyweight Champion. It was a cool idea other than the fact there were 60 wrestlers. I couldn't even name 20 WCW wrestlers back where the hell would the find 60?
The World War 3 match had a controversial ending. Hulk Hogan managed to eliminate Sting, Lex Luger, and The Giant while Randy Savage was trying to eliminate One Man Gang. While the referees saw Savage throw Gang over the top rope, they missed Hogan being pulled out of the ring under the bottom rope by The Giant.
When things sorted out, the refs saw only Savage in the ring and figured he won the match so they awarded him the vacant WCW World Heavyweight Championship, joining Hogan and Ric Flair as wrestlers who won both the WCW and WWF Championships. Hogan protested this, saying he wasn't eliminated, but the referee's decision was final.
Savage lost the title to Flair at Starrcade 95 to end the year. Flair had to defeat Sting and Luger in a Triangle match just before the title match with the winner to face Savage for the World Title. Starrcade 95 was mostly known for the WCW vs. New Japan Pro Wrestling, USA vs. Japan "World Cup of Wrestling" won by WCW and the USA with Sting beating Kensuke Sasaki in the deciding match.
Flair reformed the Four Horsemen at Halloween Havoc 95 in October. Flair had a feud with Arn Anderson and his newest ally Brian Pillman after Pillman turned heel and helped Arn defeat Flair in their thrilling match at Fall Brawl.
Pillman started 1995 with this lame California gimmick. He was supposed to be team with Steve Austin to reform the Hollywood Blondes, but that idea was turned down by WCW and Austin was eventually let go from WCW. That move ultimately be the downfall for WCW, albeit it wouldn't be for a few years as Austin helped the WWF ultimately put WCW out of business after the turn of the century.
When Pillman turned heel, he dropped the stupid California gimmick and became known as "The Loose Cannon." Pillman would yell and scream and act like a crazy person in the ring as well as outside as many felt he was becoming this nut as he walked a thin line between gimmick and real life even though the real life part was all part of the act but Brian did a great job convincing everyone this was legit.
Flair tricked Sting into teaming with him to take on Arn and Pillman at Halloween Havoc. Before the match, Flair was shown being "attacked" by Arn and Pillman, taking him out and Sting had to face both men by himself. Eventually, a bandaged Flair made his way out and eventually tagged Sting in. However, Flair hit Sting as Flair, Arn, and Pillman attacked Sting.
Flair brought back the Four Horsemen with Arn and Pillman and newcomer Chris Benoit joined the faction late in 1995. They would feud with Sting, Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, and even the heel Lex Luger when Luger and Sting teamed up.
Speaking of Benoit, he was one of the many new and great talents acquired by WCW from ECW late in 1995. Also acquired were Dean Malenko, Eddie Guerrero, Sabu (albeit only for two months before he returned to ECW), and The Public Enemy in an attempt to take the company in a new direction.
Harlem Heat became the top tag team in 1995 and one of the best tag teams in WCW history. They began the year as WCW World Tag Team Champions and feuded with The Nasty Boys and the team of Dick Slater and Bunkhouse Buck. The three teams traded the titles throughout 1995.
Again, the Disney tapings wreaked havoc on the tag team titles. Harlem Heat lost the titles to The Nasty Boys at Slamboree. However during Disney tapings for WCW World Wide on May 3,1995, 18 days before the Slamboree PPV, Harlem Heat defeated the Nastys to win the titles before the Nastys would win the titles from them.
The tapings showed the Nastys would win the titles at Slamboree. This actual match would take place on the June 24, 1995 edition of WCW World Wide. Harlem Heat lost the titles to Slater and Buck on the June 21, 1995 taping of WCW Saturday Night even though Harlem Heat did not yet win the titles from the Nasty Boys on TV.
The title loss to Buck and Slater would be shown on the July 22, 1995 edition of WCW Saturday Night, six days after the Bash at the Beach PPV where Harlem Heat were shown with the titles. Luckily, WCW would soon get away from this practice of having title changes shown weeks in advance.
Harlem Heat won the titles back from Slater and Buck at Fall Brawl. They traded the titles with The American Males (Marcus Bagwell and Scotty Riggs) in the fall. The Harlem Heat would ultimately win the WCW World Tag Team Championship a record 10 times as a team and Booker T won the title 11 times, the most as an individual.
Even though there were lame ass gimmicks and plots and storylines, the influx of new talent, PPVs, and the new Monday Nitro TV show helped WCW make a profit for the first time ever. With the WWF struggling, things were looking up for WCW.
WCW would be on its way to its best years ever while the WWF would be facing its toughest years ahead going into 1996.
Eric Bischoff was close to having at least either a PPV or a Clash of the Champions event every month of the year. 11 of the 12 months had either a PPV or a Clash; only April 1995 was PPV or Clash-free. Bischoff decided to increase the number of PPVs and decrease the number of Clash of the Champions events.
Bischoff believed that the caliber of matches the made up the Clash of the Champions being shown free on cable TV should be put on PPV for people to pay for them and create a much greater demand for them. The Clash of the Champions went from four events in 1994 to just two in 1995.
Bischoff debuted two new PPVs in 1995: Uncensored in March and World War 3 in November. Uncensored kind of replaced Spring Stampede from the previous year. World War 3 replaced the annual November Clash of the Champions event. More on these PPVs later. The Great American Bash made its return in June after a three-year hiatus.
Bill Watts tried to eliminate The Great American Bash for 1992 but was turned down. The Great American Bash was the second-longest running and second-most prestigious PPV in WCW only behind Starrcade, run from 1985-1992. The Great American Bash replaced the annual June Clash of the Champions event.
There would be one thing Bischoff manages to that we will discuss later that would help WCW fully compete with the WWF and for a time, even beat the WWF and nearly put them out of business. This would help WCW establish itself as the number one professional wrestling promotion in the United States ahead of the WWF.
Ric Flair was supposed to be "retired" following a loss to Hulk Hogan at 1994 Halloween Havoc due to stipulations. According to Flair, WCW was going to pay him to not wrestle for an entire in an attempt to build him up. Flair was going to work in the WCW front office and continue his role as head booker.
Flair would still appear on WCW television in non-wrestling roles such as appearing at January's Clash of the Champions XXX event where he "purchased" a front row seat and watched the event. He said he was retired and had no plans from wrestling.
However, Harley Race, who was Vader's manager at the time, was seriously injured in a car accident and his wrestling career was pretty much done, even his stint as a manager was done. WCW needed Flair back in wrestling capacity sooner than they wanted and wanted him to partner with Vader to take on Hulk Hogan.
At SuperBrawl V in February, Hogan defended his WCW Championship against Vader. This was actually a really good match. Flair again sat in the front row but this time, he ran into the ring to help Vader attack Hogan until Randy Savage and Sting made the save. It was better to have Hogan feud with Vader and/or Flair then Brutus "The Butcher."
The next PPV on the schedule might be one of the worst ever: Uncensored. The event took place on March 19, 1995 from Tupelo, Mississippi. This was supposed to be an unsanctioned WCW PPV that the WCW Board of Directors wanted nothing to do with and the matches would have weird and strange stipulations. The WCW titles would also not be on the line.
Let's start with the worst match and worst match gimmick ever. Dustin Rhodes and the Blacktop Bully, who was this lame truck driver character played by Barry Darsow known as Smash from Demolition and even more ludicrous The Repo Man, fought in a "King of the Road" match, which took place on the back of an 18-wheeler while it was driving on a road somewhere.
The match took place a few days before and was taped and heavily edited by WCW due to their strict "no blood" policy. Both Rhodes and Darsow were fired after the event for "blading", making each other bleed. Whoever made this match should have been the one that was fired.
Meng took on "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan in a "Martial Arts" match with Duggan who has no martial arts background whatsoever. Johnny B. Badd fought Arn Anderson in a Boxer vs. a Wrestler match. The Nasty Boys took on The Harlem Heat in a Falls Count Anywhere Texas Tornado match where the fight went into the concession stands.
Randy Savage fought Avalanche in what was supposed to be a "No Disqualification" match that ended in a disqualification. A "female" fan ran into the ring to attack Savage only to be revealed as Ric Flair dressed like a woman for some reason to further generate heat.
In the main event, Hulk Hogan took on Vader in a Leather Strap match with Hogan's WCW Title not on the line. Nothing like having a PPV where none of the titles, especially the World Title, were on the line. That's not a waste of $49.99 or whatever the hell it cost back then. Hogan's manager Jimmy Hart was "kidnapped" earlier in the night and was held backstage by Vader and Flair.
Before the event, Hogan unleashed an "Ultimate surprise" thinking it was The Ultimate Warrior. Close but we were way off. It was "The Renegade" a wrestler dressed like and supposed to be The Ultimate Warrior as The Renegade made his WCW debut aligning himself with Hogan. This totally bombed as it should not be a surprise.
Hogan defeated Vader in the strap match without actually having to defeat Vader. How? Let me explain. Ric Flair interfered in the match so Hogan put the strap around him and touched the four corners so he ended up winning the match. Well since this was a "non-sanctioned" event, the rules were thrown out the window, great job!!
Jimmy Hart emerged from the back where he was held. A masked man emerged earlier in the match to take out The Renegade, again with the fucking masked man angle!! Well the masked man again came back and looked to join Vader and Flair in attacking Hogan.
But the masked man turned on Vader and Flair and revealed he was Randy Savage as he joined Hogan. Arn Anderson came from the back tied up as he was the original masked man that Savage tied up.
Why the hell was Arn Anderson masked? It wasn't like when Brutus Beefcake was the masked man because they wanted to hide his identity in a swerve but Anderson wasn't trying to swerve Hogan. Anderson was already an ally to Ric Flair. So I definitely did not get that at all. I also don't know why they needed Flair to dress like a woman when we knew they were feuding.
This was supposed to be an ECW-type event only to fail miserably. WCW should be went out of business right after this and if it weren't for Ted Turner putting up the money and still in charge of Turner Broadcasting, it would have ended long before we witnessed this atrocity.
Hogan and Savage wanted retribution on Flair for his attacks, but Flair was still technically retired so Hogan and Savage pleaded for his reinstatement to the ring so they could tear him limb-from-limb. Eventually, Flair was reinstated and Hogan and Savage got their wish.
Hogan and Savage teamed to take on Vader and Flair in the main event at the next PPV Slamboree. Savage's father Angelo Poffo was inducted in the WCW Hall of Fame at the Slamboree event and he was in Hogan and his son's corner.
Hogan and Savage defeated Vader and Flair, but were attacked by Vader and Flair and Arn Anderson after the match. Angelo Poffo went into the ring to try to get them to stop attacking them, only for Flair to attack Poffo and putting the 70-year-old Poffo in the Figure Four Leg Lock.
Savage wanted to tear Flair apart for attacking his father. Savage lost to Flair at The Great American Bash when Flair took Poffo's cane and hit Savage with it. Savage got revenge by defeating Flair in a "Lifeguard" match, basically a lumberjack match, at Bash at the Beach.
The Bash at the Beach PPV was held on a beach in Huntington Beach, California on July 16, 1995. It was really cool seeing that but there was a huge problem though. People had to pay to watch it and people had to pay to witness the event but those who were just on the beach, got to see the event for free if that makes any sense.
The Bash at the Beach PPV saw Hogan defeat Vader in a Steel Cage match. The PPV was notable for the first major appearance of Paul Wight, known now as The Big Show. Wight had been seen several times before sitting in the stands as this mysterious giant. He approached Hogan during an interview on The Main Event just before the PPV.
He had a white shirt similar to what Andre the Giant used to wear and threw it at Hogan yelling "remember this?" A visibly shaken Hogan recognized this as the shirt of the late Andre. Wight was originally supposed to be the son of Andre who was looking to get revenge on Hogan. Thankfully, Wight would just be known as "The Giant" and would just be a giant since he wasn't related to Andre.
It appeared that Kevin Sullivan, who underwent this transformation into "The Taskmaster" after he found "The Master" in a really stupid angle. Sullivan created The Dungeon of Doom, a stable he created to take out Hulk Hogan and The Giant was his crown jewel to end Hulkamania.
These lame gimmicks were all cute and all but WCW needed to figure out what it was going to take to overtake the WWF. After Ted Turner met Eric Bischoff where Turner asked Bischoff what it would take to beat the WWF, Bischoff replied by asking for a live primetime spot on one of his networks.
Turner not only gave him a live primetime show on his flagship TNT network, he gave him one hour live at 9:00 on Monday night to compete against the WWF's Monday Night Raw show. WCW would call their show WCW Monday Nitro. This would be the launch of the infamous "Monday Night Wars."
This would be unlike anything seen in professional wrestling at the time: a live weekly show on primetime on Monday nights. Sure, WWF had Raw which originally was live, but soon became taped. Nitro was going to do every one of its shows (with few exceptions) live every week.
Prior to Nitro, and even Raw, wrestling shows were taped weeks if not months (see Disney tapings) at a time and shown on various WCW and WWF cable and syndicated TV shows known as TV tapings. As we know especially from past TV tapings, again see Disney, we would find out future title changes before they were scheduled to happen.
The debut episode of Monday Nitro took place on September 4, 1995, Labor Day, from the Mall of America in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The put a ring in the middle of the mall where the action would take place in a really creative and genius idea.
After this, Nitro would happen at arenas with the occasional Spring Break episodes originating from Spring locations in South Florida. Nitro set to change professional wrestling on network television as their show Nitro would mostly feature PPV-caliber type of matches instead of one or two big matches but mostly matches featuring mid-carders and jobbers like RAW was doing at the time.
Bischoff would be one of the announcers along with Bobby Heenan and former Chicago Bears Defensive Lineman Steve "Mongo" McMichael, who joined WCW as an announcer and soon a wrestler. Bischoff often used the tagline "This is Where the Big Boys Play" when describing WC and Nitro. Nitro would originally be shown live from 9-10 p.m., one hour after WWF's Raw.
Bischoff would often use the practice of giving away Raw results on his live Nitro. Back then, Raw would have one live show followed by a few weeks worth of shows taped right after and shown on the next few Monday nights. Results from the taped RAWs got out and Bischoff would reveal the results on his show or have other announcers to do the same.
On the debut episode of Nitro, it was only fitting to have the two top WCW wrestlers all-time Sting take on Ric Flair. In the middle of the match, Lex Luger appeared in the aisle way in dress clothes as cameras were focused on him and even the announcers thought he was an unwanted guest as it appeared as if he was here while still with the WWF.
In reality, Luger left the WWF just before the first episode of Nitro. Luger was sick of the WWF and wanted to return to WCW for the first time in nearly four years. In fact, Luger just wrestled the night before at a WWF house show in his final match.
His contract was coming up and he never let the WWF, especially Vince McMahon, know he was leaving the WWF to return to WCW so everyone was shocked he was on WCW television. Luger made it a secret as Eric Bischoff only let a few people know he was coming back to WCW to further the "shock value" for the first episode of Nitro.
This would not be the only shock of a WWF wrestler coming back to WCW surprisingly appearing on Nitro. On the December 18, 1995 episode of Nitro, Madusa Miceli returned to WCW after three years as she appeared on Nitro. She had a stint in the WWF as "Alundra Blayze" and was the current WWF Women's Champion at the time of her surprise appearance.
She appeared on Nitro and per Eric Bischoff's request, she threw the WWF Women's Championship belt into a garbage can. Miceli went back to her Madusa name.
No debut episode of Nitro could not have Hulk Hogan as "The Huckster" defended the WCW World Heavyweight Championship in the main event against Big Boss Bubba Guardian Angel Rogers as Ray Traylor kept getting new names every time. Hogan won the match, but would be attacked by The Dungeon of Doom afterwards. Sting and Randy Savage came out to help Hogan and so too did Lex Luger.
After they cleared the ring, Hogan and Luger bumped into each other and both looked to strike each other before pulling back. "Mean" Gene Okerlund interviewed the foursome in the ring. Hogan was wondering why Luger was here and he said he wanted to be a part of WCW. He challenged Hogan to a World Title match the next week on Nitro, to which Hogan accepted.
Luger faced Hogan on the September 11, 1995 edition of Monday Nitro for the title in the main event. The Dungeon of Doom ran in and attacked both as the match ended in a no-contest. Again, The Dungeon of Doom attacked both men as Savage and Sting came to make the save.
Afterwards, they were all being interviewed. Sting suggested that Luger take Vader's place in their WarGames match against The Dungeon of Doom at Fall Brawl. Sting was Luger's best friend so naturally he would defend him.
Vader was set to team with Hogan, Savage, and Sting, but Vader was fired from WCW shortly before due to a real life backstage fight with Paul Orndorff. Savage said no as he didn't like or trust Luger. Hogan eventually allowed Luger to be their fourth for WarGames.
This was the worst WarGames match ever. Hogan's crew won and Hogan got five minutes alone with "The Taskmaster" Kevin Sullivan as a result. However, The Giant broke into the cage by ripping the door off of it and choked Hogan and proceeded to "twist" and "break" Hogan's neck.
Hogan was set to defend the WCW Championship against The Giant at Halloween Havoc. But before their title match, Hogan met Giant in a really stupid "Monster Truck Challenge" also at Halloween Havoc.
The monster truck battle would be both men in their monster trucks in a sumo wrestling type match where the winner had to push the other out of the circle. The event took place on the roof of Cobo Hall in Detroit, where Halloween Havoc was being held.
The event took place a day before and was taped and shown on Halloween Havoc. Hogan defeated The Giant in the Monster Truck Challenge. Afterwards, The Giant pulled Hogan out of the truck and attacked him. However, Hogan fought back as The Giant fell off the roof and "plunged" into the river. This looked real and looked like it was a tragic accident and possibly The Giant's death.
A "visibly shaken" Hogan appeared for their title match and said what just happened wasn't supposed to happen as he sold it like it was real. However, The Giant's music played and to the shock of everyone, The Giant was fine after falling off the roof and into the river.
The end of the match happened as Hogan looked to beat the Giant. However, Hogan's manager Jimmy Hart hit the referee with the World Title belt, knocking him out. Hart then ran into the ring and hit Hogan with the belt as he turned on Hogan.
The Giant and Kevin Sullivan and this strange 7 ft 6 mummy called "The Yeti" all attacked Hogan. Lex Luger and Randy Savage ran down to the ring to help Hogan. However, Luger attacked Savage and then joined in on beating up Hogan. Luger then put both Hogan and Savage in the Torture Rack as Luger appeared to join The Dungeon of Doom along with Jimmy Hart.
The Giant left the ring with Hogan's World Title as he won the match but by disqualification and the title does not change hands on a DQ, or so we thought. As it turns out, Hart further screwed Hogan out of the title as he put in the contract that the title could change hands on a DQ and since he was Hogan's manager that night, Hogan lost the title.
WCW said Hogan was no longer the champion as his 469-day reign as champion came to an end. He remains the longest-reigning WCW Champion of all-time. However, WCW decided that The Giant would not be the champion as well and made the World Title vacant.
Even though Luger was now a heel and feuding with Hogan and Randy Savage, Sting was still an ally with Luger in a really rare face/heel team as Hogan and Savage were not trusting Sting.
This even led to a match with Sting taking on Hogan in a must-see Sting-Hogan match that we all waited for since Hogan entered WCW on the November 20, 1995 edition of Nitro. Sting had Hogan in the Scorpion Death Lock before The Dungeon of Doom ran and attacked both. Both Hogan and Sting patched things up.
WCW added a new PPV called World War 3 on November 26, 1995. World War 3 featured the three-ring, 60-man World War 3 battle royal and the winner of the battle royal would be the new WCW World Heavyweight Champion. It was a cool idea other than the fact there were 60 wrestlers. I couldn't even name 20 WCW wrestlers back where the hell would the find 60?
The World War 3 match had a controversial ending. Hulk Hogan managed to eliminate Sting, Lex Luger, and The Giant while Randy Savage was trying to eliminate One Man Gang. While the referees saw Savage throw Gang over the top rope, they missed Hogan being pulled out of the ring under the bottom rope by The Giant.
When things sorted out, the refs saw only Savage in the ring and figured he won the match so they awarded him the vacant WCW World Heavyweight Championship, joining Hogan and Ric Flair as wrestlers who won both the WCW and WWF Championships. Hogan protested this, saying he wasn't eliminated, but the referee's decision was final.
Savage lost the title to Flair at Starrcade 95 to end the year. Flair had to defeat Sting and Luger in a Triangle match just before the title match with the winner to face Savage for the World Title. Starrcade 95 was mostly known for the WCW vs. New Japan Pro Wrestling, USA vs. Japan "World Cup of Wrestling" won by WCW and the USA with Sting beating Kensuke Sasaki in the deciding match.
Flair reformed the Four Horsemen at Halloween Havoc 95 in October. Flair had a feud with Arn Anderson and his newest ally Brian Pillman after Pillman turned heel and helped Arn defeat Flair in their thrilling match at Fall Brawl.
Pillman started 1995 with this lame California gimmick. He was supposed to be team with Steve Austin to reform the Hollywood Blondes, but that idea was turned down by WCW and Austin was eventually let go from WCW. That move ultimately be the downfall for WCW, albeit it wouldn't be for a few years as Austin helped the WWF ultimately put WCW out of business after the turn of the century.
When Pillman turned heel, he dropped the stupid California gimmick and became known as "The Loose Cannon." Pillman would yell and scream and act like a crazy person in the ring as well as outside as many felt he was becoming this nut as he walked a thin line between gimmick and real life even though the real life part was all part of the act but Brian did a great job convincing everyone this was legit.
Flair tricked Sting into teaming with him to take on Arn and Pillman at Halloween Havoc. Before the match, Flair was shown being "attacked" by Arn and Pillman, taking him out and Sting had to face both men by himself. Eventually, a bandaged Flair made his way out and eventually tagged Sting in. However, Flair hit Sting as Flair, Arn, and Pillman attacked Sting.
Flair brought back the Four Horsemen with Arn and Pillman and newcomer Chris Benoit joined the faction late in 1995. They would feud with Sting, Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, and even the heel Lex Luger when Luger and Sting teamed up.
Speaking of Benoit, he was one of the many new and great talents acquired by WCW from ECW late in 1995. Also acquired were Dean Malenko, Eddie Guerrero, Sabu (albeit only for two months before he returned to ECW), and The Public Enemy in an attempt to take the company in a new direction.
Harlem Heat became the top tag team in 1995 and one of the best tag teams in WCW history. They began the year as WCW World Tag Team Champions and feuded with The Nasty Boys and the team of Dick Slater and Bunkhouse Buck. The three teams traded the titles throughout 1995.
Again, the Disney tapings wreaked havoc on the tag team titles. Harlem Heat lost the titles to The Nasty Boys at Slamboree. However during Disney tapings for WCW World Wide on May 3,1995, 18 days before the Slamboree PPV, Harlem Heat defeated the Nastys to win the titles before the Nastys would win the titles from them.
The tapings showed the Nastys would win the titles at Slamboree. This actual match would take place on the June 24, 1995 edition of WCW World Wide. Harlem Heat lost the titles to Slater and Buck on the June 21, 1995 taping of WCW Saturday Night even though Harlem Heat did not yet win the titles from the Nasty Boys on TV.
The title loss to Buck and Slater would be shown on the July 22, 1995 edition of WCW Saturday Night, six days after the Bash at the Beach PPV where Harlem Heat were shown with the titles. Luckily, WCW would soon get away from this practice of having title changes shown weeks in advance.
Harlem Heat won the titles back from Slater and Buck at Fall Brawl. They traded the titles with The American Males (Marcus Bagwell and Scotty Riggs) in the fall. The Harlem Heat would ultimately win the WCW World Tag Team Championship a record 10 times as a team and Booker T won the title 11 times, the most as an individual.
Even though there were lame ass gimmicks and plots and storylines, the influx of new talent, PPVs, and the new Monday Nitro TV show helped WCW make a profit for the first time ever. With the WWF struggling, things were looking up for WCW.
WCW would be on its way to its best years ever while the WWF would be facing its toughest years ahead going into 1996.
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