First things first. If you are wondering who is the bigger neon sign for P.E.D.s, it’s actually looking like Savage, who has gone to the slicked back pony tail look. Hogan is still huge, but he’s just as much a warning for skin cancer as he might be for anything else. This match is odd, as the fans don’t react for anything the guys do at first, and then pop huge for Hogan smacking two of Macho’s THREE valets against each other (they end up attacking each other and leaving). Bish is such a real like a-hole that I thought Hogan was the heel, but apparently it’s Macho. They move decently for old men. This will probably be a very simple heel-face dynamic. They mastered this a decade earlier.

There’s just something so fake and cartoony about Hogan’s offense that even when it’s smooth it looks dull and lifeless to me. I know I’m in the minority, but I never thought what Hogan possessed was charisma, so much as obnoxious energy and odd movement. Hogan tears Macho apart on offense, uses a chair at some point, and I try to stay awake. The crowd is into it from time to time, usually not when they stay in the ring though.

Really odd moment when they do the reversal to get the heat, as Macho recklessly tosses his third valet, Gorgeous George, into Hogan. Macho and women make me nervous. He wears out Hogan was some hard belt shots and a chair. Really basic slow moving stuff – and not Ric Flair or Bret Hart basic – but I like Macho’s control segment more than Hogan’s. Taste is most likely the culprit. The crows somewhat commits to booing this, and I somewhat commit to paying attention.

Bischoff is excruciating to listen to on commentary. What a geek, especially as Hogan does the comeback. Hogan is far too concerned with playing to the crowd than winning, and that’s a whole ideological argument in and of itself, but it allows time for Sid to interfere. This went from boring to terrible fast. Sting is out to save Hogan for no reason. This match must be no DQ. Macho hits Hogan with a chain and Hogan drops like he’s dead. It was his best movement all match. Nash is in to power bomb Macho. It’s a fine line between brilliantly woven and over booked, and over booked it when no one cares about the feuds woven together in a federation. This is that, though Hogan gets a pop for winning the title from Macho here. I believe this was the third time Macho won a title on a PPV and lost it to Hogan the next day. How did Hogan fuck him politically like that so often? 1 ¾ stars and 3/10.

What can you say about two mega-stars getting it on one more time? Past their primes? Sure. Could it be fun? Definitely. Will it be good? Macho gives a lot of effort and Hogan seems to have his perfectly decent match boots on whenever he makes it on this list. I’m game.

Hogan is trying way too hard to involve the Disciple (Beefcake Ed Leslie) in his career and in this match. Poor Macho comes out with the belt and the look of a placeholder. Twice WCW gave him the belt so he could job to Hogan the next night. Macho looks like he’s still got something though as he heads to the ring. He always had a good look and decent gear (okay, maybe the late WWF in WCW run was a bit much).

I’m just not in the mood for short punches and eye gouges tonight. Oh yeah, can’t forget bad chokes where Hogan moves his head around like he’s choking Macho real hard. Even the Disciple gets in the act of crappy offensive heel work. I’m bored out of my mind, and the live crowd struggles to stay engaged and boo (the heel, not the match).

Macho takes to average chair shots that were not really necessary to the story (though in fairness it is no DQ), and the offense of Hogan slowly continues. Macho’s come backs are okay, but his selling is the only thing keeping more sort of in the match. Hogan works on the knee and Macho really tries to make it matter. It doesn’t, but I appreciate the gutsy performance. Christ, Hogan gets out the weight belt and whips and chokes Macho. This is horribly bad stuff now.

One of the few highlights is Macho coming back, whipping Hogan with the belt, and doing the big elbow. Of course he sells the knee right after, which would be awesome in a match with someone else who had a flow. Not old man Hogan though. Shock of the century: Hogan pulls out a spinning toe hold and figure four. How odd. Match has gotten above 2 star range though.

The Disciple comes in and wipes out ref Patrick. Boring walking around beatings ensue. Nash is out. He power bombs Hogan. Bret Hart out. He puts Hogan on Macho for the pin in 16 minutes. Bret’s a douche. Piper can’t believe the heel turn. I yawn remembering I hated this the first time. 2 ¼ and 4/10.

Even though age and WCW/NWO booking will play a negative factor in the eventual outcome of this match, I’m excited for this one. Two of my favorite old 80s WWF wrestlers in a match against one another. I’m excited. Why wouldn’t I be? I had these two in my top five picks for my favorite Royal Rumble in 1992 – and they made it. And thankfully Sid Justice saved us from a Hogan win, and Hogan saved us from a Sid win. Flair rules. Let’s go to the match.

Right away these two bring the intensity and sense of purpose that good matches need to exist in our memories. Piper shakes off Liz interference and whips Savage with his belt. It’s payback for something Savage did recently the announcers don’t go into full detail. They fight outside, tease a pile driver on the floor, and Liz breaks it up. Piper of course then forces himself on her (wrestling makes no sense), and Macho hits Piper from behind. It’s okay though, Piper gets his big sleeper on – and then runs right into Liz. It’s already over booked. I’ll save you the rest. DQ finish because of Hogan. A bunch of NWO drama ensues. The live crowd popped for some of it, but week to week this got way to goofy. The red and Black was coming soon, which I remember liking but that’s irrelevant for now. A fun walk through of what could have been a surprising match. It wasn’t though. 2 and 4/10.

The big guns from the NWO against a bunch of WCW main event babyfaces. Cool with me. I like the personalities, not to mention Sting’s epic entrance music. Somehow Sting is the champ, the Giant has a neck brace, and Macho is back face with Liz at his side. WCW was/is so confusing.

They start off with everyone doing a hot brawl. Hogan and Macho go at it. Hall sells like crazy for Sting. The Giant and Nash cancel each other out. Hogan gets Sting all alone in the ring once everyone gets to their tag corners. Hogan sells as well as Hogan can sell, and then we get the big men. Nash vs Giant. Heels cheat to win in a cool spot where Giant picks up Hall/Hogan and Nash gets him from behind. I’m really hoping The Giant won’t be the one selling during the heat since they already gave away Sting/Hogan right away. If anything it should be Macho selling, since he’s the best out there other than maybe Hall.

The heels tag in and out a lot and it has movement because of that. Hogan stuff against the Giant is wholly bad. Also, Bischoff at ringside during matches sucks. He has no idea what to do out there and draws no heat, helps in no spots, and isn’t a great mouthpiece for all this talent. What a mark he is/was. Anyways, this heel control segment goes on forever with logical triple teaming because he’s so big, but it’s horribly boring because Giant couldn’t sell BEFORE the neck brace. It’s worse now.

Macho gets the hot tag and Giant stops selling. So while Macho is milking that he wants at Hogan, Nash runs all the way to the back while Giant slowly walks after him. The crowd is distracted from the Macho/Hogan match up. Macho does make this a great “tag match” for about 30 seconds, than Hogan cronie Beefcake runs in. Schiavone has to pretend he doesn’t know who this new NWO recruit is, and all of us just wish we could forget him forever. Crap finish with Hogan covering Macho after the interference to a less than average match. 2 ¼ and 4/10.

Well we’ve certainly seen this one before on the ballot. Matches # 13, 15, 20, and 35 all contain the pairing in decent to very good matches. This probably won’t reach the heights of their early 90s run, or even the aforementioned early Nitro run, but it does have the WCW vs NWO dynamic to go with the beat up old veterans who give their all.

Flair attacks Macho right in the aisle way, so this is like grudge match booking here. They brawl into the stands and I see the greatest wrestling sign EVER: “Sunny Fears Liz”. Who knew? The brawling isn’t that great and there’s no room in the stands. Flair elbows ref Nick Patrick and he sells it like a goof. Macho is really trying to make this with his selling, and the fans aren’t shitting on it. Savage chokes with his shirt and later uses the hand held mic of Dave Penzer as a weapon. Kinda lame stuff. Announcers talk a lot about Hogan’s new movie Assault on Devil Island. Yay.

Flair forces himself on Liz and the fan’s pop because – you know – women want it. They finally make it to the ring. This is a lot of short cut stuff that is getting over because these men are legends. Schiavone is actually so tone death at this point he wonders if Flair going over the top rope show be a DQ. They just brawled and used (crappy) weapons for five minutes, Tony!

Highlight of the match is when they seem to get a little stiff with each other and then Savage takes a top rope bump to the guard rail on a missed ax handle dive. Hennig comes out for the(typical NOW) DQ in 8 minutes. The magic was gone on this night. 2 and 4/10.

This is the third or fourth fun little match featuring Savage vs a mid carder in an enjoyable little match. I was about to sing the praises of Savage for working well with those slots on Nitro (something members of the NWO weren’t know for), but that’s not actually what the match is.

The supposed La Parka frustrates Macho at first, flanked by Hall and Liz on the outside. It’s well paced and shows Macho’s timing and presence with the crowd early, but it all unravels three minutes in (with very little to the match before that). LA Parka hits the Diamond cutter and unmasks as DDP. Savage sells it like a pro. Crowd goes crazy, and I remember this feud fondly. Didn’t see most of the PPV matches, but this was DDP at the most productive park of his career with a still motivated Savage. Regardless, this wasn’t their PPV match, just a fun angle. Not much else. 1 star and 2/10.

A lot of brawling early. Flair cheats to win as usual. Flair has Woman, Liz, and Deborah McMichael, as usual. It’s the formula you guys know and love with these guys. Can’t believe it’s the same divorce story though.

Savage changes it up dumping champagne on Flair, then a weak bottle shot. It all should have been left out for my money. Just looked hokey. Crowd is behind them when they get to the ring though. Flair does his classic stooging and bumps well here. Savage takes his double ax handle from the top into the steel rail just before a second commercial break.

We come back to Flair working his ass off getting the heat on Savage. Both guys are moving well. Maybe I have a bias from watching the “Flair Formula” in it’s heyday or from being in love w/ their Mania 8 match, but I’m a little bored during this one. It’s not quite the style of work that draws me in unless it’s done at Flair’s 80s run level.

Macho’s comeback is pretty awesome, and then Flair cuts it off. A miscommunication has Flair taking his bump off the top by himself. Flair w/ some object nails Savage. Near fall is pretty cool. Ref bump and we get Macho domination. I take no issue w/ the huge effort from both men. Macho hits to big elbows. He pile drives the interfering Benoit, tosses Arn Anderson, but Mongo gets him with the Halliburton brief case. Flair gets the pin. The end actually works for the match and the time frame of the feud, though we know how Mongo turned out. 3 stars and 6/10.

Savage deserves a lot of credit for his early Nitro run. Not only did he rule in main event matches with people like Flair, but he had forgotten great matches like this one. He had done the same thing with Benoit in a match that had great moments, but didn’t completely click (Match # 18). Here we got a hot crowd, and it’s all about what Savage can do with the little known Belfast Bruiser.

Right off the lock up is intense. Savage, as usual, elects to sell a lot earlier than many babyfaces, especially again lesser known guys. Maybe it was a lack of TV time for the slot, but it feels like a good thing to do for lower card guys working up. Savage does a great knee sending Finlay to the outside. He takes several post shots really well, which allows Finlay to look good working over the shoulder/arm and stalking Savage. Savage also had an unrated bump into the guard rails/over the guard rails.

The crowd is really hot and into this match, looking for Savage to come back. They milk that fact well, and Finlay is not afraid to get snug with Savage. Nice solid work.

Savage moves, Finlay hits his shoulder charging the corner, and the big elbow finishes clean for a Savage win in 5 minutes. That’s a CRIME! No, why did it end so suddenly and criminally short? My crying aside, it was great while it lasted. 2 ¾ and 5/10.

Flair is out with Liz & Woman. I feel like I’ve seen this match one too many times in the short history of Nitro. It never quite gets near the level of their Wrestlemania 8 match, but I love the dynamic of the two together. Flair is the champ at this point. Macho is simply pissed off.

Macho kills Flair at the bell, and there’s an awesome atomic drop onto the Madness for the reversal. Macho takes a beating from Flair so well as a babyface. It’s different from any other babyface I’ve seen matched with Flair. Macho also gets caught being distracted by Woman.

The Nature Boy does a “Flair flop” (face first bump) after fighting off a Savage hope spot, and you can hear the distain in Bischoff’s voice having to describe what happened to Flair. You can tell he wasn’t really into the guys work.

One thing that should be noted about early Nitros is they gave no time for, or workers cut out, all rest holds. Only the figure four spot is kept in all the Flair matches I’ve seen. Macho gets the aforementioned Fig. Four and takes control. I should mention that the sleeper gets used for under ten seconds in a few matches, and there’s one here too. Flair reverses out with a suplex. They are really running now. Good movement. Macho runs the ropes several times hard and takes the bump at the end. Great mid match spot.

They have a good progression leading to a Flair Figure Four. Crowd is totally behind Savage as he reveres it and sells the knee huge. Flair’s chops are deadly strikes on this night. Macho keeps coming back. A delayed back body drop looked scary, but he got Flair over. Macho hits his big double ax handle. Liz distracts the ref while Woman throws in her high heel. Macho catches it and nails Flair.
Kevin Sullivan comes out. Hogan is out to chase. All types of distraction. Macho gets a two count and the bell rings. That’s a screw up. Arn Anderson in to DDT Macho. That looked great. A dead beat Flair pins Macho at the 11:30 mark.

Good flowing match that had a lot going on at the end, obviously furthering their angles for TV and putting heat on the heels. Nothing legendary, but they used their eleven plus minutes well. 3 ½ and 6.8/10.

Oh wow. This is one of those hidden geek out moments for me because I had no idea this match existed. Early Nitro, and maybe the entire run, was so great for having newsletter/Internet dream matches for free on your TV. Especially once WCW had three hours to fill.

My policy on Chris Benoit is as follows. Wrestling is art. I can love a painting and have distain for what the artist did in his/her personal life. It is quite easy for me to separate the two. After all, and this is on a whole other side of the argument, they still sell books Hitler wrote. I don’t want to compare tragedies, but it does illustrate that there is more than just artistic value. There’s a historic aspect that can not be denied. These matches happened. This man existed. You don’t change history just because something you don’t like happened. Rant and policy over.

Crowd is so hot a the start of this, and I’m surprised to find Benoit milking it just as much as Macho. Wasn’t he a “vanilla midget” according to Kevin Nash? Anyway, stare down and words exchanged here are heated. The opening lock up is 15 seconds of intensity, and Macho starts selling right away. Right to the heat in an intense way. Crowd actively boos. Benoit big. Even when it’s not fluid it has that “this is a shoot” feel to it, like these guys really have a beef.

I’m creeped out watching Liz and Nancy Benoit yelling at ringside as the Crippler hits a picture perfect diving head butt. “Oh yeah”, I remember.

All the offense and selling is solid here, but there is a lack of story being told with there bodies. The moves dictate the babyface champ is selling the whole match, which is generous of him, but not much else connects us to the story. There isn’t much sympathy from the crowd, though they pop for a hope spot before a ring post bump. Macho ignores it a moment later, they make up for it. First Savage goes over the top for a huge flip bump. Then he steps out of the way as Benoit dives through the ropes and meets the padded concrete. Sick!

Savage hits an awesome top rope elbow on Benoit, but then we get a Horseman beat down of Macho for the DQ. Well done stuff though. Nifty little match. 2 ¾ and 6/10.