December '95

Monday Night Wars December '95

Raw/Nitro Dec 4th

Monday Night Raw 4/12/95 (2.25 Stars)

Raw opens with British Bulldog defeating Bob Holly in a decent match. A video package shows Bob Backlund putting the crossface chicken wing on JR a week after he did it to Bret Hart. Lawler interviews Backlund who goes into sicko mode and starts shouting about how he needs the WWF Title to reign over the plebeians. Razor Ramon defeats Dean Douglas and retains the IC Title in a short match. Dean was on his way out of the company which perhaps explains the rather underwhelming end to this feud. Brother Love presents King Mabel with a custom casket in an entertaining segment. Main event time as Marty Jannetty takes on Sid seeking revenge for Survivor Series. It ends in a DQ as The Kid and Razor couldn't help themselves from interfering. After a segment trying to convince us HBKs career is over, we have a nice voiceover from VKM reminding us that while they are called Superstars, they are still human.

WCW Nitro 4/12/95 (2.5 Stars) On Nitro, Harlem Heat retained the tag titles against The American Males as Col. Parker ran off with Sherri. Sting FINALLY explains the reason he's stuck by Lex despite his alliance with Jimmy Hart, is simply because they have been friends for over 10 years! He promotes a number one contenders triangle match between himself, Luger and Flair at Starrcade. Lex Luger takes on Savage in the main for the World Title. After a ref bump and a Flair run in aiding Luger, Hogan intervened ensuring the title remained with Savage by causing a DQ. After Sting runs down to break things up, he repeats to Hogan that even though he doesn't always agree with Luger, he's simply trying to straighten him out as his friend. They shake hands. The best match Luger and Savage have delivered thus far and an overall good show going against a Raw that was good on paper but poor in execution

Raw/Nitro Dec 11th

Monday Night Raw 11/12/95 (2 Stars)

Raw's go home show is the night of squash matches. Owen defeats a young Jeff Hardy and Ahamed Johnson follows suit pinning Rick Stockhauser. Lawler says the toughest 4 years of Ahamed's life was the 3rd grade, citing Dean Douglas for the bad joke. Aja Kong beats Chaparita Asari (Asari is credited with inventing the Sky Twister Press, more commonly known as AJ Styles "Spinal Tap") Aja allegedly broke Asari's nose and would soon be released, as the WWF elected to end its women's division. The first segment of the night involves Todd Pettengill dropping the "R" word to HBK. Shawn doesn't like that, gets emotional and refuses to answer the question. Following this was VKM in-ring with Sid and The Kid promoting their PPV match. I'm not as excited for this match as I should be, as it's been booked well. Bret Hart gets revenge on Bob Backlund in the main event via DQ. The build to IYH has been poor and WWF have really failed to pick up on any momentum built from SS and the following Raw.

WCW Nitro 11/12/95 (2.5 Stars)

Nitro starts with a match already in progress with Eddie defeating Mr J.L. Next was a Horsemen promo minus Beniot (Again) Paul Orndorff interrupts saying Pillman is only a Horseman because HE turned the offer down. He gets a piledriver on the concrete for his trouble. Lex Luger defeats Jim Duggan. I can't understand for the life of me how this gimmick was ever over, as it reminds me of a more patriotic version of Eugene. After a short Savage promo ahead of his title match with The Giant next week, we get the main event! Hogan and Sting defeat Flair & AA. We get a post match Pillman run in and Lex Luger saves Sting because they are friends…REMEMBER! After Sting accidentally slaps the taste out of Savage's mouth, the three men (Hogan, Savage & Sting) vow to work together. Nitro with the better show again this week

In Your House 5 (Seasons Beatings)

IYH 5 Time! Razor & Jannetty defeat Sid and The Kid in the opener. Goldust pervs over Razor as the match goes on. Lawler presents a returning Jeff Jarrett with a plaque encasing a gold CD claiming he's sold over half a million copies. Dean Douglas says he's hurt, so feeds Buddy Landell (yes, that Buddy Landell) to Ahamed Johnson to murder instead. Jeff attacks Johnson with his very real and official plaque. They brawl on the ramp. HHH wins the Hog Pen match with Henry O. Godwinn. The pair worked a good match to be fair but my interest levels for this one couldn't be lower. Diesel retained his IC Title via DQ against Owen, and Taker won an underwhelming casket match with King Mabel. The main event was excellent. Bret Hart retained the WWF title against his brother in law Davey, getting some beautiful colour in this one with the close up shots of Diana Hart also adding to the drama! The WWF supposedly had a "no blood" policy around this time. So on the rare occasions it was used (Ex Bret/Diesel SS) it was highly effective. While it's impossible for a single match to save an entire PPV, Davey and Bret came as close to doing so as imaginable (2.75 Stars)

Raw/Nitro Dec 18th

Monday Night Raw 18/12/95 (2 Stars)

WWFs final TV of 1995 (discounting superstars) Buddy Landell is back, yay! He defeats Bob Holly as he must have been promised a win over a midcarder in return for putting over Ahamed last night. Goldust gives himself a courtside seat for Razor Ramon's match because he still wants to bang him presumably. Razor wins via count-out due to Yoko running away because of the lights flickering…way to make a 400 pound monster look like a tough guy by the way. Cue a cheesy HBK montage and Raw is off air. WCW Nitro 18/12/95 (2.75 Stars)

Nitro opened with the famous Alundra Blayze moment in which she dumped the women's championship in the trash (AKA the bin, for my British readers) My thoughts on this are as follows. The WWF's women's division was so poor at the time, she may have done them a favour with that action putting the final nail in the division, yet WCW could have made SO MUCH MORE of this opportunity. Instead they opted for a cheap shock moment that lasted 15 seconds and was essentially a segway to introduce NFL and Chicago Bear legend William "The Refrigerator" Perry as security. Flair/Eddie opens the show. Flair win's a good match, pinning Eddie off a figure four! AA comes out and talks shit about Orndorff. This leads to Sullivan and Jimmy Hart also coming out, leading to more friction between the DoD and the Horsemen because of Pillman supposedly ragging on them last week. The Giant defeats Randy Savage in the main event via DQ due to Hogan running in yet again and clocking a ref in the head with a chair. Hogan seemed to get over acting this way, until he asked for a title shot which was met by massive boos. Savage promises if he makes it out of Starrcade it will be Hogan/Savage! WCW with the final point of the month.

WCW Monday Nitro Dec 25th

WCW Nitro 25/12/95 (3 Stars)

It's all WCW to end the year with one TV and one PPV all going unopposed. Nitro starts with Lex Luger running over Scotty Riggs in his red, white and blue bus and Sting defeating Big Bubba. After Luger promotes his 3-way with Sting and Flair, Sgt. Pittman asks Jimmy Hart to be his manager (He also asked Heenan last week) Jimmy asks him to take his shirt off and gives him body dysmorphia by comparing him to Luger while laughing. Savage successfully defends his WORLD TITLE against Flair. He's defended it on Nitro 3 times this month, which seems excessive. It was possibly the best TV match of the month regardless. Sting runs down in an attempt to call off Luger and help Savage, but the pair end up butting heads anyway

Starrcade '95

Starrcade gets underway with a VT explaining the best of 7 World Cup format with WCW stars taking on New Japan. A good opener between Liger and Beniot sees New Japan pick up the first point due to Kevin Sullivan shenanigans. Schiavone does a great job calling this one, displaying his vast wrestling knowledge and detailing the match as it unfolded. The IWGP Jr Heavyweight champion, Koji Kanemoto gets New Japan their second point defeating Alex Wright in a serviceable match. Sonny Ono does his best "Dr Evil" impression and mentions the possibility of purchasing WCW. Lex Luger finally gets WCW on the board defeating Masahiro Chono. Not a good match and while Luger is capable, he really struggled to grab my attention unless he was involved in a high profile feud (Savage, Hogan, Flair etc) Kimberly aids Johnny B. Badd during his match against Masa Saito to even the scores. Next is a fantastic bout as Shinjiro Ohtani defeats Eddie. This ever so slightly eclipses the Benoit match earlier as it went longer and didn't involve a screwy finish. It would even be included on Eddie's "Viva La Raza" DVD set. Savage once again evened the scores with his win over Tensan, leading to the rubber match. Sting faces and defeats the man who won his WCW US Title, Kensuki Sasaki. Flair wins the triangle match, by way of Luger and Sting getting counted out. Great match, even better ending, and really fun if you know their histories together. Yet I can't lie. I'm not a huge fan of triangle matches and prefer normal 3 ways. As a result I didn't enjoy it as much as others claim too. Although, I do understand why they did it this way (so Luger/Sting could endure a more dramatic finish) Ric Flair wins the World Title from Randy Savage to end the night following a Horsemen run-in. At least Beniot finally came out and celebrated with the rest of them this time. Also Jimmy Hart was coaching Flair throughout this one despite the alleged Horsemen/DoD beef going on. Ric gets copious and unnecessary amounts of colour towards the end. Personally I believe the Nitro match these two men had on Christmas day only two days prior was a better match, but there you go. Overall a nice premise that I personally enjoyed (If nothing else it was a change of pace) and the quality of the wrestling was good for the most part. Best WCW PPV of the Nitro era so far (3.5 Stars)

*One Man Gang wins the US Title during the post show dark-match, and loses it again during the restart. His loss isn't acknowledged on TV and he remains the champion regardless

Final Notes 1995

1995 wasn't a kind year for the WWF, or its fans for that matter. Regardless both WWF and WCW had plenty of high quality wrestling matches in places I wouldn't expect. We all know Nitro will kick into 5th gear in 96, so let's see if Raw and the WWF do the same. As the year of 1995 finally ends, the scores are WCW 9-3 WWF, with 3 draws.

"1995 was the worst year of the 90s for the Pro Wrestling business! Nobody was drawing, Vince was losing money and Bischoff debuted Nitro at the Mall of America like goddamn Tiffany or whoever she was" -Jim Cornette 2010

Match of the Month:

Bret Hart Vs The British Bulldog (IYH 5)