Monday Nitro

April 26, 1999

Fargo, ND

Fargodome

Two weeks prior to this show, Diamond Dallas Page won the WCW World Heavyweight Championship for the first time in his career, and with the title win came a heel turn as he was accused of deliberately injuring “Hollywood” Hulk Hogan during the match by using a figure-four leglock around the ring post. A week later, DDP attempted the same move on Goldberg. WCW’s “People’s Champion” was no more.

On this show, WCW’s commissioner, “Rowdy” Roddy Piper, put DDP to the test, forcing him to defend the title in the first hour against Sting. This to me is the last great world championship match in WCW history. It was a great main event-level match that went 20 minutes, with an awesome finishing stretch. DDP went for the Diamond Cutter, but Sting held on to the ropes and reversed the attempt into the Scorpion Deathdrop.

At the urging of Kevin Nash, a four-way title match was set up to headline Nitro, with Sting agreeing to defend his newly won championship against Nash, DDP, and Goldberg. This is a pretty chaotic match, with “Macho Man” Randy Savage interfering and preventing a Goldberg win. He then tossed a pair of knucks to DDP, who hits Nash with a Diamond Cutter and wins back the title about two hours after he lost it.

This is the first time in WCW history that a wrestler has lost and regained the WCW Championship in the same night. It was never made clear why Savage was helping DDP in title matches.

Like WWE, WCW introduced a hardcore division in 1999, though at this time, there wasn’t a formalized championship. Instead, there was the informal “King of Hardcore” that was claimed by Bam Bam Bigelow, who had emerged successfully from a number of hardcore matches over previous months. To determine his challenger, Brian Knobbs defeated Horace Hogan, Mikey Whipwreck and Hak (the former Sandman) to face Bigelow at Slamboree. If you like wrestlers just aimlessly bashing each other with weapons and doing pretty impressive stunts, this is for you. Hak even pulls out a swanton off a ladder.

If you like comedy segments, there is a thread of them on this Nitro episode. Ric Flair, WCW’s president, had recently been committed to a mental hospital and appointed Charles Robinson as his vice president, his hand to the king so to speak.

Rey Mysterio, serving as one half of the WCW World Tag Team Champions, challenged Psychosis for the WCW Cruiserweight Championship. Psychosis had finally won the championship the week prior in a four-way match (lots of those as of late), but Mysterio wasn’t involved in the decision, so he got his rematch here. I hope Psychosis enjoyed his moment because these two guys got about five minutes and Rey won the title right back. Knowing what these two guys are capable of, this was disappointing.

A good trip down memory lane. I remember watching this show live, and considering today is 25 years since it aired, it comes off as a good recommendation. This is a good episode of Nitro, and those would become exceedingly rare over the coming months.

Other matches on this show:

• Konnan vs. Brian Adams

• Raven vs. Scott and Steve Armstrong in a handicap match

• Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Erik Watts

• WCW World Television Champion Booker T vs. Meng

You can find the B-Show Stories archive here.