[1996-03-11-WCW-Nitro] Road Warriors vs Rick & Scott Steiner

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

This crowd sounds like an old Crockett crowd, which is awesome. Lots of good power moves. Rick Steiner's clotheslines are out of this world. Super stiff and high impact. Jim Ross would have an aneurysm at the broadcast booth, and I kinda wish he was calling this. Not sure what the logic was in jobbing the Steiners their first night in, but still a fun match.

[shoe]

I remember watching this when it 1st aired and I was going nuts. Flashforward 14 years later and I'm still popping big for the match. I loved how both teams just threw everything at one another. Just a fun match an worked just like a dream match would between these 2 teams.

[El-P]

Meanwhile, the Godwinns were feuding with the Smoking Gunns... No wonder why at the time Nitro seemed so major league compared to RAW.

[Tim Evans]

Hawk no selling the top rope bulldog Rick gave him was awesome. Great match with two teams just beating the crap out of each other. Mongo seemed to really enjoy it on commentary.

[BackToBionic]

I like when Mongo said he'd watched The Steiners since he was "a youngster".

[Zenjo]

Two legendary tag teams collide in what I'm sure was a dream match at the time. It's nice to see them go full out on TV, it felt a fair bit longer than 10m. The bout could best be described as a power move fest as both teams dished out loads of high impact offence. You could say that the selling was minimal and the structure was all messed up. Neither of these teams were noted for their match construction skills. With all those potential finishing moves they hit it was galling to have an international object screwjob ending too. Overall I quite enjoyed it though.

[El-P]

The Steiners showing up unannounced on Nitro was yet another one of those "holy shit" moment, with more guys with actual star power showing up on TV. Against the Road Warrior to boot, the dream match of all dream match for US tag team wrestling. Nice bomb throwing power match. Disjointed, but it had to be expected. Steiners doing the job was a surprise too, but they were building up the Warriors for Uncensored, and the Steiners didn't lose any polish from that loss. Cool stuff.

[PDRMatt]

Nitro 3/11/96 was my first ever wrestling show, so this match will always be special to me as I was a big Steiners fan but hadnt seen them in years at that point. At the time (being that I was only 9), I didnt realize that the Steiners and the Road Warriors rarely ever faced one another either. While the match might not be top of the line since they were both past their primes, it was very cool to see. Odd that the Steiners lost their reintroduction to the WCW audience; especially since the Road Warriors weren't exactly bulletproof in 1996.

[PeteF3]

This was a true holy-shit moment. Now, a few years earlier, a team that hadn't been on American TV in 2+ years suddenly returning would likely not have gotten any reaction at all. But one thing about the Monday Night Wars is they brought back a lot of lapsed fans from the '80s, who appreciated and liked seeing the stars of their fandom turn up. We saw it with Jake the Snake getting a monster ovation at the Royal Rumble and we see it here. Both these teams have lost a step or nine from when this was a true Dream Match, but this was surprisingly enjoyable nevertheless. Really fun to see the Roadies get tossed around. Finish is a little clusterfucky but the Roadies get a cheap win thanks to Animal using a spiked gauntlet on Rick.

[soup23]

As someone not exactly fond with either of these teams, I was lower on it than most of the other comments. The opening with the Steiners coming out on Harley's was cool and they did some good power moves but parts of the match felt like these four guys doing their version of a legend match which made me have a disconnect with the match as a whole overall. Nothing terrible, but nothing very good either and mainly here for nostalgia and name purposes. **1/2

[tim]

Steiners show up unannounced riding motorcycles to the ring and they look pretty badass doing it. Then the Road Warriors come down and it really feels like a big match. First couple minutes are totally awesome, Steiners are hitting great suplexes and Rick's two hard clotheslines followed by the big German was an awesome spot. It starts to drag a little later into the match as the Road Warriors just don't have anything to keep up with the Steiners. But there's a chaotic free for all at the end that brings the match back around for the ending. Overall a good match.

[JKWebb]

This match rules! I’m surprised I haven’t heard this talked about more.  Outta nowhere on Nitro you get the Steiners and the Road Warriors and they go hard.  They’re throwing bombs and hitting big moves. Love it. 

[PhilTLL]

Whew this was not good. The intro heat was nice, but the match turns into disjointed, ugly "these guys are really out of shape and practice" nonsense about 2 minutes before the finish.

Much higher-ranking in the category of "entertaining WCW crap" is the strap/lumberjack/six-man tag team match between the Mega Powers + Booty Booty Booty Man and the Horsemen + Sullivan. All of the lumberjacks are in red flannel shirts and Regal is wearing his little white ruffle with it, an unintentional tease to his Real Man's Man gimmick.

[dawho5]

This and the Sting/Bubba match from two weeks prior are two excellent examples of really fun, hard-hitting TV matches.  Neither will go down as an all-time classic, but both are better than a lot of the content around them just for how well-executed they are for not being particularly well-structured.  I am also not a fan of either team, but this one was a beacon of hope that good things are coming.