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[1996-10-21-WCW-Nitro] Randy Savage vs Chris Benoit


Loss

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  • 1 month later...

Savage comes out in solid black and sunglasses not dressed to wrestle. The match never takes place. Bischoff has a video for Savage to watch, and it's of Hogan, The Giant and Liz on the set of Hogan's movie. Hogan is ordering Liz to tell Savage she loves him and wants him back and to mess with his head.

 

This is Savage's response:

 

"It just occurred to me how fragile friendships and relationships can be. And you Eric Bischoff, you and I both know how fragile business can be. Even marriage is fragile. But Hulk Hogan, life is fragile."

 

This is still a weird angle. At the time, it felt like they were implying Savage was going to kill himself because of Bischoff's overreacting "don't go there" response. Now when I rewatch it, I think they were implying Savage was going to go find Hogan and murder him, which isn't any less tasteless, even if it is fairly compelling.

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  • 3 years later...

I immediately thought Savage was gonna kill Hogan. Not really "kill" him of course, and Bischoff does overreact. Schiavone would end up being better than Bischoff as the main Nitro announcer (for a while at least). I would guess they already planned the Bischoff turn at this point, which would make sense with him showing all these videos to fuck up Savage's mind. The whole Liz storyline was very ambiguous too, there's no way to really know what's happening in this nWo vignette. Really good stuff, and Liz is very solid again.

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  • 1 year later...

This is a well-done angle and you KNOW it's serious business when Savage is speaking low-key. That said, this is yet another "Savage walks off the set" ending when I really think this could have been improved if Savage had run to the ring and punked out Benoit. God knows the guy could have gone over *somebody* at some point between May and his title match, and it wouldn't have hurt for him to "send a message." Plus it would have been less over the top than Savage setting out to kill Hulk. The stuff with Hogan firing the 3 NInjas director and replacing him with the Giant is terrific, by the way.

 

Who else noticed the shoot comment that Savage directed toward Bischoff? "We both know business is fragile"--Savage's contract was due to expire (and may well have expired, with Havoc being a final obligation) and was widely believed to have wanted out of the company while all this was going on.

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  • 2 years later...

Savage wearing the black attire was another great choice to add emphasis to this angle. The video stuff with Liz again was pretty high brow mixed with some soap opera drama but it landed for me based off the reaction of Savage and how he talks about how fragile life is. I have really enjoyed the build to this match and I thought they took a feud that could have felt really dated and added new life to it.

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  • 8 months later...
  • GSR changed the title to [1996-10-21-WCW-Nitro] Randy Savage vs Chris Benoit

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