Best of Nitro DVD

[Bob Morris]

Here's the match/segment listing for WWE's Best of Nitro DVD.

 

http://www.wrestlingnewsworld.com/wwe-news...tro-dvd-set.php

 

Looks like they are going to do this as a one-volume release, as opposed to how they are doing things with Raw, in which multiple volumes are being released. Which is fine, considering that Nitro's run was relatively short.

 

They seemed to do a good job picking memorable moments and memorable matches (not necessarily the best Nitro matches, but they are notable ones nonetheless) and threw in a few moments that were crucial to the decline of WCW (the Fingerpoke of Doom among them).

 

Interesting how the list ends with DDP Nitro highlights... did they get DDP involved in putting this DVD together?

[Guest kidd]

if you have a FYE near u they have an exclusive that has an extra match Rey mysterio vs. Mr. Jl (jerry lynn) and 2 extra bonus moments, one of which is a ddp carrer highlight reel.

 

Kmart is packaging this set with the 2 disc four horsemen dvd for $20.

[Guest Slickster]

DDP hosts the DVD segments, which might explain why he gets a highlight reel.

[smkelly]

I saw the advertisement for this last night on Raw. I noticed the part of Sting repelling from the rafters. I'm not sure if it is in bad taste or not. Thoughts?

[Johnny Sorrow]

I saw the advertisement for this last night on Raw. I noticed the part of Sting repelling from the rafters. I'm not sure if it is in bad taste or not. Thoughts?

It's not.

 

I bought this today and just started watching it. So far DDP opened the thing by saying that WCW had the better wrestling show and talent than the WWF in the early 90's, but Vince started RAW which was new and fresh , but they lagged behind in TV until a genius named Eric Bischoff got the go ahead to start Nitro.

 

And I just watched the Pillman/ Liger match and now it's Hogan/ Bubba Rogers both from the first Nitro. Holy shit, I am now reminded of just HOW AWFUL the announcing is, thanks to Mongo, Bischoff sucking, and Heenan just trying to be good but obviously hating working with Mongo.

[Marty]

Watching this as well right now. Worth noting there's a large chunk of Benoit footage. Not only is there the run-ins he does as part of the Horsemen on the first disc, but on the second disc there's the Flair return in Greenville in '98, where they obviously have him in the background when Flair cuts his promo, but they also kept in his entrance (also with Mongo's and Malenko's) plus Arn's comment about Benoit being the first to talk to him about reforming the Horsemen. Only thing they cut from it was Arn's individual one-on-ones with the three other Horsemen (and even then, I'm not sure there'd be much time, as my DVD player read 3 hours for all of the second disc). Also, that disc closes with Flair vs. Bischoff where Flair wins the Presidency and they have the whole thing there, including Benoit, Malenko and Mongo stopping Bisch from running away.

 

Been a fun set. They've done some solid TV sets. Wonder if it's bugging Vince that the Nitro set is better than the RAW one from three or so years ago.

[Bob Morris]

I picked up the set yesterday at Kmart. So now I have two copies of the Four Horsemen DVD.

 

But, yeah, I've gone through the first disc and it's been pretty good. It sure looks like they got DDP involved to be somebody who would really play up WCW's strengths... and I do agree with him that WCW had, arguably, a better roster and better matches in some of the years prior to Nitro's debut (even though the booking in WCW wasn't always good and the bad booking sticks out like a sore thumb).

 

And it's amazing to watch how well WCW booked the nWo angle in its first few months. I do think it was a mistake to add Bischoff to the mix, but in the early stages, they did an excellent job building suspense and how various folks came to be those standing up to the nWo.

[Johnny Sorrow]

I forgot how douchey Zybysko sounded when he'd go on with his whole, "Get a haircut." thing. For a hip show like Nitro was for awhile, it's weird they had a guy basically saying "Get a haircut, ya hippie!"

[Johnny Sorrow]

I had never seen that Bret Hart/ DDP match from 10/26/98. Hot fuck, that's a great match. I may not be the biggest Bret Hart fan fan ever but I always knew he was great, and when I saw how WCW was using him it was just another nail in the coffin of me even flipping back and forth between RAW and Nitro, for the most part. So I never saw this match

 

Jesus Christ, it's great. Bret is awesome and doing so many great heel things JUST to be a dick. And DDP isn't just some schlub being carried here. He's fucking awesome as well.

 

Hey, I just saw the Flair/ Bischoff match. I always complained that the NWO always punking the Horsemen stunk and it ruined the NWO angle for me. This was apparently the Horsemen finally winning, it felt like. Again, I had stopped caring about WCW except for an occasional watch here and there by then. Also, my wife at the time was all, "Look, the WCW show sucks, you even say so. So no more three hours every Monday night and no more channel flipping."

 

Edit: I just realized that's not true. When Russo left WWF and went to WCW I tuned in for awhile because I was interested to see if he'd turn it around/ what he'd do and if WWF was going to suffer without him. I actually remember being amused at some of his shit there at first but really quick it just went too stupid.

 

Edit: I had never seen the entire "Fingerpoke of Doom" match. Luger joined the NWO at this point? I have NO memory of Lex in the NWO besides the previous WolfPac stuff.

[Bob Morris]

Couple of other observations:

 

* The DDP/Sting matchup was really good, and honestly, DDP was GREAT as the heel WCW champ. Seriously, they should have given him a longer run and they could have easily built to Goldberg taking the belt from him at some point.

 

* Agreed that Bret/DDP was a great match. Really, just watching the DVD shows you how good DDP really was when he hit his peak. Heck, I liked the DDP/Kidman match too... that was how you do the "outsized wrestler goes over" match, with DDP just acting like a jerk and Kidman pulling out the surprise move for the win.

 

* Regarding Bischoff/Flair, that match showed what was wrong with the mentality of WCW and Bischoff throughout 1998: Rather than pay things off on PPVs, they were more concerned about the Monday night ratings battle, so all the payoffs were delivered on Nitro. Of course, the ultimate example of a missed PPV opportunity was Hogan vs. Goldberg for the title.

 

* Man, that WarGames 2000 was the clusterfuck to end all clusterfucks. Seriously, that was a bad, bad idea. And Russo is still booking to this day? Really?

 

* Was it just me or was Tony Schiavone legitimately pissed about the nWo Horsemen parody?

[El-P]

I had never seen that Bret Hart/ DDP match from 10/26/98. Hot fuck, that's a great match. I may not be the biggest Bret Hart fan fan ever but I always knew he was great, and when I saw how WCW was using him it was just another nail in the coffin of me even flipping back and forth between RAW and Nitro, for the most part. So I never saw this match

 

Jesus Christ, it's great. Bret is awesome and doing so many great heel things JUST to be a dick. And DDP isn't just some schlub being carried here. He's fucking awesome as well.

Bret had a series of good matches with Luger too during the same period. He was on fire at this time as heel US champion. Great promos, super solid TV matches with Luger and a great match with DDP. I was surprised how great Bret was during that period when I rewatched WCW98 recently.

 

Edit: I had never seen the entire "Fingerpoke of Doom" match. Luger joined the NWO at this point? I have NO memory of Lex in the NWO besides the previous WolfPac stuff.

Luger had joined the face groupe of nWo Wolfpack a few months before. Now that Nash reunited with teh rest of nWo, Luger just followed, but I guess since he had stayed a face all along despite wearing nWo colors, that was a legit heel turn. Really, the FingerPoke was rendered even worse, if that's possible, by the fact it was during that show that Schiavone did the line on Foley. Yeah, that was sure bright when on your own program you're gonna screw your own audience of a big match and piss on one year of booking.

[Victator]

* Was it just me or was Tony Schiavone legitimately pissed about the nWo Horsemen parody?

I think he was. Flair was definitely pissed. Tony loves the old Crockett wrestlers so seeing them piss on the heart of that era must have pissed him off. Especially since Flair never got revenge.

 

 

Luger and Sting joining the Wolfpac pissed me off at the time and annoys me now. There was no logic to it. Just shitting on the previous year. In an issue of PWI they explained it as best they could. That Lex joined and Sting followed because he felt he owed him for the year in the rafters.

 

Really I think Luger should of betrayed Sting after Starrcade 97. He had real motivation to betray Sting. From Sting walking out on him during War Games 96 to the year of silence and finally losing the WCW title to Hogan so shortly after he finally won it.

[Johnny Sorrow]

Edit: I had never seen the entire "Fingerpoke of Doom" match. Luger joined the NWO at this point? I have NO memory of Lex in the NWO besides the previous WolfPac stuff.

Luger had joined the face groupe of nWo Wolfpack a few months before.

 

Right. I'm saying that I don't have any memory of Luger in the reformed NWO after the Wolfpac/ Hollywood angle. How long did it last?

 

Oh, and Tank Abbott as 3 Count's #1 fan is still fucking great. Oh and Mark Madden was so awful.

[Victator]

Until he got injured in the Spring. The nWo just kinda wilted away. I liked that it was the Horsemen that ended up finishing them for good.

[El-P]

Luger and Sting joining the Wolfpac pissed me off at the time and annoys me now. There was no logic to it. Just shitting on the previous year. In an issue of PWI they explained it as best they could. That Lex joined and Sting followed because he felt he owed him for the year in the rafters.

There was a point in 1998 that they shook things down with the roster to freshen things up. The wolfpack became a face nWo, and thus Luger who was doing nothing at the time was put with them. The pop he got when he did was quite amazing, this guy really stayed over with the WCW audience.

[Victator]

I get why they did it. Just from a story point of view it made no sense.

[El-P]

Not a lot of things made sense on top in 1998 in WCW. First big change was the Giant jumping back with the nWo, and that made no sense whatsoever. Then Luger jumping with nWo Wolpack, which didn't made a lot of sense. Sting eventually following Luger kinda made sense since they were great friends after all. All of it made WCW look like complete fools since Luger & Sting would rather join Kevin Nash rather than continue to fight for WCW along DDP and Goldberg.

The one mind-blowing thing was Sting, member of Wolfpack, going back to his old B&W colours and mute character to team with supposed enemy Bret Hart one week on Nitro. That was totally forgotten the following week.

[artDDP]

I don't watch the current TV product and had no idea this was out when I stumbled upon it at Wal-Mart this morning. I didn't want to purchase it until after I had read the contents online, especially after being so disappointed by the Raw 15th Anniversary DVD.

 

I get the sense, much like the Rise and Fall of WCW DVD, that these segments are selected to first highlight people that work in WWE currently or moments that WWE editors think are important, no matter how many previous DVDs they've appeared on. The Hogan-Goldberg match and the Flair return being two examples. Contrast this with the Best of Saturday Night's Main Event, which was ridiculously thorough and even the Rey Mysterio 3-disc set that didn't seem to miss anything.

 

I'll probably pick it up to add to my collection, though I certainly feel there is a lot of stuff that could have been included, such as the first Hogan-Sting match in 1995, Goldberg vs. Raven, or some of the NWO promos from the spring of 1997.

 

Slightly off-topic, can someone explain why the staff of the Torch thought making DDP the champ in 1999 was such a bad idea? I remember reading a lot of hate for this decision, and Bruce Mitchell penned a column about WCW dying that summer and said making Page the champ was going to accelerate that (of course, I'm paraphrasing).

[MikeCampbell]

I forgot how douchey Zybysko sounded when he'd go on with his whole, "Get a haircut." thing. For a hip show like Nitro was for awhile, it's weird they had a guy basically saying "Get a haircut, ya hippie!"

I remember Zybyszko always coming up with stupid nicknames for heels. The New World Odor, Chris Jerkico, etc.

[artDDP]

I forgot how douchey Zybysko sounded when he'd go on with his whole, "Get a haircut." thing. For a hip show like Nitro was for awhile, it's weird they had a guy basically saying "Get a haircut, ya hippie!"

I remember Zybyszko always coming up with stupid nicknames for heels. The New World Odor, Chris Jerkico, etc.

 

And burying the cruiserweight work pretty regularly.

[Bob Morris]

Slightly off-topic, can someone explain why the staff of the Torch thought making DDP the champ in 1999 was such a bad idea? I remember reading a lot of hate for this decision, and Bruce Mitchell penned a column about WCW dying that summer and said making Page the champ was going to accelerate that (of course, I'm paraphrasing).

Commenting generally, I know there was a general dislike for DDP at the time because he was close friends with Eric Bischoff, so everybody assumed he only got his push because of that. But in watching the Nitro DVD, it's pretty clear DDP was doing a lot to earn his push. Seriously, I would have kept the WCW title on him for a few months and build to Goldberg taking it from him.

 

Regarding Keller and Mitchell, it's possible they suspected DDP was just going to be a transitional champion to lead to Kevin Nash getting it.

 

And John or somebody else might be able to verify this, but I believe Mitchell isn't a big fan of wrestlers who like to meticously plan out their matches in advance, which DDP did many times.

[Dylan Waco]

DDP was awesome. Insanely over and very good in the ring. Had he started earlier and worked in a company with better heavyweights I really believe he would be regarded as one of the best in ring wrestlers of the decade.

[artDDP]

Wait, Eric Bischoff challening Vince McMahon to a PPV match isn't on this thing? It was treated as a pretty big deal on the Monday Night War DVD.

[Death From Above]

I've always been somewhat baffled by the DDP hate. Sure, I've heard about his obsessive need for details and scripting things out to the nth degree in advance, and I understand why a lot of people didn't like it (I'm sure he took a ton of ribbing about it both to his face and behind his back from other workers). But I thought he did a ton to justify his place as a top guy for a decent while. He's this guy that seemed to draw wrath that well outstripped any possible justification, in a club with Marc Mero and some others.

[Johnny Sorrow]

Wait, Eric Bischoff challening Vince McMahon to a PPV match isn't on this thing? It was treated as a pretty big deal on the Monday Night War DVD.

That comes off as sad and grasping at straws. This set has a totally pro WCW feel.