[1997-03-10-WCW-Nitro] Roddy Piper and the Four Horsemen

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Ooh, one of the spring break shows! Piper is in some weird world. He gets in a cheapshot on Howard Stern and even calls him hung like a pimple! Did Stern mention him on his show? He also gets in a shot at Dennis Rodman before moving on to shoot on the WWF, going on this bizarre tangent because the WWF made a "one hip wrestler" comment on TV and pointing out that when he fought Goldust on their PPV, he had one hip.

 

Finally, we hear Ric Flair's music for the first time so far in 1997. Flair looks like a sad shell of his former self, but sadly this wasn't as low as he would go, and at this point, he could still cut a good promo. But by '97 he's in full blown crazy old man mode. Arn points out that facing the NWO is a job for professionals and offers the Horsemen as teammates instead of the guys he chose last week. Piper isn't all there, but he's at least smart enough to accept this offer.

[soup23]

Aw, Club La Vela at spring break. The place where young Chad has learned more about the vices in life than almost anywhere else.

 

Piper's promo is up there with the Alcatraz stuff as being the most out there Piper has been this year. I want to randomly say inappropriate things at work and then throw my hands up and yell Uncensored to make it ok.

 

The Horseman strut down the aisle and Arn gives the pitch to Piper. It is kind of amazing how dated Flair is in just the six years from the 1991 set I'm watching. Flair takes the mic and tells Piper he would be dumb not to accept their offer then goes into his wild man routine. Piper says he accepts and will have his "family" (the people from the tryouts last week) backing him up. Interested to see if they even made it to the PPV. As a way of getting rid of the disaster that was last week with Piper picking his team, I guess this was as good as they could do.

[ajtroma]

Piper was legitimately pissed off about the reaction the Tryouts segment received and goes on a little tirade about everything in sight.

[Kevin Ridge]

Spring break shows made for a nice setting. Rambling Piper who wasn’t pleased with WWF take shots at him for having hip problems. Mongo looks like a more natural member of Horsemen than Jarrett. Arn wearing his full denim. Piper talks about his guys being family and then chooses the Horsemen as his tag partners. Loyalty.

[El-P]

Always loved Club La Vella's setting for Nitro. Each year the question would be who would end up in the pool (this year was Hardbody Harrisson beat up by Sullivan and Jacquelyn in yet another super fun squash match, bodyslam in high heels and all). Yeah, Flair has fallen, very clearly. And Piper really shouldn't make dig at anyone for being un-hip at this point. Damage control segment to repair the godawful Piper's tryouts disater from the previous weeks. Tenta is applauding the fact he's basically out of a job and just got called an amateur by Arn Anderson.

[PeteF3]

Great atmosphere for the spring break Nitro--something WCW was always very good at, even though the WWF was running some pretty out-of-the-box places at this point in their own right. Piper's "family" are dressed like participants in the Highland Games or something. Piper rants about Howard Stern--was Stern seriously talking about last week's segment on his show? And how weird that we got two Stern references on two shows in back-to-back Yearbook segments. He also directs vitriol towards Rodman, "critics," and the WWF for taking shots at his hip the previous week. "You got no one-hipped wrestlers on your pay-per-views...you're right, you got NO ONE HIP on your pay-per-views." Okay, not a bad line. Then more whining about critics, and Piper is giving Bret Hart a run for his money.

 

Out come the Horsemen, and Arn sets the record straight. Piper's family has heart, but this is a job for professionals, not amateurs. Flair fires things up, putting over the other Horsemen and cutting a promo on Hogan. As a way to hit the reset button on last week's disaster, this was effective enough.