[1997-06-09-WCW-Nitro] Ric Flair & Roddy Piper vs Scott Hall & Kevin Nash

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Just the post-match. The show ran short so they improvised by having everyone who had a match at the Great American Bash come out and get in a huge brawl. This all feels really aimless, and it's weird that most of the WCW guys aren't going after the NWO but instead after each other. Sting finally drops from the rafters and faces down the NWO, and ends up rescuing DDP by grabbing him and then flying away. Nash realizes he's struggling to do the spot and eats a bat shot to help him buy some time. This has been a Nitro where you see what made peak WCW work and what made WCW fall all at once. So weird.

[Death From Above]

The one thing about even peak-era nWo WCW that really bugged me was the lack of establishing WCW as anything unified at all. It was infuriating that the nWo always had their shit together and WCW couldn't muster up a unified front at all. It made all WCW wrestlers look as dumb as Sting, who in a great irony got to play the only smart guy in all of WCW. ;-)

[ajtroma]

I think the reason for this mess was that Piper called the go-home way too soon.

[Kevin Ridge]

Nash was making goofy faces in anticipation of each punch from Piper. That is some random brawling by all the guys involved. WCW had a huge number’s advantage but there was no attempt for them to gang on the NWO. The Dungeon of Doom went straight for Benoit.

[Robert S]

Back then I did not think twice about how dangerous the Sting dropping from the ceiling stunts really were, but knowing what happened with Owen it is almost hard to watch Sting latch DDP and himself to the rope to pull them up.

[soup23]

The brawl at the beginning is really weird with Dungeon of Doom and everyone else involved. Things get better with Piper out there and then we get the Randy/DDP pull apart. Sting comes flying down. IT looked really dangerous how he lifted DDP up to save him. Cool ending aside, this felt thrown together.

[El-P]

Each and everyone doing their own little brawl doesn't make much sense, it gives the impression that the WCW guys could care less about the nWo at this point. Sullivan and the Dungeon attacking Benoit I can understand, but to have the Mortal Kombat guys in the alley is just plain goofy.

The match itself was pretty bad, with no Waltman to make Flair look good, and Piper is just horrendous working with Nash. Odd Nitro indeed.

[PeteF3]

We skip the match, which is more than fine with me, and get the post-match. The Steiners are brawling with Harlem Heat at the commentator's booth, Glacier with Mortis & Wrath in the aisle, and the Horsemen are battling the NWO in the ring and the DOD run in to do a number on Benoit. Finally DDP, Savage, and Hogan make their way out and Hogan lays out Page with the belt. Sting descends from the rafters, and after a long period of stalling, finally gets DDP hooked up and whisks him away to the rafters. Way cool closing visual but this all took too long to set up, from the overlong brawl to the stalling, which was even more obvious and apparent than a few weeks ago the first time they pulled Sting back up.

[JKWebb]

Man, DDP is one brave fella.  I imagine there aren’t man folks who who would have the trust is someone to hook them up like that then be raised into the rafters while never attempting to check anything or hold onto anything.  That’s just crazy, and what an awesome visual it was!