[1998-09-21-WCW-Nitro] Ric Flair and Eric Bischoff

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Bischoff is out with Liz to gloat about building WCW into the largest and most successful wrestling organization in the world. He's going to do the same thing when he travels to Japan tomorrow. It's no longer the company it was when the Four Horsemen were around. He's keeping Ric Flair out of the ring and he's doing it for his own good - Flair will never wrestle again, Arn will never wrestle again and the Four Horsemen are history. This brings out Flair and the Horsemen. Security stops them from entering the ring as Tony gives some nice history about Flair and Doug Dillinger. After some brief dialogue, Dillinger stepped aside and allowed Flair to enter the ring. Flair is still getting the hero's welcome. Flair says a line about Arn rolling Eric up, smoking him and stepping on him like a roach where I couldn't make a few words. He tells Bischoff to SUCK IT for saying he couldn't watch his son wrestle. Flair admits he didn't save his money, but he made his money by going down the highway every night and being the best he could be. He name drops some guys that built WCW and says Bischoff is simply living off the top of it. He even adds that he was selling out the world when Bischoff was in a bathroom buying his first condom! Flair gets in some great lines about Hogan too. Flair is tremendous here and you can tell he means every word he says, and I like this for the subtext of old NWA vs WCW. This was fascinating, and there's no need to overcomplicate it. Reality makes the best storyline here.

[Zenjo]

This was a great double shot after Flair's return the previous Nitro. The hatred between him and Bischoff is palpable. Flair never saved his money. He lived his gimmick. Bischoff comes off as being a bigger scumbag than any other point in time, and that's covering some ground.

[soup23]

I had forgotten about this which is unfortunate as it was almost as good as last week. First off, Liz looks great. Then, Ric makes a gesture at her when he comes out bringing up their past history. I loved the tidbit on Dillenger and why he would step aside. Bischoff trembling in fear as everyone gives him the Horseman sign is a great visual. I can see this being the crux of Bischoff believing that controversy creates cash, but this was all about the personal vendetta between these two men that was really palpable.

[Superstar Sleeze]

Fuck, I have no recollection of seeing this live, which is a shame. Damn, Hogan/Warrior has obscured everything in my head. This sounds like a fun, I'll check it out and see if it jogs any memories. Though we did leave around 10pm once we realized Stevie Fucking Ray was going to main event. We walked right next to Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart out of the building, which was pretty cool.

[PeteF3]

Oh, it's Elizabeth--is she still with the promotion? Anyway, this segment is another winner and it's awesome to see Flair control a somewhat non-WCW city crowd like this. This is a US company doing a Japanese-style angle and actually doing it right--lots of people knew about the underlying story here and the ones that didn't could easily fill in the blanks themselves. Flair was off TV for 6 months and it was presumably Bischoff's fault--all you need to know.