nWo (Vicious and Delicious) Buff Bagwell and Scott Norton with Vincent vs Harlem Heat with Miss Jacqueline
GRADE C –
Mexican Death Match
Konnan vs Rey Mysterio Jr.
GRADE C+
Elimination Tag Match
Chris Benoit and Steve “Mongo” McMichael vs Dean Malenko and Jeff Jarrett with Debra McMichael
GRADE C+
Cruiserweight Title Match
“Lionheart” Chris Jericho vs Alex Wright (c)
GRADE C+
Syxx vs Ric Flair
GRADE B-
Curt Hennig vs Diamond Dallas Page
GRADE B-
Macho Man with Miss Elizabeth vs The Giant
GRADE C
WCW Tag Team Championships
The Outsiders (Hall & Nash) (c) vs The Steiner Brothers with Ted DiBiase
GRADE C+
WCW Championship Match
Hollywood Hulk Hogan vs Lex Luger (c)
GRADE C+
OVERALL SHOW: C+
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welcome to everything pro wrestling everything pro wrestling is a show by the fans for the fans and I am your host Conrad kushman and today we present a retro review of WCW Road wild 1997 [Music] all right guys I wanted to give you a little brief history update for this show now keep in mind during this time WCW was sitting on top of the wrestling world that’s right because their promotion was the number one wrestling company in the world it’s unbelievable that people sometimes forget that but at this time the WWF was trying to scratch and Claw their way back up to the top and WCW was standing there waiting to kick him down and for 83 weeks straight Eric Bishoff did that now you also have to remember the roster at this time WCW had the NWO they had Hulk Hogan Scott Hall Kevin Nash Macho Man Randy Savage and the NWO names can go on and for WCW they had the giant Diamond Dallas Page Lex Luger sting and I can keep going on with names there are nothing but big names throughout this entire event and it’s something very cool to see now we’re going to get into how WCW and WWF were different but I do want to let you guys know that all my life I was always a WWF guy and I did enjoy watching WCW from time to time but WWF was always my number one and maybe that’s because I’m based on the East Coast but WCW was always good and they always had excellent talent and you’re going to see some of that Talent on this show so let’s not waste any more time and let’s start talking about Road wild all right in our opening contest we had NWO the team of Vicious and Delicious Buff Bagwell and Scott Norton with Vincent in their Corner versus Harlem heat with Miss Jacqueline now miss Jack didn’t start off the match in Harlem Heat’s Corner in the match we saw some sloppy in ring work and it’s hard to explain why maybe because of Scott Norton’s style in Japan maybe Buff Bagwell wasn’t as seasoned as he thought at the time maybe it was Harlem heat coming out there and they were just a little bit taller than the competitors I don’t know what didn’t click maybe they didn’t practice this match enough beforehand but it was a little bit sloppy compared to how crisp wrestling is today in 2018 now the match had some funky spots in it but they still managed to keep it together and Miss Jacqueline helps Harlem heat pick up the win after interfering she gets on the rope and basically grabs Scott Norton’s face and starts punching him behind the referee’s back and he eats two Harlem Sidekicks from Booker T for the one two3 I gave that match a c minus overall decent showing for the teams but I still expected something a little bit better all right guys before we review our second match just something that I wanted to get off my chest that happened in the beginning of this event and it basically goes back to something I heard on 83 weeks with Eric Bishoff and Conrad Thompson where Eric Bishoff mentioned on the Hog Wild episode that he disliked the camera shots during the daytime because of the look it gave the event and I want to give Eric Bishoff some credit right now for that as well Eric bishof did an excellent job of standing out and making things look different and from a guy who watches WWE almost every week I really enjoy when someone puts the time in and makees something look different Eric Bishoff did that by having the WCW events outside sometimes and I thought that it made it better just by looking different you had events where you had like bash at the beach where they actually wrestled on the beach you had events where there were Pools by the ring area I just remember all that stuff and I thought it was so cool and something excellent to have around during that time now for our second match guys we’re going to get into the Mexican death match between Conan versus Rey Mysterio Mike T comes out to join Bobby The Brain Heenan Tony Shani and Dusty rhods in this match in my notes I have Rey Mysterio is an absolute high flying machine he’s so unique for WCW he really influenced the style that we see today and during his entrance which plays into the entire match Rey Mysterio is holding his knee and in that match Conan basically attacks Rey Mysterio’s knee throwing co uh Rey Mysterio all around the ring with basically um suplexes like he was Brock Lesnar he threw him around and he ripped off Rey Mysterio’s mask which the announced team sold very well as he knows the heritage of the Mexican mask I can’t believe Conan would do something like that he trained with Rey Mysterio and Ray kept his face covered no one ever saw it so Conan got the heat Rey Mysterio still was a baby face and in the end Rey Mysterio winds up tapping to the tequila sunrise and what was a decent match that I gave a grade of a C+ in the third match for Road wild 1997 we have an elimination tag team match with Chris benois and Steve [ __ ] mcel versus The Iceman Dean malinko and Jeff Jarrett with Deborah McMichael um this match was very difficult for a casual fan to understand who were the heels in this match cuz I don’t remember at this time who were supposed to be the heels and who were the baby faces so I was just all types of confused now Chris benois and de malinko kept this match working in my opinion they had excellent work rate throughout the entire match and they did a great job of keeping my interest now Mongo’s in ring work was always H but [ __ ] tried so I always have to give him respect for that he did what he could do and he tried his best Jeff Jared on the other hand uh aggravated me in this match more so and maybe that was his job cuz maybe he was a heel but Jeff Jared basically stayed out the entire match only to come in and let [ __ ] pin him and he walked away with his United States Championship in Deborah and just strut it on out which basically left Dean minko to be fed to the wolves and Chris beninois and [ __ ] beat down Dean malinko and after a diving headbutt and tombstone pile drivers deol Linko was put down to the ground and The Four Horsemen walk away with a victory and for the match rating for the tag team elimination match here um I gave it a C+ and it would it would have been higher I think if they didn’t do that weird spot with Jeff Jarett getting pinned like it was going very well and it was on its way to being a BB minus in my book but with Jeff Jarrett taking the pen maybe this was to help storyline progress and if anyone remembers any part of this please feel free to send me a message but I just expected a little bit more out of that match so I gave it a C+ all right for our fourth match we have a Cruiserweight Championship match the match had lion Hart Chris Jericho challenging Alex Wright do Wonder kid for the cruiserweight title and this was overall a decent wrestling match always a big fan of both guys I felt bad that Alex Wright was stuck with that dancing gimmick because I always thought he was a pretty good wrestler and Chris Jericho it’s unbelievable how he hasn’t risen yet but it’s unbelievable how WCW did not see the star power written all over this guy now this was a decent match but it ends with Alex Wright getting a pin on Chris Jericho with a handful of tights one two three Alex Wright is still the cruiserweight champion in an overall decent match I gave it the grade of a C+ respect is what our next match is all about we we had six versus Ric Flair and like I said this match is all about respect and I remember I don’t know if it was before this or after this but six and the rest of the NWO coming out dressed up like the four horsemen on Nitro making fun of them uh making fun of Ric Flair Aon Anderson and it was crazy how intense this Feud was during this time now this was a decent match and I felt it showed off both competitors move sets then the match ended with the Oldtimer showing he had a few more tricks up his sleeve than the young punk kid the match ends with six going for the Bronco Buster only to catch Flair’s boot below the belt and then the dirtiest player in the game uses the ropes as leverage to pick up the victory whooo it’s unbelievable how Ric Flair could still deliver during this time uh him and six put on a great match and I had to give it a B minus good work to both guys match seven we have the Macho Man Randy Savage Oh yeah with Miss Elizabeth versus the Giant now the match started similar to the DDP and hening match to where it’s basically um one guy’s on the outside the other guy keeps knocking him off the apron there’s some jaw jacking back and forth and I didn’t like that um two matches back toback should not start off the exact same way so that’s just my opinion on it so the match was very slow and the pace really just didn’t click with everything else that was going on and it wasn’t a bad match it was just what I expected but I was hoping to get a little bit more out of these guys but they weren’t in a main event like Feud at the time so I guess I really can’t complain about that too much now the match ends when the giant winds up catching macho man jumping off the top rope and hits him with the choke slam so a big win for the Giant and hopefully that leads to bigger things to come in the future I went back and forth on the match rating for Macho Man versus the Giant and it was real tough for me to decide on what I was going to give this um matchup and it was either a c or a c minus and based on what I have finally thought I do feel that the match delivered on what I expected I was just hoping for a little bit more with Macho Man Randy Savage being in the match and the giant being younger at the time um hoping to see maybe a drop kick off the top rope or something just a little bit different from him but it was a basic match so I feel that a c is a fair grade for this match what’s up everybody it’s your boy Prophecy from the suplex session podcast where I give my analysis on your weekly pro wrestling programming baby right now you are listening to everything pro wrestling with my good friend Conrad stay tuned our next match is a tag tag team championship match for the WCW Tag Team titles as we have the outsiders Hall and Nash who are the champions defending their titles Against The Steiner Brothers with Ted debiasi uh I had to give this one a great of a C+ guys it was a decent match because of how the match was hyped up but the ending leaves you feeling kind of and we’ll talk about it in this match the match was a basic tag match from the 90s Scott Steiner was inside of the Ring taking a beating the entire time from Scott Hall and Kevin Nash whether it was just consistent elbows or body slams they basically cut off half the ring and made Scott Steiner stay on that half and when Scott Steiner finally gets the big tag to Rick Steiner the place erupts you can hear everyone revving their bikes they were big fans of The Steiner Brothers out there for this match and what winds up happening is Scott Hall gets put on to Scott Steiner shoulders and Rick Steiner hits that trademark Bulldog from the top rope off of Scott Steiner her shoulders they have the match one Scott’s got the pin one two and Kevin Nash pulls out the referee and the ref runs back in and says ring the bell and The Steiner Brothers are left to believe that they’ve won the WCW Tag Team titles debiasi grabs the belt and I’m sorry both belts and he winds up looking foolish why because you could see it a mile away that it was a disqualification the ref never counted three but dbas is arguing with the referee who was Nick Patrick at the time and the winners of the match were The Steiner Brothers by disqualification which is the Mi ending I was talking about but Hall and Ash keep their Tag Team titles um very sad to see the match end like this I don’t know I expected something better but in this match if you want to see Scott Steiner in his prime right before he becomes Big Papa Pump this is a match that you want to check out and watch Scott Steiner work in and now we are to the main event of Road wild 1997 Road Wild’s main event was for the WCW Championship the current champion Lex Luger versus Hollywood Hulk Hogan now this Main Event had Michael Buffer do the ring announcing and I can just remember the show being set up the week before where Lex Luger won the championship on Nitro and the ending to that will play right into this so I’m not even going to bring it up at this point but it was a cool night and I remember watching that show with my brother Cameron and it was an excellent ending to nitro with uh Luger winning the belt and they scrubed the NWO logo off of the world heavyweight championship title very cool to turn over to Nitro at the end of the night and see that happen so much respect now we get into this and it was basically pretty cool to watch Lex Luger in this match show that him and Hogan can do a little bit more than just be the big muscle guys who just do clothes lines and flex and pose that was in this match of course but I saw arm drags from these guys I saw them doing um leap frogs and they did a bunch of different things that I had not seen them do in quite some time so going back and watching this made me appreciate their in ring work so much more and Hogan as a heel was excellent he is talking crap throughout this entire match to Luger and I don’t know it was just perfect it just fit Hogan for the time he needed to be a heel because I hated Hulk Hogan in WCW so much like uh I was already sick of him in WWF and he just came over with the same gimmick and I’m like okay so him being in the NWO made things a lot better in my opinion so we get to the end of this match and it had a big match feel to it because of the way the announcers were talking something that I miss from the current product are the announcers hyping up this match and how important it is because the world heavyweight title is on the line so you see these guys in the ring and basically Lex Luger had to overcome all the odds to win because once he started getting his energy in his second breath at the end of this match the same thing happened that happened on Nitro all of the NWO tried to get in to interfere you had everybody out there getting knocked off the apron people running in the ring eating Clos lines left and right and Luger’s trying to knock them all down and all I’m doing is sitting up here wondering where are the rest of the WCW guys like where are The Steiner Brothers and Diamond Dallas Paige and Kurt Henning like all these guys were out here earlier with this WCW stuff you’re not going to help Luger who you were out there celebrating with on Monday you didn’t think the same thing was going to happen again so it’s pretty crazy to think and Luger never wound up getting Hogan into the torture wreck at the end and because as soon as he was setting up for his clothes lines he runs against the ropes and somebody who looked like Sting that the announcers were portraying oh it’s sting who just hit Luger with the baseball bat it it wasn’t really sting you could tell that it’s a mask on somebody else but Luger ends up falling and eating Hulk Hogan’s leg drop and you know brother no one’s kicking out of that so it’s one two three and the NWO have regained the World Heavyweight Championship belt and I love that the announcers sold the fact that they made it sound like their dog just died they sounded so sad on commentary after this happened and they were so disappointed and they were just they had questions for sting like why did you do it what happened where have you been we want to talk to you so it was pretty cool to see that and then like I said all those people that I mentioned before come out afterwards to check on Lex Luger where were you guys before when the NWO came out is my question so decent match I gave it a C+ and I thought that they did a tremendous job with this match and I know I spent a lot of time on this one but it was just a great feeling of a main event to have so much hype built up around it and it’s just something that I miss in the current environment and that’s something that I think people who watch wrestling today can learn from this event was to have the announcers hype the events and make things feel important with that being said guys let’s talk about the overall grade for the show all right guys overall for this show it’s very tough to decide a grade for this show I mean I really have to sit here and Ponder the goods and the beds were any of the matches really blowa away matches for WCW I didn’t think so not on this night at least now they had some decent matches but they had a lot of star power as well um the event and Sturgis where those guys are wrestling fans obviously they weren’t but it was cool to have it in somewhere else like I said in the daytime and it just had a different feel to it um I don’t know man it’s tough and after that title match you get a scene backstage with the NWO celebrating and Dennis Rodman is backstage with them showing how mainstream WCW is at the time and he spray paints the NWO logo back on the World Heavyweight Championship belt and with that being said I have to give this show a C+ um it didn’t do too much and it’s not something that I’m going to tell everyone you’re going to enjoy if you go back and watch it for its ring work but if you miss WCW this is a fun event to go back and watch and just remember the times that happened in the summertime years and years ago when WWF had competition overall though I thought it was a decent show but nothing that I go back and rewatch again and again and again oh thank you thank you guys for listening to everything pro wrestling and you know how the catchphrase goes everything pro wrestling is a show by the fans for the fans and without you guys this show isn’t possible so thank you for listening to the audio even if you watch me on YouTube I greatly appreciate it and we have to give a big shout out to Kon flood who is all the way in Ireland who listens to the show and always has 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