WCW Monday Nitro Review - September 11, 1995

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Alex Wright def. Sabu by Disqualification

Similar to the premier edition of Nitro, this made for a fun opener to the show. They promoted Sabu's appearance on that show and Wright, while I didn't know much about him before this bout, impressed me with his performance. As good of an athlete as he was, I'm surprised he never amounted to anything bigger in WCW during his time there. The only gripe I had with the match was that it was a mere four minutes long and they could have easily gone longer. Other than that, I didn't mind the referee reversing the decision because it kept the feud alive and gave Wright a cheap win.


Lex Luger Interrupted Ric Flair

Even in 1995, Flair was still one of the best talkers in the game. His promo was a logical follow-up to the events of last week that saw him and Arn Anderson resume their feud, but instead of AA coming out as expected, it was Luger. I'm not sure what purpose this was supposed to serve other than promoting Luger's world title match for later in the night, but at least it was kept short and sweet and teased a future feud between the two.

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WCW United States Champion Sting def. V.K. Wall Street (Non-title)

With this being Wall Street's in-ring debut for WCW, I'm not sure fans saw him as a legitimate threat to Sting. Sure, it was a major match for him right out of the gate against the WCW United States Champion, but with Sting busy in other feuds, it was foolish to thing he would win here. Nevertheless, it was a fine outing for Wall Street and the crowd was invested in the action due to how popular Sting was.


Randy Savage def. Scott Norton

Norton was another new name to the roster at the time Nitro premiered, but aside from his confrontation with Savage from the week prior, I know nothing about the guy. That said, much like Wall Street, working with a marquee name in Savage only did him good and he was on offense for most of it. It also served as a reminder for how awful the Dungeon of Doom was, and sadly, that wasn't the last we'd see of them on this show. The interference at the end, while hokey, protected Norton in defeat (which was stupid considering how one of the Dungeon members was laying on Norton when he got pinned).


WCW World Heavyweight Champion Hulk Hogan def. Lex Luger by Disqualification

An argument could be made that this match should have been saved for Fall Brawl or another pay-per-view down the line, but you can't blame WCW for wanting to stack their second edition of Nitro. It was just their overuse of that business tactic that would cost them in the long-term. As for the match itself, it was better than expected given how limited both Hogan and Luger were as workers. It could have felt more special than it did if their time wasn't cut short since it skipped a few gears before going straight to the finish. The non-finish was smart in saving it for another day and at the same time setting up the main event for Fall Brawl with Luger agreeing to be a part of Hogan's four-man team.


Overall Show

After an excellent first episode of Nitro, this edition was equally enjoyable. None of the matches were must-see, but they all held my interest and were meaningful in one way or another. Furthermore, the promos were better this week without any shameless plugs for pasta joints and several storylines were effectively furthered. Finally, there was plenty of build for the Fall Brawl event, so this show successfully hit on every front and made me want to keep checking out more of Nitro's archive.