83 Weeks - Great American Bash 1996 [Show Notes] (Patreon)

Great American Bash 1996

Great American Bash 1996 took place on June 16th, from the Baltimore Arena, in Baltimore, Maryland. It drew 9,000 fans (7,323 paying $123,406) . It did a 0.48 buy rate for around $1.34 million 

WCW was on fire at this time, and it would just get hotter in the weeks and months following the Great American Bash. On May 27th, we saw the shocking debut of Scott Hall, formerly known as Razor Ramon in the WWF, when he walked through the crowd and into the ring on Nitro and cut a promo; implying that he still worked for the WWF, and he was invading WCW

On June 10th, we saw Kevin Nash, formerly known as Diesel in the WWF walk onto the commentators booth on Nitro, and confront you. During the confrontation, Nash said to you -

You’ve been sitting here for six months running your mouth,” Nash said. “You say this is where the big boys play, huh? Play? We aren’t here to play… You still don’t have your three people. You know why? Because nobody wants to face us.” Nash said Nitro was a boring show and then you said you didn’t want trouble. “No trouble because you know I’ll kick your teeth down your throat,” 

Nash continued. “You couldn’t get a paleontologist to get a couple of these fossils cleared? You couldn’t get enough guys off dialysis machines to get a team?” Hall then messed with your hair. “Where’s Hogan,” Nash asked. “Out doing another episode of ‘Blunder in Paradise.’ Where’s Macho Man? Doing a Slim Jim commercial? We’re here.”

You said Tuesday morning back in Atlanta, you'd try to set up a fight for them. You asked them to show up Sunday in Baltimore at the Bash pay-per-view. Nash said Baltimore loves Hall and himself. Hall and Nash accepted the challenge. Nash concluded, “The measuring stick just changed around here. You’re looking at it.”

So all of the sudden, two of the biggest stars of the last 3 years in the WWF were now on Nitro. 

The internet was in it's infancy at this time, so to the average fan, we're seeing Razor Ramon and Diesel on Nitro. It started to get to the point where people would start tuning into Nitro to see who else from the WWF might show up on Nitro, which would propel Nitro past Raw in the ratings for 83 weeks, hence the name of this show.

It was really a time in wrestling that we had never seen before, or since. It was very cool to be a wrestling fan during these days.

Talk about how you were feeling during these days, leading up to the Great American Bash. Were you excited; stressed; nervous; confident? What kind of pressure did you feel everyday leading up to the Great American Bash?

We went into deep detail about all of this in our very 1st show; Creating the nWo, which is available in our archives

Let's talk about some news going on in WCW, leading up to the Great American Bash

Hart Richard Murdoch; known to wrestling fans as Dick Murdoch passed away on June 15th. He was 49. Did you ever get to work with him?

June 1995 vs June 1996

Estimated average attendance 6/95 2,400*

Estimated average attendance 6/96 4,070 (+69.6%)

May 1996 2,750

Estimated average gate 6/95 $24,500*

Estimated average gate 6/96 $55,245 (+125.5%)

May 1996 $31,580

Percentage of house shows sold out 6/95 0.0

Percentage of house shows sold out 6/96 0.0

May 1996 0.0

Average cable television rating 6/95 1.8

Average cable television rating 6/96 2.0 (+11.1%)

May 1996 1.9

June 7 in Buffalo, N.Y. at the Memorial Coliseum, WCW drew a near sellout of over 15,000 for a gate around $200,000. Which was the biggest gate in WCW history up to that point. The previous one was $190,000 for the Great American Bash 1989 pay per view, in Baltimore.

Meltzer reported - The Road Warriors officially quit the promotion on 5/28. It was the same problem that had been going on for a few weeks where they heard what Nash and Hall were getting and thought they should be in the same league and management thought otherwise. 

When Scott Hall debuted, he never called himself Razor Ramon. However, he had pretty much all of the same mannerisms as Razor Ramon, including the accent. WWF of course didn't like that. So, they sent a letter to Scott, threatening legal action.

Dear Mr. Hall:

This letter will serve to put you on notice of your deliberate infringement of Titan's intellectual property rights in connection with your appearance this past Monday on the WCW's Nitro show. Having reviewed the tape of your appearance the text of the various statements made by you during your appearance and the explicit references to past and ongoing story lines of Titan Sports, it is obvious that you were attempting by your appearance to suggest to the consuming public that you and others from the WWF were now going to be appearing on Turner networks in WCW programming as part of some interpromotional matches. The entire theme of the program, buttressed by WCW personnel afterwards, was that WWF wrestlers were going to be wrestling WCW performers, and that you were leading a group of WWF talent in that effort. This is, of course, completely false and was intended to confuse the viewing public.

To further this attempt to mislead and confuse the public, you stayed completely within the character portrayal of Razor Ramon, a registered trademark of Titan Sports, during your appearance on Nitro. Indeed, both you and WCW personnel never even mentioned the name you intend to wrestle under at WCW, choosing instead to tell the audience they knew who you were. You dressed like Razor Ramon and utilized the Hispanic accent given to you by Titan as part of the character portrayal.

What was Scott's reaction to getting this letter?

Did it make you at least reconsider where you were going with this angle?

Did this letter make Nash change anything about what he planned on doing?

Meltzer reported - By television on 5/28, McMahon had gotten the word that Smith had given his 90 day notice to WWF, allowing him to leave the company when his contract expired at the end of August. Unlike previous notices with Hall, Kevin Nash and Ted DiBiase, this wasn't the case of another performer giving notice as a prelude to signing a contract with WCW.

Apparently Smith gave notice according to one source as a way to renegotiate his contract before it expires, and according to another source, simply to get McMahon's attention because of several things going on that he was unhappy about and had complained about to no avail. There are no imminent plans of Smith going to WCW, nor at press time had anything been worked out in regard to staying with the WWF after the end of August. McMahon and Smith talked on 6/1 and were scheduled for a meeting about his future with Titan Sports on 6/6, at which point Smith and Titan are both expected to be clearer about his future plans.

Did you have any conversations with Davey and/or his represenatives during this time?

Meltzer reported - Kevin Greene was on Jay Leno on 5/28. Greene lost all his charisma when he cut his hair. It was good for WCW to get the exposure but Greene wasn't good at all on TV, particularly calling Flair "Pretty Boy Ric Flair" and doing an embarrassing promo. Leno made a joke in his monologue about the sumo scandal (an ex sumo of the 60s revealed mob tie-ins and fixed matches) and said how glad he was that in America, how nobody would ever accuse our pro wrestling have fixing matches and mentioned the names Chief Jay Strongbow and Professor Tanaka. 

During this time on TV, we started seeing ads saying Blood Runs Cold, which would eventually be Glacier. However, at first, that's all the promos would say. Keller wrote about it - The initial reports of Blood Runs Cold including Adam Bomb and Hakushi were the result of intentional planting of wrong information by WCW. Hakushi is actually still under contract with the WWF until December and odds are the WWF wouldn’t release him even if he wanted if his intention was to go to WCW right away… 

At this point, the latest name circulating is David Ashford-Smith (a/k/a Yoshi Kwan, Chris Champion) as one of the members of the three-member martial arts gimmick team 

Meltzer reported - Bischoff offered a deal to Chris Jericho seeing him at the Peace Festival and also talked with Bam Bam Bigelow although Bigelow can't come in for several months because he's still under contract to WWF. Bischoff wanted to use Jericho full-time. 

Jericho would come in not long after this, but Bigelow would end up going to ECW, and come to WCW in November of 1998. What's your memories of talking to them here during this time?

Keller reported - Bischoff told wrestlers after the May 13 Nitro about Nitro expanding to two hours. It was his first full-fledged pep talk to wrestlers and he was really up beat. Among other things, he said the expanded Nitro will give them breathing room to do more interviews and longer matches (which started already with the Flair-Guerrero match on the May 20 expanded 90 minute Nitro) 

We've done a full show on Brian Pillman, in one of our earlier episodes. On June 1st, he signed with the WWF. His contract expired on April 17th, and 2 days later he was in a horrible auto accident

Meltzer reported - On the morning of 6/1, Pillman and Eric Bischoff agreed to a three year deal, which would pay him a figure believed to be in the range of $1,025,000 in total. However, Bischoff, when the contract was presented to Pillman's agents, had two provisions in the contract. One and most importantly, 90 days cycles built into the contract which basically meant WCW could terminate the contract if it wished after every quarterly period. Secondly, that Pillman wouldn't be flown first class to all his scheduled appearances. The latter provision which Pillman demanded was more of a negotiating leverage issue rather than a deal-breaker, but the 90 day cycles was, in hindsight, the deal breaker. 

Bischoff refused to break on either provision and in reality, lost him over not backing down on the cycles. From Bischoff's standpoint, the cycles were probably important since Pillman's injuries in the wreck were severe, severe to the point they had to reconstruct his ankle with bone from his hip. While doctors had said Pillman would be nearly 100% after a few month recuperation period, there are no guarantees. If Pillman couldn't perform as he once could, Bischoff didn't want to get stuck with a million dollar albatross of a contract 

In dramatic fashion, as all his moves of late have been, Pillman went back to McMahon and the two sides quickly came together for a three-year deal. Money terms are not known, as there were confidentiality clauses in both sets of negotiations. It is reliably assumed Pillman wouldn't have walked away so quickly from the type of money Bischoff had put on the table if he wasn't getting something at least close to as good, if not better, on paper rather than simply McMahon's famous "all I'm offering is an opportunity" contract. 

From other sources, it is believed in this deal and in a few other recent deals that are being offered by WWF and perhaps one or two that have recently been closed, that WWF has, due to the war with WCW and losing so much main event talent in the process, begun restructuring the way it gives contracts and that the top talent will be offered what will be known as "down-side guarantees."

Keller reported - Some wrestlers aren’t thrilled about the number of dates they’ll be working this summer. Many signed their WCW contracts expecting to work 10 dates a month and instead it looks to be in the 20s. Since they’re on guarantees, they get paid the same no matter how often they wrestle 

Keller reported - The story going around WCW is that Madusa will be teaming with a male wrestler and wrestling men in a mid-card role 

That takes us to the Great American Bash

PPV shows come and go, with a few new ones every month. Whether they are good or bad, because there are so many, few leave any kind of a lasting impression.

However, the WCW Great American Bash show on 6/16 was one of those rare exceptions. It's hard to believe that a WCW show could be compared with shows on the level of the J Cup, but this show, for angles, was the single best PPV show ever. For wrestling, it was very good as well.

Dusty Rhodes, who was nowhere to be found until minutes before the show went on the air, came up with his strongest performance as an announcer on the show. It's always easier to be a good announcer when the show is clicking, and Tony Schiavone was good as well, although there was a spot where he was hyping the Bash at the Beach and brought up last year's fiasco, saying that there were 100,000 fans at the show last year. At that point his nose grew to about the size of the state of Montana.

Speaking of announcers, Pedro Morales, who does the spanish language broadcasts on PPV for WCW, was injured after the show. They had set up several gimmicked tables for when it was time for Bischoff to take the bump, so in case he missed one, he'd hit another. When Morales was coming back from the broadcast, he accidentally stepped on one of the gimmicked tables, which collapsed and he fell four feet and landed on his elbow. 

His elbow wound up all swollen and his hip knee and back were all injured in the ball, although he refused to go to the hospital.

Rocco Rock pinned Jerry Sags in 1:46. It was scheduled as a tag match with Public Enemy vs. Nasty Boys. Rock came out by himself and said Johnny Grunge was injured and asked for a singles match and for the other guy to go to the back. So Brian Knobs went to the back. The match was short and not all that good, ending when Grunge came from under the ring and hit Sags with his cast to lead to the pin. Grunge's injury was actually a broken thumb suffered in the 6/7 match in Buffalo.

V.K. Wallstreet pinned Jim Powers with a Samoan drop in 3:07.

Jim Duggan pinned Disco Inferno in 2:09 with a clothesline in a total squash.

Ric Flair did a great interview at the end of the TV show. The only reason I bring this up was because he did his bright lights, bit cities routine and when he said big cities, he looked down Liz' top and everyone had to bite their lip to keep from cracking up.

Rick & Scott Steiner beat Ice Train & Scott Norton in 10:29. The crowd, which was dead during the pre-game show, got really into the Steiners. The fans booed Fire & Ice although they didn't play heel at all. Scott and Norton traded dropping each other on their shoulders at bad angles. Scott Steiner was worked on for several minutes with Norton using both a shoulderbreaker and Fujiwara armbar on him. Rick tagged in doing stiff clotheslines and a german suplex on Norton. The two teams traded near falls with saves with a Japanese style finish until Scott did a Frankensteiner on Norton for the pin. Very good Japanese style match but until finishing move itself wasn't taken right. I can't believe they'd even think of trying to have a guy the size of Norton even try to take a Frankensteiner. ***

Gene Okerlund interviews Jimmy Hart and The Taskmaster, about his upcoming match with Chris Benoit in a Fall Count Anywhere match. Sullivan says that isn’t about anybody but him and Benoit. He says that he knows Benoit is a member of the 4 Horseman, but that won’t save him tonight. Sullivan says that just like he took out Brian Pillman, he will be taking out Chris Benoit tonight. 

Konnan retained the U.S. title pinning El Gato in 6:03 after a power bomb and jackknife cradle pin. Gato was billed from Cabo San Lucas in Mexico this week after the angle last week was that he was from South America. I guess once we cross the border and they're all foreigners it really doesn't matter.

There were boring chants. Konnan used a lot of submission moves that the American crowd still doesn't understand since nobody has ever put them over and the announcers never get them over. Highlight was him using a sunset flip over the top rope to the floor turning into a power bomb on the floor which looked dangerous. **

Sting then did an interview for his match later in the show against Steve Regal. The only reason it's noteworthy is because he was doing a really decent interview until he lost his train of thought.

Gene interviews Sting. Sting says that Gene is trying to stir him up and that tonight he is going to show Regal what it’s like to be in WCW. He makes fun of the way people in England drink tea and said that he is from America, and tonight he is going to know that. Sting says that he knows Regal is a fantastic wrestler, but tonight he is going to straighten out who the best of the two wrestlers are tonight. 

Diamond Dallas Page retained the Lord of the Rings ring pinning Marcus Bagwell in 9:39. Page tried to get heat early by getting on the house mic and knocking "Carl Ripken." Because Bagwell has such a lame gimmick, few people are noticing what a great worker he's turning into. Page's matches are all well laid out. The only weakness of this match is that Page tries in spots to sell like Terry Funk. Sometimes it's good and sometimes it's bad and it was the latter toward the finish of this match. Bagwell went for the fisherman suplex but Page hooked the ropes, then Page hit the Diamond cutter for the pin. The crowd popped big so his finisher is getting over. **1/2

Gene interviews Jimmy Hart and The Giant who is the WCW Heavyweight Champion. Hart says that everyone is worried about beating The Giant, but the only person not worried at all is The Giant. The Giant says that Luger will find out tonight why he is the champion, and Luger is sadly mistaken if he thinks he can beat him. He says he has beaten Hogan, Savage, and Sting, and that Luger is next on the list. The Giant says that he will be leaving tonight with the title that he came in with. 

Dean Malenko retained the cruiserweight title pinning Rey Misterio Jr. in 17:50. This was the best wrestling match on the show and an excellent technical match. It wasn't the right match to do in that it was a great Malenko style mat wrestling match. Misterio Jr. showed he was versatile enough as a worker that he be put in a position where he's not doing Mexican style and still have an excellent match. However, it was Misterio Jr.'s debut and he's got far more potential to get over and they should have to his stylistic strengths. Someone whose potential niche if he gets over like Misterio Jr. as being more of an attraction star (like a reverse Andre the Giant) and a kids and ethnic hero can't do any jobs until they are over or fans won't believe in them, even as little as jobs mean nowadays. 

No matter how much charisma Chavez had, if he had lost his first two big matches on American PPV, a 145-pound guy whose main appeal was to Mexicans would have never become for a time the biggest box office draw in boxing. Anyway, his "Tiger Mask" potential is already done to casual fans because they saw him in his debut against what fans perceive as a mid-level guy and he lost twice. 

After this match and even more after Nitro leaves one with the impression he's a kid with a few cute moves but no threat to anyone important. Malenko did a great job working on Misterio's left arm with various slams and submissions. However, by 10:00 in, fans were getting tired of it even though it was all solid and well executed. 

They picked up for Misterio's big moves, including a springboard somersault to the floor, a springboard dropkick and a Frankensteiner off the top before Malenko got the pin using a power bomb with his legs on the ropes. Most in WCW that had never seen him before and were skeptical of him seeing how small he was when he showed up wound up raving about this match. However, he showed less charisma than I've seen of him in any match in a long time. ****

Gene interviews Lex Luger. Luger says that he is doing the interview out of respect for WCW but his mind is on the goal tonight. He says The Giant is a force, but so is he. Luger says that he takes a lot of pride in all the accomplishments he has had in WCW. He says The Giant thinks he is invincible but that’s when people start to make mistakes. Luger says that tonight he will ass another title to his shoulder. 

John Tenta pinned Big Bubba in 5:24 with a powerslam. They were put in a bad spot following the previous match. Bubba worked harder than I've seen him worker in a long time. But Tenta can't get over as a face and with all the TV time devoted to this angle, nobody cared. After the match Tenta cut a little off Bubba's beard. *

Gene interviews Steve McMichael and Kevin Greene who are joined by their wives, Debra McMichael and Terry Greene. Mongo says they are coming to get Flair and Anderson tonight. Greene grabs the mic and says they are coming hard in this goal-line situation. Randy Savage comes up the Gene and he says they are going to take Flair and Anderson out tonight. Savage says he is in the huddle and this is the winning team tonight. 

Chris Benoit pinned Kevin Sullivan in a falls count anywhere match in 9:58. Just for the record, all the bruises on Benoit and Sullivan's face on Nitro the next day were a result of make-up applied and not because they actually hurt each other in the brawl. They finally made Benoit a star and Dusty Rhodes was actually hilarious in his commentary when the two were brawling in the bathroom. The brawl in the bathroom (with real people in there doing what real people do in a real bathroom) was great, particularly Sullivan slamming the bathroom door on Benoit's head.

It was missing Benoit flushing Sullivan's head down the toilet. They traded using a garbage fan. Finally they came back to the ring, but not before Benoit rolled down the stairs. Sullivan kicked Benoit low and crotched him on the guard rail. Benoit crotched Sullivan on the guard rail. Benoit threw a table at Sullivan. Finally Benoit put the table on top rope and stood on the table and superplexed Sullivan off the top for the pin. After the match Benoit continued to beat on Sullivan until Anderson came down and threw him off. 

They teased Anderson turning on Benoit, but instead Anderson and Benoit put the boots to Sullivan and the crowd went totally nuts. Bubba, Maxx, Meng and Barbarian came out but Anderson and Benoit were long gone. Anderson then did a great interview after the match talking about he, Flair and Benoit being a united force. ****

What was going on at the time between Sullivan, Nancy and Benoit has been well-documented over the years. Were you aware about everything in detail that was going on at this time, and how did Kevin and Chris get along at this time?

Gene interviews Woman and Elizabeth but is soon joined by members of The Four Horsemen. Arn Anderson says that tonight Chris Benoit earned his stripes and will be a member of the Horsemen. He said now The Horseman and The Dungeon of Doom are now at war. Benoit grabs the mic and says he warned Sullivan of what would happen if he messed with him. Flair takes the mic and says that McMichael and Green are doomed tonight. Bobby Heenan is last to talk and he mentions that he isn’t scared going into tonight. He has all the confidence in the world that his team can get the job done. 

Sting beat Steve Regal with the scorpion in 16:30. Regal has been on a roll on the mic of late. This match was for the most part Regal's one man show and what a show he put on. When it comes to all facets of doing a realistic looking totally worked wrestling match complete with some shtick and interviews, this guy is probably the most complete performer in the company. Sting made the big comeback after selling almost the entire way. ***1/2

Ric Flair & Arn Anderson beat Steve McMichael & Kevin Greene in 20:51. These four and Terry Taylor (who trained McMichael and Greene with help from Flair and Anderson) deserve an enormous amount of credit. The idea of putting two guys in their first match, even against Flair & Anderson and with the angle and with notoriety, and going for 21:00 sounds like a recipe for a disaster. McMichael and Greene did a great job considering their obvious limitations. They weren't exactly Jun Akiyama in his first pro match, but they were both a hell of a lot better than much praised debuts of Lawrence Taylor or Oleg Taktarov, or for that matter Booty Man, Jim Duggan or even the Hulk Hogan of today after fifteen plus years in. 

They laid out a tremendous match and nobody got off the page. We've seen plenty of PPV matches with main event caliber performers against each other nowhere near as good as this. We've certainly seen many matches when outsiders are brought in that wind up embarrassing and also they use the outsiders to make the wrestlers look like fools. This match was put together in a way where the football players got to look impressive using football skills to knock the wrestlers around, and even use a double figure four and Greene used a suplex and both football players used high backdrops, but not at the expense of making main event talent look incompetent. 

The fact the crowd was largely pro-Flair & Anderson, but that there were enough fans cheering the football players because of Randy Savage and Bobby Heenan that the audience popped for every bit of offense by anyone made things easier. The angle didn't hurt either. At one point Woman raked McMichael's eyes. Then Debra McMichael and Tara Greene, the respective wives (boy is this going to get heat, but people were calling here that didn't pay close attention to parts of the show and thought Kevin Greene's wife was Steve & Debra's daughter), started arguing with Woman and Elizabeth, then ran away from them with Woman and Elizabeth chasing them to the back. 

Finally after Anderson clipped Greene's knee, Flair used the figure four. Savage attacked Anderson, which brought out Benoit to attack Savage and they worked on Savage. At this point Greene reversed the figure four while Debra McMichael, in an expensive dress, came out with Woman and Elizabeth and a suitcase filled with Savage's money. She convinced Steve McMichael to turn heel, a turn actually teased twice during the match in the commentary as they made clear that after a career with the Bears, McMichael played his final season with Green Bay and said he did it because they offered him more money. 

He hit Greene over the head with the suitcase and put Flair on top for the pin, then opened the suitcase and put on a Four Horseman t-shirt to become the fourth member of the group. Given Kevin Sullivan the credit for basically laying out the particulars of this angle. McMichael has tremendous heel presence and charisma, and as long as they keep him in tags with Anderson and Benoit, he won't have to do that much in the ring to get by. ***1/2

Keller said that Greene was seen limping around a bar after the show, to sell Flair's figure 4

Then came those two large dreaded nameless heels known as "We know who they are." The men with no name came out to a big babyface pop. Then, as a way to avert a threatened lawsuit, both men said clearly that they don't work for the World Wrestling Federation and said to forget about the past and talk about the future. After Bischoff accepted the challenge and announced the match for Bash at the Beach, Scott Hall punched Bischoff in the stomach and Kevin Nash power bombed him through a table. This got a babyface pop among some fans, but left others pretty much stunned. It was sold great as Schiavone left the broadcast position and Rhodes did a strong unity of the promotion interview. The fans still mainly cheered Hall and Nash when they left.

Whose idea was it for you to do this?

Did you guys practice this at any point beforehand?

What was going through your mind as Nash was picking you up?

Did you get hurt at all?

Keller reported - Another idea that was scratched involved Dusty Rhodes intervening in the incident between Hall & Nash and Bischoff leading to Dusty getting jackknifed through the table. That was overruled presumably because Dusty was bigger than Bischoff and had a better chance to get hurt, although they were confident he could pull off a great speech before getting slammed (referring to what the WWF did to him when he went there and what they’re “doing to his son”) 

The Giant pinned Lex Luger to retain the WCW heavyweight title in 9:21. They had no chance following what had gone on. Sting ended up chasing Jimmy Hart away form the ring. It was a dead match with the only thing of note with Giant on the top rope, Luger bent down a little and got him on his shoulders for the rack. He then collapsed under the weight and Giant pinned him with a choke slam. *1/4

The next night on Nitro drew 5,638 fans paying $67,300 to Richmond, VA 

Rick Steiner pinned Stevie Ray in 2:14 with a clothesline. After the match Booker T attacked Rick, Scott went to make the save but Booker came off the top rope with a kneedrop onto Scott, injuring him for his title match later in the show. 

Joe Gomez pinned Disco Inferno in 3:22 of a DUD. Arn Anderson & Chris Benoit who had super heat, although totally as faces, beat American Males in 5:47 when Benoit pinned Riggs. 

John Tenta again pinned Big Bubba in 4:41 with a powerslam. Afterwards Bubba hit Tenta over and over with a loaded sock. 

Ric Flair pinned Randy Savage in 12:46. After a ref bump, Savage delivered two elbows, one of which was with Debra McMichael, Woman and Liz in the way. Then Benoit ran in and was piledriven. Anderson ran in and was thrown out. McMichael ran in with the briefcase and hit Savage and put Flair on top for the pin and they beat up Savage again afterwards. 

Dean Malenko again beat Rey Misterio Jr. in 8:42. 

Giant pinned Scott Steiner with a choke slam. Scott suplexed him near the finish. 

Nitro drew 3.2 and 3.6 for the respective hours with a combined 3.4 rating and 5.9 share as compared with Raw doing a 2.3 and 3.8 share. In the head-to-head hour, it was WCW's largest margin of victory ever. The replay did a 1.5 rating and 3.8 share

• Thumbs up 322 (98.5%)
• Thumbs down 4 (01.2%)
• In the middle 1 (00.3%)

BEST MATCH POLL

Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Dean Malenko 138

Kevin Sullivan vs. Chris Benoit 98

McMichael & Greene vs. Flair & Anderson 21

Sting vs. Steve Regal 10

WORST MATCH POLL

John Tenta vs. Big Bubba 136

Lex Luger vs. The Giant 29

Steiners vs. Norton & Ice Train 18

Diamond Dallas Page vs. Marcus Bagwell 13

Konnan vs. El Gato 12

Sting vs. Steve Regal 9