Two big things happened in 1994. First, Ric Flair unified the WCW World Heavyweight and the WCW International World Heavyweight Championships, meaning the marquee title was represented by the Big Gold Belt. The second is that Hulk Hogan signed with WCW and got a title shot in his debut. As you’ll see, WCW under Hogan started well enough, but fell off a cliff rather quickly.
July 17, 1994 – Orlando, Florida
Hulk Hogan def. Ric Flair {WCW World Heavyweight Championship Match}
From the inaugural Bash at the Beach. So this is bonkers right off the bat. Flair comes down as usual, but with Sensational Sherri on his arm. Then Shaq comes out for reasons, and Hogan enters flanked by Jimmy Hart and Mr. T. Michael Buffer compares the match to man’s first steps on the moon. He acknowledges Hogan’s five world championships, which is cool. Actually, Nick Bockwinkel was introduced just before this and his AWA World Championships were acknowledged too. I don’t hate that, as WWF was completely ignoring the rest of the world at this point (aside from Flair wearing the Big Gold Belt during the start of his WWF run). Thanks to Flair bumping around the ring like crazy and Hogan being stoked for the beginning of a new adventure, this was a blast. I think this is actually my favorite Hogan match, period. Is that crazy? It feels kind of crazy. But this is damn good. I’m tempted to say that WWF missed the boat by not making this the WrestleMania VIII main event, but I think it works better in this environment because of the intangibles. Hulk punching Sherri looks awful in hindsight, but she kind of no-sold it so that’s pretty hilarious. Hulk Hogan wins the title in his debut in the company, and damned if this hasn’t aged really well (outside of the Sherri punch, obviously). Hogan hit the legdrop for the title at 21:54. ****¼
October 29, 1995 – Detroit, Michigan
The Giant def. Hulk Hogan {WCW World Heavyweight Championship Match}
From the seventh Halloween Havoc. This was the weirdest match ever. First off, the Giant (who was only 23 at the time) follows in Hogan’s footsteps by winning the title in his debut match with the company. It was also his second match ever. Earlier in the night, the two of them fought in a Monster Truck battle that Hogan won and was followed by Giant falling off the roof of Cobo Hall. Well, Giant showed up just fine for this match, but as he’d never really wrestled to this point the match is terrible. Hogan lost the match by disqualification when Jimmy Hart hit the referee with the megaphone. It was a ruse, as Hart (and Lex Luger) turned on Hogan and joined Giant in the Dungeon of Doom. The Yeti was part of this turn, making everything look like weird cosplay porn. Giant is declared the winner at 16:57. Buffer says that the title can’t change hands by disqualification, but Giant leaves with the title. The next night, Hart revealed that he put a clause in the match contract that the title could change hands by disqualification, but then he was stripped of the belt because that’s stupid. Kevin Sullivan looked comically small next to Giant. It’s bizarre to me how much they referenced WrestleMania III here, but this didn’t have the same fanfare and it wouldn’t be sane to think it could. This did have bearhugs though, so if you like that, watch this. For everyone else, skip it. Goddamn that finish is one of the worst things I’ve ever seen. ¾*
November 26, 1995 – Norfolk, Virginia
Randy Savage def. Diamond Dallas Page, Fidel Sierra, Johnny B. Badd, Chris Kanyon, Sting, The Shark, Brian Pillman, The Yeti, Super Assassin #1, Paul Orndorff, Arn Anderson, Eddie Guerrero, Hulk Hogan, Big Train Bart, The One Man Gang, Kensuke Sasaki, Road Warrior Hawk, Jerry Sags, Chris Benoit, Lord Steven Regal, Marcus Alexander Bagwell, Ricky Santana, Brian Knobbs, Booker T, Lex Luger, Zodiac, Big Bubba Rogers, Meng, The Taskmaster, The Giant, Cobra, Alex Wright, Scott Norton, Mr. JL, Pez Whatley, VK Wallstreet, Scotty Riggs, Hugh Morrus, Disco Inferno, Kurasawa, Ric Flair, Earl Robert Eaton, Jim Duggan, Dick Slater, Stevie Ray, Squire David Taylor, Super Assassin #2, Steve Armstrong, Bunkhouse Buck, Dave Sullivan, Scott Armstrong, Joey Maggs, Sgt. Craig Pittman, Sgt. Buddy Lee Parker, Mark Starr, Bobby Walker, Mike Winner, Lt. James Earl Wright, and Maxx Muscle {WCW World Heavyweight Championship World War 3 Match}
From the inaugural World War 3 for the vacant title. What a terrible response to the Royal Rumble. There were three rings with 60 wrestlers split up amongst them. Beyond that, it was just a battle royal featuring a ton of jobbers and a few guys who might actually win. Watching this is a major headache; the screen is split in three so you can see all three rings at the same time, but each ring has its own commentary team. It’s impossible to follow, even with the commentators screaming what they think is important. How did they think the crowd would stay interested in a mindless battle royal for a half hour? If Eric Bischoff didn’t snort a pound of cocaine before calling this match I’d be shocked. Enough of Zodiac’s face paint rubs off that it starts to look like he’s doing coke in the ring. About fifteen minutes in, enough people were eliminated to put everyone into one right and bring the split screen nightmare to an end. But the one ring is so full that guys are just standing around doing nothing. It’s actually kind of funny in a so-bad-it’s-good kind of way. When they get down to nine men, Guerrero tries to do something other than punching and kicking, but all the whiteys don’t want to cooperate. And of course they botched the finish, as Savage is declared the winner after dumping One Man Gang in the background at 29:53 while Hogan is pulled under the ropes and is declared eliminated. Hogan tells the referee, but the ref just says “eh screw it” and gives the title to Savage anyway. Who did they think would like this? You’d think it would lead immediately to Hogan vs. Savage, but you’d be absolutely wrong. This is one of the worst matches I’ve ever seen. Ø
December 27, 1995 – Nashville, Tennessee
Ric Flair def. Randy Savage {WCW World Heavyweight Championship Match}
From the 13th Starrcade. Flair won a triple threat match against Luger and Sting to earn this title shot moments earlier. Savage fought Hiroyoshi Tenzan earlier in the night to make it more fair. This should have been a breath of fresh air after the last two matches. Hell, I would have given it **½ on the basis of having a normal finish alone. But it didn’t have that. The crowd was dead after the triple threat went nearly 30 minutes. They woke up a bit when Flair started bleeding after taking a megaphone shot to the head and after the Horsemen started interfering. But then it ended with a thud when Anderson hit Savage with a roll of coins or something, giving Flair the win at 8:41. **
January 22, 1996 – Las Vegas, Nevada
Randy Savage def. Ric Flair {WCW World Heavyweight Championship Match}
From Monday Nitro 21. To get into Flair’s head, Savage came out with a train of women who included Linda Hogan, Woman (the only one who gets called out by the commentators), and Debra McMichael. It works, as Flair tries to flirt with his old pal Woman before the match and she slaps him. So the match didn’t set the world on fire and was mostly punchy and kicky, but it had a better energy than their Starrcade match and got the crowd whipped up. And because this was Hogan-era WCW, they couldn’t help but screw up the finish. Anderson tried to hit Savage with the foreign object but hit Flair by mistake. As Savage climbed to hit the diving elbowdrop, the bell started ringing for no reason. Hogan brawled with Anderson and Savage pinned Flair at 8:35 (shown), but the commentators and fans were confused as to whether Savage had won the belt or not because of the bell. God forbid WCW fans ever just get to enjoy a moment. And it wouldn’t be a Savage title win without Hogan in the ring to hog the spotlight. At least Savage called him out for it this time around. They decide they want to have a title match in this building when Hogan reaches the top of the line. I appreciate the effort of having that eventual match (10 months later, when Hogan was champion) in Vegas, even if it was in a different building. **¾
February 11, 1996 – St. Petersburg, Florida
Ric Flair def. Randy Savage {WCW World Heavyweight Championship Steel Cage Match}
From SuperBrawl VI. Miss Elizabeth had debuted in WCW the night after Savage won the title back and was in Savage’s corner here. Flair has Woman in his corner. That’s a depressing alive to dead ratio. I’ve seen people gush over this match but I’m not sure what they saw in it. Were people just that excited to see Flair’s bare ass? It was a lot of meandering brawling in front of a dead crowd. The finish was terrible too, as Woman threw powder in Savage’s face (but mostly missed), then Elizabeth turned on Savage and gave her shoe to Flair, who hit Savage with it for the win at 18:52. Aside from Roman Reigns, I can’t think of anyone who was made to look like a bigger dork in the main event than Randy Savage in 1995 and 1996. **¼
April 22, 1996 – Albany, Georgia
The Giant def. Ric Flair {WCW World Heavyweight Championship Match}
From Monday Nitro 33. My guess? Hogan wanted his non-loss back so Giant got to get a little run with the belt before dropping it in WCW’s next big phase. Although, that would have required months of forethought and I’m not sure that was the case in WCW at the time. Flair was still feuding with Savage, so the commentary didn’t even give this match much lip service. I don’t think a better match could have been had with the Giant at this point in his career. Flair didn’t seem to have an answer for him, but then a few choice cheats put him in control. He knocked Giant out with a roll of quarters or something, but rather than go for the pin he got cocky and tried for the Figure 4 Leglock. Giant did a zombie sit up and got Flair up for the chokeslam at 5:49. It was short, but probably needed to be. It’s the wild hardcore match they’d have ten years later, but it was damn good for a 1996 Giant match. ***
This hot potato among the same four guys wasn’t about to change, so WCW went in a different direction to change things up that had historically massive consequences for the business. Check out part 3 for more on that.
From Diamond Ring Kensuke Office Changes. They emphasize that Nakajima beat Dragon Gate wrestler Kenichiro Arai 
From Dynamite 131. This is a qualifying match for the Owen Hart Foundation tournament. Joe debuted at ROH Supercard of Honor, saving Jonathan Gresham from Jay Lethal (whose soul searching apparently led him to turn heel) & Sonjay Dutt after the main event. And now that ROH and AEW are the same thing, that seems worth mentioning. Caster’s pre-match rap was cute. This was real squashy, with Joe needing only two minutes to put Caster down with the Muscle Buster at 2:52. Lethal & Dutt pop up on the big screens and Lethal says he’d been trying to get a hold of Joe during his difficult soul searching time, and Joe never picked up. They have a present for Joe next week. N/A
From Dynamite 132. Jay Lethal & Sonjay Dutt were in the front row cheering on Joe. Sarcastically, probably, as they brawled with Joe at ROH Supercard of Honor XV. 
From Rampage 39. 
From Dynamite 137. 
From Dynamite 138. This is a 
From Double or Nothing. 
From PWF York Cougar Football Fundraiser. I didn't know that this match happened until over a month after the fact. This started out as a non-title match, but we'll get to why I've listed it as a title match in a moment. FTR have Mick Foley in their corner while their opponents have Bill Behrens. I’ve never actually seen Behrens do an on-camera gig before. He's holding a tennis racket, presumably as an Umaga to Jim Cornette. But it's confusing because there was actually a tennis player named Bill Behrens. They announce this match as having a 20-minute time limit. Only 11 minutes in, they say there are three minutes remaining. Until then, this was as run-of-the-mill as a modern FTR match gets. But the announcement snapped everyone out of their heat-on-Wheeler funk and forced them to go for desperate pins. They announce ten seconds remaining a couple of times, but no one can get the roll up pin they're looking for. The 20-minute time limit expires at 1
From NXT UK 183. McGuinness started by essentially saying that Fraser is going to pee or poo himself during the match. Unnecessary. Had Shawn Michaels been game to have a good match against Vader, this is what it would have looked like. Actually, a more appropriate and modern analogue is Brock Lesnar vs. Seth Rollins from SummerSlam. Much like that match, Frazer used quick strikes and avoided his larger opponent’s signature big move to stay alive. Here it was the powerbomb whereas there it was suplexes. Here, Frazer also successfully damaged WALTER’s knee, which slowed the big man down and made it hard for WALTER to hit the powerbomb. Unfortunately for Frazer, WALTER was able to bide his time and clothesline Frazer’s legs out from under him. An inevitable powerbomb followed and won the match for WALTER at 14:02. I hate to say this because I’m happy that he’s healthier, but the way WALTER has slimmed down has taken some of the magic away from his aura. At least for me it has. That said, dude can clearly still go as well as ever in the ring. ****
From NXT 659. Strong was feeling it here, which is thanks in large part to the crowd being maniacally loud from the get go I’m sure. His whole game was fast and devastating stick and move attacks. That worked pretty well, as WALTER was dazed from time to time. But as with all good WALTER matches (which is pretty much all WALTER matches), everything WALTER does is devastating here so it takes very little for him to take back control. And eventually he did just that and hit the powerbomb for the win at 9:46 (shown of 12:18). After the match, WALTER gets on the microphone and says that his name is Gunther now. I did not think WALTER would be a victim of the renaming curse this far into his run. What will they rename Strong?! ***¾
From NXT UK 185. Andy Shepherd helpfully announces from inside the ring that the reason for the stipulation is that the feud has gotten so violent that it wouldn’t be safe to have fans around. Devlin says during the match that it’s because he thinks Dragunov could only muster the energy to win if he had the crowd behind him. I like that explanation a lot more. The only real reason I could think of to do this without fans is that there was a scheduling conflict with one of the wrestlers for the regular TV taping date and they needed to get this thing filmed. We just had such a long stretch of empty arena NXT UK episodes that I can’t imagine anyone was dying to get another taste of it. This aired the day after Adam Cole vs. Orange Cassidy in a match that was also no disqualification and falls count anywhere, and this served up everything I felt was missing from that match. Now you might say, “Brad, Cassidy is not the same kind of character as Devlin or Dragunov, how could you expect the same level of violence or intensity?” To that I say, when Cassidy started his match by breaking his own sunglasses and rapidly punching Cole, he was indicating that level of violence and/or intensity. And instead the match was mostly wacky. Anyway, this was not wacky. It was stiff and intense and featured weapons that made sense and spots the didn’t take forever to set up. Dragunov got in trouble when his eye injury acted up. Devlin took control and beat the crap out of him. I wasn’t wild about how meek Dragunov was when Devlin was zip tying his hands, but I did like that in the end it turned out to be an error on Devlin’s part anyway because Dragunov’s finisher requires no hands. And indeed, a bound Dragunov jumped off the steel steps (which had been brought into the ring) and hit the Torpedo Moskau on Devlin for the win at 21:43. NXT UK is still sneaking in these dope matches that no one is watching. Y’all should watch them. ****¼ 
From AAA Triplemania Regia. FTR come out with Vickie Guerrero. This was supposed to be explained at an earlier AAA taping but FTR and Guerrero all missed them. AAA is notorious for having this kind of luck/being incompetent lately. FTR is also wearing Eddie Guerrero tribute tights, with American flags on one side and flames on the other, I suppose to pay homage to his Gringos Locos and Latino Heat gimmicks. This match mostly sucked, but one cool spot saw FTR tie Pentagon’s mask to the ropes and force him to unmask with his hands over his face to stop them from climbing the ladder. That would have been a very meaningful moment to lead up to the Lucha Brothers winning the titles back, but unfortunately instead it led into nothing. He just got his mask back and the match continued on in its lame, derivative way. At one point, Pentagon was the only man standing, but instead of climbing the ladder he grabbed a table from the floor. So the titles mean enough to him that he’d unmask to stop his opponents from winning, but not enough for him to get the titles when he had a clear path to do it? Vickie powered Pentagon, causing him to voluntarily jump through the table and Harwood grabbed the belts at 12:12. This was abysmal. *
From AEW Full Gear. Silver was hamming it up a lot more here than he was the year before in New York. That said, this had stronger just-a-match vibes than the aforementioned match. After Silver ripped out Cassidy’s pockets, Cassidy turned up the heat and these guys put on a middle of the row undercard match. Not bad by any means, but nothing memorable either. Cassidy hit the Beach Break rather out of nowhere for the win at 9:42. **¾ 
From the second Honor Reigns Supreme. The commentators sold this as Gresham getting a big shot against a top ROH guy after being an also-ran in the Television Championship division for a while. This was terrific. Both guys did a fantastic job selling their respective targeted limbs, and Gresham in particular played the role of the tenacious underdog perfectly. He didn’t just watch to see where Lethal would have trouble executing his finisher because of the damage he’d done to the former ROH Champion’s arm, he pressed the assault whenever he could, taking out the arm to make sure the Lethal Injection would never come. But what he couldn’t do was stop Lethal from battering his knee and ultimately winning with a Figure 4 Leglock at 17:54. ****¼ 
From the second Masters of the Craft. Columbus has way more Gresham fans than Concord did. That’s a neat little advancement to the plot, innit? They both went after the same limbs that earned them dividends in their previous match. And then they went ahead and built an incredible match out of that story. At first it seemed as though Lethal wasn’t going to be able to get Gresham’s leg to give out. But about halfway through the match, Gresham’s knee was in trouble. Gresham was able to escape the leglock this time by using the momentum of Lethal pulling him away from the ropes to shift to an armbar. But Gresham’s focus on the arm bit him in the ass. Lethal went for the Lethal Injection and collapsed again, but when Gresham went for a roll up after that Lethal cut back on it for the win at 18:27. This is one of the best American examples that I've seen of a match building on the match that came before. Rather than try to outdo the maneuvers from their first meeting for the sake of a big crowd reaction, they adjust their game plans in logical ways that, to me, were just as exciting. I think this match is slept on, by virtue of the fact that I’ve never heard anything about it before watching it. ****½ 
From ROH Wrestling 364. In real life, 
From Death Before Dishonor XVII. Gresham and Lethal had been teaming, but Gresham grew frustrated and started heeling. Ultimately, he turned on Lethal. It took them a little while to get there, but once they got into a groove this was exactly what I wanted from this match. It was back to their old tricks, with Lethal targeting the leg to set up for the Figure 4 Leglock and Gresham targeting the arm to block the Lethal Injection and set up for his Octopus. In the end, Lethal tried the cutback trick that worked for him in Columbus, but Gresham countered to a pin and then put on the gnarliest Octopus for his first win over Lethal at 17:20. This is the best kind of wrestling series. And none of it felt stale because it was a year after they’d wrestled last and because they found ways to energize the old tropes. And that’s not to mention Gresham busting out what I can only describe as a sumo-style assault. Gresham and Lethal make up after the match. ****
From ROH Wrestling 500. During the pandemic, ROH made the most of their empty arena shows by kicking them off with a tournament to crown a champion for the revived Pure Championship. Gresham won the tournament, and this was his fourth defense of the title. Lethal and Gresham were still allies here. In an interesting move, the other match on this milestone episode was two other partners fighting in Jay and Mark Briscoe. They cut to a commercial break about six minutes in, though the action didn’t get beyond (admittedly fast-moving) mat wrestling until the 10-minute mark. That had me thinking this was going to go long, but things took a different turn. Both guys had abused the other’s shoulders, and Lethal used that to his advantage best. He forced Gresham to use his first rope break to stop a pin, and his second to escape a crab. Then, he used the failed Lethal Injection to bait Gresham into a crossface, forcing the champ to use his final rope break. But he made the mistake of giving Gresham a breather and was quickly caught in a head scissor takedown giving Gresham the winning pin at 14:06 (shown of 16:40). For an empty arena match, this held my attention. It was totally different than their previous matches while still using a couple elements from the rivalry to elevate it just a bit. Not essential viewing, but if you’re working your way through their series you shouldn’t skip it. ***¼ 
