This weeks episode of Thunder took place on a Wednesday instead of Thursday. The show may have switched dates due to Braves baseball, which may happen on a regular basis through September.
With Spring Stampede only four days away, WCW shook up the card on Nitro. Sting officially made his return and Randy Savage narrated a video package to reveal that at the PPV WCW World Champion Ric Flair defends against Sting, Diamond Dallas Page and Hollywood Hogan. Sting has been a sorely missed character as he’s one of the few true babyfaces that WCW currently has. A lot of the characters have a mixture of face and heel tendencies. Since the double turn by Hogan and Flair at UnCensored it’s been especially difficult to find an act to purely support. Sting fits that bill. DDP has even become more of a tweener since his return at the 3/29 Nitro where the fans vocalized their displeasure towards him.
The other main draw for Spring Stampede is the highly anticipated rematch from Starrcade ’98 where Goldberg will look to avenge his first career loss to Kevin Nash. The feud had been mostly ignored for the past three months as Nash had been feuding with Rey Mysterio and Goldberg had been dealing with Bam-Bam Bigelow and Scott Steiner in recent weeks. Considering the history, I guess there doesn’t need to be a heavy focus on it. Randomly announcing the match six days before the PPV comes across as desperate, though.
Spring Stampede is shaping up to be a potentially strong in-ring PPV, but it’s certainly lacking a major storyline to drive interest. Lets get into the final stop before Spring Stampede with a taped episode of Thunder.
APRIL 7TH — TAPED — RICHMOND, VA — RICHMOND COLISEUM
NOTE: There is a new commentary duo for Thunder with the new logo era. Mike Tenay and Larry Zbyszko are taking over for Tony Schiavone and Bobby Heenan. This should cement Thunder as the distant secondary show.
MATCH #1: WCW CRUISERWEIGHT CHAMPION REY MYSTERIO JR. VS. EVAN KARAGIAS
FINISH: Mysterio picks up the win following a top rope hurricanrana.
Bob’s Take: The Richmond crowd seemed to be extra excited for Mysterio and they were popping for transition moves by Mysterio. It wasn’t due to any heel work from Karagias, who did a fine job in the match considering he’s a rookie. Karagias had a few solid moments and this ended up being far more competitive than I thought it would be. A decent start to the show action wise. 1 for 1
MATCH #2: WRATH VS. DAMIEN
FINISH: Wrath wins following the Meltdown.
Bob’s Take: This is such a weird match. What are they even trying to do with Wrath? They aren’t trying to build him up to anything of substance since he’s been derailed by the Bigelow feud earlier in the year and lost to Disco on Nitro to almost completely kill his aura. Wrath wrestling low level Cruiserweight wrestlers isn’t going to do anything to help him other than give him meaningless victories on random taped Thunder episodes. The fact this match went nearly six minutes is incredible. Wrath should be winning this match in two minutes if they saw any sort of value in him. 1 for 2
KONNAN IN-RING INTERVIEW
CONTEXT: Gene talks about Disco Inferno disrespecting Konnan’s music video, but Konnan says he’s representing his people with the music. Konnan has no idea how Disco made it in the Wolfpac, but he’s going to fight him at Spring Stampede. At this point, Juventud Guerrera comes out with La Cucaracha (Disco) and Guerrea puts over Cucaracha as the greatest luchador. Juventud translates for Cucaracha and tells Konnan that his videos are worse than Disco’s. Konnan takes exception to all of this and attacks both men, but is overpowered. Juventud misses a springboard dropkicking hitting his pal instead. Konnan cleans house and hits a facebuster on Cucaracha to send the heels from the ring.
Bob’s Take: Obviously Disco is wearing the mask to taunt Konnan and the culture, but the main purpose of the feud is Disco insulting the music. The segment isn’t anything great. I can appreciate the attempt to add some interest to their PPV match, but there’s not much here to get excited or interested in. Juventud is mildly funny here, but he’s not directly involved in the feud to begin with. 1 for 3
MATCH #3: MIKEY WHIPWRECK VS. HARDCORE HAK
NOTE: It’s officially announced during Hak’s entrance that he’s wrestling Bam-Bam Bigelow at Spring Stampede.
FINISH: Hak wins the match with a side Russian leg sweep across Whipwreck’s throat. After the match, Bigelow comes down to the ring and attacks Hak. Bigelow spikes Hak with the Greetings From Asbury Park. Chastity tries to get involved, but Bigelow no sells and scares her to the floor.
Bob’s Take: It’s kinda wild to think that four years ago these two were involved in a major program for ECW, and now in 1999 they are thrown out there for a random TV match on Thunder. I don’t think anyone wants to watch Hak wrestle in a traditional singles match. Whipwreck has value as a solid in-ring performer for the Cruiserweight division, but isn’t going to get a good match out of Hak here. They did use a steel chair during the match, but the match was never announced as a hardcore match. Once they got more hardcore in nature it became more entertaining, as expected. However, it’s not a good match. 1 for 4
MATCH #4: SUPER CALO VS. BLITZKRIEG
NOTE: It’s announced during the match that Blitzkrieg will be in action against Juventud Guerrera at Spring Stampede.
FINISH: Blitzkrieg wins the match following a top rope Sky Twister (spinning 450 splash).
Bob’s Take: The action wasn’t overly exciting, which was a bit of a disappointment. Blitzkrieg’s finish move is quite the visual, though. I wish I could say it was worthwhile, but the overall match was lacking too much to be enjoyable aside from the finish. 1 for 5
MATCH #5: RAVEN VS. CHRIS BENOIT
FINISH: Late in the match, Raven sets Benoit up for a DDT, but Arn Anderson gets in the ring to attack Raven and cause a disqualification. After the match, Saturn runs into the ring to help Raven, but Dean Malenko runs into the ring and attacks Raven, too. Benoit plants Raven with a DDT while Malenko delivers the Death Valley Driver to Saturn to leave them laying. Arn Anderson grabs a microphone and says the Horsemen are back.
Bob’s Take: The action was slow and plodding. I shouldn’t have expected anything of much quality heading into the PPV tag match. The aftermath was fine, but the presentation of the Horsemen continues to be annoying. These two had far better matches in ’98. 1 for 6
MAIN EVENT: WCW TELEVISION CHAMPION BOOKER T VS. CHRIS JERICHO
FINISH: Late in the match, the referee got knocked down after a flapjack attempt by Booker on Jericho. Scott Steiner runs down with a chair and whacks Booker over the head. Jericho tries for the Lion Tamer, but Stevie Ray appears and whacked Jericho with a slapjack. Booker covers to win the match and retain the title.
Bob’s Take: A decent main event to end the program on a good note. Stevie Ray getting involved to help his brother could be a sign that Harlem Heat could be on the verge of a reunion as blood is always thicker than water. A solid main event and I’m glad we got a finish even if it was a bit overbooked. 2 for 7
A bit of a lackluster episode of Thunder, but it was also taped before the relaunched logo design and it’s the last major TV program before Spring Stampede. It was never going to be a standout show with those factors. The main event and opener were both solid enough, but not nearly to the level to make it a worthwhile show.
As it stands at this point it looks like the card for Spring Stampede has been fleshed out with a couple of matches announced on the show. Here’s the latest card for Spring Stampede barring any changes to the card in the final few days.
For the WCW World Championship — Elimination Rules — Randy Savage special enforcer
(champion) Ric Flair vs. Hollywood Hogan vs. Sting vs. Diamond Dallas Page
Grudge Match:
Kevin Nash vs. Goldberg
Finals for the vacant WCW United States Championship
Booker T vs. Scott Steiner
For the WCW Cruiserweight Championship
(champion) Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. Billy Kidman
Raven & Perry Saturn vs. Chris Benoit & Dean Malenko
Konnan vs. Disco Inferno
Hardcore Match:
Bam-Bam Bigelow vs. Hardcore Hak
Juventud Guerrera vs. Blitzkrieg
Honestly, Spring Stampede looks rather solid on paper and probably stronger than WWF’s WrestleMania or Backlash for in-ring action. The execution is where it’s going to matter, though.
4/7 Thunder TV Rating: 2.0
Thanks for reading.