THE 1996 PROJECT - February part I
We have the beginning of the end for Cactus Jack, the weekly mess that is Raw and Nitro plus so much more as we enter February 1996!
New Japan kicks us off with the start of their FIGHTING SPIRIT tour – NJPW vs UWF: Great Tag War taking up two days on the 3rd and 4th respectively and we begin with a junior heavyweight legends battle as Black Tiger II aka the great Eddie Guerrero faces Jushin Thunder Liger.
This match is for Liger’s IWGP junior heavyweight title which he beat Koji Kanemoto for back on January 4th.
In all fairness there’s no need to go into deep analysis here – it’s Eddie and Liger having another good match that is worth watching (although give it a few months and there’s one that’s GREAT happening but more about that in June…) with Liger getting the win and retains the title.
We follow this with two matches of NJPW vs Heisei Ishingun as Keji Muto and Kensuke Sasaki take on Akitoshi Saito (who just announced his retirement tour concluding with DEATHTINY) and Kengo Kimura followed by Shinya Hashimoto and Junji Hirata taking on Shiro Koshinaka and Michiyoshi Ohara.
It’s worth noting that Saito’s already had quite the emotional night as he had to shave Kunaki Kobayashi’s hair following a loss in a hair vs hair match and got slapped by Kunaki for not wanting to follow the stipulation at first!
Both matches have some great interactions – Kimura and Muto in the first and Hashimoto with Koshinaka in the second – but the second match is much better out of the two and the war rumbles on with the score being 1-1 by the end of it all. (NJPW winning the first and Heisei the second)
When it comes to WAR however the main event of 3rd of February brings it with UWF (Masahiro Kakihara, Hiromitsu Kanehara, Kazushi SAKURABA and Ken’ichi Yamamoto) vs NJPW (Yuji Nagata, Shinjiro Otani, Yokimitsu Ishizawa and Tatsuhiro Takaiwa), What starts as submission central quickly gives way to slaps, knees, head kicks and so much more, it’s also quite something to see Sakuraba in a New Japan ring BEFORE he goes on to be iconic in Pride as the Gracie Hunter.
I particularly liked how when the first elimination came Team NJPW made sure to block off the ring so the rest of UWF couldn’t prevent the tap out – surprised that’s not happened more often in modern wrestling.
Eventually Yamamoto gets the win for team UWF via kneebar submission – the next night would see NJPW get revenge however as Nagata would recruit Black Cat, Koji Kanemoto and Ilzuka to the fold.
For day 3 of the tour on the 4th the only match I say is worth checking out is a wonderful bout between El Samurai and Dean Malenko for the UWA World Junior Light Heavyweight title.
Next is our quick look at what Superstars and WCW Saturday Night bring us for this particular weekend:
On the WWF side we have Roddy Piper getting announced as the acting president with a promo where he proclaims to straighten things out and how in his belief Vader is not innocent, same as OJ and Michael Jackson aren’t either – yes he really lumped those three together! Hakushi taking on BUDDY WAYNE in a match I had no idea happened until now – which naturally Hakushi won.
We also got another look at the mysterious Mankind in which he mentioned his missing ear and the next chapter in the Razor/Jarrett rivalry in a good match that mostly serves for 123 Kid to attack Razor with a pram until him and JJ get chased off by Ahmed Johnson which leads to the reveal of the Cry Baby Match in which the loser ends up in a diaper (for the record Scott Hall and Sean Waltman HATED THIS IDEA.) and HHH vs Duke The Dumpster for the February In Your House to end the show. (They replay the shitty Billionaire Ted crap to actually end the show on but read this edition of the Project to know why that was so: https://buttondown.com/Theharvestnetwork/archive/the-1996-project-we-finally-finish/)
WCW Saturday Night begins with the Flair shoe attack on Hogan (Mariah May > Flair when it comes to using the heel of a high heeled shoe obviously if you saw recent AEW) but thankfully we have a wild Savage promo, the twist in the DDP/Johnny B Mero money saga (Kimberly was the rightful winner of the money) and a fun doubleshot in a Lex Luger/Eddie Guerrero match in which Eddie wins… by DQ but still, I’ll take it for 1996 and Dean Malenko vs Ric Flair.
Now time for our look into the pettiness that is the Monday Night War for the 5th February…
Nitro has a great Savage/Benoit match (bar the moment where Benoit dives through the ropes and hits the barricade) that led to a turn that made sense with Woman joining the Horsemen’s entourage and Flair actually looking like a true heel rather than a goofy one for the first time in WEEKS. It has to be noted too that Savage is working with an injured right arm so fair play to him.
We got the ramping up of Pillman’s Loose Cannon era as Bischoff starts to admonish Pillman on air as he goes after the cameramen and the reveal of the Respect match for Superbrawl which leads to an ‘incident’ during the Pillman/Arn vs Sullivan/Morrus match but more later in the news section. (Ominous music cue…)
Finally we get the Sting/Luger vs Road Warriors match set up at the Clash which is OK but the ending of the match finally sees Sting start to slowly realise that Lex has been playing dirty in order for them to keep the belts and during the match a power outage! Overall an improvement when compared to January’s Nitros – let’s hope Hogan’s booking fuckery doesn’t derail things too soon (cue the ominous music again.)
Raw has another decent show with a good tag team match between Bulldog/Yokozuna and HBK/Diesel that’s mostly done to start the short Yokozuna babyface turn (and a very questionable description by Vince on how Cornette is ‘verbally raping’ Yokozuna following the loss – surely you meant berating him?) a great 123 Kid vs Hakushi match that you should look for and them giving Bret vs Undertaker on TV (to show they could do it too ala Nitro doing the Savage/Flair match recently) which is good but obviously had to end with Diesel beating them both up.
Naturally the only disgusting thing this week was another shite Billionaire ted segment in which they get ‘Ted’ to act as an egomaniac drunk with power and money (The BIGGEST POT CALLING THE KETTLE BLACK MUCH?!). Thank goodness this ends soon.
Overall the ‘War’ this week is very even with good quality matches.
News wise – the reason we’re still getting the shite skits on Raw is because Vince thinks he can expose WCW and get them dropped before the Time Warner merger happens in late 1996 even going as far as to try and get an ad in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal (the one you see at the end of the skit) but it was turned down. A modified version though did run in NYT’s financial section two days later.
What you wouldn’t have noticed on Nitro if you watch the Network version however is the length of the power outages that was caused by construction work near the venue – Bischoff naturally spins it into blaming the WWF and claiming sabotage. Meanwhile the deal alluded to during the tag match is Pillman and Sullivan ‘shooting’ on each other and having words backstage – in hindsight all part of Pillman’s plan with the Loose Cannon stuff but it’s interesting to see how Meltzer makes sure it comes off as legit.
Davey Boy Smith is awaiting the verdict on his assault trial stemming from a fight in 1993 and the way the Torch sees it is he’s probably going to be found not guilty, he also admitted under oath how wrestling is all faked leading to a bit of a media storm (despite the fact Vince admitted it back in 89 anyway in order to avoid… paying tax to a commission.)
Inoki’s plans for his Peace Festival show continue – this week he’s trying to get Terry Funk to do another retirement match and Dan Severn to be a part of it and sorting out US PPV but naturally there’s already politics rearing its head – WCW won’t take part if WWF help out with the production but will allow their guys to face any of the Japan promotions’ talent, AAA and EMLL will take part with other promotions but not each other and WWF just want their guys to face each other. It’s only going to get more chaotic from here.
We close out this edition with ECW in NYC and a bonus match as Croydon gets a Michinoku Pro showcase thanks to Brian Dixon…
Hardcore TV for February 6th begins with the debut of Juventud Guerrera as he’s the latest luchador to face Rey Mysterio Jr as part of Heyman’s plan to bring lucha to areas outside of LA and as to be expected with Rey vs his fellow luchadors in ECW during this time it’s a nice high flying match with some submissions thrown – Joey making you realise that the two lads have only JUST turned 21 at the time! A strong way to kick off this week and thankfully not a 20 min recap or clusterfuck segment – save the latter for later.
We then get a great and hilarious promo between Cactus and Mikey Whipwreck in which Cactus tries to encourage Mikey to come with him to WWF and win their tag belts while Mikey gets to showcase his fire, pizazz and whatnot, Mikey rightfully turns it down.
This leads us into Eliminators vs Cactus and Mikey for the ECW tag tiles – Mikey not happy about being dragged into Raven’s Nest via being Cactus’ partner – the match is ok although there’s some weird timing issue when Mikey is against either Eliminator, nevertheless we get Cactus complaining how Mikey doesn’t support him throughout the match as he’s still feeling disheartened that Mikey wants to stay in ECW and ultimately costs Mikey the match by letting him get hit with Total Elimination for the title change.
Cactus then completes the turn on Mikey and then Francine comes out to trick The Eliminators into thinking she wanted to manage them as the Pitbulls attack them to set up a Triple Dog Collar match for Cyberslam 96 and Francine cuts Saturn’s hair to finish the humiliation.
Pulp Fiction montage follows – Cactus explains why he turned on Mikey due to him not appreciating the leaves during autumn/fall, switching Leonard Cohen in the car for Ozzy and giving him Doritos, Fonzie is Fonzie, Beulah makes a penis and faking orgasm joke, 2 Cold describes the TV title as it’s a woman and Saturn shaves his head bald. End of show!
The same night in Corydon we have Kaientai (Dick Togo aka SATO, Shiryu aka Kaz Hayashi and Terry Boy aka Men’s Teioh) vs Great Sasuke, Tiger Mask 4 and Hanzo Nakajima – you read that correctly by the way.
It’s quite interesting to see these six do a mixture of Michinoku Pro style and mat wrestling style in respect to where they were and it’s nice to see a crowd used to James Mason dressing up in a comedic gimmick and Kendo Nagasaki react very positively to them – while not as grand to the 6 man matches they would all become known for later this year and in 1997 it’s something to catch just for the rarity of it (and to laugh at kids randomly calling Tiger Mask a wanker… because Croydon plus the reaction of the oldies in the front row seeing wrestlers fly into their lap!)
Next time – Big Apple Blizzard Blast continues, we get one of THE most infamous moments of 1996 as we respect the Bookerman and much more.