The 1996 Project - March week 1
1st-7th
We begin March with a UWFI vs NJPW branded show titled HIGH TENSION which at least for now you can find on the Internet Archive (The link has the full show as a playlist fyi)
UWFI 1996.3.1 '96 Challenge HIGH TENSION ~ IWGP Heavyweight Championship Match (60fps)
The matches I highly recommend are Sakuraba – a million miles away from becoming the Gracie Hunter – taking on Kitoshi Tamura and the main event of Takada vs Koshinaka for the IWGP heavyweight championship belt as Shiro tries to get the belt back home.
Next up is a match that was one I had highly anticipated since starting the project – Misawa vs Albright for the Triple Crown that took place on March 2nd and my goodness it did not disappoint. Sometimes watching the match does more than me rambling haha!
It’s a damn shame Albright left us way too soon because him showing up in ROH taking on say Samoa Joe would have been wonderful I suspect.
USWA time - and this week might as well be the Brandon Baxter show because this guy’s managing three wrestlers throughout the course of the show including the debuting GIANT WARRIOR. We also find out that once again PG-13 lost the tag titles but this time to Dangerous Doug Gilbert and Wildfire Tommy Rich as the show kicks off.
We’re also informed that a tournament will happen the following Monday for the Unified title due to Jeff Jarrett’s injury and then showing up is SID as a special guest announcer who announces he’s had to retire (this would last until Summer due to other reasons elsewhere…)
As an aside – always a joy to see people keep in the local ads, something that’s missed on British TV these days since they got rid of regional TV in the 2000’s.
If you want a good laugh Memphis doing The Giant from Wish in GIANT WARRIOR is another fun moment in this week’s show (even more amusing given his opponent The Shadow shows up on WCW the same evening in a blue mask and gets destroyed by another Giant – Haystacks.) and when it comes to promos the ones for the losing team leaves USWA match between Dangerous Doug, Wildfire Tommy and PG-13 plus Brian Christopher vs Lawler are great.
When it comes to the WCW Saturday offerings for this week – the Uncensored Control Center mentions how The Alliance to End Hulkamania have sent the challenge for the Doomsday Cage match (dread intensifies), the DDP saga continues – on Pro he seems to have lost the Page part of his name (probably a graphics snafu but it can count XD) and comes out in ripped tights and carrying half a cigar plus a sale of his rings later on that day on Saturday Night. There’s also an… interesting Up Close with Miss Elizabeth – she’s still not quite used to being a heel yet so there’s some awkwardness there but give it a few months…
Match wise we get a good main event on Pro with Sting/Luger vs Public Enemy, another Scott D’amore sighting as he’s fed to the Taskmaster and Arn Anderson and another chapter in Flair vs Sting and Benoit/Guerrero on Saturday Night but they run out of time for the main and the show ends with the match continuing. The Tape Machines keep on rolling…
We also get the first full sighting of Lee Marshall as the newest member of the commentary team just to wrap things up.
WWF Superstars - well the episode is best summed up as a typical one (aside from the countdown to Ringmaster slowly turning into Stone Cold…) and can be summed up by one of the Godwins’ pigs using the ring canvas as a toilet before their match.
Raw also runs unopposed this week and thankfully for once there’s no getting complacent – yes we have the reveal of the Ultimate Bigot returning at WM 12 (two months after holding them up for money of course if you remember the plans before the Rumble) and another dreadful Billionaire Ted bit that reminds us that billionaires are shitheads – especially Turner and McMahon after the slightly amusing Larry Flings of the past 2 weeks (granted the screenshot up above is from the only chucklesome part that takes shot at the botched handcuffs from Nitro the week prior) but we have a HBK vs 123 Kid match along with HHH/Bret that balances everything out nicely as we finally focus on the championship bout for WM 12.
We finally come to the end of this week with ECW Hardcore TV with an episode that while it’s mostly known for Pillman fighting with a pencil in some bad comedy there’s a Sabu vs 2 Cold Scorpio match that’s not to be slept on at all.
And with that week 1 of March 96 is in the books – next time we have the end of Cactus Jack, the War returns and more…