Loss

Gene brings Eric Bischoff out to discuss Sting recently making clear that he wants Hogan in the ring. Bischoff says it's just simply not going to happen, so WCW will have to just continue on without Sting. JJ Dillon calls from the WCW office and says he is determined to somehow work through all the obstacles the NWO layers are putting up and has PROMISED we will see Hogan vs Sting before the end of the year. Bischoff freaks out and cuts the promo of all promos about this, which brings Sting out from behind, which scares Bischoff. Sting leaves a Hollywood Rules shirt on Bischoff's head and kicks him to the mat, then stuffs the shirt in his mouth! Sting smiles for the first time in a year, which the announcers pick up on and the crowd loves! Great segment. This is some amazing hype.

Dreamer thinks beating Lawler proves that ECW is better than the WWF. Not sure about that. Then we get a strange slo-mo of the whole feud with "The End" by The Doors.

Jenna has seen some extreme things in her lifetime, but nothing like ECW.

Lawler is back out, but this time he is here to address Dutch Mantell. Dutch called himself an icon, and Lawler objects to this. He points to his action figure yet again (he must have been really proud of this!) as proof that he's a bigger star than Dutch Mantell. His career accomplishments could be listed on a piece of confetti. This is all to hype Tommy Dreamer vs Dutch Mantell at an upcoming show, which is an interesting match that I'd buy a ticket for. He threatens Dutch not to lose the title to Dreamer and make Lawler have to go to ECW to get it back, or he'll come after Dutch. He promises he'll be at ringside during that match. This is followed by James Beard coming out to apologize for how today's show started. Since the Brian Christopher match scheduled for later in the show can't happen, Beard has announced the new match as PG-13 vs Dunn/Flanagan. Brian Christopher is upset and wants to know where Travis is. Beard points out that Travis doesn't work for the USWA, and Christopher wants him hired so he can get him in the ring. James Beard says it will not happen, and Brian Christopher starts getting physical and will not drop the issue. Good stuff, but nothing could change the USWA's fate, despite their best efforts.

Jerry Lawler is out to announce some changes in the USWA. Lawler recaps the TV and arena history of Memphis wrestling. Lawler talks about how Bill Clinton made a mandate starting with the fall season of TV that all stations have to carry three hours of educational programming on Saturday mornings. As a result of this, the USWA has lost its morning time slot effective September 6. It will now be on Saturdays at midnight, and the show will be re-run on either Sunday mornings or afternoons. This is amazing for Lawler spinning some shitty news for a promotion on its last legs.

Doug Gilbert recaps what just happened and is out of breath from trying to break everything up. This is some awesome attention to detail.

The show starts with a completely empty studio. A camera guys cuts in front and says to cut outside. The police are outside and so are all the fans. A brawl happened between Brian Christopher and Billy Joe Travis. Michael St. John scrambles to get the fans in the studio after a commercial break and they show footage of what caused all this, which was Travis and Christopher in a great brawl. If WWE could pull this off on a live RAW in a major arena, it would probably be the most remembered angle in the show's history.

Last few minutes of the last Clash match ever. Hot crowd for this main event. DDP gives Luger an accidental Diamond Cutter and Hall pins Luger to win the match. Wow, Luger fell fast after dropping the title. The post-match is of course the big reason this is here. Fliers drop from the ceiling to celebrate the NWO's birthday and the entire crew (sans Hogan) comes out. Bischoff still wants the NWO to have their own show, and Hogan needs bigger limos and newer lear jets. Suddenly, the sound drowns out (to a point that I thought I was having audio problems when I watched this back then) and the lights in the arena go dark. Sting's new entrance music plays for the first time and he releases a vulture from the rafters to the ring. This was a pretty awesome moment, even if it was on the corny side.

Macho Nachos, Macho Mayo, Savage Garden Salad, Macho Gaspacho, NWOkra and WCW Cream Puffs … Gene Okerlund suspects foul play, and rightfully so. The Dinner and a Movie guys have joined the NWO! The balance of power continues to shift! Randy Savage is out to show support for the guys that I'm assuming will now be their personal chefs. Gene Okerlund's indignant reaction is hilarious! They end with a birthday cake for the NWO and after lots of DDP trash talking, he finally confronts them and destroys the set before giving them Diamond Cutters. Such a WWF segment, but I actually thought this was really funny.

One of the less entertaining spots, although I think this was the top selling piece of WCW merchandise at one point.

They do so much crowd brawling in such dark parts of the arena that again, this is really hard to follow. They worked hard to give the people a show, but I just couldn't get into it. On the plus side, we get the yearbook debut of Perro Aguayo Jr. in the accompanying angle.

I like this better than the previous match. The LCO might be the best Joshi tag team ever, even though I'm still confused over which one is Etsuko Mita and which one is Mima Shimoda. But they do strike me as a Los Gringos Locos for Japan, where you have one really charismatic worker and one really talented in-ring worker playing off of each other. They are also excellent at making Watanabe and Maekawa look good and getting a crowd that had been somewhat stoic all night involved in the match. Aja had respect and got cheered a lot, whereas I really think people just wanted to see these two get their comeuppance. They take the guard rail off the hinges and bring it into the ring to use as a weapon in one crazy spot. Maekawa takes quite the asskicking here and the kickouts do a great job of getting her over. Fantastic match.

Last few minutes. Hotta looks like a different wrestler with longer hair. Pretty good match, but again, it's the same people having the same matches. Hotta relentlessly returns to the cross armbreaker until it finally does the job and gives her the win.

Very good match on a surface level, as these two have been working with each other for years by this time, but I was bored with it. There's not much that Toyota and Kong can add to the rivalry at this point and they both are very stale. I'm not sure why they needed to have any singles matches after 1995. The match works on a visceral level, but once again with Toyota, I feel like I've been there and done that as a viewer. Both Toyota and Kong need a new setting and new opponents. Setting that aside (which is tough), they really do have their match pretty set at this point, and work very well together. All the readymade counters they both have for each other's stuff is a big highlight in this match.

Last few minutes. This crowd should go everywhere. They were briefly teasing dissension between Luger and Page at this time. The NWO hit the ring as soon as Luger makes the hot tag and the ring gets covered in trash. Ric Flair and The Giant make the save and the crowd pops HUGE for Nash and Giant going at it. Wow. I LOVE this Birmingham, Alabama crowd!

The NWO play pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey with a drawing of JJ Dillon. Nash is really funny here.

Poor JJ still can't figure out exactly what Sting wants in order to come back to WCW. This is his last chance. He has no new contract offer. He just wants to know what Sting wants. Sting points to fans chanting for Hogan and signs for Hogan vs Sting. Sting holds up a Hulk vs Sting sign. The crowd is going insane and this is one of the most impressive and cool things I've ever seen in wrestling. I love this for the crowd reaction, but wow does WCW look stupid.

Hall and Nash being Hall and Nash. Loud mix of cheers and boos, but they are certainly over.

Great to see Eddy's heel run finally kicking in. This is a really fun TV match, with three of the four guys being excellent and the other not being put in positions to have to do much and thus being effective. Crowd is loud for Mongo. This is a HOT crowd.

NWO celebrates their anniversary with hats, sparklers and a cake in a paid announcement. Nash gets in a joke about Flair's age.

Chyna standing there stone-faced during Shawn's dancing intro is pretty funny. Kind of a seminal match, as Shawn and Hunter are teamed against their wishes, continuing to build to DX. I love this match for Shawn being such an opportunist heel and scrambling every time that it appears Undertaker is about to get his hands on him. It's also interesting for Shawn and Hunter pretending like they don't want to team and suddenly working like a well-oiled machine. Shawn cracks Undertaker with the mother of all insane chairshots. Good Lord.

Vince narrates a video recapping the Austin injury from Summerslam to lead into Jim Ross interviewing Steve Austin. Austin does an awesome sit down interview and hilariously, he had to know he'd be bleeped and he takes advantage of that for dramatic effect. It really is a cool and inspiring story that makes me respect Austin even more than I already did when watching all of this again.

They recap the Vader babyface turn and Bret says anytime anywhere.

Ahmed has been kicked out of The Nation, which was the ultimate burial. Faarooq cuts a scathing promo on him. Rock cuts his first heel promo and it's solid, but wow did he come a long way. DOA challenges them to come fight backstage.

Rick Rude is back (after wrapping up in ECW over the weekend). I presume the indefinite suspension over the comments regarding the Big Boss Man's mother was lifted. This interview is just a series of lame insurance puns, which I think is a first and last for a wrestling promo.