Talk about it here.

This was a personal pick of mine, because these two had a surprisingly good match. Luger sells quite a bit for Eddy. There's an early test of strength spot that's fun with Luger making fun of the height difference by continuing to raise his hand higher every time Eddy tries to lock hands and finally, Eddy can't reach. So Luger gets on his knees and offers it, and Eddy responds by laying on his side and acting like he still can't reach. Funny stuff. So they start wrestling, and the pace is pretty fast, to a point where Eddy catches him with a really close nearfall early on.

 

Luger slows things down at this point and controls for a few minutes, but Eddy is still sneaking in quick pin attempts. Finally, Eddy goes for a missile dropkick and Luger pushes the ref in front of him. Eddy ends up getting a visual fall after a ref bump and then Luger ends up catching Eddy in the rack. A second ref comes in and stops the match, leaving Luger to think he's won, but he's been DQd for shoving the ref in front of Eddy's dropkick. Eddy wins!

 

This isn't worth going out of your way to see or anything, but it's a nice TV match between a main eventer and a midcarder with two very different styles that still managed to be pretty fun, where the main eventer did everything he could to make the midcarder look good.

Dusty was great at commentary during this match. Especially when he goes crazy when Eddy wins. It's a good Saturday Night match in a era where you didn't get many competitive matches on the show.

If WCW booked stuff like this in 1998 and 1999, they would have had a much easier time building stars. The announcers are clued in on the storyline (even if it is obvious, it's something that would be lost among the WCW announcers at a lot of points). Luger bumped well and stooged, Eddy was great, just a strong TV match that would have been completely different in 1998.

In 1998, Luger would have sold poorly a bit then put Eddie on the torture rack after just a few minutes. And Schiavone would be talking about the main-event coming up, which would be the biggest match in the history of our sport. Said match would begin 6 minutes before the show ends, and end with a massive run-in of the nWo after some nondescript wrestling. I'm watching some 1998 now, and the gap between 96 and 98 is pretty big. And things are degenerating pretty fast as early as late February.

I miss these Saturday Night matches and going to the pay window. Luger gets down on his knees for a lock up! Guerrero surprising Luger early. Fun to see Guerrero go toe to toe with Luger. Eddie gets the surprise win by disqualification. Luger feels like still celebrating.

Yep, nice TV match indeed. Luger worked a much better match here than Flair would later in the year.

Funny to see Eddy in such vastly different environments (and personas) back-to-back. Luger isn't that compelling on offense overall but he's a great douchebag bully heel here, and he does as much as he can to sell for Eddy's offense. I really like the counters and counters-to-counters involving the Torture Rack at the end. Randy Anderson is in as Luger finally gets the Rack applied, but it's a reverse Dusty finish! Holy shit, Eddy with the victory! Great moment even as Lex gets his heat back afterward. Yes, there's no way this match happens the way it does in '98 or '99.

This is jarring to see the difference of Eddy. I thought this was a lot of fun for what it lasted and really put Eddy over well. For instance, I think Luger does just as much here as HHH did vs. Taka in the 2000 Raw match that gets brought up. Surprise finish too with Eddy getting the win over Lex to Dusty's delight. **3/4

Man Eddy looked great here. He was definitely portrayed as the underdog but looked very believable stringing together offense and Luger sold for him. Luger isn't too compelling during his run of offense though. This is a hell of an effective segment -- enjoyable match, Eddy looks great and picks up a win but in a way that lets Luger keep his heat and further his heel turn.