This was certainly an interesting night.

Along with a half-hour detour due to an unmarked highway and putting a
couple hundred miles on my car, I'm back from seeing my second Nitro
live and in puhsun (eeeef ya wheeel).  I was at the very first Nitro,
and I was at last night's.  From the email I got, we had between 50
and 75 RSPWers at the card, although the only two I saw were Chris and
Pema (who had both carpooled with me to the card, since it was a ways
out of town).  I was supposed to pick up Tim as well, but with the
30-minute delay I'm guessing he drove down himself for fear of missing
the opening matches.

We arrived in Mankato, MN at 6:30, and took up seats about 6 or 7 rows
behind the nWo banner.  The dark match was Eddy Guerrero vs chaos (or
the other High Voltage member).

The building was about 75% full.  I'd give an attendance estimate, but
I'm not good at that--I'd be lucky to be within an order of magnitude.

The first hour announcers came out (to a huge chant of "Larry") and
WildCat Willie did the usual jumping in the ring routine.  Is that Pat
Tanaka or is Brady Boone still in the mascot outfit?

The rest of the matches you probably all saw (or will read about on
RSPW) so I won't bore you with a recap.  I haven't watched my tape of
the show yet, so I'm not sure how some of the chants came out.  There
were a number of very loud nWo chants (with the other half of the
arena chanting "sucks".  I personally saw the sign police confiscate
at least 30 or 40 signs.  Doug Dillenger was all over the building,
but I never saw him take a sign.

When Syxx came out, I wandered down to the steps a few feet above and
to the right (from the camera's viewpoint) of him.  I told him we
missed him in the PWA.  He smirked and pointed the Kliq-Cam at me for
a while.  I asked when we'd see him back at Georges in Fridley (where
he and Jerry Lynn used to feud and tag).  He just shook his head.

Not sure if I got on camera then or when Giant was out, but I'm pretty
sure I was seen when Hall and Nash were out there.

Not sure who J. Graffiti is, but I was surprised that he could
actually wrestle (as opposed to the guy with the roadblock that did
the job for Luger).  Guess I should just be happy there wasn't a match
with Duggan, Sullivan, Hacksaw, BottyMan, Duggan, Leprechaun, or
Hacksaw.

Nice to see Sting back, but it was smart of them not to do anything
with him until the PPV.

When the nWo was all in the ring, I took it upon myself to make good
on a promise I made to Eric Bischoff earlier this year.  This was just
after he was powerbombed through a table and had started having hot
cruiserweight matches on Nitro.  He was also having the sheep who
attend the Disney tapings "spontaneously" start chanting "WCW".  I
said that if he brought Nitro to within 200 miles of Minneapolis and
had some good cruiserweight matches or took an insane bump through a
table that I would personally start a "WCW" chant.  By this time I had
walked down the aisle that the nWo had taken to get to the ring.  As
they were jawing with Sting (before he had the mic) I started up a
one-man "WCW" chant.  It didn't take too long before the entire
camera-side area by the ring had joined in.

I was amazed at all the nWo shirts in the arena.  WCW must be making a
mint off of merchandizing (for the first time in a long while).

It was great to see Malenko and Guerrero and Lynn, but I was pissed
that Benoit didn't wrestle (even moreso than not getting to see Enos
wrestle last week).

This article is copyright © 1996 Otto E Heuer. All rights reserved.