On May 19, 1996, in their last WWF match before leaving for WCW, Nash and Hall have been concerned in a highly publicized incident at Madison Square Garden dubbed “The Curtain Call”, through which four members of The Kliq (Nash, Hall, Michaels, Helmsley) broke character in the ring after their match to say goodbye to Nash and Hall (Waltman was in drug rehab and didn’t appear on the occasion). The group, composed of Nash, Hall, Shawn Michaels, Hunter Hearst Helmsley (later often known as Triple H) and Sean Waltman (1-2-3 Kid), usually used their influence to advance one another’s careers, and in some cases harm or destroy the careers of performers who displeased them. Michaels and Hall had been taking part in babyface characters, while Nash and Helmsley had been enjoying heel characters, and the four of them embracing noticed an explicit breaking of kayfabe. Its eventual successor, Extreme Championship Wrestling, aimed its product at males between 18 and 35, breaking a couple of taboos in skilled wrestling comparable to blading. In contrast to skilled wrestling of the time, which was marketed extra in the direction of households, Eastern Championship Wrestling was geared extra toward adults and fans who craved a more athletic and violent wrestling product. Though the incident was not televised, it was nonetheless recorded by followers who had smuggled cameras and camcorders into the event, and photos and videos had been broadly disseminated on the web.
On the event, AJ Lee retained her championship by forcing Naomi to submit. He then raised the Eastern Championship Wrestling title and declared it to be a world heavyweight championship, calling it the only actual world title left in professional wrestling. Actually, he had been in line to get the WWF World Heavyweight Championship (he had had several previous title matches), and labored a WWF home show the night time earlier than. WCW’s first main pay-per-view event since Hogan’s hiring, Bash on the Beach, saw Hogan defeat Ric Flair for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. Because Nitro was live at the time, premiering major stars on the show would sign to the fans the quantity of pleasure the broadcasts would contain. Bischoff was instrumental within the launching of the present. Bischoff also began to give away the results of Raw matches on Nitro, as Raw was often taped a week prior to airing.
On the Memorial Day 1996 edition of Nitro, Scott Hall interrupted a match and, apparently out of character, challenged the wrestlers of WCW to a fight against him and unnamed companions. During Bischoff’s first yr at the top of WCW, bookers Ole Anderson and Dusty Rhodes concocted cartoonish, unbelievable and poorly constructed-up storylines that had been poorly received by followers, comparable to “Lost in Cleveland,” a storyline through which Cactus Jack developed amnesia and disappeared in Cleveland, Ohio; the White Castle of Fear, a match between Sting and Vader themed around B films meant to advertise SuperBrawl III; and tongue-in-cheek, quick beach-party films used as promotional movies for Beach Blast. Bischoff’s try to deliver a “dream match” never produced by the WWF paid off, and the PPV drew a disproportionately high purchase price by the company’s standards. The primary episode featured Sean Mooney reporting from the streets of new York City and interviews by Bobby Heenan, Yokozuna defeating Koko B. Ware, The Steiner Brothers defeating The Executioners; WWF Intercontinental Champion Shawn Michaels defeating Max Moon; and The Undertaker defeating Damien Demento. In the same time, the Raw episode filmed in New Jersey instantly following WrestleMania 29 was famous as having various memorable moments involving chants from the occasion’s vocal crowd, one of the most recognised is Fandango’s theme song.
Other co-hosts included Mike Tenay (often for matches involving cruiserweights or worldwide stars), Scott Hudson, and Mark Madden. While the material involving Hogan and Savage usually poked enjoyable at their previous ages, the skits aimed toward Turner have been decidedly more inflammatory in nature and contained material that would have been considered slanderous. That is an advantage of Raising Them, as play dates for children could be enjoyable for youths, however not so enjoyable for fogeys. A Flair for Gold would finally play host to one of the most notorious incidents of nineteen nineties wrestling: On a reside Clash of the Champions XXIV building up the Fall Brawl pay-per-view, WCW determined to introduce a “thriller associate” for the babyfaces, a masked man recognized because the Shockmaster. By the tip of the year, WCW decided to once again base the promotion round Ric Flair. In April 1996, two of the WWF’s prime performers, Kevin Nash (Diesel) and Scott Hall (Razor Ramon), signed contracts with WCW. The present additionally featured an interview with Razor Ramon.