103: Mayhem 1999 w/ Grappl‘s Richard ‘Benno‘ Benson

Well, it's been a long seven months but Dean and Liam are finally back on the podcast beat, and it had nothing to do with jail time... honest! Their first episode back is a special look at a very popular question across a variety of topics on social media: which four wrestlers/matches/finishing moves etc would be WCW's 'Mount Rushmore'? The dynamic duo get through as many categories as they can, with more to come on a future episode, no doubt.

Dean and Liam reach a milestone on the retro series, and it's fittingly a significant episode as Ted DiBiase shows up and proves he can count to five, while Chris Jericho makes his debut Nitro appearance and immediately fails to get sportsmanship over as a gimmick. Not only that, but the Blue Bloods explode, the lesser two Horsemen decide seven days later that they do have a problem with being replaced at WarGames by Sting and Luger after all, and Hollywood Hogan unwittingly spawns an infamous graffiti-based meme for the social media age.

The entire wrestling community is this week mourning the news that former WCW United States, Television and Tag Team champion Scott Hall has passed away at the age of 63. Hall was not only part of WCW's memorable early 1990s era, but would of course return in 1996 in one of the most memorable surprise appearances in the history of the industry before his New World Order faction with Kevin Nash and Hulk Hogan changed the game as we knew it. Dean and Liam take a look back at his career, his influence, his struggles and exactly how there'll never be another quite like the 'Bad Guy'.

Dean and Liam return from a winter hibernation brought on by a combination of house renovations and more bloody Covid to deliver their first episode of 2022, another Nitro Watchalong during the famous early days of the New World Order. Stick us on alongside the Aug. 19, 1996 episode, or just listen to the podcast free standing as we walk you through all the happenings. And by happenings, we mean a big development for the upcoming WarGames bout, a fun match between Lord Steven Regal and Dean Malenko and a low-key great TV match between DDP and Chavo Guerrero Jr.

The final day of the year brings our last episode of 2021, and as with previous years it's a doozy. For the third straight year, Dean and Liam have implored you to ask them ANYTHING related to World Championship Wrestling. And after doing it solo in 2019 and inviting a guest in 2020, this time - for the first time in the show's history - there are two special guests! British wrestling luminaries Justin Richards and Adam 'Muscles' Mansfield return to the show at the very same time to help tackle your WCW Qs. Be ready for plenty of BritWres anecdotes and three times the Ayass abuse!

It's the first episode of Monday Nitro following the lengthy stint at Disney and the first since Hollywood Hogan regained the WCW World title at Hog Wild as the show arrives in what Larry Zbyszko calls 'the middle of nowhere' - Casper, Wyoming. Join Dean and Liam through an erratic 90 minutes of wrestling TV littered with PPV rematches and some very peculiar character development. Oh, and Chris Benoit superplexing a seven foot monster in a bout that was much better than it had any right to be.

An old favourite guest returns to the podcast to help Dean and Liam look back at the infamous WCW debuts of Scott Hall and Kevin Nash... kinda. Superbrawl 1 sees Oz and The Diamond Studd make their bows during a very strange transitional period for the company, but thankfully an utterly weird PPV is saved late on by several strong matches, including the fantastic tag title collision between The Steiner Brothers and the team of Sting and Lex Luger. So, all there is left to say is... "Welcome To Oz!"

The WCW roster deals with the aftermath of the New World Order's legendary backstage assault from the previous Nitro in this final episode before Hog Wild on PPV, which is also the last of the Disney/MGM tapings due to the 1996 Olympics. Join Dean and Liam as they watch through the babyfaces standing up in defiance while the heels get even more sinister in their actions as they also vow to take down the NWO. But why does this episode feel like it has been visited by time travellers?

All Elite Wrestling's recent All Out 2021 PPV earned the biggest buyrate for a non-WWE wrestling PPV since WCW produced their inaugural Mayhem show in way back in 1999. And when Dean and Liam shared this trivia with a fellow podcaster they met at Hooked On's All Out watch party, the trio decided to cover Mayhem for an episode. Then, they realised it was a Vince Russo show. Nonetheless, our fearless hosting duo and special guest Richard 'Benno' Benson endured three hours of utterly baffling product that made them realise why it has probably taken a company not run by Vince McMahon 22 years to do a better number. Find out which of the many matches booked for the event scored a 'full house' in Russo Bingo!

Today marks four years since the very first episode of Because WCW looked at the infamous Starrcade 1997 PPV (which also means we have lasted longer than the promotion did after that botched Sting/Hogan main event), and to celebrate our 4th birthday we spoke to a member of wrestling media who knows World Championship Wrestling extremely well - the one and only RD Reynolds! RD tells Dean and Liam about his fandom of NWA/WCW growing up, his most infamous WCW-related WrestleCrap inductions, writing a book with Bryan Alvarez about its demise, what it's like to be currently working on a podcast project with none other than Vince Russo (the duo review classic old Batman episodes) and more!