Bash at the Beach 2000: The Shoot Not Heard Around The World

Bash at the Beach 2000
Date: July 9, 2000
Location: Ocean Center, Daytona Beach, Florida
Attendance: 6,572
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Scott Hudson, Mark Madden

Ok so this is a show I get asked about a lot due to an infamous segment in it so I figured I might as well just do it once and for all. Well that and someone requested the whole show so there we are. We’re back at the birthplace of the NWO so you know they’re going to try to do something “shocking.” The main event is supposed to be Hogan vs. Jarrett but you know that’s not going to work. The company is just dead in the water at this point and they’re just waiting to be put out of their misery. Let’s get to it.

Ernest Miller who is the commissioner for the week has the guy formerly known as Ice Train, his limo driver, to prevent outside interference in the cruiserweight title match. The Jung Dragons jump him and he beats them up in a badly choreographed sequence that went absolutely nowhere. The opening video has no narration and is just clips of the main event.

Masterlock, as in the company that makes actual locks, is the sponsor. Let that sink in for a bit.

Oh and yes, it’s THAT Mark Madden on commentary.

Cruiserweight Title: Juventud Guerrera vs. Lieutenant Loco

This is Filthy Animals vs. M.I.A. We have Konnan, Disco and Madden in the same vicinity. It’s a WrestleZone reunion! Konnan is so annoying. Disco is even more annoying. Loco is more commonly known as Chavo Guerrero and is the champion but Juvy stole the belt. Oh and remember that thing where we were told there weren’t supposed to have anyone at ringside? There are only 8 of them so far. The referee throws them all out as I have no idea what these people were supposed to be. We get into an argument over what Sports Entertainment is. Oh dear.

Juvy runs early and sits on the stage pointing at his crotch. Can we like, wrestle? We have a boring chant 8 minutes into the show. Madden reminds us that the Jung Dragons, the people that jumped Miller to start the show, had made a deal with Miller on Thunder. Madden calls Juvy the Juicer-Weight Champion.

A piece of Juvy’s hair falls out while he’s in the chinlock. Madden is already on my nerves. Juvy keeps trying to run so Chavo spanks him. Chavo hits a great dive to the floor to half kill Juvy. Chavo was one of the few things that was just awesome in the dying days of WCW. He hit a groove for the last 6-7 months or so and was untouchable and it was just starting here.

The Filthy Animals come out in masks to be at ringside, making the whole order earlier completely pointless. And with no one telling them to, they leave. Tony thinks they planned this. Something to keep in mind here: you’re going to see or read about a LOT of stuff that is completely and utterly ridiculous and or stupid in this show so be prepared. Just be glad I’m not doing Raw or Thunder.

Thunder became a comedy show as they literally often edited the show wrong so it wasn’t in order, meaning there would be explanations for things that hadn’t happened yet or matches ending before they began. And this is the legitimate second biggest company in the country at the moment.

And here’s MIA dressed as Bill Clinton. MIA is Misfits in Action for those of you lucky enough to not know. Their big chested girl comes out and takes her shirt off to distract Juvy and it only gets two, making it pointless. The Juvy Driver gets two as this has been a decent match. The Tornado DDT ends it for Chavo.

Rating: B-. Very good opener here, but again, what did we need the run-ins for? You have two guys that can fly and do their thing out there as well as anyone but instead we need 9 run-ins and girls taking their clothes off and masks. Again, good wrestling is overshadowed by cheap parlor tricks.

The Jung Dragons are in Miller’s office and we get the point: they’re parodying Rush Hour. Ignore the fact that the movie came out two years before this and the sequel wouldn’t come until next year. They’re using quotes from the movie and we have a black guy that can’t shut up and Asians that only partially understand. Jarrett comes in and wants Hogan. He has a fat woman here to sing for Hogan. I kid you not. Hogan isn’t here yet. Oh and the belt he’s wearing is a replica of the real belt which is damaged and it’s very obvious due to an outline around the edges.

Hardcore Title: Big Vito vs. ???

Vito is a mobster or Italian stereotype or something. It was supposed to be Johnny the Bull and Terry Funk but they hurt each other so instead we get these two.

Hardcore Title: Big Vito vs. Norman Smiley/Ralphus

Smiley got ridiculously over as hardcore champion so they immediately pulled him off TV. This is his return. According to WCW hardcore rules, the match has to start in the back and work its way to the ring. That of course doesn’t happen here but they mention it anyway.

They do it backwards so they go to the back after starting in the arena. And now they have to go back to the ring for the pin to end in there. Yes, they managed to screw up the hardcore division by adding rules to the division without rules. Norman does the Big Wiggle which is basically a dance that is supposed to look like sodomy. Ralphus is toothless and incredibly fat so he wears a half shirt. He also beats up the champion.

Norman’s character is that he’s terrified of being beaten up yet he kept retaining the belt by accident. For instance he had an I Quit match for the belt but he got hit in the throat by a martial arts shot and couldn’t speak. The guy he was fighting shouted at him to say I quit, thereby losing the match.

The thing is Smiley could go move for move with Benoit or Regal and was hilarious at comedy stuff so he got incredibly popular. Like I said, he was then taken off TV as a reward. He gets thrown in an elevator so it’s Ralphus vs. Vito. The fans chant for Ralphus so of course he gets his teeth kicked in. It’s table time. A splash through Ralphus ends it. Norman comes back after the match to do nothing.

Rating: D. So let’s look at this again: WCW based this match on the return of a guy and then had him leave the match halfway through and has him lose. There’s another example of the questionable booking that’s going on here. It’s just the lack of logic in the booking that you get like this.

Ad for New Blood Rising, the next PPV.

Goldberg, the heel (another BRILLIANT move as we turned the only popular guy left in the company heel) shows up with Scott Hall’s contract in his pocket. He has a match with Nash for that later on.

Nash wants Hall to come back. And remember, these same two would still be tag champions over ten years later.

We recap Daffney vs. Miss Hancock (Stacy Keibler). The idea is that David Flair left his storyline fiancé Daffney for his real life fiancé Miss Hancock. In other words we’re having a match over an angle being dropped. This is what we were dealing with here. Oh and it’s a wedding gown match.

Miss Hancock vs. Daffney

Naturally Stacy looks gorgeous. This wound up going to a pregnancy angle where there was supposed to be incest of some kind, I believe with Stacy being Ric’s daughter or him being the father of the baby or something like that. It never came through due to the lack of business but whatever. And yes that’s the Scream Queen of TNA. She’s also the better in ring competitor here. Stacy is 20 here. That’s hard to believe.

There’s wedding cake here too. Instead of trying to win they go for the cake. David is on his second interference so far. The referee gets pantsed and so does David. Now the girls chase each other around the ring and we try to shave Daffney’s head. Oh look it’s Crowbar to interfere even more. He takes his pants off to keep things even. We do get a funny line of “he’s choking David Flair with his pants!” And then Stacy just strips for the heck of it so that Daffney wins. Daffney hits her with cake.

Rating: N/A. Not wrestling, but the girls both looked good. This is what I get for watching WCW from 2000 though so I bring this on myself.

Ernest Miller wants to find Ox Baker to be on the card (he had been retired for 12 years and would be in his late 60s at this point) and is walking around in the back. The Jung Dragons try to sneak up on him but they have music accompanying them wherever they go, so they can’t sneak up on him. And you thought TNA was illogical.

According to Tony it’s clear that Miller is waiting on the arrival of Hogan. While the announcers talk the fans behind him get more interested in something else and look the other way for something with the announcers not noticing at all. The delay is to clean up the cake by the way because we couldn’t put down a mat or a removable thing to prevent this kind of a delay.

Tony: “it was here…well not here but close to here, about 80 miles from here. Now let’s go back to two years later…” He can’t even speak English properly! By the way we’re at about 5 minutes of just killing time here while we clean up the mat because you know, there isn’t a promo or something we could go to or a segment where some young guys get some camera time to develop their characters a tiny bit. That could never happen right?

Tag Titles: Perfect Event vs. Kronik

That would be Chuck Palumbo/Shawn Stasiak vs. Adam Bomb/Crush by the way. Stasiak is using Mr. Perfect’s music and is called Perfectshawn. They even feuded. The same happened with Palumbo and Lex Luger. Kronik were made up of weed jokes. This of course is the top tag feud in the company.

Kronik had the belts and the Perfect Event “accidentally” won them and we’re constantly told that Kronik should destroy the champions here and get the belts back. Great way to build up the champions there guys. Palumbo has a flex bar called the Lex Flexor. You know, so we can be reminded of the guy that he’s imitating and that did the gimmick better.

So the champions are being destroyed here and this is perfectly fine apparently. They try to have Crush (why bother with the real names?) is supposed to be dumped over the top due to heel cheating. It doesn’t work but it’s sold by the announcers anyway. Hey, the champions are actually winning! Tony: “we’re not used to seeing the champions in control like this!”

See what I mean here? No title in WCW meant a thing so there was no point to watch feuds to get to a title which meant there was no point to building big matches so there was no point in watching. Another line from Tony: “Amazingly they’re (the champions) in charge!” Could you please stop burying your champions?

The match is barely watchable at best as they’re going through a standard formula but the dynamic is all wrong as the big strong guys are the faces in peril which is completely backwards from what it’s supposed to be. Oh and Kronik could be hired to protect people, which is nothing at all like the Acolyte PROTECTION Agency which was also two big guys that beat people up for money. See with the APA, one guy wasn’t white. Totally different characters entirely. What a silly mistake to make!

Crush uses what we would call an F5 and I say uses in the weakest sense of the word. This is of course a total mess and has no real resemblance of a tag match. Double chokeslam to Stasiak but Palumbo saves. He gets a double shot as well and a Doomsday Device with a powerbomb instead of an electric chair ends it. Oh and the crowd is 16,000 people now instead of about 6,500 like it really is.

Rating: D-. Like I said the dynamic here was completely off. This just did nothing at all and the booking of the champions gave me no reason at all to watch this match. It was FAR too long also at almost fifteen minutes. Yes these guys got 13 minutes or so on PPV, which is longer than Chavo and Juvy, two talented guys, got. See the problem here?

The Cat is trying to get James Brown on the PPV (they actually did that at one point) and Jarrett comes in as he looks for the Jung Dragons or whoever is making that music. Jarrett threatens to mess up the show because he’s bored. So am I buddy. The Dragons beat him up.

Kanyon vs. Booker T

Kanyon is Positively Kanyon here as he imitates DDP. Seriously, is ANYONE here an original character? We hear of a graveyard match later on which is the KISS Demon vs. Vampiro. Oh I can’t wait for that one. Booker is one of the few guys in WCW to get to the top from the ground and he was pretty impressive in doing so. Booker is over as free beer in a frat house here.

Why are these guys fighting again? Oh we’re not going to be told? Ok then just thought I’d ask. Madden goes on a rant against DDP of course because DDP had talent and people cared about him at some point. Allegedly Kanyon is wearing DDP’s tights. Pay no attention to the fact that DDP normally wore black or jeans and Kanyon is in red or that the tights look nothing like DDP’s but whatever.

Booker takes a brick out of the DDP book that Kanyon is carrying with him. And then Booker slips getting out of the ring. Kanyon puts the steps on Booker and drives them down with a chair. The referee doesn’t seem to care as I guess he’s as put to sleep as I am by the earlier parts of this show.

Kanyon was indeed good at coming up with offense. Oh apparently Booker thinks Kanyon is something wrong with WCW so he’s fighting him to get rid of him. Well that’s better than nothing. Kanyon does a bunch of stuff to Booker’s back including a reverse Boston Crab which actually would be FAR less painful than a regular one but whatever.

Kanyon hits Booker with a book that used to have a brick in it. There’s no brick in it but Booker sells it anyway. Oh he was playing possum. The Axe Kick hits as does the Book End (Rock Bottom, and pay no attention to Booker being considered the People’s Champion and having his catchphrase added to the start of his theme music). And here’s Jarrett with a guitar shot to Booker so the Diamond Cutter from Kanyon ends it.

Rating: C-. Decent match here, but of course there was interference and a weapon in use here because it wouldn’t be WCW if we didn’t have those. This was a great example of what could have been a good match being overbooked and messed up for no apparent reason at all. What’s the point of that again? Ah I forgot: there isn’t one.

Mike Awesome hits on the fat singer.

US Title: Scott Steiner vs. Mike Awesome

So this was around the time that Steiner was completely insane in the back and was constantly getting into legal trouble and being suspended with pay. For example he got in a backstage fight and then suspended. It was the 4th of July weekend and he was paid on the suspension. He broke the rules and got a paid holiday vacation. The roids were absolutely insane at this time and he was legit crazy for the most part. Awesome runs out but Steiner hits him instead, making himself look like the face which he isn’t.

Awesome has been in WCW for like three or four months at this point, having left ECW for WCW which was safer. Humorously enough, ECW filed for bankruptcy after WCW was bought by Vince. ECW lasted longer than WCW. Let that sink in for a bit as I never realized it before. Steiner is beating Awesome badly here and it’s flat out stupid. In other words, they’re killing off another character for the sake of Steiner. That would become a running theme in WCW: young and talented guys being sacrificed to old guys.

There’s a bell to the head. Oh but that isn’t a DQ either and neither is that chair shot right in front of the referee. Awesome hits a springboard splash for two. Good night that guy could fly. And here’s Miller AGAIN for no apparent reason. He’s fine after the beatdown earlier too. We’ll just keep the camera on him too since nothing important is going on at the moment at all. Steiner sets for the Recliner but Miller says oh no you don’t. That earns him a right hand. Nice job boss.

The top rope splash gets two as Steiner kicks out of another finishing move. And there goes the referee since that just has to happen. Miller comes in and accidentally kicks Awesome. Steiner hits him to a big pop and then the Recliner…isn’t put on yet as Miller says he’ll strip him of the title if he uses it. Steiner does it and so does Miller. He doesn’t give it to Awesome or anything so whatever. Scott beats Awesome up even more and gets even more pops. Hey, let’s make sure we keep this incredibly popular guy as top heel though.

Rating: C. This was a very intense match that had a great thing of going back and forth with people kicking out of one thing after another. And then of course Miller had to do a run-in because….well just because. In other words, more overbooked stuff where WCW simply refuses to accept that Steiner is popular so they do what they want to do instead of listening to the fans. Typical.

Should be noted that we just had the 6th match. Other than the hardcore match, there have been either run-ins or weapons used in all of them.

The Demon vs. Vampiro

This is a graveyard match. The Demon was part of a marketing deal with the band KISS. Here’s the idea: WCW decided that their wrestling wasn’t drawing good enough ratings so they decided to have musical guests on Nitro, one of which was KISS. The idea was that eventually each member of the band would have a wrestler based on their persona.

Originally Brian Adams of Kronik was the Gene Simmons one but he changed his mind and it was given to Dale Torborg, the guy that played him here. He was a jobber so no one recognized him for the most part. Ok that’s all well and good then. However, KISS pulled out so he became just The Demon and no one cared. He was in Vampiro’s stable and then left it, making this match. Oh and the KISS concert was the lowest rated quarter segment in the history of the Monday Night Wars.

So anyway, Demon tells the girl with him to not follow him. She says she won’t. He turns around and she follows him anyway. It’s like something out of a bad comedy show. You win this by getting back to the ring. And remember that this is nothing like a social outcast being in a boiler room and having to get back to the ring at all.

You also can’t see anything here as this is in an actual graveyard. Vampiro jumps out of a tree. Wow. Apparently this is about Sting somehow. Yeah whatever. Let’s just get this over with. Vampiro drags Demon down into an open grave. Again do I even need to make fun of this?

Vampiro chases the girl (Asya, which is nothing like the big muscle chick in WWF also named after a geographic region in the Far East. She had black hair) The referee is following them with a flashlight for crying out loud. Tony points out that this is now a footrace.

They’re by a stream or something like that and Vampiro knocks him into the water. WHAT AM I WATCHING??? The referee gets the Demon out of the water as I think I’m watching Buffy or Charmed. Demon chases after him and finds Asya next to a coffin. Vampiro pops out of it and spits blood at him and then hits him with a tombstone before putting him in the coffin.

And apparently the match isn’t over yet as we’re going to talk to Shane Douglas. Ok then. He talks about Buff Bagwell and how he guarantees victory tonight. I guess we’ll call that the end of the match too.

Rating: N/A. This wasn’t wrestling and I have no idea what it was. It was stupid though.

Ad for a sweepstakes where you could be Goldberg’s guest manager. Well that’s original if nothing else.

Buff Bagwell vs. Shane Douglas

They were partners and they broke up. That’s all I’ve got. Buff stalls to start despite being the face here. Bagwell is yet another example of a guy that was around forever and got some small pushes but never once was given the chance to be actually elevated. He had a cool finisher, a catchy song, a good name and a great look, but hey we can’t put him in the upper midcard or give him anything serious right? I’m not saying he would have been the second coming of Kurt Angle, but I’m saying what did they have to lose from trying?

Shane goes for a piledriver on the floor which doesn’t work. He gets crotched on the post instead. Are there just no rules in WCW anymore? After a long time of nothing, Torrie comes out and slaps Douglas. I’ll start the clock on how long before she turns on Buff to help Shane.

She and Buff kiss and she makes it a whole a minute without turning. Ah there it is. That of course doesn’t end it as we have to wait even longer. Buff shoves her down but walks into the Franchiser (reverse Stunner more or less) to end it. Madden says he has a Head Cheerleader now. Give me a break, although Torrie is hotter.

Rating: D. This was, just like many other matches on the card tonight, completely boring and based around a predictable heel turn that did nothing at all for anyone. This wasn’t interesting at all and was just filler. It wasn’t particularly bad. It just wasn’t any good at all.

HOGAN IS HERE!

Jarrett isn’t worried.

We recap Hogan vs. Jarrett which is basically over Jarrett had Goldberg hurt Hogan and then started getting fat women to audition to sing for him.

WCW World Title: Hulk Hogan vs. Jeff Jarrett

And this is the reason for the whole issue of this show. I’ll save the details of what’s going on until everything is over. The music plays and there’s no Jarrett. Note that Tony calls Hogan Terry Bollea. That’ll come into play later. Instead here’s Vince Russo with a bat. Now he hadn’t been seen in a good while so this was a legit shock.

He looks ticked off too. Ah there’s Jarrett. Russo is called Keyzer Soze so you know he’s evil. Hogan is Hollywood Hogan here. He comes out looks fine and does his thing. Hogan asks for the mic and Jarrett has walked up the ramp and is just standing there. He cuts a very basic and generic promo with nothing wrong with it at all and here comes Jarrett.

There’s the bell and Jarrett lays down. Russo signals to Hogan to cover him and then throws him the belt. Madden says they’re deviating away from the script. The fans chant Russo sucks. Hogan gets on the mic again and says crap like this is the reason this company is in the place it’s in. Hogan puts his foot on the chest and wins the world title.

Hudson: “We’re going to have some explaining to do tomorrow.” Keep that in mind. Hogan and Jarrett leave and both look very ticked off. The announcers run down Hogan and HEAVILY imply the whole thing is scripted, as in the match would have been scripted.

I’m going to skip ahead a little here so if for some reason you’re reading along as you watch the show or something like that, this is going to appear out of order but I’m doing that on purpose, so what I’m about to talk about came a bit later on than where I’m saying it did.

Russo comes back out and cuts the promo that caused ALL the problems. Ok not all of them but all of them tonight. He’s going to tell it like it is apparently. He talks about the politics backstage and that he doesn’t need this place. However he came back for guys like Booker T and MIA. And he just lost me. Hogan doesn’t care about the company and is a politician. Russo says that today Hogan insisted that he win the title tonight and played his creative control card to do so. You’ll NEVER see him again.

Russo goes on to say that no one will be ripped off here tonight. You know aside from not seeing the main event they paid to see. Russo flat out says the WCW belt means jack but that’s no longer the world title. Jarrett is still the world champion apparently and will defend against Booker T, which was the same match from Thunder last week but whatever. He calls Hogan a big bald SOB and throws the mic down.

Tony says that was a shoot. Hudson says that wasn’t talked about in the production meeting and it wasn’t on the format sheet. Don’t believe him? Have a look at this format sheet I’m holding up then. That sums up things well I’d say.

Ok. That last line that he said is what sent this whole thing completely to the grave. Scratch that. It put it through the bottom of the grave and buried it even further somehow. Let’s go back to the beginning and the idea that sums this whole thing up: Vince Russo is an idiot. Here was his idea: fake a shoot. Russo’s theory of booking is this: what you’re watching is fake, but you need to pretend that it’s real.

However at times there are going to be “real” (as in fake shoots) moments. This was one of those “real” things. Everything Russo said in his speech about the creative control card may have been true, but he’s saying that none of this was planned in advance, which in real life it was (and I mean REAL life, not “real” life if that makes sense).

The idea was that Terry Bollea the character played his creative control card rather than Terry Bollea the real person. Later on, as in maybe the late fall or at Starrcade, Hogan would return and feud with whoever the WCW Champion was, saying that he was the REAL champion since he had the belt.

That’s plausible I guess, but then Russo gave his speech. The last line about the bald headed SOB made Terry Bollea (the REAL Terry Bollea, not Terry Bollea the character) mad because he felt it was character defamation that could hurt his future earnings. In other words, he was mad at Russo for saying bad things about his character. So he of course sued Russo. I mean he sued him in real life in a case that was still in court in 2004 which is why he didn’t go to TNA then. Anyway, Hogan never did come back because of that last line, making a “shoot” into a shoot.

Oh and a side note: Jarrett wasn’t in on this. Allegedly it was just Hogan, Russo and Bischoff. Great way to bring the locker room together guys.

Now here’s why Russo is stupid. Number one: this was NEVER MENTIONED AGAIN. They NEVER gave anything at all as far of an explanation or why Booker was the champion other than he beat Jeff Jarrett (yeah I know big spoiler. Shoot me.). Oh and as a side note: Jarrett pinned Booker to get a title shot the next night anyway which is stupid in ways I can’t even fathom.

The second reason Russo was stupid: NO ONE KNEW WHAT HE WAS TALKING ABOUT. Think about it. How many wrestling fans out of say 10,000 would know what a shoot is? Or would know what creative control was? Or would know anything about backstage politics? We know about them because we’re smarks. This is what we do.

Russo thinks EVERYONE is a smark, or at least a HUGE majority of the fans. Tell me: the last time you went to a wrestling event, of the people around you, how many knew less about wrestling than you did? How many could tell you that Stephanie and HHH were really married the entire time and that it was real before it was revealed last year on Raw?

Russo believed everyone knew what he was talking about and that there were very few fans that cheered for good guys and booed bad guys just because that’s what you’re supposed to do. It was all about knowing more than the next guy and being “in” on the business.

The problem is MAYBE 3% of the people there knew what he meant when he was saying all this stuff and that’s likely a high number. This didn’t raise ratings, no one extra bought the PPV because of it since no one knew it was coming, and since it was never talked about again no one had any reason to build to it.

In other words, if you didn’t buy the PPV you never knew it happened and if you did buy the PPV then you were just confused by it unless you were maybe 1 out of every 1,000 fans that was on the internet back then. Like I said, today when the internet is MUCH more powerful and has heavier traffic than it did 10 years ago, most fans simply don’t get that far into wrestling.

As for my thoughts on it, it’s really not as big as the Fingerpoke of Doom for one reason: WCW still had a chance then. At that point WCW was in big trouble but there was a CHANCE they could have come back and made a run of it, especially with Austin about to get hurt and with the REALLY bad TV WWF would put out over that year (a big reason WWF won wasn’t because they were great.

It’s just that WCW was that awful). This was par for the course really when you consider the state of WCW. I mean look at this show before all this happened. There hasn’t been a clean finish all night, there’s more cursing, there’s more sex and the angles and characters are stupider.

WCW was dead at this point and they knew it. In 1999, they still had a legit chance to turn it around. This isn’t as much a referendum on the company as it is on Russo and Hogan. This was more like the final nail in the coffin whereas the Fingerpoke was the fatal wound.

Oh yeah we have two matches left.

Vampiro walks to the ring and wins the match from earlier. He has a mic as everyone else does and says the dark circle is now completed and the Demon is dead. The fans want Sting and here come 8 Stings. They have a coffin like the one Torborg was in earlier. Oh of course Sting is in it. Vampiro is put in the coffin and then he disappears.

Goldberg wants to hurt Nash so he can get rid of Hall’s contract. How in the world did they mess up Goldberg?

We recap Nash vs. Goldberg. (everything else is in order by the way) Goldberg turned heel and joined the New Blood (Stupid, stupid, stupid) and becoming top heel in the company. SUPER NASH came to the rescue and somehow Hall became the focus of this despite not being on TV at this point for about four and a half months or so but whatever.

Kevin Nash vs. Bill Goldberg

They start off brawling but Steiner is here in like a minute and a half playing cheerleader. He’s apparently a face tonight but you know he’s turning on Nash here. Spear misses though. Yep there it is. Nash fight him off but the spear and Jackhammer end it. This wasn’t even five minutes long. They beat up Nash and rip up the contracts to cheers.

Rating: N/A. This was barely even a match and was really just a way to do a turn. Yeah I don’t care either but this whole thing was just a mess. They took the main event of the biggest show of the year and had it go four minutes here. I’ll never get some things about this company.

WCW World Title: Jeff Jarrett vs. Booker T

One has to wonder why the guy that would wind up leaving as champion would have jobbed to a midcarder earlier but that would imply logic so there we are. Oh and they have the other world title there, as in the original one. Tony says he hasn’t seen it in years because the top is bent. And it just happened to be there tonight. Right. Either that or they got it to the arena in like 30 minutes. So it’s a pizza? See if this had happened say two years ago (as in Booker being in the main event) this could have meant something. We get a nice technical sequence as Booker is completely over.

We hit the crowd and walk around for a little bit with very limited actual offense or anything like that. Again, why are we having to do this? Are you telling me we can’t have these two give us a solid in ring match? And there are the weapons to really suck away any real chance of this being awesome. Jarrett piledrives him on the announce table. Now here’s the thing: the violence like this in a match is fine.

This is a big match so they’re going the extra mile. There’s nothing wrong with that and I can understand relaxing the rules for it. The problem with that is literally every match tonight has had a run-in or weapons used. It makes things like this seem less special or less intense. Even ECW had gotten that message by this point and had toned it down.

Now that being said, this is a solid match, but the lack of drama hurts it as ONCE AGAIN WCW blows the chance to show a feel good moment on PPV. Here’s the thing: Booker is clearly popular. Him winning the title tonight is going to be a big moment. The problem is that NO ONE KNOWS THIS IS GOING ON, other than people that bought the PPV.

Instead of announcing Booker as the title shot, they went with Hogan and wound up giving us Booker, rather than taking a chance on Booker as a draw. We hear about how this isn’t about politics and is about athleticism. If by that they mean desperation then I’d agree. Somehow this is Jarrett’s match of his life. Just….no. It’s figure four time as I’m tempted to predict a Flair run-in here.

Tony and the other announcers talk about how much Booker has had to go through here, including the grating of the political thing with Hogan earlier tonight. Did ANYONE know how to think in this company? The Axe Kick connects and Jarrett more or less no sells it for no apparent reason. And now, le sigh as down goes the referee. A belt shot to Jarrett gets a long two.

We get a bunch of low blows and chair shots and now Jarrett just says screw it and this the Stroke on the referee. The Book End hits and another referee counts the pin. The fans all cheer and raise the roof which was Booker’s signature thing and it’s a big feel good moment. We’ll ignore the absolute destruction of any kind of sanity and the fact that the company was dead by this point too, as this comes oh about 2 years too late to mean anything.

Rating: B. Again, this was a good match. The problems surrounding it however made anything we could have gotten out of it completely pointless and useless though. Also like I said, Jarrett would pin him the next night anyway. This was a solid match and the moment was cool, but the levels of idiocy it took to get here absolutely astound me.

Overall Rating: D-. Now there are two ways to look at this show and all subsequent shows. For one, this show was a total trainwreck with maybe two good matches out of about 9 and both were more or less overbooked. The idiocy is running rampant here, but at the same time this wasn’t completely terrible. It was mostly terrible and anything close to order here is strictly an accident mind you. WCW’s level of ineptitude would somehow be topped next month which we’ll get to later.

And then there’s another school of thought. The other idea is to look at this like a screwball comedy show and accept that WCW was completely and utterly dead at this point and was just waiting on someone to notice the smell of their rotting corpse. If you go on that route, the show goes WAY up in value as the comedy of it is pretty solid.

After the disaster that was Nitro the next night, everything was ripped apart backstage as the entire company was overhauled by the Time-Warner merger that threw it off the air. Anyway though, this is either a great show or absolutely horrible depending on how you look at it, so figure that out for yourselves.