Fall Brawl 2000: WCW’s Last Good PPV

Fall Brawl 2000
Date: September 17, 2000
Location: HSBC Arena, Buffalo, New York
Attendance: 8,638
Commentators: Scott Hudson, Tony Schiavone, Mark Madden

Well we have I think five or six PPVs to go in this company so this isn’t something where I would expect much. The main event is Booker vs. Nash in a cage as they’ve given up on the idea of War Games I guess. Other than that there’s a huge elimination match and Steiner vs. Goldberg, which hopefully has less shooting in it this time. Maybe we can shoot Russo. Let’s get to it.

Cruiserweight Title: Kwee Wee vs. Elix Skipper

Skipper was given the title by Storm and is a Deion Sanders ripoff that I always loved. Kwee Wee makes Rico look straight. Kwee Wee has Paisley with him, more commonly known as Sharmell, Booker’s wife. Kwee Wee had a weird double personality thing where he would go insane at times which is how he starts the match here. We go a nice wrestling sequence to start. Skipper is fun to watch and I’ve always liked him.

They botch a leapfrog and Skipper might be hurt. Hudson makes a reference to some guy named Johnny Walker from the 60s. Only Walker I know of is a whiskey but whatever. We have a WAY too long chinlock by Skipper as this is such a shell of what the Cruiserweight Title used to be. Prime Time (Skipper) does what Trish would steal and call the Matrish.

This is more like a match between two small guys than two cruiserweights. Crowd is kind of dead here but is behind the face so that’s a good sign I guess. The Natural Born Thrillers come out and I begin to smile. The Thrillers were a group of young guys that were something NEW and got pushed. Sure they were generic as all goodness but they were a freaking breath of air. There were like seven of them, led by Mike Sanders. They included Chuck Palumbo, Mark Jindrak, Shawn Stasiak, Sean O’Haire, Reno and Johnny the Bull. These guys were pretty generic, but DANG it was nice to see some fresh faces.

They don’t actually do anything as Kwee Wee comes back and beats the tar out of Skipper to no reaction at all. Skipper hits the floor and Mike Sanders comes in with a kendo stick (a stickball bat or some kind of device according to Tony) and bashes him in the knee for two. The Thrillers are gone but now it means nothing as we’re pretty even anyway. Overdrive (MVP’s Play of the Day) ends it.

Rating: D+. This was just not clicking at all. The match was dull but hey, it had a run in so it has to be interesting right? This just was nothing special at all as they just did a mat based match and then a screwjob ending. I’m not entirely sure what the point was here as the styles clash killed it. Not a good way to start but not a horrible match.

3 Count vs. Misfits in Action

The Misfits here are Sgt. AWOL (The Wall who most of you likely don’t remember) Lieutenant Loco (Chavo) and Corporal Cajun (Lash Leroux). The band has a new song here that likely could have been a decent hit if sung by a “legit” band, which is either great or scary. The idea of the Misfits was that they were guys that were thrown out of storylines by Russo so they banded together as their only way to have a chance. That works well enough.

And yes, 3 Count gets a match against someone not named the Jung Dragons. Two of the boy band members are Shannon Moore and Shane (Gregory) Helms. The third sucks. We hear about Duggan giving the flag and board to General Rection (Hugh Morrus) and will be in his corner tonight. Yeah I’m sure this isn’t going to go badly at all for Rection.

This is a pretty basic match but it’s not bad. They’re just kind of filling in time as these matches aren’t going to mean anything past tonight anyway. The idea here is that the band is scared to death of AWOL so they’re going to try to keep him out. Simple story but it works. Leroux was a lot better than he was given credit for. I might even stretch to say he was pretty good.

He hits a springboard X Factor to get the hot tag to AWOL who cleans house. Moore hits a nice flip to put Cajun down and we let the high spots loose. AWOL gets knocked through a table (his signature thing) but not before holding Moore up off the ground purely by his hair. Everything goes insane and Leroux hits Helms with what we would more or less call Cradle Shock for the pin. They get a standing ovation for it and that’s what they deserved.

Rating: B. I REALLY liked this. There was no interference, there was nothing completely insane, the effort was there and the wrestling was there. What a shock that when you put all this together, you get a good match. Worst thing is I can more or less guarantee this is the high point of the show.

The old guys won’t give a kid an autograph. That’s WCW for you. Madden gets a line in about Nash carrying people. I laugh sadly…..point to this?

Harris Brothers vs. Kronik

And there goes the quality of the show. This is first a chain match, as in they’re attached by a strap. The twins (Harris Brothers/Disciples of Apocolypse/Creative Control/Blu Brothers etc) cost Kronik the belts last month. Adams makes it a first blood match, because gimmicks added on for no apparent reason other than to keep an old guy from having to get pinned and therefore lose credibility TOTALLY RULE!

Dave Penzer, the announcer, gets knocked out like a minute in. We go out into the crowd and this is already a mess. As I’m typing this I can see the review of the previous match and it makes me sad. That and even the previous match were good. This is just annoying and is going to mean nothing at all in the end. Hudson talks about how brutal this is and how it’s going to be violent. We’re less than three minutes in and he’s right: it’s brutal.

One of the Harris guys works on Clark’s knee in a first blood match for reasons of general idiocy. We get choking, which even Tony calls out as stupid. And we have a ref bump in a gimmick match. One of the Harrises is bleeding but there’s no referee of course. The chain is undone and Hudson suggests he’s on his period instead of being busted open. END THIS. Yeah the blood is wiped off and Adams is bleeding when the referee gets back up so Kronik loses. Kronik beats up the referee to be faces.

Rating: F+. Well seven minutes have passed and nothing of note has changed. These two feuded forever and no one cared at all. We went from good stuff to this, which like I said shouldn’t surprise anyone. Get to the next thing.

General Rection tries to do a big patriotic promo which would work a lot better if he wasn’t destined to have Jim Duggan turn on him since he’s the special enforcer.

US Title: General Rection vs. Lance Storm

Storm cuts a great heel promo about how great Canada is. He was AWESOME at this point and more or less could do no wrong on the mic. He would just get out there and be this pompous jerk but was so proud of being Canadian and no one could beat him, making him awesome. And here’s Duggan to be all patriotic. Great to see that white shirt under his referee shirt. I’m sure that will mean nothing at all.

Rection dominates to start and Storm is in trouble. Also Major Gunns has been kidnapped by Team Canada so she’s freed if Rection wins here. They say that the General could be a superstar. That’s just amusing. He’s more commonly known as Bill DeMott if the comedy name isn’t familiar to you. Storm hits a superkick that was on target but didn’t look painful at all.

Rection hits a sitout gutwrench powerbomb (spellcheck hates that sentence) for no cover. Storm gets up and goes after the knee. Duggan throws Storm back into the ring and gets up on the apron while the General goes for the moonsault. And say it with me: Duggan is Canadian. Storm gets the win while Rection is out cold in the Mapleleaf. MIA runs out and Duggan beats them down.

Rating: D+. This wasn’t horrible, but the turn might as well have had a big sign over it saying HEEL TURN COMING. Rection would wind up winning the title at the next two PPVs while no one cared about it nor were they watching. This didn’t go anywhere though and it’s only because of Storm’s pure awesomeness at this point that it gets this much. That and Gunns in those shorts. I mean DANG.

Gene (wearing glasses now) talks to the Natural Born Thrillers. Sanders imitates Konnan so Gene calls them various bad names and tells them to blow it. Sanders was very good on the mic.

Filthy Animals/Big Vito/Paul Orndorff vs. Natural Born Thrillers

Filthy Animals: Konnan, Rey Mysterio, Disco Inferno, Juventud Guerrera, Tygress (female manager)

Natural Born Thrillers: Mark Jindrak, Sean O’Haire, Mike Sanders, Chuck Palumbo, Shawn Stasiak, Reno, Johnny the Bull

This is elimination style. Yes it’s that Paul Orndorff. He trained most of the Thrillers in the Power Plant (the same place that said one Dave Bautista had no future in wrestling) and he drew about 15 years ago so he’s PERFECT here. Orndorff is a mystery partner here. He SHOCKS the Thrillers. OH NO! IT’S ON OVER THE HILL OVERRATED GUY THAT HASN’T MEANT A FREAKING THING SINCE WE WERE IN 5TH GRADE! Wait….this is WCW and he’s over fifty…..WE’RE SCREWED!!!

Stasiak goes on commentary for no apparent reason. Konnan makes gay jokes and introduced Orndorff. Wow this is so completely overhyped. No one cheers either. They just kind of breathe. Also, we get to see a 51 year old man that looks about twice that old in lime green tights. Rock on brother man.

This was billed as 6-6 but there are so many people that a lot have to drop to the floor, making it look like 4-4. Rey and Juvy are tag champions as I try to fill space. Ok apparently they aren’t….they just have the belts for the second straight PPV in a row. Rey tags in Juvy to absolutely NO reaction. I wasn’t looking at the screen and didn’t even notice it. Normally you get a sound from the crowd to let you know that something happened but there was NOTHING here.

O’Haire hits a Falcon’s Arrow to take down Juvy who of course is fine like 4 seconds later. Vito, the big guy on the team I guess, beats up Jindrak and is only there for Johnny. And here’s Disco to again complete silence. Oh never mind they think that he, a face, sucks. Jimdrak, a guy about 6’5, can’t get a dropkick past the ribs of Disco who is about 6’0. Ok Konnan is in the match despite sitting on the floor so far.

Konnan crashes into Disco so Disco accidentally hits him with the Last Dance (Stunner) to eliminate him. Shawn says five to go, implying 6-6 to start. Disco can’t get anyone to tag him in so Vito punches him and Reno Rolls the Dice to end him and make it 6-4 I guess. Vito hits an Edgecution on Palumbo for two. Bull hits Vito in the head with a kendo stick and a Roll of the Dice (rolling cutter, Cross Roads) ends him.

That leaves it as Juvy, Rey and Orndorff left, so Madden suggests that Tygress is on the team too. So then Tony says it’s 6-2 as Orndorff is there for…..oh screw it let’s just get this over with. Guerrera hits a flying…..something to Reno. Tony calls it a body attack which sounds like something from Mortal Kombat. Juvy Driver and WHAT’S UP on Reno makes it however many vs. however many. Oh and over ten minutes in and I think there are 4 people that haven’t even been in yet.

Rey and Juy apparently ARE the tag champions here. Tony said they weren’t 8 minutes ago and now they are. My goodness I know WCW at this time is called insane but I’ve always thought it was overhyped. In this match alone, about ten minutes long at this point, we can’t establish how many original participants there were in this match, we’ve gotten three different answers as to how many people are left on one of the teams at this point, and we don’t even know if two guys are tag team champions? Ok according to Wikipedia they are the champions but are forced to forfeit them tomorrow for no given reason. Now why can I establish that and the paid announcers can’t?

The fans hate Tygress all of a sudden as Juvy’s plancha is just caught. And then HOKEY SMOKE O’Haire and Jindrak LAUNCH Juvy from the floor into the ring off a double hip toss. That looked incredible. A Swanton Bomb ends Juvy…..and here’s Orndorff. Of course he beats up all the young guys but a kendo stick takes care of him. He hits a bad piledriver to get rid of Johnny the Bull.

Rey and Tygress (now on the apron) just let Orndorff get double teamed and do all the work. Sanders hasn’t been in yet. He of course beats up Jindrak and O’Haire on his own, making them look completely weak in the process. He goes to piledrive Jindrak and of course gets hurt coming down, giving himself a stinger (same thing that happened to Austin in 97 off the Owen piledriver) and O’Haire quickly covers him for the pin because of the injury.

Rey and Tygress I guess don’t get that he’s really hurt and keep going on Jindrak. After a pair of Bronco Busters we get the idea so they beat up Sanders and Palumbo to keep the crowd into it I guess. Pay no attention to the fact that they’re landing around Paul’s legs or anything like that. And they stop the match because of the injury. They would conclude it the next night where Rey and Tygress would beat five guys on their own.

Rating: F. There should be two ratings here. The match itself was entertaining and was about a B/B-, but to let a guy in there that was 51 years old and had retired because of a neck injury and then, shocking no one with a brain, hurts his neck in his first match back in like 5 years is simply irresponsible. I don’t care if he swears up and down that he’ll be ok or whatever. You don’t let him into the ring with his neck hurt like that, and this is why.

He wasn’t even taking a bump and he got hurt. Imagine what would have happened if he had been taking am ove and got hurt like this. There is just no way you can validate letting Orndorff go out there. It didn’t sell any more shows because he wasn’t even announced, so this comes off as just irresponsible by WCW and there’s no way that is ok in my mind.

Kidman and Madusa talk about their scaffold match. Yeah this is a perfect place to go after what just happened, but at the same time that wasn’t planned. Madusa threatens to demoralize her. What the heck does that even mean?

Shane Douglas/Torrie Wilson vs. Madusa/Billy Kidman

The scaffold is over the stage here which I’m sure is completely safe. Also instead of putting them on the scaffold which starts on the ground and is raised up, they have to climb and waste more time. Douglas promises to pay everyone’s money back if the faces don’t get thrown. This is a Pittsburgh PLUNGE match, but apparently you win by crossing and climbing down. Sure why not. Kidman and Madusa don’t get entrances and just walk out and get on.

Tony tells Madden to get his jokes in so Tony can sell the match. Egads man. Tony insists it’s still going up when you can tell it’s perfectly still. The scaffold here is at least fairly wide to the point where they can walk side by side on it. That’s a LOT better than previous kinds. You know it’s a good thing we have those VIDEO screens to show the Fall Brawl logo so we know what show this MATCH is on.

The girls sprint off to get down the other side and are all alone so they just stand there. Kidman and Shane have a match up there with counters and a Sky High powerbomb and then the Franchiser (modified Stunner) on Kidman. And then Shane kicks Madusa down the ladder so that she crashes down. Now since she didn’t climb down, she doesn’t win. Oh give me a break.

Shane beats up Kidman and has him down so Torrie comes back over and waits for him to make his comeback and then hits him low so Shane can throw Kidman off the scaffold and onto the crash pad below. Once someone reminds them which way to go, the heels win. Yep, Shane Douglas is pushed over Kidman. Do I even need to explain why this was bad?

Rating: F+. How do you really grade one of these? It was maybe five minutes long and went nowhere. Shane made Kidman look freaking pathetic here and that doesn’t surprise me at all. Shane was in the downside of his career and Kidman was a guy with potential. Of course he lost. Whatever, and at least Torrie looked incredible.

Sting talks about his three way with Muta and Vampiro. Oh and he has a world title match tomorrow night. Jeff Jarrett jumps him for no apparent reason.

Mike Tenay goes to David Flair’s house to talk to him about the wedding that didn’t work. He was supposed to marry Stacy since she was pregnant and it turned out the baby wasn’t his. We never found out who it was but it allegedly was going to be Ric Flair and would wind up being some kind of incest angle, or Russo because clearly a 20 year old Stacy would screw him.

David is losing his mind and his place is covered in trash and pizza boxes so he lights up a cigarette but throws it away because it’ll kill him. David goes paranoid and thinks that his brother Reed, who is 11, is the dad. He goes to the window a bunch of times where he says the father is here. And then he doesn’t do anything about it.

I didn’t order this PPV and I think this aired on TV later because I’ve seen this before. David sprints to the door and says the father is here so he runs outside and beats up the mailman, putting him in the figure four on the front lawn. There also was a camera waiting on the camera guy as he was I guess coming across the street. What a coincidence eh?

Sting vs. Great Muta vs. Vampiro

ICP is with the heels here who come out together. The clowns are on commentary here. They talk about JCW and I get it now. Maybe I did get this PPV but I could have sworn they did commentary on Thunder too. The commentary is funny to a degree but it gets old fast. They beat on Sting for awhile but they fight after Muta goes for a pin and Vampiro doesn’t like it. This is definitely a different match than the one I remember. Sting gets a bat and hits the Death Drop on Muta for the pin. There was nothing else of note to talk about here. The clowns and Vampiro beat up Muta and Sting makes the save.

Rating: D-. At least it was short I guess and the commentary made me laugh once or twice. This feud was just never going to stop and no one at all cared about it. Granted that might be because of Vampiro and the fact that no one knew who Muta was because WCW never told us that but whatever.

Mike Awesome, in 70s clothes and a Partridge Family bus, shows up with a surprise: it’s Gary Coleman. Sadly he gets one of the biggest pops of the night. They do a terrible comedy bit with Pamela Paulshock who was drop dead gorgeous.

Jeff Jarrett vs. Mike Awesome

This is a bunkhouse brawl, meaning hardcore match. There are Buffalo Bills at ringside and Jarrett wears a Titans jersey to be a jerk. He makes bad football jokes and this goes dead fast. There are weapons in the ring and Awesome brings his own table. The announcers say that Jarrett is the favorite in this match. We have ropes and wheelbarrows here as you can hear Dusty jacking off to this.

There are nooses around the ropes and a table covered in barbed wire. This is Jarrett’s specialty match in case you didn’t know. Why is it his specialty match? Well no one knows but whatever. It starts out as just a weapons match with nothing at all special about it. Jarrett backdrops Awesome from the middle rope through a table just to be mean. Jarrett goes into the barbed wire table twice and then a sitout powerbomb gets two.

After the Awesome Splash misses, Jarrett yells at the Bills some more. And here they come, surrounding the ring while security does nothing at all. They shove him into Awesome and the powerbomb gets….two. I know the ending to this match and I thought the match was ending there. Not because it was a close pin or anything but because there was no reason at all for it to continue other than the inevitable Gary Coleman stuff that you know is coming.

And here he is. The Bills let Jarrett get a guitar and Coleman just walks into the ring and low blows Jarrett who them just kills him with the guitar. NOW FREAKING STING IS HERE to beat up Jarrett so that Awesome can FINALLY win. So let’s see: Mike Awesome, Gary Coleman, Sting and THE BUFFALO BILLS ended this. How much do you think all this cost?

Rating: D. I almost hat to type Gary Coleman sold the guitar shot. Did someone think this was going to help business somehow? Did someone think this was going to be funny? I mean eas there a point to this at all? If there was I don’t get it. The hardcore stuff was ok here though, but the match was just WAY too much to be good.

Scott Steiner says he’ll beat Goldberg here because he has big muscles.

Scott Steiner vs. Goldberg

This is just a grudge match and I guess Goldberg is a face here. No DQ here either. Steiner has to wear a mask because Goldberg broke his face or something. We’re told about how even these two are which is odd but makes sense at the same time. Scotty busts out a Diamond Cutter for two. Ok then. Steiner tries to hide and that doesn’t go well at all for him.

They’re doing the clash of the titans build here and for the most part it’s working. And here’s Midajah, which is supposed to be a big deal I guess. Goldberg is bleeding from some chair shots. She’s just standing there for no apparent reason. Oh ok Goldberg accidentally put her through a table. Steiner hits a belly to belly where Goldberg lands on his head and nearly breaks his neck. There’s the spear. We have a lead pipe in there too which I’m sure will have something to do with the ending.

And it’s Vince Russo to bash Goldberg with a baseball bat. Sure why not. It only gets two though and Bill goes through a table. Steiner Recliner, which looks awful since Steiner doesn’t know how to hook it right, doesn’t work as Goldberg picks him up. This is the match where they just hammer each other with no real rhyme or reason. That doesn’t mean it’s bad though as that’s what this is supposed to be. Think Awesome vs. Tanaka.

Back to the Recliner which would look a lot better if it wasn’t just Goldberg crawling on his hands and knees (yeah the arms aren’t even pulled back) to the ropes. A chair is brought in and nothing happens with it. Russo comes in AGAIN but Steiner pops Goldberg in the head with a lead pipe and the Recliner gets the win on the unconscious Goldberg. Oh and Russo does the Jericho cover on him to end it. The Bills come in again to help Goldberg. More on Russo in the overall rating.

Rating: B-. This was about being a big old fight and that’s all it was supposed to be. We didn’t need to have real wrestling here and they didn’t try. I could have done without Russo here but at the same time this match oddly worked. This was probably a #1 contenders match of some sort too.

Booker says he’ll get the title back. Nash booked himself to win the title for about three weeks so he could defend coming into this.

WCW World Title: Booker T vs. Kevin Nash

Dang there are some attractive women in Buffalo. This is a cage match. We get a Scott Hall reference, even though Hall was long since gone at this point. No waiting at all as we’re starting to run out of PPV time. The cage looks extra tall here which is allegedly 12 feet high which is believable here. The camera is weird here as it’s outside and we keep looking up at the guys.

We’re told that Orndorff had a stinger but is talking and has movement in all of his limbs. That’s always good to hear. Nash is actually moving a bit in there. He takes the buckle pad off as Tony, much like Billy Graham did 12 years ago, asks why you need to do that when you have a cage around you. Axe Kick puts Nash down as apparently him slamming Nash is a big deal.

They’re flying through this match with no transitional stuff at all. Nash is bleeding here. RONCO REFERENCE! Yeah that has nothing to do with wrestling but I have a thing for infomercials so there we go. We’re told Nash has a lot of heart. Uh…sure. Jackknife is blocked into the Book End for the title for Booker.

Rating: C-. This FLEW by and felt like a Nitro main event rather than a PPV main event. Goldberg vs. Steiner likely should have closed the show but I can get that they wanted to make the world title seem important. This wasn’t anything all that great at all but for once one champion lost the title to another guy clean and simple. What more can you ask for? Booker would hold the title for 8 days, so it’s not like this meant much in the long run.

Overall Rating: B-. This was a rather good show. The problem is this is pretty much the best show for WCW in their last 15 months or so. The elimination match would have been a lot better had it not been for the injury and while I still wouldn’t have liked Orndorff getting in there even if he hadn’t gotten hurt, the injury is what made that match fall apart so you can’t blame the wrestlers for it.

The scaffold match was really short so that didn’t hurt things too much. This isn’t a classic or anything but it’s definitely watchable as they toned down the insanity a lot and the show is completely coherent with nothing overly bad that goes more than say five minutes.

The most important thing here is simple: there’s a point to everything on the card. Nothing here is insane or just thrown on there, which is the point of a PPV. If you want a taste of what WCW could do around this time, this is your best chance. And then it means nothing at all as Vince Russo would win the world title 8 days later on Nitro, killing anything the company had left for it.

 

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