On This Day: October 29, 2000 – Halloween Havoc 2000: The Sting Army, Bad Version

Halloween Havoc 2000
Date: October 29, 2000
Location: MGM Grand Garden Arena, Las Vegas, Nevada
Attendance: 7,582
Commentators: Stevie Ray, Tony Schiavone, Mark Madden

We’re in the dying days of the company here as with so few shows to go there’s really no reason for me to not finish these off. Goldberg is face again after that disaster of a heel turn for him. It’s more or less a double main event tonight with him vs. Kronik. The idea is that he has to break his original winning streak to get a title shot or he retires. The other match is Booker vs. Steiner for the title. Yeah not much has changed. Let’s get to it.

Wow that announce team scares me to death. For some reason Stevie got a big push late in WCW’s run and became a commentator. No one is really sure why.

Pamela (GORGEOUS) asks some fans if Goldberg wins or loses. They’re split.

Standard IT’S HALLOWEEN promo starts us off. Sting vs. Jarrett is a big match too apparently. Oh it’s that show isn’t it. This show has one of the dumbest matches I’ve ever seen so we need to get into this before I stab myself over that.

Tony says this is in fact SPORTS ENTERTAINMENT. I give up.

Tag Titles: Boogie Knights vs. Rey Mysterio/Billy Kidman vs. Natural Born Thrillers

Boogie Knights are Disco and Alex Wright and the Thrillers are Mark Jindrak and Sean and Mark O’Haire and have the belts here. There was some weird deal where the Knights won the belts but Mike Sanders decided the title change didn’t count and gave them the belts back. There are advertisements at every corner of the ring. WCW’s latest horrible video game (no wrestling in the ring, just in the back) is the sponsor. Nice to see how well the sponsorship deals are going isn’t it?

Wright, Kidman and Jindrak start us off. That’s what I always liked about WCW triple threats: they had triple threats instead of three team tag matches. Alex allegedly has the most experience. Not quite but in WCW he did I guess. Bronco Buster misses and here’s Disco. I forgot Konnan was there until he said something about Shane Douglas. It’s a big WZ Preunion here.

Everyone keeps working to beat up the Thrillers. In a nice move, Disco sets up Sean to allow Kidman to come off with the Shooting Star but instead he jumps at Disco with a back elbow in a thinking move. Wright gets a lot of praise here which is weird. You could tell he was one of those guys that they wanted to do something with but they never quite could do it.

We get a Tower of Doom spot as I’m getting into this triple threat tag match formula. Rey, Sean and Disco come in. Sean has a dime dropped on him and Disco takes a modified seated senton for two each. Sean’s knee may be hurt. The Thrillers use one of their signature awesome spots where they pick up Rey for what looks like a double hip toss and throw him from the floor over the top rope and into the ring. That was awesome looking.

They do the same to Kidman but Wright catches him in mid air in a belly to belly for two. This is getting awesome fast. Big plancha by Alex to take out Disco and Jindrak. Let the cruiserweights loose as the big dives begin. Kid Crusher on Wright (Unprettier/Killswitch) gets two. Top rope rana by Rey to Disco is followed by a Bronco Buster.

Last Dance (Stunner) by Disco gets two as Rey drops a dime on Disco to break it up but it allows O’Haire to hit the Seanton (yes I spelled that right) Bomb to end it. Imagine a guy Orton’s size doing a Swanton and imagine how awesome it would look. Wright beats up Rey afterwards and Konnan tries to save. He gets beaten down also but Sgt. AWOL (member of the MIA) comes in for the save. Konnan can’t stand up.

Rating: B. This was FUN. You had six relatively young guys out there just having fun in a fast paced tag match. It’s a great choice for an opener and I got very into it. This was WCW’s problem though: this is pretty much going to be the match of the night and the crowd is going to decline as we continue. Very fun opener though and I liked it a lot.

AWOL has a hardcore title match next so he just hangs out and sets up a table. WCW guys come out and attach trash cans full of weapons to the posts.

Hardcore Title: Reno vs. Sergeant AWOL

I liked Reno so this should be bad anyway. Reno brings a kendo stick and pops Wall (his old name) with it so Wall kicks him in the face then goes through a table. Uh sure. We have NEW Hardcore rules here which are now falls count anywhere and anything goes. Back in the day the matches had to start in the back and end in the ring. WCW managed to make a video game out of that concept. Yeah they were dead at this point.

Just a basic weapons match at this point with no one really caring. See what I meant about the quality going down? Wall puts the trashcan over Reno’s head and kicks the can into the railing. That looked painful but after looking at it for about two seconds you can see he missed Reno completely. And now he does it again just because he can. Wall and Stevie do the Too Sweet hand gesture for zero explained reason.

They head up to the ramp as Stevie says this could end at the Brown Derby. For those unfamiliar, the Brown Derby is a restaurant in Los Angeles. Chokeslam is blocked and Reno hits the Roll of the Dice (Cross Rhodes) on the ramp. He gets a table and then a second one on top of that. According to the laws of wrestling of course Reno goes through them shortly thereafter.

The guys go off into some BIG empty area (you know because it’s not like FANS could go there as we need it for this one moment in a pointless match) before we head to the back. A computer monitor is thrown at Reno who counters with a fire extinguisher for two. Computer monitor to Reno’s head lets Madden say he knew the internet would destroy wrestling. That’s very funny all things considered. Actually it’s not as Mark Madden is not a laughing matter.

Wall drills Finlay who is an agent at this point and we head back into the arena. This is just going on WAY too long at this point and it’s not interesting at all anymore. Scratch that as it would imply that something about this match was interesting at all in the first place. Wall gets the fifth table of the match (the word overkill means nothing in WCW if you didn’t get that) but gets hit with a chair by Reno. Roll of the Dice (Cross Rhodes. It looked weak with no impact at all) onto the table ends this.

Rating: D-. This got ELEVEN MINUTES. Yeah this match is deserving of more time than the good opener. There was nothing at all here to set this apart from any other standard hardcore match. WCW had no idea what they were doing with this division and that’s very clear.

More Thrillers come down for the post match beatdown until the Misfits come out for the save.

Shane talks to the Thrillers which either isn’t live or Palmbo managed to get to the back and get dressed inside of 6 seconds. Ah ok it’s earlier today. Nash has put Douglas in charge of the Thrillers for the night. Sure why not.

Goldberg was hurt on Thunder apparently.

Kronik is looking for Goldberg who isn’t here yet. They want some beer. See they were big strong guys that beat people up for money and drank beer. Yeah you get the idea.

Perfect Event vs. Misfits in Action

Shawn Stasiak/Chuck Palumbo vs. Lieutenant Loco (Chavo)/Corporal Cajun (Lash Leroux) for those of you unfamiliar. This was signed seconds ago. Well of course it was. Stasiak has been a problem in the group apparently so expect that to cause the loss for them. Chavo and Stasiak start us off here as this is just a basic tag team match.

Chavo plays Ricky Morton as I could not be less interested in this match while still writing about it. We get the second release date for Backstage Assault in the last ten minutes. One thing says Halloween and one thing says not until December. The game sucked anyway so it’s not like it really mattered. According to Tony there used to be a limit to the amount of saves a partner could make in a match. I’ve heard of that before actually so it’s not as insane as it sounds.

NICE overhead belly to belly by Palumbo to Chavo as it’s all Perfect Event. Hot tag to Cajun who was underrated I think. A bad sleeper from Palumbo has Cajun in trouble for bad acting. The referee is Scott Armstrong, as in the blonde guy that used to be in WWE with the hitch in his count.

If you’re going to use the sleeper, at least do something other than having an arm in front of the throat Palumbo. Soon afterwards everything goes nuts and like I said before heel miscommunication leads to Palumbo kicking Stasiak and a tornado DDT from Chavo ends it.

Rating: D+. This was just there. It’s about ten minutes long and nothing at all of note happens in it. Two teams had a wrestling match on a show for the company they work for. That’s all that happened here. It was just ok and this was once again one of the issues with WCW: matches on PPV had no point at all, much like this one.

Kidman and Rey won’t sub for Konnan who is still hurt.

Shane Douglas/Torrie Wilson vs. Konnan/Tygress

Torrie is dressed as Wonder Woman and DANG. Shane cuts his usual awful promo about how the whole injury thing earlier was planned. Sure why not. No Konnan to start us off. Tygress sets for a Bronco Buster (FACE FULL OF STUFF according to Madden) is blocked and there is still no Konnan. We saw him heading to the ring before the match started and here he is from through the crowd. Did he get lost or something? Was he following a trail of popcorn maybe?

Rolling clothesline hits Shane as Konnan is wearing a Vince Carter Team USA jersey. We get something close to an actual tag match finally with the guys in there. And so much for that as Tygress beats her up. Tony shows the idiocy of himself as he’s shocked that a woman can do a wristlock. You know, in a company where there was a Women’s Cruiserweight Title.

Shane punches Tygress to send her down as this is boring already. Mixed tags rarely work and this is no exception. Torrie can’t wrestle. That’s all there is to it. Madden makes sex jokes as Stevie calls a camel clutch a Boston Crab. Oh wait we have to call it a Steiner Recliner. Sure why not.

Why did Shane Douglas keep getting work? He was only worth anything in ECW and even there it wasn’t much. Outside of that though, no one was ever interested and yet he kept getting pushes. Konnan comes in and seems to be just fine of course. More Bronco Busters as this needs to end badly. And then Konnan does a double facebuster on the heels to win it. Thank goodness.

Rating: D-. Torrie looked good. The rest of this is a failure. Was there a point anywhere here? If there was I missed it completely. Totally boring match with nothing going on at all and Tygress being in the ring more often than not. There’s nothing else to say here at all.

David Flair has a First DNA match tonight to find out who slept with his girlfriend and fathered her child. He has two guys in labcoats with him. Again, two more guys that get a PPV paycheck here that are completely unneeded.

Buff Bagwell vs. David Flair

This is a first blood match. Buff cuts a basic promo early on about David being rather small. David is a guy I felt sorry for as he had more or less zero talent but he kept going out there and trying as hard as he could in a spot he flat out was not ready for but was there because of his last name being Flair. It wasn’t his fault though so it’s hard to get on him.

David is slammed off the top as this is one sided so far as it should be. Since this is a first blood match, both guys use a lot of slams and work on the other guy’s back. Flair finally swings a chair which of course misses. Chair shot to David and the somehow best wrestler in this match, Buff Bagwell, has David in trouble. Yeah Flair is bleeding and the referee doesn’t seem to care. Buff throws in a Blockbuster just for fun as the referee finally sees it.

Rating: F. Another stupid match. We have a five minute first blood match of course because clearly this needed a gimmick. This went nowhere at all and was almost pure dominance by Bagwell.

Luger comes down and beats up Bagwell with Tony shouting about how many times is Luger going to turn on people. Buff’s mouth is busted open and David gets a sample from it. David walks toward the back as Goldberg is getting here, an hour into the show. This was supposed to end with Russo sleeping with Stacy which thankfully never happened.

Steiner cuts another generic promo.

Mike Sanders vs. Ernest Miller

Ok, this is one of those matches that you just have to go with. This is a kickboxing match between a wrestler (Sanders) and a karate dude (Ernest Miller) for the Commissionership of WCW. There are three two minute rounds. You can only win by knockout as in after a ten count as well. Somehow this is by far the simplest aspect of the thing by the end of the match.

The winner is the Commissioner, which about five people have been in the past 12 months. Perfect Event is at ringside with Sanders and Cat’s chick, Ms. Jones, is with him. Miller, someone actually trained in this, of course destroys him for the most part. Round one ends and of course they fight even more after the bell.

There are no points or judges or anything so if no one is knocked out by the end of the rounds I have no idea what happens. To be fair I have no idea what is happening in the match itself so it balances out I guess. At about a minute gone by in the SECOND round, both of which are TWO MINUTES long, Tony says it’s been about four minutes so far. Do I even need to make fun of this anymore?

Sanders gets drilled by a punch and the Perfect Event argues over whether or not to throw in the towel. Sanders wants it in but the bell rings and he can’t leave yet. And here’s Shane Douglas here to be annoying I guess. Since it’s a wrestling show, the referee is on the floor arguing during the match. Cat gets a cartwheel kick to END Sanders.

Palumbo gets in again and Douglas pops Miller with a chain. The referee does the SLOWEST COUNT EVER, being at 6 with 20 seconds left but Miller is saved by the bell. Madden gets popped. Keep in mind that the match is over. Miller hits the floor and the referee starts counting as Miller brawls with Douglas and Sanders wins after the match is over.

Rating: N/A. To sum this up, a wrestler beat a martial artist in a kickboxing match after he beat the bell when a guy hit him with a chain but was counted out for leaving the ring to brawl with a guy not in the match after the fight was over to lose the commissionership of a major wrestling company. And Vince Russo made 2 million dollars a year for this. Let that sink in the next time you get your paycheck.

A doctor talks to Goldberg who insists he’s fine.

Kronik says they don’t care if they wrestle tonight as they get paid either way.

Vampiro vs. Mike Awesome

It’s That 70s Guy here which is yet another instance where WCW blows what could have been someone special. This is Vampiro’s last match with WCW so who do you think wins it? Vampiro has been extra evil or something lately and hates Awesome just because. Awesome has some title shot coming and Vampiro wants it on the line. Awesome, having nothing to gain, says sure.

Big plancha to the floor by Mike to half kill Vampiro. Dang he was great back in the day. Naturally since he was young and good he was made into a comedy character. We head into the crowd now and it’s all Awesome. A fan jumps Awesome and he’s in trouble people that need to drink to get through a show this bad.

Vampiro grabs a chair for both guys and we have a duel. Just wasting time now as not a lot is going on. Vampiro goes for a top rope belly to belly but he more or less just drops Awesome, letting him fly through the air and do all of the work, making it look bad. Awesome busts out a table which makes this at least the second match with them in it. Since they were used earlier, not a lot of people care here.

Stevie wants to know why this is legal and gets no answer. Stevie freaking Ray is the voice of reason on this show. The same Stevie Ray that had a segment called Suckas Gots To Know. Anyway Vampiro hits his finisher and looks for more weapons because he’s an idiot. Madden gets a Ghostbusters line in to make this a bit easier. Sitout Awesome Bomb on the floor as this is now falls count anywhere I guess.

Back in the ring as Vampiro takes an Awesome Bomb from the top rope for the academic pin. In other words the table means absolutely nothing as it wasn’t used at all. And of course we have a solid enough match like that and we get That 70s Guy music and go to General Rection. Nothing wrong with that is there?

Rating: C-. Not bad here and very physical. Awesome would change gimmicks eventually and get back to just being a tough guy but it was too late. Vampiro is a guy I never got at all and to this day I still don’t. This was ok though as Awesome just beat the crap out of him. The rules made no sense but that’s WCW for you.

Rection tries as well as he can to make this work but he’s still named General Rection.

We get a replay of the powerbomb. Is there a reason we needed to go to the interview before we saw that?

US Title: Jim Duggan/Lance Storm vs. General Rection

Storm is US Champion and has Major Gunns with him who is there against her will. Those white shorts were incredible looking on her though. Duggan was turned heel for zero apparent reason but hey, why not go against his character for about 12 years? Storm is still awesome in this role though so I’ll give him that. I feel sorry for Rection. He was trying as hard as he could here but the name was just something you couldn’t take him seriously with.

Duggan’s board is thrown out. I wish someone would take away my bored(om). The fans chant USA for the American face here. The Americans start us off here. Storm comes in and Rection clears the ring. Storm in now as nothing is really going on yet. They’re trying to make Rection look like a big deal here but like I’ve said, with that name how is that really possible?

Hacksaw goes for the referee but does nothing with him. He looks old and fat here so I guess he fits in perfectly. Double clothesline puts both guys down. I know I’m not saying much here but there’s nothing to say here. Sleeper goes on and draws some boos. Rection moves out of the way so Storm drills Duggan. Madden says the General has to beat both guys then says just one guy. Love that clarification Mark. I bet if this was TNA you’d know for sure.

Down goes everyone included the referee leaving only Duggan standing. Duggan hits a Piledriver but there’s no referee. He finally comes back and gets crushed on Rection’s kickout. Elix Skipper, another member of Team Canada, comes out with the board but Gunns drills him with the Canadian flag. She jumps Storm, allowing Rection to hit the moonsault (as in his head hits Duggan’s knee kind of) for the US Title.

Rating: D-. All because of Gunns here. This was just boring and the missed spot near the end just killed this thing out of whatever it had left going for it. General Rection is the US Champion. Is calling him Hugh Morrus really all that bad? It’s certainly a better sounding name but whatever. Pretty weak match so it fits in with the rest of the show.

Preview for Mayhem which Tony says is on Monday. Are days of the week really that hard?

Jarrett says he’s going to show that Sting has no spirit anymore. Can these two feud over anything else? He promises to see the evolution of Sting’s career tonight. Oh crap it’s THAT match.

Quick video here that says the same things the promo says.

Sting vs. Jeff Jarrett

Jarrett runs to start and Sting drills him. We fight on the floor and Sting dominates. Brock Lesnar just lost the UFC Title so I’m a bit stunned still. Splash misses but Sting braces himself and never loses control. And now we have a guy on the stage dressed like Sting was in the late 80s. Sting (I’ll use the name Sting for the real one) beats up the imitation and Death Drops him on the stage.

Madden: can you get disqualified for beating yourself up? That’s actually a decent question. The distraction allows Jarrett to take over and we go into the crowd. Out of the crowd (and what a coincidence that Sting took them to the perfect place) a 1990 Sting appears. One of the fake Stings (oh you know more are coming) is Chris Harris of TNA fame. Another Death Drop leaves him laying.

Cue the Wolfpack Sting and it’s the red paint Sting. Dang we skipped like 8 years in there. We get into a discussion of whether the Wolfpack was heel or face as the third fake Sting goes down but Jarrett picks up the bat and pops Sting which the referee is fine with I guess. And we get another sleeper now which even Madden makes fun of. When that fat jerk is making jokes about you that are correct, you have issues.

Sting makes the comeback and hooks a sleeper of his own just to bore us a bit more. Here’s the real comeback as he avoids a dropkick and goes for the Scorpion. And of course a fourth Sting pops up from under the ring (I think this is Harris) and pulls him through the ring. Fans boo the HECK out of this as Sting beats him up too. Stinger Splash hits twice and there go the lights.

The fifth fake Sting repels from the ceiling (can they please get their continuity right?) and Sting beats him down too. His wig falls off and Sting puts him through the table. It would have been nice if the table didn’t break BEFORE the impact but whatever. Back in the ring Sting goes for the Scorpion but Sting #4 pops him with a guitar. This is no sold but Jarrett’s guitar shot ends it. I give up.

Rating: R. As in only Russo can be blamed for this idiocy. Screw wrestling (it’s Jarrett/Sting. Do you really think it’s going to be bad?) apparently for the sake of insanity and FUN booking right? Two million dollars a year. Let that sink in again guys. How is a Scott Steiner match sounding like relief?

Booker talks about Goldberg for no apparent reason.

Brief Steiner video follows as we repair the ring.

WCW World Title: Scott Steiner vs. Booker T

Wow that was a quick fixing job on the ring. Ok apparently Booker changed the card order so Goldberg could have extra time. My face more or less says what the heck as I heard that but I want to get this show over with so I’ll let it go. Also the champion is coming out first here. In the back Steiner freaks out and beats up an agent because they’re not on last.

Was there any point to that? I get the concept of it making Steiner seem even crazier but did it add anything at all? They try to make this out to be some huge match but it’s not working at all. After a brief opening sequence Steiner goes out into the crowd after a fan. He was legit crazy for awhile so of course he got bigger and bigger pushes throughout the year.

Steiner throws some STIFF shots that sound very painful. We head into the crowd now as nothing of note is going on. Steiner puts Booker through the announce table as Stevie gets in a somewhat funny line: “Tony that’s the last table that we have!” The delivery was better than it sounds.

Surfboard by Steiner which thank goodness doesn’t end with a curb stomp. He yells at Stevie a lot as this is pretty much dominance. Steiner blocks the Axe Kick and it’s all Scotty here. Samoan Drop from the middle rope gets no cover. At this point there are fifteen minutes in the entire broadcast and we have an elimination handicap match to go. Spinning belly to belly gets two.

Stevie keeps harping on the fact that Scott will never be a champion. Takes one to know one I guess eh Stevie? Almost all Steiner here other than a little here and there from the champion. Missile dropkick hits for two which is surprising as that was one of his signature moves. Axe kick (complete with Steiner just standing there hunched over forever) hits for two.

Midajah (Steiner’s Freak) slips him a pipe which drills Booker in the knee which isn’t a DQ. The referee yells at him so the referee gets beaten up and put in a Tree of Woe. A second referee comes in during the Steiner Recliner so Steiner beats him up too. Even Madden is confused here, but that could be because someone asked him his name. The third referee comes in to DQ Steiner and the pipe beats up every referee and security guard in sight.

Rating: D. Another crap match here with a bad ending. Steiner DESTROYED the champion here for the most part and it looked horrible. Steiner would get the title the next month anyway which makes me wonder why in the world they didn’t go with that ending here. Steiner looked dominant here, making Booker look like a paper champion for the next month. Nice job WCW.

Jarrett has to come down to calm him down afterwards.

Package on Kronik vs. Goldberg. Russo hired them to beat Goldberg. End of story.

Goldberg vs. Kronik

Kronik’s music hits with about 8 minutes to go in the broadcast. Adams is freaking talking now. He says Goldberg hasn’t been cleared so there’s no match tonight. After the debacle of 1998’s version of this show how stupid are they? Their music plays and we cut to the back to see the athletic commission saying Goldberg is fine. His music hits with six minutes to go so we have his FULL ENTRANCE too.

Four and a half minutes to go with his pyro hitting. This is going to be so stupid. He’s in the ring with four minutes left and this is already horrible looking. No tagging here. They throw him to the floor and it’s just a brawl. Not a good one or anything but a brawl nonetheless. Even Tony says this isn’t a match. Nice to see him just admit it. Double clothesline puts Bill down.

We get ANOTHER TABLE as even Madden and Tony roll their eyes at this. Tony: We’re NEVER out of tables. Stevie: WHY DIDN’T WE GET THAT ONE? High Time (Double Chokeslam) through the table is blocked. Goldberg spears Clark (Tony gets the name wrong) through the table to end him as we’re told he has to beat both guys. Naturally this lasts like 30 seconds and the spear/Jackhammer end it. Three and a half minute main event. We’re off the air 20 seconds after the pin.

Rating: F. The main event of a PPV was a squash match that lasted three and a half minutes with former tag champions getting ended that fast. Do I need to explain why this was a failure?

Overall Rating: F-. This is one of the worst PPVs I can remember in a LONG time. There is all of one decent match on the card and like I said it went downhill after that. Stupid booking and stupid gimmicks all around and the show sucked because of it. Just a horrible show and the epitome of a lot of the things wrong with Russo. The world title match ended in a DQ and the main event didn’t break 200 seconds. You tell me why this sucked.

 

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