Halloween Havoc 1989
Date: October 28, 1989
Location: Philadelphia Civic Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Attendance: 7,300
Commentators: Jim Ross, Bob Caudle

Back for three more WCW shows, this time all from the earlier days, as in 1989 and 1990. This was a good year for the NWA but this show is more about furthering/ending already existing feuds. The main event is a tag team cage match with Sting/Flair vs. Funk/Muta which should be good. Other than that there isn’t much to mention so let’s get to it.

Mike Rotunda vs. Z-Man

There’s no intro and we’re immediately at the intros. This is the full version too as it’s from WWE 24/7. There’s music playing during the match for no apparent reason. Oh good it stopped. They fight for a headlock to start and Z-Man takes over quickly. He knocks Rotunda to the floor and the stalling begins. The fans are all over Rotunda for being from Syracuse. Remember that we’re in Philly here so they’re going to be crazy.

Rotunda gets back in and is immediately dropkicked back out. This time he cheats to take over which hardly ever fails. Now it’s Z-Man being sent to the floor but he gets a sunset flip for two coming back in. Mike hits the floor again and this is getting boring quickly. Z-Man works the arm and takes him down with an armdrag into the armbar. Jericho must have studied this match.

Z-Man hooks a chinlock but Rotunda sends him out to the floor and rams him into the barricade. Rotunda stalls back in as the fans keep up the Syracuse Sucks chant. A suplex brings Z-Man back in for a delayed two. There’s an abdominal stretch which is one of Rotunda’s signature moves, as is grabbing the ropes. Now it’s a chinlock by Rotunda but it doesn’t last long. Clothesline puts Z-Man down but he comes back with a dropkick. Z-Man sends him into the corner and Rotunda comes out with Christian’s spinning cross body which is rolled through for the pin for Z-Man.

Rating: C. Not a great match or anything but it was fine for an opener. The clipped version of this is down to like four minutes so you can really get an idea of what you were getting when you bought a home video from the NWA. Z-Man would hook up with I think Brian Pillman soon after this to become US Tag Champions and would also pick up the TV Title over the next year or so. Rotunda was repackaged as a sailor or something soon after this.

Bruno Sammartino, the guest referee for the main event, says this will be something difficult and unique.

Samoan Swat Team vs. Midnight Express/Steve Williams

The Samoans are Samu, Fatu (the Headshrinkers) and Samoan Savage, more famous as Tama. It spills to the floor before much contact is made and we get a staredown like West Side Story. Now they stare at each other in the ring. Ok so it’s Lane vs. Savage to start us off. Savage is the only Samoan not in white so that helps. He gets knocked to the floor where Bobby hits him and it’s ANOTHER staredown on the floor.

Off to Bobby who works on the arm. Here’s Samu and Bobby beats up the Headshrinkers. Guess what’s next? You guessed it: a six man staredown. Samu chops Lane down and we’re actually told how the Samoans are related: they’re brothers. That’s helpful as if you’re smart enough to be able to remember that family tree, you deserve an honorary degree from the university of your choice.

Dr. Death clears the ring and we reset things a bit. JR plugs Starrcade which was awful. It was a round robin tournament instead of a traditional show and it failed completely. Doc (Tor Death) runs over the Samoans and JR talks about football. Fatu comes in and it’s Bobby to work on his arm. Lane comes in and fires off his kicks but gets kicked down by Samu who is a lot more athletic than he looks.

Back to Williams who runs over more people then continues the chain of tags with one to Eaton. The Samoans come in and ram their heads into Eaton as this match is getting very long. They take him to the floor and crotch Bobby on the railing. Back in a sunset flip gets two for Bobby. Savage hooks a nerve hold and things slow down a lot. The Samoan manager, Oliver Humperdink, has some FREAKY eyes.

Bobby tries to ram some Samoan heads together and they’re like boy please. A headbutt puts Eaton down again as he’s in big trouble. Lane comes in without a tag which just makes more trouble for Eaton. Fatu hits a sideslam and it’s the nerve hold again. Eaton escapes and literally falls into the corner for the hot tag to Williams. Williams throws the Samoans around like Giant throws around cruiserweights. Everything breaks down and Lane puts I think Samu down with a superkick. Cornette gets up on the apron and Lane is rammed into him which allows Savage to steal the pin.

Rating: C+. It’s ok but did this really need 18 minutes? The Samoans were a pretty awful team at this point but as faces in the WWF they got way better. The Midnights would turn in about a month as they ended their annoying feud with the Dynamic Dudes and annoyed the Steiners for a few more months as well as winning the US Tag Titles.

Gary Hart says Terry Funk and Muta will be ready. They’re the J-Tex Corporation and whoever J is will be there tonight.

Tommy Rich vs. Cuban Assassin

Rich is allegedly on the comeback trail. JR basically says he’s nothing which makes me wonder why I’d want to watch this. Nothing to talk about so I check my e-mail to kill some time. Rich hooks the arm and the fans chant boring. Assassin comes back with jobber offense but misses an elbow so it’s back to the arm. We talk about how the cage tonight is electrified which is far more interesting than what’s going on in the ring.

Rich headbutts him which does nothing at all so Assassin high knees him to the floor where he stomps on the head. This is going nowhere. Remember that this is in Philadelphia so imagine how the fans are reacting here. Assassin goes up and gets crotched. Rich FINALLY ends this after about 8 hours with a Thesz Press.

Rating: F. I’m often asked what the worst kind of shows to watch are and this is a fine example of it: the boring kind. There was no reason for this match to exist, NO ONE was interested in it, and they weren’t even trying to do anything interesting. They were laying around for most of the 9 minutes or so that this was on and using as basic of an offense as possible. There’s no need for this and it cripples anything good the show had going for it.

The Freebirds say they’re great and that’s about it.

Tag Titles: Fabulous Freebirds vs. Dynamic Dudes

The Dudes are Johnny Ace (yes, THAT Johnny Ace) and Shane Douglas on skateboards. The Birds are champs but for some reason Hayes doesn’t have his belt with him. The Dudes have Cornette with them. This is Philadelphia, so of course the fans are confusing. The Dudes are the faces but the fans hate them while the Birds are the heels but worshiped for their showmanship.

It’s a long feeling out process to start with even more stalling as Hayes starts with Douglas. A bad neckbreaker puts Hayes down and Shane gets booed out of the building. Double tag brings in Johnny to face Garvin. Ace is huge so he’s kind of awkward at the fast paced style. Garvin takes over with an armbar and it’s off to Hayes vs. Shane again. The Dudes work over Hayes’ arm before clearing the ring via a double dropkick (not really as Ace’s missed by about 8 inches) but they were trying at least.

The Birds are cheered even more as Ace takes Hayes down at will. The fans cheer for the DDT, which is the finisher of both Birds. Ace sends Garvin to the floor again and the match comes to another halt. Ace tries a rollup but gets kicked off into a BIG right hand by Hayes with an even louder pop. Garvin kicks/knees Ace in the head to the floor and the fans erupt again. This is just strange.

Out on the floor Hayes clocks Ace and the Birds are in total control. Ace gets in some right hands to kill the crowd. Hayes hits a running clothesline in the corner and starts playing face for the crowd. The DDT doesn’t work and there’s the tag to Shane. A double knee sends Hayes out and the Dudes set for their finisher, which is a double team slingshot belly to back suplex. Hayes hooks the foot though so Garvin can fall on Ace for the pin.

Rating: D. You know how Ace is always made fun of for his in ring career? There’s a reason for that: he simply isn’t that good. I haven’t seen much of his Japanese stuff so I can’t comment on it, but if it’s at the same level as his American stuff, there’s nothing to see in it. The crowd here was really strange as Shane Douglas isn’t someone you often hear booed in Philly, but he certainly was here. Bad match too.

The Steiners say they don’t need strategy against the new team of Doom. Rick is still crazy at this point.

Steiner Brothers vs. Doom

Doom is still in masks here and the Steiners throw them to the floor very quickly. Woman brought in Doom to fight the Steiners because she turned all evil and devilish. Scott clotheslines I think Simmons down and drops a knee for two. Doom bails to the floor again as the Steiners keep control. Off to Rick who takes Simmons (I’m guessing on these guys by the way) with a chinlock. Ross summarizes Rick in one statement. Rick has a new bulldog tattoo on his arm. JR: “Why didn’t you get a wolverine tattoo Rick?” Rick: “Because I wanted a dog.”

Scott comes in with a middle rope clothesline for two. This has been totally one sided so far. Simmons gets in what we would call a Stunner and it’s off to Reed. Back to Rick who gets beaten down for a few seconds but a knee lift is enough to bring in Scott. A quick gordbuster gets two for Scott and it’s off to Simmons again. This is Doom’s debut by the way. Simmons charges at him so Scott snaps behind him and kills Simmons with a German that would make Kurt Angle jealous.

Reed pops Scott in the head to slow him down and a double ax puts Scott down. Doom double teams a lot with stuff like a double elbow. Off to a chinlock by let’s say Simmons. Rick has finally had enough and tries to come in but that just lets Doom throw Scott out. Back in a sunset flip gets two for the Big Bad Booty Daddy. Neckbreaker gets two for Reed and he’s getting frustrated.

Simmons comes back in with a powerslam for two. Scott’s beating continues and a spike piledriver gets two so it’s back to the chinlock by let’s say Reed. Scott fights up and gets an elbow to bring in Rick. House is cleared and Scott is back up almost immediately with a Frankensteiner to I think Simmons. Woman gets up on the apron and in the distraction, she loads up Reed’s mask with something. A headbutt with that is enough for the pin on Rick and the huge upset.

Rating: D+. A boring match, but Doom wasn’t anything good yet. They would get MUCH better over the next few months and would go on to beat the Steiners for the world tag team titles, which would go on to be the longest reign in the history of the titles. There’s your trivia for the day. Bad match though, which is an odd result when you look at it on paper.

Luger says this is a big match and he’ll win.

US Title: Lex Luger vs. Brian Pillman

This is in the middle of Luger’s huge title reign while Pillman is the young fireball that no one can keep up with. They go to the corner to start and Lex looks irritated. Lex tries to keep things slow and throws Pillman to the floor. Brian comes back in with a slingshot clothesline and knocks Luger to the floor with a dropkick. Baseball slide takes Luger down and as they come back in, Air Pillman is teased but Lex heads to the floor.

Lex gets in some kicks to take over but Pillman comes off the top with a spinning cross body. Off to the arm and Pillman has a small advantage. Lex tries to power out of it but Brian takes him right back down with the armdrag. Luger is clearly getting frustrated here so he comes back with more power striking. Crucifix gets two for Pillman and it’s back to the arm. The idea of it isn’t to get a submission but rather to frustrate the champion which is working here.

Brian goes up but misses his splash attempt and Lex takes over again. He’s all fired up and yells at the fans who seem to like him as much as Pillman. A clothesline to the back of the head puts Pillman down and Lex is all fired up. Suplex gets two and Brian is thrown to the floor. Luger brags too much and walks into a sunset flip for two. A big clothesline puts Lex over the top and out to the floor as Brian makes his comeback.

There are ten punches in the corner and an atomic drop to boot. A top rope sunset flip gets two. Pillman hits a jumping back elbow and Luger is in trouble. Air Pillman, the springboard clothesline gets two as Luger got knocked into the ropes. All Pillman at the moment but he misses a missile dropkick and both guys are down. Pillman tries to speed things up but walks into a Hot Shot for the pin and Luger retains.

Rating: B. Luger wasn’t the guy you wanted running a match, but if you give him the right guy to work with such as Pillman here, look out because you’re likely to get a great match. Pillman’s flurry at the end was great but he went too fast and tried to do too much and the more experienced champion caught him. That’s a nice little story and it worked well here, giving you a great match.

The Road Warriors say they like being the underdogs. When were the Road Warriors EVER underdogs? They say they’ll tear down the Skyscrapers tonight.

Road Warriors vs. Skyscrapers

The Skyscrapers are Sid Vicious and Dan Spivey. They’re the Brothers of Destruction of their day and literally tower over the Road Warriors. The Warriors quickly clear the ring and it’s Animal vs. Spivey at the moment. The Skyscrapers are the favorites here because they’re undefeated. I’m not sure I’d buy that but whatever. Off to Hawk and they collide to no advantage.

Hawk ducks a Sid clothesline and hits one of his own which knocks Sid to his knees, shocking the taller one. Sid misses a shoulder block and Hawk tags in Animal. Expect a lot of the words “And no one moves”, because selling isn’t much of an option here. Animal powerslams Sid and he rolls to the floor. Hawk and Sid have a test of strength and Hawk goes down but channels his inner Hulk to fight up.

Hawk busts out a freaking monkey flip and a clothesline which doesn’t take Sid down. Off to Animal vs. Spivey and Animal knocks him around a bit. Spivey knocks him into the corner and it’s off to Sid vs. Hawk. Hawk takes him to the mat but Sid NIPS UP and clotheslines Hawk (in the ribs) to the mat again. Sid hits what we would call the Eye of the Storm for two.

Back to Spivey and the move of the match, the clothesline, takes him down again. Spivey shrugs it off and hits a suplex for two. The guys are all gassed now and it’s really obvious. Hawk reverses a suplex into one of his own but still can’t make the tag. We get the unseen tag to Animal and the beating on Hawk continues. Bird Boy gets a boot and a clothesline (of course) to bring in Animal and everything breaks down. Teddy brings in the metal key for Spivey to hit Animal for the DQ. The key is some thing that was related to Norman the Lunatic but wasn’t quite ever explained I don’t think.

Rating: D+. The match sucked but the idea here was that it was fun. This was a big clash of the titans and that’s all it needed to be. They pounded on each other and barely sold a thing, but do you really need to? Sometimes just a battle of the titans is all you need and that’s what you got here. Bad match, but very fun. Then again I’m an old LOD fan so this is a sweet spot for me.

The LOD clears the ring post match.

Ole Anderson says he’ll never throw in the towel, which is the only way to lose the main event. Flair and Sting say just about what you would expect them to say.

Sting/Ric Flair vs. Great Muta/Terry Funk

This is the Thunderdome Cage Match. It’s an electrified cage and Bruno Sammartino is refereeing. You know he gets a big pop in the northeast. This is a combination of two feuds: Sting vs. Muta and Flair vs. Funk. The latter was the top feud of the summer with the former just a step behind. When it’s likely that Sting is the worst wrestler in a match, you know you’ve got some talent in the ring. You win by having your opponent’s team throwing in a towel and it’s Ole Anderson and Gary Hart as the towel bearers.

This isn’t a regular cage but rather a Cell type one. There’s no roof but it slants in and that’s the electrified part so no one is getting in or out. Funk tries to escape because he’s a little nuts. Something catches on fire so Muta spits Green Mist to put it out. Ok so it’s Flair vs. Funk to get us going. Flair chops away and Funk is in trouble early. Everyone comes in and Muta goes after Bruno which doesn’t work at all.

Flair throws Funk to the floor which isn’t a DQ because it’s a cage of course. Off to Sting who takes it to the space between the ring and the cage. Back to the Flair who slams Funk down and rolls forward, slapping Muta in the process. Awesome. Sting comes in with a perfect dropkick and the announcers blast Ultimate Warrior (Sting’s old partner). Off to Muta who is thrown back into Funk with ease. Muta is undefeated and I think TV Champion at this point. JR’s next sentence: “Suplex by Sting on the undefeated television champion of the world.” Thanks JR.

Sting and Flair have dominated so far. Everything breaks down and they head out to the floor. Muta and Sting wind up in the ring with the Great One taking over for the first time. Funk stomps on Sting outside and I think the tagging part is gone. Muta and Funk double team Sting in the ring with a bunch of elbow drops but Flair comes back in for the save. Muta misses a high kick and Sting bulldogs him down.

Funk takes one as well and Flair is standing on the apron again. He comes in to break up a double team though and climbs the cage with Funk. Sting suplexes Muta and now everyone but Funk is climbing. Muta goes up high enough that his feet are above the top rope. He might have gotten electrocuted also. Flair chops Funk so hard that Funk starts climbing the cage.

Flair chases Funk and in a SCARY spot, Funk is hanging from the top of the cage while Flair chops him. Funk’s knee is caught in the cage as Sting slams Muta. Everyone but Funk is back in the ring now and Muta is tossed out. Muta goes under the ring as Funk climbs up again. Sting goes after him as Flair puts the Figure Four on Muta. Is there any need for Bruno in this match?

For no apparent reason, Flair lets the hold go. There was no Funk or anything anywhere near him and he just let it go. Muta gets a HARD kick to Flair as Sting swings on a rope like Tarzan but crotches himself in the process. Muta hooks a modified Indian Deathlock on Flair and hooks a bridging neck crank at the same time. Funk tied Sting to the cage and goes in to spike piledrive Flair.

Sting finally gets loose, climbs even high and DIVES onto Funk. He would have been three feet above the top rope for that. Muta climbs up and Funk has a bad leg. You can feel Flair smiling from here. There’s the knee crusher as Sting goes after Muta. Muta goes for the moonsault but Sting crotches him. Figure Four to Funk and Sting splashes him from the top. There’s a second splash and Bruno clocks Muta. Ole punches Hart which sends the towel flying and that’s good enough for Bruno to call for the bell.

Rating: B. It’s good but it’s definitely not a classic. With Muta and Funk climbing the cage for absolutely no apparent reason and having no point for Bruno being in there, it’s kind of a puzzling match. It’s not bad but at the end of the day, there’s not much of a point to a lot of this. Fun match and it gets awesome at times, but it’s not something worth going out of your way to see.

JR and Caudle wrap it up.

Overall Rating: C. That’s exactly what you call this show: average. It’s not a bad show but there’s absolutely nothing on it worth seeing. Pillman and Luger have a good match but they would both have better ones. 1989 was a good year, but it ran out of steam after a great Clash in September. This and the horrible Starrcade put a bad ending on probably the best year the NWA ever had from an in ring perspective. Nothing to see here, but it’s certainly not a bad show.

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World War 3 1996
Date: November 24, 1996
Location: Norfolk Scope, Norfolk, Virginia
Attendance: 10,314
Commentators: Dusty Rhodes, Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan

Once again we’re going to do the three ring battle royal with the winner getting the title shot just after Starrcade. The entire roster is in that pretty much plus a ton of guys that are never on TV at all. We also have a man vs. woman match and Jericho vs. a referee. Yeah you can really tell how much thought there is in this show. Let’s get to it.

The opening video is just a basic rundown of what’s on the card tonight. The announcers wonder why Bischoff is trying to slow down the contract signing between Hogan and Piper. Something tells me this is going to dominate the conversation tonight.

J-Crown: Ultimo Dragon vs. Rey Mysterio

The J-Crown was a collection of 8 cruiserweight titles from around the world, one of which being the WWF Light Heavyweight Title which was active since the 80s and only defended in Japan and Mexico. Therefore, a WWF Title id being defended here on a WCW PPV. It also gave us this:

Seriously, how sweet does that look? There’s just a pile of championships in the corner. How awesome is that? He has so many belts he just piles them up. Ah apparently Bischoff has already joined the NWO. Good to know. We start off in a mat based match which is kind of odd but it can work. How weird is it to think that Rey would become a two time world champion?

Now they crank it up and get a nice ovation for it. WCW fans could always appreciate good wrestling and this was no exception. Dragon is dominating here which makes sense as he was pushed as a really different kind of cruiserweight that could mix it up incredibly well. Heenan sounds like he’s on speed here as he’s talking so fast. Dragon hits a powerbomb but picks Rey up again and throws him backwards into a hot shot. NICE.

We go WAY old school with a giant swing. Someone really needs to look at Bobby’s monitors. They’re always on the blink. The crowd loves Rey here. Pay no attention to that though. He’s a small guy of Mexican descent. He can’t ever mean anything. This is basically Dragon does a big move and Rey gets up every time. Rey could sell like few others so this is certainly good.

I’ve never gotten the order of the rings at these shows. It seems like they have this obsession with how many rings there are here and there and it never works. There’s no Mike Tenay for this either, which makes the commentary more annoying than helpful. Rey kind of botches some stuff but nothing too bad. A springboard sunset flip gets two for Rey. Good freaking night that man could move back in the day. After they crank it up again, Rey goes for the West Coast Pop but Dragon counters into a slingshot powerbomb to retain the pile of belts. They say Malenko is next.

Rating: B. This was solid again and one more time the cruiserweights set the table for what could be a promising show. Dragon was definitely a different kind of cruiserweight back then as he used more power and leverage stuff rather than high flying and it worked very well. He and Malenko had some very good stuff coming up that we’ll get to soon enough. Quite good match.

There’s a new WCW.com. Remember that this is in 1996 so I wouldn’t expect much. Mark Madden is the commentator person there.

DDP, looking like he more traditionally would, is being recruited by the NWO. Him never saying yes is what made him one of the few heroes in WCW fans’ eyes. He denies being associated with Bischoff other than being his neighbor and says he’ll win the battle royal with a BANG.

Chris Jericho vs. Nick Patrick

Patrick has been an evil referee that has screwed Jericho over a few times and this is revenge time. Jericho has Teddy Long as his manager which didn’t last long. He also has to have one arm behind his back. We hear about Nick Patrick’s wrestling career which also didn’t last long. It’s the left arm here so this should be dominance. Patrick cuts a short promo and we find out why he’s a referee.

Patrick is in a sleeveless shirt and is in the NWO here. He also has a neckbrace. With one arm, Patrick wants a test of strength. That whole wrestling background falls apart pretty quickly here as it’s all Jericho who puts on a clinic with one arm. It’s all Jericho as we go to the floor. Jericho misses a clothesline into the post though and Patrick takes over for a bit. Since his offense does nothing though, we’re kind of just wasting time here. Jericho channels his inner Shawn Michaels for a superkick to end it. This was the first pinfall loss for the NWO on PPV, four months after they debuted.

Rating: D+. Pretty boring but they came up with some fairly creative spots to let Patrick get some offense in. This was just kind of pointless though as there was no challenge at all for Jericho and it just kind of fell flat. It could have been FAR worse though.

Flair comes out for an interview. He’s hurt here so he’s off the card. Even with his arm in a sling the guy looks like a million bucks. On the radio a few months ago one of the hosts said they ran into him in Florida and that Flair could not have looked better, smelled better or have been a nicer guy. That’s always good to hear about guys like Flair who comes off as a jerk at times. He talks about a ton of guys and how this is about WCW and not the NWO. He guarantees the NWO will lose and stops to dance in between. That was awesome. Old guys can talk.

Giant vs. Jeff Jarrett

This was supposed to be Flair last month but since he was hurt then too they brought Jarrett in but he couldn’t do a thing with Giant. Giant stole the US Title belt from Flair who was champion but had it stripped from him for lack of defenses in 30 days. Jarrett is booed out of the building despite being Flair’s pick to fight Giant. Jarrett has been bragging that he didn’t get chokeslammed last month. Yeah that’s his big claim to fame at the moment.

The crowd is all over Jarrett here and loudly cheering for Giant. We hear about how Hogan got Giant into the NWO by promising him movie parts etc and sure enough Giant was in the movie Jingle All The Way which was in theaters the weekend of this show. Sting is up in the rafters and the show pretty much stops dead because of it. He comes down the steps and it’s hard to tell if he’s the real one or not. Giant misses a Vader Bomb and Jarrett takes him down with a cross body.

That might be the real Sting. He takes Jarrett out while Giant is on the floor. A chokeslam ends it. We’re of course told that Sting is clearly in the NWO now, which wouldn’t be officially answered until about March.

Rating: C-. Much better than their match last month as Jarrett didn’t try to come straight at him here and it looked like he was thinking more. Also Giant sold more of his stuff and it looked a lot better on that front too. This was just a pawn in the huge Sting chess game and on that worked very well, so definitely did its job.

Piper comes out with a contract in his hand. Bobby suggests that Piper is a bigger movie star than Hogan. I’ll leave that for you guys. Bischoff, Vincent and DiBiase come out sans Hogan. The next night Bischoff would say either join us or have your contracts voided which went nowhere but it got Bagwell to join.

Bischoff has power of attorney for Hogan so he can sign for Hogan. In a great bit of continuity, Piper shoves Vincent aside and tells him that he taught Vincent how to fight. Piper trained Vincent (Virgil in case that doesn’t ring a bell) to fight for his first match back in 1991. Piper says he can wear a leather jacket because he’s tough enough to unlike Bischoff. Piper really does come off as a tough guy here and this really did feel big. The problem was he actually had to wrestle.

Piper more or less says he doesn’t care about a count out or a DQ but just winning and here’s Hogan, Liz, Hall, Nash, Syxx and Giant. Bobby thinks Piper is outnumbered. I wonder if it was the 9-1 odds that made him think that. Hogan gets on the mic and lifts Piper’s skirt, showing the scar Piper has from a hip replacement. Why not just hold a big sign above their heads saying OLD GUYS?

Hogan signs the contract which Piper brought with him. For no apparent reason the match was NON title and when Piper won with a sleeper, he didn’t win the title. To say the fans were ticked would be an understatement. Piper jumps Hogan but gets caught. Hogan gets a chair and hits the weakest chair shot ever to the scar. Good to see the NWO is only taking ten minutes on this segment.

The Amazing French Canadians vs. Harlem Heat

The Canadians are more commonly known as the Quebecers from WWF. They’re managed by Colonel Parker and the Heat by Sherri. If the heat win there’s a match between the managers. Something tells me this isn’t going to be that good. Jacques, who was on New Blood Rising, sings the national anthem of Canada. I say sing loosely. He and Booker start. Please let this go fast.

To my great shock, we talk about Piper and Hogan for the opening of the match. Parker is dressed up as a French Legionnaire now and somehow looks even stupider. He stomps on Booker and the comedy is completely unintentional. This match isn’t particularly terrible bit it’s just boring. It’s been about five minutes since the last thing I typed. There just hasn’t been anything to talk about.

The Canadians get the steps and put them in a corner then get a table and lay it across the top rope. They put more steps on top of that and the non-Mountie Canadian does a front flip off. He completely misses and a Harlem Hangover ends him.

Rating: D-. This didn’t get me interested at all. Why am I watching the Quebecers when it’s almost 1997? This was just garbage and boring as heck on all levels. No one cared about Parker vs. Sherri so they went with it for over a year. At least this is over now.

Sherri beats up Parker for like a minute in their “match.” Parker runs away after a cross body. Not even worth an actual introduction.

WCW needs to stop having their production guys on TV so clearly. It just takes something away from the show. Not sure why but it bothers me.

Piper vs. Hogan is called the match of the century and we get a really bad promo for Starrcade.

Someone else might be coming to WCW. I’m not sure who that was but it likely wasn’t anyone special.

Luger comes in and talks about Sting handing him a baseball bat. Luger thinks he’s NWO but doesn’t want to believe it. He had been getting the semi-Superman push lately so he was one of the favorites in the battle royal but there really wasn’t anyone that was clearly going to win.

Cruiserweight Title: Psicosis vs. Dean Malenko

Malenko was just about perfect at this point and would somehow get better the next year, actually winning best technical wrestler both in 96 and 97 from Meltzer as well as winning the PWI 500 which is fan voted I believe. They were building to Malenko vs. Dragon next month in what would more or less be a throwaway match. We start with a lot of technical stuff as you would expect us to.

Bobby picks Malenko to win the battle royal tonight. I’ll set the over under on him changing at 8.5. They’re doing the three broadcast teams tonight. That’s just going to make my head hurt. Malenko has a leglock on and the fans look at something in the audience. After more decent stuff, Psicosis falls off the top rope and slams his head into the railing. Since he isn’t dead, we can continue.

Dean goes into his finishing sequence but the ropes break the Cloverleaf. He destroys the knee and is completely dominating here. We ignore the over the top thing again and Psicosis hits a top rope flip from the top and hits his head again. Good thing he wears that mask or he’d need to get one to cover up the ugly. Then again I’ve seen him sans mask so maybe he needed it all along.

Dean takes a rana from the top for two as this is kind of pedestrian and the crowd isn’t into it at all really. He gets a SWEET reversal out of a suplex into a small package. That looked great. A tombostone gets two for the champion and then he rolls him up for the pin.

Rating: B-. Decent match but they just felt a bit bored out there. They were kind of off by a step or so and it showed badly. It’s definitely good but there was something holding it back from being really good. The crowd didn’t care at all for some reason which is odd as Malenko was usually very popular. Weird but good.

Tag Titles: Nasty Boys vs. Outsiders vs. Faces of Fear

This is the next to last match on the card so at least we’re almost done. Hall and Nash have the belts and come out first for some reason. The Faces of Fear were good for placeholders and jobbers in this division as they were legit tough so it was completely believable. The Nasty Boys continue to not be much at all. The more famous teams brawl to start before the Faces of Fear are here. Ah here they are.

The Outsiders are both jumped by a tag team and it breaks down into a brawl. Knobbs and Barbarian start us off officially and I already don’t like this match. They keep the Outsiders out as long as they can which is about a minute and a half. Hall comes in and beats up Barbarian. Barbarian needs to get up because THIS IS WCW! The problem is that no one cares about Barbarian so they cheer Hall.

We’re six minutes into this so Dusty says it’s been 15. Basically it’s just a bunch of brawling with no particular rhyme or reason. When I get bored I think in song lyrics. So sue me. I love Nash’s side slam. That this is just downright elegant. Something tells me this is going to go on for a LONG time. No one has any particular advantage but Meng gets a suplex on Hall for two and Jimmy FREAKS. It’s absolutely hilarious how much he yells and screams over it. How much caffeine do you think he has in one day?

The Nasty Boys are ordained as the masters of the Clubber. They just stand back and watch the other four fight which is smart when you think about it. This has been like ten minutes of just random brawling. There’s no flow to this match at all and no one has been in any kind of extended trouble. Meng and Knobbs tag in Hall and Nash at the same time so they have to fight. Hall lays down for Nash but the save is made, extending this torture a bit longer. A Megaphone shot and powerbomb on Knobbs end it.

Rating: F+. This was AWFUL. It runs over 15 minutes, nothing of note happens, there’s no story at all and the ending comes from nowhere. When the Faces of Fear have the best performance in a match, that’s not a good sign in the slightest. And now we get the battle royal. Oh yay.

The teams of announcers are Tenay and Dusty, Larry and Lee Marshall and Tony and Bobby. They all give their take and none of them mean a thing. Dusty picks Luger or Konnan.

World War 3

Arn Anderson, Marcus Bagwell, The Barbarian, Chris Benoit, Big Bubba, Jack Boot, Bunkhouse Buck, Ciclope, Disco Inferno, Jim Duggan, Bobby Eaton, Mike Enos, Galaxy, Joe Gomez, Jimmy Graffiti, Johnny Grunge, Juventud Guerrera, Eddy Guerrero, Scott Hall, Prince Iaukea, Ice Train, Mr. JL, Jeff Jarrett, Chris Jericho, Kenny Kaos, Konnan, Lex Luger, Dean Malenko, Steve McMichael, Meng, Rey Misterio, Jr., Hugh Morrus, Kevin Nash, Scott Norton, Pierre Ouelette, Diamond Dallas Page, La Parka, Sgt. Craig Pittman, Jim Powers, Robbie Rage, Stevie Ray, Lord Steven Regal, The Renegade, Scotty Riggs, Roadblock, Jacques Rougeau, Tony Rumble, Mark Starr, Rick Steiner, Ron Studd, Kevin Sullivan, Syxx, Booker T, David Taylor, the Último Dragón, Villaño IV, Michael Wallstreet, Pez Whatley and Alex Wright.

The list is from Wikipedia so blame them for anything weird in there.

The intros take a few minutes since 60 guys have to come out. While they’re coming out, a few notes: Jimmy Graffiti is Jimmy Del Ray of the Heavenly Bodies, Galaxy is a luchador, Jack Bruce is Buddy Lee Parker and Pez Whatley was a medium deal in 86. Benoit is all beaten up and has black eyes and cuts all over his face. The NWO are all in the same ring. Benoit and Sullivan fight before the match officially starts. The Dungeon and the Horsemen jump in and here we go.

I’m not going to even try to list off everyone eliminated here so if I leave someone out don’t be surprised in the slightest. The camera stays on Benoit and Sullivan for about a minute and a half. Oh great we’re doing the triple screen again and you can’t see anything. I think the Dungeon of Doom and the Horsemen are gone. We’ve looked at the three rings maybe 15 seconds combined and almost three minutes at Benoit vs. Sullivan. The NWO is just standing in the corner and Benoit is slammed on Marshall and Larry’s table.

No one of note is out yet. All of the Dungeon and the Horsemen are out, which is about 9 people. Marshall gets knocked out in the big fight so something has gone right tonight at least. Look up HUGE DISASTER in the dictionary and you have this match. Tony Rumble, a career jobber, is gone. Once we get down to ten in each ring they’ll break up that ring. La Parka is gone as is Ciclope. Norton is gone and Pez Whatley is too. Expect a lot of that in this match.

The eliminations start picking up a bit as three no names go out in a row. We get rid of the jobbers for the most part here which is good. Joe Gomez is out. All of the announce teams run down the remaining guys and I don’t even bother paying attention. Every big name is still in it. Giant and Roadblock, an incredibly fat guy go at it. Guess who wins. JL is out. We really need to get this down to one ring for the sake of sanity.

Everybody goes after Big Ron Studd with about a dozen splashes but no one actually tries to put him out. Everyone piles on him but we’re told he has to be thrown out of course. Both Canadians and Duggan are out. Eddie eliminates himself with a plancha to Regal. Bagwell is out as we’re getting some bigger names gone. He and Riggs fight on the floor and they would split tomorrow.

Dave Taylor and Wallstreet are gone. There are 9 left in ring 3 so that ring should be broken up. Scott Steiner is out. There are 8 in ring 1 and 9 in ring 2. Juvy is out. We’re merging into ring 2 thank goodness. Wait is Eddie out or not? Yeah he is for no apparent reason. Everyone is in the same ring so they keep it with three cameras. Blast it go to one camera! Jack Boot is out. You can’t see anything and it’s really complicated because getting more than one angle of the same guys is just really confusing.

Luger tries to get Giant out but the power of fat stops him. Malenko is out and so is Craig Pittman and Booker. We’re still on three cameras because WCW is stupid. Disco is finally out. Bunkhouse Buck is gone. I’d love to see how many people are left. Boy what a basic camera shot would do to help that. A bunch of people go out quickly including Dragon. Tony says there are 13 left. Jericho going out gets us to 12 I think. Just to further the stupidity, the bottom camera goes to a single shot.

Ice Train is out. Ok, everyone is in a circle and FINALLY we go to one camera, 20 minutes into the freaking match. We have Syxx, Hall, Nash, Giant, DDP, Jarrett, Luger, Rey Regal and Eddie left. Eddie was in the final ten last year too I think. Eddie is out and Rey goes after Nash. Giant literally throws Rey out with one hand. Jarrett goes out and we have 7 left. DDP takes us to 6. Regal, Luger, four NWO guys. Make that Luger vs. the NWO.

Giant misses a charge and winds up on the ropes so Luger racks him. Hall goes out. There goes Syxx. Like an idiot he racks Nash and Giant dumps them both to win. Bobby and Tony say it’s the best battle royal ever. Giant would get thrown out of the NWO for asking for a title shot. He would get it at Souled Out, the first NWO PPV. The heels pose to end the show.

Rating: D. This wasn’t very good. The camera work KILLED it in the end. For at least five minutes we were on one ring and you couldn’t see anything at all. These matches were never really very good at all and this was no exception. They’re just big messes the entire time and nothing ever really came of them. When you have so many jobbers it makes you wonder what the point is in having this many. Cut the thing down to like 45 or even 40 and this is WAY better. Still though, the NWO winning was just stupid but then again this is WCW so there you go.

Overall Rating: D. This wasn’t very good. There’s some ok stuff on it, but that’s as good as it gets. SO much stuff on here is just boring as the majority of the roster was in the battle royal. Things would pick up a lot in the coming year, but the end of 96 was really pretty week. These shows always sucked though and this was absolutely no exception. Don’t watch this one.

Spring Stampede 1999
Date: April 11, 1999
Location: Tacoma Dome, Tacoma, Washington
Attendance: 17,690
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan

This is the final part of the WCW stretch thank goodness. These past two shows have just killed me as they’ve been completely awful. This show HAS to be better than those. I mean the law of averages has to catch up with WCW eventually right? The main event tonight is a fatal fourway for the title with Hogan vs. Nash for Flair’s title. Oh and Goldberg vs. Nash. Let’s get to it.

The opening video is just a clip reel of the four guys in the main event.

The set is an old style one almost like Nitro but with a Spring Stampede logo and set to it. I like it.

Blitzkrieg vs. Juventud Guerrera

I’ve heard a ton of great things about Blitzkrieg but I don’t remember him that well. Apparently he’s one of the more insane high fliers ever. I’ve heard his music before somewhere but I can’t place it. The winner faces the Cruiserweight Champion tomorrow night. They shake hands pre match and the crowd is hot. They go to the mat quickly and Juvy might have pulled his mask a bit. Well if you wear one it might get pulled you lunkhead.

They speed things up and a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker gets two for Blitzkrieg. Blitzkrieg pounds away in the corner but Juvy comes back with a springboard dropkick to take over. Blitzkrieg goes outside so Juvy hits a great dive to the floor. Brainbuster gets two. Here’s a surfboard which always amazes me. Blitzkrieg speeds things up and hits a spin kick. A dropkick puts Juvy outside and Blitzkrieg sets for a dive but Juvy sees it coming and dropkicks him out of the air.

Back in and Juvy is sent out again. HUGE spinning moonsault by Blitzkrieg kills him and they go back in. Things speed up and they bust out some slick counters. A move we would call Yang Time misses for Blitzkrieg and the Juvy Driver is countered as well. Blitzkrieg tries what I guess you would call a spinning hurricanrana into a victory roll driver out of the corner for two. They go up again and Juvy counters the same move into a Juvy Driver off the middle rope for the pin.

Rating: B. Again, the old school WCW formula works: a big fast paced match to open the show with two guys just going insane out there. Blitzkrieg would only be around a few months and never really had a big match with Mysterio that I remember, which is a shame because it would have been awesome. Good stuff and better than most of the usual stuff from this division.

After a quick recap of Hak vs. Bigelow, here’s your generic hardcore match for the night.

Hak vs. Bam Bam Bigelow

Hak comes out carrying a table and wrapped in barbed wire. He is, not the table. The brawl begins on the floor and they go to the wagon. Hak has hidden a table under there. Well of course he has. He hits a HUGE swanton off the wagon through the table. Chastity, Hak’s chick, gets the gimmicks (Tony’s term for weapons) out and Bigelow shrugs the dive off.

Back to ringside and they hit each other with various metal objects. Tony flat out says that trashcans don’t hurt that badly. What’s with him tonight? Bigelow whacks Hak with said painless can then a kendo stick shot. There’s a plastic salad bowl to the head. They botch what I think was a suplex and Bigelow falls on Hak’s knees. Out to the floor and here comes a ladder.

Hak dropkicks it into Bigelow and then hits another Swanton onto the ladder onto Bigelow. Now he busts out a piece of a barricade and the table falls to the floor. The ladder is up in the ring and the table is like a bridge between the ring and barricade. Hak climbs up for no apparent reason and goes crashing down through it. Back in the ring there’s a barricade in one corner and a ladder in the other.

Hak gets crotched on the barricade which Bigelow picks up. He stands there with it forever because Chastity is late with the extinguisher. The distraction lets the White Russian Leg Sweep put Bam Bam down. And then he hits what’s supposed to be the Greetings From Asbury Park (single shoulder sitout Tombstone) off the middle rope through the table but it was more like a powerslam. Either way it ends things.

Rating: D+. Not bad but this was just another hardcore match in WCW. Neither guy was worth anything other than this but it filled in a little over ten minutes. The ending bump was pretty solid but the match was nothing memorable at all, which is the major problem with this division as a whole. In WWF, they were bad but they were funny. These just aren’t that good.

Mikey Whipwreck vs. Scotty Riggs

Riggs is a narcissist style character here. I have no idea why this match is happening but that’s WCW for you. Riggs dances around like Rick Rude and tries to show Mikey up. There’s been practically no contact in the first minute. Mikey slaps him in the face and it’s the Cody Rhodes idea where he’s freaked because his face was touched. Riggs is knocked to the floor and this is nothing to see.

Mikey puts his throat over the bottom rope and hits a slingshot legdrop. A rana off the apron drives the top of Riggs’ head into the floor. Get this over with already. Another attempt at the legdrop misses and Mikey goes into the railing. Dropkick takes him down and I put on a Jimmy Stewart movie from the 30s. A quick chinlock gets a big BORING chant. Mikey hits a middle rope dropkick for two. And then Riggs hits a forearm for the pin.

Rating: F. If Scotty Riggs getting a featured match on PPV in 1999 wasn’t enough, the match was terribly boring. The problem here was that no one had any reason to care about these guys and Riggs was in a nothing gimmick that we had seen a million times before. I mean how many times have you seen a character that is obsessed with his looks and talks about how pretty he is?

We recap Disco Inferno vs. Konnan. Konnan had a music video which Disco made a parody of. There’s your match.

Konnan vs. Disco Inferno

Oh and Disco is in the Wolfpack here….kind of. Konnan makes what I presume are gay jokes about Disco’s looks to start. Disco imitates Konnan and hits his rolling lariat. He goes up but Konnan shakes his crotch at him so Disco hops down. Ok then. Konnan takes over and hits his seated dropkick. Konnan has a big bandage on his head which I missed before. They’re both in camo pants. K-Dawg climbs the corner with a running armdrag. Not bad.

Off to the chinlock section of the match. Can we vote to get that removed? It happens in almost every match and it’s really dull. Disco hits a middle rope elbow for two. Konnan gets sent to the floor and this has been almost all Disco. I think he finally realizes he’s fighting Disco Inferno and comes back with the 187 (fisherman’s DDT) for two. Disco gets the same off a neckbreaker. After a bunch of clotheslines miss, Konnan hits Disco’s own finisher the Last Dance (Stunner) for the pin.

Rating: C-. Oddly enough this was better because of Disco. Had he had a workable gimmick and maybe a name change, he could have been a decent midcard guy. The problem is he’s most famous for the idiotic character and he never could escape it. Still though, he wasn’t half bad here.

We recap Kidman vs. Mysterio for the Cruiserweight Title. Rey took the title from Kidman, and they’re also tag team champions. This is the rematch.

Cruiserweight Title: Billy Kidman vs. Rey Mysterio Jr.

Winner gets Juvy tomorrow night. They do some nice flips to start without much damage being done. Rey gets a headscissors and has a small advantage. Kidman hits one of his own and the first two minutes or so are a stalemate. Rey gets backdropped to the floor and there’s a dive which gets very little reaction. Kidman takes over and Rey goes into the barricade. That’s a surprising amount of violence from two face champions that are smaller guys.

Now Rey sends him back to the floor. Kidman shows off some impressive strength and catches the Asai Moonsault attempt. Rey goes into the steps and both guys are getting mad. Lionsault gets two for the champ. Another rana attempt is countered into a running powerbomb. The crowd is pretty silent for this and to their credit it’s a pretty slow match so far. BK Bomb gets two. They go to the floor and Kidman hits a Shooting Star off the apron.

Back in the World’s Strongest Slam puts Rey down but Kidman jumps into a dropkick. The fans sound like they’re at a golf tournament that doesn’t have Tiger Woods in it. They both go to the top and Rey hits a top rope bulldog for two. I really don’t understand this crowd. The match isn’t a classic or anything but they’re hitting some BIG spots in this. Kidman hits the chinlock and the fans don’t react at all.

After a quick trip to the floor, Rey takes over again. He dives into a clothesline though which is a nice little nod to earlier in the match. The crowd again does not care. Heenan talks about Rey’s fatigue pants and how there are a bunch of pockets in them. “Wouldn’t it be fun to load those up with illegal objects?” Tony and Mike of course use that to talk about Hak and Bigelow, because they don’t get the idea of a heel commentator. Bobby might as well be running with an anchor.

Rey gets a facejam for two. He looks like he’s about to cry. Mysterio gets taken down into position for a Shooting Star but he’s playing possum. Kidman counters his whatever into a sunset bomb off the top for two. AND THE CROWD STILL DOESN’T CARE. Rey counters a wheelbarrow suplex off the top into a sitout bulldog for two. That’s what he won the title with in the first place. A top rope Fameasser and standing moonsault get two for Rey. Kidman blocks a powerbomb and tries another shooting star but Rey breaks it up again. There’s a top rope rana into a rollup for the pin for Rey.

Rating: B-. I really want to understand the issues with the crowd here. This wasn’t a classic or anything but it was really a pretty good match. The near falls until the end were really hot and the crowd just sat there. I don’t know if they were burned out by a weak stretch of matches or what but I was really confused by it.

We recap Raven/Saturn vs. Malenko/Benoit. The Horsemen were tag champs and were fighting Raven 2-1 for some reason. Saturn came in to help and got a submission but it didn’t count for some reason. Raven and Saturn cost the Horsemen the titles so this is a grudge match. See how easy it can be to set up a non-title feud?

Raven/Perry Saturn vs. Dean Malenko/Chris Benoit

Anderson is with the Horsemen here. Raven and Saturn bring out a table. Oh and if you don’t believe WCW went on talent raids in ECW, I present you with this match. Saturn is in a leather skirt because of some big thing with Jericho. The fans are all over the Horsemen already. Dean stalls to start and MAN the fans are on him. Oh ok he’s stalling on the apron so much because Benoit is starting.

The Canadian sends him to the floor and Saturn sends the Horsemen into each other. Off to Raven as Benoit gets beaten down. Benoit dropkicks Raven to the floor so Anderson/Malenko can double team him. Something like a double spinebuster puts Raven down and they work on his legs/hamstrings. The crowd pops more for a Raven kickout than anything in the previous match.

Lil Naitch is refereeing so he just happens to miss Raven’s small package on Benoit. Clothesline gets two for Benoit and Robinson seems to be counting faster than usual. He stops Saturn from coming in and gets great heat. Saturn comes in and cleans house but Malenko takes him down with a right hand. A modified Doomsday Device by the non-Horsemen gets two as Benoit grabs Rolling Germans on Raven.

Malenko hooks the Cloverleaf on Saturn but he makes the rope. Great drama so far in this. Death Valley Driver hits Malenko but Benoit comes in PERFECTLY to break it up with a Swan Dive which also gets two for Malenko. Things settle down again and Benoit works on Saturn’s leg. Malenko comes in with a sleeper and body scissors. Raven breaks it up and things break down a little again.

After a northern lights suplex we go to the floor where Dean kicks Saturn in the ribs a few times. Back inside and he comes in legally for a change. Chinlock goes on now but I can live with this one as they’re probably getting tired. Raven finally comes in and is on fire. He had a tendency to not be in the ring that often but when he was he was incredibly energetic.

Someone throws in a chair and Raven hits the drop toehold onto it with Benoit’s head going in. Anderson pulls Dean off a table on the floor so Saturn goes through instead. Even Flow takes Dean down but Anderson interferes, allowing the chair to be put on Raven’s head so Benoit can hit a Swan Dive to the chair to Raven’s head and Malenko gets the pin. Great match.

Rating: B+. That’s probably high but I was really getting into this one. The ending is good too as the Horsemen cheat to win and the heat on them was great. Excellent match as they gave four very talented guys time and a story and you got a very good match out of it. If WCW could get that that was the idea of exciting wrestling, they might still be in business today.

We recap the US Title match. Hall had been US Champion but got legit hurt so we had to have a new champion. A tournament started and after some Jericho shenanigans, he didn’t make the finals. Instead it’ll be Booker, the TV Champion, against Scott Steiner. Stevie Ray might be in his brother’s corner here but it’s not entirely clear.

US Title: Scott Steiner vs. Booker T

Scott gets in an argument with a fan as the fan’s girlfriend keeps rubbing his chest. Funnier than it sounds. This goes on for a good while as Steiner keeps yelling at fans. Steiner finally gets in the ring and then goes to the ropes to avoid fighting. Back to the floor and now Steiner jumps into the crowd. Steiner finally comes in and taker Booker down with ease.

Booker speeds things up and hits AJ Styles’ drop down into a dropkick to send Scott to the floor. Steiner pounds him down some more and this is looking like it’s not going to be particularly interesting. A clothesline off the apron puts Scott down again as this has been back and forth. Steiner tastes the steel but manages to crotch Booker out of the corner. Out to the floor for some chair shots and we head back inside.

Now we get the push-ups. He shoves the referee and this is going nowhere. There’s a Steroids chant. Belly to belly gets two. Now Steiner just openly chokes the referee and kicks Booker low which isn’t a DQ due to the referee being scared. Steiner has to stop to pose because we need a break or something. Off to a bearhug which is probably the last thing this match needs.

Booker starts to escape but gets caught in a belly to belly drop on the head. It was supposed to be a suplex but it just wasn’t. A DDT puts Scott down and HE ACTUALLY SELLS IT!!! Take a lesson Rick. Booker comes back with some strikes and he goes up top. And there goes the referee. The fans immediately look at the entrance ramp, which shows how jaded they are.

Booker makes his real comeback and hits the axe kick but there’s no referee. Down goes the referee for a second time and Booker gets crotched. Steiner busts out the “Frankensteiner” for two. He pulls out a foreign object and clocks Booker with it for the title. The fans are NOT pleased with that ending.

Rating: D+. I’ve seen worse but the middle part of this was just dreadful. Scott was at least selling here but it wasn’t anything great. This would be the beginning of the mega push that the Steiners got this summer for absolutely no apparent reason other than they were old which is how you get pushed in this company. Still though, not much although Booker would get a lot better push in about a year. Also in a little trivia for you: Scott would win the US Title in a tournament final the next year at Spring Stampede as well.

Recap of Nash vs. Goldberg, although they’re just clips with no actual talking to them.

Kevin Nash vs. Goldberg

Apparently this is the rematch from Starrcade or something. Liz and Luger are here with Nash. Nash says something on the mic but the mic doesn’t seem to work because I didn’t hear a thing. He drives Goldberg to the corner and pounds away knees in the corner. The fans are looking at something to the right of the ring and Nash continues to go as slowly as he can while still being considered alive.

The fans almost immediately chant for Sting as Nash gets a two count. He hits the side slam for another two as this has been completely one sided. The running hip attack to the back of Goldberg while he’s in the 619 position keeps the bald one down. Goldberg snaps off a shoulder block though and something like a hooking superkick to load up the spear. NASH JUMPS OVER GOLDBERG!!! The spear hits the referee so Luger pops Goldberg with the chair. Goldberg blocks the powerbomb with a handful of balls. Spear and Jackhammer end this.

Rating: D+. What in the world was the point of this? Goldberg hit like 5 moves and dominated so he’s back to the point where he used to be, minus the title that is. Still though, was there a point to having this be like seven minutes long? It wasn’t horrible, but I’m sitting here asking if that’s it. Also, was there a point to Luger and Liz being out there? I don’t see it if there was.

Video on the main event. Flair turned heel to win the title last month off Hogan and Page and Sting are there so there can be four guys in it. Savage is guest referee for no apparent reason.

WCW World Title: Diamond Dallas Page vs. Sting vs. Ric Flair vs. Hulk Hogan

No Michael Buffer for the intros. No tags here and it’s one fall to a finish. This is one of the final matches under the People’s Champion era for Page. Flair is champion and comes out first for some reason. He and Sting pair off as Page fights Hogan. Those two never had a big PPV title match that I remember. Sting almost gets the Deathlock on Page inside a minute but DDP makes the rope.

Hogan and Flair fight up the ramp as Page tries a Diamond Cutter. Everyone back in now and it’s getting hard to call all of this. Sting slams Flair off the top which makes things feel right. Hogan takes the weight belt off and whips at the champ as STING ACTUALLY HITS THE STINGER SPLASH AGAINST THE RAILING!!! I’ve been watching him over twenty years and I’ve never seen him hit that.

The weight belt goes back on as it’s just Hogan vs. Flair in the ring at the moment. Hulk no sells the chops and hits the boot and leg. Sting hooked the Scorpion just before that and has to let it go to break up the pin. Flair gets in a shot at Hogan’s knee, because that’s gone so well before right? The Figure Four goes on and Sting misses his second attempt at a splash.

Hogan turns the hold over and Page has to break it up. Page knocks Flair to the floor and we get the Figure Four around the post on Hogan. The trainer runs out to check on Hogan and he has to leave. Even Bischoff comes out to check on him. So it’s a triple threat now and they’re all in the ring. Sting beats up Flair while Page just chills. Flair, after eleven years, still doesn’t get that chops don’t work on Sting. Flair Flip in the corner and he gets clotheslined to the floor.

Page works on Sting’s ribs but Flair is back in now. Discus lariat gets two. Savage is counting slow and hasn’t meant a thing yet. Stinger Splash hits Page and he slams DDP’s face into the mat. Page tombstones Sting for two as Flair breaks it up. Sting superplexes Flair for two. Page puts a sleeper on Flair who has a sleeper on Sting. Sting hits a jawbreaker on both and they’re all up at 9.

Sting gets double teamed and THAT STILL DOESN’T WORK ON HIM. He hits a double clothesline and beats them both down. Splashes for both guys but Page breaks up the Deathlock on Flair. Death Drop takes Page down but Sting can’t cover. Flair puts the Figure Four on Sting and Sting makes the ropes. Flair won’t break it so Savage drags them to the middle of the ring and drops the elbow (Sky Elbow according to Tony) to break it up. A Diamond Cutter to Flair gives Page his first world title.

Rating: C-. Not the worst match ever but I really don’t get what Savage was needed in there for other than a single move. A lot of this dragged really badly but they at least did something. It may not have been interesting but they were doing something. Page turned heel soon after this and it bombed HORRIBLY because people had gotten behind him for being the scrappy underdog that kept pushing until he reached the top. As in like Hardy whose heel turn also bombed. Funny how that works isn’t it?

Overall Rating: C+. WOW this was so much better than the previous two shows. I mean man this was a breath of fresh air and a lot of that is because they had some relatively clean endings. You couple that with longer matches and only one match that had no business being on PPV (arguably) and you get a decent show. It’s nothing great but it’s certainly better than the two that follow this one.

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Slamboree 1999
Date: May 9, 1999
Location: TWA Dome, St. Louis, Missouri
Attendance: 20,516
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan, Mike Tenay

Another WCW PPV for you here. This one looks a little less boring than the Bash, but that’s not really saying much. The main event here is Page, the world champion, defending against Nash. We also get the first bout in the EPIC Flair vs. Piper feud, and I’m sure you’re all dying to see that. Let’s get to it.

We open with your standard video talking about a big match tonight, which here is Goldberg vs. Sting. Also Flair vs. Piper plus a few others but it’s mainly those two.

Tony is in a leather jacket for some reason. The announcers run down the card.

Tag Titles: Raven/Perry Saturn vs. Billy Kidman/Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. Chris Benoit/Dean Malenko

Raven and Saturn are back together again for some reason. The Horsemen (Benoit and Malenko) are heels. Raven and Saturn are rather popular. I really like WCW’s style in these matches as three are three men in the ring at once. Oh and Rey/Kidman are the champions. Kidman, Dean and Saturn start us off. Saturn is in a skirt due to a long story with Jericho.

Malenko gets beaten down and Saturn beats up Benoit who I guess got a tag. Saturn throws Kidman over the top in a release belly to belly. That landing looked SICK. You can’t tag someone from another team in this match. BIG Horsemen Suck chant. Raven covers Benoit and avoids a slingshot leg from Rey. Benoit and Kidman drape Raven over the top and then Benoit smashes Billy.

This is a very fast paced match so it’s hard to keep up with everything. A top rope splash by Kidman misses Benoit as Raven is on the floor. He manages to break up the Crossface though and double teams Benoit with Saturn. Frog splash to Benoit gets two. In a move that literally made my jaw drop, Dean launches Rey over his shoulder and Rey LANDS ON THE BUCKLE ON HIS FEET and hits a moonsault press for two. THAT WAS AWESOME.

Saturn dives on everyone not named Benoit and Raven. Benoit hits the Swan Dive to Raven for two but Saturn saves. The Horsemen double team Rey and now they beat up Saturn. The tagging aspect has been dropped for the time being. And of course just as I say that it’s officially Benoit vs. Kidman vs. Saturn. Kidman fights back and the fans cheer. BIG superkick from Saturn takes him down though. The crowd is really into this.

Benoit hits a springboard forearm over the top (think Jericho and his dropkick to the apron) to take out Saturn. The two of them are in the ring and a northern lights suplex gets two for the Canadian. Here are the Rolling Germans but Kidman makes the save. Dean gets a tag and gets rolled up by Saturn in a reversal to the Cloverleaf. Saturn is knocked to the floor and things slow down a bit.

Dean is like screw slow and KILLS Kidman with a powerbomb for two. Dragon Suplex to Kidman gets a delayed two. Dean tries to throw Billy into the air but Kidman hits a dropkick in mid air to break it up. Russian legsweep takes Benoit down and there’s the tag to Raven for a big reaction. He hits what we would call Three Amigos to Benoit for two. Back to Saturn who is a bit spent.

Rey vs. Saturn vs. Benoit at this point. Saturn saves a pin on Rey as Malenko and Kidman come in. Saturn and Benoit are down and Kidman isn’t sure who to jump on. Dean tries another powerbomb on him but Kidman rolls into a sunset flip. Everything breaks down and the champs hit a SWEET alley-oop rana to Benoit in the corner. They try it on Saturn but he hits a top rope sitout powerbomb to Rey for two. Arn comes in and hits a spinebuster on Saturn to HUGE heel heat. Someone in a Sting mask breaks up the Shooting Star by crotching Kidman. An elevated Even Flow gives Raven/Saturn the belts. Kanyon was in the mask.

Rating: B. This is better than probably any other match I’ve seen in all of WCW so far in 1999. They were all over the place in here and beating the living tar out of each other, which is the best thing you can ask for. Also the popular team wins off a big ending with the DDT. Very good match, but now things are going to fall through the floor, which is WCW in a nutshell.

Video on DDP.

Konnan vs. Stevie Ray

Horace and Vincent of the NWO Black and White are with Ray. The fans here in St. Louis are awesome as they’ll cheer for any face and boo any heel. Why is that so complex? Ray pounds him down in the corner but Konnan pounds him on the middle rope while making oral sex gestures. Vincent gets on the apron to break up a pin attempt. He cheats a bit more on the floor and the fans aren’t all that thrilled here.

Off to a chinlock as Ray thinks of something new he can do other than kicks and forearms. He chokes away which is at least new. Back to the chinlock for more time in the think tank. Suplex gets two and there’s the jump off the ropes into a boot spot. Konnan speeds things up and messes up a leapfrog. X Factor puts Ray down but Horace trips K-Dawg up. Here’s Rey to distract the goons and Konnan wins with a rollup (with a pretty fast count).

Rating: D-. Really dull match here but at least it was kind of logical: once Rey is there to counteract Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber, Konnan can get the pin on his own. Stevie is just so freaking boring without Booker there to help him out that there’s no need to have him out here, especially on a PPV. Boring match and not any good at all.

Video on Kevin Nash.

Video on Sting.

Page talks to Bigelow in the back but we can’t hear what’s being said.

Brian Knobbs vs. Bam Bam Bigelow

This is for the moniker King of Hardcore, which isn’t an official title. This of course is a hardcore match if you didn’t get the idea there. There isn’t going to be much to talk about in this. It’s your standard hardcore match with both guys being hit in the head with generic pieces of metal. There’s an RVD sign in the crowd. Heenan tells the announcers to be quiet so he can hear the weapon shots.

Bigelow hits a top rope headbutt for two. Out to the floor and there’s still nothing to talk about. It’s pretty much the same as every hardcore match you’ll ever see. Knobbs’ trashcan shot is blocked by a waiter’s tray which winds up going on top of Brian’s head. Bigelow is in control here. The fans want a table. There are long stretches here where there’s nothing to talk about. It’s just random weapon shots and the announcers laughing.

They fight up the aisle with Knobbs using a trashcan to keep control. There’s the internet location getting its required cameo. They go old school here with the fake souvenir stand that no fan would be able to get to because it’s on the arena floor. We go behind a curtain (revealing about 1/5 of the arena being tarped off) and there’s a ladder shot. An elbow off the stands onto a table misses for Knobbs (I think, you can’t see anything) and Bigelow suplexes him through the table for the pin.

Rating: F. Heenan’s final line of “and they do this for a living” sums things up well. Why in the world did Knobbs of all people have a job here? The match sucked due to there being nothing interesting here at all. There was no comedy spot, there was nothing other than the most basic weapons available, and nothing interesting happened at all. Bad match and really boring. Also it ran almost 12 minutes. Inexcusable.

We recap Rick Steiner vs. Booker. Booker won a match against Steiner with help from Stevie, who is in the NWO (Booker never was). Ray saved him again but Rick came in to beat him up. Rick vs. Booker started up again so let’s have a TV Title match again.

TV Title: Rick Steiner vs. Booker T

Booker is champion here if I didn’t make that clear. Rick starts out with a belly to belly release and a couple of Steiner Lines. I think he’s the heel here but I’m not sure. More control by Steiner until Booker kicks him in the face to put him down. Steiner pops up of course because he isn’t going to sell anything. Off to a chinlock by Booker. I think he’s either heel here or borderline heel.

Steiner takes over on the floor and things slow way down. Time for a chinlock again. The crowd is very quiet. Steiner punches a lot and the fans don’t care. A bunch of punches gets two and here’s that chinlock again. Booker fights back and hits the axe kick, a spinebuster and the missile dropkick but STEINER WON’T SELL THEM. Here’s what happens after every move: Steiner lays there about 2-4 seconds then gets up like nothing happened. Scott finally runs out for the distraction and a Steiner Line gets two. Scott trips Booker and the Bulldog off the ropes gives Rick the title.

Rating: D. Just a horribly boring match here as Rick is beyond worthless in the ring at this point. Naturally the answer to that is to give him a title for four months. He wouldn’t sell ANYTHING Booker did here and Booker looks like a joke as a result. Bad match but as usual, most of it is due to Rick being lazy and not selling anything.

Time to recap the stupid match of the show. Randy Savage is out of wrestling at this point so he’s putting one of his chicks (the hot one) in there against Lil Naitch in the form of referee Charles Robinson. Yes this match is happening.

Rick rambles to Buff in the back and wishes him luck against Scott later. Gee, that must be totally genuine right?

Gorgeous George vs. Charles Robinson

Ok to be fair, Robinson’s Flair costume is AWESOME. He has the robe, he has the hair, he looks exactly like a small Nature Boy. Even his face looks like him. Flair and Savage are seconds here. Asya and the other chicks are here too. To be fair, George was indeed hot. Flair, the President of WCW at the time, says he’d like to have Madusa ride Space Mountain. Miss Maddness can come too, but George is being saved for Robinson. Robinson rips George a bit and he sounds EXACTLY like Flair. This is the best imitation I’ve seen in years. Savage (POP) says George will win.

Robinson struts a lot as they stall for a few minutes. George goes after the arm and Robinson reverses. Off to a full nelson and snapmare as George is dominant. Flair and Robinson get rammed together so Savage has to come in and protect George. Robinson goes for a chair but Miss Madness steals it. She gets slammed outside and Savage FREAKS. I mean freaks by his standards.

Back in Robinson takes over with a choke and then does more of that. George comes back with a few chops and Robinson does the flip in the corner and runs the apron, only to get slammed off the top. Heenan says this is great and I can’t say I disagree. There’s a Flair Flop and they’re getting tired. The heels cheat a bit and work over George’s knee but Madusa makes the save.

Robinson works on the knee and if the match continues like it has, that means we’re heading for the Figure Four. He hooks the knee a bit and cranks on it for awhile. Here’s the Figure Four and while it looks good, it’s on the wrong knee. She reverses it and Flair comes in for the save. Savage chases him off and beats up Robinson so George can drop a half decent looking middle rope elbow for the pin. Savage is reinstated.

Rating: D. Yes it was bad, but at the end of the day we have a referee and a manager in there. Robinson’s Flair impression is absolutely excellent and one of the best I’ve ever seen. George really is gorgeous and it’s a shame she wasn’t around in wrestling more than she was. That being said, this was decent enough all things considered. Ten and a half minutes was too long, but it wasn’t boring and they were trying which is more important than anything else.

We recap Scott Steiner vs. Buff Bagwell. Bagwell was a face and made fun of him so Steiner said he had a big ego. Bagwell imitated him and it wasn’t really funny.

US Title: Buff Bagwell vs. Scott Steiner

Since Bagwell never won a singles title, I think you know who is champion coming in. Buff jumps him before the bell and Steiner still has the belt on. Swinging neckbreaker gets two. Scott hits him low and there’s the Push-Up elbow. Buff gets thrown to the floor and Steiner yells at some fans. Things slow WAY down with Steiner on offense. It was a running theme with the Steiners at this point.

Scott chokes away and yells at another fan. Much like in the Rick match, you may be noticing a pattern emerging here. They go to the mat and Steiner elbows him a lot. He runs to the floor and brings in a chair. If that shot had hit Steiner would have been facing 10-15 years. Bagwell fights back but there goes the referee. Buff gets the chair and here’s Rick to turn heel on Buff and whack him with the chair. The Recliner keeps the title on Scott.

Rating: D-. I can’t take many more of these bad matches. I mean the people in them are just SO lazy with them laying around and doing nothing of note. Scott and Rick are back together as the Steiners and both have singles titles. You know, because that’s what the people wanted to see and would light the world on fire. Benoit and Jericho and Malenko? Who are they?

Video on Goldberg. These videos are just their music playing over clips of them. They only last about 15-20 seconds each.

Now to really crank it up, here’s a video on all four people in the main events. There aren’t any words to this so the feuds still aren’t explained.

The third straight video (at least they’re short) is on Flair being president and being insane. He’s signing contracts without reading them and one of them is for a match with Piper for the Presidency. Flair thinks he’s President of the United States. I kid you not, this was the second biggest wrestling company in the world at this point. Oh and he went to a mental hospital and thought he was in a hotel. Again, this is what we mean when we say insulting to our intelligence.

Roddy Piper vs. Ric Flair

The winner is the president. Before things get going, referee Johnny Boone is fired and Charles Robinson replaces him. Flair runs his mouth and gets slapped to get us going. Piper knocks him to the floor and let’s take a break after that. He boxes Flair, seemingly hitting him in the chest and neck, but Flair falls anyway. He hits a low blow to take over and Robinson yells at Piper for choking.

Flair yells at Anderson to beat on Piper when he throws him outside. Flair throws Piper outside and Anderson beats on him. Asya comes in for a low blow and this is about as far from serious as you could want it to be. Flair chops away in the corner and Piper chops back. Robinson cheats on a cover and says Flair keeps getting his shoulder up. There’s the Flair Flip in the corner and they go to the outside.

Piper rams Flair’s head into Flair’s arm but we’ll say it was the post anyway. Back in the ring they ram heads and both guys are down. After about 2 seconds of leg softening here’s the Figure Four. Piper tries a sunset flip and there go the trunks. He hooks Flair in the Figure Four and Flair screams that he gives up but Robinson ignores it. Anderson breaks it up but gets thrown in a sleeper. Now Flair in the sleeper. Asya runs in and gets kissed and put in a sleeper as well. The referee gets decked and Flair hits Piper with an illegal object for the pin.

Rating: The chipmunk has pneumonia. I better take him to the embassy before he deletes the remote control of reality and I run out of apple juice. If he does that, there will be a great and mighty feast in the great archway of the flippyflook.

And that was more logical than putting this match on PPV. But wait: there’s more.

Here’s Eric Bischoff who hasn’t been seen in awhile and has no authority whatsoever in this company. He says Piper is the winner and that Flair can bite him. Somehow this stands. Eric and Piper hug to a face pop (intentional I’d assume but who knows with this company?) and Piper fires Flair. Just….yeah.

Recap of Sting vs. Goldberg. This is for who the franchise is or something.

Sting vs. Goldberg

Tony is either trying to explain what we just saw or is questioning it himself. I’m really not sure. I’m also not sure why this match is happening but who cares? Sting has white boots with black toes. It makes as much sense as anything else here. Goldberg takes him down and snaps off a powerslam for no cover. Sting stalls on the floor and then takes Goldberg to the floor with a clothesline.

Goldberg hooks a cross armbreaker but it isn’t on correctly. Sting fights out of it and we go to a test of strength. He takes out Goldberg’s braced knee (oh sweet psychology, how I missed you) and puts on a Boston Crab which is quickly broken. Goldberg fights back with power moves and things slow WAY down. Top rope clothesline by Sting sets up some Stinger Splashes but Goldberg catches him in a spinebuster which is called a spear. And here’s Bret Hart with a chair and it’s a no contest.

Rating: D. Another bad match. I mean seriously, this show SUCKS. There’s been nothing but boring matches (aside from the opener) and stuff that is basically around to set up matches on Nitro rather than HERE ON THE FREAKING PPV. Nothing to see here as they basically kept it as slow gear as possible.

And then the Steiners run out and beat up Goldberg and Sting. WHY ARE THEY THE FOCAL POINT OF A SHOW IN 1999????

Another wordless video on Page vs. Nash. No word on why they’re fighting but there’s clearly no thinking anywhere else in this show so who cares?

WCW World Title: Diamond Dallas Page vs. Kevin Nash

And Buffer’s mic doesn’t work right. Seriously, fold already. You can hear him in the arena but not over the PPV feed. Page is champion. Early Cutter attempt is blocked and Page hits the floor. We actually get a reference to the Vegas Connection. Page hammers away but runs his mouth to get himself sent to the floor. Back inside and Nash hammers away. Page charges at Nash and finally kicks him low to take over.

Page rips a buckle off and hits him with the mic for two. He gets sent into the exposed steel though and both guys are down. Page takes over and sends him to the floor. A baseball slide puts Nash down and there’s a Diamond Cutter to kill Nash out there. It only gets two in the ring but at least there was a delay. Now Page goes for the knee for no apparent reason.

He wraps it around the post a few times and pounds on Nash again. There’s something going on in the crowd so they change the camera angle, which is pretty smart. Nash makes his comeback and hits Snake Eyes onto the buckle. Back to the regular angle. Nash….at least limp. Big boot and Jackknife….but here’s Savage to break it up for the LAME DQ. So is he a heel now too?

I would rate it here, but Eric comes out AGAIN and restarts the match. Russian legsweep gets two for the champ. Discus lariat gets the same. And here’s a sleeper, which looks awful because Nash is so tall. Now Nash hooks an even WORSE sleeper but Page jawbreaks his way out of it for two. A chair shot hits the rope and Page takes it in the face for two. Low blow gets two for Page. And then Nash kicks the chair into Page’s face, takes the straps down and wins the title via the Jackknife.

Rating: D. The fans popped for the ending, but I’m just spent at this point. There’s nothing interesting here and the run in and restart made no sense, which is what the name of the show should be. Nash would hold the title for a few months before dropping it to Savage before Hogan took it the next night. This was nothing interesting at all and the knee selling coming and going hurt things.

Overall Rating: F-. This is usually were I’d make some witty statement about how this show was so bad it goes beyond bad ratings or something, but there’s nothing left in me after watching this mess. The illogical stories, the stupid booking, the overdoing it with the Steiners, the worthless world title change, and the bad matches just made me completely uninterested by the end of this show. I haven’t felt like that about a PPV in a very long time, but this just drained me completely.

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Great American Bash 1999
Date: June 13, 1999
Location: Baltimore Arena, Baltimore, Maryland
Attendance: 11,672
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan, Mike Tenay

This isn’t intentionally after the other GAB reviews I was doing. It just turned out that way. This is one of the last shows under Nash’s time with the book and therefore, it’s technically ok but it’s not interesting at all for the most part. The main event is Nash vs. Savage for Nash’s title. Other than that it’s your run of the mill show of the last year WCW had any prayer of ever making a comeback to at least respectable. Let’s get to it.

Master P. and his group of guys, the No Limit Soldiers, arrive. Curt Hennig pops up and praises him, saying P is the king of rap. He asks for an autograph and P says sure, signing a CD for him. Hennig destroys it and the rap vs. country feud is on. You know, for a southern based company. Yeah, let’s make a rap group faces here and pay P over 200 grand per appearance, yes I said PER APPEARANCE, and expect him to be popular.

The opening video is about Nash vs. Savage, who have been terrorizing each other while Savage wears a big pink fur coat. Savage: “You’re a stupid person.” A lot of mud was slung, and I mean that literally. This was the thick of the Hummer Driver angle, where someone was driving a big white Hummer and trying to run people over with it. The driver was never officially revealed, but it was heavily implied to be one of about 5 people. You know, I spent a long time trying to figure out why WCW died, and the best answer I can give you is to watch the show and you’ll get it yourself.

The announcers actually recap the Hennig vs. Master P showdown. IT WAS THREE MINUTES AGO!!! They talk about Nash vs. Savage a bit.

Here’s a video on….well on almost every match on the card. Is there a reason they’re filling in time like this?

Now here’s a video just on Knobbs vs. Hak (Sandman) which is the opener. Knobbs has joined the First Family, which is Jimmy Hart’s lower card stable.

Brian Knobbs vs. Hardcore Hak

WCW tried a Hardcore Division but this is a kendo stick match, whatever that means. Is that…..is that……is that a cover of My Sharona that Knobbs is coming out to? Why in the world is he coming out to a cover of My Sharona? Brian says it’s Mrs. Nasty’s birthday today. I wonder if he’s going to take her to the Baltimore Science Museum and do science experiments with her. He wants this to be just a hardcore match. Hak comes out to what used to be Mongo’s music. He walks around the ring for awhile and wastes even more time.

Knobbs wants a hardcore match and the way to do that is to throw the weapons out. The opening bell is at 12:42 into the show. Knobbs hits Hak with a trashcan and then hits him with the lid of it. At least he’s complete with his assault. There’s a Pit Stop and Hak gets hit in the head again. He gets his feet up to kick a chair back into Knobbs’ face and momentum shifts. I would say the pendulum has swung but I’m not bringing Gorilla into this.

Here comes a ladder and it gets thrown at Knobbs from the floor. A slingshot legdrop hits the ladder but Knobbs sells it anyway. The leg gets put around Knobbs’ leg and hit with a chair. Knobbs sends him into the ladder. There isn’t going to be much more than this people. Then again, that’s all there needs to be here. Knobbs beats him down again and the fans chant for Hak.

Hak makes a comeback and tries a Swanton onto the ladder but Knobbs moves. Tony suggests a table and the fans want one as well. We don’t get one though as Hak throws him into a chair, which isn’t something you see every day. That and a shot from a kendo stick is enough for the pin.

Rating: D. Yes it was bad, but the whole point of this was to get the crowd into things and these matches usually did that. Besides, it’s not like either of these guys are good for anything else but Knobbs is a Hoganite so they have to have something for him right? Nothing match but it was fine for what it was.

Hugh Morrus and Knobbs destroy Hak post match.

Buff Bagwell thanks Piper for giving him a big match (it’s against Disco Inferno) and says he’ll have Piper’s back in the match with Flair tonight for the presidency.

Van Hammer vs. Mikey Whipwreck

So Whipwreck was a crowd favorite in ECW so he came to WCW and did nothing. This resulted in him being mentioned in a booking meeting and Kevin Nash, the booker, not knowing who he was. Hammer was in the middle of a moderate push so he’ll be killing Mikey here. The announcers talk about who’s driving the Hummer to kill time because this match is going to be very boring.

Hammer beats on Mikey whose speed moves aren’t working at all. He tries a monkey flip but Hammer grabs him by the head and slams him off the top. The fans chant boring and I can’t exactly disagree. A delayed vertical suplex gets NO pop. You can tell that a match is dull when a move which is an incredible power display like that just quiets the crowd.

Time for an abdominal stretch. This was the only match not advertised in the opening montage. If that surprises you, it shouldn’t. Out to the floor and Mikey gets dropped onto the barricade. A dive to the floor keeps Mikey down. Back in Whipwreck comes off the top for two. And then he jumps into a release spinebuster and a cobra clutch slam for the pin.

Rating: D-. Why in the world was this on PPV? Van Hammer got a push around this time but it went nowhere because Rick Steiner destroyed him at Bash at the Beach. Whipwreck would be back in ECW later in the year along with Sandman, which they probably never should have left in the first place. However, how can you turn down the huge money?

Buff Bagwell vs. Disco Inferno

….why? What did I ever do to WCW? I watched Nitro through 2000. Why are they doing this to me? Disco starts off with a neckbreaker so Bagwell hits the floor. Basic stuff to start here as Disco dances after every move he hits. Disco is the evil one here. Buff loads up the Blockbuster but Disco hits the floor. This is a rematch from Nitro which Bagwell won. Then why is it happening again?

They stall even more and work on the arm until Disco speeds things up and hits a clothesline to take over. Surprising amount of offense here from him. Disco goes up top and dances before hitting a middle rope elbow for two. He tries it again but Buff moves and takes over. Bagwell loads up the Blockbuster but Disco knocks him to the floor. Stunner (Last Dance, Disco’s finisher) hits on the floor but he doesn’t throw Buff back in. The Macarena Piledriver (exactly what it sounds like) is countered and Buff hammers him down. Blockbuster ends this clean.

Rating: D. Technically this was fine, but why in the world was this on PPV? It has to do with Piper giving the young guys a chance, but it’s not like that means anything for reasons you’ll see later on. Also, Bagwell is FAR better as a face than as a heel. He has some solid natural charisma, but they turned him heel so many times that it stopped meaning anything at all.

Recap of the Rednecks vs. the Rap Guys. It’s your standard culture clash feud and since it’s WCW, they missed the point of being a southern company and country being popular because they’re not that smart.

DJ Ran, a DJ who would shout and ask where the loudest section of the arena was, shouts and asks where the loudest section of the arena is. He brings out Master P and his No Limit Soldiers.

Konnan/Rey Mysterio vs. Curt Hennig/Bobby Duncum Jr.

Here’s another brilliant WCW moment for you: the Rednecks (officially named the West Texas Rednecks) had a song they performed themselves called Rap Is Crap. Being a southern company, it actually got on a few radio stations in Dixie and was requested a few times. Cool, free publicity right?

Now a smart company would release it as a single, maybe make a few dollars and possibly turn the Rednecks face right? Well since it’s WCW, they sent the radio stations cease and desist letters for using their material without permission. Vince may be crazy and not get it a lot of the time, but you know he’s know how to capitalize on something like that.

Anyway, Rey is Cruiserweight Champion and he and Konnan come out in gas masks. Konnan and Rey clear the ring quickly and Master P slaps Hennig in the back of the head. Konnan and Duncum start us off and it’s off to Rey quickly. He speeds things up but jumps into a backbreaker. Powerbomb brings in Hennig. Rey gets beaten down and I think we’re already into the middle of the match.

Konnan tries to come in but it allows for double teaming on the outside. Rey goes into the barricade and is in trouble. We keep looking at Master P to try desperately to validate paying him. SWEET standing dropkick takes Rey down. After a long beating, Konnan comes in but the referee missed the tag. The beating continues and Rey tries an Asai moonsault which doesn’t work.

Rey finally takes the leg out and there’s the tag to Konnan. Things break down and Hennig messes something up in the corner. I think it was miscommunication or something but it wasn’t all that bad. Bronco Buster hits him (called the Rough Rider here) and Konnan is down on the floor. Barry Windham runs out but one of the No Limit Soldiers runs in and hits Duncum for the pin for Rey.

Rating: C-. Again technically fine, but it would set up more of this feud later. Again though, they had no idea what the face/heel dynamic was supposed to be here and it didn’t really work at all. The match itself was ok, but I’m still not sure why this was on PPV. I’ve watched a little over an hour of this show and nothing at all has jumped out as being anything beyond a Nitro match.

Big pullapart brawl follows and security (one of them being future Natural Born Thriller Reno) breaks it up. Rey gets hogtied in the ring.

Ernest Miller vs. Scott Norton

This isn’t even good enough for Nitro. Apparently it is as this is the fourth or fifth match in a feud. Norton won a bunch to start and then Miller hit him with a crowbar to get the win. And never mind as for some reason, Horace Freaking Hogan comes out and says that since Cat (Miller) hit him on Monday also, Horace, who is in the NWO, gets the shot.

Ernest Miller vs. Horace Hogan

Yes, this match is actually happening. Horace is Hogan’s nephew and a decent looking power guy. He takes over to start but Miller gets in a kick to the face to take over. Now he stands around. Horace gets sent to the floor and Sonny Onoo kicks him a few times. The crowd is DEAD. Horace takes him down with a big boot and a splash gets two. Miller gets dumped to the floor where Onoo loads up the red shoe out of a briefcase. A superkick with it ends this.

Rating: F. Horace Hogan was on a PPV. I don’t think I need to explain why this is a failure.

We’re an hour and twenty minutes into this show and the best match has been the tag match which wasn’t even good enough to be a midcard match on a house show.

We recap Flair vs. Piper which is for the Presidency of the Company. Flair ran the company but the power went to his head so somehow Piper got a match for control of the company. They had this match last month and in some big mess, Piper got control. Even the Horsemen turned on Flair during this.

Ric Flair vs. Roddy Piper

Flair has Anderson and Asya with him. She’s a big bodybuilder and freakish looking and spells her name with a Y instead of an A. Get the joke? They trade chops in the corner and Flair is in trouble early. Piper pounds him down in the corner using his old man punches. Flair Flop and here are more chops. Randy Anderson (referee) blocks a punch and Flair still can’t take over.

Flair bails to the floor and this is going nowhere. Piper punches him down again but a low blow stops him. Arn cheats on the floor and there’s another low blow. Flair’s trunks get pulled down which Tony calls memorable. I call it old hat. Flair gets slammed off the top and Arn gets decked on the floor. A pretty bad looking sunset flip gets two. Off to a sleeper but Flair shoves him off. He pulls out a foreign object and down goes Piper. It gets two and here’s the Figure Four with Arn helping. Cue Bagwell for the save and Flair wins by DQ to become president again.

Rating: D-. Awful match as you would expect from two guys who are combined about 9,000 years old. No idea why they thought these two were the right idea instead of, I don’t know, having Bagwell and someone else as a surrogate for both guys to put the focus on them. That would make sense though and might get someone new up the card and we can’t have that.

Bagwell beats up Flair until Piper turns on him and sides with Flair and Anderson. Piper would become Vice President out of all this.

DJ Ran yells some more. Seriously, why does this guy exist?

We recap Rick Steiner vs. Sting. Tank Abbott is involved in this somehow. They had a cage match and Sting got beaten down by both guys.

Rick Steiner vs. Sting

Steiner is TV Champion and I have no idea if this is for the title or not. Nope it’s non-title. Also it’s No DQ and Falls Count Anywhere. This is new apparently. The interesting thing to do in Steiner matches here are to see how long he’ll actually sell a move for. If it’s over two seconds, he’s feeling generous. Steiner pounds him down but Sting comes back with a dropkick as they go to the floor.

Steiner hammers him some more, this time with a chair. They throw drinks at each other and Sting misses the Splash against the railing as is his custom. Piledriver on the floor gets two. Release German gets two back in the ring. Sting fights back and hits a Vader Bomb. The crowd is DEAD. Big top rope splash gets almost no reaction for two. And since Steiner has done enough, here’s a rest hold. Sting escapes and hits the Splash in the corner. There’s another and Sting hooks the Deathlock but Steiner goes to the ropes.

They head to the floor and it’s all about to fall apart. They fight up to the web location and into the back. The booing commences and Tank Abbott pops up with a towel to choke Sting. And here’s Scott Steiner RELEASING DOEBERMANS AND A ROTTEWEILER ON STING. The camera goes all weird like it’s in a bad horror movie. The dogs jump Sting and this is clearly edited because Scott Steiner is in a different place than he was about two seconds earlier.

Rating: Agoobwa. Yeah, I had to bust that out again. We just saw badly edited footage of dogs attacking Sting. My goodness. This company DESERVED to die. By the way, if you’ve ever been curious as to what I mean when I say something insults my intelligence as a wrestling fan, this is a fine example.

The Steiners come out and demand the referee declare Rick the winner. Whatever man. Oh and they’re both NWO. Great.

We recap the tag title situation. Bigelow/Page beat up Saturn/Raven, the tag champions. Kanyon had to replace Raven but got beaten down also. Page and Bigelow won the belts with ease. Flair, crooked and insane, offered to hook up with Benoit to win the titles. Flair walked out on him and Saturn came out to replace him and they won the titles in a rematch on Thursday. Kanyon joined Page/Bigelow and tonight the Triad gets their rematch.

That’s such backwards booking it makes my head hurt. I’m going to spoil this for you: the Triad gets the titles back here. This takes away the surprise of the match tonight. Now it’s 3-2 against the champions so they’re already against big odds. Instead of having Kanyon join them here where they win the titles, we blow the surprise early and make things less surprising an entertaining as a result. Nice job WCW.

Tag Titles: Chris Benoit/Perry Saturn vs. Diamond Dallas Page/Kanyon

Perry and Chris come out to Malenko’s music for some reason. We’re told Sting is fine from the BIG DOG ATTACK. Benoit vs. Kanyon gets us going. Chris clears the ring and the partners both get tags. The champs clear the ring again but go after Bigelow to let Team Jersey take over. The champs hit almost stereo belly to belly overheads to get control back and it’s officially Page vs. Benoit now.

Page beats him down and it’s off to Kanyon who goes to the middle rope, puts his leg on Benoit’s head, and drives him down with a Fameasser for two. Back to Page and Benoit gets a single suplex for two. Page tries the Helicopter Bomb but it’s more like a regular one instead. A Kanyon moonsault misses and here’s Saturn. He cleans house and hits a frog splash on Kanyon for two.

Saturn gets beaten down again by some good old fashioned double teaming. He tries a sunset flip but Kanyon makes a blind tag and grabs the head of Saturn, exposing Saturn’s back. Page comes in and decks him to take over. Kanyon was freaking smart in the ring man. The beating continues for awhile but Page misses a dive and crotches himself on the top buckle.

That allows for a double tag to bring in Kanyon and Benoit with the crazy Canadian going cracy on the challengers. Kanyon REALLY loudly calls for a suplex where he lands behind Benoit and he does just that. He gets rammed into Bigelow though and Rolling Germans get two. A dragon suplex gets a VERY close two. Benoit hits the Swan Dive as Saturn kind of falls off the top into a Diamond Cutter. Cue Malenko who pulls Saturn out for some reason. Crossface to Kanyon but here’s Bigelow to help with an elevated Cutter and the Triad wins the titles.

Rating: C+. Not bad here but the rematch where the Triad could trade in and out next month at the Bash at the Beach was a much better match. Still though, this was so far and away a better match than anything else all night that I’d rather watch it a dozen times than anything else here. Not bad, but they’ve had better matches.

We recap Nash vs. Savage. Savage snapped and painted Nash’s face with lipstick and makeup. Then there was the Hummer Driver ordeal and a bunch of mud. The Hummer Driver is here with Savage tonight.

WCW World Title: Kevin Nash vs. Randy Savage

Savage has three blondes with him: real life girlfriend Gorgeous George, Madusa and Miss Madness (Molly Holly). The big elbow has been unbanned. Well that’s good to know. Nash’s ribs are messed up. The champ (Nash) hammers him down and hooks the side slam but can’t follow up. Savage goes after the ribs and things slow WAY down. Savage was just a name at this point and wasn’t anywhere near his usual self in the ring.

If you weren’t paying attention, this is very dull stuff. It’s just Savage hitting him in the ribs to soften them up for an elbow attempt later. The girls keep cheating, including a missile dropkick from Molly. The elbow hits but it only gets two, mainly because we’re like 3 minutes into the match. Nash comes back with Snake Eyes and the big boot. Jackknife hits and the girls run in but it isn’t a DQ somehow. Then SID FREAKING VICIOUS returns from not being seen in mainstream wrestling in almost two years (he was in ECW for like 2 sips of coffee but I wouldn’t call that mainstream) to beat up Nash for the DQ.

Rating: F. If this was the main event of a show, I’d ask for my money back even if I didn’t pay a dime to get in, which was a common occurrence for a lot of the fans at this time. The Sid run-in was a legit shocker, but getting to that point was just dreadful. I have no idea who thought this was a good idea, but what do I know?

Overall Rating: -F. As in we’ve gone so low that we’ve went past Z into negative letters. This was HORRIBLE and easily one of the worst PPVs I’ve ever seen. Not only did the main event suck, the best match is just ok and ran longer than it needed to. Plus, the dogs man. That ranks right up there with the dumbest things I’ve ever seen in wrestling. Combining that with guys like Van Hammer and Brian Knobbs being on PPV and how in the world could this be anything but horrible?a

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Road Wild 1999
Date: August 14, 1999
Location: Sturgis, South Dakota
Attendance: 5,500
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Mike Tenay, Bobby Heenan

We’re back to South Dakota and the big biker rally (free tickets baby!) for the final one of these usually bad shows. The main event tonight is Hogan vs. Nash, title vs. career. Did I mention Nash was booking around this point? For a counterpoint to this, you might want to check out the Halloween Havoc review I just posted because it paints a nice contrast with Russo being the writer as opposed to Nash here. Let’s get to it.

The opening video is about Hogan vs. Nash and establishes the circumstances. It’s Hogan’s title and career vs. just Nash’s career. Oh well it’s not like the title means anything by this point anyway.

The announcers spend way too much time running down the card, which includes Dennis Rodman vs. Randy Savage in Savage’s final WCW match.

We recap the Cruiserweight six man which resulted in the formation of the Filthy Animals. They feuded with Vampiro and tie Insane Clown Posse because….well because someone had to I guess.

Vampiro/Insane Clown Posse vs. Rey Mysterio/Billy Kidman/Eddie Guerrero

They aren’t called the Filthy Animals yet and Rey is Cruiserweight Champion. Raven is here with the clowns too. Big brawl to start and the Animals take over with speed and talent. Eddie hits his slingshot headbutt and Vampiro is in trouble. Eddie and Vampiro speed things up and the ICP do their usual array of stomping. The announcers are pushing the band as hard as they can for cross promotional stuff and it’s not clicking at all. The bikers aren’t helping.

The Clowns beat on Eddie and I feel so sorry about him having to do this. Vampiro finally comes back in and Eddie is allowed to actually do something, climbing the ropes for a springboard rana which looked great. A Rock Bottom puts Eddie down for two. A superplex puts Shaggy down and it’s a double tag to bring in Rey and Jay. Everything breaks down and they head outside where Raven cheats, allowing Vampiro to hit the Nail in the Coffin on Rey.

Rey gets beaten down for awhile which is a sign of his greatness as he’s able to make guys even as bad as the Clowns look passable. Vampiro comes in with a release powerbomb which looked cool. Tony says Vampiro has a lot of strength. He does? Shaggy hits a powerslam and Rey is tossed to the floor again. The ring is up on a platform so the sound is a lot better for the crashes on the floor.

Raven, even the nutjob, yells at Rey but doesn’t hit him. It looks like he’s pretending to cry, which I guess is a mental game of some sort. Shaggy doesn’t cover because he’s an idiot and charges into the corner like the idiot that he is. Rey gets a boot up and brings in Kidman who cleans house. Everything breaks down and the Filthy Animals speed things way up. Eddie hits a huge dive onto Vampiro and Kidman pins Shaggy with the Shooting Star Press.

Rating: B-. Again, amazing what happens when you let talented guys have some time in a wrestling ring. The match was perfectly fine for an opener to get the crowd going. That’s what cruiserweights are for and with a stacked face team like that, you knew you were going to get something fun. Good stuff and already WAY better than Halloween Havoc would be.

We recap the tag title feud. The Jersey Triad (no not THAT Jersey Triad, although that would have been awesome) had the titles and could use the Freebird Rule, but that was changed so that it meant every match could be 3-2. Harlem Heat reunited to take them on and here’s the match where only two of the champions are allowed to team at once. Dusty Rhodes had taken over the championship committee from the crooked Flair so the Freebird Rule was switched to just a regular version of it.

Tag Titles: Jersey Triad vs. Harlem Heat

It’s Kanyon and Bigelow here. Bigelow’s belt falls off as he comes out because he’s fat. Big brawl to start and they botch something. I’m really surprised that Bigelow, who looks like a biker, is getting booed here at a biker rally. Ray vs. Kanyon finally gets us started. The announcers are actually breaking the match down and talking about how the Heat are rusty but are brothers so they work together naturally. See how much better it works when you talk about the match?

Stevie slams both of them and the Triad chills on the floor for a bit. Kanyon comes in and wants Booker so here we go again. We talk about Charles Robinson being a biased referee which again pertains to the match. I don’t know how to handle this. They remedy themselves by talking about the main event a bit as this match is going nowhere. The reason would be that the Triad is chilling on the floor.

Ok so it’s Stevie vs. Bigelow now. Off to Kanyon after Bigelow takes him down after some, shall we say, really boring stuff. Time for a chinlock as we’re waiting on the hot tag to Booker so we can get to the ending of the match. The champions set for a spike…something (piledriver I think) but Stevie slingshots Kanyon into Bigelow for a crotching. Here’s Booker to clean house but the Axe Kick is broken up. Everything breaks down and here’s DDP for interference. He accidentally rams into Bigelow though and a missile dropkick by Booker gives the Heat their 8th tag titles.

Rating: D+. Not the worst tag match I’ve ever seen but it could have been a lot better. Kanyon and Bigelow were probably the weakest combination they could have thrown out there, but Page has a singles match later in the show. The Heat would hold the titles for 8 days so it’s not like this was any huge title reign or switch.

We recap the West Texas Rednecks vs. The Revolution which is really just an extension of a short feud between Saturn and Hennig. It turned into a big gang war.

West Texas Rednecks vs. The Revolution

It’s Hennig/Barry Windham/Bobby Duncum Jr. vs. Saturn/Douglas/Malenko. What is with all the tag matches so far tonight? Big brawl to start and the Revolution clears the ring. Officially we start with Windham vs. Malenko but Saturn and Douglas come in quickly off two tags. Saturn chops away at Duncum and then it’s back to Windham. Saturn gets beaten down and my mind wanders a bit due to boredom.

Off to Dean who does a little something and then it’s back to Douglas who can’t quite get the Pittsburgh Plunge. Now it’s his turn to get beaten down and this match is going nowhere. Duncum gets a shoulderbrekaer for two. There’s nothing to talk about in this match at all. It’s been about two minutes since I last typed anything. Saturn comes in and everything breaks down. Malenko hooks Hennig in the Cloverleaf but Barry’s brother Kendall makes the save. Death Valley Driver on Duncum ends this.

Rating: D+. Well that match existed. There’s nothing else to say about it other than that: it happened. It wasn’t really good, it wasn’t really bad, but it happened. There wasn’t really a story here other than “we don’t like each other” which isn’t exactly something that’s going to carry a match. Next.

We recap Miller vs. Bagwell. Miller said he could dance, Bagwell imitated him, Bagwell stole his shoes, let’s have a match.

Ernest Miller vs. Buff Bagwell

Miller is a heel with Sonny Onoo managing him. Both guys say stuff before the match. I don’t particularly care, so I don’t bother listening. Feeling out process to start and Cat poses a lot. The fans chant pussy cat which is about as interesting as this is going to get isn’t it? We’re almost three minutes in and NOTHING has happened. Bagwell gets things going so Cat hits him low right in front of the referee but it’s not a DQ for no apparent reason.

Miller takes over and Sonny keeps cheating. As annoying as he was, Sonny at least knew how to cheat, which is a lost art anyway. Time for a chinlock and Tony thankfully talks about Hogan vs. Nash. Buff hits a suplex to put both guys down. END THIS ALREADY! Buff starts his comeback and gets a crossbody for two. Sonny gets on the apron with a briefcase and Cat is rammed into it so Bagwell can badly mess up a rollup for the pin.

Rating: F. Whoever thought this deserved eight minutes should have a horse attached to all of their limbs while someone tells the horses to run as fast as they can. Or even worse, made to watch this match. Terribly boring and I can think of a total of zero reasons as to why this was on PPV.

Miller beats him up post match.

We recap Page vs. Benoit. Benoit won the US Title recently and Page has been saying that Benoit wasn’t ready. Mama was mentioned and IT’S ON!

US Title: Chris Benoit vs. Diamond Dallas Page

Benoit won the title off the joke of David Flair so this is the first decent PPV title defense in months. Page apologizes to Benoit’s mother before the match but implies….some rather mean things about her personal life. The belt is the old US Title design but it looks different for some reason, almost like a replica. This is No DQ. Benoit immediately kicks him low and the beating is on. Page tries the helicopter bomb (love that move) but Benoit counters and sends him to the floor. Baseball slide gives him control and they head to the floor, as in the part below the platform.

Back to the ring and Page tries a German. Benoit is like dude….no. Page settles for a belly to belly for two and takes over. He hits something like a hybrid F5 and Wasteland for a delayed two. Page works on the ribs and they exchange quick pin attempts. Gorgeous spinebuster gets two. Page beats away for a long time and the No DQ aspect hasn’t meant much at all yet.

They go to the corner where Benoit gets caught in the Tree of Woe. Page finally gets a little violent, whipping his ribs with his belt. Time for some choking with the belt, including Page putting Benoit on his shoulders to hang him. Benoit uses the ropes to escape and whips Page. Three Rolling Germans get two.

He loads up the Swan Dive but Kanyon comes in for the save. The Revolution is in the back watching but doesn’t come in. Page is sent into Kanyon which gets two for Benoit. Bigelow runs out and hits a top rope splash for two on Benoit. Bigelow is sent into Kanyon (bad match for him) and Bigelow accidentally hits Page low. The Swan Dive keeps the belt in Canada.

Rating: C+. Not exactly a huge brawl but they pushed Benoit pretty strong here. This would have been a good push if Sid hadn’t killed Benoit dead for the title the next month and the following month Rick Steiner hadn’t beaten Benoit for the TV Title, but that’s WCW for you. No wonder Benoit bailed. I can’t say I wouldn’t have done the same.

We give away a motorcycle.

We recap Sting vs. Sid. It’s basically Sid is on a monster heel push and says he’ll be the Millennium Man so he’s beating up everyone in the company and tonight’s it’s Sting’s turn. Goldberg and Rick Steiner were involved also and are in a match later.

Sting vs. Sid Vicious

Sid stalls to start and it’s power vs. speed here. That’s kind of different as Sting is usually a power guy. Sid gets knocked to the floor and we stall some more. Sting knocks him into the crowd a few times. This is really just gussied up stalling. Back inside and the Stinger Splash misses to give Sid a chance. Tony explains that the guys in this match want to pin each other. I know WCW fans weren’t the smartest in the world but come on now.

Off to a chinlock which isn’t the most interesting thing in the world. I mention this because we’re in front of about 5,000 drunk bikers, so take a guess as to how they react to it. Out to the floor now for a change of pace. My goodness there are some ugly people at this show. Time now for another chinlock and Sting is kind of snuggling up to Sid’s crotch. Well there goes my childhood hero.

Sid channels his inner Flair for no apparent reason and goes up, only to get slammed down. It doesn’t really work as Sid trips Sting (as in puts his leg out so that Sting falls over it) to take over again. Sid wouldn’t be so boring if he wasn’t so slow. I mean he waits FOREVER to do any move he uses. For absolutely no apparent reason Sid goes up again and a superplex puts him down. Two Stinger Splashes have Sid in trouble but he catches the third in the chokeslam for the clean pin.

Rating: D+. Boring match but Sid’s push was pretty solid around this time. You know, until he turned face for no real apparent reason and shattered his leg and ended his career for like five years. Not much to see here though but it’s cool to see a clean ending, given what was coming in just a few months for this company.

We recap Goldberg vs. Rick Steiner which is really just setting up another victim for Goldie as we built to Sid vs. Goldberg at Havoc.

Rick Steiner vs. Goldberg

The announcers try to push Steiner as having a chance here. That’s hilarious. Well not really because that means I’d be laughing, which I’m not. They’ve changed Goldberg’s song to a Megadeath one now too because the original just didn’t work anymore I guess. You know, probably the most famous song in WCW not associated with the NWO. The fans chant for him still so maybe there’s not much to it.

They go straight to the corner and Goldberg runs him over. Steiner tries a jumping back elbow and he looks like a helicopter. A superkick puts Rick down and Heenan says Goldberg is a once in a lifetime find. Naturally WCW messed him up and made him lose to Nash but whatever. Steiner goes after the knee, which is weak or something from what I can figure out.

He wraps the knee brace around his fist to pound on Goldberg which isn’t a DQ either. Tony actually explains it because it’s not a foreign object. Why isn’t that the case more often? It makes sense, but you never hear that explanation. Steiner hammers on the knee and this is going to be short. You can feel it. Belly to belly gets two. What was called a DDT (it looked awful and was clear that Goldberg was falling forward instead of Rick pulling him, worst I’ve EVER seen) gets the same. And then Goldberg is tired of getting beaten on so he makes his comeback and hits the finishers for the pin. And that’s that.

Rating: D. I see no reason as to why this wasn’t on PPV. It’s less than six minutes and Goldberg seemingly got bored before firing back and hitting his finishing sequence for the pin. Not much to see here and it was a pretty boring match. Goldberg would hurt his arm at the beginning of the year so it’s not like this went anywhere. He would feud with Bret (not on this card) to end the year.

We recap Dennis Rodman vs. Savage and yes, this is really happening. Savage promises that Gorgeous George will be here and protected by the driver of the Hummer. See Bash at the Beach 99 for an explanation of that one which I’m not getting into.

Randy Savage vs. Dennis Rodman

Rodman comes out in a boxing robe. This would be Savage’s last match until he was at the second monthly TNA PPV. Rodman runs his mouth a bit first and yep he’s wasted. They go to the floor immediately and I’m assuming this is No DQ or hardcore or something. The announcers probably hurt themselves diving on the floor to suck Rodman off for using bare bones offense.

A Russian Legsweep gets a HUGE reaction from the announcers as they marvel over his skills. And there goes the referee for no apparent reason but Rodman hit him anyway. Not that it matters because a second one comes in but whatever. Schiavone thinks that due to some of the stuff Rodman has done that Savage, one of the best EVER, might respect him now. Give me a break.

Now Savage beats up a WCW.com photographer so he can hit Rodman with a camera for two. Down goes referee #2 and the third one goes down as soon as he hits the ring. Rodman knocks Savage to the floor, making him the second consecutive guy to land on the .com guy in a row. They fight up the ramp and I use that term loosely. Actually I use both terms loosely as it’s designed to look like a road.

Savage is sent into the trash as they go behind the set. We get to the infamous spot of the match where Rodman is thrown into a Porta-Potty which is tipped over. They go back to the ring and Rodman jumps off the middle rope to take out the fourth referee. Here’s Gorgeous George (sans bodyguard) as Rodman cuddles Savage. Oh ok so that was a sleeper. George hands Savage a chain then hits Rodman low. A chain shot ends this.

Rating: F. Just…no. You can figure out the reasons why it gets this rating on your own I believe.

We recap Hogan vs. Nash which is title/career vs. career. Hogan turned face again recently before this so it’s not like there’s any real secret to this one.

WCW World Title: Kevin Nash vs. Hulk Hogan

The announcers try to push this as the biggest match ever and do it in the quiet voices so you know they’re serious. The fans are completely behind Hogan which I think everyone expected to be the case, which probably has something to do with the yellow and red coming back. Nash shoves him around until Hulk takes off the bandana to show he’s serious. Nothing to talk about so far.

Nash grabs a headlock as the announcers talk about how great they are. At least it’s the main event and an actual big showdown for that for once. I’m sorry but I can’t buy Jarrett vs. DDP as the biggest match ever. Hogan shoves him to the floor and we stall a bit. Time for a test of strength and Hogan goes to one knee. Of course the cheering brings him back up and Nash hits a knee to the stomach to take over.

We get to the regular match now as Nash uses his power game to keep Hogan down. There really isn’t anything special to mention here as it’s a Hogan 80s match all over again. The big man beats them down, the finisher hits, Hogan comes back. I have a feeling I could not type anything for about five minutes and that would be accurate. Hogan makes a brief comeback with ten punches in the corner but Nash takes over again soon. I’m right as Nash beats him down, hits the Jackknife for two, Hogan Hulks Up and the leg drop gives Nash a few months off. Oh and Hogan was busted.

Rating: D. It’s a Hogan vs. a monster match and that’s all well and good….in 1986. The problem is that this is 1999 and therefore not exactly a cutting edge match. It was about 12 minutes long and there’s nothing we haven’t seen a few hundred times before. You would think for Hogan vs. Nash, one of the few mega main events they had left that they would give it more than this but whatever.

Overall Rating: D. The show is bad, but it’s the boring kind of bad which is a lot worse than bad bad. The problem here is that there’s really nothing to make fun of. It just keeps going and there’s nothing interesting at all about it. These shows were so dull in 1999 that it’s no wonder they died for all intents and purposes by the time Russo took over. Nothing to see here AT ALL.

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Halloween Havoc 1999
Date: October 24, 1999
Location: MGM Garden Arena, Las Vegas, Nevada
Attendance: 8,464
Commentators: Bobby Heenan, Tony Schiavone

This is the first show of the Russo Era in WCW. Therefore, the show is a total mess and the ending is as stupid as you could ask for. This should be an interesting experiment because we’re going to look at one of the last PPVs before Russo took over and the first one after he took over. Either way, I’m not expecting this to work all that well. Let’s get to it.

The opening video is about the double main event: Goldberg vs. Sid and Sting vs. Hogan for the US and World Titles respectively. Shenanigans would ensue. Sting is something like a heel while Hogan is the face, of course.

Rey Mysterio is injured and can’t compete tonight. Therefore, Mysterio and Konnan are stripped of the titles so it’ll be a triple threat tag team hardcore match with Harlem Heat vs. Brian Knobbs/Hugh Morrus vs. Kidman/Konnan. You know, because we couldn’t just sub Kidman into the match in Rey’s place.

The announcers run down the card.

Cruiserweight Title: Disco Inferno vs. Lash Leroux

Disco is champion coming in. The massive demon holding the massive pumpkin is always cool to see for the set. It’s shaking here (intentionally) which makes it look even better. Disco takes over to start and Lash isn’t really able to fight back. The ring is really big looking by comparison to the modern WWE one. Out to the floor and Lash goes into the post. He finally gets something going with a combination belly to belly/powerslam for two.

Lash grabs a sleeper and this match is really nothing special. Disco sends him over the top but Lash hangs on. Disco gets the first shot in anyway but the Last Dance (Stunner) misses. A neckbreaker, a middle rope axe handle and a piledriver all get two for the champion. Lash grabs a blue thunder driver (his move according to Tony) for two. They botch…something involving a clothesline and the Last Dance keeps the title on Disco.

Rating: D. It’s passable but this probably belonged on Nitro more than anything else. They weren’t clicking at all and it was really hurting things. Lash wasn’t anything special but he got a lot better once they put him into the MIA. Disco was always around and had a much better career than he’s remembered for. Pretty sloppy match though.

Lash beats up Disco post match to LOUD booing.

Benoit and Malenko got here earlier and Saturn yelled at them. The two of them are quitting the Revolution.

Harlem Heat says they’ll get the titles back after they lost them on Monday.

Tag Titles: Konnan/Billy Kidman vs. Harlem Heat vs. Hugh Morrus/Brian Knobbs

Morrus/Knobbs are the First Family and are managed by Hart. This is under hardcore rules and there are two referees. Remember that. Kidman and Konnan have the belts and wear them out despite not being champions. They’re thieves apparently and have stolen Flair’s socks. The first shot of the match is Knobbs hitting Ray with a trashcan and the brawl begins.

Yep it’s a big mess. Booker throws Knobbs into the first row and the cameramen can’t keep up with everything. This is a case where split screen would be a good idea. The First Family screws up a bit and Morrus takes a trashcan shot. Jimmy gets caught in the ring and runs as Booker stalks him. Knobbs makes the save, pelting a trashcan at him. I don’t mind it as much when you can get the pin out there.

Knobbs is double teamed by the Heat who send him through a casket. Kidman is dropped on a chair as the Heat beat up Knobbs in the back. Scratch that as the Heat screw up and it’s table time back in the arena. Morrus hits his moonsault on Konnan through the table. We cut to the back to see Stevie hit Knobbs with a mummy and Booker gets the pin. 26 seconds later, Kidman pins Morrus (via something we totally miss) and we have a controversy. Not really, but it’s WCW so logic and the laws of time and space take a backseat to Russo’s brain.

Rating: F. This wasn’t wrestling. This was proof that the Hardcore matches in WWF had some logic and thinking behind them. Let that sink in for a few seconds. This was junk and the “controversy” was really stupid because there were two referees and Harlem Heat clearly got the pin far earlier. Kidman and Konnan would win the titles the next night, making this whole thing totally pointless.

The Flairs arrive and Ric has a crowbar.

Here’s DDP and my goodness Kimberly was hot. Page is a heel here and has been for awhile I think. Kimberly makes fun of Flair for being a 14 time spanker of her. I don’t like where this is going. Sex jokes are made and it’s Russo-Vision all over. Page runs down Vegas and talks about Kimberly pretending to seduce David Flair. More sex jokes and this is going nowhere. Page offers a strap match against Flair who he may or may not have had a match with already. Apparently they had one already. Depending on how you interpreted it, it could have meant Page wanted a handjob from Flair.

Goldberg is looking for Sid.

The Filthy Animals aren’t happy with Tenay asking about Konnan. Eddie has a stolen Rolex from Flair and implies he has a stolen phone.

Perry Saturn vs. Eddie Guerrero

This is Revolution vs. Filthy Animals. Eddie leaves the watch with Heenan because he doesn’t trust Tony. I have no idea who the faces and heels are here. Your usual fast paced start from these two with Eddie taking out Perry’s knee to send him to the floor. Tony asks Heenan who the leader of the Filthy Animals is. Heenan: “I think it’s Kidman, but it might be Konnan, but it’s probably Mysterio.” Tony: “I think it’s Eddie Guerrero.” Heenan: “I was just going to say that.”

The steps are used outside by Eddie but he gets sent into them according to wrestling law #1. Back in the ring Saturn takes over and works on the arm. Saturn busts out a bunch of freaky holds on the arm and then hits a t-bone for two. Now Saturn is working on the knee. Pick something dude. Eddie works the arm himself to really get the people into this. Heenan has slipped the watch into his pocket.

Perry does the British Bulldog/Shawn Michaels short arm scissors counter and hits a Lionsault for two. Brainbuster hits for Eddie but the Frog Splash misses. They go to the corner and Eddie gets crotched, allowing Saturn to hit a belly to belly superplex (kind of) for a very close two. The crowd doesn’t care but this has been a pretty good match. Saturn tries a Razor’s Edge from the top but Eddie rolls though and snaps off a superplex. And never mind because here’s Flair with the crowbar for the DQ. Russo strikes again.

Rating: C+. The middle part was really fun but the opening and ending sucked. The opening can be blamed on the two of them but the ending was all on the booker. There’s no reason at all to have this end in a DQ win for Eddie. Have that happen post match, not as the ending. Naturally though we can’t have a clean win, which I think played a lot into the Radicalz’s departure.

Kidman and Torrie can’t make a save so Flair kisses her. She looks GREAT here. Flair comes back and gets his watch.

Goldberg destroys Sid in the back and Sid is busted open but fine other than that.

Here’s Buff Bagwell to talk and he calls out Jeff Jarrett. Why? No idea but I guess they’re feuding. Here’s Jeff with the guitar but he drops it so the brawl can begin. Lex comes out for the save…and turns on Buff. Or was it by mistake? Why is this happening again? Something about Liz I think, but the announcers can’t just explain anything so it doesn’t matter.

Sid gets stitched up but throws the doctor out.

Eddie has a phone from somewhere and wants to know how Rey is. He tells Rey to get back here because they have business to take care of.

Brad Armstrong vs. Berlyn

Berlyn is Alex Wright as a crazy German kind of Neo-Nazi. Armstrong is a career jobber that wore an American jacket for awhile. Berlyn dominates to start so the fans chant USA. Big powerbomb puts Brad down as does a spinwheel kick. Things speed up a bit and Armstrong hits a cross body for two. We talk about the Filthy Animals because there’s no real point to this match. Then of course we make this stupider by having Berlyn go for his neckbreaker but Armstrong grabs the rope. Berlyn knocks himself out enough for Brad to get the pin.

Rating: F+. Here lies Berlyn. This ended any credibility that his character had and he would be back to Alex Wright in a few months. This was horribly stupid and was clearly meant for a shock instead of being an impressive win. Armstrong got treated like a jobber the entire time until the last bit. I see no point to that and it was stupid.

Flair says he slept with Kimberly and will sleep with Torrie. Oh and WOO a lot. He’s all fired up for this and tells the Animals to bring it on.

TV Title: Chris Benoit vs. Rick Steiner

Benoit is champion coming in. This is the main event of the last two Nitros I’ve done too. Steiner immediately stalls on the floor and catches Benoit when the Canadian chases him. Steiner Line and a suplex puts Benoit down for two. Benoit fights back and hits a superplex but Steiner no sells that too. A Crossface attempt is avoided and we head to the floor. Benoit hits a suicide dive and Steiner is up in seconds.

Steiner keeps stalling every time Benoit gets anything going. There’s a kick to the balls and Steiner takes over with a rest hold to the leg. Time for a chinlock because Steiner has already wrestled like 6 minutes. Steiner uses various boring power moves as Benoit sells like a master for him. The American hits two Germans on the Canadian for two. Make that three which is all Steiner seems to be able to do. It must run in the family.

A suplex is countered into a DDT by Benoit to finally give him a breather. Not that Steiner sells it or anything. A flying shoulder block and Steiner is up first again. Three Rolling Germans get two and Steiner won’t freaking stay down. There goes the referee and Steiner brings in a chair which goes into Steiner’s face but he throws it at Benoit during a Swan Dive attempt. Malenko comes in and turns on Benoit by hitting him with the chair. That’s enough for the pin and the title for Steiner.

Rating: D. Rick Steiner messes up almost every match he’s in. What can Benoit do when Steiner won’t stay down off ANYTHING Benoit hits him with? This is one of those great examples of why Benoit left. Why should he stick around here when he’s getting jobbed out to Sid for the US Title a few months earlier (Sid wouldn’t sell) and now to another washed up old guy who won’t sell? The TV Title would be around for a little over another month as Steiner would drop it to Scott Hall and Hall would literally throw the title away.

Malenko hugs Saturn in the aisle.

Bret says he has a bad leg but he’s going to fight tonight anyway.

Total Package vs. Bret Hart

Bret dominates to start and Luger can’t get anything going at all. As they fight to the floor for the second time, Liz trips Bret which doesn’t work at all. Lex finally takes over with more generic offense. These old guys really can’t do much but why should they? They’re making a fortune already. Bret grabs a Russian legsweep for two. Luger’s official name here is Lex Luger but you get the idea.

Bret keeps firing off and we hear about Goldberg and Sid some more. Here are the Five Moves of Doom by Hart and he loads up the Sharpshooter, but Lex pokes him in the eye. Someone tries a hiptoss and they tumble to the floor. Back in and Bret’s knee is almost done. Lex goes after the leg, works on it for about 10 seconds and hooks a half crab for the clean tap out. Yes, in 1999 Lex Luger got a clean submission win over Bret Hart.

Rating: D-. This match sucked and the only thing that keeps it from failing is how Liz looked in that dress with her implants. I can’t comprehend the booking of this show but believe me: it’s going to get worse. It’s not like Luger meant anything at this point, so let’s put him over Bret freaking Hart. Makes sense.

Goldberg points to the blood on the floor that came from Sid. That’s just a preview for later.

Here’s Madusa in a bikini to promote Nitro Perfume. She freaks out over it, pours the perfume on Bobby, curses a lot, and leaves. On PPV people. On PPV.

We recap Sting vs. Hogan which is this whole “who can you trust” stuff which was done forever in 95 and no one cared. This is a rematch from some show that they don’t bother telling us.

WCW World Title: Hulk Hogan vs. Sting

And there’s no Hogan. The music plays for like two minutes and he’s not here. Here’s Sting, the champion, instead. Here’s Hogan’s music again and still no one comes out. He finally comes out in street clothes and yes, this is where they’re going. Hogan whispers in Sting’s ear and lays down. Bell, pin, bell, match over. Yes, they did this before Bash at the Beach 2000.

No mention of it after that (yet) and it’s on to the next match.

US Title: Sid Vicious vs. Goldberg

Sid is champion and is taped up from earlier in the night. Goldberg does his walk from the back with cops around him. The cops come into the arena which they never do, and the Outsiders jump Goldberg during the entrance. Sid jumps him in the aisle but Goldberg fights back and busts him open again. This is all on the floor so far. They’re in the ring now and it’s still a brawl. To be fair though that’s all it needs to be.

Off to a camel clutch by Sid and the fans chant for the bald one. Goldberg fights out of that and slams Sid for two. Sid is down on his knees and almost begging for mercy but he keep staring up at Goldberg. He’s up to his feet now but Goldberg just keeps pounding him down. Sid is a bloody mess. He keeps trying to fight but goes down almost every time. They’re really pushing Sid as a face here which I don’t think is the idea. Sid tries to walk and falls to his knees and it’s stopped. Goldberg wins the title.

Rating: D. Yes, that’s seriously the whole thing. This was built up almost since the beginning of the year and a six minute total domination by Goldberg is what we end it with. The Outsiders wound up being totally worthless as Goldberg shrugged the attack off and they just left. Nothing to see here, as will be common for Russo.

Sid is back up and Rick Steiner tries to hold him back. I really hope this was a Sid face turn because it came off like one. Sid starts to walk back to the ring after having the blood wiped away but ultimately he turns around and goes to the back. Yeah that was a face turn.

Goldberg would lose the title to Hart the next night.

We get a clip from Nitro of the Kimberly/Flair thing. It was supposed to be David but it wound up being Ric.

Sting is in the ring now and says he didn’t come here for a night off, so he issues an open challenge.

Ric Flair vs. Diamond Dallas Page

It’s a strap match but you just win by pin. Page tries to stall but only can do that so much with the strap aspect. Flair slugs him down in the corner and pulls him into the post shoulder first. They head back towards the entrance and into the crowd. They slug it out among the fans for a bit and we’re just killing time in this effort to be like ECW and WWF. Back to ringside and Flair kisses Kimberly.

Page hammers him down and Flair is busted of course. I don’t think they’ve been in the ring more than 30 seconds so far. Flair is thrown onto the table and takes a hard beating. We go into the ring for a change and Flair takes over. He whips Page like he stole something and chops away in the corner after tying Page up like a smart man. There’s the knee drop and Kimberly’s rocking rack is worried.

Flair starts in on the leg and ties the strap around Page’s throat. With Page almost choked out, Ric hooks in the Figure Four. That’s really pretty smart when you think about it. Page really isn’t all that good at selling this hold. Page grabs the rope and Flair pounds him down again. A low blow out of nowhere changes things and Page grabs a Diamond Cutter with the strap around Flair’s throat. I’m about 99% sure the ending is botched as Flair lifts his leg to put it on the rope but misses. The referee almost stopped but calls it a pin anyway.

Rating: C. Pretty fun fight but the ending (amazing isn’t it) messes things up again. Also, was there really a reason for this to be a strap match? If there was I certainly don’t know what it was. That being said, it was a decent match but that basically means if you have talented guys in there, you get a decent match.

Post match David tries a save but that fails as well with Page standing tall. Tony says he’s never heard Flair scream in pain. He’s been around 16 years right? Flair goes out on a stretcher. He’s being taken out with about 14 minutes to go in the show and the Sting challenge to go by the way. This isn’t going to end well is it? As Flair is taken to the ambulance, the Filthy Animals jump the medics and steal the ambulance with Flair in it. If my memory is right, this resulted in Flair being buried in the desert. I can’t wait to get to the crazy days of Nitro.

With 9 minutes to go, here’s Sting for the challenge.

WCW World Title: Sting vs. Goldberg

Yep, that’s what they’re doing. Pay no attention to the fact that this could have been HUGE on PPV if they did it right, because we need to SHOCK people right? He doesn’t even bring the US Title with him because it doesn’t mean anything by this point. When Goldberg gets in the ring, we have seven minutes left. Tony has no idea if this is for the title or not. And Sting goes to the floor before the match starts. Six minutes left and the bell hasn’t rung yet, nor do we have a referee. There’s a referee and the bell rings with 5:36 in the show.

All Goldberg to start and he hammers Sting down to the floor. Still no official word on if this is for the title or not. Sting goes into the barricade and we’re almost out of time. Sting takes him down back in the ring and hits a top rope splash for two. He tries to spear Goldberg and that just ticks him off but the real spear misses in the corner. There’s the Splash and a second one. Make it three and Bill goes down. And never mind as he pops up, hits the spear and Jackhammer for the title. The match barely lasted three minutes. Screw rating this nonsense as the title was vacated the next night.

The announcers are STUNNED that the title has changed. Sting hits the referee post match, which was the reason for the title being vacated after it was given back to Sting since this was unsanctioned. There was a tournament which ended at Mayhem with Bret winning the title.

Overall Rating: F. I really have no idea how to feel about this show. So much happened on it and the pace was so fast (kind of) that you didn’t really have the chance to process what was going on. There were swerves, stuff like Hogan (never mentioned again for the rest of the show) and the really strange finishes which made you realize how bad it was, but it never stops going. That being said, it sucked and there’s no other way to put it. The lack of finishes, the stupid angles and all the swerves made this show horrible. No good matches at all and the world title match (version one) alone makes this a full on failure.

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Halloween Havoc 1995
Date: October 29, 1995
Location: Joe Louis Arena, Detroit, Michigan
Attendance: 13,000
Commentators: Bobby Heenan, Tony Schiavone

So we plow on through 1995 as I want to finish this year and get to the NWO stuff. Anyway this is a rather infamous show as we have a double main event: Hogan vs. The Giant for the WCW Title and Hogan vs. The Giant in monster trucks. Yeah I know what you’re thinking. Anyway, this is a show I remember kind of fondly from when I was seven. Now I’m 22 so let’s see how bad it really is. Also on here we have Sting and a freshly face Ric Flair vs. Arn Anderson and Brian Pillman, and we know that can’t go wrong at all right?

Also on the preshow, Paul Orndorff beat Renegade, the previously unstoppable machine, in about 80 seconds. Also we had three guys that had just recently signed with the company: Dean Malenko, Eddie Guerrero and Chris Benoit. Sadly enough this show is only 15 years ago and of the five men mentioned in this paragraph, Orndorff and Malenko are still alive. Eddie died of heart failure despite being in great shape, Renegade and Benoit killed themselves, and Orndorff is so injured he can barely move. Wow indeed.

WCW really was hilarious with how overblown their Halloween stuff was. It’s pure camp and it’s hilarious. So Hogan has gone to the dark side, shaving his facial hair and wearing all black. Yeah whatever. Remember we’re still about 8 months from the NWO at this point. Hey a big arena is actually full! I’m stunned too. Oh I forgot: the truck think is on the roof of the building next door.

BREAKING NEWS!

Flying Brian and Arn Anderson have apparently beaten up Ric Flair. That’s just amusing.

Tony wants to know why Heenan has been eating sushi. That’s actually foreshadowing.

We recap Johnny B. Badd and DDP. So if you remember the last show, Badd won a title shot against Sting. We have the match, but Badd is nowhere to be seen. Brian got the shot instead but lost. Badd showed up at the end of the show and says he had a flat tire. Gene says he could have called. Just whip out your cell phone the size of a brick and call Johnny. DDP showed up and said that he should have gotten the shot. His bodyguard says it must suck to have four flat tires. Johnny realizes something is up because he only said it was one flat tire so he punched Page. It was never explained WHY DDP would have messed with Johnny’s car but whatever.

TV Title: Diamond Dallas Page vs. Johnny B. Badd

Apparently Sting isn’t here yet so he doesn’t know what happened to Flair. Seriously, how do these people get away with being late to work all the time??? This is being written about two hours after Lockdown went off and Bischoff got to the arena at like 1030. HOW DOES HE HAVE A JOB??? Can you imagine if you showed up to work on a huge day two and a half hours late minimum?

A fake Johnny B. Badd comes out but the real one comes through the crowd to jump him. Tony says this started with a bang. That’s just amusing given what Page would become. Ok hang on a second. Earlier on we saw the two monster trucks dueling a bit. Apparently that was Hogan and Giant driving. So they just get together and ram trucks together? Also note that they were already welded together. Keep that in mind.

In a funny spot, Patrick asks Badd if he pulled DDP’s hair. Badd replies by shouting YOU MEAN LIKE THIS and pulls DDP’s hair. That’s just amusing. Heenan says everyone has been talking about the PPV, even the pilot on his plane. WOW. Tony says DDP likes controlling his matches. Wow I thought he liked getting beaten up. You can’t buy commentary like this.

And we hit the chinlock. Maxx Muscle slaps the mat while the fans are chanting for Badd. Yeah Page had a tendency to have stupid managers. We do some more stuff and hit another chinlock. At least there’s a theme to this match. Just to be clear: Bobby Heenan will NOT be managing the Detroit Tigers. Ok then.

After Badd makes another comeback, he throws Page to the floor with no explanation for the lack of a DQ other than that’s not the planned finish. He even busts out what would become the basis for the 619. Maxx Muscle interferes but screws up and the big punch ends this.

Rating: C. This was one of those matches that was just kind of there. It’s not particularly good or bad but rather just long. It’s not terrible by any means but it just happened. Badd vs. DDP would be a feud for a good while until he got fired/left for WWF as Marc Mero.

We talk about the monster truck thing to kill time.

Randy Savage vs. Zodiac

Zodiac has what would become Rey’s music soon. It’s Brutus Beefcake being able to only say yes or no. Yeah it didn’t work. I’m stunned too. Ok so apparently Luger and Savage have to win their matches earlier in the night to get a match with each other tonight. If just one wins then…nothing happens I guess. Well ok then. I love that rock version of Pomp and Circumstance.

Savage jumps him early and is dominating. A fan runs into the ring and stays in there for like 20 seconds with the referee just owning him. Security gets rid of him as Savage wins with the elbow in less than two minutes. This was supposed to be Kamala but he left the company. No one else noticed. Total squash so no rating.

Badd says that he believed he could do this and he did it. This is supposed to be emotional or something but it just isn’t. Gene mentions singing Tutti Frutti in a bar. It’s far funnier than it sounds.

Kurasawa vs. Hawk

This was an odd choice. On Clash of the Champions, Kurasawa broke Hawk’s arm and this is the rematch. No one got this feud or why Hawk was wrestling singles matches or who in the world Kurasawa was other than a good movie makes. Hawk jumps him like you would expect him to as we get going. Hawk gets his one wrestling move, the neckbreaker.

Crowd is into Hawk if nothing else. He even busts out a powerbomb and a gutwrench suplex. Total dominance here. Parker interferes so Kurasawa can take over. He misses a top rope elbow and Hawk takes over again. He was in trouble for MAYBE 4 seconds. Big old clothesline puts the heel on the floor.

On the floor Hawk is rammed into the post, taken into the ring, Kurasawa hits two Samoan Drops and puts his feet on the ropes for the pin. I have been reviewing shows for over a year now and I have NEVER seen a match that made less sense. This was never mentioned again. Hawk destroyed him until that ending. No sense at all.

Rating: WTF. I have nothing else to say for that. Hawk looked like he was beating up a jobber and he loses? No rating again but dude, what the heck were they thinking here? Why did Hawk have a singles match here anyway? WCW continues to boggle the mind.

Savage says he’s going to make sure Luger wins. But let’s talk about Hogan instead.

Mr. JL vs. Sabu

JL is short for Jerry Lynn in case you didn’t know that. And yes, it’s the same Sabu. The reason he’s here is he’s the Sheik’s nephew and Sheik was the king of Detroit back in the day. Lynn is in a mask here. WOW it’s weird hearing Sabu being talked about by Tony. Also that sounds like La Parka’s future music but I’m not sure. Both guys are in purple which is odd to see. They do all kinds of flying around ringside with Sabu doing all kinds of crazy dives etc.

We even get a Bobo Brazil reference to make this even more off the wall. This is pretty good for today’s standards despite being sloppy, but for 1995 this was INSANE. I mean remember, WWF was running stuff like Mabel vs. Taker at this time so having Lynn vs. Sabu on a major PPV was ridiculous.

Sabu wins it with a moonsault and Sheik throws a fireball at Lynn and hits him in the mask. Ok then. Heenan freaks over this and wants to know how to do that. Don’t ask Hogan. He tried it once and it didn’t work at all.

Rating: B+. Somewhat above average match, but considering the timeframe, this was insanity. Rey was nearly a year away from changing the whole idea of what cruiserweight wrestling was, but everyone knew this kind of stuff rocked. Sabu can be passable when he’s not trying to do a garbage match, and this is an example of that.

We talk about Hogan/Giant for a bit and go to the Master’s Lair to hear from him and Taskmaster. I would ask how we get a camera and electricity in there, but it doesn’t need to be asked. Why is that you ask? BECAUSE THE LAIR IS IN THE ARENA. Ok, let’s think for a minute. We have Kevin Sullivan and his master, an old man, standing in the arena with no apparent protection. Is there a reason why Hogan isn’t out there bashing their heads in with a chair?

I mean, I get that his friends are all busy, but can’t he fight off an old man and Kevin Sullivan on his own? This is something that I mean when I say idiotic storylines that go beyond suspension of disbelief. I have no idea what Master is saying here. Something about an eclipse or something. I wonder if he looks like that at the airport. Oh we get a mention of the Yeti. We’ll get to that one later. And now let’s talk about the trucks. The fans are booing the heck out of this. Let’s end this now.

Lex Luger vs. Meng

So if Luger wins here, he gets Savage later. Ok then. The fans pelt Sullivan with garbage. I knew I always liked Detroit. During Luger’s entrance we get a HILARIOUS sight joke that if you know your history is great. There’s a graveyard set due to Halloween and one of the graves says Crockett. If you get that joke, it’s hilarious. If not, it means nothing at all. Meng gets his head rams into the buckle and….it works? Come on man, learn your stereotypes!

Luger was rocking the mullet at this point which is just amusing. Meng busts out a small freaking package of all things. Well that was unexpected. Luger works on the right arm. Wow that’s weird to type. I know the common complaint about guys like Cena is they only know five moves, but I think Luger might break that. He might only know four: punch, clothesline, slam, rack. Oh wait: he uses an atomic drop. Dang I thought I had him there.

Meng is a weird case as he was someone that they seemed ready to push for like 3 and a half years but they never pulled the trigger on. Odd as he could have been perfect for a quick heel run near the title. Not saying he should have gotten it or anything, but a run against a top face was certainly within the question. Oh yeah: the NWO happened. He hits a chinlock, which is better than the nerve hold I guess.

Apparently the Dungeon of Doom is recruiting Luger. Yeah I don’t remember it either. We talk about Heenan talking to Sonny Onoo. That’s more foreshadowing for Starrcade which was a very interesting show. We’ll get to that soon. Meng gets his Golden Spike and Sullivan runs in and kicks Luger to give him the win. Ok then. Apparently it’s a method of getting Luger to fight Savage. Ok then. Yeah it’s odd but it kind of makes sense in a way.

Rating: D+. Again, it’s long but not very good. Also the ending was just rather annoying. Not particularly bad, but it’s just there. Luger was boring as always, but this needed to lose about 4 minutes and it makes it FAR better. This wasn’t that interesting but it certainly was long.

Gene is with the Giant. He literally doesn’t make it up to his shoulder. That’s just amusing. Giant taking the mic and Gene’s hand with it is funny stuff as Gene tries in vain to get out of his grip. Giant is pretty funny here as he’s like 23 years old and about 100lbs lighter than he is today.

Arn Anderson/Brian Pillman vs. Sting/Ric Flair

So basically before Fall Brawl, Anderson and Flair had been fighting. Pillman gave Andersont he win by kicking Flair in the head. The next night on Nitro they had a rematch in a cage and Anderson and Pillman beat him down. Flair got Sting to help him, but Flair got jumped before the show so it’s a handicap match to start. Sting is US Champion here if that means anything to anyone at all.

Sting of course saw nothing wrong with this plan at all. The fans want Flair. Sting does a great job of fighting on his own for awhile but after about five minutes here comes Flair! He’s in street clothes and the fans like him. There’s a massive bandage over his head and Sting is in trouble now. The heels go old school and bust out a Rocket Launcher. Again, a few people will actually get that.

The idea here is that Sting can’t make the tag no matter how hard he tries. We get a stupid spot where Pillman gets a half crab. Ok, that’s fine. Pillman is pulling back on the leg to apply pressure right? Anderson reaches out his hand for extra pressure. One thing: Arn is pulling the opposite way. Wouldn’t that, like, take pressure off of Sting? Flair runs in for a save and gets a HUGE pop.

One thing though: he never actually gets a shot in on either heel. That doesn’t mean anything….does it? Sting is screaming for the NATURE BOY! Does Sting want to ride Space Mountain? This is fifteen years ago and Flair still has a horrible looking chest. That’s amazing. Sting FINALLY makes the tag and the place erupts. Wait for it. Wait for it. FLAIR DRILLS STING! Sting snaps but he gets beaten down. Flair is of course fine as Gene waits on the ramp for Flair.

The two not named Flair hold up four fingers and Flair reforms the Horsemen. A guy named Benoit would be added soon. Pillman would be gone by about April though and they would replace him with Mongo a few months later. And we couldn’t get those four vs. Sting, Luger, Savage and Hogan in WarGames…why? Yes I know why but I like complaining.

Rating: B. This is ALL angle and while it’s predictable, it’s classic Horsemen. This was the right move to make as it all came off as a great angle and the whole thing worked very well I think. This is a lot based in taste for me so don’t go looking for a great match here.

I love the Horsemen and their shenanigans as this was a great throwback to the 80s with the group beatdown. Pillman never quite fit but Benoit certainly did so there we are. Also it’s funny seeing Sting get beaten down due to being an idiot. Sting vs. these two is hardly bad either.

Luger wants Savage.

We recap Sting vs. the Dungeon. Basically it’s your standard Hogan vs. Monster and Giant hurts Hogan’s neck. They shaved his mustache and he started wearing black. This naturally started up a war of monster trucks. You see the connection don’t you? I mean it’s clear as day isn’t it? And then on Monday we did something that I don’t want to talk about for as long as I can so we’ll spare it for later.

We come back to the announcers’ table and Bischoff has replaced Tony since Tony had to go play with his hamster I guess. We talk to the guy that made the truck. Yeah no one cares. Apparently the truck weighs 11,000 pounds with 6 foot tall tires.

We go to the roof and a few things to note. First of all, Hogan stands about 7’8 apparently as he TOWERS over those “six foot tall” tires. Second, the rules are you have to get both sets of axels out of the ring, which is 100ft in diameter. Ok, fair enough. Third, we’re going to weld the trucks together. Pay no attention to the fact that they were welded together earlier (this was taped the night before but that isn’t mentioned).

Also for no apparent reason, in this ring we have two charges that will go off if you run over them. Yes, allegedly, on the roof of a building, there are BOMBS that will go off if a truck runs over them. The idiocy here is off the charts. Let’s get this over with.

First of all, we waste a few minutes welding the trucks together. Allegedly these trucks run on alcohol. So wait. There are BOMBS, as in EXPLODING FIRE, near alcohol based fuel? And this company made money??? Again, someone was PAID to make this up. That’s sad.

Oh and they have co-pilots so they’re only driving one set of axels. Hogan gets put halfway out but makes the save. Hogan’s truck has a flag kind of thing that is supposed to be the bandana I guess. One of the bombs goes off and my head hurts. Ah I think I know why Tony left: he has integrity. And Hogan wins of course. Somehow, the idiocy is just beginning.

Giant gets out of his truck and goes after Hogan, and the champ goes back towards the edge of the building. They fight some more up on the ledge and Hogan accidentally knocks Giant OFF THE ROOF. Yes, this was on a major Pay Per View broadcast by a major wrestling company. Hogan’s acting here makes Mr. Nanny look like De Niro. The monster truck dude has to sit here and not break up laughing. That’s just awesome.

And after the apparent death of a wrestler, let’s have a match!

Lex Luger vs. Randy Savage

Dang it’s a lucky thing they won their matches and that this is all they had left other than the main event isn’t it? And thus begins a grand WCW tradition of “we’re going to talk about something else entirely while this match is going on.”

Tony: For a minute let’s talk about this match. They make it about 8 seconds. This will apparently be on the front page of every newspaper in the world tomorrow. After some uninteresting wrestling, Jimmy Hart comes down for no adequately explored reason and Luger gets run into him. Elbow ends it.

Rating: F+. This was like 5 minutes long and I don’t remember any of it. That’s never a good sign. Just a total filler here as was the majority of the rest of WCW’s upper midcard around this time. There was this big mystery angle and all that jazz and it never went anywhere.

Heenan wants to know what’s going on and he leaves to go find out. We recap, as in reshow, the Hogan/Giant thing. Tony tries to keep from cracking up despite of Heenan’s overacting.

WCW World Title: The Giant vs. Hulk Hogan

They introduce Giant first but Hogan comes out instead, all in black and sans facial hair. Wow that’s odd to see. Was Hart being Hogan’s BFF ever explained? Giant of course walks out with no explanation at all. In what might be the funniest thing that I have EVER seen in wrestling, the camera shoots back to Hogan just in time for him to turn to the camera and blankly stare while his mouth hangs open in awe.

I laughed out loud for a LONG time. I mean the timing was better than you could have planned if you tried forever. This was hilarious stuff to say the least. Heenan sounds orgasmic over this. His hatred of Hogan stayed forever if nothing else. Hogan has black horns painted on his head. Uh….deep?

He can’t slam him though. Oh and Giant is allegedly Andre’s son. Heenan: Eat Hogan like you would eat villagers! Ok then. Giant hooks a test of strength once Hogan is on his knees already. You know that might be more effective if your muscles were flexing or if you had ANY torque on them.

Heenan says he’s never seen Hogan wrestle in anything other than yellow and red. Odd that he’s seemingly managed against him in blue or white tights but what do I know? Giant is destroying him here. Hogan makes a comeback to some SOLID face pops and knocks Giant to the floor. Taskmaster tries to get Giant to leave but Hogan, like an idiot, stops him. Giant gets a SWEET backbreaker. Hogan was WAY in the air for that and it looked awesome.

Heenan points out how stupid Giant is for not going for Hogan’s bad neck. Give the guy a break Bobby. I mean he just fell off the  roof! The bear hug goes on and Tony cracks me up by making it sound like it’s perfectly normal to come back after falling off a roof. Even in kayfabe this is ridiculous. With the paint knocked off Hogan’s head it looks like there’s a Triforce on it. And back to the bear hug. He powers out but walks into the chokeslam. He powers out of that too.

He Hulks Up and the usual puts Giant down, but the referee goes down too. The fans say Jimmy did it. Just to add to the stupidity of this match, when Hogan is yelling at Hart, you can see Giant stick his head up three separate times to see what’s going on. Even playing devil’s advocate and saying he’s playing possum, you don’t have a 7’ monster playing peek-a-boo!

Anyway, Jimmy hits Hogan with the belt but Giant saves him. And it’s bear hug time again. Luger and Savage come out. Luger of course turns heel and….here it comes. This is the thing I didn’t want to talk about all night. On the previous Nitro, the Master had said he had a surprise. At the end of the show, a random block of ice blew up and a mummy came out of it. Yes, I said a mummy.

They called him a Yeti, but he’s a large man wrapped in bandages and tape. What the heck would you call him? With Giant having him in a bear hug, Yeti comes up behind Hogan and more or less dry humps him without actually hurting him at all. It’s Reese from the Flock if you care who is under there.

Luger puts Hogan in the rack to something resembling a pop. They dry hump Savage and rack him too. Giant wins by DQ because he was Hogan’s manager when he hit the referee. They announce that the title can’t change hands on DQ.

OR CAN IT?

Yeah in this match, Hart slipped a clause in, stating that the title CAN change hands on a DQ, so the Giant is the champion. They would strip him of the title in like two weeks and put it up in the inaugural World War Three Battle Royal, which is complete nonsense as Hogan lost the title via a stipulation in a contract he signed without reading. That’s not Giant’s fault but whatever. Hogan and Savage are helped out to end the show. Heenan crying from happiness is funny.

Rating: D. This was a Hogan match with a big angle to end it and nothing more. Giant wasn’t capable of doing much here as he was just a 23 year old kid that had like 5 matches under his belt but he was 7’0 tall, athletic beyond belief and could talk. I’d push him hard like that too.

Anyway, this wasn’t that good but it was Hogan fighting a monster which was what he was best at so I can’t fault them there. A bit long with FAR too many bear hugs but to be fair Giant had no experience and no real style set yet. He would get a lot better. Yeah this was his WCW debut. I’d say this was fine given the circumstances then.

Overall Rating: F+. Uh…yeah. This show sucked and it sucked bad. The highlight of the show is EASILY the Horsemen thing. Outside of that it’s a bunch of WTF moments with bad wrestling mixed in. This just didn’t work at all and it came off really badly. The whole thing was about Hogan and Giant, which is fine, but the roof thing wound up going nowhere.

It wasn’t mentioned at all in the last 20 minutes of the show and it was never explained at all. In short, it wasn’t needed at all. Just a lot of stuff here that made no sense at all and it didn’t work. Bad show, but a ton of moments that are considered classic bad ones here.

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Battlebowl
Date: November 20, 1993
Location: Pensacola Civic Center, Pensacola, Florida
Attendance: 7,000
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Jesse Ventura

This is another of Dusty’s brilliant ideas that never really worked after the first time which was only because Sting was the star of the show. At least this year they didn’t have it at Starrcade. The idea is we take something like 32 names and draw them out for “random” tag matches. The 16 winners have a battle royal to win…..well to win the battle royal. There are no other matches on the card and since this is back in the days before Flair got the booking power, the matches all get at least 8 minutes and in some cases more. This is going to be painful. Let’s get to it.

Everyone gets in a quick line about what the show is about. Just like something for the Rumble would go, but for once this isn’t a ripoff.

Tony says there are 40 men in the back, meaning that 8 guys aren’t going to be out here. They’re going for a ring apparently. Don’t you feel the desire to win that??? We’re also told that Muta, the previous winner, isn’t here. Riveting.

Gene and a French maid named Fifi read the names. Barring a funny line or something I likely won’t mention that we go back to them to announce a match as they’re just drawing them out of a tumbler.

Vader/Cactus Jack vs. Charlie Norris/Kane

Vader is world champion here and he and Jack hate each other. Vader SHOVES this guy out of his chair to get here which is awesome. And no that’s not the more famous Kane. This was originally going to be his partner Kole, but Kane took his place. They would soon change their names to Booker T and Stevie Ray and would have some more success. Norris just flat out sucks and everyone knows he does.

Cactus and Vader brawl on the ramp to start us off. Yeah this is going to be one of those nights you can already tell. Norris runs down and Vader just ends him with a punch. Kane (Stevie Ray) and Jack start us off. Vader won’t get in the ring but Race yells at him to get him in. Cactus is a face here and getting very popular and far better for his insane style and improving match style. Of course he was released as soon as Hogan got there because we can’t have young talented and popular guys on our roster!

Norris is tall. That’s about all he’s got going for him and he would be out of the company more or less right after this. Vader Bomb gets a big pop as Norris gets flattened. Cactus hits him with a front flip as this is a squash so far. Jack hits a very weak belly to back suplex on Norris for two. Kane can’t even throw a proper clothesline. The referee calls a tag before the tag actually happens but whatever.

Tony wants every match to be hardcore. Is he Vince Russo all of a sudden? Norris is absolutely horrible. Cactus gets a double arm DDT from nowhere to bring us back to even. Norris hits a top rope chop to Vader who just shrugs it off. Vader gets some face pops here despite being the top heel in the company. That’s how hated Norris was. Vader falls down while powerbombing Norris’ fatness but gets the pin anyway.

Rating: D. Match was boring even with Cactus and Vader in there. Nothing at all happened as we were just standing around doing nothing for the most part. Norris was terrible and thankfull he was gone soon after this. There was zero drama here as we had two guys that mean nothing vs. the main event of Halloween Havoc. Who do you think is going to win here?

Brian Knobbs/Johnny B. Badd vs. Paul Roma/Erik Watts

Watts is the son of Bill Watts and is AWFUL. He’s here because of his daddy and absolutely nothing else. Something tells me this is going to be absolutely awful. Roma is a Horseman here for no apparent reason at all. No entrance music at all for any guy which is odd to see. The Nasty Boys are tag champions here so Knobbs isn’t happy here. The main attraction here is how bad can Watts be.

Badd and Roma, the more talented guys on their teams (keep in mind that Badd is rather young here and hasn’t hit his stride just yet) start us off. Roma is in long white tights here which just looks completely out of place for a heel. At least I think he’s a heel. Based on commentary he’s a face. It’s a bit confusing since almost everyone hated him. He can’t even do a backdrop. Decent dropkick though.

Comedy time as Watts is here. Watts hits a dropkick to the elbow to put Knobbs on the floor. Badd comes in to try to save this and they shake hands. We transition from that to hearing about Cactus Jack being a spiritual advisor, which translates into talking about manager of the year. LOTS of basic stuff from all four guys which is the problem. There’s no flow at all to the match. Badd will do ok and then Knobbs will come in and screw everything up.

None of the wrestling is any good but whatever. To say Watts is limited in the ring is the understatement of the year. Roma gets a powerslam for what would be two but Missy has the referee. She manages the Nasty Boys which I think I forgot to mention. This has been going almost ten minutes already, which is the problem with these shows. The matches go on forever because we have nothing else to air, but the matches completely suck more often than not.

We waste a bunch of time to do nothing at all on the floor. Tony talks a bit like a heel and Jesse says how proud he is of him. They speculate that the winner tonight will have a title shot more than likely, be it the TV Title, the US Title or the World Title. I’m not sure which to make fun of: the statement or the match. Watts gets the hot tag and he unleashes his clotheslines. The announcers argue about some quarterback whose name I missed as Knobbs rolls through a cross body and uses the tights for the pin.

Rating: D-. This got 13 minutes for no apparent reason other than WCW was mad at us or something I guess. Watts never was any good and you can’t blame him for being thrown out there when he flat out wasn’t ready. They never got out of doing basic stuff for nearly 13 minutes. If this was like 5 minutes long it’s bearable, but just way too long and not nearly enough talent to go around.

Shockmaster/Paul Orndorff vs. Ricky Steamboat/Steven Regal

Well the second team is stacked if nothing else. Orndorff is passable so maybe Shockmaster (Tugboat if you’re not familiar for some reason) can be outside most of the time. Steamboat gets by far the biggest reaction of the night so far, which to be fair isn’t saying much. Regal is I think TV Champion here. He held it enough times so we’ll go with that. The announcer saying he’s TV Champion helps a bit too.

LOUD Paula chant to start us off. Orndorff just looks old here. Regal looks downright British. The two more talented guys start us off, and by that I mean Steamboat for his team. This is before Regal got into drugs so heavily and was still very thin. Jesse starts his political jokes as you can tell he wanted to get into that more. We head to the floor and Steamboat is in trouble for all of 8 seconds.

Shocky looks almost clueless out there. He finally comes in and here’s Regal to meet him. In a great heel move he wipes his hands before he gets in. I still can’t get over that being Bill Dundee as his manager. Shocky lifts him up and sits him on the top, patting his head. That was amusing. This ends the entertaining part of his contribution to the match. After a slam he tags out to give us heel vs. heel.

They do very little beyond basics, but Sir William shouting up WELL DONE SIR is kind of amusing for some reason. Regal hooks a full nelson as Jesse thinks we have a tag team here. Regal does a cartwheel. Can you imagine him doing that today without ripping apart every muscle in his body? Steamboat finally comes in and gets caught in a hot shot. Crowd is DEAD by the way.

The problem of this whole show appears again as nothing of note is happening as they’re just killing time since they have 9 matches to fill three hours and there are more or less no segments to fill in time. Regal won’t tag so Shocky makes him in a decent bit. The partners start fighting and an umbrella shot and a splash end Regal, sending Orndorff and Shocky to the final. Clearly the more talented combo!

Rating: D+. By far the best match tonight and even then it’s bad. Regal vs. Orndorff was the highlight….somehow, but the problem again becomes that the only story is face/heel issues, which get boring very quickly as they did here. This wasn’t much at all and it never got out of first gear…much like the other matches. I hate this show already.

Gene has handcuffs for some reason.

King Kong/Dustin Rhodes vs. Equalizer/Awesome Kong

Equalizer is more commonly known as Dave Sullivan. The Kongs are very fat men that both sucked beyond any sense of the word suck. Rhodes gets a decent reaction and he should as he’s the only one with anything resembling talent. The fat guys both wear masks so I can’t tell them apart. Rhodes is US Champion here, which I think he would lose to Austin at Starrcade.

Everyone just kind of stops talking here as the non Kongs start us off. About thirty seconds in the commentary is back as Dustin realizes he’s in over his head here with such little anything to work with. Awesome comes in and is so big you actually can’t see the referee behind him. They make Vader look small so naturally they heavily suck. They’re too light skinned to be the Headhunters. King doesn’t want to fight his partner so more or less it’s 3 on 1.

King comes in finally and beats up Equalizer. The crowd is so silent you can hear individual fans. They slug it out and then go back to just clawing at each others’ faces. Big shoulder block to take down Kong and both tag. Sunset flip gets two for Dustin and it breaks down. The Kongs ram heads and Dustin gets a bulldog on his opponent Kong and wins it.

Rating: D. Again with a weak match as Dustin more or less was a one man team. That’s good as he was the only one of the four that’s watchable. For you young guys he’s more commonly known as Goldust. You had three big guys out there and Dustin, none of which could do anything other than big pounding shots. This went nowhere at all and was boring on top of that. Thankfully it was very short though, so at least there’s that.

Sting/Jerry Sags vs. Keith Cole/Ron Simmons

Cole is half of a team called the Cole Twins that never went anywhere. Sting won the first Battlebowl and is the most popular wrestler in the company by far here. Simmons is on the very brink of a heel turn here but not quite there yet. Jesse gets a good shot in at Missy saying it’s hard to say which of them is Sags. Cole has a long blonde mullet-esque thing to the back of his head. It’s idiotic looking but whatever.

Cole and Sags start us off here. And we stall. That’s the sign of a bad match right off the bat. Ok make that Simmons is going to start. Cole did but he was only in the ring for like 4 seconds and never made contact. Nice dropkick by Simmons who used to be World Champion if you can believe that. We go to a completely random crowd shot during an armbar. Did the camera guy get bored or something?

The fans want Sting and I can’t say I blame them. Sags won’t tag him in of course, just because he’s an annoying pest. Simmons comes in to breathe a bit of life into the match but not much. And now we get Sting vs. Simmons, which is kind of awesome sounding. We get a clean break as Simmons really isn’t a heel yet so it’s ok. O’Connor Roll is totally messed up as this is more or less a standoff.

And now back to Keith Cole to end the interesting part of this match. Cole and Sags do absolutely nothing of note as we just kill time here. Sting comes in to wake up the crowd a bit and we go back to the interesting matchup of the whole match. Ron acts all heelish and the fans are far from thrilled to put it mildly. Hey look! More armbars! Cole is just bringing this match down so far it’s not even funny.

Sting beats up Cole with ease and hits the splash in the corner. Sags comes in because he can and hits a top rope elbow for the easy pin. Simmons beats the heck out of Cole after the match.

Rating: C-. On any other show this is probably lower but this show has been so bad that I’ll take what I can get here. Just more or less a nothing match though as the rest of them have been but this at least had something close to a story to it. The whole tag match deal is just REALLY annoying though and I’m bored with it. Naturally there’s nearly an hour of it to go because WCW hates me.

Ric Flair/Steve Austin vs. 2 Cold Scorpio/Maxx Payne

Ok this HAS to be good right? Austin is about the level of Dolph Ziggler at this point and I’m pretty sure Flair is a face at this point, so expect more tension. BIG reaction for Flair. Austin cost Flair the world title about ten days ago. Well of course he did. Payne’s head looks a bit like Undertaker which is kind of weird to say.

Austin and Payne start us off here. Payne is a grunge rocker more or less with long black hair and metal band t-shirts. He can wrestle though, and we hear about Flair vs. Vader at Starrcade. The fans want Flair here, which is odd as less than 5 years later Austin would be the biggest star in the world. Scorpio comes in while Flair yells at Austin. For those of you that have never seen him, go find some of Scorpio’s early to mid 90s stuff as he’s incredibly fun to watch. Basically imagine Morrison with some meat on his bones and a lack of botches with the gimmick of just being awesome.

The future Stone Cold hits the floor and he still looks weird with a star on his tights. Flair comes in again and just owns all. We shift into a far more traditional and old school style of tagging with Flair and Austin making Scorpio the face in peril. Flair with old school heel tactics never gets old, but since he’s more or less a natural heel it doesn’t make him look evil. That makes no sense to me either so don’t try to make sense out of it.

Flair and Austin of course go at it which doesn’t last long. TEXTBOOK suplex by Flair. Just absolute perfection there. Austin with a top rope elbow of all things for two. He was a totally different wrestler once Hart broke his neck. In a stupid looking move, Scorpio just kind of falls down, sending Austin stumbling into the corner. Flair and Payne come in and Flair can’t do anything. A running knee in the corner misses and the Figure Four ends it to a big pop. That’s basic psychology and again it works.

Rating: B-. See, THIS is how you do one of these things. There was a simple story here of two guys making something work and just doing their thing on Scorpio while keeping the bigger and stronger guy out. This was a very simple style, but there is one important thing it had going for it: it worked. Best match BY FAR up to this point and likely of the whole show.

Rick Rude/Shanghai Pierce vs. Marcus Bagwell/Tex Slazenger

Tex is Mideon and Shanghai is Henry Godwin under a mask. Rude is the International World Champion here which in essence is the NWA Title without the NWA. Why do announcers welcome us to a show an hour and a half into it? Are they thinking we got here late or something? Tony points out that we have more wrestlers than spots left in matches, meaning we won’t have everyone called.

Rude is a rather interesting case as he was rarely more than a comedy upper midcard guy but in WCW he was sent to the moon and would have been the regular world champion had it not been for his career ending back injury. The future WWF Tag Champions come in but no one actually does anything as Rude is brought back in.

Rather boring match so far with little happening, but Bagwell plays a decent enough face in peril. He makes a comeback and this isn’t too bad. I can’t remember a quieter crowd in forever though, which is a really bad sign methinks. The commentary stops again which I never got the first time. It’s WCW though so basic errors like these are expected.

This crowd is absolutely silent. It’s almost creepy in a way. Rude and Bagwell go at it and we hit the chinlock because this match hasn’t died enough already. Tony tries to tell us how the crowd is awesome but you can hear the wrestlers calling spots because the people are so quiet. Rude sends Bagwell to the floor while he’s not legal as the crowd FINALLY moves a bit.

Pierce wants a boot from Rude as this is turning into something close to a tag match. It’s still boring but at least we’ve got something going here. The team of heels beat on Bagwell and this is just boring. They switch without a tag and hit a chinlock. This goes on for the better part of eternity until Bagwell makes his comeback. Pierce with a SWEET gutwrench sitout powerbomb. That makes this match not a failure on its own.

Tex makes the save and the crowd wakes up a bit for the showdown between these two. They actually fight and kind of go insane with it. And then Rude makes a blind tag and hits the Rude Awakening to end it. He’s the only guy that has ever made that move look awesome.

Rating: D-. Literally that powerbomb was the only thing that keeps this from being a failure. This match just was boring and nothing of note ever happened. There were about 10 minutes of chinlocks here as of course they decided to give this 15 minutes. Who thought that was a good idea? I mean really, The Godwins and Bagwell and Rude in a 15 minute match. Horrible match but dang that was a cool looking move. Naturally it didn’t get a pin but whatever.

Jesse says it’s too early to pick a winner as we go to our last pairings.

Hawk/Rip Rogers vs. Davey Boy Smith/Kole

Kole is Booker T and Rogers is basically the guy that made OVW mean something. He gets beaten up on the ramp by all three guys as no one liked him and he was a jobber. This basically starts off as Hawk vs. both guys as Davey starts for his team. They make sure we know they’re friends and here we go. They do a bunch of clean breaks and really don’t do much at all.

Test of strength is a standoff and Booker more or less demands a tag. Rogers has a fight with his jacket on the ramp as Booker comes in. I love the face Bulldog saying hey Hawk, I know you’re my friend but I’m going to let this other guy come in and beat on you for no apparent reason. Smith cheers for Hawk as he fights back. Booker with the Spinarooni about 5 years before that had a name.

Rogers finally gets up and Booker smacks him down. Yet again there’s a mini story here but the match isn’t much. You know Rogers’ team is going to win here so why even bother with the false pretense? We hit the chinlock as Smith cheers on Hawk again. And just as I expected, Hawk picks up Rogers and throws him at Booker who can’t kick out for the pin. This would be like Santino getting there.

Rating: D. It’s another comedy match with nothing at all happening as Hawk and Smith wouldn’t fight each other and Rogers was in the match all of 9 seconds. This show just needs to end now as this was just another 8 minute match with a stupid ending. At least it was just 8 minutes I guess.

Battlebowl

Cactus Jack, Vader, Johnny B. Badd, Brian Knobbs, Shockmaster, Paul Orndorff, King Kong, Dustin Rhodes, Sting, Jerry Sags, Steve Austin, Ric Flair, Ric Rude, Shanghai Pierce, Hawk, Rip Rogers

This is just a battle royal with 16 men in int. Yeah that’s all there is going on here. Just to waste time the guys don’t start coming out until after the announcements are done. Rogers can barely move after earlier. Hawk vs. Vader isn’t as much of a train wreck as you’d expect. I really don’t like watching these matches for reviews as there’s nothing to call. Rogers is out first.

We do the split screen for no apparent reason. Oh it’s to show Rogers going out. Pierce is out second. It’s a lot of filling time as we’re about two hours into the show at this point. Badd is out and Penzer kind of messes up the elimination. It comes out as “Johnny B Badd……eliminated…….from Battlebowl.” Just sounded weird but it’s BY FAR the most interesting thing at the moment.

People are literally just standing there waiting on anything to happen. Someone goes out but something tells me it doesn’t matter. Kong is out. Shockmaster is out. Oh apparently the other guy was Cactus. Orndorff is out. That was very rapid fire and we have like 9 left or so. Sting goes to the ramp but that’s not an elimination because I guess that’s not the planned elimination for Sting.

Yeah 9 left and I don’t really care enough to count them all. The worst part is that there is some awesome talent in there (Sting, Flair, Vader, Rude, Rhodes, Austin, Nasty Boys and Hawk, so 6/9 are at least good) and this is still horrible. Actually the Nasties and Hawk are at their best in brawls so they’re all good in this kind of match. And yet it’s still boring somehow.

Everyone just kind of brawls around and nothing is happening at all. Dustin and Austin head to the floor to fight it out a bit. Flair and Vader fight it out which gets NO reaction at all. Rhodes is busted as Austin is back in now. Austin beats on Rhodes as we kind of pair off. For no reason at all Sting/Hawk would get a tag title shot at Starrcade (in a match that went THIRTY MINUTES and ended in a DQ) so they fight for awhile.

The fans are dying more every second. Rhodes puts out the Nasties and Austin puts him out in like 4 seconds to get us down to six. Rude and Hawk are out too so it’s Austin, Sting, Flair and Vader. There’s a great tag match in there somewhere. Race pulls Flair to the ramp and they slug it out a bit which brings a small smile to my face. Naturally no one says anything about their epic rivalry but that might be interesting so we’ll steer clear of it.

Everyone leaves the ring to fight on the ramp for awhile. No one went over the top so they’re all still in. Stuff like this makes my head hurt as it makes the whole match just seem completely pointless. Vader hits Flair with a splash on the ramp and gets stretchered out to take him out of the match. Now logical booking would have him come back and make a big heroic win by throwing Vader out to build drama to Starrcade. How much do you want to bet that doesn’t happen and Vader wins clean?

Back in the ring Vader and Austin both go for top rope splashes on Sting but the only face left fights them both off. He does what would become known as a spear to Vader as the fans chant Whomp There it is for no apparent reason. Vader splashes the heck out of Sting to take him down. Lots of splashes follow but Sting finally gets away and slugs it out with Austin.

He makes the Superman comeback and the chant starts up again for no apparent reason. That lasts about 30 seconds as they beat on him some more. Vader hurts his back on a Vader Bomb. A corner splash misses and Sting throws Austin to the ramp. Vader knocks him over and Austin falls off the ramp to eliminate him. That’s something I’d book in OCW.

This leaves us with Vader vs. Sting, with the logical booking being give it to Sting I guess so my money is on Vader. Sting does the falling headbutt into the groin spot which is one of my favorites. He gets the always awesome fireman’s carry of Vader. Sting’s strength is always underrated. Sting misses the Splash though and falls out so Vader wins to end the show.

Rating: D. A boring battle royal to end a boring show. Isn’t that appropriate? This was just a weak match that went on FAR too long. A 16 man battle royal got nearly half an hour. At least with 91 they had two rings so the double elimination thing ate up some time. This was just boring on so many levels.

Overall Rating: F+. This show isn’t so much bad as much as it’s painfully boring. The idea is fine but the problem with it is that you need more than one decent tag match to end the show. For one thing the whole idea was partner vs. partner at times and other than that it was just awkward pairings that never got anything going whatsoever.

Also having Vader win is freaking stupid. The champion wins a big match like this? It was dumb when Hogan did it in the Rumble and it’s dumb here. Just a completely boring show that never went anywhere at all. This show was DYING for another match or two to flesh out the card so we didn’t have all these matches get 12+ minutes. Note to promoters: long does not necessarily mean good. Definitely not worth seeing.