Tag: 1996 - KB's Wrestling Reviews

Bash at the Beach 1996
Date: July 7, 1996
Location: Ocean Center, Daytona Beach, Florida
Attendance: 8,300
Commentators: Bobby Heenan, Tony Schiavone, Dusty Rhodes

So this is it. This is the show where everything changed for WCW. There had been an invasion by Hall and Nash, who up to this point I don’t think had been named, and we had Sting, Luger and Savage joined together to fight them off. There’s also a mystery third man that no one knows yet.

That right there is what causes the whole change in wrestling. It launched WCW into the stratosphere and causes WWF to be about as sick as you can get without dying. The rest of the show is pretty much forgotten and with good reason. Let’s get to it.

If you’re looking for what I think about the beginning of the NWO, scroll down to the end of this and you’ll find it.

This is subtitles The Hostile Takeover. Yep it’s so hostile that they’re being given ring music, a match on the show and the main event spot on the PPV. I wonder if they got catering too.

There are security guards at the table with them. Ok then.

Rey Mysterio vs. Psychosis

Rey had debuted at the PPV the month before this. This should be awesome as they have all kinds of history together. Tenay replaces Bobby for this one. Rey is YOUNG here, only being 21 at this point. Rey starts off with a half crab. We hear about how popular these two are, talking about how the masks are sold in the streets. I always wanted a Kane mask. Finally they get tired of the leg locks and go all lucha on us.

And then they hit a chinlock. Sure why not. Psychosis hits the guillotine legdrop that would be his finisher later but it’s just two here. You know for a match with these guys, this is pretty boring. Rey finally starts throwing some ranas to make things interesting. West Coast Pop gets two. And let’s talk about the main event. Heenan is here too actually.

We hit the floor and Psychosis hits a perfect senton to the floor on Mysterio. It’s a back splash, not the Hardy move. This referee is really annoying. He has a hitch in his count just like that Armstrong referee that got released a few months ago. So after almost ten minutes they realize they’re Rey Mysterio and Psychosis and just go off with high spots.

Psychosis goes for Splash Mountain (Razor’s Edge into a sitout powerbomb from the top) but Rey shoves off in mid air and hooks him into a hurricanrana for the pin. That’s still one of my all time favorite endings to a match. Mysterio would win the Cruiserweight Title the next night on Nitro.

Rating: B+. This started VERY slow but once they realized the crowd was only halfway into it, they cranked it WAY up and it turned into nothing but awesome high spots. See, this is a FAR different Rey than you’re used to today. This is when he was the best cruiserweight ever. He was pulling off stuff that is just flat out insane.

Then he destroyed both of his knees and slowed way down to where he was like 3rd best in the world. Either way, he’s amazing at this time and had some of the most jaw dropping spots ever. Also keep in mind: this is the very beginning of this division. Today it’s common to see this all over the place in America, but it had only debuted in mainstream wrestling less than a year ago at this point, so this was mind blowing stuff. Great opener and the crowd is white hot now.

Konnan says he’ll keep the title. When asked what happened to end the match, he says Psychosis had him up for a top rope Splash Mountain but Rey reversed into a top rope Frankensteiner. YOU CAN’T BUY THIS KIND OF ANALYSIS PEOPLE!

Apparently you can and it’s called Mike Tenay. Got it.

John Tenta vs. Big Bubba

This is a Carson City Silver Dollars Match. In other words, there’s a sock full of silver dollars on a pole and either Big Boss Man or Earthquake has to climb it. Keep in mind that Eddie Guerrero vs. Regal and Steiners vs. Harlem Heat for the tag titles took place on the Main Event, which was the TV show that aired before this. Who in their right mind thought this was a good idea? Oh that’s right: they’re Hogan’s buddies.

Bubba shaved half of Tenta’s hair and half of his mustache, making him look even stupider. Is there a point to the bag of silver? Not at all, but why let that stop them? Tenta finally wakes up and tries to take the pole down. Keep in mind that you win by pinfall so the pole isn’t even needed. Then again why would logic make sense here? Earthquake gets tied to the ropes with athletic tape. Only one arm though.

Who in the name of hollandaise sauce thought this was a good idea? Boss Man comes over with some scissors to cut the rest of his hair but Quake uses them to cut the tape. Ok that’s smart at least. We get our first intelligent thing of the night as Bubba tells Jimmy Hart to climb the pole. Tenta gets them and nails Bubba in the jaw with the silver dollars for the pin. THIS GOT NINE MINUTES.

Was this supposed to be a joke that went bad? Again, Harlem Heat vs. the Steiners for the TAG TEAM TITLES didn’t go on PPV, but this did. WOW. Oh and I forgot to mention: THIS IS THE TALLEST POLE EVER. Tenta is 6’7 and wasn’t even half as tall as that thing. Seriously, WHO THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA??? He pours the silver dollars on Bubba afterwards. So not only did he beat him up, but he pays him for it? Is this some kind of weird fetish?

Rating: S. As in SERIOUSLY? This makes the PPV and gets almost ten minutes? I get that Hogan was running things, but this is ridiculous to put it mildly. The match was boring as heck and the whole cutting the straps on the pole went nowhere. This was just freaking bad all around.

The announcers talk for a bit and Tony has a lei on. The others talk about how important this is and Tony looks like an idiot. Bobby says he’s been asking people not involved in wrestling if they know who the third man is. He’s surprised that they didn’t know. Do I even need to make fun of this?

Team WCW says they’re ready for the Outsiders and don’t care who the third man is. They all have their faces painted like Sting. Oh and Luger is full face now, which at least makes sense for this.

Lord of the Ring: Diamond Dallas Page vs. Jim Duggan

This is a taped fist match for the stupid ring that DDP won last month that is now worthless since his title shot was revoked. So apparently in this you can tape your fists more than you usually can? I hate WCW. I truly do hate it at times, but at least it improves for a bit after this. The fans chant USA, even though both guys are Americans. That always made my head hurt.

I’d love to see someone that Duggan was fighting get fired up more than he did because of the chants and shout about how they’re MORE American than Duggan. Apparently 10,000 people were turned away. Maybe it would be better if they got an arena that held 10,000 people in the first place. Duggan has his feet taped together around the post. Again, is there some kind of tape fetish in this company? And he just gets out through some unseen method.

Again, Guerrrero vs. Regal and Heat vs. Steiners. Just thought I’d remind you of that. Page uses the ropes to avoid a suplex and Tony gets on him for it. Why? It’s a legal move. Everybody is shocked that Duggan can manage to take control without tape on his fists. Thanks for the vote of confidence in Duggan. After being on the floor for 8 seconds, Duggan slides Page in and walks into the Diamond Cutter for the pin. Duggan throws some tape on his fist and knocks Page out anyway. Another waste of time.

Rating: D-. Again, WHAT WAS THE POINT OF THIS? For the life of me I can’t think of one. Either way, the match was terrible and I still fail to see the point in it. Just a waste of five minutes or so.

Giant and Taskmaster say they’re not worried about the Horsemen. Giant is still world champion here.

Lee Marshall talks to Benoit and Anderson who get the aforementioned heels later tonight. Arn of course cuts a decent promo.

Public Enemy vs. Nasty Boys

It’s a tag team dog collar match with a former ECW team. Pay no attention to the Stevie Richards/Raven vs. Pit Bulls dog collar match less than a year before this in ECW. WCW never stole anything from ECW at all. Not a thing. Have you noticed a significant lack of young talent on this card other than the openers or DDP? Bischoff is missing if that means anything at all. Sags and Rock are attached and Knobs and Grunge are attached.

We almost immediately go split screen which has the ocean behind it and only half of the screen is covered by the split screen due to the MASSIVE BATB logo on the top of the screen. Brilliant. A trash can full of trash is brought in. Sure why not. We go up to the beach set and Johnny Grunge gets knocked down and is in pain. He was beaten by an inflatable pink shark. Somehow this has stopped being absurd. That’s a new one on me.

They fight for about five minutes on the beach. This is entertaining at least. I know I don’t say that often but this is one of those matches that reaches the point of insanity that makes it amusing. The announcers not taking it seriously at all helps a lot too. We get a table brought in. Keep that in mind. Rock gets piledriven on the floor and there’s no cover. Knobs hits a GREAT trash can shot on Grunge.

There goes the first table. We’re back in the ring now with another table. Now this one noticeably looks different than your modern Dudley tables. Sags is on the table and Rock goes up. He gets pulled into a front flip and bounces off the table. Remember that Rock weighs about 300lbs. Sags goes up and drops an elbow onto Rock onto the table. It STILL doesn’t break.

Rock comes unhooked from the chain when he’s whipped into the chain of Knobs and Grunge and it clotheslines him. That’s also enough for the pin. Rock knocks Sags from the apron to FINALLY break the real table. Most tables are precut and weakened to make going through them easier. This one wasn’t apparently.

Rating: C+. Not bad actually. They woke up and realized that there’s no point in trying to have these two teams have a coherent match. This was just pure insane fun and it actually worked pretty well. The shark was funny if nothing else. The commentary helped too as they just had fun with it like they were supposed to. Fun match.

Gene is in front of the Outsiders’ locker room. He doesn’t go try to talk to them or anything, but he’s in front of it. Love that hard hitting reporting!

Cruiserweight Title: Disco Inferno vs. Dean Malenko

I hate to say it, but that song is very catchy. He says everyone is here to see him dance and once he wins the title he’ll dance. The guy had charisma and energy. You can’t take that away from him. And let’s talk about the main event more. Ok to be fair, this was a huge match for a change rather than the usual run of the mill main events so I can’t complain that much.

They talk about how awesome the cruiserweights are even though a lot of the really great ones aren’t there yet. This is all Malenko so far. Malenko’s in ring work is really underrated as far as the flying stuff goes. He actually was ranked as the best in the world in the PWI 500 in 97. I was surprised by that. Maybe six minutes in, Disco hits his first offense which is a punch. And now he just goes off in the longest string of offense he’s ever been on I think.

It lasts all of a minute. Heenan says pincovers. I thought only Taz used that term. Most odd. Disco hits his Stunner which was his finisher but checks his hair first. Dean starts busting out springboards of all things. He really could do just about all of it. Dean just goes off and hooks the Cloverleaf for the tap out. Malenko just going off like that made it work for me.

Rating: C+. This wasn’t bad, but the ending was never really in doubt. Inferno looked pretty decent if nothing else, but it’s not like it meant much as Rey would beat Dean the next night in the opener to win the title. Decent little filler match though.

Kimberly says nothing of note. She’s in a towel though so I can’t complain.

Joe Gomez vs. Steve McMichael

So Gomez is a career jobber and McMichael is in his PPV debut as a Horseman. Any bets on what happens here? Mongo is allegedly one of the meanest people Dusty has seen in the last 10-20 years. Wow. This is another of those matches where you know there’s no drama as to the winner. The crowd is DEAD. McMichael just isn’t that good yet. To be fair he never became any good but at least he has an excuse here.

Apparently this is his third match. That’s saying a lot. Gomez is called a rookie here despite having been wrestling over ten years at this point. This is just going on too long. That’s what this boils down to. This match is just too long. They’re making it look like he can’t finish anyone off. He should win this in like 2 minutes and we’re over five already. It makes him look inept rather than elite.

There’s your boring chant. Gomez starts his comeback and they botch the heck out of a sunset flip. Thankfully they realize that it’s going bad and just end it almost immediately. This would have been a success if they cut about 4 minutes out of it.

Rating: F. This was supposed to be a squash and Mongo was supposed to look dominant. Neither happened as Mongo looked like a BAD rookie that had no idea what he was doing. I get that he needs ring time, but he needs to get it in far shorter spurts. This can be blamed on the booking far more than the people in it though. Again, you cut four minutes out of this and it’s light years better.

Flair cuts a promo and forgets he’s fighting Konnan and says that he’s fighting a man with 1000 holds. Right. Gene gets hit on by Woman again which was something I never got at all.

US Title: Konnan vs. Ric Flair

It’s nice to see a guy like Flair going down to Konnan’s level. This is the kind of stuff you just flat out do not see in modern wrestling. Konnan looks…weird. They shill Nitro tomorrow. Once I get done with the PPVs, I might start doing some Nitros and Raws. Just not sure how many of them. We hear about Flair’s cardio which is in a word, unmatched. The Surfboard never stops looking totally awesome.

Konnan Hulks Up and we go to the floor. Konnan gets a running start off of the apron and takes down Flair and Liz at the same time. That’s just WRONG. With the referee distracted Woman kicks Konnan square in the balls. Even the fans cheer for it, I’m assuming out of sympathy. In case you forgot about it, let’s talk about the main event! Konnan makes ANOTHER comeback and Flair is in something resembling trouble.

This is a very different Konnan here as he looks like a guy that actually could win something. Flair gets put in the figure four which for some reason is surprising despite it happening in about every match he’s ever in. The rolling clothesline hits and you can tell we’re running out of time here.

Konnan hooks an abdominal stretch into a rollup for no count as Liz is with the referee. Lucky bastard. Woman pops Konnan with the shoe to the head and throws his feet on the ropes (completely unneeded but it’s what great heels do) to win his first US Title in over 15 years.

Rating: C+. Not bad but it never got me going on this one. Flair getting the belt gave it some legit credibility that it had been lacking recently after runs from One Man Gang and Sasake so this was a big deal. Konnan never was as important as he was here again though, but this was just an ok match. I don’t think anyone thought Flair would lose though.

Gene goes to the Outsiders locker room and there’s a third voice in there. He’s not sure who it was but he’s heard it before. Even knowing who this is, the drama is there man. They’re building this perfectly and I’m excited about this.

Chris Benoit/Arn Anderson vs. Taskmaster/The Giant

Ok so there are two things to keep in mind here. If the Horsemen win, a Horseman gets a shot at the Giant the following night for the title. The second thing is that no one can beat the Giant so they’re going to focus on Sullivan. They brawl in the aisle and Mongo runs out with the briefcase he had to nail Giant who chases Mongo to the back, making it a handicap match for a bit.

It means nothing as Giant is back in like 8 seconds. Ok then. Now Benoit and Sullivan were having a GREAT feud where most of it was shoot stuff as Benoit had (kayfabe) stolen Woman, who was in real life married to Sullivan. In real life, Benoit and Woman had an affair and in real life Woman left Sullivan for Benoit. So in other words, they legit hated each other and were in brutal fights with each other.

Sullivan gets to get beaten on forever as we realize that the match is over once Giant comes in. So he gets a tag (to a freaking POP) and the Horsemen run. Benoit and Sullivan fight up to the announce area as Giant beats Anderson up like a jobber and the chokeslam ends it in like a minute. Benoit dives off of the announcers’ stage to plow into Sullivan.

That could have been a top five ever feud if Sullivan hadn’t sucked so much. Benoit is just destroying him at this point until Woman comes out and yells at Chris to stop it. This never went anywhere because of the NWO. Benoit was just awesome back then, even moreso than he would become. Giant carries Sullivan off like a 6 pack which is kind of funny.

Rating: D+. This did its job and that’s it. There was nothing to the match but somehow it went eight minutes. This was just a filler to set up the next chapter in Benoit vs. Sullivan and to be fair it did that, but we’ll never know where it went after that.

And now the reason why this is the most important show in WCW’s history up to that point: the main event. Since this is legitimately one of the biggest matches ever, I’ll have a special section at the end talking about the NWO at this stage. I’ll save the latter stuff for when it happens, but this will focus on the beginning through about Uncensored 97 where Hogan vs. Sting became the clear end goal. So I’m not skipping this, but I’ll save it for the end so scroll down if that’s what you’re here for.

We recap the invasion and see Hall walking onto Nitro and making history back in May. Those two debuts were some of the biggest shockers I can ever remember. They both blew my mind and even me, perhaps the biggest WWF mark here, forgot Raw existed for a little bit. There’s no commentary of voiceover here.

It’s just clips and occasional audio with them. Not that it really matters but Hall and Nash cost Sting and Luger the tag belts. This whole thing comes down to one question: Who is the Third Man?

Sting/Lex Luger/Randy Savagevs. Kevin Nash/Scott Hall/???

In case you don’t remember, the WCW guys were selected by putting the names of the top 6 WCW wrestlers based on win/loss record over the past I think six months or a year in a hat and drawing them out. The others were Hogan, Taskmaster and Giant. Hall and Nash come out alone and don’t have names yet. Tony gives them their names here. Until then they were just the Outsiders.

I’m not one for six man main events but this feels huge. Partially because it is huge. Gene goes into the ring before the WCW guys are here to find out who the third man is or for that matter where he is. The build for the drama here is epic. They’re milking this for everything they can.

The commentators aren’t even trying to stay unbiased which for once is nice. Even Randy Anderson is taller than Gene. Buffer is almost as tall as Scott Hall. Wow I didn’t realize that. The bell rings and we actually start with a handicap match.

The paranoia of the announcers actually upgrade this, marking the final time the WCW commentators don’t make me want a stiff drink in the history of WCW. Luger and Hall start. Now we get to the interesting part about a minute in. It turns into a big brawl and Nash and Luger are in the corner. Sting launches a Stinger Splash and nails Nash.

He also nails Luger, whose head and neck are rammed into the turnbuckle/bar attaching the turnbuckle to the ring. He’s OUT. They bring out a stretcher to carry him to the back and we have a 2-2 match with the third man on the way out. Now this does a few things. First of all, it makes the Outsiders look like they have a chance. Being realistic, there was no three man combination in the world that could have beaten Sting, Luger and Savage at this point and looked dominant.

That’s a WCW All-Star team to put it mildly and it would have been a waste of time to try. By making it two against what would become three, it makes WCW, the faces, at a disadvantage as they should be (are you listening TNA?). Also, this throws out a tiny piece of meat to the smarks as Luger and Sting had been the top candidates to be the third man.

It opens a door for Luger coming back and never being hurt and it opens a door for Sting to have done that on purpose. Either way the match pretty much stops at this point while we wheel Luger out. Tony says the Outsiders planned that somehow. That makes no sense but whatever. Crowd is RABID here.

Savage comes in but when Nash goes for a big elbow he lands on Savage’s head so Sting has to come in. Nash beats the tar out of Sting as does Hall so Savage is going to get the hot tag. There’s no real penalty or reward if the Outsiders win. They’re doing something brilliant here as they’re pacing things out to the point where we forget about the third man.

That’s very smart booking and I’m in awe of how this match is going. Tony says the Outsiders should get hurt. Wow. I’m not sure if that’s awesome or not. Savage FINALLY gets the hot tag and you actually can barely understand the announcers over the crowd. Nash gets a low blow on him though…and here comes Hulk Hogan. Heenan asks which side is he on.

The Outsiders clear the ring….and Hogan turns heel, dropping a leg on Savage and then another one. To say the crowd is ticked off is an understatement. This is legitimately a shock as NO ONE, not Meltzer, not Keith, not Reynolds, no one called this and if they did they were wrong at the time because from every report I can find, this decision was made the day of or the day before the show as Sting was scheduled to be the third man until Hogan agreed to do it.

This was a legitimate shocker and it lived up to every bit of the hype. Hogan turning was the one thing that made this angle work as I’ll get into later on. This was a great moment and I was about to cry when it happened. The fans flood the ring with garbage as Gene gets in. Hogan cements his heel status by saying the fans need to shut up if they want to hear what he has to say. That line alone makes this promo.

He says the name and the rest is history. Hogan claims the success for making WWF. I’m shocked too. Hogan says he’s bored with WCW and is joining up with the Outsiders and calls them the new blood of WCW. This is the one problem I had with both this turn and Austin joining the Alliance in 2001. Both guys said they were bored with the companies they had been in and wanted better competition.

If you’re going to be fighting the company you used to work for, won’t you be fighting the same competition you were fighting before? Hogan’s title win was over Giant who he had fought at I think three PPVs and his first defense was against Flair and you know that history. That just never made sense to me.

He throws in the for some reason semi-famous line about Bischoff selling meat from a truck in Minneapolis which is actually true. Hogan runs down the fans and does his trademark line. Tony says Hogan can away twice and we’re done.

Rating: A+. This was about launching the NWO. It worked.

OverallRating: B+. Not even considering the main event, this is a very good show all around. There’s one bad match early on, but you completely forget about everything else by the main event. There’s some great stuff on here and you could easily use this show as a definition for how to build drama to the ending. That was all that mattered but it worked like a charm at the end. Great show and well worth watching all the way through.

Despite all that happened to it later on and all the insanity that came from it and how it eventually became an albatross that brought WCW to its knees (and yes, most of the blame can still go on Hogan for reasons I’m sure we’ll get to later), when it began this was one of the best storylines in the history of wrestling (and yes X and others, I know Bischoff stole it from Japan).

Having an invasion could have been the best idea in the world. However, I think it peaked as soon as the Giant and Fake Sting joined. The problem simply was that at that point, it stopped being about an invasion and it was just a big faction in WCW. Hogan had to be there or else it was two guys beating up WCW guys. Hogan was virtually unbeatable in WCW so they needed him on board or everyone would just be waiting on Hogan to come in and save the day for WCW all over again.

The problem became that EVERYTHING became about the NWO. Angles such as Benoit/Sullivan and DDP’s benefactor were just dropped and it was NWO all the way. This is a big part of why the company failed in the long run. People got tired of the NWO and WCW had nothing else to throw out there.

Over in the WWF at their peak you had Austin vs. Vince but you also had the IC Title all over the place, you had the hardcore stuff, you had a (terrible) lightweight division, you had DX vs. the Nation and Rock vs. HHH. The midcard wars were going on and while they were tied to Austin vs. Vince, at the same time they were their own feuds. In short, there were a lot of things going on in the company other than just the main event.

Now, the NWO came out red hot and was the #1, #2 and #3 reason why WWF got its head handed to them and the early days of it were the best. That night where Rey got thrown into the trailer was one of the sickest things I have ever seen in wrestling and I was legit scared of the NWO after that. To say they nailed the start of this was an understatement. The NWO was a brilliant idea and it saved both WCW and Hogan.

The next year and a half were some of the most interesting shows of all time. Note that I said interesting and not good or anything like that. Either way, I’m looking forward to the next bunch of PPVs, but we’re going to reach a point eventually, and it’s not going to go well. Still though, this was GREAT and probably the biggest and best played shock in wrestling history.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my book o the History of Starrcade from Amazon for just $4 at:

Uncensored 1996
Date: March 24, 1996
Location: Tupelo Coliseum, Tupelo, Mississippi
Attendance: 9,000
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan, Dusty Rhodes

When I was a kid, this show looked completely awesome. I mean, Sting and Booker T vs. the Road Warriors in a street fight? Hogan and Savage against ten guys in a cage match? All of the matches with no rules? How could this not be good??? Well, this show has since been considered one of the worst of all time. After reading this raping of my childhood, I had to take another look at it to see if that’s the case or not.

The main theory here is that these matches aren’t sanctioned by WCW and therefore are more or less anything goes. That turns out to be bogus though as it’s really just a gimmick match PPV. Your main feud here is Hogan and Savage vs. the world.

There’s an alliance between the Horsemen and the Dungeon of Doom called the Alliance to End Hulkamania. Yeah, starting to see why wrestling was dying a painful death at this point? This was the top storyline. More on that later though, because we have an apparently awful show to watch.

Also, this is one week before Wrestlemania 12 where Shawn would win the title, just to give you a little perspective on what was going on with the competition.

The cage match is called the Doomsday Cage Match, so the opening video is about Doomsday. This is so ridiculously over the top that it’s hilarious. This reminds me of when they had Cena and Orton against the “roster” about a year and a half ago. They’re just throwing everyone they can into one match to feed them to Hogan and Savage.

This is going to be so bad it’s great. Tony says there isn’t a seat to be found in Tupelo. No, I’m pretty sure I see about 5000 tarped off up there. There are three in the announcer’s booth since they’re all standing. Oh and Bessie Mae Scroggins is only having two people for dinner tonight so there’s a chair free at her kitchen table.

The cage is just standing there next to the run way instead of you know, at the ring where people can see it. It’s very dark so you can see where this is going. Dusty says there’s a feel of danger. I have no idea what that means so Dusty is at the top of his HHH tonight. He says that Hogan needs to survive here to carry on into the 90s. You know, the decade that’s over 50% over already. I missed Dusty’s awfulness. We get a match to shut him up though.

US Title: Konnan vs. Eddie Guerrero

Eddie is the challenger here. He’s just gotten out of jobber status and this is his first big time title match. Konnan is still in his Mexican champion mode here and is rocking neon pink and blue on his jacket. Somehow it works though. You know before he came here and was a completely racist and insane bigot, he was actually a very entertaining wrestler.

Dusty calls Eddie his homey from El Paso. I wonder if they exchange bicycles. They start with a technical sequence which is the best thing they likely can do. Both guys are really good wrestlers so that’s always a good thing. This is right around the time where WCW with the cruiserweights was about to explode with Eddie being one of those leading the charge.

They point out the large amount of people that are here from other countries, which is kind of cool I think. WCW had a tendency to overpush that though and it hurt things. Konnan uses a heel hook as Dusty says he’s trying to uncle him. I should note the crowd is quite dead here. Now since Eddie was smart, he noticed this and more or less said screw this and just went insane on it.

Apparently the winner of this fights Mr. JL (Jerry Lynn) tomorrow on Nitro. I have no idea why, but whatever. This homey nonsense needs to freaking stop Dusty. It’s not funny and it’s just annoying. As for the match, it’s going ok I guess. The speeding up has really woken up the crowd. They’re desperately in need of a Mike Tenay here though to tell them what the heck is going on.

They have these weird spurts of awesome stuff and then they go into boring stuff 101. After some more time spent just making the audience go back and forth from being half asleep to freaking out, we get a weird ending. Eddie goes for a leapfrog or a hurricanrana or something like that and I think Konnan stops early. Either way, Eddie’s balls land on Konnan’s head and as he’s screaming, Eddie is covered and pinned.

Naturally he’s ticked off. Let’s look at this from a Kayfabe perspective. Eddie is the one that jumped on Konnan right? Why should he be ticked that he landed wrong? From a legit perspective, it’s an accident and no reason at all to be a jerk about it. If it were me, I’d think it’s because Vickie is the one that’s going to massage them back to health. Anyway, that’s how it ends which kind of sucks from either perspective.

Rating: B-. This was so back and forth all match that it wasn’t funny. The fans could tell also as you could see them waking up and then just dying at various intervals of the match. WCW was on the verge of the big time here and I think this match had a lot to do with it. I think they were starting to see that high flying stuff could really work well if they did it right and once they figured that out, it was all cruise control.

Gene is with Dick Slater and Colonel Parker. This was a buildup for Parker against Medusa later on tonight. The thing here is simple: Medusa is a decent wrestler and he’s a chauvinist that wants her in the kitchen. He says he’s doing this for all the men in the world. Parker was always pretty overrated as a manger and about as generic of a stereotype as you were ever going to find. Oh yeah and then there’s Slater who is even more generic.

Belfast Bruiser vs. Steven Regal

For you that aren’t familiar with these two, it’s William Regal vs. Finlay. This was some feud that they said was allegedly about something that happened in Europe but they never actually said what that was, which tells me it never happened. Regal has a butler with him named Jeeves. Make your own jokes. Finlay pops Regal with his jacket. Well ok then.

This is a freaking FIGHT. These guys are hammering on each other in a way that I’ve hardly ever seen before. It’s rather cool looking actually. Dusty drops the term stomp a mudhole in someone. That’s something new. This is just freaking brutal in there. We get a Pedro Morales reference who is apparently part of the Spanish announce team.

Since when did they have a Spanish announce team?? I don’t remember that at all. Dusty is a flat out idiot. He says that one of the Spanish announcers can get the truth out of Konnan because he speaks the Espanol. Not only that but he says that of the 32,000 people in the town are all here. Wow this man is impressive. He can’t wrestle, he can’t talk, but he’s a legend.

Apparently this is the WCW PPV debut in Australia. That just isn’t fair and I apologize to them. This is one of the most brutal matches I can ever remember. I mean there’s nothing special about it but they’re just hitting each other especially hard but they’re doing stuff like the forearm to the face on pins. That’s just painful looking. More or less it’s a street fight where you can get disqualified though.

They announce that tomorrow it’s Finlay vs. Savage. I like that, as they advertise the matches like that. Also, that’s what they need to do more of today in WWE: having main event guys fight midcarders. It worked back then and it would work today. Dusty continues to amaze me by saying Ireland and England aren’t close to each other at all. The crowd is completely dead by the way.

They hit the floor for about the third time and run to the Doomsday cage. After a solid shot into that still doesn’t draw a DQ, the freaking Blue Bloods run in for the actual DQ, despite having a lower combined IQ than the cage. I know this was a short review, but this was nearly a twenty minute fight. Yes fight, not match.

Rating: C-. This is a very hard one to describe. This had to be at least 75% shoot though, as there’s no way they could hammer on each other that well and have it be fake completely. They hammered on each other in probably the hardest hitting match I’ve ever seen. The problem is, the fans were just completely bored with it. Think of the Nastys vs. Sullivan and Cactus from Spring Stampede 94, but add ten minutes to it and less weapons. See how that could be a problem?

This is a very odd show so far. The crowd simply doesn’t care about much at all, and between that and Dusty’s complete insanity at commentary, I’m not sure what to think yet. Let’s keep at it though.

Gene is with the Giant and Jimmy Hart who say they’ll take care of Loch Ness. Giant threatens to smoke Loch Ness like bacon. That joke writes itself. Apparently the winner of this gets a world title shot against Flair tomorrow night.

Colonel Parker vs. Madusa

The story here is about as complicated as you can think of. Sherri had gotten hit on the head and decided she was in love with Parker. They kissed at Fall Brawl so he decided he wanted to marry her. They had the wedding and for reasons that were never explained, Madusa jumped out of a trailer and broke it up.

That leads to this, which is man vs. woman, yet I’ve never heard of another woman named Colonel Robert Parker before. That’s clearly the less masculine of the two here though. Before this starts though, Heenan and Tony get into this STUPID argument with insults that aren’t funny and wouldn’t be funny in 6th grade. After some brief predictions, we get to the match.

Bobby is clad in leather for some odd reason. He suggests buying off Madusa here with credit cards and flowers. Oh thank goodness for Bobby Heenan. We get a WWF reference as this is just a bit after she dropped the women’s title in the garbage which inadvertently led to Montreal. Parker is just stupid looking here, wearing a white suit.

Madusa was more or less the only American women’s wrestler worth a thing that anyone could stand the sight of for a good many years, but Sable was on the rise and it would be a few years before this indy chick named Amy Dumas came up. Trish was probably in high school at this time. Madusa is supposed to be sexy I think, but she’s just not as she’s more masculine than Parker.

Naturally she’s a black belt also as all women wrestlers apparently are. After the bell we get a lock up. We’ll move on with the match in just a moment, but first, this pearl of insight from Dusty: “HE LOCKED UP WITH HER! HE LOCKED UP WITH HER! WHAT THE HECK??? HE LOCKED UP WITH HER! SOMEBODY GET MY MEDICINE!” This is going to be a really long night. What in the heck am I watching???

The fans are about as one sided as you could possibly believe. After an Airplane Spin that brought on some of the highest pitched screams that I can ever remember, she reverses into a sunset flip for a HUGE pop. I mean that was loud. She slams him and Dusty needs new pants I think. Not due to an issue or anything, but the 12 cheeseburgers he’s had during this match made him go up a size.

Heenan continues to crack me up by saying the closest thing he’s ever seen to this is one night when Gene got home late and his old lady backdropped him. Would anyone else be far more interested in a reality show of Gene and Bobby wandering around to various places and having stupid misadventures? Dick Slater, who was somehow married to Madusa at the time keeps him from running. Screw you Slater.

Madusa actually wasn’t that bad in the ring. They’re in Trish territory. Sadly that’s the only thing about her that’s in Trish’s territory. She gets her signature German suplex, and actually gets a decent one all things considered, but Slater hooks her foot and Parker falls on her for the pin. That was…yeah.

Rating: D. That’s because she looked ok and to be fair, she was asked to do a lot out there and while it sucked beyond belief, she worked very hard so I’ll give her points for that. This made less than zero sense though and I have no idea what this was supposed to be other than a really bad comedy bit. It lasted about 4 minutes though, and that’s too long. My head is starting to throb from this show.

Lee Marshall says there’s no question why this is called Uncensored. Really? I’m not sure I know what that is. Apparently the tag team division is hot, so let’s talk to the Road Warriors. The idea tonight is that Luger and Sting are the tag champions and the Warriors want their shot. Luger however is in the main event so we have Booker T in as Sting’s partner.

It’s a standard Road Warriors’ interview, although Hawk does get in a line about the medulla oblongata at least a year before Waterboy came out. However, the part that makes this absolutely great is that behind them is a chalk board. On this chalk board, IS THE HEEL BATTLE PLAN FOR THE MAIN EVENT. Literally, just behind them is a drawing of the triple cage and the places where the heels are supposed to be, including a list of strategy and tips for the heels.

Again, let’s look at this from two ways. First of all, let’s say it’s supposed to be kayfabe and written by a member of the heel team. First of all, how in the world is Lee Marshall getting an interview with the LOD in that locker room? Two, wouldn’t you think that they would have hid it better? Three, they use the same symbol for Hogan and Savage in their key.

Looking at it from a legit perspective, as in it’s there from a production meeting or something, FIRE THE PRODUCER OF THE SEGMENT! My goodness they let the plan for the main event be seen. How stupid can they be? Either way, this is just dumb on so many levels and looks completely stupid.

Diamond Dallas Page vs. Booty Man

Oh where do I even start here. Ok, Booty Man is Brutus Beefcake first of all, who is freshly face again, having been a heel in the Dungeon of Doom, only to be thrown into this match with the explanation that he was sent in by Hogan as a spy and was really a good guy all along. That….actually could work.

I mean think about it: is that really such an insane plot idea? I certainly wouldn’t think so. I mean it’s certainly not great or fleshed out or anything, but considering it was likely thrown together at the last minute it’s fine by me. Now, you might be wondering why we’re even having to talk about Brutus here. Well, this was supposed to be Johnny B. Badd fighting DDP for the 12th time in a week or something like that, as they had been feuding forever.

Why were they feuding? Well, DDP was this poor guy that got some money together and went to play Bingo with Kimberly. He bought her ticket and she won $12 million dollars at a freaking Bingo game. I want to play in that game! Anyway, they went to court over it and the judge gave it to her. The thing was, he had already spent a ton of it, and Johnny was the only guy that would defend her. The TV Title got involved in there too but it wasn’t important.

Anyway, this is money vs. career so there we are. Badd had jumped ship about two weeks before this to WWF as Marc Mero and debuted 7 days after this. So with no one at all to go to, they turned Brutus into the Booty Man of all things and we have this. Think about that story for a bit: that’s pretty much the main midcard feud: a feud over a game of Bingo, and people wonder why this company sucked so much at this time. DDP is allegedly penniless here, but he has enough to get tights and boots.

He’s doing some almost biker gimmick or something here too. Oh and Kimberly is called the Booty Girl now. Page looks like garbage here. Brutus is wearing the same tights he wore as the Barber but now he’s wearing a headband and has a REALLY bad song. They bury Badd before the match, saying he decided he just couldn’t compete in WCW anymore. Ouch.

It’s a shame he had about 5 times as big of a career in WWF than he ever would have in WCW where he would have been swallowed by the NWO in six months and gone to WWF for half the money later on. Yep, his life sucked. Sadly, we haven’t even started the match at this point. We start with Page hiding and smoking a cigar as Brutus is apparently a Hulkamaniac.

The way his tights are cut Brutus looks like he’s wearing a really big thong. They haven’t actually made contact yet. HE LOCKED UP WITH HIM! HE LOCKED UP WITH HIM!!! After that, we waste some more time. We’ve been going for almost three minutes before they actually do any real wrestling. We get a great line of after the money came in, the Diamond Doll (Kimberly) got built up with Page. Think about that for a minute and you’ll get it.

Anyway, they finally get going here and in a funny bit, Heenan starts talking about the angle and Dusty talks over him. Bobby starts getting upset and complaining, saying that he won’t talk anymore and it’s now the Tony and Dusty Show. BOBBY, PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF THINGS GOOD AND MADE OF PORK TALK TO US!!! DON’T DO THIS TO US!

Thankfully he’s back a few seconds later. Dusty actually says Brutus is a skilled mat wrestler. Yep, that’s what he said. Anyone want to place a bet on him topping that one later on? As Dallas is on the floor, Kimberly comes out looking like a roller disco cheerleading French maid. Trust me, you would describe her the same way. This is just horrible.

It’s more or less a dance recital with some arm work in there. That was the absolute worst mistiming thing I’ve EVER seen. DDP reverses an Irish Whip and then I have zero clue what they were planning as Page lays down on his back and Brutus bent forward after running like he was going to back drop Page. I really don’t know what that was supposed to be but even the announcers can’t hide the fact that it was horrible looking.

I mean TONY FREAKING SCHIAVONE says “Oh what was that?” in a very sarcastic tone. They try to say it was a botched arm drag but that doesn’t work. OH! They repeated the spot (dingbats) and it was supposed to be Brutus goes for a cross body and Page ducks. The problem was that the first time I think Brutus was thinking shoulder block or something.

It was so obviously a repeat of the spot and it just looked awful. You can tell that Page, who likes to map stuff out, has no clue what to do here. He liked to have his whole matches scripted beforehand, something Randy Savage was notorious for in his best days, but this was thrown together so there we are. Also, this is nowhere NEAR the DDP that you’re used to.

Kimberly wants Brutus to be her boyfriend. That’s her exact line. Is she wanting to participate in a drug intervention or something? In another jab at Badd, they say that Page signed to fight bad and the announcers unanimously agree Page would have won. They say a heel would beat a face, which sums everything up. Heenan says if she’s looking for a boyfriend to put an ad in the paper. Bobby says that in that outfit the only person she could get is a fellow acrobat.

Page kisses Kimberly, leading to a high knee for the pin. Brutus “keeps” Kimberly due to the stipulation. WCW: a slave trader’s paradise! Brutus kisses her. I’d recommend about a week in a dentist’s office along with a high dose of antibiotics. She’s the Booty Girl now. I’m out of jokes here so post amongst yourselves. Page would of course be back and somehow wrestle THREE MATCHES at the next PPV. Good to see they’re keeping their promises.

Rating: D. This went WAY too long. To be fair, Kimberly looked pretty good so it gets points for that. It also launched DDP’s career as he became this guy that despite being fired still was filmed by WCW cameras and shown on WCW TV. He would get some mystery benefactor that was never revealed due to the NWO. He would return and become the character we all know and at least like, launching him into the stratosphere in WCW.

Gene is with Jimmy Hart and Luger. Jimmy says that tonight is the last night he’s going to be with Luger. Why is this the case? We’re never told. Luger looks stunned as well, which makes even less sense because the explanation Jimmy gives is he’s a man of his word. Jimmy starts to cry and leaves, and for some reason we get a random bell in the arena.

Luger says that tonight he has to watch his friend and partner defend the titles without him in a Chicago Street Fight, and he’s the one from Chicago. The odd part here is that Jimmy leaves him, but Luger would turn full face (he was a tweener at this point) later on in the night.

Now having Jimmy leave here keeps him from having to do that later on, but why not turn face and then dump Jimmy? That would at least make sense and strengthen his face turn, but they went with this instead. It’s illogical, it makes no sense, and it came out of nowhere and is expected to make sense. IT’S WCW!

Giant vs. Loch Ness

Apparently Loch Ness was supposed to be in the cage and this was supposed to not happen I guess, but Luger was pulled from the street fight and put into the cage, so Loch Ness is given a #1 contender’s match. He weighs 699lbs and he is coming out to what would become Rey Mysterio’s music.

This is Giant (Big Show) at about 420 and scary looking. He’s still huge and strong but he’s skinny here. This is the big man that was supposed to be the best big man ever and at this point, that really wouldn’t have been too much of a stretch. Loch Ness is actually bigger than Yokozuna ever was, so take that for what it’s worth.

Naturally they beat the heck out of each other with just big pounding shots, until Giant goes to the other corner and throws himself at Loch Ness but misses, sending Giant up over the top rope and corner and crashing to the floor. The camera is in the corner though so it doesn’t look as cool as it sounds, but still it’s amazing that a guy that size can throw stuff like that and make it look pretty decent.

In a flat out scary move, Giant hits what we would call Sweet Chin Music on Loch Ness, who was billed as 6’11. He nailed it too. A Hogan leg drop ends it and Jimmy Hart celebrates like he’s a new father. Giant screams into the camera that the leg drop was for Hogan. That made zero sense. He also says he’s coming for the WCW Title a month later (for the life of me I thought he won it the next night), which he would win with relative ease and hold all summer.

Rating: C-. This is for the Giant doing some freaky stuff out there, like hitting the kick. That was impressive. Loch Ness would be gone I think after this match and then he died about two months later. This was a 3 minute “war”, so there we are.

Lee Marshall has a great mustache for the ages. Sting and Booker more or less say they don’t want to do this but they respect each other. We’re still in front of the board with the plans on it. Sting talks like a guy from the streets, and actually pulls it off very well. Sting and Booker have so much charisma it’s flat out terrifying.

Chicago Street Fight; Road Warriors vs. Booker T/Sting

Now say it with me: a Chicago street fight is happening in MISSISSIPPI. The idea here is that if Booker and Sting win here, Harlem Heat gets a title shot. I think the belts are on the line here but it’s never made clear, at least not so far. This is Booker’s dry run for a singles push, which obviously went well as he won his first TV Title a year and a half later. Yeah the NWO REALLY threw a lot of stuff off.

Naturally it’s a brawl to start and they’re already on the floor. We go split screen here which is a good idea. Granted then they have just two separate shots of the same thing and I continue to wonder how they stayed in business as long as they did. Tony must be drunk because he makes a good point, saying that these kinds of matches should have two referees.

Aside from pointing out the stupidity of the higher ups with them allowing such an idiotic move, that’s very accurate. Sting and Animal trade low blows on the post because that’s very normal. We switch back to the split screen, now complete with a graphic reminding us that this is the Chicago Street Fight. In yet another great moment from Bobby, he says that instead of covering someone that’s down, you go through his pockets and look for cash, jewelry, watches, etc. I love Heenan.

The wrestlers can apparently get away with murder, but they can get disqualified. I love wrestling. It’s Booker and Animal in the ring and Sting and Hawk, who is also an animal but whatever, with Sting in the aisle. Hawk can throw a freaking dropkick when he has to. That was impressive. Sting gets a chair and hits some absolutely laughably bad shots with it.

However, they’re divine ones compared to the ones that Animal hits the faces with. How weird is it that the Road Warriors are the heels in a match? Those shots were just awful though. I think I’ve seen Rey throw harder ones. Hawk no sells a piledriver. Really? How do you not sell a freaking piledriver? You’re dropped on your head for goodness’ sake. The stupid stuff continues as we have a chinlock in a street fight. Oh yeah work that chin!

Heenan says that Animal or Hawk need to get with their partner and say something to them. The thing he says takes him 11 seconds to say. It’s not really funny, but there’s something that’s just great about that. They hit the stands for about a second and we have the second instance tonight of the chairs being in big rows for no apparent reason. Why do they insist on using two camera for the same shot? I love wrestling at times, but this makes my head hurt.

Apparently this is non title, so therefore Sting can’t lose his title and can only get hurt, the Road Warriors have nothing to gain, and Booker can get a title shot. Why are the three not named Booker here? Sting and Hawk are in the ring and Booker and Animal are near the cage. They set for the Doomsday Device but Booker makes the save by crocthing Animal (who usually doesn’t go up top).

This prompts Dusty to say E.T. phone home. I gave up on trying to figure this out a long time ago. Sting hits the fifth low blow in 15 minutes. I wish they would make a reference to Sting and Dusty teaming up to fight the Road Warriors at Starrcade 87. Just as I say that, Bobby asks Dusty what he would do if he were Sting’s partner in this case.

I wish he would have said that he was and left it at that but no go. The spinaroonie is known as the whirly bird here. I’d love to see Sting against RVD in a jumping contest. It would be a very interesting challenge. Apparently the fans are standing everywhere. They must be about an average of 4ft tall because they look like they’re sitting to me, but then again I’m no professional announcer.

Booker hits low blow #6. Tony, continuing his brilliant career as an announcer, points out that they haven’t done anything incredibly extreme and this has really just been as basic as possible. Thanks for pointing out that this isn’t as great as it was built up to be and giving us no reason to believe the hype on future PPVs.

I think I’ve finally started figuring out the problem that I have with this commentary team: I don’t know what they’re saying and it just passes through my head as being fine. Bobby and Dusty are talking about glomming someone. What the heck does that mean?

I guess it means double teaming, but it could mean sharing a turkey sandwich and a white wine for all I know. I will give them this: they’ve managed to keep going with the singles and team fighting. That’s hard to do but they’re pulling it off here. Off a top rope powerslam, Bobby says Sting landed on his shoulder like Apollo 13.

THAT DOESN’T MAKE ANY SENSE!!! What in the world is that supposed to mean? It’s like just random gibberish that sounds good. What the heck does Apollo freaking 13 have to do with this match and how in the world does it relate to a guy landing on his shoulder? Animal follows it up with even more weak chair shots. Uh oh, a weak clothesline hits the post.

The weapons shots here just flat out suck. Hawk just somehow managed to hit Sting with the side of the chair facing Hawk when he swung it. That’s hard to do. Sting then leaves his partner alone to go get some plunder (which I figured out means weapons). He comes back with….brooms. Yep, he’s got brooms.

Even Tony sounds annoyed with this match as we’re well past 20 minutes here which is mainly just stupid stuff where they look tired. Now instead of hitting Hawk with the wooden handle of the broom, he hits him with the straw. Yep, that’s what he did. Animal apparently noggered Booker. There’s a new language being formed here. Bobby makes a vacuum reference for no apparent reason.

They trash Luger some more as it occurs to me that Dusty has fought him at Starrcade as well. Hey WCW: GET NEW TALENT! Booker apparently walks out with Animal following him so we hit the split screen again. Animal and Booker fight in the back even more with Luger there. Animal accidentally hits Luger and knocks him into some trash, which ticks him off of course.

With a Viking like yell he runs at Animal and takes him out. Stevie Ray, Booker’s partner, shows up and along with Jimmy Hart they beat the heck out of Animal and tie him to a post. In the ring, Hawk is beating the crap out of Sting which is odd to see indeed.

Sting goes into his insane offense that works better than anything else. Booker is back now as it’s all faces here. Stevie runs out to hit another crap chair shot to end this. Right after the pin we cut to Animal who is screaming about nothing in particular other than having his teeth kicked in, being taped to a pole and being handcuffed. I love wrestling!

Rating: D+. This is just hard to grade. The main problem is simple: this went thirty minutes. You could cut at least 15 of that out and this is a B- or so. There’s just way too many dead spots though where it’s just random punches and kicking that get very boring.

The street fight aspect of this was awful with only a few chair shots and the broom being in there to do anything at all. Also, it’s not even for the titles. Put Booker in there as a substitute partner. That would have at least given us something close to a reason to care. The brawling was ok, but that’s overshadowed by the pure dullness of about 15 minutes of this.

We recap the feud with Hogan and Savage against the Alliance. More or less what happened was simple: the Alliance challenged Hogan to a 4-1 cage match, but WCW wised up and realized Hogan carrying a match like that could expose him too much, so they threw Savage in there too.

Now, how did the Alliance put out this challenge? Was it by beating down Hogan? Was it by destroying something he held dear and valuable? Was it by making threats to his family and home? Nope to all three. They sent him a telegram. Let me repeat that. The feud and match were set by a group sending Hogan a telegram. That’s so freaking stupid I can’t even make fun of it. I truly can’t.

They sent him a telegram. I can’t get over that. Something else I notice: there hasn’t been a single mention of Randy Savage all show. It’s been nothing but Hogan. The team is known as the Alliance to End Hulkamania. In the build up from the announcers there’s no mention of Savage. What in the world is wrong with these people? Why am I trying to figure that out?

Doomsday Cage Match: Hogan/SAVAGE vs. Alliance to End Hulkamania

The Alliance is Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, Meng, Barbarian, Lex Luger, Taskmaster (Kevin Sullivan), Z-Gangsta (Zeus from the late 80s) and Ultimate Solution (big fat strong guy that never did anything other of note in wrestling. He did play Bane in Batman and Robin though in case anyone is interested.) Now you might be wondering how this is going to work.

Well until about 3 minutes before the bell rings, so was everyone else. Literally, they didn’t know what they were going to do until the day of the show. That’s your brilliant wrestling company at work. The idea would be this. You have a ring with three cages on top of it. In other words, there’s a ring with a cage over it that’s very tall and has a top of in. The top of that cage is the floor of a second cage. That cage has six sides, all made of cage.

There’s ANOTHER of those on top. The match starts up at the top for no apparent reason. The idea is that it’s more or less a gauntlet match. There’s two guys on top, four in the middle cage and two in the bottom cage and Hogan and Savage have to win in all three cages. Yep, that’s it.

In a match that’s supposed to be all about violence and called a Doomsday match, we have a freaking gauntlet with regular pins and submissions. Let’s get to this. Michael Buffer is in the ring doing introductions for this as I have a feeling that this is going to take a LONG time.

He asks if they’re ready. He asks it again. I wonder if they’re going to break it down after the match. The cage I mean. Oh Brian Pillman is supposed to be in this but he’s left for ECW at this time where he would be for all of a day or so and then on to WWF. Flair comes out sans belt or any acknowledgement that he’s champion so you can see where the priorities are.

Oh we also have to wait for them to all climb up the steps to get to their cages too. Barbarian has been banned from wrestling in most countries in the world too. You learn something new every day. Zeus (I refuse to refer to him as Z-Gangsta more than I have to) and Ultimate Solution aren’t here yet. His original name was Final Solution. I’ll give you two guesses as to how that went.

So we’re starting with Anderson and Flair at the top so we’re starting with the Mega Powers vs. Anderson and Flair. Tell me, what’s wrong with that as a main event? I’d like that FAR better. Luger left WWF for this. That’s just sad. They finally just give up and call Hogan a superhero. Naturally the camera follows him up the stairs as my fear of heights is kicking in.

Dusty says the fans have been waiting for days in and around this building. Just go with it. Once they finally reach the top we start immediately and also immediately we see the massive problem: the fans can’t see a freaking thing. They’re about thirty feet from the ground (which of course hits as high as 65 so far according to Brain) and the lighting is awful.

Also, this is before the days of the Titantron. If they had that, this would be ok. No actually it wouldn’t be but it would have been better. The people watching the PPV from home have a hard time seeing this so imagine what it’s like for the fans there. They’re dead quiet too after the opening maybe 10 seconds because reality has set in. Oh Arn is wearing a full black body suit for no apparent reason.

Heenan says what I think might have been hidden jabs at WCW by saying “What a great thing for television!” and “Only here in WCW!” Those are either fed to him or shots at the brilliant minds who came up with this. Actually no. They’re not worthy of sarcastic praise. They’re freaking idiots. I mean seriously, WHAT ARE THEY THINKING???

If you’re going to do a cage match, fine. If you’re going to do a big cage match, fine. If you’re going to do a gauntlet cage match, that’s fine too. Actually that’s kind of an interesting concept. However, DO IT WHERE THE PEOPLE CAN SEE IT. My goodness how hard of a concept is that? What’s the most important aspect of any show? How about being able to see it?

The fans here might be able to make out someone next to one side of the cage but other than that, nothing. And don’t even bother staying if you sit across the arena and don’t have binoculars because you’re screwed. Sting and Booker won the main event already. I can’t get over how ridiculous this is. Seriously who thought this was a good idea?

Oh and there’s a referee up there too even though it’s Uncensored and therefore unsanctioned. There’s also a massive pole in the middle in case Hogan wants to shoot a Brooke Hogan video up there. They go to a wide shot to just further show how stupid this is. We can hear the wrestlers talking which is usually covered up by the crowd.

Maybe they can see as there’s a pop for Hogan ripping the shirt off. Heenan says this is better than the World Series or the Super Bowl. Yes it does Bobby, yes it does. Hey we’ve hit 70 feet in the air! Heenan redeems himself a bit with the line of all a manager can do here is hope they have a client in the morning. We get a random reference to some woman named Becky in Denver. Ok then.

Tony sums up the match perfectly: the fans wanted to know what the Doomsday Cage was so they’re finding out here. Well thanks for that Tony. In other words, we’re going to throw out a cool sounding name and say Hogan is in it against a bunch of guys that we’re only going to vaguely mention and say to find out, pay up. Once you hook them, you don’t have to do jack.

They did the same thing with the Elimination Chamber in 2002, but the difference was that match wasn’t bad. It certainly wasn’t great but I’ve seen far worse matches. Exhibit A is being reviewed at the moment. In the ultra violent match, we get double figure fours.

Heenan’s comedy is all that’s holding the pieces of this in place. Notice I didn’t say together but just in place as they would likely want to run away and join a witness protection program or something. Zeus and Solution didn’t wrestle again after this. They were the smart ones I guess.

Dusty says if you have a chain length fence (who doesn’t?) just go lay on it to see what this is like. Bobby: Then call your neighbor over and slap the figure four on him! Then put the figure eight on your Doberman! Bobby Heenan, I love you very much. You need massive amounts of therapy and medication, but I love you.

Flair drops something from one cage to the other which is never explained or mentioned again. My guess would be the will of Flair’s career since it’s dead at this point. Hogan and Savage throw powder, which is likely the remains of the cocaine they needed to agree to this.

They go through a trapdoor to get to the next cage, and Anderson and Flair are eliminated. WOW. Ok so wait. All they had to do was get through a door? They didn’t have to pin someone or get a tap out but just go through a door? Ladies and gentlemen, I’m done. I’m going to stop trying to make sense of this match and that’s all there is to it.

This just doesn’t make sense at all but for some reason they insist that it does. Bobby says Boris Karloff would love this. Not really but ok. Hogan has a chain and beats on Sullivan with it. They’re down about 12 feet now so the crowd is a bit more into it. It’s the Faces of Fear (Meng and Barbarian) on Savage and Luger and Sullivan on Hogan.

This room has a door in the middle of it so it’s like two small cages. Actually there’s a reason for it though which will come up in a minute. After being beaten on by two grown men and a steel chain, Hogan is fine and manages to get the chain away to lock the door (which didn’t have a lock before but whatever) and trap Meng and Barbarian inside.

A shot of the cage from the floor makes this look a lot better as in essence they’re fighting on top of a regular cage. That’s not bad I guess. Anderson and Flair drop to the second cage and are trapped as well. Where’s my wah wah music when I need it? Heenan says it’s a maze with no way in or out.

Yep other than the doors they came in through, the doors they leave through or the path that the referee points them through to get to the end. Speaking of doors they go out of one and fight on the stairs which is kind of scary when you think about it as there’s no wall to save them there.

Sullivan is actually over halfway out as Heenan says that he’ll be spam if he hits. I’ll infract him if he does. I don’t want any spam in my reviews. Savage and Luger are still in the cage by the way. According to Brain everyone is on their feet. They have to be to see this I suppose. They’re more or less quiet by the way.

Luger gets loose and we’re out on the floor. Yep, they got out of the cage and while the rules stated earlier in the match said that Hogan and Savage just needed to get down to win, they apparently are going to keep going. Hey, we’re having a Doomsday Cage Match, so let’s fight in the ring!

Yep, they’re fighting in the ring. Luger and Savage are fighting by the cage with Hogan and Sullivan in the ring. The four guys in the upper cage break out and head down the cage. Now this could be cool: Hogan and Savage 6-2 in the arena. Well ok I can go with that as at least its easier to see.

It’s more or less the same thing as the previous match but…that’s….why are the other four just leaving? They just walked back to the dressing room. Anderson and Flair are supposed to, but the Faces of Fear are still in this legally, but who cares about that? That would MAKE SENSE! Hogan is beating on Luger in the ring while Savage is having boards thrown at him.

Apparently the Faces of Fear have been eliminated. Oh ok I think I’ve got it now: the rules are as follows. Hogan and Savage had to go to the top of the cage where they had to either pin or get a submission from Flair and Anderson but they were allowed to have an alternate way of winning because Hogan made a large donation to the Save the Wombat Foundation.

Next up they had to get pins or submissions on some combination of the Faces of Fear, Sullivan or Luger, but they were able to lock the Faces of Fear into a cage and therefore receive a Federal credit for preventing an international assault and battery charge since both men are international ambassadors sent by the King of Tonga to study wrestling (that’s actually not made up if you can believe that. That’s legit true).

Now at the beginning the rules stated that they simply had to get to the floor to win, however there was a clause stating that if there was a high percentage (17 or greater) of time spent on discussing the social habits of Bulgarian monks in the 15th century by the four in the second cage during the battle in the first cage, then simply getting to the floor wouldn’t be classified as a win.

In that case a pin in the other ring would work. However, that won’t work either because Lex Luger’s lawyers feel that the population of fire ants in this match were misrepresented so therefore a simple pin in the ring won’t work either, and the final two members of the Alliance to End Hulkamania, which has founded new chapters in Laos, Manhattan and the North Pole, fighting off the evils of Hulk-Chi-Min, Hulk Maritoni and Hulk-a-Claus, must be equally represented in this match, which must end via pinfall in the original ring.

HOWEVER, it will be allowed for former members of the Alliance to reenter the match under the Columbus Act which also founded Ohio in 1776, but also said that wrestlers were unlawfully evicted from the match via an international treaty can be allowed to return. ANYWAY, now that we’re back to the match, let’s continue here but I need to make sure this remains logical. It’s very important to keep that going here.

They’re all at the ring now and we have more bad chair shots. I love how the graphic under the split screen says Doomsday Cage Match despite a significant lack of cage. Here’s Ultimate Solution and Zeus. According to the clause listed above, we head back to the original cage for the showdown. Yep, it’s Hogan and Savage in a no tag tag-team match against two big strong guys. How do they come up with these things? Sullivan is lurking around as I feel he needs to register. I’m sure there’s something in this match for him too. There must be a tournament somewhere.

As if this wasn’t riveting enough, we hit a bear hug. Hey now, it’s time for the rematch of the match that didn’t happen seven years ago in another company that we’re not going to mention but imply that everyone knows anyway because that’s how we roll.

Ultimate Solution (hereafter known as porkchop for no other reason than I have the Doug song in my head) picks up Savage and has him in position for a slam, prompting Dusty to wonder what he’s going to do with him. Heenan says that he picked Savage up like a 100lb infant. Tony says there’s no winning or losing but only surviving. Yeah I’d agree.

Whose career can survive this match? Here’s Arn and Flair again as apparently their plan to eliminate Hulkamania is just to stomp them and punch them and slam them a lot. Yep, that’s the epic plan. Tony is holding out hope despite a few seconds before saying it’s hopeless.

I love that top level journalism there Tony! Keep it up and one day you might be able to get a better job like selling meat from a truck in Minneapolis! They actually argue over how many people are in there against Hogan and Savage. To get off of that we point out that this started with a telegram. Somehow that’s an improvement.

Naturally they ask if Hulkamania can survive instead of Hogan and Savage. It amazes me that he got so little respect over the years. He was nuts, but man could he wrestle. In one of the best unintentionally funny moments I can ever remember, the powder that Hogan and Savage have spills out and within 5 seconds Brutus is there to help them. That’s just greatness.

Also they’re almost face down in it. Could this get any funnier? Now the interesting part is what Brutus does for them. He brings them weapons to even the odds, instead of actually sticking around to help fight like a friend would. Nope he brought them something to help them fight off the forces of evil. What does he bring? Does he bring brass knuckles?

Maybe a club? Perhaps a couple of chairs? Nope. He brings frying pans. Brutus Beefcake brings a pair of frying pans to help save his friends. Where in the world do I start? Let’s see: how about WHY DID HE HAVE FRYING PANS??? Was he making bacon in the back or something? Does he tend to carry cookware around with him? Did the barber shop fall through? I guess he couldn’t repair the window after Shawn broke it so he became a chef.

Somehow, that is the most logical thing I’ve said all night. There’s five minutes left so let’s get through this if we can. Luger comes back in with a glove that they imply is loaded. He sets to hit Savage but Macho ducks (that sounds like an upgrade to Duck Hunter) and Luger stops, but then starts again to hit Flair and turn face I guess.

Hogan and Savage turn to leave but Savage runs back in and pins Flair while everyone else kind of stands around and lets it happen. WOW. So did they forget the whole pin thing too I suppose? Heenan is ticked off and leaves and we’re finally done.

Rating: -F. This is below an F. We’ve gone so low that we’ve went past Z (which stands for Zeus not Z-Gangsta blastit) and we’ve reached negative letters. That’s how insane this was. I mean it made no sense, the rules I laid out might as well have been the real ones because nothing stayed the same as it was in the beginning, you couldn’t see a thing if you were in the audience, the match was exactly the same thing that it had always been with Hogan surviving, and the plan was just to beat them up a lot? Take note fans: never, I mean never, send a telegram in your life. You can see what it can lead to.

Overall Rating: D-. You know, for some reason I like it. I have no idea why, but somehow I like this show. I think it’s the whole crazy aspect of it. It’s so completely ridiculous that it’s actually fun. The earlier stuff isn’t great and is incredibly boring, but the rest of the show is just such insanity and stupidity that I’d only recommend watching it while completely and utterly stoned or drunk or hopefully a combination of both.

If that’s the case, this is the greatest match of all time. This actually prompted Hogan’s heel turn as he was more or less booed out of the building the next time. Hulkamania was completely gone here as the whole idea of him being able to pull this off was just too much even for the hardcore Hulkamaniac to take.

Something had to be done, and while it turned wrestling upside down and more or less screwed up a ton of pushes and plans, Hogan was saved so all was right with the world. As for a recommendation, note that this is a terrible show and should only be watched if you’re interested in the complete insanity of it. It’s the absolute worst main event I’ve ever seen. I have however heard of something called the Extreme Elimination Chamber. That could be worth looking into.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

On This Day: July 7, 1996 – Bash at the Beach 1996: The Heel Turn To End All Heel Turns

On This Day: June 16, 1996 – Great American Bash 1996: Benoit And Sullivan Have A FIGHT

On This Day: June 10, 1997 – Monday Nitro: Kevin Nash Needs An English Lesson

On This Day: May 8, 1996 – In Your House #8: Beware Of Power Outages

On This Day: May 27, 1996 – Monday Nitro 1996: The Most Important Moment In Wrestling TV History

On This Day: May 20, 1996 – Monday Nitro: The Calm Before The Storm

On This Day: April 22, 1996 – Monday Nitro 1996: One Match For All The Titles

On This Day: Monday Nitro – April 1, 1996: Bobby Heenan’s Swan Song

On This Day: March 24, 1996 – Uncensored 1996: My Favorite Review

Wrestlemania Count-Up – Wrestlemania XII: Grabbing The Brass Ring