Tag Archives: wcw

RAW vs. Nitro Week 4 – 9/25/95

January 21, 2016 rdtworldofsport@gmail.com

Week 4

RAW: 9/25/95
Grand Rapids, MI

RAW won last week with the go home show for In Your House. This week, we’ll get the RAW that followed that show. It should be noted there was a controversial decision at the PPV that probably ticked off a lot of fans, but we’ll get there, we’ll get there.

Well, Vince is going over it anyway, so let’s explain.

The match was Diesel and Shawn Michaels against Yokozuna and Owen Hart. Diesel was the World Champ, Shawn the IC Champ, and Owen and Yoko the tag champs. All titles were on the line and the show was sold on the fact that there was a guaranteed title change.

Well, Owen didn’t show and The British Bulldog took his place. Owen though interfered in the match and Diesel ended up pinning him to win the tag belts. Now we get a segment of Jim Cornette and his lawyer (the debut of Clarence Mason!) arguing with President Gorilla Monsoon that Owen wasn’t legally in the tag match. Monsoon agreed, and Yoko and Owen kept their belts. So basically, the WWF said screw you to the fans with their “guaranteed title change” proclamation. Perhaps it was a way to drum up interest for RAW…but I mean, then you need a better segment than Vince explaining it to us. Bad start there.

Skip vs. Marty Jannetty

Vince tells us that Jannetty is returning to the WWF here. Really had no idea he was even gone at this point. I do remember a 1995 ECW run from him though.

Sadly when I think Jannetty and Candido I think of two guys who should have achieved a lot more in professional wrestling. Same goes for Sunny. This REALLY rings true for Jannetty though.

Ha, Sunny and Skip hug, but when Sunny yells at the crowd Jannetty attacks Skip. Sunny then turns to hug “Skip”, but hugs Jannetty then panics realizing what happened. THAT’S where Shawn Michaels learned that spot…he did that to Melina at Survivor Series 2006.

Dean Douglas comes out to take notes on the match. Seems like a step down.

Marty Jannetty pins Skip in 9:41. Jannetty nails the Rocker Dropper and then a top rope first drop for the win. This was a very good back and forth opener. It would be nice to say Jannetty finally cleaned up his act (he could have been a really good IC title foil for Goldust in 1996), but he got stuck in the New Rocker Tag Team and didn’t make it through 1996.

We get more information about why Owen and Yoko kept the belts…but Monsoon adds that the champs will defend the titles on RAW vs. The Gunns.

WWF World Tag Team Championship
Owen Hart and Yokozuna© vs. The Smokin’ Gunns

There’s history here. Owen and Yoko debuted as a team at Mania XI when they beat the Gunns for the tag title.

Billy Gunn takes Yoko down with a bulldog. I always thought Yoko sold a little too much later in this WWF run. It’s how you knew he was never getting back to the very top.

Owen’s neckbreaker gets semi-botched as Gunn drops too early.

Does Yoko EVER hit that elbow drop?

The Smokin’ Gunns wins the Tag Titles when Bart Gunn pinned Owen Hart in 12:13. Owen and Yoko collide, and Yoko falls in the corner. The Gunns hit the Sidewinder, and Yoko accidentally squashes Owen. Billy dropkicks Yoko out, and Bart pins Owen. Another good match! Crowd popped HUGE for the title change. If Yoko and Owen were in line for pushes, this makes a lot of sense. Problem is, that didn’t happen. Shawn and Diesel come in to celebrate with the Gunns.

Next week we have Bret Hart vs. Jean Pierre Lafitte II and a Razor Ramon vs. 1-2-3 Kid rematch as well.

Gorilla then runs down the next In Your House card. Goldust vs. Marty Jannetty. Undertaker vs. Mabel (which would change to something a lot worse), and for the WWF Title: Diesel vs. the Bulldog. Bret also gets the winner at Survivor Series. By the way, that card listing is awful.

The British Bulldog vs. The Undertaker

Interesting spot here now. The super protected Undertaker vs. the #1 Contender to the WWF Title that needs to look strong: the British Bulldog.

Great heel manager spot: Undertaker goes for the Rope Walk (feels weird calling it Old School in 1995), but Cornette shakes the ropes allowing Bulldog to armdrag Undertaker off the top.

Taker gets clotheslines over the top, but lands on his feet and choke grabs Cornette. More awesomeness here. Bulldog gets the advantage here with an attack from behind.

King Mabel is looking on! Oh boy!

Now Waylon Mercy is looking on. I actually don’t know where that one is going. Taker-Mercy feud was potentially in the works perhaps?

Taker is selling the leg injury big time. I didn’t know Taker sold stuff in 1995.

Great piledriver from the Bulldog!

The Undertaker wins by DQ in 9:20. Mabel comes in, but Taker confronts him. Bulldog nails Taker into Mabel, who plants Taker with a belly to belly suplex. Bulldog and Mabel attack, but Shawn and Diesel make the save. Owen, Yoko and the Gunns all come down. Eventually Taker makes it to his feet and shakes all the faces’ hands, which is a little weird. Anyway, Taker had this won with a chokeslam before Mabel came in, so I don’t know how strong the Bulldog really looked…but I think it’s doable overall. Match was also really good. Taker did an awesome sell job, even afterwards (which is strong enough for the Bulldog I think) and Bulldog looked really motivated here. Probably because he had a bunch of PPV main events lined up. 3/3 for RAW tonight!

Shawn dances to bring us home for some reason.

If this show had any remote historical significance, it would get a super high rating. But did anything here matter at all long term? The only major thing that comes out of this is that it does lead to Owen vs. Shawn eventually, which is the concussion angle of course.

It should be noted that despite the good show, the rating for RAW pretty much blew. I think one thing hurt this that wasn’t Nitro related: the PPV the night before. I just don’t think a bait and switch like that is going to work. Then again, maybe Nitro did something that was just blow away.

TV Rating: 1.9 (-0.8)
Grade: B+

Nitro: 9/25/95
Florence, South Carolina

Alex Wright vs. Disco Inferno

We first saw Wright on Nitro a couple of weeks ago against Sabu.

I like how Disco Inferno had no character development for three years. He’s the same guy until he tries to join the Wolfpac.

Alex Wright almost messed up that springboard dropkick bad. It was passable though.

McMichael kills Monday Night Football on the broadcast. He says the Niners have it won. I like that RAW wasn’t the only show they took shots at.

Alex Wright pins Disco Inferno in 4:00. Wright gets a backslide out of nowhere for the win. It was a pretty good match with Disco controlling it, then it just ended abruptly. Not bad, but it could have used a proper Wright comeback if they are going with him.

WCW World Champion Hulk Hogan has a neck brace, but he’s letting us know he hasn’t missed a workout since Fall Brawl. Hogan makes the challenge for a Monster Truck Match at Halloween Havoc against The Giant. And then he challenges him to a WCW Title match as well. Hogan actually says he’s gonna bury Giant right next to his father, which seems distasteful although I’m sure he didn’t mean it that way.

SNAP INTO A SLIM JIM!

We go over what happened last week with Lex Luger and Randy Savage.

It doesn’t take long for Luger and Savage to verbally go at it again. Savage is brilliant here. Luger challenges Savage to a match on Nitro next week. Luger says he’ll leave WCW if he can’t beat Savage. Well, that’s a headliner for sure. I wonder if this segment was key in the ratings war this week.

Bischoff hypes “MACHINE VS. MACHINE”. I wonder if he really thought that was a big draw.

Sgt. Craig Pittman vs. Kurasawa

Kurasawa is hyped as the man who broke Road Warrior Hawk’s arm.

A lot of kicks from Kurasawa.

Crazy back and forth here. Each guys turn armbars into suplexes.

Kurasawa pins Pittman in 4:26. Kurasawa gets a German Suplex, but Pittman flails around and it looks pretty bad for the three count. Still a pretty good match for 4 minutes. It seems like they both just threw whatever moves they could out there and just hoped it worked out, which it did.

Arn Anderson and Flyin’ Brian Pillman interview.

Pillman with a great promo, running down Ric Flair. Double A points out that Flair’s been asking help from guys he’s turned on over the years (Savage, Sting, etc.). It’s a pretty brilliant promo.

We get a replay of the Savage-Kevin Sullivan beach fight we saw last week.

Kevin Sullivan vs. Randy Savage

The Zodiac makes his way out and posts Savage quickly.

Kevin Sullivans wins by DQ in 2:58. Savage throws Sullivan to the outside, brings the Zodiac in, beats him up, then throws the ref for the DQ[/b]. Fun little brawl for three minutes I guess, but not much to say here.

The Giant lays out Savage! Some WCW jobbers I never heard of come down and Giant kills them. Alex Wright runs down, also killed by the Giant. Lex Luger comes in…but stands over Savage. Giant attacks him and hits a chokeslam, and Sullivan takes him away angrily. GREAT segment to get the Giant over there. Giant’s falling chokeslam is awesome.

Meng runs down for his match with Luger, since Luger is still down.

Lex Luger vs. Meng

We get told Hogan will be on Nitro next week.

Nice piledriver from Meng on Luger.

Sadly after that piledriver it slows down as we get a bunch of chokes. Ah well.

Gutwrench hip breaker with the foot by Meng? Okay then.

Meng pins Lex Luger in 6:46. Meng gets the spike and knocked Luger out in his comeback for the pin. WHAT? How was that a finish that made any sense? Meng beats Luger without any help or anything. And I’m supposed to buy Luger against the Savages and Giants of the world? Huh? Match was decent if not a bit boring. A downer of a main event.

I think Nitro won this rating battle because of its segments and not its matches. Double A and Pillman were gold. Savage and Luger were good. Hogan’s promo was ridiculous but probably was “must see” since he didn’t get a “live” interview of him the week before. The wrestling wasn’t bad either, although the main event left something to be desired. Still, most of the character development hit here, especially with The Giant.

TV Rating: 2.7 (+0.8)
Grade: B+

Weekly Review

Oddly enough, RAW had the wrestling this week while Nitro had the interviews and segments. While RAW’s matches were very good, the build-up to the next In Your House was really disappointing. I mean, all we get is Gorilla Monsoon announcing the matches for the next PPV? What kind of build is that? At least we got some Taker-Mabel interaction for build, but soon we’ll see that won’t mean a thing. But good wrestling is good wrestling, and we got a title change no less.

Nitro continued its great build for Halloween Havoc. We are still missing some of the excitement we got from the first two shows, but when you have strong segments like the Double A and Pillman interview, the Luger-Savage challenge and the Giant killing everyone, I’m going to buy that.

A tie for this week seems appropriate. Nitro’s first win in the ratings column had to be very exciting for them as well. I assume again it was because of the strong promos and the Giant.

TV Ratings Score: 2-1 RAW

Grade Score: 1-1-1 Tie

September 1995 Monthly Review

Stats

9/4/95 (Nitro 2.5, RAW: N/A)
9/11/95 (RAW 2.5, Nitro 2.4)
9/18/95 (RAW 2.7, Nitro 1.9)
9/25/95 (Nitro 2.7, RAW 1.9)
Rating Average: Nitro 2.48, RAW 2.37
TV Ratings Score: 2-1 RAW

9/4/95 (Nitro A+, RAW: N/A)
9/11/95 (Nitro B+, Raw B )
9/18/95 (RAW B, Nitro C+)
9/25/95 (RAW B+, Nitro B+)
Grade Average: Nitro B+, RAW B
Grade Score: 1-1-1 Tie

The first month of the Monday Night Wars was a full on assault from WCW and I think they delivered. First they attacked when RAW wasn’t on and put on a can’t miss show. They had a major surprise with Lex Luger. They put Hogan and Luger on in the main against RAW right away. They gave away HBK vs. Sid. Attack, attack, attack from Nitro. For WCW to just debut on Monday Night and be on par and at times better than the WWF was pretty incredible. WCW only had one show early on that I thought was a miss.

It’s not like the WWF had a bad month. It was a pretty strong run of shows considering most of them were taped and still had squash matches. Vince definitely picked it up on the 9-25 show though. He was in the fight of his life.

Overall, Nitro was just better this month.

September 1995 Grade
Nitro: A
RAW: B+

Pro Wrestling

RAW vs. Nitro Week 3 – 9/18/95

January 21, 2016 rdtworldofsport@gmail.com

Week 3

Nitro: 9/18/95
Jefferson City, TN

It’s the night after Fall Brawl! Nitro had the better show last week so they’ll go first!

An ambulance starts the show…and inside is Kevin Sullivan and The Giant. Mean Gene tells him that this father would be disappointed. Remember, he’s the son of Andre! Kinda funny promo from the Giant. He had a solid three months in pro wrestling at the time, so we’ll have to cut him some slack.

The American Males vs. The Bluebloods

This would be Regal and Bobby Eaton. Jean-Paul was gone at this point.

Well, it wouldn’t really be them either, since Harlem Heat attacks. They offer the American Males a World Tag Team Title shot. The American Males get a free shot at the tag title just like that!

WCW World Tag Team Championship
Harlem Heat© vs. The American Males

Riggs sells the Axe Kick in seemingly slow motion. At least it wasn’t Booker’s finisher yet.

Booker’s flying side kick was always awesome. Watching Booker knowing what I know now I can’t say it’s surprising he became a big star.

Nice “WE WANT IT RAW” sign in the crowd there.

The American Males win the title in 4:40 when Marcus Bagwell pinned Booker T. Sherri Martel is about to hit Bagwell, but Col. Robert Parker comes down and Sherri falls into his arms (I totally forgot the slave owner angle of Harlem Heat. Yikes). Sherri and Parker are apparently in love. Whatever. Anyway Bagwell reverses a pump handle slam into a bodypress pin and gets the win. It’s a weak victory, but once again, something notable happens on Nitro.

SNAP INTO A SLIM JIM!

Ric Flair interview. He’s angry that Arn Anderson got a non-Horseman to help him in their feud (referring to Brian Pillman). He also calls it Johnson City, Tennessee. Based on what Mene Gene says I think that was a sexual reference.

Mr. Wonderful vs. Johnny B. Badd

I really love that music for Orndorff.
Badd was on his way out here. He’d be Marc Mero in the WWF in five months.

Mr. Wonderful pins Johnny B. Badd in 6:40. Orndorff blocks a sunset flip. The finish is botched though, as Badd’s shoulders were clearly up and the ref didn’t seem to actually count the three.

Randy Savage gets attacked by Sullivan on a beach, so Savage responds in an interview. Flair is one of those who help him. Savage says he thinks Luger is joining the Dungeon of Doom. Luger comes out to respond. He wants a match right now but Mean Gene says this isn’t the time of the place (the middle of the ring on Nitro?!).

We go back to the day of Fall Brawl for a Hulk Hogan interview. The Giant comes in on a monster truck and smashes the motorcycle Hogan was on. This would lead to the Monster Truck Match at Halloween Havoc of course. There’s a funny scene here where Hogan is slamming on the truck and Giant is just laughing.

Then a Fall Brawl recap of Giant at Fall Brawl interfering in the War Games, where he attacked Hogan.

Ric Flair vs. Flyin’ Brian Pillman

Flair actually comes off the top rope and hits Pillman with an axhandle smash on the floor. Didn’t expect that from Flair.

This match has been ALL Flair.

Flair goes for the Figure Four, but Pillman reverses into a small package, but doesn’t get the hook of the leg.

Ric Flair wins by submission in 5:24. Figure Four gets it done. Total burial of Pillman there? I mean I think he got two moves in. Flair taunts Arn afterwards.

Overall, I think this was a step back for Nitro. The first show felt like can’t miss TV. Same with the second show (with Sabu and the Hogan vs. Luger title match). Here? Nothing special really. American Males winning the tag titles is cool I guess and a moment for sure, but it doesn’t compare to watching international talents like Sabu and Jushin Liger. And Flair vs. Pillman wasn’t that good either.

Every show can’t be blow away, but there isn’t anything to take me away from RAW this week. Unless of course the RAW show blows. The rating here also indicated that this was a step back.

Oddly, they didn’t give away any RAW Results this week.

TV Rating: 1.9 (-0.5)
Grade: C+

RAW: 9/18/95
Canton, Ohio

We get a recap of the 1-2-3 Kid vs. Razor Ramon issue from last week.

It should be pointed out that Vince keeps saying this is a special Thursday edition of RAW…but nothing else seems to indicate that. The research I did. The Network. Etc.

This is still taped from August, so no responding to Nitro yet.

1-2-3 Kid vs. Razor Ramon

Kid starts off fast. All of this would lead to the eventual Kid heel turn.

Nice flying over the top rope dropkick from the Kid!

The Kid has dominated the match-up. We also get a sleeper, which is also when they go to commercial. I’m okay with commercials during matches during a hold though.

We got a ref bump!

The 1-2-3 Kid pins Razor Ramon in 7:08. After a collision where the ref got hurt, Dean Douglas comes flying off the top onto Ramon. Kid rolls in to get the pin. The wheels of the turn were starting.

Dean Douglas interview now. Kid gets a D for dumb. Ramon gets an E. Elevate. He’s doing that in order to face Dean Douglas. A for Douglas! The PPV this weekend gets a N. No-Brainer on who will be victorious. That spells Dead. To be honest, that was a good promo.

Tatanka and Kama Mustafa vs. Savio Vega and Bob Holly

Crowd is pretty dead for this, although Vega got a solid reaction for his entrance.

Vega is your face in peril.

We don’t even see the hot tag to Holly on camera.

Kama and Tatanka win when Kama pins Holly in 5:47. Holly comes off the top with a bodypress, but Kama “rolls” through and gets the pin. Ugly finish. Match wasn’t too bad though.

Ramon interview. He’s of course responding to Douglas.

Jean Pierre LaFitte vs. Brian Walsh

Squash match for the pirate ahoy! We go over LaFitte stealing the Hitman sunglasses from fans. Yeah, that wasn’t Bret’s best feud.

We get Bret on the phone. He’s upset that Bret has gotten his jacket and stuff stolen. He’s also confused as he didn’t know pirates still existed. Poor Bret.

LaFitte pins Walsh in 3:18. Cannonball (Swanton?) for the win. I hope this is the last squash we get on RAW ever.

We get some hype about the In Your House main event of HBK and Diesel vs. Owen and Yoko. All titles on the line!

Owen Hart and Yokozuna vs. Men on a Mission

Non-title match here. This is your main event! It’s also heel vs. heel, which is strange.

Owen is playing the face in peril. Interesting. Well it can’t be anyone else in this match for sure.

Here comes Yokozuna! We get Yoko and Mabel going at it as Owen now plays the heel. I actually like both teams cheating. It’s an interesting dynamic.

Mo and Owen both go for spinning wheel kicks at the same time. Never seen that before.

Weird, now Mabel is playing the face making the big comeback.

Owen Hart and Yokozuna win when Owen pinned Mo in 9:30. Yoko kills Mo with the big legdrop, and then holds Mabel’s foot so he can’t break up the pin. Pretty good match amazingly. Owen carried the whole thing, and the heel vs. heel dynamic oddly worked.

Diesel and HBK interview about Owen and Yoko. Something about John Madden.

Cornette interview. Runs down HBK and Diesel of course. He brings up a good point that the last time Diesel and HBK were a team, they broke up.

Lawler predicts Yokozuna walks out of In Your House with the WWF Title. Vince then tells us that we are getting Undertaker vs. British Bulldog on RAW next week. Not bad.

Anyway…solid showing here. A good opener and a surprisingly good main event bookends a lot of boring stuff. The wrestling itself was also better than this week’s Nitro. Sure, nothing between Summerslam and Survivor Series really mattered, but they still had to get to Survivor Series…right?

TV Rating: 2.7
Grade: B

Weekly Review

All the talent in the world and that’s the Nitro we get? Shoulda just scrapped Badd vs. Orndorff and let Pillman and Flair go another five minutes in that case. Nitro for the first time felt like it could be a miss, unless you like monster trucks or something.

That doesn’t mean RAW was can’t miss either. But there were better matches on RAW, and solid build for a PPV no one was really talking about at all.

TV Ratings Score: 2-0 RAW

Grade Score: 1-1 Tie

Pro Wrestling

RDT Reviews WWF InVasion

October 31, 2015 rdtworldofsport@gmail.com

WWF InVasion
July 22, 2001
Cleveland, OH

When Vince McMahon bought WCW it was obvious wrestling was going to change forever. Fans hoped that it would be in a good way. Afterall, the WWF had been doing amazing business for years behind Vince’s booking and the year 2000 alone received critical acclaim in the ring (compared to ’98 and ’99, where despite the great business there was some horrible wrestling out there).

Now it’s not Vince’s fault that he couldn’t get all of the big players in WCW. Because of the outlandish deals with Ted Turner, there was no Sting, no Goldberg, etc. The biggest names the WWF received were Booker T and Diamond Dallas Page. To be honest, with the WWF hype machine behind each of them both could have been major players and the disappointment of no top WCW guys could have been at least lessened. And while the WWF completely missed with Page with the whole stalker of Undertaker’s wife angle, the WWF actually did a really good job with Booker T for the most part. Booker came in at King of the Ring 2001, dropped Stone Cold on his head through a table (which probably was a big reason he didn’t get the super push, as he legitimately hurt Austin here) and actually looked like a big deal. He was clearly the wrestling leader of this pack. The only thing that went wrong really was that match against Buff Bagwell that was pretty awful. Why they couldn’t just put Booker against someone like Chris Jericho orKurt Angle early on is a mystery to me. We really needed to have “authentic” WCW guys? The failure of the Booker-Bagwell match changed the angle big time, but it should be pointed out that Booker T was the leader of this Alliance team heading into the PPV.

When ECW entered the picture, it seemed really cool for one night until we realized these were all WWF guys sans Rob Van Dam and Tommy Dreamer. For the record, as underrated as Rhyno was at the time, it should have come as no surprise that Rob Van Dam would be crazy over. RVD in the main could have helped. Nonetheless, when Stephanie McMahon was introduced as owner of ECW…well, it should have been obvious that this angle just wasn’t going to be what we were all hoping for.

Still, InVasion posted one of the biggest buyrates in WWF history, so despite the mess of booking, WWF vs. WCW and ECW was the main draw here. So let’s see how it goes.

The Card

Lance Storm and Mike Awesome vs. Edge and Christian

One of the issues with the InVasion: some guys turning when their role was working out so well. Not sure, it looked like an Edge face turn was in the works, but we loved Edge and Christian as a heel team.

Christian nearly kills himself early on by not getting enough height jumping over the top rope onto Storm and Awesome.

One reason J.R. is amazing on commentary: he sees the botch and after explaining how important InVasion is, explains that Edge and Christian have pre-match jitters. Just really smart.

If there was ever someone who had all the physical tools but who’s mic skills held him back, it was Mike Awesome. His frog splash was just incredible.

Christian really works as a face-in-peril.

Edge and Christian win when Edge pinned Awesome in 10:10. Awesome went for an Awesome Bomb on Edge, but Christian speared him and Edge landed on top for the win. Good opener for sure. During the match, Michael Cole and J.R. really put over this match as one of the most important ever due to it being the opener for the InVasion. The effort is great. Problem is, as we’ll see later, those words were very overblown and made Cole and J.R. look stupid.

Pretty funny promo with Vince and William Regal as Vince wants Regal to be like the Americans during the Revolutionary War. Not only is it funny on the surface because Regal is British, but it’s also funny because the idea that the WWF is the underdog here is ridiculous.

Nick Patrick vs. Earl Hebner
Mick Foley is the Special Guest Referee

Vince had access to so much talent now that we needed referees to wrestle. Great.

In all those wrestling magazines, how many “dream WWF vs. WCW card” articles had Patrick vs. Hebner on there?

We get an referee brawl on the outside! Foley throws the WCW referees out.

Earl Hebner pins Nick Patrick in 2:50. Patrick argues with Foley, allowing Hebner to tackle him for the three. This was awful but at least short. What was Vince thinking here?! 2-0 WWF. Foley blasts Patrick afterward and gets Mr. Socko on him.

Tough Enough commercial! Weird that the first one was 14 years ago.

Ugh, stalker DDP was so awful.

Sara (Taker’s wife) calls Taker Mark when talking to Debra. That was pretty unexpected.

The APA vs. Sean O’Haire and Chuck Palumbo

WWF vs. WCW Tag Champs here. I do like how the APA were like the midcard leaders on-screen. O’Haire and Palumbo were only the tag champs in WCW as WCW was finally trying to use their younger talent. They definitely had potential though.

Fun fact: Faarooq is a former WCW World Champion. I thought that could have been a fun little turn during the InVasion storyline.

The APA win when Bradshaw pins Chuck Palumbo in 7:17. Clothesline From Hell takes out Palumbo after Palumbo “hit” Faarooq with a superkick. This was okay I guess. I do think the wrong team won, but then again the WWF never went with Palumbo and O’Haire. 3-0 WWF, which seems ridiculous at this point.

Billy Kidman vs. X-Pac

Kidman was the WCW Cruiserweight Champion and X-Pac was the WWF Lightheavyweight Champion.

X-Pac is booed out of the building. And you know, that’s a good example of the WWF NOT changing someone’s alignment just because they’re team WWF. Not that they could at this point anyway.

It should be pointed out that it was a really good idea for the WWF to put the WCW Cruiserweight Title on Kidman. I considered Kidman to be in the top tier of WCW Cruiserweights, and in fact he was the last guy to get to that point in 1998.

Weird dynamic here as I think the fans want to cheer for Kidman…but can’t quite bring themselves to do it because he’s a WCW guy.

Another weird dynamic: X-Pac’s trying to wrestle a riskier, high flying style but can’t quite do it (he had stopped after his neck injury in the mid 90s). It really makes for a mess of a match unfortunately.

Billy Kidman pins X-Pac in 7:12. Kidman hits the Shooting Star Press and the fans pop. And rightfully so, that move is awesome. So much for not cheering Kidman. Give X-Pac credit too, he let Kidman kickout of an X-Factor and jobbed to Kidman’s best move. Still not a good match though.

3-1 WWF! The Alliance is on board!

DDP quote: “Debra is sweet but she’s no Sara.” Yeah, like we don’t know DDP is married to Kimberly. Come on now.

Torrie Wilson and Stacy Keibler feel disappointed for the fans that they’ll have to settle for seeing Trish and Lita in their panties. I mean, it’s win-win either way, but I do agree Torrie and Stacy are hotter.

William Regal vs. Raven

Before watching this I could predict that this would be a huge clash of styles.

And that’s exactly what we get. Face Regal wasn’t really working either.

The timing for everything is just off. A clothesline from Raven is timed incorrectly. A bulldog from Raven, same thing. It’s not actively bad, but it is noticeable. Crowd is completely quiet as well.

Raven pins Regal in 6:34. Tazz runs in and hits a T-Bone Suplex to Regal…and Raven hits a sloppy Evenflow DDT for the win. 3-2 WCW.

Big Show, Billy Gunn and Albert vs. Sean Stasiak, Kanyon and Hugh Morrus

I know the WWF was quite low on Big Show at this point, but Show on the WCW team would have made a lot of sense and helped the star power issue.

Nice Meat chants for Stasiak.

Morrus, Stasiak and Kanyon win when Morrus pins Gunn in 4:23. Match can be described this way: WWF guys destroy WCW guys, WCW gets a cheap win. What a joke. Also, the Big Show destroys the WCW guys after the match too. Real waste of Kanyon here too. But we’re tied!

Oh, sorry, WCW/ECW is up 4-3 now. Apparently Chavo Guerrero Jr’s victory over Scotty 2 Hotty counts. Way to ignore than when the WWF was up 3-0.

Tazz vs. Tajiri

Tazz is ECW, Tajiri is WWF. Isn’t it crazy how just two years prior this was an ECW PPV World Title Match?

By the way, I would have put Tajiri in X-Pac’s spot here.

Tajiri pins Tazz in 5:44. Tajiri gets the Green Mist and kicks Tazz in the face for the win. Fun little match here where Tajiri took a lot of Tazz’s offense. Too bad it wasn’t longer. 4-4.

RVD takes Matt Hardy out with a chair right in Jeff Hardy’s face. Pretty awesome segment.

Hardcore Holly berates a WCW fan at WWF New York. Also a funny segment.

WWF Hardcore Championship
Jeff Hardy© vs. Rob Van Dam

Really…the first match on this card that really makes of sense. RVD vs. Jeff Hardy in a battle of the daredevils.

I wish after RVD just took Matt Hardy out that Jeff ran down to take out RVD.

HUGE RVD chants.

A really creative start, including Jeff legdropping RVD in a way where RVD ends up crunched like an accordion.

With all the hotdogging he’s doing, I can’t help but think RVD would have made for an awesome WWF heel. Of course, he’d be cheered, but who cares!

Seeing RVD in the WWF for the “first” time was crazy. All these crazy moves that worked in ECW…worked in the WWF too! For example…a moonsault off the barricade in the crowd. This was true for Tajiri as well, but it really got RVD over big time.

Spinning heel kick off the apron onto a hanging Jeff Hardy on the barricade. Years later people would complain it was the same old shit with RVD, but in 2001 on a global stage: holy shit.

Jeff Hardy with a sunset flip powerbomb from the ring onto the floor! RVD just gets slammed on the floor. Sick spot.

In one of my favorite spots ever, Jeff beats RVD down with a chair, leading RVD to beg from his knees for Jeff to stop. In a split second, RVD hops to his feet and hits the Van Daminator and sends off flying off the stage. Just wow.

RVD takes a DDT and a German Suplex and sells it the only way RVD can. Great stuff here.

RVD pins Jeff Hardy to win the title in 12:24. Jeff misses the Swanton…and RVD hits the Five Star Frog Splash for the win. A really fun spotfest that seemed revolutionary at the time. Great match. The first (and ultimately, only) match on this supercard that really felt it belonged.

5-4 WCW/ECW!

Bra and Panties Match
Trish Stratus and Lita vs. Torrie Wilson and Stacy Keibler

In the funniest moment of the entire event Mick Foley comes out to referee. That was pretty good.

There’s a pretty good story surrounding this: Torrie and Stacy tried to seduce the Hardyz.

Lita and Trish win in 5:03. There’s actually some decent fighting in this, although clearly that’s not the purpose. Fun of course. Oh and we’re tied!

The Inaugural Brawl
Team Alliance (Booker T, Diamond Dallas Page, Rhyno and the Dudley Boyz) vs. Team WWF (Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Undertaker, Kane, Kurt Angle and Chris Jericho)

One of the big selling points of this match was that the old Stone Cold was coming to InVasion. After being a cowardly heel for four months, Austin’s return to being a bad ass was nothing short of amazing. Just listen to that crowd reaction on RAW. It’s crazy. Honestly, if you told me that really sold the show instead of the actual InVasion I actually might agree.

Obviously Austin’s pop is amazing, but Angle gets a big one too. One positive of the InVasion: Kurt Angle getting to that next level.

I can’t help but think that this InVasion could have worked with DDP as the top heel. He’s getting great reactions and he’s a huge name of course.

The match is about 20 minutes of back and forth and while it isn’t bad it is pretty boring overall. Crowd is really into it though.

The match takes a strange turn to get to the finish. Kurt Angle is your Team WWF member in peril, but oddly he’d never make the hot tag as Undertaker just runs in to attack Page. A huge ten man brawl breaks out from that.

Stone Cold hurt his knee! Oh no! Also, everyone else gets taken out somehow. Angle suddenly begins to kick serious ass and the crowd is electric for him.

Team Alliance wins when Booker T pinned Kurt Angle in 29:30. Angle has Booker T locked in the Ankle Lock and tapping, but Stone Cold comes in and hits Angle with a Stunner and turns on the WWF. Booker gets the pin, but it’s Austin who celebrates with Shane, Stephanie and Heyman. Man what a stupid decision that turned out to be for the storyline and Austin’s career (although it helped make Kurt Angle). Match was good I suppose, but it seemed a bit boring at times and the finish sucked.

The angle really could have worked if they went with Booker vs. Rock and Page vs. Austin, but Page apparently pissed too many people off, including Undertaker and it never worked out for him. Booker did go on to fight Rock but after getting beat twice he dropped to the midcard. As for Austin, this was his last chance to regain that babyface level only he and Hogan (and I guess Rock) ever reached, only it was thrown away with this re-turn. When Austin turns face again in December the crowd reaction for him isn’t the same as it once was.

As for this show, I feel like only one match really delivered and that was RVD vs. Jeff Hardy. Yes the opener was good and the Bra and Panties Match was fun, but everything else really left you disappointed. What a shame.

Final Grade: C

Pro Wrestling

RDT Reviews WCW Fall Brawl ’95

September 6, 2015 rdtworldofsport@gmail.com

WCW Fall Brawl ‘95
September 17, 1995
Asheville, NC

The War is on! WCW Nitro had launched two weeks prior to this show and had surprised everyone by being competitive in the ratings with WWF Raw. WCW hit the WWF right where it hurt when they stole Lex Luger away and he made a surprise appearance on the first Nitro. The WWF, with taped shows already in the can, couldn’t do anything to stop WCW early on. WCW also had the first PPV since the Monday Night Wars started, and here it is. The main event here is a bit questionable…we have the four big faces (Sting, Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage and Lex Luger) against a heel group without remotely the star power to match the face team (The Dungeon of Doom) so you know who’s winning here. Should WCW just went for the kill right away with Luger and Sting vs. Hogan and Savage? We’ll never know.

Still, a good PPV here and the WWF would really be in trouble. Could WCW pull it off?

The Card

#1 Contender for the United States Championship
Flyin’ Brian vs. Johnny B. Badd

Badd looks exactly like he would a year later as “Wildman” Marc Mero when he was the IC Champ, red outfit and all.

Hilarious first moment. Badd tries to throw a Frisbee into the crowd, but accidentally hits the ringpost and it goes nowhere, getting a noticeable groan from the crowd.

Michael Buffer is announcing the opener. How confusing.

Pretty slow start here. Most notable moment in the first five minutes was a double dropkick.

Beautiful bridge trap by Pillman for a two count.

About eight minutes in Pillman starts to bring out the heel stuff. I expect this to pick up now.

Great variation of the surfboard from Badd. So far this is the best Mero match I’ve ever seen.

Buffer says five minutes remaining…so we know where this is going.

Thing really pick up at this point though. Badd starts to fly with a plancha onto the floor!

Pillman takes out Badd with an awesome dropkick as Badd comes off the top! Only two for that.

The big moves are coming! Powerbomb from Badd gets two, Tombstone from Pillman also gets two!

Badd counters the Tornado DDT from the top!
Ugh. Badd goes into a hold, which doesn’t make sense at this point. There’s only two minutes left!

We get to the time limit, but the referee declares that there has to be a winner considering they need a #1 contender…so overtime!

Great elevation on a top rope sunset flip from Badd. I woulda bought that as a 1995 finish for sure.

Top rope hurricanrana…but Pillman still kicks out.

Pillman hits the Tornado DDT this time…but Badd survives! Great idea for OT not to last a mere 2 minutes or something.

Badd throws Pillman off the top rope onto the guardrail! Ouch!

Pillman hits a suicide dive through the ropes and gets a lot of distance. Announcers claim Pillman didn’t really hit it, which is a shame because it looked awesome.

Johnny B. Badd pins Flyin’ Brian in 29:17. Double crossbody, and despite Pillman landing on top they make it seem like Badd got the best of it and he makes the cover for the win. Pretty disappointing finish considering everything else. I thought this was a great 20 minute match masquerading as a 30 minute match, but that doesn’t change that it was very good overall. Interestingly, both Badd and Pillman would be gone from WCW within six months. Easily the best Badd match I’ve ever seen.

Ric Flair on the mic and he really knows how to sell something special. He talks about the broken families he and Arn Anderson had went through and you can’t help but feel the damaged friendship between them.

Sgt. Craig Pittman vs. Cobra

I have no idea what this feud is about. Looks like a military vs. military thing or something.

Some random soldier comes down to distract Cobra as Pittman comes from the ceiling. Pittman chokes him out with his ammo belt.

Craig Pittman makes Cobra submit in 1:22. Code Red armbreaker for the win. At least this was short. Why was this on the PPV anyway? What was the point?

We get a video of Mr. Wonderful angrily doubting himself in the back. Some psychic tries to talk to him and get him back on track. Uh…Orndorff retired shortly after this. I don’t blame him, this was awful.

WCW Television Championship
The Renegade© vs. Diamond Dallas Page

The Renegade is an Ultimate Warrior ripoff.

Pretty funny how far DDP would come in the next 18 months. He looks ridiculous here.

DDP runs into the ring post by himself then takes a bump over the guardrail. That was strange for sure.

This was a time that Page and Kimberly weren’t getting along because Page treated her like crap. Page does manage to get all the heat here with no help at all from the Renegade.

Renegade’s comeback was pretty decent actually.

Diamond Dallas Page wins the title by pin in 8:07. Maxx Muscle holds Renegade’s foot, and DDP hits a pretty bad Diamond Cutter for the win. Nothing really to say here, although this could have been a lot worse.

WCW World Tag Team Championship
Bunkhouse Buck and Dick Slater© vs. Harlem Heat

The real point of this feud is that there’s some strange relationship deal with Sherri and Col. Robert Parker, which sounds awful just typing it.

Bobby Heenan reciting a poem is the highlight so far. Otherwise, we’ve just had a few minutes of punching and kicking so far.

The crowd is dead quiet here.

Terrible atomic drop from Slater.

Booker gets trapped in there and we get one of the most boring heat segments I’ve ever seen in a major tag team match. Were Slater and Buck just going through the motions here?

In the 2nd ring Sherri starts crawling toward Parker and they start making out…

Harlem Heat win the title when Booker pins Buck in 16:49. The Nasty Boys come out and take out Buck with a boot shot to the heat for Harlem Heat’s win. Parker would move onto co-manage Harlem Heat with Sherri…but they’d lose the belts to The American Males the next night. Anyway, this was awful. Seventeen minutes of just about nothing.

Ric Flair vs. Arn Anderson

Flair and Double A had been as close as brothers, but things began to go wrong thanks to Vader. The story pushes that Flair hasn’t been the same for a year since he lost the World title to Hogan. Anderson wanted to see Flair be the best again. Flair blamed Anderson for not helping him at crucial spots.

I love Double A’s demeanor throughout the opening sequence. Just straight out seriousness with the occasional mocking of Flair.

Smart booking decision to have Anderson dominate the early going. If there was anyone who thought Anderson wasn’t on Flair’s level, this would be showing them otherwise.

Commentators do a great job explaining why Anderson’s armbars hurt so much. That’s something that’s just missed in today’s wrestling.

Flair takes total control. Once again, the commentary is great, and now its question about whether or not Double A can hang with Flair. You really want Anderson to pull this one out.

Anderson blocks the Figure Four by holding Flair’s leg when he tried to come down with it. Can’t say I’ve seen that one before.

Crowd erupts when Anderson reverses the Figure Four. Hell, crowd goes nuts for each false finish here.

Arn Anderson pins Ric Flair in 22:37. Brian Pillman climbs onto the apron when Flair has Anderson down and kicks Flair in the head. Double A drops Flair with a DDT and gets the upset. Crowd ultimately was mixed on the finish (I think they were into the match…but this is still Flair country…nevermind that it wasn’t clean). All of this would lead to the reunion of the Horsemen, although I don’t remember how it played out.

War Games
Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, Lex Luger and Sting vs. Kamala, The Shark, The Zodiac and Meng

If the Hulkamaniacs win, Hogan gets five minutes with The Taskmaster.

This was a cartoonish feud that didn’t really jive with the rest of what WCW was doing at this point. Kevin Sullivan’s pre-match promo/video is just laughable.

A side story to this is the debut of The Giant, who was being promoted as Andre’s son.

This has to be one of the most unbalanced multi-man tag team matches in wrestling history. There’s literally no way the Dungeon of Doom can win no matter how much the “can the good guys trust one another” story is shoved down our throats.

The Hulkamaniacs are in camouflage and have an American flag. Uh…is Kevin Sullivan not from the US or something?

Dungeon of Goom. Really Hogan?

Beefcake looks ridiculous, even for him, as the Zodiac.

We start off with Sting and the Shark.

Entertaining start, with Sting diving over both top ropes and taking out the Shark.

No idea if this was planned, but the Shark tries the same over both top ropes dive that Sting did earlier, but gets caught up on the ropes. I like John Tenta, but he shouldn’t be trying anything like that for sure.

Not a bad opening period. Of course the heels win the coin toss and here comes the Zodiac.

Things have slowed down since the Zodiac got in. Randy Savage comes in to save Sting from an uninspiring two on one beat down.

Kamala is next and this has just turned into a sloppy brawl.

Luger comes and evens the odds are again. Only decent part so far has been Sting-Shark and even that wasn’t that great.

Luger and Savage accidentally hit another and go at it…at least something interesting happens. Here comes Meng.

Luger sells a kick from Meng that doesn’t even remotely hit.

Hogan comes in and throws powder in everyone’s eyes. And he’s the top good guy!

Zodiac oversells some Hogan punches. That was embarrassing.

The Hulkamaniacs win when Hogan makes Zodiac submit in 18:47.

We get a terrible Camel Clutch (called a reverse chinlock) for the win. It’s not like Sting and Luger have finishers that are submission holds afterall. Hogan didn’t take one move, it was all offense and that was it for the Dungeon of Doom. Absolutely horrible all around here with a shit finish. Second worst War Games in the history of the match (’98 is worse for sure).

Hogan then beats up Sullivan for a while, before the Giant comes in and chokes Hogan and injures his neck. Even in getting beat down, Hogan doesn’t take a bump. What an embarrassment.

Two really good matches but a whole lot of garbage inbetween. WCW needed to move past this Dungeon of Doom thing, but really wouldn’t until mid-96 when Scott Hall showed up.

A least the Nitros have been good so far.

Final Grade: C

Pro Wrestling

RDT Reviews WCW Halloween Havoc 2000

March 20, 2015 rdtworldofsport@gmail.com

WCW Halloween Havoc 2000
October 29, 2000
Las Vegas, NV
Reviewed on March 6, 2014

Background: Um…WCW was in full trainwreck mode at this point but they were going in a good direction with Booker T and Scott Steiner feuding for the World Title. This card overall looks like a disaster though. By looking at the results I see a First Blood DNA match, a Kickboxing match and two handicap matches. It’s going to be one of those shows…isn’t it…

WCW though, was nearing its end. Hollywood Hogan has departed a few months earlier. Guys like Scott Hall, Ric Flair, Kevin Nash and DDP are nowhere to be found on the card. Randy Savage is gone. The card is made up of young guys that never got the rub they needed from the generation before them. How bad can this be?

The Card

Video asking fans who’s gonna win between Goldberg and Kronik. Some actually said Kronik.

Apparently this PPV was brought to us by the game WCW Backstage Assault. Backstage Assault is the biggest ripoff ever in regards to wrestling video games. It was just the backstage portion of WCW Mayhem.

Sigh, I have to listen to Mark Madden.

WCW Tag Team Championship
Natural Born Thrillers (Sean O’Haire and Mark Jindrak) vs. Billy Kidman and Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. The Boogie Knights (Disqo and Alex Wright)

I like how Disqo and Wright look different, but they basically have the same gimmick they had 3 years ago.

Hm…Jindrak now. Why is it Palumbo and O’Haire later? Anyway Madden just said he sees Arn Anderson in Mark Jindrak.

Rey with devil horns! Just sigh.

Madden: Jindrak and O’Haire remind me of a white Harlem Heat. Mark Madden is the worst.

Just realize that’s Stevie Ray on commentary as well.

Konnan is also on commentary calling everyone a piece of crap. Ok then.

Nice springboard bodypress from Jindrak.

It’s notable that Jindrak and O’Haire haven’t completely grasped the art of selling. Jindrak especially looks raw.

O’Haire and Rey get into a weird punching sequence that O’Haire screws up.

Double toss from the outside INTO the ring on Kidman from NBT. That was cool.

This commentary is awful.

Alex Wright with some kind of attack on Rey…which ends up with Wright dumping himself out of the ring.

So many botches. Disqo misses a kick but still hits the Last Dance (Stunner!)

The Natural Born Thrillers retain the title when Sean O’Haire pins Disqo in 10:06. O’Haire nails Disqo with a Sean-Ton Bomb for the win. The botches really took me out of the match. It could have been fun. O’Haire and Jindrak were not ready for this level yet.

Wow talk about exaggeration. Mark Madden says this was one of the finest matches he have had the privilege of calling. Also, hilariously, Rey Jr. is getting beat up with a chair by Alex Wright…and Konnan debates helping him! I mean he does, but your best friend is getting beat up with a chair! Get in there! They hurt Konnan too, apparently injuring his knee.

Sgt. AWOL for the save!

WCW Hardcore Championship
Reno© vs. Sgt. AWOL

Add the The Briscos and The Midnight Express as teams Madden compared Jindrak and O’Haire to.

AWOL is already through a table.

Apparently WCW has instituted old school hardcore rules. Apparently new school rules meant matches started in the back. Um..ok.

Mark Madden: You can get old school hardcore rules anywhere in Vegas for $150. Thanks Mark.

I don’t know how hitting one another with kendo sticks and garbage cans could be boring…but this is.

Reno hits the Roll of the Dice on the floor! That’s Cody Rhodes’ Crossroads for anyone wondering.

Backstage Assault advert RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE MATCH.

Reno through two tables. Even that looked boring.

I guess putting people through tables has no effect on anyone.

AWOL decks…Finlay? How random.

Reno retains the title via pin at 10:50. Roll of the Dice on a table. Reno wins. That might have been the most boring hardcore match I’d ever seen. It was basically the definition of going through the motions.

The Perfect Event (Shawn Stasiak and Chuck Palumbo) now attack AWOL. He comes Lt. Loco (Chavo Guerrero) and Cpl. Cajun (Lash LeRoux) for the save!

Hilarious backstage segment. It’s not supposed to be, but here is why it is. The Perfect Event was just in the ring attacking AWOL in their wrestling attire. Well backstage Shane Douglas is telling O’Haire and Jindrak good job on the attack on Konnan earlier, like it is a live backstage segment….except The Perfect Event is there too in different attire. Great planning WCW!

Video showing what happened with Goldberg hitting his head on the ringpost against Kronik.

Backstage, Kronik says that they don’t think Goldberg will show up.

Lt. Loco and Cpl. Cajun vs. The Perfect Event

Bonus match! You know, there doesn’t really seem to be enough time on this show for this.

At Greed, Chavo was normal Chavo. I wonder what the storyline progression was there.

Mark Madden: You know Stevie, as a member of Harlem Heat I know you were used to bad teamwork.

You know Mark, they only won like 7 or 8 (maybe more) World Tag Team titles. For fucks sake.

Apparently the Perfect Event are having problems getting along or something.

Backstage Assault ad AGAIN. In the middle of the fucking match.

Stasiak can’t even taunt naturally.

LeRoux basically no sells a big boot from Palumbo, that even seemed to surprise Tony Schiavone on commentary as he stuttered when it happened.

Mark Madden fawns over Chuck Palumbo’s chain wrestling. I wonder if Mark Madden has ever even watched wrestling before.

Chavo is by far the best wrestler in the ring. By far.

Lt. Loco and Cpl. Cajun win when Loco pins Stasiak in 9:23. Palumbo accidentally superkicks Stasiak into a Loco Tornado DDT. This match was boring and it sucked. Lash LeRoux is awful. Palumbo and Stasiak aren’t ready yet.

Konnan is tending to his knee. He asks other members if the Filthy Animals to take his place, but they all had a match already. Konnan gets mad and says whatever. Ok then.

The Franchise and Torrie Wilson vs. Konnan and Tygress

Torrie Wilson is in sexy Wonder Woman gear for no reason. A positive!

Mark Madden practically admitted to jacking off to Wonder Woman as a kid. Thanks Mark.

Tygress is willing to do a handicap match as Konnan is hurt. Didn’t Konnan say he was coming out?

Why is Tygress even in the ring. She’s already done a horrible armdrag and she can’t even do stomps correctly. Stomps!

Here’s Konnan(from the crowd for some reason)…and Douglas takes him out.

Apparently it’s a back injury and not a knee injury. He still got in the Rolling Clothesline though. Nice selling.

I feel like if DC Comics knew this match existed they would have sued WCW so fast.

Tygress misses a baseball slide. Totally misses. At least Torrie didn’t pretend to sell it.

Tygress is owning The Franchise. I guess Douglas wasn’t getting a main event run.

Tygress gets punched in the face by Douglas. You know it’s bad when I practically cheered that happening. Mark Madden said the punch was justified…and you know what, he’s right.

Stevie Ray calls the Camel Clutch the Boston Crab. Great stuff.

Tygress was in a Crossface Chicken Wing from Douglas, but she escapes by slowly running around the ring and then sending Douglas through the ropes.

Torrie with the Franchiser on Konnan! Good thing I hate Konnan.

Konnan and Tygress win when Konnan pinned The Franchise in 8:38. Konnan pins Douglas after they hit a double Stuff Buster (X-Factor) on Douglas. For some reason Torrie doesn’t break up the pin. Awful. Absolutely awful.

A little storyline behind this next match. Stacy Keibler found out she was pregnant at New Blood Rising (I think). She cheated on David Flair with Buff Bagwell. Now we get a First Blood DNA Match. Believe it or not, I don’t think that’s that terrible. I mean it’s bad, but it’s a creative way to figure out if Buff is the father!

First Blood DNA Match
Buff Bagwell vs. David Flair

“It’s time to find out if Buff Daddy is the real daddy!” Clever one Buff.

The first move is botched. Bagwell tries to slam Flair face first into the turnbuckle, but he lost grasp of David’s head.

Is Buff the face? He yawns, which is a heel thing to do, right?

Flair does his dad’s turnbuckle flip then is thrown off the top rope like his dad. Nice I guess?

Wow he just did the Ric Flair falling face first spot. That was a bit much though.

This match is Buff Bagwell beating up and mocking David Flair. This is practically a comedy match.

Weak chairshot from Bagwell, and David goes over the rope and clearly hides by the apron to blade. Come on.

Buff Bagwell wins in 5:37. Buff Blockbuster…and the ref sees the blood from the chairshot. Match sucked. I don’t even know what the point of this was other than to beat up David Flair a bit. Lex Luger is here….and he turns on Buff Bagwell! Bagwell into the post and he’s bleeding from the mouth. David Flair gets his sample!

Luger and Bagwell were friends again 5 months later.

I sense that because of Flair’s blood, the sample will be messed up or something.

For the record, Mark Madden used the terms spots and angle in this match. Reality Era 11 years early! Take that WWE!

Goldberg’s in the house!

Scott Steiner interview! Booker T will find out that size does matter!

Kickboxing Match for WCW Commissioner Position
Mike Sanders vs. Ernest Miller

Perfect Event is out there with Mike Sanders. I guess that whole angle with the Perfect Even not getting along earlier is being ignored.

I believe this will be contested with two minute rounds, three rounds total. This is what this PPV needed, a Kickboxing Match.

Mike Sanders: “This is no Tyson Fight, no Thrilla in Manilla, no Rumble in the Jungle…just me being dead in your ass.” What the fuck Mike Sanders.

This might be over in 30 seconds! Miller nails a kick to the face. Sanders makes it up at 8. Damn.

Sanders goes down again. Up at 9.

Round 1 is over. This match sucks.

Mark Madden: “Did the Cat bite Mike Sanders’ ear”? Shut up already.

Round 2 is all Miller. Sanders down again! Up at 7.

Miller with the dancing split uppercut! Sanders is down! Palumbo wanted to throw in the towel, but Stasiak doesn’t let him. Sanders is up at 9!

Shane Douglas is out here. I guess he needs to be involved in two shitty matches tonight.

Final round!

Cartwheel kick to Sanders! He still survives. End this shit please.

Douglas nails The Cat with a chain on a fist!

Miller gets up at 9? Ref stopped counting for some reason with 7 seconds left.

Match keeps going?

Mike Sanders wins. The Cat fights Douglas on the outside…and gets counted out. Literally makes no sense. The round was over. None. Zero. Horrible. Horrible. Horrible.

Backstage, Goldberg is tested by some doctors. Goldberg says he’s been a little dizzy since Monday. Even though the post thing happened Wednesday on Thunder.

Mike Awesome vs. Vampiro

That 70s guy!

It takes 30 seconds to see that Vampiro fucking sucks. No selling, and doesn’t even take a back bump correctly.

Vampiro takes out a security lady when he fails to land on his feet in a backdrop into the crowd.

A fan attacks Mike Awesome and Awesome and Vampiro kick the crap out of him. Nice.

Vampiro can’t even stand on a announce table. I wish I was exaggerating how bad this is. Flying clothesline looks terrible.

There is a chair in the ring and they used weapons in the crowd, I guess this is a no DQ match?

Vampiro tries a Van Daminator. Guess what? He fucked that up too!

A clothesline! Seriously. How does that not happen correctly.

Wow. Vampiro almost injures both himself and Awesome with a top rope belly to belly suplex. Vampiro fell of the top and threw Awesome over his head. Just wow.

Vampiro attempts to throw Awesome’s face into a table…but just lets go early and Awesome doesn’t complete the move. What? How?

Mike Awesome hits a really hard forearm on Vampiro in the ring. Vampiro doesn’t sell it. It’s so sad that this match would be one of those that would show a kid that wrestling isn’t real.

Mike Awesome pins Vampiro in 9:49. Awesome Bomb from the top for the win…followed by that terrible music. That was one of the worst matches I have ever seen, and by far the worst match on the show, which is saying something. Vampiro is absolutely terrible.

Mark Madden says that underneath the gimmick, Mike Awesome is one of the best wrestlers in the world. Well no shit (although that’s a little bit of exaggeration). It’s almost like the gimmick should go.

Great, a General Rection interview.

General Rection came back for everyone or something.

Vampiro being helped out. Tony Schiavone says that this is one of the most awesome spots we’ll ever see.

WCW Canadian (US) Championship: Handicap Match
Lance Storm© and Jim Duggan vs. General Rection

Major Gunns is being held captive by Team Canada. If General Rection wins, he wins the title and Major Gunns back.

Not usually a fan of the Handicap Match for the title idea, but it’s more unusual when the team has the title.

Lance Storm’s promo was the 2nd bright spot after Torrie’s outfit.

I assume the Misfits In Action theme is dubbed on the WWE Network. Because it’s awful.

At least the crowd is into it by chanting USA.

Duggan looks horribly out of shape here.

Stevie Ray asks on why she’s called Major Gunns. I think he seriously doesn’t know.

Just curious, any reason we just didn’t get Storm vs. Rection here?

Nice superkick from Storm.

Duggan is the legal man, but ref counts a pin on Storm anyway. Duggan embarrassingly stomps and misses Rection and gets Storm. It looked so bad, Schiavone tried to sell it as maybe Duggan meant to hit Storm.

Storm and Rection mess up a headlock spot. I’m gonna assume that wasn’t on Storm.

Crazy ref bump in all this too.

Duggan with a piledriver! Rection kicks out and sends Duggan onto the ref.

Primetime Elix Skipper is here, but Gunns knocks him off the apron. This distracts Storm.

General Rection wins the title when he pins Jim Duggan at 10:07. Duggan misses Rection with the 2X4 and Duggan gets knocked down. Duggan clearly throws the 2X4 out of the ring, only it doesn’t make it, so he clearly shoves it out. Rection hits No Laughing Matter for the win. Another really bad match. The Lance Storm match isn’t even good.

Sting vs. Jeff Jarrett

Story here is Jarrett has been mocking Sting and saying he has no heart.

Jarrett interview: He’s gonna show a metamorphosis or Sting’s career, from a nobody to a has been to a never was. I do think that’s a good line.

Sting with a chair! I guess this is no DQ.

This is all Sting early on.

Here comes someone dressed as the old Sting. Apparently it is specifically 1989 Sting.

2000 Sting hits 1989 Sting with a Scorpion Death Drop on the floor. Ok then.

Now we have 1990 Sting! Hair doesn’t work here!

1990 Sting botches going over the top rope. Well he got thrown over eventually.

Hiptoss on the stage on the 1990 Sting.

2000 Sting with a Scorpion Death Drop on the stage on 1990 Sting.

Wolfpac music! Wolfpac Sting in the house!

2000 Sting beats up Wolfpac Sting with a baseball bat.

2000 Sting Scorpion Death Drops Wolfpac Sting on the stage.

Jeff Jarrett gets his first offensive move in with a baseball bat shot!

It took three fake Stings and a bat, but Jarrett now has firm control of the match.

Sting’s making his comeback!

Scorpion Deathlock….NWO STING COMING THROUGH THE CANVAS.

Real Sting gets dragged into the hole…but he emerges and has bloodied the NWO Sting.

Two Stinger Splashes and the lights go out.

We get another fuckin’ Sting from the rafters! The wig almost falls off.

The crowd got the wig!

Real Sting puts the 5th fake Sting through the Announcer’s Table with a Scorpion Death Drop.

Scorpion Deathlock on Jarrett…where ANOTHER fake Sting smashes a guitar over Sting’s head. Oh, this is a bloodied fake Sting. So this is Sting #4.

Real Sting recovers easily…and Scorpion Death Drops the fake Sting.

Jeff Jarrett pins Sting in 14:38. Jarrett comes in and smashes Sting (the real one) with a guitar! 1…2…3! What was the difference between this guitar and the last one? Ok so wow. What the fuck was that? Why couldn’t we just run Jarrett vs. Sting? It probably would have been a solid match. This might have been the stupidest match I’ve ever seen. I don’t even know who this was supposed to put over, or what the point was. I’m so confused.

Plus they need to fix the ring.

Booker T interview. He respects Goldberg, so he wants to go on against Scott Steiner now so buy Goldberg a little more time to get cleared so he can face Kronik. I’m sure those 15 minutes are everything.

WCW World Championship
Booker T© vs. Scott Steiner

I feel bad for Michael Buffer.

Scott Steiner beats up an agent in the back because he wanted to go on last and main event.

Steiner just looks scary as hell beating up Booker.

Steiner’s trying to go into the crowd to beat up fans.

Booker with a nice leapfrog to spinkick combo!

Steiner is threatening Stevie Ray. I actually like that. It makes sense…he’s Booker’s brother afterall.

Steiner scarily threatens the ref when he only gets a 2 count.

Steiner with a Samoan Drop from the 2nd rope. Nice.

Booker’s making the big comeback!

Midajah pulls Booker on the top rope, crotching him. Booker recovers and gets a missile dropkick.

Axe Kick!

Steiner nails Booker with a lead pipe. Then he takes out the ref.

Steiner Recliner…then Steiner takes out ref #2.

Booker T retains by DQ at 13:26. Steiner takes out another ref right as he calls for the bell. For the record a chair was used earlier, so why the DQ? To be honest, this match is not bad at all. Best match of the night (that’s not saying anything though). But it wasn’t bad. It wasn’t particularly good, but it wasn’t bad. Really makes Steiner someone to be feared.

I like how Jarrett runs out to calm Steiner down. I’d guess Steiner had a beatdown planned, but with only 10 minutes or so left on the show Jarrett had to run down to cut that short for the main event!

Career Threatening Handicap Match
Goldberg vs. Kronik

Brian Adams promo. Cause that’s what this show needs. Kronik says there is no match, Goldberg isn’t cleared.

Hard to believe this was once Crush. Doesn’t really look like him.

Here comes Goldberg!

Here we go! Goldberg has to beat them both.

Adams gets a table!

Double Chokeslam though the table…no! He spears Clarke though the table! 2 minutes in he pins Clarke!

Goldberg thinks he won…I guess it wasn’t clear he needed to beat both. Adams attacks him from behind.

Goldberg wins when he pins Adams in 3:35. Um.it was 3 minutes. I get it was a Goldberg match, but come on. I guess it was the 2nd or 3rd best match on the show.

Okay.

This show felt like it went on forever.

This shit is the absolute worst. It was horrible. Absolutely horrible. Opener was below average with potential. Hardcore match was boring. Bonus tag sucked. First Blood DNA was bad. Kickboxing Match was awful and made absolutely no sense. Awesome vs. Vampiro was one of the worst PPV matches I had ever seen. US/Canadian Title Handicap Match was bad. Jarrett vs. Sting was unnecessarily stupid. Booker vs. Steiner was decent. Main event was rushed.

I haven’t seen all the WCW PPVs, but I have a feeling this one may be the worst.

It’s amazing how much better Greed was than this.

It doesn’t surprise me that this won the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Awards for worst major show.

It does surprise me that they even made it to March of next year.

If you factor in expectations and the fact that there is a multi-billion dollar organization behind WCW, this PPV may be worse than Heroes of Wrestling.

Horrible.

Final Grade: F

Pro Wrestling

RDT Reviews WCW New Blood Rising

March 20, 2015 rdtworldofsport@gmail.com

WCW New Blood Rising
August 13, 2000
Vancouver, BC
Reviewed on March 9, 2014

Background: We’re a little earlier in the trainwreck era of WCW. The Millionaire’s Club vs. New Blood had fallen apart with the Hulk Hogan-Vince Russo Bash At the Beach 2000 debacle. It does make the PPV name a bit funny, although I guess you can argue that the New Blood were now going forward with the promotion. There are way too many negatives at this point that you could read in any WCW book or article or whatever. So, I’ll focus on some positives. I believe there are three.

1. There are some good wrestlers in the company. Maybe they’ll get pushed (lol).

2. There are some hot women in the company.

3. Booker T is the WCW World Champion.

If done correctly, #3 could help WCW a lot. Of course, it wasn’t. Let’s get to this trainwreck of a show.

The Card

I’m a Jeff Jarrett fan…but he never should have been a top guy.

Ugh, Mark Madden.

Ladder Match
Three Count (Evan Karagias, Shannon Moore and Shane Helms) vs. The Jung Dragons (Kaz Hayashi, Jamie-San, Yun Yang)

Three Count has Tank Abbott with them and they sing! I am a Three Count fan, I can’t lie.

Jamie-San is Jamie Knoble.

They are fighting for a gold record AND a recording contract.

For some reason is starts as a six man tag match…no idea why there’s any tagging or anything in a ladder match.

Yang backdrops Moore into a propped ladder…but only his leg hits and that looked like it worked.

Ouch Yang gets crotched on a ladder rung, I don’t remember ever seeing that.

It’s a Dragons Sandwich on a ladder. Moore with the splash, which looked bad.

Dueling Springboard Doomsday Devices, one pro Dragons and one pro 3 Count.

Jamie with the crossbody from the top of a ladder onto the floor and various opponents! Nice.

Tank Abbott is on the apron and a bit distracting…

Helms runs up a step on a ladder to neckbreaker Jamie off. Very nice!

Suplex from the ladder on Hayashi!

Helms superkicks a ladder into Yang! Very nice spots here.

Yang does the Daniel Bryan run up the corner flip…only on a ladder with Jamie behind it! Very nice.

Moore goes from the top to the outside and splashes a ladder to cause a see-saw…that nails Jamie-San and Helms in the face!

Ugly double splash from the top of the ladder to Moore.

Yang gets the gold record! Match isn’t over yet though. Why not just grab the contract too?

Yang falls off the ladder and the record ends up in Abbott’s hands! What was the point then?

Jamie top rope legdrops Karagias when he’s in a ladder sandwich…but did it to his head without any effect from the ladder.

Sick powerbomb from Jamie to Moore off the ladder.

Abbott whipes out both guys going up ladders for the contract.

Three Counts Wins in 11:32. Karagias runs up to get the record contract. I’m confused, so the Dragons get nothing for getting the record? Whatever. Other than Tank Abbott being ridiculously distracting on the apron, this was a good match. It’s not nearly as good as the WWF’s first TLC (which was being run at about the same time frame), but a fun match with some sloppiness to it. Good start to New Blood Rising!

Backstage Filthy Animals at in Commissioner Cat’s office. They want a Tag Title shot on Nitro and wanna referee the match tonight in exchange for helping The Cat beat The Great Muta. Miller says okay but he doesn’t need the help. Disqo tries to be street or something and the Cat throws him out.

Ernest Miller vs. The Great Muta

I wonder how embarrassed The Great Muta is to be there.

The Cat: “Muta, I know you don’t understand English, so let me say this so you understand”….then he proceeds to speak English…what?

Muta with some solid chain wrestling early on.

This match has a lot of kicks.

Here comes Tygress! Remember, the Animals said they would help the Cat.

Nice Dragon Screw from Muta!

GREEN MIST!

Tygress knocks out Muta with a chair. Tygress has now owned Shane Douglas and The Great Muta in the PPVs I’ve watched.

Ernest Miller pins The Great Muta in 6:47. Feliner for the win. Poor Great Muta. Ironically I could see this being a good kick boxing fight, as a wrestling match, it was okay thanks to some Muta stuff.

Buff Bagwell is looking for his mother. Sigh.

Judy Bagwell on a Pole Match
Positively Kanyon vs. Buff Bagwell

It’s really going to be Judy Bagwell on a forklift. I guess that makes more sense?

This is one of the better wrestler impersonations out there (Kanyon as DDP). Surprised Vince McMahon didn’t do a double DDP thing in the InVasion.

Bagwell goes right for the forklift. That actually makes sense.

See, Bagwell playing to the crowd makes no sense here. His mother is on the line, be serious!

They still focus on the broken Bagwell neck of two years earlier, which actually makes sense I guess. It would make more sense with a specific angle in there.

Kanyon takes off a turnbuckle pad!

Kanyon nails a nice neckbreaker.

Kanyon into the exposes corner!

BANG! KANYON CUTTER! Bagwell kicks out!

Here comes David Arquette. I had no idea he was around past Slamboree.

Buff Bagwell pins Kanyon in 6:45. Double Buff Blockbuster to Kanyon and Arquette. Whatever. This whole match was whatever. The gimmick itself is also stupid, but I guess Buff reuniting with his mom was a good moment? Kanyon Cutter to Arquette. Good riddance.

We’ve got a bunch of cops and a stretch limo with Canadian flags outside. It’s Lance Storm. That was pretty awesome to be honest.

Apparently Goldberg was injured in a motorcycle accident last night. They repeat the whole will Goldberg wrestle drama a couple months later at Havoc too.

WCW World Tag Team Championship
Kronik© vs. The Perfect Event (Sean Stasiak and Chuck Palumbo) vs. Sean O’Haire and Mark Jindrak vs. The Misfits in Action (Gen. Rection and Cpl. Cajun)

Filthy Animals are here to be the referees. Whatever.

Konnan says the MIA need to be soaked in talent because they are missing a lot. I agree!

Konnan then says Jindrak and O’Haire have no charisma. Correct again, although O’Haire would get some.

I think it’s funny that Kronik use their last names when Crush and Wrath are tons better.

Disqo is the in ring official.

Konnan is going overboard on commentary. Some of the comments are funny, but now he’s burying everyone.

I like how Disco Inferno’s entire WCW career was basically him trying to be cool and failing.

Stasiak hilariously sells a full nelson.

Palumbo botches a side kick on Clarke. Or Clarke messes up. One of the two. Maybe both.

Disqo slow counts Kronik.

Somehow Tygress gets a Bronco Buster in. She’s a ref you know.

Disqo slow counts Cajun as well. It’s a Canadian Count according to Konnan.

Rection just took a shameful bump to the outside.

The Animals clearly want O’Haire and Jindrak to win.

Dark Carnival here. Attack Kronik.

Kronik retains when Clarke pinned Palumbo in 12:22. Double Chokeslam to Palumbo, then Lt. Loco runs in and attacks Disqo and takes the ref shirt. Then he counts the pin for Kronik. Just so you know, Loco is a member of MIA…so he screwed his own team over there. Pretty bad clusterfuck here that I lost track of. You had 8 guys in there + 4 Filthy Animal referees +2 Dark Carnival members (didn’t see the Demon) + 1 Lt. Loco ref run it. That’s 15 guys for fucks sake. And Loco did something non-sensical. What-fucking-ever. The story is that The Animals thought O’Haire and Jindrak would be the easiest to win the titles from tomorrow.

Jeff Jarrett backstage. Bright green shirt is distracting. Talks trash about Booker T.

Strap Match
The Franchise vs. Billy Kidman

Douglas has Torrie Wilson with him. So that’s a good thing.

Apparently you can win this strap match by pin.

I like how Kidman comes without his shirt on. The strap match, you’d think, is the one match where he should wear his shirt.

Mark Madden finally made a comment that made me yell at my screen to shut up. Someething about Kidman failing at pole matches if you know what I mean.

Madden also asks if Torrie put on a couple pounds. Of course Torrie here is thin and beautiful.

Crowd is in this though, huge heat for Douglas, which didn’t exist three months later.

Scott Hudson is even making Torrie is fat jokes? I don’t understand.

Apparently there’s a sex tape in this angle. I’m just gonna focus on the match.

Nice reverse camel clutch snapback from Douglas. This match has been a real bore so far though.

A lot of the commentary is based around praise for them not using the strap. Which Douglas isn’t. So why is this a Strap Match?

Nice leaping hurricanrana from Kidman off the top.

Billy Kidman pins Shane Douglas in 8:22. Kidman hits the Kid Krusher (Killswitch) for the win. Then he spanks Torrie with the strap. Douglas attacks Kidman then decides to HANG Kidman with the strap. Horrible image. Vito runs in to make the save. Mark Madden says that at least Kidman can say he was well hung. Fuck off Mark Madden. Reno runs in to attack Vito. Vito takes him out too. For the match itself, it was pretty boring for the most part…but the crowd was into it. Kind of a waste of Kidman’s high flying ability since he’s tied to the strap. Hanging was unnecessary.

Booker T in the house. He gets attacked by Jarrett by his car. He crushes Booker’s knee with the car door. I like it.

Mud Rip the Clothes Off Match
Major Gunns vs. Miss Hancock

I’m sighing cause I know what happens here.

This match starts in the ring. I guess that’s okay.

How does Major Gunns make a slap look bad? Whatever, this match isn’t about that.

Why is this a wrestling match for.

Why is there a pin attempt and a count? What?

Another pin attempt. I don’t know the rules here.

The wrestling wasn’t absolutely awful I guess.

Stacy does a dance when on the 2nd rope. Awesome.

Hilariously bad set up for a top rope sunset flip. Stacy had to stagger forward.

Stacy is selling a pain in her stomach.

They are getting toward the mud and Gunns is nearly naked. I’m sure I appreciated this more as a teenager.

They’re in the mud!

Major Gunns pins Miss Hancock in 6:43. Stacy dances in the mud…then hurls over. Major Gunns gets the pin. Keibler is still doubled over in pain and David Flair shows up. Major Gunns tries to help her too. They are trying to make this seem like a shoot. Somehow a mud wrestling match began as a normal wrestling match. It was good eye candy, which I guess is the purpose, but we didn’t need all that (not as bad as you would think) wrestling and certainly not this horrible fake shoot storyline.

Interview with the Dark Carnival. Vampiro is like the anti-Great Muta. Vampiro says this is The Demon’s test to see if he can hang with the Juggalo Army.

Now Tony Schiavone talks about how this Miss Hancock thing wasn’t part of this show and all this bullshit. Whatever, let’s keep moving.

The Demon vs. Sting

Sting comes from the rafters. I guess the Owen Hart thing taught Vince Russo nothing.

Sting pins the Demon in 0:52. Stinger Splash, Scorpion Deathdrop for the win. Nice waste of one of your top draws. Vampiro and Muta show up and try to HANG Sting with cable from the ceiling. ANOTHER hanging? Kronik makes the save and Sting leaves. Kronik offers Muta and Vampiro a Tag Title shot later. Woo? What a waste of Sting.

We’re backstage, and Booker is hurt!

WCW US/Canadian Championship
Lance Storm© vs. Mike Awesome

Fat Chick Thriller here…at least his music was good this time.

Canadian crowd marks out for Lance Storm! As they should.

Lance Storm with a great promo here about how the USA thinks they own the world. He’s right you know.

Storm says that Canadian Championship Rule 32B states he can select a special referee. Crowd goes nuts for Bret Hart, chanting “we want Bret”.

Storm announces Jacques Rougeau as the referee. Way to get a fellow CANADIAN booed in Canada WCW. Seriously. And this choice gets even dumber 15 minutes from now.

Canadian National Anthem is always awesome.

Awesome dominating early on here.

Nice superkick from Storm.

Mike Awesome busts out a table.

ECW chant in Canada. Nice.

Awesome slips off the top rope…but recovers nicely with a clothesline.

Great powerbomb after sending Storm sky high! The ref in the ring counts the three…but wait, the Canadian Rulebook states that a 5 count is required!

Nice Alabama Slam from Mike Awesome.

Only a three count on the pin!

Dragon Sleeper on Storm. Scott Hudson wonders if that’s a tribute to Ultimo Dragon because Dragon once held 10 titles and Storm has three. Um…wouldn’t Awesome be the one doing the tribute? Unless that’s a shoot comment.

Storm submits…but WAIT…no submissions in a Canadian Rules Match! That woulda screwed Bret back in the day.

Another three count! No close 4 counts yet though.

Four count by Awesome on Storm!

Awesome Splash. Five count! But WAIT! It’s Texas Death rules. Storm gets a 10 count to answer.

Weakish chair shot by Storm. Never Lance’s specialty.

Four count! Four and a half!

Lance Storm retains the title in 11:28. Both men through a table! BUT WAIT! Whoever gets up first after a table spot wins the match! Rougeau then decks Awesome as he was getting up. Storm wins…and the Canadian crowd pops big!

It’s Bret Hart! Bret comes down and looks disgusted at the cheap way Storm just won…but then all three hug. The crowd pop because it’s Canada…but if this is what was going to happen…

WHY NOT JUST USE BRET AS THE REFEREE?

Anyway, this isn’t that bad, but the problem is how it is booked. It made Lance Storm look awful. He gets beat by Mike Awesome in like five different ways and then can’t even get a legitimate win over Awesome at the end. And since the match wasn’t about Awesome at all, it doesn’t help him either. But it wasn’t that bad. This was a knock-off of Stone Cold vs. Dude Love at Over the Edge 98.

We’re backstage with Kevin Nash! Still no Goldberg. Nash says he cares about two things: money and the belt. “I’m going over Steiner” tonight.

WCW World Tag Team Championship
Kronik© vs. The Dark Carnival (The Great Muta and Vampiro)

You know in EWR where you overuse a guy on a show and you get sick of them? That’s how I feel about Vampiro and Muta right now. Shame about Muta, you know, since he’s Muta.

Schiavone and Madden imply that it wasn’t a motorcycle accident that shelved Goldberg, but that something went down backstage. This is going to be really stupid later.

Vampiro looks like he’s trying. So there’s that.

Adams military presses Vampiro…but Vampiro lands on his feet when he wasn’t supposed to clearly. Not a surprise.

Brian Adams as the babyface in peril doesn’t really work.

Adams with the revenge no-sell: a dropkick to the knees.

The Great Muta is really wasted here.

Referee gets MISTED.

Oh god the Harris Bros.

The Great Muta and Vampiro win the titles when Muta pinned Clarke in 9:06. Harris Bros. hit the H-Bomb on Clarke. Muta moonsault for the win. I guess the Harris Bros. wanted revenge on Adams for leaving DOA in 1997? Anyway, this match was boring.

Booker T interview. Jarrett didn’t finish the job. Etc.

#1 Contender to the World Title Match
Kevin Nash vs. Scott Steiner vs. Goldberg (maybe)

GOLDBERG musc!

No Goldberg though.

GOLDBERG music again!

Worst Goldberg sign ever in the crowd. It was on box cardboard.

No Goldberg again.

GOLDBERG’s here with taped ribs.

Wow Nash botches getting into the ring. He stepped over the top rope and his leg got caught.

Some hard hitting action here. It’s nothing exciting, as the crowd busts out a boring chant, but I mean, it’s not horrible or anything.

Kevin Nash goes for the Jackknife…but Goldberg decides to escape. Nash gives Goldberg a perplexed look and Goldberg bails. Russo meets Goldberg near the entrance and Goldberg says fuck you. REALITY.

Let the shoot conversation commence.

There’s some unintentional comedy here, as the commentators talk about how Goldberg left because going up for the Jackknife would make him look bad, but Nash and Scott Steiner are pros and will improvise a finish. Nash and Steiner. Most professional wrestlers out there for sure.

Steiner just shoves the ref as Midajah low blows Nash.

Nash low blow. Midajah comes back and elbow drops Nash in the nuts. That was unique.

Awful DDT from Nash. Madden says he’s never seen Nash do a DDT. It’s obvious why.

Kevin Nash wins when he pins Scott Steiner in 10:48. Jackknife for the win! Obviously the shoot stuff is garbage and stupid, but the match itself isn’t as bad as you’d expect. Once again, it’s nothing particularly good, but not really bad either.

WCW World Championship
Booker T© vs. Jeff Jarrett

Booker’s selling the knee from earlier.

Jarrett attacks before the bell!

Booker with a nice blocked dropkick powerbomb spot. Although it was pretty early for that.

I do like Booker doing all his kicks and high risk moves…then selling the leg when he does them. Good storytelling.

I guess there’s No DQ here, as Jarrett smashes Booker’s knee with a chair.

Jarrett drops too early on the Scissors Kick…but whatever, SPINAROONI…and Booker accidentally knocks out the ref with the spinarooni. Seriously?

Harlem Sidekick….NO Jarrett smashes Booker’s leg with a guitar! I thought that was great to be honest.

Figure Four! Ref is back. Apparently doesn’t notice the guitar remnants though.

Jarrett holds onto the hold the literal max time after the rope break. A little too long.

Ref tries to help Booker up…and Jarrett accidentally nails the ref with the title.

Booker sets up a table on the outside. Book-End through the table…but it didn’t really look good.

Jarrett with a weak chairshot to the ref…thinking he was Booker.

Stroke on an open chair…which didn’t look great either. 3rd ref in, Booker kicks out.

Horrible swinging neckbreaker on the chair by Booker. Two count.

Booker T retains the title when he pinned Jarrett in 14:54. Book-End for the win. Okay match, weirdness and screw ups at the end kinda ruined it. Good that Booker was getting an established 2000 title reign…since no one else in WCW was.

There are some positives in this thing, although certainly more negatives. First I will say this is better than Halloween Havoc 2000 for sure. There is a good match for the opener, a decent Storm match and a decent main event. The only atrocious things on this show is the Stacy Keibler thing and the two different hanging attempts. Even the Goldberg stuff…it may be stupid but it could have been a hell of a lot worse. Booker vs. Jarrett is a decent main event. I will say this though.

They should have run a legit 25 minute Storm vs. Awesome Canadian Title Match as the main. Have Bret Hart be at ringside or a commentator or something. Lance Storm was megaover here and obviously so was Bret.

A lot of bad stuff, some horrible stuff, some decent stuff and a little good. It’s enough to avoid the flat out F, but it was close.

Final Grade: D

Pro Wrestling

RDT Reviews WCW Spring Stampede ’99

March 20, 2015 rdtworldofsport@gmail.com

WCW Spring Stampede ‘99
April 11, 1999
Tacoma, WA
Reviewed on July 4, 2014

WCW Spring Stampede interests me for one reason. It’s generally regarded that anything past late ’98 for WCW pretty much sucks. Yet, this card actually has very positive reviews. I’m really just curious to see what this show did as opposed to what WCW was doing in early ’99 (where it was pretty much awful).

WCW at this point was getting their ass kicked bad by the WWF in the ratings. While there were many reasons on why this was happening, the most recent was the Goldberg-Hall-Nash-Hogan Starrcade and Finger Poke of Doom debacle. WCW never recovered from that. Ric Flair also returned to the main event…and as great as Flair is, this is a perfect time to show that no new guys were getting pushed to the main event, sans for one (and he isn’t really even new).

How did Spring Stampede ’99 break through and actually be a good show for WCW? Is it actually good, or just good smelling shit? Let’s see.

The Card

This might be the first PPV with the new logo.

#1 Contender to the Cruiserweight Championship
Blitzkrieg vs. Juventud Guerrera

I like how if you watch Juvi here and back at Bash at the Beach ’98, you would have never known he had a heel turn with the LWO inbetween.

Commentary is making fun of Thunder? What?

Ha and they take a shot at Larry Z!

Some great sequences that Blitzkrieg impressively lands on his feet…but he does mess up a tilt a whirl backbreaker.

Juvi busts out the surfboard!

They do the flying off the top rope getting caught with a dropkick spot…but on the floor, which was cool.

Blitzkrieg with a crazy springboard moonsault onto Juvi on the floor. Wow.

They botch something off the top rope, it looked like a Blitzkrieg falls back on Juvi off the top spot.

Blitz misses one of the sicker top rope moves…the Sky Twister Press!

Crazy sunset flip off the top from Blitz.

Juvi hits a Juvi Driver off the top! Wow!

Juventud pins Blitzkrieg in 11:11. After the top rope Juvi Driver the pin was academic. I’m torn here. One on hand, they tried a lot of cool stuff and some of it was downright awesome. On the other, I hate high flying matches with messed up spots, as it looks like a performance as opposed to a wrestling match. In the end I’ll go with good, not great. Interestingly, some think this is one of the best matches of all of WCW. Let’s not go crazy here.

Hardcore Match
Hardcore Hak vs. Bam Bam Bigelow

I did think WCW trying to create a Hardcore Division with former WCW wrestlers was a great idea. Too bad it didn’t stick.

It is a bit of a waste for Bigelow though.

It is also interesting to note that Sandman got in good shape for WCW…he did the same for ECW 2K6.

Hak-ton Bomb off the stage wagon through Bigelow and a table! Eat your heart out Jeff Hardy.

For some reason Tony is explaining that the garbage can doesn’t really hurt but makes a great sound? What the fuck?

Ha, Tenay and Heenan make fun of him after a great garbage can shot.

Hak and Bigelow screw up a DDT I think? Maybe a suplex. I think Hak went for a suplex and Bigelow dropped for a DDT.

Another Hak-ton Bomb, this time on a ladder on Bigelow. Sandman is a sicko.

Hak goes flying off the ladder and throw the table!

Bam Bam Bigelow pins Hardcore Hak in 11:33. Bigelow is about to slam Hak with a safety rail, but Chasity causes a distraction but can’t get the fire extinguisher going. Bigelow gets it working and takes out Chasity. Hak hits the White Russian Legsweep on the safety rail, but eventually Bigelow hits a weird brainbuster through the table (which got a great reaction) on Hak for the win. Pretty entertaining Hardcore Match. Let’s quickly talk about why WCW blew it here and how frustrating it is to listen to the commentary here.

Tony Schiavone already buried the idea of garbage can shots (why?), but after the match all three are laughing about what they saw, with Tony giving a condescending “fans, don’t try this at home”. Not for safety reasons, it is more from a “this is stupid” standpoint. Why the commentary team wants to bury their own product just speaks volumes about WCW sometimes. Hak and Bigelow put on a good brawl and it’s basically laughed about. I hate this company sometimes.

Scotty Riggs vs. Mikey Whipwreck

I have no recollection of this Rick Marterl rip off gimmick Scotty Riggs is doing in WCW.

A lot of hip gyrations from Riggs. Well, two good matches was a good start to the PPV.

Mikey was pretty underrated as a wrestler.

Ouch, Mikey takes a bump off the apron and crashes back/head first into the railing.

Oddly Riggs looks like Randy “The Ram”.

“Boring” chant for Scotty’s offense. You know it’s bad when you are better off as a pirate.

Scotty Riggs pins Mikey Whipwreck in 7:03. Flying forearm for the win (is he just copying Luger from 92?). Out of nowhere win. Match sucked, although Whipwreck tried. Riggs didn’t last much longer. At least they tried to get someone new over though. Not sure why Riggs was the guy.

Disco Inferno makes fun of Konnan’s music video.

Konnan vs. Disco Inferno

Odd history here: Konnan was part of the Wolfpac…and Disco had some weird association with them.

Konnan calls Disco a straight up strawberry. Well then.

Konnan pins Disco Inferno in 9:17. Konnan hits Disco with his own move, the Chartbuster/Last Dance/STONE COLD STUNNER for the win. Interestingly, this match was to put Disco over and Disco dominated the match. Big difference from the Bash at the Beach ’98 “bonus match”. While the choices are odd, WCW does seem to be trying to push some guys higher up, Riggs and Disco are two examples so far.

WCW Cruiserweight Championship
Rey Mysterio Jr.(c) vs. Billy Kidman

They are the co-holders of the Tag Team Title. Winner faces Juvi on Nitro.

This is all post LWO (thankfully). Unfortunately this is the beginning of the maskless Rey era.

Commentary goes silent!

Some good sequences so far…but it does feel like they are going through the motions a bit.

Ref is fast counting everything for some reason.

Kidman actually does a running Shooting Star Press off the apron. No crowd reaction. Really odd match dynamics here.

Tenay with a funny slip: “Both men look like they’ve lost a step from the opening match…I mean opening part of the bout”. That’s probably true, Juvi vs. Blitzkrieg was better.

I am amazed that the crowd just does not give a shit about this match.

Really nice counter to a top rope bulldog from Rey.

The ref counts are really distracting.

Rey pins Kidman in 15:32 to retain. Top rope hurricanrana. This is like one of those EWR matches that got “bad show syndrome”. Everything looked nice, but crowd just didn’t care and it felt a little like they were going through the motions. My theory? They didn’t build up anything as they busted out hurricanranas right away in the opening sequence. Also, I think people may have been against maskless Rey. Kidman got some face reactions, and while he is, Rey didn’t get the same.

Seeing the replay on how they won the tag belts kinda killed my maskless Rey theory.

Raven and Saturn vs. Benoit and Malenko

I should say I loved the idea of Rey and Kidman (flyers) vs. Saturn and Raven (hardcore) vs. Benoit and Malenko (technical).

Benoit and Malenko are part of the Horsemen of course. So Double A is out here.

Raven and Saturn reconciling was pretty cool too. I forgot the story with that though.

Crowd is really hot here…like they know this is going to own.

Shame it isn’t being referenced, but there was history between Benoit and the Flock at one time too.

The Charles Robinson as the ref is an interesting part of this match as well.

Saturn kicks all kinds of ass at one point and takes out Double A at one point…but Malenko stops him.

Malenko dropkicks Saturn into a German Suplex by Benoit!

DVD from Saturn, cover is broken up by a Benoit diving Headbutt!

Raven droptoeholds Benoit on a chair…no DQs? Ah this is great, who cares.

Benoit and Malenko win when Malenko pins Raven in 14:11. Evenflow takes out Malenko and Raven covers. Double A puts a chair on Raven’s head and Benoit hits the Flying Headbutt on the chair (for fuck sakes Benoit) and blades no less. Malenko pins. Great back and forth tag match. Shoulda re-built the division around these two and Mysterio and Kidman.

WCW US Title Tournament Final
Booker T vs. Scott Steiner

In Jericho’s last great WCW moment, he actually got to be in this tournament twice via loophole, and he lost to both of these guys.

To be fair, these are the two (and Jericho, probably) that WCW should built towards the future with.

This is a rematch also, as Booker beat Steiner at Uncensored for the TV title.

“Steroids” chant midway through. Match has been pretty damn slow.

Time to bump some refs!

Steiner busts out the top rope frankensteiner!

Scott Steiner wins the title in 15:37. Steiner hits Booker with a hidden object for the win. Pretty meh match, although the frankensteiner was a nice touch. 13 minutes of nothing before that with unnecessary ref bumps.

Kevin Nash vs. Goldberg

Story here is obvious: Kevin Nash is the only man to beat Goldberg as he did at Starrcade. REMATCH TIME.

Match is ALL Kevin Nash early on.

Spear attempt…but Kevin Nash leapfrogs it and Goldberg takes out the ref! Lex Luger attacks!

Goldberg pins Kevin Nash in 7:41. Goldberg hits the spear and jackhammer on Nash after getting rid of Luger. Goldberg evens the score. Nash jobs clean! Of course the match isn’t much to write home about, but it was well booked. Made Nash look strong (even if he didn’t need it) and made Goldberg look strong too. That must mean Goldberg is slated for the title right? Lol.

WCW World Championship: Four Corners Match, Randy Savage is the Special Referee
Ric Flair© vs. Hollywood Hogan vs. Diamond Dallas Page vs. Sting

One fall here.

Ah, the Savage comeback, roided up and all.

My god Gorgeous George…

Flair was a heel here, although it was the result of a weird double turn with Hogan.

Hogan was kinda a face? Came back with the red and yellow later in the year.

DDP also had turned heel.

Sting was the only one with a clear alignment, which was face.

Pretty action packed start!

Hogan is doing the Hulkamania stuff. No selling Flair’s chops, etc.

Page busts out the Bret Hart Figure Four around the ring post!

They carry Hogan out…which is a little hokey as it was just one move (although a devastating one). I guess it’s believable. Eric Bischoff, who has no kayfabe power at this point, shows up here to add legitimacy. See, they did this before Russo.

Tombstone from Page to Sting! Flair with the save!

Double sleeper….double jawbreaker. Never seen that before (well, the jawbreaker).

Sting has….Hulked Up!

Flair locks Sting in the Figure Four, but Sting gets to the ropes. Ref Savage kicks Sting’s hand off then drags Flair and Sting to the center…and drops the BIG ELBOW on Flair?!

Diamond Dallas Page wins the WCW World Title in 17:27 when he pinned Flair. All three get to their feet and Page drops Flair with the Diamond Cutter and wins his first World Title. Overall this was…pretty good! All four men gave it a great effort (even Hogan, for half a match). Action never really stopped. I don’t remember what the explanation for what Savage did was though. Still, a very good main event with the top guys in their giving it their all.

Let’s talk about the DDP decision for a second. I do think DDP could have won the WCW World title so I have no issues with that…but WCW absolutely wasted it here. Page was a big time face in 1998 and his building to the WCW World Title could have been a great story in 1999 (or even he could have been the man to beat Goldberg at Starrcade ‘98). But it was wasted here…and I think he only held it for a couple weeks before he traded it with Sting, then lost it to Nash (who lost it to a returning Hogan).

A pretty good show with little historical significance as Russo was only five months away. Somehow in a couple months we had Sid in the main event despite a roster with Flair, Sting, Savage, Hogan, Goldberg, Nash etc. Still, Scott Steiner moved up the chain a bit I guess.

Some really good matches here: Juvi vs. Blitz had its faults but had some great moments (and a bad ass finish). Hak vs. Bigelow was probably the last time either gave a shit, and it resulted in a good hardcore match. Kidman vs. Rey tried, just missed for some reason. Malenko and Benoit vs. Saturn and Raven owned. Nash vs. Goldberg was fine for what it was, and the main event was actually good for what it was. Only real miss was Riggs vs. Whipwreck. Even Konnan vs. Disco had a solid story to it.

Very good show, perhaps the last of the WCW era.

Final Grade: B+

Pro Wrestling

RDT Reviews WCW World War 3 ’98

March 20, 2015 rdtworldofsport@gmail.com

WCW World War 3 98
November 22, 1998
Auburn Hills, MI
Reviewed on March 1, 2014

Background: 1998 was the beginning of the end for WCW (it was probably really Starrcade 97…but whatever). With the WWF having their best year in probably 10 or 11 years, they had turned the tide and had been winning the Monday Night ratings war. This was still before WCW was dead in the water though, and they certainly still had the talent to overtake the WWF.

WCW had just been relieved of one of its biggest talent acquisition failures as The Warrior had just finished up. Hollywood Hogan also would be gone at this point…running for president!

I’m not sure what the official story is, but it is accepted that Kevin Nash was the booker at this point. Watching this show, I understand why (although I don’t actually think the booking of Nash is that awful here).

Even the card itself though…showed that WCW would probably never regain the lead. For example, Goldberg. WCW’s 1998 cash cow. He’s not on this Pay-Per-View. In fact, Chris Jericho ran an entertaining angle against Goldberg for months, hoping to put on “the greatest squash match of all time”. Jericho’s wrestling Bobby Duncam Jr. here.

It is also interesting to point out that one of WCW’s calling cards was that they had great action in its undercard, then big names in the main event. You see at this point, that while some of the undercard is solid, it isn’t nearly at the level as 96 or 97 (or even earlier in 98) WCW.

Also, the main event is in fact not the World War 3 Battle Royal…but a US Title match between Bret Hart and Diamond Dallas Page. Just a quirky decision there. I get putting Page in the main though, he has been in every main since Bash At the Beach.

The Card

The opening is something I would expect for a WCW Playstation game. That’s not a bad thing though.

Here comes a limo!

Oh, Goldberg’s here? I’m so confused since he isn’t on the match card.

Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan and Mike Tenay are your announcers.

Talking about Hogan not being here…and perhaps we’ll see him on Nitro! Already advertising Nitro.

Mean Gene Okerlund: WCW HOTLINE!

Wrath vs. Glacier

Sub-Zero vs. Smoke match coming up.

I like Wrath’s theme. I’m guessing this is post-Vandenberg Wrath, as he doesn’t even have that cool entrance attire.

I guess Glacier is the heel?

Wrath shoves Glaicer out of the ring. Crowd says that yeah, Glaicer is the heel.

Glacier hits some kicks. I’m sure Glacier is a legit martial artists, but he really never learned how to use those skills in professional wrestling. Glacier always looks really stiff before doing any martial arts moves and it usually takes away from his matches. Steve Blackman was really good at this.

Mike Tenay tells us that Wrath is going to be on the Mortal Kombat TV show. Shocking.

Wrath actually looks pretty good here. Surprised Vince didn’t give him a bigger run when Wrath was Adam Bomb. Not saying it would have been successful, but his size makes him seem like a WWF guy.

Glacier just did this terrible hook spin kick. Looked horrible.

Wrath pins Glacier in 8:22. Wrath blocks Glacier’s thumb spike submission and hits the generic big man finisher…the Pump Handle Slam! (The Meltdown). Best Wrath and Glacier match I’ve ever seen. Wrath actually looked solid. This was a glorified squash.

Bret Hart promo video. I always thought Bret Hart was at his best playing a bitter heel. He talks trash about guys like Lex Luger, Chris Benoit and DDP. Anyone who says Bret Hart can’t talk stopped watching him after 1996.

Stevie Ray vs. Konnan

NWO music! At this point it could mean anyone, and in this case its Stevie Ray. I guess this is a NWO B Team vs. Wolfpac B Team match?

I always thought Konnan had some unique moves…but I never saw any psychology from him whatsoever. His rolling clothesline is something you didn’t see a lot of guys do.

Stevie Ray’s offense usually includes a lot of clubbing blows and the random kick. And that’s what we get here.

A lot of rest holds 5 minutes in.

I never liked how often WCW would talk about other storylines and ignore the match in the ring. Right now they are talking about Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Goldberg. Hey, why isn’t that match on this card?

Stevie Ray defeated Konnan by DQ at 6:55. Vincent accidentally hits Stevie Ray with the slapjack. Konnan does some punches, than hits the ref out of anger or something to cause the DQ. Then Booker T comes out to save him, which angers Stevie Ray because he’s tough and doesn’t need help. Boring match, stupid finish.

Ernest Miller and Sonny Oono vs. Perry Saturn and Kaz Hayashi

How the hell did Perry Saturn get involved in this? Wasn’t he just fighting Raven?

The Kaz Hayashi-Perry Saturn theme mash-up is just strange.

Is there a weirder team out there for a PPV match than Perry Saturn and Kaz Hayashi?

Some time killing early on. Ernest Miller tells Hayashi to leave in 5 seconds then turns his back on him. Kaz tags in Saturn. Funny I suppose.

Miller beats up Kaz, and then tags in Oono. Hayashi no-sells Oono’s offense and Oono offers him money. I guess this is a comedy match then?

Saturn vs. Miller is pretty good. Saturn always had a good array of suplexes. Also a nice legsweep by the Cat when Saturn went for a side kick.

Cat sends Oono in to fight Saturn and of course Saturn gets the advantage.

This match has no flow whatsoever…and way too much Sonny Oono.

Oono just missed three chops to the ground and let Hayashi tag in Saturn. Looks a lot worse than it reads.

Ernest Miller and Sonny Oono def. Perry Saturn and Kaz Hayashi when Oono pinned Saturn in 8:04. Saturn is about to suplex Oono, and the Cat hits him with a kick to the throat. Oono lands on him to get the win. Match had no flow or chemistry whatsoever. Also, was the point to make Saturn and Hayashi look awful? Because that’s what it did.

Chris Jericho and Lee Marshall!

This should be good!

Both Kidman’s and Juvi’s themes are awesome.

I guess Juvi is part of the LWO! Eddy Guerrero comes out to explain that Juvi is in the LWO!

Rey Mysterio Jr. comes out with a LWO t-shirt to say that he should have the Cruiser title shot, but because Juvi is champ, Rey shouldn’t have the shot. Guerrero explains that you need to make sacrifices for family.

Early rocker dropper form Juvi. He then hits a flying headscissors which Kidman sells like a million bucks.

Juvi is now a full blown heel after the LWO thing.

Top rope legdrop from Kidman. I really thought Kidman was going to be a star in pro wrestling watching him in 1998.

The Kidman vs. Juvi battles (and there are a bunch of them in 1998) is really a representative of the last great days of the WCW Cruiserweight division.

Kidman hits a perfect dropkick as Juvi was coming off the top. Great timing.

Juvi hits a perfect top rope hurricanrana to the outside! Very nicely done.

This match seems slow-paced compared to their Bash at the Beach 98 encounter. Maybe to put over that Juvi is a heel now?

Wow. Juvi tosses Kidman into a 2nd ring, and then does a double springboard dropkick! He kinda falls on the second jump, but it was still impressive enough.

Wow again. Kidman sends Juvi from one ring to another with a hurricanrana, then leaps ring to ring with a cross bodyblock. Great innovation with the two rings.

More double ring action. Juvi does a springboard hurricanrana…sending Kidman into a different ring again!

Juvi misses the 450…but he lands on his feet. Hurricanrana for a really close two count! (Looks like Kidman didn’t kick out in time). Juvi slaps the ref…but doesn’t get DQed.

Billy Kidman pins Juventud Guerrera in 15:27 to win the title. Rey Jr. holds Kidman on the top rope and Juvi crashes to the mat on a hurricanrana attempt. Kidman hits the Shooting Star Press for the win. Great match. Great spots from ring to ring.

Eddy Guerrero tells Rey Jr. to make a choice, in the LWO or out? Rey Jr. says no and runs from the LWO members in the ring.

Rick Steiner vs. Scott Steiner

Buff Bagwell and some guy dressed as a NWO referee come out with Scotty Steiner.

The NWO is beating down on Rick Steiner in the back. The Giant drags Rick out to the ring. Scott Steiner and Buff Bagwell beat down on Rick Steiner.

Rick manages to make a comeback, but he’s selling the attack from the NWO.

Tony Schiavone mentions that it would be nice to see the Steiners go at it 1 on 1. I couldn’t agree more. Almost like they should save it for a PPV or something.

Scott Steiner and Rick Steiner wrestled to a no contest. Hey it’s DA MAN. Goldberg’s here to make the save. The World Champ makes the save on a middle of the card match. Not like he should be defending the title or anything.

Kevin Nash vs. Scott Hall

Hall comes out with various NWO members.

Eric Bischoff is out here before Nash comes out.

Bischoff orders the NWO members to beat the crap out of Scott Hall. Nash runs out to make the save!

Big Outsiders chant breaks out. Hall makes a peace offering, but Kevin Nash leaves Hall in the ring. So I guess we aren’t getting the match?

Kevin Nash vs. Scott Hall was cancelled.

Of all the wrestlers in WCW, why does Bobby Duncam Jr. of all people get a TV title shot?

Ralphus is a stroke of genius.

Gotta be honest, you can tell Jericho doesn’t want to be there. The nixing of the Goldberg angle was the straw that broke the camel’s back for Jericho and a WCW run.

Jericho busts out one of my favorite submissions, the crossbow surfboard.

Bobby Duncam Jr. feels like the homeless man’s Curt Hennig.

Jericho is doing all he can to make the match entertaining. Jumps off the railing with a clothesline. Missile dropkick. I just don’t see why anyone should care about Duncam.

Jericho goes for the Lion Tamer and the crowd erupts. They boo when Duncam breaks it.

Chris Jericho retains when he pinned Bobby Duncam Jr. in 13:19. Jericho nails Duncam Jr. in the back of the head with the TV title for the pin. Jericho tried, but Bobby Duncam Jr. offered a whole lot of nothing. Match was pretty boring.

World War 3: The 60 Man 3 Ring Battle Royal

Winner gets a WCW World Title match at Starrcade!

I’m going to just name some random guys here.

Apparently you can be pinned in this match too. How about that.

Alex Wright is out first!
Barry Darsow!
Bobby Blaze!
Chip Minton!

I swear they should have hyped Chris Adams as Stone Cold’s trainer.

Hogan, Horace Hogan brother!

BARRY HOROWITZ!

Other than Jericho, so far Juvi has been the best heel on the show.

Wow The Renegade was really out of shape at this point.

Super Calo!
Villiano V…but not IV!
Kendall Windham!

I see most of the top WCW guys in this, only missing Sting and Ric Flair. I know Randy Savage was injured.

It’s hard to keep track of anything in these. Breakdown: 60 men, 3 rings. 1 WAR!

I’m rooting for Horowitz.

Normal Smiley was the first to go!

Kevin Nash is practically dumping his entire ring out.

Scott Putski is gone. WWF almost built their Lightheavyweight Division around him!

You can eliminate anyone by just throwing them from the ring. Over the top rope doesn’t matter.

Kevin Nash took out his whole ring in like 3 minutes. He stands there awaiting the other two rings.

We’re down to 35 people. 1 person in ring 3 (Nash).

We’re fighting down to 20 men for 1 ring.

The Giant begins to dump some, but then the entire ring jumps on him!

In WCW terms, Wright/Both Guerreros/Benoit/Saturn/Disco/ vs. The Giant is a huge advantage for the Giant.

Rey Jr. is the last man eliminated before we come down to 1 ring!

I like all the hype about Nash’s strategy. All he did was just dump people as fast as possible.

Saturn and Miller eliminate one another and go at it, bad blood from earlier! Down to 18.

So long Alex Wright and Chavo!

And there goes Eddie! And Disco Inferno!

And Kidman! Down to 13 just like that.

Nash and The Giant go at it. I predict those will be the final two. Or Nash and Hall.

Outsiders double team the Giant. Crowd gets into it.

Lex Luger dumps Stevie Ray.

Mongo dumps Scott Norton and Nash dumps Norton.

Nash, Giant, Hall, Booker, Benoit, Malenko, Wrath, Luger, Konnan and Scott Steiner left.

Bam Bam Bigelow shows up, and Goldberg comes out to attack Bigelow! It’s almost like they should have had a match or something.

8 guys left. I lost count somehow, but Scott Steiner is gone.

Oh, Wrath is gone too.

Booker T is gone, 7 left.

Konnan, Nash and Luger for the Wolfpac. Benoit and Malenko for the Horsemen. Giant and Scott Hall in there as well.

Konnan eliminates himself trying to get rid of Hall.

Nash becomes the ring general to 5 on 1 the Giant, which the crowd erupts for.

They do it! Giant is gone!

Luger and Nash get rid of Benoit, while Hall gets rid of Malenko. Luger vs. Nash vs. Hall. 3 WWF 94 mainstays.

Kevin Nash wins the 60 Man Battle Royal, last eliminating Lex Luger at 22:31. Luger tries to rack eliminate Hall, but Nash hits a big boot and both Luger and Hall go over the top. Weak ending as Luger didn’t go over the top well. I don’t particularly like the World War 3 Battle Royal in general as there are way too many guys who don’t have a chance in hell, but I do actually like the way this was booked, which I’ll explain later in the conclusion of this review. Short version, if you are going to want Nash to be strong for Goldberg, dominating the Battle Royal was a good way to make it happen.

Michael Buffer is out to announce the main event!

DDP is wearing the US Title upside down….

DDP dives over the top rope on to the Hitman to get this thing going.

Bret does subtle small things as a heel that he doesn’t do as a face. I like how Bret wrestles with a sense of arrogance as a heel, like a “it’s obvious I’m better than you” style. Hard to explain.

I do like that the Diamond Cutter can be done at any point. It makes for a lot of great fakes and can suddenly get the crowd into it.

This match has been pretty disappointing so far. I think it is a combo of DDP not being a great wrestler, and WCW Bret Hart just not being the same Bret Hart.

Bret going for a tombstone and DDP reversing it into his own tombstone was a nice spot.

Match is picking up. Nice belly to belly from Page. DDP then busts out this weird piledriver-pedigree spot. A pancake maybe?

I actually like DDP’s version of the sharpshooter, the going down to one knee part of it. Looked kinda of cool.

The Figure Four around the ring post is one of my favorite moves in wrestling ever. Such an effective visual.

Bret continues to methodically work on the leg of Page. For whatever reason, this is missing the mark. It’s the standard Bret Hart match, but the crowd just can’t get into it.

DDP just busted out the post figure four. Turnabout is fair play!

DDP has a chair! Charles Robinson tries to grab it, and Bret shoves Page into Robinson, knocking him out.

Diamond Dallas Page pinned Bret Hart to retain the title in 18:31. NWO ref from earlier comes back. Bret nails Page with brass knucks and locks in the Sharpshooter, to which the NWO ref calls for the bell and awards the US title to Page (NWO ref has authority then?). WCW ref Mickie Jay says no, and Page nails Bret with the Diamond Cutter. 1…2…3. Finish is okay I guess. To be honest, match was lacking. It looked like two guys just going through the motions.

Very up and down card. Opener was better than it had any right to be, but I wouldn’t call it good.

Konnan vs. Stevie Ray was whatever and had a crap finish.

Miller and Oono vs. Hayashi and Saturn was non-sensical and stupid. And it buried Saturn. Why not just do Saturn vs. Miller?

Cruiser Title match was very very good. Juvi’s heel turn was great and he played it well.

Now here is where I have a lot of issues with the show. I’m sure both Scott Steiner vs. Rick Steiner and Kevin Nash vs. Scott Hall were big matches for this show. Both didn’t happen. Both were non-matches. And to be fair, that’s pretty bs.

Chris Jericho vs. Bobby Duncam Jr. was a waste of space. Poor Jericho. 13 minutes too!

60 Man Battle Royal was what it was. I only really like one version of this match (the first one, 1995). That being said, it is booked rather well. While we can debate till we are blue in the face about Nash being the man to eventually beat Goldberg and all, if that is the route they are going, then Nash needed to dominate this match. And he did. I think Nash last eliminating the Giant on his own would have been a better finish, and the actual finish was a bit weak, but it was doable. Nash was also mega over here.

Nash being mega over makes me wonder why the World War 3 Battle Royal didn’t close the show. It would have made perfect sense.

The US Title Main Event was a bit lackluster and felt like both men was just going through the motions. The finish is okay I suppose. Unfortunately I think Bret Hart had been booked into oblivion at that point and he’s not cared for as a heel, even though he plays it quite well. I do think Hart vs. Page could have been a main event feud for WCW, and I guess this is the closest they’ll get.

A lot of stupid crap was a foreshadowing of WCW’s future. It’s an okay PPV at best. Undercard really needed some work and the main events were passable…but that’s it.

Final Grade: C

Pro Wrestling

RDT Reviews WCW Bash at the Beach ’98

March 20, 2015 rdtworldofsport@gmail.com

WCW Bash at the Beach 98
July 13, 1998
San Diego, CA
Reviewed on March 18, 2014

Background: I wrote a bit about how WCW was going downhill in 1998…but to be fair they were still doing very well at this particular point. To Eric Bischoff the Monday Night War was everything. When he started losing in April of 98 he began to hotshot big main events that would have drawn big money on PPV. Eventually it would cost him. Yes, Goldberg pinning Hollywood Hogan clean for the World Title was a huge moment. But millions upon millions of PPV revenue was flushed down the toilet for that move.

WCW though, still had some aces up their sleeves. At Wrestlemania XIV, the WWF brought in Mike Tyson and it worked out handsomely for them. WCW had its own list of celebrities, and while the later crap with Jay Leno probably hurt the business in the long run, the big tag team match of Hogan and Dennis Rodman against DDP and Karl Malone seemed like it would work. Hell, Malone was in better shape than 80% of the roster, and Rodman at least was there the year before.

This card is missing some top tier guys, but hey, sometimes that’s how you get some undercard exposure. I remember this being a fun show, so let’s see if it holds up.

The Card

Mean Gene plugs the hotline of course.

Raven’s Rules
Saturn vs. Raven

Raven’s Rules of course means no rules.

Storyline here: Saturn is the one to break away from the Flock. It came to a head when Saturn needed to beat Kanyon at the Great American Bash and despite interference from a bunch of Mortis’s, Saturn still lost. Raven was one of the Mortis’s.

Saturn owns early on. Raven always knew how to sell guardrail spots.

Saturn falls off the top rope, but perfectly recovers and hits a dropkick. Mike Tenay puts it over as well, which was nice.

Somehow Tony Schiavone calls Raven getting a table “a chair”. Bobby Heenan kills him for it and it’s great.

Saturn misses a springboard…something…but it looked pretty rehearsed.

Raven with one of my favorite spots: The Russian Legsweep into the guardrail.

Springboard twisting legdrop on a chair on Raven’s face!

One of the better ref bumps, Saturn with Air Sabu and Saturn ends up kicking Nick Patrick in the face.

Bulldog headlock on the steps! Saturn has dominated.

Saturn makes a Raven sandwich with two tables, but Kanyon comes and pulls Raven out. Saturn jumps waaayyy too late to make that believable. Kanyon nails Raven with a Flatliner on an open chair though!

Raven pins Saturn in 10:40. Saturn superkicks Raven in the face while Raven was holding a chair. Cover, but Riggs runs in to break it up. Saturn hits him with the Death Valley Driver. Raven though, uses the interference to hit the Evenflow DDT for the win. Fun brawl. Great use of the chair. Shows that WCW didn’t need cruiserweights to have a hot opener every show.

Mena Gene brings out Eddy Guerrero! He puts over Chavo’s craziness, especially in regards to his decision to wrestle Stevie Ray before he wrestles Eddy. Eddy wasn’t a great promo man yet. Unless you like run-on sentences.

Kidman vs. Juventud Guerrera

Here’s someone who got over from the Flock: Kidman. This was still the itchy heroin addict Kidman.

Small story: Who’s finisher is better? Juvi’s 450 or Kidman’s 7 Year Itch (the Shooting Star Press). Juvi also wrestled and beat the Flock’s monster Reese last month.

Apparently this is Kidman’s 1st PPV match.

Referee total ignores Lodi beating up Juvi. Kidman’s top rope dive though misses Juvi and he nails Lodi, then Juvi goes flying himself to take out Lodi and Kidman.

Awesome reverse catapult from Kidman to Juvi. I think that’s what it’s called.

Powerbomb/sunset flip off the apron from Juvi to Kidman. Nice.

Double leg underhook powerbomb from Kidman to Juvi off the top! Nice!

Juvi crotches Kidman on the top rope…then outside to inside hurricanrana for a two. Very nice!

Kidman German…but Juvi lands on his feet then hits the Juvi Driver! Only two!

Juventud Guerrera pins Kidman in 9:55. Kidman misses the 7 Year Itch…and Juvi follows with the 450 for the win. Very fun match. WCW smartly continued the Cruiserweight division with these two on top through the end of 98.

Lee Marshall and Konnan. Konnan asks if Skittles had a shirt give away. I guess that’s the funniest thing I’ve ever heard Konnan say.

Stevie Ray vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr.

Story: Chavo challenges Stevie Ray even though he was already facing Eddy later.

Heenan calls Chavo Captain Cupcake. Imagine if they went with that for the MIA later on?

Chavo Guerrero Jr.’s insane 1998 run was great. Best thing he ever did.

Eddy makes his way down to watch the match, obviously rooting for Stevie Ray to pound Chavo.

Chavo dedicates the match to Eddy!

Stevie Ray makes Chavo Guerrero Jr. submit in 1:35. Chavo does some comedy spots…then submits to a handshake! He’s so tired now, I guess it’s time for him to face Eddy! Eddy is furious. Great booking here.

Hair vs. Hair
Eddy Guerrero vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr.

Eddy has major heat. Smh WCW, smh.

Chavo with more comedy. You know who Chavo reminds me of here? Santino!

Angry Eddy Guerrero is the best Eddy Guerrero.

This is just a well wrestled match here.

Perfect tilt a whil backbreaker on Eddy from Chavo!

Eddy Guerrero pins Chavo Guerrero Jr. in 11:54. Great ending. Chavo goes for Eddy’s finisher, the Frog Splash but Eddy gets the feet up. Eddy then plants Chavo with Chavo’s move the Tornado DDT (a move he should have kept). Eddy though goes for the scissors! Eddy misses a Frog Splash and Chavo hits his Tornado DDT. Chavo then goes for the scissors! Eddy rolls up Chavo for the win. Chavo scares Eddy away though…then cuts his own hair! Chavo was so over as a nutcase here. Three good matches in a row (not counting Ray-Chavo, lol).

Tony Schiavone and Mike Tenay talk about the Chris Jericho-Dean Malenko feud. You can tell he wasn’t told about the bonus match until that moment.

BONUS MATCH
Konnan vs. Disco Inferno

Alex Wright and Disco try to get with the “lingo” of the Hispanic scene. It’s pretty funny to be honest.

Only Wolfpac appearance of the show. But we get Lex Luger and Kevin Nash at ringside, so there’s that.

Konnan made Disco Inferno submit in 2:16. Disco throws Konnan outside for Alex Wright to attack. Wright dances afterwards and Luger comes around and racks him. This distracts the ref, and Kevin Nash comes in and kills Disco with a jackknife. Tequila Sunrise (awesome submission) for the win. I mean, it was 2 minutes and Disco got no offense, but it was fun at least.

The Giant vs. Kevin Greene

NWO time. This originally was Giant and Curt Hennig vs. Greene and Goldberg, but got split when Goldberg won the title.

The Giant pinned Kevin Greene in 6:58. Not much to say here. Smartly booked with a lot of hit and run from Greene but Giant’s power being too much. Greene finally knocks Giant down…but a mistake leads to him running into the big hand and the chokeslam for the win. Certainly not horrible. Greene could have been a solid wrestler I think.

Marshall is now with Curt Hennig. Hennig says he has the secret to beat Goldberg. Inexperience!

More recap of Jericho-Malenko, and how Malenko was suspended because he attacked Jericho even though he wasn’t supposed to. This feud was the highlight of Malenko’s career, and propelled Jericho to superstardom.

Jericho comes out with a top hat and cane. Jericho equals buyrates afterall, so he’s gonna perform. JJ Dillion shows up and offers Jericho a local opponent (not before sucking up to Jericho. Good stuff all around). Jericho takes it. Huge pop for Rey Mysterio Jr., as he is from San Diego! Brilliant!

There is a story here too! Jericho injured Rey back at Souled Out, solidifying his heel turn.

Of course Jericho works on the knee. Good psychology.

Funny spots here. Jericho runs up the beach ladder in the set (which has tons of sand around). Rey pulls Jericho off the ladder into the sand, which Schiavone has to sell as “oh, that’s a soft landing, but the sand is irritating!” Mysterio then with the top of the ladder hurricanrana on the sand!

Jericho misses a top rope knee drop and lands on the chair…and now Mysterio works on Jericho’s knee! Dropkick to a chair on the knee as well!

Rey Mysterio Jr. wins the title when he pinned Jericho in 6:00. Jericho goes for the Liontamer, but Mysterio escapes! Here comes Malenko! This distracts Jericho enough for Rey to roll him up on a Liontamer attempt for the win! Jericho runs from Malenko, but Arn Anderson helps him get Jericho. This foreshadowed the Four Horsemen return. Because of the Malenko appearance, Jericho was awarded the title back on Nitro. Okay match, other than the top of the ladder deal you can tell Mysterio didn’t want to do any flying yet with the knee injury. Still, cool moments all around and Jericho is hilarious in the pre-match stuff.

Story: Bret got involved in the Best of 7 Series that Booker T and Chris Benoit had. Booker challenged Bret.

Looks like unmotivated Bret here sadly.

Match I think is designed to put Booker T over with the upper-level guys, but this looks like Bret going down a level unfortunately.

Good psychology here…Booker T does his Spinarooni but doesn’t pop up, Heenan points out it’s because of the knee. Nice.

Booker T wins by DQ in 8:28. Booker with a dive over the rop…and Bret catches him midway with a chair! Bret bashes Booker’s knee with a chair…then my favorite hold…the Figure Four around the ring post! What an awesome move. Stevie Ray shows up slowly and Bret leaves. It planted seeds for the Harlem Heat problems later. Okay match, kinda boring. Finish is also meh but Bret made the beat down look good. Stevie Ray says Booker doesn’t need medical help and helps him back.

Video recap of Goldberg’s world title win. It was pretty damn awesome.

Goldberg looks pretty damn incredible with the Big Gold Belt.

Goldberg is 111-0 here.

Goldberg retains when he pins Hennig in 3:50. Goldberg kicks out of the Hennig-Plex and wins with the Spear-Jackhammer combo. Hennig did something new here going for Goldberg’s leg, but it didn’t matter. Nothing wrong with this, helped Goldberg get that first title defense out of the way.

Hollywood Hogan and Dennis Rodman vs. Karl Malone and Diamond Dallas Page

A lot of stalling early on with the Malone-Rodman start.

Rodman is a great chickenshit heel.

Malone slams Hogan!

Rodman with the armdrag on Page!

Rodman messes up something leading to a collision of the heads. Rumors were Rodman wasn’t in great condition to perform here.

Surprising that Malone plays babyface in peril.

Now Page is the babyface in peril. Long tag match with not a lot happening.

Hogan and Rodman win when Hogan pins Page in 23:47. Page nails the Diamond Cutter on Hogan. Rodman runs in, but Malone Diamond Cutters him for a huge pop. Malone tries to pin Rodman out of inexperience, and The Disciple hits a stunner on Page for the Hogan pin. I mean, it was a spectacle. I think other than the Diamond Cutter a bodyslam was the biggest high spot. It’s supposed to be a spectacle though and I do think overall it’s booked well. Malone gets some moments. Rodman gets some moments. This could have been A LOT worse.

Bash at the Beach 98…is pretty entertaining overall. Good matches to start, big names to finish. Some good moments with Mysterio and Goldberg’s first title defense. There really isn’t a bad match on the card (although some boring ones), but everything had SOME entertainment value somewhere.

These were WCW’s last great days. They never ran with Page. They didn’t even seriously run with Goldberg somehow. They didn’t run with Raven. Or Jericho. Wasted talent all over the place that did some good stuff on this PPV.

But this show itself? It’s pretty good. Three good opening matches. Good comedy with Chavo and Jericho. Big main event. Goldberg squashing a high tiered guy. All good.

Final Grade: B+

Pro Wrestling

RDT Reviews WCW Slamboree ’98

March 20, 2015 rdtworldofsport@gmail.com

WWF Slamboree ‘98
May 17, 1998
Worcester, MA
Reviewed on August 27, 2014

The WWF was coming back!

Eric Bischoff had probably thought he won the war 7 months prior when he signed Bret Hart, the then-WWF Champion, in late 1997. Somehow though, led by Stone Cold Steve Austin and Mr. McMahon, the WWF came storming back and a month prior had taken the TV ratings lead. Bischoff panicked. While WCW did hotshot some big main events on Nitro already, now it was really go time. The WCW title changed hands on the Nitro after Spring Stampede, which was the week after the WWF re-took the lead. In the months after this Goldberg would win the WCW Title on Nitro, the ultimate hotshot move.

Bischoff seemed to be ignorant toward who was drawing for the WWF. It probably hurt him that Austin and Mick Foley were main eventing, two guys Bischoff had let go from WCW over the last few years. It led to Bischoff stating that Vince’s character was the reason for the ratings…and actually challenged him to show up at Slamboree (with loads of legal issues obviously). It will go down as one of the most bush league things WCW had ever done.

It was WCW’s own damn fault for being in this spot. The terrible booking ruined Sting’s run after over a year of build-up. Then Randy Savage caught fire and somehow he got ruined too. Bret was already directionless…although to be honest it looked like he didn’t give a damn at this point (which’s he’s admitted no less).

WCW wasn’t quite in 2nd place yet, but the companies were neck and neck. The WWF was on the rise. WCW was falling. With proper booking WCW could perhaps make a move to squash the WWF…but it would be hard.

Notably, Slamboree is run in a “WWF town”, Worcester, MA (where Foley would win World Title #1 in December). I think that explains the two main events.

The Card

Cool intro music!

The main WCW storyline was that the NWO was splintering, and no one seemed to know who’s side was on who’s. The biggest thing is that Giant (he dropped the “the” for some reason) joined the NWO before this PPV. Yet still him and WCW-bred Sting are facingThe Outsiders for the Tag Titles.

And we get some Bischoff stuff about the challenge to Vince. Vince of course never brought up this on RAW, which was the smart thing to do.

Story here: Booker T has been bringing life to both his singles career and the TV title ranks with his reigns…but somehow Finley took the title from him. Benoit beat Booker to get this match.

Crowd gets into it early on a Benoit chop.

Odd mistake on a bridge sequence. The start of the match has taken the crowd out of it. I think that chop was letting on this was gonna be a hard hitting contest and then we got some technical holds, which the fans weren’t expecting.

I probably haven’t seen enough Finley from the late 90s, because from the looks of this he pretty much sucks. (He was solid in the mid 2000s).

Benoit nails Finley with a chair right in front of the ref. I guess no DQ?

Benoit goes for a suicide dive but Finley puts up the chair, leading to Benoit going in head first. A cool spot for its time, but admittedly I now cringe anything Benoit takes a chair shot to the head in any way. Nevermind this was done tons better at Royal Rumble 2001.

Benoit is pretty over here. Finley just wasn’t the guy to get heat on him.

Here comes Booker T! Benoit turns his attention too.

Finley nails Benoit in the back of the head (and it looked like he actually kicked him) with a baseball slide.

Finley retains by pin in 14:52. Tombstone Piledriver! Finley wins it and the crowd hates it. Finley would lose the title to Booker I believe shortly thereafter, leading to the critically acclaimed Best of 7 series between Booker and Benoit. Finley kinda disappears with random appearaces until 2006. Surprisingly bad match. I would have never guessed it but it just didn’t click between these two.

Jericho with Lee Marshall. Jericho was the evolutionary Zack Ryder for the record.

Lex Luger vs. Brian Adams

A pretty surprisingly departure from workrate leading to the big names for this show. Lex though kept dropping down the card ever since Road Wild 1997 where he lost the WCW title to Hogan. He was still pretty over at this point though.

Pretty slow offense from Luger on the outside. It’s like he couldn’t even be bothered to actually follow through on moves.

Yikes. Brian Adams almost fucks up a piledriver. Looked horrible. He didn’t even kick his legs out the whole way.

Lex Luger wins by submission in 5:05. Torture Rack for the win. Pretty uninspiring offense everywhere. Very bad match. Unless you like random kicking and punching everywhere with no rhyme or reason. Luger was over though, fans popped for the Rack.

Saturn speaks. Originally the Flock was supposed to wrestle Goldberg in a gauntlet match to see if the Flock would stay together or disband. But this was the lead up to Saturn’s turn on the Flock, as he says he wants Goldberg one on one, and if the Flock doesn’t like it too bad.

Cruiserweight Battle Royal
Super Calo vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr., vs. Ciclope vs. Damien 666 vs. El Dandy vs. El Grio vs. Juventud Guerrera vs. Marty Jannetty vs. Billy Kidman vs. Evan Karagias vs. Lenny Lane vs. Psychosis vs. Silver King vs. Johnny Swinger vs. Villiano IV

Story here: Chris Jericho had become one of the best performers on either show. He was booked brilliantly too. He injured Rey Jr. at Souled Out, unmasked Juvi and forced Dean Malenko into a sabbatical after beating him and talking trash about his family. Jericho had been collecting trophies of the people he’d beat and humiliate, such as Juvi’s mask.

Chris Jericho announces all the participants (hilariously burying them all). Best one might be “if Silver King wrestles 12 more matches he gets upgraded to Gold King” and “representing Villiano 1 through 62, Villiano IV!”

Odds are this comes down to Kidman vs. Guerrera. Chavo would be a dark horse. Everyone else was just there. I mean Marty Jannetty?

Chavo should have never stopped using the Tornado DDT. Brilliant move.

Psycohsis’s bump into the ropes was always awesome.

Down to Chavo, Kidman, Ciclope, Psychosis and Juvi.

Kidman gets rid of Chavo.

Psychosis terrible telegrapshs his elimination. Juvi dumps Kidman.

Ciclope wins at 8:27. One of the greatest WCW swerves of all time. Juvi and Ciclope shake, and Juvi eliminates himself. Ciclope unmasks…and it’s DEAN MALENKO. Crowd pops HUGE!

Malenko kicks Jericho’s ass early on.

Jericho actually gets the upperhand with a nice slingshot.

Jericho yells that “this is a conspiracy!”

Jericho was such a tremendous heel. As soon as he gets the advantage the fear is gone and he’s an arrogant jerk again. Put over Jericho huge too.

Jericho slaps Malenko. Total arrogance.

Malenko nails Jericho off the top rope with a gutbuster, but messes it up and injures his knee a bit.

Dean Malenko makes Chris Jericho submit in 7:02 and wins the title. WE GOIN TO TEXAS! Crowd pops HUGE when Jericho taps out. The match actually wasn’t all that great, but the whole angle was so well done that really, who gives a shit. Awesome moments all around. This was the angle that showed that Chris Jericho could be a top star. And, the aftermath was done correctly, as with all due respect to Malenko, the star to be made here was Jericho. He’d get the belt back on a technicality (Malenko wasn’t an official participant in the match!), leading to ANOTHER great moment at Bash at the Beach 1998. Too bad WCW didn’t like money.

Vinnie Mac cam! Was there really any surprise they got sued?

Bowery Death Match
Diamond Dallas Page vs. Raven

Story here: I actually don’t completely remember. I know Page and Raven had problems from the Flock vs. Benoit series in late 1997 and it led to this. There was a triple jeopardy match between the three at Uncensored. It was odd as the Raven feud seemed to be between Page being near the top of the card. I mean, he’d be wrestling Hogan and Rodman in two months.

This is a cage with a roof, but with Last Man Standing rules. There are weapons in the corner. It’s basically the TNA Clockwork Orange House of Fun Match.

Raven also came out with a Riot Squad for protection from “fans”. I believe this was an extension of when Goldberg beat him for the US title, as the fans threw Raven back into the squared circle.

A VCR is in the ring!

Raven takes an awesome into the cage bump by way of noose.

Page tries to hang Raven of the cage top. Jeez.

VCR TO THE HEAD OF RAVEN!

In all seriousness somehow this match sucks too. Just weapon hit, 10 count, weapon hit, 10 count etc. Schiavone also says that there are a lot of RPMs behind a cookie sheet shot. Safe to say Tony didn’t watch NASCAR.

Ref takes a hit to the back of the head with a trash can!

The Flock are here and they fight through Raven’s Riot Squad? Okay?

For some reason Van Hammer was waiting under the ring to attack the Flock.

Riot Squad in the ring! They attack Page…and they are Kidman and Horace! No one really cares.

Page takes out Horace with a Diamond Cutter, and takes out Kidman with a cool Cutter where Kidman was hanging from the top of the cage.

Page survives an Evenflow.

Diamond Cutter by Raven! He might beat Page with his own move and that’s a really believable finish.

DDP wins in 14:35. DDP survives again. Raven goes for a chair shot, but Page ducks and hits the Daimond Cutter. Page JUST gets up in time. It was done well where fans weren’t sure if it was a draw or not, so well done there. I understand the cage’s purpose, but the cage turned this into a boring uninspiring hardcore match. And some weird Riot Squard booking where Van Hammer got involved. I mean the hell? Should have been a lot better than it was.

A Riot Squad member handcuffs the Flock to the cage and then beats up Raven. And it’s Mortis! Mortis unmasks, which is a first. He is angry because Raven didn’t let him into the Flock. He copies the Tommy Dreamer chairshot from ECW and Raven sells it beautifully. Fans don’t know what to make of all of this. Apparently he has always been one of the “fans” that’s attacked Raven. This led to a weird match with a billion Mortis’s at the Great American Bash though.

Vinnie Mac cam!

We get some storyline about Giant and Sting. It’s pretty non-sensical, which I will get to.

Eddy Guerrero vs. The Ultimo Dragon

I believe if Dragon wins this match, Chavo Guerrero Jr. is freed from Eddy Guerrero.

Where was the Dragon in that Cruiserweight Battle Royal?

Shame Eddy Guerrero wasn’t all there personally at this point. He’s another who would have been the best heel in the business at this point. Of course Guerrero would redeem himself years later.

Pretty cool test of strength sequence from both.

Schiavone actually brings up a good reason why Eddy and Ultimo weren’t in the Battle Royal earlier. That they both were involved in this family issue and it mattered so much to both that they wanted to be 100%. I’m fine with that.

The crowd is dead for this. The Ultimo Dragon sadly was just a guy at this point. The thing is the heat is with Chavo in this storyline.

The fans come alive as a fat white guy takes his shirt off in the crowd.

Pretty cool inverted airplane backbreaker from Ultimo there.

Pretty cool reversal from Eddie. Dragon had him in the Dragon Sleeper, but Eddy flipped over and locked The Dragon his own move.

Eddy Guerrero pins the Ultimo Dragon in 11:09. Eddy holds the ropes on the Dragon Sleeper, and Chavo kicks his hand off. Dragon though accidentally spin kicks Chavo off the apron. Eddy nails Dragon with a suplex and the Frog Splash for the win. Chavo then beats the crap out of the Ultimo Dragon because he lost. It’s great character development for Chavo, as this was the moment that he snapped and he got over. Match was pretty disappointing considering who was involved. But it was decent enough.

Vince McMahon locker room! I mean seriously. Why not throw up one for Stone Cold while you are at it.

Saturn lost to Goldberg last month, and is out to prove himself…WITHOUT the Flock.

Saturn with a nice dropkick off the apron and Goldberg crashes into the guardrail. Maybe Saturn will become the one in 87-1!

Springboard dropkick off a chair by Saturn. And we get a weird taunt from Saturn. Weird because he was supposed to be turning face.

Goldberg retains in 7:01. Saturn goes for another springboard but Goldberg spears him in midair! Jackhammer ends it. Pretty entertaining Goldberg squash! Not bad at all! I wonder if this was Goldberg’s best match at this point.

Pretty awesome Raven Great American Bash promo.

Eric Bischoff vs. Vince McMahon

I covered the storyline for this in the background info. It’s a waste of time, but eventually Bischoff has Vince counted out because Vince obviously didn’t show up. I hope the lawsuit was worth it. I wonder if Michael Buffer was ever embarrassed doing this stuff for WCW.

Bret Hart vs. Randy Savage

Story here: Savage finally left the NWO for good. This happened because he beat Sting for the WCW Title at Spring Stampede, but Hollywood Hogan won it from him the next day with surprising help from Bret. There’s a lot of who’s side is who on and stuff, but this is the precursor to the Black and White vs. Wolfpac stuff.

Roddy Piper is the referee. I don’t really know why to be honest.

Savage actually still has NWO music. So he didn’t really leave. He just would transition to the Wolfpac.

Buffer actually announces Savage is wearing Red and Black of the Wolfpac. So I don’t know where the transition happens, but the Outsiders are in the main event.

Bret trying to smash Savage with the steel steps seemed so un-Bret Hart like.

We get some fighting in the crowd action.

Overall you can just see the passion gone from Bret Hart. He’s just going through the motions here.

Also, Bret Hart doesn’t fit as a heel here. The only time being a heel worked for him was the Pro-Canada deal. That only worked because he really believed a lot of the things he was saying.

Sharpshooter…but here comes Miss Elizabeth!

Savage reverses the Sharpshooter into his own…which seems odd.

Liz gets in and shoves Piper.

For some reason Bret nails Piper in the back of the head with brass knuckles. Ok?

Hollywood Hogan is here! He trips up Savage and slams his leg in the ringpost.

Bret Hart makes Savage submit in 16:38. Sharpshooter wins it. I guess Bret is part of NWO Hollywood now? The motivations don’t make a lot of sense for anyone to be fair. Bret wanted a title shot in all this. Match was decent. It was clear Bret didn’t care and Savage was past his prime as a worker here. Also, on Nitro Piper reversed this decision, for whatever that’s worth.

Story here: Giant joined the NWO on Nitro and offered a shirt to Sting. No idea why this match is still happening…but it is. You’d think Sting would back out.

I THINK based on watching that Nash and Hall are Wolfpac at this point. Nash and Hall come out in Red and Black, so tells you how much I knew about the story.

Scott Hall seems to stumble on his way out. They come down with Dusty Rhodes and it looks like they are holding Hall up, which is embarrassing. He seems fine once he hits the ring though.

Hall with a “yeah, we missed you too”. Seems like a WWF reference to me.

Survey time!

Hey at least Sting is in the main event!

I can’t think of why Sting would still team with Giant now that he’s NWO. Whatever.

Scott Hall makes fun of Giant. Pretty smart booking that will be unveiled later.

Kevin Nash gets a huge pop when tagged in.

Fans are behind the Wolfpac in general. “Let’s go Wolfpac” chants.

Sting terrible takes a big boot. I was once told by a friend of mine that it was okay that Hogan beat Sting at Starrcade because Sting was suddenly a shell of his former self. I don’t know if I believe that, but I don’t remember a lot of great Sting 1998 matches.

Wolfpac now use heel tactics on Sting (abdominal stretch, partner grabs the arm). How confusing.

Wrestling in 1998 would be a lot less embarrassing if everyone didn’t point to their dick every 2 minutes.

Giant goes for a top rope splash…but misses.

Giant and Sting win the title when Giant pins Nash in 14:46. Nash goes to jackknife Giant, but Hall nails Nash with the title belt! Hall turns! Sting is shocked as well, although I mean, I have no idea what outcome here would have made Sting happy. Giant wants Sting to join the NWO as the PPV comes to a close. Match was pretty decent and well booked too. Hall and Giant never go at it which is smart booking here. Sure, everyone’s motivations were all screwed up (for the last time, why would Sting want to be in this match?) but at least we had a direction here. It led to Sting joining the Wolfpac.

Weird PPV as the usual awesome undercard actually wasn’t awesome at all. It wasn’t even good. But I have to give some credit to Slamboree 1998. Chavo Guerrero Jr., Mortis/Kanyon, Saturn, and especially Chris Jericho show some promise with storylines here. Chris Jericho steals the show and gives Slamboree a boost by himself with the Malenko-Jericho angle going off as well as it did. The main events were decent, which is better than the usual WCW bad. We could have done without the Bischoff-Vince thing for sure.

Too much silliness and not enough good stuff to get it into B range. But not all bad either.

Just listen to that pop for Dean Malenko!

Final Grade: C+

RDT World of Sport

Tag Archives: wcw

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RDT Reviews WCW Spring Stampede ’99

RDT Reviews WCW World War 3 ’98

RDT Reviews WCW Bash at the Beach ’98

RDT Reviews WCW Slamboree ’98

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