WCW Superbrawl Revenge
February 18, 2001
Nashville, TN
Reviewed on April 25, 2014

Background: I wrote a little about where WCW was status wise in the Greed review. Basically it was on its last legs and were relying on Scott Steiner to get them out (actually not the worst plan, and I’d argue that it’s even a good plan). But it was too little too late. While WCW was actually showing signs of life in 2001, the damage of 2000 was just way too much for WCW to live through. Vince McMahon was about six weeks away from buying the promotion at this point, although I assume as of this date people still thought Fusient and Eric Bischoff were going to get it at this point. Maybe that’s why there was some motivated stuff going on here.

Alas, the dying days of WCW present Superbrawl REVENGE!

The Card

What a strange opening video. Hard to explain.

I don’t like the Revenge part of the title. Superbrawl is the 2nd biggest WCW PPV of the year. It’s like calling a PPV Summerslam Revenge or something.

Road Warrior Animal attacked Billy Kidman earlier in the show. Apparently he’s out of the Cruiserweight Six Man Match.

Cruiserweight Six Man Four Corners Elimination Match
Jamie Knoble vs. Evan Karagias vs. Shannon Moore vs. Shane Helms vs. Kaz Hayashi vs. Yun Yang

Um…this is just Three Count vs. The Jung Dragons. Although I guess neither of these groups are together at this point. There’s no reference to the history though, except a bit for Hayashi and Yang.

Shannon Moore is still introduced as a member of Three Count.

Maybe I’m wrong. Helms and Moore are still in Three Count. I guess Karagias just isn’t. And Knoble was masked before, so they probably just pretend he wasn’t part of the Dragons.

Helms replaced Kidman in this.

Winner gets a shot at the Cruiser title at Greed.

Nice double team leading to a powerbomb from Helms to Knoble.

Awesome camera work getting Moore going flying out of the ring.

All the history is being brought up now, even with Knoble. My mistake. Not used to WCW referring accurately to history.

What an awesome springboard Tornado DDT from Yang.

Awesome portion when everyone goes to the top and misses a huge move. Pretty cool.

Shannon Moore with an Asai Moonsault…but he springs off the TOP rope.

Just amazing spot after amazing spot here. What a great match and no one’s out yet!

Screwed up kick and Russian legsweep from Yang to Karagias.

Yang pins Karagias for the first elimination.

Knoble tombstones Yang to get rid of him.

Shannon Moore takes an awesome bump off a dropkick off the apron from Knoble!

Top rope Rocker Dropper (Bottoms Up from the Top!) from Moore to Knoble gets rid of him. Three Count vs. Hayashi here.

Backslide into Guillotine Legdrop. What? Crazy innovative.

Moore turns on Helms!

Nightmare on Helms Street takes out Moore. Down to 2!

Shane Helms wins when he pinned Hayashi in 17:30. Vertebreaker for the win. Wow. Just wow. Incredible match. Probably a top 10 all time PPV opener, that’s how good this is. Awesome dynamic having three teams with history be in an every man for himself match. Led to a lot of great double teams. Just amazing. Also makes me wonder if Helms could have been a bigger deal. And what the hell happened to Shannon Moore?

Video camera catches Chavo Guerrero striking a deal with Ric Flair and Animal.

Kevin Nash was hurt on Monday. WILL HE MAKE IT TO THE MAIN EVENT TONIGHT. Er…don’t they always?

Hugh Morrus promo. Ugh, whatever. This is the fallout of the MIA I think. Apparently Hugh Morrus is back TONIGHT. Um..woo?

Flair gives Scott Steiner an envelope.

Now Lance Storm and Kronik have a confrontation about doctors. This was Commissioner Lance Storm. I don’t remember that.

Hugh Morrus vs. The Wall

Couldn’t we just have given the Cruisers 30 minutes?

Morrus kicks the steel steps into the Wall’s head. Interesting spot which would be great…although it kinda shows the steps are a lot lighter than you’d think.

Somehow we’ve gotten to the laying down part of the match. We’re only like 4 minutes in.

Nice screwup on the stun gun. Not sure which that was on.

Hugh Morrus pinned The Wall in 9:43. No Laughing Matter for the win. I actually though this had a solid start, but then turned into a boring “brawl” with a lot of laying down. But I mean, this could have been a lot worse I guess.

Konnan attacks Animal because of what he did to Kidman. Security runs in to break them up…although it was implausible how all those security guards were just around the corner.

WCW World Tag Team Championship
Chuck Palumbo and Sean O’Haire© vs. Mark Jindrak and Sean Stasiak

I know these teams were matches differently at one point.

Four green guys in one ring, although there is loads of potential here. Who’s better anyway, Stasiak or Curtis Axel?

Stasiak makes fun of the Tennessee Titans not winning a championship. Um, wasn’t that 2000?

I actually forgot how solid of a team O’Haire and Palumbo were. Shame the APA buried them as fast as they did.

Mark Jindrak is pretty awful tough. Just got catapulted into his partner…and totally forgets to sell it.

Palumbo is your future Chucky in peril.

Palumbo and O’Haire win when O’Haire pins Stasiak in 11:37. Senton Bomb! Really well done tag match. I’m shocked. Put Palumbo and especially O’Haire over nicely. I know everyone says O’Haire was wasted in 2003…but he was wasted here too. There was huge potential here and he was someone WCW could have built the company around 2-3 years from this point. A shame. Pretty solid start to the PPV.

Dustin Rhodes trashes Rick Steiner and Ric Flair.

WCW Cruiserweight Championship
Chavo Guerrero Jr.(c) vs. Rey Mysterio Jr.

While Chavo’s peak as a wrestling character was 1998…he was probably as his peak as a wrestler in 2001.

Ugh, Rey with devil horns.

A hard clothesline knocks the horns off. Best think Chavo ever did.

Tony says Rey has had four major knee operations. No wonder he can barely walk now.

Rey telegraphs a counter while in the tree of woe. Come on Rey.

Gory Special is a cool submission. I don’t like the Gory Bomb though.

Rey seems off, just not smooth climbing Chavo’s shoulders and the telegraph earlier.

Rey is even a bit low on the moonsault. He’s just off.

Maybe I’m just biased again non-masked Rey.

Really digging Chavo here. Nice heel stuff from him.

Chavo puts a Rey Jr. mask on Rey Jr. I expect a comeback now.

Rey now puts the mark on Chavo.

Nice over the top somersault from Rey.

We have a chair in the ring!

Rey with a cool Hurricanrana off the apron from a wristlock…but he unfortunately screwed up the setup twice.

Chavo Guerrero Jr. retains in 15:53. Rey tries to use the chair…but ref takes it and Chavo uses that distraction to hit Rey with another chair! Brainbuster wins it. Good match…but Rey actually brought it down a bit by being sloppy. Solid heel finish. This set up Chavo vs. Helms.

WCW US Championship
Rick Steiner© vs. Dustin Rhodes

Somehow Kevin Nash made this happen storyline wise. Dustin had problems with Owner Flair here.

Rick actually drops the US title on the way to the ring. Real nice Rick.

Rick actually sells some punches here. Already more than the Greed match with Booker.

I think it’s weird that 2014 Goldust is in twice the shape 2001 Dustin was.

Probably the worst looking jawbreaker ever by Dustin…it looked like Steiner hit a Rear Naked Choke Drop.

Rick Steiner retains in 9:11 by pin. Steiner slams Rhodes into an unexposed turnbuckle…then uses the ropes for the pin which is a good heel finish. Match sucked though. Expected from Rick Steiner at this point. Post Match Shattered Dreams owned though. Sorry Dustin, unless you are Goldust, no one cares.

Flair tells Commish Storm Dustin needs to get kicked out. Winner of Totally Buff and Kronik gets a tag title shot.

Page and The Cat are left from team non-Flair I guess. What about Nash? Page says they need the Cat to win back the Commissionership.

Totally Buff vs. Kronik

Luger rambles. Great. He even begins to imitate Flair.

Bagwell buries our Tag Champs. Although…the champs get their revenge at Greed.

Apparently Bryan Clarke isn’t medically cleared. So we have a handicap match.

Clarke comes out anyway. So what’s the point of the storyline?

Hey a fake Bryan Clarke. It’s Mike Awesome. I gotta say, that’s nicely done. He attacks Adams of course.

Totally Buff defeats Brian Adams when Bagwell got the pin in 6:45. Match sucked, but I admit I liked the finish. Put over Adams I guess.

Lance Storm tries to kick Kronik out of the building. Lance Storm does seem like an awesome Commissioner actually.

WCW Commissionership On the Line
Lance Storm© vs. The Cat

The Cat calls Lance Storm a fake Power Ranger. I don’t get it.

On one hand I feel like Storm deserves better…on the other it’s cool to have a storyline instead of just having matches.

They do tell a good story with Storm working on a knee he attacked on Thunder.

The Cat pins Lance Storm in 8:07. Mike Sanders causes a distraction and the Cat hits the Feliner for the win. Total mismatch of ability here. Okay for what it was.

We are supposed to get DDP vs. Jeff Jarrett…but Jarrett makes Page go through a warm-up. Oddly remixed video of DDP challenging Kanyon. Anywhere, anytime! So Jarrett says now.

Diamond Dallas Page vs. Kanyon

Kanyon attacks Page from behind and here we go.

Kanyon with a Rocker Dropper on the steel steps. Unique I guess. Page is bleeding.

Cool suplex where Kanyon was standing on the 2nd rope and Page was on the apron. Kanyon then suplexed him. Creative indeed.

KANYON CUTTER! Page survives!

Jarrett’s here. Ref is out. Stroke!

Kanyon pins DDP in 8:15. Flatliner for the win. I think that’s an odd choice since Page is gonna fight Jarrett now…but I guess the idea is that Kanyon wore down Page for Jarrett. Anyway, solid match. Pretty good back and forth.

Diamond Dallas Page vs. Jeff Jarrett

Kanyon introduces the next match….a good line here here: “Scheduled for one fall, I don’t know, two hour time limit.”

I like how Jarrett just redoes his whole entrance.

Scott Hudson says “we’ll stay with this as long as we can”. Um..what?

I guess this is no DQ…since we have blatant chair action.

This is a pretty basic match with Jarrett beating on DDP and DDP coming back, but at least it is well done.

Page takes a straight chair shot to the head…but Page kicks out.

DDP pins Jarrett in 8:30. Jarrett accidentally nails Kanyon with a guitar…and Page gets the Diamond Cutter for the win. Another solid basic match. Told the story of Page having to go through two matches well.

IS KEVIN NASH HERE? CAN HE WRESTLE?

WCW World Championship
Scott Steiner© vs. Kevin Nash

President Flair comes to ringside! He’s on commentary!

Wow we get the Sid broken leg spot in a video. Was that necessary?

Flair makes it a retirement match! Those are always legit! That was what the envelope was all about.

Here comes Nash! Wheelchair with two hot nurses. Lol Kevin Nash is cool?

Scott Steiner can’t pronounce sympathy.

Nash is faking. Nash hits Steiner with the WCW Title and pins Steiner, 1…2…3! What a load of bullshit that is. Scott Steiner is supposed to be a MONSTER heel you know.
Flair turns this into best 2 out of 3 falls. It’ll take more than 2 falls to save Steiner’s credibility here. Also, wouldn’t it have made more sense for Flair to have DQed Nash there?

Totally Buff randomly attacks DDP in the back. Ok?

Steiner whacks Nash with a lead pipe…but Steiner can’t get Nash’s dead weight into the ring. So Flair says it’s Falls Count Anywhere. Steiner ties it up.

Kevin Nash just escapes the Steiner Recliner like it’s nothing. I don’t even like Steiner that much and I know that’s awful.

Pretty sure Midajah misses her cue on taking out the ref when Nash had a pin attempt. That was funny.

Jackknife but Midajah and Flair take out the ref.

Flair takes out the ref a second time.

Scott Steiner retains by ref stoppage at 12:29. Steiner Recliner after a chair shot gets it done. Horrible match, horrible booking. It’s crap like this that killed WCW. Not only did Nash pin Steiner in 16 seconds, but he then survived and escaped the Steiner Recliner with little struggle and had Steiner beat twice and got help to kill the count. Horrible main event ruined what was a pretty decent show. I defend Nash at times, but here is just indefensible.

The effort was there. It really was. WCW did some good stuff at the end. It’s too bad guys like Nash were still around hurting the product. WCW was missing some top guys here (Sting, Booker) and still put on a decent show. The first half of it sans Morrus-Wall had some awesome wrestling, especially the opener.

I was ready to give WCW the benefit of the doubt and a B, B- for effort and some legit good stuff, but Kevin Nash just had to come in his wheel chair and fuck that up. Still, for the first half and the DDP stuff, this is a decent PPV. A C+, C ending for WCW isn’t bad considering what 2000 was like for them.

Final Grade: C+