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RAW vs. Nitro Week 7 – 10/16/95

January 31, 2016 rdtworldofsport@gmail.com

Week 7

RAW: 10/16/95
Grand Rapids, MI

I’m just going to point out that this is Week 4 of the tapings at Grand Rapids. This is also the go home show for the In Your House PPV.

Isaac Yankem, Jerry Lawler and Bret Hart all cut promos with dental puns about tonight’s Steel Cage match.

We now have the “new” RAW theme. Unfortunately it’s bland and it sucks.

Hunter Hearst Helmsley vs. Doink the Clown

I had no idea Doink made it this long into 1995.

Apparently Mabel was fined $7,500 for what he did to The Undertaker last week. Gorilla Monsoon is announcing a replacement for Undertaker at In Your House later tonight.

Doink grabbing HHH’s nose is a bit funny.

Doink somehow makes himself dizzy and HHH takes him down.

HHH pins Doink. Pedigree wins. Match was decent I suppose, but not exactly the hot opener to keep people from switching to Nitro.

Barry Horowitz tries to teach Hakushi American concepts like baseball. What a waste of Hakushi.

Monsoon selects Yokozuna to face Mabel. Oh boy.

WWF Tag Team Championship
The Smokin’ Gunns© vs. PG-13

I don’t know if PG-13 was supposed to be taken seriously, but JC Ice pretty much makes an ass out of himself here.

Lawler actually adds some psychology into this match, saying PG-13 are purposely acting stupid to take advantage of the Gunns being overconfident…and then that’s what happens!

Billy Gunn pins Wolfie D to retain the titles. PG-13 got some offense in, but ultimately this was a squash. You know considering the Tag Team Division consisted of the Gunns, the Godwinns, The New Rockers and the Bodydonnas for the next year PG-13 getting a shot might have been a good idea. Ah well.

Bertha Faye vs. Alundra Blayze next week for the Women’s title.

Random British Bulldog interview that happened at a house show. The Bulldog doesn’t feel respected. And he’s gonna beat Diesel for the title.

Ahmed Johnson interview. He takes about how his mom made minimum wage to let him go to school and such. Hard to understand.

Dean Douglas vs. Joe Morgan

We’re still doing the jobber thing eh? Clearly Vince didn’t have anything left on this taping.

Notably, the Shawn Michaels getting beat up by 10 men in Syracuse deal took place the weekend before this RAW. Surprisingly Lawler says it was because HBK mouthed off at a nightclub (closer to the truth). HBK guarantees he’ll be at In Your House…although we all know how that went.

Dean Douglas wins by pin. Fisherman’s Suplex wins it.

Vince and Lawler run down the upcoming In Your House card.

Goldust promo on Marty Jannetty. It’s short, yet somehow a lot better than the Ahmed one we got earlier.

Now a Paul Bearer promo. He’s worried Taker will never look the same again and never be the same again, but he’s coming back soon and he’s going to crush Mabel and Yokozuna’s soul.

Steel Cage Match
Bret Hart vs. Isaac Yankem

There’s also a smaller cage at ringside that Jerry Lawler must enter if he interferes in the match.

Yankem takes some big bumps off the top rope when tryng to climb the cage. This has been pretty slow, but at least Yankem’s trying.

Apparently Lawler switched the locks on the cage door, and when Bret tries to escape the ref can’t unlock the door.

Bret locks Yankem in the Sharpshoter then tries to climb out, but Lawler knocks him back in. Lawler gets locked in the small cage as a result. The cage also rises and Lawler’s apparently afraid of heights.

Bret Hart seems to be going at half speed here. A few times now he’s fallen and messed up straddling himself on the top rope.

Lawler gets a nosebleed and starts crying. He’s stealing the show here.

Bret Hart wins in 19:50. Bret gets a bulldog and a top rope forearm before escaping. This went way too long and was pretty boring. Yankem tried for sure, but he just wasn’t any good yet. Bret seemed to be going at half speed. And there’s a reason for that.

So apparently this show was just a leftover of whatever unused bits that was filmed for the tapings. Despite this being the go home show for the PPV we got a pretty horrible show. HHH vs. Doink? Dean Douglas vs. a jobber? It was written that Bret vs. DDS wasn’t even going to air on RAW, but it had to after the WWF realized it needed to fill the 4th taping.

Last week the WWF gave us a really hot match and post-match beatdown that at least helped sell the PPV. But this week? Nothing. At least for Bret he would be reinserted into the title picture after finishing off Yankem here.

The WWF had given us some solid shows since this Monday Night War began, but this was easily the worst one so far. And to no one’s surprise no one bought the PPV either.

The rating held though, so at least the WWF had that going for them.

TV Rating: 2.6 (0.0)
Grade: C

Nitro: 10/16/95
Albany, GA

WCW clearly wins the opening video package war now.

Bobby Heenan makes fun of Steve McMichael’s dog and even that’s funny. The Brian is truly a genius.

On WCW Pro Sting agreed to be Ric Flair’s partner for Nitro and Halloween Havoc. Sting warns Flair that if he crosses him Flair is dead.

Heenan really hypes up Sting teaming with Flair, telling us that it hasn’t happened since 1990.

Television Championship
Diamond Dallas Page© vs. Johnny B. Badd

Page beats Badd down with the title belt and gets DQed. No match here. Page is hilarious though, pinning Badd and then using the Badd Blaster when he counts his own three.

Chris Benoit vs. Eddy Guerrero

This is Benoit’s WCW debut (after he appeared last week).

Great headscissors sequence from Benoit. Fast paced action so far.

Eddy goes flying and takes out Benoit on the floor!

Guerrero sends Benoit into the post…then Guerrero runs and slams into the post himself. That looked so real…

Springboard Tornado DDT from Guerrero!

Crazy hurricanrana sequence from Guerrero! Great stuff here all around.

Benoit with a stiff as hell powerbomb! Wow! Fans gasped after that one.

Chris Benoit pins Eddy Guerrero in 8:45. Dragon suplex wins it. Awesome match that not only show cased Benoit, but also made Guerrero look great too. Great action.

Apparently WCW is creating a Cruiserweight Division. That would be awesome for the next couple of years for sure.

Mean Gene tries to sell the hotline. Someone from the WWF was fired! It was Bill Watts. He also teases information about a wrestler getting beat up by a fan. He’s referring to HBK there.

Taskmaster and The Giant are on their way down.

Promo is all about Sullivan being evil and Hogan having an evil side too. Sullivan has to say the word evil about 20 times. It’s still hard to take the whole Monster Truck deal seriously.

Disco Inferno is out dancing again.

Meng vs. Hacksaw Jim Duggan

Duggan falls down for no reason to move out of the way of an elbow drop.

Meng wins in 2:00. The spike makes Duggan give up. Only two minutes, but it was pretty bad anyway. Just a win to give Meng as he prepares to face Lex Luger in a couple weeks at Halloween Havoc.

A black clad Hulk Hogan cuts a promo on the Giant and how he’s evil too. He mentions too that Hulkamania makes promotors cry because it’s bigger than the whole promotion. Another shot at Vince I guess? He actually says he’s going to bury the Giant next toAndre as well. Ugh.

Sting and Ric Flair vs. Arn Anderson and Flyin’ Brian

Sting doesn’t come out and Flair goes at it alone.

Flair does pretty well nonetheless as he chops everything that moves.

Pillman and Anderson finally get the upperhand…and here comes Sting!

Sting gets tagged in and goes crazy on Pillman and Anderson. Crowd is going wild for the Stinger too.

Sting and Flair win by countout. Sting tosses Anderson and he doesn’t make it back. Of course, this was a really good set up for Halloween Havoc which I won’t spoil here. Really fun main event even if it had a bad finish. Sting looked like the biggest star in the business here. Sting tells Flair he has a lot of guts fighting his former brother in Anderson and Flair calls Sting the best. Man this angle is awesome.

It had some dull spots, but this was a really fun show just for the main event and Benoit vs. Guerrero.

TV Rating: 2.2 (-0.4)
Grade: B+

Weekly Review

It’s easy this week. RAW was a poor show at a bad time. Jobber matches and poorly taped shows aren’t going to cut it in the Monday Night War era. Nitro gave us a hot Benoit vs. Guerrero match and a fun main event with Sting and Flair teaming up. It’s a testament to how deep WCW’s roster was here that we got a great show despite no Randy Savage or Lex Luger.

The ratings told a different story as RAW won the week. I assume this was because we did get a really good show last week and people cared about Bret Hart. Curious to see what we get next week rating wise from RAW. WCW still needs time to establish their brand, and it’s not like they’re getting killed on the ratings front or anything. But show quality wise, WCW won the week easily.

TV Ratings Score: 3-1-2 RAW

Grade Score: 2-2-2

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 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

Running Diary of the Go Home RAW for Wrestlemania XXXI

March 24, 2015 rdtworldofsport@gmail.com

Just a running collection of my thoughts regarding the RAW before Wrestlemania. I haven’t really been able to get through RAW since…a while now. I’m already sold on the show since I have the Network…but this is the chance to really sell me if that makes sense. You have three hours WWE (I’m not watching Smackdown!).

8:00: Sold out Staples Center. Lesnar-Reigns face to face tonight! We get Snoop Dogg AND Bill Simmons tonight.

8:02: We kick off RAW with Sting. It does feel weird to write that. I really hope they go with the WCW crow theme at Mania and now the Unholy Alliance remix they’ve been using.

8:05: Sting already alleviates one of my fears for Mania. The build-up has been about WCW vs. WWE where Sting is WCW. Sting here says he’s not fighting for a forgotten war, he’s just here to bring HHH down. Good.

8:06: Here comes Stephanie!

8:09: Steph rambles a bit, but she tears into Sting well despite bring back the WCW narrative Sting just killed and she goes for the slap! Sting blocks! Here comes HHH!

8:11: Steph gives HHH the sledgehammer…but Sting has his trusty bat! HHH walks away from this one but Sting wants more! Steph says to save it for Mania. I can’t help but think they should have went with this more fun Sting than the dark brooding Sting for this feud. Anyway awesome segment to open.

8:14: No commercial here. Dean Ambrose is on his way out. I assume this is a tag with the IC Title ladder match guys. THEN we get the commercial.

8:19: It’s R-Truth and Ambrose against Stardust and Harper with IC Champ Barrett doing commentary.

8:29: Tornado DDT from Ambrose on Harper. There’s a move you don’t see often anymore.

8:30: Truth and Ambrose win. Truth getting the pin makes me feel like he’s not winning (not that I thought he would). Good tag team match nonetheless. Dean Ambrose starts dancing with Truth. It’s be great to add an edge to Ambrose’s character and have him knock out Truth, but he doesn’t.

8:38: Pre-taped interview with Roman Reigns. Nothing special here. Reigns just isn’t the man….yet. They should have done this for Mania 32.

8:40: Bill Simmons on commentary. Let’s do it!

8:42: Amazing what a reaction Mizdow gets.

8:46: 10 Man Tag involving all the guys in the Andre the Giant Battle Royal. There’s two big multi-man matches at Mania and they are both getting what seems to be meaningless tag matches as their final build up. I guess that’s okay though for the battle royal at least.

8:53: Ryback pins Miz to win for his team. Not sure what Bill Simmons was supposed to add here.

9:00: We get the Randy Orton match for the 9 o’clock slot. This match was voted by the fans online. He faces either Big Show, Kane, or Rollins and J&J Security. I’d be shocked if it wasn’t Rollins.

9:01: Rollins and J&J wins 77% of the vote. There was 11% who wanted Orton vs. Show. Well then.

9:03: IN-RING RETURN OF JAMIE NOBLE!

9:06: Noble does the job for Orton. Just build here of course.

9:09: AJ and Paige can’t decide who gets the WWE Divas Championship match later. It seems like they are just going to rehash the frenemies deal again.

9:10: I can believe Bray Wyatt is the new face of fear. Let me believe WWE.

9:15: Looks like Paige was picked. Paige and AJ used to hate one another, no? Then again, so did the Bellas.

9:26: A second Alabama Slam tonight. I wonder if that’s forshadowing a Hardcore Holly return. I think Paige is winning this by the way.

9:27: Oh, I shoulda saw that coming. AJ accidentally elbows Paige and Nikki gets the Rack Attack to retain. I thought Paige was winning as it’s rumored the Bellas are leaving soon. But the obvious AJ-Paige mishap was obvious. Ah well. By the way, that was an awesome match and hopefully a result of #GiveDivasaChance. Nikki has improved leaps and bounds.

9:30: Ziggler vs. Bryan where one of the other IC Title ladder match participants is the special ref? Now that’s an interesting stip!

9:31: Snoop Dogg is next. Yay?

9:36: The crowd does not care about Snoop Dogg.

9:37: #AXELMANIA!

9:39: I did not expect Hulkamania that’s for sure. Hogan went over Mr. Perfect back in the day…maybe he’ll put over Hennig’s kid?!

9:42: Snoop gets to throw Axel out of the ring. I really hope they don’t keep Axel going with just laughs. I’m as shocked as anyone thinking this, but there’s money in Curtis Axel.

9:44: Brock Lesnar: “At Wrestlemania I am gonna fuck up Roman Reigns. The End.” That’d make a good t-shirt.

9:48: 6 Person Inter-species tag match. Matadors and El Torito against Cesaso, Kidd and Nattie. Usos, Cesaro and Kidd, Los Matadors and New Day at Mania pre-show. I will say Tyson Kidd deserves tons of credit for remaining relevant all this time. It’s not his fault he became irrelevant at one point though.

9:53: El Torito pins Nattie for the win. Well then.

9:55: IC Champ Barrett is asked by Kane to give him the IC belt to hang up. I wonder if this is planting a face seed for Barrett.

10:00: OMG where’s Lana?

10:02: WE WANT LANA! WE WANT LANA! Of course we do.

10:05: Rusev finishes off Jack Swagger pretty quickly. Rusev doesn’t let the Accolade go, so of course here comes Cena for the save. Rusev gets the better of Cena. That does not bode well for Rusev at Mania.

10:10: Rusev destroys Cena. What a convincing bad ass. All serious here too.

10:17: Wyatt time!

10:23: Amazing promo from Wyatt. Just give him all the belts and main events now. Seriously.

10:28: Kevin Nash in the Hall of Fame. Makes perfect sense. Diesel was my first favorite wrestler actually.

10:33: Tyson Kidd is hilarious. It’s great that he finally has a chance to show off his personality.

10:36: Weird how Bryan and Ziggler are basically in the midcard…yet there are six world titles between them.

10:36: Dean Ambrose wins the vote to be the ref.

10:51: Ziggler beats Bryan again. Ambrose attacks afterwards of course. All the IC guys go at it afterwards. This is much better build than earlier.

11:00: Well…Here Comes the Pain. Yeah I know that’s a dated reference but it still applies.

11:09: Paul Heyman might be the best ever on the mic. Roman Reigns is here now and he’s getting booed out of the building.

11:11: Wow, show closes with Reigns and Lesnar doing a tug-o-war with the title. Probably smart not to have Roman say anything after Heyman’s incredible promo.

I won’t lie though, after a string of pretty bad RAWs, this one was a great one in the lead up for Wrestlemania. Good stuff WWE.

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 Mayhem ’99

March 20, 2015 rdtworldofsport@gmail.com

WCW Mayhem 99
November 21, 1999
Toronto, Ontario, CA
Reviewed on March 20, 2014

Background: Twelve months before this Vince Russo was the primary booker for the Survivor Series 98 Deadly Game tournament…which was average at best. I’m sure he one of the first things he wanted to do was re-create that idea in WCW…considering that is one of the first things he did. I don’t think the idea is terrible…but the tournament itself was a bit of a mess. Still, the Russo era had begun.

Let’s talk a little WCW 99. At this point the WWF had run away with the Monday Night Wars, and WCW hiring Russo was their answer. The issue with WCW was that the whole creating new stars thing wasn’t happening. Hollywood Hogan, Kevin Nash, Sting, Randy Savage and the “addition” of Sid Vicious were WCW’s main storyline throughout the summer. Well, Hogan, Sting, Nash and Savage had been on top for years now. It was time to change. Sid wasn’t (and never is) the answer. Thing is WCW had the new guys! Bill Goldberg was being wasted. Goldberg should have been at the very top, but somehow was fighting Rick Steiner or The Jersey Triad. Speaking of the Triad, Diamond Dallas Page got about a month on top (turning heel no less) before being shunted right back to the midcard. Bret Hart too was absolutely wasted in the first half of 1999. Hart may have not been a fresh face…but he would have been fresh in WCW’s main event.

To quickly explain why there’s a World Title tournament in the first place: Sting beat Hulk Hogan for the title when Hogan just laid down (UGH!). Somehow a Goldberg-Sting match happened at Havoc and Goldberg won the title. Sting attacked a ref and said he never agreed to defend the title but JJ Dillion stripped Sting of the belt because of that attack. Don’t know the story of why Goldberg lost a first round match to Bret Hart. Anyway, that’s how we are here. We are down to the semi-finals. Benoit vs. Jarrett andBret vs. Sting. This group of four is actually exciting!

The Card

We get a recap of the tournament. I missed the Hart-Goldberg explanation. 2/3rd of the matches seemed to have some crazy stip or interference, but that’s how we got to Jarrett, Benoit, Bret and Sting.

WCW World Title Tournament: Semi-Final
Jeff Jarrett vs. Chris Benoit

Jarrett had just turned up in WCW after leaving the WWF in October. Benoit is someone fans everywhere wanted to see get a chance at the top. Great having these two in this position.

We’re in Canada, so obviously fans are really hot for Benoit.

We’re getting Tornado DDTs and Superplexes early on here.

This is a pretty fun opener. I don’t get the high impact moves earlier.

Oh god Creative Control is here. That’s Ron and Don Harris of course.

Nice false finish with the sunset flip counter from Benoit.

Chris Benoit advances when he pins Jeff Jarrett in 9:27. Benoit has it won after a Swandive Heabutt, but one of the Creative Control members breaks it up. Jarrett gets control as a result and his the Stroke…but Dustin Rhodes shows up and breaks that up. Creative Control tries to nail Benoit with a guitar, but Benoit gets it and smashes Jarrett with it for the win. Pretty solid opener (even if the finish is overbooked nonsense), and crowd was very into it because of Benoit and Canada. I’d say Jarrett is a step or two behind Benoit in the ring…but who wasn’t really?

Creative Control beat down Benoit afterwards.

Jarrett and Creative Control beat down Disco Inferno for no reason. I guess they are frustrated!

WCW Cruiserweight Championship
Disco Inferno© vs. Evan Karagias

$25,000 grand apparently on the line too.

Yikes. Not exactly Malenko vs. Mysterio here. Or even Chavo vs. Helms.

Madusa is with Karagias. Talk about plastic.

Disco comes out selling the beatdown from earlier.

That’s Tony Marinara, or Tony Mamaluke with Disco.

Marinara’s commentary is awful. Worst fake Italian accent ever. I also don’t remember any of this.

Match is boring. Fans start chanting boring. They got it right!

A lot of the commentary is about the $25,000 being worth a lot to Disco, as if it is his life. I guess being Cruiserweight Champ doesn’t pay?

Evan Karagias wins the title in 8:28. Madusa slaps Disco. Marinara tries to hit on Madusa, but Karagias confronts. Disco accidentally nails Marinara with a chair. Karagias gets a crossbody for the win. To think the Cruiserweight Division would be worse off two months later. This sucked all around. By the way, why not just steal Little Guido from ECW for the Marinara role? Would have been a lot better.

Bret Hart is here!

The off screen Powers that Be. Of course it’s Russo. He admonishes Jarrett for not winning the WCW title tonight.

Norman Smiley interview…and of course he screams when a sound is made!

WCW Hardcore Title Match
Norman Smiley vs. Brian Knobbs

This is to crown the first ever Hardcore Champ. No idea about the story.

Smiley has a Toronto Maple Leafs jersey on (actually he has the whole hockey gear on EXCEPT a helmet. Smart). I guess he’s the face!

A lot of Knobbs in a garbage can. Feels about right.

Some really bad shots with garbage can lids here.

Norman Smiley wins the title by pin in 7:27. Creative ending spot! Knobbs whips Norman into an elevator but misses an avalanche. Jimmy Hart, Knobbs’ manager tries to hit Smiley with a garbage can but the elevator closes. He reopens it…but accidentally hits Knobbs! Smiley gets the win. Match was a poor version of what the WWF was doing at the time. Just a lot of you hit me I hit you…but Jimmy Hart does steal the show a bit with the food throwing and ending. I would say that this is the way to use Knobbs.

Knobbs throws Jimmy Hart into some food afterwards.

Revolution promo. Gonna make the Filthy Animals extinct like the dinosaurs!

Animals respond. A lot lamer than the Revolution promo.

Tony Mariana tells Disco that on Nitro he’s bringing the boys…and Disco thinks he’s a dead man.

The Revolution (Perry Saturn, Dean Malenko and Asya) vs. The Filthy Animals (Eddy Guerrero, Billy Kidman and Torrie Wilson)

When the Radicalz collide!

This is an elimination match.

Saturn takes out his fellow future Radicalz with an Asai Moonsault to the outside!

Asya just takes out Kidman with a clothesline.

Somehow this match has lost all flow.

Eddy accidentally elbows Kidman, and Saturn eliminates him with a roll up. In three minutes. Huge Eddy chants though.

For some reason Malenko isn’t finishing his moves well. Like he doesn’t want to hurt Guerrero in real life or something.

Huge vertical suplex by Asya to Guerrero.

Guerrero pins Malenko with a hurricanrana.

Saturn accidentally kicks Asya, and Guerrero eliminates her with the frog splash. Funny enough, the Filthy Animal theme accidentally plays for a second.

Saturn makes Eddy submit to the Rings of Saturn. Shane Douglas, idiot he is, claims that Eddy tapped. If you saw the Rings of Saturn, you’see why that made no sense.

Saturn vs. Torrie!

The Revolution wins when Saturn pins Torrie at 10:55. Saturn hits a low blow and Torrie sells it (commentators wonder if that hurts a woman) and gets the pin. No wonder he left in two months. Somehow (considering the participants) the match was a mess. Only Eddy Guerrero seemed to want to be there. Also, obligatory Asya is a Chyna ripoff statement. It’s even in the name.

Creative Control and Jeff Jarrett attacks Buff Bagwell!

Retirement Match
Curt Hennig vs. Buff Bagwell

It’s really only Hennig’s career on the line I believe. Same as Flair’s 2008 retirement deal. Of course Hennig was a heel here, so I’m not sure how it was supposed to work.

We get Creative Control and Jarrett instead of Bagwell and they attack Hennig. But then Bagwell comes in to chase them off. Not sure about what sense that made.

Another boring match. I assume Hennig wasn’t into anything at this point either. Crowd with some boring chants.

Buff Bagwell ends Curt Hennig’s career by pin in 7:47. Buff Blockbuster for the win. Fans do give Hennig a standing ovation. Of course, there’s no reason to really buy this…heck Schiovane and Heenan give it a half-assed effort to. Hennig was back with a few weeks I think. Match was boring. Nothing happened.

Heel Sting promo! He brings up a good point that he shouldn’t have lost the title in the first place.

WCW World Title Tournament: Semi-Final
Bret Hart vs. Sting

Bret comes out with a Wayne Gretzky jersey.

Personal gut feeling here: I always wondered if Bret told WCW he wasn’t coming back unless he got the belt put on him after Owen died.

This is really Shades of Grey Sting…as he did get screwed by the Powers that Be.

This is the only crowd to probably hate Sting…and it took Bret Hart and Canada to get it done.

Bret gets the referee on a top rope ax smash.

Luger’s out here.

Bret then attacks Luger! Sharpshooter!

Ref calls for the bell! DQs Sting because Luger and Hart were going at it.

Bret wants it to keep going. And he succeeds. Match restarted.

Bret Hart advances by making Sting submit in 9:27. Scorpion reversed into the Sharpshooter. Didn’t need the Luger run-in, but it helped make Bret look like a solid face. He get a handshake afterwards, which I think makes Sting a face? Match wasn’t much unfortunately, but Bret got a strong win at least. Bret vs. Benoit in Canada!

Luger says Bret hurt his neck. Says he can’t go tonight.

Dog Collar Match
Vampiro vs. Berlyn

Vampiro is announced from Toronto. No reaction.

Here comes OKLAHOMA!

Berlyn nails the ref with the collar. Somehow Jerry Only and The Wall are involved.

Jerry Only can’t even do a suplex. Maybe because he’s not a wrestler.

Vampiro makes Berlyn submit in 4:57. Camel clutch with the chain for the win. Horrible. Berlyn never even wore the Collar. It was more of a tornado tag than anything. Wall walked out of Berlyn. Terrible match that made no sense. Dr. Death attacks Jerry Only and Vampiro afterwards.

About the Oklahoma thing. Honestly, it wouldn’t be that bad if it weren’t for the mocking Bell’s Palsy thing. But of course, they had to do that, which was pretty damn tasteless.

Scott Hall interview. He has both the TV and US Titles.

Curt Hennig is leaving. Shaking people’s hands.

Kimberly Page is here! She will face David Flair later. Yay?

”The Total Package” Lex Luger vs. Meng

Luger still has the neck brace.

A lot of no-selling from both sides here.

Tony Schiavone basically tells the story of the match before it happens, that the neck brace is to block the Tongan Death Grip.

Meng pins Lex Luger in 5:23. Miss Elizabeth accidentally sprays mace in Luger’s face (not well done at all). Meng rips off the brace and Tongan Death Grip for three. Horrible.

Hitman interview. Luger randomly walks by looking for Elizabeth.

US and TV Title Match
Scott Hall© vs. ???

So the story here is that Hall was supposed to originally face TV Champ Rick Steiner but Steiner got hurt, awarding Hall the TV title. The new opponent is…..Booker T. No pop for Booker though.

Booker gets a “Rocky” chant. This crowd seems very WWF strong, for the record (Hall and Hennig pops, nevermind Bret). I wonder if they’ll boo Goldberg later.

God Jarrett and Creative Control again.

Scott Hall retains both titles when he pins Booker T in 6:04. Booker takes out both of Creative Control, but Jarrett’s distraction leads to the Outsider’s Edge for the pin. Boring match. Put Scott Hall on the list of people who don’t want to be there.

Creative Control attacks Booker T.

BONG!

It’s…Midnight, who takes out Creative Control. Another female bodybuilder. At least it wasn’t Seven.

Luger is still looking for Elizabeth.

Kimberly vs. David Flair

Alright, let’s get to this story. Kimberly invited David Flair into her room when DDP wasn’t around. For some reason Ric Flair came instead. Started a fight between David and Kimberly. David Flair then went all The Shining on Kimberly with a crowbar. Weird all around.

Ah Kimberly Page…the main reason why the Undertaker vs. DDP stalker angle was real shit.

Flair with a weird non-sell of a low blow.

Kimberly gets out of being hit with a crowbar by practically teasing a blowjob…then she pulls out the cup and low bridges Flair.

No Contest in 4:55. Kanyon and DDP take out Flair…but then Arn Anderson comes out to save him. Flair then beats the crap out of Anderson with the crowbar. Utter garbage. Arn Anderson does do a great sell job though.

I Quit Match
Goldberg vs. Sid

Boos for Goldberg! Although light.

Goldberg sucks chant!

Huge Sid chants!

Armbreaker and Sid’s arm is hurt!

Goldberg wins when Sid passes out in 5:30. Cobra clutch and Sid passes out in 5 minutes. I think Jerry Flynn put up a bigger fight. Not a good match.

Luger interview. Still didn’t find Elzabeth. He gets even.

WCW World Title Tournament Final
Chris Benoit vs. Bret Hart

You know what’s interesting? I think this match is clearly the right way to go…but the Canadian crowd doesn’t know who to go with. I mean they are cheering for Bret…but they don’t want Benoit to lose.

There was this Canadian fan who attacked Benoit earlier that I didn’t mention as I didn’t think it was important…but he does show up here too and attacks Benoit. Turns out it was Malenko! No DQ called or anything though.

Tombstone from Benoit! Swandive Headbutt!

Scott Hall takes out the referee. Kevin Nash is here too.

Goldberg is here and he takes out Nash with a spear! Bret takes out Hall.

Heenan points out that the referee is going to let this all go without a DQ as the match is too important. I’m okay with that actually.

Split screen now. The World Title match…and the Outsiders/Goldberg confrontation.

Bret Hart wins the World Title when Benoit submits in 17:44. Great sequence at the end where Benoit is playing dead…only for him to come alive and hit the triple Germans. Benoit goes for the Crossface…but Bret gets the Sharpshooter and the win. Good match tarnished by the silly interference midway. I guess disappointing based on what Benoit and Hart could do (the Owen tribute match was WAY better), but still good. Bret’s family celebrates with him. Crowd pops big for the Sharpshooter.

So that’s Mayhem.

It’s a shame that there’s so much crap here because you can see some potential trying to break out with this card. Even though there is way too much interference, at least there were some stories in there that kinda sorta made sense. The Nash, Hall, Goldberg run-ins would lead to Hall/Nash vs. Goldberg and Hart and then NWO 2000, so there is that. The workrate overall was okay, even good in some case (Benoit). And Bret vs. Benoit was pretty new for a WCW main event. Probably the best main event match WCW had in a long time. Even the stuff with Kimberly and Flair and Arn Anderson. If it leads somewhere, okay, maybe something can work (no idea what it led to, I think a DDP vs. David Flair match somewhere). The Marinara-Disco stuff lead to the debut of a new team (Big Vito and Johnny the Bull), which is good. There’s potential!

I’m all for giving this PPV a C+ for effort. Here’s why I can’t:

Still a lot of crap. While the Kimberly-Flair stuff could have worked…the match itself was garbage. Luger vs. Meng? Bad. Hennig’s retirement? Waste of time. Even Revolution vs. Animals was disappointing and lame. Vampiro vs. Berlyn didn’t make sense. All that alone drops it to a C. And then you have Oklahoma. Fuck off Ed Ferrara.

By the way WCW went directly downhill after this. It was once said that Vince Russo can write one hell of a first chapter. For the record, here is a list of the next few WCW World Champions.

Bret Hart (Mayhem)
Vacant
Bret Hart
Vacant
Chris Benoit
Vacant
Sid
Vacant
Kevin Nash
Sid
Vacant

The only question is…how much was Vacant making?

Anyway, this would be the last time WCW would have even potentially good storylines going. It was a mess from this point forward.

Final Grade: C-

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 Fall Brawl ’98

March 20, 2015 rdtworldofsport@gmail.com

WCW Fall Brawl ‘98
September 13, 1998
Winston-Salem, MA
Reviewed on November 13, 2014

What the hell is going on?

Ten months ago it was supposed to be over. WCW had gotten Bret Hart. WCW had the super hot Sting vs. Hogan feud. WCW had the NWO. Even the raw rookie Goldberg somehow became one of the biggest stars in pro wrestling.

And WCW…is losing?

This is the equivalent of an all-star team in sports without thought of making a “team”. It’s hard to find a top guy in WCW booked correctly except for Diamond Dallas Page at this point. Hogan? Stale. Nash? Acting half his age trying to be the “cool” heel or face or whatever (although he’d get mega over by the end of the year). Sting? Buried in Washington D.C. last December and replaced by some guy in red face paint. Don’t even get me started on Goldberg. All the momentum in the world and somehow Goldberg still plays second fiddle to Hogan. In fact, Goldberg hadn’t even wrestled a last match main event since his title win in July.

Of course there’s Bret Hart too. One of the biggest wastes in wrestling history was Bret Hart in WCW.

Most recently WCW signed The Warrior as well. He went right after Hogan and…

And well let’s get right to it. Fall Brawl means WAR GAMES! The Warrior in War Games! Who knows what will happen?!

The Card

Opening video reminds us that Team Hollywood in War Games is Hollywood Hogan, Stevie Ray and Bret Hart. One of those is not like the other.

“WE WANT FLAIR!” Well, wait a night.

Tony Schiavone talks about the new rules for War Games. Three teams! It can end before all nine men get into the ring (um…what? Why would that happen from an entertainment standpoint?). Also winner gets a World Title shot at Halloween Havoc. So much for the team aspect eh?

Ernest Miller being held by security. Fuck if I know the storyline there.

Gene Okerlund talks about the rest of the card. Why? We already sold the PPV, no?

It’s Chris Jericho! Jericho is one of the best parts of WCW 1998. He’s calling out Goldberg and says Goldberg accepted a match against Jericho tonight! Title vs. title!

Alex Wight and Disco Inferno vs. The British Bulldog and Jim Neidhart

I like how we get separate entrances for Wright and Inferno. Double the dancing!

USA chant to Alex Wright. The British Bulldog was in the ring opposing him.

A whole lot of nothing to start this thing…other than Anvil dancing.

Bulldog can still land on his feet after being monkey flipped from the corner. Impressive.

Bulldog screws up a stun gun. It’s amazing how different the Bulldog and Neidhart are in terms of giving a shit here. In WWF 1997, the Bulldog and Neidhart showed great intensity. Here? Meh.

“WE WANT FLAIR!” Yeah no one cares about this boring match.

Neidhart misses a slingshot shoulder block. I don’t think he was supposed to miss.

Bulldog actually screws up picking Disco up for the Running Powerslam. Sad.

Bulldog and Neidhart win when Bulldog pinned Disco in 11:03. Bulldog eventually gets the Running Powerslam for the win. Bad boring match. This match is also infamous for the Bulldog injuring his back on the Warrior’s trap door.

Not the typical WCW opening match goodness sadly.

Scott Steiner has a doctor’s note! No Steiner vs. Steiner tonight.

No wait! JJ Dillion calls him on his bs! The match is on!

Title vs. Title
Chris Jericho vs. Goldberg

JPS! Ralphus and the Jerichoholic NINJA!

Jericho is just absolutely brilliant here.

And it’s a midget Goldberg!

Chris Jericho vs. Mini-Goldberg

Mini-Goldberg gets a spear in! You know HHH stole this idea a year later on Smackdownm using Gillberg.

Chris Jericho wins by submission in 1:15. Liontamer! Jericho is brilliant.

Norman Smiley vs. Ernest Miller

Angle here? Smiley asked Miller what his problem was after Miller attacked The Armstrong Brothers. That’s it.

Miller pins Smiley in 5:07. Top rope feliner I think was the finish…but Smiley didn’t go all the way down. Smiley hits a 2nd for the win. A whole lot of nothing for five minutes. Not a good sign when the best part of the first 45 minutes of the show is a Jericho joke match.

Rick Steiner vs. Scott Steiner

Angle began when Scott turned on Rick back in February at Superbrawl. Buff Bagwell’s serious injury was used as an angle between them as well, where Bagwell faked being friends. Scott did all he can to avoid fighting Rick, but Dillion said it has to happen at Fall Brawl. So here we are.

Crowd is very into this.

Really good brawl to start! Crowd is really into Rick Steiner. I’m starting to think they should have pushed Rick big as a face here. Too bad though as…

No Contest in 5:30. Bagwell tried to attack, but Rick Steiner slams him into the 2nd turnbuckle. Bagwell goes limp. The announcers treat it as a shoot. It takes about 10 minutes to get Bagwell into the ambulance…and then Scott and Bagwell attack Rick! It was a ruse! A great brawl turned into a bullshit angle. Ah well.

Silver King? Really?

Sunset flip botch! Woo!

Inverted top rope frankensteiner is pretty cool. Shocked it only got 2.

Juventud Guerrera retains in 8:36 by pin. Weak Juvi Driver, then the 450 for the win. Decent. Pretty low on the standard WCW Cruiserweight Title match quality tier. I don’t think anyone saw Silver King winning either. Best match of the night by default.

Drunk Scott Hall and Konnan have a confronation.

Raven’s Rules: If Raven wins, the Flock disbands, if Saturn wins, he becomes Raven’s slave. Kanyon is handcuffed to the ringpost.
Raven vs. Saturn

I enjoyed this match two months ago, so I am all for it again.

Back at Bash at the Beach, Saturn had broken free from the Flock. Now Saturn is trying to save the others from Raven. I don’t remember how Kanyon ended up officially in the Flock to be fair.

This one has more wrestling than the last…but Saturn picks it up with a tope!

One of the big shocks: The Flock comes to help Raven finish off Saturn…but Kidman takes out Raven with a missile dropkick!

That’s followed by a great false finish with the DVD!

Kanyon breaks free, Flatlines Saturn, the locks himself back up. I laughed.

Saturn kills Lodi with a DVD through the table on the floor!

A lot of great false finishes. Saturn survivies an Evenflow!

Saturn frees the Flock at 14:04. DVD wins it! Great second half of the match. I still prefer their July encounter though. Kidman would become a star instantly, winning the Cruiserweight Title the next night. Somehow, despite the big reactions for Saturn here…he would be getting pinned by Sonny Oono two months later. Whatever. Still a solid match.

Curt Hennig vs. Dean Malenko

For some reason these two had a cage match on Nitro. Doing things backwards…aren’t we.

“WE WANT FLAIR!” At least it makes sense, since Hennig turned on the Horsemen at this event in the same building last year.

This is a fun little match where Malenko beats the crap out of Hennig’s leg. I like it in terms of building up Malenko’s aggressiveness.

Malenko wins by DQ in 7:38. Malenko nails Hennig with the Hennig-Plex…but Rick Rude runs in to cause the DQ. Arn Anderson looks to make the save, but gets taken out. No Flair. He would come tomorrow. Still, not bad. The last three matches have at least taken this show past F potential.

Konnan vs. Scott Hall

The drunk Scott Hall angle. Horrible.

He actually gets a drink while applying an abdominal stretch.

Hall has it won, but wants another drink. Konnan kicks the drink out of Hall’s hand (and it hits a fan, nice) and hits a facebuster.

Konnan makes Scott Hall submit in 12:03. Tequila Sunrise for the win. Horrible. It’s still hard to believe something like that was on TV, much less Pay-Per-View.

#1 Contender War Games
Team Hollywood (Hollywood Hogan, Bret Hart, Stevie Ray) vs. Team Wolfpac (Lex Luger, Kevin Nash, Sting) vs. Team WCW (Roddy Piper, Diamond Dallas Page and The Warrior)

DDP is #1. Bret Hart #2. The team psychology is already non-existant.

Stevie Ray is next! Well…it was a good five minutes between Bret and Page I guess.

So 0 Wolfpac, 2 Hollywood and 1 WCW. Yeah that makes sense.

Here comes Sting! Crowd comes alive!

Sting kicks Stevie Ray’s ass, and leaps from one ring to the other with a flying clothesline!

Piper’s in, looking like a nut. It’s all punches and kicks though.

Here comes Lex Luger! There really isn’t a whole lot happening between each segment.

Kevin Nash next! Big reaction. Hogan and Warrior left.

Hogan’s out early! So much for rules!

Hogan slapjacks everyone but Stevie Ray.

For some reason, Hogan doesn’t go to pin anyone.

We’re just waiting for the Warrior here.

As soon as the pin attempt happens there’s SMOKE EVERYWHERE!

WARRIOR’S IN THE RING! Hogan nails him from behind!

More smoke….it’s a fake Warrior? Whatever, here comes THE WARRIOR!

A few punches and Hogan goes through the door of the cage to escape. Hogan locks himself out of the cage (well, Warrior goes for the door and it slightly opens…and Warrior avoids the door. Nice). Warrior gets all angry, kicks the top part of the cage to get out, blows his quad and then gets some more punches in. Even though it’s a match and both are participants, security breaks them up. Imagine if that happen at Bad Blood ’97.

Now that the angle is over, Stevie Ray accidentally hits (I think it missed and Bret knew it) Bret Hart with a slapjack, and a Diamond Cutter to Stevie Ray!

Diamond Dallas Page wins in 20:06 when he pinned Steve Ray. Bret tries to make the save but fails as Page pins Stevie Ray for the Title shot. Absolutely horrible. The worst War Games in the history of the match. It’s not even close really. One of…if not THE worst major PPV main event in professional wrestling history. Your match was a 5 minute solid Bret-Page match, entrances and punches (except for Sting, who did some good stuff). Kevin Nash’s entire night was a few forearms before getting hit with the slapjack and taking two legdrops. The Hogan-Warrior angle was an embarrassment. Page getting the win at the end was pure afterthought.

Here’s another thing about this PPV.

No Rey Mysterio Jr. or Eddie Guerrero (but Silver King!)
No Chris Benoit.
No….Goldberg. No fucking Goldberg.

At the end of Hennig-Malenko we were in D range. The show overall was a whole lot of nothing. The only real positive I saw storyline wise was Saturn vs. Raven.

Well drunk Scott Hall didn’t help. The show basically rested on the main event. Considering it’s possibly the worst main event in professional wrestling history, that should tell you all you need to know.

WCW somehow still hung in there ratings wise…although not for long.

Final Grade: F

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: sting

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