– Live from Detroit, Michigan.
– Having been in computerless hell for the past week and a half, I may be a bit rusty in my WCW-bashing. You’ll have to forgive me.
– Your hosts are Mike, Tony and Bobby.
– Opening match: Wrath v. Glacier. Prolonged Wrath squash as he tosses Glacier from one end of the ring to the other for 10 minutes. Glacier hits a superkick (barely grazing the back of Wrath’s neck) and goes for the…I can’t believe I’m typing this…Ice Pick, but Wrath blocks it and puts him in the Meltdown for the pin. Nothing to see here… 1/2*
– Bret Hart gets an extended whiny video montage.
– Stevie Ray v. Gonnad. I’m pretty sure this was a Thunder main event a little while back. Stevie uses his extensive selection of kicks and punches and extremely sloppy chinlocks, until Gonnad makes the comeback with a big kick and a facebuster. Vincent accidentally hits his nWo brutha with the DEVASTATING ODOR-EATER OF DEATH!, and Gonnad peppers him with punches until the ref disqualifies him. This was so bad words cannot suffice. -** Booker T saves Stevie Ray, to resurrect an aborted angle from, what, 6 months ago?
– Sonny Onoo & The Cat v. Perry Saturn & Kaz Hayashi. Comedy match. Nothing more than kicks and punches. In slow motion. Nobody even looks motivated here. Saturn goes for a suplex or something and Miller kicks him in the face and Onoo falls on top for the pin. Did Saturn beat up Bischoff backstage or something to deserve this de-push? -*
– Cruiserweight title match: Juventud Guerrera v. Billy Kidman. Juvy comes out…with an LWO shirt. Oh, lord. Chat session follows as Eddy crows about the acquisition until Rey Jr. comes out to protest. Eddy drags him to the back as we head to the ring. And this is easily the worst match between the two I’ve ever seen. Kicks and punches abound. Juvy f*cks up a huricarana off the apron. Then he tries a double jump dropkick and ends up kicking Kidman in the nuts. Good one. Kidman tosses Juvy into another ring and hits a cross-body for two. Then more highspots involving multiple rings that take 5 minutes to set up. Reversal series that leads to the Juvy Driver. 450 misses and Rey’s rana rollup gets two. Kidman comes back with his usual but the shooting star press gets blocked. Finally Rey Jr. makes the requisite appearance, holding Kidman’s pants to prevent a top rope rana on Juvy’s part, and Kidman hits the shooting star press to regain the title. Yay. **1/2 Eddy confronts Rey, who renounces his membership just like that, then gets chased by about 100 mexicans in a scene not witnessed since the last run for the border by illegal mexican immigrants.
– Rick Steiner v. Scott Steiner (w/ Buff and Ref). Rick gets whomped by the nWo B-team in the back and dragged to the ring by the Giant. They kick and punch each other before Rick decks the evil ref, allowing a ballshot from Scott. This goes on for a couple of minutes before Goldberg runs in out of nowhere and just beats the holy hell out of everyone to a massive pop. -**** Would it have killed them to just do Goldberg v. Scott Steiner?
– The nWo B-Team accompanies Scott Hall to the ring for whatever. Bischoff notes that it’s survey time, and survey says Hall is out of the nWo. Mass punking results and Nash makes the save. Hall makes the clique sign but Nash shakes his head and walks away. So was that the match?
– TV title match: Chris Jericho v. Bobby Dumbass Jr. I’m immensely saddened that Jericho is going to have to job here. Wow, isn’t the crowd just thrilled to see this one? Another boring match in a series tonight. Crowd is catatonic. Jericho dogs it, big time. Liontamer attempt gets a big pop. Dumbass gets wrapped up fighting Ralphus for roughly 12 minutes and Jericho pops him in the back of the head with the TV belt (nearly nailing Billy Silverman in the process) and gets the pin. * Okay, at least he didn’t lose the title.
– World War III. I’m going to bother listing the guys here because 90% of them are going to be tossed in short order. Oh, wait, now it’s over the top, pinfall or submission to be eliminated. Joy. Hogan is not there. Nash clears an entire ring by himself while everyone in the other two rings stands around. Seriously, he runs out 19 guys, ending with Van Hammer, to win ring #1. At least there’s no split screen this time. Then we go to another ring as everyone tries to gang up on the Giant but he shrugs them off. This gets boring so we go to ring #2. This gets boring again so Tony justifies it by saying that most battle royales have a “slowdown period”. We get down to 20 men and head into the center as Miller and Saturn fight to the back. The remaining cruisers gets dumped by the Giant, lest anything interesting happen. It’s basically down to Wolfpac v. nWo v. Horsemen, with Booker T and Wrath. Bam Bam Bigelow makes a brief run-in from the crowd but gets beat down, and Goldberg comes out to brawl with him. The final seven are Luger, Gonnad, Nash, Hall, Giant, Benoit and Malenko. Everyone retreats to the corner to talk and then we get back into it again. Gonnad is gone and everyone goes after Giant and dumps him. Biggest pop of the night. Benoit and Malenko go quietly. We’ve got Luger, Nash and Hall left. Luger racks Hall and Nash dumps both of them to win the thing. Wow, that was shocking. We only saw that two years ago when Giant did the same thing. I won’t bother to rate it.
– US title match: DDP v. Bret Hart. I guess Norton and Booker T got bumped or something. This is, what, the fifth main event in a row for DDP? He’s wearing the belt…upside down. Too much hooch before the show, I guess. Slow, boring match with lots of kicking and punching and resting. DDP puts Bret in the shittiest looking Sharpshooter I’ve ever seen. Bret retaliates by working on the leg as the crowd completely loses interest. Fast forward to the bullshit Dusty finish as Charles Robinson gets bumped and Scott Steiner’s fake referee runs in to call a submission by DDP. But yet another referee runs in to reverse that decision, and DDP Diamond-cuts Hart for the pin. Yawn. *1/2 Did this match really warrant 20 minutes?
The Bottom Line: We have a new winner! Loser! Whatever. Worst PPV ever, a trend that is becoming commonplace for WCW. I keep wondering what they could possibly be thinking and I keep coming up short. The only question remaining is whether they can do an “all negative star” PPV.
What a way to return to the ‘net….
