– Live from Tacoma, Washington
– Your hosts are the Usual Idiots.
– Opening match: Blitzkrieg v. Juventud Guerrera. Blitz has Al Snow’s old Avatar costume tonight. Awesome opener, with the boys trading mat stuff and Juvy getting the first highspot with the tope con hilo. Blitz retaliates with his own tope, but Juvy dropkicks him in mid-air, and he takes a nasty fall to the floor. Juvy goes for the Driver, but they go into a complex reversal sequence that ends with Juvy hitting an inverted DDT for two. Juvy takes Blitz to the top and tries an inverted suplex off the top, but they f*ck it up. Blitz goes for the sky twister, but Juvy moves. Then Juvy gets the MOTHERFUCKING KICKASS FINISHER TO END ALL FINISHERS, a Juvy Driver off the TOP ROPE! Wow. Wow. Wow. ****1/4
– Hardcore Hak v. Bam Bam Bigelow. They both bring plunder to the ring, and we get right into the garbage wrestling as Hak puts Bigelow on the table in the aisle and dives off the stagecoach, putting Bigelow through the table. Pretty impressive spot. We head to the ring and they hit each other with weapons. And, uh, yeah, that’s about it. Good for what it was, but that’s about it. ***1/2
– Scotty Riggs v. Mikey Whipwreck. Hey, Scotty has a gimmick! He’s the Narcissist II. This is your pretty standard 1st hour Thunder match. Mikey is doing some nice bumping, however. Scotty is SO Val Venis/Rick Martel/Rick Rude here, doing hip gyrations and being Mr. Arrogant. Crowd responds with a spontaneous “boring” chant. Loud one too. The FLYING FOREARM OF DOOM from Riggs finishes it. Yawn. **
– Gonnad v. Disco Inferno. Disco has the Urban Cowboy look today. Huge heel heat for Disco as he uses a modified version of the rolling clothesline and the crotch shake. Funny stuff. Standard 1st hour Nitro match follows. Rest, stall, dance, you know the routine. Gonnad hits Disco’s own Chartbuster on him for the pin. Bleh. *1/2
– Okay, the two matches I had budgeting to suck have sucked, so we’re within budget.
– Cruiserweight title match: Rey Mysterio Jr. v. Billy Kidman. Great gymnastic sequence to start. Rey takes the BUMP WITH CHEESE AND BACON, getting backdropped to the floor and landing right on his side. Kidman hits a pescado for good measure. Kidman drops him on his throat and legdrops him over the railing. Rey smacks his head on the stairs on a flying headscissors on the floor. He gets in the ring and hits another couple of highspots to work the kinks out. I dunno, they just seem to be going through the motions here, doing an exhibition of spots. Kidman hits a shooting star press off the apron, mis-called by Tenay and corrected by Tony. Pretty boring resting sequence. Kidman hits a Pedigree but Rey pops up. Rey gets his killer bulldog for two. Kidman does his finishing sequence, but Rey pops up before the SSP and hits the top rope rana for the anticlimactic pin. The Nitro match was WAY better and the crowd response here showed it. **1/2
– The Vanilla Midgets v. Raven & Saturn. The Flock pulls out a ton of cool double-teams on Benoit to start. Raven gets triple-teamed by the Horsemen outside the ring and the Midgets work over Raven. Arn is jawing with the fans the whole time. Guess which team Charles Robinson favors. Fans completely turn on the Horsemen, booing them mercilessly. Well, I’ll take heel heat over no heat. Saturn gets the hot tag and decks Anderson, which is a good sign for his healing. Malenko is just being a motherf*cker here. Saturn goes for the DVD, but Benoit gets a german suplex, but a pier-six breaks out. Malenko gets the Cloverleaf on Saturn, but he escapes and hits the DVD. Benoit makes the save. Wild stuff. Saturn gets caught in the corner and double-teamed. Crowd is chanting “Horsemen suck” at various intervals. Malenko is being a mega-jerk, something he’s very good at. Raven gets the hot tag (big pop) and cleans house. Big babyface reaction for the DROP TOEHOLD OF DOOM. Saturn goes for the tabledive on Malenko, but misses and goes through the table. Back in the ring, Raven gets the Evenflow on Malenko, and Arn casually walks into the ring (despite mild protests from Charles Robinson) and places a chair on top of Raven. Chris hits the swan dive onto the chair, sacrificing himself and doing a major bladejob for fun, and Malenko rolls on top for the pin. Wow, great match. ****1/2
– US title tournament finals: Scott Steiner v. Booker T. Scott walks around the ring drawing cheap heat before we start. If Ahmed Johnson and Scott Steiner were in the same jail cell, who would be the bitch? Man, Scott should go to Memphis, he’d be huge there. Pretty good match Scott with an overbooked ending. Ref gets bumped and Booker goes through his ending sequence. Scott deliberately KOs the ref again, and hits the top rope rana. It gets two. Then, in a Randy Savage Memphis moment, he pulls an international object out of his tights and nails Booker with it during a suplex, and gets the pin and the US title. All the ref bumps weren’t really necessary, but the match was good enough. ***
– Kevin Nash v. Goldberg. All I ask is that Nash jobs. Nash actually dominates for most of the match, then the ref gets bumped. Lex Luger nails Goldie with the chair, but when Nash goes for the powerbomb Goldberg counters with the Steve Richards testicular claw, then hits a vicious spear on Nash and Jackhammers him for the pin. Good for you Nash, take one for the company. That’s all I wanted. **1/2
– Four corners match, WCW World title match: Ric Flair v. Hulk Hogan v. Sting v. DDP. Hoochie mama, check out Gorgeous George. Sting and DDP start, with Sting destroying DDP and Flair making the save. Flair and Hogan do a sequence next, with the WEIGHTLIFTING BELT OF DEATH making an appearance. Sting and DDP fight outside the ring meanwhile. Hulk does his thing and gets the legdrop, but Sting saves Flair. Now Flair runs through his offense on Hogan. Flair gets the figure-four while Sting and DDP fight outside again. DDP makes the save. Now it’s the DDP and Hogan show, with Sting and Flair fighting outside the ring. DDP gets the ringpost figure-four (you wish, buddy) and Sting makes the save. Hogan gets helped back to the dressing room because he hurt his knee. Awwwww, poor baby. Eric the Grey makes an appearance for some reason. Now we get a Sting-Flair sequence that goes nowhere, then a Sting-DDP sequence. This is pretty disjointed. Now Sting and Flair do their bit, and we of course work in the triple sleeper spot. Sting hulks up and gets the deathlock on Flair, but DDP makes the save. Sting is looking good here. Flair gives Sting two blatant ballshots and slaps on the figure-four. Savage drags them to the center of the ring…and drops the big elbow on Flair! Eh? DDP hits the Diamond Cutter…AND GETS THE PIN?????? What the holy flying f*ck was that? WCW World champion DDP? What are they thinking? WHAT ARE THEY THINKING?!? Can’t really rate it, it was too weird.
The Bottom Line: What a weird-ass ending to an otherwise great show. There’s absolutely no way DDP’s title reign lasts beyond tomorrow night. Oh well, dumb booking aside, this was still easily the best show of the year so far. See what a little forethought can do?
Thumbs way up.
