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Episode 63: Bash at the Beach 2000
49 Plays1 year ago
It's WCW's final Bash at the Beach - and you'd never know it was a beach-themed show. Come on, WCW - one lifeguard stand or beach umbrella, that's all we ask. But don't worry, WCW spent the money they saved on set design so they could pay Michael Buffer to be drowned out by entrance music and commentary. Plus: A wedding gown match confuses us more than just about anything else we've watched, Vince Russo and Hulk Hogan have a, shall we say, disagreement about the future of WCW, and there's a Graveyard Match - but is it a graveyard smash? For all this and more, let's go to the ring!
Music by Michael Gary Brewer at https://www.instantmusicnow.com/
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Transcript
Introduction and Show Setup
00:00:00
Speaker
loco and loco. I'm having so much trouble. I like my brain is rebelling. I may just have to start calling him Chavo in a minute. Sorry.
History of World Championship Wrestling
00:00:36
Speaker
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Let's Go to the Ring, where we take a look at the good old days and not so good old days of World Championship Wrestling Series by Series. I'm your host, Bob Moore, and I'm joined by a poorly lit man diving off the top of a car who may or may not be Alec Bridget. I mean, it could be anybody. It could be public enemy for all you know. It could be. It could be. Yeah. How's it going tonight, Al? Good. How's it going with you?
00:01:02
Speaker
Doing okay. I admit that I am glad that I am done watching this particular show. Yeah. And we'll be glad to see it behind me in the rearview mirror after tonight. Come from the guy who watched what, six hours of Nitro on Thunder for this? Yeah, I get it. Yeah, we're in the two show era, so I got to watch both. Lots of happens on Thunder. I'm sure that is a massive understatement. Oh, yeah.
00:01:31
Speaker
Well, tonight we're taking a look at Bash at the Beach 2000. It
Bash at the Beach 2000: Legal Issues and Attendance
00:01:35
Speaker
ain't no picnic. Well, it certainly wasn't a picnic for the members of WCW's legal team. Let's put it that way. More on that later. Bash at the Beach 2000 was held on July 9, 2000, at the Ocean Center in Daytona Beach, Florida, in front of 6,572 fans.
00:01:56
Speaker
This is WCW's third time hosting a bash at the beach in the ocean center, and it has the worst attendance of the three, losing to 1996's 8300 and 1997's 7851. Now, admittedly, 1996 featured the start of the NWO angle and 1997 featured Dennis Rodman in a match before people realized just how bad an idea that was. Right. So maybe we should actually be impressed that 2000 got as close as it did.
00:02:25
Speaker
I mean, I guess faint praise if you want. We're not going to, we're not re heaping a lot of praise in this show. So, you know, get what you can now, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. Bachelor of the beach 2000 earned about 75,000 pay-per-view buys, which is less than half last year's 155,000 and lower than any other show in this series. Oh my goodness.
00:02:47
Speaker
Not a surprise for WSW in 2000, of course, but the scale and speed of the fall for this series is impressive. Only two years ago, it exceeded 500,000 buys. Bash of the Beats 1998 was in fact the second highest show that we've ever covered, below only Starrcade 1997. And that's a big number, so yeah. Second is no small feat. I believe it legitimately is their second highest pay-per-view ever.
00:03:15
Speaker
Not
WCW's Redemption Hopes
00:03:15
Speaker
just the ones we've covered. I think it is second highest ever. I think so, yeah. Attendance and by rate aside, can WCW redeem itself after an awful 1999 show? To find out, let's go to the ring.
00:03:32
Speaker
We open with Ernest the Cat Miller, getting out of a limo and giving instructions to his limo driver, Smooth, to tell M.I.A. and the filthy animals that they are banned from ringside during the cruiserweight match. Suddenly, vaguely Asian-sounding flute music starts up, which apparently, the cat can actually hear, and he's attacked by the young dragons. He turns the tide with kicks, at least two of them, probably all three, to their crotches, and walks off.
00:04:02
Speaker
I might as well start a count, I guess. So young dragons theme count one. On the go home thunder, the cat basically said, you know, I've been the commissioner so long I'm, I'm worried I'm getting soft. Like I'm not as finally tuned to deadly weapon. He did a thing where he would say, if I gave you five seconds to gather the ring, cause I'm by hands into the weapons, et cetera, et cetera. Right. Yeah. So he asked for a warmup and he challenged the young dragons.
00:04:30
Speaker
So initially it was what you imagine a three on one match would be, but then he bails the no, no, this is a sparring exercise. And then he started cheating and hitting with a little blows and striking them. And basically once the tide started turning back towards their favor again, he rolled the rings. Okay, matches over. And yeah, he sort of hinted that he was using them to help keep him sharp, which they apparently interpret as attack him once he gets out of his limo. Four days later.
00:04:54
Speaker
From there, we cut to an opening video package going over the match between Hulk Hogan, Jeff Jarrett, Kevin Nash, Goldberg, and Scott Hall for the WSW World title and Scott Hall's contract. At least that's what this manages to suggest that the match is about. Yeah.
00:05:11
Speaker
Actually, those are two separate matches. We will have Hogan versus Jarrett for the title and Nash versus Goldberg for Hall's contract. Hall will
Match Confusion and Critiques
00:05:18
Speaker
not be participating. The video, though, just cuts back and forth between Hogan, Jarrett, Nash, and Goldberg and doesn't really care which one just showed when you see WSW World title or for Scott Hall's contract. It's about as confusing as it could possibly be. I can see that.
00:05:36
Speaker
This year's Bash of the Beach is presented by Master Lock because WSW needs the money. Maybe that explains the lower attendance numbers. They did a product demo and accidentally locked some of the vans out? Ah, yeah, that would do it. Loads of Pyro goes off on the extremely boring stage. There is absolutely no beach-themed stuff at all this year. Nope. WSW, here's an idea. Only do half of the fireworks, and you'll have some money to at least have some kind of set.
00:06:05
Speaker
Yeah, they have a drape. Isn't that enough for you? It would be like if it was beach blankets or like had a pattern on it. Yeah, maybe. But yeah, it's just a big black drape with little like sort of stars on them, like some sort of lumenscent plastic. So it kind of reflects like a starlight kind of thing. But it should be big and bright, like it's the sun, like it's a sunny day. Yeah, or just like a nice blanket with like a beach scene on it or something like that a minimum. That's what you should do. Yeah, you could do the ocean. Sure. Yeah.
00:06:35
Speaker
They didn't even break the props last year because they didn't have a hardcore match in the arena. They could have just reused them, presumably, but. Yeah. Oh, well. They don't even do the little match graphics, do they? Oh, man. Before, I don't think they do in this show. I don't think so. They just abandoned everything, Beach. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They don't even cost you anything, right? I mean, at the very least, not if you've already got the ones designed and they've done this show for years at this point. Yeah, right. It's a template. I think it'd be that expensive.
00:07:03
Speaker
I admit I was kind of expecting this as WSW 2000 just ignore set design for most shows, but it's really depressing. Yeah, this is pretty much just the nitro set and the under set. Host Tony Schiavone intros the show, letting us know that for the next three hours we are locked in because master lock you see. Oh, I get it. WCW needs money. Yes. He is joined by Scott Hudson and
00:07:36
Speaker
Mark Madden. Yeah. But there's no time to dwell on how much we loathe Mark Madden's commentary. It's already time for our first match. Remember, this is a Vince Russo show. If you have time to breathe, it's in a slow patch. Yeah, pretty much.
00:07:52
Speaker
Our first match is The Juice, hoovin' to Guerreira, with The Filthy Animals, that's Conan Ray Mysterio Jr., Tigress, and The Lyrical Gangster, formerly Disco Inferno, versus Lieutenant Loco, with the M.I.A., that's General Rection, Major Stash, Major Guns, and Corporal Cajun, for Loco's WSW Cruiserweight Championship. The referee for this one is Charles Robinson.
00:08:17
Speaker
The filthy animals are all going after the cruiserweight title. Previously disco tried to win the title and as you can tell, did not succeed. There would actually be a mixed tag match on the go home thunder. Again, so important. The last thunder is so much on my notes are on the go home thunder. So, so you'll hear that a lot. You know, take a shot for that one.
00:08:37
Speaker
There'd be a mixed tag match where it's Hoovy and Tigress against Chavo, AKA Lieutenant Loco, and Major Guns, which would end in Chavo being pinned. So now you have the face champion pinned in a tag match in the build of a pay-per-view match. Some conventional booking at least on this. Enjoy while you can. And I assume they've just been kind of like at each other's throats and that's why Kat's saying everybody's banned.
00:09:02
Speaker
I'll go over a little more later when at least the person that when the match when travel wins the title, basically everyone ancillary to the group is at ringside or around the area. Gotcha. Like all of the mia, all of the animals, possibly people when you're fearing is that there's a three person match when he was a title where there's like 15 people at ringside. So it just it's been that kind of situation. Yeah.
00:09:26
Speaker
The filthy animals are out first. Rey has actually found clothes that fit this year so good for him. Yeah. Whovie basically does the rock's entrance as his gimmick appears to be that he's the rock now. It is, yes. Whovie has the belt, but Tony knows that he is not the champ. The animals run through their opening spiel, led by Conan, with Disco basically imitating everything that he does. Disco disco. It's Rey that's Conan's little brother, not you. Yeah, right?
00:09:55
Speaker
Conan says he wants Disco and Ray to go after the tag titles, which is not something that happens on this show, so I'm not sure why we needed a promo to say it. Yeah, that is weird. The M.I.A. Enter Next, led by General Rection. It's a little weird that Lieutenant Loco, i.e. the guy who actually has the match and is the actual champ, is hidden in the background or out of focus throughout this sequence. It's like the camera crew actually didn't know which guy had the match.
00:10:22
Speaker
I, on one hand, he is the smallest person there. Not by a lot, mind you, but on the other hand, I think it'd be, that would make him easier to spot. You look at Hugh Morris, I don't want to use his terrible fake name here. There's no way you go. Oh, that's Cruiserweight Champion, right? Or same thing with Major Stash, AKA Van Hammer.
00:10:40
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I kind of get it when they're coming down the entrance ramp that they're doing a bit where they're like coming out in front of him, which I can see as being like, Oh, the filthy animals are out there. Let's shield him. So it makes sense that he's a little bit in there, but then once they get in the ring, he's in the center of the ring. The camera just focuses on everyone, but yeah, it's, it's bizarre. Well, I mean, Cameron sound miscues are par for the courses. This is true. This is true.
00:11:03
Speaker
Refs Jamie Tucker and Mickey J come out to help Robinson get the MIA and the animals to leave, as apparently they didn't get the message from Smooth. Apparently not. Hoovey offers a handshake, but Loco slaps him. They dodge around, but Loco clotheslines Hoovey out over the ropes, so Hoovey stalls outside for a while. Loco mimes that he's a crybaby.
00:11:24
Speaker
Loco chases him around outside, and Hoovy ambushes him coming back in and goes for a suplex, but Loco suplexes him out to the floor if by suplexes you mean chucks him overhead and leaves it up to fate. Yeah, right? That looked a little bit dangerous. It looked very dangerous, yeah. Loco... It's hard not to call him Chavo, by the way. I know, right? Loco springboard splash, and he finally gets Hoovy inside for two counts off a Tilt-a-Whirl backbreaker and a power slam.
00:11:54
Speaker
Meanwhile, Madden keeps referring to Hoovey as the juicer weight champion, which is just as annoying as it sounds. Loco spanks Hoovey. That was necessary. Oh, yeah.
00:12:07
Speaker
Loco and Hoovy do work in some good, fast counter sequences, and clones line each other down for eight. Hoovy ends up outside, and Loco hits a flying body press, but the animals come back out wearing masks, distracting Loco, so Hoovy rolls Loco up for two and beats him up at ringside, as Madden insists that he can't be sure those are actually the filthy animals, even once they've unmasked on camera.
00:12:32
Speaker
Yeah, Quantconan's mask doesn't even really cover his face. Yeah, it's like one of those weirdly transparent ones, isn't it? Yeah. It doesn't disguise his appearance at all, no. Repeatedly insisting on a ludicrous lie does not make you a good heel commentator, man. Yeah, right?
00:12:49
Speaker
Hoovy weirdly rolls Loco in, looks like he'll do his falling body splash and then just enters instead, but then slams Loco and goes back out to do his falling body splash from the apron for two. Why not just do that the first time? Yeah. Hoovy's sunset flip Liger Bomb gets two. Another Power Bomb nearly goes badly wrong, but they turn it into a bellied-back inverted mat slam instead.
00:13:14
Speaker
Hoovey takes forever doing the Brock's People's elbow. The M.I.A. come down wearing masks. And now Hudson isn't sure who they are. It's just about as annoying. At least in his defense, he's just going the whole on when he's your stick against you. But yeah, it's bad. He's not legitimately saying that like Madden was trying to prove a town. Yeah. But yeah, it's not it's not funny. I didn't need to be reminded of that gimmick because it was already done the first time. I can see that. Yeah.
00:13:39
Speaker
Guns, not masked, takes her shirt off, distracting Hoovey for zero, as the rest of the MIA are still distracting Robinson. Not exactly military precision there. No. They counter each other's finishers and earn two counts off a Loco reverse DDT and Hoovey's Hoovey driver. And just as Hudson is saying that this match might take the next hour, Loco hits the tornado DDT for the three count and the win. Timing!
00:14:06
Speaker
Loco celebrates with the MIA and reclaims his belt. Madden just will not let Juicerweight go. No, he will not. Thoughts on this one? It's a good match, but you really have to wait for it to actually start. It's a real Scott Steiner situation where you just stall and stall and draw the intro. When they just actually work a match,
00:14:32
Speaker
They're good. Whovie is inconsistent with big spots, but he's always reliable overall. And obviously Chavo, because I can call him Chavo, is always good. So there's no complaints there. The problem is just all the BS and nonsense that surrounds the match, whether it's everyone coming out and then be kicked out again, only to separately interfere wearing unconvincing masks. Can you just let them have a match? Yeah.
00:15:01
Speaker
We'll talk more about the whole Vince Russo Crash TV thing, but I don't think you really need to do Crash TV on pay-per-view. People have already bought the show. They're not going to turn off the pay-per-view. They've already paid probably a good amount of money for it. To what? Go watch a baseball game? Run a show normally, please. That's all we asked for, and we never really got it at this point. Just let them go. You've been good. Yeah, I think I'm on the same page. There's a really good match in here.
00:15:30
Speaker
The actual action is really solid, with Loco and Hoovy pulling off almost every move with precision, and pulling off a lot of impressive counter sequences and dives. But the trouble, like you said, is that the match's potential is buried beneath a bunch of stalling and extracurricular activities.
00:15:45
Speaker
Whether as folks were treating out of the ring, bizarre extra setups for spots that were already clearly set up, or taking time out to focus on wrestlers coming in with masks to do stuff that barely even affects the match, it really slows the match down and it gives us this start and stop feel that is not what I was expecting from these two. It's hoovy and chavo. It should be much more fluid and consistent than this, especially as an opening match. The action is still fun when it happens at least, but this was really disappointing. Yeah.
00:16:15
Speaker
It's the thing you get into with a lot with Russo booking is that he'll just talk about and I'll see you later about how he wants to give the young guys a chance and then really show what they can do, which is a good idea. But then all his nonsense has to happen too. He won't let them just go, Hey, here's a matching guys with all the setup on the shows. What you're doing is you're taking away from their action and their excitement they can do and you're making them look bad by association with this nonsense. Very true.
00:16:46
Speaker
Lieutenant Loco, aka Charlie Guerrero, is titling what end on the July 31st nitro when you lose it to Lance Storm. Oh, Canada. We cut backstage to Cat's office, where he's telling the young dragons they did a good job on Thunder, but it's over. They seem to get the wrong idea. Jeff Jarrett enters, alongside an opera singer dressed in Viking garb, and asks where Hogan is. That is a sentence that I just spoke.
00:17:14
Speaker
Jarett says he came here to cripple and retire Hogan. Kat says if Hogan's not here, he'll get Jarett someone else to fight, but Hogan will be here. Jarett says he better be, and the entrance music for the next match brings an unceremonious end to the segment. Makes you wonder, do they hear the entrance music as well? It's like the fleet music, they hear it. That would be amazing. And they go, oh, they gotta stop because the music's busy playing.
00:17:38
Speaker
Our second match is Big Vito versus a mystery opponent in a hardcore match for Vito's WCW hardcore championship. The
WCW Hardcore Championship Chaos
00:17:47
Speaker
referee for this one is Billy Silverman. So there's been a lot of contention for the very prestigious, I can almost say with a straight face, WCW hardcore title. It is so prestigious that it was beyond the reach of the guy that won the hardcore invitational last year. That is true. It's a high caliber of fighter.
00:18:08
Speaker
Mm-hmm. So the title finally got taken off of Terry Funk. He was the lone standout as we sort of talked about on previous show, the lone standout when all the titles went to the new blood. The titles ended up in the hands of the mama Luke's big video and giant the bull who were briefly co-harker champions. Mind you, they were co-harker champions after they let Eric Bischoff win the title. Yes. Eric Bischoff, former WSB hardcore champion.
00:18:36
Speaker
Yeah, too many too many things to yell about. Go on. Yes. So they were briefly co-worker champion before they had a match to determine who beat the sole champion, because you can only have one champion for a title like this. It is a singles title. So yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Big Vito ended up winning it and now it lead to the team breaking up to prepare for the match on the go home nitro thunder.
00:18:58
Speaker
Giant of the Bull would fight Terry Funk, who they build as his mentor. I looked him up, maybe they worked at a different camp together, maybe they're talking about the power plant, but he's not listed as one of the traders for Giant of the Bull, so I don't know where they got that from. Maybe it's just, hey, you're all the rest, so you must have traded this guy.
00:19:16
Speaker
Or maybe just like, I mean, mentor and trainer are two different things. So it could have been like he was breaking into the business and Funk took him aside and was like, Hey, here's what you do. And number one, don't name yourself Johnny the bull. Yeah, too late for that. And he didn't really listen, but he was still grateful. So yeah, they have a big hardcore match to set up this one time was going to prove himself that he can, he's ready to challenge during the match. He would set Terry Funk on the floor and put a chair over his face. He would then do a.
00:19:44
Speaker
springboard diving leg drop onto the chair on top of Terry Funk's head from the impact. He tore. Well, a muscle. You don't want to tear. Oh, this is that one. Is it? Yeah. He technically wins the hardcore match, but then he's helped out by trainers afterwards because obviously he's very injured from that. Yes. He tries to work with the match, but you know, he only knew so much. So Terry Funk is left in the ring. The winner is actually dragged out by trainers who needs help. So it's a little weird visual.
00:20:13
Speaker
So now that matches out. So this means that we need a new challenger or challengers. Vito comes out to his rip-off Godfather music as we get footage of Vito beating up Terry Funk on Thunder with a hardcore title and a stickball bat. Apparently that was enough to take out Terry Funk.
00:20:35
Speaker
Terry Funk. Yeah. Sure. Sure. Yeah, he knows sort of a horse kicking him once, so I can't imagine a stick ball does much to him. Vito gets a microphone and says that he won't be facing Terry Funk or Johnny the Bull, but Kat told him there's a mystery opponent, so send them guys out. Vito using the plural guys, there has to be a slip, since he seems like he's supposed to be unaware of who he's fighting.
00:21:02
Speaker
Yeah, once he's fighting someone that has a social dating disorder, he's trying to be understanding, you know. Or one of those two-headed ogres from tabletop role-playing games or something. Oh, yeah, yeah. Are they Ettins? Is that what those... I think that's... Yeah, that's them, yeah. Generic rock music hits that I find indistinguishable from the rest of the generic rock themes in this era, but somehow the commentators know that it's Norman Smiley's.
00:21:26
Speaker
Indeed, Smiley shows up alongside Ralfus. Vito tells them if they want a shot, he'll take them both on as a handicap match. Vito breaks his stickball bat over Ralfus and chases Smiley backstage where they throw each other into various crates and boxes, and Norman and Ralfus land hits on Vito with a garbage can and its lid until Ralfus pauses for about two-thirds of eternity so Vito can, shockingly, punch the lid into it.
00:21:54
Speaker
Tony builds up the danger of the match, and sadly he's quite right that this is dangerous. They even fight atop unsecured rolling cases so someone could easily have had a very bad fall. Yeah. Vito beats up a catering guy arriving in an elevator, and throws Smiley in, then presses the button on the outside, which in my experience does absolutely nothing once the elevator has arrived, but in this case apparently closes the door. Vito pursues Ralphis back to ringside, beats him up, and sets up a table. A leg literally immediately breaks.
00:22:24
Speaker
Yeah. He props Ralfus on the table's remains and hits a top rope splash onto Ralfus through the table for the three count and the win as Smiley strolls down the ramp in no particular hurry to make any kind of save. Smiley, there's this this new technique I've heard about that might have made a difference there. It's called running. It's funny because he's the guy famous for running away from people. I guess the running towards was just too much to ask. Yeah. It's like a magnetic propulsion. Mm hmm. There you go.
00:22:52
Speaker
Vito challenges Smiley as Tony calls Ralphis a cartoon character and says, he's funny to look at, but he shouldn't be in there fighting. Smiley backs off and leaves Vito to celebrate with his belt. Thoughts on this one? Bad. Very, very bad. Yeah.
00:23:09
Speaker
There's two parts of this match. The first part is mostly Norman Smiley and Vito fighting in the backstage area. It's all the same nonsense you've gotten at this point for the last like two years of hardcore matches. Starting in like 1999, this started being a thing. So few people could just manage to work in, hey, I've got weapons and I do neural moves. I wonder if I could combine these together somehow.
00:23:35
Speaker
other than just the normal all Purdue on table, then jump on the table. Hardcore matches seem to make good wrestlers and also Brian knobs. Forget how to wrestle, apparently. Yeah. They go to just doing like, we're going to punch you or throw you into things or hit you with weapons. I mean, don't do their actual wrestling moves. I know we've said this before, but it's especially painful watching Norman smiley in these because we saw him in earlier shows in like 98 and then he was in like the tag thing on 1990, I think.
00:24:04
Speaker
I believe so, yes, yes. And in those, he showed himself as a really gifted technical wrestler. Yeah, that's why he's still a trainer in WWE to this day. I would have loved seeing him against like a Dean Malenko or something like that. That's what his style kind of was. And then you see him in 2000 and it's just like, what happened? Yeah.
00:24:26
Speaker
That first part of the match doesn't do anything for me, but obviously there was some market for this generic walk around here with weapons sort of fighting. So maybe that works for you, but then Smiley has taken out the match and the main part is just big veto beating up. It looks like a middle-aged fat guy who doesn't fight and just sort of walks around and you knock him over.
00:24:48
Speaker
I don't understand what's supposed to be so appealing about this. I'm supposed to be, I think it's hilarious that this guy is beat up because he has a, an Audi belly button. Is that why it's funny? Yeah. But yeah, as a heel thing, it works in very limited doses. It's like, you know, when a heel will attack an announcer or someone backstage, you know, attack JJ Dillon or something, they're supposed to get a response like, wow, they're, they're going against the norm. But here it's like, yeah, he's being a brothel. That's hilarious.
00:25:15
Speaker
It's not really. I kind of feel bad for Ralfus by the end. I don't even really like Ralfus that much. It gets the opposite response from me that they were going for. It's really a shame that we couldn't just get a match between Big Vito, who I'm not a huge fan of, but I've seen him work non-orchered matches and he's not bad. I remember seeing him in some other stuff and thinking, okay, he has some potential at least.
00:25:41
Speaker
This is around the time I was actually watching wrestling and very, very briefly watching WCW before I realized what the show was and what the company was at this point. So watching them just have a match, maybe just make it a no DQ match where they occasionally use weapons would have been good, but this, this match is not good.
00:26:00
Speaker
Yeah, this was typical WCW 2000 hardcore match crap. I do appreciate that they gave this a little bit of strategy in the end with Vito putting Smiley in the elevator so he could go fight Ralphis one-on-one, but that's all this really has. Yeah. Something had to be massively mistimed in that ending. I'm guessing that someone told Smiley to start down the ramp way too early, because he should have just been sprinting out from backstage at the time that the bin started.
00:26:25
Speaker
Or you could have worked over comedy, like if he ran the whole way and then Vito turned and looked at him with the stick bat or something and he, yeah, exactly, he panics and falls down or something. But it doesn't, he just kind of walks slowly like, well, I'm supposed to walk out and stop this webinar. Yeah, yeah, it had to have just been like him being told to go out too early and knowing I'm not actually supposed to stop it, so I have to kind of pause on the ramp here.
00:26:50
Speaker
Yeah, there's a part later in the show that feels like someone is late. So maybe that's some compensating for being early this time. It makes sense if you've been true. So. Well, yeah, my big question is who does this help?
00:27:03
Speaker
Ralfus and Smiley don't seem like serious threats, so Vito doesn't seem any stronger for having beaten them. Smiley, making his big return, just gets easily shut in an elevator and then backs down and leaves his supposed buddy in the ring with the guy who just beat him up. I guess it makes Vito look cruel beating up Ralfus, but at the same time, Ralfus was a competitor in the match. And it's not like he goes super duper ultra far for a hardcore match and beating him up.
00:27:29
Speaker
He does a few moves and puts him through a table, but that's par for the course with one of these matches. Yeah. They need to stop having these hardcore matches just to have a hardcore match and actually figure out what they're trying to do with them. Yeah. Big Vito would lose his hardcore title to Lance Storm on the July 24th Nitro. Oh, Canada, again. Yeah, because we're heading up to New Blood Rising, aren't we?
00:27:56
Speaker
Johnny the Bull would thankfully return two months later. He'd also become WWE hardcore champion. So that's something. Mind you, his guitar range combined to about two hours. So not the greatest record, but you know, more than I've got. Well, good for him. I'm glad that he was able to come back from his unfortunate injury here. Cause yeah, absolutely. You never, you never liked to hear, uh, hear someone's career being threatened. Some of the spots they did in these badges were far, far too much. Absolutely.
00:28:28
Speaker
We cut to a shot of Goldberg arriving backstage. Scott Hall's contract is tucked into one pocket of his pants.
Promos and Storylines: Goldberg vs. Nash
00:28:35
Speaker
And we cut right from that to Mean Gene Okerlund, who is with Kevin Nash. Kevin Nash, tonight, the career of your longtime partner Scott Hall. His fate is in your hands. Defeat Goldberg, and he stays in WCW. Lose, however, we may never see Scott Hall again.
00:28:54
Speaker
You know, Gene, it's no secret I've been myself lately. I've been my wise ******* self, I should say. And the reason being is a ball-headed **** named Goldberg that's been holding my best friend's contract over my head. And last week when they aired the footage of Scott and I together, I just remembered how much fun we had. And there's no way I'm gonna let that end.
00:29:19
Speaker
Goldberg knows I've handed it to him once before. I'm his only real defeat and he knows I can do it again. And just for old time's sake sir Goldberg my jackhammer you're in the middle of the ring. I just might take a little survey. Everybody knows Bill how those things seem to walk. See you Billy. All right Kevin Ashen Goldberg later tonight here at the bash at the beach.
00:29:44
Speaker
If I thought about it, I really should have gotten a bleep count tonight because getting these audio files, I had to do a lot of it. I imagine so. I think a couple of the ones in this one, though, actually were on the show itself, which was unusual.
00:30:01
Speaker
appropriately subdued Nash promo here, as he does a good job of selling how this situation and the pressure of having his friends contract dependent on his winning the match is kind of getting to him. He does strike a few odd notes, though. First, though, he's clearly the face here, he claims he's Goldberg's only real defeat. Just as a reminder, that came as a result of blatant cheating with a taser. So it's weird to call that out. And second, he says he'll jackhammer Goldberg in the center of the ring.
00:30:31
Speaker
Yeah. That is Goldberg's finisher. Nash's is the Jackknife. Now it could be a declaration that that's what he's going to try, but it felt like he just mixed up the similar names. I don't remember him saying Jackhammer originally watched it, but it's possible. I just sort of, my brain went Jackknife, you know, it fills it in. When he replied it, I was like, wait, do you say Jackhammer? Yeah, I didn't notice it at first when we watched it either. And I'm like, wait a second. Yeah. That's not the right move name. Yeah.
00:30:58
Speaker
I thought it was a pretty good promo regardless. I just, I do hope that Nash and Hall were okay with this angle. It feels pretty mocking of Hall to do this when he's actually gone from WCW at this point. And it kind of feels like Nash making the best of it to call back to better times with Hall. Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm not sure in that one. I could see your point. It's a little weird that they're fighting for this thing. That's not really even a thing.
00:31:26
Speaker
Yeah, I can't imagine you could contractually you could get Kevin Nash into a match and story he wouldn't like. But I guess also see him doing sort of begrudgingly doing something but not being happy about it. There was more than just on screen friendship. They were legitimately friends. So it had to be interesting doing this angle.
00:31:47
Speaker
I can see it being a sort of bittersweet thing, though, because because he's actually gone, they can go, hey, you know, we'll play this angle up and, you know, let's just use to play your clips of us together again. Yeah. So it kind of works. But yeah, I can definitely see it being awkward throughout the buildup here. Yeah. And in defense of it, they have a video package later in the night that they use to show some clips of National Hall's time in the company together. That seems actually pretty heartfelt done.
00:32:15
Speaker
I just I find this hard angle to kind of like figure out what the intent was, I guess, because of that. Gene throws to a video package covering the upcoming wedding gown match between Daphne and Miss Hancock.
00:32:32
Speaker
The video declares that Daphne was once a wild-eyed, energetic damsel, now caught up in a tangled web of deceit and betrayal, as David Flair is one-two-timing lowlife and a long-legged, blue-eyed floozy has intervened in the wedding plans. Notably, deceit is spelled with a P like receipt. Yeah, yeah. And floozy is spelled like, well, like no one would ever think it would ever be spelled.
00:33:00
Speaker
F-L-U-S-Y. The soundtrack, meanwhile, is so dignified as to seem sarcastic. Yeah, right? It's a nice piece with a lot of brass, like you might use for a procession of honorees. It might have even been used for one of those Hall of Fame shows. Yeah, we were speculating on that when we watched it. As that one that goes, uh, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun.
00:33:43
Speaker
And you're like, what? What is this doing here? Yeah. You wonder if they meant to switch that for a different video tonight. I could see them sort of going for just cordoned sort of theme at that same time, though.
00:33:57
Speaker
Yeah, the package ends with a parody wedding invitation, noting that we are cordially invited to attend the wedding gown match. Can I just send a nice blender or something? Oh, secondhand blender. Yeah. Our third match is Daphne versus Miss Hancock with David Flair in a wedding gown match. The referee for this one is Mark Johnson. You lose a wedding gown match if your gown is removed.
00:34:25
Speaker
I still want to see a reverse wedding gun match where you have to put it on while putting one on. Yeah. It's a version of my reverse tuxedo match. Yes, exactly. Two series back. That's a callback. Two ladies fighting over David Flair who said that wrestling was logical.
00:34:42
Speaker
So yeah, this whole situation is that basically David Flair was supposedly going to be engaged to Daphne. Her friend, Cobar, gets involved in all this. Cobar and Flair are friends and they're actually a tag team. That falls apart when he starts cheating on her with his Hancock. She would do anything she can to ruin Daphne's life in storyline, but actually lead to a point where she would cost Daphne the Cruiserweight title. Why? So there's a brief period of time where
00:35:10
Speaker
Crowbar and Daphne are co- Cruiserweight champions. What is with the co-champions? Well, Bob, the WWF did that for like two weeks with Chris Jericho in China, so let's do it twice. So that, that was a match I was referring to where there's three people in the match and there's 50 people at ringside. Uh, yeah. So there's a brief period where Daphne is a Cruiserweight champion. By the way, it works out the same way. They're co-champions and the she wins a match to become the sole champion, just like with Tugbedo.
00:35:40
Speaker
So yeah, now they're fighting a wedding gun, Matt, because weddings were sort of tangentially evolved to the storyline. Hi. Miss Hancock enters first in a, shall we say, very short wedding dress alongside a tuxedo-clad David Flair. There is a wedding cake at ringside. David leaves his jacket and some hair clippers with the commentators, then goes in and kisses Miss Hancock.
00:36:07
Speaker
Daphne comes down in a very goth dress over a flesh-colored bodysuit and punches David in the crotch.
00:36:14
Speaker
Daphne and Hancock do some basic wrestling, the highlight of which is Hancock's handspring elbow. Decent handspring bad elbow. Yeah. They try to shove each other into the cake, but Johnson and David repeatedly separate them. Hancock punts Johnson in the crotch and pantses him, revealing that Johnson wears his underwear over his referee shirt. Uh-huh. Which is probably the single most confusing thing I have ever seen on a wrestling show.
00:36:41
Speaker
Give it time, Bob. Give it time. I don't get what's going on there.
00:36:46
Speaker
Yeah, it's a very strange thing. I don't get that either, because it's the top of his shirt, then his white briefs. And then, yeah, the bottom part of his shirt sticks out through where the leg holes are. It's tucked in quite well. Yeah. Yeah. Not a very functional thing to do. No. Yeah. Obviously, it's not like that for comedy, but like, I don't know who thinks of that as, oh, his latest comedy spot. We're going to pants the ref and he's got his underwear tucked in like that.
00:37:10
Speaker
How is that fun? Why is that funnier than you just pantsing the ref in the first place? They were like, oh no, this won't be funny because your shirt is too long and you won't actually see the undies. Exactly. Yeah, so you figured it out. Oh my gosh. Wow. David laughs at him. Daphne pants as him too. He wears his underwear like a normal person and slugs him in the crotch and throws Hancock into his crotch.
Wedding Gown Match Antics
00:37:36
Speaker
David gets the hair clippers and holds Daphne for Hancock, but Crowbar makes the save and beats up David. Noticing that all the guys are pantsless, he whips off his jeans too to fight in his boxers. Okay, that that was kind of funny there. Yeah, that's like the best part of the match for me is just it's sort of been used expression. He's like, Oh, what are we doing? Oh, yeah, sure. I'll go for it. Absolutely. Yeah.
00:37:59
Speaker
Crowbar and Daphne go to shave David, but Hancock interrupts to do a dance for no reason and takes off her skirt. So, Johnson awards Daphne the win. Actually, you're just selling it. Not only she'd do that, she stops and grabs the mic. She says, I know what your people are here to see, and then calls for the music. But just like, that's her means of saving David from being shaved, is grab a microphone and do a sexy dance. Yeah.
00:38:25
Speaker
And that's actually, that actually doesn't care about David, which I'm all fit in favor of. He was like, well, I'm done with this. I was going to do this anyway. Pretty much. Daphne taps her on the shoulder several times. Hancock finally turns and Daphne pushes some cake into her face. Everybody brawls with cake, which is one of those things that you will only hear said on about a wrestling show. Yeah.
00:38:47
Speaker
until David extracts Hancock from the situation and they retreat. Daphne is for some reason very annoyed with Crowbar as they leave. I'm not sure why as everything he did helped her. True, yeah. Thoughts on this one?
00:39:00
Speaker
So this isn't good, obviously. It's barely even a match. I mean, there's let's just say generously about a minute of action between these two. And to be fair, Ms. Hancock is very early in her training and she never would be that much of a wrestler. So it's not a surprise. Daphne is a little more experienced. I will say I didn't mention during the match recap, but they do a pretty passable snapmare sequence at one point in it. Yeah. So there is at least that. Like you can tell they've had some training.
00:39:30
Speaker
Believe it or not, there, as far as just the wrestling goes, there were worse women's matches from this time period. Oh, I believe it. That said, there's so little action, but then it's all this nonsense and it's weirdly choreographed. Like they really draw out the referee and David separating the two of them thing. One was a little early. She like steps on his toe and he doesn't sell it, but then second time he sells it. It's like so many little things they just can't get right. Like when Kerber and David are fighting near the cake.
00:40:00
Speaker
The obvious thing is grab the guy and push his head into the cake. It's not a cake top or everything. But somehow they like knock the cake over before he takes even gets there. Yeah. And they just start throwing it. You can't even put someone's face into a cake or pie. I don't want to tell you that that's a very low bar. Yeah, yeah. People doing three students routines can do that. It's amazing the things that they can mess up on a show.
00:40:27
Speaker
Bottom line for me is, if this was just a weird Nitro segment, that fundraiser ran to pop the ratings, it'd be bad, but I could skip it. I'd never watch this again. It's a thing they did, whatever. This is not a pay-per-view, though. People paid money for this show, and you gave them this. The only saving grace, as mentioned, is Crowbar, who is just sort of in for the full absurdity of this thing. And yeah, that's real, I couldn't say.
00:40:55
Speaker
100% agreed. The only good thing about this was Crowbar taking his pants off because he actually had some comedic timing. Otherwise, this had poor action, a dumb plot and a generally horrible concept that was unfortunately very common in this era. Fortunately, I was distracted for most of it by wondering just why the heck Johnson wears his underwear over his shirt. Yeah, at least this was short. Agreed.
00:41:20
Speaker
The feud would then pivot to Miss Hancock vs. Major Guns, and we know how that ends, from covering New Blood Rising, so the less said the better. Kat is walking backstage, thinking who he could get to fight Jarett, name-dropping Ox Baker of all people, when Young Dragon's theme count, too. Kat again hears the music, and the Young Dragons are seen hiding in props or behind a broom, but nothing comes of it.
00:41:47
Speaker
We cut to the commentary team and they discuss the fact that Hogan is still missing. Hudson notes that Hogan lives in Tampa, so, quote, he could walk here if he had a mind to. For the record, that would mean walking almost 153 miles. Not exactly a morning stroll. Yeah.
00:42:06
Speaker
All our relatives live up north and they come to visit us sometimes. So the one time they came to visit us and they end up in like Fort Myers, about four hours away from us, depending on traffic. And they're like, oh, we're right by you. And they asked where they were. And they're like, uh, no, like, but it's so close on the map. Like, well, yeah, no, it's not. And this is a very big state. So yeah. Yeah. Remember Florida, Florida is narrow, but Florida is long. Yes.
00:42:34
Speaker
We get shots of the WSW crew basically failing to clean up the falling cake. Oh my God. As we clearly need more time, Tony turns the conversation to Scott Hall and Kevin Nash and the formation of the NWO, which happened in this very building at Bash of the Beach 1996. Tony quit reminding me of better shows. Yeah, right. Tony says this is personal for Nash.
00:42:59
Speaker
Madden says 1994 was the start of the climb up the mountain for Hogan, but this might be the end. Finally, Tony says the cake has been cleaned up, so it's time for our next match. So our fourth match is The Perfect Event, that's perfection Sean Stasiak, and The Main Event Chuck Belumbo versus Chronic, Brian Adams and Brian Clark. The referee for this one is Jamie Tucker.
00:43:27
Speaker
The quote unquote stoner team of chronic would earn a title shot on pay per view earlier in the year. Meanwhile, the heels being heels in wrestling would duck the challenge and find ways to avoid it. On the go home thunder, Brian Adams is there, but Brian Clark is not for some reason. They don't explain why.
00:43:45
Speaker
So they set up a bit earlier where one of the ring crew, apparently they, I guess the preg event had bullied in a previous show. He locks them in tanning bed, which apparently the arena that has tanning beds inside of it, which is not things that we need to have. It seems to be a real thing. So then they come out and of course they're comedically sunburned. It leads to a match, a non-tied match, of course, between Brian Adams and that guy in the ring crew.
00:44:14
Speaker
Where the recurring story is that anytime you hit them on the back, they would feel a lot of pain because they're sunburned. Okay. Yeah. On the go-home show, Brian Adams and that ring crew guy would beat the tag champions. Why not, WCW? Why not? Wow. That's a thing.
00:44:37
Speaker
They do reference that guy, by the way, in commentary. They ask where so-and-so is, I believe in his name now. I just let that go by. I was figuring it was just Tony wishing someone a happy birthday again or something like that. Yeah. Stasiak and Palumbo enter to a knockoff of Kurt Hennig's theme, itself a version of the theme from the 1960 film Exodus. Hudson calls them accidental champions.
00:45:01
Speaker
Chronic enter next in green lighting with a laser light show, which admittedly is a cool entrance. Oddly, their name is spelled K-R-O-N-I-C, instead of what I think is the more usual K-R-O-N-I-K. Hudson claims this is a three-on-two match because the perfect event had the Lex Flexer with them, i.e. a workout device, not a person. By that same nonsensical token, it's actually seven versus six because both teams also wear two pairs of boots.
00:45:30
Speaker
Yeah, that that tracks. Tony accidentally calls Palumbo, Palumbi, which sounds like a children's TV mascot. Yeah, I could see Palumbi playing like 6 a.m. on on Disney Channel. Yeah. Yeah. Right before Caillou. Adams easily disposes of Palumbo. Palumbo ends up with cake on his butt, so it wasn't cleaned up that well. Nope.
00:45:57
Speaker
Stasiak doesn't do much better against Clark. Adam's back in, earning two with a full Nelson slam on Palumbo, but Stasiak switches in without a tag, and Palumbo pulls down the ropes on the whip so Adam spills outside. You can clearly see Adam's checking to be sure Palumbo is actually ready as they go to that spot. And he also gets hung up on the ropes and visibly has to work his way over.
00:46:21
Speaker
Stasiak and Palumbo switch off wearing Clark down, earning two counts off of chair shots, a Palumbo top rope flying shoulder block, and a Stasiak jumping back elbow. Palumbo has one of these slower transitions to a sleeper hold that I've ever seen, but Stasiak is a little smoother. Adams keeps the arm up on the third try when the ref checks. Adams tags Clark.
00:46:43
Speaker
Clark runs wild on Stasiak and Palumbo despite tripping during a clothesline, and throws Palumbo to the mat for one, as Stasiak was still there and trying a pin was kind of boneheaded. Palumbo counters the meltdown with a DDT but sells it more than Clark. Yeah, that's true.
00:47:02
Speaker
Stasiak just kind of shoves Clark over then clothes lines and drop cakes both Clark and Adams to send them rolling out Tony notes chronic may have mistakenly thought these two would be excuse the pun a cakewalk He has to get his fun somewhere folks. Yeah, right
00:47:19
Speaker
Palumbo and Stasiak trade off against Clark, earning two counts with a Stasiak diving clothesline and punches, and a double flapjack, but Adams saves, beats up Palumbo and Stasiak, and hits a sloppy Fireman's Carry spinning drop. It's kind of a Proto F5, but not as smooth.
00:47:36
Speaker
Yeah, it's not a fun landing looks like either. Yeah, it seems like he didn't like get enough lift to give him a chance to get himself in the right position for the fall. Mm hmm. It doesn't make a real bad bump as far as I can tell, but no, he's kind of like Ted turned down like he's taking a short DT when he falls. Yeah, it looks very unpleasant. I guess he's OK, so I'm glad, but that didn't look like a fun landing.
00:48:02
Speaker
Chronic hit high times on Stasiak for one, and there's a weird echoey microphone sound for a while. Yeah. Palumbo saves, so they hit high times on him too. Stasiak charges with the Lex Flexor, but Adams disarms him, and Chronic hit a double team powerbomb and top rope clothesline, and Adams pins Stasiak for the three count and the win. Adams and Clark celebrate with the belts as some smoke starts up behind them, which is just kind of in one ring corner.
00:48:29
Speaker
Yeah, I hope that was on purpose and not whatever made the noise during the match lighting on fire. Madden comforts the perfect event as they slump on the commentary table, telling them they'll be back.
00:48:43
Speaker
Thoughts on this one? So it's not great. Thankfully, it's not quite the train wreck I thought it was going to be. I could make clear I'm not a big fan of chronic, the teen that is. I don't know about the drug personally either, but they're very stiff both in the way they do the move, but also it's like how they move around. They don't have a very fluid motion. And in their case, they've been wrestling for quite a while. But I figured out my confusion between Brian and his Brian Clark. Problem is that Brian Clark played Adam Baum.
00:49:11
Speaker
I get you. Yeah. Yeah. And he came with Brian Adams. Yeah. Your brain just goes, Oh, Vince McMahon hired a guy named Brian Adams and made him Adam bomb. Cause it's even spelled ADAM. Like his name is fun. But no, he hired Brian Clark and made him Adam bomb. Yes. Just somehow to confuse me. It's just like his long-term plan.
00:49:31
Speaker
On the flip side, the first event are very early in their ring career. I don't know if this is the grouping you would put on in a singles tag match, just because of the flag experience for one and the, let's be honest, the lack of ability to sort of lead a team through a match on the other.
00:49:47
Speaker
That said, they don't really botch too much of them, that one landing and look great and certain things just being off. I think it's just, they'd seem cloudy out of sync. Like when, for example, when they had to move on one of the heels and then when it stands there while the pin is counted and just does nothing while the partner runs and hits and breaks the pin. Yeah. It's like, you could have done something, buddy. He ran by you.
00:50:11
Speaker
There's a point, too, where they're doing like a counter sequence. I think it's Clark in there against both of the event guys. I think he kicks Palumbo and punches Stasiak. And then Palumbo is supposed to do something to him. But Palumbo is selling for too long. Yeah. So everyone just kind of like stands there for a second just long enough that you're like, oh, something went wrong. And then it moves on.
00:50:35
Speaker
Yeah, it feels like we're not quite on the same page across the board here. Yeah, I will say at least it's a match where the crowd's into it. That helps bad to uneven matches feel a little better at least because the crowd's responding. The worst thing when you're watching a bad match and just silence because all you can do is think about what's happening. So they got the crowd into it to get me into it. Yeah, I would call this mostly OK.
00:51:02
Speaker
You can definitely tell that Palumbo and Stasiak are still relatively new performers. There's just some awkwardness in timing or execution in a lot of spots, and wrestlers more visibly check people are ready or wait for spots. Otherwise, this was a pretty standard tag contest, just with some kind of strange plotting if it was meant to help Stasiak and Palumbo at all.
00:51:21
Speaker
Chronic visibly shrug off most of what they do, and while the commentary team does a decent job of highlighting that Chronic aren't putting the two away as fast as they clearly expected, it's also pretty clear that they are going to put them away. Which makes the perfect event kind of look like the accidental champs they're called coming out, despite putting in a decent showing. Yeah, it's definitely not a full-on squash match, but the faces never really seem too much in parallel. Yeah.
00:51:47
Speaker
The ending's probably the biggest problem with Chronic just hitting three finishers on the perfect event with barely any trouble at all. Yeah. It doesn't feel like it took three finishers to beat the perfect event. It just feels like they lucked out the first two times and still got caught again. It speaks to the men involved as well. They hit the finish and they go, oh, we didn't win. What should we do? Let's hit it again. Yeah. Below average, but on this show, I'll take what I can get. That's fair, yeah.
00:52:14
Speaker
The big duo Chronic would defend their tag titles at next month's New Blood Rising on a four-way tag team match. Thank we for all involved, Landstorm did not have a tag partner at this point. We cut backstage to see Cat on the phone. Young Dragon's theme count, three. Cat again hears it, but Jarett comes in to hassle Cat about Hogan again and threatens to screw with the show. Cat furiously dials the phone as Madden insults the opera singer's weight.
00:52:44
Speaker
Young Dragon's theme count, four. Cat hears it again, and the Young Dragons beat him up with a kendo stick and some nunchucks. Our fifth match is Positively Canyon versus Booker T. Referee for this one is Billy Silverman.
00:53:03
Speaker
Canyon betrayed DDP after a very, eh, not great angle and got him out of the company. As let he become a DDP impersonator, DDP was of course selling his own book called Positively Page. So he makes, he's Positively Canyon. He's got his book as his foreign object and he's giving him his wig and everything. He just kind of backstage menace. They'd have him like randomly attack ring of people, giving him the Canyon Cutter.
00:53:31
Speaker
Meanwhile Booker T is trying to get away from the terrible gimmick he was saddled with by Vince Russo, that being G.I. Bro. He knows that Kane is being built backstage, he's in Venice, so he's going to take him out. Now correct me if I'm wrong, I think G.I. Bro actually is a reference to a gimmick that Booker T had well before his WSW career, isn't it?
00:53:53
Speaker
Correct. Yeah, that's why Rhys was like, hey, bro, you should do that, bro. Well, of course you can see why Vicious liked it, his name is G.I. Bro. Canyon, wearing a blonde wig, comes out to DDP's theme and does DDP's entrance, carrying a very thick book parodying DDP's positively page book. Booker, out next, has magnificent pyro that goes very well with his music.
00:54:19
Speaker
He gets quite a loud Booker T. chant from the crowd. It's good to see that. Booker outwrestles Canyon and lands a spin kick, and Canyon loses his wig and retreats. Back in, Canyon lands strikes, but Booker hits a drop kick and an emphatic clothesline, and rips Canyon's DDP shirt off of him. The crowd absolutely loves Booker.
00:54:43
Speaker
Booker inspects Canyon's book and finds a brick inside. Silverman, looking deeply disappointed in Canyon, disposes of the brick. It's the best how-could-you-possibly-have-done-this-Canyon expression that he gives. I trusted you. Booker hits a monster diving clothesline for two, but Canyon dumps him through the ropes and runs him to the barricade and steps, then props the steps on Booker's arm and hits the steps with a chair, which seems like it would do far less damage than just hitting Booker's arm with a chair. Yeah.
00:55:13
Speaker
Chris Canyon had a really interesting mind for wrestling, as far as coming with moves and like ways to do moves and like, what is it? We used to take moves. You know, he makes seven years to say 700 different variations of how you can do a spot. You're going to have a couple of that in your head and make a lot of sense, but execution just don't. Yeah. A lot of averages. So. And a better idea. Canyon lays Booker by a ring post and baseball slides into him, then hits a really cool second rope suplex into the ring for two.
00:55:41
Speaker
Back in, Canyon wedges a chair between the ropes, but Booker power slams him for two. Canyon, Alabama, slammed for two. Reverse Boston Crab, but Booker makes the ropes. Booker roll up for two, reverse for two. Booker sends Canyon into his own chair, and Spine Buster sim for two. Booker grabs the chair, but Silverman takes it away. While Silverman is disposing of the chair, Canyon hits Booker with the book, earning two. I kind of feel like Booker should have just no-sold that and done a shock roll-up since there's no brick.
00:56:12
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Spinaroonie, Harlem sidekick, axe kick, bookend for two. Booker goes up top, but Canyon grabs Silverman and holds him in the way, stalling Booker just long enough for Jeff Jarrett to sprint down and hit Booker with his guitar. Canyon puts Booker up top, and it's a super Canyon cutter for the three count and the win. Tony and Hudson bemoan Jarrett's interference. Tony theorizes that this was Jarrett fulfilling his promise to screw with the catch show.
00:56:42
Speaker
Thoughts on this one? Thankfully, this is a nice match that mostly plays it straight. On a show like this, you've really got to take everything you can. I really enjoyed this match. It's two people that are both really creative. Poker and Can at this point really want to show up. They want to have a big match and get attention. They want to prove that they can earn their spot. It's a great mindset to have for wrestling show, as long as you don't do something really stupid or take necessary risks because of it.
00:57:11
Speaker
I like that they tell a decent story throughout as well. They find a body part attack in this case is mostly the lower back with Booker. And they, you know, they do whole checkups gun thing where they have, they set up the brick thing earlier and then when he uses it, doesn't work as well. Cause the bricks gone. It's clearly a nice well laid out match, which makes you wonder if maybe that's something else kind of took from DDP. He borrowed like binders and
00:57:39
Speaker
Incidentally, I believe that earlier segment with the young dragons is supposed to explain why the cat doesn't do anything in relation to Jeff Jett running out and attacking the Mattuckies. He's supposed to be selling the attack during all this. Oh, okay. They could try to spin that commentary later. The match itself was really good, but I don't get why they had Kane kick out the bookend. That was weird. Yeah.
00:58:02
Speaker
I mean, I think the idea is Booker's going for them. It's going to be the Harlem moving over, which used to be his finisher before the bookend. You're trying to suggest, oh, he's going to pull that out and that'll do it when the bookend didn't. But it is weird given later events tonight that the bookend doesn't work. Well, in the bookend becomes his go to finisher for the rest of his WWE career as well. And even into WWE and WWF. Yeah. One of those a timing issue with Jeff Jarrett coming out.
00:58:29
Speaker
I mean, I don't know for sure. Obviously, the plan is him run out, hit the guitar and then allow us to finish to happen. But I wonder if maybe he's a little behind. So they deserve. Oh, he's not here. Let's all put a book and oh, now he's here or something like that. I don't know. Or like he is supposed to interrupt the book and not interrupt a top rope move or something. I could see that possibly being the case. I will say also WSW as a company is a little less a specific finisher always does it than WWF was in my experience. So so much. Yeah.
00:58:59
Speaker
So I could see them just saying Booker has two different finishers, the Harlem hangover and the bookend. And depending on the guy, one will work better than the other. I think the way that kind of thing works is when you're transitioning out of a move. Later tonight, we'll actually see that. Yeah. But this is done backwards because they kind of ruin to a certain extent the bookend before later on, spoiler alert, it has to be important.
Booker T vs. Canyon: Match Quality
00:59:25
Speaker
So.
00:59:26
Speaker
By the way, that's my only real gripe with it. Honestly, even the Jeff Deere interference works better than other times because the way they do it, as silly as the breaking guitar, everyone said thing is, he breaks it over in a way that all debris falls in the outside. True. Whereas a lot of times he just breaks in all the ring and then leaves and the ref goes, Oh, a lot of guitar charts. Oh, well, one, two, three. Let me count these and hope that I don't get a splinter. Yeah. So in this one instance, they actually did that, even that part, right? So credit to them for that.
00:59:57
Speaker
Yeah, when we were watching this together, I remember remarking that I could tell this was a good match, but I just wasn't feeling it because my energy had been drained by the show thus far. Understandable, yeah. On my rewatch for notes, I made sure to do this on its own night. And yeah, my impression was correct. This is really good. Booker brings an amazing intensity and energy, and Canyon is a great foil for him with his insincere imitation of Paige and his sneaky tricks. And the match is put together quite well.
01:00:26
Speaker
Not everything lands perfectly. That chair and stairs spot is still befuddling, but I liked how creatively the two work together. And I really liked the points that felt like they'd learned from earlier confrontations, particularly Booker making sure to check the book for a brick. Just good, solid storytelling. And man, the crowd was ready to cheer Booker. The ending is a tad disappointing, but it's nicely timed, particularly Canyon pulling the ref in the way to delay Booker. Yeah.
01:00:53
Speaker
So it's a very good match that very much deserved that second look from me. Well, a little bit of storytelling I like as well is that the wig comes off and lady here rips the fake DP shirt off. So the rest of the match, if you're just watching it is a fairly straight Booker T Canyon match. True. So you're not too distracted by the gimmick. He's not other than him setting up for the cannon cutter. You completely sort of forget that part of it. Just enjoy matching the two of them, which is always nice.
01:01:24
Speaker
Canyon would pivot from this into a comedy feud where you look for his own Kimberly, as opposed to being managed by the Real Deal, who is actually around a WCW, which is a little weird. She would briefly be with Canyon as part of the whole thing where she portrays DDP, so it's weird they sound like he needs his own Kimberly when the real one exists. As we know from watching New Blood Rising, this would, for reasons unknown to anyone but Russo, give us the return of a former WCW tag team champion, Judy Bagwell. Oi, yes, the Judy Bagwell on a forklift match.
01:01:56
Speaker
Backstage, Mike Awesome is trying to get a date with Jared's opera singer. It's funny because she's overweight, you see. Yeah. Pamela Paulshock interrupts. Hey, Mr. Muscles. Mike? Mike? Yeah, I see it, but what I really want to know is...
01:02:37
Speaker
Nice that they finally got improperly mic towards the very end of the promo there. Yeah, right
01:02:44
Speaker
This was entirely unnecessary, existing more to have a laugh that someone might find a person who doesn't fit beauty stereotypes attractive rather than to actually build up the match. For anyone who needs to hear this, your weight has nothing to do with your attractiveness, okay? Yeah. Don't let anyone tell you differently. Believe in yourself and do not let people tear you down. Their opinions are just that. Opinions. Not facts.
01:03:10
Speaker
As for the promo, Awesom just basically says his match exists and leaves. That's a Russo-era promo for you. That's all I got time for. The fact that they took Mike Awesom, who, as a reminder, was ECW World Heavyweight Champion when they bought his contract out because I probably was not paying him. That's a whole other story.
01:03:32
Speaker
brought him in, and then had him lose all the time, or had him win matches that didn't really matter, and then lose big matches. Every pay-per-view match he's ever had, it seemed like he would lose in some way. And the idea for this guy is, oh, let's take it away for this whole career killer, Mike Awesome, where he'd power him up through tables, unless let's have him hit on, quote, unquote, fat women. It's hilarious. And then become the 70s guy as well. They give him that winner of a gimmick as well.
01:04:01
Speaker
I remember reading that he at least possibly believed that some of this stuff resulted from the tensions backstage between Russo and Hogan that become a factor later in this show. Yeah. Awesome. Is related in some way to Hogan. I forget exactly how. He's like a second cousin. He's related to Horace more directly, I believe.
01:04:20
Speaker
Yeah, you know, hopefully that wasn't the case. Hopefully it was just WSW being incredibly stupid, which is, you know, that's entirely possible because WSW didn't need malice to come up with a bad gimmick for somebody. But, you know, still. Yeah. And I was thinking about that when we're watching this show. He said again, he talked about that. He felt like he was being punished. If that's the case, it's interesting timing because they clearly already doing this gimmick with him.
01:04:47
Speaker
Now granted, they lean into a more later and obviously the seventies guy thing comes later. But you do have to figure, I mean, with what happens tonight, clearly stuff I've been building for a while. That's fair. Yeah, I could see it still being a result from that potentially. Yeah, I can see that. Our sixth match is Scott Steiner with Malaysia versus Mike Awesome for Steiner's WCW United States Heavyweight Championship. Referee for this one is Jamie Tucker.
01:05:17
Speaker
It's Stone Cold Scott Steiner's time. I wish I was kidding. In the wake of the new blood angle, where he was technically part of the group but also not part of the group, like they'd say kind of meaning he would say, I'm not with you, but then he would, you know, join them for group promos and beatdowns. He'd become a somewhat rebellious face working against the authority figure, the not-Venturic-Man in this case, in the form of the cat. It's very blatantly, they're trying to rehash the Stone Cold versus Meturic-Man thing.
01:05:46
Speaker
But with a much less, uh, a sort of white collar, baby face, you can healish kind of baby face. So cool. The awesome was, and Scott's diners. I get topping the ideas that are original and maybe visitors can claim. Well, they're my ideas in WWF first. So I can claim them, but it's so blatant transparent what they're doing here. It's just kind of sad.
01:06:12
Speaker
The storyline is that the cat thinks his spinature of these dino recliners are too dangerous, so he was actually suspended for about two weeks in kayfabe for using the move, which would lead to the go-home nitro where Mike Austin would challenge him to match, knowing full well he's not there, and then claim a counted victory. That's one of the two victories he's referring to in the promo where he says beat him twice.
01:06:33
Speaker
I love, by the way, that is the Steiner recliner. That is a band move. That's the focus of a storyline. This this like lean on you and clutch your chin move as opposed to, say, the Steiner screwdriver. Yeah. Which is upside down. Just drop you suddenly. Yes. Or is this is belly to belly throws. Yeah. Right. Yeah. There's so many moves that Scott Steiner does that look like they could kill you. Yeah.
01:06:57
Speaker
The Steiner recliner is the only move he does that I would not consider worthy of being banned. I know. Potentially in a storyline by a heel authority figure. Yeah, it's a weird decision all around for sure. Mideja brings the belt out and Steiner follows as Hudson notes he's returning from suspension. Steiner goes to get a kiss from a lady in the crowd and looks self satisfied.
01:07:23
Speaker
compared to all the special lighting and time dedicated to Steiner's entrance, Awesome just kind of walks out. It doesn't really make them look the same level. If you're doing theatrical entrances for some wrestlers, and I very much think you should, because it makes them seem larger than life, you should do theatrical entrances for all the wrestlers. Yeah. It's that quite bad as the so-called jobber entrance when they cut to you in the ring. It's just a step above that, but not a very big step.
01:07:49
Speaker
Yeah, it feels more like just a clash of eras type of type of thing that Steiner's entrance is the late 90s type of entrance that they're starting to become more theatrical and big and showy. Yeah. But Awesomes is still an early 90s or earlier entrance where it's just they are playing my theme music and I am walking out.
01:08:07
Speaker
Yeah, it's almost maybe even care of a sort of gimmick and theme and entrance in ECW where again, they're, they couldn't afford all that stuff. True. You'll just walk out to the ring and start fighting or just walk halfway to the ring and start fighting as well. Both of these guys are wearing black tights and boots with red text. Come on guys, vary it up. I know, right? It's weird.
01:08:31
Speaker
Steiner attacks Awesome as he reaches ringside, and they brawler on the ring and slowly through the crowd, then back to ringside. Steiner hits Awesome with the cushioned part of a chair, which seems less than productive. In the ring, Steiner gets two counts with a Steiner line into an elbow drop and a super belly-to-belly suplex, but Awesome blocks the suplex and drops him on the top rope, then kicks him outside to beat him up with chairs and the ring bell, as Tony notes that the rules have been relaxed. You think?
01:09:01
Speaker
Yeah, a little bit. Back in, awesome diving clothesline gets two, but Steiner counters a suplex with his own as the cat comes down to ringside. Steiner builds to the Steiner recliner, but Cat reminds him the move is banned. Steiner decks him, which apparently is not banned. No, no.
01:09:18
Speaker
Awesome hits Steiner in the crotch and gets two counts with an Alabama Slam and a Frog Splash and sets for an Awesome Bomb, but Steiner's shoves free and back elbows him, sending him in to Tucker, who was standing behind him for no good reason. Awesome holds Steiner for Cat to kick, but Steiner dodges and Cat nails Awesome. Steiner disposes of Cat and pins for two.
01:09:43
Speaker
Steiner belly-to-belly suplex is awesome, and goes for the Steiner recliner again, and Cat threatens to strip him of the title. Steiner puts the hold on anyway, so Cat disqualifies him and strips him of his title, ending the match. Tony suggests that Cat awarded the belt to Awesome, but Cat retreats up the ramp with the belt himself. Steiner knocks him down and delivers a nasty T-bone suplex to Awesome. Mmm, yeah.
01:10:09
Speaker
Hudson has an odd line. That heap of flesh you see in the ropes used to be Mike Awesome, that is Scott Steiner. So wait, did Mike Awesome become a heap of flesh that then shapeshifted into Scott Steiner? Because that's what it sounds like. That sounds like something Chad GPT would write. Yes. I mean, that's what Hudson's doing. Maybe he's not really AI, it's just Scott Hudson. Thoughts on this one?
01:10:38
Speaker
As a whole, I fairly enjoyed this match. What I liked about it, honestly, was that it felt different than normal Scott Steiner match. Because we covered a bunch of Scott Steiner matches with like Booker T and the like. And, you know, he has a style where he'll like to yell at fans and all these things and just really stall and stall and doo-boo and stall some more. What I liked about this match is that it's different because not all of it, but a good chunk of the match was Mike Awesome on offense and Scott Sergeant defense.
01:11:07
Speaker
which felt very fresh in me. Not all the offenses this way, great. Like they really rushed the three in the crowd and dive in the crowd so we can start doing the crowd brawling bit. I don't like that, obviously. That's the thing Mike Austin's been targeted for a lot is that he would find a way to do that in the first like minute of the match or find a way to tie the top rope, dive the outside in the first minute match and I get it. I'm not necessarily defending that, but it's just the thing he did.
01:11:31
Speaker
I get the idea of it that it's like, oh, let's get a really big, exciting spot early on to catch the crowd.
Mike Awesome's Wrestling Style and Booking Issues
01:11:37
Speaker
Yeah. But at the same time, where do you build from there? I think is the complaint on it. Admittedly, Mike Awesome has other really good hard hitting moves, so it can work for him where it might not work for someone else. But the fact that it happens so frequently is I think that the main concern I have with it. Yeah, I get that. I always wonder if it's
01:11:59
Speaker
a difference in what he's doing in WSW versus what he did in ECW. Somewhere in my closet somewhere, I still have that ECW VHS I have where it's like four or five matches from around this time period. Obviously, Mike Awesome. Before he left there, it's him and Messiah Tanaka, and they beat the hell of each other in that match.
01:12:18
Speaker
Both of them take, you know, power bombs through tables, like one over the top of the outside and all these things. So when he's doing his big guy dive in the match, but he's going to do seven or eight big crazy things, then to your point that that works. There's an escalation there still. Yeah, yeah. It's not like starting a match and doing like a shooting star press at the outside and then working in a straight match otherwise.
01:12:43
Speaker
But I really liked that they gave him a lot of offense against Steiner, which I was really worried it would be Steiner just beating him up for the whole time. And I'm glad that wasn't like that, thankfully. The problem is that this whole angle they're building up to, and the way it plays out, doesn't really make anyone look that great. Mike Awesome looks strong up until suddenly, oh, we're in the finishing sequence where the cat's here. So now you're gonna get knocked down and you got to merely put in the hold, or about to be put in the hold the first time.
01:13:11
Speaker
And then the second time, Scott Diner, I mean, based on the booking of the match, he could just beat Mike Awesome in a hundred different ways, the way they're acting. But he's like, man, I'm going to do this move, intentionally give myself disqualify and strip the title. And what does Mike Awesome got at this? Like nothing. Mike Awesome is the guy that looks strong at first, but then proved to be easily beaten by Scott Diner. And yeah, nobody wins here.
01:13:34
Speaker
It is kind of funny that the cat yells at the ref to strip Scott's son of the title as if that's the thing a ref can do. Yeah. He said that at first. He's like, strip of the title. Just qualify him. Like, he came to himself. It's funny. This was OK. I could have done with more action in the ring and less basic brawling outside and through the crowd. But the actual moves were well executed. And like you, I appreciate that they gave Awesome a lot here.
01:14:00
Speaker
It felt like even though he lost, he got to show a lot of his stuff and looked good against a well-established wrestler. I also dislike the ending. I don't mind DQs as much as you tend to, Al, but this one just, it doesn't feel like an ending. No. It's
Cinematic Wrestling Matches: Success or Failure?
01:14:16
Speaker
not like we got some big spot or a big hit and the guy gets caught doing something illegal that way. It's just Kat lecturing Steiner and Steiner slowly putting on a hold.
01:14:25
Speaker
I don't think I would mind this as much of the band move was like a power bomb or the Steiner screwdriver, so that you got to see some big move for the match ending. But the Steiner recliner, well powerful in storyline, is simply not visually impressive enough to provide a punch to the ending, leaving us with a match that builds up reasonably well, but ends up just falling flat.
01:14:45
Speaker
Seven or eight years later, they would try a version of this in WWE. Vicki Guerrero, the heel authority figure, had banned Undertaker's Hell's Gate. It was weird, like, sort of lay back and lock your neck against my arm, finish his mission hold. He would lose a match that way. She'd strip him, but think of a world title at that point for using the move, and it would lead to other stuff. So obviously, it's an idea that wrestling murders seem to like, even if it's, as we talked about, not the best idea.
01:15:08
Speaker
I mean, I don't even mind it necessarily with all submission holds. If you do that with like the Crippler cross face or, um, sharpshooter or, or the sharpshooter or whatever. What was Daniel Bryan's called? I can't remember the yes. Lock is the LaBelle lock and the bell lock. Yeah. Those ones have some real intensity to the move.
01:15:25
Speaker
Yeah, so I think you get that that like big punch to end the match still with one of those. Yeah. But the sign of recliner is basically a camel clutch type of move. And, you know, he puts it on. It looks like it probably hurts, but it doesn't look like this. I'm definitely tugging really hard on you, you know, and you're screaming and jiggling around type of thing. So that that's where it really falls flat for me quite badly. Yeah, overall, decent enough match, but too brawly and abrupt for my taste.
01:15:56
Speaker
Yeah, it's one of the matches I really wish they could have built to an actual finish. Even if the finish is Mike Awesome losing, I would still enjoy it more than this storyline superseding the match itself. It's a shame. I like both people involved in some degree, and I obviously like Mike Awesome, especially at this point more than Scott Steiner. This one's shocking, but this would lead to a tournament being held to crown the new champion if the title was vacated.
01:16:23
Speaker
Oh my gosh. Yeah. Even after Spring St. Pete was literally in an all tournament show. Right. And that was like, yeah. Two months ago. Yeah. Pretty much. Yeah. The finals would come down to at least for his sake, Mike Awesome and Lance Storm, who will be the final winner on the July 18th nitro. Oh, Canada and triplicate.
01:16:48
Speaker
Storm would of course defend said title at WWE New Blood Rising and a special stipulation match since those are very rare in a Vitruso show. That was at least one that leaned into the gimmick and everyone involved did a good job with that when I thought. We cut to the commentary team where Tony is still trying to figure out who technically is the champion. Hudson is just as confused. The team turns to discussing Hogan's lack of appearance thus far and Tony throws to the next match.
01:17:19
Speaker
So our next match is The Demon with Asia versus Vampiro in a graveyard match. Referee for this one is Charles Robinson. So early on, Vampiro would team with Sting. They briefly be the Brothers in Paint, which is not the worst nickname, not the greatest nickname. I think Sting always used to call like the Road Warriors that. Oh, OK. He kind of says that about anyone that wears face paint and is a friend of his. All right. There you go. This would, of course, lead to Vampiro turning on him.
01:17:49
Speaker
He takes things out of the previous paper view in a, let's say, fiery fashion. This would lead to Vampyr returning attention to the not-kissed demon, because at this point he's just the demon. The kiss thing has probably dropped as far as I know, other than the makeup looking like it.
01:18:06
Speaker
He would also target Asia, the real life fiance of Dale Torborg, AKA the demon. They love mixing in reality and fiction, but it's weird in a match where one guy, but one guy is a Canadian vampire and one guy is an American guy named Dale who dresses like kiss and is a demon. And then his muscle bound fiance is named after an entire continent of Asia. Like maybe just stick to the funny names and not the real ones. It's a bit jarring.
01:18:36
Speaker
And it goes to a little bit of what we talked about last show too, where Asia is supposed to be WCW's version of the WWF's China. Yeah. But she's never really treated as this big, tough fighter herself. She's visibly muscular, but she is treated as not really that different than a normal valet. Yeah.
01:18:59
Speaker
Vampira's angle here is that he wants to unleash the dark side in the demon. Which, if his name is the demon, I imagine he has one, yeah. I think you've already succeeded. Yeah, really. However, is Sting truly gone?
01:19:16
Speaker
An apparent version of him appeared in the rafters on the go home nitro. Because they're having a, a match routine, the demon MMP on pay-per-view, let's have that same match on nitro six days earlier. Does that make sense? Wow.
01:19:32
Speaker
Vampyr would be annoyed at this Interferon to be a mysterious figure and the rafters like Sting and he loses the match. So he would then challenge the demon to a graveyard match, which he would not clarify. The Tony would go, a graveyard match? It's a graveyard smash. They also don't really go over it on Thunder, so it's a surprise. What's his match going to be when you watch Hyperview?
01:19:58
Speaker
We cut to a graveyard at night, where the demon is leading Asia and Robinson through an archway, holding a torch that looks like a sword. So that's where the prop budget for the beach set went this year. Demon tells Asia to stay back. She insists on going with him, so Demon orders Robinson to watch out for her. To reiterate, he asked a referee, the single most easily knocked out person in any match, to watch out for Asia, who is a bodybuilder.
01:20:28
Speaker
So why is the ref with them? Ref not counting a pinfall? This is a very good question. Yeah, Tony will clarify during the match that to win, you have to make it back to the arena. So shouldn't Robinson be at the arena then to call the winner? He has no purpose here. There are no disqualifications as far as I can tell. Yeah, that's true. Robinson wants to know who's going to be looking out for him, which is, again, right and proper as he is an easily KOed referee.
01:20:58
Speaker
Demon leads them through the graveyard and they discover a coffin. Demon accidentally pours some burning fuel from the torch onto the grass, but thankfully doesn't start a fire. Yeah. That was the scariest thing I've seen all night. Yeah, the torch on top doesn't have like a cover or anything surrounding the edges, like the outside, but not nothing very efficient in any ways. So he tilts it downward, like the point with the sword. Yeah, just tilts it over like that. Yeah, the fuel kind of like pours out from inside a little and he kind of like realizes it and quickly writes it.
01:21:27
Speaker
Yeah, it reminds me of, I think it's WrestleMania 9. They're running like sparklers for Lex Luger's Narcissus gimmick, but it's also windy because they're outside. Oh, things start to blow. No one gets hurt, but it's like, whoa, whoa, he turned the sparkers off. It's the one everywhere. The coffin turns out to be empty and Demon plants his torch down. Vampiro ambushes them and they brawl in the limited light of Robinson's flashlight.
01:21:57
Speaker
Asia lands a kick to Vampiro, and Demon knocks him into a grave, then asks if Asia is okay for some reason, allowing Vampiro to knock him into the grave, stun him, and drag Asia off. Well, now she's not okay. Yeah, right? Robinson points Demon after them, and says he'll stay behind, then follows anyway, presumably realizing that he has the only light source for this stupid match. Yeah.
01:22:22
Speaker
Steven finds Asia by a pond, but Vampiro ambushes him, throws him into the pond, and KOs him, dragging Asia off again as Robinson, a referee, swims out and rescues Demon, a wrestler, dragging him back to shore. Robinson even has to help him climb out. Yeah, like 150-pound ref rescuing like 250-pound pro wrestler is a weird visual. Yes. I don't know about you, but I had the Baywatch theme going through my head during that bit. Yeah, yeah. I can see that.
01:22:53
Speaker
That noise you hear is the sound of Demon's career dying. Yeah. Demon finds Asia lying next to the coffin from before, and shockingly, Vampiro ambushes Demon again, spraying mist in his face and KOing him with a tombstone. Vampiro dumps Demon in the coffin. Just as Hudson is noting that Demon is completely unconscious, Demon's arm gets caught in the coffin lid and he has to move it inside himself. This was pre-taped. They could have re-shot that.
01:23:24
Speaker
I mean, this whole thing, this whole thing is the best take, Bob. Yeah. Vampiro shoves the coffin into the open grave and walks off, leaving Robinson to presumably rescue Demon again. And that's where we'll leave it for now, as technically Vampiro hasn't won yet since he has to get back to the arena, which will take a while. What an anticlimax. Right? Yeah. Thoughts on this one?
01:23:50
Speaker
It's interesting looking at this match and present day, because obviously we went through a period, you know, COVID hits, everything changes, as everyone said a million times at this point, but it led to certain innovation in wrestling, which some people, some people don't like, some people really do like, and some people are kind of middle on. You start doing these cinematic matches. So much are really creative, like the whole John Cena Bray Wyatt one they did for us. Oh yeah. They just have fun with it. It's like, it's not just like a stunt show kind of thing. Like you get some other cinema matches.
01:24:19
Speaker
If you really do something interesting with it, then these kind of things work. Undertaker's Final Match against Eddy Styles is a great example of that. They use edit, all sorts of visual trickery that's put in there to cover the fact that Taker at this point really can't move around that well, so it makes this nice sort of cheesy horror story finish the whole thing. That said, this early version of Cinemag Match kind of really sucks. Yes. Part of cinema is lighting. That does tend to help, yeah.
01:24:49
Speaker
I guess you could say they're going for a whole cinema verite kind of thing where she's natural lighting and the torch and the flashlight, which I guess also a torch if you're in the UK. True. Two torches for you. But the the bookings is terrible for the demon. We fall for every trick in the book repeatedly.
01:25:11
Speaker
If you stop and think about it, so much of it is especially silly. The demon and Asia and the ref are going to the graveyard. But Vampira's got to set all this stuff up, so he's got to leave the coffin there so they'll go check it. Meanwhile, he's up on a tree. How long does he open the tree? Was he hoarding nuts with a squirrel? That's actually where he lives, Al. Oh, gotcha.
01:25:35
Speaker
Because of the lighting, you can't, like, you don't get the real dramatic visual of him jumping off a tree for a dive and attack. So you can barely see him. So then he drags Asia off and does something, something to her. They don't ever say what it is. They go, what happened to Asia? She's like in the fetal position crying about something he said or did. It's really, I mean, at best, it's just lazy and worse. It implies the bad happened to her, which I don't want to get into. So I don't know. I don't know what they're going for this.
01:26:03
Speaker
So then his next plan is to, I'm going to serve myself with the lake and hopefully I time this right to when the demon walks over. True. Yeah, because he just sort of pops out like the creature in a black lagoon to attack people. I guess you can argue maybe that he could see Robinson's flashlight so he would know when they were close before they had a good vision of him so he could duck down then. I suppose so. Just the idea is like, I'm going to leave you here and I'm going to go to the lake. I mean, I guess you go to Tree a second time, but still.
01:26:33
Speaker
As he said, the fact that the ref has to rescue the demon. Wow. It's not great. And then he likes that the finish is just Vampiro leaving after that. He like says his big line and he hits him with a cheesy tombstone, which Mark Madden goes, some of the lines of, wait, did that tombstone break or did the demons had break? Yeah. So he's like, maybe both. Objectively not both, Tony. He did not rick you him.
01:27:02
Speaker
I think I get what Mepiro is going for. He's not telling you his old I'm the vampire thing. You know, at this point, he's even got a sort of higher power character, which they drop, unfortunately. But the execution is not great. Yeah. If this is like a, you know, this kind of match crawled so other matches could walk the tuition, maybe you'll get it that way. But functionally, it's not entertaining and it's not good. Oh. Mm hmm.
01:27:32
Speaker
WCW saw the Junkyard Invitational last year and thought, you know, the only way we could make that even better is if we took out all the stunts, made the winning condition impossible to catch on camera, and didn't even try to light the action. I never thought I would yearn for WCW to rent a helicopter, but my goodness. Why in the world would you ever film two wrestlers who dress in black, fighting in a graveyard at night with only a single flashlight for lighting?
01:28:02
Speaker
It's not even a particularly strong flashlight. Yeah, that's true. What we can see is just basic brawling, the most wooden acting you will ever witness, a repetitive kidnap and ambush plot, and sadly, the demon having to be rescued by a referee. If ever you were looking for a way to kill the demon character's credibility, this was it. It's appropriate that this took place in the graveyard because that was a burial. Yeah.
01:28:32
Speaker
Unfortunately, I guess it's probably the word for it. I've watched a lot more cheesy horror movies than you have. So my tolerance is a little higher. I've seen movies with terrible lighting. I've seen movies made in the last 10 years that use day for night effects, which should not be a thing in the 2010s or 2020s. I'm kind of used to this thing, but yeah, it's terrible, especially on a wrestling show. Cause it's supposed to feel unique and different. Like, look, we're going to a graveyard, it's spooky and you can't see, but
01:29:02
Speaker
You can't see, so it's not good. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. Like, do it where you have the poor lighting and, you know, just moving with a torch and a flashlight up until you reach like a lit area so like you can get the spookiness and then they can actually fight in a better lit area. The way this works is just like you you barely have a vision of the action. And what you can see is not good. So. Yeah, yeah. Oh.
01:29:32
Speaker
So at this point, I guess is his death and rebirth thing kind of happens. So now the demon is under Vampura's power. As such, due to something we'll cover later, the demon will be sicked on a returning sting on the next pay-per-view. By the way, don't go for a snack when the match start because you will miss the entire thing. Yes. Don't blink when the match starts. Yeah. Speaking of burials, that match.
01:30:01
Speaker
Vampirra himself would be busy as well, teaming with the great Muda, who was randomly part of this group called the Dark Carnival, which is those two in the Saint-Composse for some reason, to challenge for the tag titles. We got right from Vampirra walking off in the Dark Graveyard to glittery-vested Shane Douglas being interviewed by Mean Jean Okerlund, which is a bit of a tonal shift. Yeah, I'd say so.
01:30:30
Speaker
Franchise, after turning your back on Buff Bagwell, you claim, of course, that you carry this guy on your back during your WCW tag team title reign. Tonight we're gonna find out what the case is, and I doubt that you had the upper hand.
01:30:45
Speaker
Well, you know, Gene, in this life, in this sport, there are a few guarantees. There are a few things that you can chuck down and say, you know, at the end of the night, things will be exactly as you guarantee them to be or expect them to be. You've known me for a long time, Gene. I've made few guarantees in this sport, but I will make this guarantee. Buff Bagwell, you are a great wrestler.
01:31:06
Speaker
But you're not greater than a franchise. Buff Bagwell, tonight you and I will enter that ring and we will fight like two gladiators. But fans, you can mark it down on your calendars. You can mark it down as a guarantee from the franchise. Tonight, I will defeat you Buff Bagwell. Why? Because of a franchise. Why? Because I'm just that good. Guaranteed. Guaranteed. OK.
01:31:34
Speaker
Douglas should consider saying guarantee several less times. Yeah. But still, this was a pretty solid promo overall. He hit the right notes, praising his opponents just a touch en route to saying that he himself is just plain better. We've said it before and we'll say it again. If you build up your opponent, you build yourself up to win or lose. Douglas clearly gets that.
01:31:56
Speaker
Yeah, it's a pretty basic heel promo. Obviously he's got a point of experience at this point. He's been a heel, that's what like 1984. It'd be disappointing if he couldn't nail the simple promo, but she went to buff is not like a complex character. He's just a really confident guy. So he's, he's a few against.
01:32:17
Speaker
Tony reminds us that one person who ordered Bash of the Beach could win a contest to be Goldberg's guest manager at a later event. It's a bit of a strange reward considering that Goldberg is currently a heel. Couldn't they have a contest to, say, manage Booker T or Kevin Nash or one of the other faces? You manage the demon? Oh, no. Don't punish your viewers, sorry.
01:32:44
Speaker
Our eighth match is Buff Bagwell versus the franchise, Shane Douglas. Referee for this one is Mickey J. A couple months back, Buff Bagwell and Shane Douglas were a new tag team as part of the New Blood Angle. They become tag champions, but unfortunately, one of them, that big Buff Bagwell, will be suspended for unprecedented conduct and using a slur against a state hand who happened to be in the way when he was trying to walk somewhere backstage. Ish.
01:33:14
Speaker
So when he would return, they would make a very clear distinction where Buff Bagwell is now a face. Doesn't really work very well if you saw last show. But yeah, that's pretty much all it is. They used to be a team, and now they're at odds. They kind of blame each other for the fall of their tag title reign, basically. Exactly, yeah. Buff is out first, posing and doing finger guns to his pyro, very theatrical.
01:33:39
Speaker
Douglas is out next and he does briefly pose on stage but doesn't really sync up to his music or anything else that's happening. A study in contrast, ladies and gents. Did he ever practice that intro, you wonder? It would be so good if he just paused on stage until it shifts from the organ part to the rock part, hits his first step as the guitar hits. That would be so perfect and it never happens as far as I can tell.
01:34:06
Speaker
He's either he's either late or he's early. Yeah. He's already walking before it changes over. He's because his theme is so good. It is like I love Douglas's theme. It's amazing. Hmm. We get a shot of a sign in the crowd supporting Buff over the franchise, but they ran out of room to write franchise and colored marker. So they just quickly scribbled in the H.I.S.E. much smaller. Hmm. Yeah. Planning people planning. Yeah.
01:34:35
Speaker
Hudson actually mentions Bagwell's suspension for unprofessional conduct, which seems inadvisable if you want him to be taken as the face in this situation.
01:34:52
Speaker
Bagwell gets the crowd to chant, franchise sucks, annoying Douglas. They trade shoves, and Bagwell beats Douglas up in the ring and at ringside, but Douglas boots him in the crotch and dumps him on the barricade, then folds up the mats. In the process, revealing that the crew couldn't clean the mats up earlier, so they had just turned them over as there is cake everywhere on the bottom, formerly the top of the mats. Bagwell back body drops out of a pile driver attempt on the concrete.
01:35:20
Speaker
They go back in for a Bagwell neckbreaker, then bright back out for more brawling at ringside involving the ring post and chair. Back in, Douglas works the neck with a flipping neckbreaker and neck twist, but Tori Wilson shows up.
01:35:34
Speaker
Douglas goes to greet her and gets slapped, so Bagwell rolls him up for two and gets further two counts with a crossbody and a second rope splash, then goes to share a kiss with Wilson. Bagwell turns his back on her to pose, so Wilson punts him in the crotch. And Douglas hits the Pittsburgh plunge for two. Excellent shocked look from Douglas there.
01:35:57
Speaker
Bagwell double underhook facebuster for two, but he climbs the ropes next to Wilson, who he already knows betrayed him, like an absolute moron. Yeah. Shockingly, she grabs his leg, giving Douglas time to hit an inverted atomic drop, then a jawbreaker for the three count and the win. Tony raves about the ending move, noting that it's one they've not seen Douglas do before, so I'm guessing this match's story was meant to replace the Pittsburgh plunge with whatever this finisher will end up called, like we discussed with Booker T earlier.
01:36:27
Speaker
Mm hmm. Yeah. It is not a very impressive looking move, to be honest. No. Wilson comes in and celebrates with Douglas with a hug and kiss. Douglas theatrically faints after the kiss. Thoughts on this one? It's a pretty basic match. If you really get down to it, it's just he'll attack the body part. In this case, it's Buff's neck to do his actual history. Then you set up to the betrayal.
01:36:54
Speaker
I'd be curious to watch this with somebody that was not into wrestling. Not that I want to expose them to this show necessarily, but a match like this anyways. And like, see if they, if they spot the obvious betrayal, like a wrestling fan does. Like, is it so obvious to everyone watching or were they go, Oh, is that coming? Cause it is so telegraphed. If you've watched any wrestling show before, you're like, Oh, she stayed around and she's in the ring behind him now.
01:37:23
Speaker
It is interesting that she slaps Douglas first, which actually does put him in a pinning predicament. That seems like poor planning on his part. Like, I guess you figure he's a heel, so he probably believes, oh, I'll be able to kick out no matter what. But it is an interesting twist to the normal formula where you would just, you might've had her slap him in a normal batch, but him not stumble back into a pin.
01:37:47
Speaker
I think it's strange to me is that so they set the whole thing up and the shape betrays buff, I think with the finisher and then that's not the end of the match. Yes. I mean, it's only mind the best direction per se, but it's weird to build the entire story of this limited match. And then I'll keep going.
01:38:07
Speaker
If this match was not intended to kill the Pittsburgh Plunge as a finisher, it did. It could not have done a better job of killing the Pittsburgh Plunge because Buff kicks out at two after that and being kicked in the balls. True, yeah. But I don't even mind that you mind that. I would, if you're going to do this kind of thing, have the opportunity happen and have him hit the new finisher and then that begins to bend. Yeah. And go, wow, what's this new finish he's got?
01:38:32
Speaker
Because it is, she gets the shock of, quote unquote, shock, I should say, of the betrayal. And then she's just kind of still there and has to betray him a second time. Yeah, the second betrayal is weird. That's it actually bothers me less that he does the kick out there than that.
01:38:49
Speaker
he still goes on to have like normal action afterwards for a few moments. And then like you said, gets betrayed again. Having him kick out of a kick to the balls and the Pittsburgh plunge does arguably do more buildup for the eventual finisher of the match. It does. Yeah. It's not just better than the Pittsburgh plunge is better than the Pittsburgh plunge and a kick to the balls. Mm hmm. Yeah, that's fair. But yeah, the fact that that happens and then the match becomes a normal match again for a little bit and then another betrayal happens is bizarre.
01:39:19
Speaker
It's like two people wrote the finish separately, and then the third guy put them together. And took out nothing. Exactly, yeah. There wasn't a lot to this one, and it had a weird flow with the extended brawl outside the ring to start. In fact, they spend very little time in the ring at all during this one. True. Which is weird, as it seems to be being contested under normal rules, not hardcore or no DQ rules.
01:39:45
Speaker
They only really decide to get in the ring about the same time that Tori Wilson does. That makes it feel like the match just got past its introduction right as it was about to end. Yeah. Like we discussed Bagwell's kicking out at two after the betrayal and just going on to fight normally is pretty strange. But I do get that they wanted to use this to set up Douglas's new finisher. So, you know, maybe that factors into things a bit. Otherwise it's just average action put together a bit awkwardly. It's fair.
01:40:15
Speaker
Next show, Buff would defend the honor and I guess managerial services of his mother at New Blood Rising. Boy. While Shane Douglas would get into personal feud with Billy Kidman. As a reminder, at one point they fight over a bottle of Viagra. Because Russo. Yep. Never forget the Viagra and a Pole match. It's still weird to me that that wasn't the match that was at New Blood Rising though. That's very weird.
01:40:40
Speaker
We cut backstage where Hollywood Hulk Hogan is seen walking through a hallway. I'm gonna break him in half, Hogan says. Cut to Okerlund, who is with Jeff Jarrett, posing with his title. All right, Tony, thank you very much. He is in the house tonight, Jeff Jarrett. I told you before he went on the air that Hollywood Hogan would be here. What now? Listen up good. Listen up good, Jurassic Slap.
01:41:05
Speaker
My patience is running short with you. Hogan's here. Big deal. Plant A now goes into effect. You know, over the years, Hulk sure has made a lot of enemies. So tonight, allies aren't hard to find. Wait a minute. Wait a minute, Jeff Jarrett. What do you mean by that? You ever seen the movie Usual Suspect Steam? Wait and see. Now choke on that, Slappy. All right. Quite a history between Jeff Jarrett and Hollywood Hulk Hogan.
01:41:34
Speaker
I'm sure Jared could do a great promo for a match against Hogan if he was given adequate time to do so. He wasn't, so this wasn't great. I don't understand what WSW thinks that we get out of these promos when all they have time to say amounts to this match exists. Sadly, Jared did have enough time to slip in his annoying 2000 era Slack talk a few times, unfortunately. Yeah.
01:42:02
Speaker
It's weird, by the way, to hear him talk about plan A going into effect. Like the line is is one where you'd think it was plan B that he was going to mention. Right. Yeah. But it's plan A. It's like plan A now goes into effect. Well, so basically you're doing what you were originally planning on doing. Great to know. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's actually it makes sense because he had adjusted for Hogan. I thought Hogan wouldn't be there. But yeah, the phrasing is not what you normally think it would be. Yeah.
01:42:31
Speaker
I think what would have saved this promo or at least helped a bit, as if they had tied the two bits together. He, you know, he says his line real quickly. He looks around nervously and then leaves like in a hurry. Yeah. Yeah. And then he walks in like, where'd he go? That would explain why he's so Russian, not because when Fruso was sitting there pointing out a watch on his hand and you're telling hurry up. Yes.
01:42:55
Speaker
We cut to a video package covering the feud in which Jarrett brags about beating up Hogan and says he recruited fat ladies to sing when he beats Hogan. They do the na, na, na, na, hey, hey, hey, goodbye song. Our ninth match is Hollywood Hulk Hogan versus the chosen one, Jeff Jarrett, for Jarrett's WCW World Heavyweight Championship. Referring for this one is Mark Johnson.
01:43:25
Speaker
Hulk Hogan would end his somewhat controversial feud with Billy Kidman by winning a match last month. This would also apparently get him a world title shot, which they don't actually build up on the show, but I guess, why not? Win a tag match, guess we're freed by your cousin? Sure, okay, why not?
01:43:43
Speaker
On the nitro after Grammar can bash, Derek promises Hogan a world title shot that night, so they can wait. They said the magic is going to happen, but before it really goes anywhere, all the heels beat him up, including Goldberg, who gives him a jackhammer through a table. Derek thinks there's no way Hogan's going to come back because that one move has taken him out forever, basically. For Hit in his mind, the match is not going to happen at all, so it's less than an even afterthought. It's not even a thought.
01:44:14
Speaker
It is a little weird that the world title match is going on before the Nash versus Goldberg match. Though admittedly, that's for Scott Hall's contracts, so it is kind of a career match. That's one of the times that I can find that more excusable. Less excusable is that this is also going on before the Vampiro versus Demon match has technically ended. I guess in K3 they couldn't really schedule that match's ending. Yeah. But it's silly, yeah.
01:44:42
Speaker
Michael Buffer does our introductions, noting that it is for the undisputed WCW Heavyweight Championship. Keep that in mind. There's a fair amount of Hogan signs and merchandise in this crowd. Jarrett's music hits first, despite him being champ, but Jarrett doesn't show, and eventually, Vince Russo walks down to the ring with a baseball bat.
01:45:05
Speaker
Jared finally enters with his guitar. The sound guys have his music so loud that it drowns out Michael Buffer, so his appearance fee was sure worth it. Right? NWO theme count, one. As Hogan enters in his Hollywood gimmick to that theme. You still can't really hear Buffer well, and the commentators just talk over him. WCW Buffer's fee could have been spent on a beach set. Yeah, right?
01:45:34
Speaker
Madden mentions behind-the-scenes tension between Hogan and Russo. Hogan takes Buffer's microphone and tells Jarrett that Jarrett is the chosen one because Hogan has chosen Jarrett to powerbomb in honor of big sexy Kevin Nash. Jarrett takes his sweet time getting into the ring. The bell rings and Jarrett immediately lies down on the mat. Russo holds up the belt and gestures for Hogan to pin Jarrett. Tony asks, what is going on?
01:46:04
Speaker
Russo chucks the belt into the ring. Madden says they're deviating from the script. Joy. Yay. Hogan gets a microphone and asks, Is it true to you, Russo? Russo? Wow. That's why this company's in the shape it's in because of bullshit like this. Notably, he gets a massive cheer for that. Yeah. Hogan puts a foot on Jarrett for the three count and the win.
01:46:34
Speaker
Jarrett leaves immediately, looking quite upset. Hogan stands in the ring, looking conflicted, and we cut to the commentary team, where Tony tells us, we've just seen a slice of real life and there's a meaning here, but they don't know what to say or how to explain it. Hudson notes that this wasn't something they went over at the production meeting. Tony says they were all swerved.
01:46:58
Speaker
Tony says he knows Hogan wants to win, but to win it like that? Madden says he lost it like that too, referencing, as Hudson did earlier, Halloween Havoc 1999, where Hogan similarly laid down for Sting. However, notably Sting was already champ for that match. Hogan lost the title to him a month earlier at Fall Brawl. That's true, yeah. On his podcast, What Happened When, Tony says he genuinely was not told what would happen here, which would explain the pretty vague commentary.
01:47:30
Speaker
Thoughts on this one? I mean, not really a match. I got laid down and it gets pinned. As we'll go over, this is ultimately a big mess because to a casual fan watching this, you're just confused as to what's going on. And you won't find out for a little while as well. There's a little bit of a delay here before the explanation is given. And as we'll go over, the explanation is not great.
01:47:56
Speaker
It's such a weird thing to do with, which has been your top star for half a decade at this point. Even if his mobility is going down, you know, just cause of injuries and just age and things like that. And then you're also involving your world championship, which obviously in 2000 gets devalued a lot in 2001, even more so. And his history goes on, but.
01:48:21
Speaker
It's a weird thing to involve all these people in, in this bizarre angle, and just screw the fans over like this. Yeah. Obviously, there's more to this story later, but I just can't fathom why WCW has done this concept so many times. Yeah. Aside from Halloween Havoc 1999, which at least wasn't an actual title change, there's the infamous Fingerpoke of Doom in early 1999. Oh, yeah.
01:48:50
Speaker
This builds up nothing and nobody. It hurts the title making it look like something not worth fighting for. It disappoints the crowd who came to see a match. Look at all the signs promoting either Hogan or Jared in the crowd and all the Hogan merchandise and tell me how you'd feel if you were one of those people and Hogan and Jared just didn't fight. Yeah.
01:49:10
Speaker
It's made all the worse by the fact that the show featured tons of build to this match with multiple segments, a promo, and a couple of video packages dedicated to it. Yeah. They have deliberately wasted our time on this. Mm-hmm. The only worst waste I can think of is the build to Eric Bischoff versus Vince McMahon at Slamboree 1998, just because that blatantly was never going to happen. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Absolutely awful segment.
01:49:39
Speaker
All right, so besides having to watch Thunder the Nitro and, you know, using Wikipedia and other sources of information, you know, cage match and the like, it happens that this show, because of this angle, is so famously bad. There's an episode in season four of the show Dark Side of the Ring on Vice, typically around this angle.
01:49:59
Speaker
They talked to Eric Bischoff, and Vince Russo, and Jeff Jarrett, and also Lance Storm is there just kind of because he was there already talking to him for different episodes. He says that as one of the boys in the back, they weren't told anything was going on. So echoing Tony's comments. Hogan is not involved in the show. As we'll go over this, probably a legal reason he's not involved, but also, I'm guessing he just didn't want to talk about it anymore. I don't blame him. In a weird way for once I'm on Hogan's side. Don't get used to it, but you know.
01:50:31
Speaker
They discuss that, as shocking as this may sound, this part all played out exactly according to plan. Nothing went wrong here. This is exactly what was to happen. So Bischoff and Russo lay out what the plan apparently was. How it was to get the title and leave and be really set about everything. And in the wake of it, they would set up, but you guessed it, a tournament to crown a new WCW champion.
01:50:57
Speaker
Oh my gosh. According to them, the delay and then all the matches and everything would make the finals of the tournament to crown a new champion take place at Halloween Havoc. Wow. That's a ways out. And again, holding another tournament, what, three months after Spring Stampede, which was an all tournament show. Yeah, literally an all tournament company. They reset the old titles, yeah.
01:51:22
Speaker
We know that WSW loves their tournament, loves their title tournaments, but that is ridiculous. I know. It is crazy. But yeah, so their plan supposedly, I think going according to plan was Hogan leave with the belt doesn't appear on TV. He's the real world's champion. And then he's fully disappeared from television until Halloween Havoc, where
01:51:45
Speaker
They have a big match to crown the new champion. And guess who's supposed to show up at that show to go, wait a second, you're the real champion. I'm the real champion. It's the Hulkster Jack. Nothing goes wrong in this show. And as we'll discuss, it does. That was the plan to have a, let's be honest, a bullshit non match happen for your world title, just sort of the middle of your show.
01:52:10
Speaker
And then have your champion leave, be so fed up with your company and how bad it is. Yes. And then complain about the state of the company and be out for months. Meanwhile, you have to sort of act shocked and pivot to make a new champion, which will take you all this time. And once you finally start the champion, he, the rather champion to be there to show up and presumably win the unified title. That was the nothing goes wrong plan. That was everything's right. That was the best.
01:52:40
Speaker
Best case scenario is- Best case scenario, yes. Oh my gosh. Backstage, Vampiro is seen entering the arena, walking right by Hogan, who is accompanied by a couple little kids, one of whom is holding the title belt. It is nearly as big as he is. Actually, if it was unfolded, it would probably be taller. Yeah. Tony is still frazzled enough to say lines like, it is our cause to give some credence to this.
01:53:11
Speaker
The camera cuts to the commentators again and Hudson notes, with clear irritation, that they're back on camera and getting more airtime than anyone else. Vampiro enters through smoke, which I guess means that he's now won the graveyard match. He claims he got rid of Dale Torborg, aka The Demon, as well as Sting. Meanwhile, some jerk shines a laser pointer in his face.
01:53:35
Speaker
Suddenly, a bunch of cloaked figures wearing sting masks carry a coffin down to ringside because Vince Russo evidently thinks that Sting is the undertaker. Yes. Vampiro goes down to check out the coffin, and it suddenly opens revealing Sting, who oddly looks like he's also wearing a sting mask. Sting beats up Vampiro with a bat as lightning effects go off. The lights go out, Sting vanishes, and Vampiro is left lying in the coffin, unconscious while the road figures point baseball bats at him.
01:54:03
Speaker
Genuine question here. What exactly did Vampiro think was going to happen? Oh, you mean, like, people coming out, you mean? Yeah, I mean, like, you see a whole bunch of people holding baseball bats and wearing the mask of your hated foe, and you decide to go out in the middle of that group. Like, best case scenario, the coffin itself is empty, but you're still surrounded by, like, eight guys with baseball bats. Yeah. You're getting beat up. Yeah, it'd be like if in The Wicker Man,
01:54:33
Speaker
the hero, whether it's Nick Cage or the other hero, instead of trying to secretly watch what's going on with the group when they go towards the titular recommend, it was like, I'm going to talk to these guys, see what's going on. And then they beat him up. I also love to know where Sting got these people from. Because it's weird enough that the airtaker has druids. Because they're always called druids. Yes. Which, by the way, they actually do at one point refer to these guys as druids.
01:55:01
Speaker
Oh, well, they do, don't they? Yeah, I forget if it's Hudson or Madden that says it, but... Thing is just a guy. I mean, he was a very popular guy. I mean, wrong. He still is.
01:55:11
Speaker
Yeah, it's like, he's, he's the Riddler in the new Batman movie, where he's got a bunch of, you know, followers that dress like him, except that is built up in storyline. It's not built up as like, all these people worship Sting because he's, everyone thinks he might be dead. So, you know, arrange a group chat and go meet up and discuss what we're gonna do to help our, our Lord and Savior Sting, I guess. Yeah, it's very, very strange.
01:55:36
Speaker
Yeah, it's funny. You want stuff like this and you totally get why people spend the last 25 years going, man, a stick to our ticket match would be amazing. I mean, I was guilty of that at some point. I'm sure I was like, this sounds really great. I don't know if it would have been around this period of time, but I'm sure at some point I was like, probably thinking back. I was like, if they don't do this match, you know, it's a waste of time. But of course they didn't.
01:56:00
Speaker
Speaking of waste of time, it's worth noting that Vampira wins a match some 20 minutes earlier by just sort of leaving an area of space away from where the arena is and then just reappears here. Hey guys, by the way, I won. I mean, this technically is him winning the match because Tony said you had to reach the arena. So that shot of him walking past Hogan in the hallway, that's Vampira winning.
01:56:23
Speaker
Yeah, there's actually been a ref there like, sort of, you know, doing the little, the little finger guns and waving to a person with the bell. Having like sitting in a chair. Yeah. You point to the ring bell guys, ding, ding, ding. He goes by. Like Hogan walking by there is actually wearing a referee shirt and just raises Vampiro's hand as he walks by. Good job, brother. He just keeps walking, yeah. What a weird segment.
01:56:46
Speaker
I also have to note, this kind of buries Demon even further as now nobody cares about what happened to him. True. Because the news is that Sting is back. Yeah. I'm guessing they just didn't know what to do with the graveyard ending other than to have Vampira walk out to the ring. But here's an idea. Have Demon show up too and brawl even if he still loses. And then do this on Nitro. Yeah, that work.
01:57:11
Speaker
Oh, well, I'm sure WCW has done with really, really weird, confusing segments tonight. Let's hope. Backstage, Gene is with Goldberg, who has Scott Hall's contract and some kind of black cable resting around his neck. I'm not sure what that is. Maybe it's one of those stretching exercise cables or something. I think so. At first, I genuinely thought he was wearing suspenders. I could see that, yeah.
01:57:39
Speaker
Goldberg tonight. Your personal vendetta against the outsiders is about to come to an end. And I could see the burning right now in your eyes. I know you could hardly wait to tear up that Scott Hall contract. But first, you've got to meet and defeat Kevin Nacks. Goldberg? You finished? Yes.
01:58:06
Speaker
You know what, it's taken all the professional courtesy I got not to rip this contract up. Because the person you see in front of you is more intense and more off than I've ever been in my entire life. But fact is, I wanna make Kevin Nash suffer. I'm gonna beat his from ring post to ring post, then rip it up right in front of his face. Then the outsiders.
01:58:30
Speaker
as they know it, and as everyone else knows it, our history. Tonight I personally end Scott Hall's career, and there ain't a f***ing thing Scott Hall can do about it. And as a matter of fact, I mean, f***ing couldn't get a match to do without it either. Slight slip up where he momentarily forgets Scott Hall's name aside, this was alright.
01:58:54
Speaker
Goldberg got across enough emotion and did enough to help build up Nash and Hall's friendship and what's on the line tonight to make this a little bit more than another this match is happening promo and therefore at least worth hearing on the show. I agree with that. It's nice to see him delivering a different kind of promo because this is heel Goldberg, which he got very little of for a good reason in WCW.
01:59:17
Speaker
It's not refreshing per se, but it's different for him, so at least it feels different than just, here's another heel saying, you have my match and it's happening. Yeah, and it helps that his reason for being angry at Hall and Nash is justified. Yeah.
01:59:33
Speaker
which they get across a little bit better in the video package later, but I always like it when the heel does have a point, he's just going too far, or he's making the point in a bad way, or using it to justify things that it doesn't justify. I agree, yeah. I kind of liked this overall. Yeah, overall, it's a good Goldberg promo, and it's different, so that helps. We cut back to the ring, where Vince Russo is walking down the ramp again.
02:00:02
Speaker
Tony, confused, notes that his schedule says this is supposed to be Nash versus Goldberg, and he hopes that Russo will explain what they've seen tonight. A guy in the crowd flips Russo off. Hudson says, this isn't Vince Russo the character, it's Vince Russo the boss. There's only one way for me to do this, and that's for me to tell it like it is. Here we go. All right, we need to hear this. Let's lay out.
02:00:36
Speaker
Three weeks ago, I left WCW. It's real life here, fans. More real than I thought it would be tonight. Three weeks ago,
02:01:06
Speaker
I left WCW and quite frankly, I didn't know if I was gonna come back. And the reason I didn't know I was gonna come back or not is because from day one that I've been in WCW, I've done nothing.
02:01:35
Speaker
Nothing but deal with the bull**** of the politics behind that curtain. The fact of the matter is, I've got a wife, I've got three kids at home, and I really don't need this ****. Cut to Tony and the commentators looking on quietly confused.
02:02:03
Speaker
But let me tell you the reason why I did come back. I came back for every one of the guys in that locker room that week in, week out, bust their **** for WCW. I came back for the Booker T's. I came back for every single guy in MIA.
02:02:33
Speaker
I came back for the animals. I came back for Jared. I came back to the guys behind that curtain that give a s*** about this company. And let me tell you who doesn't give a s*** about this company. That God s*** politician Hulk Hogan. Because let me tell you people what happened out here in this ring tonight.
02:03:04
Speaker
All day long, I'm playing politics with Hulk Hogan, because Hulk Hogan tonight wants to play his creative control card. And to Hulk Hogan, that meant that tonight, in the middle of this ring, when he knew it was bullsh-t, he beats Jeff Jarrett.
02:03:32
Speaker
Well, guess what? Hogan got his wish. Hogan got his belt, and he went the hell home. And I promise everybody or else I'll go in the goddamn grave. You will never see that piece of shit again.
02:03:54
Speaker
But I also, I sat out there in the people just like you. And I know you paid good money to come here tonight, and nobody is gonna be ripped off here tonight.
02:04:12
Speaker
So Hulk Hogan now has the WCW belt. And Hulk, let's refer to that as the Hulk Hogan Memorial belt. Because from here on in, that belt don't mean. Because there will be a new WCW belt.
02:04:40
Speaker
And as far as I'm concerned, that belt still belongs to the one guy that busts his **** week in and week out in the middle of this ring. And you people can love him and hate him, but he doesn't screw anybody back there and that's Jeff Jarrett. Now hold on a minute.
02:05:05
Speaker
Jeff Jarrett is still the official WCW champion, but he will defend that title in this ring tonight. And he will defend that title against the son of a back there, who for 14 years has been busted in WCW and can't get a God break because of the Hulk Hogan.
02:05:39
Speaker
And I'm talking about Booker Ting. Booker Ting and Jeff Jarrett are the two reasons why I'm in this stinking business to begin with. So tonight in this ring for the WCW title two deserving guys, Jarrett and Booker will compete for the WCW now tennis God out now.
02:06:21
Speaker
Tony, someone quietly says, I'm not sure if it's Hudson or Madden as Russo leaves the ring.
02:06:31
Speaker
There really is nothing we can say to add to what? To add to that, Tony says. The camera cuts to the commentators. They all look pretty thrown by what just happened, but gamely go through it. Tony says it was a shoot, and Hudson says they had no information about it.
02:06:49
Speaker
Tony says they've now got Booker vs. Jarrett, but Hudson reminds him that they still have Goldberg vs. Nash first, and Tony, in the most legitimate reaction I have ever seen from him, puts a hand to his head and groans.
02:07:21
Speaker
Yeah, it's honesty. Yeah. Tony says he doesn't know where they're going, and we cut to a video package to I'm sure the commentators great relief. Yeah. So here's the thing. Per Tony on what happened when, not only was he not told what would happen in this segment, he wasn't told this segment was even happening.
02:07:44
Speaker
He recounts during Russo's promo, contacting the crew backstage to ask how he was supposed to sell what was happening. What was he supposed to be saying? He says he got no response, not, I don't know, no response. Yeah. Because they're on the back going, what the hell? Yeah. He was understandably ticked off because he wanted to do his job correctly and no one even spoke to him. So when they cut to the commentary team, Tony says he legitimately couldn't think of what to really say.
02:08:13
Speaker
I have never seen Tony so flustered in all the shows that he's been on. He's never been so at a loss for how to communicate a segment. And consider that this is a guy who has been a wrestling announcer for over a decade. Yeah. He is very experienced. Absolutely. Yeah. If you see the confusion, it must be bad. Yeah.
02:08:33
Speaker
That bit with him just face-palming and chatting with Madden and Hudson about how long the show feels is a rare glimpse at how genuinely hard it could be to work for a company where the plans could change so rapidly. You can feel the frustration at being left high and dry in this. Absolutely, yeah. As for the promo, it's bizarre.
02:08:53
Speaker
If you aren't massively immersed in online wrestling forums or the Wrestling Observer, then you, clearly like much of the crowd, likely have no earthly idea what Russo was talking about. Yeah. Al, you want to talk now about what was reportedly going on behind the scenes? Sure. So this is interesting. So the part where they talk about the whole tournament and Hellbent Havoc thing, both Bischoff and Russo agree on that. However, this is the point where they differ.
02:09:22
Speaker
Rooster claims that everything happened according to script. Everything was supposed to happen. He says, you know, someone along the lines of, the whole point has to be Hogan leave. So then I come get the promo, because if he's hanging around, did he come out and beat the crap out of me? But Bischoff does not seem to agree with him on how this played out.
02:09:43
Speaker
Because so much of this really turned into him attacking Hogan. And with the fact that the commentator just say, you know, this isn't just Rooster with the character, this is Rooster with the boss. So even they're going, this is all, look, this is real, this is real, this is real. They're laying upon, very thickly upon, how real this whole thing is. Absolutely. In the commentator's case, it may be because they genuinely don't have a clue what's going on. So, but yeah, I get your point.
02:10:09
Speaker
Yeah, he claims that it's all, everything was supposed to happen, but he was shocked when Hogan sued the company and sued him for defamation. Which led to a very long loss, it took about a year or so. Hogan sued him, originally a judge threw it out, then a different judge allowed it to happen. Then ultimately a judge basically ruled that
02:10:32
Speaker
Russo was a character and Hogan was a character because it happened on television and ring. It wasn't personally defamation. Even though again, it has been through so talking about what he's doing behind the scenes. So it's not like he's saying, you know, but Hulk Hogan, like getting title shots and everything. He's talking about like the real guy, Hulk Hogan using his contract and deciding how matches play out. All these things that really feel like you're legit venting against him, which he seemed like he was. Yeah.
02:11:02
Speaker
Now, 23 years later, he says, oh, no, no, I was just playing a character. He says that, you know, every time I do a promo, I don't script it, which I really, really doubt, given how much he loves to script everything. He says he goes out in his promos and just says what's on his mind. And that's why it's so real. That's why everyone loves them. Obviously, that's very much up for debate. That last part.
02:11:22
Speaker
Yeah, this whole thing hinges upon him being here. I am Vince Russo, the savior of the undercard, the protector of the masses, all these people in the back, as he says, like 10 times in the promo, you'll bust their every blah, blah, blah, and all these things you have to say.
02:11:40
Speaker
And this is all like going back to early New Blood stuff, which weirdly has been dropped already. The whole angle has been pretty much dropped. Mm hmm. Despite the fact that we're one month from New Blood Rising. Yeah. Yes. I mean, extra funny. Yeah, they played it so far ahead, but then they also didn't play in their stories that far ahead and they didn't know that all this would happen. And then the follow up or hogo can go planes about it. So hogo is not on the dark side of an episode at all. Mm hmm.
02:12:06
Speaker
What they do is they play audio of him. They say he called in a local radio show. I'm very sure that's probably the love sponge. But obviously talking about Hogan and Bubba gets into that whole sex tape thing and then seeing each other. So I understand why they were just vague about it.
02:12:21
Speaker
He goes on that show the next morning. He said he's really upset. Bischoff talked about how they took a flight back home and then protect their phones or phones were blowing up. And everyone's saying they all went against you and everything. Bischoff jokes about how, you know, you ask him, like, were you surprised that Hogan sued? And he sort of laughs. And he goes, of course he sued. Some of them went like, wouldn't you? And I'm like, can't it's rare that I agree with both Hogan and Bischoff, especially. But I mean, I see. I see the logic.
02:12:48
Speaker
You're talking about backstage stuff. You're talking about the planning of the show. It is very clear that you are not talking about a character at that point. You're talking about the actor behind the character. And yeah, it's like you said, I can understand being sued over this promo. Yeah. What you're saying is that.
02:13:13
Speaker
Hogan doesn't care about this company. Hogan's completely in it for himself. Hogan is engaging in unfair practices. You're criticizing him for using something that, for better or for worse, is in his contract. Yeah, you guys gave it to him. So he is doing something legal and you're saying, no, I'm going to, one, clearly break that creative control and to kick him out of the company, which I'm sure
02:13:41
Speaker
could raise legal issues on its own since he has a contract. There's a whole heap of reasons why this is a bad idea. Obviously, Russo's views on this may vary. I can only talk about what it seemed to be from the TV and from the fact that, as I said, Tony says he didn't know anything about it.
02:14:04
Speaker
To me, this looks like an airing of grievances from backstage in front of the live crowd and the pay-per-view audience, which is not how things are done. No. Yes, by many accounts, WCW very much was a difficult place to work because of backstage disagreements and power struggles. I'm not saying that all the sentiments that Russo express here are wrong. The trouble is Russo himself here is politicking. Yeah.
02:14:30
Speaker
right out in front of a live crowd, wasting the time that they could be spending enjoying a wrestling match or an angle, and forcing them to watch the showrunner have it out with one of the show's stars instead. That's not how you treat your fans. Even if this is somehow just actually an angle that then gets misinterpreted by Hogan and Bischoff afterwards, which I doubt, this is not how you treat the live show crowd.
02:14:57
Speaker
And what Russo seems to want from this is to come out of this looking like the good guy, the white knight who's sacrificing his time and his happiness to build up the little guys in WSW. Yeah. But is he? What has he done tonight? We've got the filthy animals and M.I.A. coming out in mask as Hovindu Kubera had to act like The Rock.
02:15:17
Speaker
Uh-huh. The demon having to be rescued by a referee. Awesome versus Steiner ending with the cat just declaring that Steiner was stripped of the title. David Flair and Mark Johnson pants on air. All that crap with Cat and the Young Dragons. And never mind leaving the commentary team to stumble along with no guidance. Now, you could justly point out Russo was not booking this show alone. He's part of a team with Bischoff at this point at the very least and probably more people. Yeah. But you want to know what happens when he has full authority?
02:15:47
Speaker
New blood rising happens. Yeah. Remember that the mud wrestling match ending with a fake medical emergency. Yeah. The Goldberg walkout and Nash and Steiner having to improvise. Demon losing in 52 seconds. Judy Bagwell on a forklift. That's what happens when Russo gets what he wants. So far as I can tell. Yeah. So you tell me, is he the good guy here?
02:16:12
Speaker
Or is it maybe possible that some of what he interprets as politics is people having reasonable objections to what he wants to do, or asking for more explanation rather than being uncooperative? Yeah. Well, and think about all this time when we have to spend, like, researching this, you know, send the podcast, watch a show, and read interviews. All of this is something that doesn't really affect the show. Right, yeah.
02:16:38
Speaker
So again, if this is all about, I'm helping the boys in the back, you're taking all the attention away from them, from everything happening on the show. It's like title changes like chronic win the tag titles. If they meant something on the time, they don't mean anything long term. Yeah. Because people remember that. People remember any of these matches, really. This is what this show is known for. Yeah.
02:17:00
Speaker
You know, there's a very notable thing that happens later on tonight, in fact. And it's not among the first things that people mention when people mention Batch the Beach 2000. They mentioned this promo. Yeah. Yeah. The only good thing that I can say about this is that I felt closer to the members of the commentary team as they were just as thrown as I was.
02:17:19
Speaker
I get that there's disagreement about whether this is an angle or not. If it's not an angle, it's a terrible thing to do. It's airing of grievances publicly. If it is an angle, then it's a bad angle. Yeah, exactly. There's no way that this is good. No, no. That's, I think, my main point on it. Absolutely. As noted, we cut to a video package, this one covering the Goldberg versus Nash feud. It is set to very dramatic music.
02:17:50
Speaker
I've carried this company on my back for two years. I've given you people someone to believe in. Sounds like an Imperial March. And what did you do? You spit on it.
02:18:10
Speaker
Poor pitiful bill. Since you walked in the door, this company's giving you everything out of silver platter. And I'm not leaving this building without your blood on my hands. National Goldberg, right here, right now. This.
02:18:27
Speaker
is the contract of one Scott Hall. I got your little girlfriend's contract right here. You got the guts? Come claim it. The Bash at the Beach. To save Scott's WCW career, you must face Goldberg July 9 at Bash at the Beach. Scott Hall's career on the line, I got no problem beating him. I never liked you, Nash.
02:18:55
Speaker
There's only one person on this planet that I despise more than you. Scott Hall has been nothing but a cancer. See, ever since the Outsiders got here, they've tried to undermine and destroy WCW. What gets me is you idiots have cheered them week after week. It's my time and their blood is on your hands.
02:19:28
Speaker
Notably, Goldberg actually eats one page of the contract in the video, so presumably if Nash wants that page back, well, by now he'll probably have to look in the sewage system. Yeah. I thought this was a really good video, actually.
02:19:43
Speaker
Yeah. Goldberg, like I said earlier, has a good reason to be angry with Nash and Hall, given the Taser incident at Starrcade 1998, but he comes off as arrogant, entitled, disrespectful to the fans, and unwilling to allow for the possibility of redemption for those who wronged him. He wants revenge, but he wants it at any cost. The video does a good job of building up Nash and Hall's friendship too, and showing what's on the line here.
02:20:08
Speaker
The only thing I don't really like is them towing the line a bit on scriptedness with Nash's silver platter line. But I think you can also take that as just referencing opportunities given at prominent matches rather than being scripted to win those matches. Yeah. Like edges up to the line without necessarily going over. Yeah. He didn't say like your book to be undefeated or anything. Yeah. Right. Yeah. That comes next month. It does. Yes.
02:20:33
Speaker
The other thing I find interesting about it is Goldberg's and you spit on it line, which I could be wrong, but I feel that's almost a quote from Hogan's promo at 96. It's very similar if not. Yeah. I get what you mean. Yeah. Our 10th match. Oh my gosh, this show is still going. Yeah. Quote, Tony. Oh, Lord, hang on here.
02:20:59
Speaker
Our 10th match is Big Sexy Kevin Nash versus Goldberg for Scott Hall's contract. Referee for this one is Mickey J. So, Goldberg has turned heel. The one thing people did not want to happen, but here we are. He has aligned himself with Russo and penalty bishop, but they don't really interact much.
02:21:18
Speaker
is logic, as noted in the video packages, that fans supported the Wolfpack and supported the NWO when they were literally there to destroy, take over the company as their stated goal from day one. Whereas he's the guy that came in to save the day and he claims people booed him, but I don't know what he's actually referring to, like a show where he gets booed against them really.
02:21:41
Speaker
There are some points in the build-up to Starrcade, and even like on the match itself where Kevin Nash gets some tears when he's fighting against Goldberg, but it doesn't feel like it's a show where people turned on him. Vitruso, to get leverage on Nash, gives the contract to Scott Hall to Goldberg, so now he's got control over it. They're gonna fight over it. In case you didn't know, Scott Hall's last match was in February of 2000, whereupon he was released shortly after that, for a number of reasons.
02:22:11
Speaker
Pick a day a week, you'll get a different story for why. All of interesting. So here we are in July, as Tanae says, July 9. Yes. We're fighting for this contract where if Nash gets it, Scott Hall will, I guess, still be fired or be reinstated. That doesn't really make a lot of sense. Yeah, I think the implication is that Hall is still an employee in terms of storyline at this time. And if Nash gets the contract, he'll be able to bring him back or something. Yeah, I think it's... Yeah.
02:22:40
Speaker
But yeah, I just mentioned, yeah, the reality is obviously not that. But yeah, I got that going for you. And a wolf pack theme count one. Oh, that's a better wolf. I will then it's actually in the thing. Oh. Nash walks through the halls backstage, passing Scott Steiner along the way and asked Steiner to watch his back. It's for Scott's contract, Nash says. But Steiner says he's busy with the lady. Nash shakes his head and walks off.
02:23:09
Speaker
It would have entirely broken the move, but it would have been utterly hilarious if Steiner had misinterpreted that to mean the match was for his contract, and hastily agreed. Yeah, it would be great. I do like that Nash calls Steiner Scottie. It reminds me of the early days of the Steiner brothers where the commentators always called him that too. As Nash makes his entrance, Tony runs over Nash's and Hall's history in WCW, and we get a shot of a seriously buff dude in the crowd. Oh yeah. No idea who that guy was, but man.
02:23:40
Speaker
we get a couple of signs of note. Nash diesel powered, referencing his WWF gimmick of diesel, which I'm sure gave WCW legal team a few cold sweats. Yeah. And more sadly, Scott alcohol, which is just a horrible gag about holes by then. Well known struggles with drinking. Yeah. Goldberg is out next with Hall's contract tucked into the front of his tights, sticking out upwards, which is unfortunate placement.
02:24:10
Speaker
Yeah. Tuck it at the side if you're gonna do that, man. Thankfully, it doesn't get lit on fire by his pyro. He'd set it on the commentary desk. Madden characterizes this as like Godzilla vs. Megalon or the Titanic vs. the Iceberg.
02:24:28
Speaker
Okay, aside from being a casual reference to a horrific human tragedy, he is aware that the Titanic didn't have an epic struggle with the iceberg, right? Yeah. There was contact in the Titanic sink. It's not what you're trying to build to here. I was going to say, because Gods Over the Megalon is not a good movie, but it's definitely not a human tragedy. Yes, fair.
02:24:51
Speaker
That one gets me as a film nerd because it's like, yes, that is a movie and that there's a very famous poster where the two of them are like standing really awkward posters again now, obviously, but the two of them are standing on both of the Twin Towers, like facing off to each other, like adjacently. Oh, wow. Yeah, it's a US poster for it. But of all the Godzilla versus such and such ones, you went Godzilla versus Megalon, not King Kong versus Godzilla. Why not that?
02:25:19
Speaker
I mean, it would have been worse if he said Godzilla versus the smog monster, sure, but... You know what he should have said. Godzilla versus Jet Jaguar. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Nash checks the contract before entering the ring. Hudson points out this is the same building where the outsiders formed the NWO. Goldberg gets a cheap shot in on a break, but Nash lands hard strikes that rock Goldberg, only for Goldberg to get two with a twisting suplex.
02:25:45
Speaker
Goldberg lands strikes and dodges Nash's, but pauses to yell at the crowd so Nash chokeslams him for two. As Goldberg counters a neckbreaker and puts Nash in a hold, Steiner and Midasia come down. Steiner shows Nash the contract to encourage him to fight on, and Nash makes the ropes. Nash sidewalkslam for two, and he dodges a spear so Goldberg hits the turnbuckles.
02:26:07
Speaker
Nash goes for the jackknife powerbomb, but Steiner gets in and hits him from behind. Nash big-boots him, but eats a spear from Goldberg, then the jackhammer for the three-count and the win. Goldberg high-fives Steiner, and Steiner hands him Hall's contract. Goldberg rips up the contract, leaving the pieces lying by the unconscious Nash as Steiner puts Nash in the Steiner recliner. Goldberg actually has some real trouble ripping up the contract.
02:26:35
Speaker
I'm guessing sweaty hands and maybe thicker contract paper. We see the contract could wet for most stuff as well. It might be probably sweat. Yeah. Wet paper is weirdly harder to rip. You can't quite grip it as well. Nash stirs as they exit, but we don't actually get a shot of Nash clearly seeing the touring contract, which feels like a missed opportunity. Yeah, we really should like have him sit up with the contract with them like that. No. Yeah. Thoughts on this one?
02:27:03
Speaker
It's a decent match. It's one of those matches where it's just you guys hitting each other a lot with big hard moves. The problem is it's just so short. It's a speed run version of a Goldberg Nash match.
02:27:17
Speaker
Just about five minutes, but it feels shorter. I think it's because the five minutes includes the Scott Steiner stuff as well. Yeah. True. Yeah. It's just weird though. So much of the show, they find time to work a body part, whether it's even shorter matches like the Shane Douglas but Bagwell match or the Canyon Booker T match. But here it's just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Obvious betrayal, boom, boom, boom.
02:27:41
Speaker
Speaking of which, they spend a lot of time throughout the show, finding ways to cheat without the ref seeing. And then that kind of like hitting with weapons, but like Tori Wilson, how she does it, the Jeff Jarrett situation. The bigger this match, Scott star just runs in and just hits him behind right in front of the refs like, Oh, well, yeah.
02:28:00
Speaker
I know there's a whole, you know, loosened rules and everything, but surely you should have stricter rules for this match, given someone's livelihoods on the line story. Yeah, if I were Nash, I would literally just point a sign or say, uh, DQ, I get Scott's contract now. Right. Right. Yeah. Right. I mean, we know that Nash can convince a referee of of out. Yes. Yeah. To rule in his favor. That is true. Yeah. Yeah. Uh.
Crowd Engagement and Storyline Critiques
02:28:26
Speaker
Yeah, I kind of started to like it because it was just big move, big move, and the crowd rolled into it. But then it's like, oh, matches over now. Yeah. It's almost like somebody gave up a bunch of time earlier in the show. It didn't need to be there. Yeah, yeah. They did make it pretty intense while it lasted, but something of this level of importance should have been much longer and even harder fought.
02:28:51
Speaker
It's listed at about five minutes, 27 seconds, and that's shorter than every other match on the show, except for the wedding gown match and Jarrett laying down for Hulk Hogan. My concerns with this storyline and its use of Scott Hall, when they apparently have no intention of employing Scott Hall aside, if you're doing this story, there's so much more emotion and drama you could pull out of it than they do here. Yeah.
02:29:15
Speaker
It feels like they had no real idea what story beats they wanted to hit, so they just went for the shortest possible way of getting to the finish, which unfortunately stripped the match of a lot of its impact. When Steiner came out, it felt really weird because Nash wasn't in a position where he really needed someone cheering for him yet. Do that after Goldberg's been beating him down for another four or five minutes and got several more two counts, and it would mean much more. Yeah. It's a waste of a dramatic, if questionable, story concept.
02:29:43
Speaker
Like you said, I suppose it's possible that this was originally intended to be longer, but because we had to do the Russo promo and then the Booker T versus Jarrett match, that's going to happen in a bit. Maybe they cut that time from this match. This one feels like such a weird one to cut the time from. It does. Yeah. Yeah. So I did look it up because I was curious. So stark at 98, the main event being Goldberg and Nash. That is 11 minutes, 20 seconds. So twice as long. Yeah. I remember us aside from the ending.
02:30:14
Speaker
rather liking that one. Yeah. Like you said, they can be two big dudes hitting each other very hard. And they they do that quite well. Yeah, I like that more than I expected to like that match on paper, for sure. So the storyline going into the next show is that they be triple threat match to determine who would be the number one hand to the world title that would involving Kevin Nash, Scott Steiner and Goldberg.
02:30:43
Speaker
That unfortunately is at Dubewood Rising and it's the Goldberg goes off script and Russo yells at him match.
Booker T's Road to the Championship
02:30:53
Speaker
So again, giving us a match that could be, it's really good on paper, but doing Russo stuff to it. We cut backstage where Gene is with Booker T.
02:31:05
Speaker
All right, Tony, we are back with Booker T. This has been perhaps one of the most emotional evenings I have ever experienced at World Championship Wrestling. As I understand it, from Vince Russo Booker, now you're going to be facing Jeff Jarrett. And yes, the WCW Heavyweight title will be on the line. You know, man, this all came up as a surprise to me. I really don't know what's going on. Vince made the decision. I'm going to do what I got to do. Opportunity has knocked and I will be *******.
02:31:32
Speaker
If I don't answer that bill, I am gonna do what I have to do tonight to take that goal home, take it around my waist, and take it into the next millennium. How can you dig that, G? I can. Toting it back to you.
02:31:45
Speaker
Nice promo from Booker here. It's short, but in this rare instance, it's perfectly fine for a promo to basically say this match exists because this match didn't exist earlier in the night. I agree. Yeah. Booker's reaction to the opportunity he's getting and his determination to make the most of it are absolutely perfect hero stuff. And in the few moments he gets to speak here, he shows just how good he is. One of the bright spots of WSW in 2000. Absolutely. Yeah.
02:32:12
Speaker
I love Gene confirming that he can, in fact, dig it. Yeah. Good to know, Gene. Good to know. Yeah, like you said, it's a reasonable thing that this is a short promo because, yeah, he was KFA told about this match like 30 minutes ago or whatever it was, and he's going to get ready for it. So it's a big opportunity. So, of course, yeah.
02:32:33
Speaker
And I like that he doesn't fully address the whole title situation. I like to think he's aware of how ridiculous this whole thing is. He's like, I'm not going to drag down this. I just ought to be world champion. That's all that matters. I can't say that obviously, but it's kind of feeling I get from him. Yeah. Yeah. Like I am above the BS. Yeah. It's just simply, I've been given this opportunity. I should have to take advantage of it and I will.
02:33:01
Speaker
We cut back to the commentary team, where Tony and Hudson again note that they didn't know about this match at the start of the night. Hudson says they had originally thought the last match would be Nash versus Goldberg. Tony still seems annoyed, ignoring a question from Madden and noting that, I'm told we're gonna pitch it to Michael Buffer. What's next?
02:33:22
Speaker
I hope that they at least gave him some notes on this match after it was publicly set. But given what he's since said about the rest of the night, I would not be at all surprised, actually, if he hadn't gotten any guidance on this. Yeah. Is that true? So our final match.
02:33:39
Speaker
is Booker T versus Jeff Jarrett for Jarrett's WCW World Heavyweight Championship, I guess. As Russo said, it was a new title, but renamed the old one, so maybe this is the same. You know what? I'm not getting into that. Yeah. For Jarrett's WCW World Heavyweight Championship, referees Billy Silverman. So an interesting little wrinkle to the how abrupt was this and what was the long term planning on this?
02:34:06
Speaker
So on Thunder, Jared still, at this point, he still thinks Hogan's not going to show up. So he's, you know, he wants a real challenge. So they set up an angle where the tag team match with Buff Bagwell, Booker T versus Shane Douglas and Positive The Canyon. The winner and the prettiest person who gets the pinfall will challenge Jeff Jarrett for the world title on that show. Booker T ends up beating Chris Canyon on that show. And at the end of the night, he actually gets a world title match to get to Jeff Jarrett. Okay.
02:34:35
Speaker
They do preview this match where they build it up more than you would think, given everything that happens around the situation. As you probably imagine, obviously there's no title change on that thunder. And it must be though, Jeff Jarrett's champion going into the show. They also don't have Booker be pinned. They basically have a bunch of stuff happen and there's none non-finish. So no one really loses, no one really wins. The show doesn't matter other than maybe them testing to see how a Jeff Jarrett Booker T match for the world title would look like.
02:35:05
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Which you could figure either maybe means that someone, Vince or so probably had this in mind at that point, or just he may be thinking, you know, in that tournament, maybe it's nice if it ends up between the two of them. Yeah. Buffer says we witnessed one of the most amazing nights in the history of professional wrestling. And Tony snarks, he's not kidding. Buffer varies up how he says, let's get ready to rumble.
02:35:35
Speaker
Tony has to announce a sweepstakes winner, who gets to attend Halloween Havoc, and notes that the winner, in attendance tonight, wasn't expecting to see this match, and neither did they. He turns to building up Booker T though, and the commentators do a good job praising him being ready to fight, despite already having a tough match earlier. Madden gets confused about Jarrett coming out with the bell, but is reminded that the title isn't vacant, as Russo did re-declare him champ. Honestly buddy, I can't keep it all straight tonight either.
02:36:03
Speaker
A sign in the crowd dubs Jarrett the chosen one. Yeah, I know two O's. Come on, people. As the belt is being shown off, Tony checks and declares that he sure is the real one, despite Hogan leading with a similar belt earlier. Per Conrad on what happened when Tony's right, a replica was made to give to Hogan. I think Jarrett might have also been holding the replica during his promo earlier in the night. Gotcha.
02:36:32
Speaker
Tony also claims he's had more fun tonight than on a hundred different shows and even manages to stop his voice from dripping with sarcasm as he does.
Booker T vs. Jeff Jarrett: Title Match Highlights
02:36:39
Speaker
He is a professional. The best actor Oscar goes to Tony.
02:36:46
Speaker
Booker counters Jarrett headlock takeovers with head scissor locks a couple times, and a counterwrestling exchange leads to a Booker dropkick and another to a Harlem sidekick. Booker sends Jarrett out and they slowly brawl through the crowd as Madden mixes up Booker and Stevie Ray, but catches himself and apologizes, noting that the night has him totally flustered.
02:37:06
Speaker
Jarrett flings Booker to ringside, hits him with a chair, and throws him over the commentary table. Jeff, Tony does not need any more stress tonight. Tony has to take his headset off momentarily, as its cable got tangled with things as he dodged. Oh jeez. Jarrett pile drives Booker on the commentary table, which does not give, so that couldn't have felt great. No. Jarrett steals a bottle of water. Jeff, Tony's stress. Careful, man.
02:37:35
Speaker
Jarett takes a swig and tosses the bottle, and a quick-thinking cameraman shields his camera lens from flying water droplets. That's my MVP, by the way. I wouldn't be surprised on this show. Back in, they trade blows, but Jarett catches Booker in a sleeper hold. Booker keeps the arm up on the third check to Jarett's shock. He was even telling the timekeeper to be ready to ring the bell. They trade sleepers, and Jarett's shin breakers Booker a bit sloppily. Booker audibly swears.
02:38:03
Speaker
Figure four attempt, but Booker rolls him up for two, but Jarrett tries again and locks it in. Booker slumps for two, but then rapidly turns from side to side, managing to turn the hold over by tricking Jarrett into resisting in the wrong direction. Jarrett gets the ropes to break. Jarrett tries drops on Booker's leg, but Booker dodges one to stun him. Axe kick. Spin a Rooney.
Booker T's Victory and Event Critiques
02:38:25
Speaker
Booker gets two with a spinebuster, but Jarrett dodges the Harlem sidekick, and Booker crotches himself on the ropes.
02:38:32
Speaker
Silverman moves in the way on a whip for no reason getting KO'd. So Jarett tries a shot with a big gold belt, but Booker takes it and levels Jarett for two. Jarett slugs him in the crotch and wedges a chair in the corner. Hudson notes it didn't work out so well for Canyon, and indeed Booker runs Jarett into it for two. Jarett uppercuts Booker and hits the stroke on Silverman.
02:38:57
Speaker
Jarrett punts Booker in the crotch and tries a top rope diving guitar shot, but Booker dodges and smoothly hits the bookend as new ref Mark Johnson runs down to deliver the three count for the win. With this win, Booker becomes the second African American man to win the WCW title after Ron Simmons.
02:39:18
Speaker
Elated, he celebrates with the title, then helps up Silverman. Booker has a clearly genuine smile and looks close to tears, which Tony notes. Thoughts on this one?
02:39:31
Speaker
It's a really good match. I mean, there's no question about it. As we discussed on New Blood Rising, these guys worked together really well. Boca team makes a really good face. Whether he's on top or coming from behind, you really root for him. And he, when he's on top, he delivers all these things you want from a face. Likewise, even if I don't love Jeff Jarrett, I've definitely grown to appreciate what he does, whether it's character work, his entering work, or the combination of the two. Definitely more than when I started the series.
02:40:00
Speaker
He's one of their most dependable performers, I think. Because for me, he had the stigma of guys that were just given the world title, whether it's in TNA, the company he basically owned, or in this company. So it was hard to look past that. Obviously, I've watched enough of his matches to really appreciate what he does. And it's kind of amazing that he's still doing it now in 2024. Even if I don't watch the company then, I can at least appreciate that he is still doing what he loves.
02:40:30
Speaker
Obviously, this is a Jeff Jarrett match. So you got to accept certain things that just always happen Jeff Jarrett matches, you know, ref bumps, long fight through the crowd and attempted guitar shot, but an actual guitar shot and historical course.
02:40:45
Speaker
I can at least appreciate, I don't know if a thing they were told to say or just something they did, but commentary tries to explain the crowd bawling as being something in his favor because Booker T wear himself out. It's a little silly, but I give him credit for at least trying to explain why that makes sense to do in a match like this. I think they specifically point out that because Booker has had a match earlier, he probably has less in reserve than Jared does.
02:41:13
Speaker
Now, when I think it's Madden tries to compare them saying like, well, Jared didn't have a match with Hogan, but, you know, like the drama and everything backstage, like, no, don't do that. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, it's a really good match. They do the body part working really well, you know, absent flows.
02:41:32
Speaker
aside from the silliness that happens in the chip, Derek matches is nice to see that actually not work. So Booker T hits the book in and wins, which would be really great if they hadn't had someone kick out of the book in on the same show. Fair. But that said, this is Booker T win the world title well deserved for a long period of time. And it definitely keeps the show from being one of the truly worth of all time.
02:41:59
Speaker
to being a bad show that you can go, well, yeah, it's bad, but what's this? You know, watch this section and watch this part. Yeah, at the very least, this night gave us this one thing. A genuinely great moment for Booker T. The match itself was solid, not exceptional, but solid. I will say I don't know how much time they actually had to prep this one.
02:42:22
Speaker
It's probably not super long in my mind as it sounds like the debate over what would happen between Hogan and Jarrett happened up until quite close to the actual show. Yeah. So it does feel a little unpolished with a lot of segments that are easy to improvise like the crowd brawl interspersed with a few more notable spots like the pile driver to the table and exchanges with the title belt and chairs. But there may be an explanation for that lack of polish.
02:42:47
Speaker
At the same time, it has a really great energy to it and the crowd is hyped to see Booker fighting for the world title. Yeah. That ending spot is really nicely timed too. Booker does a good smooth dodge of the guitar shot and hits the bookend well.
02:43:03
Speaker
I would say this is a good match, but I wonder how much better it would have been with maybe more forewarning that it would be happening or without all the other stuff going on tonight. Still an absolutely amazing moment for Booker, and you can't help but feel happy for the guy finally reaching the top after all these years. Yeah, agreed 100%.
02:43:25
Speaker
Well, good news. Booker T would not lose the world title to Lance Dorm as part of his title collection. Although Lance Dorm did actually challenge for the belt on the August 8th Nitro. Wow. The story was he's like, I'm going to win all these belts. So he got really close.
02:43:42
Speaker
The Booker T Jeff Jarrett situation is not ending. This is only the start of it. Jeff Jarrett would make it more personal because on the later nitros, Booker T's wife would be there in person celebrating the helping the victories forum and Jeff Jarrett would use his guitar and knock her out. So now it's even more personal going after him, which we'd see on New Blood Rising. Okay.
02:44:05
Speaker
Madden attempts to reference Tony's old Hulk Hogan You Can Go to Hell line from Bash of the Beach 1996, but Tony, perhaps sensing it's best not to antagonize Hogan more tonight, cuts him off. Tony signs off by noting that Nitro will be one hell of a program, and they loved bringing Bash of the Beach as there's never been anything like it. He's not wrong. Yeah. Bash of the Beach 2000 is done.
02:44:34
Speaker
Yeah. Overall thoughts on Bash the Beach 2000? It's a show which is very much overshadowed by the behind the scenes things, whether the whole altercation was fully fake or half fake or half true or 100% true. Who knows? The fact that two people that are not known for being real, reliable witnesses and storytellers are the ones to tell it make it complicated. Yeah.
02:45:02
Speaker
On top of that, there's a lot of weird decisions and bad decisions throughout the show. I mean, you have the wedding gown match, you have the graveyard match, you have matches that are just surrounded by nonsense like the opening match, or the fact that Ralphis is in a title match, even if it's just a joke. They definitely do a good job with some presentation. The problem is they do so much work and time, as noted, building up the Hulk Hogan Jared match.
02:45:32
Speaker
So it makes a really weird feel because you're like, man, they're really building up this match. And then especially if you know what's happening, you're like, you spent a lot of time on this. All right. Thankfully, something really great happened. That's Booker T win the title. A lot of really dumb stuff happens. And the rest of the stuff with the card could be good. But one thing or another happens booking wise or performance wise, that makes it just not as good as it could be.
02:45:57
Speaker
Excellent ending moment aside, this was another really poor show. Matches range from underwhelming to actively stupid and terrible, with only two exceptions, both involving Booker T. No surprise there, he's great.
02:46:11
Speaker
Add the Hogan Jarrett Russo antics to it and it only gets worse, with a generous portion of the show dedicated to breaking WCW's fictional reality in the best case, and then laying out backstage grievances in front of the whole world in an astoundingly petty display that puts the brakes on the show and massively confuses the crowd and commentary team in the process in the worst case. Yeah. I don't want to be too hard on Russo. He was right about two things.
02:46:38
Speaker
The backstage politics in WSW were reportedly horrible, and Booker T is an amazing choice for world champ. It's just that being right about those two things doesn't excuse, well, everything else that happened tonight.
02:46:55
Speaker
Getting the belt on Booker T was a very good move. I just wish they'd gotten there in another way, a way that would leave the night about that title win, not about the weird events of Hogan versus Jarrett and Russo's promo. It's still a notable night for Booker, but imagine how much better it would be if it didn't have so much else to distract from his win. Yeah, it's a shame someone's bag is attached to one of his big defining moments as a wrestler. Yeah.
02:47:24
Speaker
Promos were, as usual in this era, short as heck and frequently pointless, though a few performers, including again Booker T, managed to rise above the time they were given. The video packages were variable. There's some good ones like the Nash vs Goldberg one, but then there's the intro that seems to combine guys with the wrong stipulations and the wedding gown one with weird statements and typos.
02:47:47
Speaker
Commentary. Well, there's the usual problems with this era, especially Madden's frequent inappropriate humor. And the three don't really gel like the teams in earlier years. It's a hard night for them though. And I do want to praise their ability to actually get through the rest of the show after the events of Hogan versus Jared and the Russo promo, which evidently they basically weren't informed of at all. Yeah.
02:48:12
Speaker
They actually seem to gel better as they come together to try to get through things in the wake of all of that. I can't help but sympathize with them tonight. That moment of Tony face-bombing and asking how long they've been doing this is going to stick with me. Production values further hampered the show. Aside from the utter lack of a set, disappointing after a series full of terrific ones and an actual beach,
02:48:36
Speaker
We had cameras missing important transitions and matches, awful lighting in the graveyard match, a number of segments that seemed improperly miked, and the poor confused commentary team forced on camera so often the Hudson actually made of a note of it. Yeah. Much of the show's disorganized feel can likely be attributed to secrecy around the Hogan-Jarrett angle and Russo's promo, but that doesn't make it better. And there's quite a lot that just feels poorly done beyond that.
02:49:04
Speaker
I recall that after we watched this years ago for the first time, we debated for several hours, which was worse this or 1999. Honestly, we could probably debate it just as long today without a really, really clear answer. Yeah. This was very, very bad, but at least it gave Booker T his first world title.
Event Highlights and Conclusion
02:49:28
Speaker
So there's that. Yeah.
02:49:32
Speaker
Match of the night and MVP then. So Al, what's your match of the night?
02:49:36
Speaker
So there's a couple of matches in the show I really wanted to like, and there are parts I did like, but ultimately the presentation just made it not feasible. That being the, unfortunately, the Mike Gossoms, Scott Steiner match, the Goldberg, Kevin Nash match, and the Chavago Rero versus Huudiguero match. So match of the night is really down to which guy Booger T is fighting. So it's Booger T in Canyon versus Booger T in Jeff Jarrett.
02:50:05
Speaker
Ultimately, I really can't pick anything but Booker T versus Jeff Jarrett for the title. I don't know if it's a better match per se, but the end result is ultimately better, both historically and just in the moment. And such an important thing that happened on the show and in history for wrestling. So I can't pick anything but that. All right.
02:50:30
Speaker
Yeah, there's only two really good matches tonight. That's Booker versus Canyon or Booker versus Jarrett. Nothing else comes close like you said.
02:50:38
Speaker
Between those, I will also choose Booker versus Jarrett, if only by a whisker. While it does have the crowd brawl and there's some pacing problems with it, the fact that it's Booker's second match of the night and the presumably somewhat limited time that they had to plan it, make it doubly impressive that it's as good as it is. And it's also a massive emotional moment for Booker T that just felt good to watch after a crappy night. MVP.
02:51:06
Speaker
I mean, I think it can't be anyone other than Booker T, right? Yep, totally agreed. He gets to win the world title, which is well deserved. He wrestles two matches, both of which are the best in the show. He even makes the most, honestly, out of that short, you have 30 seconds to go promo go style with his match. So yeah, obviously, it's like people that do well in their own way. I mean, Charlie Guerrero does well just to start a bunch of nonsense.
02:51:34
Speaker
Jeff Jarrett for his part. Honestly, if he wasn't involved in the whole lay down for Hogan and just sort of mired in the little thing, he would be a much stronger for MVP. He does a good job in his match, but it's hard to separate him from that, unfortunately. And that's really not his fault. Yeah, it's Booker T all the way.
02:51:54
Speaker
Yeah, I can only give this to one guy and that's Booker T. Like you said, he's involved in both of the night's genuinely good matches. He gives us all in both performances. He had a good promo in quite difficult circumstances. And he topped off the night with a feel good title win that clearly had him close to tears of happiness. This was a bad show. Except when Booker T was on it. Agreed.
02:52:20
Speaker
Honorable mention to Tony Schiavone for managing to complete the show when he likely wanted nothing more than to be done after the Russo segment. Yeah. Oh, and just honorable mention to the ring crew who can't clean up cake. Or at the very least, just change out at a second set of ring mats. It's so bad. Has to be noted. And that wraps up our review of Bass to the Beach 2000. If you've enjoyed listening to us tonight, you can find us on Facebook as Let's Go to the Ring.
02:52:50
Speaker
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02:53:15
Speaker
Many thanks to OSW Review for attendance and pay-per-view figures, and to Gina Trujillo for our logo. Next up, it's time to say goodbye to Beach Blast and Bash at the Beach with our traditional end-of-series wrap-up. We'll look back at themes we saw in the series, go back over its history, and have fun testing Al's memory, hand out some awards, and of course, design our ultimate beach party. I mean, ultimate shows with batches from across the series. Yeah, there you go.
02:53:44
Speaker
Plus, we'll let you know what we're covering next. I am really looking forward to it. This is Bob Moore for Alec Pridgen, signing off. Good night, everybody. Happy wrestling. Any other thoughts on this?
02:54:12
Speaker
Nope, I'm good. OK. Oh.