Slamboree '95

Legacy Review

Slamboree '95

May 21, 1995 from the Bayfront Arena in St. Petersburg, FL

Commentary: Eric Bischoff (Tony Schiavone is out sick) and Bobby Heenan

WCW World Tag Team Championship: The Nasty Boys def Harlem Heat (c) (w/Sister Sherri) in 10:52- There's some more fun pretaping title change shenanigans to get into but I'll wait until after the match. I expect everyone is as sick of this rivalry as I am. They've been wrestling each other for months and yet every one of their matches is still crap. This is being billed as the Nastys' last chance at the titles so you know how this is ending. And to make it even more obvious, Knobbs was attacked during the Main Event preshow and doesn't come out with Sags. Sags goes it alone to start the match. After some endless stalling Booker finally gets in with him to start. Slapping and slugging. Booker flippy sells a clothesline. Corner clothesline. Ray comes in and Sags gives the heels a double DDT. Sherri takes a smack. Sags hit her, not a kiss. Pumphandle slam on Booker for 2 as Sags continues to dominate despite Harlem Heat having a 2 on 1 advantage. The heels finally gets smart and double team but Sags *still* fights them off and gives Ray the low blow headbutt and legdrop. Double ax handle off the top and Sherri distracts again. Sags chases her around and gets jumped by Heat, finally getting the upper hand on this one man that's been tearing apart both of them. Flying forearm from Booker. After an eye poke tradeoff Sags dodges a Booker elbow drop. Booker spinaroonies right back up and hits the side sick. Ray barely pulls of a side suplex. Booker hits a nice 360 legdrop off the top rope. Arrogant cover for 2. Ray tries a simple legdrop off the BOTTOM rope and still fraks it up. The farther Harlem Heat go in the spotlight it's becoming very clear who's the better worker of the two. Sags counters a Booker backdrop into a piledriver. Knobbs wobbles in with his ribs all taped up. Sags tags him in and Knobbs gets the hot tag run. Sherri tries coming off the top but gets caught and slammed, then Knobbs throws her over the to rope onto Ray on the floor! The Nastys hit Booker with a powerslam/elbow off the top combo and that gets the pin and the titles. Honestly it's miraculous that match didn't destroy Harlem Heat forever, they looked like complete goofs getting dominated by one man and folding over like origami as soon as Knobbs came in. After the match the Blue Bloods come out and have a look at the new champs, clearly wanting a title shot. Yup, another match with these two teams that sucks. 3/4*

 

So, pretape title changes. WCW was still taping weekly TV a month or more in advance in these last pre-Nitro months. The match where Harlem Heat took the titles back from the Nastys had already been taped before this show but wouldn't be shown until late June. And to make it even crazier, when that match finally did air the match where Harlem Heat dropped the titles to Bunkhouse Buck and Dick Slater had also already been taped to be shown another month later. Thankfully the Nastys wouldn't get the titles back and would finally be moved back down the line in the coming months. I've always said, a tag division that has the Nasty Boys as the top face team is a tag division that is in desperate need of a rethink. Or being euthanized.

Kevin Sullivan def The Man With No Name in 5:24- Aw hell. Can I be euthanized for this match? The Man With No Name is our old pal Ed "Brutus Beefcake" Leslie, formerly the Butcher, who adopted this gimmick and supposedly turned face after Sullivan accidentally hit him in his surgically repaired face back at Superbrawl. It was originally The Man With No Face but they changed it I think to play off the fact Prince was changing his name to a symbol around this time. The whole thing is undermined really bad by everyone saying "formerly known as the Butcher" instead of just rolling with the new gimmick. Jump start brawl and Butcher (as I'll call him here for clarity and brevity's sake) hits a high knee. They go to the floor and Sullivan takes a guardrail shot as Butcher is all over him like a wild man. Mounted punches and buckle shots. The sleeper is on. Sullivan supposedly jawbreakers out but it didn't look right at all. Butcher takes a bit of a beating on the floor before coming back with a bite and he no sells shots from Sullivan. Piledriver for 2. Sullivan dodges an avalanche, puts Butcher in the tree of woe and hits a running knee. The jumping double stomp hits and Sullivan gets a clean pin. Yup, that was as awful as expected. 1/4*

Speaking of things that suck, after the match the man who will later be known as the Master of the Dungeon of Doom appears on the tron, has some incoherent ramblings and tells Sullivan to come visit him. Commentary has no idea who he is or what to make of it, and a clearly confused Sullivan exists through the crowd. Yes, the Dungeon of Doom is on deck. Hide the children. Not because they're scary, because they'll never grow up to be wrestling fans watching that crap.

 

Wahoo McDaniel def Dick Murdoch in 6:24- They're still doing the legends' reunion gimmick with Slamboree and this is tonight's one and only legends match. Hilariously the broadcast goes into black and white for this match. I'm pretty sure color TV had been invented before these guys were wrestling full time. Still not as silly as Sin Cara's special botch lighting. Gordon Solie also takes over for Bischoff for this match. Cautious start with Wahoo getting a couple of armdrags out of lockups. Murdoch hits some of his signature elbows to the head. Heenan's playing straight and being serious with Solie. He's still being funny, but the heelishness is toned way down. I like it. Wahoo hits a big chop in the corner. Lots of back and forth slugging with Wahoo going to chops right on Murdoch's nose a lot. Murdoch gets a knee to the gut and elbows to the throat. His nose might be bleeding after all those chops but it's hard to tell with the lack of color. He hits the kneedrop off the top rope. More elbows and a cover for 2. Wahoo reverses a whip, hits his patented chop and gets the pin. Not horrible for an oldster's match. *

 

IWGP Heavyweight Championship: The Great Muta (c) def "Mr. Wonderful" Paul Orndorff in 14:11- An IWGP Heavyweight title defense outside Japan was almost unheard of in this era and is a plus for this show. Too bad it's only Orndorff challenging. This would have been a great opportunity to run Muta vs Sting back one more time. Muta had just won the title earlier in the month, ending one of the long reigns of Shinya Hashimoto, check out my series of reviews of the January 4 Tokyo Dome shows from this era for more. All the links are on the right of the page (desktop) or under the "Home" dropdown menu at the top (mobile). As usual Orndorff gets bent out of shape at the Paula chants at the start of the match. He even gets on ref Nick Patrick about it and Patrick gives it right back to him. Little mat wrestling standoff to start and both guys gesture their affection to one another. PG style. Muta does a nice escape out of a hammerlock. Speed run, Muta rolls under a clothesline and hits a back kick. Orndorff rolls to the floor. Back in Orndorff maneuvers into a hammerlock on the mat. Short clothesline. Muta dodges an elbow drop and hits a dropkick, then does his twisty elbow drop. More mat work with Muta holding a chinlock and headscissors. Orndorff gets a back suplex. Muta gets tossed to the floor and flies all the way into the guardrail. Orndorff chokes him with a TV cable. He suplexes Muta back in and hits a pretty subdued Boogie Woogie elbow. He doesn't have Roma egging him on to showboat anymore. The match peters out with Orndorff working a scintillating variation of restholds. Muta inverted atomic drops out of a facelock. Clothesline and elbow off the second rope. Both guys are going in slow motion and have been the whole match. Orndorff is up with forearms and hits a fist drop. He goes for the piledriver but Muta backdrops out. Another back kick. Handspring elbow. Bulldog for 2. Muta comes off the ropes and just runs into Orndorff. Not sure what that was or if it went how they wanted it to. Backbreaker, moonsault, and it's over. Meh. I love Muta but he tended to dog it in his post-excursion US matches. *1/2

 

WCW World Television Championship: Arn Anderson (c) def "Das Wunderkind" Alex Wright in 11:36- No dancing from Wright tonight I guess to show he's super cereal. My eyes thank him. Arn's no longer with Col. Parker because he's being paired up with Flair again for the long term. Long lockup. Wright gets an armdrag. Arn gets stuck in a headlock for a while. Wright flummoxes Arn with some flippydo, hits a dropkick and back to the headlock. Arn catches a kick and Wright hits him with an enzuguri. Again Arn gets outsmarted in a counter sequence and takes a Wright dropkick. Arn lets his leg get caught and tries his own enzuguri. Wright ducks and locks on an STF. Arn gets to the ropes, then rolls out to regroup. Wright baseball slide! Plancha! Arn clotheslines the post after a dodge and Wright goes to work on it back in the ring. Arn backs him into a corner and hits a back elbow. Bischoff calls that "vintage Arn Anderson". CBS News radio reporter Michael Cole is already setting up a copyright infringement lawsuit. European uppercuts from Wright. Arn tries an inverted atomic drop but Wright blocks it. Speed run....World's Greatest Spinebuster! Arn starts picking the kid apart. He goes for a figure four but Wright pushes him into the corner. Spinning kick from Wright. Suplex. He goes up top. Missile dropkick for 2. Arn gets a small package but Wright reverses it for 2. Punch fakeout from Arn. DDT! That gets the pin! Love that finish. Keep learning, kid. Arn ring generaled the rookie to a pretty decent match. **1/2

 

Meng (w/Col. Robert Parker) and Road Warrior Hawk double countout in 4:41- This is an impromptu match that was set up on the Main Event preshow. Capetta announces this as a "SURPRISE bonus match" like we're getting a present or something. He also goes full Buffer introing Hawk. Never go full Buffer. Meng hits a chop before the bell and lays in the early beatdown. Hawk, as usual, pops right back up after a piledriver. He grabs Meng and twists him around for a neckbreaker. Meng no sells that. Hawk dives in the corner, misses, posts his shoulder and falls to the floor. Parker gets some kicks in and Meng posts him again. Back in Meng hits a backbreaker for 2. Hawk tries to kick back. Meng cuts it off with throat chops. Hawk grabs a kick and clotheslines Meng. Flying tackle and fist drop for 2. Meng dodges a splash off the top. Hawk rolls to the floor and Meng follows. They fight on the floor and are both counted out. LOL Hawk never jobs. Jobz? The locker room empties to break up the fight. If that was a present I'd like to know how to return it. 1/2*

Next up is the annual WCW Hall of Fame induction ceremony hosted by Gordon Solie, a Slamboree tradition at this time. This year's inductees: Wahoo McDaniel, Terry Funk (who Solie mentions is currently active in Japan, where he was putting on some of the most legendary deathmatches in wrestling history in IWA Japan along with Bischoff fired Mick Foley), Angelo Poffo (dad to Randy Savage, who's only in this to be part of an angle later), Antonio Inoki, Big John Studd (posthumously), and headliner Dusty Rhodes. Young Cody makes an appearance with his dad. In a pure Dusty move he's formal wear on top and blue jeans on the bottom. Dusty surprises Solie with his own induction, which Solie looks genuinely moved and surprised by. You'll never hear me argue against HOF inductions as big a history lover as I am, but this is the sort of thing that needed to be done separately and not eat up so much PPV time, as WWE learned well.

 

Sting def Big Bubba Rogers in 9:29- This is called a Lights Out match but the lights never go out. I'd laugh my ass off if it meant that this match was in black and white too. Sting brings a table with him in his entrance. Rogers mocks Sting's yell and Sting shows him how it's done. After some more stalling they finally lock up. A Sting back elbow and dropkick send Rogers to the floor. An eye rake lets Rogers pound away. He gets a tie out and chokes Sting with it. Sting powers out and dropkicks again. Reset with more stalling. Speed run and Sting clothesline for 2. They go to the floor and Sting takes a stair shot. Rogers gets the table Sting brought in. Sting runs him into it. Rogers gets slammed on the table. The table is set up again. Rogers throws powder into Sting's face and runs him into the table, then tosses the table in the ring. Back in Sting backdrops out of a piledriver. He whips Rogers into the table. Rogers dodges and Sting Stinger Splashes the table! Rogers gets a belt out and whips Sting with it. Boss Man Slam for 2. Rogers goes up top and Sting slams him off. Splash off the top for 2. Sting lays the table on top of Rogers and double stomps it. The Scorpion Death Lock is hooked in and Rogers gives it up. Can't believe I'm saying this, but the Uncensored match was better. *3/4

 

WCW World Heavyweight Champion Hulk Hogan and "Macho Man" Randy Savage (w/Jimmy Hart and the Renegade) def "Nature Boy" Ric Flair and Vader (w/Arn Anderson) in 18:57- I should note that just after Uncensored Vader was stripped of the US Title for hospitalizing Dave Sullivan and that title is currently vacant. For freeing us from having to see Evad wrestle I'd give Vader a second belt and a medal. During Hogan and Savage's entrance a massive human being appears back on the entrance stage. Commentary has no idea who he is and we only get a fleeting glimpse of him from a distance. Renegade gets his own entrance again with new, not as Warrior-like music. Savage's dad Angelo Poffo is at ringside. After some discussion Vader and Hogan start. Lockup standoff. Vader lays in some corner shots. Hogan eye pokes and reverses in the corner. The mask is off. Hogan floors Vader with a clothesline, then clotheslines him 360 to the floor. Savage blindsides Vader with a double ax handle from the top to the floor! The faces try to double team but Vader gives them a double clothesline. Things break down a bit with Savage and Flair fighting on the floor, and they take over in the ring. Not sure there were any tags but whatever. Flair chops in the corner and Savage jabs. Flair Flip! He runs into a Hogan big boot on the apron! Flair falls off the apron, walks halfway up the aisle, and FLAIR FLOPS! Fantastic. Hogan tosses him back in only to have Savage 360 clothesline him out again and he crashes into the guardrail. Flair's been selling like crazy. Think he's happy to be back in the ring? Flair's fired up back in. He and Savage do another chops/jabs exchange. Hogan no sells Flair chops. Backdrop and clothesline. Flair's going to eye pokes more than usual to try to curb momentum. He goes up top and Hogan slams him off. Hogan hooks on a figure four! He never knew how to put that on properly. Arn tries to break it up but Hogan cradles him. Hogan gets up to jaw at Arn and Flair clips his knee him from behind. Now we're going to school. Vader tags in and gets in on the knee work. The huge person we saw during entrances is back and this time we get a close up of him before he leaves again. Commentary still has no clue. This is, of course, the initial tease debut of the Giant. Hogan pops up after a Vader suplex. He goes for a backdrop and Vader flat runs him over! The ref gets tossed aside as things start to break down again but order is restored. Vader avalanches Hogan's back. Vader bomb! Vader goes up top. Hogan dodges a super Vader bomb. Flair tries to break a tag up but can't. Savage runs wild until he runs into a Flair back elbow. Flair gets slammed off the top again. Savage elbow! Arn pulls Savage out. They fumble a bit on the floor and Savage runs into a Vader tackle. Renegade comes over but everyone ignores him. Quite right. He pulls Arn to the side and Arn freaks out but nothing comes of it. Flair kneedrop on Savage. He sets Savage up for Vader. VADERSAULT! It hits! Hogan breaks the pin up. Vader pummels Savage with corner potatoes. Savage and Flair do yet another chop/jabs sequence. Savage clothesline and tag to Hogan. Hogan gives Flair mounted punches and clotheslines. He slams both Flair and Vader. Arn gets taken out. Big boot. Hogan goes for the legdrop but Arn trips him. Vader splash. Flair covers. Hulk Up. Vader and Savage brawl on the floor. Arn tries to help but takes Flair out. Hogan hits the legdrop and gets the pin. After the bell the heels attack again (Renegade nowhere to be seen) and old man Poffo comes in to try to help. Flair beats him down and puts him in the figure four before Hogan and Savage save him. This would set up Savage and Flair renewing their awesome feud from 1992 WWF, giving WCW something actually worth watching in their promotion. The match itself was fun chaos even though there was a lot of spot repeating going on. Hogan actually looked like he was trying to keep up with the other three far superior workers. ***

OVERALL SHOW THOUGHTS- Not much to say other than it's another horrible PPV in WCW's run of them that's been going since late '94. The only positive, if it could be called that, was WWF wasn't doing any better at this point in time. It's pretty remarkable mainstream pro wrestling survived 1995.

OVERALL SHOW GRADE: D