King of the Ring '98

Legacy Review

King of the Ring '98

June 28, 1998 from The Igloo in Pittsburgh, PA

Commentary: Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler

WWF Light Heavyweight Champion Taka Michinoku and The Headbangers def Kaientai (w/Yamaguchi-San) in 6:41- Taka's got Headbanger gear on under his robe and joins them in their usual prematch moshing. Yamaguchi is decked out in Yomiuri Giants gear, the New York Yankees of Japan's Nippon Baseball league. Teioh and....a Headbanger start. Oh, JR finally says it's Thrasher. Thank you. Never can tell them apart. Back and forth start. Thrasher hits a tiltawhirl slam and powerslam for 2. Headbanger double team hits. The crowd is pretty amped up tonight. Funaki gets pwerbombed. Mosh gives him a hip attack avalanche, and Funaki walks out of the corner with a definite Flair Flop! Taka comes in and hits some chops. Running corner knee and missile dropkick. Funaki rolls out and Taka hits his big dive. When he gets back in Togo sneaks in and hits him from behind. Taka recovers with a monkey flip but Togo backdrops him to the floor. He dodges a Togo baseball slide, but Togo uses the position to grab a headscissors and flip Taka over on the floor. Kaintai double team wheelbarrow slam/faceplant combo as Taka stays in peril. The wrestling among the Japanese guys isn't nearly as crisp or smooth as their match at the last PPV. Togo flying headbutt off the second rope. Another double team attempt from Kaientai but Funaki takes Teioh out. Taka tags both Headbangers. Donnybrook! Funaki misses an elbow off the top rope. The Headbangers give Taka a big assist on a big splash. The Michinoku Driver hits and it's over. By the time Kaintai made their next PPV appearance Taka will have turned and joined the group as part of the infamous angle where they threatened to chop off Val Venus' moneymaker. *3/4

Sable's out. Wait, wasn't she forced to leave the WWF at the last PPV? Yup, and she's already back thanks to Mr. McMahon. Speaking of, Sable introduces Vince and he comes out. With the Stooges, naturally. Patterson and Brisco dismiss Sable. Patterson gives her an extra dismissal with a light pat on the bum. Sable slaps Patterson! I get her reaction, but if there's one man in the company she's got nothing to worry about from it's him. He was probably just trying out something new to see what it felt like. Vince hypes up the main event, runs the crowd down and tells everyone to prepare to be disappointed. Nothing special at all. A segment that only exists because of the effort in this period to make PPVs flow more like Raw, this is several PPVs in a row with a second segment in-ring promo.

 

King of the Ring Semifinals: Ken Shamrock def Jeff Jarrett (w/Tennessee Lee) in 5:29- Jarrett jumps Shamrock as he's getting in the ring but Shamrock quickly gets the upper hand. Big clothesline out of the corner. Suplex for 2. Jarrett ducks a kick and hits a swinging neckbreaker. Short clothesline and dropkick. Shamrock goes for the same kick and connects this time. He clotheslines Jarrett 360 to the floor. Shamrock knocks Jarrett around on the floor, taking a second to back Lee off. Back in Jarrett wants a timeout. Shamrock isn't interested. Lee distracts Shamrock and Jarrett hits a chop block. Shamrock came in with a bum ankle thanks to Owen Hart and the Nation, and now Jarrett goes to work on it, with Lee helping out thanks to some ref distractions. After a minute Shamrock decides that's enough and hits a back elbow, then a heel kick with the same leg Jarrett had just been working. And another one. Guess the leg's fine. Powerslam for 2. Frankensteiner! The ankle lock is on and Jarrett taps almost immediately. After the bell Lee takes a belly to belly suplex because why not. No one was taking Jarrett seriously at this point, he was just a warm body and his super old school gimmick didn't mesh well with all the Attitude going on around him. *1/2

 

King of the Ring Semifinals: WWF Intercontinental Champion The Rock def Dan Severn in 4:25- Commentary has been hyping up a possible Shamrock/Severn finals, which would be a UFC rematch. There is a definite pop for Rock when his music hits. First one ever, at least on PPV. The times are indeed changing. Ref Mike Chioda tosses the Nation before the match starts. The first part of the match is old school wrestler Severn getting quick takedowns and crafty Rock escaping with rope breaks. After a few of those exchanges Rock hits a back elbow and gives Severn some shots in the corner. Some very pulled shots. Severn dodges a corner elbow, gives Rock a fireman's carry takedown and hooks on an armbar. Once again Rock makes sure he's never too far from the ropes and gets another break. Rock hits another back elbow and a clothesline. He fires up and gets some more cheers. Suplex for 2. Severn backs Rock into the corner. Rocks cuts him off with an eye rake. Midring collision. Godfather (as Kama Mustafa is now known as) and Mark Henry come out again to distract the ref. That allows D'Lo Brown to come out of the crowd. Severn injured his pecs not long ago, so Brown is wearing a chest protector. He gives Severn a frog splash with the protector still on! Something you'll be seeing from Brown a lot after this as he does the old school injury milking. Rock covers and gets the pin. Thankfully this was short and overbooked, they had zero chemistry together. 3/4*

We get a video recap of Al Snow's Head-based antics since coming back to WWF (unofficially, on screen he was not a currently signed wrestler but looking for a job), including getting on Jerry Lawler's bad side.

 

Too Much def Al Snow and Head in 8:27- If Snow wins this match he'll get his long-sought meeting with Mr. McMahon to try to officially get a job back with the WWF. Head is super duper over. Lots of mannequin heads out in the crowd. It was an idea so out of left field it was instantly fun. That and teenage boys love a good double entendre, and Snow and WWF played right into it. After intros we have the announcement of a surprise guest referee: Jerry Lawler! Oh yeah, I'm sure this'll be called right down the middle. The crowd continues to go nuts for Head so Snow gives her another wave. Everyone loves head. *ahem* Anyway, Snow gets a quick takedown on Taylor. He goes over to have a talk with Head and Taylor jumps him from behind. Snow recovers with an atomic drop and clotheslines. Christopher tags in and spits in Head's direction. He immediately does a Heel 101 phantom hair pull bitch and daddy Lawler of course believes him. Snow goes to punch Christopher in the corner and Lawler blocks it, allowing Christopher to get his own shot in. Snow slams Christopher off the top rope. Snow goes up top and Taylor crotches him. Christopher joins him up there. Snow hits a sunset bomb. He covers and Lawler, to the shock of no one, does the most ridiculous slow count of all time, with Christopher still barely kicking out. Snow clotheslines Christopher 360 to the floor, then backdrops Taylor on top of him. He slams Christopher on the floor and hits him with a Great Muta-style aisle-long running clothesline. Right after he hits that Taylor nails him with a springboard flying forearm. Back in Christopher hits a missile dropkick. Snow wants to tag out to Head. Christopher bites his hand. The heels hit double teams and have obnoxious celebrations. Taylor covers and naturally Lawler fast counts for 2. Snow fights back with a modified German suplex. Christopher hits a bulldog. Snow double DDTs both heels. Tag to Head! Snow whacks both heels with her! Well, she is legal. The Snow Plow hits! Lawler decides he has better thing to do than count. More Head shots. Taylor gets Snow down. Christopher gets out a bottle of Head & Shoulders, puts Head on top of it, then covers her. Head and SHOULDERS, see, now she has shoulders and can be pinned. Lawler counts the 3. Snow and Head's antics could be fun when done right, but that was a deeply stupid match. As soon as Lawler came out as the ref everyone knew how it would play out. 1/2*

 

X-Pac (w/Chyna) def Owen Hart in 8:30- This is Pac's first major match after returning to WWF, I think after waiting out a WCW no-compete but I don't remember for certain. This is also continuing the DX/Nation issues. DX are full fledged faces now with Pac getting a nice ovation. Pac hits Owen with a sliding dropkick during his entrance and jumps all over him. Owen dodges in the corner and does his own beatdown. HARD Pac buckle shots. Owen backbreaker. Spinning heel kick for 2. Pac reverses a corner whip and Owen does the softest, gentlest Bret bump ever. Pac hits a kick and chops. Owen responds with a European uppercut. Perfectplex for 2. Gutwrench suplex for 2. Pac hits a backdrop and clotheslines Owen 360 to the floor. Another clothesline from behind on the floor. Owen reverses a whip on the floor and PAC FLIES into the timekeeper's table! Back in Owen hits a missile dropkick and does a jackknife cover for 2. Sleeper. Pac fights out and put on his own sleeper. Owen gets out and Pac faceplants him. Sloppy corner kicks from Pac. One looked like it caught Owen right in the face. He does the as yet unnamed Bronco Buster. They both go to the top rope, fight, and both tumble down, with Pac going to the floor! That looked like it could have been accidental, but the way the match plays out I think it was planned. Owen's also got a cut above his eye and his eye is swelling shut. Might have been from the fall, but I think it was that kick he caught in the face earlier. Mark Henry runs out and splashes Pac on the floor! Chyna comes over and gets in his face. Vader charges in and tackles Henry! (And had so much momentum he fell down himself) While that's going on Owen has the Sharpshooter on and Pac is tapping out. Chyna DDTs Owen! Vader and Henry were still brawling up the aisle so the ref was still occupied. Pac slowwwwwwly crawls over, and gets the pin. DX punks Owen yet again. OK match, but Pac's ring rust/lack of conditioning showed the second half. We're getting into the period where he'd clearly stopped caring and the fans noticed. There's a reason "X-Pac sucks" chants became a thing even when he was still supposed to be a face. Owen didn't look super motivated either. **1/2

Paul Bearer comes out and explains/retcons some of the Undertaker/Kane history. Another Raw segment on PPV that had zero purpose.

 

WWF Tag Team Championship: The New Age Outlaws (c) (w/Chyna) def NWA World Tag Team Champions The New Midnight Express (w/Jim Cornette) in 9:54- We've got the Gunn brothers on opposite sides here. Holly and Dogg start with some extended basics. Dogg tries to get Holly in the champs' corner but he squeaks free. Tags and the (Smoking) Gunns are in. They go nose to nose with absolutely zero crowd reaction. No one cares about Bart is the problem. No one has since the Gunns broke up. Long speed run, ending with Bart flipping out of a hiptoss and hitting a clothesline. Billy sunset flip into a bridge up/backslide sequence. Fameasser for 2. Big Billy clothesline with a Bart 360 sell. A crotch chop wakes the crowd up. NAO double team on Bart. The New Midnights work Dogg over into their corner. A long, dull Outlaw in peril sequence follows with some sub-real Midnight Express double teams. Holly stands over Dogg, gives him a crotch chop and says "Suck it", then follows up with a very clear unbleeped "Fuck off". Billy hears that, charges in and bulldogs Holly. Dogg rolls Holly up for 2. Holly hits a big right hand to put Dogg back in peril. Dogg gets a boot up when Holly comes off the top rope and gets the hot tag. Everyone in the pool! Cornette whacks Billy with one of the NWA tag belts. Billy kicks out! Billy rolls Holly up for 2. Cornette tries to come in with the belt again. Billy blocks him and they stand off. Chyna low blows Cornette! The NAO hit a double team hot shot and get the pin. The new Midnights were such a heat black hole not even the red hot NAO could get the crowd to care about them. *

 

King of the Ring Finals: Ken Shamrock def The Rock in 14:09- These two were no strangers, having recently had a long feud over the IC title where Rock constantly used Honky Tonk Man-like heel shenanigans to keep the belt. '97 King of the Ring winner Triple H joins commentary to joke around and drop some insider shooty shoot jokes. Both guys let the moment soak a bit and cautiously move in. Shamrock swings a kick. Lockup stalemates. Crazy long speed run, counters and counters, more speed, and finally a Shamrock kick connects. Rock tumbles out to the floor. I mean tumbles. That was a Yokozuna fall. Back in Shamrock hits clotheslines. Rock counters with lots of punchy offense. Shamrock tosses Rock over the top to the floor. Rock takes his time out there. He goes over to commentary and has some words with Trips. Trips takes a mouthful of water and spits it in Rock's face! Shamrock attacks from behind. Rock gets a sneaky style (copyright Rocky Romero) low blow on the floor. Back in Shamrock blocks a suplex and hits one for 2. Now Rock tosses Shamrock over the top to the floor. Shamrock gets his wrist trapped in the ropes on the way down, which was clearly a legit accident because Rock gets him free almost immediately. Rock gets whipped into the guardrail but comes off it with a clothesline. He tries to drop Shamrock on the rail but flat misses, with Shamrock kind of selling it anyway. Rock swinging neckbreaker back in for 2. Shamrock punches back. Rock DDT for 2. Chinlock time. Despite the cheers earlier there's still a very vocal "Rocky sucks" contingent in the floor section. Shamrock fights out and Rock hits a back elbow. He hits the still unnamed People's Elbow for 2. Taking longer for that to get named than I remembered. Rock cuts off another comeback with his spinny DDT for 2. Shamrock hits a back suplex and both guys are down. They're up at 9 and Shamrock goes nuts with a back elbow and spinning kick. Powerslam for 2. Fisherman's suplex from Shamrock for 2. Rock catches Shamrock leaping and gives him a powerslam! He goes for the spinny DDT again. Shamrock blocks it into a northern lights suplex! Rock kicks out! Rock short clothesline for 2. Shamrock responds with a stiff short clothesline of his own for 2. He goes for the frankensteiner. Rock blocks it and drops a hot shot for a LONG 2! Rock has words for the ref after that. When he gets close again Shamrock grabs him. Ankle lock! Rock taps! Shamrock wins King of the Ring! This KOTR win would turn out to be more of a consolation prize as Rock's next IC feud was also set up during this match, a feud where he and Triple H would make each other even bigger stars. The match was pretty hit and miss the first half, but the closing stretch was good. **3/4

 

The whole "consolation prize" idea is reinforced by the fact that Shamrock gets no coronation ceremony or any kind of post-match celebration. We're right on to the next match.

The last two matches are fully intertwined, story wise. After the last PPV, Taker challenged Austin for a title shot. Vince told Taker if he wanted a title shot, he'd have to defeat Kane in a #1 contender's match. During said match, Mankind (Foley had again ditched Dude Love for Mankind, but was still corporate) interfered to cost Taker, reigniting their rivalry from '96 and giving Taker reason for revenge.

 

Hell in a Cell Match: The Undertaker def Mankind in 17:38- You know it's Corporate Mankind, he has a button down shirt and tie on. He takes a look at everything, walks in the cell, walks back out again, then tosses his chair up onto the roof and climbs up! Taker shows very little hesitation in following after his entrance. Once he finally gets his robe off. Mankind punches Taker as he's climbing, trying to get him to fall off, but Taker makes it up. Mankind gives Taker a couple of chairshots. They reposition on the roof, and one of the chain link fence panels comes partially undone. They both stumble but everything stays together. Taker grabs Mankind AND TOSSES HIM OFF THE CELL DOWN ONTO THE SPANISH ANNOUNCE TABLE! JR: "GOOD GOD ALMIGHTY! GOOD GOD ALMIGHTY! THEY'VE KILLED HIM!.....AS GOD AS MY WITNESS, HE IS BROKEN IN HALF!". Possibly the most famous call in the history of wrestling, for one of the most iconic moments ever, both of which have transcended wrestling into mainstream culture. Mankind is a heap under the remains of the Spanish table. We get replays of the big fall from different angles. Terry Funk (who helped Foley out in planning the insanity in this match) comes out to check, soon followed by a bevy of officials and medics. Taker stays on top of the cell. The cell raises to get a stretcher wheeled in, with Taker still up on it. Vince is even out there looking genuinely concerned and not in character at all. They get Mankind on the stretcher and wheel him away. The cell goes back down and Taker starts to climb down. Mankind gets off the stretcher! He walks back to the ring....AND CLIMBS IT AGAIN. Taker joins him. Taker goozle! Chokeslam! THE ROOF BREAKS AND MANKIND FALLS ALL THE WAY INTO THE RING! Lawler, completely matter of factly: "That's it, he's dead". JR: "SOMEBODY STOP THE DAMN MATCH!". The officials/medics gaggle instantly gets in to check on Foley. Up until the chokeslam spot, believe it or not, everything went as it was supposed to. But the roof break and fall into the ring? That wasn't supposed to happen. The roof broke on its own in a complete accident. Everyone's concern was more than understandable. Foley was knocked out from the fall but came to pretty quickly. Taker gets down and comes in. He attacks Terry Funk. Chokeslam for Funk. LITERALLY out of his shoes. Only Terry Funk. Foley must have given an all clear signal pretty soon after falling because Taker quickly jumps on him and the "real" match begins. Taker hooks up for old school but Mankind knocks him off the rope. The cage door is locked. We get a closeup of Mankind's face and see the famous tooth lodged up his nose. His own tooth. From his mouth. They fight to the floor. Mankind tries to lift the steps but can't, he hurt his shoulder in the first fall. Taker hits the bad shoulder with the steps! A Taker tope suicida misses! He crashes into the cage and is busted open. Mankind runs him into the cage to open it up some more. Piledriver on the chair back in! Taker kicks out! Mankind legdrops the chair into Taker's face. Double underhook DDT. Mankind rolls out again, looks under the ring, and pulls out a bag. He opens it up. THUMBTACKS! HUNDREDS OF THUMBTACKS! To the best of my memory, on top of all the other historic things that happen in this match, this is the first WWF match ever with thumbtacks. Taker teases taking a bump on the tacks. Goozle on Mankind. Break. Taker big boot. Tombstone scoop. Mankind hooks on the Mandible Claw! Taker goes down and they do the arm drops. Taker fight back up, puts Mankind on his back, AND DROPS HIM INTO THE TACKS. It was only a glancing shot, so Foley being Foley he rolls over to get even more of the tacks. JR, in yet another iconic line, calls him a "human pin cushion". CHOKESLAM ONTO THE TACKS! Taker hits the Tombstone, thankfully in a tack-free zone, and gets the pin. After the bell Mankind is slowly strapped up on the stretcher again (and Taker visibly lingers a while to check on him), but gets back up and insists on walking to the back. If Mick Foley wasn't a made man before this, he sure as hell was now. And the Hell in a Cell fully cements its place as one of the most iconic gimmicks in wrestling ever. How you feel about this match depends on your tolerance for crazy, dangerous stunts in wrestling. Personally I'm good with it, though I'm also just fine with leaving most of it in the past. This is easily one of the most famous matches in the history of wrestling, well worked by both guys and should be treated as such. ****1/2

 

First Blood Match for the WWF Championship: Kane (w/Paul Bearer) def "Stone Cold" Steve Austin (c) in 14:52- This is the first ever First Blood match in WWF history. An added stipulation, if Kane loses this match he will set himself on fire. So, outcome pretty clear. There's gas cans all around the ring for if he loses. This is also in the short period where Kane was using that electronic voice box to communicate, which was awful and hilarious at the same time. Austin is also recovering from what I believe was a legitimate staph infection in his elbow that landed him in the hospital for a few days. His elbow is seriously taped up and padded to the point he could be hiding two other people's elbows in there. Austin charges right in, hits the ropes, ducks clotheslines, and hits the Thesz Press! Elbow drop. Austin whacks Kane a couple of times with the belt. Of course with Kane's full face covering mask, getting him to bleed is going to be almost impossible. Which is exactly why Vince made this match. Austin takes a top turnbuckle pad off. Both guys block getting run into it and Kane takes control for a bit. Austin fights off a Tombstone and tosses Kane over the top to the floor. Stair shots. The cell is lowering! What the hell? Who's doing that? Austin takes guardrail and stair shots. Kane whips Austin into the cell! His face hit the bottom of it as it's still lowering. The cell is coming down onto Austin! Kane tries to keep him there but Austin fights out. Kane runs Austin into the cage several more times. JR points out that Hebner said before the match that he won't stop the match for any little scrape, it's got to be full on busted open and bleeding. Austin runs Kane into the doorway post! Now the cage is raising. Kane is dangling in the doorway! Austin pulls him down. He knocks Kane around the rails as they go up the aisle. Kane backdrops out of a piledriver on the floor. He gives Austin a suplex on the ramp. Kane continues beating Austin down around the stage area as the match bogs down a bit. They go back to the ring. Kane gets run into the exposed buckle. Again, the mask helps. Back to the floor again with more rail shots. Austin grabs Lawler's fan and whacks Kane with it! Kane pushes Austin into Hebner and Hebner is down. Kane clothesline off the top back in. He goes for another but Austin dodges. Another exposed buckle shot and mudhole stomp. Austin rams the back of Kane's head into the buckle. Smart. Bypassing the mask. But it doesn't bust him open. Mankind is out! How the hell is he even walking? Austin fights off a chairshot from him as the cell starts lowering again. Stunner on Mankind! Stunner on Kane! Now Taker's out with his own chair. Austin and Taker both tee up their chairs to hit Mankind. Mankind ducks and Taker whacks Austin's chair with his, hitting Austin in the face! Cue up the usual "was that deliberate" questions. Austin's busted open. Taker puts Hebner back in the ring. He opens up one of the gas cans and pours it on Hebner! Kane chairshot on Taker. Austin fights Kane off and whacks him in the head with the chair. Hebner comes to, sees the blood all over Austin's face, and calls for the bell! Kane wins the title! Austin is shocked. We see Vince happy in his luxury suite and the show quickly ends with no follow up. Solid brawl with the usual fun overbooking you got from main events in this period to keep the story going for Raw, where the real money was being made. ***

Austin would win the title back the next night on Raw (ratings pop!), but the issues between himself, Taker and Kane were far from over and would continue all through the summer with even more controversial title match finishes.

OVERALL SHOW THOUGHTS- There's a couple of decent matches earlier in the show, and the main event is solid enough (and important if you're watching the whole Austin/Taker/Kane saga), but the real draw here is what is still the most legendary Hell in a Cell match of all time, with moments that transcended wrestling.

OVERALL SHOW GRADE: B-

Great American Bash '96

Legacy Review

Great American Bash '96

June 16, 1996 from the Baltimore Arena in Baltimore, MD

Commentary: Tony Schiavone and Dusty Rhodes

This is one of those shows that would end up becoming a bit of a historic tentpole without anyone knowing it at the time, as this was the final WCW PPV before the formation of the NWO. And we're on the road there, as a couple of Outsiders have already been making their presence felt. GAB is also returning to its traditional yearly venue in Baltimore for the first time since 1991. It's probably taken that long to get the stink of that show out of the building.

Somebody must have been watching old WWF Saturday Night's Main Event videos because the show opens with a run of promos like those shows used to. Bobby Heenan is not on commentary tonight because for one night only he's back to managing to help Flair and Arn out for their match. The main effect of it is there's no one in the booth to keep Dusty in check.

The Steiner Brothers def Fire and Ice in 10:29- Three months after returning to WCW the Steiners finally get their first proper PPV match back (they had a preshow Main Event match at Uncensored and were on separate teams in Slamboree's Lethal Lottery). These two teams have had a series of indecisive matches on weekly TV so tonight "there must be a winner". Technically it's face vs face but the crowd is almost all pro-Steiners. Really, it's the popular Steiners against a team no one really gives a damn about. Train and Scott start. Quick Scott armdrag followed by a Train hiptoss as they feel each other out. Speed run and big Train clothesline for 2. Scott hiptosses everyone. Steinerline! Steinerline! F&I go out to regroup while the Steiners strike their pose with the crowd going nuts. Both sides tag. I can't remember if they ever actually got in the ring together over there, but Norton worked in New Japan full time for a long time while the Steiners were going in and out so there's at least some familiarity from that. Stiff back and forth between the two. HUGE Rick Steinerline. Belly to belly suplex. I really like the pause before hitting it, letting Norton think about what was about to happen to him. Scott hits a dropkick with an iffy Norton sell. Norton hits a Samoan drop that hurts Scott's shoulder. He rolls out to shake it off. Train hits a suplex, followed by his own belly to belly for 2. Norton gets a cheap shot in on the floor, taking what the crowd's been giving them and rolling with it. Big Train corner clothesline. Scott gets a boot up in the corner and hits a belly to belly. Steinerline. A Scott suplex drops Norton on his head and he needs a minute to legit recover. Scott tries coming off the top rope. Norton catches him, needs a second to get his balance, and hits a powerslam for 2. He goes back to working Scott's hurt shoulder. Train comes in with a chinlock. All he can do. Norton hits a shoulderbreaker and hooks on a Fujiwara armbar. Rick tries to break it up but Norton won't let go. Finally Rick kicks him in the head enough to break it up. He goes for another shoulerbreaker, but while he's got Scott up Rick blind tags in. Steinerline! Rick German suplex! Rick and Train fumble around into a backdrop. Donnybrooking. F&I hit their powerbomb/splash combo. Scott breaks the pin up. F&I set up a doomsday device. Scott knocks Train off the top rope. Rick DDT on Norton. Scott tags in from the wrong corner. Doomsday bulldog! The pin just gets broken up. Frankensteiner! Norton sold that the best he could, which was not at all good. That gets the pin. Nicely stiff, and F&I tried to keep up with the Steiners as best they could. On the other side, the Steiners were still good but this is no longer their peak years. **3/4

Kevin Sullivan stumbles badly through his promo while Mean Gene seems to have a conversation with producers behind him.

 

WCW United States Heavyweight Championship: Konnan (c) def El Gato in 6:03- The last couple of PPVs they got decently good results by pairing Konnan up with guys that could carry him (Eddie Guerrero, Jushin Liger). I don't think we'll get as good this time around. Gato is late career Pat Tanaka in a mask with a very short lived character. What the hell is Gato's music? It's like what Bischoff era WCW would come up with for Jungle Boy. His mask is almost a direct Tiger Mask ripoff too. Armdraggy start. Gato does some martial arts kicks and hits a dragon screw leg whip. After some more basic takedowns Konnan pulls Gato down by his mask and hits a clothesline. Leapfrogs and Gato hits a reverse kick for 2. He wraps Konnan up on the mat, and uses the ropes for some extra leverage in a desperate but half-hearted attempt to get some heat. No joy there. Gato powerbomb for 2 followed by some more arm work. Konnan counters into a legbar. Corner whip from Konnan and he does a silly roll into a faceplant. Gato pulls Konnan out to the floor by his tights. Konnan dodges a baseball slide and Gato splats on the floor. Konnan sunset bomb! That woke the crowd up. Gato tries to float over in the corner back in. Konnan counters it into an Alabama slam, does a jackknife cover and gets the pin. Not good, but not nearly as awful as it could have been. **

Sting and Mean Gene have a conversation about Regal's "prissy mannerisms" and Sting questions Regal's sexuality.

 

Diamond Dallas Page def Marcus Alexander Bagwell in 9:39- This is Bagwell's first PPV match in a while. He's now teaming up with Scotty Riggs as American Males and is slowly starting to look more and more Buff-like. Still a face though. Commentary mentions DDP's Lord of the Ring, er, ring from winning Battlebowl is supposedly on the line but not much is made of it and it's never officially announced. If the ring announcer doesn't say it, it's not official. Wrestling 101. DDP does a little Rick Rude style promo during his entrance. Bagwell charges in and DDP bails, but uses Bagwell's fire to sneak around and hit him from behind. Ever the master strategist. Bagwell snaps DDP over the top rope and he tumbles over and all the way to the floor! Bagwell whips him into the rail and punches him over into the first row. DDP, being DDP, finds an unoccupied chair and wraps it around his head to sell more. Bagwell crossbody for 2. After some arm work they go speed and Bagwell hits a forearm. Or elbow. Either or. A punch sends DDP into the ropes and he begs off. Bagwell dropkicks him free down to the floor! Plancha! Bagwell goes up top. DDP hits the ropes to crotch him. Generic Heel Offense from DDP. He does a gutwrench backbreaker that Bagwell looked like he was legit fighting him over. Abdominal stretch with rope leverage. The ref catches him and Bagwell hiptosses out. DDP tombstone slammy thing for 2. He goes for a big kick, misses, and sells the hell out of it. Tony says he'll never be a punter for the brand new Baltimore Ravens and Dusty doesn't know what a Baltimore Raven is. Bagwell atomic drops on both ends that DDP gives his second Rude tribute of the match for with his selling. Bagwell slingshot clothesline for 2. DDP gets a back elbow in the corner and tries for a leverage pin. Bagwell flying headscissors. He goes for his perfectplex finisher but DDP uses the ropes to block it. Diamond Cutter! It's over. The Cutter was already being sold as a Move of Instant Death, and it's not long now that they'll add on DDP being able to hit it from anywhere at any angle to really put a rocketship on him. The match had DDP selling like an absolute maniac, but not much else. **

 

WCW Cruiserweight Championship: Dean Malenko (c) def Rey Mysterio Jr in 17:50- Young Rey Rey is making his WCW debut after being introduced to US audiences in ECW the year prior, and was coming in with a ton of hype and expectation. Mike Tenay joins the booth for this match. Feeling out back and forth start. Double kip up and stalemate. They go speed, Malenko hits a back elbow, Mysterio gets on his shoulders and does a super spinny lucha armdrag that sends Malenko to the floor. A springboard dropkick knocks Malenko off the apron. Test of strength back in that leads to some more great counter work, ending with Malenko slingshotting Mysterio over the top rope to the floor! He goes for a baseball slide but Mysterio sidesteps by getting back in the ring. Malenko wraps Mysterio up and kicks his arm hard, hurting Mysterio's elbow or shoulder. Target acquired. Hammerlock slam. Malenko starts picking the hurt arm apart. Mysterio escapes and tries to get a breather on the floor, but that only lets Malenko use the guardrail to hurt his arm more! Back in Malenko goes for a powerbomb. Mysterio tries to counter out of it, but Malenko gets him on his feet and kills him with a clothesline! That gets a nice crowd reaction. He stretches the bad arm out again. Mike Tenay mentions Eddie Guerrero just won the Super J Cup in New Japan. Well he's somewhat right. It was actually Best of the Super Juniors, and Guerrero won it under a mask as Black Tiger II. Tenay does get him beating Liger in the final right at least. I'll give him 1.5 out of 3. And I thought Tenay was the professor. Malenko hits a back suplex on Mysterio's arm for 2. Mysterio flips over and hits a high knee to put Malenko down, but he's still up first and back on the arm. He puts on a crossface and a surfboard, then tries for a kimura. Saito suplex from Malenko for a long 2. The crowd is starting to buzz in a good way. Double underhook suplex for 2. Back to the arm with a Fujiwara armbar. A Mysterio counter sends Malenko out to the floor. He baseball slides Malenko off the apron. Springboard senton! I think we're now in the "cranking it up to the finish" portion of the match. Mysterio springboard missile dropkick for 2. Another Mysterio powerbomb counter leads to a long counter sequence and Mysterio gets a jackknife cover for 2. Flip over the ropes and Mysterio hits a springboard hurricanrana! Damn. He stacks Malenko up for 2. Corner counters. Both guys go up top. Malenko looks for his super gutbuster but Mysterio fights him off. Hurricanrana! Malenko tries a tiltawhirl but Mysterio blocks it mid-move and drops on Malenko for 2. He goes for another flying headscissors. Malenko blocks it into a powerbomb! Finally hit it. Malenko stacks Mysterio up, puts his feet up on the ropes and gets the pin! They get a quick standing ovation from the crowd after that match. Maybe not quite the way you want someone like Mysterio to debut, but they worked hard to make sure the long submission work stretch never got dull, Mysterio showed his ability to refuse to die and fight back, and the closing stretch was fantastic with Mysterio starting to show off his aerial skills. It's all up for him from here. Malenko also did his job with his usual smoothness and efficiency. ****

Luger is with Mean Gene and admits he's only doing the interview because he has to. Luger's just here so he doesn't get fined.

 

John Tenta def Big Bubba Rogers (w/Jimmy Hart) in 5:24- Tenta, the former Shark and Avalanche (and Earthquake in WWF), is now wrestling under his real name and had part of his head shaved by Rogers on TV a couple of weeks back as part of a face turn. He's former Dungeon of Doom and Rogers is current DOD. I'm not sure what's going on inside the DOD at this point and frankly couldn't care less, they should have gone away like a year ago. Rogers jumps Tenta during Tenta's entrance and they brawl on the floor. Rogers goes up top but Tenta knocks him back off to the floor. He whips Rogers into the steps. Rogers begs off back in. Tenta kicks him into the corner and squashes him. Hart gives Rogers an international object, probably knucks, and he waffles Tenta with them. Ref Nick Patrick checks but he's already passed them back to Hart. Cover for 2. Rogers hits an enzuguri. Sliding uppercut and he tries for a rope leverage pin but Patrick catches him. Tenta tries a slam but Rogers falls on him for 2. Another slide out and Rogers posts Tenta's knee. After a corner dodge Rogers hits a back suplex. He goes up top. Tenta catches him, hits a powerslam, and it's over. After the bell Tenta gets the scissors from Hart and clips a bit off Rogers' goatee. Bit of a contrast from the last match. 1/4*

 

Falls Count Anywhere Match: Chris Benoit def "The Taskmaster" Kevin Sullivan (w/Jimmy Hart) in 9:58- This started as the DOD vs the Horsemen but has become very personal between these two. Sullivan does the all business power walk on his entrance. Benoit attacks him in the aisle! They work to the ringside area and have a chopfest. Benoit goes over the rail and Sullivan follows. Brawl through the crowd! Up the stairs! To the back of the arena and into a public men's bathroom! There's randos in there, WCW didn't even clean it out beforehand. Luckily no one's in the middle of doing their business. That we can see. Sullivan gives Benoit some door shots as security head honcho Doug Dellinger swoops in to control the growing crowd. Sullivan double stomp. Dusty is going bananas on commentary with what's happening. Benoit fights back and gives Sullivan a door shot. Sullivan hits Benoit with a bag full of toilet paper! Unused, fortunately. He grabs a trash can and hits Benoit with it while Tony runs the ECW/WWF departed Brian Pillman down on commentary. Benoit also gets a trash can shot in as they go out of the bathroom and slug it out back into the arena. Benoit falls down the stairs! In small segments, gotta stay safe. Stair injuries are so much OSHA paperwork. Sullivan works in a quick Greco Roman Nut Stomp. More slugfest as they get back to the floor. Benoit gets crotched on the rail. They get back ringside. Sullivan throws a chair at Benoit. Benoit gets Sullivan back by crotching him on the rail. Benoit gets a table out and puts it in the ring, other than Jimmy Hart the first thing in the ring the whole match. Now the wrestlers get in too. Benoit sets the table up in the corner and both guys run into it. The table gets set up on the top turnbuckle. Sullivan backdrops Benoit onto the table. They both climb on it. Benoit superplex off the table! That gets the pin and a pretty big pop. Kinda disappointing use of the table honestly, and I'm not someone that freaks out over every broken table spot and generally hates the constant "We want tables" chants in modern wrestling. Benoit keeps beating on Sullivan after the bell. Arn Anderson, who had been trying to play both sides of the DOD/Horsemen feud, comes out. He pulls Benoit off.....then pops Sullivan with a straight right! HUGE pop for that. I've been saying since the big Horseman reforming angle in '95, the crowd wants to cheer them but WCW keeps booking them as heels. Whatever scrubs are left in the DOD run out to chase them off. Very fun all arena brawl that hearkened back to the Cactus Jack-led hardcore tag classics from the spring of '94, but to me this didn't quite get to the same level. WCW was definitely ahead of WWF at this stage for this style match though. ***1/2

Mean Gene is with the Horsemen, all three of them. While Flair hypes up their later match, Arn says Benoit has earned his Horseman stripes tonight.

 

WCW World Tag Team Champion Sting def Lord Steven Regal (w/Jeeves) in 16:30- Kinda disappointed Sting's not out in his traditional GAB red, white and blue gear, especially with the way the feud was built up. Sting jumps out quick after the bell. Regal does the over the corner flip to the floor! Sting follows and backdrops him on the floor! Back in Regal begs off to sucker Sting in. Huge Regal forearms and European uppercuts. Man, Regal is physical tonight. Taking that energy he had going against Fit Finlay and keeping it going. Speed run and Sting gets a Japanese armdrag. Slow reset and Regal rolls out to jaw at the crowd a bit. Back in Regal says let's calm down and offers a handshake. Sting is disinclined to acquiesce. Means no. He gets fired up and Regal ducks in the ropes, but quickly gets a takedown and tries for a leverage pin. Sting uses the knucklelock to get the strength and leverage advantage. Regal does a nice escape into a cobra clutch. Huge back elbow from Regal and more uppercuts. He puts on a full nelson and grinds Sting down. Sting gets free and does a sunset flip for 2. Regal quickly drops an elbow on him and wraps him up. More pillar to post beating by Regal. This match has not played out as expected. Regal dropkick and he catches Sting with one foot right on the side of the head. Sting back suplexes out of a headlock with a great Regal reaction. All of Regal's reactions have been great tonight. All the little things done perfectly right. Regal's still up first with an armbar. Midring collision. Regal again recovers first again and keeps Sting grounded. He hasn't been able to put Sting away so he tries some extra rope leverage. The ref catches him and they argue. Sting fires back up and puts Regal in an abdominal stretch. Regal grabs a rope, hits some more forearms and poses a bit. Headscissors, then Regal stump pullers Sting's arm. Sting starts hulking up. Regal cuts it off with an eye poke. Double underhook, but instead of trying to hit a power move he again grinds Sting down to the mat. Sticking to the game plan. Sting fires up again and this time Regal can't stop him. Dropkick. Clothesline! Clothesline! Cover for 2. Sting goes up top. Regal fights up to join him. Regal superplex! Cover for 2. The Regal Stretch is on! After a minute Regal lets go, frustrated Sting hasn't submitted yet. More stiff pounding in the corner. One more hulk up by Sting. He reverses and pounds Regal down in the corner. Stinger Spla....NO Regal gets his knees up! But runs into a Sting backdrop! Scorpion Death Lock! Regal submits! I loved this. Regal was on fire in every way possible from the stiff physicality to the crazy mannerisms, and the layout was completely unexpected but worked brilliantly, with ever generous Sting giving him the whole damn match before getting the quick comeback win. Absolutely fantastic. ****1/4

Ad for the next PPV, Bash at the Beach. Spoilers: big things happen.

 

"Nature Boy" Ric Flair and Arn Anderson (w/Woman, Elizabeth and Bobby Heenan) def Kevin Greene and Steve "Mongo" McMichael (w/Randy Savage, Debra McMichael and Tara Greene) in 20:51- This is billed as "the NFL vs wrestlers", though Mongo was long retired from football, had been doing commentary on Nitro since it started and was setting out on a wrestling career. I would almost pay money for Buffer to intro him with "Never mind that shit, here comes Mongo". The NFL guys do a quick football warmup routine before the bell. It's great to see Heenan managing again. Mongo and Arn start. Soms fans flash a giant "MONGO SUCKS" sign. Arn schools Mongo with some basic wrestling. Mongo says OK, let's get down in the football trenches. Arn goes for it and Mongo runs him over. They go again, but this time Arn dodges and takes Mongo down with a drop toe hold. Mongo gets a boot up in the corner and a tackle off the second rope. Arn gets caught in the wrong corner and the football team stomps him out of the ring. Savage gives him a shot on the floor. The Horsemen take a minute to regroup. Back in Arn wants Greene. Greene comes in and is.....a little intense. Flair tags in and gives him some Slick Ric. Now Flair is the one that wants to do a football snap drill. Greene gets down in the 3 point stance....and Flair kicks him in the head! Fantastic. The crowd cheers that. Greene shoves Flair out of the corner with Flair, being Flair, flopping literally all the way across the ring off it. Greene hits tackles on both Flair and Arn. Flair is furious, rolls out and quick marches almost all the way up the entrance aisle. Savage runs out, jumps him, and brings him back in. Greene gives Flair a backdrop and more tackles. He goes to tag but Mongo runs over and cuts it off. Flair fires back up and tries to shoulderblock Mongo but just bounces off of him. He suckers Mongo in for a kick. Mongo no sells chops and chops Flair back. Hiptoss. Flair begs off. Mongo backdrop. Flair eye poke. He goes up top and Mongo slams him off. Mongo hooks on a figure four! Greene tackles Arn! Greene figure four! Woman eye rakes Mongo to break it up. The women all start arguing and all leave. Reset with Arn working Mongo over. Flair hits chops and tosses Mongo out. Arn gets some shots on the floor before Savage chases him off. Heenan gets a kick in! Savage chases him. Back in Mongo no sells chops and goozles Flair. Arn distracts the ref and Flair hits a low blow. Kneedrop. The Horsemen work the ref to get chokes in. Double suplex. Mongo pops out of the corner with a clothesline on Flair. Arn cuts the tag off. Mongo ducks a punch and atomic drops Arn into Flair! Flair Flop! Tag to Greene. Tackles. He slams both guys. Powerslam on Flair. Flair Flip! Into a Mongo big boot! Greene suplexes Flair back in. Arn comes in and clips Greene's knee and the Horsemen start picking it apart. Greene pushes out of an Arn figure four but the tag is cut off. Flair tries a figure four but Greene small packages him for 2. Kneebreaker from Flair. Figure four! Arn gives him leverage help from the corner. Savage takes Arn out. Benoit's out! He and Savage slug it out! Arn jumps in to help and they get Savage down. Woman and Elizabeth are back out, with Debra! Debra has a briefcase. She hands it to Mongo. He opens it up, and inside is a Horseman shirt and a ton of cash! Mongo closes the case.....and whacks Greene in the head with it! Flair covers and gets the pin! After the bell Savage tries to jump Flair. Mongo stops him. The Horsemen beat Savage down. Mongo puts the Horseman shirt on and shakes hands with everyone, including Heenan. There was a situation vacant with the Horsemen. Not anymore. That was a fantastic turn. The match was way better than it had any right to be, especially with as much time as they got they were courting danger (shaking hands with danger?, one for my fellow Rifftrax fans), but Flair and Arn carried the non-wrestlers superbly. The downside was it convinced Mongo he could actually wrestle and we'd all have to suffer through that the next several years. Wish Heenan had stayed on as manager too, he would have been great. ***1/4

Eric Bischoff is out and calls out those guys that have been disrupting Nitro the last few weeks. You know who they are. And here they are. No one in WCW is using their names, but it's Scott Hall (Razor Ramon) and Kevin Nash (Diesel). Bischoff says he has an answer to their challenge and yes, they will get a match at Bash at the Beach. Then Bischoff asks them straight up "Do you work for the WWF?" because the lawyers were barking. Both say no, and Hall says "forget about the past". He drops a bunch of Billionaire Ted references and says it doesn't matter what three guys WCW puts up, the two of them and their "surprise buddy" will take care of business. They demand Bischoff tell them who WCW is putting up. Bischoff says they'll find out tomorrow night on Nitro. Wrong answer. Nash grabs Bischoff and powerbombs him through the stage! Again, cliche now, but back then this was earth shattering shocking. The outsiders leave as security and medics run in. I believe this was the first time Bischoff was acknowledged on air as WCW's executive producer. Tony even leaves the booth to check on him and Dusty cuts a short promo saying the war is on.

 

WCW World Heavyweight Championship: The Giant (c) (w/Jimmy Hart) def WCW World Television and Tag Team Champion "The Total Package" Lex Luger in 9:21- Luger stops to check on the still being worked on Bischoff during his entrance. The angle this match has been wrapped around is can Luger get Giant in the Torture Rack. Luger charges at the bell....right into a big boot. Luger fires back up and clotheslines Giant 360 and out. Giant lands on his feet and pulls Luger out, then press slams him back in. Luger pounds away some more, then jumps off the second rope onto Giant's back, loses his grip, then gets back on with a sleeper. Hart gets on the apron. Sting runs out, grabs the megaphone and chases Hart back to the back. Giant still powers out of the sleeper on his own and puts Luger in the tree of woe. He knocks Luger around and hits a backbreaker. Gut wrench, struggle, Giant finally gets Luger up all the way in a Canadian backbreaker, then drops him back down. Lot of work for little result there. He butterflys Luger's arms. Luger gets free and hits a jawbreaker. He tries to slam Giant and fails. Giant pounds on Luger's back some more. Luger comes back with kicks and clotheslines but can't get Giant down. Knee clip and Giant goes to one knee. Luger dodges an avalanche and Giant gets caught straddling the top turnbuckle. Luger kicks him, then takes advantage of the position to try to get Giant in the Rack. He tries to carry him to the middle of the ring, can't hold him and collapses. Giant hits the choke slam and gets a clean as a sheet win. Not as good as Giant's matches with Sting or Flair, but still way better than the Hogan matches. **1/4

OVERALL SHOW THOUGHTS- I don't know where the hell this came from, but thank goodness it did. After struggling mightily, with rare exceptions, the past 18 months or more, WCW put on their best PPV since at least the Flair-booked pre-Hogan first half of '94, and possibly since the glorious Kip Frey era of the first half of '92. With a better main event it's easily top tier, but even with it doesn't miss by much. And it couldn't come at a better time, as there were major events on the horizon that would quite literally change the landscape of wrestling forever.

OVERALL SHOW GRADE: B+

Over the Edge '98: In Your House

Legacy Review

Over the Edge '98: In Your House

May 31, 1998 from the Wisconsin Center Arena in Milwaukee, WI

Commentary: Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler

The Steve Austin/Vince McMahon rivalry is now in full swing, with the opening video all about Vince as a classic tyrannical dictator and Austin the obscene, beer guzzling rebellion. Of historical note, this is the first ever WWF PPV to have an official TV-14 rating, though they'd been pushing the line for quite a while already. This show also has one of the best and most elaborate one-off PPV stages ever: a whole highway of wrecked and dilapidated cars.

LOD 2000 (w/Sunny and Droz) def The Disciples of Apocalypse in 9:56- Oh JOY, Droz is here. I'm sure you can hear the sarcasm dripping off that. Droz was a former NFL defensive lineman whose gimmick was being able to puke at will. You ever see that clip of Vince shouting "HE'S GONNA PUKE!"?. That's Droz doing the puking. JR gets some AWA namedrops in, Milwaukee was one of their regular venues. The DOA ride their bikes in. It's twins Skull and 8-Ball wrestling with Chainz in the corner for the DOA. The LOD jump after the bell and it's a 3 on 3 brawl...for about 15 seconds before Animal and JR says 8-Ball settle in the ring. I guess he can finally tell them apart, at least someone can. Animal tackle. 8B DDT (JR calls it a swinging neckbreaker) and legdrop. Animal with a dragon screw! That's one of my favorite moves and it's always crazy to see late career Animal break it out. He drops the close to below the belt headbutt and both sides tag. Hawk actually sells for Skull. Until Skull hits a piledriver, you know what happened then. Hawk neckbreaker and Skull gets beat down in the LOD corner. After getting knocked around for a bit Skull dodges a Hawk clothesline off the top and Hawk slides all the way down to the floor. Chainz gives him a clothesline. Droz runs over to fight Chainz off. JR gets in the story that Droz is famous for puking on the ball pre-snap during a Monday Night Football game when he was on the Broncos. Hawk hits a glancing at best clothesline in the ring but makes no attempt to tag. DOA work double teams and keep Hawk in peril for a while. Mostly with lots of choking. JR loses track of who's Skull and who's 8B again. Hawk dodges a....something off the second rope and tags. Animal runs wild and we're donnybrooking. Chainz distracts Animal and the DOA do the twin magic switch. Droz hits the DOA in the ring from behind, and Animal powerslams him for the pin. As much as you could expect from the DOA and late '90s LOD. 3/4*

The Rock comes out to say hi well before his scheduled match. He runs down Milwaukee with some so-so cheap heat. Not one of young Rock's better promos. Faarooq runs out to attack him. Rock misses a chairshot and takes it in the face. Faarooq piledrives Rock on the chair before the Nation come in to run him off. Rock gets neck braced and stretchered out with commentary saying his IC title defense later is now in jeopardy. The Raw-ization of PPVs continues.

Austin tells "you dumb bastard" Michael Cole he hasn't found anyone to be on his side against the stacked deck Vince is putting up against him tonight, but he doesn't care.

 

Jeff Jarrett (w/Tennessee Lee) def Steve Blackman in 10:18- Jarrett gave Blackman his first WWF loss to kick off this feud. Small things I notice: Lee (Col. Robert Parker)'s suits have gotten a significant upgrade since his WCW days. Blackman comes in with a couple of martial arts sticks and Jarrett bails. As soon as the bell rings Blackman baseball slides Jarrett on the floor. He whips Jarrett into the rail and Jarrett barely nudges it. He presses Jarrett back in the ring and hits a missile dropkick. Jarrett counters a backdrop with a faceplant, then gets his strut in and plays to the crowd. Blackman ducks a clothesline and hits a double chop. German suplex from Blackman for 2. He does some rapid fire strikes that are the complete opposite of stiff. Unstiff. Jarrett is tied up in the tree of woe and Blackman stretches him out. Lee distracts but Blackman cuts off Jarrett's attempted ambush. Commentary says Commissioner Slaughter has ordered the Rock to defend the IC title tonight no matter what. Lee grabs Blackman's boot, setting off another chase. This time Jarrett gets Blackman with a clothesline. He whips Blackman into the rail and Blackman hits it much better than Jarrett did. We see Al f'n Snow is on Spanish commentary, with Head! Head even has her own headset. Announcer pairing pitch: Head, and Kevin Kelley's new partner this Best of the Super Juniors, the Onion. Make it happen. Blackman misses a dive off the second rope. Jarrett dropkick for 2. Blackman gets a back elbow in the corner, but Jarrett gets his knees up on a Vader bomb attempt. They do the bridge up spot and Blackman gets a backslide for 2. Security evicts Snow from Spanish commentary, with the crowd sounding like it cares more about him than anyone in the ring. Jarrett sleeper. They do the arm drops and Blackman fights out. Blackman sleeper. Jarrett back suplexes out. Both guys are down. After a 9 count Jarrett covers for 2. Blackman suplex. He dives but Jarrett again gets his boots up. Blackman should stop trying that. Ugly double clothesline. Blackman backbreaker. Heel kick. Elbow drop for 2. Pump kick. Lee gets up on the apron. Jarrett almost hits him but stops just in time. Blackman clutch for 2. Lee still has the ref distracted so Blackman whacks Jarrett with one of his sticks. Jarrett gets a foot on the rope. Lee picks the stick up and whacks Blackman with it, and Jarrett covers for 3. An oil and water contrast of styles that for the most part never came together. *1/2

 

"Marvelous" Marc Mero def Sable in :21- The longrunning issues between Mero and Sable have finally come to a head. Mero told Sable to get any wrestler she wanted to represent her in this match, and if Mero lost he would rip up Sable's contract and set her free. But if Mero won, Sable would have to leave the WWF FOREVER. Sable comes out by herself in fightin' gear. She tells Mero she got into this mess, she'll get herself out of it. Mero acts devastated, wondering how it's come to this between them and if Sable wants her freedom that bad, she can have it. He tells the timekeeper to ring the bell. Mero lays down. Sable covers. At 2 Mero kicks, rolls Sable over, and pins her! Mero does a great heel over the top celebration and serenades Sable back up the aisle. NR

A devastated Sable is with Cole and says goodbye to the WWE Universe fans. Dok Hendrix is with the Nation. No one wants to talk to him. Rock is still in a neck brace and seems to be in serious pain.

 

Handicap Match: Kaientai (w/Yamaguchi-San) def Bradshaw and WWF Light Heavyweight Champion Taka Michinoku in 9:54- Taka was having a good initial WWF run, so he was able to convince the company to bring in some of his Michinoku Pro buddies. Kaientai consists of: Men's Teioh, who was more of a hardcore wrestler outside WWF and worked mostly with deathmatch company Big Japan Pro Wrestling as well as CZW in the US; Dick Togo, who mostly bounced around the smaller Japanese companies but is now the manager/heater for EVIL and House of Torture in New Japan; and Sho Funaki, who everyone now knows as FUNAKI, SMACKDOWN #1 ANNOUNCER, who's still with WWE today doing Japanese announcing and for years has been the company's lead ambassador to Japan. The story is Kaientai think Taka has gone American. I have no idea how Bradshaw got mixed up in all this but he's the perfect straight man for all this madness. The faces charge the ring and the brawl is on. The heels all get dumped out. Bradshaw presses Taka down onto Kainetai! Quick reset in the ring with Taka and Funaki. Funaki hits a dropkick. Taka tags out and Funaki quickly bails when he sees Bradshaw coming. The terrified heels stall on the floor and Taka tags back in. Teioh and Taka do a nice little sequence with Teioh hitting a clothesline. Another tag to Bradshaw and again the heels scatter like he's a kaiju marching down the streets of Tokyo. This time Bradshaw chases them, can't get his hands on anyone and starts getting frustrated. Well, he's Bradshaw. More frustrated than usual. Taka comes back in. Togo hits him with a flying forearm and some hard corner chops. Taka dodges in the corner and hits a tornado DDT. The pin gets broken up and everyone's in. Teioh manages to dropkick Bradshaw out to the floor. He tries a plancha. Nope. Bradshaw scoops him out of the air easily. Taka dive onto Fuanki on the floor! Back in Togo plants Taka with a wheelbarrow slam. Funaki delayed suplex for 2. Teioh big boot and double underhook suplex for 2. Togo springboard canonball for 2. JR tries to talk about the history of Kainetai. Lawler gets pissy and says he only wants to talk about Sable. Seriously? Togo snap powerslam for 2. Kaientai hit a 3D-like double team. Bradshaw runs in stomping anything that moves. Togo swanton bomb and more Kaientai double teams. Funaki hooks on a sleeper. Taka fights out and hits a flying forearm. The tag is cut off. Funaki hits a spinebuster into a triple team. Teioh piledriver. Taka dodges, hits everyone with spinning heel kicks, and gets the tag! Bradshaw comes in with big boots and clubs everyone. The heels try to overwhelm him with numbers but can't. Powerbomb on Funaki. Togo low blows Bradshaw and hits a shotgun dropkick right on the side of his head. All of Kaientai get on Bradshaw to pose! Bradshaw throws them all off. Clothesline from hell on Funaki. TIGER SUPLEX on Teioh! A tiger suplex. From BRADSHAW. If I hadn't seen it I wouldn't believe it. The pin is broken up. Taka hits a missile dropkick and tags back in. Michinoku Driver on Togo! Again the pin in broken up. In the confusion Taka gets chokeslammed. Togo hits a senton off the top and gets the pin. Inoffensive half comedy half serious fun, with lots of very crisp wrestling from the Japanese guys. ***

Sable does the walk of shame out of the arena.

 

WWF Intercontinental Championship: The Rock (c) def Faarooq in 5:02- Rock's music plays but no Rock. Slaughter comes out and gives Rock 10 seconds to show. At 2 Rock comes out through the curtain with the neck brace still on. Faarooq attacks him in the aisle. Rock is dropped on the guardrail. Faarooq takes the brace off and hits Rock with it. Big clotheslines. Rock slides back out and walks. Faarooq chases. The straps are down! He throws Rock back in. Rock gets a kick and clothesline. Apron elbows. Setup slam and Rock hits the still unnamed People's Elbow for 2. Corner slugfest. Faarooq ducks a clothesline and plants Rock. Falling headbutt for 2. Rock DDT for 2. Faarooq spinebuster. The ref counts 3, but Rock had a foot on the rope so he waves it off. Faarooq argues for a long while. I don't think this whole bit went as they planned it, it's a bit of a mess. Rock tries to ambush but Faarooq cuts him off. Rock does a leg takedown in the corner, gets his feet on the ropes, and gets a 3 count. Faarooq gives him a couple of more piledrivers after the bell. The Nation runs out again and attacks Faarooq. DX comes out to take the Nation out! To a very nice pop too. The face turn for DX is on. The match was OKish, but I'm not sure what all the show-long overbooking was supposed to accomplish. *3/4

 

Mask vs Mask Match: Kane (w/Paul Bearer) def Vader in 7:20- It's pretty silly to have Vader in a mask match. In WWF he's mostly kept it on, but in WCW and New Japan he'd regularly take it off when matches got serious. It was his pulling the straps down. Plus no one thinks Kane's going to unmask this early so the outcome is certain. Slugfest start. Short clothesline from Kane. Corner beatdown and choke. Vader gets a boot up and hits tackles. Kane goes down, but sits right back up. Vader tries a suplex. Kane blocks and hits it. Vader grabs a waistlock, can't get a German, so settles for potato shots instead. Big clothesline and elbow drop. Kane reverses a whip into another short clothesline. Clothesline off the top. Vader starts swinging wildly and catches Kane pretty flush with some of them, like something legit pissed him off. Kane big boot and clothesline. Another slugfest as it looks like things might be breaking down for real. Kane settles things down by hooking on some kind of overhand claw. JR shouts out Hebner for being back, his first show back after some medical issues. Chokeslam from Kane and Vader rolls out. He goes under the ring and grabs the super huge (and fake looking) wrench Kane worked him over with back at No Way Out. He whacks Kane with it on the floor. Back in Vader hits an avalanche. He goes up top. VADERSAULT! Kane dodges! Tombstone and it's over. It had some moments, but there were also long stretches where it looked like they were having serious issues getting on the same page and Vader might have been sending some of his famous stiff messages to the youngster. **

Kane removes Vader's mask. Another thing, Vader's mask was so small, surface area wise, we could always make his face out anyway. Kane gives the mask to Bearer, who puts it on and mocks Vader. "It's Bearer Time!". OK, that's funny. Vader does the slow, sad departure. Cole stops him ringside and Vader gives his famous "Maybe I'm just a big fat piece of shit" line.

Cole is in the ring for another regional wrestling history tribute. They were doing this semi-regularly at this time and I always appreciate things like this. I think part of the reason was the Hall of Fame was in limbo during this period. Cole introduces two Milwaukee/AWA legends: Mad Dog Vachon and the Crusher. Lawler gets increasingly agitated as things go on, so much so I want JR to pop him for real. But it's leading somewhere. Lawler hops in the ring, runs the legends down, and takes a Crusher punch. OK, that should be it. Lawler sits back down. Aw hell, he's getting up again. Now he grabs Vachon and takes his fake leg off! Well we already saw Diesel do that in spectacular fashion, you could never top that. Again Crusher tries to make it look like he's fighting Lawler off. Lawler gets in again and takes a shot from the leg. That got increasingly pointless as it went on.

 

The Nation (w/Mark Henry) def D-Generation X (w/Chyna and X-Pac) in 18:33- It's European champion Triple H and tag champs the New Age Outlaws representing DX, while the Nation team consists of Kama Mustafa, D'Lo Brown and the newest Nation member, freshly heel turned Owen Hart, now in his "Enough is enough and it's time for a change!" phase and wearing his Shakin' Hands With Danger gear (if you're a Rifftrax fan, you know). I love Trips' new robe. He does the full "Are you ready?" intro, then Road Dogg does *his* full promo spiel. The crowd eats up every bit of it. The Nation now has new music to go along with the change of leadership. Huge "Owen sucks" chant from the crowd. Dogg and Brown start with a basic hammerlock exchange. Brown hits a bunch of shoulderblocks. More basics and Dogg gets some shots in. Owen tags in and charges right into a Gunn clothesline. Gunn press slam. Owen spinning heel kick and backdrop. He goes for the Sharpshooter early. Gunn eye rakes out. HHH tags in and pounds longtime rival Owen down while JR mentions that their feud has been almost all HHH, he has Owen's number. Owen gets an inverted atomic drop. HHH comes back with a tiltawhirl backbreaker. DX continues working Owen over. Finally he gets a low blow on HHH and tags out to Kama. Kama avalanche on HHH. HHH facebuster. Gunn gets trapped in the wrong corner. He blocks a Brown dropkick into a slingshot and clothesline. HHH stomps Brown down in the corner. DX double team for 2. Brown goes in peril for a bit. He gets a boot up in the corner and tags. Owen gets a cheap shot in on Dogg from the apron. Dogg knocks him off the apron, allowing Kama to hit him from behind. Owen piledriver for 2. Neckbreaker and elbow off the second rope. Dogg is officially DX in peril. He gets some jabs in on Brown. Brown counters into his spinebuster. Dogg crossbody on Owen for 2. Owen hits the enzugui and goes for the Sharpshooter. HHH breaks it up. Brown hits his moonsault and the pin is saved again. Dogg dodges a Brown senton off the second rope and after much moment milking and a last second dodge gets the tag to Gunn. Everyone in the pool! Gunn fameasser on Brown. Henry and Chyna go at it on the floor. Brown gets spike piledriven into one of the tag belts but the ref is still distracted. Owen Pedigrees HHH onto the belt! Cover and a pin! Finally Owen gets a small bit of revenge on Trips. The match was solid enough. Everyone looked like they were trying, which could be hit or miss with a lot of these guys. **1/2

For the next match Vince has appointed the Stooges, Pat Patterson and Gerald Brisco, as special ring announcer and special timekeeper respectively. The special guest referee? Well that's Vince himself of course. The deck has been stacked against Austin as much as possible. It all seems cliche looking back on it now, but at the time this was still innovative and original booking. Before the match Vince says that if Austin touches him in any way he will stop the match immediately and strip Austin of the title. He also says, very clearly and specifically, "By my hand only will this match end". The ring introductions are very long but stay mostly entertaining, with Patterson going full Michael Buffer in an obnoxious heel way and buttering up everyone on his side something fierce, while burying Austin and refusing to intro him at all.

 

WWF Championship: "Stone Cold" Steve Austin (c) def Dude Love in 22:28- HUGE heat for Vince when he comes out with some stuff getting thrown into the ring. Love still has his cleaned up corporate look for this match. Just before Vince calls for the bell.....UNDERTAKER'S DONG! Taker, the only man on the roster Vince could possibly be afraid of, has volunteered to nominally be on Austin's side and make sure the match is called straight down the middle. The bell rings and we have a rough lockup. Vince breaks it up and gets a double bird from Austin. Love hits a shoulderblock and goes for a quick cover, with a mostly fair count from Vince. Headlock tradeoff. Austin uses Love's shirt to whip him. Love's false teeth are out! Austin stomps on them! Lawler says Love lost his smile. A rare good one from him. Austin Thesz Press and flying fists. He clotheslines Love 360 to the floor. Austin gets whipped into the steps. Vince tells Austin "No countout, I'm not saving your title that way, get back in". Love Russian leg sweep for 2 and he goes into beatdown mode. JR make a point of saying this is a normal one fall match. Corner knee for 2. Austin gets a swinging neckbreaker and clotheslines. Mandible Claw! Austin flips Love over the ropes to try to get out, and Love gets hung in the ropes! He puts the Claw back on! Austin gets him free and Love falls to the floor. Austin gets tossed over the Spanish announce table. Vince tells Patterson something. Patterson gets on the mic: "This is a reminder: this match is no DQ". JR: "SINCE WHEN?!". Love chokes Austin with a TV cable. Austin runs Love into the timekeeper's table. Brisco down! Love gets on the rail. Austin clotheslines him off and Love splats on the concrete! Austin makes a point of walking over Brisco as they get back in. Back in the ring Love dodges and Austin bounces off the ropes. A baseball slide sends Austin back out to the floor. Love neckbreaker on the floor. Vince again talks to Patterson. "This is a reminder: this match is falls count anywhere!". Love covers Austin in the aisle for 2. HUGE running clothesline from Austin. They go over to where all the cars are. Austin gets backdropped onto a car! Cover for 2. Austin flapjacks Love onto a car hood! He covers for 2. Brisco is out there with the bell. Love and Austin get up onto the cars. Austin goes for the Stunner. Love pushes out and Austin flies off, over another car hood and down to the floor! Love sunset flip off the car onto concrete! That gets 2. Love gets a giant pipe and nudges Austin with it, then rams his head into a trunk. Austin is busted open. He gets riled up and comes back with a punch flurry. Love backdrops out of a piledriver attempt on the floor. Suplex on the floor. He climbs up the cars again. He goes for the Cactus Elbow! Austin dodges! Cover for 2. They work back into the ring. Patterson trips Austin. Love hits a clothesline and punches Austin's cut. He takes a top turnbuckle pad off and runs Austin into it. Running corner knee. Another exposed buckle shot. Austin gets another wind and goes fists flying again. Love runs him into the exposed buckle again for a long 2. Patterson gives Love a chair. Chairshots for Austin. Double underhook DDT on the chair! Austin kicks out! He kicks the chair into Love's face! Chairshot to Love's head! He covers. Vince refuses to count! While Austin argues Love tries to come from behind with the chair, but Austin dodges and Vince takes another head chairshot! Stunner to Love! Proper ref Mike Chioda runs in to count. Patterson pulls him out at 2! Mandible Claw on Austin again! Patterson goes in to count. Taker pulls him out! He chokeslams Patterson through the English announce table! Now Brisco tries to count. Taker pulls him out. There's one table left. Brisco is chokeslammed through the Spanish announce table! Stunner! Austin covers, then uses Vince's arm to count 3! Vince said, only by my own hand will this match end. Word kept. Austin and Taker stare down a bit before Taker leaves, expression completely unreadable. This is one of the definitive matches of the Attitude Era. Yes, it's been copied and imitated so many times as the years have gone on it's easy to forget how great the original was, but it still is. ****1/4

OVERALL SHOW THOUGHTS- A must see main event that's one of the highlights of the era, a mostly watchable undercard and the usual fun character stuff you got from this era make this a fairly solid Attitude Era B PPV.

OVERALL SHOW GRADE: C+

Slamboree '96

Legacy Review

Slamboree '96

May 19, 1996 from the Riverside Centroplex in Baton Rouge, LA

Commentary: Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan and Dusty Rhodes

This show features the return of Battlebowl and the Lethal Lottery for the first time since the Battlebowl PPV in November '93, and for the fourth time overall, but this time with an extra twist. This iteration is called the "Lord of the Ring" tournament. I'm not making any of the obvious Tolkien jokes. Though it's probably got more to do with Tolkien's writings than the Rings of Power TV series does. Dammit, couldn't resist. Anyway. There's 32 entrants who will wrestle traditional "random draw" Lethal Lottery tag matches. After that the 8 winning teams will wrestle again in semifinal tag matches. The winners of that, 8 wrestlers total, will then compete in a whopping 8 man Battlebowl battle royale to determine the Lord of the Ring (it's NOT the King of the Ring, don't even think that). In addition the winner will also get a World title shot.

Lethal Lottery: Road Warrior Animal & Booker T and Road Warrior Hawk & WCW World Television and World Tag Team Champion "The Total Package" Lex Luger double countout in 6:54- Hawk and Animal on opposite ends, and four guys that have been involved in tag title feuds all year in the same match. Improbable but not completely unbelievable. After the events of Uncensored and the weeks following on Nitro Luger has turned back face. The Luger/Sting story would have been more interesting if Sting had turned to the dark side, but they're prepping the way for a big heel turn later on in the summer. Tony claims that after the first round matches there'll be a redraw for teams among who's left. We'll see how that holds up. After everyone's in the ring Booker shoves Hawk, Hawk attacks Booker, and no one else in the ring seems to have a clue what's going on, including the ref. Everyone meanders around. Booker and Animal argue over who's going to start. Finally it's Animal and Luger locking up. Luger pounds away in the corner. Powerslam, then he lets Animal recover. On a speed run Luger jumps up for a leapfrog but Animal hits him with a clothesline I don't think he knew was coming. I think they need to have a serious discussion about what the hell they're trying to do out there. Animal hits a powerslam and tackle. Luger suplex and Animal pops right back up. Surprised Hawk didn't attack him for taking his spot. Booker hits a hook kick. He and Luger trade elbow drop misses. Booker spinaroonies and hits a heel kick. After a time killing chinlock Booker hits a scissors kick. Hawk breaks the pin up. That pisses Luger off for some reason and everyone gets in a big brawl. They go down to the floor, continue fighting, and both teams are counted out even though the LOD had a ton of time to get back in the ring. They clearly don't care. The much hyped fight between the LOD never happened. All kinds of awful. DUD

 

Lethal Lottery: Public Enemy def "The Taskmaster" Kevin Sullivan and Chris Benoit (w/Jimmy Hart) in 4:44- Public Enemy get randomly drawn to team up out of 32 guys. OK, stretching credibility a bit but I guess it could happen. Sullivan and Benoit are strange bedfellow partners as the Dungeon of Doom and Four Horsemen were now feuding after the Alliance to End Hulkamania debacle. Benoit and Rock start with some slapping and shoving. Benoit tries a tiltawhirl but Rock turns it into a flying headscissors. More shoving. Benoit lifts Rock but Rock gets a hurricanrana out of it. Dusty's commentary is already coming from somewhere in the vicinity of Beetlegeuse, he's totally gone and ranting nonsense. Benoit and Rock do the same spot again but this time Benoit hits the powerbomb, followed by some ground and pound. And again everyone's in to fight on the floor. Chairs go flying. A table got set up on the floor. In a Public Enemy match? I know, unheard of. Sullivan gets set up on the table but Benoit cuts off Rock's dive with a clothesline. Rock suplexes Benoit out of the ring to the floor. PE put Benoit through the table while Sullivan saves himself, roll him in, and get the pin. 1/4*

 

Lethal Lottery: Rick Steiner and The Booty Man (w/the Booty Babe) def Scott Steiner and Sgt. Craig Pittman (w/Teddy Long) in 8:21- Now this is a good Lethal Lottery setup. The Steiners let the other two start while Heenan gets some good Steiner cracks in. Pittman works a hammerlock on BM. He gives BM a weird standing dive headbutt to his gut. BM kneelift on Scott. Scott hits the double underhook powerbomb. Pittman and Rick bark at each other before going at it. Rick catches Pittman on a leap and slams him. Pittman ducks a Steinerline and hits a German suplex! Nice. Big Rick tackle. They're stiffing each other nicely. Pittman looks for a tag. Scott hesitates, but goes through with it. Here we go! Steiner on Steiner. Rough lockup. Scott gets a fireman's carry takedown and Rick likes it. Rick headlock takedown. Nice mat exchange and stalemate. Scott belly to belly suplex! Rick Steinerline! Scott plays possum to sucker Rick into a small package. Heenan: "Outsmarting Rick, that's not hard to do". Scott full nelson. Rick reverses and hits a dragon suplex! He goes up top but Scott joins him and tosses him back down to the mat! BM tags in and posts his shoulder. Pittman goes to work on it. He hooks on the Code Red. BM fights over and gets a tag to Rick while still in the hold. Rick plants Pittman with a German and gets the pin. Worth watching for the short but awesome Steiner vs Steiner sequence back when they could both still go almost like they used to in their peak years. **1/2

 

Lethal Lottery: "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan and VK Wallstreet def The Blue Bloods in 3:46- Now two of the three Blue Bloods gets drawn together. I'm starting to question the "random" in the random drawing. VK Wallstreet is Mike Rotunda in his late career WCW IRS knockoff gimmick. Regal's reactions to anything going on around him are amazing. Duggan and Regal start. Regal hides in the ropes, then gets a cheap shot in the lockup. Duggan hits a hip toss and a trio of clotheslines. Wallstreet does some back and forth with both Bloods and has a European uppercut exchange with Regal. Duggan and Wallstreet start arguing and Regal hits Duggan from behind. Midring collision. Duggan goes for a tag but Wallstreet pulls back. Duggan pounds everyone, including his partner. He takes off his wrist tape, wraps it around his fist, waffles Taylor, and gets the pin. 1/2*

 

Lethal Lottery: "Dirty" Dick Slater and Earl Robert Eaton (w/Col. Robert Parker and Jeeves) def Disco Inferno and "Das Wunderkind" Alex Wright in 2:56- Inferno and Slater start. Inferno hides in the corner and yells at Slater not to mess his hair up. Slater leg takedown. Inferno fights him off, with difficulty, celebrates, and takes a Slater elbow and chop. Wright hits European uppercuts on Eaton and does his usual 4 or 5 moves. He really hasn't developed much since his big "super rookie" push. Slater swinging neckbreaker on Wright. Wright backdrops out of a piledriver. And everyone's in again, why not? Could we at least get some variety in how these matches are laid out? Slater hits Inferno from behind with his boot to get the win. 1/4*

 

Lethal Lottery: Diamond Dallas Page and The Barbarian def Hugh Morris and Meng in 5:15- DDP lost a retirement match at the last PPV, so of course he's already back. Thanks to some mysterious benefactor apparently. I'm pretty sure we never find out who. Meng and Barbarian were both in the DOD and regular tag partners. DDP and Morris start with DDP doing a lot of crowd playing and messing around when Morris wants to lock up, but (being DDP) it's all a ruse to sucker Morris in as DDP gets an eye poke and goes to work. A shoulderblock sends DDP tumbling through the ropes to the floor. DDP dodges a Morris plancha and he splats on the mat! Back in Morris grabs DDP's foot and spins him around, but DDP cuts him off with his own clothesline. Meng and Barbarian both tag in and have no qualms about going at it. They block hiptosses across the ring. Meng with some wicked stiff chops that Barbarian shrugs off. Barbarian hits a shoulderblock. Double clothesline, double no sell! A Barbarian kick gets Meng down. DDP runs in and Barbarian press slams him onto Meng! How about that teamwork? Meng gets Barbarian back down and tags out. Morris elbow off the top rope. He doesn't cover and wants another. DDP runs over and hits the ropes to crotch him. Barbarian goes up, needs forever to get his balance right, and belly to belly superplexes Morris. Meng saves the pin. Morris hits a moonsault! DDP saves the pin and we're *sigh* donnybrooking again. Meng and Barbarian both hits big boots and cover, and both get three counts. But, DDP's foot was under the bottom rope, so his team advances. Finally, other than the Steiners going at it, something halfway decent, and pretty shocking considering who was in it. **1/4

 

Lethal Lottery: Fire and Ice def Big Bubba Rogers and Stevie Ray in 3:32- For frak's sake, ANOTHER regular team that got "randomly drawn" together. It's getting ridiculous. Rogers has recently joined the DOD for lord knows what reason. Why the DOD is even still a going concern at this point is an eternal mystery. Norton and Ray start with Ray getting a corner cheap shot. Norton hits a tackle. Ray gets a boot up in the corner and hits a clothesline. Rogers avalanche on Norton. Spinebuster for 2. Even Tony is getting bored with one crap match after another, he's pointing out the excessive amount of clotheslines in this match. Train butt splash on Rogers for 2. Double clothesline. "Two more clotheslines" comment from Tony. Rogers gets whipped into Ray, F&I hit a double shoulderblock and that's that. 1/4*

 

Lethal Lottery: "Nature Boy" Ric Flair and "Macho Man" Randy Savage (w/Woman and Elizabeth) def Arn Anderson and Eddie Guerrero in 4:04- Now, finally, this has some potential. Savage and Flair had feuded over the world title since the end of '95, and even with Giant taking the title from Flair they were far from done with each other. Both men are absolute lunatics, driven by each other to the brink of insanity during this feud. I won't criticize them getting "drawn" to be on the same team because that's normal Lethal Lottery stuff, it's all the other way too obviously fixed pairings that make this one stand out more. Flair's music plays and he doesn't come out. Savage makes his entrance, then Flair's music plays again. This time he does come out, and Arn has already jumped Savage in the ring so Flair charges in....and stomps on Savage! Savage rolls to the floor and Guerrero gets in with Flair. Guerrero shrugs off chops, hits punches and a dropkick. Flair slows things down. Guerrero backdrop and more dropkicks. Flair gets an eye poke and tags a still hurt Savage on the back. Arn also tagged in and is all over Savage. Savage takes a swing at Flair, then gradually starts to pound back on Arn. He gets a boot up in the corner, but runs into the World's Greatest Spinebuster! Cover for 2. Arn tights pulls Savage into Savage's own corner. Flair tags in, then chops Savage! Guerrero takes a page out of Flair's playbook with an eye poke and chops. Flair Flop! Guerrero DDT off the ropes. Savage attacks Flair! Arn DDT on Guerrero! Savage gets beat down on the floor, and Flair covers Guerrero for the pin. The Horsemen continue to pound Savage. Elizabeth slaps Savage! Tony reacts like she shot him or something. Arn DDTs Savage on the floor! Fun chaos, much more like what the Lethal Lottery is supposed to be. Flair and Guerrero showed the promise you'd expect, but also had some noticeable communication issues from never working together before. **3/4

Tony clarifies that the second round random draw is only for matchups. Shame, redrawing teams would have been a lot more fun, but judging by the show so far "fun" wasn't one of WCW's objectives. Tony also mentions due to the double countout in the first match one team will get a bye straight to Battlebowl.

Ad for Great American Bash, now firmly in its new June slot, and this year returning to its traditional home of the Baltimore Arena in Baltimore.

Mean Gene is with some Hooters girls and some envelopes. Okerlund with women during a Lethal Lottery drawing, this is always hold your breath TV as far as how much Okerlund will verbally sexually harass them. Fortunately he mostly keeps it in his pants this year. They draw for the bye, which goes to Fire & Ice, then they draw just the first match of the second round.

 

WCW Cruiserweight Championship: Dean Malenko (c) def Brad Armstrong in 8:29- The cruiserweight division era is here. Shinjiro Otani defeated Wild Pegasus (Chris Benoit) at a New Japan show in March to win the inaugural title, which was billed by WCW as the finals of a "grueling" double elimination tournament, but in reality was the only match of said "tournament". Malenko then defeated Otani for the title on non-Nitro weekly TV a couple of weeks before this. Kinda nice to see Brad Armstrong still hanging around. One of the most underrated high flyer wrestlers of the late '80s/early '90s, he was also one of the few guys to hold WCW's original Light Heavyweight title, which is of course not mentioned by commentary. Good basic chain wrestling start. Speed run, Malenko slides under and grabs an Armstrong kick, Armstrong hits an enzugui. Armdrag and dropkick from Armstrong and Malenko powders. Back in Malenko teases a test of strength, but it's just a distraction to hit Armstrong in the knee with a basement dropkick. He posts Armstrong's knee and goes to work on it. Malenko puts Armstrong in a tree of woe and dropkicks the knee. Desperation cradle from Armstrong for 2. Malenko stays on the knee. He breaks out the old stump puller! Hold #437 I think. I miss a good stump puller. Leg scissors and Armstrong gets to the ropes. Malenko comes off the second rope and Armstrong gets a boot up to kick off the comeback. Powerslam. Missile dropkick. Knee's fine. He puts Malenko's own cloverleaf on him! Malenko gets to the ropes. Both guys go up top. Malenko gets Armstrong on his shoulders and comes down with the super gutbuster! That gets the pin. Usual solid Malenko match but not much else. The cruiserweight division was very much a work in progress as far as the crowd was concerned, but to be fair they've also probably been beaten into submission by the awfulness of the show so far. **1/2

Promo video for GLACIER! Elevator pitch: what if Sub-Zero from Mortal Kombat was a real life wrestler? I have to admit, the graphic design is pretty cool, some of the company's best work in that department. Too bad the end result was....not so good. After that Mean Gene is with the Hooters girls again for the rest of the matchup drawings. He tries to hand one of the girls an opened envelope. One of the camera guys takes it instead and Okerlund says "I want them to have their hands free". We almost made it the whole way without Okerlund going full dirty old man on the guest eye candy.

 

Lord of the Ring Semifinals: "Dirty" Dick Slater and Earl Robert Eaton def VK Wallstreet and "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan in 4:08- Duggan and Wallstreet immediately start fighting each other again. Slater and Eaton jump them. Duggan and Wallstreet whip them into each other. Duggan tries to calm down and make peace but Wallstreet knees him in the gut down to the floor. Slater Russian leg sweep on Wallstreet for 2. Tony gets super excited for no reason whatsoever. Either he just got a massive spontaneous caffeine/sugar jolt or someone in the truck told him to liven things up. Wallstreet backdrops Eaton and Duggan pops him on the floor. Rotunda abdominal stretch! Some things you can always count on. He wants leverage help from Duggan but naturally good boy Duggan refuses. Slater breaks the hold up and everyone gets in to fight again. Thankfully that's not the finish this time. Duggan wears Slater down a bit and they have a horrible midring collision. Tags. Wallstreet slams Eaton off the top rope. After another disagreement Wallstreet hits Duggan, Duggan hits Wallstreet, and Eaton rolls Wallstreet up to win. Well at least the finish was better. 3/4*

Next up is the semifinal match between Public Enemy and the Flair/Savage team. Savage's music plays and no one comes out. Commentary isn't surprised after his beatdown earlier. Flair comes out with Woman and Elizabeth. Elizabeth has a fistful of money that somehow commentary knows is Savage's. She starts throwing it out to the crowd. Savage charges in and attacks Flair! A whole mess of security is instantly on Savage. They're soon joined by half the face locker room. They all drag Savage to the back. In the ring, Public Enemy are declared the winners by forfeit.

 

Lord of the Ring Semifinals: Diamond Dallas Page and The Barbarian def Rick Steiner and The Booty Man (w/the Booty Babe) in 5:05- DDP starts with initially Rick. To no one's shock DDP turns around and starts jawing with Kimberly. When he turns back around it's BM in the ring with him and they slug it out. A punch sends DDP stumbling through the ropes to the floor. He gets caught in a mess of TV cables and BM chokes him with it. Rick sloppy backdrop back in for 2. It looked like he was going for something else and changed his mind mid-move. He does mounted punches. DDP drops him on the top turnbuckle and tags. Rick ducks a Barbarian boot and hits a back suplex. Belly to belly superplex. Steinerline! Barbarian powerbomb for 2. Rick tries to reach for a tag. DDP distracts the ref and Rick gets tossed over the top rope. Barbarian avalanche and clothesline. Rick hits him with a hot shot and tags. BM high knee. DDP breaks the pin up. BM rolls Barbarian up. DDP comes in, drops an elbow on the back of BM's head, and Barbarian gets the pin. Mercifully, the Lethal Lottery matches are over. *1/4

 

WCW United States Heavyweight Championship: Konnan (c) def Jushin Thunder Liger (w/Sonny Oono) in 9:30- Mike Tenay is thankfully in for Dusty for this match. Mexico vs Japan for the US title. Liger's got an unusual gear look tonight: black and silver with yellow trim. He sure as hell didn't need Sonny Oono with him, but it was a WCW requirement at the time that all New Japan wrestlers had Oono has a manager in the US. Konnan gets a quick takedown into a clutch for 2. Rapid fire cover stalemate. Liger snap mare and senton. Konnan rolls out and gets kicked by Oono. Konnan chases and Liger hits him with a blindside baseball slide, sending Konnan into the guardrail. Liger plancha! Horrible sell by Konnan on that. Liger brain buster back in for 2. He wraps Konnan up on the mat to kick off a long sequence of countering submission holds. Konnan kicks to get free. Liger jumps right back on him with some ground and pound. Rapid fire strike exchange. Liger rolling kick in the corner. Superplex. Splash off the top for 2. He dropkicks Konnan to the floor. Liger tries coming off the top to the floor but Konnan kicks him in midair. Back in Liger slips out of a suplex into a Saito suplex. Fisherman buster! Konnan kicks out! Konnan counters a corner floatover into an Alabama slam with a jackknife cover for 2. He goes for Splash Mountain. Liger counters into a rollup for 2. Liger small package for 2. Powerbomb for 2. He comes off the top again but Konnan gets his boots up. Splash Mountain hits and it's over. Total Liger carry job. ***

Mean Gene brings Flair back out, plus entourage. Flair runs Savage down some more, then invites Okerlund to his "pajama/lingerie" party tonight. Flair then starts to run Steve "Mongo" McMichael down and doing the usual Flair thing of saying he's been messing with Mongo's wife. Never mind that shit, here comes Mongo. Flair says he and Arn Anderson walk all over football players to the locker room, and they challenge Mongo and any partner he wants to a match. Mongo: "Anybody?". Flair: "Listen to me! AN. Y. BO. DY." Mongo says fine, he's already got someone here. It's Kevin Greene! (now in a Carolina Panthers shirt after signing with them in free agency in the offseason) Flair: "I said retired player!". Everyone argues with officials separating them and end scene. This set up what would be one of the top matches at GAB.

 

Battlebowl- We've got Dick Slater, Rocco Rock, Johnny Grunge, DDP, the Barbarian, Bobby Eaton, Ice Train and Scott Norton in this. What a scintillating lineup. Reminder, the winner of this gets a WORLD title shot at GAB. Out of these guys. Usual weak WCW battle royale brawling to start. DDP does early elimination teases. Barbarian hits DDP with a big boot. DDP goes over the top rope and skins the cat back in. But, one of his feet touched the floor, which is apparently enough to be eliminated but no ref saw it. More weak brawling. Barbarian eliminates Rock. Slater accidentally whacks Eaton with his boot to eliminate him. Eaton pops Col. Parker! Slater comes out and attacks Eaton, apparently also eliminated. DDP eliminates Norton. Train powerslams everyone. Train/Barbarian double big boot on Grunge. DDP Diamond Cutters everyone! He pins Grunge. Oh, apparently pins are a thing in this match too. It'd really help if WCW laid the rules out ahead of time for once. DDP pins Train. He covers Barbarian but only gets 2. DDP shoves ref Nick Patrick and gets shoved back, with a sell Flair would be proud of. Barbarian clothesline for 2. DDP back elbow in the corner. Barbarian corner dodge and roll up for 2. Tombstone from Barbarian! DDP kicks out! Barbarian hooks on a sleeper. DDP low blows out. Barbarian powerbomb for another long 2. DDP showing some serious resilience here. Barbarian goes for the headbutt off the top but DDP dodges. Diamond Cutter! DDP wins! Not too shabby of an end run mini-match there. DDP was the only guy putting any serious effort in out there. He gets presented with a giant ring for being Lord of the Ring. **

If the whole Lord of the Ring thing was designed to get DDP up to the next level, it wasn't a bad idea but it was horribly executed. But of course in typical WCW fashion he'd have his legs cut back out from under him the next night on Nitro, where his title shot at GAB would be taken away due to the fact he should have been eliminated earlier in the match. His career was still on the upswing, but it'd be nearly two more years before he finally got a world title shot, the promise of this one long forgotten.

 

WCW World Heavyweight Championship: The Giant (c) (w/Jimmy Hart) def WCW World Tag Team Champion Sting (w/Lex Luger) in 10:41- Giant defeated Flair on Nitro in April for the title, a match I've always enjoyed just for the way Flair bumps like a maniac off Giant while trying to do shoulderblocks. It's officially his second title reign, but really his first because the first one was quickly vacated due to controversy. Hart and Luger are handcuffed to each other for this match. Early speed run and Sting BOUNCES off Giant while trying to hit a crossbody! It's almost like he was trying to one up Flair. Sting whacks Giant in the head with a double ax handle then jumps on his back and puts a sleeper on. Giant squashes him in the corner. Dropkicks and a clothesline are no sold and Sting rolls out to have a think. Back in Sting hits an enzuguri. Giant pushes him down with his boot. Sting tries a slam. Giant falls on top of him for 2. Giant steps over Sting. Sting tries to fight back but Giant clobbers him down again. Borderline low blow headbutt from Giant. He hooks on a body scissors and gets extra rope leverage. While that's going on Hart is trying to talk Luger back to his side. Sting hits a kick and Giant tosses him to the floor. He tosses Sting halfway up the entrance aisle. Giant goozle and he goes to chokeslam Sting through a table, but Luger has set Hart up on the table to block it! Giant backs off. Luger pulls Sting off the apron and Giant misses a dropkick. Sting blind back elbows the ref! He dodges Giant in the corner. Stinger Splash! Luger and Hart both get up on the apron. Giant goozles Luger! Sting hits repeated Stinger Splashes to get Giant to let go but it doesn't work. Finally Sting kicks Giant in the knee and he lets go of Luger. Giant goes down! Hart gets himself draped across the top of the corner. Sting goes to Stinger Splash him but Hart just escapes in time. Sting recovers and hits a splash off the top on Giant for 2. Another splash. He goes for the Scorpion Death Lock. Luger and Hart are on the apron again fighting over the megaphone. Sting takes the megaphone in the face! Giant his the chokeslam and it's over. Sting made Giant look like a million bucks in a way Hogan never could. ***1/4

OVERALL SHOW THOUGHTS- Well, the title matches all delivered to some degree. The Lethal Lottery, however, was an abject disaster. Normally there's entertainment value inherit in the Lethal Lottery no matter how good the matches are, but that's completely missing here thanks to how unimaginative most of the pairings are.

OVERALL SHOW GRADE: D