Cewsh Reviews Classics – WCW Superbrawl 2000

Welcome, CATS AND kittens to yet another installment of the consistently prefaced Cewsh Reviews. Tonight we’re playing the part of Doc Brown, and we’re strapping you into the DeLorean and setting the dial to the year 2000. There was so much of interest that year, as we narrowly dodged the Y2pocalypse, boy bands ran rampant all over our collective faces, and we elected George Bush, or didn’t, depending on who you ask. However, since we run a wrestling review ditty here, we’re going to zero in on something we can make fun of, and if we’re talking jokes, we’re talking WCW in its final year.

We’ve plucked this random PPV from their last year open as a company, just to be a window in to the often discussed downfall of WCW. Was the quality really so bad as people always say? Are there really 12 goddamn matches on this show? Which of us will have an aneurysm from laughter first? Only one way to find ouuuuuut…

So without any further ado, let’s do a motherfucking review!

Cewsh: This one is interesting. On one hand, you have to allow for this being 9 years old, so its not like this video is going to have the latest in technical specs. On the other hand, though, this is just so very different from the video packages that we take for granted today. Just a bunch of edited together clips with an overdramatic voice over guy narrating them to utterly generic music, there’s no flow, no story, and nothing inspiring here. I know that this sort of thing was never a priority for WCW, but come on. Why even bother if this is all you’re doing?

Vice: Right off the bat, you can tell this is WCW in its dying days. The arena looks like shit. The atmosphere is shit. The production is shit. The videos are abysmal, and in complete honesty without trying to sound arrogant, I actually could do better. A lot better. You can tell that WCW was cutting corners because of all the ridiculous contracts their talent had. It’s kind of sad to watch the energetic cat you loved start crawling to its bowl of food.

Cewsh: Or something much more pleasant, as he goes to interview Commissioner Kevin Nash about the triple threat main event, and instead a bunch of women pile out of his office followed by Jeff Jarrett and the Harris Brothers, Ron and Don. Okerlund is perplexed at this, and rightly so, and Jarrett explains that even though Nash stripped him (Jarrett) of the Commissionership, he just beat Nash up, so he’s the Commissioner still anyhow. He then says that the Harris Brothers will be in his corner tonight, calls several people “slapnut”, and wanders off as the ladies fondle Mean Gene.

Why were the women there? I don’t know. Its never explained. Jarrett says he “walloped” Nash, so conceivably that wouldn’t involve vaginas, but hey man, its WCW. Gimmicks have grown out of less.

Cewsh: Okay, stay with me. This match represents the finals of the tournament to crown a new Crusierweight champion. The tournament became necessary when Oklahoma (who you may remember as Vince Russo’s friend impersonating announcer Jim Ross) vacated the belt that he cheated to when from Madusa, who you may remember was, in fact, a lady. He vacated the belt because, and I quote, “There are some other real men around here who deserve a shot.” So rather than having him job to put someone over, he actually vacated the belt, dropped the whole angle and it was never spoken of again. So yeah. Good stuff.

The two men they choose to compete for this prestigious prize are Lash Leroux, who is apparently from New Orleans and that’s about it, and The Artist Formerly Known As Prince Iaukea, who is FUCKING AWESOME. The Artist’s music starts to play, and its so close to Purple Rain that its ridiculous, and they do a close up on a candelabra with candles burning in it, then they gently fade back to the arena, which is lit entirely purple, and The Artist comes out waving and acting like every Prince music video he’s ever seen, while Booker T’s wife fawns over him. Now I know, logically, that I should respond to this with rage, but dude! Someone in 2000 thought a Prince gimmick would draw money. And it is fucking amazing. I have immediately become a total mark for this guy. What a legend.

The match begins, and it is boring as your grandmother’s house at 3 on bridge night. I mean, they’re going through the motions and its fine, but there’s absolutely nothing here that speaks to the proud history of the WCW Crusierweight championship, and Lash Leroux honestly doesn’t perform one single move that I can even remember. They speed to the finish, where Paisley (as Sharmell was known then) helps The Artist cheat to win, and I’m happy because my guy won, but as far as opening matches go, this isn’t exactly awesome stuff.

63 out of 100.

Vice: This kinda reminded me of TNA a year or two ago, to be honest. A tournament was held to crown the brand new Cruiserweight champion, and right from the beginning you knew that the top stars were gone and it was in the middle of a rebuilding period. People like Rey Mysterio, Eddie Guerrero and Dean Malenko were gone. The big guys with CRUISERWEIGHT STARS written on their foreheads were no longer there, or doing other things. Like TNA, Samoa Joe, AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels had moved on to different things, so the X-division seemed pretty crappy. Sure you have good talent like Helms (WCW) and Lethal (TNA) still around, but it just didn’t seem super important anymore. And they had to really struggle to get the division back on its feet.

I used to cheer Lash on when he was wrestling on WCW Saturday Night, and my friends and I were always fans of Prince Iaukea. I haven’t gone back and looked at his stuff to see if he was actually a solid talent in those days or not, but he was different. He wrestled in his bare feet and was fun. Now he has a ridiculous, over-the-top gimmick as The Artist Formerly Known As Prince Iaukea, and it was very fun to watch. It was soooooooo WCW to give him a gimmick like that, but I’ll give the man his credit and say that he was able to pull it off very well.

That said, the match itself wasn’t exactly stellar by any means. But let’s face it—when you have a card with 11 matches, you can’t necessarily give the opening cruiserweight match a ton of time. It was very fast-paced, offered very little story and selling, and was relatively sloppy. It did its part, though, and was a fairly enjoyable mess of a match. For a WCW PPV in the year 2000, this was the equivalent of Bret vs. Owen opening up Wrestlemania.

Segment 4 – Nasty Knobbs and the Mysterious Door.

Cewsh: Bubba Ray Knobby, Brian Knobbs is backstage yelling a lot. He’s got his camo, he’s got a terrible haircut, and he’s apparently got Finaly as a mentor, which isn’t half bad really. He yells for about a minute about being mad at Bam Bam Bigelow, and then they abruptly cut to a door that says Private Keep Out on it, and the announcers speculate on what it inside of it with great passion. So apparently all any young up and comer who wants to get noticed needs to do is to put that sign on a door, and then refuse to open it. C’mon Benoit, Guerrero, Jericho. All you needed was a door, guys. Geez.

Cewsh: I hate to do this, but privately when I watch things that are old like this, I privately do a count of all the wrestlers in it who have passed on. Its morbid, I know, but its even more depressing, because nothing this old fails to have at least one, and here’s our first. Rest In Peace, you devil from Ashbury Park. You were the best thing that ever happened to New Jersey.

The match? The match sucked. They hit each other with stuff, and then they hit each other with more stuff, and then it was mercifully over. I’m not sure what universe allowed for a time where Brian Knobbs would be beating Bam Bam Bigelow, though. He main evented Wrestlemania. Knobbs main evented an Old Country Buffet lunch hour one time. In fairness though, he was phenomenal there.

30 out of 100.

Vice: While watching matches, I generally scribble down quick notes and expand on them later. I’ll write down little bullets of stuff I want to talk about, and my overall impressions of the match. For this match, all I scribbled down was “Holy god this match was awful”, and having watched the match a second time, I really can’t find anything to elaborate on. So, I’m going to leave it at that.

Holy god this match was awful.

Cewsh: First we get Flair backstage hyping up Luger and Elizabeth for Luger’s match with Hogan, so I assume that Flair and Luger are in cahoots, and then we get shots or doors with security guards in front of them, and it is explained to us through some painful overacting on the part of one of the guards that nobody is allowed in or out of the doors. These are apparently the locker rooms of Scott Hall and Sid Vicious, respectively, though why they can’t come out when Jarrett is roaming free is mysterious indeed, but I digress.

Have I mentioned that nothing in any segment gets more than 10 seconds of screen time? Videos, promos, vignettes, they all flash onto the screen and away so fast that nothing leaves any sort of lasting impression before its replaced by something else. Its like watching a Miley Cyrus music video.

Cewsh: 3 Count come out and in case you missed out on them in their day, they’re essentially a boy band consisting of 3 young cruseirweights with great abs. Two of them you may know from the WWE, as Shannon Moore (The Prince of Punk!) and Gregory Helms (The Hurricane!). The other one was last seen in 2008, as an extra in a Method Man movie. So yeah, the group was obvious destined for great things.

Norman Smiley on the other hand, is a skinny African American man, who is famous for getting beaten up, dancing, and simulating the sodomization of his opponents. Yes, seriously.

This is a three on one handicap match, and the amusing thing is that nobody seems to have informed 3 Count of this, since at no point do they do anything other than attack Smiley one at a time, slowly, so he can beat them all up like fucking Goldberg or something.

Then they dance.

57 out of 100.

Vice: I’m not sure I’d call 3 Count a group of great heels by any means, just because they are really stupid, obnoxious, and irritating.. but at the same time, the crowd absolutely despised these fuckers. So in a way, yeah, I guess they are great heels. Against them is crowd favorite Norman Smiley. And by crowd favorite, I mean exactly that. I think he was the most over person on this entire show, even out-popping Hulk Hogan. For a scrawny black midcarder dressed in football gear whose claim to fame is doing ridiculous dancing and simulating “doggy style” sexual intercourse, that’s quite the accomplishment if I do say so myself.

This was a fun match in a number of ways. It wasn’t very good at all, but at the same time it didn’t take itself seriously at all. It wasn’t a full blown comedy match, though you could tell that everyone in the ring was having a fun time. Plus the crowd was super into it all, and we all know how hot crowds can make even the worst of matches seem incredible.

Cewsh: The mysterious door is, apparently, still very much mysterious, and now Jeff Jarrett is very concerned about what might be behind there, so he sends the Harris brothers to find out. Guys, what if that’s just the janitor’s closet and he’s very protective of his mops? There’s really no reason at all ever given as to why this one particular door is so goddamn fascinating. Is Narnia behind there?

Vice: Now this is some Dubya-C-Dubya at its finest right here. Here we have The Wall (RIP) up against The KISS Demon, who is actually Dale Torborg. Yes, this guy is an actual known baseball player/trainer, and from all I’ve read and heard, a respected one at that. If you were watching TNA a few years back, you’d know him from his various random appearances on the programming, often in baseball (and baseBRAWL!!!!#$@) related shenanigans. His random appearances actually spiked ratings (note: not overall improved) more than big title wins, celebrities, and former WCW/WWE/F talent debuting.

Boy did this match suck, too. Immediately following the three count, WCW cuts away to a backstage segment. Partly because they have so much shit to get through during this event, partly because no one gave half a fuck about the match, and it meant absolutely nothing in the long run.

Cewsh: Please guys. Please don’t make me review this match. Please, please, please?

Sigh. Alright, so the KISS Demon is exactly what he sounds like. He’s a dude with KISS makeup on who drips fake blood from his mouth. The Wall, on the other hand, is a big dude in a suit. I could wax poetic on their characters for years, I’m sure, after all I once wrote a 10 page paper on why Aqua’s “I’m A Barbie Girl” is the greatest song ever recorded, but it would be just as false. These guys have no character. They’re just here to be here.

Now the problem with that, it that these two get more time than any match so far. Yeah, seriously. They don’t deserve it, they don’t do anything with it, and they fucksure don’t use it to tell a story. The story here is bad wrestlers running into each other for awhile.

And then they stop. Wait! Okay now they stopped. WAIT! Okay, definitely this time. Yeah. Okay. They’re done. Whew.

38 out of 100.

Cewsh: Ernest Miller is backstage and he’s talking about how James Brown is going to show up, just like he’s apparently promised for about 75 shows in a row now, and nobody even slightly believes him. He also says the words “neck bone” a lot, in conjunction with anything. I’m pretty sure you don’t actually eat the neck bone of any animal, so what one tastes like is sort of superfluous, isn’t it?

Anyway, the the Harris Brothers try to knock down the MYSTERIOUS DOOR for about 12 seconds before giving up and leaving, showing that not only is the door inhumanly (indoorly?) strong, but it also has psychic powers discouraging people from trying to open it for longer than 12 seconds. Touche door, touché. Oh! Then we see two hobos wandering around the parking lot! I hope everyone locked their car doors!

Cewsh: Hmm, apparently those hobos were Tank Abbot and Big Al. Hmm.

Vice assures me that Tank Abbot is pretty much the biggest joke in MMA history, as one of the few people to ever have an actual losing record, despite somehow being well known. WCW signed this guy, despite his awful look, lack of skill, and lack of credibility, and then, to make matters worse (or way better, depending on your views on the subject) they put him into this match with his former bodyguard Big Al. Who is basically just some random dude. THEN, rather than putting them in some kind of match that may complement the brawling that they possibly can do, they put them in a pole match.

Awesome. Thanks Vinny Ru.

Big Al and Tank Abbot start this match by tying their right hands together and walking around talking to each other, looking for all the world like a biker couple on their anniversary. Then Big Al (Not Al Borelan from Home Improvement) gets free and goes to pulls Tank’s nutsack into the ring post, but he stops halfway and claims that that is “Too good for him” and steps on his face instead. Then Tank punches him for awhile, lifts Al up on his shoulders and climbs the turnbuckle to get the jacket WHILE BRINGING AL ALONG. This is, perhaps, the worst strategy in the history of pole matches. Apparently realizing this, Tank DROPS AL, obviously by accident, straight down from on top of his shoulders on top of the top rope, and Al falls straight down onto the ring steps. Fucking owowowowowowowow! Tank then jumps down, and punches him once or twice to make it look intentional, run back in and grabs the jacket from off the pole. Then, in an act motivated exclusively by heartwarming sympathy, he produces a knife from somewhere on his person and holds it to Al’s neck, loudly proclaiming that he is going to kill him.

They cut away quickly, and Schiavone claims that he’s just going to shave AL’s nonexistent beard. Good cover Schiavone. Smooth.

Holy shit, what a mess this was. I think AL might be dead, Tank Abbot is a fat, crazy hobo, and the jacket they were fighting for lies discarded on the ground. In between I think there was some wrestling, but only in the very loosest of terms.

Yikes.

11 out of 100.

Vice: Tank Abbott was brought into WCW like he was a massive deal. A phenomenal fighter crossing over to WCW because REAL MEN WRESTLE and MMA is for GIRLS! Like other MMA fighters coming into wrestling, his finishing move is fighting related. It’s the one punch knockout in this case. Which makes sense, because Tank Abbott was an MMA legend at the time, and knocked so many people out with that mean fist of his. In reality, Tank Abbott was a subpar fighter in the beginning of UFC when very few people legitimately had fighting technique and skill, and a big motherfucker from a bar could be a legitimate threat to smaller people. With a very poor fight record and only one actual knockout to his record (with some TKO victories via ref stoppage), he certainly was no Ken Shamrock, or even a Dan Severn. Though I suppose back in the day with UFC being so underground and being banned from PPV because of the carnage, the mere mention of someone fighting there would give them some credibility.

Tank Abbott was fucking awful though. And fucking hell did this match suck balls. Yeah, let’s put a leather jacket on a pole (not a poll!) and have these two [strike]goliaths[/strike] dickheads fight over it. Then let’s not work an actual match. Then we can have Tank Abbott botch the ending and almost kill the other guy because he’s unsafe and has no idea what he’s doing. Then hey, let’s have Tank Abbott win by retrieving the leather jacket. And since Tank fought a tough battle to get it, hey, why doesn’t he just throw the leather jacket at his opponent after the match. That makes sense, right? At Wrestlemania, I hope the winner of the Money in the Bank ladder match throws the briefcase at one of the downed opponents and walks off.

Cewsh: AHMED FUCKING JOHNSON.

Vice: The only thing worth talking about is Booker’s Disney music that is the best entrance theme I have ever heard for an intense black man, and the evil black manager in a neck brace. Both were amazing. Neck braced villains are so underrated these days.

Cewsh: Okay, so Stevie Ray and Booker T are brothers and had a team called Harlem Heat, right? Well Stevie Ray decided that he didn’t like this arrangement, turned heel, and went his separate ways. However, not satisfied with that, he also sued Booker T for the Harlem Heat music, for the flames in the Harlem Heat entrance, and for the fucking T at the end of his name. In order to enforce this, he recruited Ahmed Johnson, calling him Big T, and that led to this match, where they are going to fight for the right to, um, have a T party?

Anyway, Ahmed comes out, and he looks like absolute hell, even though I love him to bits, and I can’t make myself have any faith in his in ring abilities. Then Booker comes out to the greatest entrance music of all time, which is just completely childlike and embarrassing, and is basically the music they play when really fat kids walk around in kids movies. They start the match, and oh what a match it is. Ahmed is as graceful as a swan as he and Booker exchange near falls, chain wrestle, and put on a show of aerial acrobatics not even comparable in this modern wo… huh? Oh, right, sorry. Wrong match.

In THIS match, Ahmed just stands there while Booker tries so hard to make a match around him that its painful to watch. Ahmed clearly left mobility behind along with his dignity in the WWE, so this is not a pretty sight. So Booker takes the advantage, and its looks like he’s about to win before the lights all go out.

…just kidding.

Some other huge fucking dude shows up and just sort of stands there on the apron. Ahmed takes this opportunity to give Booker the Pearl River Plunge and win the match, and everybody has a dandy old time dancing all over the ring.

Yeesh. Poor Booker. He deserved better than this. But still, Ahmed Johnson is fucking awesome. My childhood memories refuse to accept anything else.

40 out of 100.

Cewsh: God, what the fuck is this?

Some dude who thinks he’s Beethoven and calls himself the Maestro is backstage with X-Pac’s girlfriend (Alicia Webb) and suggests a wager where if James Brown actually does show up tonight, he’ll listen to soul music for the rest of eternity, and if he doesn’t show up then Ernest Miller has to listen to classical music. Seems reasonable I guess, for a guy who looks like a mad scientist who is secretly synthesizing lame and boring.

Elsewhere, the Harris Brothers have found a janitor to open the door. However apparently the lock has been changed. In a completely appropriate response, they beat the shit out of the janitor. Poor guy. Its not his fault all of you crazy assholes are obsessed with a door he doesn’t have a key to.

Cewsh: This is really the first actual match that they’ve had on here so far, and I have to give these two guys definite props. They put together a match that was not only entertaining, but that pretty much helped to do away with the negative stigma that this show was quickly sinking towards.

Now, that doesn’t mean it was perfect.

These guys wrestled very contrary styles throughout the entire match, and it was very awkward at many points, even if both guys were miles ahead of most of the people on the card before them in an overall sort of way. Vampiro seemed confused at how to sell Kidman’s offense, and Kidman seemed entirely thrown off by doing his moves to someone as deceptively big as Vampiro, because every Kidman move was slightly off and was followed by Vampiro trying to decide whether or not to fall down. It wasn’t a huge thing, but it didn’t help a match that still needed all the help it could get to stand out on this show.

I give these guys full credit for trying, and I enjoyed what they put together. But yeah, the fact that this match is decent, is only by comparison to everything that proceeded it.

68 out of 100.

Vice: Ah! An actual match! Between wrestlers! It’s been so long since I’ve seen one of these on this show. That said, this is WCW 2000. This was decent, and probably by far the best match of the night so far, but that doesn’t say much of anything now does it?

I miss old Kidman. I really do.

Cewsh: First we get Terry Funk cutting a promo on Ric Flair about how Flair has messed about with so many people in this business and that that stops tonight, and that he’s brining along some insurance in Dustin Rhodes. The funny thing about this is that no matter how much wacky nonsense is on the show, and no matter how much ridiculous crap surrounds Terry Funk, it doesn’t touch him. This promo was instantly believable, because Terry Funk doesn’t know how to do bad promos. I’ve never been a fan of his, but I was blown away by how he refused to let the rest of the show touch his segment and bring him down.

Of course, speaking of touching, we see Sid attempt to walk out of his locker room, and when the security guards tell him he can’t he proceeds to devour the soul of the poor unfortunate Security Guard while shouting “DON’T TOUCH ME EVER!”.

He then calmly requests the company of one Gene Okerlund. Does that mean we’ll get Sid Vicious promo time? Please, Santa. I’ve been really good this year!

Oh, and then some chick named Daffney shows up. She screams a lot. I think Vice has heard of her.

Cewsh: Oh boy.

Okay, this barnburner of a match came about because apparently Daffney crashed the wedding of the family members of the Mamalukes, and was very disrespectful, so this grievous crime must be settled in a Sicilian Stretcher match. Now I have never seen anything from WCW after 1997, so I have fuck all of an idea as to why the shit David Flair is here looking like your 8 year old neighbor who mows your lawn, and apparently dating the super goth Daffney and hanging out with the super goth Crowbar. Apparently David is crazy too, though he’s evidently too classy to show it, as throughout the entirety of these festivities, not one emotion ever crosses his face.

The wonderfully stereotypical Italians aren’t much better, but hey. At least the wrestlers ARE ITALIANS. Not that that means anything for this match, and as it gets started I realized that I was in for a long day. I’d play by play this for you, but somehow I think you would just find it depressing, so I’ll just cover some highlights. First of all, Daffney screamed throughout the entire fucking match. Start to finish. This would have been bad enough, if Vice hadn’t kept telling me about how it was giving him a boner and disappearing for 15 minute stretches of time. Then they bring out some tables and pretty much everybody goes through one, before I start to notice that David Flair hasn’t gotten in any offense at all. In fact, this is pretty much a complete squash match, where the Mamalukes essentially get their asses handed to them for 15 minutes while Disco Inferno gets yelled at by the announce team.

There was one cool moment where Stamboli leaps to the top rope from the canvas with no running start and no apparent effort, balances himself for a second, and hits a picture perfect Turnaround Guillotine Leg Drop. That was pretty awesome, and pretty soon after that, they start taking Flair and Crowbar on stretchers up the ramp with no particular hurry. Then they grab Daffney, tie her to a wheelchair and roll her screaming to the back, prompting Vice to disappear for another 15 minutes.

Sheesh.

64 out of 100.

Vice: Daffers was involved in this match. Old Daffers. And by old, I mean young Daffers. How do you expect me to competently review a match with her dancing and screaming at ringside, and later being gift-wrapped (and by that, I mean restrained with tape) to a chair?

Exactly.

Cewsh: Mean Gene shows up to interview Sid. Here is a transcript of their conversation:

Gene: Hey Sid, what can I do for ya?

Sid: I want everybody to know something. Surprises or no surprises, Jeff Jarrett and Scott Hall will find out one thing tonight, that I am the World Champion. And Gene, I did not get here by mistake because I earned it. Every ounce of sweat and blood I earned it. I BELONG HERE. And Jeff Jarrett’s scheming and Scott Hall’s fans of high places will not take this away from me. And anyone, even the man behind the mystery door, anyone who comes will get the same thing that the man that came before them had gotten when they got it! THEY WILL BE POWERBOMBED STRAIGHT TO HELL for every man will be judged by me, the master, the ruler of the world. YEAH!

The rantings of a madman? Or the the musings of a completely awesome genius? You decide.

Cewsh: Alright, I could not possibly condense this entire segment into a play by play format. So for the first time in history, I am unveiling Cewsh Notes: The Vignette Files.

– First Ernest Miller comes out and announces that James Brown is coming out. A dude who is clearly not James Brown appears and dances some.

– Then The Maestro (remember him from earlier?) comes out, and says that due to the terms of their bet (which Miller never agreed to), Miller now has to go get The Maestro’s bags and drive him home (which weren’t the terms).

– The Fake James Brown loses his hat and glasses, and is revealed to be someone who looks so much like Carl Winslow that I mark out just for the similarity.

– Then The Maestro yells a lot, and is interrupted by some music playing and 30 people coming into the entryway to have an impromptu dance session. The one in front looks exactly like Henry from the television show Eureka, which is a reference that only I will likely enjoy.

– Eventually, James Brown himself emerges, prompting the single most hilarious reaction from a wrestler in the history of wrestling from The Maestro, who then promptly passes out.

– James Brown comes to the ring. There’s a lot of awkwardness as it becomes clear that Brown has no idea what to do, and then Ernest Miller dances for 5 straight minutes.

Holy God. Be aware, because nobody believe that James Brown was actually coming, not one person bought this show expecting for him to be here. So whatever they paid him to show up was not in any way offset by any money brought in from his appearance. They blew their was on this whole ridiculous storyline by having Ernest Miller dance while NOT LETTING THE CELEBRITY DO ANYTHING. Ernest Miller seriously made James Brown seem completely irrelevant and unnecessary.

On the plus side, though, CARL WINSLOW!

Cewsh: Hint: Its his penis.

Cewsh: Ric Flair is backstage talking to Mean Gene about how he’s going to kick Terry Funk’s ass. There are many Woos and there is quite a lot of yelling. That’s not the real story, though. The real story is that with the next segment, this show will officially have more segments than any other show in the history of Cewsh Reviews. And there’s still an hour to go.

So yeah. Yeah.

Vice: Now this was a match that was two parts. There was before the finish and, well, the finish.

Prior to the final moments (which I’ll obviously get to later), this match totally blew me away. Everyone tells me how great Terry Funk was/is, and while I was impressed with what I’ve seen of his very young stuff, I’ve never thought much of him after his 86th retirement. I can understand people loving the passion of a 90 year old man battling against all odds, but it’s just not for me. So, to say the least, Terry Funk made me a believer (at least momentarily) in this match. Everything he and Flair did was great, in my eyes. From the piledrivers outside of the ring which looked legitimately devastating, and Flair selling them accordingly, to Funk grabbing a mic mid-match to talk shit to Flair.. it was all emotional and awesome. I really loved it.

Cewsh and I always talk throughout matches on AIM, whether it be discussing awesomeness or laughing at stupidity, but every now and then the two of us go completely silent for minutes at a time because we can’t take our eyes off the match. This was one of those matches. I think it was Cewsh who broke the silence with a quick little “this match is great”. I had to agree. So, this match was great. Oh right, I mentioned this was a match of two parts, right?

So, the finish. I felt this was very underwhelming and didn’t do the rest of the match justice at all. Funk had given Flair two piledrivers outside of the ring. One on the padding, one on the unforgiving concrete. Then took him into the ring and gave him a piledriver through a table which was a fucking NASTY looking spot. Flair seemed to be down for the 3, but Funk pulled Flair’s arm up. Fast forward a minute or two and Funk has another table set up. He seems to be going for a moonsault, but Flair gets off the table and pulls Funk backwards off the top rope and through the table for the three count. I liked how Funk tried kicking out with his legs at 2.99, but the rest of his body simply did not move. Showed a great lack of energy and determination and instinct at the same time. It’s little things like that that I truly love about some wrestlers. Going off topic a bit, but I’ve always loved Austin Aries for stuff like that. Commentators always talk about wrestlers instinctively kicking out of big moves even if they’re not actually aware of what’s going on. Well, Aries will sometimes be hit with a massive move and the other person is too tired and hurt to capitalize and make a cover, but Aries, not even being pinned, will “kick out” and try to roll onto his belly with that momentum. Instinct, people. Instinct.

Anyway, Terry Funk gets pinned and can’t make it to his feet before the 10 count (Texas Death Match and whatnot..). It just didn’t seem that devastating. He hadn’t taken too much damage throughout the match aside from his leg being banged up with a chair and his chest being turned into sausage by chops. Flair, who got his ass kicked the majority of the match and took three disgusting piledrivers which should have crippled him, gets back to his feet before the 10 count, only to Flair Flop immediately afterwards. Not sure if he even needed to get to his feet, but he did anyway. It just made Funk look fairly weak in my opinion. Howeeeever, I’m no expert on Funk. Maybe this is the usual for him? I dunno. I’m definitely willing to admit that I might not “get” this finish. So if anyone would like to enlighten me, I’d be happy to listen.

Definitely match of the night at this point, though. It was really good. Not just WCW 2000 good. Actually good.

Cewsh: Okay, this is a Texas Death Match. That means that you have to pin your opponent or cause him to submit, and then they have to stay down for a count of ten for you to be declared the winner. So basically it’s a Last Man Standing match where you have to do regular match stuff first. Despite the death match moniker, it doesn’t necessarily involve or require a ton of blood and mayhem, though given the participants, its hard to believe it wont get bloody.

Before I say anything else, let me say that this match should not be good. These old bastards shouldn’t be capable of putting on a great match under these circumstances, on this show, in this promotion. The sheer idea that they could have an awesome match on the same show as Big Al vs. Tank Abbott is mind blowing. The concept of these two men getting my seal of approval on this particular night is so astonishingly impossibly absurd that it…oh wait. Nevermind. See, because the problem is that this was a really good match, and then it ended so abruptly and unsatisfyingly that it actually turned me off of the entire match.

This is still a good match, don’t get me wrong, its very enjoyable all the way through, but it just wasn’t what it could have been. Even the best stuff has the WCW disease seep into it. Sad.

78 out of 100.

Cewsh: Hulk Hogan, who remember is the red and yellow super face at this point, spends an entire promo talking about breaking Luger’s bones as revenge for Luger breaking Hogan’s arm. That’s fine enough, until he starts ranting about how he’s going to “Snap and crack her little body too” in reference to Miss Elizabeth, which is perhaps a tad bit less acceptable. Somebody skipped classes as Being A Good Face School.

Cewsh: Yeah, this was a Hulk Hogan match.

Hogan gets beat up, makes a comeback, leg drop, victory.

I could tell you more about it if you want, but if you close your eyes, I’m willing to bet that you can see it right now. Do the Hulkster a favor, and give him a full head of hair in your imaginary match. It’d be a service to the man.

70 out of 100.

Vice: Remember when I said Flair vs. Funk was match of the night up to that point? This is the match that will totally outdo it. It’s HULK Hogan vs. The TOTAL Fucking Package Lex Luger. Yeah baby. This has five stars written all over it.

Wait, this match sucked? How is that possible? How could it have gone wrong? I mean, it’s HULK Hogan up against Lex Luger. How could they have a bad match together? Especially in the year 2000?!

This does not make any sense. How else will my world be flipped upside down today?

I am so disappointed. Man, they even had Michael Buffer do the ring introductions for this match.

Cewsh: The feud here is mostly centered around power. Jarrett and Nash are struggling for power, and obviously Hall is caught up in that being Nash’s BFF. Vicious is pretty much a pawn in this, seeing as he’s the champion and both parties want the belt and the power it represents. Vicious is naturally a little bit annoyed by these distractions and pretty much just wants to powerbomb everybody because it tickles his happy place (disturbing thought).

All three guys come down and this match dissolves into a clusterfuck immediately. Everybody brawls all over the ring, and they don’t even pretend like this is going to be a match, as everything just starts going to hell. Jarrett shoves a ref when he only gives him a two count, and he gives the man The Stroke. Then another ref runs in and, you guessed it, The Stroke. And then another. Then, like the triumphant puppy fetching his master’s slippers, out trots Slick Johnson to make the count. Unfortunately for Jarrett this backfires, as the distraction allows Hall to hit the Outsider Edge. Johnson makes the count. 1….2….nope. Johnson doesn’t make the count, and boy does that motherfucker pay for it. Out from the back comes another referee, except this one you know by the name of Rowdy Roddy Piper. Apparently, according to the announcers, he was the man behind the mystery door.

Of course since we don’t see him come out of it, they could be totally lying. There could be innocent mops in that closet even now, dude. There totally could. Anyway, Piper gets in the ring, stares down Johnson. POW. Right in the kisser. Then Jarrett gets knocked out of the ring, Hall turns around into the waiting Jerry Curled World Champion, and he gets powerbombed half out of his shoes. 1….2….3.

Boo yeah. There’s the fat lady.

This match was more than acceptable, especially with me having absolutely no expectations, and them only getting about 9 minutes to do all of this stuff. Sid looks like a monster, Jarrett is an enormous dick, and Hall is, well, Scott Hall. For all of the talk of what killed WCW, and believe me, I’ve seen about a million things tonight so terrible that they could bury 5 companies, but this here, the people involved in this main event, this wasn’t it. Kudos to these guys for putting on a show. Main eventing for WCW in the year 2000 is the most thankless job imaginable.

75 out of 100.

Vice: With 8 minutes to go in the show, Sid makes his way out for the main event. Yes, this was a short match. I’m not a smarky enough douche to think that EVERY main event needs to be some 20 minute epic match, but this match really could have used a weeeee bit more time. Like 3-4 minutes. For one, it didn’t help that the show was only two hours and 50 minutes long, though most PPVs end around that time. It also didn’t help that there were 11 matches on this card. It also didn’t help that this show had like 30 backstage segments. TNA gets a lot of shit for booking their entire goddamn roster on the show, but at the very least they are thrown in multi-man matches. Now if TNA booked nearly everyone, but had a bazillion short, awful matches.. well.. they’d be WCW 2000.

This match was overbooked nonsense to a sickening degree. Every single referee was dismantled in this match. It got to the point where there were no more referees left, so Rowdy Roddy Piper of all people had to come out in the black and white stripes. Yes, Piper. I believe he was the SIXTH referee here. That’s just awful. At times, a match can work with having a few referees being sacrificed to show just how brutal and insane the match is. This, however, didn’t seem to have any real reason for all the referees dying, except to maybe have Piper show up. But they really could have had him be the second or third ref. This was just nonsense.

On a random note, why is it that NO ONE has stolen the Razor’s Edge by now? I mean, seriously. It’s a fucking fabulous move and it’s not exactly like Scott Hall is an active wrestler. Everyone does super kicks. Tons do tombstone piledrivers. Stunners. RKOs/diamond cutters. Flippitywippities. Rock Bottoms. Everything. And yet, one of the coolest moves ever is used by no one at the moment, as far as I’m aware. That’s a crime. I’m not saying it’s good to use/steal other people’s moves, but come the fuck on. It’s far too cool to not use.

Blah. Match sucked.

Cewsh: You know, I’m not really sure how I expected this show to be. Maybe some wackiness, some bad matches, and some weird stuff. I did not expect this whole thing to just be one enormous circus of ridiculous, overblown craziness from which there is no return. Its like looking into a vortex of wrestling suck so deep and so dark, that its almost irresistible to investigate it deeper, even knowing how bad that would go for you. And yet, there were some pearls of goodness in here, and some parts of this were so good naturedly bad that you want to forgive them, like your cheeky nephew spilling soda on the carpet by accident.

In the end, its not really the score that matters. It’s the lulz. And in the prestigious category of Lulz, this show is as good as it gets.

Vice: Overall this was actually, dare I say it, a very fun show to watch. Yes, a rarity here at Cewsh Reviews. There are plenty of shows we watch that we know are going to be horrible when we pick them, and they always start out amazingly fun to review. Within minutes we’re having a blast tearing the show to shreds and making fun of everything. However, within 2-3 matches we stop having fun and slowly being extremely angry with everything that is in front of us, and then we start wondering why exactly we do what we do. But not with this. Somehow, in some way, this managed to be one of the most perfectly bad shows I have ever seen. There was a perfect balance between awful matches, stupidly entertaining segments, nonsensical booking, and various dying WCW shenanigans.

It was perfect to the point where I’m not exactly sure how to rate such a show. It was dreadful and I feel sorry for the 14 people that actually paid for the show hoping it was good, but it was just so goddamn entertaining that I don’t want to be an evil bastard and give it a horrible score. When it was finally finished, Cewsh and I were still laughing and having a great time! That is a mark of quality, considering how so many shows make us violently angry to the point where the last thing we want to do is actually write thousands of words about it. Shit. It’s really quite baffling how this show played out. Perfect balance, my friends. Perfect balance. Other companies should actually watch this show and take notes. They really could learn a thing or two.

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