GSR

The match can be found on the Coliseum Home Video releases 'Hulkamania IV' and 'Best of Hulkamania'.

Mark Madden has the gall to describe Jindrak & O’Haire as the modern day Gene & Ole Anderson, then goes one better calling them potential Hall of Famers! Three way dance rules are in operation here, meaning that one member of each team will be in the ring at the same time. Kidman and Wright show a bit of unity in the early stages, working together against Jindrak. The two of them whip him into the corner, however he leaps to the top turnbuckle, hops over the incoming Kidman before stunning Wright with a back elbow and laying out Kidman with a lariat. His superiority doesn’t last long and they dump him chest first across the top rope. Wright has had enough of playing nicey nicey, turning on Kidman, but ends up on the short end of a flying headscissors. Tag to Rey who goes for the bronco buster, however Wright gets his feet up and Rey will be singing soprano for the next week! Jindrak with a springboard clothesline to Disco and when Rey tries a springboard of his own, he plants him with a tilt-a-whirl. O’Haire presses Rey over head, drops, catches and powerslams him to the mat. That looked great. Combination drop toe hold/leg drop to the back of the neck as the Knights and Animals team up once more on the champions. Rey with a springboard splash to Disco and O’Haire breaks up the pin to save their belts. After a Russian legsweep Disco signals for Kidman to land the big splash but he ends up taking him out with a flying back elbow instead. Missile dropkick by Wright to O’Haire. He sits Kidman on the top turnbuckle for a suplex, however Jindrak gets underneath him and we have a stacked up version. Konan on commentary is putting this over strong, even the ‘Natural Born Cranberries’ too. Triple tag sees three fresh men enter the ring. The Filthy Animals end up on the outside and the Thrillers beel Kidman back inside before O’Haire presses Rey into the ring where he’s caught by Wright who hits a belly to belly. Disco with a bulldog on Kidman and Jindrak pulls him to the floor to stop the count. Pescado by Wright to Jindrak. Rey counters the ‘Doctor bomb’ with a huracanrana, taking O’Haire over the top rope and back out to ringside. A bit of shoddy camera work means we then miss Kidman and Rey’s respective dives. The high paced action continues as Kidman spikes Wright with a ‘Tomokaze’ and Rey lands a top rope rana on Disco. ‘Chartbuster’ for a near fall, Rey breaking that up with a springboard guillotine leg drop. ‘Seanton bomb’ to the prone Disco, Jindrak keeps Rey at bay and the champs retain their tag team titles. Post-match Wright attacks the Filthy Animals with a steel chair and when Konan leaves his position at the commentary desk to help out, the Thriller put the boots to him. The save comes in the unlikely form of Sgt. A-Wall which is random as. I thought this was a really good match and a great way to open the PPV. Alex Wright continues to show what a talent he is and it’s amazing that he never got a run in the WWF after they bought out WCW. According to Wikipedia he was one of the few who was under contract to AOL Time Warner and as result WWE couldn’t sign him. Even today though in 2018 he’s still only 43 years old. Fast paced, all action where everyone was with it and on the ball. I’m really high on this and with only Nitro left to watch comfortably my ‘WCW Match of the Month’ for October (although Nitro does feature a Filthy Animals/Natural Born Thrillers tag so we’ll see if it holds on to the top spot).

Jeff Jarrett walks out after the two wrestlers and he’s wearing the black & white stripes having been made the special guest referee by Mike Sanders. I wonder how this one is going to play out then. First thing he does when he steps through the ropes is shove Sting, and when ‘the Stinger’ grabs him around the throat he’s jumped from behind by Big Poppa Pump. Steiner starts out strong but the moment Sting gets on the offensive, Jarrett hooks his arm to prevent him from laying in any more shots. ‘Sir Pumpalot’ tosses Sting through the ropes to the outside, however he reverses the Irish whip and Steiner goes clattering into the guard rail. Sting then slugs Jarrett before throwing him into the ring. Hip toss, lariat, inverted atomic drop, clothesline off the middle, all to ‘Double J’ and I can’t be arsed to write any more about this as I’ve seen enough heel officials and the like in WCW this year. The finish comes with Booker replacing Jarrett as the referee (he was dragged to the back by ‘the Cat’ who’d had enough of the interference and double teaming), superkicking Steiner after he makes a moves for him and Sting hitting the ‘Scorpion Death Drop’ for the win. I’m long past caring when it comes to heel referees in WCW, as a result I couldn’t get into this one iota knowing what the end scenario is likely (although it wasn’t!) to be.

Wright backs Jindrak into his own corner off the hammerlock and as Charles Robinson separates them, he distracts the official so that Disco can get in a couple of shots from the apron. A pair of blistering knife edge chops before he whips Jindrak into the turnbuckles and nails him with a back elbow smash. He tries to repeat it, only this time Jindrak with the reversal. Tilt-a-whirl slam and as he starts dancing to mock the ‘Boogie Knights’, Disco wallops him from behind with his duck. Saito suplex by Wright as O’Haire is forced to break up the pin. Jindrak reverses the Irish whip and O’Haire with a knee to the back of Disco as he hits the ropes. Nice variation on the champs double leap frog, with Jindrak not actually jumping and Disco just running into him. They call for the ‘Seanton bomb’ after the double beel, but Wright pulls O’Haire’s leg away as he’s on the top turnbuckle causing him to crotch himself. Alex with a missile dropkick to Jindrak and O’Haire is in again for the save. Combination inverted atomic drop/dropkick for a two count. O’Haire trips Wright from the outside and Jindrak drops an elbow to his lower back. Double dropkick and Mark Madden is straight in there with the Rock & Roll Express reference. Jawbreaker by O’Haire that Jindrak follows with a springboard clothesline. Wright side steps the splash in the corner, avoids the swinging arm and makes the hot tag to Disco. Spinning neckbreaker on O’Haire and a DDT to Jindrak. Flying crossbody off the top onto both by Wright. Disco ducks a short lariat and O’Haire wipes out Robinson who takes a great bump from it. Jindrak with a roll up, however Wright kicks out sending him flying into Disco who hits the ‘chartbuster’ and a replacement official slides into the ring to count the pin as we have ourselves new WCW tag team champions. They barely have chance to celebrate when Mike Sanders is out and states how the ‘Boogie Knights’ should’ve been disqualified. As they watch on from the ring they’re then jumped by Chuck Palumbo, Shawn Stasiak and Johnny the Bull. Double flapjack on Wright and Sanders then orders the match to be restarted. The Thrillers make the cover and end up retaining the straps. The Dusty finish was flat out bull shit, but bar that I thought this was really good. Alex Wright looked great, the champs were impressive and even Disco was decent in there and not resorting to full on comedy. I thought the kick out into ‘the chartbuster’ was nice and listen to the reaction when the crowd think they’ve seen the belts change hands. Even if it meant the Knights losing them on Thunder and just letting them have a couple days reign, it would be a much better than what they did here which leaves a sour taste in ones mouth.

Jarrett looks a touch nervous as he paces around ringside so Sting steps out the ring to meet him. He whips him into the guard rail and then clocks him over the back with a chair as Mark Madden thinks that he’s never seen ‘the Stinger’ this intense. A ‘Stinger splash’ in the corner is followed by an inverted atomic drop, before he clotheslines ‘Double J’ over the top rope to the floor. With Sting firmly in control someone dressed up as the 1989 version of him appears on the ramp way and makes his way down the aisle. Real Sting goes to meet him while Madden ponders whether you can be disqualified for beating yourself up? As daft as that is, he’s got a point about why isn’t the official disqualifying Jeff Jarrett due to this outside interference. 1989 Sting doesn’t fare too well, getting laid out with a ‘Scorpion Death Drop’. Jarrett jumps real Sting and they fight into the crowd. Madden continues to talk nonsense thinking that this is a bogus Sting that Jarrett is going at it with, while it’s the real one who is laid out. Christ! Sting with a suplex on the concrete when another imposter shows up, this time 1990 World title winning Sting, who I’m sure is Steve Armstrong in that get up. 1990 Sting fares no better than 1989 Sting, going the same way, a recipient of the ‘SDD’ in front of the Nitrovision. As Sting walks back towards the ring Tony Schiavone says how this has been incredible! The moment he enters the Wolfpac’s music kicks in and here comes Wolfpac Sting. This doppelganger looks to be enjoying his 15 minutes a bit too much as he slaps hands with the fans. Real Sting swipes his baseball bat away from him and moments later we see our third ‘Scorpion Death Drop’ of the night. ‘Double J’ nails ‘the Stinger’ with the discarded bat, although it looks very much like one of those WCW rubber bats. Jarrett suplexes him on the metal before dragging him back to the ring. Sting escapes the sleeper, slaps on one of his own and ‘Double J’ with a belly to back. ‘Scorpion Deathlock’ when up through the ring comes Sting number four. He pulls Sting back down through the ring “all the way to hell”, however it turns out he’s inept as the previous three. The two of them resurface shortly after, real Sting leading the way and pulling out fake Sting who’s now covered in blood (or red paint). A pair of ‘Stinger splashes’ for Jarrett at which point the lights in the arena go out and from the ceiling descends yet another Sting. This Sting loses his horrible wig and Stevie Ray jokes how he’s got to be about seventy years old due to his thinning hairline. Real Sting ‘SDDs’ him through the announcer’s desk before returning to the ring, hoping that’s the last of the imposters. He locks on the ‘deathlock’ only for Sting IV to make the save, breaking a guitar over real Sting’s head. That has little effect, ‘the Stinger’ quickly regaining his bearings and Sting IV becomes the final victim of the ‘Scorpion Death Drop’. Jarrett then breaks a second guitar over Sting’s head and he clearly swings it harder as that puts Sting down for the three count. I so wanted one of the fake Stings to be Barry Windham! The action between Sting and Jarrett was good but the momentum was constantly halted each time by the arrival of another Sting. Jarrett teased this in his pre-match interview talking about how people would see Sting’s metamorphosis but this was overkill, overbooked and one of those things that was better on paper than in practice.

Brian Adams is carrying a microphone with him on the way to the ring and tells the fans that Goldberg hasn’t been cleared to wrestle, there’ll be no match and instructs referee Mickey Jay to raise their hands. We then cut backstage to see someone, who I presume is a commissioner (not Ernest Miller or Mike Sanders for once), clearing Goldberg and Doug Dillinger heads off to escort him from his dressing room. It looks like it will be both members of Kronik in there at the same time here as opposed to one being on the apron. Double shoulder charge and Adams heads outside to collect a table (that’s smouldering!) from under the ring. DDT by Bryan Clark and Kronik then positions that table upright in the corner. Goldberg fights his way free from the attempted double chokeslam before a standing side kick sends Adams tumbling through the ropes to the floor. Clark looks for a suplex, however Goldberg floats over and spears him through the table. He gets a three count although there is confusion as to whether the match is over or not. It turns out it isn’t as Adams jumps him from behind. Huge full nelson slam and Tony Schiavone can’t believe what he’s seeing “as no-one ever manhandles Goldberg that way”. The Irish whip is reversed, Goldberg with a leap frog and he spears Adams as he comes off the ropes. One jackhammer later and he has “against all odds” defeated both members of Kronik. It is mentioned how he is now 14-0 as they try to recreate his winning streak. This had the feel of a match that was done on the fly and was hardly what you’d expect from a PPV main event. The recreation of the undefeated streak, even if it is storyline, smacks of desperation.

A promo from ‘Mr Everything’ Ricky Santana’s stable (Rasta Man, Sean Hill and the Head Hunters) which is primarily in Spanish. The two US speakers do say a few lines but it’s nothing of importance or note. Banderas ducks under the clothesline, running flying bodypress, however the Head Hunter catches and slams him to the mat. He goes for the splash but Banderas moves out the way, avoiding it, and a spinning heel kick sends ‘A’ under the bottom rope and to the floor. Twisting plancha over the top rope to the outside. Banderas just about manages to roll the big man back inside and pounds away on him with a series of punches in the corner. ‘A’ gets a shot in of his own, dropping Banderas with a left before aimlessly looking around like he’s in a trance or something (totally stealing a page from Abdullah the Butcher). Big avalanche splash in the opposite corner and the Hunter is back looking around and talking to himself. Banderas blocks the attempted superplex and ‘A’ takes a spill backwards from the middle turnbuckle to the mat. Missile dropkick but before he is able to go for the pin, Head Hunter B is out and in for the DQ. He is very quickly followed by someone that I don’t recognise who runs the twins off. I’ve couple more Head Hunter matches in IWA-PR to watch, I just hope that there better than this one was!

Basically think the Royal Rumble on fast forward! A thirty man Battle Royal with a new person entering the ring every thirty seconds where the last man standing will get a shot at the World title on October 30th, the day after Halloween Havoc. Our first two competitors are battling Commissioners Mike Sanders and the Cat who’re followed shortly after by Shawn Stasiak. Mark Madden refers to him as “the black sheep of the Natural Born Thrillers”, although despite this moniker the Thrillers are sticking together in the early stages. Their advantage continues with the arrival of Chuck Palumbo however there is clearly some tension between Stasiak and him. Disco Inferno is entrant number five and isn’t much of a hurry to enter the ring. Alex Wright is next and are these supposed to be random entries? Tony Schiavone must’ve been listening to me as right on cue he confirms that they are! I have serious doubts though based on what we’ve seen so far. Crowbar sounds quite over with the Australian fans for some reason, while Ron Harris is the first to stress the “every man for himself” phrase going anyone and every one. I wonder if his brother Don will be next? He bloody is you know. Random my ass! After both Jim Duggan and Chavo Guerrero Jr have entered and there have yet to be any eliminations, Stevie Ray thinks they better start getting some people out of there as he’s not sure whether the ring can support the weight of thirty guys. Kevin Nash is entrant number twelve and you can bet your last dollar that we’ll be seeing some eliminations now. Don’t let anyone tell you that the booking of this hasn’t been predictable as in the space of thirty seconds we lose Chavo, Duggan, Sanders, the Cat, Crowbar and the Boogie Knights, five of the seven at the hands of ‘Big Sexy’. David Flair arrives and stands in the corner while Palumbo and Stasiak eliminate the Harris twins. There’s more dissension between those two Thrillers and Stasiak clotheslines Palumbo over the top rope to the floor. He proceeds to then eliminate himself rather than face the wrath of ‘Coach’ Nash who’s not impressed that he didn’t stick to the game plan. Flair is dumped and Lash LaRoux doesn’t even last a full thirty seconds before he is out of there. I have a feeling Kwee Wee will go the same way; he does. Rey Misterio stops the rot, nailing Nash with a springboard dropkick. Booker T and he team up against ‘Big Sexy’ and the arrival of Mike Awesome makes it three on one. Sting makes it four and those odds are finally too much as Nash is eliminated. Jeff Jarrett and Scott Steiner enter at the same time and surprisingly get the rapid fire elimination treatment, as a Sting ‘Cactus clothesline’ takes out he and ‘Double J’ and Booker dumps ‘Big Poppa Pump’ before being dumped himself. With a lot of the big guns now gone the commentators wonder who is going to win this. Nice ‘Arabian moonsault’ by Rey on Awesome. The ring starts to fill back up with the arrival of Billy Kidman and Lance Storm, and Rey saves himself by skinning the cat just as Big Vito enters. Sean O’Haire is Mark Madden’s dark horse and he’s favourably joined by his partner Mark Jindrak. Konnan is next and helps out his fellow Filthy Animals in taking the fight to the Thrillers. Kronik, like Steiner and Jarrett earlier, enter together and after Brian Adams just about manages to take a Kidman huracanrana he puts a stop to his chances of getting the World title shot. Bryan Clark crotches Rey on the top rope and then whips Konnan into him as Rey takes a spill to the floor. Adams eliminates Konnan, Awesome backdrops Storm out of there and Tony Schiavone thinks this is our final six aas over thirty seconds have passed without a new entrant. Kronik dump Vito and Mike Awesome will have to overcome the odds here as it looks like the other four plan on working together against him. Adams with a super sloppy piledriver when out comes Goldberg! Apparently he’s not a part of this though. Awesome ducks a charging Jindrak whose clothesline connects with O’Haire instead and both sail out over the top to the floor. Goldberg spears Bryan Clark and despite not being in this, eliminates him. Brian Adams has collected a chair from ringside and is about to nail Goldberg with it when Awesome grabs hold of it to prevent him from doing so. A spear for Adams and as it looks like Goldberg and Awesome are about to go at it, a double clothesline by the pair takes out Brian Adams and Mike Awesome is your unlikely winner who’ll get the World title shot on the 30th. This was bang, bang, bang with no down time due to a new entrant arriving every thirty seconds. At times it was a tad predictable and I think they should’ve mixed things up more when it came to tag partners i.e. not continually having the one arrive after the other. Still despite being a bit hard to keep up with because of how quick things were moving, this was an entertaining twenty minutes and wasn’t a chore to get through (not something that can be said about a lot of the WCW that I’ve watched this year). I thought Rey was the standout in there and a surprise to see Mike Awesome take the win as opposed to one of the ‘usual suspects’. Not the kind of match that can be done on a regular basis but one which made a pleasant change, although don’t try to analyze it too much, what with wrestlers entering together and someone who isn’t even in the match eliminating people!

The ‘dream team’ of Sting & Booker T will be teaming up shortly to take on the Natural Born Thrillers, although later in the evening will be opponents in the ‘Countdown to Armageddon’ match (Booker informing us that he’ll be in that even though he is the World champion just in case he slips on a banana peel at Halloween Havoc). After Booker’s promo we cut to the Thrillers who are singing a Backstreet Boys number in ‘Coach’ Nash’s office. Comedy~ everyone. As the Thrillers leave for the match Nash has a quiet word in Mike Sanders’ ear, instructing him to makes sure that Jindrak & O’Haire don’t lose the straps tonight. O’Haire drills Sting with a right hand however over cooks the spin kick and ‘the Stinger’ plants him with a face jam. He goes for a big splash but O’Haire gets his knees up before dropping him with a short clothesline. Double leap frog by the NBT and Jindrak then hurls Sting to the outside. They do their double hip toss from the floor back into the ring and Sting is lucky not to break his neck on the top rope, barely clearing it. The pair of them whip ‘the Stinger’ into the corner but he jumps to the middle turnbuckle and leaps backwards, nailing them both with a double elbow. Hot tag to Booker who runs riot over the Thrillers. Axe kick followed by the Harlem side kick and Jindrak is in to break up the count at two. ‘Book End’ on O’Haire, ‘Scorpion Death Drop’ on Jindrak and here comes Mike Sanders. He slugs the referee and then calls for the timekeeper to ring the bell implying that the ‘dream team’ have been disqualified. Tony Schiavone says how the fans deserved a much better tag team title bout than that, I won’t argue on that one. Nothing match and the only thing of note was that scary double hip toss that Sting took where he caught his head on the top rope. He’s lucky he got away without series injury there.

Stevie Ray informs us that we’ve got the “who’s who” of professional wrestling lined up around the ring. Yup, when the lumberjacks include Big Vito, Kwee Wee, Crowbar and Ms Jones he really said that! Nash heads out flanked by the Natural Born Thrillers (he’s some sort of Coach it seems) and looks completely out of place amongst them. He immediately hammers Sting at the bell as Stevie says how you want to get the advantage early in a match like this. ‘Big Sexy’ measures ‘the Stinger’ with a back elbow before driving a foot into this throat. He puts him over this shoulder for ‘snake eyes’ but Sting slips down his back and a dropkick sends Nash over the top rope to the outside, right in front of the M.I.A. The Misfits throw him back inside, although only after they’ve put the boots to him first. Sting clips out ‘Coach’ Nash’s knee and drops an elbow across it. ‘Scorpion Deathlock’ however the NBT reach in and pull Nash out of the ring to break the submission. Sting flies into a big boot when attempting the ‘Stinger Splash’ and after having that knee worked on for the past couple of minutes Nash has already given up selling it. Side slam followed by ‘snake eyes’. Nash with a neck crank as the face lumberjacks bang on the mat in support of ‘the Stinger’. Scott Steiner rushes out from the dressing room and attacks Booker which leads to all the lumberjacks fighting each other. Kronik show up and the crowd chant for “Goldberg” thinking that’s the signal for him, although they end up being wrong on that one. The ‘Stinger Splash’ connects at the second time of asking, dropkick to the back and Nash bumps into Charles Robinson squashing him against the turnbuckle. That was one hokey looking bump. Jeff Jarrett hops the guard rails and as Sting goes for another trademark splash, ‘Double J’ breaks his guitar over his head. Nash falls on top and Robinson comes back around to count the three.

A knee to the mid-section takes the wind out of Rey before Steiner repeatedly military presses him, dropping him chest first to the mat from up high. He throws him to the outside where Scotty whips him hard into the metal guard rail. Back inside Rey ducks under a clothesline and staggers ‘Big Poppa Pump’ with a dropkick only to then run into a lariat. Steiner again goes to throw Rey to the floor, however this time Rey grabs hold of the top rope. Unaware he does push ups in the ring, continuing to show disregard to his opponent, and Rey with a springboard leg drop to the back of the neck. Headscissors take down, quesadora bulldog and Rey with some push ups of his own. He heads up top but Steiner catches him mid-air and launches him overhead. Samoan drop off the middle and BPP picks up the win with the ‘recliner’. Exactly what is needed to be; Steiner over powering and throwing Rey around, his cockiness almost costing him things before finally putting Rey away.

The name of the match is totally misleading as it has nothing at all to do with American football in the slightest. There is a pole in each corner of the ring and attached to the pole is a wooden box. In one of those boxes is the WCW title belt and the first person to find it is will become the new Heavyweight champion, while in each of the other boxes is a weapon that they are free to use on their opponent. Mark Madden seems to think that there will be a hand grenade in one of the boxes which is ludicrous even by his standards. Jarrett jumps Booker as he’s handing his T-shirt to a fan in the front row as this one gets going on the outside. After jabbing a chair into Booker’s ribs ‘the Chosen One’ throws him into the ring. Whip to the corner is reversed and the impact causes one of the boxes to fall from the post! Luckily for them it’s not the box with the World title it, no this one contains a blow up doll. So much for those ‘weapons’! Booker with a side slam and he retrieves box two. Still no title belt, only a framed picture of Scott Hall. He cracks the picture over Jarrett’s head and then kicks him under the bottom rope to the floor. Booker had enough time that he could easily have opened the two remaining boxes, but plays to the crowd and doesn’t even manage to open one of them, ‘Double J’ cutting him off. They’re back fighting at ringside where Jarrett wallops ‘the Book’ with the remnants of one of those boxes. Booker blocks the attempted piledriver on the announcer’s table and responds with one of his own. This time he does collect box three as an optimistic Tony Schiavone says “if it’s in there it’s over”. Does he not realise how these matches work? Whatever you are after it always in box four, them the rules! Box three contains a ‘Coal Miner’s Glove’, a ‘Coal Miner’s Glove’ that bears a striking resemblance to an over mitten! With Jarrett still struggling on the outside after that piledriver, INSTEAD OF GOING FOR THE FINAL BOX WHERE HE KNOWS THE WORLD TITLE BELT IS, BOOKER PUTS ON THE GLOVE AND GOES BACK AFTER ‘DOUBLE J’. Jarrett posts ‘the Book’ and wrestles the glove off him before KO’ing him with it. Now he’s at it; rather than climb the poll to collect the belt, he climbs to the top turnbuckle of an adjacent corner, waits for Booker to get to his feet and then breaks what’s left of one of the earlier boxes over him. Jeez. Sleeper hold and even though you can only win this by retrieving the belt, referee Mark Johnson checks Booker’s arm which drops twice, though not the third time. Madden, to his credit, points this out and wonders what Johnson is playing at as a quick thinking Scott Hudson says how if it drops a third time everyone will know that Booker is out, Booker escapes the sleeper, slaps on one of his own and Jarrett with a back suplex. ‘Double J’ climbs to that same top turnbuckle, yet again making you wonder why he just didn’t collect that final box, however this time as he leaps off Booker catches and plants him with ‘the Book End’. Axe kick followed by a Harlem side kick which missed by a country mile but is sold anyway. A Jarrett low blow stops Booker as he’s moments away from grabbing the gold, and then he tries to collect something from under the ring. He gives up on it as he is struggling to do so and goes for the box himself, when out from under the ring comes Beetlejuice (some midget) who punches him in the balls. Booker retrieves the final box and is once again the World Heavyweight champion. As he’s celebrating the win he is jumped by a lead pipe carrying Scott Steiner, although said ‘lead pipe’ bounces off the mat when Steiner drops it showing that just like Vinnie Ru’s baseball bat it’s made of rubber! Jarrett throws Beetlejuice into the ring and the show goes off the air with Steiner putting him in ‘the recliner’ There was so much wrong with this for me, not least the lack of urgency shown by both men when it came to trying to grab that final box. While the going to the adjacent top turnbuckle ON MORE THAN ONE OCCASION was just plain dumb. I also wished that the first three boxes had nothing in them rather than the comedy items that they contained. The most prestigious belt in the company and it’s being played for laughs with a blow up doll, a frame picture of Scott Hall and a fucking oven mitt. If that’s not bad enough Booker can only beat Jarrett due to the interference of a midget dressed in a superman outfit! Way to make your new champion look strong WCW! To top it all off the cliff hanger isn’t that Scott Steiner has left the World champion laying, no it’s the midget being put in the ‘Steiner recliner’! This company never ceases to amaze me.

Mascarita misses on the first move of the match, Piratita launching him over his head from where he was supposed to dropkick Pierrothcito but comes up short. After Morgan levels him with a clothesline, Stacy enters the ring, grabs the mini pirate by the hair and slams him backwards to the mat. Tigresa and Pierrothcito are in to help their partner out while Stacy’s are content to watch on from the apron. Plenty of double and triple teaming by the heels which the official is happy to let go. They kick her under the bottom rope to the floor and, I presume that even though we’re in Puerto Rico this is being contested under Lucha Libre rules, that brings in Mascarita who works a few awesome looking spots with Pierrothcito and Piratita. A miscommunication sees Pierrothcito accidentally splash Tigresa in the corner before she ends up in a rather comprising position between her two partners. Suicide dive to the outside by Octagoncito and Mascarita cradles Piratita after a quality springboard arm drag for the win. Not much to this really. I’m not familiar with the Mini’s so couldn’t tell you whether it is standard fare for them to mix comedy in with a few high spots, or this is something different they did for the Puerto Rican market because they were working with the women. One whiff aside Mascarita’s stuff looked fantastic although this felt like an interlude in between ‘the real’ action.

Yamakawa looks to be having a ton of fun as he dances along to ‘Jailhouse Rock’ although Shadow WX is clearly all business tonight. Meanwhile for the opposition the Wifebeater is like some sort of nu-age Bruiser Brody the way he marauds around ringside trying to terrorize the fans with his weed whacker. Justice tosses Ryuji to the outside, lays him on a table and then appears to be attempting some sort of springboard, only to slip on the ropes and fall INTO the ring onto Beater who was watching on! That was so bad that the fans start laughing at them. They quickly try to rescue the situation with Beater pressing Justice over head and dropping him out onto Yamakawa but struggles on the military press. The action spills into the crowd where Shadow DDT’s Justice on the stage before clotheslining him off it. He then goes to powerbomb Yamakawa off the stage and onto Beater, who is laid out on another table, however now he’s the one struggling and needs help from a second in getting Ryuji up. If that wasn’t bad enough he then proceeds to overshoot the powerbomb and Yamakawa misses him altogether! Not only are the fans laughing at this, so now are the commentators. Attempt number two on putting Beater through that table, this time with a splash off the stage instead. You’d think nothing can go wrong with that, well you’d be wrong, as the target is missed yet again as Shadow, trying to compensate for overshooting previously, fails to reach Beater and ends up pushing him off the table rather than through it! The CZW boys nail their opponents with chairs and Beater lands a double armed suplex forcing Yamakawa to stretch out a foot to the ropes in order to stop the count. Combination sit out chokebomb/Lionsault and Ryuji ends up having to kick out as Shadow was late on the save. Justice with a flip dive to the floor, springboarding off the back of Beater who was down on all fours, but it looked amateurish in both set up and execution. Stacked up Samoan drop on Pain and Beater is in to break up the pin. More tables are set up on the outside and Yamakawa suplexes Wifebeater from the apron and through them. For some reason Shadow assisted by powerbombing Ryuji at the same time which I can only think was to add more ‘force’ to the move. A stacked up butterfly suplex and that puts Justice down for the three as Shadow makes the cover, picking up the win for his team. This match is edited and it is still a shambles so God knows what the full unedited version was like. Wifebeater and especially Justice Pain looked terrible, the latter completely clueless at times. Surprisingly they can’t be held fully responsible for this rubbish as Shadow WX was every bit as bad as the pair of them.

I was reminded of this as I was amending some of the threads and fortunately it is still up on YouTube, if you've never seen it before treat yourself this evening!

Lillian Garcia doesn’t even get a chance to introduce Chris Benoit, Y2J sprinting down the ramp way to get his hands on him as he’s barely made it through the curtain. Jericho slams ‘the Crippler’ into the ring steps and then tosses him into the ring. Missile dropkick off the middle although Jericho doesn’t go for the cover, preferring to dish out more punishment. Double underhook backbreaker. As Y2J hits the ropes Test knees him in the back, the brief distraction allowing Benoit to catch him with a shoulder tackle to the mid-section. Test makes his first legal entrance into the match however is caught with a drop toe hold as he charges at Y2J. Jericho tags Faarooq who gets a near fall after a powerslam. Double spinebuster by the Acolytes. The backdrop is telegraphed and Test with a pretty shoddy looking spinning neckbreaker. Big running lariat in the corner by Bradshaw who then continues to unload on Test. As referee Tim White has a word with Faarooq on the apron, Albert seizes the opportunity to turn the bout in his team’s favour, making a Bradshaw sandwich, squashing him between himself and his partner. Bradshaw ducks the clothesline and takes Albert off his feet with a flying shoulder tackle. Tag to Faarooq, but Jericho enters the ring too as it looks like the match has broken down. Albert catches Y2J in mid-air as he goes for a flying forearm, manoeuvres him onto his shoulders and then lands an F5. Great near fall with Jericho barely kicking out. Trish is up on the apron complaining to White about his count and as Albert military presses Jericho over head, Bradshaw with an almighty big boot to the face as Y2J falls down on top of him. One Lionsault later and that’s all she wrote.

I've muted Big Dave on Twitter for the time being. The constant replying and quoting of the Russo trolls has become insufferable these past couple of days. God knows why he continues to repeat himself and reply to these people I'll never know.

A bit of talk about last night's first round matches, don't click on the spoiler if you're wanting to avoid the results.