Stiva

Really good match that was, sadly, in front of a terrible crowd. Between his build to the big spots and the reversals to keep himself alive, I was really impressed with Spike here, to the point where I'm wondering if it's really so strange that I like him so much. A nice change from constant bomb throwing and big weapon spots but it was clear, at this point, this fanbase just wanted that and had no patience for what they were going for here. Shame as it was a good little match-up that could have made some good TV had Sabu not left shortly after.

Another heated trios that does a fantastic job of building more heat heading into big matches. Satanico is just a sublime heel, relishing in every punch and kick he dishes out to Tarzan Boy, who hits a hell of a blade job within the first 10 seconds. His comeback was great with a couple of nice looking backbreakers but Satanico just nut-shotting him was a brilliant, asshole finish. And then, Satanico doesn't let up, headbutting Tarzan Boy in the chest as the dude is lying in a heap on the mat. Everything surrounding the main angle was typically good too; really nice dive sequence with Antifaz and Felino crashing into each other and a really spirited Technicos fight-back in the second fall but this was all about Satanico and Tarzan Boy; the former being a total master in these last few matches.

Two guys working super hard to have a good match here. Both men were good here but man, Psicosis is just a much more expressive and charismatic wrestler than Kidman and I agree that, in an ideal post-Russo WCW that swung back to good wrestling as a priority, he'd have been great working like this throughout the midcard/tag division. Sadly, things don't work out the way we all want them to. Except for Billy Kidman, who has a magic ability to make people attempt powerbombs, even if they never have before.

A fantastic match that is a real feather in Benoit's cap. For the first time in years, WCW captures that big fight feel and it delivers a great main event. Benoit is fantastic here, bumping huge at the beginning, including a nutty, face-first bump into the mat from a press slam and then starts on offense. He keeps all of the leg work interesting, mixing the violent - the dropkick into the stairs with the intricate - taking Sid down with an awesome twisting tackle into the leg lock and it all leads to some good work from Sid as, what little offense he does have, looks pretty good. The chokeslam is helped by Benoit bumping huge but the comebacks are timed excellently. Benoit wins with the crossface; I'd have liked to see a bit more of a struggle from Sid but it did get over the crossface big, though I'm not sure the crowd expected it to end that early. Regardless, just a total superstar performance from Benoit and he would take that kind of work over to the WWF about 3 weeks later.

Toryumon rules! I thought the heels in this were flat-out awesome. The hundred hand slaps and sumo heat from Fuji, CIMAs out-of-this-world selling, posing and facial reactions, all three of them attacking before the bell, not to mention the incredible post-match beatdown. I agree that Dragon Kid's style and pace really helped him stand out here as his high-spots really were impressive, especially the speed in which he went flying with the Santo dive and when the match escalated in pace with guys diving in from everywhere, he still managed to stand out by doing shit one magnitude nuttier than anyone else. The post-match was super heated with a GREAT mask ripping and just chaos until Ultimo Dragon, looking resplendent in a tux and gold mask comes in like he's a mild-mannered, retired ex-cop who was just trying to enjoy a night out before being accosted by some thugs. If Toryumon can cut this kind of pace throughout the year, I'm really looking forward to watching it all.

Fascinating glimpse at early Necro and I had no idea that footage of him existed. This is like seeing a supervillain's ordinary life right before something pushes him over the edge. I did think it was interesting that he was almost Foley-esque here in that he was put over as a mad man, not because of the punishment he was dishing out, rather, the punishment that he was surviving and laughing at.

Not too much to add that hasn't been said but I thought the opening shine sequence, with the Westside Playaz hitting some of their double team spots was actually interesting but then, that just became the meat of the match, with any kind of heat building from the Ballards replaced by contrived double team moves. Having said that, I'd have probably taken a chance on the Westside Playaz as an undercard face team, see if I could curb some of the excesses and get them to settle on a hot tag routine, based around a handful of the spots they showed here and see where they went from there.

You forget how off the page charismatic Tajiri was/is and that all comes through in this, a very fun tv match. I did like how they were smart enough to avoid the usual 2 minutes of Jerry Lynn trade-off shit and just went full into Tajiri heeling it up and Lynn fighting and picking his spots since it meant they could fill all 8 minutes with interesting things. There were two nice little layouts with Lynn blocking the second handspring elbow and the neat finish of him sensing the low blow and hitting one of his own, getting some revenge on the little asshole who had been antagonising him throughout the match. Pretty much everything with Tajiri on is essential from this point forward in 2000.

I agree with Loss that this would have made a much better PPV main for Awesome but I still dug the Spike match more, largely on account of his performance. Plus, in this one, I was much more impressed with Rhino who made his moments matter a lot more, without having to throw tables and chairs into the mix. I really dug the back and forth nature of this, right until the plunder started coming in and then they lost me, though I did think the last powerbomb through the table was built to nicely and was the right climax. Still, Mike Awesome continues to bounce right off me as his two matches on this project have left me far more impressed with the guys he's faced.

Pretty fantastic, intense 15 minutes or so here. The build-up to Atlantis/Villano is set up pretty impeccably here with some fantastic moments; the mirrored DQs, the submission finish, Atlantis picking up the entire front row and dropping it on Villano's head. Around the edges, there was good heeling, a good tope and some long-term selling that helped flesh things out without taking away from the main focus. Can't wait to see this progress going forward.

Good little TV match that, if allowed to reach a conclusion that wasn't a total clusterfuck, would have rated pretty well. Nash is a dude who can work hard but rarely does and Bret always worked hard and did so, even when he really shouldn't have been. The leg selling was decent from Nash, as was Hart's working of it. The Sid interference is pretty bad with an incredibly dainty boot where his lovely new denim jeans don't allow him to lift his leg all the way up as the cage comes down for some reason. Then, Terry Funk begins branding dudes because if 5 million things aren't happening at once, it isn't a Vince Russo product. Not the most glamorous way for Bret to bow out but, it was definitely stronger than the Funk match from Thunder.

I'm a bigger fan of Spike than most, I think and I really enjoy matches where he gets to bump around so I definitely enjoyed this, even if it's status as a PPV main event meant that it went longer than it had any right to. I liked all the table spots, with Spike bumping huge on that first one and the repeated attempts at the Acid Drop didn't bother me in this context since it really felt like a guy who knew he had the one killer right hook and knew he needed to go for it ASAP to win the match. With a few minutes shaved off and positioned as a TV main event, this would have done a great job in establishing Awesome as a killer champ and elevating Spike in defeat. As it stands, it strikes me as a strange match to headline a PPV, even if they did have the crowd with them all the way.

A simple but effective little tag match with some perfectly fine heeling and some perfectly fine babyfacing. You can definitely see the potential in Spanky and Dragon and Danielson adapts really quickly to the ref fucking up his dive by moving onto a moonsault which I thought showed some good instinct for a rookie. I agree that Spanky's bumping is pretty fantastic; I think he landed just about vertically from his dive and folding up on the spear looked fantastic. It really looked like the move had just completely wiped all energy and will out of him. For 3 rookies and a trainer, I thought this was a neat little match that would serve it's purpose on the undercard.

This is my first time seeing Bradley having only knowledge of his rep as an RVD-type guy but I came out of this more into TPT, purely on look alone, mind you. I thought this was a fun little brawl but could have done without the extra minute or two after the table spot; I thought that looked good enough and felt like something that would have solidified this match as a great sub-5 minute sprint if it had ended but we had to get extra shenanigans. Enjoyable enough.

I've really liked these glimpses into the indy scene of 2000 and this whole concept is, maybe, the indiest of the bunch. But, I do LOVE the name Y2Kaos for a show. Kind of wild seeing Toad just straight up lift a gimmick from X-Men but there's something very endearing about it. This was chaotic and I felt pretty bad for the small camera crew and announcers tasked with following it but it seemed to work live.

I agree that it's pretty damning to see how little Killings has improved in his time but I actually enjoyed some of the more exaggerated selling he was doing. I didn't see any of his heel WWE stuff opposite Cena so I wonder if he reprised that there. I think Killings was also helped by the sheer blandness of Estrada opposite him but, nevertheless, always good to hear Jeff G Bailey and another interesting little look at a guy who went on to work in a major promotion.

Ric Blade's outfit is a fantastic relic of early 2000s indie wrestling where enough time has passed that I greet it with some kind of reverent nostalgia. I actually didn't think he was too bad in this kind of situation since he cut a pace alongside Ki who was super quick and super crisp, as you'd expect. The Ki Krusher through the table seems like something that you shouldn't be using as a near fall but I guess it was that kind of match in front of that kind of crowd.

Really well-worked match that is making me super excited to see what Puerto Rico has to offer. I, too, loved the old school nature of it, even if it did lull in the middle with the chinlock but, man, what a hot ending. Carly really did have a lot of potential considering that this is only a short while into his career and it's clear he had a connection with the crowd as they swarm him in celebration in a really great wrestling moment. And hitting dudes with a shovel seems like it should have been co-opted by HHH in his meta-Authority gimmick. Someone get him tapes of Ray Gonzalez

Watched this out of curiousity and it just...upset me on many levels. Obviously, Bret is in bad shape, Terry Funk is Terry Funk in the Year 2000 and there's nothing too wrong with the work. It's plodding, Funk runs through his crazy old man spots and that's that but everything surrounding it is just awful. An nWo beatdown, two old guys in your TV main event, David Flair in general. It's been years since I've seen end of days WCW and it's even more depressing than I remembered. Over on WWF TV, you have blazing hot crowds, guys like The Rock and Foley putting together electric segments and, in about, 3 weeks, they're going to rob WCW of 4 very good hands. Just a sad indictment of what's to come. Nash's powerbomb through the stage looked suitably nasty though.

A great way to end a great show. I blow hot and cold on Sasaki but enjoyed a lot of what he did here, considering he was laying it in as hard as he could. Tenryu is my man though and he was great here. I loved him selling the rights to the jaw with a fantastic glazed look. Like you would have when rocked with a huge right and you're struggling to figure out where you are.

Black Suit Liger beats the crap out of Kanemoto like he's Venom-infused Spiderman, destroying some poor bank robbers.

I enjoyed this but it definitely had it's flaws. I think Miho has this really good, fiery babyface charisma but man, Maekawa really made this difficult to get through. Her inconsistent selling of the leg was pretty annoying, especially when the finishing stretch involved her using the bad leg to kick Miho into defeat. There wasn't a progression, as much as she was able to fire back at full strength because it was coming to the end of the match. Still, definitely a decent little match and I hope to see where Miho goes from here.

A match that really sums up HHH before he was working with over babyfaces; heatless matches, really boring on offense but a big bumper. I thought this was a good Show performance, probably better than it deserved considering the shitty finish but the pieces are in place for 2000 WWF going forward and it gets better from here. As an aside, I was wondering why we had no Nitro matches from this date, then checked the card to see a ton of Lethal Lottery Tag Matches that barely went longer than 3 minutes. WCW were gone by this point.

I enjoyed this and, like said, found it really engaging for its length. The second crowd brawling spot seemed a tad superfluous but the in-ring work and story were both excellent. I thought Miho was the standout as young girl trying to make an impression and show herself off but all 4 were really good at their roles. I agree that Maekawa's offense was pretty poor throughout but I thought she showed some good work, kicking about Miho and she cut a good pace herself down the stretch. Fun tag match that also set the seeds for the future at the end.