Loss Posted August 15, 2014 Report Share Posted August 15, 2014 Talk about it here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted October 20, 2014 Author Report Share Posted October 20, 2014 This has a strong reputation and deservedly so. It is way better than it looks on paper. Benoit and Malenko are mostly carrying things but Horace and Adams are perfectly fine heels. And this all builds to a big finish with Benoit diving off the top of the cage. This feels straight out of Mid Atlantic and they build the hot tag exceptionally. I love how dead the crowd is at the beginning and how red hot they are in the final few minutes. Malenko should have been a full-time tag wrestler because he’s great at it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Cooke Posted December 3, 2014 Report Share Posted December 3, 2014 Excellent match that is easily the career performance from Bryan Adams and possibly Horace Hogan as well. They had a lot of things working against them before the match even takes place. Standard tag matches in a cage are not easy to pull off. Both of these teams were fighting out of the losers bracket in quite possibly the only double elimination tournament in wrestling history (or at least in a major promotion) and while Benoit and Malenko were Horsemen and over a little bit at this point, the NWO B-Squad wasn't over at all. Make this the Thunder main event of a show that had already featured Goldberg, Flair, and Hogan and you can imagine the crowd not being into this. Those obstacles ended up not mattering. Benoit is a sensitive subject these days (and rightfully so) but this is a perfect example of why he was so great from 1994-1999. He single handily makes Bryan Adams look world class, works most of the match as the face in peril, and gets the crowd invested in his comebacks (along with Dean Malenko doing a nice rallying job on the apron). WCW even makes a good booking decision, sending Vincent out to interfere (yes, the cage *should* keep that from happening, but you can't win them all). Vincent pulls Benoit out leaving Malenko being double teamed until Benoit scales the cage to the top, Malenko gets the brief advantage, and Benoit dives off the top of the cage for the first time in WCW. It was very special at the time since Thunder was becoming a C show very quickly and it was a pretty big moment to get to the finals of the tournament after working their way through the losers bracket. Big pop for the finish. So Benoit and Malenko take the momentum and defeat Windham and Hennig to win the WCW Tag Team Titles at Superbrawl. But this is 1999 WCW so they lose 3 days later. (Russo would go on to have Benoit dive off a cage twice and once off a ladder in a three month period later in the year.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tim Posted December 7, 2014 Report Share Posted December 7, 2014 Really good match. I like how little the cage was used throughout the match, just sitting there to serve its gimmick purpose of supposedly preventing interference while they work a regular tag match inside it. Benoit's FIP was really good and he worked in some nice comeback teases, like the backslide and firing off with one chop but being too exhausted to capitalize on it. It's cool how he finally makes his comeback by making use of the tag and Dean and Benoit's double team comeback was good. I was kind of groaning about the interference predictably happening anyway but it was used well to set up the big finish spot with Benoit ending up on the top of the cage just in time to come off with a huge headbutt for the win. Really good tag match that uses the cage sparingly but in some minor (and one big) ways that inhance the match. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Evans Posted January 4, 2015 Report Share Posted January 4, 2015 Not sure why this was in a cage and on Thunder but good match. Adams and Horace played the heel role good and Benoit/Malenko were great as always. I'm surprised Benoit did the headbutt off the cage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soup23 Posted March 2, 2015 Report Share Posted March 2, 2015 Very good tv match that did have some Final Conflict aspects to it. Benoit did give a great performance and got the crowd invested with an insane finish with the diving headbutt. Shows how he could connect with the audience like few others in WCW at the time. ***1/ 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeteF3 Posted March 12, 2017 Report Share Posted March 12, 2017 Really good heat for this considering what charismatic black holes the NWO B-teamers are. Unless he had some miracle in FMW, which is quite possible with the right opponents, this has to be Horace's career highlight. Vince comes out to make this look like yet another instance of Vanilla Midgets getting fucked over, but Benoit and Malenko pull through with guts and smarts--a good way to put the team over on the way to presumably bigger and better things. *snorts derisively* Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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