[1996-12-29-WCW-Starrcade '96] Kevin Nash & Scott Hall vs Faces of Fear (Meng & Barbarian)

[Superstar Sleeze]

WCW World Tag Team Champions The Outsiders vs Faces of Fear - WCW Starrcade 1996

 

I really enjoyed the opening portion of this match, which seems to be a trend on this PPV. The first 3/4 of each match have been really damn good, but the finish is either lukewarm or bad. I thought this was a great fight. Meng and Barbarian just go into full on asskicker mode. I thought they were going to try to position them as a the babyfaces, but with the Nashville crowd being solidly NWO country they wisely made the Outsiders the de facto babyfaces. Meng and Barbarian have never much for selling, but hitting big spots now that's their shit. Meng just absolutely lit up Scott Hall early. I mean he was a steamroller. Nash cornered Barbie at one point only for Barbie to fight back with chops. Nash trying the double noggin knocker only to energize the Faces of Fear was fucking awesome! Faces of Fear double headbutt to Nash. Nash desperately hits Snake Eyes to tag out to Hall, who is detained by Meng and WHAM! KICK OF FEAR TAKES HIS HEAD OFF! Faces of Fear fucking rule! Meng piledrives Hall. Barbie fucking powerbombs Hall. Yes, he powerbombs him. Holy shit! Meng atomic drop and another Kick of Fear. Faces of Fear should have been tag team champions for forever and a day. Nash nails Barbie while he is running the ropes. The Faces of Fear had done something similar and like how both teams are cheating and getting chippy with each other. A long nerve hold is the only thing that kept this match from being great as it was pretty damn boring. Hot tag to Nash, who actually hits a pretty good big boot. Not Barbarian level good, but pretty damn good on the Big Sexy Sliding Scale of Big Boots. Nash hits an ugly but effective powerbomb on Barbabrian to a big pop, the biggest of the night so far. Best Outsiders match I have ever seen. Faces of Fear have had better with Sting & Luger and Guerrero & Malenko, but damn good effort. I love the fighting early to finally get control and the heat segment was awesome. Take out the nerve hold and replace with a longer finish stretch and this would be a great match. ***1/4

[DR Ackermann]

Best Outsiders match I have ever seen.

 

I randomly saw this on the Network a few months back and was really surprised by how good it was. Like you said, not great, but a really nice surprise. Everyone besides Nash looked really good here. It had me looking out for Faces of Fear matches.

[PeteF3]

I didn't care at *all* for the Outsiders working FIP and doing babyface comebacks, regardless of the pro-NWO crowd, but they certainly gave a lot to the Faces of Fear.