[2000-05-08-WCW-Nitro] DDP vs Mike Awesome (Stretcher)

[soup23]

Kimberly and Bischoff are on commentary as DDP looks for revenge for his best friend against Awesome. Not much to the match as it is more of a backdrop to the DDP and Kim saga. Kim asks DDP to sign the divorce papers on the apron and Page rips up the document. Then Awesome wallops Page with a chair and powerbombs him through a table. This allows Bischoff to grab Page’s hand and sign what is left of the divorce papers. DDP gets wheeled out of the arena giving Awesome the win. A little bit too much New Blood dominance lately and the undertones of Bischoff and Kimberly being an item are doing no favors to anyone. Madden is also back to shrieking at pretty much everything. Poor segment. *1/4

[AstroBoy]

Awesome looked particularly bad and uninspired here. I don't know why I keep getting surprised when these turn out to be more angles than matches. The Kim/Page angle should be effective in theory but it's honestly just kind of unpleasant and uncomfortable. Awesome gets the win and Page is left lying. I will say that Page is at least good here evoking some semblance of sympathy but the whole angle is just so negative and one-sided.

[GSR]

Eric Bischoff and Kimberly are out first, but with Easy E’s grey hair and Kim wearing next to nothing, it looks like she’s an escort that he’s hired to have on his arm. DDP jumps Awesome as soon as he steps through the ropes and drops him with a discus lariat. ‘Cactus clothesline’ and Page launches Awesome over the announcer’s table right to where Bischoff and Kim are sat. Back inside and Page with a uranage before just about catching Awesome with a headscissors. DDT, and Kimberly says how she’s “had it and can’t wait anymore”. She picks up the divorce papers, gets up on the apron and wants Page to sign them now. He tears the papers up, but in the meantime Bischoff had passed Awesome a chair which he uses to nail Page in the head (busting him open in the process). A pair of DDT’s on the chair and Awesome drags Page onto the stretcher. As he’s being wheeled to the back he hauls himself off it and crawls back to the ring. He’s quickly levelled with another chair shot followed by a powerbomb through a table. Bischoff then puts a pen in Page’s hand and moves it for him, getting him to sign the remnants of the divorce papers whilst DDP is laid out unconscious. Awesome puts him on the stretched for the second time and this time he’s wheeled out of there.

 

Despite this supposed to be about DDP getting revenge for Kanyon, that angle was very quickly forgotten about (and I don’t think even mentioned by the commentators during the match), and the focus was solely on furthering the Page ‘divorce’ storyline. DDP is one of the few who can ‘usually’ be relied on in this incarnation of WCW but these two didn’t work well together. They were off on quite a few things and the match was pretty ugly, with Awesome even showing an inability to execute an effective looking DDT. The section after Page had hauled himself off the stretcher was also disappointing as he was laid out almost instantly. I would have thought he should have gotten in a bit of offense at least. Poor stuff.