[2000-10-18-WCW-Thunder] 'Countdown to Armageddon'

[soup23]

If you ever wanted to see a Royal Rumble in 15 minutes, here you go. The action and the threads throughout this match are fine but people run out so quickly and the eliminations are so arbitrary that it is tough to have any focus. This is also booked 1989 Rumble style in that the heavy hitters of the match are mostly in the middle portion. Kronik and Mike Awesome are left in the end and Goldberg is out to make the save. Awesome ends up winning and it is a nice moment for him but overall this felt like a match to watch for the novelty effect and didn't really result in good execution because of the brevity of the entrants. **

[Migs]

This was fun and WWE should consider the occasional Speed Rumble as a Raw main event or something.

[GSR]

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 30^th, 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 30^th.

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!