[2000-11-25-OVW-TV] Rob Conway & Mr Black vs Brock Lesnar & Shelton Benjamin

[soup23]

Russ McCollough gets personal with Cornette and I can’t be bothered to care. Brock trips flying into the ring like Shelton. Minnesota Stretching Crew is a cute name. It is pretty incredible that Brock was the 2000 NCAA champion and here he is wrestling in OVW by November. Brock showed a great dropkick and belly to belly right away. Brock also hits a belly to belly on Black at the finish which was nice looking. Conway and Black seem to be working together as Black uses a weapon but then they punch each other out and lose the match. Hokey finish but Brock and Shelton looked like big time prospects. *
 

[GSR]

We start with a replay of a terrible Russ McCullough interview from last week. Jim Cornette is in his face wondering what’s with the recent change of attitude. McCullough grabs him by the lapels and says how he’s tired of being treated like a big dumb jock. He claims that he’s faster (I think that’s what he said) than the Big Show, stronger than Nick Dinsmore, smarter than all of Bolin Services, yet he never gets any main events and he (Cornette) books him like he’s a trained monkey! Apparently the fudge packers (I hope that has a different meaning in the US than it does here in the UK!) get the title shots and the ‘yes men’ the TV time. He says “screw them all” as no-one is beating Nick Dinsmore for the OVW title but him. This was atrocious; McCullough’s delivery was awful, it was incoherent at times and the actual content of the promo made little sense. I said earlier in the year that I was surprised that he never got called up to the WWF, well if any of the decision makers saw this, it may very well explain why!

Kenny Bolin says that he’s been both a father and a guidance counsellor to his boys. Everything has been rectified, they’re going to prove to everyone that they can function as a team and there’s going to be no match between them at Christmas Chaos! Cornette begs to differ, pointing out that the two are still scheduled to face each other there for Mr Black’s hardcore title. Not the most auspicious of TV debuts for Brock Lesnar as he and Shelton were supposed to do stereo somersaults into the ring but he slips and falls flat on his ass! They’ve already been christened the ‘Minnesota Stretching Crew’ and Corny puts over Brock’s credentials as the finest amateur wrestler in the country this year as the NCAA champion. Brock gets the better of a shoulder tackle, inverted atomic drop followed by a drop kick to the stomach (he doesn’t get much height on it). Great overhead belly to belly suplex mind. Shelton lands on his feet off a back drop and superkicks the ‘Iron Man’. Conway tags out to Black who wasn’t paying attention, and despite what Kenny Bolin said, things are definitely not all hunky dory in camp BS. Dropkick to Black and Shelton’s looks far better than his partner’s. He goes for a second, but this time Black just swats him away. Big splash to the back and he then positions Shelton for a ‘Vader bomb’. As he climbs the turnbuckles though Conway tags himself in by slapping Black on the back of the head. Double clothesline and both me go down. Shelton with the hot tag and Brock with a scoop slam on Conway followed by a belly to belly on Mr Black. Bolin Services reverses the double Irish whip sending the Stretching Crew crashing into each other. Kenny Bolin is up on the apron distracting the official, which allows Conway to load his glove while at the same time Black pulls out his retractable baton. They don’t realise what the other is up to though, resulting in a shoving match as both want to be one to finish off Benjamin. After an exchange of words they swing at one another, connecting at the same time and both go down. Brock and Shelton crawl over to make the cover and it’s a first win for the Minnesota Stretching Crew.

I tried to find out how long Brock had been wrestling for at this point but information on cagematch and wrestlingdata is pretty sketchy (although I couldn’t find anything on either pre-October 2000). It’s fair to say it’s not long though and he’s probably had no more than around a dozen or so matches (again there’s every likelihood that there are spot shows in front of the sparsest of crowds that there’s no detail of anywhere). He looks super green here, which is to be expected, although falling flat on your ass first thing couldn’t have helped either! His suplexes look good but that’s it and Shelton is someway ahead of him on the in ring. Brock should also never throw another dropkick in his life. The fact that he was put on TV so soon when he’s clearly nowhere near ready indicates to me that the WWF were trying to get some return on that record breaking developmental deal that they signed him to. Match has a nice simple story to it as Bolin Services looks to be falling apart at the seems, despite all of Kenny’s counselling!