[2001-01-14-WCW-Sin] Chavo Guerrero Jr vs Shane Helms

[GSR]

Shane Helms is backstage with his 3 Count partner and asks him, as long as it is just he and Chavo out there, to remain in the back and let him do this one on his own. 

Lovely variation on the snapmare takeover.  Tony Schiavone uses the phrase “coming of age of a superstar” when describing Helms, reaffirming Chad’s thoughts about how WCW clearly had made their minds up about where they wanted to go coming out of the 3 Count/Jung Dragons feud.  A couple of blistering knife edge chops by Chavo, the sound reverberating around the arena.  Shane gets the Ricky Steamboat reference on his deep arm drags which really are a thing of beauty.  Fireman’s carry, dropping Chavo head first onto his knee.  The champ ducks the charge and clotheslines Shane over the top rope to the outside.  The Irish whip on the floor is reversed as Chavo goes clattering into the guard rail.  On returning to the ring Chavo gets the jump on his opponent, and even though he telegraphs the backdrop, he’s able to dead weight on the attempted piledriver and hit an Alabama slam.  Rather than go for the cover he instead opts to grind his forearm across the face.  Dropkick.  Rear chinlock as he looks to ground the challenger.  Helms fights his way out, atomic drop, reverse neckbreaker and now both men are down.  Listen to the way the crowd are counting along with referee Scott Armstrong, they’re well invested in this.  Schiavone calls the ‘X-plex’ (cross armed German) a Dragon suplex as Helms gets a two count.  ‘Sugar Snap’ (superkick), which is the kind of terrible name I’d expect to hear out of Joey Styles’ mouth, but they’re too close to the ropes.  Helms whips Chavo into the corner, however as he comes rushing in he gets dumped out over the top to the outside.  Plancha from the top turnbuckle to the floor.  Back inside Shane blocks the brainbuster, floats over and hiptosses Chavo out to ringside.  Now it’s his turn, coming off the top with almost a froggy crossbody.  A super sunset flip (sunset flip off the top), a Samoan drop, neither enough to put the champion away.  Helms calls for the ‘Vertebreaker’, Chavo reverses and Shane reverses the reversal into the ‘Nightmare on Helms Street’ for a near fall.  As he looks for a second, Chavo throws knees from underneath before driving him backwards into the corner.  Shane blocks the tornado DDT and counters, again looking for ‘the Nightmare’, however Chavo reverses it into a brainbuster to retain the Cruiserweight title.  The two get a thoroughly deserved standing ovation from the fans at the end.

Helms was one of the unsung WCW workers of 2000 so it’s good to see him getting the push his talents merit, while Chavo has come into his own as a singles worker recently.  One of those guys worth concentrating on to see the little things he does in there, while the new found aggressiveness, the grittiness to his offense (as mentioned after the Worldwide match with Evan Karagias) really adds something to him.  A great start to the PPV and one of those cases where Helms lost nothing in losing, in fact he may even have come out of this looking stronger for doing so.  The comments from the commentary team indicate that we’ll likely be seeing these two match up again in the not too distant future.

[soup23]

A real strong opener. I think at this point, Chavo is probably a bit underrated as a worker. His uncle is certainly superior but he was a solid hand that had some comedic moments and could have a good serious match when needed. Helms looks good in defeat and someone on the brink of breaking through. A real fun way to start a PPV. ***1/2

[AstroBoy]

It's a little rough going until Chavo settles in to control, like they kind of have Shane outwrestling him early and also outquicking him but never really lean fully in to either.  

This is paced well and the broad strokes are good as Chavo is more seasoned, but Helms gets these flashes.  He is a little sloppy and kind of comes off like Nova in that he's more spots than any fire or charisma but it works enough.

Chavo shuts it down with a brainbuster and it's a real good walking the line between him as a strong division ace and just getting that lucky big shot to survive a big challenge.

***