[2001-02-26-WCW-Nitro] Chuck Palumbo & Sean O'Haire vs Lance Storm & Mike Awesome

[GSR]

Schiavone talks about Palumbo’s win over Lex Luger on Thunder as one of the biggest wins of his career and one that will surely give them the momentum going into Greed.  O’Haire calls out “the Canadians” over what they did to Kronik earlier, wanting to make the ring into a murder scene with the two of them.  He only had a couple of lines there but it wasn’t pretty.  We return from a commercial with the match already in progress.  Schiavone emphasises that this is non-title, most likely emphasising the result too.  Storm is in to break up a pin attempt and as Palumbo turns to say something to him, gets flattened by an Awesome lariat.  Double clothesline by the Canadians.  Palumbo catches Storm on the leap frog and launches him with a fallaway slam.  For some reason he decides to take a pot shot at Awesome on the apron, that allows Storm to get to his feet and measure the superkick.  Slingshot shoulderblock by Awesome.  Alabama slam.  He draws O’Haire into the ring so they can double team Chucky behind the referee’s back.  With the Canadians in control, Lex Luger’s music starts playing on the Nitrovision.  That distracts everyone and from out of nowhere comes Kanyon who pulls O’Haire from the apron to the floor and gives him a Flatliner on the ringside mats.  Palumbo on his own fights back, nailing Storm with the Jungle kick.  Awesome was supposed to hit him with something off the top but slipped on the ropes and improvised with a clothesline, Storm then applies the Canadian Maple Leaf for the tap.  The commentators talk about that catapulting them into the “Top Two” when it comes to contenders, although wonder why Kanyon got involved in things.  As they celebrate their victory on the rampway they’re jumped by K-Dawg just as we go to a commercial.

I’d rather we got a long form match of this at Greed as opposed to Palumbo & O’Haire defending against Totally Buff, one not joined in progress and not one the backdrop for some other angle.  Like the commentators I’m at a loss as to why Kanyon involved himself in this.  On returning from the advertisements O’Haire challenged Kanyon to a match later in the show (which he won), the only thing I can think of for that is with O’Haire being someone Bischoff planned to put the rocket boosters on when he purchased the company they wanted to see how he looked as a singles at this point when in with an upper level worker like Kanyon.