Who wants to watch another WCW PPV with me?
Yeah, so it’s another Bash At The Beach show… this time, with Hollywood Hogan and Dennis Rodman teaming up against the Giant and Lex Luger. This was successful enough to warrant another Hogan/Rodman team up at the following year’s Bash show, which I do recall watching live. It was largely horrible. So I don’t know. I heard that this one was better, so why not give it a shot? (We’ll keep 98’s Beach Blast on reserve for now and go for another show next week… unless I end up in a foul mood between now and then.)
Mortis & Wrath defeated Glacier & Ernest “The Cat” Miller in the opening tag-team match… yes, so you’ve got Chris Kanyon, Brian “Adam Bomb” Clarke, and Ray Lloyd playing Mortal Kombat-esque characters – Kanyon being the masked Mortis, Clarke being the monster Wrath, and Lloyd being the Sub-Zero knock-off Glacier – and then you have Ernest Miller being himself, for whatever that’s worth. I’m guessing he’s supposed to be the Johnny Cage of the group? If that’s the case, then… woof. Anyway, I’m almost tempted to write this off as a thing that happened, but there was some decent action in it, the guys worked their asses off, and it was an entertaining enough opener. 1-1 I suppose.
Cruiserweight Champion Chris Jericho defeated Ultimo Dragon to retain the title in a pretty good match. Wasn’t exactly wowed by this one, but I would attribute that more to being spoiled by better Jericho matches later down the road. Still, fun while it lasted, so we’ll call it 2-2.
The Steiner Brothers defeated the Great Muta & Masa Chono to earn a Tag Title shot against the Outsiders. So we went from seeing a Muta match where he’d rather be anywhere else (the Austin match at one of the 94 WCW PPVS) to being motivated enough to work a decent match with the Steiners. For what it’s worth, Scott still looked semi-normal, but was getting closer to his eventual final form. Give it another year.
Juventud Guerrera, Hector Garza & Lizmark Jr. defeated the sombrero-wearing La Parka, Villano IV & Psicosis in your obligatory six-man Lucha party match. Lots of high-flying moves, lots of fast-action, and even an twin magic bit with Villano V swapping places with IV to fool Garza… which doesn’t work and Garza ends up getting the win anyway. If you like moves and/or lucha, this is ten minutes well spent.
Chris Benoit defeated Kevin Sullivan in a Loser Leaves Town match that would end Kevin Sullivan’s wrestling career (but not his booking career), and thus Benoit could move on to bigger and better things… oh wait. This match felt a bit tame at times, considering this was supposed to be a final match of a blood feud with the loser having to be retire and even more so considering the real life heat between these two (which I’m not going into here, but if you know, you know)… but then again, I’d imagine Sullivan would’ve been much happier just booking the shows. In any event, this is one of those Benoit matches that I wasn’t too keen on. Not because it’s a bad match or anything, but given the circumstances around the participants… er, yeah, no… not for me.
Speaking of uncomfortable pieces of business, United States Champion Jeff Jarrett defeated Mongo McMichael to retain the title… oh and Debra turns on Mongo by grabbing a briefcase and letting Jarrett swipe it so that he can dongo Mongo on the head-o for the win… and then she and Jarrett jump ship to the WWF. Wonderful. For those wondering, Debra was Mongo’s ex-wife at the time… and then she’d go on to marry Steve Austin and that’s another can of worms that’s been opened elsewhere and… why did I want to watch this show again?
Randy Savage & Scott Hall defeated Diamond Dallas Page & Curt Hennig, who comes out as a mystery partner for Page… and then eventually turns on Page to reveal that, yes, he’s nWo 4 life. Okay, so I was oblivious to Hennig showing up here. I had thought that he showed up later as part of that whole Horsemen thing (which he would pretend to join and later turn on them)… but apparently, he showed up here and did the same thing to Page… which, in hindsight, would make the Horsemen look like idiots for putting their trust in a guy that had also stabbed one babyface in the back.
Roddy Piper defeated Ric Flair via sleeper submission in what I have to admit was a pretty decent match bordering on good. Those who have read my past PPV musings know that I’ve never been too kind to Roddy Piper during the latter days of his career. His matches with Hogan during this time were atrocious and before anyone lifts a finger, I remind you that one of those matches was AGE IN THE CAGE. This match, on the other hand, was alright. It was a nice old-school wrestling match with two seasoned pros sticking with what they know and what they can still do well enough. Now if you want to call this another case of Flair wrestling a broom to a decent match, you’re free to do that, but I’d like to think that Piper still had a few good shots in him yet here. That’s about all he had, as nothing else afterwards would be this good or better, but the man tried his best and you can’t fault the guy for it.
Lex Luger and The Giant defeated Hollywood Hulk Hogan and Dennis Rodman in the main event tag team spectacle… and for whatever you want to say about the quality of the match, one thing you can’t deny was that the crowd was REALLY into this match. And most of the match was just stalling between two men; one would tag, more stalling, another would tag, more stalling, and then eventually, we’d get some action and it was largely bad… and then Rodman would be tagged in and people would throw a fit over his ability to do LEAP FROGS and ARM DRAGS. HOLY LIVING FUCK! THAT RODMAN’S BADASS! YOU BETTER NOT MESS WITH HIM OR ELSE HE’LL ARM DRAG YOUR ASS AND LEAP FROG HIS BALLS TO YOUR FACE!
That sounded lewd.
Anyway, eventually, a guy in a Sting costume clobbers Giant and Luger catches Hogan in the Torture Rack for the submission win. This would lead to Luger getting a title shot at Hogan on the 100th episode of Nitro and actually BEATING Hogan for the WCW World Title in a momemt where someone decided to throw the fans a bone and have someone win the big one. Of course, Hogan would win it back afterwards, but still…
All in all, this was a pretty solid show. Sure, there were a couple sour points (owing mostly due to possessing more knowledge than one should regarding the behind the scenes and hubris), but there were some fun matches here and there, and even the main event deserves a watch if only to take in the sheer spectacle of the whole deal. As long as you go into it not expecting a great match but rather a great spectacle, you’ll be fine.
dtm666 