Actually, you know what?
Fuck you, I’m miserable.
Bash At The Beach 1998.
Let’s get it over with.
Raven defeated Perry Saturn in a Raven’s Rules match – which means hardcore, ECW-style match. Saturn was a part of Raven’s Flock until he left and Raven is a little miffed about that, so let’s have a feud. This went on for quite a bit as I recall before Saturn found himself feuding with Jericho and that led to him in a dress or something and… we’re jumping ahead here. So yes, it’s a hardcore match. Raven is a former ECW Champion, so he knows a thing or two about these sort of matches. Saturn was in ECW as one half of the Eliminators. He should know a thing or two about these sort of matches. Sure enough, we have a fun ECW-style hardcore match in WCW. Does it lead to anything? Probably not, but it was fun while it lasted.
Juventud Guerrara defeated Billy Kidman, who’s still with the Flock but there are hints that he’s not long for this group, as evident by his slightly nicer hair and slightly cleaner face compared to the rest of the group. The match was a fine cruiserweight showing, but the crowd didn’t give a fuck. Oh well, their loss.
Stevie Ray defeated Chavo Guerrero Jr via submission when Chavo offers a handshake and Stevie accepts, which causes Chavo to feign pain and quickly submit. Despite the fact that Stevie won the match, he’s clearly pissed. Sometimes, it’s best to take the easy money and save your best for another day. Oh, and Chavo has to wrestle Eddie immediately afterwards, so you could call this a waste of time if you want, but this was Chavo being clever. After all, he did “technically” have a match and even though he lost, he was still gonna wrestle Eddie… oh, and it was Hair vs. Hair, so we have Chavo’s buzzcut going up against Eddie’s lovely mane of hair.
Just in case you have any doubts in regards to Dominick’s parentage…
I do like how Eddie is just cursing and flipping off Stevie Ray behind his back, but when Stevie turns around, Eddie immediately takes a hike. Suckas got to know you don’t fuck with Stevie Ray.
Eddie Guerrero defeated Chavo in a Hair Vs Hair match due to Chavo getting into a tug of war with the referee over some scissors and Eddie uses this to roll up Chavo for the win. But because Chavo is the crazy one, he offers to shave off his own hair and actually does so, which even freaks Eddie out for… some reason… dude, isn’t this what you wanted? Didn’t you want him to cut his hair? Aren’t you glad you’re not cutting YOUR lovely mane or worse, letting CHAVO do it? Anyway, the match was fine, but again, the crowd didn’t care. Not even a crazy man shaving his own head could make this crowd care. Is this Sturgis or something where they don’t care about a match unless it involves AMERICANS? Oh man, Vinnie Ru would hate this match.
Konnan defeats Disco Inferno in a squash match that sees Kevin Nash and Lex Luger beat the shit out of poor Alex Wright as a bonus… at least, it was short and Nash got a payday out of it for very little work.
The Giant defeated Kevin Green in a short match. Green got a couple shots in before Giant killed him. Again, at least it was short.
So Chris Jericho was supposed to defend his Cruiserweight title against Dean Malenko, but there was a no-touch clause that Dean broke one time and thus the match was called off. Jericho still had to defend the title and his new opponent ended up being Rey Mysterio, whom Jericho injured some time ago. A short match and a distraction from Malenko later, Mysterio beats Jericho to win the Cruiserweight title. The reign wouldn’t last as Jericho would get it back so that he could drop the title to Juventud at Road Wild the following month. Will wonders never cease?
WCW Television Champion Booker T defeated Bret “Hitman” Hart via disqualification when Bret decided to take a chair and bash Booker’s brains in. A totally fine television match marred by a shit finish… and then Bret bashes Booker’s knee with the chair so that he can go for that Figure Four around the ring post. Holds onto it for a bit before Stevie Ray eventually shows up to scare Bret away. Stevie doesn’t rush to the ring, he just takes his time to come to Booker’s aid. I’m thinking that sooner or later, Stevie Ray joins up with the nWo and brings a slapjack gimmick to the mix. Pretty miffed about the bad finish, but Bret and Booker would have another match or two down the road (one of them’s on Youtube if I recall correctly – I’d check, but I’m far too lazy.)
WCW World Heavyweight Champion GOLDBERG defeated Curt Hennig in the trademark short GOLDBERG match to retain the title and continue his undefeated streak, which was somewhere around 384,973 wins or something. Who the fuck knows how WCW calculated this shit at the time? Hennig got a few shots in, but let’s be honest. Even in 1998, nobody believed Hennig had a shot in hell of beating GOLDBERG.
Hollywood Hogan and Dennis Rodman defeated Diamond Dallas Page and Karl Malone with an assist from the Disciple (a.k.a. Brutus Beefcake in a biker gimmick of sorts… though I’ll give props for looking different enough that I didn’t put two and two together back then), who KICK WHAM STUNNERed DDP and laid Hogan on top for the win. The best thing I could say about this match was that Karl Malone TRIED and while he wasn’t great, he did as good a job as he could with the limited experience he had. On the flip side of the coin, you had Rodman, who looked stoned out of his mind and was fucking up more moves than two of the shittiest jobbers in the world – take your pick, there’s a whole bunch of them out there.
Watching this in 1998, I already hated this match because Hogan was in the main event while Goldberg – THE WORLD CHAMPION, by the way – was slumming it in the undercard. In hindsight, this being the main event due to the celebrity star power made sense… and besides, who in the flying fuck would want to see a two minute Goldberg squash main event a Pay-Per-View for crying out loud?
Actually, on second thought…
Yeah, I didn’t like this show back then… and not surprisingly, I don’t like it now… yeah, there are a couple decent matches on here, but there’s a fairly good chance you could find those guys have better matches elsewhere. Take those out of the equation and the rest of the show sucked. And on top of that, after that shitacular main event, what did WCW follow up with for their next big PPV event… DDP teaming with Jay Leno.
Yes, that Jay Leno.
That Big Jaw.
I’ve already mused on this show… I really don’t want to muse it again… but I’ve got nothing else going on in July…
Aw, shit…
dtm666 