Once again, I’m revisiting a show that I already touched on just three years previously… but now I bring added thoughts and context, especially after having seen the prior month’s Bash At The Beach show as well as the 100th episode of Nitro that saw Lex Luger defeat Hollywood Hogan for the WCW World title.
To tell you the truth, there’s not a whole lot to this show that I could really add on a second viewing.
Harlem Heat defeated Buff Bagwell & Scott Norton in a perfectly acceptable little tag team match that saw Booker hit Norton with a sidekick and pin him while Jacqueline held down Norton’s foot… so I guess Bischoff figured that the bikers in Sturgis hate their colored wrestlers and thus booked Harlem Heat as heels… even though they were babyfaces or something. I don’t know. The bikers seem less rageful towards Harlem this time around… maybe Booker and Stevie got some sweet bikes or something. Eh.
Konnan defeated Rey Mysterio via submission in what was advertised as a Mexican Death Match, which translates to a no-DQ plain jane wrestling match. Rey had a bad knee here that he claims was faking, except his knee was actually hurt and… listen, Rey Mysterio and knee injuries go hand and hand. But if you’re going to bill something as a DEATH MATCH of sorts, it’d be nice if you had some action that lived up to the moniker and not just, you know, a wrestling match. Granted, it’s a perfectly acceptable wrestling match, but that’s not what was advertised. Again, the biker crowd was mostly apathetic towards this one. No Americans or something.
Steve “MONGO” McMichael & Chris Benoit defeated Jeff Jarrett & Dean Malenko in a thing that happened. This was elimination rules, leading to a funny bit where Jeff Jarrett, terrified on Mongo, forced Mongo to pin him, thus leaving Malenko to fend for himself. The only good bits are the few interactions between Benoit and Malenko because both guys were good workers, but the rest of this slop can fly a kite.
Cruiserweight champion Alex Wright defeated Chris Jericho via roll-up with a handful of tights to retain the title. Perfectly fine match. Jericho showed signs of talent while Wright showed signs of charisma that would get killed in a couple years when they’d reboot him into Berlyn or whatever he was called in 99.
Ric Flair defeated Syxx via kick to the nuts… yes, this match sure felt like a kick to the nuts. This was like sitting through a 20-minute McSon-In-Law promo. Long, boring, rest holds galore. Even Randy Orton would take offense at how many rest holds you can shit out in ten minutes.
Curt Hennig defeated Diamond Dallas Page with an assist from Ric Flair in a match that made me question the meaning of life. So here’s where this extra perspective come into play because I had previously seen a prior PPV where Curt Hennig was brought in as a mystery partner in a tag team match against the nWo and Hennig ended up turning on his partner to join the nWo… okay, fine. You do the fake out deal… but then at some point, Hennig “left” the nWo and was being groomed by Ric Flair to join the Horsemen… even though Hennig showed allegiance to the nWo, but now he’s a good man or something. This would lead to the WarGames match where Hennig would turn on the Horsemen and rejoin the nWo… which he’d stick with for a few months before the split between nWo black-and-white and nWo Wolfpac… Hennig would join Wolfpac for a cup of coffee before jumping ship back to nWo black-and-white… and then a few months after that, he’d find his true calling as a guy who sings about Rap being Crap or something… okay, got it.
So I’m watching this match, it’s not a very good match, Page bled a gusher, and he tried his best, but 1997 Curt Hennig is not the Mr. Perfect of old. He missed a step or two, he’s not quite on his game… I don’t know. Maybe it’s all that time off beforehand, but watching Hennig in WCW was a bit challenging, if I’m being polite here.
The Giant squashed Randy Savage… not much to say here other than Macho was nWo and Giant was not. So Giant squashing an nWo name is a happy moment.
The Steiner Bros. defeated Tag Team Champions the Outsiders (Hall and Nash) via DQ due to Nash pulling the ref out of the ring while Hall was getting Steiner-dogged. As a result, the Outsiders would retain the titles. According to behind the scenes lore, the Steiners were supposed to win the titles here, but Nash complained about there being too many title changes and they were devaluing the belts, so they changed the result to a DQ. I went back and checked the title history of the tag belts; the Outsiders were champions since February. I don’t think it’d hurt for them to drop the belts here. But instead, they drop the belts in October because… eh, whatever. The really sad thing was that the biker crowd was actually hot for this one and then you did the stupid DQ finish and killed the crowd dead. THIS biker crowd was killed dead by this stupid finish. Why do people accuse Kevin Nash of being the smartest man in wrestling? Stuff like this make him come across as a self-serving idiot.
Of course, this would be followed by the main event, which is the rematch from the 100th episode of Nitro that saw Lex Luger dethrone Hollywood Hulk Hogan to win the WCW World title. And you know what? I recently saw the show and the match in question. It was a great moment, a nice feelgood moment on a show that had very few of them. And the fact that Hogan was more than willing to let Luger beat him with his move showed that he was smarter than most people gave him credit for. And the match itself was actually pretty fun… mostly because it was Hogan getting his comeuppance and without any bullshit… a rarity even during the prime of the Hogan run.
And so we get to this match, which sees Hollywood Hogan getting his win back, defeating newly minted WCW Champion Lex Luger via copious amounts of outside interference including one from a fake Sting to win back the title after he dropped earlier that week, thus making that whole celebration on Nitro completely and utterly pointless. And what’s really painful about this whole deal is that people often accuse Lex Luger of being a choke artist; has all the potential in the world to be the next big start, but for some never reason, could never quite crack that last hurdle. And I don’t know; maybe there was some truth to that whole deal.
But when I watch that last moment on Nitro and the people getting behind Luger, rallying for him to win the big one, and the reaction when it actually happened, I have to wonder how much of this “choke artist” reputation could actually be pinned on Luger. I have to wonder if maybe the reason Luger was never able to break through that last hurdle was because the booking the shows had no fucking clue on how to book the guy. Every so often, I see these show where the people were behind Luger, they’re pushing him to win the big one, and then somewhere along the way, it just doesn’t happen or when it does, they usually do something stupid to kill the shine. Luger wins the WCW title after Flair bails? Let’s turn him heel. Luger on the Lex Express run to challenge Yokozune for the WWF title at Summerslam? Have him win via countout and make everyone look stupid for giving this guy a big celebration for NOT winning the title. And then you got this.
I mean, we hear bitching about the tag titles between changed too many times, but nobody so much as bats an eye when we switch the World title back to Hogan not even a WEEK after this huge, monumental moment. At least, let the guy have a few weeks with the belt before Hogan wins it back. Even Randy Orton got a brief World title run for a month before McSon-In-Law buried him. Luger didn’t even get that much. Instead, he gets to job to Hogan, who gets his belt back and the bikers end up throwing ROCKS at Hogan… none of which smack him in the head to render him unconscious. I would normally condemn that kind of behavior, but since it’s Hulk Hogan, I should probably condemn the bikers’ bad aim.
And of course, the show ends with a rebranding of the WCW title with the spraypaint since they just cleaned it off… honestly, if they were dead set on Hogan getting the belt back, they probably shouldn’t have cleaned the belt off in the first place.
I’ve said it before and god fucking dammit, I’ll say it again; fuck this show. This show sucked. There was nothing particularly special about this show and at the end of it all, it just left a bad taste in my mouth. Not the same bad taste I get after watching one of the anemically atrocious Russo-booked shows, but just as unpleasant.
Fuck this show. This show sucked.
dtm666 