So here we are… the last WCW Road Wild PPV event from Sturgis… the last WCW biker rally PPV before Eric Bischoff was turfed from his role as WCW President and replaced by office accountant Bill Busch, who would bring it a couple blokes from WWF to head creative. And with WWF at an all-time high, it seemed like a good idea at the time… but we all know how that turned out and so I will spare you the bloody details… because they bare no relevance to Eric Bischoff’s last WCW show at a biker rally.
Listen, I’m going to refrain from the one positive about these shows – the outdoor setting, because at this point, it’s a broken record. Yes, it’s a neat visual for a wrestling show, and honestly I wish more shows these took place in these weird outdoor settings just for the visual variety – AEW being more likely to do this stuff, honestly – but after three years of WCW holding these shows at a biker rally before a largely apathetic crowd that didn’t give two fucks about this rasslin’ stuff unless it involved big, burly Americans or something didn’t exactly pan out. But Eric loves his motorbikes and they kept booking the show until he was no longer in power.
And also let’s be honest; this isn’t going to be a fair show.
Billy Kidman, Eddie Guerrero, and an unmasked Rey Mysterio (or as I called him once, a 12-year-old pretending to be Rey Mysterio) defeated Vampiro and the Insane Clown Posse in a six-man tag-team match when Kidman pinned one of the ICP with a Shooting Star Press. Look, I’m terrible with names and I don’t expose myself to enough ICP in any context for them to mean much. I know they do some grunge music stuff. I know they do a bunch of wrestling stuff. They’ve even made a couple appearances on WWF television at the time and formed their own Juggalo promotion or whatever it’s called. They’ve done enough wrestling stuff to not completely look out of place. For what it’s worth, it’s a entertaining enough match if you like two big clown guys try to keep up with a bunch of luchadores and cruiserweights. I wasn’t initially keen on this one, but it grew on me after a few years, so maybe there’s hope at some point.
Harlem Heat defeated WCW Tag-Team Champions Chris Kanyon and Bam Bam Bigelow to win the titles. This would be Heat’s eighth reign as tag champs and they would lose the titles a week later to the Windham brothers. Again, this was alright for what it was. I do recall being a bit surprised that they’d put Harlem Heat back together, especially considering Booker T was already on his way to being a noteworthy singles guy while Stevie Ray… well, I guess suckas need something to do or something… and yes, I recycled this whole spiel from the old musings because it amuses me.
The Revolution (Dean Douglas, Shane Saturn, and Perry Malenko – one of many young guy stables rebelling against the establishment) defeated the West Texas Rednecks (Curt Hennig, Barry Windham, and Bobby Duncan Jr. – three veteran wrestlers who formed a country band singing about rap being crap) in a pretty slow-paced six-man tag match that dragged on for too long. I don’t get the context here; the Redneck’s whole deal is that they hate rap and were feuding with some rapper guy while the Revolution is rebelling against the main event scene hogged by the old guys… but the Rednecks are the farthest thing from main event talents while the Revolution is about as much of a rap group as Brodus Clay is… well, let’s not go there. It is also at this point where the match quality starts to take a dip.
Case in point… Buff Bagwell defeated Ernest “The Cat” Miller in a shitty match. Then Miller and Sonny Onoo beat up Bagwell some more, because that’s how you get a babyface over, kids. Fuck off. Next.
WCW United States champion Chris Benoit defeated Diamond Dallas Page in a no-DQ match to retain the title in a pretty good match that gives me false hope that I’m misremembering this show as bad. The No-DQ stip allows for Page’s Jersey Triad buddies (Bam Bam Bigelow and Chris Kanyon) to run in freely, but Benoit fights them off and still comes out on top. Look, I’m not going to complain about this one; it’s a good match between two good workers. And let’s be honest; on a show with a lot of bad matches, I’ll take what I can get and be happy with it.
Sid Vicious defeated Sting in what I was dubbed “a slow and plodding match that was precisely what the doctor ordered for somebody enjoying themselves.” Years later and… yeah, it’s still not a particularly good match. Sid’s wrestling style is something of an acquired taste that only works in certain circumstances and it was just a bad fit with Sting, who seemed a bit more off than usual. It’s just one of those things that didn’t click.
GOLDBERG defeated WCW World Television Champion Rick Steiner in non-title match that saw Rick Steiner rip off Goldberg’s knee brace and try to bust Goldberg open with it to no avail. Which only goes to show that you should use a knee brace for whatever it normally does and not try to lacerate anyone with it, especially someone like Goldberg who normally bleeds from headbutting a door or something. Also, he did this in front of the referee, which should have been a DQ, but it’s not because there’s no consistency in the rules. The original musings for this show dubbed this as “two big fuckers beating the fuck out of each other” sort of thing, which I like, but on second viewing, it turns out to be RIck doing some stalling, fiddling with a knee brace, and then getting killed by Goldberg. Maybe instead of trying to be fancy, you should just have the two big fuckers beat each other up before Goldberg gets his finish in. It’s not that hard, guys.
Oh, and lest I forget, in the original PPV airing, Goldberg came out to a Megadeth song called Crush ‘Em, which I thought was to promote a movie (he had a role in one of the Universal Soldier movies with Van Damme or something) but turns out it’s to promote WCW’s Mayhem album of shitty entrance music. The WWE Network version replaces this theme with Goldberg’s shitty WWE theme rather than his original Invasion song. Lame.
Macho Man Randy Savage defeated Dennis Rodman in another shitty match… and as much as people like to call that a pun, I’m being quite literal. Look, it can’t be helped; Rodman wasn’t a wrestler and Randy Savage’s best days were clearly behind him at this point. There were ref bumps, there was scary bumps, and then Savage dumps Rodman into a porta-potty and tips it over; supposedly covering Rodman in raw sewage.
One problem: the potty lands on some boxes and doesn’t quite hit the horizontal, so Rodman comes out a bit smelly, but still way on the clean and dry side. Why people thought this made the match good is beyond me, but fortunately the match ended with Gorgeous George (young blond lady) handing over a chain to Savage, who uses it to whack Rodman and score the pin.
And in the main event, WCW World Heavyweight Champion Hulk Hogan – now back in the red-and-yellow Hulkster garb and coming out to “American Made” – defeated Kevin Nash in a Losers Leave Town match to retain the title… except as it would turn out, Nash would be back in WCW in a couple weeks and would even go on Thunder to talk about how he booked his retirement. I do wish that WWE would upload that Thunder episode sooner than later because Kevin Nash on commentary and not giving a fuck is worth twelve Netflix subscriptions.
So here’s the deal; Savage had beat Nash for the title at a prior PPV, but the next night on Nitro, Hollywood Hogan came back from an injury to challenge Savage for the title and of course, because it’s Hogan, he wins the title with an assist from Nash, who then challenges Hogan to a title match. And then at some point, it was decided to have both guys put their careers on the lines to raise the stakes a bit. Hey, you know what? Why not? Let’s add a bit of intrigue to this thing… but then on the go-home show for Nitro five days before the PPV, Hogan goes back to the red-and-yellow schtick, which… yeah, it gets a bit of a pop from the crowd, but even 18-year-old me who had only been seriously watching wrestling for about a year or two knew that they spoiled the match… because there was no way in hell that you’re making Hulk Hogan go back to his old schtick five days before a title match and then have him LOSE. That doesn’t just work for him, BRUTHA, but it doesn’t work for anyone, JACK!
I get it. It’s Sturgis. It’s a zero dollar gate. The crowd doesn’t give a shit. You’re still selling this shit shingle on PPV. If you absolutely wanted to bring back old-school Hogan, at least hold it off until the PPV where it’d be a nice little surprise. Sure, you’d be spoiling things, but at least by then, you already have their fucking money. Sometimes, this shit ain’t so hard to figure out.
So yeah, there isn’t much for me to say about this one; it’s the typical Hulk Hogan formula match. Hogan and Big Bad Heel go at it, Big Bad Heel gets to be dominant for a bit, Hogan mounts a comeback or two, Big Bad gets his move in before Hogan Hulks Out, Big Boot, Leg Drop, One Two Three… that works for him, brother. And if you like watching Hulk Hogan formula matches, then this is more of the same, except slower because Hogan – while never the most nimble motherfucker – was moving at ten miles an hour… which is at least better than his later WWE run where he was moving at 5 MPH. It just seems like of all the ways to put a feather on this whole nWo cap… we end it in pretty much the same way every Hogan feud ends in WCW.
Fear not, though; the nWo would make a couple comebacks here and there because god forbid we move on from this crap.
Yeah, so this was the last Sturgis show… mostly because of a management change than anything substantial like… ooh, I don’t know, realizing the futility of running a wrestling show at a biker rally in front of a crowd who couldn’t be bothered to give a flying fuck about the show even if their lives depended on it.
dtm666 