Category: WCW PPV Musings

WCW Halloween Havoc 2000 is the only full show that I have from my original PPV tapings during 2000s… because I used to get all the PPVs and I’d put them on tape and unfortunately, very few of those survived. One of those being Halloween Havoc 2000… Halloween Havoc 2000 was a show taking place during the dying days of WCW. I’m not quite sure if Vince Russo was still writing the shows at this point, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he did.

Anyway, my hopes aren’t high for this show, because my recollections of WCW from this time frame are thankfully few and far between. Because WCW, during its dying days, was hard to watch. It was the classic example of writing that threw shit on the wall and went with what stuck. And it would be a fairly safe bet that my only viewings of WCW around that time were the PPVs that either I or a friend would tape and pass it along to each other to share the torture, as it were. The only time I tuned in to Nitro was when the show was cancelled.

But alas, that’s another story. Onwards to Halloween Havoc.

Continue reading “WCW Halloween Havoc 2000”

WARNING: The following post contains mentions of Chris Benoit. Discretion is advised.

WCW Souled Out 2000 opens with the typical WCW signature video that had opened many WCW programs since mid-1999 and from there, instead of an opening video montage detailing the card for the program, we go straight to the arena shot and pyro, where announcer Tony Schiavone welcomes us to the first WCW Pay-Per-View event of the 21st century. And we begin with about five minutes worth of recaps. This is the sign of a program that has been rewritten (almost literally) at the last second, which might be the norm for WCW, but the reasons here are far more grave than the typical excuse of nobody having a clue as to what the show’s about.

The original card for Souled Out was to feature Bret Hart defending the WCW World Heavyweight title against Sid Vicious and Jeff Jarrett defending the US title against Chris Benoit. Of course, with Bret suffering from a concussion that would end his wrestling career and Jarrett also saddled with injuries that forced him out of action for the short term, WCW was forced at the last second to rebook the top of the card. And that’s how we ended up with the main event of Sid vs. Benoit for the vacant World title.

Going into this viewing, I had not seen the PPV in years; more than likely since its original airing back in 2000. However, one thing I remember was that in the weekend of the show, I’d watch the PPV preview channel and I’d distinctly recall a card that would pop up and announce that Bret Hart would not compete and the main event was going to be Sid vs. Benoit for the World title. Whether that was a WCW thing or a Viewer’s Choice thing, I thought that was a cool bit for them to update the card so that fans would not have false expectations. It is generally a rule of thumb to not mention these things until the show is taking place. So, this forward thinking is actually a surprising gesture. Whether it’d helped or hurt the buyrate… I’m probably the wrong guy to ask about that.

Anyway… on with the show… as it were…

Continue reading “WCW Souled Out 2000 – The Exodus”

So here’s the other WCW PPV show that I still have from the “old” days of VHS to DVD conversions; the 1999 iteration of the Bash At The Beach. My memory of the event is a bit fuzzy; the only thing I recall is that one of the matches took place in a junkyard… well, sounds like a good place for a WCW event in 1999, amirite?

Why am I writing “amirite” now?

Bash At The Beach was known for many things in its short history; it’s the event where Hulk Hogan would beat Ric Flair for the WCW World Title in his first WCW match. It’s the event where Hogan would turn heel and planted the seeds for the birth of the nWo. It’s the event where Vince Russo would cut his scathing promo on Hogan that planted the seeds for a lawsuit. It’s the event where… where a bunch of guy would fight in a junkyard in a hardcore invitation match for a crappy trophy.

Because, sure… why not?

Continue reading “WCW Bash At The Beach 1999”

San Francisco, CA – Feb. 22, 1998

I’ve got this on VHS, so I’m fairly certain this is the most complete version I’ll be watching unless there’s one floating around online that I’m unaware of. In any case, this is two months after Starrcade where Sting and Hogan locked horns in a clusterfuck of a match and Sting won the big one in dubious fashion… except he didn’t because shortly after, the World title was held up and so this show is where the rematch is taking place… everyone got that?

Yeah, me neither.

Continue reading “WCW Superbrawl VIII”

On tap for the Network, it’s a WCW Pay-Per-View from 1995. Superbrawl V… wait a minute. A WCW Pay-Per-View from 1995? That could only mean… oh no.

For those with no context to what I’m talking about, Hulk Hogan signed with WCW in 1994 and in his very first WCW match, beat Ric Flair for the WCW World Title. He’d continue to feud with Flair for a couple months before the Nature Boy was “retired” for a couple months. By the time we got to Starrcade, Hulk Hogan was defending the World Title against his BFF, Ed Leslie… it went over about as well as you’d expect.

Superbrawl V sounds promising, though. Hogan’s going up against Big Van Vader, the big guy who tore off Cactus Jack’s ear, the guy who dominated WCW for the better part of 1993, the guy who had been involved with an awesome feud. Surely, WCW couldn’t possibly fuck this up, could they?

Well, WCW isn’t around anymore… are they?

Continue reading “WCW Superbrawl V (1995)”

Quick Note: The following musing was written prior to the whole Hulk Hogan racial controversy, so don’t expect anything touching that particular subject. Believe me, there are a lot of other ugly aspects to Hogan as a human being that we can spotlight instead.

From December 1994, the 11th edition of WCW’s “Granddaddy of Them All” features Hulk Hogan defending his WCW World Heavyweight Championship against the Butcher! The Butcher is perhaps best known as Brutus Beefcake in WWF and also for being Hogan’s BFF. Thanks to the WWE Network, I am getting to watch this show in its entirely for the first time. I’ve heard of this show, I’ve read about this show, and now I get to watch this show…

And instantly regret it.

Continue reading “WCW Starrcade 1994”

The 1991 edition of the Great American Bash is often summed up with three words: WE. WANT. FLAIR.

The first WCW Pay-Per-View event to follow Ric Flair’s unceremonious dismissal from World Championship Wrestling, GAB ’91 is often referred to as the Flair Protest Show, where the crowd would piss on the entire event, especially the one match for the vacant World Title. While I’ve certainly heard of this show, I’ve obviously never seen it due to not having followed WCW (or any wrestling, for that matter) in the early-1990s.

Thanks to the magic of WWE Network, I am able to finally catch this once mythical pay-per-view event… and undoubtedly regret doing so… but hey, it’s one more show off the bucket list, I suppose.

Continue reading “WCW Great American Bash 1991”

Look, the only reason there’s even a blog post regarding this is because it popped up on the WWE Network and it’s a WCW Pay-Per-View event from 1998… oh, and it also featured Jay Leno in the main event. Yes, kids. That Jay Leno. The one formerly of the Tonight Show. The one with the chin.

WCW was at that weird point in 1998 where, after a year and a half of ratings dominance in the Monday Night Wars ™, they were faced with stiff competition from a resurgent WWF. Despite having a super popular superstar in form of Goldberg (in the midst of his legendary win streak), WCW felt they needed more “starpower”. So they bring in guys like Dennis Rodman and Carl Malone to do a match at their Bash At The Beach PPV… which I barely remember because it’s been ages. And then, we get to this show… the one with Jay Leno.

For the most part, you bring up Road Wild ’98 to anyone well versed in wrestling and they’ll usually tell you that it’s that show in Sturgis with all the bikers where Jay Leno wrestled Hulk Hogan. That one bit is the only defining aspect of this one show. And perhaps it’s for the best because the rest of the show?

Meh… it’s pretty bad.

Continue reading “WCW Road Wild ’98 – The One With Jay Leno”

So I’ve recently popped in a VHS tape of WCW Uncensored ’95 – because why the hell not? – and decided to do a quick musing of this show. Not necessarily a review or a report, but rather some ramblings and thoughts.

The recurring concept of Uncensored was that it was an event that, in storylines, the (fictional) WCW Board of Directors had washed their hands of. Thus, each match on the card was ostensibly “unsanctioned”, meaning they were not subject to the normal rules of WCW-sanctioned wrestling matches. Of course, in reality, it was a normally-booked WCW show, albeit one with a tendency to feature more “gimmick” matches than usual. This notion, however, was downplayed during the last few years that it was part of the WCW PPV schedule.

Most folks may recall the Doomsday Cage match thing at Uncensored 96 which featured Hulk Hogan and the Macho Man overcoming the odds and defeating eight guys in a single match… a rather atrocious match that would have the final nail in the coffin for the revived Hulkamania before the nWo came along and gave Hogan’s career a much needed shot in the balls… sorry, poor choice of words.

But this is the 1995 edition of WCW Uncensored… the original show under this label.

I never saw the PPV during its original airing, as I didn’t get into wrestling until the late-90s. However, during the early 2000s, there was a shop selling video tapes and DVD of various things… and the shop had a number of retail tapes from WWF and a couple WCW tapes when they were made available. So that’s how I got my grubby little mits on this thing, along with a couple other tapes along the way.

So, yeah, on with the show…

Continue reading “WCW Uncensored ’95”

I recently came across a blog post somewhere in which the author had done a recap/review of the 1997 PPV event, nWo Souled Out. nWo Souled Out was the first and only PPV event promoted by the nWo and was a different kind of beast compared to what the WWF or WCW were offering at the time. Reading this review had prompted me to do my own little reflection on the show.

I never saw the show “live” during its original 1997 airing. At the time, I was not yet into wrestling as much as I would eventually become a year later when the WWF Attitude era was in full force. However, I did dabble a bit in the weekly WCW Saturday Night that would air on one of the local channels (forget which one) and it’s usually through that I usually get into the storylines. So I knew about the nWo and the Hogan heel turn and the Outsiders and whatnot… while mostly oblivious to what was going on in McWrestling Land. When I heard of an nWo-promoted PPV, my wheels were turning a bit. The most I got was the pre-show; no PPV purchasing powers at the time or even a descrambler box.

So I would not bare witness to Souled Out until a year or so ago when someone got me a copy of the show. Now I have read that this show wasn’t any good; it was different but not quite good and not worth the effort in tracking down. Despite this, however, I always had a vested interest in watching this show. So with copy on hand, I plopped the show onto my DVD player and began watching the show. What follows are some points and thoughts that occur throughout the show – don’t expect any indepth analyses or anything of that nature. Just good old fashioned rambling.

Continue reading “nWo Souled Out (1997)”