You are here /wrestling
/guests
/Anderson
Guest Columns

Chris Anderson

Main

BLAH

GOOD, BAD AND UGLY FOR WCW SLAMBORRE

INTRODUCTION
We were fed a WCW PPV coming off the back of some interesting WCW developments. About a month before the New Blood had arrived on the scene to feud with the Millionaires Club (headed by Hogan). After a reasonably good Spring Stampede PPV DDP was set up as the main contender to Jeff Jarrett's world title. Over the course of the next few Nitro's and Thunder's WCW incorporated Ready To Rumble movie star David Arquette into the JJ-DDP feud. This eventually culminated in what all Online fans detested; the infamous Arquette world title reign. On Nitro the week before, Booker T was power bombed through a table by Mike Awesome, injuring him and eliminating the Scott Steiner vs. Booker T match from the show.

THE GOOD

  • Chris Candido. After a difficult start to his WCW career Candido has finally found his own. He carried The Artist to a pretty impressive opener which also saw Tammy Sytch get stripped to her underwear (she was wearing what can only be compared to grandma underwear). There were numerous highspots in the Candido-Artist match, but Candido's impressiveness was really fortified when he had to improvise after Artist blew sopt after spot. Top performance, by Candido, here.

  • Incredible bump by Kanyon. I suppose you think I'm some kind of a sadist in mentioning this, but it was a decent bump. The Mick Foley-esque bump took place after the Triple Threat cage match, after Mike Awesome had literally thrown him off the top of the cage and through the ring entrance ramp. The camera work was less than impressive though, at this point, when the camera men caught the spot on a bad angle.

  • Triple Cage match I'll admit to having thought this one would be a pretty bad idea. The mere thought of it having originated from the Ready To Rumble flop made me turn off from the idea. Thankfully I was wrong. We ended up witnessing a *** brawl which definitely had its interesting moments. There were ladders and tables in the cage. The ladders were needed to climb up to the second cage. That cage had tables, chairs, garbage cans, and other worldly items in it; they called it the hard-core cage. The top cage was a little job with several guitars in it. Well Jarrett won in the end after Arquette turned heel. Looks like another pointless Jarrett title reign.

    THE BAD

  • Jarrett's title reign. I'm sorry but this is just a plain bad idea. I do not think Jeff's the man to carry the promotion, but then again is DDP? If I were WCW I would strongly think about putting the title around the waist of someone like Sting, Ric Flair or Goldberg. At least then you know you've got it round the waist of a company man, who can possible bring back the prestige that the world title so justly deserves. At least Jarrett won it in a decent match.

  • The Artist. Many people have ripped this guy a new asshole recently, and rightly so. The gimmick sucks and he's got limited wrestling talent. This was evident in his crusierweight title match against Chris Candido, when he blew spot after spot. I fthey insist on promoting the Artist as a possible crusierweight champion for godsake give him a new gimmick!

    THE UGLY

  • Ralphus I'm opting for one person here. Needless to say this guy almost makes you sick every time he's on screen, but I suppose that's his gimmick. This time he came back to side with Norman Smiley in a hard-core match and against the hard-core legend Terry Funk. Need I say more?

    THE TOP PERFORMERS

    1. Mike Awesome - Making leaps of progress since arriving from ECW.
    2. Kanyon - He's hard-core, he's hard-core. But don't forget his good match against the aforementioned Mike Awesome.
    3. Chris Candido - Great wrestling ability. Should start making real progress with his new role in the New Blood.

    THE RATINGS

    This is what I thought of all the matches, ranked from top to bottom.

    1. DDP vs. Jeff Jarrett vs. David Arquette - ***
    2. Chris Candido vs. The Artist - ***
    3. Mike Awesome vs. Kanyon - **3/4
    4. Ric Flair vs. Shane Douglas - **3/4
    5. Shawn Stasiak vs. Curt Henning - **1/2
    6. Sting vs. Vampiro - **1/2
    7. Hulk Hogan vs. Kidman - **1/2
    8. Terry Funk vs. Noman Smiley and Ralphus - *
    9. Lex Luger vs. Buff Bagwell - DUD
    10. Scott Stenier vs. Hugn Morrus - DUD

    THE BOTTOM LINES

    Two three star matches isn't all that bad for a WCW PPV of late. But there is no excuse for some really bad performances and two DUD (including the US championship match). Hulk Hogan was carried to his best match for three years. Thanks to another dodgy title change by WCW, Scott Stenier really isn't doing the US Championship any justice. I'm sorry Mr Russo but renaming someone Hugh G Rection just isn't going to cut it all in the PPV world.

    Overall Show Rating: **

    Chris Anderson
    freelance

    Mail the Author

  • BLAH

    Main

    Design copyright (C) 1999, 2000 Christopher Robin Zimmerman & KZiM Communications
    Guest column text copyright (C) 2000 by the individual author and used with permission