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BENOIT: THE ECSTASY AND THE AGONY

Chris Benoit reached the top of the mountain Sunday night.

On Monday, he did a flying head butt off the top of it and hit bottom.

Benoit won the WCW world heavyweight championship Sunday night at Souled Out, outlasting Sid Vicious in an all-babyface main event. Souled Out was decimated as Bret Hart and Jeff Jarrett were sidelined with concussions. Regarded by many as the best talent in WCW (at least by us internet smarks), Benoit picked up the pieces. He even carried Sid to a decent match.

Naturally, there was more to this than meets the eye. There always is with WCW. As everybody knows by now, Vince Russo was ousted last Friday as creative director after he couldn't get done in three months what he was given at least six months to do. Does Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder secretly own WCW?

Russo's ouster led to Kevin Sullivan and Kevin Nash being put in charge again. Benoit lives with Sullivan's ex-wife Nancy. Benoit has real heat with Sullivan, duh. Lots of the younger wrestlers have heat with Sullivan, so they told head honcho Bill Busch they wanted out if Sullivan was going to be Bookerman (I know you're looking down from wrestling heaven, Brian Pillman).

So the deal seems to be that they gave Benoit the title to placate him and keep him from jumping ship. Benoit basically said thanks but no thanks. And it seemed that Sid had his foot under the ropes when he tapped out to the crippler crossface.

They had all angles covered on this one. Arn Anderson, who was the special referee, made a low-key shoot speech on Nitro where he said in so many words that he marked out on the match and forgot he was the referee. His call was wrong. What made it funny was how they played it straight. A Dusty finish a day late. Yes! Hey, WCW, while you're at it, how about reviewing the match where Nash screwed Bill Goldberg out of the title thanks to Scott Hall's taser? That's it! I just figured out how to bring WCW back from the bottom. Put that belt back on Goldberg. He's the most over performer they've got. Heck, he was the most over wrestler Monday night and he wasn't even there!

The upshot is that the title was declared vacant. New "Commissioner" Nash declared that we would have to watch Thunder on Wednesday to find out how the title would be decided. Well, Big Sexy just awarded to himself. Sort of. Sid will wrestle someone of Nash's choosing next Monday IF he beats Jarrett. Nash chose - himself. Sigh. Does anyone think Nash isn't going to put himself over Sid next Monday?

You know, WCW is just a mess. However, that didn't stop me from enjoying Nitro. After all, my new favorite heel, Stevie Ray was on.

I think it's safe to say that Billy Kidman isn't going anywhere. The announcers put him over like he was the second coming of The Rock. He had a pretty good match with Psychosis, too. Psychosis seemed to be in control and then he went to powerbomb Kidman. I think you know how that turned out. Damn it, they never put Stevie Ray over!

That was nice seeing the Harris brothers in suits again. And I think that was a REAL office Nash and his NW0 cronies walked into.

Gene Mean had Booker T and Midnight out for a promo. Mike Tenay wanted so bad to say "Ahmed Johnson" in noting that Big T is "no stranger to professional wrestling." Sure enough, Not Ahmed and Stevie Ray came out to issue another challenge. Like him or not, Stevie is a heat machine. At least the guys at DDT Digest are marks for him.

That was hilarious when Stevie made fun of Tenay's choices in clothing. Anyhow, Booker faced Not Ahmed in an impromptu match. Gee, I wondered if Not Ahmed had a slapjack in his fanny pack. Why didn't the referee search him? Well, he did and ended up braining Booker with it while Stevie Ray distracted the referee. There were some nice spots in the match with Not Ahmed hitting a jarring powerbomb and Booker nailing a rock bottom. Stevie let Booker know he doesn't have street smarts. Funny stuff.

Vampiro faced Disco Inferno in a match that saw both guys draw big time heat, Vampiro as a babyface and Disco as the heel. I think Disco's heat was due to the Mafia guys accompanying him. Vampiro went over with the nail in the coffin. Disco had blown a top rope maneuver because he spent too much time shaking his hips. That led to a disgusted Johnny the Bull and Vito tossing him back into the ring to his demise. Not a bad segment.

That was a goofy little segment in the back when Scott Steiner said something about wanting to play "twister" with the girls. "Nothing sexist, Scotty," Nash said.

Tenay was at his absolute best when Three Count did their Backstreet Boys crap. "God, this lame!" Tenay said. When Tony Schiavone sold that he liked their act, Tenay stepped it another notch, saying, "You like this bubble gum nonsense?" That was great and Tenay succeeded in putting over Three Count as heels.

Then it was time for some overbooking. Let me say this first. The other two guys beside Evan in Three Count have got some talent. They looked like the Hardy Boys against David Flair and Devon Storm, who is a superb talent himself. It was a fine match until the Three L's (Lenny, Lodi and Legs) came down to confront David's girlfriend Daffney. That got David distracted and left Devon being double-teamed. But the tag team champs eventually prevailed. After the match, Three Count did their dance routine while selling the injuries they suffered in the match. That was extremely funny.

Out came the unover Maestro and I was wondering why. Then Tank Abbott came out and I got the picture. Another one-punch knockout. "The night the music died!" said Bobby Heenan, in a witty takeoff of the old Don McLean song. I just want to see Meng no sell an Abbott punch. They teased an angle between them after the match.

Then it was time for Nash to give his big speech to supposedly the whole WCW roster. The only one of this cast of mid-carders and jobbers to get a pop was Jim Duggan. A couple of years ago, Nash in an interview about Duggan, "Say what you want about him. He stays over."

Nash alternated between comedy and old-school heel. He called out to the "sea of underachievers in the ring." Then he mentioned one of his old gimmicks. "I feel like Oz up here!" he said. But when a Goldberg chant started, Nash said angrily, "You keep that up and I'll fire the son of a bitch." He gave Jarrett the U.S. title back.

Big Sexy laid down some rules, one of which was "no more illegal substances in the locker room." Did he mean roids? He actually said Viagra and pointed the finger at Lex Luger. He added heat to the DDP-Buff Bagwell angle by saying, "Buff, I got to know. You doing Kim or what?" He went on to say that Kimberly would be the special ref in a match between her hubby and Bagwell. Okay by me!

Next up was the Varsity Club against Masa Chono and Jeff Farmer (Super J, whatever). Mike Rotunda and Rick Steiner got the cheap heat by making fun of Ohio State. Did I hear Steiner call the fans "buttnuts?" The match itself was plodding. It looked to me like no one was calling the match. Chono got the pin on Rotunda but it just seemed clumsy. These guys are capable of better matches.

It's getting late and they bring The Wall out for a match right before the main event. The wall is what I call a double no - no talent, no heat. Yet he served a purpose - to get squashed by Sid. While that was going on, Nash mentioned his Vinnie Vegas gimmick to the Mafia boys. Then he told them to go out and get powerbombed by Sid. Actually he told them to beat up Sid. Sure. Sid got a huge pop when he powerbombed Johnny the Bull and Big Vito. That's the second time in one evening that those guys caused a big pop. They might have some potential. Disco was smart enough to get out of the way.

Of course they had to bring out Michigan alumnus Scott Steiner to cut a cheap heat promo on the Buckeye fans. He ended by punking a planted "fan" at ringside. The guy even bladed! Steiner was EXTREMELY over as a heel.

The Bam Bam Bigelow-Luger match had its moments. Triple B was about to piledrive Luger when Kanyon ran in. Yep, Luger ended up busting the champagne bottle on Triple B's noggin to set up the win. That was pretty funny, too.

I've got to say that Diamond Dallas Page and Buff Bagwell have great chemistry in the ring. They need to keep this angle going as long as they can. Once again they put on a great show and Kim teased a heel turn before ultimately causing DDP to win. I can foresee at some point Kim turning on DDP to keep this angle hot. By the way, Kim sure did look hot!

Hopefully, there will be some wrestlers remaining in WCW by next Monday

Mr. Mean
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