Burning Hammer Tape Review #15

CellJr300 On

WCW: Fall Brawl 1998
September 13, 1998

--Taped from Winston-Salem, NC

--Your hosts are Bobby Heenan, Mike Tenay, & Tony Schiavone

--Disco Inferno, Alex Wright V. British Bulldog, Jim Neidhart. Bulldog messes up a Hot Shot, dropping Disco face first on the middle-rope in a vicious manner. Bulldog gets the pin on Disco at 11:54 with a Running Powerslam, although Bulldog must have forgotten to the hit the roids before the match, since it took him three tries before he finally got Disco up and in position for the move. 1Ú2* Bad wrestling, that dragged on far too long.

--WCW Television Championship Match: Bill Goldberg II V. Chris Jericho. Goldberg II is a freakishly large midget that looks exactly like the real Goldberg. Jericho gets the submission win at 1:16 with the Torture Crab Hold. DUD I guess this was supposed to be a comedy match, but it wasn't all that comical.

--Norman Smiley V. Cat. The Cat is Ernest Miller in the one and only gimmick that he's used for his entire awful career. Cat gets the pin at 5:05 with a Feliner (Spinning Straight Kick.) 1Ú4* Now, this was a comedy match, as Cat brought the laughter with his comically bad offense, psychology, and selling.

--Scott Steiner (W/Buff Bagwell) V. Rick Steiner. Rick rams Bagwell into the turnbuckle, and he lays there for a awhile until the match is declared a no-contest at 5:40 so that he can be attended to. 1Ú2* Not really a match, nothing they did mattered, since everyone was just waiting around for the injury to occur, although the first couple of minutes were good, but I doubt they would have been able to keep up that pace for much longer. They take a long time getting Bagwell onto a stretcher, and then loading him into an ambulance, only to have Bagwell immediately jump out of the ambulance and attack Rick. Stupid shit like this is why people never take it seriously when a wrestler does actually get hurt.

--WCW Cruiserweight Championship Match: Silver King V. Juventud Guerrera. King is currently wrestling as Black Tiger III, and is the real life brother of Dr. Wagner Jr., and son of the original Dr. Wagner, while Guerrera is the son of Fuerza Guerrera. Despite being a good wrestler, and a wrestler that I personally like, Juventud looks more like a woman than some women that I know. Nice variation of the Faceplant/Dropkick spot, when this time King lifts up Guerrera like he's going for a Faceplant, and instead of the usual spot where Guerrera would Dropkick King on the way down, this time King Dropkicks Guerrera as he's falling down, which is something I haven't seen done much. King hits a SWEET~ Superkick for a 2 count. Guerrera hits a SWANK~ middle-rope Inverted Frankensteiner for 2. Guerrera gets the pin at 8:36 with a 450 Splash. **1Ú2 Some nice action, but both guys were a little off the mark, and the match meandered at certain points.

--Raven's Rules Match: Raven (W/Flock) V. Saturn. Raven's Rules is just another way of calling this a no disqualification match. Flock in this match consists of Lodi, and Kanyon, who is handcuffed to the ringpost for some reason. Rolling Russians by Raven, he stops at two, and only gets a 2 count. The rest of the Flock- Horace, Riggs, Sick Boy, & Kidman- bring a table to ringside. Kidman turns on Raven, nailing him with a Missile Dropkick, which allows Saturn to hit Raven with a Death Valley Driver, but it only gets 2. Ref bump allows Kanyon to steal the keys and uncuff himself & hit Saturn with a Novacaine, but Raven only gets 2 from it. Saturn gets the pin at 14:03 with a Death Valley Driver. *3Ú4 There was a good match going on, but once the Flock got involved it degenerated into a mess.

--Curt Hennig (W/Rick Rude) V. Dean Malenko. Malenko gets the win via disqualification at 7:38 after Rude attacked Malenko to break up a Fisherman's Suplex attempt by Malenko. *1Ú2 The DQ ending completely ruined any chance of this match being good. Malenko spent the entire match working over Hennig's knee, but all that work was rendered meaningless thanks to the DQ ending.

--Scott Hall (W/Vincent) V. Konnan. Vincent is a career jobber who had one memorable stint in the WWF as Virgil. This was during Hall's drunken gimmick, but I'm pretty sure he'd been a drunk in real life for quite some time already. Konnan gets the submission at 12:02 with the Zip Lock. DUD Match was nothing but stalling, and one resthold after another.

--War Games Match: War Games is two rings side-by-side, and they're covered by one big cage. Some stupid rules changes this year for this edition of War Games, the match can end at any time, instead of at the end like all other War Games. The match can end via either pinfall or submission, unlike previous War Games where it could only end by submission, and instead of there being two teams competing against each other, this time it's nine people who are competing against each other, and all of those new rules practically guarantee this edition will suck. Two men start the match, and five minutes later a 3rd man will enter the match, and two minutes after that another man will enter the match, and so on, and so on, until all nine men are in the cage, or the match has ended. Despite it being everyone for themselves, the nine men have been broken down into three teams of three men each, Kevin Nash, Sting, & Lex Luger are representing the NWO Wolfpac. Hulk Hogan, Stevie Ray, & Bret Hart are representing NWO Black & White. Diamond Dallas Page, Roddy Piper, and Warrior are representing WCW. Warrior is in fact the former Ultimate Warrior from the WWF, except now what little skills he had are gone and his body is now old and deteriorated, which means he should fit right in with Nash, Luger, Hogan, & Piper. Diamond Dallas Page is #1, and Bret Hart is #2, and one would guess that they are starting things off because they along with Sting are the only three guys in the match who can go longer than five minutes. Stevie Ray is #3. Sting is #4, and he adds some much needed energy to the match by flying all over the ring, but unfortunately it doesn't last long. Roddy Piper is #5. Lex Luger is #6. Kevin Nash is #7. Hulk Hogan is #8, and he enters the match about a minute and a half earlier than he was supposed to. Hogan knocks out everyone with Ray's stupid Slapjack, but a bunch of shit with smoke starts happening, and eventually Warrior comes down at #9. Hogan & Warrior fight to the back. Page wins the match at 20:06 when he gets the pin on Ray with a Diamond Cutter. 1Ú4* About as bad of a War Games as you can get. There was no blood, no violence, and really fucked up rules, which made this the antithesis of what War Games is supposed to be.

--Final Flash: Terrible show, with not one redeeming match, or segment in the entire show.

Not Recommended

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