Burning Hammer Tape Review #18

CellJr300 On

WCW: SuperBrawl IX
February 21, 1999

--Taped from Oakland, CA

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

--Disco Inferno V. Booker T. This was during Disco's run with the NWO Wolfpac, and was the beginning of his "I'm Cool" phase that would last all the way till the demise of WCW. Disco hits a Running Swinging Neckbreaker, and my God, Sno must be creaming his pants, because the entire arena just gave Disco one massive pop. Disco with a Manhattan Drop, but he gets caught coming off the middle-rope and Booker turns it into a giant Spinebuster. Booker gets the pin at 9:19 with the Harlem Hangover (Somersault Legdrop off the top-rope.) ***1/2 Fast paced, and super hot opener. Both men worked very quick & crisp here, and a good match resulted.

--Chris Jericho (W/Ralphus) V. Perry Saturn. Due to a previous match, Saturn is wearing a dress in this match, and due to no reason that I can think of, Ralphus is doing the same. Saturn hits Jericho with a Plancha, but then makes the mistake of assaulting the crowd favorite Ralphus, and this results in the crowd turning their ire towards Saturn for awhile. Crossbody by Jericho, but Saturn deftly rolls through and locks on the Rings Of Saturn, but Jericho makes the ropes. Jericho gets the disqualification win at 10:41 when Saturn gives referee Scott Dickinson a Death Valley Driver for no discernable reason. ** Match never really clicked, and the ending was incredibly stupid. Saturn attacking the ref & throwing the match made no sense whatsoever, and made the entire match meaningless.

--WCW Cruiserweight Championship Match: Chavo Guerrero Jr. V. Kidman. Chavo hits a Brainbuster, called a combination Suplex/Brainbuster by Tony "I don't know shit about moves" Schiavone, for 2. Chavo nails Kidman with a psychotic Tope Con Hilo, getting insane amounts of hang time on it. Kidman blocks a Chavo Frog Splash with a SWEET~ Dropkick to the gut. Chavo hits a wicked stiff DDT while he's standing on the ground and Kidman is straddling the top-rope. Kidman gets the pin at 8:26 with a Shooting Star Press. **1/2 Decent, albeit iffy, match. Both men are capable of much more then the "spot, rest, spot" style that they employed in this match.

--WCW Tag Team Championship Tournament, Final Round 1st Match: Curt Hennig, Barry Windham V. Chris Benoit, Dean Malenko. This would be the finals of a double-elimination tournament for the vacant WCW Tag Team Championship, but Windham & Hennig are undefeated, so Benoit & Malenko have to beat them here to force a decisive final match. Windham hits his SWANK~ Floatover Superplex on Benoit, but he only gets 2 out of it. Malenko gets the submission & forces a deciding match at 19:35 with the Texas Cloverleaf. ** Nice basic wrestling, but in an incredibly slow, tedious, and overly methodical style.

--WCW Tag Team Championship Tournament, Final Round 2nd Match: Curt Hennig, Barry Windham V. Chris Benoit, Dean Malenko. This would be that deciding match alluded to in the previous match, and it starts after a brief thirty second rest period following match number one. Windham gets the pin & the titles at 0:32 on Malenko while choking him out with his belt. DUD Pointless match after having the previous one go so long, but that's WCW booking for you.

--Hair Versus Mask Match: Outsiders (W/Lex Luger & Elizabeth) V. Rey Mysterio Jr., Konnan. If the Outsiders win, then WCW continues it's stupid trend of unmasking Luchadores, because Mysterio will have to unmask. If Mysterio & Konnan win, then Elizabeth has to shave off her hair, and not surprisingly the result of the match was never in question. SWANK~ double team move, as Konnan lays down & delivers a Monkey Flip to a running Mysterio, which catapults him into Nash in the corner. Nash gets the pin on Mysterio to cost him his mask at 11:00 after Hall planted Mysterio with the Razor's Edge. ** Your basic big man/little man stuff, with Hall & Nash actually selling a lot of Mysterio's offense. Post-match Mysterio unmasks and looks like he's about 14 years old. Why WCW felt the need to go against years of Lucha tradition and unmask guys like Mysterio, Juventud Guerrera, & Psychosis in what were essentially meaningless matches that were forgotten less than a week after occurring I'll never know. For me, WCW's abuse of the Luchadores in this regard was one of the stupidest things they ever did.

--WCW Television Championship Match: Diamond Dallas Page V. Scott Steiner. Buff Bagwell makes an appearance, something you know can never mean any good for a match, and assists Steiner in various ways until the ref orders him to the back. Steiner gets the submission at 13:54 with the Steiner Recliner when DDP passes out. 3/4* I do believe that DDP holds the world record for passing out while in submission holds, the guy never tapped out. Bad match, with lots of stalling and zero good psychology. I've also come to the conclusion that Steiner has no clue whatsoever as to what area of the body his Steiner Recliner is supposed to affect. First he worked over DDP's neck, then he decided to really work over DDP's back. To add further credence to this, they take away DDP on a stretcher, in a neck brace, so not even the ambulance workers know what part of the body the Steiner Recliner is supposed to affect.

--WCW United States Championship Match: Scott Hall (W/Disco Inferno) V. Roddy Piper. Keep in mind that WCW replaced a potentially really good Bret Hart/Chris Benoit match-up for the WCW United States Championship with this pairing, let's see how that decision holds up. Kevin Nash comes down to interfere, and it takes Piper three tries to connect with a kick to the ring rope that Nash is tangled in. Hall gets the pin and the title at 8:21 with a Rollup while his feet were on the ropes. -* Terrible, terrible match, and I can easily see why they chose this over Hart/Benoit. Piper was a spry 80 years old for this match, and it showed, with him being off the mark for every second of the match.

--Bam Bam Bigelow V. Goldberg. The announcers are in the middle of expounding how tough, and how much of a bad ass Goldberg is, so how does WCW's crack production team respond to this? They pan to, and linger on, a sign in the crowd with a picture of a laughing Goldberg being licked by a cat (not the wrestler), and it reads: Goldberg kind to animals. Yeah, that totally screams, "I'm Goldberg, and I'm a tough guy bad ass." Goldberg gives Bigelow a Fireman's Carry into the worst Cross Armbreaker I've ever seen. I don't know how exactly that was supposed to hurt Bigelow, and to all those idiots who think of Goldberg as some kind of legitimate fighter, I point to this terribly applied submission move as further proof of the fact that he is not. Goldberg gets the pin at 11:34 with a Jackhammer Suplex. 1/2* Basic, albeit longer, Goldberg match.

--WCW Heavyweight Championship Match: Ric Flair V. Hulk Hogan. The yet to be named Torrie Wilson saunters down to ringside and does absolutely nothing of any note. Ref bump allows a masked man to come down and stun Flair with a taser, which in turn allows Hogan to cover for the pin at 12:01. -* This was another terrible match, and was virtually every Flair/Hogan match ever, with Hogan being on the offensive for almost the entire match, and using Flair as his whipping boy at will. All of this resulted into what was essentially a really long squash match. Post-match the masked man is revealed to be David Flair, which is a shock to no one, you could hear a lot of people yelling out "It's David Flair" as he walked to ringside.

--Final Flash: Boy did this show sure go downhill after that opening match. A terrible show that was emblematic of everything that was wrong with WCW at the time.

Not Recommended

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