The Furious Flashbacks – WCW Mayhem 2000

The Furious Flashbacks – WCW Mayhem 2000

12 glorious wrasslin’ matches from Dubya-Cee-Dubya

As you were from the last recap; Halloween Havoc 2000. Most of the feuds were in a holding pattern thanks to Vince Russo’s departure with a concussion. The only real thing of note was that Scott Steiner about to be elevated into the companies #1 guy. A little late as the crowd had now stopped caring. This show did a 0.12 buyrate.

We’re in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Hosts are Fat Tony, Fat Mark and Fat Stevie.

Cruiserweight title – Mike Sanders (c) v Kwee Wee w/Paisley

So this is how low we’ve sunk folks. Mike Blanders, a guy who does exactly zero cruiserweight moves, as the cruiser champ. Not that Allen Funk is a cruiserweight wrestler anyway. The only good thing about this is the future Queen Sharmell making the best of a bad situation and attempting to get Kwee Wee over. Sanders gets frustrated in the early going and calls out the other bland guys – the Vanilla Thrillers. And somehow the ref misses Mark Jindrak hitting a flying clothesline over his head. Jindrak is like 6’ 5” for fucks sake. They run more interference allowing Jindrak/O’Haire to double biel Kwee Wee into a Sanders powerslam for 2. But Sharmell has seen enough and heads backstage to bring out MENG. Her disguise to convince him to come out is essentially a cheap afro wig, which makes her look like muthafuckin’ COFFY~! So you know I’m down with that. Meng tears into the Thrillers but gets outnumbered. Meng chokes out a few of them regardless and here comes Flair with security. Ah, WCW’s cruiserweight division. A guarantee of high flying action with minimal interference. Um. So everyone is booted bar the wrestlers and we’re back where we started. Madden’s reasoning for Paisley being allowed out here is her “very big breasts”. Stevie is more cautious, which is good considering her position as his future sister in law. Blanders with a “modified” Cobra Hold. Or a Cobra Clutch if you’re not Mark Madden. Stevie chastises him for not being able to call a match. In the ring below average action continues, which is ironic considering Sanders nickname of “above average”. Kwee Wee tries for a sunset flip to the floor but Blanders reverses into a rana, which is pretty badly executed. Paisley and her ghetto booty jump on the apron and Sanders gets slapped. Paisley with a HANDSPRING BACK ELBOW! DAYUM GIRL! I’ve never seen her bust moves like that. Sanders ignores it and finishes with the 3.0, which is the round the backbreaker that Randy Orton stole. This gets the pin at 7.50. *. Bad match covered with multiple run in’s that the referee either didn’t care about or he’s blind.

Three Count v Yung Dragons v Evan Karagias/Jamie Noble

Helms breaks out a promo pre-match having escaped from Karagias’ shadow. Tony brings up how Three Count should now be called Two Count. The Yung Dragons have Leia Meow as a valet, which is Kimona from ECW. The one good thing about Vince Russo was he knew quality poon when he saw it. Noble has dropped the Jamiesan gimmick and is now unmasked. There are no tags or organisation or even plans here. Karagias still sucks and can’t do anything. Can you believe he was AWA champion? If that belt had no prestige before then it possibly has negative prestige now. Noble v Helms has a lot of promise so it’s probably no shock that they went on to have the best careers after WCW’s closure. The Yung Dragons prove how manly they are by getting knocked off the apron by Shannon fuckin’ Moore. If Shannon Moore is beating you up then you’re a pussy. End of story. Kaz comes in to break his back but Shannon comes back with a Rocker Dropper. Yeah, selling is over rated. Helms in with the X-Plex for 2. Gutwrench suplex and Helms is showing off his moves. Diving sunset flip but Kaz rolls through and kicks Helms in the head. Its like they saw Crazy-Tajiri and liked it so much they just stole a chunk out of the match. Yang cleans house but gets picked off with a sleeper slam for 2. Yang fucked up the kickout. Evan jumps Moore and fucks up the Michinoku Driver. He just can’t do anything. Various finishers get near falls one after another my favourite being the Noble Tombstone. Everyone does dives. Ah, it IS WCW! Gotta love the ‘dives’ spot. This one has a twist. In comes Leia Meow to hit a dive off the top! Awesome. Noble gets pissed off and pulls out a ladder. They’re trying to get too much in this. Evan fucks up a ladder spot. Helms sets up a splash off Yang’s shoulders off the top rope for 2. That was ambitious. Shannon gets clattered with a crossbody for 2. Ref fucks up the count again. That’s two now. Three Count bust out a spinning Samoan Drop/neckbreaker spot and that’s enough to get it done at 10.51. **1/2. Fun match but they really crammed too much stuff into it. They had another five-eight minutes of spots crammed into those 11 minutes. That said it was brilliant compared to most of the junk that WCW was putting on at the time. It had everything including T&A. There was just too much for 11 minutes.

BACKSTAGE Bigelow jumps Awesome but misses his chair shot by about two feet. A-WOL makes the save.

Mancow Muller v Jimmy Hart

Muller cuts a profane pre-match promo at least making a point of calling Madden a “piece of shit”. Why did they have this guy on again? Hart has a cast on his leg. Mancow compares himself to George W Bush and somehow that’s a good thing. Hart clubbers Mancow with his crutch but the retards Mancow brought with him jump in there to help. Three Count run in. That didn’t even last 3 seconds before the run in’s started. And yet it’s still better than the last match they had. Mancow rips the cast off while Hart rolls around doing nothing. Then he charges into a cast shot and Mancow gets the pin at 1.38. Remarkable -*. I docked it the star for Mancow punching Hart in the buttocks after the bell rang.

BACKSTAGE Mike Awesome came so close to taking a chair shot that he’s forgotten how to talk.

ELSEWHERE the Misfits in Action debate strategy tonight. Naitch pays them a visit to chat with A-WOL.

ELSEWHERE the backstage skits continue with Lance Storm chatting to Bigelow.

ELSEWHERE Rey and Kidman get interviewed by Pam Paulshock. Billy Kidman is the whitest guy in the world.

Hardcore title – Crowbar (c) v Reno v Big Vito Lograsso

Reno having lost the title has zip. We see clips of various altercations that have lead to this match. They fuck up and start the match without Crowbar. He’s somewhat late because he has a bad wheel. Vito dominates the early going including totally no selling the kendo stick. Vito with a baseball bat, which takes out the groins of his two opponents. After three minutes he finally sells something and Reno stomps a hole in him. Hey, Crowbar hits a suplex! Wrestling in a hardcore match? Isn’t that illegal? The plunder shots continue in plodding fashion. I’m sure they feel like they’re trying hard but it’s just the same thing ad nauseum. They head backstage for more of the same. Vito gets slammed through a table and Reno is getting his second breath. Some girl called Marie runs in to get in his way. I don’t even remember what she did but it was some sort of connection to Reno. Anyway Crowbar bashes the distracted Reno with a chair and that’s it at 7.49. ½* While they didn’t do anything really wrong it was just one weapon shot after another, which is really boring to watch. It was like a Playstation game.

BACKSTAGE Buff Bagwell finds something funny.

ELSEWHERE Dallas Page and Kevin Nash chat. Nothing doing there.

ELSEWHERE Mean Gene eyeballs Miss Jones until Cat tells her the next time he looks at her like that he’ll be “eyeballin’ a foot up your ass”. Cat claims he’ll leave the country for 30 days if he loses tonight. Gene isn’t put off and hits on Miss Jones some more. Yeah, he’d now stopped caring and was just trying to get laid.

Kidman/Rey Mysterio Jr w/Tygress v Kronik/Alex Wright w/Disco Inferno

I could never keep track of the Filthy Animals. The line up seemed to change a little. Kidman & Rey are over and are still trying. Tygress also jumps around on her way out there as if she’s working for a company that’s going somewhere. I always appreciate effort. Disco has hired Kronik (because they had become an APA knock off) to kick some Animals butt. Tygress joins the commentary. She was a Nitro Girl but was a good mix with the Animals. She ended up in that girl group the Nitro Girls formed when WCW died. Disco complains to Schiavone about how much his back hurts. Don’t we have enough people on commentary? This is your standard size v speed deal. Apparently Disco could only afford Kronik for 7.31 so they’d better get a move on. I’m kinda relieved knowing I don’t have to see much more of Bryan Clark fucking stuff up. Rey really has no personality without his mask. Bischoff is an idiot. Rey gets beaten up and several times this could have been over. Tony points out how dumb Wright is for not letting Clark hit the Meltdown. Adams claims the 7.31 is up at six minutes. Cheapskate. So they leave and Wright is left in a handicap situation. When did he start that stop watch anyway? Lazy bastard. The Animals double team while the commentators attempt to all be the worst commentator ever at the same time. The Animals steal the Wassup spot from the Dudley Boyz for the pin at 7.45. *. What was the point? Kronik looked like they couldn’t be bothered and that’s not just kayfabe.

BACKSTAGE the Natural Born Killers prepare to “set it off”. No word on what “it” is.

ELSEWHERE Scott Steiner gets interview time. I notice Mean Gene doesn’t hit on Midajah. I was quite surprised she never made her way to the WWE. What with her enormous hooters.

Shane Douglas w/Torrie Wilson v Ernest Miller w/Miss Jones

Someone stupidly gives Douglas the mic and here comes another rambling promo. And why would Torrie Wilson hang around with this chump anyway? She’s never been paired up with the high card guy that could have made her a really big star. Miller, who had already done one interview, cuts another promo. Pointless. Everyone is tougher than Douglas in this company. Even Miss Jones kicks his ass on the floor. Douglas goes blatantly low. Ref ignores it. Madden is finding new ways to annoy me on commentary by selling. The match is horrible. The striking is particularly bad, especially from Douglas, and there’s minimal wrestling around it. I can understand someone like Miller being rubbish due to his inexperience but Douglas? What the fuck? He just didn’t care. Every move is sloppy. Crowd doesn’t care. Cat can’t even run the ropes right. That’s the level of incompetence in this match. Feliner should finish. Crowd is more interested in chanting for some tits. Miller is slow covering so the ladies have a fight, which is technically better than anything in the ring. Madden gets even more irritating during that screaming “yak fight” until he chokes on his own phlegm. Shane shows the chain the camera but somehow the referee misses it. Cat gets it between the eyes but his foot falls on the rope so he survives. Shane argues with the ref, which gets him rolled up for 2. Is this still going? That’s two perfectly good finishes. Shane goes for the DDT but Cat grabs the ropes. Miss Jones slips on the RED SHOE OF DOOM! Another Feliner finishes at 8.00. ¼*. Terrible. Shane Douglas was an embarrassment by this point. No wonder the WWF weren’t interested. On the upside Miss Jones dances after the match.

BACKSTAGE Jarrett bitches about how Buff broke his crappy balsawood guitar.

ELSEWHERE General Rection is interviewed. He’s taking no prisoners against those filthy Canadians! Yeah, this angle sure hauled in the big bucks huh? Lash gets popped for calling Major Gunns a bitch. So I guess she turned heel. SWERVE! “He’s finally snapped” announces Pam Paulshock, who has a PHD in bullshit.

PROMO – Glacier. Yeah, that’ll put bums in seats. Madden says it didn’t work last time, why do it again? The only crowd reaction is a few guys laughing.

Bam Bam Bigelow v Mike Awesome Sgt A-WOL

Awesome got beaten up by that dastardly phantom chair shot earlier on. Someone in the back fucks up the music cues. Bigelow declares himself the winner. Out comes Ric Flair to replace Awesome with Sgt A-WOL. Flair has a suspicion that Bigelow had a hand in Awesome’s injury, which he should do because it aired on the PPV. Doy! This match is terrible. Crowd doesn’t care. Why even bother? Bigelow is looking in the worst condition of his career. He looks sluggish and heavy. His selling is terrible and Wall is way too inexperienced to compensate. The result is another brutal one on one clash. Wall brings in a table. Bigelow doesn’t look any more motivated. Bigelow picks him off with the Greetings from Asbury Park, which the crowd isn’t thrilled about and he botches. That’s your match at 5.40. DUD.

POST MATCH Bigelow is “hurt” and needs the stretcher treatment. Crowd doesn’t buy it. I notice Tony jumps on it immediately so you know it’s an angle. Stevie Ray tries his best to make it look like a shoot by jumping in there to show concern.

BACKSTAGE Buff is interviewed to eat up some time while they take forever with this Bigelow angle. They even have time to run a tape of the Canada-MIA angle.

US title match – Lance Storm (c) v General Rection

Lance has Major Gunns in his corner. The good thing about Major Gunns, aka Tylene Buck, is she SO went into porno after wrestling. She’s now known as Brandi Wylde and does a lot of lesbian flicks. So if you grew up watching those funbags on TV you can now see them totally unfiltered. Storm gets the mic to whinge about how he’s got broken ribs and herniated discs. The Canadian National Anthem gives Bigelow time to be carted out. And of course he’s completely fine and jumps off the stretcher to attack Hugh Morrus. Crowd hates it. Ah, worked shoots. Destroy your own fanbase in 12 Russorific steps. They especially hate it because Bigelow totally dogged his match and then they ran that bullshit angle afterwards. Storm is working soft even for him aiming kicks generally in Morrus’ direction. When you have someone as naturally graceful and talented as Storm and you can’t do anything with him then that shows how much your company sucks. Storm picks off the knee and destroys it thus eliminating the moonsault. Tylene Buck stands around looking hot. Morrus attempts a comeback by swinging away wildly but Storm goes back to the knee and that’s all he needs to do. He’s still working really soft and loose, which makes both guys look bad. Tylene grabs Morrus’s leg and Storm sort of clips the knee again. Morrus tries a suplex but gets kicked in the knee and so on and so on. After five minutes of Storm just working the knee over and doing nothing else Morrus stops selling the knee. He just stops. That was the whole match. He just stops selling. Hits a powerslam and goes up top. Still no selling. Tylene crotches him on top but Morrus, not to be deterred, shrugs Storm off and just barely wings him with the moonsault for the pin at 6.23. DUD. Absolute shit. Pointless match with a terrible finish. The anticlimactic finish belittles the achievement but why spend an entire match building to one finish and then totally ignore all of it?

BACKSTAGE Mike Sanders boots Doug Dillenger and his security. He’s taking care of business himself. Doug doesn’t appear to care. The commentators stop off to plug Starrcade. Eh? FORWARD PLANNING? I bet they have no idea what the card is though.

Jeff Jarrett v Buff Bagwell

So the whole point of tonight is that Bagwell broke Jarrett’s guitar so he can’t use it. Right? Got that? Keep it in mind. Jarrett joins the line of wrestlers to cut bad promos pre-match this evening calling himself a “stupid-star” in the process. *Slow Clapping*. He tells he “came prepared”. Packet of three? Jarrett’s main event run is done and he’s back in the midcard, where he belongs. Take note TNA. This starts really slowly until Jarrett gets hip tossed over the top. They brawl around ringside. Jarrett somehow gets away with a low blow and a chair shot. Back inside the pace slows again and Jarrett uses a sleeper. That gets reversed. Like every other time a sleeper happens. Crowd is pretty much gone already. Buff makes a horrible mess of a double arm DDT, which is called by Stevie covering for Tony. Buff looks for the Blockbuster but Jarrett, who’s not stupid, just ducks. Now the crowd bites with a chant of “Jarrett sucks”. Buff with a tornado DDT for 2. Bet Chavo loved that one. Not only did you steal his finisher but it didn’t even finish the match. Ref gets bumped. Say, that’s EXACTLY what this match needed. . David Flair runs out here and DDT’s Jarrett on a chair for some reason. Tony tries to remind us what the hell is going on by pointing out Jarrett talked smack about him last week. That still only gets 2 and Buff, ever the babyface, shoves the ref over. Buff fucks the Blockbuster up and Jarrett rolls through it for 2. Buff with a horrible inverted DDT for 2. Buff threatens the ref again so Jarrett bails for the spare guitar. Buff leans out of the ring to look and Jarrett smacks him in the face for the pin at 11.09. *. Well that was slightly less terrible than the standard but I can’t help but feel that’s because they did so very little with their 11 minutes.

Tag titles – The Perfect Event (Chuck Palumbo/Shawn Stasiak) (c) v Insiders (Kevin Nash/Diamond Dallas Page)

Who thought commissioner Mike Sanders was a good idea? He’s out here to oversee something or hug Mark Madden. Who cares? This is all because the Thrillers turned on Coach Nash who’d been working with them in a funny angle that TNA has since lifted. The Thrillers are out here as WCW Security thus getting around CEO Ric Flair’s decision to have no one at ringside that didn’t have a managers licence. As green as the NBT are their worst two wrestlers are the tag champs. Crowd wants Hall. His name had been banned from even being said on the air after his latest shameful performance away from the ring. The champs waste time on the floor arguing with fans and chit-chatting with the other Thrillers. When they finally get in there they get beaten from pillar to post and then thrown out of the ring again. Everyone tries to rush the ring so out comes Flair with the real security team and the Thrillers are booted. That whole process kills about 5 minutes of air time. Sanders has paperwork to stay at ringside so he’s ok. The veteran challengers are smart enough, or perhaps lazy enough, to stay in the ring during all of this. Stasiak finally clips Page with a DDT to get some offence in. Some really average double teaming follows from the champs as they isolate DDP. Nash falls into the ring to break a pinfall. I’m only surprised he didn’t blow his quad in the process. Stasiak gets his buttocks exposed in a literal demonstration of the term “showing ass”. The heat continues on DDP. It’s been five minutes of nothing so far. Because we’re totally going formula the ref misses Nash’s hot tag. The heat rumbles on until Page hits a sleeper slam. This is way too long. They youngsters don’t have the skills to work for this long and they veterans have the easy job. Nash gets a tag and cleans house. He breaks out those sideslams and the big boots. He only has one move left so this is almost over. Powerbomb for Stasiak but Sanders pulls the ref out. DDP runs around to Diamond Cutter him and the ref is back in to count the fall because Stasiak is out of it. That’s 14.53 on the clock btw. **. They sure pulled formula on this one. Nothing particularly interesting going on but the babyfaces won so the crowd gets popped for once and they had to wait for it so it’s that much more intense as a result.

Goldberg v Lex Luger

Goldberg is in the midst of his streak again (24-0). Luger is nothing of importance these days. Therefore this is over before the bell even rings. It’s pointless having it. Luger gets in an early suplex but Goldberg completely no sells it. Luger goes to the b-plan of being exceptionally lazy. Goldberg is fully intent on selling NOTHING anyway. Luger crawls around on the mat doing nothing. It’s like a metaphor for the last decade of his career. Luger breaks out the metal forearm of doom, which Goldberg sells slightly. Madden talks about Luger staying near the ropes to avoid the spear. Luger strolls around getting even lazier so Goldberg picks him off with a powerslam. Luger drags the ref in the way of a spear but Goldberg ploughs clean through the ref and knocks Luger over as well. Jackhammer. Another ref comes in and it’s over at 5.52. ¼*. Ok for a squash. Luger sure didn’t care tonight though.

WCW title – Booker T (c) v Scott Steiner w/Midajah

This is a cage match, which has a straightjacket in it. Buffer can’t even finish his announcements before Steiner jumps Booker. He still has the belt though and smacks Steiner upside the head with it. Stevie is no longer impartial with his brother in the ring. He’s surprisingly affable as a commentator. Far better than he was a wrestler. If I could understand what he was saying he’d be pretty good. Like Taz. The cage in this thing is more like a Hell in a Cell but obviously they can’t call it that. Steiner looks a little slow in this one. His bicep kiss elbow leads to the push up’s. Sloppy backbreaker connects. The match plods on and feels like a public service film on the effects of steroid abuse. Steiner takes it up top for the super Samoan drop for 2. BORE-HUG! Booker gets out and heads up top for the missile dropkick, which he manages despite the low ceiling. Booker spies the straightjacket. Steiner wails him in the spine to stop him and throws him off the top. Steiner falls off the buckles and goes after the straightjacket, which he gets but Booker hits him with a fallaway slam. What’s the point of this jacket anyway? Booker knocks Steiner cold with a spin kick and gets obsessed with the straightjacket instead of pinning him. What a dumbshit. You see Lone Star, bad always win because good is dumb. Booker bails for a chair. He puts Steiner in the jacket and nails him a few times. The arms aren’t tied up though so it’s not doing any good. Steiner tears up the straightjacket thus making it COMPLETELY pointless. Steiner Recliner is on. Booker gets the ropes and somehow that’s a break in a match where chair shots and straightjackets are legal? Steiner recovers with an Exploder. Steiner stupidly comes off the top but lands in the Book End for 2. Booker looks shocked and again after Steiner no sells a neckbreaker. Booker with the Axe Kick and Steiner rolls into the ropes grabbing the chair. He’s really not selling much is he? Booker eats chair and the Recliner finishes by choking Booker out at 13.08. **1/4. Selling apart that was pretty good. For WCW anyway.

POST MATCH Steiner puts Booker on the shelf with chair shots to the knee and gets the biggest babyface pop of the night for laying out a referee with one for good measure.

The 411: I’ve seen worse. Two of the matches didn’t suck! I’ll take that for WCW in 2000. The crowd were out of it for the majority of the night thanks to an array of pointless midcard filler that somehow made the PPV line up. I guess someone in the back was bitching about pay off’s. I’d have clipped everything before Storm-Rection apart from the 3-way tag spotfest. As a show that would have been quite palatable and the WWE has run shows with six matches on before. Let’s face it; it wouldn’t have done that buyrate any harm.

Final Score:  3.5   [ Bad ]