The Furious Flashbacks – WCW Uncensored 2000

The Furious Flashbacks – WCW Uncensored 2000

Uncensored totally justifies its reputation as worst PPV of the year

Since the last PPV there wasn’t a lot going on with WCW. For once the upheaval was fairly low key. But that was part of the problem now. Nothing was happening in WCW. It was a rudderless ship. Even Brad Siegel decided it was time for an enormous overhaul. After watching Uncensored and seeing the numbers that show did (0.13 buyrate – one of the worst buyrates of all time) he made the decision to bring back the duo of Eric Bischoff and Vince Russo. In theory it’s a fine idea. Russo was a great ideas man and Bischoff had a good track record of success in the Vince McMahon ‘absolute power’ mould. Uncensored by this point had such a stigma attached to it that WCW fans would tune in to see just how bad a PPV WCW could put out. Uncensored was usually up there for “worst PPV of the year” year in, year out. Uncensored began in 1995 with Randy Savage winning a no DQ match on, you guessed it, DQ and several matches, including the main event dipping into negative stars. Uncensored ’96 was as bad with DDP jobbing to the frickin’ Booty Man and Hogan & Savage taking on pretty much every other heel on the roster. Uncensored ’97 is one of those weird exceptions to the rule. Back to the rule in ’98 with Hogan-Savage stumbling around in a cage. ’99 actually didn’t suck as I reviewed it recently. But generally the rule of thumb for Uncensored is the PPV would usually be bad. I suspect most of the 0.13 buyrate for 2000 was PPV recappers and sadists. The choice of venue for 2000 was the American Airlines Arena in Miami. The venue had only opened in December of the previous year and held nearly 20,000 people. WCW managed to just about quarter fill it although I suspect heavy papering to get the numbers up to 5,000. The card for this shindig; Hogan v Flair (AGAIN), Sid v Jeff Jarrett, Sting v Lex Luger (AGAIN), Dustin Rhodes v Terry Funk and the Mamalukes defending their tag titles against, *shudder*, the Harris Brothers.

I offer no apologies; this show is going to completely suck. I’ll see if I can get a few laughs out of it. We’re in Miami, Florida. Hosts are Tony Schiavone, Mike Tenay & Mark Madden.

I’m joined in the PBP, for the first few matches at least, by a slightly drunken Redje. For those who don’t know him imagine a really charismatic politically incorrect Jim Neidhart. Only politely applauding Blake Norton instead of stomping on his face and laughing. I must thank Blake for a good Jim Neidhart story because I’m still getting mileage out of it. And all I had to do to get it was get punched in the balls by a large, bald Scotsman.

Cruiserweight title – TAFKA Prince Iaukea (c) w/Paisley v Psicosis w/Juvi Guerrera

Psicosis and Juvi both managed to find their way out here despite their usual level of narcotics consumption. Psicosis looks manic. Paisley looks hot and focused making her instantly more professional than everyone else out here. Chris Candido strolls out to do commentary (without Sunny). So we have Psicosis, Juvi and Candido out here. Looks like Miami’s crack dealers are running low on stock. Sharmell is looking smoking out there in that purple PVC outfit. No wonder Booker felt the need to pluck her from the diva ranks. Psicosis has only blown one spot so far. Then his load after being slapped by Sharmell. I’m more concerned about Juvi disappearing somewhere. He’s either after drugs in the crowd, cracking onto a cameraman or trying to figure out why Psicosis is wrestling Tatanka. One of those three. Psicosis does his usual abundance of slightly awkward looking stuff where either he or Iaukea land on their face. Sharmell and Juvi have a CATFIGHT! Juvi loses. Badly. Psicosis hits the leg jam but then gets distracted by Paisley. I would be distracted too. Iaukea finishes it with the jumping DDT at 7.20, which Psicosis helpfully faceplants. ½*. Redje gets all existential by talking about only giving that ½* because it exists. He awards the cameraman a further 1/2* for staying awake long enough to film it. On the upside Sharmell is hot but I think I may have mentioned that already.

XS v Norman Smiley/KISS Demon

XS is Lenny & Lodi repackaged. They’re still gay but not flaming so much after being toned down. They’d get altered again after the return of Russo. Miss Hancock is out here, which is Stacey Kiebler. Norman is in the Kiss casket. Norman tries to teach Demon the Wiggle. He doesn’t get it because he’s too METAL~!!!! for that. Smiley takes it to Lenny. WIGGLE~! Wind up slam! Demon tags in and the match goes to shit. XS fuck up a double team clothesline (“minus a million stars” – Redje). Norman in to Wiggle (********** – Redje). Wind up slam for Lodi. Lenny steals the Stroke but Norman uses the Norman Conquest, in “nicely homosexual fashion”, for the submission at 3.39. I reckon that was about ¾*. Redje thinks ****1/2 because Smiley was in it. Touch of bias towards Norman Smiley. He also talked loudly over the whole match, which would explain a lack of coverage. Ah well, luckily no one cares.

POST MATCH XS blame Miss Hancock for the loss despite her being nowhere near the ring during the defeat. The faces beat XS up some more and steal their valet. Miss Hancock gives Norman the Big Wiggle, which he backs into. Redje awards that 64 million stars. It was certainly entertaining. More so than, well, everything else on the card.

Bam Bam Bigelow v The Wall

Both these guys are dead now, sadly. Redje is highly critical of Wall’s beard. This is pretty ugly. Altogether too much cocaine has gone into the preparation plans for this match. This is what the WWE would term a “powerhouse brawl” or I would term, “dreadful” and “half-assed”. It’s going to be a long, long PPV. The match finishes with The Wall hitting the chokeslam through a table at 3.39. DUD

POST MATCH Crowbar & David Flair come out to attack Wall. Crowbar and Wall fight up the scaffold and Tony exaggerates the height by underestimating the height. Wall chokeslams him off through part of the stage. The stage is collapsible. Just a stunt. Tony thinks that Crowbar landed on “hard concrete”. One of the many problems stemming from having a really poor commentary team is they just can’t deal with moments like this. Unlike say, Jim Ross, or Joey Styles or even Michael Cole.

Hardcore title – Three Count (c) v Brian Knobbs

Knobbs is down to Knobs. Redje claims to have eaten one of his b’s. Knobbs brings assorted crap out here and then throws it all into the ring where the other three are. Knobbs has to beat all three guys. AIDS should get them soon enough, he should just bail out and wait. What? It IS a gay disease people. He should back off and wait patiently. Helms survives a Pit Stop because he has a face mask on to protect his broken nose. Helms uses a ladder to splash Knobbs. Evan goes up with another splash. Moore hits a senton. “He missed” – Tony. Did he? Three Count pose. Knobbs fire extinguishers them. Chair over Helms face and Knobbs waffles it with a broom for the pin at 3.00.

So now it’s only 2 on 1. Evan gets powerbombed out of the ring through a table at 4.15 so now Moore is left alone.

Moore looks like Matt from Call Me Crusader. And he looks about 12. Moore gets nothing until Helms dropkicks Moore and Knobbs through a table for the pin. BUT Knobbs is in the ropes. In a hardcore match? Are you fucking kidding me? Moore offers Knobbs the belt but Knobbs wants to kick his ass. Now that is some kind of weird sexual fetish; the desire to beat up very young men. Trashcan aided splash gets the pin at 6.57. Knobbs wins the title. ½*. Tenay’s crack about Knobbs bringing “respectability” to the belt makes me chuckle.

Booker/Billy Kidman v Harlem Heat

Redje cries at the prospect of Stevie Ray teaming with Ahmed Johnson. This isn’t actually as bad as you’d think though. Stevie does his usual power stuff on Kidman without fucking anything up. Booker throws enough kicks to keep me interested. The other fat guy tries to get into the ring with his slovenly girth so Booker axe kicks him. Double bicycle kick from Harlem Heat that they DON’T fuck up. Big T is blown up. He manages a Booker-esque sidekick without falling over too. Big T tries to dive over the rail to ringside but comes up short and falls on his face. Luckily he has a lot of fat to protect himself. Spinebuster for Kidman. Madden is being idiotic and retarded on commentary. The old double whammy. Hot tag to Booker. Book End for Big T but Stevie makes the save. Book End for Stevie as well. Tony calls it a sidewalk slam. Like every other move in wrestling. Double “sidewalk slam” on Booker, which was a spinebuster. Kidman saves. Kidman with a sunset flip and Booker sidekicks Big T over for the pin at 6.59. *1/2. And that would be your match of the night, right there. Oh and the name of the finish according to Tony? You guessed it. I’m surprised he didn’t form his own company when WCW folded with him booking. “What’s the finish, Tony?” “It’s a sidewalk slam. Then the other guys do a double sidewalk slam but the fourth guy runs in and hits a sidewalk slam. Ok? No, the OTHER sidewalk slam”. “You mean a spinebuster?” “Never use that word here, you’re fired!”

Fit Finlay v Vampiro

Pinfalls count anywhere. Both guys have casts after having their arms broken by Lex Luger. Finlay tries to keep the pace slow so Vampiro can’t fuck anything up. Vampiro is far more into showy kicks though so here come those. Vampiro does the baseball pitcher wind up for a headbutt. Urgh. I hate that. Finlay comes back with the Samoan Roller. Finlay goes to Pillmanise Vampiro but that damn goody, goody, two shoes ref makes the save. Fuck you Little Naitch. I wanted a broken neck for Vampiro. They head off into the crowd for an ineffectual brawl. They head into the men’s toilet. Vampiro jumps off the top of a stall. I think inside the stall was Kevin Sullivan masterbating furiously about how great this angle is. “Uhh…men’s room…brawl…uhhh”. There sure is a load of nothing happening in this match. The brawl heads outside and Tony gets very excited. They don’t let him outside often. More brawling. Finlay backdrops Vampiro on the floor. One of the security guys gets pushed over by a fan. The fans hate this show so much they’re trying to get thrown out. Nail in the Coffin ends this at 8.44. DUD. Oh boy, this PPV is rapidly becoming woeful on all levels.

Tag titles – Mamalukes (Big Vito/Johnny the Bull) (c) w/Disco Inferno v Harris Brothers (Big Ron/Heavy D)

Harrises still come out to the nWo music even though they look about as un-nWo as it gets in a pair of anti-establishment black suits. Hey, waitaminute! They’re basically Jeff Jarrett’s cronies and as per usual no one cares about them at all. The Mamalukes have gotten over via sheer good fortune. You can practically smell the finish on this one. Naturally Russo wasn’t interested in continuing the storyline and had them feud with each other before the year was out despite it being blatantly obvious that neither one of them was any good in singles. Disco joins commentary and bitches about not being paid for it. Mark Madden offers him $20 to go away. Disco threatens to make him disappear. Oh, PLEASE, can we do that? As you’d expect this match is TERRIBLE in every respect of the word. Neither Harris Brother is anywhere close to good. Johnny the Bull is totally inexperienced so is no position to help prevent sucktitude. Vito is probably the best worker in the match, which worries me. At least the Mamalukes have been working on their double teams so they don’t completely stink. Unfortunately it takes two four to tango and everything the Harris boys do sucks. Oddly enough that’s the one team WCW refused to break up and kept together until the death sticking them in with *shudder* Kronik before it was all said and done. Stamboli eats up a heat segment, which Disco calls “rope-a-dope”. Well, I see dopes and I guess there are three ropes. Stamboli oversells the heat and quickly gets the hot tag, to NO reaction at all. The crowd just don’t want to be here. That’s a badly promoted PPV. Vito breaks out the Savage Elbow…for 2. Ron gets picked off with a sloppy spinebuster/lariat combo. Neither of those moves resembled the move I’ve just called it as. Harris Brothers take over and H-Bomb Stamboli. The commentators seem confused as to whether that was the finisher in question. I don’t think it was actually. Disco runs in with the title belt but that only gets 2 because Ron Harris won’t sell a fucking thing. Ron uses the belt and Disco gets it too. God, this is garbage. H-BOMB on Vito and that actually WAS the H-Bomb this time, which makes me annoyed at the Harris Brothers for doing a move that’s so similar to their finisher right before their finisher. Pin is academic at 8.46 and what did I say about dumb booking? The team with the grass roots support jobs to the team no one gives a shit about AND suck. ¼*. Yet another in a string of shitty matches.

BACKSTAGE a limo is here. The commentators continue to debate what it’s doing here. I think it’s Scott Steiner’s but true to form they never actually show anyone get out of it. Elsewhere Finlay admits he’s a loser in a terrible promo that helps no one. Elsewhere Gene is with Team Package (which would be Flair, Luger and Liz). Luger says he’s glad that chicken Sting has made it back off the DL so he can beat his ass. Flair WOO’s a lot about making Hogan bleed. It’s weird, even when he doesn’t give a shit, Flair always delivers the goods. But you can tell when his heart isn’t in it. Amazing pro though. Dustin Rhodes says he’ll retire Terry Funk tonight. Not even death could retire Terry Funk. This guy has retired like six times.

SHILL – Spring Stampede. Although there’s no real card booked the “card is subject to change”. What card? Name ONE match on Spring Stampede that was booked before this show? Exactly. In fact the entire company got reset just after this and the PPV ended up featuring 14 matches.

Dustin Rhodes v Terry Funk

This is a bullrope match. Funk carries a chicken to the ring as this was during a period where it was his favourite weapon. Mainly because WCW sucks when it comes to weapons. Funk gets the mic and says the chicken is Dustin’s baby brother and the only difference between Dustin and Dusty is that Dusty is much, much fatter. Funk bashes Dustin with the chicken. I sense this match is going to REALLY suck. Tony plugs Beyond the Mat, what the hell? I know Vince hated it but WCW liked it? WCW wasn’t even mentioned in that movie. Funk’s punches in this match look terrible, which is a pity because that’s always been one of his strengths even when he couldn’t do anything else. The bullrope comes into play as Dustin takes over. I guess the idea here was to try and put Dustin over but the crowd didn’t care for him after he’d already been far more entertaining as the quirky Goldust. Funk meanwhile is way beyond being useful as a wrestler and would be better applied as a manager or something but WCW were pretty much clueless when it came to wrestler’s shelf lives. Take Roddy Piper, Hulk Hogan or Randy Savage for example. The WWF dropped all of those guys down to part time long before WCW had them back on a full time schedule. In comes a chicken, some 5 foot guy dressed as a chicken, and Rhodes kills him. WCW pump in chicken noises over the PA for some bizarre reason. Funk grabs a mic and makes this an I Quit match. The referee doesn’t agree so Funk nails him with the cowbell. Funk tries to make Dustin quit even though it’s not the rule of the match so when Dustin says he quits the match isn’t over. But you can submit in this match can’t you? And doesn’t that count as a submission? What fucking idiot booked this? Funk was naturally distracted by thinking he won, because he did, allowing Dustin to murder him dead and piledrive him on the cowbell for the win at 9.01. DUD. Fucking awful.

POST MATCH Dustin threatens to send Funk back to Texas in a box. This leads to an even worse brawl than the one during the match.

BACKSTAGE Gene is with Sid and he’s concerned about Jarrett. Sid isn’t.

Sad Mime Sting v Lex Luger w/Liz

This is a lumberjack match and all the lumberjacks have had their arms broken by Luger, which makes them hardly impartial. These include Hennig, Finlay, Knobs and Vampiro. Luger looks uneasy and full to the brim with steroids! He apologises to the lumberjacks for breaking their arms but he has his own lumberjacks anyway featuring Harlem Heat 2000 and the Harris Brothers. Hey, that almost makes sense. Luger has been awful for so long I don’t even remember the last time he had a passable match. The sad thing is Sting probably hasn’t had a good match in about five years and yet they’re both still up at the top end of the card. I guess they’re both over. It would help if Goldberg was available but he’s out injured. Luger gets thrown to the lumberjacks and an assortment of guys get their collective revenge. Sting being thrown out makes less sense but does at least allow Brian Knobs to do some horrible acting. Out comes Tank Abbot. He knocks out Doug Dillenger. What was that about? Was that really worth putting on a fucking PPV? Crowd doesn’t care anyway. The lumberjacks brawl out to the back, which makes no sense. Meanwhile Luger has been working a chinlock for like two minutes. Out comes Flair & Liz but Vampiro is left out here and he fends Flair off. Is this level of booking really necessary? Flair dives in there and attacks Sting who uses the power of sad mimes everywhere to dropkick him. Stinger Splash for Luger. Liz bashes him with the bat though. Vampiro grabs it off her. Luger pins for 2. He’s not put off and goes for the Torture Rack. Vampiro comes in there with a LAME bat shot and Sting hits the Scorpion Deathdrop for the pin at 7.00. I always though Deathdrop sounded a little extreme for an inverted DDT. Maybe if it was elevated or something? DUD. Another ghastly match. I’m running out of synonyms for “bad” here. What really bothers me here is they’ve done this so many times and although it’s setting up a Sting-Vampiro feud in the long run I can’t support that either because Vampiro sucks.

BACKSTAGE Tank Abbot cuts a horrid promo about how he doesn’t like Doug Dillenger so he punched him. Yeah, you’re very bright. Well done.

ELSEWHERE we cut away from the limo door opening because somewhere Jeff Jarrett is walking. *slow clapping*. Sid Vicious acts surprised at being in the next match. Damn, that’s some terrible acting. It also makes him look like a retard and WCW look totally disorganised.

WCW title – Sid (c) v Jeff Jarrett

So Hogan gets to main event again. Great. Jarrett says it’s his time, finally, to realise his destiny and win the title. Whether he wins or not it makes no odds because Hogan goes on last and will always overshadow the champion when he feels like it. I think Russo realised this and got shot of him. Jarrett promises three women will get naked if he wins. Which is bizarre because it makes the crowd want the babyface champion to lose. There’s a bad feeling attached to this, whereby it feels like it’s not a main event because of who is involved. At least the crowd cares but even with that it seems clear that they want Sid to win this in short order. Send Jarrett back to the midcard where he belongs. They brawl out into the crowd, which causes Tony to whinge about the lack of count out. In reality all they’re doing is killing time. Out come the Harris Brothers to beat Sid up, which incidentally is a BLATANT DQ but no one seems to care. Impartial referee Nick Patrick warns Jarrett for using a closed fist. Oh, but two guys interfering on your behalf is ok? I bet WCW was wishing by this point they’d created more stars when they actually had some viewers. Instead of letting them walk to the competition. Sid takes back over with more brawling and hits a big boot. He stops off to complain about the Harris Brothers. Jarrett gets run into the title belt in a miscue but he kicks out. They must have reduced the amount of metal in those title belts before this show. Seems ineffective all of a sudden. Jarrett bumps the referee on purpose, which is ridiculous because then he can’t get the pin, and nails Sid with the guitar. He calls out a referee and here comes Slick Johnson but he’s followed by Hulk Hogan who drags him out. Now it’s even more clear who the BIG star of this company is. Hogan cleans house on all the nWo guys and boots Jarrett down for the pin at 7.35. Sweet titty fucking Christ that was a bad finish. Didn’t Nick Patrick notice Hulk Hogan standing in the ring? And why bring out Hogan right before his match? DUD. Scott Steiner comes out here and bashes Hogan with another guitar. Was he in the limo? Presumably. Flair runs in here for the strap match because Hogan is down.

YAPPAPI INDIAN Strap match – Hulk Hogan v Ric Flair

Well, here’s a match that’s been done to death and no one wants to see anymore. Hogan is 47, Flair is 51. You’d think the message of “we want new stars” would have gotten through to someone but Hogan had his cast iron contract and when they kept pushing him the crowd kept wanting Flair instead of wanting to see someone new. But in reality they wanted someone new but chanted for Flair to spite WCW for pushing Hogan. Now they’re both in the ring the crowd is largely indifferent. The match is really bad, even worse than the last one they had. But that’s the problem with strap matches. Unless you have the talent to work around the gimmick it’ll fail. Like Austin & Savio Vega did or particularly Sting & Vader did. Normally strap matches blow. Hogan cheats away with biting and choking and punching. This would have been great for that Heroes of Wrestling show. Flair blades. I know, what a shock. Flair goes up top and gets thrown off. Shock. Flair sure is wrestling HIS match here. Hogan is doing likewise and just cheating away like he usually does. That rat Jimmy Hart is out here. Hogan starts no selling so Flair runs and stupidly forgets they’re attached by the wrist. More bad brawling out on the ramp until Luger walks and chair shots Hogan. That looked incredible…..ly bad. “You got him” shouts Jimmy Hart as Hogan rolls around on the floor bleeding. Yeah, he’s got this one under control! Is this over yet? Two minutes of absolute nothing follow. Flair punches away a bit. Crowd looks bored. Jimmy Hart jumps in there so Flair lays him out. Hahaha. STOMP THAT RAT! Stomp him! Flair finally starts collecting buckles at 11.30. He picks up three but can’t carry Hogan to four…stars. Heh. He can’t even carry Hogan to two stars to be fair. Hogan lies on the ground and makes himself dead weight. FEEL THE WORKRATE. Hart distracts for Flair to hit Hogan with what appears to be a tampon for 2. IN A STRAP MATCH? And what the hell was there a distraction for when there’s no DQ? These guys have the dumbest fucking ideas. Hogans starts no selling everything and big boots Flair down. He starts collecting buckles and I’m just hopeful this will be over shortly but in comes Luger again. Hogan big boots him and legdrops Flair for the 3 count…IN A FUCKING STRAP MATCH at 14.17. Well, I suppose Flair did pin him during a First Blood match last time out but that is another stupid finish in a series of them. -*1/2 for that finish. Fucking WCW.

The 411: I’m nearing the end of my WCW coverage and it’s about damn time. The shows are genuinely getting worse with Booker/Kidman v Harlem Heat scoring MOTN here at *1/2. That’s just sad. If you see WCW on a tape and then 2000 after the initials then the show sucks. Avoid at all costs.
Final Score:  1.5   [ Extremely Horrendous ]