The SmarK Retro Repost – Souled Out III

– Live from Charleston, West Virginia

– Your hosts are the Usual Idiots.

– We start with a State of WCW address from President Flair

– We see Goldberg lying on the dressing room clutching his knee.

– Opening match: Mike Enos v. Chris Benoit. Big huge pop for Benoit. They trade chops and Benoit unleases the SNOT BLOW OF DOOM! Benoit is nearly taking skin off with these chops. Crowd is mega-hot for Benoit. Benoit puts his head down and gets kicked, but grabs Enos’ arm and goes for the Crossface. Enos blocks and reverses to a nice backbreaker for two. Enos has got SERIOUS bruising on the chest. Enos takes control with a chinlock and some power stuff, but Benoit comes back with the locomotion suplex, swan dive, and Crippler Crossface for the submission. Surprisingly great opener, as usual for Benoit. Didn’t want to see it on PPV, but you take what you can get. ***1/2

– Nor-MAN Smi-LAY v. Chavo Guerrero Jr. Norman is learning a sure-fire way to draw heel heat: Tease the “smacking my bitch up and doin’ in da butt” dance and then don’t do it. Norman controls the match with some neat submission stuff, then gets a big pop by finally doing the dance. Chavo comes back, and then Norman gets another pop by setting Chavo up for an Ocean Cyclone Suplex and then doing the dance on Chavo. Norman goes for the Norman Conquest and Chavo blocks, Chavo goes for the Tornado DDT and Smiley blocks, and then Norman tosses Pepe’s ashes (in an urn at ringside) into Chavo’s eyes, blinding him long enough to slap on the Norman Conquest for the submission. Cheap ending to a good match. ***1/4

– Fit Finlay v. Van Hamburger. Long boring match which is good enough for the first hour of Nitro but not much else. Finlay finishes it with the tombstone but I’m too busy working on a Kaluha Mudslide to care. About **-ish.

– Wrath v. Bam Bam Bigelow. Typical big man match, controlled for the most part by Wrath until Bigelow takes over with a chinlock. Another exciting chinlock from Bigelow. Wrath fights out and more boring stuff happens, until Wrath goes headfirst to the post and Bigelow hits Greetings from Asbury Park (without actually making contact with the mat) for the pin. Yaaaaaaawn. *1/4

– Gonnad v. Lex Luger. Gonnad uses a bizarre salad dressing metaphor to threaten Lex. Lex actually gets a bigger pop as Evil Lex than as Good Lex. Kinjo says that this show sucks. So does this match, which goes on and on until Elizabeth (HOLY SHIT! LOOK AT THOSE THINGS!) bounces out and sprays black paint in Gonnad’s face, allowing the Rack for the submission. Did she have the Reebok shoe pump installed into her chest or something? Whoa! * for the boob job.

– Saturn v. Chris Jericho (dress match). Oh, look, it’s Scott Dickinson the Evil Ref. A thoroughly unspectacular match with one or two nice spots from Jericho and not much else. Ralphus models the dress at ringside to psych out Saturn. Jericho keeps control until Saturn comes back with the usual array of suplexes for the comeback. Saturn with the “YMCA” frog splash (okay, I made that up) for a two count. Ugly series of pinning combos for some two counts. German suplex from Jericho for two. DVD attempt reversed by Jericho, into a Liontamer which is reversed by Saturn. Saturn small-packages Jericho and The Evil Ref rolls them over for the Jericho pin. Bleh. *1/2 Saturn puts the dress on and Dickinson zips him up. Again I ask — why is Saturn being mercilessly buried?

– Cruiserweight title: Kidman v. Juventud v. Psychosis v. Rey Mysterio Jr. It’s actually a four-corners match instead of a four-way. Hot sequence from Rey and Kidman, then another sequence from Juvy and Psycosis. Kidman and Rey refuse to tag in and then a big brawl erupts. The only ones who get a pop are Rey and Kidman. Kind of a clusterfuck, as a lot of spots occur without much flow. Kidman hits a super-nasty MANSIZED somersault splash off the top rope onto Psychosis on the floor. Juvy follows with Air Juvy on both guys, then Rey does his highspot. They go through the Mpro series of finishers and saves. This is getting really ugly. Psycosis with a suicide dive on Rey and Kidman. Kidman eventually gets the shooting star press on Juvy for the pin, as Rey can’t make the save soon enough. Lacklustre. When are we getting the inevitable Rey v. Kidman showdown? Good spots, not much else. **3/4

– Jericho interrupts a Booker T WCW.com session to challenge “Mr. T” to a match tomorrow. About damn time.

– The Evil Horsemen v. Ric Flair and Corky Flair. Bigtime jaw session between the participants. David wants to start the match. The kid isn’t drawing heat so Flair comes in and does the riverboat dance. David does some really, really sad stuff with Windham until Flair comes in to salvage something. The heels take over. Kinjo again notes that WCW sucks. Zen also makes it known. But then there’s a lot of booze tonight. Arn and Hennig are having words as Flair plays Ricky Morton. Cute moment as Flair’s knee gets snapped on the second rope and he instinctively pops up and slaps Windham before doing the Flair Flop. David looks like a hydroencephalic clapping on the ring apron and we all mock him in response. Flair gets the figure-four on Windham as Hennig takes out AA. Corky clips Hennig and gets dragged in for it. Arn runs in with the tire iron and nails Hennig, and CORKY GETS THE PIN??? Ugh. **

– Then the nWo B-Team and Wolfpac run in and handcuff Ric, and lay a good old beatdown on Corky. Fans chant for Goldberg and Sting, but of course no one makes the save, because this is WCW. Again it should be noted that Liz looks spectacular. I hope that this is leading to the long-awaited Hogan job to Flair at Superbrawl.

– A black and white, overly dramatic video of the Goldberg beatdown is shown, with the kind of slow motion replays usually saved for the JFK assassination. “And here in Frame 1938, you can see a second double-axehandle from the grassy knoll”

– Ladder match: Gill^H^H^H^HGoldberg v. Scott Hall. It occurs to me that the ultimate dig at WCW would be to put Kane back in the Diesel outfit and job him to Gillberg on RAW. Note to WWF: You can have that one for free. Goldberg is wearing a huge knee brace. Tenay: “I think Goldberg is favoring that knee”. You think so, Einstein? Hall works on the knee and Goldberg ends up outside the ring and blades, which means we get the WIDE-ANGLE SHOT OF DOOM for the rest of the match. The crowd is dead, as this is undoubtedly the most boring ladder match I’ve ever seen. Hall does the “stand on the third rung and paw at the tazer” thing until Goldberg knocks him off. Hall is taking some decent bumps in hopes of making something out of this junk, but it’s not working. Goldberg does the slow climb and falls off. Razor^H^H^H^H^HScott does the slow climb again and gets pushed off by Goldberg and buggers up a crotchshot on the top rope. Goldberg gets to the ladder…and then Disco runs in and pushes him off. Scott gets to the top and grabs the TAZER OF DEATH, but Goldberg fights him off and superkicks him. Goldberg has the tazer and stuns Disco, then we get a staredown as Goldberg threatens him with the tazer. And threatens. And threatens. Finally he drops the tazer and does the spear and jackhammer, then zaps Hall to get the win. Terrible. Bam Bam Bigelow runs in to beat up Goldberg, and Hall zaps both of them as we finish. We’ll call it about **

– We finish with a Zelda-esque Superbrawl promo (one of the worst I’ve ever seen).

The Bottom Line: Well, it started really good, but boy did it ever go downhill fast. Especially the long, long David Flair beatdown. Still, not as horrible as the late 98 shows, so we’ll call it thumbs in the middle, leaning towards down.