Kevin’s Random Reviews: WCW Slamboree 1998

WCW Slamboree 1998
May 17th, 1998 | DCU Center in Worcester, Massachusetts | Attendance: 11,592

After dominating the WWF for a year and a half, WCW was finally starting to falter. The WWF was red hot, while WCW was cracking under the weight of their own mistakes. The nWo split was the focal point of the show and WCW Champion Hulk Hogan couldn’t be bothered to work this show. This event is also notable for Eric Bischoff challenging Vince McMahon to a fight, live on PPV. This was the sixth Slamboree out of eight.

A standard generic WCW video package opened the show. Hosts are Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan and Mike Tenay. They threw to a video of Eric Bischoff reading a letter from Vince McMahon’s attorney saying he wouldn’t show up at Slamboree.

WCW Television Championship: Fit Finlay (c) def. Chris Benoit in 14:52
These two had a fantastic match on Velocity in 2005. Yes, I said Velocity. After Benoit and Booker traded the title on house shows, Finlay won it over Booker. The crowd pops for an early shoving match. They take things to the mat with some good old fashioned grappling. I love how Finlay goes after the arm, looking to prevent the Crippler Crossface. Things get chippy with chops, clotheslines and a body slam by Finlay outside. The fans are firmly behind Benoit as Finlay wears him down. Benoit rallies with a chair shot outside. Nick Patrick doesn’t call the DQ for some reason. Maybe it’s because the crowd loves it. He tries a tope suicide but Finlay whacks him with the chair. It didn’t look nearly as good as the Benoit/Jericho one in 2001. Inside, Benoit tries another comeback with the rolling Germans only for Finlay to run him into the ropes for a break. Benoit still nearly applies the Crippler Crossface but the champ scatters to the ropes. Benoit calls for the headbutt but stops because Booker T strolls to ringside. The distraction allows Finlay to dropkick him. Back inside, Benoit gets two on a rollup before Finlay finishes him with a tombstone. This was a good opener that had potential to be great. With a better finish and less time in chinlock city, I’d have liked it more. Still, they some interesting things and mostly worked a smart match. ***¼

Lex Luger def. Brian Adams w/ Vincent in 5:05
Two of the wrestlera I enjoyed the least in the early 90’s. The late 90’s hasn’t been too kind to them either. Luger focuses on the shoulder though it’s totally uninspired. He’s not in the mood to sell for either nWo member. Honestly, neither Crush nor Virgil has offense worthy of selling. A Vincent distraction leads to a weak Adams piledriver. Luger gets tired of his offense, powers up and wins with the Torture Rack. Shitty match featuring shitty wrestlers. This didn’t belong on PPV. Hell, it felt like a Thunder or Saturday Night match. DUD

Ciclope wins Cruiserweight Battle Royal in 8:27
Winner gets a shot at Chris Jericho tonight. Jericho shows up and does ring introductions for everyone. Most are great. Chavo Guerrero (the scourge of the Guerrero family), Damien 666 (he can’t afford a mask so he uses paint), El Dandy (winner of a Lou Ferrigno lookalike contest), Juventud Guerrera (the ugliest man in our sport), Marty Jannetty (rock rock ‘til he drops, rock rock never stop) and Silver King (if he wins 12 more matches he’ll be upgraded to Golden King) are the highlights. Things follow typical battle royal formula with a few high spots from the guys who fly. I’m not going into detail about each participant or elimination. Sorry. Lenny Lane and El Dandy decide to have a match in the middle of everything. It comes down to Psycosis, Kidman, Ciclope and Kidman. Psychosis flies over like an idiot on a bad looking spot before Juvi dumps out Kidman. The crowd pops for Juvi vs. Ciclope but then they shake hands and Juvi eliminates himself. Ciclope removes his mask and is revealed to be Dean Malenko. That gets the biggest pop of Dean’s life. The match was standard and the angle worked, but I’d rather he just eliminates Juvi. It makes the whole thing seem like a waste. Was everyone not in on it? **

WCW Cruiserweight Championship: Dean Malenko def. Chris Jericho (c) in 7:02
Jericho sells his opponent being Dean fantastically. Malenko is fired up and unloads on Jericho from the opening bell. He throws him around ringside and has a big early upper hand. Jericho stops it with a hot shot before complaining about a conspiracy. It would spawn some of Jericho’s finest work. The fans are all over Jericho, especially before he does the C’MON BABY pin. Jericho holds serve for a bit and the crowd quiets some. They wake right back up when Dean stops a super rana and hits the super gut buster. Dean puts on the Texas Cloverleaf and the crowd goes nuts. Jericho gets close to the ropes but Dean pulls him back and Jericho submits. Weird ending to the battle royal aside, this was the best booked cruiserweight thing I can recall in WCW. There were better matches but the emotion added so much here. WCW didn’t always give people what they wanted, though that wasn’t the case here. ***½

A white limo pulls outside on the VINNIE MAC camera. Doug Dillenger investigates while Tony takes a shot at Jim Ross.

Bowery Death Match: Diamond Dallas Page def. Raven in 14:38
This is a cage match with weapons. It’s like a small Hell in a Cell since there’s a roof. Also, the loser is the man who can’t answer the ten count. Raven shows up with a riot squad, which is odd because he has the Flock. DDP comes out firing, but Raven turns it around rather quickly. The weapons come into play and they are quite wild, including a VCR. That’s so 90’s. They trade stuff until Raven applies a sleeper and DDP backs him to the corner to break it and give us a ref bump. Both men are down after a drop toe hold on a chair. The Flock attempt to get involved until Van Hammer and his nipple rings cleans house. The Riot Squad send him away and two of them jump DDP in the ring. They are revealed to be Kidman and Horace. DDP fights them off and its DIAMOND CUTTER time! The one he catches Kidman with is great as Kidman was hanging from the ceiling. Raven plants DDP with the Evenflow, which should be the finish. DDP beats the count and Raven hits him with his own Diamond Cutter! Again, DDP is up. Raven tries a chair shot but DDP ducks and hits the Diamond Cutter. Both men are down and DDP barely beats the count to win. Overbooked, especially in the end. The run-ins were fine if Raven would’ve won with the Evenflow. The stuff after was a bit much. I also wanted more intensity from them. **½

DDP celebrates in the crowd, leaving the remaining masked riot squad member to handcuff the Flock to the cage. They sell everything he does horribly. It all takes FOREVER. He reveals himself to be Mortis, who was trying to get into the Flock a while back. He then removes the Mortis mask for the time. For those unaware, Mortis is Chris Kanyon. He delivers a chair shot to Raven, starting a feud with the Flock.

Some awful footage of security searching for Vince McMahon or even Steve Austin in the back is shown. It goes on for a while since they have to clean up the ring.

Eddie Guerrero w/ Chavo Guerrero Jr. def. Ultimo Dragon in 11:09
If Ultimo Dragon wins, Chavo is free from being Eddie’s bitch. They exchange stuff on the mat with the crowd not caring. With the fans dead, their quick pace at the start slows. Eddie takes things outside and whips Dragon into the guardrail before choking him with cables. Chavo and Eddie argue, opening the door for Ultimo to rally and hit the Asai moonsault. Chavo uses a towel to fan Ultimo and cheer him on. Inside, Ultimo hits a backbreaker but has a super rana countered into a tornado DDT. It’s a great call since that’s Chavo move, so it irks him. Ultimo tries a moonsault into the dragon sleeper but botches it. Eddie argues with Chavo again, and Ultimo accidentally kicks Chavo. Eddie hits the brainbuster and Frog Splash for the win. Solid match but the completely dead crowd hurt things. It also didn’t help that Ultimo wasn’t doing much at the time and Eddie didn’t give one of his better performances. **¾

An angry Chavo wants to fight Eddie but can’t, so he beats up Ultimo Dragon. Eddie pulls him out and slaps him. He dares Chavo to hit him back. Chavo walks off and Eddie smirks.

WCW United States Championship: Goldberg (c) def. Saturn in 7:01
At this point, Goldberg is “87-0” and less than two months away from becoming World Champion. They wrestled at the previous PPV, which was solid. This is more controlled by Goldberg and is worse because of it. He throws Saturn around like nothing until Saturn slaps him. That pisses off Goldberg, who gets more vicious. Goldberg accidentally clotheslines a ring post but Saturn can’t take advantage. Goldberg no sells more stuff but finally feels the effects of a T-Bone suplex. Saturn tries to springboard off a chair but eats a spear followed by the Jackhammer. Typical Goldberg stuff. The visual of the spear was a good idea, but it didn’t make sense and came off poorly. ¾*

Michael Buffer gives his outlandish intros for Eric Bischoff and Vince McMahon. Obviously, Vince doesn’t show though according to Bischoff’s book, he was considering it. I would’ve loved to see it happen for the sheer spectacle but it made no sense for Vince to even consider it. Since Vince doesn’t show, Bischoff gets the crowd to countout Vince. Lame.

Bret Hart def. Randy Savage in 16:38
This is something I badly wanted in the WWF in 1993. Savage is nWo, but Bret is the heel. Roddy Piper is the guest referee. They do some paint-by-numbers stuff in the early goings, with little emotion involved. It’s clear that neither guy gives a damn at this point. After some crowd brawling, they’re back inside and Bret works the leg. It’s all technically fine stuff but there’s so little care behind it. Savage starts the comeback and sells the leg when hitting a suplex. Bret cuts it off with another leg attack before slapping on the Sharpshooter. Elizabeth runs down just before Savage reverses into his own Sharpshooter. She enters the ring and shoves Piper. Piper tries kicking her out, so Savage shoves him. Bret goes low on Savage and then whacks Piper with brass knuckles. Savage goes to use them but here’s Hulk “I’m World Champion but can’t be bothered to wrestle on a show I’m attending” Hogan. He clips Savage’s knee and wraps it around the ring post, allowing Bret to win via Sharpshooter. This was sad. A match between these two should’ve been special. Instead, it was two guys who didn’t care, putting in minimal effort with an overbooked finishing sequence. **

WCW Tag Team Championship: The Giant and Sting def. The Outsiders (c) w/ Dusty Rhodes in 14:46
The Outsiders are Wolfpac, Giant is nWo Hollywood and Sting is just Sting. Hall, despite looking rather wasted, is way over. Sting and Hall go at it early with the crowd making noise, but I’m not sure who they’re targeting. Three guys are heels but kind of playing babyfaces, while Sting, the true face, is just there thanks to awful booking. Sting takes some lifeless heat from the Outsiders. Nash even works in a bear hug since he’s already out of ideas for offense. Giant gets the tag and busts out the Hogan leg drop for two. He goes up top, which confuses commentators even though I believe he’d done it before. He misses a splash. Nash calls for the Jackknife but Hall levels Nash with the title. Giant pins for the win and celebrates with Hall. A boring match with a shitty finish that didn’t make sense. ¼*

3.5

The final score: review Bad

The 411

Pretty much what I expected from WCW in this era. 1998 saw them start their downfall and shows like this are why. They got very little right (the Malenko angle, most of Benoit/Booker and some of the Guerreros stuff) and the rest was either bad matches, poor booking or a combination of both. Savage/Hart was a disappointment, Luger/Adams sucked massively and the main event made no sense. Recommendation to avoid.