Random Network Reviews: Uncensored 1996

Uncensored 1996
March 24th, 1996 | Tupelo Coliseum in Tupelo, Mississippi | Attendance: 9,000

Recently, I actually spent some time reviling episodes of Nitro from 1996 and saw some of the build to this show. Those Nitros were relatively fun to watch though the focus seemed to be on the same guys each week. It’s strange that I saw the build for this show but honestly don’t really know what the card is. This would be the second of six Uncensored Pay-Per-Views in WCW history.

The intro video is ridiculously bad. Commentary for this show will feature Bobby Heenan, Dusty Rhodes and Tony Schiavone.

WCW United States Championship
Konnan (c) vs. Eddie Guerrero
Commentary mentions that these guys are friends. A mat exchange opens things before Eddie takes to the skies for the upper hand. He locks in a figure four, which I’m sure pisses Ric Flair off backstage. It’s strange to have someone on your undercard do the finisher of your top guy. Both guys seem to be targeting the legs of the other one. The crowd gets into this as this style of match was just starting to get over with the WCW audience. Eddie tries a camel clutch but Konnan powers out. They do more quick stuff until Konnan slows it by going after the arms and back. It’s odd after all of the leg work earlier. Eddie comes back and leaps outside onto Konnan in a cool little spot. Eddie snaps off a hurricanrana and tries to roll into a pin but they get awkwardly stuck. Konnan hits a nice powerbomb for two. Both guys end up missing dives to the outside after. Eddie nails a superplex but is too tired to pin instantly so he only gets two. He goes up for the Frog Splash but Konnan slams him from the top like he’s Ric Flair. Actually, Eddie rolls through into a close near fall. They seem to mess up another spot as Eddie looks for a hurricanrana but Konnan falls back and Eddie has hurt his groin. Konnan covers and steals it.

Winner and Still WCW United States Champion: Konnan in 18:25
I thought this was a pretty good match but it could have been much better without the botches. They seemed to be a bit off on their communication, which caused some problems. Early on, they mixed the flying with the mat work well but then Konnan focused on different body parts which was odd. Solid, but could have been more. **¾

Belfast Bruiser vs. Lord Steven Regal
I’m unsure if this is 1996 WCW or 2006 Smackdown because the Belfast Bruiser is Finlay. He slaps Regal’s boy Jeeves as he leaves to the back before the bell. They just start by wailing away on each other, since both guys are tough dudes. The fight goes outside where Regal is dropped throat first onto the rail. Back inside, they trade holds. The crowd isn’t really into it though. Every shot from these guys is stiff as hell. Back outside, Bruiser wants to use a chair but the referee stops him. Is this not Uncensored? Even Tony Schiavone says it should be. Regal suplexes him outside and follows with an apron elbow. Ever the heel, Regal gets in a field goal like low blow on the Bruiser. It’s brilliant how he can do something like that, only to then turn back to act sophisticated right after. They continue to jockey for positing until things go outside. They brawl up by the Doomsday Cage and back to the ring where the Blue Bloods show up to attack Finlay and cause the DQ.

Winner via disqualification: Belfast Bruiser in 17:27
This was two tough guys beating the hell out of each other. It was stiff and fun. Manly is a good word to describe this thing. The finish was dumb though and disappointed me heavily.***¼

The Giant and Jimmy Hart are interviewed backstage by Mean BAH GAWD Gene. Giant wasn’t really good here on the mic. He had tons of work to do. Loch Ness, his opponent for tonight, is also interviewed. He seemed pretty terrible.

Col. Robert Parker vs. Madusa
Nearly every single time I see a Madusa match in WCW, I wonder why she left the WWF. This is one of those times. Apparently, she was messing with Parker behind Sherri’s back and interrupted their wedding. Somehow Madusa is a face here. Shouldn’t they both be heels for their affair? They have a legit lock up and Parker breaks clean, which blows the minds of commentary. She does end up slamming him, causing him to try and leave. He decides to come back and Madusa continues to kick his ass. She hits a German suplex but Dick Slater shows up to mess with the bridge and Parker covers her in dastardly fashion.

Winner: Col. Robert Parker in 3:46
After a solid start to the show, this made it fall off of a cliff. This was terrible and not entertaining in the slightest. I don’t see the point of it at all. DUD.

The Road Warriors get interviewed about their upcoming WCW Tag Team Championship Street Fight. Following this, commentary hypes the next match. They did before the previous bout too. It’s too much talking in between matches.

I Quit Wrestling Match
The Booty Man vs. Diamond Dallas Page
This isn’t an I Quit match like you’d think. It’s a normal match where if DDP loses, he has to quit. Not only is DDP’s hair ridiculous but he is wearing purple windbreakers to the ring. The Booty Man someone looks just as stupid. There is a fair amount of early stalling. DDP does the fake walk out, which I only like in certain situations. DDP knows that if he loses, his career is over, so why would he just walk out? Kimberly comes out after Booty Man works over DDP a bit. I would have suspected she would show up when DDP was in control to swing the momentum. At least she looks damn fine so I won’t complain. DDP wears down Booty Man with a chinlock for a bit. Despite being in control he gets distracted when trying to be mean to Kimberly. He kisses her but she slaps him and the Booty Man hits a high knee to win.

Winner: The Booty Man in 15:58
Whoever thought that this should get over fifteen minutes was insane. I didn’t like much of DDP’s work until a year or so later and Booty Man was always terrible. This whole thing sucked and felt way longer than it was. Everything was so bad here. DUD.

Some backstage interview happens where Jimmy Hart says he has to be done with Lex Luger. He gets sad and cries, leaving his jacket with Luger. He will be out of the Tag Team Title match for reasons I must have missed.

The Giant w/ Jimmy Hart vs. Loch Ness
Loch Ness has Rey Mysterio’s future theme because WCW only had like 10 themes that they loved to recycle. Somehow, this is a number one contender’s match. They plod around the ring for a bit with Giant taking a VERY dangerous bump to the outside. Once back in though, he uses a leg drop and wins.

Winner: The Giant in 2:34
I give it a better score than the last two matches because it was kept very short. It was the best match we could have expected from these two. ½*

Due to something involving Lex Luger’s contract, he will be in the main event and not the Tag Team Title match. Booker T is replacing him and if he co-exists with Sting, Harlem Heat gets the next shot. The promo they cut backstage is good as Booker says it’s on like neck bone and Sting calls Booker a straight OG brother.

WCW Tag Team Championship Chicago Street Fight
Sting and Booker T (c) vs. The Road Warriors
You read that right. This is a Chicago street fight, on a show in Tupelo, Mississippi. Why it’s not just billed as a street fight is beyond me. The fight starts during the entrances and we get WCW’s awful split screen style. It makes the match unenjoyable for the time it happens. When it gets in the ring, I’m glad the split screen is over, but the action doesn’t really speed up. It’s hard to really discuss it because not much is happening. It’s just like throwing each other into guardrails and chokeholds. Sting beats up Animal in the aisle and then just leaves. It turns out he went to get a chair, but it was rather awkward. Animal is like “what the hell is selling?” and comes right down to the ring to use the chair himself. The fight continues to go around the arena but again, isn’t very interesting. The Warriors look to set up the Doomsday Device but Booker stops it. Hawk just tries to cover Sting anyway for two. They do the spot where Sting falls into Animal’s groin. I’ve seen that used for comedy effect before so it was weird here. This has gone on for far too long at this point and Heenan says he doesn’t think it is halfway over even. Things finally start to pick up a bit as Animal hits Sting with a chair outside and Booker hits a big kick inside but can’t cover. Sting gets a broom, marking the first weapon that’s not a chair. As the Warriors take control, Booker T leaves and Animal follows. They pass by Lex Luger, who is just looking at himself in the mirror. Animal hits him by mistake and he falls into the garbage. He gets pissed at that, leading to Luger and a random Stevie Ray to beat him up. He gets taped up to a post in the back. Booker makes it back to the ring but the two on one situation still isn’t enough to put down Hawk, so Stevie Ray comes out to hit him with a chair and Booker ends up earning the three.

Winners and Still WCW Tag Team Champions: Sting and Booker T in 29:34
I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a 30 minute match with less effort or care. Everyone just seemed so unenthused. It’s like they were told they have to go 30 minutes and got upset about it. You can make a long street fight work, but not if you’re just doing a lot of nothing for the entire time. Absolutely boring. *¼

Doomsday Cage Match
Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage vs. Arn Anderson, Barbarian, Kevin Sullivan, Lex Luger, Meng, Ric Flair, the Ultimate Solution and Z-Gangsta
It’s a giant cage and Hulk Hogan and Macho Man basically have to run a gauntlet. They face different guys in each section of the cage as they work their way to the bottom. It’s like three levels. They start up top with Ric Flair and Arn Anderson. I’m not sure why you’d start with the two talented members of the heel team. It’s just a lot of chops, punches and kicks because there is no mat so you can’t really do any moves. They shut me up because they do dueling figure fours since that’s one move you can do in this environment. The faces throw powder, yes the faces, into Anderson and Flair’s eyes before moving to the next cage. This one has Luger, Sullivan, Meng and the Barbarian. There are two sides here with the Faces of Fear beating on Savage on one. Suddenly, Hogan just pulls out a padlock and locks them on one side. Seriously? He just happened to bring that with him? This allows the Mega Powers to just beat on Luger and Sullivan. Sullivan leaves to a scaffold section and they tease Hogan throwing him off but it doesn’t happen. Somehow, things actually leave the cage and they are fighting in the aisle. They even hit the ring for some it. By the way, whoever the Ultimate Solution and Z-Gangsta are, they aren’t here. Tony Schiavone calls this spectacular, which shows how much of a company guy he was. It seems like they are done with the Doomsday Cage, making me wonder what the point of it really was. This has broken down into a bad tag team match. The big men finally show up. Z-Gangsta is Zeus and Ultimate Solution is someone I don’t recognize. They move back to the bottom of the Doomsday Cage, which has an actual ring. For some reason, the heels besides the two big men don’t join this. Scratch that, they all end up entering and beating on the faces. The Booty Man appears to give the faces frying pans. Why? That is the kryptonite of everyone as this suddenly starts to even the odds. Luger goes to hit Savage with a glove on his hand, like that’s a weapon or something. Savage moves and this is completely mistimed as Luger hits Flair and it looks horrible. The Mega Powers nail everyone and go to exit, but Savage remembers that this debacle is a match and he runs in to pin Flair. Of all people, Flair? To a punch?

Winners: Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage in 25:16
I honestly watched that entire thing and have no idea what I just saw. This is one of the dumbest and most overbooked matches I have ever seen. Almost nothing in it made sense. Why did the big guys wait to show up? Why did only some of it happen in the cage? Why frying pans? Why pin the champion? I can’t even begin to explain how bad this was. DUD.

1.5

The final score: review Extremely Horrendous

The 411

There were two solid matches to open this event. Then it all came tumbling down incredibly hard. The following five matches combined to get a score of *¾. That’s not the average, that’s the total of those five contests. The main event is one of the worst things I’ve ever seen, as was the DDP/Booty Man match. Hell, even putting the Road Warriors, Sting and Booker T in a street fight somehow managed to be boring.