The Furious Flashbacks – WCW Souled Out 2000

The Furious Flashbacks – WCW Souled Out 2000

The champ is….heading out of the door…into his car…and driving to Stamford. Oops.

After the debacle that was Starrcade ’99 WCW started preparing for the year in wrestling that would be 2000. With the WWF hitting one huge success after another it seemed they needed results quicker than ever (and by huge successes I mean Royal Rumble 2000 with the HHH-Foley MOTY street fight). In their desire to push for greater glory right out of the box in 2000 they lost half this PPV. Let me explain. Bret Hart picked up a concussion wrestling Bill Goldberg at Starrcade. Because he was the champ he got put right back in there and had a few matches where he took a lot of head shots and as a result got stuck with post concussion syndrome. The doctors told him he couldn’t fly, couldn’t train with weights and most definitely couldn’t wrestle. In fact he’d probably have to retire. The booking team, Vince Russo basically, was stunned. Furthermore the other big plan for Souled Out was a 2/3 series between Chris Benoit and Jeff Jarrett. Well, that was also shot because Jarrett suffered a concussion himself on Nitro right before the PPV. So of the 12 matches planned four of those were now gone. More importantly one of those would be the main event and the world champion wouldn’t be able to defend his title. Knowing Bret would miss an eternity of time in terms of Russo booking they took the belt off him and Russo had to find himself a new champion. His decision? Tank Abbott. That’d be former MMA fighter and comedy midcarder Tank Abbott who had barely made any kind of impact since signing for WCW earlier in 1999. Even WCW higher up’s, Bill Busch in particular, weren’t stupid enough to follow through on this line of Russo insanity and fired him on the spot. Only he had one of those Eric Bischoff style guaranteed contracts so fired essentially meant he went home and kept collecting paycheques while someone else fixed his mess. Step forward Kevin Sullivan, JJ Dillon and Terry Taylor. They were left with a PPV to fix at short notice and a world champion to crown. Sullivan had little popularity amongst the boys but the others were quite popular especially JJ Dillon who was a genuinely smart booker and had at one time been Vince McMahon’s right hand man.

Sidenote – for those who still to this day defend this horrendous first run of Russo in charge of his own wrestling company let’s take a look at some FACTS shall we.

1. Nitro’s ratings went from a 3.08 average to a whopping 3.10 average under Russo’s reign of terror (his biggest claim is he improved ratings) although that actually equates to a loss as Nitro dumped its third hour during Russo’s stint in charge. This involved a loss of revenue from advertisers as well. So Russo’s claims to increase viewership during his initial tenure is a lie.

2. Average attendance dropped by 900 people per show during Russo’s command. Russo had booked the only draws the company had into the ground, although he wasn’t helped by the previous boss doing the exact same thing as well as the previous head booker. Furthermore the average merch spend for each punter dropped from $10 to $4.

3. PPV buyrates dropped from 0.52 to 0.26. Considering that PPV is the single biggest source of income for WCW and you can see how Russo effectively cost WCW half it’s income during his spell in charge. He never bothered building for PPV’s because he didn’t realise the importance of them. He never delivered anything on them because great PPV needs good build up and none of Russo’s shows were ever designed to build to anything other than the next TV show. Missing a PPV just wasn’t important anymore because a hundred things happened but so did another hundred things on Nitro and another hundred on Thunder and so on. PPV no longer had special interest matches that would draw fans in. Plus with 10+ and often as many as 13 matches on the cards the PPV’s were too crowded and never produced a match that was worth watching.

For all this Russo can’t possibly blame bad trends in wrestling because the WWF was rolling in money. They were having to turn fans away from their shows. Even ECW was drawing huge gates for their shows and were actually getting the kind of numbers through the doors that actually rivalled WCW. If only Paul Heyman could have found some form of backing or a TV deal they’d have breezed by WCW without trying in 2001.

To make the disaster complete for WCW Chris Benoit, Shane Douglas, Eddie Guerrero, Konnan and assorted others joined forces and asked WCW for their releases ahead of the PPV. Their assertion was that if Kevin Sullivan took over the reigns again WCW would go backwards and the status quo that caused all the big problems for WCW would return. The booking of this show reflects an attempt by the new booking committee to show the boys in the back that the new boss would not be the same as the old boss. We’ll see about that.

We’re in Cincinnati, Ohio. Hosts are Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan and Mike Tenay. The latter comes back because Russo’s hand picked successor wasn’t working out. Hudson gets bumped to interviews with Gene Okerlund. Tony tells us the card has been reshuffled and it’s Chris Benoit v Sid tonight for the title. We get clips of Bret Hart’s concussion from Starrcade. They also talk about Triple Threat Theatre where Kidman wrestles three guys in three different matches tonight. The third against a mystery opponent. They run down the rest of the card while headache inducing German dance music plays. There were TWO beatdowns during interviews in the pre-game show (Konnan & Vampiro). The card has changed a few times as a result. Can we follow this at home? No? Ah, who cares. Let’s just get on with the card.

Billy Kidman v Dean Malenko

This is under “catch-as-catch-can” rules, which has one major difference to a regular match. That would be that leaving the ring draws a DQ. Keep that in mind. Even though it’s a stupid rule that no one would have picked up on if it wasn’t enforced. Tony reminds us that they can’t leave the ring during this match. This is an absolutely perfect demonstration of what a clusterfuck the booking and the entire company was at the time. Malenko bails after taking a beating with a load of punches and therefore loses after about 2 minutes. DUD. Malenko looks blankly at the referee. The crowd doesn’t know what’s going on because they never bothered announcing the stipulations to the live crowd. Kidman looks pissed off because that obviously wasn’t the finish. Did Malenko sabotage it on purpose because he knew he was leaving anyway? Perhaps. What is for sure is booking a match with those rules to open the PPV was retarded and the crowd hates it.

Vampiro v Crowbar v David Flair w/Daffney

Crowbar would be Flair’s buddy who used to compete on the Indy scene as Devon Storm. Because they both attacked Vampiro this got made into a triple threat match. Flair, Crowbar and Daffney form a weird little crazy stable. Quite why they don’t like Vampiro I don’t even remember. What is for sure is that Crowbar is the only guy out there who doesn’t completely suck. Which is handy because it means he works with Vampiro while Flair lies around doing nothing. They work an Indy spot match that reminds me how bad Indy wrestling used to be before Ring of Honor came about. Vampiro hits his usual junk without any rhyme or reason for doing any of it. I can understand how it got over in Mexico where the nonsensical lucha-libre is the norm but I think Vampiro is over more for his appearance in North America. I’ve never got the guy. He’s just brutally bad in every respect. I find his matches torture. Plus he chops like a girl. A GIRL! The match continues to be a bunch of spots that don’t connect at all. The only continuity and storytelling is that the two crazy guys occasionally team up to attack Vampiro. Anything Flair does is horribly sloppy. Everything Crowbar does is slightly sloppy. Everything Vampiro does is bad. It’s hard to believe any major company would put out a match with all these shit elements in it. Amazingly they don’t even keep it short. That’s the only good thing about Russo. At least if something he was doing sucked then you could turn away and turn back 30 seconds later and he’d have moved on to something else. Vampiro and Crowbar fuck up a powerbomb/facebuster reversal so badly even the WCW crowd start chanting “you fucked up” at them. Vampiro brings another GIRLY CHOP~! You go girlfriend! Teach that nasty David a lesson. Crowbar discovers how shitty his top rope splash looks so he makes a point of getting that in there twice. Eventually the heels argue so in comes Daffney. David back suplexes Crowbar. These guys are the TAG TEAM CHAMPIONS. Hahaha. This company is a joke. Vampiro eventually hits the Nail in the Coffin to pin Flair at 10.31. DUD. Remarkably awful. Would have been almost passable as the spotty opener of an Indy card in front of 30 fans. For a PPV it’s lucky I’m not feeling more malevolent and negative.

The Harris Brothers v Big Vito/Johnny the Bull w/Disco Inferno

Oh for fuck’s sake. Isn’t it blatantly obvious that this match will stink? You’ve got three guys who aren’t any good and have spent a decade prior to this being incredibly bland. Then there’s Johnny the Bull who is green as hell. The Harris Brothers were previously Creative Control but that gimmick got dumped because they joined the reformed nWo. Of course that whole gimmick tanked right from the get go because the figurehead was Bret Hart and he got injured. Disco is valeting for the mob heavies as part of work in paying back his debts. Of course both teams are heel (and suck) so no one gives a flying fuck about this match. Vito tries his hardest with his most elaborate taunting but no one cares. Including me. Tony can tell the Harris Brothers apart because of the tattoos but I can tell from head size. Don’s is bigger. Which is why I spent the entire of his TNA run referring to him as “Fathead”. His only move of any worth during this match is pulling out a sex pin on Johnny the Bull. The mob guys are the default babyfaces so Johnny gets isolated for a heat segment. The crowd is surprisingly into it because they’re running tag team formula 101 and that will usually get a Southern crowd feisty. At least it used to until WCW killed its tag team division somewhere in 1997. Johnny comes back with a horrible looking lariat. He gets more heat on him anyway. The nWo sign in the crowd reminds me that WCW never actually killed off the nWo angle. That would have been a huge payoff PPV without killing anything as well. The nWo was dead anyway. Why not just have a PPV where the nWo loses the main event, which means they have to disband forever. “DOA” – crowd. Disco tries to fuck his team up by shoving Vito off the ropes but Vito gets a crossbody for the pin at 9.32. I didn’t care to recap anything leading into it because it was boring. DUD. The absolute definition of a snoozer.

Cruiserweight title – Madusa (c) v Oklahoma

Oh just kill me now. There is no way Ed Ferrera is under the limit for that title (his official weight was 260lbs – the weight limit is 220lbs. At least this figured into the booking as he was stripped for failing to make the weight but should he have been allowed to even compete for the title? No). The thing that really bugs me here is they killed this division with bad wrestling first and then turned the belt into a total joke. Couldn’t they just use better wrestlers in the cruiserweight division? Evan Karagias? Lash LeRoux? Disco Inferno? Oklahoma makes a point of running down everyone in the crowd before making this basically a re-hash of Jeff Jarrett-Chyna from the WWF. Not that Russo just recycled all his WWF ideas over and over again. No, he had dumber ideas too. Madusa appears to be wearing two fluffy towels gaffer tapped together. And she isn’t even the worst dressed person in the ring. This is terrible and embarrassing. Madusa looks worse than usual and makes a real mess of a missile dropkick so she has to do it again. Oklahoma comes back with a bad DDT. Spice is out here. I didn’t even notice. Oklahoma bails for the BBQ sauce but Spice steals it. Out comes Asya to attack him while the referee is looking right it. That’d be a DQ then ref. *rolls eyes*. Oklahoma gets the roll up for the pin anyway right after that pointless bit of booking at 2.56. DUD. That was horrendous. Is that four straight matches without a snowflake in sight? I believe it is. If I had been in the crowd I’d be considering leaving at this point. Although to be fair I wouldn’t have even turned up even if I had tickets.

Hardcore title – Brian Knobbs (c) v Meng v Norman Smiley v Fit Finlay

Yeah, Knobbs has the title. *rolls eyes*. At least he has a decent haircut in 2000. He teams with Finlay because they’re both in the same stable. Smiley doesn’t have the common sense to team with Meng and bashes him with a trashcan, which is no sold as you’d expect. Smiley’s ring attire for this show is riot cop gear. Knobbs cracks me up by back bumping nothing as Smiley goes to back him into the apron. I guess he was expecting a Rock Bottom. This turns into a series of plunder shots with the only amusement coming from Smiley screaming. Meng no sells everything, obviously, including chair shots. Norman goes to run into the crowd so Finlay chases him. That briefly wakes the crowd up. Meng and Knobbs stand around doing nothing. FEEL THE WORKRATE~! Knobbs in particular is embarrassing himself out there. He’s bumping randomly and hitting bad plunder shots. Finlay prevents Meng getting a pin so they end up brawling. Smiley goes after Knobbs with a riot shield. He dances around but Knobbs bashes Smiley with his own shield for the pin at 6.10. DUD. Just a bunch of crap strung together with plunder. That’d be five REALLY bad matches in a row. I remember Jim Cornette saying at the time that WCW didn’t know how to put on a good match during 2000. They just lost the plot. Hard to disagree really.

Billy Kidman v Perry Saturn

This is match 2 in Triple Threat Theatre. Hopefully Saturn can remember the rules of this one. It’s a bunkhouse brawl, which is basically just a hardcore match. Seeing as it doesn’t feature anyone with links to the days when a bunkhouse brawl meant something it doesn’t make much sense to call it that. The Revolution has been picking off the Filthy Animals one at a time so Kidman is virtually alone in that particular stable. The point of a bunkhouse match is that it’s no DQ so logically we go straight to illegal antics right? No. We just get a regular match at a rather lethargic pace. Saturn manages to go low after about 2 minutes before hitting a diving clothesline to the floor where a pin gets 2. Saturn’s lack of street clothes hurts the gimmick of the match too. He’s wearing trunks in a match that’s supposed to be a brawl. He’s come to wrestle. Crowd is completely gone here. Completely. Springboard legdrop from Saturn gets 2. Clearly he’s not been told what the point of this match is. He improves by ripping Kidman’s shirt and chopping at him. He rips that off to use the shirt on a choke drag. Saturn bails for a table. It’s too late though. The crowd aren’t bothered anymore. Tenay and Heenan are sniping at each other on commentary. Heenan is so far passed the point of caring it’s almost embarrassing. Saturn breaks out the Savage Elbow. A hell of a way to elevate Saturn would be to put him in with Randy Savage seeing as they never had any idea what to do with Savage anyway. Saturn makes the mistake of going for a powerbomb and obviously can’t get it but Saturn counters back and actually POWERBOMBS Kidman for 2. Moonsault misses though. Crowd is finally waking up. Kidman manages a bulldog and the Rydien bomb for 2. Kidman goes for another bulldog but Saturn counters and suplexes Kidman over the rope through the table at ringside. Oh, that was great positioning. Nice work. Pin gets 2. Saturn wants to finish this now but when he goes up top he spends too long mugging for the crowd. Kidman cuts him off and they do some sort of backdrop off the top. One of Kidman’s feet fell off. Saturn goes for another powerbomb but you can’t powerbomb Kidman…twice. It’s countered into the facecrusher for the anticlimactic win at 10.03. **. At least we have a match that doesn’t suck! WOO! Look, snowflakes are falling in Ohio. Amazing it took them six matches to get actual stars awarded but the quality of the first five matches really was appalling.

Booker T w/Midnight v Stevie Ray

So they finally pull the trigger on this match about a year after anyone would have cared about it because now the heel/face alignment is all messed up. Booker’s pre-match promo reflects that as it’s really ambiguous and has Booker kicking his brother to the curb. The fact Booker has someone in his corner shows his weakness. I’d have turned Midnight on Booker without a second thought. So he sends her to the back to make this less screwy. Of course having this match is a mistake anyway because Booker is only ever as good as who he’s wrestling as has been shown by his constant failure to carry anyone but he CAN hang with good wrestlers. Of course Stevie completely sucks so this match has no chance. Booker does his part by selling everything Stevie does big time. That dynamic would work better if Booker was the heel of course. I can hear Booker calling spots. That’s a sign the camera at ringside is a little too close. Of course they can make quick calls because they know each other so well so it’s not as bad as it could be. Stevie grounds this with chinlocks because that’s about all he can effectively do. Luckily the crowd buys into it so you can’t really complain. Stevie goes for the Slapjack but Booker backdrops him. Booker comes back with an assortment of kicks. Axe Kick scores. Spinneroonie. Booker looks excitable. Book End! This brings in Ahmed Johnson for the DQ at 6.28. Yeah, Ackmeg Jobsuk (“yo go da, yo do ga”), the guy who injures everyone including himself every time he gets in the ring. DUD. The consistency of this card returns.

POST MATCH Midnight comes out to try and save Booker but she’s too scared to get in there. Stevie hits a sloppy as hell Slapjack. Ahmed breaks out an even sloppier Pearl River Plunge. “Ahmed” – crowd. See, they bit on that at least. Stevie names Ahmed “Big T” and says they’re the new and improved Harlem Heat. Improved in what sense? The ability to eat more fried chicken? Oh boy. I know I’ll get emails for that one.

BACKSTAGE Gene interviews Sid and asks how he feels about tonight. He says that the nWo tarnished the WCW title but they’re going to get the lustre back on the belt tonight by having “one hell of a war” with Chris Benoit.

Tank Abbott v Jerry Flynn

Jerry Flynn? Who cares about Jerry Flynn? No one in the crowd for starters as he gets the lightest babyface pop I think I’ve ever heard. Literally zero reaction for this guy. Tank just wails away in the corner with wild punches. Flynn comes back with leg kicks and they’re trying to make this look MMA style. They’re failing. Flynn goes for a cross armbreaker but Tank gets into the guard. This would be significantly more over now. Back then there’s no reaction at all. Tank jacks Flynn up for a powerbomb and tags Flynn with a big punch. Flynn doesn’t notice it so Tank hits him with another one and that ends it at 1.38. DUD. Nice try but the crowd wasn’t ready for shoot style. WCW really should have tried harder to do more stuff like this though. It helped differentiate them from the WWF although I guess the WWF did Brawl for All and Butterbean.

Diamond Dallas Page v Buff Bagwell

This is because Buff had been hitting on Kim Page. This is yet another no DQ match as its Last Man Standing. A shame they didn’t retain the Southern name for such a match – Texas Death Match. They brawl all over the place including into the penalty box for the hockey games. Crowd seems quite energised by the level of brawling. I can hear DDP talking too. I thought he pre-planned everything? Why does he need to talk four times in a minute? They get into the ring where DDP goes for the Cutter but Buff dodges it. Back out again and they brawl up the aisle to the WCW.com station. Oh lord; it’s Mark Madden on TV. Sheesh. DDP uses the monitor and a keyboard. Mark Madden is OFFLINE. Sweet. Buff elbow drops DDP through the WCW.com table but the camera somehow misses it. Tony is worried about the referee not making any kind of count. A replay shows what just happened seeing as at least one cameraman isn’t a retard and can get the shot. You can see the camera guy they were on right up in DDP’s face where he can’t see anything useful at all. DDP is bleeding from the side thanks to that spot. Buff dances a bit so DDP attacks him and crotches him on the ring post. Buff manages a big splash in the corner and we get our first 10 count. Buff gets up at 8, DDP at 9. They counter some more and Buff hits a DDT. Mark “Slick” Johnson’s elaborate counting technique is superb. DDP is up at 9. Neckbreaker from Buff and Buff calls for the Blockbuster. He hits it. Both guys are down and the referee is nowhere on the count, oh there he is! DDP makes it up at 9. Buff pulls out a riot baton and beats DDP down with it. DDP is up at 9 and Buff turned his back thinking it was over so he’s caught with the Diamond Cutter. DDP doesn’t get all of it so Buff gets up first. DDP stays down so Buff wins by taking DDP’s finisher, which has to be a first, at 11.38. *1/2.

POST MATCH Kim Page is out here. Buff tries to talk to her but DDP beats him down with the riot baton before leaving with Kim. So the Page’s remain together.

Billy Kidman v The Wall

This would be the surprise man for the Revolution. This is also a cage match. Kidman is 2-0 tonight. Heenan puts him over as a major player in WCW after tonight because of his guts and heart. Shane Douglas comes out to get a load of cheap heat before naming The Wall as Kidman’s opponent. I like Shane’s abuse of Kidman; “you cock…roach”. Oddly enough this isn’t a normal WCW cage but the new cage they’ve built with a roof…in other words it’s a Hell in a Cell. And they’re using it for the first time for Kidman-Wall. *slow clapping*. Crowd doesn’t care anyway as the cage doesn’t actually play into the match. It only looks like it does so WCW can steal from the WWF yet again. I can’t believe how dead this crowd is. They’ve just completely killed it. Seriously though, if you’re going to have a mystery guy come out for a third match than logically they have to be superior to the first two guys that came out here; Malenko and Saturn. Of course both those guys were walking out of the company the next night. The crowd suddenly goes insane but it must be for a fight in the crowd or something because nothing is happening in the ring. Wall goes for the 10 count punches but Kidman dives over him with a sunset flip for 2. Wall just overpowers and dominates the rest of the match. Which is the exact opposite of what the crowd want to see. Wall tries for the chokeslam but Kidman counters into a rana, which FINALLY gets a pop. He sets for the SSP but Wall gets up. Kidman dives at him anyway but just gets caught into the chokeslam for the pin at 5.03. ½*. Crowd isn’t impressed by this turn of events. The Revolution is about to die on it’s ass anyway but that’s the pay off for those three matches? Wall goes over? Great. Super.

Kevin Nash v Terry Funk

Here’s the stipulations for this one – much like every match, or so it seems, this is no DQ. If Funk wins the nWo has to disband forever (ha-ha) and if Nash wins he becomes WCW commissioner. No idea what that job meant but it was basically the authority position created because there was no authority person. It’s called commissioner because that’s what the WWF’s authority position was called. Nash has a big reach advantage so takes over easily. Funk is way over the hill by this point and has no business wrestling. He certainly doesn’t mind swearing at Nash though calling him a “motherfucking son of a bitch”, which gets the mic turned off. Nash powerbombs him through the announce table, which has such a huge impact on his back that it busts his forehead open. I love wrestling logic. Nash gets the mic and tells Funk that if he can crawl back into the ring after that he can keep the commissionary position. Funk gets back into the ring. “I’m a lyin’ son of a bitch” – Nash. He beats a bloody Funk and WCW’s new standards and practices means we can’t see it. On PPV. Yeah. Every time the cameraman sees blood he backs up about 15 feet. So now we see one spec beating up another spec over the other side of the ring. Heenan’s headset got bust during the powerbomb spot so he’s now just a spectator. Nash works Funk over a chair and the crowd noise gets turned down because they’re chanting “in the face”. Funk comes back with his own chair and a DDT for 2. Crowd sides with Nash, presumably because he’s seen as the WCW guy while Funk has been over in the WWF for a few years. Funk takes a few more chair shots. This leads to a contrived spot where chairs are set up in the ring. Nash spends this time kneeling by the ropes perhaps proposing to impartial referee Nick Patrick. Nash goes low and powerbombs Funk through three chairs for the pin at 7.59. *. Relatively fun compared to the rest of the card although the bizarre refusal to acknowledge the blood on the part of the producers made the whole situation feel like a WWF show from around 1993. A bad one at that.

BACKSTAGE Chris Benoit and Sid warm up in separate locations. Arn Anderson talks about how bad this result is for the company. He says he’s lived this nightmare before and he’s desperate to make sure that the world title stays away from the nWo. He’s the special guest referee tonight.

WCW title – Chris Benoit v Sid

Sid dominates the early going with power while Benoit looks for holds. Sid hurls Benoit outside while the locker room is assembling on the ramp to watch this. Press drop from Sid and a suplex into a, sort of, forward throw. Crowd is actually chanting “Sid” at this point but the booking of this match has hardly been inspiring. Benoit dropkicks the knee and starts working at the knee. Outside Benoit gets a touch more vicious, pardon the pun by dropkicking the ring steps into Sid’s leg. He’s not happy with once so he does it again. Back inside Benoit straps on a Figure Four but Sid turns it over with his power so Benoit has to get the ropes. Dropkick to the head leaves Sid staggered and Benoit capitalises by going after the leg. Benoit with a dragon screw, which Sid struggles with and the pin gets 2. Snap suplex and an elbow drop for good measure gets 1. KICKOUT OF DISRESPECT! Kiss my hairy ass, Eudy. Benoit kicks him in the knee again to put him in his place and hooks the deathlock with bridge. Sid refuses to tap out so Benoit works the leg over some more. Sid starts no selling so Benoit dropkicks his knee again. Heh. Up yours Eudy! Benoit has ‘gone a bit Muta’ in this one. Benoit pulls out the ROLLING GERMANS but Sid breaks loose after one and hits a powerslam for 2. Benoit goes all Angle with a heel hook while Sid plays to the crowd rather than selling. Then he grabs the ropes that were always within reach. That was totally retarded. Sid gets dumped on his head with a German suplex. He deserved that. Benoit calls for the finish – FLYING WOLVERINE…for 2. Sid’s kickout was one of those dumb Hogan power kickouts. Chokeslam and Benoit is left laying but he’s under the ropes so no pin. Crowd hates it but it’s setting up the finish. Benoit gets the Crossface out of nowhere at 14.59 even though Sid’s leg is under the rope. *1/2. Benoit is the new WCW world heavyweight champion.

BACKSTAGE Gene gets an interview with Chris Benoit before he leaves the arena, and WCW, for good. Benoit is surprisingly low key putting over Sid and giving us some history of how much he liked Dynamite Kid. Arn Anderson shows up to say this moment is very emotional and congratulates Benoit on his win. But then in comes Kevin Nash to say the belt belongs to the nWo so he’s going to make Benoit’s life a living hell. Nash calls him a “little turd”. Benoit’s comeback is terrific. “From the little turd to the big turd, best of luck”.

On Nitro the belt was declared vacant because of Sid’s leg being under the ropes on the Crippler Crossface. It would have originally been to produce a re-match at the next PPV but was eventually used as an out because Benoit quit the company. In fact six releases were granted by Bill Busch the next night; Benoit, Guerrero, Malenko, Saturn, Shane Douglas and Konnan. The last two didn’t sign off on theirs because they figured that the WWF wouldn’t sign them. Figured right as well I’d suggest. The others clubbed together to go to the WWF. They were interested in Benoit and to a lesser extent Eddie Guerrero but ended up taking all four as a sign of good faith. It ended up giving the WWF just the shake up it needed and added some much needed workrate into the midcard and main events. When you consider the rise of Kurt Angle and the push for Chris Jericho coming in at the same time and the WWF was the place to go for workrate as well as entertainment. WCW lost four of its hardest workers meanwhile and started to go even further down the tubes. The idea being that they wanted to reward the guys who worked hard in the midcard without getting a push. Unfortunately all they had left was Booker T and Kidman. Hardly enough to build a company around. As it turns out Benoit didn’t have anything to worry about as Kevin Sullivan was turfed off booking duties thanks to an overwhelmingly negative response to his appointment and was given the duties of booking WCW Saturday Night, a show watched by approximately no one.

The 411: Benoit won the belt. That’s on the Hard Knocks DVD. Everything else sucks. The best of the rest was Kidman-Saturn, which was hugely disappointing and capped the show’s snowflake scores with two. Ultimately this show is another nail in the WCW coffin as the only match that meant anything ended up meaning nothing the next night. What little crowd remained was slowly fading away and getting pissed off with getting screwed over by one PPV after another. Oh and SEVEN DUD’s on this card. SEVEN. Think about that.

Final Score:  2.0   [ Very Bad ]