Wrestling in a Bottle: WCW is Bad Snapple
Submitted by Snapple on Sunday, February 29, 2004 at 12:33 AM EST



Hello, and welcome to a brand new edition of the only column proven to help prevent gingivitis, Wrestling in a Bottle. I'm Snapple. This week, well, was a fairly bad week for wrestling in the WWE. Actually, RAW was almost acceptable, but it didn't do much to hype Wrestlemania. Smackdown! was just plain bad. This week has left me with a certain "negative energy" towards wrestling. I want to feel good about wrestling. It's Wrestlemania season for crying out loud. On the other hand, perhaps I could channel this negative energy into something productive. That's the reasoning behind my column for this week. I have dug up a WCW PPV from their pathetic year in 2000. Trust me, any PPV you find from that year is going to stink, so at least I had my pick of the litter. I chose WCW Mayhem 2000. All I can say is, this is not going to be pretty.

For those of you who come to Wrestling in a Bottle for the positivity, stop reading now.

Snapple Rips Apart Mayhem

Okay, let me make sure I'm ready. I have my video. I have a bag og Gardetto's (I love these things). I have some orange juice. I have my laptop. I think that's everything.

Right off the bat, it's GI Bro... er, I mean Booker T, seen entering the ring. Tonight, the THREE-TIME THREE-TIME THREE-TIME WCW Champion comes to a head with his heated rival, Scott Steiner, in a cage of some sort. Booker is all smiles, and he stops to sign a few autographs.

Next, we see Big Poppa Pump arriving at the arena. Security asks him to "sign in" on a laptop computer. This is apparently outrageous to Steiner, so he smashes the laptop with his lead pipe and mumbles something about "stupid computers." What a badass! (Read: Not a badass)

Next, out comes Ric Flair with a SHITTY HAIRCUT~! I totally don't remember his hair looking that bad in 2000, but it's a lot shorter than it is today and really spiky. Flair promises "the best in professional wrestling tonight." Ha!

Our announcers for tonight are Tony Schiavone, Stevie Ray, and Mark Madden.

Finally, our first match of the night begins with "Overrated" Mike Sanders defending the title against the mostly openly gay wrestler since last week, Kwee Wee. Before the match, Sanders says to Kwee Wee, "Let me show you how we handle our biatches." Shocking! About 60 seconds into the match, the Natural Born Thrillers are already interfering, as someone manages to do a flying clothesline to Kwee Wee without the referee noticing it. Before I continue talking about the match, I just thought I would remind everyone that the babyface in this match is wearing a tutu. It's rather funny how people tend to fondly remember the cruiserweight division from WCW when the cruiserweight title scene is taken up by men in women's clothing. It's a rather slow match, as Sanders is mostly doing power moves and then pausing to get heat from the crowd. Flair comes out and ejects everyone from ringside. Finally, there's some action in the ring, but again everytime Sanders hits a move, he gestures to the crowd instead of wrestling. Once Kwee Wee started getting some offense, it wasn't a bad match, albeit nothing so spectacular that two agile heavyweights couldn't do the same. The climax of this match came when Paisley, Kwee Wee's valet, handed him her wig to use as a weapon. Here comes another classic Tony Schiavone quote. "He's got the afro! He's got the afro!" You see, putting the afro wig in Sanders' face "blinded" him long enough to be punched. Brilliant! Actually, no it wasn't. Sanders got the very rare clean win in this match after he used his finisher on tutu boy.

Backstage, Mean Gene is with CEO Ric Flair. Flair lays down the law, saying that for the rest of the night, the only people allowed near the ring will be the people in the matches and their managers. Anyone else will have to face the wrath of being stabbed by Flair's pointy head.

In the hallway, Disco Inferno is trying to change a handicapped match that his buddy Alex Wright has against the Filthy Animals. Disco and Alex both shell out some protection money to include Roids... er, I mean Kronik in that match to make it a 3-on-2 handicap instead of a 2-on-1. Kronik says that much money will buy one of them, not both. Disco says that matches are about 15 minutes, so what if each member of Kronik is in the ring for seven and a half minutes? The hosses agree, and somehow this exchange on money was allowed to totally override Flair's booking by changing the match. Sure, it doesn't make sense, but that's okay. It's WCW.

Backstage still, we find Evan Kuragas running down his match tonight with his tag team partner, Jamie (K)noble. By some WACKY coincidence, during this interview segment we find out that Evan slept with Jamie's sister back in high school. Oh, the hilarity.

In the FOURTH backstage segment in a row, WCW Hardcore Champion Crowbar is arriving with some honies in tow. Crowbar sings a few lines of "Stayin' Alive," and my ears bleed. A note is left in Crowbar's dressing room which he conveniently reads aloud. "Tonight I'll be watching." Mystery and intrigue!

Our second match of the night is getting ready to gear up, and it's 3-Count versus Jung Dragons versus Noble and Kuragas. Shannon and the Pre-Hurricane enter the ring first. Shane gets on THE STICK~! "Sugar Shane's talkin'! You shut your mouth!" They start dancing to their music, but here comes the Dragons and the... other guys. The match starts out with an all-out brawl between the Dragons and 3-Count in the ring. Great chemistry by both teams. Finally the Carolinians recover and get in the ring. The ref puts everyone in their corner, and I believe I actually heard a "Knoble" chant. Whoa, that's refreshingly cool. Actually, this is a damn good match. Jimmy Yang needs to get a big push in the WWE, because he's one of the more talented cruiserweights, even considering how much talent is in the WWE cruiserweight division already. For some reason, now there's a ladder in the ring. Yet, the referee isn't calling for the DQ. I think I know where NWA-TNA got their refs now. Anyway, 3-Count won the match. I was entertained. Let's see if that happens again tonight.

Backstage, Bam Bam Bigelow assaults Mike Awesome and puts him through a table. Sergeant AWOL chases off Bigelow, but what is the fate of the Bigelow-Awesome match later tonight? Is Awesome still able to compete? Do I even care?

Now, Disco, Wright, and Kronik are being interviewed. They speak some gibberish, and that's that.

Now, Jimmy Hart is getting interviewed by Mean Gene. He's got a match with Mancow, but he also has a cast on his leg. Mean Gene is smart to his no good antics, as he exclaims, "That cast is about as real as Major Gunns'..." but he gets cut off before he can says breasts. They can't say breasts on PPV, because you know, WCW is all about class.

A backstage segment is shown of the Natural Born Thrillers lockerroom. Reno says he'll take care of Crowbar and Big Vito no problem tonight. Also, Sean O'Haire bangs angrily and repeatedly on the desk for no reason. I can't make this stuff up, folks.

Mancow makes his way to the ring. For those of you who don't know, Mancow is not a wrestler. He's a radio talk show host. Think of him, as a young, hip Rush Limbaugh. See, and I thought WCW was scraping the bottom of the celebrity barrel when they got Jay Leno to wrestle. I don't know how he got a match against Jimmy Hart, nor do I care. Essentially, before the match Mancow started blathering a bit about the election shenanigans that were going on at the time. Have I mentioned how I love mixing politics and wrestling? He calls Mark Madden "fat." Oh, how very controversial. I've never heard Mancow's show, but based on what I heard here, I don't have any desire to. The match starts, and this "match" is one of the worst matches I've ever seen, if you can call it that. While Mancow tries clumsily to remove Jimmy's cast, Tony Schiavone exclaims, "THIS is WCW!" Truer words were never spoken. After Mancow hits Hart in the face with his own cast, he gets the win. Hooray.

Backstage, Crowbar weeps over his fallen comrade, Mike Awesome.

The Misfits in Action have a meeting backstage. Chavo isn't happy that they're banned from ringside during General Rection's match for the United States Championship. Rection says that's cool, because he wants his match to be fair, one on one.

We catch a glimpse of Bam Bam talking eeeeeeevil with Lance Storm, although we cannot hear what is said.

Next is an interview with the Filthy Animals. Rey Mysterio (in full horn mode) says that Konnan couldn't make it because he hooked up with a hot chica last night. Billy Kidman disses Kronik and gives them THE RASPBERRY~! Fantastic.

Our fourth match of the night is a hardcore match between Crowbar, Reno, and Big Vito. Vito and Reno start out in a kendo stick fight, but then Crowbar takes out Reno with the tin lid of DOOM! Mark Madden has the quote of the match. "Is Big Vito sweating, or is he just covered in olive oil?" Wait, I think Schiavone just topped him with, "Oh no! Not the traffic cone!" Eventually, Vito leads Reno backstage, and Crowbar follows. Reno sends Vito through a refreshment table with a powerslam, but then Reno's girlfriend shows up. HUH?! "Why you gotta take our problems out on him?" she says. This distraction allows Crowbar to clobber Reno from behind and score the win. That was one of the most ridiculous endings to a match I've ever seen. Stupid stupid stupid.

Backstage... yet again (I'm really getting tired of backstage segments), we see Buff Bagwell is smiling and laughing like he has no central nervous system.

In another dressing room, Kevin Nash and Diamond Dallas Page are shooting the breeze. Nash mumbles something incoherent about being S.O.L. Nash then asks DDP who his favorite James Bond is, but the camera cuts away before DDP can answer. Now I'll never know the answer! Curse you, WCW. Curse you.

Mean Gene is now with The Cat backstage. Cat runs down a typical promo from himself. "Franchise, if I lose to you, I'm gonna crawl across that ring and kiss your dirty feet. Then, I'm gonna leave this country for 30 days. Ain't no way I can lose with the stuff I use." Very well put.

The next match is Kronik/Wright going against the Filthy Animals. Roid Ranger Brian Adams starts things off with Billy Kidman. For some reason, there's no commentary for about the first 20 seconds of the match, before Stevie and Mark go, "Hey Tony, call the match." Tony with his head on the desk again? I honestly don't know. Very weird moment though. Rey-Rey looks like a mosquito next to Adams, but of course we have a classic power vs. speed matchup. Of course, like any power vs. speed matchup in wrestling, the speedy guy gets creamed early on. Wright is such a boring wrestler. Does he have a job anymore? After seven and a half minutes, Kronik leaves the match, and Wright gets his ass kicked. Rey-Rey hits the BRONCO BUSTER, ie "one of the worst moves in wrestling." After a nutshot, the Filthy Animals win. Well that was predictable.

Scott Steiner delivers a good promo. "Booker T is waiting for death. Some people say I'm out of my mind. Some people say my X and Y chromosomes are quite connected. Well when I'm out of my mind, I'm at my best."

Our next match is The Cat against Shane Douglas, being accompanied by Torrie Wilson. Franchise always delivers the goods promo-wise, but when I see him next to Torrie, how can I not think of "Viagra-on-a-Pole"? Poor guy. Douglas is long since past his prime, even back in 2000, so Cat has his work cut out for him. The announcers won't call the match because Mark started choking at ringside. That's swell. The match starts out as a slow and unspectacular brawl. The Cat eventually builds up a head of steam, and things start to improve. Call me kooky, but I find Cat's dance-wrestling to be entertaining at times. Douglas nails the brass knux, but Cat gets his foot on the rope. Uh-oh, Cat's got his shoes on. Nobody can resist the Cat's shoes. One kick later, and Douglas is out for the one, two, three. This wasn't a very good match.

Backstage, someone smashed Jeff Jarrett's guitar. I bet it was that nogoodnik, Buff Bagwell.

The MIA are interviewed backstage, where Rection is reminded that this is his last fight with Lance Storm, and therefore his last chance to get US gold.

A video is shown for the upcoming debut of Glacier. Before we even see what the video is about, the CG effects are enough to make Tony exclaim "Oh dear God NO!" several times. Mark Madden ponders if we're actually watching a commercial for Stargate. Again, I can't make this stuff up. Oh how I wish I were.

The next match is Mike Awesome vs. Bam Bam Bigelow. Bam Bam gets on the mic and says that Awesome has been sent to the hospital. Bam Bam tries to declare himself the winner by forfeit, but here comes SPIKY HEAD Ric Flair to set him straight. He's decided that Bam Bam needs a new opponent, and that opponent is Sergeant AWOL. The match starts, and... well, it sucks already. Bam Bam dalls down, and he's grabbing his head. He's having trouble breathing, but AWOL is acting confused and is still beating him up. I can already see where this is going... Bam Bam continues to hold his head, but he finally decides to go for some offense. After a DDT, he climbs the top rope for the headbutt, but he connects with canvas. Bigelow is really hanging over AWOL, and AWOL takes him down with a heart punch. Match continues, and AWOL gets a table to slam him through. Bigelow lazily counters into a piledriver and wins. Now Bigelow collapses on the ground, and he looks like he's having a heart attack. Madden is screaming, "Get the camera off this! Get the camera off this!" Now the stretcher is coming out.

While Bam Dam is dieing, let's have an interview with Buff Bagwell! As if reality angles aren't bad enough, we're supposed to be laughing at Buff's funny interview while paramedics see to Bam Bam.

Oh, and now we have to watch the big video package for the Lance Storm-General Rection feud. Can we do one thing at a time? Storm delivers a killer promo though. I'm really not a fan of Storm's wrestling at all, but he was a good US/Canadian Champion, one of the few good champions in 2000. Now Rection is coming out and playing to the crowd while he has to walk past Bigelow on the stretcher. Oh wait, Bigelow is up! He attacked Rection and threw him into the ring steps. I'll say this for Bigelow. That was an insanely tasteless angle, but he's a damn good actor. The first time I saw this, I was legitimately fooled.

The US title match starts, and Storm starts taking apart Bill DeMott. He works over the leg for the Maple Leaf... and General Morris gets control after a bunch of crotch shots. Rection picks up the win after really not that long of a match with a botched moonsault. Of course, the announcers put over Rection's win as if Hulk Hogan just beat Andre. Let me reiterate... Lance Storm, the triple champion, lost his most prized belt to a fat guy named after a penis.

Backstage, Mike Sanders jammers his gums about something. It feels like I've been watching this show for ten hours already.

THE CH-CH-CHOSEN ONE! Jeff Jarrett comes down to the ring to take on Buff Bagwell. Jarrett, in 2000, was not a bad wrestler. In fact, he was a pretty good wrestler. Of course now he's taken a nosedive in talent as big as Triple-H's, but that's beside the point. Bagwell, on the other hand, is one of those people. There are very few wrestlers who I can't stand, at all, in any match at any time. Buff Bagwell is one of them. Jarrett calls me a slapnut, and here comes some goof in a hat to fight him. They start off with Buff getting in most of the offense in the ring, but the match quickly goes to the outside. They start fighting with cables and chairs in full view of the referee. Is this a No DQ match? I'm pretty sure it isn't. Tony chimes in with this factoid. "Jeff Jarrett has had hundreds of thousands of matches." That's quite impressive for any mortal person. Most men wouldn't wrestle that many matches in 500 years, but Jarrett's just cool like that. Jarrett puts on the sleeper of doom! Buff almost passes out, but then he counters into... another sleeper! Exciting. The match becomes a game of reversals, and I start to lose interest. I noticed myself spacing out. Oh wait, here comes the superboy David Flair running into the ring. He DDTed Jarrett onto a chair, and I see that "everyone's banned from ringside" thing really worked out well. Ah, but Jarrett had a backup guitar, and he clobbers Buff for the win. Well, at least the right man won.

Now we have a video package for the feud between the Natural Born Thrillers and Kevin Nash. Yeah, Nash is feuding with an entire stable, because now only groups of people are in Nash's league. He brought in DDP as a tag partner to challenge the NBT's tag team titles, held by the Perfect Event, Chuck Palumbo and Shawn Stasiak. So, at Mayhem, it's Kevin Nash and Diamond Dallas Page against Palumbo and Stasiak. Take a wild guess who's going to win this match. Sanders is leading his lambs to the slaughter.

There's a big "We Want Hall" chant for some reason, and the match begins. Let's see. Nash overpowers Palumbo. Palumbo starts firing away on Palumbo, but Nash no sells and beats up Palumbo some more. Lots of offense by the old guys. This is very predictable so far. The Natural Born Thrillers all run in the ring, and Nash no sells everything in sight! Now it's Stasiak and DDP in the ring, and DDP out-wrestles Stasiak, move for move. Wait, Stasiak got a DDT! That's the first piece of offense by the champions, only five minutes into the match. Now DDP is on the defensive, and he's actually selling. Leave it to DDP to do the work where Nash won't. I do have much love for DDP. I guess this means Nash is going to get the hot tag soon, even though a hot tag at two miles per hour isn't exactly "hot." Yup, hot tag by Nash. Two minutes later, we have new tag team champions. Nash didn't sell one move in that entire match.

Lex Luger is backstage, and boy does he look like crap. He also talks like crap, but we already knew that. Luger says, "I am the Michael Jordan of WCW." Wow, that's a scary thought.

Speaking of Luger, his match against Goldberg is next. This is the co-main event for some reason, and Luger comes out to zero heat. Now here comes Goldberg to take out the trash. For once, I have to give the ability advantage to Goldberg, and that's rather sad. Oh my, Goldberg starts the match off with the armbar of DOOM. Oh wait, time for some restholds and pausing to rework the situation. Now it's time for lots of punching and kicking. Wait... more punching and kicking. This is a very bad match. Oh no, the referee blocked the spear. Well, it doesn't make a difference because Goldberg hit the jackhammer anyway and a new ref counted the pin. What a match.

There are no more backstage segments. We're going straight into our main event, and a video package is played for Steiner-Booker. Let me just say that the video team is absolutely horrible compared to WWE's video people. There's a definite drop-off in quality.

Now the Hell in a Cell is being lowered... except it's not a HIAC, it's just being called a cage.

Don't hate the player, hate the game. Booker joins Steiner in the ring, and the cage is padlocked. They're already throwing each other into the cage and into the ring steps. I don't quite understand why Midajah is also in the Cell, but she is. Steiner hits some weak offense in the ring. I will say that his body looks a lot better than it does now. The years have been very bad to Steiner, and one of his only strong points, his body, has now deteriorated into nasty mush. Here comes the Steiner elbow drop followed by pushups. This isn't a very brutal cage match. I've seen flashlights more intense than this fight. Nash-HHH was more intense than this. Hey, Mark Madden just invented a new word. "Super-duper-plex." Oh no, now here comes the bearhug! The crowd is on their feet! ...or maybe they're just trying to get to the exit. Steiner is climbing the cage to grab the straightjacket. Did I mention there's a straightjacket in the ring? See, even though it takes longer to put on a straightjacket than it does to pin a man, it's supposed to help someone win the match. Steiner very patiently lets Booker put the jacket on him, and then Booker takes a chairshot to Steiner. Finally, some weapons. Steiner uses his super-human strength to rip the sleeves off the jacket, and he puts Booker in the Recleiner. Steiner comes off the second rope with the flying "counter me," which Booker counters very obviously with a Bookend. More brawling... and a scissor kick that took way too long to execute convincingly. Spinneroonie, but then Steiner goes ballistic and hits Booker with a chair. We have a second Recleiner, and Booker passes out.

After the match, Steiner hits Booker with a steel chair about ten times. Why couldn't he do this DURING the match? Makes no sense to me. Steiner was slow as crap, and Booker was not on his game. There was also way too much wrestling for a No DQ style match.

Overall, the PPV sucked, big time. Horriblicious. The three team cruiserweight tag match was the lone good match on the card. Otherwise, I had trouble staying awake, and people wonder why WCW went under. It's quite simple. Towards the end of its career, it was a horrible, horrible show. If anyone is ever tempted to buy any WCW pay-per-views on eBay, don't. Let this be a warning to you.

Ask Triple-H

HHH: Welcome to another edition of Ask me, Triple-H. I'm happy to announce to my fans that I am indeed out of the hospital and ready to wrestle again, should that become necessary. Hopefully it won't. Do you realize how much money they pay me to wrestle once a month? More money that I know what to do with. If I want to go out and buy 1000 tacos, I can, and I don't even have to eat most of them. That's how much money I have to waste. Let's get to this week's question.

Triple H, how long will it be before you simply own the WWE? I mean, you already own Raw by now, so all it takes is taking over Smackdown and then getting rid of "Daddy".

-Mike


HHH: Mike, I love Vince, and I hope he lives forever. Now, just because once he keels over, Steph and I will have free reign doesn't mean that I'm conspiring to kill him. On the contrary, I'm not that kind of guy. Vince and I have a very special relationship, and he gives me so much in return for not killing him. All I have to do is spend some "special time" with Vince every other Wednesday, and he's more than cooperative. Vince has become like a father to me, so I haven't the heart to kill the old bastard. Besides, it'll be even harder to kill Shane. That guy is like a weasel. It's hard to get a grip on him. It's much easier to "pump" the source than kill all your competitors, if you know what I mean. Simply put, I have the owner of the biggest company in the world wrapped around my finger. Therefore, I am the true king of the world. Gee, I hope Vince doesn't read this column... that's all for this week. Now get lost.

Final Thought

I really hope RAW and Smackdown! do a better job of hyping Wrestlemania next week. Hopefully, instead of hearing me bitch about the shows this week, you found some enjoyment out of my shredding of bad things in WCW. If not, I'll take notes and not do it again. Column writing is a constant learning experience, even after all this time. Until next time, have a nice day.

-Snapple


Do you like free muffins? Email me. happydude5000@msn.com

Questions for Triple-H should include the phrase "Ask Triple-H" in the subject header.

Click to order the greatest book you don't own, Wrestlecrap: The Book!








*NEW GALLERY* MUST SEE! Very Rare Photos of KAREN ANGLE Over the Years!

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