Loss
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This was an excellent match. It was interesting that it started off with Benoit on offense and Sting put in a position to sell, which was a risky proposition considering that Sting had just turned heel and Benoit was not established as a top guy. But they reversed course quickly and granted, Sting wasn't particularly heelish, but they did lay this out in a cool veteran vs young guy way regardless of that. I watch this and wonder if Ric Flair is singlehandedly responsible for Sting never becoming a consistently great wrestler, because we do see some new offense from him here which I really like, and this match doesn't really follow the Sting formula, at least if there is a Sting formula. Luger hits Benoit with the bat after a ref bump to give Sting the victory, which brings Flair down to get attacked by the Sting, Luger and DDP until Hogan makes the save. They quickly moved on from the match finish to put the focus on the big six-man feud, and the announcers even looked ahead to that feud despite this being a World Title match. It was obvious they didn't feel strongly about even doing this match, even though these are exactly the types of matches they needed to do to build for the future. Interesting side story here: Benoit won a winner-gets-a-title-shot battle royal a few weeks before this. WCW was just filling TV time and had no plans of giving the winner a match, so weeks passed with no Benoit title shot and Internet fans complained pretty loudly. ECW even took shots at them for not delivering their advertised matches. They finally ran the match just to shut everyone up. Give credit to Benoit and Sting for crafting something good, but the presentation of this makes clear that we're not supposed to be too excited about it. -
Looks like word had gotten out by this time that Taz was leaving, based on the "You Sold Out" chants. Stupid mutants. Mike Awesome is in the crowd with Judge Jeff Jones and wants to get in the ring. Paul Heyman is there trying to hold them off while Taz is egging them to come in the ring. "We've been using footage of Tanaka beating Mike Awesome to build up Tanaka" is one of the dumbest things I've ever heard an announcer say, so congratulations Joey. The match becomes a three-way dance after Heyman gives in. Taz gets eliminated quickly when both guys pin him at the same time, which shifts the title feud to Awesome-Tanaka, which is a major upgrade. This is like all Awesome-Tanaka matches in that you either like the style or you don't, but they do what they do very well. It's not really personally my thing, but I can respect it as a Grade A effort. And I do think the booking of this helps it a lot because the quick Taz elimination is a shocker and the new top feud to carry the company is given a great chance to shine. Good stuff in front of what I'm guessing was ECW's biggest crowd ever.
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Haha, this is some cheap ass bootleg merchandise.
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The finish of the Louisville Gardens match. Cool seeing Lawler as the returning legend in a strong market. You see Lawler sell a low blow and realize how even in 1999 there are certain aspects of his game where he just excels. He throws a fireball at Buchanan and he and Conway win the match.
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I really enjoyed the super sharp good-evil contrast in this match. Morality play wrestling at its finest. I've seen Casas in many matches like this through the years, but he has typically been on the other side of the fence, so seeing him like this is still fresh and awesome. He's the star of this with his fired up heroics act which I absolutely love, but everyone was excellent.
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HHH wants Shane McMahon to be the referee. They play around with potential challengers before realizing HHH wants the match to be against Vince. Vince balks at first until HHH keeps goading him into the fight. This is really way too long for the story they are telling, but they were going overboard trying to get HHH over by this point. The match doesn't have the level of heat you'd think until Austin shows up. I do think watching this stuff that the talking points about HHH not getting over until retiring Foley are a little overstated, as it's not like he's playing to total crickets. But there is quite a bit of daylight between HHH and Austin here. Anyway, Vince wins the WWF title in an unlikely victory that I'm not sure they needed to do. And if they were going to do it, I wish they'd done it when Vince was still a heel.
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Ivory is out to introduce Cindy Margolis, a D-level celebrity if there ever was one. She's there to plug her appearance on Shasta McNasty on UPN. Ivory patronizes her by exaggerating her fame and asking her to do poses before bullying her into doing it. Jeff Jarrett takes the chance to run out and put her in the figure four leglock while Ivory cheers excitedly in the background. He high-fives Ivory for her help, then applies the same move to her.
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This is probably the most famous and acclaimed post-peak rivalry in Joshi, and this is widely considered the best match they ever had against each other. Satomura is throwing everything she has at Aja early on and nothing seems to be working that well. Still, it never really deters her and she keeps going strong no matter what. While she doesn’t get a ton of offense, it’s obvious about halfway through this that Satomura’s persistence is tiring Aja out and making her prone to mistakes. While Aja is still pulling big moves out, she’s not doing it as often, and Satomura is finally getting some semblance of momentum. Keep in mind that’s twenty minutes into this, so they really worked hard to get over the idea that Kong was too strong to beat. The end result of doing that is that Satomura’s comebacks get over strong because Aja was so dominant for so long. That finishing sequence was off the charts. September has been unusually full of talking segments, so this was a breath of fresh air.
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This was rough around the edges and their lack of experience shows, but I still thought this was a good match and I enjoyed watch it, partially because you could see two young guys figuring some things out. To their credit, they do all of their daredevil stuff, but also do quite a bit to engage the crowd and mix in plenty of matwork, including some really cool pinning combos I haven't seen before or since, especially whatever that thing was the finish. Nothing that will change the world, but still good and worth seeing.
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Last few minutes. Hogan is FIP. Luger is in street clothes which is a nice touch since the match was impromptu and Luger wasn't expecting to wrestle that night. Sting and Lex as a heel tag team is kinda novel. They work over Hogan's knee until Bret gets the hot tag. Not much to this match. DDP coms out with a baseball bat but Hogan cuts him off. But he had a baseball bat in his hand, which Luger used to hit Bret in the face and leave him prone to a Sting pin. Bret sells that great.
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Goldberg comes out unscheduled and addresses Sid for the first time, which gets a great pop from the crowd. Sid was a good guy for Goldberg to plow through. Jerry Flynn, who was in the ring for a match and got tired of waiting, takes a shot at Goldberg, and Goldberg leaves him laying. Good stuff. I still don't think there was any reason for Goldberg to talk this much, even if he was perfectly fine at it.
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Ric Flair is back! Three days after Bischoff was fired at that. He subtly references that he has a real job for the first time in five years and makes fun of his own booking for the last year, but Gene steers him away from that. Flair turns his attention to Sting and admits that he was probably jealous when he first showed up, but he felt like he was still The Man, so he kept on keepin' on. "You were The Franchise, I was The Man." Flair can't believe Sting would cheat to win a title, which is amusing. Finally, new top heels Sting and Luger come out to confront Flair. Flair offers to teach them how to read a TV format, where it says Ric Flair, 10 minutes. Funny. Sting recalls all the times Flair lured him and stabbed him in the back but also says he respects him for putting him on the map. He drops a lot of praise on Flair, but says because he respects him so much, he's going to give him a chance to leave peacefully and gracefully. Flair calls it a testament to his manhood that he can admit that he made Sting everything he is today, but says he doesn't appreciate Sting talking to him like his wife talks to him. The "Not!" reference is pretty dated even for 1999, though. Sting gets this back on track, saying he and Lex been waiting patiently for ten years for Flair to step aside and he's still here. They aren't waiting anymore. Luger backs him up and gets a ton of heat in doing so. He points out that this has been a year of graceful exits in sports with Gretzsky, Jordan, Elway and Sanders, and encourages Flair to follow their lead and get out of the ring. Flair responds by saying he was ready to retire until he watched Nitro the last few weeks and said no way they can't do this without him. Flair ends on a serious note, saying he respects him but he isn't going to walk on him. This prompts Sting and Luger attacking Flair. This is one of those segments that would have been amazing ten years earlier (it was good even in 1999), but the stars of 1989 NWA just couldn't compete with Austin and Rock, and that wasn't the ideal direction for WCW. Finally, Hulk Hogan and Bret Hart make the save and run Sting and Luger off. Hogan wants a tag match that night, and finds a way to use the word "ass" about a dozen times in two minutes. This was also the beginning of a very brief run where Hogan and Flair were both on the same side. Funny to see Hogan pandering to Flair so he gets cheered in North Carolina while also being part of a segment where he makes sure he's positioned above him.
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I kinda like HHH's look at this point. He wants to speak to Linda McMahon. His point of view is that since Austin technically forfeited his chance at the title tonight, he needs to start at the bottom of the ladder. Linda won't say that and he starts bullying her, but she won't take it. He puts his hands on her, which prompts the return of VINCE to TV to confront HHH, as the WWF is prepared to go all in to get HHH over as a top guy. He cuts a scorched Earth promo on HHH for putting his hands on Linda and is ready to take off his jacket and fight. Right then, Austin's music starts and he comes to the ring to go right after HHH. Vince takes off with Linda and HHH flies around all over the ring for Austin in a very fun brawl. The title match is officially underway, but they are both in street clothes, which makes it pretty cool. Austin ends up going after HHH's knee with the chair and Hebner intervenes and gets punched for it, which gives HHH a chance to try to hobble off. The match is thrown out. This segment is awesome. For some reason, the cage lowers, so Austin tosses HHH inside and gives him a stunner. 1999 WWF was very big on unexplained production assistance in angles, but this was great in spite of that. One of my favorite WWF segments of the year.
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This is supposed to be Austin vs HHH. Austin isn't dressed to wrestle since he didn't know he was having the match until he got to the building, and HHH comes out in street clothes to make it obvious the match wasn't happening. He has cops with him to arrest Austin for aggravated assault. After Austin is handcuffed, HHH decides to throw a few punches at him, which almost gets him arrested until he backs off. Great heat for this and I like consequences to actions. I love Jim Ross finding a way to justify what Austin did to the ambulance with HHH inside because it's hypocritical logic at its finest.
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Davey Boy Smith returns and has a weird remixed version of his old theme. He had nothing left in the ring anyway, nor did his personality fit in with where the WWF was at this point. Big Boss Man interrupts and it's funny seeing two early 90s WWF stars in a segment during the peak of Attitude. Al Snow interrupts to sing a song and call Boss Man "Ray" over and over. He summons the dogs and they end up making the Kennel in a Cell match for Unforgiven.
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Last few minutes. DDP interferes and attacks Hogan, even putting Sting on top of him. DDP gives the referee a Diamond Cutter and Bret comes down to attack DDP. Then Sid shows up, followed by Luger. Then Sting grabs the baseball bat Luger brought into the ring and hits Hogan with it in an ill-fated heel turn to win the WCW World Title.