Meng is not the Hardcore champion, but he is the one carrying the gold after stealing it last week.  Tony Schiavone has a great line about how Meng may not have won every wrestling match he’s been involved in but he’s won every fight.  Daffney, in the crowd, throws a drink over Funk as he walks down the aisle and he responds by pulling her over the railings by her hair.  It looks like it was pre-determined plan as Crowbar nails Funk from behind with a chair.  They fight their way back into the women’s rest room where Funk launches a plastic trash can at Crowbar’s head, rubbish flying everywhere.  Funk takes him on a trip of the stall doors before Meng finally joins them, walloping ‘the Funker’ with a mop bucket.  They return to the arena, Meng wearing a trash can out on Funk.  He and Crowbar team up, slamming Meng’s head into the metal gate door, although that has no effect on him.  Crowbar manages to beat Meng down and then slams one flattened table after another on top of him.  Funk with a chairshot to the head, Crowbar using a fire extinguisher to stop him in his tracks.  He lays ‘the Funker’ on a table and puts him through it with a double leg drop from the first row.  Meng is up and he and Crowbar duke it out in front of the Nitrovision trading chops.  A standing side kick sends Crowbar rolling down the steel entrance way.  Funk uses a snow shovel as a weapon.  He bridges a guardrail upright and then bodyslams Crowbar onto it, folding the railing up double.  After more chair shots Scott Hudson says that they’ve all lost brain cells here, ain’t that true!  Crowbar targets Funk’s dodgy knees.  Meng saves ‘the Funker’, splashing Crowbar off the top as he’s got a Figure Four applied.  Piledriver.  Middle rope frog splash on Funk, Crowbar breaking up the pin.  Meng takes eight chair shots to the head, the last one dropping him.  Funk tries to persuade Crowbar to work together but he double crosses him, cracking him over the head with a chair.  Meng superkicks the chair into Crowbar’s face and with no-one to make the save, the Tongan Death grip does for Funk, Meng legitimately now the WCW Hardcore champion.

One of the better WCW hardcore matches, I especially thought the backstage stuff here was done better than usual.  Entertaining and the effort was there from everyone.  The negative would be way too many unprotected chair shots to the head, and while they weren’t swinging them like Balls Mahoney, they weren’t pulling the either and the cumulative effect can’t have been good.

Good Hard-core match although like usual this is not my favorite type of match. The backstage stuff actually look violent as well as fun for once which helped things here. Funk is always good at giving his all to sell the beating and Meng provided a nice contrast. *** (6.2)