What’s up, smarks? Welcome to a new spinoff of Pops & Botches. You may be familiar with the more modern NXT and AEW variety, or the retro Smackdown ones, but I bring you different territory; a different company altogether. WCW. Particularly, Nitro.
By the time I was born, WCW no longer lived (feel old?), but I have seen some Nitros and PPVs. I’m not a massive fan, at least of what I’ve seen, but I’ll try and stay positive – but I can’t stop my opinions, so be warned! With that being said, we’ll be starting early in the year Russo took over, so he can loom over like a spectre… I bring you, Superbrawl 9!
BOTCH: The Beginning of a VR Porno
We open up to Torrie Wilson (then known as Samantha), asking what you want for dinner in a hotel room. She also has what looks like a tiny rubber katana behind her? I don’t know. Either way, you, the audience, are her partner! Who is apparently just standing there, mouth agape, refusing to answer her question. However, you offer her Superbrawl tickets and she immediately lights up.
Well, it’ll be for me to decide if her excitement is justified or not. We’ll just have to wait and see. Regardless, not what I was expecting from the opening to a pay-per-view, but hey, it’s unique and I’m sure many a teenage boy wished she were their date to Superbrawl. Another opening package and some exposition, but we’ll just move on ahead to the first match on the card.
POP: This Sign
Not in focus, but on the right. Need I say more?
POP: DiscnWo InfernWo
That’s right, everyone’s favourite member of the nWo Wolfpac is here! This match started because on Thunder, Disco Inferno interrupted a chat between Harlem Heat, asking if it was a “Brother Thing”. Stevie Ray and Booker T are brothers, but something tells me Disco meant this in an entirely different way. Moving on.
Doesn’t take long for the crowd to chant ‘Disco sucks’. Mike Tenay and Bobby Heenan argue whether or not the Wolfpac will really have Disco’s back if he needs it. Normally i’d be inclined to say “Of course they won’t, it’s Disco Inferno”, but the slogan of the nWo is “interrupt as many matches as possible”, so I wouldn’t be surprised.
Booker T sells a clothesline amazingly, as if he were Charlie Brown missing a football.
However, despite the dire straits this image depicts, he is your winner of this match.
As far as opening matches go, this was actually pretty solid, you could definitely do worse. WCW was always great with openers; throw together two or more light, agile guys, give them just the right amount of time. It’s mostly Booker T that sold me on this.
Minor botch as Tony Schiavone and Bobby always bickered too much, drawing away from the action as we have a terrible replay at the end where Bobby hardly manages to recap the match and gets the finisher wrong despite it being called moments ago.
BOTCH: Auditioning for the Role of Sir John Falstaff…
Luckily for me, no matter what happens, Jericho is still around for a little while. I’m a huge Jericho mark, but even despite that, how can you not love him in this era of his career? He’s recently acquired Ralphus the bodyguard (RIP) and is on his way to face Perry Saturn, who lost a ‘loser wears a dress match’ with Jericho the previous month.
If Perry wins, he gets to ditch wearing a dress. Ralphus comes to the ring in a dress and Jericho has stolen one of your aunt’s nice tops, but I think that’s more to do with Jericho’s idea of heel heat through gaudy clothing that he had at this time rather than mocking Perry Saturn, because Chris would never wear a dress! That’s for sissies!
As an LGBT person, this shit from this time period aged poorly, but at the very least I expect to see two solid hands have a fine match. Scott Dickinson is your ref, who entered with Jericho, because of course he’s his man. Theme song confusion on the network here, because as we all know they dubbed Jericho’s Even Flow theme with his first WWE theme, and I’m not used to hearing sirens in a theme without the person entering the ring being Scott Steiner.
On to the actual match, Saturn knocks out the ref, which ok, I get that Scott is Jericho’s guy but he had Jericho down and could have won but decided not to, walking out of the ring and down the ramp, ending the match.
Not as good as I thought. Slow, which I could understand from Saturn, but I thought Jericho would have been a great foil. Not the case. Could’ve been better and worked as a cooldown match, but it sucked and the ending really killed it. Jericho was good at hyping up the crowd as usual, though.
POP: The (Not So) Filthy Animals
The story here is that there was a tournament to decide who will win the vacated tag titles (more on that next), due to Rick Steiner, one of the title holders, getting badly injured. Kidman and Guerrero were a team in this tournament, but they fell out as they lost. Now they fight for the Cruiserweight title, currently around Kidman’s waist.
This was a welcome change from the last slow match; WCW had the best cruiserweight division at this time, and Kidman and Chavo are both overlooked, I think. Kidman because people only really cared about him in The Flock and Chavo because his uncle was higher on the card (and as we all know, sadly passed young). But as I said, both of these men are great cruiserweights in their own right.
Kidman hits an anti air dropkick (as seen above) which is even more astounding than either of these mens normally astounding movesets. Kidman also manages to reverse a powerbomb in a spectacular fashion. As expected, great match. Kidman is still the champ, which after this showing, he definitely deserves.
BOTCH: Three and a Half Horsemen
As alluded to before, this is the result of the finals of that tag team tournament. We have Hennig and Windham vs current Four Horsemen members and Triple Threat founders, Dean Malenko and Chris Benoit. He’s only around for a year more but I’ll get this out of the way: Fuck Chris Benoit. I think he was a great worker and he put on matches I love but absolutely fuck the guy. Any praise I have for his in ring work does not reflect at all of what I think of the human being.
I know Windham’s history but I’ve never seen him in ring, the pairing of him and Hennig seem odd. I’m pretty sure the teams were randomly picked, but this just really leads to the fact I think WCW did dirty. Brain points out every man in the ring was a horseman, but I don’t count Hennig since he turned on them extremely quickly.
Hennig sells a chop almost as good as Booker T sold the clothesline earlier – more of a 270 than a 360. Dean Malenko also literally knocked the spit out of Windham’s mouth. Barry Windham taps, but this match has a stipulation thats two out of three falls except one fall happened on Nitro, or something. It’s called a double elimination tournament, but I really can’t imagine them booking a tournament like that. I don’t know. Either way, two points for Windham-Hennig mean they’re the new tag champs. This gets a botch due to the bizarre stipulation and the fact it’s not really an amazing match.
BOTCH: You Can Leave Your Mask On
Hair vs Mask tag team match. Except it’s not The Outsiders who will lose their hair, but Miss Elizabeth. And if Proto Filthy Animals lose, only Rey has a mask to lose. You see how this isn’t exactly the greatest stipulation? Well, Rey must trust Konnan a whole lot if he’s betting his mask here.
There’s this woman who’s mad happy the Wolfpac are here and we focus on here for about 5 seconds. Even when the camera is taken off her, you can still hear her scream. Talk about dedication.
Rey clashes well with the bigger Outsiders, classic big guy vs little guy and to the extreme. K-Dog gets a hot tag but I’d love to see Rey unleashed on those two. The action was good while it lasted, but the match was way too short and of course Rey gets unmasked. What more is there to say than this sucks? I know Rey wasn’t a legend at this point but come on Eric, not every luchadore needs to be unmasked.
POP: Big Poppa Rump
DDP has beef with Scott Steiner because Scott wants his wife, Kimberly. The TV title is also on the line. They have a pretty decent start, but then Buff Bagwell realizes that we’re about halfway through the show and there hasn’t been an nWo run-in yet and decides to fix that. The match doesn’t end in DQ for whatever reason, but that’s a double-edged sword because now that run-ins are (apparently) legal, DDP’s chances of winning drastic go down.
The run-in wasn’t as bad as most other nWo run-ins, but DDP lost which kinda sucks. Despite that, pretty decent match, so it gets a pop.
BOTCH: Off Kilt-er
I’m of the belief that your secondary belt should be reserved for midcarders or up and comers, but these guys are both main eventers. Then again, WCW also had the TV Title, so I guess I just don’t like the idea of a secondary belt that is main event level unless it’s exclusive to a show like WWE does.
Anyhow, surprisingly decent match for the first half, but of course it delves into nWo shenanigans, getting Scott the win. “Too much nWo”, says Mike Tenay, and 8 days of the week, I’d agree with him.
BOTCH: I Hate Goldberg
A video package earlier showed us that Bam Bam and Goldberg… Don’t like each other. I don’t think there’s much story here. Bam Bam comes out to no music which is extremely odd. Goldberg is fresh off his streak being beaten at Starrcade two months ago. As said before, I haven’t seen WCW past this point, so I’m curious at how you book someone so comically unbeatable after they’ve just been beaten.
I don’t like Goldberg. His streak is his entire character. He looks big and scary and he had a big streak. That’s it. When you get rid of that, Goldberg isn’t very compelling to watch. Hell, I didn’t even find him compelling to watch with his streak going.
“Oh, Goldberg’s on. Ok, he’s going to win, may as well tune out. Oh, his streak is gone? Well then why watch?” That’s my cynical mindset. Goldberg isn’t that bad, and I like the concept of him, but I just can’t find myself interested in him.
Oh, the match? Goldberg wins. It was fine.
BOTCH: And Another Thing…
Trust me, I’m not always this bitter – I think I have a healthy dose of bitterness like a lemon, but since this is my first outing here I just wanted to go all out. Eric Bischoff was such a mark. Not a money mark because Turner had all the money, but he really threw Turner’s money around.
I don’t know how much an announcer is typically paid nor how Buffer’s pay works, but I’ve read he makes up to $100k just by saying his catchphrase, which I assume is on top of his regular pay which is ridiculous. Yeah, people know Buffer, but I don’t think he adds that much to your product.
Not to shit on the guy himself but I also just don’t really feel like he has a voice fit for wrestling announcing compared to guys like Justin Roberts or Howard Finkel (RIP). I’m not familiar with boxing but I imagine he fits better as a boxing announcer than a wrestling announcer.
BOTCH: He Did It All For The Nookie
Flair is freshly president of WCW and demanded Hulk put his title on the line, so now Flair is challenging for it. Face Flair and Heel Hogan, as someone who grew up not knowing about the nWo and just saw Hulk as the old yellow and red, this is odd to me. A dude in the crowd too sweets Hogan as he makes his entrance and marks out, and I don’t blame him.
Got some classic Flair selling in this one. Hogan lands a chair shot and is not disqualified – i don’t know if rules changed over time or WCW refs are just extremely lax. Flair gets colour, of course. Hogan also uses his weight belt as a whip, but I’m not sure on the legality of that one so I’ll give him a pass there.
Hogan gets colour too, but Samantha (remember, Torrie) comes out to slap Flair. Flair covers Hogan but kicks out so viciously that Flair lands on Charles Robinson. Now someone in a balaclava comes out who then uses a stun gun on Flair, giving Hogan the win. He unmasks, revealing himself to be David Flair. Tony asks ‘What is this world coming to?’ and boy I agree, but not in the way he intended.
Well, that ends this pay-per-view. Not as bad as I thought it might be, but not amazing either. I didn’t like this ending but if this didn’t set the scene for the journey we’re about to go on, I don’t know what will.
Next time, we see the aftermath of SuperBrawl, what with David Flair and all that, Bret Hart vs Booker T, Kevin Nash vs Rey Mysterio and more.
