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WCW Souled Out 2000 1/16/00
This card was pretty devastated by injuries to Jeff Jarrett and Bret Hart, which shook the card up pretty dramatically the night of the show. Bret was scheduled to face Sid, but his injury suffered by an errant Goldberg kick at Starrcade caused a concussion (and post-concussion syndrome and a torn neck muscle). It was what ended Brets career. Jarrett also suffered a concussion on the Nitro before the PPV, so his matches with Chris Benoit were also called off. The decision was made to put Sid and Chris Benoit in the main event for the WCW Championship. For some reason, this made them decide to call off the Filthy Animals/Revolution 6 man tag and book Kidman against the Revolution in the Triple Threat Theater match that Jarrett and Benoit were scheduled for. In addition, David Flair vs Vampiro was changed to a triple threat with with Crowbar, because David Flair and Crowbar fight a lot anyway. It took nearly 7 minutes to get through all this and the show run down.
Billy Kidman vs Dean Malenko Catch-As-Catch-Can
This was originally to be a Dungeon match, which was to be a normal match with no ropes and any man going to the floor would lose. So they changed the name, had the same rules, and didnt take the ropes off. Starts off with some sweet chain wrestling, until Dean bails to the floor, seemingly forgetting the rules of the match. The announcers call the match as over, but there is some confusion with Dean and the ref before it is called. Kidman wins. A solid 3 minute match. Fitting that this was Deans final WCW match. Kidman actually looked more pissed than Dean, for some reason.
Vampiro vs David Flair vs Crowbar
This wasn't supposed to be a triple threat, but was turned into one because Crowbar and David fight during their matches anyway. They're the tag team champions. David is quickly disposed of to let the actual wrestlers wrestle. Vamp lands on his feet out of a monkey flip and does a suicide dive on Crowbar. I don't get Vamp. I think he's a pretty poor wrestler who has no kind of psychology in his matches at all (probably the lucha background), but he always made a connection with whatever crowd he was in front of. Crowbar does a flipping senton to the floor on top of both opponents. Cactus Splash from Crowbar. This is followed by a German suplex and Arabian facebuster. Crowbar is on a roll. Superplex from Vamp. Crowbar and Vamp fuck up Kidman's favorite spot, which pisses Vamp off, so he gives a dangerous back drop drivaaaah to David and high angled uranagi to Crowbar. Vamp pins David with the Nail in the Coffin.
TO THE BACK. Buff arrives a half hour into the PPV, because showing up on time for a PPV is for suckas. Elsewhere, Gene talks with the Mamalukes about their match with the Harris Brothers.
The Harris Brothers vs The Mamalukes
In a shitty and long match, Vito pins a bro after Disco's attempt to cost Vito the match backfires.
TO THE BACK. Spice and Madusa cry and bitch. Russo sure knows how to book women.
Oklahoma vs Madusa WCW Cruiserweight Championship
OK comes out and heels on YAKS. He's not an athlete, but he is a REAL MAN and a real man will beat a woman any day. The sad thing about this is that OK, a writer who is trained but hadn't wrestled in years, is actually a significantly better wrestler than Madusa, who had been touted as one of if not the best US woman wrestler of the past decade. OK is better at everything, plus his tits are real. Asya came out and threw some bombs on OK. The ref didn't care. OK won after grabbing Madusa's ass cape and doing a roll up. New champion! OK gets BBQ sauce poured all over him and down his singlet after the match.
TO THE MEAN GENE. Gene talks with Brian Knobs. Fat fuck. Four way hardcore match tonight. He promises Finlay that he's going to fuck all three dudes up tonight.
Fit Finlay vs Norman Smiley vs Meng vs Brian Knobs WCW Hardcore Championship Four The Hardway
Norman comes out in riot guard gear. This is a WCW hardcore match, which means a bunch of shitty looking weapon shots and Meng no selling everything. Norman tries to ram Knobs into the apron only for Knobs to give himself a Side Effect. Fat fuck couldn't even back up right. Knobs pinned Norman after hitting him with the riot shield. Title retained.
Billy Kidman vs Saturn Bunkhouse Brawl
I wonder what Saturn can do to to end the match faster than Dean did. The Revolution's dubbed theme is so weird. Actually, most of the dubbed WCW music sounds really strange. I wonder why WWE didn't either A. Dub in WWE themes (which they do for some guys) or B. Make the dubbed music sound as similar to the real music as possible. The Revolution's theme was The Beautiful People, but the dubbed song sounds like a Buckethead track. Cat's music is HILARIOUSLY awful. DDP's music at least kind of keeps the same tone. Anyway, Kidman is off to a fiery start. Saturn stops him by crotching him and doing a spring board lariatoo, taking both hard to the floor. No reference made to the Flock during this, but numerous references to Brain's drinking habits were made. Kidman is getting smashed right now. His shirt is ripped up, he's getting put in wacky subs, superkicked in the mouth. YOU CAN POWERBOMB KIDMAN! I believe only 6 men have powerbombed Kidman: Saturn, Dean, Eddie, Vampiro, Sid, Nash. I'm not sure on Nash or Sid, but it seems likely. Shortly after, Saturn misses a moonsault. Saturn recovers by throwing Kidman over the top and through a table with a belly to belly. They botched a YCPBK spot from the top, but then did it on the mat. YOU CAN'T POWERBOMB KIDMAN! That actually ended the match, too. Kidman is 2-0 and will face someone in Caged Heat later tonight.
TO THE HOOD. Stevie Ray's trip to the hood from Nitro was replayed. He takes great issue with Booker wanting to get away from the ghetto life. And he does this while wearing expensive jewelry and leather jacket. Mean Gean got a pre-match promo with Stevie and and the beating he's going to lay down is going to hurt Booker a lot more than it is going to hurt him.
Booker T. vs Stevie Ray
Booker's gear tonight is so bad. It's an all red pleather jumpsuit with the front open down to his navel and his chest hanging out. Not a very kingly look, Book. Midnight is out with Booker. I like Stevie when he's talking and the great faces he makes, but he was a terrible wrestler. The gulf of talent between these two is pretty amazing. Near the top of the list as far as sibling wrestlers go. Unsurprisingly uninteresting and boring as fuck match. It sucks that Booker went from working with Benoit/Eddie/Saturn/Martel/Finlay to being hurt and coming back to this shitty feud. Right after Book hits the Book End, AHMED JOHNSON hits runs to the ring. Tenay knows who that is! Midnight ran down, but didn't even try to help Booker while he was getting a beat down. Ahmed got on the mic and called Midnight a piece of fish, and it was time for her to get fried, too. Which is funny, because it looks like Ahmed only ate fried fish for the past two years.
TO THE MEAN GENE. Gene talks with Sid about the title match with Benoit. Sid looked so confused, but he's going to walk out champion tonight.
Tank Abbott vs Jerry Flyn SHOOT FIGHT
This was supposed to be in The Block, WCW's boiler room brawl knock off. No reason was given as to why it was now a shoot fight in the ring. Lambada should review this match. Tank tries a very poorly executed knee bar. He powerbombs out of an armbar and then totally whiffs on a KO punch, so he had to do it a few more times to cover. Tank wins.
DDP vs Buff Bagwell Last Man Standing
This match was built on an angle where Buff was SHOOT trying to fuck Kim while DDP was away working on Ready to Rumble. Not the characters, but off screen and 4REAL. It quickly heads to the floor and into the penalty box area. Back to ringside. Buff shoves off a Kanyon Cutter and hits a terrible spinning neck breaker. And even though Buff hit the move, DDP was the one to be on offense right after. They head back to the floor and are now at the WCW.com booth. They throw monitors at each other that are definitely not turned on and maybe not even plugged in. Buff drops an elbow through their table. Back to the ring. Buff gets crotched into the ring post. Sounds like DDP is scared about Buff's Stuff. Then again, Buff did say he'd put his Stuff all over Kim. Double arm DDT. Blockbuster. Buff pulls a baton out of his boot and hits DDP a few times. DDP gets up and hits a Kanyon Cutter. BANG! However, Buff gets to his feet first and wins the match. Kim came out and shared a look with Buff. DDP then beat the shit out of Buff and left with Kim.
Kidman vs The Wall Caged Heat
The Wall was Shane's mystery opponent for Kidman since Shane Douglas couldn't go 2 weeks without getting injured. What was to originally be Benoit vs Jarrett in a cage is now Kidman vs The Wall in a HIAC. Wall wins in a short match with a chokeslam. The finest HIAC of all time.
Kevin Nash vs Terry Funk
If Funk wins, the nWo must disband forever. If Nash wins, he becomes commissioner of WCW. Nash meets Funk in the aisle and the fight is on. Right away, Nash powerbombs Funk through the announce table. Like 2 minutes into this. Nash grabs a mic and says he'll let Funk stay the commissioner if Funk can crawl back to the ring. Funk does, but Nash lied. SWERVE! Funk is covered in blood and lands on his head getting clotheslined out of the ring. More chair shots in the ring. Funk hits a low blow and throws some chair shots of his own. DDT. Fans are booing Funk. You know, I hadn't thought about it when I did this originally, but Nash is the only member of the nWo 2000 that isn't injured. Bret is out and done. Hall is out. Steiner is out. Jeff is out. But Nash is the healthy one. Irony, bros. Series of unprotected chair shots from Nash. Two chairs are set up with another bridged between them. Nash jackknifes Funk on them for the win. Jeeeeezus. Nash is the new commissioner. Terry Funk's reign lasted for 13 days. And originally, it was supposed to be Flair as commissioner, but he refused. But since they wrote the role for Flair, they had Funk and his friends get beaten up in Flair Country anyway.
TO THE BACK. Sid and Benoit warm up. Elsewhere, Scott Hudson talks with special guest referee Arn Anderson, who will call the match right down the middle.
Chris Benoit vs Sid WCW Championship Special Guest Referee: Arn Anderson
Sid dominates the opening moments until Benoit gets an opening to go after the big man's legs. He places Sid's leg between the post and steps and dropkicks the steps twice. The entire WCW roster came out to the entrance to watch the match, giving it an important feel that the WCW Championship had lacked after Goldberg's first week as champ. Benoit continues the leg work for a good while. Sid starts to recharge after a fist bump from a fan in the front row. He was quickly cut off with a dropkick to the knee. Start of the Rolling Reich. Sid stops it and hits a powerslam. Attacking drop toe hold into a knee bar. It was pretty dope. German suplex. Iron Eagle. Sid kicks out WITH AUTHORITY! Huge chokeslam. Benoit was out, but his foot happened to be under the ropes, so the match continued. He immediately slapped on the Iron Crossface. Sid tapped out right away. His foot was also under the rope, but Arn didn't see it. New champion! Legitimately good match, definitely Sid's best ever.
TO THE MEAN GENE. Gene spoke with the new champion, who talked about Stampede and Dynamite Kid. His final words on WCW were directed at Kevin Nash and went as follows:
"Well, from the little turd to the bug turd, best of luck."
That's right, Chris Benoit's final moment on WCW television was calling himself a turd.
This was the last show for Benoit, Dean, Saturn, and Eddie, who would quit/be given their releases the next night. And despite WCW knowing this was going to happen, they still booked Benoit to win their vacant title just so they could vacate it again. This show also featured an over weight writer cosplaying as Jim Ross facing a woman for the cruiserweight championship, Bobby Heenan being drunk and it being mentioned on air, Ahmed Johnson returning looking like he ate the old Ahmed, and a Nash vs Funk match. Classic WCW.