Dark Pegasus Video Review: The History of the World Heavyweight Championship (Disc Two)

The History of the World Heavyweight Championship (Disc Two) by J.D. Dunn Twitter.com/jddunn411 Brightkite.com/jddunn411 Facebook.com/jddunn411 WCW Heavyweight Title: Ric Flair vs. Scott Steiner (w/Rick Steiner — 01/30/91). Word ’round the campfire was that Flair wanted to hand off the title to Steiner here, but Scott wouldn’t hear of it because that would make Rick expendable. I normally don’t use this word in association with Scott Steiner, but that’s… admirable. Flair is content to stall early, but Steiner catches him and overpowers him. Flair counters the corner pummel to an atomic drop to change the momentum. Typical Flair match follows, only Flair has trouble cheating because Rick Steiner keeps interfering. Scott escapes the figure-four and tosses Flair to the floor. STEINERLINE! Only five minutes left, so you know where this is going. Sleeper burns some more time, and Steiner clotheslines Flair over the top. The ref allows it in the most arbitrary of decisions. Flair goes for the Flair Pin, but Rick shoves his feet off the ropes. Tiger Driver, but Steiner lets Flair duck to the floor to kill more time. Back in, Steiner hits a flying clothesline with :30 left. Flair Flip, but Steiner catches him coming. Steiner wanders around before hitting the belly-to-belly as time expires at 21:40. Given the roll Scott Steiner was on at this time, one would think this would be a lot better. Instead, he just looks like a doofus, blatantly stalling for the time limit draw. Flair looked really uncomfortable taking some of his offense too. This was good by sheer force of talent, but at the same time, it felt like oil and water. *** Vacant WCW Heavyweight Title, Cage Match: Lex Luger vs. Barry Windham (07/14/91). You’ve heard the story by now. Jim Herd wanted Ric Flair to get an ear ring or dress up like a gladiator. Ric Flair wanted dignity. The two simply couldn’t co-exist, so Herd demanded Flair drop the title to Lex Luger. Flair refused because he thought Luger wasn’t good enough to carry the company, so Herd stripped Flair of the title and sent him packing up to Titanland. Big “We Want Flair!” chant. Let me put it in a metaphor Herd could understand – it’s like the crowd ordered pepperoni, and Herd delivered anchovies. This is about as half-assed as you can get, or in Tonyspeak “a great athletic contest.” The first few minutes are “hold, break, stare, circle” repeated about half a dozen times. Luger avoids a flying elbow and puts Windham in the Torture Rack. Windham flips out of it, though. The flying lariat gets two. Harley Race and Mr. Hughes walk down, and Race says, “Now’s the time.” Luger pops up, hits the piledriver, and picks up the win and the title at 12:25. The announcers don’t have any idea what’s going on, and, since Race didn’t really do anything heelish, the fans don’t know Luger has turned heel until he walks out with Race and Hughes. * WCW Heavyweight Title: Vader (w/Harley Race) vs. Ron Simmons (8/2/92). For some bizarre reason, we don’t get Harley Race’s race-relations promo where he tells Simmons “a Negro like you used to carry my bags.” Hey, it’s PG-13! This was supposed to be Sting vs. Vader, but Jake Roberts attacked Sting before the match. In order to give the fans the title match they were promised, Ron Simmons got the call via lottery. Simmons looks like a beast, tossing the 400-pound Vader around like a ragdoll. Vader gets sick of that in a hurry and mauls Simmons in the corner. Simmons kicks out of the big Vader splash, though. HE’S THE BLACK HULK! Maybe I shouldn’t give Peter David any ideas. Vader tries a short clothesline, but Simmons counters to a backslide! ONE, TWO, THR-NO! Vader misses a splash in the corner. SCHOOLBOY! ONE, TWO, THRE-NO! Vader SQUASHES Simmons on a sunset flip attempt. Simmons slips out of a powerbomb and POWERSLAMS Vader for the win and the title at 9:43. I love a good high-octane slugfest, and underdog babyface Simmons manning up and matching power with the seemingly unbeatable Vader more than fits that description. Great moment for WCW, and the fan reaction showed it. Unfortunately, the promotion continued to fall apart behind the scenes, and you can’t overcome that. The heat really boosted this one, but it’s a good power match on its own. ***1/4 WCW Heavyweight Title, Lumberjack Match: Vader (w/Harley Race) vs. Ricky Steamboat (10/16/93). Here it is. The most monstrous of monster heels and the most sympathetic of babyfaces. This is a rematch from a few weeks earlier where, I believe, Vader got disqualified. Vader, of course, overpowers Steamer and tosses him to the heels. Vader shows mercy, backing off and allowing Steamboat to recover… yeah, I’m screwing with you. Vader savages the poor guy like a grizzly bear on angeldust. Naturally, Vader is his own worst enemy and tries to jump off the apron onto Steamboat and winds up impacting against the railing. Ricky, always the master of psychology, goes after Vader’s chest. Sid Vicious, one of the lumberjacks, hops up and shouts at Ricky, allowing the babyface lumberjacks to get their shots on Vader. Ricky hits a super DDT and locks in the figure-four. Great strategy there – knock him silly and try to take his legs away. Vader makes the ropes and targets Ricky’s ribs. Did Uncle Fred turn heel and I’m not remembering it? Steamer comes back with a flying chop and the crossbody! ONE, TWO, THRE-NO! Steamboat starts kicking him like a dog (not that I condone that) and screaming at him. Vader clubs Steamboat to the apron where Harley Race and Arn Anderson get into it over putting Steamboat back in. Steamboat clobbers Vader, sending them both to the floor. That triggers a brawl on the floor, distracting the ref long enough for Sid to powerbomb Ricky on the inside. Vader adds a splash, and that’s all she wrote at 18:33. It could have been helped immensely by a tighter storyline. In the grander scheme of things, it was just supposed to be background for Vader vs. Sid. Still, this is one of the greatest on-paper David vs. Goliath matchups you’ll ever see. Steamboat’s dynamism and strategy matched with Vader’s viciousness got together like chocolate and peanut butter. ***3/4 WCW Heavyweight Title: Hulk Hogan (w/Jimmy Hart & Brother Bruti) vs. Ric Flair (w/Sensuous Sherri — 10/23/94). I think this one gets a bad rap from reviewers because of the result and the aftermath. Mr. T is your special guest referee, which is about as fair as having Arn Anderson referee. Mr. T shoves Hogan back to prove that he is going to call it down the middle. Bobby the Brain has almost lost his voice at this point. Hogan repeatedly tosses Flair into the cage and javelins him into the mesh. Flair crotches him, but Hogan wins a slugfest. It’s weird how little Hogan is giving Flair in there, and what’s weirder is how much better that makes the match. Finally, Flair gets Hogan down on the mat and goes after the knee. FIGURE-FOUR! Mr. T gets bumped during the Hulk Up, and that’s when things get weird. Sherri tries to climb up the cage, but Jimmy Hart rips her dress off. She shoves him into the cameraman, so Sting catches her and drags her down. The Masked Man (who attacked Hogan a week or so earlier) emerges from under the ring and nails Sting with a pipe to knock him out. Say, where’s Brutus? Sherri comes off the top with a back rake, and they run Hogan into the Masked Man’s pipe. They handcuff an unconscious Mr. T to the ropes. Hogan recovers and beats up both Sherri and Flair. Punch. Punch. Punch. Big boot. Legdrop. T counts with his free hand. ONE, TWO, THREE! Flair is forced into a retirement from which he’d never return. ::cough:: (19:27) Wild and wacky booking here, although not necessarily overbooked. It mixed a lot of the ongoing storylines, gave Flair some time off, and built to (an admittedly anemic) Starrcade main event. Both guys struggled to get their own formula match in, and the result was a highly entertaining hybrid. **** Vacant WCW Heavyweight Title: Sting vs. Hulk Hogan (02/22/98). This is a rematch from the execrable Starrcade ’97. Bobby Heenan actually describes the angle that *should* have happened with Hogan losing the title cleanly, thus losing the respect of the nWo and getting kicked out of the group. That way you could spend all of 1998 building up to Nash vs. Hogan and Renegade Crazy Frank Miller Villain Sting vs. Goldberg. Sting weathers about ten minutes of Hogan choking, clawing and gouging. Seriously, that’s Hogan’s heel offense… for three years. Sting hits the Stinger Splash and slaps on the Scorpion Deathlock. Hogan is in the ropes, though. Sting tries another splash but wipes out the ref in the process. Nick Patrick, who saw the light in the interim between their last match and this one, comes out and calls the match down the middle, much to Hogan’s chagrin. Hogan’s legdrop only gets two. Sting roars back, bringing out Flash Norton, Buff Bagwell and Vincent. Sting fights them off while Randy Savage runs in and hits Hogan with something. Sting covers for the pin at 16:42. Horrible match until the ref got bumped, and even after that, it was only average. WCW treats this like a big victory, but Sting would hold the title for about two months before giving it back to Hogan. Meh. *1/4 World Heavyweight Title: Hulk Hogan vs. Goldberg (07/06/98). This would be the giant, epic, humongous encounter that you could see for free. I know what you’re thinking: “What, you don’t like getting stuff for free?” No. I love getting stuff for free. But if it leads to the company that produces said stuff going out of business, I’ll happily pay a little. Actually, if this match were on PPV, I’d be pretty disappointed, but presumably they’d put more effort into it if it were the main event of Starrcade. Goldberg snarls and shakes off a lot of Hogan’s crappy offense. Man, Hogan was a horrible in-ring heel. Eventually, Goldberg fights his way back. Curt Hennig comes down but gets Diamond Cuttered by Karl Malone. That leaves Goldberg free to hit the spear and the Jackhammer at 8:11. Great moment in front of the hometown fans, but not really worth it in the long run, and Goldberg fizzled after that undefeated mystique was gone. *1/2 World Heavyweight Title: Jeff Jarrett vs. Booker T (07/09/00). Oy. This is a result of all the wacky shoot vs. work vs. worked-shoot stuff Hogan, Jarrett and Russo cooked up. Say, aren’t Hogan and Russo working together again after all this? I guess it’s true that there’s no such thing as a burned bridge. Either that or it’s easy to cross a river when it’s choked with the pile of cash you can make. Jarrett actually cost Booker a match earlier in the evening, which conveniently set up a match before they even knew they’d need one due to the “shoot.” Funny how that worked out so well for them. Book tries to wrestle early, but Jarrett wants to cheat, so they take it all over the arena. Back to ringside, Jarrett tosses Booker into the Fat Guys in Hawaiian Shirts and piledrives him on the announce table. To the ring, Jarrett grabs a sleeper. Booker reverses but gets kneebreakered. Jarrett goes for the figure-four, but Booker reverses to a small package. The Ax Kick gets two. Jarrett’s last-second shoulder roll is rather phony. The ref gets bumped, leading to Jarrett trying to use the belt. Booker ducks and hits Jarrett with the belt for two. Jarrett goes low and wedges a chair in between the ropes. Oh, but the fickle hand of irony kicks in and Jarrett goes into it. ONE, TWO, THR-NO! Oh brother. Why is Jarrett wrestling like Hogan? Jarrett tries to smash Booker with the guitar, but Booker catches him with the Book End at 13:38. It certainly seemed for about five minutes like they turned a corner, but the next night it all went back to stupid political crap. Booker didn’t get a lot of support from management, but he might have been pretty good in a Bischoff-run WCW in 2001 if his pre-buyout performance is any indication. I would have rather watched anyone – and I mean anyone – other than Jarrett around this time, so for Booker to drag a good match out of him is something of a minor miracle. **3/4 WCW Heavyweight Title: The Rock vs. Chris Jericho (10/21/01). Jericho and Rock were teaming one night, and Jericho accidentally nailed the Rock with a chairshot. Rock was pissed that Jericho didn’t apologize, so they got into a scuffle. That leads to this, an actual WWF wrestler vs. WWF wrestler match. Rock armdrags him down, but Jericho chops his way back. Jericho blocks the Rock Bottom, but Rocky blocks the Walls of Jericho. Jericho hits a flying elbow and a flying forearm for two. Rock fires back with chops but eats a spinning wheel kick. Rock comes back with a flying clothesline, but Jericho hotshots him to cut off his momentum. Rock catches Jericho on the top and superplexes him for a double KO tease. Jericho recovers and clotheslines Rock, but Rock no-sells and kips up. He knocks Jericho to the floor and slams his face on the announce table. Back in, Rock grabs a chinlock, but Jericho fights out of it. Rock avoids a dropkick and catapults Jericho into the buckle. Jericho wins a slugfest and ranas Rock for two. Jericho hits the Rock Bottom and the Lionsault! ONE, TWO, THRE-NO! Jericho bulldogs him, but the Jericho Elbow misses. Rock Dragon Screws him in sloppy fashion and locks in the Sharpshooter. Jericho… just… makes the… ropes. Rock drags Jericho out and ROCK BOTTOMS HIM through the table! Back in, Rock readies for the Rock Bottom and nearly gets booed out of the building. Jericho elbows out of it to a big pop but rushes right into the spinebuster. Rock sets up for the People’s Elbow, but Jericho trips him up on the way and turns it into the WALLS OF JERICHO! Rock reaches for the ropes, but Jericho pulls him to the center (with referee Charles Robinson helpfully yelling, “Pull back! Pull Back!”). Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley runs down and slides a chair in the ring. Jericho goes after her. Rock DDTs Jericho and then goes after Stephanie himself. He yanks her in and Rock Bottoms her. Jericho uses the distraction to sneak up and hit the Breakdown on the Rock right into the chair. That picks up the win at 23:43. Rock grabs the chair and hands it to Jericho just to let him know that it wasn’t a clean finish. Everything outside of Stephanie’s interference was tremendous, and they really screwed things up by dragging this feud into the Alliance angle, especially since nothing ever came of the interference. Plus, Jericho’s win was quickly buried as Rock won the title back a few weeks later on Raw, and then it was totally buried as meaningless by Ric Flair after the reset. For one night, they very nearly got it right, though. ****1/4

The 411: In one of those cruel twists of fate, the title took a big bump in visibility at the same time the matches contested over it went in the tank. Hogan got pretty stale again in 1998, and it's no wonder people started migrating from WCW to the WWF around that time. Nice to see the title surviving that 1998-00 period and being reborn somewhat during the Invasion.
Final Score:  9.5   [  Amazing ]