WhiteTail Wrestling

A scarily mediocre show

We are live from the UTC Arena in Chattanooga Tennessee. We have Jim Ross and Tony Schiavone on commentary tonight there will be four big title matches as well as the chamber of horrors match. Barry Windham is out of the chamber of horrors match as we soon see as we cross to Eric Bischoff earlier in the day. Bischoff is trying to talk to various wrestlers as they arrive for the show this is where Arn Anderson attacks Windham as he is trying to get out of his car.

It is the Chamber of Horrors that will begin the show. The match is a four on four encounter inside a steel cage structure which contains a number of weapons. The aim of the match is to place one of your opponents on the chair of torture that will descend from the opening on the roof of the cage at some stage of the match. Team number 1 is Sting, El Gigante and the Steiner Brothers with team 2 the heels are Abdullah the Butcher, Big Van Vader, Cactus Jack and The Diamond Studd. The last man to enter the match is Sting and he is jumped by Cactus before they enter the cage and the brawling begins. After a few minutes the chair descends which takes up a large part of the ring. To win the match somebody will need to be placed on the chair and the lever pulled to give the unfortunate victim a zap. A bunch of ghouls appear to stretcher the loser from ringside and yes the concept of this match is incredibly stupid. Cactus Jack is busted open and is taking bumps that are not worthy of a shitshow like this. Some of the brawling and action at the start of this match was fun but now the match is slow and lumbering and plain boring. Cactus goes to the switch with Abbie in position to put Rick Steiner on the chair but Rick reverses Abbie and it is the big man that ends up being zapped when Cactus pulls the switch. A lame ass fireworks display and Abbie takes a nap for a couple of minutes. Cactus wakes him up and crazy Abbie beats up all the ghouls. Awful stupid match which should never have been considered by a serious major league wresting promotion. DUD

Eric Bischoff and Missy Hyatt are backstage speculating about who the WCW Phantom is. The Young Pistols show up they want a shot at the US Tag Titles currently held by The Patriots.

Tag action as Big Josh and PN News take on The Creatures (Joey Maggs & Johnny Rich). Awful rap from PN News before the match. A generic tag squash which should have been on TV rather than PPV and by TV I mean a B show not an A show. Big Josh and PN News win the match against the masked jobbers but who could possibly care. **

The best match of the card to date as Beautiful Bobby defeats Terrance Taylor. Good work by both guys although I do feel that these two could have a better match. I’m not sure what held this back whether it was Taylor’s gimmick or the match structure and time given to them. Why these guys who as far as I am aware were close to their physical prime needed three rest holds I do not know but this didn’t help things. Bobby wins after the Alabama Jam. A good match but should have been better. ***

Johnny B Badd defeated Jimmy Garvin in a borderline average match made far worse by an awful finish. The match itself just happened it wasn’t bad but nothing memorable happened. Then the finish. Garvin hits the DDT but Theodore Long the manager of Badd jumps on the apron to distract the ref preventing the pinfall. Like an idiot Garvin gets distracted by Long allowing Badd to hit him with a punch and although Garvin gets his foot on the rope Long removes the foot and Badd wins. Adding to the stupidity Garvin had a manager of his own in Michael Hayes who just stood there and allowed this to happen. He complained after the match but by then it was too late. *1/2

Steve Austin defends his World Television Title after a fifteen minute draw against 21 year old Dustin Rhodes. The first few minutes were very good with some exciting fast paced action. The match slowed a little with Dustin getting color to once again prove that he is Dusty’s son. The final few minutes of this were once again very good with some excellent action as a draw became more likely. Dustin comes close to winning the title a number of times but can’t quite get that count of three. My only criticism of this part of the match is that it felt so obvious that it was going the distance and I never got the feeling that Dustin was winning this match or Austin for that matter. Still an excellent match worth a watch. ***1/2

We had a boring four minute snoozefest as Bill Kazmeir defeats the future Kevin Nash Oz. Not much more to say this was a snoozefest despite lasting about four minutes.

Van Hammer some dude with a heavy metal gimmick defeats the jobber Doug Somers in little over a minute. Why these last two matches were on the show I don’t know.

Flyin Brian Pillman defeats Richard Morton to become the first ever WCW Light Heavyweight Champion. For a match featuring Brian Pillman and the former Ricky Morton this was dissapointing. It wasn’t bad at all but it was just bang average. They hit some moves and the action went backward and forwards but without any real drama and intensity. Pillman wins with the crossbody after weirdly no selling being thrown onto the ringpost while having an injured shoulder. **1/2

The WCW Phantom squashes Z-Man. By the end of the match we’re not told who this Phantom is but we do have some clues. He is a proper Heavyweight, he has a moustache and he wins the match with a distinctive style of neckbreaker referred to by Tony Schiavone as the rude awakening.

The Enforcers (Arn Anderson & Larry Zbyszko) defeated The Patriots (Firebreaker Chip & Todd Champion) to defend their WCW World Tag Titles. This was another match on this card that never was better than average. There was decent enough action but the challenges didn’t help being nobody’s that were never likely to come even close to defeating Anderson and Zbyszko. Anderson pins one of The Patriots with the spine buster. **1/2

Paul E Dangerously accompanied by Medusa is interviewed by Bischoff. Paul E wants to destroy WCW and he will do that by destroying Sting. Paul E tasked Medusa with finding the man to destroy the stinger and we are then introduced to the WCW Phantom. The Phantom is revealed to be Ravishing Rick Rude who cuts a promo saying that all he cares about is himself, his woman and money and because his moneyman has a problem with Sting he also has a problem with Sting. He goes onto insult Sting referring to him as basically a little man. This segment was done well with Paul E and Rude coming across as being serious characters rather than jokes like half of the WCW roster.

Main event time as Lex Luger defends his WCW World Heavyweight Championship against Ron Simmons. Before the match they try to promote Simmons as a contender by showing him training at Florida State University where he had a successful football career. We then see him come to the ring with Dusty Rhodes further adding to his push as a potential champion. Luger comes to the ring with Harley Race. The first few minutes are ok then Simmons hits a powerslam followed by a spinebuster for the first fall of a three falls match. I was mostly enjoying the match except for some rest spots and then the second fall happened. Simmons on the ropes and Luger charges at him and goes over the top rope. Race holds Simmons tights to prevent him from going over. Stupid top rope rule kicks in and Simmons is disqualified. Simmons looking like a winner but can’t get the pinfall and with Simmons in a strong position Luger rolls outside and Simmons makes the mistake of following him out there and then missing a shoulder charge smashing his shoulder on the ring post. Luger rolls Simmons into the ring and then wins with a piledriver. Mostly a good match and could have been better. I did not like the last two falls with the second fall in particular a real cop out. ***

There were some good moments on this card but most of this show was a dissapointment. The opener was an all time debacle of a match a terrible concept of a match implemented terribly despite some good efforts by the wrestlers involved. Most of the other matches on this card were average or worse and the main event while good could have been better if booked to be so. The Rhodes vs Austin match is worth a watch but a PPV like this should have more than one match that I can safely recommend. A dissapointing show from WCW a promotion very good at being dissapointing when they had the potential to be so much better.