WCW: Uncensored 1995
-March 18, 1995
-Tupelo, Mississippi (the hell...?)
-Tony Schiavone and Bobby Heenan
-Man, RNG is sticking it to me with these mid-90's shows, right? But really... how bad could this be? It is the inaugural episode of UNCENSORED! Surely, they'd kick this event off right!
1. Dustin Rhodes vs. The Blacktop Bully - King Of The Road match
-Oh, god. The match in the bed of a truck. I've heard about this. All right, no big deal. We're going to just watch it and get through it...
So the point of this match is that Dustin and Bully are in the bed of a semi-truck that's just cruising around some podunk rural road. The bed of the truck is covered in bales of hay, and there is a truck horn attached to the top of a bar; the winner is the competitor who climbs up to the horn and blows it first. Seems harmless enough.
-Early on, Bobby Heenan (who I really shouldn't make fun of, because he is the bright spot of this whole show) tells us that "This match is what the Blacktop Bully is all about!". Really, Brain? Has he competed in many of these matches? Is he a notorious truck fighter on the independent circuit or something?
-The cameras SUCK for this match. There are two dudes on the back of the truck itself shooting into the bed, a camera crew following the truck shooting into the back, and a ****ing helicopter following the truck around and filming. None of them manage a consistently good view.
-Heenan is worried that the truck will have to stop to pay a toll or be weighed, and then states in a flabbergasted manner, "I don't know what truck drivers do!".
-The match itself is SLOW and CLUMSY. Neither guy can ever keep his balance for long, and there is a lot of silly falling over just because... it's hard to do athletics in the back of a moving truck, obviously. There are virtually no MOVES to speak of here; it's just "throw, punch, hit you with this item I found", and this goes on far too long. It's tedious to watch, really. Occasionally they cut from the action to the helicopter's camera to show us exciting things like "the truck is driving" or "the truck is making a turn" or "the truck has to stop to let a church bus pass" (and yes, that last one actually happens).
IIRC, both guys in this match ended up getting fired for using color. I might be wrong, but I'm sure I've heard that before. Because how dare you show blood on a program called Uncensored!
Bully wins the match after absolutely nothing special. Both guys get near the horn, he pushes Dustin away and honks it. The end.
RATING: 3/4* - Awful. Just abysmal. There's some perverse joy in the sheer silliness of it all, but it drags too long and has too little real action.
2. Meng (with Colonel Robert Parker) vs. Hacksaw Jim Duggan - Martial Arts match
-After a short, boring interview segment with Parker, Meng, and Arn Anderson, we have our first match of the night in the arena, and it's... a martial arts match! Sigh, this is going to be a long show...
-So the referee of this match is a gi-clad Sonny Onoo, in his WCW debut, which is, at least, a cool bit of trivia.
Onoo tries to explain the rules of the match, but Duggan is far too busy yelling "HOOOO!" and "USA!" to listen at all. It's literally like we're watching his A.D.D. kick in, and he's going "Too many words, **** IT. HOOOOOO!".
The beginning of this match is dreadfully boring. Onoo wants Duggan to bow. Duggan won't bow! Duggan yells catchphrases. Onoo scolds him. Onoo wants him to bow. Duggan won't bow... For a solid 3-5 minutes. Finally, Duggan agrees to bow, and Meng kicks his teeth in for it.
-Duggan, like a good babyface, decides the key to winning a Martial Arts match is to take off his boot and club Meng in the face with it. Apparently this is a common martial arts move, because it does not result in a disqualification.
The match is even worse than the first. Duggan is lazy and sloppy; Meng does not nothing but restholds, nerveholds, and chokeholds. It's putrid to watch.
At one point, Meng has Duggan in a nervehold, and Onoo does the whole "raise the arm three times" spot. The idiotic part is that Duggan isn't selling the nervehold AT ALL, and is wide-eyed and moving his head to look around. SO HOW COULD HE BE UNCONSCIOUS, ONOO? I'm not even sure if that is Onoo's fault or Duggan's.
God, this match takes approximately two years too long to end. Meng no-sells the Three-Point Stance, superkicks Duggan, and that's the end of it.
RATING: 1/4* - It made me appreciate the truck match more, so there's that.
We chase that tussle with a weird video vignette of Arn Anderson driving a truck and talking about being tough, intercut with shots from his matches. I've never been an Arn fan, and I have always fond him to be wildly overrated by the IWC, and this spot does him no favors.
3. Arn Anderson (with Colonel Robert Parker) vs. Johnny B. Badd (with Rock Finnegan) - Boxer Vs. Wrestler match
-"Boxer vs...", of for the love of...
-Arn is the TV Champion here, but the belt is not on the line (a common thread of the night's events, which I'm guessing was done to promote the UNSANCTIONED aspect of Uncensored).
-Apparently, you can win by pin, submission, or KO (a ten-count). The match is set to have ten 3-minute rounds with a 1-minute rest period between each round. So already, this sounds positively GRIPPING. A match with built-in inaction time? Sign me up!
-Badd spends the first two rounds DESTROYING Arn. Just pummeling him and making him look incompetent. Arn tries some half-hearted takedowns, but Badd easily thwarts them, and the WRESTLER ON A WRESTLING SHOW is made to look completely helpless at the hands of a guy using boxing technique only. There's apparently no technical knockouts, either, as Badd plants Arn on his *** at least four times in the second round.
Arn goes Full Heel between the second and third rounds, and just DDTs the hell out of Badd in the rest period. To his credit, he yells at the referee "No Disqualification!" while doing it, so it IS pretty smart.
Arn gets the momentum of the third fall, but things kind of fall apart with this Rock Finnegan jabroney (apparently Badd's boxing trainer) interjecting himself in the match and trying to save Badd. Parker gets involved, too, but not as much as Finnegan, who maybe thinks he is the heel here?
Between rounds, there is another short brawl, but Badd gets the advantage this time. Finnegan puts the spit bucket on Arn's head, and Badd gives him the big left. With Arn stunned, Badd throws off his gloves and hits the left again, KO-ing Arn. Even though I'm not sure the 4th round ever "begins", the referee counts Arn down, and Badd wins the match.
RATING: * 3/4 - Compared to the first two matches, this was Rock vs Austin. On its own merits, it was... not very good. Kind of fun, but that's it. It is disjointed, oddly paced, and just off. But it had moments, I guess.
4. Macho Man Randy Savage vs. Avalance
-Heyyy... no stipulation. I can support this.
-It's a pretty standard Big Villain Guy Vs Plucky Hero match. After an early flurry from Savage (including a cross-body from the top rope to the outside), Avalanche gets the advantage and carries the match with Savage's remarkable selling. Lots of typical splashes and drop moves. Avalanche even busts out his dropkick at one point.
-I always really dug both these guys. I was a huge Earthquake fan as a kid. And Savage is a legend. I couldn't really HATE this match if I tried. And, oh, it will test me...
-Commentary spends almost the entirety of the match wondering where Jimmy Hart is or what became of him, because he was apparently MIA in the back, and Hogan was sad backstage about this. So we can't bother to care about this match; Jimmy Hart is lost!
That said, Heenan has typical great heel moment where he says "You know, an avalanche could bury Tupelo, Mississippi, and these people could apply for federal grants through FEMA. They could get... eighteen... twenty bucks!".
-Back to the action, a "woman" interferes to attack Savage, and it is revealed to be Ric Flair in drag. This allows Avalanche to hit the running vertical splash, but Hogan charges the ring to save Savage and run off Flair and Avalanche. After being told ALL NIGHT that this is Uncensored and there are no rules... Savage is awarded the decision by disqualification. So there is that.
RATING: ** - Like I said, I like both guys. And the MATCH portion of the match wasn't bad at all. The ending was a trifle, though.
5. Big Bubba Rogers vs. Sting - Anything Goes match
-Oh, an Anything Goes match? Hopefully this ends in disqualification, also.
-So, all right, Big Bossman had just recently ditched his Guardian Angel identity and had gone heel as Big Bubba Rogers (and this guy used a LOT of identities in WCW, but they never found anything that connected on the level of Big Bossman in WWF. I never understood why WCW didn't just give him the exact same gimmick and call him Big Cop Man or something).
-The match starts with Sting stealing and leg-dropping Big Bubba's hat, proving that Sting hated fedoras before it was cool.
-Sting spends a good while controlling the match on offense until what looked to be just a miscommunicated leapfrog sees Bubba clip Sting. The resulting knee injury allows Bubba to gain control and work the knee for a while. Good working by the announcers, as they call back to Sting's 1990 knee injury that had him miss several months of action. Think about that... wrestling referencing 5 years prior. That would NEVER happen now! Anything older than 15 months might as well be the 1700's as far as modern WWE goes.
Speaking of commentary, Heenan continues being glorious for this match with lines like "This town's prom queen's name was Big Bubba" and "They should tear down Tupelo, Mississippi and build a swamp". For some reason, I recalled WCW Heenan to be uninspired, but not here.
-There is really no reason for this to be an "Anything Goes match" because NOTHING happens. No weapons, no cheating, no nothing. It's just a complete mundane match.
At one point, Bubba climbs the ropes, but he just falls off, leading to a Sting rally. That was the second time of the night what looked to be a botch turned into a rallying point for the other guy. So I can't tell if they were making this match up as they went or if they were playing the smarks way back in 1995.
Another god damned weird ending here, as Sting picks up Bubba for a slam, but can't hold him. He falls backwards, and... Bubba gets a 3 count out of it? Sting went down that easy to Big friggin' Bossman? And clean? Wow.
RATING: * - These guys had no chemistry, the match seemed botchy, the ending was anti-climactic, and the stipulation added no value.
6. Harlem Heat (with Sister Sherri) vs. The Nasty Boys - Falls Count Anywhere Tornado match
-Again, Harlem Heat are the champs, but the titles are not on the line.
-The match starts with Heat jumping the Nastys from behind after failing to come to the ring with Sherri for their entrance, and they maintain early control.
An odd moment sees Jerry Saggs completely okay on the outside of the ring while both members of Heat have Knobbs in the ring. They set up a Spike Piledriver from the middle rope, and... Saggs just watches the whole thing. He makes the barest of efforts to get in the ring, and just displays no imperative whatsoever. Kind of kills the drama, you know?
Still outside the ring, Saggs just starts no-selling ****. He no-sells a double-team Big Boot (who no-sells BIG BOOTS?!), then ignores some kicks to the head from Stevie Ray. I really don't remember much Nasty Boys crap from my youth, but did they do this a lot? Just ignore the other team's offense and no-sell it? No selling a Big Boot from Stevie Ray is pretty damn hard to swallow.
The two teams (and Sherri) eventually make their way to what appears to be a fake concession area (just three little set-ups with such name-brand goodness as REFRESHMENTS, LEMONADE, and FUNNEL CAKE, even though there is no oil or fryer to make funnel cake). What little semblance of a match they were having completely degrades here, and it just turns into a food fight with condiments.
The best part of all this is that the floor QUICKLY becomes covered in lemonade and cotton candy and ketchup-and-mustard, to the point where no one can stay on their feet. So we're back to the first match of the night, seeing a match where guys can't even stand upright. This goes on for A WHILE, and they never make it anywhere else.
Suddenly, the match just ends. Out of nowhere, a bell rings, and the Nasty Boys are declared the winners, but nothing shown indicates why. I just assumed WCW went "Ah, screw this" and threw the match out, but apparently there was a pin off-camera. Typical shoddy WCW crew work, I guess.
RATING: 1/2* - Kind of fun silliness at the end, but a nightmare of a match in general.
-After wards, we get a promo of Flair and Vader together. Flair was still all dolled up, and you can see how much he put into his drag outfit because he still has mascara, eyeliner, and nail polish. At one point, Vader says he and Flair have combined for 23 world title reigns, and... that can't possibly be right, can it? At this stage, Flair had only won, what, 13 or 14 titles? And there's no way Vader had 10, is there? Ah, well. They eventually start "WOOO"-ing together, and Vader is remarkably bad at it. It sounds more like he is saying "OOOOOH!"
7. Hulk Hogan (with Renegade) vs. Vader (with Ric Flair) - strap match
-**** yeah, *****es. Mother****ing Renegade in the house! He was actually brand new at this point, having JUST been brought in as Hogan's "Ultimate surprise", and I still can't believe WCW had the testicular fortitude to even TRY to pull this off.
The worst part is that the first SEVERAL minutes of the match are ALL ABOUT Flair and Renegade at ring side. Flair wants in the match, but Renegade won't let him. And--oh yeah!--there is a match going on inside the ring, but the commentary and camera crew don't care about that.
-Again, Hogan is the World Champion, but the title is not being defended here.
-When the action DOES shift in-ring, we find that this match blows, too. Both guys are sloppy and seem to be operating at 50% effort (RNG is developing oan early trend if trying to make me stop liking Vader, I guess). Eventually, a beaten Jimmy Hart in a ripped shirt and no sunglasses makes his way to ringside. There is remnants of tape around his wrists and ankles, and I'm so glad we resolved that storyline for absolutely no pay-off whatsoever, as Jimmy adds nothing to this match.
-Hogan DOMINATES this match and just destroys everything Vader tries to do. He treats Vader like Bastion Booger. I get that WCW was enamored of the appeal of finally having Hulk, but HOW DID THEY SCREW THIS FEUD UP SO BADLY? Vader looked like a child against Hulk.
The tide finally turns a bit when a Masked Man runs down and distracts Hogan, allowing Flair to break a chair over his back. I guess Renegade missed that one.
Finally on offense, Vader piddles around for a while before missing a second-rope senton onto a steel chair (still... pretty impressive for a man of Vader's size, even though we already knew Vader was agile). This allows Hulk to Hulk-Up and beat up Flair.
... and then Hogan just attaches the strap to Flair and drags HIM to all four corners, WINNING THE MATCH. Jesus, this show.
-End of match hinjix: The Masked Man returns, and there is a face-off in the ring of Hogan and Renegade against Flair, Vader, and the masked man. Then, a bound-and-gagged Arn Anderson, wearing all but the mask of the Masked Man costume, comes hopping down the aisle. The Masked Man in the ring attacks Flair and Vader, unmasking as Randy Savage. The faces chase off the heels, and Hogan and Savage work as hard as they can to put Renegade over.
RATING: 3/4* - Another mess. The main event was as much about the new Renegade as anything else, and that is bad because the fans don't buy him from the word "go".
OVERALL SHOW: 1.5/10 - I'm hesitant to give ANYTHING a 1/10, but I also can't fathom I will see any show worse than this one in my life. It's the single worst wrestling Pay-Per-View event that I can remember ever having seen, that's for sure. The HIGHLIGHT of the night was a 2-star Savage/Avalanche match! With a crappy, absurd ending! The zanier stuff can, at least, be historically amusing (like Arn/Badd, off the top of my head), and Heenan tried really hard. But this show was ridiculously bad. Not recommended at all.