SuperBrawl IX
Oakland, CA - February 1999
CHAMPIONSHIP RUNDOWN: Coming into SuperBrawl IX, "Hollywood" Hulk Hogan is the WCW World Champion, the United States Championship is held by Roddy Piper, and the Television Champion is Scott Steiner. The Cruiserweight Championship is held by Billy Kidman while the WCW World Tag Team Championships are vacated - but will be rewarded to one lucky team tonight.
COMMENTATORS: Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan, and Mike Tenay
Our opening contest is Disco Inferno, the newest member of the nWo Wolfpack, taking on Booker T. The storyline coming in is a thin one - Inferno is a member of the Wolfpack and Booker was trying to pull his brother Stevie Ray out of the nWo. The crowd starts up a loud "Disco Sucks" chant early and Booker T is plenty enough over by this point to have been moved up the card a bit. Save for a moment here or there, Booker T is in full control of this match (though, Disco does hit a nifty clothesline late in the match that turns Booker T inside out). After a Spinnerooni, Booker T hits his signature side kick and then heads to the top to hit the Harlem Hangover. Decent enough match, but probably not PPV worthy. (2/5)
Next up, the continuation of the Jericho/Saturn feud. I found this match to be a considerable improvement from their encounter at Souled Out, which had lots of good wrestling, but didn't necessarily tell a great story. This match, though, kept my attention by delivering both and the crowd gave much stronger reactions because of it. Also, giving credit where its due, Schiavone and Tenay do a nice job offering insight as to why Saturn would still want to wear a dress when there would be really no penalty for not wearing the dress (and disobeying the stipulation). Its a small detail, but it helps explains Saturn's mindset going into the match. Great moments and finish here with Saturn stripping Ralphus, having Jericho beat, and then, instead of taking the W, hitting the Death Valley Driver on Scott Dickinson, who had screwed him a month earlier. (3/5)
After a short interview with Mysterio and Konnan, we get a video package hyping the DDP/Steiner feud.
Billy Kidman defends the WCW Cruiserweight Championship next against former tag partner Chavo Guerrero. Like Booker T and Saturn, Kidman is over enough with the live crowd that there are decent-sized reactions to every major spot and some of the minor ones (at least for the first few minutes). By this point, Chavo was no longer playing the dopey lunatic, though I wish he had still peppered his "serious heel" character with at least a little bit of the psycho flavor as he comes off a bit bland without it. Guerrero hits his awesome somersault dive and later Kidman blocks a crossbody from the top with a dropkick for two particularly nice moments. Solid enough finish but this match, but like the opener, more of a TV bout than a PPV match. (2.5/5)
A Goldberg/Bigelow video airs. When this feud started in late 98', it was red hot, but by this point, they had waited so long to get to it that I'm not sure its anything more than lukewarm.
The vacant WCW World Tag Team Championships are on the line in the next match (or two) - Curt Hennig and Barry Windham taking on Chris Benoit and Dean Malenko in the finals of a tournament that had been running for a little while. The storyline coming into this is that it was a double elimination tournament so Benoit and Malenko will need to defeat Hennig and Windham twice to capture the titles (while the heels will only have to win one match to do so). In other words, WCW overbooked this. Malenko and Windham start things off, the size difference noticeable, but only grapple for a few minutes before Hennig and Benoit take over. The crowd pops for a stiff chest chop exchange and an impressive sequence of old school wrestling between two of the best ever. Windham isn't at his cosmetic peak, but he's still fairly spry in-ring. If anything, it may be Malenko who is the most out of place, oversized, under-enthused, and outmatched in terms of personality by his opponents and even his partner, whose clotheslines, back elbows, and diving headbutt all get sizable reactions. While Benoit puts extra oomph into everything he does, some of Malenko's offense looks uncharacteristically half-hearted and the audience non-reacts accordingly. As the match wears on and the heels take over, the match hits some predictable ups-and-downs, the boring moments drawing "Boring" heckles, but the bright spots waking the crowd back up (for example, a vintage Windham Superplex-into-a-Cover). Benoit does a good job as the face-in-peril building up to the tag to Malenko, who finally shows some energy. The first fall is nicely executed, but the second (while not a finish I'd oppose to in theory) is pretty horrendously performed, with Mickey Jay improbably "not seeing" Windham pulling on a belt wrapped around Malenko's throat. This one probably would've been better with a few minutes shaved off. (2/5)
A video package highlights the scandalous United States Championship scene and how Will Sasso helped "Rowdy" Roddy Piper capture the gold from Bret Hart. To think that this show could've had Bret vs. Benoit (as Flair initially stated on an episode of Nitro) or even a Hart/Hall match, but instead, its Piper vs. Hall, a pairing that just doesn't quite have the promise of the other options.
The nWo Wolfpack's Hall, Nash, Luger, and Liz make their way down the aisle for the next match - Rey Mysterio and Konnan challenging The Outsiders in a match with some fairly high stipulations: Liz's hair vs. Mysterio's mask. The result of this is (rightfully) remembered as one of WCW's biggest blunders, but the match itself is actually quite good. Mysterio is given center stage and both Hall and Nash feed him maybe as best they can considering the size and strength advantage and the fact that, up until this point, Mysterio had really never swam in the heavyweight waters. Konnan is not my favorite worker to watch, but he's much more bearable in a tag role. Hall is misremembered from this time as being a shell of his former self, but the past few matches I've seen from him were all no less than average as his charisma carries him a long way. Good enough dirty finish, but this match will always be known for Rey's unmasking. Again, though, the decision to unmask Rey is a misinterpreted/misremembered event by many. Its obvious from the match that there was a genuine feeling that taking away Rey's mask could potentially help elevate his marketability by "Americanizing" him (it helped that, beneath the hood, Rey was a handsome young dude) and that this was the furthest thing from a "burial." It was a bad idea, no doubt, but it was a misguided effort more than a political hit to keep Mysterio at the bottom of the card. (2.5/5)
Scott Steiner defends the Television Championship against Diamond Dallas Page next. Two years later these guys would have an infamous backstage fight, but they could've fooled me with the animosity they bring to this contest. Marcus Bagwell comes out early and almost gets Steiner disqualified, but DDP waves off the referee's would-be call. Some good action in this - including a crowd-popping belly-to-belly and a Frankensteiner from the top out of Steiner and Page launching his huge frame over the top rope with a big crossbody splash to the arena floor. There's also, unfortunately, a fair amount of unnecessary shenanigans involving the aforementioned Bagwell, but also Charles Robinson, that the seriousness of the match is kind of undercut by the cheap use of a chair and an uncovered turnbuckle. This match without the embellishments would've been a real tooth-and-nail slugfest as it is and the purity of the contest would've made the finish more dramatic. The overbooking helps protect Page to some degree, but it also takes away some of the emotion they were obviously going for. A good match that could've been better with a clearer story and less antics. (3/5)
Scott Hall wrestles for the second time tonight - challenging Roddy Piper for the United States Championship next. Hall is accompanied by Disco Inferno because WCW had obviously learned nothing in the 3 years they had seen the nWo become the hottest thing in wrestling and then watched it become stale. As I wrote earlier, Hall's charisma could still carry his matches into at least watchable territory in 99', but he has his work cut out for him against the 45 year old "Hot Rod." This match is just atrocious from beginning to end, neither guy doing much of anything beyond eye pokes and low blows. Two years earlier, Piper making a surprise appearance at Halloween Havoc and verbally destroying Hogan was a transcendent moment of wrestling awesomeness, but by this point, with that rivalry beaten to death ages earlier, Piper had no business working as your average full-timer and this match shows why. At times, Hall almost seems like he's making a mockery of the match on purpose, especially during an ultra-goofy abdominal stretch sequence. For some reason, Piper gets his heat back in the post-match by holding his own against the Outsiders. Terrible match. (0.5/5)
The good news is, WCW actually has something fresh follow this - Goldberg vs. Bam Bam Bigelow in a showdown that was red hot months earlier BUT had fizzled quite a bit since November. People love to talk about the Goldberg/DDP match from Halloween Havoc and I've even seen some love for Goldberg's matches against Hall and Nash (ignoring their insanely stupid and counterproductive finishes), but this match rarely gets mentioned and I'm not sure why - it's actually, at its best moments, a really fun battle. That's not to say there aren't dull moments - there are a couple resthold stretches that don't necessarily fit with the idea that these two bruisers had come to engage in a straight-up brawl that could easily spill out of the ring and continue anywhere they wanted (as the build-up had certainly pointed to) - but there are also some really impressive spots and, maybe most impressively, Bigelow does seem to pose a larger threat to Goldberg than anyone he's faced before. (3/5)
Main event time - "Hollywood" Hulk Hogan defending the WCW World Championship against the WCW President Ric Flair. This is a pretty weird match as, despite Hogan being the heel and Flair the face, they almost go through the same type of match they had in 94'/95' and the fans end up taking the same sides they should've taken back then - rooting for Hogan even as he uses his belt to put a whupping on the Nature Boy. As could and should be expected from two bona fide legends, there are glimmers of past glories here and, unlike Hall vs. Piper, a battle of two guys that didn't seem too motivated and were both in states of decay compared to their best years, simply by the amount of blood spilled in the match you can see these two are desperately fighting to have a worthwhile main event. Still, there's really no excuse for this being a title match in 1999 (though, the buyrate from this show proves there was some interest in the feud itself). These two facing each other and putting each other's shit over makes perfect sense because they are of the same era and have such an extended history, the recipe will almost always work and it is believable that their limited and half-speed maneuvers would have effect on eachother (but would be and should be laughed off by Goldberg). I'm not sure this match would've been better with a clean finish, but it certainly wouldn't have been made worse by a "feel good" ending or at least something that resembled one. Instead, a month after getting beaten down mercilessly by the nWo, we get another classic WCW "swerve" - the reveal of the latest nWo members: David Flair and his girlfriend Torrie Wilson. Plus, the return of the stun gun, which would probably be neck-and-neck with Triple H's sledgehammer as the most overused and least satisfying weapons to factor in to a major wrestling storyline ever. Not unwatchable, but a full step below average. (1.5/5)
SuperBrawl IX lives up to its reputation as one of the more confounding failures in WCW's disastrous 1999. While not quite at the same level of "How Did They Fuck This Up?" as the previous two Starrcades, those shows at least came after a series of decent-to-great TV moments (especially in 97'). This is the type of show that should've inspired better shows to follow, but instead, its practically a roadmap to the looming icebergs WCW would be steered into for the next 12 months. Nonsensical heel/face turns? David Flair has you covered. Young talent being held down or embarrassed? Malenko, Benoit, and Mysterio come out on the losing end of their matches here. Booker T still wrestling in the opener and the Wolfpack getting the upperhand on the faces for pretty much the rest of the night. Goldberg going from being "the top guy" to just "a top guy" while WWE proved, through Steve Austin, that you really can rebuild an entire brand around one guy if that guy is over enough (and Goldberg was arguably over enough). With a Kwang score of 2.33-out-of-5, SuperBrawl IX has its moments, but almost every one is cancelled out by a questionable booking decision that most logical thinkers would've foreseen as producing poor results in the long-term. If you're super curious to see a "Beginning of the End" WCW show that isn't a Starrcade, this might be exactly what you're looking for.
FINAL RATING - High Risk Maneuver
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