WCW Bash at the Beach 99'
Ft. Lauderdale, FL - July 1999
CHAMPIONSHIP RUNDOWN: Coming into tonight's show, Kevin Nash is the WCW World Champion, the United States Champion is David Flair, Rick Steiner holds the Television Title, and the Cruiserweight Champion is Rey Mysterio Jr. The World Tag Team Champions are the Jersey Triad.
COMMENTATORS: Tony Schiavone and Bobby Heenan
After Tony and Bobby hype tonight's main event contests and "Mean" Gene plugs his hotline, we cut to Mike Tenay, who informs us that thanks to a secret source, he has found the location of tonight's first even Hardcore Invitational match, a junkyard somewhere near Ft. Lauderdale.
Back to the arena we go for tonight's opening contest - The Cat taking on The Disco Inferno. After cutting down the crowd, The Cat challenges Inferno to a dance contest. Miller's dancing is awful, but you gotta love a guy who promises to "put on his karate gi and kick everyone in the arena's ass." Inferno follows and gets the crowd behind him but is almost immediately cut off by The Cat. This isn't a bad match necessarily - but its hard to get excited about Disco Inferno as a babyface (but no discernible difference in his gimmick) and Sonny Onoo pulling the same shit he did when he managing Ultimo Dragon. In the end, your enjoyment of this match relies completely on your feelings about The Cat. While I can see the potential in his work, with just two years of experience, he's no ring general and there are some moments when he leans into Disco's offense, re-positions himself too blatantly, and just doesn't look any better than what he is - a relatively green worker whose charisma and character were coming together much quicker than his in-ring skills. Again, not terrible, but nothing worth watching in a hundred thousand years. (1.5/5)
Mark Madden is backstage in the WCW's internet area interviewing with Judge Mills Lane. Did anyone ever order a boxing match to see Judge Mills Lane? WCW was sure hoping so.
The World Television Title is on the line next with Van Hammer (who had to pull the tights of Disco Inferno to defeat him) challenging titleholder Rick Steiner. This is a bizarrely booked match, or at least it seemed bizarre back then and still today because pushing Rick Steiner as a singles star in 1999 over younger talent is just an insane feature to put on PPV. I mean, its not like Steiner was working circles around the admittedly not-so-hot Hammer, so if you're going to argue that keeping the strap on a veteran was a good idea, it still doesn't explain why that veteran was Rick friggin' Steiner. Anyway, the match begins and from the first minute its obvious that these two do not have chemistry and, at certain points, seems like they just flat out don't want to work together. Steiner dominates, Van Hammer fights back (and, maybe inadvertently, gets a stiff shot in), and then Steiner just clobbers him again until they get to the lackluster finishing stretch. There goes the Van Hammer push - way to make your fans not care about a rising TV talent. (0.5/5)
A video package helps us relive the Ric Flair Presidency and sets up our next match - Dean Malenko vs. David Flair for Flair's US Title. Unlike the previous match, where the booking didn't make a single lick of sense, here, its obvious that WCW believed they could generate tremendous heat by having David Flair, propped up by Ric, Double A, Asya, and Torrie Wilson, score cheap wins over respected grapplers like Dean Malenko, Chris Benoit, and Sting. The problem was that David Flair, at this point in his wrestling career, was awful. Every ounce of charisma Flair had, David lacked. Even playing the untrained, outmatched deer-in-headlights, David Flair's expressions and movements don't register anything beyond blankness. When this was happening, David Flair was often (and unfairly) compared to Shane McMahon, a guy 10 years his senior and much more eager to put himself on screen and in a major role, but the comparison is still an apt one to consider in regards to what WCW was attempting and how off the mark they were from the very origin of their derivative "evil boss" concept. Extra negative points for Arn Anderson being the guy who comes out of this looking the toughest. (0.5/5)
Fortunately, something actually fun follows - the music video for the West Texas Rednecks' "Rap is Crap" video. I wouldn't necessarily call this a Network Nugget of Awesomeness just because the video is so readily available via Youtube, but its definitely the best part of this show so far and worth digging up. (+1)
Rey Mysterio Jr., Konnan, Brad "B.A" Armstrong, and Swoll represent the No Limit Soldiers next, taking on the aforementioned West Texas Rednecks - Curt Hennig, Barry and Kendall Windham, and Bobby Duncum Jr.. One of the worst, most poorly designed matches I've seen in ages, just an absolute mess that is only saved, for very short moments, by the fact that Mysterio, Hennig, and, to a lesser degree, Barry Windham are such pros. Brad Armstrong, a solid hand for sure, is ridiculously miscast as a camo-wearing hip-hop head and Heenan and Schiavone are completely unable to explain why he's even involved here or why his new nickname is "B.A." The very premise of the match is spoiled by the fact that Konnan and the No Limit Soldiers are booed during their entrance, though its not like the fans are so overwhelmingly in support of the Rednecks either, giving the match practically no heat. Also, inexplicably, the Soldiers outnumber the Rednecks in a bizarre flip of how one typically tries to get sympathy and support for the good guys. As this is an elimination match, it goes longer than it should by a good 4-5 minutes. Another dud. (0.5/5)
Things go from bad to worse in the next match - the Junkyard Invitiational. Featuring such notables as Jerry Flynn, Public Enemy, Hak, and Knobbs, this match is nothing more than a dozen guys brawling in a junkyard, hitting and no-selling weapon shots between moments of just aimlessly walking about captured by a helicopter cam and some handhelds. While you can certainly make out who most everybody is and what they're doing - making this a step up from, say, the original Boiler Room Brawl - I can't imagine anyone actually caring about anyone involved or what they're doing - making this a step down from the original Boiler Room Brawl. There is no story at all and the one attempt at victory by Johnny Grunge is idiotic, the Public Enemy member dragging Horace Hogan over to the fence just so he can *surprise surprise* prevent him from escaping the Junkyard, which is the object of the match that apparently only three guys involved even know is the object of the match. Finlay ends up winning the thing, but this is 13 minutes that feels like 30. One of the worst "matches" I've ever seen. (0/5)
The WCW World Tag Team Championships are on the line next - Saturn and Benoit challenging The Jersey Triad. As Schiavone and Heenan explain, the Triad are able to wrestle as a 3-man unit because of their friendship with Flair. Just like at the previous month's Great American Bash, these two teams against each other feels like the night's first actually competently-performed wrestling match...and we're over an hour into this event. I wasn't taken in by this match, but I'll give credit where its due as the teams have a tough task at hand in trying to save this awful show by giving them an actual match with a real beginning, middle, and end. When the heels control, they might do it well as the crowd interest seems to flatten a bit and Benoit's hot tag gets only a mild response. Page tries to bring the crowd back into it with huge gestures and, at one point, standing on the guardrail and shouting into the crowd for no apparent reason. Their match at Great American Bash lacked structure, but this one might suffer from sticking to the script too much, the match featuring two face-in-peril stretches that the crowd only intermittently seems to care about. By time time we get to the closing stretch, the crowd is biting on the nearfalls, but it certainly helps that we're now getting some shenanigans in the form of powder clouds and weaponry and a ref bump. The best match on the show thus far, but at over 20 minutes, this is not one I'd ever want to rewatch. (2/5)
Here we go...Buff Bagwell vs. Roddy Piper in a Boxing Match with Judge Mills Lane serving as the guest referee. The Bagwell face push was just so mishandled as Buff, while popular with some of the women in the crowd, wasn't tweaked nearly enough to help him win over the many males in the audience. Bagwell himself also didn't have the sense to rein in his smug, corny schtick either. Piper has Flair in his corner so Bagwell brings out his own cornerman, nee "cornerperson" - his mother, Judy Bagwell. The fact that Bagwell can't quickly dropthe very old-looking Piper (in fact its Hot Rod that lands the first big shot and takes Bagwell off his feet) further solidifies his impotence. After the first round, Schiavone explains that Flair has doused Bagwell's gloves in some sort of liquid that burns Bagwell's eyes and that's the story for round two as Piper dominates and Bagwell takes another drop to the mat. Bagwell finally lands a big enough shot to put Piper down towards the end of the 2nd Round but as the commentators note, anyone scoring this would have to give the first two rounds to Roddy Piper. At the start of the 3rd Round, Judy Bagwell gets involved and thus begins the end of Buff Bagwell's career. Judy's interference ends up leading to the Blockbuster finish (since when do boxing matches end with pinfalls?) and Schiavone calls it a "big win" for his career when, really, its the opposite of that. More wrestlecrap in case you hadn't had enough by this point. (0.5/5)
A video package hypes tonight's main event match, explaining how we ended up with such a convoluted mess involving so many main event guys with so little in-ring ability. It also presents Kevin Nash as a bit of a creep who is only able to get female companionship by winning it in a match or kidnap.
Main event time - Kevin Nash and Sting vs. Sid and "Macho Man" Randy Savage in a match where any man who pins Nash, including in some sort of twist I can't fully comprehend his own partner, will become WCW World Champion. This stipulation turns the match into a weird pseudo-fourway/not-quite-handicap match and practically guarantees overbooking. The match starts off with Sting and Macho in the ring and Gorgeous George walking over to the babyface corner, perplexing the commentary team and nobody else as this is quite obviously a mindgame from Team Madness. Sting doesn't just do the lion's share of the work in this match, he does all of it as, and I could've blinked and missed it, I don't believe Nash gets tagged in until the final 2 minutes of what is a 10+ minute match. Savage can do nothing more than throw punches at this point, so obviously hobbled by age and injury. Sid is really no better, the slow-moving big man a real attraction in his day, but his day was at least 7-8 years before this. Again, I can't reiterate enough how hard Sting works to keep this match together, something I don't believe he gets nearly enough credit for when people look back at his career or discuss how terrible WCW was during this spell. Out of Sting, Hogan, Bret, Nash, Luger, Sid, Macho, Hall, Flair, Piper, etc., its really only Sting that looked to be remotely interested in putting on good matches at this point. Unfortunately, even the Stinger can't make this awful match work. Also, that stipulation that was supposed to be add intrigue to the proceedings? It doesn't play into the finish whatsoever so it was completely unnecessary anyway. A new champion is crowned because Sid doesn't want to be champion even though he could've made the pin on Nash instead of letting Savage hit him with the elbow drop? Who knows and who cares. (1.5/5)
With an all-time low Kwang Score of 1.00-out-of-5, Bash at the Beach 99' has to be, hands down, the WORST wrestling show I've watched in my journey through WCW and early 00's WWE. Even if you're like me and enjoy heaping helpings of wrestlecrap, I'd strongly advise you to look elsewhere as, though this show is, at times, laughably terrible, it is also excruciatingly dull for much longer stretches. The Junkyard Invitational is a bad joke that goes on for 15 minutes. The main event is Sting getting beaten down while a portion of the crowd chants "Goldberg" until Nash gets tagged in to get pinned despite being completely fresh. The No Limit Soldiers/West Texas Rednecks match features frustrating, self-defeating booking and, like the main event, one or two guys trying to salvage a multi-man clusterfuck. Malenko/Flair is insulting while Van Hammer/Steiner and Cat/Inferno just plain suck. A terrible, terrible event - but on the bright side, I'm not sure it'd be possible to put on a worse show so I actually look forward to seeing what comes next.
FINAL RATING - DUDleyville
Fortunately, something actually fun follows - the music video for the West Texas Rednecks' "Rap is Crap" video. I wouldn't necessarily call this a Network Nugget of Awesomeness just because the video is so readily available via Youtube, but its definitely the best part of this show so far and worth digging up. (+1)
Rey Mysterio Jr., Konnan, Brad "B.A" Armstrong, and Swoll represent the No Limit Soldiers next, taking on the aforementioned West Texas Rednecks - Curt Hennig, Barry and Kendall Windham, and Bobby Duncum Jr.. One of the worst, most poorly designed matches I've seen in ages, just an absolute mess that is only saved, for very short moments, by the fact that Mysterio, Hennig, and, to a lesser degree, Barry Windham are such pros. Brad Armstrong, a solid hand for sure, is ridiculously miscast as a camo-wearing hip-hop head and Heenan and Schiavone are completely unable to explain why he's even involved here or why his new nickname is "B.A." The very premise of the match is spoiled by the fact that Konnan and the No Limit Soldiers are booed during their entrance, though its not like the fans are so overwhelmingly in support of the Rednecks either, giving the match practically no heat. Also, inexplicably, the Soldiers outnumber the Rednecks in a bizarre flip of how one typically tries to get sympathy and support for the good guys. As this is an elimination match, it goes longer than it should by a good 4-5 minutes. Another dud. (0.5/5)
Things go from bad to worse in the next match - the Junkyard Invitiational. Featuring such notables as Jerry Flynn, Public Enemy, Hak, and Knobbs, this match is nothing more than a dozen guys brawling in a junkyard, hitting and no-selling weapon shots between moments of just aimlessly walking about captured by a helicopter cam and some handhelds. While you can certainly make out who most everybody is and what they're doing - making this a step up from, say, the original Boiler Room Brawl - I can't imagine anyone actually caring about anyone involved or what they're doing - making this a step down from the original Boiler Room Brawl. There is no story at all and the one attempt at victory by Johnny Grunge is idiotic, the Public Enemy member dragging Horace Hogan over to the fence just so he can *surprise surprise* prevent him from escaping the Junkyard, which is the object of the match that apparently only three guys involved even know is the object of the match. Finlay ends up winning the thing, but this is 13 minutes that feels like 30. One of the worst "matches" I've ever seen. (0/5)
The WCW World Tag Team Championships are on the line next - Saturn and Benoit challenging The Jersey Triad. As Schiavone and Heenan explain, the Triad are able to wrestle as a 3-man unit because of their friendship with Flair. Just like at the previous month's Great American Bash, these two teams against each other feels like the night's first actually competently-performed wrestling match...and we're over an hour into this event. I wasn't taken in by this match, but I'll give credit where its due as the teams have a tough task at hand in trying to save this awful show by giving them an actual match with a real beginning, middle, and end. When the heels control, they might do it well as the crowd interest seems to flatten a bit and Benoit's hot tag gets only a mild response. Page tries to bring the crowd back into it with huge gestures and, at one point, standing on the guardrail and shouting into the crowd for no apparent reason. Their match at Great American Bash lacked structure, but this one might suffer from sticking to the script too much, the match featuring two face-in-peril stretches that the crowd only intermittently seems to care about. By time time we get to the closing stretch, the crowd is biting on the nearfalls, but it certainly helps that we're now getting some shenanigans in the form of powder clouds and weaponry and a ref bump. The best match on the show thus far, but at over 20 minutes, this is not one I'd ever want to rewatch. (2/5)
Here we go...Buff Bagwell vs. Roddy Piper in a Boxing Match with Judge Mills Lane serving as the guest referee. The Bagwell face push was just so mishandled as Buff, while popular with some of the women in the crowd, wasn't tweaked nearly enough to help him win over the many males in the audience. Bagwell himself also didn't have the sense to rein in his smug, corny schtick either. Piper has Flair in his corner so Bagwell brings out his own cornerman, nee "cornerperson" - his mother, Judy Bagwell. The fact that Bagwell can't quickly dropthe very old-looking Piper (in fact its Hot Rod that lands the first big shot and takes Bagwell off his feet) further solidifies his impotence. After the first round, Schiavone explains that Flair has doused Bagwell's gloves in some sort of liquid that burns Bagwell's eyes and that's the story for round two as Piper dominates and Bagwell takes another drop to the mat. Bagwell finally lands a big enough shot to put Piper down towards the end of the 2nd Round but as the commentators note, anyone scoring this would have to give the first two rounds to Roddy Piper. At the start of the 3rd Round, Judy Bagwell gets involved and thus begins the end of Buff Bagwell's career. Judy's interference ends up leading to the Blockbuster finish (since when do boxing matches end with pinfalls?) and Schiavone calls it a "big win" for his career when, really, its the opposite of that. More wrestlecrap in case you hadn't had enough by this point. (0.5/5)
A video package hypes tonight's main event match, explaining how we ended up with such a convoluted mess involving so many main event guys with so little in-ring ability. It also presents Kevin Nash as a bit of a creep who is only able to get female companionship by winning it in a match or kidnap.
Main event time - Kevin Nash and Sting vs. Sid and "Macho Man" Randy Savage in a match where any man who pins Nash, including in some sort of twist I can't fully comprehend his own partner, will become WCW World Champion. This stipulation turns the match into a weird pseudo-fourway/not-quite-handicap match and practically guarantees overbooking. The match starts off with Sting and Macho in the ring and Gorgeous George walking over to the babyface corner, perplexing the commentary team and nobody else as this is quite obviously a mindgame from Team Madness. Sting doesn't just do the lion's share of the work in this match, he does all of it as, and I could've blinked and missed it, I don't believe Nash gets tagged in until the final 2 minutes of what is a 10+ minute match. Savage can do nothing more than throw punches at this point, so obviously hobbled by age and injury. Sid is really no better, the slow-moving big man a real attraction in his day, but his day was at least 7-8 years before this. Again, I can't reiterate enough how hard Sting works to keep this match together, something I don't believe he gets nearly enough credit for when people look back at his career or discuss how terrible WCW was during this spell. Out of Sting, Hogan, Bret, Nash, Luger, Sid, Macho, Hall, Flair, Piper, etc., its really only Sting that looked to be remotely interested in putting on good matches at this point. Unfortunately, even the Stinger can't make this awful match work. Also, that stipulation that was supposed to be add intrigue to the proceedings? It doesn't play into the finish whatsoever so it was completely unnecessary anyway. A new champion is crowned because Sid doesn't want to be champion even though he could've made the pin on Nash instead of letting Savage hit him with the elbow drop? Who knows and who cares. (1.5/5)
With an all-time low Kwang Score of 1.00-out-of-5, Bash at the Beach 99' has to be, hands down, the WORST wrestling show I've watched in my journey through WCW and early 00's WWE. Even if you're like me and enjoy heaping helpings of wrestlecrap, I'd strongly advise you to look elsewhere as, though this show is, at times, laughably terrible, it is also excruciatingly dull for much longer stretches. The Junkyard Invitational is a bad joke that goes on for 15 minutes. The main event is Sting getting beaten down while a portion of the crowd chants "Goldberg" until Nash gets tagged in to get pinned despite being completely fresh. The No Limit Soldiers/West Texas Rednecks match features frustrating, self-defeating booking and, like the main event, one or two guys trying to salvage a multi-man clusterfuck. Malenko/Flair is insulting while Van Hammer/Steiner and Cat/Inferno just plain suck. A terrible, terrible event - but on the bright side, I'm not sure it'd be possible to put on a worse show so I actually look forward to seeing what comes next.
FINAL RATING - DUDleyville
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