WCW Fall Brawl 99'

WCW Fall Brawl 99'

Winston-Salem, NC - September 1999

CHAMPIONSHIP RUNDOWN: Coming into the show, Hulk Hogan is the reigning WCW World Champion, the United States Championship is held by Chris Benoit, the TV Title is held by Rick Steiner, and the Cruiserweight Champion is Lenny Lane. The World Tag Team Champions are the Windhams, Barry and Kendall.

COMMENTATORS: Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan, and Mike Tenay

Fall Brawl begins with Vampiro and the Insane Clown Posse taking on the not-yet-Filthy Animals, Eddie Guerrero, Rey Mysterio Jr., and Billy Kidman. 1999 was not a banner year for WCW, but the audience is very hot for this, chanting "Eddie!" and booing the hell out of the heels, who spend the first few minutes trying to avoid any contact with the heroes. For some reason, Shaggy 2 Dope starts things off for his team and blows the first 2 spots miserably. I criticized the way ICP were used at Road Wild and it bears mentioning again - the fact that two out-of-shape rappers in clown make-up are able to hang with 3 former Cruiserweight Champions without some sort of shenigans or outright cheating is just insanity and further proof that there was no one handling any quality control for WCW at this time. As anyone might've expected, the best parts of this match involve the guys who didn't record an album called Carnival of Carnage. Not a terrible match all things considered, but still offensive enough in theory alone. I am curious if Rey was legitimately injured at the tail end of the contest as it certainly seems so. (1.5/5)

I forgot how good the West Hollywood Blondes were. Lenny Lane defends his Cruiserweight Championship against Kaz Hayashi and from the minute the Blondes are out from behind the curtain, they are just on. The gimmick is definitely dated and borderline homophobic - but I like how the commentators avoid even the mention of sexuality, really just playing up how despicable the duo is because of their cheating, not because of their "mind games" (which is always how the WWE has handled their effeminate/homo-erotic characters). Also, Lane, while certainly not an all-time great anything, is better than I recall him being and the effort he puts in early to lure the crowd in with silly antics pays off huge as the match goes on and becomes a competitive, athletic contest with real stakes. Hayashi has some terrific offense, though it doesn't surprise me that the WWE did nothing with him when he eventually came over in 2001 as, while he has a natural charm, the WWE in 2001 just wasn't the place for gimmickless Japanese high-flyers (no matter how talented they were). Lodi's signs on the outside are great and should've been enough for him to get a foot in the door in the WWE. As surprising as it may seem, this is probably the best Cruiserweight Title match I've watched in at least a couple months as the division had suffered a bit as it became more of a "TV title" than a major championship consistently defended on PPV with real storylines around it. WCW in 99' is weird because so many of their "bad" gimmicks, like the Blondes and the Rap Is Crap thing, were actually the best parts of the show and so many of their "heavy," "serious" angles in the upper midcard and main event were unwatchable. (3.5/5)

"Mean" Gene welcomes Sting to the center of the ring for an interview. Sting is very over with the North Carolina crowd, which isn't too odd considering Winston-Salem was a WCW stronghold for years. Sting tells Lex Luger to keep his nose out of his business and then adds that he's got no problem with Hulk Hogan, his opponent tonight, until they step in the ring. Sting paces the ring and talks about the idea of becoming a nine-time World Champion. He promises "Showtime" and makes his way out of the ring. Good, basic, old school promo. 

A video offers explanation for our next match - The First Family's Hugh Morrus and Brian Knobbs taking on The Revolution's Dean Malenko and Shane Douglas in a hardcore match. Hardcore matches are not really in Malenko's wheelhouse so I'm curious how he'll work this kind of match. The match starts like most hardcore bouts and is just an all-out brawl with Malenko holding his own by outsmarting his opponents. After a few minutes, though, it turns into your typical tag team match, an unexpected turn. The most repeated "hardcore" spot is one guy whipping another into the guardrail, a move that's not even illegal. Even Schiavone notes that the match is less hardcore than he anticipated. Douglas and Malenko, standing tall in the ring, try to get the crowd involved, but promised a No DQ match and presented a standard bout, I'm not surpised they're not popping for bodyslams and chest chops. Samuel Morse would be proud of how much telegraphing of spots and momentum shifts happens in this match. Malenko comes in hot, but Knobbs trips him up and Morrus hits his No Laughing Matter for the win 100% clean. This was about as hardcore as an episode of Family Matters. (1/5)

Saturn challenges Rick Steiner for his Television Title next. I was surprised by how tolerable this match was - Steiner dominates, but at least he does so with dynamic offense, scaling back the chin locks that he'd been employing in some of his other (boring) matches from this time. Saturn's strength is in his offense too and he gets some moments to shine, though, his extended selling is definitely not great. Watching Saturn over the course of writing this blog, he is a great example of a guy that had many tools, but rarely put them all together to tell a clear story that you could really feel from bell-to-bell. This match goes a shade long and has an almost offensively backwards finish that sees Rick Steiner get the clean win despite the fact that WCW was supposedly trying to build up the Revolution as a meaningful "Next Generation Horsemen"-type stable. With two back-to-back losses, one need not look further to see why, within 5 months, most of the team's members (and Eddie Guerrero) would be hightailing it to WWE. (2/5)

After a word from Hulk Hogan (and a brief "We Want Flair" chant), Berlyn takes on "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan (replacing Buff Bagwell). This match starts innocently enough with Hacksaw playing the hero and Berlyn (aka Alex Wright, though the announcers refuse to make the connection for some stupid reason) playing the fearful, cowardly villain. As it continues, though, Wright and Duggan seem to be on completely different pages and they proceed to botch one strange submission spot after another. Again, the booking here is part of the problem - Berlyn was promoted as a big deal and he should reasonably defeat Duggan with ease, but because "Hacksaw" is twice his size and twice as over, Berlyn looks like a nobody in comparison and the crowd doesn't care one bit about him. A trainwreck of a match in every way, including the post-match (where Buff Bagwell finally shows up and gets booed for not making it to the show on time). (0/5)

The WCW World Tag Team Titles are on the line next, Kendall and Barry Windham of the West Texas Rednecks defending against Harlem Heat. The West Texas Rednecks were longer using the "Rap is Crap" entrance music and were now using the equally great "Good Old Boys" music. Booker T starts things off against Kendall Windham before tagging in Stevie Ray to clean house. Both Stevie Ray and Barry Windham look to be in the worst shape of their careers - the former's muscle gut slowing down everything he does and the latter's beer gut barely containing itself under his tee-shirt. I like the West Texas Rednecks gimmicks a bunch, but they weren't a super exciting team to watch. Booker T comes back in and gives the match a needed energy boost. He ends up on the outside, though, falling prey to the numbers game. From here, he becomes the face-in-peril and the match goes into classic tag team match territory, the Windhams pulling out all the tricks they'd learned and, in the case of Barry, mastered in the 80s. Stevie Ray comes in for the "hot-ish" tag and laboriously takes out the Windhams. The finish comes when Curt Hennig tries to take out Stevie Ray with a cowboy boot shot but the referee is pre-occupied with Booker T on the outside and doesn't make the pin. Booker T comes flying off the top rope to a huge ovation with a missile dropkick and we have new champions. Unmemorable match but at least it didn't really overstay its welcome. (2/5)

Chris Benoit defends the WCW United States Championship against Sid next. The build to this was all about Sid's respectable undefeated streak and Benoit being the leader of The Revolution stable. Sid has tremendous heat, which I'm not sure has ever been not true. Very loud "Goldberg" chants from the audience, which is pretty disrespectful to the babyface he's actually fighting. Benoit says Sid's repetitive, rudimentary offense with lots of energy and, at times, literally drags Sid into position for high impact spots in an effort to make this as good a match as possible. Benoit hits a tremendous german suplex, but Sid recovers fairly quickly and reverses a crucifix into a samoan drop to plant the champ back on the mat. Sid's spotcalling during a headlock is as bad here as it was at the 91' War Games. Benoit's comebacks get some audible pops, but I'd argue Benoit deserves even more praise than the audience gives him as he is doing everything he possible can to make this match more physical and more dynamic than any Sid match in history. Benoit misses a diving headbutt and Sid connects with the powerbomb to go 80-in-a-row. I usually mark out for Sid squash matches more than his competitive matches, but this one was surprisingly good. (3/5)

Goldberg vs. Diamond Dallas Page follows, DDP in full-fledged heel mode and no longer nearly as big a deal as he was in 98' because of it. The Halloween Havoc match they had is often cited as one of Goldberg (and DDP's) best matches and there's a reason this one doesn't usually get name-checked. Goldberg is massively over and DDP goes out of his way to get every bit of heat he can from the crowd, but because DDP is now just playing the role of a standard, crowd-baiting heel, this match doesn't really give us anything new or interesting out of either guy. Even the Triad run-in is purely handled as the referee and DDP are in the opposite position that they need to be in order for the ref to "miss" the interference. This match is basically saved by the overness of Goldberg, but I'd still call it sub-average considering what these two could've done together if anyone in WCW had bothered to build up the match by playing up their history rather than letting them go out and work the most basic of face/heel matches. (2/5)

Main event time - Hulk Hogan defending the World Championship against Sting. The story coming into this match is important; Lex Luger had spent the previous few weeks trying to convince Sting that the Hulkster was going to stab him in the back and revert back to his nWo heel character while Hogan vehemently denied this. Meanwhile, Bret Hart, also positioned as a babyface, was on Hogan's side (and, because they're all really faces, Sting's side too) and just wanted there to be a clean winner so that he could challenge for the WCW World Championship next. Onto the match itself...Hogan basically dominates the entire fight, which is a really confusing choice as Sting was definitely more over with the crowd. Hogan's face turn in 99', while initially met with a warm reception, pretty quickly fell back to where it was in 95' when at least half of the audience was really sick of the schtick. What they should've done was find some sort of "middle ground" for the babyface Hogan character (even the adoption of long pants helped to slightly freshen up the Hulkster in 2003) that would've made his character less grating and more in-tune with the "shades of grey" characters they had in the main event scene (Nash, Hart, Goldberg, Sting, etc.). Sting, fighting from underneath, ends up getting all the sympathy (it doesn't help that Hogan chokes him out with a TV cord at one point) so his is the comeback that gets the big pop (not the undeserved "Hulk Up"). Would it have been so hard for Sting to take advantage of a damaged leg or knee instead and control this one, putting the Hulkster on defense? Just before Hogan is going to get the W, DDP shows up to spoil the finish, hitting Hogan with a Diamond Cutter. Its not exactly clear why he does this, only that he's a villain and villains just don't like Hogan? He puts Sting's arm over Hogan, but the Hulkster kicks out at 2. In comes Bret Hart, followed by Sid, and the crowd begins throwing trash in the ring. Luger shows up with a baseball bat, but Hogan stops him before he can strike. Sting ends up with the bat and turns heel by striking Hogan and applying the Scorpion Death Lock. The crowd actually cheers for the turn and there's at least two reasons for that - first, the match itself portrayed Sting as the underdog so seeing him win "by any means necessary" isn't all that distasteful, and second because its actually a clever swerve by a guy known mostly for being swerved as Sting, after years of being screwed over by the Horsemen and the nWo, finally gets his moment of revenge. I know I enjoyed seeing Sting and Luger screw Hogan after all he'd done as the leader of the nWo, even if that was "ancient history" by this point. Wrestling fans have long memories. In summation, the match itself was poor, the run-ins were ridiculous (why were DDP and Sid even involved?), but the final twist was actually a good idea and executed well. (1.5/5)


With a Kwang Score of 1.83-out-of-5, Fall Brawl 99' is a hard show to watch. DDP/Goldberg and Sting/Hogan are re-matches that fall far below what the originals achieved (even if the booking of Sting/Hogan at Starrcade 97' was historically bad, the match itself at least had a "big fight feel" that this one pales in comparison to). When the best match of the night is a Lenny Lane/Kaz Hayashi and you have as many Hall of Famers as WCW had on the roster at this point, something is wrong with your company. 

FINAL RATING - DUDleyville