WCW Monday Nitro 9/4/2000 - Wargames 2000 Russo's Revenge

WCW Monday Nitro 9/4/2000 - Wargames 2000 Russo's Revenge

I did a podcast on this show in 2 parts:

I saw the Nitro before this and wanted to review this as well. I have a thing for cages, especially a triple cage.

Russo, Nash, Jarrett and Steiner were walking to the ring.

WCW World Tag Team Titles - Dark Carnival (Insane Clown Posse) vs The Filthy Animals

"Yo Tygress, you like this shirt? Go ahead, feel! That's enough" - Konnan | "Tonight this is gonna be a cakewalk and Rey and Juvi are gonna step all over that icing." - Konnan

"You know what I like about ICP? They're from Parts Unknown, Weight Unknown." - Konnan

The finish

Rey and Juvi got the win with the Nutcracker - a top rope legdrop on the nuts. Good match all things considered. Rey and Juvi were a really fun face team and they flew all around the ring with the ICP filling up the rest of the time. The commentary was bad and they made ICP look like jokes, but the crowd liked it and I bought into this.

Team Canada had won Major Gunns the week before where she would have to do what they said I guess for a week.

Storm said Gunns needed to workout to become a full fledged Canadian since Canada had the strongest athletes.

Russo and the Natural Born Thrillers came out to talk. The cage was lowered.

Oh Jesus, he talked about Wargames and called the good guys "the babyfaces" and said the bad guys were "the heel team". He said Sting would be fighting and called him "past his prime". Russo said Sting's team would have to compete in qualifying matches to get into Wargames. He said if Goldberg gets in, he will waive the "non-physicality" clause. Russo said he guaranteed he would walk out WCW Champ tonight.

Nash came out and wasn't happy his belt was on the line.

"We went over this. I'm not some fighting champion. I have to defend it once a month. I'm gonna defend it on 29th day on the 11th hour." - Nash

They then argued and Nash put his hands on Russo's throat.

Sting came up through the ring through the dark and Russo tried to put Nash on him. Sting said he would win the title tonight.

Sting locked the door and went after Russo when Nash left, then JJ and Steiner came to the rescue.

The Cat and Booker T came in, as did the NBT. They cleared out the NBT 2 on 8 or whatever, and Sting chased Russo.

Goldberg came out and scared Russo off to end the segment. I liked the whole trapped in the cage bit but I didn't like the thing with Nash and Russo having problems, because we all know it's gonna be a swerve.

Steiner and JJ yelled at Russo for arguing with Nash. Really good trash can throw by Steiner.

Jeremy Borash got his head shaved by the Nitro Girls for some reason. They didn't explain it in anyway that I understood.

The Harris Brothers came out and said they had some home footage they wanted played.

"Please play the footage." - Tony

They went to invade where Kronik hung out at.

They beat up Kronik.

Shane Douglas said he wanted Goldberg 1 on 1 after Goldberg beat him up last week.

Shane had called the NBT for help but Torrie told them to go away because they sucked and convinced Shane he could do it on his own. Russo told NBT to watch Shane's back.

Wargames Qualifier - Sting vs Vampiro and The Great Muta

Sting won super quick with a Scorpion Deathdrop on Vampiro after Muta accidentally misted Vamp. It was a total waste of everyone involved.

Muta and Vamp argued and teased dissension.

Team Canada was back with Gunns in the back.

"We're checking her mental altitude." - Elix Skipper

"If she loses her train of thought, she might lose her chance to become Canadian." - Lance Storm

"But I don't wanna be Canadian." - Major Gunns

Stevie Ray was mad that he was signed to wrestle tonight against Russo.

"Stevie, this could be your chance to become WCW champion tonight. Think about that." - Russo

There was more arguing in the back with Nash, JJ and Steiner with Nash saying they weren't a good team.

Stevie Ray vs Booker T

"Vince Russo has threatened to tear up my contract tonight, if I don't do this match with...my brother." - Stevie Ray

Stevie jumped Booker after he gave his "don't hate the player, hate the game" line.

Booker T won with the Book End. Not that bad considering it's Stevie in there. It was pretty short which helped it.

Stevie hugged Booker and said he attacked him from behind so he would know to keep his guard up. Swerve!

Kronik asked the Yung Dragons if they knew where the Harris Brothers were. They pretended they couldn't speak English and got beaten up for it when they were laughing about it. Jamie-san took a chokeslam through a table. He deadweighted them too so the bump looked bad.

3 Count was in the ring and Kronik followed.

"Every fan in the world wants to see the Harris Brothers go up against Kronik." - Tony | "Don't be too sure about that." - Me

They called out The Harris Brothers.

JJ said Kronik needed to get The Harris' on their own time.  He said The Cat wanted a title match so he made:

Wargames Qualifier - The Cat vs Kronik

"The woman's place is not in the damn wrestling ring. It's in the kitchen barefoot pregnant." - JJ | "Listen Beaver Cleaver, you don't say a word out here when the chosen one is talking." - JJ to Tony

The Cat tried to rally Kronik against JJ then..

No dice.

Kronik won quick with a double chokeslam. JJ chased Miss Jones and she got a shot on him. Quick squash here but I did love Cat trying to sneak out the rollup.

Steiner yelled at Russo.

Wargames Qualifier - "The Franchise" Shane Douglas vs Goldberg

Torrie insulted the fans and told Shane to end this quick so she could get out of this "stupid hellhole".

Goldberg's music hits

Goldberg won with the Jackhammer in a fun squash. Shane worked Goldy's injured arm until Goldy powered out and made a comeback. NBT came in and he cleared them off with a super cool gorilla press into a spear that was really awesome. He then got the win on Shane. Goldberg was mega over and pretty awesome in this segment. Great heat for this.

Russo couldn't believe Goldberg won.

Russo tried to buy off Kevin Nash and Nash told him his goal was to walk out with the belt and make sure Russo didn't walk out.

We were at the pool with Team Canada, with the Misfits in Action watching. We then had a big brawl with everyone taking a dip into the pool.

Russo said this was NBT's last chance. He wanted all of NBT vs Vito tonight.

Arn Anderson got interviewed by Pamela Paulshock.

Arn said him and Ric Flair would be there for David Flair's wedding.

Big Vito vs The Natural Born Thrillers

"I'm the Staten Island Express and I don't sweat nobody and I got the biggest grapefruits in the WCW." - Big Vito

Vito talked about beating up Russo last week. The Natural Born Thrillers came out.

"If there was a world 12-man tag title, these guys would be my favorites." - Mark Madden

Mike Sanders pinned Vito after a Sean-ton bomb. Total squash here with not so much to speak of. The funniest part was before the match when Sanders said it would be 5 on 1, showing he can't count since there were 6 of them.

The faces ripped Russo for letting Kronik in the match tonight.

Wargames 2000
They said they are coming in one at a time on 2 minute intervals.

Steiner was 3rd out.

Kronik came out next as a team and thereby breaking the rules, while Scott Steiner(in a noseguard) went to the 2nd cage.

"What could be more frightening than Scott Steiner with bolt cutters?" - Tony | "A microphone." - Madden

The Harris Brothers came out with Russo.

Nash then came out.

The Harris Brothers and Kronik somehow made it to the outside to fight.

Nash was threatening to chokeslam everyone on his team when Booker T came out.

Goldberg then came out.

Goldberg then got handcuffed and beat first with a Russo baseball bat.

Booker gets the belt, now he needs to make it down with the belt.

Sting is handcuffed to the cage while JJ and Steiner attack Booker. Steiner dropped the belt to the first ring.

The Cat came out and nailed Russo. Not sure how a kick to the head with a hockey helmet would hurt though.

Cat gets nuked with a powerbomb

AWESOME

Bret Hart slammed the door on Goldberg during his escape.

 Nash and Russo make-up, like we ever thought they were fighting and SWERVE US. OH NOES!!!

Kevin Nash retained the WCW Title by walking out of the cage. Well, the finishing swerve was pretty dumb. I don't even know if I could call it a swerve because we all knew it was coming. I don't know what the opposite of a swerve is, but that's what it was. Stupid ending and of course, Kevin Nash and Russo had to look good making all of the faces look like fools as usual in WCW. The match was interesting but didn't make much sense in reality. Kronik and The Harris Brothers left, even though Kronik wanted the title and/or Russo. The heels, somehow had to predict the future in order to swerve us, as they had to know they would be left in the end and no one would try to win through any means but the door. They also had to assume they would somehow get the advantage and be able to pull it off. I don't know. I won't try to make sense of it, because it didn't make any sense.

I felt really bad for Golberg here. He looked so cool and was super over and they seemed determined to stop that from continuing on. It was very clear who WCW should be building around and Russo and Nash weren't it. Even a Booker T win would have been acceptable. Not today, folks.

The match wasn't that great. The 2nd and 3rd cages weren't useful due to being so high and the way they had to set them up. There wasn't a ton of room to work with due to the amount of wrestlers and the space available, so it was mostly just weapon shots. It still kept my interest, but it's just one of those things that looks cooler on paper than in reality.

Overall thoughts -  Hmm, tough one here. I didn't love anything here but I did like the Goldberg/Douglas match and the pool fight was kind of campy. The whole angle with Kevin Nash and Russo fighting was really stupid, as was the show ending swerve. I didn't mind the show at all though until that. Yes, the commentary, especially Madden, was horrible and the signature phrases each wrestler had all sounded so forced, but the show did move along well otherwise. Tons of stuff happening here as always with Russo, but it really didn't make a lot of sense. Why would Russo risk putting Kronik in the cage just to teach Cat a lesson? Why would Russo and Nash be able to predict the future in order to swerve us? Why did Goldberg have to look freaking awesome only to look like a fool in the end? One other thing I didn't like here was that all of the stables looked weak, especially NBT. They should have been studs but were booked like jobbers. 3 Count got owned and Muta/Vamp looked weak as well losing a 2 on 1.

I can't recommend this show. The longer you take the think about this show, the less sense it makes and the worse it becomes.