Millennium Final 2000: WCW Packed Germany and Then Made Everyone Work Twice

The opener succeeds because the roles are obvious. Brian Adams and Bryan Clark are larger, Billy Kidman and Rey Mysterio Jr. are faster, and the match never needs a complicated explanation. The Filthy Animals bump around for the power team and create believable openings through movement.

Mysterio provides the best sequences, especially when he uses the ropes to avoid being trapped in extended heavyweight control. Kidman supplies the hot-tag pace and the German crowd responds well to both teams.

KroniK eventually catches Kidman with High Times for the clean win. There is no authority figure, no referee collapse and no post-match reversal.

The work is not sophisticated, but it is functional and energetic. On a show that becomes increasingly complicated, ten minutes of simple power-versus-speed wrestling feels refreshing.

The battle royal has enough bodies and enough crowd investment in Alex Wright to remain watchable. Entrants arrive at irregular intervals, alliances form briefly and dissolve, and the match moves through several obvious clusters from existing WCW feuds.

The biggest issue is the finish. Wright appears to eliminate Fit Finlay and celebrate in front of the hometown audience, only for Mike Awesome to reveal that he had never actually been eliminated. Awesome then throws Wright out and wins.

That is a defensible heel finish in isolation. The problem is that Awesome's victory does not earn him the European Cup final. He still has to work another qualifier later in the show.

The match therefore spends eighteen minutes establishing a winner whose win barely matters. The crowd and Wright's popularity keep it alive, but the structure undermines its own stakes.

Elix Skipper and Kwee Wee have athletic ability and enough time to build something respectable, but the match never develops beyond competent midcard exchanges. Skipper works the arm and slows the pace, while Kwee Wee relies on power and short bursts of offense.

The German crowd stays polite rather than invested. The match lacks either a meaningful feud or a strong title stake, so technically sound counters feel detached from consequence.

Skipper uses the Grey Cup ring behind the referee's back, then gets greedy with a chair. Kwee Wee turns the weapon against him and wins.

That finish gives the match a little personality, but it arrives after too much ordinary work. Neither wrestler is bad. The bout simply feels like tour-card filler being asked to occupy pay-per-view time.

Ernest Miller and Mike Sanders are working primarily through personality. Sanders stalls, chokes and hides behind the referee. Miller kicks, poses and waits for the crowd to respond. The German audience gives The Cat enough energy to keep the match from completely flattening.

The wrestling is basic and short. That is probably the correct approach because neither man benefits from a long technical structure.

Miller lands the Feliner and wins the commissionership. The result should matter, although the broader authority-role landscape in late WCW makes another commissioner feel less significant than the stipulation suggests.

Five minutes of character work is preferable to fifteen. The match clears that low bar and little else.

Lance Storm remains reliable enough to give General Rection a clear title-match structure. Storm targets openings, Major Gunns creates a distraction and Rection builds toward the moonsault comeback that the feud had already established.

The problem is the finish. Storm uses the championship belt directly enough to get disqualified, allowing Rection to win the match while the United States title stays with Storm.

That kind of result belongs on television when a promotion wants another rematch. On a Germany-only pay-per-view with no larger domestic distribution, extending the issue feels especially pointless.

The work before the bell is acceptable and the crowd responds in spots. Storm's execution prevents the bout from falling lower. The DQ keeps it from becoming anything more than another chapter.

The Oktoberfest theme is shameless regional pandering, but Norman Smiley and Fit Finlay commit hard enough to make the gimmick mildly entertaining. Smiley arrives in Bavarian gear, the crowd recognizes the joke and the two immediately turn the match into a walk-and-brawl.

Weapons and furniture replace most conventional wrestling. Finlay's stiffness gives the exchanges some credibility, while Smiley's comedy keeps the tone from becoming too serious.

The finish comes when Finlay sets up a table and Smiley backdrops him through it before getting the pin. The table mechanics are awkward, but the crowd enjoys the payoff.

This is not a strong hardcore match. It is a competent tour attraction tailored to the location. That context gives it a little more charm than the same match would have in an American arena.

The match is remarkable mainly because the babyface team is improvised. Disqo cannot compete, so General Rection works again and joins Alex Wright against Mark Jindrak and Sean O'Haire.

That lack of preparation shows in the structure. The teams do not have natural chemistry, and the match relies on basic isolation and hot-tag sequences. O'Haire still looks like the most naturally explosive prospect involved.

Wright eventually catches Jindrak with a missile dropkick and wins the titles in front of the German crowd. The reaction is strong enough to give the moment genuine value.

The historical footnote is bizarre: later title recognition credits Wright and Disqo despite Rection actually wrestling the match. Inside the building, though, Wright gets a championship celebration and the audience gets a meaningful hometown payoff.

This is the event's creative collapse. Mike Awesome just survived the battle royal to earn advancement. Alex Wright has already worked multiple times and is the crowd's favorite. Kevin Nash enters fresh and spends long stretches standing aside while the other two create the action.

The match never finds rhythm. Wright and Awesome try to produce athletic sequences, a table refuses to cooperate, and Nash waits for the pieces to line up.

The finish has Nash hit Wright with the German flag and powerbomb him onto Awesome, then pin both men. It gives WCW the Sting-Nash final it clearly wanted from the beginning.

If that was always the destination, the earlier tournament steps feel performative. The match does not merely disappoint; it retroactively makes the battle royal less meaningful.

Booker T and Scott Steiner have actual stakes, and that alone separates the match from much of the card. Steiner bullies Booker with suplexes and physical control, while Booker keeps finding short bursts of speed and counters to prevent the challenger from taking over completely.

Midajah's interference and Steiner's referee abuse add familiar late-WCW noise. Steiner even steals a referee shirt and hands it to Midajah, creating another layer of officiating nonsense.

The match survives because the core rivalry is strong enough. Booker catches Midajah, fights back and eventually hits the Bookend for the pin when another referee arrives.

Ten days later Steiner wins the championship at Mayhem. That context makes this retention useful rather than random. The match is solid, physical and overbooked enough to stay out of B-range territory.

The European Cup receives a grander entrance than the match. Sting and Kevin Nash have fewer than six minutes, which immediately limits how much the tournament can possibly pay off.

Nash works his familiar corner offense and slows the pace. Sting attacks the knee, builds a brief comeback and applies the Scorpion Deathlock. Axel Schulz counts and officiates without becoming a major factor.

Sting wins cleanly enough, so the result itself is not the problem. The problem is scale. WCW spends a battle royal and another qualifier determining the challenger for a match shorter than several undercard bouts.

The crowd enjoys the stars, and Sting's win is pleasant. As a main event, it feels like the final match of a tour show rather than the climax of a pay-per-view.