New Blood Rising 2000: WCW Had Good Wrestlers and Refused to Trust Them

The opener is the one part of New Blood Rising that feels eager to entertain instead of explain itself. 3 Count and the Jung Dragons throw themselves into ladders, dives and fast combinations with enough creativity that the occasional sloppy landing becomes part of the chaos rather than a fatal flaw. The Vancouver crowd responds to the big risks and gives the young wrestlers the energy they need.

The booking still cannot resist interfering with the logic. Jamie-San retrieves the gold record, only for Tank Abbott to take it away, which immediately makes the ladder objective feel less meaningful. The teams continue fighting for the recording contract and 3 Count eventually wins. The nonsense lowers the ceiling, but the athletic work is good enough to remain the card's clear match of the night.

The matchup sounds more interesting than it becomes. The Great Muta still has presence and flashes of recognizable offense, but he and Ernest Miller never establish a rhythm. Miller works parts of the match like a heel despite being positioned for the crowd to support him, while Muta spends long stretches applying holds without creating urgency.

Tygress eventually interferes with a chair, allowing Miller to recover from the green mist and score the pin. The finish protects nobody and adds another body to a match that already lacks chemistry. Muta losing is not inherently a problem, but the victory does little for Miller because it arrives through distraction rather than a convincing performance. The bout is short and still feels long.

The wrestling is far better than the stipulation. Kanyon is a useful opponent for Bagwell because he bumps hard, controls the pace and can make Buff's comeback offense look explosive. Bagwell remains popular enough that the crowd gives the match energy whenever the focus stays inside the ring. There is a functional midcard bout hiding underneath the premise.

Then WCW reminds everyone that Judy Bagwell is suspended on a forklift because Kanyon supposedly kidnapped her. David Arquette returns and interferes, but Buff survives and hits Blockbusters on both heels before pinning Kanyon. The match earns a passing score because the workers produce competent action. The concept remains one of the most infamous examples of late-WCW creative excess.

There is enough talent for a better match, particularly whenever Sean O'Haire gets room to show his athleticism. The younger teams work hard and KroniK are over, but the structure is overloaded before the bell because the Filthy Animals serve as intentionally biased referees. Slow counts and selective enforcement repeatedly interrupt whatever momentum the wrestlers create.

The finish becomes another rules problem. Vampiro and Muta attack KroniK, Disco refuses to count a pin and Chavo Guerrero eventually takes the referee shirt and counts a fall that allows KroniK to retain. The wrestlers are asked to solve a puzzle the audience has little reason to understand. Effort keeps the match out of F territory, but the crooked-official gimmick overwhelms nearly everything useful.

Kidman and Douglas use the strap in several logical ways, including pulling each other into the post and preventing escapes. Kidman sells well when Douglas takes control, while Douglas understands how to talk and work as the heel. The match has enough basic structure to be watchable even though the crowd never fully invests.

Torrie Wilson provides the expected distraction and eventually gets caught in the closing sequence. Kidman survives, hits the Kid Crusher and wins by pinfall rather than a four-corners strap stipulation. The work is competent but never exciting, and the post-match attack extends a storyline built around personal humiliation rather than athletic stakes. It is a flat match, not a disastrous one.

Both women visibly try to perform more wrestling than the premise requires, and that effort deserves recognition. The problem is that the rules are never coherent. The match begins with pin attempts, shifts toward stripping clothing and eventually moves into the mud pit, leaving the audience to infer what actually constitutes a victory.

The finish is worse than the confusion. Miss Hancock clutches her abdomen in a worked medical emergency, allowing Major Gunns to get the result while commentary begins presenting the situation as though it might be real. The segment turns a bad gimmick into an uncomfortable attempt at realism. There is no useful payoff, and the effort of the performers cannot rescue the concept they were given.

The match lasts less than a minute and functions only as a bridge to the post-match angle. Sting arrives, overwhelms The Demon and wins before the audience has time to settle into the contest. There is no meaningful structure, escalation or competitive question because the result is obvious almost immediately.

Vampiro and The Great Muta attack after the bell, which brings KroniK out and sets up the later tag-title match. That angle is the actual reason the segment exists. Sting remains over and the crowd enjoys seeing him, but a pay-per-view match should provide more than an entrance, a quick finish and storyline housekeeping. The score reflects the absence of substantive wrestling rather than poor execution.

The first half proves that Lance Storm and Mike Awesome could have had a good match. Storm is wrestling in front of a receptive Canadian crowd, Awesome brings size and power, and the exchanges are crisp enough to create real momentum. A straightforward Storm victory would have been one of the easiest successes available to WCW.

Instead Jacques Rougeau keeps changing the rules after Awesome appears to win. Three counts become five counts, submissions stop counting and a ten-count condition is introduced after another apparent finish. Every restart makes the crowd less invested and turns Storm from a home-country star into a beneficiary of administrative comedy. The wrestling underneath the gimmick is useful; the booking destroys the match it could have become.

The basic tag structure is more coherent than much of the card. KroniK use power to control the opening stretch, Vampiro and Muta isolate Brian Adams, and Bryan Clark eventually receives the hot tag. The crowd is quiet, but the wrestlers keep the action simple enough that the match remains understandable.

The finish introduces the Harris Brothers to protect KroniK. Muta accidentally sprays the referee with mist, outside interference creates the opening and Muta's moonsault wins the championships for the Dark Carnival. The title change is historically useful, but the protection makes the new champions feel secondary to the interference. This is ordinary wrestling damaged by a familiar late-WCW refusal to let a result stand on its own.

The physical matchup should work. Nash, Goldberg and Scott Steiner are three enormous stars who can throw each other around, and the brief stretches of straightforward action have real spectacle. The problem is that the match is not presented as a competition. It is presented as a commentary on whether the wrestlers will follow the supposed script.

Goldberg refuses Nash's Jackknife and leaves, while the announcers openly discuss the planned finish falling apart and the remaining wrestlers improvising. Nash eventually powerbombs Steiner for the win, and commentary praises Steiner for being professional. The device does not make the match feel real; it makes the rest of the show feel fake. As a worked-shoot experiment, it is historically fascinating and competitively disastrous.

Booker T and Jeff Jarrett deliver the second-best match because they build around an understandable injury. Jarrett attacks Booker's knee, Booker sells the damage and the match gradually expands from basic control into larger near falls. The crowd treats Booker like a champion worth supporting, which gives the final stretch energy the middle of the card often lacks.

The usual WCW excess still appears. Referees are bumped, weapons enter and Jarrett uses the guitar before applying the figure-four. Booker survives, sends Jarrett through a table with a Book End and eventually lands another Book End for the pin. The finish preserves the right champion and provides a satisfying enough conclusion. It is not great, but after the previous two hours, coherent world-title wrestling feels like a relief.