Slamboree 1998: WCW Finds a Perfect Payoff and Buries It Under Three Hours of Noise

Fit Finlay and Chris Benoit wrestle with the kind of physical certainty that makes the rest of the card look softer by comparison. Finlay attacks the arm to complicate the Crippler Crossface, Benoit responds with increasingly violent counters, and both men make simple strikes feel consequential. The middle slows more than it should, but the match never loses its sense of competition.

The finish is where WCW cannot resist adding another layer. Booker T appears at ringside, Benoit becomes distracted, and Finlay capitalizes with the tombstone. The result protects the champion and keeps the Benoit-Booker issue alive, but the match was strong enough to stand without outside story traffic. Cagematch currently rates it as the best conventional match on the card, and that feels right.

Lex Luger remains over enough that the crowd reacts to his comeback, but Brian Adams gives him very little to work with before that point. The match moves through basic shoulder work, clubbing offense, and Vincent interference without creating urgency. Neither man seems interested in taking a risk that might lift the segment above routine television wrestling.

The Torture Rack finish at least gives the audience the result it expects. Luger powers out of Adams' control and ends the match cleanly, which is better than another interference-heavy conclusion. Still, five minutes of low-energy offense on a crowded pay-per-view does not justify the slot. Multiple reviews identify this as one of the easiest skips of the night, and there is little reason to disagree.

As a battle royal, this is mostly a collection of quick eliminations and isolated high spots from a deep cruiserweight roster. Chris Jericho's sarcastic ring introductions provide more personality than the wrestling, and the middle of the match never develops much structure. The real purpose becomes obvious only when Juventud Guerrera and Ciclope are the final two participants.

Juventud voluntarily eliminates himself, Ciclope unmasks, and Dean Malenko receives an enormous reaction after months away from television. The mechanics of the finish are questionable because the rest of the field apparently worked for a title shot that the final two had already coordinated. The emotional payoff overwhelms that logic in the moment. This is an average battle royal attached to an exceptional reveal.

Dean Malenko enters the match with more emotion than almost any point in his WCW run. Jericho sells the surprise perfectly, immediately scrambling away from a challenger he spent weeks mocking while Malenko was absent. The crowd is invested before the first meaningful hold because the story has created a simple question: can Jericho finally be forced to answer for everything he said?

The match is too short to become a technical classic, but that may actually help the moment. Malenko attacks with urgency, survives Jericho's brief control, counters the top-rope hurricanrana, and pulls Jericho away from the ropes before finishing with the Texas Cloverleaf. The clean submission gives the audience exactly what it wants. WCW often complicated obvious payoffs; here it wisely lets one happen.

The Bowery Death Match is essentially a roofed cage fight with weapons and a ten-count finish, which fits the DDP-Raven feud in theory. They use the environment aggressively, including the memorable VCR shot, rope choking, cage collisions, and repeated knockout teases. The match works best when the two rivals are simply trying to hurt each other.

Then the Flock arrives, Van Hammer appears, disguised riot-squad members are revealed, and the structure becomes crowded with side stories. DDP survives the Evenflow and Raven's own Diamond Cutter before winning with the real Diamond Cutter. Kanyon's post-match unmasking and chair shot on Raven are historically useful, but they also confirm how many angles WCW was trying to fit into one cage. Good brawling survives excessive booking.

Eddie Guerrero and Ultimo Dragon are operating at a level of technique that should make the match an easy highlight. Their counters are crisp, Dragon's movement gives Eddie different problems than the rest of the card, and Chavo's presence creates a clear story beyond simple competition. Eddie repeatedly tries to control his nephew while Dragon attempts to exploit the distraction.

The wrestling remains good even when the crowd goes quiet after the cage match. Chavo accidentally becomes part of the finish when Dragon kicks him off the apron, allowing Eddie to seize control and hit the frog splash. The post-match tension pushes Chavo closer to his eventual breakdown. It is a quality supporting match hurt by placement and atmosphere more than by anything the wrestlers do.

Goldberg is already being presented as something larger than the United States Championship, and the crowd reacts to him accordingly. Saturn has enough credibility and physicality to create a more substantial challenge than most of Goldberg's victims. He lands suplexes, forces Goldberg to sell briefly, and gives the champion a reason to become more aggressive rather than simply run through the standard sequence.

The finish returns to the formula everyone expects. Saturn tries to springboard from a chair, Goldberg catches him with the spear, and the Jackhammer follows. The match is short, energetic, and useful for the streak, but it never creates a serious possibility of a title change. With Goldberg less than two months from the world championship, the historical trajectory is more interesting than the competitive drama.

Bret Hart and Randy Savage share enough stature that the matchup should feel special before they even touch. Instead, Savage is working through a serious knee problem and Bret spends much of the match methodically attacking it. The psychology is sensible, but the pace becomes slow and the audience never gets the classic first-time singles meeting the names promise.

The closing stretch turns into pure WCW excess. Elizabeth distracts Roddy Piper, Bret uses brass knuckles, Savage gets the weapon, Hogan attacks Savage's knee, and Bret wins with the Sharpshooter. Then Piper reverses his decision on Nitro and declares Savage the winner by disqualification. A historically interesting pairing becomes an example of how aggressively WCW could bury a match under plot mechanics.

The main event begins with a problem the wrestlers cannot solve: the alignments are almost impossible to read. Kevin Nash is leading the Wolfpac, The Giant has joined nWo Hollywood, Sting remains nominally WCW, and Scott Hall's allegiance is deliberately uncertain. The crowd reacts loudly to Hall and Nash while struggling to decide how it should treat the actual teams.

The wrestling is basic and rarely feels like a pay-per-view main event. Sting provides the movement, Nash and Giant work size-based control, and Hall spends much of the match setting up the eventual turn. He finally strikes Nash with the title belt, allowing Giant to pin him and win the championships with Sting. The angle moves the nWo split forward, but it leaves Sting looking like a passenger in his own main event.