SuperBrawl 2000: WCW Needed Seven Matches to Find One Worth Watching

The cruiserweight tournament ends with two wrestlers who receive almost no reaction from the Cow Palace. LeRoux tries to create movement with a dive and corner offense, while The Artist works at a slower pace and several transitions look uncertain. The match never resembles the division's best years.

Paisley spends much of the bout on the apron and eventually helps derail LeRoux's top-rope offense, allowing The Artist to land the diving DDT and win the vacant championship. The title change gives the division a champion but no momentum. Six minutes of sloppy wrestling and a distraction finish make this a deeply underwhelming tournament final.

Bigelow and Knobbs immediately leave the ring and walk through the crowd, but the trip produces almost nothing beyond one table spot before they return. The hardcore environment feels less like escalating violence and more like two wrestlers searching for objects while the audience waits for the finish.

Fit Finlay repeatedly becomes involved, Bigelow hits Greetings From Asbury Park and then chooses not to cover. That delay allows Knobbs to recover and use a trash-can lid for the title change. Four minutes, outside interference and little meaningful offense make the championship feel like a prop in another shallow brawl.

Norman Smiley provides the personality, dancing between bursts of offense and trying to survive a three-on-one disadvantage with injured ribs. 3 Count finally use the numbers advantage logically, cutting him off whenever he starts building momentum and forcing the match into a quick handicap structure.

The comedy keeps the segment from becoming completely lifeless, but the wrestling is still thin. After several aerial attacks, Shannon Moore applies the Boston crab and Smiley submits. The result finally gives 3 Count a victory in the program, yet four minutes of cartoonish handicap material adds little to a pay-per-view already desperate for substance.

WCW labels this a “special main event” because of the contractual expectations surrounding the KISS Demon character, which immediately creates a joke the match cannot overcome. The Wall attacks in the aisle, both men trade awkward power offense and the crowd begins rejecting the bout almost immediately.

The Demon briefly rallies before The Wall catches him and finishes with the chokeslam in under four minutes. Nothing about the presentation suggests a main event beyond the announcers repeating the phrase. The match is historically fascinating as contract compliance and almost worthless as wrestling.

The match barely resembles professional wrestling. Abbott and Big Al tie themselves together with a belt, trade stiff-looking strikes and spend long stretches standing or repositioning around the pole. The crowd has almost no reason to understand the relationship or choose a side.

The dangerous finish makes the segment worse. Abbott carries Al toward the ropes and Al falls awkwardly to the floor before Abbott retrieves the jacket. Afterward, Abbott produces a knife and holds it near Al's throat while the broadcast cuts away. The spectacle is memorable for all the wrong reasons and belongs near the bottom of any WCW match list.

Booker moves well enough to create brief hope, landing the axe kick, Book End and missile dropkick while Big T struggles to keep pace. The match's premise is already damaging because one of WCW's most talented wrestlers is fighting over a team name and a single letter rather than moving upward on the card.

The lights go out during Booker's apparent victory, an unexplained man appears and the distraction allows Big T to hit the Pearl River Plunge. The finish gives Booker another humiliating setback without making Big T feel important. Five minutes of poor wrestling and confused storyline logic produce one of the show's clearest wastes of talent.

Kidman and Vampiro finally give the audience a match built around athletic ideas instead of a gimmick. They exchange quick counters, aerial offense and repeated attempts to use or reverse the powerbomb. The pace is substantially better than anything earlier on the card.

Execution prevents the match from becoming genuinely good. Several headscissors and top-rope sequences look mistimed, and both wrestlers have to recover visibly from awkward transitions. Kidman eventually pulls Vampiro down from the ropes and gets the pin. Seven minutes of effort earn a passing grade mainly because the match feels like actual wrestling on a show that badly needs it.

The stipulation creates a chaotic brawl with tables, stretchers, Daffney interference and constant movement between the ring and floor. Crowbar supplies most of the athletic offense, while the Mamalukes use their size and numbers to make the elimination structure understandable.

The match becomes slower whenever the teams have to tape someone to a stretcher and physically move the body backstage. David Flair is eliminated first, leaving Crowbar alone, and Vito eventually splashes him through a ringside table before the champions finish the job. The effort is obvious, but the rules make eleven minutes feel much longer.

Flair and Funk finally give the card a match with history and escalation. They trade chops and punches, fight on the floor and build toward piledrivers and tables rather than opening with the biggest stunt. Their familiarity allows the match to remain coherent even when the death-match rules require repeated pins and ten counts.

The crowd never gives them the reaction the work deserves, and the finish is oddly flat after several more violent spots. Funk crashes through a table, Flair scores the pin and then survives the standing count while Funk cannot. The structure and commitment are enough for a C, but this is a shadow of their best work together.

Hogan is one of the few wrestlers who still receives a recognizable reaction, but the match immediately settles into the familiar punch-and-kick formula. Luger spends much of the bout walking through offense, while Hogan repeatedly uses the cast on his injured arm as a weapon without meaningful consequence.

Elizabeth and Jimmy Hart become involved around ringside, Luger lands a low blow in front of the referee and Hogan eventually wins with the cast and legdrop. The finish is messy rather than dramatic. Eight minutes of recycled offense suggest a rivalry that has no new story to tell.

The world-title match begins with enough urgency to suggest a short sprint. Hall attacks Jarrett, Sid powers through both challengers and the three-way structure gives the champion opportunities to clean house. Then the referees become the story.

Jarrett knocks out official after official, Slick Johnson refuses to count a Hall victory and Roddy Piper eventually appears in a referee shirt to remove the crooked official. Sid chokeslams Jarrett and powerbombs Hall to retain. Scott Hall's final WCW match lasts under eight minutes and ends inside an officiating circus, leaving the championship secondary to another pile of plot devices.