SuperBrawl IX: WCW Keeps Choosing the Wrong People at the Wrong Time

Booker T and Disco Inferno give the card the energetic opener it badly needs. Booker is already moving like someone who belongs higher on the card, while Disco understands exactly how to use the crowd's irritation with him to create movement around Booker's offense. The Harlem Hangover finish lands cleanly, and nine minutes is the right amount of time for a match that wants to establish pace rather than chase an epic.

The match is not technically pristine, but it is coherent and lively, which becomes more valuable as the show grows increasingly self-defeating. Booker comes across as a rising star without needing a convoluted angle, and Disco does his job without swallowing the spotlight. C+ fits a competitive opener that leaves the audience warmer than it found them.

Jericho and Saturn spend most of the match proving that the underlying rivalry can produce solid wrestling even while the surrounding dress angle keeps tugging the presentation toward comedy. Their counters are crisp, Saturn's suplexes feel forceful, and Jericho keeps the pace moving whenever the match threatens to settle into a holding pattern. Ralphus gives the crowd an easy target and the action itself is comfortably above average.

Then the finish arrives and turns a useful match into another WCW argument with itself. Saturn hitting referee Scott Dickinson with the Death Valley Driver and accepting the countout makes sense for his character frustration, but it denies the match the satisfying conclusion its work had earned. C is appropriate: good enough to watch, frustrating enough to remember the booking before the wrestling.

Kidman and Chavo Guerrero Jr. wrestle with the urgency that the cruiserweight division routinely delivered when WCW's larger stories were becoming tangled. Chavo controls enough of the match to make Kidman work from underneath, and the champion's bursts of speed give the eight-minute sprint a clear rhythm. The draping DDT and the powerbomb counter into Kidman's offense provide the strongest near falls without bloating the structure.

It never reaches the spectacular level associated with WCW's best cruiserweight matches, but it is clean, purposeful and easy to follow. Kidman's Shooting Star Press gives the match a decisive ending and reinforces him as a division centerpiece. C+ rewards the efficiency: there are higher peaks elsewhere on the show, yet this is exactly the kind of straightforward title defense the card needs more often.

The first tournament final has enough talent to be stronger than it is. Benoit and Malenko supply urgency, Hennig gives the exchanges personality, and Windham can still lean on timing and size to control stretches of the match. The double-elimination structure creates a legitimate strategic hook because the Horsemen must win twice, and the Texas Cloverleaf submission finally gives the first fall a result that appears to matter.

The problem is length and destination. The match works for nearly twenty minutes toward a payoff that WCW immediately prepares to undo, so the audience is asked to invest in a victory that exists primarily to create another match. C reflects that contradiction. The wrestling is professional and sometimes very good, but the tournament logic turns the first final into a bridge to a punch line.

The sudden-death rematch lasts only seconds and functions less like a match than a booking decision wearing wrestling gear. Malenko tries to return immediately to the Cloverleaf, Windham uses his belt to choke him, and the pin gives Hennig and Windham the vacant championships almost before the audience can process the reset. As an angle, it communicates surprise. As a pay-per-view match, it offers essentially no competitive value.

The damage is larger than the runtime because the finish tells the crowd that the previous twenty minutes were setup for the people they had just watched lose to take the belts anyway. Benoit and Malenko leave without the reward their first victory appeared to promise, while Hennig and Windham gain titles through a shortcut that does not elevate anyone. F is unavoidable despite the brevity.

The match itself is more entertaining than its historical reputation because Rey Mysterio Jr. gives the size disparity real electricity. Scott Hall sells enough of Rey's speed to let the smaller team threaten the Outsiders, Kevin Nash uses his size as an obstacle rather than a complete shutdown, and Konnan's hot stretches give the crowd credible moments to believe the upset might happen. Structurally, the eleven minutes move well.

Everything is shadowed by the stipulation. Lex Luger and Miss Elizabeth interfere, Hall's Outsider's Edge sets up Nash's pin, and Rey is forced to remove a mask that was central to his identity and presentation. The moment is historically important but creatively costly. C separates the competent match from the decision attached to it: the wrestling works, the result ages terribly.

Scott Steiner and Diamond Dallas Page deliver the strongest sustained singles match on the card because they wrestle like the title matters. Page attacks with urgency, Steiner's power offense feels dangerous, and the brawling around ringside gives the match a nasty edge without replacing the wrestling. Even Buff Bagwell's interference fits the heel structure better than most of the night's outside involvement because Page repeatedly fights through it.

The exposed-turnbuckle finish and Steiner Recliner keep the ending on brand for the champion while preserving Page as a credible threat. The match is not clean enough to reach the top tier, but it has intensity, escalation and a crowd that understands the stakes. B- makes it the easiest full-match recommendation on the show and a reminder that WCW still had upper-card combinations capable of feeling fresh.

Piper and Hall produce the night's clearest example of star power failing to become a good match. The opening exchanges lean on punches, eye rakes, low blows and crowd recognition rather than a structure that can build. Hall is capable of much better work, but he is asked to carry a match that repeatedly stops for interference and shortcuts. Piper's offense looks dated even by 1999 standards, and the pace never finds momentum.

Disco Inferno and Kevin Nash eventually enter the picture, Hall steals the title with his feet on the ropes, and the entire segment feels designed to protect everyone except the championship. The United States title changes hands, yet the belt somehow feels smaller afterward. F is the only sensible grade for eight minutes that are slow, overbooked and historically disposable.

Goldberg and Bam Bam Bigelow have the right physical premise: two explosive heavyweights testing whether the other can be bullied. Bigelow works Goldberg's knee, absorbs more offense than most opponents were allowed to take, and gives the match enough resistance to feel different from a standard Goldberg sprint. The second spear and Jackhammer still deliver the expected conclusion, but the road there asks Goldberg to sell for longer than usual.

That extra length is both the appeal and the limitation. The match proves Goldberg can inhabit something beyond a ninety-second destruction, yet the middle section does not always justify stretching the formula to nearly twelve minutes. Bigelow's professionalism keeps it functional, and the crowd remains invested. C- reflects a worthwhile experiment that never becomes the major heavyweight collision the names promise.

Hogan and Flair can still command the room, and the crowd treats the match like a major event even when the wrestling rarely reaches that level. Flair bleeds, Hogan uses the belt and a chair, and the match leans heavily on familiar character beats rather than technical ambition. The intensity is respectable, especially compared with some WCW main events from the surrounding period, and Flair's comeback briefly gives the title match urgency.

Then WCW adds the required layer of machinery. The referee goes down, Torrie Wilson appears, a masked David Flair uses a stun gun on his father, and Hogan retains through another nWo-assisted swerve. The reveal advances television, but it makes the pay-per-view ending feel like an advertisement for Monday night. D+ gives credit to the atmosphere and effort while penalizing a finish that undercuts the central championship story.