Conseco Fieldhouse, Indianapolis, Indiana
Back in the day, there was a rumour floating around that World Championship Wrestling wanted to run a PPV series based on the seven deadly sins.Â
Unfortunately, we'd never get to witness Tony 'Big T/Ahmed Johnson' Norris returning from his run in Harlem Heat 2000 to collide with Abdullah the Butcher in a Cheeseburger on a Pole street fight at WCW Gluttony. Nor would we ever see the inevitable moment in which Kevin Nash headlined WCW Sloth.
WCW would be closed for good just days after kicking things off with WCW Greed, but before that the seeds were planted with this:
The one and only WCW Sin pay per view.
Today, the event is infamous more for Sid Vicious' horrific broken leg than any of the actual matches, so why don't we head down to Indianapolis, Indiana and see what else went down besides that injury?
This is Sin
After all these years, WCW finally figured out how to make a good PPV opening video with just a few months left to go.
The shots of the wrestlers didn't seem to have anything to do with the actual words on the screen, however. For example, Gluttony was immediately followed by a shot of Sid Vicious laughing like a maniac.
Whether this was a thinly-veiled dig at Sid for putting on some weight in the last year is anyone's guess.
I will say one thing though, they missed a trick by not showing a shot of Bryan Clarke when 'Wrath' came up on the screen.
Given that this PPV was called Sin and we'd have 'Greed' in March, I do wonder if the plan was to rebrand a bunch of other PPVs with the seven deadly sins, but I guess we'll never know.
Let Me Do This Alone
Anyway, after a greeting from our announcers Tony Schiavone and Scott Hudson, we went backstage where Shane Helms encouraged his 3 Count partner Shannon Moore not to get involved in the upcoming cruiserweight title match.Moore agreed, and it was on with the show.
World Championship Wrestling World Cruiserweight Championship
WCW World Cruiserweight Champion Chavo Guerrero vs. Sugar Shane Helms
Though the company still had talented performers who could work in the cruiserweight style, the division itself had -like almost everything else in the company- gone dramatically downhill.
So it was absolutely refreshing to see Chavo Guerrero defend his title against Shane Helms in a straight-up one-on-one match with no BS or wackiness.
It was an awesome match too, maybe not an all-time classic, but certainly a thrilling bout with lots to enjoy, including a gripping reversal-of-a-reversal-of-a-reversal finish that saw Chavo retain the gold with a Brain Buster.
Even though he won, there were many moments when it looked like Helms really could be our new champion, making this one of those occasions when a wrestler really did get more over despite losing.
Your Winner and Still Cruiserweight Champion: Chavo Guerrero
After Chavo's obligatory celebration, Schiavone and Hudson took some time to speculate on the identity of the mystery man who would be competing in tonight's main event.
If you're wondering where their usual partner, Mark Madden was, he had recently been fired for basically telling the truth about what a dismal state the company was in.
To be honest, I'm not complaining. The guy may have his fans, but this writer isn't one of them. Between him being a grown man making Jay & Silent Bob references to his repeated attempts to get himself over, there wasn't a lot to like about him.Still, why they only had a two-man booth when the ever-awesome Mike Tenay was right there is anyone's guess.
Tonight, Tenay was relegated to waiting around backstage for CEO Ric Flair to arrive and then questioning him about the mystery man when he did so.
Unsurprisingly, Nature Boy wasn't letting anything slip, but insisted he'd reveal the mystery man when the time was right.
Vito is Ready for Reno
Yes, this feud was still going on.Backstage, Mean Gene Okerlund caught up with Big Vito who had apparently reunited with his former partner Johnny The Bull.
Cutting a decent promo, Vito declared that it didn't matter what Reno and the Natural Born Thrillers did to him, he was going to get revenge tonight.
Big Vito vs. Reno
Ok, so neither man had ever sucked, but they weren’t exactly known for stealing the show either, so it was a treat to see them go at it in such a fast and furious fashion.
Make no mistake about it, something had lit a fire under these two which meant they bust hump to give us the best match they were capable of.
In the end, Reno won with his Roll of the Dice finisher, but before that, there was a lot to enjoy here.
Your Winner: Reno
Finally, it seemed WCW had gotten out of the annoying habit of cramming 20 backstage segments into 90 seconds of pre-match time.
Here we just had one.
Mike Sanders offered Brian Adams some money to do a job for him (remember, the Acolytes were doing an APA gimmick), but after Sanders left, Bryan Clarke revealed that they’d been paid more money by somebody else to do a different job.
The Jung Dragons (Yang & Kaz Hayashi w/ Lea Meow) vs. Knoble & Karagias (Jamie Knoble & Evan Karagias)
I just typo’d and accidentally wrote ‘The Hung Dragons.’ Something tells me that would have been an entirely different tag team.Anyway, this was a lot of fun - a frantic Cruiserweight showdown with all the flips, flops, and flying you could ask for.
After all kinds of big-time moves and breakneck wrestling, a simple roll-up earned Kaz Hayashi & Yang the win.
Your Winners: The Jung Dragons
Post-match, the losers beat up The Jung Dragons because that’s what heels do.
Meanwhile, backstage, Totally Buff (Lex Luger & Buff Bagwell) arrived in a purple hot rod and started complimenting each other’s appearance.
Mike Sanders vs. Ernest ‘The Cat’ Miller (w/ Miss Jones)
If Miller wins, he becomes commissioner. If Sanders wins, he gets Miss Jones
Sanders began things, reminding us of the match stipulation and insisting that the WCW Commissionership was a role worth having because it paid well.
That’s probably about the only real reason anybody would want the job since it was basically meaningless now that Ric Flair was running things as CEO.
Ernest Miller, however, thought differently. Proving himself to be very over with the live crowd, The Cat insisted he could beat Sanders as long as he had the people behind him and was going to use the Commissionership to help WCW ‘get back on top.’
Ah, there’s nothing like a company openly admitting that they were failing live on air.
What didn’t fail was this match. Though it may be hard to believe, this was a very entertaining little match.
A rematch from their kickboxing encounter back at Halloween Havoc 2000, Sanders and Miller put their best foot forward to deliver a bout that was made all the more enjoyable thanks to how beloved The Cat was by the audience.
Towards the finish, Sanders’ Natural Born Thrillers henchmen Shawn Stasiak and Mark Jindrak ran in to beat up Miller, but that’s when Kronik arrived.
The hired guns saw off Sanders’ goons then approached the commissioner himself, refunding the money he’d paid them by stuffing it in his mouth.
Miller hit the Feliner and became our new Commissioner.
Your Winner: Ernest Miller
Afterward, Miller and Miss Jones danced and celebrated their big win.
The Time for Talking is Over
In the previous match we saw Sanders hit a blatant low-blow on Miller and Miss Jones kick Sanders in the back of the head all in front of the official, but sure Ric, make Goldberg vs. Totally Buff No DQ.
With that done, Ric had Goldberg go over to a couple of fans to sign an autograph and take a picture. It seemed like a weird thing to show on camera...
Elsewhere in the arena, Mean Gene interviewed Jeff Jarrett about tonight’s fatal four-way main event. Jarrett insisted that he had Scott Steiner’s back and was mad at Okerlund for suggesting otherwise.
‘The time for talking is over,’ claimed Gene as the segment came to an end, even though there’d be more interviews still to come.
Team Canada (Lance Storm, Elix Skipper and Mike Awesome w/ Major Gunns) vs. The Filthy Animals (Konnan, Rey Mysterio Jr. and Billy Kidman w/ Tygress)
I’ve been wondering recently why Juventud Guerrera was no longer in the Filthy Animals, then it occurred to me that this must’ve been around the time he got canned for going crazy on an Australian tour.
Meanwhile, Hacksaw Jim Duggan was the special referee here after turning his back on America, joining Team Canada, then changing his mind about the whole thing and getting booted out.
In other words, Duggan’s heel turn bombed and nobody wanted to boo him, so they made him face again.
As a replacement, of sorts, Team Canada had Florida native Mike Awesome join them.
Before the bell, Lance Storm introduced the penalty box rule, telling us that anybody who broke the rules would get sin-binned.
The gimmick added an interesting aspect to what could have been a great match in its own right but, ultimately, it ended up making the whole thing confusing and hard to follow.
Sure, much of the in-ring action was pretty good, but with people constantly coming in and out of the penalty box it just got too much.
Storm won thanks to the Canadian Mapleleaf, ending a match which sounded great in theory but was shoddily executed.
Your Winners: Team Canada
Backstage, Mike Tenay interviewed The Natural Born Thrillers.
Ignoring The Professor, Sanders swore revenge on the ‘jacked-up muscle heads’ Kronik before Chuck Palumbo and Sean O’Haire promised to defeat the Insiders for the tag team titles.
I guess Palumbo’s ‘Perfect Event’ tag team with the other Shawn was all over.
Across the way, Diamond Dallas Page and Kevin Nash were shown stretching in anticipation of the match. This must have been a really big deal because usually when they cut to Nash backstage before a match he’d be reading a magazine or goofing off but nope, tonight he was in serious wrestler mode.
World Championship Wrestling World Hardcore Championship
WCW Hardcore Champion Terry Funk vs. Meng vs. Crowbar (w/ Daffney)
Terry Funk was the champion but Meng carried the title down to the ring. If you’ve read any previous WCW PPV reviews on this blog you’ll already have encountered one of the many rants about how much WCW ran this angle, so we won’t go into it again today.
If there’s one thing we can learn from it, it’s that Crowbar really wasn’t very good at selling.
At one point, he had Terry Funk in a figure four. Meng -widely regarded as perhaps the legit toughest wrestler ever- punched him twice in the head and the former Devon Storm didn’t even flinch.
Meng then dove off the top rope -seriously- splashed the bejesus out of Crowbar and murdered him with a piledriver, and the guy got back to his feet a few seconds later.
Then, Funk made a pin attempt on Meng and Crowbar tried to break it by lightly tugging on Funk’s t-shirt. It was so ineffective that Funk could have won the match, but that wasn’t the finish so he had to stop covering Meng for no reason which looked stupid.
A few seconds later, Meng slapped the Funker in the Tongan Death Grip and became our new hardcore champion. He’d be gone from the company and in the WWF a week later.
Your Winner and NEW Hardcore Champion: Meng
Out in the back, Ric Flair congratulated Ernest Miller on becoming the new commissioner then proceeded to give him the night off, because that's how important the job was.
Mean Gene then interviewed Sid, who did the whole sinister, psychotic whispering promo thing that we hadn't really seen him do since his last WWF run.
To be honest, he said nothing that would come as much of a surprise:
He was in the maint and was planning to win it.
World Championship Wrestling World Tag Team Championship
WCW World Tag Team Champions The Insiders (Diamond Dallas Page & Kevin Nash) vs. The Natural Born Thrillers (Sean O'Haire & Chuck Palumbo)
Of course, it had previously been Palumbo and Shawn Stasiak and O'Haire partnered with Mark Jindrak, but then a tag team battle royal was held to determine new number one contenders to the Insiders' titles, and those four men were the last ones standing.
NBT leader Mike Sanders then made a match between them, with the last two men remaining becoming the new tag team.
Palumbo and O'Haire were it, and here we were.
Speaking of Sanders, he came down with the rest of his team and announced that he was going to make substitutions throughout the match -ultimately creating a handicap scenario- but Ric Flair came out and squashed that idea dead.
The match itself was pretty decent, with the youngsters working hard and the veterans playing to their strengths. Everything was going pretty well, but then WCW had to spoil it with an overkill finish.
Despite Flair threatening fines and suspensions if the rest of the Natural Born Thrillers got involved, they did so anyway, but this proved just to be a distraction so that Lex Luger could come out with a chair for some reason.
Page took care of Luger while Kevin Nash stood around in the ring, trying to act as though he wasn't just waiting for Buff Bagwell to run in and hit him with a monkey wrench.
O'Haire then hit the Seanton Bomb and, one three count later, this was all over.
Your Winners and NEW tag team champions: Chuck Palumbo & Sean O'Haire
Backstage, the Natural Born Thrillers celebrated their big victory while Mike Tenay stood around to get an interview.
Mike Sanders claimed that Totally Buff's involvement had nothing to do with them, while Tenay hinted that The Insiders would be going after Buff.
First Blood Match for the World Championship Wrestling United States Championship
WCW US Champion General Rection vs. Shane Douglas
1: He could cut an effective heel promo
2: He had Torrie Wilson by his side.
Torrie had been released from her contract in December, presumedly as a cost-cutting measure, so now Douglas' only redeeming feature was his mic skills.
Tonight, he used them to announce that he was going to defeat General Rection and use the US title as a stepping stone to get to Scott Steiner's World Heavyweight Championship.
Rection, however, had other plans.
He took the fight to the challenger in a mediocre match that could have been a lot better had they given a damn about the stipulation.
You see, this was a first blood match, with a steel chain hanging above the ring that they were supposed to grab and use as a weapon to bust their opponents open with. Logic would have it that both men would be eager to get the chain and win the match, but this was WCW, were logic was a dirty word.
Instead, both men completely ignored the chain and wrestled a normal match -albeit for one brief battle through the crowd- before coming to the finish, where Douglas pulled a chain out of his boot and waffled the champ with it for the fall.
Why couldn't he have just done that in the opening minute of the match?
Your Winner and NEW US Champion: Shane Douglas
Elsewhere in the arena, a bloody General Rection had a mental breakdown over losing the US title.
No Disqualification Match
Totally Buff (Lex Luger & Buff Bagwell) vs. Goldberg & Sgt. Dwayne Bruce
If either Goldberg or Sarge wins, Goldberg is banned from WCW for life.This all came about as an evolution of Luger’s feud with Goldberg.
At Starrcade 2000, Buff had attacked Bill’s trainer,
Despite the No DQ stipulation, referee Mickey Jay still enforced tags and the first half of the match was played out like your basic tag team encounter.
It was OK, but not particularly great, though I will give them some credit for an interesting finish. Remember earlier when I said that showing Goldberg signing autographs for a fan was weird?
It paid off here.
Towards the end, Luger was arguing with the fan and grabbed him by the shirt. Goldberg came to the guy’s rescue but it was all a ruse. The ‘fan’ sprayed Big Bill with mace, giving Luger & Bagwell the upperhand.
Lex put Goldberg on his shoulders, Buff planted him with the Buff Blockbuster and just like that, Goldberg’s WCW career was done.
Your Winners: Totally Buff
With the match over, a defeated Goldberg struggled to get to his feet before struggling to the back, walking out of World Championship Wrestling for good.
The move was supposed to give Bill time off for shoulder surgery, but the company was bought out by the WWF two months later and we wouldn’t see Goldberg again until he turned up in All Japan Pro Wrestling in 2002.
Here on Retro Pro Wrestling, we won’t meet him again until we get to WWE Backlash 2003.
Four-Way Match for the World Championship Wrestling World Heavyweight Championship
WCW World Heavyweight Champion Scott Steiner (w/ Midajah) vs. Jeff Jarrett vs. Sid Vicious vs. Road Warrior Animal
Speculation ran rampant on who it would be. A returning Sting? A defecting WWF star?
Nope, it would be a bloated Road Warrior Animal, a reveal that would have been a bit deal 10-15 years earlier, but in 2001 was really underwhelming.
Not that Animal came out at first. Flair said that he would reveal his mystery man when the time was right, making this a three-way dance and leaving your writer with a sick feeling in his stomach.
Why?
Because the moment I saw Sid wearing those denim shorts, I remembered that this was the night he horrifically broke his leg.
Ugh, I feel ill just thinking about that.
Fortunately, they cut away from that terrible moment, showing us Flair getting his mystery man and cutting back to the ring with Sid in the ring for a really really long time with a messed up leg.
For some reason, they couldn’t just take Sid out of the match and carry on, so it all had to be cut short.
The Mystery Man came out in a mask, stomped Sid once, and allowed Steiner to pin Sid for the three count.
Your Winner and Still World Heavyweight Champion: Scott Steiner
I mean, imagine being Sid, being talked into doing a high spot by an official, breaking your leg doing it, and then having to sit in the ring in agony waiting to be pinned.
That main event was beyond awful, not because of anything that happened pre Sid’s leg, and not even because Road Warrior Animal was the biggest disappointing reveal since The Higher Power, but because of the horrible way WCW handled the injury and the finish.
Sid’s leg was a mess. They should have gotten him out of there immediately and improvised a new finish.
Instead, they kept him in the ring and even had Steiner kick him a bunch of times.
It was really hard to watch.
Other than that, this was actually a decent show with a really enjoyable undercard.
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