PPV REVIEW: WCW Superbrawl: Revenge (2001)

WCW Superbrawl Revenge 2001 - Event poster
February 18, 2001 
Nashville Municipal Auditorium,  Nashville, Tennessee.

By far the most frustrating thing about World Championship Wrestling wasn't all the dumb and terrible things they'd done over the years, it was how much better the company started getting towards the end of their run.

Sure, all of that dumb stuff had caused irrevocable harm and there was no way they could ever truly come back from all the damage that had been done, but from a creative stand point at least, WCW were starting to look good again.

Scott Steiner's reign of terror as WCW champion made for intriguing television -if not necessarily excellent matches- as he took credit for taking out all of the company's biggest stars one by one.

The cruiserweight division was getting a second wind with Chavo Guerrero at the top of the hierarchy, and though there was still plenty of WCWness about the whole company, a lot of their more idiotic decisions were behind them.

So, while all of that may have been too little, too late, it did make watching the company's final months far less painful than the torturous ordeal than the task of watching their 1999/2000 efforts.







Don't believe me? Here's what went down when the last ever Superbrawl show came live from Nashville, Tennessee.

Revenge

WCW Superbrawl Revenge 2001 - Tony Schiavone & Scott Hudson called the event
Tonight’s opening video looked like something straight out of a horror trailer, with a pair of hands clinically cutting out words from a newspaper to form a ransom-style cut-and-paste note.

This being WCW, we never saw what the note said, but as it was being made, words like ‘psycho’ and ‘ego’ flashed on the screen.

Live in the arena, it was fireworks galore and a greeting from Tony Schiavone and Scott Hudson as the cameras panned over what was obviously a very small crowd, at least compared to WCW’s heyday.

Animal Hates Kidman for Some Reason

Schiavone and Hudson took us back to the Superbrawl pre-show where Road Warrior Animal inexplicably beat up Billy Kidman for no known reason.

Six-Man, Four-Corners Elimination Match
Evan Karagias vs. Jamie Knoble vs. Yang vs. Kaz Hayashi vs. Shannon Moore vs. Shane Helms

WCW Superbrawl Revenge 2001 - Shane Helms won the opening match
The backstage attack was just a way to write Kidman out of this match and replace him with Shane Helms.

With the other five competitors in the ring, the announcers speculated who the sixth participant was going to be as if it was ever going to be anybody other than Shane Helms.

Honestly, these six men had opened up a large number of WCW PPVs over the past six months. Sometimes it was in a ladder match such as at Starrcade 2000, other times it was a straight-up three-team tag, but it was always these same six men opening the show in some way other another.

Most of those matches had been exciting, lightning-fast spotfests that were a thrill to watch despite not having much to them beyond lots of interesting flips.

This was more of the same, but it fell short when compared to its predecessors because there was an insane amount of botching going on that made it look sloppy and uncoordinated.

At one point, Yang screwed up three moves in a row and made himself look ridiculous. Fortunately, Jamie Knoble tombstoned him a few seconds later and put him out of his misery.

The final moments came down to Yang’s partner Kaz Hayashi and Shane Helms who, to their credit, gave us the most solid and gripping part of the match.

Helms got the win with a Vertebraker after the better part of 20 minutes, ending a contest which was still pretty good, but spoiled somewhat by all the screw-ups.
Your Winner: Shane Helms

Post-match, the announcers showed us some security camera footage of Chavo Guerrero approaching, and apparently striking a deal with, Road Warrior Animal and Ric Flair.

It was suggested that maybe Animal has taken out Kidman to help Chavo, though quite why that would be nobody knew.

The Misfits Are Over and Its No Laughing Matter

WCW Superbrawl Revenge 2001 - Hugh Morrus cut a backstage promo on The Wall
In some pre-recorded comments, Hugh Morrus talked about General Rection as if he was a different person.

Morrus had nothing but hatred in his heart after Rection had taken The Wall into the Misfits In Action only for the temporarily named Sgt. AWOL to turn his back on him and join fellow defector, Chavo.

The MIA was over and Morrus wanted revenge.

More Backstage Stuff

My lord, they were back to cramming a thousand ‘tween-match segments into 90 seconds again.

WCW Superbrawl Revenge 2001 - Ric Flair consults Scott Steiner with Midajah standing by
After the security footage and the Morrus promo, we saw a tuxedo-clad Ric Flair interrupt the shoulder massage that Scot Steiner was getting from Midajah.

Steiner had cut some scathing, obscenity-laden promos against Flair in the past but they were now friends and Flair had an envelope that would help Steiner end Kevin Nash’s career.

Then, Commissioner Lance Storm stopped Kronik as they entered the arena and ordered Bryan Clark to go and get checked over by a doctor before he was cleared to wrestle.

The Wall vs. Hugh Morrus

This started as a fairly enjoyable big-man brawl, but it didn't have enough about it to keep it engaging for very long.

After almost ten minutes, Morrus hit the No Laughing Matter on The Wall to get the win after a mediocre contest.
Your Winner: Hugh Morrus

Morrus hit a second moonsualt after the bell and was surprisingly very over with the live crowd.

Konnan Wants Revenge

Get it? Because the show was called Superbrawl: Revenge so everyone was out for revenge, including Konnan.

He wanted revenge on Flair and Animal for the attack on Kidman, but could only get to Animal, who despite being an all-time legend was now just Flair’s muscle.

The Road Warrior and the K-Dog got into a brawl which was then broken up by security.

A video package followed showing us that the Natural Born Thrillers had broken up after Shawn Stasiak & Mark Jindrak got sick of being the lesser team compared to tag champions Chuck Palumbo & Sean O’Haire.

There was no mention of where Mike Sanders was in all this.

World Championship Wrestling World Tag Team Championship
WCW World Tag Team Champions Chuck Palumbo & Sean O’Haire vs. Shawn Stasiak & Mark Jindrak

WCW Superbrawl Revenge 2001 - Chuck Palumbo & Sean O'Haire
Before the bell, Stasiak got himself some cheap heat by taking to the microphone and insulting the local sports team. He followed this by saying ‘note to self,’ then adding ‘the next time we walk into this town you should all get on your knees and worship the ground we walk on.

That was clearly a note to the audience, not himself, but fair play to the lad for trying.

As the tag champs made their way to the ring, Jindrak revealed a microphone of his own and cut a cringe-inducing promo telling the challengers that they would be the ones to get on their knees when they kissed their asses goodbye.

When the match got underway, it turned out to be a decent outing, albeit a little rushed.

I’ve often thought that if WCW had never gone under and was still active today, we would have seen all four of these men pushed towards the main event eventually.

I’m not saying that’s a good thing or that I necessarily agree with it, but from the way they were portrayed, it seemed kind of inevitable.

Palumbo spent the majority of the match getting his ass beat, which was a bit of a stretch given the size of him, but to be fair, both teams were still relatively new and didn’t have the experience to give us anything that the basic tag team formula.

After a long while, O’Haire got the hot tag, cleaned house and hit a Seanton Bomb on Stasiak for the win.
Your Winners and Still Tag Team Champions: Chuck Palumbo & Sean O’Haire

Backstage, Dustin Rhodes claimed that Ric Flair had tried to keep him out of WCW and somehow this meant that Rhodes would now challenge Rick Steiner for the US title.

World Championship Wrestling World Cruiserweight Championship
WCW World Cruiserweight Champion Chavo Guerrero vs. Rey Mysterio Jr.

WCW Superbrawl Revenge 2001 - Rey Mysterio Jr. challenged Chavo Guerrero for the cruiserweight title
No Tygress. Presumedly she was a victim of WCW’s cost-cutting measures.

Also, it’s worth pointing out how badass Chavo’s theme music was. It was basically Eddie Guerrero’s old LWO theme albeit with an awesome lead guitar mixed in.

The music wasn’t the only awesome thing.

As close as you were going to get in 2001 to the great Cruiserweight classics of the mid-90s, this was the best match Rey Mysterio had been involved in for some years, at least since he lost his mask. It was also one of Chavo Guerrero’s finest performances.

At this stage of the game, the best you could usually hope for from a WCW PPV match was that it would be decent, but this was on another level and was probably the best WCW PPV bout since the turn of the millennium, it not before that.

After an enthralling see-saw battle, Guerrero waffled Mysterio with a chair behind the referee’s back then hit a brainbuster to retain his title.
Your Winner and Still Cruiserweight Champion: Chavo Guerrero

Out in the back, Commissioner Storm warned Brian Adams that Kronik’s match was up right after our US title match. Adams didn’t want to compete without his partner but Storm didn’t care and booked it anyway.

A video package then showed us that Dustin had got this title shot after Kevin Nash held David Flair hostage and demanded it. The video also showed us that Mike Sanders was part of Flair’s stable, so that answers my earlier question.

World Championship Wrestling United States Championship
WCW United States Champion Rick Steiner vs. Dustin Rhodes

WCW Superbrawl Revenge 2001 - Rick Steiner defended the US title against Dustin Rhodes
This was OK. Nothing more. It looked as though Dustin was trying hard, but he was in there with Rick Steiner, who hadn’t really tried hard in years.

The good news is that this rather average match didn’t last long. The bad news is that it had almost exactly the same finish as the last match.

In both bouts, the referee stopped the babyface from using a chair which gave the heel a chance to cheat. The only difference was that Chavo used a different chair while Steiner used an exposed turnbuckle, dropping Rhodes face-first into it to win the match.
Your Winner and Still US Champion: Rick Steiner

Post-match, Dustin got his Superbrawl: Revenge by propping Steiner in the corner and kicking him swiftly in the bollocks.

Pointless Backstage Stuff

Out in the back, Lance Storm was busy preparing for his match when Ric Flair came and told him to make sure that anybody who wasn’t in their stable was booted out of the arena after their match.

Flair also wanted Storm to ensure that the winner of the upcoming Totally Buff/Kronik match got a tag team title shot.

Across the arena, Storm’s scheduled opponent, Ernest Miller was getting pumped up with Diamond Dallas Page giving him a pep talk and insisting that he had to get the Comissionershio back because Flair had gotten rid of everybody else and now it was down to just the two of them.

Totally Buff (The Total Package Lex Luger & Buff Bagwell) vs. Kronik (Brian Adams & Bryan Clarke)

WCW Superbrawl Revenge 2001 - Lex Luger and Buff Bagwell - Totally Buff
Before the match, Totally Buff cut a really long and largely terrible promo in which they spoke for about fifty hours without actually saying anything of note.

The whole promo told us stuff we already knew:

  • They were part of Ric Flair’s stable
  • Bryan Clarke wasn’t cleared to compete.
  • The winners of the match got a tag title shot.

We’d already been told all of this, so why Luger and Bagwell had to spend so long going over it again is anyone’s guess.

Anyway, despite not being cleared to compete, Bryan Clarke seemingly came down to help his partner regardless but was immediately taken out by a Buff Bagwell chair shot.

The rest of the match was a decent though unspectacular handicap match in which Bagwell and Luger mugged Adams until his heroic comeback. It was at that point that Bryan Clarke turned on his partner and drilled him with a German Suplex...

...Except he didn’t really because it was revealed that it was actually Mike Awesome doing a Bryan Clarke cosplay.

One Buff Blockbuster later and this was over.
Your Winners: Totally Buff

Afterwards, the real Bryan Clarke consoled his partner.

The two then went backstage where a Lance Storm ordered that they be thrown out of the building. Security tried to act, but Adams & Clarke destroyed them all.

As we went back to the arena, Schiavone and Hudson told us that Kronik were being ejected and that Konnan and Dustin Rhodes had already been thrown out.

Battle for the WCW Commissionership
WCW Commissioner Lance Storm vs. Ernest Miller (w/ Miss Jones)

WCW Superbrawl Revenge 2001 - Lance Storm 'If I can be serious for a minute"
It seriously feels as though Ernest Miller spent every single PPV since the turn of the millennium winning and losing the role of WCW Commissioner.

It was only back at WCW Sin that he regained the role for the nine millionth time after beating Mike Sanders but he’d since lost it again to Lance Storm and now had to try and get it back once more.

Before the bell, Lance Storm called himself the greatest technical wrestler in the sport which was surely a dig at Chris Benoit, who the WWF were calling the best technical wrestler.

Before he got to have his Canadian National Anthem played, however, The Cat interrupted him and called him a Power Ranger, which for some reason always makes this fan laugh out loud. The crowd were firmly behind Miller, who was amazingly really over in WCW’s final months.

He was also starting to get better as a wrestler and had perhaps the best PPV match of his career here against Storm. OK, so the bar wasn’t set terribly high to begin with, but this was still a fun little match.

Towards the end, Mike Sanders came out for no reason but got clocked by the ever-lovely Miss Jones.

That reminds me: No Major Gunns here, which is sad for obvious reasons.

While Jones beat up Sanders, Cat cracked Storm with the Feliner and regained the Commissioner role for the second time in as many PPVs.
Your Winner: Ernest Miller

Cat and Miss Jones celebrated after the match with their weird dancing.

After a video for our next match, Schiavone told us that Cat only resumed power at midnight so Ric Flair had him ejected from the building.

Diamond Dallas Page vs. Kanyon

Of note, DDP was no longer using his Smells Like Teen Spirit theme and had Generic Jobber Theme #5579 instead.

WCW Superbrawl Revenge 2001 - Jeff Jarrett puts Diamond Dallas Page to sleepHe was supposed to face Jeff Jarrett, but since he’d challenger Kanyon to a match ‘anywhere, any time,’ Jarrett and Kanyon had decided that the place was here and the time was now.

What followed was a really enjoyable match with lots of unique spots from Innovator of Offence Kanyon and a nasty blade job from Page.

After a very fun contest, Jarrett’s interference helped Kanyon get the win via Flatliner.
Your Winner: Kanyon

Kanyon then took to the microphone to serve as ring announcer and reveal that Jarrett vs. Page would still go ahead.

Diamond Dallas Page vs. Jeff Jarrett

Though it was neither as fast nor as furious as the last match, this was still a very good effort.

The end saw more interference, this time from Kanyon. It backfired, however, and resulted in Jarrett inadvertently blasting Kanyon with a guitar.

A Diamond Cutter later and Page was your victor.
Your Winner:  Diamond Dallas Page

Before the main event, CEO Ric Flair came out to join the commentary team.

World Championship Wrestling World Heavyweight Championship
WCW World Heavyweight Champion Scott Steiner (w/ Midajah) vs. Kevin Nash

WCW Superbrawl Revenge 2001 - Ric Flair presents WCW Champion Scott Steiner & Midajah
It’s amazing that WCW had lost so much money and were cutting costs left and right but still paid Michael Buffer to do the main event announcements. Either that, or he was paid directly by Time Warner.

As part of Steiner’s entrance, Buffer declared that Steiner was responsible for ending the careers of Sting, Booker T, and Sid Vicious,  none of whom had been seen since facing Big Poppa Pump.

Of course, Sid was gone because he horrifically broke his leg in a freak accident, but oh well.

Scotty didn’t appreciate being put over by Buffer and ordered him out of the ring so that he could talk about ending those men’s careers for himself.

Steiner then had the production crew play a clip of Sid breaking his leg over and over again. It was crass and tasteless and had this writer looking away from the screen until it was over.

I have no desire to ever look at that sickening sight.

WCW Superbrawl Revenge 2001 - Kevin Nash got no sympy from Scott Steiner
Ric Flair then entered the ring and told us that not only was the title on the line, but the loser would be forced to leave WCW.

Finally, after being attacked by the heels on Nitro, Kevin Nash was pushed to the ring in a wheelchair by two women dressed as sexy nurses.

“Kevin Nash, you come out here trying to get the sympy of the people,” said Steiner, noticing the leg cast Nash was wearing. “But you don’t get my sympy at all.”

From his wheelchair, Nash just looked at Steiner with a confused look on his face as if to ask ‘dude, WTF is sympy?’

Nash then revealed he wasn’t hurt at all (obviously), hit Steiner with the belt and won the title.

At least he appeared to until dastardly heel Flair made it two out of three falls.

On the outside, Steiner murdered Nash with a lead pipe but despite being a generic freak couldn’t lift Big Sexy snd get him back in the ring. To help him out, Flair then made it falls count anywhere and announced that Nash’s first fall didn’t count.

The actual wrestling part of the match was OK but there’d been so much overbooking and interference from Flair and Midajah the whole thing just came off as garbage.

Steiner eventually won by making Nash pass out to the Steiner Recliner, but the damage was done.
Your Winner and Still World Heavyweight Champion: Scott Steiner

This was probably the worst WCW PPV main event since Hogan/Warrior or maybe that First Blood fiasco between Flair and Hogan.

It was beyond awful and really ruined what was otherwise a decent show.







I mean that sincerely, despite a few blips, Superbrawl: Revenge had a lot of bright spots.

OK, so it was nowhere near as good as Starrcade 2000 or January’s Sin Show, but the Chavo/Mysterio match was a thing of beauty, the opening few matches were good and Page/Kanyon was a blast.

But that main event, man was it ever bad.

I started this review saying the most frustrating thing about WCW was that they started getting much better toward the end but I take that back. The most frustrating thing was sitting through that abomination of a main event.

Watching that and knowing WCW would soon be out of business, I have no sympy for them at all.



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1 Comments

  1. only one ppv left before the end of WCW.

    I'll be waiting for the review of greed.

    ReplyDelete