WCW BASH AT THE BEACH

Thumbs up 11 (09.8%)

Thumbs down 92 (82.1%)

In the middle 9 (08.0%)



BEST MATCH POLL

Benoit & Saturn vs. Triad 65



WORST MATCH POLL

Roddy Piper vs. Buff Bagwell 22

Dean Malenko vs. David Flair 15

Sting & Nash vs. Savage & Vicious 14

Rick Steiner vs. Van Hammer 10

WCW's downswing continued with its 7/11 Bash at the Beach PPV, a show combining poorly conceived ideas with largely bad matches and a crowd that came to see a big event and somewhere along the way found it more interesting to watch the antics of beach balls being bounced through the crowd.

The leadership of WCW has to be brought into question over the actions over the past week. Not only was this show the result of total incompetence from the booking committee, both in matches which on paper weren't entertaining going in and stipulations that were never fully explained and in one case simply ignored, but a ridiculously brutal hardcore Battle Royal cost more than $100,000 to produce, was hyped so poorly it didn't result in as much as one added buy to the show, was so poorly lit it was nearly impossible to watch on television, and resulted in several needless injuries for wrestlers taking crazy bumps that didn't even get over because of how it was shot and looked. The Battle Royal, said to be an excellent spectacle live, taking place at a junkyard which was about a 40-minute drive from the National Car Rental Center in Fort Lauderdale, FL, where the rest of the show was taking place, was blamed by several fans live for killing the heat for the rest of the night.

There was heat during the week because of the apparent portrayal of domestic violence where Savage slapped Torrie Wilson and violently threw down Gorgeous George. While far more violent men beating up women scenes occur weekly on WWF and ECW, WCW can be more heavily criticized for playing it up in the press that they are the clean ones. Many also noted that Savage's throwing down George was more of a portrayal of domestic violence than women taking chair shots, guitar shots and cane shots which are clearly cartoon wrestling spots, even when the blows are stiff. The heat came down heavily on Bischoff, since more of the Time Warner brass was at the show live at the Georgia Dome. Savage's antics were not laid out by the booking committee and apparently Wilson didn't know she was going to be slapped. Savage and George probably both knew what was happening but nobody else seemed to. There was tremendous heat all week on Savage to the point that legitimately all were told to go home rather than appear on the live Thunder. This appeared to be some communication problems as well as Mike Tenay during the broadcast talked about Savage, Sid and the women being there and going to appear, then later said they wouldn't be appearing without giving an explanation. WCW employees were told all references to the slap and throwing down to be taken off the web site, and no clips of the final Nitro scene, which was abruptly cut off, were allowed to appear in packages on the shows the rest of the week. However, George came to ringside with sunglasses, then took them off, to reveal two black eyes, one of which was more prominent than the other. But in typical WCW fashion, the announcers never acknowledged them even when close-ups made them obvious. And then, as further punishment, when the show was over, Savage held the WCW title, even if it was only a one-day transitional reign to get the belt back to Hulk Hogan, when George went with Nash, and then turned on him at the end of the match.

It was a night where there was one good match, which the live crowd didn't react to much until the very end. There was nobody really over. Well, except Bill Goldberg, and he wasn't even there. It had been poorly promoted on television for the most part. The referee bumps became numbing parodies of bad booking. While there have been a lot of bad PPV events from all three major companies, this was the one show which maybe more than any others came across like a waste of time to watch. There have been worse shows, but they at least came across as having a purpose.

The live event drew 13,624 fans, which was 11,397 paying 444,737 and another $71,115 in merchandise.

A. In a try-out match involving some very small Florida independent workers, C.J. Afi & Jeremy Lopez beat Jamie Howard & Jet Jaguar.

The show opened with Tony Schiavone and Bobby Heenan, without Mike Tenay. Tenay was on location at the junkyard getting ready for the Battle Royal, which was poorly promoted on television with rules that weren't even formulated until the day of the event. However, when it came time to announce the event, Schiavone and Heenan announced it from the building watching their monitors. The two did their classic boring job, save for Heenan having one funny line when Judy Bagwell was chasing Ric Flair around the ring that she was chasing him for a date.

1. Ernest Miller pinned Disco Inferno (Glen Gilbertti) in 8:07. The stipulations for this match were supposed to be that the loser wouldn't be allowed to dance in WCW ever again. The stips were announced on WCW Saturday Night and on the pre-game show, but never on either Nitro or Thunder nor talked about before or during the match itself. Miller challenged Disco to a dance contest at the beginning and attacked him while dancing. Disco came back stomping on Cat's hat. The match was pretty bad. Disco used the last dance (stunner) but Sonny Onoo had the ref distracted. This gave Miller a chance to put on his red dancing shoe and kick Disco in the side of the head for the pin. After the pin, Schiavone said that there was a stipulation that the loser couldn't dance, but that stipulation was removed and that Disco can still dance. 1/2*

2. Rick Steiner (Robert Rechsteiner) pinned Van Hammer (Mark Ty Hildreth) in 4:51 to retain the WCW TV title. Schiavone talked about Hammer being a young star. Isn't he, like 39 years old? There was decent heat for the opener but the crowd died here immediately. Steiner was real stiff. He actually appeared to be killing Hammer at times. Hammer used a chair shot and a clothesline off the top. Steiner came back with two low blows, a clothesline and a sky high bulldog for the pin. the bulldog due to the angle looked really uncomfortable. DUD

3. David Flair (David Fliehr) retained the U.S. title pinning Dean Malenko (Dean Simon) in 3:05. Torrie Wilson was back in David's corner. They didn't even make an attempt to explain that one other than saying her 72 hours with Nash must have been up. Except, David won that match and she left voluntarily. My head hurts. They really should get migraine pills as a company sponsor. Malenko actually did probably the best job of his career in carrying this to a negative star match. He got David in the cloverleaf but Arn Anderson gave ref Johnny Boone the spinebuster. Malenko then kicked and slammed Asya and put her in the cloverleaf. Charles Robinson pulled Boone's ref shirt off and put it on. Ric Flair hit Malenko with hie shoe and David pinned him. After the match Anderson stomped Malenko into the ground in the aisle. -*

4. Konnan (Charles Ashenoff) & Rey Misterio Jr. (Oscar Gutierrez) & Swole (?) & B.A. (Robert James Jr.) won an elimination match over Curt Hennig & Barry Windham & Kendall Windham & Bobby Duncum Jr. in 15:00. Both teams got 50-50 reactions. The song is getting Hennig's ring entrance over big and making him a pretty big star. There were people in the crowd singing the song during the entrance but it isn't like everyone is doing it yet. It really killed the No Limit Soldiers, because Konnan, even playing home town boy and announced from Miami (which is actually where he grew up) instead of Mexico City, got way less of a reaction to his ring entrance than usual. This was probably the second best match on the show and it was still a mess in many ways. Huge Teddy Reade was given the name 4x4. The eliminations and the booking were a mess, although from the booking it appears they were designing the match to put the Cowboys over as the faces since they were the ones with the disadvantage and thus put in the face underdog position. Swole pinned Duncum Jr. first in 6:26 after Misterio Jr. delivered a legdrop from the apron back in. This was not the planned finish but things got really messed up between Duncum and Swole and he just told Swole to pin him. No matter what name he goes by and what gimmick he uses, B.A. is still a great wrestler in the ring and has no charisma. He and Hennig did some good wrestling ending when Hennig pinned him in 9:07 after the fisherman suplex. Konnan pinned Kendall Windham in 10:52 with a cradle after Misterio Jr. hit him with a springboard dropkick. The next elimination was really weird. The idea appeared to be Konnan and Barry to both be counted out. Windham was outside the ring. Konnan was appearing to tire. Chase Tatum then aggressively jumped on Windham and was pounding him to the back. Konnan seemingly just walked to the back for absolutely no reason and was counted out. He never even returned for the finish winners celebration, which may indicate punishment and fallout over the USA Today quotes. This left Hennig alone against Misterio Jr. & Swole. Before it got going, Barry Windham ran back out and was chased away by Tatum. It ended with Misterio Jr. jumping off Swole's shoulders with a splash onto Hennig for the pin at 15:00. *1/2

5. David Finlay won a Junkyard Dog Battle Royal in 13:50. It was never mentioned in hype beforehand, nor during the match itself, that the winner would become the first WCW hardcore champion, however the next night at Nitro, Finlay was given a trophy (later stolen by Jimmy Hart's First Family), and announced as the first champion because of winning this match. This was done in a junkyard, with cars neatly set up, a few fires lit for lighting (there was no professional lighting and by this point it was totally dark outside). A bunch of wrestlers were there. They were never announced and some it wasn't apparent were there until late into the match. The rules were that the first person to climb out of the junkyard over the fence would win. Of course, given that as the rules, except at one point, nobody ever tried to climb out so there was no drama of guys trying to climb and being pulled out. They knocked a car off a big pile and it crashed down early. They had a helicopter filming along with a camera on the ground. You couldn't really see much other than the guys were out there killing each other and it was hilarious to see La Parka (Adolfo Tapio) running around in jeans instead of his wrestling outfit. The helicopter shots were totally useless as you couldn't see a thing. At least three guys were hurt. Silver King (Caesar Gonzalez) was all bloody from a deep shoulder wound that needed 60 stitches to close. Hak (James Fullington) was hospitalized and suffered a separated shoulder and a possible neck injury as well. Hugh Morrus (William DeMott), who is suffering a major bad luck streak, needed stitches in his hand when he put it through a windshield. Mikey Whipwreck also suffered a concussion. They might as well have done a Brawl-for-All tournament for the risk-to-rewards ratio of this match. The difference is, WWF will never do another brawl-for-all and WCW will make this an annual event. Among the wrestlers involved besides those already mentioned included Public Enemy (Ted Petty & Mike Durham), Jerry Flynn (William Brenneman), Steven Regal (Darren Matthews), Horace Hogan (Michael Bollea), David Taylor, Brian Knobs (Brian Yandrisovitz), Ciclope (Ramon Ybarra) and Mikey Whipwreck (John Watson). Jimmy Hart was also there directing traffic. At one point Ciclope did a moonsault off three cars but they may have not even shown that. It was way too long. The finish saw Hak put Finlay in the trunk of a car. Unfortunately it was clear the trunk didn't shut. It popped open once when it wasn't supposed to. Finlay then got out and they put the car into a car smasher so I guess Finlay escaping saved him from a sure death, a point Schiavone made sure we knew about. Then another car blew up which supposedly kept all the other wrestlers in the battlefield while Finlay, who had escaped, climbed over the fence to win. It's not fair to rate this because the guys clearly worked really hard and it was largely unwatchable television.

6. Diamond Dallas Page (Page Falkenberg) & Bam Bam Bigelow (Scott Bigelow) & Chris Kanyon (Chris Klucsaritis) retained the WCW tag titles beating Chris Benoit & Perry Saturn (Perry Satullo) in 23:17. Sorry, but I just can't get into three guys being allowed to face two in tag title matches. That said, they had a good match. The Triad are doing a bunch of catch phrases that aren't over yet. This was really good work but the crowd was totally taken out of the show live with the previous match. There were loud crowd reactions during this match, but it had nothing to do with the match, as you could see the crowd looking elsewhere. Apparently there were five or six beach balls being batted around which was the main thrust of crowd interest until the last few minutes. If Saturn would drop the punches and maybe the head kicks, his work would improve 50% because his flying moves, suplexes and wrestling is really good but his punch/kick looks really fake and takes away a lot. Benoit and Kanyon were really good, although everyone did their role well. Benoit & Saturn did a double nose blowing spot on Kanyon. Yuck! Schiavone was talking about Bigelow being a High School All-American wrestler, which isn't the case although he was a very good high school wrestler. They beat up on Saturn for a long time. Benoit made a hot tag and was cut off. Page actually fell off the top rope but he wasn't hurt and made a quick recovery to almost make it look like a planned slip. Benoit was then pounded on forever. Bigelow missed a moonsault and Benoit hot tagged Saturn. Saturn took Page and Kanyon over the top with a double clothesline. Saturn did a high splash on Bigelow and Benoit followed with a diving head-butt, then Saturn hit a Northern Lights suplex on Page. Ref bump. Kanyon threw power at Saturn and Page, blinded a bit by the powder as well, accidentally gave Kanyon a diamond cutter but Bigelow put Kanyon's leg on the ropes. Benoit got a great near fall on Page with a german suplex. The last few minutes of this were so good that the crowd, which didn't care, was really popping. Then another near fall. By this point people were groaning about all the ref bumps. Page hit Benoit, and then hit Kanyon, with this mini trash can but then did a double-team diamond cutter on Saturn for the pin. ***1/2

7. Buff Bagwell (Marcus Bagwell) pinned Roddy Piper (Roderick Toombs) in :34 of the third round of a boxing match with Mills Lane as referee. This was bad, but it could have been worse. Actually Piper did a very good job of doing worked boxing and Bagwell was also better than expected. Piper didn't even appear to tire even at 48 years of age with those big gloves. Bagwell tired, but not to the point he couldn't perform. Lane came out with a judges robe on, then took it off to wear his referee's shirt. The gloves were huge, like giant pillows, which allowed them to not have to pull the blows as much. Before Bagwell came out Schiavone screamed, "Listen to this ovation," and then he came out and got only a tepid reaction. Bagwell said since he knew Piper would have Flair in the corner, that he had a secret weapon in his corner and called out his mother Judy. That'll really get him over with the guys who think he's an annoying pretty boy, bringing his mommy to help him fight. There was no reaction at all for Judy. All I could think about was how far Flair has fallen knowing that sometime in the next 15:00 he was going to have to sell for a nearly 60-year-old woman. It was supposed to be three minute rounds as advertised and announced. In the first round, it went 2:16, which was just as well as Bagwell was tiring but it wasn't that bad. After that, Schiavone announced that all rounds would be 2:00. Piper knocked down Bagwell in the first round. Even through Piper is 19 years older, it was pretty clear he'd destroy him in a boxing match. Second round saw Flair put something on Piper's gloves which he used to blind Bagwell. Bagwell was selling and went down again. In the third round, Judy bit Piper's ear. We knew with Mills Lane that was coming. She then dumped water and put a bucket on his head. Bagwell did the old haymaker to the bucket gimmick and Piper was stunned, and Bagwell delivered the blockbuster. Lane counted 1-2-3 without hitting the mat. A pin in a boxing match? After everything else on the show, it made perfect sense. Judy chased Flair around the ring after the match. 1/2*

8. Randy Savage (Randy Poffo) & Sid Vicious (Sid Eudy) defeated Sting (Steve Borden) & Kevin Nash in 13:21 with Savage pinning Nash to capture the WCW heavyweight title. Michael Buffer claimed it was the first time in history that the WCW title was ever put up in a tag team match. Nobody ever explained how it would be possible for Sting to pin Nash when they were on the same team even though that angle was pushed the last several days. I guess it makes as much sense as everything else. Sting got no crowd reaction coming out and Nash got only slightly better. Fans started changing for Goldberg. George went into Nash's corner. Sting was mainly beat up after missing a Stinger splash onto Savage and hitting the guard rail, being dropped on the guard rail by Sid and posted by the women. The only pop of the match was Sting giving Miss Madness and Madusa a double noggin knocker. Sting accidentally hit the Stinger splash on Nash. Sid choke slammed Sting. George went in the ring to give Nash a low blow. Her first low blow came nowhere close. Nash didn't sell, and she froze. Nash stood there and waited and finally she hit him with another one. Sid then bodyslammed Nash and dropped him in the wrong position, making it even a harder angle for Savage to hit the elbow for the pin. Nash and Sting did shake hands after the show went off the air in front of the crowd. -*