Malice At The Palace Results, Wednesday, April 2nd, 1998
Malice At The Palace Results, Wednesday, April 2nd, 1998
by JWAM from TN
- Local D.J. Bubba Love Sponge and Jim Duggan (w/Jimmy Hart) defeated Texas Hangmen
- Juvy and Kaz Hayashi defeated Psychosis and El Dandy
- Goldberg defeated Jerry Flynn
- Ultimo Dragon defeated Chavo Guerrero Jr.
- Chris Benoit and DDP defeated Raven and Saturn in a no-DQ match
- Ric Flair defeated Curt Hennig
- Bret Hart defeated Bryan Adams (replacing injured Macho Man)
- Sting defeated Hollywood Hogan, and then Disciple, Hogan, and newest nWo member Bubba the D.J. beat up on Sting, then the Giant came in cleaned house, and then was assisted by Sting in beating up the D.J.
- Useless tidbit from the show: Hogan's son's favorite wrestler is Billy Kidman.
Brian K. sends the following arena report:
- When Bubba (who describes himself perfectly as a big fat greasy bitch) came
out to the nWo music, and I thought that was odd. He didn't do to badly with
a few slams and splashes, he also got the pin and the hugest pop of the night.
- Juvy/Hayashi vs Psychosis/el Dandy was supposed to be La Parka/Psychosis vs
Juvy/Lizmark Jr. For cruiserweights the match was slow and had no real
high spots. Juvy won it with a Juvidriver on Dandy.
- Goldberg and Flynn was a recap of Monday night. My friend Matt and I were probably the
only two people booing Goldberg it seemed.
- Dragon vs Chavo was supposed to be Ultimo vs. Eddie and then another match was
going to be Chavo vs. Konnan. Eddie came out and talked the usual smack to
Chavo. Decent match. Chavo hit the swinging DDT (one of my personal faves)
but Eddie made him do a frog splash which he missed and that was followed by
the Dragon Sleeper.
- At the beginning of the Page/Benoit vs. Saturn/Raven match, Raven came out and
said he dislocated his pinky and Saturn had a bad back and that Benoit and
Page had to wrestle with each other, Quote the Raven nevermore. As the flock
was heading back they were attacked by their opponents. After all was said
and done, Benoit got the crossface on Saturn and DDP hit Raven with a cutter.
- Flair vs Hennig was pretty good. Lots of WHOOOS through out the arena during
the match. Hennig got the three count but the ref overturned after realizing
Hennig used the ropes for leverage. Restart the match and Flair wins in 5
seconds with a small package.
- Hart vs. Adams sucked. I don't like either one so I didn't get into it too much.
After the match, Hart was doing the nWo hand gesture.
- Sting/Hogan was exactly like the other house shows outside of Bubba coming in
and interfering. It did make sense since Bubba came out to the nWo music.
- It was a pretty fun evening but not as good as the Nitro we went to on 2/16.
Must be because it wasn't on TV. They announced Nitro would be coming there
June 29.
Jeremy H. from Tampa, FL, sends the following arena report:
- Hello everyone, my name is Jeremy Henderson, and greetings from Tampa, FL, where Dean Malenko goes when he goes home. Tonight I attended Malice at the Palace at the Ice Palace, which, incidentally, is where the worst team in the NHL, the Tampa Bay Lightning, play. Oh well, at least we have the Buccaneers ?.
I had the best seats I’ve ever had at a wrestling card, fifth row, and WCW surprised me by putting on a pretty entertaining show, despite the fact that I had seen pretty much all of these matches before. They managed to set a recent WCW record: only one run in.
- Match 1: Bubba the Love Sponge and "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan defeat the Texas
Hangmen
- Okay, a brief explanation. Bubba the Love Sponge is a 400 pound local
shock jock. When I attended Nitro back in October (also at the Ice
Palace), Bubba won a dark match against one of the Hangmen. This is the
rematch, and, well, it wasn’t a pretty sight. I imagine the Hangmen heading
backstage, taking off their masks, and just saying to themselves over
and over again: "We’re popular in Mexico, that’s what counts". Bubba gets
the pin with a big (and I do mean BIG) splash. Duggan was largely a
non-entity in this match (not that I’m complaining)
- Juventud Guerrera and Kaz Hayashi defeated Psychosis and El Dandy
- Typical excellent luchadore match. Juventud gets the pin on El Dandy
with a Michinoku Driver (I was a little disappointed I didn’t get to see
the 450 up close). El Dandy looked like he had a legit shoulder injury
after the match.
- Goldberg defeated Jerry Flynn
- Flynn put up a pretty good fight, taking Big Bill almost to the four
minute mark. Bill attempted a sleeperhold but blew it, sells a few
dropkicks from Flynn, but comes back with his new move of the week: a
spinning neckbreaker (fortunately, he didn’t do a little Shake, Rattle
and Roll beforehand), followed by (let’s all say it together) the Spear,
the Jackhammer, and the three count.
- Ultimo Dragon defeated Chavo Guerrero
- I thought this was a really good match, but there were lots of "Boring"
chants. Some people just aren’t happy if no one rappels into the ring.
Eddie accompanied Chavo, and tells him to win this match for "Grandpa,
for me, and for the whole Guerrero family." He graciously lets Chavo
remove his "Eddie Guerrero is My Favorite Wrestler" shirt during the
match.
After about ten minutes, Chavo nails the Tornado DDT, but Eddie won’t
let him pin Dragon without first performing the Froggie Splash. Chavo
goes up top, but Dragon lifts his knees and then locks on the Dragon
Sleeper for the win. Afterward, Eddie makes Chavo put the shirt back on
before allowing him to leave the ring (hate to admit it, but I think
those shirts are kind of cool).
- Diamond Dallas Page and Chris Benoit defeat Raven and Saturn
- A solid match from these four, as expected, with Page spending most of
the time in the ring, but Benoit getting the submission over Saturn with
the Crippler Crossface. Despite being so close to the ring, there were a
LOT of people standing up front, and I missed a lot of the match.
- Ric Flair defeated Curt Hennig
- For a guy who’s supposed to be working for WWF, Flair put on a pretty
good show tonight. I was expecting to be disappointed, but Flair and
Hennig proved they can still work. Hennig did his little gum swat thing,
and hit a guy in the front row with a wad of Juicy Fruit (no, I don’t
really know if it was Juicy Fruit), then got face to face with the guy,
which struck me as a bad idea.
- Hennig seemed to get the pin, but the ref caught him with his legs up
on the rope (you know, for extra leverage), and Flair came back, getting
the win with the Figure-Four. After the match Hennig was nailed squared
in the face with a cupful of beer. The Devil Rays should scout the guy
who threw the cup. How do angry fans who have been drinking beer all
night still manage that kind of accuracy?
- Bret Hart defeated Brian Adams
- Originally scheduled as Hart vs. Savage, but Macho apparently suffered
an ankle injury at the WCW Saturday Night taping. The audience was not
particularly happy about this. This was my first time seeing Bret Hart
wrestle live, and, like all of his WCW matches so far, it was a
disappointment. Adams’ tilt-a-whirl backbreaker was the most impressive
spot of the match. As he was applying the Sharpshooter, Hart paused,
smiled, and mouthed "bye-bye" to the audience, which was kind of funny.
- Sting defeated Hollywood Hogan in a steel cage
- For some reason WCW seems determined to make this the main event of all
their Internet events. Basically, it was like all of the Sting/Hogan
matches, just in a cage. Ed "Don’t Call Me Bootyman" Leslie makes a
run-in, hitting Sting with the Stone Cold Chartbuster, but Sting fights
back with Scorpion Death Drops for both of them, and then a Deathlock
for Hogan.
- After the three count Sting gets the boot put to him by Hogan and the
former Brutus Beefcake, when Bubba the Love Sponge reappears. After some
initial difficulty getting into the ring (he got stuck between the cage
and the ropes, and had to be disentangled by ring attendants), Bubba
joins in the beating. The Giant makes the save with chokeslams all
around. Afterwards Bubba begs for forgiveness. Sting shakes his hand,
and then nails him with a punch. By this time the cage was full of beer
cups and I couldn’t see the ring because of all the people standing on
their chairs in front of me, so my friends and I left.