House Show Results from The Goodwill Games, Sunday, July 26th, 1998
House Show Results from The Goodwill Games, Sunday, July 26th, 1998
Sent In By Joe R. from Brooklyn, NY
- I was at the WCW show in lower Manhattan this afternoon (July 26th) as part of the Goodwill Games. I've got no idea if you're going to get reports on what happened, but since I've got some time to kill before seeing 'Saving Private Ryan', and since your site keeps me up to date, I figured I'd return the favor...
- It was a last minute decision to go for me. The ad in the NY Daily News said the show started at 3pm, so it wasn't until 2 o'clock that I finally got dressed and left my house (it's only a twenty minute ride from Brooklyn into Manhattan for me, especially the way I drive)...I could see a long line at the entrance when I arrived, but it took me twenty minutes to find a place to park...By ten to three, I was on the line, waiting to be checked out by a metal detector...At three, they began the announcements of the card (five matches, including the main event, another World Title bout between Goldberg and Curt Hennig)...As I got inside the main pavillion (huge crowd around the ring...few hundred squeezed into a small area), Stevie Ray had entered the ring, with his brother's belt, and had the microphone, talking about being from Harlem, defending his belt in his honor against a list of ten contenders, blah blah blah...the man he was supposed to face here, Chris Benoit, had 'run back to Canada', so he wouldn't be wrestling...No, wait, here comes 'Mongo' McMichael...Stevie says no way, he's not one of the contenders, but the ref calls for the bell and the match starts...
Chants of "We Want Flair", "E-C-W" erupted throughout the match, as well as lots of people showing four fingers...the match itself was not all that great...The worst moment came when Stevie very clearly missed a kick to the head, but Mongo sold it anyway, which got a laugh from everyone...The match ended when Stevie hit Mongo with the belt, covered him, and got the pin...I always thought the Four Horsemen were the 'best of the best'...to me, that doesn't work with Mongo...
- The second match was a Luchadore match between Villano IV and El Dandy...loud boos for both, lots of "Booooooring" chants, and a few "Nice 'fro, Dandy!" yells (started by me)...Some decent moves, but overall the longest, slowest, and most boring of the five...
Villano finally won with a submission hold...
- Match three was the most enteraining...Fit Finley vs. Disco Inferno...loud, and I mean LOUD boos for Finley (Which I still don't understand...the guy's not really a heel...well, he wasn't when he first came out)...Fit Finley was introduced as hailing from "Belfast, England"....Now, anyone with a fourth grade education knows that Belfast is in Northern Ireland, unless the WCW folks know something about the British-Irish treaty we don't....Being half Irish, I was kind of insulted....Disco comes out, gets a mixed reaction until he is announced as "Hailing from Brooklyn, New York"...That got the crowd solidly on his side...Finley refused to start wrestling because he was being ridiculed with "Have a drink, Finley!", "You suck, Finley!", "Kick his ass, Disco, kick his ass!", and numerous other nasty chants...one guy kept holding up a huge beer bottle screaming "Come get it, Finley!"...finally, Finley grabbed the mic..."Listen here, scumbags,"...lotsa boos..."No one from this flea-ridden country is kicking me anywhere! I'm an Irishman!!"
Finley dominated the match, finally winning with a tombstone piledriver...
- Match four, and out comes Chris Jericho, with the Cruiserweight belt...he grabs the microphone...
"You all want to know something?"
Guy behind me: "You suck!"
Jericho talks about how he loves New York City, its people, and how much he enjoys being a paragon of virtue and a role model to us all....then, he announces:
"This was going to be a title match today, but since you're all here for free, it's not...You can't expect that much for nothing...You've got to earn it. So you'll just have to be happy with me beating on Stinko Malenko!"
(Note: Appearantly, a decision was made on Wednesday July 22nd to waive the $5 dollar daytime/$10 nighttime admission...)
Out comes Malenko, to a huge pop, and the match begins...pretty good action, with Malenko reversing a Liontamer into the Texas Cloverleaf for the win...
- Match five: Curt Hennig comes out, with no Rick Rude...On the large TV screen, a clip called '60 Seconds with Goldberg' runs...and runs again... prompting Hennig to announce to the crowd "I knew he was gutless!"...the clip runs a third time, and this time, Goldberg's music starts, the pyrotechnics go off, and out comes Goldberg, to a HUGE pop from the crowd, and some real, live "Goldberg" chants...I check my watch, just out of curiousity...it's a little after 4pm...I figure the show will end soon...not so...Hennig fights off Goldberg early, runs out of the ring after a big slam...While yelling at some guy in the crowd, Hennig has his hair grabbed by Goldberg from behind, and pulled into the ring...Hennig gets the upper hand, and starts working on Goldberg's braced knee...he wraps it around a ring post, twists it, turns it, until Goldberg finally starts a comeback...then, in the most bizarre moment of the match, Hennig goes to a corner and begins pulling off his own knee brace...it takes him almost five minutes, prompting loud boos from the crowd as Goldberg simply watches...Hennig throws the brace at Goldberg, and dares him to do the same...Goldberg does, then hits the spear, jackhammer, and gets the win....really bizarre...
- All in all, it was enjoyable (especially since it was free), and I give total credit to all of those guys...to be working like that under a hot, burning sun (it was close to 90 today) has got to be less than favorable...