Ben sends in the following report:
I went to the Madison, Wisconsin house show at the Dane County Coliseum. It was about 1/3 full.I was about to go in when a limo pulled up. Everybody huddled around it and out came......2 KIDS!!!!!!! Guy behind me yelling, "NO MOM. IT'S JUST 2 LITTLE CRACK-HEADS!!!!!
Penzer was not there. They had a new, young guy.
- Match 1: "Gentleman" Chris Adams vs. Barry Darsow
- Darsow comes out to silence. Dead silence.
- Darsow slowly gained heat.
- WINNER: Adams via Arm-Bar
- Match 2: Fit Finley vs. Scotty Riggs
- Me: GO BACK 2 RUSSIA
- Riggs gets huge pop when he gave a kid the finger
- Riggs sunset flipped Finley but couldn't get him over. Mickey J, the ref then kicked Finley in the stomach. Finley Fell
- Very Long match
- WINNER: Finley via Pinfall after a tombstone Piledriver
- Match 3: Prince Iaukea vs. Alex Wright
- Hennig comes out and says he just took out both Wright and Suckalotta in the back.
- Hennig says, "What about the NWO?" Pop.
- Hennig: You can take your NWO and shove it up your you know where.
- Hennig challenges anybody from the NWO or Horsemen
- Malenko comes out
- Long match, I wore my Parka mask
- Malenko gets the DQ win when Enos (With Black hair) and Duncum come out.
- WINNER: Malenko via DQ
- The three beat on Malenko until Mongo made the save with a chair
- Mongo then challenged them to a three on two match.
- Enos and Hennig accepted, Duncum declined
- Match 4: Steve "Mongo" McMichael & Dean Malenko (w/ Arn Anderson) vs. Mike Enos & Curt Hennig (w/ Bobby Duncum Jr.)
- Duncum and Arn stayed in the entrance area
- Arn and Duncum kept brawling
- The end came when Mongo was beating on Duncum and Hennig took Mongo out with a chair. Hennig ran to the ring where Enos was beating on Malenko.
- Hennig threw Malenko to the ropes then Arn hit Hennig with a tire iron.
- Malenko pins Hennig for a win
- WINNER: Malenko & Mongo via pinfall
- After the match Hennig yelled at Enos and Duncum
- Hennig punched Enos and then Duncum hit Enos!!!!!!!
- Duncum & Hennig pounded on Enos
- Then Duncum hit Hennig!!!!!!!
- Duncum & Enos hugged and left
- Match 5: Drunken Man 1 vs. Drunken Man 2 (w/ Drunk 3)
- Lots of punches
- Drunk Man 1 set up for his move, German Suplex, then Drunk 3 came in and hit Drunk 1.
- Drunk 3 put Drunk 1 in the torture rack and then security hit the ring and broke it up
- Match 6: Booker T vs. Chris Jericho
- Jericho's music starts and Jericho comes to the ring w/ Referee Billy Silverman
- Jericho says he has the tape of Booker T's music
- He then proceeded to destroy the tape
- Booker T comes to the ring without music
- Booker & Jericho brawled in the crowd. Kinda like Foley & Rock
- WINNER: Booker T via pinfall after a Harlem Axe Kick
- Match 7: Lex Luger vs. Steive Ray
- The new young, guy said it was canceled.
- Match 8: Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Bill Goldberg
- I predicted that Goldberg will win via pinfall after a football tackle and that twisting vertical suplex into a powerslam move he always does.
- Goldberg got a HUGE pop
- Spear, Suplex, pin NO JACKHAMMER
- WINNER: Goldberg via pinfall after a suplex
Paul J. sends in the following report:
You said to keep sending in house show results, so here they are. A pretty young crowd, mostly kids there with Mom and Dad, although a large number of college students there as well.First match - Chris Adams defeated Barry Darsow with the Superkick. Not a great match. Crowd wasn't too into it.
Second match - Fit Finley defeated Scotty Riggs with the Tombstone Piledriver. The crowd was confused when they played Riggs' music, I couldn't recall ever hearing it before. From the nosebleed seats where I was sitting, it looked like Benoit (red tights, unkempt hair, etc.) Better match than the one before it. Crowd was really behind Riggs for a while with "USA" chants.
Third match - Next, the announcer was advertising the Bruise Cruise or some such nonsense (like we don't see enough advertisements during Nitro), and Curt Hennig comes to the ring to interupt him. He says we deserve to see some real wrestling, and challenges anyone in the back to come and face him. Out comes...Dean Malenko. Much better. The crowd goes wild, they put on a great show, and Malenko is beating Hennig until...
Mike Enos and Bobby Duncum Jr. come out and attack Malenko? Sure, maybe it's the start of a new anti-Horsemen group. In any case, Mongo runs out to make the save. As the bad guys retreat to the back, Mongo challenges them to a 3 on 2 match, then remembers someone that could be their third member, and out walks Arn, carrying something. Like I said, we had nosebleed seats. Looked like a thin metal bar.
Third match, part 2: Horsemen beat Hennig and Enos. Enos was in for a long time. At the end, Arn nails Hennig with the foreign object, and Malenko gets the pin. Duncum never did get tagged in, so it was more of a two-on-two match, with a lot of extra-curricular activities outside the ring. Fun match. After the Horsemen left, Hennig, Enos, and Duncum argued among themselves, Hennig got pushed around a little, and Enos and Duncum walked off without Hennig.
Now, after that great match that got us all pumped up: 15 minute intermission, so we can go buy stuff. Blah.
Fourth match: Booker T beats Chris Jericho with the usual series of moves. Jericho was, as usual, amazing on the mic, reminding all of us in "Madison, Illinois" that he was our role model. He had also stolen the tape of Booker T's theme music, so that we couldn't raise the roof. Funny stuff. It was as good a match as you'd expect from these two, going up into the audience, into tables, etc.
Fifth match: Bill Goldberg defeats Bam Bam Bigelow the way you'd expect him to. Bam Bam came out to the ring, and our reaction was "This isn't the main event?" Short match, but the crowd loved it. Goldberg couldn't get Bam Bam all the way up for the Jackhammer, but nobody really cared.
That's all. 5 (okay, 5 and a half) matches in 2 short hours, including the advertising by the ring announcer and the intermission. Weak. Needless to say, I and most of my friends were unhappy about this.
The good stuff: 2 great matches, great mic work by Jericho and Booker T, and Goldberg. Everybody loves Goldberg, right?
The bad stuff: 5 matches? And 2 of them jobber matches? No luchadores, no nWo of any color, not even Disco, the nWo wannabe. The only match that they'd advertised that didn't happen was Luger vs Stevie Ray, for obvious reasons. We expected that at least one of them would wrestle somebody.
The scary thing is that's the best this state gets. We can't even get a Thunder in Milwaukee, or something. I'm a die-hard WCW fan, but when WWF came through and taped a RAW here a few months ago, I went. We were there for well over 3 hours of solid wrestling, no intermissions, for about the same price as this house show.
Not a way for WCW to win fans, huh?
Jeff S. sends in the following report:
Five matches, or six, depending how you look at it. I was a little disappointed with that. They managed to keep the length of the show to exactly 2 hours, right down to the 3-count on Goldberg's pin. If they wanted to keep it to 2 hours, that's fine, but having one more match instead of the EXCESSIVE stalling in the first two matches would have been nice.
- Match 1: Barry "Mr. Hole In One" Darsow vs. "Gentleman" Chris Adams
- Once they finished wandering around the ring glaring at each other (with Darsow stopping once in a while to yell at the booing crowd), the match started off with promise. The 'Judo Jentleman' actually looked good, with a couple nice hip tosses and flips. But, the match soon degenerated into a bunch of long submission holds, picked up for a short bit, and ended with a SuperDuperJudoKick. Blah.
- Match 2: Fit Finlay vs. Scotty Riggs
- Riggs is looking good! He's back from grunge-land, and I think it suits him just fine. I'm sure he's quite glad to have gotten rid of that patch...it must be hard wrestling without depth perception! Lots of stalling and strutting before the match started. A so-so match, neither boring nor great - once again with way too much posturing early on. Sadly, Finlay won in the end with his Tombstone Pizza...err, Piledriver. A pizza would have been a more convincing finishing move, though.
- Match 3: Dean Malenko vs. Curt Hennig
- Curt came out first, and in true Curt fashion, got the crowd very nicely riled up with a couple insults. He then put out an open challenge to anyone from the NWO, WCW, or the Horsemen. Horsemen music starts, and Malenko comes out to a healthy pop. The match starts right away (thank God!) and is nicely fast paced. Dean is faring very well and suddenly...MIKE ENOS and BOBBY DUNCUM JR. run in! (huh??) They start beating on Malenko with Hennig, and then Mongo runs out with a steel chair, sending all 3 guys running. He gets on the microphone and yells at the trio to come back and fight. They'll take 'em both on. (Mongo sounds drunk...scary) Then Mongo says that he does have a 3rd person who can help out...and Arn Anderson comes strolling out with a tire iron. In the end, this match turned into...
- Match 3.5: Dean Malenko & Steve "Mongo" McMichael (w/ Arn Anderson) vs. Curt Hennig & Mike Enos (w/ Bobby Duncum Jr.)
- A damn good, match, really. Mostly dominated by the Horsemen, but there was some good back and forth. Enos looked fantastic when he got control, Hennig sold well as usual, Malenko was also fantastic, and Mongo...well, Mongo was Mongo. I still think he was drunk. Every time Duncum tried to interfere, Arn chased him down with the tire iron. In the end, all hell broke loose, Mongo was outside the ring fighting Enos and Duncum, while inside the ring Dean was trying to pull Hennig down for a pin, but Hennig was grabbing onto the ropes. Arn clubbed Hennig with the tire iron, who was promptly rolled up for the pin.
- After the match, Enos and Duncam were helping Hennig up, and they started arguing. Some pushes and slaps were exchanged, but nothing major happened before they went to the back.
- Match 4: Chris Jericho vs. Booker T
- Another damn good match! Jericho was out first, and spent at least five minutes working the crowd up into a frenzy of boos. He stole Booker T's entrance music tape, and snapped it in half, to ensure that no one here tonight would be 'raising the roof.' So, Booker came out sans music, worked the crowd with the mic a little himself, and the match began.
- Lots of great action all around, including a bit in the stands when Jericho tried to walk out of the match. Jericho resorted to using some little brass-knuckle-type-thing to beat on Booker for a while, which the ref never quite caught, but eventually Booker came back, hit the big forearm, axe kick, and the Harlem Sidekick for the win. As a side note, it may have been a botched spot, but Jericho did the best setup for that axe kick I've seen yet. When kicked in the stomach, he fell over, and was in the middle of getting up (still hunched over) when the kick came in. That is MUCH better than the usual lonnnng pause where the victim is doubled over waiting for the kick.
- Match 5: Goldberg vs. Bam Bam Bigelow
- Gigantic pop for Goldberg, but a disappointing match. It should have been much longer. The place exploded when Goldie hit the Spear, but the Jackhammer was anti-climactic - it was little more than a standard vertical suplex into a pin. The Giant may be heavier than Bam Bam, but Bam Bam's blobby shape seemed to make it impossible for Goldberg to keep him up in the air.
I know house show results don't count for much, but I was very excited to see Enos and Duncum working with Hennig. I think those two have a lot of talent that WCW can get some use out of. Maybe they will work together with Hennig and Barry Windham to make the Anti-Horsemen! If not, I vote for Enos to take Mongo's place in the Horsemen...he's got the moves and talent that Mongo lacks ;)