Due to an injury to Scott Hall, WCW President-For-Life announced on the March 11th edition of Thunder that he was stripping Scott Hall of the U.S. Heavyweight Championship which he had won at Superbrawl and holding a tournament to determine a new champion. The finals were held at Spring Stampede on April 11th.
Meng________________ | |Meng________________ | | Bam Bam Bigelow_____| | | |Scott Steiner_______ Chris Jericho_______ | | | | | |Scott Steiner_______| | | | Scott Steiner_______| | | |Scott Steiner___ Saturn______________ | | | |Booker T.___________ | | | | Booker T.___________| | | | | |Booker T.___________| Chris Jericho *_____ | | | |Chris Jericho_______| | Chris Adams_________| * - Chris Jericho negotiated his way back into the tournament after losing to Scott Steiner in the first round. He cited Page 46, Consult 8 in the rulebook which states that if a wrestler cannot continue in a tournament, the person who wrestled last that lost will take his place. It's a nice theory, but that logic only makes sense if Hennig had a first-round match and won so Jericho replaced him in the second round, or Jericho replaced him in the first round. Later in that show, Jericho did defeat Chris Adams in a match. So, although it was not announced as a match that was part of the U.S. Title tournament, and even though on a later Thunder Mike Tenay stated that "Chris Jericho replaced Curt Hennig in the semi-final round", I'm going to assume it Jericho/Adams was in fact a first-round tournament match so the bracketing will make sense.