Happy Wednesday Everyone!
I’ve never actually watched this episode of Thunder before but I was reminded of it by recently listening to the audiobook version of The Death of WCW. Modern WWE sometimes reminds me a lot of this era of WCW, so I thought I’d set the way back machine to 2000 in order to watch this episode.
WCW was flatter than a pancake at the time as they were between Vince Russo stints and were mostly focusing on the New World Order of Jeff Jarrett, Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, Scott Steiner and The Harris Brothers taking on Sid Vicious atop the card, whilst the undercard was filled with a lot of feuds and storylines that weren’t over.
The event is emanating from Binghamton, New York on the 1st February 2000 (Aired on 02/02/2000)
Calling the action are Tony Schiavone, Mike Tenay and Scott Hudson
We open up with a video package that details how Jeff Jarrett is running the company as commissioner and is stacking the deck against World Champ Sid, whilst Ric Flair and Terry Funk are also feuding. Jarrett pinned Sid on Nitro prior to this with a guitar shot (All whilst not drawing a dime I’m sure).
The nWo joins us for an in-ring promo, sans Kevin Nash who has an ankle injury, which leads to Scott Steiner insulting people on the front row before passing the mic to acting commissioner Jeff Jarrett. Jarrett hypes up his World Title shot at the SuperBrawl pay per view on the 20th of February and announces that he’s going to make things hard for Sid by forcing him into Triple Threat Theatre. That means Sid has to wrestle three matches tonight (surely that’s cruel and unusual punishment for the live crowd?) and those bouts will be a submission match with Mike Rotunda, a hardcore match with Rick Steiner and then a handicap cage match against The Harris Brothers. All of those matches sound positively awful and three matches for Sid in one night sounds like it should violate the Geneva Convention in some form.
The announce team confirm that Ric Flair will face Terry Funk at SuperBrawl and Hulk Hogan is supposedly going to show up tonight as well.
Referee Mark Johnson agrees to be a corrupt referee for Jeff Jarrett.
Opening Match
Nor-MAN Smi-LAY Vs The KISS Demon
Norman Smiley stole Demon’s gear and face paint for some reason, meaning they will now have a match together. Well that’s one way to contrive two guys into a match with one another I guess. Demon was portrayed by Dale Torborg, and he spends the opening sections ripping off Smiley’s clothes until Smiley is left in nothing but his underwear, which of course has a smiley face on it. The crowd doesn’t really know how to take this and looks on in a quizzical manner. Smiley somehow manages to catch Demon in The Norman Conquest (chickenwing) though and Demon actually taps out to give Smiley the win.
WINNER: NORMAN SMILEY
RATING: DUD
This was an awful match that the crowd didn’t care about
Smiley flees from Demon post-match.
Lenny Lane and Lodi are backstage. Apparently Lodi’s name should actually be Idol. They decide their new tag team name will be Too Excess.
Sid is walking backstage being goofy.
A limo is outside the building but we don’t know who is in it.
Match Two
Submission Match
Mike Rotunda Vs WCW World Champ Sid
Sid’s music is dubbed out here on WWE Network because it sounds too much like China White by The Scorpion’s, although the music they dub in for him doesn’t suit him at all. Couldn’t they just dub in his WWF music here like they do with Chris Jericho when they have to dub out his Evenflow knock off theme?
Sid is awful of course, but Rotunda does a decent job of holding this one together and the crowd likes Sid, so it’s not horrendous. I’m not sure what happens if Sid loses one of these matches, but I assume he’ll have to wrestle all three of them regardless. Maybe they should have added some stakes to this, such as Sid could lose the belt if he doesn’t survive to the end or something?
Rotunda goes after Sid’s leg but Sid eventually makes the comeback and catches Rotunda in a cross face, which is enough for the submission win. Ah yes, they were trying to make Sid a submission master during this period for some reason.
WINNER: SID
RATING: *
This was short and not horrible, so I’ll take it
Mean Gene Okerlund is backstage with Vampiro. Vamp helped Kidman defeat The Wall last week. Vampiro says he respects Billy Kidman but that doesn’t mean he has to like him.
We see the brackets for the WCW Title tournament. Psicosis, The Artist and Lash LeRoux have all advanced and we have our last Quarter Final tonight.
Match Three
WCW Cruiserweight Title Tournament
Shannon Moore w/ Evan Karagias Vs Shane Helms w/ Evan Karagias
Moore and Helms are stablemates with Karagias in the boy band 3 Count. This features some good back and forth high-flying action, although the crowd doesn’t really care. I’m having fun with it though. Karagias joins the commentary desk and says that their current single went platinum and their next one will go GOLD! Moore ends up catching Helms with a backslide and that’s enough for the three count.
WINNER: SHANNON MOORE
RATING: **
This was a decent match but the crowd didn’t care
Madusa goes to Jeff Jarrett and wants a women’s division. Jarrett says he’ll arrange that with someone.
Meanwhile, Hulk Hogan is here.
Jarrett needs someone to run the women’s division, and it looks like he’s hired WCW’s resident misogynist Oklahoma to handle it. I can’t see how that could go wrong.
Match Four
The Wall Vs Vampiro Vs Billy Kidman w/ Torrie Wilson
Wall is bigger than both of his opponents so they double up on him to start, as the crowd continues to not care. I almost wonder why these people bothered to show up to this event as they’ve barely reacted to anything. Granted, they’ve hardly been given a classic show thus far, but that last match had some good action and these three guys were kind of getting pushed at the time so you’d think they’d be more over than this.
It looks like they try a spot where Vamp tries to boost Kidman onto Wall but they get it wrong and Kidman misses by a mile. Deary me, someone get that clip to Maffew. This one is all action, with the general story of the match being that Wall is an immovable object that neither of the other guys can really deal with. Kidman gets some chair shots on Wall and then gives Vamp a Van Daminator, but Wall shrugs the chair shots off and flings Kidman to the floor.
Wall heads up to the top rope following that, but Vamp cuts him off and looks to suplex him down. Wall fights that off though and then Choke Slams Vamp down to the mat, which not surprisingly is the finish.
WINNER: THE WALL
RATING: *1/2
Short and with barely any heat, but it wasn’t terrible
Sid is ready for his second match tonight.
Mean Gene is backstage with Disco Inferno and WCW Tag Champs The Mamalukes, Vito and Johnny. Tonight they’ve got a non-Title match with David Flair and Crowbar. Too Excess interrupts (what is this, AEW?) and lay down a challenge to The Mamalukes.
Match Five
Hardcore Match
Rick Steiner Vs WCW World Champ Sid
Steiner and Sid used to be tag partners during 1999 for a bit, but they split up in the autumn. This is their first match together since the split. They quickly head out into the crowd, with Steiner getting the better of things and suplexing Sid from the front row through the announce table for two. Steiner nearly clobbered a couple of fans in the face whilst attempting that suplex as Sid’s legs were flailing and he almost didn’t get all the way over.
Sid manages to fight back and both men brawl over to the stage area, where they end up fighting in an ice hockey penalty box. A hand comes out from behind the curtain and clobbers both men with a bat, which leads to Sid falling on top of Steiner for the three count. We don’t know who the bat handler was though.
WINNER: SID
RATING: *1/4
Some of the brawling was okay, other parts of it were sloppy. The finish was all kinds of goofy as well and very 2000 WCW
Kimberly and Dallas Page are heading to the ring for DDP’s match.
Hulk Hogan is now leaving the arena. They seem to have cut his segment out of the show entirely for some reason and I don’t know why. Did he say something questionable in it and they felt the need to edit it out? He seems to have challenged Lex Luger in his promo anyway as that match has been made for SuperBrawl. That’s really weird that they just completely cut that entire promo segment out.
So I decided to head to YouTube to find that Hogan promo to try and work out why it got cut from the WWE Network version. The promo was kind of just a Hogan promo. He made some references to “writers” and how the young guys were nobodies, but that’s not something that would need censure on WWE Network. The only thing I can think that caused the segment to get cut is that Hogan ended up fighting with Lex Luger and that led to him giving Elizabeth an atomic drop. Maybe the man-on-woman violence was what made them cut the segment? Liz basically no sold the move anyway and it looked like it couldn’t break and egg, so colour me confused and move on I guess.
Match Six
Diamond Dallas Page w/ Kimberly Page Vs The Machine
This match is pretty infamous for a particular spot that takes place. Machine gets a proper entrance with pyro and everything, and is a jacked up masked due who would go on to wrestle under the name of Hail in the XWF. The commentary team works hard to put Machine over on commentary, talking about how big he is and pondering who could have arranged for Machine to show up in WCW.
DDP actually tries to make Machine look good by selling big for his offence, with Machine keeping it simple with clotheslines and clubbing strikes. It’s actually not a bad match, just a pretty basic one. Machine had only been wrestling for a couple of years so that makes sense though and his offence looks okay for the most part because he doesn’t do anything too complicated.
However, we get an all-time botchamania moment, as Machine climbs to the top rope in preparation for a big move, only for DDP to jam the ropes. Normally this would lead to the wrestler on the top rope crotching themselves and perhaps falling back into the ring or staying seated atop the turnbuckle so their opponent can do a move to them like a Superplex.
However, Machine for some reason decides to yell out and then leap from the turnbuckle all the way to the middle of the ropes, crotching himself on them in one of the silliest looking moments you can find. DDP apparently was laughing about this for months afterwards and I can see why. I rewound and watched it again because it was so funny.
Machine’s nether regions are toast following that, which allows DDP to come off the top with a clothesline before applying the Diamond Cutter for three. I think that was it for The Machine in WCW, although Hail himself would get some chances under other names.
WINNER: DDP
RATING: *1/2
The goofiness with that one spot aside, this was mostly fine as Machine didn’t do anything he couldn’t and DDP did a good job holding things together
We see Tank Abbott warming up backstage.
Mean Gene is backstage with Arn Anderson, who has been working with Terry Funk against the nWo and is now conflicted due to Funk feuding with Flair as he’s caught in the middle. He cuts a great promo putting over the feud Flair and Funk had in the 80’s. He says he stands for WCW and asks Flair and Funk to put their issues behind them so that they can fight back against the nWo.
Match Seven
Villano IV w/ Villano V Vs Tank Abbott
Poor Villano is here to get his butt whipped in order to make Abbott look good. We see that Meng is watching backstage, which built up to Abbott and Meng going at it. Los Villanos are solid workers and do a good job selling for Abbott, as he knocks them both out with punches.
WINNER BY KO: TANK ABBOTT
RATING: SQUASH
This achieved what it needed to
The Mamalukes and Disco Inferno are walking backstage, as are David Flair, Crowbar and Daffney.
Mean Gene is backstage with The Harris Brothers, who cut a promo on Sid to hype up their match later on. This was a straight forward promo but it wasn’t bad or anything.
Mike Graham and Arn Anderson are talking backstage. Terry Funk storms in and demands that Arn pick a side in the conflict between Funk and Flair. Arn says he doesn’t have an answer.
Semi-Main
WCW Tag Champs The Mamalukes (Big Vito and Johnny The Bull) w/ Disco Inferno Vs David Flair and Crowbar w/ Daffney
The Mamalukes, stereotypical Italian mobster heavies, had defeated the wacked out duo of Flair and Crowbar to win the tag belts. Flair and Crowbar have got a non-Title match tonight and are looking for some payback. Johnny and David were super green here, but Vito and Crowbar both had plenty of experience on the indies and had both passed through ECW at one stage, so the match isn’t too bad when they are in there and can help shepherd the other two through it.
Miss Hancock (Stacy Keibler) shows up with a clipboard to take notes and runs afoul of Daffney. This is actually an okay match for the most part, with even Flair being somewhat entertaining as a crazy man getting his butt kicked. Vito is experienced enough to carry Flair through their bits and Flair’s offence is kept to a minimum so that he doesn’t have much opportunity to get lost and bugger things up.
Eventually Crowbar gets the tag and runs wild on the Champs, looking good in the process. Johnny misses a wild spin kick at one stage and loses his footing, but aside from that the closing section works well, with Flair catching Vito with a crowbar (the object, not the wrestler) which allows Crowbar to steal the pin and get his team back in contention.
WINNERS: FLAIR & CROWBAR
RATING: **
This was actually okay
Sid is limping backstage following his two “gruelling” matches from earlier in the night (I should add that he’s wrestled for a combined total of roughly 7 minutes thus far).
Main Event
Handicap Cage Match
The Harris Brothers (Ron and Don) Vs WCW World Champ Sid
The Harris’ jump Sid on the way to the ring and beat him up around ringside before putting him into the cage, where you have to win by pin or submission. The crowd actually gets behind Sid as he gets worked over in the cage by the Heels, although the wrestling inside the cage is hardly good. Sid does that thing he usually did where he gets knocked down and just lays on his back without moving like a toppled tortoise. Sid had two levels of selling, none and knocked out cold, with nothing in-between. Eventually Sid manages to run The Harris’ into one another and Choke Slams one of them for three.
WINNER: SID
RATING: *
The crowd actually seemed to like this, although it was insultingly short for a Main Event and a complete waste of the cage stipulation
We get our nWo beat down of the week, as Sid gets battered by The Harris’, Jarrett and Steiner, which leads to him getting spray painted for the flat finish to the show.
In Conclusion
The silliness with DDP and The Machine lived up to the hype, but the rest of the show was pretty worthless, especially as they cut out the Hogan segment on WWE Network, which was probably the most important thing on the whole show because it was Hogan bothering to show up for Thunder. Definitely one you don’t need to watch, but do enjoy the clip of The Machine’s wacky bump if you have time because it’s a belter!
Not a recommended show