Mike Reviews WCW Worldwide – 3rd May 1997

Happy Wednesday Everyone!

Let’s go back to reviewing wrestling, as no one cared about the other stuff I was doing. This week we’ve got WCW Worldwide from May 1997, featuring the likes of The Disco Inferno, Craig Pittman and Super Calo!

These Worldwide matches have been taped from Orlando, Florida (likely on different days. I couldn’t even find these matches on Cage Match)

Calling the action are Tony Schiavone and Bobby Heenan

The announce team hypes up Slamboree on the 18th of May, where The Wolfpac will take on Ric Flair, Roddy Piper and Kevin Greene. That ended up being a really fun match.

The Disco Inferno Vs Hardbody Harris

Disco is working Heel here, as Harris gets the shine to start and bumps Disco around a bit before missing a dropkick, which allows Disco to work Harris over a bit, although he keeps stopping to dance. Harris gets enough offence in here that it isn’t a complete squash, but Disco is clearly presented as the bigger star of the two. Harris makes a brief comeback, but Disco gets knees up on a splash attempt and goes to a wacky leg based submission gold for the win.

WINNER: THE DISCO INFERNO
RATING: *1/2

Thoughts: This was an okay quick TV match where Harris got enough in that it wasn’t a total squash, but the result was never in doubt

High Voltage (Kaos and Rage) Vs Craig Pittman and Buddy Lee Parker

Quite a few fans seem to be booing High Voltage here, but they’re acting as total babyfaces during their entrance. Voltage were two young lads who regularly ingested a lot of…chicken. Yeah, we’ll go with chicken as it protects me more legally. Pittman was a legit shoot fighter and Parker was the head trainer at WCW’s Power Plant wrestling school at one stage, and is probably best known for training Goldberg and making Louis Theroux puke. Pittman and Parker jump start things, but Voltage fight back and get a generic babyface shine until Pittman cheap shots Rage for the cut off.

Rage is pretty bland as babyface in peril, but he’s not awful, and the Heel team manages to actually draw some Heel heat as they ferociously attack Rage at points. Pittman and Parker are as low card as a team can be without being outright enhancement talent, but they’re more than capable of fulfilling the role of a competent Heel tandem on a syndie, so the heat segment is fine overall. Rage eventually dodges a Pittman charge in the corner and tags Kaos, who does a pretty stilted hot tag segment in all honesty, which was likely down to his inexperience. High Voltage do have an excellent tag team finisher though, as it’s essentially the Road Warrior’s DOOMsday Device, except that they sub out Hawk’s clothesline with Rage doing a spinning wheel kick. Not surprisingly, that gets the three on Parker.

WINNERS: HIGH VOLTAGE
RATING: *1/2

Thoughts: The Heels held that together well enough, and the tag finisher was genuinely quite cool, so I’ll be generous with the rating

Jerry Lynn Vs Prince Iaukea

Jerry Lynn annoyingly has Jerry Flynn’s entrance music here, which has to be someone going back in time and infiltrating the WCW production crew in order to rib me? Iaukea had very recently been WCW TV Champ, although it wouldn’t shock me if this match was shot LONG before Iaukea won that belt. There’s some good wrestling in this one, as Lynn was a smooth worker (his terrible rope running aside) and Iaukea was mostly solid, if a bit bland, so nothing here really looks that bad and it’s decent action. Iaukea kind of plays subtle Heel here, being more willing to do things like strikes etc, but he never really cheats. Lynn gets a nice series of high impact flying moves, but he misses a head butt from the second rope and Iaukea quickly pounces with a series of moves himself, with a top rope cross body getting the three count.

WINNER: PRINCE IAUKEA
RATING: *3/4

Thoughts: This was decent at first, but then it just became MOVEZ towards the end, as Iaukea probably didn’t need to come off the top rope multiple times to defeat Jerry Lynn. Less is more sometimes

Super Calo and Villano IV Vs The Public Enemy (“Flyboy” Rocco Rock and Johnny Grunge)

This is one of those bizarre styles clashes you’d get in WCW sometimes, and I kind of love them. The match might be awful, but it’ll be a spectacle at least! Calo and Rock kind of do an okay bit to start, as Rock used to be a bit of a high flyer during his Cheetah Kid days, so he can hang reasonably well with the Luchadores. Grunge has less joy with Villano IV, but he’s a decent base for his Mexican foe at least. The crowd mostly want to see tables get used here, seeing as TPE brought one with them, but we get some more of that pesky wrestling instead, as Villano IV nearly takes off Rock’s head with a clothesline for the cut off.

Villano IV looks decent on offence, as he snaps off a nice powerslam at one stage and mostly keeps it simple otherwise with chops and other strikes. Calo gets a chance to fire off some flippy stuff, and it looks nice, with Rock doing a good job of selling everything. I’ve got quite a lot of time for Calo, especially his Luchas de Apuestas match with Winner’s, and he makes a decent team with Villano IV here actually. Rocco eventually manages to dodge a Villano IV attack and it’s hot tag Grunge, who just stands in the middle and lets the Rudos come to him, leading to a smoothly executed hot tag sequence. TPE quickly take it home following that, with Rock getting a flipping Splash off of Grunge’s shoulders for the three count.

WINNERS: THE PUBLIC ENEMY
RATING: **1/2

Thoughts: This was a fun little TV match that was actually a lot better than I thought it might be. It was a bit of a styles clash, but they made it work and I had a good time with it

Next week; The Mysterious Mr. JL, Bunkhouse Buck, High Voltage, The Renegade and Joe Gomez! What a line-up!!

In Conclusion

You know what you’re getting with Worldwide, especially around this time-frame. WCW had a solid cast of lower to mid-card wrestlers who could go in there and have a watchable short match for syndicated shows, and that’s what we got here. It’s not a show you NEED to watch or anything, but if you do then you’ll get about 30 minutes of mostly fun wrestling, and that’s nothing to be sniffed at

Mildly recommended show