Mike Reviews Shows Considered To Be Stinkers – WCW Mayhem 1999

Happy Stinky Friday Everyone!

Back today with another show that has a bad reputation, as Vince Russo and Ed Ferrara (or “RussAra” as I’ve taken to calling them) show you how not to book a major pro wrestling tournament with WCW Mayhem.

The story here is that Goldberg defeated World Champion Sting in an ostensibly non-title match at Halloween Havoc 1999 but Sting then beat up the referee following the match, leading to JJ Dillon stripping Sting of the belt and putting together a huge tournament that featured all kinds of booking silliness, such as Bret Hart defeating Goldberg in the First Round to not only advance but also win the WCW US Title, or Madusa getting eliminated by Meng, getting back in and essentially shagging Evan Karagias in the middle of the ring to advance, only to then get eliminated by Chris Benoit etc. Speaking of Benoit; his opening tournament match was a cage match with Dean Malenko, because why not eh?

All of that has brought us to Mayhem, where we’re finally going to get a World Champ crowned. The show is in Canada and they can still book an all Canadian Final with Bret Hart Vs Chris Benoit, and surely they can’t screw that up right? Right?? Buckle up folks, because things might be getting stinky…

You can view the full card for WCW Mayhem by clicking below;

WCW Mayhem 1999 Full Card

I’ve nicked the pictures from a review by Paul Matthews so please consider giving it come clicks

Mayhem is emanating from Toronto, Ontario, Canada on the 21st November 1999

Calling the action are Tony Schiavone and Bobby Heenan

Tony Schiavone does his best to explain the tournament up to this point, with it being as convoluted as I remembered

I can’t remember by the way if the pay per view was called Mayhem because that was the name of WCW’s current video game or if they named the game after the pay per view. Either could be the answer to be honest, it’s WCW

Opening Match
Semi-Final Match in the WCW World Title Tournament
“The Chosen One” Jeff Jarrett Vs “The Crippler” Chris Benoit

Jarrett is the handpicked choice from The Powers That Be, who are basically just Russo and Ferrara, which is why he’s opening the show so that he’ll be nice and fresh for the Main Event should he be able to win here. The crowd is into this one due to Benoit being involved, and it’s a well wrestled match fought at a quick clip, with Benoit even busting out a Tornado DDT at one stage in the early sections, which isn’t a move I remember him doing much. I totally get if the real life horrors that Benoit committed mean that you don’t feel comfortable watching his matches or saying nice things about his work, but the dude was incredibly versatile in the ring, which is probably what made him so good as he could basically wrestle any kind of match with any kind of opponent in his prime years.

Jarrett lures Benoit to the floor and drives Benoit crotch first into the ring post for the cut-off, which Benoit sells big. Jarrett looks good whilst working heat, with Benoit taking impressive bumps and selling for all of Jarrett’s offence, whilst Jarrett’s execution is on point and he does a good job getting across his Heel personality as well. Benoit eventually makes the comeback, getting the Rolling German Suplexes, which leads to The Harris Brothers joining us as they were working for The Powers That Be at the time, which causes the crowd to groan that the great wrestling match we’re watching is now going to have some shenanigans that it doesn’t need.

Benoit gets the diving headbutt on Jarrett, but a Harris Brother drags Benoit off the pin whilst the ref is focused on counting. This leads to a Harris distracting the ref whilst another Harris comes into the ring to attack Benoit. However, Dustin Rhodes was seemingly feuding with Jarrett at the time, as he heads down to ringside to even the odds and brawl with a Harris, distracting the referee in the process and leading to Jarrett and the other Harris to try and hit Benoit with the guitar (no doubt not drawing a single dime in the process). Benoit manages to foil the Heel’s attempts to brain him with the instrument though, leading to Benoit clocking Jarrett with Jarrett’s own guitar and that’s enough for the three count after roughly 9 minutes

WINNER: CHRIS BENOIT
RATING: ***1/4

Thoughts: Was on its way to being a really fantastic match, but then they ruined it by having the bollocks with The Harris’ and Dustin, which took away from the action in the ring. Still a good outing, but it could have been a lot better if they’d just allowed them to go out there and have a wrestling match with a clean ending

Jarrett and The Harris’ beat Benoit up following the match, with Jarrett seemingly drawing genuine Heel heat for it, which is a positive at least

Mike Tenay interviews The Disco Inferno, who is defending his WCW World Cruiserweight Title against Evan Karagias up next. Disco seems more interested in how much the physical belt costs as he’s apparently hard-up for money, which leads to an annoyed Jarrett clocking Disco

Second Match
WCW World Cruiserweight Title
Champ: The Disco Inferno w/ Tony Marinera Vs Evan Karagias w/ Madusa

Vince Russo went on WCW live to say that he didn’t want to see Mexican or Japanese wrestlers on the show, hence why we’ve got two generic white guys wrestling for the Cruiser belt here. Madusa defeated Karagias in the WCW World Title Tournament and that led to them having a relationship, although I think we were supposed to think that Madusa’s feelings weren’t genuine and that she was just using Karagias, although that might not have ever been officially confirmed. Marinera would go on to be Tony Mamaluke in ECW, with the idea here being that Marinera is the son of a crime boss and Disco owes that crime boss money. Disco has seemingly bet big on himself here, and by winning the match he should in-turn have enough money to pay off the crime boss, but if he loses then he’s in real trouble and might end getting fitted for a pair of concrete slippers if you know what I mean, Capeesh?

So the belt that was originally fought over by the likes of Rey Mysterio Jr, Psicosis, Juventud Guerrera, Super Calo, Eddy Guerrero, Ultimo Dragon etc is now being fought over by a lovesick rookie and a disco dancing dude who is being hassled by a guy that wandered in from a bad SNL mafioso skit. There’s a few botched sequences in the match itself, but it’s generally competently wrestled, although the match really just exists as a backdrop for all the incredibly important and interesting storytelling that is going on. The live crowd doesn’t seem to care that much about the match, with them mostly sitting on their hands and grumbling that the match is boring them. I wouldn’t say the match has been boring as such, but it’s been utterly unremarkable. Disco decides to roll out and put the moves on Madusa, even though he’s winning the match, which makes no real sense and leads to him getting slapped by Madusa. Marinera then tries putting the moves on Madusa, which leads to Karagias throttling Marinera. Disco tries to help Marinera but ends up accidentally clocking Marinera with a chair, leading to Karagias getting a springboard crossbody block back inside the ring for the three count in roughly 8 minutes

WINNER AND NEW CHAMPION: EVAN KARAGIAS
RATING: *1/2

Thoughts: The wrestling itself wasn’t terrible, but it was a far cry from the dynamic and exciting matches that had gotten the division over to begin with. Like the opening match, all the extracurricular activity was overdone to the point that it became obnoxious

Madusa starts showing more of her true colours in the post-match by grabbing the belt from Karagias and then distracting him from it by giving him a snog, whilst Disco carries Marinera back to the locker-room knowing that he’s in even more trouble now

Bret Hart arrives at the building

Vince Russo yells at Jeff Jarrett and The Harris’ for failing him earlier

Mean Gene Okerlund interviews Norman Smiley. Norman is scared of random noises backstage in a funny bit

Third Match
WCW Hardcore Title
Brian Knobbs w/ Jimmy “Mouth of the South” Hart Vs “Screamin'” Norman Smiley

Norman Smiley was probably one of the few characters that Russ-Ara came up with during this run that I actually enjoyed, as he went from technical wrestler with a wacky dance to a cowardly out-of-his-depth hardcore wrestler, still with a wacky dance. Norman supposedly hated the gimmick according to a shoot interview he did not long after his WCW run ended, but it got him on TV so he went along with it. The gimmick basically sees Norman getting clobbered with weapons whilst he screams and tries to do his wacky dance. It was a gimmick with a definite shelf-life, but it was shockingly effective for a while and Norman became one of the more popular mid-card acts that WCW had for a few months. I remember going to see a House Show in Manchester in March 2000 and Norman got a great reception when he worked Brian Knobbs in the opener. Norman mostly gets beaten up in the early stages, but he manages to get a few weapon shots in between Knobbs pummelling him.

They of course head backstage at one point, as most Big Two Hardcore Title matches were want to do during this period. In this case though it makes sense, as you could fight backstage in the WCW Mayhem video game so they basically HAD to have a match with some backstage brawling on the pay per view named after the game. Knobbs continues to control things for the most part, with Norman continuing to sell and scream, with the crowd getting a kick out of it. They end up fighting in an area where they keep the burger buns and other assorted foodstuff’s leading to the two brawling in a lift. The finish is actually quite clever, as Jimmy Hart prepares to clock Norman as soon as the door for the lift opens again, but Knobbs and Norman’s positions have changed slightly, so Hart ends up hitting his own man by accident, leading to Norman collapsing on top of Knobbs and getting the three could after roughly 7 minutes to a huge pop from the crowd.

WINNER AND NEW CHAMPION: NORMAN SMILEY
RATING: **

Thoughts: I don’t mind silliness and assorted whacky gimmickry in the Hardcore division because it was essentially treated as comedy break by all of the WCW regimes, so I was okay with this in a way I wasn’t with the silliness in the Cruiserweight Title match. Norman’s gimmick was very effective here and the match worked as a result

Knobbs beats up both Norman and Hart following the match in order to get his heat back

Mike Tenay interviews The Revolution(Shane Douglas, Perry Saturn, Dean Malenko and Aysa) who cut a wacky promo that builds to Perry Saturn talking about fighting dinosaurs. The gag at the end with Saturn being dumb did make me chuckle at least, but why you’d want to make one of wrestling’s scariest looking dudes into a punchline is beyond me, although the WWF did it in 2001 as well

Mean Gene interviews The Filthy Animals (Konnan, Kidman, Torrie Wilson and Eddy Guerrero) who aren’t sweating The Revolution. Konnan’s whole “that’s enough” shtick didn’t make sense to me at the time and it makes even less sense to me 26 years later

Tony Marinera is bringing the boys to Nitro, which I’m guessing was Big Vito and Johnny The Bull

Fourth Match
Six Person Elimination Tag
The Revolution (Perry Saturn, Dean Malenko and Asya) w/ Shane Douglas Vs The Filthy Animals (Eddy Guerrero, Kidman and Torrie Wilson) w/ Konnan

I think The Animals were ostensibly Heel when Russ-Ara first came in, but they’re clearly the babyfaces in this storyline. Malenko gets into it with a fan at ringside who gets dragged out by security and the camera focuses on it, making me think it was an angle. The early exchanges see Wilson seemingly injuring her ankle, which leads to Kidman and Guerrero getting into a shoving match, meaning that Malenko is able to pin Kidman with a School Boy.

Kidman eliminated by Dean Malenko (1) – School Boy

Aysa was basically WCW’s answer to Chyna (because Asia is bigger than China) and Eddy actually makes her look somewhat decent here by giving her a good post on a hanging vertical suplex spot. Eddy is the highlight of this match actually, as everything he does looks good and he quickly eliminates Malenko with a rana.

Dean Malenko eliminated by Eddy Guerrero (1) – Hurricanrana

Eddy continues working his socks off, making Aysa look somewhat credible as in-ring performer. In fairness to Aysa, she’s more than happy to take her lumps in this one, including taking a kick flush in the face from Saturn when Saturn is trying to kick Eddy. Eddy heads up with Frogsplash on Aysa following that, leading to her elimination.

Aysa eliminated by Eddy Guerrero (2) – Frogsplash

Saturn and Eddy have a reasonable match, although I never thought they had much in the way of chemistry together as opponents as their matches at Halloween Havoc 99 and Fully Loaded 2000 were just kind of “there” and that’s the case here as well. There’s nothing actively wrong with their exchanges, but it’s not especially exciting to watch either. Eddy manages to kick out of the Spicolli Driver, but Eddy is reticent to tag out due to Wilson’s injured ankle. This means that Eddy has to keep going and Saturn is able to counter a crossbody into the Rings of Saturn to eliminate Eddy.

Eddy Guerrero eliminated by Perry Saturn (1) – Rings of Saturn

Wilson is both not a wrestler and fighting with an injury, but she does get a near fall from a mule kick that the crowd somewhat bit on. Douglas distracts the referee though and that allows Saturn to clock Wilson right in her Playboy Mansion and that’s enough for the three count. At least they bothered to distract the referee first I suppose.

Torrie Wilson eliminated by Perry Saturn (2) – Low Blow
Total match time was about 11 minutes

WINNERS: REVOLUTION
SURVIVOR: PERRY SATURN
MOST ELIMINATIONS: EDDY GUERRERO AND PERRY SATURN WITH 2 EACH
RATING: *3/4

Thoughts: Not awful but it featured a lot of quickfire eliminations and they didn’t really let the good wrestlers go in there get some proper time to do their thing with the exception of Eddy, who was mostly in there to carry Aysa through her parts. Aysa held up her end of things reasonably well at least, but most people could when in there with Eddy

As it’s a Russ-Ara show; we get maybe 2 seconds of The Revolution celebrating and then it’s TO THE BACK, where Jeff Jarrett and The Harris’ are beating up Buff Bagwell in order to appease The Powers That Be

Fifth Match
Luchas de Apuestas
Loser Must Retire
Curt Hennig Vs Buff “The Stuff” Bagwell

The story here is that The Powers That Be don’t like either of these two, so they’ve booked them in this match where one of them has to retire. Why they wouldn’t just fire both of them is beyond me. Hennig had been given the stipulation that Ric Flair sort of had in 2008, which is that his next loss would mean the end of his career, but it had to be by pin. Thus we get a montage of Hennig basically losing most weeks but it’s always by DQ, Count Out or Submission, so he gets to keep his job. Buff’s music plays but he doesn’t enter, meaning that Jeff Jarrett and The Harris’ run down to attack Hennig. Buff makes the save for Hennig and then the match starts, with Hennig seemingly working as Heel in the match.

There are loud “Perfect” chants for Hennig at points, as the crowd seemingly has a lot of WWF fans in the house. The match itself is basically fine, if a little rushed for a match with these kind of stipulations. It kind of just feels like a Nitro match that they put on Mayhem, when career matches are normally dramatic epic affairs because of the severity of the stipulation. Hennig takes most of the match, with Buff bumping and selling well enough whilst Hennig mostly sticks to kicking, punching and rest holds. Buff ends up getting the Buff Blockbuster OUTTA NOWHERE for the three count after roughly 8 minutes and that’s seemingly that for the career of Curt Hennig.

WINNER: BUFF BAGWELL
RATING: *1/2

Thoughts: Just two fellers having a match, but you’d expect more from a bout where people’s careers were supposedly on the line. Hennig worked a few rest holds, Buff got the Blockbuster, and that was that. You wouldn’t been too offended seeing it in the second hour of Thunder, but it wasn’t exactly pay per view level action

Hennig gets a nice round of applause following the match, but he’d be back the very next day as a lackey for The Powers That Be, so this stipulation ultimately meant nothing

Mike Tenay interviews Sting backstage. Sting says that he shouldn’t need to be regaining the belt he never lost, cutting essentially a babyface promo after a couple of months of a failed Heel turn

Sixth Match
Semi-Final Match in the WCW World Title Tournament
Sting Vs Bret “The Hitman” Hart

Sting had gone Heel back at Fall Brawl 1999, but it hadn’t worked out so they had gradually started moving him back to the babyface side over the month prior to this, with this show essentially being the conclusion of that. Bret had been pretty much squandered by WCW since coming in, with Russ-Ara deciding to try and push him to the Main Event over the course of the WCW World Title tournament. Sting is wrestling in a t-shirt and leather pants here, which is certainly a unique look for him that he didn’t stick with as 1999 rolled on. These two had a pretty lousy feud in 1998, but switching the Face/Heel alignment and sticking them in Canada seems to help things somewhat, as the crowd is into Bret and are actually booing Sting, which is ironic in that the night the fans finally react how WCW wanted them to for Sting’s Heel act just happens to be the night that they’re deciding to turn Sting back. Wrestling eh?

The opening exchanges mostly go Bret’s way, with Bret throwing punches and Sting bumping around. The cut off is literally just Sting punching Bret right in his Calgary Stampede in full view of the referee, which the ref just has to allow because it’s not the finish, making him looking like an absolute chump in the process. Sting mostly works rest holds in the heat, but the crowd gets behind Bret so it works. Bret starts fighting back, leading to him coming off the top rope with an Axe Handle Smash, but he he takes out referee Mickey Jay in the process. This leads to Lex Luger running down with a baseball bat and hitting Sting with the bat (I can’t remember if he’d actually turned on Sting yet or if this was the turn itself). Bret Hart takes out Luger and referee Mickey Jay wants to DQ Sting, but Bret refuses to win that way and the match continues. This could be a way for Bret to then lose, but Sting’s hurt his knee from the Luger attack, which allows Bret to counter The Scorpion Deathlock into The Sharpshooter for the clean submission win in around 9 minutes.

WINNER: BRET HART
RATING: **1/2

Thoughts: This was decent, although I’m just OVER all of the run-in’s an assorted chicanery in these matches. Couldn’t Bret have just won clean and then Sting rescue him from a post-match Luger attack? That way you still get an angle to set up Luger Vs Sting for Starrcade but we actually get a bullshine free match prior to it?

Bret and Sting hug it out following that to establish Sting’s official switch to babyface

Mean Gene is interviewing Chris Benoit backstage. Benoit says that Bret Hart is a legend and puts over the importance of being the World Champ. Solid meat and potatoes promo from Benoit that pushed the Main Event without much in the way of excitement. Like brown toast with a mild spread of butter on it. Filling but not thrilling

Mike Tenay is interviewing Lex Luger w/ Elizabeth backstage. Luger says that Bret hurt his neck in the prior match, so he’s got a neck brace on and is doing his best Darren Anderton impression by trying to throw a sickie rather than wrestle later on. Luger when he stopped caring and was just goofing off was genuinely quite funny

Seventh Match
Chain Match
Berlyn w/ The Wall Vs Vampiro w/ Jerry Only

Berlyn is Alex Wright repackaged from a goofy Techno Dancing German to a stern black leather wearing German with a cane and a big heavy. Vampiro’s next feud was going to be Oklahoma (Ed Ferrara in Jim Ross cosplay) so he comes out here with Steve Williams to annoy everyone whilst the match goes on. This was during a period where WCW was outright just stealing WWF characters and repurposing them for their show, with Brad Armstrong being repackaged into Buzzkill, which was essentially Brad doing Road Dogg cosplay. In fact, I remember some of the WCW watchers at school thinking that Road Dogg had actually defected at one stage until the WWF watchers assured them that he hadn’t. Oklahoma is one of those gimmicks where it could have worked as a parody of Jim Ross for a couple of shows if it had just been Ferrara in a Stetson making jokes that Juventud Guerrera was a line-backer at Tijuana State or some such, but it became really mean spirited and nasty due to Ferrara scrunching up his face to mock Ross’ bells palsy and then they had the character on TV for MONTHS, which I can only chalk up to Ferrara enjoying being on television and wanting to stretch that out as long as possible.

Berlyn won’t even put the chain on to start, with Wall helping Berlyn to attack Vamp whilst Berlyn brawls outside of the ring with Only. There’s at least No DQ’s in a chain match, so it makes sense that this would be allowed to go on, although I’m sure Berlyn refusing to put the chain on violates some sort of rule. Oklahoma and Heenan do actually have some funny exchanges on commentary, talking about how Wall won three SauerkrautBowl rings whilst playing for the University of Germany in Frankfurt, which is a pretty harmless gag at Jim Ross’ expense because he was ALWAYS going on about wrestler’s college backgrounds. It’s the mocking of a genuinely serious affliction and really going too far with the parody at points that made this feel nasty and over the line. There was something there that could have worked but they were too focused on being mean to someone they had an axe to grind with from their WWF days that they let it go too far due to having so much control during this period in WCW. Berlyn and The Wall hadn’t been together long prior to this, but they are already teasing a break up, because alliances are lucky to last a couple of months when Russ-Ara are booking. Did Vince Russo just not have any friends when he was a kid and that’s why none of the wrestlers on his shows can maintain friendships/alliances for any serious period of time? Anyway, with Wall walking out on Berlyn, it allows Vamp and Only to double up on Berlyn, leading to Vamp getting the win with a chain assisted Camel Clutch whilst the crowd sits on their hands after about 5 minutes

WINNER: VAMPIRO
RATING: 1/2*

Thoughts: This was pretty much garbage, with them never really properly chaining Berlyn and Vamp up and the match being a backdrop for both the Berlyn/Wall breakup and Oklahoma doing his Jim Ross impression on commentary

Steve Williams beats up Vampiro and Only post-match to set up an awful feud that culminated at Starrcade 1999

Mike Tenay interviews Scott Hall backstage. Rick Steiner can’t be here tonight due to Sid Vicious Powebombing Steiner through a stage, so Scott Hall has been awarded the TV Title and will defend it against a mystery opponent later on

Curt Hennig leaves the arena whilst Kimberly arrives

Eighth Match
The Total Package w/ Elizabeth Vs THE MONSTER MENG

In something that is both kind of dumb but also kind of makes sense at the same time; Package’s neck brace means that Meng can’t apply his Tongan Death Grip finisher. Package supposedly battered Meng with a crowbar in order to set this one up. I think they tried booking Elizabeth Vs Meng at one stage as well, which is something she legitimately hated because she saw herself as being there just to manage and not wrestle, and I have to say fair enough to that really. Liz very rarely got physically involved even during her younger years in the WWF, so why she’d suddenly be expected to do it in 1999 when she’d seemingly had no formal wrestling training really didn’t make much sense.

Even Russ-Ara weren’t immune to The Cycle of Meng, which was when WCW would suddenly remember that Meng was legitimate bad ass in real-life and then push him as an unflinching unstoppable monster on screen, even though he didn’t have the look to really justify it. As a tough bad ass who could take punishment and keep fighting? Yeah, sure. As an unstoppable tank who doesn’t even bump even when huge men like Lex Luger attack him? No, that’s not really going to work. The crowd is pretty much silent for this one, although the match itself is basically okay. It’s just a lot of punching and kicking with Meng occasionally no selling something. Liz tries to spray Meng in the eyes with something, but she catches Package instead and that allows Meng to rip off the neck brace and then apply the Tongan Death Grip for the win in around 5 minutes

WINNER: MENG
RATING: *1/2

Thoughts: Pretty much a Thunder Main Event that they decided to stick on Mayhem. Not a terrible match, but just rather dull and not really pay per view quality

Mean Gene is interviewing Bret Hart backstage. Bret says that he’ll put his friendship with Chris Benoit to one side tonight when he wrestles for the World Title later on

David Flair is polishing his crowbar backstage. Not a euphemism, he’s just polishing a crowbar. Get your minds out of the gutter!

Ninth Match
WCW United States and World Television Titles
Champ: Scott Hall Vs Booker T

Russo and Ferrara were obsessed with the ratings and little else, which made their open disdain for the TV Title all the stranger. You would think that in a company where the focus was on television that the belt specifically designed for television would be treated well by the writers, but in fact it was treated the exact opposite. Almost from the minute the Gruesome Twosome entered WCW they were trying to kill the TV Title off, just outright awarding the belt to Hall at here at Mayhem when Rick Steiner was injured rather than making Hall actually win it. Hall was already the United States Champion at the time and he didn’t really need another belt, which made the idea to just give him the TV Title as well an absolute head scratcher. Hall will now “defend” his newly awarded TV Title, along with his US Title, against former TV Champ Booker T here at Mayhem.

This was actually an open challenge from Hall, as Rick Steiner isn’t here, so Booker T steps up to the plate. WCW of course botches his music at first though. Booker is the next home grown WCW star to get heavily booed by sections of the Canadian crowd here, as Scott Hall is a former WWF guy. I ponder why these folks even bothered turning up for Mayhem if they actively disliked WCW so much?. Hall of course plays up to this rather than actually trying to work like a Heel, which doesn’t really help Booker get over with the hostile crowd.

Booker looks decent here, but Hall seems really off the pace, which was a common theme during this period of his career. The crowd cheers for basically everything Hall does, and even chants “Rocky” at certain points in order to mock Booker T, I guess because they saw him as WCW’s version of The Rock and felt that would insult him? There appears to be a fight in the crowd at one stage, as everyone turns to look off screen whilst Hall puts Booker in a sleeper hold whilst it blows over.

Jeff Jarrett and The Harris Brothers join us just as Booker starts making a comeback, and the crowd still doesn’t like him. Jarrett distracts the ref whilst The Harris’ come in, but Booker fights them off. This allows Hall to give a distracted Booker an Outsider’s Edge though and that’s enough for three in just over 6 minutes. I think Hall would end up just handing the TV Title to Kevin Nash not-too-soon after this and Nash would just throw it in the bin rather than have it, basically killing the belt off as far as main roster WCW went.

WINNER AND STILL CHAMPION: SCOTT HALL
RATING: *1/2

Thoughts: Not much of a match really and kind of a waste of Booker. And with that the TV Title was essentially dead and wasn’t even referred to for the rest of Russo and Ferrara’s first run in the company. A near decade of history was quite literally thrown in the garbage because having to book the TV Title competently was too much for the puny brains of the Russ-Ara tandem to handle. A belt that could have been used as a selling point to try and elevate up and coming wrestlers was cast aside like an out of date pack of Jammy Dodgers

Midnight (a muscular woman who was a friend of Booker in storyline) shows up and helps Booker fight off Jarrett and The Harris’ following the match

Total Package looks for Elizabeth, who ran away following the match with Meng

Tenth Match
David Flair Vs Kimberly

DDP and Kimberly had teamed up to injure Ric Flair back at Halloween Havoc, leading to David becoming a crazed nutter looking for revenge on Kimberly, with The Powers That Be booking a match between them at Mayhem. This was another mid-card gimmick during the Russ-Ara Era that actually kind of worked, with the only downside being that David just didn’t have anything to back it up in the ring because they’d put him on TV WAY too soon. Had David actually been able to wrestle then this could have been an effective gimmick change that helped David actually become a star, but no matter how good you are in backstage skits, if you can’t eventually go once the bell rings then you’re doomed to failure. This is some more SHADES OF GREY BRO stuff from Russ-Ara, as neither of these characters are particularly likable so I’m not sure who the babyface is. I’m going to guess and say David because he’s trying to avenge his dad, but then again he’s also a violent psychopath who wants to hit a woman with a crowbar, so who even knows at this point?

We get ANOTHER example of someone getting low blowed and it not being a DQ tonight, with Kim kicking David right in the crotch at the opening bell in full view of the ref. David no sells it though because he apparently has a cup on, but it should still really be an immediate DQ. David does at least knock down the ref right away, so you could explain it as the ref not having a chance to call for the bell. Kim begs off on her knees and is able to use the pause caused by then to remove David’s cup and then hit him in the face with it, which isn’t a spot you see every day I must say. Kimberly, despite being a dancer and thus having some athletic/performing background, is a pretty terrible pro wrestler, but then again she wasn’t trained to be a wrestler and was thrown into this because Russ-Ara seemingly thought that everyone needed to be an in-ring performer of some kind, whether they were capable of doing it or not. Kanyon and DDP end up running down to the ring to help Kimberly, which leads to Arn Anderson running down to try and break it up as the match just kind of ends after about 5 minutes for out Sportz Entertainment Finish of the evening.

NO CONTEST
RATING: DUD

Thoughts: This was as terrible as you’d imagine, with next to no wrestling going on and we didn’t even get a finish either

David continues the trend of everyone in this feud being a total jerk by clocking Anderson with the crowbar after Anderson went to great lengths to rescue him there

Sid Vicious tells Mike Tenay that he will not quit tonight

Semi-Main
I Quit
Sid Vicious Vs Goldberg

Goldberg beat Sid via blood stoppage at Halloween Havoc, but Sid claimed that Goldberg actually quit before that, so we’ve got a rematch here under I Quit rules. Last time Goldberg was in Canada he was feuding with Bret Hart, so that combined with the already pro-WWF leanings of the crowd means that Goldberg is mercilessly booed by large sections of the crowd here at Mayhem. Considering Sid’s general awfulness and Goldberg’s inexperience, this is an okay enough big man slugfest for the time it lasts, with it mostly being punches and clotheslines. Goldberg actually works in a few legitimate submission holds, because I think even in 1999 he was a fan of MMA. Goldberg locks Sid in some kind of Cobra Clutch styled moved and Sid passes out, giving Goldberg the win via referee stoppage in about 6 minutes.

WINNER: GOLDBERG
RATING: *1/2

Thoughts: It was funny how poor Bobby Heenan did his best to hype up the match as a clash between two uber-tough bad asses during the entrances, noting how unlikely it would be for one of them to quit and how we could expect a long gruelling match, and then they ended it after 6 minutes. I think they were trying to recreate the Bret Hart Vs Steve Austin match from Mania 13 here, but that was a long dramatic match that was fought with great intensity and involved brawling and blood, so the pass out finish actually felt earned and worked for the story they were telling. This was just two big blokes trading punches for a bit until one locked in a hold and the match got stopped. It didn’t have any of the intensity or drama to it that the Bret/Austin match did, so it just didn’t work as a concept. The crowd totally turning on Goldberg didn’t help either, but there’s not much they really could have done about that I think seeing as they were promoting a WCW show in front of a crowd that seemingly didn’t want to see WCW

Even though Goldberg has supposedly won one of the biggest matches of his career; it’s TO THE BACK, where Mean Gene is interviewing The Total Packeeege. Package says he’s going to get even with Elizabeth on Nitro

Main Event
Final of the WCW World Title Tournament
Chris Benoit Vs Bret Hart

These two had an excellent match together on Nitro in honour of Owen Hart just before Russ-Ara showed up. We get some good technical wrestling to start here, which you’d expect from these two, as they are having a respectful clean wrestling contest. Unfortunately that doesn’t last for long, as Dean Malenko comes out of the crowd wearing a hockey vest to attack Benoit briefly. That isn’t a DQ though, as Malenko is instead dragged away and the match continues, to which I’m just going to shrug at by this stage. The wrestling continues to be good, with the crowd getting into it when the pace picks up, but then Scott Hall and Kevin Nash run down so that we can get MORE interference. They at least bump the referee this time before doing anything.

The Outsiders beat up the two Canadians, but Goldberg runs down to make the save. Bret and Benoit continue valiantly trying to have a good wrestling match in the ring whilst The Outsiders and Goldberg fight to the back, which is of course a tad distracting. They keep gradually building to bigger and bigger moves, with Bret busting out a Superplex whilst Benoit goes to the Rolling German’s. There’s a really entertaining battle over submission holds to the end that the fans bite on, and that leads to Bret eventually managing to lock Benoit in The Sharpshooter for the clean submission win after about 18 minutes.

WINNER AND NEW CHAMPION: BRET HART
RATING: ***

Thoughts: Honestly if they were going to fill this with run-in’s and nonsense anyway then they may as well have had Jarrett make it to the Final and try to do a 1999 version of a Bloodline match, leaning into the run-in’s and such as a way for the Heel Jarrett to try and steal the belt until the babyfaces managed to prevent it. As it was, the assorted Russ-Ara bollocks clashed significantly with Bret and Benoit trying to actually do serious wrestling, and it took away from the match somewhat. Jarrett heeling it up whilst Bret gallantly fought against and eventually overcame the odds might have worked better here if we HAD to have the run-in’s

Bret celebrates with some family members and flies the Canadian flag following the match, meaning that everyone gets to go home happy at least, with Benoit showing respect to the new Champion. The camera focuses on a “This One’s For Owen” sign at the end and I suddenly have some dust in my eye

Is It Really A Stinker?:

Mayhem is one of those shows where if you look at it on paper, then you’d think it’d all make sense. You have a pay per view in Canada, so you put your top two Canadian wrestlers in the Main Event for the WCW World Title, with the added bonus being that they’re arguably the two best wrestlers in the entire Main Event scene at the time. That one should essentially write itself, but Russ-Ara couldn’t just book two great wrestlers in a great wrestling match in their home country, hence why we got the assorted bollocks with the Tournament and a night full of run-in’s where none of the matches in the Tournament were just allowed to be good matches. You have a card of 12 matches my guys, you can let 3 of them just be straight wrestling and do your Jerry Springer silliness in the other 9 if you HAVE to do it.

I enjoyed the opener for the most part and the Main Event was good as well when it was focusing on Bret and Benoit trying to wrestle one another and not the other stuff. Aside from those two matches though; Mayhem had a whole lot of nothing on it. Amazingly only really Berlyn/Vamp and Kimberly/David were what I’d call genuinely awful matches, with the rest of the card kind of just being “there” for the most part. For that reason I’ll go with Stinky over Stinker, because the fans did at least get to go home happy with Bret’s win. I still would advise against watching Mayhem though as it’s not a good show and there are better things you can be getting on with.

Final Rating– Stinky
(Rating’s done of a scale of Stinker/Stinky/Odourless/Pleasant/Fragrant)