Mike Reviews WCW Mayhem 2000

Happy Friday Everyone!

I read the Scott Keith WCW Mayhem 2000 re-post last year and it looked like a potentially interesting show, so I decided to give it a review this week seeing as I’ve never watched it before.

We’ve got Booker T Vs Scott Steiner in a cage, Lex Luger battling Goldberg and Jeff Jarrett colliding with Buff Bagwell as the major matches, so hopefully some of those will end up being fun at least.

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

WCW Mayhem 2000 Card

Mayhem is emanating from the US Cellular Arena in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on 26th November 2000

Calling the action are Tony Schiavone, “Straight Shooting” Stevie Ray and Mark Madden

Earlier today; Booker T gets mobbed by fans whilst Scott Steiner scares security with his metal pipe. That was a heavy handed, yet well done, example of the difference between the two men in the Main Event

Also earlier today; babyface authority figure Ric Flair promises us a great show. I wouldn’t count any chickens yet there Ric

Opening Match
WCW World Cruiserweight Title
Champ: “Above Average” Mike Sanders Vs The Kwee Wee w/ Paisley

Sanders was the leader of The Natural Born Thrillers, a faction of hungry younger wrestlers who WCW was trying to push at the time. Kwee Wee was essentially playing a stylist character who could get angry at the drop of a hat. Sanders was also the commissioner at the time of this match, meaning he was feuding with Ric Flair. Sanders makes Kwee Wee mad to start, allowing Kwee to tap into his Angry Allan persona. Sanders bumps around nicely for Kwee Wee early on, which I guess means that Wee is going to be the babyface in this one. That point is extenuated when Thrillers Mark Jindrak, Sean O’Haire, Chuck Palumbo, Shawn Stasiak and Reno come down to help Sanders for the cut off.

However, this brings Kwee Wee’s ally THE MONSTER MENG down to ringside to try and help out his buddy, and he actually fares reasonably well considering that he’s so out numbered. Finally Ric Flair and security head down to break it up and send everyone to the back, as this Cruiserweight opener might be a TAD overbooked. It hasn’t been dull at least, but it has taken the focus off the actual wrestling in the ring. Chris Harris gets a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo as a member of security. Thankfully he didn’t do any knock-knock jokes whilst he was out there. Paisley gets to remain at ringside because she has a managers license, and also because she has a cracking pair of norks, according to Mark Madden.

Sanders works some heat on the weakened Kwee Wee, which leads to the crowd clapping a bit for Kwee Wee. Kwee Wee eventually makes the comeback, with Sanders continuing to bump and feed well for everything. Sanders manages to counter a Powerbomb on the floor with a rana, as Madden is now talking about how Sanders could just shoot Kwee Wee because he used to be in the army. Goodness me, Mark Madden was a TERRIBLE commentator. Paisley comes into the ring to attack Sanders at one point, which is allowed because WCW I guess, but Sanders shrugs that off and gets a back breaker type moved called the 3.0 for the clean pin in about 8 Minutes.

WINNER AND STILL CHAMPION: SANDERS
RATING: **

Thoughts: This was ridiculously overbooked, especially as the finish was Sanders going over clean in the end. It would have made more sense to just have them wrestle a competitive match for 8 Minutes and then have Sanders win, or have just one Thriller like Jindrak or O’Haire run down and cost Kwee Wee the match right at the end rather than doing what they did. Sanders took some good bumps and showed some decent cocky Heel mannerisms, but if he was indeed “Above Average” then he was in the 60-70% category as a worker. There’s no shame in that, but you probably shouldn’t give yourself that nickname if you’re only a 6 out of 10 wrestler

Mean Gene Okerlund is interviewing Ric Flair backstage in the interview area, where Flair says that no wrestlers are allowed at ringside tonight unless you’re a registered manager or have an official reason for being out there

Disco Inferno and Alex Wright pay Brian Adams and Bryan Clarke for their services tonight as Disco is too hurt to wrestle. However, they can only buy 7 Minutes and 30 seconds of their time…

Mean Gene is interviewing Evan Karagias and Jaime Knoble ahead of the next match. Karagias and Knoble are a team of convenience, and it turns out that Evan had a fling with Jamie’s sister, but he wants to forget that ahead of the match

Crowbar is flirting with two chicks now that he’s a smooth 1970’s man after aligning with Mike Awesome

That was a lot of segments all in a row as this show is redefining “breakneck pace” thus far

Match Two
Three Way Tag Team Bout
3-Count (Shane Helms and Shannon Moore) Vs Evan Karagias and Jaime Knoble Vs The Jung Dragons (Kaz Hayashi and Jimmy Yang) w/ Leia Meow

Karagias was kicked out of 3 Count and Knoble was kicked out of The Dragons, so they’ve formed a team together in order to get revenge on their respective former stablemates. Meow was TAFKA Kimona Wanalaya in ECW. This one is all high spots all the time, and it’s good high octane fun but the problem was that they never elevated any of these guys, save perhaps for Shane Helms who got a bit of a push in the company’s dying days, so eventually none of them got any further over than just “high flying guys having fun matches near the start of the show”. Knoble is the one who focuses most on doing technical wrestling, and he’s good at mixing that up with some high flying stuff as well.

There are some pretty hot double team moves, including 3 Count doing a spinning wheel kick/German Suplex combo move at one stage, although Knoble pops up from it seconds later after it’s delivered to him, which is one of the pitfalls with this style of wrestling. You see loads of great stuff but some of it doesn’t have the lasting impact you’d like it to because they have to sprint towards the next high spot. Jung Dragon’s appear to be the babyfaces in there, with 3-Count as the Heels and the Karagias/Knoble tandem looking to be more along the tweener line depending on which team they happen to be wrestling.

We get a parade of dives at one stage, with it all building to Meow doing a big dive of her own onto the big pile of guys, with Madden of course making the pre-requisite joke about it. A ladder ends up getting brought into things, which was possibly a tease for the match these guys would have at Starrcade 2000. 3-Count end up getting a Samoan Drop/Neck Breaker combo move onto Yang and that leads to Helms getting the three count after about 11 Minutes

WINNERS: 3-COUNT
RATING: ***1/4

Thoughts: Some people will absolutely hate this and others will absolutely love it, with me being somewhere in the middle. The dives and double teams were certainly exciting and fun to watch, but also the impact was dampened by how quickly the wrestlers were recovering from it all so they could do the next spot. Entertaining but ultimately meaningless, which is why none of these guys, Helms aside, were really elevated by this feud despite the matches almost always delivering fun action

We see that Bam Bam Bigelow has attacked Mike Awesome, leading to a passing Sgt. A-WOL making the save

Pamela Paulshock is trying to interview Disco Inferno, Alex Wright, Brian Adams and Bryan Clarke but they are more interested in insulting her

Mean Gene is interviewing Jimmy Hart backstage, but Jimmy is pretending to be injured to get out of the upcoming match

The Natural Born Thrillers are angry at Ric Flair

Match Three
Special Attraction
Mancow Vs Jimmy Hart

Hart looks to be faking a leg injury here, was a cast on the appendage. Hart would get into feuds with radio DJ’s in order to try and generate some interest in the market where the shows were taking place. Mancow was a big enough name in 2000 in the shock-jock leagues that he’s made his way onto pay per view as opposed to this just being a quick match for the live crowd. Mancow wrestled Hart back at Spring Stampede as well I believe. Mancow has a “Boy Bands S*ck” shirt on, which leads to 3-Counts involvement in this one as they run out to attack the stooges from Mancow’s show, including someone with a golden nose called “Turd”. What follows is a pretty terrible “match” between a non-wrestler and a manager. The crowd seems to somewhat like it at least. Mancow drags the cast off Hart’s leg and hits Hart with it for the three count after 3 Minutes.

WINNER: MANCOW
RATING: DUD

Thoughts: I’m not convinced this actually needed to be on Mayhem, as it could have easily been on the pre-show or something so that the live crowd had something to pop for off-screen whilst the time was given to another match on the pay per view

Mike Awesome is being tended to by medical officials

General Rection isn’t worried about facing Lance Storm on his own, whilst Ric Flair wants a talk with AWOL

Bam Bam Bigelow and Lance Storm are having a chat

Pamela Paulshock interviews Kidman, Rey and Tygress. They’re not sweating Konnan not being there. Apparently Konnan got involved with some ladies the night before and thus wasn’t able to make it here

Match Four
Three Way Match for the WCW Hardcore Title
Champ: Crowbar Vs Big Vito Vs Reno

Vito and Reno are related somehow in storyline, I think, and are feuding as Reno is a member of The Natural Born Thrillers. The fights starts without Crowbar, as I guess he’s busy checking on Awesome, but he eventually joins us. Vito has a series of Italian themed weapons, which basically means that he’s got the Italian flag drawn on a baseball bat and a traffic cone. If he really wanted to use an Italian themed weapon he’d run one of his opponents over with a Moped. Madden makes his second reference to a gun tonight, as he seemingly has firearms on the mind. I’m not shocked that he was eventually fired to be honest, as he was trying WAY too hard to be edgy during this period and it was only a matter of time before he made the wrong person mad and got given his papers.

As a match this is really just dudes clobbering each other with weapon shots, with the weapon shots being so numerous that the guys essentially have to no sell them so that the bout can keep going, thus making the weapon attacks meaningless. What would have made this better would have been them actually having a wrestling match with weapon spots sprinkled in rather than just having them walking around and clattering one another with the weapons to diminishing returns. They eventually head backstage, where Reno gives Vito a Powerslam through a table, leading to Reno and Vito’s sister (I think), Marie, showing up to try and talk Reno around, leading to Crowbar hitting Reno with a weapon for the three count after about 7 Minutes.

WINNER AND STILL CHAMPION: CROWBAR
RATING: *

Thoughts: Not much of a match really. These hardcore matches can be fun but you have to get the right mix of brawling, weapon shots, crowd work and high spots, and instead they just did weapon shots here as the crowd sat around bored

Buff Bagwell is shown talking with the crew. Hopefully he doesn’t clock one of them this time when they get annoyed at him blocking a doorway when they’re trying to work

DDP and Kevin Nash don’t seem too bothered about tonight’s match. In a typical WCW production moment; DDP thinks the segment is over and both swears and looks directly at the camera, but the camera stays on them for another few seconds meaning that Nash has to ad-lib something about Timothy Dalton and Sean Connery before the camera finally cuts away. Oh WCW…

Mean Gene interviews Cat and Ms. Jones backstage, although he’s more interested in being a lech towards Jones. Cat cuts the usual bombastic promo, whilst Gene offers Cat some “Vitamin Gene” to laughs from the live crowd

Match Five
Three Vs Two Handicap Bout
Alex Wright and KroniK (Brian Adams and Bryan Clare) w/ The Disco Inferno Vs Filthy Animals (Billy Kidman and Rey Mysterio Jr) w/ Tygress

As mentioned earlier in the show; Wright’s usual partner, The Disco Inferno, isn’t available here so Wright has recruited KroniK as his partners, but only for a limited period of time. KroniK were basically just doing the same gimmick The APA was doing at the time, but we never got to see the logical match between the two teams during InVasion due to Adams and Clarke bombing on pay per view against Undertaker and Kane. Tygress joins the commentary desk for this one whilst Disco hypes up that he’s in WOW Magazine this month, leading to Tony snarking that Disco should be plugging WCW Magazine instead.

Wright is a good cowardly bumping Heel here whilst KroniK do an acceptable job as the muscle on the Heel team and The Animals are fun quick paced babyface trying to stick and move against their bigger opponents. Rey Jr in particular takes some very impressive bumps when in there against KroniK as they are strong enough to throw Rey wherever they want. Clarke could potentially win it at one stage, but Wright demands to tag in and that allows Rey to recover enough for a kick out from a Wright suplex. KroniK eventually leaves, which leads to Kidman getting the hot tag and The Animals quickly putting Wright away in about 8 Minutes

WINNERS: FILTHY ANIMALS
RATING: **1/2

Thoughts: The storyline with KroniK only sticking around for 7 Minutes and 30 seconds was kind of dumb, but they told it well and the wrestling on display was fun due to The Animals being a very good underdog babyface team taking on the three larger men. Wright looked really good in the match actually, performing his Heel role well and showing off some solid mechanics

The Natural Born Thrillers are plotting backstage

Mean Gene interviews Scott Steiner with Midajah. Steiner says he’s going to kill Booker tonight in the cage. This was the usual scary man Scott Steiner promo and it was totally fine

Match Six
“The Franchise” Shane Douglas w/ Torrie Wilson Vs Ernest “The Cat” Miller w/ Ms. Jones

Douglas apparently attacked Ms. Jones on an episode of Nitro, so Cat wants some revenge tonight. As usual Douglas threatens to franchise his opponents ass, which ponders the question as to whether anyone would eat at a restaurant called “Ernest Miller’s Ass”? I’d hate to think of what kind of food they’d serve in that establishment. Cat and Jones are both full of peas and vinegar here, with Cat showing some pretty decent intensity actually. Cat chokes out Mark Madden at one stage during a ringside brawl, which leads to Tony pivoting to being a southern gentleman to make sure that his colleague is okay, even though Madden is a reprehensible jerk, whilst Stevie of course finds it hilarious.

A distraction from Wilson allows Douglas to cut Cat off and work him over, leading to a mostly strike and rest hold focused heat segment. It’s basic but it does the job, with the crowd clapping for Cat at points and sending some boos Douglas’ way. Scott Keith used to cruelly refer to Douglas as “The Frenchfries” during this period, but Douglas doesn’t look especially doughy or soft here in all fairness to him. Eventually Wilson and Jones go at it, with Jones locking Wilson in some kind of a choke hold to take her out of things.

The chaos from all of that allows Douglas to grab a chain out of his tights and clock Cat with it for two in a good near fall when Cat gets his foot on the bottom rope. Douglas argues with the referee following that, which leads to Cat getting a roll-up in another nicely executed near fall, although the crowd didn’t really bite on it. Cat blocks a DDT and that leads to Jones slipping a red slipper onto Cat’s right foot and that leads to Miller getting the Feliner kick for the three count in about 8 Minutes.

WINNER: THE CAT
RATING: **1/2

Thoughts: Basic punch and kick match with some solid character work from both of the competitors. Not exactly a pay per view classic that will live in the annals of Mayhem history or anything, but it was “perfectly cromulent” as Scott Keith would say. They worked it with some genuine intensity and they were given enough time to tell a story without overstaying their welcome

Buff Bagwell has destroyed all of Jeff Jarrett’s guitars it seems. Well that’s a clever strategy when you’re wrestling Jarrett

Pamela Paulshock interviews Misfits in Action (General Rection, Cpl Cajun, Lt Loco and Sgt. A-WOL). Rection is fired up tonight and cuts the usual angry shouting promo

Glacier might be coming back (I don’t think he ever did). The commentary team outright burying the vignette was actually kind of funny though

Match Seven
“The Beast From The East” Bam Bam Bigelow Vs Sgt. A-WOL

Bigelow was getting a renewed push as a big brawling Heel whilst A-WOL was part of comedy babyface stable The Misfits In Action. A-WOL is standing in for Mike Awesome here, who can’t wrestle due to the previous backstage attack from Bammer. WCW CEO Ric Flair is the one to make the match official with a quick pre-match promo. Flair telling the lie of all-time by saying there are 10,000 people in the building for this, leading to a confused “yeah?” from Stevie on commentary is pretty funny. Some folks have actually bothered to bring an “MIA” sign to this show. I can’t make too much fun of them though as I attended a Thunder taping around this time and bothered to make a Jeff Jarrett sign, and he wasn’t even on the show!

These two fought together back at Uncensored 2000, in what was promoted as a serious grudge match, but this one here is just a heatless punch and kick match that is being treated like an afterthought. The actual action in the match isn’t especially terrible, it’s just two big lads trading punches with one of them occasionally doing a slightly more interesting move like a DDT. There are some slight communication issues at one stage when they try an Irish Whip reversal spot and both seem to get a bit lost. A-WOL brings a table into the ring, even though this isn’t a No DQ match, but the referee just lets them get on with it as everyone in WCW was essentially “over it” by this stage and just wanted to beat the traffic home. Bigelow avoids getting tabled and gets the Greetings From Asbury Park for three after about 6 Minutes.

WINNER: BAM BAM BIGELOW
RATING: *1/4

Thoughts: Not a disaster, but it wasn’t particularly good either. Just two big lads slugging it out with an occasional move thrown in

Bigelow pretends to be injured following the match, with the commentary team being all solemn to try and get it over as real

Mean Gene is interviewing Buff Bagwell backstage; with Gene referencing Bagwell’s real neck injury in relation to Bigelow’s worked injury angle in a pretty tasteless move. Buff’s promo centres around how Jarrett has no guitars now so he’ll lose tonight because of it. Sound logic I guess

We get a video package hyping up the next match

Match Eight
WCW Canadian Championship
Champ: Lance T. Storm w/ Major Guns Vs General Rection

Storm had won the US Title and renamed it, with Rection trying to win it back for MURICA. Rection had managed to win the belt briefly but then Major Guns had betrayed The Misfits In Action to join up with Storm’s Team Canada faction. Storm enters whilst Bigelow is still getting taken out of the ring, which pretty much suggests that the injury isn’t real as they’d probably wait for Bigelow to get safely to the back before starting to the match. Storm cuts a pre-match promo; stating that he has an injured knees and back, although I’m not sure that we’re supposed to believe him. The babyface commentators certainly don’t. Bigelow certainly isn’t injured for real, as he attacks Rection on his way to the ring, which I guess was agreed between Bigelow and Storm when we saw them talking backstage earlier, which Stevie Ray at least references on commentary.

Rection is on the defensive following that, which draws some “USA” chants and at least gives the two an excuse for only wrestling for 6 Minutes here. Storm mostly works over Rection, with Rection selling it all well and Storm being a good mean Heel working over the weakened babyface. Storm’s attack mostly focuses on the left leg of Rection, with Guns also getting involved at points when she can. The crowd has gone pretty quiet as the match has worn on, even though the action in the ring has been totally fine. Rection eventually manages the one legged Moonsault from the top rope and that’s the win.

WINNER AND NEW CHAMPION: RECTION
RATING: **1/2

Thoughts: This was decent for the running time, with Rection selling the appendage well, Storm working it over efficiently and Guns being where she needed to be for all of her spots. Had they given this 10 minutes in front of a crowd that cared then I think it would have been quite a good match

Mike Sanders sends home the security team

We get an advert for Starrcade

Match Nine
“The Chosen One” Jeff Jarrett Vs Buff “The Stuff” Bagwell

Both of these guys had been earmarked as future Main Event stars for WCW at one stage but years of ineffective booking had left them at an upper mid-card ceiling, giving them nothing much to do other than wrestle one other. Jarrett is a solid wrestler and Buff can have a good match when he’s motivated, so hopefully this is one of those nights because Mayhem needs a good match and it needs it PRONTO. Jarrett complains about Buff smashing all of his guitars, although he botches “superstar” and says “stupid-star” instead, which leads to both the crowd and the commentators getting on his case. Stevie Ray just has ZERO tact on commentary and doesn’t seem to realise that he needs to cover for the wrestlers when things go awry. In some ways it’s refreshing to see the commentators be so honest, but in other ways it totally defeats the purpose of a commentator to get the storylines and the wrestlers themselves over.

Jarrett certainly has his working boots on tonight, as he takes plenty of bumps for Buff in the shine, including a big hip toss over the top rope to the floor. Jarrett uses a chair to attack Buff outside the ring though, and that’s the cut off, with the referee just allowing it to happen because DQ’s only counted in this era of WCW if the specific match in question called for it to, otherwise it would just be waved away by the referees. Jarrett continues working hard back inside the ring, whilst Buff seems happy to just lay around selling without really doing much. Buff’s selling is efficient, but he’s not exactly playing to the back row with it, so he doesn’t get much in the way of crowd support until he fights his way out of a sleeper. We of course get the usual Jarrett spot, where HE then gets put in the sleeper, only to counter it with a back suplex. Seriously, Jeffery loved that sequence and used it often.

Buff eventually makes the comeback, getting a nice Double Arm DDT. Buff is too dumb to go for the pin though and tries the Buff Blockbuster instead, which allows Jarrett time to recover and dodge it. Should have pinned him off the DDT there Marcus. Buff does manage a sloppy Tornado DDT soon after though, and that gets him a two count. The referee actually takes quite a creative bump when Jarrett accidentally slides into his leg, which leads to Jarrett trying the chair again. The question of why Jarrett has to use a chair behind the referee’s back now when he used it earlier and wasn’t DQ’ed doesn’t ever come up. Anyway, David Flair runs down to DDT Jarrett and that gets Buff a two count. Man, even this mid-card match with little in the way of stakes needs run-in’s too apparently. It turns out that Jarrett has one final guitar that wasn’t destroyed under the ring though and he hits Buff with it for three after 11 Minutes.

WINNER: JEFF JARRETT
RATING: **3/4

Thoughts: Ludicrously overbooked for what felt like a mostly thrown together mid-card match, but the action itself was okay. Honestly they could have just had Jarrett win this one clean as it’s not like Buff needed protecting by this stage in his career, but I’m betting he would have whinged in that scenario, hence why he was protected here with the guitar finish. I think we’re supposed to glean from the finish that Jarrett knew Buff would destroy his guitars so he made sure to keep one under the ring just in case Buff succeeded? That’s some very specific pre-planning if so

In a TNA moment (ironic considering the participants were both on the initial TNA show back in 2002) Jarrett wins and it’s immediately TO THE BACK for the next segment, which is a hype video for the next match

Match Ten
WCW World Tag Team Titles
Champs: The Perfect Event (Chuck Palumbo and Shawn Stasiak) Vs The InSiders (Diamond Dallas Page and Kevin Nash)

Perfect Event are members of The Natural Born Thrillers group. Nash was their mentor for a bit but they turned on him, so now he’s teaming with DDP and looking for revenge. The InSiders team basically existed so both DDP and Nash could consistently talk about Scott Hall, who was on the outs with WCW and wasn’t going to be coming back. Mike Sanders heads down to do guest commentary for this one, which is clearly setting up some kind of run-in later in the match. Sanders has got around Flair’s “no one is allowed at ringside” edict by making himself, Sean O’Haire, Reno and Mark Jindrak all security, meaning they have an “official business” reason to be at ringside. That’s actually a clever way around the stipulation, and if we hadn’t had a tonne of run-in’s and Sportz Entertainment gaga already tonight then it might have meant a little more.

The fans chant for Scott Hall at the start of the match, with Madden trying to get the commentary team to talk about it, which they weren’t allowed to do at the time because Hall’s name was basically banned from television. In a funny moment you can hear that Stevie Ray is about to actually mention what the crowd are chanting but he quickly stops, and I like to think that Tony dove in to prevent it, because Tony actually knows how to do his job. Nash actually seems kind of motivated tonight, with him showing some decent intensity when taking the fight to the Champs during the shine segment. The fans do at least seem to care a bit about this one because they see DDP and Nash as stars. Ric Flair returns with the regular security when The Thrillers try to get involved, which leads to them all getting kicked out. However, Sanders happens to have a managers license, which allows Madden to make a snide remark about Jim Cornette. Say what you want about Jim Cornette, and some of the crappy things he can sometimes say, but he was at least one of the greatest managers of all-time and a very good colour commentator, whereas Mark Madden was the drizzling #2’s at basically everything he tried within the world of Professional Wrestling, so he should probably keep his gob shut.

Perfect Event eventually manages to cut DDP off and work some heat, which leads to DDP selling well in building to the Nash hot tag. Perfect Event are a bit generic as in-ring performers, but both of them are able to competently work a heat segment here, and Stasiak has some genuine cocky Heel charisma. Palumbo has some good intensity for his bits as well, and you can see why he eventually got runs in WWE as a partner for Billy Gunn, a member of The FBI and a brief stint as a brawling biker, because he has decent size and he’s totally fine as a standard punch and kick wrestler. Nash eventually gets the hot tag, and he’s moving with a genuine spring in his step tonight, especially when he’s popping up for multiple Side Slam’s. Sanders tries to help out his men, but DDP gives him a Diamond Cutter out on the floor and that means that Nash can pin Stasiak with the Jack-knife Powerbomb after 15 Minutes.

WINNERS AND NEW CHAMPIONS: INSIDERS
RATING: ***

Thoughts: They did the standard tag formula here and it worked well. Perfect Event were competent enough to work a decent heat segment that hit the beats it needed to in order to build up to the hot tag. DDP did a solid job as the babyface in peril and Nash looked motivated and showed some good intensity as a fired up babyface getting the hot tag, so everything was what it needed to be and the match was good overall as a result. Interestingly they didn’t really do a long finishing sequence and took it home pretty quickly after the hot tag, which minimised the risk of the less experienced lads bodging anything up

Pamela Paulshock is interviewing Lex Luger, who is in full DGAF mode by this stage of his career. Luger is very rude to Paulshock and compares himself to Michael Jordan. I’ll let you make your own jokes on that one.

Match Eleven
“The Total Package” Lex Luger Vs Goldberg

Luger had returned to WCW as a Heel after leaving in the summer as a babyface that was feuding with Vince Russo. Russo had introduced a stipulation that Goldberg would be fired the next time he lost a match, so Luger is trying to end a career here. Michael Buffer is doing the ring announcing for this one, as they’re trying to present this as a Main Event calibre match. Well, Goldberg meets the criteria of being a Main Event guy at least. Goldberg is apparently 24-0 at this point, and he has to get to 176-0 in order to get the “fired when you next lose” stipulation lifted. Luger takes the lions share of the offence in this one, with it mostly being punches and kicks. Goldberg actually sells and bumps for it all okay, but this isn’t the sort of Goldberg match people tend to enjoy. They either want to see Goldberg trading bombs with another powerhouse or see him squashing someone in short order. Goldberg gives both Luger and referee Mickey Jay a Spear at one stage, although he didn’t aim for Mickey. You’d think that’s leading to Luger cheating for a near fall or something, but Goldberg just lifts Luger up for the Jackhammer to win it after 6 Minutes when a replacement referee runs in to count.

WINNER: GOLDBERG
RATING: *1/2

Thoughts: A pretty flat match, although the action itself was acceptable for what it was. It feels like they’re really rushing the show now as it’s TO THE BACK straight after Goldberg’s win and they start lowering the cage for the Main Event before Goldberg has even had a chance to leave yet

Main Event
Straightjacket Caged Heat for the WCW World Heavyweight Title
Champ: Booker T Vs “Big Poppa Pump” Scott Steiner

Steiner got DQ’ed against Booker back at Halloween Havoc for kicking too much butt, so this is the rematch in a Hell in a Cell styled cage with a straightjacket in it that you can trap your opponent in to make it easier to beat them up. This was actually an example of two home grown WCW stars climbing up the ranks at the same time whilst battling over the Tag Titles, TV Title, US Title and now the World Title along the way, although WCW never really made as big a deal out of that as they possibly could have done. This one has some decent action, as Steiner was possibly the best overall act in the company at the time when it came to a combination of in-ring work and character work, whilst Booker was one of the best overall workers that the company had. This one actually feels like a big-time match, which WCW struggled with at the time because so many of the wrestlers had lost their lustre over the years, so making a big match feel important or worthwhile was often difficult.

Sadly they only get 12 Minutes for the match, and they don’t get to use any special stuff like blood etc to elevate the intensity. The straightjacket stuff ends up being a bit of a distraction that detracts from the match too, although it does allow Booker T to show off his angrier side by trapping Steiner in the straightjacket and waffling him with some chair shots. Steiner rips his way out of the straightjacket though, which does help with making him look like a monster. Not surprisingly given the booking; Steiner ends up getting more cheers than Booker here, especially as the previous pay per view saw Steiner destroy Booker and now he’s literally pulled a straightjacket apart after surviving a chair attack. Steiner survives the Scissor Kick and hits Booker with the chair before locking in the Steiner Recliner for the referee stoppage win.

WINNER AND NEW CHAMPION: SCOTT STEINER
RATING: **3/4

Thoughts: This could have done with an extra 8 Minutes, as if they’d had 20 Minutes they could have taken more time building to the big spots and the match would have had more of an epic Main Event feel to it. It felt a bit rushed, and Booker ended up looking like a bit of a chump, but this was an effective way of making Steiner look like a monster Heel

Steiner injures Booker T following the match, beginning a storyline where Steiner was supposed to take out all of the babyfaces until they all came back in 2001 for revenge on Steiner and his buddies, but the company died before they could pull that one off

In Conclusion:

Mayhem was a lowkey Stinker candidate in all honesty. There were too many matches combined with too many backstage skits on top of that, meaning that the show felt rushed and nothing really had time to sink in. If they’d cut 3-4 matches out and toned down all the backstage stuff, then Mayhem would have been a much better show with better matches. The cruiserweight’s delivered in their high spot exhibition, The Tag Title match was good and the Main Event was a decent platform for Scott Steiner as the scary monster Heel that no one can topple, but aside from that there wasn’t a lot to recommend Mayhem for

Not a recommended show

You can check out Wrestling Bios for another take on the show