Post by Sephiroth on May 26, 2010 21:04:15 GMT -5
While RD documented the trainwreck that was the Russo era tournament for WCW's heavyweight championship, which was already beyond useless by that time, I notice he has never really commented on the other lame-brained tournaments WCW had for various titles. In particular, I can recall a tournament for the tag team titles and the US title.
The tag title tournament tied into the already inducted Judy Bagwell storyline. Rick Steiner was holding the tag titles on his own, and shortly after got injured and was off television for months. WCW vacated the belts and declared a "tournament" to crownw new champions. Except there really was no tournament, just a bunch of randomly thrown together matches. There was never any order to them, no brackets were shown to help fans follow what was going on. And added to that, the teams were pretty much all lousy. I remember Brian Adams and Horus Hogan being involved as the NWO team. Billy Kidman and Chavo Guerrero had a couple of matches. Meng and the Barbarian had a brief reunion as the Faces of Fear. And added to that, they had a side story going early on that Hall and Nash would constantly interfere in the matches and declare themselves the greatest tag team of all time (wonder who came up with that one) and hence no team would beat them. The natural twist to this would have been the eventual winners of the tournament feuding with Hall and Nash over the belts. But instead, the whole story was simply dropped one night and never mentioned again.
Also, not too long after there was a tournament for the US title. Scott Hall had been holding the belt, but was going through his "personal demon" phase by then already, and after dropping off television the belt was vacated. But once again, there was no real tournament. Instead there were a couple of last minute matches that lead up to a Booker T vs Scott Steiner match for the belt. Here again, it felt like WCW was just starting to try to build Booker up as a possible main eventer, but in the match with Steiner he got made to look like a total wimp. Steiner demolished him in a one sided match and it took Booker years to get back to semi-main event status.
Maybe not induction worthy, but definitely wrestlecrap.
The tag title tournament tied into the already inducted Judy Bagwell storyline. Rick Steiner was holding the tag titles on his own, and shortly after got injured and was off television for months. WCW vacated the belts and declared a "tournament" to crownw new champions. Except there really was no tournament, just a bunch of randomly thrown together matches. There was never any order to them, no brackets were shown to help fans follow what was going on. And added to that, the teams were pretty much all lousy. I remember Brian Adams and Horus Hogan being involved as the NWO team. Billy Kidman and Chavo Guerrero had a couple of matches. Meng and the Barbarian had a brief reunion as the Faces of Fear. And added to that, they had a side story going early on that Hall and Nash would constantly interfere in the matches and declare themselves the greatest tag team of all time (wonder who came up with that one) and hence no team would beat them. The natural twist to this would have been the eventual winners of the tournament feuding with Hall and Nash over the belts. But instead, the whole story was simply dropped one night and never mentioned again.
Also, not too long after there was a tournament for the US title. Scott Hall had been holding the belt, but was going through his "personal demon" phase by then already, and after dropping off television the belt was vacated. But once again, there was no real tournament. Instead there were a couple of last minute matches that lead up to a Booker T vs Scott Steiner match for the belt. Here again, it felt like WCW was just starting to try to build Booker up as a possible main eventer, but in the match with Steiner he got made to look like a total wimp. Steiner demolished him in a one sided match and it took Booker years to get back to semi-main event status.
Maybe not induction worthy, but definitely wrestlecrap.
