So the other day I was thinking to myself, "Remember when you reviewed PPVs? That was good stuff, right?" Of course it was, until I didn't do it anymore. But then, whilst browsing YoutTube, an idea came to me. I discovered that there were PPVs on YouTube, and thought I could, like, review them. It was a brilliant plan, hopefully it'll work out.
So apparently WCW had a PPV called Hog Wild in 1996, as you can see by the title. Being that I've never heard of it and it's WCW, I can only assume it's awful. I believe its also the first PPV after Bash at the Beach, where something big apparently happened with this guy named Terry.
They are in Sturgis, a random town in South Dakota, where some motorcycle rally is going on. Obviously, a WCW PPV would be the perfectly compliment. They're also outside and Dusty is dressed like Mr. Slave from South Park. Apparently the main event is Hogan/Giant, and it's the most important match in the history of wrestling. Obviously.
So, Rey is apparently the champ here and he's dressed up as Spiderman. There appears to be some sort of mask angle going on here. Seems logical. The atmosphere is extremely odd here to say the least. Obviously, there's a USA chant, cause we're in AMERICA, bitch. More than a few random and unnecessary flips get the crowd going for a second. Big powerbomb by Dragon looked pretty cool. Good to know Dragon's manager Onoo is a stereotypical Asian guy. Rey knocks Dragon into the dirt, which is a level below the ring, and than does a HUGE dive on him. Freaking SICK move there, I tell ya. Rey eventually ends it with a Hurricanrana off the top rope. Nice.
Rating: 8/10. Very, very good match here. This here is why foreign guys get a bunch of support in the WZ tournament. Cause they're pretty freaking sick.
We talk about the motorcycle rally, cause it's motorcycle dudes. Awesome.
So these guys were tag team partners before, or something. Fire and Ice. Great team. I think Ice Train may be Devon, but I'm not sure. Apparently he's not. That's good news. Scott Norton is your generic big guy with pink tights. Train is bandaged for some reason. Tony says it's a big contrast between the first match, which is true. The first one was good, this one sucks. Teddy Long, Train's manager, is sadly not here. He could contribute to relieving this match of some of its suck. Literally just punches so far. Despite the entire match being centered around Ice Train's injury, they haven't bothered to tell us how it happened. Norton eventually make Train tap out.
Rating: 3/10. Not very good, methinks. Really, why should anyone care about this? Literally no reason. Just painful to watch. Almost as painful as Ice Train's mysterious injury.
Video of Flair talking about the Horseman and the nWo whilst cheesy music plays in the background. Delightful.
Sonny Onoo rides a motorcycle out to the ring for some reason. Bull Nakano, who is in a shocker is actually a female, comes out to the ring for a match against Madusa, who also rides out on a motorcycle. What a great gimmick for a PPV. Bull hits Madusa with the nun chucks right from the beginning, but doesn't get DQd for some reason. She just goes nuts here as I may have peed my pants a little in fear. I think the loser here gets their motorcycle hit with a sledgehammer or something. Crowd's actually into this one. Great back and forth action between these two. For reals, it's pretty good. However, that doesn't last long as the ref counts 3, but apparently not really as Madusa got the shoulder up. Onoo then proceeds to hit Madusa's motorcycle with a sledgehammer, which may or may not have caused a DQ. Madusa then proceeds to take the sledgehammer, chase off Onoo, and beat the shit out of his bike, which is plastic or something. They explain that it was Nakano's shoulders were down, which doesn't make any sense. Of course, no replay, even though they said we were going to get one.
Rating: 5/10. Really good woman's match to start. 5 more minutes and it would've been awesome. However, it quickly turned stupid with the shenanigans at the end.
We're not going to Mean Gene.
Jimmy Hart talks to Malenko before the match. Apparently he gets a title shot or something. Benoit is accompanied to the ring by a couple of moderately attractive women, one of whom is named Woman and the other is Miss Elizabeth, but not that Miss Elizabeth. Or is it? I don't fucking know. I'm not a big Benoit fan, but this should probably be good. Nothing much is happening in the match at the moment, so they start talking about the 4th man that's here to join the nWo. It's probably like, a wrestler, or someone of that nature. Lots of rolling around on the ground and bridges and stuff. Crowd ain't too excited. The match is still going on but we pan through the crowd for some reason. SICK superplex from Benoit. That definitely hurt. This is just going to long now as we're at about 15 minutes without the end in sight. Nevermind, only 5 minutes left till the time limit's up. Good. Heenan saying "he got him" after every pin attempt is just funny. One minute left now. Not much happens and we end in a draw. Ok then. Nevermind, 5 minute overtime and there has to be a winner. Why is the period timed then? Why was there a time limit on the match in the first place? Crowd seems not to care anymore at this point. 2 minutes left in OT, but not really since there has to be a winner. Malenko nearly gets a roll up at the end of OT, but only gets a 2. We got another overtime apparently. Maybe instead of all this overtime stuff, they could've just had a normal untimed match, or something. Woman eventually interferes allowing Benoit to get a roll up for the win. Alrighty.
Rating: 6/10. These two seemed to work pretty well together, but this was just far too long as the crowd eventually lost interest and so did I. Not to mention, the OT thing didn't make any sense at all.
A random guy and lady come out with the champs, who are the Harlem Heat by the way. Should I know who these people are? Probably. The guy is Colonel Parker and he works at KFC, or something. O, and the girl is Sherri. I definitely should've known who she was. Was she in ECW or something like that? Scotty has a great mullet here. Crowd is really against Harlem Heat here, probably because they're a bunch of racists. They start revving their motorcycles, of which there are 25,000, apparently. They stand around for 5 minutes or so until the match finally starts, but the heels bail quickly. Heat's female manager seems likely to be a transsexual with the manly yelling. There's a sequence of what you'd probably consider typical tag wrestling of this time period, but what is typical, really? Anyway, it's a good match thus far. Heenan: I can't tell the Steiners apart. Tony: Well, one has a mustache. I chuckled. Hot tag gets Scotty into the match, Colonel Parker interferes with some Talcum Powder and a cane, allowing Bookah to get the pin.
Rating: 8.5/10. Pretty sweet match here. Probably better than any WWE tag match we've seen in quite awhile. Scotty looked great here, both in the ring and with his hair, and the ending wasn't bad at all.
Eddy has an extremely dirty looking mustache and strange choice of a haircut. It appears this is being built up as the biggest match of Eddy's career. Starting to get dark now, in case you care. O ya, Flair in the champ here as well, which seems to makes sense. He's the Nature Boy. WOOOOOO! Can't see the white trash as clearly in the crowd anymore. The lights around the ring don't seem to be working so well, so it's actually quite dark in the ring. Odd, to say the least. Eddy controls most of the match, until Flair kicks him square in the testicles. That was not pleasant. Eddy takes control again though, as Flair's hardly got any offense in. In a disgusting move, Eddy tries to grab the tights while pinning Flair, revealing a rather saggy, white pair of butt cheeks in the process. Ewwww. Flair gets on the Figure Four and gets Woman to pull his arms for leverage, with the likely ******ed ref not bothering to look 3 feet to his left. Flair actually wins by pinfall as Eddy simply lays on his back.
Rating: 7.5/10. Kind of a weird match here. Odd contrast of styles, but I think it worked out in the end. Probably made sense for Flair to win as I'm guessing he was considerably higher on the card than Eddy here. In the end, solid stuff.
Interview with Hart and Giant. Hart has a tie with a picture of himself and Giant on it. Cool. Giant talks about how Hogan betrayed him and everyone and blah blah blah. He's quite the screamer, if I do say so myself.
Sting is dressed like a bicurious circus performer for some reason. Heenan has alligator shoes on. Thanks for that. The match starts, but we talk about Randy Savage for awhile. It seems he is not to pleased with Mr. Hogan. Hall goes to his corner to talk strategy and Nash whispers sweet nothings into his ear. I tell you, these two had great chemistry. In fact, they have great chemistry, considering they're the current TNA Tag Team Champions. In fact, 3 of the 4 members of this match were featured on TNA's PPV and the guy in the main event is more or less the focus of their show. That's not a good sign. Apparently there are no rules here. In case you didn't know, Sting is way over. Dusty is talking about the guy that's in the "sea of heads" that's going to join the nWo or something. About the 81st time he's said "sea of heads" thus far. Sting falls directly on Nash's genitals for some reason. Hot tag. Luger is on fire, obviously. The weakest looking closeline ever sends Hall down. Nick Patrick is accidentally hit in the eye, causing him to chop block Luger and make the quick count of the finish. Why isn't there as much made of the 4th man as there is of the third?
Rating: 7.5/10. Pretty good tag team match, actually. The crowd actually cared about it, which is always good. It also gave momentum to this New World Order thing, which I reckon might be big one day.
Hogan is still getting some pretty big cheers here. Not surprising considering he's Hulk freakin' Hogan, bitch. The Giant looks surprisingly like Big Show, but with long hair. That's just strange. Does anyone else think they look a lot alike? Really, they must be cousins, or something. They wonder why Hogan won't get in the ring to start the match. Maybe cause there's a freakin' Giant in the ring. Giant's ass cheeks are far too prevalent here. Here's how the first 6 or 7 minutes go: one move from the Giant, Hogan bails out and walks around for awhile. Rinse and repeat. Riveting stuff. It's followed up by an even more riveting test of strength. That was the riventingest thing I've ever seen. Scratch that, this nerve hold type maneuver from Hogan is pretty riveting. I'd say this has been what you'd expect a match between a young Giant and Hogan to be like, but I don't know your expectations, so I can't really say. Let's just say it's not a wrestling clinic. Dusty is talking about Rey Mysterio for no apparent reason now. The Giant Hulking Up is just awesome. About 100 times better than Abyss Hulking Up. Here's Hall, just in time for Giant to hit a shitting Chokeslam on him. Nash gets one as well. Here's Hogan from behind though with the belt, and he's your new champion.
Rating: 6/10. Wrestling wise, not very good I suppose. However, it was pretty entertaining, compared to most matches, and it really meant something. It's the beginning of the New World Order. Need I say more?
After the match, here's the Booty Man with an nWo shirt and a cake. Apparently it's Hulk's birthday. Hogan on the mic now. He loves Booty Man now. Wow, a cake will do a lot for you, won't it? He talks about Flair and Arn Anderson for awhile now. Hall, Nash, and Hogan turn on Booty Man now. Not surprising considering he's the Booty Man. They spray paint the belts, and that's it, brother.
Overall: C+ Above average, actually. At first glance, you wouldn't think a PPV held at an outdoor motorcyle rally would be very good, but you'd be wrong. You had about 4 really good matches with Steiners/Harlem Heat being the best of the bunch, but really, you could have chosen any of them as your personal fav. Main event wasn't bad and the nWo was just beginning to kick ass here. Literally never heard of this before. It appears to be a forgotten gem, or at least a forgotten decent, umm, shiny rock.
WCW Hog Wild 1996
So apparently WCW had a PPV called Hog Wild in 1996, as you can see by the title. Being that I've never heard of it and it's WCW, I can only assume it's awful. I believe its also the first PPV after Bash at the Beach, where something big apparently happened with this guy named Terry.
They are in Sturgis, a random town in South Dakota, where some motorcycle rally is going on. Obviously, a WCW PPV would be the perfectly compliment. They're also outside and Dusty is dressed like Mr. Slave from South Park. Apparently the main event is Hogan/Giant, and it's the most important match in the history of wrestling. Obviously.
WCW Cruiserweight Title Match - Ultimo Dragon v. Rey Mysterio, Jr.
So, Rey is apparently the champ here and he's dressed up as Spiderman. There appears to be some sort of mask angle going on here. Seems logical. The atmosphere is extremely odd here to say the least. Obviously, there's a USA chant, cause we're in AMERICA, bitch. More than a few random and unnecessary flips get the crowd going for a second. Big powerbomb by Dragon looked pretty cool. Good to know Dragon's manager Onoo is a stereotypical Asian guy. Rey knocks Dragon into the dirt, which is a level below the ring, and than does a HUGE dive on him. Freaking SICK move there, I tell ya. Rey eventually ends it with a Hurricanrana off the top rope. Nice.
Rating: 8/10. Very, very good match here. This here is why foreign guys get a bunch of support in the WZ tournament. Cause they're pretty freaking sick.
We talk about the motorcycle rally, cause it's motorcycle dudes. Awesome.
Special Challenge Match - Scott Norton v. Ice Train
So these guys were tag team partners before, or something. Fire and Ice. Great team. I think Ice Train may be Devon, but I'm not sure. Apparently he's not. That's good news. Scott Norton is your generic big guy with pink tights. Train is bandaged for some reason. Tony says it's a big contrast between the first match, which is true. The first one was good, this one sucks. Teddy Long, Train's manager, is sadly not here. He could contribute to relieving this match of some of its suck. Literally just punches so far. Despite the entire match being centered around Ice Train's injury, they haven't bothered to tell us how it happened. Norton eventually make Train tap out.
Rating: 3/10. Not very good, methinks. Really, why should anyone care about this? Literally no reason. Just painful to watch. Almost as painful as Ice Train's mysterious injury.
Video of Flair talking about the Horseman and the nWo whilst cheesy music plays in the background. Delightful.
Bull Nakano v. Madusa
Sonny Onoo rides a motorcycle out to the ring for some reason. Bull Nakano, who is in a shocker is actually a female, comes out to the ring for a match against Madusa, who also rides out on a motorcycle. What a great gimmick for a PPV. Bull hits Madusa with the nun chucks right from the beginning, but doesn't get DQd for some reason. She just goes nuts here as I may have peed my pants a little in fear. I think the loser here gets their motorcycle hit with a sledgehammer or something. Crowd's actually into this one. Great back and forth action between these two. For reals, it's pretty good. However, that doesn't last long as the ref counts 3, but apparently not really as Madusa got the shoulder up. Onoo then proceeds to hit Madusa's motorcycle with a sledgehammer, which may or may not have caused a DQ. Madusa then proceeds to take the sledgehammer, chase off Onoo, and beat the shit out of his bike, which is plastic or something. They explain that it was Nakano's shoulders were down, which doesn't make any sense. Of course, no replay, even though they said we were going to get one.
Rating: 5/10. Really good woman's match to start. 5 more minutes and it would've been awesome. However, it quickly turned stupid with the shenanigans at the end.
We're not going to Mean Gene.
Dean Malenko v. Chris Benoit
Jimmy Hart talks to Malenko before the match. Apparently he gets a title shot or something. Benoit is accompanied to the ring by a couple of moderately attractive women, one of whom is named Woman and the other is Miss Elizabeth, but not that Miss Elizabeth. Or is it? I don't fucking know. I'm not a big Benoit fan, but this should probably be good. Nothing much is happening in the match at the moment, so they start talking about the 4th man that's here to join the nWo. It's probably like, a wrestler, or someone of that nature. Lots of rolling around on the ground and bridges and stuff. Crowd ain't too excited. The match is still going on but we pan through the crowd for some reason. SICK superplex from Benoit. That definitely hurt. This is just going to long now as we're at about 15 minutes without the end in sight. Nevermind, only 5 minutes left till the time limit's up. Good. Heenan saying "he got him" after every pin attempt is just funny. One minute left now. Not much happens and we end in a draw. Ok then. Nevermind, 5 minute overtime and there has to be a winner. Why is the period timed then? Why was there a time limit on the match in the first place? Crowd seems not to care anymore at this point. 2 minutes left in OT, but not really since there has to be a winner. Malenko nearly gets a roll up at the end of OT, but only gets a 2. We got another overtime apparently. Maybe instead of all this overtime stuff, they could've just had a normal untimed match, or something. Woman eventually interferes allowing Benoit to get a roll up for the win. Alrighty.
Rating: 6/10. These two seemed to work pretty well together, but this was just far too long as the crowd eventually lost interest and so did I. Not to mention, the OT thing didn't make any sense at all.
Tag Team Title Match - Steiner Brothers v. Harlem Heat
A random guy and lady come out with the champs, who are the Harlem Heat by the way. Should I know who these people are? Probably. The guy is Colonel Parker and he works at KFC, or something. O, and the girl is Sherri. I definitely should've known who she was. Was she in ECW or something like that? Scotty has a great mullet here. Crowd is really against Harlem Heat here, probably because they're a bunch of racists. They start revving their motorcycles, of which there are 25,000, apparently. They stand around for 5 minutes or so until the match finally starts, but the heels bail quickly. Heat's female manager seems likely to be a transsexual with the manly yelling. There's a sequence of what you'd probably consider typical tag wrestling of this time period, but what is typical, really? Anyway, it's a good match thus far. Heenan: I can't tell the Steiners apart. Tony: Well, one has a mustache. I chuckled. Hot tag gets Scotty into the match, Colonel Parker interferes with some Talcum Powder and a cane, allowing Bookah to get the pin.
Rating: 8.5/10. Pretty sweet match here. Probably better than any WWE tag match we've seen in quite awhile. Scotty looked great here, both in the ring and with his hair, and the ending wasn't bad at all.
US Title Match - Ric Flair v. Eddy Guerrero
Eddy has an extremely dirty looking mustache and strange choice of a haircut. It appears this is being built up as the biggest match of Eddy's career. Starting to get dark now, in case you care. O ya, Flair in the champ here as well, which seems to makes sense. He's the Nature Boy. WOOOOOO! Can't see the white trash as clearly in the crowd anymore. The lights around the ring don't seem to be working so well, so it's actually quite dark in the ring. Odd, to say the least. Eddy controls most of the match, until Flair kicks him square in the testicles. That was not pleasant. Eddy takes control again though, as Flair's hardly got any offense in. In a disgusting move, Eddy tries to grab the tights while pinning Flair, revealing a rather saggy, white pair of butt cheeks in the process. Ewwww. Flair gets on the Figure Four and gets Woman to pull his arms for leverage, with the likely ******ed ref not bothering to look 3 feet to his left. Flair actually wins by pinfall as Eddy simply lays on his back.
Rating: 7.5/10. Kind of a weird match here. Odd contrast of styles, but I think it worked out in the end. Probably made sense for Flair to win as I'm guessing he was considerably higher on the card than Eddy here. In the end, solid stuff.
Interview with Hart and Giant. Hart has a tie with a picture of himself and Giant on it. Cool. Giant talks about how Hogan betrayed him and everyone and blah blah blah. He's quite the screamer, if I do say so myself.
Outsiders v. Sting and Luger
Sting is dressed like a bicurious circus performer for some reason. Heenan has alligator shoes on. Thanks for that. The match starts, but we talk about Randy Savage for awhile. It seems he is not to pleased with Mr. Hogan. Hall goes to his corner to talk strategy and Nash whispers sweet nothings into his ear. I tell you, these two had great chemistry. In fact, they have great chemistry, considering they're the current TNA Tag Team Champions. In fact, 3 of the 4 members of this match were featured on TNA's PPV and the guy in the main event is more or less the focus of their show. That's not a good sign. Apparently there are no rules here. In case you didn't know, Sting is way over. Dusty is talking about the guy that's in the "sea of heads" that's going to join the nWo or something. About the 81st time he's said "sea of heads" thus far. Sting falls directly on Nash's genitals for some reason. Hot tag. Luger is on fire, obviously. The weakest looking closeline ever sends Hall down. Nick Patrick is accidentally hit in the eye, causing him to chop block Luger and make the quick count of the finish. Why isn't there as much made of the 4th man as there is of the third?
Rating: 7.5/10. Pretty good tag team match, actually. The crowd actually cared about it, which is always good. It also gave momentum to this New World Order thing, which I reckon might be big one day.
WCW World Title Match - Hulk Hogan v. The Giant
Hogan is still getting some pretty big cheers here. Not surprising considering he's Hulk freakin' Hogan, bitch. The Giant looks surprisingly like Big Show, but with long hair. That's just strange. Does anyone else think they look a lot alike? Really, they must be cousins, or something. They wonder why Hogan won't get in the ring to start the match. Maybe cause there's a freakin' Giant in the ring. Giant's ass cheeks are far too prevalent here. Here's how the first 6 or 7 minutes go: one move from the Giant, Hogan bails out and walks around for awhile. Rinse and repeat. Riveting stuff. It's followed up by an even more riveting test of strength. That was the riventingest thing I've ever seen. Scratch that, this nerve hold type maneuver from Hogan is pretty riveting. I'd say this has been what you'd expect a match between a young Giant and Hogan to be like, but I don't know your expectations, so I can't really say. Let's just say it's not a wrestling clinic. Dusty is talking about Rey Mysterio for no apparent reason now. The Giant Hulking Up is just awesome. About 100 times better than Abyss Hulking Up. Here's Hall, just in time for Giant to hit a shitting Chokeslam on him. Nash gets one as well. Here's Hogan from behind though with the belt, and he's your new champion.
Rating: 6/10. Wrestling wise, not very good I suppose. However, it was pretty entertaining, compared to most matches, and it really meant something. It's the beginning of the New World Order. Need I say more?
After the match, here's the Booty Man with an nWo shirt and a cake. Apparently it's Hulk's birthday. Hogan on the mic now. He loves Booty Man now. Wow, a cake will do a lot for you, won't it? He talks about Flair and Arn Anderson for awhile now. Hall, Nash, and Hogan turn on Booty Man now. Not surprising considering he's the Booty Man. They spray paint the belts, and that's it, brother.
Overall: C+ Above average, actually. At first glance, you wouldn't think a PPV held at an outdoor motorcyle rally would be very good, but you'd be wrong. You had about 4 really good matches with Steiners/Harlem Heat being the best of the bunch, but really, you could have chosen any of them as your personal fav. Main event wasn't bad and the nWo was just beginning to kick ass here. Literally never heard of this before. It appears to be a forgotten gem, or at least a forgotten decent, umm, shiny rock.