Welcome Ringers to another "Was It Really That Bad?" Review with the guy who invented the internet, shower sex, and sliced bread, Speed on the Beat. Today, we're going back into the an(n)als of WCW and going over one of the worst WCW PPVs of all-time (outside of Halloween Havoc 95 or 2001 WCW, because too easy), Uncensored 1995, live from Tupelo, Mississippi. True did a review on this PPV in 2013 (H/T WrestlingHeels), but I figured I'd add my own polish to this potential turd.
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| Shit. Just. Got. Real(ly Stupid). |
Much ballyhoo (and pyro) were made of this event, which was the first of its kind (per WCW). It featured matches that were raw, unsanctioned, uncut, unruly, and (of course) uncensored And, no, you can't blame Vince Russo for this one. He was still with WWF at the time as Vic Venom. This is the event that was billed as having the Ultimate Surprise (aside from the surprise that no belts were on the line in these ludicrous matches).
Will that surprise be that I actually deem this PPV to not be as shit as it's been considered? Will Speed...break bad and say it was actually good? Find out.
Our first match, and sign of the sheer moronic dreck that was about to ensue, was the infamous King of the Road match between Dustin Rhodes and Blacktop Bully.
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| I still have a hard time believing they thought this was a good idea. |
This match, had it had a '70s funk soundtrack, could've been featured in the unspoken spinoff to CHiPs, HiCKs with its crazy action, insane camera angles, and HELICOPTER SHOTS! Seriously, is this what WCW thought of its audience's collective intelligence, that we'd want to see people romp around in hay trying to blow an 18-wheeler horn? If I wanted to see romps in the hay, I'd just renew my subscription to FarmHoesandCocks.com (I'm sure there's a porno site out there, somewhere, with a similar name). Between this PPV and Halloween Havoc 1995, I'm sure that WCW probably could've used the money spent on this drivel on, oh, I don't know, most of the WWE locker room in 2014. Maybe I'm exaggerating, but WCW didn't give a crap, so why should I? This match goes on for about 20 minutes, with both men blading (resulting in their terminations), being tossed around on a "local" highway, and more. Blacktop Bully gets the win, if you can really call it that.
Now, Blacktop Bully has had the (mis)fortune of sticking in wrestling so long, he's had many, many, many gimmicks. On top of being Smash, he's been The Repo Man, Stewart Pain, Krusher Khruschev, and others that I am probably forgetting (with good reason). Dustin Rhodes, of course, became Goldust and has had more awkward sexual moments than a female fluffer working with someone with two inches of hard dick.
We get promos from Arn Anderson, Col. Parker, and
First, how the hell are you going to have a "sanctioned" Martial Arts match during a PPV called Uncensored? Second, how the hell do you expect Jim Duggan to do Martial Arts. He can barely do wrestling. Ok, maybe I'm being a bit too harsh about Duggan. The guy's a legend. But, technical wrestling was never his strong suit. So, to put him in a "Martial Arts" match with Meng just screams "oh, hey we didn't know what to do with this, so we figured we'd give these Mississippians some good ol' fashioned USA asskicking because AMURRRICA"
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| It's all good until a group of white supremacists shoot you in the head. |
But, here's the problem that (and the reasoning for the "My name is ASAC Schrader and you can go fuck yourself" screencap): With all the USA asskicking that was supposed to ensue, Duggan lost. And he lost kind of cleanly. He did all that rah-rah against the "sneaky foreigner" with a head of steel who looks "Asian enough" to know some sort of Martial Arts" (wrestling xenophobia FTW). But, he still ended up catching the L, rather convincingly. But, at least he never compromised who he was (an AMURRRICAN), I guess?
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| Seriously, why the hell are the "foreigners" usually booked to be so hard-headed in 1980s and 1990s wrestling? |
How many matches do we have left, five? Oh, boy, I'm gonna need some shots to get through this. And it's only the second match.
Up next, we have EOTR's favorite blackfaced bastard Johnny B. Badd going up against Arn Anderson in a Boxer versus Wrestler match. Ok, so asinine gimmicks are the flavor of today. I got it. Cool. And then I look at the rules.
"Johnny B. Badd can only punch and win by ten-count knockout. Arn Anderson can only wrestle...AND punch, but win by pin or submission."
If the Brawl for All taught me anything, it's that boxing and wrestling never mix.
I like Arn Anderson, I think he's an underrated talent. However, this match was just...no. It went on for four rounds (approximately fifteen minutes, with rest spots). And by the end of the second round, Arn was just like "screw it, I'm gonna just beat your ass during the 'rest period,' since this is Uncensored, after all." At the beginning of the fourth round, Johnny B. Badd's manager puts a spit/ice bucket on Arn's head and gives him the OG Ice Bucket Challenge: getting clocked in the face with a bucket on your head. JBB wins and not a single damn was given.
Next up, we have Avalanche (aka Earthquake before this and Golga after this) going up against Randy Savage. All 11:44 of this match was built up for one thing: Ricki Flair popping out of the stands in drag to attack Savage, causing Savage to win by DQ.
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| He even had eye shadow. I can't lie, that's dedication. Woooooo! |
In an "unsanctioned, uncensored" PPV, you have a DQ. I'm having a hard time not laughing my ass off at the absurdity.
Big Bubba Rogers (a/k/a Big Bossman) and Sting are up next. If one of the spots in your match is your face giving your heel's pork pie hat the stinkface, you've got problems. Where the hell is Walter White with some Blue Sky when you need him? I feel like I'm going to have to be high to watch the rest of this, along with drunk. The match itself wasn't bad, just points in it made me want to shoot myself. When you combine that with the rest of the card so far, you get this:
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| Oh, how I wish to be on the other side of that gun right now. |
We get a promo from Harlem Heat and Sister (or is it Sistah?) Sherri hyping their match against the Nasty Boys. The promo was amazing (Stevie Ray is underrated on the mic), but all I've gotta say about this match is this: Dean Ambrose wasn't the first guy to take the fight to the concessions and look like a damn fool. Seriously, in a Falls-Count-Anywhere Texas Tornado Tag Match between the Nasty Boys and Harlem Heat, we get people in the stands squirting mustard at each other? So, in lieu of more bitching about this match (and in order to save myself from an aneurysm), I'll share this nice boat with you all.
So, now that I'm high out of my mind on some Jesse Pinkman shit and have seen the world on my nice boat, it's time for our main event (Hogan vs. Vader in a STRAP MATCH) and our ULTIMATE SURPRISE! But, first, let's go over the absurdity that I've missed: Jimmy Hart's been missing and kidnapped by Flair's goons at an "undisclosed location" (oh noes!). But, somehow, he escapes unscathed and joins Hogan at ringside during the match (yay wrestling logic).
Anyway, the music cues up. And, it's a bastardized version of Ultimate Warrior's theme. Since this is WCW, many themes seemed to be a riff of either a WWF theme, a famous non-wrestling song (Hi "Self High-Five"), or somewhere in the middle to avoid being sued or something (even if Dave Grohl apparently got pissed about it). So, that's expected.
We then have a man run out with tassels and face paint, and WCW hopeful hope and pray that this man is the true Ultimate Surprise, the "rebirth" of the Ultimate Warrior (since, you know, he was rumored to have died in 1994. Kind of tasteless, looking back, but it was a theory which was popular). Instead of the late great Warrior (nee Jim Hellwig), we get this:
We then have a man run out with tassels and face paint, and WCW hopeful hope and pray that this man is the true Ultimate Surprise, the "rebirth" of the Ultimate Warrior (since, you know, he was rumored to have died in 1994. Kind of tasteless, looking back, but it was a theory which was popular). Instead of the late great Warrior (nee Jim Hellwig), we get this:
We get a man in what looks like Ryback's prototypical trunks with the letter "R" facepainted all over him running around like Warrior, except he lacked everything that made Warrior awesome. The crowd died at this. The match that followed could've been a five-star match and not a single fuck would've been given. The stupidity of WCW trying to pass this guy off as Warrior (even for a couple moments) is beyond me. Now Renegade, in his own right, he wasn't that trash. But, he wasn't Warrior (nor should he have tried to be).
The match devolves even further with a masked man coming out to beat down Renegade (it really seems like WCW did a lot of these masked men angles in the '90s. It's almost like the "FIRED!"/rehashing of Vince versus SCSA angles in more recent WWE). Flair hops in the ring and Hogan drags him to all four corners. Despite Flair not being the legal man, Hogan wins (LOL). Afterwards, we get a bit of a schmozz, Randy Savage in another mask comes down and sides with Hulk and company (ugh), who then reveal the first masked man to be Arn Anderson. Cue dramatic stings (maybe) and end show.
Final Verdict:
Do we even need to ask was this PPV really that bad?
This PPV was the equivalent of working for Gus Fring. It has a promising premise. But, by the end, you're thinking of ways to kill your boss (or WWE Network content uploaders). So, that about does it for me. Be sure to keep your eyes on the ring and...remember our name.
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