WCW WARGAMES 2000: Russo's Revenge
(Nitro 9/4/2000)
WarGames is a WCW match that people remember fondly and have been clamoring for it to return to WWE TV ever since WCW closed in 2001. It was the inspiration for the modern day WWE Elimination Chamber. When people think back about WCW WarGames, they typically recall the matchups from late 80's NWA or early 90's WCW with Ric Flair, Sting, Dusty Rhodes, etc
... Did you know that WCW had a WarGames match as late as September 2000? ... & it all revolved around everyone's favorite Writer/Producer... Vince Russo
We kick things off with a WCW Tag Team Championship match between the 'Dark Carnival', here represented by the ICP, taking on the Filthy Animals. Quick start to this matchup with some flying offense from Rey Mysterio Jr. and Juventud Guerrera.
Konnan and Disco jump on commentary and begin to bury Violent J about his weight. In relatively quick fashion (three minutes), the Filthy Animals retain the WCW Tag Belts.
Not even 5 seconds after the win, WCW shifts to the backstage for an interview with Lance Storm. Major Gunns is being ran to death on the treadmill by Storm and Elix Skipper to prove she is worthy of being a Canadian. These 'Canadian' Bootcamp drills continue throughout the night even after Major Gunns says she doesn't want to be a Canadian. The buildup ends with M.I.A. jumping Storm & Skipper in a pool for abusing poor Major Gunns.
not a bad sight though...
WCW continues to promote the WCW Fall Brawl main event with Kevin Nash (c) vs. Booker T, all the while we have an 8-Man (turns into a 9-Man...and then 12?) WCW World Title Match tonight - WarGames 2000: Russo's Revenge.
Vince Russo comes out with the Triple Decker Cage already brought down. They wanted to use this cage as it had just been in the film 'Ready to Rumble' which showcased many WCW Superstars.
Vince begins to bury the Dallas Cowboys & then explains the rules to this monstrosity of a Cage Match. Rules are that it will be two teams of four competing against each other; however, to win the match one man must climb to the top of the cages and retrieve the WCW World Title and exit the cage.
Vince Russo says it will be his team, the "Babyfaces" (Vince Russo, Jeff Jarrett, Kevin Nash, and Scott Steiner) vs. the "Heels" (The Cat, Booker T., Goldberg, & Sting). However, there will be qualification matches for the "heels" so they may not make it to WCW WarGames 2000. Vince Russo says he will walk out of this as the WCW Champion because he has the
stroke...
Kevin Nash comes out to interrupt... he claims he isn't a fighting champion and will only do it as often as necessary (once a month), and Russo tells Nash that he doesn't get to choose when he defends the belt. Nash then grabs Russo only for the Stinger to come out. Nash leaves the ring and lets Sting have Russo to himself. Sting chases Russo up a ladder in the ring to the 2nd tier cage only for the "Babyfaces" and the Natural Born Thrillers to ambush Sting inside the cage. Booker T and The Cat are in pursuit to get involved as a big brawl breaks out throughout the cages all the while Sting continues his chase of the Mr. Editor, Vince Russo. The chaos enables Russo to escape his own creation only for him to get up the ramp to where Goldberg is waiting for him. Russo scurries to the backstage, and is able to escape without harm as we go to commercial.
Ron and Don Harris come out unexpectedly and claim they have footage that the production team refuses to show and they claim they will take out all the announcers if they don't show their home video. Footage is then shown of Harris Bros. taking out KroniK with some pool cues at a bar. This was an attempt to embarrass KroniK, which ends up getting KroniK all fired up...No Pun Intended.
We are now ready for our first qualifier match for WCW WarGames 2000; Sting vs. Vampiro & Great Muta in a handicap match. Vampiro comes out with the JCW World Title and it is mentioned by commentary. Sting wins in a minute when Muta sprayed his mist accidentally in Vampiro's face. Mark Madden claims he should have been swallowed not spit... Yikes.
Stevie Ray is then forced to be in a match vs. his own brother, Booker T. Russo claims that Stevie will lose his announcing gig if he doesn't do it...and he should look at it as an opportunity...an opportunity for the WCW World Title, as it is a qualifier match for the WCW WarGames 2000.
Booker T takes the W after a pretty ugly two minute match; Booker T advances to WarGames 2000.
KroniK on a tirade after being laid out by the Harris Bros at a bar. Kronik takes out the Jung Dragons backstage, and then 3-Count in the ring. They proceed to call out the Harris Bros, but Jeff Jarrett is the one who responds to the challenge. Jarrett proceeds to call them "Mary-Jane Blunt Nuts'. Jarrett informs The Cat he will be forced to face KroniK to be able to qualify for WarGames.
Jarrett is still on his WWF anti-women gimmick by saying women don't belong in the ring, they belong in the kitchen & pregnant. This comes off the heels of Jarrett laying out The Cat's valet, Ms. Jones with a guitar on WCW Thunder. Kronik steam roll thru The Cat (in a minute...again) which means that Kronik will be in the WarGames 2000 match.
Next up is The Franchise vs. Goldberg which actually goes a full four minutes before Goldberg hits the jackhammer and advances to Russo's Revenge. Even with the Natural Born Thrillers coming down, Goldberg walked his way to this WCW World Title match tonight. This has been the longest matchup thus far; looks as Russo is saving the majority of in-ring time for the big main event. By qualifying for this matchup, Russo will be waiving his no-physicality clause so Goldberg will be able to finally get his hands on the man in charge, Vince Russo.
Arn Anderson is interviewed about David Flair's wedding (with Stacy Kiebler i.e. Miss Hancock) that is planned for next week's Monday Nitro.
Vito took out Vince Russo last week so continuing in the theme of Russo's Revenge, we get a 6-on-1 handicap match with members of Natural Born Thrillers taking on Vito. Vito made a remark about them all jacking off each other, after Sanders talked about them all being genetically jacked. The Natural Born Thrillers take the win in two minutes after a Sean-ton Bomb. All six members continue the beat-down on Vito after the matchup is over.
Now it is time for what we have all been waiting for (well, in theory)... WCW WarGames 2000: Russo's Revenge.
Kevin Nash, Jarrett, Steiner, Vince Russo (w/Harris Bros) vs. Kronik, Booker T, Goldberg, and Sting.
The matchup began with Jarrett vs. Sting and here is essentially how this matchup worked.
Members of each team came out every two minutes. To win, they have to climb a ladder to reach the second cage which has a mesh bottom and plenty of handcuffs around to cuff an opponent. Then after reaching the 2nd cage, they would have to climb the 3rd mini cage which has the WCW title hanging from the rafters. Once they grab the belt (sorry Kevin Owens, I meant 'title'), they then have to get back to the exit door in the 1st cage.
Scott Steiner came out next, followed by both members of KroniK coming out to give their team the advantage 3-on-2. Next up was Vince Russo, but he didn't come alone as he brought backup in the Harris Brothers. Afterwards Booker T joined the fray, followed up by Kevin Nash, and finally Bill Goldberg.
The whole 'TEAM' setup of this match would seem like a misnomer since only one man can win the WCW title, however neither team had much, if any in-fighting, other than Nash/Russo but we will get to that...
Once Kevin Nash joined the fray, he attempted to chokeslam not only Russo, but Jarrett & Scott Steiner. Steiner and Jarrett attempted to calm down Nash and Russo begged him to work as a cohesive unit. Kevin Nash said he was only concerned with one thing, keeping his WCW Championship. While the other men in this matchup attempted to climb up this huge creation, Nash stood by the doorway at the bottom waiting for whoever would attempt to win so he could stop them..
Once Goldberg joins the matchup and starts annihilating everyone, Russo lays him out with a bat and then Goldberg gets handcuffed to the ropes for quite awhile. Booker T manages to grab the WCW Title from the top of the structure, and begins to smack people with the belt all the while Mark Madden is burying him for being a 'babyface' hitting people with a title.
The Cat, who was eliminated from qualifying for this matchup earlier, runs in the cage but gets a Jackknife Power bomb courtesy of Big Sexy. In the 2nd tier cage, Steiner & Jarrett have handcuffed Sting & Booker T...but on the 1st tier cage, Goldberg breaks free of his shackles and starts tearing down Russo's team.
Goldberg is set to leave the cage with the WCW World Title only for a cameo by Bret Hart... who proceeds to jump the barricade and slam the door shut on Goldberg and then leaves thru the crowd. It is pretty visible that Bret Hart is still not all there and shouldn't have been forced to be involved in this. This was after his career ending concussion but before he was fired from WCW for being unable to fulfill his contract. He was in street clothes and did not seem like he was up for all this, which I assume is why he was on screen and gone within 20 seconds.
This was done to play up the fact that Goldberg had ended Bret Hart's career at Starrcade 1999 and this was Bret's character getting some measure of revenge.
Now it looks like Russo is going to scramble out of the cage with the WCW title...only for him to hand it over to Kevin Nash. Russo's whole team steps out of the cage together as they celebrate their swerve as they were all in cahoots the whole time. Classic Nitro Swerve.
The match was by far the longest of the night as it went almost 20 minutes. There was a lot of action here but the cage and format of the matchup constricted what they could really do within the confines of each cage. Nobody was going to bump in that 2nd tier cage with that mesh floor. When KroniK picked up Steiner in it at one point they slowly and gently dropped him on their knee rather than tempting the floor to break. Nothing here was a great match or even a good match, but if you just look at the night as one big storyline, it was a quick (REALLY quick, besides Main Event we had about 14 minutes of match-time) enjoyable watch, surprisingly enough. I'd recommend this Nitro just for the spectacle of Russo's Revenge.
(Thanks to DDT Digest for match times)
Card:
Filthy Animals (c) vs. ICP for WCW Tag Titles (3:43)
Sting vs. Vampiro & Great Muta (Qualifier) (1:09)
Booker T vs. Stevie Ray (Qualifier) (2:02)
KnoniK vs. The Cat (Qualifier) (1:20)
Franchise vs. Goldberg (Qualifier) (4:20)
Natural Born Thillers vs. Vito (2:16)
WarGames 2000 for the WCW World Title (19:12)
Until next time, BRO
