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(More customer reviews)My "Blast From WCW's Past" continues here with the final Road Wild event back in 1999. Around this time, Ric Flair was no longer the WCW President & Hollywood Hogan returned to WCW & regained the WCW Championship, went back to wearing the classic red & yellow colors, left the nWo and alligned himself with Sting & Goldberg while Kevin Nash (the last remaining active member of the nWo Wolfpac) turned heel & alligned himself with Sid Vicious & Rick Steiner leading into each member of these alliances facing each other at the event with one person retiring at the end of the night. Stevie Ray left the black & white nWo (eventually leading to the end of that group) to rejoin his brother Booker T to reform Harlem Heat. And Dennis Rodman returned to WCW interested in Randy Savage's valet, Gorgeous George. Also Shane Douglas arrived to WCW & helped form the Revolution group with his former ECW alumni in Chris Benoit, Dean Malenko, and Perry Saturn. And as a side note, this was the last PPV of the Eric Bischoff era of WCW since he would be removed from power right before the Fall Brawl PPV.
Rey Mysterio Jr., Billy Kidman, Eddie Guerrero vs. Vampiro & Insane Clown Posse - The group that would go on to be known as the Filthy Animals go against the group known as the Deadpool. This was a fun opening match as the Filthy Animals always deliver while Vampiro was coming into his own at this point in WCW, I.C.P. weren't slouches either, and Raven playing mind games on the outside. Good opening match and as a side note, this was the last WCW PPV appearence of Raven as he would jump to ECW a short time later.
WCW Tag Team Champions Triad vs. Harlem Heat - Unlike the previous tag team matches where the Triad used the "Freebird" rule where any two members of the group could be active in the match at anytime, DDP was scheduled for another match later in the night so he wasn't available for this match so this was a regular tag team rules match. This was a nice back & forth match that saw DDP's appearence backfire & help Harlem Heat regain the WCW Tag Team Titles they lost 3 years earlier.
The Revolution vs. West Texas Rednecks - Unfortunally, since this was an old VHS tape...the tape was extremely dirty & eaten so I can't comment on this match.
Buff Bagwell vs. Ernest Miller - See above.
No Disqualification Match: WCW United States Champion Chris Benoit vs. Diamond Dallas Page - This feud revolved about Page talking about Benoit's mother? This was a real physical bout as Benoit is as intense as it gets while DDP was heavily in his prime during his WCW run. The "No DQ" rule came into play at various time by Page like shoving the referee around, using a belt as a weapon, and DDP's Triad members getting involved before Benoit overall all odds alone to retain the United States Championship.
Sting vs. Sid Vicious - Sting started off by taking Sid on the outside & over the guardrails before the match got back in the ring where Sid regained his momentum & dominated with his power offense. Sting got a shot here & there but only to eventually overpowered straight to victory. This was just Sting being a body for Sid to get over on in this average match.
Goldberg vs. Rick Steiner - They started off right off the bat punching & kicking each other before Steiner dominated by using Goldberg's own kneebrace against him before Goldberg made his spear/jackhammer comeback for the victory. The match was short & watchable but nothing special.
Dennis Rodman vs. Randy Savage - Rodman started the match off wild & remained that way as both men knocked out various people like referees (four of them) & cameramen along with brawling on the outside, up the ramp onto the entranceway, and even tipping over a portable toilet backstage. George appeared & helped Savage get the win in this was a wild match. As a side note, Savage promised that the driver of the mysterious white Hummer that kept appearing throughout WCW would be bodyguarding George...but you never saw him.
Retirement Match: WCW Champion Hulk Hogan vs. Kevin Nash - If anyone watched the WWE Confidential piece on WCW, you'll remember that Booker T said that, "wrestlers had no intention of "bringing the house down" & just walked through the matches to make sure they got to the bar on time." That quote perfectly described this match. For a main event match in which your fighting for your career, they never left first gear & the entire match just seemed dull. Despite a couple of "Hogan" chants far between, it was dead quiet during this match. Something huge was missing here as the guys just seemed to walk through this match & it was a real bad way to end the show.
In the end, the opening match along with the matches involving the Triad members delivered along with Randy Savage & Dennis Rodman had a wild entertaining brawl but the rest of the card however was watchable to average. This is one PPV I would check out if you have some spare cash to spend or if this is at a real low price.
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