WCW Super Slow-Down (Australia House Show)

So World Championship Wrestling has made their long-awaited return to Australia and they've gone with the successful formula of young, talented guys in the undercard while the main event comprises two old guys who can't wrestle a lick worth a damn and has to resort to smoke and mirrors to put on a "compelling" main event.

Yep, sounds like a WCW show to me.

My attention was largely fleeting for this one since this is just background noise for the sake of background noise... but I did watch a good chunk of the show when it was interesting, so you'll have some thoughts in some places while in other places, I'll be brief.




Smackdown Tag-Team Champions The New Day defeated The Bar to retain the titles. So awfully nice of WWE to loan their tag-team champions over to WCW for this special occasion; we truly are in a new era of wrestling. This was alright; a perfectly acceptable tag-team wrestling match. No real complaints, but no real excitement as I wonder what team New Day will face next.

Baby Flair defeated Smackdown Women's Champion Becky Lynch via DQ when Becky hit Flair with the title belt. Baby Flair attacks Becky, only to get suplexed into the barricade. This was okay, I suppose. Kinda cheap finish to do the match again on Smackdown, but this is a WCW show. I wouldn't have expected anything less.

Bobby Lashley and John Cena defeated Elias and Kevin Owens in what can be categorically described as a handicap match, with Lashley doing most of the work and only tagging in Cena towards the end so that the 16-time WWE Champion can get his shit in and #CenaWinsLOL or whatever the fuck the cool kids call it. Cena had more hair in this match and looked a lot slimmer than usual; it's actually a good look for him. Oh, and Cena debuted a "new" move; a punch to the face. Well, Roman has the Aquaman Punch, so might as well give Cena some kind of punch finish.

Next we have some Australian locals taking on some other foreign ladies... while this match took place, I was going through some footage for the next review. After a couple minutes, the local Aussie team won... quite a change of pace here. Usually the hometown talent take the fall because WCW.

WWE World Heavyweight Champion AJ Styles defeated Samoa Joe via submission to retain the title. And yes, I did watch this because it's AJ Styles and Samoa Joe; two guys who know each other so well and yes, this was a very good match. There were no countouts, there were no DQs, and yes, there was a winner... you know, like the last time these two had a match. But the difference is that this match was just BETTER. So if this is where the feud ends, then it's a hell of a note to close it on. Now what happens with Joe is... another story and I hope he bounces back better than before.

Another tag match with women in it... and it's got the Bella Twins and that other girl. Did not pay any attention to it.

Buddy Murphy defeated WCW Cruiserweight Champion Cedric Alexander to win the title. Not much to say about this one; it was a thing that happened. Standard cruiserweight fare that sated that niche and did a fine job of it. Also, it's nice to see at least ONE title change hands on this show, even if it ends up being a temporary arrangement and Cedric wins it back at some later point.

The Shield defeated three jabronies who don't matter. Eh, a thing that happened.

Daniel Bryan Danielson defeated The Miz in two and a half minutes with a small package to earn himself a WWE World Heavyweight Championship title shot against AJ Styles at the Saudi Arabia show next month. So after a so-so match with a fuck finish at Summerslam and a lame tag-match with another fuck finish, we get a very short match where Bryan wins with a small package, thus making him the  King Of Small Package... that sounds lewd.

And in the main event... Triple H defeated the Undertaker and then... Undertaker attacks Hunter and we get a tease for a future tag-team match between DX and Taker and Kane and... *sigh*.

I remember watching King Of The Ring 1994 and seeing that show end with a main event between Jerry Lawler and Roddy Piper. I remember that match between two old-timers being really sad to watch. And then there was Starrcade 1996, with the main event of Roddy Piper and Hulk Hogan... and that was an even sadder sight to witness. And never mind trying to see Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair wrestling in fucking TNA circa 2010, where they are way the fuck older, way the fuck slower, and this whole escapade comes off as a complete and utter farce. I wanted to mock this thing to the high heavens, but I really couldn't. I didn't have the heart for it; I felt SORRY for these folks.

That sad, pitiful feeling was readily apparent in watching - or perhaps more accurately, attempting to watch - this main event that went WAY TOO FUCKING LONG. You had an old, damn near immobile Undertaker. You had an old, bald HHH who wants to wrestle as he did in his prime, but it just comes off as slower and plodding. You had an old, bald Shawn Michaels, who is apparently so embarrassed by his new chrome head that he needed to have his hat glued on to his head. And then there's Knox County Mayor Kane, who deserves better than to go out on this sad note.

I was not a fan of the HHH/Taker Wrestlemania matches. As a matter of fact, when I tuned in to the WWE Network one day, it was airing one of the Manias where Taker and HHH were wrestling and Shawn Michaels was the ref. And there was this one shot where both old guys were sharing what could be diplomatically described as play punches while Shawn Michaels suffers a panic attack in the corner. I watch this scene play out before my eyes and I just shake my head wondering how anybody could consider this crap good.

And now here we are again... this match was not good. It's long, plodding, lots of smokes and mirrors, lots of melodramatic moments that soured me on this thing as time went on, and when they did the ending teasing more matches of this ilk, I was just... well... I have a graphic for that thought.

I avoided watching the Undertaker/John Cena "match" at Wrestlemania 34 because I didn't need to see any more Undertaker matches at Mania... I guess now I can extend that to Undertaker matches period. Just stick with the old stuff, which varies from good to bad to holy fuck this is awful.

So this show was nothing special. I didn't miss out on much. There was probably one match that I really liked and the rest was just kinda there. I'll admit that the short Bryan/Miz match pissed me off, especially when the dinosaurs took up more time than they needed, but beyond that... eh. I'll probably forget this one in a couple days when this post gets buried in a whole bunch of sketches and cheap video thrills. So... whatever.