Shawn Michaels vs. Rob Van Dam Vs. Kane vs. Booker T vs. Chris Jericho vs. Triple H - Elimination Chamber match for the World Heavyweight Championship - Survivor Series (2002)
Whether or not you are watching Elimination Chamber, or No Escape as it's called in Germany, here is look back at the very first Elimination Chamber match from 2002.
The match includes HBK's hella god awful "returning after four years" ring gear, RVD destroying Triple H's throat from the first "top of the pod" shot ever performed, and an overall good first Elimination Chamber.
Lance Storm vs. Booker T - WCW Heavyweight title match - Monday Nitro (2000)
Lance Storm takes on the WCW Heavyweight champ, Booker T in hopes to become a four title champion.
Storm at the time held the WCW Crusierweight title (which he renamed the 100 kg and Under title), the WCW United States Heavyweight title (renamed the Canadian Heavyweight title), and the WCW Hardcore title (renamed the Saskatchewan Hardcore International title AKA S.H.I.T.) - all he needed was the Heavyweight title and, after less than a year into WCW, the Canadian native would have had possession of all the singles titles in the company.
Despite this match being mostly a warm-up for Booker T as he headed into the New Blood Rising PPV to defend the title against Jeff Jarrett, this is still a pretty good match and far better than said match with Jeff Jarrett that summer.
The story behind this ill-advised match between Booker T and a larger-than-I-remembered Ahmed Johnson was that Stevie Ray, Booker's brother and long-time tag team partner, decided to turn his back on his own flesh and blood. Apparently Stevie Ray felt that Booker T wasn't the man that he used be and a bigger, fatter version of the Harlem Heat - Harlem Heat 2000 - had to be created.
Along with introducing his new tag team partner, Big T (Ahmed Johnson, now 300 pounds), Stevie Ray also introduced J. Biggs (Clarence Mason from the Nation of Domination) as Harlem Heat's new lawyer. Mr. Biggs then used his lawyer magic to get the T in Booker T removed since Big T was the only one aloud to use a single T in his name. Along with Booker's T, he also lost his entrance music and the rights to Harlem Heat.
Soon though, Booker T - now just "Booker" - got a chance to win it all back in the match above against Big T at the 10th Anniversary of SuperBrawl. And while Booker looked to be getting his T back in no time, all of a sudden the lights go out in the arena and when the lights kick back on, is this even bigger guy than Ahmed Johnson standing there on the apron . At first, it looks like it's Mabel - seeing as the lights went out for that big man a year or so before this in the WWF when he made his transformation into Viscera, but nope. Turns out it was just a really big guy no one had ever seen before.
Or had we?
The man we see become the third member of this huge new Harlem Heat revamp was also that ridiculously huge chested man (who was never used) in the No Limit Soldiers, another poor angle that WCW felt was necessary to cram down our throats.
The aftermath to this match is pretty awful as well; from what I know, Booker never got his T back and Harlem Heat with all their potential and beef to them never went anywhere (no shocker there). Booker later would join the Misfits in Action (MIA) as "GI Bro" just long enough for people to forget about Harlem Heat 2000 so he could return as Booker T again and get his long overdue push before WCW went bankrupt.
This angle and match wouldn't have been that bad by itself but then Mark Madden, the worst wrestling commentator of all time (Mike Adamle doesn't count since he knew nothing about wrestling), decides that he'll mention that he once lived in Harlem with Stevie Ray and Booker T along with the legendary black civil rights activist, Malcolm X who was assassinated in 1964. Yeah...
Harlem Heat vs. The Nasty Boyz - WCW Uncensored (1995)
WCW's Uncensored PPV was a lot like WWE's Extreme Rules PPV today; there was no blood, it wasn't extreme, and most of the time it was a big mess.
This falls count anywhere tornado tag team match between The Nasty Boyz and Harlem Heat along with Sherri, is one of the messiest matches in WCW history. Messy meaning like literal messy...
Like food fight messy.
This match starts out as any tag team match with no illegal man or tagging in would, but as soon as the fight is brought outside the ring and eventually to the concession stands, things get a little "uncensored". WCW's idea of uncensored at the time though was to see how much damage two teams could do to food, lemonade stands, and themselves.
Overall reaction to the match: This match is somewhat reminiscent of the concession stand matches that wrestling companies would have back in the territory days... because, you know, who wouldn't want to see a bunch of grown men beat each other with funnel cakes, cotton candy, stale pretzels, and mustard? Truthfully I actually had an action figure playset that revolved around this kind of activity... but that is neither here nor there. What is here is one hell of a messy match. At one point, the 'concession area' starts to get very slippery after some type of liquid is spilled on the ground and begins to wreak havoc on the two teams as well as Sherri who actually takes some pretty painful bumps as she - along with the everybody else - can barely stand or move around without slipping.
Then the match just ends.
Things get so disorganized that the camera misses Brian Knobbs pick up a pin fall on Booker in either the pop corn or funnel cakes area!
Despite all this, along with Stevie Ray almost pulling his groin multiple times and HH's uniforms getting so trashed they could never be worn again, this match was awarded runner-up match of the year in 1995 by Pro Wrestling Illustrated... the punchline to this whole ordeal!
Here's something interesting, a wCw match taking place on Raw.
This World Heavyweight title main event didn't just happen on Raw because Nitro was full that night. No, at this point in 2001, WCW and all of its talent (the ones still around) was now owner by Vince McMahon who could do whatever he wanted with it. So, before doing away with the WCW name all together and calling the wrestlers still around "The Invasion", or later, "The Alliance" as talent still lingering for pay with ECW and WWF Benedict Arnolds started joining in, it looked like WCW was going to have its own brand inside Raw. At least that's what they made it out be one night in July with Booker T, the current WCW World Heavyweight champion taking on Buff Bagwell in his only appearance on Raw.
To think, if this match didn't get booed out of the building, would we have seen WCW become a brand just like ECW did years later? Ehh, maybe - but probably not. Brands hadn't really been thought up at this point in WWF and I don't think McMahon wanted to give these wrestlers (he had acquired from the AOL Time Warner Buy-out) their own show every week. No TV network wanted that, that's for sure. The whole situation was sort of reminiscent of when WCW decided NWO should be its own separate thing; Thus creating WCW/NWO Revenge (the N64 game) and Souled Out, a PPV originally conceived as an NWO-only event with WCW wrestlers as challengers.
Overall impression of the match: I remember this happening very well actually. At the time, I was a huge WWF mark and seeing WCW talent coming in and having their own wCw logo and apron on the ring really gave me the frights! I mean, I really thought that WCW was going to somehow take over big and powerful WWF and I would have to put up with more of their crap that they tried pulling out of their ass like they did in 2000-2001.
WCW was done. With that being said, I don't think I watched this match the first time it aired - but I did stay tuned for the end when Kurt Angle and Stone Cold Steve Austin (who would later jump ship and join The Alliance themselves) attacked Booker to end this match and the fans misery. No wait! scratch that, I didn't! I think the last thing I remember from this Raw was Austin kicking Bagwell out of the building (literally) while my past self cheered for the fact that I'd never have to see Buffman - I mean Buff Bagwell - or his mom on TV ever again.
Also, Arn Anderson and Scott Hudson make one boring commentating team. That and this match was pretty much doomed from the beginning. Boring, un-WWF, not main event level wrestler, and an all around poor attempt to convince anyone that a WCW reincarnation in the WWF could ever exist.
