Retro 3 Things We Hated And three Things We Loved

Horrifying. Trainwreck. Disgraceful. A blight on skilled wrestling from which we’ve still not recovered from. These are among the many nicer things that might be said about WCW Uncensored 1996, one in all the worst PPV’s to return out of a promotion that, on the time, was producing a few of the worst PPV offerings in history. Naturally, when the time got here for somebody to take a stab at this show and find some things to like and hate about it, there was no higher person than the guy who previously embraced Sumo Monster Truck Madness, Jimmy Hart heel turns, AND THE YETAY!

Alas, this was a fair tougher task than WCW Halloween Havoc 1995 (one other all time stinker of a show), mainly because there have been so many things to hate on this show. Beyond this paragraph, you is not going to hear a peep concerning the likes of Colonel Robert Parker vs. Madusa or Diamond Dallas Page vs. The Booty Man, two matches that range from terrible to outright offensive. On a standard wrestling show, they might easily be amongst probably the most hated things one could find. On WCW Uncensored, they’re among the many nicer turds in the bathroom. Here now are three things from WCW Uncensored 1996 that I hated and three that I (in some way) loved.

It’s the shining light within the darkness, the hit single within the midst of an otherwise mediocre album, the Dev Patel to Uncensored 1996’s “The Last Airbender.” It is also not surprising that a match between Steven “Don’t Call Me William” Regal and the Belfast Bruiser (aka Fit Finlay) would wind up being this good; these are two of probably the most achieved wrestlers to return from Europe in any case.

But for all the great work these two did over time, including against one another, this one seems much more special, probably because the remainder of this card is so lifeless. These two just beat the ever loving tar out of one another; it’s like watching a Nineties All Japan match and even a contemporary AEW match. Just hard strikes, just a few potatoes (Bruiser legit busts Regal open hardway with a punch to the face at one point), some great grappling; absolutely spectacular stuff. This is not just an incredible match on a nasty card, this may be a winner dropped into the most effective shows.

As great as Regal vs. Bruiser is, this remains to be early 1996 WCW, and this promotion can not help but bungle the one good thing on this show. Regal has complete control of the Bruiser outside of the ring, when suddenly his stablemates, Squire Dave Taylor and Earl Robert Eaton, hit the ring to attack Bruiser from being, resulting in a disqualification. What? WHAT?! After absolutely the beating these two have placed on one another, this match has to finish with a DQ, attributable to guys interfering on behalf of the dude was winning?

This may be bad enough as is, made worse by the incontrovertible fact that it took place at a PPV called Uncensored, where there’s imagined to be no rules! I actually have seen some bad DQ finishes damage some good matches in my day, but this may occasionally take the cake for the worst of all. Not only did it mar what was the most effective match on the show, but it surely did so on a show that has almost no other redeeming qualities. I’d say I actually have no words, but I just wrote 184 words and counting on how bad that was, so clearly that is a lie. Yes, I counted the variety of words I wrote. That is how ticked off I’m!

Yes, I’m definitely grading on a curve here. This isn’t a Giant vs. Meng, “WCW Monday Nitro, September 21, 1998” esque gem, neither is it anything remotely good. Poor Loch Ness (higher referred to as Giant Haystacks for many of his profession) is just a few months shy of fifty, largely immobile, and only just a few years away from his premature death; he probably shouldn’t have even been working this match, let alone anyone expect him to do anything worthwhile.

But I cannot lie; the sight of him and Giant squaring off is pretty neat, and Giant bumps his a** off here. That moment where he goes for a corner splash and finally ends up bumping all of the strategy to the ground? Perfection. Magnificence. BEAUTY! How are you going to not appreciate that kind of effort here? That moment, the novelty of those two big guys going at it, and the incontrovertible fact that the match was shorter than Judas Priest’s classic “Breaking the Law” is sufficient to make this match a winner.

This truthfully could also be amongst my least favorite matches of all time, at the least regarding matches that are not the dirt worst. This isn’t a nasty match; in reality, there’s an argument to make that it is the second best match on the show. Nevertheless it doesn’t matter because this match is just so freaking long. It is so long that I’m not entirely convinced that it’s actually ended! In total, this Chicago Street Fight went 20 minutes and 33 seconds, the longest match on this PPV, even beating out the atrocity that followed it.

Why did it go this long? I do not know. I suppose possibly the thought was “there is no way Sting, Booker T, Animal and Hawk can have a nasty match, irrespective of how long or short it’s.” WRONG! I can not even really blame the fellows either, because they do work hard and there is the skeleton of a fun match here. The issue is that fun match would’ve been between 15 and 18 minutes, and as a substitute it’s half an hour of comparable spots, long stretches of tedium, and cameos from Lex Luger and Stevie Ray. A terrible match? No. A disappointing match? Absolutely. And on a card that needed something, this going too long and disappointing is sufficient to make it stand out greater than DDP losing to [Bryan Alvarez voice] THE BOOTY…MAN. I actually have to maneuver on now before I query my life decisions.

If nothing else, Uncensored 1996 proves there was no smarter man in wrestling than Brian Pillman. The Loose Cannon was in the midst of his Loose Cannon storyline on the time, having even made appearances in ECW where he trashed Eric Bischoff a month prior. Nevertheless, there’s some evidence that Pillman was imagined to be a part of this match as a member of the Alliance to End Hulkamania, most notably in Tony Schiavone saying he’s within the match after which pondering just where Pillman was when he didn’t show up.

Was Pillman actually booked, and avoided the match because he got wind that Hogan desired to beat him to squash his momentum? Did Schiavone make a mistake? Did Eric Bischoff, feeding lines into Schiavone’s ear, make a mistake? Who knows, and quite frankly, who cares. The one thing that matters is that Brian Pillman avoided being on this calamity, and for that, he’s a winner, and I like him for it. Well done Loose Cannon, well done.

This must be probably the most predictable Hated within the history of Wrestling Inc., right? I will be honest; it’s form of “like to hate” thing the identical way the Monster Truck Match AND THE YETAY were for me at Halloween Havoc 1995. This is really among the many top tier of “so bad it’s good” wrestling matches, where it is so silly and so nonsensical that you may’t help but laugh. Frankly, I’m still undecided what happened here. There have been three cages stacked on top of one another, and it seems the concept was that Hogan and Savage’s strategy to victory was to work their way down the three cages (featuring various members of The Alliance to End Hulkamania in them) till they escaped and won the match.

Here’s the thing; none of that played out that way once Hogan and Savage escaped the primary cage (where Ric Flair and Arn Anderson were, because only WCW would put their best staff in the primary cage and leave all their worst in the opposite cages!). As an alternative, we’ve everyone within the match leaving the cages altogether to go fight within the ring (by the way in which, did I mention this cage structure was arrange on the entranceway and never within the ring? No. OOPS!), only for everybody to return to the cage after which fight till Savage pinned Flair following a Lex Luger punch to Flair that was either deliberately turning Luger face or a mistimed botch. Not less than I feel that is what happened; it’s possible this match fried my brain to the purpose that nothing is sensible anymore. Regardless of the case, this was brutal. It’s easily one in all the worst matches ever, one in all the funniest matches ever, and, thankfully, the death nail in the primary incarnation of Hulk Hogan. Notice how he’s slowly phased out after this match prior to coming back with the nWo in the summertime? I’d wish to think this match was the one which made WCW go “this is not working, let’s try something latest.” Sometimes it takes the worst of the worst to get you to see you’ll want to go in one other direction.