I promised a twofer after this weeks special review. Here I am to rock you like a hurricane, and get the schedule back on track. I do have one question though.If the 16th Wrestlemania was called Wrestlemania 2000 what are they gonna do 1,969 years from now?
Superbrawl VII (Cow Palace)
WCW United States Heavyweight Championship
WCW United States Heavyweight Champion Eddy Guerrero vs Chris Jericho
Fall Brawl 1997 (Lawrence Joel Coliseum)
WCW Cruiserweight Championship
WCW Cruiserweight Champion Chris Jericho vs Eddy Guerrero
Raw 4/3/00 (Staples Center)
World Wrestling Federation European Championship
WWF European Champion Chris Jericho (w/Chyna) vs Eddie Guerrero
Raw 4/10/00 (National Car Rental Center)
World Wrestling Federation European Championship
WWF European Champion Eddie Guerrero (w/Chyna) vs Chris Jericho
Insurrextion 2000 (Earls Court)
World Wrestling Federation European Championship
WWF European Champion Eddie Guerrero (w/Chyna) vs WWF Intercontinental Champion Chris Jericho
It would be easy to just copy and paste our previous review of Chris Jericho’s matches with Kurt Angle. All the way down to a fairly dreary match in England. Well except for the Sharknado stuff. The same problems and same sense of wasted potential permeates throughout these matches as well. To the point where this is a hard nut to crack. How do you avoid just repeating yourself when the situation is so eerily similar? Digging down into the foundation of the thing it is hard to detect just what the prevailing issue here is. Time is not the issue. The most purely entertaining of these matches is less than 6 minutes long.
The match where Guerrero beat Jericho for the European Title the night after Wrestlemania 2000 is a super breeze to watch especially since it was the birth of Latino Heat and Mamacita which somehow made Chyna fun to watch. Continuing down that path character is not the problem either.
Their match for the WCW US Title features both men as total white bread babyfaces in front of a rough crowd and they produced a much better match than they would 6 months later with Eddy in his sleazy heel phase in front of a hot crowd with an extra 5 minutes to work with. So that’s not it either. They’d both wrestled all over the world for years so it wasn’t an experience issue. Honestly I can’t put a finger on it.
As for the UK only ppv the easy conclusion to come to after watching a bunch of matches from those shows is that after the first one that featured Bret vs Taker and Shawn vs Bulldog the wrestlers just started treating it like a house show. That one it is easy to just write off. As it would be the second Raw match seeing as it was a less interesting clone of the match from the week before. It is really the WCW matches that are head scratching in the end then. WCW was famous for having amazing undercard matches at the time therefore it is not an environment issue. Hate to build this up so much and have no conclusion for you.
Hey wait a second. Build up? Hmmm…. maybe that’s the issue. Maybe the matches had a meandering nature until not so smoothly transitioning into all the big moves at the finish. Maybe. Maaaaaaaa…….frog splash.
Results and Ratings
Superbrawl VII
WCW United States Heavyweight Champion Eddy Guerrero defeated Chris Jericho via pinfall at 12:04 with a Sunset Flip. Eddy Guerrero retained the WCW United States Heavyweight Championship. (Star Rating: ***1/2)
Fall Brawl 1997
Eddy Guerrero defeated WCW Cruiserweight Champion Chris Jericho via pinfall at 17:20 with the Frog Splash. Eddy Guerrero won the WCW Cruiserweight Championship. (Star Rating: **3/4)
Raw 4/3/00
Eddie Guerrero defeated WWF European Champion Chris Jericho via pinfall at 5:38 after Chyna attacked Jericho. Eddie Guerrero won the World Wrestling Federation European Championship (Star Rating: **1/2)
Raw 4/10/00
WWF European Champion Eddie Guerrero defeated Chris Jericho via pinfall at 5:19 after Chyna interfered. Eddie Guerrero retained the World Wrestling Federation European Championship (Star Rating: *)
Insurrextion 2000
WWF European Champion Eddie Guerrero defeated WWF Intercontinental Champion Chris Jericho via pinfall at 11:57 with a belt shot. Eddie Guerrero retained the World Wrestling Federation European Championship (Star Rating: **)
Average Rating: **1/4
Back on track. Speaking of said track we will stay on the trail of a great series of Chris Jericho matches like Inspector Clouseau chasing down that swine Phantom. Next Time: Chris Jericho vs Triple H.