Road Wild 99 Review
This is the last of the 4 Sturgis events put on by WCW. The crowds were usually barely around the 5,000 mark and they never made any profit as far as gate money is concerned, and the ppv ratings were sucky aswell. One of many projects wcw crapped away money on. But there were still some good matches over the 4 year period.
Match #1
Six Man Tag Team Match
Eddie Guerrero, Rey Mysterio Jr And Kidman Vs Vampiro, The Insane Clown Poss w Raven
WCW considered giving the cruiserweight title to Shaggy 2 Dope at this time, it's really amazing when you go back and look at the ideas they were pushing. Raven in his last WCW appearance, he left shortly after this show when Bishoff offered anyone out of their contracts. Kidman and Vampiro to start, bombs Kidman then Kidman takes him down so Eddy can sprinboard in with a senton, and Rey springboards in with a legdrop. Vamp gets tossed, and back in Eddy hits him with a leg lariat and monkey-flip, but Vampiro fights back with a kick and chops away. Eddy ends up on the floor and gets beaten down by the ICP. Violent J gets a clothesline and pounds away, and Shaggy suplexes him. ICP cut off the tag and keep him in the corner. Vamp chokeslams him for two. ICP gets a doublesuplex, but Shaggy goes up, Eddy crotches him to set up a superplex. Tag Rey, and he hits J with a huricinrana for two. Raven pulls him out of the ring on the 619 tease throws him to the steps and Vampiro hits his nail in the coffin on the floor to turn the tide again. Back in, Violent J gets a sideslam for two. He stomps away and drops an elbow for two. Kneecrusher and Vampiro comes in for a powerbomb and goes after the knee. Shaggy powerslams him for two. Shaggy gets a lariat. Hot tag Kidman and it’s breaking down, Shaggy is left alone with the faces. Vamp hits his own man, and Kidman finishes Shaggy with the SSP at 12:22. Pretty good opener. 2 1/2 stars.
Match #2
Tag Team Championship Match
Kanyon And Bam Bam Bigelow Vs Harlem Heat
with the NWO fizzled out, Stevie Ray has been sent back along with Booker to the tag division for a few months. DDP has a match with Benoit later so he's not here and Kanyon and Bigelow will defend the belts. Brawl to start and Kanyon gets dumped by Stevie, and Bigelow is doubleteamed out of the ring as a result. Back in, Kanyon hammers on Stevie in the corner, but gets pressslammed and bails. Back in, Booker works the arm but caught choked, but Booker sidekicks him for two. Stevie in with Bigelow and he gets caught in the corner. Stevie fights back, but misses an elbow. Stevie slingshots Kanyon into Bigelow to come back, hot tag Booker. Spinkick for Kanyon gets two, Bigelow stops the axe kick by pulling down the top rope. Kanyon with a legdrop for two. Booker tags Stevie again, however, and he hammers away on the heels. DDP runs in to help, but heel miscommunication results in a missile dropkick that ends it at 13:08. Harlem would lose the belts a week later to the Windhams then get them back in meaningless switches that nobody cared about within months. 1 1/2 star.
Match #3
Six Man Tag Team Match
Curt Hennig, Barry Windham And Bobby Duncum Jr w Kendall Windham Vs Dean Malenko, Saturn And Shane Douglas
The Rednecks are supposed to be heels at this event??? That's like putting over Bret Hart as a heel in Canada. Douglas showed up recently, another defector from ECW and stuck it out until the bitter end and now works at a Target store. The revolution was an angle where the new guys were demanding main event pushes but apparantly the old guard in the booking driver seat nipped that in the bud. Malenko and Windham start us off and Malenko gets a corner clothesline. Bobby and Shane are next and he hits Shane with a big boot, but gets powerslammed. Saturn fires away with kicks in the corner, but gets stomped down by Duncam. Windham comes back in, but gets suplexed around until a cheapshot turns the tide. Hennig necksnaps Saturn and Duncam works him over for two. Saturn gets a quick german suplex and brings Dean in for a dropkick and the Revolution does some doubleteaming in the corner. Shane tries pittsburgh plunge but Hennig takes offense to that quickly, and he gets pounded outside. He crotches Hennig on the post from the atomic drop position but gets slammed off the top rope trying to come into the ring via the top rope, Hennig didn't sell that very long. Duncam gets a shoulderbreaker for two. Suplex gets two. Windham DDTs him for two. Shane and Windham run head to head and are down, but Bobby Duncam comes back in for a charge that misses. Pier six comming along as Malenko gets the Cloverleaf on Hennig, but Kendall nails him with the cowbell. Saturn hits Duncam with the Death Valley Driver in the frakkas for the pin at 10:56. Call it 2 stars.
Match #4
Singles Match
Buff Bagwell Vs Ernest The Cat Miller w Sonny Ono
Miller, a black guy is wearing the star and bars on his motorcycle gloves. That just doesn't sit well with me. He threatens to beat up all the redneck and more than half racist bikers in Sturgis. That would be interesting to see. Bagwell comes out and they take turns jawing on the mic to kill time. Miller with a hiptoss and the announcers talk like he just won the US title. Bagwell fights back with the punches and slams and Miller bails. Miller goes low and a superkick followed by stalling. Ono helps out while the ref isn't looking. Bagwell fights back with a suplex. Ono gets on the apron with a briefcase and Miller ends up going into it headfirst and Bagwell pins him at 7:16. Stunk. 1/2 star.
Match #5
United States Championship No Disqualification Match
Chris Benoit Vs Diamond Dallas Page
Page gets a bellytobelly for two. Gutbuster and choking follows. Benoit cradles for two, Page reverses to his own for two, and a lariat puts Benoit down. Spinebuster gets two. They fight over a pinfall, which Benoit turns into a sunset flip for two. Page drops him with a lariat for two. Page pounds away and gets a sideslam for two. Benoit gets a jawbreaker, but goes up too soon and gets crotched by DDP. Page hangs him in the Tree of Woe and then steals the ref’s belt for some whipping action. Page chokes Benoit with the belt, and gives him a Hangman with the belt, but Benoit flips out of it and whips Page back with the belt. The whipping was the biggest pop of the match it seems. German suplex gets two. Another one gets two. Benoit won't let go, and gets a third one for two. To the top, but Kanyon runs out and pushes him into a Rock Bottom that gets two. Benoit whips DDP into Kanyon for two. Page clotheslines him again for two. Bigelow now runs in and hits Benoit with a flying splash for two. Page whips Bigelow at Benoit, but it misses and Bigelow ends up headbutting Page low. Flying headbutt finishes Page at 12:10. Wasn't up to what they have put on in the past. 2 1/2 stars.
Match #6
Singles Match
Sting Vs Sid Vicious
This was during the stupid millenium man phase of Sid where he was pinning 2 or 3 jobbers in a match to quickly multiply a bogus win loss record. Sting owns him suprisingly for the beginning and knocks him over the guardrail and into the crowd twice. Glad Sting went back to the black and white paint, but the crow music no longer fits this part of his character. He would get his Metallica theme soon after. Sting misses a splash attempt and Sid kicks him. Backbreaker gets two. Clothesline and Sid goes to his ol reliable chinlock. Sid goes up and gets slammed off, but Sting’s splash hits knee and Sid gets two. Sting makes the comeback with a superplex and a pair of Stinger splashes, but on the third Sid catches and chokeslams him at 9:53. Didn't care for this one. 1 1/2 star.
Match #7
Singles Match
Goldberg Vs Rick Steiner
Goldbergs theme sucks here bigtime. Even worse than that rehash the WWE stuck him with in 2003. Nothing of note going on here. Goldberg owns the first portion. Rick hits a lowblow and pulls off Goldbergs kneebrace and clotheslines him with it. Goldberg rallies and hits the jackhammer at 5:39 to win. Call it 1 star.
Match #8
Hardcore Match
The Macho Man Randy Savage Vs Dennis Rodman
Savage is on fumes at this point in his career. I don't remember him in WCW long after this show. They insult eachother in a racey bit for WCW then alot of punching and kicking. Rodman decks the ref and drops an elbow on him then Macho fights back and beats up a cameraman and takes his unit (the camera) and parts Rodmans face with it, but it only gets 2 from the replacement ref. Savage knocks him out and a third ref runs in and he gets ko'd aswell. They brawl to the backstage area and Savage throws some poor guy out of the portapotty then shoves Rodman in it then tips it over in the best spot of the match. They fight back to ringside where Gorgeous George makes a run in, hands a chain to Savage, she lowlbows Rodman and Savage decks him for the pin at 11:30. Not the worst celebrity match but aside from the toilet tipping, there isn't a whole lot here. Call it 1 1/2 star.
Match #9
World Heavyweight Championship Career Match
Hulk Hogan Vs Kevin Nash
So Savage wins the world title off Nash at BATB 99 in that stupid tat match, then he loses the belt the following night to the returning Hollywood Hogan (again) with help from Nash. No wonder Savage is so bitter. Nash challenges for the belt and starts acting heelish for no good reason and Hogan goes back to the yellow and red underwear as Hulkamania is back, but nowhere near the hype of his 2002 return. They do the test of strength then Nash takes over and does his usual stuff, sideslam, boot choke in the corner. Nash hits the powerbomb but inevitable hulk up leads to the big boot and the big leg for the pin at 12:15. Im usually biased towards Hogan matches but this felt very amateurish looking back, and the whole atmosphere looked like some indy show put on by retirees, im not one to knock the old guard, I grew up with them, this match was boring and nothing of note happened. Call it 1 1/2 star.
Overall Opinion: Well, that's the end of Road Wild. 96 was good, 97 was pretty good, 98 sucked, and this one I feel is just a little better than 98. But not a whole lot.
Final Score: On a scale of 1.0 to 10.0, im siding with a 3.4. Better than Bash At The Beach 99 anyway.