DAVE "DAVE" PENZER ambles out and welcomes all us suckers fans to the last event of the short WCW UK tour. Cue lots of BOOMS and WHOOSHES and FWUMPHS. Penzer then brings out three of the Nitro Girls (we're not good enough for all of them huh?) and it is CHAMELEON and, COOL my two favourites, CHAE and SKYE (that's a good start in my book). They wave their arms around and jiggle to some music, and then they present a big prize package to a girl who won a prize draw from the seat numbers. Because we are sporting, friendly Brits - we boo her soundly. As they leave, I shout "I LOVE YOU SKYE!", but I don't think she heard. After that, we go to OUR FIRST MATCH!!!

SCREAMIN' NORMAN SMILEY VS. BRIAN KNOBBS
Norman makes his way out to a pretty big pop, he's wearing hockey gear with the local team jersey, Manchester Storm. Norman does the Big Wiggle to another big pop. Then Brian's music starts, but he doesn't come out. S Norm does the Big Wiggle again, and gets Penzer to do it, which is all harmless fun until Norman stands behind Daze and starts gyrating. Knobbs eventually somes out and gets the crowd to chant 'you fat bastard' by telling them not to (will those heels never learn). Also, you can't appreciate just how appalling Knobbs' music is until you hear it live, it is the worst wrestler's entrance theme EVER. They half-ass through a standard WCW hardcore match. Lots of clubberin' with plundah' and not much else. The end comes when Norm reverses a whip on Knobbs into a table set up in the corner, then hits a stiff chair shot to Brian's head for the three count.
Highlight - my friends and myself chanting "Jerry Saggs".

THE WALL VS. DAVID FLAIR W/ DAFFNEY.
I marked out big for David and Daffney, I'm a big mark for those two, in no small part because I like goth girls. The Wall's music is a total rip off of Electric Head pt 1 by White Zombie - they actually steal samples from the song and everything. This match was little more than a squash. Daffney distracted the ref while David laid into Wall with a crowbar. David got Wall in the corner and did the ten punches. Unfortunately, while David dances (he did the Flair shuffle! YES!), Wall takes him out with a kick and chokeslams him. Squash. The debut of my "KILL THE BOOKERS SIGN" was made during this match to a big pop. Okay so I popped. Disappointing, in part because Daffney had to leave :(
Highlights - David dancing was pretty damn funny. Daffney is a babe (sorry).

FIT FINLEY VS. TV CHAMP HACKSAW JIM DUGGAN FOR THE STRAP.
This match was very unremarkable. Finley appealed to the crowd, saying how this was his country and we should be cheering him. I did. Hacksaw won. I can't remember how. It doesn't really matter.
Highlight - well, I kinda like Fit's music. I got to use my sign again too.

I think at this point, Dave Penzer introduced MISS HANCOCK (SKYE) who stood in the entrance (unfortunately quite far away from me) and started to dance and strip. The Harris Twins came out and made her leave, causing a lot of heel heat from the crowd.

BRET HART VS. DAVE PENZER, THE WINNER GETS THE MICROPHONE FOR THE NEXT FIVE MINUTES
Bret gets the biggest pop of the night. Dave gives up without a fight and just hands it over. Bret thanks everyone for the support, saying he and his family really appreciated all the letters and cards when Owen died. He says he might not be able to wrestle again, but he's not sure at the moment. He said British fans are the best. HA!
Highlight - Having what I knew all along confirmed, British fans are better than you damn yanks (of course, of the German tour he probably said they were the best fans, but I don't care! HA HA HA!!!!)

LEX LUGER W/ ELIZABETH AND RIC FLAIR VS. CURT HENNING AND VAMPIRO
This was match of the night, not only because it had the best action, but it also had three of my favourite WCW superstars involved, FLAIR, HENNING and VAMPIRO. Luger took so long to come out, his music had looped three times by the time he was finished! (a sneaky way of getting him heel heat - having the fans wait ten minutes for him to appear) Nash makes an appearance in the entrance way before Vamp and Curt come out, saying that Flair and Luger had to give up the chair and the baseball bat they had in their possession. Elizabeth ("your bird"), who looks even more fragile in real life, had to go too. I mark out for Henning and especially Vampiro, and my sister hold up her Vampiro sign proudly. This match was pretty enjoyable, Flair acted like the world class heel he is and used every dirty trick in the book to hurt Vampiro,who was the designated man to take most of the puishment for the match. Liz came back out with the baseball bat but Buff Bagwell stopped it from being used my Team Package. He got a decent pop. Vampiro took the majority of the beating but the end came when Henning hit Flair with the Henningplex while Vampiro hit Luger with a flying cross body. I think Vamp and Luger must have been the legal men, becuause they played Vamp's music. Really good ending.
Highlights - The ending was good. Vampiro pointed at me and my little group during the match because of the our signs and because we were marking out. After the match, Vamp pointed right at my sister and she hasn't shut up about it since. It was so cool seeing RIC FREAKIN' FLAIR, and he was playing all his heel cards superbly. This match was worth the price of admission alone.

INTERMISSION.

The Nitro Girls come out again, Norman Smiley comes out to dance and gets them to do the Big Wiggle. Seeing Skye and Chae do pelvic thrusts is almost too much for me and I have to sit down. Ooooh baby. Sorry again to any females reading, but I'm only a man and I'm single so this shit means a lot to me, okay?

TERRY FUNK VS. DUSTIN RHODES
Wow, Dustin has really nailed the gay biker look. This match was a bit boring, lots of formula brawling and its pretty dull. Rhodes nailed the shattered dreams, but that was as close to wrestling as w they got. The end came when Funk nailed Rhodes with a chair, and while he argued with the ref Rhodes slipped on some knuckle-dusters and nailed Funk while the ref was disposing of the chair. Rhodes hid the dusters in hid pants, even though the ref hadn't been particularly bothered about the chair being used, and got the pin. Dustin then got a raw chicken and threatened to shove it up Funk's ass. Funk turns the table on Rhodes though and whacks him with it a few times. As he walks down the aisle, he throws the chicken at Charles Robinson as he walks past him
Highlight - CHICKEN SHOT! CHICKEN SHOT! CHICKEN SHOT!

BOOKER VS. US CHAMP JEFF JARRETT FOR THE US BELT
Jarrett says Manchester has got the biggest collection of slapnuts he has ever seen. This was a pretty entertaining match, Jarrett kept taking Booker down but he kept fighting back, and hit most of the BOOKER MOVES OF DOOM, the spinning kick, the axe kick, the spinning thing and the sidewalk slam. Booker won by DQ when Jarrett hit him with the belt. Booker hits back with a uranage, and poses with the US title. Pity about the ending. Nobody got kabonged with the guitar either :(
Highlights - Both men looked pretty good out there, Booker hit some good moves on Jeff.

YOUR MAIN EVENT - THE HARRIS TWINS VS. TAG CHAMPS, THE MARMALUKES FOR THE TAG TITLES
MICHAEL BUFFER came out to do the introductions, and got a small pop. He introduced a 'special trouble-shooting referee' who was some boxer I've never heard of. The Marmalukes took task with Buffer for getting their names wrong, they want to be known as, erm, I forget, oh well. This wasn't a bad match, one of the Harris twins actually pulled out a couple of wrestling moves, a spinning side slam and a uranage off the ropes. Lots of action built up to the climax when the ref gets bumped and one of Jonny the Bull gets hit with the H-Bomb (its nearly as lame as the last 'H-Bomb' - Horace Hogan's Samoan drop) but the 'special trouble shooting ref' comes in to make the count and gives a slow count. Then a Harris twin gets put in a small package by Big Vito and one fast count later, the Marmalukes are still champs. That ending kind of sucked. Buffer is told off again for the getting the name wrong. I still can't remember what it was meant to be.
Highlights - Some good moves by both teams. I got it confirmed that the H-Bomb still looks lame if you see it in person.

That was it. Now, you may scoff but I enjoyed myself at this event. There were not many of the big stars there, Sid isn't allowed in the country because of the whole Arn Anderson/scissors thing from a few years back. I still enjoyed it, I got to see some of my WCW favourites, which isn't bad considering WCW lost four of their best workers after I'd bought the tickets.

If anything was a bit disappointing, the matches were not really long enough, and there were some guys missing who I would have liked to see - Kidman, a couple of luchadors would have been nice, and Lenny and Idol too. I was also pissed off because after the event finished, I discovered that the merchandise stands had sold out and disappeared. So I didn't get a Vampiro shirt :(

Another thing that was a bit odd, there were very few top rope moves tried. Vampiro did two and Ric Flair got thrown off the top, but apart from that there was nothing. We attributed this to the ring not looking particularly sturdy - it wobbled when there was any big movement in the ring. Strange.

All in all, considering that a lot of their star power is injured and/or unwilling to work, they did okay. If the rumours are true that they might be coming over again near Christmas - I'll probably go.

There should be some pictures from the event in a little while at The Wrestling Galaxy. Check the site out.

Thanks for reading.

Marvellous Martin
Willing to suffer for your despicable pleasure.
[slash] wrestling