Andrew Lutzke
- Randy Savage had been scheduled to beat Ric Flair at the Great American Bash until the booking team realized that Flair needed a win to gain some credibility back and thus the finish was switched.
- Road Warrior Hawk skipped the Great American Bash in order to hang out with his father. This led to a brief falling out between the company and him but both sides worked out their differences.
- Since Alex Wright is failing to get over the new plan is to turn him heel and have him become one of Flair’s running buddies.
- Woman received a try out for a spot announcing on the new “Head to Head” (soon to renamed Nitro) show.
- Al Snow, Sabu and Eddy Guerrero are all on WCW’s wish list for new stars to sign in order to help give Nitro some exciting spot fest matches.
- WCW’s convoluted pre-taping schedule led to another confusing set of matches. The Nasty Boys were the tag team champions, but WCW taped a match where Bunkhouse Buck and Dick Slater pinned the Harlem Heat for the belts. Then they aired an old tape of Harlem Heat beating the Nasty Boys back when Heat were still the tag champs a few months ago as the official title change from the Nasties to the Heat. That match aired in syndication the same day a match aired on cable where Heat (without the titles) lost to Hawk and Sting. Yikes.
- Vader and the Undertaker appeared at the same USWA show, with Taker wrestling and Vader making a run in as part of his “Road Kill” tour which has him destroying jabronis at random while calling out Hogan. The fact that a top WCW and WWF guy appeared at the same show created a big buzz in the wrestling magazines at the time.
- Ric Flair is out as booker, being replaced by Kevin Sullivan. Flair and Eric Bischoff had major arguments over the direction of the company, with Flair wanting (for example) Arn Anderson given the TV title in order to use the belt as a strong angle device on TV and build to long weekly matches over the title.
- Kurasawa is coming in to work with Sting and Road Warrior Hawk. His WCW names were going to be “Katana” or “The Black Terror”
- Tank Abbott, fresh off an impressive UFC debut, was taken out to dinner by Bischoff in hopes of signing Abbott for the K-1/WCW shootfighting PPVs planned.
- Hogan wants to bring in El Gigante to add to the Dungeon of Doom sideshow.
- The Giant confronted Hogan during the pre-show to this PPV and threw “Andre the Giant’s” shirt at him.
Bash at the Beach 95
This is taking place on an actual beach. Tony Schiavone and Bobby Heenan try to claim 100,000 plus at the beach, but it was really around 9-12 thousand and no one paid to attend.
US Champion Sting vs. Meng
Meng is, “trained in 9 forms of the martial arts.” None of which are selling. WCW didn’t bring in rafters for the fans, so anyone past the first few rows basically can’t see shit. Meng comes out swinging and no sells most of Sting’s punches that he tries to defend himself with. Meng hacks and chokes away. Not much is happening, this is really slow paced compared to their Great American Bash match. Meng misses a diving head butt and Sting locks him in the Scorpion Death Lock – Col. Parker distracts him in order to get Sting to break it. They botch a suplex and Sting lands on his head. Meng locks in some rest holds to drag things out.
Sting fires up but a Stinger Splash is blocked by a kick in the face. Meng tries to follow up on that but ends up rolled up for the pin at 15:30. Meng attacks Sting after the match but Road Warrior Hawk makes the save. Match dragged on but was watchable.
TV Champion The Renegade vs. Paul “Mr. Wonderful” Orndorff
Orndorff attacks right away but Renegade knocks him to the floor. A small “Wonderful!” chant breaks out. Orndorff bumps all over the place for the rookie before slowing him down by tossing a handful of sand in his eyes. Mr. Wonderful delivers some suplexes but a piledriver attempt is blocked and Renegade flips him overhead, The champ throws two of the ugliest dropkicks in PPV history, so bad that even the announcers have to acknowledge it. Renegade hits a lousy back suplex and that is enough to hold Orndorff down for 3, although his shoulder was up. The crowd cheers Mr. Wonderful attacking Renegade after the bell and delivering a piledriver. The Renegade no sells that and sends Orndorff packing. Renegade was given only 6:11 and still managed to stink out the joint.
“Hacksaw” Jim Duggan vs. Kamala
We see the debut of Kamala from out of a wall in the Dungeon of Doom cave. That’s worth 4*’s for comedy alone. These guys trade bombs before Kamala does his Wibble impression and proceeds to wobble but not go down. Kamala chops, chokes and bear hugs away. The Ugandan Giant hits more chops as we have exhausted both men’s move sets by the four minute mark. Duggan starts his comeback but the Taskmaster and Zodiac interfere and Kamala splashes Duggan for the win at 6:06. You wouldn’t mistake this for any of their Mid-South brawls from a decade earlier. Another stinker.
Dave Sullivan vs. “Diamond” Dallas Page
A fan hands Kimberly a dozen roses, but DDP grabs them and pie faces Kimberly with them. This allows Sullivan to get the jump on DDP. Sullivan hits a few suplexes before he makes eyes with Kimberly and DDP sneak attacks him. Sullivan locks in a bear hug, which according to Schiavone is his big move. DDP rakes the eyes to escape. Max Muscle distracts Dave and a Diamond Cutter ends this mess 4:26. To quote good ol’ JR: This was bowling shoe ugly.
World tag champions Harlem Heat vs. The Nasty Boys vs. The Blue Bloods
All six guys brawl to start and both Blue Bloods get a taste of the “Pit Stop”. The Blue Bloods bump all over for the Harlem Heat and even Sherri gets a shot in. Sags beats down Stevie Ray and offers him up for Regal but things go poorly for his Lordship quickly. Quick tags follow as everybody seems to get in a segment with the others. Match is lacking in any real flow but the rapid fire tag offs are keeping things from slowing down. The ending is quite dumb as the Nasties pile Regal and Booker T on one another and Saggs sits on top of both men as the ref counts 3 and they award the match to T because reasons… 13:10. Mean Gene promises a Harlem Heat vs. Dick Slater and Bunkhouse Buck match is in our future and a little bit of me died inside hearing that. Harlem Heat and the Nasty Boys best of 2000 match series may finally be mercifully over.
Ric Flair reminds us he banged Elizabeth and pounded on Macho Man’s daddy.
“Lifeguard match” “Macho Man” Randy Savage vs. Ric “Nature Boy” Flair
The ring is surrounded by all the mid card geeks. We see Angelo Poffo shirtless at ringside. Savage starts fast but Flair is game for trading blows. Both men take multiple bumps to the floor early to establish the gimmick. The lumberjacks play it straight and don’t throw any cheap shots at the participants while they are at their mercy. Flair starts to work over Macho’s leg but Savage is still game to fight on. A figure-four saps more of the life out of our hero. Macho escapes and starts to assault Flair again, causing the Nature Boy to make a run for it and giving the lifeguards a purpose to exist in this lonely world of ours.
Macho Man delivers a double axe handle from the top and doesn’t sell his leg – I don’t like that. Arn Anderson DDT’s Savage but Flair only scores a 2 count. Macho rallies back with another double axe handle, and a big elbow ends things clean at 13:53. I feel the gimmick hurt the match, as last month was a crazy brawl all over the place and you could feel the hate between the two men, this was more of a straight forward bout with iffy psychology to boot.
Dennis Rodman joins Hogan for a promo. Hogan’s arms suggest that the WCW drug testing policy is non-existent.
Steel Cage: World Champion Hulk Hogan vs. Vader
The rules were altered to include escaping over the top of the cage as a means to win in order to allow Vader to avoid having to take a pinfall loss. Vader’s smoking helmet entrance is pretty cool in this outdoor setting. The crowd gives Hogan a big ovation, and the camera work showing Hogan staring at Vader inside the cage is a excellent shot. Hogan chokes Vader with his T-shirt and flings him into the cage several times. Vader no sells a bunch of punches, so Hogan rakes his eyes. America’s Hero. Vader is rammed into his own head gear and that finally knocks him down. Hogan puts on the head gear and head butts Vader several times.
Vader has had enough of that and splashes Hogan in the corner, then delivers two Vader bombs. He only gets two off that. I was kind of expecting a Hulk up there. Vader tries to escapes but Hogan cuts him off. Vader attempts a senton from the top rope but misses. Hogan tries a slam but Vader lands on him. Hogan fires up and slams Vader but hurts his back in doing so. Vader hits a second rope splash and now Hogan Hulk’s up. Hogan no sells a few cage shots and drives Vader into the cage a number of times. Hogan hits the big boot as Zodiac and Kevin Sullivan run down. Dennis Rodman fights them off and chases them away with a chair.
Vader is downed and has two leg drops delivered on him. Hogan poses instead of trying to win and Vader cuts him off at the top of the cage. Hogan knocks him down and escapes at 13:09. Hogan exits quickly to the back and the announcers sign off. The camera then pans to the ring and we see Ric Flair charge into the ring and berate Vader for losing. Flair, the man who has lost to Hogan on at least 6 or more PPVs and Clashes already in the past year. Vader grabs his throat, which brings in Arn Anderson and Vader chases them both out of the cage.
This was an enjoyable main event, as Vader played a strong enough foil to raise this from a normal Hogan paint by numbers match to something with a bit of substance.
Final thoughts: It’s remarkable how many shitty matches can fit on one PPV, but when the company directive is geared toward gimmicks more than substance, this is what you get.
