Posted by Rohan on 09:18:02 27/10/01:

World Wrestling All-stars (WWA) The Inception PPV
Friday, October 26 @ Sydney Superdome
Report by Dan Lennard

RESULTS: Seven Deadly Sins WWA World Heavyweight Title Tournament/Round 1 bout: Juventud Guerrera b Psicosis (ladder match); Round 1 bout: Konan vs Road Dog Jesse James (dog collar match); Hardcore match: Norman Smiley b Devon Storm; Round 1 bout: Battle Royal won by Buff Bagwell; Round 1 bout: Jeff Jarrett b "Front Row" Nathan Jones (guitar on a pole match); Tournament semi-final: Road Dog b Lenny & Lodi (three-way dance); Tournament semi-final: Jarrett b Bagwell (tits, whips and butts match); Black Wedding match: Vampire Warrior b Luna; Skin To Win Four-Way Dance: Adara James b Danny Dominion and two strippers;Tournament final: Jarrett b Road Dog (cage match)

NOTES: Vince Russo may have quit the WWA, but his fingerprints were all over this PPV. It was like watching WCW at the height of Russo's madness - crazy stips in every single match, bizarre angles and...well, loads of gay jokes and T&A.

Konan and Road Dog were the actual spellings given on the PPV and in the WWA program. Crowbar was referred to as Devon Storm. Gangrel was back to Vampire Warrior. No-shows at Sydney and for the whole tour (they were listed in the program) were Ken Shamrock, Daffney and the Harris Brothers. It was all original music on the PPV (unlike at other non-televised cards on this tour) but guys like Road Dog, Konan and Jarrett used all their regular catchphrases. Crowd were hot for the start of the card - cooled during the middle (especially during the two man-woman bouts) and heated up for the main event.

Bret Hart opened the show as "WWA commissioner". Talked about WCW sacking him. Talked about how he was still heavyweight champ of WWF and WCW ('cos no-one ever pinned him). Called Vince "a piece of shit".
Guerrera and Psicosis had a good but not great match with Guerrera also winning the "WWA cruiserweight title". Juvey did his Rock knock-off gimmick. The bout was sloppy in places. Juvey finished with a couple of nasty gashes under his ribs and we were later told he had broken two ribs and would not wrestle in the semi-finals. Not sure if this was a work.

Konan-Road Dog was short and slow. The collar kept falling off Konan's neck, which made the match kinda stupid.

Hardcore match was the show-stealer. Smiley and Storm took a lot of punishment. Move of the show saw Storm leap from the scaffolding near the entranceway and splash Smiley through two tables. Smiley still won. He was over like crazy.

Battle royal was farcical - anyone could enter, so that included both referees, the female timekeeper, Lawler and Borash and two fellas dressed as bananas and wearing pyjamas (um...they were based on two characters that appear in an Australian children's TV series called, appropriately enough, Bananas In Pyjamas). Storm (who also competed) grabbed a microphone after he was eliminated and started doing his Gordon Solie schtick.

Jones is HUGE. He was accompanied by Aussie talk show host Rove McManus. Rove ate a Jarrett guitar leading to the clean pin on Jones using the stroke.

Bret Hart decreed that, with Juvey "injured", Road Dog would face Lenny & Lodi in a three-way dance. Loads of gay jokes. After beating the hell out of Road Dog, Lenny and Lodi started fighting each other and Road Dog took advantage to pin both of them.

Jarrett won what was essentially a lumberjack match, except the ring was surrounded by strippers carrying whips. Bagwell scored the visionary pin while the ref was distracted by the girls. Then Jarrett won with the stroke.

Black Wedding match was a total waste of time. Warrior wouldn't fight Luna until she spat on him, then he nailed her with an implant DDT and pinned her. Ugh.
Skin to win match was awful and way too long. No nudity. Which meant it was a joke AND a rip-off. However, Adara shows some potential as a wrestler (and she's cute). But honesty, the crowd had had enough after TWO male-female matches in a row.

After they lowered the cage, Disco Inferno came to the ring and called out the two fake Bananas. One of them attacked him, which led to both of them climbing to the top of the cage and Disco throwing the Banana to the floor, a drop of about 15 feet. After Disco left, the Banana got up almost immediately, waved to the crowd and walked to the back. So much for selling the injury as well as killiing the gimmick of the "dangerous cage match".

Despite this, the tournament final was pretty good. Hart was at ringside commentating. Jarrett climbed over the top of the cage fairly early on - only at this point did the commentators let us know that the match could only be won by pinfalls or submissions. Dog followed Jarrett out and they brawled at ringside.

At some point, Jarrett gigged deeply and started bleeding a gusher. Seriously, it was the most juice I've seen in a match outside Puerto Rico or the Mass Transit incident. To paraphrase Devon Storm, his face "was a crimson mask". Ref bump saw Jarrett use his guitar on the Dog, followed by applying the sharpshooter. Despite Dog submitting, the ref was down and Hart refused to end the match. Another ref came in, got bumped and Dog slapped on the sharpshooter. Hart again refused to end the match. Don't ask me why. He started heading to the back with the title belt, Dog followed him out and grabbed the belt. He ran back, went to hit Jarrett, who ducked, hit the stroke on Dog on top of the belt and scored the pin.

Hart presented the belt to Jarrett and jawed with him before making to leave. Jarrett went to hit Bret with the belt. Hart turned round and Jarrett started begging off. Bret hit him and put the sharpshooter on him to end the PPV with a huge pop.
And that was it.

Overall, a good PPV, much better than I expected although it had some really horrible, Russo-esque moments. Crowd seemed into most of it. Borash promised a return to Australia soon but gave no dates. He intimated that Midajah "and her man" would be in England for the WWA tour there. I assume they weren't talking about Scott Steiner.

Report by Dann Lennard, Sydney, Australia.