Well, 1998 is a battlefield on “Into the Vault” and it’s been bowling shoe ugly! It’s the height of the Monday Night Wars, after all. We’re getting into WCW Slamboree 1998 from May 17, 1998 with a World Tag Team title main event between The Outsiders and the team of Sting and The Giant.
The Best of WCW Slamboree 1998
From the opening bell, WCW drops a WCW Television title match as Fit Finlay defended against “The Crippler” Chris Benoit in a really good bout. It was physical—as expected—and had a really good pace. I’d say it wasn’t yawn-inducing and served as a really good opener. While these guys weren’t main eventers at this point, this was an exciting, rough bout that would’ve been better served towards the middle of the card.
The battle royal to crown a number one contender to the Cruiserweight title was fun. I actually felt it didn’t have enough time for a battle royal and this could’ve been put on television but it gave the crowd a little surge of energy following the Luger vs. Adams deal. Also, these are cruiserweights—they could get what they needed to do done in a shorter window of time.
Ciclope wins and will face Chris Jericho for the title. Psyche! It was Dean Malenko all along! In another brief but fun bout, Malenko claps Jericho to win the Cruiserweight title. He would end up being stripped of the belt later but when you’re dealing with young, crafty Chris Jericho, trickery was necessary at times.
I really dug the Bowery Deathmatch between Diamond Dallas Page and Raven. I don’t think it was necessary to have such a match with all the plunder and whatnot but we’ve seen DDP deliver the goods in brawls before—the same with Raven—so they needed something new here, folks.
Personally, I would’ve rocked with another street fight but whatever, it was an enjoyable match that didn’t drag on and gave you thrills and spills. Eddie Guerrero taking on Ultimo Dragon was fundamentally good.
The problem was the match was that it was…mechanical. There was nothing that really got you invested in it. If anything, it was a very nice exhibition match that was above average in execution. I’d say that this could’ve opened the show and been fine. If it was on television, it probably would’ve been a treat.
The Rest
While I love going into the good stuff on a PPV, it’s the mediocre or bad parts that get the wheels turning. Why is this here and not there? Was this match even necessary? Where are they going with this storyline? What in the hell did I just watch? All of that, folks.
Lex Luger vs. Brian Adams? Unnecessary but not awful. It wasn’t good either but it wasn’t the drizzling sh**s. This honestly could’ve been put on television and no one would’ve missed it. I mean, WCW would’ve needed to find something else to get Flexy Lexy involved in but this wasn’t the move. It’s just a boring match.
Goldberg defending the U.S title against Saturn was in an odd spot. Overbooking and interference is something that annoys me but it kind of made sense in this instance since Saturn was in the Flock. However, it didn’t make sense as Saturn was double tough and would’ve proved a little more of a challenge than Goldberg’s usual diet of Saturday Night and Nitro jobbers and openers.
The match itself would’ve been above average with a few more minutes and no interference. These two could’ve had a physical match that showed that “Hey, Goldberg can go a bit and he can take it and not just dish it out.” It would add a bit of vulnerability to this tank of man and made him a little more interesting.
Bret Hart faced Randy Savage in a match that should’ve been good on paper but wasn’t good in execution. Hart was good in WCW depending on motivation or the right dance partner. Savage could’ve been that dance partner any time before 1998. Both of those conditions weren’t met and we got a meh-at-best match that ran longer than it should’ve only to end in DQ.
Oh yeah, Roddy Piper was there as a referee. Late 90s Piper never did it for me, at all.
Then we have the main event which seems to live in “The Rest” section of our reviews. Honestly, I can remember the last time a WCW main event has been in “The Best”. I’ll have to go back and look. As for Slamboree 1998, this wasn’t a good main event to cap the show.
Again, the star power made this look good on paper with The Outsiders defending the WCW Tag Team titles against Sting and The Giant. However, it suffers from the same flaws as the semi-main in that it ran longer than it should’ve. The most eventful thing here was Hall turning on Nash—which shocked me as a kid.
Looking at it now, it still motivated me to look at the post-PPV Nitro to re-jog my memory about what happened next. Mind you, we took the long, boring way to get there but the twist kind of did its job.
WCW Slamboree 1998 Verdict: Bronze Medal (2.2/5)
This show was really an ordeal at certain parts—especially at the end. That’s the story of WCW PPVs and Slamboree 1998 was no different: some dope undercard bouts that just don’t have to juice to deal with how dismal the main event could end up.
Our match of the night goes to the TV title match between Fit Finlay and Chris Benoit. The runner-up is the Cruiserweight title bout with Dean Malenko defeating Jericho for the belt.
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