We’re finally back with “Into the Vault” and it’s the end of a decade! Let’s kick things off with WCW Souled Out 1999 from Charleston, West Virginia as Goldberg takes on Scott Hall in a stun gun ladder match.
Remember, Kevin Nash won the World Championship at Starrcade 1998 the month prior thanks to Scott Hall using a stun gun on Goldberg. Now it’s time for a measure of revenge!
The Best
You’ll probably only see the name “Mike Enos” once in “The Best” pile in “Into the Vault.” That isn’t because Enos is a bad wrestler, it’s because Enos was mostly an undercard player in WCW. I mostly remember him from the B-shows. With that said, his losing effort to Chris Benoit was a physical affair that only suffered from 10-and-a-half minutes feeling much longer.
Eh, let’s add Chavo Jr vs. Norman Smiley. From an in-ring action perspective, it was functionally a solid match. However, it was longer than warranted even with there being some story behind it. At the minimum, it wasn’t a 16-minute bad or boring match.
The “Loser Wears a Dress” match between Jericho and Saturn was good despite the stupid stipulation—which Saturn would make his thing. It’s just such a super dated stip for the 90s. The match itself was worth catching and the stipulation added some sort of stakes to things. Without it, this would’ve been a nice exhibition match to lift the overall quality of the show.
If you’re waiting for the match to watch, look no further than the WCW Cruiserweight title bout. We have Billy Kidman defending the title against Rey Mysterio, Juventud Guerrera, and one of my favorites, Psychosis. Yes, I was pulling for Psychosis, folks. This one was very exciting but had this weird stipulation where competitors had to tag out of the match.
These kinds of singles matches tend to be scramble-style with everyone in the ring at once. The result was that the pace was dampened quite a bit but these four still managed to work with it. I figure that the tagging-in rule was more to keep the pace of the action easy to call for commentary or something. There was no need to tag in and out when everyone wants the belt.
Our last entry is the main event between Goldberg and Scott Hall. Goldberg’s never done a ladder match at this point—or actually, any gimmick match—but he didn’t do bad at all here. He wasn’t delivering the most exciting moves like junior heavyweights would but the little he did really stood out.
Most notable was his selling in the match. Goldberg sold that leg as if it could fall off the hinges entirely at any moment and I was here for it. Hall was fine in the match, the ladder was kind of just there.
I know why we’re at a stun gun ladder match but it’s such a blah stipulation. However, the television leading up to Souled Out 1999 made this work to a degree. Without the stipulation, this could’ve still ended up as a good match.
The Rest
Let’s take a quick gander at the rest of the matches. Fit Finlay couldn’t dust off Van Hammer quickly enough and the match almost went 8 minutes. On the one hand, this was a random match no one asked for at. However, Finlay did enough that this wasn’t absolutely awful.
The following match saw Bam Bam Bigelow face Wrath in a match that was longer than the previous one for some reason. It ran over 9 minutes and just wasn’t an interesting bout.
Finally, we have Ric Flair and David Flair taking on Curt Hennig and Barry Windham. I’d say that honestly, this wasn’t bad at all. It wasn’t good or anything but it was acceptable. We didn’t have David Flair showcasing all of that Flair family talent but he takes a great beating and that made Hennig and Windham’s job a bit easier.
If the match was shorter, this would’ve been much better. Fortunately, it wasn’t part of a brick of mediocre matches.
WCW Souled Out 1999 Verdict: Bronze Medal (5.5/10)
Souled Out 1999 was a pretty mid show. Only one thing truly impressed and you knew it was good—our Match of the Show, the WCW Cruiserweight fatal four-way match. A few matches turned out to be surprisingly decent while the rest were skippable.
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