Across the long history of professional wrestling, there is no shortage of great shows and great matches to go back and watch. Fans can find some of the best from WWE, WCW, AEW, NWA, AWA, ECW, and so many more online fairly easily nowadays.
There is no shortage of bad wrestling shows, either, for a variety of reasons. It could feature talent now known to be morally reprehensible, a snake-bitten show plagued by production issues, or just being outright boring are three of the many possible reasons for a bad show.
Despite how terrible some of these shows are, it is within those that some true gems of professional wrestling can be found.
WCW Uncensored 1996
It is March 1996 and the Monday Night Wars are in full swing on Monday nights. WCW Monday Nitro and WWF Monday Night Raw have been trading ratings wins for months as both promotions are experiencing transition periods. It is clear something big is on the way, but no one is sure what it could be or which company will have it.
Until then, it is time for WCW Uncensored 1996.
The show emanated from the Tupelo Coliseum in Tupelo, Mississippi. This is the pay-per-view that featured the infamous Doomsday Cage Match main event that pit the Mega Powers of Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage against Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, Meng, The Barbarian, Lex Luger, The Taskmaster, Z-Gangsta, and The Ultimate Solution as part of an alliance between the Four Horsemen and Dungeon of Doom.
The Doomsday Cage was a multi-leveled steel cage where Hogan and Savage would start on the roof and have to fight their way down through two levels with multiple compartments before getting down to the ring and escaping from the cage through the ground level door. Hogan and Savage would win the match with a little help from The Booty Man, known formerly as Brutus Beefcake in WWF.
It is widely regarded as one of the worst WCW shows of all time with one of the worst main events of all time. The Doomsday Cage Match received minus-three stars from The Wrestling Observer and has a 0.67 rating on Cagematch, while the overall show is rated at a 2.16.
The rest of the show wasn’t much better as both Giant vs. Loch Ness and Col. Robert Parker vs. Madusa going less than five minutes. The Booty Man and Diamond Dallas Page laid a massive egg for about 16 minutes and The Road Warriors vs. Sting and Booker T was a fairly bog-standard, if somewhat messy, tag team match.
On the whole, this is a lot of terrible professional wrestling to sit through.
It isn’t true for the whole show, though, as two matches manage to stand out among this massive pile of garbage on this show. The funniest part is they are the opening two matches of this show, which can easily trick a fresh viewer into thinking they are in for a great time.
And stylistically, it couldn’t be two more different types of matches.
WCW United States Heavyweight Championship Match – Konnan(c) vs. Eddie Guerrero
Kicking off WCW Uncensored 1996 was the WCW US Heavyweight Champion Konnan defending his title against Eddie Guerrero. The pair were still fairly fresh to WCW, both arriving as part of a wave of internationally known talent alongside names like Chris Jericho, Dean Malenko, Rey Mysterio Jr., and Psicosis among others.
After debuting in 1988, Konnan spent the first few years of his career wrestling primarily in Mexico, though would make the odd trip to the U.S. for one-shot shows or tryouts with WCW or WWF. He would start committing more to U.S. appearances in 1992 when he was signed by the WWF. Konnan was brought in with plans to make him the infamous Max Moon character that would end up being portrayed by the wrestler Paul Diamond. Konnan would spend a few months in ECW at the end of 1995 before finding his way into WCW full-time in January 1996.
Guerrero, meanwhile, got his start two years earlier in 1986 and, like Konnan, worked primarily in Mexico while making sporadic one-off appearances on WCW shows as an enhancement talent. He was more international than Konnan, though, as Guerrero started working for New Japan Pro-Wrestling in 1992 as Black Tiger 2. He got his biggest break in 1995 when Guerrero was brought in to work ECW from Spring and through most of Summer. Guerrero would join WCW full-time in August 1995, a few months ahead of Konnan’s WCW debut.
This was also the only title match on the entire show.
Going into the Uncensored match, Guerrero and Konnan had already shared the ring plenty of times as partners and opponents during their shared time in Mexico. One of their most notable periods together was as part of Los Gringos Locos in Asistencia Asesoría y Administración, or AAA for short.
However, Uncensored 1996 was one of the first chances the two got to show what they could do on a big show when given plenty of time.
What was clear from the start was how popular these two already were with the WCW audience. The first several minutes of this 18-minute 27-second match was marked with loud dueling chants for Konnan and Guerrero. It was reflective of how the fans had taken to all this fresh, young talent wrestling a faster, more athletic style, which was used to boost Monday Nitro’s early popularity.
The overall match was a back-and-forth athletic contest between two of the top names to come out of Mexico at the time. Every hold by Konnan would be countered by Guerrero and vice versa until Konnan was able to use his power advantage to ground Guerrero for a bit. Guerrero would fight out, getting a flurry of offense in before getting shut down again.
The match comes to a close when Guerrero is able to catch Konnan going to the top turnbuckle and hit him with a superplex to regain the advantage. After a couple of pin attempts, Guerrero would whip Konnan off the ropes and attempted some kind of headscissors takeover but would fall straight down and hitting Konnan in the head, while Guerrero suffered a low-blow in turn. Konnan would use this to secure the pinfall and retain the US Heavyweight Title.
Afterward, Konnan attempted to raise Guerrero’s hand who refused because he was upset over the low-blow.
While the ending landed a bit flat, the overall match was an example of the kind of opening matches that became the norm on WCW pay-per-views at this time. Fans knew from late-1995 until 1999 that if they purchased a WCW pay-per-view, they would be treated to fast-paced, athletic matches by this crop of fresh that would go on to become top stars for the next 30 years.
Lord Steven Regal vs. The Belfast Bruiser
To quote Monty Python, “and now for something completely different.”
Following the athletic showcase to open Uncensored, Lord Steven Regal and The Belfast Bruiser, known better as Fit Finlay, would have an extremely physical, hardnosed match.
Regal’s career began in 1983, while still in secondary school, training under English wrestling legend Marty Jones and working the shoot-circuit around Blackpool, England. He would spend most of the next decade working in the English wrestling scene and would work as an enhancement talent on multiple WWF and WCW shows during the promotions’ U.K. tours. Regal would eventually make his way into WCW full time in 1992 after catching the eye of then-WCW Executive Vice President Bill Watts. Regal would spend the first couple of years in WCW trading the World Television Championship against names including Ricky Steamboat, Brian Pillman, and Dustin Rhodes. He would then form a group dubbed The Blue Bloods, a trio of pompous, classical-style aristocrats alongside ‘Earl’ Robert Eaton and ‘Squire’ Dave Taylor and the group’s servant, Jeeves.
Bruiser, by comparison, was still brand new to WCW at the time of this match. He spent most of his career working on the English wrestling circuit during the 70s and 80s, even working on the famed World of Sport television show against English legends such as Big Daddy, Marty Jones, and Johnny Saint. As the English scene began drying up in the late 80s and early 90s, Bruiser would end up spending the next several years working overseas, primarily in Germany, before being brought in to WCW in January 1996 and immediately going in to a feud with Regal.
Bruiser doesn’t waste time as he whips his entrance jacket at Regal and the two proceed to pummel each other in and out of the ring for the next 17-minutes and 33-seconds. Regal, who had primarily shown off the technical side of English wrestling to this point in WCW, got to show off the more physical side of English wrestling now that he had an opponent like Bruiser. It resulted in Regal walking away from the match with a broken nose.
Every kick or forearm seems to have some extra force behind them and every submission has some extra torque on it. It is the type of match that would feel right at home in New Japan in the late 2010s with the NEVER Openweight Championship on the line.
The crowd, however, is not nearly as into this match as the previous. They do react at various points, but it seems like they can’t quite get into it for any extended period of time.
Unfortunately, its the second match to have a bit of a dud ending.
Regal and Bruiser end up back outside the ring and fight their way up the entrance way. After multiple attempts, Bruiser is able to slam Regal in to the Doomsday Cage before the pair fight back to ringside. Before they can get in, Dave Taylor and Robert Eaton run down to attack Bruiser, giving him the win via disqualification.
It wouldn’t be the last match these two had as their feud would continue into April 1995. The pair’s last major match was a parking lot brawl on the April 29 edition of Monday Nitro. It was as physical a match as the two had to that point, with the pair making use of the cars and items left about for them to use. Regal would score the pin here, effectively ending their feud.
The two were scheduled to tag together as part the Lethal Lottery Tag Team Tournament at Slamboree 1996 to qualify for the Battlebowl battle royale and potentially earn a WCW Heavyweight Championship match. However, Finlay would return to Europe and take time off to heal from injuries suffered in the parking lot brawl. He made his in-ring return for Catch Wrestling Association in Germany, the same promotion he worked for before going to WCW. Bruiser would ultimately find his way back to WCW in 1997 as Fit Finlay and remained there until WCW closed in 2001. WWF would bring in Finlay shortly after as a trainer until making his in-ring debut in 2004. He remained with WWF, later WWE, until he was released in 2011 and he wrapped up his career on the independents. Finaly would return to WWE shortly after and has remained as one of the more noteworthy producers backstage and a major proponent of women’s wrestling.
Regal would continue wrestling in WCW until 1998, when he was fired for his infamous match with Goldberg on the February 9, 1998, edition of Monday Nitro. It is widely viewed as the first match to really expose Goldberg’s inexperience in the ring while Regal was accused by WCW President Eric Bischoff of making their next potential big star look bad. Regal countered by saying he did as he was instructed, that the match was supposed to be stiff and technical and that Regal left plenty of openings for Goldberg to take advantage of but couldn’t. Goldberg reportedly apologized to Regal directly for messing up the match, as well, but Regal would ultimately be fired, though Regal’s addiction problems are alleged to have played a part in it.
The next year and a half would see Regal go back and forth between WWF and WCW as he struggled with his addiction to pills problems. He checked into rehab in January 1999 while still under WWF contract, though he would be released in April 1999. After checking out of rehab, Regal had a brief return to WCW in July 1999 before being released in February 2000. Regal made his proper return to WWF TV on the September 18, 2000, episode of Raw is War and the rest, as they say, is history.
Afterward
Once the Belfast Bruiser vs. Steven Regal had passed, Uncensored takes an almost Wile E. Coyote-style nosedive off a cliff.
Uncensored 1996 became a proverbial punching bag for many outlets and even some promotions, with ECW taking shots at the show on several episodes of ECW Hardcore TV immediately after the pay-per-view and all of it is well earned.
The rest of Uncensored is a trainwreck of a show, and that may still be too kind. However, it doesn’t diminish what the opening two matches are able to deliver fans before all that trainwreck starts. Even the lackluster finishes don’t take away much from the rest of the two matches, offering an example of the kind of in-ring variety all these newer and younger names were providing to WCW’s midcard.
Konnan vs. Eddie Guerrero and Steven Regal vs. Belfast Bruiser could not be any more different, in terms of style, and both knock it out of the park on a show that would have only been remembered for its awful Doomsday Cage main event. It is still the biggest talking point of the show, to this day, but it at least has the silver-lining of delivering two matches worth seeking out that would likely get more attention if on a better overall show.
That said, the fact these two matches are remembered on such a terrible show may say even more about the quality of these two matches than a good show could have.
Minimum Wage Nerd 