WWA Revolution 2002

WWA Revolution 2002
The Aladdin Casino Center
Las Vegas, NV
February 24, 2002

WWA returned to PPV a couple months later after their debut event, this time in front of a much smaller crowd in the US. The WWA had successfully run a tour of the UK prior to this and were attempting to make inroads in the US, as they continued to try their hand at competing with the WWF, using all the top name available talent.

Alt-rockers Tantric open this show with a short live version of a song presumably called Revolution. This confusingly was also the song used for the Inception PPV. Man, it wouldn’t be the early 00s without some angsty post grunge kicking things off! Tantric doesn’t even get named and it jumps from their performance to a video package using the same song we just heard lol.

Back in the Aladdin, Jeremy Borash and former Nitro announcer Mark Madden are here to call the show. Madden was an awful part of the later days of Nitro, and is a terrible replacement for Jerry the King Lawler. Madden manages to help make this event feel even MORE like WCW than the Inception! They yammered on about WCW and “remember when!” all night, with Madden getting in all kinds of smarky inside jokes.

The Aladdin casino theater is a terrible venue for wrestling. They set up the big WWA Tron on the stage, and fans are all sitting in serious theater style seats, with no seats set up close to ringside. It made for an odd visual, and you couldn’t really see the crowd’s reactions to the matches. Not that there seemed to be much of a reaction to a lot of stuff on this show. The stupid tron is facing the hard camera and is so annoying and distracting through the entire show. Just constant seizure-inducing lights and motion graphics.

The planned main event for this show was supposed to be Randy Savage challenging Jeff Jarrett for the title, but Macho Man dropped out of the match and didn’t even show up for this event. I remember there was a lot of speculation about Savage during the early years of 00s. Such a sad end to his career after WCW shut its doors. It’s such a shame that we never got to see the true Macho Man once last time, and instead saw him as a shell of his former self, with his stupid rap album and sporadic small time appearances and no-shows.

1) Nova defeated Low Ki, Shark Boy, A.J. Styles, Tony Mamaluke, and Christopher Daniels in an Elimination match (19:42) Nova last defeated Styles to win the match

Here is a staple of what would come to define wrestling in the 2000s, and something that TNA would smartly capitalize on in its early days. Smaller, athletic cruiserweights would soon come to take over indie wrestling and Daniels and Styles in particular would become generational talents. The early days of “flippy shit” were insane, as so many of the moves were still so new at the time and certainly needed some polish. If WCW continued on into 2001, they certainly could have built up the best cruiserweight division possible, with so much of this young talent available. TNA would smartly snap up most of these wrestlers later in the year. This match was insanely awesome; six cruiserweights busting out crazy ass dangerous moves. There was so much internet hype for Styles at the time and it was certainly well deserved, as he just busted his ass in this match, showing all kinds of crazy shit that would become staples of his repertoire for years to come. He and Tony Mamaluke were throwing their bodies around with reckless abandon. I was horrified as Styles rushed a shooting star to the floor and ended up crashing head first into the concrete. The major criticism for these matches was that they were all spotfests and no story. That was certainly the case here as these guys just fucking destroyed each other, but man was it awesome. It was an elimination match and eventually boiled down to Nova and Styles. I thought for sure Styles was going over, but oddly former ECW comedy jobber Nova picked up the win.

Yes! Coming out next was Commissioner Bret Hart! Bret was in full rambling mode here, talking about Canada winning Olympic gold in hockey earlier in the day and putting over the US as having a great team. He goes on to talk more about 9/11 and the World Trade Center “bombings” (oh dear), rambling about how he used to make anti-American statements, but actually his mom is American and he loves and supports the country. He talks about KICKING BIN LADEN’S ASS which made me full on laugh out loud. In the middle of all this, he talks about the “Space Cowboy” Randy Savage not being here and has chosen a replacement for him… a second generation star just like himself… the son of Jerry Lawler…. Brian Christopher. This announcement goes over like a wet fart and Bret continues rambling. Holy shit this was so greatly terrible and hilarious. I laughed my ass off.

2) The Funkster Alan Funk defeated Reno (7:34)

Yuck… in a match straight from WCW Thunder, The Funkster (FORMERLY KNOWN AS THE MAESTRO!) takes on Reno, who was being treated as hot sit in the final months of WCW. Yet another failed Power Plant graduate that the WWF didn’t bother picking up. The most notable thing about Reno was his inventive “roll of the dice” finisher which was one of the most copied movies of the era. The Funkster was of course a full on Hulk Hogan impersonation, and interestingly enough, was just months before full-fledged Hogan nostalgia swept through the WWF that spring. This was nothing special and after putting over Reno wrestling in his hometown in front of friends and family, he loses clean to a jabroni doing a Hulk Hogan impression.

In an another trope of the era, a limousine arrives and a bunch of women pile out, followed by the ‘big bad booty daddy’ Scott Steiner. Oh fuck no. Madden loses his shit of course as the WWA shockingly becomes more and more like WCW.

More WCW nonsense follows as Disco Inferno arrives at ringside to do guest commentary and argue with Mark Madden. He’s pissed because his match with Brian Christopher was cancelled and he’s without an opponent. So he offers an open challenge.

3) KroniK defeated Navajo Warrior and Ghost Walker (4:51)

Kronik are MASSIVELY over. Just a huge pop for Adams and Clark. No doubt they would have been at the last PPV, but they had fucked up their WWF run in fall 2001 and I believe were in OVW at the time. Vince really should have given them more of a chance as they looked great, but apparently took issue with them. Kronik ended up in Japan after this WWA tour and Adams was done wrestling by 03 after having back surgery. Here they looked awesome as they squashed the two Native Americans, who were buried by Madden, making all the typical lowbrow racist jokes you’d expect. Kronik squashes these jabronies for an easy win.

Oh great, here’s the non-Nitro Girls to do a dance routine! And it’s a terrible dance routine too lol

There’s a whole bunch of bullshit about hardcore midgets (both of whom would end up on TNA’s early shows months later), following by a hardcore midget match. I fast-forwarded straight through this garbage.

4) Puppet the Psycho Dwarf defeated Teo in a Midget Hardcore match (7:53)

Uh oh… at the end of this crap a siren wails and it’s the BIG BAD BOOTY DADDY SCOTT STEINER! The crowd actually goes nuts for him and he wins me over by coming out and destroying the midgets. Scott cuts one of his usual mush mouthed WCW promos about all the freaks he gets and blah blah blah. He goes after Disco Inferno to accept his open challenge.

5) Scott Steiner (with Midajah) defeated Disco (2:16)

Steiner beats the ever-loving shit out of Disco, which is kind of awesome, and destroys him like a jobber, forcing him to quickly submit to the Steiner Recliner.

6) Eddie Guerrero defeated Psicosis and Juventud Guerrera (c) in a Three Way match to win the WWA International Cruiserweight Championship (12:40)

Eddie Guerrero’s stint in between his two WWF runs is absolutely fascinating and inspiring. He was fired from the WWF in late 2001 as his addictions were out of control. There were a lot of stories about Eddie’s downward spiral and how close to death’s door he was at the time. His firing was a wake up call and he worked hard to kick his habit and put in the hard work to climb back up. Guerrero tore it up on the indies, accepting bookings in new promotions against anyone. It’s amazing to see Guerrero working on Ring of Honor’s early shows and even wrestling a new hot rookie, CM Punk in another promotion. Guerrero was putting on main event level, high calibre matches across all these shows.

Guerrero is in the ring with two familiar foes from WCW, and wow he looks like a star here, just levels above Guerrera and Psicosis. This match is definitely a couple steps down from their classic WCW matches, and I’m kind of amazed that Guerrera and Psi were even brought into the WWE as they have been wrestling in low gear on these PPVs. But still, this was a good, well wrestled matches and Guerrero wins the cruiserweight title, even though he’d be back in the WWF a couple months later.

Bizarrely, after the match Guerrero seemingly turns heel on the fans and quasi shoots on them. But in an actual surprise suddenly Jerry Lynn shows up! The crowd doesn’t really give a shit about Lynn, even though he’s an awesome wrestler, as he was just recently released from a lacklustre WWF run. Thankfully he revives his career in TNA. Lynn then goes heel on the heel Guerrero and fake cries, mocking Guerrero and his problems. They brawl, with both guys getting a chance to beat the shit out of the other. This feud never makes it anywhere as Guerrero would be back in the WWF by the time of their next tour.

7) Devon Storm defeated Sabu (with Bill Alfonso) in a No Disqualification match (20:39)

We next get a lonnnnnnnng hardcore match between Storm and Sabu. I’ve never been a huge Sabu fan, so maybe this was a really good match for him? To me it was just boring and full of all the usual crash and burn Sabu antics. I am a fan of Storm and he certainly puts in the work here, but this just goes on forever and ever. It’s all the missed spots you’d expect in a Sabu match. I’ll give both guys credit though, this is a hard fought battle and both guys take a lot of punishment. Surprisingly Storm picks up the win here. I wonder why the WWF never gave him a shot?

8) Rick Steiner and Ernest Miller defeated West Hollywood Blondes (0:58)

Back to WCW Thunder for this tag team match. Much like the last WWA events, there were a few “humorous” backstage skits with Lenny and Lodi and their not so subtle, suggestive antics. The crowd goes apeshit for Rick Steiner, who looks like dogshit in the ring. Remember when he feuded with Chucky? Steiner and Miller squash Lenny and Lodi, picking up an easy win. Two tag team squashes on this event suggests that they were building for some kind of tag team division that just never ended up happening. Miller then goes after Mark Madden after the match, based on some kind of feud they had in WCW.

9) Jeff Jarrett (c) defeated Brian Christopher to retain the WWA World Heavyweight Championship (13:17)

Oh boy, time for this “much anticipated” main event. Honestly, why not use Scott Steiner or Eddie Guerrero as a replacement for the Macho Ma… errr…. Space Cowboy Randy Savage?? This is the second WWA PPV to be main evented by both Stone Cold Jeff Jarrett and another recently fired-for-drugs WWF mid-carder. Christopher was so far down in the WWF’s lineup that he shouldn’t have been anywhere close to this main event. Jarrett and Christopher were long time friends from back in the USWA when it was being run by their dads, so no doubt Jarrett had “the stroke” to get his buddy in the main event. Christopher even enters with his WWF Too Cool theme, costume, and dance routine – how the fuck did that make it to air?! The match is just another Stone Cold style attitude era brawl. They brawl around ringside and walk through the crowd where Jarrett uses weapons like a fan’s cup of beer on Christopher. It’s pretty standard stuff once it gets back into the ring, and no doubt Jarrett was whispering to Christopher all about his new TNA idea. The match moves along at a decent clip at least, and the Tennessee Rattlesnake uses the guitar and The Stroke on the title in yet another convoluted overbooked finish, featuring referees getting into a fistfight, to retain the title.

Man, these WWA shows are so unbelievably like watching a WCW Nitro. There’s a couple more yet, and I’m definitely going to be watching them. The debut of NWA TNA is right around the corner too, and so much of the WWA’s roster would end up in Nashville by the summer. This card was so badly booked, but had overall better matches than the Inception. Still, it’s brought down by the worst elements of WCW. They needed to focus on the cruiserweights and young, hardworking wrestlers and go far away from all the Nitro/Thunder bullshit. But of course, they never did that and neither did TNA.