10 Worst WCW ‘On A Pole’ Matches
9. Tank Abbott Vs. Big Al - SuperBrawl 2000
Object atop: a leather jacket (but that's not all...)
Tank Abbott was Vince Russo's grand plan as his WCW World Heavyweight champion - not his grandest, that was C-list actor David Arquette - but a man in whom he placed a ridiculous amount of misplaced confidence.
If he had to immediately debut on national television, a veteran worker should have been installed to guide him through his first matches, in an attempt to conceal his greenness and hasten his in-ring development. That's what a competent organisation would have done. WCW was not a competent organisation, so Big Al - hardly a technical wizard - was selected as his second PPV opponent. This was only nominally a wrestling match; Abbott and Al simply threw potato shots in one another's temple as they called each other "f*ckers" and "p*ssies" for five minutes. The match is otherwise infamous for the post-match angle, in which Abbott - having almost sent Al tumbling to a grisly head-first death - retrieved the titular jacket and, from it, a legit shoot knife.
"I could f*cking kill you," Abbott screamed, as he pressed the knife against Al's throat. Terrified production staffers cut away - but this being WCW, they were also inept production staffers, and thus the profanity-laced attempted murder scene was essentially captured in full. Adding a blackly comedic element to the proceedings, Tony Schiavone unleashed the very worst attempt at spin. Ever.
"I think maybe that was a pair of scissors, and he was gonna cut off his beard or something."
It was a knife, and Al was clean-shaven.