9 Things I Learned From Watching WCW Greed
If you have to watch a late WCW PPV, don't.
In 2001, World Championship Wrestling stopped flailing around and gave in to the inevitable, ceasing to exist after years of circling the drain. March 26th 2001 is a date that goes down in wrestling infamy, the night that the final episode of WCW Monday Nitro was held and the night Vince McMahon revealed to the world that he had bought his competition.
Eight days before that PPV, World Championship Wrestling held its final ever pay-per-view. Ironically (I guess) called 'Greed', the show featured 10 matches, five of which were championship matches. Scott Steiner defended the WCW World Heavyweight Championship against Diamond Dallas Page in the main event.
15 years have passed since this show, and with all of WCW's pay-per-views available on the WWE Network I felt that now may be the right time to delve back into them. By 2001 I had given up on WCW, so I have no real memory of the end of the promotion. Were things really as bad as we're led to believe?
As the show unfolded, it quickly became clear to me that not only were things as bad as we're lead to believe, but they may actually have been worse. By the time the main event arrived, my interest had ironically reached 'WCW in 2001' levels of life.
So here is what I learned from watching WCW's final PPV, Greed...
9. WCW Was No Longer A Big-Time Promotion
Greed opens with a match between Jason Jett and the quite frankly terribly named Kwee Wee. One interesting thing to note straight away is that despite the fact WCW was in absolute dire straits at the time, the crowd were still fairly hot for all of the action. The commentary team were also pushing Jett quite hard throughout the match, putting on a brave face despite WCW's impending death.
By this point. any semblance of WCW being a major international wrestling promotion was finished. The match itself is a lot of fun, but it is has a small-time live event feel to say the least. The alignments of the two men are quite confusing, with Jett playing a babyface but also cheating from time to time throughout.
The most glaring example of the small-time feel is a strange spot towards the end, where Jett decides to play possum despite being in control of the match. He gestures comically before this, something that is echoed by Kwee Wee when he sees the prone Jett in the ring. Kwee Wee may also have become 'Angry Allan' by this point, but that doesn't matter.
Jett wins the match, but the days of Dean Malenko vs. Eddy Guerrero opening up PPVs was long gone.