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Chris Benoit vs. Bret Hart From WCW Monday Nitro 10/4/99 Kansas City, MO Kemper Arena (6,942) |
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Owen was a hero to most North American fans that appreciate quality wrestling, and one of the few wrestlers that no one should ever have been ashamed to say they looked up to because he was a dedicated athlete that lived a "clean" life. This was the first show WCW has had at Kemper Arena since the fateful WWF PPV where Owen accidentally freefalled from the ceiling to his death while trying to carry out an utterly pointless super hero ring entrance that would not have helped him, his character, or the league one bit because the only point of what the Blue Blazer gimmick had become was to mock useless WCW stiffs the marks look up to like The Huckster and Stink. This matchup of Owen's older brother, Bret, against Owen's friend Chris Benoit, a former Stu Hart trainee and Stampede Wrestling star whose career took a similar bath to Owen's as he had excellent matches and made a name for himself everywhere he went from Japan to Mexico to the US. Like Owen, his lack of size relegated him to junior status in Japan, but he had no problem becoming the top gaijin in the top junior division in the world, NJ. After that he made his way to America and while he got over the "size burier" for the most part, was generally wasted, lost most of his motivation, and he stopped growing as a wrestler. Due to this, his output stagnated, resulting in him going from one of the top wrestlers in the world to merely very good. With the wrestlers from the Stampede days making less of an impact than ever before due to death (Owen, Pillman, Cameron), health (Daveyboy), and lack of a top level push (everyone), combined with all the changes for the worse that have eliminated most of the wrestling or reduced it to mindless high spot run throughs, my story for this match would have been that with Benoit, being the only young wrestler left from the days when Stampede was something of a force in wrestling, was rededicating himself to reaching the top so he could keep the brand of quality wrestling that the top Calgary wrestlers had prided themselves on alive. The only reason quality wrestling cannot exist on a high level in the US is that no one is willing to promote it. People are very impressionable. Many of them like things because they are exposed to it and told that it's cool or great. The proof of this can be found in every form of entertainment, it's all one big hype machine that allows the talentless stiffs to be so successful and profitable. The only reason Benoit cannot be heavyweight champion is in the US is that no booker has allowed him to beat the incumbent top stars so he could rightfully take their place. This match was dedicated to the memory of Owen Hart, and they gave him a match he would certainly have been proud of. In fact, outside of the match Owen had with Bret at Wrestle Mania X, this was probably the best match of Bret's career. This was a long traditional style match, one of the longest in the history of the Monday night wars (although at this point WCW is fighting to get back to the level where they can resume battle). The funny, albeit typically sad, thing is that the match seemed really "dated" because Bret hasn't really had much opportunity to have an excellent match since Satan screwed him at Survivor Series '97, and now pretty much all we see is short angle laden spotfests. "The Burial Match. You coudn't make such an ironic and tragical fate for the Hart family. The death of Owen Hart was really the death of a certain idea of wrestling in the US. He didn't like the new direction of the business and ironically, he won't be able to see it get worse. Bret Hart & Chris Benoit are left in a landscape of desolation, with crooked promoters and idiotic 'fans.' For one last time, they put all their effort into a great wrestling match that was as much for themselves as for Owen, and for the minority of true wrestling fans. They put on a clinic on building a long match to a hot finish and showed everybody what wrestling was all about. Actually, they offered a first class burial to their artform, on free TV, because everybody know that we won't see that ever again, not until that boom period is over anyway. A few weeks later, the retarded guru of shit and one of the men responsible for screwing the career of Bret Hart, Vince Russo, would take his place as head booker of WCW and kill US wrestling dead, and that's the sad end of a tragic story," wrote Jerome. The match proved that there is hope because it worked for the live audience, and any wrestling match that can work for a live audience (with the exception of one that only works because of fan "participation") can work for a TV audience if they are told this is what they are supposed to like. At this point people are still worried about puppies and a pebble, but if WCW presented a match of this quality every week and actually tried to get the wrestlers involved and the quality of the match over (instead of talking about this week's Hogan match being the greatest ever, better than last week's greatest match ever), instead of making bad jokes and talking about how exciting it will be to see Hogan pull up in a limo, it could work. Christ, if people can be suckered into believing Hogan had great matches and now Rock is having great matches, imagine what they are capable of believing if two world class wrestlers that are over for the most part were given the opportunity to assume their rightful positions at the top if they were able to increase their fanbase through these matches. I know some people are thinking I'm 1) rambling on about this and 2) nuts, but WCW still has the talent to pull it off if they repackage some guys (remember how not over "Ringmaster" Austin and Rock were in the beginning of their WWF careers), it's just a matter of someone with power having the desire to make sure match quality gets pushed on the fans enough that the fans who already like this style will know to tune in and enough fans that don't can be converted. Unfortunately, the two sports entertainment clowns won't be the ones to do this because they seem to only know how to attract the lowest common denominator with their penis rage style of booking just for shits and giggles. "I guess if this were to happen, you gotta start weening the fans away from the short matches they're accustomed to and seem to accept. Though by giving them better quality matches and longer ones, that may result in a cut from interview and angle time which "most people" seem to blow their load over now. As you stated, WCW has the talent to make it happen if they can repackage some of their stars. Maybe if the audience is trained well enough, interviews would be secondary and the actions performed in the ring would provide a greater meaning. Pairing Tenay with a capable partner at the commentary booth could help get this idea over. Having the duo talk about how steps A and B (moves, matwork, etc.) are vital to getting to point C (someone's finisher)," wrote Eric. Right, the whole problem is the fans accept these two minute matches. Fans could force the promotions hand by peacefully making their dissatisfaction with the lack of length and screw job finishes by booing the hell out of them. As long as the vast majority of fans are happy or at least content with the current product, they'll still get garbage. WCW should look at it this way, with their current roster, it's not likely that they could beat WWF when it comes anything related to untertaining non-sport even if they wanted to, so there's no point in trying. The strength of the company lies in the wrestlers that have gotten over to a high degree in other places, but have not really been given the chance here. Pretty much all of these guys are capable of having long matches because you don't get over in Japan or Mexico by having two minute matches. By pushing the long matches, they'd be differentiating themselves from WWF. Not every fan wants long matches, but at least you'd have a market of people to appeal to. If you could convince people that this was the best style in the US, then there would be more and more people that would say I'd rather watch WCW to see actual quality wrestling matches than watch WWF and see a bunch of skits with brief exchanges of spots passing for matches. Of course, this is basically like NWA vs. WWF in the late 80's and then WCW vs. WWF in the early portion of the Turner years, and NWA never came close to surpassing WWF. This is where it comes down to booking. Since, hell, seemingly forever NWA/WCW never had any real focus, direction, consistency, or continuity. I mean, I can make far more sense out of where the Japanese promotions are going and I can't even understand what they are talking about. WCW can be summed up the the epic Gamma Ray masterpiece Heading For Tomorrow, "We are heading for tomorrow, but we don't know if were near." WCW has never lost due to a lack of marketable performers, they've lost because they didn't know who to market and how to market them. "With sports entertainment deux on the loose and the ratings on
the rise, I seriously doubt that we'll see anymore classics from WCW.
So much for Russo' s "All in all, this match was a treat. The only bad thing is that while it was a fitting eulogy to a friend and brother, it also gave me the impression of a eulogy to a certain form of professional wrestling that we may not see in the US for a long time to come and that Hart and Benoit represented. Make way for Sports Entertainment, I guess," wrote Danny. Not surprisingly, this was totally a Bret style match, except he worked stiffer than normal because Benoit can take it and sure loves dishing it out. What made the match so good was that aside from a few chinRocks by Bret, everything done was in some way building the match. The spots were very logically ordered. The match was easy to follow, nothing came ease but everything was focused on Bret softening Benoit up, mainly weakening the back, so he could put him away with his trusty sharpshooter. The transitions were great, a big miss giving the wrestler that was down enough time to recover and go on the offensive or a surprising counter turning the tide, at least momentarily. Benoit was largely dominated, but Bret gave him enough hope spots to keep him alive. Since Benoit's finisher, the Crippler crossface, is a move that can be applied out of nowhere and they got this point over during the match, you knew there was always a chance for him. We've seen him get pounded into the grown so many times before, but he always gets right in your face and keeps fighting until you incapacitate him or usually there's some lame runs ins to ruin the match and screw the fans, but I suppose in a way you aren't screwed unless you realize you've been screwed, and Don King is living proof that most people haven't caught on yet. It started out as slow technical wrestling, mainly showing parity. They did enough moves to keep it interesting while building the match little by little. The beginning was purely technical wrestling, using the age old psychology of two faces starting off clean but then dishing out some good old fashioned ass kicking as the match heats up. The set up and transitions were excellent, and the execution of the moves was incredibly precise. The match wasn't all that glamorous because it was old style and these guys move sets aren't that vast these days, which was exposed at this length but largely caused by their typical match being 8 minutes or less, well that and Bret doing the same thing for the past decade even when he regularly had all the time he needed. Bret dominated, but Benoit made little comebacks for near falls. At one point, Benoit landed on his feet for a tilt-a-whirl and tombstone piledrove Bret for a near fall. The speed of the counter was really impressive. One problem I had with this match given that Bret was going over, was it seemed like he would always cut Benoit off too soon. It's not like I don't like seeing Benoit sell because his selling is really strong, and it was stronger here than normal, but Bret is also a good seller and I would have liked to have seen more of Benoit's offense. The funny thing was that even though this match was so much longer than normal, the fans didn't seem to believe the first set of near falls. It was like this was Japan and they were conditioned that no one could win yet. It took the fans a while, but they came around and started reacting to the match. They seemed to be pro Bret for the most part. "One aspect of the match that I enjoyed was the spot that some folks claimed to be the only 'blown' spot of the match. This is where Benoit is held up on the ropes and Hart goes for a very hard charge towards him, and Benoit moves out of the way, as Hart crashes very hard into the ropes. I don't think he was supposed to fly outside myself, I think this is what was supposed to happen. Hart rolls outside the ring anyway, selling the move perfectly because it looked vicious and his selling was really really good here as he made it look like he rolled out to avoid a certain pin from Benoit as a result from the wicked impact and the previous toll. I'm not 100% sure (I probably need to take a few more looks at this sequence) but I believe it was supposed to go that way, and if not, it didn't detract from the match at all IMO because of Bret's quick thinking and selling. Missed spots, if this was one, shouldn't detract from the match hardly at all if those involved are quick to think and react accordingly as these two might have done (see Lyger vs. Sasuke 4/16/94, I always dug the end even though Sasuke botched it, Lyger covered it up so well by gloating over Sasuke's f'up and playing to the crowd, where upon turning around Sasuke got the surprise pin because of Lyger's arrogance. I know others don't agree and felt the botched planned finish hurt the match alot, but I guess I'm in the minority and think it even may have added to it). Anyway, all this is just a minor point but I bring it up just to point out how a blown spot can (if it was, I don't think it was but I can see how one can go either way with it...) be dealt with very well and turned into something good. That is a mark of a good pro," wrote Danny. Bret continued working over Benoit's back, including using a superplex that both sold. Bret recovered first since he was the one on offense and had taken a lot less, and tried a sharpshooter, but Benoit turned it into the Crippler crossface for a great near submission. I liked how Benoit tried to slide Bret to the center, but Bret was too close to the ropes so he was able to escape. Benoit did a locomotion snap suplex which was pretty cool, and followed with his Dynamite Kid diving headbutt for a near fall. Benoit turned a lariat into a rolling German suplex, but Bret elbowed his way out. Bret tried a vertical suplex, but Benoit nearly turned it into the Crippler crossface. Bret countered this by slowly locking in the sharpshooter. This was the first time he was able to get it on, and Benoit wasn't close enough to the ropes so that was it for him. The finish made perfect sense based on how the match was worked. US Match Of The Year! "The match itself was really great. Bret hasn't looked as good in years. At 41 years old, he proved that he is still one of the 5 best North American wrestlers, and not in the same world as all those so-called great young WWF 'superstars.' His performance showed how much he has been misused in the last two years. Benoit was typically great. They worked a really stiff match by US standard, which reminded me Bret vs. Owen at Wrestlemania X. I feared to hear a 'boring' or 'Goldberg' chant because they built the match slowly, but the crowd showed respect. The lack of heat, however, did hurt the match. There was not a lot of reaction until the superplex leading to the first sharpshooter attempt, but after that, the crowd was really into it. They put a lot in their submissions, wich was great since both men's finishers are submission holds. The sequence where Benoit puts Bret in the Crippler Crossface and tries to drag him far from the ropes was really neat. I also loved the fact that Bret did some unexpected counters and stayed away from the formula he used so much during his career (he had to use it to make no talent stiffs like Undertaker & Nash watchable, but after a while, he did the same kind of match pretty much every time, even if he was with a different kind of opponent). The ending was super with Bret struggling to turn the Crossface into a Sharpshooter. That's how you put a submission hold over, and the crowd really pop for it which was heart-warming in these times," wrote Jerome. "I love the Juniors, but I absolutely fell in love with the struggling
for a move the AJ guys do that makes it so realistic and at the same
time more I agree totally with the general point you are making here. The things I didn't like about this finish were 1) Benoit should have won the match 2) Bret got something like 75% of the offense so, while I expected Benoit to lose, I was holding out hope that somehow he'd be able to escape and get the win. I assumed it was curtains though for exactly the reason you said, I just would have liked to have seen Benoit get more offense in during the match so he would have come off better in the loss, but the finish in and of itself was great due to the way they build to it. "It's interesting that you mentioned how Bret dominated for the most part. I thought that the reason why Benoit's offense was limited was because Bret can't take Benoit's more insane moves and that Benoit has too much respect for Bret to deliver them (for instance, using a Dragon Screw legwhip which would possibly exacerbate Hart's degrading limb). Benoit needs Malenko, Guerrero or Jericho or some other junior type to really bump for him in being able to display his cooler offensive moves. I mean, let's be honest: we're probably not going to see Benoit do his nadare shiki no tombstone/powerbomb on Hart. That said, Hart is clearly the heavyweight to have a high calibre US heavy styled match with Benoit to help elevate Benoit's stature. I'm just glad that they gave them the allotted time to perform without the screwiness of a run in and what not," wrote Keith. This is true. It's why when people try to say Bret vs. Misawa in AJ would be a great match, I have to laugh because Bret isn't going to subject himself to the headdroppings, and the higher versions of the big moves done off the middle/top rope, of the apron, or on the floor. He wants to have great matches, but he contradicts himself because he's not willing to go all the way. "Bret in AJ would've been great in late '89 or maybe even '90 to '91. Not these days though. I think it's like that discussion John Williams had about Ted Dibiase being in AJ in '93. Just dated," wrote Keith. Exactly, although he was probably better suited for AJ style even a few years earlier than '89. In any case, I'm not saying he should try to bump like Kobashi cerca 1993, especially at his age. However, he knows enough about how to incorporate moves that one or two well built to killer moves would improve the quality of his matches. "As for Hart, he showed a pretty solid US offense. No innovative moves were really displayed here by Hart. But he seemed to use most of the old style moves that would be considered finishers back in the 80's," wrote Keith. The problem with Bret is that, while he's a really solid wrestler, he's like Flair and Fujinami in that he hasn't done anything new or different since we in middle school. I don't expect these guys to start doing tope con hilos, but that's not the point. The point is you have to mix things up. If you've seen one Bret or Flair face match and one Bret or Flair heel match, you've basically seen all they have to offer because for at least the past decade they've been doing the same things in the same order, playing everything the same exact same way. Their predictability is almost as mind numbing as watching RAW. I know someone is going to say that every wrestler basically does the same old thing all the time, so I'll make the comparison to Iron Maiden. They used the same basic riffs in several of their songs, but like Bret their ability was great. The difference between Maiden and Bret is that they'd mix up the ordering and use different time changes, so it was the same thing only different. Their ability exceptional enough that they were still one of the top metal bands long after their (especially Steve Harris') writing stagnated, they only lost that status because they couldn't suitably replace Bruce Dickinson and Adrian Smith (who luckily have returned now for the latest album). "I think a good way to put it would be to say that a group like Maiden had better longevity than Bret. They progressed in other areas outside of basic riffs like guitar sound. Judas Priest as well since they did a lot of experimentation with sound, techniques, and rhythm, although when you hear them, you know a very distinct signature type of sound," wrote Keith. Well, that was in the 80's, but since Ram It Down they are far more concerned with simply showing they can be really heavy than actually making good music. Every song on Jugulator is brutal, and Glenn Tipton & K.K. Downing don't really seem to know when to slow down to make better music like they had in the past. This album totally lacks the diversity of the past Priest stuff, so it's kind of like Turbo except this is closer to death metal than pop metal. "Ripper" Owens is a far cry from Rob Halford, they act like they sound the same, and maybe they do when doing classic Priest stuff, but on their CD with Owens he sounds more like a bad version of Nevermore's Warrel Dane. They should have just hired Ralf Scheepers to sing for them because he's one of the best, most diverse singers in heavy metal, and a major Priest mark. He's such a mark that he gave up his spot singing in Kai Hansen's Gamma Ray, who Priest can't come close to competing with at this point (except when it comes to making money), because Kai wanted someone that was committed to his band (part of this was that in addition to trying hard to get the Priest gig, Scheepers had never moved to Hamburg like he always said he would, so while Gamma Ray was rehersing diligenty at Hansen Studios, Scheepers usually wasn't there because it was a two hour drive) and Scheepers would have left if Priest would have taken him. The only good out of all this is that Scheepers formed Primal Fear and they play a modern version of great vintage Judas Priest style music, while Glenn & K.K. are still wasting their time trying to be "cool" by making this *quasi* death metal crap. Really, they are going just half way on a style that's already been done better by groups that are willing to go all the way. Perhaps their idea is to ease their remaining fans into this style figuring since this album still sounded something like Priest (excellent guitar playing overshadows weakness at bass and drums) then people like Lorefice will still be sucker enough to by the next CD or two before thinking about giving up on them. Bret Hart and Ric Flair are more like AC/DC in this context. They have a loyal following despite being stagnate (but at least AC/DC admits to having written the same album like 12 times over)," wrote Keith. Yeah, at least AC/DC doesn't claim to be The best there is... On the other hand, Bret & Flair are great within their their own outdated style, whereas there are hundreds of metal bands that "no one" ever even heard of that are more technically proficient, much better songwriters, and a hell of a lot more diverse than AC/DC. "I think by the end of the match you saw what could be (or could have been) with Hart. His back suplex on Benoit was just tremendous, dropped him right on the shoulder/lower neck area of the back and with a force more akin to Benoit's version of that move. Hart usually does this move with very little 'oomph' to it, the 80's kind of way. But as the match progressed, Hart seemed even more inspired to up his offense and the stiffness of his moves. This can be easily attributed to the level of his opponent, Benoit. I think if Hart had been in more matches that last this long and with the caliber of opponent such as Benoit, we may have seen more of a development in Hart's offense over the years, rather than the same formula ala Ric Flair. Who knows?...but I happened to see a noticeable change as the match progressed to a more stiff and up-to-date execution of moves and to some extent variation of moves (the suplex I talked about). One could just attribute this to the fact of it being a one-off tribute match and therefore the extra inspiration, but I guess we'll never know since I agree with you guys that we aren't going to see these kind of quality matches anymore in the US for the time being," wrote Danny. I think Bret is capable of dishing it out, but he doesn't really want to take it. Benoit didn't mind being Bret's whipping boy and taking the harder blows, and the impressive back suplex you pointed out, because it would show how tough he is (since he was selling so much, may as well sell stuff that looks impressive) and he knew that would improve the quality of the match. On the other hand, Benoit routinely did more stiff chops in those couple minute matches against The Flock than he did in 27 minutes against Bret. To me, this says something about the amount of stiff blows Bret is willing to take. Those two get along and Benoit respects Bret enough not to force him to do anything he doesn't really want to, but I think most wrestlers that go the way of stiffness would expect if not demand they got to throw more, if not a lot more, leather than Benoit did in this match. "I see your point, I kept on waiting for Benoit to unload with some fierce chops too. Benoit could have dished out some more of his stiff clotheslines as well. If I recall correctly, Hart did take some punishing knees to the midsection coming off the ropes that were very stiff. All I'm saying is that Bret worked stiffer than normal in HIS type of match, I don't forsee Bret ever wanting to get in a brawl with either Benoit or Finlay. Basically, while I would have preferred more Benoit hard brawling, they did alot of things to make up for it and I know Bret prefers a more scientific style, so I wasn't really expecting massive fisticuffs. But generally, I agree with your point here," wrote Danny. "Benoit's offense was pretty solid with some of the more notable points being Tiger Mask's mule kick in the early part of the match, the Otani Dragon into German suplex hold, a Northern Lights suplex, a tope suicida, and his rolling snap suplex holds. Benoit needed a few more power moves, to modernize the match and bring his level up like the finishing moves he used on Samurai at the Best of Super Juniors '93, Sasuke Super J Cup '94, and Jericho Super J Cup '95. He needed to show the critics that say "What's so special about Benoit?" his more impressive array of offense, especially considering that he had the person that could've put it and him over," wrote Keith. I think the key is that he needed to differentiate himself from Bret because Bret wasn't going to get beat in his own style. He could have done it with the moves you've mentioned, with more flying, or with more stiffness. He needs to do a wider variety of stiff moves to impress people, the chops are great but he's not on Finlay's level for making even the most basic holds like a knee drop look like it could put you in the hospital. Benoit really didn't even use that many chops here, which again I think goes back to Bret not wanting to take a great deal of punishment. "Too bad WCW didn't put out more tribute matches. I'd love to see Guerrero vs. Malenko or Guerrero vs. Benoit in an Art Barr tribute. But I'm being selfish," wrote Keith. I would too, the problem is aside from a few legendary performers, the American promotions truly bury their dead. The sad reality is that as great a heel as Barr was, the majority of the people watching wouldn't know he doesn't suck like that bozo Michael Keaton because they wouldn't have the faintest idea who he was. "It was even better the second time then the first. At least ****1/4 IMO. Everything they did built to something, nothing was wasted. Benoit got a lot in on Bret and there were a couple of times that you honestly though he'd get the win or that it'd be a draw. Both guys sold great and the counters into each other's finishers were awesome. I still don't know if this was better than Sting vs. DDP from 4/26, but both were tremendous matches. The Sting match was mostly great near falls back and forth for 20 minutes with incredible heat. Benoit vs. Bret was as close to an All Japan main event that you'll see in this country (ironically with two guys not from this country) and it was much better than Funk vs. Bret from 9/97. The only two faults weren't Benoit and Bret's, Heenan's commentary and the crowd not being heated for 30 minutes. The match only had heat like 30-40%, but neither of those things could take away from the effort they put out. Maybe one other nitpicking thing was that they should've announced a 30:00 time-limit and when they got to 25:00 announce it so the heat would've been better for the last couple of minutes," wrote Michael. You are right about Heenan's commentary, he was absolutely horrible. All he did is make a bunch of jokes that weren't funny and were totally out of place, distracting from an otherwise excellent match. On the other hand, Tenay did some of his best announcing in the past two years, doing an excellent job of putting everything into perspective. Schiavone wasn't even that bad here, but three announcers is too much when two have no clue. " It's a shame that the only reason WCW let this match see the light of day on Nitro was because of Owen, this is the type of match that should happen every Monday night on Nitro or at the very least on every PPV. Everything worked because of the build and psychology of working towards Bret's finisher, and even some cool things like Bret's counter to the Crippler Crossface, which was done slow enough so the crowd caught onto what he was doing, got the pop. The frustrating thing about this match was it probably signified the end of ever seeing anything like it again because the week after this, "Dumb and Dumber" took over the booking," wrote Jason. "But after the bell, when Bret and Chris hugged, there was nothing but sadness, and in my case, bitterness. Watching Bret with a sad smile pointing to the sky was really painfull. The one thing that just didn't want to leave my mind was that Owen Hart is dead and I can't still figure it out nor believe it (Owen was the first wrestler that really initiate me to great wrestling back in '92 and was a favourite of mine since then). As much as Heenan was annoying during the match, all three anouncers did the right and classy thing during the post match, they didn't say one word. And there was really nothing to say. This match was probably the greatest wrestling moment I wish I never saw," wrote Jerome Special Thanks to: Danny McGowan, Michael Smith, Jason Higgs, Eric Thompson, Jerome Denis, & Keith Watanabe - Manami Toyota Rules! 27:33
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