House Show Results from Augusta, GA, Thursday, April 30th,
1998
House Show Results from Augusta, GA, Thursday, April 30th, 1998
by Devin from Aiken, SC
- The weather was terrible tonight. The announced card featured DDP v. Kevin Nash and Curt Hennig v. Ric Flair. I figured Flair would be a no-show due to the past few weeks of legal touble. I was surprised that some other wrestlers were missing such as DDP who was to take on Nash and Raven who was to take on Benoit.
- The Civic Center in Augusta was probably a third full. I figured this was due to the weather and many people had heard about the Flair situation. It was still a bummer that more folks were not there. The crowd was not nWo, not WCW, but all Goldberg. They chanted "Goldberg" througout the night. They talked about Goldberg in the ticket line, at the concession stands, in the seats and in the bathrooms. There were Goldberg shirts everywhere. I hope Mr. Goldberg is being fairly compensated. The first two matches were jobbers. Nothing really to report.
- Next I was treated to a blast from my 31 year old past with Pistol Pez Whatley taking on Sgt. Buddy Lee Ryan. If my memory serves me right they both are instructors at The Power Plant. They put on a great show with low flying 70’s style arm-bar and headlock wrestling. An OK match.
- The Barbarian then took on Bobby Eaton. The older Southern wrestling fans gave him a pop but he was mainly the heel. Nice match with the Barbarian winning but Eaton did well.
- Sick Boy and Kidman got incredible heel heat against the ritalin inspired High Voltage. This was a great match and I was impressed with High Voltage. Thay really work well together and are ridiculously pumped up. All power moves to The Flock's cheating and running. High Voltage would be holding gold if it was 1984. Kidman and Sick Boy got the win with outside ring distraction (of course).
- Saturn defeated Fit Finley. Pretty good match. Finley basically kept it on the mat with some outside the ring action. Saturn never really opened up. When I would scream "ECW" the crowd would look at me like I was preaching from the Satanic Bible. Perry Saturn won with the Spiccoli Driver much to my pleasure.
- Benoit then faced Booker T for the TV strap. Both got huge pop, but Booker T really was over with the crowd. I might add that Booker T was really over with the African-American presence in the crowd. I found this pleasing in that IMHO there are not enough African-American wrestlers in the federations. Incredible bout with all the move you see these guys do on Nitro and Thunder all the time. Both wrestlers are ripped. In the end Booker missed the side kick and tapped out to the Crossface. So Benoit walked away the NEW TV CHAMPION! I found that rather odd. Can they seriously have a title change on an non-televised Augusta, GA house show?
- Since DDP was not there we got a "special" main event. "The Battle of the Giants" took place between The Giant and Nash. Good pop for both. Giant with the most. Nash did the survey with nWo taking the nod. Sluggish match with the highlight being The Giant's new butt buster move where he climbs the ropes and off the top turnbuckle does a moonsault onto his opponent landing on his butt. No, just kidding. He backs up Nash into the corner and rammed his behind three times into Big Sexy's midsection. On the third time he wiggled his rear-end like a Nitro girl and "POW".......Nash fought out of it (I think this had to be a shoot at this point ) and back kicked The Giant in the groin. This got Nash DQed and he powerslammed the ref for his touble.
- Good show but it was disappointing not seeing Flair or Raven. I can live without DDP because there must have been 200 guys and girls there that looked just like him. So I felt like I saw him all night long.