Gimmick Some Lovin': The Doomsday Cage Match

My Rating

My three-year-old son is in a phase where he's obsessed with talking about "bad guys" and "booby traps". He's always talking about how the "bad guys" are trying to trap us, and the way they will try to do it is by "making plans," "setting booby traps," and "doing bad guy things".

Either he booked this match, or Hogan did while finishing off the large pile of illicit drugs he and McMahon were rumoured to have shared while coming up with the film No Holds Barred in the 1980s.

In most fictional media, an 8-on-2 advantage is meant to build tension and let the audience worry about how their protagonists might survive to see another chapter; in this match, it simply makes one wonder who is going to eat the pin, and why it's Ric Flair (whose name, somehow, Buffer mispronounces).

WCW apparently only learned from ECW's influence that viewers wanted an exponential increase in stuff, things, weapons, and bodies; between the convoluted story and rules, the lack of any visible passion from anyone involved, and half-hearted punches and kicks thrown throughout, it's clear that effectively connecting with an audience was not a Philadelphia staple that WCW was willing or able to try.

To say that everyone sleepwalks through this "contest" would be insulting to the notion of sleepwalking. Every heel, regardless of his resume, is treated like a nobody and turns in a nobody level of effort. Hogan and Savage, meanwhile, are at their most self-aggrandizing, and it's clear why audiences had been turning on The Hulkster throughout much of 1995 and 96.

I couldn't give the "Pills on a Pole" match an integer rating because of its poor quality; this one is so much worse, it doesn't even deserve a number. I officially rate this one:

💩/10

Meltzer says:

Meltzer gives this one a generous negative three stars, and it's a wonder how much worse this could be to lose those final two stars.

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