WCW Monday Nitro, San Francisco, CA
A request! This is a “San Francisco 49ers match” for the constantly-vacated WCW world heavyweight title of 1999-00, which was yet again vacant because Vince Russo had hilariously and beneficially won it on the prior week’s Nitro from Booker T, who had held it a whopping eight days after beating Kevin Nash (20 days) at Fall Brawl.
This is the eighth time in just under a year that the WCW title has been vacant. I’m not trying to be all stodgy, old man, “the title is to be treated SERIOUSLY!” on you, even if I generally do feel that way, but the post-Russo version(s) of WCW were ridiculous even for, like, middle period “Scrubs.”
(Requests open and tips always appreciated!)
A “San Francisco 49ers match” involves four boxes on poles that you climb up to get shit out of, and one box has the belt, and the other three have weapons. One can assume the last box opened will be the one with the belt, although it would have been a good rib of Booker and Jarrett to agree to “mistakenly” just go to the box with the belt first off and “accidentally” end the match there.
As Tony Schiavone, Scott Hudson, and that ridiculous bozo Mark Madden speculate on what type weapons could be in the box, Hudson suggests lead pipes, brass knux, and chains. Madden suggests hand grenades and Hudson goes with it. Schiavone lets Hudson finish his thought before deadpanning, “Fans. I don’t think there’s going to be hand grenades in one of those boxes.”
Because it’s one of the five things anyone in the world found amusing in 2000 WCW, we get a replay of Jeff Jarrett recently hitting “Beetlejuice” with his guitar. Mark Madden says he’d like to see Jarrett hit Robin Givens with the guitar next. Hudson calls him on the mistake, which Madden recognizes and clarifies that he means Robin Quivers.
“Obviously, you’ve got to incapacitate your opponent in order to be able to search through a box!” Schiavone notes.
Jarrett, a true wrestler, argues with a grandma ringside as the match begins, and we start outside. Jarrett’s got a chair fast and does the ol’ jab to the gut chair technique. They’re saying “San Francisco 49ers” match a lot, and Schiavone did make it clear that it refers to the gold rush (get the gold, see) and not the football team, then Madden, a real sport nut, says they cheated to win their last Super Bowl, which came in the 1994 season so it’s funny and timely.
Now actually funny: Jarrett hits the turnbuckle on an Irish whip and the first box just falls off its hanging chain or whatever and down to the floor. Jarrett stomps the box open and it’s a blow-up doll, which would later be a thing that indie wrestling fans found absolutely hilarious 6,214 times. Jarrett chucks the doll away.
Booker opens the second box. It’s a framed photo of Scott Hall.
This is a terrific gag because it’s entirely for the “smart fans” that the big cheeses in the WCW “creative” hated so much, and also because Hall hadn’t been in WCW for nearly eight months and never would be again. Booker at least goes ahead and uses it as a weapon, conking Jarrett over the head. Madden, ever the king of the edgelords, says Scott Hall should fight Robert Downey Jr at the pay-per-view. Fuck yeah bud that’d be funny as hell
Jarrett uses one of the downed boxes as a weapon, so at least these guys are trying a little. A very little. Jarrett “goes for a piledriver” on the announce table but it gets turned around and it’s Jarrett who takes one from Booker. Jarrett’s attempt was so blatantly not happening by the way he gripped it, didn’t even pretend it was actually gonna happen, kinda like when the aforementioned Hall would set for the Razor’s Edge near the ropes and facing them, so that he could get backdropped over to the floor.
Booker finds a coal miner’s glove in the third match, which is kinda funny in that it once was a real weapon of menace in pro wrestling circles, but now is something that sucks and people had been making fun of for years. Jarrett and Booker decided to use it seriously, which is fine to do. Jarrett continues to use the boxes as extra weapons.
Both guys wind up downed and trying their best to keep this as a world title wrestling match that can be taken at all seriously. When I look back on 1999-01 WCW, the one thing I really admire is the guys in these no-win situations who try to make at least bad chicken salad out of the chicken shit they’re given.
Jarrett grabs a sleephold. The referee checks the arm at one point and Madden, who doesn’t give a shit, asks why the fuck the referee would do that instead of ignoring that it happened, because the match only ends when the belt is retrieved from the box. Whether Booker is passed out in a sleephold is irrelevant. Scott Hudson, quick on his feet, responds “because everybody would have known he was out, and he would have known, and OH (changes topic).”
They both wind up down again, Jarrett gets up first and retrieves the coal miner’s glove once more. He goes up top for a flying glove punch, but is caught with the Bookend. Booker’s climb is interrupted, but the Stroke is blocked and Booker hits the axe kick, spinaroonie, Harlem sidekick, and we go on with more stuff.
Jarrett looks around under the ring and comes back with nothing, then goes back after a move and see, he can’t get the guitar out because it’s “stuck.” Jarrett gives up and the bit is that Beetlejuice emerges from under the ring to punch Jarrett in the nutsack a few times. Beetlejuice is flying around going wild. Booker gets the fourth box, but the belt falls out to ringside. Sensing that it’s time to just see this end, ring announcer David Penzer just picks it up and hands it to Booker so that Booker doesn’t have to go all the way out there.
Post-match, Scott Steiner runs in with his lead pipe, but I wasn’t paid to talk about Scott Steiner and I’m tired of this.
I hate this match more because of what it isn’t than because of what it is. I’m 25 years numb on being actively mad about terrible Vince Russo wrestling. But Jeff Jarrett and Booker T were both fantastic pro wrestlers, guys who meshed the “new school” of the era and the “old school” that had gotten them into wrestler, the dying days of which both started in. They could have just had a memorable title match if left to their own devices, but instead they’re doing Russo shtick, trying desperately through half of it to make it matter to the fans, who aren’t silent but largely just interested in making sure their signs are seen on TV because they flat don’t care what happens in the match or with the belt.
And why would they? For a year they’d been conditioned to believe it simply doesn’t matter and that the belt might be vacant again on Thunder when Commissioner Whoever or someone declares that Beetlejuice’s interference was reason enough to once again strip someone.
The belt never did go vacant again, at least. Booker held it 55 days, then Scott Steiner won it at Mayhem in November and carried it through to the final Nitro, where he lost it back to the WWF-bound Booker T as the company was taken out back and shot in the brain by the AOL/Time Warner merger.
Tape Machines Are Rolling 
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