Spring Stampede 2000: The Reboot

A week into Eric Bischoff and Vince Russo's attempted reboot of World Championship Wrestling, we were presented with Spring Stampede 2000. Transpiring on April 16th, 2000, from the United Centre in Chicago, this event consisted of 14 chaotic matches in two and a half hours. This attempted reset of the brand stemmed from the fact that WCW was now handily losing the Monday Night War, so this was their last-ditch effort to gain some much-needed ground.

The show presents itself differently from other wrestling events, even by WCW 2000 standards. It’s a show where storylines were scattered all over the place and it seems their motto was…more is better. Six days before the event, Vince Russo and Eric Bischoff began their revamp of WCW and restarted all stories by stripping all champions of their championships with Spring Stampede being the event where new ones would be crowned.

The roster had been split into two sides, with one half being Russo and Bischoff’s New Blood group which consisted of younger talent. The other side consisted of the older generation and was labelled as The Millionaire’s Club. The show also contained many unnecessary mentions of WWF and constant wrestling insider terms. 

As the evening progressed, the show featured two tournaments running throughout the event. There was a four-team tournament to crown the new WCW Tag Team Champions and an 8-man tournament to crown a new WCW United States Champion.

Tag Team Tournament

The Tag Team Championship tournament started with The Mamalukes facing Team Package. Team Package consisted of Ric Flair and Lex Lugar with The Nature Boy deciding to wrestle in a polo shirt and suit trousers. His reasoning was that if Russo wanted a street fight, he was going to dress for a street fight. Speaking of Russo, his first appearance of the evening took place before this match as he buried The Mamalukes by stating that a normal tag team match isn’t fair. So, he added the Harris Brothers to make it 4 on 2 handicap match. According to Russo's logic, the Mamalukes were not good enough defeat to beat Flair and Lugar by themselves.

Despite being outnumbered, Team Package won and would move to the finals to face the team of Buff Bagwell and Shane Douglas who defeated Harlem Heat 2000 in under three minutes.

During the finals to crown the new Tag Team Champions, Russo would join commentary only to leave the desk to distract referee Nick Patrick. With his distraction, KroniK interfered to deliver a Double Choke Slam to Lex Luger. Russo would strip Nick Patrick of his referee shirt but struggled to even put it on properly. Nevertheless, he would slowly count to three as Shane Douglas and Buff Bagwell were crowned the new WCW Tag Team Champions.

United States Championship Tournament

The other tournament which ran throughout the course of the evening was the WCW United States championship tournament.

The first match in the quarter-finals was Scott Steiner against The Wall. Not surprisingly, the conclusion was quite absurd which saw The Wall set up a table, get raked in the eyes by Steiner, and accidentally Chokeslam the referee through the table instead of his opponent. What?

Another referee would rush down to disqualify The Wall, allowing Steiner to advance.

The next match was advertised as Mike Awesome against Ernest ‘The Cat’ Miller but while being interviewed prior to the match, The Cat was attacked by Bam Bam Bigelow backstage.

As Mike Awesome made his entrance, Bam Bam would run down to attack him, which automatically inserted him into the match?

Even more confusingly, Ernest Miller would show up, hit Bam Bam with a thrust kick, grab a microphone and then promise to dance for the people. Miller proceeded to put on his red dancing shoes and dance until Mike Awesome would attack him and deliver the Awesome Splash for the victory.

By the way, it was never mentioned or explained that this match turned into a Triple Threat match.

Sting faced Booker T in one of the better matches of the evening which concluded with a clean pinfall for Sting to advance.

Billy Kidman faced Vampiro in the last match of the quarter-finals. Kidman and Hulk Hogan had just kicked their feud on Nitro and Kidman drove a hummer into another car that had Hogan inside. We saw that Kidman attacked Jimmy Hart earlier in the evening which was yet another perplexing layer to this story. Hogan was a face, but Hart is a heel, yet Hart is meant to be Hogan's manager. So, a heel Kidman attacked a heel Jimmy Hart to provoke a babyface Hulk Hogan.

Hogan appeared and attacked Kidman while chokeslamming through the announcer’s table. Hogan proceeded to roll Kidman back inside the ring for Vampiro to pick up the win. Hogan then went on a rampage to locate Bischoff only to get arrested at gunpoint by police officers.

Meanwhile, Bishoff could be heard yelling in the background, “Don’t cuff him, shoot him!”

Semi-Finals

Vampiro lost to Sting by submission while Scott Steiner forced Mike Awesome to submit after interference from Kevin Nash.

Awesome had previously attacked Nash on Nitro. Sadly, Mike Awesome’s momentum was cut off from the very beginning of his WCW tenure by already submitting in less than a week of debuting.

Finals

The final of the tournament saw Sting face Scott Steiner. Sting would have the upper hand until Vampiro got involved by pulling Sting through the ring mat.

By the time Sting returned, he was bloodied from Vampiro’s attack which allowed Steiner to take advantage and force The Icon to submit with the Steiner Recliner.

Scott Steiner was officially your new WCW United States Champion.

Hardcore Title

In amongst the tournaments, there was a hardcore battle between Terry Funk and Norman Smiley that started in the backstage area and ended up in the ring.

Dustin Rhodes appeared and executed a piledriver on Funk but Terry Funk refused to give up. Terry Funk would ultimately hit Smiley with a ladder to pick up the win and become the new WCW Hardcore Champion.

It’s worth noting that later in the show, Dustin Rhodes would be fired by Russo for his actions. Furthermore, Russo claimed that Dustin Rhodes was useless and was only any good when he was Goldust, a character Russo was involved with creating.

Cruiserweight Championship

Chris Candido won the WCW Cruiserweight championship in a suicide six-man match featuring Crowbar, the artist formally known as Prince Iaukea, Shannon Moore, Lash LaRoux and Juventud Guerrera. In the match featuring six competitors, we also witnessed interferences from Daffney, Paisley, Tammy (WWE Sunny), David Flair and Shane Helms. This made an already convoluted match even more challenging to keep up with.

WCW World Heavyweight Championship

The main event of the show put the spotlight on the vacant WCW World Heavyweight championship where The Chosen One, Jeff Jarrett faced Diamond Dallas Page, who was accompanied by his wife Kimberley.

Both men received a long entrance, walking from their dressing room in an attempt to create a big fight feeling.

The fight would ultimately spill into the audience before coming back into the ring where Eric Bischoff made his way down to the ring.

Bischoff distracted the referee while Kimberly entered the ring with a guitar while seeking revenge on Jarrett, who had hit her with one during the previous Nitro.

In yet another surprise twist, Kimberly turned on her husband DDP by smashing him with the guitar which allowed Jarrett to earn the pinfall victory and become the new World Heavyweight Champion.

Final Thoughts

Spring Stampede 2000 was chaotic and progresses at a lightning pace, which allowed little to no breathing room. Amongst the chaos was a swerve or twist featuring throughout nearly every match or storyline. This formula became predictive to the point where it would have been more shocking if Kimberly defended her husband instead.

The event was a prime example of Vince Russo’s ‘Car Crash Television’ that presents a feeling that anything could happen but ends up backfiring to become overloaded.

While attempting to establish new stars such as Vampiro and Billy Kidman, the more established one would ultimately gain the upper hand.

In essence, Spring Stampede 2000 represented everything that was captivating along with everything that was dreadful about WCW in the 2000s.