If Ultimo Dragon wins this match, Chavo Guerrero Jr. will be freed from having to follow Eddie’s instructions. Chavo shakes Ultimo’s hand, Eddie doesn’t have any interest in that.

Eddie grabs a waistlock and takes Ultimo down with an armdrag. They get right back up and Ultimo handsprings out of the wristlock and gets an armdrag of his own. They scramble for position again and Ultimo gets a high headlock takeover. Ultimo puts Eddie in a headscissors and transitions it into an armbar. Eddie transitions into a pin and Dragon bridges out. They trade monkey flips, Ultimo goes for a kick flurry but Eddie puts him down with a dropkick.

Eddie takes over with stomps and a choke in the corner. He throws some hard chops in the corner and a nice European uppercut. Dragon handstands in the corner, headscissors Eddie, and then monkey flips him. This time Ultimo hits the kicks and, it’s strange, but the crowd doesn’t react at all to his offense. Dragon kicks Eddie as he gets back into the ring and puts on a single leg crab. We see the cause of the non-reaction as the crowd is distracted by a larger fan taking his shirt off.

Eddie baits Dragon into the corner and pokes him in the eye. Eddie gets Dragon running and flattens him with a clothesline and follows that up with a vertical suplex before putting on a chinlock. Eddie throws Dragon to the floor and whips him into the guardrail before choking him with a cable. Eddie slaps Chavo a couple times before sending Dragon back into the ring.

Eddie sets Ultimo on the top rope and follows him up but Ultimo manages to headbutt his way free. Dragon kicks Eddie to the floor and follows with the Asai moonsault. They both get back in and Dragon hits a torture rack backbreaker before throwing punches. He hits a moonsault for a two count and then sets Eddie on the top rope. Eddie pushes Dragon off a frankensteiner attempt and hits a tornado DDT. He misses a frog splash and Ultimo gets the magistral cradle for two.

Ultimo hits a moonsault off the middle ropes into a dragon sleeper. Eddie flips out and locks in his own dragon sleeper. Eddie tries using the ropes for leverage and Chavo knocks his feet off the ropes. Eddie and Chavo argue, Ultimo accidentally spin kicks Chavo, and Eddie finishes Ultimo with the brainbuster and the frog splash. Chavo thinks about attacking Eddie but stomps and slaps Dragon instead. Eddie and Chavo argue and Eddie offers Chavo a free shot, but Chavo won’t take it.

Final Thoughts: This was underwhelming but not bad. Mechanically, everything Eddie did looked good. He brought some nastiness with the strikes and his big lariat but he never felt particularly emotional during the match. Ultimo seemed a little more off and the crowd really didn’t buy into him so there were strange moments of him making comebacks to silence. The crowd started to get interested once Chavo got involved but the match was over so soon after he got kicked that there wasn’t really any growth. The best part was the post-match and it felt like they could have had something with a more fired up Chavo even if, like has to be said about a lot of midcard WCW moments, it didn’t really go where the people would have hoped. **1/2- A technically fine match that didn’t really hook the crowd; it’s just one of those matches where I hoped for more with the wrestlers involved and an actual storyline behind them

Leave a comment