[1997-07-13-WCW-Bash at the Beach] Hulk Hogan & Dennis Rodman vs Lex Luger & The Giant

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Tim Cooke]

Hadn't seen this before. Way better than it had any right to be. Nash as Sting wasn't presented well by the announcers nor for the live crowd but everything else was executed well. Good end to a good PPV.

[Loss]

This match put a big smile on my face. I LOVED the armdrag stuff with Rodman and Luger. Watch Luger handhold Dennis Rodman through these really fun sequences and don't tell me Lex couldn't work. Hogan doing all these classic heel tricks is really fun too. This is about as perfectly put together as a match involving someone of Dennis Rodman's celebrity could be. Nash as the Fake Sting was a dumb spot -- only because the announcers fell for it -- in an otherwise really fun match. Rodman taking the torture rack was a great photo-op/Sportscenter moment.

[Kevin Ridge]

My problem with this match right off the bat is not believing Rodman could compete in the ring with Luger and definitely not The Giant. HBK has to be thinking how he should have wrestled with sunglasses on. Rodman hits a armdrag as Hogan and Savage storm the ring to congratulate him. That is hilarious. Luger getting outclassed by Rodman! Why is Savage even out there? Rodman is game but come on that is so obvious Nash dressed up as Sting. Luger racks Hogan and Rodman/Savage too.

[Childs]

They did an awesome job building the really simple stuff involving Rodman into big moments. I mean, it's sort of ridiculous to think that an armdrag carried that much meaning. But everyone, from Luger to the announcers, sold the shit out of it. I thought they struck a nice balance between making Rodman look competitive and giving him some comeuppance. For NWO matches involving pro athletes, I'd still take the Slamboree tag. But the evidence suggests that WCW was surprisingly good at staging these types of matches in 1997.

 

EDIT: The announcers buying Nash as Sting was fucking stupid.

[soup23]

The Giant is the king of celebrity matches. This one is in my upper echelon with the LT/Bigelow and Floyd/Show. Great performance while all involved mixing in impressive spots for Rodman and also some embarassment like the spanking and the rack. The opening segment with Luger couldn't have went more perfect and Luger was a pro in putting it over. Savage being out there as the manager feels odd but who knows the Savage/Hogan buddy story continues. Barry Windham makes a much more convincing Sting than Nash. Announcers have played it smart in most of these segments so I don't know why they acted so assured this was the real Sting when clearly it wasn't. Luger racks Hogan to get the win and Rodman gets it for good measure. Fun ending to the PPV.

[Dooley]

I think Savage was out there to call spots and if (worst-case scenario) Rodman freaked out and/or bailed, he could step in. I've heard the second part of that logic applied to Snuka being in the corner for Hogan/T at WM1 and it seems plausible enough.

 

And yeah the Nash "Sting" thing was horrible but just another example of the WCW announce crew not knowing how they were supposed to react.

[soup23]

When Savage is the "sane" backup, it is a miracle the match turned out so well.

[Robert S]

They laid out the match really clever, especially the build up for Rodman's armdrag: they kept Rodman out out the ring for some time with the question beeing what he can do in the ring. Rodman did end up doing much more than you would expect, he took much more bumps than a celebrity is required to take.

[El-P]

Fantastic spectacle. Rodman was a terrific heel here. Too bad they had to do that stupid Nash-as-Sting heel spot at the end, and the announcer selling it like it was Sting was idiotic. But yeah, great lay-out, great psychology. Way to get the most out of a bunch of simple armdrags.

[PeteF3]

One of the most downright FUN matches of the year. One to watch if you're into minimalism, in wrestling or--heck, maybe anything else. This is all about simple bullshit in lieu of star-rating-centered action, but Hogan and Rodman are such magnetic personalities and the match is so well-laid-out that these four can get reactions just for blowing their noses. There are also some really great nods to Rodman's on-court career here, throwing elbows and a terrific callback to a real NBA incident where he headbutted a referee, neither of which are overdone and oversold. Nash as the fake Sting was dumb and pointless but it's the only black mark on this match. If I did a Top 100 matches for each year this would definitely have its place. It certainly is far more memorable than many other matches that will technically rank above it.

[flyonthewall2983]

On 11/18/2013 at 1:06 AM, Dooley said:

I think Savage was out there to call spots and if (worst-case scenario) Rodman freaked out and/or bailed, he could step in. I've heard the second part of that logic applied to Snuka being in the corner for Hogan/T at WM1 and it seems plausible enough.

Hogan and Savage did this before (with Brutus Beefcake) in the tag matches with Tiny Lister/Zeus, everyone basically babysitting him through the match.