Dr. K's Waiting Room

The Build-Up:
World Championship Wrestling (WCW) dominated the “Monday Night Wars” with the game-changing New World Order (nWo). In 1997, turncoat “Hollywood” Hulk Hogan drafted controversial basketball star and life-long wrestling fan “The Worm” Dennis Rodman for a disastrous tag team match. Though they lost, Rodman stuck around to boost WCW’s mainstream appeal and re-teamed with Hogan for another high-profile tag team bout, this time capitalising on his volatile relationship with basketball rival, “The Mailman” Karl Malone.

The Match:
Like in the previous year’s match, this bout was peppered with frustrating stalling from Rodman and Hogan, with even Rodman’s decision to start the match being a drawn-out process that saw Hogan lovingly remove his beloved shades. This was further extended by the Worm’s reluctance to tie-up with the Mailman as he constantly lured Malone in for a lock-up and scurried away, frustrating Malone and the braying crowd. Even when Rodman slapped on a side headlock, he fled outside when Malone shot him off the ropes before decided Malone wasn’t worth the effort and tagging Hogan in. Hogan wasn’t much better, though, as he engaged in a pose down with Malone, baiting him in for a test of strength before finally locking up and being forced into the ropes by Malone’s standing shoulderlock. Malone then impressed with a scoop slam and tagged in “Diamond” Dallas Page, drawing Rodman back into the ring to complain about DDP interfering with his bandana. The Worm spat at and threw DDP about with some hip tosses, ineptly falling from the effort, before knocking heads with DDP as the crowd chanted “Boring!” Rodman applied a side headlock and awkwardly tumbled into a near fall then, when DDP applied his own headlock, Rodman fired him off the ropes for his impressive leapfrog spot, only to clumsily crash into DDP and knock himself loopy. Hogan and Malone took over with a lengthy wristlock exchange. When Rodman landed a cheap shot to the Mailman as Hogan argued with the referee, Hogan choked Malone and hit a scoop slam so Rodman could toss him into Hogan’s waiting boot. Even when holding Malone for Hogan to punch, the Worm fell on his ass and he looked absolutely out of it on the ring apron as Malone gamely took a back suplex.

However, Malone avoided Hogan’s elbow drop and tagged in DDP, who flew in with a diving clothesline only to be shut down by a knee to the kidneys and being repeatedly whipped by Hogan’s weight belt. A double clothesline and big boot saw DDP separated from his partner. However, DDP avoided Hogan’s Atomic Leg Drop and brought Malone back in, driving Hogan to his knees as he begged for mercy. A flurry of clotheslines and scoop slams saw the Mailman dominate his foes, bashing their heads together and ramming Hogan into the turnbuckles and aping Hogan’s moves. With Hogan softened up, Malone tagged in DDP to hit the Diamond Cutter and Malone even hit one of his own on Rodman. However, Malone inadvertently distracted the referee when he bizarrely went for the cover, allowing the Disciple to drop DDP with the Apocalypse. Hogan quickly capitalised and got the win, so Malone dropped the Disciple with a Diamond Cutter as the crowd tossed rubbish into the ring in displeasure. Malone briefly won them back by hitting a Diamond Cutter on the referee and celebrating with DDP, but the nWo left the winners of this clunky, pathetic excuse for a match that was completely ruined by Rodman’s shocking performance. On the plus side, Karl Malone did pretty well and was somewhat impressive but it was obvious the basketball stars were too limited to do much, so the bookers decided to rely on stalling and Hogan-orientated nonsense rather than having DDP carry the match to something more passable and entertaining.

The Aftermath:
Surprisingly enough, despite Dennis Rodman reportedly rocking up suffering from a wild night of partying the night before and this match being universally lambasted, Bash at the Beach 1998 was one of WCW’s most successful pay-per-views (in terms of buy rate, at least), which is arguably due to Dennis Rodman and Karl Malone. This may explain why poor old DDP was lumbered with another celebrity tag team partner the next month as he teamed with talk show host and comedian Jay Leno to defeat Hollywood Hogan and Eric Bischoff. DDP doubled down on this momentum by emerging victorious in a WCW vs. nWo WarGames match at Fall Brawl 1998 but famously failed to capture the WCW World Heavyweight Championship from Goldberg at Halloween Havoc. He did become the WCW United States Heavyweight Championship the following month, however, but quickly lost it thanks to the Giant, whom he overcame at Starrcade 1998. Although Karl Malone never wrestled again, Dennis Rodman had one last match at the 1999 Road Wild event where he lost to “Macho Man” Randy Savage in a widely criticised bout.

My Rating:

Terrible

Were you also disappointed by Dennis Rodman’s poor performance in this match? Did you find all the stalling and time-wasting frustrating? Were you impressed with Karl Malone? Did you follow, or care, about the rivalry between the basketball stars? Do you think DDP got shafted with these celebrity matches? What are some of your favourite matches and moments from WCW’s Bash at the Beach pay-per-views? Whatever your thoughts on Dennis Rodman, Bash at the Beach, and WCW, share them below, show me some love on Ko-Fi, and check out my other wrestling content.