Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you a master class on how NOT to open a PPV. This match took place in the period of 1998 where WCW decided to push the babyface Wrath, who started to get incredibly over, especially his pumphandle slam "The Meltdown" (until, of course, he fought Kevin Nash on Nitro, derailing all the good progress made). Bryan Clarke, although limited as a worker, could put on an entertaining powermatch and logic would dictate that Wrath would steamroller through Glacier, who had never been over in the 2 years since his debut. A quick squash for the popular Wrath, demolishing Glacier with a string of powermoves, would warm up the crowd nicely and was the obvious way to go, right?

Wrong.

Oh, it's true enough that this is a squash. Glacier gets in very little offence, and what he does is no-sold, even his Khryonic Kick, one of his major moves . In fact, his offence is no sold to the extent that Glacier seems to be ignoring the no-selling and continuing with his offence without a care. The majority of the match though is Wrath on the attack, and he does so, very slowly. Punches and kicks and chokes with power cables are the name of the game and it's only the excellent selljob performed by Glacier (witness the nice 360 Marty Jannetty clothesline selljob or the bumps taken from several weak looking Wrath chops) that stops this from being totally dull. Finally, after eight or nine minutes of slow offence, Wrath sells something for Glacier, who instantly decides to try his finisher, the Ice Pick (Asiatic Spike). From the way Glacier telegraphs it, with his thumb held aloft for an age, we know he has no chance of applying it. Indeed, Wrath blocks it and instantly hits the Meltdown for three. Ten minutes of slow squash, when 5 minutes lopped off would have made the same point, hidden some of Wrath's limitations on offence and psyched the crowd up for the awful PPV ahead. Good work WCW, 1/2* because I'm feeling generous towards Glacier's fine selling