15 YRS AGO – WWA in Sydney, Australia: Sting vs. Steiner vs. Douglas, Lynn vs. Sabin, plus Konnan, Disco Inferno, Kazarian, Crowbar, Sabu

This was originally published on PWTorch.com 15 years ago this weekend…

World Wrestling All-Stars house show report
May 21, 2003
Sydney, Australia at the Sydney Entertainment Centre
Report by Dan Lennard, PWTorch.com correspondent

Bret Hart gave a speech. He looked very sad (and small). The crowd was nice to him.

(1) Chris “The Future” Sabin beat Frankie “The Future” Kazarian in a WWA Cruiserweight Tourney semi-final match.

(2) Konnan pinned Disco Inferno. Disco used his WCW gimmick and tried but Konnan was terrible. Konnan botched up the Pedigree finish because his trousers were nearly falling down.

(3) Teo beat Puppet and Meatballs in three-way dance after Teo swantoned Meatballs. Horrible. Shane Douglas came out afterwards and beat up the midgets. He then demanded to be put in the main event between WWA champ Sting and Rick Steiner. Promoter Andrew McManus agreed and the match was signed. Guess Rick didn’t want to do the job in the main event.

(4) Jerry Lynn beat Johnny Swinger in a WWA Cruiserweight Tournament match. Lynn won with the cradle piledriver. An intermission followed the match.

(5) Crowbar beat Mark Mercedes (veteran Aussie wrestler) in a hard-core, falls-count-anywhere match. Decent bout.

(6) Sabu beat Joe E. Legend. Good match.

(7) Jerry Lynn beat Sabin to the WWA Cruiserweight Title despite Disco’s interference. Lynn won with another cradle piledriver. The match went 15 minutes and was easily the best of the night. Lynn was clearly the MVP of the show.

(8) Sting beat Rick Steiner and Shane Douglas in a three-way to retain the WWA Title. Sting pinned Shane after giving him the Scorpion Death Drop. Better match than I expected. Sting won the match and got the hell out of there. No post-match interviews or anything.

Notes: WWA used a local promotion’s wrestling ring, and two local referees. They must be cutting back heavily on expenses. Also, there was very little PR work done before the tour. No wonder the crowds were down, although having WWE coming here in August probably didn’t help either.

Overall, a good card. There were less than 2,000 people in the 10,000-person arena, but the crowd gave the wrestlers good heat.

Wrestlers who were advertised but did not appear were Midajah, Malice, Erica (UPW gal), and Horshu. Jeff Jarrett didn’t wrestle on the card but will be at the PPV in New Zealand this Sunday.

Promoter Andrew McManus did some play-by-play commentating at the start of the card. If he does any commentating on the PPV, he will easily win worst announcer of the year.

NOW CHECK OUT THIS PREVIOUS 2003 FLASHBACK: 15 YRS AGO – WWE in Johnson City, Tenn.: Cena calls fans “stupid rednecks,” “idiots,” and “f-gs” during a pre-match heel rant before tag match against Rey & Brock