Gorman

Or they could think about what they would usually do, and then do the opposite.

We need a "Just a Bot" remix by No Doubt.

Very happy to hear that Joe Dombrowski is coming to MLW! We announced together in IWC, and he has deserved a break like this for a long time.

Thoughts on SuperBrawl 2 Jesse Ventura told Jim Ross that he should wear a cowboy hat so he could look like JR Ewing. "His initials are even JR!" A light bulb went on above Vince McMahon's head. Terry Taylor changed his moniker from "The Computerized Man of the '90s" to the "Taylor Made Man," which apparently meant raiding Ted DiBiase's wardrobe. Junkyard Dog came out of the crowd to save Ron Simmons from a beating by Cactus Jack and Abdullah the Butcher. But why was JYD wearing a white tuxedo? Tom Zenk ended his 5-PPV losing streak by teaming with Van Hammer to beat Richard Morton and Vinnie Vegas, who looked relieved not to be portraying "Oz" any more. Paul E. Dangerously dressed up as Ricky Steamboat's ninja and caused Steamboat to lose his US title match against Rick Rude. Of course, the fact that Paul E. wasn't in Rude's corner gave away the surprise. Sting survived Lex Luger's piledriver and Harley Race's attempted piledriver on the floor to win his second WCW title. The fans were definitely ready for Sting to be back on top of the mountain, with tons of his shirts and signs in the crowd. Luger was off to the World Bodybuilding and Wrestling Federations. Arn Anderson is the MVP. He threw powder in Rick Steiner's face, causing Rick to suplex the referee and get disqualified. Not only did Arn and Bobby Eaton retain the WCW tag team title, but Arn also escaped the wrath of Barry Windham & Dustin Rhodes, who beat Larry Zbyszko and Steve Austin to gain revenge for the parking lot attack at Halloween Havoc. Even though Larry adopted the "Cruncher" nickname, Arn was actually the one who slammed the car door on Windham's hand.

Thoughts on Starrcade 91: Battlebowl (The Lethal Lottery) Just like at Starrcade 89, no titles were on the line. Fortunately, WCW had enough talent and star power to get through TEN random tag team matches without the crowd falling asleep. Jushin Liger & Bill Kazmaier formed the quintessential "speed and power" tag team. Indeed, Bill pressed Jushin over his head and threw him onto DDP for the victory. Larry Zbyszko & El Gigante formed the most dysfunctional tag team. Larry slapped Gigante, who fed him into a double-dropkick by Dustin & Morton to end the match. The same high school kid who made the feathery Fantasia outfit must have designed Arachnaman's gear as well. Of course, the character was a "cease and desist" letter waiting to happen. Sting won Battlebowl by tossing out Lex Luger, perfectly setting the stage for their World title match at SuperBrawl 2. However, the MVP is Abdullah the Butcher. He livened up the middle of the show as an agent of chaos. As soon as he realized that he wasn't Cactus Jack's partner, he destroyed Sgt. Buddy Lee Parker, who was chosen instead. In the next match, he attacked his own partner, Sting. They somehow managed to win their match, and Abby even started fighting with Cactus after the match.

Too much is never enough.

"Do 30 more reps! A hundred more reps! I'm the Original Death Dealer!" (throws Serpentico into a locker)

Yeah, this isn't complicated.

Thoughts on Halloween Havoc 91 The Chamber of Horrors match should have been the main event. It was a crazy, Halloween-themed cage match with an electrifying finish. The match had a lot of star power too (Sting, Steiners & Gigante over Cactus, Abby, Diamond Studd & Vader). Bobby Eaton continued his great 1991 with a win over Terrance Taylor. Eaton's year would have been even better if Steve Austin and Dustin Rhodes hadn't emerged, as they battled later in the night for the TV title that Eaton held briefly. Chattanooga fans must love the Atlanta Braves, because they went crazy for the Freebirds wearing Braves gear and doing the Tomahawk chop. Of course, if they were real Braves fans, they would have stayed home to watch Game 7 of the World Series, which the Braves lost to the Minnesota Twins. Oz turned down the stupidity even more by ditching the old-man mask and Wizard hat, so Bill Kazmaier made up for it by carrying a "globe" beach ball on his back. Since Lex Luger had switched his finisher to the piledriver, Kazmaier quickly adopted the Human Torture Rack OF DOOM to beat Oz. WCW kept piling on the gimmicks in 1991, with a rocker (Van Hammer), a fireman (Firebreaker Chip) and a soldier (Todd Champion). Tom Zenk should have stayed in the WWF, and he lost PPV matches in 1991 to Eaton, Vader, Diamond Studd, and here to The WCW Halloween Phantom (Rick Rude). Rude was just the opposite, as he was a main eventer throughout this run in WCW after only a cup of coffee at that level in the WWF. Brian Pillman is the MVP for becoming the first WCW light heavyweight champion. He worked hard all year and was the perfect choice to kick off the division as its champion. The WWF didn't crown its first light heavyweight champion until 1996 (Taka Michinoku). Lex Luger and Ron Simmons both looked great in the main event. Simmons proved himself by pinning the World champion in the middle of the ring in the first fall, and Luger pinned Simmons cleanly with the piledriver in the third fall.

Thoughts on Great American Bash 91 Losing WCW champion Ric Flair sent the entire company into a tailspin, from the bookers (PN News in a scaffold match? Missy Hyatt in a cage match?) to the seamstress (Diamond "Stud," "Rickey" Morton) to the graphics guy (Barry "Windam") to the fans (chanting for Flair during the Luger-Windham main event). Opening the show with a scaffold match between two non-teams (PN News & Eaton vs. Austin & Taylor) was the beginning of a long night. Missy didn't even compete in the main event. She was carried away by the Hardline Collection Agency, which was probably a better name than someone else might have chosen for the team of Dirty Dick Slater and Dirty Dick Murdoch. Oz dialed back the stupidity of his entrance, but he lost to Ron Simmons, whose star was rising quickly. Nobody wanted to see the Rock & Roll Express beat each other up, especially with Richard Morton working on Robert Gibson's knee for an eternity. Morton won after hitting Gibson with the computer, which should have said, "USE ME AT THE 5-MINUTE MARK." Dustin Rhodes finished the 6-man match with Young Pistols vs. The Freebirds in spectacular fashion. He hit a bulldog on Badstreet while kicking Big Daddy Dink out of the ring at the same time. Dustin also helped Big Josh win the lumberjack match over Black Blood. As impressive as Dustin was, Lex Luger wins the MVP award for finally capturing the World title. The fans didn't like it, and he didn't win the belt from Flair. But he got a fresh coat of paint with Harley Race and Mr. Hughes. Race said "Give him the heater, Ricky!" "Now's the time!" and Luger won the title with a piledriver.

It was Cincinnati - their university's teams are called the Bearcats.

MJF stole the Salt of the Earth finisher from God.

It's no fun. As bad as it was to have the Browns win one game in two years, it was better than the three years that they didn't exist. When things get better, though, it's great. When the Browns broke their losing streak by tying the Steelers, I ran halfway around the house to celebrate. This started my tradition of celebrating a Browns win by running around the house while blasting "Cleveland Rocks."

Thoughts on SuperBrawl WCW kicked off one of its signature PPV series by introducing new characters like Johnny B. Badd (good for WCW), Diamond Studd (good for WWF), and Oz. He was introduced in a horrendous skit involving the Wizard of Oz characters. The show also included two bears (with Big Josh) and a monkey (with The Wizard). The fans rightfully booed the Oz skit out of the building. Speaking of animals, a masked, feathered wrestler named Fantasia gave the Freebirds another title win on PPV, this time over The Young Pistols. Big Daddy Dink, Brad Armstrong, DDP and the Diamond Dolls also showed up, but nobody got better results than the Dollar Store Gobbledy Gooker. Nikita Koloff is the MVP. He beat former NWA World champion Tommy Rich to stay in line for a US title shot against Lex Luger. He tried to hit Luger with a chain but accidentally blasted Sting, which led them to brawl into the parking lot. Nikita went from sitting in the crowd at WrestleWar to feuding with WCW's top two heroes. Mr. Hughes is often known as a bodyguard, but he always seemed to make some kind of mistake. If HHH or Y2J had watched him knock out his own man, Terrence Taylor, they never would have hired him in the WWF. By way, props to Alexandra York for getting promoted from administrative assistant to executive director of the York Foundation in six months. What glass ceiling? Bobby Eaton completed his singles push by beating Arn Anderson for the TV title. Ron Simmons also broke out the tag team pack by beating Butch Reed in the ThunderDoom cage match. Of course, WCW couldn't resist putting Teddy Long in the shark cage. Ric Flair beat Tatsumi Fujinami to resolve the WCW title controversy that most of the fans in attendance didn't seem to care about. This was Flair's last WCW pay-per-view for a couple of years. WCW began its long, unfortunate history of ignoring its match stipulations. El Gigante beat Sid Vicious in a stretcher match by pinning him with the claw. One Man Gang and Kevin Sullivan immediately attacked Gigante to distract from the fact that Sid was on his way to the WWF.

Thoughts on WrestleWar 91 Tommy Rich & Ricky Morton were rewarded for their success by winning the 6-man belts with JYD. They retained here against State Patrol & Big Cat. Cool to see Itsuki Yamazaki of the Jumping Bomb Angels appearing on PPV three years later in WCW. She teamed with Mami Kitamura to beat Miki Handa and Miss A. I got to see these ladies at a house show in Chicago two days earlier. They switched the teams, with IY and Handa beating Mami and Miss A. On the last PPV, Alexandra York correctly predicted that Terry Taylor would lose. On this show, she was managing Taylor. Her computer predicted that he would take twice as long to beat Z-Man, even though it was a no-DQ match and Taylor said Z-Man had no killer instinct. Nikita Koloff blasted Lex Luger with the new US title belt, because we was mad that Luger had cheated to beat him for the US title four years earlier. The same thing happened to Luger in the WWF, where he KO'd Mr. Perfect with a steel plate at WM IX and Perfect screwed him out of the WWF title at WM X. DDP overshadowed The Freebirds by being taller than them, coming to the ring with the Diamond Dolls, and then introducing Oliver Humperdink as the team's "road boss." The Freebirds finally got some shine by winning the World tag team title from Doom, which broke up immediately. Unfortunately, the Freebirds' title reign was over in no time. Sid Vicious is the MVP for single-handedly winning War Games for the Four Horsemen by powerbombing Brian Pillman into oblivion. El Gigante had to scrape Pillman off the mat since he couldn't surrender. Too bad Sid's WCW tenure would end with a whimper on the next PPV.

That's how we did it for the first Joe/Punk match in ROH at World Title Classic. Whose watch did I borrow? Danielson's.

I will make that change in my commentary, especially since I'm going to be announcing Immortal Lucha Libre's next $5 PPV. See, you just saved 929 words!

I am reading this as "Extweme Rules," which makes me expect Elmer Fudd to show up as a special wefewee.

Big Bully Busick's real son is an MMA fighter. I interviewed him after he won a fight and mentioned that his daddy threw me out of the ring.

Double post

Sandy Alomar Jr. is coaching for the Cleveland Indians. You may be thinking of Robbie Alomar.

Thoughts on Starrcade 90 As soon as Jim Ross said the Z-Man was riding a 35-match winning streak, you knew Bobby Eaton was going to beat him. It's like when the NFL announcers say, "This kicker has made his last 21 field goals ... whoa, he missed!" WCW made Starrcade a "concept show" with the Pat O'Connor International Tag Team Tournament, just like when it did with the Iron Man and Iron Team tournaments in 1989. WCW didn't always treat Starrcade like its WrestleMania. It was strange to hear the intro for Rey Misterio and then see a big, pudgy guy coming to the ring. This was Rey Misterio Sr., uncle of the much more famous Rey Jr. His partner, Konnan, also looked different because he was wearing a mask. Sid Vicious was touted as "still a member of the Horsemen" for his one-night-only Skyscrapers reunion match with Danny Spivey. Then Spivey said that maybe it wouldn't be for one night only. For a makeshift team, Ricky Morton & Tommy Rich were pretty successful. They beat the Freebirds here after defeating the Midnight Express at Halloween Havoc. The Steiners are the MVPs for winning the tournament by defeating teams from South Africa, Mexico, and Japan. They should have won the Iron Team tournament one year earlier, but that honor went to the Road Warriors - even though the Steiners beat them by pinfall. Ric Flair tried to hide the fact that he was The Black Scorpion. He wore two masks, used different moves and even fell to the mat differently. But when you've seen everyone on the WCW roster throughout the night, and the masked guy is the same height as Flair in relation to Sting, the jig is up. Even though Flair's ruse as the Black Scorpion was a failure, he still beat Sting to become WCW World champion one month later.

Thoughts on Halloween Havoc 90 This show was in Chicago - I was in college, so why didn't I go? Oh yeah, I was on my newspaper internship in Florida. At least I got to go to Jacksonville for the Clash of the Champions with the all-time awful Sid vs. Nightstalker match. Even though Sting was defending against Sid, The Black Scorpion popped up to perform a magic trick to remind us that he's still around. Jerry Sags dressed up as a vendor before hitting Scott Steiner with a tray of drinks. Well, it was Halloween! Speaking of Halloween costumes, The Wild-Eyed Southern Boys dressed up as Jim Cornette to help Ricky Morton & Tommy Rich beat the Midnight Express. Cornette got his revenge by helping the Master Blasters beat the Southern Boys. That match didn't appear on the WWE Network, and neither did Terry Taylor over Bill Irwin, Brad Armstrong over JW Storm, and Junkyard Dog over Moondog Rex. We just saw four tag team matches and the two singles title matches. Stan Hansen wins the MVP award for beating hometown boy Lex Luger clean with the lariat to win the US title. The finish of Sting-Sid was confusing. Sid won the title, and then Sting came back in the ring and pinned Sid to retain the title. The fans didn't realize that Barry Windham had the best Halloween costume of all (Sting) and allowed Sid to pin him. And he would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for that meddling referee Randy Anderson. He caught Windham sneaking back to the locker room and saw the real Sting at the same time.

SummerSlam 96 in Cleveland where Austin beat Yokozuna.

Punk also wrestled Eddy for IWC. I was ring announcer, but WWF wouldn't let us tape it because Eddy was IC champion.