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[Stefanie Sparkleface]

10 hours ago, Cliff Hanger said:

I don't know how long they've been there (at least since last week since it was recommended to me after the first Evolve ep) but there are 50ish random NXT eps on Tubi running from 2014-2024. If there's rhyme or reason i can't figure it out.

"Random selection from a hat" tends to be the way things get uploaded. Either that or recent documentary stuff.

[Technico Support]

In my 80s/90s WCW watch, I'm finally past the horrendous 1991 Bash and I'm ready for things to get better, or at least to be different.  In retrospect, late 80s/early 90s WCW was a real shitshow.  The key issue was that they didn't really build anyone to get to world title level aside from Sting.  They had their core of Flair and Luger, and later, Sting, and that was it.  Anything else was just microwaved insta-programs.  I'm not saying stuff like Flair/Steamboat, Flair/Funk, etc. were bad.  Just, holy shit, they didn't push anybody else to the world title picture.  It's insane. 

• 1987: Transition from the Crockett of old to the PPV era.  Ron Garvin is shoved into the title picture just to have a title change on PPV.  Nobody else wanted to win the belt and be a lame duck.
• 1988: Sting gets "made" and then put on the back burner.  Both big PPVs of the year are Flair/Luger.  Nobody else is elevated.  Sting is in tag matches with Nikita and Dusty on the big shows.  Dusty trying to get that rub.
• 1989: Steamboat is inserted into the title picture after, I think, pinning Flair in a tag match.  Three match series of Flair and Steamboat trading the belt.  Sting is doing fuck all at this time.  After the Flair/Steamboat series, Funk attacks Flair and is put in the title picture.  The rest of the year is Flair and Sting vs Gary Hart's crew.  Starrcade is a useless round robin tournament when they should have elevated Muta at the November Clash to job to Flair at Starrcade on his way out.
• 1990: Sting is injured.  Luger's awesome heel run is abruptly ended so he can step in for two more PPV matches with Flair.  Sting wins the belt and spends the rest of the year in Black Scorpion purgatory with a short, meaningless detour through Sidville. 
• 1991: Flair gets the belt back from the self-fulfilling prophecy of Sting's terrible reign.  With nothing else to do and nobody else ready, Fujinami is shoved into the title picture for a two-match series.  We're gearing up for ANOTHER Flair/Luger PPV (5th in like 3 years) when Flair leaves the company.

Wow.  The whole thing is just a study in booking ineptitude.  Nobody at all built up over time to become a hot challenger.  Hell, Sting was made in one night.  Luger was hot and stayed hot, and they figured they could get a PPV main out of him whenever they needed to.  Every other challenger to Flair was some variation of a hotshot.  The undercards in this era were mostly bad to average, with a few bright spots, and just got worse as time went on.  Just a rotating cast of wrestlers on a treadmill, just taking up time and going nowhere.  I'm trying to get motivated to continue, if only out of morbid curiosity to see how things might turn around in this new era.  But 1987 to 1991 was something.

[Technico Support]

Just circling back again, I'm just dumbfounded at how, in the space of 22 months, Luger and Flair wrestled on five out of the company's nine PPVs in that timeframe and Luger didn't win a single one.  And you wonder why the guy was only seen at a certain level.  #justiceforlex

Edited March 19 by Technico Support

[worldcupfever]

On 3/17/2025 at 9:53 AM, Technico Support said:

• 1990: Sting wins the belt and spends the rest of the year in Black Scorpion purgatory with a short, meaningless detour through Sidville. 

At least this got us the Halloween Havoc match with the original fake Sting.

[Technico Support]

Re: Halloween Havoc...they were so creatively bankrupt, with no other ideas and nobody else ready, that they booked the #2 guy in the Horsemen challenged for the world title.  From their inception, the whole kayfabe purpose of the Horsemen was to make Flair champ and keep him champ.  The #2 guy's role was always the U.S. title.  Sid even thinking about challenging Sting should have gotten him kicked out.

Not to mention that on the PPVs and Clashes before this show, Sid:

• Didn't wrestle, had a skit with Robocop (Capital Combat 90)
• Lost to Luger (Clash 11)
• Lost by DQ in a shitty six man featuring El Gigante (Bash 90)
• Didn't wrestle, just cut a promo (Clash 12)

I need to find the chronology of WCW bookers because this whole period was crazy.

Edited March 19 by Technico Support

[Hamhock]

6 hours ago, Technico Support said:

I need to find the chronology of WCW bookers because this whole period was crazy.

I think it's pretty much "the booking committee" (initially headed by Flair but with several others involved) until like March 1990, then it's Ole for the majority of the year until December; a temporary booking committee takes over for a month or two until Dusty comes back in late January 1991.

Edited March 19 by Hamhock

[BloodyChamp]

It was great until Sting got injured ever since Starrcade 87, and then every damage control idea they had got worse so in hindsight it all looks worse. Luger challenging was a good idea at first. They’d even kind of planted the seeds for it with the Terry F^*+ promo lol! It was just mistimed and the finish was always the same old crap, and of course it ran to long waiting for Sting. 

With all that said I’m glad Luger is going into the HoF. Fans hated him when he was bad, but were just always itching to cheer for him and soon as he came around. He was a good muscleman worker like we’ve discussed many times and he just deserves it. 

 

[SirSmUgly]

WCW Beach Blast 1992 notes:

• After working through months of bad WCW shows, I wanted to watch a couple of good ones, so let’s start with what is one of my favorite WCW shows if not my absolute favorite (we'll find out upon this reassessment): Beach Blast ’92!

 

• Actually, having watched WrestleWar ’92 a few months back, I plan to watch Great American Bash ’92 after I watch Beach Blast ’92 just to complete the string of PPVs that bridged the K. Allen Frye and Bill Watts regimes.

 

• And quite honestly, WCW for all its faults is currently my favorite promotion ever in the world. It might be largely due to nostalgia, but there is something comforting about having a random string of WCWSN matches playing in the background. 

 

• I might have written about this show here before, maybe? I can’t remember, and it doesn’t matter anyway. WrestleWar ’92 was a two-match show, but Beach Blast should deliver more than that.

 

• Tony S. and Eric Bischoff introduce the show and even bring Bill Watts in to help hype the show. Now, WrestleWar ’92 had arguably the best match in WCW history on it (War Games), but Beach Blast also has a contender for that title in Steamboat/Rude, which I cannot wait to see again [Editor's note: Two contenders because I could understand why someone would name Cactus/Sting as the best WCW match of all time even if I don't think I'd agree with it].

 

• Jim Ross is on commentary for this thing; he tries to drag Jesse Ventura to ringside, but Jesse’s lounging on a chair with a few ladies in bikinis. Ventura finally, reluctantly walks over to do his job. I wonder why WCW changed the name from Beach Blast to Bash at the Beach, but if we take these shows as basically the same show with a changed name, it has a very high hit rate of awesome shows and great matches. Then there’s 1999, but we don’t talk about 1999.

 

• Scotty Flamingo opens the show in contention for Brian Pillman’s WCW Light Heavyweight Championship. As a huge fan of Flamingo/Johnny Polo/Raven, I’m always glad to see him on my screen. Flamingo and Pillman trade counters to start before Flamingo opens up with fists and gets the match moving. Unfortunately for him, he moves himself right into a Pillman flash pinfall attempt for two and decides to beg off rather than eat a punch on the follow-up.

 

• Flamingo gets to his feet, then gets right back, uh, not to his feet as Pillman hooks an armbar. Flamingo manages to maneuver Pillman onto his shoulders and hooks the tights, but can only score a couple of two counts. Pillman reasserts the armbar, and when Flamingo gets to standing and shoots him in to break it, he wins a shoulderblock and an arm drag before going right back to the arm wringer.

 

• The challenger looks entirely outclassed; he gets to the ropes and tries to use them for leverage, I suppose, instead of just asking the ref to break the hold. Anyway, it doesn’t work, and Flamingo once again ends up tied into knots on the mat. He finally gets a break in the corner and attempts some offense, but summarily eats a head scissors and then a dropkick that leaves him hanging by his toes over the top rope. Pillman walks over and unhooks him, the nice guy that he is…oh wait, there are no protective mats on the floors anymore due to Watts, so Flamingo smacks the cold, hard floor.

 

• I mean, Pillman is kicking the shit out of Flamingo. He fakes a dive to the floor before hitting a double-axe. However, the capricious nature of Bill Watts’s WCW giveth, and it very much taketh away because Pillman leaps up to the top rope in a frenzy, ready to press his advantage, before he remembers that – oops! – hitting a move from there is a disqualification now! Personally, if I were the champion, I’d launch anyway and then take my belt right back to the locker room, but Pillman is a dumb babyface, so he hesitates and is therefore open for Pillman to grab him and hit him with a Rocket Launcher before taking over for the first time all match.

 

• Flamingo (dammit, I keep typing "Raven" and then deleting) tosses Pillman to the floor – through the middle ropes, mind you – and then springboards over with a crossbody before putting Pillman back in the ring and giving him the boots. Y’know, I do appreciate what WCW’s wrestlers were able to do with the “no moves from the top” rule, but the limiting nature of that rule outweighs the creative spots that people can manage with them. I do get a kick out of Watts trying to turn every WCW event into the TV tapings at Irish McNeil’s, though. I can imagine Watts addressing the removal of the mats to the locker room: We didn’t have any mats in Shreveport, dammit! We don’t need ‘em here! What are you complainers anyway, pussies or Commies or something?

 

• Gary Michael Capetta lets us know that we’re ten minutes into this bout as Johnny “the Raven” Flamingo lands a fistdrop from the second rope. OK, that is illogical. Why is dropping a fist from the second rope okay, but dropping it from the top rope illegal? Give me a reason in kayfabe that rule makes sense. You can’t. Pillman scores a crossbody for two, but is immediately hit with a lariat when he gets to his feet, as is the way of a heel reasserting control after a flash pinfall attempt from the babyface here in WCW. Flamingo goes to the chinlock and hooks the ropes with his boots besides, then transitions into a cover for two before…*sigh*, going back to the chinlock. Ventura points out that this is a resthold for Flamingo, but not for Pillman since Pillman is in the hold, but if that were true, babyfaces wouldn’t routinely fight out of these holds and turn the tide, as Pillman does here. He manages to work to his feet, land a few elbows to the gut and a shoulderblock, and then dodge a Flamingo corner splash when Flamingo tries to halt Pillman’s momentum.

 

• This match is decent, but the middle here with Flamingo in control isn’t very good. He gets up first even after his whiff and then, oh boy, it’s another chinlock and a couple of chokes. He’s still rounding into form as a heel in control. His bumping and selling are very good at this point, but he’s low on ideas when he’s got protracted control of the match. Anyway, Pillman and Flamingo trade counters and do a Superman/Doomsday punch spot. They get to their knees and choke one another, but Flamingo stops that with an eye rake and goes to the second rope again, where his double axe attempt is cut off in midair by a Pillman dropkick.

 

• Pillman turns up the heat with a wheel kick, a buckle bonk, and a series of punches in the corner. Flamingo does manage to counter a charging Pillman with a floatover powerslam for two, however, and gets back to his feet first. Flamingo tries to shoot Pillman in, but Pillman sells a knee injury and collapses as Flamingo tries to shoot him in. It’s a ruse, which Flamingo would guess if he just thought for a second that he hadn’t worked the knee at all, but instead, the dopey heel celebrates the damage that he hasn’t done and gets back suplexed by the possum-playing Pillman. Pillman’s cover only gets two, though.

 

• What will end this match? Pillman sure tries to finish it with a face crusher and a pair of clotheslines, the last one knocking Flamingo onto the raised ramp. Pillman’s feeling himself and attempts a suicide dive, but Flamingo wobbles out of the way and Pillman slams his head into the ramp. A concussed Pillman crawls back into the ring and never sees Flamingo’s second rope kneedrop; that puts Pillman down for good as Flamingo covers, gets three, and earns the Light Heavyweight Championship. That was an uneven bout, but it was generally enjoyable, though part of what worked so well for me is tracking Scott Levy’s development as a wrestler.

 

• A peeved Jesse Ventura complains about the sexually fluid Johnny B. Badd judging tonight’s bikini competition. Ventura: “I don’t even think he likes girls!” I don’t know, some of these sexually fluid and genderfluid dudes get numbers, and not just the numbers of dudes or other equally fluid folks. Badd, who is just supremely entertaining, announces this three-round contest that is based completely on looks. My brain says, Man, that’s regressive. My T-levels say, Awesome, let’s do this! We start with the first round: evening gowns. Missy Hyatt walks out to pops and wolf whistles; her opponent is Madusa, who wears a veil like this is some type of wedding, and yet I don’t see Colonel Robert Parker or Sister Sherri or a drive-up wedding chapel anywhere in sight. I forgot that these are the only two women in this contest, so my T-levels have sort of checked out or lowered or whatever T-levels do when they’re disengaged.

 

• Ron Simmons attempts to drag Terry Taylor’s sorry ass to something watchable. I have no idea why everyone thought Taylor was the next big thing in the ‘80s. He’s ‘80s Lance Storm except that Storm is a much more fun worker and actually a much better heel, come to think of it. In retrospect, I just drastically undersold what a good midcard talent Storm is in that comparison I just made. Simmons, on the other hand, rules as usual. I like Butch Reed a whole lot, but if Simmons is in Reed’s place in mid-‘80s Mid-South, Watts would have had his black babyface replacement for JYD. Simmons’s babyface charisma is different from JYD’s, but I think Louisiana, Mississippi, and Oklahoma would have taken to him.

 

• Anyway, at least Taylor is mechanically sound and is a solid bumper. Simmons overpowers him early, presses him from the ramp back into the ring, and then clotheslines Taylor over the top; Taylor hits his head on a chair at commentary upon landing, and that spot looked pretty nasty. As in the previous match, the babyface shine looks like an obliteration. Simmons wraps Taylor in a bear hug, but Taylor makes his way out and then dives out of the way of a Simmons spear attempt; Simmons crashes out on the ramp. Unlike Pillman’s crash out, which came from a higher leaping point and at the end of a long and grueling match, Simmons’s crash out affords some dull heel control to Taylor, but it doesn’t result in a three count. Taylor goes right to a fucking chinlock after about three moves, actually. This dude is the epitome of an incomplete wrestler. Decent booker, though.

 

• Simmons fights back with a chokebomb and some punches, then scores a big back body drop and a shoulderblock. Simmons shoots Taylor in, and Taylor barely clears Simmons’s duck down with a leapfrog; Simmons probably needed to duck down a bit more, actually. As it happens, Taylor rebounds of the ropes and right into a crisp floatover powerslam that he doesn’t kick out of as the building of Ron Simmons toward the main event continues. After the match, Jim Ross helps along that building of Simmons by interviewing Simmons after the match and gratuitously pointing out what a roll Simmons has been on lately. Simmons says that your race and income level don’t matter as long as you have the drive to be the best, but I think this is a simple answer to a complex sociological problem.

 

• I don’t know about this next bout: a green Marcus Alexander Bagwell locks it up with Greg Valentine. I’ll keep an open mind. Bagwell might have less experience, but he has more speed, and he uses it to win a series of arm drags to start. Valentine solves that “speedy kid running rings around me” deal with boots and a forearm, but Bagwell backdrops his way out of Valentine’s follow-up piledriver attempt and manages to score an atomic drop and two dropkicks, sending Valentine to the floor to consider how he can better use his experience and weight advantage to control the match. What he apparently considered is letting Bagwell try another arm drag so that he could lariat the shit out of him. Good idea, Valentine!

 

• Valentine lands chops and a rib breaker, then goes up to the second rope, where he whiffs on an elbow drop. Bagwell slams Valentine, but he misses his follow up kneedrop and clutches his injured patella – uh oh. Valentine duly works the injured knee to set up for a figure four. The first time that Valentine tries a Figure Four, Bagwell manages to counter into an inside cradle for two. Bagwell continues trying to find a way out of trouble, countering into multiple other flash pins as Valentine tries to advance his attack. He even manages a floatover vertical suplex on that knee he’s selling, but that also only gets two. However, as his adrenaline picks up and he ignores the knee injury, he tries a leapfrog that reminds him he has a knee injury. Valiantly, the rookie gets to his feet and tries to throw fists on his injured leg, but Valentine slips a right hand, lands a knee drop, and locks on a Figure Four that Bagwell fights, but eventually submits to. See, that’s why you keep an open mind. This was a fun little match that got Bagwell over as a fightin’ babyface who fell to an experienced wrestler’s targeted attack on an injury. It won’t change your life, but it will feel nourishing to any wrestling fan who consumes it. Bagwell did a good job with selling the knee.

 

• I managed to only type the name “Buff” twice in those previous two bullets (before deleting it and muttering “dammit” as I did), by the way. Yes, I am proud of this.

 

• Recap: Cactus Jack leads Van Hammer through an entertaining match in some rodeo grounds somewhere; Abdullah the Butcher intervenes with a shovel to Hammer’s back. Jesse Ventura sells that Cactus is in his element in a Falls Count Anywhere match based on his success putting Van Hammer down outside of the ring.

 

• Here comes the first match of the night that completely rules: Cactus Jack gets a shot at Sting’s WCW World Heavyweight Championship in the middle of this card, which seems weird. It certainly signals that we wouldn’t be seeing a title change. The crowd is hot for Jack and Sting squaring off on the ramp and firing fists at one another. Sting earns a backslide on the ramp for one, then back body drops Cactus’s considerable girth onto the ramp. That impact makes a great sound on top of looking good. Sting follows up with a facebuster for two. I love that these two didn’t bother with ramping up the nuttiness over time and just started out throwing bombs.

 

• Sting leaps out of the fucking building on a Stinger Splash attempt as Cactus slumps against a corner strut; he runs down the rampway and misses badly, launching himself up and over the top rope and into the ring. It’s a great visual. Sting rolls back out to the floor immediately, and Cactus follows with a Cactus Elbow on concrete. Mick Foley just didn’t give a fuck, did he? He grabs his knee momentarily, and I think that though this is setting a matchlong seed, he might have legit injured it there, maybe? I’m trying to remember from his book. I mean, he dropped that knee on concrete! Mick hits a swinging neckbreaker, and both men SPLAT on the matless floor. I mean, this match sounds like it hurts in a way that wrestling matches typically do not. This match might have some of the nastiest audio that I’ve ever heard because of how these fellas are taking moves on the ramp and the floor.

 

• Mick’s nutty ass next hits a diving sunset flip on Sting from the apron to the floor for two. I mean, what the fuck? You know, as a kid, I saw Cactus doing stuff like this and thought it was cool, but I’m not sure I quite understood the gravity of the risks that Foley was taking, whereas now, just about everything he’s doing makes me wince. Sting reverses a bash into the guardrail, but Sting reverses and the front row fans are fuckin’ LOVING it. Cactus charges Sting at the railing, but Sting backdrops him over it and then hops over and hits a fucking vertical suplex on the floor. That gets a well-timed 2.9, but if it had gotten three, I would have believed it.

 

• No wonder Sting liked working with Cactus; Foley is out here taking years off his life to get Sting over as a tough guy. Did anything make Sting more legit than surviving wars with Cactus and Vader in 1992 and 1993? I always found him to be a giant dork as a very young kid, and was kind of dismissive of him, but I do remember liking him way more at some point in 1993. Anyway, they actually slow things down back in the ring, where Foley tears at Sting’s face while yelling GIVE IT UP, STING, GIVE IT UP. He makes the oopsie of disrespectfully slapping him, though, which causes Sting to fire up and get to his feet. Cactus, trying to stanch Sting’s momentum, does the logical thing that one would do and scores a double-leg takedown before transitioning into a legbar. No, wait, sorry, I got that all wrong. What he does is hit a wild lariat that sends both men tumbling to the floor in another visual spectacle of a spot.

 

• Jesse Ventura is doing a fine job of selling how much danger Sting is in whenever the match leaves the confines of the ring. Cactus grabs a chair (kid in the crowd, insistently: CHAIR! STING, HE’S GOT A CHAIR!). Sting doesn’t hear any warnings, though, and eats a series of chair shots to the stomach and back. Cactus thinks he’s in control, fires off his finger guns, grabs Sting in a headlock…and is hoisted backward and hit with a back suplex on the concrete. Cactus’s boot hitting the railing as his head landed near it had the audio effect of making it seem like maybe his head also hit the railing on the way down. I actually played it back, and Cactus protected his head, but sold it like it did rap the guardrail, so he made sure his boot hit the railing at the same time that his head came down with great timing because it fooled me in real time. Between this and that earlier 2.9 kickout, Cactus’s timing is on point tonight in general.

 

• The thing about Cactus is that he comes off as a slasher flick villain who is dented and damaged, but who refuses to be put down. The bedraggled nutbar kicks out of Sting’s cover on the back suplex, drags himself to his feet, and wins a punch-up. After exchanging flash pin attempt reversals on the floor (!!), Cactus uses Sting’s momentum as Sting leaps at him to dump the champion across the railing. Jack follows up with a very safe piledriver on the floor, though commentary covers it by saying that Cactus’s knee that he injured earlier gave out and that he didn’t catch Sting properly. In fact, as Cactus goes up for another Cactus Elbow, Sting is quickly up and able to throw a fist into his gut, so yeah, that checks out from a kayfabe standpoint.

 

• The match makes its way back to the rampway where it started; Sting dominates, slams Jack, grabs a chair, and exacts his chair-smashing revenge on Cactus. The last one of those is aimed at the knee; Jack topples to the ramp, clutching his knee, and Sting goes for a Scorpion Deathlock. In a panic, Cactus sprawls and rolls off the ramp, breaking the hold and toppling Sting to the floor along with him. The crowd thought that Sting had him, and they get very quiet and don’t pop after Sting kicks out of a Cactus follow-up Buff Bagwell Kenta Kobashi DDT. The one mistake of this match might have been failing to end it with the Scorpion Deathlock on the rampway. Instead, Sting makes one final comeback after the kickout and retains the title with a diving clothesline from the top to the ramp. This is obviously still a classic, though. Jack squeals in rage and also maybe pain as ref Bill Alfonso awards the WCW World Championship to the Stinger. I loved this match and would argue that Sting and Cactus are a pairing made in wrestling heaven for one another’s styles.

 

• There’s an interstitial with Tony S. and Eric Bischoff transitioning us from the magic of Sting/Cactus to the equally awesome, yet totally different magic of Steamboat/Rude. I cannot fucking believe that WCW booked Cactus/Sting and Rick Rude vs. Ricky Steamboat in the Iron Man Match back to back. Is this the best pair of WCW matches booked back to back in the company’s history? Maybe Spring Stampede 1994 has a pair of matches that give some competition? As much as I liked Steiners vs. Iizuka and Fujinami/War Games as a pairing at WrestleWar ’92, I can’t say that it’s a better back-to-back pairing than these two matches.

 

• Anyway, here’s Rick Rude, the current WCW United States Champion, to tell all the fat, out-of-shape, etc., etc., folks to look at his magnificent abs, and in fairness to him, you could grate cheese with those things. Sadly, his Slam Jam theme does not play as he poses. Here comes Ricky Steamboat with Bonnie and Richie. We get our first Jesse Ventura Reads the Papers moment of the night, as Jesse is annoyed with the ostentatious family values posturing and then claims that the next thing to happen will be Dan Quayle walking out and lecturing the crowd on a similar subject. Ross retorts that Steamboat can spell the word “potatoe.” No, wait, “potato.” That’s how you spell it. Sorry, my bad. I promise not to run for VPOTUS after making an error like that. This exchange inspires Ross to also compare Rude’s popularity in the arena to Ice-T’s popularity at a policeman’s ball. Some people don’t like the pairing of Ross and Ventura, which I suppose that I understand, but I really dig them together. Ventura makes Ross a bit uncomfortable, and the friction that arises from Ross trying to handle Ventura’s style of heel commentating is highly entertaining to me.

 

• Anyway, Steamboat gets right to it as the match starts and catches an advancing Rude with punches, then drills him in the solar plexus with a gutbuster. Rude sells a rib injury, and Steamboat presses the advantage, whipping Rude into the air and down to the mat rather than firing him into the ropes. Steamboat measures a series of kicks and forearms to Rudes’s ribs, and Rude does his great selling of them, staggering, twisting his body around theatrically in pain. I adore Rude’s style of selling. It’s like he never forgot how to contort his body painfully like he did when he was the lanky guy he started out as, so even as packed with muscle as he is now, he still sells like a lanky dude with not enough padding to blunt the pain. The visual of this huge muscly dude selling like a 98-pound weakling is striking.

 

• Steamboat locks on a bearhug and then drives Rude back into he corner, but Rude puts a knee up and catches Steamboat in his recently-healed face; Ross helpfully reminds us that Rude broke Steamboat’s nose in kayfabe a couple months back. However, Rude’s really got nothing for Steamboat and walks himself right into a fireman’s carry position; Sting dumps Rude and locks on a funky-looking surfboard. In desperation, Rude rakes Steamboat’s eyes to break it, but when Rude tries to monkeyflip Steamboat as Steamboat charges back, Steamboat grabs Rude’s legs and transitions into a Boston Crab that becomes a Lion Tamer in there for a bit as Rude tries to fight out. Rude attempts to get to the ropes. He crawls…and crawls…and each time he reaches out for the ropes, Steamboat sits deep on the Boston Crab, causing Rude enough pain that he pulls his arm back. Rude finally manages to grab the bottom rope, getting a break, so Steamboat breaks and immediately dumps Rude, splashes him across the back and ribs, and drops a bunch of knees right into Rude’s ribcage.

 

• Steamboat kicks Rude in the ribs, yells GET UP RUDE as Rude collapses, and generally is fired up to beat the shit out of this guy who claimed that he beat women because Madusa slapped him and he slapped her back as a mindless reaction, such as a pro wrestler might do, before apologizing profusely to her. As Madusa would learn later in the ‘90s, if you slap a dude, he’ll be liable to put you in his finisher. Back in ’92, it’s not like Steamboat got Madusa’s ass FRRRRRANCHISED or anything so egregious as that! Anyway, Steamboat lands a front suplex and a forearm, then covers for two.

 

• Rude kicking out of all this damage is pretty impressive from a kayfabe standpoint. Steamboat presses the attack, but he is so overzealous that he runs himself into a Rude knee that hits him flush on the jaw and stuns him for three seconds as Rude pins him at about eight minutes in [Rude 1 – Steamboat – 0]. Ventura puts over the capricious nature of pro wrestling, in which one can dominate for stretches at a time, but find themselves looking at the lights because of a flash strike or counter-move. Rude hobbles to his feet, knowing that he’d damned well better capitalize on this, and quickly lands a Rude Awakening and covers for another pinfall [Rude 2 – Steamboat – 0].

 

• Here’s where kayfabe strategy comes into play, and I can’t give Jesse Ventura enough credit for his work on color to get that strategy over. He suggests that Rude tie Steamboat in knots, maybe a few rest holds, to avoid mistakes, lower the chances of eating a pinfall, eat time, and recover a bit. He even considers that Rude might want to try another impact move and pinfall first if Rude’s feeling that his lead is unsafe, then do the rest hold strategy. However, he doesn’t agree with that impact move coming off the top rope, which is what Rude chooses to do. This is an interesting part of kayfabe strategy in Iron Man Matches, maybe one of my favorite parts of that strategy. Do you try to do damage with an illegal move or weapon, eat a DQ loss, but then get more pinfalls off the illegal move than you lost with the DQ decision? Rude calculates that dropping another one of his deadly knees from the top will do more long-term damage that is worth eating a DQ for [Rude 2 – Steamboat – 1]. As we will find out later, he is very, very wrong about that.

 

• I love that maybe the whole story of this match centers around three clear things: 1) Rude’s accumulated rib damage; 2) Steamboat being half-concussed on account of Rude’s knee strikes; and 3) Rude’s pivotal decision to come off the top with a kneedrop and give up a fall instead of maybe just dropping that knee from the second rope. Giving up a fall turns out to be a kayfabe mistake made in the heat of battle and the haze of pain. Fuck, I love this match.

 

• Rude follows the DQ ruling with an inside cradle that scores three [Rude 3 – Steamboat – 1]. However, I would argue that in kayfabe, the downtime from the ref announcing the decision and then Rude’s slow follow-up with an inside cradle allows Steamboat to clear a few cobwebs; Steamboat fires back with punches, so Rude smashes Steamboat’s face into the mat and then locks on a good-looking chinlock to keep Steamboat grounded. However, we still have about eighteen minutes, so Steamboat works up. Rude hits a seated splash to knock Steamer back to the mat, then does that awesome spot where he tries to swivel his hips in celebration, but is too hurt to complete his taunt, grabbing his ribs instead.

 

• Once again, Rude attempts a chinlock, but Steamboat gets to his knees, then stands up with Rude still on his shoulders and falls backward. Scrambling to his feet, Steamboat tries to follow with a huge running splash, but he eats knees. Rude follows with a swinging neckbreaker, but it only gets two, as do his duo of follow-up pinfall covers. We’re now halfway through, with Steamboat trying to up the pace and Rude smartly grabbing another chinlock to stop all that nonsense. Jesse argues that if the score is tied, there should be sudden death. You think he complained about this to former broadcast partner Gorilla Monsoon over the phone before this event and Monsoon remembered their conversation during WrestleMania XII? That’s my headcanon.

 

• Steamboat works back to his feet, but Rude lands a piledriver for 2.8; Rude bitches to Pee-Wee Anderson about the cadence of his count, then tries a Tombstone piledriver that Ricky reverses and drills for three at about 12:15 left to go [Rude 3 – Steamboat – 2]. Slowly, Steamboat gets to his feet and once again advances, but a seated rude grabs Ricky’s tights and yanks him headfirst into the buckles. Rude goes up top again, which is a major mistake, but Steamboat makes a mistake about as bad and catches him, then lands a superplex that is legal since both men are up top. Yeah, I don’t remember superplexes being illegal in Mid-South, so that tracks. Steamboat’s delayed cover gets only two, and his slow follow-up clothesline is met with a clothesline in kind from Rude.

 

• The ref starts a standing ten-count; Rude slithers on top of Steamboat for a cover, but Steamboat bridges up and backslides Rude for three at nine-and-a-half minutes remaining [Rude 3 – Steamboat – 3]. Steamboat now attempts a rapid-fire approach, immediately trying a couple of flash pinfalls and a cross body into a cover, all of which only get two; Rude stops the onslaught of pinfall attempts with a jawbreaker. Both men struggle to their feet, but Rude is the one to score by slamming Steamboat face-first into the mat a couple times (and yelling at Steamer with what sounds like exultant joy YOU AIN’T NO IRON MAN, C’MON after doing so). However, Rude’s lateral press only earns a two count.

 

• Rude has re-asserted himself as time winds down, but as this is non-title, maybe he should be pressing more for a win. If it were for the title, he’d have a clear advantage in that he didn’t have to win to retain his gold, but in a match that’s just about pride, a draw means little. Rude cuts Steamboat’s comebacks off and even hits a bicep pose (though not a double-bicep pose as lifting his arm on the side that his ribs have been attacked would hurt too much). Rude is doing a masterclass of selling in this match. I mean, Steamboat is an all-time elite seller and is only the second-best guy at selling moves in this bout. That speaks volumes.

 

• As Rude continues his assault, he tries a Rude Awakening, but Steamboat manages to break the hold and then land a Rude Awakening of his own. As he is not the master of that hold, it only earns two when Rude puts his boot over the bottom rope. Steamboat is irritated at the ref stopping his count, not having seen Rude drape his boot over the rope; Ventura calls for a DQ ruling as Ricky accosts Pee-Wee.

 

• We are under five minutes here as Steamboat attempts a series of pinfalls after moves. A back suplex doesn’t work, and shortly after that, Rude grabs a desperation sleeper and cinches it in deeply, even as Steamboat tries to break it by ramming Rude’s head into the buckles. Steamboat looks like he’s going out, but he manages to stumble toward the ropes. Rude kicks his arm down multiple times as he reaches for the ropes, but Steamboat is right in the corner as we go under two minutes. Maybe in kayfabe, Rude should have dropped the hold and tried another move because it took him a long time to get Steamboat down to the mat, and Steamboat has fought the hold’s effects for a long time. In fact, Steamboat leverages his legs onto the ropes and then flips backward in that Hart/Piper leveraged pinfall spot; Steamboat gets three and merely has to survive about forty seconds of Rude’s frantic pinfall attempts, which he does. Rude doesn’t even manage to attempt another Rude Awakening before time runs out. I think Rude’s panicked attempts to salvage a draw might be my favorite thing about this, and I only wish it were maybe fifteen or twenty seconds longer as a segment. Anyway, this is still the best Iron Man Match that I’ve ever seen.

 

• There is an hour of show left after those last two matches, which means that this show was atrociously segmented. How did these two matches happen one after the other in the middle of this show? What an insane way to lay out a show. As I have come to believe, WCW just had issues that were apparently endemic to it no matter who ran it. A long-term viewer would run into the same layout issues across booking eras.

 

• For a cool down that probably should have come between the previous two matches rather than after them, we have the bathing suit segment of the contest between Madusa and Missy Hyatt. Madusa walks out first, looking like a trashy biker bikini lady. Johnny B. Badd, being goofily charming: C’MON, MADUSE; LET’S GET LOOSE AND SHAKE YOUR CABOOSE! Jim Ross, being strangely creepy: “[There are] a couple of things about [Madusa] I like, but I can’t put my hands on them.” I don’t like it, Ross. I don’t like it. Meanwhile, Missy wore a two-piece instead of a one-piece and also looks like a cute beach lady rather than a trashy biker lady, so she wins this segment with the crowd by about forty touchdowns.

 

• Ref Ole Anderson, who gets his own introduction, stands in the corner and watches Paul Heyman lead the remnants of his Dangerous Alliance to the ring: Bobby Eaton, Arn Anderson, and WCW World Television Champion Stunning Steve Austin. Their opponents are the remnants of Sting’s Squadron: Barry Windham, Nikita Koloff, and Dustin Rhodes. Austin and Windham have a nice opening exchange that Windham gets the best of with a second-rope arm drag (Heyman, alarmed at the fall that Austin’s about to take: WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA). Rhodes tags in and continues the babyface shine, though Austin manages a tag to Eaton, who tags to Arn eventually, who slaps Koloff, who then tags Rhodes. Arn wins a kneedrop before going up top and being halted by Ole; I do like how these wrestlers are working spots to indicate that they keep forgetting about Bill Watts having dumb rules about top rope dives that worked in Louisiana in the ‘80s, but that don’t work for a national company in the ‘90s. Hell, WCW kept that “over the top rope DQ” rule for about six or seven years too long.

 

• Speaking of, we have a claim that Koloff should be DQ’d for hitting a Sickle that sends Arn over the top and to the floor right now! Ross clarifies that the DQ is only if someone is thrown over the top (fine), but then speaks too much and says, “or propelled over the top rope,” which obviously a move like a clothesline to a man slumped against the ropes would do. Jesse immediately jumps on that point as well. See? This rule was fucking stupid.

 

• Back to this match, which should be a good trios match, but which has been kinda boring so far. Koloff fights off all three heels, extending this watchable-I-suppose shine. Heyman calls for a timeout, but much like Chris Webber in the NCAA Finals, he doesn’t have one and should stop signaling for one. Arn and Windham go at it, and boy, this match is not doing anything for me at all. They crack heads, and Arn goes back to the top, scrapes Windham in the eye as Windham tries to block his top-rope dive, and then changes position and dives from the second rope instead. Where are Ole as ref and all these spots over top-rope confusion leading?

 

• Windham tags to Rhodes, who fights off all three heels while the babyfaces chill out and watch from their corner. Arn smashes Dustin’s noggin into Eaton’s, and finally Rhodes is your FIP. This is pretty dull heel control stuff. Ross cuts in to claim some obviously worked stats in which Madusa leads Missy in the fan vote for their pretty-off. Come on, that is some nonsense and you know it, Ross. This is the least believable work on this whole show. Meanwhile, I think we said all that we needed to say about these teams wrestling one another at WrestleWar. This is a dull nothing of a match, which isn’t an offensive thing in isolation, but which is shocking to me considering the talent in the ring. I also don’t love the hot tag spot, in which Austin lands a Stun Gun that launches Dustin across the ring and right into a tag. The match immediately breaks down and Arn finally does his dive off the top; he eats a fist to the gut, but manages to land a knee off the top to break up Windham’s floatover pinfall on a superplex attempt. Alas, Ole sees that one and disqualifies him to end the bout. Oh yeah, Ole as ref and all these Arn top-rope spots led to putting Ole over as a fair referee who didn’t let his family member get away with cheating. Hey, that crappy hot tag, finishing run, and weird decision to focus the match on Ole Anderson, Fair Referee means that this bout wasn’t just a dull nothing; actually, this bout absolutely fucking sucked.

 

• Eric Bischoff interviews Ricky Steamboat, who is proud of how he endured the Iron Man Match and won; he vows to come back at Rude for a title shot the next time they meet. Paul Heyman cuts in on the interview, gives Steamboat his props for winning the match, but makes it clear that Rude won’t be giving out any more title shots to Steamboat. Then, he cues Cactus Jack, who runs in and attacks Steamboat until referees and security mooks pull them apart. This is a kayfabe business partnership that will bear fruit in ECW a couple years from now in reality.

 

• A whiny Jesse Ventura basically takes Johnny B. Badd’s spot as the host of the pretty-off, but Badd walks out in a spangly cowboy hat and jovially agrees to share the spotlight with the judgmental Jesse. Alright, the ladies are in tinier bikins than from before for this third round. Guess what Madusa is doing for her bikini? That’s right, breaking U.S. Flag Code! Madusa and breaking U.S. Flag Code with her gear: name a more iconic duo! Meanwhile, Missy can’t make it out of her dressing tent because someone (Madusa, if her smirk means anything) stole her micro-bikini out of an envelope, but the industrious Hyatt steals Jesse’s bandana and scarf from around his head and improvises a bikini. Badd peeks inside and sells her makeshift bikini as positively scandalous, though as we find out when she steps into view, it is actually a bit less showy than the previous two-piece she wore. Anyway, the best part of this is Jesse yelling WAIT, THOSE ARE MY SCARVES and Missy, off mic, yelling back SO WHAT, I WON. That got a genuine laugh out of me. An irate Madusa attacks Badd, backing him all the way into her dressing tent, and oh man, there is now some terrible comedy to offset that funny exchange between Hyatt and Jesse. Let me summarize: The tent shakes, Jesse goes WHAT IS THAT GUY DOING TO HER IN THERE (ugh, why), and then Badd comes out looking bashful and holding Madusa’s top. Jesse just pokes his head in to confirm that Madusa has lost her top and possesses a pair of lust-worthy lunghammers. You know, Beach Blast ’92 can’t possibly be the best WCW PPV considering that it includes that string of bikini-based segments.

 

• I forgot why the card was laid out so strangely; Tony S. and Eric Bischoff transition us over to the main event, which is the Miracle Violence Connection of Doc and Gordy against the Steiner Brothers for the WCW World Tag Team Championship. Bill Watts’s laser focus on bigging up the NWA World Tag Team Championship and pushing this feud caused him to make some strange decisions. I say this as something of an outlier in that I adore this feud and the matches that made it up. I love me some Dr. Death and Terry Gordy, and I enjoy them smothering their opponents on the mat, which is apparently an acquired taste. Scott Steiner and Gordy do some protracted mat wrestling to start, Scotty eventually gaining top control and sending Gordy sprawling into the ropes to break things up.

 

• Next, both guys hit each other with a loud shoulderblock – how is a shoulderblock that loud? That was a lotta beef smacking together there. Anyway, Gordy slaps Scotty, who slaps back, and both men rain blows upon one another until the ref can get them out of the ropes and back to the center of the ring. Doc tags in and tries to gain control with a single-leg takedown, but can’t manage to outwrestle a Steiner on the mat, as it should be. Eventually, Doc backs Steiner into the corner and launches a couple of knees into Scotty’s gut, which leads to a series of counters that end with Steiner scoring a sunset flip for two.

 

• Scotty sinks in a side headlock that Doc tries to counter into a pinfall attempt, but Scotty sprawls, keeps control, and then decides to tag his dopey bro Ricky. Jim Ross notes that Ricky has a degree in education from UMich, which is a staggering concept to me. Who the fuck would let their children anywhere near Rick Steiner, especially in an educational setting? So, here is why people don’t like these matches; the feeling out process tends to be very protracted. I buy it as I buy into the aura of both these teams and believe that just one mistake would the other team to do something so drastic that it ends the match, so it works for me psychologically, but I get why people are like, Hey, these dudes are spending a lot of time laying on one another. Anyway, Ricky and Doc trade tackles and lariats until Gordy tags in and scores a huge back suplex for two.

 

• Ricky fights back, but is in trouble from here; Doc tosses Rick outside to the ramp by using his tights as leverage as Scotty complains about said tight-pulling to the ref. Doc follows with a shoulderblock, but Ricky fires back with a punch and a sunset flip; Doc holds the ropes to block it, but Scotty fires a forearm at Doc’s dome. The ref counts the pinfall attempt and then admonishes Scotty (and is admonished in turn) as Jesse critique’s the ref’s decision to count a pinfall for what was essentially an illegal move because of Scotty’s interference.

 

• This is a cagey bout, and I actually wouldn’t change what the wrestlers are doing, but I again would have changed the order of matches. I don’t see why Sting/Cactus didn’t end this show. There is no reason that Ricky Steamboat needed to be confronted by Cactus tonight and, even if you wanted to have them confront one another, you could still have Cactus do it before he comes out for the main event. This tag match should have swapped spots with Sting/Cactus.

 

• Scotty and Gordy do this really good, movement-filled struggle; Scotty almost gets a bow-and-arrow, but Gordy sprawls and manages a tag to Doc; the heels leverage their ring positioning to make quick tags and keep Scotty down, though Scotty does manage a crossbody for two in there. However, he’s in the wrong neighborhood, so Doc and Gordy easily cut off his attempts at a fiery comeback. Ricky’s not too bright, so he draws the ref’s attention by getting into the ring, which allows Doc to kick Scotty right in the knee; Gordy follows up with a kneebar and cuts Scotty down with a lariat as Scotty gets back to a vertical base. His cover only gets two.

 

• As the match’s long-term FIP, Scotty does a good job of selling and timing his comebacks, most of the latter being aborted by the heels attacking his injured knee. I like the work a whole lot, and I think the heels work holds rather than just sitting in them, which is immersive to me, but other people simply might not like the mat-based approach. For example, Gordy working a single crab, thinking about transitioning into an STF, noting that Scotty squirmed toward his corner a bit, and choosing to go back to cinching in the single-crab before choosing to tag out worked for me. I buy that Gordy was tired from trying to corral this big dude Scotty and needed to get his partner to take over for him in that bit.

 

• Doc can’t hold Scotty back from crawling over while in a Boston Crab, though; Ricky hits a hot tag and fires off fists, then lands a diving bulldog from the second rope on Doc. Ricky clubs Gordy, who recovers and absolutely lights up Scotty with a lariat as Scotty goes to the second-rope. Meanwhile, Ricky is distracted and eats a lariat from Doc, who then hoists Ricky onto Gordy’s shoulders as Gordy sits on the second rope. However, Gordy is illegal, so when he tries to cover, the ref won’t count; that delay in getting up and letting Doc cover allows ricky to tag out. Gordy tags in and scores a pretty dropkick, but that only gets two as well.

 

• Rick is deep in trouble as Scott tries to crawl back to his corner; the MVC hit a double-shoulderblock for two as time winds down on the match. There are five minutes remaining in the contest as Doc hits a pair of rib breakers for two. The heels press their advantage, working against the clock since a draw won’t earn them the gold. Ricky tries to fight out of the corner, but is stomped down by the heels. Then, in what I think is a kayfabe mistake, Doc goes to a chinlock. He should be picking up the pace here and throwing bombs to try and get a victory. This is a mistake in the context of the match in my opinion and, as Capetta announces that there are three minutes left, I think that we should be in a more busy finishing run. Doc hits a sitout powerbomb for two and…goes to a front facelock. As much as I have enjoyed this match, I don’t like the layout of this finishing run. Even if they’re working toward a draw, the heels should be wrestling with way more urgency.

 

• Doc finally decides that, with under two minutes to go, maybe he should try his best move, but Ricky blocks the second part of the Oklahoma Stampede; Gordy tags in and trades very loud lariats with Ricky. This match sounds like it hurts almost as much as the Sting/Cactus match at points. Ricky makes a hot tag to Scotty with under a minute to go; Scotty cleans house and then scores a double-underhook powerbomb and a Frankensteiner, but the bell rings before he has time to cover. I don’t know about the layout of this finish, folks. Why did the champs have more urgency to get a pinfall than the challengers? I still liked this quite a bit, but the logic of the match broke down at the end.

 

• Tony S., Eric Bischoff, Jim Ross, and the entirely-too-lascivious Jesse Ventura send us on our way to end the show, and I will take this time to reflect that the show was awesome and, just a month after WrestleWar, had a far better undercard so as to feel that WCW’s midcard felt almost unrecognizable compared to what it was a month ago. However, Watts smartly covered for the weak midcard by having fewer matches between his actual good workers and just booking the good workers to go longer. I can’t say that most of his other strategies for organizing the card made much sense. Then again, when your only dud of a match is a six-man tag and you have two absolute classics back-to-back on your show, even the mistakes get glossed over pretty easily.

[SirSmUgly]

Clicked on the WCW Watch Party stream just to see if they'd shifted the programming loop for while I work, and Scott Hall's turn on Kevin Nash at Slamboree 98 was a massive error. The Outsiders are massively over with this crowd and the Wolfpac is beloved. 

If Hall weren't an unreliable alcoholic, WCW could have run with him on top and been very successful. I think his level of stardom during this time is badly underrated. Hell, the crowd still wanted him to be the champ when he last appeared in WCW at SuperBrawl 2000. He was always about as over as Goldberg. 

[zendragon]

On 6/25/2025 at 11:17 AM, SirSmUgly said:

WCW Beach Blast 1992 notes:

• After working through months of bad WCW shows, I wanted to watch a couple of good ones, so let’s start with what is one of my favorite WCW shows if not my absolute favorite (we'll find out upon this reassessment): Beach Blast ’92!

 

• Actually, having watched WrestleWar ’92 a few months back, I plan to watch Great American Bash ’92 after I watch Beach Blast ’92 just to complete the string of PPVs that bridged the K. Allen Frye and Bill Watts regimes.

 

• And quite honestly, WCW for all its faults is currently my favorite promotion ever in the world. It might be largely due to nostalgia, but there is something comforting about having a random string of WCWSN matches playing in the background. 

 

• I might have written about this show here before, maybe? I can’t remember, and it doesn’t matter anyway. WrestleWar ’92 was a two-match show, but Beach Blast should deliver more than that.

 

• Tony S. and Eric Bischoff introduce the show and even bring Bill Watts in to help hype the show. Now, WrestleWar ’92 had arguably the best match in WCW history on it (War Games), but Beach Blast also has a contender for that title in Steamboat/Rude, which I cannot wait to see again [Editor's note: Two contenders because I could understand why someone would name Cactus/Sting as the best WCW match of all time even if I don't think I'd agree with it].

 

• Jim Ross is on commentary for this thing; he tries to drag Jesse Ventura to ringside, but Jesse’s lounging on a chair with a few ladies in bikinis. Ventura finally, reluctantly walks over to do his job. I wonder why WCW changed the name from Beach Blast to Bash at the Beach, but if we take these shows as basically the same show with a changed name, it has a very high hit rate of awesome shows and great matches. Then there’s 1999, but we don’t talk about 1999.

 

• Scotty Flamingo opens the show in contention for Brian Pillman’s WCW Light Heavyweight Championship. As a huge fan of Flamingo/Johnny Polo/Raven, I’m always glad to see him on my screen. Flamingo and Pillman trade counters to start before Flamingo opens up with fists and gets the match moving. Unfortunately for him, he moves himself right into a Pillman flash pinfall attempt for two and decides to beg off rather than eat a punch on the follow-up.

 

• Flamingo gets to his feet, then gets right back, uh, not to his feet as Pillman hooks an armbar. Flamingo manages to maneuver Pillman onto his shoulders and hooks the tights, but can only score a couple of two counts. Pillman reasserts the armbar, and when Flamingo gets to standing and shoots him in to break it, he wins a shoulderblock and an arm drag before going right back to the arm wringer.

 

• The challenger looks entirely outclassed; he gets to the ropes and tries to use them for leverage, I suppose, instead of just asking the ref to break the hold. Anyway, it doesn’t work, and Flamingo once again ends up tied into knots on the mat. He finally gets a break in the corner and attempts some offense, but summarily eats a head scissors and then a dropkick that leaves him hanging by his toes over the top rope. Pillman walks over and unhooks him, the nice guy that he is…oh wait, there are no protective mats on the floors anymore due to Watts, so Flamingo smacks the cold, hard floor.

 

• I mean, Pillman is kicking the shit out of Flamingo. He fakes a dive to the floor before hitting a double-axe. However, the capricious nature of Bill Watts’s WCW giveth, and it very much taketh away because Pillman leaps up to the top rope in a frenzy, ready to press his advantage, before he remembers that – oops! – hitting a move from there is a disqualification now! Personally, if I were the champion, I’d launch anyway and then take my belt right back to the locker room, but Pillman is a dumb babyface, so he hesitates and is therefore open for Pillman to grab him and hit him with a Rocket Launcher before taking over for the first time all match.

 

• Flamingo (dammit, I keep typing "Raven" and then deleting) tosses Pillman to the floor – through the middle ropes, mind you – and then springboards over with a crossbody before putting Pillman back in the ring and giving him the boots. Y’know, I do appreciate what WCW’s wrestlers were able to do with the “no moves from the top” rule, but the limiting nature of that rule outweighs the creative spots that people can manage with them. I do get a kick out of Watts trying to turn every WCW event into the TV tapings at Irish McNeil’s, though. I can imagine Watts addressing the removal of the mats to the locker room: We didn’t have any mats in Shreveport, dammit! We don’t need ‘em here! What are you complainers anyway, pussies or Commies or something?

 

• Gary Michael Capetta lets us know that we’re ten minutes into this bout as Johnny “the Raven” Flamingo lands a fistdrop from the second rope. OK, that is illogical. Why is dropping a fist from the second rope okay, but dropping it from the top rope illegal? Give me a reason in kayfabe that rule makes sense. You can’t. Pillman scores a crossbody for two, but is immediately hit with a lariat when he gets to his feet, as is the way of a heel reasserting control after a flash pinfall attempt from the babyface here in WCW. Flamingo goes to the chinlock and hooks the ropes with his boots besides, then transitions into a cover for two before…*sigh*, going back to the chinlock. Ventura points out that this is a resthold for Flamingo, but not for Pillman since Pillman is in the hold, but if that were true, babyfaces wouldn’t routinely fight out of these holds and turn the tide, as Pillman does here. He manages to work to his feet, land a few elbows to the gut and a shoulderblock, and then dodge a Flamingo corner splash when Flamingo tries to halt Pillman’s momentum.

 

• This match is decent, but the middle here with Flamingo in control isn’t very good. He gets up first even after his whiff and then, oh boy, it’s another chinlock and a couple of chokes. He’s still rounding into form as a heel in control. His bumping and selling are very good at this point, but he’s low on ideas when he’s got protracted control of the match. Anyway, Pillman and Flamingo trade counters and do a Superman/Doomsday punch spot. They get to their knees and choke one another, but Flamingo stops that with an eye rake and goes to the second rope again, where his double axe attempt is cut off in midair by a Pillman dropkick.

 

• Pillman turns up the heat with a wheel kick, a buckle bonk, and a series of punches in the corner. Flamingo does manage to counter a charging Pillman with a floatover powerslam for two, however, and gets back to his feet first. Flamingo tries to shoot Pillman in, but Pillman sells a knee injury and collapses as Flamingo tries to shoot him in. It’s a ruse, which Flamingo would guess if he just thought for a second that he hadn’t worked the knee at all, but instead, the dopey heel celebrates the damage that he hasn’t done and gets back suplexed by the possum-playing Pillman. Pillman’s cover only gets two, though.

 

• What will end this match? Pillman sure tries to finish it with a face crusher and a pair of clotheslines, the last one knocking Flamingo onto the raised ramp. Pillman’s feeling himself and attempts a suicide dive, but Flamingo wobbles out of the way and Pillman slams his head into the ramp. A concussed Pillman crawls back into the ring and never sees Flamingo’s second rope kneedrop; that puts Pillman down for good as Flamingo covers, gets three, and earns the Light Heavyweight Championship. That was an uneven bout, but it was generally enjoyable, though part of what worked so well for me is tracking Scott Levy’s development as a wrestler.

 

• A peeved Jesse Ventura complains about the sexually fluid Johnny B. Badd judging tonight’s bikini competition. Ventura: “I don’t even think he likes girls!” I don’t know, some of these sexually fluid and genderfluid dudes get numbers, and not just the numbers of dudes or other equally fluid folks. Badd, who is just supremely entertaining, announces this three-round contest that is based completely on looks. My brain says, Man, that’s regressive. My T-levels say, Awesome, let’s do this! We start with the first round: evening gowns. Missy Hyatt walks out to pops and wolf whistles; her opponent is Madusa, who wears a veil like this is some type of wedding, and yet I don’t see Colonel Robert Parker or Sister Sherri or a drive-up wedding chapel anywhere in sight. I forgot that these are the only two women in this contest, so my T-levels have sort of checked out or lowered or whatever T-levels do when they’re disengaged.

 

• Ron Simmons attempts to drag Terry Taylor’s sorry ass to something watchable. I have no idea why everyone thought Taylor was the next big thing in the ‘80s. He’s ‘80s Lance Storm except that Storm is a much more fun worker and actually a much better heel, come to think of it. In retrospect, I just drastically undersold what a good midcard talent Storm is in that comparison I just made. Simmons, on the other hand, rules as usual. I like Butch Reed a whole lot, but if Simmons is in Reed’s place in mid-‘80s Mid-South, Watts would have had his black babyface replacement for JYD. Simmons’s babyface charisma is different from JYD’s, but I think Louisiana, Mississippi, and Oklahoma would have taken to him.

 

• Anyway, at least Taylor is mechanically sound and is a solid bumper. Simmons overpowers him early, presses him from the ramp back into the ring, and then clotheslines Taylor over the top; Taylor hits his head on a chair at commentary upon landing, and that spot looked pretty nasty. As in the previous match, the babyface shine looks like an obliteration. Simmons wraps Taylor in a bear hug, but Taylor makes his way out and then dives out of the way of a Simmons spear attempt; Simmons crashes out on the ramp. Unlike Pillman’s crash out, which came from a higher leaping point and at the end of a long and grueling match, Simmons’s crash out affords some dull heel control to Taylor, but it doesn’t result in a three count. Taylor goes right to a fucking chinlock after about three moves, actually. This dude is the epitome of an incomplete wrestler. Decent booker, though.

 

• Simmons fights back with a chokebomb and some punches, then scores a big back body drop and a shoulderblock. Simmons shoots Taylor in, and Taylor barely clears Simmons’s duck down with a leapfrog; Simmons probably needed to duck down a bit more, actually. As it happens, Taylor rebounds of the ropes and right into a crisp floatover powerslam that he doesn’t kick out of as the building of Ron Simmons toward the main event continues. After the match, Jim Ross helps along that building of Simmons by interviewing Simmons after the match and gratuitously pointing out what a roll Simmons has been on lately. Simmons says that your race and income level don’t matter as long as you have the drive to be the best, but I think this is a simple answer to a complex sociological problem.

 

• I don’t know about this next bout: a green Marcus Alexander Bagwell locks it up with Greg Valentine. I’ll keep an open mind. Bagwell might have less experience, but he has more speed, and he uses it to win a series of arm drags to start. Valentine solves that “speedy kid running rings around me” deal with boots and a forearm, but Bagwell backdrops his way out of Valentine’s follow-up piledriver attempt and manages to score an atomic drop and two dropkicks, sending Valentine to the floor to consider how he can better use his experience and weight advantage to control the match. What he apparently considered is letting Bagwell try another arm drag so that he could lariat the shit out of him. Good idea, Valentine!

 

• Valentine lands chops and a rib breaker, then goes up to the second rope, where he whiffs on an elbow drop. Bagwell slams Valentine, but he misses his follow up kneedrop and clutches his injured patella – uh oh. Valentine duly works the injured knee to set up for a figure four. The first time that Valentine tries a Figure Four, Bagwell manages to counter into an inside cradle for two. Bagwell continues trying to find a way out of trouble, countering into multiple other flash pins as Valentine tries to advance his attack. He even manages a floatover vertical suplex on that knee he’s selling, but that also only gets two. However, as his adrenaline picks up and he ignores the knee injury, he tries a leapfrog that reminds him he has a knee injury. Valiantly, the rookie gets to his feet and tries to throw fists on his injured leg, but Valentine slips a right hand, lands a knee drop, and locks on a Figure Four that Bagwell fights, but eventually submits to. See, that’s why you keep an open mind. This was a fun little match that got Bagwell over as a fightin’ babyface who fell to an experienced wrestler’s targeted attack on an injury. It won’t change your life, but it will feel nourishing to any wrestling fan who consumes it. Bagwell did a good job with selling the knee.

 

• I managed to only type the name “Buff” twice in those previous two bullets (before deleting it and muttering “dammit” as I did), by the way. Yes, I am proud of this.

 

• Recap: Cactus Jack leads Van Hammer through an entertaining match in some rodeo grounds somewhere; Abdullah the Butcher intervenes with a shovel to Hammer’s back. Jesse Ventura sells that Cactus is in his element in a Falls Count Anywhere match based on his success putting Van Hammer down outside of the ring.

 

• Here comes the first match of the night that completely rules: Cactus Jack gets a shot at Sting’s WCW World Heavyweight Championship in the middle of this card, which seems weird. It certainly signals that we wouldn’t be seeing a title change. The crowd is hot for Jack and Sting squaring off on the ramp and firing fists at one another. Sting earns a backslide on the ramp for one, then back body drops Cactus’s considerable girth onto the ramp. That impact makes a great sound on top of looking good. Sting follows up with a facebuster for two. I love that these two didn’t bother with ramping up the nuttiness over time and just started out throwing bombs.

 

• Sting leaps out of the fucking building on a Stinger Splash attempt as Cactus slumps against a corner strut; he runs down the rampway and misses badly, launching himself up and over the top rope and into the ring. It’s a great visual. Sting rolls back out to the floor immediately, and Cactus follows with a Cactus Elbow on concrete. Mick Foley just didn’t give a fuck, did he? He grabs his knee momentarily, and I think that though this is setting a matchlong seed, he might have legit injured it there, maybe? I’m trying to remember from his book. I mean, he dropped that knee on concrete! Mick hits a swinging neckbreaker, and both men SPLAT on the matless floor. I mean, this match sounds like it hurts in a way that wrestling matches typically do not. This match might have some of the nastiest audio that I’ve ever heard because of how these fellas are taking moves on the ramp and the floor.

 

• Mick’s nutty ass next hits a diving sunset flip on Sting from the apron to the floor for two. I mean, what the fuck? You know, as a kid, I saw Cactus doing stuff like this and thought it was cool, but I’m not sure I quite understood the gravity of the risks that Foley was taking, whereas now, just about everything he’s doing makes me wince. Sting reverses a bash into the guardrail, but Sting reverses and the front row fans are fuckin’ LOVING it. Cactus charges Sting at the railing, but Sting backdrops him over it and then hops over and hits a fucking vertical suplex on the floor. That gets a well-timed 2.9, but if it had gotten three, I would have believed it.

 

• No wonder Sting liked working with Cactus; Foley is out here taking years off his life to get Sting over as a tough guy. Did anything make Sting more legit than surviving wars with Cactus and Vader in 1992 and 1993? I always found him to be a giant dork as a very young kid, and was kind of dismissive of him, but I do remember liking him way more at some point in 1993. Anyway, they actually slow things down back in the ring, where Foley tears at Sting’s face while yelling GIVE IT UP, STING, GIVE IT UP. He makes the oopsie of disrespectfully slapping him, though, which causes Sting to fire up and get to his feet. Cactus, trying to stanch Sting’s momentum, does the logical thing that one would do and scores a double-leg takedown before transitioning into a legbar. No, wait, sorry, I got that all wrong. What he does is hit a wild lariat that sends both men tumbling to the floor in another visual spectacle of a spot.

 

• Jesse Ventura is doing a fine job of selling how much danger Sting is in whenever the match leaves the confines of the ring. Cactus grabs a chair (kid in the crowd, insistently: CHAIR! STING, HE’S GOT A CHAIR!). Sting doesn’t hear any warnings, though, and eats a series of chair shots to the stomach and back. Cactus thinks he’s in control, fires off his finger guns, grabs Sting in a headlock…and is hoisted backward and hit with a back suplex on the concrete. Cactus’s boot hitting the railing as his head landed near it had the audio effect of making it seem like maybe his head also hit the railing on the way down. I actually played it back, and Cactus protected his head, but sold it like it did rap the guardrail, so he made sure his boot hit the railing at the same time that his head came down with great timing because it fooled me in real time. Between this and that earlier 2.9 kickout, Cactus’s timing is on point tonight in general.

 

• The thing about Cactus is that he comes off as a slasher flick villain who is dented and damaged, but who refuses to be put down. The bedraggled nutbar kicks out of Sting’s cover on the back suplex, drags himself to his feet, and wins a punch-up. After exchanging flash pin attempt reversals on the floor (!!), Cactus uses Sting’s momentum as Sting leaps at him to dump the champion across the railing. Jack follows up with a very safe piledriver on the floor, though commentary covers it by saying that Cactus’s knee that he injured earlier gave out and that he didn’t catch Sting properly. In fact, as Cactus goes up for another Cactus Elbow, Sting is quickly up and able to throw a fist into his gut, so yeah, that checks out from a kayfabe standpoint.

 

• The match makes its way back to the rampway where it started; Sting dominates, slams Jack, grabs a chair, and exacts his chair-smashing revenge on Cactus. The last one of those is aimed at the knee; Jack topples to the ramp, clutching his knee, and Sting goes for a Scorpion Deathlock. In a panic, Cactus sprawls and rolls off the ramp, breaking the hold and toppling Sting to the floor along with him. The crowd thought that Sting had him, and they get very quiet and don’t pop after Sting kicks out of a Cactus follow-up Buff Bagwell Kenta Kobashi DDT. The one mistake of this match might have been failing to end it with the Scorpion Deathlock on the rampway. Instead, Sting makes one final comeback after the kickout and retains the title with a diving clothesline from the top to the ramp. This is obviously still a classic, though. Jack squeals in rage and also maybe pain as ref Bill Alfonso awards the WCW World Championship to the Stinger. I loved this match and would argue that Sting and Cactus are a pairing made in wrestling heaven for one another’s styles.

 

• There’s an interstitial with Tony S. and Eric Bischoff transitioning us from the magic of Sting/Cactus to the equally awesome, yet totally different magic of Steamboat/Rude. I cannot fucking believe that WCW booked Cactus/Sting and Rick Rude vs. Ricky Steamboat in the Iron Man Match back to back. Is this the best pair of WCW matches booked back to back in the company’s history? Maybe Spring Stampede 1994 has a pair of matches that give some competition? As much as I liked Steiners vs. Iizuka and Fujinami/War Games as a pairing at WrestleWar ’92, I can’t say that it’s a better back-to-back pairing than these two matches.

 

• Anyway, here’s Rick Rude, the current WCW United States Champion, to tell all the fat, out-of-shape, etc., etc., folks to look at his magnificent abs, and in fairness to him, you could grate cheese with those things. Sadly, his Slam Jam theme does not play as he poses. Here comes Ricky Steamboat with Bonnie and Richie. We get our first Jesse Ventura Reads the Papers moment of the night, as Jesse is annoyed with the ostentatious family values posturing and then claims that the next thing to happen will be Dan Quayle walking out and lecturing the crowd on a similar subject. Ross retorts that Steamboat can spell the word “potatoe.” No, wait, “potato.” That’s how you spell it. Sorry, my bad. I promise not to run for VPOTUS after making an error like that. This exchange inspires Ross to also compare Rude’s popularity in the arena to Ice-T’s popularity at a policeman’s ball. Some people don’t like the pairing of Ross and Ventura, which I suppose that I understand, but I really dig them together. Ventura makes Ross a bit uncomfortable, and the friction that arises from Ross trying to handle Ventura’s style of heel commentating is highly entertaining to me.

 

• Anyway, Steamboat gets right to it as the match starts and catches an advancing Rude with punches, then drills him in the solar plexus with a gutbuster. Rude sells a rib injury, and Steamboat presses the advantage, whipping Rude into the air and down to the mat rather than firing him into the ropes. Steamboat measures a series of kicks and forearms to Rudes’s ribs, and Rude does his great selling of them, staggering, twisting his body around theatrically in pain. I adore Rude’s style of selling. It’s like he never forgot how to contort his body painfully like he did when he was the lanky guy he started out as, so even as packed with muscle as he is now, he still sells like a lanky dude with not enough padding to blunt the pain. The visual of this huge muscly dude selling like a 98-pound weakling is striking.

 

• Steamboat locks on a bearhug and then drives Rude back into he corner, but Rude puts a knee up and catches Steamboat in his recently-healed face; Ross helpfully reminds us that Rude broke Steamboat’s nose in kayfabe a couple months back. However, Rude’s really got nothing for Steamboat and walks himself right into a fireman’s carry position; Sting dumps Rude and locks on a funky-looking surfboard. In desperation, Rude rakes Steamboat’s eyes to break it, but when Rude tries to monkeyflip Steamboat as Steamboat charges back, Steamboat grabs Rude’s legs and transitions into a Boston Crab that becomes a Lion Tamer in there for a bit as Rude tries to fight out. Rude attempts to get to the ropes. He crawls…and crawls…and each time he reaches out for the ropes, Steamboat sits deep on the Boston Crab, causing Rude enough pain that he pulls his arm back. Rude finally manages to grab the bottom rope, getting a break, so Steamboat breaks and immediately dumps Rude, splashes him across the back and ribs, and drops a bunch of knees right into Rude’s ribcage.

 

• Steamboat kicks Rude in the ribs, yells GET UP RUDE as Rude collapses, and generally is fired up to beat the shit out of this guy who claimed that he beat women because Madusa slapped him and he slapped her back as a mindless reaction, such as a pro wrestler might do, before apologizing profusely to her. As Madusa would learn later in the ‘90s, if you slap a dude, he’ll be liable to put you in his finisher. Back in ’92, it’s not like Steamboat got Madusa’s ass FRRRRRANCHISED or anything so egregious as that! Anyway, Steamboat lands a front suplex and a forearm, then covers for two.

 

• Rude kicking out of all this damage is pretty impressive from a kayfabe standpoint. Steamboat presses the attack, but he is so overzealous that he runs himself into a Rude knee that hits him flush on the jaw and stuns him for three seconds as Rude pins him at about eight minutes in [Rude 1 – Steamboat – 0]. Ventura puts over the capricious nature of pro wrestling, in which one can dominate for stretches at a time, but find themselves looking at the lights because of a flash strike or counter-move. Rude hobbles to his feet, knowing that he’d damned well better capitalize on this, and quickly lands a Rude Awakening and covers for another pinfall [Rude 2 – Steamboat – 0].

 

• Here’s where kayfabe strategy comes into play, and I can’t give Jesse Ventura enough credit for his work on color to get that strategy over. He suggests that Rude tie Steamboat in knots, maybe a few rest holds, to avoid mistakes, lower the chances of eating a pinfall, eat time, and recover a bit. He even considers that Rude might want to try another impact move and pinfall first if Rude’s feeling that his lead is unsafe, then do the rest hold strategy. However, he doesn’t agree with that impact move coming off the top rope, which is what Rude chooses to do. This is an interesting part of kayfabe strategy in Iron Man Matches, maybe one of my favorite parts of that strategy. Do you try to do damage with an illegal move or weapon, eat a DQ loss, but then get more pinfalls off the illegal move than you lost with the DQ decision? Rude calculates that dropping another one of his deadly knees from the top will do more long-term damage that is worth eating a DQ for [Rude 2 – Steamboat – 1]. As we will find out later, he is very, very wrong about that.

 

• I love that maybe the whole story of this match centers around three clear things: 1) Rude’s accumulated rib damage; 2) Steamboat being half-concussed on account of Rude’s knee strikes; and 3) Rude’s pivotal decision to come off the top with a kneedrop and give up a fall instead of maybe just dropping that knee from the second rope. Giving up a fall turns out to be a kayfabe mistake made in the heat of battle and the haze of pain. Fuck, I love this match.

 

• Rude follows the DQ ruling with an inside cradle that scores three [Rude 3 – Steamboat – 1]. However, I would argue that in kayfabe, the downtime from the ref announcing the decision and then Rude’s slow follow-up with an inside cradle allows Steamboat to clear a few cobwebs; Steamboat fires back with punches, so Rude smashes Steamboat’s face into the mat and then locks on a good-looking chinlock to keep Steamboat grounded. However, we still have about eighteen minutes, so Steamboat works up. Rude hits a seated splash to knock Steamer back to the mat, then does that awesome spot where he tries to swivel his hips in celebration, but is too hurt to complete his taunt, grabbing his ribs instead.

 

• Once again, Rude attempts a chinlock, but Steamboat gets to his knees, then stands up with Rude still on his shoulders and falls backward. Scrambling to his feet, Steamboat tries to follow with a huge running splash, but he eats knees. Rude follows with a swinging neckbreaker, but it only gets two, as do his duo of follow-up pinfall covers. We’re now halfway through, with Steamboat trying to up the pace and Rude smartly grabbing another chinlock to stop all that nonsense. Jesse argues that if the score is tied, there should be sudden death. You think he complained about this to former broadcast partner Gorilla Monsoon over the phone before this event and Monsoon remembered their conversation during WrestleMania XII? That’s my headcanon.

 

• Steamboat works back to his feet, but Rude lands a piledriver for 2.8; Rude bitches to Pee-Wee Anderson about the cadence of his count, then tries a Tombstone piledriver that Ricky reverses and drills for three at about 12:15 left to go [Rude 3 – Steamboat – 2]. Slowly, Steamboat gets to his feet and once again advances, but a seated rude grabs Ricky’s tights and yanks him headfirst into the buckles. Rude goes up top again, which is a major mistake, but Steamboat makes a mistake about as bad and catches him, then lands a superplex that is legal since both men are up top. Yeah, I don’t remember superplexes being illegal in Mid-South, so that tracks. Steamboat’s delayed cover gets only two, and his slow follow-up clothesline is met with a clothesline in kind from Rude.

 

• The ref starts a standing ten-count; Rude slithers on top of Steamboat for a cover, but Steamboat bridges up and backslides Rude for three at nine-and-a-half minutes remaining [Rude 3 – Steamboat – 3]. Steamboat now attempts a rapid-fire approach, immediately trying a couple of flash pinfalls and a cross body into a cover, all of which only get two; Rude stops the onslaught of pinfall attempts with a jawbreaker. Both men struggle to their feet, but Rude is the one to score by slamming Steamboat face-first into the mat a couple times (and yelling at Steamer with what sounds like exultant joy YOU AIN’T NO IRON MAN, C’MON after doing so). However, Rude’s lateral press only earns a two count.

 

• Rude has re-asserted himself as time winds down, but as this is non-title, maybe he should be pressing more for a win. If it were for the title, he’d have a clear advantage in that he didn’t have to win to retain his gold, but in a match that’s just about pride, a draw means little. Rude cuts Steamboat’s comebacks off and even hits a bicep pose (though not a double-bicep pose as lifting his arm on the side that his ribs have been attacked would hurt too much). Rude is doing a masterclass of selling in this match. I mean, Steamboat is an all-time elite seller and is only the second-best guy at selling moves in this bout. That speaks volumes.

 

• As Rude continues his assault, he tries a Rude Awakening, but Steamboat manages to break the hold and then land a Rude Awakening of his own. As he is not the master of that hold, it only earns two when Rude puts his boot over the bottom rope. Steamboat is irritated at the ref stopping his count, not having seen Rude drape his boot over the rope; Ventura calls for a DQ ruling as Ricky accosts Pee-Wee.

 

• We are under five minutes here as Steamboat attempts a series of pinfalls after moves. A back suplex doesn’t work, and shortly after that, Rude grabs a desperation sleeper and cinches it in deeply, even as Steamboat tries to break it by ramming Rude’s head into the buckles. Steamboat looks like he’s going out, but he manages to stumble toward the ropes. Rude kicks his arm down multiple times as he reaches for the ropes, but Steamboat is right in the corner as we go under two minutes. Maybe in kayfabe, Rude should have dropped the hold and tried another move because it took him a long time to get Steamboat down to the mat, and Steamboat has fought the hold’s effects for a long time. In fact, Steamboat leverages his legs onto the ropes and then flips backward in that Hart/Piper leveraged pinfall spot; Steamboat gets three and merely has to survive about forty seconds of Rude’s frantic pinfall attempts, which he does. Rude doesn’t even manage to attempt another Rude Awakening before time runs out. I think Rude’s panicked attempts to salvage a draw might be my favorite thing about this, and I only wish it were maybe fifteen or twenty seconds longer as a segment. Anyway, this is still the best Iron Man Match that I’ve ever seen.

 

• There is an hour of show left after those last two matches, which means that this show was atrociously segmented. How did these two matches happen one after the other in the middle of this show? What an insane way to lay out a show. As I have come to believe, WCW just had issues that were apparently endemic to it no matter who ran it. A long-term viewer would run into the same layout issues across booking eras.

 

• For a cool down that probably should have come between the previous two matches rather than after them, we have the bathing suit segment of the contest between Madusa and Missy Hyatt. Madusa walks out first, looking like a trashy biker bikini lady. Johnny B. Badd, being goofily charming: C’MON, MADUSE; LET’S GET LOOSE AND SHAKE YOUR CABOOSE! Jim Ross, being strangely creepy: “[There are] a couple of things about [Madusa] I like, but I can’t put my hands on them.” I don’t like it, Ross. I don’t like it. Meanwhile, Missy wore a two-piece instead of a one-piece and also looks like a cute beach lady rather than a trashy biker lady, so she wins this segment with the crowd by about forty touchdowns.

 

• Ref Ole Anderson, who gets his own introduction, stands in the corner and watches Paul Heyman lead the remnants of his Dangerous Alliance to the ring: Bobby Eaton, Arn Anderson, and WCW World Television Champion Stunning Steve Austin. Their opponents are the remnants of Sting’s Squadron: Barry Windham, Nikita Koloff, and Dustin Rhodes. Austin and Windham have a nice opening exchange that Windham gets the best of with a second-rope arm drag (Heyman, alarmed at the fall that Austin’s about to take: WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA). Rhodes tags in and continues the babyface shine, though Austin manages a tag to Eaton, who tags to Arn eventually, who slaps Koloff, who then tags Rhodes. Arn wins a kneedrop before going up top and being halted by Ole; I do like how these wrestlers are working spots to indicate that they keep forgetting about Bill Watts having dumb rules about top rope dives that worked in Louisiana in the ‘80s, but that don’t work for a national company in the ‘90s. Hell, WCW kept that “over the top rope DQ” rule for about six or seven years too long.

 

• Speaking of, we have a claim that Koloff should be DQ’d for hitting a Sickle that sends Arn over the top and to the floor right now! Ross clarifies that the DQ is only if someone is thrown over the top (fine), but then speaks too much and says, “or propelled over the top rope,” which obviously a move like a clothesline to a man slumped against the ropes would do. Jesse immediately jumps on that point as well. See? This rule was fucking stupid.

 

• Back to this match, which should be a good trios match, but which has been kinda boring so far. Koloff fights off all three heels, extending this watchable-I-suppose shine. Heyman calls for a timeout, but much like Chris Webber in the NCAA Finals, he doesn’t have one and should stop signaling for one. Arn and Windham go at it, and boy, this match is not doing anything for me at all. They crack heads, and Arn goes back to the top, scrapes Windham in the eye as Windham tries to block his top-rope dive, and then changes position and dives from the second rope instead. Where are Ole as ref and all these spots over top-rope confusion leading?

 

• Windham tags to Rhodes, who fights off all three heels while the babyfaces chill out and watch from their corner. Arn smashes Dustin’s noggin into Eaton’s, and finally Rhodes is your FIP. This is pretty dull heel control stuff. Ross cuts in to claim some obviously worked stats in which Madusa leads Missy in the fan vote for their pretty-off. Come on, that is some nonsense and you know it, Ross. This is the least believable work on this whole show. Meanwhile, I think we said all that we needed to say about these teams wrestling one another at WrestleWar. This is a dull nothing of a match, which isn’t an offensive thing in isolation, but which is shocking to me considering the talent in the ring. I also don’t love the hot tag spot, in which Austin lands a Stun Gun that launches Dustin across the ring and right into a tag. The match immediately breaks down and Arn finally does his dive off the top; he eats a fist to the gut, but manages to land a knee off the top to break up Windham’s floatover pinfall on a superplex attempt. Alas, Ole sees that one and disqualifies him to end the bout. Oh yeah, Ole as ref and all these Arn top-rope spots led to putting Ole over as a fair referee who didn’t let his family member get away with cheating. Hey, that crappy hot tag, finishing run, and weird decision to focus the match on Ole Anderson, Fair Referee means that this bout wasn’t just a dull nothing; actually, this bout absolutely fucking sucked.

 

• Eric Bischoff interviews Ricky Steamboat, who is proud of how he endured the Iron Man Match and won; he vows to come back at Rude for a title shot the next time they meet. Paul Heyman cuts in on the interview, gives Steamboat his props for winning the match, but makes it clear that Rude won’t be giving out any more title shots to Steamboat. Then, he cues Cactus Jack, who runs in and attacks Steamboat until referees and security mooks pull them apart. This is a kayfabe business partnership that will bear fruit in ECW a couple years from now in reality.

 

• A whiny Jesse Ventura basically takes Johnny B. Badd’s spot as the host of the pretty-off, but Badd walks out in a spangly cowboy hat and jovially agrees to share the spotlight with the judgmental Jesse. Alright, the ladies are in tinier bikins than from before for this third round. Guess what Madusa is doing for her bikini? That’s right, breaking U.S. Flag Code! Madusa and breaking U.S. Flag Code with her gear: name a more iconic duo! Meanwhile, Missy can’t make it out of her dressing tent because someone (Madusa, if her smirk means anything) stole her micro-bikini out of an envelope, but the industrious Hyatt steals Jesse’s bandana and scarf from around his head and improvises a bikini. Badd peeks inside and sells her makeshift bikini as positively scandalous, though as we find out when she steps into view, it is actually a bit less showy than the previous two-piece she wore. Anyway, the best part of this is Jesse yelling WAIT, THOSE ARE MY SCARVES and Missy, off mic, yelling back SO WHAT, I WON. That got a genuine laugh out of me. An irate Madusa attacks Badd, backing him all the way into her dressing tent, and oh man, there is now some terrible comedy to offset that funny exchange between Hyatt and Jesse. Let me summarize: The tent shakes, Jesse goes WHAT IS THAT GUY DOING TO HER IN THERE (ugh, why), and then Badd comes out looking bashful and holding Madusa’s top. Jesse just pokes his head in to confirm that Madusa has lost her top and possesses a pair of lust-worthy lunghammers. You know, Beach Blast ’92 can’t possibly be the best WCW PPV considering that it includes that string of bikini-based segments.

 

• I forgot why the card was laid out so strangely; Tony S. and Eric Bischoff transition us over to the main event, which is the Miracle Violence Connection of Doc and Gordy against the Steiner Brothers for the WCW World Tag Team Championship. Bill Watts’s laser focus on bigging up the NWA World Tag Team Championship and pushing this feud caused him to make some strange decisions. I say this as something of an outlier in that I adore this feud and the matches that made it up. I love me some Dr. Death and Terry Gordy, and I enjoy them smothering their opponents on the mat, which is apparently an acquired taste. Scott Steiner and Gordy do some protracted mat wrestling to start, Scotty eventually gaining top control and sending Gordy sprawling into the ropes to break things up.

 

• Next, both guys hit each other with a loud shoulderblock – how is a shoulderblock that loud? That was a lotta beef smacking together there. Anyway, Gordy slaps Scotty, who slaps back, and both men rain blows upon one another until the ref can get them out of the ropes and back to the center of the ring. Doc tags in and tries to gain control with a single-leg takedown, but can’t manage to outwrestle a Steiner on the mat, as it should be. Eventually, Doc backs Steiner into the corner and launches a couple of knees into Scotty’s gut, which leads to a series of counters that end with Steiner scoring a sunset flip for two.

 

• Scotty sinks in a side headlock that Doc tries to counter into a pinfall attempt, but Scotty sprawls, keeps control, and then decides to tag his dopey bro Ricky. Jim Ross notes that Ricky has a degree in education from UMich, which is a staggering concept to me. Who the fuck would let their children anywhere near Rick Steiner, especially in an educational setting? So, here is why people don’t like these matches; the feeling out process tends to be very protracted. I buy it as I buy into the aura of both these teams and believe that just one mistake would the other team to do something so drastic that it ends the match, so it works for me psychologically, but I get why people are like, Hey, these dudes are spending a lot of time laying on one another. Anyway, Ricky and Doc trade tackles and lariats until Gordy tags in and scores a huge back suplex for two.

 

• Ricky fights back, but is in trouble from here; Doc tosses Rick outside to the ramp by using his tights as leverage as Scotty complains about said tight-pulling to the ref. Doc follows with a shoulderblock, but Ricky fires back with a punch and a sunset flip; Doc holds the ropes to block it, but Scotty fires a forearm at Doc’s dome. The ref counts the pinfall attempt and then admonishes Scotty (and is admonished in turn) as Jesse critique’s the ref’s decision to count a pinfall for what was essentially an illegal move because of Scotty’s interference.

 

• This is a cagey bout, and I actually wouldn’t change what the wrestlers are doing, but I again would have changed the order of matches. I don’t see why Sting/Cactus didn’t end this show. There is no reason that Ricky Steamboat needed to be confronted by Cactus tonight and, even if you wanted to have them confront one another, you could still have Cactus do it before he comes out for the main event. This tag match should have swapped spots with Sting/Cactus.

 

• Scotty and Gordy do this really good, movement-filled struggle; Scotty almost gets a bow-and-arrow, but Gordy sprawls and manages a tag to Doc; the heels leverage their ring positioning to make quick tags and keep Scotty down, though Scotty does manage a crossbody for two in there. However, he’s in the wrong neighborhood, so Doc and Gordy easily cut off his attempts at a fiery comeback. Ricky’s not too bright, so he draws the ref’s attention by getting into the ring, which allows Doc to kick Scotty right in the knee; Gordy follows up with a kneebar and cuts Scotty down with a lariat as Scotty gets back to a vertical base. His cover only gets two.

 

• As the match’s long-term FIP, Scotty does a good job of selling and timing his comebacks, most of the latter being aborted by the heels attacking his injured knee. I like the work a whole lot, and I think the heels work holds rather than just sitting in them, which is immersive to me, but other people simply might not like the mat-based approach. For example, Gordy working a single crab, thinking about transitioning into an STF, noting that Scotty squirmed toward his corner a bit, and choosing to go back to cinching in the single-crab before choosing to tag out worked for me. I buy that Gordy was tired from trying to corral this big dude Scotty and needed to get his partner to take over for him in that bit.

 

• Doc can’t hold Scotty back from crawling over while in a Boston Crab, though; Ricky hits a hot tag and fires off fists, then lands a diving bulldog from the second rope on Doc. Ricky clubs Gordy, who recovers and absolutely lights up Scotty with a lariat as Scotty goes to the second-rope. Meanwhile, Ricky is distracted and eats a lariat from Doc, who then hoists Ricky onto Gordy’s shoulders as Gordy sits on the second rope. However, Gordy is illegal, so when he tries to cover, the ref won’t count; that delay in getting up and letting Doc cover allows ricky to tag out. Gordy tags in and scores a pretty dropkick, but that only gets two as well.

 

• Rick is deep in trouble as Scott tries to crawl back to his corner; the MVC hit a double-shoulderblock for two as time winds down on the match. There are five minutes remaining in the contest as Doc hits a pair of rib breakers for two. The heels press their advantage, working against the clock since a draw won’t earn them the gold. Ricky tries to fight out of the corner, but is stomped down by the heels. Then, in what I think is a kayfabe mistake, Doc goes to a chinlock. He should be picking up the pace here and throwing bombs to try and get a victory. This is a mistake in the context of the match in my opinion and, as Capetta announces that there are three minutes left, I think that we should be in a more busy finishing run. Doc hits a sitout powerbomb for two and…goes to a front facelock. As much as I have enjoyed this match, I don’t like the layout of this finishing run. Even if they’re working toward a draw, the heels should be wrestling with way more urgency.

 

• Doc finally decides that, with under two minutes to go, maybe he should try his best move, but Ricky blocks the second part of the Oklahoma Stampede; Gordy tags in and trades very loud lariats with Ricky. This match sounds like it hurts almost as much as the Sting/Cactus match at points. Ricky makes a hot tag to Scotty with under a minute to go; Scotty cleans house and then scores a double-underhook powerbomb and a Frankensteiner, but the bell rings before he has time to cover. I don’t know about the layout of this finish, folks. Why did the champs have more urgency to get a pinfall than the challengers? I still liked this quite a bit, but the logic of the match broke down at the end.

 

• Tony S., Eric Bischoff, Jim Ross, and the entirely-too-lascivious Jesse Ventura send us on our way to end the show, and I will take this time to reflect that the show was awesome and, just a month after WrestleWar, had a far better undercard so as to feel that WCW’s midcard felt almost unrecognizable compared to what it was a month ago. However, Watts smartly covered for the weak midcard by having fewer matches between his actual good workers and just booking the good workers to go longer. I can’t say that most of his other strategies for organizing the card made much sense. Then again, when your only dud of a match is a six-man tag and you have two absolute classics back-to-back on your show, even the mistakes get glossed over pretty easily.

The Sting - Cactus match is up on The Vault with Jesse Ventura's commentary intact. The version on The Greatest Hits and Misses DVD had only Foley and Coachman. I'm a fan of Jesse's WCW run working with either Ross or Tony. Jesse might be my favorite color commentator and I wonder what a Ross/Body team during the MNW might have sounded like (lets say if Lawler goes to prison). On the DVD Foley said this was his best match up until he wrestled HBK and Austin.

As for the top rope rule Watts claims is that he banned top rope moves so that the heels could us it to get heat behind the refs back. Only problem with that is a top rope spot is a high spot (at least back in the day, now everyone just GTSI) so the faces should be doing those moves on their come back.

[Niners Fan in CT]

Did Netflix ever fucking upload the rest of the RAW archive? 

[Peck]

3 hours ago, Niners Fan in CT said:

Did Netflix ever fucking upload the rest of the RAW archive? 

I check a few times a week(including earlier today) and no.. it's the same episodes from the initial launch in January.

[Niners Fan in CT]

3 minutes ago, Peck said:

I check a few times a week(including earlier today) and no.. it's the same episodes from the initial launch in January.

Criminal. I know people have been raving about WWE Vault and it's sister WCW channel on YouTube and I like them too but I fear once the Peacock deal is up all of the archive is going to be spread around or unavailable.  

[Peck]

13 minutes ago, Niners Fan in CT said:

Criminal. I know people have been raving about WWE Vault and it's sister WCW channel on YouTube and I like them too but I fear once the Peacock deal is up all of the archive is going to be spread around or unavailable.  

Yeah, for OCD-ish people like me who prefer to do everything in exact chronological order it really sucks. I was doing a weekly watch-back of both WWF & WCW(Raws/Nitros/PPVs) from 1995-on and made it all the way to April 1997 before I had to abruptly stop with the Netflix deal. 

[Niners Fan in CT]

6 minutes ago, Peck said:

Yeah, for OCD-ish people like me who prefer to do everything in exact chronological order it really sucks. I was doing a weekly watch-back of both WWF & WCW(Raws/Nitros/PPVs) from 1995-on and made it all the way to April 1997 before I had to abruptly stop with the Netflix deal. 

I had started RAW from the beginning and only got up until around the start of '94.   It's a pain in the ass.  All the NXT stuff is gone too.  So lately, I've been mostly watching the old house shows from MSG/Boston and the WCW catalogue. 

[RazorbladeKiss87]

14 hours ago, Niners Fan in CT said:

I had started RAW from the beginning and only got up until around the start of '94.   It's a pain in the ass.  All the NXT stuff is gone too.  So lately, I've been mostly watching the old house shows from MSG/Boston and the WCW catalogue. 

Big part of why I'm working on acquiring footage to create my own NAS. Not just with wrestling content, I'm tired of my access to media being stopped at the whim of an executive.  

[SirSmUgly]

WCW Great American Bash 1992 notes:

• Bill Watts loves the NWA Tag Team Championships possibly more than life itself. What is this guy doing pushing them as the big draw of this show alongside the WCW World Heavyweight Championship? Was he aware that WCW kinda had its own WCW World Heavyweight Championships? It seems like he wasn’t even though he booked those titles in the main event of the previous PPV and also just put them on Doc and Gordy.

 

• It dawns on me that, while 1992 is an awesome year for WCW, Watts sauntered into the company after a huge chunk of the good stuff was already set in motion, especially that hot Rude/Steamboat feud and that supernova Dangerous Alliance/Sting and Friends feud. Kip Frye’s regime should get more credit for WCW being awesome during this year than he does.

 

• Tony S. and Magnum T.A. open the show as presenters and sometimes-interviewers. They talk about Sting/Vader, and we have arrived at Vader’s coming transitional title reign so that we can get that poorly booked Ron Simmons world title run that Bill Watts should also be pilloried for more often. The sad thing about it is that Simmons was over with WCW crowds at that level and could have been a made guy if Watts had booked his title reign correctly.

 

• The Steiner Brothers were beaten at the Clash previous to this show by Doc and Gordy in the NWA tag title tournament; I really dug that match, especially because it built off the knee work that the Miracle Violence Connection had already put in on Scott Steiner at Beach Blast ’92. Stateside fans are not really fucking with Doc and Gordy as far as my re-watch of the video tape shows and, probably because of their very ‘70s mat-based style of work with the Steiners, never got into them or bought the hype that they were that much of a threat compared to teams that could stand and throw bombs with the Steiners. However, as someone who would thoroughly enjoy a Dory Funk Jr. and Horst Hoffman vs. Dory and Horst’s clones Mirror Match, I love the whole fucking feud. Alas, that is not how WCW fans in 1992 felt, which is why maybe Watts should have stopped zigging and started zagging with his booking.

 

• We have one change to the billed lineup of tag teams: Hiroshi Hase’s original partner Akira Nogami has an eye injury, so Shinya Hashimoto will be substituting for him. As someone who thinks that the WCW/New Japan relationship could occasionally bear fruit, it did so almost against WCW’s inability to frame the wrestlers that New Japan sent over in an interesting way. Jushin Liger got over in America because he’s, y’know, one of the ten best wrestlers ever. After that, I’m not sure WCW got much right about it. I assume that modern-day AEW does a much better job with it, partly because of the fanbase being more primed for New Japan wrestling in general and partly because Tony Khan has a pretty deep respect for New Japan as an organization from what I can gather. What I’m saying is that WCW should have given tween Tony Khan the book way back in 1992.

 

• (No, I’m not saying that.)

 

• Where did Jesse Ventura get that suit jacket? He looks like a Jackson Pollock vomited on him. Oh, and Jim Ross is also here as his delightfully mismatched commentary partner.

 

• Eric Bischoff interviews Bill Watts somewhere in the locker rooms. Bisch asks Watts to explain the rules for the NWA-affiliated tag matches and the WCW-affiliated title match, and oh no, we’re going to have that tournament and the title match and that’s it, aren’t we? That’s this show? And then on top of it, poor old Eric Bischoff having to feed Watts questions so that Watts has an opening to explain the fucking rules to pro wrestling matches, which is of course dumb as pro wrestling matches are supposed to be simple athletically-driven tales that get at broad psychological, social, or cultural narratives and not some sort of complex organic chemistry exam. Watts starts droning on about the AL and NL having different rules (yes, newer baseball fans, they did used to have different rules). I’m somewhat checked out at this point because this is too fucking complex for a pro wrestling show. Anyway, they can dive off the top rope in the tag matches because the NWA doesn’t have dumbass anachronistic rules about that, but they can't in the world title match since WCW does have those rules on account of Bill Watts long having lost his mojo.

 

• Personally, I want the NWA tag titles to be put on Brian Pillman and Jushin Liger, but they’re going right onto Doc and Gordy. At least this is an NWA title match so Liger can do some top-rope dives. Their opponents are Nikita Koloff and Ricky Steamboat.

 

• Pillman and Koloff work an opener that emphasizes Nikita’s major size and strength advantage while I fantasize about Liger and Steamboat hooking it up. I should pay more attention to the opener, where Pillman gets smart about things, teasing a Greco-Roman knuckle lock as a feint so he can trip Koloff before dipping and dodging and diving his way into a sunset flip for two. Pillman and Liger make a series of quick tags, scoring top-rope double-axes and working Nikita’s arm over. I really like their targeted tag work; they do things with urgency and work like they know they need to keep the bigger man from getting a chance to fire off and re-assert his strength advantage.

 

• Liger and Koloff work a nice spot where Liger cuts off Koloff’s comeback with a dropkick and a shoulderblock, but Pillman loses control of the match on a Koloff shoulderblock, and Steamboat comes in, a house aflame. He even flips Liger into the ring from Liger’s spot on the apron and tosses both men outside. After the match settles, Pillman re-enters the ring and works up from a front facelock to fire off a couple of big moves for two counts. This show is made better by Ventura’s commentary, in which right now he pontificates upon the bigger Koloff being unable to sustain his energy levels as the match goes on compared to the smaller cruisers.

 

• Liger tags in and just UNLOADS on Steamboat to the crowd’s utter delight. They are literally shrieking with excitement as Liger scores a moonsault for two, drills a Tombstone for two more, and tops that off with a running senton splash for yet another two count. Ventura shouts out Edouard Carpentier on that last move. Anyway, this picks the pace right up and awakens the crowd; Steamboat escapes further damage with a back suplex and a tag, and Koloff drops a couple of elbows on Liger for two before…plunking a chinlock on Liger. I don’t know, man, they needed to keep the pace up there, but they slowed it right back down.

 

• I’m not a stickler for every tag match having that traditional tag layout, but if you’ve got two teams with four guys that everyone is apt to cheer for, then you can’t run that layout and thus need to be interesting in another way. The obvious way to do that for this match is easy: Let the three guys with pace run rings around one another and only have the heavy tag in to his power moves or maybe to get eventually toppled by the persistence of the smaller men. This, on the other hand, has had too much Koloff and not enough continuous movement for a match that includes guys like Steamboat and Liger (and even Pillman).

 

• Finally, Liger escapes trouble and hits what is meant to be a hot tag that the crowd doesn’t really react for as such, which I think illustrates my point. Pillman lands a bunch of offense, just goes off, and then…puts Steamboat in a headlock. OK, whatever, I’m about done with this match. Let’s shepherd this toward a finish, fellas. I would love Liger/Steamboat one-on-one, though. They have to have worked one another at least a couple of times, right? Pillman stops a Sickle attempt in mid-pose by dropkicking Koloff, then tags in and hits some more dropkicks, and WCW’s propensity for having matches go on a touch too long is just part of their house style almost no matter what. Vince Russo is legit the only guy who broke that tendency, and he went too far in the other direction.

 

• There is a hot false finish in which Pillman scores a pretty missile dropkick on Koloff, then dropkicks Steamboat off the apron and covers. That should have been the actual finish. Instead, we get a sleeper spot after Koloff kicks out. Koloff escapes with a jawbreaker and we get dual tags so that Steamer and Liger can have the sort of pacey counter-filled match that I would have rather had be a one-on-one match for the U.S. Championship on this show than as a series of interstitials in the middle of this match. Every time Liger or Steamboat tags out, I get a little bit bummed, which is not to say that Pillman has been bad or that Koloff hasn’t been fine. After the match breaks down once more, Steamboat reverses the momentum on a Pillman diving cross body and gets three, which bums me out as I wanted more Liger on this show, Watts, you shithead. Liger/Pillman trying to survive the onslaught of Doc and Gordy in the next round would have been awesome.

 

• I think, if I’m remembering or understanding correctly, that the Steiner Brothers’ loss at the Clash not only was an NWA tag tournament match, but also lost them the tag titles. They are, however, still the IWGP tag champs, and they cut a promo in the locker room with Eric Bischoff. Scott points out that true greats like Muhammad Ali and Harley Race also lost big matches, but what made them great is that they came right back and met adversity with more success. It’s a pretty good little promo, and Rick’s insistence that he will put the hurt on Doc and Gordy so badly that kids better ask their parents if it’s okay to watch the show is also good. Ricky even promises to involve himself in this tournament tonight some way or another. I liked this little segment.

 

• Hiroshi Hase and Shinya Hashimoto (w/”martial arts kicks” because Jim Ross is on the call) wrestle the fucking Freebirds, who suck and are bad and are the worst. Jimmy Garvin and Michael Hayes come down here looking trashy as usual and promising to bore the shit out of me in the ring when they’re not annoying me with their act. Hayes does a crappy Fargo Strut and an even worse Moonwalk, so he’s determined to try and make me hate this match immediately.

 

• Hiroshi Hase is pretty good, though! I’ve seen some of his New Japan stuff and I enjoyed his work. It’ll be a test of his talents to see if he can help carry guys like Hayes and Garvin to something watchable. Hayes does some shitty chain wrestling and then tags in Garvin; Hashimoto tags in, throws a kick, and points at Garvin. DO IT, DON’T JUST THREATEN IT. Ventura babbles on about the portly Hashimoto eating fish heads and rice because it’s 1992 and I’m watching pro wrestling. I don’t know, I’ve checked out a bit already. Wait, as Hase and Hashimoto put Garvin into a bit of trouble, the crowd chants U-S-A, so I’ve checked all the way out. I’ll tell you if anything notable happens. OK, Hashimoto lands a nice bridging fallaway slam that I really like. Someone should be doing that move on television if no one already is. Anyway, Hayes escapes FIP jail and tags in Garvin, but Garvin eats a Hashimoto kick that knocks him right into a Hase bridging Northern Lights for three. This was acceptable pro wrestling, and its strength was in not being overlong and in having a decent heel control segment.

 

• Bill Watts and Hiro Matsuda stand with Tony S. on stage, where Watts announces a joint New Japan/WCW show that will hold a tournament to see who gets to tote around the big gold belt as the NWA World Champion. The story here is that Ric Flair has been stripped of the title and the belt is finally being defended once again, and that the winner of the world title tournament in Japan will be the new NWA Champion and hopefully signed to some sort of unification bout against the WCW World Champion, whether that is Sting or Vader (or Ron Simmons).

 

• Stunning Steve Austin and Ravishing Rick Rude (w/Madusa) are our next team up; after Rude poses, their opponents make their way to the ring: Dustin Rhodes and Barry Windham. This match should be pretty good, but the thing about it is that it’s hard to care about a tournament with a bunch of short-term tag teams, New Japan teams that aren’t going to stick around in WCW for the long-term, and a likely, if not obvious, winner. I mean, is Windham and Austin having a dope opening exchange that ends with Windham drilling Austin with a taped fist a good time? Obviously, it is! However, the driving point of this whole tournament doesn’t do much to elevate the proceedings.

 

• Meanwhile, Austin is bouncing around like a pinball, selling punches and slaps like a man who would really like to be pushed beyond the TV title level already. He tags out to Rude, and I think that there’s probably not a more fun tag team in terms of bumping and selling than rude and Austin. Watching these guys eat moves and sell pain is fun as hell. It also helps that their opponents throw sweet punches that look painful, so the heels registering that damage completes a perfect visual alignment. We get our second Tombstone of the night when Dustin reverses Rude’s attempt into one of his own for two; Austin makes a near save.

 

• Rhodes next tries a big splash, but Rude gets knees up in desperation; Austin tags in and lands kicks on Rhodes’s abdomen, but Rhodes soon reverses the polarity of the match, lodges a few kicks of his own in Austin’s guts, and then tries an abdominal stretch that Austin almost escapes, but doesn’t. Austin tries to escape again and ends up on the wrong end of a Windham diving lariat that only gets two, but he finally scores a back body drop on the now-legal Windham and tags out.

 

• Rude targets Windham’s lower lumbar and tags out to Austin way too kayfabe early because Austin immediately gets countered out of a superplex and then hit with a crossbody for two. Madusa recognizes that Austin is in danger and hops onto the apron, which allows Rude to interject by grabbing Windham’s hair on a rope run and yanking him to the mat. Madusa keeps the ref’s attention so that Rude can score an illegal top-rope missile dropkick, except wait, it’s not illegal because this is a match sanctioned by the NWA, so they ran a spot that would normally make sense as a heat-getting maneuver except it doesn’t in this particular match, and I think we’ve illustrated why these rules are so dumb. You can’t expect a heel heat spot to work when it’s not actually a heel heat spot from match to match or show to show.

 

• In any case, this has been a good match and more in line with what I’d expect from talent like Austin, Rhodes, and Windham, particularly compared to what they pulled off the previous month. The latter of those guys is the babyface in peril right now, and as Rude clubs away at him, I wonder if Rick Rude is the S+-tier example of consistently great wrestling tights. I’m not sure anyone has had better tights than Rude. Wrestlers need to switch their gear up more. I again want to suggest that someone wear an LED belt buckle that scrolls insults about their opponent. You’d have to dress kinda crazy to make that whole deal work. From what I saw of Seth Rollins a few years ago, it could have worked for him. Bonus: He’d have been watchable for the first time since the days of the Shield just to see what insults scroll across the screen on his belt.

 

• After a lengthy heel heat segment and a couple of flash pinfall attempts and near-escapes by Windham, Windham hits an inverted atomic drop so that Rude can sell it exquisitely, all knock knees and tiptoes, and then runs right into Rude and knocks him own before making a hot tag. Rhodes hits a bunch of sweet offense, including a nice second-rope back elbow, and the match breaks down after Austin breaks up his cover attempt. Austin is legal, but he loses track of what’s going on and tries to piledrive Windham, who blocks it. In the meantime, Rhodes has dispatched of Rude outside the ring and makes his way to the top rope, where he nails Austin with a diving lariat and covers for a quick three count. This was a fun match, maybe a touch overlong with the second babyface shine segment, but ultimately watching these four work is so aesthetically pleasing that I can’t complain.

 

• Harley Race and Vader interview with Eric Bischoff. Suffice it to say that both Race and Vader exude confidence about Vader’s world title shot tonight.

 

• Jim Ross and Jesse Ventura hype Halloween Havoc, WCW’s next PPV show that is three months away. It’s strange that they held PPVs for three straight months in the summer and are now going to take a few months off until the next one.

 

• Ricky Steamboat and Nikita Koloff wrestle the fresh Miracle Violence Connection in this semifinal matchup in the NWA Tag Team Championship tournament. This should end up being a match built around Ricky Steamboat suffering, so that should put a decent floor on its quality considering Steamboat’s propensity for selling pain. Steamboat and Gordy open the bout, and Gordy immediately leans on Steamboat, who can only shift leverage for a couple of two counts. When Gordy gets to his feet, Steamboat does get the match moving and earn a hip toss and an arm drag, then arm drags Doc after Gordy tags him in.

 

• Ross reminds everyone that Doc is the final UWF World Champion while he and Steamboat grapple. I don’t know; I didn’t want to see Steamboat work for top control with Doc and Gordy. I wanted a greater contrast where Steamer tries to run a whole lot and keeps getting chopped down in between his attempts to leverage his speed and agility advantage.

 

• Now Koloff tags in and oh boy, this match is not very good so far. Maybe I was wrong about that quality floor. Doc and Gordy grappling with the Steiners works because they all tend to be really active in those holds and while leveraging for position. Nikita and Steamboat aren’t the Steiners when it comes to simulating amateur mat graps (for obvious reasons). At least Gordy and Koloff have a shoulderblock standoff in there. That ruled. But you know what would rule more? Doc and Gordy attempting to deal with Liger’s crazy ass as he attacks from every angle at high speed.

 

• As Ventura makes a kayfabe argument that Steamboat and Koloff should be making way more quick tags, I think to myself that it’s also a good shoot argument for how this match should be laid out. Steamboat does tag back in and finally ends up in peril, but instead of clubbing him down and really making him sell pain, they do some counter-mat wrestling with a Steamboat escape. I take some time to look up whether or not a Steamboat/Liger singles match exists and is on YouTube, but I just get a bunch of WWE 2K simulations. Dammit! Anyway, this match refuses to end already. Steamboat is doing some fine selling, but the crowd is tired and can’t get into yet another FIP segment, and frankly this segment came too late in the match for me.

 

• That’s not to say I don’t take enjoyment from Steamboat’s wobbly-legged selling or even the missed tag spot to delay the hot tag (as much as I don’t necessarily want to delay the hot tag any longer than needs must). The hot tag finally happens and is lukewarm, though Koloff shoulderblocking Gordy is unexpectedly for me a thing that I could watch on repeat. Just give me a match, three or four minutes long, of Gordy and Koloff trying to shoulderblock one another to the mat. The first one taken off their feet loses. This match just goes on forever. Why is there a lengthy STF struggle spot with Gordy and Koloff at this point? Maybe Watts should have booked a couple of singles matches on this show to break the monotony and also limit some of these longer matches. We couldn’t have a Scotty Flamingo/Brad Armstrong return bout for the Light Heavyweight title for ten or twelve minutes? Armstrong would have helped Flamingo to something good.

 

• This match won’t fucking END. Oh my gosh. Are we getting a second FIP/hot tag segment, and if so, why? Look, suffice it to say that we do get a second FIP and hot tag with Koloff as FIP this time, so let me just tell you how this eternal slog of a bout finally ends: Gordy shoves Steamboat off the top rope as Steamboat prepares a dive, and Steamboat lands right in the arms of Williams, who hits a spinebuster variation of an Oklahoma Stampede for three. Fucking finally. I rescind my former statement about the match floor, but only because Bill Watts thought that having these guys wrestle for four hours or whatever it happened to end up being was a good idea.

 

• Sign from the Jim Ross-hating fan standing right behind Jesse and Ross in the camera shot: JESSE VENTURA, DO YOUR MAYORAL DUTY: MAKE JIM ROSS A GARBAGE MAN. The guy sees he’s on camera and hits a big thumbs down right behind Ross’s shoulder. That was pretty funny!

 

• Hiroshi Hase and Shinya Hashimoto meet Dustin Rhodes and Barry Windham in the other tournament semifinal. I suppose that the Steiners helping Rhodes and Windham beat Doc and Gordy in the final could also make a lot of sense. I will credit that there can be two possible finishes to the tournament, but still, the meat of the tournament seems so obvious in how the draw would go down as to be dull. They should have had more of the tournament off-PPV before Great American Bash and just had the semis and the finals at GAB. Bonus: The teams that already lost before the tournament started would have been freed up for singles matches on this show! Austin and Rude could have made TV and U.S. title defenses.

 

• If this card is as such: Vader vs. Sting (WCW World Heavyweight Championship), Rude vs. Liger (WCW U.S. Championship), Austin vs. Pillman (WCW World Television Championship), Armstrong vs. Flamingo (WCW Light Heavyweight Championship), Miracle Violence Connection vs. Steamboat/Koloff, and Hase/Hashimoto vs. Rhodes/Windham with (ostensibly) MVC vs. Rhodes/Windham in the final round, that’s a far more diverse and thus more watchable seven-match card than what we ended up getting. That’s my argument. And even that card isn’t optimal because Watts is trying to heat up Ron Simmons, so Simmons should really be on this card somehow and winning his match. Maybe feeding Cactus to Simmons here would be a good eighth match to add, assuming Mick isn’t suffering that bad abdominal tear that had him spitting up blood by this point.

 

• Alas, this is the card we have, however, so let us forge ahead. Y’know, Dustin Rhodes opens against Hiroshi Hase and I think that this is another singles match that I’d really like to watch. However, I don’t have it in me to talk a whole bunch about another slow-ish feeling out process in a tag match. One benefit of the Freebirds match from earlier tonight is that it was shorter and to the point. I appreciate the Greco-Roman knuckle lock challenges that Windham struggles to meet when his opponents challenge him, but it’s 1990 and these shows need more match variety in them. That’s why Beach Blast was so good – all the variety.

 

• The other issue is that a lot of this opening work is work to nowhere. We haven’t had one good limb damage story all night, which is especially a shame considering the array of excellent long-term damage sellers that were in this tournament. I’ll let you know when this matwork to nowhere ends up transitioning to work that goes somewhere. As an aside, I really am wistful about this New Japan partnership. It wouldn't have rocketed WCW to the number one promotion in the U.S. spot, but I really do wish that WCW leaned more on its New Japan partnership at this time and did a sort of proto-AEW style of presentation of its stars. WCW coming off as a true international company was a strength that maybe WCW should have gone ahead and leaned into more, though again, I’m not sure its core fanbase would have taken to it like the modern AEW fanbase does.

 

• Rhodes is FIP and has nice segments with Hase, who I wish stuck around in WCW for the rest of the year. I could watch Rhodes and Hase chop the shit out of one another in a three-month feud and fully enjoy it. The work these wrestlers are doing is good in a vacuum, but man, this show is not serving their effort very well. Hase finally whiffs on a top-rope kneedrop and eats a lariat as soon as he gets to his feet, allowing Rhodes to make the hot tag to Windham. Windham goes bananas, scores two floatover powerslams on Hase, and then catches him with a lariat after the match breaks down. Windham covers off that lariat and earns a three count; he and Rhodes also earn a spot in the tag title tournament finals.

 

• All Ron Simmons gets on this show is a short interview with Tony S. and Magnum TA. He calls it “the WCW” like he’s Bret Hart and then teases that he’s looking to take on the winner of the world championship match up next. On the one hand, it’s nice to have a singles match to break up the monotony. On the other hand, it’s a world title match and should go on last. On a third, maybe prehensile hand, the idea of having the babyface title victory go on last is reasonable should the babyfaces be booked to win it. On the fourth hand, Sting is way more over than Windham and Rhodes, so it’ll be cold comfort to the fans even if it happens. The point I’m trying to make is that I don’t like the match layout of this card at all.

 

• Sting breaks Flag Code like he’s Madusa as he enters the ring to defend the world title against Vader. Sting’s got a number of candidates for his best opponent, and Vader might just top that list. Vader backs Sting into the corner and pummels the champ with fists and forearms, then hits a short clothesline that sends Sting rolling to the floor. Sting tries to punch Vader when he enters the ring. It has no effect!! Sting tries a crossbody next. It has no effect!! Vader charges Sting in the corner, whiffs, and Sting back suplexes him on the rebound. It does some damage, for once. Sting clotheslines Vader over the top and to the floor, which means that Sting propelled Vader over the top rope, and this is a WCW-sanctioned match, so—you know what, never mind.

 

• Then again, maybe Sting should have advocated to get disqualified considering what happens to him by the end of this match. Vader challenges Sting to a test of strength, and Sting considers it, then pauses to get the lil’ Stingers to help fire him up. Vader wins that one, so Sting jabs Vader in the eye, punches him, stomps his toes, and knocks him to the apron before suplexing him back into the ring. I love it when babyfaces are crafty and do cheap and cheat-y type moves when overwhelmed. I always liked a smart babyface when I was a kid (and I abhorred a dumb one), so it works well for me.

 

• Sting has some momentum and follows up on the suplex with a lateral press that earns a two count and then a small package that earns two more. A bewildered Vader rolls outside and reassesses things before getting back in the ring and putting a halt to Sting’s sunset flip attempt by countering with a sitdown splash. Vader embarks upon a measured attack, hitting elbow drops and then a big splash for maybe a bit less than two as Sting frantically rolls a shoulder out from underneath the big man. After continuing his assault with kicks and a chokebomb, Vader steps over and bars Sting’s leg, then grabs Sting’s other leg, hooks him, and turns him over in a Scorpion Death Lock. It’s not a good version of that move, to say the least.

 

• That it isn’t is a shame, too, as this is a long spot. I feel that Sting, being a master of the hold, should break out of it quicker. That’s especially true considering that it also looks, uh, less than aesthetically pleasing and therefore not as kayfabe effective. Instead, Sting does a whole “endure and eventually power out with his legs” deal, which makes sense on one level, but which I think is less effective or logical than a Sting counter of the hold (or, if you really want to keep this endurance spot, not having that endurance spot specifically be the Scorpion Death Lock in the first place).

 

• This is a good match, but it’s definitely not Sting and Vader’s best together (that would be the King of Cable Match at Starrcade). I wish Vader had done more clubbering and high-impact spots to show how powerful he is instead of spending all that time in a submission hold. Sting manages to make a small comeback, landing a wheel kick that knocks Vader to the mat. Sting follows with a DDT and then slowly makes his way to his feet and runs at Vader, but they merely bonk into one another and Vader gets up first. Vader goes all the way up top, which I will remind you is illegal in this match and only this match on this specific show, and Sting stops him by kicking him, which is another mistake, as it turns out. Vader is knocked into a prone position across the top rope, so Sting hoists him up and lands a Samoan drop, but he again is slow to cover and only gets 2.5. Gosh, Sting is selling his strain and exhaustion so expertly, but I just don’t think Vader’s offense was dynamic enough to make Sting’s selling feel in line with the damage that he took.

 

• Well, folks, this is WCW, so whether we’re in the Nitro Era or not, it’s time for a fucking ref bump. This time, Vader tries to hoist up Sting, who inadvertently kicks the poorly-positioned ref as he goes up and flips behind Vader. The poor dumb ref is therefore late to counting the pinfall as Sting hits a German suplex and bridges for what should have been three but what was only 2.7. Sting tries to finish Vader off, landing one Stinger Splash and then overjumping on the second one and bashing his head off the steel cable that connects the turnbuckle to the post. Sting does a blade job and then slides to the mat, where he kicks out at 2.7 when Vader covers him.

 

• Alas, the worked head injury signals the end for Sting, who can’t connect with a pair of wild haymakers. Sting collapses to the mat, and Vader picks him right up, powerbombs him, and covers him for the three and the gold. Sting put on maybe the best sell job I’ve ever seen from him in his life and one that was on par with Rick Rude’s match-long rib injury sell at Beach Blast but in this case, the match could have used a couple more minutes of heel control and maybe excised the long submission spot to be replaced instead with more high-impact Vader offense that would be worthy of Sting’s selling. That match was still strong, of course, but it was strangely sort of a letdown as well.

 

• Ron Simmons and Nikita Koloff, along with a group of referees, help a wobbly Sting from the ring after the bout.

 

• Jesse, good ol’ J.R., Tony S., and Magnum dissect Sting’s loss; Tony kicks it to Eric Bischoff, who interviews the new champion and his manager Harley Race. Harley cuts a nice promo celebrating his man: “This man is the greatest athlete on God’s green earth, and we just showed every single lil’ Stinger out there that THE MYTH IS GONE. THE MYTH HAS BEEN DESTROYED. *points at Vader* THIS IS THE KING OF ATHLETES!” Vader speaks and is, uh, less articulate, but he yells a lot, and he’s a peak yeller in pro wrestling interviews, so it’s fine.

 

• Mercifully, finally, this night-long NWA World Tag Team Championship tournament is coming to an end. The Steiner Brothers storm out as soon as the Miracle Violence Connection, Dustin Rhodes, and Barry Windham are in the ring; officials block their path and send them packing. I eyeball the time left in the recording – about 29 minutes. *sigh*, this is going to be another match that goes five-plus minutes too long. Then again, we need a lot of time to have a super-slow, super-grinding opening with a lot of mat graps that go nowhere in particular!

 

• There’s not much more I can say about this show and the way it’s been laid out that won’t just be annoyingly repetitive, so I’ll just shorthand this main event by telling you the stuff that seems to matter. Jesse essentially argues that the lack of ethical behavior by the heels is really just a mirror of our political system and the society that the system reinforces. He didn’t argue it exactly like that, but trust me, that’s basically what he said.

 

• There are lots of chinlocks and headlocks and some sprawling. Rhodes is FIP for a bit; after he’s done, Windham is FIP for a bit. Jesse does great work in trying to enhance the kayfabe strategy behind the match with his commentary. The big issue with the Miracle Violence Connection in 1992 WCW is that WCW’s fans like wrestling, but maybe not this type of “spend most of the match on the mat like it’s ‘70s All Japan again” wrestling, so the crowd struggles to get into things. Dustin’s babyface fire is excellent. WCW’s roster in 1992 might have been the most top-heavy roster in terms of talent. Like the ten, maybe twelve best guys in the company have 90% of the total roster talent, Anyway, Dustin never makes a hot tag; he tries a bulldog on Doc, but gets shoved out of that move and into Gordy on the apron as a counter; delirious, Rhodes stumbles right into a Doc lariat that puts his lights out. Doc and Gordy add the NWA World Tag Team Championships to their WCW World Tag Team Championships. This crowd sounds pretty bummed, but not in a “nuclear heat” sort of way. More in a “I really would have liked at least a few more babyface victories” sort of way.

 

• After the match, the MVCs cut a promo that is better than you would guess based on the speakers involved. Well, that’s probably not fair to Gordy. Doc is better than you would guess, though. The Steiners don’t even walk out and face off with them or anything*fart noises*.

 

• As bad as WrestleWar’s undercard is, at least it had two high-level bouts. GAB ’92 had a higher floor, but a much lower ceiling. I prefer high ceiling/low floor over low ceiling/high floor, which probably isn’t going much out on a limb to say!

Edited June 27 by SirSmUgly

[zendragon]

So I found the Sting v Vader match on Facebook of all places. Remember when you said Scott Hall was a large man who was great at working small? I'd say the same thing about Sting. Some of his best matches are working underneath against Vader and The Giant.

[SirSmUgly]

Sting wrestles bigger than he is, which I think helps a lot with that.