Smugly watches random major WWF and WCW (and maybe other American promotions) shows/collections from before 2001 (when he feels like it)

[zendragon]

eh I think I've seen enough... even Vince Russo would have seen that and be like "enough with the run ins ending every damn match"

[SirSmUgly]

WCW Beach Blast 1992 (20 June 1992):

A show in which the Iron Man Match is perfected

• Now it's time to shuttle over to this threadthe reviews that I did on the Bill Watts-era WCW PPVs, starting with this show which happened after WrestleWar the month before (heh!) said goodbye to Kip Frye (heh heh!). We'll start with Beach Blast and end with SuperBrawl III, which is the first post-Watts PPV that helps transition over to the sometimes successful, sometimes shitty (and sometimes both at the same time) Eric Bischoff regime. This is the perfect place for another short thread I was thinking of - Watts-era WCW - that is probably better as part of this thread than it is as its own thread or in the WWE on Netflix thread. 

 

• 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.

 

• 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.

 

• Gab Gab Gab: 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].

 

• Gab Gab Gab: 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.

 

• Match: 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.

 

• Gab Gab Gab: 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.

 

• Match: 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.

 

• Match: 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.

 

• Match: 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. Foly tries 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. Cactus makes the oopsie of disrespectfully slapping his opponent, 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.

 

• Gab Gab Gab: 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.

 

• Match: 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 the 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 lifts his boots onto the ropes and then flips backward in that Hart/Piper leveraged pinfall spot; Steamboat gets three [Rude – 3, Steamboat – 4] 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.

 

• Gab Gab Gab: 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.

 

• Match: 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.

 

• Interview time [w/Eric Bischoff]: Ricky Steamboat 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.

 

• Gab Gab Gab: 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.

 

• Match: 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. 4.75 Digital Snowflakes out of 5.

Edited April 12 by SirSmUgly

[SirSmUgly]

WCW Great American Bash 1992 (12 July 1992):

A show in which you may need an industrial-sized instructional manual to understand how the tag rules work

• 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 had its own WCW World Tag Team 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.

 

• Gab Gab Gab: 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.)

 

• Gab Gab Gab: 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.

 

• Interview time [w/Eric Bischoff]:  Bisch asks Bill 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.

 

• Match: 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.

 

• Interview time [w/Eric Bischoff]:  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 Bisch. 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.

 

• Match: 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.

 

• Interview time [w/Tony S.]:  Bill Watts and Hiro Matsuda stand  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).

 

• Match: 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.

 

• Interview time [w/Eric Bischoff]: Suffice it to say that both Harley Race and Vader exude confidence about Vader’s world title shot tonight.

 

• Gab Gab Gab: 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.

 

• Match: 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!

 

• Match: 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 put it on 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.

 

• Interview time [w/Tony S. and Magnum TA]:  Ron Simmons gets only a short interview on this PPV, which is some way to build up your next world champ. 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.

 

• Match: 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.

 

• Gab Gab Gab: Jesse, good ol’ J.R., Tony S., and Magnum dissect Sting’s loss.

 

• Interview time [w/Eric Bischoff]: Bisch 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.

 

• Match: 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.

 

• Gab Gab Gab: 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! 2.5 Digital Snowflakes out of 5.

Edited April 12 by SirSmUgly

[SirSmUgly]

WCW Halloween Havoc 1992 (26 October 1992):

A show in which not much happens when Paul E. and Madusa aren’t sharing the screen

• By October of 1992, the wheels are coming off of Watts-era WCW; the shows are fine, but Watts’s WCW peaked in his first show because of the K. Allen Frye regime’s creative work. I might even go so far as to suggest that Frye is second only to Bischoff in terms of creative success throughout all of WCW’s run. Then again, thinking of who else Frye has to contend with in that regard, it’s not a particularly daring suggestion to make.

 

• Charmingly goofy WCW PPV opening: This particularly charmingly goofy WCW PPV opening features Sting howling at the moon, Jake the Snake cackling, and the “ghosts” of many of the wrestlers who will appear on the show.

 

• Gab Gab Gab: We cut to the arena where Tony S. is joined by Bruno Sammartino, the latter of whom we last saw in this thread saving UWF Beach Brawl’s commentary from being a total loss. Bruno is still over with this Philly crowd. Both men talk about this Spin the Wheel, Make the Deal Match between Sting and Jake Roberts as Sting attempts to retain the Being Sting Championship, the most important championship in this company. The second most important championship? Those are the WCW/NWA Unified Tag Team Championships. The third most important championship? The WCW World Championship. Suffice it to say that Bill Watts has his booking priorities all wrong. There’s a bit of video here in which we see Cactus Jack training the challenger Barbarian to survive champion Ron Simmons’s powerslam by having such WCW luminaries as Sgt. Buddy Lee Parker and M.I. Smooth slam Barb over and over to attune him to the impact.

 

• Continuing the gabbin’, Terry Gordy no-showed this event, so he’s out of the WCW/NWA Unified Tag Team Championship Match that he was supposed to work. He’s All Japan and WCW had a relationship with New Japan, so I’m surprised that Gordy’s collaboration with WCW got this far in the first place. I believe Doc wrestles that Starrcade match against Simmons (and goes out of the company looking like a beast in a No Contest or Double DQ or whatever it was, which sure as fuck didn’t help the champ) and then leaves WCW, not to show up again until he’s palling around with Oklahoma and tossing around band members from the Misfits. The last part of that sentence still makes no sense, and I watched all that stuff happen!

 

• Gab Gab Gab: A dour Jim Ross and his bombastic partner Jesse Ventura will actually be your PBP and color commentator team. They talk up the Sting/Roberts match before we cut to…

 

• Match: I can’t fucking stand Michael Hayes, but at least he seems to open the WCW PPVs of this era and then get the fuck out of the way so that I can at least try to enjoy the rest of the show. Hayes is tagging up with Arn Anderson and Bobby Eaton to face the ultimate jobber-ass jobber trios team of Tom Zenk, Johnny Gunn, and Shane Douglas. Poor Shane Douglas. I don’t like him almost no matter what he does, but he tries really hard! I respect that! Sometimes he tries a bit too hard, if you ask me. That’s how I took his whole ECW run – trying too hard to be edgy. Then again, maybe ECW as a whole could be described in that regard.

 

• We’re in Philly, so obviously the crowd cheers for the heels and boos the white meat babyfaces. This is just some nice tag wrestling with some nice escapes and Eaton getting huge pops for punching Zenk right in his gut, which is of course the correct crowd response regardless of face/heel alignment in my opinion. Eventually, Hayes gets in the ring and stinks up the joint, but whatever. Douglas tags in and is derisively booed. Gary Michael Capetta thought that inflecting his voice to announce that Douglas was from PITTSBURGH in a pitched tenor would be appropriate for this crowd, but I’mma tell you that even though I’m not from Pennsylvania, I’m pretty certain that Philly fans aren’t popping for a guy because he’s from Pittsburgh.

 

• Eaton is the most over guy in the match, and hold on, let me turn things over to Jesse Ventura for a second: “The one thing I don’t like about Shane Douglas, though, he looks to me like he’s a right-wing Republican. I just bet that’s his political affiliation.” Jesse fucking with Ross like this (Ross, mumbling uncomfortably: “I wouldn’t know anything about that”) cracks me up every time. Ventura then goes off about wrestling being so grueling that it destroys the looks of its handsomest practitioners by referencing how old and busted Bruno himself now is. Holy shit. Meanwhile, Arn and Bobby run a misdirection on Zenk; Arn slugs Zenk, who missed Eaton tagging him, and the crowd explodes. Seriously. Ventura’s getting a kick out of this Philly crowd's preferences.

 

• Eaton next saves Arn from a Douglas suplex with a clip to the back of the knee and the crowd roars its approval again. This crowd thinks Eaton and Arn are the shit, which, you know, yeah. Every time they do combo tag moves, the crowd pops huge. Arn leans into it and celebrates on the apron as the Philly crowd applauds him. Unfortunately for this crowd, no one calls an audible; the match breaks down shortly after and Gunn lands a Thesz Press on Hayes for three. The crowd rains boos down upon the babyfaces. You gotta love Philly!

 

• Interview time [w/Missy Hyatt]: Hyatt tries to get Harley Race to let her into Rick Rude’s locker room, but Harley's a firm NO on that one. Missy: “That was the first time Missy Hyatt’s never been invited into a locker room.” I mean, that one was a little on the nose, don’t you think? Tony S. and Bruno opine upon why Race might be meeting with Rude tonight.

 

• Match: Flyin’ Brian Pillman looks like he might be heeling it up even though he’s still rocking the Cincinnati Bengal-themed tights. Yep; his opponent is the babyface of all babyfaces, Ricky Steamboat. Pillman is one of those guys who is solid, but who never quite, for my tastes, reaches the level that people generally seem to hold him at either in the ring or on the mic. He’s certainly good enough to have a sneaky great match with Steamboat, though. Early on, Pillman is cocky; he knocks Steamboat down, then walks away to celebrate and doesn’t notice Steamboat playing possum. Pillman finally walks back over and gets yanked face-first into the mat.

 

• A couple of these fans try to start a STEAMBOAT SUCKS chant, but it doesn’t get any momentum because Steamboat doesn’t suck. Philly fans might be cynical and bloodthirsty, but they know their wrestling. This match goes back and forth early, and Ventura does a great job of pointing out that Steamboat is leaning on power instead speed since, for once, Steamboat has the power advantage. The crowd (including ECW’s Hat Guy) gets a more sustained BRIAN SUCKS chant going while Steamboat continues to use power to toss Pillman around. Only when Pillman goes to the ropes and then attacks as the ref backs Steamboat off does he get much purchase in this match.

 

• CINCINNATI SUCKS has too many syllables to be an enjoyable chant, so that one dies pretty quickly. Why not BENGALS SUCK instead, fellas? Also, the Bengals suck, so you’d be one hundred percent accurate. Meanwhile, the match picks up as Pillman scores a headscissors and then cuts off a Steamboat top-rope dive with a dropkick, both of which are fairly impressive high spots for this time and place. Neither man keeps control of the match for long; Pillman tries to put Steamboat down with a sleeper, but Steamboat escapes it successfully by falling forward and bashing Pillman’s head into the buckles. Pillman retaliates by snaping Steamboat’s arm over the top rope, but Steamboat recovers and catches Pillman up top with a press as Pillman tries to follow up with a dive.

 

• Pillman takes a powder to reset, but Steamboat follows him and chops him, then tosses Pillman back in the ring; as Steamboat follows, Pillman quickly lands a knee to Steamboat’s chest as Steamboat steps between the ropes. The match goes right back outside the ring; Steamboat puts Pullman back in the ring first, but this time catches Pillman’s running knee and trips him. It doesn’t matter much anyway since both men trade moves, win and lose control in seconds, and eventually trade flash pinfalls until Steamboat counters Pillman’s leveraged pinfall to score one of his own for three. This match was decent, but it wasn’t sneaky good or even really worth watching if you haven’t seen it before. I’d say that it’s a disappointment considering the competitors, but I have minimal regard for Pillman as a worker and so I’m not surprised that this didn’t get to a level beyond “solid.” Pillman should have thanked Jushin Liger every day of his life for conjuring up the mirage that Pillman could potentially be a great worker.

 

• Interview time [w/Teddy Long]: It’s nice to see my favorite ever kayfabe WWE General Manager on screen. He’s interviewing NWA World Champion Masahiro Chono. Kensuke Sasaki and Hiro Matsuda are also here. Oh yeah, Rude is wrestling Chono for the NWA World Championship on this show. I forgot that Rude and Chono wrestled for this title and traded it back and forth, if I recall correctly. Anyway, Long absolutely butchers the names of these Japanese pro wrestlers as he notes that Chono has chosen Sasaki as one of the referees for that title bout later tonight; Rude, I suppose, gets to choose another referee for the bout, which probably takes all the mystery out of Harley Race’s arrival in that earlier segment.

 

• Interview time [w/Tony S.]: Bill Watts takes out all the mystery himself by stating that Race will be Rude’s choice for referee. Watts then asserts that Terry Gordy has been suspended indefinitely and notes that Dr. Death has chosen Steve Austin as his tag partner for their title match against Barry Windham and Dustin Rhodes. Watts also has a long-winded explanation for why Rick Rude, who has that NWA World Championship shot tonight I mentioned earlier, is allowed to choose Vader to step in for him and defend his WCW United States Championship against Nikita Koloff tonight. Watts loves standing here and explaining convoluted-ass nonsense instead of just booking some straightforward title matches, doesn’t he? He’s got multiple sets of tag belts, multiple world titles, champions getting other people to defend their titles because they went to a judge and asked for an injunction, and so forth, and so forth. This is almost as bad as Watts explaining the differing rules for WCW and NWA matches at GAB ’92. In most things that are pitched so that the simpletons watching can understand them (such as pro wrestling shows or political debates), if you’re explaining, you’re losing.

 

• Match: Nikita Koloff enters the ring to face Vader (w/Rick Rude) for the WCW United States Championship. If Vader wins, Rude is still the WCW U.S. Champ. What is Vader getting out of this in kayfabe? Has Dangerously or Rude offered Vader a future title match of some sort? There is also a special guest enforcer outside the ring (Ole Anderson) and the bout is no disqualification, but also Madusa is barred from ringside, and also Ole has also barred Rude and Race from ringside just now. You can see here how Watts is trying to replicate some of the stipulation-laden excitement that he was able to pull off nine or ten years earlier, but this feels disorganized as fuck rather than exciting and out-of-control.

 

• I don’t rate Nikita at all, but this match is one of his better matches for two reasons. First, he’s wrestling small against a bigger opponent, which is way better than him wrestling bigger against a smaller opponent. He’s not a fun power guy, but he is a surprisingly enjoyable speed and agility guy. Second, he’s wrestling Vader, who rules and sets a high floor for pretty much any match he’s a part of. Nikita scampering away from Vader and leaping into crossbody blocks is good, but the match goes outside, and oh, here’s a third reason this match is better than the usual Nikita match: Third, it’s no disqualification, so Vader goes off on Nikita at ringside, punctuating his attack with a chair to the back. This draws cheers, and it also draws a beer tossed from a few rows back that hits Vader in the side of the head as he turns to get back into the ring. He no-sells it, but Jesse is incensed about “idiot fan[s]” tossing stuff at the ring, which is “the stupidest thing” a fan can do. I’m glad poor Jesse wasn’t around for those early nWo days in ’96; he’d have had a running conniption fit.

 

• Vader continues to destroy Nikita in the ring, landing a sitdown splash to kill a sunset flip attempt and then landing a second-rope splash that Nikita manages to kick out of at two. Koloff tries to fire himself up; Vader wraps him in a chinlock, and he’s allowed to because he’s been fun as fuck out here and deserves a rest. Nikita attempts to get to his feet and suplex his way out, but Vader blocks it. Nikita tries again with a vertical suplex, but Vader sandbags it and it looks like dogshit. Nikita makes his comeback anyway, landing a bunch of punches and a trio of shoulderblocks; he covers for two. Vader does get up and over for Nikita’s follow-up body slam, which also only earns two. Nikita hits an elbowdrop, but again only gets two on the cover.

 

• Nikita next clotheslines Vader to the floor and eventually follows Vader out there to stop the referee from counting to ten. I feel that countouts should be done away with along with disqualifications in a no-DQ match, but this is WCW. Koloff posts himself when Vader avoids a charge, which marks impending doom for Koloff’s title charge. Vader gets Koloff back in the ring, clubs him down, and then powerbombs him to earn a three count. He retains the U.S. title…for Rick Rude. This has to be a top-five Nikita match I’ve ever seen. Still not going to make my Hidden Undercard Gem list, though. I don’t think it used the no-DQ stip well enough.

 

• Hype package: Starrcade ’92: Battlebowl is the final WCW PPV with Bill Watts in charge. I’ve seen it twice in the past two months because it was streaming on the WCW Vault, and my big takeaways from that show are that Ron Simmons had one of the worst-booked world title runs of all time and that the Great Muta should have been a top babyface for early ‘90s WCW, but WCW's booking committee fucked it. Anyway, this third (and final for a long while) viewing will come with a review of these and other events to be posted in this thread!

 

• Gab Gab Gab: Ross and Ventura talk about how Dustin Rhodes and Barry Windham are at odds even though they are currently the Unified WCW World Tag Team Champions.

 

• Interview time [w/Teddy Long]: Dr. Death yells like a goof; Stunning Steve confidently indicates that the champs will be thrown off by the change in opponents.

 

• Interview time [w/Missy Hyatt]: Barry Windham swears that he’s cool with Dustin Rhodes and puts over Steve Austin as a great wrestler; Dustin Rhodes doesn’t say a single word.

 

• Match: Stunning Steve Austin and Dr. Death Steve Williams enter the ring as the challengers to the Unified NWA/WCW World Tag Team Champions of Dustin Rhodes and Barry Windham.  It’s pretty funny that by the end of October, three of the four guys in that long-term Steiners/Miracle Violence Connection feud – which was positioned as the most important feud in the company for much of the summer – were gone from the company entirely. I know that Scotty wanted to stick with his brother for the present, so moving toward a breakup and heel turn was ultimately a mistake even if the instinct to turn Scotty heel and push him to the moon would prove to be the correct one just over five years later.

 

• Anyway, you can tell this match will be okay because Dustin and Doc have a shoulderblock war out of a three-point stance to start. This is what happens when your match includes three Texans and a former NCAA Division I offensive guard, and I wholeheartedly approve of this. Wrestling needs more guys from Texas and former NCAA Division I offensive guards if it hopes to stop sucking complete ass as a performing art ever again (totally IMO, of course).

 

• The Philly crowd naturally cheers for Dr. Death over Dustin before a small portion of the crowd chants WE WANT FLAIR while this tag match has a decent opening. Austin, meanwhile, has tagged in and lands a standing dropkick to scattered applause. He and Windham have some solid chemistry in there; Austin ends up getting ping-ponged between overhand rights from Windham and Rhodes. The last right from Windham knocks him to the floor; he gets back in the ring and finds himself in quite a lot of trouble in the champs’ corner.

 

• Ventura mentions Adrian Adonis in noting that he wasn’t always happy with his East-West Connection partner, but that, like Windham and Rhodes, he and Adonis were professionals who locked in and worked as a tandem during their matches. I wish Ventura would have been on Nitro during the early nWo era, honestly. Trade out Larry Z. for Ventura: Who complains? No one, dammit. No one. Well, probably Hogan. But no one who matters.

 

• The babyfaces manage what is essentially a heel-in-peril segment; they overwhelm Austin, make consistent tags, cut off the ring, and score a series of two counts on Austin over an extended period. Austin desperately pokes Windham in the eye and manages to tag Doc, who reasserts control in the bout by backing Windham into the corner and shoulderblocking him repeatedly. They trade chops; Windham initially comes out ahead, but he whiffs on a lariat and tumbles to the floor.  

 

• These matches are fascinating in that they don’t really have sustained periods of control in them, at least so far. The longest segment of sustained control in any of the matches tonight has been Vader’s heel control segment; the second-longest has been a heel in peril earlier in this match. Windham is now the proper babyface in peril, though. We’ll see if his FIP segment lasts longer than Austin’s HIP segment.

 

• Doc tries to plant a seed for later by swinging fists at Dustin in between swinging fists at Windham, maybe setting up baiting the easily-distracted Rhodes into the ring at an inopportune time. He then power slams Windham for two and transitions immediately into a headlock in which he leans on Windham’s sprawled body. Windham works his way out of the predicament with a jawbreaker, but Doc tags out and Austin also swings at Rhodes, bringing him into the ring. Windham manages to fight out of an Austin superplex, however, and lands a diving lariat for two.

 

• This is a solid match, but it’s also not elevating beyond that, which is a shame. It’s a textbook good tag match, but these fellas are capable of transcendence on the right night. Windham manages a hot tag – his FIP segment was about as long as Austin’s HIP segment – and Rhodes explodes with offense. He lands a running bulldog on Austin for two, but Doc makes the save and then manages to score a lariat on Rhodes as Rhodes hits the ropes to attack Austin. The heels take over once more, and eventually, Doc puts Rhodes in a high-angled Boston Crab. Rhodes tries to scootch over to the ropes, but Doc gives the hold up and tags Austin, who puts Rhodes in a sloppy-looking overhead backbreaker. Rhodes escapes, tries a flash pinfall, tries another after Austin bridges out of it, and then gets put back down with a lariat after Austin kicks out.

 

• Time is ticking down in this bout as Austin cuts off Rhodes’s comeback attempt with a single punch and then celebrates (earning a 50/50 response from the crowd as he does). Rhodes has been FIP for longer than Windham at this point, but he manages to roll out of the way of an Austin elbowdrop and scores a small package for two; alas, Austin quickly tags Doc in, and Doc cuts off Dustin and lands a nice overhead belly-to-belly for two, then a standard belly-to-belly for two more. There are five minutes to go after that last Dustin kickout, so Doc takes it into high gear with a…chinlock. Doc simply does not give a fuck about showing urgency as the challengers in a title match, does he? At least Austin tags in and tries a single-leg crab, but I think that unless your established best moves are submission holds, when you’re the challenger in a match with a time limit, you should always pick up the pace and try to land bombs once the announcer notes that there are five minutes left.

 

• Rhodes is illegally knocked over the top rope, and Windham accidentally knocks the ref to the floor with Austin’s boots while hoisting Austin up for a body slam; Nick Patrick runs in and counts a pinfall on Windham after Doc hits him with a lariat and Austin covers, but Rhodes is still the legal man, and he quickly rolls up Austin as the original ref Pee Wee Anderson waves off Patrick’s call and then counts three, but no, the bell rings prematurely and the count was only two apparently, and now we’re all confused viewers about what the hell is happening, but Pee Wee keeps making counts and Austin keeps kicking out and this match collapsed into typical WCW-end-of-match stupidity because this company really struggles to do these complex fuckery-filled finishes almost no matter who is in charge. Rhodes spikes Austin with a (safely delivered!) Tombstone with about twenty seconds left, and from there, time runs out for a draw. This match was a meandering creek that terminates at the gates of a fast fashion factory which dumps its chemical runoff into said creek. I shouldn’t be writing this type of questionable metaphor about a tag match between these four talents.

 

• Interview time [w/Tony S.]: Paul E. crows about successfully executing his plan to have Vader sub for Rude. By the way, Vader got half the winners’ purse to sub in, which Dangerously helpfully points out to close the loop on that question I asked earlier about what Vader gets out of this arrangement. Madusa storms out here because she’s in a feud with Paul E.; she shoves him out of the way to get to the mic, and I suppose Paul E.wants Rude to love him and not her, but really, Rude could do better than either Paul E. or Madusa, don’t you think? Heyman thinks that his Y-chromosome makes him the leader and her lack of a Y-chromosome makes her the walk-behinder. Then he goes all ECW in a way that thrills these Philadelphians: “You have been good for one year, for one thing. And that one thing has been to take care of each and every one of Ravishing Rick Rude’s needs. But between you and me, man to man? The reason that I hired you for that job is because the other hooker that I had in mind had a previous obligation. LEMME SPELL IT OUT FOR YOU WOMAN, FEMALE, SO THAT EVEN A WOMAN CAN UNDERSTAND! I AM A MAN, MAN, MAN; YOU ARE A WOMAN, WOMAN, WOMAN, WHICH MEANS, DAMMIT, YOU ARE FIRED, FIRED, FIRED.”

 

• I mean, this is a stupendous heel rant. Heyman then calls her “stupid,” spells the word F-I-R-E-D for her benefit, and shoves her (crowd: OOOOOHHHHHHHHHH). Madusa screams YOU BASTARD and kicks him (crowd: YEAHHHHHHHHHH). This segment ABSOLUTELY RULED. I typically can’t stand Madusa, but by the point at which Dangerously shoved her, I desperately wanted to see her stick a fist clean through his face. Heyman grabs a mic, declares he could beat her with one hand tied behind his back, and screams C’MON, BITCH while Madusa screams back I HATE YOU. GODDAM, this ruled. This was absolutely some ECW-lite shit, and it was wonderful. I hope Madusa kicks the fuck out of him at a future PPV.

 

• Interview time [w/Tony S.]: “Turbocharged,” the superior Surfer Sting theme, plays as Sting walks out to make a definitive spin of Dario’s Dial of Doom. Oops, no, that was a successful use of a wheel of fortune in pro wrestling. What I meant to type is that Sting is going to Spin the Wheel, Make the Deal. Sting spins the wheel while Tony S. hosts this segment, and no matter how much I try to pull a Matilda and mentally stop the wheel on Texas Death Match or I Quit or even First Blood from almost 25 years in the future, the stupid wheel stops on Coal Miner’s Glove. FUCK

 

• Gab Gab Gab: Ross and Ventura try to get over this Coal Miner’s Glove Match, but they have a tall, maybe impossible, task ahead of them.

 

• Match: Capetta completely butchers Manabu Nakanishi’s name: MAN – UH – BOO WAKANISHI is how he says it. Nakanishi played it off, but if he had gotten in the ring and throttled Capetta for displaying such a level of gross incompetence, I would have fully supported him. Nakanishi is in the crowd to watch the match between Rick Rude (w/Madusa) and Masahiro Chono (w/Hiro Matsuda) for the NWA World Championship. Special referees Kensuke Sasaki and Harley Race are out here as well. I honestly don’t remember anything about what was happening with the NWA Championship at this point or how it ended up floating around New Japan, though I presume that it was only defended against WCW wrestlers on New Japan shows.

 

• Anyway, Ole Anderson tosses a coin to figure which ref is inside the ring and which is outside the ring, but not before checking the refs for illegal objects, and Capetta laboriously talks us through all this nonsense, and finally, Race wins the toss and is the referee inside the ring. Eventually, Capetta stops talking us through the various stipulations and butchering various Japanese names for long enough that the crowd can start another WE WANT FLAIR chant.

 

• Rude and Chono face off and yap at one another, and Ross says that Rude is wasting his breath since Chono doesn’t speak any English, but that definitely doesn’t sound right. I’m pretty certain that Chono speaks decent English and in fact spoke decent English at this point in 1992. I digress. Ventura notes that Rude is sans-mustache, so yeah, we’re at that era of Rick Rude’s career – i.e., close to the end. I don’t really get Chono as a worker either. Of the New Japan guys who I got into when they came into the NWA/WCW as a kid, basically I remember absolutely loving Liger and then thinking Hase and Fujinami were cool. Chono never did anything for me.

 

• The crowd chants for Flair as Chono hits a nice high-angled backdrop to escape a suplex. Y’all should have stopped the chanting and enjoyed that suplex. It was nasty work. On the whole, though, this is a slow opening with some okay-ish mat wrestling. Then it devolves into boring mat wrestling with a super-long armbar spot that doesn’t have enough struggle to make it interesting. Chono is trying to get over some joint manipulation expertise, but you can do that and be interesting, you know?

 

• Once both men get back to standing, Chono targets Rude’s lower back with strikes and suplexes. Ventura speculates about Rude siding with Madusa since she’s out here with him and Dangerously isn’t, which is an interesting conversation to have while Chono wraps Rude in a nice-looking Boston Crab that he sinks in quite deeply. Rude makes the ropes, so Chono whips him back into the middle of the ring and sits down on his back while sinking in a chinlock.

 

• Rude finally escapes with a jawbreaker and takes a bit of control in this bout. He lands elbows and fists, kills a sunset flip with a right hand, and poses before landing a swinging neckbreaker for two. Next up: Chinlock City. Ross and Ventura speculate on both men working on counters to the other’s signature finishers as Rude transitions into a sleeper. Chono’s arm drops once, twice, and, uh, looks like it dropped three times, but Race just chills out instead of calling the match because it’s not supposed to end at this point.

 

• Man, I do not care about this dogshit match. It’s as BO-RING as a few members of the crowd are suggesting. Rick Rude’s 1992 was incredible from all perspectives, including his in-ring work, so let me guess, Chono is at fault. Or maybe Rude is just worn down and perilously close to incurring a catastrophic injury. Probably a bit of both. Chono tries to lock on an STF, but Rude covers his head and neck to avoid completion of the move, though his knee is still being wrenched into unpleasant positions. This could be a cool spot in which they fight over Chono’s application of the STF, but there’s not enough struggle or action, especially on Chono’s part.

 

• They get to their feet eventually and Rude manages to get Chono in position for a piledriver. He sticks it, but Chono is near the ropes and manages to break a cover with his boot. Harley’s count is slow, man. Madusa and Sasaki chatter at one another while Rude tries a double-axe, but then Chono steps away, and after that Rude hits him with a forearm anyway and then goes back to a chinlock in what I’d describe as a shockingly shitty match. How is a ’92 Rude match this crappy? Did I block this match out of my memory as some sort of protective measure for my psyche? I must have.

 

• Great, another sleeper spot from Rude! I’m checking the time left on this show, which is probably the greatest sign that I am extremely ready to be done with this bout. The crowd gets bored and a couple of dudes start fighting – maybe a lady, too because it’s Philly and everybody throws down – and they make a ton of noise while looking away from the action. Ross points it out, which I think is a mistake, and Ventura tries to assert that Philly fans love their pro wrestling. They do, which is why they are looking anywhere but at the ring right now. Security clears up whatever was going on; the crowd returns to a low hum of discontent.

 

• Soon after, we get our second ref bump of the night as Chono hits Race with a mafia kick when Rude ducks. Chono then launches Rude over the top rope, and Rude lands on both Race and Sasaki, the latter of whom has come over to check on Race. Rude, meanwhile, gets back in the ring and scores a Rude Awakening on Chono, but both referees are out, and only when Chono moves out of the way of a top-rope kneedrop and wraps Rude in an STF do both refs get into the ring. Sasaki sees Rude submitting and calls the match, but Race reverses the decision because Chono tossed Rude over the top rope, though the title does not change hands on a disqualification. Sasaki beats up Race and then Rude, which gets the biggest pop of the match. It was easily the most interesting and explosive thing to happen in the bout. They should have put the belt on Sasaki based on this match. This stunk so bad that it’s making a bad list.

 

• Hype package: Please buy Starrcade ’92: Battlebowl. WCW is begging on hands and knees.

 

• Gab Gab Gab: Jesse Ventura blames Japanese nationalism for Sasaki’s attempt to declare Chono the winner of the previous match, though of course he engaged in American nationalism throughout the match as part of his heel-adjacent commentary. Then, we see Cactus Jack break a sledgehammer over some concrete blocks that are piled on Barbarian’s back. Sorry, but no one is buying this build, Watts.

 

• Match: Bill Watts continues to lose miles off his fastball as a booker. First and foremost, this Barbarian (w/Cactus Jack) vs. Ron Simmons match for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship goes on second to last to really signal that the title and its holder aren’t as important as whatever Sting is up to. Further, Simmons didn’t get a single bit of mic time tonight before his match. Maybe Watts wasn’t quite able to recall how he got the Junkyard Dog way over as a babyface in Mid-South; it certainly wasn't like this.

 

• I like Barb a whole lot, and this match has a fun shoulderblock battle to start, but this is one of those title matches where you can see the outcome from a mile away. Meanwhile, Vader, Rude, and even Jake Roberts are off doing other things that aren’t “putting over your world champion whom you’ve just elevated into that position.” Hell, have Simmons and Sting team up together to give Simmons that “on the same level as the Being Sting Champion” rub.

 

• Jesse is intrigued by a “Cactus Jack for President” sign that he saw. I mean, if anyone in the pro wrestling business was going to be POTUS, you could do infinitely worse than Mick. I mean, no, absolutely not, let’s elect someone who entered politics as a scientist or social worker or something like that instead, but still: You could do infinitely worse.

 

• This is a watchable-enough match between big dudes that does its best, including an early battle on the floor, but it isn’t the sort of match that Simmons needs at this point in his career. It’s too bad that Lex Luger left the company before Simmons could win the title and then successfully defend against him. They could have called back to their 1991 feud over the world title. You can tell that this match is mid because I’m much more focused on re-booking Simmons’s title run. Ross properly calls Barb’s Million Dollar Dream a Shinonomake, which boggles Ventura’s mind. Ross drily claims that they didn’t do that sort of complex hold in the company that he used to work for, which is funny because as we all know in kayfabe terms, Ted DiBiase learned the move directly from Sheik Hercules Hernandez in Mid-South, who himself brought it back from an excursion to Japan with his manager Skandor Akbar, and then DiBiase took it right to the WWF and rebranded it the Million Dollar Dream at the time that Jesse was still on color in that company.

 

• Barb kicks out of one spinebuster as Simmons makes his comeback, then eats a series of clotheslines and a shoulderblock. Cactus is on the apron at this point, and Simmons goes right at Cactus, which allows Barb to recover and land a Kick of Fear to the back of Simmons’s head. Barb goes up, and Simmons ostentatiously rolls into position to take a diving headbutt. It was completely noticeable based on how out of position he was. That move doesn’t get three for Barb, and that’s all she wrote for him because once Simmons gets to his feet, he’s able to secure a floatover powerslam for three. Chalk up another forgettable title defense for Ron Simmons!

 

• Interview time [w/Tony S.]: Bruno praises all the great young talent in WCW, including Eric Watts. Watts joins them to talk; the crowd boos. Watts praises Ron Simmons, who joins the group and cuts a bland babyface promo about hard word. Bruno puts Simmons over as a worthy champ, which I suppose is meaningful in Philly, but which likely isn’t meaningful to the vast majority of WCW’s audience.

 

• Gab Gab Gab: Ross and Ventura still aren’t going to get the Coal Miner’s Glove Match over. I don’t care how “steel-lined” that glove is, Jesse, or how many “liability waivers” were signed earlier this week, Ross.

 

• Match: Jake Roberts uses “Satan’s Sister” as his theme because everyone who comes through this company uses that music at some point. This is supposedly an unsanctioned Lights Out Match, but in that case, they should have cut the lights and run the credits before cutting them back on. Just have Ross and Ventura tell everyone that the show isn’t actually over yet and explain why the credits are running. If something is unsanctioned, do all the things that you should do to sell the match as unsanctioned. Anyway, here’s Sting.

 

• The bell rings, and Jake rushes the post, but Sting catches him before he can climb. Kayfabe question: Who pays the referee in an unsanctioned match? Do the competitors pay the ref themselves from their own purse, and how is that purse negotiated? Also, why would WCW allow its referees to work these matches under what are essentially moonlighting contracts? Wouldn’t they want to limit liability as much as they could, no matter how many waivers the competitors signed? I know, I know: No one actually cares about the answers to these questions. Except for me, I mean.

 

• This match is okay, man. Sting and Jake are good enough that they’re going to wrestle a solid match unless Jake is at ’11 Jeff Hardy levels of intoxication in the ring. There are a couple of nice spots early, like Jake casually stepping out of the way of a Sting dropkick or Sting energetically slamming Jake’s shoulder into the post outside the ring before booking it for the glove. People crack on this match because a suboptimal stip was attached, but these fellas don’t exactly stink at the pro graps. The real issue is WCW selling this match as so incredibly violent that it was unsanctioned and then not gimmicking the wheel so that we got, say, a First Blood Match, which would have been edgy as fuck for a PPV show put on by a mainstream U.S. wrestling company in 1992.

 

• I think another issue is Sting spending a considerable portion of the bout working Jake’s shoulder and arm, which makes sense in a regular match, but which doesn’t make sense in a match meant to be super-violent and which is a hint at larger concerns with this match's layout. Oh, and here’s yet another issue: Jake grabs a chair and hauls off on Sting with it, which undercuts the point of having a glove hanging from the pole. Why bother to put yourself in a vulnerable position climbing the pole when you can just grab a chair or use athletic tape to choke a man, as Jake does next? I find that WCW before the Nitro Era isn’t flat-out bad, typically, so much as it offers a tantalizing promise of awesomeness and then goes exactly the wrong way about living up to that promise. Now, WCW in the worst parts of the Nitro Era actually is flat-out bad; watching random 1992-1993 shows considered to be bad and then watching, say, a random 2000 Nitro considered bad are two wholly different experiences.

 

• Anyway, Jake hits a DDT, but he uses his hurt arm to do it and ends up selling the damage, which means it takes him quite some time to get up and try to climb the pole. By this time, Sting has recovered; he races across the apron and swings around the pole acrobatically like he’s in an action flick before kicking Jake away. Sting climbs the pole and retrieves the glove while Cactus Jack hustles to the ring to hand Roberts a bag with a snake in it. Jake readies the snake, but – OMG – Sting puts on the glove and hits Jake in the arm, which knocks the snake back into Jake’s cheek. The snake bites Jake, and Sting pins Roberts for three. That was so fucking stupid that I actually laughed. Russo-era WCW wishes it was this funny when it was bad. What a ridiculous finish. I will put this match on my Total Misfires list, because it was a misfire for all the reasons that I mentioned above, but it was actually a decent match with a finish so dumb that I can’t help but grin.

 

• Gab Gab Gab: Tony, Bruno, Jesse, and Good Ol’ JR close out this mediocre show that really wouldn’t have done much to make me think that Starrcade '92 would be very good (and it wasn’t).

 

• I think the word that I’d use to describe the general tenor of this show is “dreary.” It’s not a good sign that the only hot feud coming out of this show is Dangerously/Madusa! 2.25 Digital Snowflakes out of 5.

[caley]

23 minutes ago, SirSmUgly said:

I don’t really get Chono as a worker either. Of the New Japan guys who I got into when they came into the NWA/WCW as a kid, basically I remember absolutely loving Liger and then thinking Hase and Fujinami were cool. Chono never did anything for me.

I think Chono was largely a "vibes" guy. Like he looked so cool with his sunglasses and trenchcoats and cigars and he was fairly big (or maybe he wasn't...but he seemed tall). And the Yakuza Kick looked cool when he did it. So I always have fond feelings of him but can't point to a single match where I think he was awesome. He's like Japanese Diesel: looks impressive, seems like a badass but then the match starts.

[zendragon]

These 92 WCW shows make me think how similar they are to New Generation era WWF (92 WWF might have been stronger anchored around Savage and Flair in the main and Bret and Shawn in the mid card) where the talent is clearly there but so often the creative have them pointed in the wrong direction

[Curt McGirt]

Chono/Rude from the '92 IWGP finals was so good it made the DVDVR #100 matchlist. 

[Curt McGirt]

Also, I will point at him vs. Mutoh in the '91 final and him vs. Takayama in the G1 for good matches otherwise. And besides that I can't name anything, but I have seen little in comparison to the other Three Musketeers by far. 

[Stefanie Sparkleface]

Chono had also just been dumped on the top of his head by Steve Austin a month prior to the Halloween Havoc match, which didn't do any favors to an already weak neck. He probably shouldn't even have been wrestling.

[BobbyWhioux]

On 4/12/2026 at 1:44 PM, SirSmUgly said:

We’re in Philly, so obviously the crowd cheers for the heels and boos the white meat babyfaces. This is just some nice tag wrestling with some nice escapes and Eaton getting huge pops for punching Zenk right in his gut, which is of course the correct crowd response regardless of face/heel alignment in my opinion. Eventually, Hayes gets in the ring and stinks up the joint, but whatever. Douglas tags in and is derisively booed. Gary Michael Capetta thought that inflecting his voice to announce that Douglas was from PITTSBURGH in a pitched tenor would be appropriate for this crowd, but I’mma tell you that even though I’m not from Pennsylvania, I’m pretty certain that Philly fans aren’t popping for a guy because he’s from Pittsburgh.

In fact I always thought the Pittsburgh thing was a deliberate thing on Douglas' part to enhance his heat with the ECW/Philly crowd.  Particularly since he primarily wore the black and gold color scheme common to all Pittsburgh pro sports.

Maybe it backfiring here gave him the idea?

[SirSmUgly]

On 4/12/2026 at 9:39 PM, Curt McGirt said:

Chono/Rude from the '92 IWGP finals was so good it made the DVDVR #100 matchlist. 

I've seen this years ago and I think I found it entertaining enough, but not this good. I'll have to put it on my list. 

16 hours ago, Stefanie Sparkleface said:

Chono had also just been dumped on the top of his head by Steve Austin a month prior to the Halloween Havoc match, which didn't do any favors to an already weak neck. He probably shouldn't even have been wrestling.

Was this the piledriver incident that was oddly mirrored when Owen dumped Austin on his head five years later?

[Stefanie Sparkleface]

1 hour ago, SirSmUgly said:

I've seen this years ago and I think I found it entertaining enough, but not this good. I'll have to put it on my list. 

Was this the piledriver incident that was oddly mirrored when Owen dumped Austin on his head five years later?

That's the one. Chono didn't get crunched as bad, but it's still pretty rough. The August Chono/Rude match is the complete other side of the spectrum to the Halloween Havoc match.

[zendragon]

Reading about Bill Watt's run WCW and I'm sitting here thinking "and people say Tony Khan has too many belts in AEW"

[SirSmUgly]

WCW Starrcade 1992: Battlebowl (28 December 1992):

A show in which my love of REAL SPORTS shit integrated into pro wrestling matches is reaffirmed

• I’ve watched this whole show in fragments across three viewings just a couple of months ago; let’s see how it looks all the way through. I don’t expect an improvement from the fragmentary experience, but that doesn’t mean things will be all bad.

 

• Hype package: We are run through all the Starrcade title screens of years past, though we skip ’88: True Gritt (Gritt with two T's to avoid a lawsuit from Charles Portis or Paramount) and ’89: Future Shock before we get a rundown of the Starrcade '92 card. Rick Rude is still being promoted as Ron Simmons’s opponent and, on cue, we'll have an NWA World Championship match because Bill Watts has strange ideas about reintegrating the NWA back into WCW. Hey, is this the first time that Watts has ever been pro-integration?

 

• Gab Gab Gab: Jim Ross sends it to Eric Bischoff in the production room so that Bisch can let us know that Rick Rude is in fact not wrestling Ron Simmons for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship and that Dr. Death Steve Williams will be stepping in as Simmons’s opponent.

 

• Gab Gab Gab: Bill Watts and Hank Aaron cordially share a ring together along with Tony S. They’re here because Watts has decided to present a ring to each Battlebowl winner – what, not a medal? – and then call Sting down to be presented his ring for winning the inaugural Battlebowl last year. For some reason, Sting jovially calling Aaron HANK when he finally gets on the mic makes me laugh.

 

• Gab Gab Gab: Larry Z. and Missy Hyatt are going to draw the rest of the Battlebowl teams. I say “the rest of” because they already drew two teams before the show, and the Lethal Lottery has chosen…

 

• Match: …the recently-deceased Van Hammer and the still-kicking Dan Spivey to tag up against Cactus Jack and Johnny B. Badd. Look, I’m likely DVDVR’s foremost Van Hammer mark. Or maybe the word “mark” is too strong a descriptor. I’m likely DVDVR’s foremost Van Hammer enjoyer. Yeah, that’s it. Anyway, even considering that, this match looks like it should be a fun combination of workers.

 

• Hammer’s an underrated vocalizer in the ring. His annoyed WHAT’RE YOU DOIN’ MAAAAAN after Cactus double legs him and tries to pin him with the ropes for leverage was also pretty funny. You know who has really good arm drags? Johnny B. Badd. Badd tags in, hits a couple of nice arm drags on Hammer, and then spikes Hammer with a rana as Hammer barely gets himself over on the flip. That looked sick.

 

• OK, soon after that, Cactus and Spivey just whale away at one another with wild rights, so yeah, this is a fun little match. Jack is so good in here, stooging, cheating, bumping around, and still looking like he might kill someone at some point. Neither team is on the same page, what with blind tags and chirping at one another, and eventually Spivey and Cactus have another fun sequence in which the crowd seems to be cheering for Jack as he unloads with punches and a running elbowdrop. Cactus looks for a tag, but Badd was knocked to the floor by Spivey earlier. Spivey capitalizes with a side Russian. Badd tries to help by elbowdropping Spivey off the cover, but Spivey moves and goes over to tag Hammer. Meanwhile, Cactus gets in Badd’s face for his one-too-many kayfabe fuckups and slaps him; Badd responds with a Kiss That Don’t Miss and Hammer rolls up Cactus for the three and the duke. I found this to be a generally enjoyable opener.

 

• Gab Gab Gab: Tony S. joins Larry Z. and Missy Hyatt; they draw and announce the next set of Battlebowl teams via the literal Lethal Lottery, which is just one of those drums with lots of sealed envelopes in them. Super lethal! Missy pulls the envelopes; Larry announces the names on the slips inside. Dustin Rhodes and Vader are drawn together, which isn’t good since they’ve been beefing on television recently. Their first opponent is Kensookey Sasocki. No, sorry, I forgot that WCW has no respect for the Japanese language’s pronunciation of vowel sounds. Actually, that’s Kensuke Sasaki, who will be teaming with the Barbarian. That match is next!

 

• Match: Big Van Vader (w/Harley Race) and Dustin Rhodes meet up with Kensook—hold on, I accidentally started spelling Capetta’s announcement phonetically. I mean, they meet up with Kensuke Sasaki and the Barbarian. I get a kick out of Barb and Vader facing off to start, Vader offering his hand, Barb taking it in the spirit of clean competition, and then Vader breaking the handshake by two-hand shoving Barb. That was a pretty good spot! Anyway, Vader has a big King of Cable Tournament finals match against Sting coming up later in the show, so he probably wants to conserve his strength while also winning this bout so that he can go for that Battlebowl ring.

 

• Barb and Vader get all irresistible force and immovable object for a couple minutes until Vader avalanches Barb as Barb bounces off the ropes; Vader follows with a series of punches and forearms that look quite painful! Barb avoids a big boot from Vader and then lands a series of stiff clotheslines. This match sounds like it hurts, and yeah, I’m enjoying it. Wrestling needs more dudes who have played or could play offensive guard at a Division I school to get into the business and throw gnarly lariats at one another.

 

• Dustin and Sasaki get in there, pick up the pace, and also clobber the shit out of each other, just on 1.5x speed. This is also a fun little match; Sasaki hits Dustin with a stiff clothesline, but then goes up and leaps right into a counter dropkick from a recovered Rhodes. Vader tags back in and clubs the shit out of Sasaki, with a lariat right to the face that I think busted Sasaki’s nose. Good gravy, these teams are beating the shit out of each other. Sasaki manages to suplex Vader; both men tag out, and Rhodes uses his speed to flummox Barb, gaining two on a running lariat. Sasaki makes the save, so Rhodes attacks Sasaki. Barb gets up and charges Rhodes, but Rhodes moves; Barb runs into Sasaki, and Rhodes quickly rolls up the stunned Barbarian for three.

 

• In a post-match spot from Vader that’s even better than his pre-match handshake spot, Vader gets hyped about celebrating the victory with Rhodes, who is a total babyface dipshit and gets suckered into letting his guard down. Rhodes also starts to celebrate, which is when Vader clobbers the unsuspecting Rhodes with a lariat. Harley even drops a knee on Rhodes just because what’s Harley supposed to do, not drop a knee on a defenseless member of the Rhodes family laying right in front of him? Vader gets onto the ramp and authentically celebrates his dastardly attack, and man, this was hilarious and was the type of spot that made me root for the heel. Dumbass babyfaces.

 

• Shill Shill Shill: Jim Ross wants you to buy SuperBrawl III, WCW’s next PPV, and one that will be sorta like Fall Brawl ’99 in that the showrunner is getting fired right before it happens. Oh, WCW. Bless your hearts.

 

• Gab Gab Gab: The next Battlebowl teams are drawn: Barry Windham and the Great Muta meet 2 Cold Scorpio and Brian Pillman. In a typical Battlebowl occasion, Windham and Pillman are tag partners who have a WCW World Tag Team Championship shot later in this show.

 

• Match: So yeah, Barry Windham and the Great Muta wrestle 2 Cold Scorpio and Brian Pillman. WCW has access to all this talent that I believe could be part of a huge vanguard to organically grow WCW – Cactus, Muta, Scorp, and also Liger is in the locker room tonight as well – and they just can’t get right. If only this company respected its Black American and Japanese talent more. Uh, and its dumpy-looking brawlers with big bump ability from New Mexico by way of Long Island. I don’t think it’s a fait accompli that WCW only gained significant popularity after bringing in Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage. I actually think that the biggest issue with WCW is the shitty production value, which is a particularly insane state of affairs considering that Turner owns this company. Bischoff fixing that issue means even more than bringing in Hogan and Savage (though to get really big, it took those moves and signing Hall and Nash; I'm just saying that WCW could have found profitability if not super-mega profitability with the guys they already had and good actual production value). 

 

• This match is fine, but I wish I were watching Muta and Scorp tag together (or face one another one-on-one, for that matter). Muta is the big babyface in this bout, getting a few MU-TA chants and receiving pops for his offense. I’m not a huge fan of Pillman, and Barry Windham was most interesting to me when he turned heel, joined the Horsemen, and started wearing the black glove. He’s mechanically strong, but he’s not a guy I usually get hyped to watch wrestle. He’s Randy Orton with the same superior timing and more aesthetically pleasing form on his wrestling moves. Yeah, I know, I’m the foremost Van Hammer enjoyer who is mostly just okay with Barry Windham. We all have our oddities in taste.

 

• The best parts of the match are Scorp and Muta landing Superman forearms and kicks and wild slingshot 450s (!!) on one another. That last mpve was Scorp's. The match breaks down after that, and Windham drops Scorp with a huge double-arm DDT followed by a Muta moonsault that wins the pinfall for their team. Give me Scorp versus (a motivated) Muta, dammit!

 

• Gab Gab Gab: Our next and final Lethal Lottery teams are drawn: Sting and Dr. Death versus Erik Watts and Jushin Thunder Liger. What an oddball tag team that last pair is!

 

• Match: Sting and Dr. Death make it to the ring; Erik Watts and Jushin Liger soon follow. Give me Sting versus Liger, dammit! In fact, they start it off and work some nice speedy counter-wrestling spots. Sting’s a big dude to be in there doing nice pacey dodge counters with Liger. Sting tags in Doc, and Ross notes without naming the companies that Doc and Liger are wrestling one another even though they work for All Japan and New Japan respectively in what must have blown the minds of people in the know back in 1992. I was not quite in the know back in 1992, so unfortunately, I didn’t get the charge from a forbidden door being opened in this bout.

 

• Speaking of those two, I think I’d love to see a Liger/Doc singles bout. They have some nice sequences in which they both leverage their respective speed and power advantages against one another. Liger loses that exchange when Doc holds the ropes as Liger attempts a monkey flip and then clobbers the off-balance Liger with a lariat. Liger ends up doing a hell of a job as FIP as his two bigger opponents fling him around and clobber him with clotheslines and fists. Sting whiffs on a Stinger Splash, but quickly stumbles to the corner and makes a tag to Doc so that Doc can cut off Liger from making a tag. Liger survives some more abuse (and sells it fantastically), including a back suplex in which Liger is – as Ross states – “folded in half like an accordion.” Liger finally lands a kick and a facecrusher on Doc, which gives him enough space to make a quick tag to weak link Erik Watts. Watts throws a completely dogshit dropkick in there before locking on the STF, but Doc is in the ropes. Doc then dumps Watts to the floor and takes over; he manages to Hot Shot a charging Watts when Watts gets back in the ring. This allows Doc to steal a quick pinfall. Anything in this match not involving Watts was quite enjoyable.

 

• Gab Gab Gab: Those were all the Lethal Lottery tag matches, so Jim Ross and Jesse Ventura (who is wearing a Malcolm X hat!), run down the winners who advance to the Battlebowl Battle Royal Final: Van Hammer, Dan Spivey, Dustin Rhodes, Vader, Barry Windham, The Great Muta, Sting, and Dr. Death. That’s later, though. Next, we get an NWA World Championship bout. Tony S. and Larry Z. talk over some video of Chono and Mutoh going at it.

 

• Match: The Great Muta walks out to this shitty generic fucking theme instead of his proper Gary Hart Presents theme, dammit. Anyway, he’s challenging titleholder Masahiro Chono for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. Those Lethal Lottery tag matches earlier in the show were collectively more fun than one might expect, and we’ve got a bolted-on classic between Sting and Vader coming up, but this is the point where the show ebbs from “promising” to “mediocre,” and it’s no surprise to me that Chono is the marker for when that happens. Jesse, when asked by Ross if he can understand what these two men are saying to one another in Japanese, denies that he knows much Japanese but claims to be pretty good at understanding Tagalog. I wonder if that is true. Who the hell knows with Jesse? It’s probably a work, but I’d guess that out of every ten random claims that Jesse make about himself, nine are a stone cold work and one unlikely claim is actually true.

 

• Meanwhile, the crowd fires Muta up and then cheers when Muta escapes from an abdominal stretch. There’s a ton of mat wrestling going on, but none of it feels particularly compeitive or as though it’s leading much of anywhere from a narrative standpoint. They’re just trading holds. Chono eventually goes up top, which is not his forte and constitutes a kayfabe tactical error that commentary points out, and Muta catches him in no man’s land and superplexes him. Muta lands a back body drop as he picks up the pace and goes right back to working holds as he bars the ankle into an Indian Deathlock with a bridged chinlock. OK, I do love the Indian Deathlock with a bridged chinlock. It’s my favorite hold in pro wrestling and should get a submission damn near every time.

 

• Still, this is a bout that is mostly boring, a trait that I tend to associate with Chono. It also goes on too long – which is a bad sign for the other world heavyweight title match happening later tonight – and eventually ends when Chono targets Muta’s knee and then locks him in the STF a few minutes after the initial knee attack. I did not enjoy this, but I do like that a champion-level wrestler like Chono knew how to position Muta properly for the STF so that Muta couldn’t get to the ropes in comparison to the rookie Erik Watts failing to account for ring positioning against Dr. Death. That’s how you illustrate different levels of experience between workers in kayfabe right there.

 

• Gab Gab Gab: Rick Rude (in fascinating-looking patchwork denim jacket) crashes the commentary desk to complain about the doctors not signing off on his title shot against champion Ron Simmons and then about being potentially stripped of the United States Championship if he isn’t cleared in time to defend it. He claims a certain level of unfairness in the WCW upper management because they wouldn’t do this sort of thing to Sting and then swears that he’s not relinquishing the U.S. title before leaving.

 

• Match: This disasterclass of a Ron Simmons main event push is finally hobbling to its end, but first, Simmons has got to go over Dr. Death Steve Williams. Wait, hold on, I’m being handed a note. Uh, I’m sorry, the match ends like this? You’ve got to be putting me on. OK, at least we’re getting to hear “Don’t Step to Ron,” but it all goes downhill from here: A dull matchup that meanders to a Double Fucking Countout even though Dr. Death is about to jet this company and head back to All Japan. Fuck, man. Jesse tries to trigger Good Ol’ JR by criticizing H.W. Bush’s pardoning of various white collar crooks, and oh man, let me go back in time and tell 1992 Jesse about what things’ll be like in 2026 so that I can trigger him.

 

• Anyway, these dudes do intermittently hit each other pretty hard. This could be a good match in theory. Alas, there are a lot of arm bars and too many dead spots with minimal action in them. They work a long spot where they initially respect one another for being football bros, but they slowly get angrier at one another until the point at which Doc yanks Simmons’s hair. They explode into action, throw blows at one another, and Simmons hits a facecrusher before…it’s back to the arm bar. He then decides to go up for a top-rope shoulderblock, which much like Chono’s uncharacteristic top-rope dive fails miserably as Doc steps aside and then starts to laboriously work Simmons’s leg. There’s simply not enough action on these holds from Doc to make them feel perilous. It’s funny because I’m fine with Doc and Gordy sprawling on their opponents, but that works better because of the constant tags which create a sense of action happening even with all the sprawling. I also think Doc and Gordy are generally more active when tagging together than they are given credit for.

 

• Simmons spends about ten years selling his leg and this slow-paced attack from Doc, looking like an incapable champion for, what now, the fifth or sixth month in a row? Man, Bill Watts sucked at his job. It’s crazy to me that Vince McMahon hired him for a few weeks in 1995. There is no world in which the anachronistic Watts is going to help the 1995 WWF figure out how to meet the moment. Anyway, Simmons makes his comeback only to not win this match and end up getting punched in the face by Doc a ton as they get counted out on the floor. Doc beats Simmons’s ass after the bell and visually pins him. What in the actual fuck?! Fuck this match. The refs reverse the decision and give the win to Simmons for getting his ass whipped in Doc’s final dominant attack because said attack included a top-rope move, I guess, which is a gift of a victory that makes Simmons look even weaker than if he’d just worked to a double countout. Holy shit, was this a dud. Let’s put it on the Total Misfires list.

 

• Hype package: SuperBrawl ’93 is the next WCW PPV, so they want me to purchase it. Only if you get rid of Bill Watts first, WCW. I guess we have Mark Madden to thank for WCW not continuing to circle the drain under Watts's purview.

 

• Gab Gab Gab: Tony S. and Larry Z. talk through Barry Windham being a dick and attacking Ricky Steamboat and Shane Douglas with a chair in the locker room area; they opine upon the upcoming tag titles matchup in general.

 

• Match: The challengers Barry Windham and Brian Pillman make it to the ring to meet the WCW World Tag Team Champions Ricky Steamboat (with his dorky-ass Slam Jam joint) and Shane Douglas. This match starts with Douglas and Pillman working at something of a pace and trading counters. It’s fine. There is nothing wrong with this match at all, but I’m feeling a bit of fatigue with the show at this point. We’ve already seen Pillman and Windham work a tag match; maybe part of my issue is that this is reminiscent of the Great American Bash ’92, which had multiple tag matches that included the same entrants multiple times. I love me some tag wrestling, but I also love variety.

 

• The babyfaces clear the ring in the early going; Windham gets back in the ring and calls out Steamboat, who dominates him with chops, punches, and a vertical suplex before tagging out to Shane Douglas, who lands a diving chop and then slips on Ye Olde Chinlock. I will say that Steamboat and Windham predictably have fun sequences; Steamer even slams Windham on the unforgiving concrete, which certainly hurt like hell. Douglas even follows up by slamming Windham on the ramp and then sending Windham back in the ring to eat a swinging neckbreaker from Steamboat.

 

• Again, this match is perfectly fine, but I sure wish it were just Steamboat versus Windham for the purpose of maximizing viewing quality. In fairness, the storyline disdain between these two teams was well-built on television and Pillman and Douglas are trying hard as well; see this spot where Douglas dropkicks Pillman off the apron and Pillman bashes his throat across the guardrail as an example, followed by Pillman dropkicking Douglas as Douglas is perched on the top rope and Douglas bumping all the way to the concrete outside. It’s okay! This is alright, man! Everyone is working to make solid television together!

 

• Douglas is quite obviously the babyface in peril after that spill; he takes a beating and eats multiple bumps back out to the floor. An enraged Steamboat attacks Windham with a chair as Windham follows up with punches on a prone Douglas outside the ring. The crowd pops for this spot which brings the chair attack full circle, but Pillman cuts off Douglas before Douglas can get back in the ring and make a tag. See, this is textbook good stuff. The fault lies in me, not in the match. This has logical callbacks, some really good bumps and impact spots, and is a very well-worked match. That it isn’t working for me as much as it is for the crowd cannot be blamed on anyone in this match.

 

• This FIP segment is really well-worked; Douglas keeps getting cut off, which puts the crowd on edge until Windham makes the mistake of getting countered into a suplex and doubles down on that mistake by not making a quick tag and instead trying to stand and punch with Douglas, who wins a quick exchange and then makes a desperation tag to Steamboat. Steamboat goes off once he gets in the ring, but Windham reverses an Irish whip and then scores a powerslam to stop Steamboat’s onslaught. Windham follows up with a back suplex and finally makes a tag to Pillman, who suckers Douglas into the ring before illegally tossing Steamboat over the top and to the floor. Windham helpfully brains Steamboat by ramming him into the post.

 

• This match is far better than I have ever given it credit for, but I still don’t actually give a shit and am ready for a finish. Maybe I just don’t want to watch Brian Pillman? I’ve become less of a Pillman enjoyer the more I’ve watched him, so maybe that’s it. Again, the flaw is in me. This is a legitimately good tag match. Steamboat finds a reserve of strength deep within himself and fights his way out of trouble, landing a standing side kick on Steamboat and amplifying the damage with a face crusher before landing a second hot tag to Douglas. Douglas takes care of both of his opponents; the match quickly breaks down. Steamboat and Windham, the illegal men, spell over the top rope and to the floor; meanwhile, Douglas catches a charging Pillman with a belly-to-belly and scores a quick three count to retain the tag titles for his team.

 

• This is the first match in this thread that I’m putting on a good list even though I didn’t personally enjoy it all that much. This was an objectively stronger-than-average tag match that I’m pretty certain most people would like, and I would guess that at least one or two readers who come across this review at some point mght even have it as a personal favorite.

 

• Gab Gab Gab: Sting and Vader are massive rivals who are facing off once more in 1992, this time in an attempt to become the King of Cable by winning the aforementioned tournament by that name.

 

• Match: This is one of the great WCW matches of all time and for my money could be the very best match in WCW’s eleven-year existence. Sting and Vader (w/Harley Race) are both trying to win a trophy for becoming the best cable television wrestler around and a ring for being the best Battlebowl wrestler around tonight. Trophies, rings, belts, but still no medals. Is Bill Watts feeling like himself right now?

 

• These fellas had a heck of a match on PPV about six months earlier, but my central critique of that match was that Vader’s offense wasn’t quite impactful enough to fit Sting’s exquisite selling. This time, Vader doesn’t make that mistake. Both men throw a few opening blows at one another. Both men also shrug off one another’s blows. Vader lands a body slam next, and Sting feels that one. He feels a second body slam just a bit more and decides to try and surprise Vader with a sudden charge. Vader is not surprised and avalanches Sting before draping him neck-first across the ropes with a military press. Vader thinks that last move is so nice, he’ll do it twice, and the second one sends Sting to the floor.

 

• Sting recovers and gets back in the ring, then scores a desperation wheel kick while on the run. That knocks Vader down; Vader gets back up and eats a leaping kick. What I love about these Sting/Vader encounters is that Sting would pull out moves that he never did because he was just that desperate to do anything to keep Vader down. Sting follows up with a huge release belly-to-back and then a leaping clothesline that knocks Vader to the floor and removes his mask. Vader, disoriented, huddles with Harley; Sting slingshots onto both of them, then gets back in the ring and beats his chest exuberantly.

 

• Vader quickly regroups and catches Sting upon reentry with fists. He clubs at Sting in the corner, but misses a corner charge and eats an arm drag; Sting tries to follow up with a corner charge of his own and runs right into a boot to the mush. Both men are countering one another at a surprisingly quick pace for two dudes this huge; Sting gets shot in by Vader, but stops short and lands a DDT before perching Vader on the second rope and landing a super DDT/suplex sort of deal for 2.5.

 

• Sting wants to get out of the ring as quickly as possible and locks on a Scorpion Death Lock, but he’s a bit too focused on getting his finish applied as quickly as possible and doesn’t position Vader properly. Vader grabs the ropes to break the hold and then bails to the floor, where he dodges Sting as Sting takes another necessary high-risk chance with a running splash. Sting clatters face-first into the guardrail in what is a fantastic, high-impact, well-paced match between two guys who clearly know one another after so many high-profile clashes and are able to anticipate what the other will do. This feels like a real fight, you know? Strategy matters here.

 

• Sting barely gets back into the ring at nine, but he’s badly hurt and in no position to defend himself, which means that it’s time for Vader to punch the shit out of him and hit high impact moves. Vader takes his time as he picks apart the Stinger: a straight right here, a back suplex here, and a big splash for two. In a GREAT spot, Vader hooks the leg on the splash, but he over-hooks it and rolls Sting up so much that Sting is able to more easily slide his shoulder out from under the cover. Vader sells this mistake beautifully with a perturbed look in his face and a loud SHIT! as commentary jumps on an analysis of the mistake as well. This is a great spot because it’s the point at which you could argue that Vader had won it had he not been overenergetic in trying to cinch Sting’s legs. Pro wrestling, like football, is a game of inches. Vader doesn’t hike up Sting’s tights by an inch or two? He probably gets a pinfall there.

 

• Sting is simply trying to survive, barely kicking out of moves; he manages to avoid a sitout splash, but he’s so hurt that Vader gets to his feet first and punches the daylights out of him. Vader puts Sting in a headlock and clearly whispers “counter” into his ear, which only barely breaks immersion for me for just a microsecond. On cue, Sting hits a back suplex, but Vader rolls over first and covers Sting for two (Jesse: “That’s gotta be depressing as hell when you do the move and the other guy’s up first”).

 

• How will Sting manage enough of an opening that he actually makes it up before Vader? Right now, he’s stumbling around the ring with his forearms up trying to absorb the wild haymakers that Vader is firing off. Commentary helpfully compares Sting’s tactics here to Ali’s against Foreman. Yeah, gimme that real sports comparison! Ross and Ventura have been excellent on the call during this bout.

 

• Vader makes another mistake when he tries to superplex Sting, and Sting is able to block it and knock Vader backwards to the mat, but Sting is so hurt that rather than following up, he sells the exertion of energy just to get that counter in and tumbles to the mat. Vader is once again up first, and once again, he throws punches at Sting, who blocks them and ask for more…and yeah, Vader sells that he’s punched himself out, which commentary points out. Sting is able to absorb the blows of Vader’s weaker punches and finally mount a comeback OH YEAH, REAL SPORTS TACTICS IN MY FUCKING PRO WRESTLING, I LOVE IT, GIVE ME MORE and let me calm down and tell you about Sting’s comeback, which includes a Samoan Drop (!!). Sting goes up after that Samoan Drop and scores a top-rope splash for 2.5 or so. Harley takes this opportunity to get on the apron and distract Sting; it works, unfortunately for the Stingeer, and Vader clubs Sting from behind.

 

• Vader chokeslams Sting right in position for a second-rope splash; he scores this one, but he bounces across the ring and visibly gets kayfabe angry because he wanted to cover right off the splash, but he overdid it. He goes up again to properly land the splash, but he’s delayed for too long; Sting gets to his feet and uses Vader’s momentum to turn him in a powerslam for three. If only the ref had seen Sting overelaborate his pinfall; Vader’s shoulder was up because Sting pulled so hard on Vader’s tights to keep him down. Ah well – the ref missing these small things that lead to big results is part of REAL SPORTS, FUCK YEAH. Anyway, this is the greatest match in WCW history according to me, though maybe it’s that Rude/Steamboat Iron Man Match, but no, they are number one and number two in order, at least right now. Jesse Ventura presents the trophy to Sting after the match; Sting says that this is one trophy down, one Battlebowl ring to go.

 

• Interview time [w/Tony S.]: Do you like REAL SPORTS in your pro graps as much as I do? If so, here’s former Green Bay Packer and NFL Hall of Famer Paul Hornung to put over the importance of winning RANGZ~ in professional sports. Hornung puts over winning NFL Championship/Super Bowl rings as something that Vince Lombardi built up so much that it became more important than even the money. Hornung cuts a great little promo about why rings are important in both football and pro wrestling. God, this little interview ruled. You know what? I take back what I said at the beginning of this review. This show is actually better when watched straight through. I think I came in during one fragmented viewing right at Chono/Muta and had to leave before Sting/Vader, which probably explains why I felt not-so-great about this show. Watching it back, the tag title match is much better than I gave it credit for, and taken as a whole, the Lethal Lottery tag matches were all fun television and Sting/Vader is great, and that carries this card (along with this randomly dope Paul Hornung interview-slash-promo).

 

• Match: The Battlebowl battle royal is our main event; Vader and Sting brawl on the ramp while the other six entrants (Barry Windham, The Great Muta, Dustin Rhodes, Dr. Death, Van Hammer, and Dan Spivey) tangle in the ring. Vader and Sting having to turn around and march right back out here after a grueling King of Cable final augurs poorly for both of them in kayfabe, huh?

 

• Anyway, this battle royal is a total denouement after the previous match. It’s a comedown, but that’s okay. I’m still fired up from Sting/Vader and don’t need another stimulant. Jesse suggests that Vader is extremely tired and that everyone else should think tactically and rush him while he’s still winded. REAL SPORTS STRATEGY. You can’t touch the concrete floor as Van Hammer does when Doc eliminates him by chucking him over the top rope; furthermore, you can’t go over the top rope and to the raised ramp as Dan Spivey does when Sting manages to duck his lariat and Spivey’s momentum carries him right outside.

 

• In a spot that feels narratively right, Vader charges Sting and hits a lariat that spills them both over the top rope and to the ramp. Yeah, that just makes sense. We’re down to Rhodes, Windham, Muta, and Doc. Everyone in this bout has worked multiple long matches except for Dustin Rhodes, who only worked the Lethal Lottery tag and therefore should be fresh. I’m surprised that he didn’t win this whole thing. When I watched it a few months back, I had completely forgotten who won Battlebowl this year and assumed it’d be Rhodes as I watched. Speaking of Dustin, he makes a kayfabe tactical error by bringing Windham back into the ring to punish him some more on account of Windham and he used to be tag champs until Windham broke bad. In fact, Rhodes ends up eliminated along with Doc when Windham is able to leverage them both over the top rope, proving Jesse’s rant about Rhodes making a mistake because he wanted to punish Windham some more rather than simply winning the match correct.

 

• Muta and Windham are the final two competitors; Muta survives a few elimination attempts as the larger Windham tries to press his size advantage to win the bout. Muta eventually skins the cat and jumps the relaxed Windham, who thinks that he’s heaved Muta successfully. He’s very wrong! Muta explodes with a dropkick that knocks Windham over the top and to the floor to win Battlebowl and the championship ring. The crowd is pleased to see the then-reigning IWGP champ add to his list of honors.

 

• Gab Gab Gab: Ross and Jesse run down the card results. A fan hoists up a HEY MUTA SPRAY HERE sign with a target drawn on it, which I think is an instance of excellent sign-making. Anyway, Ross and Ventura hype the upcoming United States Championship tournament and SuperBrawl III before we go to credits for this show, which for the final time will include Bill Watts’s name.

 

• This is actually a decent show with a lagging middle that is probably better to most viewers than to me because I’m lower on the tag title match than it deserves. We’ll move on to SuperBrawl III to close out Watts’s tenure even though the show was executed by someone else, just as we started with Beach Blast ’92 even though that was mostly a Kip Frye joint that Watts was seeing WCW through. As for this show, it’s pretty enjoyable and is at least worth having on in the background while you work out or play video games or whatever. 3 Digital Snowflakes out of 5.

[zendragon]

I believe Jesse was stationed in the Philippines for a period of time during his Military Service so his claim of a having a working knowledge of Tagalog might just be true 

[SirSmUgly]

WCW SuperBrawl III (21 February 1993):

A show in which Sting and Vader manage to both exceed expectations and deliver a slightly undercooked main event all in one bout

• Bill Watts is sent home and WCW is in a holding pattern. It is 1993.

 

• Eric Bischoff is sent home and WCW is in a holding pattern. It is 1999.

 

• Vince Russo is sent home and WCW is in a holding pattern. It is 2000.

 

• Vince Russo is sent home (again) and WCW is in a holding pattern (again). It is still 2000.

 

• God, I miss you, WCW. What a stupid company. Anyway, here’s SuperBrawl III, the first post-Watts production that is relying heavily on creative lieutenant Dusty Rhodes’s dopey White Castle of Fear idea to keep the Sting/Vader feud rolling!

 

• Hype package: Vader lights Sting up with a strap while Barry Windham and Harley Race hold the Stinger in place. Also, a castle and a little person get involved in this feud somewhere in there. The juxtaposition of Vader trying to hang Sting over the top rope with a noose made from a strap and Sting getting on a helicopter to visit the White Castle of Fear is extremely funny!

 

• Gab Gab Gab: Eric Bischoff and Missy Hyatt welcome us to the show; Bisch immediately downgrades one of the matches because Ron Simmons is too injured to face Dustin Rhodes for the United States Championship, so Maxx Payne is stepping in for Simmons. Dammit. Missy crows about getting an interview with someone that we’re all gonna flip for, but she won’t say with whom. Then, Johnny B. Badd walks out here in a sea captain’s uniform and clutching the Badd Blaster. Cool, man. I suppose Badd is our third host. He rhymes for a bit and runs down some of the card before sending us over to commentary, which on this show is comprised of the team of Tony S. and Jesse Ventura – oh yeah, Jim Ross is about to make his WWF debut at WrestleMania IX. Tony and Jesse gab for a while, too.

 

• Speaking of Maxx Payne, he pulls a Jimi Hendrix and plays the U.S. National Anthem on electric guitar. I feel that every rendition of the U.S. National Anthem should either be played on electric guitar or sung by Black American church choirs, by Rebekah Del Rio, or by a combination of the two. Oh, or sung by Marvin Gaye, but that’s impossible until the AI-assisted holograms are further along in their technological development.

 

• Match: “Satan’s Sister” plays. Who will come out? Greg Valentine? Blitzkrieg? No, it’s the Hollywood Blondes! Steve Austin is back on WCW PPV after a two-show break, this time alongside Brian Pillman. Their opponents in this tag opener are Erik Watts and Marcus Bagwell. The match begins. Austin gets a small supportive chant from the crowd. There are arm bars and wrist locks and Bagwell wins each of those exchanges. For this, Bagwell is booed by a small, unsupportive part of the crowd. Austin escapes a hammerlock with an elbow and gets a tiny babyface pop. You get the point. This wakes up the rest of the crowd, which gives Bagwell a pretty good pop for landing an overhand right to Austin’s mug. I do note that this pop is fairly high-pitched. I get a kick out of the normies in the crowd not letting these heel-loving abnormies establish the tone.

 

• (Also, if normies is a word, then abnormies is also a word.)

 

• It’s always challenging to tell how much of an evaluation made from a future perspective is merely hindsight and how much of that same evaluation is picking up on real pieces of evidence, but boy, does it seem like this match involves three guys who clearly should have important roles in this company and then also Erik Watts. This match is pretty dull even though Austin is a fun seller of pain. Jesse Ventura advises the kids at home to take the easy way out – pull trunks, jab eyes, do whatever. Then, he asks Tony S. why Watts is getting booed every time he enters the ring, and Tony pulls A GODDAM SIMPSONS by suggesting that the crowd is actually saying WOOOOOO. If Tony S. had claimed that the crowd was actually saying BOO-ILL WATTS or something, I would have given this show five digital snowflakes automatically, but that was still amazing. Jesse, disgusted at this response, asks why Tony S. is so “mouthy” tonight. Thank you for making this match way more enjoyable, Jesse.

 

• Pillman escapes an STF by grabbing the ropes and then plays possum, pretending that he’s pretending to have a knee injury. He uses this diversion to forearm Watts in the gut, but he misses a dive outside the ring and lands on the guardrail, though it doesn’t even matter because he almost immediately gets a tag to Austin upon getting back in the ring and teams with him to toss Watts to the floor.

 

• Watts enters a prolonged period in which he is the babyface in peril. It’s fine. Pillman and Austin eventually misfire on a Rocket Launcher attempt, which allows Watts to make the hot tag to…no, nevermind, Austin catches him from behind and hits a back suplex for two. Austin then runs right into Watts on a corner whip and isn’t able to connect on a sitout splash against the ropes, which finally triggers Watts’s hot tag to Bagwell. Can I just call him Buff even though that’s not for another four years or so? It’s so much easier to type. Anyway, Buff gets two on a floatover powerslam before the match breaks down. Watts pulls the ref’s attention while Buff scores a fisherman suplex into a bridge on Pillman; Austin is free to go up and drop a top-rope elbow into Buff’s exposed ribs behind the ref’s back. Pillman covers as the ref turns around, spies the pinfall attempt, and counts to three. That was actually a pretty good finish to what was a nondescript bout.

 

• Hype package: Sting is invited to Vader’s White Castle of Fear; Sting monologues over footage of him sitting in a helicopter that is preparing to land somewhere in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. I presume we will see slices of that very silly Dusty Rhodes concept sprinkled throughout this show. I’m surprised that Bill Watts let Dusty fire off with such a goofy concept (or with the Spin the Wheel, Make the Deal vignettes) considering how much Watts was pushing real sports concepts throughout the rest of the show. I know that Watts had some appetite for pro wrestling-related fuckery, but these Dusty-driven vignettes seem like they were dropped in from a different show, like maybe WWF Superstars.

 

• Gab Gab Gab: Eric Bischoff and Johnny B. Badd are excited that Ric Flair lost his Loser Leaves the WWF match to Mr. Perfect a month ago and thus has returned to compete in good ol’ WCW.

 

• Interview time [w/Missy Hyatt]: Missy Hyatt rushes Ric Flair’s limo, but security rushes her and forcibly moves her back. A lady cop pats her down, and Missy of course has the line of the segment: “Usually I’m gettin’ kissed when someone’s doing this!” A couple of ladies in evening dresses exit the limo followed by Flair himself; Flair is escorted to the locker room while Missy stomps her feet in frustration at missing her opportunity to interview him.

 

• Match: I couldn’t access this show on the WCW Vault, and here’s why: Chris Benoit enters the ring to face off with 2 Cold Scorpio. Should I just put this bout on the Hidden Midcard Gems list now? It feels like I should. They get through a brief feeling-out process so that they can start unloading high-end offense as quickly as possible. Benoit lands a loud chop, shoots Scorp in, and is met with a springboard crossbody from the top, a dropkick, and a jumping back kick that sends him to the floor.

 

• Benoit considers how to respond to that series of warning shots, then re-enters the ring and tries a wristlock; he and Scorp exchange elaborate escapes and counters. I mean, this is the sort of match that I complain about, right? These men are working a match that is obviously, on a meta level, about how good they both are at doing elaborate pro wrestling spots. At least there’s still the veneer of legitimate competition on the kayfabe level, though. Also, this match is one of like seven on this show to be a clear showcase-style match, whereas in modern pro wrestling, the majority of matches feel like obvious showcases. I’m not hating on showcase-style matches, but if I’m getting fed a diet of them, I prefer them to be mostly squashes as opposed to mostly longer wrestling matches. This match stands out as a showcase match on this show, and I am wondrous at how the modern pro wrestling fan can watch a steady diet of competitive showcase matches and not get bored. That’s not a judgment at all, but merely an observation.

 

• Benoit isn’t only losing the aerial duel early; he’s also getting worked over on the mat. Scorp is really working this arm wringer into a hammerlock, constantly moving, maneuvering himself into position to leverage his weight and snap the elbow. Look at this guy work a fucking hold! Benoit finally gets back to a base and reverses the hold, but Scorp shoots Benoit in, flips into the air like a showboating porpoise, and scores a deep armdrag that sends Benoit right back out to the floor.

 

• This match is very aesthetically pleasing. You can be ostentatious about your athleticism if you work your match like a legitimate competition. Benoit shakes off the damage to his elbow, gets back in the ring, and trades bridge-ups on a Greco-Roman knuckle lock battle. If you wanted to know how much core strength these guys had, then please observe this ridiculous series of spots where they trade monkey flips while still locked at the knuckles before Scorp eventually lands on his feet out of a monkey flip and scores a dropkick.

 

• Benoit is getting worked by Scorp right now; Scorp uses his size to chickenwing Benoit and backslide him for two, and basically, Scorp is bigger than Benoit while also being just as fast and agile, so that makes sense. This is a bad matchup for Benoit in kayfabe. That’s the cool thing about Scorp; he’s theoretically a matchup problem for almost anyone he comes up against. Finally, Scorp telegraphs another jumping back kick. Benoit has seen that move before, and he ducks it and lays Scorp out with a short clothesline.

 

• Finally, Benoit is in control, but he’s un-Benoit-like in being lax to pour on the punishment. He wanders around, squawks at the crowd, and goes to a backbreaker which strategically is way too early, right? In fact, Scorp breaks the hold with a little tug of the hair, but Benoit…goes to a rear chinlock. Finally, we get some Benoit-like offense as Benoit pulls Scorp up and drapes him over the top rope with a front suplex before booting him to the floor.

 

• This match would be a ton better if Benoit’s offense were more dynamic. He goes back to a chinlock, and quite frankly, his work in this match has been so muted that I wonder if the road agent told him to let Scorp have most of the spotlight. He does hit a nice spinebuster and transition Scorp from that into a Lion Tamer, but he lets Scorp out and…goes back to a fucking chinlock. This Benoit control segment kinda stinks, actually. Benoit lets the hold go to perch Scorp up top for a super back suplex. Benoit gets it, but sells scrambling his own brains on the landing, and who knows if he didn’t actually scramble his brains considering the whole “family annihilation” he perpetrated on his wife and son. Every time Benoit hits his head, I feel like I think, Oh, that bump definitely took him one step closer to the precipice, which certainly colors his work even in the matches that I enjoy. I put a number of Benoit matches on my good lists for that Nitro Era watch through I did, but in probably all of them, I had a moment where I saw a head bump and thought, Oh yeah, that one pushed him closer to the edge. It’s a fucked up way to experience a Chris Benoit match, but it also feels like an honest way to experience and evaluate those matches, a good reminder that this guy ultimately destroyed himself in a way that not only hurt him, but the people around him, and therefore I need to limit how much I lose myself in any enjoyment of his matches even as I analyze them as being well-worked or engaging. 

 

• Benoit, whether his brains were kayfabe scrambled or not, manages to crawl over and cover, but Scorp has had time to recover and kicks out at two; Scorp then shifts his weight on a Benoit body slam attempt and falls onto Benoit for two. We’re running up on the time limit, so both guys pull out their best moves; Benoit gets two on a powerbomb before Scorp attempts to counter a second one with a sunset flip that spills them into the ropes. Benoit saves the spot by kicking Scorp in the head and getting back on the attack, but Scorp manages an enzuigiri. That gives Scorp the space to start running again; he scores a big corner splash and then places Benoit in position for a huge splash from the top that only gets 2.7. They reverse Irish whips on one another before Scorp tries a victory roll that Benoit stuffs with a face crusher. Benoit rushes to the top for a second-rope guillotine legdrop that only gets two. Gary Michael Capetta counts down to ten and then five seconds left in the bout; Benoit tries a German Suplex, but Scorp rolls through it and the ref counts the three just as Capetta counts out two seconds left in the bout. Benoit needed to be more aggressive in the middle of the bout during his heel control segment, but yeah, this was still good enough to get on a good list for me. And wow, a well-timed finish on the countdown. This show started off with two good finishes in two matches?! Do I even know you anymore, WCW?!?!

 

• Shill Shill Shill: Eric Bischoff is so fucking annoying. He begs viewers to call the 1-900 number and hear more of this Dustin Rhodes interview with Gordon Solie.

 

• Interview time [w/Eric Bischoff]: Eric Bischoff is still so fucking annoying. He interviews Maxx Payne. Payne’s like, Yo Eric, shut the fuck up and let me talk. Is Maxx Payne a mega-babyface now? Payne has named his guitar Norma Jean, and Payne claims that he and and N.J. have been conferring to come up with an appropriate song for Payne’s opponent Dustin Rhodes later tonight. Payne then plays Taps. I believe that this choice in tune signals that Payne is confident that he’s going to destroy Dustin tonight.

 

• Match: Wild Bill Irwin is in the ring to do a job to WCW’s latest, biggest signing (non-Ric Flair category): Davey Boy Smith. Tony S. says that WCW is soon embarkung upon on a tour to “Great Britain,” but then he mentions (the Republic of) Ireland, Northern Ireland, and Scotland. I think he meant “England” when he said “Great Britain,” so he was both correct that they’re going to Great Britain and incorrect in conflating Great Britain with England. And I guess based on what Tony listed off, someone in the WCW front office was like Fuck Wales, they don’t get any of our shows!

 

• Davey clotheslines Irwin over the top and to the floor, which Jesse claims could have been a DQ. Tony S. says that it’s only if you throw someone over the top and that a clothesline is a move that merely propels rather than throws, but I’m pretty certain that I’ve seen multiple WCW matches where a clothesline over the top resulted in a DQ. Man, that over-the-top-rope rule was dumb. Jesse then confuses Tony by claiming that Bulldog’s braids are reminiscent of a Rastafarian’s. Bulldog does a touch too much selling for Irwin in the middle of the bout, but Irwin is great at selling around the edges of his heel control segment. Bulldog eventually regains control of the bout and wins this slightly-too-extended squash with a running powerslam after catching a diving Irwin in mid-air.

 

• Hype package: Here’s a glimpse of the ooky, spooky White Castle of Fear!

 

• Interview time [w/Tony S.]: Bulldog, it’s not THE WCW. You and Bret both, man. You and Bret both. Davey Boy is here to “become the WORLD…CHAMPIONSHIP…HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION OF THE WORLD.” OK, bud, wind it down already. Bulldog is intensely interested in the Sting/Vader match later tonight and threatens to give Vader quite the beating at some indeterminate point in the future.

 

• Gab Gab Gab: Johnny B. Badd is excited to go on a tour of the UK and Republic of Ireland, but Missy wasn’t invited. She complains about this. Badd ignores her complaints and kicks it to…

 

• Interview time [w/Eric Bischoff]: …Paul Orndorff standing backstage and preparing to discuss his Falls Count Anywhere match against Cactus Jack. His stream of thought is immediately interrupted, however, by the sound of a giant shovel crashing against concrete. This sound signals trouble: Cactus walks right up and batters Orndorff with said shovel…

 

• Match: …which ends up leading to a massive fight that spills into the ringside area and officially starts the match. That was a cool way to start this bout! These fellas brawl with one another, using the shovel and cable cords as weapons, before Jack slams Orndorff on the concrete and then lands a running elbowdrop. Cactus covers, but only earns two. Cactus’s crazy ass hops up on the apron, then climbs to the second rope, and this FUCKING INSANE IDIOT hits a sunset flip onto the floor from there, and the thing about this move is that he overshoots Orndorff so that it doesn’t even look good. It sounds amazing, though! It sounds like 280 pounds of human meat hitting a concrete floor as though it were dropped from a crane!

 

• I was just talking about Benoit’s mental health not being helped by the head injuries that he routinely takes, and relatedly, I think that it’s a fucking miracle that Mick is still a coherent human being here in 2026 after all the wild shit that I’ve seen him do. What the fuck? That spot was actually not a good thing in the context of this match because all I have been able to think about for three minutes has been that move. The thing that gets me to stop thinking about it is Orndorff vertically suplexing Cactus over the guardrail and Cactus bumping forward onto his face. If ever a pro wrestler completely earned every goddam dollar that was coming to him in his contract, Cactus Jack in WCW is that wrestler.

 

• Orndorff looks like King Shit as he beats the ever-loving fuck out of Jack back up the aisle. He even takes time to attack Cactus’s brace-supported knee, giving this match a strategic flavor beyond “beat the shit out of one another with stuff.” Orndorff tries to suplex Cactus knee-first backward onto the post, misses, but goes right back to ripping at the knee anyway before locking on a Figure Four. Cactus manages to survive the hold, punching his way out of it, but Orndorff quickly clotheslines him to the floor and slams Jack’s kneecap right into the concrete once, then again. There’s a three- or four-year-old kid in the background, standing in the front row next to his sibling and his dad, and he stomps the ground insistently with each impact. That kid wants to see someone get their leg busted. Hell yeah.

 

• Now Orndorff clobbers Jack with the discarded knee brace. He tosses Jack into the ring, grabs a chair, and then slams it into Jack’s knee in a flurry of swings. Orndorff signals for a piledriver and cups his ear to the crowd like he’s Hulk Hogan, but during that time, Jack hobbles to his feet, grabs the shovel, and hammers Orndorff with it as Mr. Wonderful turns around. Jack covers, gets a three count from Randy Anderson, and escapes with a victory in a pretty gross match, man. Jack in ’92-’93 is an absolute fucking monster. He does everything up to eleven – offense, bumping, selling, all of it. You take the February ’92 – February ’93 calendar year, and even with the abdominal injury that slowed him down for a few weeks, I don’t think Cactus was ever better than he was that year. WCW really should have tried to run with him on top for at least a couple of months to see what they actually had with him.

 

• Gab Gab Gab: Bisch, Missy, and Badd do some more talking about matches to come and about Missy getting scoops on Ric Flair’s plans. Badd also does some brief analytical evaluation of Maxx Payne (SOOOO UGLY) and Dustin Rhodes (SECOND-GENERATION SUPERSTAR).

 

• Match: That match isn’t the next match, though. The next match pits the Heavenly Bodies (w/Jim Cornette) against the Rock ‘n Roll Express. No Jimmy Del Ray here; these Bodies are Dr. Tom Prichard, Sweet Stan Lane, and Beautiful Bobby Eaton. Prichard and Lane are dressed to wrestle. The refs pack Eaton to the back before the bout starts. I presume that this feud is hot in Smoky Mountain Wrestling and is getting some shine here in WCW. You know, I realize now that I don’t know much about why Cornette ended up leaving WCW and affiliating with the WWF, and I really should since Cornette never shuts the fuck up about anything and has a podcast with hours, days, months, years of content.

 

• This is a good match, but I’m drawing a direct comparison to the Bodies/Rock ‘n Rolls match from Survivor Series ’93 here, and in that direct comparison, this match isn’t as good. Stan Lane is not appreciably worse than Jimmy Del Ray. That Survivor Series match is just straight up better in every way. Again, it’s a good tag match, which is obvious as these teams are going to have a good match as a baseline. I think watching that match first gave me higher expectations for this one. Actually, Lane’s a very good tag worker, but I think Prichard and Del Ray have outstanding team chemistry, so maybe that is a more significant factor than I first suggested. That version of the Bodies were explosive every time they showed up in 1993/94 WWF. It’s too bad that Vince didn't care all that much about tag team wrestling because he could have led with that division in 1994. You have a division with the Steiners, the Bodies, the Headshrinkers, and the Quebecers as a baseline, and you’ve got a hell of a stew going. You add a solid team like the Smoking Gunns to that mix and your standard “huge dudes who are hard to knock down” team like Men on a Mission, and you could book a series of compelling tag feuds and some fierce jockeying for the tag titles. That company spent too much time floating the belts to Shawn Michaels and Diesel or Owen Hart and Yokozuna when they had the regular teams for an awesome tag division. I like Owen and Yoko as a “lil’ yappy technical guy and huge monster who bails the yappy lil’ technical guy out of trouble” duo well enough (and that goes for Michaels and Diesel too), but they were too dominant in that division for my taste.

 

• Anyway, that’s enough mid-‘90s WWF talk in my mid-‘90s WCW PPV review. In news that I'm sure will come as a shock to anyone reading this, Ricky Morton settles into a FIP role after a bunch of successful babyface shenanigans during the initial shine segment (shineanigans?). Yeah, I can confirm that part of the issue with this bout is that Del Ray and Prichard have dynamic tag team offense which isn’t replicated in the Lane and Prichard combination. Morton survives, gets a hot tag to Robert Gibson, and rolls to the apron while Gibson pops off. He and Morton manage a double-dropkick on Prichard, but Cornette distracts Gibson, which allows Prichard to hit him with a bulldog for two. Cornette next distracts the ref, who misses Prichard backdropping Gibson over the top rope (Propelling him? Or tossing him?). Anyway, Morton has Prichard in a pinning predicament, but Eaton rushes back out and climbs to the top rope while holding a tennis racket. He tries to slam it into the back of Morton’s head, but Morton senses the danger like Spider-Man, moves out of the way, and disposes of Eaton after Eaton drives it into Prichard instead. Morton covers again, and this time, the referee counts to three. Cornette and Lane have to hold Prichard back from fighting Eaton after the bout. This was solid, but not something anyone particularly needs to go out of their way to see.

 

• Hype package: Sting purveys the wicked women chilling out within the White Castle of Fear.

 

• Gab Gab Gab: Jesse unconvincingly calls this one of the most stacked cards that he’s ever stood witness to before he goes into discussing the United States Championship bout, but this is a pretty solid card so far!

 

• Match: Maxx Payne is the contender to Dustin Rhodes’s WCW United States Championship. Rhodes decides to try and end things early with a flurry of fists. Payne bails, but is met with a knee as he gets back into the ring. Rhodes keeps up the flurry, and Payne bails a couple more times; commentary does a great job of stressing that while Rhodes didn’t have time to prep for Payne, Payne also didn’t have time to prep for Rhodes and is maybe taken aback at Rhodes’s early aggressiveness.

 

• Payne can’t get quite right; he tries to reverse an arm wringer, but gets hiptossed into the ropes on a poorly-spaced reversal. Rhodes jumps right back on the arm while commentary makes this match more interesting in talking about Payne being less aggressive than normal and opining on this being his first big singles title shot. Payne continues to fight out of the armbar before getting caught and countered right back into the armbar. Payne’s wrestling outfit is terrible. He’s in a black tank and short tights that look like bicycle shorts. Someone needed to get this guy some better gear. The tank is unflattering as hell, too. I love me some tubby wrestlers, but you gotta have the gear to accentuate the positives about your body shape, you know? I suppose that’s true for every body type, however.

 

• Dustin continues to dominate until Payne manages to assert himself in the bout by reversing an Irish whip; he uses the reversal to hyperextend Dustin’s arm and slam Dustin face first into the mat rather than shoot him into the opposite corner. Payne’s got an arm-focused submission, so now he spends a lot of time attacking Dustin’s arm. Son of Dust escapes with a headscissors initially, but Payne continues his assault and eventually finds himself on the floor, where he uses the ropes as leverage to continue working over Dustin’s arm.

 

• This match is pretty dull! Payne is serviceable, but he found his place working garbage matches and tagging up with a more talented partner. Dustin is fine, but this isn’t his best work. He eventually makes a comeback and lands a flying clothesline, then a vertical suplex for two. Dustin follows up with an abdominal stretch which Payne breaks by grabbing the ref and pulling him forward into Dustin. That draws a DQ. This match stunk. Payne embarks upon a slow beatdown of Dustin after the match, but Dustin fights out of it with a shot to the post and a back rake. It’s okay, we don’t need a whole sequence where they fight after the match is over. Finally, Dustin scores a dropkick that sends Payne to the floor to end this crappy little segment.

 

• Hype package: Sting and Vader come face-to-face in the White Castle of Fear. I get less hyped for that match with each of these vignettes.

 

• Gab Gab Gab: Bisch, Missy, and Badd hype more fresh news about Ric Flair and some sort of surprise that Missy has prepared before we cut back to the ring.

 

• Interview time [w/ Tony S.]: Ric Flair makes a return to WCW that apparently didn’t do much for business after it happened, which was a surprise after I learned the attendance and ratings numbers immediately upon his return didn’t really move. Flair is going to hang out on commentary and watch the upcoming Great Muta/Barry Windham NWA World Championship Match.

 

• Match: The ghost of Bill Watts’s booking emphasis lingers here in this match between Barry Windham and the NWA World Champion Great Muta, but what’s more interesting than that particular matchup is the reality of a Flair/Ventura color pairing. Muta lifted the gold from Chono in Japan in a match that as I recall, many people think totally fucking ruled, so maybe I’ll watch that match or the show that it’s from and write about it sometime in the near-ish future. The Starrcade ’92 match between them sucked, but I’m open to a vast improvement in that pairing and their work. Tony S. notes that Muta beat Windham to win the Battlebowl ring back at that very same Starrcade ’92 show, so there is a ton of follow-up to the goings-on at Starrcade in this match. That gives it a bit of intrigue, but I’m not exactly expecting much out of this pairing in 1993.

 

• Muta wins the initial feeling out process, hitting bursts of nice-looking offense in between long side headlocks. Flair: “I better call [Jesse] MAYOR Ventura!” Jesse: “Soon to be SENATOR!” What if instead of Al Franken, Jesse Ventura? Can you imagine? The future of the United States couldn’t have been dumber than it is now. Anyway, do you like side headlocks? I sure hope so! The offensive exchanges between the side headlocks is crisp as hell on both men’s parts, though, as you might expect.

 

• I mean, they work the first thirty percent of this match around Muta doggedly trying to maintain the side headlock! It’s okay, I suppose? It’s not the most scintillating approach to a match, but whatever. Windham gets control and then does a long sleeper spot. I really don’t have much to say about this match. It exists as a reason to move the belt onto Barry Windham so that he can job it to someone else like Ric Flair or Sting or whomever. Hold on, let me check. Yeah, Windham transitions it to Flair, but what is more interesting to me is that the whole show with Muta/Chono for the NWA World Championship from Japan, Fantastic Story in the Tokyo Dome, is available online. It’s a joint WCW/New Japan show and it falls within the purview of this look at Watts-era WCW, so I guess we’ll jump back in time after this show is over and watch that show together. I mean, we’d watch asynchronously since I’m going to write about it and then if you read that post and decide to watch the show, you’ll be watching at a different time than I did. But you know, we’ll watch together in spirit.

 

• I’ve zoned out on this match. What if I just told you two things: a) not to bother spending any of your time watching it, and b) some more about the finish? Yeah, let’s go with that. Muta tries a moonsault and misses. Muta tries another moonsault and misses again. Windham tries a double-arm DDT and doesn’t miss; in fact, that move earns him a pinfall and the title. This match wasn’t bad on any level, but boy did it bore me to death. Ric Flair hands the big gold belt over to Windham and wraps it around his waist, but Windham knows that Flair knows that Windham knows that Flair is coming for the title and backs away. Flair smirks and exits the ring, obviously running through as many scenarios as he can to figure out how to get a shot at Windham’s title.

 

• Hype package: Sting and Vader grab a opposite ends of a strap laying in the White Castle of Fear and then there’s an explosion. Thank goodness that these vignettes are over for the night!

 

• Gab Gab Gab: Bisch, Missy, and Badd briefly discuss the Vader/Sting Matchup.

 

• Match: It’s time for the *deep breath* White Castle of Fear Lights Out Leather Strap Match, our unsanctioned main event between Vader (w/Harley Race) and Sting. The problem with this match, even though it properly escalates the stips, is that it follows a Vader/Sting bout at Starrcade ’92 that is arguably the greatest match that WCW ever put on. Note: This is supposedly a Lights Out match, but just as with the Sting/Jake Roberts match at Havoc ’92, they didn’t bring down the lights before the match or run credits or anything. I still want to know if Tony S. and Jesse Ventura get kayfabe paid to commentate on this match since it isn’t sanctioned by WCW. We do get a dinky “non-sanctioned by WCW” graphic as the two men face off in the ring, but that’s not enough, dammit! Aesthetics matter! Make me believe that WCW didn’t sanction this bout!

 

• This show had quite a lot of energy as it started, but as match after match has happened, that energy has slowly dissipated. Now we’re here at the main event, and this match should have way more heat with me than it does. Playing those vignettes in slices throughout actually hurt the hype because the vignettes undercut what was a well-built real-sports-feeling rivalry between the two. I also think that this match was somewhat hurt by Cactus Jack vs. Paul Orndorff. That match felt so dangerous and violent that Vader yanking Sting around by the strap simply doesn’t escalate the sense of danger that this specifically unsanctioned match should have. Besides that, Vader projects so much danger without any weapons that I don’t think the strap makes him feel more dangerous, which is both a compliment to him and an unfortunate detriment to the danger of this particular match feeling amplified

 

• All of these things are unfair to the competitors in the ring and the work they are doing, which is good! Sting, much like Cactus, had an absurd ‘92/’93. You give Sting that same calendar year from February to February, and it’s not even fucking close – that was the best Sting ever was in the ring for a single unbroken twelve-month period. Even the Roberts match from Havoc is fine despite that crappy finish. Sting fires back, yanks the strap against Vader’s balls, hits a couple of top rope splashes, and then returns some strap shots that Vader gave him to start the match. This crowd is hot for Sting’s offense.

 

• Harley senses trouble and gets on the apron, but Sting fires off and straps him in the mug. Vader rolls outside the ring; Harley checks on him. Sting, meanwhile, ponders his next move and chooses to slide outside on the other side of the ring post before yanking Vader forward with the strap and posting Vader’s shoulder. Sting slams Vader on the concrete and then starts touching posts outside the ring, which sure, that should be legal in this no-rules match, right? Sting gets two before Vader manages to plant his boots into the protective mats and then yanks Sting into the guardrail. Vader is bleeding down his back because of the strap shots, and I’m looking at this match and thinking that for everything it has going against it, it’s still pretty fucking cool. In isolation, this is another classic between these two wrestlers. I want to give it the respect that it deserves.

 

• Both men crawl back into the ring; Vader repels a couple of Sting charges and attempts a powerbomb, but Sting backdrops Vader out of the move and attempts a top-rope splash that Vader manages to evade. Sting doesn’t move out of the way of Vader’s running splash, however.  Vader reels off offense - Samoan Drop, Vader Bomb – and then goes back to swinging the strap into Sting’s back. Vader continues to unload bombs. He scores a second-rope Samoan Drop and finally decides to try and win the match. Vader gets two corners before Sting breaks his progress with a kick that stumbles the big man. Vader attempts another Vader Bomb, but Sting rolls out of the way. Vader is up first, Sting is beaten so badly, and he takes time untangling the strap before going up top, which gives Sting time to get up, yank the strap, and crotch Vader. Another yank, and Vader plummets to the mat.

 

• Vader still recovers first and tosses forearms and fists into Sting’s mush. Sting, however, fires back with wild rights, though that isn’t enough to keep Vader from superplexing him. Vader takes his tour around the ring, tapping on three corner pads, but Sting hooks the bottom rope with his legs to stop Vader from touching the fourth corner pad and winning the match; Sting then kicks off the rope and clocks Vader in the head, once again breaking Vader’s progress.

 

• The big man projects frustration; he traps Sting in the corner and throws a series of closed fists at him. Nick Patrick is all like NO CLOSED FISTS for some fucking reason in this Lights Out, extremely unsanctioned match. Jesse rightly points out that Patrick should fuck off until it’s time to count turnbuckle touches. Anyway, Vader yanks Sting out of the corner with the strap, but Sting flips into a wheel kick to stumble his opponent, then fends off another wave of Vader attacks and lands a release German.

 

• Sting rains blows upon Vader’s noggin in the corner, then sells that he used all of his adrenaline rush to do so by stumbling backwards onto the mat. That’s a really nice touch on the Stinger’s part. Sting hoists Vader over his shoulder, and Vader’s boot hits Patrick in the face, so you can guess where this finish is headed, can' you? Sting actually hoists Vader over his shoulder while touching all three corners - impressive strength! - but as he makes his way to the fourth corner, Harley yanks the downed Patrick’s leg into Sting’s path. Sting trips over Patrick; Vader gets up and lands a springboard sitout splash on Sting, then wraps the strap around Sting’s right leg and uses it as a pulley to yank Sting around the ring, touching one, then two, then three corners. Sting grabs the ropes and tries to hold Vader off, but after Sting kicks Vader, which as you should note has BROKEN the count in every instance during this match, the momentum of the kick sends Vader into the fourth corner, an instance which somehow does not break the count and ends the match even though that kick was functionally no different from any of the other kicks that Sting used to kill the count when Vader had him in trouble. I guess WCW used up all its good finishes for all of 1993 in the first two matches of this show.

 

• This match was good despite the finish, but all the things working against it – the bad vignettes that led into it, having to follow up on the greatness of their King of Cable final, Cactus/Orndorff being violent enough (without a drop of blood!) that this match had to find another gear or two to surpass it, and the dogshit finish – mean that it probably doesn’t get enough credit for being very good. I’ll give it that credit here, but it exists both as A Very Good Match and also A Strangely Somewhat Disappointing Affair.

 

• Interview time [w/Eric Bischoff]: After Missy Hyatt and Johnny B. Badd rush off to attend a party somewhere in the area, Bisch interviews the new NWA World Heavyweight Champion Barry Windham. Windham says the word “championship” like six times in three or four sentences. Nothing of note is otherwise uttered.

 

• Gab Gab Gab: Jesse and Tony see us off after a short recap of the main event.

 

• Whereas Kip Frye shows tended to be super-bland and boring until the point at which a crazy-awesome main or semi-main happened, these Watts (and Watts-influenced, as this show is credited to Ole Anderson though Watts built toward most of it) shows tend to be pretty good until a dip somewhere in the proceedings that leads to a lackluster main event. This Sting/Vader bout was the best main event of any proper Watt show. Sting/Vader was also the best semi-main of the Watt shows. Honestly, in a strange way, Watts’s WCW is reminiscent of some of the Bischoff/Nitro-Era WCW shows that had good-to-great undercards and underwhelming mains and semi-mains. Watts never quite pulled off a card as exemplary of this type of booking as Bash at the Beach ’98 was, but for his WCW tenure, he was certainly sketching on the same pad. 2.75 Digital Snowflakes out of 5.

[Stefanie Sparkleface]

10 minutes ago, SirSmUgly said:

And I guess based on what Tony listed off, someone in the WCW front office was like Fuck Wales, they don’t get any of our shows!

I now want to hear Tony Schiavone attempt to pronounce Welsh town names. Thank you for that.

10 minutes ago, SirSmUgly said:

The thing that gets me to stop thinking about it is Orndorff vertically suplexing Cactus over the guardrail and Cactus bumping forward onto his face. If ever a pro wrestler completely earned every goddam dollar that was coming to him in his contract, Cactus Jack in WCW is that wrestler.

The wild thing is that him double somersaulting over the set of guardrails in that match (context for those who have never seen it) is visually spectacular but somehow safer than the suplex, and yet that nutball did both spots.

[zendragon]

I maintain that Jesse is GOAT color announcer in wrestling

Tony should have used the term British Isles for the UK and Ireland 

How much money did WCW spend on those mini-movies to promote PPVS that probably lost money overall?

You can see why they turned to Bischoff and his cost cutting.

I know Cornette and Stan Lane left in 90 due to creative and financial disagreements with Jim Herd. I don't know if there was ever a long term plan to have himsticka round with the SMW stuff in 93

[SirSmUgly]

NJPW/WCW Fantastic Story in Tokyo Dome (4 January 1993):

A show in which my deep cultural ignorance of Japanese wrestling tropes is exposed

• COME ALONG AND RIDE ON A FANTASTIC VOYAGE STORY

 

• It’s nice to see that Bill Watts didn’t completely destroy the relationship between New Japan and WCW because he just had to bring in Doc and Gordy, isn’t it?

 

• Hype package: We get a two-minute video of New Japan production techs setting up the Tokyo Dome for the show to some nice synth. Strangely, this combination of elements puts me in the mood to watch a pro wrestling show. Hype: Achieved! However, I take a quick look at this version and it seems that the matches are out of order and maybe one is missing, so I switch over to the other version which is the home video release and has the full show (mostly) in the order that it originally happened according to Wikipedia. The home video release opening hype package has all sorts of wrestlers doing dope moves. Hype: Maintained!

 

• Hype package: Antonio Inoki leads the New Japan contingent to the ring. Some remarks are made. If I could go back in time and start over from about the age of four with the basic knowledge that I have now, I’d creep adults out by talking quite eerily like an adult with life experience even though I were only four. I would also make sure to learn Japanese and at least one other language. As it is, I only understood the words ichi, ni, and san.

 

• I’ve got the Japanese commentary team, which means that I don’t have to subject myself to Kevin Kelly. I take the wins as I get them. Anyway, I’m watching these in the order of this commercial release that I settled upon.

 

• Match: There’s a New Japan vs. WAR match challenge match on for the opener, a trios tag match pitting New Japan’s Takayuki Iizuka, Akira Nogami, and El Samurai against WAR’s Nobukazu Hirai, Koki Kitahara, and Masao Orihara. As someone who has seen most of the important New Japan matches of this era, but who has not watched this stuff even remotely extensively…and as someone who has only watched the most random of WAR trios tags…please have patience with me as I attempt to analyze something with which I have limited experience.

 

• Orihara and Samurai start us off. We get a feeling out process complete with a Greco-Roman knuckle lock and a test of strength. Things pick up quickly; Samurai sticks Orihara with a sweet dropkick right to the jaw. Yuck, that looked great. Orihara bails to get some space and to bait Samurai into walking over, which is when he springboards on top of him and lands a series of offensive moves that spill Samurai to the floor, where Orihara attempts to backflip onto Samurai. Samurai scuttles away, but Orihara lands his feet, points at Samurai, talks mad shit, and looks like a fuckin’ boss after that sequence, I have to say.

 

• Both men reset in the ring, circle one another, and shoot for each other’s legs, but Samurai wins that challenge and tags out. Can I say that the transformation from good-looking young Iizuka with a full head of hair to old man Iizuka with the bald head and the beard, the latter looking like an old dude who juices, lifts, and then goes to the beach to pick fights with dudes three decades younger than he is to reassure himself that he’s still got it, is one of the wildest physical transformations that I’ve ever seen in my life?

 

• Anyway, Iizuka slams Orihara in Orihara’s own corner and then gestures that he would like Orihara to tag Kitahara. This is clearly a meaningful matchup based on the crowd’s low rumble of anticipation. Iizuka plows over Kitahara with a shoulderblock, then works out of a side headlock and attempts a hammerlock; Kitahara yanks hair to escape it and throws an ineffectual kick at Iizuka. Iizuka shakes it off and manages a hammerlock; both men scrap for position, and that ends with Iizuka backed into the WAR corner, where Orihara tags in and chops him until he’s had quite enough of that shit and fires back, pushing Orihara back into the New Japan tag team where Iizuka tags in Nogami; they illegally double up to attack Orihara’s leg, which Nogami continues to work as he keeps Orihara trapped on the wrong side of the ring.

 

• Team New Japan makes a series of quick tags as they combine to systematically dismantle Orihara’s knee. Iizuka ends up back in the ring, and he sinks in a deep single-leg crab that is only broken when Kitahara illegally enters the ring to knock him away. Iizuka shoots an irritated look at Kitahara, then casually tags out to Nogami so that he can sink in a single-leg. Kitahara illegally breaks that up, and the match immediately breaks down into chaos as Nogami fights the illegal WAR wrestlers while Samurai and Iizuka wisely drag Orihara back to unfriendly space and continue trying to rip his leg out of joint.

 

• This is a pretty energetic opener. Anyway, Orihara finally escapes Samurai’s grasp and tags out to Hirai as the action basically teeters back and forth between the teams, each of whom are working quite hard to isolate their opponent and keep them trapped in Opposite Corner Hell. Iizuka is doing cool shit like single leg crabs and dropkicks and Sharpshooters. To my eye, the New Japan guys look like the kayfabe better team, mostly because they are better at making quick tags and isolating their opponents, who tend to take long beatings in the ring before managing to tag out.

 

• Samurai hits a jumping piledriver, then a Tombstone, then a diving headbutt all in a row on Orihara, who fucking kicks out at 2.7. Man, fuck off with all that. That just makes Samurai look like a baby-damage bitch, you know what I’m saying? I don’t believe in his ability to win this match anymore. Tag in Iizuka, stupid. I bet his moves actually hurt the opponent [Editor’s note: They do, both in kayfabe and as a shoot!]. In fact, Iizuka ends up in the ring and gets two on a powerbomb that he delivers to Orihara, who seems, uh, like he might have been knocked out on the landing. He’s either great at being dead weight, or he went out like a light legitimately when his head hit the mat on that powerbomb. Yeah, I think he’s legitimately out. The match breaks down as everyone else wrestles around the prone Orihara until finally Iizuka covers him for three and he groggily tries to kick out as he was supposed to a whole minute ago when he was too unconscious to do so. That powerbomb legit cooked him, the poor bastard. Upon replay, you could see his head double-bounce off the mat. This bout kept my attention, that’s for sure. I wouldn’t call it preferred or even essential viewing, but it was a decent opener.

 

• Match: So, this match on the commercial release doesn’t match the order it apparently happened on the Wikipedia page for this event, but whatever. It’s Dustin Rhodes and Scott Norton tagging together against Masa Saito and Shinya Hashimoto. This seems like a matchup that has a fairly high baseline of quality built in. I’m assuming that Norton and Saito just chop the shit out of each other as hard as they possibly can at some point.

 

• Norton challenges Hashimoto to kick him in his barrel chest. Hashimoto does it once, twice, and thrice. Nothing. Hashimoto backs up, gets some momentum, and thrusts himself forward with a huge kick. Norton ducks it, hits him with a lariat, and then embarks upon a series of shoulderblocks that only stop when Hashimoto reverses a whip and back body drops him. Then Norton and Hashimoto chop the shit out of each other as hard as they can. We’re zeroing in on my pre-match prediction!

 

• Norton tags Rhodes in; he and Hashimoto trade blows that end with Hashimoto back in his own corner; Saito tags in and immediately starts with the chops. Rhodes fires back with a series of elbows and a vertical suplex. Dustin gets two on a lateral press, but when he follows up with a crossbody attempt on Saito as Saito leans against the ropes, Saito ducks and Rhodes rolls down the raised ramp.

 

• Back in the ring, after an ugly Saito back body drop, Rhodes and Saito just chop the shit out of each other as hard as they possibly can. Getting closer! Norton then tags in so that I can see the matchup that I really wanted to see. There is top-level clubbering between the two. Norton throws a front kick, which is highly unnecessary. More lariats, clotheslines, and short forearms, please!

 

• Norton chops the shit out of Saito, but it just seems to wake Saito up, and eventually, Saito ducks a lariat and scores a belly-to-back suplex on first Norton and then a charging Rhodes. Rhodes does distract Saito enough that Norton recovers and jumps him, then tags in Dustin. Saito tags Hashimoto back in soon after, and Hashimoto goes to work on Rhodes, landing a series of moves culminating in a jumping elbowdrop for two.

 

• Dustin fights back with elbows and a big ol’ Dusty Rhodes-style windup punch for two, then hooks on a chinlock and transitions into an arm wringer that he controls Hashimoto with as he tags Norton back in. This match is okay so far, but there’s not really a flow to it that works for me.

 

• Hashimoto is deeply in trouble for this next segment of the match; he’s event tossed into the guardrail outside the ring at one point. Dustin catches him as he re-enters the ring and drops him with a DDT, then tags in Norton, who scores a floatover powerslam that may well have ended the match if Saito didn’t breakup the pinfall attempt. Norton powerbombs Hashimoto and covers, and Saito once again saves. This crowd seems piqued by these moves, and then a very typical hot tag happens when Hashimoto avoids a Norton corner charge and hits a DDT, then tags in a very fired up Saito. Saito hits two belly-to-back suplexes on Norton, but Dustin breaks up the cover; Norton manages to respond with a floatover powerslam on Saito, but Hashimoto breaks up the cover.

 

• Dustin sure seems like the kayfabe weak link in this matchup, and when he tags in, he soon enough loses control of the match after Saito belly-to-backs him, though he regains control of the match when he dropkicks Hashimoto after Hashimoto tags in, but then loses control of the match again on a missed corner charge. Hashimoto scores a number of kicks and then a lariat that Dustin flip bumps nicely for. The match breaks down; Saito and Norton spill outside the ring, and Norton is just back into the ring in time to save Dustin after Hashimoto DDTs him and covers. Alas, he can’t save Dustin from Hashimoto’s Ghetto Blaster (that’s what I’m calling it instead of a jumping hook kick or whatever its technical name is, and also, is anyone using the Ghetto Blaster as a finish right now in one of the major companies because it rules and would be a more interesting kick-based finisher than a superkick at this point). Hashimoto covers and Saito cuts Norton off before Norton can break up the three count. This match was, much like the first one, perfectly fine. It certainly did hit the baseline of quality that was inherent in the talent of its workers, but it didn’t go much past that baseline.

 

• Match: It’s the Stinger! He’s wrestling our first singles match on this tape against Hiroshi Hase. I’m getting the sense that as in the previous match, pretty much all of these matches are going to be solid at the very least. Sting’s swank baby blue-and-white getup is rivaled by Hase’s awesome letterman’s jacket. As a full package, Hase looks like a high school jock who would eventually successfully run for office. Hey, the man lives his gimmick.

 

• Sting in Japan is always fun. You know how people talk about Hulk Hogan in Japan as some fundamentally different and more interesting wrestler? That’s actually true of Sting more so than Hogan. Sting is still Sting in these New Japan shows, but it strikes me that he wrestles a bit meaner, more like a bully athlete a lot of the time. Right now, he’s military pressing Hase over his head, which is rad as hell.

 

• Maybe I’m misremembering the conversation around Sting from a decade ago, but I feel that there was a lot of talk about how he was neither a draw nor a good enough worker to really be considered a legit WON Hall of Famer. First of all, I don’t hold the WON HoF in particular regard so this isn't that big a deal, but second of all, even if you think that 1996/1997 Sting’s draw on top is really more down to the nWo or whatever, how is1991 – 1994 Sting not good enough on his in-ring to merit consideration along with him being a top guy in WCW for a decade? And that's before you then include all the other good stuff he had post Surfer Sting and also credit him for his longevity and generally strong baseline of quality for three decades. I feel like that talk about Sting not actually being on that upper echelon of American workers, if I’m not misremembering it or misrepresenting it, was actually pretty ridiculous.

 

• I should be talking about this match more, which is fun. Hase stops trying to match power with Sting and starts trying to destroy his back and knees. He swivels his hips like Rick Rude while holding Sting in an Indian Deathlock and then uses a series of kneebreakers, Boston Crabs of both the regular and single-leg type, and other such maneuvers to try and get a submission or at least stop Sting from being both incredibly strong and incredibly mobile.

 

• The mistake Hase makes is standing Sting back up and chopping away at him in the corner. Sting on his feet is a problem for Hase; he chops his way out of trouble and scores a vertical suplex. Hase gets away with giving Sting the opening because Sting sells that his injured knee goes out on a simple Irish whip; Hase quickly slips inside Sting, lands a side Russian, and then presses Sting neck-first over the ropes before scoring a swinging neckbreaker for two. Hase follows up with a piledriver – he slowly turns to three sides of the ring, presenting Sting to the crowd before the point of impact – and a top-rope kneedrop for a two count.

 

• Hase has gone away from attacking the knee; it secured control of the match for him, so now he’s looking to put Sting away before the Stinger can get another opening. Hase’s sleeper attempt doesn’t work, so he rolls Sting to the floor and uses the guardrail as leverage as he peppers the Stinger with elbows to the sternum. Back in the ring, Hase scores a Side Salto, then another, but he only covers for two more. Hase’s unloading the clip; he quickly bridges over on a German Suplex for two more. Hase, perturbed at Sting’s persistence, attempts a full nelson, but Sting breaks it by rushing forward and diving through the ropes. In trouble, Sting slams Hase on the floor, rolls into the ring to break the count, and then rolls back out and clubbers Hase against the guardrail before pressing him right on top of it to get some revenge for Hase’s use of the guardrail earlier.

 

• This is a pretty good bout. Hase is trading on the knee work he did early; Sting seems a bit desperate to get anything going. Hase counters a Sting dive with a knee to the guy, but then he makes the mistake of chopping him in the corner. That revives Sting, who lands a running elbow out of corner charge and two face crushers for two. Sting then goes for a backbreaker, but Hase reverses it into a Northern Lights. Sting bridges out of that, then flips out of Hase’s grasp and hits a desperation springboard back splash as Hase charges at him in the corner. That only gets two, as does Sting’s bridging German. Pretty much, this match is between two elite athletes who are throwing bombs or, as Hase does here, trying to escape by cheating. Hase does so by grabbing Sting’s tights on a roll through for two. He tries another Side Salto on Sting to counter a Sting lariat, but Sting elbows out, hits a running, jumping DDT, and then slams Hase in place for a top-rope splash that earns him a hard-won three count. That was good enough to be a Hidden Midcard Gem for me, but I am partial to both Sting and Hase, the latter of whom also entertains me whenever I come across his matches.

 

• Gab Gab Gab: At the post-match press conference, Sting says that he’d like to work tag matches specifically with the Great Muta and maybe even with Hase, but especially with Muta. They should have done that tag team in 2000 WCW, dammit! I know that Vampiro and Muta have history, but no! Sting and Muta as a team would have been great! Dammit, Russo.

 

• Match: It’s pretty cool to have WCW, New Japan, and WAR wrestlers all on the same show. The old veteran Tatsumi Fujinami represents New Japan against WAR’s Takashi Ishikawa. Fujinami fires off with fists even before the bell, then hits a dropkick and a fucking suicide dive as the crowd pops. He raises his fist and the look on his face tells me that he’s about had it with Ishikawa, so I wish I knew anything about the angle they’ve been working leading up to this show. I mean, the crowd is fucking HOT for this, and they have a low OHHH of what sounds like disapproval when Ishikawa fights back and springboard crossbody blocks Fujinami on the floor.

 

• This match is good so far! It’s full of energy. Ishikawa boot wipes the bridge of Fujinami’s nose to add an extra bit of meanness to the proceedings, then pops on a chinlock so that the crowd can spend some energy trying to will Fujinami back to standing. Fujinami manages this, but eats a shoulderblock and then a running elbow. The strikes in this match are very good. Fujinami looked like he was about to pop on a Shinonomake before Ishikawa avoided it and hit that elbow, by the way. The crowd was looking for it. Not yet, folks.

 

• Ishikawa tries another chinlock, but Fujinami summarily escapes only for Ishikawa to try a Dragon Sleeper that Fujinami blocks; since Ishikawa can’t sink it in, he goes back to the rear chinlock. More strikes, fellas. I get the point, though. This crowd is going to explode when Fujinami finally evades all these chinlocks and unloads the offense.

 

• Fujinami keeps getting cut off. This time, he escapes, runs the ropes, and tries a crossbody that Ishikawa catches and turns into a ribbreaker. Fujinami rolls outside and recovers – no pursuit from Ishikawa – and then gets back in the ring and is caught in a front facelock that he soon spins out of while catching Ishikawa’s arm and trying to lock on a cross-arm breaker. They struggle over the hold, and Fujinami can’t fully extend Ishikawa’s arm. Ishikawa almost turns Fujinami all the way onto his front, but Fujinami blocks that and holds the arm in a keylock of sorts.

 

• This is a strange match. The fiery opening was great, and this mat struggle is great, and Ishikawa hanging on and stuffing Fujinami is great, but then other parts of this feel slow or like they don’t quite fit with those really good parts for me. Fujinami just getting a chance to recover outside the ring doesn’t seem like a thing Ishikawa would allow, for example. I also think that three separate chinlock spots probably were a bit too samey even if I get that Fujinami had to work out of them.

 

• Still, there’s something oddly compelling about this match to me. Fujinami keeps firing up and landing kicks or whatever, and that is fun, and Ishikawa keeps cutting off Fujinami’s comebacks in compelling ways. Also, they keep escaping one another’s killer submission attempts, which signals to me that at some point, if  one of these guys gets caught, they’re fucked. Fujinami has been trying to sink in a Dragon Sleeper all match, and he was denied twice, but now, as he hits a series of kicks and finally locks it in fully, Ishikawa has no choice but to submit. That match didn’t quite work as well as it could have – all the moving parts didn’t move together for me exactly right – but it was pretty fucking good despite that and counts as a midcard gem in my book. I wish Ishikawa were meaner, though. That and maybe switching up the weird middle part where Fujiwara just recovered outside the ring without having to do anything to earn that recovery space would have improved it? I don’t know. Maybe I just don’t understand the house style.

 

• Gab Gab Gab: I don’t understand Japanese and there are no English subtitles on this post-match press conference interview with Tatsumi Fujinami, but he’s probably talking about how sick his submission game is or something like that. If so, his self-assessment wouldn’t be wrong!

 

• Match: Ah, here is the match that I most wanted to see: Masahiro Chono puts his NWA World Championship on the line in a double title match against the Great Muta’s IWGP Championship. I found their Starrcade ’92 match for the NWA title boring and had particular complaints about the match being overlong and full of low-struggle matwork to nowhere. Someone just posted somewhere on this site (or maybe in the semi-associated Discord) Dave Meltzer’s star ratings for both the Starrcade match and this one, and there was a massive spike in rating for this bout. Now, I don’t appreciate Meltzer’s taste in wrestling much at all, but I still expect, based on both that rating and more widely seeing other people on this site say that Chono in Japan against Rude and Muta is far, far better than Chono in the United States against Rude and Muta, that this match will at least be pretty solid.

 

• Chono proffers his hand before the bout. Muta shakes it and wishes his opponent good luck. Oops, no, I got that all mixed up. What I meant to write is that Muta looks askance at Chono’s hand and then spits poison mist into the air as both a rejection of said handshake and also a warning about potentially getting poison mist sprayed into his eyes. Both men lock up and trade holds; Muta escapes a hammerlock by hitting a mule kick sort of dropkick to Chono’s abdomen.

 

• We get more hold-trading; Muta bails to the floor and takes a peek under the ring apron after kicking away from a headscissors, but he doesn’t grab anything. It could be a Chekhov’s Gun, or it could simply be Muta acting like Muta, i.e. in his sometimes strangely unnerving manner that throws lesser opponents off their games. Anyway, Muta might need to win the mind games battle because Chono is both stronger and more successful on the mat; he wins another exchange with a Yakuza Kick that sends Muta to the floor. Muta looks under another part of the ring apron and comes up with a metal wrench of the type which tightens lugnuts. He wanders around while holding it, thinks about using it to dent Chono’s forehead, but instead puts it down and eventually tries to wrap Chono in a short-arm scissors.

 

• Chono works out of that hold – he’s superior on the mat in the telling of this story – and he bars Muta’s knee before getting to his feet and stomping at it. Chono backs off so that he can enter a Greco-Roman knuckle lock with Muta that he easily wins; he trips Muta and bars the knee again. Chono is certainly more active in these holds than he was at Starrcade, and there seems to be more of a logic here in his attack – he’s torturing Muta’s moonsault-destroyed knees – but it’s not exactly compelling stuff.

 

• Anyway, Chono sort of lets Muta go; Muta gets to his feet, sticks the point of his boot into Chono’s gut as they face off, and tosses him outside to work him over before putting him back in the ring and coming off the top rope with a chop. So, this match has a clearer throughline: Chono is both physically stronger and able to outwork Muta on the mat, so Muta will depend on mind games and walking the line between legal and illegal tactics. He flings Chono onto the raised ramp, hits him with a facecrusher, and then backs way the hell up, about fifteen yards down the ramp, and takes off running at Chono, who gets to his feet in time to be met with a clothesline.

 

• Yeah, there’s certainly more action in this match. I don’t think it’s particularly good, but this is at least somewhat more interesting than the Starrcade bout. Muta wrestled thrice on that show, so I get that he had to preserve himself a bit, but he was still entertaining in his tag match, at least. He’s certainly much more active in this bout against Chono; back in control, he hits a German Suplex with a bridge for two in the ring, then scores a handspring elbow and quickly springs up top for a moonsault that Chono dodges. Chono leaps on the mistake and wraps Muta in an STF, but Muta survives the initial application and squirms to the ropes to break it.

 

• Chono scores a front kick, but Muta responds with a dropkick. This happens again, then once more. Chono slaps the mat in frustration, selling that he’s annoyed that Muta won’t stop fighting back. Then he tries another front kick out of pure stubbornness; Muta responds with another dropkick. OK, I get what they’re going for here, and it works because on the fifth front kick, Muta can’t respond, and Chono follows up with another kick that knocks Muta through the ropes and to the ramp. Clearly something has been lost in translation here because that series of spots makes perfect sense to me if right before it, Chono is dominating Muta but cannot get him to stay down for three. It makes less sense to me after Chono was getting his ass kicked and basically managed a flash STF to dig his way out of trouble. I would find this series more effective if it came after five or seven minutes of straight Chono domination. That’s me, though, and I am aware that maybe my Americanness is the reason that I feel this way.

 

• And they certainly build off Chono displaying deep frustration that Muta won’t stay down; Muta reverses a suplex that Chono tries to follow up with and suplexes Chono onto the ramp. Muta’s desperation charge misses, and Chono hits a nasty-looking belly to back on the stunned Muta right there on the ramp. Yeah, the shift from “Muta is going to cheat and bend the rules to keep Chono down” to “Muta: Fighting undersized buzzsaw who frustrates the bigger Chono by continually fighting up” didn’t have a recognizable transition.

 

• Certainly, though, this match is far superior to their Starrcade match. Chono begins to physically dominate again; Muta fires up as best he can before being cut off by Chono’s offense. A diving shoulderblock off the top nets Chono a two count; a powerbomb directly into a jackknife pinfall earns Chono two more. Chono looks for the kill; he scores a Samoan Drop and transitions right back into his signature STF. Muta once again endures the hold and squiggles to the ropes to break it. He even makes a comeback by reversing an Irish whip and bumping himself on his head with a rana that gets two. Muta hops to the top rope and tries another moonsault, but he moonsaults his noggin right into Chono’s raised knees. Chono now goes up top, but this is a mismatch against his favor; Muta sidesteps his dive, hits him with a ribbreaker, and goes up for a moonsault. That first one only gets two, so Muta wisely just rushes up top and hits Chono with a second moonsault to win the match and become a double NWA and IWGP Champion.

 

• What a strange bout. It told what felt like two separate stories; it stopped the first one cold, in which Muta came off almost as heelish against the clean wrestling Chono, and abruptly (to me) told me a different story about fighting undersized babyface Muta enduring and eventually overcoming the larger opponent with his killer finisher. Was it much better than the Starrcade match? Hell yes. Did it have some interesting elements and spots? Absolutely. Was it a good match? I’m not sure that it was. At least it held my interest this time around.

 

• Gab Gab Gab: Muta talks at his post-match press conference, probably about how dope he is; He mentions Sting as well, so I sure hope that he returned Sting’s wishes to form an unstoppable tag team of maximum awesomeness.

 

• Gab Gab Gab: To start the second tape of this video release, we see Antonio Inoki screaming at the crowd like a maniac to fire them up. It works. We also get a rundown of the match results from the first tape and a highlight reel of the upcoming matches. Can you accurately call it a “highlight reel” if Tony “Ludvig Borga” Halme’s punk ass is in it, though?

 

• Match: This eight-man tag match is full of guys who I don’t recognize and also the Great Kabuki, who must be thrilled that his kayfabe son won the IWGP and NWA titles on this show. OK, so on one side of the ring stand the Great Kabuki, Akitoshi Saito, Shiro Koshinaka, and Masashi Aoyagi. On the other stand their opponents: Super Strong Machine, Hiro Saito, Norio Honaga, and Tatsutoshi Goto. Akitoshi Saito wearing his gi and jutting the chin of his bald head out while he puffs his chest reminds me of Low-Ki, just as an aside. Anyway, this match immediately breaks down as multi-man matches of this type are wont to do. Everyone brawls with everyone else. Eventually, uh, I think that’s Koshinaka trapped in the wrong corner. There is a lot of kicking and stomping and eye raking and stuff.

 

• Basically, someone gets trapped in a corner and beaten up for a bit, but this is another tag match that doesn’t quite have the structure that I expect out of these matches, and the action is whatever. I don’t get how the Great Kabuki is so over here, nor how he got so over in Dallas or Atlanta or wherever. Muta, yeah. Muta has aura. On the other hand, Kabuki comes off like a pasty, slightly tubby goof rather than a mysterious killer. This crowd saw him face off with Machine and got low-key hyped for it, though.

 

• Anyway, this match goes on for about five minutes longer than it needs to. The “I don’t understand the match flow” issue that I’ve had with tag matches so far this evening is the same issue I have here. It just feels like a bunch of moves and only a couple of the tags after someone is in danger feel like they just barely made it out of the ring before dying. Finally, after a lot of this sort of thing, the match breaks down again and eventually, Kabuki pins, uh, was that Hiro Saito with a back suplex? I think so. I’m not going back to confirm.

 

• Match: Look at this leather-clad doofus Tony Halme. I think between the previous eight-man tag and this match, we’ve hit a little lull here in this otherwise generally solid and unobjectionable show. Basically, his opponent Ron Simmons begins working around the extremely limited Halme by having a shoulderblock battle. When that’s a stalemate and Halme demands that Simmons HIT AGAIN, Simmons goes low while on the run and trips Halme, then scores a series of moves including a face crusher and a piledriver. That last move earns Simmons a two count.

 

• Halme comes back with a fist to Simmons’s gut and scores some simple, impactful offense. He manages to land a running crossbody in the corner, drops an elbow for two, and hits a side slam for two more (Halme screams WHAT THE FUCK, REF?! at the cadence of that last count). Actually, Halme is dropping F-bombs everywhere, as he yells THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU? after the ref only counts to two on a cover out of a spinebuster.

 

• I mean, this match could have been worse! It’s better than it has any right to be. Then again, I have more patience for matches with athletic big dudes hitting shoulderblocks and slams. Halme knocks Simmons to the floor as Simmons attempts a comeback, hits a floatover powerslam for two, has plenty of FUCKs to spare for the ref, is hit with a floatover powerslam for two in turn, and eventually has to kick out of two semi-sloppy Simmons small packages. Halme gets up and swings wildly at Simmons after kicking out of the second small package, but Simmons ducks his arm and sticks Halme with a quick spinebuster for a three count. This was more entertaining than I would have guessed, and it gets bonus points for being eight-ish minutes long at most.

 

• Gab Gab Gab: At his post-match press conference, Simmons admits that he didn’t expect as much of a fight from Halme as he ended up getting, but he’s pleased about walking out as the victor.

 

• Match: Jushin Thunder Liger represents New Japan as he wrestles defending champion Ultimo Dragon, representing WAR, for the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship in what should be the match of the night, looking at this lineup. Dragon’s headdress is magnificent. Anyway, I dig the hell out of both of these guys as any right-thinking pro wrestling fan should, so I’m hyped for this one. They work into and out of arm wringers with trips and flips and arm drags at rapid speed right into a double-dropkick standoff that they can get away with because they’re Liger and Ultimo Dragon, so don’t get any ideas, goofy Anglosphere tape-trading, kickpad-wearing wrestling nerds. Fuck you guys. You’re not these guys.

 

• *ahem* Dragon next tries to take out Liger’s wheels with a leg grapevine. They fight over leverage in this grapevine for a while; Liger ends up squirming into a kneeling position and putting Dragon in a front facelock, then gets to his feet and attacks Dragon’s shin when Dragon refuses to submit. Liger twists Dragon into a bow before Dragon smoothly escapes and goes back to working Liger’s knee. He works into the same kneeling position that Liger was in and returns the front facelock to Liger besides. When that doesn’t work, Dragon stands Liger up, shoots him in, and crosses Liger’s ankles into a bridging Indian Deathlock with a front facelock.

 

• I’ve written this before about Dragon, but – ooh, now he’s working a bow-and-arrow on Liger – I have to say again that I like how Dragon works holds. He tries one, waits to see if it gets the submission that he’s looking for, and when it doesn’t, he doesn’t try to work it further and wait it out or allow his opponent room to endure and then counter; he quickly transitions into a different hold at a different pressure point to see if that one will work. I love that style – ooh, Liger escaped and is working a gross looking surfboard on Dragon – and it feels like the equivalent of bomb-throwing, but for submissions in a way. It’s smart, though. If your hold isn’t working, why not try a different one, right?

 

• Eventually, though, these fellas get to standing and do what they do best, which is run and throw dope offense. Liger’s signature rolling wheel kick is one of my favorite offensive moves. There’s a slightly unconvincing transition where Dragon cartwheels out of the way of a Liger crossbody attempt, but the timing is off enough that it registers that Liger could probably have stopped himself from launching. That’s a small nitpick, though – now look at this Dragon surfboard! It looks like it hurts real bad!

 

• Eventually, you knew that the mat work would end and things would go bananas, though, right? Dragon knocks Liger to the flood, baseball slides into him – Liger bumps over the guardrail and into some tables set up on the concrete – and then dives off the top rope, over the guardrail, and into both Liger and the tables. He looked like he took a face full of table as he did it, but he seems okay. They make their way back to the ring; Dragon brainbusters Liger back into the ring from the apron and covers for two. He attempts a Tombstone which Liger reverses and Dragon reverses again (awkwardly) before spiking Liger, going up top…and tripping as he tries to dive off the top rope. What is this, WrestleMania XX?

 

• Should I be more fiercely critical of a match like this in which psychology is important, but in which the crispness of transitions and moves seems almost paramount to the whole point of the bout, for having noticeably distracting botches? I don’t know about that, though the crowd did kind of make a disappointed exhalation of noise when Dragon tripped. Of course, Liger is an insane man, so he immediately picks up the action with a vicious wheel kick that knocks Dragon outside the ring, a powerbomb to Dragon on the floor, and a top-rope senton bomb. Awesome sequence. He rolls back into the ring and, um, lets the referee count as Dragon is splayed out on the ringside mats. Can the title change hands on a countout? Anyway, Dragon barely beats the count and is rewarded with a nasty release German from Liger; Liger covers for two.  

 

• Liger continues to annihilate Dragon, who barely stops the onslaught by sticking his arm out and catching Liger on a dive. Liger goes to the floor, where Dragon does a springboard cannonball onto Liger against the guardrail. I like this match, but it’s merely good and not great. Dragon getting up and hitting that high-impact offensive move after taking a pretty mean ass whooping didn’t seem earned enough.

 

• We’re well into the finishing run now; each man fires off their best impact offense. Dragon gets two on a sitout powerbomb, then tries a La Magistral to escape with a victory; Liger gets his shoulder up on a perfectly timed 2.9. Liger turns it around and lands an avalanche DDT for about 2.8, then destroys Dragon with a Liger Bomb and signals for a top-rope rana, which he lands for a three count and the title. Ever the sportsman, Dragon shakes hands with Liger after the match. This was on in the middle of the card and therefore is indeed a midcard gem, but it didn’t reach the transcendent heights which I was confident that it would.

 

• Gab Gab Gab: In any language, Liger is great!

 

• Match: Next up is the IWGP Tag Team Championship Match: The Steiner Brothers, who are only a couple weeks from their WWF debut against the Beverly Brothers at the Royal Rumble, attempt to win the titles from the Hell Raisers of Hawk Warrior and Power Warrior (the latter being Kensuke Sasaki, of course). Animal Warrior is chilling out at home and collecting on an insurance policy for his fucked up back at this point, and good for him after Hawk blew up their first WWF run. Anyway, considering that the Steiners are off for New York, I don’t think they’re going to win this match!

 

• Scotty Steiner and Hawk start out doing Scotty Steiner and Hawk power stuff right into a double-clothesline spot. Scotty’s up first and wheelbarrow suplexes Hawk; Hawk returns the favor by military pressing Scott to the floor. Yeah, seems about right for these two. Again, if these guys are just going to trade a bunch of power moves, I’m in. Scott gets back in the ring and wins a forearm to the back and a double-underhook suplex, then sticks Hawk with a piledriver that Hawk no-sells; Scott celebrates the move, but soon turns around into a Hawk lariat that sends him back to the floor. The crowd approves of this sequence.

 

• Power tags in. I mean, maybe I’m just going to write his actual name. No one calls this dude “Power.” So, Sasaki tags in and faces off with Rick Steiner, who immediately commences to suplexing him out of his boots. Rick looks for some sort of top-rope dive, but Sasaki dropkicks him out of mid-air and then stiffly release Germans Rick onto the top of his neck in a stiff move. Sasaki is next to go up top, and he is countered when Rick catches him and release belly-to-bellys him in one smooth motion.

 

• So yeah, this match is pure fun. I want to see big athletes toss each other around like gravity is irrelevant to them in the face of their otherworldly strength. Hawk and Scott tag back in and trade holds; Hawk does push-ups to counter a Boston Crab, which is, um, an interesting approach. In fact, Hawk gets the best of this exchange and sends Scott crawling back to his corner to tag in Rick.

 

• Rick fares little better, losing a knuckle lock to Hawk; Hawk tags in Sasaki and joins in on a double back elbow that knocks Rick down. Sasaki pulls Rick up only to hit a nice floatover powerslam, but Rick fires up with a counter overhead suplex out of nowhere and quickly tags out to Scott, who pumphandle slams the ever loving fuck out of Sasaki, fuuuuuck. Scott and Rick team up on a Doomsday Device sort of deal except Scott holds Sasaki in a backbreaker over his shoulder instead of placing him over his knee.

 

• If you’re not going to have a shine-heat-comeback structure for your tag match, you could do worse than four dudes spiking each other with power moves until eventually someone stays down. I’m just going to list some MOVEZ~ that happen next in this extremely fun spotfest: super release overhead belly-to-belly, super top-rope bulldog, mini-Doomsday Device (with the clothesline-giver leaping off the second rope), multiple huge floatover powerslams, leaping shoulderblocks, stiff clotheslines, a Frankensteiner, a top-rope diving clothesline, a nasty high-angled belly-to-back suplex, another mini-Doomsday Device (with the clothesline-giver leaping off the apron and knocking the clothesline-taker into the guardrail throat first). It doesn’t really matter who did which moves to whom; the bout eventually breaks down and end up in a total schmozz, a double DQ that protects everyone. The point of this match was to be an entertaining and impactful spotfest, and it did that incredibly well. I am a sucker for exactly this type of semi-nonsensical bomb throwing when the bomb throwing is power moves. It’s a very specific type of Hidden Midcard Gem that might not be a gem at all to people who prefer their bomb-throwing to be of the aerial or hardcore type.

 

• Gab Gab Gab: Hawk is disappointed that the Hell Raisers didn’t win the match, but he’s perfectly happy with retaining the titles. Hawk also strongly puts over Sasaki – “This is the best partner I’ve ever had” – and probably that comment also constitutes legit shots fired at Animal, but I mean, Animal is reasonably not prepared to do business with you at this moment, Hawk! Maybe don’t bail on your long-time tag partner because you hate the creative direction that Vince McMahon is taking with you so deeply! Though I’ll admit, sticking you with Rocco was definitely pushing it on Vince's part.

 

• Match: We are now at our main event, which pits Riki Choshu against grumpy ol’ Genichiro Tenryu. I presume that people are going to get the shit slapped out of them, which actually I should have presumed for the vast majority of these matches. Even though I’d still call myself a New Japan neophyte at this point, I know full well that slapping the shit out of one another is an integral part of the house style.

 

• Choshu is all antsy and wants to get to it, but Tenryu just stares at Choshu, probably fantasizing about all the ways in which he would soon be slapping the shit out of Choshu. The crowd is hyped as hell for this bout. Tenryu, of course, is the WAR representative against New Japan’s Choshu. Speaking earlier of the Steiners and where they’d be in two weeks, Tenryu was also at the 1993 Royal Rumble, wasn’t he? So New Japan had working deals both with WCW and WAR, but WAR and WCW apparently didn’t complete the triangle with one another. When is the last time that Vince McMahon-helmed WWF had some sort of working agreement with a Japanese wrestling company? Was it All Japan in the ‘80s? I’m impressed that as bumbling and even hostile as WCW officials could be toward New Japan, their agreement lasted until WCW was dead.

 

• Inoki joins commentary for this bout, which immediately devolves into these fellas slapping the shit out of one another before Tenryu misses a jumping hook kick and Choshu attempts his signature Sharpshooter. Tenryu blocks it by curling up like a bug. Man, did he make himself a dense lump of human being there. No one was turning him onto his front. They continue their cagey mat work, but that is just a brief rest before a flurry in which Choshu misses Tenryu by a mile on a lariat and Tenryu sells it like he got annihilated. Whoops!

 

• They get the crowd back, though. Mostly, that’s by slapping the shit out of one another, though Choshu shoot headbutts Tenryu at one point in there, too. OK, now you can sell as though you got annihilated, Tenryu. I believe it. Holy fuck, Tenryu’s left eye is all busted up from those nasty shoot headbutts. That’s what happens when someone misses a lariat and someone else sells it here in New Japan, apparently: They fuck each other up for realsies to ensure us all watching at home that they’re actually fighting. Well, yeah, I guess that’s one way to do it.

 

• Yeah, do you want to watch guys stiff the shit out of one another? If so, this main event is for you. Choshu is layin’ ‘em in, let’s just say. As someone who thinks the point of pro wrestling is to make it look like it hurts without actually hurting dudes, I don’t know if this is good pro wrestling, at least by that definition. It is gnarly as fuck, though. I’m certainly sitting here in rapt attention. I will say that this match feels, as Jim Ross might say, bowling-shoe ugly. These guys aren’t hitting moves perfectly cleanly; they’re landing moves roughly, visually recklessly, and that certainly lends to the feeling that these two wrestlers a) do not like one another and b) are not out here secretly trying to protect one another because the bout is worked. If you shoot headbutt a guy and then try to lariat his head off his neck, then I’m going to believe in what you’re doing. I do prefer the Bret Hart method of making it look painful, but actually barely grazing the guy; I must say, though, that Choshu legitimately unloading with every strike is compelling.

 

• Tenryu looks like he might be fucked. Choshu is rocking him, and even when he gets a bit of offense, Choshu counters him. Choshu first backdrops his way out of a slam attempt and then catches another kick and tries another Sharpshooter. Tenryu punches his way out of that hold, but when he gets to his feet and charges, Choshu laid him straight the fuck out with another stiff lariat.

 

• Still, Tenryu regains control once more. He hits a back suplex and then launches himself backward off the second rope to try another back elbow, which I’m not sure if Choshu was supposed to shoot avoid or not; Choshu rolls forward and Tenryu smashes the back of Choshu’s head with his hip. Gritty stuff! I am going to guess that most of the people at DVDVR who have seen this match think it’s great. I am enjoying it, but I’m in a weird space where I don’t know how I feel about attaching that descriptor to it. It’s a mess, but it’s a compelling mess. I’d normally label a match like this a Charming Uniquity, but I’m too ignorant of New Japan style around this time to know if this match is particularly unique for the style.

 

• The finish gets the crowd hyped as shit: Tenryu is trying to powerbomb Choshu, and Choshu plants himself and fights fiercely to stop it, and Tenryu basically deadlifts him and weakly powerbombs him; they re-do the spot, but properly with Choshu going up for Tenryu, and that wins the match for the WAR representative. I just cannot find a way to labeling this a great main event, but if this actually is something of an odd match for early ‘90s New Japan, any of the knowledgeable people reading this can let me know, because in that case, it would be one of the most charming of unique matches that I’ve seen in a hot minute.

 

• After the match, Antonio Inoki enters the ring and shakes hands with Tenryu, then makes a few remarks. Who has the stronger pro wrestler chin: Inoki or Sgt. Slaughter? It’s a close one. I think it’s Inoki, though.

 

• Gab Gab Gab: I can’t tell what Choshu is saying in his post-match interview, but his tone seems peeved as shit. It seems like the tone of a man who would legit headbutt you to open you up if he felt that your match looked too phony. Tenryu, on the other hand, looks like he wants to hit the showers, eat a nice dinner, and go to bed. Same, Tenryu. Same.

 

• I hope that this review was entertaining because it certainly wasn’t useful as some sort of helpful critical evaluation of 1990s New Japan. I am incredibly pleased to have reviewed a vaunted early January New Japan supershow as part of this thread, however, and maybe I’ll have a chance to do more Japanese shows in general as they fit in with my mostly Anglosphere North American focus in this thread. On the one hand, I apologize to the readers out there who understand the nuances that I do not and are probably a little bit miffed when I misunderstand something that they get. On the other hand, I think it says something that even with that lack of knowledge on my part, this show is still the best show that Bill Watts (very technically) had a (very technical) hand in during his short stint at the top of WCW! On a third, maybe prosthetic hand, this show would have gotten an extra .25 Digital Snowflakes if Cactus Jack wrestled on it. 4 Digital Snowflakes out of 5.

[SirSmUgly]

UWF Blackjack Brawl (23 September 1994):

A show in which Ms. Fleming’s second-grade class from Wildwood Elementary probably could have done a better job in the production truck

• Let’s dip back into 1994, a year in which we will be spending quite a lot of time over the next few posts in this thread, to watch Herb Abrams’s three-hour televised supercard Blackjack Brawl. This show promises to be mediocre at best, but Cactus Jack is on it, so that probably makes it worth watching.

 

• (Seriously, mainlining a lot of early ‘90s Cactus lately has refreshed in my mind how amazing Mick Foley was at the art of pro wrestling.)

 

• This show is three fucking hours! Why?! [Editor’s note: It’s this long because someone left the ads in this recording, so I’m sanguine about the length of this sucker now. I love me some old-ass ads because as someone from the U.S., I’m the type of sicko who gets nostalgic about being intrusively bombarded with advertisements, some of which I actually enjoyed.]

 

• Hype package: This card features a UWF championship match between Dr. Death Steve Williams (did he lose this title between Beach Brawl in ’91 and this show in ’94? Should I watch enough UWF Fury Hour to track this?) and Malicious Sid Vicious, who is in fact SID, but with a rhyming nickname for this UWF run. There are also press conference promos intercut into this opening with guys from B. Brian Blair to Tony Halme (and one press conference brawl).

 

• Gab Gab Gab: Herb Abrams is running on pure hype (and pure-grade Bogota bullion) as he introduces Blackjack Mulligan, his co-host for tonight’s show. The levels on this microphone stink. Mulligan screams something about or maybe toward Dan Spivey. There are only enough fans to fill the first four rows…on the hard camera side, at least. I can’t promise that many fans on the other sides of the ring.

 

• Gab Gab Gab: Carlo Gianelli hopefully welcomes us to “Blackjack Brawl I,” a name for this show which is technically true. He’s joined by John Tolos on color. I’ll give this to Herb Abrams; he definitely banked more than a few paydays for ‘70s WW(W)F guys on these shows. Tolos screams about UWF being REAL WRESTLING before doing some ethnic humor with Gianelli that I guess someone from New England would understand about Greeks and Italians and their propensities for paying their bills, but that I find somewhat baffling and uncomfortable.

 

• Someone left the ads in!: It’s a new segment here in these reviews that I don’t expect to often include, but when someone leaves the ads in, I can’t help but summarize (and sometimes comment upon) what people found important at the time, which for Americans is mostly reflected through the shit that someone thought we’d spend money on because it was popular or somehow useful to our lives. This break: Baseball World’s Dynamic Practice Organization instructional video; H3O TV’s Surf Sessions killer surfing sessions home video.

 

• Gab Gab Gab: Abrams is still screaming into the mic, this time to introduce the guest ring announcer, some guy named Steve Rossi from the Howard Stern show. His mic's levels are dogshit, and someone in the truck finally figures out how to make it so that we can hear him. Holy shit, so he’s reading through the notes that someone prepared for him and gets to this line: “The Universal Wrestling Federation and Mr. Electricity Dr. Herb Abrams, also known as Yellowbird…” The ellipses there indicate him trailing off to chuckle. This show is absolutely the show of a man who is going to explode his heart with mounds of coke soon and knows it, so he just doesn’t give a good goddam about anything but having fun and slinging nonsense. Good for him, I guess.

 

• Match: So, we get our first match about nine minutes in, which pits Dan Spivey against Johnny Ace (w/Missy Hyatt). Rossi, who doesn’t shut the fuck up the whole time the wrestlers are entering, admonishes the crowd for not cheering very much for Ace, but no one other than Mrs. Baba is getting fired up to cheer for Johnny Ace. The commentators talk about Spivey and Sid not being friends anymore on account of each one thinking they were more responsible for the success of the Skyscrapers, but IMO Teddy Long’s skillful management is what made that team kayfabe successful.

 

• Meanwhile, Ace controls Spivey early; Spivey takes a dropkick on the chin, rolls out of the ring and onto a table sitting at ringside, and then tosses the table around angrily. Sprivey soon turns the tables and tosses Ace to the floor, but Ace reenters the ring as Spivey exits to follow and then stomps out Spivey as Spivey hastily re-enters (Tolos: FOUR, FIVE KICKS, THOSE KICKS WOULD KILL A NORMAL MAN!). This show’s energy is something like the energy of a pro-wrestling themed episode of a family comedy. Like, if the Bushwhackers showed up to wrestle Carl Winslow and Steve Urkel on this show, you wouldn’t blink an eye. It would somehow make perfect sense.

 

• Spivey embarks upon a heel control segment in this chill-ass TV match. The moves all look great, but this bout is being worked as thought it is entirely inconsequential. Ace is able to finagle a counter back suplex and a diving clothesline from the second rope; he covers and earns two, then scores a belly-to-belly for two more. Ace next attempts a vertical suplex. Spivey blocks it, then hits a DDT for two after Ace flips out of Spivey’s suplex attempt. Spivey scores another two count, then tries an abdominal stretch, a body slam, and then a running legdrop. Alas, he hasn’t figured out Hulk Hogan’s secret suace  to knocking guys out with that last move, so Ace kicks out of the cover once more.

 

• Spivey wraps Ace in another abdominal stretch; Ace makes his way toward the ropes, but Missy throws in the towel for Ace. Spivey wins the match, and Missy is thrilled! It’s a double-cross! Ace chases Missy away from the ring while Spivey grabs Abrams by the mustard yellow collar of his jacket and steals the UWF American Championship that Abrams is holding. Apparently, this was a match for that title, so Spivey won it on a double-cross. Abrams throws a conniption. Rossi tells everyone to give it up for Johnny Ace, but since his mic sucks, it sounds like he’s announcing Ace as the winner. Michael Jackson’s “Jam” plays on the outro as we go to commercial, and I know for damn sure Abrams didn’t pay for that shit. We are promised an interview with Curt Henning in a graphic. Does Curt Hennig know that some guy in televised pro wrestling has almost the same name as he does? I bet it would trip him out. Anyway, everything about this match and post-match segment screamed “weekend improv class putting on their very first show at the Senior Center that goes about as smoothly as you’d expect.”

 

• Someone left the ads in!: Budweiser presents the Rolling Stones Live at the MGM Grand in Vegas, and those three things combined sound like a real drag; another MGM Grand commercial; Don’t you, the viewer, realize that you absolutely need a subscription to Log Home Living? What’s next, a magazine for chewing gum enthusiasts? Who’d subscribe to either of those?

 

• Gab Gab Gab: After a few more production woes – we’ve heard the production truck about as much as we’ve heard the ring announcer – and Tolos saying that pretty bitches are trouble and everybody knows it, it's so obvious a truth, and we all know that Eve was out here slinging apples of knowledge and now Missy is out here throwing in towels to reinforce what is a long line of historical instances with pretty bitches being nothing but trouble, we get an interview. No, wait, we get ads.

 

• Someone left the ads in!: Some voiceover dude tries to shill a Boxing Illustrated sub and a videotape of Julio Caesar Chavez's best fights, but the production truck from the wrestling show talks over them, though production stops just in time for Gloria the ring girl in the ad to tell us that pretty bitches like her are waiting to take our calls and get us these magazines and tapes, but NICE TRY GLORIA, my good friend and color commentator John Tolos just warned me about you! I’m not gonna send my money to you and end up being sent back a media mail package full of rocks with no tape or magazine to be found; In our next add, we are asked to purchase a Nolan Ryan gold stamp with his visage immortalized in cheap gold-ish cast from the Nolan Ryan Gold Stamp Collection. What, are you gonna try and sell me some Trump Steaks next? These ads are leading me to make the assumption that this show originally aired at one in the morning on whatever cable channel it was on (still SportsChannel, I think).

 

• Match: And now we get a match, not an interview, between Wildman Jack Armstong and Mondo Guerreo. Mondo cool! No, seriously, I wouldn’t expect this company to spell Mando Guerrero’s name correctly, or at least not in 1994. Maybe back in 1991, they could have got it right. Rossi is wearing a Kangol-brand cowboy hat as he first announces Guerrero (FIVE-NINE, TWO HUNDRED POUNDS OF DYNAMITE) and then announces Jack Armstrong (HE’S…HE’S A MEAN ONE). This show is fucking hilarious.

 

• Did you know that Jack Armstrong appeared in an episode of Andy Griffith’s Matlock? He’s still alive and kicking, apparently. Someone should book him for a bit part on an episode of Kathy Bates’s Matlock to square the circle. Mando, being a Guerrero, throws a nice dropkick. Armstrong can’t land on his feet on a forward flip, on the other hand. So yeah, that’s how this is going to go. Mando goes to the arm bar pretty quickly after that.

 

• I mean, these matches aren’t that bad, but they’re all being wrestled as though everyone is moving underwater. Even this wild ringside brawl feels a bit sluggish. Mando, being a Guerrero, can’t just half-ass it out here on this poorly-attended show for a nearly dead company, so he hits a springboard moonsault to the floor.

 

• No offense to Armstrong, but if you replaced him with a chair or a ladder, Guerrero would probably be getting about the same match quality out of it. OK, I guess I mean a little offense to Armstrong. I just don’t want to shit too much on one of the co-stars of Matlock, you know? Mando misses a moonsault to allow Armstrong to hit a couple of elbowdrops and, um, go over for the pinfall? I guess this makes Armstrong the new UWF Junior Heavyweight Champion. Armstrong is bleeding from the top of his head. Abrams gets in the ring and yells that he’s glad that Armstrong got BUSTED UP; Armstrong responds by screaming that Abrams is a SICK BASTARD before insisting that he himself is A THINKER, NOT A STINKER. Gianelli unconvincingly claims that we’re “off to a hot start.” Abrams is the textbook promoter who desperately wants to be on camera. I mean, on a scale of promoters and bookers who want to be on camera and their levels of effectiveness as personalities, where Vince McMahon represents a 10 and Vince Russo represents a negative six quintillion seven hundred billion-and-two, I think Herb’s about a 3. He's right in line with Tony Khan, that’s where I’d lump ‘em both.

 

• Someone left the ads in!: What shall I add to my extensive collection of worthless VHS tapes this break? Ooh, Showtime and Jeff Foxworthy’s You Might Be a Redneck If…! Kill me!; What else we got? Ah, a Balfour-produced knockoff championship ring for a bunch of fans who sat on the couch or stuffed grilled brats down their gullets in the parking lot before the game and otherwise didn’t do a single goddam thing to earn a championship ring! Why not take my money and set it on fire right in front of my face, then punch me in the solar plexus?!

 

• Match: Now I’m curious if we’re ever going to get that Curt Hennig interview they teased a few segments ago. Right now, we’ve got Sunny Beach wresting Dr. Feelgood (w/Missy Hyatt). Feelgood was announced as No Mercy Hospital’s Chief Physician. Rossi to Missy, judgmentally: “You don’t have a heart!” Tolos takes another chance to tell us not to trust women, especially when we’ve seen them mistreat and cheat someone before. Well, okay, that last bit is good advice, but he’s couching the good advice in parables about pretty bitches, so maybe it doesn’t land as well as it otherwise might.

 

• This battle of former WWF underneath talents is a thing that exists. Missy clobbers Beach in the head with her heel. She’s definitely the best worker in this match. I don’t mean that as some sort of sly insult to the guys in the ring; she’s actually doing really good self-satisfied sneak-fuck managerial work out there. Beach recovers and scores two on a gut wrench suplex before Feelgood catches him in the throat and regains control. Feelgood kind of choke-shoves Beach to the mat, then refuses the pin to hit an extra backbreaker.

 

• The ref only counts to two, so Feelgood lands a DDT and then walks over to Missy, who hands over his doctor’s bag. Feelgood takes a long time to open that bag and pour a dark liquid onto a towel. He prepares to stuff it in Beach’s face, but Beach has had plenty of time to recover and grabs the rag, stuffs it in Feelgood’s face, and pins him for a quick three. Missy gets in the ring, indignantly stomps her foot, and slaps Beach; Beach goes after her, but Feelgood recovers and uses the rag on Beach. Wouldn’t you know it? This wasn’t good. I know, I know, you’re shocked. This wasn’t bad enough that I think it should go on the Total Misfires list, but collectively, this show is absolutely headed there once it’s over.

 

• After the match, Hyatt whines about wanting her charges to have more championship belts in their possession [Editor's note: This match apparently was for the vacated UWF SportsChannel Television Championship that Dr. Death won at Beach Blast and then vacated at some point before this show] while Blackjack Mulligan lectures her about her actions tonight. Feelgood calls Mulligan a “pretend cowboy” and slowly turns his back…but nothing happens. Everyone just leaves the ring.

 

• Shill Shill Shill: Sid wanders through a shillfest for UWF merch, complaining about not being able to find the MGM Grand. Dude, there’s a giant fucking LION out front! And also, you’re at an ad shoot for the show, which is also on location in the MGM Grand! Sid then shills UWF hats and t-shirts himself, proclaiming that getting his visage on a t-shirt is as prestigious as getting a signed baseball from Nolan Ryan. OK, but is it as prestigious as getting a Nolan Ryan gold stamp? That’s the real question here.

 

• Someone left the ads in!: Please buy Log Home Living! We’ll throw in a free buyer’s guide! There are floor plans! FLOOR PLANS!

 

• Gab Gab Gab: Herb Abrams says that UWF Commissioner Bruno Sammartino is not here tonight. Did the check not clear? Wait, Abrams claims that Bruno is off getting an award from the Italian-American Association. Blackjack makes a bad joke about mishearing Bruno being “honored” as being “audited” because Bruno was always being audited in the 1970s. What is the point of this gabby-gab segment, anyway? Oh, wait, it’s to put Dr. Death over Hogan, Flair, and the Hitman. Blackjack accidentally calls him “Dr. Death Steve Hogan,” so I guess whatever the production crew has is catching.

 

• Someone left the ads in!: Join Hard Hat Harry on a thirty-minute adventure in watching REAL LIFE GIANT CONSTRUCTION EQUIPMENT that is meant for the entertainment of kids in the video Real Life Giant Construction Equipment For Kids. I want to make fun of this VHS shill, but honestly, I enjoyed watching the footage of the rock crusher in this ad; Repeat shilling for a fake championship ring from Balfour, even if your team hasn’t won a fucking thing, Carolina Panthers fans.

 

• Match: Dammit, I’m being subjected to another Tony Halme match, and I’m not sure that Ron Simmons is coming to save me. Halme’s going by the name Finland “Hellraiser” Thor in UWF. So he’s Nordic, is what you’re telling me. He should have gone by that name when he was in the Finnish parliament to really drive home his far-right Nationalist political stances. Hell, I bet he came up with this exact name himself. What a dolt. Anyway, Bob Orton Jr. is the guy tasked to do something with this goof. He tries. I give him credit for trying. This is yet another match for a title. How many titles does this rinky-dink company have? This is too many titles for the level of company that the UWF is. AEW fans who don’t like the shit-talking about how many titles the company has can always claim that at least they’re not UWF.

 

• This match ends up in a ringside brawl and a disqualification after Orton tosses water in Thor’s face and then attacks him with the title belt. I don’t know which title belt this is. Does it really matter? Abrams hands a chair to Thor for some reason, but Orton turns back the attack. Orton’s right eye is busted open. I hate it for him that he’s wasting this great looking bloody wound on this match and this show. Rossi: THOR! THORRRRR! EVERYBODY SHOUT THAT! THORRRRRR! I’m thrilled to be experiencing what is one of the worst ring announcing jobs that I’ve ever been witness to in my life.

 

• Interview time [w/Blackjack Mulligan]: I can’t hear Mulligan’s question, but Orton is basically like AMERICANS ARE SOFT, THEY NEED TO HAVE HEART LIKE I HAVE. Okay, bud.

 

• Someone left the ads in!: MC Hammer’s “U Can’t Touch This” (by way of Rick James’s “Superfreak”) is used to help advertise Gold’s Gym. The ad then shifts into showing a bunch of athletes doing stuff in a series of clips. The Catch is in there. A tennis ball burns a hole into the court, it was hit so hard. That’s it. Go to the gym, stupid. Preferably Gold’s; If Log Home Living used the LOG song from Ren & Stimpy in its ads, I might have bought a sub if it were still around [Editor's note: It is!].

 

• Match: OK, so this is for what the company is labeling the Midget World Championship. It was the '90s. The little person wrestlers who are contesting the title are Little Tokyo and the Karate Kid. Rossi is so condescending: “C’mon folks, this is for the…championship. Make these guys feel good.” I think Rossi’s just generally condescending about this tiny audience’s inability to make what he considers to be sufficient noise and not specifically condescending toward these little people. Tolos, after Kid throws a kick: “Look at this Karate Kid. That’s why they call him Karate Kid. He’s into karate.” I love this show. Only ironically, mind you, and only somewhat. Mostly, I can assure you that I don't love this show in total seriousness. Karate Kid is fucking JACKED, by the way. This match has bad comedy spots and also racial slurs that Tolos repeats helpfully on commentary just in case we didn’t hear Kid exclaim it about Tokyo. So yeah.

 

• Do you know what? I think Bruno is alright on color. He’s a solid guy in that position. I miss him. He did a good job of holding things together on Beach Brawl. This match could maybe be shorter. This show could maybe be shorter. Holy shit, nice floatover powerslam from Kid. OK, back to thinking about how this show could be shorter. Kid eventually charges Tokyo, but Tokyo’s counter throat-thrust puts him down for three. After the match, Abrams and Tokyo make plans for some late night celebratory sake. KANPAI!

 

• Shill Shill Shill: Sid shill shill shills again.

 

• Someone left the ads in!: Nolan Ryan. Stamp.

 

• Gab Gab Gab: Gianelli intros a Sid promo. He tells us that we’ll hear some words from the big man himself. The videotape rolls. We don’t hear any of the words even though Sid’s lips are moving. And you’ve all heard how loud Sid normally is! Who is running the truck tonight? Did WCW lend Abrams the services of Craig Fucking Leathers? OK, we get a bit of sound, and basically, Sid’s just letting both Dr. Death and the audience at home (all eighteen of them) know that he’s going to win the big title tonight. Is it still named the SportsChannel Television Championship or did they change the name or what [Editor's note: It is a different title - the UWF World Heavyweight Championship]?

 

• Someone left the ads in!:  Jeff Foxworthy. The common clay of the New West. So many repetitive ads at this point; SportsChannel runs an ad hyping itself up here; A SportsChannel interviewer named Ann Ligouri does a little wordplay while hyping all the figures of the sporting world whom she interviews. David Stern appears for a split second. I hope that cur is roasting in hell.

 

• Match: Samson is wrestling the Irish Assassin in something called a Revenge Match. We’ll see if Rossi a) has been given any stipulations for the match and b) if he’s sharp enough to explain said stips. I guess Samson is a replacement for Hercules (Hernandez, I presume) if Rossi is telling the truth. We get no stips. I mean, seriously. Rossi doesn’t explain them. The commentary desk doesn’t explain them. The men in the ring nuzzle foreheads in a long collar-and-elbow. Tolos swears that this Vegas crowd is going nuts for this exceptional example of pro wrestling. This Vegas crowd is not going nuts for any of this pretty bad example of pro wrestling. They had a hard time getting up for any non-Hogan, non-Savage WCW stars when wrestling was hot, so they’re not exactly thrilled to watch what is a dog water match between these two. This is crappy enough to get on the Total Misfires list on its own, but I feel bad for these green-as-grass dudes having the sort of match that I’d expect to see in a small junior high gym on the undercard rather than on a cable-televised wrestling event. Rossi wanders over and yammers on commentary for a bit. The Irish Assassin barely gets up and over for a vertical suplex; Samson bridges up and earns three. Why was this a revenge match? No one worked this with any intensity. There were no weapon shots, no brawling, no—you know, never mind. Samson got his revenge. We'll leave it at that.

 

• Shill Shill Shill: Sid and a couple of talents meant for enhancing other talents pimp a 1-900 number. Dr. Feelgood, Tyler Mane, and Steve “Wild Thing” Ray, specifically. I mean, I guess Ray is a midcarder in this company, to be fair to him.

 

• Someone left the ads in!: More fake championship rings; SportsChannel ident.

 

• Gab Gab Gab: Who the fuck is yelling at me? Shit, it’s Steve Ray. He screams about how much the bored Vegas casino-goers who watch him with half-lidded amusement are with him.

 

• Match: I don’t know what the MGM Grand Championship is, but Tyler Mane and Steve “Wild Thing” Ray are going to wrestle for it! Rossi hypes Ray. He also hypes Ray’s jacket. It’s a solid airbrushed denim deal. I wouldn’t have hyped it, but it’s a pretty good pro wrestling jacket. Rossi hits an EVERYBODY HOOOOOOO like he’s motherfucking LL Cool J in there. What…I…okay, so Tyler “Sabretooth” Mane is his opponent. Though Mane played Sabretooth in the early Fox X-Men films, his nickname in the UWF is Tyler “the Lion” Mane, and he walks out wearing a poncho with a lion’s head mounted on front, looking for all the world like a complete doofus. C’mon, bub.

 

• Mane is also limited, but at least this match works a bit of a size and power vs. speed and guile deal that makes it much more acceptable than the previous match. Ray finally tries to get Mane on the mat and cuts the big man down with a concentrated diet of kicks and elbowdrops to his knee. Mane begs off, feigning pain, but he’s the guy with a canny plan; once the ref finally backs Ray off and Ray turns around in frustration, Mane pops up, rushes Ray, and hits him with a back suplex. This sparks a run of offense from Mane that is pretty much all choke-based, including a somewhat underwhelming two-handed chokeslam. Mane goes up to the second rope for a certain finish, but his kneedrop finds only mat. Ray rushes Mane, trips him, and scores punches and a slam. He hits the ropes for momentum and charges Mane against the ropes, but Mane ducks down and Ray spills to the floor.

 

• As Ray tries to get back in the ring, he meets Mane, wins a punch-up, and tries to sunset flip his way back into the ring, but Mane drops down and grabs the ropes for leverage, earning a three count and the forty-fifth title belt of the night. This was the best possible Tyler Mane/Steve Ray match you could hope for, but I wouldn’t exactly urge you to go out of your way to watch this. I wonder who has physical possession of all these belts in 2026. I wonder how many have found their way into the WWE’s warehouse full of treasures. Mane cuts a subpar celebratory promo after the bout.

 

• Someone left the ads in!: Stones; MGM Grand; log house mag. I see these are the sorts of things that advertisers think sad thirty and forty-something men would pay for in 1994.

 

• Match: Tina Moretti and Candi Divine wrestle for the UWF Women’s World Championship. There is still somehow over an hour in this recording. Rossi, that ABSOLUTE FUCKING NUTBAR, pronounces Divine’s last name in this manner: DE-VEE-IN. Someone tell me that she was working a gimmick where she was pretending to be a posh Parisian and that’s why he pronounced it that way [Editor’s note: She is not; Rossi is just a lunatic.]. Oh yeah, Tina Moretti is Ivory. I like Ivory.

 

• This match does not start out very well! There is a huge gap between Moretti’s dropkick and Divine’s body, but Divine sells it like she was shot from a cannon. They sort of save it by having a ringside brawl. Divine slams Moretti on the floor. By the time they get back in the ring, the match veers safely into mediocre acceptability. Mmmm, maybe crappy acceptability is more accurate. Divine chokes Moretti and then slams her to the mat; her lateral cover gets three. This finish was almost as unsatisfying as the vertical suplex finish from a couple matches ago, but it’s not exactly like any of the finishes so far have killed it.

 

• Someone left the ads in!: Gloria and her devil promises about sending me boxing paraphernalia for my hard-earned money; Nolan Ryan and his fake gold.

 

• Gab Gab Gab: I mean, they also fuck up the levels on this Dr. Death promo so that the first twenty seconds are almost impossible to hear until finally, Doc comes through loud and clear. He claims that at least Sid would agree to fight him for the Universal Heavyweight Championship, unlike Hulk Hogan or Ric Flair.

 

• Someone left the ads in!: If you’ve ever spent your Friday night recapping an Abrams UWF show and kissing the screen of your Chromebook as though it were a long-lost lover when a Jeff Foxworthy comedy collection or fake championship ring ad appears…you might be a masochist.

 

• Match: I guess that between 1991 and 1994, someone checked with legal and found out that B. Brian Blair (or “Bee Brian Blair” as the chyron punnily spells it) and Jumpin’ Jim Brunzell had the rights to their old name, so they aren’t named Mask Confusion as they were on 1991’s Beach Brawl. They are once again the Killer Bees. They wrestle the New Powers of Pain, comprised of the Warlord and the Power Warrior (it’s just Larry Power, who is missing his other Power Twin and needed a new tag partner).

 

• Power dominates Blair for quite a while to start, but he misses an elbow, and the Bees put in some work on him. Power rakes Brunzell’s eye to get out of trouble and tags in Warlord, who proceeds to get outsmarted by both Bees; he powers out of trouble with a slam to Blair and tags in Power…who proceeds to get outsmarted by both Bees. Again, there is a clear and simple “power vs. teamwork” narrative here, so that’s nice. This match is also pretty dull, which isn’t so nice. The Bees work over Power’s knee and score a close two count in there. I mean, it is ENDLESS fucking knee bars for a good two or three minutes.

 

• Finally, Blair tries an offensive move, but Warlord yanks the rope down when Blair hits the cables and rams Blair’s lower lumbar into the post. Blair is now the babyface in peril; he takes a beating until Warlord loafs while preparing a second-rope double-axehandle and hops right into Blair’s boot. Blair hits the hot tag and Brunzell goes absolutely BANANA. He and Blair combine on a slingshot/diving clothesline that almost gets three, but Warlord tries to break it up. He misses an elbowdrop on the legal man Blair as Blair covers, then doubles his trouble by accidentally clobbering the ref on a follow-up lariat. The other Power Twin then sneaks up to ringside, but we miss Blair doing some move to Power Warrior because we’re getting a ringside close-up instead; Blair wins with that move and claims the UWF World Tag Team Championships for his team. Well, that wasn’t good, but the production cutaway from the finish sure didn’t help.

 

• Gab Gab Gab: Jimmy Snuka cuts one of his inimitable incomprehensible promos on Cactus Jack.

 

• Shill Shill Shill: PLEASE BUY A UWF SHIRT OR MAYBE CAP OR WE WILL HAVE STEVE RAY CONTINUE TO YELL AT YOU ABOUT THE HIGH QUALITY OF THESE MUST-HAVE UWF PRODUCTS. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER.

 

• Someone left the ads in!: SportsChannel hypes itself even though I’m watching SportsChannel right now.

 

• Match: Ah, I am finally going to watch this Lumberjack Match that goes to a double disqualification somehow even though it’s a Lumberjack Match; I’ve of course known about this match since whenever Foley’s Have a Nice Day came out. 2000? 2000, I think. Snuka stares into the camera with the cold dead eyes of a murderer as he enters the ring. No, seriously. It was creepy and also a window into this dude’s psyche, I guess, looking back with the knowledge that I now possess. Cactus still idolizes the guy enough to work a double DQ instead of just going over him like Abrams asked, though! It takes a few minutes for all the lumberjacks to wander out here. The show grinds to nearly a halt while we wait for the bell to ring. Finally, it does, and Cactus holds his hand out for a shake. Snuka takes it…and Cactus sincerely shakes it. OK, Mick, you’d better work another handshake spot and then kick him when he takes it, or I’m going to judge you a bit. In fact, he’s being ostentatious about cleanly breaking, so maybe he’s just setting up for a heel follow-up spot later on.

 

• Tolos: A HEADLOOOOOCK! SNUKA HAS A HEADLOOOOOOCK! ON THE CRAZY MAN! Tolos has totally hijacked this booth and is yammering and yammering and yammering some more. He’s lucky that Rossi is so abominably shitty at his job tonight, or I’d have more smoke for him. Rest assured that Tolos has been absolutely terrible in the booth, however. It doesn’t help that Gianelli only gets excited to talk when he can do some weak verbal sparring with Tolos about his spending habits and luck with women.

 

• Meanwhile, this is definitely the least of the Cactus matches that I’ve seen during this watch. Hell, no-kneed Mick as Dude Love combining efforts with Chyna to guide HHH to a solid match at One Night Only is better than this. That being said, this is still easily the best match on the show with a fun culturally insensitive spot in which Cactus headbutts the Islander, is hurt more in the exchange, and then fires off two more headbutts anyway just because he likes a challenge. Then Cactus clotheslines Snuka onto the commentary table at ringside, bumrushes him with another table, and sets off a brawl between the lumberjacks at ringside. That was easily the most energy this show has ginned up all night.

 

• Cactus locks on a chinlock to let Snuka rest and to allow this somnambulant crowd to go back from slightly aware back to a dozing state, but Snuka fights up and the match once again spills outside, where Cactus and Snuka fight one another and the lumberjacks until they spill over the guardrail and fight up into the empty reaches of the stands. Cactus takes a vertical suplex on the concrete as the bell rings to disqualify both men…in a Lumberjack Match. Hey, it’s Herb Abrams’s show. They can do what they want. 

 

• I think Cactus really did shake this dude's hand legit. Give me a second to sit in silent judgment before we move on to the ads. 

 

• Someone left the ads in!: I am so disappointed in the lack of ad variety for this show. When I charted the ads in an episode of BattleBowl like a year-and-a-half ago, holy shit does time fly, the ads were both more diverse and for more interesting products. Sell me a video game or fast food, SportsChannel, damn.

 

• Match: Thank the benevolent wrestling gods that Herb Abrams is here to screech out an announcement that the main event is upon us. You know how Sid is a heel? His nickname is MALICIOUS. That's how you know. Rossi has figured out that exclaiming IF YOU’RE HAVIN’ A GREAT TIME, LEMME HEAR YA SAY YEAHHHHH will always get a reaction because we’re in 1994. He should have followed up by saying NOW SCREEEEEAAAAAAMMMM. I bet he would have made it sound like there’s a wakeful crowd attending this show. Anyway, Sid attempts to wrest whatever this top UWF title is now officially called from Dr. Death Steve Williams.

 

• Both men have a shoulderblock war, but Doc runs at Sid and eats a boot. By that, I mean that the boot comes nowhere near him and the cameraperson is right in position to shoot this. Sid’s taking it easy tonight, but I don’t really blame him. It’s slow going in the early part of the match, and I like me some shoulderblock wars. They do some chain wrestling on the mat because why the hell not?

 

• Sid eventually takes over and is methodical, yeah, methodical in his attack. I take a quick glance at the Wikipedia page for this show, and every match but two were for a title, and a bunch of them were inaugural title matches. There were four inaugural title crownings! I clicked through some of the links, and that's when I found out that there was a UWF Israeli Championship. Again, AEW fans, you have a clear "too many titles" whataboutist shield! “Well, sure, there are a lot of titles, but it’s not like Tony is Herb Abrams or something.” Who is going to counter that argument?

 

• Long headlock. Anyway, Orton was defending the UWF Southern States Championship against Thor earlier tonight. Why would the UWF have a Southern States Championship? They’re a Northeastern promotion trying desperately to go national! Doc finally makes a comeback, and this is the most energy the match has had to date. Doc tries a second rope dive, but Sid sidesteps it and then – NO – goes up top, but thankfully he gets cut off before he can dive. Doc suplexes Sid to the mat, then follows up with a sitout powerbomb for one, two…and Dan Spivey helps out his old Skyscraper pal by attacking Doc to draw the DQ and spoil the match. The Skyscrapers spike powerbomb Doc before Johnny Ace can make it to the ring and ward off the heels with a chair.

 

• Someone left the ads in!: Buy a sports. Never trust a big butt and a smile. Etc. Etc. Ooh, a fresh ad! It's a World Cup USA ‘94 collectible stamp ad! Ah, back when we hosted the World Cup and weren’t a global fucking embarrassment at the same time! THOOOOOOSE WERE THE DAAAAAAAYS.

 

• Interview time [w/Herb Abrams]: Abrams cuts a promo more than he directs an interview; he wants to sign a rematch between Doc and Sid in a steel cage. Doc says he’s looking forward to it. I wouldn't bother if I were you, Doc.

 

• Someone left the ads in!: Dump trucks and piledrivers and cranes, oh my!

 

• Shill Shill Shill: Yell at me all you want, Sid, but I’m not going to spend ninety-nine cents a minute to endure Steve “Wild Thing” Ray on a phone call.

 

• Gab Gab Gab: We get a shot of a dude who looks like Wade Boggs screaming YOU FUCKIN’ BUMS at the Skyscrapers, and we hear Abrams going off like the cokehead that he is, and I am absolutely overstimulated right now. Blackjack Mulligan lectures the ‘Scrapers on their actions, but Sid and Spivey rightly point out that they learned how to be dastardly by watching him for years. Abrams keeps screaming at Spivey (YOU’VE CHANGED! STEVE STILL HAS THE BELT) to try and get someone to notice him while the ‘Scrapers yell at Mulligan. It is hilarious. Spivey finally points at him to get the little guy off his back since he writes the checks, y’know? We cut to Tolos saying that the next UWF Brawl show will be even better. Absolutely hopeful beyond realistic belief. As is Gianelli, who expects news of Blackjack Brawl II soon. He also expects peace on earth and for a true perpetual motion machine to be created that will unlock unlimited cheap, clean energy for all.

 

• Someone left the ads in!: I thought that was the final bit of gabbing, but no, Gianelli promises us MORE FUCKING GABBING after these ads pitching us questionable comedy and all the sports we can possibly watch.

 

• Gab Gab Gab: Now Gianelli and Tolos bid us good night, but not before they send us back to this hopped-up goofball Herb Abrams and a still-game Blackjack Mulligan to sell the show-ending angle that really wasn’t well executed. Abrams promises us Blackjack Brawl 2 and then claims that we should all watch the Universal Wrestling Federation because IT’S OUTTA THIS WORRRRRRRRLLLLLD. “Why You Wanna Trip on Me” plays over highlights from the show as the credits roll. I…what? I understood the credits about as much as anything else I saw. Did I really just watch this show or did I ingest a few funny mushrooms that somehow found their way into my spaghetti sauce tonight?

 

• We never got that Curt Henning…er, Curt Hennig…interview that was promoted early in the broadcast, by the way.

 

• If this were a two-hour show OR a three-hour show with better ads, this would have been either delightfully basura or at least a trip down 1994 memory lane. However this was a three-hour show with mediocre ads, so let me slam the negative number button like I’m watching a 2000 Nitro. This is one of the worst supershows ever broadcast on U.S. television or PPV and is surely a contender for the absolute worst. -25 Digital Snowflakes out of 5.

[SirSmUgly]

WWF Royal Rumble ‘94 (22 January 1994):

A show in which Vince McMahon and his lieutenants conjure up a number of funky finishes to varying effectiveness

• I’m treading on zendragon’s current turf here as I go back to the Big Five Review Miniseries within this thread and look at the 1994 Big Five PPV shows. Last we left off at Survivor Series ’93, Lex Luger’s whole WWF run as a top guy lay in ruins and Bret Hart was the actual number one guy who wasn’t being booked like a number one guy.

 

• Between these reviews, zendragon’s ongoing thread, and Gorman’s excellent King of New York review series, you're getting a pretty diverse and detailed range of perspectives on these pre-’01 Big Five shows. I’m going to go back and re-read what everyone else has said about these shows after I finish a review.

 

• Hype package: Wrestlers’ visages are cast on the buildings of a dark city – very Nitro-ish! This is more of a brief opening than a full package, but whatever.

 

• Gab Gab Gab: Our hosts tonight are Vince McMahon and…I’ll tell you when he tells me…right now, he’s hyping the three title matches on this show…oh no, it’s Ted DiBiase on color. I mean, he can’t put on a worse color performance than he did at WCW Souled Out ’97, right? Right?!?!?!

 

• Ted also stunk whenever he de-energized the Mid-South commentary desk. He just came off better when it was gonna be either him or Boyd Pierce doing the talking. Boyd was so bad that he made DiBiase come off like Lance Russell.

 

• Match: Our opener pits the formerly-undefeated Tatanka against Bam Bam Bigelow (w/Luna Vachon). This matchup screams “New Generation morass.” Luna is wearing handcuffs around her left arm as an accessory. OK, that’s a great character touch.

 

• Bammer misses a corner splash to start, and both guys open up with fists. He tries another corner splash, but Tatanka counters with a clothesline and then hits desperate shoulderblocks, a dropkick, and a crossbody for two. Wow, exciting start! Seriously! Tatanka hits a judo toss and locks on an arm wringer, but they only rest for a short time before Bammer shoots Tatanka in and Tatanka catches him with a leaping DDT on the rebound. Tatanka goes up to finish him, but Bam Bam slides out of the way of a big top-rope crossbody. I’m surprised at the urgency with which Tatanka is wrestling this match. He’s making Bammer come off as a monster by wrestling like he’s gotta catch a fall quick and get outta there.

 

• Bam Bam asserts himself and actually lands a corner splash. He cockily tries again, but eats a boot to the mush. Tatanka goes up and tries a diving sunset flip, but Bam Bam holds on…holds on…and counters with a sitdown splash. This match rules? I think this match rules.

 

• So, the story is Tatanka having humongous heart and also the brains to try and get a quick win, and Bam Bam shutting down Tatanka’s offense with his power and extremely hard noggin, but being prone to cockiness and sloppiness that allows Tatanka’s heart to win out. Unfortunately, Bammer locks on a bearhug so ugly that Vince McMahon does his whole passive-aggressive babyface PBP deal on commentary by pointing out that it probably doesn’t have the leverage it needs to put Tatanka away. It’s also too long a spot and really slows this match down in an ineffective way. If the hold looked better, okay, but Tatanka having to endure and fight out of that shitty bearhug for two minutes straight was not good.

 

• Tatanka eventually fires up, gets his first comeback attempt cut off by a shoulderblock, but manages a counter powerslam as Bammer runs at him for two. Then, they have a dope-ass spot where they run the ropes and both try crossbody blocks. It looks like a car crash in mid air when these two huge dudes slam into each other. Fantastic-looking impact spot, that was. Bam Bam is up first because he’s a monster, but his forearms don’t affect Tatanka, who goes into a war dance that renders him impervious to fists and forearms. So Bam Bam simply changes it up, hits him with a leaping hook kick, and knocks him flat out, then mocks his dance. Amazing.

 

• Bam Bam thinks it’s over. He slowly climbs up top and tries a moonsault that Tatanka rolls away from. Bam Bam splatters himself, and Tatanka realizes that this is his big opening. He goes up and this time successfully lands the huge crossbody from the top, which earns him a three count. The bearhug spot sucked, but everything else about this bout kicked serious ass, much to my shock. Tatanka really earned the hell out of that win, and Bam Bam looks like a monster who lost not because he isn't big and bad, but because he got too cocky and underestimated his fighting babyface opponent. I’ve seen this show before, obviously, but I forgot that this was the opener. I am glad that I watched it with fresh eyes. This counts as a hidden gem. Oh, and sorry about the “New Generation morass” comment right before your match, fellas. My bad. That one was on me.

 

• Previously on…: …assorted WWF television, starting at Survivor Series ’93, we see how Owen Hart came to be royally peeved at his brother Bret. If you don’t recall from a few reviews ago, Owen was eliminated from that SurSer traditional tag match after he smashed into Bret. We follow this familial ordeal through a Superstars episode where Owen demands a match with Bret to prove that he has surpassed his older brother in an interview with Vince McMahon. Bret’s response in an interview with Vince the following week on Superstars is to share reluctance at fighting his brother, though he emphasizes that generally, he’s a fighting champion (or champion-in-spirit-only at this point).

 

• On the first Superstars of the new year, Bret and Owen seem to have pulled things back together and are now looking for a win against those secessionist-ass Quebecers. Now, Owen has a fantastic line in this interview that signals that he’s gonna heel it up if they don’t beat the Quebecers for the tag titles. After Bret goes on and on about how he’s glad they patched things up and now they’re putting their energies to a better cause than fighting one another, Owen shares his own positivity, but also says this: “I know after Survivor Series that I said some things that I probably shouldn’t have said. It doesn’t matter if they were true or not. It really doesn’t matter.” It doesn’t matter if they were true or not. Bret, are you listening? I’m going to guess that Owen thinks they were true, buddy. Otherwise, he would have said that those things he said categorically weren’t true and that he was just frustrated. Poor, trusting babyface Bret. I get it. You want to believe that things are better, so you’ve got your metaphorical fingers in your equally metaphorical ears.

 

• We next see what has been going on with the tag belts, which includes a big upset win for 1-2-3 Kid and Marty Jannetty to win the titles over the Quebecers on RAW followed by an immediate loss of those titles in a rematch against the Quebecers at an MSG house show, putting the men who are absolutely, positively not RCMP back in the defending champion position against the Brothers Hart. I get why you want the heels to be the champs for this specific match, and the Quebecers are a very good tag team, but man, if we could have gotten Bret and Owen against Kid and Jannetty, that shit would have been flames.

 

• Interview time [w/Todd Pettengill]: The Brothers Hart speak before their title bout. Bret is basically like, I am extremely overconfident that we’ll win. Seriously. He uses the word “overconfident” and then emphasizes that this word is insufficient for capturing just how certain he is that they’re going to win the tag titles. Hubris, thy name is Hitman.

 

• Match: This crowd is overjoyed to greet the Brothers Hart (Bret and Owen) as they walk to the ring to face the Quebecers (Jacques and Pierre, w/Johnny Polo) for the WWF World Tag Team Championship. Both brothers hand out their wraparounds, and Owen puts his on a kid with a fade and gives him a thumbs-up, and the kid gives him a huge thumbs-up back, and oh man, I just loved it. I loved it. Don’t kick Bret’s leg out of his leg, Owen. Hand out more wraparounds to kids and give them each a huge thumbs-up instead.

 

• So, the interesting thing about how this match is worked, and not only this match, but the way in which the pre-match interview was pitched, is that Owen has a point! Bret openly claims he’s overconfident, clearly failing to take the reigning tag champs (who, mind you, have managed to hold off all-time great tag teams like the Steiners to keep their belts) very seriously. Then, early in the match itself, Bret finds himself in trouble and just thinks he can work his way right out of the jam without relying on Owen. I get why Owen’s ideas that Bret is selfish and doesn’t take HIM seriously enough either are confirmed as a result of this match. I mean, he didn’t have to turn into such a dick and start hanging around with Jim Cornette, but his grievance with Bret is not without merit.

 

• The Brothers Hart dismantle the Quebecers to start; Jacques barely survives everything from an enziguri to a second-rope elbow to various flash pinfall attempts before he can finally bail out of the ring and reconsider his rapidly failing strategy. He gets a hug from Pierre for comfort. Hey, human touch can be a comfort in trying times! He re-enters the ring and resumes getting destroyed until he can tag out to Pierre. The future PCO initially doesn’t fare much better against the Harts. Owen in particular is controlling both of his opponents with crisp offense, landing lariats, legdrops, and gutwrench suplexes for close two counts.

 

• But wouldn’t you know it, things fall apart when Bret tags back in and eats a counter floatover powerslam from Jacques. The crowd starts a rousing GO BRET GO chant, but Bret isn’t helped by the overexcited Owen continually entering the ring and drawing ref Tim White’s attention; that allows the Quebecers to do what they do best, which is hit nice double-team offense. Vret does manage to stick a boot up on a Pierre second-rope dive, however, and he makes a smart tag out. This time.

 

• Owen absolutely rolls both Quebecers with high-impact offense, then wraps Pierre in a Sharpshooter. Bret cuts off Jacques’s attempt to break it up with a headbutt, but White backs Bret off, and Jacques recovers and hits the defenseless Owen with a face crusher. The Quebecers go right back to nailing a Hart with double-team offense, including a nice press Hot Shot, but Owen is able to bounce off the ropes and hit both men with single-leg dropkicks, then prudently tags out to Bret. That’s going to be the last prudent tag a Hart makes in this match.

 

• Bret has few problems handling both Quebecers, but when Owen holds Jacques against the ropes and signals Bret to get some momentum and hit Jacques while he’s wrapped up, Polo hops on the apron and yanks the middle rope down; Bret tumbles through the cables as he tries to hit them and sells a knee injury upon impact that the Quebecers immediately hop on and target. Owen is still too hot under the collar and continues to draw White’s attention, allowing the Quebecers to use double-team moves a chair, and even Polo’s mallet destroy Bret’s knee. Owen finally rushes around the ring and brawls with Pierre, but in a cool spot for fans who are paying attention, about a minute earlier, Jacques had taken the mallet from Polo and sort of held it at his side against his leg, biding his time. White having to try and break up Owen and Jacques’s brawl is what allows him to finally take a free shot by swinging the mallet at Bret’s knee. There was a lot of tension in knowing that Jacques had the mallet in hand and was surely going to use it when he saw the chance.

 

• This match rules, too. I wrote in an earlier review that the WWF had an awesome tag team division in 1993 and 1994, and here is another example of how dope this division is. So, here’s the point at which Owen gets fed up and kicks Bret’s leg out from under his leg; the Quebecers miss a cannonball to finish off Bret, and instead of tagging out, Bret sees a chance to wrap a Sharpshooter on Pierre. He’s thinking in singles-match mode, you see. Anyway, he tries to wrap it on, but his knee gives out, and he crumples. Tim White has seen enough and calls the match because he doesn’t think that Bret can defend himself. This is a copout of a finish, right? When do referee stoppages ever happen? Actually in kayfabe, Owen should have annihilated White for his (equally kayfabe) dogshit refereeing, what with being too slow and incompetent to stop an onslaught of illegal Quebecer double-team and weapon attacks and then having the audacity to award the match to the Quebecers because of injury when Bret still could have crawled over to his fresh partner on the apron and made a tag. Actually, that’s how I’d change this post-match angle – Owen attacks the referee for that reason, Bret hobbles up and tries to stop him, and then Owen kicks Bret’s leg out from under his…leg. That feels like a bit cleaner narrative to me. The camera catches Owen mouthing FUCKIN’ SELFISH SONUVABITCH to himself, which cracks me up, before he chooses different words when he vocalizes that Bret is TOO DAMN SELFISH to the camera. I mean, no need to insult your mom while insulting your brother, right, Owen?

 

• It looks like Bret might have been so badly injured that he won’t make the Royal Rumble, but he’s probably just playing possum.

 

• Interview time [w/Todd Pettengill]: Owen cuts a promo in which he once again asserts that Bret is TOO DAMN SELFISH and that’s why Owen KICKED [BRET’S] LEG OUTTA [HIS] LEG. Owen internally processing in the background that he said the word “leg” one too many times as he finishes that sentence is funny as fuck. It kills me every time. It’s not the flubbed line that’s funny – it’s Owen realizing that he flubbed the line that’s funny. It’s not quite as funny as Jeff Jarrett realizing his own brain fart when he first heavily praises Chuck Palumbo before not twenty seconds later calling Palumbo a jaybrone who was going to have a hard time beating Booker T., but it’s close!

 

• Gab Gab Gab: Vince and DiBiase argue whether or not Owen Hart’s actions were in his own best interests.

 

• Match: And here is where this show starts to fall off. It’s I.R.S., he of no entrance music and a constant stream of accusations and abuse toward the audience about cheating on taxes, to try and win Razor Ramon’s WWF Intercontinental Championship. Jim Ross and Gorilla Monsoon take a break from their Radio WWF duties to call this match.

 

• My issue with this match is 1) Rotundo/a generally stinks, and 2) they heat up Razor’s feud with Shawn Michaels over who the true Intercontinental Champion is by having Michaels come out here and attack Ramon, giving I.R.S. a false fall before the ref restarts the match even though refs generally do not reverse their decisions because they missed interference that affected the result of the match. They did that in Bret/Bam Bam at KotR ’93 even though Hogan/Yokozuna also had interference but didn’t have the finish reversed on the same show. It annoyed me then. It annoys me now.

 

• There is a cool spot in here where Shyster goes up to drop a double-axe on a prone Razor; the typical thing that happens when a heel tries to drop a double-axe on a prone babyface is that the babyface sticks his boot into the diving heel’s jaw. In a nice subversion, Razor sticks his boot up, but I.R.S. lands to the side of Razor's boot, readjusts, and drops an elbow to keep control of the match. It was a neat enough way to play with expectations that I will forgive Shyster for slamming Razor in the wrong position for the spot and Razor obviously scooching his body ninety degrees to reposition even though there was no kayfabe reason for him to do so.

 

• I crapped on poor Shyster, but he was generally fine in this match. Razor eventually makes his comeback and hits a bunch of his cool offense and his dope punches, but Shyster reverses a whip and crashes Razor into the ref. With the ref out, Shyster grabs his briefcase and sneaks up on Razor, but Razor cuts him off with a boot to the gut, then clobbers Shyster with the briefcase and covers. The ref is still in La La Land, so Razor goes back to punishing Shyster, this time with a signature super back suplex. He calls for a Razor’s Edge, but his back is to the aisle, so he doesn’t know that Shawn Michaels has run up on him until he feels the impact of HBK swinging the Intercontinental title belt that Shawn never handed back to WWF officials once stripped of it into the base of his neck. The referee revives in time to see Shyster crawl over and cover Razor for three, but because the story demands it in this specific case, Earl Hebner takes it upon himself to convince the first referee who missed the whole thing to restart the match. Would that Earl might be more consistent in his dealings. I’m sure the Hitman would agree. Razor quickly hits a Razor’s Edge on a celebrating Shyster to win the pinfall and retain the title upon immediate restart. It might be time to get out the old hook-and-ladder play, by which I of course mean a literal hook to dangle the belts and a literal ladder to let these two champs see which one of them deserves to possess the title “Intercontinental Champion.” Or equally as literally, maybe both guys could gin up partners for a five-on-five game of touch football to decide it. Either/or. Razor could probably get his buddy Walter Payton to join his team.

 

• Hype package: The Undertaker has spent the past month building a plus-sized casket for a plus-sized man. Beware, Yokozuna! We see video of his construction intercut with video of Yokozuna looking scared. The Undertaker KILLS me with his holiday-themed threats. First, as he puts a Christmas wreath on the casket: “Merry Christmas, Yokozuna. Ho. Ho. Hooooooo.” Then: “I’ve made my New Year’s resolution, Yokozuna. May you rest in peace.” Holy shit, that was hilarious. Paul Bearer is a veritable sandwich filling of pure ham and cheese as he always is. This is so goofy, so dumb, that I both marvel that it got over so much and also possess a deep nostalgic enjoyment of it. The auto-captioner hears the Undertaker’s threat that Yokozuna will soon be stuffed in the casket and hear only the sounds of “the hounds of hell baying for your soul” as “the hounds of hell BEGGING for your soul,” which makes no sense, you stupid auto-captioner. This is a long freakin’ hype package. We get footage of Cornette whining about Yokozuna having to defend the WWF World Championship against the Undertaker in a casket match; we also get footage of the Undertaker leaving a casket at ringside during that interview and then popping out of it when Yoko casually tries to open the lid.

 

• Match: I love Casket Matches. This is one of my favorite stips. ‘Taker/Michaels at Royal Rumble ’98 (which I wrote about elsewhere and which is going to be posted in this thread eventually) and Rey Fenix/Mil Muertes Grave Consequences and Matanza Cueto/Mil Muertes Grave Consequences (both of which I also wrote about in some other thread) would all be under heavy consideration for a top-100 matches list if I put one together. I’m not sure about this Undertaker (w/Paul Bearer) vs. Yokozuna (w/Mr. Fuji and James E. Cornette) Casket Match, though. It’s 1994 and Yokozuna’s weight is now a full-on problem when it comes to his ability to consistently hit dynamic offense and bump. The best casket matches are ones where dudes either take a lot of weapon damage (often including parts of the casket) or take wild bumps (often into and around the casket). Each of the three casket-focused matches that I mentioned loving above all had dudes taking nasty casket-focused bumps. Hell, Michaels quit wrestling for four years because he fucked his back so bad on one of those bumps. This match probably isn’t going to be able to duplicate any of that.

 

• Further, the ending is all-time WWF shlock, and I mean, it is dumb in multiple ways. Much like tonight’s Intercontinental title tilt, my foreknowledge of the finish to this match has me already a bit fatigued to sit through it. I mean, these fellas try to turn it up so much that ‘Taker steals a chair from Yoko as Yoko tries to hit him with it; Taker swings and scores twice, including an unprotected shot to the head (though ‘Taker certainly tried to be as gentle about that second one as he could). I get the idea here that they needed to give this match a dangerous feel, so why not have a ringside weapons brawl? It’s not a bad idea. Yoko returns the unprotected chair shot, this one to the back of ‘Taker’s head, after tossing salt in ‘Taker’s eyes.

 

• I’d say this was a fairly effective way to start hot. Yoko tries to dump ‘Taker in the casket and gets blocked; ‘Taker eats a belly-to-belly, but sits up, chokes Yoko, and then drops him with a chokeslam in which Yoko barely got himself off the ground. He follows up with a leaping clothesline and okay, this is a new stat just for my reviews of WWF shows from this era: BO-HEMOTH Count: 1. Vince and his fucking Vince-isms. ‘Taker prepares to roll Yoko into he Casket and win the match, but Crush runs out and attacks, followed by the Great Kabuki and Tenryu, which is quite the trio! What a strange group of guys to run out here. Was Kabuki not wrestling with New Japan at this point? Is that why he could be on a random WWF show even though who the fuck in the traditional WWF audience would even get what a big deal he was?

 

• Anyway, Bam Bam runs down to help the overmatched heels with their mugging attempt, but ‘Taker continues to fight them off as Bearer holds up the urn. One of the heels should really chase down that portly fellow and steal it, but instead, Bam Bam and Adam Bomb fail to successsfully combine on an attack. Jeff Jarrett runs out here and is equally ineffective. Diesel’s lollygagging ass gets there after the heels have finally subdued the Undertaker. Big Lazy, indeed. I think the idea here is that Crush, Kabuki, and Tenryu are Cornette and Fuji’s men, but Bam Bam, Bomb, Diesel, and Jarrett saw their opportunity as heels and jumped in to help, though that’s not exactly legible. Maybe they established that the other heels were tired of being terrorized by the outlaw country zombie man and were looking forward to seeing him get beaten on the weekly television. I don’t recall that they were, though I haven’t seen the weekly stuff from this period of WWF in a long time. I think this further heel intervention was just sort of random. It certainly comes off as inorganic to me.

 

• Yokozuna finally figures out that he should punch Bearer and confiscate the urn. The top is removed and a bunch of green smoke pours out of it. The heels finally knock out ‘Taker as the power of the urn escapes into the top of the arena. Everyone hits their finishers on ‘Taker before dumping him in the coffin and shutting the lid. The sorry-ass babyfaces in this company should be ashamed of themselves for sitting in catering and letting this happen to a fellow babyface. Bret’s getting treatment for his knee, but what are everyone else’s excuses?

 

• Do I even need to talk about the delightfully moronic post-match angle where the Undertaker shows up on the TitanTron, laying in the casket, and claims that his spirit will never REST IN PEACE before blit-blurting out of the casket with an explosion, his soul floating up from the Tron and into the sky? Yes, I need to talk about it. The Undertaker is canonically WWF Jesus. 'Taker claims that we will all soon “witness the rebirth of the Undertaker.” In the months ahead, people claim to have seen him, but can’t prove it. An antichrist…er, antiundertaker…is brought forth by the dastardly Ted DiBiase, but true believers know that he is merely a trick of the devil and that we should keep our faith in Paul Bearer as the true man to bring the Undertaker back from death. Then the Undertaker returns and establishes God’s Kingdom on Earth. No, wait, sorry, he returns and faffs around in the upper-midcard for another couple of years before they finally put the big belt on him again. Sorry about the mistake. Jeff Jarrett said that he found Austin 3:16 to be a blasphemous catchphrase, so I’d genuinely be interested in his opinion on the Jesustaker angle that he was a part of on this show.

 

• Gab Gab Gab: It’s traditional micro-interview time for the competitors in the Rumble:

 

• Randy Savage is going to win it, beat up Crush, and be a “three-peat” champion. That’s uh, not what that term means, Savage.

 

• Jeff Jarrett, Crush, and Diesel all have standard heelish confidence in their ability to win.

 

• Doink and Dink WHA HOO HOO HOO HOO.

 

• Shawn Michaels tosses his Intercontinental title aside like trash because he’s going to get a bigger, better title after he wins the Rumble.

 

• Lex Luger is so low-energy as he celebrates his opportunity to get a title shot via the Rumble even though he had a shot directly at Yokozuna a few months ago and he choked by letting Yoko get counted out. BOOO, WE WANT THE ONE-LEGGED HITMAN TO WIN INSTEAD, BOOOOO

 

• Gab Gab Gab: Vince and DiBiase speculate on Luger’s odds, the formidable group of Mr. Fuji-affiliated entrants, and whether or not Bret will be able to compete after getting his leg kicked outta—oh, you know the rest of the bit. Just think it to yourself.

 

• Match: IT IS TIME FOR THE ROYAL RUMBLE! LET US ALL FIND OUT WHO DREW NUMBER ONE! Scott Steiner (Entrant 1) drew number one. AND NOW, HERE IS THE MAN WHO DREW NUMBER TWO! It’s established Steiner enemy Headshrinker Samu (Entrant 2). Vince speculated on Rick Steiner being number two, but after two minutes of punches, we find that Rick’s entrance into the match (Entrant 3) is not far off that speculation. Surprisingly smart strategy considering the duo: The Steiner Brothers team up and kick the shit out of Samu [Elimination 4], then avoid his counter attack attempt and let him harmlessly spill over the ropes and to the floor. Kwang (Entrant 4) fires off with a green mist attack on Rick to keep the bros from tossing him just as quickly, and that allows him to survive until Owen Hart (Entrant 5) can get to the ring to muddy the waters. Rick [Elimination 2] never recovers from that mist attack; Owen is able to hoist him over his shoulders and, after a brief struggle, toss him from the ring. Bart Gunn (Entrant 6) races to the ring to help the lone babyface Scott Steiner against the two heels. Where were you when the Undertaker was out here getting cooked, bud?

 

• Vince interrupts the action to say that they’ve got cameras headed to an incident backstage. We don’t cut away to that incident, so we get more of dudes struggling against the ropes instead. Here comes the star of the middle part of the match, Diesel (Entrant 7), to toss a bunch of dudes outta here and clear this ring. Now, if I just made a hot heel in Owen by having that Bret attack angle earlier in the night, I would have had him come out after Diesel was eliminated. Either that, or I would have given him multiple eliminations. Let’s see if Patterson (is he back with the company yet? Is Patterson or Vince putting these matches together right now? Or someone else?) at least does the latter.

 

• Diesel eliminates Bart Gunn [Elimination 3], then dumps Scott Steiner [Elimination 4] as the Main Event Mafia PRE-EXPLODES, and after that, he quickly tosses Owen [Elimination 5]  - so it’s a no to my previous question - and lariats Kwang [Elimination 6] to the floor to rapidly increasing cheers from the crowd. Poor old sap Bob Backlund (Entrant 8 ) is out here to do one of multiple quick jobs to Diesel next. Backlund uses solid wrestling skills to get leverage and almost topple Nash over the top rope, but Diesel responds with a soupbone and a quick beal that sends Backlund [Elimination 7] over the top and to the floor. Diesel stands around and awaits the buzzer; Billy Gunn (Entrant 9) runs out full of vim and vigor, charges Nash, eats a big boot, and is summarily dismissed  [Elimination 8 ] from the bout.

 

• We cut to the back to see footage of Fuji’s heel backup kicking the shit out of Lex Luger in a hallway. Back to the ring: Nash cartoonishly puffs his cheeks and raises his eyebrows as he awaits Virgil (Entrant 10). The nWo PRE-EXPLODES as Virgil tries and fails to do a single fucking thing to eliminate Nash, who doesn’t try that hard and succeeds at eliminating Virgil [Elimination 9]. DiBiase cackles and declares NEXXXXXXT! at Virgil's quick defeat, which is good. Good for you, DiBiase. You entertained me on commentary. It won’t be so easy for Diesel anymore, though: Randy Savage (Entrant 11) is the next to make his way down the aisle at the buzzer. Macho goes right at Diesel, a man that he pinned straight up with a Savage Elbow at the previous WWF PPV if I recall, so this is an interesting matchup that probably should end with Diesel getting his revenge and tossing Savage. However, Savage not only survives, but has Diesel tangled against the ropes and is only stopped in his mission to toss the big man by the entrance of Jeff Jarrett (Entrant 12).

 

• DiBiase rightly points out that Jarrett is too busy posing and attacking Savage when he should be attacking the winded Diesel. Jarrett tries to toss Savage, turns around, and Fargo Struts away, not seeing Savage hang on, reenter the ring without touching the floor, and rush at him. It’s surely a surprise to ol’ Double J [Elimination 10] when he feels someone bash him right into the slouched Nash and then toss him over the top and to the floor. DiBiase: “That’s what you get for bein’ cocky.” That’s exactly what Scott Steiner screamed at DiBiase for being just as cocky and thus losing that eight-man tag back at KotR ‘93. I see DiBiase has learned from past failures and is using that earned knowledge to shit on other people who make similar mistakes. What else is education for?

 

• BZZZT! It’s Crush (Entrant 13)! He tries to catch Savage unawares, but Savage senses the dastardly Crush's attack and cuts him off, then knocks him down and goes up for a double-axe, which he successfully lands. Savage slams Crush and goes up again, then lands another successful double-axe before bounding over and attacking Nash. Both men are entirely too much beef for him to handle by himself, though, and the heels finally jump him and double up on him. Doink (Entrant 14) is the next to enter; he hops down the aisle as Crush casually picks up Savage [Elimination 11] and drops him over the top and to the floor. Diesel quickly tries to toss Crush, and they fight while Doink stands in the other corner and laughs at them. The heels catch sight of him laughing and saunter up to him, so he squirts them with water and stomps on their toes. Cute, but these fellas don’t have time for any of your jokes, clown! There’s a title shot to win!

 

• The heels quickly recover and beat the hell out of the clown while Bam Bam Bigelow (Entrant 15) makes his way down the aisle and into the fray. Crush and Diesel hold the ropes open so that Bammer can get in a bunch of shots at his current feud partner Doink. Bam Bam does so, then hoists Doink [Elimination 12] into a military press and launches him to the floor. Of course, Crush and Diesel immediately try to toss Bammer, then Crush punches Diesel, and the point is that these are heels, so what do you expect? It’s every man for himself, sure, but you can still be skeevy about it.

 

• Mabel (Entrant 16) is in, and now we’ve got a group of massive dudes in here. Mabel squashes everyone else, but doesn’t eliminate anyone by the time “Sparky Plugg” Bob Holly (Entrant 17) rushes the ring. I can’t believe Vince initially straight-up named him “Sparky Plugg.” What the fuck?! I’m not calling him that. He’s Bob Holly. That fucking Vince McMahon. Anyway, Shawn Michaels (Entrant 18) is next out. He begs off of Diesel’s advance after sliding into the ring and then tries to bargain with him. Why not team up, after all? Diesel agrees to the plan and shakes Shawn’s hand, but everyone else in the ring jumps the distracted Diesel [Elimination 13] and uses a team effort to launch him; the camera misses Michaels helping out at the very end, which is a shame. Vince has to tell us that Shawn helped, then says, “I’m not sure that [Diesel] wasn’t going out anyway” to undercut Shawn’s involvement in the elimination, which I feel is also a subtle burial of the camerapeople/truck for not getting a clearer shot of Shawn. You can tell when Vince is unhappy about a spot or a production truck choice on commentary, I think, because he verbally calls it out or further undercuts any miniscule effect it might have had. I haven’t gathered enough evidence to present so far in this thread – I’ve only really talked about it in this particular review – but I’m pretty sure he does this regularly based on my collective memory of all the hours that I’ve heard him commentate matches.

 

• Mo (Entrant 19) joins his Men on a Mission partner in the Rumble. Not much happens. Greg Valentine (Entrant 20) joins the Rumble. Mabel slaps the Hammer in the chest. It makes a sound like a firecracker. That’s cool. Tatanka (Entrant 21) joins the Rumble. Michaels is flip-flopping around. He’s on a skin-the-cat count of one. The Great Kabuki (Entrant 22) joins the Rumble. I wish it were the Great Muta instead. Michaels knocks Mo to the mat so that he can’t intervene, then joins the rest of the current entrants in hoisting Mabel [Elimination 14]  to the floor. Yeah, let’s get Luger and Bret out here soon.

 

• Speak of the devil, here’s Lex Luger (Entrant 23), who immediately jumps Kabuki before firing off at everyone nearby. He goes right back at Kabuki [Elimination 15] and launches him over the top and to the floor. Luger got a pop, but Diesel was the more over babyface tonight. Honestly, Tatanka got slightly bigger babyface pops. Twice. Next comes Tenryu (Entrant 24) to help fellow Fuji client Crush beat up Luger. Tenryu chops Luger, including one chop that sounds like a car backfiring.

 

• No one enters at the buzzer, and Vince assumes that Bret Hart was supposed to enter here. We know better from the future, though, don’t we? It was just Bastion Booger’s (Entrant 25)/ [Elimination 16] spot to enter, and he missed it because of severe indigestion. HYUCK HYUCK HYUCK HYUCK. From the same mind that brought you “Sparky Plugg,” folks! I saw some video of a seventy-year-old Rick Martel (Entrant 26) giving an interview in French the other day, and holy shit, Rick Martel is seventy?! Two more minutes, and the crowd explodes when Bret Hart (Entrant 27) comes limping through the curtain to take his place in the Rumble. Crush immediately jumps Bret and attacks his leg. Wow, Crush with a smart strategy? I guess turning heel gives you an immediate twenty-point jump in IQ.

 

• Man, this ring is too damn full. Nash needed to spend a couple more minutes tossing dudes before Savage made it to the ring. Headshrinker Fatu (Entrant 28) makes his entrance. Luger punches Crush [Elimination 17] in the head as Crush is prone on the apron, which is enough to finally eliminate the latter. Marty Jannetty (Entrant 29), still in his Rockers garb with the neon colors and the tassels, rushes the ring and immediately jumps Shawn Michaels, then ducks an SCM attempt and hits one of his own. Dissed!

 

• Adam Bomb (Entrant 30), is the final entrant, which should be the best spot from which to enter, but from the point at which I stopped watching had never produced a winner. And now for the match beyond! But seriously, I’m ready to submit or surrender to get this show, which was awesome for the first two matches and wayward for the rest of it, to finally end. Bret manages to leverage Holly [Elimination 18] to the floor. My issue with this Rumble is that there were far too many minutes of guys throwing punches at one another and lounging against the ropes. They needed to space out Diesel’s rampage, Luger coming in and maybe eliminating more dudes, and Bret coming out a bit better. They also could have given Owen and Shawn more eliminations. I don’t think Shawn has eliminated anyone. Luger has one elimination so far. Hell, Tatanka’s still over. Give him an elimination or two. This Rumble has had so many dead spots in it, but it didn’t have to be this way.

 

• Rick Martel eliminates the Hammer [Elimination 19] in this, the 1988 Royal Rumble. Whoops, I mean, in this, the 1994 Royal Rumble. Tatanka then immediately eliminates Martel [Elimination 20]. Luger ducks Bomb’s charge [Elimination 21] and Bomb spills to the floor. OK, so now we’re doing an elimination rush after minutes and minutes of dead spots. Spacing, folks! Mo got tossed somehow [Elimination 22].Tatanka [Elimination 23] gets launched to the floor by Bammer. DiBiase sells this logically – everyone has been in there a long time and are getting tired and making mistakes. Sure, but that’s not fun to watch. This is a worked sport, so you can give me a little more story throughline stuff in the match. Not too much – the modern Rumbles post about 2010 or so had the problem of being booked in ways that felt a bit contrived to criss-cross storylines – but more than this match does. There’s a happy middle ground somewhere in between.

 

• Why didn’t Marty Jannetty update his gear? He looks like a bitter ex attacking Shawn in his Rockers-era shit. Bam Bam [Elimination 24] misses a corner charge and bumps himself onto the apron, where Luger eliminates him with a forearm shot; meanwhile, Michaels manages to flip his bitter ex [Elimination 25] over the top and to the floor. Tenryu looks like a boss in here, outsmarting his opps and chopping the hell out of Luger, but eventually Bret and Luger are co-champions at tossing Tenryu [Elimination 26] to the floor. That leaves a final four of Fatu, Luger, the Hitman, and HBK.

 

• Fatu tries to make a difference in this match by dropping a fist on Luger; meanwhile, Michaels veers away from stomping at the Hitman to help Fatu deposit Luger on the apron, but Luger fights them off, hops back into the ring, and hits Fatu with a running clothesline. Michaels wanders back over to hart, but gets whipped toward Fatu, who is whipped by Luger. He hops over Fatu on the run and keeps going toward Luger, who backdrops him to the floor; Fatu runs at Bret and Bret does likewise. Bret and Luger, the final two left, immediately tangle and move against the ropes, where they go over the top together and perfectly time hitting the floor at the same moment. Bret credits Luger for handling the timing, and he did a hell of a job at coordinating that bump.

 

• Vince openly conducts a test to see who the fans would prefer by having both of them announced with their music playing. Luger gets a decent pop when his music hits. Bret gets a mega-pop when his music hits. Poor Luger, dead in the water. Anyway, the two referees disagree on who hit first, so we’ve got a problem, a conundrum if you will. Years later, when John Cena and Batista hit the floor at the same time (accidentally rather than on purpose), Vince stormed out and tore both his quads while demanding a restart to the match. He should have just done the Bret/Luger thing again. Jack Tunney walks out. Some kids try to start a WE WANT BRET chant. No one tries to start a WE WANT LUGER chant. Tunney tells Howard Finkel to declare both men co-winners. The kids get more insistent in their BRET chant as we wait for Finkel to make the final declaration; Bret eggs them on. Has WWE run a co-winner finish again since then? I think this is a neat twist ending worth busting out every fifteen or twenty Rumble PPVs.

 

• And now we get the cool angle where by coin flip, one man gets the first shot at Yokozuna and the other, to keep it fair to Yoko, has to wrestle another match at the start of the night before wrestling the winner of the first Yokozuna title bout since Yoko will have to defend twice. Thankfully, Luger wins the coin flip and the first shot, so we don’t get Luger/Crush; instead, we get Bret/Owen, which I am very much looking forward to in my next review. I remember as a kid looking at the possible brackets pre-coin flip and immediately thinking that Luger/Crush was obviously not going to happen because Crush was clearly being paired with Savage, then feeling somewhat insulted that whoever was putting these shows together thought that I'd buy there being a chance that Luger was losing the coin flip and wrestling Crush on the show. 

 

• People call WrestleMania X a two-match show with Bret/Owen and Shawn/Razor Ladder Match and a bunch of detritus otherwise, and that might be true, but they could also use that same label for this preceding Rumble, except that one of the two matches is Tatanka/Bam Bam, so I suppose my point is that not all two-match shows are the same. See, I can’t help but give these poor fellas backhanded compliments. 2.5 Digital Snowflakes out of 5.

[zendragon]

What ever the percentage of American's who have seriously considered living in a log cabin is it has to be vanishingly small, like so small that you would think it wouldn't be enough to support a whole magazine on the subject even before the internet killed the print industy

BO-HEMOTH is a Gorillaism that Vince picked up

I believe that Tenyru/Kabuki is that Fuji got a couple of entrants in the rumble in exchange for Luger getting in and having Yoko defend in a casket match.

[Gorman]

Gorilla is my all-time favorite announcer, but it's funny that he couldn't pronounce behemoth when he was a behemoth himself.

[Curt McGirt]

I've never understood people pronouncing it "bohemoth" either, like Stephen Wright in Reservoir Dogs (then again, he pronounced it "bo-hwee-mith"). Is that supposed to be some kind of OG Biblical pronunciation or something? Can people not read?

[Sex Machine Gun]

I've always liked it as an alternative to put some extra stank on an existing word. Then again I'm originally from Gullah Geechee country so different pronunciations of things are my wheelhouse.