Chi-Town Rumble
Date: February 20, 1989
Location: UIC Pavilion, Chicago, Illinois
Attendance: 8,000
Commentators: Jim Ross, Magnum TA

This is a one off show with the first match in the Steamboat vs. Flair trilogy. Steamboat is the first guy Flair brought in after he took over as booker from Dusty who is on his way to the WWF. The Horsemen are mostly broken up but Hiro Matsuda is managing various people who used to be on the team. This is a very forgotten show so let’s see if there’s a reason for it. Let’s get to it.

Jim and Magnum talk about the card.

For you visual learners out there, here’s a video about the matches (there are only seven) tonight.

Michael Hayes shouts a lot and says a lot of people are shouting and says he feels like Pete Rose. He sounds like he’s plugging a PPV instead of talking about his opponent, who hasn’t been mentioned yet.

For you card carrying members of the IWC, Dave Meltzer is in the front row on camera all night.

Michael Hayes vs. Russian Assassin #1

It’s Jack Victory under a mask. You’ll be hearing that name later tonight. They exchange overly long headlocks to start and a Russian sickle misses. Hayes takes over and stops to play to the crowd because he’s not that smart at times. Must be that Freebird Hair Cream getting into his brain (WCCW joke). Hayes works on the arm but stops to strut. JR calls it the patented strut. How do you go about getting that patented?

The armbar lasts way too long and the Russian fires back with a knee. Hayes was a lot better at working a crowd than he was in the ring. You can’t have everything though I guess. Most of a Russian Sickle gets two. That’s like the Russian version of the Samoan Drop. The Assassin’s manager, Paul Jones, messes up a cover by bickering even though Hayes is down.

Here’s a chinlock by the Assassin as the fans chant USA. That doesn’t last long so the Russian hits a Sickle for two and goes back to the chinlock. Hayes tries a comeback but gets hit in the back despite there being no back work on him in the first ten minutes or so. Jones chokes some and this needs to end. It’s not that it’s a bad match but it’s really boring. Hayes blocks a suplex into one of his own but an elbow misses. A charge in the corner hits the post and Hayes pounds away. DDT out of nowhere ends it with Hayes winning.

Rating: D. Oh man this was dull. Who in their right mind thought this deserved 15:48? The match was mostly laying around and it wasn’t interesting at all. Hayes is a guy that can get a great reaction out of a pile of dirt but he’s not a guy you want in the ring for almost 16 minutes. Not sure what they were thinking here.

Ricky Steamboat and his family talks about how important family is and he dedicates the match tonight to them.

Sting vs. Butch Reed

Sting is on the verge of shattering the glass ceiling but they’re a PPV away (about three months) from pulling the trigger and giving him the TV Title. That came at WrestleWar. Sting is in new clothes and is all fired up. He’s ready for Reed too. Magnum TA summed up Sting perfectly on the Starrcade DVD: “He had so much talent and so much charisma that he had no idea what to do with it all.” That’s as accurate as you can get with Sting in the late 80s.

Reed has gotten a solid push around this time too so this is far from a squash. He also has Matsuda with him as Reed was considered for a spot in the Horsemen before Arn and Tully left. Feeling out process to start and I have a feeling this is going to last for awhile. Sting speeds it up and Reed hits the floor because he has no idea what to do with the painted one.

Sting throws on a headlock and we hit five minutes. An elbow misses for Reed in the corner and it’s time for a beating. Ok or maybe it’s time for a wristlock. Teddy Long is the referee. Reed sends him to the floor to take over. This has the makings of a very long one here. We’re ten minutes in and Reed pounds away. JR keeps calling Reed’s punches soup bones. Is there some connection between Reed and Taker that I’m missing? And who puts bones in their soup?

Magnum keeps calling Matsuda an Oriental which would get him thrown off the air today. It’s time for a chinlock as they need a breather and Reed needs to call some spots to the rookie known as Sting. Sting fights back and tries a Vader Bomb in what would be ironic in about 4 years. It gets knees here but Reed misses a clothesline and is knocked to the floor. Reed takes over again and hooks a one armed chinlock. That’s not something you see every day.

Sting hooks a jawbreaker but is sent out to the floor again. That’s one of those moves that happens way too often in the late 80s NWA. Sting grabs a sunset flip but Reed grabs the top rope. Teddy breaks that grip so Reed grabs the middle rope. Teddy breaks that up too so that Sting can finally get the sunset flip for the pin. This was over twenty minutes long.

Rating: D+. The length hurts this one again as so much of it is made of armbars and chinlocks and moves like those that it never got interesting. Also having Sting not get to use any of his big moves kind of defeats the purpose of the match as it was there to give Sting a win. However he needed Teddy Long to make that work. I don’t get that at all.

Reed jumps him post match and is beaten up again.

Paul E. Heyman says that Dennis Condrey isn’t going to be here tonight and Jack Victory (told you you would hear that name again) is replacing him. In other words, Condrey was fired so this is a Loser Leaves the NWA match. I think that’s just the person that loses the fall though but I’m not sure.

Cornette’s Express says they’re not worried.

Midnight Express/Jim Cornette vs. Jack Victory/Randy Rose/Paul E. Dangerously

This was a pretty good angle with a pretty cool backstory. Ok so WAY back in the day, the original Midnight Express was Randy Rose and Dennis Condrey. They teamed for awhile (along with a third man named Norvell Austin) and were the original Midnight Express. They left Southeast Championship Wrestling where they got started and Condrey went to Mid-South Wrestling where he was put together with Condrey as the Midnight Express. This is the version that feuded with the Rock N Roll Express and is probably the most successful version.

Now here comes the interesting part. One day the Express was scheduled to go to California for a show. Condrey never showed up. No one is quite sure where he went but he wasn’t seen for years. One day he popped up in the AWA with Randy Rose and said they were the Midnight Express. At the same time, Eaton teamed up with Stan Lane to become the latest form of the Midnight Express.

So then the Midnights (Lane and Eaton) got crushed by the Road Warriors for the world titles. On TV one night Cornette got a phone call by someone making fun of them. Then Dangerously, Rose and Condrey ran out and it was Midnight Express vs. Midnight Express. Then Condrey left again and that’s why Jack Victory is here now. The feud never got as good as they were hoping but the Starrcade match was pretty great.

The person to take the fall here is gone and since Condrey is gone, is there any doubt as to who is taking the fall here? Lane vs. Rose starts us off and Rose goes sailing to the floor. Cornette comes in and drops an elbow so he can strut a bit. Off to Victory who doesn’t do well either so let’s try Rose again against Eaton. The good guys are dominating this. The heels mess up again and Dangerously clocks Rose by mistake. JR makes fun of it, saying it’s not like it hurt or anything.

Lane vs. Rose at the moment but it’s off to Eaton quickly. They go to the apron and Eaton goes crashing onto the railing to totally shift momentum. The railing is the old faithful way to change things. Dangerously comes in, pounds away a bit, ducks a right hand and runs away to bring Rose back in. Cornette wants Dangerously and the fans sound like they want to see it too.

Instead Rose gets his hands on Cornette and to his credit he takes a quick beating. Off to Dangerously now who is acting like a true heel manager, only coming in when his opponent is in trouble. Cornette gets in a single shot but Dangerously runs to Rose again. Jim finally gets in a tag to Lane who meets Jack Victory but Dangerously interferes to give the heels the advantage again.

The fans are all over Paulie here as Rose jumps to the floor to take Lane down again. Lane gets beaten on for a good while and is in a chinlock by Rose. There’s the hot tag to Eaton after some kicks to the ribs by Lane (his specialty) and a missile dropkick almost kills Victory. In a cool bit, Eaton walks Victory’s half out cold body over to Dangerously and grabs Victory’s hand to slap Paul.

Paul is dragged in to face Cornette and this is the part everyone has been waiting for. Cornette beats on him for a bit and it’s off to Lane vs. Rose again. Rose misses a splash but Victory saves the pin. Everything breaks down and a double flapjack is enough for the pin on Rose. That’s an old Midnight trademark so it’s cool to see that instead of the Rocket Launcher or cheating.

Rating: C+. Pretty decent match here and it’s always cool to hear that sweet Midnight Express theme song time and time again. The ending was never really in doubt and this eventually lead to Heyman becoming the top heel announcer a little bit after this. Still though it was a good match, although nowhere near the Starrcade one.

Flair says he’ll keep the title because he’s awesome.

TV Title: Rick Steiner vs. Mike Rotundo

This is the Starrcade rematch but the heat isn’t on it anymore as Steiner won the title. However there’s now the added issue of dealing with Rotundo’s Varsity Club’s teammates. Let’s go to Rick Steiner to see how he plans to deal with that. Rick brings in his brother as Scott Steiner debuts. Scott mentions that Rick is out there like he is (including talking to a puppet named Alex) because of a bad car wreck they were in a few years ago.

Rotundo is out there alone so Rick looks a bit odd having his brother there. Rick takes over to start, hitting what we would call an AA to frustrate Rotundo. This is going to be a very technical match. Mike gets sent to the floor again as Rick is controlling early but he hasn’t done anything major. Rotundo fires off a European uppercut but Steiner takes over again, this time with a headlock.

Steiner hits something but the camera is on someone in the crowd so we don’t see what gets the two count. We’re about six minutes into this and nothing has happened so far. Well at least nothing of note. They’ve been doing more than standing around for that whole time. Off to an abdominal stretch and Scott tries to get the referee to notice Rotindo’s cheating. They go to the mat and Rotundo hammers away with crossfaces.

Off to an armbar as this is a very slow paced match. It’s not bad but it’s slow. Rick hits a monkey flip to get a breather and a knee lift for two. A top rope splash (???) misses for the champ and we head outside. Back in and Rick snaps off a powerslam for two. And here’s Kevin Sullivan, talking about Rick’s dog in the back so Steiner goes after him. Back in Rotundo gets a suplex for two. Steiner pounds away in the corner with five minutes to go and there’s a sleeper. Steiner goes to the mat with it but loses focus with Rotundo on top so that Steiner gets pinned while holding on to the sleeper.

Rating: C+. Pretty creative ending there and it plays to the idea that Steiner isn’t all there but he’s trying. The Steiners would start teaming up soon after this and would become the best team WCW ever produced. Not a great match here but the pacing was good enough to give us something else that we didn’t see that often.

The Road Warriors say they’ll end the Varsity Club in their home town of Chicago.

US Title: Barry Windham vs. Lex Luger

Barry turned on Lex months ago to join the Horsemen and this is the revenge match. Barry is also champion. The champion says he’s going to beat up Lex. Matsuda is with him as well, as he’s been with every heel tonight. They exchange shoulder blocks and no one moves. Lex no sells a suplex and throws Windham around as only Luger can. Windham suplexes him back in but can’t grab the Claw. It’s gotten a bit stronger since Dusty stayed in it for about five minutes last show.

Lex’s eye is busted a bit due to right hands. Out to the floor again and Barry manages to punch the post. It busts open Windham’s hand and injures him to the point that the Claw is worthless. Oh please like that’s the case after last year’s Bash. A powerslam gets two. Barry is like screw it and goes for the superplex but Lex gets up at two. Barry isn’t sure what to do now so he goes for a belly to back and it’s the ending where Lex gets his shoulder up first to win the title.

Rating: C+. Pretty decent here but there were a lot of times on here where I wasn’t sure what the appeal of it was. Lex would go on for a huge run with the title, holding it nearly two years. Barry would be in the WWF by about Mania time so this was his last hurrah in the NWA, at least for a few years.

Barry piledrives him on the belt post match because he’s a sore loser and he wants Lex to be a sore champion.

Rotundo is all HAHAHA I’m the champion again! He lost it to Sting at the next PPV.

Tag Titles: Varsity Club vs. Road Warriors

The Warriors have the belts and it’s Sullivan/Williams on the other side. The Varsity guys are the US Tag Champions. The Warriors in their hometown with Iron Man playing and coming in as champions is a pretty awesome sight. Animal vs. Sullivan to get us going. Off to Williams and the question of who sells first comes up. Well so far that would be no one until Williams hits a powerslam and brings in Hawk.

Williams hits a gorilla press so Hawk takes his head off with a clothesline. The Warriors hit a clothesline on both sides of Williams at the same time. It gets two and you don’t have to ask JR twice to praise Williams for that one. Out to the floor and Sullivan hits a chair shot to the shoulder of Animal to take over. Williams busts out a leg lariat/kick to the face to get two.

Sullivan shows better psychology and works over the arm he hit. Williams does the same, I guess being influenced by Sullivan. Wow that’s not exactly something I was expecting. Lots of arm work follows as Animal stays in trouble. There’s the dreaded double clothesline, which is a huge compliment to whoever was in trouble beforehand because one clothesline is enough to keep the other guy down for the same length of time that a guy who was beaten down for awhile does. Everything breaks down and something gets botched, resulting in Hawk getting the pin off a top rope clothesline.

Rating: D+. Not much here but they tried at least. The Road Warriors were only able to do so much and they kept it short which is the right idea for them. Not a great match or even a good one, but like I said the Road Warriors in Chicago are always worth checking out as this was a solid reaction.

Luger, with a bandage around his head, thanks the fans and says he won’t let them down.

We recap Steamboat vs. Flair which was started in a tag match where Steamboat beat the tar out of him. They played up the family man in Steamboat vs. the womanizer in Flair which was an awesome idea. This of course resulted in Flair being stripped to his underwear because that’s what Flair is all about…..somehow. This takes about four minutes to get through.

NWA World Title: Ric Flair vs. Ricky Steamboat

Steamboat comes out with his wife and son. Flair comes out with a band, his theme song and six women. Never let it be said that he didn’t live up his gimmick. Matsuda is here again. Steamboat gets a shoulder block for a very fast two. In another nice move, Flair drops down for Steamboat to run over him but Steamboat drops down to grab a headlock. Flair hits the floor as he isn’t sure what to make of this speed.

Back in Flair fires a chop and Steamboat is like I can do that too and chops even harder. Steamboat grabs the headlock and takes Flair to the mat with ease. Flair keeps rolling him up for two counts. We hear about how they had different backgrounds, ranging from blue collar to white collar. They chop it out and MAN are those loud. Flair takes a double chop for two and bails for a bit.

Steamboat chops him to the floor so Flair slows things down again. A hip toss and headscissors get two. They speed things up and Flair takes him down with an elbow. Steamboat is all like HI YAH and chops him to the floor. Out to the floor and Flair takes over with his nefarious means. These shots are HARD. Things slow down and Flair takes over, dropping the knee for two.

Butterfly suplex gets two. They chop it out again and there’s the Flair Flip. Ric comes off with a cross body but Steamboat rolls through for two. The crowd is eating this up. Flair hits an atomic drop and grabs the Figure Four out of nowhere. A huge Steamboat chant breaks out and Steamboat is tapping, but we’re about four and a half years from that meaning anything in America.

Steamboat has been in the hold for about two minutes now but Flair gets caught grabbing the ropes and Young breaks the hold. Steamboat fires off even more chops but Flair hits a cross body to put them both on the outside. A suplex back in gets a few two counts for the champ. Belly to back gets two and Steamboat grabs a rollup for two. They do the backslide counter into the bridge but Steamboat stops in the middle with the butterfly suplex for two.

Flair keeps trying to come back and control but a clothesline and a chop takes him down again. This is incredibly fast paced. Top rope chop puts Flair down and the cross body hits but Young goes down as well. Flair gets a cradle with tights for no cover. Steamboat misses another cross body and Flair tries the Figure Four but Steamboat rolls him up for the pin as Teddy Long runs in to count the fall and give Steamboat his only world title.

Rating: A+. I’ve heard about how great these Flair vs. Steamboat matches are and this is my favorite of them. They did not stop for over twenty minutes and the result is a classic war where Steamboat outsmarted Flair at the end in a clean finish. Those are some of the loudest chops you’ll ever hear and it’s a great match as a result. Excellent stuff.

Steamboat wants his family out here and holds his son….who immediately reaches back for his mom.

Steamboat says he can’t believe it and the other faces shower him in champagne. Ever the pro, Steamboat praises Flair and says he’s got the first shot.

Overall Rating: B-. Well you have a classic main event and the rest of the card isn’t that bad on top of it. Nothing is really all that bad but other than the main event, nothing is going to stand out. That’s the point of a masterpiece though and I can’t call it anything other than that. Pretty good show but check out the main event for sure as it’s a great match between two masters.

Great American Bash 1988
Date: July 10, 1988
Location: Baltimore Arena, Baltimore, Maryland
Attendance: 13,000
Commentators: Jim Ross, Tony Schiavone

This is a bit more like it and it’s a traditional PPV. If you’re a fan of long matches, this is the show for you. There are five matches and the shortest is just under sixteen minutes long. The main event is Lex challenging Flair for the title as Luger is the hottest thing in the world and the question is how is Flair going to escape. Notice I said escape and not win. Let’s get to it.

The opening video is a bit too upbeat for my tastes. The name of this show is the Price of Freedom. Did George Bush produce this?

World Tag Titles: Sting/Nikita Koloff vs. Arn Anderson/Tully Blanchard

No entrance for the champions. Koloff has a full head of hair and it’s not working for him at all. Sting has burst onto the national scene with his classic at the first Clash so the crowd is white hot. They clear the ring quickly but the Horsemen are all like BRING IT ON. Sting nails a dropkick to send Arn to the floor and then hits a plancha (remember this is 1988) and takes Anderson out.

They’re the official starters and it’s off to Nikita for some arm work quickly. Koloff fakes Anderson out and hits Sickles on both Horsemen but doesn’t cover until late and Arn gets his foot on the ropes. Those idiot Lithuanians. Sting comes in and it’s back to the arm. The Horsemen try to double team Sting with stereo top wristlocks but Sting is like screw that and backflips out of it. He was so fast and so athletic back in the day that no one could touch him.

Tully comes in and finds his arm being yanked on too. Nikita works him to the mat with ease and gets some two counts. Tony and Jim talk about the continuity of the challengers being great which is a surprise. It’s so nice to hear guys talking about the match and analyzing it instead of having them rant and rave about stuff that has nothing to do with it. Blanchard misses a charge into the corner and goes into the post shoulder first.

Anderson manages to slap Tully’s boot but that doesn’t count. I wonder what you actually have to do to have a tag count. That’s an interesting question. Anyway back to Sting after a fake tag (he did the clapping thing) as Tully still can’t get out. We’re 10 minutes into this and it’s been all Sting and Koloff, which is an old formula in the NWA and I’d bet we see it again in Luger vs. Flair later.

Koloff and Blanchard go to the mat and Anderson FINALLY gets the tag but Nikita rolls to his own corner to further frustrate Arn. Koloff takes Anderson to the mat quickly but the Horsemen get in some shots to the knee to FINALLY slow things down. That lasts about five seconds as Koloff and Blanchard collide and go to the floor together. Nikita suplexes him in for two but JJ makes the save. Koloff tries to drill him but clotheslines the post instead and there’s your match changing moment.

You don’t have to tell Arn twice that someone has a bad arm so he sends Koloff’s arm into the post again and Tully pounces. Off to Anderson for the hammerlock slam (called vintage by JR). There are five minutes left and that should tell you what the ending is going to be right away. Koloff fights up but gets caught in a DDT for a pop. That’s still a very popular move at this point but it only gets two here.

Tully and Arn keep working on the arm but they can’t seem to pick which arm that it’s supposed to be. Blanchard hooks on an armbar and we have three minutes to go. Arn tries a Vader Bomb but jumps into knees and the hot tag gets a big pop. We’re under two minutes and Sting is dominating. Sting dropkicks Tully and hits the splash but Arn makes a tag to kill the crowd dead. The one minute mark brings a sleeper to Arn but Tully tries a top rope sunset flip which Sting blocks. Sting hits the splash and gets the Scorpion on Blanchard but time runs out and it’s a draw.

Rating: B-. Solid stuff here but with five minutes to go everyone knew it was going to be a draw. Also the first 10 minutes or so are mainly armbars but Sting was such a popular and charismatic guy that he was able to carry the whole thing through to that point. Nikita helped as well as he knew how to work a crowd like few others. Good opener though, although I’m not sure if they should have kept the titles on the Horsemen or not.

US Tag Titles: Fantastics vs. Midnight Express

The Fantastics (Bobby Fulton and Tommy Rogers) are champions and if they win they get to lash Lane and Eaton 10 times and they get to lash Cornette as well. Jim will be up in a cage above the ring though which is funny stuff as he’s legit scared of heights. I’ve always liked the Fantastics so this should be good. Cornette is in a straitjacket as well.

Cornette freaks out as only he can do, getting in such lines as “THIS JACKET HASN’T BEEN TAILORED!!!!” and then trying to bribe the referee with 5,000, 10,000 and finally 15,000 dollars. The referee turns him down so Cornette says “WHAT KIND OF CRACKPOT ARE YOU? YOU’RE AN HONEST MAN! BOBBY HE’S AN HONEST MAN!!!” Cornette gets in the cage and has one of the best terrified reactions you’ll ever see. “AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! I’M GOING UP IN THE AIR!!! MOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!” Hilarious stuff.

Ok so now there’s the bell as all of that was just pre match fun. Bobby Eaton vs. Bobby Fulton gets us going. Fulton tries a cool move by sliding between Eaton’s legs but pulls him down into a sunset flip position for one. Eaton takes him to the mat with a headlock to take over but a headscissors sets up a rana to put Eaton right back down. The fans are all over Cornette who I think is having a heart attack.

Lane comes in and fires off some awesome kicks to send Fulton out to the floor. Lane’s martial arts were always good. Rogers comes in and beats up some Midnights to take over again. We hear about the Maryland State Athletic Commission, which no one has ever heard of before and is foreshadowing for later tonight. Eaton pops Rogers in the face but a blind tag brings in Fulton again and everything breaks down. The champions send the Midnights to the floor and dance a bit.

The focal point is mainly the arm of Lane and Rogers backflips out of a backdrop but a blind tag brings in Eaton for a bulldog. This is a total chess match with both teams trying to top each other. Stan takes Tommy’s head off with a slingshot clothesline and it’s back to Eaton to destroy him a bit more. Swinging neckbreaker gets two. Lane comes back in and fires off some kicks to send Rogers into Eaton for a Low Down backbreaker.

Tilt-a-whirl backbreaker gets two as Rogers is in the ropes. Cornette is still sitting in the cage and is freaking out. We’re at about eleven minutes which JR and Tony tell us more than once because I guess we need to know it really badly. Rogers finally gets in a shot but Lane is in to break it up. He misses a kick by what must have been a good six inches (or half his foot, whichever you prefer). (I’ll now pause for you to roll your eyes at what might be the worst joke I’ve ever made).

Fulton tries to come in illegally which doesn’t work because most faces aren’t good cheaters. Sunset flip gets two for Rogers but Eaton takes him down quickly. Top rope legdrop (Eaton’s is great) hits for a tag instead of a cover. The Midnights keep up the beating but a Rocket Launcher eats knees as we hit fifteen minutes. It’s finally a hot tag to Fulton and everything breaks down. Double teaming puts Fulton onto the floor and he takes a slam out there. Down goes the referee and Stan has a chain or something. Eaton winds up with it and pops Fulton with it for the pin and the titles and a face pop.

Rating: A-. Don’t let anyone tell you the 80s weren’t the best time ever for tag team wrestling. This was for the midcard titles and it was a great match. It’s totally awesome as both teams work together so well and you got a great match out of it as a result. This was what they did on all kinds of house shows and the scarier part is that the Rock N Roll matches with the Midnights were probably even better regularly.

The chain is found post match but it doesn’t matter as Eaton slipped it into Fulton’s tights. That’s genius. Post match Cornette takes a lashing with a belt anyway.

Cornette rants to Bob Caudle about the torture he just went through.

Road Warriors/Ronnie Garvin/Jimmy Garvin/Steve Williams vs. Kevin Sullivan/Mike Rotundo/Russian Assassin/Ivan Koloff/Al Perez

This is the Tower of Doom match. Sooo…..how in the world do I go about explaining this one? This was a one off concept (thank goodness) that is kind of like WarGames meets Doomsday Cage (Uncensored 96) meets Triple Cage (Slamboree 2000). You have three cages: one is a taller version of a regular cage. Above that you have a smaller cage and above that you have a cage that at most two people could fit in at once.

The idea here is every two minutes, each team sends in a man. Now the logical thing would be to put them in at the bottom, but instead they’re starting at the top via huge extended ladders. The idea is you have to climb down the cage and out the door. The catch is that Jimmy Garvin’s chick Precious is in the bottom cage and has the keys.

The entire point to this match is that Sullivan wants Precious who keeps turning him down. I’m not sure if it’s been introduced yet or not, but there was something about papers he had that she didn’t want being seen and he called her Patti as if he had known her before so maybe they were married before or something but the whole insane story was dropped with no explanation after Garvin got hurt and Precious, his real wife, left wrestling. That’s wrestling for you though.

The rest of the people aren’t there for any particular reason. The Varsity Club and the Road Warriors were feuding I think but they were more there as heavies. Williams would join the Club soon after this and end that run. Ronnie is there because he’s part of Garvin’s family. They stand around forever to wait on everything to be secured.

Ivan Koloff vs. Ronnie Garvin to start in a clash of former world champions. Keep in mind they’re up there by the lights so the fans can’t see a thing. Rotunda is up there already (not in the cage but waiting outside of it) along with Williams to go in next. There’s no room for anyone to do anything up there so it’s really boring to start. After two minutes the trap door will open but it’s only for ten seconds so there’s a chance of having a 2-1 situation.

Garvin and Koloff chop each other a lot and the cage shakes. I’m scared of heights so this is terrifying for me. We randomly cut to a not very hot chick in the crowd as the horn goes off for the two minute interval. The door is open for like 40 seconds as Garvin goes through and there’s some powder thrown. Ok so Garvin is in the second cage by himself and has to wait there now. Williams is getting beaten down 2-1 and Animal and I think that’s Perez who are coming in next.

Williams fights both guys off as the cage keeps shaking. I need some Tums. The horn goes off and Garvin gets down to the regular cage, Williams and Koloff get into the middle cage and it’s Animal vs. Rotundo and Perez on top. Precious lets Garvin out so it’s officially 1-0 Team Garvin but 3-2 in the cage itself. Hawk and the Assassin are up next but not quite yet. Animal takes over on the heels and the fans actually get into it.

Koloff gets beaten down also and there’s the horn. Perez makes it to the middle cage as does Animal. No one makes it to the bottom cage so it’s Animal, Koloff, Williams and Perez in the middle while Rotundo, Hawk and the Assassin are up top. Jimmy Garvin and Sullivan who are more or less the captains are left. Williams slams Koloff and JR is practically in the cage to suck him off for it.

Another horn goes off and it’s Perez and Animal in the bottom cage, Koloff, Hawk, Assassin and Williams in the middle and Rotundo, Jimmy and Sullivan up top. Now remember that just because all 10 are in, it doesn’t mean the horn thing ends because the trap doors aren’t staying open. Animal escapes to the floor and Williams puts Koloff in a Figure Four. Ross is saying how intense and insane it is and while it’s overkill, this is still pretty nuts.

There’s a horn and Rotundo finally makes it out of the top. Assassin makes it to the floor as is Koloff. Perez makes it out to the floor. Hawk comes down to the bottom and is in a handicap with the Russians. Ok so the Russians and Road Warriors are feuding. That’s why they’re in this. Hawk takes them both down with a clothesline while Garvin and Sullivan fight up top. Williams vs. Rotundo is going on in the middle. I’ll give them this: they’re staying on a wide shot at least some of the time and you can see most of everything which is a nice touch.

Precious is still in the bottom cage remember. Hawk escapes, but that leaves it 4-2 (Jimmy/Williams vs. Russians/Sullivan/Rotundo). Williams makes it to the final cage but Garvin and Sullivan don’t care about moving but eventually go down. Williams and the Russians escape so we’re left with Rotundo/Sullivan vs. Jimmy Garvin, who thankfully isn’t in those small white trunks anymore.

The horn goes off and Rotundo gets out of the entire cage while Garvin vs. Sullivan are left in the middle. A big brawl breaks out on the floor with the other 8 guys because Garvin vs. Sullivan is pretty boring without Precious involved. Garvin works on the leg a bit and then they slug it out. The horn goes off and they both go down to the bottom and Sullivan goes right for Precious who kicks him away for Jimmy to save her. Garvin works on the knee some more and hits his brainbuster finisher but can’t get the door unlocked. Sullivan gets up and shoves Garvin out to give Team Jimmy the win.

Rating: D. The match is a total mess, but by comparison to something like the Doomsday Cage Match, this is a masterpiece. It makes almost no sense but at least once you get into the match you can follow it. There’s one really stupid part which we’ll get to here in just a second if you haven’t figured it out already. It should have been WarGames, but this isn’t a total disaster I guess.

Now we get to the big problem: since Garvin was thrown out, Precious is locked inside with the man that wants to either rape and/or murder her. Yeah they didn’t really think that one all the way through did they? Sullivan drops to his hands and knees and crawls over to her as Jimmy and Hawk try to climb up the ladders for the rescue. Sullivan gets her jacket off and pulls a rope or chain out of his trunks and chokes away until Hawk FINALLY comes in to half kill Sullivan with a clothesline. Garvin gets Precious out as you have to wonder why in the world the Garvins EVER agreed to let her be in there in the first place.

Oh and one other thing about it that makes it more bearable than the Doomsday match: YOU COULD SEE IT. They were in the middle of the arena and it was well lit. Why that was such a stretch for 96 is beyond me.

Bob Caudle fills in some time while they take the cage down.

US Title: Barry Windham vs. Dusty Rhodes

Barry is defending here and this is Dusty’s rematch after being stripped of the title for beating up Jim Crockett. Windham used to be Dusty’s friend but turned on him to join the Horsemen and take Luger’s spot so there’s heat here. Barry charges in but Dusty lifts up his elbow to scare him away. Dusty sends him to the floor quickly and Barry needs time out. Barry drops an elbow on the back of his head but Dusty pops up for a gorilla press to take over.

A DDT puts Barry down again as Rhodes controls to start us off. Rhodes hits a top rope cross body for two after the earth stops shaking. Dusty pops both Windham and JJ with elbows and the crowd explodes. The fat man was indeed popular and no one can take that away from him. Five minutes in now and Barry pounds away. I miss the NWA telling us the time gone in a match as it helps keep track of where we are and wasn’t just for time limit endings.

We go to the floor and Windham’s piledriver is reversed. Barry pounds away in the corner and we go outside again. And never mind as Dusty leans back on the rope (amazingly it doesn’t snap like a twig) to slingshot Barry out to the floor again. Barry grabs his finisher, a claw hold, after JJ interferes. We’re currently at 90 seconds of the US Champion having his finishing move on Dusty but Dusty is gyrating. Make that two minutes of nonstop claw. Dusty manages to stand up, climb the ropes (which doesn’t call for a break from Tommy Young) and signal for an elbow but Windham takes him down again.

We’re at 3 minutes straight now and Dusty hasn’t been past his knees in about two minutes of that. Imagine if Cena stayed in the cross armbreaker for three minutes. The internet would form into a missile and kill him all at once. Total time in the Claw: four minutes and five seconds before an elbow breaks it up.

Let me repeat that: the old man (Dusty is a veteran at this point and in his early 40s) just lasted over four minutes in the finishing hold of the young unstoppable US Champion who won the title with that very hold. I’ve heard of killing moves dead before but Dusty took the Claw, shot it, buried it, turned it into a chicken, plucked it, cleaned it, put it in batter and sold it to a man named Sanders.

Dusty is immediately fine and tries a Figure Four but gets caught in the Claw again. Dusty was out of the hold all of 8 seconds. This one only lasts 46 seconds as they go up to the corner again. Barry tries the superplex but Dusty shoves him off and takes out the referee. Dusty slams him off and hits the big elbow but there’s no referee. Ronnie Garvin of all people comes out and kills Dusty dead with his Hands of Stone punch finisher as he turns heel. The Claw is academic as Dusty is dead and Windham retains. Garvin would be gone in only a few months and would be in the WWF by December.

Rating: D+. That claw in the middle was just so ridiculous. I mean seriously, Dusty lasted practically 5 minutes in it overall and was just fine until a punch comes out and stops him cold? I mean how weak does the Claw look now when a right hand, the most basic move in wrestling, ends Dusty faster than five minutes of a claw? How many matches have you seen that are shorter than five minutes? Imagine a single hold lasting that long. Crazy.

Garvin is with JJ and Gary Hart, another heel manager. There appears to be a suitcase of money handed to Garvin. See, why is that so hard? Someone did it because of money. Why is that such a hard concept anymore?

NWA World Title: Lex Luger vs. Ric Flair

That would be written a few dozen times over the years but this is one of the first times. Pretty basic story here: Luger was a Horsemen, lost his US Title to Dusty at Starrcade and then said he was going to be on his own and got thrown out of the Horsemen and was replaced by Windham, his best friend. This is his revenge/shot at awesomeness. Flair is in white which isn’t something you see often.

Flair is in white trunks with yellow pads and Luger is in yellow trunks with white pads. Uh…deep? Very slow paced start but they have a lot of time. This has TV time remaining which sounds really odd on PPV but it’s the truth. Flair is sent to the floor and takes a walk in front of the State Athletic Commission. Luger leapfrogs him and adds a gorilla press for pain.

The champ hits the floor again and yells at a fat boy in the crowd. There’s always one of them out there. I think the real money in the NWA was in coaching physical fitness, not wrestling. Back in Lex grabs a half test of strength and guess how that goes. Gorilla press puts Flair down again and it’s off to a bearhug. There’s a suplex and Flair’s back is being destroyed. Lex’s big elbow hits but a second misses.

That does a total of nothing as Lex hits a hip toss and we’re back on the floor again. Flair sends him into the railing and takes over. We’re over ten minutes in now as Flair puts him down again. Flair starts in on the ribs which takes away the Rack I think. Lex fires off a clothesline for two and Flair goes up. This time it’s different though as Lex shakes the rope and Flair is crotched. Another clothesline gets two as does a slam.

A very long sunset flip gets two. Now we get to the second half of the match as Flair goes after the knee. We’re 15 minutes in and Flair cannon balls down onto the leg. There’s the Figure Four (wrong knee of course) but it only lasts for a few seconds. Lex somehow gets up and clotheslines Flair to the floor and it’s the momentum that sent him out there as the rule is adjusted again. Granted that was almost always how it was called.

Flair chops away but Super Lex isn’t hurt at all. That was another constant: chops never worked on Lex. Sting was about the same too. Luger hits another gorilla press but the knee gives out after it hits. Lex, ever the genius, tries a knee drop and misses. He deserves it for such a boneheaded move too. Flair goes up and this time is slammed down. JR says that’s the fourth gorilla press for Luger. And people say Cena is repetitive.

An atomic drop is no sold by Lex. If there’s ever been an anti-steroids ad, I give you exhibit A. We’re at twenty minutes so this is almost done. Flair is sent to the floor again but it doesn’t last long. They collide and both go over the top where Flair screams that his leg is hurt. Lex goes into the post and Dillon sends him into it again.

Now we get to the interesting part: Lex is busted open. Remember that. There’s barely any blood but the announcers make it clear that Lex is bleeding. And here’s the Maryland State Athletic Commissioner to get the referee’s attention. Lex puts him in the Rack and there’s the bell.

Rating: B. Good match here but the Starrcade one blows this out of the water. The ending is pretty stupid as I’m sure you can see what’s coming a mile away. Lex would face Flair about a thousand more times for the title but he would never get the big win, which is what stopped Lex from becoming the mega star that he was supposed to become. Let’s get to the part you all know is coming.

The match is stopped because of the cut. The fact that no fan has ever heard of the Commission and that you can’t see any blood is ignored.

The faces come out to raise Lex’s arms but it means nothing.

Overall Rating: B-. It’s a pretty good show but the ending is pretty weak. I don’t get the point in not switching the title here and having Flair get the title back at Starrcade. The rest of the show is pretty good stuff although the Tower of Doom is pretty stupid. The second tag match is very good and the rest of it is solid enough. Worth seeing but don’t watch the home video as it hacks the thing to pieces.

Starrcade 1991
Date: December 29, 1991
Location: Norfolk Scope, Norfolk, Vigrinia
Attendance: 9,000
Commentators: Jim Ross, Tony Schiavone

This is the inaugural Battlebowl and I believe the first WCW PPV I distinctly remember. This is literally the only thing on the whole card. There are ten qualifying matches with mixed up tag teams and then the two ring battle royal main event. That being said this is BY FAR the best way they ever accomplished it and a good show based on my memories.

The only thing that matters here is Sting vs. Luger as this is more or less one big buildup show to SuperBrawl where they would go at it for the world title. Starrcade went from being the biggest show of the year to this somehow which is something a lot of people never got. This concept would get bad quickly but at first it was good and it had Sting at the height of his drawing powers as a face so we have that to fall back on. Let’s get to it.

The opening is a basic video explaining what I just said to you.

Eric Bischoff, Missy Hyatt and Magnum TA do the drawings. I won’t mention throwing it to them as there’s nothing to it really.

Michael Hayes/Tracy Smothers vs. Marcus Bagwell/Jimmy Garvin

Hayes and Garvin of course are the Freebirds. Allegedly the matches here were in fact fixed but booked to the point that you couldn’t tell they were. The non-Freebirds start us off with Bagwell being the only face in sight. Or is Smothers the only heel? I can never remember with the Freebirds. These shows are hard to talk about as there are no angles so we kind of have to figure that out as we go.

We go to the crowd where we see wide spaces of empty seats. We hear about Mike Graham teaching Bagwell and how great of a trainer he is. That’s a lie as he’s a terrible trainer but points for trying I guess. No tags yet. Ah there’s one as Garvin comes in. Apparently the Birds are faces here. If nothing else they’re popular here so that’s all that matters. Smothers goes to the floor as this isn’t really going anywhere.

Hayes shaking his head at Smothers is funny stuff though. Bagwell back in and the arm gets worked over. Hayes finally comes in to a solid pop. And there he goes again as Smothers is getting destroyed out there. He’s a US Tag Champion at this point which means nothing but the lack of angles leaves me a lot of empty space to fill. The fans think Tracy sucks.

Yeah the Pistols (Tracy’s team) are heels now which makes more sense. The Freebirds have to go at it for once and of course they don’t do much other than strut and lock up a lot. Oh hey there’s an arm drag! This is all in good fun though rather than being bad. And after a good bit of nothing they’re both out again. Can’t say I blame them though as it wouldn’t have made a ton of sense to beat each other up.

Garvin vs. Smothers now as we speed things up a bit. Cross body by Bagwell gets two and then Hayes accidentally hits Garvin, which says a lot as one of his finishers was a big left hand. While they argue, Smothers misses a top rope splash and Bagwell gets his Fisherman’s Suplex for the pin. The Freebirds are all cool and Bagwell and Garvin are in Battlebowl.

Rating: C-. Not bad here and the matches will be on a bit of an adjusted scale. In other words this wasn’t a great match all things considered but given what they have to work with, as in not their usual partners or in Bagwell’s case a tag match in general, this was pretty good and held my interest for the nearly 13 minutes it got, which was probably too many.

Rick Rude/Steve Austin vs. Big Josh/Van Hammer

Let’s see: Van Hammer was a total lack of talent but became one of the most popular guys in the company. Josh was a woodsman that danced with bears and was at the first Wrestlemania and was the original Doink. Rude is US Champion, Austin is TV Champion. Both are in the Dangerous Alliance and both are awesome. Austin and Hammer start which works as they had a TV Title feud.

Man it’s weird seeing Austin as someone that reminds me of Dolph Ziggler but with a better name. His character was NOTHING like the redneck and he could move out there. You can see the talent too which is weird considering who he’s in there with. Not much going on here but nothing too bad I guess.

Hot tag to Big Josh and his offense lasts all of a minute as Austin and Rude’s combined awesomeness takes him down. We more or less repeat the same stuff from the previous segment as Josh gets beaten down and searches for the tag. Sweet goodness Van Hammer was over. It could be argued that he was second only to Sting in popularity. And so much for that as a blind tag and Rude Awakening end Hammer.

Rating: D+. Total run of the mill stuff here but Austin and Rude make it worth watching. They had the advantage here due to experience together but the creativity of the faces made something like this far better than I expected. Not a great match but it worked. Somehow this was the same length to within a few seconds of the previous match which blows my mind.

El Gigante/Larry Zbyszko vs. Dustin Rhodes/Richard Morton

I smell a comedy match here. Larry, the genius that he is, allows Gigante to do the vast majority of the work here. To be fair that’s a rather smart strategy considering who his partner is. Larry is the coach apparently, barking orders at Gigante throughout the entire match. Rhodes does the vast majority of the work for his team which is odd as Morton is certainly capable of holding his own out there.

Larry comes in and has a good mini match with Dustin. Rhodes, more commonly known as Goldust today, was getting better every day at this point and Larry was a solid veteran that retired very early for a wrestler, hanging up the boots for the most part at around 40. He started doing more independent stuff but that’s certainly common. Larry tags Gigante in and then slaps him, sealing his own fate. Larry tries to run but Gigante throws him back in by his head and into a double dropkick for a growl at the referee and the easy pin. Morton was never legally in.

Rating: C-. Another quick but solid match. Actually no it wasn’t another quick match but rather the first quick match. This had a story to it which tells you what can be done if you rig the matches properly. While there was no direct connection here the idea of a loudmouth and a monster doing their thing was well done. Morton literally not being in there was weird but whatever.

Bill Kazmaier/Jushin Liger vs. Diamond Dallas Page/Mike Graham

Oh where to begin? Kazmaier is at the time the greatest competitor in the history of the World’s Strongest Man from America at this point. The problem is he makes Mark Henry look like Lou Thesz. Liger I’m sure you know of. DDP was still terrible at this point as he had just entered into the wrestling world having been a manager forever. Graham is the son of Eddie Graham, the legendary Florida promoter. He wasn’t horrible but he was more or less just a territorial guy put in a spot he wasn’t ready for.

Graham and Liger start us off which is by far the best possible combination. Liger is young here and completely awesome. Also keep in mind that he’s unlike anything that anyone had ever seen in America before. The roof of the place is rather weird looking to the point that it looks like a spaceship or something. And here’s Kazmaier. This could be painful to put it mildly, but at least Page isn’t here yet.

And I need to learn to stop talking. Page can’t slam him as Bill hasn’t really done anything at all. Kaz can’t do much of anything here so he has to defer to DDP which is a losing situation too. And here’s Liger vs. Page which is going to be a disaster too since Page won’t be able to do anything so Liger has to calm his stuff down. Back to the two talented ones and that lasts all of a second.

Back to Kazmaier, a power guy, that locks on a wristlock. Sure why not. Back over to Page as this is dragging something fierce. We get the eternally awesome Liger Surfboard on Graham as this match needs to end soon. Graham gets out and puts on a pretty bad looking Boston Crab. Very boring match so far. Back to DDP and Kaz which lasts about a second before it’s Liger and Graham part 5.

And so much for that as we’re back to the bad workers. They’re tagging very fast here. Graham goes to the floor and Liger hits a big front flip to take him out. Well at least I think that’s what he did as Ross can only tell us about it since the camera missed it. Second rope moonsault gets two for Liger. Everyone in there now as Kaz press slams Liger onto Page for the pin.

Rating: D+. It was FAR too long and that’s definitely the biggest thing it has going against it here. The other thing is Liger is the best worker in there while Graham was just ok. He however was the best wrestler on his team and the only one that belonged in the ring at all. Page wouldn’t get much better for about four years but he got better in a hurry once he started. This could have been decent if it had cut off about 4-5 minutes.

Lex Luger/Arn Anderson vs. Terrance Taylor/Z-Man

Z-Man is the only face out there. The heel team is rather impressive sounding. Luger is the dominant world champion at this point. Anderson and the face start us off and Taylor seems to not care that he’s a bad guy. Everyone goes in almost immediately and Luger and Arn are sent running. Luger and Zenk (What did you think the Z stood for?) and Luger have a nice fast paced sequence.

Taylor comes in as the faces (more or less) work on Lex’s arm. We hear about Luger trying to put Sting out of action using the gift boxes which was the biggest angle going at the time. In a nice sequence, Taylor goes for a sunset flip but Luger punches him. He has to do this twice more and STILL can’t get rid of Taylor but as he’s going down he tags Arn.

In that sequence you had Taylor, Luger and Anderson all involved in one straight stretch. It’s not something you see that often either and it was rather creative. I liked that more than I should have more than likely but whatever. Race interferes, allowing Anderson to hook a DDT (his finisher) on Zenk for two as Taylor makes the save.

Luger was kicked out of Miami for disciplinary reasons. I’ve never heard that before. Anderson goes for a double axe handle off the middle rope while Z-Man is on his back. It’s one of those stupid spots where the guy jumps into the feet. Never liked that but it’s a wrestling staple I guess. Taylor gets a rollup on Luger for two. Backslide gets two.

Gutwrench powerbomb gets two on Luger to the point where Anderson has to make a save. Taylor is showing off here and it’s working. Wow did I just say that? He calls for the Five Arm (another reason I can’t stand him) but Anderson gets a knee in the back to set up the Attitude Adjustment (Luger’s Piledriver. I guess 19 years is long enough to steal a name) for the pin.

Rating: C+. Definitely the best tag match so far. We had a definite face and heel team out there and it helped a lot. Having Anderson being the expert in tag wrestling that he was and making the save for Luger against the young hot shot that was giving him trouble was a nice story. This was a solid match and it worked very well given the circumstances here.

Ricky Steamboat/Todd Champion vs. Buddy Lee Parker/Cactus Jack

Champion is one half of the Patriots and is more or less an army ranger kind of character. He’s big and handsome and that’s about it. Parker is a weak cop character and more famous as the guy that said Batista had zero future as a wrestler. He’s considered one of the biggest jerks in wrestling history as he accomplished a grand total of nothing in his career but expected insane praise from anyone new in the business.

Almost all of his trainees (including one Bill Goldberg) would probably enjoy this as while he’s leaving the locker room Abdullah the Butcher beats the HECK out of him because Abdullah wanted to be partners with Cactus. Side note: why was there never a Cactus vs. Steamboat feud? How awesome would that have been? The beating in essence makes this a handicap match for Cactus.

Abdullah comes out to be his partner but of course isn’t allowed. Parker stumbles out through the curtain and Abdullah kicks his teeth in again, beating him half to death with the stick he carries with him. The two legends start us off here as Steamboat isn’t sure what to do with the ultra-aggressive Cactus.

Parker, trying to remember what planet he’s on, crawls back up onto the ramp after Abdullah kicked him off to the concrete below. Steamboat skins the cat and sends Cactus to the floor and hits what we would call a suicide dive to take Cactus down. Back in and Ricky throws in a superkick and enziguri to make the tag. To say he was ahead of his time in America is an understatement.

Champion, more or less just a big power guy, locks on a camel clutch. Parker is literally crawling on his stomach towards the ring. He’s selling the beatdown if nothing else. Tony sums it up perfectly (I’m shocked too) by saying that he looks like he’s in the desert reaching for a drink of water. Cactus hits his elbow from the middle rope to the floor which in his book he credits with causing his knees to slowly fall apart over the years.

Parker has made it all the way to the other ring but still has one more to get through. Cactus apparently has no clue this is happening but that was typical of him back in the day. Champion gets a powerslam for two as Parker has made it to the corner! Cactus goes up top but Champion gets a punch to the stomach to block it.

They collide and Parker, who is a jobber mind you, gets the tag. His reward for making it all the way here after a beating like that: A fresh Ricky Steamboat. Dang talk about having a bad day. Naturally a powerslam and the cross body end him in about 6 seconds. Well at least they made it quick.

Rating: C. Pretty good match here considering it was a handicap match more or less. Cactus was getting very good around this point and everyone knew it. They put him together with Sting soon after this and it was totally awesome. Steamboat here was of course good and Champion fit in very well as the power guy against Foley. Nothing great but all things considered this was fine.

Sting/Abdullah the Butcher vs. Bobby Eaton/Brian Pillman

That’s actually a good sounding heel team. Since Sting is on one team they’re the automatic faces of course. Abdullah was one of the guys that Luger sent to try to take Sting out so this is almost 3-1 against Sting. Abdullah with his rather horrible physique of course jumps Sting and beats him with his stick (called a kendo stick so it wasn’t WWE that invented it).

Brian runs down and makes the save for his buddy, beating on him with the same stick. Eaton works on Sting’s bad knee as this is going insanely fast so far. Eaton throws him into the ring and we’re finally going officially. The other two are still brawling on the floor and Sting is in big trouble already. The hero fights back through and Eaton is in trouble as we’re on the ramp.

Eaton is part of the Dangerous Alliance who Sting is feuding with. Sting is just ridiculously popular here. Eaton slaps Pillman which is apparently a tag. Ok apparently it isn’t. Butcher blasts Sting just because he feels like it and Sting is in trouble again. He drops down to the floor and grabs a pencil from Ross’ desk. Tony: I don’t think he’s going to use that pencil in its proper use. You can’t buy announcing like this people.

Naturally the pencil goes towards Sting’s throat. Who would you disqualify there? Pillman makes the save for his friend and Sting is all ticked off. He beats up Eaton on the floor as he’s getting violent out there. Pillman slams Butcher in the ring and hits a big old splash on the fat dude. Brian won’t tag Eaton.

Eaton tries to tag Abdullah who has no issue with wanting to beat up Sting. The announcers talk about how Sting has been in there the whole time which Eaton has as well. Sting counters something into a tombstone which is more or less botched. Pillman and Abdullah come in to fight some more as Cactus come lumbering out. Abdullah holds Sting but Cactus misses and blasts Butcher with the stick. After a dropkick for Jack, a cross body to Eaton ends this.

Rating: C+. Well it was certainly not boring. It wasn’t particularly great but Eaton vs. Sting is always worth checking out. Total one man show out there from Sting which is all the fans wanted. Pillman wasn’t quite a star yet so he was the only person anyone cared about out there. It would play into the ending of the show later on so this was important. Very fast paced and never once boring.

Cactus and Abdullah fight up the ramp for fun.

Vader/Mr. Hughes vs. Rick Steiner/Nightstalker

Nightstalker is Brian Clark, AKA Adam Bomb. It was originally supposed to be Diamond Studd (Scott Hall) but he has an arm injury. Vader is kind of new at this point but would become awesome very shortly. Steiner is the only face here. Vader and Hughes apparently team from time to time. Vader and Steiner start us off.

Everyone here played college football apparently. Wait Rick did? Are you sure about that? Ah never mind he just said college sports. That’s ok then. Steiner jumps from the apron to the floor to nail Vader as this is really just those two having a match while the other two are standing around which is likely the best idea for everyone involved.

Steiner and Vader get into a big power match on the floor so Vader rams him into the post. In an impressive show of strength Rick suplexes Vader back over the top rope and into the ring. Rick won’t tag out because he knows Nightstalker is awful. He tags Rick instead and promptly gets drilled by Vader. Bulldog off the top from Steiner to Hughes but he’s not legal so a splash on Nightstalker ends it.

Rating: D. Bad match here but at the same time look at who was out there. Steiner was all his team had and Vader was just a monster that if you weren’t named Steamboat or Sting you had no business in there with. This was the shortest match on the show at barely over five minutes so there’s that at least. Nothing good here at all but Steiner was trying.

Ad for Superbrawl, an hour and a half into this.

Scott Steiner/Firebreaker Chip vs. Arachnaman/Johnny B. Badd

Arachnaman is Brad Armstrong and Chip is Todd Champion’s partner in the Patriots. Basically Steiner is the only one in this worth anything. Badd means nothing at this point. He and Chip, who is roided like there is no tomorrow, start us off. And I’m bored. It’s not too bad but we’re just waiting for Scott to come in there and destroy everything in sight.

Yep there’s the tag and there goes Johnny. Armstrong (you try spelling the other one over and over) comes in and as usual gets his head handed to him. Steiner is just killing anything in sight with raw power. Down goes Badd again and Chip gets tagged back in. And of course he gets beaten down again. When I say beaten down I mean for a very long time as the heels (I guess?) take turns destroying him.

There are long stretches in here with nothing to say as no one cares about anyone but Steiner and with good reason. We speed things up a bit and Steiner gets a blind tag from Chip. Steiner comes in to a solid pop and just massacres them. Armstrong gets a kick but goes up top, only to get caught in a GORGEOUS belly to belly suplex from Scott to end this. Awesome suplex to end it as it looked devastating.

Rating: D+. Total dominance from Scott as everything here was designed to make him look like a star. If he hadn’t kept getting hurt he really could have been something special. Back in his young days he really was the prototype athlete as he had insane strength and agility for someone his size. Shame he completely lost his mind.

Ron Simmons/Thomas Rich vs. Steve Armstrong/PN News

This is the final tag match which is a good thing as you can tell that the fans are pretty much sick of them at this point. They really needed some singles stuff thrown in here and there to give the people something of a break. Power vs. power to start here with News vs. Simmons. Rich is a former world champion and Armstrong is one of the Young Pistols.

Simmons is on the verge of a huge push where he would win the world title. Simmons dominates for a good while until Rich more or less demands to come in. And then Armstrong beats him up so he begs to get back out. Simmons says no you wanted in so stay in like the jerk he used to be.

News and Armstrong beat up Rich for a LONG time and it gets very boring. The fans want Ron, Rich wants Ron, I want a stiff drink. This concept is fine but it REALLY needs to have shorter matches. We’re about ten minutes into this and there’s just nothing to talk about. Simmons finally gets the hot tag and the fans pop BIG. He slams News (who weighed like 450) and hits a Spinebuster on Armstrong to win it.

Rating: D+. Yeah whatever let’s just get to the battle royal so I can stay awake. See the previous match’s rating and substitute Simmons for Steiner.

Battlebowl

Two ring battle royal with the 20 winners from the ten tags that I’m not going to list off. Ok so I am since it takes a good while for the entrances: Vader, Marcus Bagwell, Jimmy Garvin, Dustin Rhodes, Bill Kazmaier, Jushin Liger, Steve Austin, Richard Morton, Todd Champion, Abdullah the Butcher, Firebreaker Chip, Thomas Rich, Ron Simmons, Ricky Steamboat, Mr. Hughes, Scott Steiner, Lex Luger, Rick Rude, Arn Anderson, Sting.

They saved Sting for last and I guess the fans were counting as just after Anderson you can hear them erupt. Sting is just ridiculously popular to the point where it’s hard to tell who the second most popular guy in the company is since it’s such a gap between whoever it is and Sting. Steamboat I suppose. This is on the Essential Starrcade DVD if you want to see it. The DVD is well worth picking up anyway as it’s awesome. Bad documentary though.

The first guy, Vader, misses his cue so the announcer has to stall by saying “The first competitor……in Battlebowl……the very first…….is…….VADER!” Funny. Quick summary of the rules: you start in the first ring and have to be thrown into the second ring (never specified if it has to be over the top) and then from the second ring over the top to the floor to be eliminated. Whoever wins the first ring will meet whoever wins the second ring in an over the top rope challenge for the whole thing.

They all start as Sting hits the ramp. Like the idiot that he is he goes straight for Vader. Anderson vs. Steamboat happens on the ramp. If nothing else the image of Anderson PANICKING when Steamboat is revealed as Dustin’s partner at Clash 17 is great. Kazmaier is put on the ramp over the top and Vader and Hughes, the guys that put him out, look legit confused when he’s allowed back in.

It’s so weird seeing Austin with blonde hair long enough to be in a ponytail. Ok apparently it is over the top to get into ring two. Vader and Steamboat go to the ramp too which is another drool worthy match. I know they had at least one big time TV match because I’ve seen it. Sting and Austin go at it in the corner. Imagine that match in 1998. Sweet goodness that would have drawn millions.

Vader puts Steamboat on the ramp again just because he’s evil. Rhodes and Anderson are brawling on the floor. Liger beats on Abdullah which is one heck of a weird match when you think about it. Thomas Rich goes into ring 2. You just have to go over the rope and can land between the rings as going over both sets would be really hard since there’s a good three foot gap between them.

Sting goes after Luger and the fans ERUPT. Morton throws Bagwell into ring 2 to give Rich something to do. Thankfully they go to a wide shot instead of the very annoying double screen. Dangerously gets on Tony and Jim’s nerves which is really funny. He was such a freaking jerk. Vader won’t go near the other side of the ring which is really smart. Well who’s going to make him I guess.

Chip hits ring 2 also giving us three people there. Liger and Morton go over also as the first ring is thinning out a bit. I love that they don’t even bother showing us that ring as no one cares. Ok now they won’t show ring 1. Well to be fair what happens there doesn’t really matter I guess. Morton and Liger have a solid mini match and then both go out, eliminating them from the match altogether.

Hughes is in ring two now. That gives us 14 people in ring 1 I believe. Rich is out. Steamboat and Anderson have fought around the ring and just kind of go into ring 2 for the fun of it. Garvin and Champion are in ring two now. It’s reaching the point of just needing to know who is left in ring #1. Tony thinks there are ten left in there but counting may be beyond his skill set.

Austin and someone else that may have been Scott Steiner hit ring 2. Garvin is out. Kazmaier and Abdullah go to the second ring. So does Simmons even though he went through the ropes. In ring 1 we have Sting, Rude (who both go to ring 2 as I type their names) leaving Luger and Vader (Rhodes went over as I was typing) in ring 1. Luger beats up Vader and Harley Race looks awesome here since he manages both guys. Or at least he would manage Vader soon.

Chip is out as Luger wins ring 1. You can’t say he wasn’t pushed as a strong champion. Abdullah and Kaz and Champion all go out. Luger gets to chill for awhile as Steiner has the future Steiner Recliner on Hughes. There’s a chance I’ve missed some people as it’s hard to tell as everything is going kind of fast. We do a wide shot and a split screen to annoy me. Granted the split screen are just small windows and are over the ring skirt (the thing that says WWE or TNA and is below the apron).

Rhodes is out and so are Hughes and Simmons. Bagwell is out and so are Vader and someone else I missed. Steiner is out and we have one heck of a tag match left with Steamboat, Sting, Austin and Rude as the final four. Steamboat pairs off with Austin and Sting beats on Rude. Stinger Splash to Austin which just sounds right coming out of JR’s mouth.

Rude is US Champion, Austin is TV Champion and Steamboat is a tag champion here. With four people left is there really a need for small split screens? Rude accidentally hits Austin to out him out. Rude throws Steamboat but he skins the cat and gets a headscissors on Rude to eliminate him. Rude grabs him as he gets back in to eliminate him then slides back in to hit a Rude Awakening on Sting.

The fans go NUTS for the idea of Sting vs. Luger though, making this the perfect ending for Battlebowl. This was the top rivalry at this point and everyone was just waiting for Sting to rise up and take the title off the monster champion. All Luger here as Sting is more or less dead. Both guys are in yellow here which is weird. Luger doesn’t throw him out when he has the chance, showing his incredible intelligence.

Luger throws him to the ramp and Race beats Sting up so Sting has to fight him off too. Sting goes into the guardrail and Sting is more or less nothing right here. Sting blocks a shot to the railing and takes over with the fans getting into things again. Sting puts him back into the ring and is all fired up. He beats the tar out of Luger and has him draped over the ropes.

Race comes in and Sting has to stop him, allowing Luger to rest enough to avoid the Splash and leave Sting hanging over the top rope. And again like an idiot he pulls him back in. Luger throws him over but Sting holds on and just goes OFF, beating the heck out of Luger and finally hitting a big clothesline to put Luger out and then collapses in the ring.

Rating: B. This was rather fun actually. The two ring idea worked very well and the final pairing was perfect. This is what you get when there’s a POINT to a battle royal rather than just having one for the sake of having one. Sting looks awesome and we set up the main event of the next PPV. What more can you ask for?

The announcers say time is running out for Luger to run as Sting is coming for him. He’d get him in about two months.

Overall Rating: C. This was a hard one to grade as this is the definition of a hit or miss show. The concept is a novelty for sure, but this is the only time it ever really worked. The main reason for this has to be Sting and Luger. At the three other versions of this the winners were Great Muta (left for Japan soon after), Vader (already world champion) and DDP (glorified jobber).

Here with Sting winning it you have a story and reason for him now to fight Luger since he’s beaten him in a major competition. That being said, this is more or less a failure as a build for the biggest show of the year as THIS should have been Sting vs. Luger, not Superbrawl. At least we got something entertaining between them before Luger was a jerk at the title match, knowing it was his last match and more or less phoning in the phone call he made to phone the match in. Either way, if you want to see Battlebowl at its best, this is the show to do it. Good show but ODD choice for Starrcade.

Uncensored 1997
Date: March 16, 1997
Location: North Charleston Coliseum, North Charleston, South Carolina
Attendance: 9,285
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Dusty Rhodes, Bobby Heenan

This show is known for two reasons: the main event and what happens after the main event. This show is kind of a mixed bag as far as continuations of old stuff and new stuff being added. The card looks interesting at least, including one of the most tricked out main events you’ll ever find which will take a few paragraphs to recap alone before we even get to the twenty minutes it runs. Let’s get to it.

The opening video runs down the card which more or less says that there are all gimmick matches tonight.

Dennis Rodman is here tonight and we run down the stipulations for the main event tonight which is one of the most complicated matches you’ll ever see. Ok might as well get it out of the way now.

I’ll spare the rules for later but the stipulations are that if Team WCW (Giant, Luger, Steiners) wins, the NWO lost all of its titles and all of the NWO couldn’t wrestle for three years. That’s just comical. If Team Piper (Piper, Benoit, Mongo and Jarrett, with the Horsemen replacing two real fighters and John Tenta in a HUGE mess of an angle) wins Piper gets Hogan in a cage eventually and if Team NWO (Hogan, Hall, Nash, Savage) wins they get a title shot they get to pick whenever they say so.

NOW we get to the show.

US Title: Dean Malenko vs. Eddie Guerrero

This is due to Eddie costing Dean the Cruiserweight Title last month. Think this one will be awesome? Fast paced stuff to start as Dean hits a shoulder to send Eddie to the floor. Dean stomps a mudhole (Dusty’s word) into Eddie and adds a suplex so he can yell at Eddie a bit. Dean is all ticked off here and it’s kind of awesome. This is no DQ apparently. Eddie gets all aggressive too and is loudly booed, I guess making him the heel here.

Dean locks on a half crab as we cut to the back to see the NWO standing over an unconscious Rick Steiner. At least we didn’t miss anything as Dean has the hold on still. He shifts it back into almost a half Liontamer as we confirm it was Rick. Dean throws him over the top which isn’t a DQ here as we change the rules again. Despite Eddie being the default heel here, Dean grabs the belt for a shot with it and is booed as well.

Rock Bottom out of nowhere takes Dean down as does a dropkick to the knee. Eddie works over the knee with a shot from the top and a hilo down onto it. We hit the leg lock as Eddie controls some more. STF now as Rick is taken out on a stretcher and into an ambulance. The NWO stands behind him and pretends to care in a nice jerk moment. Out to the floor as Dean is in real trouble.

Figure Four goes on and Eddie actually grabs the ropes. I guess this is around the time he turned heel. Dean tries to speed things up a bit and fails completely. Hilo misses but a baseball slide sends Dean into the railing. Eddie tries a HUGE dive but gets sent into the railing chest first.

They chop it out and Eddie gets a backbreaker and powerbomb for two each. They speed it up and do some technical stuff so Dean kicks him low for two. Nice guy that Dean. Powerslam by Dean for two and he hits Eddie with a Frog Splash but pulls Eddie up in a rather stupid move. More technical and speed stuff results in a German to Eddie for two.

Tornado DDT puts Dean down as this is a very back and forth match. Eddie tries to pay Dean back with the Texas Cloverleaf and there it is. Here comes Syxx with his camera because one NWO instance during the match wasn’t enough I guess. He tries to steal the belt so Eddie goes after him. Dean gets the camera, the camera goes upside Eddie’s head and Dean is US Champion.

Rating: B+. Great match until the ending which makes the whole thing about Syxx instead of the great match which is another example of what was wrong with WCW: there was no payoff to the 20 minutes of wrestling because the NWO becomes the focus of things again. Oh well. Eddie vs. Dean for twenty minutes is hard to complain about and this was no exception as far as great matches go.

Piper rants about the main event and saying he shouldn’t have to do that to get a cage match with Hogan. Apparently Rodman wanted to try on the kilt with Piper still in it. Piper is either insane or coked out of his mind. You figure out which. The Horsemen pop up and they all say they’re awesome while Piper makes gay jokes about Rodman.

Psychosis vs. Ultimo Dragon

Dragon is awesome and heel here while Psychosis is still masked and no slouch in his own right. Just a random match here with no feud that I can think of or title mentioned at all. The graphic of course says Ultimate Dragon because WCW doesn’t have much intelligence. Tenay sits in on commentary for this thank goodness. STF by Dragon doesn’t last long as this is all technical stuff of course.

Ton of technical stuff (standard with Crusierweights) results in a standoff as we hear that they’ve never fought before. Tenay is so much better as an expert it’s unreal. Dragon fires off his kicks and it’s off to a leg lock. That lasts a few seconds and Psychosis gets a dropkick for two. There’s Dragon’s headstand in the corner which is always cool to see.

Enziguri sets up a camel clutch by Dragon to slow things down a bit. That gets reversed into one by the psycho dude. Guillotine leg drop mostly hits but I guess that wasn’t his finisher yet I guess so Dragon kicks out at two. We get some weird references to Dusty training in Mexico which sounds like an inside joke of some sort. No gimmick to this match I don’t think.

We hear the story about Dragon being the last protégé of Bruce Lee, which would mean he was a protégé before he turned seven years old. I know he’s good but that’s a stretch even for WCW. Belly to back puts both guys down. Something like a Whisper in the Wind sends Dragon to the floor so Psychosis can hit a bit dive over the top to the floor. Dragon hits a Tajiri elbow on the floor and his namesake Asai moonsault to kill Psychosis again.

Sonny adds in a kick on the floor and Dragon hits a Lionsault for two. Pinfall reversal sequence gets two for Psychosis and La Magistrol gets two for Dragon. Let’s talk about the NWO a bit as it’s super rana time. We get what was either a goardbuster or a botched superplex off the top depending on who you think was in control. Psychosis gets a top rope rana for two and Dragon gets a Liger Bomb for no cover. Tornado DDT (kind of) sets up a tiger suplex to give Dragon the pin.

Rating: C+. Not bad here but the pacing was all off. There really wasn’t a buildup to an ending or a segment where they had anything set up for psychology. Not a bad match or anything but at the same time just kind of there. The lack of story or title aspect hurt it a lot as well. The last two or three minutes were rather awkward also as this needed to be about three minutes shorter.

Here’s DDP who is the hottest thing in wrestling at this point so of course he isn’t on the card. His feud with Savage was just starting which is the one that more or less made him a legit guy in the ring and not just with the fans. Gene asks if Page is going to be subbing for Rick, but that would make far too much sense in WCW so we’re not going to do that. Instead Page challenges Savage again.

Savage and Liz pop up near the announce booth and Savage says he respects Page because his wife is in Playboy. Always thought it was Penthouse. I don’t think it had been revealed that Kimberly was Page’s wife yet so this was pretty shocking stuff. The good stuff is spraypainted of course and here’s Kimberly, also covered in paint. Savage jumps Page and there’s some paint for him as well. They would feud for nearly a year over this.

Glacier vs. Mortis

Martial arts match here. Mortis is more commonly known as Kanyon and has James Vanderberg (Mitchell) with him. It’s Mortis’ debut. Mortis, the guy in skull-based attire, shouts with a New York accent, completely destroying his mystique quickly. Glacier yells about getting kicked in the ear as this is a wrestling match rather than a martial arts match.

Glacier kicks Mortis. A lot. Vanderberg pulls Glacier off of him which isn’t a DQ somehow. Mortis uses his legit innovative offense such as a Fameasser for two. A second attempt is countered into a powerbomb and both guys are down. Vanderberg shouts to Mortis to REMEMBER TAIPEI which was never explained of course. More kicks by Glacier and both guys are down.

Mortis gets crotched on the top and a superplex gets two. Northern lights suplex with a cradle gets two for Mortis as this referee is annoyingly slow by comparison to the guys in the ring. Mortis pulls the referee in front of Glacier’s superkick finisher and gets one of his own for two. Vanderberg gets on the apron and the distraction totally fails, allowing Glacier to hit the aforementioned kick for the pin.

Rating: C. This was definitely the best match they had in their seemingly never ending series. Pretty decent match here as they moved rather quickly in there. The overacting and the lack of anything definitive as far as the story went got really old eventually. Not terrible though and the pacing was good.

Post match Wrath debuts and beats up Glacier.

We see the video of the Outsiders running the Steiners off the road and wrecking their car. You know, because attempted vehicular homicide airing on national television is all cool right?

Buff Bagwell vs. Scotty Riggs

Strap match of the four corner variety here. Bagwell says he doesn’t care if he loses this match on the way to the ring. Fine example of the stuff that’s wrong with WCW right there. Riggs whips him a few times but Bagwell hits the floor as the strap isn’t hooked up yet. Bagwell gets crotched and whipped a lot. Riggs slides between Buff’s legs and the balls are abused again. Somehow that all took nearly five minutes.

Bagwell takes over and mugs/talks to the camera a lot. He literally stops for about 15 seconds to talk at times. Dude, get on with the boring match already! This is one of those terrible matches where nothing at all of note is going on as Buff is clearly going to win and no one cares in the slightest. Buff again says he doesn’t care who wins this.

Dusty says this is brutal. Yeah it is but I don’t think it’s in the same way that Dusty means. Bagwell makes him do the American Males Clap and it’s as stupid as it sounds. They keep talking about a bag of cement as some kind of a joke which isn’t funny in the slightest. This is killing the crowd too. The referee shoves Bagwell down in a comedy spot that isn’t funny. Blockbuster doesn’t work so Riggs whips Bagwell a bit. Powerbomb puts Buff down as does a missile dropkick. Riggs gets three buckles and that more or less ends his offense. Bagwell hangs him and the four corners end this.

Rating: F+. First of all, this was terribly, and I do mean terribly boring. Second, what in the world was the point in this being a strap match? There was no way that Riggs was winning this and everyone knew it. The solution? Give them thirteen minutes to prove that Bagwell was going to win. Weak match and that’s putting it very mildly.

The NWO looks at the Playboy and guarantee victory. Rodman is talked about incessantly.

Public Enemy vs. Harlem Heat

This is for the #1 contender spot which meant nothing because it’s not like the Outsiders ever wrestled. Oh and this is Texas Tornado rules. In essence this is a street fight and the weapons are in as soon as the bell rings. This is one of those brawls where they’re going to beat on each other for a good while until they get tired and then it drags for awhile until we get to the ending.

The white guys beat up Stevie until Booker makes the save. Booker actually gets two on Grunge. Extension cord comes in and Rock accidentally hits Grunge. Various comedy weapons are brought in and this is going nowhere for the most part. Dusty laughs a lot at stuff that really isn’t funny. The guy enjoyed his work to be sure.

There’s a toilet seat in there which is the main focus of the “comedy” here. The announcers don’t pay a bit of attention here as you would expect. Sherri helps a bit and Dusty loses whatever he had left. More weapon shots and choking follow as it occurs to me that Sherri and Public Enemy are all dead. That’s a rather saddening thought. Dusty freaks over a pizza pan being brought in.

Grunge gets crotched as we hit the slow down period. We get a shot of Sherri hitting Rock so we shift to a camera view where we can’t see anything but the ring because I guess a woman hitting a man hurts the southern mentality or whatever. There was a low blow in there somewhere and Dusty cracks up over it.

There’s a purse brought in with some form of electronics in it. Rocket Launcher gets two on Grunge. Sherri gets rammed into the railing and Booker goes through a table. Here are Mongo and Jarrett for no apparent reason. Ah apparently Heat is replacing them. Briefcase to Grunge sets up the Harlem Hangover to end this after FAR too long.

Rating: D+. This was your standard wild brawl that wasn’t really wild and wasn’t anything resembling good but it’s not terrible for a toss your brain out and let them destroy each other fight. It definitely got far too tedious more than once but these can be entertaining if they don’t go too long. This went too long but was still kind of entertaining so points for that I suppose.

Gene talks to Team WCW and explains the rules again, this time saying that the NWO would have full power, not just having the right to challenge for a title. Scott says he has more incentive now, Giant says it’s time for spring cleaning and that his team is awesome. Lex plays up the whole social clash/honor etc which Austin vs. Hart were doing far better at the time.

TV Title: Prince Iaukea vs. Rey Mysterio

This is a rematch from last month. Rey takes over to start and hits a front flip off a springboard for two. This is an extended fifteen minute time limit instead of the usual ten. The same move as he hit off the springboard hits over the top and it’s all Rey so far. The announcers talk about how Rey and Dean are moving up the ladder and it’s so funny to think that’s going to mean anything in the long run.

Prince hits a springboard dive and based on the crowd you would have thought that he ran his hand through his hair. Back in the ring Rey gets a middle rope bulldog for two. The fans flat out do not care. Quebrada (Mike said it, not me) gets two for Rey. Sunset flip off the middle rope gets the same. Rey tries to get the crowd into it and it doesn’t work in the slightest.

A senton (backsplash, not bomb) misses and Prince takes over with his, ahem, REALLY FREAKING BORING offense. The problem with him is rather obvious quickly: there is absolutely nothing unique about him in the slightest. He’s Samoan, average size, average weight, no special moves or anything at all like that. And yet somehow he’s TV Champion. Iaukea can’t get a springboard cross body as Rey counters with a dropkick. The Prince accidentally low blows Rey as things somehow get even slower.

They both try dropkicks and are both down again. Rey gets a headscissors for the first interesting move in far too long. Whisper in the Wind takes Prince down and the clock runs out after about 12 minutes. Rey wants to keep going, Prince says you’re on and here we go. No mention of how long this is as Heenan isn’t sure either. Rey gets a springboard enziguri and drops the dime for two. West Coast Pop is set up but Prince rolls through into a sunset flip to retain. So uh….the point to the extra time was what exactly?

Rating: D. Rey was great at this point but he wasn’t a miracle worker. Whoever thought Prince was worth anything was pretty freaking stupid to say the least. He would FINALLY lose the title about a month later to Regal and then would go away for a good while until coming back as the Artist and win the Cruiserweight Title when no one cared again.

Ad for the NEW show, Spring Stampede. By new they mean not since 1994 when they had the first one. Horsemen are featured in a cowboy thing which is kind of a cool idea.

Team WCW vs. Team NWO vs. Team Piper

WCW: Giant, Lex Luger, Scott Steiner
NWO: Hall, Nash, Hogan, Savage
Piper: Piper, McMichael, Jarrett, Benoit

This is kind of like a cross between WarGames and a battle royal. You have three guys start and go five minutes. Then after two minutes we get another man from each team (Team WCW will miss an entry due to Rick going on and they weren’t smart enough to have Page fill in). It’s elimination style, which means we don’t have to deal with 11 guys in the ring at once. You can put someone out via pin, submission, knockout and over the top.

If Team WCW wins, the NWO is stripped of all titles and can’t wrestle for 3 years. If Team Piper wins, Piper gets Hogan in a cage at a time to be announced. If Team NWO wins, they more or less have carte blanche (Previously they would have gotten a title shot anywhere anytime, kind of like Money in the Bank). They change that back to the MITB thing but it would ultimately be the free reign thing.

Benoit, Hall and Giant start us off. They’re not at ringside which is kind of stupid as you would be able to jump them as they come out in theory no? Benoit jumps Hall before Giant gets there. Not that we can see that as we need to see Giant’s very slow walk to the ring instead. Giant gets in very slowly which is rather smart before taking them both down with a clothesline.

Benoit tries to chop away and it doesn’t work at all. It’s almost hard to believe that Benoit would be world champion before Hall. Basically this is Giant and two other guys in there as he keeps dominating the entire time. Elbow drop on Hall so Benoit tries to jump Giant. No real attempts to throw anyone out but since you can win by pinfall that’s ok.

Sleeper doesn’t work for Hall and Giant gets a huge chokeslam to Benoit for only two. Hall saves, I guess out of fear of fighting Giant one on one. Giant busts out the claw of all things but a corner splash misses and Giant is gone first! That leaves two guys for Team WCW. The clock runs out on the first period and it’s Jarrett, Randy Savage and Luger. That puts five guys in the ring at the moment if you’re keeping score.

It’s more or less a battle royal at this point as Luger can’t gorilla press Savage out. Jeff avoids a Razor’s Edge and here come Mongo, Nash and Scott Steiner. No real effort to put anyone out right now as everyone is really just beating on each other. Belly to belly puts Nash down as we only have Hogan and Piper left. Nash gets a big boot and clothesline to Jarrett and he’s out. Jeff that is. Mongo gets backdropped out so Team Piper has just Benoit and Piper left.

Here are Hogan and Piper so everyone is out there now. Nash gets a big boot to Steiner to knock him out so Luger is all that’s left for WCW, Piper and Benoit for Piper and all of the NWO is left. Wait where’s Hogan? What a shock he’s going to come out last isn’t he? Oh there he is with Dennis Rodman. Piper is on the floor but not out. Scratch that as he’s back now. Seven people in at the moment.

Hogan, Piper and Savage are on the floor with Hogan kind of chilling and Piper choking Savage. The Outsiders beat up Benoit and everyone is finally in there at the same time. Hogan throws Piper through the ropes and they brawl on the floor a bit. After Savage jumps them in the aisle everyone goes back to the ring. In a HORRIBLY stupid looking moment, Piper is sent into the ropes but Rodman pulls it down to put him out. This would have looked passable if Piper didn’t JUMP OVER THE ROPE BEFORE IT WAS PULLED DOWN. And people wonder why they went out of business.

They keep brawling on the floor anyway and Savage helps as it’s the Outsider Edge for Benoit. The tag champs toss him out and Team Piper is gone. Luger is the only one left for WCW and he’s against technically five guys counting Rodman. The NWO literally stands around for a minute and a half posing before Nash sets him up for a powerbomb.

Luger escapes and racks Savage, clotheslines Nash and racks Hall to eliminate all three in under thirty seconds. And never mind as when he goes to rack Hogan, Savage gets the spraypaint from Rodman and pops Luger in the face with it so Hogan can get the winning pin. The NWO won a big match. I’m shocked too.

Rating: B-. The match was actually pretty good as it didn’t really get stupid and for a big multi-man tag, this actually worked. I fail to see why Rick wasn’t out there but still, pretty good stuff. The ending was obvious but it doesn’t ever drag, the stuff they did made perfect sense the entire time and it was kind of interesting. Shockingly good main event.

Now it’s time for the REAL reason to watch this show as the NWO gets out of the ring and STING comes down from the ceiling. Up to this point it was unclear as to which side he was on. Sting drills the NWO with the bat and the place ERUPTS. Scorpion Death Drops all around and it’s only Hogan left. Hogan gets all fired up and Sting points the bat at him. Hogan says he’ll kill him if he puts the bat down so Sting drops it.

Here comes Hogan and he actually gets in the ring. Sting turns his back to him so he can actually get a free shot which Sting completely no sells. Hogan gets drilled and put out with the Scorpion as the fans lose their freaking minds to end the show.

Overall Rating: C+. Definitely not the worst show ever and by far and away the best Uncensored of all time at this point. The ending is totally awesome as we shift from the Piper vs. Hogan stuff to Hogan vs. Sting which would be the primary feud the entire year. You can really see that the non-NWO stuff isn’t given much thought at all and it’s far more on the wrestlers to do things themselves, which is fine but interesting to see. Anyway, better show than expected but it does drag at times.

Starrcade 1985
Date: November 28, 1985
Location: Greensboro Coliseum, Greensboro, North Carolina/The Omni, Atlanta, Georgia
Commentators: Bob Caudle, Tony Schiavone

Found this and figured it would be worth taking a look at. This is a show where they have two different locations, each with six matches and each with a main event. In Atlanta we have the rematch of previous year’s show with Flair vs. Dusty of course. The other is perhaps the best match in Starrcade history as Tully Blanchard meets Magnum TA in a steel cage I Quit match. This should be very solid as the card looks freaking stacked. Let’s get to it.

We open with a shot of a big disco ball. Ok then. This is called The Gathering for no apparent reason. The lighting is AWFUL. You can barely see Bob Caudle and Tony Schiavone. We throw it to Johnny Weaver who keeps looking at the cue card he’s reading from which is odd to see. Other than the TV Title everything is on the line tonight. We open in Greensboro, the home of Starrcade.

The national anthem plays and we’re ready to go.

Mid-Atlantic Title: Sam Houston vs. Krusher Khruschev

Krusher is more commonly known as Smash of Demolition so we’ll go with that name for him as it’s easier to spell. The title is vacant at this point due to a guy named Buzz Tyler leaving the territory so this is a tournament final. The referee is in yellow for no apparent reason. The ring looks rather small for some reason. Perhaps it could be that it is small. Both guys are in red here so it looks a bit odd.

They’re going power vs. speed here as Houston is a tiny man to say the least. The commentary has some long spaces of no talking at all. Crowd is a bit deceased at this point. Smash was always good at making noise during the matches. The EVIL Russian is dominating here.

Mind you that’s the Minnesota form of Russian but whatever. We hit the Russian bearhug. Oh joy. Sam hits his only move, the bulldog, but the foot is on the ropes. Smash hits his move, the Russian Sickle (running clothesline but not quite) and Sam gets his foot on the ropes but the referee misses it. EVIL RUSSIA WINS!

Rating: D+. Uh, isn’t the crowd supposed to get into the opening match on the biggest show of the year? This was rather boring to say the least and not a lot came of it. Smash winning was the right move as there was no point to having a guy the size of Houston pick it up. Not terrible but I’ve seen far better.

Now to Atlanta. Unless I say otherwise, the venues alternate.

Manny Fernandez vs. Abdullah the Butcher

This is a Mexican Death Match, meaning you get the pin and then there’s a ten count the other guy has to answer and if he can’t get up the match is over. Manny is about as stereotypical of a Mexican as you can ask for. He trained R-Truth which is his biggest claim to fame. Ok screw the ten count as it’s a hat on a pole match instead. Ok then. Seriously you just have to climb up and get the hat to win.

Butcher jumps him before the bell so we’re off early. The lighting is again crap and we have no commentary at this point. Tony again has microphone difficulties. Ah there they are. Manny is busted about 30 seconds into this. They REALLY need to work on their pauses in talking. Manny uses his boot as we continue this annoying Southern theme in the NWA. Abdullah going up the ropes is really funny looking. Amazingly he’s bleeding too. Who would have guessed that one?

Manny continues to just take clothes off and use them to fight Butches. Sure why not. So Manny is now in socks and no belt. That works I guess. Manny hits the Flying Burrito (real name) to knock Butcher to the ropes. Ok the suplex on Butcher was cool looking, I’ll give him that much. Manny goes for the hat (seriously a hat?) and gets a fork to the balls. Apparently the NWA is now CZW. Another Burrito (which is a forearm in case you didn’t know) and a clothesline puts Butcher down. And he just climbs up and gets it. Ok then.

Rating: B-. Pretty decent brawl here actually although the hat was just out of left freaking field. I liked it a lot though even though it was mainly just violence. Still though, solid stuff here and it came off pretty well. The big man vs. little man stuff worked well here so there we are.

Back in Greensboro Khruschev says he’s happy and thanks his fellow Russians for helping him. His total lack of accent is rather funny.

Ron Bass vs. Black Bart

This is a Texas Bullrope match where is Bass wins he immediately gets the same match with Bart’s manager, James J. Dillon. Dillon is in one of those tuxedo shirts that I want. This is right around the time the Horsemen came together so there’s a solid chance Dillon isn’t with them yet. In every match so far, one of the guys has been from Texas. Ron Bass being a face is WEIRD. I’m not sure which set of rules they’re using here but I’d bet on the four corners version. And I’m wrong again as it’s pins.

Bart is bleeding inside of a few seconds. This is really just another brawl with the rope involved. Both guys are already busted and we’re sitting in silence again. Dillon looks REALLY young here to say the least. Bart is in trouble here as the winner is pretty clear I’d think. I’ve never liked these matches as the bell and rope are such regional things and they’re just annoying.

The problem here is that things slow down a lot instead of having just straight fighting. I get the idea of it but at the same time it’s just taking too long. Also, why are there two cowboys in the same match? Oh ok they used to be partners. There’s the explanation. From out of nowhere a bell shot from the top ends it. Dillon takes his shirt off. Oh dear.

Rating: D. I hated this, but then again I hate bullrope matches that don’t have Sting in them so there we are. The ending came out of nowhere and the total lack of commentary hurt this a lot. It just makes them seem uninterested which is never a good thing at all. Boring fight compared to the previous one.

Ron Bass vs. James J. Dillon

This is max five minutes as per the rules. Dillon, the manager, jumps him fast and beats the heck out of him. We’ll ignore how little sense that makes. He COWBOYS UP thought and it’s beatdown time. After a LONG beating, the referee goes down and Bart comes in with a piledriver and pulls Dillon on top for the fluke pin.

Rating: N/A. Too short here but the booking wound up making sense in the end as Bass got to beat on him and then wound up losing to heel shenanigans so I can live with this one.

Back to Atlanta for…arm wrestling? Yeah it’s Billy Graham vs. Barbarian as they continue arguing over who the strongest wrestler is. Needless to say Graham is the face here. And there’s going to be a regular match too? This is for 10,000 dollars also. Ok then. They do it left handed. Oh Barbarian has a broken hand. That makes sense. Now if you don’t know how this is going to go, you have no business watching this show or reading this review. After two comebacks, Graham wins.

Billy Graham vs. Barbarian

Sure why not? I’m not sure I get the point here but whatever. I think this is the first match where neither is from Texas. Naturally this is a big power match and little more. Graham gets the bear hug and has his arms called pythons. And there’s Barbarian’s manager in for the DQ. Graham is bleeding. Other than the opener that’s happened in every match I think.

Rating: N/A. This was like two minutes long so what do you want me to say about it? Graham was about to get like 10 years older in about a year or two as he would go to WWF again and just be crippled by steroid abuse over the years.

National Title: Terry Taylor vs. Buddy Landel

Have I mentioned I can’t stand Taylor? Like, REALLY can’t stand him, almost to Ronnie Garvin levels? The National Title was just the title of the Georgia territory and not a real national belt. You have to remember that this is a bunch of promotions having big matches at once and not one company having one show. Imagine if in the NCAA all the conferences had their title games on the same night in the same place. That’s what this is kind of like.

It would be unified with the US Title in about a year. Landel was a guy that was good but not great. He was a guy you could bring in and count on to have a decent feud/match and then go away. Think of someone like Kane but of normal size. The problem with the formula they’re using is that it causes the matches to be a bit disjointed. What I mean is everything is a big match so it’s hard to have a breather or anything.

It’s really a supershow which is both good and bad at the same time. There’s nothing to really talk about in this. I mean seriously we’re 9 minutes in and I haven’t thought of a thing that is interesting enough to talk about. There’s nothing to make fun of either.

Taylor goes for his superplex finisher but Dillon (how many people does he freaking manage???) sweeps his leg out so that he falls backwards so Landel can get the pin and the title. We’ll ignore that Taylor would have landed the same had the move hit. Landel would be fired in about a month for drug use so Dusty was just given the title.

Rating: C. This is the textbook example of a match that is just there. It’s not particularly good or bad. It just exists. There’s no other way to put it. I know that’s not much but it’s all I’ve got.

National Tag Titles: Billy Jack Haynes/Wahoo McDaniel vs. Arn Anderson/Ole Anderson

Yes it’s the Minnesota Wrecking Crew. Dang the 80s were awesome for wrestling. The faces/challengers hold the Florida Tag Titles at this point. Again these are the Georgia tag belts, not actual national titles. Haynes you may know as the guy that fought Hercules at Mania 3.

Wahoo knew like 2 moves and both were chops so there you are. Being realistic here, who do you really think is going to win here? This is formula stuff with the faces getting in trouble and fighting back to get out of it. If it works so well, why change it at all I guess. And Ole trips Wahoo so Arn can pin him. These pins are coming out of freaking nowhere and it’s getting rather annoying.

Rating: C+. Not bad here and really just a way for the Andersons to get an easy title defense and there’s nothing wrong with that. Don’t think anyone believed there would be new champions or anything here which is ok too. Simple by the book match which at times is the best idea to go with.

Landel is in the back with Dillon and Weaver, who is really bad here. Landel is called the top man in Dillon’s stable. That’s saying a lot. Oh yeah he’s not with the Horsemen yet. Landel says he’s the World’s National Heavyweight Champion. No wonder he was fired.

US Title: Tully Blanchard vs. Magnum TA

OH YES!!! In short, screw everything else in the history of Starrcade. THIS is the greatest match in the history of the show, period and end of story and argument. Ok, so more or less, this is the idea: culture clash. Tully is considered the wrestler’s wrestler. He’s the epitome of the rich guy that is a total jerk to everyone but no one can beat him.

Magnum is from the South, rides on a Harley, drinks beer instead of champagne and is a fighter known for two things: a heck of a right hand, and the sickest belly to belly this side of Brock Lesnar. For months upon months these two had gone after each other but there had never been the definitive match. Everyone knew that would come on Thanksgiving night and here we are. The build for this is off the charts.

It’s also in a cage and an I Quit match. Hmm. A match between a guy considered to be the top technical man in wrestling and a pure redneck where you win by submission. Just goes to show you that even the best angles such as Hart and Austin aren’t always original. Also, this is a more violent match so there you are.

Magnum is introduced as the vastly popular Magnum TA. That’s an understatement. Hey they hit the lights so we can see! The fans pop like crazy over a single punch. They help this match a lot as they’ve watch this build for about a year or so and are drooling for the end. They slug it out to start and I’m glad there’s no commentary here as it’s not needed. And of course there goes Bob Caudle.

The people here are popping for every single thing so they can more or less do whatever they like. This is a match where it’s all brawling and that’s all it should be. Tully is bleeding from the face and the arm which is something you hardly ever see but it’s working for me. Magnum, being smart, goes for the arm. Magnum is bleeding too.

The microphone they have to say they give up into is finally brought into play and we get the famous sequence as Tully screams at him to say it but when he says no Tully blasts him with the microphone. So simple yet so effective. They do it again and Magnum is in big trouble. He dodges an elbow drop and the fans EXPLODE. You would think he just won the title. Tully won’t give up either.

The mic use is what I like about this as it makes perfect sense to have that in the ring with them rather than the insane things you get in Cell matches. With both guys on their knees they just start throwing bombs at each other. Tully is getting very frustrated and loses his cool. Hmm where have I seen this before?

Baby Doll, Tully’s manager, throws a wooden chair in and it gets broken up. Tully uses a piece to drive into the head of Magnum but it doesn’t work. Magnum gets the spike and DRIVES IT INTO TULLY’S EYE FOR THE SUBMISSION. Tully screaming in pain after it’s over makes this whole thing even better.

Rating: A+. Just an epic fight here with tons of blood and straight up violence. THIS is how you blow off a feud. Go find this match. It’s on the Essential Starrcade and shouldn’t be hard to fine online. Go watch it as it’s an absolute classic.

Miss Atlanta Lively/Jimmy Valiant vs. Midnight Express

This is a street fight and it’s Eaton and Condrey in case you old school fans are wondering. Lively is Ronnie Garvin in drag. This has F written all over it. Somehow Garvin is the better wrestler on his team. The Express are in tuxedoes for no apparent reason. Cornette is at his best here. Oh and the face manager is named Big Mama. Kill me now, please. Cornette is cracking me up, saying both of them may be men but they both may be women but he’s not sure.

Valiant is one of those guys that can’t wrestle but he got a major push anyway and is over so there we are. Condrey is busted open. This should be Bloodfest instead of the Gathering. Someone has powder and hits Valiant with it. This was the 1980s so it’s likely spare cocaine. They try to get Garvin’s clothes off and I have no idea what the point of this is supposed to be. Garvin takes the racket to the top of the head. Rock on violence against women!

Garvin is wearing heels and pins Bobby Eaton. So a woman and a guy that is more known for his beard than his ability beat one of the best teams ever. Sure why not. Post match they strip Cornette to his boxers. Take me now, please.

Rating: F+. I have NO idea what the idea of this was supposed to be but it completely failed in my eyes. This was not only boring but was crap too. Granted there was zero talent on one side and a lot on the other but whatever. At least it was short.

Magnum cuts a GREAT promo, talking about how he’ll be a fighting champion. Sweet goodness did he have a ton of potential.

NWA Tag Titles: Rock N Roll Express vs. The Koloffs

This is in a cage as well and is the ending of the Greensboro part now. These two feuded for the better part of ever in the 80s and this is yet another “blowoff” to it. The RNRE of course are WAY over as you would expect them to be. They’re also the challengers here. They’re tagging here so this should be fun. This is the Rock N Roll Express and it’s the 1980s. Do you need me to explain what happens here?

Oddly enough Gibson is in there most of the time. This is another of those matches where there’s little that I can say about it. Khruschev and Don Kernoodle are the seconds here. Referee goes down again. Morton finally gets the tag and after his usual stuff, hits a rollup for the pin and the titles. The Russians beat them up even more after the match.

Rating: B-. It’s hard to mess up an RNRE match if their opponents are at least passable and the Russians were indeed passable. This was fine and served as a way to get a massive pop for the end of the night in Greensboro. This was a good match that served its purpose very well I though. Nothing classic or anything like that, but fine for what it was.

NWA World Heavyweight Title: Ric Flair vs. Dusty Rhodes

Oh like anyone but these two would be in the main event. Flair in this era coming out to that music is nothing short of perfect. The double city thing makes sense as in Greensboro Flair would get the biggest pop of the night. Dusty is listed at 275. That’s HILARIOUS. The big gold belt isn’t there yet. This is happening because Dusty helped Flair and then the team that would become the Horsemen in January broke Dusty’s leg/ankle.

Dusty, please don’t shake it. The planet can’t take that much weight shifting. Dusty of course dominates early on. We can already see the problem here. See, at this time, Flair could allegedly wrestle a broom to a B grade match (the expression you might hear is three and a half star but screw that star system. Everyone else uses it and I hate it).

He did this because Flair had a very basic way of working a match: he controls, the other guy makes a comeback, shot to the knee, Flair works the knee for 8 minutes, face makes the comeback, finish. How many times have you seen that match and how many times has it been at least good? The idea was you wouldn’t always see a classic, but you would hardly ever if ever at all see a bad Flair match.

EVERYONE but Dusty got that idea and Flair’s formula worked to near perfection. Dusty insisted that they use HIS method which is make Dusty look good and use a LOT of rest holds. It worked for Dusty and the fat of doom but not for anyone else and it was very boring. Flair goes for the knee and Dusty hits the floor. Dusty tries to inject psychology into the match which translates into he gets to lay down after 5 minutes.

Dusty works on Flair’s knee and I use that term loosely. In an unintentionally hilarious spot, Flair can’t suplex Rhodes. Allegedly it’s his leg but I would argue it’ the weight of the planet between Dusty’s legs and his back. And Dusty lays down again. Let’s do a sleeper! Even more time where we don’t have to really do anything for Dusty! Dusty lunges for the corner to break it up. My bet is there was some powder left from earlier and Dusty thought the turnbuckle was a new kind of doughnut.

Dusty was lazy on a snapmare. ON A SNAPMARE. Ok let’s stop and think about this for a minute. How exactly does a snapmare work? You have two guys, one behind the other. One guy grabs the other’s head and snaps, hence the term SNAPmare the other guy’s head forward while the guy taking the move jumps right? Oh and the guy doing it ducks down. Dusty did NOTHING. He slowly brought his arms forward.

He didn’t SNAP, he didn’t duck, and he went to the side instead of over the shoulder. ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME??? JACKIE GAYDA could do a snapmare properly and this guy is about to win the freaking world title? Good freaking night. Dusty misses an elbow and lays down AGAIN. Seriously he’s been laying on his back more than Becca would for Shawn. Dusty comes off the top with a cross body for two.

Flair should get the title right there since a mountain just jumped at him. Dusty does his stupid looking punches and misses a kick so the knee is down again. Any credit this match gets goes to Flair for having to sell for this fat tub of goo, period. One thing you might notice about the figure four that Flair uses: about 90% of the time, it’s on the wrong leg. The straight leg is the one that’s in pain, not the crossed one.

Dusty manages to reverse without ever selling the pain, which is at least staying consistent as nothing Flair has done has seemed to hurt him here. He’s not even limping. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Young is knocked to the floor. Cue the (future) Horsemen. Dusty gets that abomination that he calls the figure four on and there they are. It’s Arn and Ole in case you were wondering. That’s nothing though and Dusty gets the rollup on Flair for the pin.

It’s traditionally called a small package but nothing about Dusty is small. A bunch of wrestlers including Billy Graham come out to carry Dusty on their shoulders but of course they can’t do it. No one can carry Dusty. Dang I love double entendres. Post match Dusty says he’ll be champion for a long time and the announcers send us off. Actually that’s not the case though.

Dusty’s title reign isn’t counted as on the next TV show he was stripped of the title due to the referee being down and the other referee counting the pin. Yes, Dusty managed to do a Dusty finish ON THE BIGGEST SHOW OF THE YEAR. Can you imagine what would happen if they did this at Mania? The backlash (oh wait it’s Extreme Rules now isn’t it?) would be off the charts. Anyway, that’s the end of the show.

Rating: D. Dusty…you are a fat worthless goon. Flair…I salute you. That’s all I have to say here.

Overall Rating: B+. I went back and forth between B and B+ here. The thing is, even though the ending wound up meaning nothing, that can’t be factored into the grade of the show. The show was solid all around as feuds were settled, titles changed hands, and the big moments worked.

This is a solid show with some misses in there. Still, definitely very good and it felt like the biggest show of the year which it was. Dusty…go away. DEFINITELY see the I Quit. Other than that there isn’t much worth seeing individually but overall the card is well worth seeing.

Souled Out 1997
Date: January 25, 1997
Location: Five Seasons Center, Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Attendance: 5,120
Commentators: Eric Bischoff, Ted DiBiase

This was requested a long time ago and I never got around to doing it. This is a very different kind of show as it’s the first and more or less only official NWO PPV. And when I say NWO PPV, I mean full on. The ring is different, there’s a house band, an NWO beauty pageant, all WCW vs. NWO matches and a guy making jokes about WCW guys on their way to the ring. It’s way out there but definitely intriguing. Let’s get to it.

We open with a black and white video of a full police escort bringing people to the arena. It’s really hard to see anything and we get the old school style NWO promos. You can’t see anyone’s faces until they get into the arena. Hogan has the Dallas Cowboys with him for some reason.

The main event here is Hogan vs. Giant for the title, which makes limited sense to me as he fought Piper at the last PPV. They always had this weird concept of have Starrcade then have Souled Out as a completely different theme of show and then have Superbrawl to complete the trilogy of S-named shows.

The set is completely different looking than most shows with big lights saying New World Order and a bunch of steps. Nick Patrick is the referee for every match tonight which must be tiring.

Chris Jericho vs. Masahiro Chono

Chris is billed as “from somewhere north of the border, Chris “I should have played hockey” Jericho”. It’s the same voice that would say the-the biggest icon in wrestling in the NWO theme song. Chono was part of NWO Japan which became Team 2000 when the angle ended. The WCW guys get no theme music.

Patrick accuses Jericho of pulling hair right off the bat. Jericho is more or less nothing at this point so this should be a glorified squash for Chono. A bunch of WCW guys come out to sit in the audience, including Anderson and Harlem Heat and a bunch of others. Eric says they didn’t have to give away tickets to fill the place. Considering how bad things got in about two or three years, that’s hysterical.

Nice side Russian legsweep by Chono as the glorified squash theory is right so far. Nice plancha by Jericho to the floor as Chris is giving it a go at least. After some stuff on the floor where Jericho hurts his knee we get some knee work from Chono in the ring. Kind of boring but not bad so far. The idiot fans chant USA as Jericho hits an enziguri.

Bischoff decided jump back leg round kick is a better name than enizguri. And hey, anyone that follows tournament karate knows that right Tony? Dragon screw leg whip (dang some moves have long names) sets up the STF which doesn’t work. VERY slow count by Patrick off a German by the Canadian to the Japanese as the fans chant USA. Is that joke getting old? I can never tell.

They botch a belly to belly off the top which kills the crowd pretty badly. Chono busts out a table which is a very different thing here in 1997, especially for mainstream wrestling. Jericho reverses a suplex through it and hits a missile dropkick for two which actually was fair.

Lionsault gets two in another fair count as his knee is hurt badly here. He goes up again but gets caught by the Mafia Kick. Oddly enough that doesn’t knock him off so Chono has to shove him through the table. Another Mafia Kick in the ring kills Jericho dead for the pin.

Rating: C+. This wasn’t as bad as I expected. Wait why would I think this was bad? You have two of the best ever in there and we got a pretty good match. It was more competitive than I expected is probably a better explanation. Solid stuff here for the most part but nothing incredible.

We get a bit of the Miss NWO stuff. Some radio shot host named Jeffrey Katz is the host. Basic questions are asked, the girls are stupid, the word fellatio is used. Yeah that sums things up pretty well I’d think.

Big Bubba vs. Hugh Morrus

This is Dungeon vs. NWO as Bubba jumped so the Dungeon is after him. This is a Mexican death match despite the lack of Mexicanocity. No intro for Morrus at all. Morrus looks like Big Dick Dudley. Ok then. The whole death match aspect here is never really explained but whatever. Morrus hits a clothesline to put Bubba on the floor.

Bubba finds a chain from somewhere and whips Morrus with it. We’re told that a Mexican Death Match means anything goes. No Laughing Matter hits and of course no cover. Oh ok it’s more or less last man standing. Patrick counts as slowly as possible so Morrus gets after him.

Boss Man gets back up and does nothing but really basic punches and strikes. Morrus just blasts him with a low blow and Bubba heads out for a walk. We go to the stage where Morrus misses a moonsault, which was completely messed up anyway so they would have been on top of each other. Bubba grabs a motorcycle and runs down Morrus Rikishi style to of course end it.

Rating: D. Kind of just a brawl here with Bubba not doing much at all. Naturally this had no point and would only be on this PPV and this one alone. This went nowhere and the ending was really stupid. At least it was short. Whenever we get to that point it’s never a good sign.

The NWO chicks are still stupid. This is five minutes that nothing is coming from.

There’s an NWO website. Nice job updating it to remove the guy not in the team anymore.

Jeff Jarrett vs. Mr. Wallstreet

Oh wow this is going to be bad isn’t it? Wallstreet gets a bad rollup to start for two as Jarrett argues with Patrick. Basically it’s a handicap match with the announcers praising the FAR over the hill Wallstreet. Debra, in the audience, likes Jarrett. Jarrett goes into the audience and no one cares.

Sleeper goes on as Debra is trying to get Mongo to do something. Far too many rest holds in this as we’re on our third in like a minute and a half. Eric says the crowd is getting anxious. Ok so in the NWO language anxious means bored out of your mind and wanting to crack your freaking skull open to end the pain of this match.

This is during the Jarrett wants to be a Horseman period which went a grand total of nowhere. Anderson is kind of scouting Jarrett at this point but it’s not like he’s going to get much here. Wallstreet is just boring beyond belief. Figure four goes on and Patrick literally drags them to the ropes so Wallstreet can get the break. Wallstreet gets an abdominal stretch as Mongo jumps the guardrail and DRILLS him with his briefcase and threatens to revoke Patrick’s parking pass if he doesn’t count the pin.

Rating: F. Yeah this was awful. Rotunda (Wallstreet) was just worthless by this point and Jarrett as a face is just boring beyond all comprehension. Horrible match.

The pageant is still going! It’s just them answering questions like you would see in a beauty pageant but they’re biker chicks and not attractive and stupid.

And now we have a song. Yeah the house band does some weird metal/bad rock song where the only recognizable worlds are NEW WORLD ORDER. It’s as stupid as it sounds.

Buff Bagwell vs. Scott Riggs

Bagwell had very recently turned black and white so this is the blowoff I guess. I don’t know about you but I was begging for that American Males showdown. Bischoff talks about how Bagwell has the IT factor and is going to be a movie star according to Hogan. That’s rich. Buff channels his inner Hogan and poses so Riggs jumps him to start us off. And now we stall.

The constant camera cuts are reaching TNA levels here. They’re doing a weird handheld look here and it’s really not working at all. Apparently Buff has a new move for us tonight. He slaps Riggs and it’s on. Buff is sent to the floor which isn’t a DQ here for no apparent reason. I hate that rule but love how they constantly change it.

Eric: “Everybody has to go somewhere. Horses have glue factories and people here have Connecticut.” And then there’s Orlando I guess. Amazingly enough, this is a fairly boring match. Bagwell leads the fans in a Bagwell Sucks chant for some reason. He gets a powerbomb for two. This match is just rather boring. We get an back shot of Buff off a sunset flip attempt.

And now let’s look at the biker chicks again. Sure why not. Bischoff points out that the fans are restless and I’m rather surprised. This match would be perfect for me to get some rest to. It’s putting me to sleep. Riggs reverses a slam into a small package for a long two. The crooked referee schtick is getting very old.

Tornado DDT puts Buff down and Riggs of course doesn’t cover. Eric picks New England for the Super Bowl which was the wrong selection of course. After some more camera cuts and more slow counting, the fans are miserable. Patrick is tired here and I can’t really blame him for that. They go to the corner and Buff debuts the Blockbuster to end this. Yes, this got 14 minutes.

Rating: F+. And that’s just because I love the Blockbuster. This was incredibly boring and not even a fast paced match. At the end of the day, this was Marcus Bagwell vs. Scotty Riggs for almost 15 minutes on PPV. There is no way that works no matter what you say.

Yeah we get it: the girls are stupid.

There’s an NWO hotline. What’s on it? FIND OUT ON NITRO!

Diamond Dallas Page vs. Scott Norton

So Page turned down the NWO and became a MASSIVE face in the process so the ending here is about as obvious as you could ask for. Norton is strong of course. Page isn’t quite his usual self at this point but it’s coming very soon. Page vs. Savage would ignite his career and make him the superstar that he would become. He’s moving here which is odd to see.

And we still get it: Norton is strong. They keep talking about taking over Japan which was a thing hyped for awhile and then it never happened of course. Page pancakes him (Piledriver but he slams them forward instead) but Norton’s power takes over again. I never got why he was supposed to be all awesome or something. Sting is in the corner of the building so the whole match is thrown off course now.

Shoulder breaker sends Page to the floor and he’s in trouble. He gets beaten up a good bit on the floor as the PA guy calls Page a loser which has happened in every match so far tonight. All Norton for awhile but Page punches his way out of it and hits a nice top rope clothesline for two.

Page calls for the Diamond Cutter but here come a bunch of the weaker NWO guys led by Bagwell to offer the spot on the team to him again. He says yes and puts the shirt on before dropping Norton and then, in an actual SMART move from a face, gets the heck out of there before they kill him. Norton wins by countout I’d assume. Yeah he does.

Rating: D. Boring match but Page was trying at least. Like I said his big old push was coming soon and to say it worked is an understatement. This was obviously just to set up the angle at the end and the match was pretty bad because of it. That clothesline was good though.

We narrow it down a bit in the pageant. There’s just nothing to say about this.

Tag Titles: Outsiders vs. Steiner Brothers

This was built up forever and included attempted vehicular manslaughter by the heels. I mean there was a video of the two teams in their cars and the Outsiders ran them off the road. The Scotts start us off with various levels of arm work. These camera angles are really getting annoying as it’s hard to tell what we’re looking at sometimes. And let’s talk about Hogan.

Rick vs. Hall now. And now back to the arm. Rick gets out of it by punching Hall in the face. Again, when all else fails: HIT THEM IN THE FACE! Chokeslam gets Hall out of trouble and here’s Nash. They don’t exactly look energetic out there if that makes sense. Scott hits that spinning belly to belly and now more arm work. Everyone has had the arm worked on at various times here.

This has been half punches, half arm work and half suplexes. There were occasions where both were going on at the same time. BIG boot puts Rick on the floor. The ring color is very offputting here. This is your usual slow and plodding Outsiders match with not a lot going on but a lot of time wasting, which technically is something I guess. And now let’s yell at DiBiase because we don’t care about the match.

Nash misses an elbow which takes us nowhere. Scott reaches out to Rick but Rick is facing the wrong way. Maybe Scott wants to take up proctology. Snake Eyes on the apron as we’re on the floor now. It’s Nash and Rick still if you’re wondering. Scott Steiner drills the other Scott and drops a bunch of F Bombs. Good night this needs to get going already.

Scott FINALLY comes in and beats up anyone that enjoys being outside with ease. Everything goes nuts and Scott gets the Razor’s Edge to Scott but there’s no referee. Top rope bulldog ends Hall and Randy Anderson comes in out of the crowd and counts the pin. If you’re stupid enough to think this lasted through Nitro the next night, you’re a very stupid person.

Rating: D+. Just rather boring again as the Outsiders couldn’t move at all and it just isn’t interesting to see them fight. Nothing special at all here as this DRAGGED. It’s the longest match of the night at fifteen minutes almost and it felt like a lot more than that. The screwjob ending doesn’t help much either but not a lot is going to help this show at this point.

US Title: Eddie Guerrero vs. Syxx

Remember what I said about nothing being able to help this show? I still think that’s correct but this isn’t going to hurt it any. Eddie is champion here but Syxx has the title itself. Oh and it’s a ladder match. The lack of music for the faces is really weird. Syxx is of course introduced as US Champion of the World. Bischoff calls him a one man rock concert. Oh dear he’s almost Heath Slater.

Eddie jumps him as the belt is being lifted up into the air. That would be cheating right? Wow even I find the jokes and writing in this review boring at this point. I think that might be due to this show just being weak so far. It’s different for sure but there’s just nothing of note in the ring so far. Granted that could be said about almost all WCW PPVs from this era.

BIG dive from Eddie sends Syxx’s head into the ground and HARD. Easily the biggest spot of the night so far but that looked very bad. Waltman (that other name is irritating for some reason) hits a spin kick off the second rope as the crowd is at least awake to an extent here. Bronco Buster hits Eddie but it’s just one shot at this point so it’s not as annoying yet.

Eddie hits a dropkick and Waltman goes FLYING. You would think he was catching a cannonball or something off that. Some LOUD fan shouts a gay slur at Eddie and even Eric has to respond to it. Big suicide dive by Waltman and the crowd is clearly restless even though this has been a pretty decent match so far. Well granted that’s based on like six minutes or so but it’s a breath of freaking air after watching Scott Norton and Scotty Riggs on PPV.

Scott Hall made ladder matches awesome. Did you know that? Teeter Totter shot to Waltman’s head and Eddie controls pretty easily here. It becomes your standard what vile things can we do with a basic piece of hardware match which is always pretty entertaining, especially with talented guys like Eddie and pretty good guys like Waltman. He’s off here because of the head shot earlier though I think.

Big old top rope suplex from Eddie as Waltman looks a little dead at the moment. Both guys go up and Waltman does something I’ve never seen before, jumping into the air and hitting a dropkick (kind of and closer to that than whatever Bischoff called it) to Eddie which looked great. Waltman of course crashed like a car driven by a penguin with bad eyesight.

Waltman can barely move as Eddie cranks it up again. Both guys go up as Eric says do it for Alice in Chains. Both guys go up and grab the belt at the same time. Eddie drills him with it and they both fall, but Guerrero holds onto it to get the title back for good this time.

Rating: B-. Match of the night BY FAR. This was actually good with these two being able to have some time and show off a bit. This was pretty good but nothing great. See what happens when you have two young guys out there and give them something where they can show off? YOU GET A GOOD MATCH!

The pageant begins (what?) and ends with a fat chick getting to make out with Eric. Again as stupid as it sounds.

WCW World Title: Hollywood Hogan vs. The Giant

The pyro for Hogan is set to his music which is pretty cool looking. The Cowboys are with him again here. No t-shirt for Hogan which is weird to see. Nate Newton is here as is George Teague. Oh and Ray Donaldson. Other than to big Cowboys fans only one of those names will mean a thing. Hogan is tiny looking here which is very weird to say the least.

I don’t mean because he’s against Giant. I mean his muscle mass is WAY down. Punches just tick Giant off. This is happening because Giant won World War III and Hogan said no title shot, thereby ticking Giant off. He was the first to leave the team after being in it like three or four months. And Hogan stalls. He begins his offense with punches before shifting slightly to harder punches and then going full boar with very hard punches.

Why does every move have to be heard around the world? Double clothesline and both guys are down already. Giant takes over and Hogan overacts. That’s always weird as he never acted at all as an actor but as a wrestler he acts far too much. Shoulder block gets nothing for Hogan and Hogan actually tries a small package. You see something new every day I guess.

It looked cool too as Giant just kind of held him there when he was trying to roll through with it. I love basic counters like that which get to show off someone’s power and size. After some very basic and weak looking heel stuff from Hogan, Giant goes up for a top rope elbow which misses of course as it would have hit Hogan so far that the hair inside Hogan’s skull would have popped out and his image would have been ruined. It also would put a lot of bandana companies out of business.

Giant no sells a big boot. Ok that’s pretty freaking cool. A weak slam (but still a slam nonetheless) sets up the legdrop which is completely no sold. Hogan parades around and doesn’t seem to notice the lack of Giant laying there. Chokeslam kills Hogan dead but Patrick keeps saying the shoulder was up even though he doesn’t move.

The run-ins begin of course and Giant piles them up like a chronic hoarder. The announcers hit the ring too until Hogan gets a (real) guitar as Hall and Nash get there. Good to see Hogan get rid of Giant with the instrument or the Outsiders might have had to do two things in one night! The fans want Sting which does nothing. Spray paint job ends this. The match was just thrown out I guess.

Rating: D-. This was their usual boring match that had nothing of note for it. It felt like the main event of a house show with the shoulder not being up thing but it’s better than the fake shoulder injury concept I guess. Another boring match to cap off a very boring show though.

The copyright says NWO which is a nice little touch.

Overall Rating: F+. I’ve seen some people say that this show is recommended because it’s so different. Well yeah that’s true it is different. It’s somehow more annoying and stupid than the rest of WCW’s stuff around this time. There’s one good match out of like eight and even it’s nothing worth going out of your way to see. The atmosphere is most certainly different and it’s true that there never really has been another show like this, but that doesn’t mean it’s worth seeing. Bad show and different, but not worth watching.

Slamboree 1994
Date: May 22, 1994
Location: Philadelphia Civic Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Attendance: 4,000
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan

This show is designed around being a Legends Reunion, meaning we have a lot of old guys having matches that few people want to see. We’re also having the WCW International Title match between Sting and Vader which wasn’t supposed to happen but I’ll get to that later.

This is the last show in 1994 for me so I’ll have a solid wall set up to go from as I try to get going on the WCW years. This is also the last show before Hogan’s arrival and complete turning around of the company from bad with young guys to bad with old guys, so take that into consideration. That being said let’s get to it.

Keep in mind that this is a month or two after Mania X and the ladder match, so that’s what they’re trying to match.

We start with the Legends to drive home the theme here. We have Ole Anderson, Masked Assassin, Penny Banner, Red Bastien, Tully Blanchard (big pop), The Crusher, Don Curtis, Terry Funk (not here), Verne Gagne, Hard Boiled Haggerty, Larry Hennig, Killer Kowalski, Ernie Ladd, Wahoo McDaniel, Angelo Mosca, Harley Race (great heat), Ray Stevens, Lou Thesz, Johnny Weaver, Mr. Wrestling II and Tommy Young. They’re just introduced and nothing more. This was in Philly, a WWF town, so few cared. Gene throws it to the wrong guy as Jesse isn’t there.

Bockwinkle wants Sting out here. Sting is ROCKING a red suit. Not bad at all. So Sting lost the title to Rude in Japan (remember this is the International Title, the replacement for the NWA Title which was withdrawn from WCW in September) but in that match Rude broke his back and had to retire.

Because of this they said that a belt shot from Rude and coming off the top meant he should have been disqualified so Sting is still champion. Sting says he lost and wants to earn it against Vader tonight and the match is made.

TV Title: Johnny B. Badd vs. Steve Austin

Hat Guy is here, apparently cheating on Paulie. Well they’re improving here: only 13 minutes before the first match starts. Austin was more or less the hottest thing in the world at this point so of course he would be jobbing to Duggan two months into the Hogan regime. And three minutes in we have a sleeper. Badd counters with a jawbreaker which is amusing for some reason. Sherri is at ringside which would start the dumbest story in history as she loved Parker after taking a shot to the head.

At least Heenan is sober here. They’re doing a technical style here and it’s working pretty well. We hit a more basic style and it’s working fine. Badd could go at times, especially when he had a good opponent and Austin would certainly qualify as one of those. We hit a rest hold twelve minutes in. That’s far more like it.

You can tell ECW has been around as the chants are going insane with chants. They have the lights dimmed to hide the fact that the upper areas and a good deal of the lower areas are empty. After some heel interference by the manager we crank it up and the fans get into it really fast. The bell rings early on a two count so everyone is confused. Badd hits his top rope sunset flip for two. He goes for a belly to back but Austin kicks his foot off the ropes for no apparent reason.

They botch the heck out of the pin as I think Austin was supposed to reverse into something and use the tights but it looked like Badd just laid there and let himself get pinned. Good match but a bad ending.

Rating: B-. They went hard and fast out there and it worked rather well. The ending hurt it a lot but other than that this was fine for an opener. Austin would hold the belt a bit longer until Steamboat took it from him. Badd was getting laid by the opening spot as he was in it for like a year.

Wahoo McDaniel and Ernie Ladd are here. Wahoo admits to selling Indian blankets. Remember, this is in ECW’s town. Wahoo looks more confused than Stu Hart usually did.

Dusty is in Hollywood, as you can tell by the really big sign behind him. Apparently he’s doing a promo in the middle of a field/hill or something. He says nothing at all.

Tully Blanchard vs. Terry Funk

Blanchard comes out to what would become Jericho’s face music. There’s something wrong with the sound as you literally cannot hear the announcer. And Funk, who has been missing all night, comes out to something sounding like a slapped together Magnificent Seven theme. Now keep in mind this is in the….GORDON SOLIE IS ANNOUNCING!!! Anyway, they decide to have Funk in ECW’s town. Guess who the INSANELY over face is in this match.

Funk stands in front of Hat Guy. And of course we start on the floor. See, now unlike Heroes of Wrestling, Blanchard is in solid shape here. Also he’s not completely obsolete anymore. They haven’t been in the ring yet. Solie just throws out that he was in Miami back in 75 when Funk won the belt. Can you imagine how awesome it would be to crack open a beer with him and listen to him tell stories?

I think this is no rules which would make more sense here. Funk piledrives Blanchard through a piece of wood, which isn’t as great as it sounds, and Blanchard’s head comes nowhere near it. The fans chant WE WANT BLOOD. This is an intense match which is impressive as the old guys are having a more interesting match than the others were. There goes the referee of course and it’s chair time.

Blanchard is bleeding. Funk tries to piledrive Tully from the middle rope onto the chair but he winds up just landing on the chair so it looked like a really messed up powerbomb which is likely best in the end. Tully hits the referee for the DQ but I think it’s just a double DQ. The fans certainly isn’t pleased. Funk takes Hat Guy’s hat to end it.

Rating: B+. Fun. That’s the only way to describe this match. These two went out there and had fun and that’s all you can ask for. Yes that rating is likely high but this match was a blast. I can’t ask for more than that from a match with no point other than having two legends. The wrestling was quite good here too.

Flair, in a Hawaiian shirt, is feuding with Robert Parker’s stable and he’s got a mystery opponent tonight who is 6’7 and a former world champion. Considering the only person on the roster at that point fitting that description was Barry Windham, the opponent was obvious to everyone with a brain. Flair is the actual world champion here and not the International Champion. Yeah it was stupid back then too.

Larry Zbyszko vs. Steven Regal

Regal is TV Champion here but this is non title. Regal had been insulting America on Saturday Night and Larry got tired of it and punched him. There’s an anti-WWF sign in the crowd, saying WCW dominates WWF. At this time, not really but whatever. Both were rather uninteresting. Apparently Regal reads books on how butterflies fly. Why does Heenan know that? We’ve walked around for about a minute and a half and now we get contact.

It was a leg trip and it leads to more stalling. And then we repeat that. Ok seriously we’ve had three minutes go by and there have been two leg trips. Freaking DO SOMETHING! And now Regal is killing time on the floor. We hit some decent chain wrestling that lasts all of 10 seconds as I guess that’s just too much for them. Regal’s face is better than just about anyone else’s ever. There’s some great technical stuff in there but the constant stalling and standing around is hurting it a lot for me.

Regal uses a move that we would refer to as a Tazmission, which naturally gets a BORING chant from the ECW crowd. Regal goes for a butterfly suplex but Larry backdrops him over and gets a pin out of it. They would switch the title the following Saturday, so this being non-title makes something close to sense. You have to remember Saturday Night was like their Nitro at the time.

Rating: B-. This was solid from an in ring standpoint, but the stalling was freaking STUPID. It sucked the life out of this for me as it was like having commercials almost. It’s a standard thing for both guys, but that doesn’t make it right.

Funk is in the back and says he didn’t come out earlier because he’s THE legend, not a legend. He talks about Philly and clearly wants to say ECW but can’t do it. Funk isn’t leaving apparently.

Gordon Solie is here to induct people into the Hall of Fame. Lou Thesz is here to give out the plaques. He gets booed. That’s rather pitiful. WCW refused to think this one out apparently. In a town like Philly, WHY WOULD YOU TALK ABOUT LEGENDS???

They do an actual presentation thing for everyone complete with presentations and clips and music. Solie is a guy you could just listen to all day. He gets a nice reaction but people aren’t sure whether to boo or cheer.

The Crusher is next. He gets a small but positive reaction.

Third is Ernie Ladd, who isn’t even in a suit. Always thought he was overrated.

Apparently there’s an actual Hall of Fame in Atlanta. WWE needs that.

Next is Masked Assassin #2. Something you might not know: two things actually. He owned Deep South Wrestling and also is the father of one Nick Patrick. More or less they say he never did anything but he was around for a long time.

Fifth is Ole Anderson. Now keep an eye on him: he might try to kill the company on the way to the ring. Don’t underestimate him. He could pull it off.

Finally is Dick the Bruiser who they more or less say is their dead wrestler of the year. This guy was legit scary looking.

The fans were cordial at least. Fifteen minutes was a bit too long though.

Colonel Parker says nothing at all.

Dustin Rhodes vs. Bunkhouse Buck

It’s a bullrope match where there’s a cowbell on it and you win by pinfall. I tend to hate these matches, and the participants aren’t helping. This feud went on forever and it never was entertaining. More or less this is an excuse for Dustin to be able to wear jeans in a match. The fans want Funk and they let everyone know about it. Dustin works on the knee as I wonder why in the world Buck kept a job for so long.

And Buck ties Dustin to the post for no apparent reason. Apparently Dustin has a small circle in his pocket. Make your own jokes. This more or less consists of let’s beat on each other with a bell and have no one care at all for almost 15 minutes because my daddy was booker forever and I kept a job for a long time because of him. The fans want blood and Funk. A heel mistake and a bell to the head ends this. And Funk finally comes down to beat on Dustin.

Rating: D+. Do they think anyone cares about Rhodes vs. Funk at this point? It was a big feud in the SEVENTIES. This of course went on for months after this and no one cared. It lasted almost another year and never once was interesting but then again it’s WCW so there we are.

Red Bastien and Ray Stevens are here. I don’t care either. Bastien trained Warrior and Sting.

WCW World Title: Ric Flair vs. Barry Windham

Windham is a mystery guy but it wasn’t shocking to anyone at all with a brain. Parker comes out to what would become Arn’s music. Yep, no one is surprised and there’s no way he’s winning. Buffer does the big match intro and gets the referee’s name wrong. They mention that Flair won the title from Windham which is true but it’s not this title, nor is it the way they imply. He won with a figure four pin. Yeah that’s rather odd indeed.

Jesse is on commentary now instead of Bobby for no apparent reason. Figure four is put on. This is their usual boring match for this time period. They used to have 90 minute matches that went to a draw. They talk about what a fighting champion he’s been, which was thrown out the window so he could turn heel and job to Hogan twice. Hogan more or less threw out everything that had been going on and made it a lot worse without delivering anything for about two years.

That couldn’t happen today though? Nah of course not. Parker goes down thank goodness. Flair GETS THE MOVE OFF THE TOP AND GETS THE WIN! HOLY CRAP! It’s a cross body in case you were wondering.

Rating: D+. This was just boring. No one thought Windham would win or even had a prayer, period. That almost always cripples a match and it certainly did right here. He was just out of shape at this point and no one cared, which is why this fit so freaking perfectly I think.

Don Curtis and the Crusher talk to Gene. I’d bet less than 100 people in there know who Curtis is.

Dave Schultz, a big time hockey fighter, is refereeing the tag title match.

WCW Tag Titles: Cactus Jack/Kevin Sullivan vs. Nasty Boys

It’s a Broadstreet Bully match, meaning hardcore. Nasty Boys are the heel champions here. Naturally this is just a big brawl which is what the Nastys were good at. Now THEY would have been good for ECW. It’s good that Foley is here as he’s the only one with a good deal of wrestling talent. In a very funny and smart spot, Cactus comes at Knobbs with a trash can and Knobbs gets his hands up. Jack’s solution: throw it at his feet.

That’s thinking as you go which is what made Foley great. They’re trying to top Spring Stampede I think but Sullivan’s suckiness is preventing that. Sags gets a table to a HUGE pop. To keep things NASTY, he gets tired carrying it. This is nowhere near as intense though and there’s a lot more walking around doing very little.

In a nice finish, Schultz does his standard thing of pulling the shirt over the other guy’s head and punches him as Cactus hits him with a hockey stick for the pin and new champions. Maxx Payne hits Sags with a guitar for general purposes.

Rating: B-. This was a good fight, but it’s the sequel to a great fight. This felt like it was trying to be a great fight. That being said, it was still very fun. Jack vs. the Nasty Boys was fun as Jack was just as insane as they were but he could think. This was fun and again, since this is the only match like this all night, it stands out far more and looks better than it would if there had been this almost in every match, ala ECW.

Gene is with Lou Thesz and Verne Gagne. Holy crap indeed. I’d pay to see them go at it. Gagne more or less says he hated the tag match and that it wasn’t wrestling. I don’t think I’ve ever heard Thesz talk. He says it’s not his style but it was fine. Nothing wrong with that at all.

WCW International Title: Vader vs. Sting

This falls under the category of matches that it’s really hard to mess up. The title is vacant actually here so Sting could leave with an extra title reign. At least the explanation made sense. Do you really need an explanation on this one? It’s Sting vs. Vader for typing out loud. They do their usual greatness with Sting starting fast but then Vader just beats the tar out of him.

This is a rare occasion where it was pure formula stuff but they made it work every time and to me that boiled down to one thing, and it’s what I’ve always said makes a match great: you didn’t know who was going to win. Think about Hogan vs. Flair or Hogan vs. DiBiase or any other big face or heel rivalry that isn’t considered great. The thing is, most of the time you know who is going to win. Now take a look at Rock vs. HHH or Rock vs. Austin.

The winner was much harder to predict, which made it much more fun and interesting. As for this, it’s your traditional good match with Sting doing a lot of stuff to hang with Vader, namely making Vader punch himself out, ala Rocky vs. Clubber Lang. Finally Sting gets out of the way when Vader goes for more offense than he should. A missed Race headbutt and a big splash, and keep in mind that Sting is the only guy of his size that could rival Van Dam for leaping ability, from the top ends it and that ends the show.

Rating: B. Dude, it’s Sting and Vader. This is by definition a good match. See what happens when you give talented guys time on the card and a chance to just go out there and have fun? YOU GET A GOOD MATCH!!! Learn this WCW.

Overall Rating: B+. This was a VERY fun show and I had a great time with it. There isn’t an actual bad match on the card which is always a plus. They thought this one out and it came out well. The right match ended it as they knew Sting’s match would be better than Flair’s. Of course the good wrestling would go out the window in a month when Hogan showed up and changed everything but that’s Hogan for you. Good show and worth seeing.

Starrcade 1993
Date: December 27, 1993
Location: Independence Arena, Charlotte, North Carolina
Attendance: 8,200
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Jesse Ventura

This is a rather interesting show for a few reasons. First and foremost other than the main event, it’s one of the most awful shows you’ll ever see. Second of all, the main event was changed due to a near murder. Sid vs. Vader had been built up for months but then Sid got into a drunken bar fight with Arn Anderson and stabbed him, getting him fired from the company and causing him to be gone from mainstream wrestling for over a year. A side effect of this was that WCW had filmed MONTHS of footage with Sid with the title. This footage was now worthless so it was lost. I love stupid people wasting their time. Let’s get to it.

Oh I forgot: if Flair loses tonight against Vader he has to retire. We open with a retrospective of Flair’s life and career, ranging from the plane crash up through today with sound bytes from his career playing over them. Then we see clips of Vader just ending people left and right. They made this feel epic here which was the right idea.

Vader arrived early and had a workout. Flair isn’t here yet. Race is driving Vader’s car which is appropriate considering the first Starrcade with Race vs. Flair was ten years ago. Gene is at Flair’s house with him. Are they playing Nintendo and eating pizza? Flair says goodbye to his family in a NICE house. David is the oldest looking 14 year old I have ever seen. This is actually kind of a touching moment as they’re making it out to be a huge match. Gene and Flair have a weird moment as they get in the limo together. I guess this is reporting? Flair is very somber here and there’s almost a Rocky theme to it.

Marcus Bagwell/2 Cold Scorpio vs. Paul Roma/Paul Orndorff

They’re not Pretty Wonderful yet. Also the faces have Teddy Long managing them for no apparent reason. Teddy gets Manager of the Year before the match starts. The Pauls have the Assassin with them which was a pairing I never got at all. The Pauls jump them early which fails completely as the guys that look like Halloween candy (orange and black tights) send them to the floor.

Bagwell and Roma start us off and Bagwell gets a cross body for two. This is another one of those shows that happened on a Monday which is one of those signs of the time which always takes time to get used to. Off to Marcus as the fans really don’t seem to care. We hear about the tag title match later: Nasty Boys vs. Sting/Hawk. People have nightmares about that one for reasons we’ll get into later.

Scorpio vs. Orndorff at the moment as this is really just a match. There’s no heat or drama or anything like that. The problem is no one cares about the Pauls and they were just two guys that were out there in tights doing wrestling moves. That doesn’t make good heels in the slightest, so of course they were two time tag champions as the division did nothing at all.

Bagwell takes over on Roma as we hear about him being rookie of the year which was two years ago somehow. More arm work by Scorpio to Roma as Roma yells at Teddy. The commentators just stop talking for awhile, my guess due to being sound asleep. Roma works on Bagwell’s back as nothing is going on here of note. Elbow gets two. Off to Orndorff who gets a suplex for two.

Oh look: they’re both stomping Bagwell at the same time. Literally, that’s the most exciting thing in the entire match up to this point. Powerslam gets two for Roma and he goes up top for a missed splash. Scorpio comes in and beats on both guys but can’t get the 450. He beats on Orndorff with various stuff instead but Assassin pops up with a loaded mask and headbutts Scorpio dead, letting Orndorff fall on him for the pin.

Rating: F+. It’s the biggest show of the year and this is their idea of an opening match? TERRIBLY not interesting as just about all Pretty Wonderful matches were. Bagwell would float around in boring tag teams for years before turning heel in like 96 and becoming “interesting” in the form of Buff Bagwell. Awful opener as the fans simply did not care in the slightest and the lack of any form of emotion shows it. Technically fine, but a shining example of just stupid matchmaking.

Flair and Gene are still in the limo and they talk about how it could be the last time. Gene is one of Flair’s best friends. There’s a line that sounds odd for some reason. Flair is really reminiscent here instead of being fired up. There’s nothing but seriousness and somberness in his voice here and it’s really weird compared to his usual raving lunacy. Flair says he has to win because who else would say woo?

Shockmaster vs. Awesome Kong

Kong is a big fat dude in a mask. His partner, King Kong, is with him. Shockmaster is Tugboat and the guy that is more famous for falling flat on his face. This is one of his final appearances I think. The Kongs jumps Shocky in the corner as this is a battle of the big men. It’s one of those matches where basic moves are allegedly more effective due to their size. Cross body by Shocky sets up a slam and a fast count and we’re done in maybe a minute flat. The guy he pinned had tights that said King so who knows if that was the right guy.

We hear about the dark match for some reason before we run down the rest of the card. British Bulldog can’t wrestle for some reason so The Boss (Big Bossman) is replacing him against Rude for the International Title.

Flair’s limo gets here. He and Gene part ways and that’s about it.

TV Title: Steven Regal vs. Ricky Steamboat

Regal is champion. Dragon has the lizard man thing going on here. I miss something I think as I hear Jesse talking about Princess Diana strapping on some boxing gloves and fighting Sarah Ferguson. Ok then. We hear about the 15 minute time limit and they stall incessantly. You figure out where this is ending.

This is one of those matches where more or less nothing happens the entire time and it’s all REALLY basic stuff, which is described as methodical. They exchange some covers and it’s very clear where we’re going here. Off to a headlock as Sir William, the manager of Regal, makes fun of various fans at ringside. Sunset flip gets one for Steamboat and we hit a leg lock.

Top rope chop gets two. Probably an average of 45 seconds are passing between moves here. There’s just nothing to talk about in between them. Armbar by Steamboat as I think you’re getting my point here. We’re ten minutes into this match allegedly which looks a bit like 8 to me but then again I’m just a guy watching this on a version with a timer on it. What do I know?

They start messing with the clock as we’re down to four minutes left about 52 seconds after the five minute announcement. Headscissors by Steamboat gets him nowhere. There’s another 57 seconds minutes so Steamboat chops a tiny bit faster. Out to the floor a bit which has nothing going on again.

Under two minutes now as this really needs to end. Technical stuff abounds and you know that’s going to be good with these two. Minute left as Ricky gets a butterfly suplex for two. They head to the floor as the fans FINALLY wake up a bit here. And then the cross body misses and we’re out of time after thirteen minutes. Brilliant there guys, brilliant.

Rating: D-. The technical stuff was good but at the same time the idea of doing the same match they did every week with Regal at Starrcade is just freaking stupid all around. He held the title for what seemed like forever and this was more or less the standard operating procedure for his entire reign.

Tony and Jesse talk about Flair for a bit.

Cactus Jack/Maxx Payne vs. Shanghai Pierce/Tex Slazenger

The not Cactus Jack team is more famous as the Godwins. Their theme music sounds like the train level on Turtles in Time. Jack is just past his awesome run vs. Vader so they threw him in a random tag team to give him something to do. The Godwins are Texas boys and therefore are about what you would expect. To give you an idea of the sizes here, Jack is the smallest of these four.

Payne vs. Pierce (in a mask. Got it) starts us off. Jesse gets the future hog farmers confused which messes up my writing a bit. Off to Jack and Tex with Jack getting a nice pop. Now of course when Hogan came in, Jack was dropped in favor of guys like Jim Duggan and Honky Tonk Man, but they’re CLEARLY better talents than Jack right? Naturally he’s the most talented and best guy in the match so his parts are the best.

We’re in brawl mode quickly as the Texas guys can’t get anything going. Payne hammers on the future Mideon but a bulldog saves Tex. Sunset flip gets two for Payne and a belly to back puts both guys down. Jack comes in and beats the tar out of Pierce and it breaks down again. Cactus Clothesline puts him and Pierce on the floor for a bit as the faces stand tall. Payne no sells a double axe off the top and throws on his Fujiwara Armbar finisher which is broken up. Jack back in and heel miscommunication sets up a double arm DDT to end Pierce.

Rating: D. This was a little under 8 minutes long and the Texans were on offense less than 30 seconds combined. Somehow though this wasn’t a squash even though it met all the qualifications for one. Jack and Payne would split soon and Jack would float around the tag division for awhile as he more or less mastered the semi-hardcore brawling style that made him famous before heading to ECW in 94.

Some racing guy with a mullet talks because this is WCW.

US Title: Steve Austin vs. Dustin Rhodes

Austin is challenging and this is 2/3 falls. We do get the Natural theme song though so that’s a plus….I think. Jesse keeps making jokes about the Hooters girl at ringside, saying you can’t call her the Natural. Funny stuff. So weird to see Austin being this young and with hair and in white boots. Feeling out process to start with a lot of technical stuff and Austin getting sent to the floor.

Still waiting on anything to really get going. We hear about Rush Limbaugh and my head begins to hurt again. Austin hits the floor for about the third time already as this is really boring stuff. What a great theme to have all night long. Tony rattles off stats about Austin’s TV Title reign and impresses Jesse. “How do you know all this stuff?” Tony Schiavone just got asked that question. Mark down the date and time.

Out to the floor AGAIN and Austin is sent into the crowd like a luchador. Back in and Dustin pops him with a right hand and Austin sells it like he got shot. Back to the headlock now as things were starting to get interesting. This is what I’m talking about when I say this company had no idea how to use various people. You have a young (turned 29 9 days before this show) Austin and you stick him in there with Dustin, who works the same slow, boring, methodical (read as lays around a lot) style that only suits old school fans and sucks the life out of matches every single times. Very annoying.

They slug it out again and talk about how one of these guys is going to dominate WCW for the next ten years. Well Austin certainly did dominate them after April of 98 so I guess Tony is right there. They slug it out even more and Austin gets a belly to back to put both guys down. Remember what I said about this being boring? Here’s another instance of that.

Middle rope elbow misses for Austin and Dustin channels his inner papa. Dustin gets a powerslam for two as we’re still in the first fall. Austin is sent into Parker and it counts as being thrown over the top. Oh joy. The Colonel is out apparently as we have a thirty second rest period. Rhodes doesn’t seem to care as he sends Austin into the post to bust him open a bit. Colonel is taken out.

And there go the lights. Literally, the lights go out other than a spotlight, drawing the biggest pop of the match sadly enough. Dustin hammers away a bit as Jesse uses the term dark match in a different context. They go into the corner and the lights come back up. Austin takes some punches in the corner but comes out with something like a spinebuster and a handful of tights to win the title which he held until August.

Rating: D+. And somehow they manage to get a boring match out of Austin. Dustin is a guy that no one cared about but because his dad was famous he kept getting pushed. Goldust was the best thing that ever could have happened to him. Weak match as the first fall was weak and the lights made them look stupid as always. Somehow this is one of the better matches of the night so far.

The announcers talk about Boss vs. Rude a bit. They say that the title is an officially recognized world title, so if you’re ever curious, Rick Rude was a world champion.

WCW International World Title: The Boss vs. Rick Rude

As I said earlier, it’s Big Boss Man in black. Short version, it’s the physical NWA World Title belt without the lineage because of a bunch of ridiculous stuff. The International Board is a parody of the NWA Board. The titles would be unified in a few months at a Clash of the Champions. This is billed as a super match. Boss beat Rude before which is why he was picked to get this match.

After some big match intros we’re ready to go. We stall/jaw at each other a lot before they stall even more in a long lockup. The referee keeps getting in between these guys that think it’s 1990 again. Over three minutes in and we FINALLY have something other than stalling: right hands. Boss Man takes over a bit and gets a HUGE backdrop and a boot to put Rude down.

Boss fires some stiff shots in the corner and we hit the floor. I know it sounds like this hasn’t been on that long but we’ve been at this over six minutes and I think I’ve put in every single move they’ve done. Literally that’s how slowly they’re moving. Rude gets tied up in the ropes upside down facing the audience. Some punches by Boss and we hit the last thing this match needed: a bearhug.

I know Flair vs. Vader was the only thing that mattered here but dude, can you at least try to give us one other good match? The annoying thing is that they’re not even that bad. They’re just DULL. Rude bites him and they slug it out a bit. Boss takes over again but misses that running shot when Rude is on the ropes in a 619 position and a sunset flip ends him. I give up.

Rating: F+. Yet ANOTHER boring match. I mean they had 10 minutes out there and they could have fit the offense they had in maybe 3 of them. This whole show has been like that: boring matches with TONS of stalling despite having more than enough time to get something going. At least there are only two more and one is great.

Tony tells Jesse he’s a good looking man. As random as it sounds.

Tag Titles: Sting/Hawk vs. Nasty Boys

This wouldn’t be the one I was talking about when I said great. HUGE pop for Sting. Great place for your second most popular guy right? Allegedly before the stabbing this was going to be Flair/Steamboat trying to win the titles. There’s a pairing you don’t often see. Missy Hyatt is with the champions here. I’d assume Animal is injured or something here. The Nasties pose a lot before the match to waste time.

Sting vs. Knobbs to start us off and it’s time to stall. Finally we get going with brawling to start. After the champions are sent to the floor for a bit it’s off to Sags vs. Hawk. Jesse says Hawk’s hair looks like a Los Angeles Ram without the helmet. He chops away in the corner which gets him nowhere as the Nasties take over. Shocking no one that pays attention, Hawk no sells it and sends them to the floor.

We stall a bit to change the pace again. Hawk hammers on Sags and throws some of the worst punches I’ve ever seen as his hand is so clearly open it’s absurd. Hawk gets an enziguri for two of all things. Thankfully Sting comes in to take away the sloppiness. And of course he’s in there for thirty seconds. Hawk works on the arm of Knobbs as does Sting. Crowd is only kind of into this.

The bird man gets sent to the floor and into the post. Missy gives him a slap that Stephanie would be jealous of as Knobbs hammers away again. Off to an armbar again as this hasn’t been terrible actually. It’s not anything great but it’s not a horrid match I guess. Jesse says a slam by Knobbs was bad. When Jesse Ventura is criticizing your in ring work, you might suck.

Back to the armbar and Hawk slaps the mat. Since this isn’t Philly though that means nothing yet. Tag to Sting doesn’t count so Hawk fights them both off on his own. A lot of these moves are missing. There’s a tag to Sting as we hit the fifteen minute mark. Sags tries an elbow drop to Sting to break up a cover and while it looked like it hit him Sting doesn’t seem hurt by it. Missed spot I guess.

The Nasties try to leave which fails of course. Back in and Sting’s big splash off the top eats knees. Knobbs tries I guess a leg drop but it comes off like a backsplash from the middle rope. That’s what I’m talking about by the sloppiness. Sting plays Ricky Morton for awhile now and goes to the floor for a bit. Off to the abdominal stretch by Sags as the crowd is more into this than they’ve been into anything else all night. Granted that’s not saying much but still.

And now for a change, Knobbs uses the stretch. We get to ten minutes left in the thirty minute time limit. Sting gets a sunset flip for two and it’s off to Sags for the third abdominal stretch in about 2 minutes. Now it’s time for a chinlock because that’s the next logical rest hold. Suplex gets two so we go back to the same hold. I guess they got tired in between.

Abdominal stretch #4 goes on as again we have the problem with the match being that it goes on WAY too long. Five minutes left as Sting breaks the hold. Something gets botched as we get a splash by Knobbs off the middle rope but it’s pretty clear that wasn’t supposed to hit. They repeat it and this time Sting gets a boot up to set up…nothing as the Nasties try their finisher. That of course fails as it’s hot tag to Hawk. Stinger Splash hits and it’s time for a Doomsday Device. Missy runs in for the DQ which looks completely unplanned. The announcers and Sting/Hawk look totally confused.

Rating: D. Again, this match suffers from one major problem: it’s HALF AN HOUR LONG. On top of that it has a bad ending which like I said I don’t think was exactly planned to go that way. It’s certainly not the worst match in the world but at the same time there is a lot here that doesn’t work in the slightest. The whole rest hold marathon hurt it a lot as well.

Please……let this main event be the BEST MATCH EVER. It has to be to make this show worth anything.

WCW World Heavyweight Title: Ric Flair vs. Vader

Title vs. career here. Race is Vader’s manager and is carrying the belt to the ring. Vader is basically a killing machine that has injured everyone he’s fought so this is something close to David vs. Goliath. Flair’s pop is one of respect to say the least. It’s the purple robe tonight. This has a 45 minute time limit for some reason. This is in the day when a retirement match would have meant something so there’s a far more serious tone to this.

Flair is only a ten time champion here so he’s still a young legend. To say the crowd is one sided is the understatement of the year. Vader easily overpowers him to start of course so Flair tries to make him run around. Finally though Vader gets his hands on Flair and let the pain begin. Race shouting YOU WANTED HIM FLAIR is great stuff. We hear about Flair’s record at Starrcade which is pretty remarkable to say the least.

Big gorilla press puts Flair down as they’re taking their time here. The first five minutes or so have been better than anything else that has happened all night. To the floor for a bit as this is completely one sided. Vader pulls a Sting though and misses a splash into the railing. Flair fights back because it’s all he can do to keep his career alive but Race pops him to take over. The fans nearly erupted over a 5 second flurry of offense from Flair. They’re that hot.

Back to the beatdown as Vader hammers away. STIFF clothesline takes Flair down. You could describe every move of Vader’s as stiff as a board to put it mildly. Flair gets some chops in but Vader just pops him in the head to take him back down. Middle rope clothesline puts Flair down but Flair gets out of the way of a splash and gets a shot off the top.

Flair manages to get three straight shots from the top and takes Vader down. Vader shrugs it off and takes Flair down, busting open his lip. Middle rope suplex puts Flair down but Vader can’t pop up immediately. He’s slowing down a bit which is an important point to the match. Splash misses though but it’s not like Vader cares. Flair is sent to the floor and Race kicks him square in the head.

Back in a splash misses but the second doesn’t so Vader just hammers away. Flair gets up and straight beats Vader down with nothing but right hands. Awesome sequence here as it’s all heart and Vader can’t stop it. Flair goes for the knee and gets a chair shot in as Race tries to interfere. More punching down follows as the story here of Flair having to give up his usual stuff and fight for everything he’s got is great.

Chair (as in the unfoldable kind that you sat on in elementary school) to the head and Vader is in big trouble. Flair hammers him down again but collapses due to exhaustion. Time to work on the knee and he even manages a strut. Crowd has been going nuts for about five minutes straight now. Figure Four is casually blocked and the crowd goes silent again.

Vader Bomb misses and here they come again! Somehow Flair gets the Figure Four on Vader and the champion is in trouble! Vader gets to the ropes but Race is freaking out so much that the referee doesn’t see it. Flair is all fired up even when the hold is broken. Twenty minutes in and Vader gets a big boot to slow things down.

Vader hammers away on the mat as he’s spent. Moonsault misses and Race goes up when Flair covers. The headbutt hits Vader which is reminiscent of the star destroyer hitting the Death Star in Return of the Jedi as everything falls apart. Flair hammers away and grabs a single leg (kind of botched) and rolls up Flair to win the title and send the crowd into insanity.

Rating: A. Great match here as Flair and Vader both told the story of Vader not being able to beat Flair and Flair having to resort to the bare basics to keep his career alive. This was ranked #1 on the Starrcade countdown which is probably one spot too high (Magnum vs. Tully is still one of the sickest wars you’ll ever see) but this beats anything else for second place. This is reminiscent of Mania 14 with HBK vs. Austin as we knew Flair was winning but the fun part was the journey getting there.

Tony says Flair’s career goes on and on and on which makes me laugh given what Flair is doing today.

The announcers point out the psychology of Vader hammering on Flair as much as he could but got caught in a simple move to win the title as Flair finally got a chance to clear his head and used his basic wrestling skills to win the title. Brilliant story told in the match.

Vader is in the back and is MAD. He gets in Race’s face and tears lockers down so Eric runs off.

Flair comes out to the arena again for a curtain call as this show has only run about two and a half hours.

Gene is with Flair’s family and Flair pops up to say how awesome this was. As usual he’s very humble as a face, saying how his family being here meant a lot. His wife doesn’t talk much. Sting comes in and praises Flair. Steamboat comes in and says Flair is awesome too.

Overall Rating: D+. The problem here was that other than the main event, this show was either terrible or really boring. They seemed to be setting up ONLY Flair vs. Vader as a good match which is an idea I’ve never agreed with. The show comes off as really boring for the most part and a lot of matches leave you saying “that’s it?” or “what was that?” The main event is must see for a lesson in how to tell a story in a match but the rest isn’t worth seeing in the slightest.

Fall Brawl 1996
Date: September 15, 1996
Location: Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum, Winston Salem, North Carolina
Attendance: 11,300
Commentators: Dusty Rhodes, Bobby Heenan, Tony Schiavone

WOW that’s a long name for a place to hold a show. This show is about two things: War Games and Sting. Six days before this, Sting had been announced as being in Japan for that day so he would NOT be at Nitro. Ok, fine. So later on in the night, Luger went chasing after someone in the NWO and ran into the parking lot where the NWO limo awaited. And out pops Sting. My jaw went through the floor when I saw it as a kid.

It turns out though that it’s a fake Sting and that the real guy really was in Japan. The deal here though is that even though we knew he was in Japan, he looked a lot like the real Sting so the WCW guys believed he had really turned until he told them otherwise. This was stupid from both sides. One: it was established he was in Japan.

If that’s the case, why wouldn’t they believe him? Second, can you blame them for believing it was him at least for awhile? Does NO ONE watch film anymore? So yeah the main event is NWO vs. WCW in War Games and neither team knows who the fourth guy for their team is, which makes things a bit odd but whatever. Let’s get to it.

The opening video is of course about the war between the two organizations. Oh and Giant has joined since the last show. Other than that it’s just about the chaos the NWO has been going off about in the last few months. We see the video from Sting “turning” and Eric FREAKING is great. We also see them destroying a car last night with their bats. Why were they never arrested?

Diamond Dallas Page vs. Chavo Guerrero

Well this is an odd pairing. DDP is a heel still and is feuding with both Guerreros at this point. Chavo is almost brand new here having been in the company like five months and is TINY here. He hit the gym over the years and filled out a lot which is good for him as he looks pretty pathetic here. There are two rings here and they’re in the left one.

Chavo goes off on him early on the floor and whips him with a belt that I have no idea where he got. Apparently Eddie won the Battlebowl ring at Clash of the Champions from DDP so at least they’ve set this match up. This is a real contrast of styles as Chavo is young and fast and DDP is really bad at this point still. He’s pretty much the prime example of a guy that started off as horrible and just clawed his way up to being a quite good wrestler that was popular as well.

He kind of had a gimmick change but it was really more that he turned face and got confidence. He hits a top rope clothesline to really take over as Dusty is having way too much fun here. DDP hooks a nice little rolling move as he’s improving at this point. To be fair though he was horrible before this so an improvement is hard to avoid. He had some flashes of good stuff though and you could see it here.

Not that we’ve been told this or anything as it’s all about the main event here even though we’ve already bought the PPV in theory so it’s not like it needs to be hyped or anything. In a nice move (again) he sets for a belly to back suplex but just spins him over so he lands face first. That was very nice. Chavo makes his comeback with really basic stuff and some jumping stuff but again he’s a relative rookie here so there we are.

He kind of messes up a hurricanrana but it wasn’t terrible I guess. And now we’re in the other ring and Tony actually asks if this could be a count out. That’s….actually an interesting question as they’re in a different ring but they’re still in a ring. The fans are rising up for rollups. That’s a good sign and then they cheer loudly for a Helicopter Bomb by DDP for two. In a creative ending, DDP stomps on Chavo’s foot and gets the Diamond Cutter to a NICE face pop. His turn was coming very soon.

Rating: C+. Nothing too special here but not bad at all. DDP was getting better and better every time he had a big match and this was one of them. He still wasn’t that good, but you could see a lot of promise in him. He had the good music and the great finisher so he was well on his way. Once he turned face though, it was all awesome as his feud with Savage was one of the highlights of WCW. We’ll get to that soon enough.

SPECIAL REPORT

Gene talks about the NWO and what they’ve done. Uh, why are we seeing this now? Why would we need to see this if we’ve bought the show already? Couldn’t there be a match in this time or something? It’s a GREAT video that explains the first few months of the angle perfectly, but why are we watching this now?

Ice Train vs. Scott Norton

This is a submission match. Again I have to ask WHY? Is there anyone that thinks we need to see two matches between these guys? I was a semi-mark for Ice Train though so I’m not completely furious. Teddy Long of all people is managing Ice Train. Has this guy ever not been on a roster somewhere? He’s FAT looking here which is just bizarre considering what he looks like now. Train works on the arm which makes sense at least.

Now he uses…let’s call it a chinlock and be nice. Tony points out that Norton is using the same move that another guy uses for a finisher which might be bad but I’m not sure. They need to pick a freaking body part and STICK WITH IT. Norton has worked the arm, the back and the neck and now the arm again. Teddy comes in and distracts and a full nelson ends Norton. At least it wasn’t that long.

Rating: F+. Seriously, THIS gets 7 minutes of PPV time? Why? Who thought this was a good use of PPV time? Having them do one match at Hog Wild at least made sense, but did we really need to see these two in a gimmick match, especially THIS gimmick? I don’t think so.

Mexican Heavyweight Title: Konnan vs. Juventud Guerrera

Ok a lot to talk about here. For one thing, the Mexican Heavyweight Title is the AAA Americas’ Title, a title that was a midcard title that Konnan was the first to win. He won it then bailed to WCW with it so they just didn’t talk about it any more. He’s also a heel now with the whole street thing going on and has joined the Dungeon of Doom so he has Jimmy Hart with him. As for Juvy, he’s brand new here, having been around about three weeks.

There was also an internet rumor that he was actually Sean Waltman under the mask which is about as bizarre of a story as I’ve ever heard of. He trips over the steps during his intro in a funny thing, so maybe there was a reason for that story after all. Oh yeah we actually have a match to do now. Konnan is now described as a big man. That’s just odd to hear. In a painful looking spot, Konnan picks him up and just drops him over the top to the floor.

Juvy goes to the other ring and hits a QUADRUPLE jump leg lariat to take over. Take that Sabu. This is back when Konnan was motivated and therefore was actually interesting to watch as well as entertaining. The commentary just stops for like 30 seconds. That was strange. I’m watching a WCW show where there is decent wrestling going on.

Never mind on that strange comment. Juvy is flying all over the place here and it’s surprisingly working for me. Tenay calls the rope the top strand. Ok then. They botch the heck out of a moonsault press. I’d put that on Konnan though as it looked fine but Konnan didn’t sell it at all. He hits a great powerbomb to make up for it I guess. There’s a good deal of sloppiness here but for the most part it’s working.

In a STUPID move, Juvy has him set for a top rope rana and instead just backflips off the top. Konnan hits a dropkick immediately as he lands which Juvy freaking deserves. Dang that looked stupid. The masked dude hits a springboard spinwheel kick which is one of my favorite moves. 450 hits for two. A corkscrew splash gets two as for some reason the crowd is dead all of a sudden. Konnan hits what we would call a Musclebuster for two and then a super powerbomb from the top for the pin.

Rating: B-. This gets a much better grade if not for the sloppiness. I thought it worked quite well though for what they were trying to do. This was another example of WCW throwing some people out there and seeing what they could do. On that level I would say it definitely worked. Again though, the constant botches were hurting it. There was some good stuff though so I’d say it was good.

Chris Benoit vs. Chris Jericho

Yeah this works. Again you can see the solid lower and midcard guys having the best matches and then the main event stuff being pure drama that was epic. With this kind of combination, there was no chance for any other company to touch WCW. The announcers imply that Benoit could be the fourth WCW guy in case Sting has jumped.

Benoit uses the Liontamer (as in the more painful looking one) before Jericho adopted it which is very weird looking. Dusty thinks there could have been 20 men in that limo with Sting, somehow managing to rival the in ring match for entertainment value. It’s so weird seeing a motivated Jericho in WCW. He goes for a springboard move but lands BACK FIRST on the apron on the way down. Freaking OW.

You can see the star in Jericho begging to be let out. Sadly it would never happen in this company. Bobby says you can hear those chops in Vietnam. What’s in that cup he’s drinking? According to Joey Styles it was vodka so there we go. Benoit is a Horseman here so he’s incredibly popular as we’re in Horsemen country, which is always odd to me since they were the top heels in that area for the most time.

This is Jericho’s PPV debut so he’s brand new as well. Let the chopping begin! Heenan is a bit tipsy already I think. The headbutt hits but it’s more like a splash, which works just fine too. That’s a perk of having a move such as that as if it’s botched like that it still looks fine. Apparently he was going 65-70 miles an hour too. I love WCW commentary at times.

And of course we get a line about the Shell Answer Man which Tony of course tries to explain, going from entertaining to ARE YOU KIDDING ME mode in seconds. Jericho goes Canadian as Heenan makes the Shell joke again. Tombstone hits Benoit but the Lionsault doesn’t. Dusty makes the comment that Jericho would be a big star in WCW.

That’s one for two I guess, but he had an eye for talent at least. He also says Benoit is the best pound for pound athlete in WCW but forget the pound for pound aspect. Benoit hits a belly to back off the top to knock Jericho the heck out for the pin.

Rating: B. This was a very physical match that told a good story: Jericho is the rookie that has nothing at all to lose and Benoit is the hot young guy that is looking to make a statement. These two should have headlined a bunch of PPVs, but alas we got Hogan vs. Savage about a million times instead.

Both of these two wound up main eventing Wrestlemania though so I think they had what it took, despite the old guys saying otherwise. Anyway, this was a very good match, but seriously, did you expect anything else?

Cruiserweight Title: Super Calo vs. Rey Mysterio

Thankfully Tenay is here for this but his mic doesn’t work. That leaves Heenan and Dusty to make their bad jokes about nothing in particular. Calo always looked kind of fat to me for some reason. He’s listed at 200lbs but I have some issue with that. He has a backwards hat on but I think the sunglasses are painted on his mask. So he’s the Blue Meanie? Some idiot chants boring a minute into the match.

Apparently his name comes from a big rap group in Mexico. Ok then. Rey is more or less the king of the hurricanrana so that’s the majority of his offense. He does the 619 but it’s more or less a taunting thing at this point. Calo hits a slingshot powerbomb which is a cool looking move. Calo hits an overhead senton to the floor onto Rey who is down. FREAKING OW! Calo is dominating here which isn’t expected by either myself or Rey.

Someone must have slipped Heenan some coffee as he’s far more coherent all of a sudden. We hear about some Lucha de Apuestas matches which is a new one on me in WCW (meaning I’ve never heard them talked about, not that I don’t know what they are). Rey finally comes back but Calo hits a dropkick to block his springboard something. It’s been probably 90-10 Calo here as he’s dominated.

Rey hits an INSANE rana with like 4 different bounces and springboards in it. This is why Rey used to be my favorite wrestler. Rey gets a springboard sunset flip for two as Bobby keeps trying to talk about the NWO and is actually ignored for the most part. That’s a different one also. Finally Rey hits a double springboard into the West Coast Pop for the pin.

Rating: B-. This was good but it went on WAY too long. This gets three minutes cut out and it’s way better. Calo was never really much of anything, but he’s another example of a guy that got a chance in WCW and since he was brand new to the American audience, he was considered cool because he wasn’t like what was being seen.

That’s the brilliance of Bischoff in the day: throw so much at them so fast they can’t tell if it’s good or bad. The ending was well thought out though so it worked. There’s your difference between Bischoff and Russo.

Tag Titles: Harlem Heat vs. Nasty Boys

Heat have the belts here. So we go from Benoit, Jericho and Mysterio to this. Ok then. We get clubbering as Dusty LOSES it. That was kind of funny. I had to do this match about 5 times in 94 and 95 so I really don’t care that much about it here. Double teaming allows the champions to take over. Knobbs and Stevie run the ropes and it’s painful to see. Knobbs is so out of shape it’s pathetic.

And let’s get a chinlock now because this match is so riveting otherwise. Also throughout the match Sherri and Colonel Parker keep interfering to get on my nerves. I’m just killing time here until we get to the next two matches as they’re the “meat” of the show with War Games and Savage vs. Giant. Why was Savage not thrown into War Games? They didn’t have a fourth guy and you have Randy Savage in a nothing match with the Giant?

Does this make anything resembling sense? Sags hits a piledriver which has Bobby freaking out over them using a move. That wasn’t a piledriver but whatever. Parker trips Sags up to switch momentum again and I just do not care at all. END THE FREAKING MATCH ALREADY!

It’s been ten minutes so far and it’s all brawling and stuff like that with a ton of interfering from the managers. END THIS. Knobbs gets like the 8th hot tag of the match and I’m barely paying attention at this point since the belts aren’t changing hands. FINALLY a cane shot from Booker to Knobbs ends this idiocy. Move on PLEASE.

Rating: F. Oh just no. Who thought that these guys deserved 15 minutes? This was just boring aand NO ONE cared at all. This was terrible and deserves to fail.

Savage guarantees he’ll beat the Giant and then beat Hogan at Halloween Havoc.

Randy Savage vs. The Giant

Savage is wearing a Nitro T-shirt. Great way to make your #1 contender look like a jobber. Giant still has the Dungeon of Doom music here. Tony and Bobby are just funny as far as the anti-NWO stuff goes. Savage wisely doesn’t let him get in the ring to start us off. And then he goes to the floor to fight. WHY DOES EVERYONE TRY TO SLAM BIG MEN? It’s A BODY SLAM.

It’s hardly some big epic move that’s going to kill someone or explode their kidneys. It’s a freaking body slam. Giant says he’s going to make Savage disappear. Is he a magician all of a sudden? Giant hooks a back breaker hold as all of the fans are looking at something more interesting. Even the announcers point it out. And now it’s a Boston Crab. Yes, a guy the size of the Giant is using Rick Martel’s hold.

Can we just get to War Games now? Savage actually slams him in the only power display I’ve ever seen from him. He hits the elbow and doesn’t cover to allow the storyline to go forward. And here’s Hogan who he chases after. Yep, Hall distracts him and Nash pops him with a chair. Beatdown commences, Nick Patrick sees nothing of course, and Giant gets a simple pin.

Rating: D. This was short and bad. At least it wasn’t that long and now we’re down to War Games so I can’t complain. This somehow was supposed to build up to Halloween Havoc but whatever. At least this wasn’t that long and now I’m repeating myself out of boredom. Considering how awesome the first hour and 45 minutes or so went, the last half hour has been AWFUL.

The cage is lowered. This is always cool.

Flair, Anderson and Luger say their usual stuff. Flair is asked who will be the fourth man but doesn’t say a name. He almost implies there won’t be a fourth. Anderson starts talking a bit, but here’s Sting. He says it wasn’t him and Luger says he looked him right in the eyes and knows it was him. Maybe he should have gotten his eyes checked. Sting says he’ll see Luger in awhile. Other than a promo the next night on Nitro, he wouldn’t speak again until January 98.

Before we get going, here are the rules. It’s 4 on 4 (although we don’t know who the fourth guy is for either team as Sting has apparently been thrown out). They both send in a man in each to begin for five minutes. At four minutes in there’s a coin toss (the heels literally never lost) to determine control.

After the first five minute period ends, the team that won the toss sends in its second man and they have a 2-1 advantage. This lasts two minutes and after that two minutes the losing team sends in its second man making it 2-2. They alternate for two minute periods until all 8 are in and then it’s first submission (no pins) wins.

War Games: Team NWO vs. Team WCW

So far it’s Hogan, Hall and Nash vs. Flair, Anderson and Luger. You know there’s a huge angle coming when Hogan, Hall, Nash and Giant vs. Flair, Anderson, Luger and Sting isn’t the best they can do. That’s a SICK sounding War Games when you think about it, but that’s not the best they can do. Scott Hall is first for the NWO and he has DiBiase with him. Anderson starts for WCW. That promo from Sting was the first time he had been seen in 6 days.

To be fair, maybe he couldn’t get a flight back from Japan. Maybe I should stop thinking about it so much. We keep hearing about how awesome the Horsemen are in this match. Did they ever win one? Hall beats him up to start. Well that went well. Dusty cheering for Anderson is just wrong on so many levels. Nick Patrick is the referee. Bobby freaks out over who the fourth man is for the NWO and how unfair it is for them not to tell WCW who the fourth man is.

Tony: they don’t know our fourth man either. Arn gets the figure four for like 3 seconds which is just odd. The problem is that Arn vs. Hall really isn’t that interesting of a match. The key thing here is that it looks like an awesome structure and it really is. Patrick threatens to end the match right now much to the announcers’ chagrins. We hit two minutes left. The NWO of course wins the coin toss.

There’s the spinebuster on Hall and then a half crab which Hall taps to. It’s Nash in second and after about 9 seconds Arn goes down to a big boot. Nash hits Snake Eyes, and he was the guy that actually gave it that name when he was Vinny Vegas back in the early 90s. Luger jumps the gun and they realize there’s nothing they can do about it so there we are. He’s wearing black boots which is kind of weird looking.

He beats up both Outsiders for awhile and Arn is back up now. There’s a formula to these matches and to be fair it worked so there was no real need to ever change it. Heenan points out that everyone should just come out here now. WCW dominates as we have 15 seconds left.

Hogan is 3rd so it’s the original three vs. Luger and Anderson. Hogan goes off on Arn which is a match that happened a lot on Nitro in 96 actually. The fans want Flair as Anderson is beating Hogan up. That’s a new one. Hogan drops the leg on Anderson and we’re still waiting on Flair. There he is to an ERUPTION. It’s North Carolina. Did you expect anything else?

Flair stays in the empty ring and calls out Hogan. Dusty then cracks me up to the point where I have to stop the video. “One on one, I don’t know if Hogan can beat Flair.” WOW. I don’t think Flair has ever beaten Hogan, but all of a sudden Hogan can’t beat him. That’s just hilarious. We go split screen when for once we actually should. Flair goes low on everyone and WCW is in control again.

“Sting” is the fourth man in the NWO. This became a running joke as there would be like a million fake Stings over the years, ranging from Chris Harris to guys as tall as Nash and somehow the announcers could never tell. There’s another referee in there now too. The fans, having basic intelligence and passable vision, of course get the idea as they chant WE WANT STING.

Another way to tell is that Sting has always had a very unique striking style. Pop in some Sting tapes and you’ll see what I’m talking about. Oh and Tony offers a pearl of wisdom by saying the one man advantage has been the deciding factor. The clock runs out and it’s the real Sting. His pop is better than Flair’s so take that for what it’s worth. He beats the living crap out of the NWO on his own and stares down Luger.

He leaves, asking if that’s good enough. The NWO destroys them afterwards with Sting putting on a Scorpion and Hogan making sure he gets some credit by throwing on a horrible front facelock for the “submission.” In a scary line, Heenan says that hold could make Luger lose the use of his legs, which of course he has in real life. Luger crawls towards the back, screaming for Sting.

And now he gets beaten up even worse. The Horsemen keep fighting but it’s 4-2 at this point so it doesn’t mean much. Savage runs out and he goes straight for Hogan. Hogan runs and here’s the Giant. The beatdown is on and it’s bad for Savage. Here’s Liz to do….something. She tries to cover up Savage and gets painted with the words 4 Life on her dress. I’m sure there’s a joke there.

The fans think he sucks and he wants a mic. He talks about how they said they would be together until death do them part and he says he’ll make that happen then SPITS ON LIZ. WOW. Yeah he’s eternally punished. Tony says this is the lowest WCW has ever reached. Oh you don’t want to go there dude.

This company had the Ding Dongs for crying out loud. Giant says he’s the best artist in the world. This needs to end. And now the NWO takes over the announce position in the middle of the announcers complaining about life in general. The show ended over ten minutes after the match ended.

Rating: C+. This match is about getting to the ending. The wrestling itself is just boring though. However, it’s War Games, which makes it awesome by association. The match was of course second to the ending but it worked out fine for what it was. This was about setting up Sting and the biggest angle in company history and it certainly worked in that regard. It built to that point so I can’t complain.

Overall Rating: B. Other than the AWFUL tag title match, there isn’t really anything that bad on here. There are a ton of good and entertaining matches in play here and every one of them worked just fine. Also, other than the Savage match and the submission match, everything here is at least thirteen minutes long.

They let the guys go out there and work and it came off very well. This would become the system used for a LONG time in WCW: awesome midcard, terrible main stuff and while it started out awesome, ultimately it ended WCW for reasons we’ll get to later. Overall though, very good show and well worth checking out. Just fast forward the tag title stuff.

Kollision in Korea
Date: August 5, 1995
Location: May Day Stadium, Pyongyang, North Korea
Attendance: 150,000 (Day 1), 190,000 (Day 2)
Commentators: Eric Bischoff, Mike Tenay, Kazoa Ishikawa

So a lot of you have heard about the World Peace Festival that Inoki held that had over 300,000 people there. Well this is it. WCW filmed most of it and made it into a PPV. Now this was filmed back in April of 95 but it aired just after the NWO debuted. No idea why there was a delay but it did indeed occur. The crowd here is bigger than Mania 3 and nearly double that so it’s indeed epically huge. The main event is Inoki vs. Flair, so let’s get to it.

First off, anyone find it odd that a festival promoting PEACE is based on a violent sport? That always made me chuckle.

Regarding the crowd, allegedly the people were told to go or risk being shot. Given the insanity of their leaders, that wouldn’t surprise me.

This aired on a Monday. I’m sure there was nothing else on TV at that time.

We’re told that Koreans don’t know much about professional wrestling. Good to know. And yet over 300,000 people showed up to see it. Yeah I’m sure there’s nothing to that rumor of the government forcing the people to go at all. Not a thing. Oh and Sonny Onoo is named Mr. Ishikawa here and is just a normal person.

2 Cold Scorpio vs. Chris Benoit

Benoit is named Wild Pegasus here. Eric talks about how the lives in Korea are as so much is closed off to them and they have never seen anything like this. This really is something to see. New Japan is co-promoting with WCW here so you’ll see a lot of puro in this. This is a pretty choreographed and gymnastics based match to start which the fans applaud.

It’s so strange to see a totally new audience see something like this. If nothing else it’s cool to see their reaction to seeing something like this which they’ve never seen before. Onoo is playing a heel here that only likes the Japanese guys. His voice is very hard to hear as he’s really soft spoken. Benoit hits a jumping tombstone and the headbutt hits on Scorpio for the pin.

Rating: C+. These are hard matches to grade. There are no angles or anything to them as this is really just an exhibition and an attempt to expose wrestling to a brand new audience, even though they’ll hardly ever see it again. That being said, I’m not expecting much from these matches, but it’s nice to see. The grades will be far less harsh based on how these matches are going to be drawn up.

Yugi Nagata vs. Tokimitsu Ishizawa

Nagata you might know from a really boring run in WCW. Eric says they look alike and they’re wearing identical tights. This could be hard. This starts as a submission thing as Onoo talks about how much better this is.

Ok make that most of the match is submission stuff. You can hear the Japanese announcers over the American ones which makes things a bit complicated and hard to pay attention. The announcers are in Tokyo as they couldn’t get into Korea. That’s really hard to believe. I don’t mean they’re making it up but it’s hard to fathom. This isn’t much as far as a match goes but Nagata hooks a Crossface and that’s it.

Rating: D. Even new rankings considered, this was pretty boring. Nagata was a guy that I never could get into at all. To be fair though in four minutes, how much can you really do? Still though, this wasn’t much at all. It was all submission stuff but the commentary was far more interesting.

We see stuff from the buildup to this show, which is a lot of people in choreographed dancing etc. It’s kind of cool I guess.

Masahiro Chono/Hiro Saito vs. El Samurai/Tadao Yasuda

The first team is using Rey Mysterio’s future music. We talk about Chono’s recent heel turn. Samauri is in the mask which should help me remember that. Chono and Yasuda start us off. Yasuda is a big old boy and of course you’ve heard of Chono. Muhammad Ali is supposed to be an important part of this show but we haven’t seen him yet. Apparently this a compilation of two days of matches and we’re just seeing the best stuff I guess. The rest wasn’t filmed.

I figured something like that was the case. I’ve heard a lot about Samurai but haven’t seen much of him. Chono hits the Mafia Kick and of course Eric knows nothing about it. Tony asks if if it’s called an Irish Whip in Japan. That’s actually a good question. Thesz trained Chono. That explains a lot. Chono kicks him low three times in a row and Eric and Tenay try to analyze it. That’s rather funny. Chono hits a shoulder off the top for the pin Samurai.

Rating: C+. Better. This was probably the best match of the night so far because they gave it some time and had heels and faces in there. It was a very basic match but it came off as watchable. Other than this it’s been just random pairings with no story at all. This wasn’t much but by comparison it was solid.

We go to a package of Flair, Inoki, Ali and some other wrestlers touring Korea. This is cool. It’s 15 seconds long but it’s cool.

Bull Nakano/Akira Hokuto vs. Manami Toyota/Mariko Yoshida

This should be good. Bischoff points out the culture shock of this as women have little to no rights in Korea, which is very true. The more famous names here are far more aggressive as we’re told that Nakano is a lot like Vader, who would have been about to main event Summerslam when this aired in America. Well it’s a squash so far. I’m not entirely surprised. The smaller girls start using a lot more speed stuff and it’s far more successful.

This has turned into a pretty decent match actually. We finally start busting out some high spots and it gets more fun. Toyota hits a nice moonsault for two. The heels finally realize they’re about twice the size as the other girls and just beat the tar out of them and Nakano’s leg drop ends it. Also Tenay, the legdrop and moonsault are not holds.

Rating: B-. This was FAR more fun than the rest of the card. Power vs. speed is pretty much the quintessential tag team combination and this one was that to the letter. This was actually a fun match with some good high spots and decent wrestling. I’ve seen some stuff from these four and I’d like to see more. Fun match.

IWGP Championship: Scott Norton vs. Shinya Hashimoto

I’ve heard a lot about Hashimoto and how much better Norton is in Japan. Hashimoto is champion here and comes out to what would become . We get a funny story about Norton having issues in Korea because everyone kept following him and making sure he didn’t break any rules. Hashimoto is like 30 here so he’s young and in solid shape. Norton of course is just a power guy.

Norton beats the tar out of him with basic power stuff but Hashimoto uses a bunch of great kicks to destroy him. Eric is in heaven explaining the physics of kicks etc. They talk about Hashimoto getting training in Canada at the same place as Benoit and Brian Pillman. That place would be more commonly know as the Hart Dungeon. The problem with Eric doing this is that he gets WAY too complex with the descriptions as he calls something like a spinning back leg round kick.

Translation: he kicked Norton in the head and spun a bit. We hear about a charity football game that the AWA held where Norton allegedly beat up Dave Caspar who is in the NFL Hall of Fame. Norton gets to no sell as he invites Hashimoto to kick him. Onoo is REALLY annoying as he talks about how smart Hashimoto is and how bad Norton is. He belongs in the IWC. Hashimoto does have some great kicks. I can’t argue that.

I love the racism from Onoo as he talks about how the Japanese wrestler is better even though Norton was primarily a wrestler in Japan and had the majority of his success there. And let’s hit that chinlock! We talk about bringing New Japan guys to WCW which would happen about 7 months after this. This is a decent match but the size of both guys is kind of hampering things a bit.

Both guys are big power guys and it makes the power moves look weaker as they can’t throw the other guy around as much. We hear about how there has been no press in Korea (note that when I say Korea I’m referring to North Korea every time. South Korea has no bearing on this show whatsoever but I do know the difference) since the end of the Korean War which was about 40 years ago at this point. That’s very bizarre to think of.

This is getting mainstream international press though and while it’s likely that a lot of this is being put on to make Korea look good and isn’t really indicative of what the country is like, it’s still saying a lot that wrestling managed to get inside the country first. Norton hits a top rope splash but the time limit expires as he’s about to win the title. Hashimoto would lose the title to Great Muta about a week or two later.

Rating: C-. Pretty cheap ending but I can understand why they did it. The thing here like I said was the clas of styles. This just didn’t work as far as a good match goes. It was two power guys that didn’t have much chemistry at all. That’s never a good thing but it’s nice to see a title match to give the match a bit of meaning.

We get a video about the festival which more or less was something like the opening ceremonies at the Summer Olympics in Beijing.

Hawk vs. Tadao Yasuda

It’s the same guy from the Chono tag match so I’m assuming this is from a different day. Hawk and Animal are big deals in Japan but Hawk usually teamed with Kensuke Sasaki in Japan and the team was called the Power Warriors. They do some sumo stuff and Yasuda loses. Hawk isn’t very good on his own. He misses a top rope splash as Eric is getting into his traditional style. This is a great one apparently. I’m thinking no on that one. A top rope clothesline ends it.

Rating: N/A. I can’t grade a 2 minute match, but if I did this one would be pretty bad. There just was nothing of note here and it was a total squash. Hawk was a big deal in Japan though so that’s fine I guess.

Steiner Brothers vs. Kensuke Sasaki/Hiroshi Hase

The Steiners of course you know and Sasaki would actually win the US Title later in the year. Here the Steiners are actually NJPW guys. That’s a weird thing to see. These teams had a GREAT match at the first New Japan/WCW Supershow. We’ll get to that one soon. So far this is intense if nothing else. No one can accuse any of these guys of not working out there. Well they could but they would be incorrect.

Scott busts out an STF. And yes he knows more than 5 moves. I could watch this Scott Steiner throw suplexes all day. Oddly enough the Steiners are dominating here and are beating the heck out of Hase. Onoo of course says this isn’t important. Hase comes back and hooks a Giant Swing on Rick.

Apparently he’s famous for spinning people around a lot and his record is 44 spins. Ok then. Sasaki might have been in this for 30 seconds. He and Rick fight on the floor and in the ring, Scott hits the Steiner Screwdriver for the pin. For those of you that haven’t seen that move, it might be the craziest move in history.   Look it up.

Rating: B-. We got to see the Steiners look awesome, but this was almost a glorified squash. The Steiners as heels makes for a very odd showing but it pretty much works. The key thing to it is that they’re really good wrestlers and can bust out a lot of stuff when they want to. This is one of those moments. The lack of competition hurt it for me though.

We see Flair and Inkoi getting ready.

Ric Flair vs. Antonio Inoki

Any bets on who wins this one? Inoki actually has an experience edge in this. We hear about Flair’s heel turn that was going on in America at this time which is kind of interesting. Inoki is the protégé of Rikidozan who is like the Hulk Hogan of Japan and was born in North Korea so this is a very symbolic match. This is their first match ever actually so it’s a cool thing.

The commentary is definitely being performed afterwards as they talk about stuff that happened later. We hit the mat to start so we’re going with the basic stuff first. Ali is here and we hear about Ali vs. Inoki in the 70s which is considered to be one of the first mixed martial arts match. The crowd moves a bit for Inoki which is a real sign of respect. They’re very quiet during the matches but would pop for the endings. I guess it’s a cultural thing.

Bischoff talks about going out jogging with Inoki and getting tired after about half an hour due to the pace of Inoki. That’s pretty cool. Flair is dominating for the most part here which is about what I expected to set up the big comeback win for Inoki. Oh like he’s losing in the main event of the show he set up. Flair throws on an STF. Well ok then. Time to work on the leg. Eric talks about how evil Flair must look by trying to make a man not be able to walk.

And let’s talk about Hogan. We’re told that Hogan is better than Flair and so and so, which makes me ask the obvious question: Hogan isn’t here…why? Oh that’s right: he might not get cheered and worshipped. Figure Four goes on but there’s little drama to it. I was looking away to type and they didn’t even mention it going on. And now we punch it out. Inoki punching looks odd for some reason.

Flair goes up and of course it doesn’t work. Bischoff says he thinks Flair might be getting tired. Has he ever watched a Flair match? Inoki was in his early 50s here so he’s likely the one that’s going to get tired. We’re getting more or less a Flair match without much outside of the basics.

That’s fine though as a vast majority of the fans here have never seen wrestling or especially Flair. Inoki Inokis Up and hits a few kicks and ends it with the Enziguri (one of his finishers) to get the pin. Flair comes after him post match but shakes his hand.

Rating: B-. Not bad, but this was far more about closure to the show than anything else. It’s certainly not a terrible match or anything but just not that great. Flair was having his first match in a long time here so he was a bit rusty. The lack of drama hurt it a bit but this worked for the most part and it made Inoki look good which is how this should have ended.

Overall Rating: C. This is an odd one to say the least. The wrestling is decent at best and boring at more realistic. This was far more of a spectacle than a show though and it worked very well I thought. This was about showcasing athletic competition to a whole new audience and on that level it worked.

Also factor in this was part of a festival promoting peace and I think in that respect it worked very well. This is worth seeing if you never have before as it’s a sight if nothing else. It’s about two hours long and it’s on Youtube although that version of Flair and Inoki is clipped. Worth seeing, but not for the wrestling.