NWA World Championship Wrestling
Date: February 15, 1986
Location: WTBS Studios, Atlanta, Georgia
Commentator: Tony Schiavone

This is the flagship show for the NWA. Their TV show was called World Championship Wrestling so when Turner took over in about two years, he just named the company after the TV show. Anyway, there are going to be a lot of squashes tonight and a lot of talk about this new group that formed last month (unofficially): the Four Horsemen. Let’s get to it.

We open with a clip of Tully vs. Dusty and Tully giving up, then getting piledriven. JJ gives Tully Dusty’s National Championship Belt.

Tony runs down the card.

Jimmy Valiant vs. Ron Rossi

Valiant is the dancing guy with a big beard. For you Chicago guys out there, he’s not here to start no trouble, he’s just here to do the Boogie Man Shuffle. Valiant murders him for a minute or two, knocks him to the floor, brings him back in, murders him some more and drops his big elbow to win. Don’t expect very many grades in this show.

JJ and Tully yell at Tony about Ron Rossi. JJ says that Tully can beat Rossi faster than Valiant did. Tully says he works better under pressure so he’s going to give himself four weeks to win Dusty’s National Heavyweight Title.

Cornette says that he’s been fined $5000 but mama has already sent in the check. As for the Rock N Roll Express, they do get fan mail from girls but they’re girls like these. He unfolds a picture of a fat woman in a swimsuit and says this is all they can get. The Midnights defend later.

Baron Von Raschke vs. Kent Glover

Raschke is an East German monster that was around forever. He’s managed by Paul Jones and is destroying the jobber here. Glover gets in a few shots but Baron pounds him down with clubbing forearms. Raschke hooks the Claw and we’re done.

Rating: D. Not much here as it was just a long squash. The Baron was nothing of note at all but he was fine for an old school evil foreign heel. I don’t recall him ever going past the midcard but by this point and he was later in his career, having been around nearly twenty years at this point. Then again if you were in Jones’ Army, it didn’t matter much anyway.

Jones introduces his newest man: Teijho Khan. He’s the stereotypical white guy playing an Asian.

The Barbarian vs. Paul Garner

Barbarian would join Jones’ Army eventually. Oh ok he’s already with him here. Garner is thrown around by the powerhouse of Barbarian. Garner tries to work on the arm but a headbutt sends him to the floor. Jones adds in a cane shot. I’m skipping over a lot of stuff here because there’s nothing interesting to it. It’s Barbarian beating on Garner with power moves and headbutts. BIG boot puts Garner down, setting up a powerslam and swan dive for the pin.

Rating: D-. This was a nearly 6 minute squash. Didn’t the point pretty much get proven after about two? That’s one of the other things that’ll happen on these shows: matches going FAR longer than the really need to. Squashes are somewhat entertaining but they lose steam quickly, which is why they rarely go long.

Jimmy Valiant says he’s behind Dusty and is ready for Tully. He’ll fight Paul Jones’ Army too.

Tully Blanchard vs. Ray Traylor

Yes, that’s Big Bossman as a jobber. He’s in a singlet here which looks like an S&M outfit on him. JJ is on commentary and sounds a little worried about Traylor’s size. Tully goes amateur on him but Traylor gets up and muscles him back into the corner. Traylor keeps using his weight to get him into the corner. Tully sweeps the leg and takes it to the mat again. He manages to get Traylor up and hit the slingshot suplex for the pin.

Rating: C+. Considering Traylor’s size (over 350lbs) that suplex at the end was awesome. Dusty was so impressed by the fact that Traylor could take it and make it look good that Traylor got a full time job out of this. He was kept off TV for three months and came back as Cornette’s unstoppable and unhurtable bodyguard Big Bubba Rogers and would jump to the WWF in about two years.

Tony talks about the inaugural Jim Crockett Senior Memorial Tag Team Tournament. What a mess that show was. Here’s Jim Crockett Jr. who thinks the tournament will be in Greensboro. There’s also mention of a new belt for Flair. That would be the Big Gold Belt, or the World Heavyweight Championship as it’s known today.

Ron Garvin vs. Art Pritts

What a name for the jobber. Garvin takes him to the mat very quickly and grabs a neck crank. Side roll gets two and Garvin lays on him. A forearm and knee lift put Pritts down and the fans seem to like Ronnie. I guess there was a radon leak or something in Atlanta. Garvin hits headbutts to what appeared to be Pritts’ hand. Ronnie hooks various stretches on Pritts and the Hands of Stone (big punch) ends this.

Rating: F. Any match with Ronnie Garvin in it is a failure by definition, but this one was boring on top of that. The squash went on too long again, which is becoming a recurring theme tonight. Maybe that’s an NWA WCW thing but it’s getting kind of dull. Two hours for this show might have been too long but this was their version of Raw.

Garvin says he and Flair will collide like two trains and he’s not going off the tracks. He respects Flair as a wrestler, not as a man. They’ll meet somewhere and that’s all that matters.

Cornette says Crockett won’t take away the tennis racket because it’s the security blanket that his mama gave him when she’s not there.

Tag Titles: Midnight Express vs. Ron Bass/Don Kernodle

This is Condrey/Eaton. Bass and Condrey start things off. Cornette sits in on commentary to make my day better. Bass sends him to the floor as Cornette says they’re just feeling the challengers out which is why they’re starting slow. Bass works on the arm and it’s off to Eaton. Eaton is slammed and it’s off to Kernodle. Scratch that as it was a high five and not a tag. Whatever.

Ok now it’s Kernodle. Condrey pounds on him as does Bobby. Kernodle hits a clothesline and we take a break. Back with the champs in control of Bass but he kicks both of them off at the same time. A double noggin knocker sends the champs into the corner again. Condrey tries a test of strength. Bass is in a competition with Barbarian for who the strongest guy in the company is at this point, so guess who wins.

Condrey cheats to take Bass down and Eaton hits the top rope legdrop for one. Cornette is at ringside now and is panicking. Bass suplexes Eaton down and tags in Don. Kernodle takes Condrey down and hits a neckbreaker for two. Off to Bass who works on a backbreaker. The Midnights double team to escape and it’s Condrey hooking a chinlock. Eaton goes up again and misses a top rope elbow this time. Bass comes back in with a pair of elbows for two. There’s the Claw but Cornette hits him with the racket for the DQ to save the titles.

Rating: D-. This didn’t work at all. The Midnights never looked like they had any momentum here and the challengers’ style totally clashed with theirs’. It’s probably the worst Midnights match I’ve ever seen and I’ve seen quite a few of them. Maybe it was just an off night?

The Rock N Roll Express clears the ring.

The Rock N Roll complains about Cornette and the racket when Dusty comes in. He has a present for them: a small cage that Cornette will be locked in during matches from now on. Dusty says he found it in a place that was kinky in San Francisco. I REALLY don’t want to know that story. This would be a staple of the Express matches.

Dusty and Baby Doll talk about Tully. I have no idea what they’re saying.

Rock N Roll Express vs. Larry Clarke/Bob Owens

The Express controls to start and take I think Clarke to the mat. Gibson comes in to elbow him down and hooks a headscissors. Total squash again here and there’s not much to talk about. They make a wish with Clarke’s legs and beat on both guys. Double dropkick puts Owens down for the pin.

Rating: D. Another boring squash. The Rock N Roll could feud with anyone but they were building up towards another Express showdown which was probably a classic. This was another boring squash though and it didn’t go anywhere at all. At least the show is almost over though.

The Russians warn the Americans that they’re coming for them. Not a specific American. Just any of them and they’re coming for the US Title. Magnum is watching from the ring. Ivan says there will be no Nikita matches after today until Magnum faces Nikita on this show for the US Title. Nikita speaks Russian about Magnum.

Magnum TA vs. Lee Peek

Here’s Magnum’s gimmick: he beats everyone in thirty seconds. Therefore he’s the match: headlock, shoulder, hip toss, dropkick, belly to belly, pin.

Magnum says he’ll do wrestling a favor and keep Nikita out of wrestling. He goes on a long rant against the Russian team as well.

TV Title: Arn Anderson vs. Sam Houston

Houston is Mid-Atlantic Champion here but it’s just Arn’s title on the line. Anderson headlocks him down and there’s a lot of stalling. Arn stalls on the floor a few times so Houston holds open the ropes for him to get outside easier. Houston speeds things up with dropkicks and Anderson slows things down. Down to the mat and Houston hooks a headlock. Anderson hits him in the ribs to slow things down again.

Arn goes to the arm which is his biggest tradition. He stomps away on it and Houston has a bad arm coming in anyway. Here’s an armbar and we take a break. Sam hammers away but ducks his head and Arn elbows him in the back to take him down again. There’s the hammerlock slam and a shortarm scissors. Anderson cranks on the arm for a few minutes and there’s not much to talk about in between.

Houston gets up and comes back with right hands. He monkey flips Arn out of the corner but a second results in an atomic drop. That only gets two so it’s arm time again. Houston fires off right hands and backdrops Anderson. A cross body misses and Houston crashes into the ropes and Anderson gets the pin.

Rating: C-. Not a great match as the match was mainly Anderson working on the arm. Sam Houston was never a guy that was interesting for me. He was so small and never got any interesting offense at all. Also being a guy from Texas and using the bulldog as a cowboy can only carry you so far.

Anderson says he’s champion and no one is going to take it from him.

Jim Cornette doesn’t like the idea of the cage. He HATES the idea of being 80 feet in the air. It was more like 20 but you get the idea.

Nikita Koloff vs. Josh Stroud

Nikita kills him deader than dead. Josh fires off some right hands which just tick Nikita off a little more. The Sickle ends this.

Magnum runs out to help the jobber but the Russians beat him down. Dusty makes the save to end the show.

Overall Rating: C-. This was a chore to sit through. The problem is that there are a lot of squashes which doesn’t mean that it’s interesting to sit through for the most part. It’s not a bad show and when you consider this was the flagship show back in the day, that makes it a lot more bearable. It doesn’t hold up well, but if this is what you grew up on it probably would help a lot.

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Monday Nitro #66
Date: December 16, 1996
Location: Pensacola Civic Center, Pensacola, Florida
Commentators: Eric Bischoff, Ted DiBiase

We’re in Florida this week and we’re just about to Starrcade with only one show after this before the big one. Also tonight is the last televised Sting match for over a year. That’s assuming he wrestles of course. We’ll also get more of the Piper vs. Hogan buildup which should be somewhat entertaining. Let’s get to it.

Here’s the NWO to start and they storm the announcers’ desk. Eric wants to do commentary and Larry says he’s not leaving. DiBiase and Virgil aren’t enough to make him leave. Tony leaves and Larry finally goes also.

We get a clip from the ending of last week’s show. Hogan is here tonight.

TV Title: Psicosis vs. Steven Regal

I don’t think this is a title match. Oh so it is. Eric says they’ll be taking over New Japan next. They fight over a wristlock to start and hit the mat where Regal takes over. Regal works on the arm and Bischoff implies that Regal will join the NWO soon. We take a break to NWO music and Bischoff promising something special. Back with Regal firing off European uppercuts in the corner.

Rolling cradle gets two. Psicosis speeds things up to send him to the floor. The fans are getting into this too. Psicosis hits a big dive to the floor and a top rope sunset flip for two. A top rope rana gets the same and the fans are really into this. The guillotine legdrop gets the same but I don’t think that was Psicosis’ finisher yet. Regal comes back with a suplex but his neck is hurting him.

Regal hooks the crossface part of the Regal Stretch and Psicosis taps but it doesn’t count yet. Now it’s a half nelson as Regal works on the neck. Butterfly suplex for two. Regal tries a top rope butterfly suplex but Psicosis knocks him down and hits a kind of frog splash for two. Psicosis superkicks him down (good one too) and tries a victory roll but Regal slams him onto his face and the Regal Stretch gets the submission.

Rating: B. I would ask where this came from, but as I say over and over on here: giving talented people time usually means you’re going to get a good match. Psicosis really had the fans into this and I think had them believing that the title was in danger. The idea of someone that was viewed as having only a tiny chance would be used again in February.

We recap the Sting vs. Rick Steiner stuff.

Big Bubba vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr.

Bubba knocks him into the corner to start but Chavo manages to speed things up to take over. He gets Bubba tied up in the ropes and dropkicks him to the floor. Bubba slams him out there though and Chavo is in trouble. Back inside a splash misses and Chavo hits some dropkicks. He fights out of a powerbomb position with right hands but jumps into a Bossman Slam for the pin.

Here are Sonny Onoo and Masa Chono. Sonny is his agent and is negotiating with New Japan for his contract. Sonny opens his jacket to reveal a New Japan show. Chono opens his jacket to reveal an NWO shirt. Chono yells at Sonny and Gene wants to know what he says. Sonny says something in Japanese. Gene: “IN ENGLISH YOU IDIOT!!!”

Chris Jericho vs. Masa Chono

Chono sends him to the floor and Jericho has no idea what to do with this guy. Chono knocks him down and yells at the referee. Sunset flip gets two for Jericho. Jericho tries to fight back but Chono is too much for him. Masa goes up but Jericho manages to get a superplex followed by a spinwheel kick for two. A top rope version of the kick misses but Jericho lands on Chono’s back. I think Chono was supposed to duck but didn’t get completely out of the way. Jericho gets knocked into the ropes and his foot gets tied into them. Chono chokes him until it’s a DQ.

Rating: C-. Not a bad match but Jericho wasn’t ready to hang in there with Chono yet. Also this was designed to be almost total domination for the new NWO guy which was par for the course at this point. I don’t remember when WCW’s first major win was but it would be awhile coming unless I’m overlooking something.

We recap last week’s Piper stuff as well as his segment with Flair.

Here are Flair and the Horsemen minus Benoit. Anderson says he’ll take out Sullivan tonight. Flair tells Benoit to get home. Debra doesn’t like Woman. Mongo says be ready Arn. Flair loses his voice and says Piper will kill Hogan.

Dave Sammartino vs. Dean Malenko

Did they lose a bet or something? The last national match I can find for Sammartino before this is at Wrestlemania I. That’s over 11 years ago! Did they owe Bruno a favor or something? They fight over the arm to start and Dean takes him to the mat like he’s fighting a no talent hack that is in the ring because his dad is famous. Small package gets two. A tiger suplex ends this. Not even enough to call it a squash. It was more like a workout with a punching bag for Dean.

Hour #2 begins and it’s Tony, Bobby and Tenay back on commentary.

We look at Chono joining the NWO again.

Ice Train vs. Jerry Flynn

Train destroys the martial arts guy to start but walks into a clothesline. Tony plugs the NWO PPV even though he doesn’t want to. Train takes him down again and this is a really boring match. He wins with an ankle lock of all things.

Rating: F. This is one of those times where you have to wonder what WCW was thinking. I mean…why does this match exist? Who thought this show needed Ice Train vs. Jerry Flynn? Ice Train would have four more matches on Nitro through May and then wouldn’t be on this show for over three years. Flynn would be about the same. I don’t get it.

Post match Syxx brings out the Outsiders. The Outsiders talk for a bit and the gist is Faces of Fear vs. Outsiders tonight.

Video on Sting abandoning WCW.

Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. Bobby Eaton

Eaton goes for the knee quickly and works on the arm. Mysterio vs. Liger is announced for Starrcade. Rey sends him to the floor and hits a dive to take over. They head back in and things slow down. Rey works on the arm which isn’t something I ever recall him doing. Eaton takes over again and the top rope knee drop gets two. Eaton goes up again but Rey crotches him and hits a top rope rana for the pin.

Rating: D+. This was a big surprise for me. With the talent you have in there, this was a big disappointment. I think the problem at the end of the day is that Eaton isn’t used to being the much bigger guy and that messed him up. The match isn’t terrible but they weren’t clicking at all.

Benoit and Woman are still in Germany and have another video, basically saying Benoit has taken Woman from Sullivan.

Arn Anderson vs. Kevin Sullivan

Sullivan blames Schiavone for showing the videos on the way to the ring. The brawl stats in the aisle and Sullivan throws a chair at his head. Anderson misses a swing with the chair and hits the post by mistake. They go into the ring for what must have been a good 4 seconds before heading into the crowd.

They go into the ring for the first time that you can actually keep track of and the referee gets a DDT. Sullivan double stomps him and ties Anderson into the Tree of Woe but Anderson manages to kick him low. Here’s Hugh Morrus who gets a DDT. Konnan gets a left hand and Sullivan manages to hit Anderson with a wooden chair for the pin.

Rating: N/A. I can’t really grade this as a match because it was a brawl instead of an actual match. It was entertaining which is really all you can ask for here. Benoit would get back soon enough, namely due to being in the US Title tournament. This was a fun brawl but there isn’t much of a reason to watch it from a storyline perspective as the heat was on Benoit.

Rick Steiner vs. Sting

Sting comes from the rafters and through the crowd. That doesn’t look like Sting at all. A second one comes out and that one looks more like him. The second one is the real one. The fake one has a ball bat. And so does the real one. The fake one throws his bat to Scott and the real one throws his to Rick. They turn around and offer a free shot to the Steiners, but the real Sting hits a Death Drop on the fake one, who we’re told is the NWO Sting. The real one walks out. No match.

Here’s the NWO in full force. Well at least the big names as Giant and Hogan are here with Vincent and DiBaise. Liz is there too. DiBiase demands a spotlight for Hulk. Hulk calls out Piper when we know Piper isn’t here. Hogan talks about starting here like Piper started in Charlotte last week. He says he was beating up Andre the Giant when he stated. Vincent is sent to the back to find Piper. Hulk says he could beat up Flair and Piper at the same time. Vincent comes back and tells Hogan that Piper ran out the back door. Hogan poses and dances to end this.

Faces of Fear vs. Outsiders

Brawl to start and Hall loads up the Edge on Meng. Barbarian breaks it up and Big Bubba comes in and joins the NWO, beating up Meng. Sullivan comes out and is knocked backwards. The Dungeon comes in but they’re outnumbered. The whole NWO comes out and some WCW guys join in as well. Scott Norton drops Ice Train on the floor and is NWO as well.

Sting comes in and the brawl stops. The fight stops and Anderson swings at Sting. Sting ducks and hits Anderson. Mongo gets in some shots so Sting hits him too. Rey jumps on him and is slammed down. Sting walks out to end the show. He only hit people that attacked him.

Overall Rating: B-. This is a hard one to grade. It’s a very entertaining show and I can’t take that away from it. However there’s something very important to note. With the three new additions to the NWO, counting non-wrestlers, there are now SIXTEEN members. The common problem people have with the NWO is that there were too many members. Within the last two weeks, they’ve added 4 new members, most of whom mean nothing. You could argue that Bubba is the biggest name as most American fans didn’t know who Chono was. You can see the problems that will plague the group starting here.

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Monday Nitro #65
Date: December 9, 1996
Location: Independence Arena, Charlotte, North Carolina
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Larry Zbyszko, Bobby Heenan, Mike Tenay

We continue to head towards Starrcade tonight and if my memory is right, Piper is in the building tonight. There’s another member joining the NWO tonight as well but it’s not like the rest of them to put it mildly. There are a lot of matches tonight too so they should be pretty quick each. Let’s get to it.

Here’s Piper to open things up. Piper says it’s nice to be home. He used to live at a Days Inn here before it was pretty. The last time everyone saw him, there were a bunch of NWO guys pounding on his leg. Piper hops around the ring on one leg. On December 29, he’s supposed to fight Hogan in Nashville. He has six kids so he has to win this one. Piper is bombed it seems. His seven year old told him that Hogan was younger than him and has two good legs so what chance does he have?

Piper talks about boxing Mr. T. at Wrestlemania 2 and being asked to take a dive. He said no, so they added extra padding to his gloves to make sure the punches didn’t hurt T as much. I’ll leave that one alone. There’s a guy in the audience with an NWO sign. Piper says nothing bad about the NWO because he’s a free agent. He talks about a promo they did of six guys in one room in leather drinking and not one woman. Our hero ladies and gentlemen. He knows Hogan is here so let’s just do it tonight.

Mike Enos vs. Michael Wallstreet

Michael grabs a quick fireman’s carry to start and it’s a feeling out period. About a minute in here’s DiBiase. Enos hits a powerslam but gets distracted by DiBiase. DiBiase has papers in his hands and Wallstreet hits a quick Samoan Drop for the pin.

DiBiase hands Wallstreet the papers and he seems pleased. DiBiase leaves before anything else happens.

We get a video of Woman and Benoit with Woman talking about how she’s obviously not in the Florida Keys and that Kevin can’t find him. She meant it in Baltimore when she said if Sullivan kicked Benoit one more time she was gone. It’s not the 1950s anymore so she’ll do what she wants. Benoit talks about how Sullivan fancies himself a chess player. Well Benoit’s bishop just took Sullivan’s queen. We cut to Sullivan who is speechless.

Hugh Morrus vs. Renegade

Renegade still has a job? They fight for control with power moves to start which gets no one an advantage. Morrus changes things up with a spinwheel kick to take Renegade down. Small package gets two for Renegade. Morrus’ bearhug is quickly countered into one by Renegade which is quickly broken up as well. Morrus says to hit him, so Renegade punches him down. Can’t say he doesn’t take orders well. Hugh suplexes him down and the moonsault ends this. Better match than you would expect actually.

Joe Gomez, Renegade’s partner, pulls him out of the way of another moonsault.

Sullivan comes out post match and wants to talk to Tony who played the video of Benoit and Woman. Kevin says it’s a ratings game but that video wasn’t sent to WCW. It was sent to Sullivan, so why didn’t they ask Sullivan if they could show it? Tony is a pawn in a game to get ratings. Sullivan says he has a personal life and stuff that he does outside of this ring. Next time there’s something to show, screw the ratings because Sullivan has people to take care of. I didn’t remember this angle all that well but it’s starting off well.

Video on Sting set to, and I kid you not, Holding Out For A Hero.

Here’s Kevin Greene of the Carolina Panthers who got a big win yesterday. I know this because Tony has reminded us of it every 47 seconds. He doesn’t like Mongo and he doesn’t like the NWO. Greene would love a chance to fight Hogan.

Cruiserweight Title: Jimmy Graffiti vs. Dean Malenko

So Graffiti loses to Dean and then to Rey, then he gets a title match. I’ll never understand how the title contenders selection process works. Chain wrestling to start and Graffiti taking over with a hammerlock. Dean gets up and clotheslines Jimmy to take over as we take a break. Graffiti is in control with brawling stuff when we return. Clothesline gets two. Graffiti misses a charge in the corner and they head to the floor.

They both try a suplex but both guys are down as a result. A superkick puts Dean down for two. A powerbomb puts Dean down as well but Graffiti wastes time. After a very delayed cover, Graffiti tries a front suplex but Dean rolls through into a small package for a quick pin to retain the title.

Rating: C. Not a bad match but Graffiti was nothing of note at all. This was just an appetizer until we got to the Dragon feud which was more interesting. The ending was a good one as Dean used his wrestling abilities to catch the lazy Graffiti off guard. Not a great match but a good ending.

Sonny Onoo has lost his accent but says Dragon will destroy Dean at Starrcade.

We get some clips of the triangle tag match from World War 3.

Nasty Boys vs. Faces of Fear

If you’re expecting anything other than a fight here, raise your hand so I can point at you and laugh. They go split screen almost immediately and the Outsiders are standing on the ramp. I have no idea who started but it’s Sags vs. Barbarian now. Sags goes to the floor to fight Meng and it breaks down again. The NWO has left. Ok so it’s back to Barbarian and Sags in the ring and there’s a tag to Knobbs. It breaks down again and Knobbs has Barbarian pinned but there’s no referee. Jimmy GOES UP TOP with the Megaphone but it hits Barbarian. Meng hits Knobbs with the Megaphone and it gets the pin.

Rating: C. Ok so with this, if you’re going just on the wrestling this is somewhere between a Divas match and two kids in the back yard. If you’re going on entertainment and keeping things moving, this was incredible. That being said, we’ll put it somewhere in the middle. It’s a total brawl that has no order to it at all, but like I said that’s all you should have expected.

Here’s Flair for an interview. He comes out to the Horsemen music but he’s on his own. Flair is still injured here but his arm isn’t in a sling anymore. He praises the Panthers again and bows down to Greene, who he says he doesn’t like. Flair asks Piper to come out here to a big Charlotte welcome.

Flair talks about Piper getting here on a Greyhound bus and now he’s got a home next to Phil Knight (Nike boss) in Oregon. Piper has taken it upon himself to challenge Hogan, whose name draws a bunch of boos. Flair talks about the losses to Hogan haunting him but now Piper is here to rectify it. Piper says this is his last shot and he appreciates the offer but he wants to do this on his own.

Hour #2 begins.

We have a recap of the opening segment and then the announcers talk about said segment.

Chris Jericho vs. Bobby Eaton

Eaton takes him down quickly and hits the top rope knee almost immediately. Jericho comes back with a powerslam and an inset interview, saying WCW will prevail. He isn’t done with Nick Patrick yet either. Suplex sets up the Lionsault for two. It wasn’t a finisher yet. Alabama Jam misses and Jericho hits the missile dropkick for the pin. Pretty much a squash.

We recap the Rick Steiner/Sting issues.

The Steiners are in the arena to talk about Sting. Scott says it’s crazy to hand Rick Steiner a bat but when Scott did that, he saw something in Sting’s eyes. He has no idea what it is though. Sting has done the same thing to Lex and them and those three are all WCW. Rick says they’re waiting for his next message.

We recap Lex vs. Giant, which isn’t really a feud. This is more like a video on Lex set to his theme music and not much Giant. It’s Lex vs. Giant at Starrcade.

Craig Pittman vs. Arn Anderson

Pittman and Long have parted ways apparently. An inset interview by Sullivan says he blames this on Arn. Next week they’re going to fight. Anderson stalls a lot and Tony says that there’s more video from Benoit and Woman for Sullivan. We take a break (why?) and come back with more stalling. Anderson drops to the floor and wraps the knee around the post but is slammed off the top. Tony says that doesn’t happen often. I’d hit him if I could right now. Code Red is countered by grabbing the ropes and they head to the outside. Briefcase to the ribs, DDT, NEXT.

Gene asks Okerlund where Woman and Benoit are. Anderson says Benoit is in Germany and 2 + 2 = 4. Anderson says love stinks and it’s his fault. Debra goes on a rant against Nancy and McMichael says focus. Anderson tells benoit to come home and says he has a bone to pick with Woman.

Lee Marshall is in Pensacola.

US Title Tournament Semi-Finals: Diamond Dallas Page vs. Jeff Jarrett

Man this would have been different three and a half years later. The winner of this gets the winner of Guerrero vs. Benoit at Starrcade. This continues the streak of “put DDP in the ring with guys that could have a watchable match with a grizzly bear so that he gets better.” Jarrett has a small advantage to start but Page kicks him in the ribs and poses. They fight over a top wristlock and we take a break.

Back with Page in control and slamming Jarrett down. Jarrett comes back with an enziguri and a swinging neckbreaker for no cover. The fans start booing something and a sunet flip and clothesline both get two for Jeff. A Blanchard slingshot suplex sets up a middle rope fist for two. There’s a sleeper and Page is in trouble.

The referee is looking at something else as Page hits a discus lariat for a big reaction. Page punches him down and suddenly is over like crazy. A top rope clothesline gets two. Page is sent to the floor and here are the Outsiders. Nash distracts so that the Razor’s Edge can kill Jarrett. Page didn’t see it and gets the pin.

Rating: B-. Remember what I’ve said before about talented guys getting time means a good match? This is a similar version but Page wasn’t quite good yet. Jarrett was reliable though and could easily get a good match out of Page at this point. The reactions for Page are getting much stronger very quickly and WCW capitalized on it too.

Page says he doesn’t need the NWO because the Diamond Cutter does whatever he needs. One more time: leave me alone. He wants to know where they were last year when he was voted Most Improved by PWI. It reminds him of a girl he picked up in a nightclub and the next thing he knows, she wants a full time thing. In short, stop calling!

Rick Steiner vs. Scott Norton

We have about five minutes left in this show so this isn’t lasting long if at all. And there’s no Steiner. It’s Roddy Piper instead and he’s MAD.

He gets a chair and gets in the ring. Piper says nothing is happening until Hogan gets out here because it’s time to fight. Here’s Bischoff instead but Piper says get out because he wants Hogan. Eric says the NWO has left and here comes the garbage. He says he tried to keep Piper out of WCW for his own safety. Eric says that Hogan will beat him up on the 29th and then he limps out of the ring to imitate Piper. Piper gets the chair and here’s the NWO. He has the chair and says bring it on but no one gets in. Kevin Greene gets in also and they stand tall to end the show.

Overall Rating: C+. Most of Starrcade is set at this point so the next few weeks are going to be a lot of buildup shows and that’s ok. This show was entertaining enough but we need Hogan and Piper in the same ring soon. It’s not a bad show and the wrestling is good, but it was still a few weeks/months before we get to the Sting vs. Hogan stuff and the real drama begins. This is just kind of keeping things warm until then.

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Clash of the Champions 18
Date: January 21, 1992
Location: Kansas Expo Center, Topeka, Kansas
Attendance: 5,500
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Jim Ross

Time for another Clash, but this time it’s from a better era. This is during the Dangerous Alliance period, where the top heels in the company banded together to fight Sting and whoever he could get to back him up. However, he needed to win the world title first nad we need to set up that match tonight. Also we get Cactus Jack vs. Van Hammer in a falls count anywhere match which I remember fairly well. Let’s get to it.

The opening video is about Heyman wanting to take over the company with the Dangerous Alliance.

As usual Eric and Missy are more or less the hosts.

Vader/Mr. Hughes vs. Steiner Brothers

Scott vs. Hughes gets us going. The Steiners are insanely popular. Scott throws Hughes around for a few minutes and that’s exactly what I wanted to see. That’s what the Steiners were awesome at: throwing big guys around like it was no big deal. Hughes powers him to the corner and everything breaks down. The Steiners get sent to the floor so they wait for the monsters to pose and both go to the top at the same time. A double Steiner Line off the same corner gives the Steiners the momentum again.

Vader vs. Rick now and Vader goes old school monster on him. There’s a gorilla press and a splash in the corner but Rick keeps getting up because that’s what he does. Steiner Line takes Vader down and there’s an overhead belly to belly (great one too). Rick knocks him to the floor and dives off the apron, but gets caught and rammed into the post. Back in and Rick throws Vader off the top with a belly to belly superplex.

Off to Scott and the Steiners are all fired up here. Scott gets the best German suplex you’ll ever see to a guy the size of Vader. He goes up but his cross body is countered into a powerslam and a splash keeps Scott down. Tag to Hughes and it’s off to Rick soon thereafter. HUGE backdrop and Hughes is in trouble. Everything breaks down again and Vader accidentally hits Hughes. Vader and Scott go to the floor and the Steiner Bulldog ends Hughes.

Rating: B. That’s probably high but I’m a sucker for the Steiners throwing everyone all over the place like it’s nothing. They were so far and away better than all of the other teams at this point and it was very clear. Anderson and Eaton were champions at this point and the Steiners would get the titles back in just a few months.

Terry Taylor/Tracy Smothers vs. Brian Pillman/Marcus Bagwell

Tracy is still part of the Young Pistols and Taylor is the Taylor Made Man. According to Ross, a standard backhand chop is a judo chop. Didn’t know that. Pillman cleans house on his own and speeds things up but walks into a backbreaker for two. Off to Bagwell and the good guys clear the ring with a double dropkick. There are some double dives to the outside and Taylor/Smothers are in trouble.

We get back to normal with Bagwell vs. Smothers and Tracy hits what was either a dropkick or a superkick to take over. We hear about Bagwell hanging out with Sting a lot lately as Tracy beats him up. He avoids a shot though and here’s Pillman again. A spinwheel kick gets two for Pillman. The heels double team to slow Brian down and Taylor suplexes him to the floor.

Pillman gets rammed into the post which gets two back in the ring for Tracy. Gutwrench powerbomb gets the same for Taylor. Back to Smothers and a jumping back elbow sends Pillman out to the barricade again. He comes back in with a springboard clothesline and it’s hot tag to Bagwell. Everything breaks down and Bagwell gets a surprise sunset flip on Smothers for the three count.

Rating: C+. Fun tag match here with Pillman flying all over the place and just being awesome. Smothers and Taylor are two guys that I’m not wild on but they did their thing here and it worked well enough. Bagwell was still a glorified rookie at this point but he never really developed past anything slightly above average, which is pretty telling.

Video on Jushin Thunder Liger. He and Pillman will tear the house down at SuperBrawl II for the Light Heavyweight Title which Liger recently won from Pillman.

Richard Morton vs. Johnny B. Badd

Badd is pretty new at this point and is still the gay character that we don’t acknowledge as being gay. He takes off the rainbow colored robe to put on a pink and blue boa. Badd has to fire the Badd Blaster (confetti gun) before we can get going. He tries to punch Morton so Morton wisely hides in the ropes. Double axe off the middle rope gives Badd control. A bad looking atomic drop by Morton lets him send Badd to the floor. Badd gets a sunset flip for two. This isn’t meshing at all. Powerslam gets two for Johnny. They slug it out and Morton tries a cross body which Badd rolls through for the pin.

Rating: F. Just awful here and the ending looked horrible with Morton barely running when he hit the cross body. It took Badd a few years but he would get way better. The Light Heavyweight division never worked like it was supposed to because they had no idea that there was a difference between being small and knowing how to wrestle small.

Badd and Pillman are with Bischoff and Badd puts a lips sticker on Eric’s cheek. They both want to fight Liger. Pillman gives a bizarre speech about Japanese automakers and how he’s defending the honor of Americans and bringing the title back to America. And then Badd puts lips on Brian’s cheek, earning him a right hand. I have no idea if that was a heel promo or not.

PN News vs. Diamond Dallas Page

Page is a manager recently turned wrestler and more or less is a jobber here. News is a very fat white rapper. He raps a bit before the match. This makes JR’s from two nights ago look bearable. Page (in a singlet) jumps him to start and they try running the ropes for a few seconds, but News can’t do it due to high levels of fat. News tries a dropkick to send Page to the floor as the announcers shill the WCW Hotline. All News until he misses an elbow. Page hammers away and gets two off a Russian legsweep. For some reason he tries a slam and guess how well that goes. News hits a belly to belly and a top rope splash for the pin.

Rating: D-. Barely better than the previous match but Page was trying. The problem was that he wasn’t very good yet. News….you’re fat and you need to go away. The match was nothing to see and was there to get News on TV, because WCW was stupid enough to think that was a good idea.

Here’s the WCW Top Ten.

10. Larry Zbyszko
9. El Gigante
8. Big Van Vader
7. Dustin Rhodes
6. Cactus Jack
5. Rick Steiner
4. Ricky Steamboat
3. Steve Austin
2. Sting
1. Rick Rude

Kip Allen Frey is introduced as the new boss of WCW. Why WCW insisted on having actual executives on TV as the boss characters is beyond me. They FINALLY woke up in like 1995 and had a character played by a wrestler (I mean Bockwinkel, not Watts, who actually was the boss). Frey was actually really good at what he did though, and SuperBrawl II would be proof of that. He had a very interesting policy: whoever had the best match at a televised show received (I believe) a $5000 cash bonus. Think that might get people motivated? He announces Sting vs. Luger for the title at SuperBrawl II.

The other thing Frey does is bring out the newest WCW color commentator: Jesse Ventura. This was a legit big deal and was probably the first high profile guy they took from Vince in a very long time. Jesse puts over WCW as the future and says he’ll be debuting soon, which also was at SuperBrawl.

Tony brings out Sting who high fives Jesse on the way to the ring. Luger (recorded) says he’s been gone to get ready for the match. In reality, he only had one contracted appearance left so he just sat out for two months. His match with Sting was HORRIBLE, and in one of the rare instances in history, it can be completely blamed on one guy instead of two as Luger didn’t care at all and gave maybe a 4% effort. Sting signs and the match is on.

For those of you wondering about Frey, he would be fired after the PPV because of an unspecified reason. The common answer is he was actually good at his job and that was simply unacceptable in WCW.

Cactus Jack vs. Van Hammer

Hammer was a guy that made David Otunga look like Lou Thesz in the ring, but man was he popular. After Sting and Hogan, he was probably my favorite when I was a kid. Jack is a crazy man and this is falls count anywhere. Hammer has a guitar with him and fires something out of the end of it into Jack’s eyes. A slingshot cross body gets two about a second after the bell.

A big leg gets one (he would usually use a big boot beforehand. Hammer was tall and blonde. You figure it out) and Jack takes over. Cactus Clothesline puts them on the floor where Cactus gets two. Jack peels back the mats on the floor and jumps off the second rope with a sunset flip, hurting himself more than Hammer. They’re on the ramp now and we get a wrestling hold in the form of a sleeper by Jack.

Powerslam on the ramp gets two for Hammer. This is a very hard hitting match. Jack keeps clotheslining him down while Hammer tries to wrestle. Hammer throws Jack off the ramp where he lands with a thud. A clothesline to the floor gets two. They brawl to the back as the fans boo (no big screens yet) and we take a break. The stuff after the break was taped earlier, because it’s 1992 and that’s how they rolled back then.

They’re out in the parking lot and Jack hits him with a 2×4. A traffic cone to the head and they fight over to the bulls that are in place for an upcoming rodeo. Missy Hyatt is there to get on my nerves. Hammer chokes him with a rope so they climb into the pen with the bulls. Abdullah the Butcher pops up dressed as a cowboy and whacks Hammer with a shovel by mistake so Jack can get the pin.

Rating: B-. Before the break, this was a SICK brawl. Post break, it goes downhill quickly. Butcher as a cowboy is a very strange vision and not one that I need to see every day. Hammer would never really mean much after this which is probably the best thing that could have happened to everyone involved. It has nothing on Sting vs. Jack but it’s still good.

Butcher and Jack fight a bit with Butcher throwing Missy into a water trough.

Freebirds vs. Brad Armstrong/Big Josh

The Birds are now faces and no one cared. I mean no one AT ALL cared. They’re still singers and have a song nowhere near as good as Badstreet USA. They dance through the crowd and I want this to end already. Big Josh is a lumberjack that liked to dance with bears. Armstrong used to be a Freebird lackey in a mask (never acknowledged as the same guy). Hayes and Armstrong start us off.

The Birds, despite being a long running tag team, really doesn’t work together all that well. Granted that might be due to Garvin not being all that good. Off to Josh who has far better luck. He stomps on Hayes’ ribs and I think this is face vs. face but I’m really not sure. Back to Garvin and Josh punches him for awhile too. They ram heads which has no effect on Garvin at all. Back to Armstrong who hits a bunch of dropkicks. Everything breaks down and the Birds cheat to hit a double DDT on Armstrong for the pin.

Rating: F. This was one of the worst tag matches I’ve ever seen. The song didn’t help either with the title being “I’m a Freebird, What’s Your Excuse?” This was horrible and thankfully the Birds weren’t around much longer after this. It didn’t work at all and was one of the worst matches I can remember in a long time.

Video on the Steiners and how awesome they are. We get some clips of them winning huge matches and hear about Scott’s arm tearing apart and putting him on the shelf for a long time.

The Steiners say they’ll get the titles back because they never lost them fairly.

Vinnie Vegas vs. Tommy Rich

Vegas is more famous by his real name: Kevin Nash. Vegas is in suspenders, a white collared shirt and dress pants. Snake Eyes end this in less than a minute.

Dangerously says that someone is getting taken out tonight. He lists off what might happen to each of them and it’s classic Heyman. You can see in his eyes how fired up he is here. He gets in the great line of someone is going to the Magnum TA Wrestling Retirement Home.

Arn Anderson/Bobby Eaton/Larry Zbyszko vs. Barry Windham/Dustin Rhodes/Ron Simmons

Windham still has a bad hand due to Zbyszko. Eaton vs. Windham starts us off and Barry is all fired up. It works against him though and he gets caught in a superplex which he no sells. Big lariat puts Bobby down and Windham hits his own lariat (his finisher) for two. Everything breaks down and the Alliance is all put in Figure Fours. Off to Larry vs. Ron with Larry trying to use power on him for some reason. Arn and Larry combined can’t overpower him.

Ron is beating them up all on his own. For some reason Barry and Dustin just let him fight on his own and to be fair, it’s working pretty well. Off to Dustin and they work on Larry’s arm. Bobby comes in and Dustin is all fired up, throwing him over the top (behind the referee’s back) and hitting a huge diving clothesline to the ramp. Off to Larry vs. Barry and Barry misses a lariat. That’s the big feud to this match as Zbyszko and Anderson broke Barry’s hand at Halloween Havoc.

Off to Dustin and he misses a cross body, sending him flying and therefore crashing onto the ramp. Dustin takes a cell phone shot to the ribs and the Alliance is in control. Back in the Anderson Spinebuster gets two. Dustin gets in some punches but walks into a DDT. Arn’s cover is delayed though so it’s only two. Off to Eaton who hits a top rope elbow instead of the Alabama Jam for two.

Eaton misses a corner charge but Anderson saves the tag. Then we get to the big problem Arn has in his matches. Dustin is on the mat and Arn goes to the middle rope. He jumps off with a double axe handle and Dustin hits a boot to the jaw. What in the world was Arn going for, since he was jumping at the feet of Dustin the whole time? Either way it’s off to Barry vs. Larry Z and everything breaks down. Eaton comes off the top and jumps into the cast on Barry’s hand and that’s good for the pin.

Rating: B. Very fun tag match here and it shows the reason the Dangerous Alliance worked: everyone on the team was REALLY good and considering they only feuded with talented guys, the matches were almost a guaranteed awesome showcase. JR called the Alliance an All-Star team in this match and that’s about as good of a description as you can give them.

Tony is with the winning team in the back and Barry says he doesn’t care who says what because he’s coming for revenge. Awesome stuff again as Windham is all fired up.

Sting/Ricky Steamboat vs. Rick Rude/Steve Austin

Austin is TV Champion and Rude is US Champion. My goodness Sting is ridiculously popular. Remember that Top Ten thing earlier? Check out #1-#4. Steamboat vs. Austin starts us off and Austin still has hair here. Jesse has joined commentary to replace Tony here. Ricky takes over to start and Steve has no idea what to do with him. Steamboat gets a bunch of two counts on Steve and fires off a superkick to knock him down. Rude takes a kick as well and the ring is cleared.

Rude comes in and he wants Sting. He slaps some of the paint off him and here’s the Stinger to the biggest pop of the night. Rude, ever the heel, hides in the corner immediately. Sting hits a pair of atomic drops and we get the best selling ever of that move. Sting rakes the back and we get some classic Jesse/face commentator banter of how can Sting do that and claim to be a hero.

Sting hooks a modified camel clutch for some reason. Rude’s ribs are his strong point so why put a hold on them? Now it’s Steamboat and they do the non-tag thing. The fans swear they did though and that’s good enough. They do it again as Austin tries to come in. JR, speaking of Sting: “Well he’s the legal man! That’s what you want right?” Sting tries to cannonball down onto Rude’s ribs but does the Anderson spot and lands balls first on the knees.

Austin vs. Sting in what would have drawn at least seven figure buys in 1998. Rude hooks a front facelock and keeps Sting from tagging. Back to Austin who punches the mat in an attempt to block a sunset flip and there’s the hot tag to Steamboat. Rude takes his head off as Sting was trying to come in and the Alliance controls some more. Austin avoids a rollup and everything breaks down. Sting and Austin fight up the ramp and then they come back. That was kind of pointless but whatever. Austin picks up Steamboat but Sting dives off the top with a crossbody and both pin Austin at the same time.

Rating: B. Remember the previous reason as why the six man was good? Same reason here but with four guys and better talent involved. The Alliance angle had YEARS worth of material in it but instead they lasted about six months because this is WCW. The Alliance was one of the greatest gatherings of talent ever, but it never became a memorable team because of WCW’s incompetence in promoting stars.

By the way, everything in that last sentence starting with the word one was from Arn Anderson, not me. So it’s not just my opinion but from someone on the team itself.

Rude and Austin annihilate Steamboat post match, whipping him with a belt as Sting tries to protect him.

Overall Rating: B+. This was a free TV show and we got pretty much 80% good stuff. When’s the last time you remember 80% of Raw or Impact being good to very good? The first half of 1992 was pure gold for WCW and once Luger’s laziness left and Sting got the title, it was all gravy for a long time. Then Vader came in and Sting had his best matches ever with him, so it got even better. Good show, but I still like 17 better I think.

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Clash of the Champions 17
Date: November 19, 1991
Location: Savannah Civic Center, Savannah, Georgia
Attendance: 6,922
Commentators: Jim Ross, Tony Schiavone

This is a show that I remember watching on a tape quite a few times. This is a stacked card with five title matches and the reveal of the major storyline at the time. There had been a lot of massive gift boxes being delivered to Sting and tonight we got to find out who had delivered guys like Cactus Jack and Abdullah the Butcher to try to hurt Sting and take him out. This is a nostalgia show for me but it still looks good. Let’s get to it.
We list off the title matches and everything looks good, but Rick Steiner is getting a world title shot vs. Luger. Well you can’t win everything I guess.

Tony and Jim run down the high points which is nothing of note. Missy and Eric, with THICK hair, talk about Missy’s interview with the newest rookie in the company: Marcus Alexander Bagwell.

Thomas Rich vs. Big Josh

TON of notes here. For one thing this is a lumberjack match. For those of you that aren’t old school enough or can’t get the name change, that would be Tommy Rich, as in the former NWA World Champion. Big Josh is the guy famous in WCW for dancing with bear cubs. In WWF he’s most famous for being the original Doink the Clown. Rich is in a group called the York Foundation led by Alexandra York, more famously known as Terri Runnels.

Ok now for the match even though I’m spent from all those notes. They used to be friends (a long time ago for you Veronica Mars fans. For those of you that don’t get that, go watch it as it’s a very underrated show) and then Rich turned heel so it’s a revenge match. Josh is this wilderness dude that wears jean shorts and a flannel shirt to the ring. The lumberjacks are a bunch of midcarders that mean nothing of note.

The Freebirds, I guess faces at this point, throw Rich back in. Richard Morton and Terrance Taylor, members of the Foundation, beat Josh up on the floor as you would expect them to. The match itself is nothing for the most part as it’s just filler for the lumberjack stuff. Taylor accidentally hooks Rich’s leg and Josh hits his seated senton to end it.

Rating: D. This was nothing at all. It filled in 8 minutes and wasn’t interesting in the slightest. Other than Sting this is one of the worst times for WCW other than its end as Flair was gone so no one bought Luger as champion. This was a good example of it: a guy that dances with bear cubs fighting a bunch of Wall Street guys that were barely able to beat jobbers. See why this was a bad time for the company? Boring match.

Firebreaker Chip vs. Bobby Eaton

Chip was part of a team with Todd Champion who were called the Patriots. Eaton was about to become a member of the Dangerous Alliance. Chip was this young guy that never really did much but I think they won the US Tag Titles at one point. The crowd is about as alive as Christian’s chances of main eventing Wrestlemania next year (get over it fanboys. It’s never happening).

Eaton was one of the best workers of the 80s and was still great at this point. It’s a shame this isn’t a tag match where he’s one of the best ever. This is just pure filler and Eaton hits a suplex and a bridge to get the pin. Yeah whatever.

Rating: D-. This was like the first match but just without an angle going with it. The crowd was dead and there was nothing of note here. There was nothing of note here but the wrestling was decent. This was just a match. That’s a good way to put it: this was just a match between two decent guy. Other than that there’s absolutely nothing here. It’s not horrific or anything but it’s just there.

Ad for Starrcade, which was the first Battlebowl and my first WCW show. I can’t wait for that show, even though it’s pretty terrible.

It’s time for the box thing and Sting’s entrance is something else. He’s just the US Champion here but he’s by far and away the most popular guy in the company and possibly the top star in the world at this point. A bunch of muscle guys bring this carriage without wheels thing out. There’s a name for it but I can’t think of it and it doesn’t really matter.

A woman (Madusa) pops out and tries to seduce Sting. This of course doesn’t work as Sting is a HERO. With his back turned though (Sting never was the smartest guy in the world) Lex Luger pops out of the carriage and hits Sting in his knee that was destroyed about a year and a half or so ago. In a funny bit Luger hits the left knee and the with Sting does goes after the right knee. Sting shakes his head and shouts NO and then Luger grabs the left one which is the bad one. An army of faces run him off after not a lot of knee damage. This comes into play later on.

Diamond Studd vs. Tom Zenk

The Diamond guy would go to WWF soon and imitate Al Pacino with a name of Razor Ramon. This match started in the break for some reason. Sting is being attended to in the back so we cut this down to a quarter of the screen. Sting is put in an ambulance and taken to a hospital. Back to the match and Zenk kicks Diamond Dude in the head and hits a crucifix to end it. He takes a Diamond Death Drop (Razor’s Edge) afterwards.

Rating: N/A. This was just a backdrop so that Sting could leave.

TV Title: P.N. News vs. Steve Austin

These two feuded forever and it never went much of anywhere. News is a very fat rapper and very white on top of that. You might have heard of the other guy. This is still the old NWA TV Title which is far better looking than the more famous WCW one. News would dominate Austin for the most part and then Austin would either get out on a time limit draw or a DQ or a count out or something like that.

News completely dominates for the most part here while wearing bright orange with the words Yo Baby Yo Baby Yo all over his tights. Basically Austin can’t do anything here and knows it so he just tries to get in a shot where he can. He also has shoulder length blonde hair if you can imagine that. AUSTIN GOES LUCHA as he dives over the top with a flying forearm to save his lady friend.

For no apparent reason Austin goes for the stomach and of course that doesn’t work. They’re badly calling spots here as it amazes me that you could have a guy as talented as Austin stuck with a guy like News. Austin avoids an avalanche and uses his feet on the ropes to get the heel pin.

Rating: C-. Not bad here and Austin is always fun to watch. News wasn’t as bad as his gimmick makes him sound but since this is WCW we can let that slide I think. This was short enough to not be that bad as Austin cheats to win again, which is the whole point to this feud. Short and not that awful. Austin would become part of the Dangerous Alliance soon and be repackaged as a killer which were the seeds of his legendary character.

Missy talks to Bagwell and we actually see videos of him training. He’s 21 here and would be around for nearly 10 years which has to be one of the longest tenured guys in WCW history without leaving for anything other than injury.

It’s time for the Top Ten, which was updated weekly and rarely made anything resembling sense.

10. Vader
9. Bobby Eaton
8. Bill Kazmaier
7. Cactus Jack
6. Barry Windham
5. Dustin Rhodes
4. Ron Simmons
3. Steve Austin
2. Rick Steiner
1. Sting

Yeah….just a few odd ones in there.

Cactus Jack vs. Van Hammer

Van Hammer is one of the weirdest cases in wrestling history. He was completely devoid of talent, his gimmick was that of a heavy metal guitarist and he couldn’t really talk. That being said, he was the second most popular guy in the company after Sting. I LOVED this guy and for the life of me I don’t know why. This was by far his biggest feud as he never did anything of note after this but whatever.

Jack jumps Hammer as a fairly attractive woman looks like she’s in ecstasy over him. Jack jumps him (Tony called it) and it’s on. This wasn’t a feud yet but it would become one. Hammer gets a dropkick to the stomach and we head to the floor. Hammer realizes he’s fighting Cactus Jack on the floor and goes back to the ring immediately.

Cactus Clothesline and we’re on the floor. It’s all Foley here until Van Hammer hits a clothesline to the back of the head which I think was one of his finishers. Jack gets Hammer’s guitar and hits him in the throat with it for the pin, which was Hammer’s first loss. They brawl to the back.

Rating: D+. This was pretty weak as Jack just beat him up for the most part and then cheated to win. This is probably too high though due to bias but that’s the fun part of nostalgic shows. Hammer would never really improve but obviously Jack would.

We get ahold of Eric on the phone at a hospital where Sting is. Way before he starts talking though we hear Eric tell Tony to move his head in a funny moment.

At Halloween Havoc The Enforcers (Zbyszko and Anderson) broke Barry Windham’s arm by slamming it in a car door, putting him out. Windham tried to keep wrestling but couldn’t, so Dustin Rhodes, his partner, has a mystery partner for the tag title match tonight. This is going to be awesome.

Tag Titles: Enforcers vs. Dustin Rhodes/???

The champions don’t know who they’re fighting yet. Rhodes comes out with Windham who is in street clothes. We bring out Dustin’s partner but he’s in a black robe with a big dragon mask on. Oh you know where this is going. Dustin takes the dragon mask off and there’s a hood over his head.

If you didn’t get it, it’s RICKY FREAKING STEAMBOAT. Anderson loses his mind over this, clearly shouting NOT RICKY STEAMBOAT!!! The fans freaking erupt as Steamboat had been doing WWF house shows as recently as three weeks or so before this. HUGE shock and to say this is going to be a classic is an understatement.

Steamboat and Anderson start us off as the champions are trying to adjust on the fly. It’s a big brawl immediately on the floor for a bit. It’s ALL Rhodes and Steamboat here as they clean house. Larry’s arm gets worked over to start and it’s been one sided so far. Tony makes the stupid statement of you have to be a good singles wrestler to be a good tag wrestler. I’m not sure on that one. Now that I’m back from making a thread on it, let’s continue.

Anderson breaks tradition and comes off the top with a double axe that actually connects! That’s the extent of Anderson’s offense though as this continues to be one sided. Larry comes in and slows things down (shocking isn’t it?). Ricky uses martial arts and that’s using one of Larry’s moves some how. Well to an extent that’s true but it’s worded oddly.

The heels take over with good old fashioned double teaming. Can anyone sell a sunset flip like Arn Anderson? If they have I’d certainly like to see it. Why do wrestling companies always insist on showing us shots of the crowd in the middle of the match? We know they’re there and we can tell if they’re enjoying it or not. We don’t have to see them to prove it.

Arn and Larry use some great double team stuff and Arn busts out a bearhug. They work on Ricky’s back as this has been a very fun match. They switch out when the referee is busy and swear they tagged. Moments later Dustin and Ricky make a tag but the referee didn’t see it. The referee is of course Nick Patrick so did you expect anything less than nefarious means?

Dustin gets the hot tag and comes in to clean house, beating the heck out of both guys. He hits the bulldog on Arn and makes a blind tag. Arn doesn’t know it and walks into the cross body off the top and there’s no way you’re getting up from that. The roof is blown off again as the new champions celebrate.

Rating: A-. This was a great match including a great surprise for the partner. This was a televised title change which is something you never saw back in the day. They went old school here with the heels cheating and the faces working hard and everything worked. It’s a great match and considering this was on free TV, you can’t go wrong at all.

The Enforcers are mad about losing apparently because they didn’t sign to fight Steamboat. Arn and Eaton would team up to get the tag titles in a few months which became part of WrestleWar 92 which had probably the best gimmick match in WCW history. I’m looking forward to that one.

We get a music video about Jushin Liger, complete with clips of him beating up someone named Pegasus Kid. I’m sure he would never go anywhere.

Dangerously (Heyman) has the contract for the US Title match later tonight. There’s a clause in it that says if Sting can’t be there by the time the bell rings, Rude gets the title by forfeit. In a funny line Heyman says “I’m not lying this time.” Always a good sign that he has to point that out.

Jim is on the phone with Eric again who is with Sting. Ok never mind he’s not with Sting. Sting is apparently leaving and Eric tells him about the loophole where he’s going to have to forfeit and apparently steals an ambulance.

Light Heavyweight Title: Johnny B. Badd vs. Brian Pillman

These two would put on a classic at Fall Brawl 95. Unfortunately that was when Badd had stopped having an overly flamboyant character and was getting ridiculously good ridiculously fast. On the way to the ring Badd has women putting money in his garter belt. What does that tell you? This title would evolve into the Cruiserweight Title in a few years and actually mean something.

Pillman and Liger had one of the best openers ever in a few months at Superbrawl but something tells me this isn’t going to be anything like that. The weight limit here is 236lbs for no adequately explained reason. Badd’s manager is Teddy “Peanut” Long. Has this guy EVER not been working? We hear again that Badd was a boxer which I think was at least partially true.

Pillman was completely awesome at this point while Badd was the opposite, which makes for an interesting dynamic here. They brawl to the floor and I’m trying to figure out if Badd is a heel or a face. Well the people are booing him but I’m not sure what that really proves in this case. Badd takes over for a bit but Pillman hits a nice spinwheel kick.

Badd totally botches the top rope sunset flip but Teddy has the referee for no apparent reason. We do the ram the wrestler into the guy on the apron for the rollup to end it. They managed to mess up the cradle too. Badd knocks out Long afterwards.

Rating: D+. Badd just isn’t that good. There’s no other way to put it: he’s just not that good. Pillman was more or less carrying this and while it’s not bad, it’s certainly not that good. Like I said though, Badd would improve a lot and in 95, these guys would have some wars.

United States Title: Rick Rude vs. Sting

Rude had debuted like a month earlier and had guaranteed that he would win the US Title from Sting. Paul cuts a promo talking about how Sting isn’t here but of course as he does the ambulance pulls up and Sting goes in the wrong door. His buddies help him out and the first is on the ramp. Sting is limping horribly and he manages to press slam Rude on the ramp which is impressive even if he’s healthy.

Crowd is electric here. This is ALL Sting as he realizes if he stops moving at all then Rude can get to his knee. Rude gets to it anyway and wraps the knee around the post. I remember FREAKING when this was on. Rude Awakening is blocked which I think had only been done in WWF by Warrior and Hogan at this point. Rude gets knocked down but rams into the knee on the way down.

Heyman gets a phone shot to the back of the head for a false finish. Ross is losing his mind of course and Dangerously is going nuts. DDT puts Rude down but a chop block and tights get Rude the title. This was like four minutes long but it never once slowed down at all. Rude would hold the belt for over a year and had to forfeit due to injury.

Rating: B+. This is WAY high, but the atmosphere here and the energy is completely insane. For less than five minutes long to get that kind of a reaction and do a TON of other stuff in the process, this means a ton. Let’s see what this accomplished.

1. It gets Rude over. Sting was the MAN in WCW and Rude just beat him for his title in his second match with the company. Rude had been a glorified midcarder until his last maybe five months in WWF and now he’s a total tough guy that beat Sting and is the US Champion.

2. It frees up Sting to fight Luger for the world title. Sting was clearly destined to win the world title but he had to get rid of the US belt first. This was like Cena losing the US Title to Orlando Jordan (yes young fans, that happened) before he could beat JBL for the world title.

3. It keeps Sting strong. It in essence took Madusa, Luger, Dangerously and Rude plus a cell phone and a bad knee to beat Sting. To manage to keep him strong and make Rude looks strong at the same time is a great thing. Sting keeps his credibility and Rude gets the rub.

4. It gives Sting a feud to come back to once he wins the world title. And dang was that feud awesome.

Not bad for four minutes and 50 seconds, counting the thirty seconds it took to get to the ring for the champion.

We go to Dangerously, Rude and Madusa who say it was all a setup and Luger was in on it too. He says WCW answers to him and forms the Dangerous Alliance who would eventually get Zbyszko, Anderson, Eaton and Austin to join Rude. Dangerously had been fired from being a commentator so he formed this team to get back at WCW. He would do the same thing with a guy named Brock after he was fired by Vince after the Invasion. Arn Anderson later said that this was one of the best groups of talent he had ever seen, and only WCW could manage to screw it up. That’s just funny.

Ron Simmons says he’ll be back from his wrist injury soon enough. Him winning the world title was mind blowing to say the least.

We recap Rick Steiner pinning Luger in a tag match and beating up Race.

WCW World Title: Rick Steiner vs. Lex Luger

This was supposed to be Simmons but the aforementioned wrist injury kept that from happening. Scott was also hurt if you were wondering why the more talented one isn’t in there instead. Steiner takes it to the mat and Luger is just beaten there. We hear about Scott having a one night manager’s license or something. This is where WCW got stupid at times: instead of having a license or something, he can’t just be there for his brother’s biggest match ever? WWF did it too and it was stupid then as well so shut up about my WWF bias. Yes I like WWF more and I’m going to cut them more slack. I like them more and have since I can remember. So to the people that keep complaining about it, let it go.

Steiner dominates early as you would expect. Steiner keeps dominating but Race yells at him and that somehow gives Luger the advantage. Did he scare a guy named the Dog Faced Gremlin into losing his advantage? Luger throws in a low blow and takes over. Luger pounds on him but Steiner just kind of shakes it off and makes his comeback. The top rope bulldog gets two as Luger puts his foot on the rope. Mr. Hughes, the bodyguard, and Scott Steiner come in and do nothing of importance. It lets Luger get a belt shot to Steiner to end it though.

Rating: D. The lack of drama hurts it as this was just literally thrown on at the end. It’s not horrible but seriously, RICK STEINER? No one else was available? This was just a weird match and while it’s watchable, it’s certainly not very good. It came and went though so there’s always that.

Tony and Jim talk about the hotline where they’ll have the decision on whether the tag title switch stands. LANCE RUSSELL and Gordon Solie are doing the talking. Any old school fan just came to that.

Overall Rating: A-. This was a free show. I actually forgot about that a few times during the tape. To say the card is stacked and a lot happens here is an understatement. They fit 9 matches, five of which were title matches with two changes, into a two hour card. How’s THAT for efficiency? There’s also a major stable being formed and a classic tag match. Couple this in with the fact that this was thrown on TV for free and that the WWF PPV of the month was the abysmal Survivor Series and this is as one sided as it can get.

Clash of the Champions 16: Fall Brawl 91
Date: September 5, 1991
Location: Augusta-Richmond County Civic Center, Augusta, Georgia
Attendance: 2,800
Commentators: Jim Ross, Tony Schiavone

It’s late 91 in WCW so I’d bet on some focus on Sting and Luger. The main focus here seems to be on the Light Heavyweight Title Tournament which is a title that wound up going nowhere. Other than that there’s a tag team tournament final which means nothing for the most part. WCW in 91 was pretty weak to say the least but we have to get through this so let’s get to it.

Bischoff, Hyatt and Dangerously are going to be doing the interviews tonight apparently.

Battle Royal

Z-Man, Bobby Eaton, Ranger Ross (he still had a job at this point?), Tommy Rich, Young Pistol Tracy (Smothers), Oz (Nash), PN News (big fat white rapper), Sgt. Buddy Lee Parker, Steve Austin (with a freaking ponytail), Dustin Rhodes, Terrance Taylor (sucks), Big Josh, Barry Windham, One Man Gang, El Gigante (legit 7’7)

Standard battle royal to start with people just beating on each other with no particular rhyme or reason. Gigante picks Taylor up and has his over the ropes but gently sits him down instead. The guy never was that smart. Then he puts Parker on the top rope and pulls him back in too. Dude, READ THE RULES!!! No one out yet I don’t think. Eaton and Austin finally to the apron but that gets them nowhere.

Big Josh tries to skin the cat and pulls out Ross and Taylor but goes out himself also, bringing us down to 12. Rich is out as is Parker. Z-Man is out as everyone left beats on Oz and Gang. Nine left at this point. Austin puts Tracy out. Gang LAUNCHES Eaton out as we’re down to seven. Make it six as News is out. Austin and Windham go out together so we’re down to Gang, Gigante, Rhodes and Oz.

The heels hammer down the good guys as I distinctly remember watching this show at some point in my life. It’s so weird to see Gigante towering over Nash. Rhodes goes out due to double teaming but the heels turn around and a double clothesline gives the giant the win. This was called the Georgia Brawl apparently. Ok then.

Rating: D. This was pretty awful for the most part. It’s really just a battle royal which isn’t all that interesting unless it’s for a title or the Rumble. This was just kind of there for the sake of getting a lot of people on the card at the same time, which is stupid when a lot of them have matches later. Not sure what the point was here.

Light Heavyweight Title Tournament Semi-Final: Badstreet vs. Brian Pillman

Badstreet is a member of the Freebirds and is Brad Armstrong in a mask. They threw gimmick after gimmick at him in hopes of getting him over. It didn’t work, but that’s old school style to say the least. This is Pillman’s return to WCW match after being the Yellow Dog (masked guy, everyone knew who he was) forever. Four man tournament apparently. Oh apparently he got a first round bye. That helps a little.

Badstreet cheats of course while Pillman continues to be about five years ahead of his time with his Cruiserweight style stuff. Slingshot sunset flip gets two as we can hear the director. Dropkick to the apron sets up a suplex back into the ring for Pillman, but Badstreet counters into a suplex to the floor in a pretty nice move. That isn’t a DQ though as we change the rules again.

Brian is sent into the railing as Badstreet takes over a bit. Up to the apron again and Pillman is sent into the post. After a good long rest for him because Badstreet is kind of stupid, Pillman gets a slingshot cross body for two. Neckbreaker gets two for the masked dude. Pillman dropkicks him off the top and adds in a suicide dive to the floor. Missile dropkick misses but a spinwheel kick gets two, both by Pillman. Badstreet gets a DDT for two. Crucifix by Brian is countered into a Samoan Drop and up they go. Pillman knocks him off the top and a top rope cross body (Air Pillman) ends this.

Rating: B+. AWESOME match here and keep in mind that this is 1991. This is something that would have been awesome in 1997 and yet they were doing it years early. It’s scary to think of what Pillman could have done if he hadn’t destroyed his ankle. Really liked this one and the whole thing worked very well. Great match.

WCW Top Ten:

10. Bobby Eaton
9. Z-Man
8. Diamond Stud
7. One Man Gang
6. Dustin Rhodes
5. Steve Austin
4. El Gigante
3. Barry Windham
2. Ron Simmons
1. Sting

World Champion: Lex Luger.

They did this every week and it really never meant much. Naturally they hyped it forever because that’s how WCW rolls.

Johnny B. Badd vs. Sting

Badd is the gay character that we don’t say is gay. He’s also heel (mostly) and undefeated. Sting is US Champion here but it’s non-title. He also doesn’t seem to have the belt with him but whatever. This was during the gift box angle which was about Luger vs. Sting eventually. They shake hands to start as Badd wants to use his left hand. Sting plants him but a Vader Bomb (maybe that’s why the feuded!!!) gets knees.

Sting no sells it and Badd hits his top rope sunset flip for two. Sting gets a small package for two as this is a rather fast paced match. And now we slow things WAY down as it’s a wristlock fight. It’s so weird to think that this is nearly twenty years old. Sting grabs an armbar as this has gotten boring in a hurry.

As Badd pops off some punches that miss, another gift box is delivered. Stinger Splash misses and Badd gets his left hand, but it’s just to the ribs. Badd thinks the box is for him and turns his back on Sting but the more famous dude is too hurt to capitalize. Sting sees the box now as the match stops completely. Sting grabs an AWFUL small package to end it.

Rating: D. Other than the fast paced opening, this was them just waiting on the whole box angle to happen. Once that happened, the whole thing came to the fastest screeching halt you’ll ever see. Boring match overall as Badd was a comedy guy and Sting was never in any danger here.

Post match Cactus Jack pops out of the box, apparently debuting and massacring Sting with a top rope elbow to the floor and the double arm DDT. Eaton and Big Josh run out for the save. They wouldn’t have their blowoff match for about 9 months, but dang it was worth the wait.

Light Heavyweight Title Tournament Semi-Final: Mike Graham vs. Richard Morton

Morton is part of the York Foundation and is managed by Alexandra York, more famous as Terri. Morton looks exactly the same as he did in the Rock N Roll Express so the heel turn didn’t really work. Graham is the son of Eddie Graham, who is considered one of the best bookers ever and was based in Florida. Morton gets a Boston Crab after starting on his back. Not bad.

They trade some pin and submission attempts so Morton hits the floor for awhile. He checks what the computer tells him to do (just go with it) and heads back in. They head to the mat and this is rather boring already. Graham gets something resembling a German suplex out of the corner for two. Morton takes over for a bit before Graham grabs a Figure Four. Not that it matters as Morton is in the ropes so we’re back to the uninteresting wrestling.

Graham is painfully boring in the ring. That’s really all there is to it about him. He’s here because his dad is famous and that’s about it. He throws on an Indian Deathlock as the fans flat out do not care at all. They need to end this match already. Apparently Graham used to put holds on Gordon Solie. Random but ok. Rolling half nelson gets two for Graham. York gets on the apron which doesn’t mean much of anything. Morton rolls him up and uses the tights to advance to the finals.

Rating: D. Really boring match here as nothing of interest was going on at all. Graham is really boring and Morton is a failure as a heel for the most part. I mean, cut your hair or something dude. Really boring match that no one cared about for the most part here. It set up the match at the PPV I guess, but that doesn’t mean it’s worth seeing.

Time for Bill Kazmaier, a legit winner of the World’s Strongest Man, is going to attempt to break a world record. What record this is we don’t really establish but that’s not really important. He’s in the tag title final later on tonight so I smell an angle here. Four guys bring out a big globe thing but Kazmaier is going to bend a rod over his head instead. Somehow this is a record. The bar bends but here are the Enforcers (Zbyszko and Anderson) who are in the title match with Kaz and Rick Steiner later. They hit him in the ribs with a weight and leave. Hey I was right.

Freebirds vs. Patriots

The Patriots are Todd Champion and Firebreaker Chip. They’re from WCW Special Forces, whatever that’s supposed to be. The Birds are doing their rock band gimmick here. One Patriot is a soldier and one is a fireman. Ok then. Hayes vs. Chip to start us off. Hayes naturally stalls because that’s what he does. Ross makes baseball comparisons because he has nothing else to do.

The Birds are the US Tag Champions and will defend against the Patriots on Saturday. Why they’re not doing it here? Who knows of course. The Patriots clear the ring as this isn’t going to be much of a match methinks. Garvin vs. Chip now and it’s pretty clear that the Patriots aren’t that good. We begin a rather boring match as neither team have guys you want to run a match. Off to Champion who beats on the actual champion known as Hayes. Everything breaks down and with some heel cheating, Garvin pins Chip. The Patriots would get the titles Saturday.

Rating: D. That grade is becoming a standard for this show somehow. Weak match again as neither team had any idea of what they were doing. That being said also, why in the world would we have this match be non-title on whatever night this is and then have the title match like three days later? It’s WCW. I guess that’s why.

Here’s Paul E. Dangerously to talk to Cactus Jack. Jack won’t say who the mastermind is but wants a round of applause for Sting because his career is OVER. Another gift box comes out which Jack says has Abdullah in it. Naturally as Jack goes to give him a hug it’s Sting in the box and the fight is on. These two would feud on and off for a long time before their classic in June which is still one of my all time favorite matches.

We get a clip of Ron Simmons having his jersey retired at Florida State. Bobby Bowden, the coach of Florida State, says Simmons is awesome.

Ron Simmons vs. Diamond Stud

Stud is more famous as Scott Hall. So let’s see. Hall is a guy who has something to do with diamonds and Nash is Oz. As in Wizard of Oz. There’s nothing hidden to it as he was billed as being from the Emerald City. A few years later they told Austin and Foley there was no way to market them. And people wonder why they went out of business. Simmons is currently on a roll and is signing the contract for the world title match later.

Stud jumps him to start and Simmons pretends to actually be in trouble here. That’s so cute. Simmons starts hammering away but walks into a half Rock Bottom/half chokeslam for two. Middle rope bulldog hits but Stud poses to get rolled up for two. Simmons starts his comeback and there’s the spinebuster. Shoulder block and we’re done quick. Simmons was on the roll of a lifetime here but wouldn’t win the title for almost a year. No rating due to length but it was just a workout for Simmons.

Dangerously talks to Simmons post match and he says he’ll accomplish his dream. Harley Race and Mr. Hughes come out and Simmons says he wants Luger, not them.

Terrance Taylor vs. Van Hammer

Hammer is debuting here and would become arguably the third most popular guy in the company and maybe even the second. What do you think is going to happen here? Taylor hammers away and Hammer no sells it. Hammer gets something close to We Will Rock You going and a top rope knee drop ends this. Seriously, that’s his finisher? Total squash.

Missy Hyatt finally gets her interview in the locker room of Luger. She’s been trying to do this for months and Simmons interrupts this one too. They throw him out so he breaks the door down. This goes nowhere.

TV Title: Steve Austin vs. Z-Man

Austin is champion and still has the old NWA style TV Title. Austin’s tights look like they have confetti on them. Z-Man is a former champion also. Basic match to start as Austin has his arm worked on. They ram into each other with Austin’s blonde hair flowing. That’s a weird thing to see indeed. Lots of headlocks follow as this isn’t much of a match at all.

When I say that I mean there’s no real effort here. They’re having a match and while they’re not doing anything particularly wrong, you can tell there’s almost no effort at all in it. They’re going through the motions out there with a lot of arm work and all that jazz. Z-Man hits a superkick and Austin stalls a lot. Slingshot cross body to the ramp hits but a top rope one misses completely.

Off to the chinlock to waste some time. Austin had a habit of trying to milk the clock as much as he could which I guess is what he’s trying to do here. There’s the Stun Gun (flapjack onto the top rope) but Austin doesn’t cover. Small package gets two for Z and we hit the sleeper. Austin’s chick named Lady Blossom gives him an object and we’re done.

Rating: D+. Boring match until the end and the whole thing didn’t work at all for the most part. Like I said they were going through the motions the entire time. Zenk (What do you think the Z stood for?) was a guy that was ok at times but at other times he was rather boring indeed, with this being one of those times.

We get a video on Ron Simmons giving a speech to some kids.

Time for the contract signing but Luger wants to wait awhile first. While we wait, here’s another video on Simmons bringing some kids to the Omni to see him wrestle.

Here’s the actual signing and Luger is ready. They do this on the stage instead of in the ring for once. Ron signs up as Dusty Rhodes is there for no apparent reason. Literally, the announcers are asking why he’s there. Luger gives a quick promo and just get to the brawl already. Things get interesting as Luger mentions that Simmons can be the first black champion but when he loses, Simmons can be Lex’s driver. Playing the race card is kind of interesting.

We recap the tag title tournament in reverse which is weird but it fills in time.

World Tag Titles: Enforcers vs. Bill Kazmaier/Rick Steiner

The Steiners had to drop the titles because Scott got hurt so this is a tournament final. Kaz is hurt from earlier so that’ll probably play into the ending. We’re rapidly running out of time here with entrances still going on and less than seven minutes in the show. Rick clears the ring to start and it’s more or less a handicap match due to the rib injury. Powerslam takes Anderson down for two.

Kaz is just chilling on the apron while it’s 2-1. So why is he here anyway? Larry works on the arm and amazingly doesn’t stall. Off to Anderson as the Enforcers talk trash to Kaz. Really basic match here as Steiner can’t fight off the numbers. Steiner gets a suplex to take Anderson down but can’t get a belly to belly off the middle rope. Kaz tags himself in but Anderson gets a shot in to the ribs for Larry to fall on top for the titles. Barely ran three minutes.

Rating: D. What in the world was the point of this again? Did we really need all the earlier matches on here for the sake of having a three minute title match in the main event? Kaz never meant anything but he looked good so that’s about all he had. Scott would be back soon enough, but this was pretty worthless.

The Enforcers brag to end the show.

Overall Rating: D. This was pretty awful as they more or less phoned the whole thing in. 91 in WCW was pretty awful as they had very little thinking in their entire show with this being no exception at all. Sting would feud with everyone at the same time more or less, but this would be put on hold as the Dangerous Alliance would form at Halloween Havoc to make things really awesome in a hurry. This however, wasn’t awesome at all. Not worth seeing at all.

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Clash of the Champions 15: Knocksville USA
Date: June 12, 1991
Location: Civic Auditorium, Knoxville, Tennessee
Attendance: 5,000
Commentators: Jim Ross, Tony Schiavone

Let’s get the most important thing out of the way first: that is a very dumb pun for a title. This is a weird show for WCW as Flair was on his way out due to WCW being really stupid. The main event is Flair defending the title against Bobby Eaton in a 2/3 falls match which should be awesome. This is a very old school style show in that there are a lot of matches but most of them are short. Let’s get to it.

Missy Hyatt opens the show but Paul E. Dangerously (Heyman) comes out to wonder why he wasn’t told they were going live.

Young Pistols/Z-Man vs. Freebirds

The Pistols are Steve Armstrong/Tracy Smothers and the Birds are Hayes/Garvin/Badstreet, who is Brad Armstrong, Steve’s real life brother, under a mask. The Freebirds are US Tag Champions here and have two managers: Big Daddy Dink who is more famous as Oliver Humperdink and Diamond Dallas Page who is more famous as Diamond Dallas Page. Garvin vs. Z-Man to start us off.

Bill Alfonso, as in Fonzie from ECW, is the referee. Everything breaks down quickly and the good guys clear the ring. Smothers vs. Hayes now and Smothers takes over. The Birds beat the Pistols at SuperBrawl for the titles so there’s a history there. The ring gets cleared out again and it’s off to Garvin again. Badstreet comes in and Smothers evades all of them for awhile until Badstreet sends him to the floor. Smothers takes a hot shot onto the railing and Z-Man is down too for some reason. Everything breaks down again and the three good guys are thrown out twice. They come back in and hit three stereo sunset flips for the pin.

Rating: C. We’ll ignore that the ending was totally illegal because it was kind of a cool looking thing. The match wasn’t bad and was there to get the crowd into the show which is the whole point. The Pistols never did much of anything and Z-Man either had just lost the TV Title or was about to get it. After that he didn’t do much either. These guys had nothing else to do so throw them in a tag match. That’s old school booking 103.

Enter the Great American Bash Ric Flair Sweepstakes for a chance to meet Ric Flair who was in the WWF by that time! That’s the final WCW PPV I’m going to review also as it’s possibly the worst show ever.

Oz vs. Johnny Rich

Oz is just what he sounds like: a character based on the Wizard of Oz. He comes out of a castle that is so real you can see it shake from the smoke machines. He has the Great Wizard (Kevin Sullivan) with him and Oz himself is more famous as Kevin Nash. You might ask why this character exists. That would be because Ted Turner’s TBS station had acquired the rights to the film Wizard of Oz. Seriously, that’s it. After the big slow entrance, Nash wrestles a faster version of what he usually does, totally missing the point. He finishes with an Eye of the Storm (James Storm’s move) which is called the Emerald City Slam. Just a squash here.

PN News is coming. Oh dear. He’s a guy the size of Mark Henry and a very white rapper.

Dan Spivey vs. Big Josh

Josh is a lumberjack that danced with bear cubs. Are you starting to get why this period was AWFUL for WCW? Spivey is really tall so this is power vs. power. Neither guy is very good and this is almost all punching. Spivery gets a big boot but walks into a suplex. They miscommunicate on something and Josh gets a German for no cover. Here’s Kevin Sullivan still in his Wizard stuff to break a crutch over Josh’s back and a German suplex pins him. This was nothing.

The WCW Top Ten:
1. Lex Luger
2. Great Muta
3. El Gigante
4. Bobby Eaton
5. Nikita Koloff
6. Sting
7. Arn Anderson
8. Barry Windham
9. One Man Gang
10. Steve Austin

All are under Flair of course.

Here’s the Danger Zone which is Dangerously’s talk segment. He brings out Jason Hervey because that little fungus has to be on every WCW show EVER. Heyman won’t let him say anything other than like one word. They talk about the Wonder Years and Dangerously says Hervey is dating Missy Hyatt who Dangerously feuded with forever. Hervey gets mad and gets hit with the phone so Missy comes out for the save.

Terrance Taylor vs. Dustin Rhodes

Rhodes is REALLY young here and not that good. Taylor is the Computerized Man of the 90s and part of the York Foundation. He has Alexandra York with him who is more famous as Terri Runnels plus Mr. Hughes. Rhodes is undefeated which I’m sure has nothing to do with his fat daddy booking things. There’s going to be a new member of the Foundation tonight.

Dustin beats the tar out of him to start but misses a charge in the corner and hits the post. Isn’t that always the way for overly perky faces. Taylor gets a bottom rope suplex of all things back in for two. Gutwrench powerbomb gets the same. Dustin fights back and hits the Flip Flop and Fly to take over. He hits the bulldog but Hughes gets up on the apron. Ricky Morton is here for some reason and the match is thrown out. Morton beats Dustin down and he’s the new member of the Foundation.

Rating: D. This was nothing other than a way for Morton to come in for the turn at the end. Rhodes and the Foundation feuded for a long time as Robert Gibson was recovering from a knee injury. This wasn’t a very good match as Dustin was the boss’ son and that’s about it. No one was interested in it but the turn at the end was a nice touch.

Big Josh makes the save.

Johnny B. Badd is coming. His character is gay but we’re not going to say that because it’s 1991.

We recap Nikita Koloff jumping Sting by mistake at the first SuperBrawl to end the classic tag match. This set up a huge feud which is being blown off here.

Sting vs. Nikita Koloff

I remember these two having a chain match later so maybe this isn’t the blowoff. Sting runs to the ring and is pounded down quickly. No one ever accused Sting of being the brightest guy in the world. Koloff hits a flying tackle and Sting is in big trouble. Out to the floor and Sting goes into the railing. Out of nowhere Sting hits a piledriver but Koloff is up first.

Koloff drops him on his head with a tombstone for two. He kicks at the ribs and blocks a sunset flip. The second attempt works and Sting gets two. Koloff hammers on the ribs again and the extended squash continues. Nikita even throws in an evil laugh because he’s foreign and foreign people are bad. Out to the floor and Sting manages to reverse Koloff into the barricade. Back inside Sting hits a tombstone of his own and makes his comeback. He fires away with that unique style of offense of his but the Splash misses and Koloff loads up the Sickle but Sting ducks and grabs a rollup for the pin out of nowhere.

Rating: C. The crowd was WAY into this but the match was pretty dull. Koloff just didn’t care anymore at this point as his wife had passed away a few years before and he wanted out of wrestling to run his gym. He would be gone pretty soon after the Bash and would come back for a summer run in WCW before retiring for good. The crowd carried this a lot and it helped keep the match from being worse than it should have been.

PN News and the chicks from Salt N Peppa are here to rap. This is……well let’s go with William Regal will win a grammy for best rapping before this guy. Johnny B. Badd and Teddy Long appear and talk about how they’re tired of being held down or something. Badd leaves and this is worthless.

Diamond Studd is coming. In a year or so he would imitate Al Pacino from Scarface and call himself Razor Ramon.

Barry Windham/Arn Anderson vs. El Gigante/Brian Pillman

Whoever takes the fall is out of WCW. Brian vs. Arn to get us going in a future battle of the Horsemen. Off to Windham who pounds him down but a spin kick gets two for Pillman. Back to Arn and I guess we’re waiting on the hot tag to Gigante, kind of like when Giant and Sullivan beat up Anderson and Benoit in 96. They can’t beat Gigante so avoid him at all costs. He gets his hand in on Anderson but Windham makes the save.

They do the Andre/Snuka spot for a cross body for two on Windham. Gigante and Anderson go to the floor as Pillman is shoved off the top and Windham kicks him in the face for the pin. Not long enough to rate but Pillman was back in a mask by the PPV which was one of those things where everyone knew who he was but it was a joke or something.

Great American Bash report, which was a tour but there was a PPV for one night of the show.

We get a clip from the ending of Bash 90 with Sting taking the title off Flair. Also stuff from the Steiners beating the Freebirds.

Clip from the WCW/New Japan Supershow where the Steiners won the IWGP Tag Titles.

IWGP Tag Titles: Steiner Brothers vs. Hiroshi Hase/Masahiro Chono

Hase vs. Scott to start and Hase hits an enziguri (called a karate kick) to send Steiner to the floor. Steiner takes a beating so it’s off to Rick who is more popular here. Chono comes in and hits the Mafia Kick and then a second one. A third one can’t put Rick down so he hits a Steiner Line instead. Off to Scott and the Steiners hit a move that would have been a cool finisher for another team but for the Steiners it’s just another move. Scott sets for an Outsider’s Edge and Rick drops a top rope elbow at the same time to drive Chono down.

Off to Hase and the American hits a German on the Japanese dude. Rick’s headset is coming off. But how will he know when to breathe without the voice telling him when to inhale? (Why else would he wear that thing?) It’s off to the rookie Chono which is weird to say. He recently had a match with Lou Thesz of all people and hooks in an STF to prove it. Scott and Hase fight on the floor as Rick has been in the hold about 30 seconds. Scott gets to the apron and comes off the top, missing completely to the point where he has to break it up again.

Scott comes back in and runs over Hase so he can hit a butterfly bomb for two. There’s a belly to belly off the top for two and Hase is about dead. Chono saves and a dragon suplex gets two. This is getting a lot better as it goes on. The Japanese try an Irish on the American but Rick pulls Chono out so Scott can hit a Frankensteiner on Hase for the pin. JR’s American spirit pops out as he FREAKS about the Steiners retaining.

Rating: B. Very good match here as the Japanese team was all over the place with cool suplexes and the Steiners were more than capable of hanging with them, which gave us something that you almost never saw in America at this point. Hase would team with Muta to take the titles from the Steiners later in the year.

Post match, the Hardliners, Dick Slater and Dick Murdoch, come out and beat up both teams. During the beatdown they legit injured Scott’s arm. He had to have surgery and wasn’t ever really the same. Keep in mind that this was when WCW basically had the world title on standby for him whenever he was ready to break up the Steiners, so this was a pretty big deal.

Diamond Studd vs. Tommy Rich

Total squash and Rich’s only offense is some basic stuff after getting his knees up on a Vader Bomb. Razor’s Edge ends it. This lasted about 90 seconds.

A kid won a Sting look-a-like contest. He gets to meet Sting. The kid freaks out so this is kind of cool. Koloff jumps him, setting up the rematch at the Bash. That’s where the chain match was. I knew it happened somewhere.

US Title: Great Muta vs. Lex Luger

Luger is champion and the winner gets the title and the world title shot at the Bash. Muta spits out some mist before the match begins. There’s nothing really going on as far as flow to it but it’s big star vs. big star. Luger uses his power stuff but misses an elbow so Muta can stomp away. A gorilla press puts Muta down but Lex misses a charge and takes a big kick. The handspring elbow misses and Muta crashes to the floor. At least that looked cool. Back in Muta loads up the mist but Luger comes up with a counter that somehow no one else ever thought of: he covers his eyes. A powerslam ends this five seconds later.

Rating: D. Match sucked but I’m more impressed by that block. I mean, of all people, LEX LUGER is the clever one??? Even with all these reviews I can still be surprised. Anyway Lex would go on to main event the Bash in a match I can’t wait to get to for how stupid it is. Muta would go back to Japan and would only appear on occasion.

There’s a guy coming to WCW. His name is Steve Austin. Wait….he’d be TV Champion at this point. I’m going to give up trying to figure out WCW. It’ll add years on to my life.

Steve Austin vs. Joey Maggs

Oh ok he had won the title but the episode hadn’t aired yet. Austin’s manager is a chick named Lady Blossom who has a chest that is probably bigger than Trish’s and still works. Austin hits the Stun Gun and we’re done in about 40 seconds.

We continue the Coming Attractions thing which is what they’ve been using to talk about new people all night. This is for Black Blood, which is Billy Jack Haynes as an executioner.

Richard Morton is introduced as the newest member of the York Foundation. He’s in a suit with the rocker hair. He talks about not having to sign autographs anymore. Gibson comes out and is medically cleared now. Morton beats him up and piledrives him. Dustin Rhodes comes out for the save. This might have lasted a minute.

WCW World Title: Bobby Eaton vs. Ric Flair

2/3 falls. Feeling out process to start and Eaton gets in a slap to tick Flair off. A clothesline puts Flair outside and they’re going slow to start but they have enough time for it. Back in Flair gets him in the corner and Eaton isn’t a big enough face to shrug those off. Eaton fires away on him and there’s a Flair Flop. Bobby grabs a shortarm scissors and I’m not sure if that would hurt or not.

There’s a little old lady in the front row that is having a blast. Flair keeps getting a little rush of offense but Eaton counters it every time. Flair sends him into the corner and Eaton’s head might have hit the post. That’s enough for Flair as he goes in with his usual stuff. After working over the arm for a bit they get back up and slug it out with Eaton taking over again. Flair goes up and Ross makes a joke about how that never works.

Flair Flip in the corner and a right hand takes him down. Something like a Boss Man Slam into a backbreaker puts Flair down and a big swinging neckbreaker looks to set up the Alabama Jam. It’s a top rope legdrop and it puts Eaton up 1-0. There’s a thirty second rest period between falls. They slug it out again and Flair can’t keep up with him.

Backslide gets two. Eaton hits another neckbreaker and goes up again but Flair pops up this time and in a smart move, Eaton comes back in instead of going up. Flair is put down again but as Eaton goes up he gets shoved off and hits his knee on the floor, causing a count-out to tie things up.

Back in Eaton hits a superplex but can’t capitalize because of the knee. Eventually the cover gets two and Flair sets for the knee crusher. For absolutely no apparent reason he picks Eaton up for it….and suplexes him instead. He has the knee held back too so it was clearly that move. Anyway Flair goes after the knee and gets the Figure Four after two failed attempts. After a few moments in there, Flair grabs the ropes and Eaton blacks out from the pain for the pin and Flair retains.

Rating: B. It’s a good match and the first fall is by far the best. Eaton was a very good hand for WCW and you could throw him in for a quick TV title shot like this and get a good result like this. Flair working on the knee makes sense and after sitting through a show this long and boring, this was probably a bit high but I don’t care at this point. The show is over and that’s all that matters.

JR and Tony wrap it up.

Overall Rating: D+. The main event is good and the tag match was good, but MAN the rest of this show is dull. These new guys that were being brought in had no real stories to them or anything like that and as a result, no one was all that interested in them. This all led up to the Bash which is absolutely dreadful. Anyway this was another weak show but 91 wasn’t a kind year to WCW. Sting vs. Koloff was a huge feud but this match was nothing worth seeing. Bad show but it has its moments.

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WCW Saturday Night
Date: January 8, 1994
Location: Center State Theater, Atlanta, Georgia
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Jesse Ventura

Back with another week here as we move towards SuperBrawl. The main event tonight is the match announced last week: Sting/Pillman vs. Rude/Austin. In a word, that should be REALLY FREAKING GOOD. This was a good time for WCW before Hogan got there and changed everything they had built up over the last few months. Let’s get to it.

Thunder and Lightning vs. Bob Cook/Bob Starr

Thunder and Lightning is the name of a team from Puerto Rico but I have no idea if they’re the same team. Cook and Thunder start us off. Thunder works over the arm as does Lightning who appears to be the speed of the team. Starr comes in and does about as well as Cook did. Lightning puts Starr over his shoulder and Thunder comes off the top with a forearm to the chest for the pin.

Rating: D. Total squash and pretty boring. Thunder and Lightning are almost identical so I have no idea who is who, nor do I think I should really care. I don’t remember them at all and I think there’s a reason for that. They didn’t do anything special here and their double team finisher was nothing that hasn’t been done a dozen times before.

Sting and Pillman are ready for the main event.

Join the Legion of Doom fan club! Wow that actually existed?

The announcers talk about nothing of note.

Dustin Rhodes vs. Bill Payne

Dustin dominates to start and it’s squashville for the next few minutes. Bulldog ends this quick.

Pretty Wonderful vs. 2 Cold Scorpio/Marcus Bagwell

This is a rematch from Starrcade and was taped the week before this taping, which also happened before Starrcade. Brawl to start and the Pauls stall a lot. Scorpio and Roma start us off. 2 Cold takes him down with clotheslines then rams his face into the buckle, which freaks Roma out. Orndorff and Bagwell come in and the arm work commences. Back to Roma and the beating continues.

This is one of those matches where stuff happens but nothing is really going on if that makes sense. They’re having a match and it’s not bad, but there’s nothing interesting enough to write down or take note of. Pretty Wonderful takes over on Scorpio and their manager the Assassin gets in a few shots. Scorpio tries to speed things up but Orndorff knees him in the ribs to stop that cold. Scorpio finally gets in a knee and Bagwell comes in to clean house. A top rope shoulder puts Orndorff down and everything breaks down. Assassin loads up his mask again like at Starrcade and headbutts Bagwell for the pin.

Rating: D+. Not a bad match from a technical standpoint or anything like that but it’s nothing to see at all. Pretty Wonderful was such a dull tag team that they put me to sleep almost every time. Scorpio was at least fun to watch and Bagwell was learning in the ring so he was getting better. The problem was that he never moved past that role for almost three years.

Shockmaster vs. Otis Apollo

I love that jobber’s name. What in the world are you expecting here? Spinebuster ends this in about 90 seconds.

Shockmaster says his best friend is coming here. His name is the Super Shockmaster. We get a promo from Super Shockmaster, which is Shockmaster in a mask calling himself (kind of) Uncle Fred. Thank goodness he went back to WWF by May.

Ice Train vs. Johnny Stevens

Train pounds him down and no sells all of Stevens’ offense. Powerslam ends this quick.

We go to the Starrcade Control Center for a COTC preview.

Harlem Heat vs. Bobby Walker/Jason Johnson

This is when the Heat were still called Kane and Kole. Booker and let’s say Walker start us off. Booker is Kole. Good to know. Walker comes back with a dropkick and armdrag to take over for a bit. Harlem Heat takes over again and use their double team stuff and power advantage to get control. Booker spins up and they use the EXACT same finisher that Thunder and Lightning used earlier tonight.

Rating: D. Boring match and exactly like the opening match which isn’t good in a 90 minute show. Nothing to see here as until their names changed to the traditional ones, there’s not much to see with these guys. This went too long too. I don’t think I remember seeing Johnson at all.

Harlem Heat says the road to the titles goes through them.

TV Title: Steven Regal vs. Larry Santo

Santo actually gets a fast two off a cross body. A dropkick sends Regal outside for a breather. Back in and Regal takes over with his evil tactics and a cravate. Santo comes back with a shoulder and some punches but runs into a butterfly suplex. A rolling cradle keeps the title on Regal.

Rating: C-. Not a great match or anything but it was nice to see someone get in some offense rather than just getting run over by the big star. Santo never had a chance of course but it was fun to see the crowd react to someone coming closer to taking the title off of Regal, who was just loathed at this point.

Pretty Wonderful says they’ll beat Scorpio and Bagwell as many times as they need to. Assassin talks about the rematch and how they’ll win it. You know, the rematch that happened earlier in the show. Assassin implies a big plan or something.

Rick Rude/Steve Austin vs. Sting/Brian Pillman

This is one of those instances where they’re combining feuds and that’s always awesome. Ok maybe not awesome but it’s a smart idea. The match is joined in progress after a break. It’s Austin and Sting and apparently we only missed about 4 seconds. Off to Pillman quickly and Austin runs. After a quick fight on the floor they head back in. Pillman gets a great head fake on a cross body to set up a middle rope clothesline for two.

Rude comes in and uses his clubbing offense to take over. Crucifix gets two for Pillman but he gets beaten down again. It’s amazing how different Rude was in WCW and how much more believable he was here. Middle rope cross body gets two for Brian. Sting gets the tag and pounds away on the International Champion but gets two as Austin saves a pin. Sting fights out of the corner and goes into a top wristlock battle with Austin.

The two of them trade attempted punches until Sting connects and knocks Austin to the floor. Rude won’t tag in so Austin elbows Sting down on his own. Once Austin gets him down, Rude is happy to come in. That’s an awesome heel tactic and you don’t see it enough. Rude hooks a bearhug for a few moments until Sting rings his ears to escape. He makes the tag to Brian but the referee missed it.

Sting manages to fight both of them off at once after some miscues by the heels. There’s the seen tag to Pillman and Brian dropkicks everyone down. Missile dropkick hits and Parker is in the ring. He kicks Pillman in the back of the head and somehow that’s enough for Austin to pin him without doing anything else.

Rating: B-. Fun tag match but I didn’t like the ending at all. To beat Pillman all you have to do is have a manager kick him once? That’s it? After he was on fire and had Austin pinned? It was probably a time thing but still. Anyway, good match and it continues the story from the previous week. That’s not something you see enough of anymore and it could help to freshen things up a bit.

Overall Rating: D+. This was a boring show for the most part but it did have its moments. The lack of Flair is a strange thing since he’s constantly referred to as world champion. Actually it isn’t so strange as I’d assume it’s so they don’t spoil Starrcade for everyone else. See what happens when I actually think these things through? Anyway, boring show but not exactly bad.

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Clash of the Champions 14: Dixie Dynamite
Date: January 31, 1991
Location: Georgia Mountains Center, Gainsville, Georgia
Attendance: 2,000
Commentators: Jim Ross, Dusty Rhodes

Another one of these and it’s from a pretty bad era for the company. Unlike the one later this year, this show looks atrocious on paper. This is the first one in WCW rather than the NWA so I would expect a few changes. Also Dusty is the booker again so expect the Dusty Finish to abound. The main event is Scott Steiner vs. Ric Flair for the title. I’m not exactly riveted either. Let’s get to it.

After a quick look at the top two matches we get a very 80s opening. You can tell the arena is tiny. I wonder if AJ was there.

National Anthem.

Dusty talks a lot and won’t shut up.

Sting/Lex Luger vs. Doom

Luger is of course US Champion here as he more or less always was. I love that old Sting music. And then again the same can be said of Doom’s music. They’re the tag team champions here in the longest reign in the history of the belts. Ron Simmons and Butch Reed if you weren’t familiar with that. This isn’t announced as a title match but the referee holds up the belts. I guess it is one then.

Reed vs. Sting to start us off. Sting overpowers Reed which is rather impressive. Even in an armbar he shouts to the crowd. Notice what he’s doing there: he doesn’t let the crowd get taken out of it, even in a rest hold. That’s a very nice thing to do. Luger in now as Dusty talks a lot. Ross says in about 5 seconds what it took Dusty 30 to say. We hear about Wrestlewar a little bit where Luger is defending the title.

Simmons vs. Luger now and Ron can’t take him down with shoulders. You can see Simmons wanting to shout his catchphrase. Luger dominates him with power. How often do you see Doom losing to power stuff? Luger walks into a hot shot though and the champions take over. After a break it’s still Doom in control.

Simmons puts his head down though and Luger manages to get a knee/kick in to put Ron down. Simmons gets the tag though to bring in Reed who hits a dropkick of all things to take down Luger. Dusty talks about football to waste even more time. Luger finally takes down Simmons but Reed drills him with a top rope shoulder block to take him right back down. The problem is that it took him right down into his corner. Well isn’t that always the way?

Sting comes in to clean house but Dan Spivey runs out of the crowd to take down Luger. Spivey was Luger’s upcoming opponent at the PPV if I didn’t mention that. Sting doesn’t seem to care and beats up Doom on his own. Reed hits a shoulder to Simmons by mistake and he stumbles into the referee. The referee gets up in time to see Sting get thrown over the top for the CHEAP DQ.

Rating: C. Well it was fun while it lasted but I’ve never been able to stand that over the top rule. This was kind of a backdrop for the Spivey vs. Luger match but that didn’t exactly work. It was ok I guess but the match didn’t really go anywhere and the titles never felt like they were in danger at all.

We unveil the winner of the WCW’s Sexiest Wrestler award. It’s Z-Man. Next.

TV Title: Z-Man vs. Bobby Eaton

Z-Man is champion here. They REALLY crank in chants for Bobby here. Either that or 2000 people can chant louder for Bobby Eaton than they can for Goldberg. Dusty talks about how great both guys are. I can see why Z-Man won the sexiest wrestler thing. Apparently Zenk had already lost the title at a TV Taping so this shouldn’t really mean much at all. This is live mind you so imagine his mindset.

Dusty’s voice gets REALLY old when he’s comfortable which he definitely is here. The problem is that he talks A LOT. Eaton works the arm a bit but goes up and Z-Man hits a sweet dropkick to send him to the floor. And then Dusty talks about how great Brian Pillman is for no apparent reason. He also can’t wait to remind us that he’s a former TV Champion either.

They start slugging it out as Dusty is getting harder and harder to ignore. We hit a test of strength as Ross says Terry Taylor is a tough guy. Oh dear. If this is the show I think it is we get another stupid moment in WCW history coming up very soon. As Dusty talks about getting hit in the head with a stick, Eaton goes up again and gets caught one more time.

Superkick puts Eaton down. Big backdrop and Eaton is in trouble. Who covers someone off a backdrop? Who does he think he is, Moolah? Eaton gets him down and manages to get the top rope knee drop but Z-Man gets to the ropes. Cradle gets two for the champion but he walks into a neckbreaker that gets two for Eaton.

You can see fans leaving for the concession stand. Nice to see a title match has them so enthralled. Z-Man gets a freaking back slide of all things to get the pin to retain. Eaton’s shoulder might have been up though so expect another match before the airing of Arn winning the title.

Rating: C+. This started out slow but it got a lot better once they picked up the pace a bit. Eaton is a guy that is straight up underrated in wrestling as he consistently put on great match after great match. This was fine for what it was, even though it would have been understandable for Z-Man to do next to nothing out there.

The replay shows that it wasn’t even close with Eaton completely kicking out before three. That was pretty bad.

Alexandra York (Terri) says that she has selected the newest member of the York Foundation (computer assisted heel group that more or less sucked) and we’ll see him tonight.

Fabulous Freebirds vs. Allen Iron Eagle/Tommy Rich

I don’t know who Eagle is either. This is Garvin and Hayes. The Birds are heels here but good luck getting a team called the Freebirds booed in Georgia. Dang it now I’m going to have Badstreet USA stuck in my head all day. Hayes and Rich start as we actually get a reference to the world title reign of Rich. Eagle is another Indian character.

The Indian character of course chops a lot. I’m stunned too. Garvin does….something and down goes Eagle. Eagle ducked his head like he was going for a backdrop and Garvin ran up to him to set for a DDT (finisher) but Eagle just fell backwards. Weird as heck  but whatever. We hit the chinlock as this isn’t much at all. Hayes punches him and it sounds great. Eagle forgets to sell and just stands there, making him one of the worst guys I’ve seen in a long time.

Dusty and Jim try desperately to say that Eagle was stunned from the move and it’s just funny as can be. Anyway, Hayes is ticked and beats the tar out of him on the floor with some hard stuff. When Michael Hayes is the ring general, you know you’re in real trouble. Dusty of course talks about being able to go down Badstreet and be ok because he’s tough.

Amazingly enough they manage to screw up something else with Eagle not realizing that Garvin is supposed to be doing a blind charge so Garvin has to throw up a knee to save the spot. Everyone comes in and we get an awkward looking kick to the guy before an awkward looking sunset flip sets up the tag to Rich that isn’t seen. The Birds DDT the heck out of Eagle to end it, thankfully.

Rating: D-. This is a horrible match, but it’s one of those matches where you can laugh at it very hard. The match is bad, don’t get me wrong, but Eagle was so bad that he was hilarious. There were at least 5 botched spots in a seven minute match. Let that sink in for a bit. It really was that bad.

Dusty talks to Paul E. Dangerously about the arm wrestling match tonight with Missy Hyatt and implies that Paul is gay. Dusty of course has more to talk about which is what he’s there for. Dusty’s comments here are flat out sexist but it’s Georgia so he can get away with it I guess. Somehow Heyman gets into I Have A Dream. Moving on.

Joey Maggs vs. Sid Vicious

What do you think is going to happen here? Sid brings his own paramedics with him if that tells you anything. Sid’s hometown of Anywhere He Darn Well Pleases is still great stuff. He’s a Horseman here too. A clothesline and powerbomb end this in maybe a minute. Sid was a bit of a nut but that powerbomb was sweet every time. The paramedics come out and we take a break. Back with Sid beating up Maggs some more on the stretcher. That’s kind of awesome.

Tony talks to Sid who says everyone fears him.

Ricky Morton vs. Terry Taylor

Here’s another one of WCW’s famous goofs. Terry Taylor is introduced as the Computerized Man of the 90s. That would be all fine and good except for one thing: That was his name once he turned heel. The problem is that the heel turn was that the heel turn hadn’t happened yet, completely giving away the ending of the match. Why did Capetta (ring announcer) even have that on his card? What sense does that even begin to make? Early 90s WCW is made fun of a lot, but it’s not really a secret as to why is it?

Taylor wants respect or something, also giving a good indication of the already spoiled heel turn. Robert Gibson is injured here which would eventually lead to Morton joining the York Foundation as well. Technical/feeling out process to start with no one being able to get a distinct advantage. Nice arm drags by Morton. They speed things up a bit but still no one can get an advantage.

We take a break as Taylor hits the floor to break the momentum. Back with Terry holding an armbar. Nice jawbreaker by Morton has Taylor in trouble though as they’re going back and forth rather nicely here. Dusty of course can’t stop talking long enough for Ross to talk about the match but it’s Dusty’s show so who cares? Alexandra York comes down now as we’re not sure who she’s here for. Apparently no one was listening to the intros either.

For no apparent reason we get an inset promo from York, saying that Taylor is indeed the newest member of the York Foundation and that her computer has told her how he’s going to win this. That was the gimmick of the Foundation: the computer would predict the outcome of the match, such as here where it says the time of the fall and what Taylor will win with. It’s as dumb as it sounds.

Morton gets a small package for two as Taylor turns heel and wrestles all evil and such. A bad bulldog gets two for Taylor. It amazes me that they had wireless so early in the 90s. Morton hammers away in the corner and gets a suplex for two. Dropkick puts Taylor down but a second misses and Morton hits the mat rather hard, allowing Taylor to steal the pin.

Rating: C. It’s ok and the early part is good but other than that this was kind of flat. Morton’s singles time was kind of awkward as he was definitely the better half of the team but he wasn’t someone people wanted to see without his partner. This was ok but nothing really all that special.

We get a preview of the Japanese women’s wrestling at WrestleWar. And 8 seconds is all we get of that.

We see Sting getting the Wrestler of the Year award which allegedly was totally rigged or something.

Dusty talks (naturally) about the Gulf War and praises the troops. The war had just ended or was about to end which messed up the Wrestlemania plans Vince had. How dare international politics and wars get in the way of Wrestlemania??? Didn’t Sadaam watch Superstars?

Ranger Ross vs. El Cubano

Ross is a military dude that would be gone soon after this and in prison for robbery, domestic violence, embezzlement and attempted arson by 1996. Somehow an evil masked Communist is looking like a good guy all of a sudden. Cubano is just a masked guy that is apparently Cuban. In an inset interview Ross praises the troops as well.

Apparently if you can see a guy’s face you can read their mind. This is of course according to Dusty. JR says that Ross (the wrestler that is) is a great role model for anyone of any color. Really? The color line was needed there? Cubano misses a top rope splash and Ross sends him to the floor. Ross runs to the ropes and dives over feet first in a plancha type dive. It wasn’t to hit Cubano or anything. That’s just how he left the ring. A rollup ends it maybe 8 seconds later.

Rating: N/A. The odd comments here were more interesting than the match. This went nowhere of course as it was a generic evil guy against Ross who was gone probably before the next PPV. Just a squash.

Ad for WrestleWar and Wargames.

Arn Anderson/Barry Windham vs. Renegade Warriors

The Renegade Warriors are the Youngblood brothers minus Jay who was dead by now. There are massive portraits of the Horsemen behind the ring on the wall. Yeah this isn’t going to be dominance at all. The Warriors jump the Horsemen to start and it’s a big brawl. Sweet merciful crap they look stupid though with their tights being more or less bright plaid.

Windham and one of the Warriors start this off. Arn’s eyes are flat out hilarious. When he gets freaked out you would think he was in a Three Stooges sketch with how freaked out he is. Dusty really likes to remind us that this is in color. Ok Chris is in the singlet. Arn takes him to the mat and works the knee but gets rolled up for two and Arn wants time out.

Off to Barry now and the Horsemen can’t get anything going at all here. Mark beats up Arn a bit. Oh I forgot: the Warriors are Mark and Chris. That might help a bit. Arn gets a spinebuster out of nowhere and the writing is on the wall now. Off to Barry who gets a kind of jumping DDT for two. Dusty rambles about putting your wife in a front facelock and something about a shotgun as Arn and Chris ram heads.

Atomic drop takes care of Chris but they botch Arn’s pump splash out of the corner as he never hits it but he more or less did here since Chris didn’t roll out of the way and barely got a knee up. Mark back in and it’s a big brawl all over again. He gets sent to the floor though and the Horsemen just destroy Chris with a lariat and the superplex for the easy pin.

Rating: D+. Just a long match that wasn’t interesting or anything as we needed seven and a half minutes somehow to show that the Horsemen are awesome over a glorified jobbing tag team. Nothing that terrible but it still wasn’t all that good at all. Too long as it should have been about half this long.

We get a clip of Vader vs. Stan Hansen from Japan which was a freaking war. They’ve having another match at WrestleWar. Hansen, tobacco flowing everywhere, says that it’ll be a real war between real men at the PPV.

Buddy Lee Parker vs. Brian Pillman

Parker is the guy that trained Goldberg and is widely considered to be one of the biggest jerks in the history of wrestling. In short, he was very short and according to Batista had a bad case of Napoleon Syndrome, meaning he hated being small so he tried to use his authority as head of the Power Plant to compensate for it, including telling Batista he had no future in wrestling for some reason. He was a jobber that thought he had meant something in other words.

This is really just a way to talk about WarGames which Pillman is in. He would be the ending of the match as Sid would more or less kill him with a powerbomb and they had to stop the match due to it. Crucifix gets two for Pillman. Even Parker’s basic offense looks bad. Dusty says he has a daughter named Cody. I’ll leave that one alone. Pillman gets a great plancha over the top to take down Parker on the ramp. Top rope cross body ends this squash (notice a theme going on here?) with barely a bit of sweat from Pillman.

Rating: D+. This was a squash but it was a bit longer than the other ones tonight outside of the tag match. Pillman looked great but since he’s in the main event of a PPV shouldn’t we expect that? A squash is fine but what’s the point of having a bunch of them on one show, especially a major one like this? This wasn’t much at all but Pillman’s flying was awesome stuff.

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It’s time to arm wrestle! This was part of the never ending until it ended feud between Paul E. Dangerously and various men as he was feuding with Missy here. Some country DJ is the ring announcer for this. Oh and let’s talk about the troops because that’s just what southern people do. Dangerously being billed as the Psycho Yuppie continues to crack me up.

This is one of the funniest moments in company history as Missy comes out in this big workout jacket but as she is warming up and Paul isn’t looking, Missy takes the jacket off to reveal a low cut top. Heyman’s jaw drops and Hyatt gets the easy win in like two seconds. Funny stuff.

Lawrence Taylor is chilling with the Horsemen at some bar in New Jersey, even though Flair is defending the title tonight in Georgia. This was odd and rather pointless indeed.

WCW World Title: Scott Steiner vs. Ric Flair

From what I can find, both Flair and Dusty (booking here) came to Scott and flat out said the title is yours, just say the word. Steiner was absolutely awesome at this point and he really was on the verge of shattering the glass ceiling and becoming the top guy in the world. However, he turned them down because it was pretty clear that as soon as his singles push went into effect, Rick was gone. He wouldn’t win the world title for nearly ten years.

Hiro Matsuda is here from NJPW because the first Superbrawl with Fujinami vs. Flair is coming up. El Gigante is here too. Flair won’t shake his hand which resulted in a brief feud between them. Flair has been champion less than three weeks here, getting it back from Sting earlier this month. This has TV time remaining which I’d almost bet anything on that playing into the finish.

Flair shows off his biceps and Steiner is like boy please. Feeling out process to start as you would expect there to be. Steiner counters a top wristlock and Rick gets in Ric’s face as he grabs the ropes. Dusty thinks Scott would like to go into WrestleWar as World Champion. You can’t buy analysis like this people.

Flair hits the floor a bit to buy some time as Scott has been on fire so far. A little more feeling out stuff results in Scott grabbing another armbar. This is some nice technical stuff so far. Flair goes for the knee and Steiner is like oh no you didn’t and clotheslines the tar out of him so Flair hides again. Surprisingly an atomic drop breaks up Steiner’s momentum. I’m surprised his balls can feel anything with all those steroids in him.

Rick shoves Ric’s feet off the ropes when Flair tries to cheat. Is there a reason for those portraits of Anderson and Windham to still be there? Steiner powers out of a cover as we take a break. Back with Steiner throwing the Figure Four on Flair. He’s no Jay Lethal though so he can’t get the tap out. How often do you see a face in control when you come back from a break?

In an awkward looking spot, Flair charges at Steiner but Steiner falls backwards and Flair goes over the ropes. In the awkward part Steiner is supposed to go over also but didn’t have the momentum so after he was stopped he jumped into the air and went over the top. We have ten minutes of TV time left. Flair goes in for the kill on the knee and yells at Rick a lot.

Figure Four goes on and Steiner is in trouble. As we wait for the inevitable reversal, I wonder why the ring ropes were blue, black and yellow. What kind of a weird combination is that? The hold is broken via rope so Flair puts it on again in the middle of the ring. Steiner easily turns is over and we’re back on now.

Flair goes to the floor and Steiner takes him down with a Steiner Line. Down to five minutes remaining. Steiner pounds away in the corner as his leg is ok now. Nick Patrick stops Steiner from punching and Flair a shot in to take over a bit. Ross takes a breath so Dusty talks for a minute or so about how much experience he has in the ring. Under four minutes and Steiner gets a bad sleeper.

Steiner clotheslines Flair over so they alter the rules again so that’s not a DQ with three minutes left. Knee drop by Flair as Steiner is in trouble. Two minutes left and Flair is in the stall mode. Steiner gets a sweet bridge up into a Tiger Bomb but doesn’t cover for no apparent reason.

Ric is on the floor with a minute left. Steiner Line has Flair reeling with 30 seconds left. Flair Flip out of the corner and there’s not enough time. Belly to belly gets two as the bell rings for the time. The whole TV time thing is bogus as we go off the air a minute and a half after TV time expires. Ah ok we needed to show the credits. That explains it. Heaven forbid we don’t know that Ted Turner is responsible for this.

Rating: B. This was good for what it was but with more time it could have been great. Like I said this could have been a title change if Steiner had given it the ok but he decided a tag team was more important. Anyway this was good stuff and it worked rather well considering Steiner didn’t have much big match experience at all. Fun match and interesting for the most part but the ending might as well have been announced at the beginning given how obvious it was.

Overall Rating: D+. Well they tried but at the end of the day there was too much weak stuff here to make this a really good show. The main event is solid but other than that there wasn’t much here at all. Far too many squashes and uninteresting matches for the first hour and a half setting up a good main event doesn’t make a good show though. 91 was really bad for WCW down the line and this was probably the best time for them in the year until the very end of the year. Pretty bad show but the main event is solid. That’s about it.

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