He’s going to be paid to sit at home until his contract runs out. I can’t say I’m complaining as the last few years haven’t been the most interesting for TNA. At the end of the day, they had one really good idea with the THEY ARE COMING storyline and since then it’s been downhill for me. As usual, back to square one for TNA.
Back in the 80s, PPV didn’t mean nearly as much as it did today. Until November of 1987, there was only one WWF PPV a year and that was Wrestlemania. Wrestlemania 3 was a huge success and it was clear that Wrestlemania 4 would be big too. Finally it dawned on them: why not do more of these things? Combine that with the idea of getting to air the show at the same time as Jim Crockett’s (basically the NWA owner at that point) Starrcade to screw them over (Vince told the cable companies either carry Survivor Series or you don’t get to carry Wrestlemania), there was no reason to not go with it.
That being said, they needed an idea. Earlier in the year, the WWF had run a few house shows with elimination tag matches as the main event. These shows were huge successes, so why not run a full card of them? Headlined by Team Hogan vs. Team Andre in Andre’s first match since Wrestlemania when he lost to Hogan, plus three other matches headlined by big feuds, you had a solid card all set. You guys probably know the drill by this point: every day I’ll be posting a review of the Survivor Series, starting here with 1987 and going up to the 2013 review on the Sunday of the show. Let’s get to it.
Survivor Series 1987
Date: November 26, 1987
Location: Richfield Coliseum, Richfield, Ohio
Attendance: 21,300
Commentators: Gorilla Monsoon, Jesse Ventura
So we’re here in Richfield, just outside of Cleveland, where the first two of these shows would take place. There are four matches on the card tonight but none of them compare to the main event which has Andre vs. Hogan. The idea is that it gives Andre a chance for revenge and a chance for Hogan to prove that his initial win wasn’t a fluke. This was still the money match in the company so it’s a huge deal. Let’s get to it.
The Fink introduces Jesse and Gorilla which is something you don’t often see anymore.
After a highlight package we’re ready to go.
Gorilla and Jess talk about the whole card, all four matches on it. They also explain the rules, which I’m sure most of you are familiar with. We have ten man (or woman or team) tag team matches and it’s standard elimination rules, meaning you can be out via pin, submission, countout or DQ. Also you can be put out via a referee’s discretion due to injury but that never actually happens as far as I remember.
Team Honky (there’s a name you could never get away with today) is ready for Team Savage and Honky says he’ll shake rattle and roll Elizabeth. He’s already shoved her down which is a big deal as Liz was like the ultimate untouchable woman.
Team Honky Tonk Man vs. Team Randy Savage
Honky Tonk Man, Harley Race, Ron Bass, Danny Davis, Hercules
Randy Savage, Jim Duggan, Ricky Steamboat, Jake Roberts, Brutus Beefcake
Honky doesn’t have Cool Cocky bad as his theme music yet which is a shame. It’s amazing how great the music got in the late 80s. After the heel entrances, Team Savage says they’re here to settle scores. This was a different time as almost all of the faces were friends by default as were the heels just because they were faces and heels. The feuds going into this are Honky vs. Savage and Race vs. Duggan. Other than that the guys are just random midcarders who are faces or heels on a team, which is a pretty cool idea.
The place erupts for Savage’s entrance. Even Jesse couldn’t deny how great Randy was and was a huge fan in his own right. It was clear they had to do something with him soon, and they certainly did soon enough. In the answer to a trivia question, it’s Beefcake vs. Hercules starting the first Survivor Series match ever. Beefcake struts a bit and not much goes on for the first 20 seconds or so.
Hercules (guess what he’s known for) runs Beefcake over but walks into Barber’s sleeper but he falls into his corner to tag in Davis, one of the lowest lever guys you’ll ever find who somehow wasn’t a jobber. He’s a wrestling referee. Seriously, that’s the extent of his gimmick. He’s a referee who cheated a lot and got fired. Savage and Steamboat (who are apparently fine after wanting to kill each other about eight months ago) take turns on Davis but Steamboat misses a charge and it’s off to Race, the current King of the WWF.
Steamboat chops Race in the head and man alive how amazing would those two be able to be in a long old school program? Steamboat skins the cat (I’ve asked this many times, but is that really the best name they could come up with for that? I mean, skinning a cat?) and sends Race to the floor before bringing in Duggan to pound away on Race, knocking him to the floor. Hacksaw heads out with him and they brawl to a double countout, making it 4-4.
Bass (a standard old school cowboy) comes in to face Roberts but it’s quickly off to Savage. A knee sends Bass into the corner and Savage is starting to roll very fast. Savage immediately goes after Honky due to the really bad blood between the two of them and it’s lets Bass get in a shot. Off to the IC Champion (Honky) who gets in some cheap shots but like any good heel, he tags out when Savage starts coming back.
Bass comes in again but a blind tag brings in Barber (Beefcake for you younguns) who hits a high knee for the elimination. Hercules comes in and the bad guys start working over Beefcake’s arm. Off to Honky with an armbar and then right back to Herc. Wisely they’re keeping that schmuck Danny Davis out of there. I guess he’s there because he works for Jimmy Hart but other than that there’s no logical reason for him to be there.
Beefcake tries to punch his way out of trouble but Honky stays on the arm. To say Honky wasn’t much on offense is an understatement as he barely looks to be cranking on the hold at all. Beefcake fights out of the hold but won’t tag because he’s kind of dumb. Davis adds the only thing he’s going to add the whole match and knees Beefcake in the back so that Honky can hit the Shake Rattle and Roll (swinging neckbreaker) for the pin on Beefcake to tie us up at three.
Off to Savage vs. Hercules with the power guy taking over. Davis comes in and things suddenly go downhill for Honky’s team. Yeah, a referee beating on Randy Savage doesn’t work. Who would have guessed? Honky comes in and gets elbowed in the head which lets Savage tag in Jake to pound away. The comeback doesn’t last long though as Jake charges into a boot in the corner and it’s off to Herc. That goes nowhere so here’s Davis and since his offense sucks (BECAUSE HE’S A REFEREE) Jake shrugs it all off and DDTs him to death, making it 3-2 (Savage/Steamboat/Roberts vs. Hercules/Honky).
Herc comes in and takes Jake down and Savage tries to come in for a save, which just allows the heels to double team Jake. Savage isn’t thinking here because of his anger, almost like…..a savage. Oh you’re very clever WWF. Honky hooks a chinlock and Hercules comes in to do the same. Jake hits a jawbreaker to escape and there’s the hot tag to Steamboat who cleans house with chops.
A top rope chop has Herc reeling and it’s off to Savage for the elbow. It’s just Honky left and Savage explodes on him, only to miss another charge (third one for Savage’s team) and let Honky get in some offense. That lasts all of six seconds as the beating continues. Jake comes in and pounds away on him, followed by Savage dropping a double ax. An atomic drop sends Honky to the floor and he’s like screw this and takes the countout. Can you blame him?
Rating: B. This was a really fun match with a good story to it. The fans HATED Honky and the idea of getting him caught at the end with no one to defend him had the fans going nuts. Honky vs. Savage was a great feud but it never had a blowoff due to a bunch of backstage stuff. Honky would somehow hold the title nine more months before perhaps the greatest end to a title run ever at Summerslam. This was a great choice for a first match ever for the concept too as it showed how the idea worked and gave the fans something to cheer about too. Really good stuff.
Heenan and Team Andre can’t wait to get their hands on Hogan. We get a clip from the controversial cover at Wrestlemania 3, which when you look at it, Heenan has a point: the referee wouldn’t have been able to see Hogan’s shoulder get up. The point of this is Hogan is going to be caught against all these monsters and then it’s going to be Andre vs. Hogan and Andre will kill him.
Team Fabulous Moolah vs. Team Sensational Sherri
Fabulous Moolah, Jumping Bomb Angels, Velvet McIntyre, Rockin Robin
Sensational Sherri, Glamour Girls, Dawn Marie, Donna Christianello
Sherri recently took the Women’s Title from Moolah who is certainly on the decline in her career. To be fair she’s 64 years old here and had been champion earlier in the year. The Angels are the kind of a team that would blow have blown up the internet if it had existed back then. They were awesome high fliers and I’ve never seen women like them since. Sherri and Velvet start us off as Jesse talks about being in The Running Man.
Sherri beats on Velvet but a cross body puts her down and it’s off to Moolah. Moolah literally pulls in Christianello and it’s off to a Bomb Angel who comes in with a slingshot kick. Back to Velvet as these girls are tagging in and out fast. Velvet gets a quick victory roll on Donna to eliminate her. She was just filling in a spot so that’s a good elimination to get out of the way. Judy Martin of the Glamour Girls (the Women’s Tag Champions. The titles didn’t last long) comes in followed quickly by Dawn Marie (this one is old. The more famous one would be in high school still at this point) who does nothing of note.
Martin is back in vs. Robin, the half sister of Jake Roberts, but it’s quickly back to Marie who is another filler on the team. Robin quick cross bodies her for the pin and it’s 5-3. It’s Kai vs. Izuki now with Izuki flying all over the place before Matrixing out of a cover. Jesse sounds amazed by her and rightfully so given what women’s wrestling was like at this time. A Sin Cara style armdrag takes Kai down and it’s off to Sherri who gets beaten up as well before it’s off to Robin again.
Robin tries a monkey flip out of the corner but the now legal Martin lands on her. The champ (Sherri in this case) comes in with a quick suplex to put Robin out and get us down to 4-3. Izuki comes in and things speed up again. Martin back in and she spins Izuki around by the hair. FREAKING OW MAN! Off to Moolah who hits a better monkey flip than Robin before getting elbowed down by Martin for two.
Off to the Angel that isn’t Izuki vs. Kai but Non-Izuki misses a dropkick. Moolah literally gets dragged into the ring and starts her very old school slow paced offense. Sherri cheats with Martin on a double clothesline to eliminate Moolah and it’s tied at 3-3. Off to Izuki vs. Martin before it’s quickly back to Non-Izuki. Jesse is thrilled with the idea of all the cheating you could do in this match. Velvet puts on a Boston Crab before shifting to a surfboard. McIntyre pulls Sherri in and Sensational hits a kind of gutwrench suplex which drives Velvet’s neck into the mat and I think somewhat legit hurting her back.
Izuki comes in for a few seconds before it’s back to Velvet and Sherri with Velvet hooking a giant swing. Velvet grabs a victory roll for a quick pin and she looks like she’s in agony. She could barely cradle Sherri’s legs. Off to Izuki as Velvet can’t even stand on the apron. Izuki tries to suplex Martin but she’s just too fat. The third attempt finally works but it only gets two. Izuki hooks a body scissors but gets countered into a slingshot. It’s right into her corner and Velvet comes in, only to get caught in an electric chair drop for the pin.
It’s down to the Glamour Girls vs. the Jumping Bomb Angels and the Angels take over very quickly, with Izuki slingshotting Martin onto Kai. Kai kicks Non-Izuki in the back but misses a splash. Izuki hits a top rope crossbody and it’s down to 2-1. Martin comes in and hits something like Wasteland on Izuki for two. Non-Izuki comes in with a top rope knee and things speed up. Jimmy Hart gets dropkicked and a top rope clothesline by Non-Izuki gets the final pin.
Rating: C+. While it wasn’t as good as the opener, this was still pretty solid stuff. The Angels were AWESOME for their time and were still good by today’s standards. This would set up a title match at the first Royal Rumble with the Angels taking the titles. One important difference between today’s women and this generations: these girls were wrestlers who happened to be female. Today the Divas come off as female wrestlers if that makes sense.
Most of Team Hart Foundation says they’re not worried about Team Strike Force. Jimmy Hart pops in and is all messed up after getting dropped.
The Bolsheviks do the Russian National Anthem deal.
Strike Force and company are ready as well.
Team Hart Foundation vs. Team Strike Force
Hart Foundation, Bolsheviks, Demolition, Dream Team, Islanders
Strike Force, British Bulldogs, Killer Bees, Young Stallions, Fabulous Rougeaus
The rules here are that if one member of a team is eliminated, both members are out so it’s still just five eliminations needed. Strike Force recently stunned the Harts for the titles. I think you should know every team here. The Dream Team is Greg Valentine and Dino Bravo and the Stallions are Jim Powers and Paul Roma. I’m a big Strike Force fan so it’s good to see the fans pop loudly for them.
I’ve seen this show many times as it was one of my favorite tapes but I’ve never figured something out: for this and the main event, the lights are turned down. Why would that be the case? It’s clearly darker in the arena now and it’s not a dome with sunlight coming in or anything. I’ve never gotten that. Volkoff and Martel start things off. There are so many people on the apron that you can’t see most of the ring from a standard camera shot.
Volkoff powers him down to start before bringing in Zhukov. Since Zhukov is pretty much worthless, Martel beats him up and brings in Santana for the forearm out of nowhere for the quick pin. Santana’s reward for the pin: he gets to fight Ax. Ax does his pounding but knocks Tito into the corner and it’s off to Jacques Rougeau who speeds things up with a jumping back elbow to take over.
Dino Bravo comes in and the good guys start speeding up their tags. I’m sorry for all of the play by play in this but when you have 18 guys in a match there isn’t much room for analysis or anything else. After Bravo gets beaten up by about five different guys we wind up with Smash vs. Dynamite and the Bulldog (Dynamite) gets caught in the heel corner. Well actually it would be the heel side of the ring because they don’t all fit in one corner but corner sounds better.
Off to Haku and they chop it out before Dynamite tags in a Killer Bee who tags in the other Killer Bee. Neidhart comes in and gets his legs stretched by Brunzell and Roma. Back to Smash and then Ax who beat on the (somehow) future Horseman. I’m not listing a lot of the tags as there are probably five of them a minute and there’s no point in listing off stuff like “Ax comes in and hits Roma once before tagging back out.”
Roma tags in Powers who gets beaten down just as fast as Roma did, so it’s off to Jacques again. Not that it matters much as Jacques misses a cross body and Smash gets a quick pin. That’s good as we’re now down to sixteen guys left in the match. Off to Dynamite vs. Tama but Powers comes in, only to hesitate and gets his head taken off by a clothesline. Neidhart comes in and puts him in an over the shoulder powerbomb position as Haku drops a double ax (is there a single ax?) to the chest.
Off to Roman who gets beaten up by Ax and then Valentine. The Stallions are jobbers for all intents and purposes but they were great at selling so there was a point to having them around. Bravo comes in and hits a gutwrench suplex for two. Roma crawls over and brings in a Killer Bee who tags out to Dynamite almost immediately to face Smash. Smash fires off something similar to Sheamus’ ten forearms but shoves the referee, drawing the DQ to knock out Demolition. Notice that they kept Demolition VERY strong here and didn’t let them get pinned.
Bret immediately comes in and piledrives Dynamite for only two. Jesse immediately starts singing Bret’s praises as he was known to do. Bret misses a charge and hits the post shoulder first and it’s off to Powers again to face Tama. Tama misses a Vader Bomb and there’s the tag to Martel. Rick cleans house but when he puts the Boston Crab on he’s too close to the ropes and Neidhart gets a tag.
Rick gets away enough to bring in Santana who hits the forearm almost immediately for two. The saving shot to the back of Santana’s head by Bret is enough for Neidhart to get a pin and eliminate the champions. To recap, we have the Harts, the Dream Team and the Islanders vs. the Bulldogs, the Stallions and the Bees. At least now things can slow down a lot. Haku hits a HIGH dropkick on Powers as Jesse talks about his great great grandfather coming over on the Mayflower.
Valentine comes in and does Arn Anderson’s jump in the air and get crotched spot. Anvil (Neidhart for you schmucks out there) comes in and hot shots Powers followed by a superkick from Haku. Off to Valentine who has his suplex countered but still blocks the tag by bringing in Hitman. Bret suplexes Powers but Roma is still able to get the tag somehow. Back to Valentine who comes off the middle rope with a shot to the back for two.
In something you rarely see, Bret whips Roma into the ropes and knocks Valentine off the apron. Bret misses a dropkick and there’s the tag to Dynamite. A belly to back gets two for the Kid and it’s off to Roma which is a pretty questionable move given the beating he’s taken. Off to Haku vs. Blair as Roma was only in for a few seconds. Davey comes in and it’s power vs. power. Make that power vs. Powers but Jim misses a corner charge and Haku tags Anvil.
Powers dives away from Bret and it’s time for Davey Boy vs. Bret in a Summerslam 92 preview. Davey uses a perfect gorilla press on Hart and hits the powerslam for two on Haku. Dynamite tries a middle rope headbutt (notice all the similarities between Dynamite and Benoit. Benoit basically cloned himself after Dynamite) on Haku but knocks himself silly, allowing Haku to superkick him for the elimination.
It’s 3-2 now and Roma immediately charges in with a dropkick for two. Off to Bravo who misses an elbow and it’s off to Powers. Why won’t they tag the Bees already? Valentine Hammers away on Powers as do both Harts. Valentine comes in for a second before handing it off to Bravo again. Dino hits his side suplex but tags off to Valentine for the Figure Four, which is countered by a kick to the back. Off to Roma who sunset flips Valentine off the top to make it 2-2 (Stallions/Bees vs. Islanders/Harts).
The Bees double team Anvil in a match that by their own words probably happened 300 times over the years. Brunzell hits a high knee to the face for two and it’s off to Bret who does about as well. Tama comes in and takes out Roma and it’s off to Haku. Haku misses a legdrop and it’s back to Brunzell. Brunzell hiptosses him into the heel corner for some reason and Bret comes back in. Roma gets two off a middle rope fist but Hart comes right back with a belly to back suplex.
The Islanders hit a double headbutt and this referee counts SLOW. Haku pounds on Roma and hits a dropkick which is rather impressive for a guy his size. It’s not quite as impressive as Anvil doing a dropkick of his own (literally 2 seconds after Monsoon says he’d like to see Neidhart try one) though. Bret comes back in and Roma slides between Bret’s legs and tags in Brunzell.
Brunzell tries to slam Hart but Tama dropkicks Bret’s back. Brunzell rolls through and gets a fast pin to eliminate the Harts and get us down to 2-1. Tama hooks a nerve hold on Brunzell followed by a shoulderbreaker from Haku. That gets two so Haku puts on a nerve hold of his own. Now Tama puts on ANOTHER nerve hold. To be fair we’re over half an hour into this so the guys are likely getting tired.
Brunzell tries a sunset flip but there’s no strength in it at all and he only gets two. He FINALLY gets a tag off to Powers who tags in Roma for a powerslam for two. Things start to break down a bit and the Bees being in the ring allow the Islanders to double team Roma a bit. Roma escapes enough to tag Blair but Tama kicks him before Blair can even get in. Tama misses an elbow and it’s off to Brunzell again for some reason. He can barely get Tama over for a backdrop but the signature dropkick gets two. Everything breaks down and Blair puts on his mask (it was a thing the Bees did to cheat) and sunset flips Tama for the pin.
Rating: C-. This match just kept going on and on and it was kind of exhausting to sit through. It runs nearly forty minutes and by the end there were no combinations we hadn’t seen already. You could easily cut out fifteen minutes of this match and it would have improved greatly. If you like tag wrestling, find a copy of this NOW but otherwise be ready to fast forward a lot. It’s not a bad match or anything but man alive is it long.
We get a clip of Ted Dibiase in his limo, bragging about how he’s going to spend Thanksgiving planning his next move. It takes money to survive, not toughness. We get some highlights of DiBiase humiliating some fans for money, including making a woman get on all four’s and bark like a dog. One of the fans shown here would one day become WWE Champion and is more famously known as Rob Van Dam. We also see DiBiase buying out a pool for the day so he can use it for himself. Alberto Del Rio wishes he could do this a quarter as well as DiBiase can.
Here’s Honky Tonk who now has Cool Cocky Bad. Odd. He says he wasn’t beaten and everyone saw it. He’ll take a challenge from anyone, and that includes Hogan. We’re clearly on intermission here.
Team Andre the Giant vs. Team Hulk Hogan
Andre the Giant, King Kong Bundy, One Man Gang, Butch Reed, Rick Rude
Hulk Hogan, Bam Bam Bigelow, Don Muraco, Ken Patera, Paul Orndorff
After Andre’s team comes out, we go to the back for a great late 80s Hogan insane promo. He talks about how hungry all of his team is and apparently he trusts Orndorff again. Muraco is subbing for an injured Billy Graham who would never wrestle again if I remember correctly. To say the place erupts for Hogan is an understatement. Muraco and Rude get things going here. Again there aren’t many feuds going on here other than Hogan vs. Andre. Rude and Orndorff are feuding but other than that I don’t think there were any established programs already.
Rude gets knocked into the corner and quintuple teamed before it’s off to Orndorff for the tag. Paul knocks him around a bit and here’s Hogan to blow the roof off the place again. He drops a bunch of elbows on Rude and here’s Bigelow with a splash for no cover. Bigelow gorilla presses Rude and here’s Patera who never got back to where he was before his jail stint.
Off to Reed who has about as much luck as Rude had earlier. Muraco comes in and dropkicks Reed down as does Orndorff. Paul beats on him for a bit and it’s a double clothesline from Hogan and Orndorff, leading to the big leg and a 5-4 lead for Hogan and company. Andre comes in while Hogan is celebrating, but Joey Marella (Gorilla’s adopted son) says a high five to Patera counted as a tag so the teasing of the crowd continues.
Andre, the Frenchman that he is, thinks Patera is beneath him and tags out to Bundy. Patera clotheslines Bundy down but King tags in Gang to beat on Orndorff. Paul is all like BRING IT ON and punches Gang in the head, only to charge into a knee in the corner to bring him right back down. Off to Rude who gets his own head taken off by a clothesline. It’s been ALL Hulk N Pals so far.
Rude pokes Muraco in the eye and it’s off to Gang, but OMG misses a splash in the corner. Patera gets in and pounds away on Gang even more with right hands and a knee in the corner. Gang goes to the eyes which of course makes Jesse happy. Patera tries to fight back but they clothesline each other and Gang falls on top of him for the pin, making it 4-4. Hogan comes in immediately to take over but quickly brings in Bam Bam for a double big boot.
Bigelow is probably the second most popular guy in the company at this point or third at worst behind only Hogan and Savage. They hit head to head and it’s a double tag to Rude and Orndorff. Paul goes nuts on him but as he loads up the piledriver, Bundy jumps him from behind, giving Rude a quick rollup pin. That would be it for Orndorff in the WWF, at least in major spots.
Bigelow comes in and suplexes Rude down before tagging out to Hogan for a high knee (!). A powerslam from Muraco to take Rude out and it’s Gang, Bundy and Andre vs. Bigelow, Hogan and Muraco. Muraco goes after Bundy’s leg which is pretty good strategy. Granted it doesn’t work but at least it was a good idea. Gang comes in and Muraco can’t slam him because he’s really fat. The splash eliminates Muraco and it’s 3-2.
Gang vs. Bigelow now with Bigelow trying a sunset flip, only to get crushed by the power of fat. Bundy clotheslines Bigelow inside out and Jesse says Hogan is going to run if Bigelow gets eliminated. Gorilla RUNS to Hogan’s defense and Jesse freaks. Gang and Bigelow collide and Hogan looks like he’s about to cry. Andre finally comes in and Bigelow looks TINY compared to him.
Bigelow slides between Andre’s legs and FINALLY it’s Hogan vs. Andre. Hogan pounds away and blocks a headbutt and Andre is in trouble. Hogan decks Bundy and Gang before elbowing Andre in the head. Bundy pulls Hogan to the floor and Hulk has to beat up both of the other monsters. He slams both guys, but he’s outside too long and Hogan is counted out. Hogan, the great sportsman that he is, gets back in anyway and is STUNNED, yes STUNNED I SAY about getting counted out. It takes the referees saying that if Hogan doesn’t leave, his whole team is disqualified.
So it’s Bigelow vs. Andre, Bundy and Gang. Bigelow starts with Bundy and clotheslines him down for two. A shoulder block puts Bundy down again and a headbutt gets two. A dropkick staggers Bundy and the King misses a splash. Bigelow hits his slingshot splash to eliminate Bundy and make it 2-1.
Gang comes in immediately and starts pounding away, hooking something like a front facelock. Bigelow gets rammed into Andre’s boot and Gang goes up. Oh this can’t end well. Gang misses a “splash” and Bigelow pins him to get us down to one on one. Let the pain begin. Andre pounds him down, avoids a charge, fires off a bunch of shoulders to the back, and a kind of single arm butterfly suplex gets the final pin for Andre.
Rating: B-. For a main event, this was perfectly fine. More than anything else, it continues Hogan vs. Andre. They had their first match about eight months ago and something like this needed to happen to extend the feud. That’s the reason for the amount of PPVs going up: you need another place to have major feuds. Andre has now won something in direct competition over Hogan and there’s a reason for a rematch. Maybe on February 5th live on NBC?
Hogan IMMEDIATELY runs out and decks Andre with the belt. Hogan clears the ring and says bring it on, but Heenan motions that Hogan has to sign a contract first. Jesse freaks out as Hogan poses. This is a total jerk move by Hulk as he lost completely fairly and is out here because he can’t accept it. I was a Hulkamaniac as a kid, but Hogan was a horrible sport a lot of the time.
Heenan and Andre say they want Hogan and all Hulk has to do is
Overall Rating: B+. This is a pretty excellent show and a GREAT first entry in the series. However I would certainly suggest going with the home video version instead of the full version as it clips some of the repetitive stuff from the tag match which helps it a lot. It also cuts some promos like the DiBiase thing and makes the show a lot easier to sit through. Still though, good show here and well worth seeing.
In something that I’ll be doing with all of these redos, here are the original ratings and the new ratings. I haven’t looked at these until the end of the redo. In order of airing (just captains listed for the sake of less typing):
Ratings Comparison
Team Randy Savage vs. Team Honky Tonk Man
Original: B+
Redo: B
Team Sherri Martel vs. Team Fabulous Moolah
Original: C+
Redo: C+
Team Hart Foundation vs. Team Strike Force
Original: B
Redo: C-
Team Hogan vs. Team Andre the Giant
Original: B
Redo: B-
Overall Rating
Original: A-
Redo: B+
Apparently I liked most of the matches less and the show a bit less overall but still good marks all around.
Here’s the original review if you’re interested.
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Monday Nitro #140
Date: June 8, 1998
Location: The Palace of Auburn Hills, Auburn Hills, Michigan
Commentators: Larry Zbyszko, Bobby Heenan, Tony Schiavone, Mike Tenay
We’re at the last Nitro before the Great American Bash and we have a new co-main event for Sunday of Sting vs. Giant for the tag titles. It’s hard to say what we’re going to get tonight as almost everything is set, meaning we’ve got a three hour commercial for a show that doesn’t sound all that interesting in the first place. Let’s get to it.
We open with Michael Buffer doing his Are You Ready schtick. Instead of a big match though, he’s introducing Hogan and Bischoff for the opening promo. They have a special guest with them though as Dennis Rodman is back. Bischoff sucks up to Hogan and Hollywood brags about having Rodzilla back with him. He dares Piper and Savage to come out here for a fight right now. Rodman gets the mic and says hey a lot and sucks up to the Detroit fans since he used to play for the Pistons. Bischoff tells the fans to bite him and Hogan brags about how awesome the Black and White are. Not much to see here.
We look at Sting joining the Wolfpack because we haven’t seen it in a few minutes.
Opening sequence.
Nitro Girls.
The announcers talk about the power struggle for a few minutes as is their custom.
We get some interviews Mike conducted with fans on Sting joining the Red and Black. I don’t think the main event of Starrcade got this much attention.
Here’s the Wolfpack with something to say. Nash, the hometown boy, sucks up to the Detroit crowd before praising Luger to sign Sting up and then get DDP to team with him on Thunder. Kev talks about being ready to walk out of the business about five years ago because he couldn’t get a break, but DDP believed in him. That being said, now DDP needs to make a decision.
The Wolfpack has had a vote and it was nearly unanimous (apparently Savage voted no in a nice bit of continuity): they want him in the Wolfpack. Two years ago Page decided to not go Black and White and that was the right call. Tonight though he can make the right call and join the Dream Team. This brings Nash to Hogan but the mic stops working. Hogan’s voice comes from the technical area where the Black and White are watching the show. Rodman is allowed to set off some pyro and turn off the lights to get rid of the Wolfpack.
Konnan interviews JJ Dillon in the back and asks him to prevent the Black and White from doing anything else tonight. JJ says that it’s the Wolfpack’s problem, not WCW’s.
Yuji Nagata vs. Jerry Flynn
Flynn gets in some kicks to the ribs and pounds away in the corner but misses a running kick, sending him out to the floor in a heap. Back in and a high collar suplex gets two for Nagata but Jerry comes back with a snap suplex of his own as the announcers talk about anything but this match. A leg lock gets Nagata nowhere so Flynn comes back with a DDT for two. Yuji comes back with a jumping kick to the face but Flynn hits a kick to Nagata’s head to even it up. Tony talks about some announcement we’ll get on Thunder as Jerry goes after Sonny Onoo, allowing Nagata to put on the Nagata Lock for the win.
Rating: D. I’m really tired of these karate showdowns because there’s nothing to any of these characters other than they like to kick people. Neither guy here is interesting in the slightest and it’s really questionable to have this as the first match in over half an hour. Is it any wonder why no one stuck around to watch these shows when Raw came on?
Here’s Jericho with an envelope and something to say. It’s a registered letter from Ted Turner himself. The letter says that Jericho has asked Turner to look at the Cruiserweight Title loss. Turner praises him for tenacity and thinks Jericho has a lot of the same traits Turner himself had. After reviewing the tapes from Slamboree, it has been determined that Dean Malenko should not be the champion. However, Jericho’s incessant whining has sickened Turner, so the decision stands. Signed, Uncle Ted Turner.
We see Luger recruiting Page to the Wolfpack from Thunder.
Reese/Horace vs. Van Hammer/Juventud Guerrera
Hammer and Reese get us going but everyone comes in before too long. A double clothesline puts the Flock members down and Juvy hits a springboard seated senton to take Reese down. Juvy pounds away with right hands to send Reese to the floor before hitting a big dive, only to be caught in midair. Hammer dives on top of both of them to put Reese down so the good guys can stand tall. Well kind of tall in Juvy’s case.
We really get started with Hammer vs. Horace and Hulk’s nephew taking Hammer down with a Samoan drop. A running clothesline crushes Hammer in the corner and it’s off to an arm wringer. Horace wraps up the arm but gets caught in a cobra clutch slam, allowing for the hot tag off to Guerrera. A slingshot legdrop keeps Horace down but he gets up a big boot in the corner to put Juvy down.
The big man beating begins with Horace pounding away before hooking a reverse chinlock. Juvy fights up again and snaps off a quick hurricanrana before countering a belly to back superplex into a crossbody. There’s the real hot tag off to Van Hammer who cleans house but regular clotheslines don’t do much damage to Reese. A middle rope clothesline finally takes him down and a Cactus Clothesline puts Horace to the floor. Not that it matters though as Reese hits a chokebomb on Guerrera for the pin.
Rating: D+. Nothing special here but at least there’s a story going on here. Juvy needs to get the win in the showdown with Reese but having him lose in a tag match like this is ok. The match wasn’t all that good but it was a huge step up over the battle of the karate guys from earlier.
The Black and White has a party with some good looking women. Hogan promises a new member of the team soon and talks about how Skinny Legs Nash isn’t getting away with all those powerbombs Hogan had to pay for.
Hour #2 begins with a riveting interview with JJ Dillon. He reiterates that Luger and DDP aren’t tag champions because Giant had no authority to pick a partner to defend the titles. Sunday it’s Sting vs. Giant for both belts and the winner gets to pick his partner.
Eddie Guerrero vs. Scott Putski
Putski is a good example of a guy with a great look with almost nothing else to back it up. Guerrero runs into a hard shoulder to start but takes Scott down with a drop toehold. An elbow to the face sets up an abdominal stretch by Eddie as you can feel the ratings battle slipping away. Putski fights out and hits a scary looking release German suplex, dropping Eddie down on his shoulder. A short powerbomb puts Eddie down as Tony shills the big announcement on Thunder again. Eddie escapes a gorilla press and dropkicks the knee out but here’s Chavo for the DQ without actually doing anything.
Rating: D+. Believe it or not this might have been the match of the night so far. Putski wasn’t doing anything of note but he was throwing Eddie around pretty nicely. He would have been a good candidate to throw into a tag team as a silent enforcer. Eddie was his usual smooth self.
Chavo punches Scott out as Eddie bails. The nephew shouts at Eddie to come back because he needs his uncle.
Nash and Konnan, with the latter in different clothes than he was in earlier, say they’ve got some money from the 5,000 Wolfpack t-shirts they sold tonight so they can pay Hogan back now. The money is in a Swiss bank account down there. Down where you ask? Both guys laugh before they can answer.
Bischoff and Giant are at the tech area again because we haven’t heard enough from the NWO tonight. Apparently Giant hasn’t eaten in four days so he’ll eat Sting on Sunday like the chicken he is. Somehow this took two and a half minutes.
Here are Rude, Hennig and Konnan in his fourth appearance in ninety minutes. Rude cuts a heel promo on Goldberg but Konnan does his usual deal to get the crowd back on the Red and Black’s side. Rude and Hennig just don’t fit with the Wolfpack at all.
Chris Benoit vs. Booker T
Match #6 in the best of seven series for the TV Title shot on Sunday with Booker trailing 3-2. Feeling out process to start until with Booker taking it to the mat, only to have Benoit take over with a hammerlock. Booker counters into one of his own before lifting Benoit into the air into a kind of pumphandle slam. A spinning kick to the face puts Benoit down again and the Canadian bails to the floor.
Back in and Booker hooks another armbar as Heenan talks about Booker having more video equipment to watch tapes than Bob Crane (star of Hogan’s Heroes, eventually became a sex addict who made hundreds of sex tapes). Benoit fights up and hits a knee to the ribs to send Booker out to the floor. The Canadian gets two off an elbow to the face and a snap suplex for the same.
A belly to back suplex gets the same and the Swan Dive connects, but Benoit might have injured his shoulder and can’t cover. Cue Stevie Ray to give Booker a pep talk but his comeback is stopped with a German suplex for two. Booker comes back with a kick to the face and the sidewalk slam but Benoit fires off kicks in the corner to slow Booker down again. Not that it matters as Booker hooks a spinning sunset flip out of the corner for the pin to send up to a seventh match.
Rating: C+. This match is another instance of the same problem this entire series has had: the matches are still good but they’re running out of things to do to each other. Still though, I can’t imagine anything on the show topping what they did here. Thankfully there’s just one match to go in the series though.
Benoit kicks Booker’s leg out post match but Stevie runs him off.
Nitro Girls.
Nitro Party winner.
Hogan and Hart are in the sky box again so Hollywood can make gay jokes about Konnan. We get a pretty awesome Randy Savage impression from Hogan as he brings in Liz. Apparently she’s a gift to Bret and is no longer with Savage. Ok then.
We look at the end of the Booker vs. Benoit movie again with Tony actually praising Benoit’s heel actions. That’s new at least.
TV Title: Fit Finlay vs. Norman Smiley
Finlay grabs a headlock and a cravate to start but Smiley hiptosses him down and scores with a dropkick. Finlay comes back with a rake to the eyes and takes Smiley down into a Crippler Crossface. Back up and a running forearm puts Smiley on the apron for some shots to the chest. The fans do the wave and the announcers actually call it. Finlay puts on an armbar for a bit before planting Norman with the tombstone to retain.
Rating: D. The announcers spent more time talking about the wave, the announcement on Thunder, Booker vs. Benoit, or ANYTHING else they could come up with besides the match. Could it be because Finlay is clearly just a placeholder for the winner of the series and Smiley had no chance at all here? I’m sure this match had fans glued to their sets instead of watching whatever Austin was doing to McMahon at this point.
Hour #3 begins.
Here’s Tony in the ring for something actually interesting: a Sting interview, which I believe is the first one in over a year. Sting says Giant is fat and talks about how he beat up big guys like him at the first Great American Bash. He recommends Giant loses some weight and take a shower before Sting wins both belts on Sunday. This was nothing.
Back from a break with Tony still in the ring for even more talking. This time it’s Piper who compares himself to Barry Sanders and promises to hit Hogan and Hart in the head so much that they’ll feel like they just got out of a Red Wings’ game. Piper makes jokes about Karl Malone beating Dennis Rodman in the NBA playoffs and says Savage is from a test tube. This draws out Macho who will fight Piper after the tag match on Sunday.
Piper says they’ll fight in Baltimore but Savage wants to do it tonight. Hart and Hogan (appearance #5 tonight) pop up at the tech area again and apparently Liz is a present for Eric, who doesn’t need Viagra. Eric kisses Liz as Bret cracks jokes about Savage and Piper. Savage says he’s over Liz but not Piper and there’s a right hand to the Scot. Piper punches Savage back, sending him to the floor. This ran nearly ten minutes whereas Sting got about three.
The announcers talk. Again.
We recap Jericho’s tour of Washington DC last week as well as Jericho showing the 1934 NWA rule book to Malenko on Thunder.
Cruiserweight Title: Disco Inferno vs. Dean Malenko
Dean stomps him down in the corner to start and gets two off a powerslam. Disco comes back with a clothesline and an elbow drop for two but Dean puts him back down with a leg lariat. The Cloverleaf retains the title with ease.
More Nitro Girls, this time in pink.
The Black and White, including Hogan (#6) are with the girls in the lounge again to run down the Wolfpack some more before introducing a video of Hogan’s newest movie.
Video of Hogan (#7) and Steiner on a movie set where they run into Carl Weathers (Apollo Creed from the Rocky movies).
Back to the lounge for Hogan to talk about how awesome an actor Scott Steiner is going to be.
Video on Goldberg.
US Title: Goldberg vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr.
Chavo requested this match and says “be very very quiet. I’m hunting Goldbergs.” Chavo dives at Goldberg and is easily sent lying across the ring. A kind of fallaway slam puts Chavo down again and there’s a gorilla press into a powerslam for good measure. Eddie is cheering on the stage as Goldberg hits the two move combo to become 99-0.
Here’s the Wolfpack (appearance #5 for Konnan tonight) to offer Page a spot on the team. Page comes to the stage where Tony asks him for his decision. DDP talks about the talent he sees in the ring and says he can’t believe what he’s about to do. Before he can say what he’s going to do, Hogan (appearance #8) and Rodman come up behind and blast him with chairs. Sting and the Wolfpack chase the NWO off to end the show.
Overall Rating: N. As in NWO, because that’s all this show was about. This was a really good example of something WCW was horrible about: putting FAR too much of the focus on one idea instead of spreading the show around. Hogan was on TV in 8 (arguably 9) different segments in about two hours and twenty minutes of total air time. The guy has reached new levels of overexposure and we’re to the point that I just don’t care about what he’s doing at all.
On top of that, there was barely any wrestling at all on this show and the only stuff we got was decent at its very best. I mean, Booker vs. Benoit was a fine match, but it’s literally the sixth time they’ve done the match in two weeks. Of the other six matches, two were under three minutes, one was a karate off, one was a squash, another featured Ivan Putski and the last was a decent match featuring the Flock B-Team. Is it really any shock that Nitro hasn’t won a ratings night since April? Absolutely awful show this week with the NWO just crushing everything in their sight.
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This is one of the first non-Big Four shows I ever did so please bare with me on how bad it is.
Bad Blood 2004
Date: June 13, 2004
Location: Nationwide Arena, Columbus, Ohio
Attendance: 9,000
Commentators; Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler
This is really just to get this show from any year off my list of shows. We have two main events here, one of which is the World Title match as Benoit defends against Kane. Naturally though we can’t have the guy with amazing talent or the belt headlining a show, so we also have HHH and Shawn in a feud that just wouldn’t die in the Cell.
This was another show where HHH was highly looked down upon for his ego, as Benoit, the guy that was more over and better than HHH was in the ring, was pushed to the side so HHH and Shawn can have a FORTY FIVE MINUTE Cell match. Yes, I’m going to have to watch these two go at it for 45 minutes in there. Just take me now. Let’s get to it.
And hey what a shock: the main video talks about Shawn and HHH far more than the world champion. So Shawn and HHH are going to have to do a lot to end this feud. Oh and that Benoit guy is doing something too. It should be noted that ONLY these two matches are even talked about in the opening video.
Raw Tag Titles: La Resistance vs. Edge/Chris Benoit
Dupree is now replaced by Rob Conway. King is wearing a purple jacket. You can tell it’s a slow night as Benoit is pulling a double shift tonight. Good night Lillian looks amazing in blue. So we have two Canadians vs. a team from French Canada. Why must we always have Canadian on Canadian violence? Edge and Sylvan start us off.
The talent and championship differences amaze me here. Benoit gets a great pop coming in. This is the rematch from when Edge and Benoit lost the titles to the French guys after beating Evolution for them. DANG Benoit could chop like there was no tomorrow. Naturally the heels take over to prevent the fans from thinking we were doing anything other than the standard tag team formula. We talk about John Glenn for no apparent reason. Oh he’s from Columbus. That makes sense at least.
They’re keeping Benoit out which makes sense as you have to let him save up strength. Edge gets an AWESOME counter to a double suplex as he lands on his feet and hits a double neckbreaker. That was freaking sweet. Benoit gets the Sharpshooter but it’s broken up at the last minute. Benoit now gets the Crossface on Grenier and holds it for about 40 seconds without the tap.
Great way to plug the move there guys. Kane comes out for the DQ though which at least makes sense here. He chokeslams Benoit and I want to break that bell guy. Kane vs. Benoit sounds really good actually. Into the stairs goes the champion as Kane leaves.
Rating: C+. I like Benoit and Edge so this worked fine for me. It also tied into the main match later on so there’s some continuity there which is always a good thing. This was a nice little refresher to set up for later in the show, but it also shows that the rosters can’t manage to do a whole show by themselves. Also, there was no way the titles were changing here so there was no drama. Still though, not bad at all.
We see Coachman getting ready in the back. He has Eugene tonight in what I’m sure will be a classic. He’s wearing a Michigan shirt and hat to draw cheap heat which is fine. Eugene hears Bischoff run him down and Bischoff plays the nice guy to make the save. Dinsmore, the guy that plays Eugene, really is talented and it’s a shame he has to put up with this. The idiocy of this gimmick is simple: a slow guy is wrestling. That just sums up the whole reason why this failed.
Chris Jericho vs. Tomko
Short version: Jericho is feuding with Christian because of Trish, Tomko works for Christian, Christian is hurt so we have Tomko left to fight for Christian. Jericho of course has bad ribs as is the requirement for a popular face. Trish is just ridiculously hot as a heel. This is more or less Jericho carrying things as he has to since he’s the only one in there with that pesky little thing called talent.
Tomko gets a nice gutbuster on Jericho to take over. There’s some black thing in the ring that’s driving me crazy. Tomko takes over again with a Boss Man Slam. That move is so simple and it works so well. I love moves like that. He really needs to grow his hair back. He just looks bad with it all short. After some Trish interference, we get the running enziguri and gets the pin. Well that was uneventful.
Rating: D+. This should have been on Raw but because of the single brand shows we get this instead which isn’t worth paying for. Jericho had the longest feud in history with Christian. Ok so it’s not even close but it felt like it. This was fine but just felt like a Raw match, which is never a good thing.
We recap Orton vs. Shelton which more or less was Shelton pinned Orton twice then Orton had Batista half kill him. Orton says that he’s a legend and he’s had the longest title reign in seven years. That’s really impressive actually. He walks into the arena and screams about how great he is to the crowd, all in one promo.
This is really awesome actually as Orton was just amazing in this role. WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED TO HIM??? He went from being this brash young rookie that knew how awesome he was and said he was better than everyone else and he was great at it. Why change that? Oh yeah he was getting over on Raw and we can’t have that, so sayeth HHH’s #1 commandment.
This was just when Shelton was gaining credibility. He has half the mic skills he has now and that’s saying a lot. The match is supposed to happen later but we’re doing it right now.
Intercontinental Title: Shelton Benjamin vs. Randy Orton
I like the booking here. It’s different and makes you feel like anything can happen. That’s painfully missing from modern wrestling and this was just five and a half years ago. There is a freaking gorgeous blonde in the front row. I need to go to Columbus more often. This is another thing the modern company is missing: well established midcard guys.
I get that Kofi and Miz are there, but they just don’t feel up to what these guys are. After a missed Stinger Splash from Shelton, here’s Flair who looks OLD all of a sudden. Orton hits the chinlock. I wonder if he gets paid per usage of that. He follows it up with a nice move as he sets for a shoulder breaker but shifts his arms forward to get a great falling neckbreaker instead. That looked great and it was one of the moves I used on Smackdown vs. Raw back in the day.
And we’re back in the chinlock again. Orton is a perfect example of the WWE anymore: flashes of brilliance but then the same old stuff all over again. Shelton bases a lot of his in ring work on that of Sting, meaning that he’s awesome. He makes his comeback and there’s a key to it: I’m buying it. They’ve managed to get me into this match and that’s all I can ask for. That Dragon Whip never gets old. The Splash hits this time and there’s the T-Bone but naturally Flair makes the save.
He really was so annoying back then and it got on a lot of people’s nerves including me as it was always the same thing. Shelton brings him in and beats him up as we get a thin reference to Sting. Shelton, ever the candidate for a Rhodes Scholarship, puts Flair in the figure four.
Just to show off though, while still having the hold on Flair, he hooks a small package on Orton for two. Ok that was cool. He hits a top rope crossbody in another of Sting’s old favorites but Orton rolls through and hooks the tights in a Flair move for the win.
Rating: B-. This was fun. I liked the middle with Shelton and Orton just going at it, but I could have done without Flair. I get that it fits the storyline, but Flair just got annoying by this point and wouldn’t leave well enough alone ever and it hurt the match for me. Orton would be world champion in three months.
Matt is with Lita who would soon screw him (and half the locker room) over. Matt gets thrown out of the arena because Bischoff thinks he’s going to interfere in Kane’s match.
Apparently the Cell is a soul searching event. HHH vs. Shawn is the storied rivalry of all time of the month.
Women’s Title: Trish vs. Lita vs. Gail Kim vs. Victoria
All four are too hot for words with Trish somehow possibly being the fourth best looking at the moment. Victoria is champion here. Trish vs. Lita never gets old especially when later this year they main evented Raw. That’s saying a lot and I don’t mean it was the last match and then there was a big angle to end the show. I
mean Trish vs. Lita for the title was the last thing you saw to end the show and it was built up all night. It was a very cool moment and I completely bought into it. Gail gets an AWESOME hold on Victoria. More or less it’s a headscissors combined with a crossface combined with an armbar but cooler than it sounds. Lita and Victoria botch something and we have no Trish for a long time, signaling that she’ll be winning. Yep there she is to roll up Lita for the title out of nowhere.
Rating: D+. They all looked great but other than that it was just your run of the mill Divas match but with four girls that could actually work which is the best case scenario. Nothing more thant hat.
We recap Eugene vs. Coach which more or less is recapping Eugene. Now I’ve gone off about this before but I have to again as it makes sense here. Around this time, Eugene was the hottest character in the freaking world. I marked out for him like there was no tomorrow. He was a wrestling savant and it worked like a charm.
The idea was simple: the guy was mentally handicapped but he could outwrestle Regal. Bischoff put Regal with him as his manager and Eugene grows on him, making it like a cheesy but good movie. Rock came out one night and said he was Eugene’s friend, as did Chris Benoit. The whole thing worked at a ridiculously amazing level. Tonight he has Coach and in case you’re an idiot and can’t see this coming: Eugene wins.
Right there, that should have been the end of Eugene’s character. Either have him get injured, have him get hit in the head and become smart, or write him off and repackage him and pretend he was never slow or have him act like it was an act, but in no way, shape or form should this have continued beyond tonight. Actually wait. There is one way it could have continued: Regal and Eugene win the tag belts, which they eventually did.
That I could actually see as no one cared about La Resistance anyway, but after THAT, it goes no farther. Instead do you know who he feuded with next? He feuded with HHH, resulting in a 20 minute match at Summerslam. Let me spell this out for you.
At Summerslam, HHH, the Cerebral Assassin, the man that’s going to break Flair’s world title record, the guy that’s been in 5 Hell in a Cell matches as of this show, the guy that’s main evented at least three Wrestlemanias that I can think of, one of the best wrestlers ever, spent 20 minutes fighting a slow guy at the second biggest show of the year. Take a guess as to how the fans reacted to that.
Eugene got more heat than anyone I can remember in a LONG time. It’s the same thing WWE did with Santino. They had a good thing going but then they screwed it up by pushing him too far. He had no business even talking to guys like Batista. They screwed up Eugene even worse though by having him hang with HHH for a long time.
It completely bombed and they got lucky that he destroyed his knee and had to leave for 6 months. Anyway, that’s all later as right now he’s one of the most over guys on the roster so he’s got a match here.
Coach vs. Eugene
I think I smell a comedy match. Eugene’s song is so completely catchy that I’m going to have it in my head all night now. We get a massive Eugene chant. See what I mean? The guy was OVER. JR pushes home the idea that we all grew up wrestling fans and how cool it would be to get to wrestle someday on PPV. How can you not love that?
The fact that he really was a talented technical wrestler (in OVW he more or less wrestled the exact same style Benoit did and made it work perfectly well. The guy can go in the ring.) made it even better because it was actually believable that he was just imitating what he had seen over the years. Yes, I was a huge Eugene mark and still am for his old stuff.
In a funny spot Coach tries to shake his hand and gets brought to his knees by Eugene’s strength. In a unique spot, Eugene goes for a monkey flip and then locks his legs around his arms to make himself into a little ball. Coach rolls him around for a bit and then as he’s yelling at Eugene, Eugene pops his arm up, grabs Coach and flips him over with his legs for a rollup. It sounds stupid but that was awesome. I can’t stop laughing at this.
The fans start another Eugene chant to answer why he’s on this show. There’s nothing wrong with a comedy character. We get a criss cross and Eugene hits the floor and gets a teddy bear from the hot chick I mentioned earlier. Coach apparently doesn’t realize Eugene is gone for about 30 seconds.
Apparently he didn’t notice the overly large man at ringside in incredibly small electric blue tights hugging a stuffed bear, but then again I’m no coach. Anyone fighting Eugene had such an easy time getting heat. THEY’RE HITTING A SLOW GUY. And a random hot chick in a bikini brings out a plate of cookies.
Coach, who called the girl out, slams Eugene into the cookies. Coach slams Eugene into the turnbuckle, and it’s time. Eugene Hulks Up, but here’s Garrison (Lance) Cade for the interference. He rips the bear from earlier in half and Coach jumps the distracted Eugene. It doesn’t work though and a Rock Bottom and People’s Elbow ends this. Cade gets an awful Stunner after it. Regal comes out to congratulate him and Coach takes a somewhat better but still terrible Stunner.
Rating: B+. If anyone agrees here I’ll be shocked. I know it’s stupid but I love this guy. When he stays in comedy territory, it’s just a fun character and it works every time for me. Like I said, few are going to agree and I don’t care.
We recap Benoit vs. Kane which is Kane is jealous of Benoit for living his dream. It didn’t need much of a story, but in reality it’s Benoit needs a credibly challenger to further establish himself as champion so we get Kane so Shawn doesn’t have to job to him. Yeah that’s it.
Raw World Title: Chris Benoit vs. Kane
I love how he just holds up the belt and points at it. That’s simple yet effective which describes a lot about Benoit. DANG that little man can throw some chops! I’ve always been a fan of Kane’s for stuff like this. You need a guy to come in and be a credible jobber: bring in Kane. The guy has laid down for so many people over the years that it’s not even funny.
Benoit goes for the arm and that just completely fails. This is a very physical match but the good thing is you have two guys that can wrestle that style which makes it work far better. Kane just keeps powering out of submissions which is so simple that it’s perfect.
We have a good story here: Benoit can’t get the submissions and Kane knows it so he doesn’t have to be afraid of the champion’s usual offense so he has to adjust things to get the win while Kane is comfortable with his usual stuff, therefore giving him the advantage. Kane hits a chinlock and Benoit fights out of it so Kane just SMACKS him. It looked and sounded awesome yet it was so simple. I love that.
Kane is dominating here in case you couldn’t tell. And never mind as he sends Kane into the post and he goes THUD. That sounded awesome. These guys are pounding the tar out of each other and it’s making the match. Lawler wants to have a telethon for some reason. Benoit finally wakes up and hammers on the knee. Sorry for a lack of jokes here but it’s a good match, making it hard to joke about. Kane counters the Sharpshooter with power, which again is a STORY.
He finally gets the Sharpshooter to a huge pop. Shawn’s will be bigger though of course, because only he and HHH can get the biggest pops of the night of course. Remember that. And we hit the Germans which never gets old. Kane gets two sets of them for six in total which is scary strength from Benoit. There’s your headbutt and Benoit is down too. After getting out of the crossface Kane finally hits the chokeslam for two.
Kane goes old school (WOOT!) and tries a tombstone but settles for a big boot instead. Benoit FINALLY gets the crossface off the Kane lariat though and Kane’s arm isn’t even locked. It looks terrible but how many people can actually see that? In an AWESOME spot, Kane stands up off the Crossface so Benoit just slides across his back and goes for the other arm before just rolling him up off the crossface for the quick pin. That is BRILLIANT psychology there in case you were wondering.
Think about it: Benoit had been using nothing but submissions all night and hadn’t even gone for a cover after his big moves. He tries another submission and while Kane is so preoccupied with fighting it off he shifts to the rollup and gets the pin. That’s thinking in the ring and it ties into the entire match, which is what you call storytelling. Brilliant stuff there.
Rating: B+. I really liked this. While it’s not epic or a classic or anything, this is a very good match. The storytelling was there and you had two guys working hard and being physical which is all I can ask for. I like both guys too so that helps a lot. This was as good as it could have been and was proof that the title match can work without HHH or one of his goons, yet they would have the title back in just a few months, which of course sucks but it’s life so there we are. Great match and worth seeing.
Ad for the HOF DVD. This was the first year they resurrected that thing and made it into the worthless thing that it is today, rather than the very worthless thing that it was before.
In something that I’d like to see more often, we go to the back with Todd and Benoit and Benoit looks at some footage of the match and says what he was thinking at that time as Todd more or less throws him some softball questions. It’s basic stuff, but it’s nice to hear it from the guy that was in the ring 3 minutes ago doing it. He throws in the Benoit is for real line he was using over the summer and leaves holding up the belt.
There’s no one walking in and it’s just Benoit talking about the win. I don’t know why but this was cool to me and I’d love to see it more often. It’s like 90 seconds so it serves as a little cool aside to the match and doesn’t take up much time. Naturally I don’t ever remember seeing it otherwise.
And with an hour left in the show we’re lowering the Cell. This is going to hurt isn’t it?
We recap the feud that would never die which here is because both guys tapped to Benoit or something. Again this is just a way for these two to upstage Benoit, because no matter how good of a match he just had, he can’t get past a Cell match, and of course Shawn and HHH couldn’t just go one on one or something simple like that as Benoit’s match might outshine them. When you hear people talk about Benoit not getting a fair shot as champion, this is the show they’re talking about.
Here’s Benoit’s title reign, which lasted about four months (remember the rosters alternated months on PPV in these days): Wins title at Mania, rematch at Backlash so it’s Shawn and HHH again, this show, vs. HHH at Vengeance, loses at Summerslam. Every single show where he was champion either had HHH and/or Shawn in the main event until he lost. HHH did what Hogan did after Mania 6: he stayed.
There was no need for HHH to stay in the main event all summer long and it’s why Benoit’s title reign sucked. No one bought him as champion because HHH, the bigger star, wouldn’t step out of the way to allow Benoit to become a bigger star and it killed Benoit’s credibility until next year he was right back in the midcard “where he belonged.”
Shawn Michaels vs. HHH
HHH is wearing white boots and black tights. That’s just criminal. The fans are kind of split here which is interesting. Naturally it starts off really slow with regular stuff where the cage is pointless. We hit the floor where you can see a small hole in the Cell which is odd. HHH is bleeding and nearly fifteen minutes in we get something other than fists and bad cage shots between these two. The greatness they bring in is a chair.
And Shawn’s back is hurting. Can we get anything original with him please? Maybe a legit knee injury? He’s never had one of those before. We go really hardcore with STAIRS. Shawn is bleeding pretty badly now too. HHH has more or less stopped bleeding at this point. We have over half an hour of this left too. HHH dominates and they keep saying the match should be stopped. We have a sleeper in a Hell in a Cell match.
The match is ok, but this just shows one thing to me: this did not need to be a Cell match at all. This completely could have been no holds barred or a street fight or anything like that. It’s pure overkill and nothing but a way to have a really long match and make sure that everyone knows that these two are THE top guys on the roster. HHH takes a chair shot and is bleeding a lot harder now which helps a bit. And now we have a ladder.
Seriously, what’s the point of all these weapons WHEN YOU HAVE A CELL AROUND YOU? Shawn needs to bleed a lot more as it’s not working at this rate. It’s table time as the Cell hasn’t been used in over 20 minutes now. The only thing it’s doing here is blocking the view of the camera of this street fight. Now we’ve reached the part of big time matches that I absolutely hate: the laying around between nothing but finishers part.
This is my major criticism of Austin/Rock III at Mania 19: it’s a 19 minute match and about 10 of that is nothing but finisher, two count, finisher, two count, repeat. That’s what they do here as we’re about over 40 minutes. Yeah about 1/3 of this show (as remember it won’t go 3 hours) is this match.
Oh and here’s your Shawn and HHH are great moment of the match: it takes THREE Pedigrees to end Shawn after a 45 minute match. Yeah, this isn’t all about them AT ALL. This again is why people got so fed up with HHH around this time, right here. HHH wins with a third Pedigree.
Rating: B-. This was WAY too long. It did nothing but cement the theory that HHH and Shawn only cared about themselves and were just clinging to their spots. There’s a big myth in wrestling that long means good which isn’t the case at all. This was good but it needed to be about 20 minutes shorter which could have gone to another match on the card. Oh that’s right: THERE WEREN’T ANY OTHERS BECAUSE THE SINGLE BRAND SHOWS WERE FREAKING STUPID!
Instead we get nearly an hour of Shawn and HHH making themselves look better than anyone else on the roster because they need the ego boosts. Yeah the match was ok, but it didn’t need to be in the Cell. It’s like when you’re playing basketball against a kid. Sure you can easily beat him, but that doesn’t mean it’s supposed to be done. Benoit needed to come out of this show looking great but instead this match is really all that’s remembered and I refuse to believe that that wasn’t intentional.
Overall Rating: B-. This was a hard one as it was back and forth with B and B-. It’s definitely a good show but far from great. Benoit and Kane were completely forgotten by HHH and Shawn not so much stealing the show but hijacking it. There was just no need for them to have either 48 minutes or the Cell here at all. I mean it just wasn’t needed at all. Those two were notorious for hogging the spotlight and they did it here again.
The match was ok but it needed to lose about 20 minutes to be really good as there was just WAY too much laying around and setting up stuff. Make that a 25 minute street fight and it’s an easy A. There really isn’t a bad match on the card but there’s nothing great either. Check out Kane/Benoit but if you watch the Cell, be prepared to hit fast forward a good amount.
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Monday Night Raw
Date: October 28, 2013
Location: Amway Center, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Jerry Lawler, John Bradshaw Layfield, Michael Cole
We’re finally past the Cell, meaning we’re coming up on Survivor Series. The problem coming out of last night is the last three PPVs have pretty much been made useless, as we’re right back where we were after Summerslam ended: Bryan has been screwed out of the world title by a crooked referee but this time there are less ways for him to get back on top. Other than that, Cena is the new World Heavyweight Champion, giving it its first important reign in months if not years. Let’s get to it.
We open with a recap of last night with highlights of the three major matches.
You can vote tonight on what kind of match you want to see for Punk vs. Ryback. It’ll either be a street fight, falls count anywhere or a tables match.
Here’s the new World Heavyweight Champion John Cena to open the show. He talks about how he’s used to the sound of half the place booing and half the place cheering but he missed it. A lot of people said that Cena came back too early and there’s one in particular that he wants to thank: John Bradshaw Layfield. Cena does a nice imitation of JBL, saying that he’s not back for just one night or one match but for good. He’s sounding a bit like he did in the rapper days here. Cena remembers what the World Heavyweight Championship means and knows Del Rio has a rematch. If he wants some come get some.
Cena goes to leave but here’s Damien Sandow to what sounds like a lower key version of Hallelujah. Sandow says the uncrowned champion is here and he knows that Cena can’t possibly be back at 100% so soon after the injury he had. Cena is just scared that Sandow will cash in on him and he could do that anytime…..like RIGHT NOW? Eh he’s just kidding because he’ll do it any night but tonight.
Sandow goes to leave and brushes up against Cena, who shoves him down. Damien goes OFF on Cena with the case, blasting him in the arm and head over and over. The bad arm is wrapped around the post and sent into the barricade and then the steps. Sandow puts the arm on the steps and crushes it with a chair, saying his time is now. He slides into the ring and grabs the briefcase. Here’s a referee and the cashin is on! After a break!
World Heavyweight Title: John Cena vs. Damien Sandow
Back from a break and Cena is on his feet and we get an opening bell! Cena is fighting with one arm and does what he can but Sandow takes him down with a DDT to the arm for two. A whip into the post gets the same and Sandow drives knees into the arm. We hit the armbar but Cena fights up with a belly to belly suplex for two. Sandow goes back to the arm but Cena gets out and scores with a clothesline as we take another break less than three and a half minutes after we came back.
Back with Sandow winning a slugout but getting slammed down. Cena hits a big boot of all things before starting up his finishing sequence. The Shuffle is broken up by a shot to the arm and a flipping neckbreaker gets two for the challenger. The ringside doctor looks concerned for Cena’s arm. Cena hits an AA out of NOWHERE but Damien rolls to the floor. Dr. Samson is checking on Cena but John goes to get Sandow.
He rolls Damien back in and tries a one arm STF but Sandow easily breaks free before it’s on. The Terminus connects for two more and there’s a full nelson. Cena counters into one of his own which he lifts up and lets go, pulling the falling Sandow into a neckbreaker (nice move!) for two. Sandow grabs a Crippler Crossface of all things and Cena is in trouble, but he powers out and tries the STF.
Sandow escapes again and hits You’re Welcome but Cena is up again at two. So much for that finisher. The fans think this is awesome and they’re absolutely right. Sandow loads up a superplex but Cena headbutts him down, only to miss the high cross body. Cena comes up holding his knee, so Damien tries a piledriver, only to be countered into a bad looking AA for the pin at 13:09.
Rating: B. I dug the heck out of this actually with some AWESOME drama and great looking offense. Cena’s AA’s weren’t all that good but that’s called selling. Instead of just doing his moves like he usually does and then holding his arm, the moves were changed because of the injury. Also, this was yet another example of how drama and not knowing who is going to win is how you have an entertaining match.
Shield says tonight is a huge night because Ambrose has to defend against Langston again.
US Title: Big E. Langston vs. Dean Ambrose
Langston was cut open in the match last night so we might have more blood here. He runs into a shot in the corner and Dean goes after the eye, only to have Big E. come back with clotheslines and a belly to belly suplex. Langston loads up the Ultimate splash but Reigns low bridges him for the DQ at 1:20.
Post match Shield beats down Langston until the Usos come in. Teddy Maddox makes it a six man.
Shield vs. Big E. Langston/Usos
Joined in progress with Shield working over Jimmy Uso via a Seth kick to the head and a knee drop from Reigns. Off to the US Champion who pounds away on Jimmy, only to get caught by an enziguri to put him down. Reigns comes in to try the Superman clothesline but gets caught in a DDT to put him down.
There’s the tag off to Jey who comes in off the top and avoids a diving Rollins. Seth takes him into the corner and loads up a superplex, only to be shoved down to the mat with ease as Ambrose and Langston fight on the floor. Jey’s Superfly Splash hits knees but Jimmy saves his brother from a double suplex. A double superkick puts Seth on the floor but Reigns spears both Usos down and pins Jey at 5:00.
Rating: D+. This didn’t do much for me but it wasn’t horrible. The time hurt them as Shield is better at the long matches instead of short TV style efforts. Still though, not bad here and Langston not taking the pin or being involved in the finish is the right idea as he’ll get a full match with Ambrose eventually.
Here’s Shawn for the big explanation. He owes everyone a reason for what he did and Daniel Bryan in particular, so Bryan needs to come out here. A very serious Bryan comes out and Shawn said he called the match right down the line and only took out Bryan because Daniel took out Shawn’s best friend. Like it or not, HHH is Shawn’s friend and that’s never going to change. HHH was there for Shawn when no one else was, so last night Shawn was there for him.
Shawn doesn’t care if Daniel agrees, but he just wants him to accept the apology. Daniel shakes his head so Shawn praises him for how great he is in the ring and how far Bryan has come since Shawn trained him. Last night was finishing school and Bryan had to learn it. In WWE you don’t trust anyone, even your future wife. Shawn says he’s humbling himself here (he sounds apologetic and not evil at all) by apologizing so the least Bryan can do is accept it.
Bryan shakes his head again and Shawn has had it. He’s spent seven months hearing people call Bryan a B+ player but Shawn has stuck up for him. Now Shawn doesn’t care because he’s an A+ player and he always will be. He’s giving Bryan the chance to shake his hand so do it already. Bryan shakes it so Daniel pulls him into the YES Lock! Shawn taps but Bryan keeps pulling until referees come out.
Post break Daniel Bryan is in the back when the Wyatts of all people lay him out. Bray hits Sister Abigail’s Kiss into a wall, saying the devil made him do it. Wyatt rolls a case against Bryan’s head to knock him out. This has potential.
Los Matadores vs. 3MB
Handicap match and the Band brings a met with them for Torito. Fernando gets beaten down to start until it’s off to Diego to clean house. McIntyre hits a running boot to the chest to put him down as Slater goes bull hunting. Torito dives under the ring and sprays Slater with a fire extinguisher. Slater gets gored from the back and the double Angle Slam pins McIntyre at 3:40.
Rating: N/A. About 90 seconds of this match was spent on a hunting sequence. You do the math.
Post match Slater is put in the net and taken down by Torito.
Here’s another video on how to download the WWE App because you’re too stupid to press three buttons.
Bella Twins vs. AJ Lee/Tamina Snuka
Bryan has been taken to a hospital so Brie is upset. She’s so upset in fact that Nikki makes her start against AJ. Off to Tamina for a hard chinlock to eat up some time. Nikki fights up and cleans part of the house, only to be caught in a Samoan drop from Tamina and the Black Widow for the submission at 3:30.
Rating: D. There isn’t much to say here as these girls just have the same matches over and over again with the ending being the only thing that changes. The Bellas look good in their outfits but that’s about all they have going for them. They’re just not that interesting and it’s starting to catch up to them.
Kane vs. The Miz
This was set up when Kane saved Miz from the Wyatts but chokeslammed him down due to being Kane. A big boot gets an early two for Kane but Miz fights back with some left hands and a clothesline in the corner. He goes up for the ax handle and jumps into the chokeslam to give Kane the pin at 1:20.
Post match Kane grabs a mic and demands that Stephanie of all people get out here right now. She comes to the stage and says that’s close enough. Kane says she’s been on a power trip and manipulated and ruined lies. In this day and age though, it’s what best for business, so the monster is hers to unleash. This would be the 1904th heel turn for Kane if you’re keeping track. Kane walks to the stage, takes his mask off with his back to the camera, hands it to Stephanie, and walks off.
The Prime Time Players offer free shipping on WWE.com with the code PTP.
David Otunga says Big Show’s lawsuit has merit and could cost the McMahons millions if not loss of the company.
Here’s CM Punk, presumably to tell us what to vote for on the WWE App. He has big bags under his eyes but he says he slept better last night than he has in months because he finally got Paul Heyman. Paul Heyman is gone after last night so now Punk’s attention will be on Ryback. Ryback is a tough guy but without Heyman he’s just a knuckle dragging neanderthal. Punk promises to beat Ryback, just like he promised to get rid of Heyman.
CM Punk vs. Ryback
It’s a street fight with 59% of the vote. Ryback drives Punk into the corner as the Goldberg chants are in full force. Punk gets an elbow up to stop a charging Ryback before hitting a high cross body for two. Ryback is knocked to the floor but catches a plancha in midair. Punk’s back is rammed into the post as Ryback pulls out a table.
He’s not fast enough though as Punk grabs a kendo stick to blast Ryback before we head back inside. A neckbreaker gets two for Punk and he sets up the table. The high kick is countered into a buckle bomb by Ryback though and he loads up a superplex. Punk knocks him away and puts Ryback on the table for the Macho Elbow. The Anaconda Vice gets the submission at 4:25.
Rating: D. For a street fight, you expect more than a five minute match. We saw this done far better last night and that’s why I’m rarely a fan of matches like this happening just after the PPV. Nothing to see here but hopefully it ends Ryback vs. Punk once and for all. There’s nothing left here at all.
Post match here are the Wyatts again to lay out Punk. He swings the kendo stick a few times but there are too many monsters. Bray says he’s been waiting for this but Punk headbutts him, only to be taken down by the discus lariat from Bray. Sister Abigail’s Kiss leaves Punk laying.
Goldust/Cody Rhodes vs. Real Americans
Non-title. The fans chant for Goldust as he starts with Cesaro by cranking on the arm. Swagger comes in and is quickly taken down, only to drag Goldust into the corner. Off to Cody vs. Cesaro with Rhodes hitting a running knee to the head for two. The release front suplex puts Antonio down and a bulldog gets two for Goldust. Swagger comes back in but walks into a springboard dropkick from Cody as we take a break.
Back with Cesaro hitting the gutwrench suplex on Cody for two. Off to Swagger for a front facelock and he drives Rhodes into the corner to keep him in trouble. A Vader Bomb to the back sets up the double stomp from Cesaro for two. Cody fights out of a chinlock and finally makes the tag off to Goldust to clean house. A Disaster Kick puts Cesaro on the floor and a top rope cross body from Goldust gets two but he gets countered into the Patriot Lock. The reversal sends Swagger into the corner but Cesaro makes the save at two. Cody is sent to the floor and another Patriot Lock gets the submission at 12:20.
Rating: D+. The match was your usual formula stuff but of all the teams to pick they go with these guys? This is what bugs me about most title shots: they’re earned by beating the champions instead of building up some wins against other teams and THEN getting a title shot as a result. Why not try that instead?
Here’s Del Rio with something to say. He stands a Mexican flag next to him and pulls a mic from his coat which I don’t think I’ve ever seen before. Del Rio doesn’t care what Sandow did because Cena is a thief. No matter what happened tonight, Del Rio is getting a rematch and he’s going to hurt Cena. The arm is his target and he’s going to break it to pieces. The title belongs to him but you already know that.
The fans picked to see Goldberg vs. Undertaker on WWE 14, beating out Hogan vs. Cena, Flair vs. Bryan and Michaels vs. Rock.
Summer Rae vs. Natalya
This is Summer’s solo debut. Natalya is easily taken down but comes back with a backslide for two. Summer yells at her a lot and chokes Natalya in the corner with those long legs. Off to a stump puller of all things before Summer hooks something like an Indian Deathlock. This has been one sided so far. Off to a chinlock by Summer before a running knee to the face gets two. She stops to kiss Fandango on the cheek, starting a fight between Horny and Fandango. Khali chops the dancer down, allowing Natalya to hook a quick Sharpshooter for the win at 5:20.
Rating: D. Summer looked good in more ways than one but this was horribly dull. It was basically a squash with a screwy ending which doesn’t give you anything of interest to see. Also I’m pretty over this stupid comedy feud but at least they’re showing that Summer can go in the ring.
The entire roster is on the stage for Orton’s championship celebration. Shield is handling security and here are HHH and Stephanie for the introduction. HHH talks about picking Orton to be the future a decade ago and grooming him for this spot. Orton is finally introduced and Stephanie says he’s champion for everyone. Everyone should respect him but he gets a NO chant instead.
Orton says you’re either a success or you’re not, and this title makes him a success. It also makes him their superior, if that’s clear. Cue Big Show ubt he can’t get past Shield. The Usos and Goldust/Cody come out to fight Shield, leaving Big Show a clear path. Orton, HHH and Stephanie bail, leaving Show alone in the ring. Big Show says he knows about the restraining order but he’s not going to listen to all this. If he’s arrested he’ll just get out on bail so it’s not even worth it.
His lawsuit is going to gain him millions of dollars and he has nothing to lose. He spends so much time yelling at HHH that Orton comes in with a belt shot to knock Big Show down. HHH says do it again but Big Show gets in a KO punch to knock Orton out cold. HHH stares Show down and takes off the jacket but bails to the floor. Show: “YOU USED TO BE THE GAME!” HHH doesn’t do anything and the show is over.
Overall Rating: B. This was the kind of show that WWE needed badly. A LOT of stuff happened here and there are a lot of stories to check out in the near future. That’s what WWE had been missing lately as so much time had been dedicated to the solo story and it was time for something new. Good stuff here and I want to see where a lot of stuff goes. That’s a really good sign.
Results
John Cena b. Damien Sandow – Attitude Adjustment
Big E. Langston b. Dean Ambrose via DQ when Shield interfered
Shield b. Big E. Langston/Usos – Spear to Jey Uso
Los Matadores b. 3MB – Double Angle Slam to McIntyre
Tamina Snuka/AJ Lee b. Bella Twins – Black Widow to Nikki
Kane b. The Miz – Chokeslam
Real Americans b. Goldust/Cody Rhodes – Patriot Lock to Goldust
Natalya b. Summer Rae – Sharpshooter
Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my new book of Complete Monday Nitro Reviews Volume I at Amazon for just $4 at:
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Tonight only if you use the code…..“PTP”.
I’m not sure why they’re doing these all of a sudden but they’re good deals while they last.
With someone you wouldn’t have guessed.The Wyatts laid out Bryan in the back tonight. I like the potential of this a lot.
And he…..LOST! Cena survived a shockingly awesome match and won with the AA. This was really good stuff actually and Sandow’s best match ever by about 8000 miles.
The hosting company sent me an e-mail saying the site will be down for about thirty minutes on Wednesday. This shouldn’t be anything complicated and things should be back up soon. If you try to access it and can’t, everything is fine and I knew about it in advance. Check back in about half an hour and it should be running.
KB
Halloween Havoc 1990
Date: October 27, 1990
Location: UIC Pavilion, Chicago, Illinois
Attendance: 8,000
Commentators: Jim Ross, Paul E. Dangerously
This is a somewhat forgotten period of the company’s history as Sting is world champion and he’s being haunted by the Black Scorpion. You would think a Halloween show would be perfect for a supernatural character to be blown off but that wound up happening at Starrcade. Instead tonight it’s Sting vs. Sid for the title as well as Luger vs. Stan Hansen for the US Title. Let’s get to it.
The opening video is just shots of the guys on the show.
Ross has a fedora on while Dangerously is a vampire.
Tony is a phantom of some kind. He talks to Ricky Morton and Tommy Rich who are teaming together because Robert Gibson is hurt.
Ricky Morton/Tommy Rich vs. Midnight Express
This would be Lane/Eaton’s last WCW match as Lane left to start SMW with Cornette. Their music (which is still freaking cool) gets a big pop. The Freebirds injured Gibson so there isn’t much heat here. Morton and Eaton get us going and it’s stalling early on. Eaton hiptosses Morton down and then does it again out of the corner. Eaton’s tights are so high up you can’t see his navel. He jumps into a punch to the ribs and Morton takes over a big.
We get a crisscross and hits a rana before it’s off to Lane. Actually scratch that as he’s just being nefarious. Now he comes in legally for a double team as Morton is in trouble again, this time off a Lane powerslam. A slingshot clothesline puts Morton down and Eaton adds an elbow drop. The Midnights are starting to cook here. Ricky gets sent to the floor and Eaton completely misses his top rope shot to the head.
Everyone but Lane is on the floor and Cornette gets in a racket shot to the throat. Morton is finally thrown back in and Lane fires off his karate shots. Cornette acts like the great manager that he is and distracts the referee so that Morton’s sunset flip is missed. Morton gets sent to the floor again and Lane hits him with a slam. The Express hits the Rocket Launcher onto Morton on the ramp in a good looking move.
Cornette gets in another racket shot to Morton as we’re almost ten minute in without Rich being in the match at all yet. He tries to come in but all that does is allow Lane to throw Ricky over the top. The idea is that Rich has no idea how to wrestle in a tag team so the Midnights are destroying the tag team expert. On the floor Morton hits a standing rana on Eaton before coming back in to small package Lane for two.
Eaton comes back in and hits the Alabama Jam but doesn’t cover for some reason. Back to Lane for more karate but Morton comes back by ramming Lane into the buckle. Still no tag but the second Rocket Launcher attempt hits knees. Eaton tags in Lane but Morton rolls into the corner to tag in Wildfire. Rich’s Thesz press is broken up so he goes up, only to get clocked by the racket. The Southern Boys come out dressed as Cornette for a distraction, allowing Morton to whack Lane with the racket for Rich to get the pin.
Rating: B. Good stuff here with the full tag team formula working to near perfection. Ricky Morton is perfect for what he was doing here, getting destroyed for about ten minutes before Rich comes in to do nothing before the ending. It’s perfect also that the Midnights go out after losing to Morton.
Bill Irwin vs. Terry Taylor
This is before Taylor is computerized and he’s no longer a farm animal. Jack Brickhouse of the Chicago Cubs is on commentary here. He’s a commentator so at least he has an idea here. The ring mat is red here and the buckles are orange if I forgot to mention that. Taylor works on the arm to start and things slow down a lot already. Irwin is a cowboy kind of guy so he has the bandana around his neck.
Taylor comes back with a missile dropkick for two. He takes it to the mat and hooks a headlock to slow things down again. Brickhouse used to be a wrestling announcer apparently. Irwin takes over and rams Taylor into his knee. A knee drop misses and it’s back to the headlock. Brickhouse snaps off a bunch of names he’s watched over the years, including Gotch and Hackenschmidt. Dang how old is this guy? His age would mean he couldn’t have seen them so apparently the guy is a liar. Good to know.
Irwin takes over again and the announcers insult Gordon Solie a bit. Brickhouse names off some other guys he used to watch, most of which you’ve heard of. He also knows most of the modern guys which is interesting. This guy could be a regular commentator. The match is being TOTALLY ignore but to be fair, it’s nothing of note with mostly rest holds. Irwin puts on a chinlock as JR is talking football.
There’s a boring chant going on now and it’s completely appropriate. Dangerously tries to get the commentary back on the match but I really don’t care to hear about it. Sleeper goes on as Brickhouse talks about Verne Gagne developing that move. I seem to remember it being Johnny Weaver but Gagne was certainly around first so maybe it was him. Then again it’s just a choke so it’s kind of a stretch to say any one person invented it.
A bridging belly to back gets two for Taylor but he walks into a tombstone for the same. Now we’re talking about the WCW Top Ten which was one of those things that was around for years but it never really meant anything. They head outside and Irwin is knocked off the ramp to the floor. Taylor takes over and drops a knee for two. Irwin chokes some more but gets caught in a sunset flip for two. A small package gets the same for Rooster Man, as does a rollup. Irwin puts him down with a spinebuster but doesn’t cover him properly, allowing Taylor to roll him up for the pin.
Rating: D-. What a boring match. Brickhouse, a guy that would have been in his mid 70s at this point, was by far the most interesting thing here. He seemed interested in being there and was talking wrestling almost the entire match, which is far more than you’ll get from most guest commentators. The match itself sucked as no one wanted to see it and neither guy did anything to make it better.
Tony brings out Sting to talk about his title defense later on tonight against Sid as well as the Black Scorpion. He’s tired of hearing about how big and bad Sid is and he just wants to start the fight now. Cue the Black Scorpion who is behind Sting on the stage as opposed to the platform Sting is on. Black Scorpion kidnaps some fan from next to the stage and puts her in a conveniently placed box/cage and makes her disappear. Then he pops up on the other side of the stage with the girl who Sting catches. There’s a reason this is considered the worst angle of all time.
J.W. Storm vs. Brad Armstrong
Armstrong is the Candyman which is another gimmick they gave him which was just a nickname that went nowhere. Storm is undefeated coming in and gets a good reaction. He’s 6’6 and in a leather jacket, which is taken off to reveal a good look. Why have I never heard of this guy? Storm blocks a hiptoss and kills Armstrong with a clothesline. Armstrong hits that perfect dropkick to send Storm out to the floor.
Storm comes back into the ring and charges right at Brad, taking him down with a clothesline. A big back elbow puts Armstrong down and it’s off to a chinlock. Brad fights out of it but gets caught in a hot shot for his troubles. Snap suplex gets two and a powerslam puts Brad down. Storm misses a dropkick and Armstrong hits a knee lift. They slug it out and mess up a rollup spot before Armstrong hooks a small package for the pin. Wait WHAT? That’s a huge surprise.
Rating: D+. This was a total head scratcher. Storm was undefeated coming in and was treated as a total monster for the whole match before a jobber to the stars pins him? This would be like Derrick Bateman getting repackaged and beating Tensai on Raw. I don’t get this one at all and I also don’t get why Storm didn’t get more of a push. He was in a jobber tag team called Maximum Overdrive but that’s about it. He had a great look and was a big guy who the fans seemed to be into. I don’t get it.
Southern Boys vs. Master Blasters
The Southern Boys are Tracy Smothers and Steve Armstrong while the Master Blasters are Blade and Steel. Blade is Al Green, a guy you might possibly remember as The Dog when WCW was dying. He was also part of a team called The Wrecking Crew in the early 90s which was nothing special. Steel on the other hand is Kevin Nash, who you may have heard of.
The Blasters look like the Road Warriors. Cornette comes out in a Confederate Army uniform for some reason and complains about the Armstrong Family, which you know is hilarious. Steve and Blade get us going with Blade being clotheslined to the floor. Cornette goes on a rant about how messed up the family is, including a bunch of stories about the odd family members. Off to Smothers who Cornette has stories about too. Nash comes in and is thrown to the floor with ease.
Cornette and Heyman are about to start the Civil War up all over again as Cornette is defending the south and Dangerously is standing up for the north. The Southern Boys try a double team move but even piling onto Steel they can’t get a two count. Cornette talks about how Smothers has some famous relatives: Rock Hudson, Liberace and Truman Capote. Here’s a hint about what they all have in common: they’re all gay (well maybe in Liberace’s case but he was certainly flamboyant).
Now Cornette goes on about how his granddaddy convinced Jefferson Davis to throw the Civil War because they didn’t want to have to live in New York once they took it over. Dangerously and Cornette go at it and JR sounds completely defeated trying to talk about the match. The Blasters run over everyone and HOKEY SMOKE NASH JUST GOT UP IN THE AIR ON A LEAPFROG! I mean he got WAY up there too.
Cornette goes to cheer on the Blasters as Dangerously has no idea what to make of him. Blade goes up but jumps into a boot. Back to Armstrong and JR calls Steel Rock for some reason. The Southern Boys hit their dropkick/spinebuster combination but Cornette interferes, allowing Blade to kill Armstrong with a clothesline for the pin.
Rating: D. The match sucked but the commentary is absolutely hilarious. When Cornette gets on a roll, there is almost no one in the world that can keep up with him. The match was a squash for the most part, but the Master Blasters never wound up doing anything. See, back in the old times, you would often have tag matches or even singles matches like these on PPV or TV. There’s no real point to them and the guys might not be going anywhere, but you set them up like this in case they might go somewhere. It was a good way of having a large amount of people to pick from, but it makes for some lousy PPVs.
Freebirds vs. Renegade Warriors
The Warriors are Chris and Mark Youngblood and they’re Indians. They’re also boring beyond belief, to the point that the HATED Freebirds are cheered coming to the ring. The Birds have jobber Rocky King as their roadie Little Richard Marley here. Hayes dances around to start before chopping Mark. The Youngbloods gang up on them and clear the ring so we can stall some more.
Off to Chris vs. Garvin with Jimmy suplexing him down and throwing him over the top to the floor while the referee isn’t looking. King gets in some weak offense on the floor and it’s off to a chinlock. Hayes comes in and it’s chinlock number two. That gets reversed into a sleeper but Hayes makes a blind tag to break up the hold. Back to Hayes so he and Chris can trade chops and punches. This is a really dull match so far.
Right back to the chinlock by Hayes to make sure this doesn’t get interesting. And the hold keeps going. And keeps going. This hold has been going for FOUR MINUTES. Shouldn’t Youngblood be legally dead by this point? If nothing else it’s certainly killing the crowd. Granted the rest of the match had already killed them but this is just pouring more and more dirt onto the grave.
They FINALLY get up and Hayes sets for the DDT, drawing the loudest pop since Sting was here. Remember that the Freebirds had been injuring a lot of people lately and were hated. That’s how bad the Warriors are. Either way it gets reversed and it’s off to Garvin. They head to the floor for nothing of note as this needs to end immediately. Hayes comes back in and drops an elbow for two before THE FREAKING CHINLOCK COMES BACK AGAIN! The announcers argue over Jon freaking Lovitz as Youngblood breaks the hold, only to have it put on AGAIN.
Hayes slams him down and goes up top for some reason. That gets him slammed down and it’s off to Mark. You would think the fans would cheer after a FIFTEEN MINUTE beating, but no one is all that interested. Everything breaks down and King gets in too. The referee puts him out and the distraction lets Hayes DDT Mark for the pin.
Rating: F. There were seven chinlocks in an 18 minute long match. The fans were loudly cheering for the hated heels. I think that sums up everything as well as anything else I could say. The Warriors really were that bad and the Birds didn’t help anything at all here. This was one of the most boring match I have ever seen, and that’s covering a lot of ground.
The Horsemen (Arn, Flair and Sid. The fourth is Barry Windham but he’s not here. Remember that because it becomes important later) warn Doom and Sting that they still have time to run before the belts come to the Horsemen.
US Tag Titles: Steiner Brothers vs. Nasty Boys
This is a BIG feud and the Steiners are defending. The Nasties had beaten down the Steiners and left them bloodied after the match was made, which was unheard of at this point. It’s a brawl to start and Scott gets hit with a chair. He and Sags go into the ring with Scott escaping the superplex. He runs up the corner and hits a belly to belly superplex to take Jerry down. The crowd is going NUTS for this whole thing.
Knobbs interferes and it’s Jerry in control as he starts with Scott. Scott comes back with a Tiger Driver and Rick comes in to clean the ring. The Steiner Bulldog KILLS Sags but Knobbs breaks it up with a chair shot as the referee is getting Rick out. Knobbs, the illegal man, gets two off that. A side slam puts Scott down and the Steiners are in trouble. Powerslam gets two.
They go to the floor and Sags drops a knee on Scott, who is in big trouble. Sags comes in legally and hits a pumphandle slam for no cover. Side salto gets two with Rick making the save. The Nasties switch without a tag again so it’s back to Knobbs for more beating. Abdominal stretch goes on and the cheating draws in Rick again so the Nasties can switch again. Sags puts on a bearhug to stay on the bad back.
Scott comes out of it with the natural counter: a belly to belly suplex. The tag brings in Rick who cleans house with the Steiner Line. Rick gets knocked over the top to the floor and the Nasties hit a spike piledriver on Scott. Rick is like screw that and pops Sags with the chair. The referee is really lax about these tags. Jerry is busted open but he brings in Brian to prevent the tag to Rick.
Knobbs puts the bearhug on again and rams Scott’s back into the buckle a few times. Sags puts on a Boston Crab but Scott does a pushup to break it up, but Knobbs breaks up the tag again. A reverse chinlock goes on but Scott breaks out of that too. The Nasties try to cheat again but Scott avoids a charge and hits the Steiner Line on Jerry. Hot tag to Rick and everything breaks down.
The Steiners start pounding on the Nasties but they both get thrown to the floor. Rick comes back in with a double top rope clothesline to send the Nasties to the floor, but it lets them beat up Scott while they’re out there. Scott pulls Sags to the floor again and Rick KILLS Knobbs with a Steiner Line. There’s the Frankensteiner and I don’t care who you are, in 1990 that means it’s over.
Rating: B. What a great brawl this was. If you cut about three minutes out of this it’s a classic. This is the match that made the Nasty Boys, but since this is WCW, the idea of signing them up was unheard of so they were in the Royal Rumble less than three months after this and winning the tag titles from the Hart Foundation in about six months. The match was good, but the Steiners were so far and away better than any other team in the world at this point that it didn’t matter who they were facing.
The Nasties jump the Steiners again, hitting them with the same belt shots that started the feud.
Junkyard Dog vs. Moondog Rex
Please make this short. The Dog sends the Moondog to the floor and it’s time to stall. Back in the ring and they collide before JYD does the all fours headbutts. Moondog looks nothing like he usually does. He doesn’t even have a bone with him. A chair is brought in but it doesn’t go anywhere. Rex pounds him down while Paul asks why Mr. and Mrs. Dog named their son Junkyard. Oh ok there is a bone there but it’s on the corner. The referee takes it from him and a headbutt by the Dog gets the pin. This was nothing.
Tony talks to Scott who says it’s the Nasties’ blood on his tights, not his own. The Nasties, dressed as concession stand workers for some reason, jump Scott and beat him down. Dangerously thinks it’s hilarious.
World Tag Titles: Doom vs. Ric Flair/Arn Anderson
Doom has the titles and are recently turned faces. Anderson and Simmons start things off and AA gets shoved around. Simmons suplexes him down and headbutts him to the floor, making the Horsemen take a time out. Back in and Flair hits a knee to the back, but the suplex Anderson hits is no sold. Simmons comes back with right hands and Reed hits a knee of his own the back of Anderson. Powerslam gets two for Big Ron.
Teddy Long slaps Flair and Dangerously freaks out. Naitch comes in to face Reed and it’s time to strut. Flair goes to the eyes and takes over on a power man like only he can. Reed comes back with punches of his own and Doom hits stereo gorilla press slams to take over again. It gets back to Reed vs. Flair in the corner and the chops just don’t work on him Ric.
Reed sends him into the corner and the Flair Flip lands on a cameraman.
Simmons pounds Flair up the ramp and the chops STILL don’t work. Back to ringside and the Horsemen are in trouble. Anderson comes in to face Reed but it’s quickly off to Simmons. The Horsemen finally realize they can’t overpower Doom so they do what they do best: cheat! Flair comes back in and now his chops work. Anderson’s spinebuster gets two on Ron. Back to Flair and it’s time to go after the knee. There’s the Figure Four (on the correct leg and everything) and they even cheat during that.
Simmons finally makes it to the rope but Anderson is right there to keep Ron in the ring. Ron fights back but his right hands only get him so far. A dropkick misses and they get into a test of strength on the mat, letting Arn do his jump in the air and crotch himself spot. Back to Flair and even with Simmons worn down he can’t drop him with a shoulder. To the floor and Flair gets sent into the barricade to give Simmons a chance.
A sunset flip on Arn doesn’t work as Anderson makes the tag to Flair on the way down. Simmons hits a kind of clothesline (looked more like a jumping fist) but AA stops the tag AGAIN. Simmons is finally like screw this and drills Anderson so he can make the tag to Butch. Everything breaks down and Reed kills Anderson with a top rope shoulder for two. DDT kills Reed but Simmons makes the save. They fight to the floor and it’s a double countout which isn’t that popular of a decision.
Rating: B. I was digging this match until the end, but it was really just a setup for the better street fight at Starrcade. Granted that had Windham and Anderson due to Flair having to do something else that night but it was still the Horsemen. Anyway, good match here but the ending was more or less just a setup for a street fight later on.
Stan Hansen breaks a pumpkin which represents Lex Luger.
US Title: Stan Hansen vs. Lex Luger
Luger has held the title for an insane seventeen months coming into this, a record which is about six months longer than anyone else ever. Luger goes nuts on Hansen to start and elbows him to the floor. Back in and Hansen takes it right back to the floor, sending Luger into the post. They head back in (again) and Lex slams him down but gets taken down with a headlock takeover. A charge misses Luger in the corner and Hansen lands on the floor.
Luger rams Hansen into the ramp a few times and heads back in to drop some knees. A snap suplex puts Stan back in control and an elbow drop gets two. Hansen hits a headbutt and bulldog for two. He goes up for some reason but misses an elbow. Luger comes back with a dropkick and pounds away on the challenger.
Elbow drop gets two as does a suplex. Hansen comes back but shoves a referee which doesn’t draw a DQ for some reason. The Lariat misses but Luger hits a clothesline of his own. Here’s Dan Spivey, Hansen’s protege, to throw in the cowbell. Luger avoids that and bulldogs him down. He calls for the Rack but walks into the Lariat for the pin and the title.
Rating: C-. The match was a lot of punching and kicking, but to their credit they had Hansen win the title almost completely clean here. The weapon shot didn’t hit, Spivey didn’t touch Luger, the referee didn’t see anything at all and it was the Lariat that got the pin. Hansen would lose the title at Starrcade but this was a good surprise. The match was pretty dull though.
Teddy Long says nothing of note.
Missy Hyatt thinks Sid will win. I have no idea why she was here.
NWA World Title: Sid Vicious vs. Sting
Sid is a Horseman here. They talk some trash and Sid blasts him in the back, only to get caught by a cross body. Sid doesn’t go down, but puts Sting in a backbreaker instead. That gets no sold so Sting clotheslines him to the floor. Back in and Sid misses a clothesline, sending him up and over the top. Sid gets sent into the post and we head back inside. It’s a fast paced match so far.
Sting grabs the arm and cranks on it for awhile while we look at the crowd a bit. They go to the mat in a surprising move. Sid realizes how crazy it is to go to the mat when you’re almost seven feet tall and pops up with a clothesline to take over. JR calls Sid’s powerbomb (he was one of if not the first guy to popularize it in America) a version of a bodyslam. Another clothesline puts the champion down and gets a very delayed two.
Off to a nerve hold which is broken pretty quickly. Sting fights out of it but walks into a powerslam for two and it’s time for choking. Sting fights back again but misses the Splash in the corner. Sid hammers on him on the apron but Sting pops up to the top for a cross body, getting two. Sid takes him right back down and Sting goes out to the floor. Back to the apron and a forearm to the chest ala Sheamus gets two for Sid.
Sid goes back to the chinlock but the crowd is starting to wake up. Sting escapes but both guys miss elbows and it’s right back to Vicious in control. A bulldog out of nowhere put Sid down but Sid hits a big boot to send Sting to the apron. They fight up the ramp with Sting being left laying.
Sid goes to the ring and poses, so Sting charges, dives over the top, and takes the big man down. A dropkick puts Sid on the floor and Sting follows him out with a plancha. They fight into a convenient opening in the barricade as the Horsemen show up. Sid and Sting disappear but come back, only for Sting to pick Sid up for a slam, fall down and lose the title.
Rating: C-. The match was just ok with Sting doing what he could, but Sid’s offense was shall we say limited. He didn’t have the chokeslam yet for a secondary finisher so it was powerbomb or nothing. That being said, he never even tried for the powerbomb, which makes the ending kind of strange.
Oh and one more thing: that wasn’t Sting that got pinned. As Sid is celebrating and the fireworks are going off, Sting comes back with ropes around his wrist. He hits Sid with the belt, hits the Stinger Splash and hooks a small package to really win the match. The other Sting would be revealed as Barry Windham but it rally wasn’t that important.
Overall Rating: D+. This show isn’t the worst ever, but there really isn’t anything worth seeing. The Nasties match wound up being nothing, the Horsemen vs. Doom would be improved upon at the next PPV, the main event didn’t mean anything, and the rest of the card is pretty much worthless. The home video version, as usual, cuts down a lot of the awful stuff here and gives you a decent show. This isn’t a horrible show but there’s nothing worth seeing here.
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