More from my big assortment of leftovers from the WWE Network.

We go to an unspecified TV show from February 22, 1994 with Vince McMahon interviewing Jim Cornette on the platform. Cornette has the WWF Title with him and wants everyone to know that Lex Luger is never going to hold this because he can’t beat Yokozuna. Vince doesn’t know about that and here’s Luger, sending Cornette into terror. Luger takes the belt from him and puts it on, which Vince thinks looks pretty good. Not good enough to make Luger the champion mind you.

Vince wants the ring announcer to announce Luger as champion, with Luger doing a full on entrance with the title and getting in the ring to pose with the title. Luger walks around the ring and then takes the belt back to the platform to throw it at Cornette. This was actually a thing they did to make the fans think that Luger won the belt, as well as filming a special scene in advance in case they went with Luger at Wrestlemania. That obviously didn’t happen, but the fans needed a reason to see them filming this so the “what would happen if” deal was thrown together. Another cool little feature here.

From January 12, 1976 in Championship Wrestling From Florida.

Andre the Giant bends a bar around his neck (and breaks it), lifts 2000lbs and wins a tug of war (as in he’s in the middle with five wrestlers on each side) by pulling everyone into each other. This wasn’t even two minutes long.

Todd Hansen vs. Brian Black
Date: May 2, 2005
Location: Fleet Center, Boston, Massachusetts

Raw dark match with Lilian Garcia welcoming us to the night. Hanen is better known as Ivar (minus the long hair and/or beard) and Black is better known as the guy who is about to lose to Hansen in a dark match. Hansen grabs a headlock to start but gets elbowed in the stomach for his efforts.

A headlock takeover works a bit better for Hansen but Black whips him hard into the corner and puts on a double arm crank. That’s broken up as well and Hansen hits an ugly crossbody for two. Hansen makes the clothesline comeback and gets two off a spinning kick to the face. Black hits a pumphandle faceplant for the same but Hansen small packages him for the pin at 4:40.

Rating: D+. This was just a pair of local guys getting to have a quick match to warm up the crowd. There was nothing to indicate that Hansen would become a star in the future and it took a very long time for his career to take off. You have to start somewhere though and that’s what we were seeing here, in one of probably several similar matches he had during this part of his career.

From August 25, 1973 in the AWA.

Billy Graham loses to the Great Scott (with his 8 inch bicep) in an arm wrestling match. The clip runs 43 seconds and I have no idea what the joke was supposed to be here.

From the AWA on January 15, 1977.

Gene Okerlund brings in the Iron Sheik (who looks TINY compared to what he would become), who refuses to speak English. Sheik rants a lot, drops to his knees and prays and shows off the Persian clubs, as was his tradition. After a break, Sheik lifts a 300lb chain above his head and then rants a lot more. Gene says come and see Sheik when you have a chance. Of note: Sheik was billed from Lebanon here rather than Iran.

Kenny Omega vs. Cru Jones
Date: September 3, 2006
Location: Deep South Arena, McDonough, Georgia
Commentators: Bill DeMott, Nigel Sherrod

This is from Deep South Wrestling, where Omega was in the WWE developmental system for a bit before realizing he wasn’t going to get anywhere in this company. Before the match, Omega mocks Jones for being a former football player who yells a lot and promises to pin him. Yeah Omega wasn’t great with the talking at this point. Jones takes him into the corner to start so Omega tries a waistlock.

Omega picks up the pace and armdrags him into an armbar, with one fan calling it boring. Another armdrag into an armbar keeps Jones down but he throws Omega into the corner. The chinlock goes on until Omega fights up and drop toeholds him into the middle rope. A running dropkick to the side of the head gets two on Jones but Jones is back with a Michinoku Driver for the same. Omega is right back up with Sliced Bread for the pin at 5:06.

Rating: C-. Another historical curiosity more than anything else here as Omega was nowhere near what he would become. He was just a guy in trunks here without any kind of character or gimmick to speak of. I can see why he would want out, as doing something like this isn’t going to give him any kind of a change to shine. Jones never did anything of note in wrestling and retired in 2012.

From Championship Wrestling From Florida on September 8, 1988.

Dusty Rhodes introduces us to his son Dustin, who he says is green behind the ears and needs to fill out a bit. Dusty knows everyone is going to be watching and he wants the people to love his son like they love him. Dustin is ready to get funky like a monkey, but he looks rather stoic here and doesn’t say a word.

Rico Constantino vs. Brock Lesnar
Date: January 3, 2002
Location: MCI Center, Washington DC
Attendance: 13,978

Raw dark match and the arena might be 15% full. Lesnar is in white boots for a really weird look. Rico strikes away out of the corner and runs Lesnar over with a shoulder. The cross armbreaker goes on but Lesnar powerbombs out of it without much trouble. Lesnar stomps away in the corner and hits some shoulders to the back for two. The powerslam into the corner lets Lesnar stomp away some more but Rico comes back with a kick to the head. The spinning kick to the face is countered into a powerslam to finish Rico at 4:20.

Rating: C. Believe it or not, two of the more polished OVW wrestlers can have a completely passable match against each other. Lesnar was showing off the power here and that’s what you want to see from him. Rico continues to look more polished than you would ever imagine and I would have loved to see what he could do if he hadn’t been saddled with such a stupid gimmick.

Jim Duggan vs. Sgt. Slaughter
Date: February 4, 1981
Location: Fieldhouse, Allentown, Pennsylvania
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Pat Patterson

This is from All-Star Wrestling and I absolutely would not have recognized Duggan. He has short blonde hair and a mustache here, to the point where I thought it was a typo until he was introduced. Slaughter has the Grand Wizard with him and gets in an argument with a fan in the front row before the match starts. Then he does it again, with Vince calling the fan “rotund”.

Duggan (an unknown here) forearms Slaughter in the chest and hits another in the corner. Slaughter unloads with shots to the chest against the ropes and whips him into the corner to cut off a comeback attempt. Duggan gets in his own whip but walks into a piledriver (Vince: “That’ll hurt.”) and the Cobra Clutch finishes for Slaughter at 6:31.

Rating: C-. Now this was fun, as Duggan showed the fire that would make him a star in Mid-South when he got the chance. He was a total rookie at this point though and it was amazing to see in a way. If you have never seen the old school Slaughter, make some time to do so, as he really was awesome in his slimmer days.

Great Kabuki vs. Bruiser Brody
Date: June 7, 1981
Location: Reunion Arena, Dallas Texas
Commentator: Stan Hart

From World Class inside a cage with escape rules only and if Brody wins, Fritz Von Erich gets to face Gary Hart (evil manager) inside the cage. They circle each other to start with Brody kicking his way out of the corner. Kabuki chokes him down but gets whipped into the corner for a right hand. Brody misses the knee though and Kabuki gets in a top rope forearm to the back.

The armpit claw goes on and a superkick cuts off Brody’s comeback attempt. Another comeback works a bit better as Brody kicks him down into the corner, only to get kicked up against the cage. Brody fights out of another nerve hold but a chop cuts him down again. There’s a top rope stomp to the head (geez) to bust Brody open (makes sense) but he kicks Kabuki down again. Now the big knee connects and Brody ties him in the Tree of Woe to escape at 9:55.

Rating: C-. I was expecting more from this but the big story here was more about setting up the next match. It’s a little weird to have what feels like a big showdown inside a cage for the sake of another match later, but that’s a Von Erich story for you. Brody vs. Kabuki would seem to be a bigger match than this, though there is only so much you can do with one guy knocking the other down, then having them swap roles over and over again for about ten minutes.

Bonus match time. Well after we come back from a break and look at the last thirty seconds of the match first.

Fritz Von Erich vs. Gary Hart

Hart, in his suit, is terrified and Fritz stalks him around for a good while. A charge in the corner goes badly for Hart as he gets pounded down, allowing Fritz to start ripping at the suit. Some people are running around at ringside as the pants go flying. The Claw goes on and Hart is left in his underwear. More stripping and more Clawing ensues to give Fritz the win at 4:47.

Rating: D. This was barely a match so there is only so much you’re going to get out of it. I’m sure this would mean a lot more if I know the story (to be fair, Hart vs. Von Erichs went on for years) but this was much more about giving the fans something to cheer. Fritz was a monster in real life but the fans loved him so this worked as well as it could have.

Post match Kabuki gets Hart out of the cage in search of pants.

Minnesota Stretching Crew vs. Mr. Black/Mark Henry
Date: December 16, 2000
Location: Davis Arena, Louisville, Kentucky
Commentators: Kenny Bolin, Dean Hill

That would be a VERY young Brock Lesnar/Shelton Benjamin and Black is a big guy. Black shrugs off Shelton’s dropkick to start and runs him over with a shoulder as commentary actually says this was taped before their big show (which wound up getting knocked out by a blizzard and postponed by a month anyway, so it was WAY before the big show). Shelton crucifixes Black for two and hits a top rope flip dive for the same. Black drives him into the corner and it’s off to Henry to toss Shelton around with ease.

A crossface chickenwing of all things has Benjamin in trouble and there’s a clothesline to drop him again. Henry drops a leg for two and Black blocks a sunset flip with a right hand. A missed charge lets Shelton bring in Brock off the hot tag and even Bolin (the heels’ manager) knows this is trouble. Everything breaks down and Black pulls out a police baton. Cue Rob Conway to take it from him and knock Black silly with it, giving Benjamin the pin at 5:40.

Rating: C. Totally watchable match here as they were just waiting on that hot tag to Lesnar. He was incredibly green at this point but when you can do things like that, does it really matter? I could have gone with the Stretching Crew on the main roster but Charlie Haas was a great choice for Benjamin’s partner and Brock did fine for himself. Black….well he was good for OVW.

Post match Henry and Black beat Conway down.

And now to Championship Wrestling From Florida, June 15, 1972.

We get a training session with Les Thornton, Harley Race, Danny Hodge and more slowly doing moves as commentary talks about what we’re seeing. We’re just seeing individual moves here and there is no crowd or anything. It’s mainly a bunch of suplexes and throws but they’re in slow motion to focus on the athletics and leverage. Believe it or not, Race looks exactly like he always wood as the guy never aged. We wrap it up with some clips of Chavo Guerrero dropkicking a Samoan in a match. This is the kind of thing I can always go for and it was a lot of fun for a short video.

From OVW, May 26, 2001.

Mark Henry is in the ring to talk about how OVW and its fans are on pace to raise $20000 for a children’s charity. Cue Bolin Services (top heel stable) with Kenny Bolin saying he is tired of Henry raising money that could go into his pocket in these towns. They have found something in the contract, with a Randy Savage impersonator (ahuh) saying that the contract states that all money Henry raises goes to Bolin, including the charity money.

Henry says he’ll see Bolin in the hospital and the brawl is on with Henry cleaning house. Cue some guy that commentary doesn’t recognize to beat Henry down with the help of Mr. Black. Jim Cornette wants to know who the guy is hitting a tornado DDT to leave Henry laying. He would know him soon enough: it’s a debuting John Cena.

Fritz Von Erich vs. The Sheik
Date: February 28, 1977
Location: Sportatorium, Dallas, Texas
Commentator: Bill Mercer

Texas Death Match, meaning anything goes. We’re joined in progress with Gary Hart offering a distraction so Sheik can get in a cheap shot. Fritz grabs the stomach claw anyway before switching to the head for a change. Sheik rolls over to the rope for the break (in a death match) but Fritz keeps the hold on. The hold has been on for about two minutes at this point, making it seems like one of the lamest holds in history.

Sheik finally gets in a cheap shot and makes the crazed comeback but Fritz chokes him down again. Some choking gets the bloody Sheik out of trouble and they slug it out as we take a break. Back with Fritz punching his way out of a choke to grab another claw from the mat. A headbutt knocks Sheik out to the floor but they’re both down for the count and the draw at 6:20.

Hang on though as Sheik gets a chance to come back in to answer the ten count (ok then)….and they’re both out again at 7:08. There must be a winner so the first person to his feet wins. Hart and company try to help Sheik up but Fritz is down. Cue Kerry Von Erich to pour water on Fritz and hit Hart with the bucket. Fritz FINALLY gets up for the win at 10:02.

Rating: D-. There was some nice drama with who gets up first but this was a lot of laying around (about 4 minutes out of 10) and the rest was spent on choking and the claw. I know the fans loved Fritz and that’s fair enough, but it would be nice to have them actually do something. Sheik can have his wild brawls, though you would never know it off of this one.

Post match Sheik uses the water on the mat to wash his face because he’s an odd duck.

UPW Heavyweight Title: Samoa Joe vs. Christopher Daniels
Date: March 14, 2001
Location: Galaxy Theater, Santa Ana, California
Attendance: 775

Daniels is defending and this is Loser Leaves UPW (a California independent promotion which trained John Cena). We’re joined in progress with Joe (slim here) missing an enziguri and Daniels (with HAIR) pulling him into an STF. Joe makes the rope and pulls Daniels into a chinlock. That’s broken up as well but the referee gets crushed in the corner. A low blow into Angel’s Wings gets the pin….from a wrestler named Mikey Henderson, meaning it doesn’t seem to count. Joe gets back up and hits an enziguri, setting up the Emerald Driver (Emerald Flosion) for the pin and the title at 2:02 shown.

Daniels gets the Goodbye Song but grabs the mic and thanks the fans for everything over the years.

Samoa Joe, who looks YOUNG, says he’ll face everyone and ran both Daniels and Rob Van Dam out of UPW.

From Florida Championship Wrestling, February 23, 1989.

Oliver Humperdink is sick of Dusty Rhodes so he needs to get rid of Dustin Rhodes. So who should he bring in to take care of Dustin? The only solution is Terry Funk, and we see a video of Funk standing in front of an unpainted white figure with the word DUSTY on the chest. Funk talks about how worthless and fat he is, and how something like this can only be called a “Dusty”. Then he whips out a chainsaw and cuts off the limbs, which represent his words and fat. That leaves you with a Dustin, who is too stupid to speak. I think I’ve done this one before.

 

Remember to follow me on Twitter and Bluesky @kbreviews and head over to my Amazon author page with 30 different cheap wrestling books at:

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NWA-TNA Weekly PPV #18
Date: October 23, 2002
Location: Tennessee State Fairgrounds Arena, Nashville, Tennessee
Commentators: Don West, Mike Tenay

The big story coming out of last week saw Ron Killings retaining the World Title when Jeff Jarrett attacked Curt Hennig. While Jarrett vs. Hennig sounds like one of the more quality matches available, it’s far from the most interesting. This company needs something to focus on as the top story, because what they’re doing right now isn’t exactly working. Let’s get to it.

Here are last week’s results if you need a recap.

Opening sequence.

We run down the card.

Amazing Red vs. Kid Kash vs. Jose Maximo vs. Joel Maximo vs. Elix Skipper

Elimination rules for a future X-Division Title shot. It’s a brawl to start with Skipper and Jose being sent to the floor. Kash dives onto them, with Joel adding a baseball slide. Red’s big running flip dive takes the other four out and Kash adds his own flip dive. Back in and the Maximos get a double submission on Kash and Red, with Skipper adding a camel clutch on Jose.

With that not working, Skipper lets go for a springboard dropkick to break the whole thing up. Kash dropkicks Joel into the corner and then runs the ropes to hurricanrana Jose on the floor. Back in and Joel rolls Skipper up for two but the tornado DDT is blocked. Instead Skipper grabs a rope walk DDT for two, only to get taken out by Kash’s high crossbody. Red is back in to kick Skipper out to the floor but Kash runs the corner to send super gorilla press Red and then Jose. We actually get the battle of the Maximos until Skipper gives Jose the Play Of The Day for the elimination at 7:43.

Skipper isn’t done as he dives onto Kash and Joel on the floor, only for Joel to come back with what would become known as the Beach Break to get rid of Skipper at 8:45. Kash’s Money Maker eliminates Joel at 9:21 and we’re down to Kash vs. Red. A spinning kick to the head gives Red two but Kash’s Whisper In The Wind gets the same. Kash runs the corner and dives onto him for two more, only to get knocked off the top. Infrared gives Red the final pin at 12:20.

Rating: B-. It’s another match with a bunch of talented, fast paced wrestlers getting to go out there and do their thing, which made it entertaining but likely not overly important. I did like Red getting the push though, as he has felt like a better option than most of the non-big three X-Division stars. Now see what you have with him and consider adding to the ranks of the division’s top level.

A nervous Brian Lawler is looking through the door for someone and says he’ll do the interview later.

We look back at the Hot Shots and the Michaels beating down Chris Harris and James Storm last week.

Tag Team Titles: Chris Harris/James Storm vs. Hot Shots

Harris and Storm are defending and it’s a brawl to start fast. The fight heads outside with the champs using their belts to whip away. Harris sends Stevens into the corner and a running bulldog gives Harris two back inside. O’Reilly comes in for a snap suplex and the Shots do an old Rockers spot to flip Harris over and roll into a double right hand to knock Storm off the apron. Stevens comes back in and gets dropped with a spear, allowing the tag off to Storm. Everything breaks down in a hurry and Stevens hits a superkick, only for Storm to come back with the 8 Second Ride to retain at 7:34.

Rating: C+. More good stuff from the champs here, but again it’s not helping to have so many teams lose to them so soon. We need an actual division rather than one team after another coming for the belts. Harris and Storm are very good together and have been a highlight around here, but they need someone to really test them.

Video on Jerry Lynn vs. Sonny Siaki.

Lynn is ready to fight, bad knee or not. Wrestlers don’t have an off season. With Lynn gone, Brian Lawler runs by the camera, still looking nervous.

Jerry Lynn vs. Sonny Siaki

Lynn’s knee is banged up but he pulls Siaki to the floor and the brawl starts on the floor. They fight into the crowd until Lynn throws him back inside for the opening bell. Siaki gets smart by going after the leg and slaps on a half crab, sending Lynn over to the ropes. Lynn’s slingshot Fameasser in the ropes puts Siaki back on the floor but he goes after the leg again for a smart move. Siaki grabs something like an Indian deathlock, which Lynn breaks up just as fast. The knee is slammed into the mat a few times but Lynn sends him into the buckle, setting up a bridging rollup to give Lynn the pin at 5:50.

Rating: C+. They didn’t have much time here but Lynn fighting through adversity and winning in the end through simple wrestling is a good way to go. That being said, I’m not sure I would have Siaki lose here, as he was starting to become a bigger deal, mainly through his attacks on Lynn. Maybe don’t have him lose in one of his first big matches?

Post match Siaki wrecks the knee again and Lynn has to be helped out.

We recap Curt Hennig vs. Ron Killings from last week, with Jeff Jarrett helping Killings retain the World Title.

Here are Curt Hennig and BG James for a chat. Hennig knows what it’s like to be a wrestler but Jeff Jarrett has always been a wanna be. Back in the 90s, Hennig was part of the West Texas Rednecks and then Jarrett came along trying to be a country singer (Hennig’s timeline is just a bit off there). Hennig is the guy who took down Brock Lesnar at 35,000 feet, which he says twice for some reason. Therefore he wants to face Jarrett next week and we cut to the back, where Brian Lawler won’t let Jarrett come to the ring. James swears revenge on Lawler for last week. As usual, Hennig is fine but Jarrett is just annoying.

Scott Hall vs. Jeff Jarrett

Hall says he’s supposed to be out here later but he’s bad at following rules so we’re doing this now. Jarrett comes in and Hall slugs him down with his variety pack of punches. The fall away slam has Jarrett teasing a walk out so Hall cuts him off and sends him into various things. They fight into the crowd, where Hall gets in some chair shots to the back.

Back in and the Outsider’s Edge is countered with a backdrop to the floor and Hall comes up holding his knee (one of their greatest hits). Jarrett hammers away back inside, setting up the running crotch attack to the back of the head. A swinging neckbreaker gives Jarrett two and why yes he does grab a sleeper.

Hall fights up and actually grabs a chokeslam rather than reversing into a sleeper of his own. The referee gets bumped (ENOUGH OF THAT ALREADY) so Jarrett hits Hall with a chair. Cue Curt Hennig to go after Jarrett but the lights go out. Ron Killings pops up on screen and threatens Hennig but Brian Lawler runs in to go after Hennig instead. Hennig fights out of a Stroke attempt, leaving Hall to hit the Outsider’s Edge for the pin at 11:37.

Rating: C. These two have one of the longest rivalries in the promotion, which is only saying so much when they’re only a few months old, but there is a history here. The problem is that the history is mostly boring, as they were only so good when they were feuding in the WWF. Another not so thrilling match here, but it was technically sound enough.

Brian Lawler vs. BG James

Lawler jumps him on the way in but misses a charge and falls out to the floor. James gets in a crotching on the barricade but Lawler is right back out with a shot to the head. A chair to the back has Lawler making some weird faces until he whips James into the steps. They go back inside, where James manages the dancing jabs. Lawler drops him again and goes up but cue Syxx Pac and April in quite the passionate embrace. The distracted Lawler gets knocked off the top and pinned at 4:42.

Rating: D+. So this was mainly about the Syxx Pac stuff and my goodness I do not want to see him dropping down into the Lawler mess. Pac has been a nice addition to the X-Division and I really do not want his talents wasted on this mess. Other than that you have James doing his usual stuff, which is hardly worth seeing.

A distraught Lawler walks to the back.

We recap Syxx Pac retaining the X-Division Title over AJ Styles last week despite getting disqualified.

X-Division Title: AJ Styles vs. Syxx Pac

Styles, with Mortimer Plumtree, is challenging and this is No DQ. Before the match, Pac says this should be No DQ, which has already been established. Pac knocks him to the floor to start fast and hits the big running flip dive. Back in and a faceplant into a surfboard has Styles in more trouble but he headscissors Pac to the floor. That’s fine with Pac, who drops him face first onto the barricade.

Styles tosses him into the post though and the Spiral Tap gets two back inside. Pac fights out of a double arm crank so it’s the moonsault into the reverse DDT to give Styles two. Some spinwheel kicks and a sitout powerbomb give Pac the same but Styles powerbombs him out of the corner. Pac gets in another knockdown but has to go after Plumtree, who gets knocked off the apron. Styles’ German suplex gets two so he tries the Styles Clash, with Pac grabbing the ropes. Cue Brian Lawler to get in a cheap shot though and the Clash gives Styles the pin and the title at 8:58.

Rating: B-. This was what you would expect from these two and the Lawler stuff at the end makes sense. That being said, Pac getting stuck with Lawler is not exactly ideal, but it’s the kind of thing that would fit perfectly around here. Styles getting the title back is fine as he’s been one of the proven stars around here, though hopefully the title is still treated as importantly as it has been without being taken down a notch under the drama from the veteran “stars”.

Post match Pac shows respect before getting dropped by a Lawler belt shot.

Ace Steel vs. Jorge Estrada

Priscilla is here with Estrada. Steel wrestles him to the mat to start but gets kind of powerslammed for two. A suplex gives Estrada two more but Steel slams him out of the corner for a breather. Estrada gets sent outside for the suicide dive, only to come back with a running DDT. Back in and Steel crotches him on top for a top rope superplex and a rather near fall. Steel rolls some northern lights suplexes for two but Priscilla trips him up, allowing Estrada to grab a rollup for the pin at 6:24.

Rating: C+. Kind of a weird choice for result here, as Steel felt like he was becoming a bit of a thing and Estrada is already coming off a pretty big loss. It’s not a terrible move as Estrada is far from bad, but I could go for a bit more of Steel than anything else. Either way, I’ll take someone getting a fresh push in the division for a change.

Post match Mortimer Plumtree comes in and takes Priscilla down until security makes the save.

Here is Syxx Pac for a chat. AJ Styles beat him tonight and that’s because he screwed up with the whole April thing. Then again April is kind of hot so it’s not a bad idea. So let’s get Brian Lawler out here and let’s have a fight for April. Lawler comes out to say the fight is over because April is a piece of trash for kissing Pac back. Pac: “That ain’t all she did. You didn’t see the other stuff.” April comes out to say she loves Lawler, which Lawler interprets as Pac forced her to do various things. The fight is on with Lawler beating Pac down until security breaks it up.

Don West hypes up next week.

NWA World Title: Curt Hennig vs. Ron Killings

Hennig is challenging and Killings raps about how much he hates the fans. Hennig runs in and starts the brawl fast (a trend around here) with Killings bailing to the floor. Killings fights back and they go onto the announcers’ table, only for Hennig to avoid a side kick against the barricade.

Back up and Killings slugs away, setting up a middle rope legdrop for two back inside. The ax kick hits Hennig and a spinning wheelbarrow faceplant out of the corner gives Killings two more. Hennig is back up with a low blow but here is Mr. Wrestling III. This time Hennig jumps him and goes for the mask, only for Killings to get in a shot with a foreign object to retain the title at 8:32.

Rating: C. Somehow they managed to find another way to have an over the top, shenanigans filled match between these two. Killings getting another win over a name is good though, as his title reign is a surprisingly effective story. I’m scared to know who is under the Mr. Wrestling III mask, but it feels like it is going to be a major plot point.

We get the EVIL RETURNS graphic (scheduled for next week) to end the show.

Overall Rating: C. The problem here comes down to the same issues that have plagued a lot of Vince Russo shows over the years: there are too many things going on in one night. This show felt like it had about a month’s worth of stuff between Syxx Pac and Brian Lawler in a single night and that made for an exhausting show. At the same time, a bunch of matches go so quickly that the show needed to burn through more time, which would seem to have a simple solution. I didn’t hate this show, but as usual, they need to slow WAY down and focus a lot more, which is a long running issue around here.

 

 

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Saturday Night’s Main Event 18
Date: November 26, 1988
Location; ARCO Arena, Sacramento, California
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Jesse Ventura

We’re in the middle of Savage’s title reign here and tonight he defends against Andre. That’s a match that you don’t get that often but it sounds interesting if nothing else. This was a time where we were just getting ready for Hogan vs. Savage to set up Mania 5 which was kind of disappointing. Also on this show is the Super Ninja, who contrary to popular belief was NOT the Great Muta. You can tell that by the size difference if nothing else. Let’s get to it as I try to get done with SNME today.

Warrior says he’s going to go to war with Super Ninja and Mr. Fuji.

Heenan and Andre say they’re going to win the world title back.

Savage isn’t worried about Andre.

DiBiase doesn’t believe in Thanksgiving but only buying and selling like he did with Hercules.

Hogan talks about Thanksgiving and being on Brother Love’s Show.

The theme song wants you to know that it’s awesome.

Jesse wants top billing since we’re in Hollywood which is his town.

Fuji says he’ll win and makes a Pearl Harbor reference. Ninja is apparently a master of the seven arts. Would that include watercolors?

Warrior says he’s seen an unseen enemy. I love these promos as they were definitely entertaining.

Intercontinental Title: Super Ninja vs. Ultimate Warrior

Ninja looks like Spawn. The comic book character, not the annoying poster. Ninja goes after him and nothing at all works. Warrior gets a leapfrog and I’m not sure if I believe it or not. Vince talks about horse manure ice cream. Go ahead and try to convince me that he wasn’t on drugs. Total squash here that last two minutes or so and the splash ends it. Ninja was never seen again.

Rating: N/A. Not sure what the point of this was as Warrior could have beaten someone better than this just as easily without having to bring in some random guy that was never heard from again. Whatever though.

We recap Heenan selling Hercules’ contract to DiBiase which turned Herc face as DiBiase kept calling him a slave.

DiBiase says Hercules isn’t being American because he’s turning down the business deal that was made. Virgil gets Hercules tonight.

Hercules says he’s a free man.

Virgil vs. Hercules

Anyone else think this is a squash in the making? Back from a break and the heels are jumping Hercules. This works about as well as Rogaine worked for Virgil and the fans are on fire for this actually. I love knee lifts for some reason. I always have. We’re about a minute and a half in and Virgil hasn’t had a single shot yet. Apparently this is for Hercules’ freedom. A powerslam ends it. TOTAL domination here.

Rating: N/A. This somehow never led to Hercules vs. DiBiase. I’m not sure why they never had a proper blowoff but it could be due to the lack of talent from Hercules. This was just kind of odd as Virgil got totally squashed and it wasn’t even close. Just odd.

Twenty minutes so far and nothing but squashes.

We see Andre having a heart attack due to Jake and the snake last time.

Heenan and Andre insist that Andre is champion.

Savage says if Hogan can do it, he can do it. We have a huge world title match and it becomes about Hogan somehow. Why am I not surprised at all?

WWF World Title: Randy Savage vs. Andre the Giant

Savage runs at him like a crazy man and of course it doesn’t work at all. Andre was a shell of his former shell and couldn’t really do anything other than bare bones stuff by this point but dang he was trying. This is all Andre to start as Savage tries stupid things that never work in the slightest.

A short comeback gets him nowhere other than ticking Andre off. FINALLY he wakes up and goes to the air which actually works and he beats Andre down. Here’s Jake to distract Andre and Heenan. Savage makes Jake leave which is a weird moment for some reason. Jake’s height always is tricky. The match loses anything resembling focus as Heenan looks for the snake.

After a few minutes he finally finds it and Jake comes down again….resulting in a double DQ? Andre is in the ropes and Bobby gets beaten up. The snake is busted out but Heenan gets his out of there just in time. Savage seems cool with the whole costing of the match by Jake. Ah maybe he isn’t. The 80s were always confusing.

Rating: D. The opening stuff was good but as soon as Jake came out this became a circus and not the kind with the cool freaky clowns or bearded lady that resembled my aunt John. This was just a mess and never went anywhere at all. Savage vs. Andre could have been a bit match but it gets like 8 minutes where the focus was on Jake than anything else.

Duggan isn’t worried about Bravo in his flag match vs. Zhukov.

Boris Zhukov vs. Jim Duggan

This is a flag match where the winner gets to wave the flag. Other than that it’s a regular match though. They slug it out and Duggan wins of course, as Jesse points out that punching him in the head isn’t going to get him anywhere. Boris beats on Duggan but that does nothing at all. Short comeback and then the three point clothesline ends it.

Rating: N/A. Another two minute squash. Is this a theme or something tonight? Yet again this went nowhere at all and had absolutely no point. Vince crying at the presenting of the flag is kind of funny though.

We recap Boss Man beating up Hogan on Brother Love’s show which was the filler feud until Mania happened and Hogan got his real feud. It was a pretty good beating though.

Brother Love Show

The guest is Hogan. Love always scared me to death back in the day. He was just freaking scary. Instead of Hogan he brings out Slick. Hogan is TICKED and overacts beyond belief. We get to hear Jive Soul Bro as a consolation prize, making this show substantially better. Ah here’s Hulk. Nothing Love says means anything here as we’re just waiting on Boss Man to come in.

Love asks Hogan questions but keeps cutting him off before he can answer over and over again. He lets Slick answer because something tells me he’s not a nice person. Slick is as tall as Hogan. Never would have guessed that. The look on Hogan’s face is great actually as he’s not used to BLATANT DISRESPECT like this. Finally Hogan just grabs the mic and yells a lot.

Hogan talks about how fake Love is. This is going absolutely nowhere and I’m bored out of my mine. Hulk talks about being a judge and sentencing Love for something or other. He finally beats up Slick and Love. No Boss Man or anything which makes this a HUGE waste of time. Love gets handcuffed somewhere in there. Moving on.

The Rougeaus say they’re American citizens now. They live in Memphis now and say they’re American Boys. Dang I could go for that theme song of theirs.

YoungStallionsvs. FabulousRougeauBrothers

Considering we have 9 minutes left in the show, something tells me this is going to go this fast. The Stallions never were anything other than jobbers and I can’t imagine this is going to be anything else. How in the world did Roma become a Horseman? I will never understand that and I don’t think anyone else will. Powers ducks a cross body to finally break the dominance and makes the tag. Everything goes insane and the Rougeaus hit their finisher to end this. It went nowhere at all and it wasn’t supposed to.

Rating: N/A. An up and coming heel team beat a jobbing team. What did you expect this to be?

Andre says he’ll get the title and he’ll get Jake. Andre grabs Jesse twice and is a very scary looking man.

Jake says he’s smart or something. I don’t care a bit at this point.

Hogan says being the executioner turned him on. GOOD NIGHT EVERYBODY!

Overall Rating: F+. This was AWFUL. I know I don’t have many of these left but this was something I just wanted to end the entire time. There isn’t a good match to be found nor is there anything that meant anything. This was almost like a house show card but not a good one at all. Just flat out terrible and I was just counting down the time until it ended.

 

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Saturday Night’s Main Event 24
Date: November 25, 1989
Location: Kansas Expo Center, Topeka, Kansas
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Jesse Ventura

The Survivor Series just happened and while it had the most awesome team in history (Hogan, Demolition and Jake), there isn’t much going on here. Because this was taped in October there won’t be any discussion of the show so this is really just a placeholder show. The Rumble stuff wouldn’t start until later on as that wasn’t a big deal yet either for the most part. Also the world title match and the only thing that mattered at Mania would be started up. Let’s get to it as this is the next to last one of these I have to do.

This show is about 20 minutes longer than the others so it was likely a two hour show. Very interesting.

Warrior says Andre better remember Jack and the Beanstalk.

Heenan says Andre is real, not a fairy tale.

Dusty is going to teach Boss Man about justice.

Boss Man and Slick say Rhodes is a common thief.

Genius wants the world title.

Hogan thinks Genius isn’t that smart.

This theme song is brilliant.

We get a quick recap of Warrior going after Heenan and Andre nearly killing him because of it. Heenan basically says Andre will win and Rude won’t be upset because it’s in the family. Andre is terrifying and funny at the same time.

Intercontinental Title: Ultimate Warrior vs. Andre the Giant

This was booked on a few dozen house shows but the key was it never went past like two minutes. Warrior says he isn’t afraid. One good thing about Warrior: he never wasted time on an intro. Andre jumps him to start which is odd for him and even Jesse sees that. Warrior actually chokes Andre down and in a funny moment Andre ducks out of the way and Warrior goes flying over the top. Just funny that he did something so basic for the stop.

One of the good things about Andre is his size lets any basic move look awesome. The problem is that Warrior is still insane here and Andre is FAR past his prime here and he needs someone capable in the ring to make him work. Andre gets knocked to the floor and it’s on out there. Warrior uses a bearhug back in the ring and it looks ridiculous. Has Andre not brushed his teeth in like 9 years or so?

Andre hooks a bearhug of his own and is on the mat with it. This is FAR too long as all of Warrior’s energy which is what makes this win look possible is gone at this point and nothing at all works for either guy. Andre is tied up in the ropes to just extend this even longer. Heenan comes in for the DQ and thank goodness for it.

Rating: F. This was just bad in general. It went on nearly eight minutes which is longer than Andre was in the ring for his entire tag title reign I think. This was a bad idea because of the length. At house shows, it was maybe two minutes at most which is what made it work. This was just horrible and it didn’t go well at all.

Genius says he’s smart.

Hogan says a poem and does some math. As good as it sounds.

WWF Title: Hulk Hogan vs. The Genius

Genius kind of prances around and this is definitely going to be a comedy match. He even uses a nip up which just wasn’t done back then. All Hogan here and Genius stops to write something on his scroll. He was incredibly athletic and skins the cat to get back in. And then Genius slaps Hogan in the face. Hogan gets tired of Genius doing his stuff and takes his head off with a clothesline.

Hogan is killing him now and then prances around the ring. Like him or not, the guy knew how to play to a crowd like no one else in history could. And here’s Mr. Perfect to mess everything up. He looks at the belt and says it’s not perfect and puts gum on it. Hogan gets posted and back in the ring a moonsault gets two. He Hulks Up and Genius goes to the floor. Perfect clocks Hogan with the belt and GENIUS WINS! THE GENIUS BEAT HOGAN! WITH THE TITLE ON THE LINE! Perfect runs away with the title in hand.

Rating: B-. Total comedy match that set up Hogan vs. Perfect for a few months if nothing else. This wasn’t supposed to be a serious match and you flat out can’t grade it as one. This was a hilarious match at times as someone for once tried to outsmart Hogan and it worked like a charm. This was perfectly played and while the match was nothing, the comedy and thinking was great. I liked this a lot but most people wouldn’t.

We recap Dusty vs. Bossman which is Dusty stopping Bossman from beating people up after his matches.

Slick says Dusty is in trouble.

Dusty is here to fight for justice. Does he mean Prince Justice? He looks like he hasn’t slept in a year.

Dusty Rhodes vs. Big Bossman

Dusty wants Slick thrown out but can’t get that. Bossman dominates to start with the help of Slick. Dusty gets to lay on his back for awhile so something must be working. A short fat woman at ringside yells at Slick. Dusty has gotten NOTHING in here at all. His comeback only lasts a bit as Slick gets the nightstick. Bossman yells at the lady from earlier and gets rolled up for the pin. The lady gets to dance in the ring and would become Sapphire.

Rating: D. Total domination here but Dusty got punches in and then a rollup to win the match. I hate that booking and always have. It makes Bossman look kind of weak since he managed to lose to a quick rollup like that and little of his offense did anything. This was just bad, but I’d put that on Dusty.

Red Rooster says he’ll beat Mr. Perfect.

Perfect says he’ll reveal the whole belt thing later tonight.

Red Rooster vs. Mr. Perfect

Genius reads a poem mocking Rooster and introduces Perfect. Rooster goes for an over the top chickenwing which doesn’t work. Perfect beats him up for a little while until Rooster makes a quick comeback. And then the Perfect Plex ends this. Can I get this four minutes of my life back please?

Rating: N/A. This was nothing at all but a squash for Perfect. Taylor would be in WCW in about a month.

Rockers say they’re really keen.

Heenan is arguing with the Brainbusters over who is the talent here.

Brainbusters vs. The Rockers

This is 2/3 falls. Before the match we have a commercial and since this is from 1989, there’s an ad for Batman now on VHS! Tully was in black before the break and is in red now. I love stuff like that. Jannetty and Blanchard start us off and it’s all drug addict. Wait…might need some more explanation there. Blanchard was forced to retire just after this due to a failed test. Jannetty gets a sunset flip for the pin on Tully for the first fall in like a minute and a half after some basic stuff.

Bobby is TICKED at them and leaves them on their own. The Rockers clean house and work on Arn. This is the sharpest they’ve ever looked and it’s working great. Shawn goes too fast and gets a hot shot to even us up as Jesse leaves to talk to Heenan.

Back from the break and Jesse has found Bobby. He says this is the worst team he’s ever worked with, which is saying a lot given that he had Red Rooster and Brooklyn Brawler for awhile. Bobby fires them more or less which makes sense as this is their final match with the company.

Shawn is hurt to start the third fall and is in there with Tully. I feel sorry for him. SICK spinebuster on Shawn which didn’t have a name at this point. Shawn plays Ricky Morton here but makes the tag and literally brings the crowd to their feet. Shawn stops a spike piledriver and hits a high cross body on Arn to win it.

Rating: C-. Not great but this was about the angle more than anything else. The Rockers could have been any team here but they were fun and exciting and were in the Heenan Family match at Survivor Series so they made the most sense. This was a decent enough match but really was a squash. That’s not something that happens to the former Horsemen that often.

Perfect is destroying the belt with a hammer. That would of course become the Hardcore Title. Perfect wants a title shot and would get a ton on house shows.

Hogan gets the busted up belt and is all sad over it. The belt they replaced it with was the same design which makes sense as it was like two and a half years old at that point. He does a big dramatic promo about it and throws the belt down in anger.

Vince and Jesse do their usual wrap-up.

Overall Rating: D+. I had this a bit higher than remembered that opener. This was more of a transitional show than anything else and the wrestling was pretty subpar. The highlight by far is Genius vs. Hogan and other than that it’s pretty much downhill. This was an ok show at best but there wasn’t much going on in the ring. Only one to go and I hope it’s better than this.

 

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That’s what I called the previous version.  What do you think?I still think it should have been and that it should have been the main event.  That’s just such a huge match and it would blow away any other match ever in terms of how big it could have/should have been.

 

Thoughts?

Wrestlemania 18
Date: March 17, 2002
Location: Skydome, Toronto, Canada
Attendance: 68,237
Commentators: Jerry Lawler, Jim Ross
America the Beautiful: N/A

Now this is a very interesting case. WWE had completely bombed the previous year with the Alliance and the Invasion. Those angles had to be pushed forward because HHH was injured about two months after Wrestlemania X7. Since then we had two world titles running around meaning two champions. At Vengeance, they were unified into the Undisputed Championship. That’s the night Jericho references once every 8.3 minutes.

Anyway, your main idea here is that after Shane and Stephanie lost in the Winner Take All Match, they sold their shares to none other than Ric Flair. He and Vince owned half of the company, but Vince couldn’t handle this. He says that if Flair doesn’t sell the shares back to him, he’ll poison the company by bringing in the NWO. Of course this winds up happening and it’s nowhere near as effective as it was 6 years ago in WCW.

They cost Austin the title so he’s mad at Hall and they have a match tonight. Rock challenges Hogan for the super match WHICH SHOULD HAVE BEEN AUSTIN. Seriously, if WWE wants to kid themselves and try to believe that Rock was at Austin’s level, go ahead. That belongs in the same book that says Attitude was a completely original idea. So instead we get Rock vs. Hogan. There’s one big issue that this causes: no one cares about HHH vs. Jericho now.

People weren’t buying into his title reign in the first place as there’s a common rumor going around that says the Undisputed Title was supposed to go to HHH but he wasn’t healthy yet. I would completely buy that if someone told me it was true. This is the last WM before the brand split made an attempt to kill the company. Let’s get to it.

Here’s your first clue that this show is going to be bad: Saliva plays Superstar to kick it off. Not O Canada? Seriously, we get this to start the show? Anyone else kind of disappointed? Don’t get me wrong, Saliva is a sweet band (their concerts completely suck though. Save your money and just listen to the CDs. They’re miles better).

The fans aren’t even into it at all as it’s just completely out of place. The standard “This is our Super Bowl” video follows. That is used a lot but there’s a reason: it’s the truth. The four guys in the main events tonight get to talk about what Mania means tonight. They did a good job of making it feel epic if nothing else. Pretty cool video of people talking about how important Mania is, and 8 minutes after the show started we hear JR. Lawler is back this year and it’s very nice to hear. Those two just belong at Wrestlemania.

Intercontinental Title: William Regal vs. Rob Van Dam

Ladies and Gentlemen (notice the Saliva pun?) we have proof once and for all that Vince hates RVD and anything he didn’t create. If you remember the fall before this, Van Dam was main eventing a pay per view and getting great pops everywhere the show went. He was incredibly over and it’s not like his in ring stuff is terrible. Sure he’s no Lou Thesz but it’s not like he does nothing out there.

Wouldn’t you think a guy that gets pops like he does is worth more than the opening spot? Just shows me that no matter what he did, RVD was never going to get a fair shake. He gets caught with drugs once and he’s gone. Jeff gets caught how many times and still gets a title run. (Ironically enough I’m rewriting this the morning after Victory Road 2011). Seriously, there’s something completely not right about that.

Regal is perhaps the most bland heel I’ve ever seen at this point. He was just completely boring. The crowd is chanting for RVD less than 20 seconds in. Standing moonsault gets no cover by Van Dam as he starts off very quickly. Regal grabs the brass knuckles very quickly but RVD kicks them out of his hand. Spin kick misses but Van Dam hits the jump kick to set up the Five Star.

That misses and it’s Regal with a cover for two. Suplex gets two. RVD fights back a bit but the Regal Cutter (neckbreaker) puts him right back down. Off to the chinlock and Regal is bleeding from the mouth. Rolling Thunder eats knees and a butterfly powerbomb gets two. Regal Stretch doesn’t work either.

Monkey flip puts Regal down but Rob walks into a SICK half nelson suplex to send him to the floor. Regal goes out to get Van Dam and finds the knuckles which the referee knocks away. Regal pulls out more but Van Dam kicks him in the face and the Five Star starts Van Dam’s Mania unbeaten streak.

Rating: C. This isn’t much at all. It’s the second year in a row Regal was in the IC match in the opening, but this is far worse than last year as it was just kind of there. There’s no story, no psychology that’s noticeable, and it’s mainly Van Dam just using his signature moves. It’s not a terrible match, but there was nothing great about it at all.

Lillian is with Christian and we see a clip of him turning on his mentor DDP who helped him get over Christian’s losing streak. Christian doesn’t need Page or Toronto anymore. That’s a bad thing for Page apparently.

European Title: Christian vs. DDP

Christian’s At Last You Are On Your Own entrance is just great. He’s announced as being from Tampa, Florida, which is a very nice little heel touch that could be done more often. DDP was the guy that drove the Pink Cadillac at WM 6 in the same building. Page is so ridiculously charismatic it’s unreal. He might even rival Hogan in that category.

Christian jumps him as we get into the ring and it’s on early. DDP gets a nice gutwrench powerbomb into a gutbuster. Cactus Clothesline by Page takes us to the floor. Back in and Page tries the ten punches in the corner but Christian pops Page in the balls to break that up. Page is knocked to the floor as this isn’t interesting at all.

An attempted crotch shot to the post by Page is blocked. Nothing of note is going on here. Back in the ring and we get an abdominal stretch. Discus lariat misses and it’s back to Christian’s control. Page gets something close to a powerslam off the top and both guys are down. There’s the discus lariat and down goes Christian.

Modified spiral bomb by Page gets two again. Neither the Unprettier or the Diamond Cutter works and Christian gets two off a reversed DDT. Christian avoids having a temper tantrum which was this stupid thing he was doing at the time. Diamond Cutter ends it clean and Page retains. He never got over in WWE at all. Page makes fun of Christian post match.

Rating: D+. Just like the previous match, this was next to nothing. These matches simply don’t feel like Wrestlemania matches to put it as basically as I can. They’re PPV quality I suppose, but not WM quality. Again, not bad, but nothing special at all. Like I said, Page just never clicked at all in this company.

Christian has a fit post match.

Coach is with Rock in the back and the fans chant for Hogan. Rock asks Coach is he said his prayers this morning but Coach says he got busy and forgot. Rock makes him say his prayers, which Coach starts off with by saying “What’s up G?” Rock freaks and throws him out. Coachman getting harassed by Rock simply never got old. Rock rips his t-shirt as he says Hogan will smell what he’s cooking. Good grief he was amazing.

Hardcore Title: Goldust vs. Maven

Yes, Eyebrows Huffman is back and somehow he has a title. This match is happening for the sole reason of having a hardcore title match. Remember 24/7 is still in effect. Maven gets his teeth kicked in beyond belief on the floor, more or less being a crash dummy. A golden shovel goes into Maven’s ribs. He then lands the only move he ever really mastered: a standing dropkick. He really was great at that.

Other than that, Maven is beaten inside and out here as this is little more than a squash at this point. They hit each other with trash can lids but Spike Dudley runs out with a referee and pins Maven to win the title? Yes this clearly needed to be on the PPV as we’re now almost 40 minutes into the show and the highlight is a TV match for the IC Title and Maven’s theme music.

Crash Holly runs down and chases Spike, Goldust chases Spike and Maven chases Goldust. Oh this isn’t going to end with just the match is it?

Drowning Pool performs Tear Away to “tell the story” of the Undisputed Title. Instead of, I don’t know, maybe just telling us? This is overkill at this point and the fans really aren’t that interested. This goes on WAY too long as even I’m fast forwarding. You can barely see the video that the song is supposed to be accompanying. This is a waste of time.

In that back, Crash and Spike are fighting but Al Snow drives a golf cart through a wall of boxes (good thing they were there isn’t it?) but Spike gets away. As he’s about to leave, Hurricane swings in on a cable and kicks Spike to win the title as Al gives chase. Oh this is going to be a long night.

Don’t try this at home.

After a 30 second spot to say don’t try this at home, we get a recap of what we just saw with Hurricane doing stuff that you could do at your own home. I know we have short attention spans but be serious people.

Kurt Angle vs. Kane

I’m trying to think of why this match happened and I’m drawing a blank. Apparently Kurt blames him for not being in the main event tonight so I’m guessing Royal Rumble. You figure it out. Anyway there’s no video for it or anything like that so how am I supposed to know? Pre match Angle references the scandal with the Canadian Olympic skating team. He’s the big red, white and blue machine. Kane’s pyro cuts him off. He’ll have to be subject to the blue and white machine aspects of Kurt I guess.

Angle hits Kane with the bell during the pyro to give him the advantage. Apparently Kane got attacked by Angle a few weeks ago and his head is messed up because of it. German puts Kane down. Kane comes back with right hands but walks into an overhead belly to belly and a clothesline. We keep hearing about Angle not being in the main event because of Kane which I guess could have been due to a Jericho/Angle title match which I don’t remember either.

Another suplex sends Kane down again for two. Off to a front facelock but Kane is like screw that and tosses him off. Better than tossing his salad I guess. Angle busts out a top rope clothesline and the fans boo the heck out of him, which is odd as that was a solid clothesline. The second attempt at it is caught and down go both men.

Here’s Kane’s comeback with a back drop and powerslam. Chokeslam gets two and Kane gives us a throat slit. Tombstone is reversed and there’s the Angle Slam for two as well. There’s the ankle lock but it gets reversed. Never mind as it’s right back on again. Kane gets an enziguri to take down Angle again. On the bad leg Kane goes up only to get suplexed off the top which never gets old. Chokeslam is reversed into an incredibly sloppy rollup with Kane’s shoulder up to end it.

Rating: C+. Decent match and by far the best match of the night so far, but that ending really hurts it. Also, why did this match exist again? It’s very odd to see WWE give us a match like this with absolutely no explanation. Nothing too bad here, but dang there was limited chemistry.

Hurricane is trying to hide but winds up in Godfather’s locker room with his ladies. They see him and Godfather chases him off. Point?

We recap Taker vs. Flair. Taker was eliminated by Maven at the Rumble in a big surprise. Rock made fun of him for it so they have a match at No Way Out. Taker tries to use a pipe on Rock but for no reason at all Flair comes out to stop him. Taker challenges him for Mania but Flair says no.

Taker starts beating up his loved ones such as Arn Anderson and his son David. He threatens to beat up his daughter and that’s enough to get Flair to say yes. Part of the deal with this is that during a fight on Smackdown, Flair hit a “fan”. This gets him arrested and thrown off the Board of Directors (Flair being demoded. Holy crap.) Bad man Taker with the ability to talk is freaking awesome. This is no DQ also.

Undertaker vs. Ric Flair

Flair still looks human here. He hammers away to start as Taker is knocked backwards quickly. They go out onto the table with Flair mauling the dead man. Back into the ring and Flair hammers away. All Flair so far at about two minutes into this. Flair jumps off the apron at Taker but gets caught and rammed into the post. This of course gives us time to talk about the plane crash.

Taker sends Flair into the steps, prompting a fan to swear that had to hurt which makes me laugh. Back in the ring and they hammer away even more. Flair goes into the middle buckle and somehow isn’t bleeding yet. Back to the floor again via a Flair Flip and a big boot as Taker pounds Flair into a chair. Flair is, say it with me, busted open.

Back into the ring now and Flair is getting hammered down. BIG chop out of the corner by Flair and here he comes. Ross is into this too as you would expect. Taker’s face is cut a bit as he hits a superplex to kill Flair dead. That of course gets two as Taker hammers away while pulling Flair up every time. Taker goes up for Old School and wastes enough time to have it countered.

We hit the floor again and Flair finds a lead pipe on Taker’s bike, popping him in the head with it. That doesn’t put Taker down of course and we fight up the aisle with Taker bleeding but in control. Flair finds a metal sign to get some shots in as we head back into the ring. Big kick to the balls breaks up a chokeslam attempt and it’s time for the leg.

There’s the Figure Four and Taker is in trouble. Taker grabs the throat ala Big Show back in 96 and chokeslams Flair for two. To be fair it was a pretty weak chokeslam. Does goes the referee and according to Taker it’s pipe time. Arn Anderson pops up out of nowhere and DRILLS Taker with a spinebuster to a huge pop and a two count.

Taker brings in another weapon, this time a chair, but according to Law #8 of wrestling, Flair gets it and pops Taker with it a few times. A big boot stops that and it’s time for the Last Ride. For some reason Flair dead weights him so instead it’s a Tombstone (BIG pop for that) to end it as that looked great. Flair is victim #10.

Rating: B. Leave it to the old guys to come out there and have one of the better matches of the show. I don’t think anyone thought Flair would win but it was fun to see him go out there and just be Flair one more time. After this it was more or less nothing but Evolution and HHH for Flair so it didn’t mean much. Flair would be a heel very soon and Taker would be world champion in a few months. Good match.

Booker talks about how smart he is. He mentions knowing about Einstein’s theory of relatives. This was about one of the most creative backstories I’ve heard in awhile. Booker was allegedly trying to get an endorsement deal for a Japanese shampoo commercial, but before he signed the contract the company found Edge instead. This match is the result of that. You have to say, that’s creative if nothing else.

Booker T vs. Edge

 

So Edge is awesome and it’s his hometown. Who do you think is going to win here? JR wants a cheeseburger from the Hard Rock Café. Funny sign: They Are Fighting Over Shampoo. Truer words have never been spoken. Ton of Edge signs and he gets a great reaction. Basic stuff to start with Booker landing a hot shot to take Edge down.

Out to the floor for just a bit and a missile dropkick gets two. All Booker so far. Edge fires back with a big chop but Booker takes him down on the back of his head with an Alabama Slam for two. Edge botches a top rope rana as Booker lands on Edge’s back which has to freaking hurt. Spinwheel kick by Edge for two and here he comes (to save the day!).

Scissors Kick is reversed into the Edge-O-Matic for two. A top rope spinwheel kick (love that move) gets two for the Canadian. Twisting sunset flip out of the corner is countered into a slingshot by Edge but the spear misses. Spinarooni sets up the axe kick for two. Edge gets an arm drag and the spear for a close two. And there’s the Edgecution to end things. That came out of nowhere.
Rating: C. While this was really just an excuse to get the hometown boy on the show, the pop he got makes up for it. While not bad, this isn’t the best match for either of them but it’s certainly good. Edge’s super push continues, but would get knocked off the tracks by neck surgery just 10 months later as he was cracking into the main event.

In the back, Hurricane is interviewed by Coach about being Hardcore Champion. His sidekick, Mighty Molly appears and says that they need to leave. She then hits him in the head with a frying pan to win the title. Ok, I get that this is supposed to be silly, but there is no reason why there’s a freaking frying pan there. What’s that for, in case Big Show wants a fried roast? Seriously, at least use a chair or something.

All right ladies and gentlemen, pay attention, because you’re about to see the worst idea in Wrestlemania history.

We recap Austin vs. Hall. In short it was Austin vs. the NOW and the first person he went after was Hall. That’s about all there is to it. However, the first thing I want to know is what the heck? Austin is main eventing the show one year ago and is now the midcard special? No wait that would be Rock and Hogan. Austin is now doing the Angle/Benoit match from last year.

This should have been Rock or someone else, leaving Austin vs. Hogan, end of discussion. Your story here is that the NWO took out Austin at No Way Out and cost him the title. Austin kidnapped Hall and tortured him, leading to the NWO attacking Austin and breaking a cinder block over his knee. In a move that was never explained, Austin’s OTHER knee is bandaged the next week. Anyway, let’s get on with this.

Scott Hall vs. Steve Austin
As soon as the bell rings we see your basic problem: Austin is viewed as a superstar, Hall is viewed as a joke. Hall is good enough in the ring to hang with Austin, but no one is buying this. Nash is out with him and helping Hall so at least it’s Austin vs. the Outsiders, but this just feels weak all over.

Austin would soon go on hiatus for several months (I saw his last match before he did this, or at least one of them) and I can’t say I blame him. His character was dead and buried at this point and he would only hang around for about another year. Anyway let’s get to this. Austin pounds away to start and it’s about what you would expect.

Thesz Press and the middle finger elbow connect before Hall can even get the vest off. Hall takes a ton of shots into the buckle and it’s off to the floor now. Austin pops Nash and heads back into the ring only to take a clothesline for two. They slug it out even more as Hall is shall we say limited at this point. Hall sends him to the floor and Nash hammers away.

Back in goes Austin and it’s more basic offense by Hall. WORST FALL AWAY SLAM EVER gets no cover. The fans chant Razor as he gets a clothesline for two. Nash adds in some shots to try to make the inevitable ending a bit less annoying. Austin grabs a weak spinebuster for no cover. Hall fires more punches as that’s about all he can do here.

Hall hits the ropes but runs into a Stunner out of nowhere so Nash pulls the referee out and drills him. The double beating begins but Austin fights them off and it’s a Stunner for both with no referee. Nash takes out the replacement referee as well so Austin backdrops Hall to the floor. The fans all look at something and it’s a bunch of referees to get rid of Nash. Hall hits a Stunner for two and then Austin gets a Stunner as well to end this for good.

Rating: D. I hate this match. It’s almost filler and for Austin, that’s a slap in his face. Put simply, he deserves much better than this. Hall and Nash just aren’t a legitimate challenge for the guy that was the world champion most of the previous year. Hall is ok to feed to someone like Edge or Benoit, but putting him in there with Austin? In no way, shape or form is that acceptable. I’m actually ticked off about this now. This is flat out stupid.

We see a video on Access. That really is a cool idea. It’s like a convention where you can meet wrestlers, call matches, etc.

Tag Titles: Billy/Chuck vs. Dudley Boys vs. APA vs. Hardys Boys
Saliva plays the Dudleyz theme and Stacy looks insanely hot dancing with them. That’s your match highlight. This has elimination rules. The APA are purely here to fill a spot as they would be split up a month later. Lita is in a match later so she’s not here either. Still just one set of titles at this point. You Look So Good To Me is freaking catchy.

This is under elimination rules by the way. The APA jumps the champions as they come in. Bradshaw and Chuck start us off and some double teaming puts Bradshaw down. Crowd is dead here as you would expect them to be. The APA and the champions (Billy and Chuck if I didn’t mention that earlier) have done the whole of the match so far.

Farrooq hits a spinebuster on Billy and then it’s off to Bradshaw. D-Von finally comes in and gets beaten down also. Total mess so far and we’re only about two minutes in. Farrooq hits a spinebuster on Chuck outside and the Clothesline From JBL ends Billy. Before Bradshaw can cover though a 3D puts the APA out. The Hardys come in to fight their old rivals.

The key word there is old, as neither of them meant anything anymore and both would go their separate ways very soon. Double DDT on Chuck clearly doesn’t hit the mat but who cares? The Dudleys set up a table on the floor which is for later I’d assume. Whisper in the Wind takes down Bubba but Stacy gets on the apron and pulls her shorts up into a thong. Jeff gives her a spank and shoves her down.

Bubba Bomb takes down Jeff who is a very pale man. Bubba hammers on him for awhile as we couldn’t be going through the motions more if our lives depended on it. We hit the chinlock as this is just boring. D-Von comes in to change a few things. Jeff gets caught in the Tree of Woe and Bubba steps on Jeff’s balls. Edge and Christian did that to Matt last year.

Matt comes in to send Bubba to the floor, knowing what Jeff’s balls feel like. Jeff gets a reverse DDT to bring in Matt. D-Von brings in Bubba and I’d rather watch some old 95 Raw than this. It’s that boring. Bubba misses his big back splash which has never hit once, likely for the sake of people’s lives. Billy saves Matt from What’s Up by shoving D-Von through the tables.

Twist of Fate and the Swanton put the Dudleys out. Chuck kicks Matt’s head off immediately after and we’re down to two teams here. Matt grabs a Side Effect on Billy as the crowd is more or less silent here. Poetry in Motion to Billy and the double finisher to Chuck. Billy gets a Fameasser to Jeff for two but then a belt shot to Jeff ends it.

Rating: F. How in the freaking world do you go from TLC 2 to this in just a year? The tag division was completely dead at this point so they split the belts. Well of course they did because that’s the dumbest thing they ever could have done. This was awful and everyone knew it. Boring all around with only Stacy being at her hottest to be worth anything.

Outsiders say they’re going to help Hogan. Hogan says don’t do it.

Molly runs into a door and Christian pins him. Tell me it’s over. I need to hear that it’s over.

Now it’s time for the REAL main event of Wrestlemania 18: The Rock vs. Hulk Hogan. This all starts with a tale as old as time: Rock wants to know who the better man is. In this case, that’s all this feud needed. Anyway, Hogan pins Rock with the leg drop in a 6 man on Raw, so we already have a reason to believe Hogan can win. Seriously, that should be enough right?

The scene with Rock and Hogan standing toe to toe in the ring on Raw in Chicago to start up the feud is incredible. Rock: “You talk about headlining Wrestlemania after Wrestlemania after Wrestlemania. Well how do you feel about headlining one more Wrestlemania with THE ROCK?” Game on.

Now we get to the really idiotic part as Hogan hit Rock in the back of the head with a hammer. When he was loaded into the ambulance, Hogan commandeered a semi truck and plowed into it. Rock was of course back on Raw the following week because that’s how he rolls I guess. Vince thought that two of the biggest names of all time facing each other wasn’t enough so he threw in a pointless story. That was just a waste to me and always will be.
The Rock vs. Hulk Hogan

Hogan’s pop is insane as the fans show that Hulkamania will indeed live forever. When Hogan is in the ring a HUGE Hogan chant starts up. Rock’s pop is clearly smaller, but it’s there. Ross tries to call this a mixed reaction which is just laughable. The staredown is indeed awesome. The guys seem really confused about the crowd. They pop for the bell. When do you ever hear that?

Hogan sends Rock flying off the lockup and the place erupts. I’ve always liked Hogan talking trash in the most basic of moves. In a headlock for example “Ask him ref or I’ll rip his head off!” Hogan shoves him away again and says just bring it. Hogan hammers away, saying “You ain’t nothing meatball”, which is a line from Rocky III.

Rock gets the big jumping clothesline/forearm and is booed out of the building. Rock hammers away and almost goes over the top but instead hits the floor under the ropes. An attempted Rock Bottom is blocked and Hogan “hits” an elbow to the top of the head and pounds away at Rock on the mat. Rock spears him and pounds away as the crowd is all over him.

Hogan gets a belly to back suplex to calm the riot. He throws on an abdominal stretch and rolls Rock up for two. Let the back raking begin. Time for some punches in the corner and Hogan can do no wrong more or less. Rock comes back with chops but Hogan gets what looked like a chokeslam of all things but I think was supposed to be a clothesline.

The wrist tape comes off and Hogan chokes away but Rock fires off some punches, only to be sent to the floor. Almost all Hogan so far as Rock can barely get anything going. Hogan starts setting up the (English) announce table but Rock rams him into the table to save himself. Rock tries a chair shot as more or less he’s turned heel mid match. The referee stops it though and we head back in.

Down goes the referee and it’s a spinebuster by Rock to set up the Sharpshooter. Rock might as well be eating a bowl of puppy and rainbow stew at this point. Hogan taps but there’s no referee. See, why in the world would Rock let Hogan go to wake up the referee? He’s going to get up on his own and Hogan is more or less dead. LOUD Rocky Sucks chant starts up which hasn’t been heard in years.

Rock takes a low blow and walks into his own Rock Bottom for two. The weightlifting belt comes off but Rock gets a DDT and more booing. Rock whips Hogan just like Hogan whipped him as the referee is down again. There’s a Rock Bottom to Hogan for two as the Hulking Up begins. The usual finishing sequence including the legdrop blows the roof off the place but only gets two, blowing what’s left of the roof off the place.

A second big boot hits but the leg drop misses. Rock Bottom plants Hogan but Rock isn’t done yet. He adds a second Rock Bottom to more or less kill Hogan. He nips up and it’s the People’s Elbow to get something close to a pop and send Hogan into vibrating fish mode. That’s enough to get the pin finally.

Rating: C+. There’s good and bad here. The crowd was electric the whole night and the nostalgia levels were off the charts. There’s one simple problem though: Hogan didn’t have it anymore. He was old and bad at this point, and his stuff simply wasn’t credible. While it’s fun, it’s not that good. The crowd and the atmosphere is all of the grade here. They had a great story of having Rock be the younger and in better shape guy that outlasted Hogan in the end. Well done and it worked very well by the end. Good story, good crowd, weak execution though.

Hogan offers Rock a handshake post match and we get it to a big pop. Rock leaves and the Outsiders come down, all ticked off about the handshake. They beat him down until Rock comes back for the save. Hogan tries to leave but Rock wants him to pose, and you don’t have to ask Hogan twice to do that. That eats up a few minutes and Hogan raises Rock’s hand as they leave together.
Big Show is at WWF New York as we have a new attendance record.

Women’s Title: Jazz vs. Lita vs. Trish Stratus

I’ve been watching wrestling over 20 years and I have never heard a more dead reaction for a champion than Jazz gets here. Literally, not a sound. No booing, no anything at all. It is complete silence. Lita gets a nice pop as I remember how completely awesome she was as a face. The song is perfect for her and her gyrations could give Melina a run for her money.

Trish of course gets the mega pop as the hometown girl. The problem here is simple: this match is following The Rock vs. Hulk Hogan. No one cared and I don’t care now. Well I do care about Trish in the tiny white shorts with the maple leaf on her trunks. Lita and Jazz go at it before Trish gets there. The two that people actually care about go at it on Jazz which doesn’t really work.

Half crab goes on Trish and now she’s in trouble. Double chicken wing to Lita as it’s all Jazz. Crowd is dead and you can clearly see a lot of people walking around and heading to the concession stand. This is one of those matches where nothing that happens actually matters so I’m not really going to bother with telling you what’s going on.

Trish is apparently hurt so of course Lawler offers to give her mouth to mouth. Trish rolls through a top rope cross body by Lita to get two on the redhead. Bulldog gets two as Jazz saves. Lawler lists off various countries that the show is airing in because they don’t want to call the match which I completely understand. I don’t want to either.

Lita and Trish go at it before this was a huge rivalry and before they had fought a dozen times on PPV. They slug it out with Lita mostly getting the better of it. Jazz interrupts the Twist of Fate and then stops to let Lita hit her. Lita takes her top off and tries a moonsault on both of them but winds up hitting Trish’s knees.

The two attractive ones hit heads and Jazz beats on them. Trish’s bulldog is blocked by Lita but Lita gets crotched on the top. Trish is knocked to the floor and a fisherman’s suplex off the top keeps the belt on Jazz. Yes, Jazz beat Trish in a title match in Toronto. Let that sink in for a minute.
Rating: F+. This is all based on how hot Trish and Lita look. The booking here is ridiculous to say the least. Trish gets the huge pop, comes out third, and doesn’t win? No. In no way, shape or form is this logical.

Christian tries to get a cab and escape as champion but Maven runs up on him and rolls him up to leave Mania with the title. At least it’s over.

WWF Undisputed World Heavyweight Title: HHH vs. Chris Jericho

It’s main event time and Drowning Pool plays HHH to the ring. Since there’s no backstory, here I am for the rescue. HHH and Stephanie are divorcing so Jericho teamed up with Stephanie so he’d have an advantage. HHH is back from the quad tear and won the Rumble to earn this shot. People are leaving the arena early as they know the ending already. What does that say about the main event of Wrestlemania? It’s that obvious that HHH gets the title back tonight.

Jericho has both belts because the Undisputed Title was supposed to go to HHH so he gets the big unified belt. Stephanie looks great in the skin tight leather body suit but the hair isn’t working at all. The crowd of course is confused because Jericho is Canadian but HHH is rather awesome at this point. Jericho has the bright green tights here to (not really) match Stephanie.

The champion wisely goes after the leg to start us off. Jericho chops away but HHH gets the jumping knee, only to limp away afterwards. HHH gets sent to the floor although he manages to send Jericho out as well, landing ribs first on the railing. We set up the Spanish announce table but Jericho gets a kick to the knee to stop HHH again.

Back in the ring and a spear by HHH takes Jericho down for a bit. We’re only a few minutes into this and they’re having some issues really getting going so far. HHH goes after the knee of Jericho to be funny I guess. Ironic maybe? Whatever. A Flair knee crusher sets up a Figure Four. Stephanie gouges his eyes to break that up though and the stalking is on.

That was another thing: everyone knew that HHH would get the Pedigree on Stephanie at some point tonight. Jericho charges at HHH but takes Stephanie down instead. Pedigree attempt to Stephanie but Jericho gets a missile dropkick to break it up and take over. The bad leg goes around the post a few times and Stephanie kicks it as well.

Jericho works on the knee some more in the ring and the Canadian is in control. Back to the post again as Stephanie adds a leg wrap in also. There’s the Canadian favorite of the figure four around the post. Back in and HHH tries to fight but gets taken down by a drop toehold. Jericho cranks on the leg as we’re steadily into the formula here.

Spinning toehold goes on by Jericho as the fans chant for Hogan. Well of course they are. HHH sends Jericho shoulder first into the post to break the momentum and adds a neckbreaker which Jericho is up from first somehow. Clothesline gets two for HHH. Facebuster hits but HHH can barely move after it. His offense is so knee based it’s unreal.

Spinebuster, perhaps his only non knee based move, gets two. Jericho reverses to send HHH out to the floor and therefore end the momentum that HHH had going for him. Jericho sets up the table again but can’t get the Walls of Jericho on there. Pedigree is broken up also and it’s a backdrop through the table. That and the Lionsault both gets two in the ring.

HHH gets back up but again can’t get the Pedigree. Jericho gets a shot to the knee and there are the Walls. After wasting some time with Jericho pulling HHH back to the middle he gets the ropes as we all knew he would. This is why heels not named Kurt Angle shouldn’t use submissions: they never work. HHH gets the rope of course.

Jericho hits the floor and grabs a chair. HHH grabs a DDT onto it and no one cares. Just get to the ending already. Stephanie gets in the ring and shoves the referee down. There’s a Pedigree for your efforts woman. Jericho gets a chair shot to the head for two and freaks out as only he can. Jericho tries a Pedigree and it naturally gets reversed. He tries to come off the middle rope and the real Pedigree finally ends it.

Rating: C+. It’s ok, but that’s it. The crowd was so dead it’s not even funny and it hurt the match really badly. Had this match gone on during the middle of the show or even just switched places with Rock/Hogan, it goes up in value at least 3x. The finish was anti-climactic and while it wasn’t one of the worst WM main events of all time as it’s certainly not a bad match by any means, it’s certainly not a good main event.

Massive posing takes us out. HHH would lose the title the next month to Hogan.

Overall Rating: C. I picked C because a C is average, which is what this show is. While it’s not terrible, it’s also not great and it falls somewhere in the middle. However, there’s too much filler which would become a problem with many of the Manias to come.

The problem here is simple: a lot of these matches either need to lose 5-10 minutes each, or be on Raw/Smackdown. Angle, Kane, Booker T and Edge all should be on WM, but their matches had next to no story to them. This is a situation in which the MITB match was a GREAT idea. All those pointless matches with wrestlers that certainly should have been on the card got thrown into a match that fit their level on the roster but also had a point to it.

Instead of getting these random one on one matches that are ok but tiring, we get one big exciting match instead. Overall the biggest issue with this show is obvious: the main event wasn’t the last match of the show and it killed the ending. If you want to make this Mania much better, don’t watch it in order and skip some of the boring stuff that no one cares about. Not bad but not great, watch it if it’s raining outside and you’re out of alcohol.

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

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

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

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

Vader/Mr. Hughes vs. Steiner Brothers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Richard Morton vs. Johnny B. Badd

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

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

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

PN News vs. Diamond Dallas Page

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

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

Here’s the WCW Top Ten.

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

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

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

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

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

Cactus Jack vs. Van Hammer

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

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

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

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

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

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

Freebirds vs. Brad Armstrong/Big Josh

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

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

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

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

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

Vinnie Vegas vs. Tommy Rich

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sting/Ricky Steamboat vs. Rick Rude/Steve Austin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vader/Mr. Hughes vs. Steiner Brothers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Richard Morton vs. Johnny B. Badd

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

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

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

PN News vs. Diamond Dallas Page

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

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

Here’s the WCW Top Ten.

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

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

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

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

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

Cactus Jack vs. Van Hammer

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

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

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

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

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

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

Freebirds vs. Brad Armstrong/Big Josh

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

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

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

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

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

Vinnie Vegas vs. Tommy Rich

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sting/Ricky Steamboat vs. Rick Rude/Steve Austin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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