USWA Championship Wrestling
Date: January 19, 1991
Location: USWA Television Studios, Memphis, Tennessee
Commentator: Dave Brown

Here’s another show from this company and for some reason this one is significantly shorter, almost twenty minutes worth. I checked on the missing final fall from last week and from what I can tell, it didn’t ever happen due to the time limit running out. I’d expect some more in the Lawler/Dundee vs. Fabulous Ones feud. Let’s get to it.

Same opening video of last week, so I’m assuming that’s the standard one.

Here are the Fabs and Cornette to open things up. Cornette yells at the fans and says they don’t know what they want. The fans sound like they want Lawler. We get a clip of the beatdown from last week. Cornette talks about the bounty and has an announcement: they’ve already got the money for Gilbert being gone and there’s another $50,000 on the line for Jeff Jarrett, the new #2 contender to the world title. Cornette would keep talking but they have a match to win.

Tag Titles: Fabulous Ones vs. Cody Michaels/Jerry Lynn

Cornette says why not make it a title match. Michaels and Lane start things off with Lane being sent to the mat. Lane comes back with one of his own and it’s off to Keirn. Michaels grabs the arm and works on it as Keirn can’t shake him. Lynn comes in and does the same, taking him to the mat with an armdrag. The referee misses a challengers’ tag but lets it go anyway.

Michaels gets sent to the floor where Keirn drills him with a chair as the Fabs take over. Suplex puts Michaels down and it’s back to Keirn. Cody hooks a sunset flip but Cornette has the referee so it doesn’t even get a count. Tag to Lynn who slams Keirn and everything breaks down, missing a near fall on Keirn. Cornette gets a shot to the head of Lynn with the racket so Keirn can get the pin.

Rating: C. This was fine as throwing out a title match is a good way to keep things interesting. Even if it was pretty dominant for the Fabs, putting the titles on the line at least made it seem possible that something big could happen. Lynn was still good even when he was young, which is impressive. He looks about the same too.

Lynn gets beaten down post match until Lawler makes the save.

Clip of Jarrett winning the Southern Title on Monday with a rollup.

Here’s Downtown Bruno with the some guys and Robert Fuller. Fuller says he has a surprise for us later and one for us now in the form of U.S. Male Curtis Thompson. He has the American Pitbulls too whose names are so forgettable I couldn’t type them. Fuller talks about a dog or something with the moral being if you abuse something enough it’ll like it. That’s what he and his boys are going to do to everyone else here.

Pitbulls vs. Danny Davis/T.D. Steele

One of the Pitbulls is named Spike and he starts with Davis. Quickly off to Steele who is pretty aggressive. Off to the other Pitbull and I think these are the ECW Pitbulls. Yeah I’m pretty sure they are. Their hair is different but it’s them. This quickly turns into a Pitbulls squash with a double suplex taking Steele down. Belly to belly does the same and the SuperBomb (they slipped off the ropes) gets the pin.

Rating: D. This is the cool thing about watching these old territory shows: you never know what names are going to pop up for a quick appearance. This was a boring squash for the most part with Davis only being in there for about 20 seconds before the beating on Steele began and went on for the next minute and a half.

Mid-South Coliseum show ad.

Here’s Lawler to talk about his match tomorrow night (the show is on Sunday for some reason instead of Monday this time) which has something to do with the Fabulous Ones of course. He goes on a rant against managers, saying that they’re all leeches with no athletic ability. One day the Fabulous Ones will wake up and dump Cornette, but since Lawler is impatient he’ll take out Cornette himself. Jarrett will be in their corner for the title match tomorrow night.

Lawler leaves so Cornette and the Fabs come out to rant a lot to end the show.

Overall Rating: C-. This wasn’t as good as last week’s show but there was still enough on it to make me want to keep watching. This company is so hit or miss for me but when they’re hitting, they’re a pretty solid TV show which keeps people interested from week to week. Considering how out there Memphis could get, that’s saying a lot.

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USWA Championship Wrestling
Date: January 12, 1991
Location: USWA Television Studios, Memphis, Tennessee
Commentator: Dave Brown

Back to Memphis for a few more shows. At the moment I have five straight shows from this period so things hopefully won’t be all that boring. I’ll be doing the first two here before we move back to WCW for some Nitro. I don’t know what to expect from these guys but they’re very hit or miss, so this is a roll of the dice. Let’s get to it.

The opening video with the statues and clips of Lawler gets us going.

Brown runs down the card.

A guy named Eddie Marlon, a suit, says that he got a call from Eddie Gilbert who has left the company. He was the Southern Heavyweight Champion so we’ll need a one night tournament.

We get a clip of the reunited Fabulous Ones winning the tag titles from Doug Gilbert and Tony Anthony. Cornette was managing them which fits very well with Stan Lane.

Fabulous Ones vs. Bill Rush/Sgt. O’Reilley

The Fabulous Ones come out to The Boys Are Back In Town which is a nice touch. Cornette runs his mouth on the floor and he’s fired up tonight. The perk of such a small place like the TV studio is you can hear individual fans so Cornette is having a ball trading insults with them. Lane starts with the Sarge and it’s clear we’re in squash territory here. Rush comes in and gets the same treatment. Keirn pins the Sarge with a plain forearm smash. Total squash.

Lawler comes out and says he’ll have the Fabs’ back like they’ll have his. Cornette gets behind Lawler and pops him with the racket, leading to a double team beatdown. They give him a spike piledriver on the concrete as women are SCREAMING. Lane puts on the crown as some wrestlers come out to protect Lawler. Cornette explains the story which has something to do with a $50,000 bounty and some group called the Memphis Mafia. They’re the ones that scared Gilbert off too.

They call Terry (presumably Funk) on the phone and say they’re 2 for 2 for $100,000. Marlon comes out and yells at Cornette, saying that Lawler will be back with a partner next week. Keirn talks about two years ago when Lawler set Keirn on fire while they were partners. Man you have to keep up with Memphis to know what’s going on at times. Cornette rants some more because that’s what Jim Cornette does. Long angle here but it worked.

Here’s Downtown Bruno, more famous as Harvey Whippleman.

Terry Garvin vs. Freezer Thompson

Well there was a guy named Refrigerator so why not Freezer? Bruno talks about reforming the Downtown Connection which I guess is his stable. Freezer is a very fat man and Terry throws him around with relative ease. This is a very slow squash as Garvin poses a lot in between each move. Garvin stops the comeback with a bulldog and wins with a spinning facejam called Sleeping Beauty.

Rating: D. This was a squash and a long one at that. Garvin looked fine but he was pretty average for the most part. He’s not the same Terry Garvin that was arrested for sexual harassment either. Freezer was a freaking load and Garvin said that he weighed 600lbs. I don’t think that’s really an exaggeration either.

House show ad. The way Memphis worked, there was a big show at the Mid-South Coliseum every Monday so TV was there just to set up those matches. There’s going to be a one night tournament for the Southern Title.

Marlon, who must be a boss of some kind, comes out and says Lawler has picked Bill Dundee to team with him against the Fabs. That’s a pretty stacked card.

Gilbert/Anthony, managed by Bruno come out and say they want the Fabulous Ones also. Apparently they’re the Memphis Mafia.

Call Jerry Lawler’s Hotline. Did anyone not have one of those in the 90s? You can call and leave him a message. And I’m sure he personally hears all of them right?

Danny Davis vs. Michael Green

This is OVW Danny Davis. Davis takes him to the mat with ease and rides on him a bit. Davis wins it quickly with a neckbreaker.

Davis talks about a fan’s revenge strap match he has on Monday with Joseph Magliano. Magliano comes out and says nothing of note.

House show ads.

Memphis Mafia vs. New Kids/Cody Michaels/Jerry Lynn

I have no idea who the New Kids are. This is an eight man tag. Michaels and Dirty White Boy (Tony Anthony) start things off. Michaels hip tosses all four Mafia members and they have a conference on the floor. Off to Doug Gilbert who is Mafia and Lynn who is blonde. Lynn looks very different than he usually does, but it’s mainly due to the bright blue trunks instead of his usual black tights.

Anthony slams him and it’s off to Gilbert again. Side slam puts Lynn down and the Mafia tags a lot. Magliano was in there for literally less than five seconds. Backdrop puts Lynn down and it’s off to Sam Lowe, who is part of the Mafia who wears jeans and a collared shirt. He seems to be a manager or something and walks into a sunset flip by Lynn for the surprise pin.

Rating: D+. Considering most of the people on the face side didn’t make the match, this wasn’t that good. Lynn hit a total of one move in the whole match but got the pin anyway. Nothing to see here but it came off like an upset. I still have no idea what the New Kids’ names are either, but they seem to be a pretty boy tag team.

Video on Jeff Jarrett, who would win the tournament on Monday. This is set to America the Beautiful of all things.

Apparently the eight man tag match is 2/3 falls. Then why did the winners go to the back? They left and no mention was made of a second fall. Ok then.

Lynn and Lowe start again and Lowe gets thrown around with ease. Off to Anthony and Brian of the New Kids. Is that Brian Christopher? Ok apparently it is and his partner in the New Kids is named Tony Williams. Got it. They double team Gilbert with an assisted splash for two. Off to Tony Anthony vs. Tony Williams. Magliano comes in to pound away a bit. Everything breaks down and Magliano rolls up Lynn with tights for the pin.

The Mafia leaves even though there’s a fall to go. The other team leaves too and yeah there’s going to be a third fall.

Brown recaps the show so far. He also talks about Monday’s show. Brown also recaps the story with Funk, (he mispronounces his name. Guess what he said on TV) which basically is that someone put a bounty on Lawler and Gilbert, the #2 and #1 contenders for the world title, held by Funk. Cornette cashed in on the bounty and the phone call was revealing who had put it out.

Video on Bill Dundee set to a song called Gypsies on Parade. We have less than four minutes left of TV time and there’s a fall to go in that match. But hey, let’s get this in. Make that three minutes as another verse begins.

Here’s Lawler who calls out Cornette and the Fabulous Ones, talking about how the bounty can’t be collected yet. He and Dundee are ready for Monday night.

Brown wraps up the show and talks about the Monday show again and that’s it. No mention of the tag match at all. Ok then. For a rating for the match, go with what I gave for the first fall as the second was too short to mean anything.

Overall Rating: C. This was entertaining enough but the missing third fall is going to bother me for some reason. Why they didn’t include it at all is beyond me and I want to know who won the match now. Other than that, the rest of the show was pretty good and we got a big angle with the Fabulous Ones turning. I liked this and I’ll be sticking around for more of it.

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Superstars of Wrestling
Date: January 19, 1991
Location: SunDome, Tampa, Florida
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Roddy Piper, Honky Tonk Man

No Mercy 04 is downloading so I have a random Superstars to do. Most of the other ones I have are from 1988 but this is a stand alone one from 1991. We’re getting close to the 91 Rumble so that’ll be the focus here. Actually this is from Rumble Saturday so expect a lot of it to be about that show. I have no idea what to expect here but let’s get to it.

Apparently this is Honky’s last TV appearance in his initial WWF run. The three commentators make Disney jokes to start.

Jake Roberts vs. Bob Bradley

Jake was blinded by Martel recently but he’s mostly ok here. He hits the knee lift and grabs the wrist for some cranking. Jake’s inset interview says he’ll be ready for Martel. Clothesline and DDT end this quick. Bradley gets the snake treatment post match.

UPDATE! With Gene Okerlund. He talks about the Rhodeses vs. DiBiase/Virgil and we get some quick comments from all of them. This was more or less the end of Dusty and Dustin in the WWF for years.

Earthquake vs. Randy Hunter

Earthquake hits some kicks to the ribs and Bravo says he’ll win the Rumble, even if it means going through Earthquake. The Earthquake ends Hunter quick.

Post match Hunter takes another one and is taken out on a stretcher.

Hart Foundation vs. Black Bart/WT Jones

The Harts are tag champions but this is non-title. Neidhart and Jim start things off. The Harts say they’re ready for the Rumble. I miss little things about the Rumble like that one. Off to Jones who takes a beating as well. Hart Attack ends Jones.

Off to the Event Center for promos about the Rumble. I won’t bother going into specifics for each because they all say the same thing. We hear from Warlord, Valentine, Shane Douglas (who wasn’t in it), Hawk and Power and Glory.

Mr. Perfect vs. Kevin Reno

Reno is a very small man in pink trunks. Perfect easily takes him to the mat and hits the Robinsdale Crush. He says that he’ll win the Rumble because he’s perfect. Perfectplex for the pin.

More promos about non-Rumble matches. Bossman is going to take out Barbarian to get to Heenan. The Orient Express wants the Rockers handed to him. The Rockers are ready for them. One thing that I really miss about these days: everyone has a personalized graphic behind them. It’s a small thing but it’s very cool.

Bushwackers vs. Dennis Allen/The Gladiator

The Bushwackers say what you would expect them to say on the day of the Rumble. Butch starts with Gladiator but it’s off to Luke quickly. Battering Ram takes down Allen and their double gutbuster gets the pin.

Off to the Brother Love Show with guests Sgt. Slaughter and General Adnan. Sarge gets the shot at Warrior tonight. He takes a few minutes to say that he’ll win the title and then take the title to Baghdad for a parade. He’ll take it to the United Nations also.

Another Rumble Report has Warrior rambling a lot regarding lost soldiers. He’ll be a general and champion after tonight.

Gene runs down some names in the Rumble and we hear from Martel, Duggan, Savage and Hogan. Gene runs down the rest of the card and Heenan says Barbarian is ready for Bossman.

The announcers wrap it up.

Overall Rating: C+. Yeah the wrestling was bad but the idea here was to push the Rumble and they certainly did that. This was such a great way of showcasing everyone in the match with at least letting us see their face. Today everyone knows that there are about 4 people who could win, but it’s a fun thought that everyone at least has a miracle chance. Today though you don’t even hear the names of the people before they go into it. I liked this but I like this era and it hyped up the PPV very well. Good show.

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

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

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

Thomas Rich vs. Big Josh

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

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

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

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

Firebreaker Chip vs. Bobby Eaton

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

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

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

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

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

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

Diamond Studd vs. Tom Zenk

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yeah….just a few odd ones in there.

Cactus Jack vs. Van Hammer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

United States Title: Rick Rude vs. Sting

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WCW World Title: Rick Steiner vs. Lex Luger

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Battle Royal

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WCW Top Ten:

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

World Champion: Lex Luger.

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

Johnny B. Badd vs. Sting

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Freebirds vs. Patriots

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

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

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

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

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

Ron Simmons vs. Diamond Stud

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

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

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

Terrance Taylor vs. Van Hammer

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

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

TV Title: Steve Austin vs. Z-Man

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Enforcers brag to end the show.

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

 

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

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

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

Young Pistols/Z-Man vs. Freebirds

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

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

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

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

Oz vs. Johnny Rich

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

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

Dan Spivey vs. Big Josh

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

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

All are under Flair of course.

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

Terrance Taylor vs. Dustin Rhodes

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

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

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

Big Josh makes the save.

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

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

Sting vs. Nikita Koloff

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Diamond Studd vs. Tommy Rich

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

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

US Title: Great Muta vs. Lex Luger

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

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

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

Steve Austin vs. Joey Maggs

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

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

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

WCW World Title: Bobby Eaton vs. Ric Flair

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

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

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

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

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

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

JR and Tony wrap it up.

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

 

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

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

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

National Anthem.

Dusty talks a lot and won’t shut up.

Sting/Lex Luger vs. Doom

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TV Title: Z-Man vs. Bobby Eaton

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fabulous Freebirds vs. Allen Iron Eagle/Tommy Rich

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

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

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

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

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

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

Joey Maggs vs. Sid Vicious

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

Tony talks to Sid who says everyone fears him.

Ricky Morton vs. Terry Taylor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ranger Ross vs. El Cubano

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

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

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

Ad for WrestleWar and Wargames.

Arn Anderson/Barry Windham vs. Renegade Warriors

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

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

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

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

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

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

Buddy Lee Parker vs. Brian Pillman

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

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

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

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

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

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

WCW World Title: Scott Steiner vs. Ric Flair

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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Royal Rumble 1991
Date: January 19, 1991
Location: Miami Arena, Miami, Florida
Attendance: 16,000
Commentators: Gorilla Monsoon, Roddy Piper

Well, there’s a few big things, but a lot is still the same. Warrior is champion here, defending against Sgt. Slaughter who is in the heel turn as the Iraqi sympathizer. Who cares if the war was already over? The other thing is that about two months ago, Undertaker debuted. This really is about the same as last year’s, but you can see a lot of the stuff that would shape the new era coming.

For one thing, Bret is featured at the opening of the Rumble, as his singles push was just around the corner. This show really is more designed to set up Mania, as the Rumble itself really didn’t know its purpose yet. The title shot at Mania wouldn’t become official until 1993. The card is considered underrated, so let’s see if it lives….up, I guess would be the right term.

We open with a shot of the American flag as it’s apparently one of those shows. It’s always cool to hear the Anthem though. The problem here though is simple: the war was less than a month from being over and that was fairly obvious. The angle should have ended here with Slaughter coming in as champion, maybe having won it at Summerslam or something like that. Three months later when Hogan beat him for it the war was already over.

That was just kind of pointless. Anyway, the regular intro is just that: regular. It’s the same old thing of the participants being listed, although this time it’s by Gene. I almost didn’t recognize his voice though. The first name: Hogan. The second: Bret. That’s saying a lot. Piper always ranted with the best of them.

Rockers vs. Orient Express

This apparently is an encounter, not a match. That’s the Fink for you. I’m still waiting on the explanation of how they’re tag team specialists, yet they had far more success as singles wrestlers. They start immediately when they hit the ring which says that this should be good. Oh and it’s Tanaka and Kato the masked man here as this is the NEW Orient Express despite them having been a team in the AWA and half of the NEW Orient Express being the same as the old Orient Express.

Marty is knocked out to the floor and therefore worthless about 4 seconds in. Well it’s good to know he’s improving. He redeems himself by throwing a superkick at Tanaka that misses by about 4 inches or so. Hey Marty’s ON tonight. The Rockers hit stereo suicide dives on the Express. That’s completely unheard of at this time as Gorilla doesn’t even have a name for it here, calling them cross bodies.

We get a HUGE USA chant as we’re finally in the corners for a regular tag match. To say the crowd is hot is like saying Norcal is a bit popular around here. They are moving ridiculously fast out there with some great chain wrestling. I feel sorry for Marty as he really was talented. His partner just happens to be one of the best of all time. Speaking of which, Shawn is in now and beating on Tanaka.

They’re never staying in one spot for long at all. The crowd is insane here too so that’s a major plus. This was around the time where you realized the Rockers really were good and not just two pretty boys. Their stuff was getting to a level that was just below the Harts and could even be compared to them. That’s appropriate too because the Harts would split after Mania of this year. Shawn uses a HHH leaping knee to the face. That’s gimmick infringement boy.

They use a decent amount of rest holds, but they’re moving out of them quickly which is all I ask for. To be fair they’re all over the place in this. A We Will Rock You sing a long starts up. That’s actually something I’ve never thought of.

A sleeper gets a pop. That’s just not something you see often at all. Piper goes into a weird discussion about what is a legal vs. illegal punch/strike. Good night this is fun. Shawn goes up for ten punches in the corner and comes off with a moonsault to take out Kato. Again, that doesn’t even have a name. We’re about ten minutes into this and they’re still all over the place.

Naturally the announcers say that it’s been fifteen or so but whatever. Shawn does a freaking 610! Ok so it was sloppy but it was the same move. They follow that up with stereo cross bodies from the top to the floor. This is AWESOME stuff. Double teaming and Fuji gets control for the Express. We get the inevitable “this is the first match!” line, which is wrestling speak for “we know the rest of this is going to suck and we’re sorry.”

The Express are using moves that were considered great when the World’s Greatest Tag Team was using them. On no. It’s a NERVE HOLD! This is the epitome of a weak rest hold as all you do is grab the other person’s neck. It allegedly cuts off the flow of blood or something and you lose feeling in your arm. Oh good it’s now a less bad chinlock. The crowd is still going nuts.

As per the Rockers’ formula, Shawn gets beaten up to set up the Jannetty tag. In a very cool and smart spot, the Express pull off their sash to use for a clothesline but Shawn avoids it. Instead he dives on it, pulling the Express together so they crash. That’s very smart. Marty comes in to get a paycheck so he can….uh…buy model trains. Yeah, that works.

He’s going to buy model trains with the money he makes tonight. Lots of them, in a dark alley. Yeah, that’s right. His dropkicks aren’t that good, mainly because at least one foot misses. He makes up for it with a jumping back elbow though so I’m fine. The Rockers “hit” a double superkick to put Kato down and go to the top.

They set for what I think was going to be a rocket launcher but it doesn’t get to launch thanks to Tanaka. The Express set for a move where Kato slingshots Marty into Tanaka for a chop. It works so naturally they do it again. This time though, Shawn hits Tanaka, allowing Marty to jump over him for a sunset flip to win it! That was SWEET looking.

Rating: A. This was greatness plain and simple. It was a bit sloppy, but this was one of the most fun matches I’ve ever seen. They were all over the place and doing stuff that wouldn’t become popular until WCW’s Cruiserweight days. The Rockers truly were greatness in tag wrestling. They would split in less than a year though, which might have been a shame. Excellent match here though and well worth going out of your way to see.

Randy Savage has a statement to make. He more or less declares himself the number one contender for the world title. He and Sean watch on the screen as Gene and Sherri come into the arena. She calls Warrior out, saying how honorable he is. More or less she tries to seduce him into giving Savage the next title shot. Naturally since he’s the Warrior and well past certifiable, he turns her down despite her being on her knees in front of him.

We do find out that Warrior’s eyes are hazel. This is just amusing to see as the acting is painfully bad. Warrior is the better of the two as the only thing he says is NO one time at the very end. To be fair though, I think this was meant to be awful. The pop for her getting down on her knees is WAY bigger than it should be.

Warrior looks odd in his gear, the belt and a leather jacket with a flag on the back. The belt is purple by the way. In the back, Savage is TICKED, destroying his locker room and sprinting off after Warrior.

Big Boss Man vs. Barbarian

This was during what was likely Boss Man’s biggest storyline as a face, as he was feuding with the Heenan Family one by one over comments that Rick Rude had made about Boss Man’s mother. It would culminate with Boss Man vs. Perfect at Mania, where for some reason that absolutely no one gets, Boss Man didn’t win the Intercontinental Title, which more or less ended him being an important character.

This is just another match so it’s likely going to be a glorified squash. Piper says Heenan is intelligent. I’m blown away. This is power vs. power obviously but they’re doing the right thing here and having them go back and forth with big shots. That’s the best way to do these if there is such a thing I guess. Bossman really was talented. Somehow this is probably the best Barbarian match ever.

Boss Man at least made you want to care about a match, which is a lot more than most characters from this time were able to do. After a decent display of back and forth stuff, we naturally hit the bearhug because it wouldn’t be a Barbarian match without one I guess. The crowd is staying in this one so I have to hand it to them. They do some more slow stuff but for some reason this is holding my interest very well.

Both hit their finishers but both opponents get the ropes. Or at least Barbarian was supposed to, but he never actually reached it. He goes for a piledriver and I think Boss Man slipped out of it or something but it looked pretty bad. Crowd is quiet now. Scratch that. I like Boss Man’s shirt coming open like it does. It gives him that working man look that I think was part of what they were going for with him. Little things like that can make a character so points for it.

In one of the weirdest endings I can ever remember, Barbarian goes up for a freaking cross body from the top but Boss Man rolls through it for the pin. Well that was odd. During the celebration they go slow motion on Boss Man on the ropes raising his arms which looks really cool.

Rating: B. This was a lot better than I expected. They took two guys of the same style and got a solid match out of them. That’s just flat out impressive. This could have been far worse but it really was entertaining. Boss Man had that it factor around this time that made you care about him and that’s exactly what happened here. For some reason all that got him was a Mania match with Perfect where he didn’t get the belt or a rematch but whatever. This was a lot better than I expected it to be.

Iron Sheik and Slaughter have a bit to say. Slaughter’s chin puts Jay Leno’s to shame. He’s just flat out creepy actually which is a good thing. He says that he’ll be the new leader and you haven’t even begun to see turmoil yet. So is he saying he’ll be an awful leader that causes turmoil? Apparently that’s an order.

Gene is with Warrior, who he calls orier. That just came out as odd. Speaking of odd, Gene tries his best to walk Warrior through a coherent promo but the guy whispers almost everything he says and it’s just hard to understand. He says he’ll win I think.

WWF Title: Sgt. Slaughter vs. Ultimate Warrior

Gorilla has to give a disclaimer about Slaughter’s views, saying they don’t reflect Arab Americans or the WWF. Piper goes nuts as a patriot, talking about how the troops are fighting for freedom. There’s a complete argument there that I’ll stay out of. Piper says we ain’t talking skim milk here. I love Piper’s complete insanity. How exactly does one go bananas? Warrior really was WAY over. How did he manage to screw this up?

Warrior beats up the likely senior citizen Sheik and rips up the Iraqi flag. You have to be interested in how war validates things that would otherwise never be allowed. Warrior hits a knee lift, which I’ve never seen him do otherwise. The commentators are so unbelievably biased here it’s unreal. Slaughter really was good as a bumper. For no apparent reason, here’s Sherri with her fine figure. That thing really is impressive.

Warrior’s isn’t bad either, but that could be because his tights are white which I have a bit of a thing for. She gets Warrior’s attention and he chases her back to the entrance where Savage is waiting on him. He beats Warrior up for a bit which of course the referee sees none of, despite Savage wearing BRIGHT PINK clothing against a black backdrop. Yeah that just blends in perfectly.

Ah but there’s the USA chants and the power of patriotism gets Warrior up again. Wisely, Slaughter keeps stopping the count. Roddy, being a decent analyst, points out that very thing. In a bit of forshaddowing, Slaughter does a version of the Hogan ear bit. It’s all Slaughter right now as he spits on Warrior. Yep that’s some great offense. He’s also rocking the curled up boots which are a fashion risk but I’d wear them.

A double clothesline takes both guys down. In a dumb looking spot, Slaughter follows Warrior around with his arms up for a double axe and then puts on a bear hug. You would have to see it to get why it was stupid. Ah, the powers of patriotism are rising up again! Apparently that only works for the yellow and red though as Warrior is still in trouble. Gorilla says Warrior is only half conscious right now.

Wow he’s in better shape than usual. Warrior gets out of the bear hug with a double axe that I don’t think actually hit. The comeback lasts just a bit though as Warrior obviously doesn’t love America enough. He must be a commie or something. Oh wait. He’s from Parts Unknown. Everything is explained now. The Cobra Clutch, which in this case means a camel clutch, is on put Warrior’s legs are hanging out. In a weird camera angle the referee is blocked by the guys so it looks like there’s no one there.

Why is the camel clutch used primarily by Arab themed wrestlers? Think about it: Sheik, Sultan, Muhammad Hassan, Slaughter in this gimmick. What’s the deal with that? Vince may not be racist but he tends to have a lot of racial stereotypes to his characters. Here comes Warrior’s Hulk impression as he can’t feel pain. Warrior hits a flying shoulder which Gorilla calls a heabutt. Well that wasn’t even close.

That’s by far the biggest mistake Gorilla has made that I can remember. Sherri is back again as you can see the screwjob coming. Being the genius that he is, Warrior does the same thing he did earlier which resulted in him getting beaten up. This time though he press slams Sherri as Savage runs out. Slaughter knees Warrior in the back to put him in position for a 619, but Savage blasts him with the scepter.

An elbow drop of all things gives Slaughter the title in a move that really should have come four months earlier to get maximum heat. Piper is FURIOUS. I love how the madder he got the higher pitched his voice got. Warrior runs to the back presumably to get Savage as Slaughter is awarded the title. Everyone is TICKED, with Piper being the most of them all. Slaughter the solider holding a purple belt is rather amusing looking.

Rating: D. This was all about the angle. As for the match: it was awful. Granted given the two guys out there, what were you really expecting? This was all about setting up Mania though, and it did a great job of that.

Still though, the timing of the war ending really hurt them, which is why having Hogan get it back here and then doing something else at Mania would have worked better. What that something else would have been is beyond me though. Maybe Hogan vs. Savage again or something like that, but as it turned out the moment was good, but not in the real world terms. As for this, the match was bad but the angle was good, simple as that.

Savage and Sherri are with Sean and say that this was because Warrior said no to Savage. Randy says that he’s the best ever as someone is trying to get in, presumably the Warrior.

Piper and Gorilla are mad. Monsoon is rocking some purple glasses.

Gene is with the new champion and Sheik. They cut him off as Slaughter says I told you so. That belt looks odd indeed.

Gorilla calls Slaughter the Ultimate Puke. WOW. Piper rips his own headset off so he can curse for a bit. That was one of the funniest bits I’ve ever seen and it was completely unintentional.

Mountie vs. Koko B. Ware

This is cut from the Coliseum Video version and incredibly rare, but I got lucky and found an original recording of the show. I’ll go with a very condensed version here though as it’s a ten minute squash. This is the debut of the Mountie character who was either a bad comedy bit or the results of a Vince coke binge. For those that have noticed I make a lot of cocaine references, think about it.

For one thing, it was the 80s when cocaine was running rampant. Second, there are a ton of stories of Vince being a coke head at times. Third, is there any way that he could come up with half of his ideas without drug use? I mean really, Repo Man? Anyway, let’s get to the Hall of Famer Koko’s latest masterpiece. WOW this is boring.

It’s a squash, but it’s the kind that’s supposed to let Mountie show off all of his stuff, but the problem is it’s just putting the people to sleep. I have a feeling I know how this is going to end, which makes it all the more stupid to have to go this long just to get to that one moment. Yep there it is: Mountie shocks him. That’s the whole point of this match: getting that into the Mountie’s system. Wow that was brutal.

Rating: D. This was pretty bad. It was a waste of 10 minutes in what should have been a 4-5 minute match. Why did we need to see all of Mountie’s stuff? Better yet, why did we need Koko’s? This was about the Mountie, but they gave Koko all of that offense. It makes him look like he has trouble beating a simple jobber which is the last thing you want to do with a heel character. I don’t get this.

Some people talk about their relatives in the war. Ok, we get it: the WWF supports the troops. Holy throat crammage Vince let it go. Note: saying guys and gals sounds freaking stupid. They’re girls or women, not gals. It’s not the freaking 50s anymore.

Children attempting to be sentimental should be dragged through the streets attached to a chariot and then set on fire as goats eat their flesh. Or even worse: be forced to listen to how annoying they sound. I don’t like kids on camera in case you couldn’t tell. Now regular kids I love spending time with as they’re cool, but not kids on a camera that are “so adorable.” No, they’re really not.

Apparently Hulk wanted to go to the Middle East and visit the troops but the Department of Defense stopped him so he’s going to bases in America. Not sure if that’s true, but if it is, that’s pretty cool even if it was the company’s idea and not Hulk’s.

Jake Roberts says he wants Martel.

Earthquake says a lot of people are going to come after him and he’s ready. He calls out some guys, including Hogan and Taker. Yeah that’s brilliant buddy.

Greg Valentine, sweating profusely for some reason, says bring them on.

Texas Tornado says he’ll win. I always liked him.

The LOD say that if life is a roller coaster you wouldn’t want to ride them. Um, ok?

Brother Love speaks for Taker, saying that he’ll bury 29 men. I love how so many people assume that there will be no eliminations by the time they get there.

Duggan says he’ll win. He punches his board for no reason.

Martel says he’ll look good while he wins. He’s ripped here.

Davey Boy Smith says he’s glad he’s a bulldog. Ok then.

Perfect and Heenan say that Perfect will be the last man standing.

Tugboat says he’ll jump right in the middle of things and if it comes down to him and Hulk, TOOT! That made less than zero sense.

Piper has been working with Virgil. Oh dear.

DiBiase says Virgil is more or less his slave. That looks like a face’s face to me on Virgil. Nah that could never happen though. Perish the thought!

Dustin/Dusty Rhodes vs. Ted DiBiase/Virgil

Dusty and Ted had been feuding since Summerslam and Dustin had been in the crowd at SNME watching his dad when Ted went after him. The rest is about what you would expect. Dusty was gone less than a month after this, heading back to WCW though so there we are. No polka dots either darn the luck. Apparently they’re Americana. Oh great. If nothing else here the two theme songs are so awesome words can’t describe it.

They’re really building up the Virgil face turn here as they have been lately. My goodness Dusty is fat. Dustin is a complete rookie here with very little experience. He was naturally talented though so he’s not bad. A big brawl starts us out here as it occurs to me how little experience Virgil has in the ring. Dustin is WAY taller than Virgil and it looks quite funny.

It’s also amusing that of these four, Dustin would have by far the most successful WWF career. The future gold enthusiast has to duck under Virgil’s leapfrog. It never really occurred to me how tall Dustin is. DiBiase says Virgil is embarrassing him and Virgil is frustrated. You can feel the turn coming and you know it’s going to be awesome. We’re about five minutes in and Dusty hasn’t been in yet.

You know what, I’m not even going to bother typing the joke here. You all know what’s coming. Dusty, I’m begging you, either put a shirt on, hit a gym, or invest in blow away. You need it. After Virgil and Dustin come in, Dustin hits his knee on the buckle and is down. Naturally (oh I kill myself sometimes) the heels work it over. Just like Jesse used to, Piper gets a bit annoyed with Gorilla’s babbling about what body part is hurt.

He says Dustin’s leg is hurt, end of discussion, and that’s why Piper is awesome. Virgil accidentally hits DiBiase and gets punched and chopped for his efforts. Dustin and Dusty are really just placeholders for DiBiase and Virgil here. As I type this Dusty goes from being dominant to getting rolled up and pinned. Well that was pretty weak. However, we have a post match angle here. Roddy says that the father and son can come back.

Granted they both did but a good many years later. Ted says that Virgil has his price and that he needs to put the belt around his waist. Oh and he insults Dusty and Dustin. The Virgil chant is massive here and the countdown is on. Virgil really is built. Piper is disgusted by Virgil giving in again and washes his hands of him. That lasts all of about 20 seconds though as Virgil throws the belt down. He eventually gets on his knees after DiBiase orders him around even more.

DiBiase turns around and Virgil blasts him in the face with the belt. The crowd E-FREAKING-RUPTS over this. For years and years DiBiase had ordered him around and made him look pathetic and finally Virgil had enough. The payoff was completely worth it here in a very cool moment that had me smiling.

Rating: B. I’m going B here because this wasn’t as much of a match rather than an angle. The angle after the match was just flat out awesome. That needed to happen and they built it up beautifully. They had a match at Mania which Virgil won by count out. The problem was simple though: what in the world do you do with Virgil now? He had no gimmick and he just kind of floundered after this, but dang it was a great moment.

Time for more Rumble promos.

Tugboat uses a bunch of boat analogies which make me think Shockmaster was the better of his gimmicks.

Smash reminds me of the Joker for some reason.

Dino Bravo says he’s not afraid of Earthquake.

Crush says no one will be safe, not even Smash.

Perfect says he’s the only perfect athlete and he’ll win.

Hogan of course gets his own special interview where he says exactly what you would expect him to say. He dedicates the match to the troops. Say it with me: Hulk will win. In between the promo, Gene gets a message saying that Slaughter has just defaced the American flag. Yeah that’s not foreshadowing Mania at all.

In one of the absolute funniest things I can ever remember, Hogan forgets the name of the Iraqi leader (Sadaam Hussein). That was PRICELESS. He dedicates the match to the troops and freaks out over the flag issue, but wait, who are they fighting again? That was great.

Royal Rumble

It never ceases to amaze me how great the pops are for the Rumble. Bret is number one. That’s saying a lot for what they knew he had. Two is Bravo as we go over the rules. His hair is dark blond here and it looks bad. Naturally Bret looks great out there. This right here is why you need to keep an eye on your midcard and tag guys (the few that are left): you never know what kind of greatness you’ll be seeing.

The tag line of OVW is Tomorrow’s Superstars Today. Considering at a WWE house show in 2002 I saw two guys named Prototype and Leviathan go at it, truer words have never been spoken. Those two would later be known as John Cena and Batista, so there you are. Bret almost immediately gets Bravo out but not quite. They discuss the Iron Man record which is a by comparison pathetic 44 minutes at the moment.

Three is Greg Valentine. He goes after Bravo despite his being a heel at the time. Hammer puts him out, and Piper starts writing stuff down just as he did at Survivor Series. It was funny then and it’s still kind of funny now. In at four is Paul Roma. For the life of me, this guy was a Horsemen? I will never understand that no matter how long I think about it. Maybe I shouldn’t try to. Maybe that’s the secret to it.

Bret is really being pushed as a big deal here which is certainly a good thing. In a smart move, Bret just sits back and lets Hammer and Roma fight. See, that’s something almost no one does but Bret is smart enough to do it. Kerry Von Erich is fifth, giving us two faces and two heels. Piper apparently has issues with calling so much action at once. There’s two fights. How is that hard? Martel is in next, which is pretty lackluster.

I guess we’re setting up the jobbers for the big name to come in and clean house. We get some heel on heel violence as this is just boring. Saba Simba comes in at seven to dead silence. Even Gorilla isn’t sure of his name. He’s cut up pretty well though. You guys know him better as Tony Atlas. In a dumb thing, all six guys are in one corner. That’s just not right. Tornado has the claw on Roma for no apparent reason.

In at 8 is Butch to up the level of talent out there. Simba and Model both go over but Martel saves himself so we’re still at 6. In case you’re wondering, it’s Hart, Valentine, Von Erich, Martel, Butch and Roma. Despite commentating on it a second ago, Gorilla has forgotten about Saba being tossed. These matches go a lot faster when I’m reviewing them.

Jake comes in at 9 and of course goes right for Martel who had tried to blind him recently. This led to the blindfold match at Mania which just gets dumber and dumber every time I see it.

In a funny spot, Martel tries to eliminate himself but isn’t allowed to. We hit double digits with Hercules. The ring is WAY too full right now as we need someone to come in and clear out some of these guys. This is a lot of punching and kicking and bad attempts to throw someone out. There are eight guys out there at the moment and there’s the clock.

The eleventh entrant is Tito Santana to even further overfill the ring. Roma goes out to get us back down to eight. After about a minute the clock is up again for number twelve, which is THANK GOODNESS the Undertaker. We needed a monster to clear out some of these guys, so let’s see what he’s got. He dumps Hart in about four seconds. Taker no sells the Tornado Punch as Von Erich is a pure jobber at this point despite being IC Champion very recently.

About a minute and a half after Taker gets in, Snuka comes in at 13. Ring is WAY too full. Butch is thrown out by Taker as well to get us to eight guys out there. To recap, it’s Taker, Valentine, Martel, Hercules, Von Erich, Snuka, Santana and Roberts. Valentine and Von Erich are trying to get rid of Taker. The huge amount of people in the ring is just killing this thing. Again with the shortchanging of the clock! It’s British Bulldog to get us to 9 people in the ring. That’s just absurd.

Snuka just doesn’t look right with an afro and long tights. That’s just odd. It’s the soon to be gone Smash in at 15. Well if nothing else the ending should be good. Jake goes out to get us back down to nine in there as that just sounds stupid. Martel has a freaking scary look on his face. Hawk is the first of the second half as this match is just bad. There are too many people and there’s been more or less no story at all.

All we have here is a bunch of people leaning on the ropes and punching each other. To make this even BETTER, Shane freaking Douglas is in at 17. Dang what were they thinking on this show? It’s awful. Yes he was in WWF for awhile. We finally get rid of a bit of the crap out there as Von Erich and Superfly both go out within about 5 seconds of each other. Note: I don’t think they’re bad wrestlers, but they’re just filler here and everyone knows it.

There’s no 18, and Gorilla speculates that someone was afraid to come in. It was supposed to be Savage but he was running from the Warrior so there’s your explanation that comes at the end of the match. Piper says that the 18th entrant has until the clock starts to still come in. Doesn’t the clock always run but we just don’t see it? Why am I trying to make sense of him? 19 is Animal so we have the LOD in there together.

Apparently 18 has forfeited his spot according to the great and mighty Gorilla. Hawk and Animal put out Taker and then Hercules and Martel put out Hawk just afterwards. At least the numbers are going down a bit. There’s only eight in there now with 11 more to come. Crush of Demolition cracks the twenties.

At the moment we have Crush, Smash, Martel, Valentine, Animal, Santana, Davey Boy, Shane and Hercules and all of them are joined by Duggan at 21. He throws the board down and I guess we’ll call it runs to the ring.

Twenty two is Earthquake. Please, I beg of you, get rid of some of these guys! He takes out Animal pretty quickly. About maybe 80 seconds after Quake comes out, the Perfect entrant is in at 23. Even Piper thinks something is wrong with the clock. Perfect is more or less crawling to the ring. It took about 30 seconds to get there. That’s saying a lot. He does take out Duggan so that’s better than nothing I guess.

Wow we’re running low on people left to come in. They’re talkinga bout how long some of the people have been in there and it really is impressive. The twenty fourth is HOGAN! Yep, he should get a few people out. He gets a massive pop, so naturally he gets beaten on by Smash and Perfect. Never mind as Smash is gone almost immediately. He’s on Earthquake now as I don’t remember seeing a crowd freak out that fast after being dead for so long before.

The twenty fifth is Haku as we’re really getting close here. Hogan puts out Valentine who was in there for forty four minutes, just shy of DiBiase’s record. Martel just looks dead out there. Neidhart comes in next to get us down to four to go. Tito punches the tar out of Earthquake and is then thrown over with ease. Oh look. It’s Luke in at 27. Bets on how bad this will go anyone? He steps in, Quake grabs him and takes him to the other side of the ring and he’s gone in four seconds.

Well then there you go. To his credit he never stopped marching. Quake actually uses a full nelson on Hogan. Wow that’s like, a real wrestling move. That’s surprising. Nasty Boy Knobbs is the first of the final three. Man was the Brawler busy or something tonight? The penultimate spot goes to Warlord as absolutely nothing of note is going on here. Hercules is dumped out. Hogan tosses Crush as I just want to get to the end of this now.

Martel has the Iron Man record. Hogan knocks out Warlord as we’re at the last countdown of the match, and number 30 is Tugboat, thereby confirming that Savage no showed. Ok, so remaining in the match we have Hogan, Earthquake, Tugboat, Martel, Perfect, Douglas, Knobbs, Bulldog, Haku and Neidhart. See what I mean when I say this isn’t much of a Rumble? They figure out that Warrior ran Savage off. Knobbs throws out Douglas.

Wow that kind of shows where his career was at. Tugboat picks up Hogan and dumps him to the apron, so Hogan throws him out. He would turn heel in a few months based mainly on this, becoming Typhoon and more or less saving his career, before a good bit of electrocution ended that. Bulldog hits an amazing dropkick on Perfect to put him out. Perfect was sitting on the top rope and Smith caught him with at least one foot square in the face. That was impressive.

Martel actually puts Neidhart out clean. That’s very surprising. Smith puts Haku out with a backdrop as we’re trying to get rid of the jobbers. Smith follows that up with a clothesline to put Martel out to a pop. That’s saying a lot that the fans noticed that. I’m proud of them for that one. That gets us to the final four of Smith, Hogan (there’s a pairing that could have been interesting to say the least), Earthquake and…..Brian Knobbs?

And people say Hogan didn’t do good stuff for his friends. The heels team up and knock out Smith to get us to three. Hmm, I never thought I’d see this: Hogan stuck against two heels. I mean, this could never happen! How could he possibly get out of this one??? To further secure the Hogan victory, Earthquake hits the Earthquake and of course pops up. Piper cheering Hogan is just flat out wrong on so many levels. A boot takes out Knobbs and it’s Hogan vs. Earthquake.

Surprisingly they go at it for awhile with Quake dominating. And of course Hogan winds up winning it. After another Hulk Up, Hogan knocks out Quake with a clothesline. A HUGE celebration ends with Hogan waving the flag to emphasize America is Great angle of the show.

Rating: D+. This was just bad. It was boring for the most part with Hogan’s winning being about as obvious as you could possibly imagine. Martel was the only running story and you knew he wouldn’t stand a chance at all. Seriously, Brian freaking Knobbs was in the final three. How does that make a good match? It felt like a bunch of jobbers just killing time for Hogan, which is exactly what it was. That doesn’t make a good Rumble at all.

Overall Rating: C-. We have a great opening match, a decent match, a bad squash, a very bad title match that was all about building up Mania, another bad match and a very lackluster Rumble. My goodness that Rockers/Express match carried a lot of this show, and that’s just not a good thing.

It’s just not that good overall and while it has some moments, it’s just not there. I think Vince started realizing that this formula wasn’t working and he needed to change a thing or two, and DANG did he ever for next year. This show isn’t worth seeing, but the Rockers vs. Express match is must see stuff.

 

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Survivor Series 1991
Date: November 27, 1991
Location: Joe Louis Arena, Detroit, Michigan
Attendance: 17,500
Commenators: Gorilla Monsoon, Bobby Heenan

Ok, so due to Microsoft and their annoying automatic updates that no one actually knows what they’re good for, I lost 91-94, so this is the second time I’ve reviewed these four shows. Therefore if I seem a bit annoyed, that’s why. Anyway, the main thing here is simple: Vince has more or less given up on the idea of having all Survivor Series matches and has given us a traditional main event match, in this case, Taker challenging Hogan for the world title.

Also, Flair has jumped ship to the WWF in a huge botch on WCW’s part. Finally, the hottest feud in the world right now is Jake Roberts vs. Randy Savage, but I’ll get to why I’m ticked off about that in just a few minutes. Other than that, the show is pretty much what you would expect.

The roster is changing a bit though; with it being more like the early 90s look than what we had seen for years before. It was a pretty bad show when I watched it two weeks ago, so maybe it’s somehow improved since then.

We get the logo and everything with a huge banner over it saying 5th Annual. Is it really something we need to know that badly? Within 30 seconds of the start of the show we’re hearing about the Roberts vs. Macho situation. So here’s the idea: Savage lost the career ending match at Mania and is officially retired. However, he’s trying to get reinstated since no one really stays retired (are you listening Ric Flair?).

Roberts had been supposed to feud with the Warrior for a huge program but Warrior was a jerk and got fired, which you can read about in my Summerslam 91 review. Anyway, they instead paired him with Savage for this. This past Sunday (this show is airing on Wednesday which was the tradition back in the day) Roberts got Savage into the ring and tied him up in the ropes before pulling out a cobra. Before I go on, does that sound like some latent sexual issues or is it just me?

Anyway, Savage get bit by the cobra and they can’t get it off of him. The crowd is so into this it’s unreal. Eventually they get him out of it and Savage tries to fight back but can’t stand up because of the “venom”. In one of the absolute funniest moments I can ever remember in wrestling, Vince is FREAKING over this and actually doing a great job on the mic which is a lot more than he usually does.

However, as Savage is being put on the stretcher, we cut to a kid in the audience crying and Vince absolutely loses it. He’s cracking up and since Piper ran to the ring to help Savage, there’s no one to bail him out here. It’s just great as he’s trying to stay serious but just can’t do it because he’s holding back laughter.

I guarantee that whoever did that cut was fired. I can’t imagine they weren’t. So anyway, after all that (they showed the entire segment which was about 4 minutes long), we go to Jack Tunney who says that this is his fault and he’s to blame for what Jake did.

Now we get to the big part: Savage will not be allowed to wrestle tonight, and Jake has been pulled from his match as well. HOWEVER, Savage is reinstated and will face Roberts at ANOTHER PPV called Tuesday in Texas, SIX FREAKING DAYS AFTER THIS SHOW. Remember, the incident that they’re referencing was three days prior to this. They’re changing the main event three days before the show so that they can hook in more PPV buys for ANOTHER show six days after it. That my friends is nonsense.

I’m sorry but that just doesn’t work. The fans are already paying 30 dollars for this show and they don’t get the real main event out of it? Hogwash. Instead Vince says for only 20 dollars more you can see the main event that you paid for here. I get that Vince was running low on money at this point, but there comes a point where you’re just screwing the fan too much. This is stupid on all levels. If you want to do this, give the people more than 72 hours notice.

How many people do you think might have missed Superstars and not known about this until after the show had started and their money had been paid? Again, that’s nonsense. I’m legit ticked off again over this, with the only thing that’s keeping me calm being Tunney’s licking of his lips in this promo. It’s just weird looking. He looks like he’s getting ready to eat an ice cream cone or something. This whole segment was just designed to tick off fans.

But hey! In six days, you can pay us MORE money to see this match, so make sure you order the other show. Gorilla and Bobby plug the show even more before we start our first match, 6 minutes into the show. Ok make that 7.

Roddy Piper’s Team vs. Ric Flair’s Team

Piper: Bret Hart, Virgil, Davey Boy Smith
Flair: Ted DiBiase, Warlord, Mountie

The feuds actually match up here as Piper and Flair were feuding, DiBiase and Virgil had just finished feuding, Hart and the Mountie would clash over the IC belt in a few weeks and Smith and Warlord were arguing over who was stronger. Wow a match that actually works out well in that area. I don’t know what to say. Sherri is with DiBiase here.

Actually, all four heels have managers, with (going in order listed above) Mr. Perfect, Sherri, Harvey Whippleman and Jimmy Hart. They can’t stay at ringside though. Flair is out now with a censored belt. Ok so this deserves an in depth explanation as well I guess. Back in the 80s, wrestling was based on the territory system as you likely know. Most companies were part of the NWA but all had their own champions and talent (think of it like the NCAA with its conferences).

However, there was still an NWA world champion that went around the country defending his title everywhere. This you likely know or have at least heard of. Now like I said, there were all kinds of territories. One guy in the south started to buy a bunch of them and join them into a superterriory.

This man’s name was Jim Crockett who you’ve likely heard of. He turned it into what you now know as WCW, but it wasn’t known as that at the time. Anyway, he tried to go to war with Vince but just didn’t have the money to do it. He eventually sold to Ted Turner, who changed the name to World Championship Wrestling.

Turner slowly started to fade away from the NWA stuff as he and Crockett had realized the same thing: WCW was the NWA at this point. He owned all the talent and the NWA championship (the big gold belt was made by Crockett for Flair. Before that they had used a different one.) Now at the time, Flair was still the NWA champion, but was also the WCW champion.

This was represented by the same belt though, as more or less it was the same title but officially it wasn’t. It’s very complicated no matter how you look at it so if that doesn’t make sense to you, don’t be surprised. So Turner brought in a bunch of people that had no freaking clue how to run a wrestling company, with the main one being Jim Herd. Herd looked at Flair and thought that he was washed up and past his prime.

This was abdsurd as well since Flair was not only world champion but the top draw still. Herd thought the Nature Boy gimmick was stupid and wanted to change Flair into, and I’m not making this up, a bald gladiator. Yes, he wanted to drop one of the most famous gimmicks in history to make him a stupid character.

As Kevin Sullivan put it, “after we change Flair’s gimmick, let’s go change Babe Ruth’s number.” Flair, having a brain, told Herd that this wasn’t going to work. Herd, being the idiot that he was, decided he knew more wrestling than Flair and told him that Flair would do it or be fired.

Now this is where Flair had him. Since, like everyone that knew what they were talking about, Flair knew that he could walk straight into the WWF and be launched right to the top of the show, he didn’t back down. Herd fired him and Vince got a nice big present called Ric Flair just handed to him. Now let’s get to the interesting part. When he was fired, Flair was still WCW and NWA champion.

Yes, Herd was dumb enough to fire him BEFORE changing the title. See what kind of idiot he was? He was stripped of the WCW Title which was then put in a match between Luger and Barry Windham, which was booed out of the building with chants of WE WANT FLAIR! The winner didn’t matter, because no one was going to take them seriously as champion, and why should they have? They never beat Flair for the title so they were in essence fighting for the number one contender spot.

No one bought it and the title was hurt badly for the next year and a half since instead of watching fake champions, they turned the channel to USA to see how the real WCW champion did in the WWF. Now the REAL interesting part lies in the NWA title. Like I said, Flair held both titles which were represented by the same belt.

The NWA had a policy for its world champions: you win the title, you pay 25,000 dollars as a deposit on it. The deal was done to prevent people from showing up in other companies with the title. In other words, you rented it. Once you lost the belt you got the money back with interest on it.

Now that’s fine and good. Flair paid the deposit and all was well and good. However, once he was fired from WCW he was stripped of the belt and was told to return it to the NWA. Flair said he’d be glad to do it as soon as he was given his money back. Problem: the NWA didn’t have it. Flair says well then you don’t have a belt either. He took it to Vince and used it in a gimmick, calling himself the REAL world’s champion.

The NWA panicked since there was no way they could let this happen. They took Flair to court over it and were laughed out of the room since they had absolutely no case. They made a deal with Flair and weren’t living up to their end of it. Therefore, there was nothing they could do to keep Flair from using the title on WWF TV. It was his property so he could do whatever he wanted with it.

Eventually Flair went back to WCW and let them use the belt after they paid him what he was owed. The big gold belt became the WCW Title and the rest is history. WCW left the NWA in about 1993 and the NWA tried to revive itself with a tournament in Philadelphia. I think you know what happened there.

Anyway, the point of this was that during this time, the NWA got a temporary injunction against Flair to keep him from using the big gold belt but the angle kept going anyway with other belts being used in its place. Tonight it’s a tag title, which is blacked out but at times you can see the edges of it. How weird would that have been? Flair is just standing there holding up one of the tag titles. Oh yeah we’ve got a match to do too. Let’s get to it.

Hart’s pop is INSANE. They knew what they had here and that would be made apparent as next year at this time he would be world champion. We start off with DiBiase vs. Piper. That’s a very interesting match that I don’t think ever had a big time feud. They of course have a great match here as my amazement never ends as to how DiBiase never got a title run. They of course have a great mini-match here since they’re both awesome.

Sherri comes in for interference but it of course backfires since Piper was practically a main eventer and such things don’t bother him at all. Now we get Virgil, who for some reason gets a pop. This is even more reason for me to hate what they’re pulling tonight. The crowd is white hot, so instead of giving them a big match, let’s give it to people in a week. Yeah that’s very good work there guys. Way to support your fans.

The face team spends about three minutes just killing DiBiase with all three guys getting in a lot of work on him. Finally he gets out and we get Flair vs. Hart. Even back then we knew it was something special. Bret was so on at this time that it’s unbelievable. The Heenan cheering for Flair is just funny stuff. Now the faces take their turns beating up on Flair. About 5 minutes straight is just faces beating on DiBiase and Flair.

Despite that, this is very entertaining either way as both guys are big time heels so the beatings work well and the crowd is WAY into this. Piper comes in to beat up Flair some and it’s so loud you can barely hear much. He finally gets out and we have Warlord and Bulldog in a test of strength. Due to some expected heel cheating, Bulldog is in trouble now as the Mountie continues to crack me up with how completely over the top he is with his gimmick. It’s so ridiculously insane that it’s greatness.

We get a funny bit as we see Jimmy in the back PANICKING since he can’t be out there with the Mountie. Managers really are a lost art indeed today. They’re something that can really enhance a character yet for some reason they’re never used anymore. I don’t get that. Being a manager requires two things: being able to talk and being able to take a beating once in awhile. Seriously, is that something that sounds next to impossible or next to that difficult even? I don’t get it.

It’s just not that hard to me, at least in theory. Instead we get people like Santino and Abraham Washington. Why not make one of them a manager? Nope, instead everything has to be about comedy instead of enhancing a character. Yep, you have to love that.

Bret comes in so Mountie bails as fast as he can, giving us Bret vs. DiBiase again so I can’t complain. Smith comes in after about 8 seconds of this as Mountie is tagged in. It’s brawl time and note: Gorilla says that the legal men are Flair and Smith, which would be wrong. Anyway, Smith hits the powerslam on Mountie but Flair goes to the tope and hits a double axe handle shot to the back of Davey’s head.

He rolls him over and pins him as Gorilla is freaking out about how Flair wasn’t legal, despite him saying that he was not 20 seconds before this. I love the confusion that is Gorilla Monsoon a lot of the time. Piper immediately runs in to beat on Flair, despite him not being legal in the match but who cares about something stupid like legality? All four people beat on Piper for a bit as the fans are still way into this match. That’s a good sign that after about eleven minutes we’re still this into a match.

Piper puts the figure four on Flair to a HUGE pop. Virgil comes in to fight Mountie who is terrified of him. For some reason, no one wants to fight Virgil. Why not? The guy just wasn’t that big of a deal. All that mattered in his career was that he beat DiBiase one time. That’s all anyone ever actually cared about and it was indeed a cool moment. However, once that angle ended, which it had by this point since DiBiase got the belt back, he was just Virgil, a bald guy that threw decent punches.

There’s just nothing really to market there and it turned into nothing at all because there was just nothing they could do with him at this point. It’s the quintessential difference between having a gimmick and being a character. A gimmick is something like Repo Man. He was something that you could throw in with anyone at all and the gimmick would work fine. John Cena is a character. He’s just a man that goes out there and wrestles really well.

There’s more depth to him, but it’s harder to put him with someone because you have to build something up with him. Also, it takes away from the creativity of the storylines with him as you can’t really do much other than have it be about respect or a challenge or so and so wants the title etc. It leads to some very boring and generic storylines.

There’s no right or wrong answer about what’s better, but for someone like Virgil with limited skills and charisma, a gimmick would have worked much better for him. The same holds true for Cena as a gimmick would be awful for him. It’s usually the bigger a star you are, the less you need a gimmick. He and Flair go at it for a bit and as usual, Flair loses at first only to make his comeback and look dominant.

A lot of people say that Flair’s style is boring. I disagree. Yes, he does the same stuff a lot of the time, but how many truly bad Flair matches can you remember, and I’m not talking about when he was all old and likely not legally considered alive. I’m talking about when he was in shape and not old. Think about it: the guy had good matches because he had a formula.

Flair gets beaten on, he makes a small comeback, gets beaten on again, makes a big comeback, goes for the leg, gets the figure four, the face gets to the ropes, and then the finish. The matches worked though and that’s all that mattered. Then you would get idiots like Dusty Rhodes who of course just couldn’t do things the intelligent way and had to have his style of match with Flair, which made them a lot worse.

Those aren’t Flair’s fault. Dusty is to be blamed for those since he’s the one that screwed them up by having to wrestle his horrible style. Dang I’m going on a lot of tangents here. Anyway, Hart does the nice thing and throws Virgil back in to get beaten on some more.

Full nelson goes on but Bret breaks it up to let Piper pin Warlord in the exact same thing that got rid of Bulldog. Well played Hitman. Everybody beats on DiBiase a bit more, with even Virgil getting in some solid stuff. Flair however just ends that as he becomes my hero. Heenan is singing Flair’s praises which never gets old as he even threatens to have Gorilla thrown out. The response of silence is just funny.

Virgil gets beaten on for about three minutes to set up the ending that I hate. He gets DiBiase down and heads for the corner. Both Piper and Flair come in for a big fight, but then the other four come in. Flair gets knocked to the floor and we have a big brawl. Then to end the match, 5 people are disqualified except for Flair because he was on the floor, making him the sole survivor. I get that they wanted to push Flair, but this match was so awesome up to this point that I wanted to see them go longer.

It’s not like they were short on time. Later on the tag team match gets twenty minutes. You could have given this another ten and it would have been fine, but then again, I’m no professional.

Rating: A-. This match was awesome. The crowd was way into it, the wrestlers were all on fire, the feuds made perfect sense, the pacing was good, and then the ending screwed all that up. Yeah here the main issue is the ending, which was just flat out bad. It put Flair over which was the point of the match, but I wish there was another way they could have done it. Either way, this was a very fun and entertaining match. Now if only the rest of the show is this good, which I doubt.

Savage and Liz say to buy Tuesday In Texas. Screw you both. Actually no, just screw Vince and his greed.

Team Slaughter vs. Team Mustafa

Slaughter, Duggan, Texas Tornado, Tito Santana
Colonel Mustafa, Berzerker, Skinner, Hercules

Oh this is going to be bad. It’s like the 80s died and this is the corpse. Basically, it’s America vs. not America here, with Mustafa being more commonly known as Iron Sheik. He had managed Slaughter during his heel run but now Slaughter is red white and blue again so all is fine and dandy. Duggan makes sense to be there, Tornado and Santana are midcard faces. Berzerker, Skinner and Hercules…eh they’re just there to fill in the dates their contracts say they have to work.

Yeah this is going to be pretty bad. Look at the face team. It’s a former world champion, a former NWA champion, a two time IC champion, and Duggan who was always in the upper midcard. They’re against a guy that used to be world champion but that’s not mentioned here and three career jobbers. Yeah this is going to go GREAT. I love how Slaughter can go so evil and then in just a few months he’s a beloved face again. Yeah it’s stupider than it sounds.

The most entertaining part about this match is Gorilla and Heenan arguing. You can tell they’re fairly bored out there and I can’t blame them at all. This match is just boring. There’s no point to it, there’s no reason to want to watch it, and there’s nothing of interest going on. You can tell this was just thrown together and that’s never a good thing. I don’t care about seeing these people fight because they’re just beating on each other with no particular rhyme or reason.

Heenan says some lines about Middle Eastern people that are borderline racist but not quite. Now we get to the best part of the match: the part where the bookers thought it was ok to have Sheik in there for over two minutes straight. Seriously, why? The guy can barely move and he’s going to carry the match? Yeah I think you’re getting why I hate this imbecile. They fill in the void by talking about the Taker vs. Hogan match which is fan better and more interesting.

Sheik gets pinned by a Slaughter clothesline that wasn’t anything special at all. Yeah, this might be the worst Survivor Series match of all time. It’s just flat out boring in all aspects. After about 5 minutes since Sheik got beaten, the other three heels are dispatched in less than two minutes total. Duggan dances around like this is a big deal. Apparently he was captain?

Rating: F. This was just awful. It wasn’t interesting, there was no story, the winners were never once in doubt, and it was just not any good. This was just completely pointless on all levels and was just there to fill in about 20 minutes counting the introductions. Egads what a horrible match.

The winning team walks down the hallway and says they can’t wait to see this match on video. Yeah that wasn’t pointless at all.

Jake Roberts says you should buy Tuesday in Texas. Somehow this takes five minutes to say.

We recap Hogan vs. Taker. They don’t mention how he got the title shot, but they make it obvious that Flair is going to be involved in this. On the Funeral Parlor, Taker’s segment, Flair confronted Hogan which led to Taker beating him down with the urn. Savage and Piper ran out to help him and couldn’t really do anything.

Savage hits Taker with the chair but Taker just knocks it away. That was awesome. Also, Taker rips the cross off the neck of Hogan, which is a direct homage to Andre 4 years prior to this. Taker was billed as undefeated here, despite having lost a bunch of matches to Warrior.

WWF Title: Undertaker vs. Hulk Hogan

So this is the first non Survivor Series match in the history of the show, which I think was what was needed. Since it’s the main event, of course it’s the shortest match on the show. We could have a problem here though as neither guy is going to sell crap here. Gorilla tries to convince us that they’re the same size. That’s just amusing. He goes on to say that Hogan has quickness and agility. I’m sorry but that’s just hilarious.

Hogan looks scared to death which is awesome. Bearer of course gets in his shots as Taker is in control. You have to remember that he’s only been around about a year at this point. This would be like Cena vs. Swagger in the main event of a major PPV for the title. Apparently it’s a big deal that Hogan can’t slam Taker despite him hitting Hogan as he goes up. Yeah that’s not a big deal at all. Taker gets clotheslined over the ropes and lands on his feet.

That’s always a cool looking spot and it makes it look like the move did nothing at all. The never ending debate about what’s in the urn continues. Was that ever answered? Taker’s tattoos interest me. Given his gimmick, what must that day in the tattoo place have been like?

Gorilla is of course freaking out over Bearer as Heenan says his monitor keeps kicking in and out. Monsoon says he’s going to start kicking Heenan in and out in a bit. Those two are just great together. There’s a Hogan lookalike at ringside who is leading cheers. It’s really quite amusing. Taker uses a smother on Hogan. That’s an interesting move as he just covers Hogan’s face with his hand.

That’s both good and bad as it looks a lot more effective than some moves do, while at the same time really being nothing at all. Heenan naturally can’t hear Monsoon, which is odd as he has that big headset on. Ok the smother doesn’t need to go on for two minutes. Taker does the eye roll that never gets old. Hogan makes his comeback but after more interference he takes a tombstone. Naturally he pops right up and starts his finishing sequence.

Bearer’s reaction to Hogan popping up is just great. As he goes for the legdrop, Flair comes out and touches his belt. Hogan, feeling a sense of animalistic pride, goes out and stops him. He puts Taker down again and goes for the leg but Bearer grabs him.

As he’s got the referee, Flair puts in a chair and Taker tombstones him on it for the title to more or less kill Hulkamania. Taker’s slow walk to the back with the belt is nothing short of greatness. Also, if Hogan isn’t legit hurt here, he needs an acting award. He looks completely gone.

Rating: C-. Again, this is a match where the historical aspect far outweighs the wrestling that you saw on display. Hogan losing at this point was a big deal, but he was getting very little reaction in this match. His time had simply gone by this point and it wasn’t working anymore.

That’s all fine and good, so Vince decided to take a BIG gamble and have him lose here. There would be a rematch in 6 days, but Hogan would only hold the title for a few days before it was declared vacant with the winner of the Rumble getting it. Hogan wouldn’t hold it again for over a year.

All the faces say they’re going to win.

All the heels say they’re going to win.

Tunney announces the rematch with Hogan and Taker for next Tuesday. Yep, it’s only 20 dollars and you get two main events, which you were supposed to get tonight, but screw that idea.

Nasty Boys/Beverly Brothers vs. Bushwackers/Rockers

The Rockers are on the verge of splitting up at this point with the Barber Shop happening in just under two months. As for the other three teams, they’re just there. Yes, this is the match that gets over 20 minutes and is the longest of the night. What in the world was Vince on tonight? This makes tonight even more of a slap in the face of the fans as we get 23 minutes of this and no Savage/Roberts.

Yeah that’s just great Vince, thanks for screwing over every person that pair their money to see this match. The Rockers are just ungodly over here, so of course they were being split up. We start off with Butch and Knobbs. Gorilla says no one knows more about surviving than the Bushwackers. Um, what? They do their comedy act as I can’t believe they still had jobs at this point. Somehow they would last until 1994.

Yep, no one cares about this match at all, but since the theme of the night seems to be how can we screw the audience over even more than we have earlier on in the night, it of course goes on and on and on. Luke, who once licked my at a house show, is gone fairly early due to a Brian Knobbs flying clothesline. Yep, that’s the kind of match that this is going to be: the kind where a flying clothesline that more or less sucked can get an elimination.

Can’t you tell how excited I am to be reviewing this match AGAIN? Oh I’m in heaven here people! Anyway, Marty comes in then and is looking either confused or stoned out of his mind. It’s likely both. Heenan, being as bored as ever, starts an argument with himself.

Heenan goes on to say that had Hogan not gone after Flair he would have won, which is likely correct. After more bad offense from both teams, Butch is put out following a weird double team move. It was supposed to start with a backdrop and end with a facebuster, but instead it looked like a bad botch. It was kind of like a 3D but nowhere near as cool looking or effective.

I think the Beverlies were supposed to be rich guys but I’m not sure. We’re down to Rockers vs. all four. Shawn starts getting his head handed to him as I’m sure Becca would love to steal it but that’s a different story. After getting beaten on forever, Shawn hooks a quick backslide and pins Beau. So now it’s Marty’s turn to get beaten up on for a good while as still nothing happens. We’re nearly 20 minutes into this and Marty puts on an armbar.

Yeah and you wonder why Shawn was given the big push. Shawn gets the tag leading to all five guys being in there at once. During this, Marty slams Sags but his feet hit Shawn in the face to let him get rolled up for the pin. Shawn is LIVID. He looks like he’s about to kill Marty but it doesn’t happen and Shawn goes to the back to leave it at three on one.

Jannetty fights as much as he can but even after some cool looking spots, he goes out to a bad small package. Seriously, it just looked awful. Marty’s shoulder was up and yet he got counted down anyway. It was just bad on all levels.

Rating: D. This was just BORING. Look at the opening match and then look at this one. The first one was a minute shorter yet I had FAR more to say about it. This was just boring and it’s a great example of how two matches can be completely different. The first one was interesting, sharp and fun. This was long, boring and sloppy. Granted it could be more about a lack of talent in this one but I digress.

This was just not good and there was absolutely NO need to give this nearly 25 minutes. You had a great match to open the show that would have been an A+ had it been given a few more minutes. The world title match could have used another 2-3 minutes. Yeah I know I say that a lot and in most cases there just isn’t enough time to go around. In this case, there should have been all kinds of time to go around but instead it got wasted here. That’s inexcusable.

With nothing else to say or do, it’s main event time.

Legion of Doom/Big Boss Man vs. IRS/Natural Disasters

Yep, this is the main event. Even at a house show this is a weak match, but here at the “Let’s screw the fans show”, it’s the main event. Apparently this was supposed to be Sid on the face team and Roberts on the heel team. Sid got hurt so they were going to put Savage in, but due to the move on Sunday, which means Vince’s greed, he got pulled and they took off Roberts too, since IRS is FAR ahead of Roberts on the company totem pole.

Anyway, IRS and Boss Man start, despite having no animosity at this point in time. LOD and the Disasters were feuding, but other than that, there’s little point to this. I really want this to end soon. Nope, apparently we’re in for the long match here as it’s generic offense all around to start. Yep, again, no one really cares about this match because we haven’t been given a reason to care.

The announcers clearly aren’t interested in the match at all as they bicker. Rule of thumb: the more bickering you hear between the announcers, the more bored they are. Finally after five minutes of people hitting each other and doing shoulder blocks, we get something interesting as Boss Man has IRS in trouble but he gets a metal briefcase to the head and is pinned. Unfortunately this messes up Gorilla’s rant about how Flair stole the title from Hogan.

Also, apparently there has to be something in the briefcase because it being made of metal isn’t enough to knock out Boss Man. Yeah that makes sense. So now it’s LOD against the three of them. Since they’re the tag champions at the moment, I doubt they’ll lose. As I say this, we get the fourth plug for Tuesday in Texas. We get it already guys.

Vince wants our money and if we want to see the big matches we were promised we have to pay another 20 dollars next week. As if we haven’t had enough excitement in this match, it’s time for a BEARHUG. Gorilla: I think he’s wasting time with this hold. I would agree if the last word was match. IRS goes for the briefcase again but it misses and hits Typhoon in the head and eliminates him. Quake is TICKED.

He’s ticked enough that he leaves with Typhoon. So it’s IRS 1-2 with the tag team champions. What happens of course? It goes on for 6 minutes. My goodness give me a break. Finally the LOD wake up and hits a top rope clothesline to end this which Gorilla says was inevitable. See, even he knew this was how it was going to end. Hey let’s plug Texas again. Heenan says it’ll be better than tonight. It couldn’t be much worse.

Rating: D. Again, this was BORING. There was no point to this being a six man. If they wanted to just have the faces win to end the show, do the smart thing and just make this a tag team title match. A few things are accomplished by doing that. Number one, it makes the match at least seem important.

Sure the LOD would keep the belts, but at least it would have had a sense of meaning to it instead of just a random match like this. Second, it would have been far more logical than this. Anyway, this was just bad and boring, but the faces won and the fans went home happy, so that’s good I guess.

Gene is in the catacombs of the arena. Joe Louis Arena has catacombs? Cool? Anyway, Bearer says that Hulkamania died tonight and plugs Texas to end the show.

Overall Rating: D+. And that’s being generous. The first match on this show was awesome. It goes downhill fast. I don’t know what the heck they were thinking on this show. Wait, yes I do. The fans will buy one PPV. That means they’ll but a second. Seriously, this was sickening to see from the WWF. There’s no call for pulling the big match three days before the show just to have a one on one match six days later. I’m sorry but that’s not right.

Also, it was a Survivor Series match tonight. How hard would it have been to have them in there but just have them do a double count out with Jake running away or a double DQ or something like that? You give the people what they paid to see, you tease them with the big match just a bit more, and THEN you put the big match on the card in six days. That’s fine with me, but don’t advertise this as being the big match between Randy and Jake and then not have it.

Let them have their quick thing here and then let them do the match Tuesday. That’s all well and good. Other than that, this historic moment with Taker winning his first title mixed with an awesome opening match isn’t enough to make this work anything though, so it’s not recommended at all. The first match is worth seeing though.

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cactus and Abdullah fight up the ramp for fun.

Vader/Mr. Hughes vs. Rick Steiner/Nightstalker

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Battlebowl

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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