World Wrestling Legends: 6:05 The Reunion
Date: March 5, 2006
Location: Hard Rock Café, Orlando, Florida
Attendance: 500
Commentators: Jim Cornette, Lance Russell, Ron Niemi

So I have some PPVs on tap but at the moment I felt like doing something goofy so I dug this one up. This is yet another wrestling reunion show where old guys have pointless matches that do nothing for anyone but give them a payday and make them look bad because they can’t do anything. One major plus over Heroes of Wrestling is the commentary as instead of a no name and Dutch Mantel we get Cornette and Russell which should be fun. No clue who the third guy is. Let’s get to it.

We open with the TNT Girls who used to be the Nitro Girls. Spice and Pyro are still incredibly hot.

The title is a nice one as 6:05 is when the old NWA show used to come on Saturday nights.

The production values are WAY better than you would expect as someone put some money into this. Penzer is the announcer.

Nikolai Volkoff vs. Jim Duggan

Oh dear. Sheik is with Volkoff here to really make this evil. Volkoff looks OLD. Cornette is having a ball here. Earl Hebner is the referee. When Duggan is in far better shape of two guys you know one is in bad shape. Duggan fights out of the corner and the Three Point Clothesline ends this in maybe 90 seconds.

Some generic backstage guy talks to Rick Steiner who says he’s going to give it all.

Virgil vs. Rick Steiner

Virgil is called that but his name graphic says Mr. Jones. Whatever as the guy is a jerk anyway. Virgil has a big old beer gut. He tries to jump Rick to start and the bald man is in command. Steiner Line and a T-Bone hit, and when I say hit for the suplex I use that term more loosely than a head cheerleader’s vagina, for two. Death Valley Driver gives Steiner the win in maybe a minute forty. See what I’m dealing with here?

A very fat Brian Knobbs says he’s getting a Jimmy Hart tattoo on his arm.

We get some very random clips from Memphis Wrestling that mean nothing apparently.

Disco Inferno vs. Koko B. Ware

Disco is doing even more of his gimmicky stuff than ever. Koko doesn’t have a bird with him. Frankie died a few years ago so there’s a possible explanation. Koko is fat again. Disco jumps him and thankfully they’re in shirts here. Disco is the heel here too. Koko has green hair so the announcers are trying to figure out what it might be.

Pretty much nothing but punches and kicks here. Chinlock sequence to Koko who gets to make the big face comeback. Disco is more concerned with his hair than with the match which is something kind of funny. He misses an elbow and here comes the Bird Man. Last Dance is countered into a bulldog for the pin. Longest match of the night so far at 4 minutes.

Rating: F+. Yeah it was just punching and kicking here but they didn’t try for anything special. This whole show is like that: it’s not about the wrestling but rather just being there and getting to come out to in front of the crowd one more time. That’s perfectly fine and they’re not trying to make this all serious like they did with Heroes of Wrestling. The result: this is fun.

Some big guy named DNA is with Jimmy Hart and Greg Valentine. He’s the big guy that is here and has nothing to do with the show other than to get some young guy that looks like very tough. He works for Hart and Valentine is glad he doesn’t have to fight him.

Greg Valentine vs. Jimmy Snuka

Both of them look old and bad. Valentine is not a guy that should be in more or less underwear. Snuka at least is in a shirt and long tights now. Valentine of course pounds away and you can tell Snuka is old because his head is now hurtable. Snuka busts out the chops and down goes Hammer. Valentine stalls a lot in true 80s heel fashion.

Somehow this is the most interesting match of the night so far. Valentine gets a chop off the middle rope so that Snuka can do a very odd looking fall. He goes after the leg now as you would expect him to do. Snuka can still throw some sweet chops. A middle rope headbutt takes Valentine down. Jimmy tries to get in so Snuka destroys him for fun.

Doug Dillenger comes out to make the stop of Jimmy murdering Jimmy and as he does here’s that big DNA guy from earlier. Hebner throws it out as Snuka gives us his best confused look. That DNA guy really is massive.

Rating: D-. More kicking and punching here but I really don’t seem the problem in having a clean finish here. Also, is there a point to having this DNA guy out there if he’s not going to like, do anything? He looks good and that’s about the extent of his usefulness here. Then again the Nitro Girls were here earlier so I don’t have much to complain about.

We get some clips from the WWC in Puerto Rico, leading to this.

Eddie Colon vs. Vampiro

Eddie is more commonly known as Primo. Carlos Colon, Eddie’s father and the Hulk Hogan of Puerto Rico, is here with his son. Neither of these guys are legends but we always get a match like this to eat up some time which is fine. It’ll be nice to see some guys out there that can move a bit. Carlos’ head is SCARY looking with how ripped up it is.

Eddie makes the comeback after being down a bit and speeds things up a good deal. Big old kick to the face of Eddie sends him down though. Vampiro gets sent to the floor and a big dive has the pale one in trouble. Carlos blades and Vampiro hits him with a boot to give him a reason. Dillenger throws Carlos out for no apparent reason.

Vampiro gets a running knee in the corner and is dominating here. They strike it out and HARD with Primo more or less no selling big boots to the face. He hits a dropkick to the….back of Vampiro I think. Decent DDT by the WWE guy gets two. Jim and Lance have more or less left the third guy behind.

Matches like these are where you can see Cornette’s passion for what he does coming out. This is a one off company if you can call it that having a show that is for just having fun and this match is between two guys just looking for a payday with no story behind it or anything and the match is decent but nothing great.

Yet here we have Jim Cornette on commentary losing his mind over this as you would think he was watching the best match he’s ever seen and he sells every single thing happening. The sign of a great commentator is being able to make something average seem epic and that is what Cornette is doing here.

This match is ok but he is INTO it. This is a show where Cornette very easily could have shown up, gotten paid and absolutely phoned in a lackluster performance but he’s making Primo Colon vs. Vampiro sound like a great match. That is very impressive.

Vampiro gets a sweet looking sitout powerbomb out of a pumphandle but Carlos who never really left trips him up before the cover. Dillenger comes out again with security and runs him off. Eddie gets a superkick but Vampiro gets a clothesline and puts his feet on the ropes for the heelish pin.

Rating: C+. Nothing that great here and this will likely be the best match of the night. The commentary here is the real highlight as Cornette takes nothing and makes it into something. Colon meant nothing at this point and still more or less doesn’t which says a lot. I’m not sure what that is but it says something. Anyway, boring match, good commentary.

The Colons beat up the winner post match.

We get a clip about Kamala from Memphis and without the eye paint on, he looks freaking SCARY.

Kamala vs. Jake Roberts

Oh dear. This needs to be very careful. I’m having flashbacks to Heroes of Wrestling. Jake’s eyes are squinting, he’s hunched over, he’s in an undershirt, he’s almost bald and his shirt is all stained. Thank goodness he’s fine. Kamala has a Kim Chee knockoff named Friday here. Jake crosses his heart to the referee that he won’t do anything wrong. Probably more like he solemnly swears he is up to no good.

Jim: Friday wishes it was Thursday. Somehow that makes sense. Nothing of note at all as they’ve barely made contact. Jim makes jokes to crack up the other two guys. The fans are all behind Jake here of course. Those racists. They finally make contact with Jake landing some punches. We hear about Kamala’s musical career which kind of kills the whole mystique of him but that kind of happened when he became a trained wrestler I think.

Kamala takes over with his awesome offense of chops and choking. We get a Missing Link and Jack Brisco comparison which for those of you that don’t know, is like comparing Shawn Michaels to Santino. Long nerve hold here that gets us as far as any other nerve hold would get us. This one is special though as Kamala is grabbing Jake under the arm. Did I mention these matches aren’t very good at all?

He hits the splash which goes nowhere of course. Did he ever beat a non jobber with that EVER? Friday steals the snake bag and Kamala tries to splash it, which would have worked had his stomach and not his thighs been the part that would have hit it. DDT to Friday and there’s the snake. Thankfully the reptile and not the anatomical one this time. Apparently Jake wins by DQ.

Rating: D. Yeah this was of course bad but the fans were way into it so there’s that going for it. Jake was at least coherent here and while fat and out of shape we got a DDT at least which the fans popped hard for. Jake is old but he still has his old characteristics working for him here. Decent match all things considered. Kamala is exactly the same.

Same clip deal from Florida, setting up this.

Rather than a match the promoter (I think) brings out Bruno Sammartino. He still looks good. He talks about coming to America in the 50s and how he’s never been to Orlando before. He likes it though and thanks the fans for having him. Short but it worked.

Dory Funk Jr. is brought out now and is going to wrestle tonight. Oh this could be bad. He’s in his mid 60s here. How often is Dory Funk crushed in star power by someone else? They never wrestled apparently which according to Cornette would have been the match of the decade. Dory says good things about Bruno and Bruno says there is definitely mutual respect between them.

Mike Graham comes out and apparently he and Funk are partners with Bruno in their corner. Here are their opponents: Flair and Blanchard! Ok so it’s David but they have JJ Dillon here and he’s in his old form here to say the least, running down Bruno as an old man. Bruno agrees to be the manager to balance out the big mouth that is Dillon.

Dory Funk Jr/Mike Graham vs. Tully Blanchard/David Flair

Other than the gray hair Tully has left which is falling out he looks ok. Dory and Tully start us off. Dory looks horrible but he’s still moving pretty well. Actually he’s moving very well. Dory fights out of the corner with his forearms (right up there with Flair’s chops for strikes) and brings in Graham to fight Tully. Is there a reason the only guy under 50 hasn’t been in there yet?

This referee counts FAST. Sweet goodness he’s a Hebner too. Cornette gets to talk about the Horsemen who he didn’t get to associate with enough. He runs down Ole which isn’t that hard to do. We get David in finally and we see Funk vs. Flair. Apparently Funk threw Flair out of his wrestling school for insubordination. Back to Graham and Blanchard now. Graham gets a decent slam actually, holding him up for a decent amount of time.

Graham gets the figure four on David but Tully gets a show from JJ which is popped on Mike’s head to give the heels the control. Tully gets a suplex but doesn’t slingshot it. Are you kidding me? It’s not like it takes a lot of work to do. You drop the guy into the rope. That would make it easier wouldn’t it? There it is anyway but Tully delays it a bit, making it far more of a suplex.

He’s a bit hurt anyway so both guys are down. Tag off to David and Dory is in as well. Spinning toe hold from Dory shows us that he can still beat up a fresh David Flair when he’s closer to seventy than sixty. That says a lot about David Flair. Graham hits JJ and sweet goodness  Bruno is still here. He hasn’t been seen or mentioned in ten minutes until he blasts JJ there. The shoe comes into play again with Mike hitting David with it so Dory can roll him up for the pin.

Rating: C+. Considering there was ONE guy in this that was under the age of 50 this was a miracle. The old guys can go to put it mildly and that’s what they did here. This was a fairly solid tag match and it worked far better than I was expecting. Amazingly enough this was nine minutes long and still worked the whole way through. I’m very impressed.

Diamond Dallas Page vs. Kanyon

Well at least there’s some history here. DDP goes through the crowd as he tended to but gets jumped by Kanyon. The announcers call this a dream match. That’s kind of ridiculous but Kanyon is on a show called World Wrestling Legends so what do you expect here? They brawl in the crowd a bit and DDP dominates. And there’s the bell. I love brawls before the bell for some reason.

This is far more of a brawl than a regular match but who cares. Discus Lariat from DDP gets two. There’s a low blow that somehow the referee misses as he’s looking straight at DDP who is going strong and then has the face of someone that just got hit in the balls. Referees are idiots. Kanyon gets a big piece of wood that they call a table. Ah it is a table but not the standard kind. Maybe these will actually hold some weight.

Kanyon tries to suplex him over the top onto the table which wasn’t anywhere close to where DDP would have landed but who cares about something like that? Page comes back and pounds away but gets caught by more punches from the innovator of offense. Riveting stuff there. Sunset flip by Page gets two.

Sleeper by Kanyon with Page flailing all over the place to the extent that he looks like he’s dancing badly. Page comes back and gets a suplex for two. Pretty back and forth match so far here. Kanyon goes out and grabs a chair but due to the laws of wrestling averages it goes into his face for two. Page is sent to the floor as this is going back and forth too fast with little being sold.

Kanyon channels his inner Bret Hart by playing possum and hitting Page in the throat with some foreign object for two. Page hits a back drop onto the ramp as Kanyon is in trouble. In a SICK bump, Page throws Kanyon off the stage and onto the table which Kanyon just bounces off of. FREAKING OW MAN! After a brief comeback from Kanyon the Diamond Cutter ends him.

Rating: C-. Again not bad considering these guys hadn’t wrestled in years probably. The pacing was really weird here but the fans only wanted to see the Diamond Cutter to end it and that’s exactly what they got. Having some history here helped a good bit. This wasn’t good or anything but it worked fairly well I’d suppose.

Page gets on the mic and flat out asks Kanyon if he’s gay. Well ok then. Does Page have ANY right to ask this? If he does I certainly don’t see it. Kanyon affirms it and Page says rock on more or less. Well that came out of nowhere. I had no idea how ironic that wording was until after I typed it but whatever.

Midnight Express vs. Bob Armstrong/Scott Armstrong/Brad Armstrong

Cornette is the manager of the Express (Lane, Condrey and Eaton) and the more famous Armstrong (Brian, as in Road Dogg) isn’t here so who really cares? Cornette says the Armstrongs have been a thorn in his side for years and tonight he can get rid of them. When was that? Well Condrey looks like crap.

BOBBY HEENAN IS MANAGING THE ARMSTONGS!!! HOLY FREAKING SMOKES!!! Heenan looks a bit bad here but not too bad. Wow this is awesome to see. Bob Armstrong is in a mask for absolutely no apparent reason. You can see through the face part of it though so there’s zero point to it at all. Condrey vs. Brad, who is very underrated, to start us off.

Eaton comes in and doesn’t look that great. Off to Scott who is the referee that was in WWE that had the hitch in his count. We get the Heenan vs. Cornette showdown which is the main point of this match. And they just look at each other and now back to the match. Off to Lane vs. Scott now with the crowd kind of dead for this for some reason. Here’s Bob who is old as hell and in the mask and never really was anything special but who cares?

Stan kicks Brad in the back to give the Midnights the advantage. Bob was in there maybe four seconds. Stan dances a bit as Cornette chokes Brad. This is awesome to see them together again which is the idea here. Heenan gets a chair. When would Bobby EVER do that? Brad gets a pretty ugly looking suplex to break Eaton’s momentum.

Everything goes nuts and Cornette pops Bob with the tennis racket which does nothing at all. Heenan takes out Cornette so that Bob can pop Bob to pin Eaton. In other words Bob Armstrong pinned Bobby Eaton after Bobby Heenan got him the tennis racket. Wow these were unoriginal parents.

Rating: D. Boring match of course as Bob Armstrong looked horrible in there and for the life of me I still don’t get the mask but whatever. This was just for the managers which the announcers point out which is fine. This wasn’t anything of note but seeing the Midnights was awesome all over again. Bad match, cool moment.

Scott Steiner vs. Buff Bagwell

Steiner has some VERY hot chick with him. This is the main event of all things. This is between WWE and WCW for Scott. He runs down the South and says everyone here is a redneck before we start. Buff says Scott is Northern trash or something so we definitely have faces and heels here. Scott jumps him and here we go. Buff speeds it up to fill in some time before his demise.

Buff kisses Scott’s girl just because he can and she’s hot as hell. There’s the belly to belly from Scott and Buff is down as everyone expected more or less. We head to the floor again so the girl can slap Bagwell a bit. Steiner does his pushup routine. We hit the chinlock as Scott doesn’t seem in the mood to do much here. The announcers fill time by saying SIX OH FIVE a lot.

Scott yells to the crowd allowing Buff to grab him. That’s the extent of his offense though as this is more or less a squash. Double clothesline and Buff slaps the mat a bit. And then after his comeback Buff stops to yell at the girl. He hits the Pedigree’s inbred cousin but gets shoved off when going for the Blockbuster and the Recliner ends it.

Rating: D. Glorified squash here with nothing at all going for it. The girl was smoking hot though so I guess there’s that. Cancel that whole nothing going for it line. Boring match and I have no idea why this went on last other than maybe Steiner is the biggest star on the show? He is I guess so that makes sense. I’d have gone with DDP vs. Steiner but that’s fine.

The announcers say goodbye very fast but they do say it which is again something better than Heroes of Wrestling gave us as they said nothing at all.

Overall Rating: D. The show was bad, but this is certainly watchable. This is what a reunion show is supposed to be like. The matches were bad and forgettable but the key thing here: nothing was incredibly bad. I know I keep saying it a lot but if you compare it to Heroes of Wrestling, this is gold. The best way to describe this show was nice. There was nothing too bad here but the idea was just to have fun and get the guys out there one more time. That worked for the most part so despite the low grade, this was a success.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TV Title: Johnny B. Badd vs. Steve Austin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tully Blanchard vs. Terry Funk

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

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

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

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

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

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

Larry Zbyszko vs. Steven Regal

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Colonel Parker says nothing at all.

Dustin Rhodes vs. Bunkhouse Buck

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

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

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

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

WCW World Title: Ric Flair vs. Barry Windham

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WCW International Title: Vader vs. Sting

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

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

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

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

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