Halloween Havoc 1992
Date: October 25, 1992
Location: Philadelphia Civic Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Attendance: 7,000
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jesse Ventura

Tonight is about Spinning the Wheel and therefore making the deal. The main event is Jake Roberts vs. Sting in a feud that I’m not sure anyone ever quite got. The idea is that you have 12 gimmicks on a wheel and whatever it lands on is the stipulation. In other words, it’s Raw Roulette. Other than that we have Ron Simmons defending against The Barbarian of all people. It was an odd time to say the least. Let’s get to it.

The opening video has the usual haunted house theme.

Tony and Bruno Sammartino do some hosting/analysis stuff.

The twelve matches on the wheel are:

Texas Bull Rope

Spinner’s Choice

Russian Chain

Dog Collar

I Quit

Barbed Wire

Cage

Lumberjack With Belts

Prince Of Darkness

Texas Death

Coal Miner’s Glove

First Blood

We get a video of Cactus Jack training Barbarian for the powerslam. That’s different.

Terry Gordy isn’t here so Steve Austin is teaming with Steve Williams in the tag title match.

Rick Rude has to wrestle twice tonight. Missy Hyatt says nothing of note about that but says she’ll vote for Jesse Ventura for president. Ok then.

Z-Man/Johnny Gunn/Shane Douglas vs. Arn Anderson/Michael Hayes/Bobby Eaton

This should be good. Gunn is more famous as Tom Brandi. So we have three guys who are young and muscular vs. a heat machine and two wrestling masters. We’re in Philadelphia. You can fill in the blanks yourselves. Gunn and Anderson start things off with Anderson pounding him into the corner. Gunn comes back with a bad dropkick and Z-Man hits one of his own. The good guys clear the ring and get booed out of the building.

Z-Man comes in legally and cranks on Arn’s arm until Bobby comes in to take over. Eaton pops him with a right hand and the place ERUPTS. Off to Hayes who gets cheered too because he’s the king of playing to a crowd. Shane comes in to work on Michael’s arm and is booed in the process, which isn’t something you would ever expect to see in Philly. Back to Eaton who is armdragged down immediately.

Eaton takes Shane into the corner and pops him with a right hand too, but he gets promptly taken down by a flying headscissors. Back to Z-Man who these people just hate. He hooks a leg bar as Jesse rants about Shane probably being a right wing Republican. Z-Man hooks a sleeper on Anderson but it’s quickly countered. Back to Hayes who pounds away and hooks a chinlock on Zenk. Eaton comes in but leaves quickly with a blind tag to Arn.

Anderson KILLS Z-Man with a clothesline and the place erupts again. Even Jesse is stunned by this and he doesn’t stun easily. Hayes hooks a rear chinlock but Zenk slams him into the mat to escape. Double tag brings in Shane vs. Anderson but Eaton cheap shots Douglas in the knee to stop the comeback, again getting a pop from the audience. Eaton drops a top rope knee drop onto the knee and hooks a Figure Four (with help from Hayes of course). Shane turns it over and atomic drops Anderson, but they hit heads. Hot tag to Gunn and everything breaks down with Gunn hitting a Thesz Press to pin Hayes. The booing is great.

Rating: C+. If this has been ANYWHERE other than Philadelphia, this would have been an excellent opener. I can’t say the fans turned on the good guys because they were never on their side in the first place. You had to know this was coming if you knew anything about the city, but the match itself was fine. Jesse’s reactions to the crowd were entertaining too as he sounded genuinely surprised.

Harley Race says Missy Hyatt can’t talk to Rick Rude. Smart man. Race isn’t supposed to be here apparently.

Ricky Steamboat vs. Brian Pillman

This should be awesome. Pillman is a heel here and would hook up with Steve Austin soon. The fans have no problem cheering for Steamboat so the crowd is back to normal. Steamboat chops him to start and hits a shoulder for two. Pillman throws him over the ropes but that doesn’t work on the Dragon. Steamboat plays possum and rams Pillman’s face into the mat to take over. Dragon busts out the armdrag/bar combination and takes over.

Pillman gets backdropped and slammed a few times, so he pokes Steamboat in the eyes to take over. See? Being evil does pay off. Steamboat is like screw this getting beaten up and chokes Pillman over his head. Brian blasts him in the back of the head when Steamboat has his back turned to take over. The headscissors gets two for Pillman and he chokes away a bit on the ropes. The Dragon blocks a superplex but jumps into a dropkick for two.

Pillman is getting frustrated because he can’t put Steamboat down so Ricky hits a Russian legsweep to put both guys down. There’s a sleeper and the Dragon is in trouble. Steamboat falls into the corner to ram Brian’s head into the buckle to escape. Pillman starts running but he catches Steamboat coming back in with a knee lift. A cross body off the middle rope gets two for Pillman. Steamboat goes up and hits a top rope sunset flip for two. Pillman counters but Steamboat counters the counter into a sunset flip for the pin.

Rating: B. This is what you call a fast paced wrestling match between a talented face and a talented heel. To put it short, the idea worked. They worked very well together as you would expect them too, with both guys looking crisp the whole way through and the crowd reacting well to it. Good stuff here indeed.

Masahiro Chono, the NWA World Champion, selects Kensuke Sasaki as his guest referee. Harley Race will be the other one. Wait so why was it surprising to see him earlier?

Bill Watts has some announcements. Terry Gordy has been fired for breech of contract and Steve Austin will be replacing him in the tag title match tonight. Also Rick Rude has whined too much so Vader will substitute for him in the US Title defense.

US Title: Nikita Koloff vs. Vader

Rude is the actual champion but Vader is subbing for him. This is No DQ. Rude comes out too but doesn’t stick around. Race gets thrown out too. Vader hits him in the face and Koloff doesn’t really move. They slug it out a lot and Vader splashes him to take over. A HARD clothesline takes Koloff down as does a headbutt. Koloff is sent to the floor but comes back with some power offense of his own. He hits a crossbody to the back for two which is a move I’ve never seen before.

Off to a chinlock which goes on for a good while. JR talks about a thirty minute time limit and I can’t help but chuckle. Can you imagine these two going half an hour against each other? Vader finally breaks it but gets cradled for two. Koloff hits another cross body of all things for two. He’s not the kind of guy I would expect to use that but he’s the speed guy in this when you think about it.

Vader rolls to the floor to stall and then does it a few more times. Koloff finally has enough and goes out after him, but the Sickle hits the post and Nikita is in trouble. Back in and Vader goes into mauling mode, running over Koloff and sending him to the floor. There’s a HARD chair shot (remember that it’s no DQ) and we go back in where the powerbomb retains the title for Rude.

Rating: D. You know considering this was No DQ, there was a total of one thing that would fit that gimmick. They flew through this and I can see why they clipped it on the VHS. The full version was about three times as long and it wasn’t anything better. Koloff more or less disappeared after this.

Steve Williams is glad to have Austin as his new partner.

Tag Titles: Steve Williams/Steve Austin vs. Barry Windham/Dustin Rhodes

Windham and Rhodes are defending here. This is actually the Unified Tag Titles but who cares about stuff like that? This was supposed to be the rubber match with Barry/Dustin vs. the MVC but Gordy is gone. Austin is in purple here which is a weird thing to see. Williams (as in the person using his real name unlike Austin whose last name is also Williams) starts with Dustin and it’s time to talk about football.

Appropriately enough they get down in three point stances and collide but the second time Williams suckers him into a clothesline to take over. Dustin clotheslines him down as well before hooking on a wristlock. Off to Barry who is having problems with his partner at this point. It’s power vs. speed here with the speed of Windham taking over in the form of an armbar. Williams armdrags him right into the corner of Rhodes and there’s a tag.

They fight over a wristlock with neither guy being able to take over for the most part. The fans chant for Flair (I think) and it’s off to Austin, who hits a dropkick to take over on the incoming Windham. While in purple. Imagine that one. Austin gets caught between the champions like a pinball and is knocked to the floor. Back in and Dustin hooks a headlock on the mat.

Jesse talks about his time in the East West Connection and how he and Adonis didn’t get along outside the ring but they did in the ring. See, back in the day wrestlers who became commentators actually TALKED ABOUT THEIR CAREERS and used those stories to make points about the matches they’re commentating on. It’s not that hard. Austin works on the leg but it doesn’t do that well.

Rhodes charges into a boot but he comes right back with a lariat to take over and get two. Windham comes in with another clothesline for another two and the same off a suplex. Back to Doc who is taken down immediately. They slug it out but Windham misses a charge and lands on the floor. Back to the future Rattlesnake as the challengers take over. Suplex gets two.

Williams comes back in and charges into a quickly broken sleeper. He ties Barry up on the floor in a hold and brings in Austin. Austin works on the arm with a hammerlock slam and it’s back to Dr. Death. Powerslam gets two as JR sounds like he wants to marry Williams. This is nothing new but it’s a bit more pronounced here. Williams breaks a chinlock with a jawbreaker but Williams brings Austin in to prevent the tag.

Barry breaks up a superplex and hits a middle rope lariat for two. Hot tag to Dustin and he cleans house with rapid fire elbows to the head. Bulldog takes Austin down but Williams makes the save. Dustin’s rush of offense is stopped cold and the challengers take over again. A corner splash puts him down again and there’s a Boston Crab. That gets followed by a body vice from Austin but even an interfering Windham can’t break it.

Dustin uses the ropes to get free and we get the always cool back bridge into the backslide for two. Dustin tries to come back against Williams but Dr. Death just casually takes him down with an amateur move. Austin and Rhodes slug it out and the future bald one takes over. Big shock right? Rhodes is busted and Williams goes after it like a maniac. That’s another fitting action for him.

Off to a chinlock from Austin which is one of the first rest holds of the match so far. An elbow misses though and Rhodes gets a small package for two. Williams hooks a chinlock as we have five minutes left. Austin drops a double ax with four to go. He hooks a half crab which is kind of stupid at this point. Dustin gets taken down again at three minutes left but the challengers don’t seem all that interested in going for the kill. Windham gets the tag but the referee doesn’t see it.

There goes the referee and it’s time for a replacement. Williams hits a clothesline for the pin on Windham out of nowhere….but he’s not legal so it’s a Dusty Finish. Dustin pins Williams but he’s not legal either. There’s the lariat to Austin for two. Everything breaks down and we have a minute left. Dustin tombstones Austin with 30 seconds to go but both guys are down. Time runs out with them all standing around which is odd but the rest of it was awesome so I’m cool with it.

Rating: B+. I really liked that ending sequence with the false finish because it was the right call from a rules standpoint. The rest of it was really good as it was an extended formula tag match from four guys who were all very talented. This worked quite well and thankfully the MVC was gone forever. Williams and Rhodes would lose the titles to Steamboat and Douglas less than a month after this.

We go to Vader/Race/Dangerously with Paul taking credit for all of the success tonight. He takes credit for everything until Madusa shows up. She thanks everyone but Dangerously for winning the world title (which I guess is coming later). Dangerously goes OFF on her, talking about how HE is the one that did everything and it’s because he’s a man.

Madusa is just a woman and there is beneath him and subservient. She’s been there to take care of Rude’s needs but she was only hired for that because the other hooker was busy. He fires her from the Alliance and jumps in the air, so she hits a high kick to the face and DESTROYS HIM as even Vader and Race run away. The place ERUPTS and Jesse is freaking out. This was awesome in so many ways.

Sting comes out to spin the wheel and it lands on a Coal Miner’s Glove match. Why? My guess would be a gas leak in the WCW offices. This is one of those moments in WCW where you just shake your head and facepalm, because that is probably the worst possible choice they could have made. Somehow this took four minutes.

NWA World Title: Rick Rude vs. Masahiro Chono

Harley Race and Kensuke Sasake are guest referees here. Now these two had a masterpiece in Japan in a tournament final where Chono won the title, so this has potential. If you know anything about WCW in 1992, you should know what that means. Madusa comes out with Rude, making him the face after that previous segment. Oh and Chono is defending here. Race, Rude’s selection, will be refereeing inside the ring. That took about three minutes to decide.

This match serves as another great example of what was wrong with the NWA. Chono is a great wrestler. I don’t think anyone that knows what they’re talking about is going to dispute that. Chono is 29 here and in the prime of his career. That being said, I’d be surprised if more than 3% of the audience watching this show knew who he was. From what I can find, this is his first televised singles match EVER in WCW. I mean, the match had been hyped on TV and all that, but the fans are just supposed to buy into this guy as the world champion without EVER seeing him wrestle? That’s never going to work.

The fans want Flair before we get going. Rude talks trash….in English. Jesse: “He’s from Minnesota. All Minnesotans speak Japanese as a second language.” Feeling out process to start and they fight over a hammerlock. Chono takes him to the mat and the rest holds begin. The first one is an armbar which eats up a minute or so. Rude comes back with a slam and some elbows for two.

Chono gets up and slams Rude down and we hit an armbar. And then we stay in the armbar. There has to be something going on behind the scenes here. I mean think about it: how can these guys go from having a classic (and it was a classic) to being this BORING? Clearly they know how to have an exciting match and they work pretty well together, but this is just LONG stretches of them laying on the mat in a hold that isn’t going to get a submission and that bores the audience to death.

Now Rude comes back and hits some right hands, which are the most interesting part of the match so far. Jesse says Rude is shaved so he could drop weight. Ventura is trying but man alive there’s only so much he can do. We hit the chinlock as things slow right back down. Chono comes back and takes Rude right to the mat for an STF (finisher) attempt, but Rude blocks. Instead Chono just uses the leg part and things get boring again. Imagine Cena prepping for the STF for two minutes. See how the fans could get bored REALLY fast?

We’re fifteen minutes into this. Read back through the description. Does that sound like fifteen minutes worth of action? Rude piledrives him but Chono gets a foot on the ropes. Rude, likely out of boredom, fires off some more fight and WE HIT THE CHINLOCK AGAIN. JR is so bored that he’s talking about Rude’s arm wrestling career. If that chinlock isn’t your cup of tea, here’s a sleeper instead.

At least in this one the fans (including Hat Guy in the front row) are looking at a fight in the stands so they’re not missing anything. This would be opposed to the rest of the match when the fans aren’t missing anything while looking at the match. We hit twenty minutes as Jesse talks about Ben Franklin winning the world title against Thomas Jefferson back in 1796 in a 2/3 falls match. Rude shifts to a headlock but misses a top rope dropkick. Chono accidentally charges into Race and knocks him to the floor. He sends Rude into the corner where Rude lands on both referees…..and that’s a DQ. Rude hits the Awakening but it doesn’t count.

Rating: T. As in THIS is why the NWA died around this time. We had a boring match with a guy that no one cared about with a bogus ending. Why am I supposed to care about this match? Neither guy was impressive at all and the match brought down what had been a good show so far. Just awful here.

Post match there’s an argument over who wins by DQ. Sasaki beats up Race.

We look at Cactus Jack training Barbarian for the world title match. This would consist of having Barbarian on all fours with cinder blocks on his back. Jack breaks them with a sledgehammer. This is in the montage used on Are You Serious.

WCW World Title: Barbarian vs. Ron Simmons

Yeah it’s THAT Barbarian. See, for some reason WCW decided that the big names should go after the NWA Title while the WCW Title was treated like a midcard title. Simmons has a HUGE entourage bringing him to the ring. Barbarian is a Jack surrogate as Cactus is injured. They stare each other down forever and feel each other out before Barbarian pounds him down in the corner. Simmons comes back and Barbarian bails to the floor.

Barbarian gets a Stunner over the top rope to take over again and sends Ron to the floor. No one cares about this match at all and I can almost guarantee they’re not going to get the fans to care based on how good (and I use that word loosely) the match will be. Barbarian rams him into the post and then into the railing as this is already dragging less than five minutes in.

Back in and Ron hits the absolute worst sunset flip of all time for two. Barbie hooks a LONG cobra clutch which looks more like an armpit claw but whatever. A top rope elbow misses and Simmons gets a chance to breathe. They slug it out but Simmons channels the power of football to hit a bad spinebuster for two. Simmons misses a clothesline but Barbarian sells it anyway.

There’s a three point shoulder block but Jack has the referee. Barbarian kicks him in the back of the head and sends him to the floor as a result. Back in and Simmons is nice enough to roll three feet to the left so that the top rope headbutt can hit. Once that gets two, Barbarian’s chances are done. Simmons grabs a powerslam out of nowhere for the pin to retain.

Rating: F. The Barbarian just co-main evented a show. This was treated like a worthless match and to be fair, there was good reason to do that. It came off like a bad main event of a C level TV show, which goes a long way to explain the troubles this company was having around this time. Just awful here.

Sting, Bruno and Erik Watts talk about the match we just sat through.

Sting vs. Jake Roberts

Coal Miner’s Glove match, which means there’s a loaded glove on a pole. Jake uses some VERY generic rock music which would later be used by Big Bubba and had previously been used by Austin. This is non-sanctioned and Sting is just MAD over. The story here is Roberts jumped him and laid Sting out so this is revenge. Sting controls early as Roberts stalls. Sting misses a dropkick and Jake goes after the back.

They go to the floor and Jake’s arm goes into the post. Sting goes for the glove (which is about 12 feet above the ring) but Jake makes the save and hits a suplex. Jake sends him to the floor but his attempt at getting the glove results in him being crotched. Sting works on the injured arm for a bit and they head outside again. Jake hits him in the back with a chair and chokes with tape back in the ring.

This match really isn’t working either as they’re basically having a regular match, albeit very rushed. That doesn’t make me think this is a blood feud or all about revenge or anything close to it really. Jake misses a running knee lift but the Stinger Splash misses too. Jake uses the bad arm for the DDT but Sting comes as close to no selling as you can while still selling. Sting does a cool move where he swings around the pole to knock Jack down. Cactus runs out with Jake’s cobra as Sting gets the glove. Sting knocks the snake onto Jake’s face where it “bites” him, allowing Sting to get the win.

Rating: F. As I said, the glove meant nothing here as it had to be the dumbest possible gimmick they could have gone with. Jake would basically be gone after this and wouldn’t be seen in mainstream American wrestling again until 1996. This was absolutely awful though and the ending was so stupid that I can’t really believe I saw it. Keep this in mind when you’re at work: someone was paid to think of this idea.

To give you an idea of how REAL that bite is, Jake pulls the snake away, looks at it, and puts it right back to where it was “biting” him. That’s like something out of a parody of a bad horror movie. Jake is “poisoned”.

We get about four minutes of wrap up to end the show.

Overall Rating: D. I’ve heard of shows going off a cliff before, but this went off a cliff, through the ground and landed in the ocean somewhere. The last three matches are just DREADFUL, combining to be almost an hour with the best match somehow being Simmons vs. Barbarian, which was long and dull. WCW in 1992 has a reputation and if you watch this show, you can see why. The tag match is really good and the Steamboat vs. Pillman match is solid, but other than that there’s NOTHING here other than more reasons to never think about WCW in 1992 after Beach Blast.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

Halloween Havoc 1991
Date: October 27, 1991
Location: UTC Arena, Chattanooga, Tennessee
Attendance: 8,900
Commentators: Jim Ross, Tony Schiavone

We’re a year after the not very scary Halloween Havoc 1990 and now we move on to the much scarier 1991 version. Tonight we have Lex Luger, the now heel world champion, facing Ron Simmons. Other than that we have a guy here called the Halloween Phantom, who is a new star debuting tonight. Well new to WCW at least. The reveal is pretty awesome though. Let’s get to it.

The opening video is of a haunted house with ghostly images of wrestlers superimposed over it.

We open up outside with Eric Bischoff acting as a kind of greeter I guess. Cactus Jack and Abdullah show up with the Butcher in a tie. DDP and Diamond Studd (Scott Hall) arrive. Dustin Rhodes and Barry Windham show up but the Enforcers (Larry Zbyszko and Arn Anderson) come up and crush Barry’s hand in the car door, which puts him out of his match later tonight. I think Barry was legit hurt and this is how they wrote him off TV for awhile.

Cactus Jack/Abdullah The Butcher/Diamond Studd/Big Van Vader vs. Steiner Brothers/El Gignate/Sting

Oh boy it’s the Chamber of Horrors. Now if you’ve never heard of this, clear some room off your list of absurd gimmicks. This is inside a cage similar to the Cell, although there’s no top on it and the holes in the cage are bigger. Inside are coffins, skeletons and a few weapons. The idea of the match is that everyone is fighting at once and at some point during the match, an electric chair will lower from the ceiling. Someone must be placed in the chair, strapped down and someone from the other team has to throw a switch, “electrocuting” them. And somehow, it’ll be even dumber than it sounds.

Oh and Gigante is replacing the injured Windham and Cactus is replacing Oz, although Oz will be in a match later and apparently Oz replaced Jack in that match. No idea why they made the switch. Jack comes out with a chainsaw minus the chain. Sting is US Champion here and yes, this is really what they’re using him for. Cactus jumps Sting on the ramp and Abdullah helps, but Rick comes out for the save. This is before we’re even in the cage. Well Rick was but he left because it’s just a cage so why should it be hard to stay inside?

In the ring Scott kills the Studd with a Tiger Driver while Gigante fights Vader. Sting gets a kendo stick to pound away on everyone he sees. Well everyone that isn’t on his team that is. Or the referee either. Speaking of the referee, he has a camera on his head here which is really more annoying than anything else. That could be an interesting idea for an angle but it never went anywhere.

People in masks pop out of those caskets. They don’t do anything but they pop out anyway. Sting clotheslines Vader to the floor and Gigante pulls Studd off of the cage wall. The Steiners hit their top rope DDT on Cactus as the chair is lowered. Vader knocks Rick into the chair but Rick clotheslines his way out of it. Sting throws a casket lid up in the air so it lands on Cactus’ head.

Now we have ghouls coming out with a stretcher. Again they don’t do anything but they’re there. Scott shatters a kendo stick over Cactus’ head, breaking him open. Cactus and Sting climb the cage and ram each other into it, which is one of the few actual clear brawls in the match. The rest of it is too hard to call because of the awful camera work. Sting has the stick now and stabs Hall with it.

It’s pretty much impossible to call this match as everything is all over the place and it’s just random brawling. Sting is busted open, as is Abdullah. Cactus goes for the switch as Rick is put in the chair, but the future Freakzilla makes the save. The heels get Rick into the chair for a second but he fights out of it pretty quickly. He gets put in there again and Cactus goes for the switch. Steiner suplexes Abdullah into the chair instead and after Cactus takes FOREVER to stand next to the switch, he throws the lever and Abdullah gets “electrocuted.”

Rating: W. As in wow, what were they smoking, or why. You can pick whichever you like and I think it’ll be fine. This was a huge mess but to me, this is pure nostalgia. I haven’t seen this match in years but I still remember about 80% of the commentary word for word. The match is terrible and incredibly stupid but it’s a fond memory for me so I can’t hate it.

Cactus checks on Abdullah post match but the Butcher gets up and beats up the ghouls that brought out the stretcher earlier.

Eric and Missy (Dracula/showgirl) debate who the Phantom is. The Young Pistols don’t care who it is. They want the US Tag Titles and are heels now.

Big Josh/PN News vs. The Creatures

The Creatures are generic masked guys, one of which is Joey Maggs and the other is Johnny Rich, the latter of which you don’t need to know. Josh is a wilderness guy and News is a fat white guy in lime green that raps. Josh starts with let’s say Creature #1. The Creatures double team Josh but it’s off to News to clean house. The fat man hits a dropkick followed by using the power of fat in the corner. Back to Josh for a bit before News comes in to miss a splash. Instead of the Creatures taking over, it’s back to Josh. Josh runs them over, hits the Northern Exposure (Earthquake) and a top rope splash from News pins #1.

Rating: F+. Another bad match here but without the fun levels of the previous one. The Creatures were never seen again of course and the other two didn’t go anywhere other than to comedy land. I really need to get back to modern wrestling where the filler matches at least have a point at times.

Terrance Taylor vs. Bobby Eaton

This should be good. Taylor slaps him around to start so Eaton offers him a free shot. Eaton is the face here and it’s still York Foundation time for Taylor. He takes Eaton down with an armdrag but the second one is countered. Bobby speeds things up and Taylor bails to the floor. They go to the floor and Eaton is sent into the barricade, but he backdrops Taylor over the railing and into the crowd for a second.

Back in and Taylor tries to hide. Eaton blasts him with a right hand for two and it’s off to a hammerlock. Rooster Boy gets out with a jawbreaker and they go to the ramp. Eaton slams him down and hits a knee/splash off the top to crush Taylor. Back in and Taylor sends him through the ropes and into the barricade again. Taylor uses the break to go over to the computer and York for more assistance.

The solution is apparently a corner clothesline followed by a knee drop for two. They head to the ramp again and Eaton is put down by a gutwrench powerbomb. Eaton slowly gets back in and takes a top rope splash for two. We hit the chinlock which is broken somewhat quickly but a knee to the ribs stops it dead. Taylor gets some more computer advice and apparently is willing to settle for the countout.

That doesn’t work and Bobby comes off the top with a sunset flip for two. Off to a reverse chinlock by Taylor but Eaton comes out of it with a jawbreaker, just like Taylor did to him earlier. Taylor’s Vader Bomb hits knees and it’s time for Bobby’s comeback. He pounds away in the corner and suplexes Taylor down for two. A swinging neckbreaker puts Terry down but Eaton goes up and gets crotched. Taylor’s superplex is broken up and Eaton hits the Alabama Jam for the pin.

Rating: B. This was a great back and forth match. It’s amazing how much more bearable Taylor is when he isn’t acting like a bird. The computer gimmick got annoying after awhile but having him wrestle straight worked pretty well. This wasn’t quite a masterpiece but it was a very solid sixteen minute match and a nice change of pace.

Jimmy Garvin vs. Johnny B. Badd

Michael Hayes is here but he has a bad arm. Johnny is gay here but we can’t say gay so we call him “very flamboyant.” Teddy Long is still in the ring when the bell rings. They speed things up to start and Badd is sent to the floor. Back in the ring and Garvin (who is apparently a face here which I hadn’t picked up on until now) runs him over with a forearm to send Badd back outside.

Garvin works over the arm but Badd pounds away with fists. He chokes off a Teddy distraction and uses some very basic offense. A flying sunset flip is mostly messed up and it gets two. A top rope elbow gets two. Garvin dumps him over the top and nothing happens out there. Back in and they collide but Garvin beats him to his feet. The DDT hits but Teddy has the referee. The left hooks from Badd gets the pin.

Rating: D-. This really didn’t work at all. Badd was still very green at this point and it was clear that he wasn’t ready for a spot like this. Garvin was old and not very good either, although he never quite was anything special in the ring. This was supposed to be a showcase match for Badd but it came off as more boring than anything else. Badd would get WAY better in a few years though.

Missy harasses Bobby Eaton about who the Phantom is and when he doesn’t know, she whines. Was she supposed to be adorable or something?

TV Title: Steve Austin vs. Dustin Rhodes

Dustin is challenging. JR says that if he was starting a company, he would pick Steve Austin as his #1 draft pick. See why people say he knows his stuff? Rhodes takes him down quickly but Austin runs to the ropes to hide. A shoulder puts Dustin down and a clothesline does the same to Austin. They go to the mat and Dustin’s grandparents are here apparently.

They keep going back and forth with basic stuff until Dustin clotheslines him to the floor. That again isn’t a DQ for whatever reason. Either way we get to see Lady Blossom’s rocking cleavage for a bit so it’s not a bad thing at all. Back in and Austin suplexes him down for two. Dustin’s bulldog is countered so he settles for a headlock takeover instead. Austin finally counters into a headscissors as things slow way down.

Back up and they run the ropes a bit, but Dustin misses a cross body and crashes out to the floor. Somewhere in there Dustin got busted open badly. Austin pounds away on it and hits a gutwrench suplex for two back in the ring. It’s amazing how different Austin is back here. He’s a mat wrestler who barely ever throws a punch. Off to a chinlock and the cameraman cuts over to Lady Blossom and the camera pans down to her chest in a shot that I don’t think was supposed to be seen on the broadcast.

The clock is winding down as we have less than four minutes to go and Dustin is in trouble. They trade small packages and Dustin takes him down with a clothesline, getting two. Lady Blossom (who is a dead ringer for Debra) slaps Dustin in the face but Austin’s charge misses. A second lariat gets two as Austin gets his foot on the rope. Back to the floor and Austin goes into the post with less than two minutes left. Powerslam gets two for the Natural as does the Bionic Elbow with a minute left. Austin is reeling with 30 seconds to go. Dustin goes up and hits a top rope lariat for two as the bell rings.

Rating: B-. This was a pretty good match although the ending was pretty obvious. Austin would hold that title for the better part of a year before trading it with Barry Windham and Ricky Steamboat. Having these fifteen minute matches with other talented guys had a lot to do with Austin becoming one of the best in ring workers ever. This was solid stuff.

Bill Kazmaier vs. Oz

Oz doesn’t have the big elaborate entrance anymore. Kazmaier was a legit World’s Strongest Man, having won the official competition three times in the 80s. He comes to the ring with an Earth shaped balloon on his back. This was supposed to be Cactus Jack vs. Kaz but Jack wanted to be in the cage. This is power vs. size and less power with the shorter guy dominating early. They do a test of strength and Big Sexy (Oz is Nash if you were one of the handful of people that didn’t know that) takes over. A belly to back suplex gets two for Oz. Kaz skins the cat, hits a shoulder block and wins with a torture rack.

Rating: D. Whatever man. This was just a quick match to I believe end the Oz character, or at least put another bullet into it. Once they realized how dumb the thing was they dropped it and turned him into Vinnie Vegas which was way more appropriate for him anyway. Kazmaier never did anything and retired in January of the following year.

Van Hammer vs. Doug Somers

Van Hammer has only been here about a month and we’re still in the squash period for him. Somers is yet another replacement, in this case taking the place of the injured Michael Hayes. The match barely breaks a minute and Hammer wins with a slingshot suplex.

Brian Pillman says he wants the Light Heavyweight Title more than anything.

Richard Morton, part of the York Foundation, says this is the first of many titles for the Foundation.

Light Heavyweight Title: Brian Pillman vs. Richard Morton

This is a tournament final to crown a first ever champion. Nick Patrick has that stupid head camera on again. Morton keeps running from Pillman which probably isn’t that bad of an idea. Brian slams him down and hits a spinwheel kick to send Morton out to the floor. Back in and Pillman goes to the middle rope for a double ax followed by taking it to the mat with a series of headlocks.

A good example of why the referee camera is stupid: Pillman has him down and all we can see is his arm going down. Why would I want to see that? Pillman throws Morton around with armdrags and then it’s back to the headlock. O’Connor Roll gets two for Brian. Morton works on the arm…..and keeps working on the arm…..then works on the arm some more. It’s all the same hold so this is taking forever.

Pillman finally fights up and we go to a wide shot of the crowd instead of focusing on the match. A clothesline puts Morton down and the fans aren’t all that impressed. An enziguri puts Morton down as does a backdrop. Pillman fires off some chops and they collide, sending both guys out to the floor. Pillman has his shoulder rammed into the post and he’s in trouble. Not that it matters though as they go back in and the top rope cross body gives Pillman the title.

Rating: D. This was REALLY boring. Morton isn’t used to being on offense and it’s easy to see that he’s out of practice. There’s a reason that the face getting the tar kicked out of him is called playing Ricky Morton. The title never went anywhere and would be retired in about a year. It would be resurrected in about four years and have its name changed to the Cruiserweight Title, which would work a little bit better.

Z-Man vs. WCW Halloween Havoc Phantom

He looks like the Phantom of the Opera and comes out to the theme from the movie/musical of the same name. The announcers think they know they guy’s style but they can’t place it. A neckbreaker gets the pin in less than a minute and a half. Tony says the name of the finisher, complete with the name of the person using it and the identity of the Phantom, but I’ll save the surprise for later.

Tag Titles: Enforcers vs. Patriots

The Enforcers are defending and are Arn Anderson and Larry Zbyszko. The Patriots are Todd Champion and Firebreaker Chip and are also the US Tag Champions, but their titles aren’t on the line here. For the sake of simplicity, if I say champions here, I only will be referring to the Enforcers. Chip, who looks like he has an entire steroid store inside him, hooks a quick abdominal stretch but Larry escapes.

Zbyszko is getting frustrated so he brings in Anderson. Off to the much taller Todd Champion but Anderson punches him down with ease. Todd gets sent to the apron but he low bridges Anderson to the floor, which again isn’t a DQ. Back in the ring and Anderson gets caught in a bearhug but Larry breaks it up. Everything breaks down and the Enforcers are knocked to the floor.

Larry comes in to face Todd and guess what Larry does. Just take a guess. After running from Todd he makes a blind tag to Anderson who dumps Todd to the floor. Larry rams him into the barricade to take over and the Patriots are in trouble. Anderson puts a knee into the chest and it’s back to Larry. Neckbreaker gets two. Todd pounds on Anderson but Arn makes a blind tag to bring Larry back in. Larry gets caught in a suplex and it’s a double tag to Arn and Chip. Everything breaks down and Chip runs into Larry, allowing Anderson to spinebust him in half for the pin to retain.

Rating: D. This was another boring match with the Patriots being in there because the Enforcers needed a challenger. The match wasn’t any good at all and the Patriots clearly weren’t very good. Chip looked like he was about to explode with all of those bulging muscles on a small frame too.

We go down to Eric Bischoff who has Paul E. Dangerously and Madusa with him. Paul has earth shattering news for us. He’s tired of the booking committee saying that he’s too controversial and getting thrown off the commentary team. In the words of Bugs Bunny, of course you know this means war. While he doesn’t have a commentator’s license, he does still have a manager’s license. That’s how he’s going to take apart the company: by going through the company’s heroes one by one, starting with the biggest hero of all: Sting.

Paul brings out the WCW Halloween Phantom as his new top guy and says that the man behind the mask will be the only one on the planet that can bankrupt the company and buy it so he can fire everyone he doesn’t like. The Phantom takes the mask off and it’s…..RICK RUDE. He’s gotten a major haircut and looks evil now instead of stupid. Rude says all he cares about is himself, his women and his money. His money man has a problem with WCW and therefore this company needs to come down.

Rude talks about how he’s never had the chance to face Sting and wants to know if he’s as small as he looks on TV. Rude is coming for the US Title. AWESOME reveal here and it would set the stage for the next eight months of top level feuding in the company. On top of that, Rude was a completely different man in WCW, going from being basically a comedy heel in the WWF to being a killer in WCW. He would be the top heel in the company by February and would be that man for months afterwords.

We get a video on Ron Simmons going back to Florida State to train for his world title match tonight. Florida State head football coach Bobby Bowden says Simmons is ready.

WCW World Title: Ron Simmons vs. Lex Luger

Luger is defending and has Harley Race with him while Simmons has Dusty Rhodes for no apparent reason. This is 2/3 falls. Feeling out process to start and they trade hammerlocks. Simmons tries a dropkick but misses completely to give Lex the advantage. Ron comes back with a facejam and snaps off a powerslam for no cover. The spinebuster gets the first fall in about five minutes total. That came out of nowhere and we have a one minuet rest period.

Simmons slams him down onto the back again and whips him into the corner time after time to have Luger hiding in the corner. Let’s talk about the Braves, who are playing in the World Series at the same time as this show. A sunset flip gets two for Simmons and Race is freaking out. Simmons misses a charge and Luger sends him flying out to the floor. Back in and an elbow drop gets two for the champion.

Lex hits a powerslam of his own for one because his back is too messed up to cover fully. Off to a chinlock as Luger tries to buy himself a breather. Simmons fights back with elbows and punches before grabbing a rollup for two. A backslide does the same and Luger is getting in more and more trouble every second. Race distracts Ron so Dusty gives him the big elbow. In a HORRIBLY STUPID MOMENT, Luger charges at Simmons who is on the ropes. Race holds Simmons against the ropes and Lex falls to the floor, AND THAT’S A DQ. That rule was so stupid that I can’t fathom it at times.

After another rest period it’s the third fall. Simmons is ready to go while Luger is sucking wind. The champion gets in a sucker punch and goes on a big rush of offense. He’s also bleeding from under his right eye. Simmons shrugs that off and pounds away in the corner. A clothesline gets two. Luger knees him in the ribs and Simmons is slowed down almost immediately. A powerslam puts Luger right back down and a middle rope shoulder puts Lex on the outside. Simmons’ shoulder hits the post and we go back inside so the piledriver can get the pin for Luger to retain.

Rating: D+. I wasn’t big on this one. This felt more like a really big TV main event rather than a PPV main event. Simmons would become a lot bigger soon enough and would get the title off Vader in 1992. The DQ here was just freaking dumb as there were far worse throws earlier in the night, but it made sense here because it needed to. Not a very good match but I’ve seen worse.

The announcers talk a lot to end the show.

Overall Rating: D. This wasn’t the worst show ever but there’s really nothing on it that you need to see. Luger would leave in February so he was a lame duck champion for the next three or four months. Sting would thankfully go from this to something worthwhile by doing ANYTHING but being in that cage match. Also the Dangerous Alliance was coming and that’s nothing but gold. This wasn’t much but there are far worse shows.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

Halloween Havoc 1990
Date: October 27, 1990
Location: UIC Pavilion, Chicago, Illinois
Attendance: 8,000
Commentators: Jim Ross, Paul E. Dangerously

This is a somewhat forgotten period of the company’s history as Sting is world champion and he’s being haunted by the Black Scorpion. You would think a Halloween show would be perfect for a supernatural character to be blown off but that wound up happening at Starrcade. Instead tonight it’s Sting vs. Sid for the title as well as Luger vs. Stan Hansen for the US Title. Let’s get to it.

The opening video is just shots of the guys on the show.

Ross has a fedora on while Dangerously is a vampire.

Tony is a phantom of some kind. He talks to Ricky Morton and Tommy Rich who are teaming together because Robert Gibson is hurt.

Ricky Morton/Tommy Rich vs. Midnight Express

This would be Lane/Eaton’s last WCW match as Lane left to start SMW with Cornette. Their music (which is still freaking cool) gets a big pop. The Freebirds injured Gibson so there isn’t much heat here. Morton and Eaton get us going and it’s stalling early on. Eaton hiptosses Morton down and then does it again out of the corner. Eaton’s tights are so high up you can’t see his navel. He jumps into a punch to the ribs and Morton takes over a big.

We get a crisscross and hits a rana before it’s off to Lane. Actually scratch that as he’s just being nefarious. Now he comes in legally for a double team as Morton is in trouble again, this time off a Lane powerslam. A slingshot clothesline puts Morton down and Eaton adds an elbow drop. The Midnights are starting to cook here. Ricky gets sent to the floor and Eaton completely misses his top rope shot to the head.

Everyone but Lane is on the floor and Cornette gets in a racket shot to the throat. Morton is finally thrown back in and Lane fires off his karate shots. Cornette acts like the great manager that he is and distracts the referee so that Morton’s sunset flip is missed. Morton gets sent to the floor again and Lane hits him with a slam. The Express hits the Rocket Launcher onto Morton on the ramp in a good looking move.

Cornette gets in another racket shot to Morton as we’re almost ten minute in without Rich being in the match at all yet. He tries to come in but all that does is allow Lane to throw Ricky over the top. The idea is that Rich has no idea how to wrestle in a tag team so the Midnights are destroying the tag team expert. On the floor Morton hits a standing rana on Eaton before coming back in to small package Lane for two.

Eaton comes back in and hits the Alabama Jam but doesn’t cover for some reason. Back to Lane for more karate but Morton comes back by ramming Lane into the buckle. Still no tag but the second Rocket Launcher attempt hits knees. Eaton tags in Lane but Morton rolls into the corner to tag in Wildfire. Rich’s Thesz press is broken up so he goes up, only to get clocked by the racket. The Southern Boys come out dressed as Cornette for a distraction, allowing Morton to whack Lane with the racket for Rich to get the pin.

Rating: B. Good stuff here with the full tag team formula working to near perfection. Ricky Morton is perfect for what he was doing here, getting destroyed for about ten minutes before Rich comes in to do nothing before the ending. It’s perfect also that the Midnights go out after losing to Morton.

Bill Irwin vs. Terry Taylor

This is before Taylor is computerized and he’s no longer a farm animal. Jack Brickhouse of the Chicago Cubs is on commentary here. He’s a commentator so at least he has an idea here. The ring mat is red here and the buckles are orange if I forgot to mention that. Taylor works on the arm to start and things slow down a lot already. Irwin is a cowboy kind of guy so he has the bandana around his neck.

Taylor comes back with a missile dropkick for two. He takes it to the mat and hooks a headlock to slow things down again. Brickhouse used to be a wrestling announcer apparently. Irwin takes over and rams Taylor into his knee. A knee drop misses and it’s back to the headlock. Brickhouse snaps off a bunch of names he’s watched over the years, including Gotch and Hackenschmidt. Dang how old is this guy? His age would mean he couldn’t have seen them so apparently the guy is a liar. Good to know.

Irwin takes over again and the announcers insult Gordon Solie a bit. Brickhouse names off some other guys he used to watch, most of which you’ve heard of. He also knows most of the modern guys which is interesting. This guy could be a regular commentator. The match is being TOTALLY ignore but to be fair, it’s nothing of note with mostly rest holds. Irwin puts on a chinlock as JR is talking football.

There’s a boring chant going on now and it’s completely appropriate. Dangerously tries to get the commentary back on the match but I really don’t care to hear about it. Sleeper goes on as Brickhouse talks about Verne Gagne developing that move. I seem to remember it being Johnny Weaver but Gagne was certainly around first so maybe it was him. Then again it’s just a choke so it’s kind of a stretch to say any one person invented it.

A bridging belly to back gets two for Taylor but he walks into a tombstone for the same. Now we’re talking about the WCW Top Ten which was one of those things that was around for years but it never really meant anything. They head outside and Irwin is knocked off the ramp to the floor. Taylor takes over and drops a knee for two. Irwin chokes some more but gets caught in a sunset flip for two. A small package gets the same for Rooster Man, as does a rollup. Irwin puts him down with a spinebuster but doesn’t cover him properly, allowing Taylor to roll him up for the pin.

Rating: D-. What a boring match. Brickhouse, a guy that would have been in his mid 70s at this point, was by far the most interesting thing here. He seemed interested in being there and was talking wrestling almost the entire match, which is far more than you’ll get from most guest commentators. The match itself sucked as no one wanted to see it and neither guy did anything to make it better.

Tony brings out Sting to talk about his title defense later on tonight against Sid as well as the Black Scorpion. He’s tired of hearing about how big and bad Sid is and he just wants to start the fight now. Cue the Black Scorpion who is behind Sting on the stage as opposed to the platform Sting is on. Black Scorpion kidnaps some fan from next to the stage and puts her in a conveniently placed box/cage and makes her disappear. Then he pops up on the other side of the stage with the girl who Sting catches. There’s a reason this is considered the worst angle of all time.

J.W. Storm vs. Brad Armstrong

Armstrong is the Candyman which is another gimmick they gave him which was just a nickname that went nowhere. Storm is undefeated coming in and gets a good reaction. He’s 6’6 and in a leather jacket, which is taken off to reveal a good look. Why have I never heard of this guy? Storm blocks a hiptoss and kills Armstrong with a clothesline. Armstrong hits that perfect dropkick to send Storm out to the floor.

Storm comes back into the ring and charges right at Brad, taking him down with a clothesline. A big back elbow puts Armstrong down and it’s off to a chinlock. Brad fights out of it but gets caught in a hot shot for his troubles. Snap suplex gets two and a powerslam puts Brad down. Storm misses a dropkick and Armstrong hits a knee lift. They slug it out and mess up a rollup spot before Armstrong hooks a small package for the pin. Wait WHAT? That’s a huge surprise.

Rating: D+. This was a total head scratcher. Storm was undefeated coming in and was treated as a total monster for the whole match before a jobber to the stars pins him? This would be like Derrick Bateman getting repackaged and beating Tensai on Raw. I don’t get this one at all and I also don’t get why Storm didn’t get more of a push. He was in a jobber tag team called Maximum Overdrive but that’s about it. He had a great look and was a big guy who the fans seemed to be into. I don’t get it.

Southern Boys vs. Master Blasters

The Southern Boys are Tracy Smothers and Steve Armstrong while the Master Blasters are Blade and Steel. Blade is Al Green, a guy you might possibly remember as The Dog when WCW was dying. He was also part of a team called The Wrecking Crew in the early 90s which was nothing special. Steel on the other hand is Kevin Nash, who you may have heard of.

The Blasters look like the Road Warriors. Cornette comes out in a Confederate Army uniform for some reason and complains about the Armstrong Family, which you know is hilarious. Steve and Blade get us going with Blade being clotheslined to the floor. Cornette goes on a rant about how messed up the family is, including a bunch of stories about the odd family members. Off to Smothers who Cornette has stories about too. Nash comes in and is thrown to the floor with ease.

Cornette and Heyman are about to start the Civil War up all over again as Cornette is defending the south and Dangerously is standing up for the north. The Southern Boys try a double team move but even piling onto Steel they can’t get a two count. Cornette talks about how Smothers has some famous relatives: Rock Hudson, Liberace and Truman Capote. Here’s a hint about what they all have in common: they’re all gay (well maybe in Liberace’s case but he was certainly flamboyant).

Now Cornette goes on about how his granddaddy convinced Jefferson Davis to throw the Civil War because they didn’t want to have to live in New York once they took it over. Dangerously and Cornette go at it and JR sounds completely defeated trying to talk about the match. The Blasters run over everyone and HOKEY SMOKE NASH JUST GOT UP IN THE AIR ON A LEAPFROG! I mean he got WAY up there too.

Cornette goes to cheer on the Blasters as Dangerously has no idea what to make of him. Blade goes up but jumps into a boot. Back to Armstrong and JR calls Steel Rock for some reason. The Southern Boys hit their dropkick/spinebuster combination but Cornette interferes, allowing Blade to kill Armstrong with a clothesline for the pin.

Rating: D. The match sucked but the commentary is absolutely hilarious. When Cornette gets on a roll, there is almost no one in the world that can keep up with him. The match was a squash for the most part, but the Master Blasters never wound up doing anything. See, back in the old times, you would often have tag matches or even singles matches like these on PPV or TV. There’s no real point to them and the guys might not be going anywhere, but you set them up like this in case they might go somewhere. It was a good way of having a large amount of people to pick from, but it makes for some lousy PPVs.

Freebirds vs. Renegade Warriors

The Warriors are Chris and Mark Youngblood and they’re Indians. They’re also boring beyond belief, to the point that the HATED Freebirds are cheered coming to the ring. The Birds have jobber Rocky King as their roadie Little Richard Marley here. Hayes dances around to start before chopping Mark. The Youngbloods gang up on them and clear the ring so we can stall some more.

Off to Chris vs. Garvin with Jimmy suplexing him down and throwing him over the top to the floor while the referee isn’t looking. King gets in some weak offense on the floor and it’s off to a chinlock. Hayes comes in and it’s chinlock number two. That gets reversed into a sleeper but Hayes makes a blind tag to break up the hold. Back to Hayes so he and Chris can trade chops and punches. This is a really dull match so far.

Right back to the chinlock by Hayes to make sure this doesn’t get interesting. And the hold keeps going. And keeps going. This hold has been going for FOUR MINUTES. Shouldn’t Youngblood be legally dead by this point? If nothing else it’s certainly killing the crowd. Granted the rest of the match had already killed them but this is just pouring more and more dirt onto the grave.

They FINALLY get up and Hayes sets for the DDT, drawing the loudest pop since Sting was here. Remember that the Freebirds had been injuring a lot of people lately and were hated. That’s how bad the Warriors are. Either way it gets reversed and it’s off to Garvin. They head to the floor for nothing of note as this needs to end immediately. Hayes comes back in and drops an elbow for two before THE FREAKING CHINLOCK COMES BACK AGAIN! The announcers argue over Jon freaking Lovitz as Youngblood breaks the hold, only to have it put on AGAIN.

Hayes slams him down and goes up top for some reason. That gets him slammed down and it’s off to Mark. You would think the fans would cheer after a FIFTEEN MINUTE beating, but no one is all that interested. Everything breaks down and King gets in too. The referee puts him out and the distraction lets Hayes DDT Mark for the pin.

Rating: F. There were seven chinlocks in an 18 minute long match. The fans were loudly cheering for the hated heels. I think that sums up everything as well as anything else I could say. The Warriors really were that bad and the Birds didn’t help anything at all here. This was one of the most boring match I have ever seen, and that’s covering a lot of ground.

The Horsemen (Arn, Flair and Sid. The fourth is Barry Windham but he’s not here. Remember that because it becomes important later) warn Doom and Sting that they still have time to run before the belts come to the Horsemen.

US Tag Titles: Steiner Brothers vs. Nasty Boys

This is a BIG feud and the Steiners are defending. The Nasties had beaten down the Steiners and left them bloodied after the match was made, which was unheard of at this point. It’s a brawl to start and Scott gets hit with a chair. He and Sags go into the ring with Scott escaping the superplex. He runs up the corner and hits a belly to belly superplex to take Jerry down. The crowd is going NUTS for this whole thing.

Knobbs interferes and it’s Jerry in control as he starts with Scott. Scott comes back with a Tiger Driver and Rick comes in to clean the ring. The Steiner Bulldog KILLS Sags but Knobbs breaks it up with a chair shot as the referee is getting Rick out. Knobbs, the illegal man, gets two off that. A side slam puts Scott down and the Steiners are in trouble. Powerslam gets two.

They go to the floor and Sags drops a knee on Scott, who is in big trouble. Sags comes in legally and hits a pumphandle slam for no cover. Side salto gets two with Rick making the save. The Nasties switch without a tag again so it’s back to Knobbs for more beating. Abdominal stretch goes on and the cheating draws in Rick again so the Nasties can switch again. Sags puts on a bearhug to stay on the bad back.

Scott comes out of it with the natural counter: a belly to belly suplex. The tag brings in Rick who cleans house with the Steiner Line. Rick gets knocked over the top to the floor and the Nasties hit a spike piledriver on Scott. Rick is like screw that and pops Sags with the chair. The referee is really lax about these tags. Jerry is busted open but he brings in Brian to prevent the tag to Rick.

Knobbs puts the bearhug on again and rams Scott’s back into the buckle a few times. Sags puts on a Boston Crab but Scott does a pushup to break it up, but Knobbs breaks up the tag again. A reverse chinlock goes on but Scott breaks out of that too. The Nasties try to cheat again but Scott avoids a charge and hits the Steiner Line on Jerry. Hot tag to Rick and everything breaks down.

The Steiners start pounding on the Nasties but they both get thrown to the floor. Rick comes back in with a double top rope clothesline to send the Nasties to the floor, but it lets them beat up Scott while they’re out there. Scott pulls Sags to the floor again and Rick KILLS Knobbs with a Steiner Line. There’s the Frankensteiner and I don’t care who you are, in 1990 that means it’s over.

Rating: B. What a great brawl this was. If you cut about three minutes out of this it’s a classic. This is the match that made the Nasty Boys, but since this is WCW, the idea of signing them up was unheard of so they were in the Royal Rumble less than three months after this and winning the tag titles from the Hart Foundation in about six months. The match was good, but the Steiners were so far and away better than any other team in the world at this point that it didn’t matter who they were facing.

The Nasties jump the Steiners again, hitting them with the same belt shots that started the feud.

Junkyard Dog vs. Moondog Rex

Please make this short. The Dog sends the Moondog to the floor and it’s time to stall. Back in the ring and they collide before JYD does the all fours headbutts. Moondog looks nothing like he usually does. He doesn’t even have a bone with him. A chair is brought in but it doesn’t go anywhere. Rex pounds him down while Paul asks why Mr. and Mrs. Dog named their son Junkyard. Oh ok there is a bone there but it’s on the corner. The referee takes it from him and a headbutt by the Dog gets the pin. This was nothing.

Tony talks to Scott who says it’s the Nasties’ blood on his tights, not his own. The Nasties, dressed as concession stand workers for some reason, jump Scott and beat him down. Dangerously thinks it’s hilarious.

World Tag Titles: Doom vs. Ric Flair/Arn Anderson

Doom has the titles and are recently turned faces. Anderson and Simmons start things off and AA gets shoved around. Simmons suplexes him down and headbutts him to the floor, making the Horsemen take a time out. Back in and Flair hits a knee to the back, but the suplex Anderson hits is no sold. Simmons comes back with right hands and Reed hits a knee of his own the back of Anderson. Powerslam gets two for Big Ron.

Teddy Long slaps Flair and Dangerously freaks out. Naitch comes in to face Reed and it’s time to strut. Flair goes to the eyes and takes over on a power man like only he can. Reed comes back with punches of his own and Doom hits stereo gorilla press slams to take over again. It gets back to Reed vs. Flair in the corner and the chops just don’t work on him Ric.

Reed sends him into the corner and the Flair Flip lands on a cameraman.

Simmons pounds Flair up the ramp and the chops STILL don’t work. Back to ringside and the Horsemen are in trouble. Anderson comes in to face Reed but it’s quickly off to Simmons. The Horsemen finally realize they can’t overpower Doom so they do what they do best: cheat! Flair comes back in and now his chops work. Anderson’s spinebuster gets two on Ron. Back to Flair and it’s time to go after the knee. There’s the Figure Four (on the correct leg and everything) and they even cheat during that.

Simmons finally makes it to the rope but Anderson is right there to keep Ron in the ring. Ron fights back but his right hands only get him so far. A dropkick misses and they get into a test of strength on the mat, letting Arn do his jump in the air and crotch himself spot. Back to Flair and even with Simmons worn down he can’t drop him with a shoulder. To the floor and Flair gets sent into the barricade to give Simmons a chance.

A sunset flip on Arn doesn’t work as Anderson makes the tag to Flair on the way down. Simmons hits a kind of clothesline (looked more like a jumping fist) but AA stops the tag AGAIN. Simmons is finally like screw this and drills Anderson so he can make the tag to Butch. Everything breaks down and Reed kills Anderson with a top rope shoulder for two. DDT kills Reed but Simmons makes the save. They fight to the floor and it’s a double countout which isn’t that popular of a decision.

Rating: B. I was digging this match until the end, but it was really just a setup for the better street fight at Starrcade. Granted that had Windham and Anderson due to Flair having to do something else that night but it was still the Horsemen. Anyway, good match here but the ending was more or less just a setup for a street fight later on.

Stan Hansen breaks a pumpkin which represents Lex Luger.

US Title: Stan Hansen vs. Lex Luger

Luger has held the title for an insane seventeen months coming into this, a record which is about six months longer than anyone else ever. Luger goes nuts on Hansen to start and elbows him to the floor. Back in and Hansen takes it right back to the floor, sending Luger into the post. They head back in (again) and Lex slams him down but gets taken down with a headlock takeover. A charge misses Luger in the corner and Hansen lands on the floor.

Luger rams Hansen into the ramp a few times and heads back in to drop some knees. A snap suplex puts Stan back in control and an elbow drop gets two. Hansen hits a headbutt and bulldog for two. He goes up for some reason but misses an elbow. Luger comes back with a dropkick and pounds away on the challenger.

Elbow drop gets two as does a suplex. Hansen comes back but shoves a referee which doesn’t draw a DQ for some reason. The Lariat misses but Luger hits a clothesline of his own. Here’s Dan Spivey, Hansen’s protege, to throw in the cowbell. Luger avoids that and bulldogs him down. He calls for the Rack but walks into the Lariat for the pin and the title.

Rating: C-. The match was a lot of punching and kicking, but to their credit they had Hansen win the title almost completely clean here. The weapon shot didn’t hit, Spivey didn’t touch Luger, the referee didn’t see anything at all and it was the Lariat that got the pin. Hansen would lose the title at Starrcade but this was a good surprise. The match was pretty dull though.

Teddy Long says nothing of note.

Missy Hyatt thinks Sid will win. I have no idea why she was here.

NWA World Title: Sid Vicious vs. Sting

Sid is a Horseman here. They talk some trash and Sid blasts him in the back, only to get caught by a cross body. Sid doesn’t go down, but puts Sting in a backbreaker instead. That gets no sold so Sting clotheslines him to the floor. Back in and Sid misses a clothesline, sending him up and over the top. Sid gets sent into the post and we head back inside. It’s a fast paced match so far.

Sting grabs the arm and cranks on it for awhile while we look at the crowd a bit. They go to the mat in a surprising move. Sid realizes how crazy it is to go to the mat when you’re almost seven feet tall and pops up with a clothesline to take over. JR calls Sid’s powerbomb (he was one of if not the first guy to popularize it in America) a version of a bodyslam. Another clothesline puts the champion down and gets a very delayed two.

Off to a nerve hold which is broken pretty quickly. Sting fights out of it but walks into a powerslam for two and it’s time for choking. Sting fights back again but misses the Splash in the corner. Sid hammers on him on the apron but Sting pops up to the top for a cross body, getting two. Sid takes him right back down and Sting goes out to the floor. Back to the apron and a forearm to the chest ala Sheamus gets two for Sid.

Sid goes back to the chinlock but the crowd is starting to wake up. Sting escapes but both guys miss elbows and it’s right back to Vicious in control. A bulldog out of nowhere put Sid down but Sid hits a big boot to send Sting to the apron. They fight up the ramp with Sting being left laying.

Sid goes to the ring and poses, so Sting charges, dives over the top, and takes the big man down. A dropkick puts Sid on the floor and Sting follows him out with a plancha. They fight into a convenient opening in the barricade as the Horsemen show up. Sid and Sting disappear but come back, only for Sting to pick Sid up for a slam, fall down and lose the title.

Rating: C-. The match was just ok with Sting doing what he could, but Sid’s offense was shall we say limited. He didn’t have the chokeslam yet for a secondary finisher so it was powerbomb or nothing. That being said, he never even tried for the powerbomb, which makes the ending kind of strange.

Oh and one more thing: that wasn’t Sting that got pinned. As Sid is celebrating and the fireworks are going off, Sting comes back with ropes around his wrist. He hits Sid with the belt, hits the Stinger Splash and hooks a small package to really win the match. The other Sting would be revealed as Barry Windham but it rally wasn’t that important.

Overall Rating: D+. This show isn’t the worst ever, but there really isn’t anything worth seeing. The Nasties match wound up being nothing, the Horsemen vs. Doom would be improved upon at the next PPV, the main event didn’t mean anything, and the rest of the card is pretty much worthless. The home video version, as usual, cuts down a lot of the awful stuff here and gives you a decent show. This isn’t a horrible show but there’s nothing worth seeing here.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

Great American Bash 1991
Date: July 14, 1991
Location: Baltimore Arena, Baltimore, Maryland
Attendance: 7,000
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Jim Ross

Off to the other end of the spectrum for the final WCW PPV. This show is widely considered to be the worst pay per view of all time. That’s the case for multiple reasons, but we’ll start with there are no good matches. Sting’s match is ok at best and that’s the match of the night. More importantly though, this is nicknamed the Flair Protest Show. This requires a backstory.

Back then, WCW was still in the NWA and Flair was NWA Champion until a few weeks before this show. The front office wanted Flair, the world champion, to be dropped down to the midcard. We’ll ignore that he was still one of the most over and best workers in the company at that point. The main event was set to be Flair vs. Luger for the world title in a cage, and you have to remember something about that: Luger had NEVER beaten Flair. Luger chased Flair and the title for years on end but never beat him. Not once. This was supposed to be the culmination of the whole feud with Luger FINALLY beating Flair.

So anyway, two weeks before this show Flair was told to take less money or bail. Flair, realizing that Vince would love to get his hands on the WCW and NWA World Champion, said see ya and went to the WWF. That left WCW with no champion, so they made Luger vs. Windham the world title match. The problem here is that Windham was nowhere near the world title level as he had been a tag team wrestler for about two years at this point. In other words, no matter who the new champion was, there was no reason to accept him.

Translation: Flair is gone, the fans are MAD, and there’s no way the winner of the match is going to be accepted as champion. For the life of me I’ve never gotten why they didn’t throw Sting in there. He was world champion a few months before this, but instead they went with Barry Windham. It amazes me that this company stayed alive as long as it did with a front office that would FIRE THE WORLD CHAMPION TWO WEEKS BEFORE THE SHOW. Let’s get to it.

To give you an idea of what we’re dealing with here: the dark match was Junkyard Dog vs. Black Bart, running THIRTEEN MINUTES.

We open with a long tracking shot into the arena where the cameraman buys his tickets. I remember watching this when I was a kid.

Bobby Eaton/PN News vs. Steve Austin/Terrence Taylor

Now those are some pretty weird teams. Austin is TV Champion and has Lady Blossom and her rack of AWESOME with him. Oh, and this is a SCAFFOLD match. It’s the capture the flag version too, meaning that you have to have these guys crawl across the scaffold, get the flag and bring it back to the other side. You can also shove both opponents off the scaffold but since that would be entertaining, that’s not going to happen.

The heels (Austin and Taylor) stall for fear of going up and possibly, you know, dying. After a few minutes we’re ready to “go”. Eaton walks out to the middle and Taylor inches out to him. The scaffold is MAYBE three feet wide so they’re barely able to move. Austin comes out and they stand around a bit more. Actually there is a reason for these two to be fighting: Eaton lost the TV Title to Austin.

Austin almost falls down as we’re waiting for contact. Their hands touch after thirty seconds and Austin hits a weak punch. Eaton slams Austin’s head into the scaffold, drawing Taylor out to help. This match is almost two minutes in now so you can see what I’m dealing with here. The fat man (News) comes out after Austin so Austin backs up again. Taylor comes out instead and News shoves him into Austin at the end of the scaffold, shaking the whole thing.

News and Austin fight in the corner as Taylor and Eaton go to the other side. There are railings there which give the guys a bit more security so they don’t have to be so worried about falling. Oh and the flags are the same colors so you can’t tell which is which anyway. News and Eaton are both on their stomachs and you can see that the scaffold is a freaking piece of plywood.

All four go into the heel corner so Eaton grabs the flag and casually walks across for the win. Wait that isn’t a win as Eaton comes back with the flag. Lady Blossom hands Austin some spray of some sort which blinds both of Austin’s opponents. Not that it matters as Eaton and News are declared the winners anyway.

Rating: Agoobwa. WOW. I didn’t think it was possible for an opening match to be this horrible. I was very, very wrong. I mean……WHAT IN THE FREAKING WORLD WERE THEY THINKING??? You had four guys (one of them over 400lbs) who were afraid that they would fall and break a major limb and you give them three feet to walk around on? Back in the 80s they had some of these and while they sucked, at least there were A, falls and B, A REASON FOR THE GUYS TO FIGHT! Horrible, horrible thing (it’s certainly not a wrestling match) but this isn’t on the guys in it one bit. They did all they could out there safely.

They brawl post match with News and Eaton clearing the ring.

Jim and a blonde Tony talk about Flair bailing and basically bury him because they have to, because JR and even freaking Tony are smart enough to realize that was a bad idea.

Paul E and Arn Anderson are here and they’re ready for the mixed tag in the cage tonight against Rick Steiner and Missy Hyatt. It should be Missy vs. Dangerously but they threw Rick and Arn in there to give it a chance to not be awful. Anderson is going to take care of Steiner and then it’s man vs. woman, and that’s one sided, according to Paul E at least. Anderson says if you put him in a cage like a criminal, he’ll commit the criminal act of aggravated assault. That guy was such gold on the mic. Speaking of mics, the guy holding it here is the debuting Eric Bischoff.

Jim and Tony talk in depth about the rest of the show to fill time so the scaffold can be taken down.

Diamond Studd vs. Z-Man

Diamond Studd is more famous as Scott Hall and his manager is Diamond Dallas Page. Some chick gets to rip Studd’s pants off pre match. Z-Man comes out with a bunch of chicks for some reason. He dives in to take out both guys with a clothesline and we start fast. Z-Man takes over to start but Page quickly low bridges him to the floor. Studd sends him into the crowd and pounds away.

Back in and they slug it out with Studd taking over. He pounds away with right hands but Z-Man hits a cross body for two. Studd rams in shoulders in the corner followed by his signature abdominal stretch. Z-Man finally breaks it but misses an elbow drop to stop his comeback cold. Studd clotheslines him down and kneels on him for two, but since he’s posing it lets Z-Man sunset flip him down for two. A second sunset flip attempt is countered by a right hand and they head to the floor.

Z-Man starts his real comeback on the floor, sending Studd onto the barricade like Studd did to him earlier. They go back in and Z-Man hits one of the worst looking missile dropkicks I’ve ever seen. Page gets involved again, but this time he gets pulled into the ring. The distraction works well enough for Studd to suplex Z-Man for the pin, thank goodness.

Rating: D-. What a dull match. Studd would get better, but at this point there was nothing there. Z-Man was kind of the Kofi of his day, minus the talent or the unique look or the resume. Basically he was young and popular and could have a decent match. This however wasn’t the case as it was about 7 minutes of punching and little more. I’m already in a bad mood after the opener and this isn’t helping at all.

Ron Simmons vs. Oz

Oz is Kevin Nash in exactly what his name suggests: a Wizard of Oz gimmick. The backdrop (a castle) looks AWESOME but the idea is kind of destroyed when it shakes because it’s a curtain. Turner had gotten the rights to Wizard of Oz and if this worked, it was going to be followed by a Rhett Butler character. This is I think Oz’s third match and he still has Merlin the Wizard (why they combined the legend of King Arthur with the Wizard of Oz was never quite explained) played by Kevin Sullivan with him. Simmons gets BY FAR the biggest reaction of the night so far and it’s nothing special.

Nash uses his power game to start but Ron is just fine with that. They ram into each other and it’s a standoff. That went so well that they do it again. The third time Oz smartens up and kicks Ron’s head off. Ron drop toeholds him down and Nash stumbles down to the mat. That looked awful. We get the accurate boring chant so Simmons starts firing off some clotheslines. He finally knocks Nash to the floor and the fans actually react.

Back in and they do what happens in every power match: a test of strength. Why do you never see someone like Miz do one of those? Simmons gets in trouble so he suplexes his way out of it. A dropkick misses and Oz clotheslines him back down to take over again. Nash hits a mostly bad looking side slam for two. Merlin kicks Ron in the ribs while he’s on the floor to remind us that he’s alive. Nash’s headhug is quickly broken and three shoulder blocks get the pin on Oz.

Rating: D. Oh man I’m in for a long night. We’re somehow only 45 minutes into this show and it’s already this bad. Simmons was good and on fire at this point, but he’s fighting a guy based on the Wizard of Oz. How in the world is he supposed to do anything with that? Also hitting three shoulders in a row is a lame ending. Somehow, this is by far the best match of the night so far.

Here’s the WCW Top Ten.

10. Johnny B. Badd

9. Ron Simmons

8. Diamond Studd

7. ElGigante

6. Arn Anderson

5. Bobby Eaton

4. Steve Austin

3. Sting

2. Barry Windham

1. Lex Luger

I feel so much better now that I know that. You do too right?

Richard Morton vs. Robert Gibson

Gibson had been out with a knee injury and while he was gone, Morton turned corporate (complete with the long platinum blonde hair still of course) and beat up Gibson, so here’s the grudge match that I don’t think anyone was asking for. Gibson jumps him on the ramp and Morton bails to the floor. Morton gets in and slides right back to the apron, so Gibson brings him back in. That lasts about a second as Gibson knocks him right back to the outside.

Back in and Richard grabs a headlock. That gets him nowhere so let’s stall again! To give you an idea of the times, this is in the middle of July and the next PPV is in October. Can you imagine going four months between PPVs today? Morton finally wakes up and goes after the recently repaired knee, wrapping it around the post and slamming it into the apron. He puts on a leg lock and we’re going to be here for awhile.

Morton switches to a spinning toe hold but Gibson counters into a small package for two. Back to the basic leg lock and then into a Figure Four. HOKEY SMOKE IT’S ON THE CORRECT LEG! I’m in shock. The hold completely sucks but at least it’s on the right leg (in both senses of the word). Gibson finally rolls it over but Morton gets a quick rope. The bad leg gets rammed into the apron again and Gibson can barely stand up.

Back to the leg lock on the mat which is getting pretty dull. Morton takes the knee pad and leg brace off of the bad leg so Gibson punches him in the face. Well you can’t say he’s over thinking it. He hits Morton in the face with the brace and goes to the ropes to get himself a breather. Morton kicks him in the knee again and works on it like Ric Flair if Flair had longer hair. JR talks about how this isn’t the match they expected which is true. It’s not awful but it’s not what you think of when it’s the Rock N Roll Express going at it.

Morton works on the knee even more but Gibson grabs a DDT out of nowhere to put Morton down and wake the crowd up a bit. Gibson tries a dropkick but due to the knee, there’s nothing on it and Morton takes over again. Morton goes up but gets slammed down (there must be more to that Flair thing than I thought). Gibson hits an enziguri to put Morton down and out to the ramp. Gibson follows and they both try dropkicks. Alexandra York (Morton’s manager, more famous as Terri) distracts the referee, allowing Morton to hit Gibson with the computer York carries with her for the pin.

Rating: D+. That’s being generous, but at this point I’ll take ANYTHING. The match wasn’t anything great, but the psychology worked which is about all you can ask from this show. At the end of the day, I don’t think the fans wanted to see the RNRE fight, which is a big problem in a match like this. There never was a breakout star from this team, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

The Young Pistols and Dustin Rhodes say they’ll win.

Young Pistols/Dustin Rhodes vs. Freebirds

The Pistols are Tracy Smothers and Steve Armstrong (later named the Southern Boys) while the Birds are Hayes/Garvin/Badstreet, who is Brad Armstrong (Steve’s real life brother) in a mask. The Birds are the US Tag and Six Man Tag Champions and this is elimination rules. Rhodes and Hayes get us going and I guess you can call them the captains. Hayes spends the first minute gyrating and strutting. Rhodes does the same thing which is funny but still time wasting.

They finally make contact with some chops followed by Dustin slamming both of the regular team members. The Birds chill on the floor and Hayes yells at the crowd a bit. To his credit it gets the crowd to start a short Freebirds Suck chant, which is one of the first of the night. Garvin hits Rhodes in the back so Hayes can take over. The Birds hit the Pistols so Dustin takes both Birds down, allowing the Pistols to hit top rope shoulders. The Freebirds go to the floor again as things pause for the third time in less than four minutes.

Off to Garvin vs. Smothers and the Birds take more time to pose. Tracy hits a dropkick but misses his second, giving Garvin control again. Off to Armstrong who slams his brother off the top, followed by a BIG top rope clothesline. Badstreet goes to the floor and things stall again. Hayes comes in and it’s back to Smothers who works on the arm. Badstreet messes with Tracy enough to bring him to the floor where Tracy runs into a clothesline from Big Daddy Dink, the Birds’ manager.

Smothers finally gets back up to the apron but Hayes drops him with a right hand. We finally get back in and Garvin pounds away on him a bit. Off to Badstreet who dances in and clotheslines Tracy down. Hayes comes back in with a sleeper, which might be the most appropriate move that he could do. Tracy finally breaks out of it and gets a bit of offense in, only to run into a GREAT left hand to put him down.

Back to Garvin who gets two off a snap mare and hooks a chinlock. The fans chant what sounds like Gordy as Badstreet comes in and hits a neckbreaker for two on Smothers. Back to Hayes for some chops in the corner and a BIG left to drop Tracy. Hayes may be annoying but he can throw a mean left. The DDT is blocked though and there’s the tag to Armstrong. Everything breaks down and Armstrong goes for Badstreet’s mask. That lets Hayes and Badstreet hit a double DDT to eliminate Steve.

Maybe five seconds later, Hayes backdrops Tracy over the top rope to eliminate him (Hayes) by DQ. Garvin tags Badstreet in to slam Tracy, followed by a top rope ax handle. Back to Garvin and here’s Dink on the apron. Due to the distraction the tag to Dustin is missed, so the Birds DDT Armstrong to eliminate him. Again maybe five seconds later, Dustin clotheslines Garvin’s head off to get it down to one on one. So it’s Rhodes vs. Badstreet with the masked man in control. Dustin comes back with the lariat but Dink distracts the referee again. And never mind as the bulldog gets the pin to give Rhodes’ team the win.

Rating: D. This was another match that was long and boring. When the best thing in the match is a few left hands from Michael Hayes, you can tell you don’t have much. Dustin was brand new at this point and he had nothing as a result. The match here wasn’t so much bad as it was boring, which at this point is the worst thing they could have done out there.

Yellow Dog vs. Johnny B. Badd

This is Badd’s first big match. Dog is Brian Pillman under a mask after losing a loser leaves town match. Being a dog enthusiast was the best they could come up with for him too. Badd is basically gay here and a heel. These two had an incredible match at Fall Brawl 1995, so there might be some hope here. The Dog yells into the camera that JOHNNY BE GAY.

Badd slams him down a few times as Tony tries to explain that Dog is a big Pillman fan but not Pillman. Dog chops Badd to the floor and we stall a bit. Back in and Dog gets a rollup for two. Badd misses a clothesline and gets dropkicked into Teddy who was on the apron for no apparent reason. They go to the floor and Badd runs Dog over with a clothesline to take over.

Back in and Dog misses a cross body, allowing Badd to hit his top rope sunset flip for two. A jawbreaker puts Badd down but Badd hits a jumping knee. The crowd is DEAD here. Dog hits a release German to put both guys down and the fans still don’t care. A spinwheel kick knocks Badd down again and there’s the cross body off the top, which brings in Teddy for the DQ.

Rating: F. Brian Pillman is wrestling as the Yellow Dog and the ending was a run-in DQ. There is no other word for this other than failure so that’s the grade that it’s going to get. This was another nothing match in a series of them tonight. I have no idea what they were thinking with this dog stuff but it ended soon.

Eric tries to talk to Missy Hyatt in her locker room but he walks in on her attendant reading her a card from Jason Hervey. That goes nowhere so Eric walks in on her in the shower. Eric knew she was in it and walked in anyway. What a perv.

Big Josh vs. Black Blood

Blood is Billy Jack Haynes as an executioner under a mask. This is a lumberjack match for no apparent reason. Josh, a woodsman, has women with him for some reason. Blood jumps him to start and throws Josh to the outside for some heel interference. He throws Josh to the face side but that gets the expected response.

They trade chops and Josh dropkicks him down to take over. He knocks Blood to the floor twice, just like Blood did to him and for the same reactions. Josh gets knocked to the floor again and the lumberjacks finally get into the brawl. Blood drops a leg but Josh gets a boot up. Josh charges into a boot as the lumberjacks get into it again. Blood gets his ax but Dustin hits him in the knee with a piece of wood, giving Josh a rollup for the pin.

Rating: D+. I don’t know if it’s because the rest of the show has been so dreadful, but I was liking this. Blood had a good look to him and he was TRYING out there man. The match sucked because it was about the lumberjacks and there was no feud at all that I know of between the guys in the ring, but Blood was trying which is more than I can say for almost anyone else tonight.

El Gigante vs. One Man Gang

Gang is in a freaky monster look here with insane hair for no apparent reason. His manager Kevin Sullivan talks forever on the way to the ring about a death wagon. Gigante has four midgets with him for no apparent reason. Sullivan and Gang cut Gigante’s hair prior to this. The small guys get on Gang’s nerves until Sullivan hits one and we’re ready to go. Gang runs to the ramp but is quickly thrown back in.

Gang rams into Gigante and that goes nowhere. Gigante hiptosses him and hits the worst shoulders in the corner you’ll ever see. Gang avoids a corner charge and hits a middle rope clothesline to put Gigante on the ropes. Gang finds a wrench from somewhere and beats on Gigante with it which goes nowhere either. He rams the wrench into Gigante over and over but the giant won’t go down.

FINALLY some knee shots put him down and Gang works on that a bit. A splash gets two and Gigante throws Gang to the apron on the kickout. Gang gets slammed off the top, suplexed, rammed into Sullivan, has powder kicked into his face and gets clotheslined in the back of his head for the pin.

Rating: F. You know, I used to love El Gigante as a kid, but he makes Great Khali look like Daniel Bryan. I know that sounds like it’s way over the top, but I kid you not he was that bad. This was a terrible match as Gigante can’t sell anything, he has a bad arsenal, and even he couldn’t get the fans to wake up. Remembering that he was probably the second biggest face in the company at this point, that says a lot.

We recap the Sting vs. Koloff match, which started at SuperBrawl where Koloff was aiming for Luger with his chain but Sting shoved him out of the way and the chain hit Sting. Koloff jumped Sting on TV, then he did it again. Sting was mad and this is the result.

Sting vs. Nikita Koloff

This is a Russian Chain match and it’s the four corners version. If this, the hottest feud in the company at the time, doesn’t get the fans going, nothing is going to. Sting, the guy that should be in the main event, gets a huge pop of course. Koloff gets in his face to start and they fire some rather low kicks at each other. Out to the floor and Koloff gets dropped on the railing. The idea here is that Koloff is the master of the Russian chain match so Sting is out of his element.

Back in and Sting rams Koloff’s head into the buckle as I’m amazed that the crowd is actually responding to this stuff. After a quick bit of Sting dominance on the floor they head back in and Sting gets two corners but Nikita breaks his momentum and therefore the streak. The idea is you have to get all four corners in a row but you can’t have your momentum broken.

Out to the floor again and Nikita hits a clothesline with the chain to take over. Sting uses the chain to pull Koloff into the post. Momentum is shifting back and forth fast in this. Back inside and Koloff pounds him down again as it shifts again. These advantages aren’t meaning anything but it’s WAY better than anything else we’ve seen tonight. Koloff drops some elbows with the chain and chokes away but won’t go for any corners.

Koloff fires off more chain shots but there’s only so much he can do because he can’t get far away from Sting. He snapmares Sting down and gets two corners. Make that three with the third one being with his head. Sting breaks up the fourth one and the streak is broken. They fight into the corner and both touch. They do it again with the second corner and Koloff hits him low. Well that’s one way to stop things. Sting hits him low right back and both guys are down.

The streaks aren’t broken off that somehow. They charge at the third and it’s tied at 3. Sting pounds on him but Koloff hooks the rope. Koloff comes back with the Sickle (clothesline) and somehow none of this breaks their momentum according to the referee. Koloff goes for the corner but Sting splashes him into it. Unfortunately that knocks Koloff into the buckle first for the win.

Rating: D+. Why? WHY IN THE FREAKING WORLD WOULD YOU HAVE STING LOSE HERE? Was NO ONE watching the show? Did no one get that the fans NEEDED something to care about here? The match itself was pretty bad too, as it was all short range stuff. These matches just don’t work other than Piper vs. Valentine at Starrcade in 83. The difference there is it was pinfall to win, which might be the catch to these things. This is the exact same finish as JBL vs. Eddie in 04 by the way.

The cage is set up. While that’s going on we get a video on Luger. He’s US Champion at this point. Barry gets a video as well.

The problems here are listed in the intro so go back and look at that if you’re interested. It’s certainly worth checking out for the insanity of it alone. The other major issue with this match: this would be like Orton vs. Kofi for the world title today because Sheamus had to be pulled out. See how this wouldn’t be that interesting? Even before they come out there’s a LOUD WE WANT FLAIR chant. There’s a history here but it’s like three years old so they don’t bother mentioning it. These two were tag champions but Barry turned on him to join the Horsemen. Scratch that as JR brings it up.

WCW World Title: Barry Windham vs. Lex Luger

In a cage if you missed that point and the title is vacant. Luger is clearly the more popular guy. Remember that. This is a short cage too as it’s maybe eight feet off the mat. The LOUD Flair chant begins again. Oh and another thing to complete the joke: Flair has the physical belt so they’re using the old Western States Title with a cheap looking plate over the part that says Western States.

The fans want Flair and we get going. They collide but no one goes anywhere. Luger hip tosses him down as we’re still in a feeling out process. They hit the ropes and Barry dropkicks him down and things slow down again. Small package gets two for Lex. He runs Barry over but the elbow misses. There are a lot of standoffs in this. Barry backdrops him down and they stare at each other some more. The camera guy looks at the fans as they chant for Flair. Nice job dude.

They go to the mat and Barry finally pops him in the face. A suplex puts Windham down and they stand off AGAIN. A figure four is broken up by Lex despite Barry not touching the leg at all yet. We’re like five minutes into the match so far and NOTHING has happened. Barry grabs a headlock and runs Luger over again. Lex grabs a sleeper but Barry counters into one of his own. Riveting stuff I tell you. Riveting.

Luger sends him into the corner to escape and this a DDT for two. That’s your biggest move so far people: a DDT. Lex goes up and gets slammed down, followed by a knee drop for two from Barry. Windham misses a top rope knee drop and Lex hits his series of clotheslines for two. There’s a powerslam and Luger puts him in the Rack but Barry kicks off the cage and backflips out in a cool counter.

A belly to back puts Luger down but he shrugs it off and loads up a superplex. That gets countered and Barry hits a top rope lariat. A regular lariat still gets no cover but a slam gets two. Barry goes up and hits a kind of flying superkick for two. Harley Race and Mr. Hughes come out for no apparent reason and Race says NOW IS THE TIME. Luger pops up and piledrives Windham for the pin and the title.

Rating: D+. The problem here is that while there were two or three good minutes at the end, the first five minutes of the thirteen minute match were just dull. The heel turn at the end made NO sense and most people didn’t catch on because they popped for the pin. The match just wasn’t that good but there were good pieces to it if that makes sense. The ending sucked though and that brings it down even more. Eh screw it we’ll go with a D+. They earned it. Take that for what you will.

Paul E. Dangerously/Arn Anderson vs. Rick Steiner/Missy Hyatt

Yeah there’s still this to go. Why is it here? To send the fans home “happy”. JR admits there’s almost no time left. Missy looks better as a brunette. This was supposed to be a six man with Scott and Barry in there, but Scott got hurt by Dick Murdoch and Dick Slater. Speaking of them, they come out to kidnap Missy and make it a handicap match. You know, taking away THE ONLY REASON THIS MATCH EXISTS! This is nothing as they don’t care and there’s no time left. Steiner suplexes Arn down and Paul tags in for no apparent reason. Anderson goes down, Paul gets slammed and clotheslined for the pin. Nothing match.

That’s it. Seriously, that’s how the show ends: with Rick Steiner pinning a manager/commentator in a match he was an accessory to.

Overall Rating: N. As in nothing. I have nothing after that show. I actually feel drained after watching it. This is below a failure. This was absolutely horrible and for the life of me I have no idea who thought this was a good idea. The answer was some combination of JR, Dusty Rhodes and Ole Anderson (not all of them but it’s hard to tell who was booking back then). Either way, this was TERRIBLE with the best match probably being the freaking lumberjack match of all things.

Now for the important question: is this the worst show of all time? Well…..maybe. I can’t say it’s definitively the worst of all time because there are a lot that are very close to it. Take almost any WCW PPV in 1999 or the first half of 2000 and you can clearly say they were bad for how much insanity there was going on. Uncensored 1996 is so bad that it’s hilarious, so I don’t think I can put it below this one, as this was so bad it was painful to sit through. This one can’t even be called boring. It’s firmly in the TERRIBLE category, which is the harder one to get into rather than dull/boring.

There’s nothing worth seeing here and it’s a great example of everything wrong with WCW at this point: corporate guys screwing up wrestling stuff, bad matches, a severe lack of depth in the talent pool, illogical booing (Sting not going over being one of the top issues) and not listening to the audience. Horrible show and easily one of the worst ever, but maybe not the worst.

With that, WCW PPVs are done. Unlike TNA, there was a long history of these shows and you can see very clear eras of the PPVs. Starting back in the 80s and the NWA era, you had the smoky arenas that were dark and looked like they were out of the 70s. After that you saw a clear jump around 1990 or so to a much better lit and much more modern arena. Things changed again around 1994 with the arrival of Hogan when PPVs became much more unique with the themed sets (always awesome) and the big arena feel. Then after Starrcade 97, things start to go down hill until in 2000 when they have generic sets in tiny arenas.

The general consensus about WCW and something that I agree with is that the corporate people got in the way too much. When they were finally eliminated and guys that knew wrestling were allowed to run things, the company boomed and it boomed well. The PPVs went up with them and you had the roster to help make them into the spectacles that they were. WCW went on a huge roller coaster with these shows, going from slow matches that ate up like 15 minutes each to well planned out fast paced shows, down to drek with more curves and twists than a golf course designed by Dr. Seuss on an LSD trip.

WCW could put on some incredible shows and often times they did. The key thing to them that made them great though was the variety you would get. In WCW’s top days, you would get a brawl, a lucha match, a title match and a technical match in a row on a regular basis. There was something for everyone, which is why WCW got so high. With so wide an audience being brought in, it was easy to get a lot of buys for their shows. Once that went away and it was all shock value and bad matches, the buys went away. At the end of the day, if your wrestling sucks, the people won’t be watching.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

Great American Bash 1992
Date: July 12, 1992
Location: Gray Civic Center, Albany, Georgia
Attendance: 8,000
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jesse Ventura

Oh geez it’s this show. I knew I avoided this one until the very end for a reason. This show is ALL about the NWA World Tag Team Titles with a single match (Vader vs. Sting for the title) now being a part of it. Bill Watts was in charge here and he knew the right idea was to bring the NWA back in. That being said, NO ONE but Watts and JR wanted that kind of wrestling, but who cares about that right? Let’s have perfectly clean and straight mat based wrestling for three hours! I’m sure I’ll find something to complain about later on. Let’s get to it.

Before I forget, the Miracle Violence Connection, comprised of Terry Gordy and Steve Williams, are already in the semi-finals, having beaten the only other possible winners of the tournament, the Steiners, at a Clash of the Champions which was ALSO all about this stupid tournament.

Oh and one more stupid thing: the Steiners were the WCW Tag Champions coming into the tournament. The MVC beat them between the Clash and this show, meaning the only team with a realistic chance to win this thing will have all the tag titles and will have already beaten their only solid challengers. Gee, it’s almost like this is a REALLY FREAKING STUPID IDEA. But this is WCW in 1992, where everything is brilliant and no one wants to see people like Sting and Brian Pillman and the Steiners right?

One of the Japanese guys is out with an eye injury so Shinya Hashimoto is replacing him. Ok then.

Here are the brackets.

Williams/Gordy

Brian Pillman/Jushin Liger

Nikita Koloff/Ricky Steamboat

Hiroshi Hase/Shinya Hashimoto

Fabulous Freebirds

Dustin Rhodes/Barry Windham

Steve Austin/Rick Rude

Dang this is going to be horribly boring.

Bill Watts says there are different rules tonight in different matches. Sting vs. Vader can’t come off the top rope but in the tournament you can. He cites the National League and the American League in baseball having different rules to explain it. See, this is where the NWA mentality falls apart: this isn’t a real sport. In baseball or whatever, there’s interest in seeing who is better. In wrestling, that’s REALLY boring and no one in modern times is interested in it. But hey, the NWA was doing SO well at this point that clearly we needed to bring that mentality back right?

NWA Tag Title Tournament Quarter-Finals: Ricky Steamboat/Nikita Koloff vs. Brian Pillman/Jushin Liger

This should be good. Thankfully a match with three high fliers has the top rope made legal. Pillman and Koloff get us going and Brian bounces off of him a lot. He tries a front facelock and is easily placed on the top rope. A dropkick works a bit better and Koloff misses a charge, giving Brian a rollup for two. Off to Liger who works on the arm, as does Pillman who is tagged in quickly.

Back to Jushin who realizes power isn’t going to work so he fires off some dropkicks instead. Koloff runs him over and brings in Ricky to a BIG pop. Dang Steamboat vs. either of these guys would have been excellent. Liger gets thrown out of the ring and onto Pillman but it’s Pillman still legal. Steamboat works on the arm and then clotheslines Brian down. Pillman finally gets a tag and a double dropkick puts Steamboat down.

Liger vs. Steamboat now and they’re moving as fast as you would expect them to. Never mind as Koloff comes back in for his hit one move and stare offensive series. Back to Pillman vs. Steamboat which is certainly a more interesting match. Pillman takes him down and drops an elbow for two. Things speed up on a dropkick but then it’s back to a headlock by Brian. Liger comes in with some rapid fire kicks and the moonsault for two.

Tombstone kills Steamboat but he somehow kicks out at two. A flip dive gets two but Steamboat suplexes him down and tags in Koloff. Now Koloff hooks a chinlock, which is a popular move so far. Back to Steamboat who hits a series of backbreakers followed by a powerslam for two. Pillman made the save which I think makes them the heels in the match. Koloff hooks a chinlock on Liger before tagging Steamboat back in for a fist off the top.

Liger escapes and makes the hot tag to Pillman so things can speed up a bit. It’s not often that someone speeds things up over Liger but Pillman can do just that. And never mind as it’s back to the freaking headlock! Back to Liger who hits a cartwheel into a cross body for one. Back to Koloff who loads up the Sickle (running clothesline finisher) but Pillman breaks it up.

Brian comes in legally and hits a dropkick for two. Koloff throws him over the top but Pillman lands on the apron so it’s not a DQ. Brian hits a springboard clothesline and a top rope missile dropkick for two. He hooks a sleeper but Koloff jawbreaks his way out of it. Off to Liger vs. Steamboat again which has been the best combination of the match so far.

Ricky gets two off a missed Steamboat dropkick as does Liger off a backslide. Brian gets a blind tag and a slingshot crossbody for two. Steamboat hits a suplex to put both guys down. Pillman goes up but gets crotched, but he manages to come off with a crossbody, but Steamboat rolls through for the pin.

Rating: B-. Expect to hear the following a lot in this review: this would have been better if they cut out five minutes. There are seven matches on this card and only two matches don’t crack fifteen minutes, with one of them clocking in at 14:54. This was one of those twenty minute shindigs and it didn’t need to be at all. Koloff didn’t do much here and I’m not quite sure why he and Steamboat were partners. They were in WarGames together but that’s about it. The match was good but like I said, it didn’t need this much time.

NWA Tag Title Tournament Quarter-Finals: Fabulous Freebirds vs. Hiroshi Hase/Shinya Hashimoto

There’s a possibility this is out of order as I’ve found two different match orders in different places. This might be the third match on the card but I’m not sure. Either way it doesn’t make a ton of difference as the other match is up next anyway. Hashimoto is a huge guy who throws a lot of kicks. Hase is pretty good, whereas the Birds are just kind of there. Hayes and Hase get us going and it’s time to strut.

Hayes controls with a headscissors on the mat but Hase escapes with ease. Off to an armbar by Hayes and Garvin gets the tag. Hashimoto comes in and things slow down. This is a horribly bad contrast of styles here and I don’t really expect that much from it. They head to the mat and this isn’t going to be pretty. You can see the big problem with tournaments shining through here: there’s no story to any of these matches so they’re just wrestling matches which may be good and may be bad. That makes it hard to get into them almost every time.

Hase comes in for a few seconds before Hashimoto comes in for his famous kicks. Hayes comes in to pound away with “American right hands”, a JR trademarked term. Hayes hooks a quick armbar but Hashimoto hits him in the throat to escape. Hase hits a gutbuster and shouts a bit. Bach to Shinya for more kicks which is about all his offense consists of. A fallaway slam suplex gets two on Hayes.

Michael gets double teamed in the corner as the announcers talk about skunks. The Japanese guys get thrown together and won’t get out of the ring. Hayes punches them down and tags Garvin as everything breaks down. Hase hits a northern lights suplex on Garvin to advance.

Rating: D. This was bad and uninteresting. Hase was good but when you’re the only watchable guy in the whole match (yes I know Hashimoto is a legend), there’s only so much you can do. This was nothing at all and thankfully it was the shortest match of the show. The Japanese guys got loudly booed by the southern crowd of course.

Bill Watts announces the NWA World Title tournament in Tokyo to crown a new champion to replace Flair who bailed to WWF. It only took them eleven months to crown a new one, because finding eight guys to have a title tournament is so hard. After WCW left the NWA it would take over a year to have the next tournament. And they wonder why they pretty much died around this time. Watts wants a unification match with Sting which would never come.

NWA Tag Title Tournament Quarter-Finals: Barry Windham/Dustin Rhodes vs. Steve Austin/Rick Rude

Rude is US Champion and Austin is TV Champion. There’s a story to this too as it’s fallout from Dangerous Alliance vs. Sting’s boys. Rhodes and Windham are both in red for some nice team unity. Austin and Windham start things off with a feeling out process. They had been feuding lately so I don’t know why they would need to feel each other out. Austin grabs a quick rollup for two so Barry punches him in the face to take over.

After the Alliance chills on the floor for a bit, Austin comes back in and gets headlocked down. Rude and Rhodes come in with Rick pounding away in the corner. Dustin comes back with an armdrag/bar but Rude reverses into a chinlock. Dustin reverses a tombstone attempt into one of his own for two. Off to Austin who stomps away to take over. Ventura says he never broke a rule in his life in a funny bit.

Dustin clotheslines him down and kicks Austin to the floor. These two had some very underwhelming matches so hopefully this is better. Rhodes throws him back in and hooks an abdominal stretch. Windham comes in with a top rope lariat for two. Austin gets in a shot to the back and loads up a superplex but gets headbutted down. Rude comes in sans tag and he hits….my goodness he hits a missile dropkick for two. A piledriver gets the same on Barry.

Austin comes in off the top to break up the tag and hits a suplex for two. Off to the chinlock for awhile until Rude comes in for some power. He slams Barry down and swivels his hips a bit. A front facelock goes on but Windham quickly breaks it. Austin saves another tag as Jesse talks about being on the proper side of a turnbuckle. Now when’s the last time you hear analysis like that?

Barry gets a brief comeback but charges into a boot which gives Austin a rollup for two. Off to a chinlock by Austin to space out the match again. Austin cheats with feet on the ropes to draw in Dustin which lets Rude cheat even more. They do the switch without a tag which is the usual good heel stuff. Back to Austin as the Alliance continues to look good. Barry pops back up and a double clothesline puts both guys down.

Austin suplexes him down to prevent the hot tag one more time. Rude comes in to pound away some more, this time with knees to the ribs. Barry gets the ultimate offensive move in on Rude: the atomic drop. They hit heads and Barry falls into the hot tag. Dustin cleans house, including a jumping back elbow off the middle rope, making this comeback awesome. Everything breaks down and Dustin gets the pin on Rude with a top rope clothesline.

Rating: B-. Another good but overly long match here. The match having an actual story to it helped a lot, as did both teams being pretty awesome. They worked the formula here and they worked it quite well, which is why something like this always works: when it’s done well, it’s impossible to screw up. It’s even better with talented guys.

Here are the updated brackets:

Gordy/Williams

Steamboat/Koloff

Windham/Rhodes

Hase/Hashimoto

Harley Race says Vader is ready for Sting tonight and the Little Stingers are going to be disappointed.

NWA Tag Title Tournament Semi-Finals: Ricky Steamboat/Nikita Koloff vs. Miracle Violence Connection

Terry Gordy and Steve Williams in case you were wondering. They’re the WCW World Tag Champions because WCW is stupid and won’t think ahead long enough to realize there’s no point to putting the titles on the same team. Steamboat and Gordy start things off and Gordy takes it to the mat. You’ll hear that a lot with this team. Steamboat armdrags him down but Gordy doesn’t feel like being on the mat so he gets up and walks Steamboat over for a tag to Williams.

Williams is a former Oklahoma football player so JR rattles off his entire resume in record time. Williams doesn’t really feel like selling either and he keeps fighting up from the mat while in Steamboat’s armbar. Steamboat and Gordy now and scratch that as it’s off to Koloff for some power on Steamboat’s side. Hey look: an armbar. They go to the mat but Williams drags him into the corner again. The MVC guys just do not want to stay in one place at all.

Koloff and Gordy collide but no one goes anywhere. Williams comes back in and hooks a chinlock which makes this uninteresting match even more boring. This is basically an amateur wrestling match with both guys trading very basic holds. You can hear JR stroking it to this stuff from here. Off to Williams vs. Steamboat with NOTHING going on. That’s the problem here: there’s WAY too much standing around with nothing going on. Steamboat fires off chops in the corner but Williams shrugs them off and brings in Gordy.

Gordy runs him over with a clothesline and then both of the MVC runs him over with a clothesline to mix things up. A double suplex gets one on Steamboat as the referee realizes there was no tag. So why did he not mind earlier? Williams takes it to the mat (shocking!) and cranks on whatever hold that is. Steamboat grabs a DDT and it’s a double tag to Koloff and Gordy. Williams comes back in almost immediately and takes Koloff down, locking on a headscissors.

This hold goes on for awhile as well, because that’s how holds work in this match. Koloff misses a knee in the corner and Gordy locks on an STF. Back to Williams for ANOTHER hold, this one in the form of a Boston Crab. That goes on too long so it’s back to the STF by Gordy. The Oklahoma Stampede is countered but Koloff’s face hits Williams’ head. We FINALLY get the tag to Steamboat so things speed up a bit. He goes up but Gordy shoves him down into the Oklahoma Stampede for the pin.

Rating: D-. SWEET GOODNESS THIS WAS BORING! The MVC are these big powerful guys that can mat wrestle, but they’re like the Road Warriors with the total lack of selling ANYTHING. They were barely in trouble at all, but the difference with them and a team like Demolition or the Road Warriors is that those teams were exciting. The MVC just laid around on the mat a lot and bored the crowd to sleep. There’s no way they were going to lose here either and the show dies (other than when they’re not here) as a result. Terribly boring match and you know it’s going to be the same in the finals.

NWA Tag Title Tournament Semi-Finals: Hiroshi Hase/Shinya Hashimoto vs. Dustin Rhodes/Barry Windham

Rhodes and Hase start things off but it’s quickly off to Windham. Hase asks for a test of strength for some reason and is easily put down. He hits a hook kick to take Windham down before bringing in Hashimoto. They have a test of strength of their own and it’s off to Dustin for some ramming into each other. Hase comes in and hooks a modified crossface chickenwing to take Dustin down.

Barry comes in again and takes Hase down, you guessed it, by the arm. Shinya comes in again and hooks on a cross armbreaker. The match slows down even more if that’s possible. Dustin comes back in and cranks on the arm as well. And now let’s stand around some more until Dustin fires away with some right hands. Hashimoto comes back with a spinwheel kick and it’s back to Hase, thank goodness.

They chop it out but that’s too interesting so things get slowed down all over again. After Hashimoto did nothing of note it’s back to Hase for a Boston Crab. He lets that go for some reason and goes up for a double knee drop which misses. Off to Windham who cleans house. A suplex gets two on Hase as does a powerslam. Everything breaks down and Windham hits the lariat on Hase for the pin.

Rating: D+. This wasn’t as dull as the previous match but again there was nothing at all here. This whole tournament has gone on about as predictably as it could possible go, which makes these already dull matches even less interesting. Windham and Rhodes were WAY better than the Japanese team though.

Ron Simmons says nothing of note.

WCW World Title: Sting vs. Vader

This is one of those pairings that you flat out cannot screw up. It’s David vs. Goliath, but that’s if David is 6’3 and insanely strong. Actually it’s reminiscent of Brock vs. Cena from earlier this year. Vader is a newcomer here other than a few spot appearances. He had a match with Sting a few weeks before this and DESTROYED him. Sting wanted revenge and Vader wanted the title. Sting talks a lot of trash and Vader says bring it.

Vader knocks him into the corner and gets pounded down in a hurry. Sting clotheslines him and Vader smiles. A cross body bounces off the monster and Vader pounds him into the corner. Sting avoids a charge and suplexes Vader down. Another clothesline puts Vader on the floor and the place ERUPTS. This was when Sting was the hottest thing in the world and probably the biggest star in the world (remember that Hogan was gone for about a year at this point) but he had never met anything like Vader before.

Vader gets back in and wants a test of strength. Now Sting has been called a lot of things, but smart has never been one of them. He takes it and I think I can hear him scream from here. Sting pokes him in the eye and pounds away. It helps that Vader is an absolute master of selling and he flies all over the place off a single punch. Sting knocks him to the apron and suplexes him back in. Remember that Vader is about the size of Mark Henry.

A small package gets two for Sting and Vader bails to the floor. Harley Race freaks out at the cameraman which makes me laugh. Back in and Sting tries a sunset flip but Vader sits down on him to take over. Sting sells it like he’s dead so Vader drops an elbow and a splash for two. Vader puts him in the Scorpion Deathlock because he’s a jerk like that. Sting finally breaks it so Vader takes his head off with a clothesline for two.

You have to keep in mind that Vader hit harder than anyone else so this offense looks a lot more brutal. Sting hits a Liger Kick of all things followed by a DDT for no cover. They collide and Vader is knocked to the apron, but it knocked Sting silly. Vader tries to go up but Sting kicks him in the ribs to put him down. Sting picks him up off the ropes and drops him with a Samoan Drop for a delayed two. A bridging German suplex gets two.

Remember, this guy is 450lbs and Sting is throwing him around like Angle throws AJ around. Stinger Splash hits as does the second one, but Sting knocks himself out on the post. That only gets two for Vader as the fans are losing their minds over this. Sting swings wildly but falls down on a missed right. He’s totally spent so Vader powerbombs Sting’s corpse to win his first world title and SHOCK the crowd. This would be like Ryback destroying Punk for the title.

Rating: A. Keep in mind that the average rating for this pairing starts at a B instead of the usual C. The match is measured on how far above that they can get. This was one of their better one, as it was so over the top and fun that it was impossible not to get into it. Sting had no idea what he was doing against Vader yet and it would take him a few months to really get the hang of it. Their Starrcade 92 match is about as perfect as this kind of match can be. Vader would only hold the title for three weeks before Ron Simmons took it away from him and held it for five months. Vader’s real reign came in 93, holding it for most of the year.

Vader says he’s awesome and that Sting is done.

NWA World Tag Team Titles: Miracle Violence Connection vs. Dustin Rhodes/Barry Windham

The Steiners come out before the match starts and are promptly thrown out. Dr. Death (Williams) and Windham get us going. Nothing of note happens there so it’s off to Gordy. Dustin finally does something by pounding away with elbows to the head. Gordy ties him up on the mat but it’s quickly off to Windham who hooks a figure four. Once that gets broken up it’s off to Williams and they go to the mat for more grappling.

That goes nowhere so it’s back to Gordy who runs over Barry some more, getting two off a clothesline. Rhodes comes in and fights Williams over a top wristlock but Dr. Death cheats by pulling him down by the hair. Gordy comes in with the STF again, which he calls the Oriental Twist. Dustin fights up and puts on a sleeper but Gordy makes a fast tag so he doesn’t have to sell or anything.

Williams takes it right back to the mat and cranks on another chinlock. JR goes on a small rant about how tag ropes should be used more, because that’s the most interesting thing he can talk about right now. That’s not sarcasm if you couldn’t tell. Gordy comes back in and puts on a Boston Crab which is broken up by Barry. Williams hits a powerslam for two and Dustin just walks over to make the tag.

Barry speeds thing up a bit and hits a pair of suplexes for two on Williams. And never mind as he hooks a sleeper to waste even more time. Dr. Death immediately rams him into the post to break the hold and puts on a chinlock. Barry suplexes out of it but Williams blocks the tag. Williams hooks on a front facelock which fires up JR way too much. Barry collides with Gordy and suddenly I want to listen to some Motown.

Windham gets up and Williams knocks him into the corner for the tag to Dustin but he gets knocked down almost immediately. Williams puts on ANOTHER front facelock to make sure the crowd isn’t woken from their slumber early. Gordy gets two off a clothesline. The Oklahoma Stampede is broken up by a Windham dropkick but Dustin’s bulldog is broken up. Dr. Death kills Dustin with a lariat to complete what was close enough to a squash.

Rating: D. Again, this was technically sound but it was dull. The MVC dominated the vast majority of this and most of that was them on the mat with some kind of hold on Dustin or Windham. That may be what pure wrestling is, but DANG is it ever boring. Also this makes no sense, as now the MVC has all of the titles and has defeated all of their challengers, so where do they go now? Instead, COMMON SENSE would say have Windham and Rhodes (or better yet the Steiners) win here and build to a unification match, but instead let’s have Oklahoma/Japan dominate.

Williams says Japan is happy. Gordy says they’re awesome.

Jim and Jesse wrap things up.

Overall Rating: D-. Any show with Sting vs. Vader on it can’t be called a failure, but the rest of this certainly can be. There was no point to any of this at all and the whole thing existed to show us how great Williams and Gordy were. The problem is NO ONE CARED ABOUT THEM except for Watts and Ross. The matches just weren’t interesting at all and unless you REALLY like boring tag matches, this show didn’t have much for you at all. This was a horrible show and terribly boring all around.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

Monday Nitro #79
Date: March 17, 1997
Location: Savannah Civic Center, Savannah, Georgia
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Mike Tenay, Larry Zbyszko, Bobby Heenan

It’s the night after Uncensored and the big story is that Sting has declared his loyalty for WCW by attacking the NWO to close the show last night. At the same time though it’s not all good for the purple and gold (WCW for you young people out there) as the NWO won the main event last night, basically giving them unlimited power in the company. There are eleven matches tonight so expect some quick finishes. Let’s get to it.

Rey Mysterio vs. Psychosis

Mysterio takes him to the mat to start and controls from behind. Psychosis takes him to the mat as we see the Japanese announce table which has Ultimo Dragon sans mask. Rey tries to do his kickoff out of a test of strength position but they mistime it horribly. A springboard headscissors sends Psychosis to the floor and Rey follows it with a rana off the apron. Back in and Psychosis rams him stomach first into the buckle. Psychosis misses a charge into the post and Rey hits a flip dive to the floor. West Coast Pop is HORRIBLY botched as Psychosis’ head is drive into the mat ala a piledriver for the pin.

Rating: C-. I haven’t seen Rey botch this much stuff in years. The ending was almost scary as Psychosis just stopped moving when his head got driven into the mat like that. The match wasn’t horrible but with two noticeable botches in three and a half minutes, how good can you consider a match?

Arn Anderson says Sting came home last night, but that’s not what he’s here to talk about. He was injured at Halloween Havoc and has to have neck surgery. Arn talks about how his grandmother stayed alive long enough to see him become a mature adult. Last night he saw his family, the Horsemen, mature. He also saw Sullivan’s son recently and it looks like the Sullivan family has broken up completely. Anderson says he’ll be back, but he never would be, at least not in the ring.

We recap last night with Savage and Liz attacking Kimberly and Page. They spray painted Kimberly when page was down.

Maxx vs. Diamond Dallas Page

Maxx is a muscle guy who is part of the Dungeon of Doom. There’s a slight chance that he’s the same guy that played Maxx Muscle, who was Page’s bodyguard back in 1995. This is a squash, with Page hitting a top rope splash of all things. He escapes a full nelson and hits the Cutter for the quick pin in maybe a minute and a half.

Page says he’s hunting for Savage and Liz. We’re also told possibly for the first time that Page and Kimberly are married in real life. Savage is a dead man walking. Page starts to leave but Savage and Liz are in the crowd. Savage says he’s the icon and Page is the wrestler with no name. Talk of a non-sanctioned match is mentioned but Savage says it’ll be later. Page charges into the crowd but Savage gets away.

Hugh Morrus/Konnan vs. Renegade/Joe Gomez

Before the match here are Bischoff and the Outsiders to take over the announce desk. Actually scratch that as they just have an announcement: they’ll be getting in the ring tonight but no opponents are mentioned. Apparently them getting to challenge for any title they want according to the stipulations from the main event last night now means the champions get to pick when they wrestle ever.

Back to the match which starts with Morrus jumping Gomez and working over his knee. Konnan comes in quickly and kicks at said knee. The Dungeon trades off a few times but the offense doesn’t improve at all. The announcers talk about Spring Stampede a bit as not much is going on during the match. A clothesline puts Gomez down and Konnan comes back in for a half crab. After about three minutes of leg work Gomez finally tags in Renegade. He cleans house for about fifteen seconds and then tags back out when Gomez can’t even stand. It takes about ten seconds to hit No Laughing Matter for the pin on Joe.

Rating: D. This was a dull match and it seems like they were trying to set up a feud between Renegade and Gomez for who knows what reason. The match was boring as it was about four minutes of leg work followed by the angle to end the show. Gomez stayed around for a long time and never did anything at all.

US Title: Dean Malenko vs. Scotty Riggs

Malenko won the title last night. Riggs lost a strap match to Bagwell last night so he gets a title match tonight. Makes perfect sense right? Scotty hits a quick dropkick to start but it only gets two. Dean will have none of that and sends Riggs to the floor and into the barricade. Back in and we get a pinfall reversal sequence for some two counts. Riggs makes a quick comeback with his jobber level offense before he gets caught in a hot shot. Dean grabs a rolling cradle for the pin to retain fast.

Lex Luger/The Giant vs. The Knuckles

That would be Knuckles Nelson and T. Rantula. I don’t know about you, but I’m smelling an upset here. Giant and Rantula start us off and the man who would be Peter Parker is thrown back into his own corner quickly. Nelson comes in and this is squash territory already. Giant works him over in the corner for awhile until Rantula comes in to help. That goes nowhere either and it’s a chokeslam for Nelson. Luger walks in without a tag and powerslams Rantula as Giant pins Nelson. Luger Racks Rantula post match. Total squash.

Luger and Giant talk about Sting coming back last night. We get some clips from the show with Sting destroying the NWO as Giant talks about seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Luger says it made him believe in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny. These guys do know they lost the main event right?

We get some stills from last night with Mortis vs. Glacier. Wrath debuted post match to beat down Glacier.

Bobby Eaton vs. Ultimo Dragon

Dragon stalls on the floor to start so Eaton punches him in the face. And never mind as Dragon puts him on top and hits a rana for the pin. This wasn’t even a minute and a half.

Here’s the NWO in full force. Hogan and Bischoff brag about winning last night and talk about being able to challenge for any title. That would be the TV and US Titles, unless you want to count the Women’s belt if that exists yet. Savage says he’ll face Page at some point. Nash says the Outsiders will face the Steiners at Spring Stampede. That would wind up being Rick vs. Nash for the titles. During this announcement, Hall takes a beer to the head. In PERFECT response, he wipes his hair as he is known to do.

Call the NWO hotline!

Hour #2 begins and it seems a lot later than usual. We do the usual recap.

Alex Wright/Mark Starr vs. Jeff Jarrett/Steve McMichael

Jarrett and Wright start things off with Alex firing off some dropkicks. Jarrett takes him down and Mongo drops an elbow on the back of Wright’s head to take over. There’s a side slam and it’s back to Jarrett. Tony calls that a solid tag. How can a tag exactly be solid? Everything breaks down with Starr diving over Mongo which is called a chop block. Figure Four ends Starr quick.

Public Enemy comes out and beats up the Horsemen post match. The Horsemen fight them off and then go to talk to Gene. Apparently these teams are going to be fighting at the PPV. Debra screeches a bit and Jarrett says he’s walking the walk now. Mongo dares the people to boo Debra, again not seeming to know if he’s a face or a heel.

Lee Marshall does his schtick.

Scott Norton vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr.

Norton runs him over and Chavo bails to the floor. Back in and Chavo goes after the knee but Norton won’t go down. Two more shots to it and he still won’t go down. A missile dropkick won’t put Norton down and a sunset flip doesn’t either. Norton powerbombs him to death to end this. Norton wouldn’t sell a thing here.

Hogan and Rodman talk about nothing of note.

Chris Benoit vs. Billy Kidman

This doesn’t even last a minute with the Crossface ending it. That hadn’t been his finisher long at all at this point.

Benoit and Woman have something to say but Flair comes out before they can start. Benoit talks about Sullivan of course and Flair blames Piper for the loss last night. Ric isn’t worried about Arn because he’s tough. As for Piper, he can come be a Horseman and take Arn’s spot. That’s quite the offer.

Steiner Brothers vs. Harlem Heat

Scott and Booker get us going with Booker hitting a fast side kick. He walks into a gorilla press slam though and it’s off to Rick. Stevie comes in to stomp away and adds in some punches for good measure. They trade powerslams as it’s time to talk about Sting. Booker comes in and side slams Rick down but it’s off to Scott who cleans house. Everything breaks down and it’s the NWO in for the DQ.

Rating: D+. The match was just filler until the NWO got there for no apparent reason. I guess it was to beat down the tag teams like the black and white used to do but it didn’t quite work as well. These teams seem a level or two beneath the NWO, but at the same time the NWO has beaten up everyone so many times that it doesn’t mean much when they beat up the main event guys anymore.

Luger and Giant come out for the save and clear the ring. Sting drops from the ceiling to end the show. He stands with WCW and that’s it. Hogan is terrified.

Overall Rating: D+. WCW hit a MAJOR funk over the summer, as the world title wouldn’t be defended on PPV from March until August, making most of the PPV main events totally worthless. Spring Stampede would be Savage vs. Page, the next month would be a six man tag and the third would be Rodman/Hogan vs. Luger/Giant. There were no major matches to build to so there was little going on in the way of television. This was a good example of that, as aside from Page and Savage getting set up, almost nothing happened here. That would be the case for the next few months.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

Monday Nitro #78
Date: March 10, 1997
Location: Club La Vela, Panama City, Florida
Commentators: Bobby Heenan, Mike Tenay, Larry Zbyszko, Tony Schiavone

This is a theme show as we’re in a night club in Florida with pools everywhere. This would be the start of what was called Spring Breakout which was an annual event if I remember right. This is also the go home show for Uncensored 1997 so I’d assume we’ll get the real Team Piper introduced tonight as well as the rules for the main event. Let’s get to it.

We open with Hogan and Rodman fawning over Rodman’s new movie poster. It’s for Double Team which was awful.

The arena looks great as we have the ring kind of on a platform surrounded by a big pool.

Piper and his team, all in Scottish clothes, arrive.

High Voltage vs. Steve McMichael/Jeff Jarrett

Mongo vs. Kaos gets us going. Kaos tries to Control (five points to anyone that gets that) the arm but Mongo fires off his football tackles. Off to Jarrett who hits the running hip attack on the ropes but Rage interferes to take over. A modified Samoan Drop by Rage sets up a slingshot splash by Kaos for two. The fans want Flair but they get a suplex by Kaos to bring Rage back in. Jarrett moves from a flying dive and beats them both up with ease before tagging in Mongo. We go over some of the stipulations for Uncensored which I’ll get to later. Tombstone ends Rage.

Rating: D. This was an extended workout for the Horsemen. Jarrett was in trouble for about 30 seconds and then came back and easily beat up both guys. I guess this is them proving that they’re ok now and can work together, but it doesn’t make their story any more interesting. This was pretty much a squash.

Here’s Team Piper to talk about Uncensored. After a quick chat about sex and mattresses, Piper complains about Howard Stern not having him on his show. As for Rodman, Piper makes some almost gay jokes and runs down the WWF. They’ve been making fun of WCW for having one hipped wrestlers, but he beat up Goldust on PPV on one hip. Anyway, these guys are his family now….and here come the Horsemen.

Anderson says that this Sunday is a job for professionals, not amateurs. They have a common enemy in the NWO and maybe they can work together to pull this thing off. Piper says these guys that he’s known for a week are his family, so Flair tries to talk him out of it too. Flaiir says Piper is outmatched and needs some backup in the form of the Horsemen. Piper gyrates and puts on Flair’s coat after Ric throws it in the air. Piper says ok and the Family is never mentioned again.

TV Title: Dave Taylor vs. Prince Iaukea

After about 20 seconds of the match, here’s the NWO in their Hummer limo. They’re going in the back because Hall “knows the dishwasher.” Ok then. Since there are about 30 guys, someone (Wallstreet I think) is dropped down onto the ground. The A Team doesn’t bother checking on him. Back in the arena the wrestlers trade pinfall attempts for one. Iaukea hits a cross body for the pin. We saw about 45 seconds of this.

US Title: Eddie Guerrero vs. Jim Powers

Dean is on commentary and says that Eddie is jealous of Dean. Eddie takes him down to the mat to start and works on the knee for a bit. Dean goes over the reasons why he’s better than Eddie which are pretty awesome. He suggests that Eddie cheats to win too much as Powers does his usual stuff. Eddie easily comes back and hits the slingshot hilo for two. Teddy gets up on the apron, only to have Powers rammed into him. Eddie gets the rollup to retain. This was nothing but Dean’s comments were pretty good.

Eddie says that he isn’t the one that’s been saying all these things. He isn’t punching and kicking and choking is he? Gene agrees but says Eddie has been changing. Eddie is tired of hearing about that and is also tired of Dean’s attitude.

Diamond Dallas Page vs. Sgt. Craig Pittman

Pittman shoves him around to start so Page grabs a headlock. A hip toss attempt is countered so Page hits a kind of X Factor. Pittman says screw this wrestling stuff and takes Page down, pounding him with right hands. A bad belly to belly gets two for Sarge. Page fires away with punches and hits the Diamond Cutter for the pin.

Rating: D. Not much here but it was another win for Page which is what he needed. Sometimes the right move is just to keep putting someone on TV and let him hit a popular move over and over again. It worked for Page and he would rise up the card to main event PPVs in just a few months.

Page talks about Savage….and the power goes out. Page keeps going because I don’t think he realizes the audio is out. The lights are out though so you would think he picked up on that. Post break Page gets to say it again and basically it’s I’m coming for you Savage.

Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. Galaxy

Galaxy is better known as Damien. Larry talks about Page needing to keep the rats away from him, which Tony needs clarification on in an unintentionally funny bit. Rey escapes a full nelson to start and speeds things up. Galaxy gets flipped around a lot and is almost launched into the pool. Galaxy tries Old School but gets crotched for his efforts. He misses a moonsault and West Coast Pop ends this short match.

Hour #2.

The announcers talk for a bit.

Gene brings out some guy named John Sencio from MTV. He brings out Miss Monday Nitro who is some blonde. Catch the NWO on MTV this week and that’s about it.

Amazing French Canadians/Greg Valentime/Roadblock vs. Lex Luger/The Giant/Steiner Brothers

We get the full rules of the main event here: if Team Piper wins, Piper gets a cage match with Hogan eventually. If the NWO wins, they get any title match they want, anywhere. What titles do they not own at the moment anyway? TV and US? This would later be changed to they basically had no rules on them and could do anything. If WCW wins, the NWO loses all their titles and all of their wrestlers are banned from competing for THREE YEARS. Luger and Valentine start and the match is as much of a squash as you would expect. Rick gets beaten on for a few seconds before Giant chokeslams Roadblock for the pin.

Team WCW says they’ll win.

Juventud Guerrera vs. Ultimo Dragon

Juvy immediately slides under Dragon to start and they both miss some shots. Dragon misses a running double ax in the corner but Juvy’s rana is countered. Dragon throws him to the floor and Sonny fires off some kicks. Back in Dragon channels his inner Sting and no sells chops. There are the rapid fire kicks and Juvy is in trouble.

Dragon hits his spinning rack breaker for two. Surfboard goes on followed by a chinlock. Juvy escapes pretty quickly and hits a flip dive on the floor, which is impressive given the small space between the ring and the water. Back in Juvy gets a rollup for two, followed by a good looking kick to the head. Dragon hits a Liger Bomb for two, followed by the super rana and Tiger Suplex for the pin.

Rating: C+. This wasn’t bad at all but it was pretty much a filler match. Dragon wasn’t your usual cruiserweight but he could fly fairly well when need be. Juvy on the other hand was a great flier, but he needed someone that could keep up with him like Rey of Kidman. Not a bad match but at under five minutes, what are you expecting here?

Chris Jericho vs. Scotty Riggs

Riggs’ suspenders never quite worked on him. He starts off in control with a dropkick and a slam for two. We’re in a jawbreaker less than a minute in but Jericho escapes with a quick jawbreaker. Overhead belly to belly puts Riggs onto the apron so Jericho can hit his springboard dropkick. A suplex back in gets two. Riggs comes back with dropkicks and no one cares. I mean at all. Jericho crotches him on the top but Scotty manages to hit a top rope clothesline for two. The Canadian hits a German on the American for two and here’s Buff Bagweel to attack Riggs with a strap for the DQ.

Rating: D. Nothing to see here as Riggs was one of the most uninteresting guys in years. The only thing he had was to feud with Bagwell and once everyone realized that no one cared about the American Males feuding, all they could do was put him in the Flock, which really just prolonged his career instead of improving it.

Madusa says the same thing as last week. She still wants the title and wants Luna too.

Lee Marshall does his thing.

Hardbody Harrison vs. Kevin Sullivan

Harrison is most famous for suing WCW for not getting pushed because he was black. His lack of talent probably had more to do with it but why let that get in the way of a lawsuit? Total domination and Jackie gets to beat up Harrison a bit. Harrison gets a pair of rollups for two and they go outside again. Tony gets the guy’s name wrong and they fight to a double countout. By fight I mean Harrison gets beaten up.

Sullivan beats him up on the beach. Back to ringside and Harrison gets thrown in the water to a big pop. Sullivan, Jackie and Hart say their usual stuff post beating.

Here’s the NWO to close the show. The main thing here is that we need to confirm that Dennis Rodman is part of the NWO. We get an extended version of the thing that opened the show with Rodman getting an NWO shirt. Sting gets handed his NWO shirt but never puts it on, which is ignored by Hogan and Bischoff. The Outsiders are ready for the Steiners, Giant and Luger. Savage doesn’t remember DDP’s name and Sting has nothing to say on the subject. The segment ends and Heenan asks a very good question: with Bischoff’s power suspended, how do they get promo time?

With literally two and a half minutes left in the show, here are Public Enemy for a promo. They run down the Horsemen for bailing out on their tag match and taking the main event spot. Harlem Heat jumps them and we’re done. What a strange ending.

Overall Rating: D+. This show is a good example of the absence of good. The show isn’t really bad or anything, but nothing in the two hours that it was on was what I would call good. Most of the stuff on it is watchable and none of it is what I would call horrible or even bad, but the show did a pretty bad job of building to the PPV. I know about two matches on the card and the main event was literally not explained at all. I have no idea what the match is going to be like based on this show. That’s certainly a strategy for building a PPV up, but it was also used on the Doomsday Cage match so take it for what it’s worth.

Here’s Uncensored if you’re interested:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2011/09/02/uncensored-1997-sting-vs-hogan-begins/

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

Slammiversary 2012
Date: June 10, 2012
Location: College Park Center, Arlington, Texas
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Taz

It’s the ten year anniversary show and the main event is Sting challenging Roode for the title. Other than that we have a guest appearance by Christian, likely as the first member of the TNA Hall of Fame for basically publicity reasons. The rest of the show is pretty much a regular PPV, but they’ve surprised me before with these bigger shows. Let’s get to it.

The opening video is about what you would expect: they started with a dream, they’ve come a long way, they’re here now. It’s interspersed with big moments in their history.

The crowd is HUGE, looking like a real PPV style crowd.

Here’s Hogan to open the show. The ring looks smaller than usual here. Hogan welcomes us to the show and says that this is a celebration of ten years. He says the next ten years are going to be even more awesome because this company is shooting to the moon. Tonight we’re going old school and opening with Joe vs. Aries. How exactly is that old school? Oh it’s for the title. So the weight limit is gone? SWEET.

X-Division Title: Austin Aries vs. Samoa Joe

That ring is 15 feet wide AT BEST. Aries is defending of course. They fight over a wristlock to start and it’s a standoff. The fans are split here but the Aries chants sound a bit louder. Aries gets in some kicks at the leg and we hit another standoff. Joe comes back with kicks of his own and down goes the champion. Aries will have none of that and dropkicks him to the floor, but Joe blocks the suicide dive with a kick to the head.

Back into the ring and Joe crushes him in the corner and hits an enziguri. Facewash connects and Aries is in trouble. Snap powerslam gets two. Joe charges into a boot but hits his own big version of it to take Aries down again. The backsplash hits knees and Aries fires off more forearms. Joe tries the suicide elbow but Aries dodges, slides in and hits the suicide dive to take over.

The dueling chants are getting louder here. Back in and Joe gets taken into the corner by a missile dropkick. The running dropkick in the corner is caught in a powerslam for two. They slug it out but Aries can’t hit the brainbuster. A rana is caught in a powerbomb followed by the Boston crab/STF/Rings of Saturn (used to be a Crossface) sequence that he hasn’t busted out in years.

Joe loads up the MuscleBuster but Aries forearms his way out of it. They go up but Joe gets knocked off, letting Aries hit the 450 for two. They fight from their knees and Aries gets caught in the Clutch but he kicks backwards into a cover for two. Aries charges into the release Rock Bottom out of the corner and Joe is all fired up. The MuscleBuster is countered again, this time into kind of a crucifix slam for no cover. Aries goes off with the forearms in the corner and hits the brainbuster for the pin at 11:44.

Rating: B+. Now THAT is how you do an opener. They beat the tar out of each other here and it was almost old school Joe out there, other than him being unbeatable and all that jazz. Still though, this was a good win for Aries and if they’ve taken away the weight limit on the division again, things are going to go up for it. That’s what they’ve needed to do for a long time.

Kid Kash vs. Hernandez

For the life of me I don’t get why this is on the card. When was the last time either of these guys was on TV at all? Kash tries to speed things up but he gets run over with ease and knocked to the floor. Hernandez throws Kash around with ease so Kash bites him on the nose. He hooks an armbreaker on SuperMex which is broken pretty quickly. We get a bad looking sequence with Kash not really selling a clothesline and then BADLY botching a rana. Tornado DDT puts Hernandez down but he pops up and hits the slingshot shoulder to put both guys down. Kash heads to the floor so Hernandez dives over the top to crush him. I miss that spot from him. Border Toss is escaped so Hernandez goes up, shoves Kash off and hits a top rope splash for the pin at 5:52.

Rating: D+. This wasn’t horrible but what in the world was the point of this? There were no other people that they could have put out there for this? Hernandez hasn’t been on TV as a singles guy in months and Kash shouldn’t be on TV ever for my money, so I don’t know why this match was taking place at all. Odd choice and it wasn’t anything good either.

Moment #3 is AJ Styles winning the first X Title.

Garrett Bischoff/D-Von vs. Robbie E/Robbie T

The TV Title feud continues. E and Garrett get us going and Bischoff slams him down with relative ease. Off to the current OVW Champion as we get dueling WE WANT D-VON/YOU CAN’T WRESTLE chants. Right hands have no effect on T so Garrett tries some clotheslines, only to get pulled down to the floor by E. Madison is out watching again, looking GREAT in a red dress.

The fans still want D-Von but it’s Garrett getting worked over in the corner. The Rob’s hit a double team side slam/elbow drop combo and it’s chinlock time. Garrett comes back with a flapjack and D-Von finally gets in. House is cleaned and a Rock Bottom puts E down. A shoulder block gets a cover but T makes the save. Garrett low bridges T and hits a dive, as D-Von spinebusters E for the pin at 5:58.

Rating: D+. Nothing but a basic formula tag match here that needed to be on Impact rather than the PPV. The fans flat out do not care about Garrett but I guess this is better than him being in the main events of PPVs. Now, can we PLEASE find D-Von someone to feud with not named Garrett or Rob? It can’t be that hard.

Garrett and D-Von dance for no apparent reason.

Daniels runs down his accomplishments in TNA and drinks a toast to himself and Kaz while saying how great they are. “You have permission to worship us now.”

Mr. Anderson vs. Jeff Hardy vs. Rob Van Dam

This is happening earlier than I expected. The winner gets a title match on Thursday. Either there’s some lighting issue or Van Dam’s face is green. Jeff flips a coin or something and goes after Van Dam as a result. He takes down everyone but Anderson gets in a knee to slow him down. Jeff sends both guys into the corner and hits a double splash, followed by a dropkick out of Poetry In Motion at Van Dam.

Hardy headscissors Anderson out of the corner but walks into a neckbreaker from the same person for two. Van Dam hits some shoulders into the ribs of Anderson in the corner and a running kick to the head of Hardy. After some control by Van Dam, Hardy goes up but gets caught in the Tower of Doom, but he crotches himself on the top. After disposing of Van Dam, the superplex hits Hardy. A Five Star attempt misses and everyone is down.

We get a three way slugout from their knees, followed by a spin kick from RVD to Anderson, followed by a rollup to Hardy for two. Another spin kick puts Hardy down and Anderson gets monkey flipped onto Hardy’s body for two. Anderson backslides Van Dam and Hardy covers Van Dam at the same time but it only gets two. That was a smart move though. Van Dam is knocked to the floor and he pulls Anderson out with him, allowing Hardy to hit a HUGE dive on both to put everyone down on the floor.

Hardy and Van Dam head into the ring and Whisper in the Wind gets two. Jeff’s suplex is countered so he hits a Twist of Fate instead. The Swanton hits but Anderson pulls the referee out to the floor. Hardy gets sent to the floor and Rolling Thunder is countered into the Mic Check by Anderson for the pin at 11:28. That came out of nowhere.

Rating: B. The match was incredibly energetic and fast paced, although I’m very surprised that Hardy didn’t win here. Anderson winning was a surprise though which is a nice touch, although the ending didn’t have any real build to it. That can work though as it’s nice to break up the formula once in awhile. Good match here again.

Crimson talks about how great and perfect he’s been for over 470 days. He doesn’t care who he’s facing tonight.

Crimson vs. ???

Crimson runs down Texas a bit and says he’ll fight a Maverick, a Ranger or a Cowboy if he has to. The opponent is…..JAMES STORM? Oh yeah the streak is done. The match starts fast and Crimson is quickly clotheslined to the floor. Storm has the old trenchcoat too. We get some hard chops in the corner but Crimson comes back with a shot to the head. There goes the coat and Storm is in some trouble. Storm shrugs all that off, hits the Codebreaker which has another name that I can’t remember, seems to go into a seizure, and hits the Last Call to end the streak at 2:09.

Aries says he wants to be in the main event. That gets a good reaction from the crowd.

Hogan joining TNA is the second moment.

Here’s Dixie for the HOF stuff. There are four matches left (tag titles, Ray/Park, Knockouts and world title) and it’s 9:15 so there’s a lot of time for the remaining matches. She thanks everyone that helped get us here from her parents to the Jarretts to the fans. Dixie brings out the locker room and AJ looks like he’s about to cry. The first inductee into the Hall of Fame is….Sting? It should be Jarret but I’m FAR more ok with this than it being Christian. We get a video and testimonials from the other wrestlers and Sting goes to the ring.

The fans chant YES, which I’m not sure how to take. The formal induction won’t be until Bound For Glory. Sting says he’s honored and starts a chant for the crowd. He says that tonight it’s Showtime.

Knockouts Title: Gail Kim vs. Miss Tessmacher

Ok…..there is ZERO reason for Tessmacher to lose here. I mean, it’s her home state, she’s been built up perfectly, the champion has gotten stale and says the same things over and over……she’s screwed isn’t she? Tessmacher speeds things up to start and they head to the floor. Back in and she tries a victory roll but gets hot shotted instead. Shoulder breaker gets two.

Gail works on the arm before shifting to a headscissors for a bit. Tessmacher makes her comeback but gets bulldogged back down. A horrible looking neckbreaker puts Tessmacher on the apron and then into the barricade. Back in and Eat Defeat is countered so Gail tries Tessmacher’s finisher. Brooke (screw Hogan’s daughter) countered into a rollup for the pin at 7:05.

Rating: D. I REALLY do not like that ending. Tessmacher got dominated for almost the entire match and then caught Gail in a mistake to win the title. That doesn’t make her look better or anything, but rather just that it makes the win look like a fluke. Still though, anyone being champion instead of Gail is a good thing.

Brooke celebrates post match.

Bully runs down Texas and talks about how great New York is. He has Park right where he wants him and it’ll be an assault tonight. Ray can’t be held responsible for his actions due to the contract.

We recap the Park vs. Ray story which I’m sure you’ve heard of already. In short, Joseph is Abyss’ brother and is looking for him. Abyss popped up and said that Joseph needed to stay away from the fire. Ray got annoyed by Joseph and challenged him to a fight tonight. The fight is happening. Ok then.

Joseph Park vs. Bully Ray

Park comes out in a workout suit. He takes off the glasses and Ray offers him the first shot. A right hand misses as does a second. Ray offers to put his hands behind his back but spits in Park’s face too. Park gets in a single slap and down he goes. The fans think New York sucks. Ray goes and gets a chair but Park trips the rope as he comes back in to send Ray down. Park picks up the chair but isn’t sure what to do with it. Instead he looks at the fans and gets hit in the back for his mistake.

A chair to the back puts Park down and the sweat is dripping. Another chair shot to the back puts Joseph on the floor and there’s a water bottle to the head. Back in and the middle rope backsplash misses to give Park a chance. He seems pretty ok two minutes after two chair shots to the back. Park pounds away in the corner and Ray is in trouble. And never mind as Ray kicks his head off to take him down.

Ray brings in a table and kendo stick, drawing the second ECW chant of the night. The thing is dead people. Let it go. Joseph punches Ray in the balls to block a kendo stick shot before clocking Ray in the head for two. Park goes under the ring and Abyss comes out (with his hood up to hide short hair). Ray sees him and panics before getting chokeslammed through the table. Abyss goes back under the ring, Park pops out and gets the pin at 10:28.

Rating: C-. Ok, what were you expecting here? They’re not really even trying to hide that it’s Abyss anymore. Either that or these fans are REALLY gullible. Park winning was probably the only option they had here and while the ending was bad, they couldn’t do much else. Decent comedy match here.

Roode says he’ll keep the title.

Cue Hogan again for some reason. He tells the fans to give it up for Park and that he has a surprise for us. Hogan brings out Christian Cage to no real buildup or fanfare. Tenay of course makes it sound like it’s someone here every week because that’s how he rolls. The fans ask Christian to come back. Christian says he’s been asked if he was really appearing here tonight all week, and yeah, he is. The fans chant YES of course.

He remembers there being more corners in this ring. Things might change, but the fans never change. They should stand up and give themselves a round of applause. He presents the #1 moment in TNA history and it’s…..Sting returning. No. Just NO. That’s it for Christian. He isn’t seen again and he doesn’t say anything else as we move on to the package about the tag titles.

We recap the Styles/Angle vs. Kaz/Daniels feud. The idea is that Daniels thinks AJ is sleeping with Dixie and has shown some circumstantial evidence to destroy AJ, so tonight AJ and Angle are teaming up to go for the tag titles.

Tag Titles: Kazarian/Christopher Daniels vs. Kurt Angle/AJ Styles

The match starts fast and AJ gets double teamed. It’s Styles vs. Kaz to get us going with Kaz rolling him up quickly before walking into a spin kick. Out to the floor and AJ does his slide under the barricade into the forearm spot. Daniels tries to interfere but Angle takes his head off with a clothesline. A knee to the face puts Kaz down and it’s off to Angle. Double suplex gets two. Off to Daniels who takes Angle down but he walks into a belly to belly.

Off to AJ who Daniels over his knee and goes for the Styles Clash but Chris runs to the apron. Kaz comes in and puts AJ on the ropes. Daniels interferes and Kaz hits a sweet bicycle kick to the face, catching AJ by his knee in the ropes. Daniels chokes a bit as AJ’s knee is done at the moment. Kaz comes in and gets hiptossed into a legdrop onto AJ for two. A suplex is blocked into a neckbreaker and both guys are down.

Double tag brings in the bald guys and Angle is all fired up. He snaps off an overhead belly to belly on Daniels and a German on Kaz. Angle Slam gets two on Daniels due to Kaz making the save. Kurt is like cool man and Germans them both at once. Ankle lock to Daniels is broken up by Kaz again and Daniels is back up. Angel’s Wings is countered and it’s off to AJ with the flying forearm. Moonsault into the reverse DDT takes down Kaz but it’s combined with a regular DDT to Daniels. Kaz distracts AGAIN before hitting a kick to the face of Styles.

Daniels busts out Last Rites but Angle makes the save. Things slow down a bit and AJ loads up a superplex on Kaz but gets shoved off. Angle runs the corner for the belly to belly and it’s down to Daniels vs. Styles. They slug it out and the release Rock Bottom sets up the BME, but Daniels lands on his feet. Unfortunately he lands in perfect position for a release German. Angle hits a top rope splash of all things for two but Daniels pulls the referee out. AJ hits a HUGE shooting star over the top to take out Daniels on the floor. Back in the ring Kaz tries Fade to Black but Angle reverses into the ankle lock for the tap at 14:26.

Rating: B+. Another good match here but it really doesn’t give us a bunch of resolution. Dixie wasn’t involved here, which to be fair is probably the best possible outcome, but it doesn’t really matter much. The match itself was great and it seems like they’re building to yet another final blowoff between Daniels and AJ, which is annoying but it’s what’s coming. AJ getting another title is fine by me.

We recap the main event which is being built up as way bigger than it probably really is.

TNA World Title: Sting vs. Bobby Roode

Roode stalls before the bell and stalls again after the bell. After a chase Sting sends Roode into the barricade and then does it again for good measure. Roode goes into various other hard objects and it’s all Sting so far. The champ (Roode in case this is like 2020 by now or something) guillotines Sting across the top rope and stomps away. Sting blocks a punch and makes a comeback but charges into a boot for two.

Off to a sleeper by the champ which is countered into one by Sting, but Roode escapes with a jawbreaker. Roode goes up but Sting punches him down and busts out a superplex. Scorpion goes on but Roode finally gets to a rope. Roode goes to the floor and they head up the ramp. Back to ringside and Sting ACTUALLY HITS THE SPLASH ON THE BARRICADE. Roode gets put in the Scorpion on the announce table but the tap out there doesn’t count. For no apparent reason there’s a six pack of beer by the table and Roode gets one out. It goes upside Sting’s head and it gets the pin at 9:52.

Rating: C+. I’m not a big fan of Sting’s main event matches. Or is it Roode that I’m not a fan of? Either way, this was a pretty dull main event but after the love fest that this show was for Sting, he had to lose at some point here. Roode needs to lose the title soon as there’s nothing left for him to do with it and he’s reaching boring levels by this point. Maybe Anderson takes it Thursday, but at the end of the day that’s better than another Sting win.

Post match Sting snaps and takes Roode up the ramp before hitting the Death Drop off the stage through some tables.

Overall Rating: A. If TNA was looking to hit a home run with this show, they certainly did it. The Sting stuff was a bit of overkill but all in all, this worked incredibly well. You get three very good to great matches and it felt like a celebration of TNA rather than just another PPV. The crowd looked great, the wrestlers looked fired up, and we still have places to go off this. Great show here and one of their best ever if not their best ever.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

Sacrifice 2006
Date: May 14, 2006
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Attendance: 900
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Don West

Another show here in Orlando with Christian as the world champion. Tonight he defends against Abyss in a Full Metal Mayhem match, which is the TNA version of a TLC match. Abyss took the belt itself at Lockdown even though Christian is still champion. Other than that it’s another chapter in the Sting vs. Jarrett saga, in this case Sting/Joe vs. Jarrett/Steiner. Let’s get to it.

The opening video is about how everyone has troubles in their lives and how everyone has to make sacrifices.

We open up with a scoreboard update for the World X Cup. This is one of those things that I never quite got into but a lot of people loved. The idea is that you have four teams of four X guys competing in a round robin style tournament for national supremacy. America has five points, Mexico has two points and Japan and Canada have zero each. This is the last match of the second round and I guess it’s for one point.

World X Cup Second Round: Jushin Thunder Liger vs. Petey Williams

Actually this is worth three points. Petey takes him to the mat and the fans are all over him. To be fair he’s fighting a legend so it’s understandable. I think they botch an elbow drop spot as Liger dropped the elbow but Williams took over anyway. A headscissors puts Liger to the apron but he low bridges Williams to the floor. Liger adds a huge dive to take over again.

Team Japan acts all evil and pounds on Petey on the floor. Back into the ring and Liger hooks the surfboard which is one of his signature holds. He drops Petey down into a dragon sleeper and now the annoying fans have to do the dueling chants. A frog splash by Liger hits knees and Petey hits a spinwheel kick to put Liger down again.

Liger tries a palm thrust but walks into an enziguri and tornado DDT for two. Petey loads up the Destroyer but Jushin comes back with a palm thrust and the Liger Bomb for two. A member of Team Japan interferes with a low blow. Liger follows with the Crash Thunder Buster (wheelbarrow facejam) for the pin.

Rating: C+. This was pretty good and a solid choice for an opener. Liger is one of the few guys from Japan that people actually know a bit here in America so his appearances are actually worth something. Having people go out there and just saying they’re from Japan or Mexico or wherever doesn’t really mean anything. Liger could still go in his late 30s or early 40s so this worked pretty well.

The PPV froze at the end of the match. Such is life in TNA.

Updated World X Cup Standings:

America – 5

Japan – 3

Mexico – 2

Canada – 0

We’ll be back to this later on.

We run down the card for the rest of the show.

AMW with Jackie (Gayda) and Gail say they’re not worried about tonight. Jackie is here against her will. Storm threatens Jackie to not cost them anything tonight. The girls are barred from ringside. Jackie says she’s pregnant and Gail fires her.

We recap AMW vs. Styles/Daniels. The idea is that AMW is the undefeatable team so a dream team has been put together to fight them. They already had one match but Gail cheated to keep the belts on AMW.

Tag Titles: America’s Most Wanted vs. Christopher Daniels/AJ Styles

Styles and Daniels jump the champions to start and Daniels/Harris go to the floor so AJ can hit the dropdown dropkick on the Cowboy. Daniels comes in and we’re ready to go. He takes Storm down and cranks on the arm but it’s off to Harris who runs Daniels over. The challengers double team Storm and Harris’ full nelson slam is countered into a bridging Indian Deathlock with a chinlock but the Cowboy makes the save.

Styles comes in legally now and the challengers tag in and out quickly to work on the arm. AMW finally starts cheating and get Daniels into the corner to take over. The champs cheat like true heel champions would do with choking and face pulling before Harris hooks a chinlock. A back elbow gets two on the Fallen Angel. Daniels counters an Irish whip to send Storm’s shoulder into the post and it’s hot tag to AJ.

AJ speeds things way up with his headscissors but Storm makes the save. Daniels gets tagged back in for some reason and we get a Tower of Doom with Daniels on top. Oh scratch that as he shoves the Tower down and hits a top rope cross body for two on Harris. I wish AMW would have their names on their trunks because when their backs are to the camera it’s very hard to tell them apart.

Daniels throws Harris into the crowd and AJ dives from the top rope over the barrier and onto Harris. The match kind of breaks down a bit and everyone is on the floor. A fan has a box of cereal for some reason. Back in and Daniels breaks up the Death Sentence before putting Harris into a fireman’s carry. AJ hits the Pele before the DVD hits to kill Harris dead. BME misses but the Last Call does as well. Harris hits his spear to take Daniels down for two.

It’s Storm vs. Daniels legally now but Daniels hits a double clothesline to bring in Styles. AJ goes up high with a double clothesline of his own but he charges into a boot from Storm. AJ loads up a superplex but Harris makes the save, resulting in a Doomsday Device into a reverse tornado DDT by Storm for two. That looked awesome.

Daniels comes back in for the save and the challengers hit a BME/Frog Splash combo for two on Storm. Styles tries the Clash but the Cowboy escapes with a low blow and the superkick for two. Angel’s Wings hits Storm for two as Harris makes the save. This is getting awesome. Daniels, Harris and the referee get knocked to the floor and something falls from the rafters into the ring. It’s a nightstick and Gail Kim is seen in the rafters. AJ hits the Clash on Storm but Harris blasts him in the back of the head with the nightstick for the pin to retain.

Rating: B+. This was getting awesome at the end but we had to have Gail Kim interfere to end the thing. This would set up another match at Slammiversary which wasn’t as good but it gave us the title change which we needed. Still though, this was the old school idea of putting four guys out there and giving them fifteen minutes to have a great match. As usual, it worked.

Larry Z is with A-1 and says that all of his problems are because of Raven. A-1 is going to take out Raven for him tonight. A-1 has no idea what’s going on and thinks Larry’s name is Barry. He leaves and Slick Johnson comes in and says we’re going to find out who the face of TNA management is next month. Larry has no idea who it’s going to be but Johnson says he knows. He suggests it’ll be Piper but that’s just a joke. It might be Vince Russo but that’s also a joke. The third joke is Ultimate Warrior. I think we get it by this point. Johnson still won’t tell.

We recap the Larry Z vs. Raven feud which has gone on forever. Larry was told that someone was going to be the new face of TNA management on the same day that his biggest rival, Raven, was reinstated. Team Canada offered A-1 to take Raven out for some reason.

Raven vs. A-1

Larry sits in a chair in the ring before the match starts. Larry gets in his face so A-1 hits Raven with said chair to get an early advantage. A-1 rams him into the corner a bunch of times as Larry sits in on commentary. They head to the floor and A-1 rams him into the post a few times to stay on the back. Raven’s back goes into the barricade as the beating on that thing continues.

Back into the ring and A-1 fires off shoulders in the corner. A corner splash/forearm puts Raven down again as we’re still waiting on Bird Boy’s first offense. A-1 kicks him down but Raven FINALLY gets in some right hands in the corner. A clothesline out of the corner buts A-1 down and he fires off some kicks. An Edge-O-Matic puts Raven down but Larry’s distraction lets A-1 get in a cheap shot. A charge misses and the Raven Effect gets the pin.

Rating: D. This was a really dull match, but that could be said about almost any match in this Raven vs. Larry feud. It just kept going on and on with nothing ever really being accomplished. We got matches like Raven vs. Kanyon out of it which didn’t make anyone interested in the match or anything like that, but who cares about stuff like that?

Larry calls Raven back to the ring and they have a weak brawl.

Jarrett and Steiner say Sting hasn’t one-uped them but rather the opposite. Jarrett says that Sting is desperate for picking Joe as his partner when Joe isn’t trustworthy. Steiner says that Sting’s mistake will result in pain.

We recap Rhyno vs. Roode. Team Canada cost Rhyno a match with Abyss for some reason that isn’t quite explained here. Rhyno has vowed to go through all of the Canadians to get to Coach D’Amore.

Bobby Roode vs. Rhyno

The is power vs. power and they fight over a lockup to start. A shoulder block puts Roode on the floor but Rhyno doesn’t follow up. Roode comes back in and slaps Rhyno in the face, which gets him punched and backdropped for his troubles. They go to the floor for a slugout which goes to Roode. Back in and Rhyno goes to the middle rope but a disitraction by the Coach lets Roode knock Rhyno to the floor.

Back in and Bobby pounds away at the Man Beast’s head before choking away a bit. Neckbreaker gets two. There’s the Hennig neck snap for the same result and it’s off to a neck crank. The jingoistic fans chant USA so Roode hits a belly to back suplex and a middle rope kneedrop for two. Off to a chinlock which stays on the neck. Like any good stupid heel, Roode slaps Rhyno in the face a few times which fires Rhyno up.

Roode takes him right back down by sending him into the corner and it’s back to the chinlock. Rhyno fights out of it and speeds things up, running over Roode with clotheslines and elbows to the face. A spinebuster gets two for Rhyno and Roode goes to the apron. He goes up top but gets superplexed back down for a close two.

Roode comes back with a spinebuster of his own and it’s hockey stick time. Since that gets taken away, Roode has to settle for getting two boots into the face of a charging Rhyno. The Northern Lariat is countered into a belly to belly but D’Amore gets in a hockey stick shot so that the Lariat can hit for the pin.

Rating: D+. This wasn’t bad but it was pretty boring. I never quite got the point of the feud between Rhyno and the Canadians but it didn’t last long. It was more like a way to bridge the gap from Rhyno being world champion to his next big feud, which would wind up being Christian Cage. Still though, nothing great here but Roode would get much better over time.

Team 3D talks about how you always remember where you were when big things happen (this leads to an argument about OJ Simpson but we’ll skip that). Ray remembers being in Hartford, Connecticut in 2000 and winning their first WWE Tag Titles after beating the New Age Outlaws. Tonight it happens again.

We recap Team 3D vs. the James Gang. The argument is that the match six years ago ended with a pipe shot and also about the Dudleys getting big in a bingo hall while the Outlaws were headlining MSG.

Team 3D vs. James Gang

Roadie says that he isn’t a mark so he doesn’t remember his wins and losses. Ok then. Kip and D-Von start us off with D-Von hitting a jumping clothesline for two. With nothing of note in the first minute and a half, it’s off to Ray vs. BG. They trade armdrags and no one can really get a distinct advantage. BG fires off an armdrag and dropkick to send Ray into the corner. He yells at Ray about being fat so Ray hits a dropkick of his own to shock BG.

They trade the dancing punches and both hit their big punches at the same time. If this is supposed to be some big and epic clash of legends it really isn’t working. D-Von pulls BG out to the floor and crotches him on the post before coming in legally. D-Von beats on BG for a bit before it’s back to Bubba for a neckbreaker, getting two. Off to a chinlock as BG is in some serious trouble. Ray misses a charge in the corner and BG clotheslines D-Von down.

Hot (I guess?) tag brings in Kip who cleans house. He hits a Stinger Splash on Bubba and everything breaks down. The James Gang is in control but Bubba throws Kip over the top and out to the floor. Doomsday Device gets two on BG and the double neckbreaker gets the same on Kip. Fameasser to D-Von misses but BG brings in a pipe like the one mentioned in the match in 2000. A shot to the back of D-Von is enough to end this.

Rating: D+. Was this supposed to be some big battle? It was ok I guess but it felt like they were going on pure reputation rather than actually having a good match. It wasn’t a bad match or anything but I don’t get if this was supposed to be a big and great match or a revenge match or what. Either way, it was just ok at best.

Mitchell says Christian has nothing to live for other than the world title, and tonight Abyss is taking that from him too. Abyss is going to take the title in the match that Christian is best known for. Mitchell will make sure to come visit Christian in the morgue.

We see the ending of the Liger vs. Petey match because the feed went out earlier. That’s nice of them.

The newest Knockout, Christy Hemme, comes out to present the World X Cup to the winning team.

World X Cup Final Round: Gauntlet Match

All sixteen participants in the match are in this. It’s a two minute starting period followed by one minute intervals after that. It’s over the top rope eliminations until we get down to one on one when it becomes a singles match. The teams that make it to the final match receive two points apiece and the winner of the match gets an extra three. If the two finalists are from the same team, their team receives seven points and automatically wins the tournament. In the event of a tie, the captains will face each other in a singles match….on Impact.

We start with Minoru Tanaka (Japan) and Puma (Mexico). Tanaka offers a handshake to start but as Puma shakes it, Tanaka Mists him to take over. A springboard missile dropkick puts Tanaka down and an enziguri staggers him. Tanaka gets in a suplex but covers out of instinct. #3 is Petey Williams (Canada) and he joins forces with Minoru to double team Puma. That lasts a good 20 seconds before Petey turns on Puma.

#4 is Chris Sabin (USA) and things speed up again. Sabin whips all three guys into the corner but only hits Tanaka with a forearm. A double clothesline takes the other two down and Hiroki Goto (Japan) is #5. He hits a spin kick to take down Sabin and teams up with his teammate to clean house. #6 is Incognito (Mexico) who seems to wrestle in slow motion. He knocks Petey to the floor and hits a suicide dive but neither guy went over the top so everyone is still in. Before I forget, Incognito is currently known as Hunico in WWE.

#7 is Johnny Devine (Canada) and he puts Incognito down in the corner for some running knees. #8 is Sonjay Dutt (USA) to continue the pattern the entries have taken. All eight are still in at the moment. The Americans double team Williams but Devine makes the save. And never mind as Dutt snaps off an inverted rana to send him flying. In at #9 is Black Tiger (Japan) and he runs over Dutt very quickly.

Tiger hooks an ankle lock on Williams but Devine makes the save. Magno is #10 (Mexico) and he comes in with some springboard flips. It’s impossible to tell what’s going on as there are too many people in the ring at the moment. Eric Young (Canada) is #11 as two people go through the ropes, as in not being eliminated. We get a LOUD Eric chant as we’re told that Incognito and Dutt are both out with Dutt having an injured ankle.

#12 is Alex Shelley (USA) and house is cleaned. He hits a complicated double team move on the Canadians and a spin kick Devine. Sabin and Devine go out in a big rush of offense as Liger (Japan) is #13 and the final member of Team Japan. Magno charges into a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker from Liger and they go to the top rope. Liger gets superplexed down and Shocker (Mexico) is #14. Magno charges at someone and is backdropped out.

Black Tiger goes up top but gets powerbombed down and eliminated as we see Tyson Dux (Canada) in at #15. Dux sends Puma to the apron but he gets back in. Shelley throws out Goto and Jay Lethal (USA) is #16 and the final entrant. By my count we have eight people left: Young, Minoru, Shelley, Lethal, Puma, Dux, Liger, Shocker and Williams. Lethal dropkicks Minoru out. That leaves Japan with just Liger.

Shocker charges at Dux and gets monkey flipped to the floor. Dux and Young go at Liger and get palm strikes to the chest for their efforts. They combine to eliminate Liger, eliminating Japan entirely from the gauntlet and the competition. Lethal immediately puts Young out and we’re down to five: Dux, Lethal, Shelley, Williams and Puma. There goes Dux and we’re down to four. The Americans double team Williams but Shelley misses a charging knee to eliminate himself. Lethal goes to the apron but jumps back in, right into a spin kick from Puma to get us down to two.

Puma hits a fast brainbuster and remember that it’s now a regular one on one match. The Canadian Destroyer hits out of NOWHERE and the Canadians in the form of Williams wins, meaning it’s Williams vs. Sabin for the Cup on Impact (Sabin would win the match and the Cup).

Rating: B-. That’s as high as I can possibly go with this. The match wasn’t bad at all but it’s the walking definition of throw A LOT of stuff out there and have them do flips and dives with the hope that the crowd likes it. I don’t really know what else there is to say about this. I don’t see the need in having it go over to Impact and not ending it here, but I guess it gave them something else to do on Thursday. Not a bad match, but it was only going to be able to be so good if that makes sense.

Post match Kevin Nash comes out and Jackknifes Puma to show what he’s going to do to the X-Division. He brags about how Puma got in no offense on him and says a medium big man can beat an X-Division guy any day. Size does matter you see.

Samoa Joe says he doesn’t need to be Sting’s friend to beat up Steiner and Jarrett.

We recap the tag match. Basically Steiner is Jarrett’s top flunkie and they offered Sting a tag match. There was this stupid game show thing with guys like Rick Steiner, Lex Luger and I think Buff Bagwell being partners that Jarrett/Steiner turned down. It wound up being Samoa Joe. See, THIS is how you push someone: put them in the main event or tip feuds and have them seem like they belong there.

Scott Steiner/Jeff Jarrett vs. Sting/Samoa Joe

Jarrett and Sting get us going after some stalling. Sting takes him to the mat and rams his head into the mat in a simple yet effective move. Steiner comes in and charges into a big boot and a Vader Bomb of all things. Sting moves to send a cheating Jarrett into Steiner before taking them both down with a double clothesline off the top. Off to Joe for the showdown with Steiner.

They stare each other down and Joe pie faces him. Joe pounds him into the corner but gets suplexed down which seems to shock him. They slug it out in the corner but Steiner takes his head off with a clothesline. The elbow sets up the pushups which ticks Joe off enough that he fires off forearms and an enziguri to slow Steiner down. Jarrett hits a knee to the Samoan’s back and Joe is in trouble.

Jeff comes in legally and struts a lot but he charges into the release Rock Bottom. Off to Sting who cleans house and powerbombs Jarrett down for two. He loads up the Death Drop but has to put Jarrett in an STO of all things. The Scorpion on Steiner is broken up as is one on Steiner. Jarrett DDTs him down and Steiner hits a belly to belly for two. Jarrett comes back in and uses a Garvin Stomp followed by a front facelock. Riveting stuff from Double J there.

Sting fights up and gets the tag but Steiner has the referee. The classics always work. Speaking of the classics, the guys collide and Sting’s head falls onto Steiner’s balls. Double tag brings in Joe and Jarrett and the snap powerslam gets two on Jeff very quickly. Joe cleans house on Scott and hits the backsplash for two. He runs over both guys at once with a double clothesline and everything breaks down.

Joe throws both guys into the same corner followed by Joe hitting a leg lariat to take them both out. The Stinger Splash hits but the second sends Sting over the top to the floor. The Stroke hits Joe but he takes too long to cover, only getting two. Sting beats up Steiner on the floor as Jarrett tries the middle rope Stroke. Joe punches out of it and the MuscleBuster gets the pin.

Rating: C+. This was your usual main event tag match and it wasn’t half bad. Joe getting the win was fine but at the same time he never got near the world title picture this year, which made little sense after he beat Jarrett again on PPV when Jarrett was world champion. This would be the main event feud that ran all summer and it was pretty decent, although I still didn’t like the way it ended.

Joe finally shakes Sting’s hand post match.

Joe leaves and Steiner blasts Sting with a chair. Joe doesn’t see it but he should have been able to hear it, although he doesn’t turn around. Instead he keeps walking and lets Sting get beaten down. Sting takes a guitar shot which Joe hears. He turns around and looks at Steiner and Jarrett standing tall, then walks away. A bunch of guys run out for the save, including the James Gang and Daniels plus others.

We recap the world title match, which is Full Metal Mayhem. Nothing is said here so I guess there’s no point in recapping it.

Christian says simply stealing a title belt doesn’t make you a champion.

NWA World Title: Abyss vs. Christian

This is basically a TLC match and Christian is defending. Christian immediately takes him down but can’t overcome the power soon afterwords. Abyss goes for a ladder but Christian dropkicks it back into his face. Back into the ring and Abyss throws him to the apron, only to have the ladder see-sawed into his face. They head to the floor with Christian pounding away on Abyss’ head.

Out into the crowd and they go to that wall that the people in every big TNA brawl fight to. They head back into the ring and the ladder is set up in the corner. Abyss misses a splash onto said ladder so Christian puts it up in front of the challenger. He tries a charge at the ladder but Abyss throws it back at him, knocking Christian down. Abyss wedges a chair between the ropes, and due to the law of wrestling #1, goes crashing into it for his trouble.

Christian goes up and gets his hand on the belt but Abyss makes a pretty easy save. They fight over a German onto the ladder but after neither can get it to go, it’s Christian that is sent crashing into the ladder. Abyss goes outside and sets up a pair of tables next to the ring. Now there’s a table set up in the ring as well but Christian gets in a boot to the ribs to break things up.

Abyss puts him on the ladder but misses a cross body kind of move onto the climbing instrument. A frog splash onto the ladder misses but so does a chain shot against the post. Christian chokes him with the chain but gets flipped through one of the tables at ringside. Abyss goes up but Christian makes the save with a chair. They both fall off the ladder with Christian hitting the top rope. Abyss lays out the tacks but walks into an Unprettier onto the ladder. Mitchell takes a Rock Bottom into the tacks and Abyss is put on the table. He has a chance to go for the belt but drops a frog splash through Abyss, then grabs the title.

Rating: B-. This was ok but it never hit the level that a lot of these matches hit. This felt like something you would see on a TV show, meaning that while it was good there was nothing above the usual level of violence or carnage. For a B level main event it was fine, but it’s absolutely nothing you’d ever want to see a second time unless you were completely obsessed with Christian or something.

Overall Rating: C-. This show was really nothing that great. If I was watching it live I likely would have said it wasn’t bad but I would have been a bit disappointed. By no means is it a bad show but there’s nothing on it worth going out of your way to see. This was before TNA really hit its stride so for the time, this was a pretty good show. It hasn’t really aged that well, but in just over six years it can only age so much anyway. Overall not bad, but it’s just ok at best.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

Final Resolution 2006
Date: January 15, 2006
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Attendance: 900
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Don West

This is another of those shows where not a ton happens but it’s supposed to be a big deal. Sting is back tonight and it’s in the form of a tag match. This didn’t work when Rock came back at Survivor Series and it’s not likely to work for me here. Other than that there isn’t much here because the main event guys are all in the main event. Let’s get to it.

The opening video is about how Sting is coming. Jarrett and Brown say it’s 2006 so it doesn’t mean as much as it used to. There had been signs that he was coming back and he finally did at the beginning of the year. The main event is Sting/Christian vs. Jarrett/Brown.

Alex Shelley/Austin Aries/Roderick Strong vs. Chris Sabin/Sonjay Dutt/Matt Bentley

Recipe for this match: take six fast paced guys and give them ten minutes to pop the crowd. Sabin and Shelley get things going. Chris is freshly blonde here and things speed up to start. Sabin takes him to the mat and hits a pair of kicks to the back. Dutt comes in and Sabin powerbombs him down onto Alex for two. Shelley bites Dutt’s thumb to escape and it’s off to Strong.

I’ve always been a fan of Strong but the more I see of him the less interesting he comes off as. That’s saying a lot as he never was anything of note in the first place, but there’s just NOTHING there. Dutt spins around a lot and it’s off to Bentley to work on the arm. Traci is looking very bouncy tonight which is never a bad thing. Aries comes in and gets suplexed right down for two.

Dutt tries his rope walk but Aries crotches him as the heels take over. The heels hit a sick triple team top rope double stomp (only Shelley stomped) on Dutt as Dave Hebner is here watching things. Aries comes in and hits a springboard knee to the back for two. Dutt is sent to the floor as Jerry Lynn is also here watching. He’s an agent at this point but he inspired a lot of these guys.

Shelley comes in and hooks a Rings of Saturn with a leg trap. That’s not normal human bending by Dutt. Back to Strong who slugs Dutt down but Sonjay hooks a tornado DDT for the tag to Sabin. A standing rana takes down the freshly tagged in Shelley. We go to the Tree of Woe and Sabin hits a pair of dropkicks. Sabin takes down all three guys at once but Shelley escapes Cradle Shock.

Bentley drops a top rope elbow on Alex as everything breaks down. Strong hits an Irish Curse on Bentley but Sonjay takes him down. Aries breaks up the Hindu Press but he goes to the floor where Sabin dives onto him. Strong breaks up Bentley’s superkick and Traci gets on the apron. Bentley superkicks Strong down but it allows Shelley to roll Matt up for the pin.

Rating: C. This wasn’t their best match but it was fine with the dives and such. There was nothing of note here though as we had seen most of this stuff before. All six guys were moving well out there and the dives were good, but the ending was pretty weak with no big move or spot for it. Still though, nothing wrong with this and it was fine for what they were going for.

We recap the split of 4 Live Kru and the fallout after that. Konnan is the one that went insane because of Kip James having to force his way in because Kip has nothing to do without BG James. It’s almost like he’s a guy that got over in a tag team but had no ability to get over on his own. Konnan beat up BG’s dad because he’s a bit nuts.

Diamonds in the Rough vs. James Gang

It’s Elix Skipper/David Young and this is the return match for the James Gang. BG and Skipper start things off. Skipper shoves him down and it’s a very slow start. Skipper suplexes BG over and works on the arm for a second. BG comes back with the dancing punches and shaking knee drop for two. David and Kip come in for a few collisions that go nowhere.

The Diamonds try some double teaming but get caught in a double Japanese armdrag by Kip. They get sent to the floor and the Gang beats on them on the floor. The fans chant for the Outlaws but BG walks into a spinebuster from Young for no cover. There’s a reason the guy lost like 86 matches in a row. Skipper pounds on BG for a bit before it’s back to Young who covers, only to have Kip distract the referee. David misses a moonsault and it’s hot tag to Kip. Skipper clotheslines him down and everything breaks down. Young breaks up the pumphandle slam but Kip hits the cobra clutch slam for the pin on Elix.

Rating: D. You know there’s a running theme with these New Age Outlaws matches: they’re not that good. These guys were never known for their in ring work and it’s pretty clear why. The matches just aren’t any good with the action being generic the whole way through. There was nothing to this and it was a horrible return for the James Gang or whatever they’re called this month.

Daniels says Joe hasn’t gotten to him yet and tonight it’s about what they both believe in. Joe believes no one in the X-Division can stand up to him. Daniels believes there’s a big difference between unbeatable and unbeaten.

AJ Styles vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi

This is a match for the sake of a match. Tanahashi is basically the superman of NJPW at the moment (2012) and he’s a rising star at this point (2006). AJ is Mr. TNA for 2005. Remember that as it’ll come into play later. Feeling out process to start as they head to the mat. That goes nowhere so the fans chant for both guys. AJ gets armdragged down as Tenay talks about the history of Japanese guys in America.

They trade armdrags and Tanahashi takes over with an armbar. AJ is like screw that and dropkicks him to the floor. He sets for a dive but Tanahashi moves. AJ catches himself on the apron and we stop for some staring. Back in and Styles drops a knee for two. Tanahashi hits a release German for the same. Off to an abdominal stretch so Tenay can list off Tanahashi’s wins so we can have a reason to think something of him.

Styles gets caught in a sleeper and then its dragon cousin. A dragon sleeper swing gets two. That looked awesome. A middle rope elbow misses and Styles hits an enziguri to put both guys down. Tanahashi escapes a brainbuster but for some reason he puts AJ on the apron. There’s the springboard forearm for two. Hiroshi gets a knee up in the corner and hits a full nelson slam for two.

AJ misses a spin kick and Tanahashi takes him down with an enziguri. Tanahashi tries a belly to back superplex but AJ counters into a crossbody while in mid-air. Shannon Moore runs in with AJ’s plaque but it hits Tanahashi by mistake. AJ Pele’s him down and hits the Styles Clash on Tanahashi for the pin.

Rating: B-. Good match here but the ending holds it down a lot. Moore was doing his punk thing at this point and they put him with Styles for a few weeks until everyone realized that no one cared about Shannon Moore. The match was going really well as Tanahashi really is good, but again there’s no story to the match so it’s hard to care about it at all.

Moore steals the plaque again.

We recap Raven vs. Larry Z which went on forever. Raven won the world title but then he got screwed out of the title at a house show in Canada. Larry refused to grant him a rematch so Larry kept trying to make Raven retire. Raven has a mystery opponent tonight.

Raven says that Larry is an idiot and says he wants the title back. Someone is getting hurt tonight and Larry better pray that it’s Raven.

Sean Waltman vs. Raven

This is Raven’s Rules and if Raven loses he’s fired, but if he wins he gets a title match. Raven shoves his shopping cart into Waltman’s ribs and chases after Larry. They head into the ring and Waltman gets in a kendo stick shot as Larry watches from the floor. They hit each other with trashcan parts at the same time to put both guys down. Raven is busted open but goes after Larry again. Larry’s security holds Bird Boy back so Waltman can dive on him to take over again.

Sean rams the cart into Raven a few times and they go up the ramp. Raven grabs a trashcan lid to blast Waltman in the head to take over. Waltman gets put in the shopping cart and shoved off the stage in a big crash. Back to ringside and Raven pulls out a table. There’s a ladder in there too but the referee goes down. Raven hits the DDT but there’s no referee to count the pin. Larry comes in for a very slow two.

Waltman gets a belt from somewhere and pops Raven with it to take over. Bronco Buster on the ladder misses and Raven gets two. Raven sets up the table and the ladder for a DDT off the ladder. Well at least that’s what he was planning but Larry grabs his foot. Pac hits an X-Factor off the ladder through the table for the pin. Raven had his foot on the rope but Larry counted anyway despite seeing it.

Rating: C. Nothing to see here but it had some fun brawling spots. The ending looked good and it got Raven off of TV, which I believe was due to a legit medical condition he had. The shopping cart stuff was good and Raven sold like a madman as usual, so I can’t complain much here. Just like the six man though, there’s nothing new here which is what holds it back.

Larry gloats post match. Raven leaves very sadly.

Ron Killings says he has two of the fastest wins ever over Bobby Roode and he’s going to do it again tonight. Konnan comes up and wants to know why Killings won’t call him back. Killings isn’t happy with him but Konnan says think about it.

Raven leaves the building and Larry gives him his bag. Jackie Gayda comes up and SWEET GOODNESS those things are huge. She implies Larry screwed her over too but won’t say over what.

Bobby Roode vs. Ron Killings

Killings beat Roode twice in about 40 seconds so Roode jumped him and won the third match. This is the fourth in the series. Truth grabs a very fast rollup for two which scares Roode to death. He tries it again and gets another two so Roode heads to the floor. Back in and Roode hooks a hammerlock which is quickly broken up. Roode bridges into a backslide for one followed by a pinfall reversal sequence which results in a standoff.

Roode goes to the floor again so Truth dives on him to speed things up a bit. Truth goes after D’Amore and gets rammed into the post for his troubles. Back into the ring and there’s an abdominal stretch by the Canadian. D’Amore does what any good manager would do and offers a hockey stick to help with the hold. The hold is broken so Killings grabs another rollup for two. Roode hits a running knee lift and then a reverse bearhug on the mat. Killings escapes and hits a top rope missile dropkick to put both guys down.

Truth comes back again with his dancing punches and a spinning forearm for two. The splits into the side kick gets another two. Roode breaks up a superplex and hits a top rope cross body for two. Killings may have a bad arm. Konnan comes out for no apparent reason and the distraction lets Roode hit the Northern Lariat for the pin.

Rating: D+. When your whole match is based around the idea that one of the guys might get a rollup for a pin and that’s the majority of his offense, you’re going to have to pull off something special to have a good match. This didn’t do that at all really and it felt like something that belonged on Impact. That was one of the major issues with TNA back in the day: they weren’t quite ready to have full three hour PPVs due to only having an hour a week of TV, so a lot of the matches on the PPVs didn’t have a ton of story to them, such as this one.

Konnan (in a Boston Bruins jersey for some reason) says to listen to him instead of the people. Cue BG James but Homicide runs in to help Konnan beat him down. Killings walks away. Kip comes out to clear the ring before he can do their hair.

Mitchell says Sting arriving means that the war begins tonight. Rhyno will be going into battle with Abyss but he’s too distracted to beat the monster. There was something going on with Rhyno’s daughter at this point but it isn’t really made clear here.

We recap Rhyno vs. Abyss. Basically Rhyno was feuding with Team Canada when D’Amore made a deal with Mitchell for Abyss’ protection. I’d assume it was in exchange for money but it was never specifically said.

Rhyno vs. Abyss

Rhyno goes right after him on the floor and the fight starts fast. They head inside, only for Abyss to get clotheslined back to the floor. Rhyno slingshots out onto Abyss but Abyss shrugs it off and pounds him down. Abyss hits him with a chair a few times and wedges the chair in the ropes back inside. To my great shock, Abyss doesn’t wind up going into it, thus violating a wrestling law. A quick neck crank gets Abyss nowhere but a big boot gets him two. So the big boot is better than a neck crank. Got it.

Back to the crank as the match slows WAY down. Rhyno fights out of it and hits a bad TKO to escape. A few chair shots to the head stagger Abyss and another one puts him down. Mitchell hooks the leg to avoid the Gore and Abyss clocks Rhyno with the chain for two. Black Hole Slam is countered into a spinebuster for two. Rhyno tries the Rhyno Driver (middle rope piledriver) but Mitchell interferes again. A chokeslam is broken up but the Black Hole Slam onto the chair gets the pin.

Rating: D+. Not much here as this felt like it was about five minutes instead of the nearly ten that it got. This wasn’t a No DQ match or anything like that, but for some reason the referee didn’t seem to mind. Rhyno had absolutely nothing to do after he got out of the title picture so let’s just let him do hardcore stuff I guess.

Shane talks about how the Dudleys went through the fires of various companies, in case you forgot they were there. Bubba lists off various teams that are great, all of whom have held the NWA tag titles I believe. D-Von says don’t screw with us.

We recap AMW vs. Team 3D. In short, the Dudleys have held all tag titles but the NWA versions, so they’re here to get them. AMW gave Team 3D a huge beatdown a few weeks ago so this is also about revenge.

Tag Titles: America’s Most Wanted vs. Team 3D

We get big match intros and we’re ready to go. D-Von and Storm get things going in what would be a very different match today. Storm takes him down to the mat with a headlock but gets hiptossed and dropkicked down. Harris jumps D-Von from behind and the champs take over. Scratch that as D-Von hits a double clothesline to take over again. Off to Ray as things speed up. One thing you can never say about Ray is that he’s dull. The guy knows how to keep people fired up.

Harris clotheslines Ray down for two and it’s a standoff. They go to the corner and Ray fires off his chops. The middle rope backsplash misses (duh) and it’s back to Storm. Ray is like screw that and cleans house before bringing D-Von back in. A spinebuster gets two on Storm, and What’s Up Cowboy? The Dudleys go for a table because disqualifications mean jack in this company, but AMW dropkicks it into their faces.

Harris takes D-Von down with some tape to the throat and it’s off to Storm for a chinlock. Back to Harris but he gets sent into the post shoulder first. Hot tag brings in Ray and house is cleaned. Side slam gets two on Harris and heel miscommunication lets Ray hit a DDT for two on Wildcat. Everything breaks down and AMW hits a modified Hart Attack for two o Ray. They loads up the Death Sentence but D-Von makes the save.

Ray returns the favor by breaking up a superplex and the Doomsday Device gets two as well. Harris makes the save and gets two on Ray off a big boot. Storm grabs a chair but accidentally clocks Harris into the reverse 3D for two. Bubba shoves Storm off the top through a table and a rollup gets a VERY close two on Harris. Gail hands (not slips, hands while in the ring) Harris powder but Ray knocks it into the referee’s eyes. 3D gets the pin and the titles, but remember that the referee is blind.

Rating: B. This was getting good at the end, but that powder looks like Instant Dusty to me. TNA did a good job at pushing its tag teams at this point and making them seem to be like something that actually mattered. This was a good example of that as the fans were wanting to see the title change here, and that’s what they got.

Oh of course it isn’t, as the Canadians come in, beat up the Dudleys and put Harris on top of Ray as the referee gets his vision back, calling the win for AMW. I’m sure ALL FOUR CANADIANS DESTROYING THE DUDLEYS didn’t shake the ring or anything at all either right? Dusty Finish as you likely saw coming.

Jarrett and Brown say that they’ll win tonight because Christian and Sting both think they’re going to be the savior of TNA. Brown says the time is up on Sting and he has to come to the Serengeti. Brown was way more engaging here.

We recap Daniels vs. Joe. Joe came in and took over the X-Division and destroyed Daniels, badly injuring him. Tonight Daniels wants respect, revenge and the title. See how easy it can be?

X-Division Title: Samoa Joe vs. Christopher Daniels

Joe is champion if that doesn’t come through some how. Daniels has to use speed here and Joe misses a charge. He flies around as fast as he can and takes Joe down with a pair of ranas. A dropkick misses though and Joe gets him in the corner. Daniels tries a side roll but Joe hooks a freaky Rings of Saturn kind of hold on Daniels. Christopher makes the rope but Joe walks out of the way of a Lionsault press. I’ve always loved when Joe did that.

Joe drops a knee for two which is a lot more when you’re his size. Daniels gets an elbow up in the corner but walks into a powerslam to put him right back down. A Codebreaker out of nowhere puts Joe down, followed by an STO and the slingshot moonsault for two. A Death Valley Driver (good one too) out of the corner gets two. Joe powerbombs him half to death for two, followed by a triangle choke into an STF.

Daniels escapes so Joe pounds him on the head in the corner. Daniels tries to powerbomb him out but Joe ranas him and kills Daniels with a clothesline for two. Joe is getting frustrated and charges into a release Rock Bottom and the BME for two. Joe goes to the floor and Daniels BLASTS him in the face with a kick. A slingshot elbow to the floor hits Joe but it hurts Daniels too. Daniels throws Joe back in but gets kicked right back out.

The champ sets up a chair on the floor and it’s the Ole Kick. Remember that Daniels had a bad concussion a few weeks before that. Daniels is busted open now and Joe stomps away at the bad head. Here’s AJ to play cheerleader but it just makes Joe hammer away even more in the corner. Daniels comes back with palm shots and forearms but Daniels can’t stay on his feet.

A running enziguri gives Joe control again and he follows it up with a Punk knee in the corner. There’s the MuscleBuster and the Clutch but Daniels gets his foot on the rope to stun Joe. Joe brings in the chair and hits another MuscleBuster on the chair. The fans want him to do it again, because they’re evil people. Joe hits two punt style kicks to the head and then drives in knees. AJ finally throws in a towel to end this.

Rating: B+. This was more about story than the match but the match itself was good too. There was a poster for Summerslam 1993 with a picture of Yokozuna and the tagline: “Somebody has to stop him.” That’s what TNA had here with Joe as no one could beat him and the question became who was going to finally be able to beat him. That wouldn’t be for nearly another year but dang it was awesome at the time. Good stuff here as I was getting into the beating at the end.

We recap the main event. The idea is that Jarrett is evil and Sting/Christian want to stop him. This would go on for like 10 months so tonight is the first step.

Christian says he’s someone you can trust and you can call his brother or Chris Jericho and ask them if you don’t believe him. “On second thought, that’s a bad idea.” He says he’ll win the world title soon, which is true.

Monty Brown/Jeff Jarrett vs. Sting/Christian Cage

Sting has different music here and it’s not working nearly as well. Brown and Christian start things out as the fans chant for….Christian instead of Sting. Ok then. A quick rollup gets two for the Canadian and it’s quickly off to Jarrett. Christian makes fun of the strut and Jarrett makes sure to block a tag. Christian gets one anyway and Jarrett stalls. They lock up and do some very basic stuff before Sting dropkicks him to the floor.

Back in and Sting blocks a ram into the buckle and bulldogs Jarrett down. Brown gets one of his own and Christian tags himself in. A Gail distraction lets Jarrett hit Christian low and toss him to the floor. Gail adds a rana on the floor so that Monty can drop Christian on the rail. Back in and Christian is in trouble as we get to the main part of the match. Jarrett and Brown take turns on him for a bit until Jarrett puts on a front facelock.

We get the classic “referee misses the tag” and it’s back to Brown for some two counts. Brown sends him to the apron but Christian bites his way out of a superplex. There’s the frog splash but Christian can’t cover immediately so it only gets two. Jarrett breaks up the tag and Sting has to chase him away. The heels bring in chairs but their Conchairto misses and Christian hits a double DDT to take them both down.

There’s the hot tag to Sting and he cleans house. Stinger Splash hits Jarrett but Brown takes out the referee with a missed clothesline. The Deathlock goes on Jarrett and he taps but there’s no referee. In a cool counter, Brown hits a fallaway slam on Christian into Sting to break it up.

Sting and Christian almost get in a fight due to the title belt but they make up in about 8 seconds and clean house. Team Canada runs in but Sting and Christian hit Death Drops to take them out. Christian jumps Brown as Jarrett hits a belt shot on Sting for two. Sting Hulks Up but both he and Christian miss Stinger Splashes. Sting crushes the guitar with the bat and the Death Drop pins Jarrett.

Rating: C+. Not bad here but the ending was a little more overdone than it needed to be. It did need to be overbooked but not that much I wouldn’t think. This would be the start of a VERY long story with Sting leaving immediately after this until he came back as Steve Borden for one night and then back as Sting on a full time basis. He would go after Jarrett and things would go from there until Angle arrived. This was fine for what it was though.

Christian leaves Sting alone in the ring with the bat so he can have the spotlight to end the show.

Overall Rating: C. This wasn’t one of their best shows ever. For some reason the main event and Sting returning was the #1 moment in TNA’s first ten years which is baffling. At the end of the day, it’s just nothing that great. I get that Sting coming back to wrestling is a big deal…..but he had been in TNA before. He had four matches in 2003, so this wasn’t all that big of a deal. As for the rest of the show, it’s just ok. It’s not bad, it’s not great, but it was ok so we’ll go with right in the middle.

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