Clash of the Champions #27
Date: June 23, 1994
Location: North Charleston Coliseum, North Charleston, South Carolina
Attendance: 6,700
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan

We finally wrap up this series here. This is the beginning of a new era in WCW as Hogan makes his major debut here tonight. The main event is the unification of the WCW world titles as Sting faces Flair. Other than that there isn’t much else here, but I thought ending with the main event that set up the first Clash was a good idea. Let’s get to it.

The announcers talk about the main event. Sherri is going to be in the corner of one of the two world champions but we’re not sure which.

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

There are two referees for this due to how insane they are. Cactus and Sullivan are champions. This is a Slamboree rematch. Sullivan’s brother Dave is here and has a Hulk Selur shirt on. His gimmick was that he was dyslexic you see. Sags vs. Cactus gets us going and Jerry beats him down. Cactus fights back and the crowd is WAY into this. Everything breaks down about 30 seconds in and the brawl is on. Knobbs gets beaten down and the champs clear the ring.

Knobbs and Sullivan brawl some more. I wouldn’t expect a lot of wrestling in this match whatsoever. It breaks down again and we hear about some kind of conspiracy so Heenan makes Watergate jokes. Sullivan fights them off and slams Cactus off the top into both Nasties. We hear that Hogan is on the way so Heenan goes off on him, saying he better go get Hogan’s bags and all that so Hogan doesn’t have to.

Cactus gets a boot up in the corner and a discus lariat for two. The Nasties double team and get their first advantage over Cactus. Quickly off to Kevin who cleans some house but Sags breaks up the cover. He sends Kevin to the floor and into the barricade and Tony calls Sullivan odd. Heenan: “ODD???” Back to Cactus and a Cactus Clothesline puts him and Knobs on the outside.

Jack gets up on the apron and tries a backwards jump from the bottom rope but the Nasties move and he just crashes. How that man is alive I’ll never know. Back inside there’s some double teaming but Knobs misses a splash and Cactus makes the tag. Brian goes after Dave but Sullivan makes the save. Knobs goes back in and walks into the Double Arm DDT to keep the titles on Sullivan/Jack.

Rating: C+. This wasn’t meant to be anything more than a brawl and that’s all it needed to be. The fans were into it and everything clicked. Then some idiot decided that Jack wasn’t a good choice to be in WCW and that it was Paul Orndorff and Paul Roma that should get two title reigns before the end of the year. And people wonder why they went out of business.

Sting, the WCW International Champion, says he’ll win tonight.

Here’s a video on Big Bossman, now known as the Guardian Angel because WWF didn’t like him being called The Boss. So instead he took the gimmick of a Guardian Angel, which is something like a citizen’s police force in real life New York.

Guardian Angel vs. Tex Slazenger

Tex is Phineas Godwinn. He hits the Angel three times and Bossman counts for the hog farmer’s benefit. That’s enough I guess so Angel hits his usual stuff and the Bossman Slam (called a spike piledriver by that lunkhead Schiavone) ends this in less than two minutes.

Hogan’s motorcade gets here. Heenan makes OJ Simpson jokes because that was the hottest story in the world at that point. It was only six days before this show so the jokes are relevant here. Heenan keeps ranting as only he can do about Hulk. Hogan gets out to a pretty mixed reaction.

TV Title: Steven Regal vs. Larry Zbyszko

Regal said he couldn’t be beaten and laughed at Larry a lot, Larry decked him and won the title on TV. Jesse is on commentary now. Regal comes out in stereotypical British clothes including the powdered wig. Regal pounds him down to start and Larry is in trouble very early. Apparently Sherri is going to pick someone tonight, just not necessarily one of the world champions. Yeah, sure.

Regal, ever the pompous jerk, slaps Larry as he lectures him. Larry, ever the scrapper, gets all fired up and pounds him down as well. They go to the ramp for a bit but back in Regal takes him down. Larry counters a butterfly suplex into a form of a suplex for two. A regular suplex gets two. Piledriver gets two as does a swinging neckbreaker. Regal wants to throw hands and Larry is like uh, cool.

Larry blindsides him and it’s more of a brawl now. Off to a Regal chinlock but Larry reverses into a body scissors. They’re adding in enough brawling and cheating to their mat work to keep things from getting boring. Larry grabs a bearhug of all things before going off to a Boston Crab. Regal’s butler or whatever he is shoves Larry forward and Regal rolls on top, grabs the rope and gets the pin for the title.

Rating: C+. Fun match here and like I said the main thing was that they kept it interesting with the brawling instead of just the mat wrestling, which can get boring after awhile. Good stuff here and it would be Larry’s goodbye match as he didn’t have another major one until Starrcade in 1997. He was 41 when he retired, making him one of the few to get out early and on his own terms, which is always cool.

Gene hypes Bash at the Beach.

After a break, Gene is with Dustin Rhodes who has Arn Anderson with him. Dustin has been having issues with Colonel Parker’s Stud Stable and needs a partner. He picked ARN ANDERSON of all people, and amazingly enough, Anderson would turn on him before their first major match ended. Anderson says he’ll do it but it’ll be the old Anderson. That would be the old Anderson that broke Dustin’s daddy’s leg, but why not trust him right?

US Title: Johnny B. Badd vs. Steve Austin

Austin is champion and has been since December. Badd starts off very fast and chops away in the corner. Off to the arm work by Badd and a dropkick puts Austin on the floor. A top rope clothesline gets two. Off to a front facelock and then the arm again. Austin taps but ECW wasn’t popular yet. He gets a boot up in the corner and takes over. The crowd HATES Austin.

Badd gets fired up and a rollup gets two. And scratch that as the champ takes over again. A running dropkick puts Austin down but Johnny can’t follow up. DDT gets no cover but a SICK sound. He takes too long going up though and Austin crotches him. Badd throws Austin off but misses the top rope sunset flip which gets two for Austin. Another charge, this one by the champ, misses and Badd gets two this time. Things are getting good here. Austin gets an object from somewhere, hits Badd in the ribs and small packages him for the pin. We’ll ignore Badd’s shoulder being up.

Rating: C+. This started badly but got a lot better later on. The first part didn’t work for the most part but after that once they got going with the counters and near falls it got a lot better. The ending didn’t really work but that would get changed post match anyway, not that it really mattered. Fun match though.

Another referee comes out and they find the object. Badd rolls Austin up for a fast three (very fast) from the other referee. We’re told that we’ll hear the decision post commercial but since it’s HOGAN TIME (and yes, Hogan is the bigger deal by far) we’re not told what happened. Badd officially won by DQ.

Hogan gets a decent pop (which would be more impressive if we hadn’t seen Capetta, the ring announcer, firing up the crowd). He IMMEDIATELY brings up bodyslamming Andre and the fans aren’t all that thrilled it wouldn’t seem. When asked about the unification match, he wants a shot at the winner.

Flair pops up on the screen (drawing a pop as strong as Hogan’s if not bigger) and says he’ll win. This would be the beginning of Looney Flair.

Shaq in Hogan gear and with Hogan says Hogan is awesome. Ok then.

WCW World Title/WCW International World Title: Ric Flair vs. Sting

Flair: bigger pop than Hogan. Sting: WAY bigger pop than Hogan. Ok quick history lesson on the title issue here: as you know the NWA World Title is the famous one. Well eventually WCW had it’s own title. The NWA was incapable of being told that no one cared about them anymore, so they insisted there were two titles. Then the whole Flair walks thing happened so there were two titles for awhile.

WCW realized what everyone knew for years, which is that they didn’t need the NWA, so they dropped out. Flair officially owned the belt though, so there were two belts. The International Committee was a parody of the NWA Board. This match is a unification match and the way to finally get rid of whatever is left of the NWA in WCW. The big gold belt is the International Title here and would be the official title. Sting holds that one right now.

Sherri comes out before the match starts. She has the same face paint on that Sting has. Flair charges at Sting but the power stops him every time. Sting keeps nipping up and Flair backs off. Sting poses and Flair runs to the ramp. Back in and Flair still can’t get anything going and we get a Flair Flop on the floor. He yells at the fans as Heenan is freaking out. They keep pushing that this is a unification, which it really isn’t. The belt had been unified for years earlier but, say it with me, THE NWA IS STUPID, so they made something out of nothing here.

Flair pokes him in the eyes but tries chopping because that always works on Sting, resulting in Flair taking a bunch of clotheslines. The chops still don’t work so Flair goes for the knee, only to get rolled up for two. Flair takes another walk and Heenan’s freaking is getting hilarious. The idea is Hogan is driving Flair crazy and he’s off his game tonight.

Sting finally misses a splash in the corner and Flair is able to take over. Flair takes it to the floor quickly due to his old standard of asking the referee about the time. Flair covers with his feet on the ropes because that’s what heels do. No seriously, heels are supposed to cheat. Why don’t they do that more often? Sleeper goes on and Sting is in trouble. Sting manages to ram him into the buckle and there’s the Flair Flop.

Sting busts out the Slingshot and we get a second Flair Flop. Oh wait third. I forgot the one on the floor. Sherri cheers Sting on and he gets a suplex for a delayed two. Flair does the Flip and run the apron into a clothesline deal in the corner. Top rope superplex for Sting and he pops up and heads to the top. The big splash misses though and both guys are in trouble.

Sting no sells a regular suplex and Flair panics. He sends Flair to the floor and sets for a dive but Flair pulls Sherri in front and Sting crushes her. Back in and Sting puts Flair down again, but as he goes to check on Sherri, Slick Ric rolls him up and grabs the tights (again, that’s what heels do) and unifies the titles.

Rating: B+. Again, Sting and Flair are one of those pairings that automatically start higher than most. These two are seemingly incapable of having a bad match and they had another great one here. And then that didn’t mean anything for Sting as he went from world champion one month to being Hogan’s lackey for the next year. Flair turned into a raving lunatic and was “retired” for about six months starting in October. But hey, we got that Brutus Beefcake main event push. Who would want to see the planned Steve Austin world title reign anyway right?

Sherri gets in the ring and hugs Flair, because it was a swerve. See, THIS IS HOW A SWERVE WORKS. Sherri sacrificed herself, but the distraction from that sacrifice let Flair win the title. THAT IS HOW YOU DO A SWERVE!!! She and Flair beat down Sting post match until Hogan comes in for the save.

Hogan basically says he’s getting a title shot to close the show.

Overall Rating: B-. And with that, it ends. Not just the Clashes, but WCW’s chance to beat the WWF on their own. I’d have loved to see what they could have done without Hogan coming in. They had Austin ready to go as the top heel in the company, they had Foley mastering what would become the Attitude Era main event style, they had Steamboat around still, they had Sting to be the top face, they had an incredibly popular Flair (turned heel to avoid outpopping Hogan), they had guys like Regal, Badd and Pillman who could do whatever…and then Hogan came in.

He cleaned out the young talent or stuck them in endless midcard feuds, he ran Austin off, he made Foley into nothing (so Foley wisely bailed) and the whole place fell apart over the course of 1995 as it was ALL about Hogan. Savage came in at Starrcade 94 and was Hogan’s lackey. Nothing meant anything other than Hogan and had it not been for the Outsiders, I’m very curious as to where it would have gone. Anyway, good show and i’ve have loved to see where they could have taken things.

Remember to like me on Facebook at:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/kbwrestlingreviewscom/117930294974885?sk=wall

Clash of the Champions #26
Date: January 27, 1994
Location: Riverside Centroplex, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Attendance: 3,200
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan

This is the first show after Starrcade where Flair as a face won the world title. Tonight the main event is Vader/Rude vs. Flair/Sting in an elimination match, which should be pretty good at least. Other than that this looks like a pretty lackluster show. This was a pretty decent time in WCW’s history though but things would really start to click in about a month. Then Hogan would kill it so there we go. Let’s get to it.

Standard intro video which is decent enough for what it’s supposed to do.

Gene opens us up just in front of the entrance and gets an announcement in his earpiece. He can’t believe what’s going on. It’s bad news. It’s a nightmare. It’s BOBBY HEENAN! The fans are more or less shocked but break into a WEASEL chant. This was a pretty big move actually so it’s hard to complain. He left WWF because Vince doesn’t offer medical insurance, while Turner did. Heenan had a bad neck and left so he could get it fixed.

Pretty Wonderful vs. 2 Cold Scorpio/Marcus Bagwell

This is back when Scorpio was still awesome. Pretty Wonderful is Paul Orndorff and Paul Roma. This is a #1 contenders match. The Pauls have a masked manager called the Assassin, who later owned Deep South Wrestling and whose son is one Nick Patrick. Brain: I know who the Assassin is. Would you like to know? Tony: Of course. Brain: It’s the guy in the mask! I love Bobby Heenan. I truly do.

It’s nice to see Brain just jump in here and not be confused or anything. I guess he’s only on drink #1. Hot Shot by Roma to take down Bagwell. Interestingly enough Heenan is looking at what’s going on in the ring rather than on his monitor. I don’t remember any other announcers ever doing that. I still can’t get over Orndorff having a job in 1994. He would have kept one even longer had it not been for a neck injury.

I also don’t get how Roma stayed around as long as he did. What were they thinking when they made this guy a Horseman? We get a new commissioner tonight, and I’m pretty sure I remember who that is. Orndorff jumps into Scorpio’s boot and it lets Bagwell get the hot tag and clean house. After Scorpio goes to the floor we get a weird ending: Orndorff puts up his boot for Bagwell’s head to be rammed into. Bagwell blocks and in goes Roma’s head, for the pin. Yeah that’s how they won the match. Weird.

Rating: C-. Total run of the mill tag match here but it wasn’t awful. This could have been on any show other than a PPV and at least it had something of importance on it. The ending sucked which hurts it, but the other 12 minutes or so were fine. This was acceptable, which is a good term for it I guess.

Ah ok a replay shows that it was Orndorff’s knee and he had slipped something into it. That helps a lot.

Ron Simmons vs. Ice Train

Student vs. teacher here with no entrances for either guy as the bell is ringing when we come back from a break. Simmons is a heel here…I think. Yeah he is. Ice Train is a rather large man but he had little talent. Naturally I was always a fan of his. Train keeps using a 3 point stance before all of his moves. He hits the buckle, Simmons rolls him up with the trunks being held and it’s over.

Rating: N/A. Was there a point to this that I just completely missed? Simmons would be gone soon.

You can talk LIVE to Bobby Heenan after the show. Pay no attention to the *all programming is pre-recorded thing at the bottom of the screen.

Here are Steve Austin and Robert Parker. Austin is in a cowboy hat and suit jacket, much like JBL. He’s US Champion and managing Parker in his match with Flying Brian later. Austin does a funny Southern accent with a cigar in his mouth. Parker talks about a dog or something like that.

There’s a new commissioner, and it’s Nick Bockwinkle. You know, because SO many people know who that is right? Almost no reaction either, as he was from the AWA in the north so he’s perfect to introduce in Louisiana. This was just dumb, so of course they kept him on for almost two years until he legitimately forgot the name of the PPV he was on and they fired him because of it. And that’s it for this segment.

TV Title: Steven Regal vs. Dustin Rhodes

William Regal vs. Goldust for you young kids out there. Also, GORDON SOLIE is replacing Tony on commentary here. To anyone that has been a fan for a long time, you just smiled more than likely. Solie is clearly past his prime here as he makes some noticeable mistakes but hearing him get fired up is still great with that voice that sounds like an old aunt but he’s into things ever time, making him great for nostalgia if nothing else.

Basic feeling out process here to start as Solie talks about the body parts, including an argument with Heenan about how many vertebrae there are in the arm. Dustin works the arm and Regal does some solid selling. Keep in mind that this is Regal before he went insane on drugs and alcohol and doesn’t have a big gut and could MOVE. To prove my point, Regal nips up to get out of a wristlock. See what I mean?

Dustin does some nice stuff to outsmart Regal as this is a very technical/mat based match so far. Solie talks about the time issue which is definitely hinting at the ending already. I still can’t get over that it’s Bill Dundee as Regal’s manager. Regal gets a cobra clutch which gets him nowhere. This is a very basic match but that doesn’t mean it’s good or bad. Solie says the eternally stupid line of “they’re all the same size on the canvas.” No, not quite. Dustin is still taller than Regal, no matter what position he is.

We hit five minutes left and Regal continues to dominate. Make that four minutes. Nothing at all is happening here as we have nothing but Regal putting holds on Dustin. Dustin finally does something and it’s still not that good. Down to three minutes now as Regal stalls. Dustin of course keeps going after him while he’s on the floor, wasting like 40 seconds in the process.

Sunset flip by the British dude doesn’t work and here comes Dustin. Lariat takes him down with two minutes left. One minute left and Regal is on the floor again. Yep they’re doing that ending. Rhodes goes for the Bulldog and it gets one as the time runs out, mercifully ending this.

Rating: D. There’s a reason we don’t see more wrestling like this: IT’S BORING. That’s what this boils down to: this was boring. There was nothing at all going on here as it was mainly them just laying on the mat for about 10 minutes, Regal hiding for three and a half minutes, and maybe 90 seconds of actual wrestling. What’s the point in watching this if that’s all we’re going to get? Bad match and just boring.

Aaron Neville, some singer that no one cares about so naturally he got a bunch of singing gigs with the company. Yep, this was pointless.

Ad for Superbrawl, which for some reason was never released on VHS. I’ve never gotten that.

Maxx Payne/Cactus Jack vs. Nasty Boys

Missy Hyatt is managing the Nasty Boys, and you can make your own jokes about her knobs and how they sag. Cactus was getting more and more popular around this time, so of course he was cut as fast as possible. And there are no Cactus and Payne. They come through the crowd after a break and it’s on. It’s weird hearing Solie do commentary on a match with these guys in it.

Total brawl of course to start us off. Cactus elbow crushes Sags on the floor. We get to the point where we finally have a traditional tag match which surprises me. Sags hits a top rope cross body but Payne rolls through for two. Knobbs allegedly was a wrestling champion in the army and Payne was an amateur champion. Sure why not? NICE Double Arm DDT to Knobbs for two. Stupidly enough like a second later they just have Payne drop an elbow on Knobbs and Jack gets the pin.

Rating: D. Given who was in there, this was the best they were going to do, period. Jack was getting better every day out there but the other three have never really gotten anywhere else. This wasn’t much at all, as the matches they would have would get better when they were wild brawls. Those were rather good, unlike this.

We recap Pillman vs. Parker, which more or less is Pillman and Austin got split up (they committed the crime of being popular and talented) and Austin went with Parker while Brian went face. This somehow got a massive chicken suit involved.

Brian Pillman vs. Robert Parker

The loser has to wear a chicken suit….this weekend. Yeah for no apparent reason the chicken suit thing isn’t for about 3 days. Brian throws out KFC on his way to the ring. Parker is in regular tights which is rather disturbing. Pillman goes after Austin on the floor and gets caught because of it.

Parker runs, Pillman hits him. Repeat that about 5 times until the Boss (Big Boss Man) stops Parker from running again. And let’s repeat that just to make sure it was emphasized enough I suppose. Austin runs in and beats up Pillman as anything resembling a wrestling match is purely coincidental. More interference gets two for Parker until Boss runs off Austin, causing a rollup to beat Parker.

Rating: C-. It was entertaining, but this was just too much repetition. They kept doing the same thing over and over again which didn’t help things very much. We don’t need to see the same stuff that often to make it work, which is something that they just couldn’t get here for some reason. Entertaining though.

Ric Flair/Sting vs. Vader/Rick Rude

Sting and Rude are feuding over the International Title (WAY too long of a story to get into, but in short they had the physical NWA Title belt but weren’t part of the NWA, so they made this instead) and Flair vs. Vader is for the world title. It’s weird hearing Bobby cheer against Flair. This is under elimination rules for no adequately explained reason.

Bockwinkle is on commentary here just to continue the lack of getting it that WCW had with their authority figures until Bischoff arrived. Sting and Rude start us off and we get a feeling out process. Bobby: “We’ve got four world champions in this match and another on commentary that I managed. What do you do Tony?” Tony: “I play video games.” Total WTF moment there. Can you imagine him playing Madden or something?

Vader comes in and just annihilates Sting. Vader gets a sunset flip OFF THE MIDDLE ROPE. That was perfect looking too, which is just freaking scary. I know he’s good but at times he’s almost terrifying with what he could pull off. The mask comes off and suddenly I can see the 4 inches of his face that we’re covered. I never got the point of that mask but whatever.

Flair comes in and just beats the crap out of Vader, putting him down. Even Sting couldn’t do that earlier. If anything happens during the break we’ll show you. Since nothing is shown from the break, I would assume they stood around while performing life-affirming skits involving saying no to drugs or perhaps a song and dance routine from South Pacific. Rude is beating up Sting when we come back.

Flair comes in for the save and we get to see Rude sell an atomic drop which is worth the price of admission (this was on free TV so that’s a pointless statement) alone. Vader Bomb hits before it was called that but Race says go up again. Middle rope suplex gets almost no reaction which is odd. Top rope version gets about the same. Hey, did you know Flair was in a plane crash? Didn’t think telling us that in EVERY FLAIR MATCH EVER was enough clarification.

Vader goes after Bockwinkle, probably because he had to watch one of his matches back in the day, and I guess Flair and Vader got counted out. Flair had to be helped out. That leaves Sting vs. Rude which is almost always fun. This is just a standard 8 minute match between these two. It’s good but at the end of the day, so what? Sting gets a Rude Awakening on Rude but gets two because it’s just a neckbreaker. BIG splash from the top by Sting gets the pin. RVD has nothing on Sting from the early 90s when it came to jumping.

Rating: C+. It’s ok but this got over 20 minutes worth of time and all it really boils down to is a double countout and a clean pin for Sting. It’s not bad or anything, but the lack of meaning or drama hurt it a lot. Sting was better than Rude and he beat him clean. What’s the point in watching that? The pairing was big though and it fit for a show of this magnitude so I can give it points for that. This was fine for what it was, but it’s not particularly good.

Overall Rating: D. This just didn’t do it for me at all. This was a BAD period for WCW but things would pick up soon after this. For one thing, Dusty Rhodes got fired as booker and one Ric Flair took over. His first act: rehire Ricky Steamboat and have him just own everyone, setting up a clash between them that was rather good. And then Hogan showed up and got rid of all that so guys like Orndorff and Duggan could get pushed over Austin and Steamboat. Sure why not. This wasn’t much of a show and it just shows how bad the time period was for them. Not worth seeing at all really.

Remember to like me on Facebook at:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/kbwrestlingreviewscom/117930294974885?sk=wall

Impact Wrestling
Date: February 23, 2012
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Tazz

The interesting part of this show is that during the week since the last Impact, Sting sent out a tweet that read “I’m Done.” Now while it’s likely that this is just a storyline element for his presumed match with Roode at the PPV, it should be interesting to see where this goes. Let’s get to it.

We open with a recap of how Roode has cheated to keep the title every time.

Here’s Roode to open the show in an awesome looking suit. Roode talks about the tweet from Sting that says he’s done. Sting will be here tonight though to tell the world that he’s done. He talks about how Sting has been to war with guys like Luger, Flair, Vader and Hogan, but it was Roode that made Sting give up. The only thing he has to say to Sting is don’t let the door hit you on the way out. I liked this promo a lot.

Morgan yells at Crimson about spearing him to lose the titles. Crimson says it’ll be cool tonight.

Tag Titles: Crimson/Matt Morgan vs. Samoa Joe/Magnus

No break before the match which is a plus. The challengers jump the champs before the match and it’s Joe vs. Morgan to start. Off to Crimson vs. Magnus as Tenay plugs the MMA show that debuts after this. A running knee to the chest puts Magnus down and the overly complicated former finisher that he called the Red Alert gets two. Joe pulls Magnus out of the way so that Crimson hits the post as we take a break.

Back with Crimson’s comeback attempt being stopped by a rake to the eyes. A spinebuster puts Joe down though and is enough to bring in Magnus. Discus clothesline puts Joe down and it’s an old school double noggin knocker. Magnus gets a boot up in the corner but jumps into a spinning Rock Bottom for two. The challengers take over but again Crimson accidentally hits Morgan, this time with a clothesline. The champs hit their finishing combo for the pin at 9:00.

Rating: C. Hopefully this ends this feud and we can start up Morgan vs. Crimson so we can get Crimson on to something else. He’s been stuck with Morgan for months now and it’s not doing either of them any favors. It’s good that the tag champs keep the belts here too so they can go on and do something else. Decent match too so I can’t complain much here at all.

Here’s Brandon Jacobs, the running back from the Giants. He talks about being a Super Bowl Champion and being here with his friend James Storm last week. Then Bully Ray jumped him during the celebration. Well tonight he’s back and he wants another shot at Bully. His talking really isn’t that bad. He clearly isn’t used to talking but he gets the point across and doesn’t sound like he’s miserable being here.

Cue Ray who brags about being a 23 time champion as opposed to Jacobs’ one. Jacobs isn’t saying anything but the fans cheer his name. He invites Ray in so Ray yells at the fans some more. Ray teases coming down but stops to make fun of Jacobs’ yards in the Super Bowl. Jacobs says he’ll come get Ray. He gets out of the ring and Ray runs as we go to a break.

Back and Jacobs is still looking for Ray. He runs into Storm and Hardy. Storm whispers something to him and that’s that.

Zema Ion vs. Alex Shelley

Ion jumps Alex to start and sprays hairspray. Aries comes out with popcorn and wine to watch the show. Alex hits a sweet slingshot splash for two. Ion vs. Aries at Victory Road. Missile dropkick knocks Ion to the floor but he rams Shelley’s head into the apron to take over. Back in Alex hits a dragon screw leg whip and then he chops away. A clothesline puts Ion on the floor and Shelley hits a suicide dive. Ion puts the hairspray can into his tights and shoves Shelley almost into the ref. He sprays Alex in the eyes and a double knee Shining Wizard ends this at 3:56.

Rating: C. Not bad here but they’ve got an issue with the heel vs. heel title match that they’re going to have to do. That being said, it could actually work with Ion as he’s not really friends with Aries so it works out pretty well. It’s not going to be a classic or anything but it should be ok.

We recap Garrett/Hogan vs. Eric/Gunner from the PPV.

Garrett says he isn’t discouraged by what his dad said last week. Hogan questions if Garrett should keep going because Garrett has nothing to prove. It basically turns into Hogan saying your life will suck and Garrett saying he’ll keep going for a few minutes.

Madison says Sting hasn’t been fair to him so she hopes he’s gone. As for Gail, Madison being the #1 contender means nothing for their friendship.

Gail Kim vs. ODB

Eric is here with ODB. Gail implies she’s better looking than ODB and I can’t say I disagree. Eric gets up on the apron for a tag. ODB takes her down with a chest bump and Tenay talks about Chris Brown for some reason. There’s a bronco buster to Gail and a fall away slam. Gail tries to hold onto the ropes for mercy and manages to kick ODB in the head. Eric keeps trying to get in the ring because he’s crazy you see.

Now he’s on the apron and Gail hits kind of a running shoulder to the ribs in the corner for two. Gail hooks the Octopus Hold but ODB counters with a side slam. Madison comes out for no apparent reason as ODB takes a shot from the flask. A corner Thesz Press gets two but the Bam (TKO) is countered into Eat Defeat for the pin at 5:58.

Rating: D+. Not a bad match here but the story of “I love you even though I keep screwing things up” is getting a little boring. Then again they’re still miles ahead of the Divas so I can’t complain. Not to mention ODB didn’t help anything as she and Eric don’t amuse me at all. Hey they’re wacky and different. We get it already and we got it months ago.

AJ wants the world title.

Video on Jesse Sorensen who talks about what it was like when he couldn’t get up. His mom talks about how scared she was.

TV Title: AJ Styles vs. Robbie E

AJ is all serious again. He rams Robbie into the corners and hits a backbreaker to control early. He hooks the bridging Indian Deathlock with the chinlock but lets it go. Robbie crawls to the floor and hides behind Big Rob. Back in Robbie takes over and hits a Russian legsweep for two. Robbie beats on him a little more until AJ makes his comeback. There’s the dropkick and AJ hits the corner clothesline to set up a pumphandle backbreaker for two. Big Rob comes in to break up the Clash but doesn’t touch AJ so we keep going. Pele hits and here are Daniels and Kaz with Kaz interfering for the DQ at 4:52.

Rating: C-. Not bad here but FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS GOOD AND HOLY GET AJ AWAY FROM THESE TWO ALREADY!!! We get it: Daniels hates AJ and always will. I’m even ok with it being AJ vs. Kaz but drop the Daniels aspect. They’ve done that feud so many times and I just do not care anymore.

Daniels looks shocked at what Kaz just did.

Jeff Hardy/James Storm vs. Bully Ray/Kurt Angle

Ray cuts off his big match intro and does it himself. Storm gets the crowd fired up pre match and brings out Jacobs to be in their corner. Storm and Angle start us off and James controls. Ray distracts him though and Angle gets in a shot to take over. Hardy comes in and Angle runs. Back from a break with Hardy gets two on Ray from the Whisper in the Wind. Hardy gets beaten down for awhile and we hear that AJ has demanded a gauntlet match with Kaz and Daniels.

Angle comes in and suplexes Hardy before he can get out. Back to Ray who gets caught by the mule kick and it’s off to Storm. He cleans house for a bit but Ray takes him down. They get a table but it gets kicked into their faces. The good guys try to set up a table but Ray and Angle make the save. Last Call out of nowhere takes Angle down and Jacobs gets in. They get in a three point stance and Storm hits Ray in the face. Jacobs chokeslams him through the table (good one too) and Storm gets the pin at 13:23. The referee is totally cool with this apparently.

Rating: C. I wasn’t wild on this one. I’m not wild on most main event tags though because they don’t really mean anything. Jacobs’ thing is hopefully over now but at least he came off pretty well here. I’m assuming it’ll be Hardy vs. Angle at Victory Road but it hasn’t been announced yet I don’t think.

Jacobs says Storm’s catchphrase to Ray and drinks some beer.

Here’s Sting for the announcement about him being done. He talks about how Roode has pushed him over the edge. Here’s Roode who says that Sting needs to admit to everyone that it was Roode that won the war. Sting says Roode didn’t win any war and there go the glasses. Sting says Roode helped him out and woke him up. He smears some black paint on his face and says that there’s no more half doing it and no more Mr. nice guy. He makes Sting vs. Roode at Victory Road and Roode is panicked. Roode goes to kick him low but Sting catches it and kicks Roode low instead.

Overall Rating: B. I have very few complaints about this show. They set up Sting vs. Roode at Victory Road among a few other matches on that show. Also the Jacobs thing was fine and there wasn’t a bad match on the whole show. This worked pretty well and was one of the better Impacts I can remember in awhile. Gee they got rid of Russo and things got better. Who would have guessed that?

Results
Magnus/Samoa Joe b. Crimson/Matt Morgan – Middle Rope Elbow To Morgan
Zima Ion b. Alex Shelley – Double Knee Shining Wizard
Gail Kim b. ODB – Eat Defeat
AJ Styles b. Robbie E via DQ when Kazarian interfered
James Storm/Jeff Hardy b. Bully Ray/Kurt Angle – Storm pinned Ray after a chokeslam from Brandon Jacobs

Remember to like me on Facebook at:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/kbwrestlingreviewscom/117930294974885?sk=wall

Clash of the Champions 25
Date: November 10, 1993
Location: Bayfront Arena, St. Petersburg, Florida
Attendance: 6,000
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Jesse Ventura

We’re still in 1993 here which means things are pretty bad. The main event is Flair vs. Vader for the world title. We also get a second world title match with Rick Rude vs. Hawk for the WCW International Title which is something I’m not explaining in depth again. As you know, WCW in 1993 sucked so it’s probably going to do it again. There are five title matches out of seven total matches tonight. Let’s get to it.

Gene opens us up and tells us to call the Hotline to vote for Manager of the Year.

WCW International Title: Hawk vs. Rick Rude

Well at least it can’t get much worse after this one. It’s a power match to start and neither guy can get an advantage so far. Jesse brags about being on Rude’s tights as Rude is sent flying into the corner. Hawk wants a test of strength and Rude does what every heel does in this situation. He hammers on Hawk and that doesn’t do much.

Hawk doesn’t feel like selling tonight so he hits a suplex for two. They haven’t used anything that wasn’t taught on Tough Enough yet. Rude jumps into a boot in one of the most telegraphed shots I’ve ever seen. Out on the floor now and they brawl to the ultra lame double count out.

Rating: F. The match was boring, they had one move that wasn’t a shove, punch or kick and the ending was lame. What are you expecting out of this? Just not an interesting match and I have no idea why they kept giving Hawk these singles pushes as he never seemed like someone that was any good without Animal.

The Equalizer vs. The Shockmaster

Equalizer is more famous as Dave Sullivan in 1995. In short he makes David Otunga look like Kurt Angle. If there is anything good and holy in this world, this will be short. Equalizer jumps him to start and pounds away. A belly to back suplex gets two. Rude and British Bulldog might be fighting in the back. Can we go see that instead? Shocky starts no selling stuff and gets the bearhug which he drops down with for a quick pin. Thank goodness. This was nothing but it was a short nothing so it wasn’t as bad as the opener.

Colonel Parker isn’t nominated for Manager of the Year and he doesn’t care. He’s dropped Sid and picked up Steve Austin. I’d think that was an upgrade for Parker. He swears he has a restraining order against Sid and that Sid is nowhere near but Gene says he say him earlier today. Parker bails.

TV Title: Johnny B. Badd vs. Steven Regal

Johnny is mostly a face and is gay here. He’s also not that good yet and is challenging tonight. Badd gets the crowd going so yeah he’s full on face now. Regal isn’t sure what to do with him. Jesse thinks Regal would never cheat because he’s English. Badd speeds things way up quickly and gets a bunch of two counts to frustrate Regal. Jesse and Tony debate British royalty. You can never accuse Jesse of keeping things boring.

They speed things up again as Jesse implies Badd cross dresses. Badd really likes that headlock as he’s on his third one of the match. Regal takes him down with technical stuff but Badd speeds things up again to frustrate Regal. Regal can’t get anything going at all so far. He finally gets some European uppercuts to put Badd down for two. Butterfly suplex gets two. The thing earlier with Rude vs. Bulldog was Bulldog challenging for the title which hasn’t been accepted yet.

Regal gets caught by a big right hand and Sir William is mad. Steven is out cold but Sir William puts the foot on the rope. Badd yells about it but gets rolled up with a handful of tights (despite there no being many tights there to pull in the first place) for the pin to retain. He held that title seemingly all the time around this era so that’s no surprise at all for the most part.

Rating: B-. Fun match as Badd was moving out there and Regal was all befuddled over it. Once Badd got serious around a year from now he got totally awesome and had some great matches with guys like Brian Pillman. You could see flashes of brilliance in him at times and this was rapidly approaching it. Pretty fun match.

Steve Austin vs. Brian Pilllman

For some reason the Hollywood Blondes, an awesome tag team, were split up and this is the grudge match. Colonel Parker was responsible for it by getting in Austin’s ear and is with Austin here. Austin jumps Pillman who doesn’t get an entrance. It’s a brawl on the floor to start with Austin losing control quickly. A headscissors in the ring puts Austin down and he begs off.

We go out to the floor again and Austin pounds him down. It’s so weird to see him this young and fired up. They go out to the ramp and Pillman tries a top rope splash but goes into a boot. They brawl into the ring and Austin gets something like a Stun Gun for two. Parker is worried about Sid so he keeps looking around. Austin throws on a half crab and uses the ropes. Wouldn’t that take pressure off the hold and therefore off the knee? I’ve never gotten that.

Pillman gets an elbow to the jaw to put both guys down for a bit. Steve goes up but gets crotched. Pillman tries a superplex but counters, sending Pillman appropriately flying to the mat. He manages to catch Steve coming off with a dropkick and gets a victory roll for two. A DDT gets the same as this is getting good. That means it’s probably about over too. The crucifix, a signature move of Pillman, gets countered by something like a Samoan Drop by the non-Samoan Austin.

Brian gets a cradle for a VERY close two. The fans are a bit quiet but screw them. Pillman avoids the Stun Gun but Parker pulls his feet down as he goes for something, allowing Austin to get the easy pin which might have included a handful of tights because that’s what old school heels like Austin use.

Rating: B-. Another fun match but these two needed more than ten minutes on a Clash. This could have been a huge feud over like the US Title or something but Dustin Rhodes wasn’t about to let go of that thing at this point. Austin would get it at Starrcade but this feud was long over by then. I never quite got white but I’ll chalk it up to WCW was stupid.

We go to the Battlebowl Control Center which is just a place to talk about the match and the buildup to it. Go check out my review of it if you really want to but it sucked so there isn’t much reason to do so. Orndorff says he’ll win it. Sting says he’ll win again.

US Title: Dustin Rhodes vs. Paul Orndorff

For the life of me I don’t get Orndorff’s constant pushes. He’s challenging here and has The Assassin (masked guy, started Deep South Wrestling and is Nick Patrick’s dad) with him. Dustin has his fat papa with him. The old guys (and the Assassin might be fatter) get into it pre match. The commentary is all about the old guys because the wrestlers in the ring having the match mean nothing.

Orndorff tries to cheat to start but that doesn’t go all too well. Dustin puts on a headlock on the mat while the old guys play keepaway on the floor. Jesse makes fat jokes. Orndorff grabs a hammerlock and Assassin yells encouragement. Something tells me this is going to be a very uninteresting match. Dustin counters into a top wristlock and down goes Paul. They go to the mat again and now Dustin is working on the leg.

Now it’s off to a chinlock in case those leg locks were too exciting for some viewers. Back to the armbar by Paul as Dusty is coaching. Orndorff hits a suplex and drops an elbow and BACK TO THE CHINLOCK. My goodness are they as bored as I am here? Backslide gets two for Dustin as does a lariat. Orndorff takes over again and mixes things up by putting a knee in the back on his chinlock. Dustin gets a clothesline for two. There’s nothing going on between these moves. Bulldog is blocked and Paul tries his piledriver. After a bit of boring stuff, Dustin small packages him for the pin.

Rating: F. I’m sorry but what was the point of this? It was about 11 minutes of nothing but chinlocks and rest holds. None of the arm or leg work ever went anywhere and the whole match was incredibly boring. No one was interested in the match either, which is true for the majority of Dustin’s run in WCW. Goldust was the best thing that ever happened to him.

Dusty and Assassin get into it post match and Orndorff can’t pick Dusty up for the piledriver. Dustin makes the save and somehow Dusty has the US Title at the end of it.

Keep voting for Manager of the Year.

Tag Titles: Sting/British Bulldog vs. Nasty Boys

The heels have Missy Hyatt and the belts here. Sting vs. Knobbs starts us off in a big brawl. Smith and Sags are on the ramp and Rude sneaks down to give Smith the Rude Awakening. Hawk comes out to chase Rude off and it’s more or less a handicap match now. All of that was pre-match. Oh great. Smith is more or less out so Sting officially starts with Knobbs.

Sting beats them both up and is in there with Sags now. He can’t keep the advantage though because he keeps going over to check on Smith who is still down. Sting gets a cover but the referee is with Missy, as so many others probably have been. The Nasties start double teaming and Sags throws him over the top which isn’t a DQ because the referee is still with Missy.

Knobbs suplexes him back in for two. It’s bearhug time as Smith is actually on his feet now. It only took him five minutes off one neckbreaker. Now THAT is some selling. Sting gets out with a belly to belly but Sags breaks up the tag again. Back to the chinlock by Knobbs as this is needing to end. Sting breaks it up and there’s a double tag to Sags vs. Smith. Smith cleans house and seems to be perfectly fine. He hits a bunch of double team moves including a double DDT. Smith throws Sting onto both of them and hits a falling slam (not a powerslam) to Knobbs but Sags drops a top rope elbow on him for the surprise pin.

Rating: D+. Not much here and the kind of clean pin was a good thing for the champions to get here in a match they probably should have lost on paper. The match was boring though as Sting dominated the whole time and then got caught in chinlocks galore. It wasn’t a good match or anything so the whole thing was pretty dull overall. Sting is always worth seeing though, especially for his big fans like myself.

Colonel Parker is talking to Flair and says Austin wants to face the winner of the main event for the world title.

WCW World Title: Ric Flair vs. Vader

Flair is challenging. Remember that this is the WORLD Title rather than the International Title. By the way as I’m sure you realize, this is the Starrcade main event a month before Starrcade. Buffer gives us some big match intros. We come back from a break and see Flair putting Race in the Figure Four but leaves himself wide open to a splash, giving Vader an early advantage.

It’s all Vader to start and he hits the Vader Bomb about a minute in. Flair isn’t in purple tonight so he’s not quite his best. He shrugs off some punches and chops away and stomps Vader down in the corner. And never mind as Vader does that standing avalanche thing and the pain continues. We go outside where Race gets some payback for earlier. Vader misses a splash against the railing and Sting is smiling somewhere.

Flair goes up AND HITS THE SHOT ON VADER!!! Maybe it’s something about jumping to the floor. Flair is all fired up inside now and chops Vader down which is something that you didn’t see ever. On the other hand you often see Vader kicking people in the face which is what he does here. A middle rope elbow misses and Flair gets a sloppy Figure Four. Race however reaches in to rake the eyes and break up the hold.

Jesse thinks it’s insightful that Race is a better second on the floor than Fifi. Vader suplexes him and gets a splash for two. He’s getting mad and even cusses a bit which is a bit more extreme in 93. We get our second Flair Flip of the match and our second Flair shot off the top of the same match. Vader clocks the referee by mistake and Flair goes up again. This time he jumps into Vader and is put up top again.

A superplex off the top hits but both guys are down. Vader is up but won’t cover. Instead he sets for the moonsault but Flair moves, even though Vader would have missed by a foot or so. Flair covers for the pin and the title??? And it’s a Dusty Finish because of the clothesline that took the referee out.

Rating: B. These two know how to make something epic and they did it here with limited time. They would have a better match at Starrcade but they had almost twenty extra minutes so that helps a lot. Not a classic like the rematch but this set up the Saturday Night match which was supposed to set up Sid vs. Vader but that fell through so there you are.

Austin comes out for the beatdown but Dustin makes the save. Flair wants a tag match and promises Sid as his partner. Parker says ok.

Overall Rating: C. Shockingly not a horrible show as the 93 date would imply otherwise. It’s not a classic and there’s nothing worth seeing but it’s miles better than the horrible Battlebowl show which was a Vader love fest. The opening hour is bad but the main event is a bit better, namely with the Battle of the Blondes and the main event. Not worth seeing though.

Remember to like me on Facebook at:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/kbwrestlingreviewscom/117930294974885?sk=wall

Clash of the Champions 24
Date: August 18, 1993
Location: Ocean Center, Daytona Beach, Florida
Attendance: 8,903
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Jesse Ventura

Since I only have six of these to go in total, I think it’s time for an old fashioned marathon. I’ll knock these out as fast as I can so I’ll finally be done with this series. It’s only taken me a few years so we might as well get it done. This is from late 93 which is about as awful as WCW ever got, if you can possibly fathom that. The main event is Vader vs. Davey Boy for the title. Let’s get to it.

The opening video talks about a Flair For The Gold with the WarG……..OH MY GOODNESS IT’S THIS SHOW!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh we’ve got something VERY special coming up later on. You just wait.

Brian Pillman is injured so Steven (William) Regal is replacing him in the tag title defense.

Tag Titles: Steven Regal/Steve Austin vs. Arn Anderson/Paul Roma

Anderson vs. Austin to start. Arn’s white trunks seem to grow every year. Austin pounds him down as Jesse complains about Regal being part of the blondes now. The Horsemen take over to the audience’s delight. Austin gets launched over the top but it’s momentum or whatever. How does that even work? YOU THREW HIM OVER, so why isn’t it a DQ? They brawl to the floor for a bit and Austin brings Regal back in.

Roma, the biggest excuse ever for a Horsemen, and that includes Mongo, comes in and works on Regal’s arm. He speeds things up but Austin trips Roma (who looks a lot like Ricky Steamboat in the long white tights) to give the champs the advantage. Both guys take turns on Roma as this is going nowhere. Austin goes into the buckle but Roma doesn’t tag because he’s an idiot.

Austin gets him into the corner so Anderson, allegedly the best tag wrestler ever, tries to come in. Roma gets the required rollup but there’s no referee of course. Roma hits Austin’s Stun Gun and both guys are down. Regal breaks up a tag and we get the “face makes a tag but it doesn’t count so the heels change without one and it does count” deal. Roma gets a dropkick and there’s the tag to Anderson. The place ERUPTS too. Everything breaks down and a miscue by Regal’s manager lets Arn grab a rollup for the pin and the titles.

Rating: C-. This was already better than any match on the previous Clash. Austin would go on and start a US Title feud in a few months while the Horsemen faded away. This was during the Disney Tapings era, so the Nasty Boys had already been filmed as champions. The titles would change at Fall Brawl, which is another reason why this was an awful time for the company. They would tape MONTHS worth of shows in advance and that was it. All the mystery was gone and no one gave an effort because of it, which is stupid. Imagine if that had happened to Punk in 2011.

2 Cold Scorpio vs. Bobby Eaton

This should be SWEET. On top of that we get the Midnight Express theme. Scorpio is one of my old favorites and he’s young and awesome at this point. Eaton is heel here I guess. Scorpio gets a nice spinning sunset flip for two but Eaton clotheslines him down. Scorpio runs the corner and hits a top rope cross body and grabs an armbar. A regular cross body misses and Bobby takes over.

Eaton hooks a hammerlock down onto the mat. This hasn’t exactly been the high flying spectacle I was expecting. Even Jesse points out that this isn’t what he expected. Scorpio counters and sets him into a superplex position. Instead of using that though, while standing on the top he jumps up and dropkicks Eaton to the floor and adds a plancha. Cool sequence. Eaton hits a neckbreaker back inside to take over. Top rope elbow (why not the Alabama Jam?) gets two. And never mind as Scorpio takes him down and the 450 (called a 360 by Tony) sends both knees into Eaton’s chest for the pin.

Rating: C. I love Scorpio so I’m not going to complain much about this. Good match I guess but they didn’t really hit a level that I was expecting. To be fair though Eaton was just a jobber to the stars and the match wasn’t bad or anything. Just kind of disappointing I guess. Scorpio would get a two week tag title reign later in the year.

Max Payne vs. Johnny B. Badd

Payne stole the Badd Blaster (a confetti cannon) and shot Badd in the face with it so Badd’s face is burned and he’s wearing a mask. This is mask vs. Norma Jean, which is what Max calls his guitar. Max jumps him and drops an elbow into the boas. Jesse: “Right into the boas Tony!” Johnny fires back with punches but the cross body is ducked. This is power vs. speed.

Payne rips off the mask but Badd is wearing another one. Tony’s total lack of shock kills the surprise. There’s a hammerlock slam which is supposed to set up his Fujiwara Armbar finisher but Badd escapes with a small package. Well he did say he used steroids didn’t he? Payne misses a middle rope splash and Badd steals the pin. Well that was nothing. Too short to rate.

Badd says he’s going to unmask on Saturday Night. He’d look the same.

It’s time for A Flair For The Gold, which is Flair’s talk show. THIS IS IT!!! This has an actual set which looks like a living room. Flair comes in through the door and has Fifi his French maid walk around a bit. He brings out his guests, Sting and the British Bulldog. They’re here to talk about WarGames and the place is WAY into this. Flair was a face at this point and was as popular as he’d been in the 90s.

Sid and Harlem Heat, three of the four opponents for WarGames show up. They want to know who the mystery partner is. Sting says the line of “prepare to be shocked, because our partner is none other than THE SHOCKMASTER!”

And here it is: the absolute dumbest, stupidest, worst and completely lowest point for WCW. An explosion goes off (remember this is LIVE) and a wall bursts open. Shockmaster falls over part of the wall, knocking off his glittery Stormtrooper helmet. He tries as hard as he can to put it back on (after revealing to anyone paying attention that he’s Tugboat/Typhoon from WWF, making him a total failure anyway) and finally gets back on his feet.

The whole segment is a total joke now as the fans don’t know what to make of this. Bulldog and Harlem Heat are dying of laughter and try to hide it but you can here the covered laughter very clearly. Shockmaster finally gets it together and with Ole Anderson providing the voice, he says Sid has ruled the world long enough and asks if Sid wants a piece of him. Now keep in mind the voice: he sounds like a cross between a really bad Power Rangers villain and the Cave of Wonders from Aladdin. On top of that, he says Dusty Rhodes will be on their team in WarGames. It would actually be DUSTIN, not Dusty. And it’s over.

I mean WOW. What people seem to overlook is how bad this was going to be no matter what. Answer this: what exactly is a Shockmaster? It sounds like a static electricity prevention thing you would see in a store labeled As Seen On TV. Second, it’s Fred Ottman under the mask. When did anyone ever see the “Sailing Superstar” and think this guy deserved a huge push? Third, it’s a glitter covered Star Wars helmet. Just add all this up and think about how bad it would have been WITHOUT the famous part. Now add that in and look at what you have. My goodness it’s amazing that they stayed in business.

TV Title: Ricky Steamboat vs. Paul Orndorff

Orndorff is champion. Tony and Jesse crack up laughing about what we just saw. This gets big match intros too. Interesting trivia note: the TV Title is the belt that would become the Cruiserweight Title but with a different nameplate. And there go the lights. It looks like a late 80s show now with most of the crowd being covered in darkness. Feeling out process to start as they fight over a top wristlock. Steamboat bridges out of it and that looked AWESOME.

Steamboat misses a dive and lands on the ramp where Paul takes over. A top rope elbow to the head gets two. A slam gets a bunch of two counts and it’s the second chinlock of the match so far. We hear about Flair vs. Sting for the NWA Title this coming Saturday night which is almost an afterthought here. Steamboat sends him into the buckle and a top rope chop gets two, as does a regular one.

A big chop sends Orndorff to the floor but again it’s not a DQ. Steamboat busts out a huge dive which gets a nice reaction. Ten years later it would have gotten a huge pop. Orndorff tries a bunch of covers and Jesse hands him the TV Title for some reason. He drops it and tries the piledriver but Steamboat reverses and here’s a sweet pinfall reversal sequence. Top rope cross body is rolled through for two. Orndorff tries to slam Steamboat and apparently he never watched Mania III because in the same ending, Steamboat rolls through into a cradle for the pin and the title.

Rating: C. Eh not bad here but slower paced than most would like. It could have been a lot worse though, which is the right idea. Steamboat was in the role of veteran that people really respected and could still pull out a good match when asked to, namely due to pure raw talent. Good match but nothing great. At least it got the title off Orndorff though.

Orndorff piledrives him on the belt on the ramp post match.

Harley Race and the Kongs (two very fat guys in masks who were worthless) say that they’re coming for Flair and Sting.

Sting/Ric Flair vs. Colossal Kongs

Sting clears house on his own, easily slamming both guys like it’s nothing. Race freaks out, shouting about how it’s impossible. It’s a big brawl and Flair goes to the floor with one of them. Sting casually beats one of them up, hits the Stinger Splash and a top rope splash for the pin as Flair beats up Race. Total and complete domination.

Sting and Flair say they’ll renew their feud on Saturday for the title.

Rick Rude/The Equalizer vs. Dustin Rhodes/???

It’s a mystery partner. This feud has gone on for about 5 months now and has yet to get interesting. It’s mainly Rude vs. Rhodes but Rude brought in the Equalizer to equalize things. He’s more famous as Dave Evad Sullivan and is AWFUL. Rhodes’ partner is going to come out in some car that the fans can win. And it’s Road Warrior Animal. Rude panics and yells at him as Hawk comes up from behind. He’s the real partner. Not exactly a point to the switch but whatever.

The fans are fired up and it’s Hawk vs. Rude to start us off. They go to a test of strength which Hawk easily wins. Off to Equalizer who gets dropkicked to the floor almost immediately. Hawk tries his neckbreaker and Equalizer falls down, drawing some laughter from the crowd. Rude comes back in and we hit the chinlock but Hawk counters into an electric chair position for a Doomsday Device with Dustin playing Hawk.

Rude beats Dustin down and swivels at Hawk. Some heel miscommunication allows the tag to Hawk and it doesn’t count for no apparent reason. Hawk launches Rude at Equalizer and everything breaks down. As the referee is putting Rude out, Equalizer goes to slam Dustin. Hawk comes off the top to shoulder block both of them down and Dustin gets the pin.

Rating: D. Pretty boring match here and I really don’t get what Hawk adds to anything here. To be fair though, it’s not like he ever meant anything after about 1991 anyway. Not a terrible match but they needed something more interesting than Dustin vs. Rude. The US Title would FINALLY go to Dustin soon after this.

WCW World Title: Davey Boy Smith vs. Vader

Buffer says the DQ rule is waved, but doesn’t mention that he means if Vader gets disqualified he loses the title. Also note that this is the WCW Title and not the NWA World Title. They would be unified next year thank goodness. Race is Vader’s manager. After a break they get into it on the ramp with Bulldog being clotheslined down. Smith shows off INSANE power with a delayed vertical out there.

We go back into the ring but Smith’s slingshot splash gets knees. They go to the floor quickly and Vader accidentally splashes the railing ala Sting. A slam gets two back inside. Vader slows things down and goes after the knee. Samoan Drop puts Smith down and a moonsault misses. Smith gets a sunset flip for two. A splash onto the back puts Smith down and he’s in trouble.

Time for a chinlock to eat up a few moments. Davey manages to come back and hooks a crucifix, which was one of his finishers but it only gets two here. Vader pounds him down in the corner and goes up again, only to get crotched. Back inside it’s Davey’s turn to pound him down. Vader gets in a boot though and the Vader Bomb gets two. The champ comes off the top but jumps into the powerslam, knocking down the referee in the process. Smith tries another powerslam but Race pulls the leg and Vader falls on top for the pin.

Rating: C-. Decent power match but I wasn’t thrilled with it. Smith’s style wasn’t all that great to mesh with Vader’s. It took someone with more speed or just an all out brawler for that to work, and it really didn’t click here. Still though, this was a decent main event, but the lack of star power really hurt things.

Cactus Jack makes his return with 15 seconds left and takes Vader down. The reaction is there but the time isn’t so we’re done.

Overall Rating: D. Not their best work but you have a classic comedy moment to check out so it’s worth something for that. This era was just awful for the company but brighter days were coming soon. The problem in short was that the stories just weren’t interesting and the two titles were a bad idea at this point. To be fair though, a lot of that can be blamed on the NWA. Not the worst show ever, but other than Shockmaster it’s not worth watching.

Remember to like me on Facebook at:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/kbwrestlingreviewscom/117930294974885?sk=wall

Clash of the Champions 22
Date: January 13, 1993
Location: The Mecca, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Attendance: 4,000
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jesse Ventura

Well this is it. This is the 9th level of torment. It’s the absolute greatest form of torture in recorded history. This, is WCW in 1993. I’ll wait for your hearts to start beating again. WCW was great at times, but when they were bad sweet merciful crap they were bad. This is some of their worst. The main event is an 8 man cage match pitting the evil team against the good team. That’s not a simple way of putting it. That’s what they say in the opening video. Let’s get this over with so we can move on to something more pleasant like a root canal.

Tony and Cowboy Bill Watts open the show as Watts talks about the old days because having the actual boss on TV was something that WCW thought was a good idea for no apparent reason at all.

Van Hammer is hurt and off the main event tonight but there’s going to be a replacement named Vinnie Vegas for the arm wrestling contest that Van Hammer is in. No mention is made of him not being in the main event. The arm wrestling thing is big news though baby!

Erik Watts, Bill’s son, has been arrested. Dang they’re not hiding anything here are they? Bill: Erik has always been like my son. Maybe because he is your son you stupid, stupid man. Erik is suspended tonight. He happens to be here for an interview though and the booing is really loud. He was supposed to fight Cactus Jack and can barely talk. Erik was a guy that was supposed to be awesome, but only his dad thought that. He was absolutely terrible so Bill put him on the upper midcard because he could.

Ross and Ventura open the show and talk about the main event like sane people would do. This was one of JR’s last major shows so Eric was about to take over.

Cactus Jack vs. Johnny B. Badd

Cactus, a heel, gets a noticeable face pop. Badd is rather effeminate tonight to put it mildly. This stems off of Starrcade 92 where they were Lethal Lottery partners and they brawled to lose the match. Jesse points out that there are signs for Cactus Jack everywhere and it makes him wonder what is wrong with these people.

Naturally Cactus makes it a brawl (aww why not MAKE IT A WIN?) but Badd wrestles him which works far better for him. Oddly enough he’s a brawler by nature who is wrestling to his advantage. That says a lot about Jack’s brawling abilities. Small package gets one for Badd. Top rope sunset flip doesn’t connect and Cactus drops an elbow for the pin and a BIG pop.

Rating: C. This was confusing to say the least as Cactus had gotten very over all of a sudden and WCW wasn’t exactly sure what was going on with it. Not a bad match but it was a very quick match so it’s not like you could say much about it at all. Fun little match though and the face pop is interesting if nothing else.

There’s a new NWA Champion and his name is the Great Muta. He won it at the WCW/NJPW Supershow III which I recently reviewed.

We get more or less a music video of 2 Cold Scorpio which shifts into a PSA and then back into a video. And hey he’s in the ring. Oh never mind it’s a highlight video now. I won’t get tired of Scorpio in the ring though so this is fine by me.

2 Cold Scorpio vs. Scott Flamingo

It’s an ECW preview match here as Flamingo would change species later as he turned into Raven. Scorpio spins out of some stuff and we have an early standoff. He likes to use a lot of cartwheels. We head to the floor early with Flamingo taking a flying shot to the back. Back in with Scotty getting a nice running dropkick before a dive over the top to the floor, taking out the Cold dude.

Small package gets two for Scorpio but he’s in trouble so far. We hit the chinlock as they need a bit of a break. Scorpio speeds things up a bit again and hits the Tumbleweed for two. A spinning legdrop in the corner sets up the original 450 to end this though. Far better than you would expect.

Rating: B. This was just four minutes but DANG it was a good four minutes. Scorpio is a guy I’ve always liked and this was no exception at all. He looked great out there and Flamingo was no slouch either. They were both MOVING out there in a match that would have been a good Cruiserweight match about five years later. Good stuff.

What the heck? This show was supposed to suck remember.

Video on Thundercage which is the main event tonight. In essence it’s Hell in a Cell. We hear about how Rude is out with an injury and Team Vader needed a replacement. Cactus and Orndorff had a match with the winner getting the spot. Jack took out Vader’s manager and got jumped during the match by Vader, more or less pushing him to the brink of a face turn without actually going the other way. Later in the night Cactus drilled all of them with a shovel. Dang I want to watch Halloween Havoc 93 and the Texas Death Match now. If you don’t get it, Cactus in 93 was AWESOME.

Brad Armstrong vs. Chris Benoit

This is more or less Benoit’s debut. He had a one night appearance back in a tag tournament but that’s more or less forgotten here. Armstrong is an incredibly solid wrestler that most people haven’t seen much of which is a shame. We hear about how Benoit survived the Dungeon so they know he’s good. To give you an idea of how good Armstrong is, he’s not only keeping up with Benoit but he’s even beating him to a degree in technical style.

To the surprise of no one we’re on the mat with more or less a test of strength going on. Benoit powers up in a bridge and Jesse is impressed. Armstrong does the same thing as this is good stuff so far. Some moron shouts boring and is promptly booed out of the building. Armstrong gets a nice reversal to send Benoit to the floor. Back in Armstrong hits some more dropkicks and back to the arm. Basic stuff but well done so far.

Benoit gets the suplex drop onto the top rope as he’s pretty firmly in control at the moment. Benoit gets a running springboard clothesline (think the dropkick that Jericho does and the cross body that Christian does) to Armstrong on the apron to take us to the floor. It’s very clear that this is pre-steroids for the pre-Crippler. Snap suplex gets two.

Armstrong gets a knee in but it gets him nowhere as Benoit hooks a backbreaker to get himself out of trouble. Diving headbutt misses though and here comes Armstrong. And never mind as Benoit hooks the Dragon Suplex out of nowhere (full nelson suplex) to get the pin. Sweet bridge on the pin.

Rating: B. I really liked this one but then again when you have two talented guys out there this is what you get. Nice little story being told as Armstrong was able to beat Benoit with basic stuff but once they cranked things up Benoit was far too much for him. It shows that Benoit can turn on the jets and blow people away, which is a good sign for him in this impressive debut.

We get some clips of the Rock N Roll Express in Smokey Mountain Wrestling which is pretty much brand new at this point. They’re going to be at Superbrawl which is one of WCW’s first steps into cross-promotional. We see them beating the Heavenly Bodies for the Smokey Mountain Tag Titles. Ok so we don’t see the title change and the clip just kind of ends. Ok then.

Jesse is in the ring to do his arm wrestling thing. This was a worked tournament thing he did which went nowhere. Van Hammer, the winner of the tournament, is hurt though so it’s Tony Atlas vs. Vinnie Vegas, more commonly known as Kevin Nash. Nash is allegedly left handed so we’ll use the left arms. Atlas sounds like he’s in labor and Nash wins after a LONG contest that the fans aren’t exactly thrilled with.

Back from a break with Vader’s challenge to Sting for the White Castle of Fear. This is just Vader standing in snow instead of the official video which is Sting in a helicopter and going to a party with more or less S&M, an orgy and midgets. It was indeed weird but it was WCW in 1993 so there you go.

Larry Zbyszko talks about the tournament for the #1 contender spot to the US Title. The finals turned out to be Dustin Rhodes vs. Ricky Steamboat but since Rude was injured the finals became for the title instead of the title shot with Rhodes winning the belt. We get clips of all four first round matches, none of which are anything special at all. We throw in clips of the semi-finals just because they can.

Wrecking Crew vs. Johnny Gunn/Tom Zenk

One of the Wrecking Crew is a dead ringer for Animal and upon further review yeah it’s his brother. Gunn is Tom Brandi who some of you may have heard of but if not he’s not worth looking up. Rage starts for the Wrecking Crew against Z-Man. This is power vs. speed with speed clearing the ring to start. HUGE dive by Gunn to take down both guys on the floor. That was sweet looking!

Heel miscommunication gets a rollup for two for Gunn. The Wrecking Crew takes over with basic power stuff as this isn’t much at all. A facejam by Gunn brings in Zenk. We get a really awkward spot as Fury was supposed to charge out of the corner into a backdrop but he just stopped, making Zenk look like an idiot. I mean more of an idiot than he typically does.

The referee ducks a clothesline and the Wrecking Crew continues to take over. Z-Man (they use that name and Zenk interchangeably) gets a boot up to block an axe handle off the middle rope and Gunn comes in. Forearm/clothesline takes down Fury who has been in there forever. And then a shot to the back of Gunn results in a move called the Wrecking Ball where Fury gets Gunn over his shoulder and Rage jumps off with a forearm smash to end it.

Rating: D. This was really rather weak and definitely the worst match of the night so far. This wasn’t anything special at all with the Wrecking Crew more or less disappearing after this and Zenk/Gunn never meaning anything at all. Pretty weak match that went nowhere at all but at least it was only about six minutes long.

Larry Z talks to the Hollywood Blondes and their title match against Steamboat/Douglas up next. They aren’t called the Blondes yet but it’s coming.

Sting comes out and accepts Vader’s challenge. Simmons and Rhodes, his partners tonight, say they’re not worried.

Vader’s team says they’re ready for a handicap match. Race says they’ll get back at Cactus Jack eventually, which resulted in a really stupid angle which resulted in a really good match. They beat up Barbarian because he’s Jack’s friend to make it 3-3 because they’re very stupid.

We get highlights from the first two SuperBrawls to give us a reason to buy the third one. The show wound up being not bad. This eats up a few minutes. Ok make that several minutes.

Steamboat and Douglas say they’ll keep the titles. They’re the Unified Tag Champions which was something far too complicated that crippled WCW in the second half of 92 but hey, whatever the NWA says goes right?

Unified Tag Titles: Shane Douglas/Ricky Steamboat vs. Steve Austin/Brian Pillman

Both teams are in the ring when we get back. The time limit is thirty minutes here instead of the usual hour which allegedly is going to cause faster pin attempts. Steamboat and Austin start us off and do I need to explain to you why this is awesome? Steamboat and Douglas send the Blondes to the floor almost immediately as this is going to be fast paced for sure.

Steamboat won’t shake Austin’s hand so Austin pounds on him. Off to Pillman and we unleash the chops. Shane comes in off the top as we talk about Bruno Sammartino for some reason. The champions tag in very quickly and Pillman hurts his knee on a leapfrog attempt. Stu Hart trained him though so of course he’s faking. He tries a springboard cross body but gets the heck powerslammed out of him by Shane for two.

Shane works on Austin’s arm as the future bald man is in trouble. Brian breaks up a pin as this is completely one sided. Steamboat throws Pillman onto Austin and Stone Cole is in trouble. Finally the challengers take over off a suplex and some double teaming. They work over Steamboat’s back with a slam on the floor. Steamboat manages a sunset flip but Austin has the referee.

Ricky drills Pillman to put him into the steel but Austin saves the tag with a suplex for two. Steamboat counters a body vice but his back is hurt pretty badly at this point. Pillman sets for his springboard clothesline but down goes Austin as Steamboat ducks. A double chop STILL can’t bring in Douglas but Ricky gets a belly to back to Pillman to put both of them down.

FINALLY the hot tag brings in Douglas and the beating is on. That’s good as the roof is now off. Dropkicks and clotheslines all around as Steamboat is amazingly up after about three seconds. Belly to belly out of nowhere drills Pillman but Austin (illegally) comes off the top (screw you Bill Watts) but it only gets two. Austin is finally like screw this and drills Shane with the belt for the DQ and a bunch of blood. Big heel beatdown follows and they leave with the stolen belts. They would get them for real in a few months.

Rating: B+. Fun match all the way around as they played the NWA formula to the letter here. You can often tell how good someone is when they can have great tag matches and this is a great example of that. They put on a great show here and the whole thing worked very well. Fun match and more or less the first of the Blondes great matches.

We see a clip of Vader winning the world title back from Ron Simmons and messing up his shoulder. Jesse brings out Race and Vader who say Vader is awesome. Simmons comes out and says he’s going to get his title back, which of course he never did. The fight is on with Simmons THROWING Vader down in a spinebuster. That was awesome looking.

Simmons goes after Race but Vader destroys Simmons and reinjures his shoulder with some shoulderbreakers on the floor. Sting and Rhodes come out for the save as it looks like it’ll be 3-2 in the main event.

Sting/Dustin Rhodes vs. Vader/Barry Windham/Paul Orndorff

This is the Thundercage match which like I said is more or less the Cell without a top but it comes up at an angle so it’s more or less impossible to climb in and out. Sting vs. Vader is always awesome so this is going to be good. You can’t be disqualified but you have to tag in and out. Sting and Orndorff start us off. Ok so only Vader is chilling on the apron. Ah there it is as the former tag partners in Rhodes and Windham start us off.

Everyone not named Vader is in street clothes here. Off to Sting vs. Vader which is one of those feuds that always worked very well. Sting hammers away and the Splash hits in the corner but Vader doesn’t go down. Sting pounds him down into the corner and the fans are WAY into it. Everyone but Dustin comes in as he more or less lets Sting fight everyone off on his own.

The numbers catch up with Sting though as Vader goes up and half kills Sting with a shoulder block. A splash misses though and Sting sends him to the floor. Is Dustin allergic to HELPING HIS PARTNER or something? Off to Orndorff who hammers away on Sting. Windham comes in now as Rhodes has been totally worthless in this. Vader gets a corner splash on Sting who might have been in there seven minutes straight now or so.

FINALLY Dustin comes in and since he’s a cowboy he can beat up anyone. And here’s Cactus Jack with bolt cutters to break in and hit every heel in sight with a boot. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a face turn. Orndorff goes for the Piledriver on Dustin but gets popped by said boot and Cactus falls on him for the pin. Sting’s music plays for some reason.

Rating: C+. The cage here meant a grand total of nothing. They beat Sting up pretty well but Dustin did nothing for the most part. Not a bad match and the crowd was way into it, but dude the whole cage aspect was completely pointless here. It set up Sting vs. Vader….somehow and I guess advances Jack vs. Orndorff which someone thought was a good idea. Anyway not bad but kind of a head scratcher.

Cactus says he’s in over his head but not as much as Orndorff is. He’s getting into that zone of his on the mic here.

Overall Rating: B. This was light years ahead of what I was expecting. You can kind of see how odd it is in the main event as Sting vs. Vader were about to feud or were feuding I guess but it was still pretty confusing. The NWA was clearly getting on their nerves here and when Flair came back the NWA’s days were numbered. That being said, this wasn’t horrible at all but it was a bit confusing and odd at times. Still though, good wrestling overrides that so definitely a good show.

Remember to like me on Facebook at:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/kbwrestlingreviewscom/117930294974885?sk=wall

Clash of the Champions #20
Date: September 2, 1992
Location: Center Stage Theater, Atlanta, Georgia
Attendance: 500
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jesse Ventura

This is the next to last one that I have to go and it’s a theme show. This is a show dedicated to WCW being on the Superstation for 20 years. Yeah you know that whole “longest running weekly episodic show?” It’s not even close. WCW/all it’s other names was on the air on Saturday Nights at 6:05 for roughly 28 years straight. Raw hasn’t even hit 19 years yet. Even when Vince took over for a few months in the mid 80s, it was still called World Championship Wrestling. Anyway let’s get to it.

The show opens with an old clip of Andre the Giant from probably the 70s. He has an interview tonight, which was his final American appearance.

The opening video is in the form of a scrapbook with various people that used to be big stars. This is always cool to see.

Tony and Missy are outside like they’re at a red carpet. Gordon Solie is here too and hello Andre in Princess Bride attire. Ron Simmons, the world champion, arrives. Now Bill Watts gets here. He’s followed by….HANK AARON??? I know he’s around every now and then but it’s still cool to see him. Bill Shaw, the legit president of WCW (who had no idea how wrestling worked) is here too. Jim Barnett, a promoter, is here, as is Bob Dhue (another legit boss) and BRUNO SAMMARTINO!!! He kind of bashes WWF by saying that he’s glad to be in a real wrestling company. Sting arrives on a motorcycle.

We go inside now and Robb Pitts, an Atlanta City Councilman, gives Bill Watts a proclamation. The Assassin in his mask in the background is an amusing sight. Dusty pops up and says some catchphrases. Assassin, Thunderbolt Patterson and Magnum TA are here too.

TV Title: Ricky Steamboat vs. Steve Austin

Austin is champion. This is the leftovers of the Dangerous Alliance angle which should have gone on at least another year but hey, it’s WCW so why let things go well? Austin is mentioned as a member of it here but I’d have thought it was long gone by then. The national anthem is sung after their entrances. It’s done by an 11 year old and Johnny B. Badd. That’s an odd combination. Oh ok he’s just walking her there.

This is no DQ, which means moves off the top are allowed. Also, Dangerously will be in a cage outside the ring. Steamboat also has bad ribs. Austin goes right for them but it’s mainly striking to get us going. Ricky grabs a headlock to take over and they go to the mat. The cage is now up in the air. Also you can vote on whether or not the top rope moves should be banned or not.

Still in the headlock and Austin taps but it doesn’t mean anything yet. Austin escapes and goes right for the ribs with a hiptoss and elbow drop. See how easy it is? Back to the headlock by Ricky as they’re kind of filling time here. They go to the corner and Austin steps onto the bottom rope with Steamboat on the middle rope, kind of like for a really low level belly to belly superplex. However, instead of that he throws Steamboat forward over his head so that Steamboat lands face first and ribs first on the mat. Cool move.

Steamboat can’t do much now due to the ribs so Austin locks on an abdominal stretch. Ricky starts his comeback and a middle rope cross body gets two. Austin takes a slingshot into the buckle for two. A tombstone gets two and the crowd is getting way into this. Austin gets two on a rollup with tights. Ricky blocks a superplex but jumps into a punch to the ribs. Shoulder block gets two for Ricky. He skins the cat but a BIG elbow sends him to the floor. In a sweet move, Steamboat slips under the ring and comes out the other side for the top rope cross body for the pin and the title.

Rating: B-. I liked this one a lot and they got the crowd into this. When a crowd of 500 people can be heard that clearly you can tell you’ve got something good going. It helps when you have this kind of talent out there. This would be a bigger feud in the next few years and over a bigger title as well, which is the idea. Then Steamboat got injured and someone decided that Austin wasn’t marketable. Idiots.

Here are some clips from the old days, in this case from Mr. Wrestling #2.

We get a video on some of the great tag teams that have competed here on TBS. We see stuff from the Assassins, the Briscoes, the Freebirds (probably from the 70s), the Road Warriors and the Rock N Roll Express. These are just like 20 second clips so there isn’t anything to say here. Roddy Piper is on commentary in the Warriors clips and sounds BOMBED.

Video on Halloween Havoc 1992.

Michael Hayes tells Terry Gordy (not seen) that his men Arn Anderson/Bobby Eaton (seen) will kill him.

Arn Anderson/Bobby Eaton vs. Dick Slater/Greg Valentine

Arn and Valentine start us off. Slater and Valentine clear the ring and it breaks down very quickly. We get to Slater and Eaton with Slater in control. A Russian legsweep and feet on the ropes get two. This is heel vs. heel. Off to Anderson who gets caught in the corner and double teamed. This isn’t really working and I have no idea why they’re going heel vs. heel here. Slater works on Arn’s leg and Valentine hooks a Figure Four which Eaton breaks up. Spinebuster gets two on Greg and it breaks down again. Larry Zbyszko comes out and hits Greg with a cast by mistake and a middle rope Alabama Jam ends this.

Rating: D+. What an odd match. Having four heels (and good ones at that) out there made this into an “I can out heel you” contest which isn’t something I recall seeing. The problem is you’re not going to get anyone cheered out there and I really don’t get the point of it. Just an odd choice.

Bruno Sammartino has an interview and flat out says that he’s glad to be back in a real wrestling organization, unlike that other place he’s been with for the last ten years.

Teddy Long is in the VIP Room and instead of talking to Gordon Solie or Andre, he picks Bob Armstrong. They just didn’t get it at times. Now let’s talk to Thunderbolt Patterson. Dude, ANDRE THE GIANT IS SITTING NEXT TO YOU. Patterson actually says he’s glad to be alive to be here.

We get a quick statement from Mr. Wrestling #2 from Hawaii.

Ted Turner thanks us for 20 years. You have to give him this: he stuck with them as long as he could.

Bill Watts vacates the Light Heavyweight Title due to champion Brad Armstrong being injured. A tournament is promised but it never came. We go to Brad on a crutch who says he’s disappointed because he has to step down. He thinks he’s a failure and Brian Pillman, the opponent for later, comes out. He says it’s a disgrace because he’s supposed to get the title back but Armstrong is claiming an injury. Armstrong’s dad should be ashamed of him and Brad doesn’t know what to say. Pillman slaps him, officially turning heel.

Here’s a singles version of the same kind of montage we saw earlier for the tag teams. Way too many to name here but if they’re a big name they’re here. There are a lot of smaller named guys too. It sounds like it’s set to the Sting music when he came out at Starrcade 97.

Video on Ron Simmons, the WCW World Champion.

WCW World Title: Cactus Jack vs. Ron Simmons

Dig that old Doom music! Ole Anderson is referee here for no apparent reason. This is power vs. brawling of course so Ron tries to wear Jack down. Jack actually speeds things up and hits a flying headbutt to take over. Out to the floor and Ron is like yeah go ahead and jump. Back in and Cactus takes over using his evil ways. Simmons pounds him down in the corner but he charges into a punch.

Cactus Clothesline and they go to the floor. Swinging neckbreaker out there puts Simmons down and they go back in. Three clotheslines get a two count for Jack and it’s off to the chinlock. They trade headbutts and down goes Jack. Two three point shoulder blocks take Jack down again. Back to the floor and Cactus manages to drop his apron elbow to the floor which is one of his major moves. And Simmons is up again in like 4 seconds. Back in the ring, Simmons hits the spinebuster and powerslam to retain. Literally after the elbow, Jack had zero offense and the match was over 20 seconds later.

Rating: D+. I don’t get that ending at all. This was a pretty major feud for awhile, including Jack managing I believe Barbarian for the world title match at Starrcade. The rest of that match wasn’t anything of note either as Ron was pretty much like “yeah keep hitting me.” Really strange match, which is kind of a theme for the last two of them.

Masahiro Chono won a tournament in Japan to win the NWA World Title over Rick Rude. This would result in Chono and Muta getting time on WCW TV, because the NWA thought people cared. We get some clips of the match which looks pretty good.

Rude issues a challenge to Chono for a rematch.

Cactus Jack says he’s in pain but he has someone to help Barbarian and this someone knows Simmons very well. It’s Butch Reed.

Butch Reed/Barbarian vs. Dustin Rhodes/Barry Windham

Jack is on commentary here. Barbarian starts with Rhodes. The Texans cheat and fire off a bunch of double dropkicks to clear the ring. Barbarian is an interesting guy as he always had jobs. Think about it: he was around in the mid 80s, then got a pretty long run in WWF then this quick WCW run then he went back to WWF for a few months then was in WCW for the Faces of Fear. That’s pretty impressive for someone that was never anything more than a lower midcard guy.

Reed gets pounded on in the corner but Dustin misses a charge and falls to the corner. Cactus’ evil laugh is downright CREEPY. The monsters lure Windham in and double team Dustin some more. Cactus: “You can fool some of the people some of the time but you can fool Barry Windham all of the time.” It’s funnier when he says it. A clothesline puts Rhodes down and Reed pounds away on him.

Off to Barbarian who beats on Dustin even more. Standard tag team formula here and that’s perfectly fine. It still works so why mess with it? Reed comes in for a reverse chinlock as Jack says he’s playing a part in a plan but won’t elaborate on it. I don’t think that ever went anywhere. Dustin manages to get a clothesline but takes one of his own. There’s the double tag Windham comes in and speeds things up. He hits the superplex on Barbarian but goes to stop Reed instead. Everything breaks down and Barbarian kicks Barry’s head off for the pin.

Rating: C. This was fine. Barry and Dustin would go on to win the tag titles (the WCW versions, not the NWA titles, meaning that the team they beat still had tag titles because the NWA is stupid) in about a month. Barbarian and Reed would help Jack against Simmons then just kind of fade away.

Jack tells Simmons to be ready.

Here’s a video on the main event. It’s a Survivor Series style match with Sting captaining the Steiners/Nikita Koloff vs. Vader/Jake Roberts/Rude/Super Invader. Sting and Vader are obvious, Jake came in to feud with Sting as a HUGE signing that went nowhere. Koloff is feuding with Rude over the US Title, and the Steiners are Sting’s friends. Super Invader is Hercules of all people under a mask. He’s Harley Race’s goon so there are your eight men.

Sting/Nikita Koloff/Steiner Brothers vs. Rick Rude/Super Invader/Jake Roberts/Big Van Vader

Remember, elimination rules. Hercules is HUGE here as he must be on the good steroids. Rick vs. Vader gets us going. Vader pounds him down as only he can but walks into a SWEET belly to belly. Off to Koloff vs. Invader now. Invadercules takes him down and it’s off to Rude for our first rivalry pairing. Scott comes in as does Invader. No one has really stayed in long enough to get anything going other than the opening pairing.

Scott calls for the Frankensteiner but Rude makes a blind tag and takes Scott down before the Frankensteiner can hit. Roberts comes in to do nothing so it’s off to Vader who pounds Scott down in the corner. He whips Scott in and Jake isn’t paying attention so he gets knocked to the floor. Scott grabs a tilt-a-whirl on Rude, setting up double tags to Roberts and Koloff.

Nikita beats up everyone but Rude knees him in the back, allowing Jake to roll him up for a 4-3 advantage. Off to Sting vs. Invader and that kind of bulldog move that Sting does ties it up. Vader comes in to fight Sting but Sting tags out to Rick. There’s a BIG suplex to Vader. I could watch the Steiners throw people around all day. Rick goes up but jumps into a powerslam. That’s scary power. Vader just held him for awhile because he could. A middle rope splash only gets two. The crowd is way into this.

Off to Rude who puts on a front facelock. Rick powers to the corner but Jake came in for a distraction so the tag doesn’t count. Back to Vader who jumps off the rope but also gets caught in a powerslam by Rick. The Steiners try a Doomsday Device but Rick can’t hold him so it’s more like a regular top rope clothesline. But wait, since Bill Watts is REALLY FREAKING STUPID, that means Scott is disqualified.

Rick and Vader go to the floor and Rick backdrops him out there. Rick Rude comes over and hits the Rude Awakening on Steiner and only Vader beats the count back in. That makes it Sting vs. Roberts/Rude/Vader. He gets Roberts first and there’s the Splash but Rude breaks up the Deathlock attempt. Sting does what he can but he’s still against three guys. The bulldog gets two on Rude. He hits a slingshot suplex but Vader comes off the top with a splash on both guys for no apparent reason, drawing his own DQ. Jake pulls Rude over for a tag and Jake easily DDTs Sting for the winning pin.

Rating: D+. Bill Watts is really stupid. The problem with the top rope thing is it completely takes away the excitement that you can get from things like that. Watts wanted an old school, mat based style which is why he pushed the Miracle Violence Connection so hard. The problem with that is NO ONE ELSE LIKES IT. But who cares about something like that right? I mean, it’s TRADITION AND THE NWA BABY!!! The match was nothing special and was pretty dull due to the people being eliminated through such stupid means.

We hear the results of the poll about the top rope being reinstated: 88% want moves off the top to be legal again. Think that happened? Of course not.

JR says we’ll take a special look at Halloween Havoc, but it’s the same commercial we’ve seen three times already. Oh wait this has some extra stuff in it. Well at least it’s different. This announces that it’ll be Jake vs. Sting in Spin the Wheel, Make the Deal, which is WCW’s version of Raw Roulette. Naturally they didn’t rig the wheel so they got a Coal Miner’s Glove match, which was AWFUL. The announcement is in the form of a REALLY badly acted skit in I think a bar or something where Jake challenges him.

Overall Rating: D+. This was a weird show. The set looking exactly the same as WCW Saturday Night (it was on the same set) gave this a really weird dynamic. It’s not bad or anything but it felt more like a special edition of Saturday Night rather than a big time show. It did some setting up of Havoc but not much really. Oh and before I forget: Scott Steiner would win the TV Title shortly after this and would tease turning heel, but the Steiners would be in the WWF before Christmas.

Remember to like me on Facebook at:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/kbwrestlingreviewscom/117930294974885?sk=wall

Impact Wrestling
Date: February 16, 2012
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Tazz, Mike Tenay

We’re back in Orlando which means the crowds have gotten a lot worse again. Roode is still the champion after Sting had to count the pin on Sunday in a redo of Summerslam 1997. And before anyone complains, no I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. 14 years is more than enough for an angle to be repeated. Anyway, we start towards Victory Road tonight. Let’s get to it.

We open with a recap video of the two main events from the PPV. The other is Garrett vs. Gunner if you’re confused.

Here’s Roode to open the show. He says that the fans are chanting Rooooooooooode so loudly that he needs to hear his introduction again. Roode talks about overcoming everyone, including Jeff Hardy. As for Sting, Sting has been pointing his finger at Roode since Roode won the title. After Sunday, that finger should be pointed at Sting because it was him that counted the pin to keep the belt on Bobby.

Cue Sting who says it was Sting that was selfish on Sunday because he let his anger get the better of him. If hurt the outcome of the match and Jeff got screwed. He’s here tonight to make things right with Hardy. He’s glad Roode is a fighting champion because tonight, it’s Roode vs. Hardy. There’s no time limit and no DQ. Oh and it starts NEXT.

Brandon Jacobs of the New York Giants is here.

TNA World Title: Jeff Hardy vs. Bobby Roode

Jeff charges and attacks Roode before the introductions can be made. Roode catches him in Percy Watson’s Persecution for two. Roode is sent to the floor where Jeff hits a dive and a pair of chair shots. This isn’t falls count anywhere. Roode is rammed into various metal objects and has his suplex countered into one by Hardy. It’s been about 95% Jeff so far. They go towards the ramp and Hardy cracks him in the back with a chair. Hardy whips him into the apron twice and signals to the fans for something. Roode uses the distraction to get in a punch to the ribs.

Jeff counters a whip to send Roode’s knees into the steps. He uses said steps to make a platform and hits Poetry in Motion onto the champ against the railing. With both guys down we take a break. Back with Hardy getting two off his front suplex. He loads up the Whisper in the Wind but Roode shoves the referee into the ropes to crotch him. Roode takes it to the floor again and tries a piledriver on the ramp but Jeff counters with a backdrop.

They go up to the stage with Hardy in control again. Hardy throws Roode off the stage but it wasn’t a huge crash as Roode is up pretty quickly. Also the stage isn’t as high. Jeff dives off the ramp with a clothesline. Twist of Fate is countered as Roode shoves Jeff into the stage. Roode’s charge misses and both guys are down.

This is random but they’re near the announce desk so it popped into my head. Tazz isn’t live in the arena and is doing this on a voiceover due to the death in his family. Hardy takes him back to the ring and takes his shirt off. Out of nowhere comes Kurt Angle who whips him into the steps. Roode pops up and hits the spear (of course) for the pin at 16:45.

Rating: C+. Far more of a fight than a match but that’s ok. The match was entertaining enough and it sets up something new for Hardy. He’s been around the title picture enough and hopefully this means they’ll be going towards Storm vs. Roode now. Good match here as Hardy looked great and his stuff with Angle should rock.

Roode says he won when Sting comes in. Sting says he cheated the system and says he’s not done yet. Roode is going to defend against the winner of the #1 contenders match tonight.

Eric Young has a guitar and says that he’ll get ODB back tonight. He also talks about shoot fighting and having his driver’s license taken away.

Sting talks to two people about getting a shot at Roode. He asks if they’re in and the people are revealed as Ray and Storm. They both say they should be world champion and the match is on.

We get a video of the Sorensen injury from Sunday. The current word is that Sorensen will be out for a year at least. He is however moving his arms and I believe legs as well.

Zema Ion/Austin Aries vs. Alex Shelley/Shannon Moore

Aries and Moore start things off. Aries takes him down with a fast headlock takedown and then a dropkick. Ion tags himself in to tick the champ off. Shannon kicks everyone down and Aries is knocked to the floor. There’s a baseball slide and Asai Moonsault which kind of misses as Moore lands on his feet and Aries falls a few seconds later.

Shannon picks up Ion’s hairspray which gets him a dropkick to the back. Shelley knocks Ion to the floor and wants a tag. Here’s Alex who misses a double boot and has Sliced Bread broken up. Aries dropkicks him in the back of the head and loads up the brainbuster but Ion tags himself in. Shelley escapes the brainbuster but falls into a rollup by Ion at 4:10.

Rating: C. The match was fine and I honestly forgot that Ion was #1 contender. That’s probably due to how the match he got the spot ended which is understandable. Also it’s rare to have heel vs. heel http://onhealthy.net/product-category/anti-anxiety/ feuds. Not a bad match or anything and the ending worked pretty well I thought.

Speaking of heel vs. heel, Gail and Madison are coming to the ring and Madison wants to chill things out between then.

Battle Royal

Brooke Tessmacher, Tara, Sarita, Rosita, Winter, Angelina Love, ODB, Mickie James, Velvet Sky, Madison Rayne

Winner gets the shot at Gail at Victory Road. Before the match, Madison praises Gail for giving everyone a chance to win right now. Madison sits at ringside with Gail. Winter and Tessmacther are out quickly. ODB threw both of them out and she tosses Rosita onto them. Mickie goes after her and has some better luck. She tries a headscissors but three other girls knock them both to the apron.

Mickie goes up top and ODB knocks her out. Everyone rams into ODB to knocker her to the floor and we’re down to Tara, Velvet, Angelina, Sarita and Madison who is on the floor. Tara is knocked out by Sarita. Angelina and Sarita team up against Velvet who fights out as well as she can. Velvet fights both of them as well as she can but can’t put Sarita out.

The alliance seems to break down but they hit a double elbow to put Velvet down. Madison hasn’t been in the ring yet so she’s still in this. Botox Injection puts Velvet down and Sarita says now put her out. Angelina goes to do that and Sarita tosses her. Salsa dancing abounds. Sarita charges at her but Velvet ducks to put her out. Madison runs in to throw out Velvet for the win at 6:30.

Rating: D. So apparently Madison was a surprise entrant into this match because when she said Gail was giving anyone in the ring a shot, it entered her into the match. Still though, this was longer than it should be or at least too long with those final three in there. Can’t call it a failure due to the hotness involved though.

Storm is all fired up.

The new tag champs say they proved their greatness by doing what they said they’d do. It’s a rematch next week.

We recap the Garrett vs. Gunner match from the PPV where Garrett fought hard but lost.

Here’s Immortal, who is now Flair, Gunner, Bischoff, and Chelsea if you remember her. She’s hot if nothing else. Eric says Chelsea wanted back in after seeing Garrett’s loss on Sunday. Champagne is brought in along with cigars. Eric says get a dog as a dog catcher, but never come close to wrestling again. He wishes Garrett the best in all of his future endeavors.

The host of some MMA show talks about MMA.

Eric Young talks to ODB who doesn’t want to hear it. He plays a song on his guitar called the Ode To ODB. She laughs at it and spanks him. This isn’t funny, as usual.

James Storm vs. Bully Ray

It’s 10:30 so there’s either something after this or we’re going to have a long match. Ray is way too proud of his calves. Feeling out process to start and Storm armdrags him down. Hebnar trips over him and Ray works on Storm’s knee. Ray even takes the boot off of Storm’s foot to work it over even better. More leg work follows which has been the focus of the match so far. Ray keeps on the leg as we take a break.

Back with Storm trying a comeback but Ray dropkicks the knee out for two. Ray punches the knee and talks trash, which gets him a punch in the face. Codebreaker puts Ray in the corner. He comes out with a big boot but Storm ducks underneath and hits the Last Call for the pin and the #1 contendership at 12:10.

Rating: C. Not the worst match in the world but it wasn’t that interesting either. It gives us Roode vs. Storm which is what we needed more than anything else though. Storm has made the superkick into a big move that can change a match at anytime which is what it needed to be.

Storm has a beer bash post match and gives Brandon Jacobs a beer as well. Ray jumps Storm during the celebration and gets in Jacobs’ face. He takes a drink from the beer and spits it in Jacobs’ face. Jacobs shoves him down and wants to fight. Storm and security pull him back and D’Lo Brown looks like he’s trying to hold back a small bus. Jacobs and Storm get in the ring and celebrate.

Storm and Jacobs say bring it Bully. Jacobs will be back next week.

Sting wants to talk to Roode face to face. Roode comes out and announces Roode vs. Storm in the cage at Lockdown. Roode kicks Sting in the balls for that. He takes Sting’s sunglasses and hits him with the belt to open him up. So….Sting vs. Roode at Victory Road?

Overall Rating: B-. This was a very packed show but nothing came off as excellent. Storm vs. Roode is the match that needs to happen but it’s a very good thing to get Sting vs. Roode out of the way first. That’s been the real main event feud since Roode won the title so getting it out of the way lets Roode vs. Storm feel like the huge match that it is. It wasn’t announced but I’d call it a very safe bet after the ending to that show. Good show but not great.

Results
Bobby Roode b. Jeff Hardy – Spear
Zema Ion/Austin Aries b. Alex Shelley/Shannon Moore – Rollup to Shelley
Madison Rayne won a battle royal last eliminating Velvet Sky
James Storm b. Bully Ray – Last Call

Remember to like me on Facebook at:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/kbwrestlingreviewscom/117930294974885?sk=wall

Monday Nitro #66
Date: December 16, 1996
Location: Pensacola Civic Center, Pensacola, Florida
Commentators: Eric Bischoff, Ted DiBiase

We’re in Florida this week and we’re just about to Starrcade with only one show after this before the big one. Also tonight is the last televised Sting match for over a year. That’s assuming he wrestles of course. We’ll also get more of the Piper vs. Hogan buildup which should be somewhat entertaining. Let’s get to it.

Here’s the NWO to start and they storm the announcers’ desk. Eric wants to do commentary and Larry says he’s not leaving. DiBiase and Virgil aren’t enough to make him leave. Tony leaves and Larry finally goes also.

We get a clip from the ending of last week’s show. Hogan is here tonight.

TV Title: Psicosis vs. Steven Regal

I don’t think this is a title match. Oh so it is. Eric says they’ll be taking over New Japan next. They fight over a wristlock to start and hit the mat where Regal takes over. Regal works on the arm and Bischoff implies that Regal will join the NWO soon. We take a break to NWO music and Bischoff promising something special. Back with Regal firing off European uppercuts in the corner.

Rolling cradle gets two. Psicosis speeds things up to send him to the floor. The fans are getting into this too. Psicosis hits a big dive to the floor and a top rope sunset flip for two. A top rope rana gets the same and the fans are really into this. The guillotine legdrop gets the same but I don’t think that was Psicosis’ finisher yet. Regal comes back with a suplex but his neck is hurting him.

Regal hooks the crossface part of the Regal Stretch and Psicosis taps but it doesn’t count yet. Now it’s a half nelson as Regal works on the neck. Butterfly suplex for two. Regal tries a top rope butterfly suplex but Psicosis knocks him down and hits a kind of frog splash for two. Psicosis superkicks him down (good one too) and tries a victory roll but Regal slams him onto his face and the Regal Stretch gets the submission.

Rating: B. I would ask where this came from, but as I say over and over on here: giving talented people time usually means you’re going to get a good match. Psicosis really had the fans into this and I think had them believing that the title was in danger. The idea of someone that was viewed as having only a tiny chance would be used again in February.

We recap the Sting vs. Rick Steiner stuff.

Big Bubba vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr.

Bubba knocks him into the corner to start but Chavo manages to speed things up to take over. He gets Bubba tied up in the ropes and dropkicks him to the floor. Bubba slams him out there though and Chavo is in trouble. Back inside a splash misses and Chavo hits some dropkicks. He fights out of a powerbomb position with right hands but jumps into a Bossman Slam for the pin.

Here are Sonny Onoo and Masa Chono. Sonny is his agent and is negotiating with New Japan for his contract. Sonny opens his jacket to reveal a New Japan show. Chono opens his jacket to reveal an NWO shirt. Chono yells at Sonny and Gene wants to know what he says. Sonny says something in Japanese. Gene: “IN ENGLISH YOU IDIOT!!!”

Chris Jericho vs. Masa Chono

Chono sends him to the floor and Jericho has no idea what to do with this guy. Chono knocks him down and yells at the referee. Sunset flip gets two for Jericho. Jericho tries to fight back but Chono is too much for him. Masa goes up but Jericho manages to get a superplex followed by a spinwheel kick for two. A top rope version of the kick misses but Jericho lands on Chono’s back. I think Chono was supposed to duck but didn’t get completely out of the way. Jericho gets knocked into the ropes and his foot gets tied into them. Chono chokes him until it’s a DQ.

Rating: C-. Not a bad match but Jericho wasn’t ready to hang in there with Chono yet. Also this was designed to be almost total domination for the new NWO guy which was par for the course at this point. I don’t remember when WCW’s first major win was but it would be awhile coming unless I’m overlooking something.

We recap last week’s Piper stuff as well as his segment with Flair.

Here are Flair and the Horsemen minus Benoit. Anderson says he’ll take out Sullivan tonight. Flair tells Benoit to get home. Debra doesn’t like Woman. Mongo says be ready Arn. Flair loses his voice and says Piper will kill Hogan.

Dave Sammartino vs. Dean Malenko

Did they lose a bet or something? The last national match I can find for Sammartino before this is at Wrestlemania I. That’s over 11 years ago! Did they owe Bruno a favor or something? They fight over the arm to start and Dean takes him to the mat like he’s fighting a no talent hack that is in the ring because his dad is famous. Small package gets two. A tiger suplex ends this. Not even enough to call it a squash. It was more like a workout with a punching bag for Dean.

Hour #2 begins and it’s Tony, Bobby and Tenay back on commentary.

We look at Chono joining the NWO again.

Ice Train vs. Jerry Flynn

Train destroys the martial arts guy to start but walks into a clothesline. Tony plugs the NWO PPV even though he doesn’t want to. Train takes him down again and this is a really boring match. He wins with an ankle lock of all things.

Rating: F. This is one of those times where you have to wonder what WCW was thinking. I mean…why does this match exist? Who thought this show needed Ice Train vs. Jerry Flynn? Ice Train would have four more matches on Nitro through May and then wouldn’t be on this show for over three years. Flynn would be about the same. I don’t get it.

Post match Syxx brings out the Outsiders. The Outsiders talk for a bit and the gist is Faces of Fear vs. Outsiders tonight.

Video on Sting abandoning WCW.

Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. Bobby Eaton

Eaton goes for the knee quickly and works on the arm. Mysterio vs. Liger is announced for Starrcade. Rey sends him to the floor and hits a dive to take over. They head back in and things slow down. Rey works on the arm which isn’t something I ever recall him doing. Eaton takes over again and the top rope knee drop gets two. Eaton goes up again but Rey crotches him and hits a top rope rana for the pin.

Rating: D+. This was a big surprise for me. With the talent you have in there, this was a big disappointment. I think the problem at the end of the day is that Eaton isn’t used to being the much bigger guy and that messed him up. The match isn’t terrible but they weren’t clicking at all.

Benoit and Woman are still in Germany and have another video, basically saying Benoit has taken Woman from Sullivan.

Arn Anderson vs. Kevin Sullivan

Sullivan blames Schiavone for showing the videos on the way to the ring. The brawl stats in the aisle and Sullivan throws a chair at his head. Anderson misses a swing with the chair and hits the post by mistake. They go into the ring for what must have been a good 4 seconds before heading into the crowd.

They go into the ring for the first time that you can actually keep track of and the referee gets a DDT. Sullivan double stomps him and ties Anderson into the Tree of Woe but Anderson manages to kick him low. Here’s Hugh Morrus who gets a DDT. Konnan gets a left hand and Sullivan manages to hit Anderson with a wooden chair for the pin.

Rating: N/A. I can’t really grade this as a match because it was a brawl instead of an actual match. It was entertaining which is really all you can ask for here. Benoit would get back soon enough, namely due to being in the US Title tournament. This was a fun brawl but there isn’t much of a reason to watch it from a storyline perspective as the heat was on Benoit.

Rick Steiner vs. Sting

Sting comes from the rafters and through the crowd. That doesn’t look like Sting at all. A second one comes out and that one looks more like him. The second one is the real one. The fake one has a ball bat. And so does the real one. The fake one throws his bat to Scott and the real one throws his to Rick. They turn around and offer a free shot to the Steiners, but the real Sting hits a Death Drop on the fake one, who we’re told is the NWO Sting. The real one walks out. No match.

Here’s the NWO in full force. Well at least the big names as Giant and Hogan are here with Vincent and DiBaise. Liz is there too. DiBiase demands a spotlight for Hulk. Hulk calls out Piper when we know Piper isn’t here. Hogan talks about starting here like Piper started in Charlotte last week. He says he was beating up Andre the Giant when he stated. Vincent is sent to the back to find Piper. Hulk says he could beat up Flair and Piper at the same time. Vincent comes back and tells Hogan that Piper ran out the back door. Hogan poses and dances to end this.

Faces of Fear vs. Outsiders

Brawl to start and Hall loads up the Edge on Meng. Barbarian breaks it up and Big Bubba comes in and joins the NWO, beating up Meng. Sullivan comes out and is knocked backwards. The Dungeon comes in but they’re outnumbered. The whole NWO comes out and some WCW guys join in as well. Scott Norton drops Ice Train on the floor and is NWO as well.

Sting comes in and the brawl stops. The fight stops and Anderson swings at Sting. Sting ducks and hits Anderson. Mongo gets in some shots so Sting hits him too. Rey jumps on him and is slammed down. Sting walks out to end the show. He only hit people that attacked him.

Overall Rating: B-. This is a hard one to grade. It’s a very entertaining show and I can’t take that away from it. However there’s something very important to note. With the three new additions to the NWO, counting non-wrestlers, there are now SIXTEEN members. The common problem people have with the NWO is that there were too many members. Within the last two weeks, they’ve added 4 new members, most of whom mean nothing. You could argue that Bubba is the biggest name as most American fans didn’t know who Chono was. You can see the problems that will plague the group starting here.

Remember to like me on Facebook at:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/kbwrestlingreviewscom/117930294974885?sk=wall

Monday Nitro #65
Date: December 9, 1996
Location: Independence Arena, Charlotte, North Carolina
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Larry Zbyszko, Bobby Heenan, Mike Tenay

We continue to head towards Starrcade tonight and if my memory is right, Piper is in the building tonight. There’s another member joining the NWO tonight as well but it’s not like the rest of them to put it mildly. There are a lot of matches tonight too so they should be pretty quick each. Let’s get to it.

Here’s Piper to open things up. Piper says it’s nice to be home. He used to live at a Days Inn here before it was pretty. The last time everyone saw him, there were a bunch of NWO guys pounding on his leg. Piper hops around the ring on one leg. On December 29, he’s supposed to fight Hogan in Nashville. He has six kids so he has to win this one. Piper is bombed it seems. His seven year old told him that Hogan was younger than him and has two good legs so what chance does he have?

Piper talks about boxing Mr. T. at Wrestlemania 2 and being asked to take a dive. He said no, so they added extra padding to his gloves to make sure the punches didn’t hurt T as much. I’ll leave that one alone. There’s a guy in the audience with an NWO sign. Piper says nothing bad about the NWO because he’s a free agent. He talks about a promo they did of six guys in one room in leather drinking and not one woman. Our hero ladies and gentlemen. He knows Hogan is here so let’s just do it tonight.

Mike Enos vs. Michael Wallstreet

Michael grabs a quick fireman’s carry to start and it’s a feeling out period. About a minute in here’s DiBiase. Enos hits a powerslam but gets distracted by DiBiase. DiBiase has papers in his hands and Wallstreet hits a quick Samoan Drop for the pin.

DiBiase hands Wallstreet the papers and he seems pleased. DiBiase leaves before anything else happens.

We get a video of Woman and Benoit with Woman talking about how she’s obviously not in the Florida Keys and that Kevin can’t find him. She meant it in Baltimore when she said if Sullivan kicked Benoit one more time she was gone. It’s not the 1950s anymore so she’ll do what she wants. Benoit talks about how Sullivan fancies himself a chess player. Well Benoit’s bishop just took Sullivan’s queen. We cut to Sullivan who is speechless.

Hugh Morrus vs. Renegade

Renegade still has a job? They fight for control with power moves to start which gets no one an advantage. Morrus changes things up with a spinwheel kick to take Renegade down. Small package gets two for Renegade. Morrus’ bearhug is quickly countered into one by Renegade which is quickly broken up as well. Morrus says to hit him, so Renegade punches him down. Can’t say he doesn’t take orders well. Hugh suplexes him down and the moonsault ends this. Better match than you would expect actually.

Joe Gomez, Renegade’s partner, pulls him out of the way of another moonsault.

Sullivan comes out post match and wants to talk to Tony who played the video of Benoit and Woman. Kevin says it’s a ratings game but that video wasn’t sent to WCW. It was sent to Sullivan, so why didn’t they ask Sullivan if they could show it? Tony is a pawn in a game to get ratings. Sullivan says he has a personal life and stuff that he does outside of this ring. Next time there’s something to show, screw the ratings because Sullivan has people to take care of. I didn’t remember this angle all that well but it’s starting off well.

Video on Sting set to, and I kid you not, Holding Out For A Hero.

Here’s Kevin Greene of the Carolina Panthers who got a big win yesterday. I know this because Tony has reminded us of it every 47 seconds. He doesn’t like Mongo and he doesn’t like the NWO. Greene would love a chance to fight Hogan.

Cruiserweight Title: Jimmy Graffiti vs. Dean Malenko

So Graffiti loses to Dean and then to Rey, then he gets a title match. I’ll never understand how the title contenders selection process works. Chain wrestling to start and Graffiti taking over with a hammerlock. Dean gets up and clotheslines Jimmy to take over as we take a break. Graffiti is in control with brawling stuff when we return. Clothesline gets two. Graffiti misses a charge in the corner and they head to the floor.

They both try a suplex but both guys are down as a result. A superkick puts Dean down for two. A powerbomb puts Dean down as well but Graffiti wastes time. After a very delayed cover, Graffiti tries a front suplex but Dean rolls through into a small package for a quick pin to retain the title.

Rating: C. Not a bad match but Graffiti was nothing of note at all. This was just an appetizer until we got to the Dragon feud which was more interesting. The ending was a good one as Dean used his wrestling abilities to catch the lazy Graffiti off guard. Not a great match but a good ending.

Sonny Onoo has lost his accent but says Dragon will destroy Dean at Starrcade.

We get some clips of the triangle tag match from World War 3.

Nasty Boys vs. Faces of Fear

If you’re expecting anything other than a fight here, raise your hand so I can point at you and laugh. They go split screen almost immediately and the Outsiders are standing on the ramp. I have no idea who started but it’s Sags vs. Barbarian now. Sags goes to the floor to fight Meng and it breaks down again. The NWO has left. Ok so it’s back to Barbarian and Sags in the ring and there’s a tag to Knobbs. It breaks down again and Knobbs has Barbarian pinned but there’s no referee. Jimmy GOES UP TOP with the Megaphone but it hits Barbarian. Meng hits Knobbs with the Megaphone and it gets the pin.

Rating: C. Ok so with this, if you’re going just on the wrestling this is somewhere between a Divas match and two kids in the back yard. If you’re going on entertainment and keeping things moving, this was incredible. That being said, we’ll put it somewhere in the middle. It’s a total brawl that has no order to it at all, but like I said that’s all you should have expected.

Here’s Flair for an interview. He comes out to the Horsemen music but he’s on his own. Flair is still injured here but his arm isn’t in a sling anymore. He praises the Panthers again and bows down to Greene, who he says he doesn’t like. Flair asks Piper to come out here to a big Charlotte welcome.

Flair talks about Piper getting here on a Greyhound bus and now he’s got a home next to Phil Knight (Nike boss) in Oregon. Piper has taken it upon himself to challenge Hogan, whose name draws a bunch of boos. Flair talks about the losses to Hogan haunting him but now Piper is here to rectify it. Piper says this is his last shot and he appreciates the offer but he wants to do this on his own.

Hour #2 begins.

We have a recap of the opening segment and then the announcers talk about said segment.

Chris Jericho vs. Bobby Eaton

Eaton takes him down quickly and hits the top rope knee almost immediately. Jericho comes back with a powerslam and an inset interview, saying WCW will prevail. He isn’t done with Nick Patrick yet either. Suplex sets up the Lionsault for two. It wasn’t a finisher yet. Alabama Jam misses and Jericho hits the missile dropkick for the pin. Pretty much a squash.

We recap the Rick Steiner/Sting issues.

The Steiners are in the arena to talk about Sting. Scott says it’s crazy to hand Rick Steiner a bat but when Scott did that, he saw something in Sting’s eyes. He has no idea what it is though. Sting has done the same thing to Lex and them and those three are all WCW. Rick says they’re waiting for his next message.

We recap Lex vs. Giant, which isn’t really a feud. This is more like a video on Lex set to his theme music and not much Giant. It’s Lex vs. Giant at Starrcade.

Craig Pittman vs. Arn Anderson

Pittman and Long have parted ways apparently. An inset interview by Sullivan says he blames this on Arn. Next week they’re going to fight. Anderson stalls a lot and Tony says that there’s more video from Benoit and Woman for Sullivan. We take a break (why?) and come back with more stalling. Anderson drops to the floor and wraps the knee around the post but is slammed off the top. Tony says that doesn’t happen often. I’d hit him if I could right now. Code Red is countered by grabbing the ropes and they head to the outside. Briefcase to the ribs, DDT, NEXT.

Gene asks Okerlund where Woman and Benoit are. Anderson says Benoit is in Germany and 2 + 2 = 4. Anderson says love stinks and it’s his fault. Debra goes on a rant against Nancy and McMichael says focus. Anderson tells benoit to come home and says he has a bone to pick with Woman.

Lee Marshall is in Pensacola.

US Title Tournament Semi-Finals: Diamond Dallas Page vs. Jeff Jarrett

Man this would have been different three and a half years later. The winner of this gets the winner of Guerrero vs. Benoit at Starrcade. This continues the streak of “put DDP in the ring with guys that could have a watchable match with a grizzly bear so that he gets better.” Jarrett has a small advantage to start but Page kicks him in the ribs and poses. They fight over a top wristlock and we take a break.

Back with Page in control and slamming Jarrett down. Jarrett comes back with an enziguri and a swinging neckbreaker for no cover. The fans start booing something and a sunet flip and clothesline both get two for Jeff. A Blanchard slingshot suplex sets up a middle rope fist for two. There’s a sleeper and Page is in trouble.

The referee is looking at something else as Page hits a discus lariat for a big reaction. Page punches him down and suddenly is over like crazy. A top rope clothesline gets two. Page is sent to the floor and here are the Outsiders. Nash distracts so that the Razor’s Edge can kill Jarrett. Page didn’t see it and gets the pin.

Rating: B-. Remember what I’ve said before about talented guys getting time means a good match? This is a similar version but Page wasn’t quite good yet. Jarrett was reliable though and could easily get a good match out of Page at this point. The reactions for Page are getting much stronger very quickly and WCW capitalized on it too.

Page says he doesn’t need the NWO because the Diamond Cutter does whatever he needs. One more time: leave me alone. He wants to know where they were last year when he was voted Most Improved by PWI. It reminds him of a girl he picked up in a nightclub and the next thing he knows, she wants a full time thing. In short, stop calling!

Rick Steiner vs. Scott Norton

We have about five minutes left in this show so this isn’t lasting long if at all. And there’s no Steiner. It’s Roddy Piper instead and he’s MAD.

He gets a chair and gets in the ring. Piper says nothing is happening until Hogan gets out here because it’s time to fight. Here’s Bischoff instead but Piper says get out because he wants Hogan. Eric says the NWO has left and here comes the garbage. He says he tried to keep Piper out of WCW for his own safety. Eric says that Hogan will beat him up on the 29th and then he limps out of the ring to imitate Piper. Piper gets the chair and here’s the NWO. He has the chair and says bring it on but no one gets in. Kevin Greene gets in also and they stand tall to end the show.

Overall Rating: C+. Most of Starrcade is set at this point so the next few weeks are going to be a lot of buildup shows and that’s ok. This show was entertaining enough but we need Hogan and Piper in the same ring soon. It’s not a bad show and the wrestling is good, but it was still a few weeks/months before we get to the Sting vs. Hogan stuff and the real drama begins. This is just kind of keeping things warm until then.

Remember to like me on Facebook at:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/kbwrestlingreviewscom/117930294974885?sk=wall