It’s a hidden gem in a dark period for WCW.And it’s a Dustin Rhodes match.  There’s no real backstory here.  Vader is #1 contender and Dustin is a midcard guy ala Kofi Kingston today.  From Clash of the Champions XXIX.

 

 

Vader vs. Dustin Rhodes

 

Dustin is a solid midcard guy and Vader is the #1 contender so this should be interesting. The feeling out process doesn’t last long as Vader shoves him into the corner and hits a hard shot to the chest before spitting at Rhodes. Dustin just charges at him and takes Vader down to hammer away. Vader covers up and Dustin rips his mask off before getting a VERY close two off a cross body. A clothesline puts Vader on the floor and another shot to the face knocks him up to the barricade. Dustin lays out Harley Race and waits for Vader inside.

 

Back inside and Dustin hammers Vader down in the corner before suplexing the big man like it’s nothing. Vader has had enough of being on defense and just runs Dustin over. He hammers away in the corner but Dustin avoids a splash and gets another close two off a rollup. Another body attack puts Rhodes down but he comes right back with a powerslam of all things. Vader tries to counter a sunset flip but Rhodes gets away and drives in more right hands. The referee gets a shot in the face so Vader throws Rhodes over the top and ot the floor.

 

Vader brings him back in and runs Dustin over with a clothesline. Two Vader Bombs get two each and Vader is getting even more angry. The referee starts a ten count on Dustin but him getting close to his feet just makes Vader even madder. He goes to the middle rope but jumps into a powerslam to put both guys down. Rhodes nails a string of clotheslines and a Bionic Elbow before a top rope lariat gets two. A middle rope DDT gets another near fall on Vader and there’s the bulldog but Harley comes in for a distraction. Vader lays Dustin out and just ends him with a wheelbarrow slam for the pin.

 

Rating: B+. You saw a preview of this a few shows back in the six man tag but man alive this was awesome. Dustin wasn’t going to win the match but he had the fans buying into the idea that he could pull off a miracle. He was throwing Vader around and beating the fire out of him for the first part of the match. That wheelbarrow slam made it even better.

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Halloween Havoc 1998
Date: October 25, 1998
Location: MGM Grand Garden Arena, Las Vegas, Nevada
Attendance: 10,663
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Mike Tenay, Bobby Heenan

We’re FINALLY here after six weeks of buildup. It’s a double main event with Warrior and Hogan in the battle for Hollywood’s sanity and ego as well as Diamond Dallas Page challenging Goldberg for the World Title. However the show is remembered far more for something that had nothing to do with the wrestling. Let’s get to it.

The opening video hypes up the big matches on tonight’s card with the overly dramatic music playing in the background. This really is a stacked card.

The set looks AWESOME with a giant demon holding an inflated pumpkin with the Halloween Havoc logo. WCW always did nail their sets unlike today where you’re lucky to get a few props.

The announcers hype up the double main event. By this I mean they mention Goldberg vs. Page in one sentence and then talk about Hogan vs. Warrior for two minutes. Thankfully Tenay actually talks about the World Title match and how different Page and Goldberg’s paths have been to get here.

We open with the Nitro Girls in the ring. Since most of you probably know what’s coming, I’m going to keep track of the time being wasted on segments like this. The ongoing total will be listed in parentheses at the end of each segment. (1:10)

Tony lists off three matches added: Disco vs. Juvy with the winner getting a title shot later in the night and Raven challenging for the TV Title.

Gene brings out Rick Steiner for a chat as we wait on the first match. Rick says this isn’t brother vs. brother tonight because he sees Scott as just another opponent. Buff Bagwell comes out sans NWO gear to say he’s had a real change of heart. Everyone is sick of Scott Steiner and he knows the NWO doesn’t work one on one. Therefore, Buff should be in Rick’s corner tonight and he barks to prove his loyalty. Rick doesn’t know if he can trust Buff but goes along with it anyway. (4:37)

TV Title: Raven vs. Chris Jericho

This could be good. Side note: I’m watching this on the WWE Network (praise be its name) and Break the Walls Down is swapped in for Jericho’s WCW theme. My head snapped up when I heard that instead of his regular song. Raven complains about his losing streak and asks What About Me.

He went to bed at 11am this morning and then arrived at the arena to find out he’s in an unscheduled match. Well he doesn’t feel like wrestling tonight so he gets up and leaves. Jericho doesn’t want to wrestle either but all of the Jericholics are here to see him because Jericho equals buyrates and rock and roll. He was really looking forward to facing an icon like the leader of the Flock, but there wouldn’t be much of a challenge because Raven is a LOSER. That’s enough to get Raven inside for the opening bell, nearly thirteen minutes into the show.

Jericho jumps him coming in and whips Raven with his leather jacket, setting up the arrogant cover for two. Raven gets his hands on Jericho and they fall over the top and out to the floor. Jericho gets suplexed ribs first onto the steps and comes up holding his knee. A dropkick off the steps puts the champion down again. Jericho: “HELP ME!” Back in and Jericho hits a quick Stun Gun before the springboard dropkick sends Raven into the barricade.

Chris follows him out with a dive but Raven steps aside and Jericho goes head first into the barricade as well. It’s Raven’s turn now as Jericho whips him into the steel again before they head back inside. Raven bites Jericho’s face before throwing on a quickly broken sleeper. Jericho hits a backsplash and takes the turnbuckle pad off but Raven blocks the whip into the corner. A standing hurricanrana is countered into a powerbomb by Raven before he catapults Jericho face first into the buckle for two.

Jericho is oddly unharmed by being sent face first into steel but Raven catches him in a belly to belly for two. Back up and Jericho sweeps the legs to put on the Liontamer. Raven is quickly in the ropes and hits the Even Flow out of nowhere for two. A low blow lets Chris hit a German suplex for another close two as Kanyon runs out and gets on the apron. Jericho immediately knocks him off and reverses another Even Flow attempt into the Liontamer for the quick submission.

Rating: B+. Why does no one bring this up as a great match for either guy? They meshed the hardcore and wrestling stuff together here and got a great match as a result. Jericho was wrestling like a face here for the most part and it worked just as well as his awesome heel run. The announcers played up how Raven has been submitting so quickly after passing out from the Crossface with a smile earlier in the year. Nice touch of continuity to go with a great match.

Here are Hogan (in an NWO Nitro t-shirt) and Eric Bischoff with a goatee and haircut. Before the actual promo starts, Hogan says he beat up everyone in wrestling because he loves Eric so much. Eric is always asked what he admires the most about Hollywood. Since there’s so much, it’s that he represents the family values of this millennium.

Hogan says he could be long winded out here but he knows the NWOites all love him and worship the ground he walks on. He goes on about how he attacked Horace to prove a point and we get clips because just talking about it isn’t enough. Hogan says he went a bit too far but it was drawing a line on what it meant to be an NWOite. Tonight, Warrior will know exactly what it’s all about and he’ll get beaten up real bad for life. Since that’s not enough, Hogan spends another minute talking into the camera as the music plays. (10:07)

Meng vs. Wrath

The fight starts on the floor with Wrath sending Meng into the steps and taking him down with the flip dive off the apron. They head inside with Wrath getting two off a middle rope clothesline. Meng rolls forward to escape the Meltdown and the Kick of Fear gets two. A gutbuster gets the same but Wrath comes back with knees to the ribs in the corner. Meng gets two more off a belly to back suplex but misses the Death Grip. A Rock Bottom is good for two on Meng before the Meltdown gets the pin for Wrath.

Rating: D+. The match was a decent power brawl and it gets Wrath a his biggest win to date. They’re actually building him up strong and it’s very nice to see for a change. You would think putting the TV Title on him would make sense as Jericho doesn’t need it and the US Title simply wasn’t happening for Wrath at this point.

Kidman is ready to face either Guerrera or Disco Inferno tonight. I won’t count this as a waste of time because it was like fifteen seconds long.

Disco Inferno vs. Juventud Guerrera

Winner gets a Cruiserweight Title shot against Kidman later tonight. Disco stomps away in the corner to start but grabs a side slam for two. Juvy lands a LOUD chop to take over and does some quick dancing of his own. Guerrero tries the backflip out of a Fameasser position but just falls to the side. A second attempt at a Fameasser works a bit better and Disco gets monkey flipped over the top. Juyy baseball slides into a headscissors and both guys go down for a few seconds.

Back in and Disco takes over with an atomic drop and clothesline before stopping to dance instead of cover. We hit the chinlock with no cranking on it at all before Juvy slides to the apron to take Disco down with a Stunner. Disco heads outside again and turns his back on Guerrera, allowing him to be taken out by a nice plancha. They head inside again and Disco grabs a swinging neckbreaker but lays on the mat instead of covering.

Disco counters a sunset flip with a right hand but stops for a Macarena. He busts out a giant swing of all things but dizzies himself. It doesn’t turn out all that badly though as he falls head first onto Juvy’s groin. Referee: “Juvy are you ok?” All three announcers: “NO HE’S NOT OK!” Disco takes forever to get up top so Juvy can nip up and grab a top rope hurricanrana. Now it’s Juvy on top with a spinwheel kick (his hip hit Disco so Tony’s “flying body attack” description is more accurate) for two and the sitout bulldog gets the same. Juvy loads up a victory roll but Disco shoves him off and nails the jumping piledriver for the pin.

Rating: B-. Shockingly good match here with Disco wrestling a normal style against the high flier in Guerrera. I’ll give Disco this: he turned a ridiculous gimmick into a successful career and had some solid matches throughout. That jumping piledriver looked great as well and made things even better.

Nitro Girls again, this time with hats and chairs. Kimberly’s complete lack of emotion is more disturbing than anything else. (11:05)

Here’s Scott Steiner with something to say. He’s been going for thirty days with a freak on his left, a freak on his right and one in a box. Big Poppa Pump is in town and ready to pound so here’s a catchphrase. He beat up Buff in front of his brother, so why not make this match interesting tonight, and have Buff/Rick vs. Giant/Scott? We’ll make it even more interesting and make it for the World Tag Team Titles. Giant comes out and agrees.

JJ comes out and asks if they’re serious. If they’re willing to do so, let’s make it even MORE interesting: if the titles change hands, Rick gets to face Scott in a fifteen minute match. You know, LIKE THEY ALREADY ADVERTISED. Scott says deal. This makes potentially five matches added to the card already tonight. (15:42)

Fit Finlay vs. Alex Wright

Heaven forbid we don’t see this match again after they fought on Nitro two weeks ago (and again this coming week on Thunder). Finlay drives him into the corner to start as the announcers immediately start talking about Hogan vs. Warrior. Wright does three straight nip ups and climbs the corner to escape a wristlock. I guess just spinning Finlay’s arm around was too passe for a European. They trade European uppercuts with Wright taking over and stomping away as the boring chants start up about two minutes in.

A catapult into the bottom rope has Finlay in trouble but he comes back with a catapult of his own, sending Wright chest first into the ropes so he falls back onto Finlay’s knees. They head outside with Wright taking over and slamming Finlay onto the floor. Finlay comes back by dropping Wright’s throat across the barricade out of a fireman’s carry. Back inside and they tumble right back down again. Wright comes back inside and misses a missile dropkick. Finlay’s charge hits the post and Alex hits a neckbreaker for the pin.

Rating: C. The match was fine but this was already done on Nitro and the story isn’t interesting in the first place. Wright has won most of the matches between the participants so far and it hasn’t really done anything for anyone involved. This is a good example of a match that just didn’t need to be on the PPV.

Ernest Miller talks about being great on WCW.com but Lee Marshall points out that all his nicknames are already taken. Kidman at least had a match tonight. (16:42)

Lodi vs. Saturn

This is added match #5. December to Dismember only added four. Lodi has little pieces of chains on his trunks which jingle every time Saturn does anything. Wait stop the match! SOMEONE IS TAKING LODI’S SIGNS! Thankfully Lodi gets out of the ring and chases the guy down, demanding that he leave the signs at ringside. Back in and Saturn takes him down with a leg sweep, sending Lodi to the floor again. Lodi has to save his signs again and tries to leave but Saturn throws him back in and destroys him with the usual, setting up the Death Valley Driver for the pin.

Rating: D. It’s a comedy match which is the only way you could do a Lodi vs. Saturn match. That being said, what was the point in adding this to the card? To give the audience a breather from between the big matches that could be on Thunder and whatever comes next? At least Saturn got to look dominant.

The announcers talk about what’s coming. We also get a recap video of the Bagwell vs. Scott feud, which at least sets up a match later so I’ll count it as mattering.

Nitro Girls, looking very nice in leather pants and cut off tops. (19:00)

Cruiserweight Title: Kidman vs. Disco Inferno

Disco is challenging and is quickly dropkicked down to the corner. A drop toehold sets up an armbar from the champion before he just stomps a mudhole on Disco. Kidman gets a bit too cocky though and gets sent throat first into the ropes, followed by a neckbreaker for two. Disco tosses him outside but Kidman climbs up the steps for a bulldog down to the floor. Back in and the champion misses a top rope splash to give Inferno a two count.

We hit the chinlock on Kidman but he quickly gets up and hits a hard clothesline. Disco avoids a charge in the corner and stomps Kidman down before talking a lot of trash. A middle rope elbow misses after Disco wastes too much time dancing. He’s able to avoid a dropkick though and hit the jumping piledriver for a delayed two count. Kidman reveres a suplex but can’t hit his bulldog out of the corner. Instead it’s Disco getting two off a gordbuster but taking too much time trying the Macarena Driver. Kidman counters with a faceplant and the Shooting Star retains the title.

Rating: B-. Not as good as the Guerrera match but it still worked quite well. Kidman was awesome at this point and could have a good match with anyone (except Scott Hall of course) as the division is really getting awesome again. Thankfully the LWO wasn’t a part of this as it just isn’t catching my interest so far.

Konnan’s music video (edited off the Network). (21:30)

Tag Titles: Scott Steiner/Giant vs. Rick Steiner/Buff Bagwell

Hall and Giant are the real champions but it’s NWO Rules. The rules state that if the NWO loses, Rick and Scott will face each other for fifteen minutes. Not in a fifteen minute time limit match, but for fifteen minutes. Bagwell is in street clothes. We stall a bit more before the bell, but Tony is immediately plugging Bride of Chucky as soon as the bell rings. Giant chops Rick in the corner to start and Scott says stay on him instead of making a tag.

After a few belly to back suplexes it’s off to Scott with some forearms to the back as Buff plays cheerleader on the apron. Scott stays on him for a few moments before he gets caught with an atomic drop. A Steiner Line (not a lariat Tenay) puts Scott down and it’s off to Buff who of course turns on Rick because THAT’S WHAT BUFF BAGWELL DOES. Seriously, it’s all he’s done for most of this year. It’s like the bad movie sequel when they’re just doing the same plot again but this time it’s the same people.

Buff runs off to make it a handicap match as Scott kicks his brother low. The fans LOUDLY call this bull as Giant comes in and stands on Rick’s chest. The beating keeps going with a slam from the Giant as the announcers speculate about Judy Bagwell being in on this. Back to Scott as Rick fights back but gets stopped by another low blow. Tony says the WCW rules committee needs to look at that move. Wait so it’s not a DQ already? Giant goes up for a missile dropkick of all things (looked good too) but lays out Scott by mistake. Rick hits the top rope bulldog for the pin and the titles because oh why not.

Rating: D. Do I really need to explain this one? The match wasn’t entertaining and the swerve surprised no one, but the announcers of course treat it like some award winning performance. What’s the point in having a setup and the swerve in the span of an hour and a half? I know WCW thinks its fans are stupid but come on. But hey, at least we have WACKY Tag Team Champions now.

Rick Steiner vs. Scott Steiner

Scott tries to run and Giant is still down in the ring. Rick brings Scott back to the ring but has to run from Giant. Scott gets sent into the steps and begs off in the ring but Rick pops him in the mouth. Rick gets a boot up in the corner and drives him upside down into the corner for one. Another low blow puts Scott in control again and the crowd just dies. After some choking, Scott gets caught in a belly to belly for two. And now we have Buff Bagwell in a Bill Clinton mask (I don’t get it either) with the slap jack to knock Rick and the referee silly for the DQ.

Actually scratch that as the match just keeps going despite the bell. Buff puts Scott on top of Rick and picks up the referee’s hand for the count. Rick kicks out at two as Scott hits the Frankensteiner out of the corner for another two count. Buff throws the referee to the floor but Rick comes back and hits the bulldog on Scott as Nick Patrick slides in for the pin. Buff: “ANYBODY SEEN MONICA???” Seriously what was up with the Clinton stuff?

Rating: F. JUST LET THE STEINERS HAVE A MATCH!!! Why is that such a horrible idea? There’s a built in story and it would probably be an entertaining power match, but for some reason WCW keeps dragging it out longer and longer until no one is going to care anymore. And again, WHAT WAS WITH THE BILL CLINTON STUFF??? Yes I know he was on trial around this time, but why is Buff in a Clinton mask supposed to be funny?

We recap Hall vs. Nash. These guys split up at Slamboree in May and they’re having their first match five months later. Somehow that puts the Steiners to shame. Hall turned on him because he needed money which Hogan and Bischoff were willing to give him. It’s a lame story but it’s better than nothing.

Scott Hall vs. Kevin Nash

Hall comes out with a cup in hand as Tony gives us a disclaimer about Hall needing help. Scott throws the drink in Nash’s eyes and hammers away to start, knocking Nash out to the floor. Scott chokes him with a camera cable and blasts Nash with a big right hand while still wearing the vest. It’s time for a mid match promo as Scott asks how the world looks through foggy eyes.

Back inside with Hall hammering away even more, dropping Nash with a series of right hands. A discus punch sets up the crotch chop as a loud Wolfpack chant starts up. Nash doesn’t feel like taking the Outsider’s Edge this early so he makes his comeback with the right hands and side slam before collapsing from exhaustion. They slug it out from their knees, which would have more impact if we were over five minutes into the match.

It’s Nash up first but Hall bails to the floor to avoid a Jackknife attempt. Hall comes back in for some more punches before driving in the shoulder blocks. Nash fires back with some right hands and the running crotch attack against the ropes. Some knees in the corner have Hall in trouble and the framed elbow knocks him down. Nash drives in knees in the other corner while asking Hall if he wants another drink. Hall’s punches have no effect at all so it’s a big boot, pull of the straps and two powerbombs before Nash walks out on the match.

Rating: D. It wasn’t exactly good, but after watching whatever the Steiners thing was, this was a masterpiece. At least it was a match and had a story with Nash just wanting to beat some sense into Hall instead of beating him. Why is that so hard for Rick and Scott to do? Anyway, not a great match, but there was something here at least.

Nitro Girls, now in rainbow colored wigs. (22:30)

US Title: Sting vs. Bret Hart

Bret turned on Sting a few weeks back after turning on him a few months back for reasons still not explained. Sting is challenging and sits in the ring with the bat as Bret circles around on the floor. The chase is quickly on outside but they’re nice enough to come in for the bell. Bret immediately heads outside again but Sting finally tosses him inside to get going. He rains down right hands in the corner and hits an atomic drop for two.

Bret fights out of the corner with right hands and headbutts followed by a DDT for two more. A legdrop gets two for the champion and an elbow gets the same. This match is almost in slow motion. We hit the chinlock for a bit before Bret stomps on the chest. Bret misses a dropkick and Sting tries the Scorpion to wake the crowd up but Bret is in the ropes before it goes on. Sting hammers away and ducks a leapfrog but Bret injures his knee. Somehow Sting falls for it and Bret loads up a foreign object. A clothesline knocks it out of his hand but the referee takes it from Sting, allowing Bret to get in a low blow.

The Five Moves of Doom have Sting in trouble and Bret throws him outside. Back in and Sting accidentally nails the referee with an elbow but Bret drops a very intentional leg to keep him down. Bret kicks Sting low again (what is with all these low blows tonight???) but Sting crotches him on the top for a superplex. Everyone is out but Sting hits a Stinger Splash, only to knock himself out on the post. Bret hits him with the bat about five times, including once to the throat, before putting on the Sharpshooter for the TKO win.

Rating: D. This was long and boring with nothing a stupid ending. Sting is probably going on the shelf now as the Wolfpack takes yet another hit. Bret winning with the bat is out of character for him, but then again so is being this bored in the ring. There’s nothing here again and the match was really slow and dull.

Sting goes out on a stretcher after a long time.

Hollywood Hogan vs. Warrior

Here we go everyone. This has been called the worst match of all time and I’m curious to see how bad it really is. Hogan says he can kill the Warrior and then threatens to murder the bum. Warrior tells Hogan to get in the ring and immediately drills him with a right hand at the bell. Hogan takes over with a knee to the ribs and shots to the back before putting on a wristlock. Warrior counters into one of his own, sending Hollywood bailing to the floor.

Hogan refuses to do the test of strength and takes Warrior into the corner. Now he’ll do the test with Warrior in trouble and we get the recreation of the famous sequence. Warrior keeps trying to fight up but Hogan switches to another wristlock, setting up the criss cross so Hogan can slam Warrior down. It’s not sold at all but Hogan is kind enough to sell for Warrior’s slam A clothesline puts Hogan over the top and out to the floor where Warrior rams him into the barricade.

Back in and the referee gets bumped with Hogan kneeing him in the head as well. Hogan runs Warrior over and calls in the Giant who accidentally kicks Hogan in the head. Warrior knocks Giant, Vincent and Stevie Ray to the floor but gets caught by a belly to back suplex for two. We get the workout belt whipping followed by one of the more impressive screwups I can ever remember. You know the spot where a heel drops elbows but the other guy keeps rolling away? They try that here but Warrior rolls the wrong way and knocks Hogan over. IT’S LEFT AND RIGHT FOR CRYING OUT LOUD.

Anyway Warrior misses the splash (zero reaction) but comes back with a right hand and hits him with the workout belt. The referee yells at Warrior so Hogan pulls out a magic kit. It’s a plastic bag with some paper and a lighter inside which is supposed to be used to make a fireball but Hogan can’t get it to work and throws the paper at Warrior before some of it lights up between the two of them. Thank goodness Warrior doesn’t sell it and hammers away on Hogan.

A top rope ax handle (with Warrior’s hands coming apart about 10 inches before making contact and lightly grazing Hogan’s shoulders but somehow busting Hogan open. There’s ANOTHER low blow and the legdrop (still no reaction) before Horace comes out with a chair. Hollywood misses another legdrop and Warrior fires off some clotheslines as Bischoff distracts the referee. Horace hits Warrior with the chair to give Hogan the pin and soothe his fragile ego.

Rating: F. Oh yeah it’s bad and it’s not even in a funny way. This is bad in a pitiful way and doesn’t get any better at all. Ignoring the traditional illogical turn at the end by Horace (Hogan said something about passing a test), this was a long and horrible match with no one looking good.

The original idea with the fireball was for Warrior to make a big blind comeback which even Hulk has said was a bad idea in retrospect. This was much more embarrassing than anything else with Warrior showing how he had nothing at all anymore and that Hogan was just a joke anymore in the ring. I think everything that can be said about this match has been said at one point or another so I’ll leave it at that.

The Hogans pour lighter fluid on Warrior but Doug Dillinger stops the matches from being thrown.

It would be about 10:59 at this point but it’s World Title time.

WCW World Title: Goldberg vs. Diamond Dallas Page

Let’s stop it here for a second because this is where it all fell apart. See, WCW decided that this show should be extra long and asked the PPV companies to give them an extra thirty minutes. Unfortunately this was 1998 and not that simple, so a lot of feeds went off somewhere between the end of the Warrior vs. Hogan match and the start of the title match. Yeah WCW gave them some advance notice, but that doesn’t put WCW in the clear. If you look at this show, they EASILY could have cut nearly an hour out but WCW just couldn’t let that happen.

Overall the show ran roughly three hours and twenty minutes, so cutting out say 25 minutes would have made this fit the time slot. As I mentioned, we had over 22 minutes of segments that weren’t needed or Nitro Girls (certainly not worthless but not necessary). On top of that there was the Juvy vs. Disco match, Wrath vs. Meng, Finlay vs. Wright, Saturn vs. Lodi and the Tag Title match which all could have been on free TV instead of here. WCW never advertised the show as running longer than usual as far as I know so it’s not like the fans would feel ripped off.

It comes off as a combination of stupidity and somewhat arrogance as the company just figured their plan would work and they just HAD to be bigger than WWF. What did most of the stuff they added here help? What does a Saturn vs. Lodi comedy match (probably six minutes with entrances and a post match replay) do to help the card? It ticked off the fans and cost them a lot of money, but at least they got the Buff Bagwell swerve and a Konnan music video on PPV.

And now, the match. Page’s music is edited on the Network. Page charges right at him a few times and is easily shoved away. An armdrag frustrates Goldberg and they lock up before falling to the floor without breaking it up. Back in and Page tries a legsweep but Goldberg does a standing backflip to avoid it. Men his size should not be able to do that. A bad looking cross armbreaker has Page in trouble and Goldberg shoves him out of the ring to block the Diamond Cutter.

Back in and Page takes him down into a hammerlock but a hard shoulder block puts him on the floor. Page is able to snap Goldberg’s throat across the top rope and he follows up with a swinging neckbreaker. A Russian legsweep gets two and we hit a front facelock. Goldberg knees his way out of it and hits a spinning neckbreaker to put Page down. A hard hiptoss puts Page down and a side slam gets two for the champion. Back to the cross armbreaker but Page makes the rope.

A superkick sends Page flying but he sidesteps the spear, sending Goldberg hard into the post. Page gets two off a flying clothesline and the running DDT puts the champion down as well. He calls for the Diamond Cutter but Goldberg nails him with the spear. It injures his arm though and Goldberg can’t get the Jackhammer. Page slips behind him and grabs the Diamond Cutter but both guys are down. The fans are suddenly WAY into this as Page gets a very close two. Page tries a suplex of his own but Goldberg counters into the Jackhammer to retain the title.

Rating: B. It’s not a masterpiece but it’s definitely Goldberg’s best match ever. The fans were buying into Page as a threat at the end of the match and that’s more than can be said about the vast majority of Goldberg’s opponents. To put it simply, this was a good wrestling match. You can’t often say that about a WCW main event but that’s what you had here.

Goldberg helps Page up post match and poses to end the show.

Overall Rating: C+. Oh my where do I start? As is almost always the case, a good effort by lower card is wasted by most of the main event stuff. Look at the World Title match for an example. It’s the only good main event match on the show, but it’s the third thing people remember after Hogan vs. Warrior and the feed cutting out. Those things overshadow good efforts by guys like Jericho, Raven and even Disco Inferno.

On top of that, look at how much of the card was announced the night of the show. That’s common with some nothing matches, but there were three title matches announced during the show. I’m not saying one of them would have been enough to sell a PPV, but I’d certainly think Raven vs. Jericho, a Tag Team Title match and a Cruiserweight Title match in addition to everything else already advertised might have sold a few extra shows. But again, they just don’t mention it and add it on here.

This should have been a huge night for WCW but it turned into one of the moments they’re remembered for in a bad way. The card was one of the most stacked lineups I can ever remember WCW having but it’s remembered for two huge failures more than anything else. It’s still definitely a good show with the opener, main event and cruiserweight stuff outweighing the three bad main event matches (Hall vs. Nash is bad but not terrible) but the bad is really hard to ignore.

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Thunder
Date: October 22, 1998
Location: Tingley Coliseum, Albuqurque, New Mexico
Commentators: Lee Marshall, Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan, Mike Tenay

It’s the very last show before Halloween Havoc and we’re actually coming off a good show on Monday with every major PPV match getting some focus. Nothing has been announced for tonight but that’s usually the case coming into Thunder. I’m sure we’ll get plenty of videos on the two main events though. Let’s get to it.

The announcers talk about Hogan attacking Horace on Monday and call it a horrible act.

We look at Goldberg and Page nearly brawling after Goldberg cost Page a match against Jericho.

Super Calo vs. Rey Mysterio Jr.

Calo takes over with some kicks to the ribs to start and gets two off a shoulder block. A missile dropkick gets the same and Calo hooks a seated abdominal stretch to slow things down. Back up and Calo throws Rey to the apron before sending him to the floor for a big dive. Totally one sided so far. Back in and Rey climbs corner to hit a nice headscissors followed by the yet to be named 619 back inside. Calo gets caught in the ropes and the top rope legdrop to the back of his head gets two. Super gets to his feet and goes up, only to get crotched and taken down with a hurricanrana for the pin.

Rating: C-. Nice fast paced match to start things off here but there wasn’t much to it. It’s nice to see Mysterio back and mostly healthy though as no one could keep up with him when he was at even 85-90%. Calo looked better than usual here, but that doesn’t really say much as he isn’t one of the better luchadores.

Post match Eddie and the LWO comes out to offer Rey a spot but he throws the shirt back at Eddie and leaves. Chavo watches with a smile on his face from the entryway.

Video on Page vs. Goldberg.

Here’s Page for a quick chat. Monday was nothing but intensity and it makes him think of Goldberg as even more of a champion. The Diamond Cutter is enough to beat him though because he’s next. On Sunday, Goldberg will feel the BANG.

Ad for the Mastercard.

Alex Wright vs. Johnny Swinger

Wright cranks on the arm to start and puts Swinger down with a fireman’s carry takeover. Johnny comes back with an armbar of his own and a Russian legsweep has Wright in trouble. A spinwheel kick puts Swinger down and Alex drapes him ribs first over the top rope. Swinger comes back with a hard shot to the chest but gets dropkicked out of the air, setting up a neckbreaker to give Wright the pin.

Rating: D+. Just a squash here with Alex looking good as almost always. I’m still not sure why he never got a huge push but the thick accent might have had something to do with it. Or maybe that this is WCW and it’s a good day if they can tie their shoes properly. Swinger never did anything for me but he was fine for something like this.

We look at the Steiners brawling on Monday.

Video on Sting vs. Hart closing Nitro. Tony accuses Heenan of being a snitch for the NWO. Heenan: “I am not!” Tony: “That’s true. You’re a liar, a traitor, a coward and a snitch.”

TV Title: Kanyon vs. Chris Jericho

Jericho is defending and this has some serious potential. Kanyon does his Who Better bit with Jericho putting bunny ears up behind his head. Chris takes the mic and says the real question is Who Better Than Jericho. Kanyon doesn’t take kindly to gimmick infringement and the fight is quickly on. Jericho knocks him to the floor with a shoulder and we take and early break.

Back with Jericho getting two off the Lionsault as we see Raven for the first time, looking on from the apron. Jericho does his long stride and Kanyon sends him face first into the buckle to take over. The superplex from the middle of the rope (not the corner) puts Jericho down for two as the fans get distracted by something in the audience. Jericho counters a suplex into a reverse suplex for two but Kanyon comes back with a swinging neckbreaker for the same.

The announcers talk about Raven looking distracted as Jericho scores with a gutbuster but can’t get the Liontamer. An electric chair into a flapjack gets two on the champion but Jericho fights out of a superplex. Jericho tries a missile dropkick but hits the referee (Billy Kidman according to Tony and Lee) which draws in Raven. The Even Flow is easily countered into the Liontamer and Raven taps, which is good enough for a submission win for Jericho.

Rating: C+. Good while it lasted but the match was more about Raven than anything else. It’s nice to see Jericho get a win for a change, even if he was acting more like a face while doing so. The Raven story is interesting as he’s lost his edge without the Flock and could have some good stories as a result.

Clip from the new Kurt Russell movie Soldier.

We see Hogan beating up Horace and Warrior on Monday

Saturn vs. Norman Smiley

A lockup goes nowhere so Norman makes his chest dance to entertain Saturn. Apparently Saturn is more of a song than dance man as he throws Smiley down with a beal before dropping him with a t-bone suplex for two. Norman picks the ankle but Saturn is quickly in the ropes before anything can be done. A neckbreaker sends Smiley to the floor but he comes back in with a nice sunset flip for two.

Since this is a pretty good technical match so far, the announcers are talking about Horace. Saturn slams him down but misses a top rope splash, allowing Norman to take over with some uppercuts. A tiger bomb gets two for Smiley but Saturn drills him with a superkick. There’s a belly to belly to Norman followed by the Death Valley Driver for the pin.

Rating: C. The match didn’t have time to go anywhere but it was nice while it lasted, much like the previous match. Smiley is a very sound technical guy and could actually keep up with Saturn on the mat. Saturn’s superkick always looked good though and it nailed Smiley in the jaw here. Nice little match.

Lex Luger vs. Scotty Riggs

Feeling out process to start until Luger remembers he’s fighting Riggs and runs him over with some clotheslines. Riggs snaps Lex’s throat across the top rope and chokes away a lot before scoring with a dropkick. Luger quickly breaks out of a chinlock as the announcers say no one anticipated seeing Hogan vs. Warrior again eight and a half years later. A few running knees in the corner have Luger in trouble but he comes back with a suplex. Luger comes back with all of his usual stuff and finishes Riggs with the Rack.

Rating: D+. Not the worst squash in the world here as Riggs looked decent out there. That’s rather surprising as Riggs is usually one of the least interesting wrestlers on the roster. Luger was his usual self here, meaning he was charismatic but used the same moves he’s done for ten years now.

We takes yet another look at Bischoff being thrown out of the United Center. It really wasn’t that big of a deal.

Juventud Guerrera vs. Prince Iaukea

They trade takedowns to star until Juvy charges into a boot in the corner. Iaukea gets two off a snapmare and breaks up a sunset flip attempt. We hit the early chinlock on Juvy followed by a suplex and chops in the corner. It’s Chinlock: The Sequel followed by another suplex attempt but Guerrera counters into a Fameasser. A top rope corkscrew dive puts Prince down and sets up the 450. Disco runs out to break it up but Juvy dives off with the 450 for the pin just in time.

Rating: C. Short but fine as Disco vs. Juvy continues to build. I’m not sure how good of a match that’s going to be when we get there but it’s nice to see them doing something in the cruiserweight division that doesn’t involve the title. Prince wasn’t bad here but the bald head doesn’t make him more interesting.

Clips from Nitro of Bischoff being thrown out by cops and the mayor of Minneapolis.

Konnan vs. Scott Armstrong

After the usual intro, Konnan hits the rolling clothesline just after the bell. There’s the seated dropkick and Scott bails to the floor, holding his shoulder. Back in and Scott uses his bad arm for a test of strength and rakes Konnan’s eyes to take over. A few basic moves later and we’re in the chinlock. Konnan fights up with some elbows to the ribs but gets dropped by a clothesline. A bulldog and rollup get two on Scott before Konnan kicks him in the ribs, hits the X-Factor and hooks the Sunrise for the win.

Rating: D. These squashes are getting weaker as we’re approaching the end of the show. Konnan was always better on the mic than he was in the ring and this match proved it for the most part. Scott was the least interesting of the Armstrong Family but he wasn’t that bad out there.

Clips of Bret and Sting’s rivalry.

Horsemen video.

Kendall Windham vs. Dean Malenko

Kendall says he knows the Horsemen and can prove Dean doesn’t measure up. Dean hammers away in the corner to start but runs into a big boot. A lariat puts Dean down again but he grabs a sunset flip. Windham punches the mat instead of Dean’s head, allowing Malenko to hit a quick kick to the leg, setting up the Cloverleaf for the win in less than 90 seconds.

Dean grabs the mic and says that’s why he’s a Horseman. The rest of the team comes out and Arn has a mic. He says it’s obvious why the Horsemen are here and calls Bischoff a vicious coward. Bischoff has been making fun of Arn’s physical shortcomings but he’s not even half the man Anderson is. If Bischoff ever makes fun of his family again, Arn will do things to Bischoff that his family should never be allowed to see. Flair says that this is the Horsemen’s party and names each individual member. He’ll be running this company one day and Bischoff will be working for him.

Sting vs. Giant

Giant misses a charge and Sting hammers away but misses the Stinger Splash. The big man steps on his chest and pounds on him in the corner, only to miss a big elbow. Three straight Stinger Splashes set up a slam but Scott Steiner runs in with a chair to the leg for the DQ before the Deathlock.

The NWO lays out Sting until Rick Steiner and the Wolfpack makes the save to end the show.

Overall Rating: C+. It’s still good and a different kind of show from Nitro. This is one of the most frustrating things about WCW. It’s clear that they can put on entertaining shows but we get the garbage that they put on so often anymore that it’s barely worth watching half the time. Good show tonight with some entertaining squashes and small build to the PPV on Sunday.

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Monday Nitro #159
Date: October 19, 1998
Location: Target Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Attendance: 15,722
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Lee Marshall, Larry Zbyszko, Tony Schiavone

We’re FINALLY up to the go home show for Halloween Havoc after what seems like months of buildup. Tonight is likely going to focus on Flair getting Bischoff thrown out of the United Center last year, which likely means it’s time for Bischoff to get one up on the Horsemen. Other than that we’re probably going further into the Hogan vs. Warrior mess as it continues to not really have any business on a wrestling show. Let’s get to it.

We open with a recap of Bischoff getting ejected by the owner of the United Center last week in favor of the Horsemen.

Nitro Girls.

The announcers do their intro and former AWA star Larry Zbyszko gets a bigger reaction than usual. We get another package on Bischoff and the Horsemen from last week.

Kenny Kaos vs. Saturn

Kaos takes an early advantage with a hard clothesline but Saturn comes right back with a quick swinging neckbreaker. A spinning springboard forearm gets two on Kaos but he drops Saturn over the top and out to the floor. Back in and Kaos hits a nice gutwrench suplex for two followed by a gorilla press slam. Kaos isn’t looking bad but he’s favoring his elbow after that press. Saturn is sent into the corner and kicked in the back, only to come back with some roundhouse kicks to the head. An overhead suplex puts Kaos down and a falcon’s arrow sets up the Death Valley Driver for the pin.

Rating: C. This was much better than I was expecting with Kaos putting in a nice performance. Apparently some other people thought the same as we’ll be hearing some more from Kaos in the very near future. For the older fans out there, does this victory over Kaos make Saturn a Control agent?

Tenay polls fans about last week’s show.

Halloween Havoc ad.

Normal intro.

Gene brings out Ernest Miller for a chat. Miller says he hates this town and its’ kids in particular. He threatens Gene until Okerlund gets out of the ring and invites anyone to get in the ring for a challenge. A “fan” jumps the barricade and is stopped by security but Miller says let him in. The fan gets destroyed as you would expect and now security takes him away. We get a better look at the fan and it’s none other than future WCW Tag Team Champion Chuck Palumbo.

We recap Nash chasing Hall around for the last few weeks.

Nitro Party video.

Nitro Girls.

Scott Steiner says he was the real success of the Steiner Brothers and he had to overcome Rick’s weaknesses.

Speaking of Rick Steiner, we see his incident with Chuckie last week and the announcers analyze it like it’s a match.

Video on Goldberg vs. DDP.

Damien/Psychosis/El Dandy/Hector Garza vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr./La Parka/Ciclope/La Parka

The former team is LWO and they have their own music now. Damien goes after La Parka’s chair before the bell and gets kicked in the head. Serves him right. This is under lucha rules so going to the floor counts as a tag. Lizmark hammers on Damien in the corner to start and gets two off a hurricanrana before it’s off to La Parka vs. El Dandy with La Parka chopping him in the chest and back. A big enziguri puts Dandy down and it’s off to Ciclope and Garza.

The LWO comes in for a four on one beatdown until Damien snaps off a top rope hurricanrana for two. Garza comes in with a missile dropkick to the back and it’s off to Chavo for the first big pop of the match. Chavo quickly dropkicks him down but things quickly break down.

Psychosis misses a charge into the post but Ciclope comes in with a missile dropkick. Everyone misses something off the top before La Parka and Chavo hit some dives. A Hart Attack with a springboard dropkick from Lizmark gets two on Psychosis but La Parka comes in to clean house with the chair but knocks out Ciclope, giving Psychosis the pin.

Rating: C+. This was the usual fast paced lucha match which was almost impossible to keep track of a the end. La Parka’s chair shot seems to turn him to the LWO which is fine as the team needs some bigger names. The match was able to fire the crowd up as well as advanced the LWO story so nice multitasking WCW.

Post match Eddie comes out and gives La Parka a shirt. So the way to prove you’re united with the other luchadores is to hit another with a chair? Chavo seems happy but walks off, telling Pepe he doesn’t need a shirt.

We look at Bret’s history with Sting and turning on him, leading to the brawl two weeks ago.

Kanyon vs. Scott Putski

We get the Who Better Than Kanyon bit before the match. Kanyon: “You guys just don’t get it.” They fight over hammerlocks and headlocks to start until Scott scores with a few slams. A belly to back suplex gets two on Kanyon but he comes back by sending Putski into the corner and hammering away. Kanyon hits a middle rope Fameasser to send Putski outside and drops him face first onto the apron while standing on the steps. Back in and Putski hits a release overhead belly to belly but gets caught in a fireman’s carry pancake. The Flatliner is enough to get Kanyon the pin.

Rating: C-. Kanyon was fun to watch as always and Putski wasn’t bad either. I still don’t get his choice of attire as he’s an eye patch short of being a pirate from 1638. The match wasn’t bad though and it was a good way to keep Kanyon around. Why can’t we get stuff like this on Thunder?

Video on Hogan vs. Warrior.

Buy WCW Magazine!

Here’s Scott Steiner to start the second hour. He talks about being cold, having freaks and being your hook up. Last week he beat up Buff Bagwell and calls out any Minnesota Vikings here tonight. Instead he gets Rick Steiner who is ready right now if Scott wants a fight. We have a referee down here but Scott says Rick is too easy.

Scott actually gets in and asks if this is going to be a fair fight. Rick says no and decks Scott in the head before pounding him into the corner. Scott charges into a boot as the announcers play up the idea that they know each other so well. A low blow stops Rick and Scott gets a chair as the bell rings. It never rang in the first place so this wasn’t a match. Buff runs out and takes the chair from Scott before nearly killing him with a big swing.

Nitro Girls video.

Nitro Girls in the ring.

We get a clip of a Goldberg autograph signing for charity.

Davey Boy Smith vs. Fit Finlay

Finlay takes him over with a headlock to start but walks into a slam for two. We hit a chinlock from Smith for a few seconds before another slam gets another two count. Finlay comes back with a clothesline and rips at Smith’s face before missing a charge into the buckle. The referee gets poked in the eye, allowing Alex Wright to run in and hit a quick missile dropkick to knock Bulldog into the tombstone from Finlay for the pin.

Rating: D. This was just a filler match and it didn’t do much to fire up the crowd. The King of Europe storyline wasn’t anything interesting when there were only a handful of people involved and they were just trading wins. This was Bulldog’s last appearance on Nitro as he would go to the hospital for a staph infection from breaking his back at Fall Brawl. Bischoff would fire him via FedEx while he was laid up.

Here’s Jericho with Ralphus at his side to brag about beating Greenberg three times in a row. Goldberg wants the sheet writers to think he’s the best but everyone knows that’s nonsense. DDP comes in and calls out “Jerkicho” for his lies and a match is made for later.

Hall is shown at a bar wearing his title belt and wrestling gear. Nothing else to the scene than that.

Wrath vs. Tokyo Magnum

Clothesline, chops and stomps, flying shoulder and the Meltdown are enough for the squash by Wrath.

More charity stuff from UNICEF.

We look at Buff saving Rick and cut to the back to see him throwing away his NWO shirt. Insert your own sarcastic response here.

Disco Inferno/Alex Wright vs. Silver King/Super Calo

Silver King and Calo say not so fast because they have replacements.

Disco Inferno/Alex Wright vs. Dean Malenko/Chris Benoit

An annoyed Bischoff comes out to commentary as Dean cranks on Wright’s wrist. Eric goes on a rant about how there are four people not getting paid tonight: “Those two Mexicans, Arn Anderson and…..make it five!” Dean hammers away on Wright’s head but gets pulled down to the mat. Disco comes in and walks into a suplex, only to pop up with a clothesline to take over. Inferno dances a bit and turns around to get chopped and stomped by Benoit. Everything breaks down and the Crossface quickly ends Disco.

The Horsemen yell at Bischoff who shouts about breach of contract.

Hall is still at the bar.

Diamond Dallas Page vs. Chris Jericho

Non-title of course. A shoulder puts Jericho down and he claims a hair pull. Page drives in his shoulders before they fight over hiptosses. That goes nowhere so DDP takes his head off with a left arm clothesline. Page tries to hammer away in the corner but gets dropped down onto the top turnbuckle to change control.

Jericho throws him outside and whips Page into the barricade for two. Page comes back with right hands and the discus lariat followed by a belly to back suplex for a near fall. Jericho grabs a quick jawbreaker and the Lionsault almost gets the upset. A low blow breaks up the Diamond Cutter but Page counters the Liontamer. Page calls for the Diamond Cutter but Goldberg comes in to spear Jericho for the DQ.

Rating: C+. Better match than I was expecting here as Jericho got in a lot of offense and wasn’t entirely beat at the end. They had to do something to give Page and Goldberg a real issue and this was as good as anything else they could have done. It’s always nice to see a champion not do a clean job too.

Page is ticked and the brawl is almost on until referees make the save.

Cruiserweight Title: Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. Billy Kidman

Rey is returning from an injury to challenge for the title here. They feel each other out to start until Kidman takes him down to the mat in a front facelock. Back up and Rey snaps off a standing hurricanrana before backdropping the champion to the apron. Kidman comes back in with a slingshot headscissors and a hard dropkick gets two. We hit the chinlock for a bit on Mysterio before Kidman sends him into the corner for a running forearm which looked like a blown spot.

Mysterio takes his head off with a spinwheel kick and a high cross body for a very close two. Rey tries his sitout bulldog but gets countered into a wheelbarrow slam, sending Rey to the apron, only to get suplexed out to the floor by the masked man. Back in and Kidman shrugs it off and hits the lifting powerbomb for two. We hit the chinlock on Rey but he fights up and takes Kidman to the floor with a hurricanrana. Rey is favoring his knee but hits a nice flip dive to take Kidman down.

Rey takes too much time going up top and Kidman gets up, only to be dropped stomach first onto the ropes. A legdrop to the back of the head gets two but Rey is too banged up to cover. Kidman slams him down and misses a frog splash, allowing Rey to go up for a top rope seated senton and two.

Tony calls it a Thesz Press and Tenay doesn’t correct him. Mysterio hits a double leg Fameasser for two but gets caught in a powerbomb from the champion for two more. Mysterio crotches Kidman to break up the Shooting Star before taking Kidman to the mat with a hurricanrana for two. A jumping Killswitch gets two for Mysterio and he goes up top, only to dive into a dropkick as the bell rings for the time limit at about thirteen and a half minutes.

Rating: B+. This was one of the best matches we’ve had on Nitro in weeks with both guys countering a lot of stuff but still getting in their own big moves. Mysterio’s knee messing up was fine for a story and Kidman more than held up with the cruiserweight legend. I’m not sure how you can have a legend for a division about two years old but Tony kept using that term.

The Minneapolis mayor comes out holding a proclomation to huge booing and a Jesse chant. She brings out future Baseball Hall of Fame member Kirby Puckett and future NFL Hall of Famer John Randle but the fans still aren’t impressed with her. Maybe it’s the very loud and grating voice? Anyway she brings out Ric Flair and declares it Ric Flair Day in Minneapolis.

Flair is thrilled but here’s Bischoff to complain. He doesn’t need some three named mayor to ruin his show but the mayor says this is her town. Randle and Puckett get between them and cops tell Bischoff to stay back. Apparently Bischoff has some unpaid warrants and has 20 minutes to get out of the arena. Eric promises to be back and walks out but sees his car being towed away.

Nitro Girls.

Scott Norton/Scott Hall/Stevie Ray vs. Konnan/Kevin Nash/Lex Luger

Norton comes out wearing the IWGP Title. Hall staggers out after them and his partners aren’t pleased. That’s actually better than Nash who is nowhere in sight. Luger is back in trunks instead of pants. Konnan does his thing and we cut to the back where Nash is staggering around and dropping a cup.

The bell rings and Kevin slowly comes into the arena. Konnan and Stevie get things going but the Wolfpack asks Nash what’s going on. Kevin tries to get in but Luger and Konnan won’t let that happen. Nash keeps drinking until Luger takes the cup away. Stevie and Konnan get things going with Ray in control until Konnan comes back with the rolling clothesline.

Off to Luger and Norton with Lex throwing him around like he’s nothing. The running forearm puts Norton down but Stevie offers a distraction and the Black and White takes over. Nash is kneeling on the apron, cup in hand. Hall is asking for a tag but Ray and Norton just ignore him. Luger and Norton clothesline each other down and crawl to the corners where Hall and Nash tag themselves in. They make a drunken toast to each other but Nash has an empty cup. The fight is on and Hall gets his clock cleaned until the match is thrown out.

Rating: D. This was an angle instead of a match and that’s fine. The Hall vs. Nash idea is fine but I was hoping for it to be an actual match rather than the whole drunken Hall thing. I’m also not sure why it’s on a stacked Halloween Havoc card when it could have headlined a lower PPV card if treated well.

Hogan vs. Warrior promo.

Hollywood Hogan vs. Horace

Raise your hand if you think this is actually happening. Hollywood comes out to the wrong music at first and tells Michael Buffer that this isn’t happening. Horace comes out and admits that he’s Hollywood’s nephew which I thought was public knowledge before this. Hollywood says they’re blood so he calls the NWO out here to see what blood means to him. He’s proud of Horace and loves him before taking his shirt off.

Hollywood talks about the sacrifices you have to make to be in the NWO and says this is his sacrifice. He blasts Horace with a right hand and goes off on him, saying imagine what he’d do to Warrior if he’d do this to family. A chair shot puts Horace down and everyone but Norton leaves Hollywood alone.

Hogan rants about how Warrior is going to admit Hollywood rules the universe and tells him to say his prayers and take his vitamins. The NWO gets back in the ring and here’s Warrior with a ball bat. He cleans house as Hogan bails to the floor. Giant shrugs off a bat shot and chokeslams Warrior down. Hogan spray paints Warrior’s chest and drops some legs. The crowd has almost no response to this at all. They’re not booing or cheering and just kind of sit there for the whole thing.

Here’s Bret Hart to make a challenge. He runs his mouth about how he has no fans but his cat and calls Sting the worst there is, was and ever will be until Sting comes out for a fight.

Sting vs. Bret Hart

It’s a brawl to start with Sting in full control and hammering away. They head outside with Bret being sent into the barricade. All Sting so far as they head back inside with the big jumping elbow actually connecting for two. Bret gets in a kick to the ribs and drops a headbutt to the abdomen. He rakes Sting’s eyes across the top rope and hits the backbreaker but Sting blocks the middle rope elbow. There’s the Scorpion but Bret makes the rope. Sting doesn’t let go and it’s a DQ. “You might as well go get help because I’m not letting go.”

Rating: D. Again there was nothing to the match but that wasn’t the point. I’m not sure why you would have an actual match between them before Sunday, especially with Sting dominating the whole thing with ease. At least it wasn’t a clean finish or anything so there’s a reason to watch the match Sunday.

Referees can’t get the hold off so Stevie Ray and Vincent come out to pound on Sting. He still won’t leg to as he no sells everything before letting it go on his own. Bret limps away to end the show.

Overall Rating: C+. This was better than most Nitros lately and actually has me wanting to see the show on Sunday. There was entertaining wrestling and all of the major matches for Sunday got screen time. What else can you ask for from a go home show? Also Warrior finally got beaten up and the crowd just didn’t care at all. Good show actually.

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Up to Michigan for Rick Steiner.

Rick got his start in Mid-South back in 1983 under his real name of Robert Rechsteiner and amazingly enough you can actually see some of those matches.

Robert Rechsteiner vs. Nick Patrick

Yes that Nick Patrick. Robert easily takes him down to the mat and to make things even more interesting, Ric Flair is on commentary. A hiptoss puts Nick down but he comes back with a hiptoss of his own. Patrick grabs a headlock and gets two off a cross body but Robert takes him right back down into a chinlock. A big gorilla press and a belly to belly suplex are enough to pin Patrick with ease.

After a few years in various territories, it was off to the NWA where one of Rick’s first major matches was at Starrcade 1987 in the opening match.

Sting/Jimmy Garvin/Michael Hayes vs. Eddie Gilbert/Larry Zbyszko/Rick Steiner

 

This is right after Jim Crockett acquired the UWF, so a lot of these guys are making their big time debuts. Gilbert was a big deal back there, as was Hayes. Sting didn’t mean anything at this point, but he would have his day very soon. He had recently left Gilbert’s stable in the UWF so they have a built in feud already. Steiner jumps Sting to start but misses a charge and falls to the floor. Sting dives out onto him as the lighting is really bad here. It looks like the lights haven’t been turned all the way on.

 

As they head back in, Sting hits a missile dropkick as everything breaks down. Sting’s team clears the ring until we get down to Hayes vs. Steiner. Michael pounds on the arm for a bit and it’s off to Garvin. Michael and Jimmy would wind up as a tag team in a few years but here’s they’re just randomly paired together. Off to Larry to fight Garvin and it’s time to stall already. Larry was legendary for stalling and it drove a lot of people crazy, myself included.

 

Back to Hayes who grabs Larry by the nose and pounds away. Michael struts and moon walks to get the crowd fired up as it’s off to Gilbert. Hayes avoids a right hand and struts some more before sending Eddie into the corner. Back to Sting as things speed up a bit, but at this point he’s not capable of carrying a match on his own. Sting grabs an armbar on Steiner and it’s off to Garvin for more basic offense on Rick.

 

Steiner takes him into the heel corner and it’s off to Larry for a spinning kick to Garvin’s ribs. A powerslam gets two for Rick and it’s off to Gilbert for an atomic drop. Gilbert stays on the back for a bit but misses an elbow drop. It’s not enough for the tag out though as Steiner comes in for the save. Off to a bearhug to further the punishment on Garvin’s back but Jimmy fights out. Larry saves another hot tag and puts on an abdominal stretch. Garvin finally hiptosses his way out of it and it’s off to Sting to pick up the pace.

 

Everything breaks down but Gilbert comes in with a cheap shot to the back to take Sting down. Eddie sends him out to the floor for a bit before throwing him back in for some triple teaming. It doesn’t seem to do much good as Sting counters a Zbyzsko suplex, only to be stopped by Steiner.

 

Sting avoids a charge from Larry and it’s off to Hayes with less than two minutes to go in the time limit. Everything breaks down and the good guys all pound away on a bad guy in a different corner. The DDT gets two for Hayes on Larry but he’s in the ropes. One minute to go as Steiner breaks up a sleeper on Larry. Steiner comes in legally for a bearhug of all things before turning it into a belly to belly suplex. Everything breaks down again and the time runs out with no winner.

 

Rating: C. This was probably the best opener the series has had yet and it’s very obvious that that’s not saying much. The main idea here was to introduce most of these people to the Jim Crockett audience and it only worked to a degree. Steiner actually came off looking the most polished here, but Hayes would have the immediate success. Sting would be several months away from his big break.

Soon after this, Rick would join the Varsity Club, a group of wrestlers who were successful in college. Rick was an All-American at the University of Michigan and fit in perfectly. However Rick’s character was presented as being slow mentally, so the rest of the club treated him badly. This led to Rick being thrown out of the Club but getting a TV Title shot at Starrcade 1988 against Club leader Mike Rotunda.

TV Title: Rick Steiner vs. Mike Rotundo

 

This should pick things up a bit. The idea here is that Rick used to be in the Varsity Club but was used as a whipping boy by Rotundo for the better part of a year. One day Steiner, whose mind is a bit scrambled because of a car accident he had a few years earlier, got sick of Mike’s treatment of him and suplexed Rotundo into the middle of next week. Rotundo agreed to face Steiner here to embarrass him, because Rotundo claimed that no one could beat him in a twenty minute match, which is the time limit for TV Title matches. Mike is defending if that’s not clear. Kevin Sullivan is locked in a cage hanging from the ceiling.

 

Mike gets knocked out to the floor to start as Rick is really excited early on. Back in and the champion puts on a wristlock but gets caught in a quick fireman’s carry to get us back to a standoff. Rick hooks a headlock for a bit until Mike shoves him away. Steiner is perfectly fine with that and takes Rotundo’s head off with a Steiner Line for two. A drop toehold puts Rick down but he immediately counters into a hammerlock. Steiner has been out wrestling Rotundo the entire time here.

 

Mick finally counters into a headlock on the mat but Rick, the good guy here, pulls the hair to escape. Back up and Steiner puts on a headlock but gets suplexed down by the champion. They head to the mat again with Mike holding Rick down in a headscissors. Apparently that’s too boring for them so it’s back up for some more circling. Rick starts dancing a bit so Mike bails to the floor for a breather.

 

Back in and Rick runs him over again, only to miss a charge and go flying over the top and out to the floor. Mike pounds away with some elbows to the head back inside followed by a kick to the chest. Off to a chinlock by Rotundo for a LONG time as the match slows down again. A hard clothesline puts Steiner down again as the commentary has stopped for some reason. Rick comes back with a sunset flip for two but gets punched in the jaw for his efforts.

 

Rick fights back again and hits a quick Steiner Line to take Rotundo down. Now the commentary is back and Steiner is pounding away on Mike in the corner. A big backdrop puts the champion down and a powerslam gets two. Rick hits the belly to belly suplex but Steve Williams rings the bell. The referee thinks it’s the time limit but we’ve only gone about seventeen minutes out of twenty allotted.

 

The timekeeper tells the referee what happened as Sullivan is lowered. Another referee comes down as well and Sullivan gets on the apron. Steiner rams Rotundo into Sullivan, knocking the champion out. Rick gets the pin (from both referees) and the title, blowing the roof off the place. It’s one of the loudest pops you’ll ever hear anywhere in wrestling.

 

Rating: C-. The match mostly sucked, but man alive the ending to that was awesome. This is a perfect example of how you blow off a story at the biggest show of the year. The fans went NUTS for the ending as they identified with Steiner as someone standing up to a bully and finally getting his revenge on said bully. Rotundo would get the title back in a few weeks, but THIS match was the important moment and it was done perfectly.

 

Rick hits the floor and sprints around the ring, pointing at a confused Rotundo and shouting I BEAT YOU I BEAT YOU I BEAT YOU! He grabs the TV Title and runs out of the arena before Williams can kill him as the fans come unglued. This is one of those moments where if you don’t smile just a little bit, odds are you don’t have a soul.

Soon after this Rick would be joined by his brother Scott Steiner to form the Steiner Brothers. The pair would win the World Tag Team Titles later in 1989, eventually entering into a feud with two masked men called Doom. The teams would face off at Clash of the Champions X: Texas Shootout in a title vs. mask match.

World Tag Team Titles: Doom vs. Steiner Brothers

 

This is titles vs. masks and Doom is now managed by Theodore R. Long instead of Woman. Scott brawls into the corner with Doom #1 to start and Scott is accused of pulling on the mask. Instead he comes back with a powerslam and rides #1 on the mat amateur style. #2 comes in to try his luck and hammers away on Scott’s chest. Scott comes back with a dropkick to both masked men, knocking them out to the floor. #2 is pulled back in and Scott goes after the mask to no avail.

 

Rick comes in to face #2 and bark a lot. #2 is whipped from corner to corner but he again gets away when his mask is threatened. Back inside and Rick hits a gorgeous overhead belly to belly and it’s back to #1 vs. Scott. #2 gets in a cheap shot from the apron to stop a charging Scott and Doom takes over. Choking and double teaming ensues with a double backdrop putting Scott down again. A big clothesline sends Scott over the top and out to the floor where #1 gets in a few cheap shots.

 

Back in and Scott gets a quick sunset flip for two but it seems to just tick Doom off even more. Scott grabs a Frankensteiner out of nowhere and the hot tag brings in Rick. He cleans house and gets #1’s mask off to reveal Butch Reed. Rick puts the mask on as Reed apologizes to his partner, allowing Rick to get a quick rollup for the pin.

 

Rating: C-. This was a standard formula tag team power match but not as fun as the previous match. It doesn’t help that there was no doubt about Doom’s identities as there were only two men in the organization that looked like them and one sounded exactly like Ron Simmons and the other wrestled exactly like Butch Reed.

Scott would get injured about a year later, putting Rick into a quick singles run. During this span he was given a WCW World Title shot at Clash of the Champions XVII.

WCW World Title: Rick Steiner vs. Lex Luger

 

Mr. Hughes is ejected before the match can get started. Rick drives him into the corner to start before taking him down to the mat in a nice amateur move. Luger walks around the ring and is easily knocked down by a shoulder block. A big Steiner Line sends Luger over the top and out to the floor for a meeting with Race.

 

Back in and Luger gets a single kick to the stomach before ramming Rick into the buckle for no effect. A belly to back suplex gets two on the champion but the referee gets bumped, allowing Luger to crotch Rick on the top rope. Luger clotheslines Rick in the back of the head to put Steiner down again and an elbow drop gets two.

 

Rick is sent to the floor where Race gets in a cheap shot and Luger is very pleased. Back in and Steiner hits a big right hand and puts Luger down down with a powerslam. The top rope bulldog gets two and a belly to belly superplex looks to pin Luger but Scott and Mr. Hughes fight into the ring. During the melee, Luger is able to get in a shot with the belt for the pin to retain.

 

Rating: C-. Scott would have been a better challenger had he been healthy but Rick throwing those suplexes was always fun to see. The match is a pretty big letdown after the Sting stuff but it certainly wasn’t a bad effort when Steiner had pretty much no chance at all of winning the belt.

After a pretty worthless 1992, Rick and Scott headed over to the WWF and won the World Tag Team Titles. One of their major defenses was against Smoky Mountain Wrestling’s Heavenly Bodies at Summerslam 1993.

Tag Titles: Steiner Brothers vs. Heavenly Bodies

Jim Cornette manages the challengers, who are Jimmy Del Ray and Tom Pritchard. This is part of the cross promotion with SMW. Heenan sings Cornette’s praises, which was how Cornette got over as a heel. He had debuted not long before this and Heenan immediately hugged him. Since Heenan was a heel and Cornette was a friend of his, Cornette was instantly hated. No shades of gray, no thought to it, just basic heel work. I miss stuff like that so much.

The Bodies jump the champions and send Scott out to the floor early on. A double flapjack puts Rick down and Scott is knocked back to the floor, but the Bodies spend too much time double teaming. All four are in now with the Steiners cleaning house to the delight of the crowd. I’m sure it has nothing to do with them wearing University of Michigan colors. A tilt-a-whirl slam (called a suplex by Vince) puts Del Ray down and the Steiners stand tall.

We officially start with Pritchard vs. Scott and Tom is slammed down in a BIG gorilla press. A backdrop puts Del Ray down and it’s off to Rick vs. Pritchard. Rick cleans house with Steiner Lines to send the challengers to the floor. Back in the and the Bodies finally start cheating, allowing Pritchard to hit an enziguri to send Scott to the floor, followed by a Del Ray moonsault press to wipe Scott out.

Back in and Del Ry hits a Rocky Maivia spinning DDT but doesn’t cover like the schnook that he is. Heenan has the match 1112-9 in favor of the Bodies. A powerslam gets two for Del Ray and Cornette jabs Scott in the throat with his tennis racket. Scott finally comes back with a belly to belly out of nowhere and makes the hot tag to Rick.

Everyone gets Steiner Lines (Heenan: “Mrs. Steiner just gave her daughter a Steiner Line!”) but the top rope bulldog only gets two on Del Ray thanks to a save. Cornette throws in the racket but a shot to Rick’s back is only good for two. Del Ray misses a moonsault and the Frankensteiner retains the belts.

Rating: C+. This was as by the book of a tag team match as you can get but it was still good stuff. I don’t think anyone cared about the Heavenly Bodies but that’s where a good manager like Cornette can come in handy: the fans are going to boo anyone he’s out there with, including a tag team who never did anything of note in the WWF.

After not doing much else in the WWF, Rick would head to ECW for a bit before they went home to WCW. Slamboree 1996 saw another Battlebowl format with “random” tag matches. Rick and Scott would be on opposing teams in their first match.

Battlebowl First Round: Scott Steiner/Craig Pittman vs. Rick Steiner/Booty Man

Is this like a sick joke or something??? Teddy Long is Pittman’s manager for no explained reason. At least we can look at Kimberly. Pittman and Booty Man start. Oh just shoot me now. It has to be less painful. Wow it’s weird seeing Teddy out there as a manager. The announcers are orgasming over Rick vs. Scott. I can’t say I blame them as they didn’t have a showdown for a long time. And there it is.

Actually they tag twice so Scott isn’t legal. The fans pop to it too so this is a good idea. To their credit, they actually get in there and wrestle rather than do a short sequence that will be forgotten in 8 seconds. I’m not saying this steals the show or anything, but they actually throw each other around and pound on each other, but no punches.

This worked and when Rick made the tag it didn’t feel like it had been weak or short or anything like that. They were in there about 2-3 minutes and it was fine. I like that. After an arm hold on Booty Man, Rick comes in and a German suplex on Pittman ends it with Rick and Booty winning.

Rating: C. Best match of the night by far to this point. Rick vs. Scott was a nice touch indeed and while no one at this point is buying the pairings being random, this was certainly entertaining and came off well. It’s a pleasant surprise if nothing else, but at the end of the day Pittman and Booty Man just weren’t going to be able to get anywhere.

One of the major differences for Rick’s second run in WCW was he wrestled more singles matches, including this one from October 7, 1996 on Nitro.

Chris Benoit vs. Rick Steiner

 

Scott is injured but is here with Rick anyway. Steiner goes right after him to start and pounds him down with ease. I still don’t get why this mini-feud is even happening. Belly to belly gets two. Off to a chinlock and we talk about an Olympic silver medalist talking about joining WCW, which wouldn’t happen. Another suplex has Benoit holding his neck and head, which makes me wince a bit given what we know now. After a two count we take a break.

 

Back with Benoit in control with a chinlock but he goes to the corner and pounds away when the cameras are back on. Scott goes after Nick Patrick a bit and Patrick freaks. An NWO limo arrives with Hogan inside with Giant. The match isn’t that important I guess. Hogan says watch this place because he has business to take care of. Benoit had Rick in a chinlock at the time so at least he was smart enough to think through it.

 

Eric rants about Jarrett some more and Benoit hooks another chinlock. Rick wakes up and hits a huge Steiner Line but Benoit just gets mad because of it. He chops Rick so hard Rick’s headgear falls off. FREAKING OW MAN! Swan Dive gets two. Benoit jumps into a suplex and then a DDT gets two for Rick. The top rope bulldog gets….two? Since we were having a decent match, here’s Debra to make sure it gets screwy. Mongo goes for the briefcase but Rick steals it and waffles Mongo with it (great looking shot) and then hits Benoit for the pin.

 

Rating: C+. Without the shenanigans and distractions, this would have been a pretty solid match. Rick certainly wasn’t much in his later career, but when he was on he was on pretty well which was the case here. Benoit was so hungry at this point and you could tell how awesome he would be if they gave him the proper push, which unfortunately never really happened.

Around this time the NWO was already in full swing and the Steiners went to war with the Outsiders over the World Tag Team Titles. This led to a singles match between Rick and Kevin Nash for the Tag Titles (it’s WCW. Just go with it) at Spring Stampede 1997.

Tag Titles: Kevin Nash vs. Rick Steiner

Only in WCW. Nick Patrick is referee because we need more gimmicks in this. Rick jumps him but gets knocked down almost immediately. DiBiase and Syxx are at ringside so this is 4-1. Nash pounds on him in the corner and hits his knees but runs into a boot. Belly to belly suplex looks like Rick is picking up a boulder. That suplex/powerslam move he uses gets two.

Syxx pulls the top rope down and Steiner crashes to the floor. Back in the side slam gets two. Why isn’t Patrick fast counting him? The Outsiders are the champions coming in here. DiBiase gets in a right hand and Nash hits the running crotch attack while Rick is in 619 position. Big boot puts Rick down as we’re totally in squash territory. There’s the Jackknife but Steiner kicks out. I don’t remember many people ever doing that other than Undertaker.

Steiner hits him low on another Jackknife attempt which Patrick actually doesn’t DQ him for. He’s kind of doing a bad job of being an evil referee here. Rick hits the bulldog but it only gets two, even though Nash’s shoulder never came up. Down goes Syxx but Nash comes back with a clothesline to take over again.

Syxx takes off the buckle pad and Snake Eyes onto the buckle sets up Snake Eyes on the buckle which sets up Snake Eyes on the buckle which sets up Snake Eyes on the buckle which sets up the Jackknife for the pin and a forced count (Patrick was hesitant) for the pin. The interesting thing here is that DiBiase says that’s enough in the middle of this and Nash yells at him. DiBiase walks out.

Rating: D-. So Nash wins a squash on PPV in a one on one match for the titles. I guess the more important part here is that DiBiase looks to be defecting which would mean more if he was an actual wrestler. This would lead to him managing the Steiners which would last for awhile until I think February. The match sucked.

The Steiner Brothers would split in early 1998 with Scott joining the NWO. Somehow it took them six months for a blowoff match but those matches sucked and Rick got hurt afterwards, so we’ll jump ahead to Slamboree 1999 after Rick turned heel and was challenging Booker T for the TV Title.

TV Title: Rick Steiner vs. Booker T

Booker is champion here if I didn’t make that clear. Rick starts out with a belly to belly release and a couple of Steiner Lines. I think he’s the heel here but I’m not sure. More control by Steiner until Booker kicks him in the face to put him down. Steiner pops up of course because he isn’t going to sell anything. Off to a chinlock by Booker. I think he’s either heel here or borderline heel.

Steiner takes over on the floor and things slow way down. Time for a chinlock again. The crowd is very quiet. Steiner punches a lot and the fans don’t care. A bunch of punches gets two and here’s that chinlock again. Booker fights back and hits the axe kick, a spinebuster and the missile dropkick but STEINER WON’T SELL THEM. Here’s what happens after every move: Steiner lays there about 2-4 seconds then gets up like nothing happened. Scott finally runs out for the distraction and a Steiner Line gets two. Scott trips Booker and the Bulldog off the ropes gives Rick the title.

Rating: D. Just a horribly boring match here as Rick is beyond worthless in the ring at this point. Naturally the answer to that is to give him a title for four months. He wouldn’t sell ANYTHING Booker did here and Booker looks like a joke as a result. Bad match but as usual, most of it is due to Rick being lazy and not selling anything.

Around this time Rick would become a bigger heel and be part of a somewhat infamous match on August 9, 1999 on Nitro.

Hulk Hogan/Sting/Goldberg vs. Sid Vicious/Kevin Nash/Rick Steiner

This is a huge deal as it’s Hogan’s first time appearing in the red and yellow in over three years. The feuds here are Hogan vs. Nash, Goldberg vs. Steiner and Sid vs. Sting. The fans absolutely lose their minds as Hulk shoves Rick down to start. A quick big boot sets up a series of elbow drops and Hogan cleans house of all the heels. After a huge ovation, it’s off to Nash vs. Goldberg with the shorter guy getting two off a big shoulder block. Sid comes in and pounds away on Goldberg’s chest to almost no effect.

Goldberg puts Sid on the top rope for a Stinger Splash but Sid gets his knees up to stop a top rope splash. Nash comes in with a side slam for two before ripping off a turnbuckle pad. The referee won’t allow him to drop Sting with Snake Eyes but Nash bumps him so everything breaks down. Sid starts swinging a chair but Hogan takes it away and blasts the villains, allowing Sting to put the Deathlock on Nash for the win.

Rating: D+. The match was nothing more than the moment at the beginning but it kept the crowd going throughout the entire match. There’s nothing wrong with throwing all three feuds into a single match and it works as well as anything else could. Not that any of these feuds would go anywhere, but at least there’s an idea.

Soon after this Rick would receive another TV Title shot at Halloween Havoc 1999.

TV Title: Chris Benoit vs. Rick Steiner

Benoit is champion coming in. This is the main event of the last two Nitros I’ve done too. Steiner immediately stalls on the floor and catches Benoit when the Canadian chases him. Steiner Line and a suplex puts Benoit down for two. Benoit fights back and hits a superplex but Steiner no sells that too. A Crossface attempt is avoided and we head to the floor. Benoit hits a suicide dive and Steiner is up in seconds.

Steiner keeps stalling every time Benoit gets anything going. There’s a kick to the balls and Steiner takes over with a rest hold to the leg. Time for a chinlock because Steiner has already wrestled like 6 minutes. Steiner uses various boring power moves as Benoit sells like a master for him. The American hits two Germans on the Canadian for two. Make that three which is all Steiner seems to be able to do. It must run in the family.

A suplex is countered into a DDT by Benoit to finally give him a breather. Not that Steiner sells it or anything. A flying shoulder block and Steiner is up first again. Three Rolling Germans get two and Steiner won’t freaking stay down. There goes the referee and Steiner brings in a chair which goes into Steiner’s face but he throws it at Benoit during a Swan Dive attempt. Malenko comes in and turns on Benoit by hitting him with the chair. That’s enough for the pin and the title for Steiner.

Rating: D. Rick Steiner messes up almost every match he’s in. What can Benoit do when Steiner won’t stay down off ANYTHING Benoit hits him with? This is one of those great examples of why Benoit left. Why should he stick around here when he’s getting jobbed out to Sid for the US Title a few months earlier (Sid wouldn’t sell) and now to another washed up old guy who won’t sell? The TV Title would be around for a little over another month as Steiner would drop it to Scott Hall and Hall would literally throw the title away.

That was pretty much it for Rick in WCW as he wouldn’t do anything of note in 2000, win a quick US Title right before the company folded, then head to Japan for a few years. Rick would appear at a reunion show called World Wrestling Legends in 2006.

Virgilvs. RickSteiner

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

We’ll wrap it up in TNA with a Steiner Brothers reunion from Genesis 2007 for the Tag Titles.

Tag Titles: AJ Styles/Tomko vs. Steiner Brothers

 

Yes, those Steiner Brothers. In 2007. They’re faces here and AJ set this up by challenging Scott to a takedown contest. Rick is in a Steiner Brothers t-shirt and workout pants. I think that’s better for everyone. Scott vs. AJ starts us off and AJ’s luck isn’t very good here. Scott beats AJ like he stole something but Tomko’s distraction lets AJ hit a jumping enziguri (not the Pele) and a dive over the top to take over.

 

Steiner grabs the spinning belly to belly and it’s off to Rick vs. Tomko. At least the workout pants have bulldogs on them. A Death Valley Driver puts Tomko down but the champs take over and make him the face in peril. And scratch that as a Steiner Line brings in Scott. Tomko grabs a powerbomb and AJ adds a splash for two. Scott has a chain hanging from his beard. That can’t be a good idea.

 

Rick comes in off the not very hot tag and cleans house on the champions. The Steiners load up the Steiner Bulldog to AJ and I shudder with Rick on top for a big move. It actually doesn’t kill Styles but Tomko has to make the save anyway. Scott and Tomko have a brawl on the floor as Rick powerbombs AJ. The referee is down on the floor thanks to the brawl so Rick’s cover doesn’t matter. Somehow a chair gets into the ring and Styles kicks Rick low and a chair shot ends this.

 

Rating: D+. I have no idea what the point of this was. The Steiners hadn’t meant anything in about 12 years at this point but it’s the TNA attitude of once a draw, always a draw. This was nothing to see at all and the match was pretty weak, especially with the champs having to cheat to win. They would hold the titles for a then record 6 months.

While he doesn’t have the success on his own that Scott ever had, Rick still had a very good career on his own. Some of his time with the Varsity Club was great and the Mike Rotunda match was as awesome of a moment as you’ll ever see in the NWA. He would be around for years but his later times were getting pretty dreadful, hence why I skipped over most of the period. You’re better off with a Best of the Steiner Brothers marathon.

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Thunder
Date: October 15, 1998
Location: Market Square Arena, Indianapolis, Indiana
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Bobby Heenan, Tony Schiavone, Lee Marshall

WCW is in a bad place right now as their last two shows have been very, very boring. For some reason this show doesn’t exactly instill me with confidence as Thunder becomes less and less important every single week. We’re ten days away from Halloween Havoc which still feels like it’s about a year away given how boring these shows have been lately. Let’s get to it.

Hammer vs. Sick Boy

Sick Boy comes out to no music. They didn’t have 247 generic rock songs available? Hammer shoves him into the corner to start and tells Sick Boy not to freak out. Sick Boy takes him into the corner and slaps Hammer into the corner, earning him an elbow into the jaw. Hammer clotheslines him out to the floor and hits a nice dive for a guy his size.

Sick Boy scores with a baseball slide and drops Hammer before putting on a sleeper. The announcers talk about ANYTHING other than this boring match. Hammer counters into a sleeper of his own Sick Boy comes out with a jawbreaker. A middle rope elbow gets two for Sick Boy but Hammer throws him off the top by the hair in a painful looking move. Back up and the Flashback (Alabama Slam) is good for the pin on the sick one.

Rating: D. The match wasn’t horrible but it just wasn’t interesting at all. That’s the problem with most of the matches on Thunder anymore. I’ve seen far worse matches, but it doesn’t mean I want to sit through them at all. This was another double taping so I can’t imagine how bored the fans must be at this point.

Video on the Horsemen.

We see clips from Monday with Bischoff trying to keep the Horsemen out of the arena. By clips, I mean everything that happened, running about seven and a half minutes total. It’s becoming more and more clear that they’re just filling stuff in here.

La Parka vs. Konnan

Konnan does his usual schtick followed by the rolling clothesline and seated dropkick. At least the fans care about the people in this match. Back up and Konnan decks him with a back elbow but walks into what might have been a low blow. La Parka chops away and hits a running clothesline followed by a spinwheel kick.

He loads up another charge into the corner but runs into two boots, followed by something resembling a powerbomb from Konnan. La Parka clotheslines him down but gets rolled up for tow more. Konnan grabs a bulldog and gets in a slightly low kick of his own before the X-Factor and Tequila Sunrise get the win.

Rating: D+. Again, this was just two guys doing moves to each other for about five minutes. It’s not a terrible match or anything but there’s just no reason to care at all about this. Konnan could at least keep a crowd going well enough and La Parka is always entertaining but there’s just nothing to see here.

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Riggs vs. Finlay

Finlay hammers away to start but walks into an armdrag. With nothing else to do, Finlay rakes the one eye he can see, causing Heenan to go into as many jokes as he can. At least it’s better than hearing about Hogan vs. Warrior the entire time. Finlay grabs a quick chinlock but Riggs fights up and dropkicks him down before they choke each other against the ropes. A clothesline puts Riggs down and Finlay rams his head into the mat.

We go outside for more punishment from Finlay including a kick to the head. Back in and Finlay hammers away with whatever he can think of and rips the patch off to work over the eye. Riggs blocks a top rope splash with some raised knees and gets two off a knee drop. A top rope ax handle misses though and Finlay tombstones him down for the pin.

Rating: D. This was similar to the first match in that it wasn’t terrible but it just wasn’t interesting at all. As usual, Riggs continues to be someone who is just there and could have been any one of about a dozen guys and not changed a thing. Finlay was his usual hard hitting self but that’s not enough to carry a six minute match.

Cruiserweight Title: Kaz Hayashi vs. Kidman

Kidman is defending. Kaz grabs a headlock to start but misses a spinwheel kick. He comes back with a headscissors and we get a standoff. Kidman sends him outside and hits a nice plancha before taking him back inside for some right hands against the ropes. Kaz backdrops him out to the floor and hits a nice twisting plancha to put both guys down. Back in again and Hayashi chops him down a few times before we take a break.

We come back with Kidman getting two off a sunset flip but getting kneed in the head to put Kaz back in control. Kaz misses a moonsault and gets bulldogged off the middle rope. Kidman puts him down with a sitout powerbomb but Kaz pops up to break up the Shooting Star. He breaks it up again and hits a jawbreaker off the top in a nice spot. Hayashi gets two off a spinwheel kick Sonny Onoo comes out. Kidman dropkicks him out of the air but gets caught in a quick hurricanrana for two. A German suplex gets two on Kidman and Sonny is shaking his head. Kidman slams him down and hits the Shooting Star for the pin.

Rating: C+. It was good but nothing we haven’t seen done better by Juventud. Kaz was yet another name on the very long list of cruiserweights that could be inserted into a match with the bigger names and have a good match. Some of the spots were good here and while it wasn’t a great match, it was about ten times better than anything else tonight so far.

Sonny beats up Kaz post match until Kidman makes a save.

We get clips from Nitro with Buff and Scott having their argument.

Chucky clip. I would love to hear that being pitched to Dusty Rhodes and Ric Flair.

Hogan vs. Warrior video.

Here’s Ernest Miller to challenge anyone to fight him. He talks a lot of trash until a “fan” comes into the ring and is allowed to stand behind him until Miller lays him out. Security takes the guy away.

Chavo Guerrero Jr. vs. Prince Iaukea

Chavo rides Pepe around to start and dances a bit before we get going. A shoulder block puts the Prince down and we get more dancing. Chavo pounds away in the corner but gets caught by chops and a dropkick. Iaukea sends him to the floor and it’s time to talk to the horse. Chavo waves Pepe at the Prince and talks to it some more before heading back inside for a test of strength.

They trade some nice counters until Chavo armdrags him down into a chinlock. To keep up the comedy, Chavo gives the Prince a wet willy to the indifference of the crowd. Iaukea reverses into a chinlock of his own, sending Chavo off to talk to Pepe. The Prince grabs the horse and Chavo begs for mercy, only to blast Prince in the back of the head.

Chavo slams Iaukea down and rides the horse around before peppering him with some European uppercuts. Prince comes back with a quick cross body for two and a victory roll for the same. Guerrero gets a knee up in the corner and goes up for the tornado DDT and the pin.

Rating: C. This was much easier to sit through as it at least had something entertaining to it. I’d much rather watch a not very funny comedy match than a boring wrestling match and it was much easier to sit through this. Chavo and the horse are getting a bit tiresome but at least it’s not Finlay vs. Riggs.

Bride of Chucky ad.

WCW Mastercard ad. 1998 was a strange time.

Video on Page vs. Goldberg. You know, a wrestling match. I know you’d rather see ads for movies and credit cards but they had to fit this in there somewhere.

Here’s Page for his weekly chat. Page is all fired up for the title match and is jacked up tonight. He’s happy just being himself instead of being undefeated with all the pressure on him. Page has two words for Goldberg: Diamond Cutter. Again, simple stuff here.

Stevie Ray vs. Dean Malenko

Here’s your main event. Dean yells at Vincent and Ray gets in a cheap shot to take over. A big boot sends Dean to the floor and Ray throws on a bearhug as we take a break about a minute in. Back with Dean getting sideslammed and put in a chinlock with a knee in his spine. Dean fights up but gets elbowed down and put right back in the hold.

Malenko fights up again and gets a quick belly to back suplex but Stevie powers him into the corner. Stevie whips him across but Dean jumps to the top for a missile dropkick of all things. He loads up the Cloverleaf but Vincent comes in for the DQ. Too much was in the commercial but this was your usual NWO main event.

Scott Norton comes in to help with the beatdown but the Horsemen run out for the save. Arn says the NWO is trespassing here in Horsemen country and if they want a war, the Horsemen are going to win. Flair says that Bischoff is just an abuse of power and the Horsemen aren’t afraid of subpoenas. Malenko survived a beating like that because he’s a member of the most elite group in wrestling. Dean says he’s ready for any member of the NWO because that’s what a Horseman does. Flair promises to take Bischoff’s job and run this company, prompting Heenan to suck up even more as the show ends.

Overall Rating: D+. It’s still not a good show and not a show that you need to see, but this was far easier to sit through than most of these shows. Just throwing a pair of watchable cruiserweight matches out there was such a breath of fresh air tonight and gave you the break from all the boring matches that you never get on Thunder. I’m not going to think about this show again five minutes after it’s over, but at least I wasn’t miserable sitting through it.

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We’ll go to 110^th Street today for Booker T.

Before we get started, I had to cut a TON of stuff off this list to keep it from being about 30 pages long. Booker has been around for over 20 years and has won so many titles in almost every company so I had to skip years of stuff at a time because there’s other, more important stuff. I have to do this every now and then because I don’t think you guys want to read novels about these guys.

Booker got his first major start in the Global Wrestling Federation out of Dallas. We’ll look at a match from his run there from some time between 1991 and August 1993.

Super Destroyer vs. Booker T

Destroyer is just a guy in a mask. Booker has a manager in football pads and a helmet for some reason. The announcers say we’re in a new year here and the Destroyer takes over with some forearms to the back of the head to start. Kerry Von Erich is in the promition at this point so it’s probably January 1993. Booker comes back with an armdrag into an armbar as the heel announcer makes fun of Kerry Von Erich.

We look at the announcers and miss Destroyer taking over but Booker comes back with a suplex for two. A spinning scissors kick gets two on Destroyer and we hit the chinlock. We miss even more stuff because of Booker’s manager running his mouth and come back to see Destroyer throwing Booker to the floor.

After a break, we get this gem from the announcer: “Don’t worry. You didn’t miss any action.” A side slam gets two on Booker and Destroyer chokes a lot. The masked guy slows WAY down and slams Booker’s face into the mat but he comes back with a dropkick and side slam of his own. Booker gets two off a rollup but Destroyer rams Booker into the manager’s helmet for the fast pin.

Rating: D. This was a pretty bad match with Destroyer being nothing special and Booker being athletic but not ready to carry a match on his own. The camera direction was more irritating than anything else with stupid cuts to stuff we didn’t need to be looking at. Maybe that’s why the company didn’t make it to 1995.

It was off to WCW soon after this where Booker and his brother Stevie Ray would be known as Kole and Kane respectfully. They were quickly in big time feuds, leading to an appearance in WarGames at Fall Brawl 1993.

Sting/Shockmaster/Davey Boy Smith/Dustin Rhodes vs. Vader/Harlem Heat/Sid Vicious

WarGames again. This is the mother of all gimmick matches in WCW and something that a lot of people with they would bring back in WWE, me being one of them. The idea is it’s 4 on 4 in a double cage match. Two people start us off, one from each team. They go at it for five minutes and then we have a coin toss (the heels will win). The winning team gets to send in another man for a 2-1 advantage. That last two minutes and then the losing team gets to send in its second man. After two more minutes the winning team gets to send in its third. You alternate until everyone is in and it’s first submission wins.

Harlem Heat are Kane and Kole here but I’ll be calling them by their more famous names. Vader is the other world champion here, the WCW World Champion. Animal is advising the faces here for no apparent reason. Dustin has really bad ribs here. Shockmaster is the hilariously infamous falling man that is more famous as Typhoon/Tugboat. Dustin starts without his partners wanting him to and gets Vader.

Dustin hammers Vader down surprisingly enough and pulls his boot off to beat on Vader even more. Well it’s resourceful if nothing else. Dustin is able to fight Vader off as well as anyone else has been able to do in a very long time. His ribs end that run though and there’s the Vader Bomb. Remember that you can’t end the match until after everyone is in the ring. That’s a great rule that makes sure there’s additional violence.

Rhodes fights back AGAIN and puts Vader down. That could be a heck of a Clash of the Champions main event actually. More boot shots (with the boot itself mind you, not a foot in it) to the head of Vader and Dustin is surprisingly in control. The heels win the coin toss which I literally think was a perfect record for them over the years. Dustin counters a dive off the top by Vader into a powerslam in a nice move.

Kane (Stevie Ray) comes in second. Dustin tries to fight them off but Vader gets a shot in to the ribs to take him down almost immediately. A minute in (remember everything now is just two minutes) and Dustin is in trouble. I’m not entirely sure why they sent in Vader so soon but whatever. Sting comes in but Vader and Stevie wait on him by the door like smart people would do.

2-1 is nothing for Sting though as he fights both guys off. I could watch Sting vs. Vader all day. Dustin is back up but is bleeding badly. His grandma is here tonight. Dusty’s mom is here. Let that sink in for a bit. Vader is sent into the cage and stumbles into the cameraman in a funny moment. Sid comes in to fight Sting in an old rivalry. Chokeslam takes Sting down and it’s all Sid.

The pops Sting gets for even the most basic moves are amazing. Vader and Sid ram Sting into the top of the cage for fun. With thirty seconds left it’s going to be the Bulldog in next. Yes Tugboat is batting cleanup. Davey comes in and Sid jumps him immediately. He fights off Sid and Vader by himself. He was a straight up tough guy in WCW if you haven’t seen any of his stuff there. In a nice touch Sting and Bulldog do to Sid what Vader and Sid did to Sting moments ago.

Kole (Booker T) comes in so there’s just Shocky left to come. Everyone is in one ring so that ring is completely overcrowded. The announcers make fun of Shockmaster falling which is funny stuff. They finally split up a bit and the match gets more interesting as a result. Sting takes down Stevie but hurts himself in the process. Sid gets caught in a Figure Four but here’s Shockmaster to even us up. Tony: Hey he made it through!

He’s bigger than Vader which isn’t something you often see. He beats up everyone in sight and after just over a minute and a half he throws Booker in a bearhug and it’s over. Wow so Typhoon beat a multiple time multiple time multiple time multiple time multiple time world champion? Sweet goodness man.

Rating: C. That’s bad for a WarGames match mind you. It’s ok, but the lack of starpower kind of hurts this here. Sid is an afterthought and Vader got beaten down like a fat jobber. Dustin Rhodes looked the most impressive out there which is odd. This was kind of weak and did nothing to set up the next shows or anything. Shockmaster was gone almost immediately after this and no one cared.

Harlem Heat would win the Tag Team Titles several times in 1994, including once near the end of the year. Here’s a title defense from Clash of the Champions XXX.

Tag Titles: Harlem Heat vs. Stars N Stripes

Bagwell/Patriot are the challengers. And they’re late. Instead….here’s Ric Flair. He was retired at this point due to the events of Halloween Havoc. Heenan goes over to shake Flair’s hand, being the suckup that he is. Flair takes a seat in the front row. Here are Stars N Stripes. Booker vs. Bagwell to start with Bagwell hammering away. This is a return match after the Heat basically stole the titles.

Bagwell dropkicks him to the floor and the challengers clear the ring. The fans chant USA. Why can’t Harlem Heat be patriotic? They’re from New York which is certainly part of the United States. Patriot hammers away on Stevie and works on the arm a bit. Really basic tag match here and not much to say for the first three to five minutes.

Bagwell is getting beaten down at the moment, taking that spinning forearm smash for two. The fans show their anti-New York sentiment again. The announcers talk about why Vader has two seats at ringside since Harley Race isn’t here. Heenan: “Maybe he’s going to use the other chair to crack Hogan over the head.” A few seconds of silence pass. Tony: “Maybe he’s going to use the other chair as a weapon.” Heenan never got a break.

The champions keep beating down Bagwell but Sherri gets on the apron to keep the tag from being noticed. The American comes in anyway and everything breaks down. Sherri’s shoe comes in somehow and Bagwell gets an O’Connor Roll on Stevie. Booker kicks his head off to reverse the control though and the Heat keeps the titles.

Rating: D. Total meh match here. This felt like they were told there had to be a tag title match so here’s a quick one so that we can say we had one. It’s not that the match is bad but rather that it’s painfully boring. The Heat would hold the titles for like 5 months until the Nasty Boys won them after they lost them. Long story, don’t ask.

They would lose the belts multiple times in 1995 as well but get a title shot at Fall Brawl 1995.

WCW Tag Titles: Bunkhouse Buck/Dick Slater vs. Harlem Heat

The talented tag team is challenging here. The idea here is more about the managers though as apparently they like each other. The match is going to suck though. Oh and along with this, we only have Arn/Flair and War Games. We’re an hour and five minutes into the show. That simply can’t be a good sign. I also have issues with a guy names Dirty Dick. Also, they gave THESE TWO the tag titles after like 5 months of Heat vs. Nasty Boys?

I don’t like the Nasties, but they’re light years ahead of these morons. Booker and Slater start so at least the one good wrestler in the match is starting us off. Slater is one of those good old southern boys that allegedly was really talented but never shook either the southern stigma or the lack of talent to get over. Crowd is deader than Booker’s career at this point. Again I love how two hicks like this are supposed to be trained wrestlers.

There’s something amusing about that. Yeah the idea here is that Sherri has a bump on the head and isn’t herself. Somehow this was put on national TV as a mainstream wrestling company with angles like that. Wow indeed. Apparently Dick Slater is one of the best wrestlers in the history of the sport. I can barely laugh at how stupid that is.

On the floor the managers are playing this messed up cat and mouse game that is just rather creepy. The fans prove they’re still alive with a short and incomprehensible chant. It’s weird hearing them talk about Booker as a power guy. That’s most odd indeed. Heenan seems like he wants to talk about Buck being undressed. Ok then. The heels are controlling most of the match here.

You can tell the match itself is pretty awful as I’ve barely talked about it. I’m trying very hard to think of anything else to talk about so that I don’t have to actually pay attention. Fact: I used to have this tape and this match cured my insomnia over a summer. I didn’t sleep regularly for a month but this match put me to sleep in five minutes. That’s saying something. We talk about WarGames to kill some time.

This match needs to end BADLY. And trust me, since this is WCW< I’m sure that will mean both possible things. Stevie gets the I guess you could say hot tag to get the crowd to do nothing at all. And here is that finish as Parker and Sherri get into the other ring and kiss. At the same time the Nasty Boys are here and rip Slater’s boot off to smack him in the head with it to give the Heat the titles. While this is happening, Sherri and Parker are still kissing. I hate this show.

Rating: F+. This was just terrible. The ending sucked and the match was worse. Who thought that Buck and Slater were the best options? Seriously, the American Males were on the preshow. They’re not the best in the world by any stretch of the imagination but they’re better than Buck and Slater. It’s stuff like this that is freaking idiotic and gave WCW the bad name it had.

Booker would occasionally get singles matches, such as this one from June 10, 1996 on Nitro.

Scott Steiner vs. Booker T

 

This would be huge about four years later. Basic anything you can do I can do greater match to start as I think this is face vs. heel but I’m not sure. Both escape belly to back suplexes but Scott gets a double underhook suplex for no cover. Booker manages to get a boot up in the corner kind of like a superkick to put Scott down. Scissors kick gets two.

 

Off to a front facelock and Booker controls. Spinning cross body off the top gets two. Larry Z giving wrestling advice to Booker is really weird for some reason. Scott gets something like a DDT to break the momentum though and here comes Steiner. We speed things up and Scott gets a belly to belly to put Booker down. Frankensteiner is avoided which gets two for Booker. A top rope splash misses and Scott hits another belly to belly to end it.

 

Rating: B-. Not bad at all here with two guys that were still (kind of) young and motivated and could give you a good match at this point. Also nice to see some young guys out there having some time to show off. Booker wouldn’t mean much of anything for like two years though and Steiner would be about 18 months away, so call this a very early preview.

 

With more tag title reigns here and there, Harlem Heat was put in a “four corners” singles match at Spring Stampede 1997 for the #1 contender ship for the world title.

Stevie Ray vs. Booker T vs. Giant vs. Lex Luger

One fall to a finish here and the winner gets Hogan eventually. Luger vs. Booker to start which should be interesting. Feeling out process to start until Luger starts slamming Booker a few times. Off to Stevie who punches Luger down a bit but gets caught between Giant and Luger which goes badly as you can imagine. Off to Giant and Stevie looks scared. Stevie knocks Giant back and gets loudly booed but Giant comes back with a clothesline.

Booker gets thrown around as well and it’s time for a meeting on the floor. I keep forgetting this is a four corners match. That gets remedied by Giant vs. Luger who have a power lockup. Luger tries a slam but Giant falls on him for two. The tag in Harlem Heat and the brothers having to fight gets a big reaction from the crowd.

They lock up and Booker works on the arm. There’s a lot of non contact here which makes sense for the most part. Booker tags in Lex and all is right with the world again. Stevie comes back with strikes and it’s Booker with a side suplex to put Lex down. A knee drop misses and it’s Giant time. A big elbow drop misses and Stevie comes in sans tag. An ax kick by Stevie doesn’t work and neither does a side kick so they go to the knees to get Giant down.

Giant gets up with ease and a big boot puts Ray down. Off to Luger again for some elbow drops which get two. Belly to back puts Booker down but Stevie breaks up the Rack. Booker hooks a chinlock and the Harlem side kick gets two. Harlem Heat double team Luger and it’s back to the chinlock. Lex suplexes his way out of it but Booker breaks it up. Giant breaks up a cover off an ax kick but there’s no cover. Harlem Hangover misses and it’s Stevie vs. Giant. Giant kicks Booker to the floor and calls for the chokeslam but tags in Luger so he can win with the Rack instead.

Rating: C+. This wasn’t bad for the most part as it was really a tag match in disguise. That being said, it didn’t mean a thing as Luger wouldn’t get his title shot until August so this was kind of a waste of time. The match itself was pretty fun though as both teams played it like a tag match instead of the fourway which was the right idea.

The singles career would really launch near the end of 1997 as Booker received a TV Title shot the night after Starrcade 1997.

TV Title: Booker T vs. Disco Inferno

Disco is defending. He dances to start and is booed, so Booker raises the roof to a good reaction. A hard clothesline puts Inferno down as the fans are almost silent. Disco misses an elbow so Booker breakdances a bit before taking it to the floor. The champ is whipped into the barricade but catches Booker with a Chartbuster (Stunner) onto the top rope as they come back in. Both guys fall back over the top and out to the floor. This time it’s Booker being sent into the barricade as the crowd stays silent.

Disco breaks up the count before bringing Booker back in, only to be caught in a sunset flip for two. Off to a chinlock by the champion as we’ve had a grueling three minutes of action so far. Back up and a neckbreaker puts Booker down as the announcers talk non stop about Sting’s challenge. Disco gets caught by a spinwheel kick and a backbreaker to set up the Harlem Hangover for the pin and the title.

Rating: D. Not only did the match bore everyone to sleep but the announcers literally talked about the match for two seconds. Booker T’s singles career gets started here and would wind up having a TON of titles in addition to ten tag titles. The match mostly sucked though as there was no chemistry here at all.

Booker would lose the title to Finlay about five months later before entering into a best of seven series against Chris Benoit to be #1 contender. Booker would win the seventh match through some shenanigans and offer Benoit one more chance. This is from Great American Bash 1998 and the winner faces Finlay later in the night.

Booker T vs. Chris Benoit

The winner gets a TV Title shot tonight against Finlay. Feeling out process to start with Benoit hooking a very quick armdrag to take over. Booker might have a bad knee coming in after the match on Thursday but he comes right back with an armdrag of his own. Benoit bails to the floor and it’s right back to a standoff a few seconds later. Booker grabs a hammerlock to take Chris down before hooking a half nelson into a rollup for two. Benoit fights up and cranks on a hammerlock of his own, only to be elbowed in the face.

Benoit is sent into the corner and peppered with more forearms before charging into a boot to the jaw. Chris will have none of that and takes out the bad knee with a dragon screw legwhip to get his first real advantage. They head to the corner for some WOO inspiring chops from the Canadian before he elbows Booker in the face for two. We hit a chinlock on Mr. T. as Tony compares Booker vs. Benoit seven times to Finlay fighting guys like High Voltage. There’s a snap suplex for two on Booker as things slow down a bit.

Benoit’s belly to back superplex is countered into a cross body for two but Benoit comes right back by stomping Booker down and putting on another chinlock. Booker fights up again but a hard knee to the stomach puts him right back down. Benoit drapes Booker’s ribs across the top rope for two but doesn’t seem sure how to follow up. Back to the chinlock as the fans immediately start cheering for Booker again. Off to a surfboard hold with Benoit’s knees in the back but Booker fights up and scores with a powerslam.

T goes up but Benoit steps to the side to avoid a spinning cross body ala Samoa Joe in a nice counter. A Crossface attempt lands right in the ropes so Benoit goes right back to the chinlock. Booker elbows up and hits an enziguri to put Benoit back down. There’s the snap spinebuster followed by a flapjack, allowing Booker to spin up. The missile dropkick is broken up with Booker getting crotched on the top, allowing Chris to superplex Booker down in a great looking crash.

Neither guy can immediately follow up though until Benoit gets a very delayed cover for two. Here are the rolling Germans but Booker breaks it up before the third. Instead Benoit busts out the dragon suplex for a very near fall. Booker is sent into the corner and tries the spinning sunset flip but Benoit is still in the middle of the ring in a nice bit of psychology. Benoit suplexes him down again and hits the Swan Dive but still can’t cover. Booker comes back with a side kick to the back of the head, setting up the missile dropkick for the 100% clean pin.

Rating: B. This would have been better with a minute or two cut out to lower the chinlockery levels, but even with them this was a great opening match and a perfect way to fire up the crowd. It’s one of those matches where both guys come out looking great though I would have liked to see Booker win more. Still though, very few complaints here.

From later in the night.

TV Title: Booker T vs. Fit Finlay

Booker doesn’t have any elbow pads or gloves on here which is a weird look for him. There’s an undefined extended time limit over the usual ten minutes here. Booker sends him into the buckle to start followed by an awkward looking clothesline. A kick to the face gets two for Booker but he misses an enziguri, allowing Finlay to hook a leg lock. Back up and Finlay forearms his way out of a headlock, only to have Booker come back with a flying forearm for two.

Some chops put Finlay on the floor but he comes back in to block an ax kick and go after the leg again. There’s a half crab followed by a regular crank on the leg to keep Booker in trouble. Finlay slams the knee onto the apron and wraps it around the ropes for good measure. Booker comes back with the spinning sunset flip out of the corner for two, only to have the champion come back with another leg crank. He wraps Booker’s knee around his neck ala the Brock Lock before going off to a kind of half Liontamer.

Booker rolls away and just pounds Fit in the head with right hands, only to have Finlay come right back with a shin breaker and another leg hold. They head outside again where the referee has to stop Finlay from getting a chair. The knee is wrapped around the post and Finlay hits a Vader Bomb for no cover. Instead he yells at the crowd and kicks Booker’s knee even more but stops to yell at the fans.

Booker comes back with a spinwheel kick and a powerslam before hitting the ax kick. He spins up so Finlay clotheslines him inside out. The tombstone from Finlay is countered into an AWFUL looking sequence where Booker was supposed to backflip into a tombstone of his own, but instead he fell down and got covered for two. Back up and Finlay misses a charge into the “post”, allowing Booker to hit a kneeling piledriver (Finlay was facing forward but Booker dropped to his knees like a tombstone) for the pin and the title.

Rating: D+. And there goes the really good match streak. The match wasn’t horrible but you can only watch Finlay lay on Booker’s leg and pull on the ankle so many times in thirteen minutes. The ending was HORRIBLE too with the sequence being botched and the ending coming out of nowhere. Also Booker not selling the knee at all after coming in with a bad knee and having Finlay work on it for ten minutes was inexcusable. I think everyone knew Booker would win here after taking the series, which made him look like a star.

We’re going to jump WAY ahead now as Booker stayed in the midcard singles scene for years as the company crumbled around him. Hollywood Hogan would do…..something at Bash at the Beach 2000 (long story) but the short version of it is he left instead of main eventing the show for the title. Booker was put in due to his years of hard work and received a shot at Jeff Jarrett.

WCW World Title: Jeff Jarrett vs. Booker T

One has to wonder why the guy that would wind up leaving as champion would have jobbed to a midcarder earlier but that would imply logic so there we are. Oh and they have the other world title there, as in the original one. Tony says he hasn’t seen it in years because the top is bent. And it just happened to be there tonight. Right. Either that or they got it to the arena in like 30 minutes. So it’s a pizza? See if this had happened say two years ago (as in Booker being in the main event) this could have meant something. We get a nice technical sequence as Booker is completely over.

We hit the crowd and walk around for a little bit with very limited actual offense or anything like that. Again, why are we having to do this? Are you telling me we can’t have these two give us a solid in ring match? And there are the weapons to really suck away any real chance of this being awesome. Jarrett piledrives him on the announce table. Now here’s the thing: the violence like this in a match is fine.

This is a big match so they’re going the extra mile. There’s nothing wrong with that and I can understand relaxing the rules for it. The problem with that is literally every match tonight has had a run-in or weapons used. It makes things like this seem less special or less intense. Even ECW had gotten that message by this point and had toned it down.

Now that being said, this is a solid match, but the lack of drama hurts it as ONCE AGAIN WCW blows the chance to show a feel good moment on PPV. Here’s the thing: Booker is clearly popular. Him winning the title tonight is going to be a big moment. The problem is that NO ONE KNOWS THIS IS GOING ON, other than people that bought the PPV.

Instead of announcing Booker as the title shot, they went with Hogan and wound up giving us Booker, rather than taking a chance on Booker as a draw. We hear about how this isn’t about politics and is about athleticism. If by that they mean desperation then I’d agree. Somehow this is Jarrett’s match of his life. Just….no. It’s figure four time as I’m tempted to predict a Flair run-in here.

Tony and the other announcers talk about how much Booker has had to go through here, including the grating of the political thing with Hogan earlier tonight. Did ANYONE know how to think in this company? The Axe Kick connects and Jarrett more or less no sells it for no apparent reason. And now, le sigh as down goes the referee. A belt shot to Jarrett gets a long two. We get a bunch of low blows and chair shots and now Jarrett just says screw it and this the Stroke on the referee. The Book End hits and another referee counts the pin.

Rating: B. Again, this was a good match. The problems surrounding it however made anything we could have gotten out of it completely pointless and useless though. Also like I said, Jarrett would pin him the next night anyway. This was a solid match and the moment was cool, but the levels of idiocy it took to get here absolutely astound me.

Booker would win the title A LOT before WCW went out of business. He won it here in July for the first time and for a fourth time in March. During his first reign he had a memorable defense on Nitro. Earlier in the night Goldberg had mauled Booker and the referee stopped the match in less than three minutes, but Booker kept the title. He didn’t want to be remembered like that and demanded a rematch later in the night.

WCW World Title: Booker T vs. Goldberg

Booker jumps him in the aisle but Goldberg knocks him right back down. As they head into the ring, Booker hits the ax kick and Goldberg is in trouble. Never mind as he clotheslines Booker down and into a 360. A powerslam puts Booker down and Goldberg pounds on the cut from earlier. Jeff Jarrett comes out for no reason and hits Goldberg with a chair as this is anything goes. SINCE FREAKING WHEN??? That makes Goldie mad so here’s the Cat to kick Goldberg in the face. That gets him nowhere either so Booker kicks him down for a second and the Book End (Rock Bottom) retains the title in less than three minutes.

Goldberg immediately pops up and spears Booker down and hits a Jackhammer to stand tall to end the show.

Thankfully Booker would be out of that mess in March and move on to the WWF, where he would face The Rock at Summerslam 2001 for the WCW Title.

WCW World Title: Booker T. vs. The Rock

Rock has bad ribs coming in due to a Bookend (Rock Bottom) through a table. Rock fires off right hands to start but has to chase Shane around the ring. Booker jumps him coming back in but gets sent into Shane, setting up a Samoan drop for two. Things settle down a bit and Rock clotheslines Booker down before hooking a side roll for two. Rock wins a slugout and sends Booker out to the floor.

They head over to the announce table and Rock gets in a blatant low blow. Now it’s into the crowd with Booker sending Rock’s ribs into the barricade to take over. Back to ringside and Booker loads up the announce table but Rock comes back with right hands. Booker easily reverses a whip into the post and Shane takes off the turnbuckle pad. Back in (finally) and an elbow to the face gets two for the champion.

A knee drop to the face has Rock in trouble and Heyman wants a Spinarooni. JR: “It sounds like something from Chef Boy-Ardee.” We hit the chinlock for a bit before Rock comes back and hooks a Sharpshooter. Shane is pulled in again but Booker gets in a cheap shot for two. A slingshot into the exposed buckle has Booker in trouble and Rock gets two off a DDT. Shane puts a chair in the ring and picks up the WCW Title. The referee goes to get rid of the chair and Shane lays out Rock with the belt. This brings out the APA to lay out the Boy Wonder.

Both guys in the ring are down and Shane is knocked silly. His eyes rolled back in his head while laid out is a great visual. The Bookend lays out Rock but the referee is with Shane so the delayed cover only gets two. Rock’s clothesline and the belly to belly get two and there’s the People’s Elbow but Shane comes back in for the save. Shane gets a Rock Bottom on the floor (eyes open again) and Rock hits the spit punch on Booker, only to walk into a spinebuster. The ax kick sets up the Spinarooni but the Rock Bottom connects for the pin and the title for Rock.

Rating: B. The match is good but I doubt even Booker’s mama gave him a chance in this match. Overbooking the match helped and Booker didn’t look like a jobber or anything but at the end of the day it was fifteen minutes of killing time until the obvious ending. Still though, good match that got stuck being on after a classic.

We’ll skip all of 2002 which was mainly spent in tag team wrestling and nothing singles matches. In early 2003, Booker pinned World Heavyweight Champion HHH and earned a shot at the title at Wrestlemania XIX.

Raw World Title: HHH vs. Booker T

HHH is in his manly purple trunks here. They fight into the corner to start with Booker smacking HHH in the face a few times to take over. A backdrop puts HHH down but he comes back with a clothesline. The champion goes up top but just like his mentor, he gets armdragged down with ease. A clothesline puts HHH down for two but Booker goes up and gets knocked down to the floor for his efforts.

Booker gets sent into the announce table as the referee tells HHH to get back in, complete with some very salty language from the referee. Lawler keeps making jokes about Booker being an ex-con as HHH gets two off a neckbreaker. Booker tries to fight back with right hands but gets caught in a spinebuster for two for the champion. A suplex is escaped though and Booker DDTs him down for no cover.

Booker pounds away on HHH before taking him down with a forearm. A spinning variety of said forearm gets two but HHH comes back with his lame sleeper, which was the move he was trying to get over at this point to no avail. The facebuster staggers Booker but he comes back with a quick spinebuster for two. HHH tries going up again but jumps into a jumping superkick for two.

The Harlem Side Kick misses HHH and Booker crashes out to the floor. Flair gets in some shots before sending Booker back in for a freaking Indian Deathlock as we continue the trip back to 1974. Since the hold goes on forever and I have a chance to look at it, the question occurs to me of why does that hold hurt? Their legs are in the exact same positions, so why would it only hurt Booker?

Anyway Booker gets to the rope for the break and we get to the work over the leg to set up the Figure Four because we need to pay tribute to Flair every 18 seconds portion of the match. A rollup out of nowhere gets two for Booker and he counters the Pedigree, only to be kicked into the referee in the corner. Not that it matters as the referee counts a quick two off a rollup anyway.

A big back elbow puts HHH down and the scissors kick looks to finish but Booker can’t cover. The delayed cover gets two and Booker goes up top. He has to knock Flair down, allowing HHH to load up a superplex. That gets broken up too though and it’s the Harlem Hangover (flip legdrop) for a very close two thanks to Flair. Not that it matters though as HHH kicks him in the leg, hits the Pedigree, covers 30 seconds later and retains the title.

Rating: C+. The match wasn’t horrible but TOTALLY the wrong booking here. There was zero reason to have HHH go over here other than he wanted to. Booker had been built up perfectly over the last few weeks and every sign pointed to him winning here, but instead HHH absolutely has to go over to set up that EPIC Kevin Nash feud in a few months.

We’ll skip the rest of 2003 where Booker won the Intercontinental Title and 2004 which was spent in the tag team and midcard scenes again and a long feud with John Cena over the US Title. That brings us to Judgment Day 2005 as Kurt Angle has said he wanted to have wild animal sex with Booker’s wife Sharmell, leading to a showdown.

Kurt Angle vs. Booker T

Cole says he’s usually impartial but he hopes Booker wins here. That’s very funny considering the way Cole is now. Booker hits the ring and drills Angle as you would expect. Kurt tries a front facelock but Booker rams shoulders into the ribs. Angle finally takes over and hammers away on Booker. Not much of a beatdown given how mad Booker was.

Off to the chinlock already which is rather early here. Ah good they’re already out of it. Booker stomps away in the corner as this is working for the most part. Seated dropkick puts Kurt down and he’s bleeding from the mouth. Angle tries the ankle but can’t get it on yet. Booker drapes him over the rope and hits the axe kick to send them to the floor and Kurt is reeling. The fans chant what sounds like Obi-Wan for some reason.

Kurt manage to send Booker into the post and we go back to him in control. Back in the ring now as Angle gets some knee lifts. Suplex gets two and Kurt locks in a side choke. Booker escapes the hold but misses a side kick so Kurt can get another suplex. Good stuff so far here so I apologize for the lack of jokes. The American hero fires off some European uppercuts. Kurt sold out!!!

More mat work by Angle as he tends to do a lot of. The idea of Booker going on pure adrenaline at first and Kurt getting through that and letting Booker make a mistake is a nice story for the match. Booker fights up and gets a spin kick, making Kurt hold his face. Comeback commences with Booker using his odd set of offense. Angle Slam doesn’t work but the Book End gets two.

Spinarooni by Booker but this is the SERIOUS Spinarooni I guess. Booker tries the axe kick but Kurt gets a clothesline and some Germans. Belly to belly gets two. Kurt tries the Angle Slam but Booker rolls through into a kind of small package for the pin. The reactions from Cole, Booker and Angle makes me think that really wasn’t the planned finish but at least Booker won.

Rating: B. Good stuff here but the ending hurts it a bit. The story being told in there was a solid one and the whole thing worked rather well. I’d have liked the actual ending but things happen at times and at least the ending, Booker winning by pin, happened one way or another. Good match again here, which is a running theme tonight.

A year later, Booker would face Bobby Lashley in the King of the Ring tournament finals at Judgment Day 2006.

King of the Ring: Booker T vs. Bobby Lashley

Booker beat Matt Hardy and got a bye to get here. Lashley beat Mark Henry and Finlay. Booker gets shoved down to start and they circle each other. I mean they circle each other A LOT. Lashley takes over with power shots and Booker can’t outmove him. A shoulder hits the post though and Lashley crashes to the floor. We go into the slowdown stuff here as Booker takes over on the arm.

Lashley fights back with a clothesline and stands around a lot. Sharmell interferes which gets them nowhere so they do it again and Booker takes over. Bookend gets a long two. This is rather boring stuff. Powerslam gets two for Lashley and the fans get WAY into it all of a sudden. Spinning heel kick sets up the axe kick for two. Lashley gets the spear but here’s Finlay with the club to Lashley’s head to let Booker hit the Bookend for the crown. He would win the title next.

Rating: D. I didn’t like this one at all for the most part. They felt like they were in the beginning of the match the entire time and it never worked for the most part. A D might be a bit low but at the same time I wasn’t thrilled with it in the slightest. It never got going at all and the whole thing was carried by Booker to say the least. At the time I never got the point of having Booker win but he was by far better at this point and in the long run it turned out to be the right move I think.

The win would turn Booker into King Booker. The new gimmick gave him confidence and Booker won a battle royal, earning a shot at the World Heavyweight Champion Rey Mysterio at the 2006 Great American Bash.

Smackdown World Title: Booker T vs. Rey Mysterio

The King and Queen come out with some kind of car thing. It has a throne on it as well. Eh I don’t think anyone really knew what was going on here so who cares. Booker’s entrance takes about 5 minutes, reaching near Undertaker territory. Rey points to the sky because Eddie is the point of this title reign. Booker: “Eddie can’t help you now.” Long stall to start.

Booker uses the size and power advantage to take over but Rey speeds things up and hits a legdrop for two. JBL and Cole get in an economic debate and Cole is accused of being a socialist. Now remember what I said they did for the first section of the match? Repeat that for the next few minutes. Rey knocks him to the floor and hits a seated senton off the top. A springboard splash gets two.

The challenger is really having issues with someone smaller than him and therefore the match is kind of struggling. A superkick and clothesline get two each for Booker. He works on the arm for some reason and then drops Rey as he tries a jumping snapmare. As in Rey tried it and Booker just shoved him off. Booker goes total rudo and hits Three Amigos for a very delayed two.

The axe kick misses but Rey misses the 619. A BIG kick to the head gets two for the champ and he loads up the 619 again, but Sharmell makes the save. That earns her an ejection and pretty much no reaction from the crowd. Booker gets in a good shot for two and the bulldog is countered into a belly to back suplex for two. Rey takes out the knee and hits a rana to take over. Springboard cross body gets two.

Tornado DDT gets the same. He tries a rana out of the corner but Booker counters and launches Rey into the referee. With him down the seated senton and 619 connect and the frog splash looks to finish but there’s no referee. Booker hits a low blow and Bookend but there’s no referee still. Dang those guys are fragile. Booker’s chair shot misses and Rey dropkicks it into his face. Here’s Chavo to pick up the chair and of course he turns on Rey, cracking him with the chair and giving Booker the title.

Rating: C+. Not a horrible match but the first five minutes or so didn’t really work at all. They were trying, but the problem was due to the size difference. Booker’s title reign was nothing particularly good but he was just holding it warm for Batista anyway. Not a bad match, but you feel like you’re waiting for the real main event after this instead of getting ready to leave the arena, which isn’t good.

Batista would take the title from Booker a few months later and then spend months chasing the title. After a quick feud with HHH, he would head to TNA in 2007. Booker would chase the world title there as well in a series with Samoa Joe, including this one from Victory Road 2008.

TNA World Title: Samoa Joe vs. Booker T

They’re trying to make this an epic match but I’m not getting the Austin/Rock vibes here. And now let’s have another video package. Now let’s watch both of them walk from the back. Why can’t Joe be this much of a monster now? We hear the beginning of his music and go to ANOTHER video about Joe. Seriously, is this necessary? Also why did he put the belt on his other shoulder during the video?

 

We get the IF JOE WINS WE RIOT sign. No, you won’t. See, in ECW it’s effective because they would have actually rioted. These people won’t and they know it. To kill more time we do big match intros. They chop it out and we’re just in the feeling out stages of course.

 

The fans are about 80% behind Booker here which is exactly what you would expect of him. We hit the floor and Booker takes over and busts Joe open. We’re at shot of Sharmell #8 after less than ten minutes. This is far from epic but it’s not bad I guess. Joe goes aerial a bit which wasn’t bad. There’s a lot of striking in the middle of the ring here and there goes the referee.

 

That’s so clichéd it’s not even funny anymore. We head to the floor for more chops and strikes that aren’t anything special. Joe does get a nice Ole Kick on the floor (Youtube it). Ok, we know what Sharmell looks like. We don’t need to see her every 18 seconds. Joe gets slapped by her and beats up her body guards. Oh and the referee is still down and hasn’t moved and therefore could be dead but no one checks on him. Great guys in TNA.

 

Booker is busted too. Ah there’s a second referee. Joe beats both of the other referees up. They were kind of going for an Austin/Taker insanity thing here and it’s not working really. The idea is he can’t beat Booker and he’s snapping and just beating the tar out of him for it.

 

Security hits the ring and down they go. Sharmell is in the ring as I know where this is going. He puts Booker in a choke and Sharmell screams for help. And cue Sting. There’s Bound for Glory’s main event. Sting gets him to leave and then he goes back to the ring to beat on Booker more.

 

Joe flips him off and says F you which earns him some bat shots. West asking why Sting is doing this cracks me up. Sharmell counts a three and Booker takes the belt. That would set up a cage match between Booker and Joe next month. The announcers being in SHOCK, yes SHOCK I say, ends it.

Rating: C-. While I’ve seen far worse, this wasn’t much at all. The whole insane brawling was a bit much and Joe snapping like that sucked. It set up next month and Bound For Glory even better but at the same time it was just boring. Joe was still decent here and the crowd was white hot though so points for that. Like I said, I’ve seen worse.

 

Booker would wind up being in the midcard scene (introducing his own Legends Title) and the tag team scene (Scott Stiner) before becoming a legend (Main Event Mafia) as always. He would head back to WWE and appear in the Royal Rumble, eventually becoming an announcer and then GM. This led to Intercontinental Champion Cody Rhodes taunting him and a feud between the two. From December 26, 2011.

Booker T vs. Cody Rhodes

Non-title here. Cole and Jerry has an actual lighthearted argument over who sang Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Hiptoss gives Booker an early advantage and a slam gets two. Snap suplex gets one. Axe kick misses though and Rhodes takes over with a neckbreaker. Out to the floor goes Booker and we take a break. Back with Booker taking over. He spins into the corner though and an elbow takes him down. Off to a crossface chickenwing

Clothesline gets two for Cody. The fans of course chant for Booker and Cody is getting frustrated. Booker fights back and it’s boo/yay tonight. Cody dropkicks him down and works the arm. Camel clutch goes on and Booker gets sent into the corner. He gets his feet up though and looks like he needs oxygen. Side slam gets two. The Jack Brisco sunset flip doesn’t look that good as it gets two. Rollup gets two for Cody. The Beautiful Disaster looks to have been short and it gets two. Cross Rhodes is countered but the side kick misses. The axe kick hits though and it gets the clean pin at 12:06.

Rating: C. The sloppiness hurt it and I’m not sure I like the idea of Cody losing clean. Booker looked kind of old here, but it’s what, his fourth match this year? Not bad and I guess the rematch is coming at the Rumble? Also the booking isn’t bad as he lost when he got beaten down before the match but wins when it’s even. That’s not as bad.

We’ll FINALLY wrap it up there. Booker has been around so long and had some much success that I easily could have done twice as much here and probably had them all be major title matches. The guy is definitely talented but he’s on the lower end of the main event scene. That being said, he was one of the true feel good stories in WCW as he rose up from nothing of note and became a tag, midcard and world champion over the course of several years. He did the same in WWE (though in a different order) and then did some decent stuff in TNA. Booker was and is still great and he has an astounding 35 championships in his career. Check him out, but he’s more of a guy that was consistent rather than great if that makes sense.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my new book of on the History of Summerslam at Amazon for just $3.99 at:

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Today is one of the most naturally talented wrestlers of all time: Ricky Steamboat.

Ricky Steamboat got his start in the territories back in the 70s. He was named after a popular wrestler named Sam Steamboat which was a common practice back in the day. Why it’s not done today I’m not sure as there are always real second generation guys brought in, so why not make it up? Steamboat’s first major exposure was in a feud with Ric Flair for the Mid-Atlantic TV Title, primarily due to this match from June 15, 1977 in Raleigh.

TV Title: Ric Flair vs. Ricky Steamboat

Flair is defending and takes him into the corner to start before hammering on the chest. Flair’s tag partner Greg Valentine is on commentary and bragging about how awesome Flair is. Ric backs up into the corner and goes up top, only to be slammed down in a tradition that goes all the way back to 1977. Steamboat is all fired up but walks into an atomic drop for two. The champion gets chopped across the ring and things slow down a lot. A sunset flip gets two for Steamboat but Flair starts going after the knee.

Ric hammers away with right hands but Steamboat kicks him in the ribs to escape. A dropkick gets two on Flair and we take a break. Back with Steamboat in control as Valentine admits that Steamboat is a lot better than he expected. Flair comes back with a suplex and a WOO but an elbow drop is only good for two. Valentine FREAKS as Steamboat chops away but they ram heads and Ricky falls outside. He comes back in with a top rope ax handle for the pin and the title in a BIG upset.

Rating: C+. Both guys were still young at this point and the match was more energetic than some of their others as a result. Steamboat got a good reaction from the crowd and the place went nuts when he got the pin. Of course they would have more famous matches down the line but it’s cool to see stuff like this.

We’ll jump ahead a bit to 1980 and a match from All Japan.

Ricky Steamboat vs. The Sheik

That’s the original Sheik, not the Iron version. Ricky hits three quick dropkicks to put Sheik down and the wild man bails into the crowd. Steamboat has a tiny mustache here which just doesn’t work for him. Back in and Sheik pounds away in the corner before taking it to the floor to keep up the brawling. Ricky slams him into the barricade and hits him with the mic a few times as a bunch of people surround them and block the view.

Sheik chokes a bit but gets punched in the face before a top rope chop to the head puts Sheik down. Ricky has already drawn blood as is the Sheik’s custom. They head into the crowd for more brawling until Sheik sets up a table at ringside. Steamboat slams him face first into the wood and they get inside for a change, only to have Sheik go after the referee. Ricky puts on a sleeper but the bell rings for the DQ.

Rating: C-. This was barely a match but it’s always cool to see Steamboat doing something completely different like this. Sheik was the original wild man and would train his nephew Sabu. There was no way this wasn’t going to be a DQ with all the insanity out there and there’s nothing wrong with that.

We’ll head back stateside now where Steamboat formed a tag team with Jay Youngblood. They would challenge the Brisco Brothers for the World Tag Team Titles at Starrcade 1983.

Tag Titles: Ricky Steamboat/Jay Youngblood vs. Brisco Brothers

 

The Brothers would be Jerry, who you might remember as one of Vince’s Stooges in the Attitude Era and the legendary former world champion Jack. They’re defending here against the guys they took the belts from. Jack and Steamboat start things off in what sounds like a dream match. It’s a feeling out process to start with neither guy being able to get any kind of advantage to start. Steamboat does some fast leapfrogs but Brisco grabs the ropes to avoid a chop. Mosca, the big guy mentioned earlier, is referee here.

 

Jerry comes in to work on the arm for a bit before it’s back to Jack for an armbar. Jerry comes in again and pounds away in the corner but Ricky chops him down and tags in Jay. Youngblood counters a slam into an armdrag on Jerry before bringing Steamboat back in to pound on the arm as well. Jay jumps off the top onto the arm as well but it’s off to Jack again to drop Steamboat throat first onto the top rope.

 

A quick suplex gets two for Jerry and he hooks a short armscissors to keep Ricky in trouble. Ricky escapes in an impressive power display by lifting him off the mat and dropping him down on his back. Hot tag brings in Jay and things break down. The Briscos double team Youngblood to take over again but Jerry can only get two off a suplex. Jerry tries his abdominal stretch cradle but Jay kicks out again. He tries again but rolls Jay into the corner for another tag to Steamboat and the future dragon cleans house. A double chop puts Jerry down and Steamboat slams Jay down onto Jerry for the pin and the titles.

 

Rating: C+. Nice tag match here to give Steamboat and Youngblood their fifth tag titles. Yeah even back then there were teams who would get a bunch of titles in just a few years. Anyway, the Briscos would be retired soon after this while Youngblood would die in 1985 due to injuries suffered in the match. Good stuff here though.

Ricky would be one of three men that wrestled at both the first Starrcade and Wrestlemania (the others being Roddy Piper and Greg Valentine. Bob Orton Jr. appeared at both but didn’t wrestle at Wrestlemania), so here’s his match from the original Wrestlemania.

Matt Borne vs. Ricky Steamboat

Borne is the Maniac so I have another name to use. Steamboat is looking chiseled here. I’ve never seen him so ripped up and it’s a strange look on him. Also he isn’t called the Dragon yet which is even odder to hear. Ricky speeds things up to start and chops Borne down before hitting a chinlock only about 40 seconds in.

Off to a headlock instead with Steamboat backflipping over Borne twice with the second time resulting in an atomic drop. Back to the headlock which is shifted into a front facelock but Borne comes back with a snap suplex for two. Ricky is like dude I’m Ricky Steamboat and suplexes Borne down, followed by a swinging neckbreaker. A shoulder block puts Borne down and the cross body ends this near squash clean.

Rating: D+. Eh it’s Steamboat in the 80s so how bad can this be? Ricky wasn’t a huge star yet but he was rapidly becoming known as something special. It would be another year or so before he started tearing the house down on a regular basis and started having his masterpieces. Borne would be a lot better when he had a gimmick to go with his skills.

One of Steamboat’s first major feuds in the WWF was against Jake Roberts, culminating in a Snake Pit match at the Big Event in August of 1986.

Jake Roberts vs. Ricky Steamboat

This is a Snakepit Match meaning anything goes. Roberts had DDTed Steamboat on the floor at a SNME and nearly killed him to ignite this feud which was the second biggest of the summer. Dragon had busted out a Komodo Dragon to counter Damien but neither are here tonight due to customs issues. The two commentators that talk say that the Canadian flag has an oak leaf on it.

Dragon dominates until we hit the floor where Jake takes over after a low blow. Steamboat gets a few chair shots in and that just was weird to type. Dragon just beats the tar out of him for awhile but gets reversed and goes over the top to the floor. Valiant thinks Roberts is a champion for some reason. Roberts is one of those guys that was supposed to be a heel but more or less became a face through just pure fan support.

Dragon starts bleeding after going into the post but fights out of the DDT. Jake is dominating now and getting face pops for it. And then he sits on Dragon’s chest and holds his arm up and you know the rest. They would have another match in a few weeks on SNME with the animals that I reviewed last night to close out the feud.

Rating: B. This was a very intense match. Street fights and the like simply didn’t happen in this era so this was insane at the time. Both guys were great workers so this worked out very well. Steamboat was about to have his throat messed up by Savage and you know the aftermath of that.

Soon after that, Randy Savage would crush Steamboat’s throat across the barricade and puts Ricky on the shelf for months. He would return on Saturday Night’s Main Event, setting up a showdown at Wrestlemania III in one of the most famous matches of all time.

Intercontinental Title: Randy Savage vs. Ricky Steamboat

The fans give an audible pop for Savage which even the announcers have to acknowledge. George Steele comes out to back up Steamboat and show off that green tongue. They shove each other around a few times before Randy takes an early breather. Savage misses a back elbow and Steamboat hits a pair of those perfect armdrags of his. Randy is lifted into the air via a choke and it’s back to the floor.

Back in and Savage gets in his first shot before sending Ricky into the buckle. Steamboat immediately comes back by grabbing the wrist and lifting Savage into the air. Savage comes back with an elbow to the face before sending Steamboat over the top and out to the floor. Randy starts going after the throat but has to stop to try to get his left arm working again. Steamboat sends him into the buckle and chops away, sending Savage into the ropes.

With the champion tied up, Steamboat fires away with a vengeance. Savage gets loose and Ricky hits a cross body for two, kicking off one of the fastest sets of near falls you’ll EVER see. Randy finally slows him down with a knee to the back and a toss over the ropes, only to have Ricky skin the cat. Savage throws him out again and knocks him into the crowd for good measure. The top rope ax handle keeps Steamboat down even longer and Savage is in full control.

Savage hits a clothesline for two which Gorilla doesn’t like. Gorilla: “That could be a disqualification.” Jesse: “For what?” Gorilla: “Intentional.” Jesse: “Well of course it was intentional!” Gorilla could find some weird stuff to complain about at times. After a pair of Savage suplexes for two, Ricky starts firing back and sends Savage out to the floor. A top rope chop gets two for the challenger and they speed things up all over again.

We get another chase on the floor followed by a sunset flip by the Dragon for two. They trade ANOTHER great pinfall reversal sequence as Jesse declares this one of the greatest matches he’s ever seen. A slingshot sends Savage face first into the post and there’s a sunset flip for two for the Dragon. Savage reverses an O’Connor Roll with a handful of tights for two. Randy uses the tights again and sends Dragon shoulder first into the post.

They reverse an Irish whip and the referee gets bumped. Randy hits another clothesline and drops the big elbow but there’s no referee. Savage goes to get the bell but Steele takes it away. That earns the Animal a kick in the head so he shoves Savage off the top. Steamboat is back up and famously counters a slam into a small package for the pin and the title.

Rating: A+. This is the greatest match of all time so what do you expect me to give it. I’m amazed at how well this holds up nearly 26 years later as there is nothing wrong with it at all. The story goes that these two practiced this match at Savage’s house for three months beforehand and it shows. Not a thing is even close to screwed up and they’re so fast out there it’s unbelievable. How anyone can say this is anything but perfect astounds me to this day. If you haven’t seen this before, watch it now and take notes.

Steamboat would drop the title only a few months later but he would still make it into the WWF Title tournament at Wrestlemania IV.

WWF World Title Tournament First Round: Greg Valentine vs. Ricky Steamboat

Should be good. Steamboat brings the future Richie Steamboat to the ring with him in matching outfits. Feeling out process to start with Steamboat taking him down via an armdrag. Gorilla says Ricky has excellence of execution to coin a phrase. A few shoulders get two on Valentine so he throws Steamboat over the top. That of course doesn’t work on the Dragon so he comes back with a dropkick and a crucifix for two.

Valentine comes back with his usual elbows and forearms to put Steamboat down. He pulls Steamboat off the ropes so Ricky drops onto the back of his head. This allows Gorilla to bust out the term “external occipital protuberance”, to which Jesse replies “THE WHAT?” The voice Ventura says that in is hilarious. Apparently it’s that little bump on the back of your head. Steamboat reverses a suplex into one of his own and hooks an armbar. Jimmy Hart goes a rant of instructions to the Hammer which is such a lost art in wrestling.

Steamboat gets dropped on the back of his head, allowing for another discussion of whatever that thing is called. Gorilla: “External occipital protuberance.” Jesse: “Oh ok. Back of the head for all you normal people back there.” Valentine pounds away with elbows as Gorilla says they’re “right in the kisser, right between the eyes.” His biology knowledge is all over the place. Donald Trump is in the front row. Steamboat comes back with some chops for two but Greg puts him right back down with a gutbuster.

Valentine goes after the leg but the Figure Four is broken up. They chop it out with Steamboat taking over, only to charge into a boot in the corner. Valentine hits a top rope forearm but still can’t put the Figure Four on. Steamboat hits an elbow to the face and a top rope chop for two. He rams Valentine into the corner ten times and shoves the referee away when he tries to break it up. Ricky goes up and hits the cross body but Valentine rolls through to eliminate Steamboat.

Rating: C+. Like I said, decent stuff here although Steamboat would be gone pretty much immediately over wanting to take some time off. Vince said no so Ricky left wrestling for about nine months. Anyway, good stuff here from two guys that know how to work whatever kind of a match you ask them to. Valentine was great in a role like this where he wasn’t going to win anything but he could fill in a spot and do just fine.

Soon after this, Ricky would leave the company and head back to the NWA in 1989 for a feud with Ric Flair. Steamboat would win the World Title at Chi-Town Rumble in February 1989. This set up a rematch at Clash of the Champions 6 in a 2/3 falls match for Steamboat’s title.

NWA World Title: Ric Flair vs. Ricky Stemboat

 

Ricky is defending and this is 2/3 falls with a sixty minute time limit. Ross tells us that this was supposed to be Luger vs. Jack Victory but the card has been changed so we can see the match people are interested in. Terry Funk replaces Hayes on commentary. The video screen behind the entrance says “Rick” Flair, which is probably the only time you’ll see that spelling. Ricky has his son in a dragon costume for a cute moment.

 

Feeling out process to start with Ric slapping him in the face and getting the blonde stared out of his hair. They take it to the mat with Steamboat getting a very brief advantage until Flair makes it to the ropes. Back up and Steamboat slaps him in the face for good measure. Flair grabs a top wristlock but Ricky overpowers him into the ropes again. The challenger gets inside again but gets taken down by a headlock at the five minute mark.

 

Ricky gets up and starts running the ropes, sending Flair down to the mat. Steamboat outsmarts him though and stops on a dime, dropping down into the headlock again. Flair fights up and takes him into the corner for some hard chops but Steamboat comes back with a flying headscissors and a dropkick. Back to the headlock to slow the match down before Steamboat drops some knees to the head.

 

Flair drives him into the corner but gets dropkicked down again. Ric seems to just be trying to hang with Steamboat here instead of beating him. Ten minutes in now with Flair begging off in the corner. An O’Connor roll gets two for the champion and a flying headlock takeover puts Flair down again. Ricky starts going after the arm to set up his double chickenwing submission later in the match. Flair gets chopped out of the corner and flops down onto his face for two.

 

We hit the headlock again but this time Flair scores with an atomic drop to escape. Steamboat will have none of that and chops Ric down to the floor. Ross tells us that the two remaining matches tonight will air over the weekend if there’s no time tonight. I love little things like that as they keep some sense of logic to the show instead of just acting like those matches never happened.

 

Fifteen minutes in now and Flair turns it up a notch with the chops. Steamboat chops him even harder though and drops Flair with a suplex, only for his splash to land on Ric’s knees. A double stomp to Steamboat’s stomach gives Flair a target and he does his best to hold Steamboat’s shoulders down for a pin. Back up again and they fight over a test of strength until Steamboat misses a dropkick. Flair tries the Figure Four but gets countered into a small package, only to counter Ricky into a small package for the quick pin and the first fall. The first fall alone would be nothing short of a classic.

 

They circle each other to start the second fall as the fans are WAY into this. A quick gorilla press from Ricky sets up a top rope chop to the head for two. Flair takes him right back down with a suplex and walks around for a bit before missing a knee drop. Steamboat drops about sixteen straight elbows on the knee before throwing on a Figure Four of his own. Flair finally makes the ropes but Steamboat immediately puts him in a Boston crab at the twenty five minute mark.

 

Flair gets under the ropes and screams for mercy as the hold is broken. Terry says go back to the leg but Steamboat chops instead and gets taken down by a headlock. He reverses into a headscissors and they bridge up into a backslide for two on Ric. They head outside with Steamboat going ribs first into the barricade twice in a row. Steamboat barely makes it back inside but Flair snaps his throat across the top rope to keep the advantage. Ric suplexes him back in for two as we hit the halfway point.

 

Flair puts on an abdominal stretch and rolls Steamboat back for a series of two counts. He even puts his feet on the floor for extra leverage but Ricky keeps getting up. Back up and Steamboat gets a quick rollup for two but the kickout sends him into the ropes. Flair heads to the top rope but gets slammed down, giving Steamboat another target. He slaps on the double chickenwing and makes Flair submit for the first time in his career to tie things up.

 

Ric pokes Steamboat in the eye to break up a quick abdominal stretch and we’re at the thirty five minute mark. Ricky pounds on the back but gets countered into a shin breaker. It slows Ricky down but Flair can’t follow up because of the earlier knee injury. Flair gets the Figure Four but Ricky is right next to the rope so there isn’t much damage done. Back up again and they chop the skin off their chests one more time before Flair is sent into the corner and chopped off the apron.

 

The challenger begs off in the corner and tries a quick rollup, only to get caught with his feet on the ropes for the break. Steamboat runs into a boot in the corner and misses another charge, getting his leg tied around the ropes. Forty minutes in now and Flair goes after the knee as only he can. The Figure Four goes on in the middle of the ring and Ricky is in agony but will not give up. He FINALLY rolls into the ropes after nearly two straight minutes in the hold.

 

Ric chops even more on the outside but Ricky does the same in the corner. Flair gets sent into the corner and actually comes off the top with a high cross body for two. Steamboat’s knee gives on a suplex attempt with fifteen minutes to go in the match. Ricky goes up top for the high cross body but the knee is too banged up, allowing Flair to get up at two. The champ gets two more off a swinging neckbreaker but Flair sends him outside.

 

Ricky comes back in with a sunset flip over the top but Flair puts on a sleeper. Steamboat’s arm drops twice but he fights to his feet and sends Ric face first into the buckle to escape. Flair kicks him in the knee to slow Ricky down but the champion kicks Ric in the head for a close two. Both guys are spent now with ten minutes left. Steamboat gets up top and misses a splash but gets to his feet again. The chops and kicks from Flair have almost no effect as Steamboat chops Flair down again.

 

Ricky pounds away in the corner again but he has almost nothing left. Flair gets his nineteenth wind and suplexes the champion down with about six minutes to go. Ric goes up top and gets slammed down one more time, setting up another double chickenwing. The champ’s knee gives out though and Flair falls on top, only to have Ricky get a shoulder up at the last second to retain the title two falls to one.

 

Rating: A+. There aren’t many matches that last nearly an hour but this was as good as it can get. The match runs about fifty five minutes and feels about half of that with no dead spots at all. Both guys looked exhausted at the end with good reason as they couldn’t leave anything else out there. The stories being told and the psychology are all second to none and the whole thing is just perfect. I like it better than the Chi-Town Rumble match and the final showdown at WrestleWar but there’s no going wrong anywhere. Outstanding match and maybe the best match WCW ever had.

We’ll jump ahead to late 1991 after Ricky had a pretty lame return to the WWF. In 1991, Dustin Rhodes and Barry Windham were hunting for the World Tag Team Titles but the Enforcers (Arn Anderson and Larry Zbyszko, the champions) broke Windham’s arm before a title defense. Dustin had a replacement partner at Clash of the Champions 17.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

After losing the titles, Steamboat would head back into the singles division, including this match from Worldwide on May 9, 1992.

Ricky Steamboat vs. Cactus Jack

Steamboat has a broken nose coming in so Jack tries to ram him face first into the buckle. Ricky comes back with a DDT for two and a jackknife cover for the same. Cactus charges into an armbar and gets dropped with a horrible looking dropkick. Jack tries to throw him to the floor but Ricky skins the cat, only to get caught by a Cactus Clothesline to put both guys outside. A suplex back inside gets two for Jack and there’s a discus lariat to put the Dragon down. Cactus misses a charge into the post and Ricky hits the high cross body for the pin.

Rating: D+. There’s a 20 minute classic in there if they were given the time but this only lasted about five minutes. Jack was starting to round into form as the crazy man that absorbed pain and destroyed almost anyone in his path. Steamboat was oddly sloppy here and didn’t seem all that interested.

Later that year Steamboat had a match at Halloween Havoc 1992 against Brian Pillman. How can that not be awesome?

Ricky Steamboat vs. Brian Pillman

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

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

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

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

Speaking of matches that just have to be awesome, here’s Steamboat vs. Vader for Vader’s World Title from Worldwide on May 30, 1993.

WCW World Title: Ricky Steamboat vs. Vader

This is some nonsense about a computer selecting Steamboat but dude, it’s Ricky Steamboat. He should get a title shot a month just to make the champion look awesome. Vader has Harley Race with him here so odds are we’ll get some cheating. The champion knocks Steamboat around to start and lifts him up for a gorilla press before dropping him throat first across the top rope.

Race and Vader both choke for a bit before Ricky slides between Vader’s legs and trying a sunset flip, only to avoid Vader cannonballing down onto his chest. Vader charges at him but Ricky low bridges him to the floor and scores with a baseball slide. Race gets an atomic drop but the distraction lets Vader drop Steamboat face first onto the barricade. We take a break and come back with Race hitting a knee to Ricky’s ribs as the Dragon is in trouble.

Back in and Vader drops a big elbow which was very close to a low blow. A middle rope clothesline crushes Steamboat again and we hit an abdominal stretch on the mat. Steamboat escapes but is literally screaming in pain as Vader forearms him upside the head. A belly to back suplex gets two for the champion and Vader is shocked. Ricky scores with some chops but gets splashed in the corner, setting up the Vader Bomb.

Steamboat is able to avoid a second Bomb and get up top for two chops to the head and the high cross body for two. There’s a Figure Four but Race rakes the eyes for the save. Ricky cross bodies Vader to the floor but misses a charge into the barricade. Vader splashes him on the floor and beats the count for the win.

Rating: C+. Nice match here with Steamboat being as smooth as ever out there. He was just good enough to make the fans believe there was a chance of a new champion while not making Vader sweat all that much. The ending was a nice touch as well as Steamboat gets to stay strong and Vader gets the win.

Steamboat was getting up there in years but was still solid in the ring. The solution was to have him give younger guys the rub, with Steve Austin being one of the bigger young guys on the roster. From Clash of the Champions 28.

US Title: Ricky Steamboat vs. Steve Austin

Austin is champion and he already beat Steamboat via some circumstances (Austin got DQ’d, Steamboat insisted they keep going, Austin pinned him) at Bash at the Beach so this is the second match. We go split screen to see Hogan leave in the ambulance. Ricky takes him to the mat quickly and Austin complains of a hair pull. That brings a smile to my face due to the future.

Austin has Dragon Slayer on his tights. If Austin gets disqualified, he loses the title. We stop commentary on the match while a stage manager gives Heenan a live report of what happened to Hogan. We’ll ignore the fact that everyone could see it and point out that WE CAN’T HEAR HIM! He’s whispering in Bobby’s ear (and I know because the camera went off the match to look at him doing so), making this totally pointless.

They chop it out and Steamboat takes over. He grabs the arm as Heenan rants about how he wouldn’t care if Hogan can ever wrestle again. We get a SWEET pinfall reversal sequence and Ricky grabs the arm once again. We finally see this loudmouthed fan that the announcers have been complaining about all night. It’s Barry “Smash” Darsow as the new character the Blacktop Bully. He was a truck driver and a bully. And people wonder why this company was always struggling.

Tony says Austin has held the title since December of 1983, or about 11 years at this point. It’s more like 9 months and December of 93 but you can’t expect him to be able to tell time or complicated things like that. After a quick chase on the floor, Steamboat hooks a sleeper but Austin kind of drops down and drives Steamboat’s chin into his shoulder. I’d jot that down if I was him.

We hear that Sting who was in Chicago, has chartered a plane and is on his way here and will wrestle in Hogan’s place if need be. Ricky stays on the arm and hits a top rope chop. Back to the Bully shouting as Austin apparently counters with something. We didn’t get to see it but why would we need to do that? They fight from their knees and Austin grabs a chinlock.

They chop it out again and Steamboat hits a double to take over. They chop it out for the third or fourth time and Austin hits a suplex. A second is blocked and Steamboat puts him on the ropes. The cameras glitch so we get a random shot of the entrance. Austin knocks him back to the mat but gets crotched. Ricky loads up a superplex but Austin hits a release forward suplex.

He comes off the top but gets caught and Steamboat makes his comeback. I’m not sure how much of a comeback it can be after such a short time on defense but whatever. Top rope crossbody gets canvas and here’s more Blacktop Bully. Steamboat Hulks Up and hammers away. A spinebuster gets two. Austin goes up but gets caught in an electric chair drop for another two.

This is getting really good. A few pinning combinations get two for Steamboat. Austin dumps him over but Steamboat holds the rope. If he had hit the floor it would have been a title change. Austin goes to slam him BUT YOU CAN’T SLAM RICKY STEAMBOAT!!! Ricky gets his small package and the US Title.

Rating: B. Very good match here which is even more impressive when you consider Steamboat destroyed his back in this match and had to retire before he defended the title. Austin was supposed to get a rematch at Fall Brawl but since Steamboat was hurt, Austin was awarded the title and Jim freaking Duggan of all people took the title from him in about 45 seconds. But Hogan never did anything bad for WCW and it was just a coincidence that a washed up guy like Duggan got the US Title over someone young and talented like Austin and that Duggan just happened to be a friend of Duggan right?

Steamboat was scheduled to drop the title back to Austin but injured his back in the Clash match, forcing him into retirement as a result (WCW of course fired him via FedEx because that’s the kind of company they were). Steamboat would leave wrestling for several years before becoming a trainer for WWE. He would come out of retirement at Wrestlemania 25 at the age of 56 for a legends handicap match against Chris Jericho.

Chris Jericho vs. Roddy Piper/Jimmy Snuka/Ricky Steamboat

Flair is here to support his fellow old people. If I had to guess, I’d say he’s somewhere between smashed and alcohol poisoning. Jericho has to beat all three legends to win so he starts with Piper. Roddy looks bad but considering less than two years earlier he was diagnosed with lymphoma, this is pretty impressive.

Piper fires away to start and takes it to the mat before hooking a quick sunset flip for two. A kind of dropkick puts Chris down and Roddy pounds away in the corner. Jimmy comes in and the match turns into slow motion. To be fair he’s about 65 here. Ricky comes in and starts cranking on the arm as you would expect him to. Back to Jimmy for a double chop although only Ricky’s actually hits. Out of nowhere Jericho puts on the Walls for the elimination.

Piper comes back in and works over the ribs before throwing on the sleeper. It only lasts for a few seconds though before Jericho rams him into the top rope and gets the elimination via a running enziguri. This leaves Steamboat vs. Jericho with the Dragon coming in with the top rope cross body for a VERY close near fall. A snapmare puts Ricky down and Jericho kicks him in the back before putting on a chinlock. In the STUPID part of the show, Jericho throws Steamboat over the ropes for him to skin the cat, but LET’S LOOK AT FLAIR INSTEAD!

Jericho gets backdropped over the top to the floor and IT’S A FLYING OLD MAN to take Jericho down again. Back in and a top rope chop has Jericho reeling. Steamboat jumps over Chris out of the corner and gets a rollup for two. Jericho finally hits the bulldog but the Lionsault misses. Ricky grabs a powerslam out of nowhere for two but gets caught in the Walls. Steamboat reverses THAT into a small package for the hottest two count you’ll see in years. If that’s not enough, Steamboat backflips out of a belly to back suplex, only to walk into the Codebreaker to let Jericho survive.

Rating: B-. WOW Steamboat had me going here and I knew what the ending was. Steamboat was 56 years old here and hadn’t wrestled regularly in FIFTEEN YEARS and just had the crowd actually believing he could beat Jericho five months after he lost the world title. That’s ASTONISHING and would lead to a one on one match between these two at Backlash. Snuka and Piper were there for one last hurrah but Steamboat was trying to steal the show and came pretty freaking close. This is a great example of a match with NO reason to be good which wound up being pretty sweet.

The match was so good that Steamboat got a singles match against Jericho at Backlash 2009.

Chris Jericho vs. Ricky Steamboat

This should be a treat. The story here is that Jericho went on an anti-legend kick in the past few months until he beat three of them (Piper, Snuka and Steamboat) at Mania. The thing is Steamboat, who might have wrestled one match in 15 years, stole the show and looked like he could still go out there and wrestle for 45 minutes and beat half the guys on the roster. He was 56-57 at this point, so he wanted one last match, one on one with Jericho.

Steamboat takes him down to the mat and Jericho has to get to the rope to escape. Ricky goes to the floor and makes Jericho miss him a few times before hitting a dive over the top and out onto the Canadian. Back in and there’s the armdrag into the armbar. The fans tell Steamboat that he still has it. Jericho gets up but walks right back into the armdrag/bar again. They slug it out and Steamboat is knocked over the top but he skins the cat, because he’s that awesome.

Jericho clotheslines him to the floor and springboard dropkicks him right back down. Off to a chinlock but Steamboat fights out and hits another armdrag. Back to the chinlock as Jericho talks trash. That’s one of the things I’ve always liked about him: he keeps things from getting completely dull during a usually dull part of the match. Back up and Steamboat shoves off the bulldog and Jericho gets caught on the ropes.

Steamboat goes all the way to the back for a belly to back suplex but the delayed cover only gets two. Some chops get another two count as does a powerslam. Jericho comes back with a running enziguri for two and the bulldog puts Steamboat down. The Lionsault is broken up but Jericho reverses the reversal into the Walls. Steamboat slips out from under them but can’t remember how to put on the figure four. That’s where the match gets kind of sad.

Jericho escapes and charges into the post, allowing the top rope crossbody to get two. Ricky goes up again but dives into the Codebreaker….for two. We get the WM 3 ending with the small package out of the slam for two, but Jericho slaps on the Walls and cranks hard for the tap. That’s one of the only times (if not the only time) I can remember Steamboat submitting.

Rating: C+. This is a really hard one to grade. Steamboat tried as hard as he could, but at the end of the day he’s nearing 60 and had wrestled two matches in almost fifteen years. Now don’t get me wrong: Steamboat DID NOT look awful out there, but he looked old. It’s sad to see him when you know what he used to be capable of, but all things considered, this was a solid performance. It’s VERY good that it was the last time too, because it would have gotten bad if he had kept going. The match was fun but it didn’t blow me away like the Mania performance did.

Much like Ric Flair, what do you want me to say here? It’s RICKY STEAMBOAT. Go watch about 15 of his matches in a row and see what talent is.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my new book of on the History of Summerslam at Amazon for just $3.99 at:

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We’ll keep up the Rick trend today with Rick Rude.

As a lot of people did in Rude’s generation, he was in Memphis during his early years. Here’s a match from sometime around 1983/84 from the Mid-South Coliseum.

Randy Savage vs. Rick Rude

Rude stalls to start but Savage goes to the floor to get at Rude’s manager, Jimmy Hart. Now Rude goes outside again as we’re over two minutes into this with no contact. They finally fight over a top wristlock until Savage takes him up into an airplane spin, sending a dizzy Rude outside. Savage runs outside as well and shouts something into the microphone.

Back in again as the stalling continues until Hart offers interference, allowing Rude to knock Savage outside. Rude sends him into the buckle and drops him throat first onto the top rope. Rick struts around a lot but walks into a backdrop and some choking. Rude is thrown outside and Savage drops a top rope ax handle for good measure. Hart pulls a chair away from Savage before throwing Rude inside for a cross body. There’s no referee and a huge fat man runs in and lays out Savage, giving Rude the pin.

Rating: C-. The match was pretty lame by modern standards but Memphis is a whole different animal. They love the concept of drawing out as much heat as possible with as little action as you can use. Savage was a monster who would soon take the WWF by storm with Rude following a few years later.

Rude would soon head to WCCW where he would eventually become the first WCWA (WCCW’s second name) World Champion. Here’s a match from 1986 against Steve Simpson.

Rick Rude vs. Steve Simpson

Rude is world champion here, putting this at some point between February 20, 1986 and July 4, 1986. Rude slams him down to start but Simpson scores with a flying headscissors. Rick counters into a headlock but gets caught in a hammerlock. A belly to back suplex gets a few two counts for Rude and we hit the abdominal stretch. Simpson fires back with kicks to the ribs but walks into a DDT (called the Rude Awakening) for the pin.

Rating: D. Unlike the Memphis match which was about drawing heat, this was just dull with neither guy looking interested in doing anything out there at all. Rude would be in the WWF soon after this for the most famous part of his career. Nothing to see here though Simpson had a good look to him.

There was one more stop before he got to the WWF: the NWA, with an appearance at Starrcade 1986.

Rick Rude vs. Wahoo McDaniel

 

Rude is a newcomer and not very polished in the ring but he would get WAY better. This is an Indian strap match, meaning they’re tied at the wrist and you have to drag your opponent around the ring and touch all four buckles to win. If your opponent breaks your momentum though, you have to start again. Rude spends too much time posing so Wahoo whips him with the strap. Wahoo scares Rude’s manager Paul Jones off and we’re ready to go. This is the third of four Starrcades where a match featured people being tied together. It’s a popular idea for some reason.

 

Wahoo immediately takes him down by the rope and Rude runs to the floor. That gets him nowhere as Wahoo pulls him right back inside with a casual tug. Rude sends him into the corner and wraps the strap around his fist to pound away on Wahoo. With McDaniel down, Rude ties Wahoo’s hands together with the rope and touches two buckles, only to have Wahoo grab the rope with his feet. Wahoo chokes away in the corner with the strap and now it’s Rude in trouble.

 

In a smart move, Wahoo grabs both of Rude’s hands and drags him around the ring while touching the buckles with his head. He gets three buckles but Rude kicks him down to break the streak. Rude goes up top for some reason, only to be pulled down with ease by the much stronger Wahoo. McDaniel crawls around and gets to the third buckle, only to have Rude knock him into the fourth for the surprising win.

 

Rating: D. Nothing to see here at all as is the case with most of the four corners variety of these matches. At the end of the day, the ending is almost always the same with only some mild alterations and this was no different. Wahoo wouldn’t be around much longer while Rude would be in the WWF by July.

Rude would finally make it to the WWF in July and do the usual TV squashes for awhile. Here’s a bigger match from September 18, 1987 in Philadelphia.

Rick Rude vs. Brutus Beefcake

This is the last match before the intermission. Rude is pretty new here and he hasn’t started his first big feud, which would be with Orndorff. Brutus jumps him before his name graphic can come on and punches him down to the floor. Back in and Rude wants a handshake but Beefcake would rather hit him again and hits a headknocker. Rude slips in a shot to the knee and Brutus is in trouble.

Beefcake will have none of this being on defense thing and suplexes Rude down, followed by an atomic drop. If anything can help a show no matter what, it’s Rude selling an atomic drop. Rude comes back with a knee lift and starts choking a bit. He wasn’t exactly polished at this point. Brutus breaks a nerve hold but Rude pokes him in the eyes to slow him back down again.

Back to the chinlock as the match slows down again. You can tell it’s the 80s when th are this many chinlocks in a match. Beefcake fights up again with right hands but Rude takes him right back down. You may be noticing a pattern here. Beefcake makes comeback #8 or so with a backdrop followed by a slam. He puts the sleeper on but Rude rams Brutus’ head into the buckle to escape.

A shoulder breaker puts Beefcake down again and there’s the over the shoulder body vice, but Rude lets it go early. Rude goes for the scissors but gets caught in the sleeper again. Harley Race runs in for the save and is put in the sleeper as well. Brutus chases both of them off with the scissors before winning by DQ.

Rating: D+. Not a great match again but at least there was some energy in this match and there were some people I might care about for a change. Beefcake would get MUCH better in a few years as would Rude, and with Jake Roberts lurking for Rude, that time would come soon. This was your usual house show punch and kick match though.

For reasons that aren’t quite clear (some speculate real life heat), Rude never worked a long program with Hogan. Here’s the only match I’ve ever heard of them having, from January of 1989.

Hulk Hogan vs. Rick Rude

Back in Boston I believe. This is a pairing you don’t see that often to say the least. Gorilla and Jimmy Hart of all people are the commentators here. This is an older match as you can tell due to the belt Hogan has. Rude is apparently an arm wrestling champion so Heenan challenges Hogan to an arm wrestling match.

Nothing happens of course so there we are. Rude wants to arm wrestle more. This is just down on the mat so it’s likely not legitimate. They go left handed actually and since it’s pro wrestling arm wrestling you know the drill here. Now we get to the normal match. Hogan hitting Heenan is always nice to see. According to commentary, the Harts are still with Jimmy and Honky is IC Champion so we’re at least before Summerslam 88. Hogan goes after Heenan since it’s in his blood I guess and Rude jumps him. Rude gets a wooden chair shot in to take over and prove he’s the heel.

Jimmy says Hogan is likely the best champion ever. WOW. Let’s hit that chinlock! Hogan starts his comeback but gets caught in Rude’s backbreaker since there wasn’t a Rude Awakening yet. Rude lets go early and goes up top. Heenan insists Hogan gave up. Here’s the familiar ending and you know the deal.

Rating: C-. Standard Hogan match from this era which had the crowd going so you can’t complain much really. Hogan knew what he was doing back in this era to put it mildly and it worked like it always did. Short and sweet but that’s how it was supposed to be. They could have had a good match with the right Hogan formula.

One of Rude’s most prolific feuds was with Jake Roberts, so here’s a match from October 25, 1988.

Jake Roberts vs. Rick Rude

What a natural paring this is. No theme music for Jake yet. Rude is wearing those tights again. Jake goes for the tights nearly immediately. Is Cheryl not satisfying him? I’ve watched nearly six minutes of this match and there’s just nothing to say about it. Cheryl gets thrown out for slapping Rude. Vince saying that she shouldn’t be because it didn’t hurt him is very funny for some reason.

Jesse goes on a rant about Vince playing favorites and it’s just freaking boring. I don’t know why but this just isn’t interesting at all. It’s not bad or anything. It’s just not getting my attention at all. Rude dominates for the most part with Jake just punching and looking for the DDT. Rude Awakening is blocked. Jake totally fakes him out by pulling back a punch and there’s the DDT. Instead of the cover though he goes for the tights.

Heenan comes in for the DQ. And here’s Andre, who would beat RVD in any match they had I think should be mentioned, to beat Jake up. Jake gets the snake out and since Andre is a heel, he’s terrified of it. The look on Andre’s face is priceless. Jake throws the snake at him in a smart move. Andre then has a heart attack. WOW.

Rating: D+. Not bad, but just not that interesting really at all. They would have what I guess was supposed to be the other big match at Mania 5 but this was just not a very good match. Oh yeah Rude was involved here. Yeah I couldn’t really care less. Match was ok though.

We move into 1989 with a match against one of the most underrated wrestlers in WWF history: Tito Santana. From February of 89.

Rick Rude vs. Tito Santana

This should be good. Back in MSG again. Wait according to Trongard this is Boston. It looks like Boston so we’ll go with that. We start with a test of strength that is more or less a tossup. Tito eventually wins it and then wants a rematch when Rude runs. Rude takes the chance to of course cheat and we finally get to a more traditional match.

Rude is cussing a good deal in this one. Tito works on the back as this is very back and forth stuff. After a long camel clutch by Tito, Rude treats him like Arn Anderson and spins over to drive his knees into Tito’s crotch to take over. This has somehow been going on nearly ten minutes. The time has flown by which is good I think as it hasn’t been boring at all.

We’ve had a lot of rest/time killing holds and we get another hear with the chinlock by Rude. Tito fights to his feet and rams him into the corner but runs into a big boot to take care of that. Rude pounds away but Tito rams his head into the mat to take over again. Solid stuff so far. And there’s another pair of knees to Tito’s lower half. That has to be getting old.

Tito blocks a suplex to get one of his own. Due to this, Rude can’t even get a slam on Tito who isn’t an incredibly big guy in the first place. Crowd is WAY into this. Tito is all fired up and hits the head knocker and it’s Figure Four time! So much for that though as the rope is reached maybe 4 seconds later. In a cheap ending, Tito hits the floor and goes for a sunset flip but Rude grabs the rope for the pin.

Rating: B. This was a better grade before the bad ending. They went back and forth the whole match and it worked well the entire time. The ending felt incomplete for lack of a better term. Both guys were great here though and the back work by Santana worked rather well for a change. Solid old school match that had the time to develop which is always a perk.

Next up is the moment where Rude broke through to the other side at Wrestlemania V.

Intercontinental Title: Ultimate Warrior vs. Rick Rude

Warrior is defending but Rude has the belt imprinted on his tights. Rude tries a knee to the ribs but hits the belt by mistake. Warrior immediately takes over with the power game and LAUNCHES Rude into the corner. The champ throws on a bearhug for a bit until Rude finally pokes him in the eyes to escape. Rude busts out a MISSILE DROPKICK for two but gets launched off Warrion on the kickout.

Back to the hearhug but Rude gets out the same way as he did the first time. Warrior responds by biting Rude in the face but the splash hits knees. A piledriver puts Warrior down but Rick can’t immediately cover. It only gets two but the kickout is much weaker than earlier. Rude tries to swivel his hips but his back is too messed up. He cranks back on Warrior’s arms but the champion gets to the ropes and starts shaking away.

Here come the shoulders from Warrior and he plants Rude face first into the mat a few times. Warrior tries a slam or something but drops Rude and almost puts him on the floor. Rude gets a boot up in the corner to stop a charging Warrior but the Rude Awakening is broken through pure power. Rick is clotheslined to the floor and Warrior suplexes him back in, only to have Heenan trip Warrior up and hold down his foot for the shocking upset and the title to Rude. This might have been Warrior’s first televised loss but I don’t think it was.

Rating: B. This is one of those pairings that just worked no matter what you had them do. You often hear about people having chemistry and that’s what you had here: these two could just work well together for no apparent reason and this is a fine example. Warrior would get the title back later in the year before moving to the world title scene a few months later. Good match here.

After dropping the title back to Warrior, Rude’s next big feud was against Roddy Piper. Here’s the blowoff to their feud in a cage at Madison Square Garden just after Christmas 1989.

Roddy Piper vs. Rick Rude

In a cage here and Sean says it’s one of the best in history. Why do I not believe him? Piper’s music is really different here and it’s kind of weird. You can win with a pin here which is a brand new thing here. Rude rams into the cage and Piper controls early on. Belt to the back of Rude as this is one sided to start. Rude tries to escape and it’s the Rude Back  Shot for no apparent reason.

Piper gets rammed and might have hurt his hand. He’s busted up too as Rude takes over for the first time here. A bunch of pounding gets two. Rude changes his mind and goes for the door where Heenan tries to help him. We get the second shot of Rude’s tights going down in a single match. His tights are hanging down now.

Rude Awakening hits but Rude is down and bleeding too much to cover. Maybe Piper isn’t bleeding and it was Rude’s blood on him earlier. Piper gets up and stops Rude from getting out again. Why Rick didn’t cover him is beyond me but I’m no professional. They ram heads and the referee counts for no apparent reason since you can’t win by countout.

Both guys go up at the same time and it’s a race. They slug it out on top of the cage with Rude’s tights hanging down almost entirely. They ram heads into the cage and both fall/jump, hitting the floor at the same time. There MUST be a winner though so Rude drills Piper on the floor with a chair. Rude goes all the way to the top of the cage and drops a huge fist onto the head of Piper for a very long two.

Big old jumping Piledriver has Rude in complete control. Piper is more or less dead. Rude goes up again but Piper shakes the cage to crotch Rick on the cage. Piper gets him tied in a Tree of Woe atop the cage but Heenan slams the door on his face. Rude climbs down and that only gets a two as the crowd is into this. Heenan slips an illegal (wouldn’t it be legal in this?) object to Rude. He of course drops it and Piper drills Rude in the head so he can walk out to end it. They play the wrong music too.

Rating: B+. Fun match here although it started off kind of slowly. Once they got past that though it was all gravy baby as a friend of mine would say. These two knew how to make an old school style seem fresh and it worked quite well here. Good stuff and definitely the best match on the tape so far.

Since Rude had been the first man to beat Warrior, he received a shot at Warriror’s WWF Title at Summerslam 1990 in another cage match.

WWF World Title: Ultimate Warrior vs. Rick Rude

In a cage where you can win by pin or escape. Rude tries to block Warrior from getting into the cage so Warrior knocks him off the top and down into the ring. The champion finally comes in with a top rope ax handle smash and throws Rude into the cage. Rick goes into the cage a few more times but ducks a charge to send Warrior face first into the bars. Rude kicks Warrior away but jumps off the top to put him down again instead of climbing out.

A hard slam into the cage has Warrior down but Rude still won’t try to climb out. Rude tries the Rude Awakening after winning a quick slugout but Warrior easily breaks the hold with raw power. They clothesline each other down before Rude hits a quick Rude Awakening for no cover. Instead Rude goes up to the top of the cage for a right hand to Warrior’s head. Heenan is losing his mind trying to get Rude to cover but Rude goes up the cage again.

This time Rude jumps into a right hand to the ribs but Heenan slams the door on Warrior’s head as he goes to escape. After the two count both guys collide and they’re down again as the match drags some more. Warrior stops him from crawling out while pulling Rude’s trunks down in the process. Heenan is pulled in and whipped into the steel before being sent outside again. The champion Warriors Up and hits the gorilla press before climbing out to retain.

Rating: D. This match sucked and the ending was exactly what people expected. These two had a match on SNME a month earlier and maybe Rude should have taken the title there to give it back to Warrior here. There was nothing of interest here and Warrior never seemed to be in any real danger due to Rude not going for a cover or trying to escape.

After a year off, it was back to WCW as the main star of the Dangerous Alliance, with Sting as the major target. Rude would get a US Title shot against Sting at Clash of the Champions 17. There’s something to keep in mind here though. Earlier in the night, Lex Luger had attacked and injured Sting’s knee. Sting went to the hospital but came back to the arena after commandeering an ambulance. He made it to the ring just in time.

United States Title: Rick Rude vs. Sting

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sting would win the World Title a few months later, so Rude needed a new challenger. Who better than Ricky Steamboat, who received a non-title match in a thirty minute iron man match at Beach Blast 1992.

Ricky Steamboat vs. Rick Rude

Rude is champion here, but this isn’t for the belt. Apparently neither were for the title as gimmicks can’t be title matches. In other words Watts would have either made Flair/Race non title or taken down the cage. Steamboat comes out with his wife and kid. She wound up being rather evil. They have the clock going on screen which is nice.

Steamboat gets a quick gutbuster, and when I say quick I mean like 10 seconds in and he’s hurt. These are both guys that are perfect choices for this kind of match too as they both can go long times with relative ease. Steamboat hits a bearhug as we keep up the psychology. Steamboat just goes on the ribs and that’s all he should be doing.

Rude taps but no one knew what that meant at this point. We get a Boston crab now and another thing to note here: Steamboat is mixing up the rib attacks. It’s not just a submission here and a submission there. He’s hitting strikes and submissions which he also alters a lot. It keeps things from being boring and bland which is a great thing. This has been ALL Steamboat here.

That being said, Rude gets a shot to the face and a rollup with tights to go up 1-0. He follows it up with the Rude Awakening to make it 2-0 so we’re more or less guaranteed a hot finish. Rude goes up top and lands a knee which is of course a DQ because Bill Watts is a freaking idiot. He immediately covers and gets another pin to make it 3-1.

Steamboat taps also so they’re even on submissions. That clock really is helpful. I can’t stand trying to figure out how long we’ve been in a match most of the time as it drives me insane and I have a thing about time anyway. It’s a weird OCD thing. It’s always fun to see the announcers at ringside doing commentary as you can see their reactions to things. That’s something I do as often as I can.

For once I don’t mind the chinlocks here as they make sense from Rude. Given his two fall lead, him using those suck time off the clock and put more pressure on Steamboat. That’s thinking out there which is my biggest thing. Rude does a good job of calling spots to Steamboat as it looks like he’s just tired and resting a bit. They’re back up now and Rude hits a sweet piledriver for two.

Steamboat counters a tombstone by climbing up Rude to get his own tombstone to make it 3-2. That was cool. We actually have to debate about whether or not a top rope suplex is an illegal move. Screw Bill Watts and his cowboying obsession. Steamboat gets an AWESOME bridge up to a backslide for a pin for the tie and they crank it up like they’re at 30 seconds. This is freaking fun stuff.

Rude is controlling here but they’re just hammering each other for the most part due to fatigue as they’re both drenched in sweat. Ross has severe issues telling how long they’ve been going for which is either amusing or sad and I’m not sure which. Ross says this is the best nontitle match he’s ever seen. Odd, I saw a better one 45 minutes ago.

Steamboat hits a Rude Awakening as I try to figure out what the difference is between the guy getting hit with it and the guy doing it. Rude gets smart and jumps on Steamboat for a sleeper and then Steamboat gets the best turnbuckle shot I can remember in a long time to knock the heck out of Rude. That was awesome as is this whole match. Actually that doesn’t break it.

We have three minutes left as I’ve completely forgotten to put any times in but in the end though it means nothing as the last few minutes are all that matters anyway so if you’ve gotten this far in this far too long sentence don’t read it at all. Steamboat is almost out with two minutes to go. I’ve always hated how adrenaline or whatever causes guys that are out cold for the most part to be able to just pop up all of a sudden despite a lack of blood flow to the brain.

He gets up and kicks off the corner for a quick pin with 35 seconds left and the place freaking LOSES IT. Rude goes nuts with clotheslines and shoulders but can’t keep Steamboat down. He tries everything and the crowd if freaking the heck out as the time expires. AWESOME ENDING to say the least.

Rating: A. That’s overrated more than likely but this was awesome stuff to me. The rest holds made sense here which is something you can rarely say. The iron man aspect worked very well too as it came down to Steamboat being able to last longer and have energy in the end rather than starting hot and coasting. I really liked this and it’s another you should go find.

After holding the title for over a year (second longest reign ever) Rude would lose it to an injury in early 1993. He would return later in the year and go after the WCW International Title, which is far more complicated than I want to go into. Short version: it’s the NWA Title without the NWA. Rude challenged Ric Flair at Fall Brawl 1993.

WCW International Title: Rick Rude vs. Ric Flair

Without going into the story AGAIN, it’s the NWA Title without the NWA name or lineage and it’s more or less a parody of the NWA and it would be merged with the WCW Title the following year. Read up about it in one of the other 29 times I’ve explained it. If you haven’t seen Rude in WCW and only know of his initial WWF run, it’s COMPLETELY different as Rude was a killer here instead of a comedy joke.

Having a personal maid is just awesome. Rude says when he leaves he’ll have Flair’s reputation, his title, and his woman, revealing Fifi on his tights. I love that bit. Ventura starts off on his anti-women rants, saying the housework Fifi does is what women should be doing everywhere. They fight over a top wristlock which Rude of course loses. Tony warns Jesse that the sound woman might cut his mic off. That would be hilarious actually.

Flair goes for the knee early and the Figure Four is on maybe two minutes in! Rude gets to the ropes but dang that was surprising. To shock me some more, Flair comes off the top AND HITS THE PUNCH! Yes, he actually didn’t get slammed off! Where’s my medicine when I need it? Flair hooks a wristlock and Jesse thinks women should be barefoot and pregnant. THEY CUT HIS MIC OFF!!!!! Jesse steals Tony’s and says no one cuts him off. That was awesome!

He’s back on and goes on a rant about Sara Lee (the name of the sound director) about how he’s switching to Betty Crocker now. That was hilarious and has breathed some much needed life into this show. Tony references a European tour and a show in Germany, which is where Cactus infamously lost his ear. Also there was a world title trade between Sting and Vader where Sting held the title for about three days.

Flair uncharacteristically works on Rude’s arm instead of the leg, but I guess the idea is take away the power game which is logical. Rude takes over for a bit but rams his shoulder into the buckle by mistake and it’s back to the arm. Rude can’t slam Flair to tell you how bad the arm is. Somewhere about the 8th arm hold they go over the top and out to the floor. Tony: “There’s Fifi, trying to help Flair get up.” Jesse: “No way I’m touching that one.” I love those not very subtle lines.

Rude rams Flair into the apron and gets a suplex for two. He’s starting to get the arm back now. And now it’s a reverse chinlock by Rude as I’m guessing he was watching that Nasty Boys match earlier. This match has been going about 13 minutes so far and probably 8 or 9 has been in holds. Rude lets him up and gets a clothesline off the top and a press slam. Out to the floor again and Rude poses in the ring for a bit.

Hey let’s go with a bearhug instead of doing something interesting! It goes to the mat and Flair rolls over and actually gets a cover while in a bearhug. Aren’t Rude’s shoulders up? Flair charges at Rude but gets caught in a Hot Shot to set up the Flair Flop. A fist from the top by Rude gets some yelling at Fifi. Another shot has Flair reeling. Fifi’s nose looks like Voldermort’s.

Rude goes for a third shot from the top but Flair is playing possum. Belly to back suplex gives Flair the momentum. Butterfly suplex gets two. Flair goes off on Rude in the corner and it’s all Naitch. And never mind that as he eats knees in the corner. Rude gets a DDT for two. Flair counters the Rude Awakening into one of his own for two. Flair grabs the leg and….goes up with it? He flips forward to snap the leg even more. I’ve never seen him do that before.

Flair sets for the Figure Four but Rude kicks him off. More leg work but Rude gets a rollup to counter the hold again. That only gets two though. Flair sends him to the floor and we get a quick shot of the camera side. There are maybe 8 rows of fans and that’s it. Wow that almost ROH levels of attendance. Not saying it’s bad for ROH but for the second biggest company in the world on PPV, that’s anemic.

Flair goes up and hits the shot from the top to the floor as he controls again. As good as this may sound, it’s nowhere near that entertaining actually. Rude counters and we get a Flair Flip and Ric can’t hit a third shot off the top. Rude gets a top rope punch for a long two. Fifi finally slaps Rude so he kisses her. He brings her into the ring and Flair destroys him. You can see security telling fans to sit down. Odd. Figure Four goes on but Rude gets a foreign object shot in to take Flair out as Fifi is being put out of the ring to win the title. Thank goodness it’s over.

Rating: D. This was half an hour long which more or less sums up the major issue with it. This went on WAY too long and it got very boring after awhile. Half of the match was rest holds which is incredibly boring. If you cut the first half of this off then this is decent but other than that this was horrible. The arm and back work went nowhere and the ending came out of nowhere. Terribly boring match.

We’ll wrap it up with Rude’s title defense against Sting at Spring Stampede 1994.

WCW International Title: Sting vs. Rick Rude

Oh dear the International Title. This is the last remnant of the NWA. More or less the WCW Title and the NWA Title were the same thing as they were unified. Then in September of 1993 WCW left the NWA but due to a ridiculous legal battle, Ric Flair owned the big gold belt that the NWA had been using for about 7 years. Once they left, the NWA Title and the WCW Title were separate because the NWA sucked.

In other words, there were two titles. When the NWA was out of the picture, they just named it the WCW International Title. They unified them at a Clash of the Champions in like two months or so. Race comes down and says that Vader wants the winner of the match then tries to jump Sting which goes badly for him. This is one of Rude’s last matches actually as he would get injured in the rematch of this in Japan and never wrestle again.

They’re doing a mat based thing here which is odd but fine I guess. It’s weird to think that Rude would be gone so quickly from the ring. Rude hits his traditional chinlock because he’s required by law to do it or something like that. He gets a sleeper and has Sting more or less out and just lets go. Well no one ever said Rude was a genius or anything like that. Sting was so freaking over it’s scary.

He’s the Ultimate Warrior with talent and restraint. That’s a scary thought. Yep the referee goes down just as Sting gets the Scorpion. Race runs down to interfere again as does Vader. Bockwinkle, the commissioner, is at ringside during this. Race misses a chair shot and hits Rude for both the title change and the roof being blown off of the place. Sting was as over as free beer in a frat house.

Rating: C+. Not a great match but the fans ate this up with a spoon. The big gold belt looks great on Sting too. These two had some good matches just like Warrior had with Rude but a bit better. Unfortunately one of those matches saw Sting throw Rude out of the ring and onto a podium, breaking his back and ending his career.

Rude would stay retired for the rest of his life and work as a manager/enforcer, but he would be training for an in ring return when he passed away. In 1999, Rude died of heart failure which was allegedly due to a medication overdose. Rude was a talented guy who mainly got over on his character and there’s nothing wrong with that. He didn’t quite make it to the top until later in his career but his time in WCW was completely different from the WWF run. That says a lot about a man’s talent and showed how good Rude really was.

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Today we’re going to look at a group of people instead of just one or two. It’s WCW’s attempt to have a youth movement in the span of a month with the Natural Born Thrillers.

While it was way too late to help WCW, they decided to bring up a group of seven guys who were prospects in the Power Plant as a unit. It didn’t help that they were almost all interchangeable save for Mike Sanders who could talk circles around them and had almost no personalities at all, but it was a nice idea. We’ll look at each of them with a few matches each because they really didn’t do enough in WCW to cover a long selection.

We’ll start with the group’s leader, Mike Sanders. He didn’t have anywhere near the look of the other guys but he could talk far better than the rest of them. Sanders didn’t have a ton of success in the ring but he did win the Cruiserweight Title (with the help of Kevin Nash). Here’s his lone PPV title defense from Mayhem 2000.

Cruiserweight Title: Mike Sanders vs. Kwee Wee

Kwee Wee is more or less Rico lite and has an alter ego known as Angry Alan. We see clips of Goldberg destroying Kwee Wee on Nitro. Uh…ok then. Nice to see the young guy getting pushed so hard. We see Goldberg destroying Sanders also. Wow great job of pushing these guys as meaning something. Sanders slaps Kwee Wee and here we go. We get the Angry Alan part to start us off here with “Above Average” Mike Sanders being in trouble very early.

Here come the Thrillers and we get the dumbest referee spot I have ever seen. The referee sees the Thrillers coming and stops Kwee Wee from jumping them. Jindrak hits a springboard clothesline to take out Kwee Wee but the referee turns and doesn’t see it. He see Kwee Wee down and Jindrak on the other side of the ring and is just fine with this. Yep that’s the kind of show to expect here it seems. There is a very cool spot where Jindrak and O’Hair throw Kwee Wee over the top from the floor and Sanders catches him in a powerslam. Awesome.

And here goes any sense of wrestling in the match as Meng of all people comes out with Paisley (Kwee Wee’s manager and more commonly known as Sharmell, Booker’s wife) in a big afro wig. He fights the Thrillers and gets Reno and Stasiak in Tongan Death Grips to take them down. Ric Flair and security comes out to get rid of everyone. This whole time we haven’t had a single shot of the match.

They’ve managed to overbook the opening match. And people wonder why this company went out of business. And now back to the backdrop that is our title match. And we come back for a chinlock. Madden and Stevie get into it about Stevie being in his brother’s shadow for years. Getting a little personal there buddy. They argue over what a hold is called forever. Here’s the face comeback.

Sanders is the Commissioner at this point. Madden: this never happens to Paul Tagliabue (Roger Goodell for you younger fans). Kwee Wee goes for a sunset powerbomb to the floor but Sanders gets a nice counter into a rana. Paisley hands Kwee Wee the afro for no apparent reason. And now she comes in and hits a handspring elbow which isn’t a DQ either. Sanders grabs Kwee Wee and hits the 3.0 (Orton’s backbreaker. I love that pun) for the pin to retain maybe 3 seconds later.

Rating: D. Just stupid nonsense here from WCW, the undisputed master of stupid nonsense. Was there any reason to overbook a Cruiserweight Title match between the commissioner and a comedy character? We technically had 9 run-ins with six Thrillers, Meng, Flair and Paisley. Seriously, we get it. There’s no need to have this much additional stuff going on. The match was boring on top of that, or at least what I saw of it was.

Sanders would then move into a feud with Ernest Miller over being the commissioner of WCW, including this match from Sin.

Mike Sanders vs. Ernest Miller

The winner is Commissioner. Sanders says he’s in this for the money and that Ms. Jones is on the line here. WCW: pushing sexual slavery all the way to 2001! At least Jones looks good. For the life of me I have never gotten the appeal of the Cat. He says he’s going to be Commissioner and take WCW all the way to the top. I’ve got nothing for that one. Somebody call his mama. How did they never have her show up?

After a quick fan applause contest won by Miller we’re ready for the match. Cat starts in control and chases Sanders to the floor, only to get drilled by Sanders on the return to the ring. Cat gets a kick to take him down and hammers away. Does this guy know how to do anything but strikes? Sanders gets a snap mare and kicks him in the head. A sunset flip is countered by a crotch chop and an elbow from Miller.

Big kick (yes we get it you can kick him) by Miller puts Sanders down but he manages to send Cat to the floor. Chair shot is broken up by Jones which is stupid because Sanders would have lost if he had hit Cat. Jones chases him with the chair as the Thrillers come down for the big beating. Kronik makes the save and somehow the referee DOESN’T SEE ANY OF THIS, despite being in the ring the whole time. Adams shoves the money in Sanders’ mouth as he channels his inner DiBiase before a big kick to Sanders from Cat ends this, making Miller commissioner again.

Rating: D. Boring match for another authority position which means I have to watch more of Miller. I’m not complaining about seeing Jones dance but at the same time, Miller is annoying beyond belief. Weak match and what a shock: the bigger the names get, the worse the show gets.

Sanders really would have been better suited as a manager and for the most part that’s what he was. It’s not like he was awful or anything but he was little more than a guy in above average (some of you will chuckle at that) shape who could talk. He’s now a standup comedian which actually fits far better for him.

Next up is Chuck Palumbo, who was something resembling Val Venis with thicker hair. He was mostly a tag wrestler but would have the occasional singles match, such as this one against Scott Steiner, though this is before the Thrillers formed.

Chuck Palumbo vs. Scott Steiner

Steiner takes him down to the mat to start and pounds in elbows to the side of the head but Chuck kicks him down. A flying shoulder gets two on Scott but he comes right back with a nice belly to belly. The beating continues with a clothesline and second suplex from Steiner as we’re entering squash territory. Chuck comes back with some jobber offense but gets caught in the Recliner for the submission.

Rating: D. This was a squash but it’s nice to see a future star (work with me here) getting some ring time. It’s not a good match and the only interesting thing was looking at the girls that Steiner had with him. Palumbo had a look to him but he was better off as a narcissist instead of being a generic guy here.

One of Palumbo’s only singles feuds was against Lex Luger. The two of them feuded over Palumbo parodying Luger’s Total Package gimmick, including this match from February of 2001 on Thunder.

Lex Luger vs. Chuck Palumbo

Luger grabs a headlock to start but gets dropkicked and clotheslined for his efforts. The quickly head to the floor with Palumbo being whipped into the barricade as Luger takes over. Luger chokes a lot and starts hammering on the back until Chuck punches him down. Luger makes a quick comeback and calls for the Rack but gets small packaged for a fast pin.

Rating: D. This was just a punch and pose match which wasn’t all that intersting. It didn’t help that Luger was a shell of the shell of himself that he was by this point. Nothing to see here for the most part, but it’s a nice idea to see a veteran get pinned by a young guy. Shame that it’s happening a month before they go out of business.

Next is probably the best known of the Thrillers: Sean O’Haire. This guy had the look and the athletic background to go somewhere but stupidity held him up. We’ll start with a triple threat from October 2000 against Rey Mysterio and Disco Inferno.

Sean O’Haire vs. Rey Mysterio vs. Disco Inferno

All three are parts of tag teams in a three way at Halloween Havoc 2000. O’Haire sends both of them to the floor but the numbers catch up with him as Disco scores with a bulldog. Sean flips over Mysterio but gets clotheslined down by Disco. Rey and Disco fight for a bit but O’Haire picks up Rey in a sitout powerslam for two. The Animals botch a spot where Disco tries to launch Rey at O’Haire but Inferno gets two off a swinging neckbreaker. Everyone goes to the floor for a brawl and Rey dives on O’Haire’s partner Mark Jindrak, allowing O’Haire to hit a springboard Swanton for the pin on Disco.

Rating: C-. Better match here but it’s mainly because O’Haire was awesome in the ring and could have been a huge star. The tag division was a mess at this point (much like everything else) but the Thrillers were at least offering some fresh blood out there. Disco continues to be little more than a decent comedy act and Rey wasn’t interested at this point.

Same idea but a few months later with O’Haire vs. Lex Luger from March 5, 2001 on Nitro.

Lex Luger vs. Sean O’Haire

Luger jumps him to start but Sean slams him down for two. A clothesline gets two for Luger and O’Haire comes back with clotheslines of his own for the same. Luger runs him over with a forearm as you can see the arm obsession from both guys. To give you an idea of WCW at this point, Tony hypes up the in ring return of DUSTY RHODES as a focal point of the show. O’Haire tries to flip over Luger out of the corner but jams his knee on the way down, giving Luger a target.

Cue O’Haire’s partner Chuck Palumbo to beat on Luger, not drawing a DQ for no apparent reason. Luger’s partner Buff Bagwell comes in and beats on Sean with a chair but the referee prevents them from Pillmanizing Sean’s ankle. Buff accidentally hits the Blockbuster on Luger, allowing Sean to hit a Swanton for the pin.

Rating: D-. Yes amazingly enough WCW overbooked a six minute match. This is very much in the vein of the time Kidman beat Hulk Hogan: it doesn’t come off as a victory as much as O’Haire capitalized on the heel making a mistake. There was nothing here, which has been the case for months now for the Thrillers.

Sean O’Haire had the most potential out of all of the Thrillers and should have been something big. Even in WWE he was treated as a big deal with the highly praised devil’s advocate character, so naturally WWE put him on the back burner so they could push Roddy Piper vs. Rikishi to recreate an angle from 20 years earlier. Wrestling is stupid sometimes and O’Haire isn’t even the business anymore, retiring at about 35 years old.

We’ll move on to the worst member of the team in Shawn Stasiak. Not that he wasn’t talented mind you, but he was older than the rest of the team (Palumbo was about the same age but looked ten years younger) and had already appeared for a few years in the WWF. It didn’t quite work, but it’s WCW so they pushed him as a young guy anyway. Here’s one of his matches against G.I. Bro, more famous as Booker T, from the 2000 Great American Bash.

Shawn Stasiak vs. G.I. Bro

And here’s the latest way to waste a guy like Booker: he’s a military guy when there’s already a military themed stable. He comes in on a zip line like Shawn did at Mania 12, but at about 1/3 of the height and 1/10 of the speed. The announces speculate that Kanyon was the surprise because they’re not that smart. Oh apparently Booker is part of the MIA. It just wasn’t mentioned until here.

This is a Boot Camp match, which means Last Man Standing. Why they’re fighting isn’t required information but I’d bet it’s MIA vs. New Blood. They’re both in camo here because that’s what you do in the army right? Booker takes him to the floor and hammers away as we go into the crowd. WEAK chair to the head (drawing slight booing) takes down Stasiak for all of a second. A horrible top rope forearm gets about seven.

Oh and don’t worry: we’re willing to cut away to the back at the drop of a hat if Goldberg arrives. You know, because you paid your money to see a car pull into a parking lot 45 minutes into a show right? Jumping back elbow puts Booker down and they actually treat it like a move that could end this. Big spinwheel kick by Booker takes him down for no reaction for the most part.

Stasiak sends him to the floor and we head to the ramp for a suplex. Back in the ring as there’s no heat on this match in the slightest. Back to the floor again as they have no idea what to do with nearly 14 minutes total for this match. Chair shot puts Booker down on the floor and back in the ring a gutwrench powerbomb gets 9. Time for a sleeper because this match isn’t boring enough already.

The fans chant boring and I can’t blame them in the slightest. This is what we mean when we say adding a gimmick for the sake of adding a gimmick. They can’t even explain why these two are fighting and yet we’re supposed to want to see a gimmick match between them an hour into the show in the fifth slot? There’s no heat here and the only reason this gimmick is here is because someone has a military gimmick.

Book End hits out of nowhere and I don’t bother waiting to hear what the stupid military name of that is. They call it a uranage suplex here but screw that. Of course it only gets like five but it sets up the missile dropkick, as in both of his finishers that can’t take down Stasiak. Palumbo, Stasiak’s partner, comes out with the Lex-Flexor exercise bar but hits Booker low anyway. A shot to the back of Booker puts him down as Tony rants against relaxed rules in a match with no rules. Booker gets up and mostly hits a double clothesline and beats up the tag champions on his own. A shot to Stasiak with the flexor ends this.

Rating: D-. Oh give me a break. Someone thought that Shawn freaking Stasiak was the best use of Booker T here? I mean come on now man. There was zero reason at all for this to be a gimmick match in the slightest so they went with it anyway. Guess what is up next: a gimmick match. After that, another gimmick match. Before this, another gimmick match. This is a great example of Russo’s writing in a nutshell and one of the better ones you’ll ever see. Oh and the match sucked, easily the worst last man standing match I’ve ever seen.

After the Thriller broke up, Stasiak feuded with Bam Bam Bigelow in the dying days of the company, including this match from Greed.

Shawn Stasiak vs. Bam Bam Bigelow

Oh please make it quick. Stasiak says he’s great and is the Mecca of Manhood apparently. This is the Shawn and Stacy Show and we see why Stasiak never gets to talk. It’s a shame that this match had to happen. We had two very good matches to start us off and then we got to look at Stacy who looks hot like that. And that ends the good stuff here as Bigelow is just WAY past his usefulness at this point.

Is there a reason why this is on a PPV? I know it’s a dark time for the company (ok that’s an understatement) but seriously? Tony keeps calling this The Greed Pay Per View. It’s really weird sounding. We pause to see if Stasiak needs a replacement tooth due to a clothesline. And now he wants a time out. Bigelow hits a dropkick to the thigh or so and we hit the floor again.

Bigelow gives chase this time and we brawl for a bit. Can’t you tell how riveting this stuff is so far? Stasiak hits a top rope cross body but stops to pose. Top rope headbutt kills Stasiak but here’s Stacy to look hot. She throws Stasiak hairspray and a neckbreaker ends it.

Rating: D. Boring match here with nothing of note happening. Again, this is what they went with on PPV? At least Stacy looked good. That’s about all I’ve got as far as good stuff goes here. The match was just boring and never got going or was never good or anything like that. Terrible match but at least it was short.

Stasiak just didn’t fit in WCW at all and the matches showed that very well. He was older, didn’t have the best skills and was little more than there. Not much else to say about him.

Speaking of someone without much to say, here’s Mark Jindrak. He primarily wrestled in tag matches with O’Haire, but there are a few singles matches to pick from, such as this one from October 23, 2000. Ok so it’s a triple threat but you get the idea.

Mark Jindrak vs. Alex Wright vs. Kidman

Same idea as the triple threat from earlier. Jindrak gets double teamed to start until Wright accidentally clotheslines Kidman down. The German suplex gets two on Mark with Kidman making the save. Jindrak hits a nice torture rack neckbreaker on Kidman but walks into a missile dropkick from Wright. They head outside for a brawl with the partners involved as well, where Jindrak and O’Haire throw Rey from the floor, over the top rope and into the ring in a SCARY power display. The Kid Crusher (Killswitch) is enough for Kidman to get a fast pin on Wright. Nothing match.

Since we’ve done the preliminaries, here’s the triple threat tag from Halloween Havoc 2000 with Jindrak and O’Haire defending.

Tag Titles: Boogie Knights vs. Rey Mysterio/Billy Kidman vs. Natural Born Thrillers

Boogie Knights are Disco and Alex Wright and the Thrillers are Mark Jindrak and Sean and Mark O’Haire and have the belts here. There was some weird deal where the Knights won the belts but Mike Sanders decided the title change didn’t count and gave them the belts back. There are advertisements at every corner of the ring. WCW’s latest horrible video game (no wrestling in the ring, just in the back) is the sponsor. Nice to see how well the sponsorship deals are going isn’t it?

Wright, Kidman and Jindrak start us off. That’s what I always liked about WCW triple threats: they had triple threats instead of three team tag matches. Alex allegedly has the most experience. Not quite but in WCW he did I guess. Bronco Buster misses and here’s Disco. I forgot Konnan was there until he said something about Shane Douglas. It’s a big WZ Preunion here.

Everyone keeps working to beat up the Thrillers. In a nice move, Disco sets up Sean to allow Kidman to come off with the Shooting Star but instead he jumps at Disco with a back elbow in a thinking move. Wright gets a lot of praise here which is weird. You could tell he was one of those guys that they wanted to do something with but they never quite could do it.

We get a Tower of Doom spot as I’m getting into this triple threat tag match formula. Rey, Sean and Disco come in. Sean has a dime dropped on him and Disco takes a modified seated senton for two each. Sean’s knee may be hurt. The Thrillers use one of their signature awesome spots where they pick up Rey for what looks like a double hip toss and throw him from the floor over the top rope and into the ring. That was awesome looking.

They do the same to Kidman but Wright catches him in mid air in a belly to belly for two. This is getting awesome fast. Big plancha by Alex to take out Disco and Jindrak. Let the cruiserweights loose as the big dives begin. Kid Crusher on Wright (Unprettier/Killswitch) gets two. Top rope rana by Rey to Disco is followed by a Bronco Buster.

Last Dance (Stunner) by Disco gets two as Rey drops a dime on Disco to break it up but it allows O’Haire to hit the Seanton (yes I spelled that right) Bomb to end it. Imagine a guy Orton’s size doing a Swanton and imagine how awesome it would look. Wright beats up Rey afterwards and Konnan tries to save. He gets beaten down also but Sgt. AWOL (member of the MIA) comes in for the save. Konnan can’t stand up.

Rating: B. This was FUN. You had six relatively young guys out there just having fun in a fast paced tag match. It’s a great choice for an opener and I got very into it. This was WCW’s problem though: this is pretty much going to be the match of the night and the crowd is going to decline as we continue. Very fun opener though and I liked it a lot.

Jindrak really wasn’t all that special in the ring, which is odd given how athletic he was. As far as I know he still holds the record for highest vertical leap of anyone ever in WWE and he had a great look. He would become a much bigger deal wrestling in Mexico, making him another guy that got away from WWE.

Next up was one of my favorites of the Thrillers: Reno. He was a small but very muscular guy with a finisher called Roll the Dice, better known as Cross Rhodes. Reno didn’t do much in wrestling, but he did win the Hardcore Title and defended it at Halloween Havoc 2000.

Hardcore Title: Reno vs. Sergeant AWOL

I liked Reno but this should be bad anyway. Reno brings a kendo stick and pops Wall (his old name) with it so Wall kicks him in the face then goes through a table. Uh sure. We have NEW Hardcore rules here which are now falls count anywhere and anything goes. Back in the day the matches had to start in the back and end in the ring. WCW managed to make a video game out of that concept. Yeah they were dead at this point.

Just a basic weapons match at this point with no one really caring. See what I meant about the quality going down? Wall puts the trashcan over Reno’s head and kicks the can into the railing. That looked painful but after looking at it for about two seconds you can see he missed Reno completely. And now he does it again just because he can. Wall and Stevie do the Too Sweet hand gesture for zero explained reason.

They head up to the ramp as Stevie says this could end at the Brown Derby. For those unfamiliar, the Brown Derby is a restaurant in Los Angeles. Chokeslam is blocked and Reno hits the Roll of the Dice (Cross Rhodes) on the ramp. He gets a table and then a second one on top of that. According to the laws of wrestling of course Reno goes through them shortly thereafter.

The guys go off into some BIG empty area (you know because it’s not like FANS could go there as we need it for this one moment in a pointless match) before we head to the back. A computer monitor is thrown at Reno who counters with a fire extinguisher for two. Computer monitor to Reno’s head lets Madden say he knew the internet would destroy wrestling. That’s very funny all things considered. Actually it’s not as Mark Madden is not a laughing matter.

Wall drills Finlay who is an agent at this point and we head back into the arena. This is just going on WAY too long at this point and it’s not interesting at all anymore. Scratch that as it would imply that something about this match was interesting at all in the first place. Wall gets the fifth table of the match (the word overkill means nothing in WCW if you didn’t get that) but gets hit with a chair by Reno. Roll of the Dice (looked weak with no impact at all) onto the table ends this.

Rating: D-. This got ELEVEN MINUTES. Yeah this match is deserving of more time than the good opener. There was nothing at all here to set this apart from any other standard hardcore match. WCW had no idea what they were doing with this division and that’s very clear based on this mess.

Reno’s main story in WCW was with Big Vito over something about one of their sisters. Here’s their showdown match from Sin.

Reno vs. Big Vito

Revenge match here after Reno revealed that he was the guy that was paying Kronik to take out Vito so he could rejoin the Thrillers instead of just you know, taking out Vito and rejoining the Thrillers. They stare each other down and the fight is on. Reno takes over with a powerslam to start and Vito kind of looks weak. Oh and they’re brothers apparently.

They head to the floor for a bit before heading back in and slugging it out. The crowd is staying white hot and already has made more noise than at all of Starrcade combined. Superplex gets two for Vito. Enziguri to the shoulder can’t put Reno down but a belly to back does for no cover. Out to the floor with Reno in control. They are laying into each other here.

Back in now and Reno drops an elbow. Tony talks about the brothers being in high school for some reason as the crowd is popping for clotheslines. Think about that for a minute. Vito grabs a sunset flip for two. Big boot to the head/superkick by Vito puts Reno down and they’re both down. Vito hammers away and here’s the comeback.

Belly to belly sets up a top rope elbow for two. Bad elbow but he tried at least. Reno fights back but can’t Roll the Dice. Suplex gets two for Vito. Spinning DDT fails for Vito so he settles for a T-Bone. I’ll have a round steak if you have one. Out of nowhere Reno reverses a suplex and gets the Roll the Dice for the pin. Another fast paced and decent match, probably a record for WCW post 1999.

Rating: C+. This is a fine example of a match where working hard and having intensity can make up for average in ring work. They were HAMMERING each other out there and while the match was sloppy at times the fans were into it and even I got into it a bit. That’s a great sign and the match was good as a result. We’re half an hour in and I’m rather impressed so far.

Reno was a guy with a look but he really never fit in with the Thrillers due to being far smaller than they were (he was about 6’0 but the rest were 6’4 or so). He was only in wrestling a few years and never did anything of note after the Thrillers broke up. Shame too as I was always a fan of the guy.

Finally we have Johnny the Bull, who was already a name from a tag team called the Mamalukes. We’ll start there, as the Mamalukes (Johnny and Big Vito) face Disco Inferno and Lash Leroux at Starrcade 1999.

Disco Inferno/Lash Leroux vs. Mamalukes

 

Leroux is a pretty generic cruiserweight from Louisiana. The Mamalukes are two Italian guys named Johnny the Bull and Big Vito who are your basic mafia gimmick. Vito and Lash start after a quick brawl. The Cajun guy is pounded into the corner as Vito does every Mafia stereotype you can think of. Lash takes a side kick to the face and it’s off to Johnny for some double stomping. Leroux takes him down with a hiptoss and it’s to Disco. Inferno gets two on the Bull via a clothesline and two off a clothesline and Russian legsweep.

 

As Disco stomps away in the corner, we get the story behind this: apparently Disco owes the Italians’ manager Tony Marinara (just go with it) $25,000 and the makeshift team is together because they used to not like each other but now respect one another. Disco has also tarred and feathered Marinara before pouring meat sauce on Vito and the Bull. I’ve heard stupider angles. I can’t think of many but I’ve heard of them.

 

The Mamalukes take over and it’s off to Vito who hits a neckbreaker to give Johnny a two count. After a quick chinlock by the Bull and some double teaming including a wishbone split for Disco’s legs, a double powerbomb gets no cover on Inferno. Instead Vito misses a middle rope splash and it’s off to Lash.

 

Leroux speeds things up and takes Vito down with a spin kick before making the heels hit each other by mistake. Everything breaks down and the Italians hit a double clothesline to take over. Disco and Vito go to the floor as Johnny misses a guillotine legdrop, allowing Disco to hit a splash for two. Everyone is back in again and Disco tries his Chartbuster (Stunner) but Vito breaks it up, sending Disco into Lash for a Chartbuster to his partner for no apparent reason. That and a spinning inverted DDT to Disco are enough for the pin by Vito.

 

Rating: C-. Very basic tag match here but I’ve seen worse. Again though, the idea of this story being based around a guy named Tony Marinara does it no favors and makes for a rather stupid story all around. Disco continues to be impressive though as he was nothing but a comedy character who lasted for many years with the company. He also wasn’t half bad in the ring, but his career was hindered by the character.

Since Johnny wasn’t much of a singles guy, we’ll keep up the trend with another tag match from March 19, 2001 as the Mamalukes have reformed.

Mamalukes vs. Lance Storm/Mike Awesome

The Mamalukes interrupt the Canadian national anthem and look more Irish than Italian with their bright green tights. It’s a brawl to start with everyone on the floor and the Canadians taking over. Things settle down with Johnny dropkicking Lance down but Awesome quickly comes in to run over Vito. The fans chant USA for an Italian tag team as Vito fights back and cleans house. Awesome powers Vito up into the running Awesome Bomb for a fast pin. It’s as abrupt as it sounds.

As you can tell, Johnny wasn’t the biggest part of the team and never quite fit in with the group either. He also never wrestled much for them, as you can tell since I could barely find anything from that era. He would go on to wrestle in WWE and TNA though, so there was definitely talent there.

We’ll wrap it up with the one time the Thrillers all wrestled together, at Fall Brawl 2000.

Filthy Animals/Big Vito/Paul Orndorff vs. Natural Born Thrillers

Filthy Animals: Konnan, Rey Mysterio, Disco Inferno, Juventud Guerrera, Tygress (female manager)

Natural Born Thrillers: Mark Jindrak, Sean O’Haire, Mike Sanders, Chuck Palumbo, Shawn Stasiak, Reno, Johnny the Bull

This is elimination style. Yes it’s that Paul Orndorff. He trained most of the Thrillers in the Power Plant (the same place that said one Dave Bautista had no future in wrestling) and he drew about 15 years ago so he’s PERFECT here. Orndorff is a mystery partner here. He SHOCKS the Thrillers. OH NO! IT’S ON OVER THE HILL OVERRATED GUY THAT HASN’T MEANT A THING SINCE WE WERE IN 5TH GRADE! Wait….this is WCW and he’s over fifty…..WE’RE SCREWED!!!

Stasiak goes on commentary for no apparent reason. Konnan makes gay jokes and introduced Orndorff. Wow this is so completely overhyped. No one cheers either. They just kind of breathe. Also, we get to see a 51 year old man that looks about twice that old in lime green tights. Rock on brother man.

This was billed as 6-6 but there are so many people that a lot have to drop to the floor, making it look like 4-4. Rey and Juvy are tag champions as I try to fill space. Ok apparently they aren’t….they just have the belts for the second straight PPV in a row. Rey tags in Juvy to absolutely NO reaction. I wasn’t looking at the screen and didn’t even notice it. Normally you get a sound from the crowd to let you know that something happened but there was NOTHING here.

O’Haire hits a Falcon’s Arrow to take down Juvy who of course is fine like 4 seconds later. Vito, the big guy on the team I guess, beats up Jindrak and is only there for Johnny. And here’s Disco to again complete silence. Oh never mind they think that he, a face, sucks. Jimdrak, a guy about 6’5, can’t get a dropkick past the ribs of Disco who is about 6’0. Ok Konnan is in the match despite sitting on the floor so far.

Konnan crashes into Disco so Disco accidently hits him with the Last Dance (Stunner) to eliminate him. Shawn says five to go, implying 6-6 to start. Disco can’t get anyone to tag him in so Vito punches him and Reno Rolls the Dice to end him and make it 6-4 I guess. Vito hits an Edgecution on Palumbo for two. Bull hits Vito in the head with a kendo stick and a Roll of the Dice (rolling cutter, Cross Roads) ends him.

That leaves it as Juvy, Rey and Orndorff left, so Madden suggests that Tygress is on the team too. So then Tony says it’s 6-2 as Orndorff is there for…..oh screw it let’s just get this over with. Guerrera hits a flying…..something to Reno. Tony calls it a body attack which sounds like something from Mortal Kombat. Juvy Driver and WHAT’S UP on Reno makes it however many vs. however many. Oh and over ten minutes in and I think there are 4 people that haven’t even been in yet.

Rey and Juy apparently ARE the tag champions here. Tony said they weren’t 8 minutes ago and now they are. My goodness I know WCW at this time is called insane but I’ve always thought it was overhyped. In this match alone, about ten minutes long at this point, we can’t establish how many original participants there were in this match, we’ve gotten three different answers as to how many people are left on one of the teams at this point, and we don’t even know if two guys are tag team champions? Ok according to Wikipedia they are the champions but are forced to forfeit them tomorrow for no given reason. Now why can I establish that and the paid announcers can’t?

The fans hate Tygress all of a sudden as Juvy’s plancha is just caught. And then HOLY GOODNESS O’Haire and Jindrak LAUNCH Juvy from the floor into the ring off a double hip toss. That looked incredible. A Swanton Bomb ends Juvy…..and here’s Orndorff. Of course he beats up all the young guys but a kendo stick takes care of him. He hits a bad piledriver to get rid of Johnny the Bull.

Rey and Tygress (now on the apron) just let Orndorff get double teamed and do all the work. Sanders hasn’t been in yet. He of course beats up Jindrak and O’Haire on his own, making them look completely weak in the process. He goes to piledrive Jindrak and of course gets hurt coming down, giving himself a stinger (same thing that happened to Austin in 97 off the Owen piledriver) and O’Haire quickly covers him for the pin because of the injury.

Rey and Tygress I guess don’t get that he’s really hurt and keep going on Jindrak. After a pair of Bronco Busters we get the idea so they beat up Sanders and Palumbo to keep the crowd into it I guess. Pay no attention to the fact that they’re landing around Paul’s legs or anything like that. And they stop the match because of the injury. They would conclude it the next night where Rey and Tygress would beat five guys on their own.

Rating: F. There should be two ratings here. The match itself was entertaining and was about a B/B-, but to let a guy in there that was 51 years old and had retired because of a neck injury and then, shocking no one with a brain, hurts his neck in his first match back in like 5 years is simply irresponsible. I don’t care if he swears up and down that he’ll be ok or whatever. You don’t let him into the ring with his neck hurt like that, and this is why.

He wasn’t even taking a bump and he got hurt. Imagine what would have happened if he had been taking am ove and got hurt like this. There is just no way you can validate letting Orndorff go out there. It didn’t sell any more shows because he wasn’t even announced, so this comes off as just irresponsible by WCW and there’s no way that is ok in my mind.

Overall the Thrillers were a nice idea, but like everything else in WCW the execution was horrible. There was definitely talent on the team but the lack of personalities crippled them, which is a constant problem in wrestling. Oddly enough none of them ever did anything of note, but it wasn’t from a lack of skills. Good idea, bad execution, meaning WCW in a nutsheel.

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