History of SuperBrawl with KB

klunderbunker

Welcome to My (And Not Sly's) House
Since I’ve done a grand total of two WCW shows, I figured it was time to do a series here, so here we are: SuperBrawl. This was one of their main shows, traditionally held in February although the first is in May for no apparent reason. They treated this like a major show and it usually was pretty big indeed.

It’s not quite Starrcade but it’s close, which makes me wonder why they would have two major shows like this on back to back months but whatever. I’ll be looking at all 11 shows in order as you’re used to me doing so let’s get going with the first, held in 1991. One note: this won’t be a consecutive days thing, so don’t expect it to be. I’ll be putting them up as I get them done, which is likely going to be my pattern from now on.

SuperBrawl I
Date: May 19, 1991
Location: Bayfront Arena, St. Petersburg, Florida
Attendance: 6,000
Commentators: Jim Ross, Dusty Rhodes

So here we are. At the time, there’s not a ton at all going on in the company as usual so they went overseas and got Japanese legend Tatsumi Fujinami. At this time, WCW was officially still part of the NWA and while there were two titles, they were both held by Flair, until he lost the NWA belt to Fujinami in Japan.

However, he didn’t lose the WCW title because Flair got dumped over the top rope which is clearly an evil thing to do and he kept the title because of it. Other than that there’s a dream match with the Steiners vs. Sting and Luger and…yeah that’s all that matters here so let’s get to it.

The theme here is obviously worlds colliding so we have Japanese and American flags mixed in with bad music and pictures of the wrestlers. Good night there are 12 matches on this show? Do you think that’s enough??? Dusty is either coked out of his mind or is just REALLY excited to be here.

US Tag Titles: Freebirds vs. Young Pistols

Ok now hold on because this one if about as confusing as possible. Actually this match isn’t but the story leading up to it is cool so I might as well go into it anyway. As for this match, the Steiners were the US champions but when they won the world tag titles from the Freebirds the US belts were stripped and put up in a tournament, which this is the final of. Ok, that’s very standard stuff.

The WEIRD part is how the Steiners got the world tag titles. The Freebirds won them on February 24, 1991 and lost them February 18, 1991. You read that correctly. See, back in the day WCW would tape MONTHS of shows in advance over about a three week period. Think of what TNA does now but on a much bigger scale.

Anyway, the Freebirds won the titles at a PPV called Wrestle War which we might get to later as there’s a great WarGames match on there, which is of course the greatest gimmick match of all time. Anyway, they won the belts on a Sunday, but the taping where they lost the belts (which no one had seen them win yet) took place on the Monday BEFORE the PPV where they won them.

I think you can see the problems that this could cause and it bit them in the ass in late 1993 when Sid was supposed to win the world title at Starrcade but at a show in England he legitimately stabbed Arn Anderson with a pair of scissors so obviously he was fired. WCW had about three or four months of tapes set up with him as world champion, so those were now worthless and they had to scrap the whole thing.

This is why in the mid to late 90s on syndicated shows like Worldwide or the Main Event, you never see guys with belts as the commentary could easily be redone. So yeah, the Freebirds lost a pair of titles almost a week before winning them. Their reign lasted -6 days, which is how it’s recorded in a lot of sources. Oh yeah there’s a match here.

The Young Pistols were a cowboy kind of tag team that did nothing at all. It was Tracy Smothers, who would become far more famous and I use that term very loosely, and Steve Armstrong, whose brother is Brian, or Road Dogg. The Freebirds were legendary heels in WCCW out of Dallas and revolutionized heel tag team wrestling. This pairing is nowhere near that as they’re both old and more or less worthless at this point.

The original trio of Buddy Roberts, Michael Hayes and Terry Gordy is gone and it’s now Hayes and Jimmy Garvin who by law had to have made at least 5 porn movies in the 70s looks like he does. Anyway, this is for the midcard tag titles. That’s saying a lot about the tag title scene. Not only was there a strong world tag title scene, but there was enough of one to warrant a midcard tag title. That’s saying a lot.

If nothing else the Freebirds have the greatest theme song ever with Badstreet USA. Oh and they’re part of a stable called the Diamond Mine, which is run by one Diamond Dallas Page. Oh and they have a manager named Big Daddy Dink, who you would know from the 80s as Oliver Humperdink. Ok most of you won’t but he existed. Page is just a manager here and is already in his mid to late 20s here so he started WAY late.

The Birds are supposed to be a rock band here and to their credit Hayes sings their theme song so there we are. The Pistols are from Wyoming of all places. My goodness this has to be a record for longest amount of writing just to set up a match. There’s the bell and it’s Armstrong and Hayes. I can’t tell the Pistols apart which is likely because I don’t want to. Uh oh Ross is using football analogies. This could be a long night.

Brad Armstrong, Steve’s other brother and the most talented of the three comes out to balance out Dink which makes sense at least. The referee throws Dink out so that’s good as Brad leaves also. Steve completely misses a clothesline but Hayes sells it anyway. Have to love that old school mentality and experience shining through there. The Pistols actually aren’t terrible. They’re not good but there are far worse teams.

Ah there we are with some nice cheating to get the advantage swung. Sometimes all it takes is pulling a rope down and the heels are very heelish. Tracy freaking DIVES for a tag which looked a lot funnier than it should have. In a bad looking spot, the Pistols both go for missile dropkicks. Armstrong misses completely and Smothers hits Garvin but Garvin doesn’t do anything and Smothers goes down.

The Pistols are all over the place but they’re not hitting a lot of stuff. Dusty says there are going to be new champions here. Gee Dusty you think? In a tournament final there will be new champions?

After a ref bump, a masked guy in what would be called a black chicken suit comes out and beats up the Pistols, hitting both with DDTs from the middle ropes which would be the same as they stand on the mat while he does them but whatever. That gets the Birds the titles. While it was never revealed on TV, the guy in the suit was Brad Armstrong.

Rating: B-. I liked it. It’s a very formula based match but that’s often times the best thing you could ask for and this is no exception. It’s basic heel vs. face stuff but it held my attention for ten minutes which is more than most modern tag matches do. This was fine, but some people would be bored with it I think.

Dan Spivey vs. Ricky Morton

Oh I wonder what’s going to happen here. Spivey was a big man that was incredibly generic but was pushed for his size. Morton was much more famous as a tag wrestler but would turn heel soon after this in something no one cared about. Yeah it’s a squash that goes about three minutes and ends with a powerbomb. That was easy.

Rating: N/A. These happened a lot on these shows and were more and more pointless every time. This and the next four matches are cut from the video release and I can understand why.

Nikita Koloff vs. Tommy Rich

It’s another squash but this has a purpose. Here, Koloff was going to be involved in the title match later on and this justifies him being at the show. It’s a total squash of a former world champion here which does nothing at all for the show other than validate Nikita showing up, which is key.

Oh wait that might be a….nah I thought Rich was going to do something there but he takes the Sickle (clothesline with the arm twisted a bit) to end this in about four minutes. Rich would be in the same stable as Morton in about two months and would be about as meaningful.

Rating: N/A. Again, in a squash, what can I really say?

Johnny B. Badd debuts, with the line “I’m so pretty I should have been born a little girl.” He was the first modern gay wrestler that never said he was gay but you knew it. He’s debuting here and few care. Somehow even fewer would care in about 8 years if that’s possible. Teddy Long is his manager which didn’t last long.

Terrance Taylor vs. Dustin Rhodes

Ah here we…it’s a Terry Taylor match. DAMN IT ALL TO FUCKING HELL. Oddly enough, he’s part of the same stable that the other two jobbers would join and they recruited Dustin. He has Mr. Hughes as his bodyguard that never did anything and Alexandra York as his manager, who is more commonly known as Dustin’s real life wife, Terri. Something tells me I’m going to hate this match. Hmm I wonder why.

Maybe because neither ARE ANY FUCKING GOOD??? Also, Taylor keeps asking for stuff from the computer, which makes sense for the character but further proves why the character fucking sucks. The idea was that York would get readouts from the computer that told her how the match would go. It’s dumber than it sounds somehow. I’m trying to type a lot so I don’t have to watch this abomination as I hate Taylor very much.

Granted Dustin’s generic as hell offense isn’t helping much here either. It’s all simple and southern based stuff like headlocks and punches and attempts at bulldogs. Oh wait something might be happening. Yep, a missed shot from a foreign object by Hughes ends this, thankfully.

Rating: D-. Are they trying to bore the hell out of me here? I mean really, this is the second best match of the night and I wanted to scream during it to break the monotony.

Black Bart vs. Big Josh

So we have a guy that’s a lumberjack and dances with bears vs. a member of a team called the Desperadoes who actually didn’t mind losing, but simply wanted to meet Stan Hansen. I wish I was making this up. Big Josh is more commonly known as the guy that would become Doink the Clown. Egads it’s a THIRD FUCKING SQUASH. Bart gets in zero offense here and Josh wins with a Stage Dive from the top. This show isn’t going to go well is it?

Rating: N/A. This can’t go well can it?

Heyman is here for the Danger Zone where he yells at Stan, which doesn’t go well. Can we please get rid of the old guys?

Oz vs. Tim Parker

And here it begins. For the life of me, I will never understand this. Ted Turner bought up the rights to a ton of movies, so he decided to use WCW to build up hype for them, like he’s doing here. When I say Oz, I mean the title character from the movie. Kevin Nash is billed as being from the Emerald City and has Merlin the Wizard (Kevin Sullivan) with him. We actually have Dorothy, Scarecrow, Tin Man, the Lion and Toto, in costume.

I wish I was making this up but sadly, it’s true. They’re actually doing a scene with the movie on the stage. The fans are LIVID. I mean this goes on nearly 5 minutes, until Oz says he’s going to go show people who he really is. He comes to the ring in lime green pants and with a big white wig and reveals himself to be the at the time unknown Kevin Nash. The match goes thirty seconds as he puts him up for a powerbomb and then just spins him around and lets him go so he crashes in a great visual.

Rating: F-. Since this went on for three months plus. I mean dude, the Wizard and Oz? Who in the world thought this was a good idea? Also, Merlin in the Wizard of Oz? Read a damn book or watch a damn movie people!

Missy Hyatt walks in on Stan in the shower, who is sweaty from talking a lot I guess? She gets spanked for some reason. Knowing her she fucked Stan’s horse or something. On the home video, we go from the US Tag Title match to this. That’s a lot of cutting, but it’s not like anything of note was left off. Missy is as annoying as hell. Also they point out that Taylor just had a match, but no one would have seen it.

Barry Windham vs. Brian Pillman

This is a taped fist match, which makes great sense for a gimmick right? They’re feuding mainly because Pillman is small and Windham is big. Pillman had lost a loser leaves the company match and then a guy in a mask called the Yellow Dog had shown up. Yeah, he was called the Yellow Dog. That’s all I need to say. Brian of course is the huge face here and rocking the Bengals tights as I have the Bengals game on.

Windham would be thrown into the main event a few months after this as Flair would bail after some of the dumbest backstage stuff in wrestling history and take the world title with him. Windham got it, so he goes from this to the world title in about two months. Barry had so much natural talent it’s insane. The fists have played absolutely no role at all so far as everyone tapes their fist but here it’s a lot stronger I guess?

The punches are just standard right hands that aren’t doing anything special at all. Both guys are bleeding a bit as they keep going outside. There’s one of those WCW ramps that is the same height as the ring which I’ve always liked. Pillman hits a spinning heel kick which was unheard of at the time.

They hit head to head as there is just no flow to this thing at all. To end it quickly for no apparent reason, Windham hits the top rope superplex for the pin. That came from nowhere. He beats on him after the match ends.

Rating: D+. The gimmick was just completely worthless here and the match wasn’t worth much at all. It just wasn’t interesting really and it didn’t help at all. This was the, ahem, blow off to their feud and thank goodness for that. How could two guys with this much talent have such a boring and sloppy match?

We have the Diamond Mine, which is DDP’s talking segment. He has a new guy called the Diamond Stud. He has a bit of stubble on his face. I’d say a razor would take care of that.

El Gigante vs. Sid Vicious

This is a stretcher match, which means regular rules but the loser gets taken out on a stretcher. Sid was leaving after this to head to the WWF so the ending is about as much of a given as possible. Sid is of course from anywhere he darn well please which is always funny. Gigante was bigger than Khali but with less talent. He was just a freaking monster but he was incredibly over.

Later he would be known as Giant Gonzalez which he’s a bit more known for. And it’s a 2 minute match. GOOD FREAKING NIGHT WILL YOU CUT THIS OUT? One Man Gang waddles out and does nothing but get his ass kicked, as does Kevin Sullivan. Thanks for that guys. Sid gets the goodbye song as Gigante rolls Gang out on the stretcher but hey, Sullivan has powder. Sid is gone by the way. That was completely pointless.

Rating: F+. That was just a waste of 5 minutes of my life. This show is fucking garbage. No that wouldn’t be fair to the garbage. This show is unfuckable. The match was terrible and El Gigante was just a comedy character for the most part. Actually not comedy but lovable. That's a good word I guess.

Butch Reed vs. Ron Simmons

They actually call this a Thunder-Doom cage match. Basically they were a dominant tag team but Simmons turned face so we’re having a cage match. Their old manager, one Teddy Long, is going to be in a small cage above the ring. They come out to the same music for no apparent reason. You could tell they had something big in store for Simmons but I don’t think anyone knew how big it was going to be.

The music suits a face far better than it does a heel too but whatever. Twice in a minute Ross lets us know that Simmons’ jersey was retired by Florida St. That’s impressive, but we get it. Ron is just a freaking BEAST. I’m completely failing to see the point of the cage here. They’re using it a bit, but this seems like something that could have been a normal one on one match with Long in the cage.

If he’s in one, what’s the point of them being in one and vice versa? Why am I trying to figure out Jim Herd and his booking? Reed’s nickname is Hacksaw which is annoying as I keep thinking of Duggan. Reed was almost about to be a Horseman at one point also. That’s nearly stunning. This might be the most boring cage match I’ve ever seen in my entire life.

Apparently Reed has a lot of experience in cage matches. Not that such a thing makes a difference but whatever. Oh and Simmons has been bleeding for awhile. We get a GO RON GO chant as Reed uses the LAZIEST chinlock that I have ever seen.

He’s just got his hands over Simmons’ throat and nothing more. Seriously, flex your arms or something at least. Simmons keeps having his comebacks stopped and it’s really hurting the match. They get a double clothesline and Long throws a chain to Reed, who gets hit with a spinebuster for the pin instead.

Rating: D. If there was no cage this is a C+ or so. It was just a boring as hell match with zero need for the stipulation and gimmick. It blew off the DOOM EXPLODES feud but that’s about it. Simmons would go on to become world champion relatively soon and Reed would fade away. See what one cage match can do for you?

We take a look at both tag teams, and by that I mean just clips of their matches and moments to stupid music with no talking at all. That’s rather pointless. Not to mention long. This is about 5 minutes of just clips of them fighting various people.

Tag Titles: Lex Luger/Sting vs. Steiners

It’s face vs. face here and Luger is US Champion. I freaking love the way Capetta (the ring announcer) says someone is a world champion. He pauses before saying world very loudly. Ross says we’re starting with power vs. power but all four of them can do power stuff with I guess Rick being the weakest one? Geez there are a lot of titles in this match. It amazes me to no end that Luger would be top heel in less than a year, defending the title against Sting in February at SuperBrawl II.

The crowd is actually reacting to this match unlike almost every other match on the card which is really not a good sign. They’re doing a lot of technical stuff here which is a nice change of pace. In a bad looking spot, Steiner throws a shoulder at Luger and hits him solidly but Lex just shrugs it off and Steiner stays down. Sting jumps over the rope which is a spot that was more or less unheard of at the time and he nails it.

He’s the only person in wrestling history that I would put against RVD as far as leaping ability goes. Also considering his size (6’3 so just under Orton’s height) it’s even more impressive. Magnum TA put Sting about as perfectly as anyone I’ve ever heard: he had so much charisma and talent when he first got going that he didn’t know what to do with it. That’s absolutely spot on too.

A year or so before this he would have been lost out there. Not due to a lack of ability, but simply because he didn’t know how to channel his energy. Imagine a guy like Shelton Benjamin but with Edge’s charisma and you have Sting. Now within a year or two, he had the ring sense of a guy like Eddie Guerrero, making him one of if not the absolute best wrestler in the world. He’s maybe my 2nd favorite wrestler of all time and was easily the top face in the company around this time.

About a year or so from now, he would be the undisputed king of WCW and was even bigger than Flair when he returned from that other company. Anyway enough about Sting as I just rambled for five minutes over a plancha. This is a great match that I’m not going to do a lot of commentary on. It goes about eleven minutes and the longest dead spot is about 20 seconds.

They work their asses off out there and it makes things go well. After things break down and we have a ref bump, we go to a camera shot that would be like someone looking at the ring from the entrance and we see a big bald guy walking to the ring. It’s Koloff from earlier and he has a chain around his arm. He gets a running start at Luger who has his back to him. Sting shoves him out of the way and takes the chain which lets Scott get the pin.

I love that ending as it furthers Sting and Koloff, or actually starts it I guess. After that there’s no way to put one team over the other so I’m actually fine with it. Sting goes after Koloff in the back and they fight outside.

Rating: A. This is a great tag match all around as you have four guys that can legitimately go with each other out there, a good story as it’s respect all around, and the workrate is off the freaking charts here. All four guys worked very hard and the crowd was itno it all the way. What more can you ask for here?

TV Title: Arn Anderson vs. Bobby Eaton

Eaton is freshly face here for no apparent reason and Anderson is the champion coming in. They’re still using the NWA TV belt which is far better looking if nothing else. Eaton is vastly underrated in the ring so this should be good. This is a very old school, NWA mentality match meaning it’s rather slow for the majority of people’s tastes, but it’s working pretty well. Eaton works on the arm and Arn works on the leg which is just odd as hell for an arm man like himself. At least the leg work makes sense here as Bobby is a high flier.

Anderson works on the leg. And I mean for about 5 minutes straight. Ok, we get it: his leg is messed up. We of course get the big face comeback but as he’s going for the Alabama Jam (top rope leg drop) Barry Windham comes out but is stopped by Pillman and they have no bearing at all on the match, making their appearances completely pointless other than to make us miss the pin as we see Brian chasing him to the back when the pin happens. That’s BRILLIANT guys.

Rating: D+. It wasn’t bad, but it was boring as all hell. Almost half of this is Anderson working on the leg which makes sense but damn it was boring and I’m an Anderson fan. This just wasn’t anything special, although Eaton winning a singles match was a big deal. Some people will love this but it wasn’t that great.

Tony is with Fujinami. Actually he’s not but he says he is. This was a waste of 40 seconds.

WCW World Title: Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Ric Flair

Ok, so this is complicated (of course). Fujinami is NWA Champion here, but at the time WCW considered the NWA Title and the WCW Title the same thing and called it the same thing, so when they say Flair is WCW Champion, they mean they’re saying he’s both. However, the NWA, which meant jack shit at this point, says Fujinami is the champion, which he really is.

The NWA name is never used here, and it’s billed as just a WCW Title match. In other words, it was WCW acknowledging that they were bigger than the NWA which everyone but the NWA knew already. So yeah, according to WCW, this is just for the WCW Title but according to the NWA and realistically, it’s title for title. Fujinami is a Japanese legend that a lot of you have likely never heard of, but the guy is AWESOME.

Flair uses different music here for no reason at all. We have a Japanese and American referee here, with the American being Bill Alfonzo. This right here exemplifies everything that was wrong with the NWA and why it died so badly. Fujinami is great, take my word for it. Why should you be taking my word for it? Because odds are, you’ve never heard of him.

That’s the thing: these guys are great wrestlers but that’s not what American fans want to see, but the NWA insisted on it. Seriously, to any big time “smart” fan, this is a dream match. To any average fan, for the most part no one cares here, and that’s why WCW survived and the NWA didn’t. Yes I know it’s still around, but it’s dead, trust me. They do shake hands which is fine with me.

Ric’s hair looks odd here for some reason that I can’t place. Fujinami is known as the Dragon and invented the suplex and sleeper that go with that name. I love Dusty trying to talk like he’s in these guys’ league. That’s just amazingly funny. The non-American goes for a Boston Crab but doesn’t turn it over immediately so it’s kind of like a Liontamer for a bit which is cool.

The fans only seem to care when Flair is in control. He would have been a face at this time, but the problem here is that there really isn’t a face or a heel in this. Fujunami hits a weird looking funning forearm to the ribs. That just looked weird. Flair gets control and goes onto the leg of course as you would expect him to. The figure four is on to a very nice pop indeed. While he’s got it on, we go to a totally pointless crowd shot.

That’s one of my annoyances in wrestling. Seriously, is it that hard to STAY ON ONE DAMN SHOT??? Fujinami puts on a Sharpshooter. Oh wait this is WCW. He puts on a Scorpion Deathlock, which to be fair, Sting used first. In something I’ve never seen before, Fujinami tries to bridge up into a backslide but he can’t do it despite trying three times. We hit the floor as we’re getting into an American style again. Yep, Flair is bleeding.

This was before his skin became so weak that a hard stare would bust him open. This is another slower paced match but it’s not boring at all. It’s not a great match for a reason I’ll get into later though. To the shock of no one, Flair is slammed off the top rope with one hand, actually drawing a lot of boos. Flair gets put in a hold called the Octopus, which is like an abdominal stretch on steroids. That’s a move that maybe 5 Americans have used, ever.

Actually scratch that. 5 people have used it in American, as three of them were Dynamite Kid, Benoit and Owen and another was one of the Jumping Bomb Angels. It’s one of Inoki’s signature moves if that tells you anything.

We go even more insane but off a rollup the Japanese referee goes down for about 5 seconds and the American referee counts the pin, resulting in that being the most pointless ref bump ever. That means the WCW and NWA titles are one and the same again, even though WCW and the NWA don’t want to admit it.

Rating: B+. This started off a bit slow but once it got going it was solid. However, the crowd was bored for about the first 15 minutes, which again is because they have no reason to care about Fujinami as most of them have likely never heard of the man, yet we’re supposed to buy him as being a big time guy based just off what some announcers said about him. While it’s all true, it doesn’t help things at all. This was a good match but horrible booking if that makes sense,

Overall Rating: D+. You have two good matches out of 12. That can’t be a good thing. Seriously, I couldn’t grade 4 of these which is a third of the card. That says very little about the direction of the company. The other thing here that isn’t on the show is that Flair would be gone in less than two months after Herd decided that he didn’t fit in anymore and should shave his head and become a gladiator character.

Thankfully Herd didn’t last long. Anyway, other than the world and tag titles, there’s just nothing at all here, and I mean nothing. It’s a terrible show with two good matches. Normally that would be ok, but not when the card has 12 on it. Don’t watch this, but watch the tag as it’s great.
 
I'm fairly certain I saw this PPV live at the time. It certainly brings back quite a lot of random thoughts. Let me just spell a few of those out here...

For whatever reason, I loved The Freebird combination of Michael "P.S." Hayes and Jimmy "Jam" Garvin. I think it's because I was always a fan of The Freebirds, and probably an even bigger fan of "Gorgeous" Jimmy Garvin, so putting the two together was great!

The way WCW used Terry "Terrence" Taylor was criminal. He's actually an extremely talented performer who I loved during his younger days in the Mid-South/UWF area. When they brought him into WCW and did the UWF/WCW TV title unification angle, I hoped they'd do something really interesting with him. Instead, they did next-to-nothing with him, turning him into a jobber. What a waste!

Of course, they did the same with Tommy "Thomas" Rich, Matt Borne (Big Josh) and one-time WCCW champ Black Bart.

"Beautiful" Bobby Eaton's single's push was so well-deserved! He is a great tag team wrestler (obviously!) and I loved his team with Arn Anderson, but I was really happy to have him as WCW TV champ. It was a long overdue chance for him to have a run as singles champ.

Having Ricky ("Richard") Morton jobbing like this is genuine discredit to the hard work the NWA put into making him once seem like a credible challenge to Ric Flair's NWA World Heavyweight champion.

"Hacksaw" Butch Reed -- who had that nickname at least as long as Duggan did! -- could have made a great addition to The Four Horsemen. His team with Ron Simmons as Doom was impressive, and I wish WCW had built him into at least a bona fide U.S. title contender. However, it was Simmons that they had plans for...and Reed got nothing.

El Gigante was wretched. Period.

I have always liked One Man Gang. He was listed on my top "Guilty Pleasures" in another thread. He never got to amount to much in WCW, other than his one, brief, complimentary U.S. title reign for re-signing with the company after WWF, but he is an old-school favorite of mine. When he was in UWF, he was a monster. I loved it!

It's incredible to think of how much talent WCW had on this card that they simply had no idea how to utilize. Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, Diamond Dallas Page and several others went on to achieve huge career success in spite of what WCW did with them at this point in their careers.

As PPV shows went for WCW at the time, this one is pretty standard. It was basically an over-blown TV broadcast with only a few decent matches to anchor otherwise bloated and meaningless matches.

To be honest, I'm glad you had to sit through this one on DVD and not me. Thanks for the recap & trip down memory lane, KB!
 
SuperBrawl II
Date: February 29, 1992
Location: Mecca Arena, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Attendance: 5,000
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jesse Ventura

This show is based around one thing and one thing only: Lex Luger vs. Sting. This had been THE feud for the better part of a year and tonight it came to a head. Luger had destroyed Sting’s knee and then sent Cactus Jack and Abdullah the Butcher to injure him. This was more or less a given Sting win, but the match was required much like Austin vs. Michaels. The key to this feud was Luger being in a way selfish.

His contract required him to work a certain amount of dates. He worked said dates and said he was done until the title match, and legally that was fine. It kind of screwed over the fans, but it was perfectly legal for him to do so. The thing that it did though was make Luger seem mythical.

We never saw the champion anymore, but we knew Sting wanted him. Immediately after this show he would head to the WWF, debuting on camera at Mania 8. Other than that, there really just isn’t much here. The card is remembered fondly though, so let’s see how this is.

The intro is running down the card and it sounds pretty decent. A bit lackluster, but decent nonetheless. Eric and Tony disagree over the main event. This was when Eric was just a commentator with a solid on air presence instead of being very annoying. Missy Hyatt is in the back, complete with bad grammar.

We go to Jim Ross who has a new broadcast partner: JESSE FREAKING VENTURA debuts on a motorcycle and this show just went WAY up in value. If there has ever been a better announcer at playing to the crowd while being completely honest, I want to meet them and buy them a ham sandwich. Ventura says Ross should wear a cowboy hat. WOW.

I’m freaking pumped for this show. This is just feeling awesome as hell.

Light Heavyweight Title: Jushin Thunder Liger vs. Brian Pillman

This title is famous for two things: A guy named Scotty Flamingo holding it (he would change his name to Raven in about a year and a half) and this match. This match is considered to be right up there with Bret and Owen as the best PPV opener of all time. You have to keep in mind that the styles here were just not seen at this time. Everything was mat work and a clothesline off the top was a big time move.

If you know anything about these two, you know what’s coming. They start very fast and hot before slowing it down a bit but you can tell the fans are noticing them. They mention that K. Allen Frey is the WCW President at this time. This was his first and only PPV as he was let go because he was making good TV shows. They were far more exciting and fast paced, and since no one wants to be excited, Frey was out and Bill Watts came in.

His best idea was this: if you work hard, you get a bonus. Seriously, THAT was considered a bad idea. Everything was about cost cutting back then, as they even got rid of the mats at ringside, It also produced some of the most boring wrestling of all time, but hey, who cares that buyrates and attendance were both down? WE ARE SAVING MONEY!!!

They hit a leglock for a few seconds and then are like screw this shit. They pop up and Liger runs at the corner and hits a moonsault to get a big OOO from the crowd. Two months after this that would have ended the match on a DQ as top rope moves were banned. Apparently the leglock that had them chanting boring isn’t as intriguing as a moonsault followed by a dropkick. What do they know?

They’re just the people buying tickets to the shows. Liger sets for the Surfboard and the crowd reacts to it huge. For 5000 people, this crowd is awesome. We get a George Michael’s Sports Machine reference. He passed away on Christmas Eve. Without him, you likely wouldn’t have SportsCenter.

Pillman misses a knee and Liger works on the knee to give us some psychology. And note: it’s the knee he worked on earlier, giving us some continuity. He throws on a figure four to a great pop. They get into a big slap fight which is amusing. Crowd is WAY into this. Pillman goes to the floor thank to Jushin and Liger jumps to the top and puts him down with a sweet looking front flip. Pillman comes back in with a springboard clothesline after they fight over a suplex on the apron.

Brian follows that up by suplexing Liger over the top to the floor. This is very high impact and fast paced. Now they’re just throwing out the high spots which works well as a contrast to the leg work. It’s turned into a high spot match and that’s fine.

Like I said, you have to remember that this kind of thing is just completely unheard of as no one has ever seen anything close to this. Pillman hits a hurricanrana and then a DDT. The pace is just ridiculous for the time. Liger misses a top rope splash after a suplex and Pillman does a weird pinning combination for the title.

More or less he looked like he was going for a camel clutch but hooked his feet under Liger’s arms and rolls over so that Liger goes with him and then bridges back for the pin. He raises Liger’s hand afterwards and they share the standing ovation.

Rating: A+. EPIC match. This was just completely off the charts compared to what people were used to. These two worked their asses off and had a classic. After about ten minutes of this seventeen minute match, they just went completely nuts out there and were flying all over the place.

It looked awesome and the crowd bought every damn bit of it. Find this match right now as it’s more interesting and entertaining than what I’m going to write. And remember, none of this would be legal inside of two months in favor of LEG LOCKS AND ARM BARS BABY!

Missy is with Terry Taylor who is all of a sudden rich. He’s still boring as hell and worthless, but he’s now boring and worthless WITH A BAD CHARACTER! He’s fighting Marcus Bagwell tonight. That’s about it.

Terry Taylor vs. Marcus Bagwell

Some kid gets to be the announcer. He’s booed out of the building. He looks like Cameron from Ferris Bueller’s Day off mixed with Urkel. He’s the Taylor Made Man now. Oh just take me now. Bagwell is a rookie now and has more or less no idea what he’s doing. Taylor and Greg Valentine have the US Tag Titles here. Why this is a one on one match is beyond me but whatever. Ross says Bagwell is too naïve to lie.

This is already boring. Granted it could be that Taylor just freaking sucks. This feels like a bad TV match and considering the time period we’re in, that’s saying a lot. Taylor hits a nice gutwrench sitout powerbomb. I love moves like that.

They botch a sunset flip as Bagwell jumps too far but it wasn’t that bad I guess. I know I don’t usually do this much play by play but that’s all there is for this match. There’s no story here or anything and it’s just old guy vs. rookie. Bagwell gets a quick pin on a rollup and then Taylor hits the Taylor Made Forearm afterwards. Yep, that’s his big devastating move: a forearm.

Rating: D+. This just wasn’t interesting at all. It was relatively short, but still I just have no interest in this match at all after what I saw before it. This was what Watts wanted I guess. The fans weren’t into it at all, but hey, what do they know right?

On an aside, here’s the BRILLIANCE, yes BRILLIANCE I say of WCW. Ok, tonight is a PPV right? PPVs back then started at 7 instead of 8. WCW’s second biggest show was called the Main Event and it aired from 6:05 to 7:05 on Sunday nights. So what do the geniuses do?

They book a FUCKING TITLE MATCH as the main event of the TV show that coincides with the first five minutes of the PPV. The dumber part: THEY CHANGE THE TITLES. Yes, instead of having that, oh I don’t know, ON THE FUCKING PAY PER VIEW, they gave it away for free on TV, but to see it you had to miss the first five minutes of the PPV. And people wonder why WCW isn’t around today.

Missy is trying to get Luger but finds Harley Race instead. He looks like a high school math teacher for some reason.

Ron Simmons vs. Cactus Jack

Jack was just a freak at this point, having been brought in to fight Sting for Luger. Simmons was just a face that was over but not that great yet. He would be world champion in six months. This is the kind of match that is just so crazy it could be ok. Cactus gets his neck caught in the ropes and Jesse says he would help Cactus if his opponent were in that position. That’s a joke as Jesse liked that spot and used it a lot.

Take a guess as to what he did. Hey Junkyard Dog is here. I don’t care either. We hit the floor and the Cactus Elbow hits. This is more or less a brawl. Simmons hits a spinebuster on the ramp that just had to freaking hurt. Simmons catches Jack coming off the top with a powerslam for the pin.

Abdullah comes out and nails Simmons for the double team. Here’s JYD for the save. Again, I love how fans can just get up and get camera time like this. At least security tries to stop him so that’s better than nothing. Why in the world was this guy over?

Rating: C-. Ok so I was wrong about it working but it wasn’t terrible. It was too short to really make much of it, but Cactus wasn’t a legit big time wrestler for the majority of his career. He was there to make others look good like he did here so that’s fine. Simmons was about to get the push of his life so this was really just grooming him for it I guess.

We go to Tony and Bischoff who go back to the ring.

Ricky Morton/Vinnie Vegas vs. Z-Man/Van Hammer

Vegas is more commonly known as Kevin Nash. Van Hammer was a guy that was RIDICULOUSLY over but had no talent. For the life of me I never got that, but I was a huge fan of his too. Hammer was challenging Sting for my spot as favorite wrestler in WCW at the time and Sting is more or less second only to Foley for me all time. Ventura mentions that Zenk is a former Mr. Minnesota in bodybuilding and Ventura says there’s no money in bodybuilding.

Vince was just starting the World Bodybuilding Federation at the time, so that’s very likely a shot at McMahon. When it’s Jesse talking you have to just call him McMahon. Nash was playing a greasy sleazy guy with no morals. It’s so easy when you can play yourself. Good night Hammer could get the crowd into a match. He’s beating up Ricky Morton so there’s nothing wrong with that.

It’s hard to believe that Nash wound up being about 100x more successful than all these people. Again, Hammer sucks in the ring but he’s over as hell here. Z-Man’s tights are pink by the way. There’s no real point to this match which was a real problem back in this era. The good thing was they got a lot of solid matches anyway.

They point out that Z-Man has been teaming with Bagwell lately, begging the question of why he’s teaming with Van Hammer here that of course won’t be answered or addressed. In one sequence we have two things that just shouldn’t stun the hell out of me: Ricky Morton being on long term offense in a tag match, and KEVIN NASH JUMPED. You read that correctly. Kevin Nash, the most generic big man (in the mid to late 90s not named Sid) JUMPED.

They’re beating the hell out of Hammer, the most popular guy in this match because it makes SO much more sense to have Z-Man get the hot tag instead of Van Hammer, the big power guy right? They point out that Nash played pro basketball in Nevada which is odd as hell.

We get a Tark the Shark reference followed by ones to Aerosmith, Van Halen and Twisted Sister. Jesse Ventura is freaking awesome. We get the hot tag to the guy in the pink tights, because that works SO much better than tagging in the big power guy that’s ridiculously over. Z-Man rolls up Morton out of nowhere to get the fast pin.

Rating: C+. This was the definition of formula stuff but it works well. Nash and Van Hammer were showcasing themselves here and there’s nothing wrong with that at all. They were the bigger stars here by far and the far more interesting characters. This was fine and a decent match, dumb as hell booking aside.

Promo for WCW/Japan Supershow II. We’ll get to that one. It was taped the month prior to this though.

Tony and Eric recap The Enforcers (Zbyszko and Arn) breaking Barry Windham’s arm at Halloween Havoc with a car door. Tonight is the revenge match with Dustin Rhodes as Barry’s partner.

Barry Windham/Dustin Rhodes vs. Steve Austin/Larry Zbyszko

For no apparent reason, Anderson isn’t here but Austin is. They’re all part of the mega stable known as the Dangerous Alliance though so that works out fine. As generic as it is I kind of like Windham and Rhodes’ look. They have the same color tights and boots and leather jackets on and they walk stride for stride. Not bad. The faces just beat the living hell out of the heels at first just for the hell out it.

They touch on Larry and Sammartino’s feud which I have to get to at sometime. This is more or less just about Windham beating the living hell out of the heels for awhile and that’s all they’ve done for about three minutes or so. Austin is still Stunning Steve here, meaning he wears tights that look like bicycle shorts and have a bunch of colors on them and he has shoulder length blond hair. It’s hilarious considering what he would be in four years.

Nabisco finally takes over and beats down Windham. At least I think it’s Windham as it’s kind of hard to tell them apart. Jesse and Ross get into an argument about football, with a great line from Jesse: Oklahoma is the only school where you take a pay cut when you go to the NFL. That’s hilarious. Dustin gets the hot tag as this match is just kind of a mess. Larry just isn’t that good at all.

His offense is weak, he can’t sell that much and he’s just plain boring as anyone I’ve ever seen. Ross thinks the heels might have planned some evil deeds. Get this man an award! Hey, Dusty Rhodes returns at the Japan show. I already said I would review that one didn’t I? Damn it. Dustin gets a small package and Larry thinks about making the save but realizes that would require doing something so he doesn’t.

Austin kicks out, but more importantly, Larry didn’t have to do anything so all is right with the world. Austin uses the Flair move of the feet on the ropes which never gets old. Austin takes his own move, a Stun Gun, onto the ropes. I say onto the ropes because they mess it up and Austin’s face hits the ropes instead of his throat. Windham and Larry come in and a clothesline off the top gets the pin for Windham.

Rating: B-. While not great, this was pretty good. It was a tad long but that was WCW’s style for tag matches. It’s certainly not bad at all. Windham beat Larry which was the main thing and he started feuding with Austin soon after this. There’s not much here but it’s pretty good overall if that makes sense.

Eric, now wearing a Michigan jacket, is going to be for the Steiners next I guess. Their resumes are actually pretty good. We go to Missy who is looking for Steamboat but finds a Ninja. Yep, you heard that right. Instead she runs into Medusa who talks to the Ninja also. This was just out there. She slaps him and since you never slap a Ninja, he chases her away.

Tag Titles: Arn Anderson/Bobby Eaton vs. Steiner Brothers

The champions are also part of the Dangerous Alliance. That thing was freaking huge but it would go down next month at WrestleWar in an EPIC War Games match. Heyman just looks completely evil here and it’s amazing how much ECW made him age as far as looks go. He’s barred from ringside here which results in a classic Heyman freak out. The Steiners are the favorites here as they never actually lost the belts before as Scott was injured.

They say the Steiners have never lost the titles in a match, except for that time when Doom freaking killed them but we can’t mention that of course. Scott just shows off his technical stuff here as it amazes me how far he fell. He was going to be the prototype of the 90s but something fell through in his head and it never happened. Anderson is just awesome in case you didn’t know. Rick comes in and let the barking begin. Jesse can’t stand the Steiners for some reason.

There’s a recap of the show tonight on the Hotline. Why? If you’re watching the PPV you don’t need a recap and you won’t hear the ad if you’re not watching the show. That’s brilliant but I guess it made money so whatever. Scott is freaking impressive as the Steiners are dominating and the fans are way into it. Jesse is mayor of a small town in Minnesota at this time so we keep getting political jokes from Ross.

The fans want Flair. Sorry, he’s the WWF Champion at this point and being praised for his greatness like he should be instead of jobbing to Luger. The Steiners use a Doomsday Device of all things which looked decent. Eaton goes low to take control back. Scott comes in and they just suplex the hell out of the heels. That never gets old. Neither team is really keeping an advantage here and it’s making the match a lot better as a result.

Eaton hits a knee from the top as we finally have the heels in control for more than 45 seconds. It’s a nice touch that I kind of like. Anderson hits a DDT which would have won this had it been two years later or so. In a nice counter, Scott wraps his legs around Anderson, I guess thinking he’s one of his freaks, and Arn just casually grabs them and turns him into a Boston Crab. I like that.

In a nice touch, Arn and Bobby hit the Rocket Launcher which was the Midnight Express’ finisher. Somehow this revitalizes Scott but whatever. The heels set Rick for a Doomsday Device of their own but Bobby uses a cross body instead which Rick catches, which I use that term loosely, into a belly to belly suplex, which I use even more loosely. It was much better against the Headshrinkers at Mania 9.

Medusa hits Steiner with powder and Rick suplexes the referee by mistake. Scott gets the Frankensteiner for the pin but of course it’s overthrown because of the suplex. Yeah Dusty is definitely back. Yeah I fucking hate this.

This was a GREAT match, but fuck that whole give the fans the moment they popped like crazy for because it makes sense to put the titles back on the Steiners bullshit. No no no. We need to do the title switch a month and a half later at a fucking house show. YEAH BABY! Screw this PPV bullshit. It’s all about HOUSE SHOWS BITCH!

Rating: A-. This was AWESOME. It the finish hadn’t been bullshit, this is an A or an A+ with ease. They worked great out there for 20 minutes of back and forth awesomeness. The Steiners were awesome but they were in there with two of the best tag team wrestlers of all time, meaning there was no way this was going to be bad.

But yeah, the ending was just complete and utter fucking garbage as the fans clearly wanted the title change and there was no way they would have a better moment. But it’s Dusty booking so what do you expect?

Ad for WrestleWar.

We recap the Steiners match which also had an over the top DQ and neither guy involved with the pin were legal so there we are. Yeah the ending still sucks. We go back to Missy again and Missy watches the Ninja and Steamboat go to the ring.

US Title: Ricky Steamboat vs. Rick Rude

This was quite the awesome feud back in the day. Rude had shown up at Halloween Havoc and been a major signing for the company so they put him with Steamboat for the US Belt and it worked very well. Steamboat has the masked Ninja to guard him from the Alliance and make sure things are fair. The heat for Rude is AWESOME. This has been an awesome crowd all night and it’s made this a great show.

Steamboat of course starts by working the arm since that’s really the thing he did best. It works if nothing else and it helps here as it would take away the Rude Awakening and some of Rude’s power. They slow it down a bit which is fine as they’re going for the slow build. I know they’re not tired already as these two both had great cardio. Ventura again says Ross should wear a cowboy hat and also starts calling him JR.

Oh how I bet he wish he copyrighted that. Rude sells the arm from earlier because he just rocks. All the cool kids are selling the arm today so you know you should too. Ventura advocates Rude putting his hand over Steamboat’s nose and mouth. Good to know that the governor of Minnesota advocates attempted murder. Rude uses his offense but can’t use his arm much at all and pauses because of the pain after every move.

He’s also working on Steamboat’s neck which he injured at the last Clash of the Champions. Oh how I love PSYCHOLOGY. Steamboat gets a figure four which makes NO sense but it’s WCW so the move gets a huge pop anyway. Rude goes to pose after getting the advantage back but can’t do it because of the arm, prompting another jab at the bodybuilding company. Rude goes up top but since the company is being run by someone sane it isn’t a DQ.

We keep getting shots of the Ninja, meaning that he’s going to factor into the ending. Not to mention we keep seeing him, meaning he completely fails as a Ninja. If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s a bad Ninja. Steamboat hits a top rope suplex and the kick outs are getting great now.

Steamboat does Rude’s hip swivel which is just amusing as hell. Steamboat has his rolling but as he’s going to the top, the Ninja hits him with a really big phone, which was Heyman’s (who remember is called Paul E. Dangerously at this point) trademark.

Rating: B+. This was a solid as hell match. They worked very well out there as all matches have done tonight. They would have a rematch at Beach Blast without the title being on the line in an Iron Man match which was great as well. Either way, this was a very good match with these two having great chemistry together and the psychology was definitely here, making it a very good match.

We go to Missy outside of Rude’s locker room. Missy, acting worse than even Stephanie and Linda do, is SHOCKED that Heyman is in the Ninja outfit.

WCW World Title: Lex Luger vs. Sting

Like I said, this was just a formality at this point as Luger was ready to go up North and Sting was ready to be the guy. Also, there was this guy named Vader that had just started working full time. With Luger gone, Sting needed someone to feud with, so he got the biggest feud of his career. Sting doesn’t even have music here which is odd as hell. This is Luger’s first match in about two months other than a match that was taped and won’t air until next month at the Japan show.

They have the staredown which is awesome if nothing else. They stand there and stare at each other for about a minute or so. I wonder what they’re talking about. FREAKING DO SOMETHING! Hey a minute and a half in we get a shove and then more talking! There’s a second shove at two minutes! Ooo a lockup. Ok there’s building tension and then there’s STUPIDITY.

Sting hits the Splash and of course Luger no sells it because Luger doesn’t care about making Sting look credible or anything stupid like that. To be fair though, did he really need to? Just because he can, Sting puts Luger in the rack. I don’t think anyone ever did that to him so that was kind of cool. They point out that Sting’s cardio is far better and he almost gets the Scorpion but not quite. Luger takes over and they try to cover up his completely not caring at all by saying he’s arrogant.

In reality it was that he was just walking through the match without the slightest bit of effort at all. You know, because being world champion in WCW is nowhere near as great as being a midcard joke in the WWF. It turned out he got out at the right time though as Watts took over and ran the company into the ground.

They eventually can’t cover it up anymore and say how odd it is that he’s just walking around with his hands on his hips. Luger hits his finishing move, the Piledriver, and Sting kicks out to seal how awesome he is. It gets NO pop though as Luger has managed to kill one of the best crowds in company history.

Sting begins his comeback with that odd as hell striking style that he had. Seriously, do you remember anyone having the method of striking that Sting did? Watch one of his matches and notice how he hits and kicks. It’s just different looking and I don’t remember anyone else ever did it that way. We hit the floor and Luger continues to move very slowly. Coming back in, Sting hits a cross body to get the pin and the title and a great pop.

Rating: D+. And that’s ALL on Luger. This was just completely unprofessional as he was walking around most of the time and making the crowd just be bored as hell. I get that it’s your last day, but dude, a little effort isn’t going to kill you. Like I said this was just a formality though so it was all about the moment and not the match itself which is ine at the end of the day. Luger was a dick like always so there’s no shock there.

Sting tries to leave but the fans applaud him back to the ring. All four guys talk to close us out.

Overall Rating: A-. This was a GREAT show. If nothing else, this show is the proof that you don't need a huge crowd to have a great show. Like I said, that bonus policy was in force here and guys like Nash were working hard. What does that tell you? What a shocking concept: give the guys a reason to work hard instead of guaranteeing them money and letting them do whatever they want.

Think about later in WCW when the money was all guaranteed. How many GREAT matches or shows do you remember in the late 90s? The Cruiserweights would work hard but the main event was nothing. Hogan only had to wrestle once every other month and got a huge salary anyway. Here though: you work hard, you get paid. I think the way it actually worked was match of the night got a bonus kind of like in the UFC today.

That’s working well and it worked here. Naturally though Bill Watts was brought in because the company was losing money and clearly the two months that Frey had was a good indication of what the company would be like for years to come. This was the last great WCW show for a very long time, so take a look at it because it was downhill from here for awhile other than WrestleWar to an extent. If you can find this show somewhere, DEFINITELY take a look at it as I had a lot of fun watching it.
 
SuperBrawl III
Date: February 21, 1993
Location: Ashville Civic Center, Ashville, North Carolina
Attendance: 6,500
Commentators: Jesse Ventura, Tony Schiavone

Sting vs. Vader. That’s what this whole show is about here. Based just off the look of the card, it’s fairly clear that there isn’t a ton going on here. This is the show where one of the mini-movies comes from. Basically WCW gave half a million dollars or so to have these like 10 minute movies or so made.

This one was Sting getting invited to a party in the White Castle owned by Vader (an actual castle, not a restaurant, but that’s where the name came from). There was a strap match coming up so Sting went to the party which was I think in a cave and there was a strap match/tug of war there. See what I go through for you? DO YOU SEE?

Oh and Flair returns too.

There’s no intro and we’re with Bischoff and Missy Hyatt who are the hosts. Ron Simmons is hurt and has been replaced by a guy named Maxx Payne. He was around before the video game character. Johnny B. Badd comes to their area dressed like a sailor. Make jokes amongst yourselves. He runs down the card and annoys me.

Maxx Payne plays the national anthem.

Hollywood Blondes vs. Erik Watts/Marcus Bagwell

Watts is the son of Bill Watts and he’s just freaking awful. The general consensus is that he just wasn’t ready for this kind of mainstream exposure but his dad insisted that he was and that was all there was to it. The Blondes are the number one contenders, so of course we couldn’t have the tag title match here. That wouldn’t make anything close to sense right? Naturally they would win on a Sunday TV show that no one watched in about two weeks.

WCW just didn’t make a lot of sense a lot of the time. Bagwell and Austin are going at it here and it’s not that interesting. OH MAN Watts got booed out of the freaking building! Watts can’t do anything right as he botches arm drags and an arm bar. Bagwell gets cheered just for coming back in. Watts gets booed again. Naturally Bill Watts didn’t get the hint and would push Watts over and over again because since he’s the son of an overrated wrestler he clearly has talent too right?

Thankfully they have Bagwell get beaten on for the most part and let him work most of the match. Somehow he’s the more talented one. Oh damn it they put Watts in again. Jesse asks why they boo and Tony actually says it’s WOO and not BOO. I actually cringed at that. He puts on a terrible Boston Crab. This is awful. Ok that’s a bit better but Pillman, the heel, breaks it up to a pop.

Watts busts out a freaking STF! WHERE IN THE WORLD DID HE LEARN TO DO THAT??? You have to kind of feel sorry for him as he was just thrown out here and told to be awesome. That’s not his fault and given what I’ve read about Watts, it’s likely all on him. They just kind of lumber around here looking for something to do as this is getting far too much time. The Blondes dominating can only go on for so long and the faces just have nothing to come back with and it’s painfully obvious.

A Rocket Launcher gets a HUGE pop in Midnight Express world but Watts gets the knees up. Watts makes the tag and all four guys brawl. Bagwell gets the fisherman’s suplex but Austin comes off the top to nail him and break it up allowing Pillman to get the pin.

Rating: C+. It was good but FAR too long. Watts just wasn’t ready for this kind of spotlight and it showed really badly. The Blondes were awesome and that’s all there was to it. Bagwell continued to have no direction at all and it caused his career to just fall apart at the seams.

We get a clip of the Sting/Vader movie. We hear Sting’s thoughts. It’s pathetic.

Flair is back and Missy Hyatt tries to get “the first ever interview with him.” She gets frisked for getting too close to the limo and says she usually gets kissed while doing this. Flair comes out which clearly the fans can’t see as it gets no pop.

Chris Benoit vs. 2 Cold Scorpio

Benoit is another guy that they had no idea what they had with him so they just let him go. Scorpio still cared at this point so he should be really good and this match should kick all kinds of ass. Benoit is wearing blue tiger print tights which are just odd looking. Jesse says Benoit has more of a killer instinct which makes me shiver a bit. Scorpio is like Van Dam meets Godfather if that tells you anything.

They do an awesome wristlock reversal sequence that accomplishes nothing but it looks good, kind of like Hyatt. They fight over an arm bar which is interesting if nothing else. Scorpio puts on a hammerlock with his feet. That looks insane. Ok this is awesome. They just completely show off here and it’s awesome. When you can impress North Carolina, you know you’re doing something very right. They’re just ridiculously crisp out there.

The wrestling isn’t great but it’s about the spectacle and on that level they’re awesome. Jesse takes offense to them being called athletes and says they’re WRESTLERS. Someone hire this guy again. That needs to be done. Benoit gets the hardest turnbuckle smash I’ve ever seen. Benoit comes back and sells the arm by shaking it. It’s simple but it at least makes things look better.

We hit a chinlock and Tony randomly tells Jesse not to talk with ice in your mouth. What in the hell? I guess they got rid of the top rope rule. Benoit hits a Liontamer which he just lets go of for no apparent reason. You can tell Benoit doesn’t know how to finish here and it’s hurting things a lot. Benoit hits a belly to back from the top but slams his head into the mat so both are down.

Since it takes so long Benoit only gets two. Benoit hits a powerbomb for two as we have about two minutes to go. They botch what I think was supposed to be the finish and we’re almost out of time. They’ve definitely gone over twenty minutes here. Benoit gets out of the Tumbleweed with 45 seconds left. Benoit goes for a Dragon Suplex (Full Nelson suplex) and Scorpio drops down and rolls him up to get the pin with one second to go. AWESOME ending to a very good match.

Rating: B+. This was excellent stuff but Benoit simply didn’t have a finish yet. This is a lot like Bret vs. Shawn at Survivor Series 92 when Shawn was hanging with Bret but he wasn’t going to win because he didn’t’ have the finisher yet. This was fine and I’m glad they didn’t go with the draw for a change. Very fun match.

Maxx Payne is a creepy man. He talks about something named Norma Jean and says he’s going to win the US Title tonight and plays Taps on his guitar.

Bill Irwin vs. British Bulldog

Irwin is a cowboy here although he was far better known as the Goon, the hockey player. This was when Bulldog was brand new to the company and was probably the second biggest face next to Sting but Flair would more or less take care of that very soon. I never got what the thing was with the little balls on the end of Davey’s hair was. This is pretty much a complete squash as everyone expected it to be.

Irwin makes his standard comeback and of course Bulldog isn’t hurt at all. In a weird move Irwin slams him into the rope like you usually would do with the turnbuckle. I don’t get that but whatever. They just hammer each other until Davey hits a vertical suplex to show off. Jesse asks why it’s called an Irish Whip and Tony snaps off that it came from a match in Ireland in 1863. Where in the hell did that come from? The powerslam ends it.

Rating: D+. Eh it’s a 6 minute squash but it did its job as it got Smith some exposure and just had him dominate like he was supposed to do. This worked fine for what it was although it was long. Boring match but it did its job.

More from the Sting/Vader movie.

Smith says he wants to be world champion. He needs to work on his mic skills.

Johnny talks about the UK tour and Missy whines.

Bischoff is with Orndorff who says nothing as Cactus Jack is waiting for him.

Cactus Jack vs. Paul Orndorff

This is falls count anywhere. Jack was completely revolutionary at the time as no one had seen anyone as nuts as he was. He had been there a year already though so it’s not like he was still new. This is more or less Cactus doing his thing while Orndorff just being there because he drew money six and a half years ago. Jack hits that sunset flip off the apron for two and we’re finally in the ring.

This is a huge brawl or what passes for a huge brawl in 1993. They fight into the crowd which was a new thing back then. This started over a number one contenders match. Jack takes a suplex where his back landed on the railing. That has to hurt like freaking hell. Orndorff keeps going after the knee as this has been far better than I expected it to be, which wasn’t much at all. We get a figure four and apparently this isn’t no DQ. Ok, what the hell?

What about all the weapons shots from earlier on? So a knee brace isn’t a foreign object? After a chair shot to the knee, Orndorff signals for a piledriver but Jack gets the shovel he’s been carrying around and a shot to the head gets the out of nowhere pin.

Rating: B-. It was good but the ending came out of freaking nowhere. I liked this more than I should have though. The key thing here though: the young guy goes over. In a year and a half when Hogan showed up that got reversed and it eventually is what killed WCW off.

Johnny B. Badd offers analysis. I need a drink.

Smokey Mountain Tag Titles: Rock N Roll Express vs. Heavenly Bodies

The Bodies are Stan Lane and Tom Pritchard, which makes little sense because Bobby Eaton is with them. I’m kind of glad that they didn’t go with the Midnights here. This one is hard to screw up. I think the Bodies were using the Freebird Rule. Oh ok Eaton is thrown out to a lot of booing. Why in the world are these guys on WCW? I get the history but SMW in WCW? That’s just odd as hell. Morton gets a nice hurricanrana to start us out.

They do a cool/funny sequence where Morton has a wrist lock on and keeps swinging Lane around in circles and he can’t catch a tag. The Express is dominating here. Cornette hugging Pritchard is great stuff. Cornette is just awesomeness in a bad suit. Jesse implies Cornette is gay which you have to be a political geek to get. Don’t ask and I won’t tell you about it. The faces haven’t been in trouble yet at all. Cornette gets taken down to a HUGE pop.

The RNRE just standing in the corner is priceless stuff. Cornette finally interferes to break up the hot streak and the tennis racket gets a shot in to draw great heat. We get the eternal question of what is Pritchard a doctor of and Jesse suggests gynecology. That’s just odd as hell to hear on a wrestling show. He’s the doctor of disaster of all things. That’s so indy level I can’t even wrap my mind around it.

The Bodies are the champions here which I completely forgot to mention. This is the same formula that they’ve used for years and it works fine here. Morton gets the hell beaten out of him and finally Gibson comes in for the save. The double dropkick connects but Cornette makes the interfering save. Eaton comes in for the save but it misses and Gibson gets the pin for the titles.

Rating: B-. This was fine. It’s the same thing they did about a million times in SMW so they knew what they were doing. This was all for the live crowd as these teams were more or less legendary in the area. The decision would be reversed later and the Bodies would get the titles back.

More from the Sting movie.

US Title: Maxx Payne vs. Dustin Rhodes

Payne is replacing Ron Simmons. Rhodes just couldn’t have been blander if his life depended on it. Payne is from the State of Euphoria which I hear X is governor of. The fans are DEAD. I mean no one cares at all and why should they? Every time I look up someone is leaving on the camera side. That should tell you a lot about this epic encounter.

This match is just boring as hell as it’s like a Chris Jericho list of holds. Why do people think fans want to see this? Dustin Rhodes was just boring as all hell but his dad was booking so there we are. After over ten minutes of this mindless crap, Dustin hooks an abdominal stretch and Payne shoves the referee for the DQ. Really? Post match Dustin beats up Payne. This was awful.

Rating: F. What the hell did we need to spend ten minutes on this for? You can have short matches you know. It’s not going to kill you. Also, MAXX PAYNE is the best replacement you can come up with? Was Arn Anderson too injured or something?

Flair comes out to present the winner of the NWA Title match the belt. The pop is freaking awesome and he says he’s back.

NWA Title: Barry Windham vs. Great Muta

Flair is on commentary here. He would be perfect at that job today. This is a great example of why the NWA would never get anywhere: they insisted on doing things their way and having their own champions etc. No one cared about either of these two guys so they just insisted that they get TWENTY FIVE MINUTES on a WCW PPV. Why in the world should I care about these guys? The belt was just a name anymore but the NWA insisted it was still all about them.

It’s not NWA SuperBrawl or anything like that but hey, let’s make the longest match of the night about them. There’s just one problem: this match SUCKS. It’s 25 minutes long. After a minute we hit a headlock. At 9 and a half minutes in we break that headlock. Seriously, for nearly ten minutes it was a single headlock. The commentators have to try to make this seem interesting and epic and you can tell they don’t care either.

WCW would be out of the NWA to kill the freaking thing dead in September of 93. It’s been another 12 minutes since I typed anything as there is NOTHING to talk about. Muta tries two moonsaults and gets a bad jumping DDT (I think) for his troubles to lose the title. Flair hands Windham the belt and Windham shoves him. That showdown wouldn’t come for three months so Windham could have a title reign that no one remembers or cares about I guess.

Rating: F-. This was just freaking awful. What in the hell was the point to having this anyway? Oh yes: to please the almighty NWA that no one cared about. Seriously, they couldn’t just accept that they were over and they still can’t to this day. Flair got the title in June before the NWA got dumped in September.

They waited A YEAR before crowning a new champion in Shane Douglas. Dude seriously, if you insist on being a big deal, wait a few weeks, not a freaking year. This was awful on so many levels.

With no transition it’s main event time.

Sting vs. Vader

Strap match here. This is non title even though Vader is world champion. Somehow that was ok though. We’re going non sanctioned here too. It’s four corners rules by the way. They have a tug of war which of course Sting gets destroyed in. Vader is just kicking Sting’s ass. Or is he whipping it? I’m not sure. Sting fights back to some MASSIVE pops. Sting busts out an enziguri of all things and not a bad one at all.

This was without a doubt the money match in the company at the time as Sting was the undisputed top face other than the returning Flair and Vader was a guy that no one could fight except for Sting. We go to the floor and Sting tries touching posts which apparently counts. Vader is bleeding from his back. That shows a lot right there. Vader hits a Samoan Drop from the top rope and Sting is more or less dead.

The whole without breaking momentum rule was always confusing to me. The Vader Bomb misses and the fans are right back into it. It’s amazing that they’re still alive after the two awful matches they just watched. Both guys start bleeding with Sting’s head being cut and Vader’s ear bleeding which I think is legit as his hand never went there. Sting gets a GREAT German suplex on Vader to put him down.

Sting just punches Vader down in the corner which is an awesome visual. In an INSANE display of strength, Sting throws Vader over his shoulders and just carries him to three corners. Sometimes you just have to say fuck it and do your thing. He trips over the fallen referee though and can’t get the fourth. Vader gets three and Sting accidently kicks him into number four to get the ring. That was awesome.

Rating: A-. This was just a freaking battle. Sting vs. Vader is a great example of a match that’s just hard to get wrong. It was weird to see a top face just get beaten cleanly like Vader would do to Sting but the fans totally bought it so they ran with this for about two years.

The key though: the matches were almost always great. That’s the difference between this and HHH/Orton. Those matches just suck yet these are always good. That makes this feud work much better. Great match and I’m not shocked at all. Other than a 6 day reign in England by Sting, Vader would hold the title until Starrcade when Flair took him out.

And Windham says a bunch of bullshit that no one cares about other than to remind us that this is STILL THE NWA DAMNIT!

Overall Rating: C+. This was ok but not great. It’s a show where the matches don’t add up to a good show even though the matches are good. The NWA and US Titles just sucked the fucking life out of them and it showed badly. They just had to make it about guys no one cared about and Dusty’s son. This just wasn’t interesting overall but it was still a decent show. Definitely check out Sting/Vader but not much else. It’s not bad but I’ll forget the show in about two hours.
 
SuperBrawl IV
Date: February 20, 1994
Location: Gray Civic Center, Albany, Georgia
Attendance: 7,600
Commentators: Bobby Heenan, Tony Schiavone

For no reason that I can find anywhere, this was never released on home video. I simply don’t understand that. Why not? It doesn’t look like much on paper but WCW and Turner would put ANYTHING on VHS to make a quick buck off of it. Bischoff is in charge now kind of and Bill Watts is gone so the show is more or less automatically better than last year’s was. Flair is booking the show mind you, so this really is a new era for the company.

This is highlighted by two Thundercage matches which more or less is a cage that curves up to the top. It’s nothing special but it’s Vader vs. Flair so I can’t complain. Other than that the card is more or less a complete clusterfuck with so much going on that it’s hard to really see a point at all. Let’s go as I haven’t seen this show ever before.

The opening video talks about various matches going on tonight, none of which sound interesting in the slightest. Ok Vader vs. Flair sounds ok. We actually see Flair training which is something you never really see. He says he’s going to run Vader out of gas. If anyone could do that, it’s Flair.

His cardiovascular conditioning is better than anyone’s in history more than likely. Seeing him lift weights is just odd indeed. For no apparent reason, Big Boss Man is refereeing there. We also have Badd vs. Michael Hayes which started out yesterday but tonight they’re FINALLY settling it.

Michael Hayes vs. Johnny B. Badd

Badd is still just a comedy character that no one likes yet. Actually people like him. They’re just idiots though. He has two Badd Blasters to shoot freaking glitter and confetti though as he has nothing better to do with his life. And Hayes is in a wheelchair with Jimmy Garvin pushing him.

Hayes says that he fell down the stairs but Garvin says that he slipped on a banana peel while they suck up Nick Bockwinkle. I actually don’t recognize Garvin with short hair. That mullet he had could have shielded a small country. He shoots his mouth off and he’s the replacement now. Ok so the match is with Garvin and apparently in 45 minutes or so.

Harlem Heat vs. Thunder and Lightning

Thunder and Lightning were rookies, meaning this had no point being on PPV. Harlem Heat would one day become great but here they’re relatively new. They debuted in August so it’s not like they’re well known or anything. Also they’re named Kane (Stevie Ray) and Kole (Booker T). Heenan rips the white guys like there’s no tomorrow as he’s in his element here. Seriously, Thunder and Lightning is the best name you can come up with?

I never got the Heat having their names changed. They look exactly the same as they would in later years with the same outfits and everything but their names were changed. It helped a lot but I never got the point to it. You could tell that Booker had that it factor to be a big deal. Tony thinks the winner here should get a title shot. We get a camera into Flair’s dressing room to show that he is indeed sitting in it. Apparently Steamboat gets a title shot at the next PPV.

That one is coming soon. Thunder gets the hot tag and no one cares. His dropkick misses completely but Kane (that just sounds weird to type) sells it anyway. Kole kicks the hell out of Thunder for the pin.

Rating: C-. This wasn’t bad but I just couldn’t have cared less. Heenan calling them Batman and Robin the whole time was funny if nothing else. This just wasn’t very good. It’s not bad to be fair, but this got 10 minutes for two rookie teams. Who thought this was a good idea?

There’s a ton of security outside Flair’s dressing room as Vader threatened him.

Jungle Jim Steele vs. The Equalizer

Steele is I think an Indian character or something. Oh it’s Tarzan or something. This feels like something from the mid 70s. Apparently Steele has been on a winning streak or something but he keeps winning in like three minutes. Equalizer would be Evad Sullivan in a few months. Again, this is getting PPV time. What does that tell you about 1993-1994 WCW? Steele doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page.

Seriously, JUNGLE JIM Steele? That’s the best they can come up with? He looks like a combination of Jimmy Snuka and Ultimate Warrior. What does that tell you? They try to point out the history of great opening matches in SuperBrawl history, although the matches they mention didn’t open the show. We hear the name Hulk Hogan. Yeah that’s not foreshadowing at all. And Steele hits a Thesz Press for the pin out of nowhere.

Rating: F-. It’s called the Steele Trap. That makes this a failure alone. I can’t emphasize how stupid this was. Seriously, THIS got 7 minutes of people paying for it. That boggles my mind.

The question on the Hotline is was it fair for Bockwinkle to say Garvin has to wrestle or be suspended. Yeah he’s going to suspend a retired guy.

Steamboat is named the official number one contender to the winner of Flair vs. Vader. Gene asks if he knew about the added security in the locker room he left to come do this interview. My head hurts again. Damn how awesome would a long Steamboat vs. Vader have been?

Diamond Dallas Page vs. Terry Taylor

Page is a biker here as he’s more or less worthless. Then we have Taylor who just is worthless. Page had been doing this thing where he would draw names out of a bowl for who he was going to fight but they were always retired or something like that. Taylor called him out so Page got a box full of bricks and hit him in the head with it, which should have killed him. I can’t get over this: it is 1994 and TERRY TAYLOR is wrestling on PPV. How in the hell is that possible?

Page is REALLY bad at this point as he’s completely unpolished and was just a really hard worker. Page hooks a cobra clutch as his offense was just all over the place at this point. I don’t think he had the Diamond Cutter yet. Apparently the future world champion taught Randy Orton how to wrestle given all of these chinlocks.

This is ridiculous anymore with all the rest holds. It always makes me wonder: what are they resting from? And then Taylor throws DDP into the corner and rolls him up for the pin. Again, it was like they ran out of time and had to finish all of a sudden.

Rating: D-. Dude, TERRY TAYLOR was on PPV in 1994. Why would I want to pay my money to watch this bullshit?

The WCW announcer from Germany is here. And moving on.

Spring Stampede is the next PPV. Again, that one is coming as it Slamboree 94 so I’ll have all PPVs from 1994 covered.

Johnny B. Badd vs. Jimmy Garvin

I have to put up with his entrance twice tonight. What bus full of nuns did I run over in a previous life? The Freebirds would be gone in about two months. This is another one of those matches that have no business being on PPV but it is anyway and will get at least ten minutes. I get that this was Flair’s first time booking, but seriously, get him some better talent and have Flair think some more. In the last match it was a lot of chinlocks.

This is a lot of using the armbar. Oh and a lot of strutting. This is another one of those matches that just isn’t interesting at all but they just keep going with it anyway because they have to fill time. I hate matches like that. Let’s have another armbar while we’re at it.

Garvin controls most of the match because it makes sense for a guy that wasn’t very good in the first place to “not wrestle for two years” to come back and dominate the younger and better guy in Badd. Badd gets his big knockout punch and then has to go up top for the sunset flip off the top. Post match the heels beat up Badd with what would become known as the Stunner.

Rating: D. Again, WHY WOULD I PAY FOR THIS STUFF??? Garvin isn’t even a big name other than from about 7 years before. This would be like having Maven wrestle on Raw. There’s no point to it and the match was boring as hell anyway.

Vader is banging a chair against a wall and shouts no interviews at Gene.

TV Title: Steven Regal vs. Arn Anderson

The real man’s man is the champion here. The idea here was simple: they just kept telling these two to go out and have a 25-30 minute war so they did about 4-5 times, including here. The only problem here was that the fans didn’t really want to see these two do that match this often, as a lot of the time they were about 10 minutes of chinlocks and rest holds. They were interesting to a point, but once they fell off they fell off quickly.

We have Buffer doing the intro here so you know it’s a big deal. Anderson is said to be from Apple Valley, Minnesota. Is that some nickname for Minneapolis which is where he’s been from EVERY OTHER TIME? The title looks different here and they should have stuck with that one as it’s much better looking than the one that it usually was. They start with a long wrestling sequence which is ok but it’s just kind of boring. Screw the kind of aspect. This is boring as hell.

Bobby tries to push the PPV to people to buy it halfway through. He does get in a good NASCAR line saying that if he wanted to watch cars go by he’d go sit by the interstate. That’s very true actually. We’re six minutes in and they’re still feeling each other out. Regal busts out a nip up. That came from nowhere. Regal works on the arm. He works on it very slowly, but he is indeed working on it. Arn works on Regal’s arm.

I wish someone would work on my arm so I’d have something to be interested in. We’ll ignore the big bandage on Regal’s leg because it would make too much sense to do that I guess. This is just a freaking boring match. There’s a ton of arm work but it’s like they’re just meandering from spot to spot as Arn FINALLY works on the bad leg after 25 freaking minutes. Seriously, this has gone nearly half an hour now.

Anderson is covered in glitter from Badd. He deserves better than this. Sir William, Regal’s manager keeps losing and regaining his accent. That’s always amusing. They keep announcing the time remaining which doesn’t mesh with the time I have on the counter here. And with 10 seconds to go Anderson goes for a sunset flip and the manager throws the umbrella up there so Regal can grab it and holds it for the pin. That makes me hate this show in ways I never thought possible.

Rating: D. I sat through 30 minutes for that? Seriously, they made this 30 minutes long??? Was everyone injured or something? Steamboat is in a damn suit and he couldn’t have had a 5 minute match or something to cut about ten off of this? That’s freaking DUMB man. This went 27 minutes. That’s just unforgivable.

We get a quick recap of Jack and Payne vs. the Nasties. The Nastys lost a non title match. That’s all there is to it.

Tag Titles: Cactus Jack/Maxx Payne vs. Nasty Boys

Naturally we get the big match intros which mean nothing here. Payne was annoying as hell and not that good. Jack is of course epically awesome. Some very hot blonde is at ringside. I’m pretty sure Cactus and Payne are the faces here. They again try so hard to make someone, Payne in this case, a big deal and it still doesn’t work. The fans are dea here despite the company trying to push Cactus as a big deal.

Two to one says the champions keep their belts. Payne was one of those guys that never did anything but was supposed to be a big deal anyway. He’s more commonly known as Man Mountain Rock in case you didn’t know that one. Who thought this was a good matchup anyway? Cactus comes in for the hot tag to clean house and the match picks up a bit.

This is far less of a match and far more of a fight, which makes sense given that the second most talented guy in the match is freaking Brian Knobbs. HOLY SHIT Foley just got knocked from the apron to the exposed concrete and landed on his fucking HEAD. He’s got to have a damn concussion. He has to. So the idiot Sags kicks him in the head. Keep in mind, you can see them TONIGHT on Impact!

They have to bring up Lost in Cleveland after that. That’s a story we’ll cover someday. Think of the dumbest angle you’ve ever heard of. This is worse. This feels like one of those bad ECW matches that they have a bad name for putting on time and time again. The rematch would be far better but that’s not saying a lot. This thing needs to end, like NOW. Payne gets his armbar (yeah that’s his finisher) on Knobbs but Sags gets a guitar shot to him for the DQ to end it.

Rating: D. It’s an ok brawl but a terrible match. The Cactus bump was great but just another reason why Foley isn’t going to know his name about three years from now. Still though, this could have been far worse but it was boring as hell. Why have these guys try to wrestle?

Flair says he wants Vader but mentions Hogan also. Yeah he was locked in already. Steamboat is glad he’s the number one contender. Anderson shows up to offer his support as well.

They cut the lights for the cage to be lowered and Tony says hide your wallets since it’s dark and Heenan is in the building. That made me laugh.

Steve Austin/Rick Rude/Paul Orndorff vs. Sting/Dustin Rhodes/Brian Pillman

Austin is feuding with Rhodes, Rude is feuding with Sting and I don’t remember Orndorff vs. Pillman. Think of Thundercage as a weak Hell in a Cell but it’s the same idea, minus a top to it. It curves to the top though so it’s kind of like the red Terrordome that TNA uses. That’s good: a combination HIAC and Terrordome. Austin vs. Sting is an awesome matchup that would have made MILLIONS in 1998.

Apparently Austin is feuding with Pillman and Rhodes is having a small feud with Orndorff. That makes more sense I guess. They actually have to tag in and out. Why? It’s a damn cage match for crying out loud. Pillman is busted just a tiny bit. Rude is the International Champion, which is a parody/replacement for the NWA Title. It would be merged with the WCW Title soon enough. Ok, upon further review, the cage doesn’t come up like Terrordome.

It just curves up a tiny bit. It’s a cheap version of HIAC. Go with that instead. Sting gets the hot tag to clean house, but that’s freaking stupid because it’s A CAGE MATCH! For one thing the star power is helping a lot here. Before this it felt like a bunch of midcard matches. Now we’re getting some big names. Ok just two but it’s better than nothing I guess. Dustin comes in and punches the hell out of Orndorff.

Rude comes in and counters the bulldog, Dustin’s finisher, to take back over. Rude would get hurt against Sting soon to end his career. Austin gets slammed into the cage to finally use the damn thing. He’s US Champion here mind you, even though that means nothing at all. It finally breaks down and they all go in at once. Sting gorilla presses Brian and throws him at Austin for the pin. Sting gets beaten up by Rude afterwards. They were supposed to fight the next month but it didn’t happen.

Rating: C+. Better than anything else tonight but not by much. The star power helped a lot here. The match isn’t bad at all but it’s far from great. This was mainly about Sting vs. Rude and it came off pretty well. It’s not great but it’s a breath of air here so there we go.

We recap Flair vs. Vader. It’s the rematch but Flair was injured in a tag match at Clash of the Champions. The match was off but now it’s back on. This took 5 minutes to explain.

WCW World Title: Vader vs. Ric Flair

Big Boss Man is the referee remember. It doesn’t mean anything but he was signed recently so here he is. He would also fight Vader for the better part of a year. Vader’s attire is different as his chest is covered. I’d guess injury or something. Naturally this is a fight more than a match. Vader dominates but just like at Starrcade Flair keeps fighting back here and there. Boss Man (Heenan’s words, not mine) gets nailed and handcuffed to the cage as Race comes in.

Note: Race almost fell through one of the squares. Anderson and Steamboat come out and try for the door because they’re idiots. Steamboat smacks the lock with a chair but it won’t work. He clearly says son of a bitch, breaking my feeble world at the same time. Boss Man ribs the cuffs off the cage and hits Vader with a nightstick in the knee so Flair puts some leg lock on him.

Note that I didn’t say Figure Four as that’s not what it was. They blew the hell out of whatever it was and Boss Man calls for the bell without even looking at Vader. Flair keeps the title and gets Steamboat next month.

Rating: D. Somehow this got 11 minutes. Yeah, the main event got eleven minutes, or about what Taylor and DDP got. The insanity started about 6 minutes in. Even the Attitude Era wasn’t that bad. This was a total disaster and rushed as hell. I’ve seen worse cage matches, but not that many of them. This would have been FAR better with about 5-7 more minutes. At least it would have felt more like a main event. But hey, Regal had armbars and chinlocks to use in that time I guess.

Overall Rating: D-. This was just awful all around. Nothing is interesting, nothing is any good, the main event is crap, the first 3 or 4 matches belong on Power Hour or something, and nothing wound up mattering anyway. This show was terrible but since it was never released on VHS, it’s not like most people would have access to it anyway. Maybe that was the point.
 
SuperBrawl V
Date: February 19, 1995
Location: Baltimore Arena, Baltimore, Maryland
Attendance: 13, 390
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan

So more or less we’re killing more time with the whole terrible WCW feuds around this time. Nothing of note is any different at all other than we have Hogan vs. Vader for the world title tonight. The rest of this show just looks terrible though as nothing at all interesting is happening. All that being said, 1995 is a year I remember fondly for some reason and since Genesis from last night is still downloading, let’s get to this.

We open with the Nasty Boys talking about how they like Baltimore and they go to the Maryland Science Center. What the fuck am I watching? Seriously, they’re doing science experiments with static electricity. WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS??? Brian can’t find Jerry and we’re going to the aquarium now. We’re at three and a half minutes of this so far and now Brian is looking at sea stars. Now we’re going to the rain forest.

Is this supposed to be comedic or interesting or something? Honestly, I have no idea what the point of this is. Brian Knobbs is just walking around the science center. Oh apparently Sags was locked in a submarine. I’m not making that up although I wish I was. Oh they found each other.

They play with a dolphin and are eating crabs. Apparently it was a dream sequence as they wake up in a restaurant and Sags says to eat up as they have to go to SuperBrawl. WHAT THE FUCK??? This was six minutes long and now we’re just going to ignore it I guess? Never let it be said that this was a traditional company.

The intro is about Hogan vs. Vader of course and now we’re with the hosts. Heenan is DRUNK. I mean he can barely talk at all. We go to a clip from earlier of Vader arriving and yelling at a cameraman. Another limo shows up that Tony says he was in. Vader keeps screaming for Hogan and Tony pops out and runs.

Seriously, TONY SCHIAVONE has his own limo? What is wrong with this show??? Later, on the Main Event, which was WCW’s pre-PPV show, he destroys the set and then goes to the ring and fucks more people up. After 12 minutes have elapsed on the video, we actually GO TO A MATCH!!!!

Paul Roma vs. Alex Wright

GO BACK TO THE VIDEO PACKAGES!!! This match is kind of infamous as it got Roma fired from the company for the way he acted in it. More or less Roma was sent out there to put Wright over and nothing else. Roma, thinking for some reason that he’s worth more than Wright and for some reason that he’s simply not going to get in trouble for what he’s about to pull, more or less just made Wright look terrible and embarrassed him to no end.

Naturally he was gone and hasn’t been seen on a major show since. Roma is completely dominating so far although to be fair we’re a minute into this. Wright keeps trying to take over but Roma keeps fighting back which he shouldn’t do at all here. OH MAN Heenan is gone. You can barely understand him half the time. Orndorff, Roma’s tag partner, comes down to ringside. Roma I guess allows Wright to get an armbar to control a bit.

He’s showing off again though with a lot of power moves as Wright has done more or less nothing so far. Basically Roma is controlling the whole thing and is making sure Wright gets nothing. Even on a backslide he won’t let Wright get him down easily, fighting him the whole way before kicking out at one to make it look even weaker. Roma is a jobber to the stars at this point so this should be a glorified squash for Wright who was getting a pretty decent push around this time.

See, Wright starts a comeback and Roma avoids a dropkick. A SWEET top rope elbow from Roma connects. Note again, that’s going to be the biggest and most memorable spot in the match, as in Roma is the one getting remembered. Roma won’t even let him do a hiptoss, more or less intentionally botching it. You have to feel bad for Wright here. He’s 18 years old and he’s got one of the biggest matches of his career at a major PPV against a former Horseman.

He’s told that it’ll more or less be a dominating performance by Wright, or at worst pretty even and the guy out there isn’t cooperating whatsoever. That’s ridiculous on all levels to make a kid like Wright have to work on the fly like this. Wright hits one of his big moves, a spin wheel kick, and Roma gets up at one again. Roma talks to Paul and it lets Wright get a dropkick to the back and a rollup. Roma AGAIN kicks out but Randy Anderson the referee is just like fuck it and calls for the bell.

Rating: D. To make something clear here: Alex Wright is in ZERO way responsible for this match being bad. Roma completely fucked this up by being 100% unprofessional out there and in the process destroyed both of their careers. Wright, while still undefeated, looks completely weak here as he can’t beat a guy like Roma without a total fluke so his push more or less died and Roma was out in a few days. This was totally uncalled for and bogus as hell. Roma, grow up. You need to.

Gene is with Sherri and Harlem Heat. She says that the Nastys won’t get the titles tonight. They have just gotten credibility at this point so these promos are actually important. They’re Booker and Stevie now also.

Bunkhouse Buck vs. Jim Duggan

THANKFULLY Duggan was back to the midcard at this point. The theme song is catchy though. To the shock of no one, this is mainly a brawl. Meng just looks bored as hell out there. The fans do a WEAK USA chant. And we’re in a chinlock 3 minutes in. That’s never a good sign. Heenan is so drunk it’s pathetic. This of course turns into a brawl which is ok but it’s nothing we haven’t seen before. If nothing else though this is what both guys do best.

Duggan curses at the referee. That’s very un-American if I’ve ever heard something that’s Un-American. I think he’s a Commie! Duggan is dominating here and then he goes after the Colonel. At least he’s being true to his intelligence. And then Buck gets slammed into Parker and the Three Point Clothesline, which is a dumber move than the Clothesline From Hell. Meng kicks him in the face afterwards. This led to Meng vs. Duggan in a karate match at Uncensored which is worse than it sounds.

Rating: D. Oh this was bad. Seriously, who thought that a twelve minute match here was a good idea? Why should Duggan be on television in 1995? I don’t think either of those questions were…oh yeah Hogan is running the place with a guaranteed contract so his buddies are getting jobs.

And we transition right from that to the Nasty Boys who have a tag title shot tonight. They say they’re ready for Harlem Heat. That’s not a very scientific thing to say. They say something about Sherri. I really don’t want to keep watching this show for some reason. It’s just dragging like hell.

Kevin Sullivan vs. Dave Sullivan

Oh this isn’t going to help is it? Dave’s music sounds like the theme of a bad sitcom. Tony Schiavone refers to the boots that Hogan gave to Dave that he “wore to beat Andre the Giant” as the magic slippers. I am trying very hard to maintain my temper right now. Did I mention that Dave Sullivan is a REALLY BAD wrestler? No actually he’s not a wrestler. He’s a guy that gets paid to get in a ring and fill time.

Brutus, called the Butcher here, is with Kevin. The fans couldn’t be more silent. They keep changing Dave’s name to Evad to try to keep up with the idea of him being dyslexic from earlier in this feud. This match needs to end now. I mean RIGHT NOW. Heenan is sobering up a bit I think.

This is so bad it makes the bad wrestling that Herman Munster had to do on the Munsters in the episode where he wrestled. And Kevin rams Dave into Butcher’s face to get the pin. This led to Butcher being called The Man With No Face. You can’t make this shit up.

Rating: F. I had to sit through this too? Are you kidding me? Somehow having no face was an improvement over what he had now. This was brutally bad, but then again that could be said for most Beefcake matches after 1990.

Earthquake and Big Boss Man do a promo that belongs in the 80s on a bad indy show.

Tag Titles: Harlem Heat vs. Nasty Boys

Why is it that 15 years later the Nasty Boys are still on television but Harlem Heat, a much better team, isn’t? The Heat’s entrance takes about 5 minutes. Booker shouts out to a fan and calls him a dumb idiot. If you’re a dumb idiot, then does that mean you’re bad at being an idiot and therefore you’re smart? Why am I wasting my time to think about this stuff? Oh because Jerry Sags is in this match. We’ve stalled for 2-3 minutes since the bell now deciding who goes first.

Literally it’s taken 8 minutes since the time the Nasty Boys’ music started to first contact. Nasties are the faces here in case you were wondering. It’s naturally primarily a brawl to start and the Nasties control. Booker gets an AWESOME looking dropkick on Sags. It connected perfectly. Sags uses a bad clothesline to counter. And now it’s a LONG chinlock that is making this even worse. We’re at 9 minutes now so this has to end soon right?

Only an idiot would have them go longer than that. Oh shit this is going to be a long ass match isn’t it? Tony declares this Clothesline-A-Mania. Oh dear. One person in this match is a good wrestler. Count him: Booker T. See that’s ONE! Sherri accidently hits Stevie with something to cause him to get pinned (read as Knobbs managed to fuck up the rollup so badly that Stevie had to lay backwards and pretend to be struggling at the same time. That is impressive if nothing else.

How do you botch a rollup anyway?). Another referee runs out to say something though. Oh one of the referees says that Sags threw Booker over the top rope and apparently that warrants a DQ. Nick Patrick needs to clean his shirt more. It looks a bit DUSTY. Wouldn’t want to have the FINISH on that shirt mess up.

Rating: F+. Dude, the Nasty Boys had a 15 minute match with a Dusty Finish. Do you realize how much torture this was? I can’t take much more of this. Please….tell me the next match is good?

Sting and Macho are ready for their match with the 80s heels.

Blacktop Bully vs. Dustin Rhodes

Bully is more commonly known as Smash or Repo Man. This is seriously the best they could put together? Dustin would be fired for the rematch: the King of the Road match, where the idea was they were in the back of a big truck which was driving along the road and the first person to pull a horn got the win. It’s somehow worse than it sounds but we’ll get to that later. Meng is thrown out before the match starts.

This is seriously Dustin Rhodes against the battling truck driver. Dustin is wearing gold by the way. That’s rather amusing. Naturally this is mainly a fight. I can’t get over the fact that this feud was already in FREAKING WARGAMES and we’re still having it here, 5 months later. Seriously, what in the world could there be left to fight about? The scary thing is that the feud ended because Dustin got fired, not because the feud itself ended.

Bully’s finisher is called the Breaker 1 9. Oh dear indeed. They’re having Smash work a ten minute plus technical match. Honestly, who thought this was smart? You have Sting and Savage in the next match and this is going to get more time than that. You could serious watch this match in fast forward and you wouldn’t miss a damn thing. I mean it’s the same stuff over and over again with nothing new added in at all.

Unless you like hearing truck driving jokes from Tony and hearing him kiss Dusty Rhodes’ ass which could take all day then there’s no reason to watch this. Rhodes is in trouble and Heenan says come on Bully, give him that parking ticket. In other words, Heenan is so gone that for one thing, he thinks that sounds good and number two, he thinks truck drivers have the authority to give parking tickets.

We spend three minutes talking about that Rhodes fire. And don’t let me get started about how many Rhodes and driving a truck on said Rhodes jokes they used. Dustin suplexes Parker in and that’s apparently a big deal. Never mind the whole double cage match where Dustin got to beat the living hell out of him. In one of the most clichéd endings there is, Dustin goes for a suplex and Parker hooks his foot so that Bully is able to get the pin. Heenan must have had a shot as he’s slurring again.

Rating: G. This is beyond failing. Let me make this clear: Goldust and Repo Man had an 18 minute match where we had non-stop truck driver jokes. We kept hearing about that damn top wristlock (yes, that’s what Darsow’s finisher was. Smash’s real name is Barry Darsow in case you didn’t know) and we never even see it. This is now I believe the standard method of torture in 9 states.

We talk about Hogan vs. Vader which at least has been talked about a lot during the night.

We go to Vader and Gene in the back and the large man with limited hair, an annoying voice and no desire to be here asks Vader about the main event tonight. Vader was freaky as hell when he was pissed off. He of course says he’ll kill Hogan.

Ric Flair is here and all of a sudden is a good guy again. He’s still retired after Halloween Havoc. I think we’re at about two months before he came back.

Sting/Randy Savage vs. Big Bubba/Avalanche

Bubba is Big Boss Man in a suit for no apparent reason. This is about exactly what you would expect it to be: Sting and Savage take turns beating up the big men and then getting beaten down for awhile until they can switch places. Yes it’s basic as hell, but a lot of the time that’s the best course to take. The heels are at their best here: being big and fat and not having to do much of anything as they have two masters in there with them to walk them through a good match.

Both evildoers are decent enough to make this passable also, but I do wonder why Earthquake is considered good enough to be employed at this point in the same gimmick. Anyway, it goes about ten minutes and it eventually ends with Sting slipping off the top and the cross body more or less turning into a flying shoulder block instead. Flair and Savage yell at each other as their mega feud was about to kick off.

Rating: B-. Again this was simple but well done. They didn’t try to go out and have some epic match that got way too much time and you wanted it to end like nothing else in the world. This was a very basic tag match and it worked very well. I could easily see this headlining a house show and getting a solid crowd for it.

Heenan goes on a drunken rant about Hogan and Tony is losing it.

Hogan says he’s ready. Apparently the power lies in his palm. Oh dear.

WCW World Title: Vader vs. Hulk Hogan

I would bet my life on Hogan winning on a fluke rollup or a DQ because of Flair after being destroyed for most of the match. Vader is US Champion here I believe. Hogan gets a pop but not a great one. Buffer wearing glasses is just odd. Heenan: Vader is like a phonebook. He has your number. That’s why Heenan is just awesome. Ever seen a Hogan vs. big man match? You’ve seen this one then.

Hogan’s random wrestling move of the match: cross armbreaker. Considering we keep cutting to Flair, we more or less know that he’s going to be involved in the ending for sure. This is your standard Hogan match: he gets beaten on for a long while and gets spurts of offense to stay in it. He uses a chair twice and gets loudly booed. Oh it’s ok though, because it’s about keeping Hulkamania alive. Hogan gets beaten down again and the Hulking Up occurs.

The leg drop connects for two as Vader powers out of it as it’s just a leg drop. The powerbomb hits and Flair runs in to count the three. The real referee gets two and he Hulks Up again. Flair jumps him for the DQ. The reaction from Flair when he can’t hurt Hogan is priceless. Most guys get scared.

Flair gets PISSED OFF. For some reason I love that. He’s more or less going What do I freaking have to do to hurt you??? I’m RIC FUCKING FLAIR DAMN IT! He and Vader beat Hogan down and Sting and Savage make the save to end the show.

Rating: D+. Again this is your Hogan 101, although I hate the DQ ending. More or less they made Vader look like any other guy after building him up for months on end as this lethal force. I mean that’s what ended freaking Starrcade, but that apparently is worth a DQ finish only, as once again it’s about Hogan vs. Flair and Flair will job in the end as he always did to Hogan.

Overall Rating: W. As in wow I cannot believe this show actually happened. There is ONE, count it ONE good match on this entire card and it’s a formula based tag match. I mean there is ZERO appeal here other than that. Dude, BARRY FREAKING DARSOW had a 20 minute match/segment. Jim Duggan and Bunkhouse Buck got 12 minutes. THE NASTY BOYS WERE ON FOR SEVENTEEN DAMN MINUTES.

Did they just forget who was talented here and who wasn’t? Oh yeah, Hogan is running things. Problem explained. Anyone that doesn’t believe Hogan wasn’t pulling strings backstage, I laugh at you. Seriously, how could anyone believe this was a good show on paper and not just know that it wasn’t designed for Hogan’s friends?

I don’t think I’ve ever just not wanted to watch a show as much as I did when I got about 40 minutes into this. I was so bored watching it that I could barely even crack jokes, which is a BAD sign for me. Terrible show and stay away from it. Somehow this would be trumped in awfulness by the next PPV if you can believe that.
 
Superbrawl VI
Date: February 11, 1996
Location: Bayfront Arena, St. Petersburg, Florida
Attendance: 7,200
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan, Dusty Rhodes

So this is an infamous show online for one match which I’ll get to later. It more or less changed a good portion of wrestling due to a joke for smarks and smarks alone, but it didn’t go well. Also it shows the issue of worked shoots. Other than that, Hogan vs. Giant in a cage and Savage vs. Flair for the title. Riveting I know. Savage won it back on Nitro and this is the like 9th world title match between them. Not sure if that’s an exaggeration or not.

I have no idea who that person is that they got to do the voiceover here, but he needs to stop. Totally unfair to let a guy that hasn’t gone through his voice change yet do work like this. Tony talks about how you settle a feud in a cage. True I guess. We have to have a cage match after one guy fell off a roof right

Public Enemy vs. Nasty Boys

Now take notes here you fans that want to learn how to be technical master. This is going to be what NOT to do. It’s a street fight which means hardcore in WCW terms. The Nastys are wearing tennis shoes. Why? Apparently it’s so they can move easily. Sure why not. We’re already on the floor. The Public Enemy bailed on Heyman for a little while but they would be back. Sags wears Rocco out with a chair. Nice shots.

We bust out a table and Rock goes through it. But remember, WCW NEVER stole anything from ECW. Pay no attention to WCW using ECW guys and doing their signature ECW stuff. Pay no attention to it at all, because WCW NEVER used any ECW stuff. Simply misunderstood. Bobby tries to figure out what plundah is. Bobby, as a promoter said to you many moon ago, USE YOUR BRAIN and stay out of there.

Dusty isn’t someone you want to try to understand or want to understand for that matter. There’s only one referee here of course, which is just idiotic as hell. Grunge throws soda in Knobbs’ eyes. Dusty says it was acid. Ok then. We go split screen. This can’t be a good thing.

They’re all spent now so this slows WAY down. Fans kind of care but not really. Rock misses a dive from the stands and crashes through a table. Knobbs pins him. This was just idiotic. On a replay we see Rock getting suplexed through a table. The problem is the table doesn’t break where he lands on it. Nice job of protecting stuff there guys.

Rating: D-. Just a brawl here but nothing of note here at all. It just wasn’t very good at all, even for a big sloppy brawl. I have no idea what the point of this was but it didn’t work well at all. Just boring as hell and I think I’ve padded this well enough.

Konnan reads a promo in Spanish, thanking the fans. He reads it off of a teleprompter but whatever. Gene mentions that on the hotline there’s a rumor of two WWF guys jumping here in a few months. Any guesses who those two would become?

TV Title: Johnny B. Badd vs. Diamond Dallas Page

Hey they’re a spot lower on the card! DDP has nothing left but his money so he’s putting that up here vs. the girl and the title. Kimberly is more or less a cheerleader here. They have a massive check that just says CASH on it. It’s stupid as hell. You can see someone that looks a lot like Linda Hogan in the crowd. These two usually have good chemistry so I can live with that.

Badd throws him over the top but they of course alter the rules AGAIN saying that Badd was on the apron and it might not have been deliberate. This is one of my favorite aspects of these matches as I get to hear the excuses for that idiotic rule. Most amusing. Badd counters more or less everything Dallas does which is pretty decent I guess you would say. The crowd is into this so I can’t complain much.

Bobby makes a great point: Badd is trying to win the money so he can hand it to Kimberly? Why? What can Badd gain here? He’s beaten DDP like 4 times now and can lose his title here. What can he gain here? Kimberly’s acting makes Stephanie look like Meryl Streep. Page is in control but he does NOTHING but showboat after he hits a big move. Even Heenan is yelling at him about it. He hit a tornado DDT and literally walks around yelling at the fans and Kimberly for FORTY seconds.

Badd doesn’t move at all the whole time. DDP isn’t very good. Like at all. He just isn’t very good at all and it’s kind of pitiful. Not sure why but it just comes off like that. Pedro Morales is shown. Pay no attention to the two count and the crowd popping during that shot of Pedro either. I’m sure it meant nothing at all. We’re about 10 minutes into this and Heenan says Badd has been worn down these past 20 minutes.

Did he get beaten up by a bus full of nuns before the match? Did a wild moose stomp him for not paying him for that six dollars he borrowed? Top rope sunset flip gets two. A pretty bad Batista Bomb gets two. They trade sleepers. I’m a bit bored here. And then Badd hits a Tombstone of all things for the pin.

Points for them using something other than their finishers to end the match. There was supposed to be one more match at Uncensored but Badd left to become Mark Mero like a little coward. At least that’s what they called him after it. Badd would drop the belt to Luger before leaving.

Rating: C+. Not bad I guess, but DAMN I’m tired of seeing these two fight. This is what, four straight PPVs for them? We get it: DDP can’t beat Johnny B. Badd. Do you need to tell us that a thousand times? It was competitive, but there was no way Page was winning and everyone knew it.

Harlem Heat talks about their title match against Sting and Luger who beat them for the titles recently. Booker was clearly better than Stevie back then. Apparently the winner of this next match gets to fight the Road Warriors later in the night. Not for the titles mind you, but for the chance for a future title shot. Makes sense right?

Ok apparently later is for the tag titles. At least that makes more sense.

WCW Tag Titles: Sting/Lex Luger vs. Harlem Heat

Apparently the Road Warriors are guaranteeing the champions retain. I wonder who is winning here. Luger pulls an Eric Young and gets scared by the pyro. That’s rather amusing. Was Sting EVER not a champion? He was one of the only guys that wasn’t crushed by Hogan, which was nice as I was and still am a Sting fan. Tony and Bobby get into a debate about wrestlers on rollercoasters. Just go with it.

Sting and Booker start us off. That’s a plus. Also it’s nice to see a career tag team like Luger and Sting. They feuded at times, but they at least teamed together on and off for years. The main thing here is Sting is pure face and Luger is about half heel at least. They don’t get along, but they’re really good partners. Actually the not getting along part is a stretch. They get along, but Sting really doesn’t like Luger’s tactics.

And now we talk about the double main event for no apparent reason. If WCW announcers stayed on topic for more than 8 seconds at a time I’d be STUNNED. Did Luger ever hit that big elbow he would use? I don’t think so. Apparently no one comes to WCW shows and there is no TV, as Tony says the only way to watch WCW, not WCW PPVs but just WCW, is on Pay Per View. Got it.

Thanks for admitting no one watched Nitro Tony. Luger gets a clothesline to the chest. That looked weird. Stevie messes up a powerbomb. That was AWFUL looking. Stevie proceeds to hold Luger’s neck with no visable pressure on it. Wow that’s idiotic looking. And let’s look at the crowd. Sure why not?

Booker is in now and continues to bore the hell out of the crowd in his control of Luger. Sting gets a tag and the referee doesn’t see it. Sting comes in anyway. Love face tactics like that one. And here are the Road Warriors to hit Stevie in the ribs with something metal. Luger falls on top for the pin. At least it’s over.

Rating: D. This was just BORING. It’s not bad at all I guess, but damn this just wasn’t interesting at all. Should be noted that Sting didn’t see Animal hitting him in the ribs. This was just boring as hell though and while the wrestling is ok, I just wanted it to end in the second half.

Gene asks Luger about the ending but Luger cuts him off. Sting still doesn’t know about it I don’t think.

US Title: Konnan vs. One Man Gang

So like I mentioned in the Starrcade review, Gang won the title and Konnan took it from him. Here’s your rematch. Konnan actually gave a damn at this point and it was very apparent. He’s moving all over the place at this point and doing all kinds of weird and big spots that are working really well. To be fair though, I could give Gang a run for his money I think.

Konnan runs around and beats up Gang for about two minutes, as in the first two minutes of the match, but Gang gets one shot in and Dusty proclaims that Konnan has barely been on offense. That’s just amusing. A side slam is called a side salto. Apparently Gang has been called one of the best men in the business for years. What kind of undiscovered years are those Tony? Konnan is selling well too here which is helping a lot also.

Let’s show the WCW NASCAR driver for like 30 seconds. Not like we can have anything of note going on in the ring at the moment. There was a WCW Motorsports? Since when? Gang hits his splash and pulls him up. That should more or less seal this one. Gang goes to the middle rope (called the very top by Tony) and misses to ZERO, I mean ZERO reaction. Konnan goes up and hits a front flip onto Gang for the pin. Wow this was bad.

Rating: D-. Again, One Man Gang as a title contender? What in the hell were they thinking??? This was again just bad and the crowd was deader than Konnan’s career. Terrible match.

The Road Warriors will get the tag belts tonight apparently.

Kevin Sullivan vs. Brian Pillman

This is the match I was referring to earlier when I said there was a massive smark joke. This is a strap match where you have to get your opponent to say I RESPECT YOU into a microphone to end it. Fair enough. Pillman sprints to the ring and they have a very unconventional looking fight. It looks very, dare I say, real?

Pillman gets a few shots in, Sullivan gets a few shots in, and then Pillman runs over to the referee, grabs the mic and famously says “I respect you….booker man.” He then leaves. The never even got the strap unraveled to put it on their wrists. After standing around for a bit, here’s Arn Anderson for an impromptu match.

Rating: N/A. This might have broken 45 seconds. Explanation coming in a minute.

Kevin Sullivan vs. Arn Anderson

Anderson is in street clothes here. Seeing him in shorts is weird. Anderson takes his shirt off and we’re getting a match apparently. The Horsemen had been feuding with the Dungeon of Doom in case you were looking for what Anderson had to do with this. If nothing else there’s a point to having Anderson there so it makes sense.

Anderson grabs the mic and has to stop himself from cursing. He beats the living hell out of Sullivan and neither guy will say it. Flair finally runs out and says that this doesn’t need to happen, saying they don’t need to fight, more or less starting the Alliance To End Hulkamania. Flair saved this segment. Flair rants about Hogan and leaves.

Rating: D. Not even a match but for something totally unplanned to fill about 5 minutes this was fine. I'm going to cut this grade short to get to the explanation. Can't really blame them in an impromptu situation though.

Ok, so what the hell just happened? In short, everyone, including Anderson and Flair, just got worked. Sullivan and Pillman cooked up this idea to have a “shoot” match and a “shoot” angle. This was back in the day where smarks were gaining accessibility to information via the internet. The biggest bit of news was that Sullivan was the booker for WCW, as in he picked most of the matches that aired.

The fans found this out, so Sullivan and Pillman did this kind of as a nod to them. There was one problem: They didn’t tell ANYBODY else. To everyone but them, Pillman had just totally broken kayfabe on national TV and walked out on a match. Sullivan knew what was going on, but the announcers didn’t, the fans didn’t, the executives didn’t, and the wrestlers didn’t.

They threw Anderson out there to try to put on something to make it look “real” in a kayfabe sense and I guess Flair came out there because they didn’t know what else to do or he was the planned ending of the other match. Anyway, later that night Pillman and Sullivan explained what was going on to the roster and a few executives and smoothed a lot of this over. Obviously Sullivan let them keep going with it because it was about half his idea.

So I think the next night on Nitro, Pillman did another “shoot” (remember that it’s all planned but it comes off like it’s real, as in real life real but it’s still all planned) where he says he wants out of his contract and to be released. Here’s where it goes insane: WCW RELEASED HIM. The very higher ups, as in the guys that handled contracts, didn’t know that this was all planned and the roster was in on it, so they let him go.

The thing was, Pillman had no problem with leaving and was in ECW like a day later. He hung out there for a couple of months and then was in WWF free and clear. Now, Bischoff in his book claimed to know about this and that it was all planned for Pillman to go to ECW, but no one other than Bischoff has ever made anything close to such a claim. In short, I don’t buy Bischoff knowing about this for a second.

For one thing, Sullivan had control over the on screen product to an extent so it’s not like he would have needed Bischoff’s permission for this. Also, with Bischoff stealing talent from ECW at the time, such as Konnan, Benoit, Malenko and Psicosis to name a few, something tells me there was NO WAY Heyman would have been in the mood to let Bischoff have a favor like that. As a worked shoot though, this was one of the best ever as even Flair and Anderson bought it apparently.

Giant and Jimmy Hart say they’ll beat Hogan tonight. He’s still not any good on the mic, but he’s trying.

Tag Titles: Road Warriors vs. Sting/Lex Luger

There’s a very nice little face/heel thing as Sting slaps hands but Luger, who is behind him, doesn’t. Nicely done. Luger tries to leave but Sting talks to him and gets him to come back. Thanks for wasting our time like that. And now we do that again. Is this in Memphis or something? Seriously we’re just waiting around here. Heenan gets a good line in by saying that the Road Warriors were at a restaurant today and 4 people hung their coats on their spikes.

Dusty calls them the Legion of Doom. I think that’s been said in WCW before but I’m not sure. Hey Sting is in! Luger….not so much. Luger runs AGAIN. This is rather annoying. He hasn’t been in the ring yet and was introduced 3 minutes ago. Ladies and Gentlemen, LEX ORTON! Sting could dance a softshoe and it would be more entertaining here. Four minutes plus and he’s FINALLY on the apron.

Damn I was looking forward to Sting dancing. Wow that’s an odd thought. Sting takes a dropkick and sells it like he got shot. This is a bizarre match. The Road Warriors are wrestling them. This is weird as hell. Luger comes in and not a lot changes at first. The challengers are mad at him over some undisclosed thing done on Nitro. Apparently Luger screwed them over somehow and they’re mad about it.

Yeah they’re mad as hell and they’re using arm bars. Why does this seem idiotic to me? Sting gets a top rope splash that misses. Damn that looked awesome though. Sting might be the most complete wrestler ever. Is there a point to this anywhere in the near future? I highly doubt it.

We get the big brawl and naturally there’s a double DQ. This is the closest we would get to a showdown here as Sting and Booker would team up at Uncensored to fight them in a dumb and complex angle. Just terrible.

Rating: F+. What the hell was the point of this? Seriously, the Road Warriors were trying to wrestle. Yeah it failed completely. Just a terrible match overall and it came off really badly. I was bored out of my mind for about 15 minutes and that’s rare for me.

Flair says his usual stuff. His facials are of course great though.

Savage’s bad arm which was good at World War 3 is now bad again. Savage got the title back after losing it at Starrcade which isn’t mentioned yet. The cage is lowered.

Liz, looking GORGEOUS in a tight blue dress, is interrupted by Savage who looks especially awesome for no apparent reason. He naturally talks about Hogan before doing his regular promo. My cousin looks like Liz actually. Minus the whole now dead part.

WCW World Title: Ric Flair vs. Randy Savage

Yes, Hogan goes on last, ahead of the world title. For those of you that read my TNA rants, this is where I got the idea that he would do stuff like that. Woman was hot back in the day too. To say Liz was gorgeous would be an understatement. Flair cuts a short promo and more or less laughs at Savage. And say it with me: he stalls. Savage goes at him like a crazy man. Always good to see a character being able to act like himself in there.

Remember the top on the cage? It must be invisible. Naturally there’s no top on it. That doesn’t make this a cage match. It makes it a fence match. And two minutes in, Flair punches the referee. Ok then. Well at least he’s Flair so it makes sense. Flair gets a backslide but there’s no referee. He’s back up like 20 seconds later. Was there a point to that that I’m just missing? They mention there’s no Benoit so far tonight.

Yeah we can have the Nasty Boys vs. Public Enemy, One Man Gang getting a TITLE MATCH and two Sting/Luger matches, but we can’t fit Benoit, a Horsemen, on the card. See what I’m getting at when I criticize Hogan’s questionable booking practices? Guys like Benoit, one of the most talented workers of all time, can’t make a PPV card? Seriously? Give me a break. Is there a referee shortage tonight?

This guy has refereed like three matches so far. Savage hooks a figure four on Flair which is always a nice touch. Unless Dusty does it. Then it just freaking sucks. For no apparent reason, Savage lets go of it. Ok then. Savage goes to the top of the cage. Being the rocket scientist that he is, he climbs down and keeps the title. Naturally he doesn’t jump down while he has a ten second advantage that a feeble old man could have managed to escape the cage inside of.

Nah he couldn’t do something like that. Only an idiot would do something like that. Not Savage. Nope not him. He’s too level headed to do that. The match is already over and he’s in the shower. OH OF COURSE HE JUMPS ON FLAIR.

Flair controlling now as I wonder what kind of crack most faces are on to be so stupid. Has there ever been an intelligent main event level face? I mean dude, CLIMB THE FUCK DOWN! Figure Four is let go of again, this time by Flair. ARE THERE ANY INTELLIGENT HEELS??? Woman can scream louder than Melina. Think about that for a minute. Flair is bleeding. And there’s his ass. Can we fast forward on that part?

Savage gets a cover and they ring the bell early. Did the ring announcer just release early after seeing Flair’s ass? Seriously? That can’t be a good sign. Dare I say Flair is sauntering? It certainly looks like he is. And now we see his ass AGAIN. DAMN IT USE TAPE OR SOMETHING! And now Savage and he are on the top rope where he pounds Flair from behind while his ass is exposed. I love double entendres.

Flair apparently is energized by ramming his head into the cage. The door is opened for no apparent reason. Due to Flair’s heavy bleeding, we go to a wide shot. When I say wide I mean you can see the second or third row on all sides. Woman throws powder that misses. Liz turns heel by giving her shoe to Flair as we get a nod to the Mania 8 ending as Savage rolls Flair up for two.

A shoe shot to the face gives the title to Flair. Seeing Liz smile is worth it. Great to see the new champion’s face in that wide shot where you can see half the crowd. Hogan comes out to chase the girls (write your own jokes) and goes after Flair and Anderson, who just ran down here, with a chair but it doesn’t work. Tony says nothing can be done about the cheating because it’s basically a cage match. I thought it was a cage match literally but then again I’m no professional.

Rating: B+. Solid match here with a legit surprising ending. It’s no classic, but it’s damn good indeed. Flair vs. Savage had a tendency to prove that main event matches could be classics without Hogan being involved. Hmm and oddly enough Hogan consistently beat them both for the title. I wonder if there’s a coincidence there. Anyway, very good match.

Hogan rants about Liz and has one eye bandaged thanks to a shoe to the eye last week. He says he now has no guard on his blind side. Boo hoo.

The Giant vs. Hulk Hogan

It’s another cage match. Yeah we couldn’t end on the great cage match. We need HOGAN DAMN IT! Giant is introduced as the man that literally returned from the dead at Halloween Havoc. Why can no one learn the meaning of that word? Hart is called a dapper gentleman. What the hell? LOUD Hogan sucks chant just after the bell rings. That’s just amusing. But remember, the fans don’t know what they want and they really love Hogan.

Seriously, what do you expect here? It’s Hogan vs. a monster in a cage match. You know the drill I’m sure. Dusty says Hogan doesn’t fight for money or anything like that. WOW. Giant stomps on his fingers. That must have made rubbing his 19 year old daughter’s ass hard. Poor choice of words. Actually it isn’t. Giant pulls Hogan to his knees and Tony credits it to the fans and Hulkamania.

I would say taking a shot every time the announcers suck up to Hogan is a great drinking game but in reality it’s a recipe for suicide. The announcers point out the idiocy of not going for Hogan’s eye when there’s a huge bandage on it. Actually you could argue that going for the other eye would be smarter but you get the idea. Ah now he’s going for the eye. There we are. Might not be a good idea to suggest having Hogan fight blind.

It might give him an idea to throw a fireball at someone so they’ll make a big comeback while blind. Sadly, that happened against Warrior in 98. Naturally it didn’t work and Hogan nearly lost his eyebrows when throwing the fireball. That might be the worst match ever. Sweet damn this is boring. No use of the cage yet either. Say it with me: perfect timing on that. And now let’s hit a bearhug. Brain thinks you wouldn’t want to lose your sight.

The fans are seemingly bored here. They still love Hogan though. Oh I know: they’re holding their breath in fear for their hero right? The chokeslam is called a chokehold. And remember, Schiavone knew all kinds of dives and planchas at Starrcade, but with Hogan he doesn’t know that when you choke a man and slam him at the same time it’s a chokeslam. Sure why not. Oh NOW it’s a chokeslam.

Tony makes me cringe by saying Hogan came back from the chokeslam like Giant came back from FALLING OFF THE ROOF OF COBO HALL. Yes, a chokeslam is equal to falling off a roof. Only in WCW. Three legs hit and Giant sits up like Undertaker. Tony cracks up laughing. Great selling there buddy. They fight on the top rope, Giant falls with a THUD, Hogan climbs over and we’re done.

Rating: F+. On a house show, this is a fine main event. For one of the biggest PPVs of the year, this was boring as hell. Just boring as hell on all levels and nothing but a massive blowjob for Hogan from the announcers. Just 15 minutes of Hogan praise, but we’re not done yet.

Hogan gets in the ring with a chair and here comes the Dungeon of Doom. I count 8 people in there, including Giant. THEY DON’T LAND A SINGLE SHOT. Hogan literally is beating up 8 guys on his own. And here’s the Lock Ness Monster, a guy that weighed 700lbs that was there like four months.

He can’t get in because the Dungeon holds him back. Read that as he’s too fat to get through the door. Yes, Hogan just beat up EIGHT GUYS ON HIS OWN AFTER A FIFTEEN MINUTE CAGE MATCH AGAINST A FORMER WORLD CHAMPION. I can’t believe what I just saw. Oh wait. It’s Hogan. Sure I can. Abyss’ theme music takes us out.

Overall Rating: D-. Just WOW. There is one good match on this card. One. That’s it. That match was the world title match and of course, Hogan BEATING UP EIGHT GUYS AT ONCE goes on last. When I say he beat them up, I mean no one touched him. It was like seeing an arcade master play the first level of an easy game. That’s pitiful. How deep did he bury those guys with that shit?

Do you have any idea how bad they look now? Seven of them are FRESH and they can’t get a single shot in on a guy that’s had a 15 minute match. I mean seriously, how inept did they just look? To top it off, Hogan would get a cage match against most of them plus 2 more monsters and would beat them officially with the help of Savage next month.

It was those two matches that more or less killed any realistic credibility he had as a face for years, resulting in the heel turn. This was an abomination and is only what it’s rated as because of the good world title match and the passable TV Title match. This was horrible and it can more or less be solely placed on Hogan and his pushing of his buddies. Just awful. GET US TO THE NWO!
 
Very interesting review. Bryan "F'N" Pillman's shoot the next day in ECW was amazing. He informed everyone what exactly a "Smart Mark" is, and ellaborated on the whole situation a bit. That guy was a very wild character, and I loved his microphone work. I wish he would have been around to be a bigger part of the Attitued Era.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Members online

No members online now.

Forum statistics

Threads
174,825
Messages
3,300,727
Members
21,726
Latest member
chrisxenforo
Back
Top