WCW/NJPW Supershow 1991 with KB

[klunderbunker]

WCW/NJPW Supershow 1991
Date: March 21, 1991
Location: Tokyo Dome, Tokyo, Japan
Attendance: 64,500
Commentators: Jim Ross, Tony Schiavone

This is the first of three shows that the two companies co-promoted in 91-93 in Japan. These were hardly talked about in the states and on WCW TV so there’s a good chance you’ve never heard of them. This show has the match that Meltzer gave match of the year to so we’ll see if it holds up. There are a lot of matches that happened at the show that weren’t filmed so obviously they’re not going to be on here. Let’s get to it.

The Dome is absolutely huge.

There were 11 matches that night and 7 will be on the tape.

We get a video of the WCW guys arriving and the signing of the contract for Flair vs. Fujinami. We’ll have 20 counts in that match. The tag title signing is shown also. The wrestlers go shopping and Arn Anderson buys some stuff.

Tim Horner/Brian Pillman/Z-Man vs. Shiro Koshinaka/Takayuki Iizuka/Kuniaki Kobayashi

I have no idea who any of the Japanese guys here are so I’ll do what I can here. They’re all in different type attire so this shouldn’t be too hard. Kobayashi and Z-Man start us off. The crowd is silent here but not in the sense of they’re bored but it’s a cultural thing. There are no buckles either but rather kind of like a pad in the shape of a post in the ring.

There’s a weird edit (by the way a lot of these matches are clipped so if something seems like it just jumps all of a sudden and makes no sense, it likely did. I’ll try to tell you if I notice any) where Pillman does a kick but we can’t see it connect as there’s a closeup of his face. Odd indeed. The fans clap a bit and Iizuka comes in. Pillman and Z-Man hit a move that is like a Hart Attack but with a standing dropkick instead of a clothesline.

Brian hits a dive to the floor to take out Iizuka. Horner is a guy that was just around for a bit and never really did much but was definitely decent in the ring. I’ve always been curious as to how spots are called here due to the language barrier. Demolition Decapitation to Iizuka as he’s the (face? Heel?) in peril. They botch a pin attempt as I think the referee (Nick Patrick) forgot to count or something.

The crowd really is different here and it keeps making me think that something is wrong. Ah there’s some applause. Iizuka comes back and gets a reaction. Nice spin kick to the face from Pillman. Koshinaka gets the hot tag and cleans house with what he calls the Butt Butt. You figure out what that means. A missile dropkick into a Dragon Suplex ends Horner. This was cut in half apparently so the original was about 12 minutes, which would have made it better.

Rating: C-. The cutting hurt it here but I can’t grade what I didn’t see. This was decent enough for an opener though as they had some nice speed moves in there to make up for the lack of length. This wasn’t horrible by any means and was ok for an opener, but I would have liked to have seen the full match. Damn Turner with those two hour tapes!

Tony and Jim talk about the next match, with Tony saying we’ll be seeing Jushin (he says it like it looks instead of like it’s pronounced, which is Jewshin) Thunder Liger (he says it like Tigger as in Winnie the Pooh’s character). This made me groan aloud. We skip a Scott Norton vs. Equalizer match. There was also an eight man to start the show which we skipped also.

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship: Akira Nogami vs. Jushin Thunder Liger

I’m sure you all know Liger but I know very little about Nogami. He has FIRE red hair which is very long. Apparently this is a big grudge match. Ah ok the hair was just a wig. Liger is almost immediately on the top and hits a front flip to the floor. Pescado goes into a dropkick as both guys are down. Liger might have a bad ankle. The referee counts in English for some reason.

There’s a clip as Nogami gets two. Liger goes for a Tombstone but the ankle goes out. You can tell this is hacked to pieces as the crowd noticeably changes in just a matter of seconds. Also they’re spent about 3 minutes in, but based on some other things I’ve found they cut out about 5 minutes there. Liger Bomb hits but there’s no cover. Ah there it is and it gets two. And there’s the middle rope DDT to end it. Yeah just that fast.

Rating: D+. Just CRIMINALLY short here as they cut over ten minutes out of this and made it look like a total squash. I know the match had to have been better than a D+ but with less than 5 minutes to watch what else can I do? Liger is solid here and still is today. I’m guessing since he was in WCW around this time they wanted him to look awesome. Just butchered to hell and back though so don’t take the grade to heart at all.

Arn Anderson/Barry Windham vs. Masa Saito/Masahiro Chono

Saito is a submission god and Chono is a famous wrestler in his own right. Saito won the AWA Title in its dying days and is an old guy here. He was with Ken Patera when they destroyed the window of a McDonald’s and went to prison. Windham has a porn stache here. Chono looks YOUNG here. Oh and he uses a hold called the STF which you may have heard of.

Oh and the Americans are more or less Horsemen here without the name. The group had broken up but they’re still teaming together anyway. Chono and Windham start us off. Saito is built like a tank and comes in to fight Anderson. Windham comes back in to pick up the pace which is kind of weird to say. Barry hits a Saito Suplex (guess who invented it) on Chono for two.

They do a nice counter and reversal sequence, ending with Windham just punching him in the face. I LOVE that. Anderson goes up top but gets caught by Chono who is the rookie of these four which just sounds weird as hell to say. STF attempt is saved by Windham so Chono hits a Suicide Dive to take out Windham.

The Horsemen crank it up and the fans start hating him for it. There’s a minor clip as the foreigners take over. Floatover suplex gets two as this referee is SLOW at counting. Saito gets the hot tag and down he goes thanks to Anderson as the fans just kind of die. Saito Hulks Up and it’s suplexes for all. Windham takes Saito’s head back a bit (definitely not off) with a lariat to end it. The lariat is FAR bigger of a move in Japan to explain that.

Rating: C+. Pretty decent match here but nothing that was a classic. Most of it is here with only about a minute clipped. The Horsemen were the masters of tag wrestling so of course they win here. This is probably the best match of the night so far given what we’ve been able to see of them, but I’d still like to see more of the Liger match. Anyway this was solid enough.

We look at a concession stand to kill some time.

Big Cat Hughes vs. El Gigante

This is out of order for some reason as this is supposed to be the Steiners tag match. Hughes is for once not the bodyguard character. Gigante is more commonly known as Giant Gonzalez and is about 3-4 inches taller than Khali. He also has about 1/3 of the talent. To give you an idea of his size, when he’s on the floor his head is over the top rope. When he’s in the ring his tights (half shorts) nearly go above the top rope. Where the top turnbuckle would be is the height of his crotch, as in about the chest/shoulders of a guy the height of Cena.

Fonzie of ECW fame is the referee. This is more or less a squash as Hughes is about 315lbs and Gigante slams him with one arm after holding him up for awhile. He sets for a suplex and literally, as in I timed it, holds him in a front facelock while playing to the crowd for 34 seconds before doing anything. Hughes couldn’t step on his foot or something in 34 seconds? Really? A jumping boot sets up the Claw Hold to end it.

Rating: N/A. This was a pure squash and there’s nothing wrong with that. The idea was a spectacle and it certainly was one.

IWGP/WCW Tag Titles: Steiner Brothers vs. Kensuke Sasaki/Hiroshi Hase

The Steiners are the WCW World and US Tag Champions. To say they were the most dominant team in the company is an understatement. This by the way is Meltzer’s match of the year. I saw their rematch and it was good but not great at all. Let’s see how this one is. This is when Scott was more or less totally awesome and could have been world champion if he wanted to but he stayed with Rick instead.

Hase vs. Scott start us off and the fans are LOUD. We hit the mat almost immediately and Scott goes for the knees. Hase stays in a crouch and makes Scott comes to him. Big old kick to the back of the head of Scott as this Hase isn’t bad. Sasaki comes in and gets a ROAR. He beats up Rick and takes his head OFF with a lariat.

Scott and Hase come in and Scott hits what we would call an Angle Slam off the top. Incredibly hart hitting match so far. There’s the Steiner Line to take Hase down. A minor edit there and Scott hits a great belly to belly for two. DDT hits but no cover which is kind of stupid. Belly to belly off the middle rope gets two again as Sasaki makes the save. Butterfly Powerbomb requires another save.

Sasaki gets a spinning Rock Bottom on Rick and a suplex on Scott as we jump ahead another little bit. Sasaki suplexes Hase onto Rick in a cool spot. Rick kicks out of Hase’s Northern Lights Suplex, his finisher. Tilt-a-whirl slam to Hase from Scott. This is nothing but high impact awesomeness. Both teams go for the top rope bulldog but only the Steiners get it. Frankensteiner to Sasaki (which is really not that impactful) gets three (even though the shoulder was up) to give the Steiners their third title.

Rating: A-. It’s definitely good, but if this is the best match of the year then 1991 was a lot leaner than I thought it was. I wouldn’t put it ahead of Warrior vs. Savage from Mania or anything like that, but hey it’s a match involving Japanese guys so of course it wins in the case of a tie with a WWF match right? This was very good though and I can see the praise it gets.

The guys shake hands and the new champions get trophies. Isn’t that what the belts are for?

We skip Big Bad and Dangerous (Vader/Bam Bam Bigelow) vs. Doom which I would have loved to see. There’s also a Riki Choshu match that they skip.

Great Muta vs. Sting

Straight up grudge match here as these two have feuded for years. Muta’s entrance is awesome as always. Sting is incredibly popular here too even in an American Flag jacket. Muta jumps him to start. There are a bunch of wrestlers as seconds for both guys at ringside. Handspring elbow hits very early and there’s the moonsault (Muta’s signature move) but it misses.

Muta hits a pescado to the floor and this is a very fast paced start. Red mist comes out until Sting gets a LONG gorilla press over the top and dives onto Muta. Sting does his howl to the fans which is always cool. Again, the great ones ALWAYS play to the crowd either by asking for their response or trying to get them behind the guy or shouting at the etc. They speed things up again and Sting does kind of a money flip and Muta totally faceplants which looks painful.

We hit the rest hold which I can live with after an opening four minutes that fast paced. Oddly enough Muta is the heel here. Sting’s jumping and strength are really underrated. He was a very complete package and is underrated actually. I can’t tell if Muta is bleeding or if his paint is mixing with sweat.

Scorpion attempt doesn’t work as we hear about Choshu using the move also. No mention of him inventing/being credited with inventing it but whatever. Muta takes over and goes for another moonsault but he eats knees. This has been a fast paced match that has gone very back and forth. Muta as the heel is a very different dynamic in Tokyo too which helps a lot.

Sting with a high angle belly to back suplex from the second rope for two. He goes Macho with an attempt at a top rope elbow but misses as it looked really awkward. Lots of pin attempts here including a near fall on a backslide from Sting and small package from Muta. Scorpion finally gets on but ropes are grabbed like a big set of boobs. Sting goes for the splash but jumps into MIST. A top rope cross body gets the pin for Muta. I’ve often wondered: don’t the referees wonder why the other guy’s face is now GREEN?

Rating: B+. I really liked this match as early 90s Sting was just absolutely awesome, hitting on all cylinders nearly every time he got in the ring. Muta and he had great chemistry and had some very good matches in WCW back in the late 80s. This was very good and very fun, feeling like a major match.

Sting beats him up after the match.

The title situation here is too complicated to explain. In short the NWA Title and the WCW Title are different only to the NWA but in Japan where the NWA means something still they’re separate. (In other words, FLair is the NWA Champion but WCW says he's the WCW Champion because WCW was the NWA for all intents and purposes. They're actually two different titles though but are unified if that makes sense). Fujinami wins here and officially is just NWA Champion but according to WCW and everyone else he’s both. The rematch would be billed as WCW Title with no mention of the NWA Title at all. Read the SuperBrawl 91 review if you want more details as it’s better explained there.

NWA World Title: Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Ric Flair

Both national anthems are played to start which is a cool thing. If you throw someone over it’s a DQ and it’s a 20 count to end it for a countout. Fonzie is the referee. Dragon Sleeper is attempted about 2 minutes in and he actually gets it. This is a different kind of match as we start at a much slower pace than usual. Flair stalls a bit as Ross and Tony talk about strategy.

We head to the corner and get too close to a ring mic or something as Flair sounds like he’s mating with a pig. In a nice counter Flair just steps to the side of a clothesline, which is a very effective counter. Lots of strikes in this match. Flair starts in on the knee and gets booed loudly. At least the face/heel dynamic is clear here. Scorpion goes onto Flair and Fujinami’s is better than Sting’s.

Fujinami works on the back as Flair still hasn’t healed in about 16 years apparently. Flair goes up top and the results are the same in Japan as they are in America. We hit the floor and Flair wins out there of course. Full heel mode for Flair now. They slug it out and the American loses but a neckbreaker gets two for him. Flair goes after the chest with chops as Ross goes through some logical reasons to go for the chest such as it makes breathing more difficult which I’ve never thought of before.

Flair goes up top and AGAIN gets slammed down. Back to the floor for more brawling as this is getting a lot of time. No clips either that I can see. Flair is busted open, setting a record of about 15 minutes into the match before bleeding. Fujinami makes his comeback and Flair flops to applause. Enziguri out of nowhere gets two.

Back body drop where Flair clearly jumps up for him but it looked better that way. We slug it out even more with both guys getting near falls. Flair gets his foot on the ropes for the save as this is getting good. Back to the floor again and they slug it out even more. I know that sounds repetitive but it’s been awesome. Flair accidently knocks out the referee.

Dragon gets a pair of pinning combinations that would have been three but there’s no referee. Flair gets thrown over the top which should be a DQ (and would become the way WCW said Flair didn’t lose the WCW Title) but there’s still no referee. The Japanese referee slides in to count the pin as Tatsumi gets a rollup for the pin. This is what they used to build up to Super Brawl and the rematch. Naturally we never saw a clip or anything but whatever.

Rating: B+. Another very good match here with both guys working very hard. This was a nice pairing as they got time to actually work a good match and everything worked fine for what it was. Tatsumi is indeed great and Flair is Flair so how can I complain here? Long and good match but I would have preferred a clean win rather than the screwy one but you can’t have that of course so there you go. No way Flair could win here though so the predictability was kind of lacking but whatever.

Flair raids the press conference and steals the title back. Fujinami’s broken English and kind of high pitched voice isn’t something I should laugh at but it was kind of funny.

Overall Rating: B. Three out of seven were good, one was two minutes long and the rest were mostly watchable. Based on that how can you say no to that? The tag match and the main event are worth seeing and the Sting match is definitely good but they’ve done better. This show is definitely one where the clipping makes things weak, but it’s still two pretty solid hours of wrestling. Nothing is flat out bad here and I’d say check it out, but good luck finding a full copy. Steiners match is easy to find though and is the best match of the show so there’s always that.